"Words that make actions speak louder."
240 former legislators, bank committee staffers, and Treasury officials deployed to lobby. $600 million spent in lobbying, trade association activity and political contributions since March 2008. And that is just from the six biggest banks. The entire financial industry is spending an estimated $1.4 million a day, hiring 70 former members of Congress to make […]
Senate Republicans have perfected the art of saying no. But in blocking a debate on financial reform, they have begun to imitate Goldman Sachs traders, selling positions that they are betting against. Blocking financial reform is, not surprisingly, financially rewarding, as Republican leaders lease themselves to Wall Street as congressional security guards. But with the […]
The following was originally published by Politico This spring, much of Washington is afflicted with deficit allergies. The Senate had to break a filibuster just to pass a one-month extension of unemployment insurance without “paying for it.” House Blue Dog Democrats are posturing about a balanced-budget amendment on top of the president’s three-year freeze on […]
This post is part of the two-week long Virtual Summit on Fiscal and Economic Responsibility for People Who Did Not Wreck the Economy, hosted by Campaign for America’s Future. The drumbeat about deficits has reached deafening levels. The president warns about “out of control” spending. Fed Chair Ben Bernanke calls for bringing deficits down. The […]
President Obama got it exactly right when he said that we couldn’t go back to an economy in which the banks captured 40% of corporate profits. We needed an economy built on a new foundation. Well, financial profits are soaring — up a staggering 240% over last year. And have reached about 28% of all […]
Were the big banks all knowingly running Ponzi schemes? That’s the question that arises from the stunning hearings held this week by the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Carl Levin, on the collapse of Washington Mutual, the largest thrift failure in the U.S. Faced with looking like fools or knaves, the barons […]
Naked Capitalism posts a great blog from George Washington of the Washington Blog arraying the authorities who have now come out for breaking up the big banks. Everyone from small bankers to the Bank of International Settlements, the central bankers’ centeral bank. This is a must read. Guest Post: Banking Industry Insiders Call for Breaking […]
With pressure building on the administration to tell the truth on China’s currency manipulation, and a report required by law on April 15, the Chinese government demonstrated just how sophisticated it is about playing US politics. Setting aside the harsh rhetoric of the last months over arms to Taiwan and the president’s meeting with the […]
The economy is said to be recovering, but the people are not. The jobs are gone, and haven’t started to come back. Twenty-five million people are in need of full-time work. Incomes are stagnant; more and more are losing health care. Even the uptick in jobs that will be reported on Friday is misleading, reflecting […]
The Congress just voted to take over $60 billion in subsidies to the banks and invest it in aid to college students. The students beat the banks; hard to believe but true. The reconciliation bill that featured the final “fixes” on health care also included a transformation of student lending. The Congress voted to move […]