The seemingly biggest news from yesterday’s primaries emerged from California, where it became clear that very rich women can now buy public office as easily as very rich men. Turning elsewhere, however, reading the subtext of another primary victory, one not grounded in the size of an aspirant’s personal checking account, one sees a truly epic battle shaping up for the future of financial markets — and given the the importance of these markets, perhaps the future of the American economy...

The EU’s euro is shrinking, like a summer ice cream scoop, The U.S. Congress keeps spending, awash in that old debt soup, The struggling Dow and Nasdaq, can’t seem to find a floor, And investor fears keep rising, rising, rising, Investor fears keep rising, As confidence goes through the floor. The days are past when investors viewed all losers as fallen gems, And rushed to their rescue with money, like nurturing mother hens, Now even sound firms are nervous, and cut spending to the bone, To...

You can’t check a news report these days without coming across some reference to “the markets.” The reason is obvious. Activity in financial markets are shaping our lives in so many ways, and pretty much determining our economic presents and futures. Given this reality, it’s worth stepping back for a moment and understanding who or what “the markets” really are, and where they are taking us. A good first step here is to understand what they are not. Economic professionals...

Why do you want to be president, I asked. He looked at me like I was crazy. Are you kidding, he answered after a moment. I could do so much good. I could take the country on a different path. I could be a historic symbol of our progress as a nation and a people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I replied. But for heavens sakes, man, do you know what you’ll be inheriting? Look at the economy. Decades of overspending, over borrowing, consumption over infrastructure, so much money flowing up and so little trickling...

Come this November President Obama and Democratic Party leaders will be calling their legislative achievements historic and unprecedented since New Deal days. In this regard they will call special attention to the health care reform law passed awhile back, and the financial reform that seems likely to be enacted in the next few weeks. This isn’t a totally hollow boast. What these two measures actually represent, however, are not historical achievements that fundamentally altered a status quo,...

Last week the Senate did something it hates to do. Something few people thought it ever would do. It included something in a financial reform bill that has the potential to really, really, cut into big Wall Street bank profits and really, really make our financial system safe from another 2008-style system-wide collapse. Disrespecting big bank lobbyists and ignoring pleas from big bank straw men at the Treasury, it allowed to remain in its version of a financial reform measure a provision that would...

Mr B. I’m surprised to see you. I thought you and the gang were monitoring doings in the Senate. And here you are in the washroom, carrying a bottle of champagne. Actually, Selig, its Asti Spumanti. We ran out of the Dom Perignon upstairs. But this stuff does have bubbles, and it’s for you. Gee, thanks. A white wine with bubbles. What’s the occasion, sir? What are we celebrating? Not just what, Selig. But who. We’re drinking a toast to Senator Chris Dodd. Him? I thought he...

Here’s some numbers worth contemplating. After the federal government gives 700 billion dollars as a direct bailout to big banks, and lends (and is still lending) upwards of two trillion dollars more at zero or near-zero interest to these same banks, these institutions’ own lending to small businesses, which account for two-thirds of this country’s employment, dropped more than nine percent. Here’s some more numbers to contemplate. These same bailed banks are now reporting...

Mr B? Surprised to see you again today. And carrying all those papers. They’re for you, Selig. Kind of you, sir. But I’m already well stocked with paper down here. Single ply. Double ply. Quilted. We got a new shipment of Charmin in the other day if you’d like to… No, Selig. These are papers for you to read. To read. Didn’t you get the memo? Get a memo? In the washroom? Whatever. The thing is, Selig, the Goldman board is creating a business standards committee to examine...

A leading financial journal asked this question the other day: Is Greece…”just the leading edge of another phase of the world financial turmoil, this time focused on government debt instead of banks or mortgages?” The financial crisis of 2008 and the great recession that’s followed came about because financial markets created a huge debt-based bubble of false values. When that bubble popped, governments in this country and Europe poured trillions of dollars they didn’t...

I read a fascinating article in a recent issue of Smithsonian magazine about Prohibition, about who and what made this social experiment that lasted from 1920 to 1933 possible. It turns out that this country’s changing tax needs were the critical factor. Before 1913 an impressive 40 percent of all national tax revenues came from an excise tax on liquor. Whatever the joys of strong drink or the evils of John Barleycorn, the federal government couldn’t function without its liquor revenue....

Following a headline that began “Number of the Week,” the Wall Street Journal reported that $132 billion has been lost by investors (or made up by taxpayers) on the kind of synthetic mortgage bets that have gotten Goldman Sachs in such trouble in recent days. $132 billion. Another report in the last couple of days deals with how much the EU and IMF will have to come up with in order to bail out Greece from its present calamitous economic state. This number is about $155 billion. $155...

Mr. B. Back again this afternoon? Been eating those tacos again for lunch? No, Selig. I’ve come to see you. Me, sir? Yes, you Selig. Ever done any media? Well, I was included in New Kybo Monthly’s story a few years back about advances in sanitary hand drying. And… No, Selig. Media. Real media. Television. Every been featured in a TV ad? Not that I remember. Well, how would you feel about doing one for Goldman Sachs? You want me to do an ad showing off those hand drying techniques...

It would be hard to find an economist or Wall Street analyst these days who doesn’t speak positively about an economic recovery. At the same time, polls show that more than two-thirds of the American public think the economy is not improving, is not recovering, or is actually getting worse. How is one to explain this dichotomy? Are the experts lying? Are two-thirds of the American people too stupid to understand what’s going on in the economy? The answer to both these questions, of course,...

Mr. B. You’re early today. And you look determined. You got that right, Selig. Determined not to be pushed around by the S.E.C. over that fraud business. Who do these people think they are anyway? You do have to wonder about regulators who start regulating. A bad precedent, Mr. B. Very bad. Who knows where this kind of thing might lead, Selig? Thank heavens we have attorneys who know how to put these bureaucratic monkeys in their place. About those attorneys, sir. I have something for you....

Two headlines on today’s CNN website make perfectly clear what’s been wrong with Obama and his team’s economic policies from the start, and why though there’s been some improvement in this realm of late, the basic flaw in these policies has not been fixed. The first headline read: “Obama Won’t Trash Wall Street;” the second headline read: “Wall Street To Abandon Democrats?” The first story notes that while President Obama will push hard for some...

In the name of compromise, Congress and the Administration are once again shelving the obvious, the prudent, the manifestly best option, and going instead for something that may or may not properly address a huge problem. Last year’s foolish shelving involved health reform, where a single payer approach would have provided the desired universal coverage while dramatically reducing costs. This time around the foolish shelving of the obvious, prudent and manifestly best option involves reforming...

Why did Barack Obama win the presidency in 2008? Silly question. It was the economy, stupid! Wall Street greed and arrogance over a period of years finally brought about its inevitable economic (and political) consequences. The economy sank like a stone, and Americans elected a black Democratic president. Why, then, after just a year-and-a-half in office, after the country had so obviously become disgusted with the Republicans who had so flagrantly buddied up to the Wall Street crowd that brought...

Mr. B. You’re early today. And forgive me for saying so, but you look terrible. Bad day in the markets? Europeans sniveling again about those Greek swaps? Bonus complaints? More bad A.I.G press? No, Selig. it’s those fraud charges, that witch hunt. You heard about them? I did hear something about that, sir. On the portable radio you let your washroom attendants listen to during work hours. No need to thank me, Selig. We like to treat our help with the same fairness and consideration...

People who parse statistics in order to see the big picture on the economy have been quite optimistic in recent months about this country’s economic progress — about a so-called “recovery.” People who actually live inside that big picture, who actually experience economic reality rather than juggling numbers, know better. Most Americans continue to believe the economy isn’t improving in the sense of their own standards of living improving. Indeed, a recent poll found that...