Robert Kuttner

Bad timing is only one of several problems afflicting George W. Bush’s Waco Economic Summit. The economy is just not cooperating with his upbeat message. A second major industry, airlines, is now joining the telecommunications collapse as evidence that the economy faces more than a crisis of investor confidence. The Federal Reserve has been keeping […]

With all the corporate and accounting scandals, you may have noticed that Congress is also working on bankruptcy reform legislation. A bill nearly passed last week and will probably be approved when Congress returns in September. However, this is precisely the wrong kind of reform. It is a measure long sought by the banking industry […]

Is George Bush about to get lucky again? White House political adviser Karl Rove has positioned Bush as the champion of corporate reform, even though Bush’s own history epitomized the kind of corruption that Enron and Global Crossing raised to new heights. Last week Congressional Republicans, long obstructionist on this issue, quickly reversed course, too. […]

Here is a paradox to ponder. If the stock market crash stops short of an economic depression, we can partly thank government spending — but we can also thank America’s extreme concentration of private wealth. It’s true, as widely reported, that about half of all Americans are now shareholders. But stock ownership is very narrowly […]

Will the stock market slide spread to the real economy of jobs and personal income? Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarkably, thinks not. His report to Congress Tuesday was surprisingly tough on corporate executives, calling for stronger regulation. But more surprising was his upbeat forecast that despite the stock meltdown, economic growth will nonetheless stay […]

Despite a tough-sounding speech, George W. Bush is suddenly vulnerable on the defining domestic issue of his presidency. The cascading corporate scandals are more than a temporary blow to investor confidence. They are a serious threat to American capitalism — and Republican doctrine. Bush is at risk of becoming a Cinderella president. Terrorist attacks elevated […]

Bush’s New York speech on corporate accountability was one of the weakest of his presidency. It was long on platitudes, short on structural reforms. The Dow Jones responded to his call for restored confidence in America’s financial markets by plunging 189 points. Ever since he took office, Bush’s short run political strategy has been to […]