Political Economy

Dylan Ratigan, a former host on both Bloomberg Television and CNBC has a new gig over at CNBC.  Ratigan has been especially harsh in criticizing the financial services industry and its role in the recent global meltdown.  Below,…

I am re-posting this February article because it is clear that many of the policy dilemmas Barack Obama is now facing on the economy were wholly predictable. In this post and another from January, I argued that it was better to have zero…

In case you missed it, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was on Capitol Hill this morning making his caseregarding the Bank of America – Merrill Lynch deal.  The Chairman stated in unequivocal terms that he did not pressure…

Here’s a conspiracy theory for you.  As I am not much of a conspiracy theorist, I ill keep this one pretty simple. Here’s the chain of events. Back in late September when the world was falling apart, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner and Hank…

I was catching up with some of my reading when I happened across a quote from 1930 twice, which led me to write this post on how poor the Obama reform agenda really is. And I want ask you: is Obama Change you can believe in? The first…

During the Great Depression, it was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which in hindsight is blamed for triggering a wave of protectionist actions globally.  Protectionism was a major contributor to the downward spiral that created depression. …

If you listen to the criticism from the right and from the left, from pro-regulation and anti-regulation pundits, you can understand the political constraints which produced the white paper which the President unveiled yesterday.  Given…

This is the video via Bloomberg News.  I will have more to say later today or tomorrow and provide a clip from a BBC Radio Five Live interview I did immediately following the speech.

Having read through the draft of President Obama’s financial regulatory proposal, my initial reaction is largely positive.  He sets the right tone and says all of the right things.  However, the devil is in the details and we will need to…

A full draft is now available at the New York Times here.  Speech is scheduled for 12:30PM with Obama speaking at 12:50PM.  I expect to be giving a reaction via BBC News Five Live at 1:20PM EDT/620 UK time.