Unscrupulous lenders, mysterious new financial products, and shadowy banks might have taken most of the blame for the economic crisis, but the problem begins with a type of business that has troubled the U.S. since its founding: the monopoly. Over the last 30 years, regulation of monopolies has eased, leaving the companies commanding governments, courts, wars, resources, and even patents to the human genetic code. As consolidation proceeds largely unchecked across every sector — crushing entrepreneurs, stifling innovation, and inflating prices — monopolies threaten our economy and our democracy.Financial Times contributor Barry C. Lynn, author of Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction, visited Zócalo to illuminate the workings of monopolies and how they might be stopped.

For 80 years the Los Angeles River has been less a river than a flood control channel winding from Simi Valley to Long Beach. Its concrete-lined course seemingly carries little more than a trickle of water, and its banks lie largely fallow and off limits despite long-running efforts to restore public access to and green spaces along its edges. Now, an ambitious plan to turn 125 acres of an under-utilized downtown rail yard into a thriving public space could transform not just the river but the entire city, uniting its residents as well as its urban and natural environments. As architects and planners grasp the rare opportunity to work on a site in the heart of the city, they’re focusing on a broader question: what would an integrated, healthier city look like? Zócalo invited a panel including Cal Poly Pomona’s Michael Woo, Marc Salette of Chee Salette Architecture, Jim Stafford of Perkins+Will, Mia Lehrer of Mia Lehrer + Associates, and Michael Maltzan of Michael Maltzan Architecture to discuss the promise of a revitalized Los Angeles, and how to build it.

Over the past few years, Americans have heaped blame for the financial crisis on hedge funds. These mysterious but powerful organizations have, in just a few decades, invented previously unheard-of financial instruments, created new markets, and rewritten the rules of capitalism. By studying everything from economics to physics, hedge fund managers also seemed to accomplish the impossible — beating the market, and surviving repeated financial panics, from the stock market slump of the early 1970s to the bond market downturn of the 1990s to the dot-com collapse in 2000. How will hedge funds — and the controversial, commanding men and women who run them — pull through the latest crisis, and how will they determine the future of finance? Sebastian Mallaby, Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow and author of More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite, visited Zócalo to reveal the hidden history and workings of hedge funds, and the way they’ll shape the future booms and busts of our economy.

Americans may worship success, but we’re also good at failing. Nearly three-quarters of all Americans have considered starting their own businesses — compared to fewer than half of Europeans. Silicon Valley executives highlight rather than bury their collapsed start-ups on their resumes. Our corporate and personal bankruptcy systems are the most generous in the world, and New Deal-era financial safeguards let banks collapse without destroying sound institutions or personal wealth. But has the latest economic crisis left us longing for a failure-free system — one in which some organizations are too big to fail, and one that is immune from the natural and corrective cycles of the market? New America Foundation fellow and Atlantic magazine business and economic editor Megan McArdle visited Zócalo to explain why failure — and the ability to do it gracefully — is an essential part of the American economy.

From translucent slivers of sushi to simple weeknight salmon dinners, seafood is a staple of the American diet, considered both healthy and luxurious. But what if there really aren’t more fish in the sea? Our craving for high-on-the-food-chain tuna and salmon bred nearly as big and thick as torpedoes is destabilizing ocean life and polluting the sea. Even as some chefs and suppliers aim to serve environmentally safe fish, others plate shark and whale. How sustainable is seafood? Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold visited Zócalo along with Providence Executive Chef Michael Cimarusti, Santa Monica Seafood’s Logan Kock, and Heal the Bay President Mark Gold to discuss how our eating habits hurt the environment, and whether there’s a way to eat what we want without doing harm.

After launching his architecture career in Los Angeles over 20 years ago, Michael Maltzan quickly distinguished himself with socially conscious buildings that depart from the hulking luxury structures of celebrity architects. His housing projects for the homeless – including the Rainbow Apartments on San Pedro, the recently completed New Carver Apartments on 17th and Hope, and the forthcoming Star Apartments at Sixth and Maple – provide protection, beauty, and services for a community more accustomed to unadorned and blocky shelter. His Inner-City Arts campus, designed inventively and built cost-effectively, provides children a place to learn in the heart of Skid Row. And he transformed the Hammer Museum’s courtyard into a more inviting and open space with the Billy Wilder Theater and café. Maltzan visited Zócalo to talk with KCRW’s Frances Anderton about his work, whether good design can be affordable, and how architecture shapes our lives.

This event is made possible by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Iraq isn’t the first war that began with an overestimation of

American power. Woodrow Wilson and the pro-war progressives believed World

War I would transform the world. Lyndon Johnson and the Camelot

intellectuals thought America could stop any communist movement from taking

power anywhere on earth. George W. Bush and the neoconservatives imagined

they could usher in their very own 1989 in the Middle East. Why does success

produce hubris, and can tragedy produce wisdom? In an event sponsored by the

UCLA Burkle Center, journalist Peter Beinart, author of The Icarus Syndrome:

A History of American Hubris, visited Zócalo to chat with The Atlantic's Ben

Schwarz about why it’s so difficult — and so crucial — to acknowledge the

limits of American power.

Barack Obama rose to the presidency at a critical time in American history. Propelled by a galvanized left, admired for his cool temperament and high intellect, challenged as inexperienced, and provoking fierce and often racially-tinged opposition, the young Senator from Illinois took the oath of the highest office amid celebration despite the challenges ahead. The country faced its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression; troops fought seemingly unwinnable wars in two countries; tens of millions of Americans needed healthcare. How did the Obama administration survive its first year, and how did it fare? Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter, author of The Promise: President Obama, Year One, visited Zócalo to tell the inside story of the disciplined, self-aware president and the colorful team that aims to see the country and the world into a new era.

Wilbert Rideau spent 44 years in one of the country’s most infamous prisons, Louisiana’s Angola penitentiary. After killing a woman in a moment of panic following a botched bank robbery, Rideau was sentenced to death at 19, later amended to life imprisonment. From within Angola, long the sight of prison reform activism because of its brutal living and working conditions, Rideau worked to transform the criminal justice system. Though the brutality of earlier decades is largely gone, prisoners at Angola and around the country still suffer mistreatment and overcrowding due to harsh sentencing laws. Rideau, author of In the Place of Justice, visited Zócalo to reflect on his time, his work, and why lifting censorship rules is the key to prison reform.

The Hoover Dam was once thought to be a remote regional project, approved as an afterthought by a Republican president before the stock market crashed. But by the time it was completed, and in the 75 years since it was dedicated, the Dam has come to symbolize American resilience and ingenuity at one of the worst times in our history. Construction at the height of the Depression employed thousands and spurred development of urban centers in the West, transforming the political balance of the country and shifting its governing philosophy from rugged individualism toward collective enterprise and social support. What is the legacy of the Hoover Dam today, particularly as Americans face a deepening water crisis and the worst economic downturn since the Depression? Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik, author of Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century, visited Zócalo to explore the epic story of the Hoover Dam and how it transformed the country.