Saverin’s move is an insult to immigrant families like mine who worked hard to build something in this country.

AlterNet
by: Samuel Kang

The Huffington Post
by:Preeti Vissa

If one man can be described as absolutely key to solving the ongoing foreclosure crisis — and thus not only helping millions of struggling homeowners but also stabilizing the neighborhoods where they live — it is Edward DeMarco, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The rest of the country is inching forward on tangible progress, but DeMarco could do more than anyone.

The need is as urgent now as it ever was.

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Capitol Weekly
By Michelle Romero, Nisha Balaram

Ballot initiatives are playing an increasingly important role in setting policy in California, on nearly every issue from education to same-sex marriage, but today millions of Californians are excluded from a crucial part of the process.  Despite a long history of struggle to gain voting rights in this country and to ensure that all eligible citizens can exercise this right freely, millions of citizens who do not speak English very well have no say in determining what gets on the ballot.

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San Francisco Chronicle
by: Samuel S. Kang,Tuan Ngo

If you’re like most Americans, you just paid your federal income taxes. And chances are you paid at a higher tax rate than America’s wealthiest company.

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The Huffington Post
by: Preeti Vissa

My job involves spending most of my time trying to figure out how those with the least can begin to build a bit of wealth and start to acquire a small piece of the American dream. That means trying to find ways to level the playing field, so that all families and communities have enough access to the assets and capital that they need in order to buy a home, start a small business, or send their kids to college.

But sometimes I get a jolting reminder of just how un-level the playing field really is. Just such a reminder arrived recently in the form of a new report from two of my Greenlining Institute colleagues, titled “TECH UNTAXED: Tax Avoidance in Silicon Valley, and How America’s Richest Company Pays a Lower Tax Rate than You Do. ”

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McClatchy Newspapers
by: Carla Saporta

Huff Post
by:Preeti Vissa

The phrase “knowledge is power” dates back to at least the seventeenth century, and it’s as true today as it was then. But today, technology has become the essential portal to information, and information technology has potential to be a great social and economic equalizer — but only if we preserve today’s open Internet.

That is not by any means a sure thing.

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California Progress Report
by: Stephanie Chen and Chris Brown
Greenlining Institute

Californians know better than anyone that in today’s world technology is the essential portal to information, and the old line that knowledge is power is truer than ever.  Information technology has the potential to be a great social and economic equalizer – but only if we preserve today’s open Internet.

That is not by any means a sure thing, and a U.S. Senate bill that would go a long way toward solving the problem hasn’t made progress. California’s representatives in Washington have a mixed record at best.

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American Banker
by: Divya Sundar

The Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform bill included a provision creating Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion in all 20 federal agencies that regulate our financial system.

People of color are now the majority in California and several other states and are on the way to being the majority nationwide. A regulatory system that doesn’t adapt to this reality simply cannot do its job.

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The Huffington Post
by: Preeti Vissa

One intriguing question from the subprime mortgage meltdown and ensuing financial crisis is: Could the crisis have been averted if our financial regulators were more plugged into the communities that were hit first and hardest?

There’s a good case to be made that it could have been. But, as a new Greenlining Institute report, “Government That Looks Like America? Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Financial Regulatory Institutions,” shows, our financial regulators are very far from looking like America.

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