America’s is a sickness of the mind, the unwavering belief by people in power that free-market capitalism will somehow work for everyone. As with a virus that refuses to die, the effects are insidious, because the very rich have convinced themselves that they made it on their own, and that others have only themselves to blame if they are poor. …
How Wall Street Used Swaps to Get Rich at the Expense of Cities
Yves here. This post by Ed Walker provides a detailed description of how badly municipalities have been fleeced when they bought interest rate swaps from Wall Street as part of financings. It isn’t simply that these borrowers were exploited, but that the degree of pilfering was so extreme that the financiers clearly knew they were dealing with rubes and took …
Rahm Emanuel, the Face of Democratic Fascism, Deserves to Lose
hicago’s mayoral election may look like a local event, and the media mostly cover it as a local event, but the presence of a large, diverse, and energized opposition demanding change on basic issues of fairness and justice gives the city’s local result a potentially important, totemic meaning for the country. The outcome of the April 7 runoff election, which includes 40% …