Krugman's 'The Great Unraveling': awesome

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'The Bush administration, with its sense of entitlement, seems unconcerned by even the most blatant conflicts of interest--like the plan of Marc Racicot, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, to continue drawing a seven-figure salary as a lobbyist. (He now says he won't lobby--but he will still receive that salary.)'

'The real questions about Enron's relationship with the administration involve what happened before the energy trader hit the skids. That's when Mr. Lay allegedly told the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that he should be more cooperative if he wanted to keep his job. (He wasn't, and he didn't.) And it's when Enron helped Dick Cheney devise an energy plan that certainly looks as if it was written by and for the companies that advised his task force. Mr. Cheney, in clear defiance of the law, has refused to release any information about his task force's deliberations; what is he hiding?'

<snip>

'Now to the story of Harken Energy, as reported in The Wall Street Journal on March 4. In 1989 Mr. Bush was on the board of directors and audit committee of Harken. He acquired that position, along with a lot of company stock, when Harken paid $2 million for Spectrum 7, a tiny, money-losing energy company with large debts of which Mr. Bush was CEO. Explaining what it was buying, Harken's founder said, "His name was George Bush."'

'Unfortunately, Harken was also losing money hand over fist. But in 1989 the company managed to hide most of those losses with the profits it reported from selling a subsidiary, Aloha Petroleum, at a high price. Who bought Aloha? A group of Harken insiders, who got most of the money for the purchase by borrowing from Harken itself. Eventually the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that this was a phony transaction and forced the company to restate its 1989 earnings.'

'But long before that ruling--though only a few weeks before bad news that could not be concealed caused Harken's shares to tumble--Mr. Bush sold off two-thirds of his stake, for $848,000. Just for the record, that's about four times bigger than the sale the has Martha Stewart in hot water.'

<snip>

'I think most commentators missed the point of the story about Mr. Bush's commencement speech at Ohio State, the one his aide said drew on the thinking of Emily Dickinson, Pope John Paul II, Aristotle and Cicero, among others...just before Mr. Bush gave his actual, Aristotle-free speech, students at Ohio State were threatened with expulsion and arrest if they heckled him, and were instructed to offer "thunderous applause" instead.'

Much more where that came from. A excellent well-written, factual indictment of the Bush administration's attack on America, and a concise primer in modern economic theory.

[Padraig18]

1. The only problem with the 'indictments' being written is...

... that they aren't being written by PROSECUTORS! :grr:

[RainDog]

2. Does it seem to anyone else

that that Ohio commencement speech was the turning point?

maybe it's just me, but it seems that Bush's attempt to force students to adore him was at least a jump the minnow that the shark eats...in other words, started the food chain of protests that went massive.

I haven't read Krugman's book yet, but I regularly read his columns. I'm waiting for it to show up at the used book store.

[jimshoes]

3. The Ohio State incident

is what prompted me to join DU, after reading about it on another internet board. I'm really glad to have found this place where I realized there were thousands and thousands of people whose veiw of this chimpministration was very much like mine. I have been here regularly ever since. I have learned much. Thank you evil DUers! It's now becoming fun to watch the shiny veneer peeling away from boy king.