Hold Fast

Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: The New York attorney general has requested information and documents in recent weeks from three major Wall Street banks about their mortgage securities operations during the credit boom, indicating the existence of a new investigation into practices that contributed to billions in mortgage losses. Officials in Eric T. [...]

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Rep. Paul Ryan, per Mike Allen’s Playbook: House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), in text for luncheon speech of Chicago Economic Club: “Class warfare may be clever politics, but it is terrible economics. Redistributing wealth never creates more of it. Sowing social unrest and class envy makes America weaker, not stronger. Playing one group [...]

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Great stuff from Keith Olbermann. The transcript is available here.

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Matt Taibbi has laid what is probably his most exhaustive look into Goldman Sachs: It wouldn’t be hard for federal or state prosecutors to use the Levin report to make a criminal case against Goldman. I ask Eliot Spitzer what he would do if he were still attorney general and he saw the Levin report. [...]

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Reuters: A majority of top Wall Street bond dealers and money managers say spending cuts alone cannot solve the U.S. budget problems and tax increases must be part of the mix. In a Reuters survey conducted on Tuesday, 17 out of 29 fund managers and economists representing major Wall Street bond dealing firms said the [...]

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I don’t read Wonkette much, but this sign-off post by 23 year-old Riley Waggaman announcing the ending of his tenure as an author there is one of the most principled pieces of writing I’ve read in just about any corner of the internet. Here are some excerpts: I’m twenty-three. Can anyone even begin to count [...]

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I have to admit that Erick Erickson’s post in which he vows to not support Jon Huntsman’s candidacy — short of voting for him if he’s the Republican nominee — is surprising and somewhat bizarre. Erickson basically questions Huntsman’s loyalty to America and to President Obama because he started pivoting towards a presidential run while [...]

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Writing at New Deal 2.0, Marshall Auerback makes a strong case for creating a WPA-inspired Job Guarantee program. Much of the post explains the importance of prioritizing job creation over spending cuts right now, which I obviously agree with, but the explanation of how a specific job creation program could work is smart and inspiring. [...]

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More shrill words from The Shrill One: Well, what I’ve been hearing with growing frequency from members of the policy elite — self-appointed wise men, officials, and pundits in good standing — is the claim that it’s mostly the public’s fault. The idea is that we got into this mess because voters wanted something for [...]

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Krugman is shrill: Employment has risen from its low point, but it has grown no faster than the adult population. And the plight of the unemployed continues to worsen: more than six million Americans have been out of work for six months or longer, and more than four million have been jobless for more than [...]

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