Subscribe to Dollars & Sense magazine. Recent articles related to the financial crisis. Nation Institute Panel on Crisis Tonight in NYCMeltdown: The Economic Collapse and a People's Plan for RecoveryA Free Panel Discussion Join Joseph Stiglitz, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Christopher Hayes and Jeff Madrick as they discuss the financial collapse. If you can't make the event, watch the live videostream or chime in on Twitter, where you can leave questions or comments. March 6 at 8 p.m. at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. Doors open at 7.15 p.m. FREE OF CHARGE. Labels: Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher Jr., Christopher Hayes, financial crisis, Jeff Madrick, Joseph Stiglitz, The Nation Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Another Taxpayer Bailout SwindleWilliam Greider explains in The Nation what happens when we let the foxes guard the henhouse.The swindle of American taxpayers is proceeding more or less in broad daylight, as the unwitting voters are preoccupied with the national election. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson agreed to invest $125 billion in the nine largest banks, including $10 billion for Goldman Sachs, his old firm. But, if you look more closely at Paulson's transaction, the taxpayers were taken for a ride--a very expensive ride. They paid $125 billion for bank stock that a private investor could purchase for $62.5 billion. That means half of the public's money was a straight-out gift to Wall Street, for which taxpayers got nothing in return. Labels: Corporate Swindles, financial crisis bailout, Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson, The Nation, William Greider Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Born-Again Democracy (William Greider)From the current issue of The Nation magazine:Comment By William Greider Our country is at a rare and dangerous juncture. The old order is crumbling, and virtually all the centers of power that govern us have been discredited by events. The president is irrelevant, weak and unbelievable, even to his own party. The Democratic majority controlling Congress is stalled by its own shortcomings. The treasury secretary, given his arrogant approach to the financial crisis, is not to be trusted as a steward of the public interest. Nor are the conservative Federal Reserve and its chairman. The private power of Wall Street is utterly disgraced and desperate. This condition of vulnerability is sure to prevail for at least the next three months, until a new president and new Congress take office. In the meantime, the governing elites are clinging to the old order, trying to salvage it by delivering massive amounts of relief from taxpayers to the failing financial institutions. The American people correctly see this approach as a historic swindle that rewards the villains at the expense of the victims. A Nevada real estate broker asked the Washington Post, "Instead of having a bailout, why don't we have indictments?" Indictments can wait, along with fundamental reforms. Right now the country needs to confront the fire raging through the financial system and engulfing people and productive assets in the real economy. Aroused and angry, the public, for a change, can play a decisive role in the political arena, as it did when the House rejected the bailout package. That shock to the system was valuable therapy. People can drive politicians to begin facing reality and to develop a more forceful strategy for national recovery, an approach that serves the country as a whole and has a far better chance of succeeding. The sooner our leaders recognize that the old order is gone, the sooner Americans can begin reconstructing a more viable and equitable economy. The calamitous unwinding of financial institutions in recent months has an ominous resemblance to events that unfolded after the stock market crash of 1929, when three years of recurring waves of bank failures and economic contraction led to massive suffering. The government, led by the Federal Reserve, was scandalously derelict during that crisis. This time Washington has reacted more aggressively but still hasn't found a strategy to stabilize finance or reverse the gathering recession. Read the rest of the article. Labels: bailout, financial crisis, The Nation, William Greider Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). |
