Los Angeles mayor Jerry Brown, Michel Gelobter and Kevin Phillips

   

The stock bubble was there and the plutocrats knew

   
Nipawin - Friday, August 2, 2002 - by: Mario deSantis

 

 

carification

Few days ago, Sheila Steele, publisher of injusticebusters.com, expressed her concerns about the recent economic role of the banking system and asked me if I could provide some clarifications in this regard.

 

 

intelligent
common
sense

I don’t claim to be an economist, in fact I keep away from economic traditional thinking and I have been using the term ‘intelligent common sense’ as the only way to appreciate our economic realities.

 

 

too
much
money

The banking system performs a useful function in facilitating the exchange of goods and services within our local and global interconnected economies. However, it is my contention that in the last decade the banking system loosened up this important intermediary economic function and created too much money.

 

 

artificially
made
money

The Initial Public Offering (IPO) of new corporations have raised ever increasing capital, huge loans have been used to sustain unprecedented acquisitions and mergers, and a sustained environment for buying stock was artificially manufactured by investment banks.

 

 

greed

Yes, corporate greed has been the culprit for the increasing economic gap between the rich and the poor, and the banking and investment system must be blamed along with the Enrons and Worldcoms of the global economies.
   

225%


The United States' real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at a rate of some 4% during the 90’s, yet sociologist Kevin Phillips points out

"The total value of stock ranged from 30 percent of GDP to 90 percent of GDP as the economy expanded and contracted after 1925. That is, until 1994 and 1995, when stock values began an unprecedented ascension that reached 225 percent of GDP in 2001!"

 

 

bubble

The stock bubble was there, the banks knew, every plutocrat knew, and people at large didn’t know.
   
References:
  The World This Week: America the Plutocracy. The return of voodoo economics. By Alan Bisbort, Published 08/01/02 http://www.newmassmedia.com/nac.phtml?code=har&db=nac_fea&ref=21426
   
  Market Extremists Amok And how best to dethrone them By Kevin Phillips
Issue Date: 7.15.02