Immelt and GE aren’t about building the jobs American needs (for graphic representation of that, see this post). Rather, they’re about transforming the fruits of American manufacturing into yet more destabilizing casino games.

I have so many problems with the narrative that TARP and the bank bailouts in general were an unqualified success that I don’t know where to begin sometimes, but a few articles out today should provide a good place.

The freak show has come to staid, pedestrian Delaware, in the form of Christine O’Donnell and her litany of crazy. But while the national media and late-night comics focus on condoms, masturbation and witchcraft, the man who is likely to become the next Senator from the state has quietly gone about his business. I had the opportunity to talk with Coons about the race, the O’Donnell madness, and his specific positions on issues he could face shortly in the Senate.

We’re living in a Second Gilded Age, and it has not yet produced enough champions willing to break up these massive conglomerates and hold them accountable for what they have caused throughout the nation and the world.

Unable to whip the votes against Audit the Fed in the Senate, the White House prevailed upon Bernie Sanders to limit the audit to only going back to 2007, and Bernie complied.  What does that mean?  Scarecrow: The key is not when they audit, it’s what the get to audit. They’ve excluded the workings of [...]

In a fiery speech on the Senate floor, Russ Feingold conditioned his support for the Wall Street reform measure on adding a multitude of amendments that would break up the mega-banks, cap size and leverage and restore the firewall between commercial and investment banks. He even went so far as to say that he would not vote to end debate on the bill unless these and other serious banking reforms were part of it.

Sen. Al Franken has quietly come up with an amendment that would change the way the rating agencies and their issuers do business. His amendment, co-sponsored by Bill Nelson and Chuck Schumer, would set up an office inside the SEC that would assign initial rating requests to the accredited rating agencies, rather than have the issuer hire the raters.

The Sunday talk shows gave the impression that both sides are moving closer to agreement, but aren’t there yet. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Republicans block consideration of the bill when it gets a vote tonight. That doesn’t mean the bill dies, however; Republicans Sunday morning took pains to say they wanted a bill and just wanted to reach an agreement first before bringing it to the floor.

Senate Republicans say they’re against both the bailouts and the Democrats’ proposed legislation to end them. They say that Sen. Dodd’s bill would “actually guarantees future bailouts.” It’s time for the Republicans to put up or shut up. Will they make Dodd’s bill better by breaking up the too big to fail banks and putting new rules in place that never let them get so big and systemically risky, or will they shill for Wall Street?

Ever since the terms “too big to fail” entered the political discourse, the most obvious question has been, if a financial institution is too big, to dangerous to the economy to allow it to fail willy nilly, isn’t it too big to exist? Why aren’t we breaking up these threatening monsters?