Read It And …

.

1) weep

2) take cover

3) stockpile essentials

4) push back ?

… or some combination of all four ?

.

The Quiet Coup

Simon Johnson in The Atlantic Monthly

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, mind says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, medical is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, hospital and is at the center of many emerging-market crises.

If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

[Snip … ]

Instead, the American financial industry gained political power by amassing a kind of cultural capital—a belief system.

Once, perhaps, what was good for General Motors was good for the country. Over the past decade, the attitude took hold that what was good for Wall Street was good for the country. The banking-and-securities industry has become one of the top contributors to political campaigns, but at the peak of its influence, it did not have to buy favors the way, for example, the tobacco companies or military contractors might have to.

Instead, it benefited from the fact that Washington insiders already believed that large financial institutions and free-flowing capital markets were crucial to America’s position in the world.

.