Minnesota Independent

“It’s like Las Vegas merged with insurance and real estate people”: Kevin Phillips on the Wall Street meltdown

By Steve Perry | 09.24.08 | 1:20 pm

Kevin Phillips, the former Nixon hand turned Wall Street/GOP critic, appeared on Bill Moyers Journal last Friday. It’s the best thing I’ve seen on television about the financial debacle unfolding this week–just as Phillips’ most recent book, Bad Money, is the best introduction to the perils of America’s financialized economy.

The great bailout of ’08: must-reads of the week

By Steve Perry | 09.24.08 | 11:25 am

Every hour of every day brings reams of fresh news reports and commentaries on the Wall Street crisis and the competing bailout proposals wending their way through Congress, but that doesn’t mean you can learn anything from most of them. Here’s a guide to the best, most comprehensible commentaries on the present mess.

This year’s GOP platform rejects ‘government bailouts of private institutions’

By Tom Elko | 09.24.08 | 8:16 am

A few weeks ago the Republican Party adopted the latest iteration of its party platform during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. The platform embodies the ideals and vision…

Bachmann uses financial crisis to pimp ANWR oil drilling

By Andy Birkey | 09.23.08 | 12:16 pm

As Congress, Wall Street and the American public debate the merits of using $700 billion in taxpayer money to shore up a crumbling banking industry, many people have offered putative solutions. Rep. Michele Bachmann–stop her if you’ve heard this one before–wants to open up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Bachmann has been on a months-long crusade to open more oil drilling around the United States, a crusade critics say would have little practical impact on gas prices at the pump.

Open thread: 29 ways to stash cash for the crash

By Chris Steller | 09.23.08 | 11:30 am

Not everyone can afford to put their money into gold bars for the duration of the current financial crisis.
And not everyone is as lucky as the guy in Wisconsin who found $1,700 that someone had…

The Schultz Report: Obama, Dems need a compelling alternative to the Paulson swindle

By Steve Perry | 09.23.08 | 11:17 am

This week in the Schultz Report, we discuss the only issue that matters at the moment–the financial meltdown on Wall Street and the Paulson plan that’s currently being bum-rushed through Congress, which would give the US Treasury secretary absolutely unprecedented power to buy up bad debt with public dollars, and without any public oversight or future public benefit in the form of equity in the companies we’re bailing out.

Video: New Obama ad, George Will question McCain’s handling of financial crisis

By Paul Schmelzer | 09.23.08 | 9:51 am

On Tuesday, Bloomberg’s Washington executive editor, Albert R. Hunt, wrote that one presidential candidate showed a “steady hand” in dealing with the crisis in financial markets — and it wasn’t John McCain. It’s a theme that’s getting traction,…