Working Life

   I mean, this is pretty funny–except it’s pathetic, bizarre and, ultimately, gives all of us a great window on the "they haven’t learned anything" culture on Wall Street and the business world in general. Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan (and the Ten of Hearts in the 52 deck-of cards Audacity of Greed), is […]

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   It’s bad enough that the global financial crisis has put millions of people out of work and trashed the future of the ranks of workers everywhere. But, let’s take a moment to consider an undercurrent of the economic crisis, fanned by fear, stupidity and the relentless drive to cut government (oh, that comes under […]

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    This past week, I made the point that the conviction of Raj Rajaratnam was a tale of a relatively little fish getting nabbed, while the big fish who caused the biggest disaster and heartache for most Americans get away. Or cover-up what they have done. Bank of America, Citigroup, G.M.A.C., JPMorgan Chase and Wells […]

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   Wall St was rumbling yesterday as we clogged the streets with a message: {attachment id=164 size=medium}    No reason to have teachers cut or Medicare slashed. Make them pay.

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   The man behind the curtain is working hard, I’ll tell you. The spectacle out front, full of blaring headlines and prosecutors hype, tells us: we got those bad guys. Really? Nonsense.     We’ve all read about this: Federal prosecutors in Manhattan accused Raj Rajaratnam, the chief of the Galleon Group, of being at the […]

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    Earlier today I wrote about the plan by the European Commission to launch an anti-trust investigation into the credit default swaps market. I thought I was done for the day but now comes word that our own government appears to be going the other way: weakening important rules for derivatives that were part of […]

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   This is a story that cannot be retold enough and updated enough because it highlights, as much as any trend, how nothing has changed. The people suffer–while CEO pay continues to go up. The robbery continues unabated.     Let’s start with the hospital sector. In New York, and I would suspect everywhere else […]

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   This may not seem like an earth-shaking moment but it is a telling truth about where money flows, who controls it and how little ability we have to oversee the shadow banking done at the margins of our economy.     From the Financial Times: The top 10 hedge funds made $28bn for clients […]

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Sometimes, I wonder whether we all live in a grand farce. But, actually, it’s a real-life story about a robbery of the people that continues every day–and today is no different. The robbers grow richer.   From The Wall Street Journal a story headlined: "On Street, Pay Vaults to Record Altitude": When it comes to […]

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Putting aside the larger argument for the moment about whether we–the taxpayers–should have stepped into to save failing institutions, it is pretty clear now that what we also did was just give a nice new revenue stream for banks that did not need the money but figured, heck, why not get our taste from the […]

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