Thom Hartmann

Yesterday Thom Hartmann and I discussed the proposal to extend and expand what Democrats have called the 'payroll tax holiday.' (Video is below.) There are no heroes in this debate, but there are certainly villains. There are several different ways this could end - and most of them aren't good.

By proposing to expand and extend this 'holiday,' Democrats have bypassed more efficient ways to help the economy, and have once again endangered Social Security. And by demanding tax breaks for millionaires while blocking them for the middle class, Republicans have once again demonstrated their willingness to blow up the economy for self-serving purposes.

The choice is either to back the highly flawed Democratic proposal or let the Republicans block it, which would plunge the economy into an even deeper hole than it's in right now. Imperfect as the proposal is, the alternative is unacceptable. If it failed the already-wounded economy would suffer even more, and millions of jobless Americans would be left without the unemployment insurance they need. more »

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We've just learned about the Federal Reserve's extraordinary secret bailout of the country's big banks. We now know that the TARP bailout program was only the tip of the iceberg, and that financial institutions received a total of $1.2 trillion in loans and other funds while the rest of the country was left to struggle for economic survival.

We also know that, despite all that "we got our money back" rhetoric, these loans represent a cash giveaway to the banks that totals up to tens of billions of dollars - while homeowners and student loan borrowers continue to struggle.

Here's what we now know about this secret bailout, thanks to a Bloomberg report, along with what we already knew - and what we still don't know:

We now know that the 10 biggest banks in America received $669 billion in emergency loans from the Fed.

We already knew that the same 10 banks now own 77% of the country's banking assets, more than before the crisis, making them even more "too big to fail" than ever. more »

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The other day we had an interesting discussion of that secret Fed bailout on Thom Hartmann's TV program, The Big Picture.  Here's the video. more »

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