Thursday, May 27, 2010

Figures: Bernie Sanders agrees

That’s funny, and typical, and tells me something about myself, again. The socialist in Congress is the only commentator I’ve heard so far who tied the banks to the oil companies as I did this morning.

Nice how MSNBC now lets you clip a clip to show just the part you’re talking about. And nice how they expose their text promo in the embed code so you can strip it off if you can read plain HTML.

Later: Bob Herbert on Saturday:

There is nothing new to us about this. Haven’t we just seen how the giant financial firms almost destroyed the American economy? Wasn’t it just a few weeks before this hideous Deepwater Horizon disaster that a devastating mine explosion in West Virginia — at a mine run by a company with its own hideous safety record — killed 29 coal miners and ripped the heart out of yet another hard-working local community?

And: Frank Rich on June 5:

BP’s recklessness is just the latest variation on a story we know by heart. The company’s heedless disregard of risk and lack of safeguards at Deepwater Horizon are all too reminiscent of the failures at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and A.I.G., where the richly rewarded top executives often didn’t even understand the toxic financial products that would pollute and nearly topple the nation’s economy. BP’s reliance on bought-off politicians and lax, industry-captured regulators at the M.M.S. mirrors Wall Street’s cozy relationship with its indulgent overseers at the S.E.C., Federal Reserve and New York Fed — not to mention Massey Energy’s dependence on somnolent supervision from the Mine Safety and Health Administration.