(Published at Counterpunch.com) It was a classic run on the bank. Until his recent resignation under fire, Coleman Stipanovich, a Bush loyalist, headed the Florida State Board of Administration, responsible for investing billions of dollars of state funds. Stipanovich’s brother, “Mac”, is a former chief of staff in the governor’s office, Jeb Bush campaign manager, and [...]
Entries from December 2007
December 15, 2007
The Vultures and the Growth Machine: Down on Desolation Row
(Published at Counterpunch.com) The mainstream media in Florida sheds no light on the $13 billion dollar losses of the state-run Local Government Investment Pool. Those losses are tied to financial derivatives that underwrote suburban sprawl and the political fortunes of elected officials sitting at the knee of the Growth Machine.
December 7, 2007
Counterpunch: Sprawl and the Credit Crisis
Will the Free Market Kill Suburbia?
I wonder how much of the $6.3 trillion market for home loan bonds (“Bush’s subprime mortgage freeze stymies bond market”, Bloomberg, December 7, 2007) represents the failure of suburban sprawl as an economic engine for the US economy.
Sprawl is the unsustainable growth model that bond investors are fleeing as if their [...]
December 5, 2007
Counterpunch: Puffs of Financial Smoke
The Credit Bomb Detonates in Florida
Yesterday, Bloomberg reported, “Florida: just first to face National Run on the Bank.” And it is big news, indeed, that might be subtitled, “Hoist by their own petard”.
How fitting that the detonation of the credit crisis would occur in Florida. The political influences that carried Jeb Bush [...]
