Wall Street did not let the Lehman Brothers crisis go to waste. The banks that have paid the largest fines for financial fraud are now much bigger and more profitable. The victims of their junk mortgage loans are poorer, and the economy is facing debt deflation. Was it worth it? What was not saved was the economy. Today’s financial malaise for pension funds, state and local budgets and underemployment is largely a result of the 2008 bailout, not the crash. What was saved was not only the banks – or more to the point, as Sheila Bair pointed out, their bondholders – but the financial overhead that continues to burden today’s economy. Also saved was the idea that the economy needs to keep the financial sector solvent by an exponential growth of new ...

Max Keiser interviews, pushing across the issues of the day. We start at the 16 minute mark.

by Michael Hudson and Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney has written an excellent expose of the “Russiagate” cover story for Obama’s political use of national security to help his party oppose Republicans. Covert surveillance of politicians on Obama’s Nixon-like “Enemies List” has been going on for many years, but is only now being unmasked as a result of the failure of its cover story (“We weren’t spying on enemies; only on Russians to protect America”). Democratic-leaking mass media have passed on the cover story authored by former Obama-administration officials led by CIA director John Brennan, FBI director James Comey, the DNC, and Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff. The loose ends in this cover-up have now been so widely exposed as hearsay and political that only 13% of Republicans believe the fact-free story – ...