Tuesday, April 26, 2011

A "moderate Republican" in the White House?

In a different era, apparently the answer would have been yes. Ezra Klein explains:
If you put aside the emergency measures required by the financial crisis, three major policy ideas have dominated American politics in recent years: a plan that uses an individual mandate and tax subsidies to achieve near-universal health care; a cap-and-trade plan that attempts to raise the prices of environmental pollutants to better account for their costs; and bringing tax rates up from their Bush-era lows as part of a bid to reduce the deficit. In each case, the position that Obama and the Democrats have staked out is the very position that moderate Republicans have staked out before.

Are Financial Institutions Holding Our Country Hostage? - "The Breakdown" Podcast

Chris Hayes at The Nation's "The Breakdown" podcast is joined by Mike Konczal of "Rortybomb" -

"During the 2008 financial meltdown, we were told by politicians, economists, bankers and industry executives that further implosion of major financial institutions would wreak havoc on the larger economy... But since the financial gains of the past several years haven't trickled down, many are wondering why we continue to be held captive by the same financial system that caused the mess in the first place. Finance blogger Mike Konczal joins Nation DC Editor Chris Hayes to discuss what's behind this 'financialization' of the economy, how it happened and whether there's anything that can be done to change it."



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Further Reading:
Mike Konczal's finance and economics blog, Rortybomb.