The credit system is undoubtedly facing considerable stress because so
many banks are effectively bankrupt, but the economy is not in a
downturn because banks aren't lending. It is in a downturn because we
have just lost $6 trillion in housing wealth and $8 trillion in stock
wealth. The expected effects of this loss of wealth is the huge falloff
in consumption that is driving the downturn. The condition of the banks
is very much a secondary issue. ... Dean Baker, American Prospect, 1/19/09
Recent Posts
- Yes, he is a fascist.
- GOP top
- The many lives of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- Incredibly yuge!!
- Some of us hang together; some hate everyone
- Is Hillary in the clear?
- Time for a delicious, well-seasoned roast of Bush
- Brentrance
- With Britain's exit from Europe, US also loses international clout
- How the Republicans (reds) are (slowly) taking over
The Scribe
- Four types of Democrats, five types of Republicans. Too partisan to govern?
- November 2011: What is OCCUPY?
- Nation-killer: America has an inequality problem that's bringing our society down
- US gun-runners force confrontation between Obama and NRA
- Obama's principles, his skepticism, his pragmatism, and his game plan
- Our "hidden brains" -- political decisions, the Republican disconnect, and how politicians connive with voters
- Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act: Who gets reformed and who gets protected?
- Searching for "truth and accuracy" in the media
- Health care reality check. Interview with Uwe Reinhardt.
- LOL! How the internet was born
- The danger next time: the pressures to keep financial instruments unregulated
- "Uh-oh. Wall Street has got its swagger back!" Interview with economist Simon Johnson
- T. R. Reid: How to win over the right and get "better, cheaper, and fairer health care"
- Eugene Jarecki on "The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Man, and the Republican Peril"
- "The Predator State": an interview with James K. Galbraith
- Interview with George Packer on "The Fall of Conservatism"
- The "shadow system" and the US economy
- "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." Discussion with Norman Solomon
- Failures, lies, and cover-ups of the 9/11 Commission
- "Gotcha Capitalism": about those capitalist predators we love to hate
- "Free Lunch": David Cay Johnston on hidden government subsidies for the very, very rich
- Matt Bai, "The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics"
- Why Iran distrusts the US
- Drew Westen, "The Political Brain"
- Analysis: Right to choose
- How a third candidate affects how we decide who to vote for: "The decoy effect"
- "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America"
- Jeff Sharlet on how fundamentalists are "reimagining" American history
- Interview with Chalmers Johnson
- "One step too far:" Serious shifts in the federal balance of power, and some excerpts from Justice O'Connor's Georgetown speech
- "American Coup d’État: Military thinkers discuss the unthinkable”
- Joe Biden on partisan politics, secrecy, Iran, Supreme Court
- Paul Pierson and Jacob Hacker interview: "Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy"
- Nina Totenberg reports on Judge Samuel Alito -- his revealing rulings and dissents on Roe, states' rights, church/state, affirmative action
Finders Keepers
- Whew! Ed Sheeran!
- Redman, Mehldau, and generosity
- Too damn much gratitude
- "Ascending Bird"
- "Crap cars"
- Monk and Coltrane together again
- Marsalis plays Coltrane
- Jeanne-Claude, Christo, and Tinkerbell
- Rubens and Warhol
- Not entirely what it seems: Istanbul to Meshed to Srinagar to Saigon
- Self
- More pattern language
- Wanted
- Wind in the Willows, apple wood smoke, and finding home
- Notes from a prurient January evening in the late 1980's
- Having time
- Details: Larsen and Salinger
- Breasts of savages not soothed but driven away by Pavarotti
- Abstraction and (not or) realism
- Seeing our world (and hiding in it)
- Richard Wilbur
- Pynchon, plots, and puritanism
- John Gardner on "catching on"
- Sor Juana
- Family Secrets
Legal stimulants
- ALEC Exposed
- Attytood
- Bad Attitudes
- Balkinization
- Balloon Juice
- Beggars Can Be Choosers
- Booman Tribune
- Brad DeLong
- Brains and Eggs
- Corrente
- Crooked Timber
- Crooks and Liars
- Daily Yonder
- Democratic Strategist
- Demos
- Digby
- Driftglass
- Electric Politics
- Ezra Klein
- Field Lab
- Field Negro
- Huck and Jim
- Humans of New York
- Hunting of the Snark
- Jesus' General
- Jobsanger
- Juan Cole
- Liberal Values
- Mahablog
- Margaret and Helen
- Mark Bittman
- Microréplicas
- Moderate Voice
- MoJoBlog
- Monkey Cage
- Naked Capitalism
- No More Mister Nice Blog
- Open Congress
- Open Secrets
- Out-of-Eden Walk
- Paperblog
- Perrspectives
- Pharyngula
- Please Cut the Crap
- Plumline-Greg Sargent
- Pruning Shears
- Reality-Based Community
- Reason
- Secrecy News
- Sirota
- Sky Dancing
- Starrtrips
- Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Talking Points Memo
- The Impolitic
- The Politics Blog
- The Reaction
- The Rest is Noise
- The Root
- This Can't Be Happening
- TomDispatch
- View From My Kitchen Table
- Washington Monthly-Political Animal
- Washington Note
- WAWG Blog
- Whites Creek Journal
- Working in Bare Feet
