Economic Crisis

Even as many Americans still struggle to recover from the country's worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, another crisis -- one that will be even worse than the current one -- is looming, according to a new report from a group of leading economists, financiers, and former federal regulators.

In trying to explain why our political paralysis seems to have gotten so much worse over the past year, analysts have rounded up a plausible collection of reasons including: President Obama's tactical missteps, the obstinacy of congressional Republicans, rising partisanship in Washington, the blustering idiocracy of the cable-news stations, and the Senate filibuster, which has devolved into a super-majority threshold for any important legislation.

I was in Detroit to visit my girlfriend’s family for Thanksgiving and decided to take a look around. Knowing my tastes, locals told me to head for a burnt-out slum called Highland Park, HP for short, as it’s hands-down the worst neighborhood in the city. And that’s saying a lot because in Detroit, beyond the bunker that is the revitalized downtown, the whole world’s a ghetto.

On Sept. 17, in the midst of the publicity blitz for his cinematic takedown of the capitalist order, filmmaker Michael Moore talked with Nation columnist Naomi Klein by phone about the film, the roots of our economic crisis and the promise and peril of the present political moment. Listen to a podcast of the full conversation here. Following is an edited transcript of their conversation.<!--