naked capitalism Mon 2010-09-20 09:24 EDT

Theoclassical Law and Economics Makes the Law an Ass

William Black

...The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision allows businesses to make unlimited political contributions to judges and politicians. When judges are elected, the need for these contributions inherently turns judges into politicians. Sympathetic judges are corrupt businesses' most valuable allies. Corporations and their senior officials can commit civil or criminal wrongs with impunity if their case is assigned to a friendly judge...Yves noted that the Chamber of Commerce was leading the effort to elect CEO-friendly judges...The Chamber distributed a plan for a hostile takeover of university departments of economics and finance (and the courts and the media) proposed by Lewis Powell (the soon to be Supreme Court Justice). Extremely conservative ``law and economics'' proved to be central to this effort. The law and economics movement began as a non-ideological approach to explaining and aiding judicial decision-making. The scholars leading the movement had diverse views. The Olin Foundation transformed law and economics into an ultra ideological field dominated almost exclusively by passionate opponents of government ``interference'' in ``free enterprise.'' Olin specialized in creating well-funded positions in academia for scholars that had an ``Austrian'' approach to economics...Law and economics has, for over two decades, been dominated by theoclassical economic dogmas that have proved false...There are now tens of thousands of law and economics graduates that have taken a class in theoclassical law and economics. They were taught that theoclassical economic assertions (often falsified decades ago) were objective facts devoid of ideological content. They have been taught that economics has proven that regulation is unnecessary, hopeless, and harmful...

ass; economics make; Law; naked capitalism; Theoclassical Law.

naked capitalism Fri 2010-09-10 18:46 EDT

Auerback: China is Still a Renegade Nation

Marshall Auerback

...In response to Beijing's mind boggling increase in real credit in the first half of 2009,Chinese fixed investment in industrial tradables rose dramatically...By the second quarter of this year some -- but only some -- of this new capacity began to come on stream. Further production responses to this new round of Chinese overinvestment lie ahead...But because of the potential protectionist threat and the underlying fragility at the heart of China's capex boom (along with the corruption of its political class), the change in status might prove to be ephemeral, much as Japan's vaunted rise to number 2 ultimately gave way to a post-bubble morass...in July Chinese domestic demand may have gone negative in real terms. It was only a huge improvement in net trade that kept production growth significantly positive on a sequential basis...The fact that China has the greatest fixed investment excess ever suggests that, when it unwinds, there will be a nasty economic adjustment in China...

Auerback; China; naked capitalism; Renegade Nation.

Jesse's Café Américain Mon 2010-08-16 16:09 EDT

Chris Whalen: Nothing Has Changed Because It's The Fraud and Corruption, Stupid

Jesse

...The dirty little secret of the Dodd-Frank legislation is that by failing to curtail the worst abuses of the OTC market in structured assets and derivatives, a financial ghetto that even today remains virtually unregulated, the Congress and the Fed are effectively even encouraging securities firms to act as de facto exchanges and thereby commit financial fraud. Allowing securities firms to originate complex structured securities without requiring SEC registration is a vast loophole that Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) deliberately left open for their campaign contributors on Wall Street. But it must be noted these same firms have a captive, client relationship with the Fed and other regulators as well, thus a love triangle may be the most apt metaphor...a recent key supervisory officer appointment by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY)...choice of Sarah Dahlgren as Head of Supervision...Ms Dahlgren has been at the center of many of the Federal Reserve's most embarrassing failures in the area of bank supervision and in particular with respect to the failure of American International Group (AIG)...

change because; Chris Whalen; corruption; fraud; Jesse's Café Américain; Stupid.

naked capitalism Thu 2010-08-05 19:44 EDT

Taleb Calls Out Alan Blinder for Questionable Ethics

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has an intriguing piece at Huffington Post, ``The Regulator Franchise, or the Alan Blinder Problem,'' ...we've come to accept what other eras would view as corruption as business as usual...This may all seem to be so ``dog bites man'' in America so as to no longer elicit any outrage. The famed regulatory revolving door, and all the benefits that former officials and their new private sector masters gain from a legally permitted but socially destructive form of trading of insider know how is now considered business as usual in the US...the ``innovation'' that regulators, academics, consultants, and banks were all advocating more than 20 years ago was regulatory arbitrage...

Alan Blinder; naked capitalism; questionable ethical; Taleb calls.

Jesse's Café Américain Sun 2010-05-09 09:08 EDT

PLUNGE! 1987 Style Sudden Drop in US Stocks Driven by Program Trading and a Ponzi Market Structure

Jesse

US equities were gripped by panic selling as the Dow plunged almost 1,000 points driven by a cascade of 100 share high frequency program trading, estimated to have been about 80% of volume. Gold rocketed higher to $1,210...This is highly reminiscent of the 1987 crash driven by a flawed market structure based on automated trading and bad theories. The entire stock market rally which we have seen this year off the February lows resembles a low volume Ponzi scheme, and formed a huge air pocket under prices. This US equity rally was driven by technically oriented buying from the Banks and the hedge funds. There was and still is a lack of legitimate institutional buying at these price levels. This was machine driven speculation enabled by the lack of reform in a system riddled with corruption...

1987 Style Sudden Drop; Jesse's Café Américain; plunge; Ponzi Market Structure; program-trading; Stocks driven.

Jesse's Café Américain Sun 2010-05-09 08:30 EDT

Guest Post: The Perils of Credit Money Systems Managed by Private Corporations

Jesse

...The paper system being founded on public confidence and having of itself no intrinsic value, is liable to great and sudden fluctuations, thereby rendering property insecure and the wages of labor unsteady and uncertain.The corporations which create the paper money cannot be relied upon to keep the circulating medium uniform in amount. In times of prosperity, when confidence is high, they are tempted by the prospect of gain or by the influence of those who hope to profit by it to extend their issues of paper beyond the bounds of discretion and the reasonable demands of business. And when these issues have been pushed on from day to day until the public confidence is at length shaken, then a reaction takes place, and they immediately withdraw the credits they have given; suddenly curtail their issues; and produce an unexpected and ruinous contraction of the circulating medium which is felt by the whole community. The banks, by this means, save themselves, and the mischievous consequences of their imprudence or cupidity are visited upon the public. Nor does the evil stop here. These ebbs and flows in the currency and these indiscreet extensions of credit naturally engender a spirit of speculation injurious to the habits and character of the people...Recent events have proved that the paper money system of this country may be used as an engine to undermine your free institutions; and that those who desire to engross all power in the hands of the few and to govern by corruption or force are aware of its power and prepared to employ it... Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837

Credit Money Systems Managed; Guest Post; Jesse's Café Américain; peril; private corporations.

Jesse's Café Américain Wed 2010-04-07 19:06 EDT

Banks Come Back For Another Bailout in Ireland While the US 'Manages Perceptions'

Jesse

The whole notion of bank bailouts is a tremendous injustice when not accompanied by personal bankruptcy and civil and criminal prosecution for those banks managers who created them and are found guilty of fraud. In addition, the owners of the banks, whether through debt or shares, should be wiped out and the bank placed in a proper receivership while its books are sorted out. The US is an accounting mirage. The notion that it will make money from its stake in Citi is a sleight of hand. The enormous subsidies to the banks both in terms of direct payments, indirect payments through entities like AIG, and subsidies such as the erosion of the currency and the deterioration of the real economy, will never be repaid. ...the facts seem to indicate that the US is still pursuing a policy of managed perceptions, accounting deceptions, and old fashioned insider dealing and other forms of corruption that always accompany government, but reach a feverish pitch in times of crisis. It is the establishment's form of looting.

Bailout; banking comes; Ireland; Jesse's Café Américain; managing perception.

Fri 2010-04-02 17:25 EDT

Looting Main Street: How the nation's biggest banks are ripping off American cities with the same predatory deals that brought down Greece

MATT TAIBBI : Rolling Stone

...In 1996, the average monthly sewer bill for a family of four in Birmingham was only $14.71 -- but that was before the county decided to build an elaborate new sewer system with the help of out-of-state financial wizards with names like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. The result was a monstrous pile of borrowed money that the county used to build, in essence, the world's grandest toilet -- "the Taj Mahal of sewer-treatment plants" is how one county worker put it. What happened here in Jefferson County would turn out to be the perfect metaphor for the peculiar alchemy of modern oligarchical capitalism: A mob of corrupt local officials and morally absent financiers got together to build a giant device that converted human shit into billions of dollars of profit for Wall Street -- and misery for people...And once the giant shit machine was built and the note on all that fancy construction started to come due, Wall Street came back to the local politicians and doubled down on the scam. They showed up in droves to help the poor, broke citizens of Jefferson County cut their toilet finance charges using a blizzard of incomprehensible swaps and refinance schemes -- schemes that only served to postpone the repayment date a year or two while sinking the county deeper into debt. In the end, every time Jefferson County so much as breathed near one of the banks, it got charged millions in fees. There was so much money to be made bilking these dizzy Southerners that banks like JP Morgan spent millions paying middlemen who bribed -- yes, that's right, bribed, criminally bribed -- the county commissioners and their buddies just to keep their business...

American cities; brought; Greece; Looting Main Street; nation's biggest bank; predatory deals; RIP.

Culture of Life News Tue 2010-03-30 16:01 EDT

Empires Must Regulate Trade And Finances

Elaine Supkis

I keep harping on the trade deficit issue since all of the other messes revolve around this misbalance...The `Me, Myself, and I' ethos is self-centered, childish and foolish. It comes out of living inside a major empire. The individual puffs up him or herself and decides, thanks to being fairly free inside of this empire, that the empire is stupid and doesn't need to be coaxed, nurtured or controlled. Instead, various individuals work day and night to evade taxes that support the imperial superstructure. They bribe politicians to allow looting of the purse via inflated war costs, corruption in buying services, tweaking laws so they channel all collective wealth into a few individual pockets, etc...The people are a collective. If they are individuals, they will be eaten by internationalist wolves or other empires that are not individuals. This is a harsh historical lesson: individuals eventually lose to organized groups...Mostly, throughout history, the freest people have been the CITIZENS of an empire (NOT the victims being oppressed by the empire). Free nations exist only in the shadows of an empire...This is why growing and preserving empires is more important than pretending to be an individual who has no ties to anything. Seriously, when major empires fall, the ability to roam the planet at will vanishes pretty fast...

Culture; Empire; finance; Life News; regulate trade.

Mon 2010-03-08 09:41 EST

Truthdig - Calling All Rebels

Chris Hedges

There are no constraints left to halt America's slide into a totalitarian capitalism. Electoral politics are a sham. The media have been debased and defanged by corporate owners. The working class has been impoverished and is now being plunged into profound despair. The legal system has been corrupted to serve corporate interests. Popular institutions, from labor unions to political parties, have been destroyed or emasculated by corporate power. And any form of protest, no matter how tepid, is blocked by an internal security apparatus that is starting to rival that of the East German secret police. The mounting anger and hatred, coursing through the bloodstream of the body politic, make violence and counter-violence inevitable. Brace yourself. The American empire is over. And the descent is going to be horrifying...

called; rebel; Truthdig.

Jesse's Café Américain Wed 2010-02-03 20:13 EST

Italy Seizes Bank of America Assets In Derivatives Fraud Probe

Jesse

"more than 519 municipalities that face 990 million euros in derivatives losses"...Globalization is used as a rationale for stripping nations of their sovereign rights, and the people from their ability to rule and protect themselves in accord with their own beliefs and preferences...The US is a relative safe haven for multinational corporations that engage in various forms of fraud and market manipulation around the world, like modern day privateers. It appears unable to regulate them because of widespread political corruption and the self interest of its monied elite.

America assets; Derivatives Fraud Probe; Italy Seizes Bank; Jesse's Café Américain.

Jesse's Café Américain Fri 2010-01-29 16:27 EST

Morgan Paying Out 62% of Revenues in Bonuses and Pay While Average Families Face 'Years of Pain'

Jesse

One has to wonder how much of that 'revenue' is merely the result of artificial mark to market accounting and prop desk speculation, and not real cash flow from commercial banking operations.That is not the pay method for a bank. That's a hedge fund. And that would be all very well and good if they were a hedge fund and responsible for their own failures and successes, but they are obtaining the discount window and federal guarantees and subsidies from the taxpayers as though they were a commercial bank...if the bankers keep taking 50+% of all the cash that touches their hands from the public subsidy, then what trickles down to the people won't accomplish anything. Years of zombie-like stagflation look to be the prognosis...The economic hitmen and the corrupt politicians are taking their pay, and the people and their children and most likely grandchildren will be stuck with unpayable debts. Just like a third world nation, which is what the US will look like when they get done cutting health, infrastructure, education, and basic services to pay for this.

62; Average Families Face; bonus; Jesse's Café Américain; Morgan pay; pain; pay; Revenues; years.

Fri 2009-11-20 09:59 EST

Interfluidity :: Sympathy for the Treasury

On Monday, I was among a group of eight bloggers who attended a discussion with "senior Treasury officials" in Washington...Although the format of our meeting did not lend itself to forging deep relationships, I was flattered and grateful for the meeting and left with more sympathy for the people I spoke to than I came in with. In other words, I have been corrupted, a little...The most interesting aspect of the meeting was anthropological, getting a look at how senior Treasury officials behaved, how they interacted with us and what kind of a thing this was to them. It was a two hour meeting, but different groups of officials came at us in shifts, and stayed with us for 20 to 40 minutes. The tone of the meeting was open, earnest, and informal. But somehow, it never felt like we connected, like there was a lot of actual communication occurring.

Interfluidity; sympathy; Treasury.

naked capitalism Tue 2009-10-27 12:18 EDT

Guest Post: Capitalism, Socialism or Fascism?

George Washington of Washington's Blog

What is the current American economy: capitalism, socialism or fascism? ...Nouriel Roubini writes ``We're essentially continuing a system where profits are privatized and...losses socialized.'' Nassim Nicholas Taleb says ``the government is socializing all these losses by transforming them into liabilities for your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.'' Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz calls it ``socialism for the rich'' ...leading journalist Robert Scheer writes: ``What is proposed is not the nationalization of private corporations but rather a corporate takeover of government. The marriage of highly concentrated corporate power with an authoritarian state that services the politico-economic elite at the expense of the people is more accurately referred to as ``financial fascism'''' ...Italian historian Gaetano Salvemini argued in 1936 that fascism makes taxpayers responsible to private enterprise, because ``the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise... Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social'' ...one of the best definitions of fascism -- the one used by Mussolini -- is the ``merger of state and corporate power`` ...Nobel prize-winning economist George Akerlof co-wrote a paper in 1993 describing the causes of the S&L crisis and other financial meltdowns...[Looting is the] common thread [when] countries took on excessive foreign debt, governments had to bail out insolvent financial institutions, real estate prices increased dramatically and then fell, or new financial markets experienced a boom and bust...Our theoretical analysis shows that an economic underground can come to life if firms have an incentive to go broke for profit at society's expense (to loot) instead of to go for broke (to gamble on success). Bankruptcy for profit will occur if poor accounting, lax regulation, or low penalties for abuse give owners an incentive to pay themselves more than their firms are worth and then default on their debt obligations ...Whether we use the terminology regarding socialism-for-the-giants (''socialized losses''), of fascism (''public and social losses''), or of looting (''left the government holding the bag for their eventual and predictable losses''), it amounts to the exact same thing. [kleptocracy] Great comments, including Joseph: Three core ideas characterize the myth of our society: 1. Free market; 2. Capitalism; 3. Democracy. The conceptual error that people make is to think that they are compatible, or indeed represent aspect of the same thing. In fact they are all deeply antagonistic towards each other. It is the miracle of post-war society that we managed to hold them in balance for so long. That balance has now been destroyed. A simple example of the contradiction, and the one that the over-socialised right finds most confusing, is the contradiction between capitalism and the market. Capitalism is a system of ownership; the market is a system of distribution. The perfect world for the capitalist is one in which they are price setters in terms of the commodities they produce and labour they employ -- ie a state of monopoly. Each individual capitalist seeks the destruction of the market. What has occurred over the past year is not corruption; it is the triumph of capitalism. The market and democracy have been defeated. Not socialism, not fascism,...

capitalism; Fascism; Guest Post; naked capitalism; social.

Jesse's Café Américain Mon 2009-10-26 09:52 EDT

The US Power Elite: An Alliance of Convenience or a Ménage à Trois?

Jesse

"I submit that our spendthrift government, the Federal Reserve System and the TBTF banks together now comprise the paramount political tendency in America today. This tripartite "Alliance of Convenience," let's not call it a conspiracy, fits beautifully into the corporatist mold that seems to be America in the 21st Century - but only viewed by the elites in cities like New York and Washington. Many Americans of all political descriptions oppose this corrupt and unaccountable political formulation." Chris Whalen, Institutional Risk Analytics

alliance; convenience; Jesse's Café Américain; Ménage à Trois; power elites.

Thu 2009-10-22 19:53 EDT

Interview with Jesse at the Café Américain | Phil's Stock World

"The easiest road to corruption is through self-delusion." - Jesse Interview with Jesse at the Caf>> Am>>ricain By (economy,interview with jesse at the café américain,stock market)

Café Américain; interview; Jesse; Phil's Stock World.

The Big Picture Mon 2009-10-12 10:03 EDT

Fixing Derivatives Regulation

Any plan that seeks to reverse the unregulated wild west that derivatives have existed in since 2000 must have a simple beginning: Repeal the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. This ruinous and corrupt legislation, pushed through by the Bonnie & Clyde of deivatives, Enron Board member Wendy Gramm, and her astonishingly clueless ideologue husband, former Texas Senator (and current UBS member) Phil Gramm, lay at the heart of the current derivatives debacle. After Greenspan, Gramm is the single most culpable individual in terms of damaging the global economy.

Big Picture; Fixing Derivatives Regulation.

Sun 2009-10-11 18:48 EDT

The Ongoing Plight of the U.S. "Nightcrawler" - Part 2 | zero hedge

We're just as scroomed as we were a year ago--skying stock markets and gold-hating trolls posting "Gold isn't money" notwithstanding. There is absolutey ZERO chance that the Fed raises their Fed Funds Politburo rates, and a ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CERTAINTY that both the Fed and Uncle Sugar MUST continue their monetizations, back stops and being the "lenders, insurers, and market of last resort" for all things credit, but especially the McHousing market where they have multi-trillion fiatsco exposure. So, it is little wonder that the U.S. fiatsco is getting pounded in the currency casino and that people are piling into PMs in droves--even going so far as to DEMAND physical delivery from the corrupt exchanges, even as the jawboning and pie-holing by the Fed Heads and Treasury twerps continues unabated. Because we are still very much in the midst of the "convulsions" of collapse AND the massive monetary and fiscal insanity the Fed and Uncle are undertaking to fight them.

nightcrawlers; Ongoing Plight; Part 2; U.S.; Zero Hedge.

Jesse's Café Américain Thu 2009-10-08 16:28 EDT

Gold: Until the System Is Reformed and Trust Is Restored

Jesse

Gold has obviously broken out of a big inverse Head and Shoulder formation, possibly an ascending triangle if you prefer that for reliability. In combination, as they often are, this is a powerful sign of buying pressure, accumulation and a sharp rise in price...despite the obvious efforts of the monied interests to disparage it publicly while accumulating it privately, is rising because the US dollar is being used badly, is being weakened by the failing schemes of a corrupt combination of the government and financial interests...gold is telling us...the era of the US Dollar as the world's reserve currency is over...

gold; Jesse's Café Américain; reform; restore; Systems; trust.

Jesse's Café Américain Mon 2009-09-14 12:03 EDT

Moral Hazard and Economic Donkeys

Jesse

Simon Johnson on moral hazard: the corruption of the capitalist system introduced by a Fed (the Economic Donkeys) that recklessly exercises a function as 'lender of last resort,' in conjunction with a political environment (less sophisticated Economic Donkeys) that can be politely described as being driven by 'regulatory capture' rather than the less euphemistic 'rampant corruption.'

Economic Donkeys; Jesse's Café Américain; moral hazard.

Fri 2009-07-24 00:00 EDT

Jesse's Café Américain: The Cause of the Financial Crisis

Jesse's Café Américain: The Cause of the Financial Crisis -- James K. Galbraith; Jamie Galbraith leaves out political corruption and Alan Greenspan

caused; Financial Crisis; Jesse's Café Américain.

Tue 2009-06-16 00:00 EDT

Jesse's Café Américain: The Crisis of Our Democracy: Corruption in the Financial Markets and Obama's Failure to Reform

Jesse's Café Américain: The Crisis of Our Democracy: Corruption in the Financial Markets and Obama's Failure to Reform; William Black

corruption; Crisis; Democracy; financial market; Jesse's Café Américain; Obama s failure; reform.

Tue 2009-02-24 00:00 EST

Jesse's Café Américain: A Modest Proposal from Joe Stiglitz

Jesse's Café Américain: A Modest Proposal from Joseph Stiglitz ``allow every distressed bank to go bankrupt and set up a fresh banking system under temporary state control rather than cripple the country by propping up a corrupt edifice''

Jesse's Café Américain; Joe Stiglitz; modest proposal.

Tue 2009-02-24 00:00 EST

Jesse's Café Américain: Corruption as an Element in the Financial Crisis - Forbes

Jesse's Café Américain: Corruption as an Element in the Financial Crisis - Forbes; Daniel Kaufmann

corruption; elements; Financial Crisis; Forbes; Jesse's Café Américain.

Mon 2008-12-15 00:00 EST

Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers: The End of the Washington Consensus

Counterpunch; ``Total private-sector markets (in practice, markets run by the banks and money managers) have shown themselves to be just as destructive, wasteful and corrupt and, indeed, centrally planned as those of totally statist governments from Stalin's Russia to Hitler's Germany.''

ending; Jeffrey Sommers; Michael Hudson; Washington Consensus.

Fri 2008-12-12 00:00 EST

Jesse's Café Américain: Money Supply, Paul Krugman, and the Great Depression

Jesse's Café Américain: Money Supply, Paul Krugman, and the Great Depression; ``Fed made a significant policy error in raising the discount rate in early 1931''; ``we can imagine an outcome in which misbegotten monetary policy results in an oligopoly of corporate interests and an economy that is permanently frozen in a series of de facto monopolies based on central planning, not all that dissimilar to the experience of the Soviet Union prior to its dissolution and some countries in which a hundred or so powerful families control the government and its economy in a state of permanent corruption and malaise.''

Great Depression; Jesse's Café Américain; money supply; Paul Krugman.

Sun 2008-10-26 00:00 EDT

Joe Bageant: Moving to the Center of Elite Consensus

by "the masked political consultant"; ``what "Moving to the Center," means is: moving towards power and money''; ``What voters are expected to believe is that after a 30-year class war against the bottom 90% of income earners, the source of their troubles are black rappers and inner city fathers and not criminality on Wall Street or a corrupt political system.''; 2008-08-27

center; elite consensus; Joe Bageant; move.

Sun 2008-07-06 00:00 EDT

Jesse's Café Américain: Lessons from the Panic of 1907

Jesse's Café Américain: Lessons from the Panic of 1907: "almost all panics and crashes are preceded by sustained periods of artificial growth, not based on improvements in productivity, but by a false expansion in the money system, aided and abetted by speculators and financiers." "almost all panics and crashes involves relatively small groups of people who seem to be at the heart of the matter, and are closely interlinked into small cartels of corrupted self-dealing, involving the accumulation of enormous personal fortunes." "always the overextension of credit and excessive leverage" "A free and just society is not a prize to be won or a gift that can be bestowed; it is a recurring commitment, an enduring obligation."

1907; Jesse's Café Américain; Lessons; panic.

Sat 2008-05-24 00:00 EDT

Jesse's Café Américain: Silver Price Manipulation through 'Naked Shorting'

Jesse's Café Américain: Silver Price Manipulation through 'Naked Shorting'; CFTC protecting silver short interest; crony capitialism corrupting public markets

Jesse's Café Américain; Naked Short; Silver Price Manipulation.

Thu 2008-03-27 00:00 EDT

Winter (Economic & Market) Watch >> Gonna Be a Mad Max Revolution?

Winter (Economic & Market) Watch >> Gonna to be a Mad Max Revolution? "Historically food inflations and famines combined with corrupt, irresponsible government has been the spark to storming the palace gates and insurrection."

economic; Gonna; Mad Max Revolution; Market; watch; winter.

Wed 2007-12-19 00:00 EST

LA Weekly

- Matt Taibbi on How the U.S. Is Like Ike Turner - The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles; "you don't see...the money process that goes on behind the scenes"; "The people in our government are so corrupt and so interested in doing favors that they cant even respond to an emergency anymore, like Katrina or like Iraq." [or credit implosion]

LA Weekly.