The Fed has finally came clean. It now admits it bailed out Bear Stearns – taking on tens of billions of dollars of the bank’s bad loans – in order to smooth Bear Stearns’ takeover by JPMorgan Chase. The secret Fed bailout came months before Congress authorized the government to spend up to $700 billion [...]
Some background: Economic liberalism has typically focused on using the government’s treasury as a means to ends, whether those ends are better healthcare (Medicare/Medicaid), stronger job growth (tax credits) or more robust export businesses (corporate subsidies). The idea is that taxpayer dollars can help individuals afford bare necessities and entice institutions to support the common [...]
Capitalism and socialism. Imagine if we just got some clarity on these basic terms alone. First, capitalism. To most of us, it’s quintessentially American. Many of us assume it’s democracy’s essential partner. But what is it? Capitalism is an economic system in which the person or body owning capital—productive resources like raw material and labor—has [...]
Filed in News Blurbs, Notable
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Also tagged Civic Accountability, Democratic Socialism, Disparity, Economy, Exports, Frances Moore Lappe, Freedom, Power Distribution, Social Democracy, Socialism, Trade, Wealth, Wealth Concentration
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPx_-OF86qU[/youtube] Obama must now prime the pump to get us out of a multi-pronged mess left over from the Bush crowd and seven years of Republican control. Republicans chose to look the other way and ignore the financial chicanery going on right in front of them, while the income gap between the very wealthy and [...]
Filed in Essays, News Blurbs
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Also tagged Al Franken, Banking, Debt, Deficit, Economy, Financial Sector, Free Market, Jobs, Middle Class, Obstructionism, Reform, Regulation, Republicans, Safety Net, Trickle Down, Unemployment
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Monday, February 15, 2010
There has been widespread public anger against the hubris of the banks, who are regarded as being to blame for the financial crisis. Their bonus policies, which have persisted even after the system has been bailed out by the taxpayer, have been attacked by politicians and the media. But what I can’t understand is why [...]
Last week started with a conference in Montreal, called by a group of governments and international agencies calling themselves Friends of Haiti, to discuss the long and short term needs of the recently devastated Caribbean nation. Even as corpses remained under the earthquake’s rubble and the government operated out of a police station, the assembled [...]
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Capitalism: A Love Story seems the natural culmination of all his others, an overarching look at the insidious control of Wall Street and corporate interests over politics and lives. Its timing is exquisite, coming in the wake of the biggest financial collapse in living memory. And once again Moore is bracing himself: as the film drew [...]
Shortly after Haiti was hit by a 6.1 aftershock on January 20, 2010, Amy Goodman and Kim Ives of Haiti Liberté report from the Port-au-Prince airport. Amy and Kim discuss how centuries of Western domination of Haiti has worsened the impact of the devastating earthquake, from the harsh reaction to Haiti’s independence as a republic [...]
Filed in News Blurbs
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Also tagged Amy Goodman, Bill Clinton, Corporatism, Coup, Disaster Capitalism, Earthquake, Free Market, George HW Bush, George W Bush, Haiti, Hillary Clinton, IMF, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Kim Ives, Privatization, Washington Consensus, World Bank
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Saturday, January 16, 2010
“What we have to do is very simple,” says Woody Tasch. “We have to take some of our money and invest it close to home in local food systems.” Tasch outlines his vision of sustainable investing in his recent book Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered. In it, [...]
Filed in Green Living, News Blurbs
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Also tagged Agriculture, Investment, Locavore, Slow Money, Slow Money Alliance, Sustainability, Sustainable Food, Values, VC, Venture Capital, Woody Tasch
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Thursday, January 14, 2010
This is predictable: Wall Street is messing with you. At a Paris conference on new approaches to capitalism last week, Nobel winning economist Joseph Stiglitz told reporters that “Wall Street is talking up the recovery because it would like to sell stocks.” This is consistent with the financial industry’s shady tactics that David Corn and Kevin [...]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE8cCIATHuY[/youtube] Elizabeth Warren from ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’ on MSNBC’s Morning Joe: “The way I think of it is: they say something like ‘Give me your money, investors and I’m going to Las Vegas and put it all on red 22. And if red 22 comes in — woo! we are RICH. If red 22 [...]
Daniel Suelo wasn’t poor, a victim of bad luck, mentally ill, or even uneducated. He just decided that he wanted to have nothing to do with money. So he gave up consumer culture altogether, and for the last 9 years, he’s survived by living in a cave in Utah, and dumpster diving, foraging, fishing, and [...]
Thursday, October 1, 2009
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5rcnAWaC64[/youtube]
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Michael Moore appeared on CNN Thursday evening with Wolf Blitzer to discuss his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story. This is Moore’s first interview with Blitzer since his film Sicko was released, and as Moore puts it, they had a “YouTube moment.” Well, they had another on Thursday. Heh. And Blitzer… If you can’t tell [...]
Sunday, September 27, 2009
If you give me $700 billion per year, hey I have some good ideas. I can make some money with that, for me and for you. I’m going to have my best quarter if you gave me that money. I wonder how many people in the inner cities would love a little bailout money to [...]
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