Politics in the Zeros

What happens when death becomes profitable? Like in buying specially-discounted bonds using a terminally ill person to get the discount. This happening. Now. What could possible go wrong (except if granny takes an unfortunate stumble down the stairs, that is…) Senator Corker defends loan sharks. In a bizarre coincidence, they are major players in his [...]

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Adam Smith believed governments can and should intervene, that oversight is crucial, and excess political influence from economic power was dangerous. Of course, what we have now is hardly capitalism, but more like a kleptocracy where money gets siphoned to a few who are stealing from the many. With high-frequency trading dominating the market, frontrunning, [...]

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We’re all familiar with the Dow Jones Report. What about a Jones Report? A report on the average American. Is she working? Does he have health care? Does the average American have basic access to the essentials of life?

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Elinor Ostrom became the first woman to win the Nobel in Economics earlier this week. Her work refuting the “Tragedy of the Commons” validates basic anarchist and Left Libertarian principles. For those of us trying to look beyond the magic of the market and the inherent problems with government regulation her work provides some great [...]

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As a graduate in theology, I was interested to read that Goldman Sachs believes the Gospels promote self interest. However, I have learned there is an apocryphal basis for that position.  It turns out that biblical archaeologists have unearthed a little-known text that offers a somewhat different understanding of the teachings of Jesus.  In this [...]

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Joseph Childers thinks Michael Moore blew a huge opportunity to get some truth and real debate out there. Michael Moore has wasted not just millions of dollars and two hours of my time. He’s wasted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity We are at an unprecedented moment in history right now: where the corrupt and immoral economic superstructure [...]

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James McMurtry, “We Can’t Make It Here Anymore.” Singer James McMurtry‘s, “Capitalism is Dying” essay on Blurt.(These are excerpts, read the whole thing) Capitalism is dying, boy. It’s dying of its own internal contradictions.[He was, after all, a Wall Street financier, so I listened carefully.] You think the revolution’s gonna take five years. It’s gonna [...]

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(By DJ, promoted from the comments here to America’s love affair with capitalism a fatal attraction?) Before we talk about America’s self-destructive love affair with capitalism, we need to define it. So many still fail to make the distinction between capitalism, as envisioned by its “father” as markets regulated by a central government, and economic [...]

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Byron DeLear, who I knew when we both lived in LA and he ran for a House seat as a Green, just kicked off his debut in Examiner with a column on Michael Moore’s new movie. The failures of the S&L crisis, Enron, subprime mortgages, Bear Stearns, Lehman, AIG, reveal a deeper social pathology; an [...]

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I’m continually stuck at how financial blogs are 1) providing the most incisive analysis of the current crisis and 2) are getting seriously pissed at what’s happening. They genuinely thought our markets were free and open. Now that it’s become obvious to all that the game is rigged (and at the highest levels too), such [...]

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