After Ron Paul, every Republican in the House and a large number of Democrats pushed through H.R. 1207 (against the efforts of the Federal Reserve and their former Enron lobbyist), Bernie Sanders went soft. It appears he has comprised the teeth out of S. 604 and put the effort to audit the Fed in jeopardy.

The carbon trading scheme that passed the House and is making its way to the Senate is a new derivatives market set up at the behest of Goldman Sachs and other major Wall Street financial firms. Out of curiosity, how did the last financial derivatives market turn out? And yes, it is also a regressive tax, (Who do you think is hurt most by higher energy bills?).

Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson has been tearing up popular YouTube videos of Congressional hearings (I find it a strange, but good sign, these kinds of videos are becoming so popular). Here he asks, “where have all the trillions gone?” Hell if the Federal Reserve knows.

By far and away the most common explanation for the current crisis is the relaxed lending standards in the mortgage market, which caused a housing bubble, collapsing the financial system in upon its deregulated self. In this first part, of my multi-part series on the financial crisis, I will evaluate this claim. Did deregulation cause our economy to collapse? The answer is, well kinda.