Author Archives: camelotkidd

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble

Posted on April 30, 2015 by camelotkidd

We saw Jane Goodall the other night as part of a university lecture series. Her visit was controversial because she wanted to talk about the danger of GMO’s as well as her signature topic of chimpanzees. Goodall has been touring … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alter Genes Twisted Truth, Bill Clinton, fast track, globalization, GMO's, Hillary Clinton, ISDS, Jane Goodall, neoliberalism, President Obama, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Stephen Drucker, TPP | Leave a comment

Stupid Rich

Posted on April 24, 2015 by camelotkidd

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1%, banana republic, Brittney Cooper, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Great Gatsby, Naked Capitalism, oligarchy, Quiet Coup, Salon, Simon Johnson, stupid rich, Yves Smith | Leave a comment

Manufacturing Acquiescence

Posted on April 17, 2015 by camelotkidd

We live in a second Gilded Age where fabulous wealth and grinding poverty exist uneasily. In this milieu, American elites have largely come to rely on advertising, public relations and propaganda, rather than force, as a means of controlling a restless … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Age of Acquiescence, banana republic, Creel Commission, Edward Herman, free market capitalism, Gilded Age, Industrial Revolution, Manufacturing Consent, neofeudalism, neoliberalism, Noam Chomsky, Steve Fraser | Leave a comment

Externalities

Posted on April 8, 2015 by camelotkidd

Powerful US corporations socialize the costs of doing business and privatize the profits. In economic speak, this socialization of costs is described as an externality. If such things as exploitation of labor, income inequality, and environmental destruction were forced to be … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged externality, free trade, George Monbiot, global warming, John Michael Greer, libertarians, political economy, The Limits to Growth, TPP | Leave a comment

Confidential Informants

Posted on March 25, 2015 by camelotkidd

The banks and the financial industry have an outsized role in US economic and political affairs. Yet, they’ve also been accused of engaging in an ongoing crime spree. Rigging markets, hoarding commodities, hiding massive amounts of plundered loot, evading taxes, laundering drug money from some … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged banks, banksters, confidential informant, emptywheel.net, financial industry, Marcy Wheeler, matt taibbi, Whitey Bulger | Leave a comment

Out of Thin Air

Posted on March 12, 2015 by camelotkidd

The US has a fiat currency, where money is created out of thin air with a stroke of the keyboard. For political reasons, we allow banks to enjoy the advantage of money creation rather than having the US Treasury issue … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged banks, CBO, Ellen Brown, fiat currency, MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, Naked Capitalism, Rothschild, Web of Debt | Leave a comment

They Own the Place

Posted on March 5, 2015 by camelotkidd

The banks and financial industry have a lock on our political and economic systems, directly contributing to the growing economic inequality and bifurcated rule of law. Since Senator Dick Durbin blurted out to a radio host the power that the banking … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged banana republic, banksters, financial industry, inequality, matt taibbi, revolving door, Rolling Stone, too big to fail, Too Big to Jail, vampire squid | Leave a comment

On a fast track to the bottom

Posted on February 25, 2015 by camelotkidd

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a massive new trade pact that is being pushed by the Obama Administration at the behest of multi-national corporations. The TPP is fundamentally undemocratic and horrible for most Americans where it counts–in their pocketbook. Contrary to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged fast track, free trade, Karl Polanyi, neoliberal, The Great Transformation, TPP | Leave a comment

“Corporations are people, my friend,”

Posted on February 12, 2015 by camelotkidd

Political/economy is who gets what, and who pays the price. We forget this adage at our own peril. The wealthy and the corporations they own have captured our government and are imposing on us the policies that benefit them. Contrary … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged antitrust, class warfare, corporations are people my friend, Matt Stoller, Mitt Romney, monopolies, neoliberal, political/economy, shareholder value | Leave a comment

Back to the Future

Posted on February 7, 2015 by camelotkidd

Ideologies that serve elite interests never really go away, they just reconstitute in new guises. In A Brief History of Neoliberalism, author David Harvey argues provocatively that neoliberalism is a continuation of early capitalism, whereby modern corporations are busy re-privitizing … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A Brief History of Neoliberalism, A Peoples History of the United States, David Harvey, forth factor of production, Howard Zinn, Michael Perelman, Mike Lofgren, Nixonland, rent seeking, Rick Perlstein, Simon Patten, The Invention of Capitalism, The Party's Over | Leave a comment