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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: glenn_a who wrote (14308)	5/23/2004 11:34:42 AM
From: russwinter	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 110194

<system collapses of its own fundamental decrepedness.> Yes, a "capitalist" version of the Soviet collapse I suppose? The aspect of this political economy that I've really wondered about is: who are the criminal enterprise apparatchiks dictionary.reference.com who run it? Where did they come from? Who put them in place? For example, how did a wild, deceitful guy like Ben Bernanke get his appointment? Or Franklin Raines? Then how does the Ministry of Propaganda mechanism support them, and give them credibility? The behind the scenes, back room dealings, would be quite another "most interesting" story. For guidance one could perhaps read the Pendergast episode, or perhaps Albert Speer's "Inside the Third Reich"? Maybe "The Godfather" fits better, hard to say? What have you located? And yes, feel free to tie the political economy thesis into the topic of this thread, it should be explored for sure.

To: glenn_a who wrote (14308)	5/23/2004 4:10:19 PM
From: Oblomov	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 110194

>>"political economy". This is a Marxist economic analysis term... Not necessarily, although I'd agree that it has to some degree been co-opted (now there's a Marxist term for you -gg-) by Marxists. Von Mises and Hayek would have referred to themselves as political economists without hesitation, and the great (conservative) political philosopher Michael Oakeshott calls himself one. It appears that commentators such as Catherine Austin Fitts and Doug Noland try to forge a synthesis between the political economy of Hyman Minsky (an institutionalist economist with a democratic socialist ideology) and the Austrian School (anarcho-capitalists, of course). The marriage of the strands of thought doesn't always work, and it seems fraught with internal contradictions. For example, Noland claims to be a disciple of Minsky, and he presages Minsky-style financial instability. But he finds the blame in the credit market intervention of the Fed and financial intermediaries. Yet Minsky wrote that such intervention was good, insofar as the prevention of economic pain was a step toward a "humane" economy. Minsky didn't subscribe to the idea that booms and busts were natural and necessary phenomena. He saw state intervention as an essential part of a modern economy. On the other hand, the self-correcting nature of a market economy is a central tenet of the Austrain school. The Austrians regard intervention as the source of the problem, not the cure. I have not seen evidence that Noland is a powerful enough theorist to resolve these sorts of contradictions, though he is often an insightful commentator. I did enjoy Cockburn's "Whiteout", though it made me wonder how Cockburn can maintain his lefty political position when the story his book tells makes a strong case for a minimal state. Does he think that the IRS, HHS, and SSA operate with benevolence while the CIA and DOD engage in sundry evils? I'm open to Fitt's interpretation of "The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble", but I withhold judgement. Anyway, thanks for posting the interview in its entirety, and the links.

To: glenn_a who wrote (14308)	5/23/2004 6:41:52 PM
From: NOW	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

then you will love this cartoon: ttrader.com

To: glenn_a who wrote (14308)	5/23/2004 11:49:53 PM
From: el_gaviero	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

Glenn, I too want to thank you for the transcription of the interview by Catherine Austin Fitts . She’s a fascinating lady, and has got me looking at the world from a different angle these days. I think you are asking exactly the right question (in your posts over the last few days), which I would put as follows: where is power accumulating in the United States? By power I mean: political power, economic power, control of resources. Etc etc. If I understand correctly, you are saying that the place to look for this process of accumulation is towards the big banks, the FED, big capitalist enterprises, and their links with government. I don’t really disagree but I have a different emphasis. As I’ve said to you before I think you lack precision. If 2.3 trillion dollars has been stolen, who got the money? I want to see (or at least hear rumors about) big houses, fast jets, and knock-out mistresses. I want to see a new, vulgar but energetic group of men pop up onto the radar screen. I also think you place too much emphasis upon events of long ago. I tend to agree with Nietzsche, who said (roughly) that it’s not how something comes into existence that counts, but rather: it’s WHO captures the new thing once in existence. The model of power I tend to call upon is that North America is more and more beginning to resemble South America. In those countries down there, only one game counts: capture of the machinery of the state. This does not mean the absence of capitalist enterprises but it does mean such enterprises lack independence, and it also means such enterprises have only one purpose ---- provide a way for politicians to monetize political power. Where a non-corrupt and well run enterprise does manage to emerge, such as PDVSA in Venezuela, the goons move in on it. I don’t see how it’s much different up here nowadays. We’ve had a profitable tobacco industry in N. America since the 1630s. But then the goons moved in and helped themselves to a cut of the income stream. Hard to imagine any act more directly destructive of the spirit and of the letter of the Constitution of 1789, and of the entire Anglo-Saxon common law tradition. Also hard to find a more clear example of WHO, WHOM --- the old Lenin formula of who did what to whom as a sign of where power resides. The low moral tone, the venality, the hype, the corruption, the short term thinking, the manic nature and the brittleness of current American capitalism, are all symptoms of demoralization and loss of power. If you go to a place where young men compete to be servants and subalterns of other men,you are around power. In no place does the competition to be a lackey happen with greater intensity than in Washington. That’s where the power lies.