Robert D. Auerbach began his career as a cab driver. A chance ride with Abram Lincoln Harris, a leading professor in the economics department at the University of Chicago -- and its only African-American member -- catapulted him into graduate school. (When he went in to register, he still had his changer on his belt.) There he became a student of Milton Friedman, completing a dissertation in 1969. Then it was on to the staff of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank – the beginning of a lifelong no-love-lost affair with the central bank.

Electing Barack Obama has actually been sort of the same thing. For a lot of people, just getting Obama elected president was IT. They’d been fighting (or hiding under the bed, whichever the choice) for so long that this was the be-all and end-all. And then he got elected (with the help of a lot of people and people who actually went and stood in the voting booth and made their choice) and everyone held their breaths and waited for some disaster to hit before the inaugural. And then Aretha Franklin stood up and sang and the Chief Justice screwed up the oath and they did it again. And there’s been all this noise trying to delegitimize the entire thing.

In January 1981, Bruce Bartlett and I took over direction of the staff of the Joint Economic Committee - he on the Republican and I on the Democratic side. Our situation was unique: a bicameral committee, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, no majority either way. This, at the start of the Reagan revolution, which he favored and I opposed.

In a sea of subterfuge, secrecy and flat out dishonesty spanning not only the Administration of George W. Bush, but, sadly, that of Barack Obama as well, one blockbuster voluntary governmental release of foundational documents in the critical war on terror legal areas of the torture and warrantless wiretapping programs stands out. The April 16, 2009 disclosure by the Obama Administration of the never-before-seen secret memos describing, in graphic detail, the brutal interrogation techniques used by the CIA, their contractors and other govenmental and quasi-governmental actors under the Bush administration’s “war on terror.”

Some books are written for their moment. When John Maynard Keynes published his General Theory the world was, in fact, more than ready. Key ideas had already been put forward in papers and letters, and political figures were already looking for a means to implement truths the felt to be correct. Keynes advised, prophesized, synthesized, and proselytized. But to some extent he was a victim of the breath of his ideas and the range of his converts. As with many other epoch making ideas, it was in redaction and reduction that Keynes came to the world.

‘Murder in the name of honour’ is the title of Rana Husseini’s first book, and was also the title of an article, one of her first, that she published in the English language newspaper Jordan Times in 1994, covering the murder of Kifaya, a 16-year-old girl murdered by her brothers after having been a victim of incestuous rape. Other papers in the region covering these kinds of familial murders in an off-hand way, as if they were private matters, refusing to name the phenomenon nor investigate the circumstances to avoid causing further scandal to the family. Rana vowed on that day that Kifaya’s story would not just be another four line story in a newspaper, and to make ‘honour’ killings a national issue in Jordan.

Live online discussion with author Jonathan Tasini about his book "The Audacity of Greed: Free Markets, Corporate Thieves and the Looting of America"

In the immortal words of the 43rd President of the United States, “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me … you can’t get fooled again.” Tort reform has made fools out of a lot of people for many years. First, it is touted as the answer for doctor’s skyrocketing premiums, then for the exploding cost of health care. Yet time after time, the only group that ever really profits from it is the insurance industry.

Over the last eight years, David Swanson has been one of the most tenacious and effective activists against the transgressions of the Bush presidency. As Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign, Communications Coordinator for ACORN prior to that, a tireless anti-war activist for Democrats.com and, most notably of all, as the indefatigable spearhead behind the campaign to publicize the incriminating "Downing Street memos," Swanson has been a living, breathing illustration of what vibrant citizen activism and independent, adversarial investigative journalism should be.

Nomi has done us a great service in reviewing how we got here and where we went wrong. Each morning's headlines are full of reverberations and aftershocks of the crisis. Each evening we get promises of change and hear a growing chorus of assurance that the worst is behind us. All of this makes It Takes a Pillage an essential guide to understanding how the financial-political-economic system works in today's America and beyond. Sadly, pillage, scandal and misinformation make up much of the core of our recent financial history.