By Lucky Gold

The former watchdog for TARP, the seven hundred billion dollar bailout of America’s financial institutions labeled “too big to fail,” warns that the situation has only gotten worse, not better.

“It’s more dangerous today,” said Neil Barofsky, appearing Wednesday on Amanpour. “The banks are twenty to twenty five percent bigger than they were before the crisis.”

While the banks have gotten bigger, the rules governing – or not governing - them have remained the same: “We haven’t changed the incentives. The presumption of bailout drives these institutions into taking bigger and bigger risks under the presumption that they’ll keep the profits and the taxpayers will eat the losses.”  FULL POST

NPR’s Deborah Amos discusses  reporting inside  Syria where she bore witness to massacre and saw how an underground railroad is working.