Lehman's criminal behavior

In this video, the criminal behavior of one of the bankster organizations that produced the Crash of 2008 is explained in a way everyone can understand.  VERY well done.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Why most environmental groups really suck

Ever wonder why we can have an environmental movement with hundreds of organizations with millions of members and still never get anything done?  Well, my answer is that they are mostly Predator Class organizations.  So except for things like restoring wetlands so there are more ducks for duck hunters, they don't actually have ideas besides raising money, staffing offices, and of course, passing new rules requiring a cleaner world without appropriating the money and resources necessary to actually get that cleaner world built.

The Wrong Kind of Green

by JOHANN HARI

Why did America's leading environmental groups jet to Copenhagen and lobby for policies that will lead to the faster death of the rainforests--and runaway global warming? Why are their lobbyists on Capitol Hill dismissing the only real solutions to climate change as "unworkable" and "unrealistic," as though they were just another sooty tentacle of Big Coal? 

At first glance, these questions will seem bizarre. Groups like Conservation International are among the most trusted "brands" in America, pledged to protect and defend nature. Yet as we confront the biggest ecological crisis in human history, many of the green organizations meant to be leading the fight are busy shoveling up hard cash from the world's worst polluters--and burying science-based environmentalism in return. Sometimes the corruption is subtle; sometimes it is blatant. In the middle of a swirl of bogus climate scandals trumped up by deniers, here is the real Climategate, waiting to be exposed.

I have spent the past few years reporting on how global warming is remaking the map of the world. I have stood in half-dead villages on the coast of Bangladesh while families point to a distant place in the rising ocean and say, "Do you see that chimney sticking up? That's where my house was... I had to [abandon it] six months ago." I have stood on the edges of the Arctic and watched glaciers that have existed for millenniums crash into the sea. I have stood on the borders of dried-out Darfur and heard refugees explain, "The water dried up, and so we started to kill each other for what was left." more

More state banks?

As someone who has spent most of my adult life trying to explain the State Bank of North Dakota to folks who have NO idea how neat an idea it is, it is good to know this idea from 1919 is catching on.  For another of my takes on old midwest monetary theories see this article on money. See also The Bank of North Dakota and A great idea from the Prairie Progressives on this blog.

Banking for the People

by JOHN NICHOLS

March 11, 2010

Even if financial services reforms are finally enacted at the federal level, it is unlikely they will create a banking system that serves the interests of Main Street America or the great mass of citizens who do the work and pay the taxes yet reap few of the benefits of this nation's immense wealth. But what if that great mass of citizens owned the banks?

That's a question that a growing number of candidates and legislators across the country are answering with proposals to create state-owned banks. Though these initiatives borrow from an old model--North Dakota has run a successful state bank since 1919--they are a response to a new reality: the hundreds of billions of public dollars plowed into big banks by the federal bailout have done little to free credit for job creation or economic development in recession-ravaged communities. So, taking a cue from Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and other critics of private-bank bailouts, latter-day populists are proposing to put public money to work for the public good.

Oregon Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Bradbury is calling for the creation of a Bank of Oregon, which would keep money in the state and invest in sustainable development. "It is time to declare economic sovereignty from the multinational banks that are responsible for much of our current economic crisis," says the former State Senate president and secretary of state. "Every year we ship over a billion dollars in Oregon taxpayer dollars to out-of-state and multinational banks in the form of deposits, only to see that money invested elsewhere. It's time to put our money to work for Oregonians."

Michigan's Virg Bernero, a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor in that hard-hit state, is another public-banking proponent. "We can break the credit crunch and beat Wall Street at their own game by keeping our money right here in Michigan and investing it to retool our economy and create jobs," says the populist mayor of Lansing. more

Elizabeth Warren on protecting the consumer from the banksters

While calling the banksters' victims "consumers" may seem a bit much, it is the language of the educated.


Elizabeth Warren on Consumer Protection (MMBM) from Roosevelt Institute on Vimeo.

The whole world is sick of the banksters

It seems like the Europeans are going to restrict the activities of financial speculators.  Not a big deal by itself, but it's a start.

Economic Warfare? Europe versus Wall Street

Michael Collins | March 10, 2010 - 6:01am

Wall Street is headed toward international pariah status thanks to two recent actions by the European Union (EU).

On Tuesday, the EU announced that it was banning Wall Street banks from the lucrative government bond business in Europe. They didn't express official concern or fire off a warning shot. They simply banned Wall Street from financing government bond deals like the one Goldman Sachs sold to Greece. The Guardian pointed out that Wall Street bond business from European governments has gone down over the last two years. Now the business is gone period. In effect, the EU has labeled Wall Streets business tactics as too dangerous for their governments to handle.

Then on Wednesday, the President of the European Commission said that the EU was considering a ban on government debt speculation through Credit Default Swaps (CDS) President José Manuel Barroso announced that, "the Commission will examine closely the relevance of banning purely speculative naked sales on Credit Default Swaps of sovereign debt." While not an outright ban, the threat of banning CDS on national debt would be a major loss for the world's financial speculators, particularly those in the United States and Great Britain. more

Why Iceland matters to USA

The saga that is Icesave will not go away soon.  Somebody has to provide the pound of the flesh and the Brits and Dutch have decided the someone will be the citizens of Iceland.  This saga will soon arrive onshore of USA.  After all, someone has to pay for the bank bailouts.

Welcome to the United States of Iceland 

By Paul Smalera, March 10, 2010: 1:19 PM ET

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- It's time to start paying attention to the financial sinkhole that Iceland is trying to climb out of -- the view from inside of it is eerily similar to our own.

An Icelandic savings bank, Icesave, had attracted billions in deposits from hundreds of thousands of British and Dutch citizens, due to the phenomenally high interest rates it offered. Icesave collapsed in 2008, for much the same reason Lehman Brothers, WaMu, and hundreds of local savings banks did: its bankers used their cash to make complicated, bad, leveraged investments, mostly on real estate.

The British and Dutch have made their citizens whole, bailing out Icesave after it became clear the Icelandic government didn't have the resources to do the same.

Now, they expect to be repaid. But in a referendum there this past weekend,only 1.8% of votersfavored a plan to pay back the $5.3 billion Iceland owes. It would have worked like this: the International Monetary Fund would loan Iceland the cash to pay back the British and Dutch. Iceland, then, would repay the IMF.

To call the rejected terms loan-sharking would be a disservice to usury. (my emphasis) They called for every Icelandic family to essentially throw a quarter of its income towards servicing the loan for the next eight years. But this isn't the end: one way or another, the bill will come due, and Iceland's 320,000 citizens will be paying for the hubris of a few hundred of their own, who dubbed themselves "investment bankers." more

How did Paul freaking Volcker become a good guy?

I was already an adult when Volcker decided in 1981 that 21.5% prime was a good idea.  The devastation was incredible.  The third world was thrown into utter chaos, medium-sized owner-operated farming was decimated in the American midwest, and hundreds of thousands of small businessmen were tossed into bankruptcy.  In many important ways, the world and USA has never really recovered from the usurious regime ushered in by Volcker.  But apparently, compared to his younger, greedier counterparts, he is the sane guy in the room.  Be VERY afraid.

We're in Trouble When the Radical Is Paul Volcker

Robert Kuttner

Co-Founder and Co-Editor of The American Prospect

Posted: March 7, 2010 10:30 PM

You couldn't blame Paul Volcker for feeling ill-used. He was one of the first of the financial Brahmins to endorse Barack Obama, back when Hillary Clinton was a sure thing for the nomination. Volcker was an earlier adviser to Obama than Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Bob Rubin, or the rest of the Wall Street gang. Then, after Obama became the Democratic nominee, Volcker was trotted out as a senior advisor and his prestigious name was dropped for a top administration post.

But then the dust settled, Volcker was given a largely ceremonial position as head of an advisory committee that didn't even meet until May, and his advice was largely ignored. Volcker's wise counsel was for much tougher regulation, including the restoration of the Glass-Steagall wall between commercial banking and more speculative activities such as securities underwriting and proprietary trading -- a wall whose dismantling in 1999 laid the groundwork for many of the abuses that led to the great financial collapse.

This counsel ran counter to the views of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner. Only when Obama found himself in political trouble in December and January, as a president who seemed hopelessly in bed with Wall Street, did the administration turn to Volcker.

Volcker is no radical. He is the former Fed chairman who raised short term interest rates to 21.5 percent as a cold-bath cure for inflation. He has a tightwad's view of monetary policy, even in a severe recession. But he has been around long enough to know that Wall Street speculators are capable of terrible mischief when regulations are dismantled. When the most radical person on the scene is Paul Volcker, it tells you just how politics have moved to the right. more

You say you want a revolution?

Well, we just want to see your plan.  As an Institutionalist, I believe in evolutionary change, but every once in a while, it's good to read the firebrands to see what they are up to.  And while revolutions maybe occasionally necessary, there still must be folks who can pick up the pieces.  We evolutionary types argue that we should just jump to the rebuilding stage and skip the revolution.

Fifteen Reasons it's Time for a US Revolution

Bill Quigley

It is time for a revolution. Government does not work for regular people. It appears to work quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and powerful. But it does not work for people.

Look at what our current system has brought us and ask if it is time for a revolution?

Over 2.8 million people lost their homes in 2009 to foreclosure or bank repossessions - nearly 8000 each day - higher numbers than the last two years when millions of others also lost their homes.

At the same time, the government bailed out Bank of America, Citigroup, AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the auto industry and enacted the troubled asset (TARP) program with $1.7 trillion of our money.

Wall Street then awarded itself over $20 billion in bonuses in 2009 alone, an average bonus on top of pay of $123,000. more

Understanding the basics #1

Every once in a while, I am reminded that the overwhelming majority of my fellow citizens know almost nothing about how banking works.  In this video, a guy named Konczal explains the reasons why we had bank regulations in the first place. Must viewing for folks who find banking confusing.


Michael Konczal on a 21st Century Glass-Steagall (MMBM) from Roosevelt Institute on Vimeo.

U.S. Manufacturing Technology Consumption Bounces 26% Off Bottom

These numbers are impressive, and they surprised me. But remember, these are numbers that are bouncing back from somewhere deeper than the basement floor. There's a long climb back to the top still ahead of us.

On a historical note, consumption of manufacturing technology, used to count solely metal-forming and metal-cutting machine tools until the late 1980s, when adding things like plastic-forming machinery made a dismal picture look a lot better. At the time, the National Machine Tool Builders Association changed its name to the Association for Manufacturing Technology. Since then, the AMT has apparently joined with the American Machine Tool Distributors' Association to continue compiling and releasing these monthly reports.

Back in the late 1980s, when I was writing regularly on capital goods industries, consumption of manufacturing technology was extremely volatile. When the manufacturing sector felt distress, one of the first things it did was stop purchasing new manufacturing equipment. And it was not until well into recovery that the sector began purchase new manufacturing equipment. Typically, you would see employment gains well before you saw equipment purchases begin to rise. We still haven't seen employment gains in manufacturing this time, which suggests this is either a blip of a bounce off the worst recession since the Great Depression, or that there has been a structural change in the U.S. industrial base.

I suspect that it's a combination of the two. First, the past two weeks have seen more warnings of the second dip just ahead of a double-dip recession. Second, manufacturing technology is much more automated than it was even 20 years ago. CNC (computer-numerical-control) of machine tools moved beyond experimental in the 1960s (and had largely been funded by Defense Department programs to improve the manufacturing technology of the aerospace sector; yet another example of how the conservative theme of "free market" entrepreneurship is largely a myth), but it was not until the early 1980s that CNC machine tools came into wide use in the U.S. Since then, the bugs and kinks have been worked out, and entire lines of CNC accessories and equipment designed and offered, such as automated robots to store, hold, and change cutting tools.

Manufacturing Technology Consumption Up 26%
Orders were placed in December to take advantage of tax relief measures.
by Industry Week

January U.S. manufacturing technology consumption totaled $130.96 million, according to AMTDA, the American Machine Tool Distributors' Association, and AMT -- The Association For Manufacturing Technology. This total was down 40.3% from December but up 26.2% from the total of $103.77 million reported for January 2009.

"Many customers placed orders in December to take advantage of tax relief measures, pulling orders out of January 2010," said Peter Borden, AMTDA President. "The good news is that January 2010 orders are still 26% ahead of January 2009. Fortunately, there are measures moving through Congress that will expand these benefits, incentivizing manufacturers to invest in capital equipment in 2010."

Read more.

Protectionism--oh noes

The bandits have been saying for neigh unto 40 years that the God of Free Trade claimed it was evil to "protect" your industrial base.  You could sell off your industrial legacy, close it down, ship it overseas because GOFT deemed it virtuous.  By these rules, only backward hicks thought that if you didn't defend your industrial base, there wasn't a whole lot to defend any more.

Except for one thing--weapons makers have somehow gotten a (partial--see destruction wrought by Neutron Jack Welch at GE) free pass from the theologies of the marketeers.  The argument is simple--a nation cannot risk losing its weapon's suppliers in times of hostilities.

So we see round xx of the Producer-Producer fight (scroll down below the illustrations) that is Boeing-Airbus (EADS).  As a long-time watcher of these events, I was frankly shocked that it was even possible for Airbus to win a contract for something as critical for long-range imperialism as an in-air refueling system.

Well, it turns out it was impossible.  The view from Berlin is quite instructive.  After giving us the boilerplate "outrage" on behalf of the GOFT, it turns out that there is considerable understanding in the German press about what went down.

The World from Berlin

'Europeans Shouldn't Be Pointing Their Fingers at Washington'

EADS and its American partner Northrop Grumman have abandoned their joint bid for a $35 billion contract to build tanker jets for the US military, citing unfair competition as their reason for withdrawing. German commentators on Wednesday sense more than a whiff of hypocrisy from European governments.

Politicians in Berlin and elsewhere in Europe are accusing Washington of protectionism over the collapse of a deal for the construction of 179 refueling tanker planes that pitted European aerospace giant EADS and its Airbus subsidiary against Boeing. Berlin is claiming the bidding process conducted by the US Department of Defense was so custom-tailored to Boeing that EADS' American partner company, Northrop Grumman, had virtually no chance of scoring the lucrative $35 billion contract. more

That other problem we keep neglecting

When do we get serious about Peak Oil?

‘Peak Demand,’ Yes, But Not the Nice Kind

Why There Will Be No Recovery

By Chris Nelder

Friday, March 5th, 2010

When oil crossed $120 a barrel for the first time in May 2008, oil cornucopians knew they were in trouble. Prices had quadrupled in just five years, yet had failed to bring new production online. Regular crude had flatlined around 74 million barrels per day (mbpd). The case for peak oil was looking stronger with every new uptick in crude futures.

The following month, prominent peak oil critic and cornucopian Daniel Yergin of IHS-CERA changed his stance: The peak oil threat would be neutralized by peak demand. Gasoline consumption had peaked in the U.S. and Europe, he argued, due to the combined effects of increasing efficiency, biofuels, and the recession.

In 2009 the peak demand story seemed confirmed, as prices stabilized around $70 in June, and U.S. consumption remained well off its previous high. Most people thought the nearly 2 mbpd decline in U.S. petroleum demand from 2007 through 2009 owed to efficiency and people driving less.

In reality, only about 15% owed to reduced gasoline demand. The other 85% was lost in the commercial and industrial sector: jet fuel, distillates (including diesel), kerosene, petrochemical feedstocks, lubricants, waxes, petroleum coke, asphalt and road oil, and other miscellaneous products.

Very simply, when oil got to $120 a barrel it cut into real productivity, and forced the world’s most developed economies to shrink. At $147, it wreaked serious damage.

As I explained in “Investment Themes for the Next Decade,” the new normal will be cycles of bumping our heads against the supply ceiling, falling dazed to the floor, rising back to our knees, then finally standing, only to bump our heads against the ceiling once more.

Scooters Will Kill SUVs

Two interesting news stories crossed the wire this week, which portend badly for the world’s #1 net importer, the U.S.

The first was a Reuters report that the last quarter of 2009 had “wiped out” the equity of Mexican state oil monopoly Pemex, leaving it $1.4 billion in the negative. Falling crude output, falling refining margins and a burgeoning dependency of the state on its revenues had squeezed it to death. more

Bunglers may be responsible

There are times when I genuinely fear we have reverted back to the Dark Ages--to the point where one of my favorite cracks is, "Well, the Enlightenment was sure wasted on him (her)."

Here Monbiot of the Guardian dispairs that we can reach an action agenda on climate change because the science has been so downgraded.

The trouble with trusting complex science

There is no simple way to battle public hostility to climate research. As the psychologists show, facts barely sway us anyway

George Monbiot

guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 March 2010

There is one question that no one who denies manmade climate change wants to answer: what would it take to persuade you? In most cases the answer seems to be nothing. No level of evidence can shake the growing belief that climate science is a giant conspiracy codded up by boffins and governments to tax and control us. The new study by the Met Office, which paints an even grimmer picture than theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will do nothing to change this view.

The attack on climate scientists is now widening to an all-out war on science. Writing recently for the Telegraph, the columnist Gerald Warnerdismissed scientists as "white-coated prima donnas and narcissists … pointy-heads in lab coats [who] have reassumed the role of mad cranks … The public is no longer in awe of scientists. Like squabbling evangelical churches in the 19th century, they can form as many schismatic sects as they like, nobody is listening to them any more."

Views like this can be explained partly as the revenge of the humanities students. There is scarcely an editor or executive in any major media company – and precious few journalists – with a science degree, yet everyone knows that the anoraks are taking over the world. But the problem is compounded by complexity. Arthur C Clarke remarked that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". (To the untrained eye JAL) more

An interview with Wm. Black

Black seems to be one of the few in public that understand that this economic crises was caused by criminals--not merely bunglers.

An Interview with Criminologist Bill Black

The Top Ten Ways to Crack Down on Corporate Financial Crime

By RUSSELLL MOKHIBER

Ninety-five percent of criminologists study blue collar crime.

Five percent study white collar crime.

Of the tiny minority who study white collar crime, ninety five percent focus on the individuals who rip off the corporation.

We are left with a small handful of criminologists – think Edwin Sutherland, John Braithwaite, Gil Geis – who have studied or are studying – corporate crime.

That would be crime by the corporation.

Bill Black is one of the most prominent of those living corporate criminologists.

His specialty – control fraud. more

Simon Johnson on financial "Doomsday"

Below, former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson, who wrote the landmark April 2009 Atlantic Monthly article on the new financial oligarchy, The Quiet Coup, addresses the Roosevelt Institute's Make Markets Be Markets conference, held last week. In a powerful eight-minute presentation, Simon shows how the 1980s Reagan Revolution transformed the U.S. financial system and set in motion a “Doomsday Cycle” that has not yet been stopped, but is still careening toward yet another economic cataclysm. If you think I’m applying hyperbole here, take the eight minutes to watch and decide for yourself. (In case the embed of this Vimeo does not work, here’s the link.)

Simon Johnson on the Doom Cycle (MMBM) from Roosevelt Institute on Vimeo.

Wall Street quietly paying billions in damages - but where are the criminal prosecutions?

Danny Schechter, blogger in chief at Mediachannel.Org, and author of the 2008 book, PLUNDER: Investigating Our Economic Calamity, attended the Make Markets Be Markets Conference, and reports that Wall Street financial giants have quietly paid out $430 billion in damages and settlements in over 1,500 civil lawsuits:

* Bank of America has spent $14.9 billion to settle 15 cases alleging various charges such as securities violations and mismanagement;

* Citigroup has spent over $13.9 billion to settle 12 cases alleging various charges including abusive lending practices and involvement in fraudulent activities;

* Merrill Lynch has spent $12.2 billion to settle cases involving various allegations including negligence and mismanagement of funds;

* Morgan Stanley has spent over $5 billion to settle 11 cases involving various allegations including failure to disclose material information to customers;

* Wachovia has spent over $9.5 billion to resolve allegations including misleading investors and conflicts of interest;

• UBS has spent $19.5 billion to settle 6 cases with various charges including misleading investors.

These cases indicate that there is massive fraud and wrong doing endemic to Wall Street and the financial system. But where are the government prosecutors? And why are they not bringing a similar flood of criminal cases? At least one Federal Judge has become irate over the lack of response from the Department of Justice and taken matter into his own hands. This is the same judge that in September 2009 gave a tongue lashing to lawyers from the Securities and Exchange Commission for their failure to press criminal charges against Bank of America.

William Black, one of the legal eagles who cleaned up the savings and loan disaster, explains how a criminal environment is created, then begins to dominate a financial institution:

Spring is coming

And yes, there are major topics to cover.  But dammit, I want to recognize that there are still Producers out there with major talent.

Here is an excellent example of Van's RV-4 taken at the Stanton Minnesota sports airport.  These planes are aluminum and built in small workshops by single individuals.  This one is especially nice.

Tony and I intend to meet up at the North American Model Engineering Society (NAMES) show, Sat and Sun April 24 and 25, in Southgate (Detroit suburb), at the Southgate Civic Center.  Obviously we both like hanging out with Producers who have so damn much talent, they play with their skills.  I have never been to NAMES--but then, I don't think Tony has ever been to Oshkosh.

You have got to see this

The citizens of Iceland voted virtually unanimously (93% no on debt repayment) to tell the banksters to eat their losses.  Yet read this pre-election threat in Yahoo.  It's clear that the banksters believe that once they "explain" the consequences of their "foolish" vote to Icelanders, they will vote again and, this time with "better" results.

I wouldn't be so sure.  If Iceland, Greece, and the rest of the folks in debt trouble gang up on the banksters, the era of arrogant banking will be over--the crooks ruined.  Maybe it's time to try.  Obviously, those greedy fools have no idea the trouble they are in if a debtor's cartel actually got rolling.  Hey, it's why the Bible has rules concerning Jubilee years.  Wouldn't be the first time the ancients got it right.

Icesave referendum casts cloud of uncertainty over Iceland

by Rosa Brynjolfsdottir – Mon Mar 1, 11:16 pm ET

REYKJAVIK (AFP) – Iceland's economic and political future hangs in the balance as it heads towards a referendum on how to compensateBritain and the Netherlands for money lost in the collapse of an Icelandic bank.

Still shaken from the crumbling of its once-booming financial sector in 2008 that left its economy in tatters, Iceland is bracing for a plebiscite Saturday that observers say could easily increase its isolation, complicate its road to economic recovery and block its entry into theEuropean Union.

"A 'no' vote in the referendum may prevent access to significant external liquidity" and thus could cause "a weaker economic recovery and potentially, political instability," rating agency Moody's cautioned late last week. more

While the banksters were issuing threats, the Icelanders were organizing

SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke with Olafur Eliasson, 42, who founded the movement Indefence, which has spearheaded efforts to strike down the December agreement and has served as the driving force behind Saturday's referendum.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Eliasson, you and your group Indefence have forced a referendum on the law which would require Iceland to pay back €3.9 billion to reimburse 340,000 Britons and Dutch who lost their savings when the online bank Icesave collapsed in October 2008. Why are you against paying them back?

Eliasson: This current agreement was forced upon us by coercion by the British and the Dutch by threatening to block our entry into the European Union. This agreement is incredibly one-sided.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But certainly those who lost their money should be compensated.

Eliasson: The Icesave obligation is not a debt held by Iceland, and there is no legal requirement for Iceland to pay this money. This was a private bank, operating in a foreign country. When it failed, the deposit insurance scheme that was supposed to cover the savings accounts was fully in compliance with European regulations. Such schemes do not require that they are backed by taxpayers. It is blackmail. How else can you describe it when Britain uses anti-terrorist laws against Iceland? more

And an Icelandic blogger explains the vote

First Iceland, then the World

March 7, 2010 - 11:39pm

The public is angry. Why should the public pay for the bankers mistakes. 

Halldor Sigurdsson

Who cleans up the mess when ignorant, greedy bankers rack up massive debt then go broke? The people of Iceland made a strong statement Saturday. The sins of big bankers and government regulators shouldn't fall on the citizens. By a 93% to 2% margin, they voted down a proposal requiring them to cover bad debt incurred by one of the nation’s oldest and largest banks. Covering the debt would have cost Iceland's 317,000 citizens around $17,000 each. more

Adam Smith was a prostitute for slave traders

When it comes to the deities of the economics profession in America, Adam Smith is right up there with mammon. So, not surprisingly, you have to turn to the Philippines and to India to learn the full, sordid history of what "free trade" and "free markets" was really all about:

Adam Smith: ‘Intellectual Prostitute’ For British East India & Slave Traders

Smith-Ricardian ‘Free Trade’ Justified Slave Trade

Amitav Ghosh on "Opium and Empire"

When these historical embarrassments are pointed out to the "free marketeers" of today, they really freak out, like in this article from the Cato Institute.

But the plain fact is that Adam Smith was paid by slave traders to come up with a justification for their immoral exploitation and murder (how many captives died in transit?) of other human beings. Back in Adam Smith's time, his "free market" doctrine was called laissez faire and it was emphatically rejected by the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. (Unfortunately, though the slave trade was ended in the U.S. by the early 1800s, the institution of slavery itself continued and festered until it helped cause the rupture of the 1860s.) It was not until the 1960s and 1970s, when laissez faire was repackaged as "free markets" and "free trade" by Milton Friedman and sold to Americans as "freedom to choose" that the economic doctrines of the slave trade and opium wars began to destroy American from within.
A particularly important book to read, for anyone who wants to understand more about the actual economic policies that created the United States, is The Great Challenge: The Myth of Laissez-Faire in the Early Republic, by Frank Bourgin. Interestingly, Bourgin's book is his 1940s PhD dissertation, which was rejected by the University of Chicago (where Friedman later taught). Bourgin published the book in the 1980s after being encouraged hy historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

My last post on Toyota's hassles

Have I decided that Toyota is guilty of deliberately harming its customers?

Not hardly, but two things happened recently so I am signing off on this fight.

I am standing next to a woman filling up her Solara at Costco. Mid 30s--expensive hair and clothes. She spots my car and apparently, knows enough about Lexus to know it's just a really nice Toyota. So we have something in common.  Asks me what I think about the Toyota story. I said, "I think it's bullshit--what about you?"

Oh! my! goodness! Got the whole female-Toyota-driver rap from a woman with an education and a career. This was her third Toyota. The previous two had been utterly trouble-free. She really likes "Mike" her service rep down at the dealership because he always explains everything so well. She just could NOT believe that someone was saying such things about the most reliable thing in her life. It was like someone was insulting the best lover she ever had.

It was great!

Referendum time in Iceland

Will the citizens of tiny Iceland stand up to the banksters.  We are soon going to find out.

Pent-up fury drives debt referendum in Iceland

Roger Boyes

Across their rugged island, Icelanders are preparing this weekend to reject a deal supposed to end the bitter Icesave dispute between Reykjavik and London.

About 75 per cent of Iceland is expected to vote “no” in an emotionally charged referendum to be held tomorrow. Despite last-minute negotiations with the UK and the Dutch finance ministry, the referendum looks a lost cause.

At stake is a relatively small sum for Britain that is seen as a crippling imposition by Icelanders. Icesave was a high-interest-paying online bank that attracted 229,000 British investors. It failed in the meltdown of October 2008 and exposed the weakness of European cross-border banking rules. As a part of the Icelandic Landsbanki operating in Britain and the Netherlands, it was subject to Icelandic regulation, but Iceland had no resources to compensate foreign clients when it collapsed. more