Obstacles to Reform in the Banking Industry

On Bill Moyers Journal, he recently talked about the state of the playing field for getting real regulatory reform done for financial institutions with David Corn and Kevin Drum. This was a great discussion and one that every one of us who cares about getting this done should carefully watch. Because what they are laying out here is how regulatory reform for banks is being gutted before our eyes.

The Blame Obama Brigade

This weekend seemed to be filled with lots of discussion all over the internet re: Matt Taibbi’s piece giving President Obama’s economic team a not undeserved beat down. I like Taibbi’s writing a lot and the fact that he doesn’t do conventional “objective” reporting doesn’t bother me (but the repetition of bad data does bother me, like the so-called “cost” of all of the bailouts being 23.7 trillion), but I still find it hugely remarkable that there are plenty of people on the left who are very comfortable blaming Obama for not being liberal or progressive enough – as if that is all it would take to get major legislation through Congress.