Liberal Talk Radio

Goldman Sachs chooses capitalism: Warren E. Buffett, the country’s most famous investor and one of the world’s richest men, announced on Tuesday that he would invest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs, the embattled Wall Street titan, in a move that could bolster confidence in the financial markets. It’s strange to think that an investment bank [...]

And here I thought my Master’s thesis in banking policy would sit, dusty, on a shelf in perpetuity.  (Hey, any ray of light during this crisis, right?) The Fed effectively killed Glass-Steagull today by allowing the last two remaining investment banks — Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — to convert themselves into Bank Holding Companies.  [...]

You know you’re on to something when even Republican hacks like Kristol agree with you: Everyone seems to agree on the need for a big and comprehensive plan, and that the markets have to have some confidence that help is on the way. Funds need to be supplied, trading markets need to be stabilized, solvent [...]

Josh Marshall makes a great point: And in case it isn’t obvious, those begging as they cling by their fingertips on the precipice are not in a position to be making any demands or calling any proposals “deal killer.” Late Update: My instincts tell me that the effort to pretty this up by adding a [...]

I’m staggered by the scope and the scale of the bailouts announced today.  The Federal government — led by a Republican administration — has effectively nationalized the consumer banking industry.  This is unprecedented in our lifetimes. What’s more, they’ve effectively just used the savings of the American middle class to bailout the shareholders of the [...]

Recently, the feds have bailed out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Sterns and AIG, all on the grounds that they were “too big to fail.” Here’s my question: why do we let these companies get too big? Seriously. The feds routinely review mergers between companies on anti-trust grounds. But do they ever say halt a [...]

Apocalypse Tom owns a 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX, an all wheel drive pseudo sports car that goes faster than Tom reasonably needs to drive and allows him to go over Snoqualmie Pass in winter weather that keeps everyone except chained-up semis and Tom at home. The WRX has a 15.9 gallon gas tank, and requires [...]

I’ve been pretty amazed at the percentage of people who think the country is on the “wrong track,” which has reached 70% or more in recent polls. But maybe that’s not such an “amazing” concept at all. Mori Dinauer at TAPPED cites this Washington Post/ABC News poll‘s “astounding” finding that 90% of people have a [...]

Somewhere in Southern California, Mickey Kaus smiles: The federal government’s civil rights commission is attempting to produce a definitive answer to one of the touchiest questions in the immigration debate: whether new immigrants, especially illegal ones, hurt African-Americans in the workplace. The hearing Friday is likely to be a lively discussion among the country’s top [...]

Krugman explains: America came out of the Great Depression with a pretty effective financial safety net, based on a fundamental quid pro quo: the government stood ready to rescue banks if they got in trouble, but only on the condition that those banks accept regulation of the risks they were allowed to take. Over time, [...]