Sarah Anderson, Global Economy Project, Institute for Policy Studies joins Thom Hartmann to discuss Ron Suskind’s book “Confidence Men.”

The book hit shelves on Wednesday September 21 – and the nation is catching wind of just how many of President Obama’s progressive policies were sabotaged by his closest economic advisors. One of those policies was a financial transaction tax. According to Suskind’s book President Obama wanted to push for a new financial transaction tax – basically a small tax on every stock or derivative – or whatever financial thingamabob – is traded. Not only would a financial transaction tax – or FTT – curb excessive speculation in the markets and discourage robots from making millions of trades a day as they do now but it would also raise some much needed revenue for the government which is dealing with a deficit problem.

But one of the President’s top economic advisors – Lawrence Summers – nixed the idea entirely. In fact Lawrence Summers’ name comes up repeatedly in Suskind’s book as a person who was not only disrespectful to the President but also kneecapped most of what the President wanted to do in those first few months in office as the White House tried to deal with a crisis on Wall Street.