Here are the last gazillion pieces I've done over at the Huffington Post (well, at least six, anyway):
For Adults Only
234 Comments | Posted March 15, 2011 | 03:29 PM (EST)
God save us from sentences like this one: "Don't look now, but an adult conversation has begun on the federal budget deficit." If we've heard this cliché once, we've heard it a thousand times, so we hope we'll be forgiven for the blunt talk that follows.
Let's face it. Washington's...
Wisconsin Governor's Allies Ran a Toxic Bailout Bank... and Got Rich
165 Comments | Posted March 14, 2011 | 03:15 PM (EST)
People in Wisconsin are pulling their money out of Marshall & Ilsley (M&I) Bank because they know it's been helping their Governor's crusade against public employees and the middle class.
They might also like to know that M&I's executives ran one of the most conspicuous dumping sites for toxic...
MadisonWorld: A Future Where Corporations Have Human Rights... and Humans Don't
616 Comments | Posted March 11, 2011 | 01:09 AM (EST)
Today we saw state troopers in Madison tearing peaceful protestors out of their own capitol after the state's Senate voted to deprive them of their rights. Video footage of that event should come with a label: Brought to you by the State of Wisconsin, a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch...
The Ministry of Truth: New Fronts in the War on Social Security
167 Comments | Posted March 9, 2011 | 12:39 PM (EST)
The phrase "Moment of Truth" first appeared in English in Ernest Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon. It was originally a Spanish expression for the final sword-thrust in a bull-fight, the one that finishes off the bull after the matador is done taunting and tormenting him.
Remember that whenever you hear...
Contempt
71 Comments | Posted March 7, 2011 | 08:57 PM (EST)
"Clueless." "Stupid." "Middle-class welfare." Sometimes a guy who likes facts and figures gets slapped in the face by reality, and apparently today's my day. Several recent stories showed me how some of these "austerity economics" advocates in Washington really feel about the middle class. I guess I always knew it...
The United States Isn't a Company and It Isn't a Family -- It's a Country.
604 Comments | Posted March 4, 2011 | 04:26 PM (EST)
Let's begin with a multiple choice test. The United States of America is:
a) a for-profit corporation;
b) a family, like the typical American family in a 1960's sitcom;
c) a nation -- with a national economy and nation-sized problems.
If you answered "c," there's good...
Does That Proposed Foreclosure Deal Help Main Street or Wall Street?
37 Comments | Posted March 3, 2011 | 02:00 PM (EST)
Bankers began whining as soon as word of a proposed mortgage fraud settlement case hit the street, even though it was a pretty sweet deal for them. From the Wall Street Journal: "Banks Bristle at Mortgage-Loan Plan."
Even the lightest, most symbolic of penalties is apparently too...
The GOP Plan to Cut Social Security ... Starting Right Now
368 Comments | Posted February 28, 2011 | 10:14 PM (EST)
Call it a "general strike" ... from above. Republicans in Congress are trying to paralyze the government with their new budget bill, using a "disrupt and defeat" strategy to prevent it from delivering services promised to the the nation's citizens and required under current law. It's fiscal sabotage, plain and...
"Entitlement Reform" Is a Euphemism For Letting Old People Get Sick and Die
23 Comments | Posted February 25, 2011 | 08:26 PM (EST)
George Orwell would be proud. The latest Washington catchphrase deserves a place of honor in the 1984 lexicon, right between "War Is Peace" and "Love Is Hate." It's a virus of the language that's spreading faster than the stomach flu.
"The President's budget punts on entitlement reform," reads a statement...
The War Against the Republic: The Battle Of Madison
282 Comments | Posted February 24, 2011 | 08:31 AM (EST)
Sometimes it's worth looking at current events through the eyes of a historian chronicling the end of an age, or those of a district attorney in a time of corruption. Come to think of it, the two perspectives aren't all that different.
However you look at it, calling the...
Dear Washington DC: The Public Is Smarter About Money (and Deficits) Than You Are
104 Comments | Posted February 22, 2011 | 08:58 AM (EST)
Some condescending politicians and pundits never miss an opportunity to talk down to the American people, especially when it comes to budgets. The members of Washington's political "center" encounter one another at social events, often in pleasant halls where the chill of winter is kept at bay by the warmth...
Hank Paulson: Ex-Goldman Sachs CEO, Ex-Bush Treasury Secretary, and Ex-actly Right
58 Comments | Posted February 17, 2011 | 11:58 AM (EST)
Somebody said that regulators need real power in order to be tough and effective. He said a strong, independent consumer protection agency is needed to help prevent the next financial crisis. And that we should help the millions of "responsible" homeowners hurt by the crash, instead of demonizing them.
This...
Six Things Everybody Knows About Deficits... That Are Completely Untrue
207 Comments | Posted February 15, 2011 | 10:53 PM (EST)
Thanks to the generous support of billionaires and self-interested corporations, think tanks have seeded our political discourse with a lot of mistaken ideas about government spending and deficits. For too many journalists, consultants, and policy makers, these ideas are "givens," things that everybody knows... which also happen to...
First-Person Politician: Video Game Politics and the Battle of the Budgets
7 Comments | Posted February 14, 2011 | 11:53 AM (EST)
The president's budget has just been released, and so has a Republican alternative from the House Appropriations Committee. Reading them is like watching two people play a video game and confusing it for the real world. These budgets don't reflect competing visions so much as they do competing priorities within...
In the Dark: Crimes, Capital Crimes, And GE Capital Crimes
5 Comments | Posted February 10, 2011 | 11:57 PM (EST)
Can a crime be committed if there is no criminal to commit it? According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the answer to that Zen koan is apparently "yes." The SEC collected a $50 million settlement from GE Capital after concluding that the corporation "misled investors" by committing...
Cold-Blooded: Grandma Souljah, Felon-Friendly Cuts, and Other Austerity Horrors
100 Comments | Posted February 10, 2011 | 02:43 AM (EST)
Slasher-Movie Economics
A vicious, savage, axe-wielding killer stalks the political landscape, yearning to draw blood, slash victims, and amputate limbs. That's not my description of austerity economics -- that's how its fans talk about it.
"Austerity" is defined as "the trait of great self-denial (especially refraining from worldly pleasures)."...
Fannie's Scandalized, Freddie's Dead -- and the Next Financial Meltdown May Have Already Started
113 Comments | Posted February 9, 2011 | 03:42 AM (EST)
Here's an idea: Let's give hundreds of billions of dollars in government-backed guarantees to private banks so they make a fortune writing mortgages without any risk to themselves. Hey, what could go wrong?
The FCIC's recent report illustrated an important lesson from the economic meltdown: Privatization, not big government, ruined...
The Third Chamber: Why AIG's CEO and Jamie Dimon Don't Give a Damn What You Think
10 Comments | Posted February 7, 2011 | 08:20 PM (EST)
Why don't the CEOs of AIG and JPMorgan Chase give a damn what you think? Because they don't have to. The Third Chamber of government, that unelected body of lobbyists and wealthy executives symbolized by the US Chamber of Commerce, has insulated them from public outrage.
Chase CEO Jamie...
If Ben Bernanke Hosted Our Super Bowl Party Instead of My Friend Pete
37 Comments | Posted February 4, 2011 | 09:15 AM (EST)
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke held a press conference today, and my friend Pete is holding a Super Bowl party this Sunday. This is the second year in a row that the Big Game will feature two pre-expansion teams, franchises with names that would've been familiar to people back in...
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