Tag: Wall Street

The ‘Winners’ Take Everything

Exclusive: Many Americans still wonder how it happened, how did a country admired for its Great Middle Class, which sustained strong democratic institutions, end up with Third-World-style wealth inequality and a democracy to match? In reviewing Winner-Take-All Politics, James DiEugenio…

Wall Street Parties On

Police have cleared out most Occupy Wall Street encampments around America, but no one is stopping the ultra-rich from partying on with the trillions of dollars in bailout help from the feds and the Fed, as Bill Moyers and Michael…

Sundering the Social Contract

In political philosophy, the idea of a social contract is that the individual surrenders some rights for the benefits of living in a civilized society that has reasonable rules for all. However, in recent decades, the greedy rich have torn…

Can Financial Markets Avoid Collapse?

The world’s financial system continues to teeter near a very nasty brink, with the United States and Europe disagreeing about how to pull back from the edge. Danny Shechter sees crisis, crisis, everywhere.

Is Obama’s TR Rhetoric Just Talk?

In the same Kansas town where Teddy Roosevelt castigated his era’s financial speculators 101 years ago, President Barack Obama spoke to the concerns of America’s 99 percent, those who have struggled while the super-rich prospered. But is Obama’s new rhetoric…

Cleansing Wall Street of Blame

The Right’s giant megaphone is reversing the narrative for today’s crisis: It is Barack Obama’s “food-stamp presidency” and the Occupy demands for fairness that are at fault for the hard economic times, not Wall Street’s unregulated greed increasing the need for food stamps…

As Wall Street’s Universe Collapses

Wall Street has created a “moral” universe that elevates short-term profits into the ultimate “good,” rewarding those who can achieve them with massive bonuses. The movie Margin Call follows these players when their universe collapses, writes Lisa Pease.

Punching a Hole in the Bubbles

In America, bubbles come in two forms: how Wall Street insiders suck in a sucker’s money before the speculative bubble pops and how those same scam artists stay inside a protective bubble to spare themselves from the fallout. In this…

Occupying the Heart of the Beast

Finally, a truly “populist” movement not like the Tea Party funded by billionaires to serve the interests of billionaires has arisen in America to challenge the growing economic inequities in U.S. society. Phil Rockstroh found his time with the “99…

How the Rich Won the Class War

Over the past several decades, the Right has convinced millions of Americans that Government is the source of all problems, that Corporations must have near-total freedom, and that the Rich must enjoy low taxes. The consequence has been a devastated…