Thomas Ferguson
Thomas Ferguson is Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and Senior Fellow of the Roosevelt Institute. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and taught formerly at MIT and the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including Golden Rule (University of Chicago Press, 1995) and Right Turn (Hill & Wang, 1986). His articles have appeared in many scholarly journals, including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and the Journal of Economic History. He is a long time Contributing Editor to The Nation and a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of the Historical Society and the International Journal of Political Economy. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Institute for New Economic Thinking.
Ask Holder to Be Bolder: Resolving the Mysteries of AIG
Tuesday, 01/12/2010 - 10:12 am by Thomas Ferguson | 2 Comments 
Tom Ferguson urges the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to question Eric Holder on AIG.
Is there anyone out there who still expects anything from the Angelides Commission? After AIG? After TARP? After Treasury’s gargantuan tax breaks for banks, Geithner’s preposterous asset buying program, the Citigroup $300 billion plus “ring fence,” or the FDIC’s guarantees of bank debts? Or, for that matter, the proposed new financial “reform” legislation that does little to rein in “too big to fail” banks and their long deadly chains of derivatives and credit default swaps?
Probably not. But since the Commission is finally holding its first hearings this…
Read the whole story »New Agenda for America: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…
Thursday, 10/29/2009 - 12:13 pm by Thomas Ferguson | 1 Comment
To mark the 80th Anniversary of the Great Crash of ‘29, we asked 15 progressive thinkers to write about lessons learned and what lies ahead. Together, their reflections constitute a New Agenda for America — a message of how the ideals of a fair society should apply to the economic and social policies of our time.
Those who gaze into Harry Potter’s Mirror of Erised see not their faces, but their deepest desires. The Great Crash and the even greater Depression that followed work the same way, except that their magic is pitch black: Viewers see their worst nightmares.
In the thirties, as New Deal…
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