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David Dayen

Incoming (arriving June 1) American Prospect executive editor David Dayen is a contributing writer to Salon.com who also writes for The Intercept, The New Republic, and The Fiscal Times. His first book, Chain of Title, about three ordinary Americans who uncover Wall Street's foreclosure fraud, was released by The New Press on May 17, 2016.

Recent Articles

Beto and Friends

The blank slate that is Beto O’Rourke looks good to a Wall Street vulture capitalist. 

David DayenMar 21, 2019
AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke speaks at an event at The Hub Robison Center on the Penn State campus in State College, Pennsylvania. W hat passes for much “campaign-finance” reporting in America typically follows the flow of cash from big bundlers to particular candidates, treating the whole thing like a competition over who “got” what rich person to invest in them. Rarely is the central question asked of how that rich person earned their money, and what effect that will have on the candidate’s outlook. In other words, it’s not just the power of Big Money, but what specific kind of Big Money, that often gets overlooked. Yesterday presented a perfect example. Mark Gallogly, a founder and managing partner of Centerbridge Partners, indicated to friends that he would support former Texas Representative Beto O’Rourke as his 2020 candidate, according to CNBC. Gallogly is enthusiastically described as an “Obama bundler” who raised at least $500,000...

The Best Part of Medicare for All That You Haven’t Heard About

Hint: It’s immensely more cost-effective than private insurance or even the Affordable Care Act.

David DayenMar 07, 2019
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP Images Progressive Democrats of America holds a news conference to announce the launch of a Medicare for All Caucus at the Capitol in Washington. W ith the release of Progressive Caucus co-chair Pramila Jayapal’s Medicare for All bill , we are mired in the usual debates about the concept, which inevitably come down to cost. “How will you pay for it,” ask skeptics and opponents, pointing to impossibly large estimates ( $32 trillion !) of covering the entire population with a comprehensive health program that covers more than current Medicare and is free of co-pays. The $32 trillion number, of course, discounts the even larger number that Americans currently spend in national health expenditures, which would be saved in the event of a transition. It’s really just thrown out there as bait to get Medicare for All defenders to suggest various taxes, which are then used as a cudgel to weaken public support. But if we’re really going to talk about cost, we...

California’s Bullet Train Goes Off the Rails

Governor Gavin Newsom decides to slow down what could have been one of the country’s most transformative transportation infrastructure projects.

David DayenFeb 13, 2019
AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, file A segment of a new high-speed rail corridor under construction in Fresno, California screen_shot_2017-07-19_at_4.28.52_pm.png A week after the introduction of the Green New Deal resolution, designed to build an inclusive economy while fighting the climate crisis, the textbook version of such a project has been essentially cancelled. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom used his State of the State Address to declare that there’s “ no path ” currently for a high-speed rail network connecting all of the state’s population centers. Instead of abandoning the project, Newsom has committed to completing the segment connecting Bakersfield, Fresno, and Merced, three cities with a population of around one million in a state pushing 40 million. No line would be preferable to running this line, which would create the false impression that high-speed rail cannot work in America. California’s bullet train tragedy is a cautionary tale on numerous levels. It’s about...

Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer's Surprising Collaboration -- and Weird Proposal -- on Stock Buybacks

Sanders and Schumer target buybacks as a way to leak corporate profits to investors. But their solution is an unnecessary Rube Goldberg contraption.

David DayenFeb 04, 2019
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP Images Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer listens as Senate Budget ranking member Bernie Sanders speaks during the news conference in Washington. C huck Schumer and Bernie Sanders went to the same high school in Brooklyn, but that’s about all they shared in common until an op-ed in Monday’s New York Times . The subject is stock buybacks, the increasingly common procedure whereby public companies use their prodigious cash hordes generated by record profits to purchase their own shares, rather than increase wages or invest in equipment. It’s one way to leak profits out to investors while workers get the shaft. As Schumer and Sanders point out, between 2008 and 2017, over 80 percent of corporate profits have been dedicated to buybacks and dividends, a more direct cash transfer to corporate investors. Buybacks also enrich shareholders by artificially increasing the stock price—if there are fewer shares available for purchase, the value of each increases...

The Trump Appointee Delivering a Jackpot for Hedge Funds

Joseph Otting, as an acting overseer of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, sets in motion a plan to overhaul the housing finance system, which would enrich wealthy investors.

David DayenJan 29, 2019
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/via AP Images Comptroller of the Currency Joseph M. Otting testifies during a Senate Banking Committee hearing. W hen Mick Mulvaney became acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in November 2017, there was outrage over Trump installing a crony with designs on destroying the agency that defends people from financial ripoffs. The reaction was far more muted when Joseph Otting, former CEO of OneWest Bank and current head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, began moonlighting as acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) earlier this month. But the appointment is just as dangerous to the future of everyday Americans, if not more so. After all, it concerns the largest financial asset most of us will ever purchase—our homes. The FHFA oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two giants that purchase mortgages and package them into bonds to keep the market for homeownership liquid. Fannie and Freddie came under...

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