Some good news hidden in the virus crisis

Sam Smith – Even in the worst of times, some good news may be hidden in the disaster. In the case of the current virus, we can find an example in an unlikely place: money The virus has removed some of the fiction from our monetary mythology. We have discovered – at least temporarily – …

Brighten things up with a new America

Sam Smith - Okay, we get it. Trump is mentally unstable, cruel, incompetent and dishonest. But if we only talk about Trump & Co, we will end up with a singularly depressive image of our land and its people. I know it's easy to do. Hell, I've been doing it myself, but increasingly I've been …

What liberals have ignored for decades

Sam Smith – Philip Bump last month presented some poll figures that tell a lot about where America is but which have gotten little attention. Examining the average of recent surveys, he found that the only groups that supported Trump by a significant margin were Republicans and whites without a college degree. Whites as a …

Taking on the corporate myth

Sam Smith, 2011 - The right has successfully convinced people that multinational corporations operate in the same way as your friendly neighborhood druggist. In fact, it is hard to find examples where the former even slightly replicate the latter. Yet this myth is perpetuated not only by politicians but by the media. In fact, large …

The true costs of Reagan and extreme capitalism

Sam Smith, 2004 - Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of that remarkable moment when this country began to turn its back on values that had sustained it throughout its first two centuries - values that included balancing power and wealth with concern for, cooperation with, and compassion towards others in the community we …

How the corpocrats are killing our culture as well as our economy

Sam Smith It’s becoming more widely understood that America’s corpocracy has badly damaged the middle class, greatly weakened the labor unions that helped create it, grossly diverted wealth to the top of society, overpaid its executives and underpaid its employees, hidden its profits in tax free offshore havens, transferred large number of jobs to other …

The real World War III: Corporations vs. nationhood

Sam Smith The recent IMF loans to Ukraine with their dictatorial provisions are one more example of the world’s concealed great war, which is to say the massive invasion of nationhood by corporations. Far more dangerous than any current military threat, corporations have already taken huge territories, legal and financial as well as geographical. Our …

The Sterling case and the Green Bay Packers

Sam Smith - My weekly appearance on the Mark Thompson Sirius XM Show (Mondays 8pm Channel 127) was entirely occupied last night talking about the Donald Sterling case, mostly in conversation with listeners. My argument in part was that we gave too much attention to individual incidents like this and not enough to the culture …

How’s your GDP today?

Sam Smith As previously noted in this journal, it’s fortunate that economists discovered money before they discovered defecation. If they hadn’t, we would have a truly gross domestic product. Economists, like lawyers, MBAs, and Common Core test tyrants have been trained to view life through limited factor lenses. There are a number of problems with …

How to help the economy without spending any more money

Sam Smith The way America wastes the most money in the least time is by fighting stupid wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. To be sure, wars do boost the economy but far less than if the same funds were used domestically - on public works and other projects that would have a continuing multiplier effect …

What Washington cab drivers know about free markets that politicians, economists and journalists don’t

Sam Smith Whenever I hear some pompous, politically adulterous politician talk about “free markets” - or some puerile pressie cite them as the dominant economic force in America, I think of the taxicabs in which I rode during most of my many years in Washington. One thing I’ve learned about free markets in America is …

Free markets, enslaved minds

Sam Smith One of the myths of the economaniacs is that everything in life is a function of how money is used and who uses it. To be sure, it was, as previously noted here, fortunate that economists discovered money before manure or we would be faced with a Really Gross National Product and our …

Making the victim pay for the crime

Sam Smith Add Obama's budget to numerous actions at the state and local level and one thing is clear about the current fiscal crisis: the victim is going to be made to pay for the crime and most of the perps will either get off free or actually come out ahead. The media and pols …

The BP economy

Sam Smith There is no reason not to be angry with BP and its CEO Tony Hayward, but contrary to most news reports, the oil spill is far from the greatest catastrophe of the moment. It is vastly outweighed by an economic spill that will kill far more people, destroy far more of their jobs, …

THE REAL CAUSE OF INFLATION

Sam Smith Did you know the soda I bought yesterday at a convenience store cost $19.90? Or that it costs you about $13,000 to drive your car? Or that the property tax on what you thought was a modest home is $17,000? How did I reach such figures? The same way politicians and the media …