You can tell that financial reform will be the next heavy lift in Washington because everyone’s chattering about it today, and proposing a variety of solutions. But they actually come down to something a lot simpler than what’s being proposed: regulators need a few clear rules, and they need to do their jobs. Mike Konczal [...]

Earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of loans on primary residences, the same way they can on secondary residences or yachts (no, really). The “cramdown” provision, seen by many liberal economists as the only way to deal with the foreclosure crisis, then [...]

Over the weekend, the G-20 held a summit on the financial crisis, and several nations put forward the idea of a “Tobin tax,” a fractional tax on international financial transactions, to help pay for economic recovery and future bank failures. Germany, France and now Britain have all endorsed the idea. Timothy Geithner, speaking for the [...]