Working Life

   Rhetoric is a good thing–except when you have the facts wrong. And, boy, the relentless, daily idiocy spewed out of the mouths of our elected officials about the economic crisis is astonishing. Consider, this morning, Speaker of the House John Boehner. Two days ago, Boehner gave a speech to the Economic Club of New […]

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   If we wonder why the average person thinks government is dysfunctional and too often doesn’t speak for the average person, here is another example (courtesy of The Wall Street Journal): The top regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is expected to announce millions of dollars in pay packages for top executives at the […]

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Want to know where $40 billion of your taxpayer-financed bailout for bankers is going? Into the pockets of their executives. And that evidence comes straight from a hard-hitting piece in today’s Wall Street Journal.   The Wall Street Journal piece is entitled "Banks Owe Billions to Executives". It is written by Ellen Schultz, one of […]

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   Would you buy anything from this man, even an opinion?: “I know Americans are concerned about the adjustments that are taking place in our financial markets,” Mr. Bush said at a ceremony to welcome the president of Ghana. He added: “In the short run, adjustments in the financial markets can be painful — both […]

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Pardon me for interrupting the great national debate–on lipstick, ads, earmarks, polls and other "crucial" issues–by inserting a modest suggestion: since we, the taxpayers, are now on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (a lot more than the grand total of all earmarks in the […]

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   In the big picture, all these things are connected. But, they all have their own distinct story lines.    Let’s start with greed, which comes in two flavors. There is the greed by the owners of the kosher meatpacking plant that would make my Jewish, non-religious grandparents cringe: The Iowa attorney general on Tuesday […]

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  It never ceases to amaze me, even though we shouldn’t be shocked: the "free market" leaders fail–but, no worries, they still walk off with a pile of money, while average people get shafted. And the song remains the same at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.   Though this has been referred to in passing […]

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   Egads…sound familiar…American taxpayers are now on the hook for billions of dollars…this time to bail out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and try to keep the economy from entering into a deeper tailspin. You can read about this virtually everywhere and there is a palpable fear here–that it may not be enough…    But, […]

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   Yours truly is on a plane here early in the morning so this is a quick post. But, it’s a weighty and worthwhile promo for a great statement by Dean Baker from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Readers will probably know that I think highly of the CEPR people–partly because they are […]

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   Panic continues to be the word for the day in the financial markets. The big news is the cratering of the shares yesterday of the two big mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times lead with the stories. Here’s the Journal: Investors dumped shares […]

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