"Words that make actions speak louder."
They’re too old to rock and roll, too young to … ruin Social Security. Despite the scaremongers’ attempts to incite generational war, people born between 1946 and 1964 are not going to destroy the Social Security system. The Baby Boom cohort isn’t going to be a crippling financial burden for Generation X, Generation Y, Generation […]
The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have broad powers to root out and punish financial fraud. The Interagency Financial Fraud Task Force, formed last November, is an Obama-era innovation that enhances the government’s ability to track down financial criminals. As we look back on the last two years’ revelations about Wall Street […]
Picture this: You’re lying in the dark with a broken leg. Somebody comes by every couple of days to give you water and a little food, but you’re wasting away. Suddenly a figure appears holding a candle. In the flickering light we see Tim Geithner’s face. “Hey, there!” He says. “Do you realize that if […]
A broad coalition of groups has been formed to defend Social Security, and the videos announcing it are all worth watching. Of all the ideas proposed, my personal favorite comes from AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee: A new reality show starring the people who want to cut Social Security. He suggests having John Boehner, billionaire […]
There’s a new undercurrent in Washington debate, an unstated drive to undo the bipartisan consensus that’s governed American policy for a century. New pieces by Fareed Zakaria and Clive Crook merely reflect the new unspoken theme that’s revealing itself in debates on taxation, Social Security, and a dozen other areas: If the wealthy must sacrifice […]
Mort Zuckerman’s recent opinion piece in the Financial Times, “Obama needs to stop baiting business,” is a tawdry, sorry spectacle. Paul Krugman’s already explained how Zuckerman, the publisher of US News & World Report and the New York Daily News, distorted the President’s words with a little Andrew Breitbart-style editing. While Zuckerman’s proclivity for truth-twisting […]
There’s a battle going on between those who are defending Social Security – that is to say, the “good guys” – and those like economist Alice Rivlin and Wall Street banker/giveaway king Neel Kashkari, who would cut it. The attackers pretend to see nuances that don’t exist, slanting their arguments to make benefits reductions seem […]
Yesterday I co-hosted The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur. Our first interview was with Howard Dean, in a wide-ranging conversation that covered his continued enthusiasm for Barack Obama (but not some of his advisors), Democratic malaise, and the race-baiting he has observed at Fox News. You will see (at 7 minutes and 50 seconds in) […]
Somebody really, really doesn’t want Elizabeth Warren to run the new Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, or “CFPB,” which she first envisioned and proposed. Who? The big banks, for sure, as well as others who don’t want their misbehavior brought to light. And Tim Geithner, whose vision of Wall Street and its problems is fundamentally different […]
The “teachable moment” cliché may be overused, as Jason Linkins observed the other day, but what the White House really needed this week was a learnable moment. The Administration and other leading Democrats had an opportunity this week to understand the nature of the opposition they face. The President’s remarks about Shirley Sherrod’s firing suggest […]