A nice summation of reasonable bailout conditions that the country needs to debate this week. Reich is about as authoritative on this as one can get as a prestigious professor of economic policy and Clinton's secretary of labor.

Though providing little information about the causes leading up to the proposed $700-billion Wall Street rescue, and lacking sourcing (it is an op ed), Reich masterfully outlines the term(s) Congress should exact before approving such a deal in order to make it palatable to financially stressed Americans. His ideas are eminently fair and well thought-out, and make me wish he would run for office, because the current Congress we all know and love is likely to give Paulson carte blanche merely to protect its own financial interests.

Reasonable conditions to ask for in return for a bailout (that has been made necessary by some of those asking for the bailout) written up by a figure with expertise.

A little too short, but good talking points for a starter. A similar TPM from Dean Baker is on newstrust at http://www.newstrust.net/webx/Stories/files/80921-0025/

It's an opinion piece, not a news article. But most articles on the crisis have been pretty dry about what the public is likely to get for the bail-out, other than deeper in debt. I really like the idea of forcing some pretty strict conditions on the bailout, and public equity, banning organizations/members from politically influencing decisions, allowing authority for bankruptcy judges to help save people's homes makes a good first step.

Reform are needed, but his reforms are irrational. There is no blank check. Reich is well known for his leftist point of view. Leftist, Obama-style, solutions will only make things worse. Reich tries to exploit a problem to introduce leftist economic policies.

Reich is a good writer and this is a fairly written story about the white collar crooks on Wall Street. It is really disgusting they want a free ride, while the bosses are walking away with millions in salaries and payoffs. Same old ripoff Republican owned corporations and businesses. They are always screwing up and wasting shareholders money and getting off scot free and now they wants us to bail them out for their crooked acts. Reich doesn't go far enough. The wealthy in this country have to pay for this bailout. They have been making out like bandits since their head crook Bush stole his first election. Now they want taxpayers to pay for their criminal activities. I think anyone making over half a million should have an ... More »