TomDispatch: Union-Busting or Republican-Busting in Wisconsin?
One hundred years ago, 146 people, mostly young immigrant women, died in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in downtown New York City, a building lacking sprinkler systems, fire walls, or adequate fire escapes. Onlookers watched horrified, writes historian Steve Fraser, as many of the trapped workers jumped to their deaths from upper-story windows. Those below “talked... Read More
Why Won’t the GOP Criticize BP?
Flickr/talkradionews First published at MotherJones.com. Elected Democrats haven’t been shy about slamming BP for the horrific oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Last month, Senate majority leader Harry Reid emotionally declared on the Senate floor that the oil company’s “greed led to 11 horrific and unnecessary deaths. It has harmed an enormous tourism industry,... Read More
Chris Dodd’s Race to the Bottom
Flickr/David Berkowitz Cross-posted from Mother Jones.com In just six months, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), the stately front man of the Senate’s campaign to crack down on Wall Street, has transformed from financial-reform avenger, scourge of the Federal Reserve, and ally of the average consumer to a GOP pushover. Last fall, the veteran Senator and chairman of the banking committee... Read More
Obama, rhetorical fisticuffs, and the new “jobs surge”
Flickr/phil dokas Below is a new, short piece of mine—an introduction, to be precise, to Steve Fraser’s most recent piece for TomDispatch.com, “The New Deal in Reverse: How the Obama Administration Ended Up Where Franklin Roosevelt Began.” Fraser’s piece compares the first years of Obama and FDR, and unlike any other historian, he describes how the first... Read More
A Crash Course on the Financial Meltdown — Pecora Part II Begins
Cross-posted from MotherJones.com. The 10 members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the modern heir to the famous Pecora Commission convened in the wake of Wall Street’s 1929 crash, kicked off a marathon set of hearings on Wednesday and Thursday by grilling some of Wall Street’s most powerful executives, the regulators supposedly tasked with reining them in,... Read More
Blind Ben and the Fed
Cross-posted with MotherJones.com In his column today, the New York Times’ David Leonhardt takes to task the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Ben Bernanke, for not acknowledging that they inexplicably missed the housing bubble, and questions the Fed’s ability to spot future bubbles. In the wake of Bernanke’s speech this weekend in which he deflected blame for... Read More
Glass-Steagall Resurrected?
Cross-posted with Mother Jones Is the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era law that blocked commercial banks from participating in riskier investment banking, set for a revival? That’s what a new piece of legislation, introduced yesterday by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), would do, forcing major changes to financial titans like JPMorgan Chase,... Read More
Dispatch from Foreclosureland
Cross-posted with Mother Jones In August, I wrote about the Obama administration’s flawed $75 billion homeowner rescue effort, the Home Affordable Modification Program, and therein introduced readers to Florida homeowner Kristina Page. Page’s mortgage company, Saxon Mortgage Services, first told her it hadn’t heard of HAMP. Then, when Saxon finally admitted Page... Read More
A New Lease on Life for Detroit’s Auto Dealers?
Cross-posted with Mother Jones Buried way down in the fine print of the Congress’ $1.1 trillion spending bill, passed Thursday by the House, is a lifeline for an endangered species—the American car dealer. A clause inside the the 1,088-page bill would give thousands of General Motors and Chrysler dealerships that have been put on the chopping block the chance to challenge... Read More
OBAMA vs. THE WASHINGTON INFLUENCE MACHINE
That’s the title of my new piece published at TomDispatch.com, a dive into the onslaught by lobbyists and their special interest clients to derail the Obama administration’s legislative agenda. The piece looks at the vast amount of money being spent on lobbying, the growing numbers of lobbyists working on K Street and Capitol Hill (six health-care lobbyists for every... Read More
