What Caused the Crisis?

One of my clients, the Roosevelt Institute, launched this open letter to the newly formed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. You should sign it, too! Here:

http://www.whatcausedthecrisis.com/

If we are going to move on as a nation and really build an economic structure that works for everyone, is systemically safe and is economically sustainable, we must take the first step of truly understanding how we got here. They did this in the 1930s with the Pecora Commission, and it paved the way for the important regulatory reforms of the New Deal. We must do the same today.

The Raw Sound of Hate

This disturbing 911 call from the Brisenia Flores murder graphically illustrates why hate groups like FAIR and the Minutemen should no longer be given a legitimate platform in the media and Congress:

This is where anti-immigrant extremism can lead. Please help spread the word: Congress should stop legitimizing hate.

Stand with Sotomayor

A beautiful piece by Favianna Rodriguez for Presente.Org, one of my clients:

Looking for Answers ... And So Far Not Finding Any

A piece in the New York Times today about the 2010 California Governor's race focuses on the economy, and has a classic quote from Bruce Cain:

“What the voters will be looking for in this election is someone who has some answers,” said Bruce E. Cain, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. “I do not remember the morale of the state being so low.”

It's true, people in this state are pretty fed up, and right now, sadly, I don't see any of the candidates offering up much in the way of answers. Gavin is doing some savvy positioning, but I can't tell from his website how he actually thinks we should fix the state. In this New York Times article, Villaraigosa says Schwarzenegger is "doing as good a job as he can do." If he really thinks that, he certainly doesn't know what the real problems are. And Jerry Brown seems to be running because he's got nothing better to do and he thinks it would be amusing.

Not exactly a stellar field.

The reality is that if Californians want answers, they are going to have to look to forces other than the candidates for Governor. My money is on some combination of SCOPE and the Courage Campaign.

Speaking Out for Luis Ramirez

This story made me cry this morning.

I had heard about this case, but only tangentially, and hadn't fully processed the magnitude of the injustice until reading about it in an email from Presente, a new online organization focused on empowering the Latino community with a stronger and more unified national voice.

Luis is an immigrant who was beaten to death by white attackers in a brutal hate crime -- and yet he gets no justice in Shennandoh, Penn. What kind of country are we living in, when our justice system is corroded by racism, and people can literally get away with murder?

Thankfully, the Justice Dept. under President Obama is investigating this, but local leaders such as Democratic Governor Ed Rendell must show leadership and speak out about this turn of events. He may not be able to do anything about Luis' death, but he can at the very least commit to no other innocent immigrants or any human beings being treated this way in his state, under his watch. Here is an excerpt from the letter being circulated by Presente:

As Governor, it’s imperative that you make clear that what happened to Luis Ramirez is not consistent with your vision for justice in the State of Pennsylvania. You should speak loudly and clearly about your commitment to the safety of all residents of Pennsylvania, no matter their country of origin or immigration status. A strong statement like this is essential to begin the process of healing in Shenandoah, and to make sure this never happens again.

New Deal 2.0

It's officially launched, and is worth watching. Lots of good info on the site already, including video footage of a breakfast event last week with two Nobel Prize winning economists, Joe Stiglitz and Bob Solow.

I was lucky to be there, and was struck by the clarity of their argument that in fact, the decisions we are making now will last a lifetime, and we really should have a healthy debate about them. It was also clear that there is an alternative vision of the economy emerging -- one that says the way to create real growth is to nurture the economy with long-term investments in people, not just constantly mine it bare.

The Quiet Coup

This article is a must-read. When it comes to the banking and finance component of the current economic crisis, it seems one of the biggest dangers is the total lack of understanding by most people about what has happened, what is happening, and what could happen depending on which route out we take. I've been feeling very uneasy about the Summers and Geithner strategies thus far, and this article makes a compelling case for why we should all feel that way. The biggest danger is that even as the old system crashes down around us, we don't make the changes that are necessary to ensure it all just doesn't happen again. Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the IMF, in this piece lays out two potential paths forward. Neither is rosy, but at least one provides a chance to get out from under this disaster:

The conventional wisdom among the elite is still that the current slump “cannot be as bad as the Great Depression.” This view is wrong. What we face now could, in fact, be worse than the Great Depression—because the world is now so much more interconnected and because the banking sector is now so big. We face a synchronized downturn in almost all countries, a weakening of confidence among individuals and firms, and major problems for government finances. If our leadership wakes up to the potential consequences, we may yet see dramatic action on the banking system and a breaking of the old elite. Let us hope it is not then too late.