The Government’s Foreclosure Rescue Mirage
Mother Jones published a new investigative story of mine today on the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program, its $75 billion, largely taxpayer funded foreclosure prevention program. The one that’s been one big bust. I’ve excerpted the piece below, and you can check the full thing out and comment on it here, at MotherJones.com. (Which you should do!) Or definitely shoot me an e-mail or comment on this site as well. *** Fausto Ordoñez tells his story... Read More
Four Reasons to Foil the Fed
Like oil and water, the Federal Reserve and transparency do not mix. Or, as the incisive Bill Greider, author of Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, wrote in a recent cover story for The Nation: “The Federal Reserve is the black hole of our democracy—the crucial contradiction that keeps the people and their representatives from having any voice in these most important public policies.” Who can forget former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s... Read More
The ‘Greatest Swindle Ever Sold’ Swindles On and On and On…
I’ve been blogging quite a bit at MotherJones.com, where I’m now working, on the ever-growing swindle that is the government bailout. It’s at around $13 trillion dollars now, and as I show, it’s painfully clear that the bailout has nothing to do with taxpayers or small-business owners or normal citizens. Instead, this has been a bailout of the banks, by the banks, for the banks. Below is a compilation of some recent blogging. I’d love to know what... Read More
Wash Indy: “Government Taps Bailout Contractors With Conflicts of Interest”
Continuing with the theme of corruption, obfuscation, crony capitalism and the like with our much maligned bailout, I highly recommend this Washington Independent article on the shady dealings of the private contractors behind the scenes of the more than $12 trillion bailout. Here’s an excerpt: As the Wall Street bailout nears its first anniversary, the controversy over giving public money to private banks has become public knowledge. But an equally risky aspect of the financial... Read More
WSJ highlights potential for fraud, taxpayer scamming in PPIP
Photo via flickr user Downing Street The same day I wrote about the potential for gaming and fraud in the bailout’s Public-Private Investment Program in my TomDispatch piece “The Greatest Swindle Ever Sold” one of the largest business newspapers in the country highlighted the same problem. Here are the highlights from a story in today’s Wall Street Journal: Some banks are prodding the government to let them use public money to help buy troubled assets... Read More
