There was a hit song in the forties (made popular more recently by the Muppets) called "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens."

One night a farmer hears noises from his henhouse and investigates with gun in hand.

"When he shouted, 'Who's There?'
This is what he heard
...

Like most members of Congress, I've traveled to far-flung parts of the earth on congressional delegations -- "CODELs" in the lingo.

Usually our visit to a country begins with a "country brief" by our embassy staff to prepare us for meetings with government officials. Our embassy staff will tell us...

Paul Ryan's acceptance speech is not getting good reviews for strict adherence to the narrowest version of the truth. Dave Weigel offered a "listicle" of Ryan's "whoppers." Think Progress listed the "6 Worst Lies in Paul Ryan's Speech."

But somehow Ryan's attack on the Obama Administration's...

I've skimmed some informed discussions at economics blogs about how JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) lost $2 billion and counting on their "synthetic credit portfolio." But educated guesses are still guesses, the next big problem in the financial system will be entirely different, and to be honest, it all gives me a...

Wall Street bankers dislike President Obama. A lot.

Or so says Brad DeLong.

Wall Street bankers' money is massively important in politics, but their votes are pretty inconsequential. Still, instead of getting the 40 percent of Wall Street votes that he got against McCain, President Obama is now...

Sometimes bailouts walk in through the front door and sometimes bailouts sneak in through the backdoor. Backdoor bailouts are always far worse for taxpayers.

And backdoor bailouts are much worse for democracy.

In late December, Bank of America agreed to pay $2.87 billion to settle claims that the bank sold...

Sometimes party loyalty asks too much, even among today's rigidly unforgiving Republicans.

In December, the four Republicans on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) appeared to accept the Republican agitprop explanation, or "narrative," of the financial crisis: government regulators, under pressure from liberal Democrats like Barney Frank and...

The PowerPoint released by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the co-chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform ("The Deficit Commission"), said we should "Reform Social Security for its own sake, not for deficit reduction."

No kidding. Social Security has nothing to do with the...

President Obama is proposing a tax on "too big to fail" banks to pay back the $120 billion in taxpayer money that we expect to lose from the Troubled Asset Recovery Program ("TARP") -- the bank bailout.

The proposed tax would also exact a payment for the...

I was never much of a source for Mark Pittman. I'm not sure I ever told him anything that he didn't already know.

But some time last year he figured out that I was willing to criticize the financial services industry, or at least more willing than most members of...