Some recent Essays I found insightful:

• James Ridgeway, Bush Policies Help Bring the Financial Crisis Home, Mother Jones Blog, 08 October 2008.


• David Corn, The Right's Final Attack: Obama is a Black Muslim, Anti-Christian Socialist Plotting with an Evil Jewish Billionaire, Mother Jones Blog, 17 October 2008.


• Arianna Huffington, The Internet and the Death of Rovian Politics, HuffingtonPost.com, 20 October 2008.


• James Carville & Paul Begala, Let the Blame Game Begin, HuffingtonPost.com, 20 October 2008.
  
  Also on the GOP's forthcoming blame game:
  
  Frank Rich, He Just Can’t Quit W, The New York Times, 18 October 2008.
  


• ** Chris Hedges, The Idiots Who Rule America, TruthDig.com, 20 October 2008.
  ("Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and safeguarding individual rights. They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of the common good.")


• Glenn Greenwald, Mark Halperin defends Rush Limbaugh's Powell/race theory, Salon.com, 21 October 2008.
  (Good dissection of right-wing propaganda and a racist double standard.)


• ** John Lanchester, Cityphobia, London Review of Books, posted to web 09 October 2008 (23 Oct 2008 issue).
  (A survey of recent economic developments.)
  
  Rating Companies Put Profits First, Critics Testify, Bloomberg.com, 22 October 2008.
  (A more accurate title for this article is: Rating Companies' CEOs Testify Before Congress.)
  
  In the "Very Responsible For This Current Mess" Department..., The Bonddad Blog, 22 October 2008.
  
  ** S&P: We Knew Nothing! Nothing!, The Big Picture, 22 October 2008.
  Ratings agencies: 'Kool-Aid drinking' lapdogs, The Big Picture, 23 October 2008.
  
  As everyone now knows, for several years prominant economists, financiers, politicians, and so on, warned about exactly the problems that the rating companies ignored. See, for example:
  Nicholas Graham, Economic Honor Roll, The Huffington Post, 12 October 2008.
  Graham names some of those who foresaw the U.S.'s emerging economic difficulties, with dated quotes and video; includes Nouriel Roubini; Warren Buffett; Nassim Nicholas Taleb; Byron Dorgan; Joseph Stiglitz; Paul Krugman. The article above from The Big Picture and its comments name many more. See also:
  
  ** Andrew Lahde, Good-bye Letter, Financial Times, 17 October 2008.
  
  Some expect more disruptions. Warning: The essays by Denninger very confidently and convincingly argue that very bad things are about to happen. Nevertheless, the sun will come up tomorrow, and some countries have no government debt and a well regulated financial industry that will not collapse regardless of what happens in the United States (the exemplar country I have in mind is Australia).
  
  Karl Denninger, The Stark Choice Now Facing America, The Market Ticker, 22 October 2008. Comments.
  
  Karl Denninger, Fiscal Cat 5 Hurricane Warning, The Market Ticker, 22 October 2008. Comments.
  
  Kim Asger Olsen, Pay-up time for Lehman swaps, Asia Times, 22 October 2008.
  But then, suddenly, nothing happened:
  Mary Williams Walsh, Tracking Firm Says Bets Placed on Lehman Have Been Quietly Settled, The New York Times, 22 October 2008.
  
  Regarding the present condition and future of the banking industry, a study by IBM finds top- and mid-level bankers clueless and directionless:
  
  David Weidner, The problem with banks is even bigger than you think; Beyond write-downs; The world's banking system shows some disturbing trends, MarketWatch.com, 23 October 2008.
  
  Small consolation:
  
  Michael M. Grynbaum, Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation, The New York Times, 23 October 2008.
  
  Meanwhile, down in the political gutter, some right-wingers are deliberately divisively promoting a racist interpretation of sub-prime mortgage market problems, as if the abundant and various well documented reports of financial industry greed during the last decade did not exist. Here is one refutation of the racists:
  Barry Ritholtz, Private Sector Loan Losses vs Fannie/Freddie, The Big Picture, 23 October 2008.
  


• Andy Worthington, Guantánamo's bleak farce, The Guardian, 21 October 2008.
  ("After dropping war crimes charges against five prisoners today, the US's use of military commissions is unraveling.")


• Stacy Sullivan, Confessions of a former Guantánamo prosecutor, Salon.com, 23 October 2008.


• Rami G. Khouri, Will Iraq finally end the colonial era?, The Daily Star (Lebanon), 22 October 2008.
  ("The wider issue at stake beyond American soldiers in Iraq is the effective end of the colonial era mentality that put Western troops and officials above the law, and kept indigenous Arab and Iranian national interests subservient to the greater colonial dictates of powers like England, France and, today, the United States. ")


• Daniel Luban, Is the Sun Setting on US Empire?, AntiWar.com, 23 October 2008.
  (This essay summarizes and reviews Andrew Bacevich's recent book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Metropolitan Books, August 2008: publisher; Amazon.com.)


• Glenn Greenwald, What is happening to GOP electoral tactics?, Salon.com, 22 October 2008.


• Glenn Greenwald, Bipartisanship and threats of war toward Iran, Salon.com, 23 October 2008.


• Gareth Porter, Final Text of Iraq Pact Reveals a US Debacle, AntiWar.com, 23 October 2008.


• Robert Draper, The Making (and Remaking) of McCain, The New York Times Magazine, 26 October 2008.


• Jane Mayer, How John McCain came to pick Sarah Palin, The New Yorker, 27 October 2008.
  (Mayer is the author of the book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, Doubleday, July 2008: publisher, Amazon.com. The book is a Finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, Nonfiction. Listen to Mayer interviewed by Terri Gross, Fresh Air, 15 July 2008 and 24 October 2008.)


• A. Craig Copetas, 'Out of Control' Wall Street Chiefs Spurned Warnings at Davos, Bloomberg.com, 24 October 2008.


• Jeff Stein, Beirut Bombings: Intelligence Warning Sat in Pipeline, CQ Politics, 21 October 2008.