Protesters Confront Summers

Staff / Truthdig Apr 10, 2009 Two protesters storm the stage during a talk by Lawrence Summers, who tries to laugh off the incident. If only there were something funny about President Obama's top economic adviser making $8 million last year from some of the financial firms that have benefited from his economic policies. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Living Large and in Charge

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Apr 8, 2009 Not surprisingly, Lawrence Summers is convinced that he deserved every penny of the $8 million that Wall Street firms paid him last year. And why shouldn’t he be cut in on the loot from the loopholes in the toxic derivatives market that he pushed into law when he was Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary? Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Wall Street Showered Obama’s Top Economic Adviser With Riches

Staff / Truthdig Apr 6, 2009 Lawrence Summers is the man President Obama turns to for insight into the economy, so it's more than a little disturbing that the very financial institutions the taxpayers are now rescuing -- to the tune of nearly $3 trillion -- paid Summers almost $8 million last year. Goldman Sachs & Co., a major beneficiary of the government's largesse, paid him $135,000 for one speech. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

In for a Penny, In for $2.98 Trillion

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Apr 1, 2009 The good news on the government’s “No Banker Left Behind” program is that, according to the special inspector general’s report on Tuesday, the total handout to date is still less than 3 trillion dollars. It's only $2.98 trillion, to be precise, an amount six times greater than will be spent by federal, state and local governments this year on educating the 50 million American children in elementary and secondary schools. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Obama’s Toxic Advisers

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Mar 25, 2009 Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont who is independent in spirit as well as party label, has placed a hold on President Obama’s nomination of Gary Gensler to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Sounds like a minor issue to get worked up about, but I see this appointment as further evidence that the president has entrusted his economic policy to the wrong people. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

A Government of Men, Not Laws

David Sirota / Truthdig Mar 20, 2009 In the 21st century Gilded Age, the blue-collar shower-after-work crowd is given the tough, while the white-collar shower-before-work gang gets the love, and never before this week was that doctrine made so clear. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

‘Colbert Report’: Take Out Your Pitchforks

Staff / Truthdig Mar 18, 2009 What's to be done when companies that received major bailouts from taxpayers turn around and brazenly offer beaucoup bucks to the executives who helped put us in the hole in the first place? Here are a couple suggestions by way of an answer: Pitchforks! Angry mobs! Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

New Stimulus Plan

Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner Mar 17, 2009 Dig deeper

Getting Warmer

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Feb 25, 2009 We are lucky to have Barack Obama as president. I write that even though I believe the content of his Tuesday evening speech deserved no more than a B+ / A-, for its failure to seriously address the origins of the banking crisis and for only hinting at the severe military budget cuts required to get close to his goal of reducing the federal deficit by the end of his first term. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Auto Task Force … Activate!

Staff / Truthdig Feb 17, 2009 What's to be done about the floundering American automotive industry? Appoint a "car czar," you say? No, this is a job for a whole team of people, such as the newly formed Presidential Task Force on Autos. One small hitch: It'll be headed up by Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

No Tough Love for Wall Street

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Feb 11, 2009 What an insipid anticlimax! Rising to “a challenge more complex than our financial system has ever faced,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner promised on Tuesday to give trillions more to the very folks who profited from that malignant complexity. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Runaway Wall Street

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Feb 4, 2009 It is instructional that only one of the three tax-challenged Obama appointees has survived public scorn to claim a high position in the new administration. Oddly enough, it is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the man who will collect our taxes, whose career has not been stunted by his failure to pay them. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )