I was working my way across the radio dial on my way home the other night, delighted to hear the right-wing blathersphere ablaze with denunciations of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, a sure sign that they’re starting to have an impact. Oh, those commies, those hippies, those radicals, those anarchists, those evil revolutionaries and their [...]

I’m guessing that the Lords of Wall Street aren’t particularly interested in anything the protesters have to say, unless they have a cool tip on a new way to make obscene amounts of money by spinning off esoteric derivatives, insider trading, or taking the economy to the brink and getting billions in bailout money, all [...]

You’ve got to love the banking industry. Deprived of some of the more outrageous fees and penalty charges by new laws, Bank of America is now assessing a monthly charge for using your debit card. Other banks are considering following suit. By now we all know what that fee REALLY pays for. Hey, the Lords [...]

Financial reform actually passed. Another victory for Obama, despite the furious objection of the other party and their Wall Street masters. Much too late, of course, and not strong enough, but at least they’re turning the Titanic slowly away from the deregulatory daze that got us into this mess in the first place. That’s little [...]

The one most important thing that almost everyone agreed that financial reform HAD to do was to break up the “too big to fail” banks, so that we taxpayers wouldn’t be forced to bail them out again if Wall Street continued its reckless ways. So, of course, that was the one thing the financial reform [...]

Surprise! It looks as though the lobbyists are going to win again. The long-delayed financial reform bill is finally taking shape, with a vastly weakened Volcker rule, which would have kept banks from investing their own money in risky bets on the market, and would have prohibited them from owning hedge funds and private equity [...]

I’m more optimistic now than when I drew this cartoon. The last 48 hours have seen a dramatic turnaround in the chances of the Democrats achieving their agenda. Victory has a way of leading to more victories, and this one may be next. The serious reforms of the banking system proposed by Senator Dodd don’t [...]

I tried to imagine how it must feel to be one of those Wall Street bankers who stand to make tens of millions in bonuses from bailout money after nearly bringing the world’s economy to its knees. I know I’d feel too guilty to take the money, so I could only speculate that these guys [...]

A year later, and the folks who gave us the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression are back at it. You’d think that the debacle would have given them at least a small does of humility, but no. Having been bailed out with hundreds of billion of the public’s money, they’re rewarding themselves for [...]

The next test of the administration is the huge bonuses due to Citi employees. Citi, as you may recall, was the recipient of tens of billions of taxpayer bailout money. One trader, Andrew J. Hall, is contractually due a $100 million bonus all by himself. Will Geithner, et al, have the courage to oppose these [...]