ehm1212

Michael Greenberger writes about how we can rein in the reckless market in over-the-counter derivatives: In September 2008, the United States faced what President Barack Obama called the “most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression.” A mortgage crisis begat a credit crisis, shaking the entire financial system and sending the U.S. economy into what […]

Robert Johnson argues that the main obstacles to simplifying the financial system are political: Eighteen months into the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the United States government has not enacted significant financial reform. Nor is the legislation now pending in Congress likely to deliver the profound change we need. When the U.S. Treasury […]

Mikhail Zinshteyn talks to an artist who tries to bring the foreclosure crisis to life in a hard-hit Boston community: From March 2009 to February 2010, at least 300,000 U.S. homes fell into foreclosure every month. Even the administration’s renewed focus to assist homeowners is too late for families who have received eviction notices. Many […]

Alan Brinkley reviews David Remnick‘s new Obama biography, The Bridge: Many books have already been written about Barack Obama — the two most successful of them so far by Obama himself — and many more books will be written about him during and after his presidency. But for the moment, the most thorough account of […]

Michelle Goldberg reviews America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation and explains that the convergence of modern contraception and women’s liberation was not intended or expected by the pill’s inventors: Elaine Tyler May‘s new book begins by quoting the lyrics to Loretta Lynn‘s 1975 anthem, “The Pill,” an overburdened housewife’s audacious […]

Adam Serwer goes to Guantánamo: Two weeks ago, Noor Uthman Mohammed sat in the same high-security military-commissions courtroom at Camp Justice, Guantánamo Bay, that was built to hold the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the other September 11 defendants. Clad in the white garments of a detainee who has had no recent “discipline” problems, […]

Harold Meyerson on the fight over who will succeed Andy Stern as president of SEIU: For a union that frequently takes to the streets with drums banging, the contest within the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to succeed outgoing president Andy Stern is proceeding with uncustomary discretion. Two candidates — Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger and Executive […]

Tim Fernholz wonders what happened to Bob Corker: Bob Corker had done what few Senate Republicans have recently accomplished: Work alongside Democrats to produce an important piece of policy — the financial-reform bill — without turning around to call it a failure immediately after the ink was dry. Then, on MSNBC Tuesday morning, Corker told […]

Anya Kamenetz explains why cash-strapped colleges need to stop worrying and learn to love the online classroom: For most of the thousand years or so since it was invented, a university education was thought to be suited for only a tiny group — a ruling class or a subculture of scholars. Today, nine out of […]

Paul Waldman on the Kabuki theater of the courts: With John Paul Stevens‘ impending retirement, Barack Obama now has his second opportunity to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court. Republicans surely know that they won’t be able to actually stop Obama’s nominee from being confirmed. So they are no doubt hoping to create a […]