"Words that make actions speak louder."
This week’s big story is that a faker scammed the media, trashing an innocent USDA employee’s career in order to push a false right-wing narrative. But another scam’s underway too, and it’s targeting Social Security and other entitlement programs. As Republicans (and at least one Democrat) pushed budget-busting tax cuts, the “bipartisan” leaders of the […]
A disturbing pattern seems to be forming in Washington: Evidence of financial wrongdoing leads to financial settlements with large banking institutions, but with no apparent move to indict the individuals responsible. AIG agreed to the largest settlements in history, yet despite seemingly compelling evidence the Justice Department decided not to prosecute anyone. Now Goldman Sachs […]
The United States Chamber of Commerce has released an “open letter” to the President, Congress, and the American people which lays out its blueprint for our political future. It lays out the current Republican playbook in stark terms, and it reads like the battle plan for those alien spaceships from Independence Day: Drain the resources, […]
In a nation wracked with unemployment and recession, Wall Street firms are still paying billions of dollars in bonuses – and they’re hiring, too. The Federal Reserve recently affirmed its right to regulate executive pay, but has yet to take action on it. It should. These two facts – that bankers are earning billions while […]
President Obama gave a major talk on the economic crisis today. While the choice of Las Vegas for its location might be considered ironic, given the fact that Big Bank gambling created the crisis, there’s good news: The President’s speech could serve as a blueprint for an improved economic and political outlook – if the […]
Fareed Zakaria is an interesting writer who says some sensible things, as when he called the intensity of the war in Afghanistan “disproportionate” to the threat. But he also reflects the biases and distorted perceptions of a punditocratic subculture that continues to paint average citizens as reckless children and business executives as Delphic sages. Zakaria […]
There’s a new conventional wisdom forming in Washington, DC this July 4th, one that transcends party lines and the usual classifications of “left” and “right” as they’re understood in that city. It’s only being recognized now, because it deals with a number of different economic issues, but the underlying theme is the same: The American […]
Democrats won the news cycle yesterday when they slammed John Boehner for calling the economic crisis an “ant.” But winning a news cycle isn’t the same as winning an election. A new poll shows that the President and his party risk political suicide if they join in the mad rush to cut Social Security, and […]
Archon Fung recently wrote a piece in the Huffington Post entitled “The Left Should Learn to Trust Americans,” which mocked Dean Baker and me for criticizing AmericaSpeaks and the “national town meeting on the deficit.” We both felt the presentation was skewed toward creating a right-wing set of recommendations, while Professor Fung claimed the attendees’ […]
The President was right to call out John Boehner today for describing our economic catastrophe as “ant” that didn’t deserve a “nuclear” response. That “ant,” as the President pointed out, “led to the loss of nearly eight million jobs” and “cost people their homes and their lives savings.” But as he did so, the President […]