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The G.O.P. Economic Meltdown

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"The great cause of this [financial] crisis is the incredible greed and selfishness
that exist in the ruling elite of America. They have no shame."
— Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, in 2009 speech

"Dubya can’t win in Iraq, and he failed totally in Louisiana, and the same blindness that caused the thousands of deaths in New Orleans
will also trigger the collapse of the world economy." — prediction by G.E. Nordell in WMail Ezine Issue #54 [September 2005]

a list of more predictions on the matter by G.E. Nordell, going back to January 2004

The solution to this intentional economic disaster is
Reason-Based Taxation [WMail Ezine Issue #9 April 2001]

Timeline of The G.O.P. Economic Meltdown Prior History   •   Bush Bankrupting The Country   •   Obama Fixing The Disaster   • 2012   •   2016   •   2017 Prior  Historical  Events 1792 March-April: U.S. financial crisis dubbed the 'Panic of 1792', during which securities lost 25 percent of their value. 1837 May 10: Bank Panic of 1837, which caused an economic depression that lasted five years. 1869 Sept 24: Wall Street's 'Black Friday' panic after financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk attempted to corner the gold market. 1873 Sept 20: The financial 'Panic of 1873' swept the New York Stock Exchange in the wake of railroad bond defaults and bank failures, triggering the worldwide Long Depression that lasted 65 months. 1879 March: End of the worldwide Long Depression that lasted 65 months. 1893 June 27: The financial 'Panic of 1893' was a crash of the New York stock market caused by a run on the gold supply, the worst economic crisis to hit the nation in its history to that point. 1907 Oct 21: The financial 'Panic of 1907' began with a run on the Knickerbocker Trust Company of New York, dragging stocks down 37%. 1910 Nov: The secret meeting of U.S. bankers and financiers and government officials on Jekyl Island in Georgia to design a central bank for the U.S. 1913 Dec 23: Enactment by Congress of the Federal Reserve Act that created the Federal Reserve central banking system in the U.S.; immediately signed into law by President Wilson. 1926 Sept: The severe hurricane that devastated Miami, Florida was the final blow that burst the Florida land bubble and led to the economic Great Depression of 1929. 1929 Oct 24: Beginning of the stock market crash – referred to since as 'Black Thursday'. 1929 Oct 29: Further decline of the Dow Jones Industrial Average index; the infamous 'Black Tuesday' collapse of the New York stock market that began America's 'Great Depression'. 1932 March 4: Start of hearings by the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking and Currency on the causes of the stock market crash. Generally led by committee counsel Ferdinand Pecora [1882-1971], the hearings became known as the 'Pecora Commission'. The hearings were instrumental in passage of the Glass-Steagal Acts, the Securities Act of 1933, and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; the commission ended hearings on 4 May 1934 and issued their final report.    "The Hellhound of Wall Street: How Ferdinand Pecora's Investigation of The Great Crash Forever Changed American Finance" [2010] by Michael Perino Penguin 8¼x5½ pb [9/2011] for $11.56 Penguin Press 9¼x6¼ hardcover [10/2010] for $12.99 1932 July 8: The Dow-Jones Industrial Average index hit bottom at 41.22 points, a loss of 89.19 percent since September 1929. 1933 March 4: President Franklin D. Roosevelt sworn into office. 1933 May 27: In response to the economic crisis, Congress passed the First Glass-Steagall Act. 1933 June 16: Congress passed the Second Glass-Steagall Act, which founded the Federal Deposit Insurance Company, and separated commercial (consumer) banking from investment (speculative) banking. 1934 May 4: End of hearings by the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking and Currency on the causes of the stock market crash, and publcation of the 'Pecora Commission' final report.    "The Pecora Report: The Report On The Practices of Stock Exchanges From The 'Pecora Commission'" [1934] by U.S. Senate Committee on Banking and Currency CreateSpace / Aquitaine Media 10x7 pb [9/2009] for $25.95 1935 Aug 14: The Social Security Act was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 1936 Feb: The Secretary of The Treasury and the Comptroller of The Currency were removed from the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve, so that the federal government actually has no vote on any matter. 1972 Nov 14: The Dow Jones Industrial Average index closed above 1000 for the first time ever. 1974 Dec 9: The Dow Jones Industrial Average index dropped to a low of 577.60, a loss of 42 percent since November 1972. National Debt in 1980: ONE TRILLION DOLLARS which included the entire VietNam War 1981 Aug 13: Kemp-Roth Tax Cut signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. 1982 July: Collapse of the Penn Square Bank in Oklahoma City, the first of 139 Oklahoma banks that failed at the end of the Oil Boom Bubble of the 1980s. 1982 Oct 1: Congress passed the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act, which deregulated the savings & loan industry (cause of the Savings & Loan Crisis of the 1980s & 1990s); signed into law by President Reagan on 15 October. 1982 Oct 12: The Dow Jones Industrial Average index closed above 1000 again, the first time since the low of 577 in December 1974 (94 months). 1986 Oct 23: Tax Reform Act of 1986 signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. 1986 Nov: Wall Street arbitrageur Ivan Boesky pled guilty to securities fraud; he also revealed details of insider trading deals with financier Michael Milken and others, which led to an S.E.C. probe of Wall Street investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert. Boesky served two years at Lompoc Federal Prison; Milken served 22 months at Pleasanton, California; both were banned for life from working in the securities industry. 1987 Jan 8: The Dow Jones Industrial Average index closed above 2000 for the first time. Mid-1987: Beginning of the Reagan-Bush Savings & Loan Crisis; 747 U.S. S&L/thrift banks failed. The total cost is estimated at $160 billion {$230 billion in 2010 dollars} including Bush 41's direct bailout of $125 billion {$180 billion in 2010 dollars}, paid for by taxpayers. 1987 June 2: President Reagan announced his nomination of Alan Greenspan to succeed Paul Volcker as chairman of the Federal Reserve; Greenspan served for 18 years. 1987 Oct 19: 'Black Monday', the #2 worst one-day Dow-Jones Industrial Average decline of 22.6%, a loss of 508 points to 1,738.74. National Debt in 1992: FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS after the Reagan-Bush Years Clinton's First Term, 1993-96: Increase of National Debt was slowed to 25 percent, reaching five trillion dollars. 1997 Nov 24: The 'End Game' memo from Larry Summers to his boss Timothy Geithner confirming the Wall Street plan to deregulate banks and allow speculation in real estate derivatives (memo revealed to public by journalist Greg Palast in August 2013). 1998 April 3: The Dow Jones Industrial Average index's first close above 9,000. 1999 Nov 12: Sen. Phill Gramm [GOP-TX] successfully gutted the Glass-Steagall Banking Acts of 1933 with passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, a major cause of the subprime mortgage meltdown of 2008. 2000 Dec 14: Sen. Phil Gramm [GOP-TX] pushed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, deregulating all derivatives trading (a major cause of The Enron Scandal in 2001); signed into law by President Clinton on December 21. This also deregulated petroleum futures traders, the cause of rising gas prices ever since. Clinton's Second Term: Increase of National Debt slowed still further; Clinton balanced the budget and created a Treasury surplus.          "[Bill Clinton] was the first Democrat to be re-elected since Franklin D. Roosevelt and, during his eight years in office, the nation enjoyed the greatest peace and prosperity in its history. Unemploy-ment fell to the lowest rate in modern times, while inflation declined to a 30-year low and welfare rolls shrank. Crime fell to levels unmatched in half a century and home ownership increased to historic highs. Clinton submitted the first balanced federal budget in decades and banked a staggering surplus. He failed to reform healthcare but elevated environmental protection to unmatched levels."          — Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times, 23 June 2004 George W. Bush  Bankrupting  America Official National Debt in 2001: 5.728 TRILLION DOLLARS on the Monday after George Dubya Bush took office 2001 Jan 20: Usurper Republican George W. Bush sworn into office as the 43rd President of the United States. 2001 April: Working Minds Philosophy Essay #9 "Reason-Based Taxation" 2001 Dec: Working Minds Philosophy Essay #18 "The Stock Market Casino" 2002 March: The NASDAQ Composite index bottomed in the 1900s, a drop of 62% since March 2000. 2002 July 1: The NASDAQ Composite index closed at 5-year low of 1,403.80; DOW down to 9,109.79. 2002 Oct 9: The Dow Jones Industrial Average index bottomed at 7,286.27 (down 2.9% for a 5-year low). 2003 June 3: Mysterious federal ceremony claiming Republican victory in ending regulation of U.S. banks. 2004 Feb: Working Minds Philosophy Essay #40 "Paleo-Capitalism" 2004 April: Hearing at the S.E.C. that gave the five top Wall Street investment banks permission to release capital reserves to invest in 'exotic instruments'. 2005 Sept: Working Minds Philosophy Essay #54 "F*** The Fed" The post-Katrina WMail ezine Issue #54 of September 2005 included the following prediction: “Dubya can’t win in Iraq, and he failed totally in Louisiana, and the same blindness that caused the thousands of deaths in New Orleans will also trigger the collapse of the world economy.” 2006 Feb 1: Ben S. Bernanke sworn in as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, succeeding longtime Fed Chair Alan Greenspan. 2006 June: Henry Paulson sworn in as Secretary of Treasury, kept by Obama thru 2010. 2006 Sept: Nouriel Roubini of N.Y.U. warned at the I.M.F. meeting that the U.S. faced a severe housing crash, soaring oil prices, declining consumer prices, and defaults on mortgages worth trillions of dollars. 2006 Oct 19: The Dow Jones Industrial Average index closed above 12,000 for the first time, at $12,029.50. 2007 April 2: New Century Financial Corp. of Orange County, California -- second largest sub-prime lender in the U.S. -- filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 2008 March 14 (Friday): The Fed announced a 28-day 'backstop' loan agreement with JPMorgan Chase to prop up the liquidity of Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns; the Fed announced later that evening that the loan guarantee would not be available on Monday, triggering a panic among investors. 2008 March 16: JPMorgan Chase agreed to buy Bear Stearns at $2/share, but foisted $29B of sub-prime paper onto the Fed. 2008 March 17 (Monday): The stock price of Bear Stearns plunged to $30 per share; JPMorgan Chase eventually paid roughly $10 per share for Bear Stearns (minus the toxic paper foisted on the Fed). 2008 July: Working Minds Philosophy Essay #78 "The Robber Barons" 2008 July: All-time high average U.S. gasoline pump price of $4.11 per gallon. 2008 Sept 7 (Sunday): Henry Paulson agreed to a government takeover (i.e. bailout) of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac; actual cash outlay was eventually $34.2B to Fannie Mae and $51.7B to Freddie Mac – while $5.4 trillion in outstanding and very risky mortgage debt remain on the books. 2008 Sept 9: Lehman Brothers stock plunged 45 percent. 2008 Sept 14: Under pressure to complete negotiations started in November 2007, Bank of America bought Wall Street investment bank Merrill Lynch for $50 billion worth of BofA stock, or about $29 per share (a 38 percent premium over book value, but a 61 percent discount to the September 2007 market price). 2008 Sept 15 (Monday): Giant stock broker/mortgage lender Lehman Brothers filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 2008 Sept 15 (Monday): The Dow Jones Industrial Average index fell 504 points, the largest one-day loss since 11 September 2001. 2008 Sept 16 (Tuesday): The Fed agreed to a 'secured loan facility' for up to $85B to insurer A.I.G. in exchange for 80 percent equity in the company. 2008 Sept 17 (Wednesday): The Dow Jones Industrial Average index dropped 450 points: down 8% for the week, and then back up on Thursday & Friday. 2008 Sept 17 (Wednesday): Gold rose $70 per ounce, the largest one-day jump in history. 2008 Sept 18 (Thursday): The Dow Jones Industrial Average index climbed 410 points. 2008 Sept 19 (Friday): The Dow Jones Industrial Average index climbed 368 points. 2008 Sept 21 (Sunday): Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last two major investment banks in the United States, both confirmed that they would become traditional bank holding companies, bringing an end to the era of investment banking on Wall Street. 2008 Sept 23 Capitalist Warren Buffett bought $5B of stock in Goldman Sachs. 2008 Sept 25: The U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision siezed Washington Mutual Bank after a ten-day run withdrew 9 percent of assets; JPMorgan Chase paid $1.9B for Washington Mutual Bank later that day. 2008 Sept 26: Wachovia Bank stock plunged 27 percent, while depositers withdrew $5B (1 percent of assets) on the same day. 2008 Sept 29: The F.D.I.C. announced the takeover of Wachovia's operations by Citigroup, a temporary measure intended to prevent Wachovia from failing. 2008 Oct 3: Wells Fargo agreed to acquire failing Wachovia for $15.1B in stock, which nullified the Citigroup deal. (Citigroup is pursuing claims for $60B in damages.) 2008 Oct 3: Congress passed a $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill. 2008 Oct 6 (Monday): The Dow Jones Industrial Average index plunged below 10,000 for the first time since 2004. 2008 Oct 7 (Tuesday): The Dow Jones Industrial Average index dipped over 500 points. 2008 Oct 6-7: Global stock market losses of $6.5 trillion (per Time Magazine, 10/2008) 2008 Oct 8: The I.M.F. predicted that the U.S. economy will grow just 0.1% next year, its worst rate in 18 years. 2008 Oct 8 (Wednesday): Nikkei Index plunged 9.4 percent; Indonesia shut down the country's exchange after the key index plunged more than 10 percent; Moscow's MICEX stock exchange shut down until Friday after losing more than 14 percent in the first half-hour of trading; Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index lost 5.2 percent; India's Sensex sank 4.3 percent; South Korea's Kospi Index lost 5.8 percent; Taiwan's key index fell 5.8 percent; and Singapore's benchmark tumbled 5.5 percent. 2008 Oct 9 (Thursday): The Dow Jones Industrial Average index fell as low as 8,955.84 and ended the day down at 9,006 points. 2008 week of Oct 6-10: The Dow Jones Industrial Average index suffered the worst week in a hundred years, falling 18 percent. 2008 Oct 13 (Monday): The Dow Jones Industrial Average index jumped 400 points by 8:30 a.m., up 976 points by end of day (biggest one-day point gain ever), and the S&P index rose 104 points (also the biggest one-day point gain ever). 2008 Oct 23 (Thursday): Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan warned of a 'credit tsunami'. 2008 Nov: The U.S. Federal Reserve began its first round of bond-buying (called 'Quantitative Easing' or QE1); the $1.7 trillion boost to the economy took place gradually thru March 2010. 2008 Nov 4: Democrats won the national elections for President and for many Senate & Congress seats; Barack Obama won the election for the U.S. Presidency with 52% of the popular vote, and with 365 electoral votes to John McCain's 173 electoral votes. 2008 Nov 10: The Federal Reserve & Treasury paid out another $27.5 billion for A.I.G. losses, making a total of $150B. 2008 Nov 17 (Monday): Japan declared a recession, the first since 2001 – and most people there blame the U.S. 2008 Nov 19: U.S. Senate hearing on the automotive crisis, with unsworn testimony by the heads of Chrysler, Ford & General Motors. 2008 Dec: Secret, interest-free loans by the U.S. Federal Reserve of $1.2 trillion to troubled 'too big to let fail' banks – including $107 billion to Morgan Stanley, $100 billion to Citigroup, and $91 billion to Bank of America – that were not revealed until August 2011. 2008 Dec 9: Negotiators revealed the terms of an emerging deal between the Bush White House and Congress under which a short-term $15 billion bailout for the Big Three would be overseen by a federal trustee (or 'car czar'). 2008 Dec 19: President Bush announced approval of the automaker bailout plan, which would give loans of $17.4 billion to G.M. and Chrysler, 2008 Dec 31: At year-end, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index had fallen nearly 34 percent, the worst since 1931; the S&P index was down 38.5%, the worst since 1937. Official National Debt in 2009: 10.626 TRILLION DOLLARS on the day George Dubya Bush left office (an 86% increase). The true Republican National Debt: 25 TRILLION DOLLARS on the day that Dubya left office — an increase of 336 percent in eight years, giving George W. Bush the inenviable record as the person who ran up the most debt in the history of Mankind !! Barack Obama  Fixing  The  Disaster 2009 Jan 20: Barack Obama sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. 2009 Feb 13: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was passed in Congress; no Republicans in the House and only three Republican Senators voted in favor. The bill included $288 billion in tax cuts, $357 billion for federal spending programs, and $144 billion to state & local fiscal relief. 2009 Feb 17: The 'recovery package' bill was signed into law by President Obama, adding $787 billion and 3.5 million jobs to the floundering American economy. 2009 March 9: The Dow Jones Industrial Average Index bottomed at 6,547, a 12-year low. 2009 April 30: Chrysler Motors and 24 affiliates filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after talks with lenders broke down. 2009 June 1: General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. 2009 June 10: Chrysler Motors and affiliates emerged from bankruptcy (backed by $6.6B in financing from the federal government), and immediately sold several divisions to Fiat of Italy. 2009 July 10: General Motors ended bankruptcy proceedings. 2009 Nov: "The stock market is down 26% since 2000. (Inflation-adjusted, it's even worse.)" — Time Magazine 2009 Nov: "There are six times as many Americans seeking work as there are job openings." — Paul Krugman, in The New York Times 2010 May 6 (Thursday): The Dow Jones Industrial Average Index had a record freefall event: in half an hour the stock market dropped more than it has ever dropped, all at once, 998.50 points (an intra-day loss of 9.2 percent), but managed to end the day down only 347 (-3.19%); the event was later named the '2010 Flash Crash'. 2010 May 7 (Friday): The unstable Dow Jones Industrial Average Index plunged another 140 pts, and closed down 672 points (-5.71%) for the week. 2010 Aug: Working Minds Philosophy Essay #92 "Reason-Based Taxation 2010" 2010 Nov: The U.S. Federal Reserve began its second round of bond-buying (called 'Quantitative Easing' or QE2); the $600 billion boost to the economy took place gradually thru June 2011. 2010 Nov 17: The General Motors post-bankruptcy IPO, the biggest initial public offering in U.S. history, raised $20.1 billion: 478 million common shares at $33 each for $15.77 billion and $4.35 billion in preferred shares. 2011 Jan 27: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission released its "Final Report On The Causes of The Financial Crisis In The United States" {see below}. 2011 Aug 4 (Thursday): The Dow Jones Industrial Average index fell $512.76 – closing at $11,383.68 – the steepest point decline since 1 December 2008; S&P 500 futures fell 0.6 percent to $1,191.7. In worldwide trading over the next 24 hours London's FTSE 100 declined 3.5 percent to 5,393.14, Germany's DAX shed 3.8 percent to $6,172.00; France's CAC-40 lost 2.5 percent to 3,238.80; Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average slid 3.7 percent to 9,299.88; Hong Kong's Hang Seng index dived 4.3 percent to 20,946.14; China's Shanghai Composite Index lost 2.2 percent to 2,626.42. 2011 Aug 5 (Friday): The Dow Jones Industrial Average index fell 5.8 percent for the week; the S&P 500 fell 7.2 percent for the week and is down 10.8 percent since July 22; the NASDAQ Composite index fell 24 points, or 0.9 percent, and was down 11.4 percent since July 22. 2011 Aug 5: Standard & Poor's did not like Congress's solution to the artificial debt ceiling crisis and downgraded the long-term credit rating of the United States government from AAA to AA+. 2011 Aug 8 (Monday): The Dow Jones Industrial Average index fell another 634.76 points – closing at $10,809.85 – a loss of 5.55 percent. 2011 Aug 10 (Wednesday): The Dow Jones Industrial Average index fell another 519.83 points – closing at $10,719.94 – for a further loss of 4.62 percent. 2011 Friday Aug 19: U.S. stocks fell for the fourth week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average index closed at $10,817.65, down 4 percent for the week and down 15 percent since July 21. The S&P 500 stock index closed at $1,123.53, down 4.7 percent for the week (all ten industry groups that make up the index fell). The NASDAQ Composite index fell to 2,341.84, down 6.6% for the week. 2011 Oct 31: Major hedge fund M.F. Global filed for bankruptcy; considered the first U.S. victim of the European sovereign debt crisis. . . . and you thought the crises were over! 2012 May 1: The Dow Jones Industrial Average index reached a new closing high of 13,279.32, closing at its highest level since 28 December 2007. 2012 May 10 (Thursday evening): Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase bank, announced that the company suffered $2 billion in losses for the second quarter, due to uncleared derivatives hedge transactions by a London employee; the amount may turn out to be six or even eight billion dollars higher. 2012 May 11 (Friday): JPMorgan's stock price fell by 9.3 percent, wiping out $14.4 billion of the company's value 2012 May 14 (Monday): JPMorgan's stock price fell by another 3.2 percent; shares in Bank of America fell 2.7 percent. 2012 June 13: Under pressure from Congress, the New York Federal Reserve released documents going back to 2007 that show complicity between the U.S. Federal Reserve System and British banks in faking the crucial L.I.B.O.R. {London Interbank Offered Rate} international benchmark interest rates. 2012 July 10: Peregrine Financial Group of Cedar Falls, Iowa filed bankruptcy after ftrying to conceal and then failing to recover from a shortfall of $200 million in customer accounts; CEO Russell Wasendorf has admitted embezzling for at least 20 years. 2012 July 13 (Friday): JPMorgan Chase bank announced that the bad trade deal in U.K. has ballooned to a loss of $5.8 billion. 2012 Sept: U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced a third round of bond-buying (called 'Quantitative Easing' or QE3) as an open-ended monthly boost to the economy; the program starts with $85 billion per month until January, and $40 billion per month after that; the program could last for three years and might add up to $1.4 trillion. 2012 Sept: "Moody's Analytics estimates that the housing crisis wiped out $4.3 trillion in owner-occupied-home values from 2007 to 2010." — per TIME Magazine 2012 Nov 6: U.S. National Election for President & 35 Senators and all 435 Congress members, plus many state-level seats; incumbent Democrat Barack Obama beat Republican Mitt Romney, capturing 332 electoral votes to Romney's 206. 2012 Nov 7: Stock market 'sell-off', the worst trading day in 2012: the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index dropped below 13,000 (down 313 points, or 2.4%); the NASDAQ and S&P 500 also each sank more than 2%. (Wall Street's emotional reaction had more to do with European economic austerity events than the U.S. elections.) 2012 Dec: The U.S. Treasury sold its remaining stake in insurer A.I.G. at a profit of $22.7B, then announced that it is selling 200 million shares back to General Motors by year-end, followed by sale of its remaining stake in G.M. in the next 12 to 15 months (the G.M. deal is expected to produce a net loss of $36B for taxpayers). 2013 March 1: The 2011 'sequester' bill of the Republican Congress went into effect, stripping funding for many government programs and laying off or furloughing thousands of teachers, health workers, firefighters, and other government employees. 2013 Tuesday Oct 1: The Repubitards in Congress escalated their tantrum and shut down large parts of the federal government, which put 800,000 government employees out of work, closed the national parks, halted oversight by the I.R.S. and other agencies, froze passport processing, and generally messed with the non-recovered economy – because President Obama stood his ground and refused to approve the Keystone pipeline, to reduce taxes for the One Percent, to allow unregulated drilling for oil & gas, and other stealth provisions of the legislation as proposed by the constipated House of Representatives. 2013 Wednesday Oct 16: The idiots of the Republican-led Congress folded at the last minute and ended the 16-day government shutdown impasse; the U.S. Senate voted a late-evening bipartisan 81-18, and the House then voted 185-144, while President Obama waited at the White House to apply his signature to a 'clean bill' that matched his proposal of two weeks prior; federal workers went back to work on Thursday and national parks & other facilities reopened, following what is being called the "16-Day TEA Party Shutdown"; the cost of this fiasco was elimination of $24 billion from the U.S. economy. 2014 July 3: The Dow Jones Industrial Average Index rose above 17,000 for the first time in history, closing at $17,068.20. Anybody  Still  Think  It's  Over ? 2016 Jan: Barnes and Noble booksellers announced plans to close 197 bookstores over the next five years. 2016 Jan: Finish Line Inc. announced that it is closing the lowest-performing 150 of its 600 name-brand 'athleisure' clothing stores. 2016 Jan 15: Wal-Mart, Inc. announced that it plans to close all of its 102 Wal-Mart Express stores as well as 52 full-size U.S. locations, while stepping up its digital sales efforts. 2016 March: Sports Authority filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and announced plans to close 140 stores. 2016 March 22: After reporting a 20% drop in fourth quarter profit, the Kohl's department store chain announced that it is closing 18 stores and laying off more than 1,500 employees. 2016 May: The Aeropostale teen apparel chain filed for bankruptcy and said that it will close 154 stores; the plan was later expanded to closing 570 of its 800 stores. 2016 May 20: After failing to find a buyer, Sports Authority announced closing & liquidation of all its 460+ locations in the U.S. 2016 June: Luxury fashion brand Ralph Lauren announced plans to cut about 1,000 jobs (8% of its workforce) while closing more than 50 stores. (The retailer's sales fell in every quarter in fiscal 2016, leading to a full-year sales decline of nearly 3%.) 2016 July: The Wall Street Journal declared a state of 'worldwide economic stagnation', based on a new study by the Mckinsey Global Institute that said: "Across 25 of the world’s advanced economies, about two-thirds of the population – more than half a billion people – earn the same as or less than their peers did a decade ago". 2016 July: After Hastings Entertainment filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and failed to find a buyer, the seller of books & DVDs plans to liquidate all 126 stores. 2016 Aug: After already closing 400 stores during the Office Max - Office Depot merger, Office Depot announced plans to close 300 more stores in the next three years. (The proposed merger with larger Staples was scrapped over antitrust concerns.) 2016 Nov: After suffering seven consecutive quarters of declining sales, The Gap's North American operations announced plans to close 65 stores across its Gap, Gap Kids, Old Navy, and Banana Republic retail clothing brands; they already pulled the Old Navy brand out of Japan entirely, closing over 50 stores. 2016 Dec: Sears announced that it will close 17 Sears locations and 34 Kmart stores in early 2017 (liquid-ation sales to begin in January, closings between late March and mid-April). This latest round brings the total number of Sears stores closed this fiscal year to more than 200, and means that the retailer will have fewer than 1,500 stores left by early 2017, down nearly 60% from 2011 when Sears had more than 3,500 stores. Clothing retailer Children's Place closed 125 stores in 2016 and plans to close 200 more in 2017; it operates about 1,000 stores throughout the U.S. Tailored Brands, which operates the Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Banks stores, is in the process of closing as many as 250 stores. Chico’s FAS, which operates the Chico’s, White House Black Market, and Soma stores, announced that it will cut 240 jobs and close 120 stores by the end of 2017. American Eagle Outfitters continues its 2014 three-year initiative to close as many as 150 stores to keep costs down and boost declining sales and profits. 2016 Dec 20: Walgreens announced that it will sell 865 Rite Aid stores to Fred's Pharmacy for $950 million to address F.T.C. antitrust concerns about the proposed merger with Rite Aid; but Bloomberg News reports that those divestitures haven't satisfied the F.T.C. 2016 Dec 30: The stock market continues to expand the inevitable bubble: Dow Jones Industrial Average Index closed at $19,762.60 (its best year since 2013); the Standard & Poor's 500 closed at $2,238.83; and the NASDAQ Composite Index closed at $5,383.12. 2017 Jan: Blaming a disappointing holiday season, Macy’s Department Stores announced that it aims to cut costs by closing some stores and slashing 10,000 jobs. 2017 Jan 6: The Limited women's apparel chain announced plans to close all of its 250 stores, with loss of about 4,000 jobs. 2017 Jan 27: The Wet Seal teen fashions chain of California announced plans to close the last 170 of its stores; two years ago the chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, closed two-thirds of its locations, and laid off almost 3,700 workers. 2017 Jan 27: Walgreens and Rite Aid revised their proposed merger deal, slashing more than $2 billion from the purchase price and pushing the closing date back six months while they await regulatory approval; the tentative deal is now scheduled to close July 31. Walgreens originally agreed to pay $9 per share for Rite Aid's common stock, but has now agreed to pay $7 per share if 1,000 or fewer stores have to be sold, and $6.50 per share if 1,200 stores must be sold. 2017 Feb 24: J.C. Penney will close up to 140 stores, offering buyouts to many employees. 2017 March 9: Staples announced plans to close 70 more stores; the latest store closings come on the heels of 48 closings last year, and a combined 242 stores closed in the two prior years; at the start of the current fiscal year, Staples had 1,255 U.S. stores and 304 Canadian locations. 2017 March 17: RadioShack [est. 1921] filed for bankruptcy for the second time and is closing 552 (36 percent) of its stores. 2017 April 4: Payless ShoeSource [est. 1956] filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and announced a restructuring plan that includes the immediate closure of 400 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico. 2017 July 20: The NASDAQ Composite Index set an all-time record at $6,390; several other NASDAQ indexes also set new records.

B o o k s

"This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly" [2009] by Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth Rogoff "This is quite simply the best empirical investigation of financial crises ever published. Covering hundreds of years and bringing together a dizzying array of data, Reinhart and Rogoff have made a truly heroic contribution to financial history. This single marvelous volume is worth a thousand mathematical models." — Niall Ferguson "[This book] has become the standard reference work on financial crises past and present." — Stephen Mihm Kindle Edition from Princeton Univ Press [7/2011] for $9.18 Princeton Univ Press 8½x5½ pb [7/2011] for $13.57 Princeton Univ Press 9¼x6¼ hardcover [9/2009] for $21.89

	"Final Report On The Causes of The Financial Crisis In The United States" [2011] by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Kindle Edition from PublicAffairs [1/2011] for $6.15 PublicAffairs 8¼x5½ pb [1/2011] for $9.78 Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission official website
	"Wall Street and The Financial Crisis: Anatomy of A Financial Collapse" [2011] from the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations official report [4/2011] 5.7MB .PDF file free download

Recent  Additions

	"The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics" [2016] by John B. Judis named one of the Best Books of 2016 by Bloomberg Kindle Edition from Columbia Global Reports [9/2016] for $7.99 Columbia Global Reports 7½x5 pb [10/2016] for $9.83
	"Meltdown: A Free-Market Look At Why The Stock Market Collapsed, The Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse" [2009] by Thomas E. Woods Jr., Foreword by Ron Paul Typical Libertarian viewpoint that blames the U.S. Federal Reserve Banks [est. 1913] and Franklin Delano Roosevelt [1882-1945] and not the criminals on Wall Street. Kindle Edition from Regnery Publng [2/2009] for $15.37 Regnery Publng 9¼x6½ hardcover [2/2009] for $19.59
	"Stress Test: Reflections On Financial Crises" [2014] by Timothy F. Geithner "[Geithner] writes that it would have been impossible to fix the economy without first shoring up the banking system and restoring confidence. This was the most urgent task: a banking panic would have defeated the administration’s efforts to help the economy recover." Kindle Edition from Crown/Random House [5/2014] for $12.79 Crown Books deckle-edge 9½x6¼ hardcover [5/2014] for $22.47
	"The Bankers' New Clothes: What's Wrong With Banking and What To Do About It" [2013] by Anat Admati & Martin Hellwig Kindle Edition from Princeton Univ Press [3/2014] for $9.48 Princeton Univ Press 8¾x5½ pb with new preface [3/2014] for $17.06 Princeton Univ Press 9½x6½ hardcover [2/2013] for $21.80
	"The Crash of 2016: The Plot To Destroy America - and What We Can Do To Stop It" [2013] by talk radio host Thom Hartmann "Thom Hartmann is right that America must invest in our transportation and energy infrastructure, promote renewable energy, and rethink the disastrous trade policies that have shuttered our factories and decimated our middle class." — U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders Kindle Edition from Hachette Book Group [11/2013] for $12.29 Twelve Press 9x6¼ hardcover [11/2013] for $16.80
	"Debtors' Prison: The Politics of Austerity versus Possibility" [2013] by Robert Kuttner The author reveals the double standard in the politics of debt: the public debt gets most of the attention, yet it is private debts that crashed the economy and are sandbagging the recovery. Meanwhile corporations get to use bankruptcy to walk away from debts and homeowners and small nations do not. Austerity serves only the interest of creditors – the very bankers and financial elites whose actions precipitated the collapse. Kindle Edition from Random House Digital [4/2013] for $13.99 Knopf 9½x6½ deckle edge hardcover [4/2013] for $16.65
	"After The Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, The Response, and The Work Ahead" [2013] by Alan S. Blinder "A thorough and clear-eyed exploration of the 2008 financial crisis and the options for avoiding another." Kindle Edition from Penguin Press [1/2013] for $11.99 Penguin Press 9¼x6½ hardcover [1/2013] for $19.96 author is an economics professor at Princeton [hired 1971], a columnist at the Wall Street Journal, and serves in several roles at Promontory Financial Group of Washington, DC
	"The Coming Bond Market Collapse: How To Survive The Demise of The U.S. Debt Market" [2013] by Michael G. Pento Author predicts shockwaves of loss in the bond market and a disaster worse than the Great Depression – and coming faster than folks realize! Kindle Edition from Wiley [4/2013] for $14.99 Wiley & Sons 9¼x6½ hardcover [4/2013] for $22.05
	"Boom and Bust Banking: The Causes and Cures of The Great Recession" [2012] Edited by David Beckworth Kindle Edition from Independent Institute [10/2012] for $9.99 Independent Institute 9x6 pb [10/2012] for $17.79 official book page at Independent Institute
	"The Lost Bank: The Story of Washington Mutual, The Biggest Bank Failure In American History" [2012] by Kirsten Grind Washington Mutual was the biggest single bank casualty of the 2008 financial meltdown; the author chronicled its fall for the Puget Sound Business Journal and earned a place on the Pulitzer Prize shortlist. Kindle Edition from Simon & Schuster Digital Sales [6/2012] for $12.99 Simon & Schuster 9½x6½ hardcover [6/2012] for $14.36

http://www.amazon.com/Bailout-Account-Washington-Abandoned-Rescuing/dp/1451684932/
http://www.amazon.com/Bull-Horns-Fighting-Street-ebook/dp/B0061Q688A/
http://www.amazon.com/Cornered-Monopoly-Capitalism-Economics-Destruction/dp/0470186380/
http://www.amazon.com/Deception-Abuse-Fed-Gonzalez-Greenspans/dp/0292717857/
http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X/
http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Our-Own-Design-Innovation/dp/0470393750/
http://www.amazon.com/Den-Thieves-James-B-Stewart/dp/067179227X/
http://www.amazon.com/Down-Up-Escalator-Percent-Recession/dp/0385532741/
http://www.amazon.com/Dumb-Money-Greatest-Financial-Bankrupted/dp/B002QGSXH8/
http://www.amazon.com/False-Profits-Recovering-Bubble-Economy/dp/0982417128/
http://www.amazon.com/Fiasco-Inside-Story-Street-Trader/dp/0140278796/
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Unraveling-Century-Updated-Expanded/dp/0393326055/
http://www.amazon.com/How-Economy-Was-Lost-Worlds/dp/1849350078/
http://www.amazon.com/Invention-Enterprise-Entrepreneurship-Mesopotamia-Foundation/dp/0691143706/
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Man-Standing-Ascent-JPMorgan/dp/1416599533/
http://www.amazon.com/Liars-Poker-Rising-Through-Wreckage/dp/0140143459/
http://www.amazon.com/More-Money-Than-God-Making/dp/1594202559/
http://www.amazon.com/Only-Super-Rich-Can-Save-Us/dp/1583229035/
http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Crash-Great-Bubble-Undoing/dp/B000BNPG8M/ + /0143034677/
http://www.amazon.com/Other-Peoples-Money-Housing-Greatest/dp/0525952659/
http://www.amazon.com/Panic-Story-Modern-Financial-Insanity/dp/0393337987/
http://www.amazon.com/People-First-Economics-Making-Justice-Climate/dp/1906523231/
http://www.amazon.com/Screwed-Undeclared-Against-Currents-Paperback/dp/1576754634/
http://www.amazon.com/The-AIG-Story-Maurice-Greenberg/dp/1118345878/
http://www.amazon.com/Tower-Thieves-Inside-Culture-Corporate/dp/1883283698/
http://www.amazon.com/Uncontrolled-Risk-Brothers-Systemic-Financial/dp/0071638296/
http://www.amazon.com/When-Genius-Failed-Long-Term-Management/dp/0375758259/

"Fatal Risk: A Cautionary Tale of AIG's Corporat..." [] by Roddy Boyd
http://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Risk-Cautionary-Corporate-Suicide/dp/0470889802/

"What Caused The Financial Crisis" [12/2010] Edited by Jeffrey Friedman
http://www.amazon.com/Caused-Financial-Crisis-Jeffrey-Friedman/dp/0812221184/

jump to 2010 • • jump to 2015

	"Funny Money" [1985 New York Times besteller] by Mark Singer The whole amazing story of Oklahoma City's Penn Square Bank, whose collapse in July 1982 staggered America's banking industry. Mariner Books 8¼x5½ pb [6/2004] for $10.40 Knopf hardcover [5/85] out of print/many, many used
	"Belly Up: The Collapse of The Penn Square Bank" [1985 national bestseller] by Phillip L. Zweig More-factual, less-dramatic account of the Penn Square Bank collapse of July 1982. Ballantine Books 8¾x6 pb [8/86] for $24.30 Random House Value Publng 9x6 hardcover [12/85] out of print/many used
	"The Predators' Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham & The Rise of The Junk Bond Raiders" [1989 national bestseller] by Connie Bruck Penguin 7¾x5 pb [6/89] for $10.88
	"The Coming Crash In The Housing Market: 10 Things You Can Do Now To Protect Your Most Valuable Investment" [2003] by John R. Talbott The author took a lot of flak back in 2003 for his warnings - BUT he was very right, as recent events have proven; the book also negates Bernanke's excuse that "no one could have seen the collapse coming" McGraw-Hill 9x6 pb [4/2003] for $12.77
	"Too Big To Fail: The Hazards of Bank Bailouts" [2004] by Gary H. Stern {former Fed-MN CEO} & Ron J. Feldman {current Fed-MN sr VP}, Foreword by former Fed Chair Paul A. Volcker Brookings Institution Press 9x6 pb [3/2009] for $19.62 Brookings Institution Press 9¼x6 hardcover [3/2004] out of print/used
	"Fallen Giant: The Amazing Story of Hank Greenberg and The History of A.I.G." [2006] by Ronald Shelp, with Al Ehrbar Wiley & Sons 2nd edition 9x6 pb [8/2009] for $11.41 Wiley & Sons hardcover [10/2006] out of print/used
	"The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked By Crackpot Economics" [2007] by Jonathan Chait The author, a senior editor at New Republic Magazine, reports that American politics was hijacked by a tiny coterie of right-wing economic extremists, going back 30 years, when supply-side economics took over the Republican Party and made cutting taxes the G.O.P. answer to all political and economic questions. Mariner Books 8x5 pb [9/2008] for $11.66 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 8½x5½ hardcover [9/2007] for $21.37
	"Blue Blood & Mutiny: The Fight For The Soul of MorganStanley" [2007] by Patricia Beard Kindle Edition from HarperCollins e-books [3/2009] for $8.00 Harper Perennial 7¾x5¼ pb [10/2008] for $13.84 William Morrow 9x6 hardcover [9/2007] out of print/many, many used
	"The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers & The Great Credit Crash" [2008] by Charles R. Morris PublicAffairs 8x5½ pb [2/2009] for $11.16 PublicAffairs 8¼x5½ hardcover [3/2008] for $15.22
	"Fooling Some of The People All of The Time, A Long Short (and Now Complete) Story, Updated With New Epilogue" [orig 2008, rev 2010] by David Einhorn, Foreword by Joel Greenblatt Author Einhorn warned of the dangerous & illegal practices at Allied Capital in 2002; influential Allied got the SEC to investigate Einhorn and his Greenlight Capital hedge fund for market manipulation instead; that battle lasted six years. The S.E.C. found in June 2007 that Allied had broken the law; the first edition of Einhorn's book was published in May 2008. Wiley & Sons 'updated' 9x6 pb [12/2010] for $10.44 Wiley & Sons 9¼x6¼ hardcover [5/2008] for $19.77 official book site
	"The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What To Do About It" [2008] by Robert J. Shiller, professor of economics at Yale University Princeton Univ Press hardcover [8/2008] for $11.53
	"Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity & The Subprime Scandal" [2008] by Danny Schechter Cosimo Books 8½x5½ pb [9/2008] for $13.45 Cosimo Books 8¾x5¾ hardcover [9/2008] for $29.95 official bookpage
	"Bear-Trap: The Fall of Bear Stearns & The Panic of 2008" [2008] by Bill Bamber & Andrew Spencer Brick Tower Books 9x6¼ hardcover [9/2008] for $5.14
	"The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs" [2008, rev 2009] by Charles D. Ellis Penguin Revised Edition 8½x5½ pb [9/2009] for $13.60 Penguin Press 9&FRAC12X6 hardcover [10/2008] for $25.05
	"Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover" [2009] by Katrina vanden Heuvel and the editors of "The Nation" Magazine, Introduction by William Greider Nation Books 7x5 pb [1/2009] for $12.44
	"Plunder and Blunder: The Rise & Fall of The Bubble Economy" [2009] by Dean Baker The author is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC; the book "documents the fundamental policy changes since 1980 that destabilized the economy and eroded the broad prosperity of the post-war period" Polipoint Press 8½x5½ pb [1/2009] for $10.85
	"Meltdown: A Free-Market Look At Why The Stock Market Collapsed, The Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse" [2/2009] by Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Foreword by Rep. Ron Paul Historian Woods, of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Alabama, writes with typical Libertarian wrong-headedness – de-regulate everything and things will get better, which is how we got into this mess in the first place!.
	"Maestro, My Ass!: How We Got Into This Mess" [2009] by Michael Ashton Kindle Edition from Groundbreaking Press [3/2009] for $2.99 {sic} Groundbreaking Press 8½x5½ pb [3/2009] for $24.95
	"House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess On Wall Street" [2009] by William D. Cohan In early March 2008, the monetary fabric of investment bank Bear Stearns, one of the world’s oldest and largest, began unraveling; ten days later, the bank no longer existed, its assets sold under duress to rival JPMorgan Chase. Anchor Books 7¾x5¼ pb [2/2010] for $11.53 Doubleday 9½x6 hardcover [3/2009] for $18.45
	"The Crash of 2008 and What It Means: The New Paradigm For Financial Markets" [2009] by George Soros PublicAffairs 7½x5 pb [3/2009] for $10.17
	"Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook The World Economy" [2009] by Barry Ritholtz, with Aaron Task, Foreword by Bill Fleckenstein Kindle Edition from Wiley & Sons [7/2009] for $10.54 Wiley & Sons 8¾x6¼ pb [7/2010] for $11.10 Wiley & Sons 9¼x6½ hardcover [5/2009] for $16.13
	"Fool's Gold: How The Bold Dream of A Small Tribe At J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted By Wall Street Greed and Unleashed A Catastrophe" [2009 New York Times & Wall Street Journal bestseller] by Gillian Tett Free Press 8½x6½ pb [4/2010] for $10.88 Free Press 9x6 hardcover [5/2009] out of print/used
	"Street Fighters: The Last 72 Hours of Bear Stearns, The Toughest Firm On Wall Street" [2009] by {Wall Street Journal reporter} Kate Kelly This riveting hour-by-hour account of the brutal final weekend at Bear Stearns goes behind the stock prices and into the meeting rooms of top executives. As word got out that the firm was in trouble, a wave of panic selling sent the stock plummeting to $60 on the second day of the crisis, to bottom out at two dollars a share in a fire-house-sale offer from rival JPMorgan Chase. Ace/Portfolio 8¼x5½ pb [2/2010] for $12.00 Portfolio 9x6 hardcover [5/2009] for $18.94
	"The Looting of America: How The Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions & Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It" [2009] by Les Leopold Chelsea Green Publng 8¼x5¼ pb [6/2009] for $10.17
	"And Then The Roof Caved In: How Wall Street's Greed & Stupidity Brought Capitalism To Its Knees" [2009] by David Faber {market news analyst for CNBC} Wiley & Sons 9¼x6 hardcover [6/2009] for $17.79
	"A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of The Collapse of Lehman Brothers" [2009] by Lawrence G. McDonald, with Patrick Robinson Three Rivers Press 8x5 pb [6/2010] for $10.69 Crown Business 9¼x6¼ hardcover [7/2009] for $17.82
	"In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke's War On The Great Panic" [2009] by David Wessel Author Wessel – Wall Street Journal economics editor – gives Bernanke credit for preventing The Great Panic from morphing into something even worse. Crown Business hardcover [8/2009] for $17.81 U.S. Federal Reserve Page at Maison d'Ętre Philosophy Bookstore
	"It Takes A Pillage: Behind The Bailouts, Bonuses & Backroom Deals From Washington To Wall Street" [2009] by Nomi Prins Wiley & Sons 9¼x6½ hardcover [9/2009] for $17.13 author website
	"The Murder of Lehman Brothers: An Insider's Look At The Global Meltdown" [2009] by Joseph Tibman Brick Tower Books 9x6¼ hardcover [10/2009] for $16.47 author's weblog
	"Capitalism Hits The Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What To Do About It" [2009] by Prof. Richard D. Wolff of UMass Olive Branch Press 9x6 pb [10/2009] for $12.24 Richard Wolff 'Capitalism Hits The Fan' lecture on DVD [2009] Media Education Foundation hour-long color DVD [3/2009] for $19.95 author's official website
	"The Sellout: How Three Decades of Wall Street Greed & Government Mismanagement Destroyed The Global Financial System" [2009] by Charles Gasparino HarperBusiness 9x6¼ hardcover [11/2009] for $15.39
	"Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why The World Financial Markets Imploded – and What We Need To Do To Remake Them" [2009] by John Perkins Kindle Edition from Random House Digital [11/2009] for $9.99 Crown Business 8x5¼ pb [11/2011] for $14.00 Crown Business 8¼x5¾ hardcover [11/2009] for $16.10
	"How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities" [2009] by John Cassidy Picador 8¼x5½ pb [11/2010] for $10.88 FS&G 9x6 hardcover [11/2009] for $18.48
	"After The Fall: Saving Capitalism From Wall Street and Washington" [2009] by Nicole Gelinas Encounter Books 9½x6½ hardcover [11/2009] for $16.29
	"Too Big To Save? How To Fix The U.S. Financial System" [2009] by Robert Pozen, Foreword by Robert J. Shiller Wiley & Sons 9x6¼ hardcover [11/2009] for $19.28
	"The Buyout of America: How Private Equity Will Cause The Next Great Credit Crisis" [2009] by Josh Kosman Kindle Edition from Penguin/Portfolio [11/2009] for $12.99 Portfolio 8½x5½ pb [11/2010] for $12.48 Portfolio 9¼x6½ hardcover [11/2009] out of print/many used
	"Economic Meltdown Funnies" comic book [Red Sun Press 2010] Co-written by Chuck Collins & Nick Thorkelson; drawn by Nick Thorkelson available only at the official book site sponsored by Institute for Policy Studies [est. 1963] Program On Inequality & The Common Good, and Jobs With Justice [est. 1987], and Working Group on Extreme Inequality [est.2007]
	"Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road From Glory To Disaster" [2010] by Paul Ingrassia Random House 9x6½ hardcover [1/2010] for $17.16
	"The Road From Ruin: How To Revive Capitalism and Put America Back On Top" [2010] by Matthew Bishop & Michael Green Crown Business 9¼x6½ hardcover [1/2010] for $17.82
	"Freefall: America, Free Markets & The Sinking of The World Economy" [2010] by Joseph E. Stiglitz W.W. Norton 9¼x6¼ hardcover [1/2010] for $16.34
	"On The Brink: Inside The Race To Stop The Collapse of The Global Financial System" [2010] by Henry M. Paulson Business Plus 9½x6½ pb [2/2011] for $11.60 Business Plus 9x6¼ hardcover [2/2010] for $15.94
	"13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover & The Next Financial Meltdown" [2010] by Simon Johnson & James Kwak Pantheon hardcover [3/2010] for $16.17
	"Slapped By The Invisible Hand: The Panic of 2007" [2010] by Gary B. Gorton Oxford Univ Press 9¼x6½ hardcover [3/2010] for $31.95
	"The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine" [New York Times bestseller 2010] by Michael Lewis A character-rich and darkly humorous account of how the combination of ridiculously easy money, investment broker and shareholder greed, non-regulation, and toxic derivatives caused the free fall of the American economy. Movie rights purchased before publication by Paramount Pictures for Brad Pitt's Plan B company • book entry at Wikipedia movie tie-in Kindle Edition from W.W. Norton [11/2015] for $8.51 W.W. Norton 8¼x5½ pb [2/2011] for $8.96 W.W. Norton 9¼x6 hardcover [3/2010] for $18.36
	"The Devil's Casino: Friendship, Betrayal, and The High Stakes Games Played Inside Lehman Brothers" [2010 New York Times bestseller] by Vicky Ward Wiley 8½x5½ pb [4/2011] for $11.20 Wiley 9¼x6½ hardcover [3/2010] for $18.45
	"The End of Wall Street" [2010] by Roger Lowenstein Penguin Press 9½x6½ hardcover [4/2010] for $9.99
	"The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of The XXIst Century" [2010] Edited by Michel Chossudovsky & Andrew Gavin Marshall contributors include Ellen Brown, Tom Burghardt, editor Chossudovsky, Richard C. Cook, Shamus Cooke, John Bellamy Foster, Michael Hudson, Tanya Cariina Hsu, Fred Magdoff, editor Marshall, James Petras, Peter Phillips, Peter Dale Scott, Bill Van Auken, Claudia von Werlhof & Mike Whitney Global Research Publrs 8¼x5½ pb [5/2010] for $17.13
	"Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten The World Economy" [2010] by Raghuram G. Rajan Princeton Univ Press 9¼x6 hardcover [5/2010] for $17.79
	"Diary of A Very Bad Year: Confessions of An Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager" [2010] by Keith Gessen based on two years of interviews with hedge fund manager 'HSM' Kindle Edition from HarperCollins e-books [6/2010] for $8.00 Harper Perennial 8x5¼ pb [6/2010] for $11.69
	"The Zeroes: My Misadventures In The Decade Wall Street Went Insane" [2010] by Randall Lane Mixed reviews on Amazon, but apparently well-written as well as accurate. Kindle Edition from Penguin/Portfolio [8/2011] for $12.99 Portfolio 8½x6½ pb [8/2011] for $12.48 Portfolio 9x6½ hardcover [6/2010] out of print/100+ used
	"Exiles In Eden: Life Among The Ruins of Florida's Great Recession" [2010] by Paul Reyes "an on-the-ground, intimate tour of the human toll of the nation's foreclosure crisis" Henry Holt & Co. 8½x5¾ hardcover [8/2010] for $25.00
	"The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns" [2010] by Alan C. Greenberg (former CEO & Chairman of Bear Stearns), with Mark Singer Simon & Schuster 8x5 pb [5/2011] for $9.99 Simon & Schuster 8¾x6½ hardcover [6/2010] for $16.44
	"The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street" [2010] by Robert Scheer Underlying these essays by leading scholars is the premise that the U.S.'s problems can be understood only in a broad historical context, that they arise not from cyclical phenomena, but structural distortions of the economy. Nation Books 8x5½ pb [9/2010] for $10.85
	"Overhaul: An Insider's Account of The Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of The Auto Industry" [2010] by Steven Rattner Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 9¼x6½ hardcover [9/2010] for $17.82
	"Bought and Paid For: The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street" [2010] by Charles Gasparino Sentinel 9¼x6 hardcover [10/2010] for $17.79
	"The Monster: How A Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America - and Spawned A Global Crisis" [2010] by Michael W. Hudson St. Martin's Griffin pb [9/2011] for $10.98 Times Books 9¼x6¼ hardcover [10/2010] for $17.16
	"Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and The Long Con That Is Breaking America" [2010] by Matt Taibbi Spiegel & Grau pb [8/2011] for $10.88 Spiegel & Grau 9¼x6 hardcover [11/2010] for $15.71
	"All The Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of The Financial Crisis" [2010] by Bethany McLean & Joe Nocera Kindle Edition from Penguin/Portfolio [8/2011] for $13.99 Portfolio 9¼x6 pb [8/2011] for $11.56 Portfolio 9x6¼ hardcover [11/2010] for $19.53
	"The Financial Crisis of Our Time" [2011] by Robert W. Kolb Kindle Edition from Oxford Univ Press [1/2011] for $14.29 Oxford Univ Press hardcover [1/2011] for $30.05
	"Punching Out: One Year In A Closing Auto Plant" [2011] by Paul Clemens Kindle Edition from Random House Digital [1/2011] for $11.99 Anchor Books 8x5 pb [1/2012] for $13.85 Doubleday 8¼x5¾ hardcover [1/2011] for $17.13
	"Failure By Design: The Story Behind America's Broken Economy" [2011] by Josh Bivens, Foreword by Lawrence Mishel Kindle Edition from Cornell Univ Press [1/2011] for $9.99 Cornell Univ Press 9x6¼ hardcover [1/2011] for $14.03 official book page
	"Money For Nothing: How CEOs and Boards Are Bankrupting America" [2011] by John Gillespie & David Zweig Free Press 8½x5½ pb [1/2011] for $11.70
	"The Financial Crisis and Federal Reserve Policy" [2011] by Lloyd B. Thomas Kindle Edition from Palgrave Macmillan [2/2011] for $79.79 {sic} Palgrave Macmillan 8¼x5½ hardcover [2/2011] for $83.99
	"Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came To Rule The World" [2011] by William D. Cohan Kindle Edition from Random House Digital [4/2011] for $13.99 Anchor Books pb [1/2012] for $12.21 Doubleday 9¼x6 hardcover [4/2011] for $16.94
	"Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and The Decline of America, 1970 To The Present" [2011] by Jeff Madrick Knopf hardcover [5/2011] for $16.66
	"Reckles$ Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led To Economic Armageddon" [2011] by Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner Times Books 9¼x6¼ hardcover [5/2011] for $16.95
	"End This Depression Now!" [2012] by Nobel-laureate Paul Krugman Kindle Edition from W.W. Norton & Co. [4/2012] for $9.48 W.W. Norton & Co. pb [DUE Jan 2013] for $10.85 W.W. Norton & Co. 10½x6½ hardcover [4/2012] for $14.56
	"Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You've Been Told About The Economy Is Wrong" [6/2012] by Edward Conard {former 'manager' at Bain Capital, no less} Just another fascist attempt to explain away the stupidity and greed of Wall Street and the banks that intentionally caused the G.O.P. Economic Meltdown of 2008 and since. DO NOT BUY THIS GARBAGE !!

Motion Pictures & TV/News DVDs

jump to NEW movies, coming soon

"Wall Street" [Fox Dec 1987] Bud Fox, a young and very ambitious stock trader, courts the powerful stock speculator Gordon Gekko, who takes the boy under his wing. Bud becomes immersed in the fast life, the big time, but soon is asked to take actions that even he finds offensive. Co-written & directed by Oliver Stone; co-written by Stanley Weiser; starring Michael Douglas {won Oscar & David di Donatello Best Actor awards}, Charlie Sheen, Hal Holbrook, Martin Sheen, Terence Stamp, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, James Spader, Saul Rubinek & Sylvia Miles; Fox widescreen color Blu-ray [2/2008] for $13.99 Fox widescreen color DVD [9/2007] 2 disks for $9.49 Fox color VHS [1/96] out of prodn/many, many used Varese Sarabande soundtrack CD [10/93] out of prodn/used {with "Talk Radio" [1988]} full credits at IMDb • movie entry at Wikipedia

	"60 Minutes: The Bailout" [C.B.S. Sept 2008] 11-minute segment aired 28 Sept 2008; featuring Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson C.B.S. color DVD [10/2008] for $17.95 episode/segment not listed on IMDb
	"Frontline: Inside The Meltdown" [P.B.S. Feb 2009] Written & directed by Michael Kirk; reported by Jim Gilmore P.B.S. Home Video color DVD [6/2009] for $18.99 episode credits at IMDb
	"Frontline: Ten Trillion and Counting" [P.B.S. March 2009] P.B.S. Home Video color DVD [5/2009] for $18.99 episode credits at IMDb
	"Frontline: The Warning" [P.B.S. Oct 2009] Written & directed by Michael Kirk; reported by Jim Gilmore P.B.S. Home Video color DVD [1/2010] for $18.99 episode credits at IMDb

"Two Trillion With A T: How You Bought Wall Street" Special Report [Fox News 14 March 2009] Hosted by Bret Baier; exclusive interviews include George W. Bush, his Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, House Banking Chairman Barney Frank, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, among others Fox News 42-minute color DVD [6/2009] for $19.95 not listed on IMDb • official movie site

"The Last Days of Lehman Brothers" [BBC2 U.K. Sept 2009] On a weekend in September 2008, U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson summoned the heads of Wall Street's biggest investment banks to decide the fate of failing Lehman Brothers, while recently-demoted Lehman CEO Dick Fuld spent the weekend desperately trying to rescue his company through a merger with Bank of America or U.K.-based Barclays. Fuld's empire - and with it, the stability of the world economy - was teetering on the verge of extinction. Directed by Michael Samuels; written by Craig Warner; starring James Cromwell, Ben Daniels, Corey Johnson, Michael Landes, Alex Jennings & James Bolam DVD/Blu-ray not available • full credits at IMDb • movie entry at Wikipedia

"American Ca$ino" documentary feature [indep Aug 2009] This film finally explains how and why the global financial system crumbled from the subprime loan market 'bubble' and over $12 trillion of our money vanished into the pockets of Wall Street titans. Co-written & directed by Leslie Cockburn; co-written by Andrew Cockburn; faeturing Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Mayor of Baltimore Sheila Dixon, former Senator Phil Gramm, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson & Congressman Henry Waxman DVD/Blu-ray not available at Amazon • full credits at IMDb • official movie site Working Minds Philosophy Essay #18 "The Stock Market Casino" [Dec 2001]

"Capitalism: A Love Story" [Dog Eat Dog/Weinstein Oct 2009] Back in 2008, Michael Moore described his next film as being about 'the wonders of capitalism'. However, fate provided him with the 'G.O.P. Meltdown', the still-rolling collapse of the U.S. and worldwide economy. The American Dream is looking like a nightmare for more and more ordinary people whose lives have been turned upside down, as families pay the price each day with their jobs, their homes and their savings – the disastrous impact of unregulated corporate dominance and scared politicians seeking re-election over mystified & angry citizens across America. Co-produced, written & directed by & starring Michael Moore; interviewees include Cong. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, Cong. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Wallace Shawn & Elizabeth Warren, with archive footage of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Ronald Reagan & Franklin Delano Roosevelt; won 2 awards at the Venice Film Festival Starz / Anchor Bay widescreen color Blu-ray [3/2010] for $24.99 Starz / Anchor Bay widescreen color DVD [3/2010] for $17.99 full credits from IMDb • official movie site

"Plunder: The Crime of Our Time" [Globalvision indep May 2010 release] After his controversial docufilm "In Debt We Trust" [2006] and the book "Plunder" [2008] {above}, director Schechter interviewed bankers of Wall Street and released this film in May 2010, with the companion book "The Crime of Our Time" due in September 2010. produced by Ray Nowosielski, directed by Danny Schechter DVD available on producer website not listed on IMDb • official movie site

"The Crime of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big To Jail" [2010] by Danny Schechter Kindle Edition from Disinformation Books [9/2010] for $9.99 Disinformation Company 8½x5½ pb [9/2010] for $17.96

"Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps" [Fox Sept 2010] A young Wall Street trader teams up with disgraced former Wall Street corporate raider Gordon Gekko on a two-tiered mission: To alert the financial community to the coming financial doom, and to bring to justice the person responsible for the death of the young trader's mentor. Co‑produced by Edward R. Pressman, Oliver Stone & Michael Douglas; directed by Oliver Stone; starring Shia LaBeouf, Michael Douglas, Carey Mulligan, Susan Sarandon, Charlie Sheen, Josh Brolin & Frank Langella, cameo by Nouriel Roubini Fox widescreen color Blu-ray [12/2010] for $22.99 Fox widescreen color DVD [12/2010] 2 disks for $15.99 full credits at IMDb • movie entry at Wikipedia

"Inside Job" [Sony Pictures Classics Oct 2010] "If you're not enraged by the end of this movie, [then] you haven't been paying attention." — Mary & Richard Corliss, in Time Magazine A comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, thru exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists & academics. Co-produced, written & directed by Charles Ferguson; narrated by Matt Damon; featuring Congressman Barney Frank, Raghuram Rajan, Nouriel Roubini, George Soros, Eliot Spitzer, Paul Volcker, many others; won Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, D.G.A. & W.G.A. Awards, New York Film Critics Circle Award Sony Pictures Classics widescreen color DVD [3/2011] for $14.99 credits at IMDb • official movie site

"Too Big To Fail" TV movie [H.B.O. May 2011] Directed by Curtis Hanson; based on the book by Andrew Ross Sorkin; starring Ed Asner, Kathy Baker, Billy Crudup, Paul Giamatti {as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke}, Topher Grace, Dan Hedaya, William Hurt {as Hank Paulson}, Matthew Modine, Bill Pullman & James Woods {as Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld} HBO Studios color Blu-ray [not yet released] for $25.99 HBO Studios color DVD [not yet released] for $19.99 full credits at IMDb

"Too Big To Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought To Save The Financial System – and Themselves" [2009] by Andrew Ross Sorkin, columnist for The New York Times Viking 9¼x6½ hardcover [10/2009] for $13.00

"The Wall Street Conspiracy" [indep March 2012] Chronicles a small group of activists who tried to expose the corruption in our financial markets, the rampant fraud on Wall Street known as 'naked short selling', a practice that created billions of counterfeit shares in the stock, bond & futures markets, and the credit default swap market itself. Government agencies and news media did not listen, allowing the collapse of hundreds or even thousands of American companies, costing our country countless jobs, decimating retirement funds, and even flooding the market with fake mortgages. Co-produced & co-written by Mark Faulk; co‑written & directed by Kristina Leigh Copeland; featuring Helen Avery, G. Robert Blakey, Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, Wes Christian, Mark Faulk, John Harmer, Lucy Komisar, John O'Quinn, Dave Patch, Darren Saunders, economist Robert Shapiro, Bill Shea, Gerald Smith, economist Susanne Trimbath & Eagletech's Rod Young DVD/Blu-ray not yet available • credits at IMDb • official movie site • official trailer [3:43] at Vimeo

"Hard Times: Lost On Long Island" [H.B.O. broadcast July 2012] "The American Dream - Foreclosed" Although officialdom decreed that the Great Recession was over in mid-2009, the impact continues for some 25 million unemployed and underemployed Americans, many of whom worked their way up the corporate ladder, achieving the American Dream, only to see it slip through their fingers • Co-produced & directed by Marc Levin; featuring the families of Alan & Susan Fromm, David & Heather Hartstein, Nick & Regina Puccio, and Mel & Anne Strauss DVD/Blu-ray not yet available • full credits at IMDb • official movie site

"Hank: Five Years From The Brink" [Bloomberg Business Week Sept 2013] 87 minutes from interviews with Henry 'Hank' Paulson and his wife Wendy Co-produced, written & directed by Joe Berlinger Virgil Films & Ent. widescreen color DVD [2/2014] for $19.99 Amazon Instant Video [2/2014] rental $3.99, purchase $12.99 full credits at IMDb

"Abacus: Small Enough To Jail" [ITVS/P.B.S. May 2017]  

The only prosecution for bank fraud activity leading up to the 2008 G.O.P. meltdown in 2008 was against a small Chinatown bank which actually had the lowest mortgage default rate of any bank in New York, leading to accusations of racism Directed by Steve James; featuring Thomas Sung {founder Abacus Federal Savings Bank}, Jill Sung {Abacus bank executive}, Vera Sung {Abacus bank executive}, Neil Barofsky, Ti-Hua Chang, Margaret Colin, Justin Deas, Jiayang Fan, Roman Fuzaylov, Polly Greenberg {D.A.'s offfice}, Linda Hall, Don Lee, David Lindorff, Kevin Puvalowski, Chanterelle Sung, Heather Sung, Hwei Lin Sung, Matt Taibbi, Sam Talkin, Cyrus Vance Jr. {N.Y. County D.A.}, Rusty Wing, Yiu Wah Wong, Jessica Woodby-Denema DVD/Blu-ray not yet available • credits at IMDb • official movie site • movie entry at Wikipedia watch official trailer [2:30] at YouTube

L i n k s

2008 U.S. Elections Page {moot} at Working Minds website
2010 U.S. Elections Page {moot} at Working Minds website
2012 U.S. Elections Page {moot} at Working Minds website
2014 U.S. Elections Page {moot} at Working Minds website
'The Race for the 2016 U.S. Primary Elections' Page at Working Minds website

'Stop Bush' Page {moot} at Working Minds website

The solution to this intentional economic disaster is
Reason-Based Taxation

here on Spirit of America Bookstore's G.O.P. Economic Meltdown Page

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