Guided by An Invisible Hand

Make no mistake: we are witnessing the biggest crisis since the Great Depression. In some ways it is worse than the Great Depression, because the latter did not involve these very complicated instruments - the derivatives that Warren Buffett has referred to as financial weapons of mass destruction; and we did not have anything close to the magnitude of today's cross-border finance.

As Its Economic Power Wanes, Does the US Lean Harder on the Military?

The current economic crisis holds enormous dangers, even beyond its direct threat to jobs, homes, savings, and the well-being of millions of ordinary people in the U.S. The challenge will be, as ever, to find within the dangers the opportunities for positive change.

Paulson, the Treasurer of Wall Street

Is there anyone out there other than Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders who wonders about the conflict of interest that Henry Paulson has been displaying lately?

It doesn't seem to bother Paulson any.

You didn't see him recusing himself from decisions that have a direct bearing on Goldman Sachs, the firm he used to run.

In fact, he just announced the he was going to ladle out $10 billion to Goldman Sachs, along with another $115 billion to six other financial institutions.

Defining ‘Socialized’ Medicine

I got an e-mail yesterday afternoon from a friend of mine who worked on my 2004 campaign for U.S. vice president. He was pretty disheartened with the way things have been going the last four years and asked if I could explain the stock market crisis and what's happening in the world - because after years of activism and giving a damn - he feels like giving up.

Paulson's Plan B

How do you stop a ship from sinking, and simultaneously rebuild it to prevent its future destruction? That was the question in the minds of the world's central bankers as they sat down over the weekend to figure out how to right the global financial Titanic.