By Rob Urie, author of Zen Economics, artist, and musician who publishes The Journal of Belligerent Pontification on Substack
Bernie Madoff With the Loot?
Image: Bernie Madoff fits the American storyline of bad actors sinking ‘the system.’ However, the facts have it that less overtly larcenous actors caused a preponderance of the Global Financial Crisis. It was a crisis of capitalism – finance capitalism in particular. Naked Capitalism named names and gave us the details. So please given generously to Naked Capitalism today, , via the Tip Jar, to bring these underlying forces to light. Source photo: Chicago Sun-Times.
The year was 2008. Financial markets had seized up, millions of workers were being fired, and Federal bailouts of unprecedented size and scope were being distributed to Wall Street. Having constructed their models without banking and finance, Western economists were unable to explain the crisis in terms that made sense.
To the rescue came the plucky, newish, finance and politics website, Naked Capitalism, with expert analysis from a coterie of heterodox economists with deep knowledge of financial and economic crises. To keep this vital resource punching above its weight, go straight to the donation page. Whatever you can give, $5, $50, or $500, helps meet the fundraiser goals
Without dogma, a political agenda, or tilting the news for the benefit of the powerful, Naked Capitalism was there to give us the facts. Later, while the American press was focused on Wall Street, Naked Capitalism went where it was needed. The second wave of the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) took place in Europe, where the EU currency union was quickly revealed to be a plaything of the major European powers. The German finance minister felt comfortable enough in the stature of Germany to lecture the people of Greece on the need for them to get by with less in order to repay money borrowed by Greek oligarchs.
Source: forbes.com, Urie.
In a replay reminiscent of the conditions of the early 20th century, global crises continued to emerge. Despite the conspicuous failure of finance-capitalism rendered evident by the GFC, Western governments seemed determined to rebuild it. Part of the rationale for doing so was no doubt that the productive economy had been jettisoned with trade agreements and pirate finance two decades prior, leaving nowhere else to turn. Yves Smith, Lambert Strether, and the rest of the Naked Capitalism team walked us through the available policy choices with expertise and care.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, I was traveling back and forth from New York to South Carolina, USA, to help my father die. The uncertainty in the early months of the pandemic was understandable because the situation was new. As the pandemic progressed, disinformation became the official tool of government. As the quality of the information from officialdom deteriorated, the quality of the information from Naked Capitalism increased. Lambert took on the gathering and dissemination of true information regarding the pandemic that, had it been followed, would have saved lots of lives. Please join me in donating generously, in gratitude, to Naked Capitalism today, by going to the Tip Jar.
Image: Covid-19 virus in living color. The Federal response to the pandemic, or lack thereof, was belied by the extraordinary steps that public officials took to protect themselves and their families. While one must conclude that the virus is airborne to suggest proper ventilation as a solution, the American public health establishment arranged proper ventilation for public officials and the rich while insisting that the virus isn’t airborne for the rest of us. The result: millions died who didn’t need to while public officials played political games with the facts. Source: Medicine plus.
What ties the Covid-19 pandemic to the GFC and the Great Recession has been the public dismemberment and devolution of the governments of the West. As the New Deal was being dismantled beginning in the 1970s, capitalist revival, sometimes called neoliberalism, was sold as the non-ideological alternative under the theory that economic ‘science’ claimed it to be the road to broad prosperity. Five decades later, a tiny cabal of rich own everything and the productive economy has been gutted in favor of financial gamesmanship.
With regular economics contributors like Yves Smith, Michael Hudson, and Richard Wolff, Naked Capitalism is unique in its ability to explain social conditions in terms of their economic drivers. As the GFC and Great Recession receded from memory, if not their impact, unemployment remained elevated, public health deteriorated, and political turmoil roiled the West. Yves was there with the details. Michael was there with the history. And Richard was there with analysis. And while youth is valued by Americans, only maturity based on experience can save us from catastrophe. Please contribute to Naked Capitalism today.
Gonzalo Lira flashes a peace sign months before he was sent to die in a Ukrainian prison. Under international law, states assume responsibility for the wellbeing of prisoners under the logic that their imprisonment renders them incapable of taking care of themselves. Ukraine, the nation that the US has been supporting to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in military aide, forewent this obligation as Zelensky sent half-a-million Ukrainian youth to their deaths. Source: Al Mayadeen.net.
As the geopolitical crises that are underway in Ukraine and Gaza emerged, Naked Capitalism was able to leverage its international reach to find local content experts from around the world. John Helmer reported on the war in Ukraine through a Russian lens from his home in Moscow. An alliance was made with the late Gonzalo Lira, murdered by the Zelensky regime in Ukraine, to report from Ukraine in the early days of the war. It was the willingness of Naked Capitalism to report facts, rather than propaganda, that attracted a readership that was looking for true information regarding real events.
Analysts like Nick Corbishley, Conor Gallagher, George Gerogiou and Kevin Kirk have widened Naked Capitalism’s geographic scope, from Latin America to the EU to the Caucuses and Turkiye and now to Southeast Asia.
For those less familiar with the Left press in the US, it may be difficult to understand why 99% of the American press – the Left press included, got the US proxy war in Ukraine so wrong. To be clear, this doesn’t mean holding the ‘wrong’ opinions about the war, but rather acting as megaphones for state propaganda in which fake history and facts were distributed to mislead. Without the burden of ideological commitment, other than to truth as best it can be determined, Naked Capitalism did damage control for ‘the Left’ by reporting facts. Please go to the Tip Jar to join me in donating generously to Naked Capitalism today,
The specifics here are not as important as the fact that Naked Capitalism is 1) a unique resource, 2) that has few peers in the realms of economic and political reporting, 3) due to the expertise of its staff, 4) coincident with its informed and demanding readership. If you need true information about what is happening in the world today, accept no substitutes. Naked Capitalism is your go-to source. Join me in donating generously to Naked Capitalism today. The Tip Jar beckons.
