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Today's
Stories
January 3,
2008
Pam Martens
The
Free Market Myth Dissolves into Chaos
January 2,
2008
Jeff Taylor
The
Left and Ron Paul
M. Shahid Alam
The Life and Death of Benazir Bhutto: a Pakistani Tragedy
Gary Leupp
Madness Compounding Madness: Calls for Intervention in Pakistan
Paul Craig Roberts
Criminals with Badges
Heather Gray
Georgia's Racist Death Penalty
Fred Gardner
and Shobhit Arora
Dr. Strangelove's Nemesis
David Macaray
Labor Unions and Taft-Hartley
Benjamin Dangl
Fear and Loathing in Bolivia
January 1,
2008
Iain A. Boal
City
of Disappearances
B. R. Gowani
Benazir's Death in Crisistan
Shahid Mahmood
Bhutto and the Press
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Old Injustices Endure: From Crack Sentences to Racial Profiling
Harvey Wasserman
Taking Leonard Peltier to Iowa: the Moral Low Point of the Clinton
Era
John Ross
2008, Already a Year to Forget
Website of the Day
The Thrill is Gone: BB and Gladys
December 31,
2007
Alexander Cockburn
Goodbye
2007 and Good Riddance!
Tariq Ali
Pakistan, the Aftermath
Liaquat Ali Khan
The Perfidy of Pakistan's Rulers
Wajahat Ali
After Bhutto, a Nuclear Pakistan?
Robert Fisk
Who Killed Bhutto?
Ajai Sahni
Myths and Realities About Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan's Dark
Future
Marwan Bishara
You Say Talk, I Say Attack: The Middle East and the US Presidential
Election Campaigns
Uri Avnery
The Beilin Syndrome
Mark T. Harris
Does This Happen in Canada?
Brenda Norrell
Resistance and Censorship
Website of the Day
A People United Will Never Be Defeated
December 29
/ 30, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Options
in America: Kill Yourself or Have a Baby
Tariq Ali
Indignation and Fear Stalk Pakistan
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
My Encounter with Benazir Bhutto
Gary Leupp
The U.S. and Pakistan After 9/11: Blowback from an Unholy Alliance
China Hand
Pakistan Stares Into the Abyss
Jacob Hornberger
Stop Medddling in Pakistan
John Chuckman
Pakistan and the Failure of Quick-Fix Politics
Missy Beattie
Evaluating Bush with the Bhutto Corruption Standard
Ralph Nader
Who Will Take the Next Step?
Fidel Castro
There Hasn't Been a Day in My Life When I Haven't Learned Something
Robert Fantina
The Sham of Homeland Security
Greg Moses
Beauty from the Heart of Texas
Catherine Lutz
What We Can Not See: Art and Bombing
Kristin Van
Tassel
Seeing in the Dark
Kim Nicolini
Redacted: Brian DePalma's Scream of Outrage
Phyllis Pollack
Keith Richards Runs With Rudolph Once More
Poets' Basement
Landau, Gibbons and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
Driving Karachi in Search of the Perfect Naan
December 28,
2007
Farzana Versey
The
Complex Electra
Wajahat Ali
A
Pakistani Requiem
Binoy Kampmark
Death in Rawalpindi: Bhutto and Her Legacy
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
Not Dead Yet: The Pakistan People's Party Still Survives
Anthony DiMaggio
Turkey's Bombing of Iraq
Ray McGovern
Creeping
Fascism
Jim Goodman
Biofuels, the Biggest Scam Going
Ron Jacobs
Transcending the Colonizer's History: Iran, a People Interrupted
Russell Hoffman
Mini-Nukes by Toshiba
John Murphy
Greens Gone Wild
Website of the Day
Guiliani Campaign Official: "Only Rudy Can Defeat the Muslims"
December 27,
2007
Dilip Hiro
A
Tragedy Foretold: Will Bhutto's Death be a Boost for Her Party?
Murtaza Shibli
Who Killed Bhutto?
Stephen Soldz
Fallujah,
the Information War and U.S. Propaganda
Bill Quigley
Locked
Outside the Gates
Paul Craig Roberts
The Great American Lock-Up
Omer Subhani
Killing Bhutto: What Happens Next in Pakistan?
Marjorie Cohn
The Torture Tape Cover-Up: How High Does It Go?
Allan Nairn
Cataclysm By Money Whim
Jacob G. Hornberger
Smearing Ron Paul: Shame on the NYT
Norman Solomon
Channeling Suze Orman
Patrick Irelan
Rumsfeld Spills the Ink
Ben Tripp
Pass the Razor Blades
Website of the Day
Quagmire, For What It's Worth
December 26, 2007
Charles Tripp
From
One Saddam to Fifty
Paul Armentano
No-Knock, You're Dead
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon in Search of a Government
Stanley Heller
Brzezinski and Charlie Wilson's War
John Walsh
Two Unreasonable Men
Martha Rosenberg
The Strange Career of Scott Gottlieb
Norman Madarasz
Bolivia Amends New Constitution and Faces Mutiny from Within
Website of
the Day
Cockburn at the Battle of Ideas
December 25,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Conscience
and Empire
December 24,
2007
Andrea Peacock
A
Dark Ride on the Border
Tariq Ali
Thinking of Edward Said
Uri Avnery
Help! A Ceasefire!
Jill Jameson
Burma is Not Back to Normal: A Trip from Rangoon to Mae Sot
Steve Melendez
Russell Means Goes to Washington
Mike Whitney
The Big Fix
Chuck Munson
Not Getting It About New Orleans
John Walsh
Clueless Crusaders
Farzana Versey
Tony Blair and the Hawking of Religion
Richard Neville
Dreaming of a White House Christmas
Website of the Day
Back in the USSR
December 22 / 23, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Mike
Huckabee's Ascending Chariot
Ralph Nader
Politics
and Profits: How the Oil Cartel Gets Its Way
Andy Worthington
Intelligence Failures, Battlefield Myths and Unaccountable Prisons
in Afghanistan
Ahmad Faruqui
The Comedian of Pakistan
Bill Moyers
Society on Steroids
Rev. William
E. Alberts
Blessed are the Peacemakers
Timothy J. Freeman
From Kant to Lennon: Can War Really be Over?
Anthony DiMaggio
Democrats Continue to Capitulate on Iraq
Fred Gardner
Molecule of the Year, Cannabiodiol
Paul Krassner
Enhanced Hazing Techniques
Seth Sandronsky
17 Years of Meanness: Repealing California's Three Strikes Law
William Loren
Katz
Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters: Recalling the Battle of Lake
Okeechobee
Michael Dickinson
In the Dungeon of the Zabita
Ron Jacobs
Why Leon Russell Still Matters
David Vest
Doyle Bramhall's "Is It News?"
Poets' Basement
Orloski, Davies and Ford
Website of the Weekend
George W. Hates Santa
December 21,
2007
John Ross
New Massacres Loom in Mexico
Jacob Hornberger
Nothing Can Morally Justify the Invasion of Iraq
Dick J. Reavis
A
Way Out of the Newspaper Abyss
Jeff Cohen
and Norman Solomon
The 2007 P.U.-litzer Prizes
Peter Morici
Business as Usual as Recession Looms
Jack McCarthy
Let Us Now Praise Judith Regan (Even If She Did Sleep with Bernie
Kerik)
Raúl Zibechi
Sex and Revolution
Steve Early
How the Presidential Candidates Made Me an Atheist
David Macaray
Union Aftermath
Patrick Bond
Zuma, the Center-Left and the Left-Left in S. Africa
Lakota Freedom Delegation
A Declaration of Independence from the USA
Website of
the Day
Solomon v. Beck: Tale of the Tape
December 20,
2007
David Rosen
Mitt
Romney's Secret Life as a Pornographer
Alan Farago
The
Huckster and the Wreckage: Jeb Bush and the Subprime Mortgage
Crisis
Laura Carlsen
Standing Up to NAFTA
Ashley Dawson
The Return of the Bread Riot
Wayne Smith
and Jennifer Schuett
Cuba Changes, US Policy Stagnates
Website of
the Day
How to Talk to a FoxNews Reporter
December 19,
2007
Saul Landau
Is
the NIE Bush's Watergate?
Paul W. Lovinger
Hillary the Hawk
Norman Solomon
The Mad Corporate World of Glenn Beck
Dave Zirin
George Mitchell's Drugs of Choice
Marjorie Cohn
Bush Still Spinning Iranian Nukes
Sen. Russell
Feingold
The Iraq War is Exhausting Our Nation
Sonja Karkar
A Christmas Reflection on Palestine
Anthony Papa
Open the Drug Gulags
Christopher Ketcham
Pave the Holy Lands with Good Intentions
Davey D
Britney's Little Sister is Pregnant: Should We Blame Hip Hop?
Website of
the Day
When Republicans Use the F-Word on TV
December 18,
2007
R. F. Blader
The
Politics of Teen Pregnancy
George Wuerthner
Gunning for Wolves in Idaho
Steven Higgs
Can the NAFTA Superhighway be Stopped?
Vijay Prashad
Encounters with Ghadar
David Macaray
The Free Rider Problem
Ralph Nader
Nine Books That Make a Difference: a Reading List for the Holidays
Eva Liddell
Privatizing War Abroad, Invading Privacy at Home
Martha Rosenberg
While the Bodies are Still Warm: Drugs, Shrinks and Shooters
Dave Lindorff
When Impeachment is Out of Print
Peter Morici
The Consequences the Trade Deficit
Website of
the Day
Ron Paul: How Fascism Will Come to America
December 17,
2007
Mike Whitney
Staring
Into the Abyss
Tom Barry
Planning
the War on Immigrants
Uri Avnery
A
Gaza Masada?
Greg Moses
Crossing the Line in Texas
Allan Nairn
Terrorism; Counter-
Terrorism: Excuses for Murder
Patrick Bond
South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers
Stephen Lendman
Police State America
Charles Jonkel
Grizzly Right of Way
Laray Polk
An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza
Stephen Fleischman
Pawns in Their Game
December 15
/ 16, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
People's Penny for the Magna Carta
Howard Zinn
Bomb After Bomb
Standard Schaefer
The Greening of Big Tobacco
Raymond J.
Lawrence
Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas
Alan Farago
Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine
Saul Landau
Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists
Jenna Orkin
Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the
Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up
Ahmad Samih
Khalidi
Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct
Robert Fantina
Politics By Photo-Op
Missy Comley
Beattie
Resistance Amid the Ruins
Ramzy Baroud
Of Mormons and Muslims
James L. Secor
A Vision for China's Future
Elijah Wald
Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten
Website of
the Weekend
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support
December 14,
2007
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him
John Ross
Iraqi
Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax
Jacob Hornberger
Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened?
Allan Nairn
"Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes
Dave Zirin
The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners
Dave Lindorff
The First Cut is the Deepest
Misty MacDuffee
Toxic Grizzlies
Ben Terrall
What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine?
Dr. Mustafa
Barghouthi
Prerequisites for Peace
Website of the Day
Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"
December 13,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Shrinking
the Dollar from the Inside-Out
Mike Whitney
Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding
Ron Jacobs
Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy
Norman Solomon
The USA's Human Rights Daze
Peter Morici
The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch
Sandy Mayes
Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia
Franklin Lamb
The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling?
Jacob Hornberger
Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It
Nadim Rouhana
An Interloper in My Own Land
Dave Zirin
On Pigskin and Petrol
Website of the Day
Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support!
December 12, 2007
Allan
Nairn
US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian
Phones
Alan
Farago
How Sprawl Eats Its Young
Ray
McGovern
Torture, Lies and Videotape
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts
Evan
Jones
The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell
Doom for the US Farm Belt
James
Petras
An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers
Joel
Hirschorn
The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine
Joshua
Frank
Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention
Sherry
Wolf
Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul
Dan
Bacher
Survey of a Fish Graveyard
Website
of the Day
Men Eating Bugs
December
11, 2007
Patrick
Cockburn
What's Really Happened During
the Surge?
Diana
Johnstone
The Next Kosovo War
Paul
Craig Roberts
It's Waco All Over Again: Preventive Detention and the Constitution
David
Macaray
Impasse in Hollywood
Ralph
Nader
Gail Collins Versus the Underdogs
Andy
Worthington
Guantánamo Britons to be Released: a Mixed Result
Martha
Rosenberg
No Holiday for High Risk Sex Workers
Steve
Champion /
Anthony Ross
Words for Our Brother, Tookie Williams
Kim
Nicolini
Tangled Up in Dylan
Michael
Dickinson
Say Goodbye to Purgatory: Pope Rat Gets Indulgent
Website
of the Day
A Charming (and Worthy)
Pitch
December 10, 2007
Uri
Avnery
How They Stole the Bomb From Us
Debbie
Nathan
The Perils of Journalism and Child
Porn
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Is There a Left Here Left?
If So, What Can It Do?
Steve
Kelly
Cheap Chips, Counterfeit Wilderness
Donna
J. Volatile
Welcome to the Revolution
December
8 / 9, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Coup Against Bush and Cheney
Brenda
Norrell
Seize the Land, Chain the Peace Activists
Saul
Landau
The Ruins of Empire
R.
F. Blader
A Rape in Every Drink?
Ray
McGovern
Spinning Iran's Centrifuges
Allan
Nairn
Imposed Hunger in Gaza, the Army in
Indonesia
Linn
Washington, Jr
Spotlight on Death Row
Paul
Craig Roberts
When Will Bush Come Clean?
December
7, 2007
Sean
Penn
Piano Wire Puppeteers
Arthur
Versluis
Mining Water in the Desert
M.
G. Piety
Racism and the American Psyche: Some
Thoughts on Race and Intelligence
Pam
Martens
Banksters Gone Wild
Alan
Farago
Will the Free Market Kill Suburbia?
Sprawl and the Credit Crisis
Allan
Nairn
It Takes (Out) a Village
Col.
Dan Smith
Bush, Iran and the Politics of Doomsday
Alice
Slater
The Iran Opening
Robert
Weissman
The Story of Stuff
Website
of the Day
Something
About Mitt
December
5, 2007
Mike
Whitney
Why the CFR Hates Putin
Sharon
Smith
The Anti-War Enablers: Tom Hayden
and the Dead End Democrats
James
Petras
Venezuela in the Aftermath
Ron
Jacobs
The Iran Charade
Dave
Zirin
Kicking a Dead Man: the Sliming of Sean Taylor
John
V. Whitbeck
Two States or One? Time to Choose
Peter
Zinn
Covered in New Orleans
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Impeach Pelosi Instead
Alan
Farago
The Credit Bomb Detonates in Florida
Heather
Gray
US Meddling in Australian Politics
Website
of the Day
A Donner Summit Night Before Xmas
December
4, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Jackboot State Stubs Its Toe in
Ann Arbor
Andy
Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme
Court
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Lies at the End of the American
Dream
Ray
McGovern
No-Nuke Iran
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Admiral Mullen and the Defense Budget: When White Elephants are
Too Small
Allan
Nairn
The Regime Still Stands in Burma, Where "the People Just
Want Food"
Russell
Mokhiber
The USA v. Al Arian
Nikolas
Kozloff
As Chávez Falters: Raising the Stakes for the South American
Left
John
V. Walsh
Peace Movement Paralyzed
Ghada
Ageel
Will Peace Cost Me My Home?
Stephen
Soldz
The Facts be Damned!: Psychologists' President Defends Psychologist
Involvement in Interrogations
Website
of the Day
Hands Off the People of Iran
December
3, 2007
Tariq
Ali
Venezuela After the Referendum
Bill
Quigley
New Orleans: Bulldozers for the Poor,
Tax Credits for Developers
Eric
Walberg
The Bible and Middle East History
Uri
Avnery
After Annapolis
Marjorie
Cohn
Operation Iraqi Freedom Exposed
Dave
Lindorff
Vengeance Isn't Sweet
Stephen
Fleischman
Homeless in Paradise
Martha
Rosenberg
Perp Walks for the Mink Clad on Chicago's Mag Mile
Website
of the Day
So Just Lead!
December
1 / 2, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Emblems of the Bush Age: Adrift
in a Sea of Booze
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Bear Minimum: the Grizzly and
the Future of the Rocky Mountain West
Mike
Whitney
"Iraq Doesn't Exist Anymore": an Interview with Nir
Rosen
Shemon
Salam
A Visit From the FBI
Roger
Burbach
The Battle in Bolivia
Benjamin
Dangl
New Politics in Old Bolivia
Brian
M. Downing
The Quiet on the Middle Eastern Front: How Much Credit Goes to
the Surge?
Greg
Moses
Night of the Living Redneck: a Texas Horror Story
Sonja
Karkar
The "Never-Never" Peace Conference
Saul
Landau
Ethics and Evil in South Boston
Margaret
Kimberley
Black America Left Behind
John
Ross
What are the Prospects for a New Mexican Revolution?
Reza
Fiyouzat
Exit on the Left: When Che's Children Visited Iran
Judith
Scherr
Berkeley Turns Right for the Holidays
Lance
Olsen
Of Forests and Finance: Logging for the Wealthy
Christopher
Brauchli
Mr. Bush and the Despots
Robert
Fantina
Iraq as U.S. Colony
Dan
Bacher
Fish Triage on Prospect Island
Michael
Donnelly
Remembering How to be Human: John Trudell and the Music of Urgency
Website
of the Weekend
Appalachian Voices
November
30, 2007
Peter
Stone Brown
The Re-Packaging of Bob Dylan
Wajahat
Ali
The Volatile Mistress: an Interview with Javed Jabbar, Pakistan's
Former Minister of Information
Allan
Nairn
Cold-Blooded Celebrity: Thomas L. Friedman and the Bali Bombers
Alan
Farago
The Sorrows of Suburbia: Politics, Sprawl and the Housing Crash
John
Ross
The Death of Latin America's First Revolution
Corporate
Crime Reporter
America's Corporate Crime Capitals
Lucia
Alvarez
Diego Gonzalez
Argentina's Political Future
James
Rothenberg
The Iraqi Miracle
Website
of the Day
Bio-Bling?
November
29, 2007
R.
F. Blader
The Most Dangerous Kind of Bribe
Ismael
Hossein-Zadeh
Distorting Fascism to Demonize Iran
Stephen
Soldz
War on the Couch: Fear, Aggression and Empire
Sheldon
Richman
Iraq 3.0
George
Wuerthner
Forest Fires, Lies and Chainsaws
Felice
Pace
Did All Things Considered Self-Censor on Annapolis?
Col.
Dan Smith
The Meaning of Annapolis
Harvey
Wasserman
Terror Target Nukes
Nikolas
Kozloff
Primetime Hate Debate: Lou Dobbs, Immigration and Campaign '08
Paul
Krassner
Huffington Post Bloggers Go On Strike!
Dave
Lindorff
News Not Fit to Print: US Coup Planned for Venezuela?
CP
News Service
The One State Declaration
Website
of the Day
A Native View of Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
November
28, 2007
James
Petras
CIA Destabilization Memo Surfaces
on Venezuela
Jeff
Halper
Annapolis: When the Roadmap is a One
Way Street
Pam
Martens
Crashing Citigroup
Peter
Morici
Economy in Crisis: Avoiding a Recession
Mohammed
Khatib
Separate and Unequal in Palestine
Helen
Redmond
The Horror and the Hope: Health Care in America
William
S. Lind
In the Fox's Lair: Quiet Before a New Iraq Storm?
Ben
Tripp
We, the People: a Trope for All Seasons
Liaquat
Ali Khan
Pakistan: First, Restore the Constitution and Reinstate the Judges
Jeff
Berg
Holbrooke Says Bush Won't Attack Iran
Website
of the Day
The Lies of Joe Klein
November
27, 2007
Joe
DeRaymond
On the Road to the Torture School
Paul
Craig Roberts
Meet the Only Two Candidates Worse Than Bush and Cheney: Hillary
and Rudy
Marjorie
Cohn
Remembering Victor Rabinowitz
Mike
Whitney
A Dollar the Size of a Postage Stamp
Ron
Jacobs
The Myths of Military Progress
Col.
Dan Smith
The Pentagon's "People System" Still Doesn't Work
Ralph
Nader
Family Learning
Karim
Makdisi
Annapolis and the Unholy Alliance: the View from Beirut
Christopher
Ketcham
Memo to Hollywood Writers: Strike Until You Drop
Ronan
Bennett
Martin Amis Does a Coulter
Website
of the Day
Celebrating the Uncensored Media
November
26, 2007
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Heading for Annapolis
Paul
Craig Roberts
The End of All That
David
Macaray
Enter Mediator
Sameer
Dossani
Pakistan's Wounded Dictator
Roger
Burbach
The Final Battle in Bolivia
Mark
Scaramella
Guns and Greed in the Emerald Empire
Brian
McKinlay
Howard's End
Rick
Kuhn
The Fall of a Racist Union Buster
Binoy
Kampmark
Ruddslide and Dull Alec
Monica
Benderman
What Do You Know of War?
Brenda
Norrell
Return to Alcatraz
Website
of the Day
Ghostworld by DJ Spooky
November
24 / 25, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Ordeal of Catherine Wilkerson,
MD
Robert
Fisk
Darkness Falls on the Middle East
Saul
Landau
Norman Mailer will Not R.I.P.
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Justice Stephen Breyer, Cancer Bonds and the Origins of Neoliberal
Environmentalism
Rannie
Amiri
Beirut's Black Friday
Christopher
Brauchli
Iraq Embassy as Gilded Palace
Daniel
Gross
The Gap and Black Friday
Mike
Whitney
"A Generalized Meltdown of Financial Institutions"
Marjorie
Cohn
Iran and the 2008 Elections
David
Rosen
Senior Sex: the Real Sexual Life of Aging Americans
David
Michael Green
If Conservatism is the Ideology of Freedom ....
Kenneth
Rexroth
When Euripides Played the Hindu Kush: Greeks and Buddhists in
Afghanistan
Muhammad
Iqbal
Trans. Shahid Alam
Ghazal
Website
of the Day
Aerial Footage of Delta Fish Kill
November 23, 2007
Gary
Leupp
Killing the Buddha in Pakistan's Swat
Valley
Laura
Carlsen
Coming to Terms with Diversity in
Bolivia: an Interview with Alvaro Garcia, Bolivia's VP
David
Macaray
Keeping Labor Unions Out
Andy
Worthington
Former Guantánamo Detainee Seeks Asylum in Sweden
Clifton
Ross
Trashing Chavez: Keith Olberman's Toxic Rant
Seth
Sandronsky
Battling Sodexho
Dan
Bacher
Death in the Delta: Thousands of Fish Stranded by Bureau of Reclamation
William
A. Cook
The Myth of Middle East Peace
Website
of the Day
Waiting for the Guards: Stress Techniques as Torture, a Short
Film
November
22, 2007
Alan
Farago
Who Lost America's Everglades?
Greg
Moses
A Thanksgiving Basting
Dave
Lindorff
Impeachment is Back on the Table
Mike
Ely
Native Blood: the Myth pf Thanksgiving
Omar
Azfar
Gore for President of Pakistan?
November
21, 2007
Vijay
Prashad
Our Dictator, Their Democracy
Martha
Rosenberg
Undercover at a Turkey Slaughtering Plant
Manuel
Garcia, Jr.
Epiphany on the Glacier
John
Ross
The Last Days of Mexican Corn
Brian
McKenna
Cancer Terrorists Unmasked
Stephen
Soldz
Isolation Torture Routine at Guatánamo
Monica
Benderman
Needing Peace
Ben
Terrall
Slavery in the Fields: The Real Price of Sugar
Website
of the Day
Mercy for Animals
|
January
3, 2008
How Wall Street
Evolved from a Trading Epicenter to an Offshore Manufacturer
of Black Holes
The
Free Market Myth Dissolves into Chaos
By PAM MARTENS
With each new revelation of multi-billion
dollar losses from the largest Wall Street firms, there has been
this nagging question as to how these Masters of the Universe
got stuck with these massive write-downs. Isn't Wall Street
supposed to execute trades for others; not build huge inventories
of toxic, non-trading securities for themselves?
Given that these big Wall Street
players now own some of our largest, taxpayer insured, depositor
banks (courtesy of a legislative gift from Congress called the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act) and the Federal Reserve is shoveling
tens of billions of our dollars into some very big black holes,
common sense might suggest that Congress would be holding public
hearings. These hearings might shed light on how Wall Street
has, under the cloak of darkness, mutated from a trading venue
to manufacturing and warehousing exotic concoctions registered
offshore.
So far, Congress has shown
only cursory interest in the details. The Bush administration
is spinning the mess as a subprime mortgage problem lest the
public figure out that a $1 Trillion unregulated market has blown
up under the free market noses of this administration.
Collectively losing $70 Billion
in a matter of months with projections of ongoing losses climbing
to as much as $400 Billion globally sounds like serious trouble
to me. And, it's very uncharacteristic of Wall Street to lose
billions of its own money.
Typically, they know long before
the general public that a bust is coming (because they are the
ones who sowed the seeds for the bust) and dump their losses
on less knowledgeable market participants, usually the small
investor. Since they are now stuck with mega losses themselves,
wouldn't that have to mean that they are the least knowledgeable
market participants?
Before we break out the bubbly
over Wall Street finally getting a taste of how it feels to be
mauled, reflect on what it might mean to average Americans if
the least knowledgeable market participants own the banks that
hold their savings, money market, car loan, credit card, mortgage;
and these firms' stocks are loaded up in 401(k) plans.
The first clue to the mega
losses is a three letter acronym, CDO. That stands for Collateralized
Debt Obligation; a financial instrument so convoluted that even
veteran business writers are having difficulty getting their
brains around it.
A good analogy to visualize
a CDO is the episode of the sitcom Friends where Rachel
tries to make an English trifle for dessert on Thanksgiving.
She puts in the requisite layers of custard and jam but when
she turns the cookbook page to continue the recipe for the layers,
she is unaware that the pages are stuck together and she completes
the dessert with the recipe for Shepherd's Pie. The final product
is an indigestible concoction of multi layers of custard, jam,
ground beef, sautéed peas and onions.
English trifles are typically
served in a clear glass bowl to show off the exquisite layers.
Wall Street prefers opaque pottery for its CDOs.
From 2002 through 2006, big
manufacturing plants run by the largest Wall Street firms, along
with some smaller players, churned out CDO trifles in the cumulative
amount of over $1 trillion; half of that was pumped out in just
2006.
The recipe was quite flexible.
Layers (called tranches on Wall Street) could consist of student
loans, credit card receivables, auto loans, commercial or residential
real estate loans, subprime mortgages or corporate loans. Layers
could also be highly leveraged bets on indices (Synthetic CDOs)
or pieces of other CDOs (CDOs squared). Beginning in 2003, a
growing percentage of CDOs were assembled with just one asset
class: residential mortgages; frequently using subprime mortgages
and home equity loans as the predominant collateral.
While the layers were being
assembled, the pieces sat in what Wall Street calls its warehouse
operation. Once the CDO was assembled in the opaque pottery
bowl, only the whipped cream was showing at the top. The rating
agencies, Standard and Poor's, Moody's and Fitch gave the indigestible
concoction a AAA rating based on that whipped cream. That the
rating was requested and paid for by the issuer of the CDO was
no trifling matter, as future events would expose. Even as the
ground beef and sautéed peas (junk debt) began to rot
in the underlying layers, the concoction maintained its AAA rating.
(Only in 2007, after think tanks began to expose the chicanery
and markets began to seize up did the rating agencies begin to
downgrade the ratings.)
Five years went by with the
so-called "efficient market" stumbling around in the
darkness of fantasy ratings, failing to ponder the obvious questions
about these AAA instruments. Questions, such as:
How could a layered concoction
of questionable debt pools, many of dubious origin, achieve the
equivalent AAA rating as U.S. Treasury securities, backed by
the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, and time-tested
over a century of panics, crashes and the Great Depression?
(Despite the political rogues that come and go in Washington,
we, the American people, show an inordinate and historical willingness
to suffer fools and still pay our income taxes for the greater
good of our fellow citizens. It doesn't hurt either that, in
most cases, the tax is removed from our paycheck before we get
it.)
How could an opaque instrument
made up frequently of more than 100 hard to track pieces be safe
enough for pension funds, insurance company funds and, disguised
as commercial paper, stashed to the tune of over $50 billion
in Mom and Pop money market funds?
How did a 200-year old "efficient"
market model that priced its securities based on regular price
discovery through transparent trading morph into an opaque manufacturing
and warehousing complex of products that didn't trade or rarely
traded, necessitating pricing based on statistical models?
There was at least one research
analyst that was more curious than Congress as to how Wall Street
got stuck with these CDOs on their books:
Citigroup conference call,
November 5, 2007:
Mike Mayo, Deutsche Bank
analyst: "...I
mean $43 billion of CDOs. And, excuse me, when were these structures
established?..."
Gary Crittenden, Citigroup
CFO: "...In terms
of the -- so the positions, the warehouse positions have obviously
been accumulated over -- the super senior portfolio positions
have been accumulated over time. As I mentioned earlier on the
call, the $25 billion that was effectively the liquidity puts
really came on during the course of the summer. So this really
happens in two different time periods..."
Merrill Lynch conference
call, October 24, 2007:
Mike Mayo, Deutsche Bank
analyst: "And
how did you wind up with such a large concentration [of CDOs]
in the place?..."
Stanley O'Neal, CEO [now
retired]: "...Why
do we have such a large position in the first place? We made
a mistake. There were some errors of judgment made in the businesses
themselves and there were some errors of judgment made within
the risk management function and that is the primary reason why
those exposures exist."
This kind of bobbing and weaving
and ducking and speaking gibberish is why we need Wall Street
under oath in a Senate hearing room.
The Citigroup translation goes
like this: we've been buying the AAA-rated super senior tranches
all along because we were told by the physics brainiacs that
these securities were walled off from losses by over collateralization.
Our pat answer for how we got $25 billion of CDOs back on our
balance sheet this summer is going to be a "liquidity put."
We are standing by the position that we gave our buyers the
right to "put" the securities back to us without losses
under certain conditions. (How that complies with securities
laws banning guarantees against losses has yet to be addressed.
How one can make an arms length sale of a security and still
be contractually bound to take it back on the balance sheet has
also not been addressed. Stockbrokers would lose their job,
livelihood and licenses if they used this defense. This raises
the additional question of regulatory passes for the privileged,
another serious contributor to inefficient markets.)
Stan O'Neal's answer on behalf
of Merrill Lynch is, on its face, very humble and simple: mistakes
were made; errors of judgment. Recent articles, however, have
raised suspicions that Merrill was not only holding the AAA tranches
because they thought they were safe from losses because of over
collateralization, but was also making hedging bets against the
very subprime debt they were selling to customers; in other words,
Enronomics: heads I win, tails you lose.
The danger with Alice in Wonderland
securities concocted by the invisible hand of a rigged machine,
is that all it takes to start a panic is for some sober looking
types in scholarly garb to step into the public square and yell
"the Emperor has no clothes!"
This is exactly what happened
on February 15, 2007. Joseph R. Mason, associate professor of
finance at Drexel University's LeBow College of Business and
researcher Joshua Rosner, delivered a paper at Hudson Institute
that laid bare the preposterous notion that one could indefinitely
put lipstick on a pig (as they liked to say during the dot.com
mania) and call it a AAA security. As the working paper found
its way into the hands of Gretchen Morgenson at the New York
Times and her article appeared three days later, the fireworks
factory began to smolder in lower Manhattan, eventually igniting
showy global displays throughout 2007. There was a run on a
bank in London for the first time in 140 years, bankrupted hedge
funds on Wall Street, insolvent mortgage lenders across the U.S.,
bailouts of money market funds by premier financial institutions
and over a half trillion dollars of a liquidity infusion by the
European Central Bank. There was also unprecedented help from
the U.S. Federal Reserve in terms of cash infusions and back
channel chats. But, by far, the most serious damage is the lingering
distrust between the largest Wall Street trading firms which,
unfortunately, also own banks. No one trusts each other's solvency
so interbank lending has seized up.
Mason and Rosner made a prophetic pronouncement in their paper:
"The growing investor
acceptance of CDO structures has been supported by rating agencies'
willingness to rate these assets. Unlike other assets that rating
agencies rate, these assets are subject to considerable market
risk, a risk which rating agencies do not claim to be able to
effectively rate...Because many buyers of senior CDOs can only
hold investment grade assets they may continue to hold deteriorating
and increasingly illiquid assets as long as their ratings have
not been downgraded. Because the market is OTC [over the counter],
investors may incorrectly value these assets in their portfolio
and be forced to recognize large mark to market losses in a fast
moving, liquidating market...."
J. Kyle Bass, managing partner
at Hayman Advisors, framed more of the problem to the House subcommittee
on Capital Markets in testimony on September 27, 2007:
I will tell you why and how
regulators completely missed the epic size and depth of the problem
in the credit markets today. An important concept to appreciate
is that each securitization is essentially an off balance sheet
bank...However, the securitization market has no Federal and
State banking regulators to monitor its behavior. The only bodies
that provide oversight or implicit regulation are the NRSROs
[rating agencies] -- bodies that are inherently biased towards
their paymasters, the securitization [Wall Street] firms.
Without sufficient oversight,
this highly levered, unregulated, off balance sheet securitization
market and its problems will continue to have severe ramifications
on global financial markets.
Efficient markets need transparency
and alert cops on the beat. Why is that so difficult to achieve?
Because opacity and rigged markets produce the desired goal
of enriching the one percent who now own 44% of the wealth of
the nation. This one percent, in turn, keeps Congress on a short
leash by holding the purse strings to campaign funding.
Wall Street is a two-sided
market. The Wall Street firms' losses were another party's profits.
Until we know where and how these profits were booked and the
details of how the losses occurred, we are choosing to be the
idiots of crony-capitalism. We are choosing to hand our country
over to the robber barons.
Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years;
she has no securities position, long or short, in any company
mentioned in this article. She writes on public interest issues
from New Hampshire. She can be reached at pamk741@aol.com
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