Category: Blog
Who Was Slowest In Responding To BP Spill? The Right
The current drumbeat of commentary on the right that the Obama administration was too slow in responding to the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf raises two obvious questions. One: Is it true? The answer is “no,” according to, among other things, a memo published by, of all sources, National Review Online. And […]
Breaking: Dodd Backs Fed Audit, Amendment Likely To Pass
Word is circulating through Capitol Hill right now that Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) has agreed to back a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve, paving the way for the almost certain passage of the measure. This is a major victory for serious Wall Street reform, and evidence of the mounting momentum to hold big banks […]
Executive Entitlement vs We The People Democracy
There have so been many examples lately of the wealthy and the executive class having a sense that they are superior and entitled to fleece and feed off of the rest of us. Here is one more. BP CEO Tony Hayward on who will be responsible for paying oil spill damages, Mr Hayward reiterated a […]
Consumer Protection: Progressive Momentum and Forbidden Love
Harry Reid got it right when he said that the GOP is “making love to Wall Street” – and when politicians and bankers “make love” it’s the public that gets screwed. Sen. Shelby’s so-called “consumer protection amendment” failed, as expected.(!) But what happens next? Progressives have captured the public mood and are changing the dynamic […]
Liveblogging The Paulson-Geithner Hearing
2:20 I agree in theory with just about everything that Tim Geithner said over the past two hours. The trouble is, his solutions– a systemic risk regulator, giving regulators more powers — won’t be enough to fix the system. You need hard rules in place that force regulators to do their jobs, and you need […]
Tuesday’s Primaries: Tea Party 0, Democracy 5
Suppose they gave a tea party and nobody came? That’s pretty much what happened on Tuesday, as the first wave of Tea Party primary candidates all went down to abject humiliation at the hands of the voters. Skippy the bush kangaroo surveys the catastrophe (note: evidently, kangaroos don’t use shift keys. And in the interest […]
The Senate Should Debate “Too Big to Fail” On Live Television
Now that the ideological defense of Wall Street behavior has collapsed, brought down by the wreckage of deregulation, bankers and lobbyists are pursuing a new strategy: fighting the democratic process itself. They’re suggesting that this issue is a little too complicated for public scrutiny, and that what’s really needed is for wiser heads to sort […]
America’s Carbon Addiction: This Is An Intervention
George W. Bush — who knew a thing or two about addiction — was right about one thing: America is addicted to fossil fuels. Looking at the recent headlines, it’s becoming clear that history, Gaia, and our neighbors have all had enough. Look around the room. Look at their faces. They mean it: they’re staging […]
Liveblogging the Bear Stearns Hearing
9:00 Here we go. Bill Thomas is offering a very silly analogy between the automobile and the financial system. Both were simple 40 years ago, then both got complicated, and now when you need a very sophisticated specialist to fix problems with either cars or finance. Nice story. Except the financial markets got complicated not […]