Who Holds Wall Street Accountable?

If your answer included any of number regulators or congress with its oversight duties or the traditional media with its watchdog of the public duties sorta answer, that would be a wrong answer. There were so many articles today about past and present Wall Street tomfoolery that I almost forgot [...]

Okay, Y’all are just Creeping me out here!!!

I watched the new Joy Behar show yesterday on Headline News. I have to admit I liked it. Bette Midler–koolaid sipper extraordinaire–had a lot to say as the show’s first guest. I’ve often compared Glenn Beck to the character Lonesome Rhodes in the 1957 movie a “Face in the Crowed” [...]

Our Dysfunctional Government

I used to tell my students down here in New Orleans how smoothly things ran in Minneapolis compared to here until that Interstate Bridge fell into the river. Then I realized we were just the canary in the coal mine.
Still, it’s really hard to describe the degree of dysfunction surrounding all levels of government down [...]

It just keeps on keeping on …

From the time I was an undergrad to the time I was left at the ripe old age of 42 by a molecular biology professor significant other for a 20 year old undergraduate who just adored the presentation I helped him write, this shit has rolled on around me. As some one who has [...]

Perspective

One of the first things to go when people get morally outraged is their perspective. Not only do they frequently lose perspective, they also lose sight of bigger issues. A sense of outrage simply overwhelms one’s sense of perspective. The enraged heart overtakes the circumspect mind.
I’ve talked about The Project on Government [...]

and the Band Played On

So the so-called conservatives are having their so-called freedom event with so-called commentators and news anchors from so-called news stations. It’s all a side show to the real problems of the country. It’s easy to misplace anger in an environment where misinformants rule the airwaves.
So, let me show you where the real theft [...]

And you wonder why we can’t have a Public Option

H/T David Sirota and Open Left
I just got this link via David on Facebook. I’m speechless but not surprised.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the first time yesterday suggested she may be backing off her support of the public option. According to CNN, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “said they would support any [...]

If you think you’re worse off now, you’re right and not alone

I put this article from yesterday’s NYTimes in the comments section of my thread yesterday. I’m not sure every one read it so I thought I’d front page it. It’s on the increasing poverty and median income declines in the U.S. as reported by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and [...]

And Next Up, A Good Game of RISK

If you still need motivation to get on my bandwagon for new bank regulation, go read “Back to Business: Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance.” While the nation is having a good scream over communists in the White House and Bolshevik health care reform, the bankers are playing Risk with your [...]

Some Things are too Important to be left to the Market

I always have to give this lecture near the beginning of my class when we talk about why some markets work well without government interference, and others, well, they require government interference. How would you feel, as an example, about letting our uranium supplies go to the highest bidder in a completely unregulated [...]