The Best Interests of the Corporation

Every day legal corporate behavior causes much more damage to the commons than corporate illegal behavior.  Electricity generators do not break the law when they emit billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year warming the Earth to dangerous levels.  No law is broken when automobile manufacturers put out millions of vehicles that contribute to the same problem.  Tobacco companies do not break the law when their products kill nearly 5 million people a year.  Consumer goods companies are within the law when they buy from third world suppliers who operate sw

Averting the Worst

So it seems that we aren’t going to have a second Great Depression after all. What saved us? The answer, basically, is Big Government.

Just to be clear: the economic situation remains terrible, indeed worse than almost anyone thought possible not long ago. The nation has lost 6.7 million jobs since the recession began. Once you take into account the need to find employment for a growing working-age population, we’re probably around nine million jobs short of where we should be.

Californians Are Sinking Themselves

The world's eighth-largest economy has just gone belly-up. When midnight tolled on Tuesday night with legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger still deadlocked over how to resolve the state's staggering $24 billion budget shortfall, California became unable to pay its bills. The state will have to begin issuing IOUs to its creditors as early as Thursday. It is the worst budget crisis in the state's modern history.

The Real Criminals are Neither Lynndie England nor the AIG Traders

Whenever a politician or commentator bloviates about the brokers at AIG who are getting bonuses, we should all be remembering Lynndie England and Charles Granger. AIG brokers are to the financial meltdown what England was to the Iraq war.

How To Destroy the Government in Three Easy Steps

In eight short years, conservatives have effectively bankrupted many state governments and left the fed in shambles. And now citizens have to "make tough decisions" and share the suffering equally across the land (unless of course, you're part of that lucky 1% who co-opted the functions of government to serve their own ends... they'll be cozy with their offshore bank accounts, golden parachutes, and permanent tax holidays).

Smart Is The New Stupid (And Other Subtle But Profound Effects of the Obama Era)

Like every good person I know, and a lot of evil (i.e., regressive) monsters I don't, I've been watching very eagerly and carefully to see what decisions Barack Obama is going to make as our new president.