finance

"Saying when the economy is at its weakest we're going to put into law that we can't spend more to pick ourselves up...that's a depression-maker," says Heather McGhee of Demos. But despite warnings from economists from all over, the government in Washington, Democrats and Republicans both, remain obsessed with the deficit.Heather joins Laura in studio to grade Obama, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and of course the Ryan plan on the budget, the deficit, and the need for more stimulus.Tom Morello, Rage Against the Machine guitarist and protest singer as The Nightwatchman, was in Madison to support the workers' protest, and now his new music is inspired by those union workers. ; His new EP, Union Town, is coming out soon and its proceeds will go to support The America Votes Labor Unity Fund, but you can download this track for free now at SaveWorkers.org.
Bernie Madoff, the infamous Wall Street Ponzi schemer who became one of the villains of the economic crisis, played on his clients' fear, not their greed. So says Diana Henriques, author of the new book Wizard of Lies. Having twice interviewed Madoff in prison, Diana notes that his personal charisma combined with Wall Street's lax regulations to create a perfect storm that wiped out his clients' wealth.Diana joins Laura in studio for a conversation about Madoff, Wall Street, and the ways ordinary people get ripped off by complex financial schemes.Finally, playwright Tony Kushner has spent his career fighting

The news today from Japan is that the leak at the Fukushima Daichii nuclear power plant has been stopped but the crisis is far from over. Radiation levels remain high even outside the evacuation zone, contaminated fish are turning up, and the government seems to be insisting on business as usual, according to Aileen Mioko Smith. Aileen is executive director of Green Action Japan, and spent time studying the impact of the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, and she joins us via Skype to give us the latest on Japan's crisis. "Paul Ryan's roadmap, which I call the roadmap to ruin, is really an astonishing document that really doubles down on pretty much every single one of the negative economic decisions of the past thirty years that have gotten us into the mess we're in today," says Heather McGhee, Washington bureau director of Demos. Laura caught up with Heather at Frances Fox Piven and Cornel West's Fight Back Teach-In on April 5 to talk budget concerns. Keep an eye out for our in-depth interview with Frances and Cornel later this week! "We intend in this moment when diversity is increasing and prosperity is decreasing, to ensure that our country makes the right choice. There are indeed two choices. One choice is that you attack diversity and you distract people from the economy. Some folks have made that choice. The other is that you embrace diversity and you attack poverty," says Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP. Laura spoke with Ben at the We Are One rally in Newark, New Jersey and discussed the way conservative attacks on women, unions, immigrants, and more are all part of the same strategy, as well as the settlement of a lawsuit the NAACP filed against Wells Fargo. Distributed by Tubemogul.

Microlending hit the news this week, as The New York Times reported that many countries have seen mixed results with the small-dollar loans to people, often women, to start their own businesses. But many have seen success turning as little as $50 into a business to feed their families. Rachel Cook and her crew are working on a documentary about microlending, focusing on women in South America, Africa, and Asia who are using microloans to start businesses. The film is looking for an executive producer and interested applicants should visit their website to apply.

"You can't just have homeowners pay for the mess that the banks have made; not just of our finance system, it's becoming clear that they've made a mess of our private property system in this country," says Marcy Wheeler, who's been blogging the House and Senate hearings on the foreclosure crisis at her FireDogLake blog, and joins us via Skype to discuss the situation.And while hearings on Capitol Hill look into what the banks have done to everyday people, the discussion of Bush administration torture and unlawful detention goes on--Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was convicted of one of the 285 counts he was tried for, in a civilian court. Marcy points out that the trial might have gone differently if much of the evidence in the case hadn't been obtained through torture.We need to take control of the new computer networking tools all around us, argues author and thinker Douglas Rushkoff, or else we'll wind up at the mercy of those who do take control. That's part of the argument Rushkoff makes in his new book, Program or Be Programmed, out now from our friends at OR Books.With some basic computer and programming literacy, Rushkoff notes, we can take control of our lives, create value for ourselves, and perhaps let the big institutions that think they control us, from banks to media moguls, just wither away.Finally, one of those big institutions went "public" today--GM stock is back on the stock markets, the bankruptcy and bailouts apparently a success. But not so fast, say some, and Laura has some thoughts about who's really paying the price.