I wish we could require all Americans – at least all decision-makers – to read Joseph Stiglitz’s new essay in the New York Times. Inequality is strangling us economically, politically, socially, he writes.

In the summer of 2011, 14 million Americans were unemployed and 16% of the country was officially poor. Student loan debt eclipsed credit card with over $1 trillion outstanding. One in five mortgages was underwater. Our leaders said the economy was recovering from the recession caused by the financial crisis, but their soothing pronouncements seemed to mock the evidence of our senses. On September 17, a group of activists converged on a small concrete plaza in lower Manhattan, determined to Occupy Wall Street.

An introduction to the theory of oligarchy in practice today.

Our elected officials have basically set up a political system that legalizes and facilitates bribery. And our failure to deal with that has created the most successful business model of the late 20th and early 21st centuries: maximize your profits by making bigger and badder loans that precipitate a “crisis” when they go belly up (which you fuel with a massive PR campaign), then you squeeze the government to make you whole.

Bad News is a collection of essays edited by our guest today, Anya Schiffrin. It features chapters by Ms. Schiffrin, as well as by Nobel Laureate Joe Stiglitz, Columbia Journalism Review’s Dean Starkman, HuffPo Business Editor Peter Goodman, and others in the field from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

The book examines the financial press’s version of the Veal Pen, or what Stiglitz calls “cognitive capture.” Just like the political reporters inside the Beltway have become slaves to access, Financial and economic journalists are just as dependent on their sources in industry and government for information and feel the need to keep those sources happy to avoid being cut off from the information flow that is the lifeblood of their production model.

To the surprise of no one who’s paying attention to the American economy’s stall, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz yesterday called for a second federal stimulus, saying Americans face a significant reduction in standard of living because they no longer have home equity on which to borrow, spend, and live.

The only bill on the horizon that might have a positive economic impact is the small business loan bill. Yesterday, the Senate adjourned for a month, but Reid filed for cloture on the bill, and Senators hope to build support over the recess.

      Stop by any corner grocery store and ask the people standing in line:  What do you worry about most—jobs or the nation’s budget deficit? If they don’t choke up laughing, chances are real high they’ll give the same response as did the public in two recent polls: Priority #1: Jobs. Priority #2: [...]