Friday links

Krugman on the crazy AHIP report released this week by PW

98% of banks are left out of the Financial Consumer Protection Agency's purview. This leaves only the big banks that would get the annual regulation review. Makes sense, as the big banks are mostly responsible for the crisis. Could this drive nefarious schemers to go to small banks and cause trouble? Maybe, but there just isn't enough capital in the little banks to do much damage, certainly not on a national scale.

NYT Op-Ed on why the financial sector melted down. Hard to find any argument with that.

The Maestro says we should think about breaking up banks.

I've been railing on the insane supposed $80 billion dollar deal that the NYT reported the White House made with the Pharmacuetica industry a couple of months ago, but New Majority has a point. Where is the money (ads) that that deal would have produced?

Here's a walkthrough of how key member's of Congress are owned by the bank and insurance industries. Here's another pretty graph.