Author, journalist, activist, and Wall Street expert Nomi Prins is interviewed by John Quinlan and Laura Gutknecht on the September 30, 2006 edition of Forward Forum. (Forward Forum is a Saturday morning public affairs program, that airs from 9am to Noon Central Time on the local Air Aemrica affiliate, WXXM, The Mic, 92.1 FM in Madison, Wisconsin, and streams live online at www.themic921.com; email: ForwardForum@aol.com .) The interview is approx. 38 minutes long.
In "Jacked: How 'Conservatives' Are Picking Your Pocket (Whether You Voted for Them of Not)," Nomi Prins examines the effects of Republican policies, scandals, and blunders by conducting a guided tour of a typical American wallet. Each chapter matches a wallet item to a set of political topics. The driver's license leads to a discussion of gasoline prices, energy policy, and Iraq; the Social Security card leads out to the administration's efforts to "reform" Social Security by weakening it; the credit card points to bankruptcy legislation and credit card company profits; the health insurance card is a reminder of soaring medical and insurance costs, and the cutting of Medicaid and Medicare, and so on.
While the book offers a scathing critique of GOP policies, it also chronicles a remarkable road trip by the author. Crisscrossing the country to gather the personal experiences of a wide variety of Americans, Prins tells their stories, shows them trying to make ends meet, and questions why the government is failing them. Taken together, these lively, accessible chapters link the "conservative" record to its disastrous effects on ordinary people and tell us what we can do about it (book description from Amazon. com).
Nomi Prins is a journalist and Senior Fellow at Demos, a Network for Ideas & Action (www.demos.org). She writes about politics, money and relationships. Prins is also the author of the 2004 best-seller, "Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America," which has just come out in paperback.
Before becoming a journalist, Nomi worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, running the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London, and as a strategist at Lehman Brothers. She left after 9/11.
She has appeared internationally on BBC World and BBC Radio and nationally in the U.S. on CNBC, CSPAN, CNN, Bloomberg TV and other TV stations. She has been featured on dozens of radio shows across the U.S. including CNN Radio, Marketplace Radio, Air America, NPR, WNYC-AM and regional Pacifica stations.
Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, Fortune, The Guardian (UK), The Nation.com, The Left Business Observer, LaVanguardia, Against the Current and other publications. For more info, go to www.nomiprins.com
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