With the invention of e-readers and therefore e-books, e-magazines, and e-newspapers, the trees are rejoicing, but are some of America’s most steadfast print/paper companies nearing their end? Barnes and Nobles, The United States Postal Service, Verso Paper, and Quad/Graphics are/were some of the largest companies in the US. Their influence, power, and success seemed endless, but times are changing and the more things change and become digital the more companies that thrive off of print media suffer.

In a recent post on Dead Tree Edition the current predicament of each company is explained. The prediction being that one of these four companies will go bankrupt in 2012, but which one will it be? If we’re talking about the extinction of print media we have to consider which form of print media is still absolutely relevant.

Personally, of the four companies, Barnes and Nobles is the most relevant to me. I don’t have an e-reader and I have no intention of investing in one, so a store like Barnes and Nobles still holds significant value to me. But my opinion and outlook on physical books is most likely the minority. Most people enjoy the efficiency, light-weight, and purchasing opportunities that e-readers and e-books offer. So while it stands to reason that physical books may never become extinct (pretty please?!), the necessity of a big bookstore chain like Barnes and Nobles may diminish.

So what do you think? Which one of these companies will file for bankruptcy in 2012? Or do you think none of them will? Is there hope for these companies to adjust and remain standing? Or will we see a gradual decline of print media, until everything is digital and the trees throw a party?

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The News Dissector and Emmy award winning journalist, Danny Schechter offers a behind the scenes look at the Occupy Wall Street protesters in this video.

Danny Schechter’s journalistic work has often reported on the economy. His book Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal a well-received book about the crimes of Wall-Street which was published in 2008 and is still very relevant today. Soon, Danny will publish another book called Blogothon. The book will be a compilation of Danny’s blogs as well as a commentary on blogs in general and how other people can apply blogging to their own interests. The book is due to be released in March 2012.

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Louis and Sandra Bohtlingk are hosting a workshop in Ocean View, Delaware from October 21-23, that will help you explore your relationship with money. This transformative workshop will teach you how to rid yourself of old habits and move from fear to trust when dealing with money. By learning to live by a “Care First” mantra, the workshop will allow you to set a new tone for the future of economics. With the loving support of five facilitators who each represent an archetype: God of Money, Goddess of Abundance, Community Keeper, Condor and Eagle and the use of sacred ceremony, music and masks, the workshop starts a very personal and communal journey through the land of money.

Fri: 8.00 -10.00 pm Sat: 10:00am-6:00pm Sun:10.00 am-4.00pm. Please arrive on time!

For Registration: 12 participants only. Call Louis on 571-269-3913 or E-mail him: carefirst@cooptel.net
Cost: A love based contribution to care for us and support our work. We always say: “Let your heart speak. Be considerate of your own situation and ours and know that this is our livelihood.”
Suggested fee: $200. You contribute less or more. It will be made at the end of the workshop.
Food: Please bring your own lunch for Sat/Sun plus snacks. We will share a Sat eve. meal
Accommodation: We have places to stay. Maybe a cheap motel is needed for some.
Other: Bring indoor slippers, water bottle, pen and a personal journal.

WHAT OTHERS SAY:

“I have taken many workshops, but this workshop “Meeting the Mystery of Money” is within my heart as the single most powerful experiential workshop I have taken to date. This 2 day intensive works on a cellular level and has completely regenerated my experience with money. My personal experience with money in the past was not that I held no value toward it. I could see that I was, in fact, not holding enough “value” for myself and my work in the world, where money was concerned. Immediately following the workshop I began to incorporate the “blue pot” into my work. I have doubled my earnings in very little time. In short, my world has been transformed.”
Deborah Cameron, Ontario, Canada

“I rarely sign up for workshops, but I felt these very Earth-connected chosen guides are fulfilling the seed of building a new paradigm community. This workshop brought my fears around money to a higher clarity for release in such a profound way. It then revealed how we can build a trusting community providing much greater awareness and support for each other.”
V. Airisun Wonderli, Charlottesville, VA

“The workshop (intensive) is a unique, experiential and interactive opportunity to discover, explore and transform old patterns/core beliefs that block one from fully experiencing financial abundance in their life. Through this deeper unfolding of personal insights and revelations, one is able to discover what is really going on beneath the surface in creating their financial reality and how those beliefs or attitudes relate to personal creativity and community. Louis and Sandra embody the enthusiasm and inspiration necessary in co-creating a love based approach for both community and finance and provide a safe, nurturing space for participants. This workshop is truly life-changing.”
Patty Snyder, Staunton VA

“The workshop took me to a place of strength and courage. Pushing through the fear of success I have opened my heart to new opportunity of community. Care first of myself was the missing link. I have a better understanding of the dynamics of Care First verses Money First. Louis and Sandra are compassionate leaders and teachers and I highly recommend this transformational healing for the planet.”
Jolly Stickley, Staunton, VA

Louis Bohtlingk is the author for Cosimo’s upcoming book Dare to Care: A Love Based Foundation for Money and Finance to be released in November. The book is filled with a collection of ideas and initiatives that could change the world of finance as we know it.

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In an article published by Neiman Reports, Danny Schechter discusses the media’s misstep in reporting the Financial Crisis to the American Public. The highly informative article, goes back to the first signs of the impending Financial Crisis and how the media failed to report it and America failed to see it. In some ways Schechter is pointing out the denial we were all living with. Choosing instead to focus on the economic boom and avoiding what, many projected, was yet to come. Schechter’s article, Is the Financial Crisis also a Crime Story?, gives an interesting perspective on the financial crisis and is worth reading for anyone who is befuddled or frustrated by this crisis.

To read more of Danny Schechter’s work see The News Dissector, Danny’s blog. And to hear Danny speak more about this topic and the many others that interest him, check out his appearance on The Edge with Max Keiser.

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September is upon us, bringing with it back to school time, brilliant colors, and colder weather. Fall is a transitional season when people tend to leave the lazy, careless days of summer behind and buckle down into a more serious outlook. And from that serious outlook comes our new book of the month: Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse written by The U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The economic crisis in this country is no secret. There are constant reminders of the unemployment rate, houses are foreclosing faster than ever, and businesses are laying off, cutting back, and shutting down. Financial trouble is all around us, but how many actually know what started it all?

After a two year investigation by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation the report Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse details where the blame should be and why. This report, re-released by Cosimo, with a new foreword from the publisher, takes an in-depth look at Wall Street’s blame in the financial collapse. Outlining four very clear causes of the downturn: high risk mortgage loans, regulation failures, inaccurate AAA credit ratings, and investment bank abuses.

With the gloriously tranquil days of summer behind us, we can no longer ignore the harsh reality of our Country’s financial situation. It’s necessary for us to take a look at the causes. Where are the flaws that allowed this to happen? Can we prevent further damage? And where do we go from here? Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse, can help lead us to the answers.

THE U.S. SENATE PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS (PSI) is a bi-partisan team of senators that deals with Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and is currently headed by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK). Formerly known as the Committee on Government Operations, PSI is the oldest subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Read Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse for more about Wall Street’s role in our country’s Financial Crisis and an in-depth look at the flaws that allowed this to happen.

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Cosimo Reports has released a new version of the recent Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, the final report from the national Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on the causes of the financial and economic crisis in the U.S. This version, complete with dissenting views, also includes an illuminating Foreword from News Dissector Danny Schechter about the report and why it ultimately fails to do its job.

Very little of the discourse about the FCIC report referenced the victims—the millions of families now without breadwinners and homes. Most of the commentary still looks up at CEOs, not down at the people whom they robbed by design, as folk singer Woody Guthrie put it, not with a six-gun but “with a fountain pen.”

When most of us think of crime, we think of gangsters with guns, not banksters with elaborate schemes designed to transfer other people’s wealth to their accounts. Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, a publication more at home with Groucho Marx than Karl Marx, said of the meltdown: “[This] may well turn out to be the greatest nonviolent crime against humanity in history … never before have so few done so much to so many.”

Interestingly, though perhaps not surprising, similar opinions have been cropping up all over the web. Rolling Stone recently published an article called The People vs. Goldman Sachs in which they essentially say the same thing: it wasn’t everyone’s fault (the government, the banks, the people) that our economy collapsed, and therefore no one’s fault. It was the big banks and financiers who couldn’t manage to keep their paws off their own customers’ money!

They weren’t murderers or anything; they had merely stolen more money than most people can rationally conceive of, from their own customers, in a few blinks of an eye. But then they went one step further. They came to Washington, took an oath before Congress, and lied about it.

Thankfully, even though the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission couldn’t lay the blame, a separate Senate subcommittee investigated the Wall Street dealings to discover the truth. Their findings (which do place blame at the feet of Wall Street patriarchs), can be read in the 650-page Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse, also forthcoming from Cosimo. Check out the whole Rolling Stone article to find out more about the report.

To read more about Danny Schechter and his opinions, visit his website. To find more Cosimo Reports about the financial state in America, visit our bookstore.

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Tomorrow evening, Danny Schechter will be reading an excerpt from his newest book, The Crime of Our Time at the NYU bookstore on 726 Broadway in New York, at Waverly Place near the 8th Street N/R Subway station. This is the companion book to his movie, Plunder, the Crime of Our Time, which expounds on the themes found in the Cosimo Book Plunder.

Danny will also show screenings from the movie and discuss why Wall Street is NOT too big to jail. The event takes place tomorrow, April 6, between 6:30 and 8:00 PM. You can see the ad for the event and read more about Danny and his work at his blog.

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Good Business International, a company dedicated to creating a better world through socially-responsible investment and business practices, has long been a supporter of green business and groups that attempt to fulfill their mission and hold themselves accountable for their effect on the world. They provide news and support about and for these companies, as well as videos and radio streams for those interested in learning more about good business practices. They review books, and blogs, support various aspects of the green community, rate and list business that follow sustainable practices (including Cosimo!), and comment regularly on the financial situation in the U.S. through their blog.

Their most recent blog posts, written by Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief of Good-B Monika Mitchell, rages against the banking system in the U.S. and the foreclosure and housing collapse situation that jump-started our economic fiasco. These posts tie in well with a new Cosimo Report, The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, originally published earlier this year by the U.S. government and forthcoming from Cosimo with an added Foreword from Danny Schechter the News Dissector. You’ll have to wait for the book is published to read the whole thing, but here’s just a taste of what Danny has to say:

Very little of the discourse about the FCIC report referenced the victims—the millions of families now without breadwinners and homes. Most of the commentary still looks up at CEOs, not down at the people whom they robbed by design, as folk singer Woody Guthrie put it, not with a six-gun but “with a fountain pen.”

When most of us think of crime, we think of gangsters with guns, not banksters with elaborate schemes designed to transfer other people’s wealth to their accounts. Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, a publication more at home with Groucho Marx than Karl Marx, said of the meltdown: “[This] may well turn out to be the greatest nonviolent crime against humanity in history … never before have so few done so much to so many.”

Looking at a January 13th post from Good-B, titled “The Yellow Brick Road to Foreclosure,” Ms. Mitchell’s comments sound awfully familiar:

Hundreds of thousands of mortgage documents were “robo-signed” by one “Linda Green” in an equal number of handwriting styles. The prolific Green appears to be a bank officer at dozens of firms across the nation leading to the breakdown of the foreclosure process and the scrutiny of all legal documents. (To date: Ms. Green has not returned calls for comment.)

Banks and their armies of crocodile-shoed lawyers shedding crocodile tears are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Well boys (thankfully not too many girls)… according to recent court rulings in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Florida – the jig is up. Last week a New York judge dismissed a bank’s case and rebuked the plaintiff’s attorneys by stating, “Swearing to false statements reflects poorly on the [legal] profession as a whole.”

In a perfect world, if a borrower defaults in a secured creditor relationship, the lender looks for ways to collect on the collateralized debt. The seemingly limitless fraud on the part of mortgage brokers, lenders, underwriters, “securitizers” and servicers over the past few years, reveals that Dorothy, er.. I mean, Senator Negron—we are definitely not in Kansas anymore.

If you’re in agreement with the righteous anger over the misdeeds of top bank employees and CEOs (and the U.S. government treatment of the debacle), go check out more at Good-B.com, and read the newest Cosimo Report next month!

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Danny Schechter, author of Plunder, describes in a recent blog that, unlike our current situation, in the “good old days” of the 1930s Washington actually did something about the abuse and fraud on Wall Street. He refers to “the Pecora Commission that grilled financial executives and blamed Wall Street abuses for the collapse of the Stock market in 1929 that led to the Great Depression.”

Recently released by Cosimo Report: The Pecora Investigation: Stock Exchange Practices and the Causes of the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Its new back cover states “It reads like a news report from 2009, not 1929: investment practices that favored rich insiders, collusion between Wall Street and Washington DC, the repackaging of bad loans to get them off the books of offending banks, and numerous other financial crimes the impacts of which reverberated through the world economy…”

The current Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission which has been passive at best with coming up with any consequences to our 21st century financial crisis could learn something by reading that report and apply its lessons today.

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Danny Schechter, Cosimo author of the book Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal and director of the movie Plunder, the Crime of Our Time and the companion book The Crime of Our Time, has just written a new blog post with holiday reading suggestions about the economic crisis (cheery, we know, but still worth checking out). You can read more and find links to the books below. Happy reading!

GOOD HOLIDAY READS IN A DARK AND DEPRESSING TIME

My 12 Best Books of Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa About the
Economic Crisis That Has Defined Our Times

By Danny Schechter

Back in 2007, just as the markets began their meltdown, I started writing a book I called Plunder to investigate the then emerging economic calamity. I had a well-known agent representing me, and, at that time, had published ten books. My agent warned me that I was ahead of the curve but agreed that the subject couldn’t be timelier.

Before we were through, the manuscript went to and was returned by 30 publishers. I was told that there is only one person that a book like mine had to pass muster with, not an economist, not a book editor—but the book buyer who handles business books for Barnes and Noble. If she/she didn’t like it, forget it. (This was before the bottom dropped out of that company that was later nearly sold.)

So much for their business savvy. I guess Plunder was too much of an anti-business book for them then.

At that point, they were looking for “How to Get Rich” books and volumes with investment advice. Since I was not offering either, my warnings of the collapse ahead were off-message. No sale. Finally, a small press, Cosimo Books put it out. Sadly, with no real advertising budget or retail support, it wasn’t going to go anywhere. It was on the money in one sense—published just before Lehman Brothers went down.

Since then, as the crisis was acknowledged and legitimated, the subject was finally validated for the publishing world, perhaps as millions of people began asking, ‘What the F…? What the hell happened?’

To answer that question, a mighty stream of crisis books were commissioned and soon poured forth. Every publisher wanted one. Some authors blamed psychological factors. Others were technical to a fault and unreadable. Still, others trashed borrowers who bought homes they couldn’t afford. Many framed the problem in terms of Wall Street mistakes and miscalculations, and occasionally greed.

Wrote Satyajit Das, author of Traders, Guns & Money: “The number of books on the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has reached pandemic proportions—the World Health Organization (WHO) is investigating. With the decorum of vultures at a carcass, publishers are cashing in on the transitory interest of the masses (normally obsessed with war, scandal or reality TV shows) in the arcane minutiae of financial matters.”

Few indicted the system; fewer still focused on intentionality—crime in the suites, the subject I explore in my film PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time and the more detailed companion book The Crime of Our Time (Disinfo).

In the meantime, I tried to keep up with the hype and a flow that is still flowing.
Here are twelve books worth reading:

1. The Pecora Investigation: Stock Exchange Practices and the Causes of the 1929 Wall Street Crash This is the just reissued actual text of the US Senate Committee on Banking and Currency in the days before the Congress was bought and sold. Pecora had said “Legal chicanery and pitch darkness were the banker’s stoutest allies.”

   So far, in today’s crisis there has been only ONE real Senate hearing, by Senator Levin questioning ONE deal by Goldman Sachs who denied everything until the bank reached a $550 MILLION settlement without admitting any wrong-doing. Clearly we still need a new Pecora-like investigation, not a tepid Congressional inquiry commission.

2. Matt Taibbi: Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking AmericaAs Rolling Stone readers know, Matt is a bold reporter and brilliant stylist turning his rage into brilliant prose and giving no mercy to the Goldman Sachs gang.
3. Nomi Prims: It Takes a Pillage: An Epic Tale of Power, Deceit, and Untold TrillionsAn elegant writer, Nomi knows the financial world up close because she’s ‘been there and done that’ with high paying stints at Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs. You can see her brilliance in my film, PLUNDER. Her book goes much deeper.
4. Les Leopold: The Looting of America: How Wall Street’s Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity—and What We Can Do About It Les is a passionate and compelling writer, teacher and activist. He has been steeped in union politics and knows how to fuse analysis and agitation.
5. Joseph E. Stiglitz: Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy Siglitz is the economist’s economist, a Nobel Prize Winner, an insider turned fierce critic of our economic crisis. He has the credentials and THE critique and a much needed global perspective.
6. Howard Davies: <The Financial Crisis: Who is to Blame ? I picked this book up at my alma mater, the London School of Economics, which Davies now directs. This is straight down the middle without dismissing more radical insights. He even references my critique of media complicity.
7. Randall Lane: The Zeroes: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane A colorful personal account by a gonzo editor who covered the madness for Wall Street pubs. Sample: “Historically, Wall Street has been like one giant extended High School (A boy’s High School). The jocks become trader—large, aggressive men who succeed in the pits based on heft and testosterone. The nerds went into banking, crunching numbers and pumping out spread sheets to determine the efficacy of deals.”
8. Yves Smith: ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism Yves is a rock star in the business of critical economics. A financial industry professional, she defected to the “light side” and founded the must read website, NakedCapitalism.com. This book skewers government policy, the economics “profession” and Wall Street fraudsters.
9. Steig Larsson: The Millenium Trilogy The late Swedish journalist-turned-popular-writer has produced three volumes of best-selling action thrillers with intelligent plots. I cite his work here because he and the character he created, Mikael Blomkvist, were investigative reporters in the financial realm. Larsson describes Blomkvist’s contempt for his fellow financial journalists based on morality: “His contempt for his fellow financial journalists was based on something that in his opinion was as plain as morality. The equation was simple. A bank director who blows millions on foolhardy speculations should not keep his job. A managing director who plays shell company games should do time.”

   “The job of the financial journalist was to examine the sharks who created interest crises and speculated away the savings of small investors, to scrutinise company boards with the same merciless zeal with which political reporters pursue the tiniest steps out of line of ministers and members of Parliament.”

   His books are more than storytelling. They are also a cry for more truth in media.

   And, since I try to practice the investigative protocols of journalism in this sphere, may I call your attention to the republication of one of the greatest American classics of taking on corporate power?



10. Ida M. Tarbell may be gone but her work is not forgotten, especially her classic, two volume blistering The History of The Standard Oil Company I was privileged to write the introduction for the Cosimo edition. She wrote this muckraking blockbuster in 1904 and remains relevant, and an example of the best of us.
11. For a left critique, try Michael Chossudovsky and Andrew Gayin Marshall, Editors: The Global Economic Crisis The Great Depression of the XXI Century from the Canadian-based global web site I contribute to.
12. Barry James Dyke: The Pirates of Manhattan: Systematically Plundering The American Consumer and How To protect Yourself Against It The one financial book I book I saw “blurbed” by Jay Leno.

So, this is my “cheaper by the dozen” for 2010. I am sure I have overlooked some great work so it is hardly the “end-all” and “be-all.” Many of the new financial books out there are written by journalists for leading newspapers and magazine, as well as mainstream economists, many of whom missed the crisis when they might have warned us about it.

And, while many of us wait for the promised Wikileaks take down of a major bank, many authors and journalists still fail to tackle the really essential issues.
Hopefully, some of the books I am recommending will fill some gaps in your knowledge.

Danny Schechter is also on The Progressive Radio Network every Friday at 1pm. Last week he talked with Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi to discuss his new book Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking AmericaGriftopia (listed above), “The dramatic story behind the most audacious power grab in American history.” You can check the show out here.

Check out Danny’s website atPlunderthecrimeofourtime.com Comments to danny@mediachannel.org

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