GOP Conspiracies on Who Crashed America: Economy without escape routes

(Counterpunch) My Republican friends are all trending toward Conspiracy Theories to explain what happened and what is happening to the US economy. The party of wealth creation and free markets presided over the greatest wealth destruction in a century, and there must be some explanation. It couldn’t happen without some invisible hand. Whose could it be?

The Nail Gun Bailout: Shovel-ready, for what?

(Counterpunch) The Obama administration is hurrying its fiscal stimulus plan. I’ve lost count of the trillions the federal government has already spent to deflect the worst crisis since the Depression. At a recent Miami environmental conference, all the talk was of ‘buckets’ of federal money coming to South Florida. The question on everyone’s lips: how many infrastructure projects are ‘shovel ready’?

After the Fall: markets without regulation

(Counterpunch) We have only a little knowledge how the federal government intervenes in financial markets. What we do know is that since the fall, US Treasury and Federal Reserve policy makers have been flying blind, sailing in uncharted waters: pick whatever metaphor you choose to dissolve the fabrication of markets based on supply and demand, and, free.