Exposing the Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Makes Money Out of Thin Air
Written on May 12th, 2010May 12, 2010 | For some, the Federal Reserve is the right place to house any new regulatory powers contained in financial reform legislation. For others, the Fed is at the center of all that ails us. In fact, over 95,000 have signed a petition at auditthefed.com.
“In a major victory for transparency at the Federal Reserve, the Senate passed on Tuesday an amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders that directs the Government Accountability Office to conduct a top-to-bottom audit of all emergency actions by the Fed since the start of the financial crisis in 2007. In addition to the audit, the Fed for the first time would have to reveal by Dec.1, 2010, the identities of banks and other financial institutions that took more than $2 trillion in nearly zero-interest loans.” — from the office of Sen. Sanders, 05/11/10
William Greider, author of Secrets of the Temple, perhaps the finest book on the Federal Reserve, termed the Sanders-Paul audit bill the “first breach in the wall,” adding, “it promises to keep alive popular demands for more fundamental reforms.” Greider challenged Greenspan and Paulson long before it was fashionable, and has written lately about restructuring the Fed. Now national affairs correspondent for the Nation, Greider was for 17 years the national affairs editor at Rolling Stone, and spent 15 years at the Washington Post. His latest book is Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country, and he wrote the introduction to Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover, by the editors of the Nation.
Is Using a Checklist the Answer to All Your Problems?
Written on March 20th, 2010March 20, 2010 | Most of the discussion about health care these days focuses on politics. This interview talks about the need for reform and the value of reform, but it is also about the practice of medicine.
Atul Gawande, bestselling author, Harvard professor and an innovator in best practices for the World Health Organization, still performs 250-plus surgeries a year. A copy of Sylvia Plath’s poem “The Surgeon at 2 a.m.” stands on the desk in his office.” Her surgeon’s words: “I worm and hack in a purple wilderness.”
“That poem captures the surgeon,” Gawande says, “as a merely human, slightly bewildered and benighted person in a world that is ultimately beyond his control.”
Medicine is just one area of our world that is becoming so complex even the most expert professionals struggle to master their tasks. In his new book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, Gawande offers a disarmingly simple remedy: the checklist. Now being adopted in hospitals, the 90-second practice has shown to cut fatalities in surgery by more than a third.
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There’s No Such Thing as a Free Market — Just a Matter of Who Pays for It
Written on February 19th, 2010Raj Patel has worked for the World Bank and WTO and been tear-gassed on four continents protesting against them. He is a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for African Studies, a researcher at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, a fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First) and the author of Stuffed and Starved. Though recently heralded as the Maitreya (or chosen one) by members of Share International, Patel protests he’s just an ordinary bloke.
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The Big Theories Underwriting Society Are Crashing All Around Us — Are You Ready for a New World?
Written on January 27th, 2010January 27, 2010 | Economic meltdown … environmental crises … seemingly endless warfare. The world is in critical condition. Bad news? Good news? Or both?
Many of the ideas and institutions that define our culture are breaking down — and that’s a good thing, say Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman. In their new book, Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There from Here, they write that today’s crises are part of a natural process — clearing out what no longer serves us to make room for a new way of being. Are they cockeyed optimists or do they see things others miss?
Reality is alive, dynamic and interconnected. Science has been saying so for nearly a century, and we experience it every time we walk on a beach or look into another’s eyes. Yet most of our cultural, societal, political and economic structures act as if it’s not so. We can no longer afford to indulge outdated worldviews. In order to deal with the crises we now face, we’ve got to act on the new realities and understandings revealed by science.
A cell biologist by training, Bruce Lipton taught at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine, performed pioneering studies at Stanford, and authored The Biology of Belief. Steve Bhaerman has been writing and performing “enlightening” comedy in the character of Swami Beyondananda for over 20 years. He is the author of several books.
Always Controversial Cornel West Disses Obama, Survives Cancer and Almost Spent His Life in Prison
Written on December 18th, 2009“The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people. You can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people. You can’t save the people, if you don’t serve the people.“
There’s music in those words as well as pain, wisdom and honesty. Those are the words of Cornel West, who has just written a memoir, “Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud.” In it, he writes, “Until now, I’ve never taken the time to focus on the inner dynamics of my soul.”
Educator and philosopher Dr. Cornel West is the Class of 1943 University Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University. West has won numerous awards, including the American Book Award, and has received more than 20 honorary degrees. He’s produced three CDs of music and spoken word, offers weekly commentary on The Tavis Smiley Show, and is the author of several books, including Race Matters, Democracy Matters, and Hope on a Tightrope.
