Dean Baker (b. July 13, 1958) is an American macroeconomist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, with Mark Weisbrot. He previously was a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and an assistant professor of economics at Bucknell University. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.

Since 1996 Baker has been the author of a weekly online commentary on economic reporting. The Economic Reporting Review was published from 1996 to 2006; subsequently he has continued this commentary on his weblog Beat The Press, which was formerly published at The American Prospect, but is now located at the CEPR website.

Baker graduated from Swarthmore College (B.A., 1981), the University of Denver (M.A., 1983) and the University of Michigan (Ph.D.). As a grad student at the University of Michigan, Baker participated in, and was arrested at, two sit-ins protesting Rep. Carl Pursell's votes for military aid to the Contras. In 1986, Baker defeated Donald Grimes in the Democratic primary and ran unsuccessfully against Pursell to represent Michigan's second Congressional district.

Timothy Maxwell "Max" Keiser (born January 23, 1960) is an American broadcaster and film-maker. He hosts Keiser Report, a financial program broadcast on RT (formerly Russia Today). Keiser also anchors On the Edge, a program of news and analysis hosted by Iran's Press TV. He hosted the New Year's Eve special, The Keiser's Business Guide to 2010 for BBC Radio 5 Live. Keiser presented a season of The Oracle with Max Keiser on BBC World News. Previously he produced and appeared regularly in the TV series People & Power on the Al-Jazeera English network. He also presents a weekly show about finance and markets on London's Resonance FM, as well as writing for The Huffington Post.

In addition to his broadcasting work Keiser is known for his invention of "Virtual Specialist Technology", a software system used by the Hollywood Stock Exchange.

Keiser has been involved with markets and finance for 25 years. He started his career as a stock broker on Wall Street after graduating from New York University.

Rick Santelli is an American on-air editor for the CNBC Business News network. He joined CNBC as an on-air editor on June 14, 1999, reporting primarily from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. He was formerly the vice president for an institutional trading and hedge fund account for futures-related products. He is also credited with being a catalyst in the early formation of the Tea Party movement via a statement he made on February 19, 2009.

In the course of his normal production schedule at CNBC Business, Santelli appears on-air approximately 12 to 16 times a day.

The grandson of four Italian immigrants, Santelli was born near Taylor Street in Chicago's old Italian neighborhood and at age 6 moved with his family to Lombard, Illinois. After graduating from Willowbrook High School in Villa Park, Illinois, Santelli graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has been a member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade. He began his career in 1979 as a trader and order filler at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in markets that included gold, lumber, CD's, T-bills, foreign currencies, and livestock. While at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Santelli joined Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity.

The Basics ( /ˈbæzɪtʃ/ BAZZ-ich) are a three-piece band from Melbourne, Australia, formed by Wally De Backer and Kris Schroeder in 2002. Their style has been described as anything from 'indie-pop' to 'rock'n'roll' to 'pop-rock', though their records show they span a wide range of genres, including reggae, ska, country, and electro-pop. They are "recognised as one of Australia's hardest-working bands".

With close to 1000 shows in their ten-year career, their live performances are well-known for their sense of humour and energy.

The Basics were formed after Kris met Wally at a party in Melbourne. The event was to see off the young aspiring producer, who was about to depart for Los Angeles, and together with a number of musician friends, the two jammed on some blues-rock standards. Later that night, they bonded over a mutual love of The Beatles, 70s and 80s cartoon theme songs and old Sierra adventure games.

Initially, they played around Melbourne as an acoustic guitar/drums combo, starting at The Opposition in Frankston and the House of Fools in Footscray, where in late 2002 they met Michael Hubbard and later invited him to join them on electric guitar. Though lacking any real experience with the instrument, Kris willingly purchased his first bass guitar, and the trio was born. During this time, the group start performing songs with more complicated three-part harmony.

Jared Bernstein is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. From 2009 to 2011, Bernstein was the Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden in the Obama Administration. Bernstein is considered to represent a progressive, pro-labor perspective.

Bernstein graduated from the Manhattan School of Music with Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts where he studied double bass with Orin O'Brien. He earned a Masters Degree in Social Work from the Hunter School of Social Work, and, from Columbia University, he received a Masters Degree in Philosophy and Ph.D. in Social Welfare. Despite his previous employment, he does not have a degree or any formal training in economics.

Bernstein's areas of interest include "federal, state and international economic policies, specifically the middle class squeeze, income inequality and mobility, trends in employment and earnings, low-wage labor markets, poverty, and international comparisons." He is known as a critic of free trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He has taught at Howard University, Columbia University and New York University. In 1992, he was hired at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a think tank with ties to organized labor and a focus on issues affecting low- and middle-income workers. From 1995-1996, he served in the Department of Labor as Deputy Chief Economist. He then returned to the EPI, where he was senior economist and director of the Living Standards Program when selected by Biden.