Reckless Endangerment describes the players that helped create the housing bubble and bust that were at the heart of the financial crisis. Gretchen Morgenson and Josh Rosner focus on how regulators and other officials were complicit by promoting liberalized housing finance as a way to increase homeownership. Their account chronicles how a naïve vision of the American Dream, that of homeownership as the foundation of upward mobility and stable communities, turned into a nightmare in the hands of a growth driven and increasingly predatory mortgage complex.

Girls and women migrate into the Bosnia sex industry because of lack of opportunity and poor economic conditions. Generally coming from Eastern European countries, they answer ads and are promised good job only to find they become property of traffickers. They are moved across borders on routes that avoid official border crossings, all to disorient the girls and women who are likely to attempt escape. The girls and women are sometimes forced to strip naked before their “buyer” and are sold like slaves to men.

In short, there is no deficit that cannot be plugged except for our political deficit. It sustains the defeatism of years of no growth, stagnant wages, high unemployment. The political tendency toward right-wing and corporatist policy ideas over the past 30 years, tied up with the cost of running campaigns, the failure of traditional media, the conservative movement’s public relations machinery, has widened that political deficit between what government can provide and what it will provide.

We’re seeing more evidence today of the “Invisible Town Hall Revolution,” the pushback by ordinary Americans for progressive values like tax fairness, good jobs now and the social safety net. Freshman Rep. Randy Hultgren was cornered at one of his town halls by constituents who demanded taxes on the wealthy.

A former senior VP at Moody’s wrote an 80 page letter to federal regulators, blowing the whistle on systemic pressures placed by Moody’s business people on the ostensibly objective analysts. To those who are shocked by this, it helps to remember Econ 101: when you get paid by the people whose bonds you are rating, there’s a lot of incentive to keep the customer satisfied.

But it doesn’t stop there. Michael Hudson of UMKC notes that the perverse incentives of ratings agencies lead them to push against raising taxes to pay for things now. Instead, it’s better financially for the ratings agencies if governments keep taxes down but sell bonds . . . ’cause that’s more business for them.

Amazing what basic economics can teach you about the ratings agencies.

You know what I like to do on 9/11? Cruise suburban neighborhoods looking for children’s birthday parties which I then crash screaming at the kids about jihad and Islam and death from above. Then I force them to watch Schindler’s List. Afterwards … cake and ice cream and the piñata!.

Dan Choi, Bill McKibben and I are continuing our Powershift panel, “What Do You Do When the President is Just Not Into You.” (Felipe Matos, who took Bill’s place when we recreated the panel at Netroots Nation, scored quite the victory in the same vein with Roberto Lovato and everyone else at Presente this week.) Scarecrow is here with us in DC and we’re all going to take part in the first day of the 10 day tar sands sit-in. You can read Bill’s OpEd in the Washington Post today: Watershed Moment for Obama on Climate Change.

Trying to decide what to talk about this fine morning, preferably something that hasn’t already been covered here on this website. Should it be Jerry Brown’s advocacy for high-speed rail, which may be a big part of what saves the state and the nation?

Should it be the looming scandal hinted at by the Rick Perry sex ad?

But then I decided that I’d stick closer to my home state of Minnesota, and talk about failed burrito baron Tony Sutton.

You probably are aware of it, but this year has been boom times for xeriscaping. The landscaping that cuts back to minimal use of water is a longtime feature of desert areas. Right now I’m looking out the front windows at it, as well. When towns’ water sources are drying up in the west, and drowning in the east, the lawn just isn’t worth a fortune in landscaping.

The Swedish Chef — Ping Pong Ball Eggs, from episode 214 of The Muppet Show.