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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! General Petraeus' Fake War
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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers!
General Petraeus' Fake War
How the Press and Congress Eagerly Swallowed It
EXCLUSIVE to subscribers in our latest newsletter, Gareth Porter dissects two years’ worth of successful lying by Gen Petraeus and his propaganda team. Guess what? The FBI AND DOJ didn’t specially target Muhammad Ali. Those G-men were just following normal procedures! Alexander Cockburn reviews the latest effort to “revise” the Sixties. Dick Cheney “didn’t understand the legalities.” James Abourezk describes his efforts to close down the lethal liquor operators that prey on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Whatever happened to the class war? Read Serge Halimi and find out. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories July 1, 2008 Alexander Cockburn June 30, 2008 Peter Lee Jeff Sommers David Macaray Martha Rosenberg David Price Alexandra Early June 28 / 29, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Joan P. Mencher Nikolas Kozloff Jason Hribal Alan Maass Robert Fantina Bill Moyers / Mike Whitney Justin E. H. Smith Pham Binh David Yearsley Christopher Ketcham Jeremy R. Hammond Kathleen M. Barry Walter Brasch Brett Drugge Susie Day Website of the Day June 27, 2008 Franklin C. Spinney Jonathan Cook Brian Cloughley Saree Makdisi Liliana Segura Paul Krassner William S. Lind Candace Cohn Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day June 26, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Nikolas Kozloff William P. O'Connor Saul Landau Ashley Smith Dave Lindorff David Macaray Binoy Kampmark Matt Reichel Remi Kenazi Website of the Day
June 25, 2008 David H. Price Stephen Soldz Andy Worthington Marjorie Cohn Joanne Mariner Ralph Nader Robert Weissman Christopher Brauchli Suren Pillay Seth Sandronsky Website of the Day June 24, 2008 Ishmael Reed P. Sainath Nikolas Kozloff Gregory Kafoury Betty Shamieh Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Bill Christison Philippe Marlière Website of the Day June 23, 2008 Michael Hudson John Ross Peter Montague Ramzy Baroud Robert Fantina Robert Weitzel David Macaray Howard Lisnoff Richard Rhames Gail Dines Tim Matson June 21 / 22, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Pam Martens Mike Whitney Chris Floyd Tim Wise Paul Craig Roberts Michael Winship Ron Jacobs Ramzy Baroud Alan Farago Michael Yates Dave Lindorff Bernard Chazelle Linda Mamoun Jo-Shing Yang Robert Jensen Website of the Weekend
June 20, 2008 Robert Oscar Lopez Paul Craig Roberts Bouthaina Shaaban Bill Quigley Moshe Adler Patrick Cockburn Andy Worthington Norman Solomon Martha Rosenberg June 19, 2008 Ralph Nader Chellis Glendinning Neve Gordon Dave Lindorff Sheldon Richman George Bisharat Jackie Corr Farzana Versey Website of the Day June 18, 2008 Nicole Colson Rev. William E. Alberts Vijay Prashad Parvez Ahmed Bob Moss Dave Lindorff David Wilson June 17, 2008 Conn Hallinan Wajahat Ali Marjorie Cohn Uri Avnery David Macaray Rannie Amiri Website of the Day June 16, 2008 Uri Avnery Corey D. B. Walker Howard Lisnoff Dennis Loo Paul Craig Roberts June 13 / 15, 2008 Douglas Valentine Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Peter Linebaugh Ishmael Reed Joe Bageant Harry Browne Andy Worthington Jeff Sharlet Binoy Kampmark Alan Farago Brian Cloughley Manuel Garcia, Jr. Reza Fiyouzat Patrick Bond / David Yearsley Niranjan Ramakrishnan Ronnie Cummins Dan Bacher Michael Dickinson Seth Sandronsky Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 12, 2008 Judith Levine Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Christopher Brauchli Norman Solomon Helen Redmond Laura Carlsen Jeremy R. Hammond Anne Landman Website of the Day June 11, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Joshua Frank Clifton Ross Muhammad Idrees Ahmad Stephen Lendman Diane Farsetta Ron Jacobs Deborah Rich Hop Wechsler Website of the Day June 10, 2008 Alan Farago James G. Abourezk Saree Makdisi Malini Johar Schueller John Ross Wajahat Ali Peter Morici Jordan Flaherty Gary Macfarlane Joanne Mariner Website of the Day June 9, 2008 Uri Avnery Nikolas Kozloff Allan Nairn Dennis Loo Harry Browne C. Hand Peter Morici Kenneth Couesbouc Martha Rosenberg James L. Secor Website of the Day June 7 / 8, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Ishmael Reed Jeffrey St. Clair Nikolas Kozloff Dave Lindorff Robert Fantina Conn Hallinan Neve Gordon Tom Barry Patrick Irelan Tim Wise David Ker Thomson Joshua Frank David Yearsley James T. Phillips Joe Allen P. Sainath David Macaray B.R. Gowani Fred Gardner Peter Harley Michael Dickinson Jen Roesch Poets' Basement Website of the Day
June 6, 2008 Frank Barat Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp James Abourezk Peter Morici Faheem Hussain Andy Worthington Ayesha Ijaz Khan Dave Lindorff Website of the Day June 5, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Sharon Smith Nikolas Kozloff Linn Washington, Jr. Omar Barghouti Scott Pellegrino John Walsh Dan Bacher DC Larson Robert Jensen Website of the Day June 4, 2008 Eric Walberg Gary Leupp Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff George Wuerthner Victor M. Rodriguez Remi Kanazi Stephane Luçon Farzana Versey Laray Polk Website of the Day June 3, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts / Mike Whitney Steve Early Manuel Otero George Bisharat Nikolas Kozloff Dan Bacher Website of the Day June 2, 2008 Uri Avnery Nikolas Kozloff Allan J. Lichtman Malini Johar Schueller Robert Weissman Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. John Ross Ahmad Al-Akhras Website of the Day May 31 / June 1, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Gary Leupp Stan Cox Rannie Amiri P. Sainath Binoy Kampmark Robert Fantina Seth Sandronsky Corporate Crime Reporter Anthony DiMaggio Karl Grossman Matt Reichel Paul Myron Hillier Andy Worthington David Yearsley Daniel Cassidy Charles Thomson Gary Corseri Wajahat Ali Ron Jacobs Poets' Basement Website of the Day
May 30, 2008 Bassam Aramin Andrew Cockburn Saul Landau Nikolas Kozloff Robert Sandels Dave Lindorff Martha Rosenberg Harvey Wasserman Doug Giebel Shaun Harkin Website of the Day May 29, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Nikolas Kozloff Col. Dan Smith Karl Grossman William S. Lind Robert Weissman Dave Lindorff David Macaray Chris Genovali Laura Carlsen Website of the Day May 28, 2008 Wajahat Ali Ralph Nader Brian McKenna Corporate Crime Reporter Brian Cloughley Eric Walberg Michael Dickinson Ijaz Khan Website of the Day May 27, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Greg Kafoury Jean Bricmont Tim Wise Ricardo Alarcón Stephen Soldz Andy Worthington Alan Singer Richard Neville Susie Day May 26, 2008 Uri Avnery Bill Quigley Col. Dan Smith Cindy Sheehan Marjorie Cohn Fred Gardner Raymond J. Lawrence Harvey Wasserman Moncia Benderman David Rovics Website of the Day May 24 / 25, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Barbara Rose Johnston Nikolas Kozloff Adriana Kojeve Robert Fantina Dave Lindorff David Yearsley Nelson P. Valdés Kathleen M. Barry John Ross Allison Kilkenny Fred Gardner Elizabeth Schulte Daniel Gross Christopher Brauchli Richard Rhames Daniel Cassidy Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
May 23, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Alan Farago Conn Hallinan Mark Engler George Wuerthner Kamran Matin Sandy Boyer / Robert Weitzel Cindy Sheehan Liaquat Ali Khan Website of the Day
May 22, 2008 Vijay Prashad Joanne Mariner Sharon Smith Jeff Birkenstein Brendan McQuade Peter Morici Niranjan Ramakrishnan Dave Zirin Ron Jacobs Stephen Lendman Website of the Day May 21, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Nikolas Kozloff Alan Farago Dave Lindorff David Model Eric Walberg Franklin Lamb Kenneth Couesbouc Website of the Day
May 20, 2008 Ralph Nader Uri Avnery Patrick Irelan Ray McGovern David Macaray Chris Genovali Ibrahim Fawal Christopher Ketcham Andy Worthington Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day May 19, 2008 Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Brian McKenna Patrick Cockburn B. R. Gowani Dr. Trudy Bond Cindy Sheehan John Mohawk Remi Kanazi Robert Day Website of the Day |
July 1, 2008
An Interview with Michael Hudson Getting to the Heart of America's Economic CrisisBy MIKE WHITNEY Mike Whitney: Before John Kennedy took office, anyone making an income of over $200,000 was taxed at a rate of 93 per cent. Corporations also paid a much higher percentage of the total tax burden than they do today. The higher tax rates on the wealthy never hurt Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which was consistently over 4% during these years, and the middle class flourished in a way that was unprecedented in world history. Why don't we return to the "redistributive" policies which worked so well in the past? Do you think "progressive taxation" is crucial for maintaining democracy and establishing greater equity among the people? Michael Hudson: I think you¹re framing the tax problem too narrowly. At issue is not simply the tax rate on the income that's being taxed at present, mainly wages, followed by profits. Classical economists focused first and foremost on WHAT should be taxed. From the Physiocrats through Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill to socialists such as Ferdinand Lasalle and America's Progressive Era reformers, they concluded that the main source of taxation should be unearned income, defined as land rent, monopoly rent, other forms of economic rent (income extracted without playing a necessary role in production) and capital gains on these rent-yielding assets, mainly land sites. As matters stand today, you could raise the income tax to 100% and still not capture the actual cash-flow revenue of real estate, monopolies, and multinationals who use transfer pricing to manipulate their income and expense statements to show no reportable taxable income at all. So the first concern should be what kind of revenue to tax. Owning a real estate rental property is like owning an oil well in the days of the depletion allowance. In addition to charging off interest as a tax-deductible expense (rather than a financing choice), owners pretend that their buildings are depreciating, despite the fact that property prices have risen almost steadily. So in most years no taxable income is reported at all. Real estate owners don't even have to pay a tax on capital gains what Mill called the unearned increment if they plow back their sales proceeds into buying even more assets. And this is just what the great majority of wealth-holders do. They keep on trading and accumulating, tax-free. The situation is much the same with companies taken over by corporate raiders. Paying interest to junk bond holders absorbs what formerly were taxable earnings paid out as dividends. This is what really is crippling the U.S. tax system and de-industrializing the economy. When Kennedy became president, one of the first things he did was to pass the Investment Tax Credit. This gave industrial companies a credit for making tangible capital investment. Real estate got in on the ride too, but the idea was to use the tax system as an incentive to spur investment and employment so as to keep industrializing America. Fast forward to today. The tax system favors speculative gains and absentee ownership. Ironic as it may sound, really wealthy people prefer not to make any income at all. They prefer to focus on total returns, which they take in the form of capital gains. This is why hedge fund billionaires pay a much lower tax than their secretaries. Real estate is still our largest sector most of its market price consisting of the land's site value rather than industry and other means of production. Given the existing loopholes, I would prefer not to tax corporate profits or even income at all, if the government could tax the free lunch of economic rent at its source. The discussion of WHAT to tax therefore should take precedence over how highly to tax the scant income that wealthy people are obliged to declare from the FIRE sector finance, insurance and real estate. Perhaps the best way to frame the issue is to call this a re-industrialization discussion. Obviously, the more regressive the tax system is, the more poverty and inequality there will be. And as Aristotle said, democracy is the political stage immediately preceding oligarchy. That's what the economy is now evolving into. MW: Why are Democrats so squeamish about taxing the people who have benefited most from our system? Do you see any sign that liberals will join the fight against the far-right ideologues who have dominated the economic debate for 30 years? Michael Hudson: The short explanation as to why Democrats haven't taxed wealth is the power of lobbyists whom the special interests hire and the public relations think tanks they employ to promote Junk Economics. Most wealth is gained by special tax privileges these days, and the financial sector is the largest contributor to political campaigns, followed by real estate. The Democrats traditionally have been based in the large cities. As Thorstein Veblen pointed out in Absentee Ownership, urban politics is essentially a real-estate promotion project. A century ago the tax issue was at the forefront of American politics. Reformers fought hard to enact the income tax just the opposite of today's attempt to abolish it. The reason was that the first income tax fell mainly on the wealthy, and specifically on real estate, mining and monopolies, which were the main sources of wealth then, just as they are today. The deep problem is an absence of economic philosophy of how the economy works as an overall system. Without distinguishing what kind of investment and wealth-seeking we want, it's hard to define a fiscal policy. The idea of a flat tax, for instance, is that all income is equally worthwhile except that the flat tax avoids taxing property or cash flow that FIRE-sector lobbyists have managed to get the IRS to counts as costs. So it is not only value-free, it is explicitly anti-labor. You can find it applied most purely in the former Soviet countries such as the Baltic States. I don't see the tax issue being discussed by Congress, except by anti-government tax cutters. And I don't see a realistic discussion beginning until people define just what progressive taxation means. It has to start with defining some kinds of income and investment as more economically productive than others. This would end the tax subsidies for debt leveraging and financial speculation. MW: How should Obama approach the issue of "debt relief" for the victims of the housing boondoggle who are now losing their homes in record numbers? African Americans were particularly hurt by the subprime fiasco. Is there a way to minimize the losses of people who were trapped in a banker's scam? Michael Hudson: Foreclosures are an age-old problem, so there is a broad repertory of ways to deal with them. In my mind the most effective law is New York State's law of Fraudulent Conveyance. On the books back when New York was a colony, it was retained when New York joined the United States. The problem was that rapacious English creditors sought to grab New York's rich upstate farmland. Their ploy was to lend mortgage money to farmers who pledged their land as collateral. Then they would foreclose sometimes before the crop was in and farmers simply lacked the liquidity to pay. Other lenders would lend too much for the borrowers to pay back when the loan was suddenly called in as could be done back then. So New York passed a law ruling that if a creditor made a loan without having a realistic idea of how the debtor was to pay it back, the transaction would be deemed to be fraudulent and the debt would be declared null and void. In the 1980s, companies brought this defense against corporate raiders using junk bonds as their weapon of choice. Targeted companies claimed that they would be forced to downsize radically or even have their assets stripped to the point of bankruptcy. I thought that Third World countries that borrowed from the large New York banks should have raised this defense, as the only way they could pay was by either borrowing the interest, or (as matters turned out) stripped their assets by privatizing their public domain to raise the dollars. Today, fraudulent bank loans such as Countrywide is accused of making would be prime examples of junk mortgages that should be annulled. But the mayor of Cleveland went further. He brought public nuisance charges against banks whose mortgage lending has led to foreclosures leaving homes vacant. They're being stripped by robbers and used as crack houses. Junk mortgage lenders should be liable to pay the clean-up costs of the debt pollution they've created. MW: That sounds pretty radical. Michael Hudson: But that's where the law itself is moving. Just last week, on June 26 after attorneys general in California, Illinois and Connecticut brought fraud charges against Countrywide, the Wall Street Journal quoted a California law professor spelling out that if the states can persuade the courts to grant restitution, it could be a staggering blow against Countrywide, requiring it to give back its profit on all those loans and conceivably give back houses on which it has foreclosed. Financial fraud is a serious matter. The remedies have long been on the books. MW: Is there a less radical way to keep people in homes which may be too expensive for their incomes or should we be looking for other alternatives? Michael Hudson: The answer depends on how you define homes as being too expensive. If you're talking about the mortgage's interest-rate jumps and amortization payments being too high to be afforded, then one way to keep them there is a partial write-down of the mortgage loan. Treasury Secretary Paulson already has endorsed a step that remains market-based: to assess what a realistic market price for the property would be, and write down the mortgage to that price. The problem comes from homes that are WAY too expensive. This might be the result of a sudden expensive health problem, in which case they probably will have to move, as the United States doesn't have European-style health insurance and prefers to blame the victim for having gotten sick or injured. But if the lender knowingly made a bad loan in the first place and the buyer does have to move because their income is insufficient to begin with, they should get some relocation compensation at the very least, and the full legal remedy for fraud at best. MW: Is their a viable alternative to "free trade" or will American workers continue to face persistent job losses, lower living standards and a "race to the bottom? Michael Hudson: The reason U.S. labor has lost its competitiveness is not simply a race to the bottom. To see why U.S. exports are being priced out of world markets, you need to look not only at the take-home pay of workers, but also at what employers are not investing to raise capital productivity, and what they don't get from government in the form of basic infrastructure support. One reason why employers have not invested as much in raising the productivity of their plant and equipment is that they are saddled with having to pay out more of their cash flow as interest to bondholders and banks, and dividends to assuage shareholder activists, the new euphemism for financial raiders. U.S. corporate philosophy has been more driven by knee-jerk ideology than by enlightened self-interest. General Motors has pointed out that it has to pay enormous health care costs that its foreign competitors don't. Some sixty years belatedly it's finally Meanwhile, educating doctors, dentists and nurses is much less costly abroad. Here, they emerge from medical school with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and then have to take on more debt to set up their offices, then they need to buy expensive liability insurance. Once they get on an HMO schedule, they usually have to wait for a year or so to actually get paid. Meanwhile, they have to hire their own full-time bookkeepers just to deal with the HMOs. Doctors, dentists and nurses are being put on rations. Most of all, the price of labor reflects the high cost of housing here mainly the cost of carrying a home mortgage plus non-mortgage debt. Labor doesn't benefit from these costs. And as matters have turned out, industry hasn't benefited either. It's the price the U.S. economy as a whole is paying for having become financialized and privatized in a dysfunctional way. MW: You have said that the financial crisis is analogous to a "boa constrictor wrapping itself around the economy and slowly strangling it." Would you elaborate on that? Michael hudson: I was referring to debt deflation. As the debt overhead grows exponentially, it siphons off more and more money from being spent on production and consumption. For the financial sector, this is applauded as being the miracle of compound interest. The volume of loans keeps on growing by purely mathematical principles, without much regard for the economy's ability (or inability) to generate a large enough surplus to pay. More and more wages, corporate profits and tax revenues have to be earmarked to pay creditors. These creditors then turn around and lend out their flow of debt service to yet new borrowers. This involves finding more and more risky markets, while the debt becomes heavier and heavier. To pay the carrying charges on these debts, wage earners cut back consumption while debt-wracked companies cut back on new capital investment, research and development. State, local and federal governments also pay interest on their deficits by cutting back on spending to maintain infrastructure or improve services. These cutbacks shrink the domestic market, leading to lower investment and hiring. All this is applauded as the magic of the marketplace in allocating resources. But it's the financial sector that is doing the applauding, not industry. MW: Does that mean that there will be sudden jolts to the system like a major bank--perhaps Citigroup or Merrill---keeling over and sending the stock market crashing? Michael Hudson: The economy reaches a Ponzi stage where banks lend their customers the interest to keep payments current. More and more mortgage loans have been structured this way in recent years. When creditors stop making these loans, there's a break in the chain of payments and defaults spread, crashing markets. MW: Is the dollar doomed, or can the US lower its dual-deficits (fiscal and trade deficits) and continue to attract foreign capital in the future? And if the recession takes hold, business slows and unemployment rises, would that strengthen the dollar? Michael Hudson: I assume that by doom you mean that the dollar will continue to sink against foreign currencies, while price inflation eats away at what wages will buy. The idea that a worse economy will be self-curing is IMF anti-labor ideology and Chicago School propaganda. This is indeed what Nobel Economic Prizes are given for, I grant you. But it's Junk Economics. A falling dollar threatens to become self-reinforcing. For starters, dollar-denominated stocks, bonds and real estate are worth less and less in terms of euros, sterling or other harder and foreign currencies. This doesn't provide much incentive for foreigners to invest here. And if we go into a recession (not to speak of depression), there will be even fewer profitable opportunities to invest. Meanwhile, U.S. import dependency will continue to rise as the economy de-industrializes that is, as it is further financialized. U.S. overseas military spending will throw yet more dollars onto the world's foreign exchange markets. So a weak economy here does NOT mean that the dollar will strengthen; it means we have a bad investment climate! Austerity will make us more dependent on foreign countries. For a foretaste, just look at what has happened when the IMF has imposed austerity plans on Third World debtors. And remember, last time when Robert Rubin was given a free hand, in reforming Russia under Clinton, the result was industrial collapse and bankruptcy. MW: Wouldn't it be better for the world if there were no "reserve currency" at all and the value of money was simply dependent on economic strength and balanced budgets? As long as there is an "international currency," like the dollar, there will be an Empire, because the paper money of one country (US) dominates all others. Is democracy really possible without greater parity between the world's currencies? Michael Hudson: Exchange rates are independent of political systems. That being said, oligarchic economies tend to go bust as a result of shifting the tax burden off real estate, monopolized and privatized infrastructure, and onto labor and industry. This makes them uncompetitive. For instance, the military-industrial complex operates on a cost-plus basis rather than a cost-minimizing basis. The question therefore is whether they can extort foreign tribute from other countries by enough to compensate. Spain couldn't do this from the New World after 1492, and Rome earlier simply destroyed Asia Minor and other imperial appendages. Can the United States succeed better today? Dollar hegemony looks like the only way it can pull it off. By definition, a reserve currency is a loan from one government to another. This ends up becoming taxation without representation. It's inherently inequitable. There are two reasons for central banks to hold dollars. One is for stabilization purposes to prevent currency raids such as occurred in Asia in 1997. The other is that keeping dollar receipts in the form of dollar-loans back to the United States holds down the price of their own currencies, and hence the price of their exports. This effect also could be achieved by imposing a floating tariff against imports from countries whose currencies are depreciating, with the money provided as a subsidy to exporters. But foreign countries aren't yet ready for this great a quantum political leap out of the American financial empire. Regarding tax policy, there's not really a need for balanced budgets. Starting with the greenbacks during the Civil War years, the United States has demonstrated that governments don't have to raise taxes to spend money. They can simply print it. That's what the commercial banking system does, after all. In either case, the money is created spontaneously. The Treasury and Federal Reserve created $1 trillion in bailout credit for the financial sector in April alone while making the hypocritical asymmetrical claim that Social Security will be broke in 40 years because of ITS trillion-dollar deficit. Iraq added another trillion or so. The moral is that economic strength consists of the ability to create credit that fuels economic growth. But the privatized banking sector is crippling this strength in the United States these days. Instead of creating credit to fund industrial capital formation, the banking system is lending to bail out bad financial pyramiding. MW: Do you see the growth of the financial sector as a positive development, or not? Michael Hudson: Its behavior has become antithetical to the development of industrial capitalism. 19th century reformers inspired by Henri St. Simon in France sought to reorganize finance from debt financing to equity financing. But today's economy is going in just the opposite direction. It's replacing stocks with bonds and loans by banks and buyout funds, creating debt that is not being used to build up the productive capacity to pay back this debt with its interest charges. The result is what classical economists called unproductive debt. MW: The financial sector seems less inclined to lend to develop useful products and enterprises. It prefers to repackage other people's debt (like mortgage-backed securities) and market them to gullible investors. Are the investment banks responsible for the massive expansion of credit and debt presently destroying the middle class and ruining the country? Michael Hudson: That's what's happening. But a major reason why savings are flowing into these banks because the tax laws make it more profitable to debt leverage than to invest in industrial capital. The tax system has shaped a market where it pays more to speculate than to invest in building up new means of production. The financial sector has been deregulated on the logic that whatever makes the most money is the most efficient. The product that banks are selling is debt, and help in corporate takeovers, mergers and acquisition. Credit is a product that's almost free to create. Its main cost of production is the lobbying expense to buy Congressional support. MW: So we're back to politics. What do you know about Barack Obama's economics advisors? Should we expect a repeat of Bill Clinton's "Rubinomics |
