Pushing the Referees: how the financial crisis occurred

 

“We are poor little lambs who have lost our way, Baa, Baa, Baa. We are little black sheep who have gone astray. Baa, baa, baa! Gentlemen songsters off on a spree, damned from here to eternity, God have mercy on such as we. Baa, baa, baa”.

– from the Yale Singing Club, Whiffenpoofs

The “Gentlemen songsters” would be the crowd of wealthy power brokers complicit in the nation’s most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression. Today’s list includes the publisher and executives of the Miami Herald who recently agreed to meet at the Herald offices with the principal developers planning a massive suburban project outside the Miami Dade Urban Development Boundary: Parkland.

According to sources, Ed Easton, Sergio Pino, Armand Guerra, and Tony Seijas of Lennar recently requested and were granted a meeting with the Herald brass– without reporters– to describe the virtues of their massive development (a “green” 16,000 planned community a stone’s throw from Everglades National Park.

The Fantasy of John and Sarah: Nothing means anything

(Counterpunch) John McCain says it plainly: he is running against the status quo, he is running against the lobbyists in Washington, D.C., and he can’t wait to unleash Palin on its culture. What McCain is really saying to top donors in states like Florida is that he is running against what they built: a red state majority based on the Rove/Cardenas/Bush plan to put campaign money spigots in every infrastructure project from the Panhandle (St. Joe) to Homestead (LBA/sprawl).