World-News

Dean Baker, Truthout: "Our political leaders continually assert that we should be thanking them that we are not in a second Great Depression rather than complaining about how bad things are. The second Great Depression theme came up repeatedly in the debate over the reappointment of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke. It also featured prominently in Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's defense of his handling of the AIG bailout."

http://www.truthout.org/the-second-great-depression-bogeyman56559



False Profits

Leslie Thatcher, Truthout: "The delicious double-entendre of Dean Baker's most recent title is enhanced by the book's cover photo of a trio of false prophets, Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan and Henry (Hank) Paulson, all of whom are thoroughly excoriated within the book's pages for their responsibility in feeding, prolonging, misdiagnosing and incorrectly responding to the 2007-2009 financial meltdown and associated economic collapse."

http://www.truthout.org/false-profits56731

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Exposed: Bernanke's "Skimming Operation"

By Mike Whitney

The banks didn't care if the loans were repaid because they got their money "up front" on volume originations. That's why they were so eager to issue mortgages to people with no income, no collateral, no job, and a bad credit history. It was all a gigantic skimming operation, where banks and brokers got their cut and then bailed out before the whole thing blew up.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24575.htm



Greenspan's Testimony: Two hours of buck-passing

By Mike Whitney
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25181.htm

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Paulson and the fear factor

Independent Institute
by Alvaro Vargas Llosa

02/17/10

We think of statism as born out of altruism or megalomania. But here a third cause transpired: naked, primeval fear. The notion that people could be left to sort themselves out in the biggest financial crisis since the 1930s was terrifying even for Paulson, a true believer in free markets who keeps repeating in his book that he disliked what he was doing. The fear was so overpowering that Paulson, his colleagues and Wall Street decided to put unconditional faith in the very institution, the federal government, that the author tells us was responsible for the conditions under which the housing bubble occurred: easy money, political incentives for homeownership and regulatory incompetence...

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2730


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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Statism: The Opiate of the Frightened Masses
http://www.lewrockwell.com/englund/englund57.1.html

Greenspan Wanted Housing-Bubble Dissent Kept Secret
http://www.lewrockwell.com/spl2/greenspan-kept-secrets.html



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