Cause Celeb highlights a celebrity’s work on behalf of a specific cause. This week, we speak with singer Keri Hilson about her work with AIDS Walk New York.

Keri Hilson can't wait for AIDS Walk New York coming up on Sunday May 20th!

Keri Hilson released her Gold debut album “In A Perfect World…” in 2009 and ever since has been riding high on her success. The singer has scored critical notoriety winning Best New Artists awards and nominations from The Grammy’s, The American Music Awards, BET Awards, NAACP Image Awards, MOBO Awards and 2 Soul Train Awards. Her second studio album, No Boys Allowed, was released in 2010 and included the hit single, "Pretty Girl Rock". Adding to her list of impressive achivements, Hilson is embarking on her first AIDS Walk New York this month and wants to tell the world that every bit of help matters.

Since 1986, AIDS Walk New York has raised more than $122 million for HIV programs and services in and around the New York area. It is a landmark event and the largest AIDS fundraising event in the world. In 2011 alone, 45,000 participants raised an incredible $6.2 million for over 50 New York, New Jersey and Connecticut AIDS service organizations and this year more than 45,000 people are expected to walk.

Join Keri at AIDS Walk New York and donate/register for the walk here: http://aidswalk.net/newyork

Interview Conducted Via E-Mail By Giacinta Pace

Q: How did you become involved with AIDS Walk?

Keri: I've been the MTV Staying Alive ambassador for the past year so far, so when they asked me to take part in the AIDS Walk New York on their team, I knew I wanted to be a part of it. 

Q: Among the thousands of charities out there, what was it about this one that made you want to work with it?

Keri: I truly admire the things that MTV Staying Alive and AIDS Walk New York has done. I have traveled the world to places such as Africa where I have seen the impact this epidemic has had on people all over globe. Although a lot of people think it's something we've gained control of, because it's not in the media every single day now, it is still a rampant disease that is growing ever year, so I wanted to help in some form or fashion to work towards educating people about it.

Q: What has been your most memorable experience working with AIDS charities?

Keri: I would have to say traveling to London and working at Body and Soul with children who lost their parents to the epidemic, or were either infected themselves. They are so courageous and it is inspiring for me and makes me even more appreciative of the blessings I have received.

Q: What are you looking forward to most about your first AIDS Walk?

Keri: I’m looking forward to everyone coming out and joining together. Seeing people come together for the support of such a great cause is very inspiring. There's still time for people to join as well as donate, so I encourage everyone to support any way that they can!

Q: Besides giving money, what can people do to help? 

Keri: People can come out and walk with me Sunday May 20^th and just support by helping out in the community centers around them. AIDS is no longer a death sentence and those who are infected and affected by AIDS can really use the support and comfort from others. 

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

Keri: I encourage everyone to find something they're passionate about, and to do it, especially young people. I've found that a lot of times people get discouraged by a lot of causes and with the inundation they get overwhelmed and do nothing. I just suggest that everyone out there, find that one thing they're passionate about, whether it be homelessness, the elderly, cancer, AIDS...something and go out there and support it. You'll quickly realize it's a lot easier to get involved than you think. 

When JPMorgan Chase sheepishly announced last week that it had taken a $2 billion loss on risky derivatives trading, it underlined the fact that nearly four years after a crisis that nearly toppled the global financial system, we still haven't done nearly enough to make sure it can't happen again.

“JPMorgan is one of the best-managed banks there is," President Obama declared on ABC's The View, in footage that aired Monday evening. "Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we've got, and they still lost $2 billion ... This is why we passed Wall Street reform.”

But has Wall Street reform solved the problem? "There's nothing to stop Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase from going right back down the same road and doing this all over again tomorrow," Ed Schultz noted on The Ed Show Monday night. "Because it's perfectly legal."

Wasn't the financial reform legislation of 2010 -- better known as the Dodd-Frank law -- supposed to end this kind of hazardous trading? 

Bart Chilton, Commodity Futures Trading Commission explained on The Ed Show that the problem is that many of the law's specific regulations haven't yet been drawn up -- a task that falls to the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory agencies.

"We need to put the meat on the bones of Dodd-Frank," Chilton said. "They passed the law two years ago, but two thirds of the regulations aren't even in place. Regulators didn't even have a view of what it was. That needs to change."

Chilton outlined one of the most important provisions in Dodd-Frank that he said regulators should be focusing on -- the Volcker Rule, which bans banks from making bets with their own money. He said that until that rule is fully drafted and enforced, banks will continue to be able to place massive, risky bets with their customers' money - just as they did in the lead-up to the financial crisis -- without breaking the law.

"Right now," said Chilton, "there's a troublesome duplexity within the banking system. They've got their own interest -- their bottom line -- and their customers'. We know who's always gonna win out."

Of course, not everyone thinks we need to monitor the financial industry more closely. Asked in a recent interview whether the JPMorgan debacle means we need more or less financial regulation, Reince Priebus, the chair of the Republican National Committee replied: "I think we need less."

Cause Celeb highlights a celebrity’s work on behalf of a specific cause. This week, we speak with Heather Matarazzo about her work on the Love is Louder Intiative with The Jed Foundation.

The Jed Foundation was founded by Donna and Phil Satow in 2000 after they lost their son Jed to suicide. The Jed Foundation works across the country to decrease the stigma surrounding emotional disorders, increase the understanding of warning signs of suicide, build awareness among college students and strengthen school campus mental health programs, policies and programs. Their first program called ULifeLine is now being used at over 1500 schools as an online resource for college mental health information. In the last ten years, The Jed Foundation has become the leading nonprofit organization in addressing issues related to suicide and mental health in the college population. They recently launched the movement Love Is Louder with MTV.

Love is Louder was created in 2010 to support anyone who is feeling mistreated, misunderstood or alone. Individuals, school, communities and organizations have embraced this movement as a way to address issues including bullying, loneliness, discrimination, negative self-image and depression.

Heather Matarazzo is an American actress and a proud supporter of Love Is Louder. Her breakthrough role was in the film Welcome to the Dollhouse in which she received an Independent Spirit Award. She is also known for her work in The Princess Diaries, Scream 3 and The Devil’s Advocate.

Rutgers University-Newark

Matarazzo believes it's about taking action with love.

Introduction by: Meg Zrini

Interviewed by: Meg Zrini

Q: What is Love is louder?

Heather: Love is Louder is an initiative that gets to focus on exacerbating a solution as oppose to exacerbating the problem and letting people know that they’re not alone and getting to build a community that’s based on love and based on solutions as oppose to just throwing out cold hard facts like 13 million people are bullied, so great, what’s the solution to that?

Q: What’s your involvement with the movement?

 Heather: My role is just to be of service and to get to be able to share my experiences, strengths and really getting to have action behind the words that I speak. That bullying and all of this stress affects everybody but so does love and so does a change of attitude and outlook and that it starts with just one, that one is you, is me. It starts with self.

Q: Has there been any memorable experiences?

Heather: Today we just finished coming from getting to speak with these kids at Rutgers University and getting to spend one on one time with a lot of the students and also having an impromptu gratitude session.  I got to ask every single person in that room, just one thing that they were grateful for. For me, that love and gratitude are synonymous and I love making movies, I’ve been doing it for over 20 years but to me, getting to really be of service and carry a message of love and gratitude is what makes me weepy with joy.

Q: What’s your hope for the future of the movement?

Heather: To not only remind people that they’re not alone but it’s up to them. The willingness to want to change, and the willingness to want to grow. It’s really kind of a call to action, for 30 days, even if its five things, write down five things that you’re grateful for. What if you actually, as oppose to focusing on yourself, actually get out of yourself and be of service to someone else. A lot of people say this won’t work, well how do you know if it won’t work? For me, this is a call and people will answer the call to really start initiating not only being of service to others but being able to shine their light brightly. They know that change is possible.

Q: Why is it important for celebrities to support causes and movements like this?

Heather: I’m grateful that I have been given the gift to be visible but the truth is, I’m not going to sit here and have the audacity to think that because of who I am people are going to listen to me. People are attracted to me based on the life that I live. It’s not just actors and celebrities but just human beings. Why is it important for human beings to do this? Not just these high profile celebrities, I don’t even think that it’s wise and important for actors and celebrities to get involved in this but why is it that US Weekly will give a little blurb to Love Is Louder but will give 4 pages to looking at cellulite. There needs to be a culture shift. I don’t know where it starts and where it ends but for me, in my experience, it starts and ends with me. I know that what I put on my Facebook wall is going to be positive. I know from experience that words hurt which is why I don’t read US Weekly. I’m not this enough; I’m not that enough, well why do you feel that way? Because this magazine tells me so. Hopefully, we get enough people involved; they get to realize that their self-worth is not based on other people’s views of them.  Not keeping validation from peers, they are valued and they are worth because they are here and alive!

Rutgers University-Newark

Students of Rutgers University share what they're grateful for with Heather Matarazzo.

Q: Anything else you want to add?

Heather: Yes! Check out Love Is Louder and get involved. If you want the world to change, be the change. In my experience, when I’m involved in getting outside of myself, not being stuck in my selfishness, seeing what I can bring to the day and bring to life, I’m much less inclined to complain. Love Is Louder has action kits available at loveislouder.com.

Jason Lee / Reuters

China's Chongqing Municipality Communist Party Secretary Bo Xilai waves a Chinese national flag during the opening ceremony of a revolutionary song singing concert at Chongqing Olympic Sports Centre in Chongqing municipality in this June 29, 2011 file photo.

The British businessman whose murder has sparked political upheaval in China was poisoned after he threatened to expose a plan by a Chinese leader's wife to move money abroad, two sources with knowledge of the police investigation said.

It was the first time a specific motive has been revealed for Neil Heywood's murder last November, a death which ended Chinese leader Bo Xilai's hopes of emerging as a top central leader and threw off balance the Communist Party's looming leadership succession.

Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, asked Heywood late last year to move a large sum of money abroad, and she became outraged when he demanded a larger cut of the money than she had expected due to the size of the transaction, the sources said.

She accused him of being greedy and hatched a plan to kill him after he said he could expose her dealings, one of the sources said, summarizing the police case. Both sources have spoken to investigators in Chongqing, the southwestern Chinese city where Heywood was killed and where Bo had cast himself as a crime-fighting Communist Party leader.

Gu is in police custody on suspicion of committing or arranging Heywood's murder, though no details of the motive or the crime itself have been publicly released, other than a general comment from Chinese state media that he was killed after a financial dispute.

The sources have close ties to Chinese police and said they were given details of the investigation.

Bo ouster shows "ruthless" China politics: ex-U.S. envoy Huntsman

They said Heywood - formerly a close friend of Gu and who had been helping her with her overseas financial dealings - was killed after he threatened to expose what she was doing.

"Heywood told her that if she thought he was being too greedy, then he didn't need to become involved and wouldn't take a penny of the money, but he also said he could also expose it," the first source said.

The sources said police suspect the 41-year-old was poisoned by a drink. They did not know precisely where he died in Chongqing. But they and other sources with access to official information say they believe Heywood was killed at a secluded hilltop retreat, the Nanshan Lijing Holiday Hotel, which is also marketed as the Lucky Holiday Hotel.

The sources said Gu and Heywood, who had lived in China since the early 1990s, shared a long and close personal relationship, but were not romantically involved.

The sources did not know details of the offshore transactions that Heywood facilitated for Gu, but said exposure of the deals would have imperiled her and her ambitious husband, who was campaigning for promotion to the top ranks of China's leadership. Bo has since been ousted over the scandal.

'Jackie Kennedy of China' suspected in death of British businessman

"After Gu Kailai found that Heywood wouldn't agree to go along and was even resisting with threats - that he could expose this money with unknown provenance - then that was a major risk to Gu Kailai and Bo Xilai," said the first source, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

It was not possible to get official confirmation of the case police are building against Gu. The Chinese government did not respond to faxed questions about the case. Some of Bo's leftist supporters have said the case could be a campaign to discredit him.

Gu, who is in custody and facing a possible death sentence for murder, and Bo could not be reached for comment. Bo has not been seen since appearing at parliament in March, when he held a news conference decrying the "filth" being poured on his family.

Efforts to contact Heywood's mother and sister at their homes in London were unsuccessful. The door to the mother's home carried a note saying she would not speak to reporters.

Heywood was Gu's 'soulmate'
Heywood had spent his last week in Chongqing in Nan'an district, an area politically loyal to Bo, and stayed at two hotels: the Nanshan Lijing Holiday Hotel and the Sheraton hotel.

Staff at each hotel said they knew nothing of a British man dying there. A guard was barring access to an apparently empty row of villas within the grounds of the Nanshan Lijing Holiday Hotel on Sunday and Monday, saying a meeting was going on.

Heywood's falling-out with Gu followed a period in which she had grown distant from her ambitious, perpetually busy husband and she had turned to Heywood as a soulmate, sources said.

"Bo and Gu Kailai had not been a proper husband and wife for years ... Gu Kailai and Heywood had a deep personal relationship and she took the break between them deeply to heart," said Wang Kang, a well-connected Chongqing businessman who has learned some details of the case from Chinese officials.

"Her mentality was 'you betrayed me, and so I'll get my revenge'," Wang said in his office, decorated with pictures of himself meeting senior officials, including Bo's late father, the revolutionary veteran Bo Yibo, a comrade of Mao Zedong.

Heywood got to know the powerful family when Bo Xilai was mayor of Dalian in the 1990s. Heywood helped with getting the couple's son, Bo Guagua, into an exclusive British school, Harrow, said one of the sources with police contacts.

The scandal over Heywood's death broke in February when Bo's former police chief, Wang Lijun, fled to a U.S. consulate after he had confronted Bo with allegations of Gu's involvement. He spent about 24 hours inside the consulate before he left into the hands of Chinese central government authorities.

Bo was stripped of all his party positions last week, ending his bid to join the upper echelons of the Chinese leadership at a Party Congress late this year, and opening the door to jockeying among rivals to get a place in the new lineup.

It was not immediately clear how Heywood would have helped Gu shift large sums of money offshore, though China's capital controls pose a formidable barrier to anyone trying to move large sums of yuan out of the country.

Chinese leaders' salaries are not extravagant and there have been questions about how Bo managed to fund the expensive Western schooling and lifestyle for his son, Bo Guagua, who also studied at Oxford university and is enrolled at Harvard. Bo said in March the schools were funded by scholarships.

The sources said there had been no sign of any dispute between Gu and Heywood until October and November when the argument over funds began. The lack of a paper trail made it difficult for police to determine how much money was involved, they added.

Police suspect Heywood took a poisoned drink, according to one of the sources, and died on November 15. Both sources said Gu was not present at the scene.

The sources said Heywood had stayed at the Nanshan Lijing Holiday Hotel, a secluded complex of rooms and villas in green hills overlooking Chongqing that Gu Kailai had visited in the past. Staff there said they had no knowledge of the death of a British man at the hotel in November.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Anders Breivik to Norway court: I killed 77 people but am not guilty

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Afghan President Karzai slams NATO over 18-hour Kabul gunbattle

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

CHICAGO, IL -- Newt Gingrich prides himself in running an unconventional presidential campaign and the man who currently oversees the team’s daily operations of that campaign fits this “anti-establishment” mold perfectly.

Patrick Millsaps, 39, Gingrich’s chief of staff, explains that he “stumbled into working in politics” a few years ago. He was brought on as the campaign’s top aide in late December amid an implosion in Gingrich’s numbers heading into the Iowa caucuses – the first contest that would launch two and a half months of voting.

“I got involved in politics by happenstance; I needed a job out of college,” said Millsaps, who graduated from Samford University in 1995 with a degree in Psychology after a short stint as a preacher. (He remains a licensed Baptist Minister who can still marry and bury people.)

Growing up in Marietta, GA, Millsaps was a constituent of the Republican lawmaker who would become his future boss – former House Speaker Gingrich. But the two men only met once, in 1994, as Gingrich worked the ropeline following an event. Eighteen years later, Millsaps, a lifelong Georgian, made his interest in helping the campaign known.

“The one type of race I have never been involved in as a volunteer was a presidential race,” Millsaps recalls telling one of Gingrich’s close advisors, Randy Evans, in early 2011. “I told him if there is ever a way I can help in a meaningful way, let me know.”

Nine months later, Evans did just that. Millsaps was contacted by the Gingrich campaign the day after Christmas (as he was about to take a week vacation), and flew to Iowa first thing to start as deputy legal counsel.

“One day he was in a court room in Southern Georgia, the next he was smack in the middle of the GOP primary. He didn’t blink,” Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said.

Having graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law in 2000, Millsaps has been practicing law ever since.

“In 1996, I worked as a deputy political director for a United States Senate candidate in Georgia,” he said. “I decided to go to law school after we lost the primary and after that I decided I was just done with politics.”

Moving to Camilla, GA – a small town in the Southwest section of the state – back in 2004, Millsaps started his own law practice while his wife, Elizabeth, opened a pharmacy. He continued to stay active in politics here and there, helping his former law school friends organize events for politicians near him, while also raising his three small daughters.

After working with the Gingrich campaign for just more than a month, the speaker promoted Millsaps to chief of staff when their charter plane landed in Reno, NV in early February. In this new role, Millsaps changed the organizational structure of the campaign and even created internal teams to help the process flow better.

“I think I brought a perspective that was very non-DC – there is nothing further from Washington, D.C. than Southwest Georgia,” he said.

This is the type of campaign Gingrich is trying to run, according to Millsaps, who admitted he thought he would be off the campaign after South Carolina. “It has been a benefit that I have worked on enough campaigns that I know my way around campaigns but it has also been a benefit that I bring a different perspective to the table,” he said.

“Patrick has really done a great job at doing a lot with limited resources in such a short amount of time,” Hammond said.

Now, Millsaps and the speaker work together very closely every day and have even become friends, complementing each other with their traits along the way.

“Speaker Gingrich is the one who came up with $2.50 gasoline. Nobody saw gasoline as the big issue. He has the big idea of how he wants his campaign to go and what we need to be talking about and then I am the one who tries to figure out what kind of assets we have and how we get the message out,” Millsaps said.

Millsaps described himself as the campaign’s “problem solver” and noted that the campaign always had a great product in its candidate – they just needed someone to push that material out the door to voters.

Vowing to only work for politicians he truly believes in, Millsaps says Gingrich has really struck him as a different type of politicians and doesn’t see this type of campaign happening again.

“Newt is the most intellectually curious person I have ever met,” he said. “I have met a lot of politicians that are just so full of themselves that you will never get a word in edgewise but Newt is the opposite of this.”

No matter what happens in the next few weeks, the chief of staff says he is in for the long haul.

“I am one of these people who believes that God has a plan for me and I am just going to see what happens next. I will stay with the campaign and hopefully take it all the way to Tampa and then see what happens,” Millsaps said. “I learned a long time ago that the people who try to plan their lives out seem to be disappointed.”

Verizon Wireless

Motorola Droid 4

Motorola and Verizon Wireless introduced a triple threat of new Droids at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, including one dubbed "the thinnest and most powerful 4G LTE QWERTY smartphone."

The Droid 4 has been given that auspicious, audacious title, and offers access to a 4G network that spans 200 million people in 190 markets. It is expected to work at speeds of 5 to 12 megabits per second and upload speeds of 2 to 5 Mbps.

How thin are we talking? Somehow, they've crammed a a five-row QWERTY keyboard with edge-lit keys into half an inch. And inside,it has a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM, as well as 16 GB of internal memory, with support for up to a 32 GB microSD card. It's meant to appeal to business users, with its "government-grade encryption to keep data secure." For those who don't want to carry more gear, it comes with an 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture. The mirror mode allows user to display images and video on an HDTV.  

Verizon Wireless

Motorola Droid Razr in Purple

It's built to be a little tough, with a scratch and scrape resistant glass 4-inch qHD display and water-repellent nanocoating just in case you spill something on it. (And wipe quickly. Very, very quickly.)  Underneath the screen, MotoCast allows for "remote streaming of photos, videos, music, documents, presentations and more from home or office computers." As is practically a norm now, it can also be used as a 4G LTE mobile hotspot that can support up to 8 other Wi-Fi'd devices.

It'll be available in a few weeks, and while it'll be powered by Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, it is on the list to be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

The other two new Droids, the Razr in Purple and Razr Maxx, will also run on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network and be on the same upgrade schedule. 

For fans of the Baltimore Ravens or Prince (or anyone who happens to just like a little variety in their smartphone color), the Razr in Purple will be a treat, but it'll be basically the same Droid Razr that's been out for awhile, which is to say it's been well received and reviewed. With the usual 2-year obligation, it'll run you $200 when it comes out in the next few weeks.

Finally, in a few weeks, we'll see the Droid Razr Maxx, which Motorola is calling "the overachiever" of the Razr family for its 21 hours of talk-time and petite figure: 8.99 mm (here in the U.S., that means 0.3 inches). It comes with 32 GB of total memory and will cost $300 with a new two-year customer agreement.

Verizon Wireless

Motorola Droid Razr Maxx

More smartphone news from CES 2012:

• The Lumia 900: Nokia’s first 4G LTE Windows Phone device
• The Asus Padfone is made to be devoured by a tablet
• LG Spectrum 4G phone has high-def display

Check out Technolog on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Athima Chansanchai, who is also trying to keep her head above water in the Google+ stream.

Maritime New Zealand via Getty Images

MV Rena is seen in two pieces after overnight bad weather pounded the vessel, on Jan. 9, 2012 in Tauranga, New Zealand. The ship, which struck Astrolabe Reef off the coast of Mt Maunganui on Oct. 5, 2011, split in two over the weekend.

Marty Melville / AFP - Getty Images

A team of oil-spill and wildlife specialists has been mobilised as oil again began flowing from the Rena, after it broke in two in a storm over the weekend.

Marty Melville / AFP - Getty Images

Marty Melville / AFP - Getty Images

A security guard walks on a beach where shipping containers and bags of milk powder, seen here, were washed ashore on Jan. 9, 2012.

The Associated Press reports from WELLINGTON, New Zealand: 

A light sheen of oil extended about two miles from a wrecked cargo ship that split in two over the weekend, but so far the damage appears small compared to the environmental disaster created when the vessel ran aground in October, New Zealand authorities said Monday.

Waihi Police Sgt. Dave Litton said police closed public access to popular Waihi Beach on Monday morning after four cargo containers and other debris from the vessel washed ashore. He said police received calls about people driving off with some of the bags of milk powder that are strewn along the beach.

Authorities say the milk and other items washed ashore could be health hazards. Read the full story.

See earlier coverage of the Rena disaster on PhotoBlog.

by Dylan Ratigan

If you haven't noticed, your fellow Americans are somewhat pissed about our political situation. No, I take it back -- they're mad as hell. Back in August, I was mad as hell too. I watched in disgust as Washington's debt ceiling debacle grew from a tremor into an earthquake -- one that tore deep fissures in our confidence as a nation to get anything done.

What made it even more frustrating for me, and everyone that I spoke to in late summer of 2011, was that there was little one could do about it but lose your temper. Which of course, I did.

Then, I watched as a funny thing began to happen. Something unexpected, but something so necessary. A summer of simmering frustration turned into a September of action.

People woke up. And then, finally, they began to fight back.

Occupy Wall Street began as a great experiment, with people camping out in Zuccotti Park in downtown New York, sparking a worldwide movement of protests and tent cities. Occupiers had discussions about the future of our economy with a Nobel laureate economist. They echoed back the guidance of spiritual leaders who came to offer words of encouragement. They built a library, they cooked for each other, and they fed the homeless. All of those were noble achievements.

But the most critical thing Occupy Wall Street achieved was this: they lit the match that reignited a national conversation about the link between global inequality and government corruption.

Then something else happened. Members of Congress began introducing bills to fight corruption.

We were inspired to begin work on a project to attack the nefarious influence of money in our political system. As a result, the Get Money Out project was born. It's a project where we band together, using the best of our collective resources, to ban money from the political process. We recognized early on that this couldn't be done in the usual way -- it had to be a national movement. And that's exactly what happened. Over 300,000 of us are now on board, and we've started the "Great 28 Debate" on ratifying a 28th amendment to the Constitution.

There are now 13 different Constitutional amendments being proposed by various groups and politicians, all focused on money and politics. One Republican Presidential nominee, Buddy Roemer, has based his entire campaign on the corrupting influence of big money. Tea Party advocates like Mark Meckler have come on board. Celebrities and entertainers are committing their resources, from Steven Van Zandt to The Goo Goo Dolls to Russell Simmons. And business leaders, like my friend Landon Rowland, former Kansas City Southern Railroad CEO, and Charlie Kolb, President of the Committee for Economic Development (the organization that wrote the original Marshall Plan), are starting to make waves.

For the first time, this is more than just hopeful chatter about a nationwide movement. We're seeing concrete, determined action on the local level. The city of Los Angeles has now passed a resolution demanding Congress pass a Constitutional amendment saying that "only living, breathing human beings are afforded Constitutional rights." We expect many towns and cities to follow suit.

In the past, I've likened this effort to "Climbing Everest." While we have some strong momentum, climbing Everest is no joke. If you and I aspire to be change agents in our society, we must enlist ourselves in a campaign to get money out of politics. As our friend Lawrence Lessig said on The Daily Show this week, "money is the root, and unless we find rootstrikers who are willing to strike at that root, we're never going to fix the problem."

Many of you have signed our petition at Get Money Out. Over the next few months, we need your help to expand this into a full-fledged movement. It is only possible if we enlist each other to work towards this singular goal. We will do that by exposing the auction, advocating municipal resolutions, and convincing our elected representatives to debate and ratify a 28th Amendment to separate business and state.

We also have to put this message everywhere we can. For every school or university that has a student council, that student council should call upon Congress to pass a Constitutional amendment to get money out. If you belong to a local Democratic or Republican club, same deal. If you own shares in a company, call investor relations and tell them how you feel. We can apply direct pressure to state pension managers to do the same thing, as some are starting to do, like New York City's Public Advocate, Bill de Blasio.

And let's not be fooled. Our very own Supreme Court says the Constitution allows corporations to spend unlimited secret funds in elections. Our elected officials are only too happy to use that for their benefit, while the voice of the individual voter is increasingly -- and dangerously -- silenced. President Obama and Mitt Romney are happily scooping up money from Wall Street, while Buddy Roemer, who refuses to take anything but small individual donations from voters, is being shut out. Not only by the Republican establishment, but by the national media who have refused to give him a spot in the GOP presidential debates.

Nevertheless, we can do this. We will do this. Abandon the psychology of what we are going to do, and embrace the psychology of what we are doing.

Behold, the 13 amendments in The Great 28 Debate. Every one of them is depending on us to turn them from a fantasy into a reality.
1) Rep. Ted Deutch - OCCUPIED Amendment (or Outlawing Corporate Cash Undermining the Public Interest in our Elections and Democracy)Introduced by Congressman Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), the amendment reverses Citizen's United by stating that corporations are not people under the Constitution, and that corporations are barred from making election-related expenditures. It authorizes Congress and the states to regulate all election contributions and expenditures, and reaffirms Congress' right to regulate corporations.

2) Sen. Bernie Sanders - Saving American Democracy AmendmentSenator Bernie Sanders introduced an amendment in the Senate that mirrors the OCCUPIED amendment in the House. Introducing this "companion bill" in the Senate allows both houses of Congress to begin debate on the same bill without having to wait for the other to pass it. Learn more. Read the amendment.

3) Cenk Uygur, Wolf PAC - Wolf PAC AmendmentWolf PAC, a group started by progressive TV and radio host Cenk Uygur, reverses corporate personhood and prohibits corporations from giving to any politician. The amendment also sets a cap of $100 on all political donations and it establishes a public system to fund political campaigns. Read the amendment.

4) Senator Tom Udall - Udall AmendmentSenator Tom Udall (D-N.M.) along with eight other Democratic Senators proposed an amendment that gives Congress the power to regulate all money spent on campaigns and outside political groups such as Super PACs. It allows states to regulate state elections in the same manner. It would clear the way for Congress to pass reform legislation that would limit spending and would withstand a challenge in the Supreme Court. Read the amendment.

5) Rep. Jim McGovern and Free Speech for People - The People's Right's AmendmentCongressman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) introduced the amendment with the support of Free Speech for People, a non-profit group that aims to end corporate personhood. The amendment states that people or persons as used in the Constitution does not include corporations and that corporations are subject to regulation by the people through their elected representatives. Read the amendment.

6) Public Citizen - Democracy is for People AmendmentPursued by the non-profit group Public Citizen, the amendment would reverse the Citizen's Uniteddecision and permit Congress to regulate political spending by corporations. The amendment has not been drafted into specific language, but is based on a set of core principles. Read those principles and get more information.

7) Russell Simmons - Simmons AmendmentHip-hop mogul Russell Simmons announced support for an amendment in a speech to Occupy Boston protesters. The amendment establishes public funding of political campaigns and prohibits any political contributions from any source. It gives Congress the authority to design and enforce the public funding system. Read the full text of the amendment. Watch Simmons' speech.

8)Rep. Donna Edwards - Edwards AmendmentIntroduced by Representative Donna Edwards (D-Md.), the amendment would overturn theCitizen's United Supreme Court ruling by allowing Congress to regulate political spending by corporations.

9) Rep. Kurt Schrader - Schrader AmendmentIntroduced by Representative Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), the amendment authorizes Congress and the states to regulate the contribution of all funds to candidates and the expenditure of funds to influence elections. Read the amendment.

10) Rep. Marcy Kaptur - Kaptur AmendmentIntroduced by Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), the amendment authorizes Congress and the states to set limits on the contributions that may be accepted by and the expenditures that may be made in support or in opposition to candidates running for public office.

11) Move to Amend - Move to AmendA group opposed to corporate personhood, Move to Amend, has proposed an amendment that would overturn Citizen's United by affirming that corporations are not people and can be regulated, and that money is not speech and can be regulated.

12) Get Money Out - Get Money Out AmendmentThe amendment was proposed by the Get Money Out organization, which was started by MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan, and became a part of United Republic in late 2011. The amendment prohibits corporations from making political donations and affirms that political donations are not speech, which allows Congress to regulate them. It also makes election day a federal holiday.

13) Lawrence Lessig - Lessig AmendmentLawrence Lessig, Harvard professor and founder of Rootstrikers, which joined forces with United Republic in late 2011, introduced an amendment that prohibits corporations from contributing money to any candidate, limits campaign contributions to $100, and gives Congress the power to regulate outside campaign spending. It also establishes Election Day as a national holiday.

So that's the team so far. Join us at GetMoneyOut.com. Tell your friends. Let the world know.

KCNA via Reuters

Kim Jong-un, center, son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il (not pictured) visits Mokran Video Company in Pyongyang in this official KCNA news agency photo
showing the heir apparent's slicked-back, high-sided haircut, which is a fashion hit in Pyongyang.

North Korean heir-apparent Kim Jong-un's slicked-back, high-sided haircut is a fashion hit in Pyongyang where young men are apparently queueing up for a similar cut.

Kim, believed to be in his late 20s and known as the "Young General," is packaged to look like his late grandfather, the secretive state's founder, Kim Il-sung.

The chubby youngest son of the current leader, Kim Jong-il, slicks his hair back at the top, and has it trimmed to the scalp to about an inch above the ears.

Completing the Kim Il-sung look, which experts say is designed to help win over the public's support for dynastic succession, the young Kim wears dark Mao-style suits.

The young Kim's haircut is dubbed a "youth" or "ambition" hairstyle in North Korea, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper has reported.

Earlier this week, North Korean state news agency KCNA quoted barber An Su-gil as saying the short-cut, medium-cut and square-cut hairstyles are now popular among young men.

North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun wrote in September that neat and short hair for young people makes them "captivating."

"A young man with (an) ambitious high sided haircut looks so sobering and stylish," the paper added.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said that North Korean young men prefer short hairstyle for sanitary reasons, not just because they want to look neat and ambitious.

Kim Jong-un emerged as the reclusive North's leader-in-waiting last year when he was named a four-star general and given a prominent post within the ruling party.

This year he has regularly been photographed alongside his father during visits by foreign officials.

Read more content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Post-US Iraq: Welcome to Shia-stan
• Nazi hunters boost drive to find aging war criminals before they die
• North Korea's heir apparent's hair apparent as fashion hit
• UN chief defends NATO, calls for action on Syria
• Rebellious Chinese village under siege by police
• Iraqis unable to defend their borders as US exits 

LM Otero / AP

This property at Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas, was among the hundreds destroyed by a massive wildfire there in August and September.

Just last August the federal officials who track weather disasters said 2011 would go down as a record year with 9 events topping $1 billion in damages. On Wednesday, those same authorities upped the number to 12 events -- totalling $52 billion in damages --and said there's still a chance for one or two more to be added to the list.

"In my weather career spanning four decades, I've never seen a year quite like 2011 ... record-breaking extremes of nearly every conceivable type of weather," National Weather Service Director Jack Hayes said in a statement accompanying the new figures.

The National Climatic Data Center said more detailed accounting led to these newcomers:

• Texas, New Mexico, Arizona wildfires (Spring-summer-fall). These had been incorporated into a broader disaster category in the August report (See below under Southern Plains/Southwest drought), but were pulled out when damages exceeded $1 billion, with five deaths.
• Midwest/Southeast tornadoes (June 18-22). New numbers now put damages at $1.3 billion, with three deaths from an estimated 81 twisters.

And two other events are nearing that mark:

• Northeast pre-Halloween storm (Fall). This "has a 50/50 chance of exceeding $1 billion," center forecaster Adam Smith tells msnbc.com. "It may be a stretch to indicate that this winter storm is 'likely' to surpass the mark.  But we will have an update on this in next month's update."
• East Coast Tropical Storm Lee (Fall). "At this point, the data suggest that the damage from Tropical Storm Lee has an unlikely (less than 50/50) chance to reach the $1 billion mark," Smith added.

The events followed a report last August that listed 9 events topping $1 billion for the year. A few days later, Hurricane Irene hit the East Coast, causing $7.3 billion in damages, claiming 45 lives, and bringing the total to 10 events.

The old record was 9 events, set in 2008.

Moreover, the annual average has gone way up. In the 1980s, the U.S. averaged just over one weather disaster a year, the center stated. In the 1990s, the average was 3.8 a year -- and that jumped to 4.6 in the 2000s and 7.5 in the past two years.

When the August report was released, Hayes called the rising frequency and cost of extreme weather a "new reality."

The higher costs are due partly to a rising population, with more people and more buildings in environmentally vulnerable areas, such as coastal regions, Hayes told reporters.　

Asked if global warming was to blame for the rising frequency of wild weather, Hayes called that "a research question" and that it would be difficult to link any one severe season to overall climate change.

But by Wednesday, he was ready to consider a bigger picture. "With our changing climate, the nation must be prepared for more frequent extreme weather in the future," he said in a video statement that was part of an "Extreme Weather 2011" website.

August report on billion-dollar disasters

Wednesday's report also updated figures for the earlier 9 events:

• Upper Midwest flooding (Summer). Losses exceeded $2 billion, with at least 5 deaths.
• Mississippi River flooding (Spring-summer). $3-4 billion in damage, 2 deaths.
• Southern Plains/Southwest drought, heat wave (Spring-summer). Total direct losses are near $10 billion.
• Midwest/Southeast tornadoes (May 22-27). An estimated 180 tornadoes caused  177 deaths, most in Joplin, Mo., and $9.1 billion in damage.
• Southeast/Ohio Valley/Midwest tornadoes (April 25-30). An estimated 305 tornadoes left 327 dead and caused $10.2 billion in damage.
• Midwest/Southeast tornadoes (April 14-16).  An estimated 160 tornadoes killed 38 people and caused $2.1 billion in damage.
• Southeast/Midwest tornadoes (April 8-11). An estimated 59 tornadoes caused $2.2 billion in damage.
• Midwest/Southeast tornadoes (April 4-5). An estimated 46 tornadoes left 9 dead and caused $2.8 billion in damage.
• Central/East Groundhog Day Blizzard (Jan. 29-Feb. 3). The storm was tied to 36 deaths and caused $1.8 billion in damage.

Should the Marine Corps allow a cross to remain on a Camp Pendleton hilltop?

by Dylan Ratigan

Imagine a former Goldman Sachs CEO, placing massive bets on a small, distant nation. It's not that he thinks that this small country, whose economy is roughly the size of Dallas, is a good risk -- everyone knows the country can't pay back what it owes. But he's making a bet that the big European central bank will make sure that the country gets bailed out. It's what's known in the industry as "an arbitrage play" on the behavior of central bankers. And most importantly, he isn't betting with his own money. He's betting with other people's money, using what's known as leverage.

Leverage is a way of magnifying the risk and return of any trade. In this case, the banker makes essentially a handshake bet with other players in the market (known as a "swap"), saying that he's good for the billions of dollars he's betting. These people know him from Goldman Sachs, so they don't require him to put much money down. He's essentially borrowing a huge amount of capital, cheap, to speculate with. The trade looks riskless now in a world of endless bailouts. Besides, this guy was the top dog at Goldman; he's so good that creditors of his company demanded a provision on his company's debt that they would get a higher payout if he left the company and ended up as Treasury Secretary.

The upside of this trade is vast -- bonuses and prestige for him and his friends. There is no downside, at least for him, because it's not his money at risk. There are no capital requirements, the swaps market is a dark area about which regulators know very little. But what in effect is happening is that there is increasingly an incentive to make really big bets, effectively lending large amounts of money based not on prudent standards but on who will get the next bailout. It's an incentive to create a lot of debt.

This is of course the story of what happened last week with the destruction of broker-dealer MF Global by former Senator, Governor, and Goldman Sachs CEO Jon Corzine. It pretty much defines a market that lacks visibility and integrity. MF Global had leverage of forty four to one - for every dollar of the firm's capital, it borrowed forty three other dollars to make bets. Regulators had such a poor sense of what was going on inside the company that they are now scrambling to find nearly a billion dollars of its customers' money. This means the company wasn't just betting with its own capital, it actually took its customers' capital and apparently used that to supplement its bets. This is a huge breach of integrity, and possibly illegal, so it's no wonder Corzine has hired defense attorneys. It now looks like parts of the company were paying bonuses right before filing bankruptcy.

There's so much wrong with this. Corzine is considered a highly respected banker, someone who operated at the highest levels in Washington as a Senator, and as a Governor of New Jersey. He's a huge bundler for the Obama administration, and was considered a possible future Treasury Secretary. Yet, there he was, using leverage to make bets so large and unwieldy that they blew up his firm. And of course, he personally doesn't pay, but his firm and its employees, along with its customers, lose jobs and money. Regulators just didn't constrain the company, even though it was leveraged at higher levels than the big banks were leveraged before the financial crisis hit. On a larger level, what this episode shows, with the extreme leverage, is that the system is still putting all of us at risk.

What we need, and what we've needed for a decade, is capital requirements. Capital requirements are like having a down payment in a mortgage, meaning that even if housing prices drop, you'll have still have some equity in the home. Good, strong capital requirements keep risk with the risk-takers, rather than allowing risk-takers to offload risk onto other parties. Without being required to make a down payment, without a capital requirement, any of us could borrow an infinite amount of money with essentially no risk, for speculative purposes. Why not? It's the house's money, if you lose, it's your money if you win.

The opposite of capital requirements is leverage. Without capital requirements, the incentive is to do what Corzine did, which is to create as much debt as possible and find someone to pile it on. You're looking to find ways to bet, to put money where returns are high and liquid. Since you aren't a long-term investor, the idea is to get in and get out, quickly, benefiting through financial speculation. This isn't putting money into businesses that will grow, it's putting money into risky bonds with high interest rates that may have a government backing. Whether the entity that accretes debt is Greece of subprime borrowers or people in 17th century Holland buying tulips, if there are no rules on the creation of debt what will happen is an overleveraged debtor. When you have no price integrity and no integrity of credit standards, a crisis will follow.

Corzine couldn't have made the bet if there were leverage requirements, there just couldn't be that much debt. Greece couldn't borrow excessive amounts and mask its debt load if there were capital requirements. Its leaders would have to manage its resources prudently. When there are no capital requirements, or when there are capital requirements but no visibility into firm behavior or integrity of regulation, risk moves away from the risk takers and towards the weakest players. This is the financial system we've built over the past thirty years, one dominated by speculative flows of capital and go across borders in dark pools. The financial sector collapsed the economy in 2008.

We knew the problems, and we knew how to fix it. But as we're seeing with Corzine, Greece, and MF Global, it's pretty clear that nothing has changed since 2008. Greece is leverage gone wild, using Goldman Sachs designed accounting tricks to pile on more debt. MF Global is also leverage gone wild. I'm reminded of what Goldman's Fabrice "Fabulous Fab" Toure, wrote to his girlfriend when selling structured financial instruments he knew would fail.

"More and more leverage in the system," wrote "Fab" to a girlfriend. "The entire edifice threatens to collapse at any moment. Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab... standing in the middle of all these complex, highly levered, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all the implications of those monstrosities."

It's time for our leaders to be honest about this problem, because this Eurozone mess isn't going away. There will soon be a moment to fix our financial system, when the Eurozone collapses due to Greece, Italy, or some other overleveraged entity. At that moment, we can implement strong capital requirements, and ensure that leverage allowable for financial entities is modest at best. It's important for us to look at Fabulous Fab's quote above, at Corzine's behavior, at Greece, and recognize that these are all part of the same eminently fixable problem. Let's make sure risk lies with the risk-takers.

by Dylan Ratigan

Janus Capital Chairman Emeritus Landon Rowland is worried about the corrupting influence of money in politics. This is not so unusual, except for two factors. Rowland is a mild midwestern businessman, the type of sober fair minded moderate who doesn't express concern lightly. And Rowland's concern isn't bought politicians, but bought judges. Rowland believes that corruption in our courts, as usual spearheaded by money in elections, is slowly wrecking our economy. What makes America a great place to do business is the certainty provided by a world class court system that makes sure the rules of the road apply to everyone equally. This, he believes, is now in jeopardy.

I've written before about the unholy alliance of business and state that sells our elections and our legislative process to the highest bidder. That same unholy alliance is corrupting our courts through a deep and effective campaign to buy off judges the way that our politicians have been purchased. Rowland pointed this out in a 2009 op-ed opposing a significant change in the way that Missouri judges are chosen. Currently, the state has a nonpartisan commission of experts that screen judicial candidates, and then the governor picks among them. The electorate gets to vote judges out of office through "retention elections". This protects the independence of the judiciary, and ensures that judges don't have to go begging to corporate interests for campaign solicitations. This "Missouri Plan" was implemented to ward off machine corruption in the 1940s, and is so successful that it is in use by 24 states.

A system like this works because it creates visibility, integrity, choice, and aligned interest. Experts credential candidates, elected public servants choose from among those candidates, and voters get a veto of those candidates through elections. The interests of all parties is aligned as there is legal integrity with a democratic check, and the visibility provided by an electoral campaign. Yet, judges, though elected, are not reduced to begging for campaign cash from people over whom they might have power. It's not a perfect system, but it provides a basic modicum of justice through a mix of professional norms, transparency, and elections.

So of course, corporate backed groups are now trying to end this "Missouri Plan" in favor of straight up judicial elections. And this is where the perversion of campaign finance corruption comes in - when money equals speech, elections become auctions. In the past ten years, the amount of money in judicial elections has doubled. Just ten organizations spent 40% of all money on state high court elections. Last year, the Supreme Court legalized unlimited amounts of corporate and labor cash in elections through its Citizens United, and now the amount of secret money flooding into these elections will skyrocket. This aligns the interests of judges not with citizens, or legal experts, but with those who can pay. Justice is now an auction, and the goal of the vampire industry who control vast sums of capital is to make sure the scales of justice weigh nothing but gold.

Consider the key case cited by most experts in West Virginia showing the cost of judicial corruption. Rowland notes:

"The CEO of A.T. Massey Coal Co. spent $3 million to elect lawyer Brent Benjamin to the state Supreme Court, while Massey Coal was appealing a $50 million jury award against it. Even after repeated requests from the petitioners, Justice Benjamin refused to recuse himself, instead casting the deciding vote to overturn the $50 million judgment."

This is simply bought justice. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in a narrow 5-4 decision, arguing that Benjamin's refusal to recuse himself violated due process. That's how bad it is, where the election of judges with corporate money is itself a named factor by the Supreme Court in biasing judicial outcomes. And this case took place before Citizens United.

The attack though isn't simply at the state level. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's wife took $680,000 in payments from a corporate funded think tank. Thomas didn't disclose this money as family income, as the law required. Thomas was of course a vote for Massey coal. These kinds of what-look-like-bribes are become more and more routine. "Judicial junkets" are now all too common; during these junkets, judges are now given lavish corporate vacations under the guise of education, and even have investments in industries with significant decisions pending before their courts. Talk about misaligned incentives.

And in our regulatory agencies, the courts are being corrupted as well. One judge for the Commodities Future Trading Commission promised the person who appointed him that he would "never rule in favor of a complainant." And the person who appointed him? Wendy Gramm, the wife of deregulatory king and former Senator Phil Gramm. And indeed, he has never ruled for an investor. This does not inspire faith in our business environment.

Massive election spending, junkets, overt payments while in office to family members, conflicts of interest and pre-appointment deals -- this are the kinds of tactics that have bought our Congress and separated us from our government. That this is taking place in our courts is not surprising. The same forces are buying our courts that are buying our politicians. That want to lock us in a national prison of injustice, and call it a democracy. They look at an auction, and call it an election. Visibility, integrity, choice, and aligned interest, four elements I use to test the resilience of a political system -- they are all increasingly missing from our corporate funded courts.

Historians refer to the late 19th century, during the first robber baron era, as the state of courts and parties. It was a brutally partisan era, with frequent violence at the polls, the murder of union organizers by corporate backed security forces, and child labor. The courts were forums of power, not justice. Political machines, corrupt puppets of railroads and racists, dominated courthouses and used them to control elections and the business life of the nation. American capital markets were incredibly corrupt, with frequent market rigging and booms and busts caused by rampant use of insider information. This is where we are heading with unlimited corporate cash flowing into the court system.

There is currently a large debate over the question of whether the 99% are served by this system, or whether the 1% have rigged it in their favor. The people in the streets at Occupy Wall Street feel a deep injustice over this system, but mostly they focus on Congress or politicians. They believe that our political institutions lack integrity. Our courts have as of yet been exempt from this level of scrutiny, but what we're seeing with this corporate attack on judicial integrity is that a lack of aligned interests, secrecy, and corruption are eroding faith here as well. The secrecy, the money, the lack of visibility over how judges are chosen, the lack of aligned interests -- it's all a part of undermining justice. Every court in the country has justice as its putative goal, every judge in the land should see these people as aligned with their job. Many judges do see their job as one of protecting and preserving justice in America. But increasingly, the incentives in the system cut against such a noble attitude. As we expose the forces trying to turn our courts into a forum for bought justice, we will eventually help everyone understand what Landon Rowland does -- justice corrupted by money is justice denied.

by Dylan Ratigan

It's somewhat rare to hear a Senator tell the truth about American foreign policy, but we did get a glimpse of reality last week when Senator Lindsey Graham lustily talked about the death of Gadhafi. He said, "There's a lot of money to be made in the future in Libya. There's a lot of oil to be produced. Let's get on the ground and help the Libya people establish a democracy and a functioning economy based on free market principles."

Though rare, this is not the first time a high profile American politician has accidentally told the truth about our foreign policy. In March, 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told a Senate appropriations committee that the war with Iraq would be paid for by Iraqi "frozen assets" and "oil revenues." This was not completely crazy - the first Gulf War had largely been financed by foreign countries who saw value in the oil supply lines we were protecting.

At the same time last week, the American solar industry filed a trade complaint against Chinese solar makers, who produce 55% of the world's solar panels. They allege that China is selling its solar panels below cost, which would be consistent with the Chinese industrial policy of preparing for a post-oil world. According to Stephen Leeb's new book Red Alert, China spends over $350 billion a year on renewable energy infrastructure, locking up critical supplies of zinc, silver, gold, copper, and rare earth minerals. Meanwhile, America spends its money keeping sea lanes open for dwindling oil supplies.

The Chinese are improving their skill at making solar panels, whereas American policymakers are explicitly avoiding building a post-oil energy infrastructure. Chinese elites want to secure oil and coal, of course, but they are also rapidly preparing for the day when these resources cannot be profitably extracted and used. American elites are engaged in a more short-sighted strategy of destroying any possible bridge to a post-oil energy future to protect their status quo profits. Leeb believes that this is a choice that could mark the end, not just of American dominance, but of American civilization.

It isn't that this possible doomsday scenario is hard to grasp; promises of alternative energy and threats of higher oil prices have been around for decades. So why is it still going on? My suspicion is a mixture of greed and inertia.

We have an industrial policy driven by oil, which has been the case for nearly a century. Initially, when oil was cheap and we produced most of it, this made sense Our advantage in oil helped us win World War II. Our national highway system, our network of airports and gas stations, suburban sprawl and the associated property tax base was all funded by fossil fuels. These huge oil fortunes played a major role in organizing our political system. When America could produce more oil than anyone else, or had the military alliances to do so, this worked in our favor.

Starting in the 1970s, oil became a strategic drawback, which is why President Carter tried a logical plan -- an infrastructure bank -- to get us off oil. Yet, our politics is so entwined with oil that Carter was crushed, and no one has since been able to break our oil obsession.

Oil still drives our industrial policy, and now petro-politics is so routinely dominant that it's almost pointless to even think about politicians not funded by oil. Lindsay Graham, for instance, has received a little less than a million dollars from the energy sector over the course of his career, so his lust over Libya's energy profits isn't surprising. Republicans are the party of oil - both Bush and Cheney were knee deep in the oil industry before entering the White House. On the other side of the aisle, TransCanada, which is seeking to build an enormous oil pipeline to bring in shale oil from Canada that will pump as much carbon into the atmosphere as all the oil in Saudi Arabia, just bragged about 22 Democrats who signed a letter asking for approval of the pipeline. Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama will likely boost the project. These are just the most recent examples of petro-politics; next month there will be different, equally odious examples.

Many Americans believe that oil is bad for us, and do want to invest in a non-oil infrastructure. Though our industrial policy remains consistent regardless of which party is in power. This doesn't make sense to most voters, because it cuts against the way we think about ourselves as a relatively just democratic society. Our politicians should work for us, but they don't. The traditional model for understanding power in American politics is polling and elections - will Democrats or Republicans win the ability to organize our cultural resources? But this has obvious problems, since we've seen through multiple administrations congruity in policy-making.

A better way to think about power is to follow the money, because money is how our society allocates resources. The money is in fossil fuels and finance, which opens the door to Congressional offices and sells political power to the highest bidders. The Koch Brothers recently held a retreat in Vail, where they thanked those who had given more than a million dollars to their political causes - the so-called "million dollar" club. Mother Jones magazine was able to get a list of those people. Eight finance tycoons and seven fossil fuel (coal, oil, natural gas) magnates were the majority of the twenty eight families listed (the others were in retail and housing). The Koch Brothers themselves make enormous sums from oil, chemical products, and finance.

While we have the illusion of choice in our politics, the only real consistency in policy-making is Washington's commitment to war and oil, and increasingly often, war for oil. Libya was the oil dealer to Western Europe, but the market for oil is global. And oil is the prize, not democracy. This is why John McCain praised Gadhafi in 2009 for his peacemaking efforts, and applauded his death last week. It's also why our military is increasingly extended across the world in oil-rich regions.

Our oil-drenched, defense-heavy industrial policy is increasingly creaky, but it is protected by the money that flows into the political system to wall off politicians from voters. We know that we must restructure our energy system, but it's not as simple as plugging in a new green battery to replace coal plants and gas stations. Just as we must restructure a financial system to ensure investment and value-creation, we must also restructure our industrial policy to get off oil, and our politics to get off oil money. This will require a new way that citizens relate to each other, more local production of goods and services, stronger community ties, and a politics that isn't dominated by big money, but instead by public spaces and deliberation. If you look at the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Square and the others across the world, they may not articulate this, but this is what they are asking for.

Without a reformation for new politics, and a different way of relating to one another, we will continue with the status quo. And we will have to keep finding countries and asking the question of how our oil got under their sand.

by Dylan Ratigan

About a decade ago, I read an article in The Onion, "U.S. Offers PlatinumPlus Preferred Citizenship."  Apparently, Tim Geithner did too, because from 2007-2011, this is the policy framework that he designed and executed, first as President of the New York Federal Reserve, and then as Treasury Secretary. Now, unequal democracy is not a new story, in many ways it's systemic and goes back hundreds of years. But what we're going to see in part this week is how Geithner deserves special recognition as sort of this decade's champion of making this system more explicit and entrenched.

What we're going to see this week, when the Government Accountability Office releases a more detailed version of an audit of the Federal Reserve's actions during that period, is more details on how this system worked. So let me give you some context on what the Fed bailouts meant, the details to match the persuasive message of the protesters in Zuccotti Park and around the world.

This is first and foremost a political story. It's a story of how bought government has changed what it means to be a citizen. So if you haven't sign our petition yet at www.GetMoneyOut.com, I hope this convinces you to do so.

The overall stats of the effects of the crisis are clear - median American pay has dropped by 10% since 2007, but on the high end, the rich have never been more powerful.

I'm not interested in a sob story about inequality, I want to talk about what Geithner *did*, structurally to bring about this situation. We're all aware of the two tiered political system in which protesters can be run over by police scooters but marauders in suits are put on the President's jobs council to chuckle nervously at Occupy Wall Street. But behind the political inequality lies a new order of credit allocation. Tim Geithner created a two-tiered monetary system, a kind of money they have which you can't get. He wasn't alone in doing this. Financial institutions spent hundreds of millions of dollars influencing federal officials to coalesce a bailout while politicians treated them as a special class of super Americans. But he more than anyone else in the crisis period was the central figure in the creation of our current aristocratic monetary order.

Let's start with the two types of money.

In late 2008, there were two types of people who had huge debts and depreciating collateral. Both types accrued their debts through the subprime mortgage crisis. Homeowners with fixed mortgages sat on rapidly depreciating homes in neighborhoods rife with foreclosures. Once the music stopped, they couldn't borrow against their homes at all, but if they wanted to get credit through credit cards, the interest rate could be upwards of 30%. This is sad, but it's not inherently immoral. It's what happens in a typical financial panic. At the time, bankers also had depreciating assets - they owned subprime mortgage debt, and they had fixed obligations as well. But if they wanted to borrow, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury made sure that they could as much credit as they wanted, against whatever collateral they had, for basically nothing. For instance, the Fed accepted almost $500 billion of CCC rated junk as collateral in loans. In other words, if you had a suburban tract home in the Inland Empire with a mortgage and a home equity line of credit, you were out of luck. But if you owned the debt on the home equity line of credit on that same suburban tract home home, you could have easily gone to the discount window or one of the emergency lending facilities and gotten cash with basically no interest charged.

In Group One are millions of Americans. In Group Two are Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and big American banks, European banks like Dexia, and a whole set of others who had access to the Fed, like the the Bank of Libya, and the wives of Wall Street titans (who had set up special purpose vehicles to take advantage of Fed lending). If you lost your job in 2009, too bad. If you had some savings at the bank or you are a retiree that relies on fixed income bonds, good luck getting more than 1% on your money. But if you were a hedge fund titan who realized that Bernanke had put a taxpayer guarantee against the entire banking system, you were swept up in high stock market returns from 2009-2010.

Sometimes this was even explicit; Geithner created one program in 2009, called the Public-Private Investment Program. Under this program, investors would buy toxic assets, but the government would protect them against much of the downside risk with public funds. In a deal with Citigroup, the Federal Reserve and Treasury took a little less than $300 billion of downside risk on "ring-fenced" bad assets. Oddly, there was no list of the assets when the deal was drawn up, that list would be created later. This is the equivalent of telling a friend if he lends you $25,000 now and you don't pay him back, you'll give him some of your random stuff, whatever you have lying around, later.

While these institutions were pleading with federal officials for bailouts, they were filling their coffers with campaign contributions and paying millions to swarm Capitol Hill to convince officials to bail them out.

And it worked.

During this same time period, Citi Group, which received $300 billion in tax dollars from the United States Treasury, spent more than approximately $13 million to influence lawmakers. Goldman Sachs spent $9 million on buying lawmakers in 2008.

And yes, there are individual scandals, like the government paying out a hundred cents on the dollar for credit default swaps that Goldman Sachs bought from AIG. That was simply a cash award to Goldman. There was Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan pawning off $30 billion of crappy Bear Stearns assets on the New York Federal Reserve, even as he sat on the board of the New York Federal Reserve. And there are the absurdly corrupt aspects of the bailouts, like the fact that the Fed subcontracted much of the actual work. The GAO bloodlessly noted that "most of the contracts, including 8 of the 10 highest-value contracts, were awarded noncompetitively, primarily due to exigent circumstances." Exigent? The upper tier even has its own language. There's also this excruciatingly corrupt point, which few have noticed: "FRBNY's existing restrictions on its employees' financial interests did not specifically prohibit investments in certain nonbank institutions that received emergency assistance." Yup, New York Fed employees could buy stock in companies they knew would benefit from their actions, as long as those companies were not banks. There has been no investigation, as far as I can tell, of whether they did so.

It's not the scandals that matter, or rather, it's that the scandals are the new norm that matters. The larger context here, what the Occupiers are protesting, is that Tim Geithner formalized a financial elite and gave them special rights they had not previously had, notably a government guarantee for their investing, rights which ordinary people don't get. You can see this in bank borrowing spreads; large banks get a subsidy of $34 billion of dollars a year, simply because investors think their bonds are backed by the US government. This is now written into law - Dodd-Frank requires regulators to draw up a list of systemically significant firms. These are pretty explicitly firms that are too big to fail.

Behind these investing advantages are legal advantages. No elite bankers have been prosecuted for the financial crisis, or the foreclosure crisis. NONE. And no, it's not hard to prosecute bankers, especially when they admit violating laws that are easily understandable and carry up to a year in jail, like the law saying you can't foreclose on active duty troops. This is something JP Morgan admitted doing 18 times in a Congressional hearing, yet the bank apparently got off with an apology. US Attorneys are busy prosecuting low level borrower scams, in a shameful display of how the Justice system has now become nothing but a sinecure for ambitious legal servants of the new class of American oligarchs. Meanwhile, if you're a homeowner with an underwater mortgage, you can't discharge your debt in bankruptcy, the way that corporations can or wealthy people can with second (or third or fourth) homes. And if a bank forges a document, or two or three or four, and uses it to foreclose without holding your mortgage note, well, no biggie. You have no rights as a debtor, but the bank has supreme rights as a creditor. Their money counts, yours does not.

by Dylan Ratigan

I'm in D.C. right now, about to hand over our petition to get money out of politics to Senator Dick Durbin. It's fitting I'm in D.C. to do this today, because a jobs report just came out showing that our politics can not solve our unemployment problem.

Apparently, this month, America added a little over 100,000 jobs. The unemployment rate remained flat, and the broader unemployment rate jumped to 16.5 percent. These numbers indicate that America cannot employ the 30 million people who want to work, who want to put their collective energy and personhood towards something of meaning. It's telling Americans they are trash. Americans do not like hearing that message from their government, and they are making that point loud and clear in roiling protests all over the country. This is heartening to say the least; I've been wandering and experiencing our country come alive, from Zuccotti Park and the Occupy Wall Street protests. And what we all want is to end bought government, to build a shared alignment of our values in a wave of energy.

The contrast to D.C. could not be clearer. Earlier this week, President Obama and Congress decided to kill a couple hundred thousand American jobs to help big money interests, by passing three corporate trade bills. He's doing this even as protests wrack the country, and as our very culture speaks back. This week, for instance, Sesame Street decided to introduce a new character suffering from poverty and hunger so part of their audience of children can see someone like them. Imagine that -- protests in the streets, children being told it's normal to be hungry, and a president and Congress focused meanwhile on shipping jobs elsewhere.

Amazing. But understandable. This is the result of a bought government.

How, exactly, is this working? How is this system depriving us of what we need? It's simple -- the cash speaks, the people don't.

Let's start with trade. NAFTA-style free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama are now "fast-tracked," and should end up passing at some point next week. Just the Korean deal alone will kill 156,000 jobs. The Panama deal will enable corporations to hide revenue from taxation and regulation, and the Colombia deal is about ensuring there is yet another low-cost production zone with no labor rights. These deals are supported most prominently by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest spender of anonymous cash in the 2010 elections.

Beyond these mini-NAFTAs lies a trans-Pacific trade deal that is already threatening the lives of people around the world. This one's at the behest of big pharma, which has its own stake in our government. No one has credibly analyzed this trade framework yet, but I'm pretty sure that anything within the existing free trade axis isn't going to be helping us find jobs.

Again, bought government. The campaign cash comes from corporate interests, and they get what they want.

What about the public? What is it that we don't see when we allow a bought government to run wild?

Sesame Street introduces new characters periodically as the culture changes. Today's new character is named Lily. Her family suffers from what's called "food insecurity," otherwise known as hunger (a scourge which costs America $167 billion a year). That's how many children are going hungry in modern America, that Sesame Street must feature a hungry character to stay relevant.

This too comes back to money. Food stamps were the original mechanism to deal with hunger, as a government program, they helped end hunger domestically. Senator George McGovern in the 1970s realized that hunger was a massive problem, and used a Senate select committee to research, publicize, and solve the problem. There was no donor base behind the hunger problem, but Congress has a structure that allowed it to diagnose problems felt by Americans, and deal with them. Food stamps and school lunches, not Sesame Street, were how Congress used to tackle the problem of children having nutritional deficiencies.

And what about today? Aside from corporate trade deals, what is Congress doing to solve today's most pressing issues. Well, Congress is spending its time... forming caucuses to support Predator Drones. Yes, there's a Predator drone caucus whose mission is to acquire more drones as quickly as possible and deploy them anywhere, even against protesters at the political conventions this summer. Boeing, Northrup Grumman, and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems are quite happy to buy Congress to sell more of their product. In the predator drone caucus is the Ranking Member of the Defense Appropriations Committee, Norm Dicks. Prior to the Republican takeover of the House, he held the position Jack Murtha held, on the subcommittee made famous by Tom Hanks in Charlie Wilson's War. His subcommittee dispenses hundreds of billions of dollars. And they say we have no industrial policy!

We get no jobs. We get hungry children. And we get drones spying on protesters. That's bought government for you.

I could go on. I could talk about banking policy, and the way that banks fund politicians to ensure that they face no real threat from regulators. Or how the Bush administration destroyed the anti-trust section of the Justice Department, and the Obama administration hasn't been able to really repair it. Or the Keystone pipeline and oil, in which former a Hillary Clinton for President staffer lobbied colleagues at the State Department at the behest of the pipeline company TransCanada.

But you get the point. Money has simply overwhelmed our political system. And the protests we're seeing, the national convulsion of frustration against corruption, are a result.

After all, if our government-corporate elites can't ensure that we as a society feed hungry children, then why would any of us expect that we would ensure there are enough jobs? We have a bought government, and a bought government isn't very interested in making sure you have a job, or a child has a meal.

After I finish my day in D.C., after I let Senator Durbin know that people want an end to this corrupt system, I'm going to Zuccotti Square again, because it is only in building waves of energy, of human dedication to ending our collective inaction, can we move forward to get money out. And then maybe we will get the jobs we so desperately need.

A Texas man says it felt like a punch in the gut when he was fired from his job after 16 years.

Ronald Kratz says he was fired because he was too fat. Kratz weighed over 600 lbs. when BAE Systems let him go two years ago.

The father of three says he was able to do his job without any special accommodations - and got high marks on his employee evaluations.

His former employer says kratz had trouble bending, stooping and kneeling - but the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says he didn't need to do any of that because he did his work at a raised platform.

Kratz spoke the Houston Chronicle - and described his reaction when his HR rep told him he was fired.

Kratz: "I said really? And the HR representative said ‘Yeah,  we feel that you can not perform your job safely.’ And I said ‘But I've been doing my job!’ and she said ‘We know that, but we're still going to let you go.’"

Kratz filed a complaint with the EEOC - which investigated his claims - and has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that BAE Systems violated federal disability laws by terminating a morbidly obese employee.

by Dylan Ratigan

I think it's time the government came clean with us about the true face of petro-politics. That face is very, very ugly, and extremely dangerous, but it's time we learn the truth. For ten years, the U.S. government has kept secret the Saudi connection to the 9/11 hijackers. During both the Bush administration, and now the Obama administration, the government has kept information about possible Saudi government help to the hijackers redacted, and the FBI has not disclosed the full extent of its investigations of Saudi involvement in the attacks.

 This isn't my claim. It's what former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham asserted yesterday on my show. Yesterday, he discussed his outrage over the government's secretive behavior with journalist Anthony Summers, whose book on 9/11 blew the lid off some creepy aspects of the attacks that President Bush, and now President Obama and his terrorism advisor John Brennan are keeping secret.

9/11 was not just a horrific tragedy, it was also the biggest security failure in American history. Somehow, 19 foreign hijackers, 15 of them from Saudi Arabia, the largest oil producer in the world, managed to come to America, live quietly, take flying lessons without bothering to learn how to land, make it through our airport security systems, and fly three jetliners into massively important and symbolic buildings. The only part of our security system that did work, per se, was that of normal citizens turned heroes, those on Flight 93 who took matters into their own hands and prevented the terrorists from using the fourth jet as a missile. We owe it to them, and to ourselves, to be truthful about what happened.

And the truth is that while we know the broad outlines, there are still very mysterious questions. For instance, three of the hijackers seemed to have had help from a Saudi couple that lived in a gated community in Sarasota. On August 31, 2001, the couple abandoned the house, leaving so quickly they abandoned a newly bought PT Cruiser in the driveway. The wife of the couple told neighbors that she and her husband were important people in Saudi Arabia, and had connections to the Saudi royal family. It turns out that records from the gated community showed extensive contact between this couple and three of the hijackers. Despite this startling fact, the FBI never told the 9/11 Commission about this couple. Why not? What was the FBI hiding? Why did it take ten years for this information, known to the US government, to be released to the public?

Another example is in San Diego, where a man Graham called a Saudi agent, named Omar Al-Bayoumi, was stationed. His purpose, apparently, was to monitor Saudi students in America to ensure that they weren't planning the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy, but he soon got a second job. He began offering money, protection, guidance, and flight instruction to two individuals who ended up participating in the 9/11 attacks. Shortly before 9/11, Al-Bayoumi left for Birmingham, England, and then returned to Saudi Arabia. The only reason the 9/11 Commission found out the FBI had looked into this connection is because of an intrepid investigator employed by the Commission.

The FBI didn't give the 9/11 commission information on either of these incidents. Anthony Summers, a journalist and author of The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden, asserts that the Bush administration found our oil connection to Saudi Arabia more compelling than releasing the full truth of what happened. The secrecy continues to this day. Senator Graham asked a very reasonable question about other hijackers. We know, or strongly suspect, that those in Sarasota and San Diego had some support from a shadow network connected to the Saudis. What about those who lived in Phoenix, Arlington, VA, or Patterson, NJ, Delray Beach, FL? What was happening in those places? What did the FBI find?

We have the answers, or at the least, the government does. But the final chapter of the report of the Congressional inquiry into the matter, the part that deals with Saudi involvement in the attacks, is censured. Every word. Graham has asked Barack Obama and counter-terrorism chief John Brennan to release the information from that inquiry to the public. Senator Graham thinks this a travesty, and he thinks we need to reopen the 9/11 investigation. He believes the answers on the Saudi government's role on 9/11 are definitive, and the government has them. The public should get that information, too.

Our government didn't prevent 9/11, so telling the full truth about what happened is literally the least it could do.

YouTube

So you think you can tell your dad "no" eh?

Children of gamer parents be warned: You do not want to cross us.

For a look at precisely why we are not to be defied, see the below video for one gamer dad's creative solution for waking a sleepy, rebellious child. It's called the first-person-shooter alarm clock.

"My son decided that he wanted to sleep in till 9:30 a.m," explained the dad's post on YouTube. "When I asked him to get out of bed he told me, 'no.' No one tells me 'no' especially when they are four years old."

And so Dad busted out the Super Soaker Thunderstorm, the first-person perspective and the theme song to "Doom." Problem solved.

Though I appreciate the creative parenting, as the mother of a 4-year-old myself, I have one important question: What kind of twisted parent doesn't want their kid to KEEP SLEEPING?! Is there a Super Soaker that makes them go back to sleep? That's what I want to get my hands on.

(Thanks to Gizmodo for the heads up.)

For more video game news, check out:

• Children and robots dancing to video games!
• At what age should you stop playing video games?
• Hair Wars! 'Mass Effect' heroine needs a color

Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things here on Twitter or join her in the stream here on Google+.  And be sure to check out the In-Game Facebook page here.

By Dylan Ratigan

If you want to know why politicians are so eager to pass a free trade agreement with Panama this month, type "Panama offshore banks" into Google and look at the paid ads. What you'll see is advertising by law firms and banks that will offer you help to set up a secret corporate structure in Panama immune from taxes.

The State Department knows this. Here's how the State Department described the Panamanian economy in 2006 in a secret memo revealed on Wikileaks.

The Panamanian "incorporation regime ensures secrecy, avoids taxes,and shields assets from the enforcement of legal judgments. Along with its sophisticated banking services, Panama remains an environment conducive to laundering the proceeds from criminal activity and creates a vulnerability to terrorist financing."

Yet, here's how President Obama describes the three NAFTA-style Free Trade agreements that Congress is attempting to ratify later this month, one with Panama.

"There are a few things that we can and should do right now to redouble our efforts on behalf of the American people. Today, Congress can advance trade agreements that will help businesses sell more American-m­ade goods and services to Asia and South America, supporting thousands of jobs here at home."

This week, I'll be covering the free trade agreements pushed by the politicians, along with the Huffington Post. The Panama FTA is one of three trade agreements up for debate and passage later this month. The agreement is supported by the business community and opposed by the AFL-CIO, and will be scored by unions. The Panama government itself wants this agreement desperately, and has complained about all of its lobbying spending in DC ($6.2 million).

Panama is too small as an economy to really impact jobs in the United States, the real value of the FTA is strategic and has to do with American geopolitical aims. For the business community, Panama is a great place to hide their money.

Panama is the second largest tax haven in the world, according to a secret State Department memo released by Wikileaks. There's a deep irony in the US relationship with Panama. The country's cooperation in the war on drugs is considered pivotal, with the State Department arguing that Panama is more important to the US than we are to Panama (see this cable). One third of all ships are flagged in Panama, and Panama lets the US board those ships to search for drugs. But for some reason, Panama's position as a haven for drug money is not a particular concern.

In order to move the Panama FTA, Panama decided to sign a tax information sharing treaty with the US, but most experts think this is somewhat toothless in terms of preventing tax evasion and corporate secrecy. The evidence for this are the legions of law firms that are willing to aid wealthy Americans in avoiding taxes by using the Panamanian corporate structure. Here's one example of an offshoring firm that on why you should consider putting your money in Panama. And here's another, in which the firm trash-talks "snooty" Swiss banker versus Panamanian banks.

The key question we have to face as a country is how we want to govern ourselves. From World War II until NAFTA, our trading policies were based on geopolitical needs and what would increase prosperity for America. Since NAFTA, however, the mantra of free trade has been warped to generate rights for international capital and nothing else. The agreements Congress and the President are pushing continue this unfortunate trend. What unfettered capital wants is to avoid taxes, regulations, or any state power whatsoever. And that's what this Panama deal is really about.

By Dylan Ratigan

"So that goes back to a much bigger issue which is we have a whole host of contracts, that were entered into during better times that unfortunately have to be rewritten." ~ Mohamed El-Erian, CEO of PIMCO, a trillion dollar money management firm.

Forgiving debt is fundamental to American history. So is redefining property rights. We fought a Civil War over the idea that human beings could be property, and repudiated the debt of the Confederacy in the Constitution itself. Bankruptcy -- which is the destruction of debt -- is in the Constitution, while a central bank like the Federal Reserve is not.

And this is because debt is a contractual promise, it is not sacred. The problem we have now, as El-Erian told me in our podcast, is there are too many obligations promised to too many interest groups, and not enough resources to honor them all. So what's happening is that the creditors are fighting with each other to bleed as much from a stone as possible. China wants to be paid on its Treasury bonds, so does Goldman Sachs, and so do Social Security recipients. The same is true for mortgage-backed securities, Greek debt, and every IOU in the American financial system.

But now, because there isn't enough to go around, the accounting for and attempted collection of this debt is driving the welfare of our society. Rather than saying how we can build a productive culture and thereby create more wealth to award to everyone, creditors are trying to divide what exists now. The real waste, of course, are the tens of millions of unemployed and underemployed workers. We will never know what businesses weren't started, what ideas weren't turned into products, and what innovation didn't happen because these people are lying fallow. But the loss is vast. This is the consequence of letting the accounting drive the culture.

There's a lot of discussion over how to properly regulate the banking system, and if you want to hear from one of the best minds, listen to my podcast with Mohamed El-Erian. He analogized our system to a highway; importantly though, it's not just that we need clear rules of the road. We shouldn't be driving just to drive, just as the financial system should be a means to an end. Talking about debt in the abstract is like talking about driving without having a destination in mind. What kind of society do we want to build with our banks and resources? That's the question to start with, not percentages of GDP or spending cuts or tax increases or ratings agency downgrades

In 1862, Lincoln offered to compensate the South for slaves with Treasury bonds, rather than fighting an expensive and deadly war. A few years later, a series of amendments to the Constitution specifically argued that the obligations and property of the South, both debt and slave holdings, were not valid. In 1989, Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady organized what was essentially a debtor's cartel of Latin American companies that had defaulted on their debt to American banks. The Brady Bond plan worked for everyone.

In 1944, America had probably its finest moment, when it convened the Bretton Woods summit to organize the finances of the post-war world. The post-WW I reparations deal looked much like what we are pursuing now, a "blood from the stone" philosophy of stripping as much from German as possible, while America got as much back from England and France as possible. We know where that led, to depression, then global tensions, then a trade war, then a real war. The post-WW II deal was organized around turning Western Europe into a productive society, to pursue the goal of peace. And it worked! The Marshall Plan, Bretton Woods, the IMF, and the World Bank turned Western Europe into a rich trading partner, and the idea of war between Germany and France is now laughable. This was clearly worth debt forgiveness!

We need a new global restructuring of our obligations, a new Bretton Woods or Brady Bonds solution. Greece should not be descending into poverty, it has an educated workforce and wonderful traditions. American homeowners shouldn't be under siege by creditor predator banks, and millions of us shouldn't be unemployed as debt-holders forced into a Survivor-like fight with each other over scraps. We cannot allow giant creditors to turn fights over debt into currency wars, and then into real wars.

We need leadership to say that this world will not be a lowest common denominator fight over satisfying old debts that cannot be satisfied, with no environmental, labor, or consumer protections. We need leadership to move us towards a high-trust, global productive society that can solve our collective problems. This is doable. We've done it before. We can do it again.