[The following excerpt from Bad Money was posted April 8, 2008 on Alternet.org.]

Rarely in U.S. history has a president, especially a two-term president, been so unpopular at a time when the Congress, captured in the midterm elections by the opposition, is held in no greater regard. In such a case, the norm is for the two to fight, with one side gaining the edge. But that has not been true of George W. Bush and the Democratic Congress elected by running against him in 2006.

The two sides have gone after each other in a fashion, but more often they have simply talked past each other to their separate party constituencies, repeating familiar commitments to keep the true believers on each side somewhat more contented than the unimpressed independents -- those who bulk so large in the 60 to 70 percent of voters convinced that the country is on the wrong track. Most office holders on both sides seem to rest easier if everyone stays away from uncomfortable themes, even ones in the headlines, like costly U.S. overreach in the Middle East; the reckless expansion of private debt, as well as the federal budget deficit variety; the new economic (and political) dominance of the financial sector; and the mounting probability that the nation will have to choose between desirable energy supplies and global warming measures. After all, what you can sidestep today might go away tomorrow.

The most worrisome thing about the vulnerability of the U.S. economy circa 2008 is the extent of official understatement and misstatement— the preference for minimizing how many problems there are and how interconnected they are.

This volume amplifies and updates two of the three challenges set out in my 2006 book, American Theocracy: The Perils and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. Radical religion got much of its necessary comeuppance in November 2006. The perils of housing and debt, of oil, and of the dollar have, however, only increased.

Whether the U.S. government and the Republican and Democratic parties can remedy the debt- and oil-related transformations of the last two or three decades is dubious enough. Far more worrisome is the possibility that neither Washington nor Wall Street is willing to confront the deeper problem—the ascendancy of finance in national policymaking (as well as in the gross domestic product), and the complicity of politicians who really don’t want to talk about it.