Wall Street

America Will Fail Without Reinacting Glass-Steagall

For 66 years the Glass-Steagall act reduced the risks in the banking system. Eight years after the act was repealed, the banking system blew up threatening the international economy. US taxpayers were forced to come up with $750 billion dollars, a sum much larger than the Pentagon’s budget, in order to bail out the banks. This huge sum was insufficient to do the job. The Federal Reserve had to step in and expand its balance sheet by $4 trillion in order to protect the solvency of banks declared “too big to fail.”

Mother Jones Our Hats Are Off To You

How many Americans know that America has privatized prisons, the shares of which are listed on stock exchanges?  Free market ideologues provided cover for corrupt Republican politicians to divert taxpayers’ hard-earned money to favored political insiders with the false claim that prisons run by private owners are more cost effective.  A Mother Jones reporter took a job as a private prison guard and found that private prisons are places of unimaginable violence.

Bernie Sanders is no friend of Gordon Gekko

Hillary Clinton will not tame Wall Street. She'll talk the talk, but unlike Sanders, she won't walk the walk. She and her husband have always been a part of the problem. She defends Bill's record on Wall Street, so how can Hillary now claim to part of the solution? And by the way, Michael Douglas endorsed her.

Wall Street and Multinationals Get Theirs While America Suffers

While America still suffers with repressed wages, increasing poverty and a vanishing middle class, Wall Street and big Multinational Corporations are having a party.  Bonuses increased 15% and are back to their pre-financial crisis excesses  Corporations hording cash offshore increased 11.8% in 2013 to a whopping $1.95 trillion.

Busted and Bankrupt Detroit Can Now Wipe Out Worker Pensions

It is official.  Detroit is bankrupt.  Detroit is not only bankrupt they can now trash pensions owed to city workers.  That is police, fire, hospital and a host of workers counting on those pensions for retirement.  The U.S court ruling allows for a bankruptcy type for cities and towns, Chapter 9, to proceed and specifically puts pensions on the fair game bankruptcy chopping block.

It's not the Stupidity, It's the Money Behind the Shutdown Crisis

In This Crisis It's Not Stupidity, It's the Money: Three Relevant Laws

There are three basic laws about discussion, especially political discussion, that are useful in the contentious government situation we have today.  The third of these laws is especially relevant because it warns us that what is happening in Congress is not a passing aberration, but in fact a threat to democracy in our country.

Free Markets are Fraudulent Markets

How the Financial Elite Con Us into Wanting the Wrong Thing

Competitive or self-regulating market economies promote dynamic creative destruction and rebirth—led by people’s needs, wants and desires, thus properly directing economic progress. Historically, competitive market economies are a relatively new economic system, and while very productive, they are not self-sustaining, are unstable and require significant state support and regulation to function properly.

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