George Cooper, in his book "The Origin of Financial Crises" made a very strong case for the Fed and Central Banks to use credit levels as the controlling variable, not price levels.

Nonesense.

Too often I see in analyses the impact on the capitalist sector lender and not on the borrower. In plain English, self-correction is applied to the screwer but not the screwee. Well without the screwee, money and capitalism would have nothing to operate on to start with.

The key to analysis is the impact on the public generally, grass roots and all. Any other analysis is elitist and manipulative and has no place in a just society. That is the bottom line, end of story. If that is not the main focus, to preserve the public good for the majority without unConstitutionally victimizing the minority, then the very government itself must be overthrown and replaced by a just one. The founding fathers all understood this, and so did Jackson and Lincoln. What is a just one?: One that regulates for the protection of the public for one of the very basics in life: a shelter one can call his own. Every human being has the right to live in a comfortable setting–not necessarily luxurious, but comfortable.

>The only check on the free market is failure.

Not when the government has to bail out these entities time after time to avoid ruining the lives of countless citizens (who played zero part in this disaster – retirement funds) or to prevent the country from falling into a recession which would affect an even greater percentage of the population!

Add to this what Bush and Co have done during the last 8 years … eviscerated even more regulations or put cronies in charge to ensure that things went their way in as many fields (MSPB, FLRA, FAA, OSC, etc., etc.) as they could get their grubby hands on.

Bush and Co. cannot leave fast enough!

Basically the private bankers create money from nothing, loan it out, and collect interest in perpetuity, (power granted to them by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913).

Don't be a fool and believe that the Federal Reserve is actually Federal or that it has any Reserves!

The crisis will continue in divergent up and down cycles until we reach the point of hyper-inflation and a total disintegration of the dollar. This has happened to other countries in the past, it is doomed to happen to the U.S.

Of course this could all be stopped by right now by replacing the federal reserve notes (dollars) with with real money (money that is backed by gold). Followed up with the U.S. Congress repealing the Federal Reserve act of 1913.

Most people are not even aware that the Federal Reserve is privately owned!
These owners collect most of the interest off the U.S. national debt, which is currently $1 billion dollars a day!
The interest is paid to the Rockafeller's, the Morgan's, the Bank of Spain, the Bank of Israel, the Rothchild's, the Kennedy's, the Getty's, etc…. It's no wonder they stay wealthy for generations!)

Get active! Learn and understand the real problem:
–> The Federal Reserve &
–> Fractional Reserve Banking.

Since trade is realisticly supposed to be conducted in goods and services, the IMF or the World Bank could demand that within a certain time frame, where surplus trade dollars are not spent, they be taken out of circulation in order to restore equilibrium to world markets. I also believe the autonomy of soverign nations is undermined and threatened when balance of payments surplus dollars are used to buy real estate in Manhatten or U.S. treasury bills. I suggest Sir that, rather then Breton woods continuing under a Washington consensus, it be restructured into a truly international institution with the power to write off balance of payments.

What is your opinion on this?

James MacInnis
Welland, Ontario
Canada

One thing the author missed was the "virus" that made all other things possible.

Prior to 1995, people who were swindled in securities transaction were empowered to act as "private attorneys general" and sue and collect treble damages under Title 18 U.S.C. Section 1964(c), the civil section of the criminal RICO statutes.

The S.E.C. hated the law; the U.S. Attorneys hated the law, and the banks and securities houses hated the law.

In 1995, congress inserted a little "exception" (world changing virus) into 18 U.S.C. 1964(c).

"1964(c) Any person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of section 1962 of this chapter may sue therefor in any appropriate United States district court and shall recover threefold the damages he sustains and the cost of the suit, including a reasonable attorney’s fee, except that no person may rely upon any conduct that would have been actionable as fraud in the purchase or sale of securities to establish a violation of section 1962. The exception contained in the preceding sentence does not apply to an action against any person that is criminally convicted in connection with the fraud, in which case the statute of limitations shall start to run on the date on which the conviction becomes final."

That "exception" required that the United States S.E.C., and DOJ, first had to "convict" the swindler. The betrayal was carried out simply by the S.E.C. and DOJ refusing to investigate and prosecute the swindlers, with the rare exception that some "small fry" were prosecuted for show.

It is no "accident" that, after 1995, banks became "investment banks" and virtually every financial transaction, i.e. mortgages, car loans, credit card debt, was bundled and morphed into a "securities instrument" and sold to "investors" who could no longer sue them under 1964(c) while the S.E.C. and DOJ turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the howling by defrauded investors.

Everyone involved in this scam is a criminal. This begs the question, "Why are the very people who looted the economy and created this 'civilization-destroying' depression the ones who are receiving the trillions of dollars in "bailout" money from the U.S. Treasury?"

ANSWER: Because, in a lawless society run by criminals, they can and will, until stopped!

Had there been some regulation and oversight investors would have have been spared the Bernie Madoff swindle. But then these same investors might yet be be bailed out on the backs of the tax payer who is just trying to keep his head above water.

As a taxpayer I wonder if I'll ever see a bailout?