Rupert Murdoch and the Invisible Hand Job of Capitalism
Someone let Rupert Murdoch free on Twitter again.
Libor ” scandal” very suspicious. 2008/9 huge crisis and Brown should defend pressure to keep rates down and prevent meltdown.
Don’t know, but suspect Diamond scapegoat used by old establishment who did not like energetic competitor.
So one of the richest and most powerful businessmen in the world–and the owner of America’s premiere business newspaper–considers the way the banks gamed a key market measure a scare-quote “scandal.” This newsman appears to suggest Gordon Brown (a man who has been trashing Murdoch relentlessly of late) should get out there and defend having his government tell Barclays to lie about how healthy it was, all to prevent a meltdown.
Nevermind the municipalities who got robbed in the process. Nevermind that the practice of gaming LIBOR started before the crash and reportedly continued after the danger had passed.
Rupert Murdoch appears to want to defend what Simon Johnson, cataloging the business press acknowledging what a big deal lying about LIBOR is, calls “Lie-More as a Business Model.”
I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. After all, some of Murdoch’s most important properties, starting with Fox, thrive on lying as a business model. But at a time when even the (British, at least) business community is finally awakening to what happens when the banksters reveal the “market” is just a bunch of really rich white guys operating behind a curtain, Rupert Murdoch is doubling down on lies.
I suppose it should not be surprising that as they spiral down different parties will be traveling in opposite directions at some points in time.
Someone keeps pointing out that Johnson is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The weapon of Wall street was opacity, and interest rate swaps were a key product. Between securities borrowing that brought down the Harvard endowment, and the swaps that have stolen money from non-profits across the world, it is a wonder the banksters don’t own everything three times over already.
Someone keeps pointing out that Johnson is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
And he seems to be the only one associated with Pete Peterson’s many funded outfits who actually tells the truth about things.
Wonder if Murdoch’s “populism” —energetic competitor versus old establishment pose— is going to hold out as long as he needs it to. Maybe he should sell it along with the press branch.
The characterization of the market as a “bunch of really rich white guys hiding behind a curtain” raises interesting questions about the meaning of the term “free market”.
Perhaps many here have seen this over at Dayens’s news blog:
Now if true, this ordinarily would weaken a case that, per Murdoch, Barclay’s was responding to Brownian pressures on the matter, but I’m sure that instead, Diamond’s credentials as a solid gentleman of impeccable discretion, in declining the free opportunity to lay the whole thing off on the Murdoch-deranged Gordon, are bolstered thereby.
@Phil Perspective: Peterson has a broad spectrum of horses in his stable, and Johnson’s 18 month tour at the IMF is another sign.
I haven’t read 13 bankers, but I suspect anyone who is not shouting how the U.S. government, all three branches, have not been deeply captured by the likes of Peterson.
There are financial markets in many countries and all of them have frauds, we just don’t hear about them. But not even all recent American/Western financial market frauds were white males – Raj Rajaratnam is a Tamil American, Gupta and Kumar are from India, Tai Nguyen is Vietnamese, Martha Stewart is female, and so on. But yes, there are a lot of basic white guys, too.
@tjallen: Yeah, I realize a lot of the guys–still mostly guys–behind the curtain are not white.
THough one of the reasons Raj got busted is because they suspected him of funding terrorism–aka, he’s not white.
@emptywheel: Probably some consider the people I named above to be white guys, even Raj, who is, uhm, dark. What does it take to be a “white guy” ? This whole area is a minefield, bound to offend someone; and even trying to be wry or funny making generalizations about one’s own group will bother some who are in the group and some who feel left out. I didn’t intend to offend anyone with my comments above.