Where's Our Money? an online shout-out for transparency & real change

31/08/2013

Is dumb& lazy? >

Detroit’s emergency manager called Detroit “dumb, happy, lazy and rich.” What is that guy smoking? How else can you explain such careless invective from Kevyn Orr, one of the country’s top corporate bankruptcy lawyers, the “expert” who holds the fut...

11/08/2013

Stepping up on middle out: From rhetoric to reality >

President Obama’s latest effort to portray himself as the champion of the middle class has so far been long on rhetoric and painfully short of real proposals. The problem is that if smooth rhetoric alone could do the job, the economy would be humming along right now, not sputtering. To get this done...

28/06/2013

Banking without banksters >

Bravo to the Public Banking Institute for suggesting an alternative vision of what banks are and for raising a basic question: what should a bank do, and who should it serve? I attended the Institute’s recent conference, which drew activists and interested citizens from around the country to San Raf...

02/06/2013

Dummies For

From Athens, Greece to Stockton, California and Detroit, bankers feast while citizens and workers starve. The diet takes many forms. But the basic idea behind it is that the only way to save our government is to starve it, cut services to those who need them most, and above all, keep the big bondhol...

27/04/2013

Latest D.C.-Wall Street brainstorm – bailouts with your bank deposits

Think your federally insured bank deposits are safe? Think again. The geniuses that are supposed to be protecting your money have dreamed up a scary idea to use your money to help fund the next bailout. This is not some paranoid conspiracy theory. In December, the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp...

22/04/2013

Can left & right unite – against cat food diet?

If our dysfunctional politicians can collaborate to do the bidding of the 1 percent, why can’t members of the 99 percent find ways to work with those we disagree with to protect all of our interests? Specifically, can progressive Democrats who oppose President Obama’s proposed cuts to Social Securit...

11/04/2013

Revolve this >

For many of the government officials cashing in, it seems that the more spectacular their failure to serve the public, the more valuable they are to the big Washington players that hire them. Our government may be a dysfunctional mess, but for the public officials leaving their jobs, it’s been a ban...

02/04/2013

Post-election, President Obama's populism goes missing >

When it comes to reviving the middle class and reducing the country’s widening income gap, President Obama in his second term has so far offered little more than a classic bait and switch from the strong promises he made during his successful reelection campaign. While the president has provided lea...

15/03/2013

Hold on to your wallets, the privatization circus is back in town >

If public-private partnerships were such a good idea, our bridges and roads wouldn’t be crumbling and our middle class wouldn’t be facing extinction. Because public-private partnerships, touted by President Obama in his State of the Union speech as a key tool in his administration’s second term, hav...

07/03/2013

Recuse Obama's 1 percent economic team >

While President Obama campaigned for reelection as a candidate to fight for the 99 percent, he has assembled a second-term economic team that is extraordinarily cozy with the 1 percent. His picks for Treasury, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission and director of the Office of Managemen...

26/02/2013

What Jack Lew owes Citibank >

By Pam Martens: February 26, 2013 Today, an august body of the United States Senate will vote on President Obama’s nomination of Jack Lew to be

26/02/2013

Will Senate Finance members raise ethics issues surrounding Jack Lew's Citibank bonus deal? Listen in & find out 10 am EST >

25/02/2013

Does Jack Lew's Citibank contract violate ethics laws? >

The emerging details of prospective Treasury Secretary Jack Lew’s contract with Citibank raise fresh concerns about the persistent issue of the Obama administration’s revolving door with too big to fail banks. During Lew’s confirmation hearing earlier this month, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, questioned...

22/02/2013

Failed policies fuel phony housing recovery >

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama cited the recovery of the housing market as evidence the economy is getting stronger. If by “recovery,” the president meant a fabulous bargain-shopping opportunity for flush hedge funds, he was spot on. If was he was talking about what most people un...

20/02/2013

Six reasons Republicans should vote for an increase in the minimum wage >

Just this once, Republicans should make an exception to their policy of opposing everything President Obama proposes and support an increase in the minimum wage. There are many good reasons why a wide majority of Americans consistently support it. According to a 2012 poll, 73 percent of likely voter...

14/02/2013

For Jamie Dimon, it's a free country; others must pay

America's favorite banker is at it again. At the posh gathering of the world’s global financial elite at Davos, Switzerland, J.P. Morgan Chase’s CEO has been whining that bankers have been scapegoated for the financial collapse. You might be inclined to have some sympathy for Dimon, who got whacked…

10/02/2013

Standard & Poors' defense sounds familiar >

What a shame that the feds’ big lawsuit against Standard and Poors probably won’t go to trial. The public is missing the chance to view up close many of the players whose fraud and fecklessness helped fuel the financial collapse, wriggling and squirming under scrutiny by sharp lawyers in dramatic co...

06/02/2013

Former bank regulator profits from >

While the foreclosure crisis has brought devastation to millions of Americans, for a few Washington insiders it’s proved quite lucrative. One of the most recent to cash in is Eugene Ludwig, former comptroller of the currency in the administration of his one-time Yale Law School pal, former President...