Could Fukushima Destroy America?

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· Will Davis at AtomicPowerReview.Blogspot.com

· Spent fuel at Fukushima Daiichi safer than asserted

  By Will Davis on May 16, 2012 | 11 Comments

ECB Tells Irish To Go F**k Themselves

The story so far: a corrupt Irish political system bailed out a corrupt bank, on orders from the ECB, to avoid the implosion of mainland European banks. Also a corrupt Irish political system, on orders from the ECB, bailed out the financial gambling losses of well-heeled investors.

And so comes an opportunity for the ECB to recognise that the Irish helped save Europe. An opportunity to ease the terms and timescale of Irish repayments of the newly-printed ECB money which was used to benefit banks and investors. (By the way, the Irish people never actually got the money - it was "exported" as quickly as it was printed by the Irish Central Bank under EU auspices.)

In recent weeks, Irish politicians have waxed lyrical about their ongoing negotiations with the ECB over the loan notes repayment schedule - especially one note for €3.1Billion, due for payment on 2 April 2012. Quiet confidence in the outcome of those informal talks was reinforced by finance minister, Michael Noonan who intimated the ECB would accept pushing back that note payment and similarly rescheduling all subsequent notes (totalling over €30Billion).

In the last few days a "mission accomplished" outcome was flagged by Irish government sources. Then on the eve of Noonan's Fine Gael party annual shindig, the Finance Minister rolled out to announce victory. Ireland would not be paying the loan note and so would not need to borrow to fund that payment. Furthermore this success augured well for rescheduling the balance of the outstanding notes.

It was a giant lie. It wasn't just gilding the Lilly, it was calling a dog turd a Lilly. Don't take my word for that, take the ECB's word. The ECB issued a statement welcoming the note payment and looking forward to further on schedule payments - while reminding Ireland that it had aided Irish banks greatly. So there.

In fact, Ireland will be making the note payment as scheduled. In fact, that ghastly reality augurs poorly for the remaining notes.

SMOKE AND WHEELBARROWS

So where did Ireland get the money to make the €3.1Billion note payment? They borrowed it from Bank of Ireland - using NAMA as an intermediary.  And where did Bank of Ireland get the money - considering they are a totally bust bank who won't even loan €310 to small business, let alone €3.1Billion to the Irish government? Answer: they 'magicked' the €3.1Billion into existence using the rules of fractional reserve banking.

The Irish government created a bond. NAMA handed the bond to Bank of Ireland - who stashed the bond in the vault and... Hey Presto! €3.1Billion comes into existence as a loan against the bond.  And the government hands the new cash to the Irish Central Bank - who are the local agent for the ECB.

What do the Irish Central Bank do with the €3.1Billion? They take it out the back yard and burn it in a wheelbarrow. Really. Remember, the money was first printed by the Irish Central Bank under EU auspices. Now it is to be destroyed to (ahem) 'balance' the books.

FUNNY MONEY

If you are starting to feel concerned about the ease with which money is "magicked" in and out of existence; and if you are getting a headache trying to follow this smoke and mirrors game, then let's cut to the chase.

The broke Irish government only now just borrowed the €3.1Billion which years ago was used to pay off well-connected Anglo Irish bondholders. The new loan fees and interest will reward well-connected bankers and financial engineers. The bill is yet more debt the public will be looted to pay.

There are now no ECB negotiations. The ECB wants €3.1Billion EVERY year to burn in the wheelbarrow. The ECB has told the Irish government that if they don't like it, then they can go f**k themselves.

Lacking any testicles, and acting as an intermediary while lying through their teeth, the Irish government has told the Irish people to destroy their country so that money can be burned in wheelbarrows. And if THEY don't like it, then THEY too can go f**k themselves.

Did I mention the upcoming Fiscal Treaty vote? How about the Irish send these political and financial bwankers a message?  One like this: NO.

And if they don't like that they can go f**k..........

Group Of 'Drunk' Soldiers Killed Afghan Civilians Say Witnesses

"The initial reporting that we have at this time indicates there was one shooter, and we have one man in custody,"-- Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a NATO spokesman

A group of US soldiers were involved in the attacks on civilians in Kandahar province, say eyewitnesses who undermine the official account that a single soldier was responsible.

Neighbors and relatives of the dead said a group of US soldiers arrived at one of three villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province at about 2am, entered homes and opened fire.

 Haji Samad told Reuters 11 of his relatives were killed in one house, including his children.

"They (Americans) poured chemicals over their dead bodies and burned them," a weeping Samad said at the scene. Neighbors said they awoke to crackling gunfire from American soldiers, whom they described as laughing and drunk. "They were all drunk and shooting all over the place," said neighbor Agha Lala, who visited one of the homes where the incident took place. "Their bodies were riddled with bullets."

Jan Agha, 20, told Reuters that American soldiers entered the family home as he lay on the floor, pretending to be dead.

"My mother was shot in her eye and her face. She was unrecognisable. My brother was shot in the head and chest and my sister was killed, too."

Another witness, Agha Lala, who is in his 40s, said he was awoken by gunfire at about 02:00.

"I watched them from a wall for a while. Then they opened fire on me. The bullets hit the wall. They were laughing. They did not seem normal. It was like they were drunk," he said.

President Hamid Karzai's office, said in a statement he had spoken by telephone to a young boy who was wounded in the shootings who also described how American soldiers had entered his house and opened fire on his family.

However, despite these reports, a senior US defense official in Washington rejected the witness accounts that several apparently drunk soldiers were involved.

"Based on the preliminary information we have this account is flatly wrong," the official said. "We believe one U.S. service member acted alone, not a group of US soldiers."

From newswires and sources: 1 2 3 

Goldman Sachs, BP, Enron, Iran Hype and the End of the 'Oil Printing' Scam

It appears that BP and Goldman Sachs have been literally 'printing oil'  for a decade using Enron-style commodity futures contracts, says Chris Cook, former compliance and market supervision director of the International Petroleum Exchange.

Their profit has come at the expense of other players in the oil trade: from market brokers to businesses and gas consumers. But the game is up, with only the hype over a potential war with Iran holding up a market primed to implode from falling demand.

How has this manipulation been achieved?

By means of prepay transactions: a form of financing, structured as a commodity trade, which can be made to look as if it is cash flow from operations. Investors prepay for physical oil. The producer lends oil to the investor, and the investor lends dollars to the producer. The temporary ownership rights created and sold to investors via intermediaries such as Goldman Sachs essentially enable a producer to act as a private oil bank ‘printing oil’.

How does printing oil affect the market?

In early 2009, risk averse money poured into the oil producers, allowing them demand higher prices from refiners, and thus driving forward contracts higher in a ‘super-contango’.

Traders began to buy oil, and to sell it forward, since the contango difference in price enabled them to pay to insure and finance the oil; to lease tank storage, and even to charter the fleets of tankers which sat as floating storage off the UK coast through spring and summer 2009. 

Passive investors, for their part, lose money in such a contango market, because the oil lease contracts are rolled over from month to month at a loss to them, since they would (say) sell June delivery oil contracts which they are in no position to perform, and have to buy July delivery oil contracts at a higher price. 

It is this continuing loss to long term fund investors which funds the ‘contango trade’ of the arbitrageur traders who charter the tankers.

And what does this imply for the direction of oil prices?

There have been two outflows of passive investment from the market, firstly in September 2011 when sentiment turned in favour of T-Bills as safe haven. The second was in December 2011, following the MF Global problem.

In each case we have seen the physical market go into backwardation, and in my view the record deliveries by the Saudis may be explained by an urgent desire to sell inventory returned to their ownership at high prices before the collapse they know is on the way. 

But the exit of passive investors from the market has yet to have the effect it did in late 2008 when the price collapsed to $35/barrel from the high of $147/barrel. The reason is that the current noise and rhetoric re Iran has firstly attracted refiners, who have purchased oil forward, and possibly even prepaid, because they fear prices will rise. 

This forced up the physical price of oil in the current ‘spike’ which will further kill off demand, while speculators have poured into the market to buy futures contracts, which producers have been only too happy to sell, in order to lock in high prices and insure against a collapse. 

It is only a matter of time before this spike ends as the market turns, and at this point there is literally nothing holding the market up.

Recession reality: oil demand is collapsing:

Falling demand for products in the US and EU has seen massive closures of refineries, to the extent that some 2m barrels per day of US East Coast refining capacity has closed. In a nutshell, demand in the West is dropping like a stone. In my view much of demand in the East (if not wishful thinking and hand waving by analysts) is financial, being the building of strategic reserves and refinery stocks as a physical hedge. 

It will be seen that the effect of Prepay on the oil market has been to create a parallel financial market in ‘paper oil’ which means that most participants are completely misled as to the true state of the market. 

If my analysis of the oil market is correct, many if not all prepay transactions have been terminated in recent months as passive investors have pulled out and the market has become free again of Dark Inventory. However the oil price has been kept inflated by a massive wave of speculative buying attracted by rhetoric and noise about Iran.

If he's right, it's likely the 'Big Boys' have used time bought by the Iran smokescreen to position themselves on the other side of the oil trade in anticipation of another oil price down spike. (Perhaps that was the whole idea of the media's Iran hysteria ;-)

Their timing may be tied to Greek debt insurance and a market realization that the global economy is floundering. Oil prices fell today after Iran agreed to let international nuclear inspectors into its facilities.

If oil crashes to $75 a barrel, the lower energy costs would give a shot in the arm to consumers and save the bacon of a banking system hooked on growth --however modest-- to keep kicking the financial can down the road.

All this would also enable QE'x' with lower inflation.

Who says markets are engineered?

Ireland: Economic Fantasies and Real Solutions

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Guest: Dr. Constantin Gurdgiev  23rd Jan, 2012

Topics: 

• Anglo Bond Repayment: ECB/EU v IMF Policy position 2:00 mins
• Two questions for ECB on it's Anglo Position 4:15 mins
• The relevance of austerity 'Program Reviews' 5:30 mins
• US - UK - EU and the Liquidity Trap 8:00 mins
• Irish Gov response to the Economic Crisis 10:00 mins
• Actual depth of Irish Current Expenditure savings 12:00 mins
• The West's 'Political' economy & debt restructuring 15:00 mins
• What's the next Engine of Growth? 16:00 mins
• China Outcomes; South Korean, Asian and Euro models 20:00 mins
• Democratic empowerment and political reforms 25:00 mins

View: TrueEconomics.Blogspot.com

Occupy Houston - The 'Mouse' That Roared

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Guest: 'Mouse' - Occupy Houston Livestream Host  15th Dec, 2011

Occupy Houston's prolific Livestreamer has been with the protest for two months. He updates on latest actions and keeps viewers up to speed on breaking occupy developments across the USA.

View Photos of the camp and Occupy Houston protest actions >

Did Egypt's Revolt Really Succeed?

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Guest: Prof Paul E. Amar  11th Feb, 2011


Even as Egyptians celebrate in the streets, many outside the country are wondering: how deep run this revolution? Can it be reversed?

The answers lie in understanding the social, political and the economic factors driving the uprising - as outlined by our guest Professor Paul E. Amar, of the Global & International Studies Program, at University of California, Santa Barbara --who specializes in international security studies, political sociology, global ethnography, and gender/race/postcolonial theory.

Recent Articles by Prof. Amar on http://www.jadaliyya.com


- Why Mubarak Is Out
- Why Egypt's Progressives Win

Activists To Try Occupy Mubarak Palace Tuesday

by Fintan Dunne - Monday 31st Jan, 2011 - 11:30pm Cairo time

Street activists in Cairo have upped the ante on the Mubarak regime with a plan to march on the presidential home Tuesday to take possession of it for the people.

Speaking live on AlJazeera in Cairo late Monday Hossam el-Hamalawy, an Egyptian socialist activist and blogger said that protest groups who have occupied Tahrir Square in Cairo decided to march on Mubarak's
presidential palace tomorrow and occupy it.

The move raises the stakes on the army's guarantee today that it will not use force on protesters pursuing their rights lawfully.

It also sets the scene for a potential bloody clash between the protesters and the regime's regular and irregular security forces.

This decision by street activists may also be designed to retake the initiative by the grassroots groups who have fought the regime --vying for power with existing political groups who are reportedly gathering around the leadership of Mohamed ElBaradei.

Yesterday, ElBaradei visited the protests in Tahrir Square and media reported the emergence of an ad-hoc committee of political and grassrotts groups to negotiate with the army and form a potential interim administration.

Yesterday, activist el-Hamalawy responded to these reports by rejecting the notion that ElBaradei in any way represented the activists and by denouncing the involvement of the army in any political resolution.

As I reported on Sunday, the western establishment and their allies in Egypt are trying to exercise top-down control via the committee, while at the same time there is a corresponding revolutionary pressure coming
from the bottom up.

The stakes have just been raised in that political tussle.

Revolution Wins - Clocks Ticks for Mubarak

--Revolution in Egypt has succeeded
--De Facto Collapse Of Army Command Control
--Mubarak Regime Clock on 48hr Deadline
--Protesters Battle to Destroy Interior Ministry

by Fintan Dunne - 4:00pmEST Saturday 29th Jan. 2011

As per our call at that time, the moment the Egyptian Army was deployed on the street, marked the fall of the current Regime. The success of the Revolution is now a question of degree only.

The most telling demonstration of the current situation on Saturday evening in Egypt, is that a pitched battle with gunfire has been waged all day between protesters trying to destroy the Interior Ministry and the Regime thugs defending --yet the Army has not intervened to stop the clashes or defend the Ministry.

That is ominous for the Presidency, and an indication of the degree to which the military command is constrained in action.

The deployment of the army was a necessary step to prevent the destruction of cities after the Regime had blinked and voluntarily withdrew it's heavily pressured police forces.

But now that the army are on the streets, there is a street level common security purpose emerging between individual army units and a people hostile to the regime.

It is now impossible, de facto, for the army command to instruct the officer corps to enforce a solution unacceptable to the soldiers and people on the street. That's the Revolution's trump card.

The tentativeness of the army command is seen in the lack of a properly coherent army security response. More an army presence than an army purpose.

Meanwhile this policing and political vacuum is a ticking clock of social collapse. Therefore the army is a mere stopgap 'police' presence until a mechanism can be found to get some kind of policing re-established.
And there's the problem. Police would be attacked if deployed right now. So only a political solution with broad support would be enough to give legitimacy to a reconstituted police force.

With measurable social, institutional collapse happening already, minds are going to become very focused and pressure for a solution to emerge within 48 hrs is extremely high.

So what next?

The Regime figures are in a bubble, thinking that old rules apply. So they cannot solve this themselves.
But the elite and upper echelon in the army and civil service may soon realize that the smart move would be for the men in grey suits to go to Mubarak and hand him a plane ticket or a brochure for a retirement home.

The alternative is a lose-lose scenario for Egypt.

And as the organic osmosis of political currents now snake through the civil and military upper echelons in Egypt and the US, the attractions of the solution where Mubarak declares he is handing over all presidential powers to the Vice President should become apparent to all.

A workable political solution will emerge which has grassroots and establishment participation. Inclusiveness will be essential to solve the economic problems.

However, the US will be holding out for the maintenance of pseudo-legitimate existing political institutions and rules. They want to try prevent precedent becoming established whereby a hasty exit by the dictator is the natural solution to these Arab uprisings.

The US is playing that long game, because it expects to be in this type of situation again.

And again.

Arizona Shooter: Mad with a Bird on My Shoulder

You shouldn't be afraid of the stars...
There's a new bird on my right shoulder...
It's with one large red eye with a light blue iris.

That's Jared Loughner's most pivotal rant above. From his Internet tracks we already know he posted a lot about NASA. Now note his references above to the stars and to a new bird on his right shoulder --with one large red eye with a light blue iris.

And recall that  NASA astronauts/team wear the mission patch on the shoulder; and that Giffords' husband, Mark Kelly, will be the commander of the next generation Orion spacecraft; and that the slang for a new aircraft is a "new bird"; and observe the NASA Orion mission patch.

That patch ties in all Loughner's references: it's a new bird patch for the shoulder, with stars, one red eye and a light blue iris. And Loughner, with this strange bird on his shoulder is playing a demented Long John Silver to NASA's straight-man.

Loughner had met Giffords at least once before in 2007, had asked her a question and later told Caitie Parker that Giffords was "stupid and unintelligent." He had nevertheless subscribed to her YouTube channel.

According to Ms. Parker's tweeted comments Loughner was a liberal at the time he met Giffords. It's possible that she was less impressed with him when they met than Loughner expected. Subsequently, Loughner's politics veers away from Giffords towards the other side of the aisle. Perhaps an immature rejection anger, in his case, became mired in his deepening mental illness. Turning slowly into a homicidal fixation driven by hate and ego.

He hated the successful; hated Giffords' and her husband; hated he couldn't be a US Army or NASA hero.

His was a well-planned murder/revenge, merely masquerading as a political killing. He would strike down the successful and powerful -assuaging his hatred. To placate his beyond rational ego, his plan was a rival "mission" to NASA's Orion: his 'Pirate' mission was going to launch himself into the stars: as a new Star!

And he knew at some level it was evil. That's why he makes reference to 'conscience dreaming', instead of the proper phrase: 'conscious dreaming'. He is suppressing his conscience -which tells him his plan is evil.

In psychological terms, the bird represents the demon. And it's the bird who makes that internet posting. It is announcing that it has overthrown rationality to enthrone itself as a demon. The rest is history.

In court, ABC News said he was smirking. They're right. But not right. He couldn't help the 'smirk.' And it's not a smirk. It's the black hole of lunacy. As Loughner's mugshot clearly demonstrates. No wonder the first Wall Mart clerk wouldn't sell him an extended clip for the Glock!

What on Earth happened to the teenageer on the left below which turned him into the homicidal maniac on the right?!?

Winter From Hell? Climatologist, Peter O'Donnell

29 Dec, 2010

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Guest: Peter O'Donnell, Climatologist
A few years ago mild winters were the norm, but three harsh winters have now culminated in recent record-breaking cold in NE USA and NW Europe. A speed bump in the progression of global warming? Or does the severe cold herald a dip into a sunspot-induced mini Ice Age?

. Climatologist, Peter O'Donnell, joins Fintan Dunne to probe the weather patterns now ruling and to discuss the prospects for the winter ahead.
- http://irishweatheronline.com/
- Discussion of this audio

Flawed 'Stimulus' Logic Explained in 30 Seconds

Righthaven: Obama Ties To Copyright War Deepen

EXCLUSIVE BY FINTAN DUNNE

Bloggers already know of the association between Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and Steve Gibson. The latter's Righthaven firm has launched a legal war on websites over alleged copyright infringement.

All three worked for Chicago Law firm Sidley Austin LLP, where Gibson and Michelle Obama coincidentally specialized in copyright-related "intellectual property" law for the firm.

I've just uncovered a further Obama link to this new copyright war.

Just two weeks ago Detroit-based Dickinson Wright PLLC acquired Steven Gibson's Las Vegas-based legal firm of Gibson Lowry Burris LLP, with Gibson becoming managing partner of what is now Dickinson's Las Vegas office.

Gibson will now have as a new Dickinson colleague Patrick Miles Jr., who works with Dickinson Wright's Grand Rapids office --one of ten satellites of the parent law firm.

Miles Jr. is currently running for the Michigan 3rd Congressional District seat which Vern Ehlers is vacating. On a Monday in early June, 2010 Miles was fortunate enough to meet personally with Obama for "just a few minutes" in Kalamazoo, MI.

"It was really good to see him," Miles told the Grand Rapids Press. "It was rare to get that time to talk with him one on one, really precious."

Miles shouldn't be so coy about his ability to engage Obama's support. After all he was a classmate of Obama's at Harvard Law School, graduating in 1991. He even helped raise the tidy sum of $250,000 for the Obama 2008 Presidential campaign. They go back a long way.

Barack, Michelle, Gibson, Miles. They all go back a long way. Maybe all four should get together and shoot the breeze about... Harvard, Sidley Austin, Dickinson Wright, Righthaven and... even copyright issues, as they pertain to uppity bloggers.

Maybe they already have.

Righthaven: A Blitzkrieg War on Internet Speech

What do you call a thousand lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.

But let's begin with just three lawyers:
Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and Steve Gibson.

All three worked for Chicago Law firm Sidley Austin LLP, where Gibson and Michelle Obama specialized in "intellectual property" law for the firm. You know..... copyright law and such.

Now, in a totally coincidental move, Steve Gibson, via his Righthaven firm, has launched a salvo of legal suits demanding a payoff of $75,000 from internet websites, for alleged copyright law infringements incurred when the sites posted extracts from major media news articles.

The tactic is designed to severely damage internet free speech; and to bolster the declining fortunes of major media --while also raking in the RICO dollars for Mr. Gibson. When I say 'RICO,' I mean: as in racket.

The clever part that only a lawyer could have thought up, is that Gibson's firm first identifies news articles which have been widely reprinted in part or in full on internet sites. Gibson then buys the copyright for these news articles from a major media client. Finally, as new owner of the copyright for these articles, Gibson launches lawsuits against bloggers and websites.

The firm does not first issue any "cease and desist" notice warning bloggers that they are infringing copyright. No, step one is straight to court --for maximum intimidation and a sure shakedown.

Gibson's opening tranche of 107 lawsuits to date, features articles first published by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Now it gets chilling:

The Review-Journal’s publisher, Stephens Media in Las Vegas, runs over 70 other newspapers in nine states, and Gibson says he already has an agreement to expand his practice to cover those properties. (Stephens Media declined comment, and referred inquiries to Gibson.)

Newspaper Chain’s New Business Plan: Copyright Suits
from Wired, by David Kravets - July 22, 2010

So if Gibson gets away with this first nibble at internet websites, he can scale up to target many more websites based on articles from 70 further Stephens Media online newspapers. Theoretically this might inflate the number of websites targeted by suits to around 7,000.

Doubtless other corporate media conglomerates are waiting in the wings to contract with Gibson. All this could rival in scope the infamous RIAA music copyright issue, with likely tens of thousands of lawsuits coming down the legal pipe and striking websites of whom most would lack the financial resources to fight.

Already, the websites targeted in the first wave are settling the lawsuits, with reported payments to Gibson's firm averaging around $2,500. It's a well chosen settlement amount by Gibson. Small enough to encourage websites to settle -large enough to act as a intimidating threat.

If all this goes to plan, many bloggers and website owners will not be exercising their free speech online. They will be too busy scrambling to trawl back through their archives and delete major media articles which might make them a target. If they don't simply decommission their blogs and websites entirely, that is.

The music industry challenge to downloader's was innocuous in it's effect, by comparison to this gambit. The difference is that many of the news articles on blogs and sites are about political issues as blogger's debate the content of online political news topics. So this is likely to deeply affect the kind of open debate we have taken for granted.

Until now.

This is a war on free speech. A political war, led by a member of the Chicago legal mob who has close connections to the Obama's.

If you think it's only about money and not about politics you need to factor that the second ever Gibson's lawsuit was against the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. You might know them better by the acronym NORML.

The fourth Gibson target was Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Inc.. Other political targets of this internet witch hunt include:

Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada
Independent Political Report
Free Republic
Americans For Democratic Action
Americans For Immigration Reform
Democratic Underground
American Political Action Committee
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC
Americans Against Food Taxes
Michael A. Nystrom of DailyPaul.com

These are the opening salvos in a war on internet free speech.

One effective defensive measure by the internet blogging community would be to blacklist media outlets who join as clients with Gibson and his Righthaven firm. Another would be to ensure reputational damage to corporate media which participate. Another would be so-called 'Google Bombing' to associate such media outlets with derogatory search terms like "hates internet free speech."

Whatever it takes, must be done --and quickly. This is a blitzkrieg war, and before you know it this devious plot will have deeply damaged the cause of free speech online.

By the way, you can republish some, any or all of this article.

I won't be suing you.

Monopoly Capitalism and Defunct Marxism

The BBC recently interviewed Professor David Harvey, author of the Marxist treatise 'The Enigma of Capital.' Prof. Harvey does make one very good point about the failure of far too many capitalists to invest in socially valuable new production systems and instead investing money in money itself by means of derivatives or swaps or currency bets or other esoteric financial products. He didn't have time to elaborate why they do this, but I will.

It's because in a time of global competition, the era of easy large profits from production is long over. Developing countries now have production systems which compete with ours --and this progressively destroys the profit margin on capital for corporations. So they turned to cartel financial products to bolster their profits. We need to limit that.

But Harvey's Marxist analysis is otherwise vague and unconvincing. He made one telling admission in part 2 of that BBC interview :

"Capitalism has been a very productive force in history"
--David Harvey @ 5minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4amK0zFskAk&feature=related

And he was unable to cite any Marxist society which could compare to Capitalism in terms of the social improvement it offers. So where does that leave his advocacy of Marxism? I think he is unable to break out of the box of his background.

But there is a solution. And it comes from putting some easy assumptions under a microscope and examining them. Let me quote the Youtube blurb which accompanies this BBC interview :

"Capitalism is the way the world works, whether we like it or not. President Obama is trying, against stiff opposition, to reign in the worst excesses of free market capitalism with his reforms of Wall Street. But Professor David Harvey, Marxist author of The Enigma of Capital says he's wasting his time. He tells Sarah Montague that capitalism is amoral and lawless, and should be overthrown."

The phrase "the worst excesses of free market capitalism," trips off the tongue very easily, but it contains unspoken assumptions. Within capitalism, what is the opposite of "free market capitalism"?

Un-free market capitalism. Or to put it another way: Monopoly Capitalism. Which is increasingly what we have. I've said before that a free market is a great idea and we should try it! But people use the words 'free market' as if a fully free market exists.

I would argue that it is the "Free Market" aspect which has produced many of the benefits, not the Capitalism part. Capital has to do with the control of capital by banking and financial systems. If there is a free market, then it is the 'company' which utilizes that capital most effectively -in terms of organization and end product- which triumphs, to the benefit of all.

Of course, if banking and financial systems only provide Capital to a well-connected elite, then such productive companies may not arise. May not be allowed to rise. So in the first instance we must attack these cozy cartels of vested interest of capital access and application.

Then, presuming a level playing field of access to capital, there must also be a free market where these 'companies' can openly compete, free of unfair regulatory or legal systems. Such unfairness does exist.
For example when an existing monopoly uses either government or legal connections to target an upcoming more productive competitor.

Another term in that blurb is: "capitalism is amoral and lawless."

Yes, capitalism has become stunningly lawless, and Harvey is right to highlight that. But capitalism is by definition amoral, so it's startling to hear a professor of macroeconomics even say that.

I mean that morality is inapplicable. If a company comes up with a new carburetor and if car companies like that product and install it in many cars --causing other carburetor makers to go out of business, the capitalism by definition doesn't care.

People who worked for those now defunct carburetor makers can join the new carburetor company, or start up their own and beat the new carburetor with an even better design. And we all end up with better carburetors.

Capitalism is amoral, rather it is the "lawless" aspect of our current situation which should be the target of his criticism. The moral issues are for us to decide by taxation, or social support, or limits to profit, or other tweaking of the downside of any system.

But Harvey doesn't want to admit that bolstering the rule of law in markets and making moral adjustments to Capitalism is the way forward. Because he is determined to replace the structure with another: Marxism.

The two things we need are:

1) A free market in access to capital -not banker and corporate cartels.

2) A free market in sale of product -not bailouts and corrupt judges.

It suits the establishment to have this debate. To interview Harvey is to make it look like the only solution to our problems is overthrow of capitalism for an unworkable Marxist alternative. So because most
people don't buy Marxism as a solution, it makes it look like there is no alternative or solution at all.

There is:

The rule of law. The end of cartel monopoly capitalism.