The following is a selection of articles amplifying or otherwise providing additional insight and perspective for the main thesis covered in Climate Change, Land Use and Monetary Policy: The New Trifecta. Enjoy.
From J.P. Morgan to Jamie Dimon: The Inside Story of How Bankers Control Our Politics by Nomi Prins, author of the critically acclaimed All The Presidents Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power, for the New York Daily News, April 10, 2014
This review of a review of Nomi Prins' new book All the Presidents Bankers which is the subject of the above article by Prins.
Prins was a former managing director of Goldman Sachs before she, like many other former Wall Streeters, began exposing the involvement of the financial system in the 2008 crisis and its subsequent drive to maintain the increasingly corrupt status quo, further enriching the VERY few at the expense of the VERY many. Similar recent books include Larry Doyle's In Bed With Wall Street: The Conspiracy Crippling Our Global Economy and Bob Ivy's The Seven Sins of Wall Street: Big Banks, Their Washington Lackeys and the Next Financial Crisis. These books as a group make very interesting reading but in this author's estimation their value lies in exposing the kind of "ungodly greed and corruption" that a monetary system such as ours invites - and NOT in defining REAL reform, which first demands a clear understanding of what "money" REALLY is.
As argued by Ken Fousek and myself, political corruption, profits at any cost and privatization of public assets and resources regardless of the effects on people or the environment are the inevitable and unavoidable byproducts of the current monetary system. The following is a selection of online articles depicting how these by-products have already damaged the social fabric of the nation and threaten to bring down the entire financial system.
Privatization is a Ramp for Corruption and Insouciance Is a Ramp for War by Paul Craig Roberts, April 16, 2014. Roberts was undersecretary of the Treasury under Reagan, and like many of the "renegade" economists of today including the esteemed Michael Hudson, come much closer to at least identifying the underlying problems with our current monetary system. So long as economists such as these remain true to their independent ways, it will be only a matter of time before they too will join the growing chorus in support of true and proper monetary reform as it is discussed in these pages.
Privatization of America's Infrastructure.
Privatizing the Post Office from both the conservative point of view and also what may be termed a more liberal point of view. Note that much of the discussion centers on exploding health care costs which form part of the postal worker's retirement package. Note also that to some - present author excluded - "downsizing government" includes privatization of the post office, or "the last monopoly." The reader may ask, what about the well known and much despised monopolies in Big Pharma and Big Biotech so favored by Wall Street, or Big Ag as led by Monsanto and company which are increasingly protected by various mis-named "free" trade agreements, etc., etc? While downsizing government may be a laudable and arguably much-needed goal, the argument to downsize through privatization loses its luster and its efficacy when the end result leads to lining the pockets of investors in Wall Street-favored monopolies. Similarly, the reader may observe that a proper "re-structuring" - dare we say "downsizing" - of Big Pharma, Big Biotech and Big Ag could go a long way toward improving America's dismally declining health stats, thereby reducing America's sky-rocketing health care costs.
R is for Rentier: the latest installment to the Insider's dictionary by Michael Hudson, April 5, 2014
Rentiers are at root of 1 percent, by Charles R. Morris, published March 12, 2014. Morris defines rentiers as “unproductive citizens who make good incomes by collecting tolls on other people’s production. In the early days of economics, rentiers were the owners of stagnating estates who partied in London on the earnings of their peasants and tenant farmers. . . More recently, they are the beneficiaries of special privileges. . .”
Is Economic Theory a Tool for the Rich? with link to full article by guest columnist Ron Unz. The short commentary by Paul Craig Roberts states in part: Unz emphasizes that he has no professional qualifications as an economist. I would put it differently. Not blinded by economic doctrines that economists such as Michael Hudson, Herman Daly, and myself have shown to be false, Unz is capable of clear-headed thought and hits the nail on the head. Unz stimulates thinking, something most economists no longer do.
Major Study Finds That the US is an Oligarchy, April 16, 2014
Also see Another Fraudulent Jobs Report by Paul Craig Roberts, April 5, 2014
20 Facts about Income Inequality in the US. Also see Income Inequality in the US and Income Inequality