Friday, March 14, 2008

today : Not-quite-so-free market economics


If ever there was an action that crystallised the economics of modern Republicanism, it is the Bear Sterns affair.

On one side of their face they still trumpet free market principles, but even as they say it they pump billions of government dollars into rescuing an Investment Bank, and doing it in a sneaky way that sidesteps the law. Oh, and by the way, the plan places JP Morgan (another investment bank that exists to further wedge-up the super-rich) in pole position to take over a broken up and browbeaten Bear Sterns.

I thought that the market was King and that institutions should live and die by their performance within the market. But it seems not so. If your little family run store goes belly up then there is no help for you, but if you are an incredibly rich financial operation whose main job is to help the bloated rich get bloatier and richer, then it doesn't really matter how well or badly you are run, the Republicans've got your back.

So, hedge-fund gamblers, don't worry. Keep on gambling. The dice are loaded and you can't lose.

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