Greed Is Not Good

Marie Cocco / Truthdig Mar 25, 2008 The housing crisis brings to mind Gordon Gekko, that fictitious ambassador of Wall Street whose words, then and now, remind us why uninhibited capitalism just doesn't work. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

New Crisis, Old Isms

David Sirota / Truthdig Mar 21, 2008 The Federal Reserve Bank's decision last week to address the housing crisis by extending $200 billion of taxpayer-financed credit to Wall Street banks was met with a stunned reaction typical of surprising events. But really, the move was the expression of longstanding isms that routinely package corruption as sound public policy. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Too Big to Fail

Ellen Goodman / Truthdig Mar 20, 2008 The government spread out a nice, soft net to catch the collapsing financial firm Bear Stearns. But if you're a little guy who gets in trouble, expect to meet up with a somewhat harder surface. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

FCC Cashes In on Spectrum Auction

Staff / Truthdig Mar 19, 2008 After two months and 261 rounds of bidding, the FCC announced Tuesday that it has raised a total of $19.6 billion from the sale of the U.S. wireless spectrum. The revenue, slated to fund "public safety and digital television transition initiatives," is nearly double what Congress had previously estimated for the publicly owned spectrum. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Be Careful What You Wish For

E.J. Dionne Jr. / Truthdig Mar 18, 2008 Never do I want to hear again from my conservative friends about how brilliant capitalists are, how much they deserve their seven-figure salaries, and how government should keep its hands off the private economy. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Mark Arax on California’s Capitalist Founders

Mark Arax / Truthdig Feb 8, 2008 It is said that behind every great fortune there is a crime. Here's a true-life drama of self-invention, greed and ambition involving four larger-than-life men who singly, and together, helped create California. A book to be read after you've watched "There Will Be Blood." Dig deeper ( 5 Min. Read )

Benjamin Barber on ‘Supercapitalism’

Benjamin Barber / Truthdig Dec 14, 2007 Can an overheated market remedy an underachieving democracy? Can the public interest be served by an economic engine in which corporate rivals use government to quash their competitors? These and other questions are the subject of a provocative new book by Robert Reich, labor secretary under President Clinton. Benjamin Barber, author of "Jihad vs. McWorld" and "Consumed," takes a close look at Reich's argument. Dig deeper ( 8 Min. Read )

Free Market Madness

Marie Cocco / Truthdig Aug 30, 2007 With Labor Day approaching, it must not go unnoticed that Angelo Mozilo, chief executive of Countrywide Financial -- the company that has helped drive world markets into turmoil with its lending -- raked in $42.9 million last year. The Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, chief executive of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, was paid $2.5 million. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Big Shots

Dwayne Powell / Truthdig Jun 15, 2007 Dig deeper

Ellen Goodman: Bob the Un-Builder

Ellen Goodman / Truthdig Jan 11, 2007 Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli's golden parachute doesn't just speak to the inequality of income in America, appalling as it may be, but raises another issue just as troubling: the inequality of risk. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Powell: Who’s the Greediest of Them All?

Dwayne Powell / Truthdig Jan 6, 2007 Dig deeper

Ellison Sworn In; Earth Maintains Orbit

Staff / Truthdig Jan 5, 2007 Despite all the outrage, Keith Ellison managed to get sworn in to the House of Representatives with his hand on a Koran without destroying democracy or cracking the rotunda. Appropriately, the Koran Ellison used once belonged to another wild and rebellious character: Thomas Jefferson. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )