William Greider

National Affairs Correspondent

William Greider, a prominent political journalist and author, has been a reporter for more than 35 years for newspapers, magazines and television. Over the past two decades, he has persistently challenged mainstream thinking on economics.

For 17 years Greider was the National Affairs Editor at Rolling Stone magazine, where his investigation of the defense establishment began. He is a former assistant managing editor at the Washington Post, where he worked for fifteen years as a national correspondent, editor and columnist. While at the Post, he broke the story of how David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director, grew disillusioned with supply-side economics and the budget deficits that policy caused, which still burden the American economy.

He is the author of the national bestsellers One World, Ready or Not, Secrets of the Temple and Who Will Tell The People. In the award-winning Secrets of the Temple, he offered a critique of the Federal Reserve system. Greider has also served as a correspondent for six Frontline documentaries on PBS, including "Return to Beirut," which won an Emmy in 1985.

Greider's most recent book is The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to A Moral Economy. In it, he untangles the systemic mysteries of American capitalism, details its destructive collisions with society and demonstrates how people can achieve decisive influence to reform the system's structure and operating values.

Raised in Wyoming, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, he graduated from Princeton University in 1958. He currently lives in Washington, DC.

Currently

  • Time for a Bank Holiday

    November 19, 2008

    No more free money from Washington. No more masters of the universe. No more business as usual.

  • This Proud Moment

    November 4, 2008

    This election will transform American life in ways we cannot yet fully imagine. Let us congratulate ourselves on being alive at such a promising moment.

  • The Marathon Man

    October 29, 2008 Subscribe

    Ralph Nader is a man of political substance trapped in an era of easy lies.

  • Establishment Disorder

    October 29, 2008

    Obama must decide between small-bore reforms and a far more ambitious agenda to remake the economy.

  • Paulson's Swindle Revealed

    October 29, 2008

    United Steelworkers Union prez Leo Gerard cracks open the sweetheart deal that bailed out nine banks--and likely lined the Treasury Secretary's own pockets--with billions of taxpayer dollars. Does anybody care?

  • Nader's Stubborn Idealism

    October 25, 2008

    Ralph Nader is a man of political substance, trapped in an era of easy lies.

  • Dr. Paulson's Magic Potion

    October 16, 2008

    As Bush and Paulson throw money at the problem, Obama is moving rapidly to adapt to the crisis that awaits the next president.

  • Born-Again Democracy

    October 1, 2008

    Congress must take control of the failed financial system until a new president can legislate a more permanent and equitable solution.

  • Bailout's Political Turmoil

    September 29, 2008

    The bailout crisis represents the Democrats' hesitant first step toward rediscovering their nerve and abandoned convictions. They are not there yet.

  • Acts of Contrition

    September 26, 2008

    The road to recovery requires more than a bailout. Americans deserve apologies from Washington and Wall Street--and a new president capable of telling the truth and leading us forward.

  • Show Us the Money

    September 24, 2008

    Something needs to be done--something fair for the American taxpayer--to salvage Wall Street. We want the same deal Warren Buffet got.

  • Goldman Sachs Socialism

    September 24, 2008 Subscribe

    Rescuing America from irresponsible Wall Street is worth at least what it costs to save the bloodied bankers.

  • Goldman Sachs Socialism

    September 23, 2008

    Instead of handing Bernanke $700 billion with no strings attached, government should take over the banking and finance sector, clean it up and start funneling money into the real economy.

  • Paulson Bailout Plan a Historic Swindle

    September 19, 2008

    Paulson's rescue plan represents a historic swindle--all sugar for the villains, lasting pain for the rest of us. Don't let Wall Street get away with this without enacting significant reform.

  • The Smell of Fear

    September 17, 2008

    The house of global finance is on fire--and the lightning bailout of AIG raises serious question about government's capacity to extinguish the flames.

  • Creative Destruction on Wall Street

    September 15, 2008

    An epic deflation of wealth sweeps away arrogant financiers and their fraudulent gimmicks, setting the stage for reform.

  • Economic Free Fall

    July 30, 2008

    We are flirting with catastrophe, and our foreign creditors are part of the story.

2007

2006

  • Friedman's Cruel Legacy

    November 22, 2006 Subscribe

    Milton Friedman's free-market faith produced a bastardized system of interest-group politics that favors sectors of citizens at the expense of many others.

  • Watershed

    November 16, 2006

    It's time for Democrats to break out of their risk-averse habits and blaze a new trail--if they can only remember how.

  • Letters

    November 1, 2006 Subscribe

  • Pelosi's Moment

    October 16, 2006

    If Democrats take control of the House, they could revitalize national politics by convincing reluctant senators and presidential candidates to embrace a more progressive agenda.

  • A Conversation With Robert Rubin

    July 14, 2006

    The former Treasury Secretary speaks candidly on the inherent inequities of globalization and the political, social and economic challenges that lie ahead.

  • Born-Again Rubinomics

    July 13, 2006

    Is Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin's new "conceptual framework" of economic reform an acknowledgment of neoliberalism's failures or simply a repackaged version of Clintonomics?

  • Cheney and HAL

    June 22, 2006

    As CEO of Halliburton, Dick Cheney was not much different from other corporate titans ensnared by accusations of incompetence and fraud.

  • The Future Is Now

    June 8, 2006

    American politics is on the brink of momentous change. A deep shift in priorities and a surge of new ideas can lead to a new governing order grounded in a determination to give people back their future.

  • The President Is Not Smiling

    March 28, 2006

    Card is out, Bolten in. The Senate is stuck on immigration. And every day brings more bad news. Take care of this, will you, Josh?

  • Learning to Love the Bomb

    March 20, 2006

    Could the world learn to live with a nuclear Iran? A new power equation of nuclear proliferation is emerging to challenge the Bush Administration's bluster on the subject.

  • A Peculiar Politician

    March 14, 2006

    Senator Russell Feingold should be praised for calling on the Senate to censure the President for breaking the law and lying about his domestic spying program. Instead, he's mocked by the media and abandoned by many of his own party.

  • Will Greenspan Tell the Truth?

    March 8, 2006

    A Greenspan memoir will do fine in the marketplace. It is the kind of Important Book daughters buy for father's birthday. In the unlikely event Greenspan tells the truth, it would be a sensational bestseller.

  • Olympic Swagger

    February 28, 2006

    Swagger was America's chosen posture at the Winter Olympics. Once again, sport imitated life: boasting got us nowhere at the Turin games or in the world.

  • The Boy Who Cried Wolf

    February 23, 2006

    The Dubai Ports flap is bogus, but it's fun to see Democrats and Republicans frothing in unison. Hysteria has defined the Bush presidency; now the fearmonger-in-chief is getting a taste of his own tactics.

  • A Warning Bell

    February 2, 2006 Subscribe

    Democrats can capitalize on the current economic stall and gain control of Congress with a return to bedrock principles: creating jobs, restoring incomes and rescuing families from debt.

2005

  • Rebels

    December 20, 2005 Subscribe

    With persistence and strong convictions, insurgents can change a political party. Galvanized by the war and disgusted with weak-spined party leaders, rank-and-file Democrats may at last be ready to bite back.

  • Apollo Now

    December 14, 2005 Subscribe

    Industrial society is on a collision course with nature. The devastation of New Orleans is a metaphor for what can happen next to us all. Will America decide to reshape the future in positive terms, or sit back and wait for the inevitable destruction to occur?

  • All the King's Media

    November 2, 2005

    The scandals suffocating the Bush Administration seem less like Nixon and Watergate and more like Louis XV and pre-Revolutionary France. They are harbingers of a potent cultural event that may jolt the public out of complacency.

  • Squeezing the Have-Nots

    October 13, 2005

    Fitful efforts to rebuild the Gulf Coast unfold against a backdrop of looming economic disaster: rising unemployment and interest rates, misplaced priorities and a recession that will hurt the weakest most.

  • A 'New' New Deal

    September 15, 2005

    The reconstruction of New Orleans could set the stage for a comprehensive legislative initiative akin to the New Deal.

  • The One-Eyed Chairman

    September 1, 2005

    When the adulation fades, Alan Greenspan will be recognized as a right-wing ideologue and the most politicized Fed chairman in history.

  • Profiles in Cowardice

    June 29, 2005

    Senate Democrats are preparing to take a dive on the issue they have righteously hammered for four years--the estate tax.

  • Sins & the Citi

    June 16, 2005 Subscribe

    Where is the public's outrage over corruption in US finance and banking?

  • Riding Into the Sunset

    June 9, 2005

    It is time for a serious solution to the problem of retirement security.

  • Lies, Guts & Deep Throat

    June 2, 2005

    Why "Deep Throat" and the Watergate story are still important today.

  • Pro-Death Politics

    April 2, 2005

    The country has witnessed an interlude of religious hysteria, encouraged and exploited by political quackery.

  • Elite Protectionists

    March 24, 2005

  • Galbraith: An Appreciation

    February 24, 2005 Subscribe

  • The New Colossus

    February 10, 2005

    Why public pension funds might be the real progressive power.

  • Letters

    January 5, 2005 Subscribe

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Podcast

RadioNation with Laura Flanders, 11/10/08
This week, what it all meant. Nation Editor Katrina vanden Heuvel on Barack Obama's victory and the coming battle for progressive change we can believe in. (13mb mp3)

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