How do we get the facts on how the financial system imploded? Roosevelt Institute Braintruster Jeff Madrick would prefer a special prosecutor -- or at least a special investigator -- to a meaningless bi-partisan hearing.

By now it's clear that there should be a serious philosophical and open debate about...

The intellectual and political forces that kept the U.S. from having a more complete economic recovery during the Great Depression have not disappeared. And they are jeopardizing the current recovery and future prospects once again. They are the familiar faces who warn us at every opportunity that inflation will return,...

Like night follows day, free market ideologues and some just plain conservative diehards are now saying those who warned that unfettered financial speculation has led to economic crisis have, as will claim they told us all along, embarrassingly overreacted. The economy is already bounding back, they say, and all those...

The stress tests give away the administration's real financial strategy. It is, in sum, as little intervention in the banking system as possible. In other words, there is not much to fix, so let's just get it working again. In other 'other' words, let's bumble along.

The stress test...

Ever since the AIG bonus fiasco, a surprisingly large group of observers in the media and elsewhere, with gravely sagacious overtones, have assured us that bonuses in themselves are at the heart of American capitalism. Being rewarded for a job well done -- and sometimes getting rich --...

Former Senator Phil Gramm published a piece in Friday's Wall Street Journal exculpating himself from any serious role in the credit crisis-and his fell Republicans, of course. It was government bleeding hearts who did it all.

This is of course now the accepted line of the Republican stalwarts, mouthed by...

There is a lot of concern about this stimulus package. It isn't enough, yes. It has too many tax cuts, yes.

But let's keep in mind how far and how quickly we've come. A few months ago, no one would hae guessed this was possible. And no one would...

In today's press conference, new Treasury Secretary Geithner talked tough. He even talked right. Indeed, he talked beef. America needs a full-blown bank rescue. It must devote a lot of money to stem losses in the housing market and limit new defaults. Geithner talked in the needed trillions of...

One of the guests on Meet the Press this morning defended the current round of bonuses by saying the people just don't understand that the bailout did not fund the bonuses. All this "populism" on the part of outraged Democrats is, therefore, out of hand. The money, it was claimed,...

The announced policies of the Obama team are not adequate. I don't mean simply that the stimulus plan is not big enough. There's time to build that up.

Rather, in the past few weeks, the credit crisis took a turn for the worse that is not fully understood. It...

the announced policies of the Obama team are not adequate. I don't mean simply that the stimulus plan i not big enough. There's time to build that up.

Rather, In the past few weeks, the credit crisis took a turn for the worse that is not fully appreciated. It showed...

It is a terribly sad to discover this weekend that the Obama stimulus will probably include $300 billion in tax cuts. It is of course designed to placate the Republicans and conservative Democrats. But it is another sign the nation seems incapable of doing what it must. There is...

Here's the count. You decide.

Dwight Eisenhower: 2 recessions
Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford: 2 recessions
Ronald Reagan: 1 recession
George H.W. Bush: 1 recession
George W. Bush: 2 recessions

Here are the Democrats:

John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson: no recessions
Jimmy Carter: one recession,...

This morning, walking dogs, I ran into a neighbor who works for a well-known fashion company. "Business is dead," she said. "I wanna complain about how they're treating us. But I better keep a lid on it."

I couldn't have agreed more -- business is dead....

Making banks solvent was never going to be all that was necessary to make the American economy whole again. The inexorable recessionary process is now well on its way. We will learn more about how far and fast we are sinking in the next couple of weeks, as the data...

Are you kidding me? Alan Greenspan told a House committee headed by Henry Waxman today that his analytical structure was wrong. You'd think he merely misplaced a decimal point. He thus alienates his allegedly objective analysis from any other more suspect motive. And, yes, he was shocked that...

If you turned on Charlie Rose last night, you noticed a slice of the establishment discussing the limits of private markets. It is hard to believe your eyes and ears. Since the credit crisis, the establishment is registering their fears of free markets across the American landscape. But where were...

Many economists, even some liberal ones, seem to think that ending a "run" on banks and supplying them with capital is essentially the solution needed to right the economy again. Any further help is useful but secondary. This is wrong. The $700 billion bailout package sponsored by Treasury Secretary Paulson...

If there's any silver lining to the current credit crisis, it is the widening realization that forcing people to manage their own retirement accounts is nasty and irresponsible public policy. It's one thing to manage your 401(k), knowing a fixed pension is also coming your way from Social Security. It...

The so-called bailout package contains controversial restraints on executive compensation. Some may think these restrictions are just about getting even with the financial community. But this issue is not just about fairness. Compensation excess is at the heart of this crisis.

Are the people managing financial...