TOO BIG TO FAIL, BREAK UP THE BANKS PRESS FROM THE WEEKEND
“This Week” ABC with Sherrod Brown, Corker, Goolsbee

Steelworkers President: Regulate Wall Street

MilkenInstitute.com: Shaping The Future T. Boone Pickens and Ted Turner Talk Energy Independence

Are we ready to make the move to cleaner, greener, domestically produced energy sources? How will we afford the infrastructure needed to deliver renewable energy? What are the national security imperatives and potential dividends of shifting away from imported oil?

To find fresh solutions to these urgent questions, this year’s Global Conference brings together Ted Turner and T. Boone Pickens, two of America’s most colorful and outspoken business leaders. With lots of strong opinions to share, they’ll sit down for a no-holds-barred discussion of how America can meet one of the central challenges of our generation.

VIDEO of their panel discussion can be viewed here.

RELATED: Vintage Ted “Straight Talker” Turner

DEPRESSION IS HERE IN PARTS OF AMERICA

As the press hypes the recovery study finds workers and poor trapped in depression.

NakedCapitalism.com Guest Post: Unemployment for Those Who Earn $150,000 or More is Only 3%, While Unemployment for the Poor is 31%

Washington’s blog: Boeing CEO Jim McNerney succinctly summarized a recent study by Northwestern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies regarding unemployment rates for different income brackets:

The Center analyzed the labor conditions faced by income-grouped U.S. households during the fourth quarter of 2009. In the face of one of the worst economic environments in memory, those in the highest income groups had nearly full employment levels, with just a 3.2 percent unemployment rate for households with over $150,000 in income and a 4 percent rate in the next-highest income group of $100,000-plus.

The two lowest-income groups — under $12,500 and under $20,000 annually — faced unemployment rates of 30.8 percent and 19.1 percent, respectively. The study – published in February – notes that the poor are suffering Depression levels of unemployment:

Workers in the lowest income decile faced a Great Depression type unemployment rate of nearly 31% while those in the second lowest income decile had an unemployment rate slightly below 20% … Unemployment rates fell steadily and steeply across the ten income deciles. Workers in the top two deciles of the income distribution faced unemployment rates of only 4.0 and 3.2 percent respectively, the equivalent of full employment. The relative size of the gap in unemployment rates between workers in the bottom and top income deciles was close to ten to one. Clearly, these two groups of workers occupy radically different types of labor markets in the U.S.

Michael Panzer, Seeking Alpha, Are We In Recovery or “Unrecovery?”

Dean Baker: Krugman Nails the Issue on Credit Rating Agencies

A big part of the story of the housing bubble is that the bond rating agencies were willing to give issuers of mortgage-backed securities collaterized debt obligations investment grade ratings even when they were clearly junk. The explanation was that the rating agencies were being paid by the issuers, therefore they had an enormous incentive to bend their ratings. If they rated these issues honestly, they would lose their business.

The conflict of interest in this “issuer pays” system has been widely noted. Unfortunately it has prompted mostly strange genuflecting rather than serious thinking. The obvious way to fix the conflict is to take away the hiring decision from the issuer. The issuer would still pay the rating agency but a neutral party — the SEC, the stock exchange on which the company is listed, the local baseball team — would make the decision as to which agency gets hired.

Detroit Pension Funds Looted

IT WOULD TAKE 9 YEARS TO CLEAR THE CURRENT HOUSING GLUT AT THE RATE HOUSES ARE NOW SELLING

U.S. FOOD INFLATION SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL

Sherwood Ross: WELFARE “REFORM” ACT OF 1996 KEEPING POOR FROM GOOD JOBS

The Federal Welfare Reform Act of 1996 “has all but abolished welfare recipients’ ability to obtain any kind of education that extends past six months worth of training,” an authority on urban education contends. And by diminishing their ability to get a college degree, it has worked to ensure the continued poverty of the poor. [More here →]

GREECE IS UNRAVELING

WSJ: Hopes that Greece’s formal request for international aid might help stabilize the financial markets are proving short-lived, with the cost of insuring Greek debt against default jumping to a new record.