Whether you were for or against the bailout bill, these three essays by David Cay Johnston, written for
The Plank (a blog for
The New Republic) are worth reading:
I've been a long-time fan of Johnston's investigative reporting for
The New York Times and after recently reading two of his books --
Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else (click
here to read an excerpt of the book or click
here to read my entries on this book) and
Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill) (click
here to read my entries on this book or click
here to read excerpts and view the table of contents on the author’s website for this book) -- I've come to trust Johnston as an advocate for the common person.
It seems to me that instead of doing concrete research into how the bailout bill might affect Americans and the global economy, most media sources were simply fear-mongering about the chaos that we were doomed to if the bailout failed to pass. I'm also disappointed that Congress appears not to have considered alternatives to the bailout bill initially proposed by Hank Paulson and instead just worked to improve it.
It couldn't have hurt them to talk to some of the world's economists who had differing opinions.
Absent that, we can trust Johnston to speak up for us.
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