The Death of the Market Cult

As the world reels from the financial crisis on Wall Street and the taxpayer-funded $700 billion bailout, we spend the hour with Naomi Klein on the economy, politics and “disaster capitalism.” The Shock Doctrine author recently spoke at the University of Chicago to oppose the creation of an economic research center named after the University’s most famous economist, Milton Friedman. Klein says Friedman’s economic philosophy championed the kind of deregulation that led to the current crisis.  Real Video Stream - Real Audio Stream - MP3 Download

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Posted by Daniel Yokomizo  on  10/13  at  04:17 PM

"Klein says Friedman's economic philosophy championed the kind of deregulation that led to the current crisis". Really, deregulation caused the current crisis? So, which kind of regulation would have prevented it and why the regulatory agencies that existed never detected a crisis coming? Warren Buffett said a bit about the results of OFHEO regulation of Fannie & Freddie http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/10/regulation-a-di.html. The facts say: we had regulation, it sucked, so the conclusion is a failure of deregulation? This kind of pseudo0-science is the worst kind, its based on lies and misrepresentation: want to build a case for regulation, then show an example of regulation that would work, propose measurements that will show that it will work and are falsifiable, otherwise the regulation isn't better than a anti-tiger amulet.

Posted by Patrick Dugan  on  10/14  at  10:51 AM

I've got a piece of regulation for you, which would have prevented this crisis, it's in the U.S. Constitution. I'm not saying the need for elastic money supply would never outgrow the constitution, but I am saying that a bubble-system based on money being created out of thin-air through debt not only allowed this to happen, but implied it by necessity. The market cult may be over, but a real free market never existed as long as the means of exchange was forced by law on a state-endorsed (yet private) monopoly.

My current theory is that fiat money is a centuries long practical joke designed by 18th century magicians, as a way of gradually goading an entire global population into enlightenment through the realization that all value originates in our brains.

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