Join Economics Professor Richard Wolff, University of Massachusetts, for a screening of his film, "Capitalism Hits the Fan," and a Q&A session. Professor Wolff breaks down the root causes of today's economic crisis and traces its source to the 1970s, when wages began to stagnate and American workers were forced into a spiral of borrowing and debt. By placing the crisis in this framework, Wolff argues that proposals for government "bailouts," offers of stimulus packages, and calls for increased market regulation will not address the real causes of the crisis. He suggests that far more fundamental change is necessary to avoid future catastrophes. Richly illustrated with motion graphics, Capitalism Hits the Fan is a superb introduction to the unraveling economic crisis for ordinary citizens.

For more online lectures and classes by Prof. Richard Wolff, visit http://www.rdwolff.com/classes .

Sheila Bair, the longtime Republican who served as chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) during the fiscal meltdown five years ago, joins Bill to talk about American banks' continuing risky and manipulative practices, their seeming immunity from prosecution, and growing anger from Congress and the public. Bair is the author of Bull by the Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street from Wall Street and Wall Street from Itself.

“I think the system’s a little bit safer, but nothing like the dramatic reforms that we really need to see to tame these large banks, and to give us a stable financial system that supports the real economy, not just trading profits of large financial institutions,” Bair tells Bill.

A full transcript of the exchange is available at BillMoyers.com.

Swiss bank UBS said Wednesday it will pay a $1.5 billion fraud fine for orchestrating the manipulation of benchmark interest rates in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Last week, British bank HSBC agreed to pay $1.92 billion -- the largest bank fine ever -- to settle a U.S. investigation into the bank’s alleged money laundering with drug cartels. But still, UBS’s stiff penalty is more than three times the $450 million fine levied on British bank Barclays in June, which had also admitted to rigging the LIBOR rate, which is used to price worldwide loans. It hasn’t been a good couple of years for UBS, which also lost $2.3 billion in a rogue trading scandal earlier this year.

Reuters:

Dozens of UBS staff rigged the Libor rate, which is used to price trillions of dollars worth of loans, in collusion with brokers and traders at other banks, according to an investigation by authorities in multiple countries.

The controversy is expected to ensnare other big lenders and spark criminal and civil lawsuits against individuals involved. The penalty UBS agreed with U.S., UK and Swiss authorities far exceeds the $450 million levied on Britain's Barclays in June, also for rigging Libor, and the second largest ever imposed on a bank.

"This is an endemic banking industry problem and shows how far the industry has fallen, failing itself and its customers," said Neil Dwane, chief investment officer for Allianz Global Investors.

"For the future it shows that without strong regulation and strong and new management throughout most of the biggest banks, there can be no reasonable expectation that they will improve their behavior substantially - at least UBS now has strong new management."

(Emphasis mine.)

Unfortunately, it still seems that strong regulation of the banks ranks right up there with jail time for criminal bankers.

[Photo credit: Reuters]

By Blair Hickman, Suevon Lee and Cora Currier, ProPublica, Dec. 14, 2012, 4:34 p.m.

Update: With today's shooting in Newtown, Conn., this article, first published July 24, 2012, unfortunately seems relevant again.

In the wake of last week's shooting in Aurora, Colo., we've taken a step back and laid out the best pieces we could find about guns. They're roughly organized by articles on rights, trafficking and regulation. And include your suggestions in comments.

Gun Rights

Battleground America, New Yorker, April 2012 Jill Lepore's thorough look at the evolution of U.S. gun laws — from the Second Amendment, to the 1968 Gun Control Act, to the N.R.A.'s rise to political prominence — is an excellent primer for the modern day gun debate. And provides great context for the articles below. Contributed by @Corinneavital

Florida 'stand your ground' law yields some shocking outcomes depending on how law is applied, Tampa Bay Times, June 2012 The Tampa Bay Times analyzed nearly 200 "stand your ground" cases in Florida. Among the findings: Nearly 70 percent of defendants who invoke "stand your ground" went free. Seventy-three percent of those who killed a black person faced no penalty; 59 percent of those who killed a white went free.

Stand Your Ground Law Coincides With Jump in Justifiable-Homicides Cases, Washington Post, April 2012 Since Florida passed a Stand Your Ground law in 2005, more than 30 states have adopted similarly broad laws. Justifiable-homicide cases have also been on the rise nationwide.

Felons Finding It Easy to Regain Gun Rights, New York Times, November 2011 In many states the restoration of gun rights for convicted felons is now either automatic or left to the discretion of judges under vague standards. Standards are similarly lax for those with a history of mental illness — judges are often ill-equipped to make decisions without information about an applicant's mental health.

Trafficking

The Truth About the Fast and Furious Scandal, Fortune, June 2012 An investigation into the fallout over Operation Fast and Furious suggests much of what's been widely reported about the scandal is simply wrong. It doesn't seem the ATF intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. Based on confidential ATF documents and interviews with law enforcement agents, the piece claims the public charges are "replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies." Fortune's follow-up answers some criticisms raised by Sen. Chuck Grassley, among others. Congress is conducting an investigation into Fast and Furious.

Realco Guns Tied to 2,500 Crimes in D.C. and Maryland, Washington Post, October 2010 As part of a larger look at firearms' paths from dealer to crime scene, the Post's analysis of gun-trace data for Virginia found that a handful of dealers sold the bulk of crime guns. Realco, the store featured in this piece, sold four times the number of crime guns as the next highest dealer. The kicker? It was all perfectly legal.

The Gun: The AK-47 and the evolution of war, CJ Chivers, October 2010 A nuanced, in-depth look at what is arguably the most lethal gun of all time.

U.S. Stymied as Guns Flow to Mexican Cartels, New York Times, April 2009 Before the ATF's efforts to monitor gun-trafficking across the U.S.-Mexico border became notorious, this article detailed how easy it was for straw purchasers to buy guns in the U.S. and get them across the border to Mexico, and how difficult it was for federal regulators to build a case against them. About 90 percent of the 12,000 guns recovered and traced in 2008 by Mexican officials came from U.S. dealers.

Regulation

Concealed gun law turns 10 years old, Booth Newspapers, June 2011 A decade after Michigan passed a law making it easier to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon, hundreds of thousands have been issued. This multi-part series shows how regulations meant to keep track of who has concealed-carry licenses — and whose should have been revoked — are a mess. The New York Times has also analyzed the lack of oversight into the concealed-carry permit process in North Carolina, which loosened the requirements to obtain such permits in 1995.

Ineffective rules let gun stores endure, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 2010 The ATF is charged with inspecting the country's 62,000 licensed gun dealers. But it's rare for a permit to be revoked, and when it happens, stores often simply reopen with a new license in someone else's name, or sell guns on the side through their personal collections. (This Washington Post database lets you see which dealers near you have had their licenses revoked.)

During an interview on "Moyers & Company" recently, Bill talked with Mike Lofgren, a long-time Republican who describes the modern dysfunction of both the Republican and Democratic parties. In Lofgren’s view, Republicans have become overly obsessed with obstructing President Obama, and the Democrats suffer from political complacency. Lofgren’s new book is "The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted."

Here's a snippet from the transcript:

BILL MOYERS: The Republican Party now has the super rich and its corporate wing funding it and the religious right provides the ground troops. Why are so many everyday folks out there in the pews defending the prerogatives of the rich?

MIKE LOFGREN: That's something of a mystery. The Federal Reserve, in one of their recent reports, found that net household income fell about 40 percent since 2007. That's a tremendous drop. Yet, here we have as the nominee for one of the two major parties, we only have a binary choice in this country, is by all accounts the richest man ever to run for president and was a leverage buyout artist.

The party is really oriented towards the concerns of the rich. It's about cutting their taxes, reducing regulation on business, making things wide open for Wall Street. Now you're not going to get anybody to the polls and consciously pull the lever for the Republicans if they say, "Our agenda is to further entrench the rich and, oh by the way, your pension may take a hit."

So they use the culture wars quite cynically, as essentially rube bait to get people to the polls. And that explains why, for instance, the Koch brothers were early funders of Michele Bachmann, who is a darling of the religious right. They don't care particularly, I would assume, about her religious foibles. What they care about is the bottom line. And these religious right candidates, many of them believing in the health and wealth, name it and claim it prosperity gospel, believe that the rich are sanctified and the poor punished

BILL MOYERS: Many of those people on the right would tell you that the fall in the income of middleclass people and others has been because of Obama's economic policies.

MIKE LOFGREN: I think they're suffering from selective amnesia. They also don't understand that George Bush doubled the national debt, that the original meltdown on Wall Street occurred during George Bush's watch, and by the time Obama became president in 2009, we were already well into the recession. Now I don't defend him in every way. I don't say that everything he's done is right by any means. I have all kinds of issues with him on the health care legislation. For instance, his willingness to play ball with pharma made the bill cost a lot more than it need.

BILL MOYERS: The pharmaceutical industry?

MIKE LOFGREN: Yes. That said, he was legitimately elected. We were in a very, very serious situation in this country. If the economy had fallen any further, it would be comparable to the Great Depression. So what is Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Senate, what is his first priority for the country? Is it getting jobs for people? Is it restoring the solvency of the financial system? Is it foreign policy? Is it any of those things? No, it's making sure Obama is a one-term president.

BILL MOYERS: It seems that some of these people are willing to see the government go down in order to win.

MIKE LOFGREN: That would be the case. I grew up in a party that believed in the traditions of Eisenhower, and for that matter, even Reagan. He raised taxes several times when the deficit threatened to get out of control. He pleaded with Congress to send him a clean debt limit extension bill without any extraneous riders on it. He knew what the stakes were.

But now it's basically obstruct. They're no longer a parliamentary loyal opposition. They want to seize up the wheels of government. And to most people that means you don't have federal inspectors of airliners. You don't have federal inspection of food safety. Your national parks will be closed. Federal law enforcement will go home. That's what that means.

BILL MOYERS: Why did you leave the party? You'd been a Republican, what, all your life?

MIKE LOFGREN: I left the party because it was becoming an apocalyptic cult. Because you cannot govern a country of 310 million people that is the greatest economic power on earth and the greatest military power on earth as if it's a banana republic. You can't govern it with people who think that Obama was born overseas or who believe in all manner of nonsense about climate change. They don't even know, apparently, where babies come from, if we're to believe Todd Akin.

Really a great interview, the full transcript is available here.

Tired of the big banks buying off our democracy?

Watch this video of us asking Jamie Dimon why he wants to regulate Jamie Dimon. Then join the campaign to push kick Jamie Dimon off the Fed.

We had brilliant all-star stunt-comedians Negin Farsad and Lee Camp out to deliver 30,000 petitions to CEO Jamie Dimon at Chase's HQ in Manhattan - watch what happened next.

http://DumpDimon.com

This al-Jazeera documentary exposes Charles and David Koch, radical libertarians who use their money to oppose government and virtually all regulation as interference with the free market. They are each worth about $25 billion, which makes them the fourth richest Americans. When you combine their fortunes, they are the third wealthiest people in the world. The Kochs are also in a class of their own as players on the American political stage. Their web of influence in the U.S. stretches from state capitals to the halls of congress in Washington DC.

Good morning! Today is Saturday, May 19, 2012. Beautiful weather for an Occupy march.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has been one of the most outspoken critics of the Volcker Rule, a section of the Dodd-Frank Act that aims to keep the banks in which you deposit your money from gambling it on their own sometimes-risky investments. Now Dimon has announced that risky trades have cost his company $2 billion in losses. In this April 22, 2012 Moyers Moment from Moyers & Company, Paul Volcker himself responds to Jamie Dimon’s complaints about the rule and its effects.

As JPMorgan announced a $2 billion trading loss, members of Congress called for federal regulators to scrutinize and tighten banking rules and trades. New rules are being drafted as part of the Dodd-Frank bill that prevent federal banks from making investments that might put taxpayers at risk.

“The argument that financial institutions do not need the new rules to help them avoid the irresponsible actions that led to the crisis of 2008 is at least $2 billion harder to make today,” said Democratic Rep. Barney Frank.

After the creation of the Volcker Rule, a regulatory law meant to prevent overly risky trading, JPMorgan Chase sent lobbyists to Washington to argue for loopholes that would allow for trades much like those that led to a $2 billion loss announced by the bank on Friday. Bank chief executive Jamie Dimon and other members of upper management paid regular visits to lawmakers to argue that, while they thought some parts of the rule were useful, others would hurt the bank’s ability to hedge against risk. The result, said Senator Carl Levin, was a “big enough loophole that a Mack truck could drive right through it.”