America is in the grip of a societal economic panic. Lawmakers cry “We’re broke!” as they slash budgets, lay off schoolteachers, police and firefighters, crumbling our country’s social fabric and leaving many Americans scrambling to survive. Meanwhile, multi-billion-dollar American corporations like Exxon, Google and Bank of America are making record profits. And while the deficit climbs and the cuts go deeper, these corporations -- with intimate ties to our political leaders -- are concealing colossal profits overseas to avoid paying U.S. income tax.

"We're Not Broke" is the story of how American corporations have been able to hide over a trillion dollars from Uncle Sam, and how seven fed-up Americans from across the country, take their frustration to the streets and vow to make the corporations pay their fair share.

More here.

Conservatives are touting entitlement reform as a solution to looming deficits. But, as the title of this video suggests, this is not the route to take. Entitlement reform is a distraction. Changing Social Security and Medicare doesn't affect the deficit, and changing the rules to raise the age for recipients only shifts the burden to the next generation of laborers. So what is the solution? What is the major drain on our budget that truly does need reform, and how can that be done? Robert Reich explains.

The famed award-winning investigative reporting team of Donald Barlett and James Steele have just published a new book, "The Betrayal of the American Dream," a followup to their landmark bestseller, "America: What Went Wrong?" As Republicans and Democrats continue disputing who should bear the brunt of the tax burden, Barlett and Steele argue that America’s middle class has been decimated over the years due to policies governing not only taxes but also bank regulations, trade deficits and pension funds. Their book chronicles how the American middle class has been systematically impoverished and its prospects thwarted in favor of a new ruling elite. Barlett and Steele have worked together for more than 40 years, sharing two Pulitzer Prizes and two National Magazine Awards. The duo join Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow! to discuss the assault on the middle class, the great tax heist, deregulation, the outsourcing of U.S. jobs by companies like Boeing and Apple, and the end of retirement. "People are going to have to work forever, and yet what are those jobs going to be? What are they going to pay? And it also puts pressure then on people coming into the workforce. How are they going to get a job if people are having to work between 65 and 75 years old?," Steele says. The duo also discuss their past reporting on the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, headed by the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, and note he headed "an Olympic committee where that entire operation raided the federal Treasury like no other Olympics in history."

Full transcript here.