Monika Mitchell's blog

It all started the day the world ended. The world as we knew it that is. September 15, 2008, the day Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in the modern world, came crashing down. On that day, we began a fast and furious downward debt spiral. Panic set it, fear took over and the rest, as they say, is history.

Hallelujah! Salvation is here. Or so we are supposed to believe. The 3 Ring Circus that is two branches of Congress and the Administration is finally close to an accord on debt mania madness. What a surprise. Not…

We all knew this would happen—very simply because it had to. First and foremost, if the debt ceiling was not raised, 100 senators and 435 congressional reps would be on the unemployment lines with the rest of America. (Not a bad thought). So to save their jobs and to save face, the government by the self-serving, for the self-serving,...

Good-b CEO Monika Mitchell is the co-author of the upcoming book: Conversations with Wall Street: The Inside Story on the Financial Armageddon That Was and How to Prevent the Next One.

So here we are again, in economic LaLa land, waiting for the life raft that will save us from ourselves. The financial news this week is bittersweet for both Wall Street and Main Street. We are told the economy is getting “better,” yet the reality experienced on both sides of the Street reveals the truth.

...

The diminutive gentleman sitting behind the enormous prop desk of the premier episode of the “The Amazing Federal Reserve” was none other than Chairman Ben Bernanke. The momentous occasion was billed as the “first press conference ever.” The unusual YouTube hour had all the staged contrivance of a tacky reality TV show. Fanfare leading up to the April 27 premier was much more exciting than the disappointing rhetoric that filled it. Like the fake reality show it is, the Federal Reserve wants...

 Readers Note:

GoodB Executive Director Monika Mitchell will be on writing sabbatical until March to finish her new manuscript on The World of Wall Street Finance  due out in ebook in June and print in Fall 2011.

Lately I have been hearing a lot about how Wall Street mortgage market makers who brought the global economies to their knees were “stupid.” MIT Quants, Berkeley physicists, Harvard, Stanford and...

The Ralph Nader of Credit & Debt.

Harvard Professor of Law Warren’s goal is to level the playing field in finance for ordinary consumers by eliminating...

A State of the Economy Report in Four Parts

PART THREE: Federal Reserve’s Two Societies

The irony of the official monetary policy and its tragic turn is found in the words of the Fed Chairman. When asked about the absence of small business credit, Bernanke explained to Scott Pelley that small business is cut out of credit due to bailed-out banks unwillingness to lend. Why?...

Washington DC – Elizabeth Warren spoke candidly today about the “epic David & Goliath fight” she led with the help of two hundred plus consumer agencies, bloggers like me, and outraged citizens at town hall meetings around the nation. Ms. Warren has singlehandedly championed the idea of a consumer protection agency that will actually serve consumers— not pretense. She is the Ralph Nader of our time.

Warren speaks of herself and the hundreds of millions of American families as “David” versus the enormously powerful bank lobbying force that has become our...

I traveled 15 hours to get to the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” on Saturday in Washington, D.C. Where did I come from? New York City. Was that insane?

What drove me to sit in Holland Tunnel traffic for 2 hours on a Friday night and crawl down the New Jersey Turnpike was probably the same thing everyone else en route was motivated by: Passion!  A passion for having our voices heard, a passion for making the statement that our country is not controlled by extremists or haters, a passion for openly declaring our love for country, freedom, mutual tolerance and our way of life....

A Call to Action

We did not fix the banking system, Columbia University economics professor Joseph Stiglitz told the well-heeled audience at the World Business Forum this week.

The Feds pulled the big banks back from the brink of oblivion, but left everyone else up a creek without a paddle. You know who the fortunate few are – Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Capital One, and American Express among others.

To remind you of the facts, these banks were rescued through three...

At the World Business Forum:  October 5, 2010

I did not know what to expect from Jim Collins, author of “From Good to Great.” Was this another business strategy that could only be read in a book or would this translate to real life and the everyday reality of business? His words were transformational. Business, says Collins is “simply a subset of human life…great human stories and great human enterprise. Great adventure, great leaders.” It is a “human quest in one way or another.”

Collins spoke about his mentor Peter Drucker, management professor...

You’ve come a long way baby. That was the message of Gail Collins, New York Times columnist and author of “When Everything Changed” at last weekend’s Omega Institute “Women & Power: Our Time To Lead” conference. Ms. Collins explained to the hundreds of women in attendance that back in 1960 women could not wear “slacks” in public. She reminds us that it was a man’s world in the most primitive sense a mere 50 years ago.

Yet the unmistakable message of the power packed...