On The Economic Populist you might have noticed the middle column. We try to list other sites and blogs who have exceptional insight and writing on what is happening in the U.S. economy.

Sometimes though, one cannot say it better but miss those who did.

Must Read #1

In reference to this WaPo Bio on Neel Kashkari, the London Times pulls out some nice little tidbits. The $700 Billion number to ask Congress for, later known as TARP, was literally made out of thin air. They had no idea in reality how much money they needed.

In February 2008, Mr Kashkari was charged with drafting an emergency plan in case the credit crunch became a full-blown financial crisis. By October the crisis had arrived and his ten-page plan became the blueprint for the banks' bailout that Mr Paulson presented to Congress.

Mr Kashkari admitted that he plucked “a number out of the air” when deciding with Mr Paulson how much funding to request from Congress for the Tarp.

He told The Washington Post that he used his BlackBerry to calculate the bailout figures: “We have $11 trillion residential mortgages, $3 trillion commercial mortgages. Total $14 trillion. Five per cent of that is $700 billion. A nice round number.”

Recalling a conversation with Mr Paulson, he said: “It was a political calculus. I said, ‘We don't know how much is enough. We need as much as we can get . What about a trillion?' 'No way,' Hank shook his head. I said, 'Okay, what about 700 billion?' We didn't know if it would work. We had to project confidence, hold up the world. We couldn't admit how scared we were, or how uncertain.”

Kashkari just took a high powered job with Pimco, but he gets more than few brownie points in my view for dropping out of society temporarily to a shack in the woods.

Must Read #2

The New York Times has an exposé on Big Pharma peddling Menopause as some sort of disease to sell hormone pills, which are linked to disease and cancer. If anyone cares about greed and profit to the point of killing more than a few ladies, check this one out.

In the popular 1966 book “Feminine Forever,” Dr. Robert A. Wilson, a gynecologist, used disparaging descriptions of aging women (“flabby,” “shrunken,” “dull-minded,” “desexed”) to upend the prevailing idea of menopause as a normal stage of life. Women and their physicians, Dr. Wilson wrote, should regard menopause as a degenerative disease that could be prevented or cured with the use of hormone drugs.

“No woman can be sure of escaping the horror of this living decay,” Dr. Wilson wrote. “There is no need for either valor or pretense. The need is for hormones.”

Get that ladies? Not only did they peddle Premarin and a host of other drugs associated with all sorts of serious diseases, including cancer, Big Pharma along with Doctors, are implying women aren't worth jack shit once they are no longer fertile. Charming.

Must Read #3

While the U.K. and EU countries are cracking down on bonuses, our government rejects any modifications on executive pay. Even the Wall Street Journal is recommending a windfall profit tax. Meanwhile, Rep. Dennis Kucinich's amendment was voted against in the House reform bill, so he is introducing legislation to mirror Europe windfall taxes on executive bonuses:

“Today, Goldman Sachs bowed to public pressure and promised to suspend bonus payments to its top executives. It’s important to understand this in perspective. Goldman did this only in the face of deafening public criticism over bonus payments to bankers.

“Once the uproar subsides, executives throughout the financial services industry will return to the same practice of showering themselves with outrageous compensation packages and bonuses.

“We need to reform fundamentally our tax code so that we don’t have to rely on extraordinary public outcry to curb such excessive behavior.

“I offered a commonsense amendment to HR 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, that would have taxed the bonuses of executives at TARP recipients, as well as the profits reported by these institutions. My amendment simply acknowledged that without the extraordinary actions of the federal government, many of these institutions would have collapsed a long time ago, and it would have held to account those individuals that made the decisions and that led to the crisis.

“Unfortunately my amendment was not accepted by the Rules Committee. Soon I will be introducing legislation based on the amendment that I offered, that will pave the way for a more fair and just tax treatment of absurd bonuses in the financial industry.

“Leaders in Great Britain and France have recently announced proposals to tax the bonuses of financial executives--if the United States remains silent on the issue, we will in effect be leading the world in a ‘race to the bottom’ of international efforts to regulate the financial services industry.

Must Read #4

Personal Net Worth increased 5.3%, but is still 20% below last year.

There are two posts, the first by Calculated Risk and the second, on Seeking Alpha, showing that a return to historical norms is actually a world of hurt and that the bubbles are still floating the middle class.