When Corruption Is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Be Corrupt

(image)We hear a lot about how corrupt Hamid Karzai's government is, and I imagine much of it is true: Karzai is, after all, our creature, our man in Kabul. Almost by definition, a leader installed by invaders is going to be corrupt. If the US had thought Karzai would have too much of a mind of his own, we'd have looked for someone else. It's also useful that such a person should be at least

When Corruption Is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Be Corrupt

(image)We hear a lot about how corrupt Hamid Karzai's government is, and I imagine much of it is true: Karzai is, after all, our creature, our man in Kabul. Almost by definition, a leader installed by invaders is going to be corrupt. If the US had thought Karzai would have too much of a mind of his own, we'd have looked for someone else. It's also useful that such a person should be at least

Throwing Money at Wall Street Redux

This morning's Democracy Now! had a good story on the Wall Street bailout and its aftermath. It includes an interview with Donald Bartlett and James Steele, the authors of an article in Vanity Fair which tracks the events leading to and after the bailout. They expressed some surprise that Bush's Secretary of the Treasury and former Goldman-Sachs exec Hank Paulson simply ordered bank presidents to take the money, whether they thought they needed it or not. (And some didn't -- they repaid it soon afterwards.) Maybe they should have taken into consideration Naomi Klein's thesis that the Bush regime was simply engaged in a last pillaging of the Treasury before they left office. But they do confirm that then-candidate Barack Obama was lying when he told an audience that the bailout was "not a plan to just hand over $700 billion of your money to a few banks on Wall Street."

So far just the video/audio and an introduction are up at Democracy Now! The full transcript should follow later today.

Throwing Money at Wall Street Redux

This morning's Democracy Now! had a good story on the Wall Street bailout and its aftermath. It includes an interview with Donald Bartlett and James Steele, the authors of an article in Vanity Fair which tracks the events leading to and after the bailout. They expressed some surprise that Bush's Secretary of the Treasury and former Goldman-Sachs exec Hank Paulson simply ordered bank presidents

Throwing Money at Wall Street Redux

This morning's Democracy Now! had a good story on the Wall Street bailout and its aftermath. It includes an interview with Donald Bartlett and James Steele, the authors of an article in Vanity Fair which tracks the events leading to and after the bailout. They expressed some surprise that Bush's Secretary of the Treasury and former Goldman-Sachs exec Hank Paulson simply ordered bank presidents