selise

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15 years ago Charles Bowsher's warned us about unregulated OTC derivatives. Now he's warning us about mark-to-myth accounting rule changes.

time to hit the phones. there's no reason to let healthcare reform be designed to help big insurance and big pharma instead of us.

congressional hearings suck. what should we do about that?

talk of replacing the dollar has the world reserve currency

Our own government, now controlled by the Democrats, continues with the giant rip off. Why?

The devastation being caused by the global economic crisis to the lives and livelihoods of millions of people around the world is not merely the result of bad practices by a handful of mega financial service firms, but the foreseeable outcome of one particular system of global governance or perhaps more accurately, anti-governance.

Geithner will be testifying before the Senate Banking committee this morning, but I'm probably going to watch the House Foreign Affairs hearing on "U.S. foreign economic policy in the global crisis." Usually Berman is really horrible, especially on ME issues, but today Lori Wallach of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch (who I hope and expect will be good) and also Simon Johnson will be testifying. Johnson's bio (Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship, Global Economics and Management (GEM), MIT Sloan School of Management, Former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund) is the kind of thing that would make me suspect he is a member of a the axis of evil (the IMF definitely has been), but I've been reading his blog, The Baseline Scenario, and have been pleasantly surprised. Here's how he introduced himself at a talk he gave last month with Martin Feldstein at MIT, “Challenges to the Global Economy” (my transcription):

I’m a blogger. Actually, that’s my primary… I’m trying to get people to introduce me, not as an MIT professor, but as a blogger. Somehow they don’t want to do that yet, they still talk about the MIT connection for whatever reason. They think it has more legitimacy. I think the blogosphere has more legitimacy for this sort of thing.

Today I'm looking forward to Kucinich's Domestic Policy Subcommittee (of House Oversight and Government Reform) hearing with Treasury’s Kashkari (TARP czar holdover from Bushco and Paulson's Treasury, previously of Goldman Sachs) on TARP waste and abuse. When Kashkari testified before this subcommittee in November, Kucinich and Issa (!) teamed up to expose Kashkari and the TARP generally. Still one of my favorite hearing moments:

kucinich to kashkari: no one questions that you are working hard. our question is who are you working for?

Kucinich actually comes to hearings prepared and frequently asks both good questions and good follow up questions.

Today's hearings include Shinseki on the Veterans Affairs budget, DNI Blair on national security and Orszag on the administration's FY 2010 health care proposals.