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By Chalmers Johnson
$11.56
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By Orville Schell
$23
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AP / Mark Lennihan
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By Robert Scheer — By the time you read this, the PR hacks of Goldman Sachs will be vigorously pressing their efforts to destroy the reputation of whistle-blower Greg Smith.
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Jon Wade (CC-BY)
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Despite hefty bailouts and infinitesimal interest rates, Citi, Ally Financial, MetLife and SunTrust were not able to pass the latest round of stress tests designed and measured by the Federal Reserve.
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AP / Michael Probst
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Having pulled off the biggest debt restructuring deal ever, Greece is on track for yet another bailout. Meanwhile, the Greek government is also preparing to make yet another round of austerity cuts, which may involve lowering the nation’s minimum wage.
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By Eugene Robinson — Political consultants tell candidates to be authentic—to “be yourself.” In Mitt Romney’s case, that might not be such good advice.
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Mr. Fish
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The whole “hope” thing is a little much, and the “change” bit is played out, so however will Barack Obama spin his slogans for this presidential campaign as the embattled incumbent? Let’s call it American Dream Lite, if you will.
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AP / Manuel Balce Ceneta
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By Bill Boyarsky — Observing the liberal Democratic critics of President Barack Obama set me wondering whether they ever listen to the Republican candidates. Haven’t they noticed that the Republicans want to dismantle Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the rest of the economic protections for the poor and the middle class?
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AP / Thanassis Stavrakis
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Angry Greeks tried to torch Athens after parliament passed an austerity package Sunday. While European leaders continue to press for additional cuts, the Greek minister for citizen protection says the Greek people “cannot take any more ... we have reached the limits of the social and economic system.”
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AP / Cliff Owen
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On Thursday, state and federal government representatives announced that five major banks—Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Ally Financial, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase—had agreed to pay their part in a settlement of more than $25 billion stemming from the mortgage market meltdown that caused millions of Americans to lose their homes.
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AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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By Robert Scheer — That Lawrence Summers and Bill Clinton, the president he served as treasury secretary, can still get away with disclaiming responsibility for our financial meltdown is an insult to reason.
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Elliott Brown (CC-BY)
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The BBC reports that while the United States and the U.K. have made a habit of buying too-big-to-fail banks and then looking the other way, the safest banks in the world aren’t just owned but operated by civil governments.
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Flickr / respres (CC-BY)
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A joint investigation by NPR and ProPublica has rustled up some disquieting trading practices on the part of Freddie Mac that suggest the taxpayer-run mortgage company hasn’t exactly done its darndest to help struggling Americans hold on to their homes—in fact, the opposite may be more the case.
Posted on Jan 30, 2012
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AP / Saul Loeb
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By Robert Scheer — I get angry because betrayal by the “good guys” for whom I have ended up voting has become the norm.
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AP / Charles Dharapak
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If you saw the broadcast of Tuesday’s State of the Union address, you might have caught Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner looking a little uneasy on his perch next to a solemn Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which could have something to do with the state of his position at the White House.
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AP / Margarethe Wichert / dapd
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By Nomi Prins — The markets weren’t shocked by last week’s wave of pre-broadcast S&P sovereign debt downgrades. For months, the question wasn’t “if” but “when.” And true to form, just as with the U.S. downgrade, S&P’s reasoning skated the surface of prevailing wisdom.
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Flickr / SimonAlparaz (CC-BY)
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For obvious reasons, Americans’ savings accounts are shrinking during this ongoing recession, both because there’s not as much money to deposit and many more reasons to make withdrawals. This has consequences for the economy’s long-term recovery prospects, as does another currently popular method of payment: the credit card.
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AP / Erich Schlegel
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Here’s a sobering dose of reality: Poverty in America has risen to the 27 percent mark in the last half-decade and, perhaps worse, the prospects for our nation’s poorest won’t necessarily get better as the economy picks up. It’s not news many want to hear, but we’re glad a group of researchers at Indiana University were gutsy enough to release it.
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AP / NBC News / William B. Plowman
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Jack Lew is a liberal who worked for Speaker Tip O’Neill and studied under beloved progressive Sen. Paul Wellstone, but he was also the chief operating officer of a Citigroup unit and doesn’t fault deregulation for the shoddy economy. (more)
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reuters.com
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Now that the holiday season is over, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are back in crisis management mode, huddling in Berlin on Monday before emerging to hold a joint news conference on the future of the eurozone.
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Flickr / ToGa Wanderings (CC-BY)
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This will hardly be news to many, but The New York Times weighed in Wednesday about the American dream being harder to achieve for those occupying the lower socioeconomic levels of society than either their wealthier contemporaries or their counterparts from past eras.
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Steve Rhodes (CC-BY)
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By Nora Eisenberg —
This season, don’t look to bells on bobtails to make your spirits bright. Kindle the mood with dreams and songs of Occupation, sung to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”
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Flickr / futureatlas.com (CC-BY)
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It’s a start, but let’s hope Friday’s fraud charges against six former higher-ups at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don’t represent the only attempts that the Securities and Exchange Commission will make to hold financial executives responsible for the disastrous economic mess that’s still upon us.
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Flickr / bogieharmond (CC-BY)
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Whither Occupy Wall Street? That’s the question that’s been on the forefront of the young movement’s agenda since police forced participants out of New York City’s Zuccotti Park last month.
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Let’s review, shall we? In this clip, shot for Michael Moore’s on-the-money documentary, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” Chris Hedges lays it all out for anyone still mystified, as it were, about the devastating human costs of unfettered capitalism. Class is in session.
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AP / Seth Wenig
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By Lawrence Weschler — What would it be like if activists were to spend the next several months developing, articulating and organizing toward a major national mortgage and student loan strike? Such a loan strike would be slated to begin on some specific preannounced date in the intermediate future. Why not, say, on Oct. 1, 2012, right in the middle of the next presidential campaign?
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cbsnews.com
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It’s all too rare that a mainstream news network goes after just the sort of financial heavy hitters that tend to have ties to their own corporate sponsors, but thankfully, that’s what CBS News’ “60 Minutes” did last weekend with the help of two principled mortgage specialists.
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One of the key concepts that the Occupy Wall Street movement has brought to the fore by drawing attention to economic inequality in the U.S. is the notion that the “free market” doesn’t serve the needs of all citizens equally.
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AP / Lucy Nicholson
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Patrick Meighan is a husband, a father, and a “Family Guy” sitcom writer who was among the 292 people arrested when the cops raided the Occupy Los Angeles encampment early on Nov. 30. As his powerful testimony makes clear, that was actually not “the LAPD’s finest hour.” (more)
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Manny Francisco, Cagle Cartoons, Manila, The Phillippines —
Posted on Dec 4, 2011
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Deng Coy Miel, Cagle Cartoons, Singapore —
Posted on Dec 3, 2011
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John Darkow, Cagle Cartoons, Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri —
Posted on Dec 3, 2011
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AP / Michael Probst
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In a speech Thursday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy confronted the economic quagmire otherwise known as the eurozone and declared that France and Germany would be the key players in Europe’s rehabilitation. Also important in Sarkozy’s scheme was the idea that stricter regulations would help ward off further catastrophe.
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Flickr / Neon Tommy (CC-BY-SA)
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Despite being swarmed and ejected by LAPD officers early Wednesday morning, members of the Occupy movement’s Los Angeles contingent are regrouping and figuring out how to put their collective power to best use in other similar demonstrations in the future.
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AP / Mark Boster, Pool
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In the end, after Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made a show of less force when it came to the city’s approach to its own Occupy movement, a giant squad of more than 1,000 police officers descended on the downtown encampment around City Hall early Wednesday morning, arrested around 200 people ... (more)
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AP / Mark Boster, Pool
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By Bill Boyarsky — In its two months of existence, Occupy L.A. showed a resiliency and purpose that could make some of its participants leaders in a great confrontation over economic injustice in the 2012 election.
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Wikimedia Commons / Dan Smith (CC-BY-SA)
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Here we have some news that Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown believes “can unite the tea party and Occupy Wall Street.” Sound implausible? Well, Bloomberg News’ parent company went to court to access 29,000 pages of documents from the Federal Reserve, from which the outlet gleaned ... (more)
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AP / Lauren Victoria Burke
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Back in July of 2008, when most of us were still blissfully ignorant about the approaching economic apocalypse, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was very aware of some important market distress signals, and he chose to share some of those with an elite group of financial executives, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
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Flickr / World Economic Forum (CC-BY-SA)
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Want to get a quick read on another American’s politics? Say the words Barney Frank. The Massachusetts congressman has become a distinctive presence in the House of Representatives over the last 32 years, becoming a lightning rod for condemnation and celebration, depending on where you sit. On Monday ... (more) Updated
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YouTube
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Every social movement needs to guard against the inevitable attempts of mainstream media sources to warp its message, defend its targets and recast its members as lazy, crazy or fringy malcontents. Luckily for the Occupy movement, British journalist Laurie Penny is more than capable of taking on, and taking down ... (more)
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Code Pink (CC-BY-SA)
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The chairman of AIG, which is now majority owned by the United States Treasury thanks to a $182.3 billion bailout, was on Bloomberg TV, appropriately enough, when he declared that the “Occupy Wall Street crowd” has “a very simplistic view of things.”
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Wikimedia Commons
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It’s already bad to think of a congressman cashing in on his insider knowledge of impending economic catastrophe, as Alabama’s Rep. Spencer Bachus stands accused of doing, but it’s all the more darkly ironic given his role as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
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Wikimedia Commons / Mike Edrington (CC-BY-SA)
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He’s a product of the most influential institutions of our country and has served in three administrations. But despite being entrenched within the system for the majority of his career, Robert Reich uses his powers for good, and that’s why he’s our Truthdigger of the Week. Update: Transcript.
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Wikimedia Commons
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Hey, anyone want to bail Alabama out? More specifically, Jefferson County in the Heart of Dixie, which includes the fair city of Birmingham and is also a gobsmacking $3 billion in the hole from a botched sewer deal.
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Picture, if you will, the Great Depression. Unless you actually lived through it, or close enough, chances are your mind might conjure up images of bread lines, bleak Dust Bowl landscapes or hungry, huddled families, and they’re probably in black and white.
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You’ve seen Wall Street, you’ve seen Oakland, but have you seen Occupy Honolulu? Well, you’re about to now. It is part of the MSM, but CBS has put together a slideshow featuring Occupy protesters that’s worth a look.
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Wikimedia Commons: U.S. Department of Justice / Georges Biard (CC-BY-SA) / U.S.
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The spectacular flameout of Bernard Madoff after the big reveal of his fraudulent financial empire played out like Shakespeare for the 21st century, and master actor Robert De Niro was clearly paying attention.
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Wikimedia Commons/Agência Brasil
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Either Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is in serious denial mode or he’s about to pull off a recession-defying stunt of unprecedented proportions, as pressure is mounting for the embattled PM to follow the fresh example of his Greek counterpart ... (more)
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AP / Kostas Tsironis
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After his ill-conceived eleventh-hour referendum idea fell through last week, the thread from which Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou was dangling effectively snapped. By Sunday, it was apparent that Papandreou was ready to accept defeat ... (more)
Posted on Nov 7, 2011
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AP / Bebeto Matthews
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By Chris Hedges — The wealthy and the powerful behind the glass at Goldman Sachs laughed and snapped pictures of us as if we were creatures in a cage, which in fact we soon were.
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The Lotto Symbolizes the False Promises of Barracuda Capitalism
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