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One-State Solution for Palestine?

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Today's Stories

January 29, 2008

Franklin C. Spinney
Bush's New War Budget: the $70 Billion Hand-Off

R. F. Blader
A World Without Abortion: USA v. Romania

Allan Nairn
Bush's SOTU: Entitlement, Justice and the War of All Against All

Ahmad Faruqui
Musharraf's Post-Electoral Prospect

Patrick Cockburn
"The Americans Bring Us Only Destruction"

 

 

January 28, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Return to Fallujah

Paul Craig Roberts
The End of American Liberty

Allan Nairn
The Breaking of the Gaza Wall

Eyad al-Sarraj / Sara Roy
Ending the Stranglehold on Gaza

Martha Rosenberg
Obit for the "Front Page" City

Corporate Crime Reporter
How They Rip Us Off

David Michael Green
Kristolizing Iraq: What a Great Freakin' War

Jennifer Van Bergen
What's Left?

Nancy Oden
Survival Tips for Hard Times

Divya Karnad
Saving India's Sea Turtles

James L. Secor
Pissed About Pistorious: Why the Olympics Needs a Gimp

Website of the Day
Yellow Journalism?

 

January 26 / 27, 2008

Uri Avnery
Worse Than a Crime

JoAnn Wypijewski
How the Clintons Lost It, Whatever the Outcome in S. Carolina

Ralph Nader
Ambition, Power and the Clintons

Paul Craig Roberts
How Bush Destroyed the Dollar

Paul Watson
I'm Proud to be a Pirate!

John Ross
Murder and Cover-Up in Mexico

Fred Gardner
Ross v. Raging Wire: Employer's Right to Fire Workers Held Sacred by California Supreme Court

Allan Nairn
Little Hands with Fever: Some Consequences of Poverty Death

Joshua Frank
Why Bush Wants to Legalize the Nuke Trade with Turkey

Binoy Kampmark
Société Générale and the Economic Meltdown

James T. Phillips
America's Sick Comedy: Bringing the War Home

Stan Cox
The Depressing Truth About Anti-Depressants

Eamonn McCann
Hillary's Lie: "I Brought Peace to Northern Ireland"

Ron Jacobs
The Horizons of History: What's at Stake in Bolivia

Seth Sandronsky
California's Health Care Crisis

Ben Terrall
The Future is Unwritten

Poets' Basement
Tripp, Gardner, Gibbons and Davies

Website of the Weekend
City of Immigrants

 

 

January 25, 2008

Douglas Valentine
Operation Two-Fold: How the CIA Infiltrated the DEA

Patrick Cockburn
US Troops Will Be In Iraq for 10 More Years: an Interview with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari

JoAnn Wypijewski
Down to the Wire in South Carolina

Heather Gray
Are We Seeing a Racial Shift in the South? Conversations with South Carolina Voters

Marjorie Cohn
Senate Democrats Poised to Fold to Cheney on FISA

Erica Rosenberg
Environmentalists Out on a Limb: the Perils of Collaboration

Alan Farago
Jeb Bush Goes Nuclear

Robert Weissman
Reclaiming Economic Freedom

Laura Carlsen
Wild Cards: Mining the Hispanic Vote in Nevada

Stephen Lendman
Israeli Repression in the Hebron

Website of the Day
The FIX is In

 

January 24, 2008

JoAnn Wypijewski
Obama as Anthologist of Uplift

Paul Craig Roberts
President Hillary

Alexander Cockburn
Hillary Wants to Talk About Dirty Legal Dealings? Remember Her Nursing Home Scam?

Kathleen Christison
One and Two State Solutions and the Myth of International Consensus

Jeff Halper
Power to the (Palestinian) People!

Stanley Heller
The Siege of Gaza is Broken

George Wuerthner
The Moronic Sport: ORVs on the Public Lands

Patrick Cockburn
Desperate Iraqi Farmers Turn to Opium

Jeff Sher
Just How "Good" is Your Health Insurance?

Patrick Irelan
Musharraf, the Steadfast Ally?

Charles Modiano
Restoring the Anti-War King

Website of the Day
An Illustrated History of Trepanation

 

January 23, 2008

David Rosen
The Great Disappearing Act: the Presidential Candidates and the Politics of Sex

David Isenberg
Is It Really So Hard to Believe That Iran Stopped Its Nuclear Weapons Program?

Farzana Versey
Hillary's Harem

Paul Craig Roberts
The Empire That Must Be Obeyed

Alan Farago
Where Did All the Good Times Go?

Allan Nairn
Indonesian Intelligence Service Threatens to Kill Human Rights Activist

Kenneth Couesbouc
Another Turn of the Screw

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
How the West was Re-Sold

Michael Donnelly
Obama Strikes Back

Norman Solomon
The Power of Love

Website of the Day
Rafah Today

 

January 22, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Farewell to Old Economic Nostrums

JoAnn Wypijewski
King Day in Columbia, South Carolina

Al Giordano
Divide and Conquer Politics: How the Clinton Campaign Armed a Black-Latino Time Bomb in Nevada

Felice Pace
Power Politics in the Klamath: Water, Dams and Salmon

Paul Wolf
Bolívar's Sword

Robert Weissman
Deregulation and the Financial Crisis

Dave Lindorff
The Bush Dollar Trap

Marjorie Cohn
Cheney Impeachment Gains Traction

Richard Neville
Keeping Shakespeare in a Box

Don Fitz / Zaki Baruti
St. Louis Mayor Booed Off MLK Platform

Ben Terrall
Cindy Sheehan and the Virtues of Divisiveness

Sam Husseini
Stoning Martin Luther King, Jr.

Website of the Day
Defend the Mapuche!

 

 

January 21, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Playing the Race Card

Linn Washington, Jr.
Deferring Dreams, Delusions of Democracy

Pam Martens
How Wall Street Blew Itself Up

David Macaray
Labor's Grim Dilemma: Do We Need a Labor Party?

Uri Avnery
Look Who's Talking

Omar Barghouti
Europe's Collusion in Israel's Slow Genocide

Joe DeRaymond
Protest and Trial in D.C.

B.R. Gowani
Why Islam Should Tolerate Images

Shepherd Bliss
The False U.S. Economy

Jean-Guy Allard
Philip Agee Versus the CIA

Dan Bacher
Leaping Steelhead!

Website of the Day
Destroyed By a Rising Flood


January 19 / 20, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Campaign in Black and White

Saul Landau
Good Time Charlie's War

China Hand
Endgame for Pakistan?

Conn Hallinan
Desert Mirage: What Was the Bombing of Syria Really About?

Ron Jacobs
No Retreat

Dave Lindorff
A Tax Rebate Won't Fix This Mess

Andy Worthington
Canada's Humiliating Double Standard on Torture

Paul Armentano
What's the Going Price for a Joint? More Than You Might Think

Seth Sandronsky
High Crimes and Economics

Michael Donnelly
Dodging Ecocide

Patrick Irelan
The Ordeal of Dr. Safdar Sarki

Martha Rosenberg
The Drug Industry Takes Another Hit

Sherwood Ross
Making the World Safe for Despots: Bush's Global Arms Trade

David Michael Green
So You Want to be My President, Eh?

James Rothenberg
Unimpeachable: Under House Protection

Daniel Gross
Starbucks Shortchanges Dr. King

Peter N. Carroll
In Memory of Milton Wolff

Susie Day
Croakin' on Hudson

Paul Krassner
Woody Allen Meets Tongue Fu

Poets' Basement
Wolff, Buknatski and Orloski

Website of the Day
Rocky Mountain Blues

 

January 18, 2008

Allan Nairn
Killing Civilians, Carefully

Ralph Nader
When the Big Boys Get in Trouble, Who Pays the Ultimate Bill?

Joanne Mariner
Terrorism and Preventative Detention

Alan Farago
The Stimulus and the Meltdown

P. Sainath
Pity the Brahmins

R.F. Blader
Beyond Steinem's Feminism

Andy Worthington
A Letter from Guantánamo

John Jonik
Private Insurance is Bad for Your Health

Brian McKenna
Where Even Sharing is Prohibited: Notes from Inside a Michigan Women's Prison

Daoud Kuttab
This Time Next Year?

Website of the Day
Those South Carolina Voting Machines

 

January 17, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Leader and Vassal

Christopher Brauchli
The FBI's Bills Come Due

Robert Fantina
Leadership, Bush and the New York Times

Patrick Irelan
Eternal War

Paul A. Moore
When the Rich Pay No Taxes

Stephen Lendman
Institutionalized Spying on Americans

Beena Sarwar
Bhutto and the "State Within a State"

Walter Brasch
Buzzwords in the Echo Chamber: Change and the Establishment

Brenda Norrell
Bush Legacy in Texas Sours

Adam Federman
End of the Left?

Website of the Day
Democrats for Romney

 

January 16, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Return of the Native

Franklin Lamb
The Bombing at Qarantina

Julian Sanchez
David Weigel
Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters?

Sharon Smith
Ron Paul and the Left: a Slippery Slope?

Allan Nairn
Economic Indicator: No Free Lunch, No Free Market

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
How the American Media Enables Bush's Iran Fixation

Andy Worthington
A Strategic Call to Close Guantánamo

Richard Behan
Nancy Pelosi, You Must Impeach!

Website of the Day
Obama the New JFK? He's Not That Bad!

 

January 15, 2008

Andrea Peacock
Breach of Trust in America's Most Toxic Town: How the EPA is Rubbing Poison Into Libby's Wounds

Wajahat Ali
An Interview with Seymour Hersh on Iraq, Bush Foreign Policy and the Prospects of War with Iran

Joe Bageant
Getting Out the Bling Vote

Ralph Nader
The Candidate Taboos

John Ross
Zero Hour: NAFTA and Mexico's Agrarian Apocalypse

Elaine Cassel
Jose Padilla vs. John Yoo: Can a National Disgrace be Rectified?

Peter Morici
The Fed Needs More Than a New Communications Strategy

Beena Sarwar
Pakistan's Dirty Tricks Brigade

Robert Weissman
Big Business is Even More Unpopular Than You Thought

Binoy Kampmark
Going Tata in India

Dave Zirin
Dennis Brutus Smacks Down the Hall of Fame

Website of the Day
David Lynch on the iPhone

 

January 14, 2008

Ishmael Reed
Ma and Pa Clinton Flog Uppity Black Man

Roger Morris
Burials in the Sind

Uri Avnery
The Hands of Esau

Mike Whitney
Bush's Voodoo Stimulus Package

Allan Nairn
General Suharto of Indonesia: One Small Man Leaves a Million Corpses

William Blum
Oh, By the Way, the Iraqis Don't Really Want Us

Alan Farago
A Subprime Wake Up Call

David Macaray
Are Labor Unions Ready for Prime Time?

Eva Liddell
Getting Drunk with Obama

Zoe Blunt
Road Kill: New Highway Blocked by Protesting Raccoons

Website of the Day
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies

 

January 12 / 13, 2008

Andrew Cockburn
How the New England Journal of Medicine Undercounted Iraqi Civilian Deaths

Saul Landau
60 Years of Empire

Corey D. B. Walker
Barack Obama and the Crisis of the White Intellectual

Col. Dan Smith
Bush, Iran and the Magician of the Tarot

Eric Toussaint
The US Subprime Crisis Goes Global

Ron Jacobs
Television, Murder and Vietnam

Fred Gardner
The People vs. Christopher James Chakos

Stan Cox
Don't Take That Pill!

Jacob G. Hornberger
The Warfare State

Ramzy Baroud
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Joseph Grosso
The Anglosphere: a Special Relationship of Elites

David Díaz-Arias
Imagining An/Other Latin American Left

Stacey Warde
Before We Move On ...

Dan Bacher
Pumped to Extinction: the Decline of the Delta Smelt

Michael Dickinson
Georgie in Jesusland

Website of Weekend
CounterPunchers Protest Outside NYT Offices

 

January 11, 2008

Dave Lindorff
Did Hillary Really Win New Hampshire? More Questions About Diebold Voting Machines

Paul Craig Roberts
No Escape from War and Unemployment

Andy Worthington
Six Years of Guantánamo

Kenneth Couesbouc
Banking on Thin Ice

Jeff Ballinger
Inside the Vienna Consensus

Christopher Brauchli
Lethal Injection, the Supremes and China

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Paying No Attention to the Presidential Campaigns

Andrew Silverstein
Bush's Weepy Visit to Jerasulem

Marwan Bishara
Bush in the Middle East

Robert Weissman
The First Amendment Gone Wild

Patrick Irelan
Damn the Small Boats!

Website of the Day
Hillary and the Superdelegates: Or Why She Wins Even When She Loses

 

 

January 10, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Now Nader Claims He Didn't Endorse Edwards

Bob Wing
Marqueece Harris-Dawson

Race Within the Race: Obama, the NH Vote and the Specter of Tom Bradley

Michael Donnelly
White Women Gone Wild?

David Macaray
Three Big Reasons for the Decline of Labor Unions

China Hand
Bush's Delusional Policy Pushes Pakistan to Brink of Catastrophe

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan: Brotherly, Friendly Countries?

Rannie Amiri
Obama, Man of Kansas or Kenya?

Website of the Day
Iranian Video of the Hormuz Incident

 

January 9, 2008

Cockburn / St. Clair
The Empire Strikes Back

Dave Lindorff
The Bad News from New Hampshire: Death By Triangulation

John Chuckman
Pardon My Laughter: Watching the US Primaries from Canada

James Bovard
Stomping Freedom: Inside the Martial Law Act of 2006

Alan Farago
As Florida Sinks: the View from the Titanic

Russell Mokhiber
Why Picket the New York Times in DC on Friday?

William S. Lind
Kicking the Can Down the Road in Iraq

Peter Morici
Beyond the Sophistry: Why the Trade Deficit Matters

Josh Reubner
Sudan vs. Israel: Double Standard on Divestment

Mike Roselle
The Pursuit of Happiness

Website of the Day
Bottles of Tears on the Wall: Steve Perry on NH

 

January 8, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
No Jobs for the New Economy (or the Old)

Russell Mokhiber
The Black Hillary: Obama is Just Another Political Sedative

Robert Fantina
The Gulf of Tonkin and the Strait of Hormuz

Dave Zirin
Butts on Parade

Shamako Nobel
I Am an Emcee: the Politics of Hip Hop

John Ross
Zapatista Women Encounter Themselves

Brenda Norrell
Apaches Defend Homeland from Homeland Security

Laura Carlsen
Why Bolivia Matters

Patrick Irelan
Remember the Maine!

Evelyn J. Pringle
The Holes in Bush's FDA

Jonathan M. Feldman
After Iowa and New Hampshire: a Strategy for Rebuilding the Peace Movement

Michael Dickinson
Playing Soldier

Website of the Day
Sean Hannity on the Run!

 

January 7, 2008

Chris Floyd
There Will Be Blood: But No Justice for Iraq Atrocities

John Blair
Remove That Man! Creeping Fascism in Indiana

Uri Avnery
The Case of the White Bird

Andy Worthington
Who Are the Gitmo Saudis?

Binoy Kampmark
Needling the Convict: Lethal Injection and the Supreme Court

David Macaray
Women on Strike

Ralph Nader
Obamarama: the Politics of the Smooth Mood

Michael Donnelly
It's the War Vote(s), Stupid!

Ron Jacobs
Ron Paul's Run: Is Being Against the War Enough?

Gideon Levy
The Hostile President

Dave Lindorff
A Real 9/11 Cover-Up? Sibel Edmonds, Turkey and the Bomb

Website of the Day
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea

 

January 5 / 6, 2008

Douglas Valentine
Good Guys in Black Hoods

Kevin Young
The US Occupation and Popular Opinion in Iraq

Richard Rhames
Saddam Who?

Saul Landau
Bush Snatches Defeat from Victory

Marc Lynch
Why Bush's Iran Strategy is Failing

Robert Fantina
Iowa, Democrats and the Iraq War

Donna Volatile
Antiwar Soldier: an Interview with Jonathan Hutto, Sr.

Jelle Bruinsma
Norman Finkelstein in The Netherlands

Bob Sutcliffe
Remembering Andrew Glyn, Rebel Economist

Harvey Wasserman
Anti-Nuclear Renaissance

Missy Beattie
Why Obama Can't Save Us

David Swanson
Remembering the Separation of Powers

Jacob Hornberger
The Importance of the Padilla Case

Shepherd Bliss
Survival Tools from Kokopelli Farms

Ron Jacobs
Bleeding Kansas

Poets' Basement
Patti Smith, B.R. Gowani and Peter Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Jimmy Dean Sausage Call Complaint

 

January 4, 2008

Cockburn / St. Clair
A Good Night in Iowa

Jonathan Cook
War Crimes Airbrushed from History

Paul Craig Roberts
Thinking for Yourself is Now a Crime

Stan Goff
Ron Paul's Monkeywrench

Dave Lindorff
Clinton's Iowa Flop Exposes DLC Myths as Frauds

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
To Pindi Station

Allan Nairn
U.S. Elections Over Before They Began

Joshua Frank
The Failures of Sectarianism

Peter Morici
Economy on the Skids

Mary McInnis
Iowa Cocky-Us: How to be a Caucus Tease

Website of the Day
The Return of Obama Girl

 

January 3, 2008

Fatima Bhutto
Farewell to Wadi Bua

Pam Martens
The Free Market Myth Dissolves into Chaos

Joanne Mariner
The Presidential Candidates and Torture

Zoltan Grossman
Remember the '80s: Social Movements Between Woodstock and the Web

David Domke
The Echoing Press and Huckabee

Norman Solomon
Edwards Reconsidered

Nikolas Kozloff
Return of the Faux Liberal

Jacob G. Hornberger
The Padilla Case and the Future of Habeas Corpus

Martha Rosenberg
Quit Picking on Huckabee's Son, Michael Vick

Russell Means
This Property is Condemned: a Notice to Those Occupying Lakotah Lands

Website of the Day
WolfQuest

 

 

 

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January 29, 2008

An Inverted Pyramid of Subprime Slop

The Great Credit Unwind of 2008

By MIKE WHITNEY

Global market turmoil continued into a second week as stock markets in Asia and Europe took another tumble on Monday on growing fears of a recession in the United States. China's benchmark index plummeted 7.2 per cent to its lowest point in six months, while Japan's Nikkei index slipped another 4.3 per cent. Equities markets across Asia recorded similar results and, by midmorning in Europe, all three major indexes---the UK FTSE "Footsie", France's CAC 40, and the German DAX---were all recording heavy losses. It's now clear that Fed Chairman Bernanke's 'surprise' announcement of a 75 basis points cut to the Fed Funds rate last Tuesday has neither stabilized the markets nor restored confidence among jittery investors.

In Monday's Financial Times, Harvard economics professor, Lawrence Summers, made an impassioned plea for further government action in addition to the Fed's rate cuts and Bush's $150 billion "stimulus plan". Summers believes that steps must be taken immediately to mitigate the damage from the sharp downturn in housing and persistent troubles in the credit markets. He suggests a "global coordination of policy", which is another way of admitting that the Fed has lost control of the system and cannot solve the problem by itself.

Summers is right, although it's easy to wonder why he remained silent while the markets were soaring and the investment banks were reaping trillions of dollars in profits on a "structured investment" swindle which has left the global financial system teetering on the brink of catastrophe. Now that the US economy is sliding towards recession; Summers is calling for "transparency". How convenient.

"Financial institutions are holding all sorts of credit instruments that are impaired but are difficult to value, creating uncertainty and freezing new lending. Without more visibility, the economy and financial system risk freezing up as Japan's did in the 1990s."

Right again. The banks are "capital impaired" because they are holding nearly $600 billion in mortgage-backed assets which are declining in value every month. This is forcing many banks to conceal their real condition from investors while they scour the planet for the extra capital they need to continue operations. As long as the banks are in distress, consumer and business lending will dwindle and the economy will continue to shrink. The main gear in the credit-generating mechanism is now broken. The rate cuts can provide liquidity, but they cannot bring insolvent banks back from the dead. Summers is expecting too much.

The US' current account deficit (nearly $800 billion) has been recycling into US Treasuries and securities from foreign investors. Up to this point, American markets were an attractive place to put one's savings. The dollar was strong, and the stock market had a proven record of profitability and transparency. But since President Bill Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall in 1999, the markets have been reconfigured according to an entirely new model, "structured finance".

Glass-Steagall was the last of the Depression-era bulwarks against the merging of commercial and investment banks. As a result banking has changed from a culture of "protection" (of deposits) to "risk taking", which is the securities business. Through "financial innovation" the investment banks created myriad structured debt instruments which they sold through their Enron-like "off balance" sheets operations (SIVs and Conduits) Now, trillions of dollars of these subprime and mortgage-backed bonds---many of which were rated triple A---are held by foreign banks, retirement funds, insurance companies, and hedge funds. They are steadily losing value with every rating's downgrade.

Summers, of course, understands the enormity of the swindle that has taken place beneath the noses of US regulators, but chooses not to point fingers. Instead, he draws our attention to a little known part of the market which will probably lead the way to a stock market crash and a system-wide meltdown.

Here's Summers:

"It is critical that sufficient capital is infused into the bond insurance industry as soon as possible. Their failure or loss of a AAA rating is a potential source of systemic risk. Probably it will be necessary to turn in part to those companies that have a stake in guarantees remaining credible because they have large holdings of guaranteed paper. It appears unlikely that repair will take place without some encouragement and involvement by financial authorities. Though there are many differences and the current problem is more complex, the Long-Term Capital Management work-out is an example of successful public sector involvement."

Some of the largest bond insurers are are currently unable to cover the losses that are piling up from the meltdown in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDO). Their business model is hopelessly broken and they will require an immediate $143 billion bailout to maintain operations. The largest of the bond insurers is MBIA. Here's stock analyst Michael Lewitt, quoted in Bloomberg:

"MBIA's total exposure to bonds backed by mortgages and CDOs was disclosed to be $30.6 billion, including $8.14 billion of holdings of CDO-squareds (eds note; pure garbage). MBIA was being priced as a weak CCC-rated credit when it issued its bonds last week; it is now being priced for a bankruptcy. MBIA's stock, which traded just under $68 per share last October, dropped another $3.50 this morning to under $10.00 per share."

Barclay's estimates that the investment banks alone are holding as much as $615 billion of structured securities guaranteed by bond insurers. If the insurers default, hundreds of billions will be lost via downgrades.

So, in practical terms, what does it mean if the bond insurers go under?
It means that the system will freeze and the stock market will crash. Listen to TV stock guru Jim Cramer summed it up last week in an interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews:

"But, Chris, there is something I would urge all the candidates to think about and our Treasury Secretary, which is that there are a group of insurance companies which insure all these bad mortgages and, Cris, I think they are all about to go belly-up, and that will cause the Dow Jones to decline 2,000 points. They've got to be shut down and the insurance given to a New Resolution Trust. This is going to happen in maybe two or three weeks, Chris, it going to on the front of every newspaper and no one in Washington is even willing to admit it."

Chris Matthews: "So who are you including in these mortgage companies that are going to go belly-up; give me a description?"

"These are MBIA and Ambac. Remember the companies that Merrill Lynch and Citigroup wrote down a lot of stuff the other day? All these companies are relying on insurance to save them. The insurers don't have the money. There's also personal mortgage insurance; that's PMI, is one company; MGIC is another. Chris, I am telling you that these companies do not have the capital to "make good". And when they do fall, and I believe it is when---if the government does not have a plan in action; you will not be able to open the stock market when they collapse." No one is even talking about the fact that these major insurers, who insure $450 billion of mortgages are all about to go under."

Cramer is correct in assuming that the market won't open. And yet, so far, nothing has been done to avert the disaster just ahead. Maybe nothing can be done?

So, how did things get so bad, so fast? How could the world's most resilient, reliable and profitable markets be transformed into a carnival show peddling poisonous "mortgage-backed" snake-oil to every gullible investor?
Author and stock market soothsayer Pam Martens puts it like this

"How could a layered concoction of questionable debt pools, many of dubious origin, achieve the equivalent AAA rating as U.S. Treasury securities, backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, and time-tested over a century of panics, crashes and the Great Depression?

How did a 200-year old "efficient" market model that priced its securities based on regular price discovery through transparent trading morph into an opaque manufacturing and warehousing complex of products that didn't trade or rarely traded, necessitating pricing based on statistical models?"

The answer to all these questions is "deregulation". The financial system has been handed over to scam-artists and fraudsters who've created a multi-trillion dollar inverted pyramid of shaky, hyper-inflated, subprime slop that they've sold around the world with the tacit support of the ratings agencies and the US political establishment."

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com


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