deregulation

Their opponents shouldn't be too quick to call Republicans "crazy." It makes more sense to employ that time-honored investigative principle: Follow the money. Sure, they've said crazy things -- in their speeches and in their official platform. But crazy? more »

More »»

Here's the clip of a conversation we had yesterday on The Alonya Show about the new CBO report, which provides even more data on the explosion of wealth at the very top of the scale, the injustices driving Occupy Wall Street, and where we go from here.

more »

More »»

The Republicans have opened another front in their neverending war against regulations, those tools that help government protect us from greedy corporations. Leading the charge once again is Sen. Richard Shelby, the willing servant of Wall Street who weakened the regulations in Dodd/Frank during negotiations with Sen. Dodd ... and then refused to vote for it anyway.

After that little bit of procedural treachery, Sen. Shelby attacked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Protect consumers? How dare they?) with outright falsehoods about the extent of that organization's power.

Now Shelby's fighting urgently-needed regulations by proposing something called the "Financial Regulatory Responsibility Act." It would, according to the Senator, "determine the economic impacts of proposed rulemakings, including their effects on growth and net job creation."

Sen. Shelby added: "My colleagues and I are simply proposing that each financial regulator determine whether the economic cost of a new regulation exceeds its economic benefit. If it does, then the regulation should not be implemented."

More »»

So far from God, so close to the Republican National Committee

When some Simpsons characters took refuge in the local church after a hurricane, the church marquee read "God welcomes his victims." With that invitation, Reverend Lovejoy (an underrated Simpsons character second only to Apu on my favorites list) was alluding to that thorniest of theological questions: If the Almighty loves us, why does He subject us to so many disasters?

Modern conservatives don't need to wrestle with that kind of moral dilemma. Today's Right hates its victims, and its leaders do everything in their power to make their suffering even worse. Arizona's Republican legislators, most of them self-professed Christians, aren't singing from God's hymnal. Instead they're channeling Lyle Lovett's memorably bitter and resentful song, "God Will," as they survey the people who have been trapped in the economic wreckage of their ideology:

"God may love you but I don't/God will but I won't/and that's the difference between God and me."

Kicking 'em while they’re down

More »»

A full 90 members of Congress who voted to bailout Wall Street in 2008 failed to support financial reform reining in the banks that drove our economy off a cliff. more »

More »»

Congressional Republicans released their "Pledge for America" today with a press event at a Virginia hardware store, and a hardware store was definitely the right choice: If these policies ever take effect you're going to get screwed.

It was slightly amusing to see these wealthy tribunes in their pricey business-casual clothing, dressed to look the way they must imagine "real people" do. But other than providing some revenue for Dockers pants and Johnston & Murphy shoes, what were the economic implications of the GOP's Pledge?

Once you strip away the rhetoric, the answer is simple: Off the top, their plan is a trillion-dollar giveaway to the rich - at everybody else's expense. Their "pledge" would slash needed spending, kill jobs and end any hope of growing the economy. It declares open season on the public's health and safety with a deregulation agenda that would unleash BP, Goldman Sachs, and every other corporation whose risky behavior endangers us. It would lead to even more financial crashes and environmental disasters. Firefighters, cops,and teachers would be laid off in droves. The deficit would soar. We'd face a permanently stagnating economy. The middle class would wither away. more »

More »»

Over at bloggingheads, my CAF colleague Bill Scher discusses the new international banking standards with Conn Carroll, a conservative blogger for The Heritage Foundation. Carroll actually agrees with a lot of what I have to say about Basel III, but I he draws conclusions from my post that overemphasize the role of regulation and ignore the insane lobbying and outright fraud that Wall Street deployed to create a crisis.

The fact that Carroll and I can agree on this stuff (to an extent) shouldn't come as a terrible shock—Wall Street reform is about the basic functioning of the economy—it's not an issue that needs to ignite ideological conflict. Here are his key comments:

"I like the acknowledgement that the problem of this last financial crisis had to do with a problem of regulation."

Nothing wrong there. You'd have to be insane to believe that financial regulations—or the regulators who implemented them—were up to snuff. But here's where I part ways with Carroll:

More »»

A landmark court ruling on Wells Fargo's outrageous overdraft scam has the potential to return hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen funds to consumers all over the country. But like many of the banking scandals from the past decade, there's more to the story than simple bank predation. more »

More »»

Robert Rubin and Joseph Stiglitz are going public on jobs and the deficit, in what looks very much like a re-run of a major policy debate during the Clinton era. The dispute is simple—should the government focus on putting people back to work, or should it try to cut the deficit? more »

More »»