Comparing the U.S. and Iceland

Quick Quiz: Who Said It? (Keep Reading)

[Almost two years after the financial melt-down] precious little has changed about Wall Street's massive gravitational pull in the U.S. and the world.

Our banks are still too big to fail, their boards are still poorly composed, we have no Consumer Financial Protection Agency, no systemic regulator, no resolution authority, and no reform of mortgage securitization or ratings agencies, two of the institutions that most enabled the crisis to occur.

We've been distracted from the task of preventing another crisis from happening by the task of minimizing the current one, and as a result, we've done neither, while allowing our other domestic problems to snowball.

My sentiments -- and many others' -- exactly (sadly).

So, in which lefty, rabble-rousing rag did the above quote appear?

A. Mother Jones
B. The Nation
C. Rolling Stone
D. Fortune

Answer: D.

And just in case you didn't know, Fortune magazine is about as left-wing as Dwight D. Eisenhower (make that Ronald Reagan).

The excerpt above is from an article titled, "Welcome to the United States of Iceland."

Bill Moyers on Wall Street

"Bets & Side Bets & Bets on the Side Bets"

Wall Street has become a place where you don't lend money to improve local businesses and industry. You basically create new "instruments" -- "devices" -- to make money yourself. It's really turned into nothing except a casino, in which Wall Street lends money and then it makes bets and side bets and bets on the side bets about what's going to go up and down. So, a lot of the action is really, at the end of the day, not about providing credit and keeping capital flowing. It's about how they think they can make more money through more trades.

--David Corn (Mother Jones' Washington Bureau Chief); Bill Moyers Journal

What does it say when "Mother Jones" and the "Wall Street Journal" reach the same conclusion? That our government cannot stand up to the [financial] lobby even on an issue like derivatives, which were at the root of much of our problem over the last few years?

--Bill Moyers; Bill Moyers Journal

No, I don't regularly read -- or agree with -- Mother Jones; it's usually way too "left" for me.

But when it comes to its analysis of what Wall Street is about today, and how it has warped our financial system and broader economy, I think it is spot on.

In the last 2 years-plus, THE single best piece I've read or heard discussing today's financial debacle is Bill Moyers' 30 minute interview with Kevin Drum, political blogger at "Mother Jones," and David Corn, "Mother Jones'" Washington Bureau Chief.

Their diagnosis of the problem, explanation for why so little has happened to correct it, and policy prescriptions going forward -- all superb! And give Moyers a(nother) Peabody award -- his thoughtfulness, intelligence, and integrity are something for the rest of us to aspire to.

If you want to know what it's really all about . . . watch the video (click on the link to "Bill Moyers Journal").