Links: Political Economy

• Gretchen Morgenson, Too Big to Fail, or Too Big to Handle?, The New York Times, 20 June 2009.
  
  Dean Starkman, The Most Important Financial Journalist of Her Generation (i.e., Gretchen Morgenson), The Nation, 17 June 2009.


• Devin Leonard, Treasury’s Got Bill Gross on Speed Dial, The New York Times, 20 June 2009.


• Olivier Blanchard, What is needed for a lasting recovery, The Financial Times, FT.com, 18 June 2009.
  
  via: naked capitalism.
  Note that Olivier Blanchard is chief economist of the IMF.


• Dean Baker, Health Care Protectionists Cannot Even Envision Trade, Beat the Press / The American Prospect, 20 June 2009.


• Michael Hudson, Obama's (Latest) Surrender to Wall Street: How the Financial Reform Plan Protects the Status Quo, CounterPunch.org, 22 June 2009.


• * Chris Hedges, The American Empire Is Bankrupt, TruthDig.com, 14 June 2009.
  
  Hedges refers to two articles, one by Michael Hudson and the other by John Lanchester. They are:
  
  Michael Hudson, Washington is unable to call all the shots, Financial Times, 15 June 2009.
  (Hedges calls Hudson's article "The Yekaterinburg Turning Point: De-Dollarization and the Ending of America’s Financial-Military Hegemony.")
  
  John Lanchester, It’s Finished, London Review of Books, 28 May 2009.


• Paul Krugman, Health Care Showdown, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 22 June 2009.


• Andrew E. Kramer, Russia Facing Long Recession, World Bank Says, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 24 June 2009.


• Vineet Nayar, The Employability Crisis is a Global Crisis, Bloomberg.com, 24 June 2009.
  
  A good example of globalist thinking; illustrates the challenges American workers face, especially wage variation due to international factors. Also, note the author's explicitly stated functions of the "education system."
  
  Rob Preston, Top Indian CEO: Most American Grads Are ‘Unemployable’, Global CIO Blog, InformationWeek, informationweek.com, 03 June 2009.


• William Pesek, Soros Goes Long as World Bank Shorts Recovery, Bloomberg.com, 26 June 2009.


• Louis Uchitelle, Despite Recession, Demand for Skilled Labor Is High, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 23 June 2009.


• Scott Thill, Will the 'Dollar Wars' Kill What's Left of the American Dream?, AlterNet.org, 26 June 2009.


• James Kwak, The McAllen Problem, The Baseline Scenario, 21 June 2009.


• Jeff Gerth and Brady Dennis, How a Loophole Benefits GE in Bank Rescue: Industrial Giant Becomes Top Recipient in Debt-Guarantee Program, The Washington Post, 29 June 2009.
  
  via: Jesse, Government Bails Out General Electric , Jesse's Café Américain, 29 June 2009.


• Richard Teitelbaum and Hugh Son, Unwinding at AIG Prompts Pasciucco to Ponder Systemic Failure, Bloomberg.com, 01 July 2009.


• David Rosenberg (and Hale "Bondad" Stewart), Just "Shoot" Me, [Invictus (?) 29 June 2009], The Bonddad Blog, 02 July 2009.
  
  Hale "Bonddad" Stewart, Don't Expect a Consumer-Led Recovery, The Huffington Post, 16 June 2009.


• Matt Taibbi, The Great American Bubble Machine, Rolling Stone, 02 July 2009.
  "Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression."
  
  Matt Taibbi, On giving Goldman a chance, Taibblog, True / Slant, TrueSlant.com, 30 June 2009.
  
  Barry Ritholtz, Gasparino vs Taibbi, The Big Picture, 06 August 2009.
  
  Simon Johnson, How To Blow A Bubble, The Baseline Scenario, 07 August 2009.


• David Brooks, Chinese Fireworks Display, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 02 July 2009.
  
  On Niall Ferguson's description of the China-US relationship, "Chimerica," and James Fallows more moderate view, at the Aspen Ideas Festival [video link].


• Guy Dinmore, Pope condemns capitalism’s ‘failures’, The Financial Times, FT.com, 07 July 2009.


• Paul Solman, For Ex-Cons and Laid-off Execs Alike, Dim Job Hopes, PBS Newshour, 08 July 2009.
  
  Some of the more bizzare and sad things I have ever seen: unemployed middle-aged ex-middle-managers talking in business jargon; ex-convicts being coached in job seeking.


• Michael Lewis, The Man Who Crashed the World, Vanity Fair, vanityfair.com, August 2009.
  
  On Joseph Cassano, former head of A.I.G.’s Financial Products unit.


• Bob Herbert, The Human Equation, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 10 July 2009.


• Joe Weisenthal, Shanghai Redefines Subprime Construction: Building Just Falls Over, Clusterstock, 29 June 2009.


• * Robert H. Frank, The Invisible Hand, Trumped by Darwin?, The New York Times, 11 July 2009.
  
  via: Mark Thoma, Trumped by Darwin?, Economist's View, 11 July 2009.


• * Paul Krugman, What Economists Can Learn from Evolutionary Theorists, A talk given to the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy, [date unknown by me].
  
  via: Mark Thoma, What Economists Can Learn from Evolutionary Theorists, Economist's View, 29 November 2006.


• Barry Ritholtz, Holding Securitizers Liable for Dubious Loans, The Big Picture, 12 July 2009.


• Unemployment and GDP, Calculated Risk, 11 July 2009.


• Second Stimulus Debate: Geithner vs. Krugman and Delong, Calculated Risk, 12 July 2009.


• Jesse, The China Bubble and the Convergence of Oligarchies, Jesse's Café Américain, 10 July 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, The events preceding Goldman Sachs' new "blowout profits", Salon.com, 13 July 2009.


• * Conn Hallinan, Blood and Oil in Central Asia, Foreign Policy In Focus, 15 July 2009.


• Binyamin Appelbaum, Bailout Overseer Says Banks Misused TARP Funds, The Washington Post, 20 July 2009.


• * Simon Johnson and John Talbott, Who caused the economic crisis?, Salon.com, 22 July 2009.
  
  Simon Johnson and John Talbott, "I would shut down the hedge fund industry", Salon.com, 23 July 2009.
  
  Simon Johnson and John Talbott, Fix the economy? Curb corporate America, Salon.com, 24 July 2009.


• * Robert L. Borosage, The Debtor's Dance: the U.S.-China Exchange, The Huffington Post, 29 July 2009.


• * Michael Lind, Can Obama be deprogrammed?: The president is a prisoner of the cult of neoliberalism, Salon.com, 04 August 2009.


• * Jesse, US Consumer Demand Off a Cliff as the Crisis Deepens, Jesse's Café Américain, 06 August 2009.
  
  Includes charts that illustrate & justify the assertion that the current recession is different. In light of this, the following seems particularly notable:
  
  Tim Iacono, Consumer credit contracts sharply, The Mess That Greenspan Made, 07 August 2009.


• Bianco Research, The Credit Crisis: The Largest Outlay In American History, The Big Picture, 07 August 2009.

James Bamford, A Pretext for War (2005)

James Bamford.
A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies, with a new Afterword.
New York: Anchor, May 2005 (first published by Doubleday, June 2004).

Book information: publisher; Wikipedia; Google Books; Amazon.com.

James Fallows on China

James Fallows.
Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China.
New York: Vintage, December 2008.

Book information: publisher, Amazon.com.

James Fallows, Wikipedia.

James Fallows' blog and article archive at The Atlantic.

The book is a collection of essays previously published in The Atlantic. Most of the essays are available online. Collecting them in book form results in an introduction/survey of contemporary China. The essays are:

• Postcards From Tomorrow Square, December 2006


• Mr. Zhang Builds His Dream Town, March 2007


• Win in China!, April 2007


• China Makes, The World Takes, July/August 2007


• Macau’s Big Gamble, September 2007


• The View from There, November 2007


• The $1.4 Trillion Question, January/February 2008


• “The Connection Has Been Reset”, March 2008


• China’s Silver Lining, June 2008


• How the West Was Wired, October 2008


• After the Earthquake
  (This essay did not appear in The Atlantic and is not on their website. It gives a brief account of the aftermath of the May 12, 2008 Sichuan earthquake in four Sichuan villages a month or two after the event.)


• Their Own Worst Enemy, November 2008

Some other publications by Fallows on China and East Asia:

• Looking at the Sun: The Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political System, Pantheon, 1994; Vintage, 1995.
  (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com)


• “Be Nice to the Countries That Lend You Money”, The Atlantic, December 2008.


• Musical Chairs, The Atlantic, March 2009.


• China's Way Forward, The Atlantic, April 2009.

Political Economy:

• David Leonhardt, The China Puzzle, The New York Times, 13 May 2009.


• Julian Delasantellis, Oh, impotent Washington, Asia Times, 14 May 2009.
  
  "The saddest part of the ultimately degrading spectacle of the now totally discredited US bank stress tests is how they indicate the impotence of the US government when it comes to addressing national problems which necessitate a sacrifice by well-heeled interest groups."


• * Sahm Adrangi, Will The Dollar Standard Collapse?, Clusterstock at The Business Insider, 18 May 2009.
  
  This is a discussion of the unusually prescient book: Richard Duncan, The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures, revised edition, Wiley, 2005 (publisher, Google Book Search, Amazon.com).


• Tim Rayment, Joseph Cassano: the man with the trillion-dollar price on his head, The Sunday Times, 17 May 2009.
  
  On AIG.


• Leo Kolivakis, Is Inflation Inevitable?, Pension Pulse, 11 May 2009.


• Christian Broda, Piero Ghezzi, Eduardo Levy-Yeyati. The new global balance: Financial de-globalisation, savings drain, and the US dollar, VoxEU.org, 22 May 2009.


• Bill Bradley, Niall Ferguson, Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini, George Soros, Robin Wells, et al. The Crisis and How to Deal with It, The New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 10, 11 June 2009.


• Barry Eichengreen & Richard Baldwin, editors. Rescuing our jobs and savings: What G7/8 leaders can do to solve the global credit crisis, VoxEU.org, October 2008.


• Edward Harrison, Guest post: More thoughts on the fake recovery, naked capitalism, 23 May 2009.
  
  Edward Harrison, It’s the writedowns, stupid, Credit Writedowns, 19 March 2009.


• ** Chalmers Johnson, Why the U.S. Has Really Gone Broke, Jesse's Café Américain, 28 April 2009.


• Mark Gilbert, Dollar Is Dirt, Treasuries Are Toast, AAA Is Gone, Bloomberg.com, 21 May 2009.


• Javier Blas, Africa almost giving land away, says UN, FT.com, 24 May 2009.
  
  Javier Blas, Food security fuels land grab, says report, FT.com, 24 May 2009.


• Jamil Anderlini, China stuck in ‘dollar trap’, FT.com, 24 May 2009.


• Keith Bradsher, China Grows More Picky About Debt, The New York Times, 20 May 2009.


• Satyajit Das, Fear & Loathing in Financial Products: The Finance-Government Complex & The End of U.S. Economic Dominance, Wilmott.com, 26 May 2009.
  
  Echos the observations of: Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, The Atlantic, May 2009.


• Benjamin M. Friedman, The Failure of the Economy & the Economists, The New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 9, 28 May 2009.


• Andy Kroll, Six Ways the Financial Bailout Scams Taxpayers, TomDispatch, 26 May 2009.
  
  "The Greatest Swindle Ever Sold: How the Financial Bailout Scams Taxpayers, Subsidizes Wall Street, and Props Up Our Broken Financial System"
  
  Also published at AlterNet.org


• * Gretchen Morgenson & Don Van Natta Jr, In Crisis, Banks Dig In for Fight Against Rules, The New York Times, 31 May 2009.


• * Atul Gawande, The Cost Conundrum: What a Texas town can teach us about health care, The New Yorker, 01 June 2009.
  
  Reviews of this important essay by: James Kwak / The Baseline Scenario; Andrew Leonard / How the World Works / Salon.com.


• Joe Nocera, Poking Holes in a Theory on Markets, The New York Times, 05 June 2009.


• Elizabeth Warren, Unsafe at Any Rate: If it's good enough for microwaves, it's good enough for mortgages. Why we need a Financial Product Safety Commission., Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Issue #5, Summer 2007.
  
  via: Jane Bryant Quinn, Loan-Shark Lenders Have Date With Hangman, Bloomberg.com, 03 June 2009.


• Sandy B. Lewis & William D. Cohan, The Economy Is Still at the Brink, The New York Times, 06 June 2009.
  
  Comments on this article: Yves Smith, The Team Obama Con Game Gets Official Notice, naked capitalism, 07 June 2009.


• ** Joseph E. Stiglitz, Wall Street and the Third World, VanityFair.com, July 2009.
  
  "Every crisis comes to an end—and, bleak as things seem now, the current economic crisis too shall pass. But no crisis, especially one of this severity, recedes without leaving a legacy. And among this one’s legacies will be a worldwide battle over ideas—over what kind of economic system is likely to deliver the greatest benefit to the most people. Nowhere is that battle raging more hotly than in the Third World, among the 80 percent of the world’s population that lives in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, 1.4 billion of whom subsist on less than $1.25 a day. In America, calling someone a socialist may be nothing more than a cheap shot. In much of the world, however, the battle between capitalism and socialism—or at least something that many Americans would label as socialism—still rages. While there may be no winners in the current economic crisis, there are losers, and among the big losers is support for American-style capitalism. This has consequences we’ll be living with for a long time to come."


• Robert Reich, The Great Debt Scare: Why Has It Returned?, Robert Reich's Blog, 10 June 2009.


• Simon Johnson, China Pushes Hard, The Baseline Scenario, 01 June 2009.
  
  Simon Johnson, Mr. Geithner Goes to China, The Baseline Scenario, 30 May 2009.


• James Kwak, Regulatory Capital Arbitrage for Beginners, The Baseline Scenario, 30 May 2009.


• Charles Hugh Smith, Why the Present Depression Will Be Deeper than the Great Crash of 1929, of two minds, 04 June 2009.


• Simon Johnson, Brazen Tunneling and Inflation, The Baseline Scenario, 28 May 2009.

Geopolitics:

• Pepe Escobar, Blue Gold, Turkmen Bashes, and Asian Grids: Pipelineistan in Conflict (Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: Pepe Escobar, Pipelineistan Goes Af-Pak), TomDispatch, TomDispatch.com, 12 May 2009.


• John Taylor, Exploding debt threatens America, FT.com, 27 May 2009.


• Mark Danner & Bruce Fein, Democracy and Empire, Bill Moyers' Jorunal, 01 May 2009.
  
  The above is a supplement to:
  
  Mark Danner & Bruce Fein, Bill Moyers' Jorunal, 01 May 2009.


• David Pilling, The truth of the US’ Pakistan clinch, FT.com, 10 June 2009.


• Gary Leupp, The Main Result of the "War on Terror": The Destabilization of Pakistan, CounterPunch.org, 29 May 2009.

The U.S. Police / Security / Surveilance State:

• Naomi Klein, China's All-Seeing Eye, Rolling Stone, 29 May 2008.
  
  "With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export."
  
  Tim Dickinson, Under Surveillance: Q&A With Naomi Klein, Rolling Stone, 29 May 2008.
  
  China's All-Seeing Eye: A Nation Under Surveillance : Photos, Rolling Stone.


• Glenn Greenwald, Defeat of Graham-Lieberman and the ongoing war on transparency, Salon.com, 09 June 2009.


• ** Glenn Greenwald, The Illegal Spying Game, played over and over, Salon.com, 18 June 2009.
  
  James Risen & Eric Lichtblau, E-Mail Surveillance Renews Concerns in Congress, The New York Times, 16 June 2009.

Militarism:

• Robert Draper, And He Shall Be Judged, GQ, men.style.com, June 2009.
  
  On Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon's Bible-quoting intelligence reports.


• Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Afghanistan/Pakistan: Where Empires Go to Die, truthout, 15 May 2009.


• * Chris Hedges, The Disease of Permanent War, truthout, 18 May 2009.


• Howard Zinn, Changing Obama's Military Mindset, The Progressive, May 2009.
  
  "Obama once said, 'It's not enough to get out of Iraq; we have to get out of the mindset that led us into Iraq.' What happened to that Obama?"
  
  Also published at AlterNet.org and CommonDreams.org.


• Norman Solomon, The March of Folly, Continued, CommonDreams.org, 21 May 2009.


• Carol E. Lee, Barack Obama pledges to keep U.S. 'dominance', Politico.com, 22 May 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, Hailing the leader as a War President and the powers that go with it, Salon.com, 21 May 2009.
  
  "Does America have any other kind of President besides War Presidents?"


• Jeremy Scahill, Obama Has 250,000 'Contractors' Deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and is Increasing the Use of Mercenaries, AlterNet.org, 01 June 2009.
  
  Jeremy Scahill on Today's War, Bill Moyers' Journal, 05 June 2009.


• Michael M. Phillips, Army Deploys Old Tactic in PR War, WSJ.com, 01 June 2009.

Torture:

• Juan Cole, The hidden hand of Dick Cheney, Salon.com, 13 May 2009.


• Dan Balz, As Cheney Seizes Spotlight, Many Republicans Wince, The Washington Post, 14 May 2009.


• Marcy Wheeler, The 13 people who made torture possible, Salon.com, 18 May 2009.


• Jonathan S. Landay & Warren P. Strobel, Cheney's speech ignored some inconvenient truths, McClatchy Newspapers, 21 May 2009.


• Joe Conason, Another round for democracy, Salon.com, 22 May 2009.


• Ben Armbruster, Liz Cheney Reveals That Fear Of Prosecution Motivates Dad’s Media Blitz Defending Torture, Think Progress, 22 May 2009.


• Robert Parry, New York Times Helps the Bushies, Again, The Smirking Chimp, 22 May 2009.


• Alfred W. McCoy, Confronting the CIA's Mind Maze: America's Political Paralysis Over Torture, TomDispatch.com, 07 June 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, How civilized, law-abiding countries imprison terrorists, Salon.com, 10 June 2009.

Sociology, Culture, etc.:

• * William Astore, Selling Education, Manufacturing Technocrats, Torturing Souls: The Tyranny of Being Practical (Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: William Astore, Educating Ourselves to Oblivion), TomDispatch, 28 May 2009.


• Rick Shenkman, How Ignorant Are We?: The Voters Choose ... but on the Basis of What?, TomDispatch, 01 July 2008.
  
  Shenkman is the author most recently of: Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter, New York: Basic Books, 2008.
  (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)


• Patchwork Nation: American communities in a time of change, The Christian Science Monitor.


• Martin Felando, Introduction to The 5 Moments, The 5 Moments, June 2009.
  
  Describes the structure of movie/film screenplays.

Science:

• Jonah Lehrer, Don’t!: The secret of self-control, The New Yorker, 18 May 2009.


• Peter Aldhous, Humans prefer cockiness to expertise, New Scientist, 10 June 2009.

Propaganda:

• Dean Baker, Reporters With Pom-Poms: Cheerleading the Recovery, CounterPunch, 03 June 2009.


• Modern Media Madness: Brooke Gladstone and Jay Rosen on the hype and the headlines, Bill Moyers Journal, 05 June 2009.


• Michael M. Phillips, Army Deploys Old Tactic in PR War, WSJ.com, 01 June 2009.


• NYT's Pentagon Propaganda: Misleading report on Guantánamo and terrorism, FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy in Media, 27 May 2009.


• James Fallows, More on Obama and "educational" rhetoric, James Fallows' blog at TheAtlantic.com, 17 June 2009.


• * Glenn Greenwald, The Washington Post fires its best columnist. Why?, Salon.com, 18 June 2009.
  
  ** Glenn Greenwald, The Washington Post, Dan Froomkin and the establishment media, Salon.com, 19 June 2009.

U.S. Politics & Government:

• James Ridgeway, A Brief History of the Radical, Violent Right: How Racist Hate Groups Joined Up with Abortion Terrorists, AlterNet, 06 June 2009.


• Willem Buiter, The browning of America, FT.com, 30 May 2009.
  
  In this article "browning" means something like "decreasing Green" where "Green" refers to Environmentalism, public policy that controls human impact on the Earth.


• American Dissenters, Bill Moyers Journal, 12 June 2009.
  
  Celebrating Thomas Paine, Bill Moyers Journal, 12 June 2009.
  
  Thomas Paine, Wikipedia.


• Glenn Greenwald, House Democrats prioritize loyalty to the president over their own judgment, Salon.com, 17 June 2009.
  
  "A primary criticism of the GOP Congress was excessive loyalty to the president. Has that changed in the Obama era?"

Astronomy

William Castleman, "Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party."

via: Ethan Siegel, Wide-Angle Lenses and Astronomy, Starts With A Bang!, 29 May 2009.

The Global Economic Crisis

Harry Kreisler's series Conversations with History recently assembled a thematic group of Conversations on "The Global Economic Crisis." (The list below may include more Conversations than were in that group.)

• Niall Ferguson: The Ascent of Money, 22 October 2008.
  
  Publications mentioned in this Conversation:
  • Niall Ferguson. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. The Penguin Press, November 2008.
    (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)
  
  
  • Niall Ferguson. The Cash Nexus: Economics And Politics From The Age Of Warfare Through The Age Of Welfare, 1700-2000. New York: Basic Books, 2002.
    (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)



• Barry Eichengreen: Historical Perspective on the Global Economic Crisis, 22 January 2009.
  
  Publications mentioned in this Conversation:
  • Barry Eichengreen & Richard Baldwin, editors. Rescuing our jobs and savings: What G7/8 leaders can do to solve the global credit crisis, VoxEU.org, October 2008.
  
  
  • Barry Eichengreen. The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond. Princeton University Press, 2006, 2008.
    (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)
  
  
  • Barry Eichengreen. Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System, second edition. Princeton University Press, 2008.
    (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)



• David M. Kennedy: Lessons from FDR's New Deal, 03 February 2009.
  
  Publications mentioned in this Conversation:
  • David M. Kennedy. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. Oxford University Press, 2001.
    (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)
  
  
  • David M. Kennedy. Over Here: The First World War and American Society. Oxford University Press, 1980, 2004.
    (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)
  
  
  • David M. Kennedy. Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger. Yale University Press, 1970; ACLS Humanities reprint & e-book, 2008.
    (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)
  
  
  • James M. McPherson. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford University Press, 1988.
    (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)



• Martin Wolf: Causes and Consequences of Global Economic Collapse, 19 February 2009.
  
  Publications mentioned in this Conversation:
  • Martin Wolf. Fixing Global Finance. The Johns Hopkins University Press, September 2008.
    (publisher; Amazon.com.)
  
  
  • Martin Wolf. Why Globalization Works, second edition. Yale University Press, 2005.
    (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)
  
  
  • Martin Wolf at the Financial Times.



• James A. Leach: Congress, Globalization, and the Economic Crisis, 17 March 2009.

In contrast to the above episodes on Economics, I found greater personal interest & inspiration in Harry's recent Conversations with scientists:
Lucy Shapiro;
John Harte;
Neil Shubin;
Amory Lovins.

Political Economy:

• John Bogle, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 28 September 2007.
  (John Bogle "is the founder and retired CEO of The Vanguard Group." [Wikipedia])


• * Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler, Countours of Crisis: Part I, Dollars & Sense (also archived at GlobalResearch.ca), 31 December 2008.
  
  Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler, Countours of Crisis: Part II, Dollars & Sense (also archived at GlobalResearch.ca), 28 April 2009.


• Milestones in the Carmakers’ Crisis: Major events in the automakers' decline and rescue efforts, The New York Times, 16 February 2009.
  Points to NYT articles from July 2008 through April 2009.


• Yalman Onaran, Colleges Flunk Economics Test as Harvard Model Destroys Budgets, Bloomberg.com, 01 May 2009.


• Dwight Cass & Edward Hadas, Banks Are Prevailing in a Tug of War, The New York Times and BreakingViews.com, 03 May 2009.


• Allan H. Meltzer, Inflation Nation, The New York Times, 03 May 2009.
  
  Paul Krugman, A history lesson for Alan Meltzer, Krugman's blog at The New York Times, 04 May 2009.


• Devin Leonard, How Lehman Got Its Real Estate Fix, The New York Times, 03 May 2009.


• Robert Kuttner, Reviving Pecora's Ghost, The Huffington Post, 03 May 2009.
  
  Pecora Part II?, Bill Moyers' Journal, 24 April 2009.
  
  Heist!
  (When I saw this website it had a 15 minute trailer for the film, in addition to links to the interviewees publications and other information.)


• Dean Baker, Outsourcing Top Management: The Lesson of Fiat-Chrysler, The Huffington Post, 04 May 2009.


• Matthew Richardson & Nouriel Roubini, We Can't Subsidize the Banks Forever, WSJ.com, 05 May 2009.


• Greg Mitchell, How Media Will Pay for Poor Warning on Financial Collapse, The Huffington Post, 05 May 2009.
  
  * Robert L. Borosage, Corruption Is Dangerous to Your Health, The Huffington Post, 05 May 2009.
  
  Michael J. Moore & Jamie McGee, Wall Street Firms Will Revert to Pre-Crisis Model, Cohen Says, Bloomberg.com, 05 May 2009.


• RandySF, Mark Penn: Obama Might Offend the Wealthy, Daily Kos, DailyKos.com, 05 May 2009.


• Shiyin Chen & Liza Lin, Global Crisis ‘Vastly Worse’ Than 1930s, Taleb Says, Bloomberg.com, 07 May 2009.


• William Greider, The Good Times as We Knew it Aren't Coming Back, So Now What?, AlterNet.org, 08 May 2009.


• Martin Wolf, Why Obama’s conservatism may not prove good enough, FT.com, 12 May 2009.


• * Nouriel Roubini, The Almighty Renminbi?, The New York Times, 13 May 2009.


• Dean Starkman, Power Problem: The business press did everything but take on the institutions that brought down the financial system, Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 2009.


• Tyler Durden, CT Attorney General: "It's Time To Shatter The Old Boys Club Of Rating Agencies", Zero Hedge, 14 May 2009.


• * Tyler Durden, Mark Patterson: "It's A Sham. The Banks Are Insolvent", Zero Hedge, 14 May 2009.


• Anthony Faiola & Lori Montgomery, Trade Wars Launched With Ruses, End Runs, The Washington Post, 15 May 2009.


• Ryan Chittum, So That’s Why the Press Won’t Cover Elizabeth Warren!: NPR badgers oversight panel chair over her legitimacy, The Audit, Columbia Journalism Review, 15 May 2009.
  
  Jason Linkins, "Planet Money" Reporter Paints Elizabeth Warren As Agenda-Driven, The Huffington Post, 15 May 2009.
  
  Yves Smith, Thought Police I: More Analysis of NPR Trying to Discredit Elizabeth Warren, naked capitalism, 15 May 2009.
  
  Yves Smith, Thought Police II: Media Airbrushing (Including Removal of Article With Negative Comments on TARP), naked capitalism, 15 May 2009.


• Special Feature: Inside The Banking Crisis, Bill Moyers' Journal.
  
  This page assembles episodes and segments related to U.S. economic news over the last few years.


• Josh Harkinson, How the Nation’s Only State-Owned Bank Became the Envy of Wall Street, Mother Jones Blog, 27 March 2009.


• * Edward Harrison, Guest post: A populist interpretation of the latest Boom-Bust cycle, naked capitalism, 15 May 2009.
  


• * Jesse, The Worst Is Yet to Come, Jesse's Café Américain, 15 May 2009.
  
  "Today reminds me of the briefly sunny period in 1930-1 when most economists and public officials agreed that the Depression was already over and the economy was back on track."

Geopolitics:

• Richard Spencer, China's growth more Occident than design, Telegraph.co.uk, 09 April 2009.


• Pepe Escobar, The myth of Talibanistan, Asia Times, 30 April 2009.
  
  "The Taliban's activities in Buner in Pakistan - which prompted a sharp response from the military - have raised concern over the country to the level of hysteria; that it is about to fall to an army of turbans. This is not going to happen. What is happening is that the United States, to legitimize the next stage in the Af-Pak war, is creating a new uber-bogeyman - Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud."
  
  Shahan Mufti & Juan Cole, Bill Moyers' Journal, 15 May 2009.
  
  Jalal Ghazi, America Creating 'Talibanization' in Pakistan, Say Arab Media, New America Media, 15 May 2009.


• Jeremy Scahill, US Soldiers in Afghanistan Told to "Hunt People for Jesus... So We Get Them into the Kingdom" (Video), The Huffington Post, 04 May 2009.
  
  Jeff Sharlet, Jesus Killed Mohammed: The Crusade for a Christian Military, Harper's Magazine, May 2009.
  
  Neela Banerjee, Religion and Its Role Are in Dispute at the Service Academies, The New York Times, 25 June 2008.


• Michael Scheuer, Obama’s Afghan-Ignorant Policy Guide, AntiWar.com, 06 May 2009.


• Malcolm Gladwell, How David Beats Goliath, The New Yorker, 11 May 2009.

Geography:

• The Hot Spots for Organic Food [Farms, actually], The New York Times, 02 May 2009.
  Some interesting maps associated with the article.

Militarism, Propaganda, Torture:

• Rachel Weiner, Mike Pence Descends Into Gibberish After Evolution Questions From Chris Matthews (VIDEO), The Huffington Post, 05 May 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, Obama administration threatens Britain to keep torture evidence concealed, Salon.com, 12 May 2009.


• * Siv O'Neall, Will Democracy Forever Remain an Illusion?, Axis of Logic, 12 May 2009.
  Also posted at The Smirking Chimp.


• Rory O'Connor, Why Is the Mainstream Media Seduced by Torture?, AlterNet, 13 May 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, The massive expansion of America's "Hard Left", Salon.com, 13 May 2009.


• Jennifer Steinhauer, Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More, The New York Times, 13 May 2009.
  
  For a good introduction to U.S. militarism see: Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, Oxford University Press, August 2006 (publisher; Amazon.com; "Conversations with History").


• Joe Conason, We tortured to justify war, Salon.com, 14 May 2009.


• Alex Koppelman, Cheney's torture trap for Democrats, Salon.com, 15 May 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, We wouldn't want to inflame anti-American sentiment, Salon.com, 14 May 2009.

Essays, etc.:

• Edward Harrison, How big banks earned so much money this quarter, naked capitalism, 22 April 2009.


• David Fiderer, IMF Numbers Show a Great Economic Hole That Will Frame Partisan Debate, The Huffington Post, 22 April 2009.


• Matt McGrath, World's major rivers 'drying up', BBC News, 22 April 2009.
  
  Clare Davidson, Why water, oil and coal do mix, BBC News, 09 February 2009.
  Explains how water is necessary for electric power generation. Has links to many other articles on water resources; see particularly: Mapping future water stress.
  
  Andrea Ball, Despite recent rain, drought persists: Normal rainfall in 2009 still not enough to fix dry soil, low lakes, stressed plants., Austin American - Statesman, 25 April 2009.


• Mark Schneider, Guatemala: the next to fall?, GlobalPost, 16 April 2009.
  Another instance where poverty plus low social investment (schools, health care, etc) plus drug prohibition results in violence and corruption.


• Glenn Greenwald, Meet the Press and the media's distortions of the prosecutions debate, Salon.com, 20 April 2009.
  
  Glenn Greenwald, The Pulitzer-winning investigation that dare not be uttered on TV, Salon.com, 21 April 2009.
  [Television networks employ and prominantly feature Pentagon propagandists.]
  
  Glenn Greenwald, Jane Harman: Angry, partisan, civil liberties extremist, Salon.com, 21 April 2009.
  
  * Glenn Greenwald, Three key rules of media behavior shape their discussions of "the 'torture' debate", Salon.com, 23 April 2009.


• * James Kwak, The Missed Opportunity, The Baseline Scenario, 22 April 2009.
  The comments here are quite good.
  
  via: Andrew Leonard, Why do the banks think they can push Detroit around?, How the World Works, Salon.com, 22 April 2009.


• James V. DeLong, The Coming of the Fourth American Republic, The American (an AEI publication), 21 April 2009.


• Lewis testified that U.S. urged silence on Merrill deal, Reuters, 23 April 2009.


• Eamonn Fingleton, How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years, CounterPunch.org, 23 April 2009.
  
  Meanwhile, Fortune magazine says "The case began with his flabbergasting confession, which set off the investigation."
  James Bandler & Nicholas Varchaver, How Bernie did it, Fortune, 24 April 2009.
  
  Harry Markopolos, Wikipedia.


• Allison Kilkenny, Noonology, The Smirking Chimp, 24 April 2009.
  
  On torture apologist Peggy Noonan ("Some things in life need to be mysterious") and similar thinkers. Russ Feingold speaks for many. A recent Noonan column (24 Apr 2009).
  
  Paul Krugman, Reclaiming America’s Soul, The New York Times, 24 April 2009.


• The Hearing - An Economic Policy Discussion Moderated by Simon Johnson and James Kwak (of The Baseline Scenario), The Washington Post, initiated April 2009.


• Jeremy Scahill, Are Leading Democrats Afraid of a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture?: Congress was Briefed in Real Time on Bush-Era Torture Tactics. Is That Why They Prefer Whitewash Commissions and Closed Door Hearings?, CounterPunch.org, 24 April 2009.


• Frank Rich, The Banality of Bush White House Evil, The New York Times, 26 April 2009.


• Tom Jacobs, Conservatives Live in a Different Moral Universe -- And Here's Why It Matters, AlterNet.org, 25 April 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, Democratic complicity and what "politicizing justice" really means, Salon.com, 24 April 2009.
  
  Glenn Greenwald, David Broder and media culpability for Bush crimes, Salon.com, 26 April 2009.
  
  * Glenn Greenwald, Top Senate Democrat: bankers "own" the U.S. Congress, Salon.com, 30 April 2009.


• Andrew J. Bacevich, Farewell, the American Century: Rewriting the Past by Adding In What's Been Left Out (Tom Englehart, Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, Whose Century Was That?), TomDispatch, TomDispatch.com, 28 April 2009.
  
  This essay also appears at Salon.com with video of Bacevich.


• Daniel B. Wood, The Crisis Hasn't Hit Everywhere: 10 States Weathering the Economic Storm, AlterNet.org, 27 April 2009.
  
  The states are: Alaska, Wyoming, Louisiana, Nebraska, Texas, Iowa, New Mexico, Utah, Oklahoma, South Dakota.
  Not on the East or West coasts; lesser participation in housing boom; natural resources a large fraction of economy; diversified economy [the last two are not necessarially mutually exclusive, though historically in undeveloped states/nations the initial exploitation of natural resources is associated with a lack of economic diversification].


• Karen J. Greenberg, Kiss the Era of Human Rights Goodbye: What Bush Willed to Obama and the World, (Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: Karen Greenberg, Human Rights in the Dust), TomDispatch, TomDispatch.com, 30 April 2009.
  
  Mark Danner, The Red Cross Torture Report: What It Means, The New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 7, 30 April 2009.


• Cenk Uygur, Condi Rice Pulls A Nixon: When the President Does It, That Means It is Not Illegal, The Huffington Post, 30 April 2009.
  Also posted at DailyKos.
  Includes video.

Essays, etc.:

• Linda Scott & Roberto Villalpando, Time lapse of drought conditions in Texas, Austin American-Statesman, updated weekly.


• Edouard Husson, Dollar Hegemony and the Economics of Unilateralism: France and Germany have just missed another opportunity to challenge the dollar standard, AntiWar.com, 10 April 2009.
  
  Michael Hudson, Financing the Empire, CounterPunch.org, 30 March 2009.


• Philip Sherwell, Barack Obama uses Bush funding tactics to finance wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Telegraph.co.uk, 10 April 2009.


• Justin Raimondo, The Suicide of the West: Who killed our economy -- "foreigners," or Washington, Wall Street, and the War Party?, AntiWar.com, 10 April 2009.


• Eric Alterman, The Impressive Hypocrisy of the GOP, The Daily Beast, 09 April 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, New and worse secrecy and immunity claims from the Obama DOJ, Salon.com, 06 April 2009.


• Paul Krugman, Tea Parties Forever, nytimes.com, 12 April 2009.
  
  Rachel Weiner, Krugman: "Republicans Have Become Embarrassing To Watch", The Huffington Post, 13 April 2009.


• Frank Rich, Awake and Sing!, The New York Times, 11 April 2009.


• Keith Bradsher, China Slows Purchases of U.S. and Other Bonds, The New York Times, 12 April 2009.


• Matt Taibbi, The peasant mentality lives on in America, The Smirking Chimp, 14 April 2009.


• Terri Gross, Fighting America's 'Financial Oligarchy', Fresh Air, PBS, 15 April 2009.
  Interview of Simon Johnson of The Baseline Scenario and author of The Quiet Coup, The Atlantic, May 2009.
  
  Martin Wolf, Is America the new Russia?, FT.com, 14 April 2009.
  
  See also:
  
  Dmitry Orlov. Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects. Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada: New Society Publishers, June 2008.
  (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com)


• Glenn Greenwald, The ultimate reaping of what one sows: right-wing edition, Salon.com, 14 April 2009.


• Barry Ritholtz, How to Puff Up Earnings, Goldman Sachs Style, The Big Picture, 14 April 2009.
  
  Barry Ritholtz, Fmr Secy O’Neil: TARP Goal Deceive Public, The Big Picture, 15 April 2009.


• Michael Lind, America is not a Christian nation, Salon.com, 14 April 2009.
  "Religious conservatives argue the Founding Fathers intended the United States to be a Judeo-Christian country. But President Obama is right when he says it isn't."


• Glenn Greenwald, The differing views of the "rule of law" in Spain and the U.S., Salon.com, 14 April 2009.
  
  Glenn Greenwald, The significance of Obama's decision to release the torture memos, Salon.com, 17 April 2009.
  
  Chris Floyd, Tortured Logic: Obama Writes Off Old Crimes While Promoting New Outrages, Empire Burlesque, 16 April 2009.
  
  Michael Hayden & Michael B. Mukasey, The President Ties His Own Hands on Terror, WSJ.com, 17 April 2009.
  Bushies attempt to defend the indefensible.
  
  Scott Shane, Waterboarding Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects, The New York Times, 19 April 2009.
  
  Marcus Baram, Pundits Whitewash Torture, The Huffington Post, 19 April 2009.
  
  Scott Shane & Mark Mazzetti, In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Look at Past Use, The New York Times, 21 April 2009.
  Note: "Harsh Tactics" is the NYT euphemism for Torture.
  
  Senator Carl Levin, New Report: Bush Officials Tried to Shift Blame for Detainee Abuse to Low-Ranking Soldiers, The Huffington Post, 21 April 2009.
  
  Paul Krugman, Grand unified scandal, Paul Krugman Blog, 22 April 2009.


• Drew Westen, The Five Strands of Conservatism: Why the GOP is Unraveling, The Huffington Post, 16 April 2009.


• Martin Feldstein, Inflation is looming on America’s horizon, FT.com, 19 April 2009.


• Nathan Gardels, The Coming Demise of the Dollar Reflects the Rise of the Rest, The Huffington Post, 21 April 2009.
  An interview with Joseph Stiglitz.


• Nelson D. Schwartz, Spain’s Falling Prices Fuel Deflation Fears in Europe, The New York Times, 20 April 2009.


• Paul Krugman, China’s Dollar Trap, The New York Times, 02 April 2009.


• Mark Engler, Neocon Fantasies of Empire Crushed: the New Global Reality, AlterNet.org, 21 April 2009.
  Originally published as Empire Foreclosed?, Foreign Policy in Focus, 17 April 2009.


• Hale "Bonddad" Stewart, If This Is An Improving Economy, We're In Trouble, The Huffington Post, 19 April 2009.
  Antidote to deceptive happy-talk from various government officials.


• naked capitalism : I often find the essays and links at this blog most instructive.


• Link to notable recent IMF reports.

Essays, etc.:

• Matt Taibbi, The Big Takeover, Rolling Stone, 19 March 2009.
  "The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution."
  
  The Dirty Dozen, Rolling Stone, 25 March 2009.
  "Meet the bankers and brokers responsible for the financial crisis - and the officials who let them get away with it."


• Glenn Greenwald, A major difference between conservatives and progressives, Salon.com, 24 March 2009.


• Extreme Ice, NOVA, PBS, 24 March 2009.
  
  About the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets; a major issue is to understand the rate of melting and the increase of that rate. Don't overlook that episode's page of references to Links and Books. I especially recommend:
  
  * Al Gore, New thinking on the climate crisis, TED.com, March 2008.


• Thomas B. Edsall, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, The Huffington Post, 23 March 2009.


• Yves Smith, Has the Gaming of the Public-Private Partnership Begun?, naked capitalism, 25 March 2009.


• Barry Ritholtz, New Home Sales Fell 41% in February 2009, The Big Picture, 26 March 2009.


• Steve Thompson & Tanya Eiserer, Dallas police chief apologizes for conduct of officer who drew gun on NFL player outside hospital, The Dallas Morning News, 26 March 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, Comparing the U.S. to Russia and Argentina, Salon.com, 26 March 2009.


• Bill Moyers, William Greider on the Geithner Plan, Bill Moyers' Journal, PBS, 27 March 2009.


• Nicholas Dawidoff, The Civil Heretic - Freeman Dyson, The New York Times Magazine, 29 March 2009.


• Jeffrey Sachs, Making Rich Guys Richer, The Huffington Post, 29 March 2009.
  
  Ann Pettifor, Challenging the Dogma of Yesterday's Men, The Huffington Post, 29 March 2009.


• ** Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, The Atlantic, May 2009.
  
  "The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time."
  
  James Kwak, What the IMF Would Tell the United States, If It Could, The Baseline Scenario, 26 March 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, Britain responds to the "rule of law" nuisance, Salon.com, 27 March 2009.


• * Michael Hudson, Financing the Empire, CounterPunch.org, 30 March 2009.


• James K. Galbraith, No Return to Normal: Why the economic crisis, and its solution, are bigger than you think, The Washington Monthly, March/April 2009.


• Obama Administration, The Costs of Inaction: the Urgent Need for Health Reform, HealthReform.gov, 30 March 2009.


• Jonathan Chait, Why the Democrats Can't Govern, The New Republic, 15 April 2009.


• Peter Finn & Joby Warrick, Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots, The Washington Post, 29 March 2009.
  
  Dan Froomkin, Bush's Torture Rationale Debunked, WashingtonPost.com, 30 March 2009.
  
  Susie Madrak, The Torture Apologists Have No Place Left To Hide, Crooks and Liars, 30 March 2009.


• Sam Tanenhaus, Conservatism Is Dead: An intellectual autopsy of the movement, The New Republic, 18 February 2009.
  
  Alan Wolfe, Conservatism and a Tale of Two Kristols, TNR.com, 09 February 2009.


• Barry Ritholtz, Financial Institutions, Market Cap, 1999-2009, The Big Picture, 31 March 2009.
  
  This image captures an important part of "the big picture."


• William Greider, Trust Your Guts, The Nation, 26 March 2009.
  
  (This article appears at AlterNet.org under the title "A Scary Corporate Coup Is Under Way -- We've Got to Stop It." It covers similar ground as the articles by M. Taibbi and S. Johnson above.)


• Michael Osinski, My Manhattan Project: How I helped build the bomb that blew up Wall Street, New York, 29 March 2009.
  
  Felix Salmon, Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street, Wired, 23 February 2009.
  
  James Kwak, Structured Finance for Beginners, The Baseline Scenario, 29 March 2009.


• Yves Smith, Japanese Expert Criticizes US Wishful Thinking on Economic Crisis, naked capitalism, 02 April 2009.


• Thomas Geoghegan, Infinite debt: How unlimited interest rates destroyed the economy, Harper's Magazine, April 2009.
  
  About an economy based upon Usury.


• Der Spiegel staff, Joseph Stiglitz: "It's going to be bad, very bad", Salon.com, 03 April 2009.


• Jeffrey Sachs, The Geithner-Summers Plan is Even Worse Than We Thought, The Huffington Post, 08 April 2009.


• Bill Moyers & Michael Winship, Obama: Stop protecting Wall Street bankers from Main Street, Salon.com, 09 April 2009.
  
  Bill Moyers, William K. Black: CSI Bailout, Bill Moyers' Journal, PBS, 03 April 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and Wall Street's ownership of government, Salon.com, 04 April 2009.