The "Populists" Are Right About Wall Street
How has a popular Democratic president with a convincing electoral mandate failed to translate the opportunities of recent events into the "change" for which voters clamored?
How has a popular Democratic president with a convincing electoral mandate failed to translate the opportunities of recent events into the "change" for which voters clamored?
Tim Berry | Posted 04.25.2009 | Business
Anybody who hasn't been living in a cave knows how bonuses got a bad name: excess and greed in large business. But what those of us in small business, where a bonus is a reward for a job well done?
Arianna Huffington | Posted 04.23.2009 | Politics
Tim Geithner's actions throughout his career, including his time as Treasury Secretary, are proof that the toxic thinking that got us into this mess is part of his DNA.
Jennifer Delaney | Posted 04.23.2009 | Living
If AIG were to donate the 418 bonuses to charity, it would be a brilliant preemptive PR move to neutralize its current out of touch public persona. Here's what the money could provide.
Vicky Ward | Posted 04.23.2009 | Business
New York is the national epicenter of ostentation and consumerism. Now those qualities are considered tasteless. Wealth has become a dirty word.
Robert Kuttner | Posted 04.22.2009 | Politics
The indignation over AIG will serve a useful purpose if it focuses public attention on the much larger issue of the failure of the entire approach that Tim Geithner and Larry Summers are using to rescue the banking system.
Andy Ostroy | Posted 04.21.2009 | Politics
Rather than allow these bonuses to remain intact or to take them away outright, how about deferring them until the companies and their troubled business units turn their financial fortunes around?
Jeffrey Sachs | Posted 04.21.2009 | Business
The fascinating thing about this Wall Street greed is that it is so deeply ingrained that neither the bankers themselves nor our economic leadership understands just how disgusting and dangerous it is.
Bob Ostertag | Posted 04.20.2009 | Politics
Have things changed so dramatically that Obama will have room to dump his biggest campaign contributers overboard? That question will be answered in the coming weeks.
David Sirota | Posted 04.20.2009 | Politics
I appeared on ABC's World News Tonight and ABC's Nightline last night about the economic meltdown. You can watch the Nightline clip here. As I've w...
Earl Ofari Hutchinson | Posted 04.20.2009 | Politics
How long will and should Obama continue to defend Geithner in the face of the smoking gun proof of what he knew about AIG and when he knew it?
Jamie Malanowski | Posted 04.20.2009 | Politics
It's admirable that our leaders now want to be frugal with our money but let's remember what the taxpayers themselves have been buying with money not rendered unto Uncle Sam.
Henry Blodget | Posted 04.20.2009 | Business
The frantic passage of the Populist Rage Tax was a new low in the US government's response to this crisis.
Phil Bronstein | Posted 04.19.2009 | Politics
It's good to hear Obama take responsibility, but after the previous "I screwed up" and a few more "buck stops here," the value of that buck's worth might soon diminish.
Jamie Court | Posted 04.19.2009 | Politics
Mr. President and members of Congress, it's time to give back AIG's political contributions.
Mike Lux | Posted 04.19.2009 | Politics
Right now Obama is trying to walk on an incredibly narrow line with no safety net beneath, but this is gut-check time: he has to decide which side he's on.
Jeffrey Feldman | Posted 04.19.2009 | Business
When the key points of the AIG counter-parties list finally sink in to the American population, there is going to be a run on torches and pitchforks at local hardware stores.
James Moore | Posted 04.19.2009 | Politics
There is an attorney who can get to the bottom of our current financial crisis and lay the blame and guilt at the foot of the culprits. Eliot Spitzer, phone home.
Leo W. Gerard | Posted 04.19.2009 | Business
AIG Chairman Edward M. Liddy gets the Creep of the Week award for his stunning, overwhelming, dumbfounding display of cluelessness.
Ann Pettifor | Posted 04.19.2009 | Business
By fueling anger over AIG bonuses, Bernanke is playing a very old game. By aiming at AIG, he is distracting public anger from the Federal Reserve. He is protecting his reputation and legacy.
Norman Lear | Posted 04.18.2009 | Business
Let's take back some 70 odd bonuses and fail on all sides to see the systemic disease that got us here: short-term thinking and the lunatic need for a profit statement this quarter considerably larger than the last.
Jessica Catto | Posted 04.18.2009 | Politics
The disgust burbled up at the callousness of Enron; it has been simmering ever since, and with AIG it has boiled over.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer | Posted 04.18.2009 | Politics
Giving out $18 billion in bonuses at a time when ordinary Americans have seen their life savings collapse is outrageous. To give out these bonuses using federal bailout money is over the edge.
Daniel J. H. Greenwood | Posted 04.18.2009 | Business
Let's get real. This may be a nation of laws, but contracts are not sacred, and employment contracts are less sacred than any.
Mike Lux | Posted 04.18.2009 | Politics
Lincoln, FDR, and LBJ all did what they had to do, played the hardball that had to be played, to change the country. Obama should follow their example.
Thomas Frank | Posted 04.25.2009 | Business