Reading Time: 9 minutes Private banks are driven to increase profits for their shareholders. But what if banks were publicly owned and made their business decisions with the good of the local community in mind? Los Angelenos may put this notion to the test come November.
Reading Time: 2 minutes Mick Mulvaney’s confession to bank executives, along with his efforts to thwart the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, shows that the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street is operating as busily as it ever has.
Reading Time: 7 minutes How do Wall Street, oil companies and shadow government agencies like the CIA shape the order of global politics together? Author Peter Dale Scott examines that question in his forthcoming book “The American Deep State: Wall Street, Big Oil and the Attack on U.S. Democracy.” Here, in an exclusive excerpt, Scott looks at how official history ignores the real dynamics in play.
Reading Time: 5 minutes Who can forget the subprime economy that launched the Great Recession? Don’t worry if you have—it’s back again, with a different face. Wall Street has found rich pickings in the financial ruins from the last crash. Here’s how the new subprime economy is growing from the struggle to make ends meet and the mountain of debt affecting more than one in three Americans
Reading Time: 6 minutes Russ Baker interviews Jonathan Frieman, who took an unusual stand against corporate personhood. Frieman was stopped in October by a sheriff in Marin County (a San Francisco suburb)—for driving solo in the lane for high-occupancy vehicles. He then pulled out corporate papers and argued that he was traveling with another person—since corporations count as persons. In January, he got his day in court. He didn’t win, but he did show how creative approaches can make people pay attention. His action drew local and national media coverage.
Reading Time: 1 minute RT’s Abby Martin interviews Russ about a recent WhoWhatWhy article on the incredible shrinking choices in national politics—and what can be done to reverse the trend.
Reading Time: 1 minute This pie chart really tells us a lot. As sympathetic to Wall Street as the Obama administration has been, the money managers and handlers still consider the GOP a much better bet.
Reading Time: 8 minutes Could we see a third Bush in the White House? You betcha—and soon. This is not just of casual interest—there’s a lot more than meets the eye. And it explains a lot about the death of democracy.
Reading Time: 2 minutes What happened to the guys who ruined our economy, making a huge profit by betting mortgages would tank? They’re making another huge profit, betting mortgages soar. But only other investors are supposed to be interested in this little non-morality play?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Let’s look a little further at what ails Obama—and us. It’s about the pretty small part of the One Percent that really calls the shots, and keeps a president from doing what he surely knows he must.
Reading Time: 3 minutes Obama’s circle of friends shrinks. But “interesting” banker Robert Wolf remains. 99 percent, meet the One Percent, and their man with the president.
Reading Time: 3 minutes Protests Then and Now, Space-Age Science, And Stone-Age Art.
Reading Time: 2 minutes The police are becoming more like the military every day. This is probably not a good thing.
Reading Time: 3 minutes The leadership in Egypt is in jail, and bravo, says our Paper of Record. Meanwhile, back home, our counterpart establishment is doing just fine, thanks.
Reading Time: 2 minutes How exactly did the Federal Reserve gain the emergency authority to loan more than $1 trillion of taxpayer money to the banks secretly and without oversight? The Washington Post explains today in a long investigative piece by Binyamin Appelbaum and Neil Irwin. As it turns out, Sen. Chris Dodd slipped the necessary language into an Read More