Nationalize This!
We (the world) have a big problem, Namely that the global economy is crumbling. That crumbling started, and was facilitated by, an ideology that markets (including financial markets) are self-regulating. It is a fundamental belief in laissez faire capitalism. However, the ideology combines with the ranking of corporations as fictive "individuals" and therefore that they should be protected from the intrusion of government in their affairs.
The former belief ties to Adam Smith's theory of the "invisible hand" of capitalism. In its contemporary iteration, this means that people (including the fictive ones) will function within their own self interest, and that self interest includes "regulating" themselves against long term harm.
Over the last quarter of a century, this ideology has been converted to policy and practice. We have seen the removal of regulating mechanisms in the United States. We have seen the tacit, and sometimes explicit, orders for regulators to either look the other way or to accept the self-reports of corporations as fact. We have also seen the creation of global economic system that is focused on placing control in the hands of corporate and monied interests that know no borders.
Certainly in my lifetime, there has been no "invisible" hand. However, there has been one where that hand is deliberately obscured. In other words, every effort has been made to make the markets invisible.
Alan Greenspan, who was Chairmen of the Federal Reserve from 1987 - 2006, played a significant role in institutionalizing this ideology. Therefore, it is significant that in his prepared October 2008 testimony before the Senate Committee on Government Oversight and Reform he stated:
As I wrote last March: those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief.
Under questioning regarding his "mistake," Greenspan replied:
I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organizations - typically banks and others - was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders. (see 16 sec YouTube clip below)
This "mistake" by Greenspan and many others (neo-conservatives and neo-liberals alike) have led us to a situation which is far from "hitting bottom." George Soros stated that:
"We witnessed the collapse of the financial system," Soros said at a Columbia University dinner. "It was placed on life support, and it's still on life support. There's no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom."
Soros was attending the Columbia University 6th Annual Conference on Emerging from the Financial Crisis Friday, Feb. 20, 2009, sponsored by the Center on Capitalism and Society. Present were other economic luminaries, including Paul Volcker (one of Obama's economic advisers) who admitted "Even the experts don't quite know what's going on." The article also reports:
Volcker stressed the importance of international cooperation in creating a new regulatory framework, particularly for major banks that operate across national boundaries -- the reverse of what's happened in recent years.
In fact, the "experts" are saying "nationalization is the only way out." Therefore, as the stock market declines on fears of nationalization, Obama (and his spokespeople) are announcing that nationalization is not on the table.
Each "expert" points to the sub-prime mortgages as the root of the problem. This is a shorthand for saying a lot of things. Many people are still holding onto the image of undeserving homeowners running a scam on mortgage lenders to get loans they could not afford. In other words, potential lendees scammed lenders. This is clearly not what happened. However, it explains public resistance to Obama's mortgage bailout plans. The reality is that it is the people who got scammed, and that this entire collapse was manufactured. I highly recommend reading Are YOU Listening, Rick Santelli? at Talking Points Memo, where the author details the housing situation (and collapse) in California. She states:
The harsh reality is that the financial community is to blame for not putting a halt to the sale of over-priced homes by just not writing mortgages on them. Not because there was something wrong with prospective homebuyers, but the home sale was flawed. How do you justify inflating the cost of a home by more than 200% in 5 or 7 years? How do you knowingly write a loan for that house? They did it because they could sell confusing mortgage products to customers in need of housing. And it would make the lenders loads of easy money.
Which brings us to the ongoing claim that "toxic assets" are at the bottom of the economic collapse. What is being implied is that the "toxic assets" are the foreclosed (and foreclosing) properties. What is reality is that we are dealing with "toxic investment" which leveraged mortgages and markets to defraud and exploit people receiving mortgages. The "toxic assets" we are acquiring are the leveraged investments. Therefore, the primary benefactors of the bailout, as with the "bank" bailout, are "toxic investors."
In April 2007, MarketWatch reported "Mortgage crisis to hit holders of risky derivatives." In June 2007, Gillian Tett, writing at the Financial Times penned:
When Anthony Bolton speaks, bankers quiver. Last month the highly influential Fidelity fund manager took a sideways swipe at "cov-lite" loans, arguing that these instruments (which lack traditional covenants protecting investors) pointed to a world where liquidity had gone mad.This week, he laid into collateralised debt obligations, arguing that these instruments contained significant "risks" - and thus could create losses for naïve investors further down the road. Whether this claim is correct remains to be seen (unsurprisingly, many bankers do not agree with this assessment). But if Mr Bolton is even partly right, it begs an interesting question: namely if these instruments do end up producing losses, exactly who would be hit?
Well, we are beginning to see the "who," yet big money continues to be poured into the pockets of those who manufactured the investment schemes.
I support nationalization; however, not nationalization of the banks. If we are going to nationalize something it should be the properties themselves. Take the banks (and investment firms) clear out of the picture. The government should step past the miscreants and renegotiate the mortgages directly with the homeowners. Let the government be the mortgage bank. Sound, and community oriented, credit unions and community banks can serve as the intermediaries. They have a vested interest in the community, and are more easily accountable to it - and to the government.
Leave the toxic investors in the cold - not the victims of their avarice and the tax payers present and future.
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Of Related Interest
Soros Sees No Bottom for World Financial "Collapse". Pedro Nicolaci da Costa and Juan Lagorio. Reuters. 2/21/09.
Greenspan backs bank nationalisation. Krishna Guha and Edward Luce. Financial Times. 2/18/09.
Experts: Nationalization Is Only Way Out. Michael Gray. NY Times. 2/15/09.
Obama tries to halt talk of bank nationalization. Ben Feller. Business Week. 2/20/09.
Volcker sees greater international cooperation on regulations growing from economic crisis. Eileen Connelly. Newsday. 2/20/09.
Mortgage crisis to hit holders of risky derivatives. Alistair Blair. MarketWatch. 4/02/07.
Collateralized debt obligation. Wikipedia.
Market insight: 'Risky' CDOs remain alluring. Gillian Tett. FT. 7/05/07.
Gillian Tett: 'Derivative Thinking'. Economic Dreams - Economic Nightmares. 6/01/08.
2/22/09 Reuters, EU leaders back oversight, tax haven sanctions
Greenspan Concedes to `Flaw' in His Market Ideology (Update2). Scott Lanman and Steve Matthews. Bloomberg. 10/23/2008.
Prepared Testimony of Alan Greenspan - Committee on Government Oversight and Reform 10/23/2008 (pdf)
I've been saying the very same thing about providing relief directly to the homeowners since last fall. Nobody is listening. They are all caught up in trying to prop up a patient that is dead and cannot be revived.
February 22, 2009 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is no "homeowners", it's a fiction. It's not even a uni-modal statistical ensemble.
Face facts. Homeowners took trillions of dollars from investors and used them to prop up a weak economy which then sailed over a cliff like the Coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons.
This is the one and only fact you need to know (about the fundamentals).
Really. It IS that simple.
Yes, CDOs and CDSes etc. are probably corollary factors. No, they don't account for the fundamental problems. The government should step in a break private contracts which violate the public interest. This means -- no money to gamblers or crooks, no messy derivatives. Investors took their risks. Let them eat their losses and sue other private parties (banks, ratings agencies, brokers, homeowners, ...) in civil court.
February 23, 2009 2:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I support nationalization; however, not nationalization of the banks. If we are going to nationalize something it should be the properties themselves. Take the banks (and investment firms) clear out of the picture.
How? Most of the properties are now securities, Good loans and bad loans have been bundled together into assets. The owners of the securities are institutions throughout the world. How do you only nationalize the properties without involving the banks? Do you take the properties and just declare the existing mortgages nullified (which would wipe out institutions worldwide) or does the government take the properties and continue paying the mortgage revenue stream while renegotiating with the homeowners (this would mean rewarding the banks for their bad behavior).
The only fair solution that prevents world wide financial meltdown (and as bad as it is, it could get much much worse) is to take over the banks and wipe out the management and shareholders, and then turn to repairing the toxic assets (which at this point is about to include Commercial real estate securities, credit card securities, student loan, etc.). Asset prices worldwide are deflating, Supprime was just the canary. Just about everything might be toxic with the coming cascade of bankruptcies.
I think Will Rogers once said, "When Wall Street has a nightmare the whole country has to help get them back in bed again" The only thing that has changed is that now it is the whole world, rather than just the country. The financial system is the circulatory system for our whole world economic order. If we choose to just let it stop then the world goes into cardiac arrest. The only inevitable solution will be nationalization.
February 22, 2009 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems to me that physical property has been transformed into "securities" and "assets." In other words, something "real" has been redefined into something "unreal" whose value is no longer tied to anything "real" but rests in the "mood of the market."
People needing a place to live is real. Land and homes are real. The "market" floats on a sea of speculation and exploitation.
I have argued elsewhere that we have a global problem needing global approaches. Increasingly, the economic gurus are saying the same thing. I don't know if we can (in one fell swoop) step between the "market" and the dead body of mortgage investment. I do believe that we can restructure the flow and strengthen local economies - refoot the economy from "Wall Street" to "Main Street."
February 22, 2009 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
We certainly agree on the worldwide need to reboot the economy towards main streets. I am just not sure if we are ready to overthrow the whole system.
I think the transformation of something 'real' (that being the tangible property) into the 'unreal' occurred much earlier, with the invention of titles- but that is a philosophical inquiry. Despite some gross inequities and the unfortunate confusion of money with progress I think on balance we have been better off with a system that allows for immediate acclimations of capital that can be paid for over time.
Rather than scraping it just yet we need to reform it. End laissez faire and return to a mix social capitalism. Bankers have historically been boring and conservative, they should be again. Curb the power of rampant speculation, Bring back some serious oversight, progressive taxation, externality pricing, and ramp up spending on community and social safety nets.
However seeing a few heads roll would be nice to.
February 22, 2009 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is a canard:
"People needing a place to live is real."
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/rowanwolf/2009/02/nationalize-this.php#comment-3385632
I don't know why the government cannot simply nullify CDO contracts (MBS etc) it deems to be against the public interest, and take over 2-4 million mortgaged properties. I'm not saying we should, only that this is an option. The problem is, what do we do with them?
If the properties are vacant (I read that something like 1.8M were just months ago) that means there really isn't a big demand. Those people must have found other places to live for the time being, for instance.
February 23, 2009 3:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
There may be demand, but 1) the available housing is not where the people are, or 2) people cannot afford the vacant housing, or 3) some of that housing has become inhabitable.
February 23, 2009 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where is your evidence of significant unmet demand for housing?
Where is your evidence for significant local anomalies (people needing housing but not able to find it at all)? I don't mean, "People want to live in McMansions," demand. I mean real demand.
How would you begin to "reboot" from WS to MS?
I'm not arguing that paper assets are more real, btw.
February 23, 2009 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry for the confusion. I was trying to say that vacant property does not NECESSARILY mean that there is no demand. I was pointing out some possible reasons why there may be vacant housing.
I have not done the research on the various housing regions to attempt to determine the what and why of vacancy rates. Likewise, I have seen no reports that would substantiate that vacancy rates indicate there is no demand.
I suspect that at least part of the vacancy is the million plus properties in foreclosure, and that people just walked away from.
February 24, 2009 12:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
The federal government simply refinances existing mortgages which payoff the old loans. But they do so directly, without using the same culprits who brought all this on as the intermediary and thereby denies the banks any part of the cut and/or any bundling in the future.
February 22, 2009 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish that was possible, but you would simply just be buying all the toxic assets at full market value from the bankers/investors (in most deals there is no direct option, check out I posted (link below)). But that is sorta what the government is doing through Fannie and Freddie, but if we did every mortgage in trouble you're talking trillions.
However, at this point the bad assets causing the banks to be insolvent are much more than houses (GM for example). The world's heart stopped pumping. Thats why Volker is so freaked (and he knows a thing or two about recessions). Thats what Soros is saying.
Nationalize the banks, wipe out the shareholders, and put a stake through the heart of Ayn Rand and the Chicago school.
February 22, 2009 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nationalize the banks, wipe out the shareholders, and put a stake through the heart of Ayn Rand and the Chicago school.
Yes kill all the monsters!! Vampire ideologies must die just like Zombie Banks need to. Then start from scratch, go to Plan B, which is as far from Friedman, Hayek, Rand and the Chicago School as possible.
February 23, 2009 12:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Most people could afford their mortgages if they were at a rate that made them affordable. The government could lend money even at 3 or 4% and be making money off the deal and also transforming currently toxic assets into good ones. Not in all cases, but in enough to make a significant difference.
February 23, 2009 12:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not arguing against helping out good homeowners, I just know that to be effective it would be a huge amount of cash and that it would reward the banks.
I also have come to the conclusion that I don't agree that the country is better off with more people owning homes. I just don't think we should be subsidizing ugliness and nimbyism while penalizing renters.
I'm with Ellen, let em rent.
February 23, 2009 2:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Directing one's ire at those who find themselves int rouble is not really appropriate. Sure, some people got into mortgages there was no way they could pay. That is not the cause of the mortgage crisis. Unemployment and the unanticipated decline in home values has caused far more of the problem than most people appreciate and certainly far more than "irresponsible" borrowers.
Many who could afford their mortgages and intended on refinancing or selling were caught in the value decline and their strategy tanked. Almost none of them were in a position to anticipate what occured and many had relied on the advice of those who were supposed to be knowledgeable in the financial industry on developing their strategy. Many were snookered and taken in and encouraged to borrow what they could afford as long as the economic picture remained as it was. Was it stupid of them? Perhaps in hindsight it can be labeled so, but it wasn't terribly apparent to the average borrower at all and so we can't say they were knowingly or intentionally irresponsible.
For those who lost their jobs it's obvious that doesn't make them irresponsible. Without being able to quickly find a new job that paid comparably to their old ones, many people have lost their homes despite their very best efforts. For those who are trapped because of current economic conditions and cannot either sell or refinance, it makes plenty of sense to have the government directly finance mortgages as it does through some programs anyway, and as it did during the depression. This would not wipe out the mortgage crisis problem but it would certainly stop the hemorraghing and set the stage for recovery.
It's quite apparent that assisting the banks is a futile effort and a complete waste of money that doesn't do anything to fix the problem of people who can no longer afford the homes they live in. Every mortgage in the country that could be refinanced at a low fixed interest rate by Uncle Sam would help ameliorate the mortgage crisis and also instantly make trillions of consumer dollars available for spending to stimulate the economy.
Unlike the bank bailouts where we taxpayers get nothing in return for the billions we pump into them, a direct mortgage program creates an actual return for the investment the government makes and benefits the people who are going to have to foot the bill in the end: all of us. Some means of dealing with the difference between what homes were worth before and what they are worth now would have to be put in place, but the bulk of that could go on the banks who made the bad loans or be split with the government on some basis that is workable. More and more experts are coming around to the conclusion that this is the only way we're going to stop the freefall in the mortgage crisis which has caused all these other horrific economic negatives to go into play.
Continuing to help the institutions and people who caused the problem is the worst possible choice. I hope the Obama administration figures that out sooner rather than later.
February 23, 2009 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I don't have any ire at the homeowners. None. In fact I will confess that I bought a home with a subprime mortgage (that I later converted). The deal was too good to be true, but I took the risk and I got out in time. I am not without sin, so I do not cast stones.
I am not arguing against some renegotiation. I frankly think it is too late to really stop the bleeding. Home prices need to stablize at reasonable rates people can afford at reasonable interest rates. But yes there are a number of good people who weren't as lucky as me, go ahead help them out. I just don't support a blank program- its too much money and will reward the banks, besides 40% of defaulted mortgages are investment properties (see quinn's comment in my last blog for source links). So even if you help the all the good people, you are not going to stop home prices falling. We need to just stablize at bottom, which I bet will be around 40% below market peaks. Sucks to be me.
I don't agree that homeownership is a sacred holy right that is inherently positive. In fact, I think owning a house is a pain in the but chains a lot of people down. People do it because we have this collective myth that it is this great thing. I don't agree. I also think think suburbia is an incredible misallocation of resources on a colossal scale. Freeways, stripmalls, big box stores, and sup prime mortgages are the price we pay for 60 years of blind devotion to the holy grail of homeownership.
Why? We should stop penalizing renters and treat all of us equally. Again I have nothing against poor people, I just have nothing against renters.
Unlike the bank bailouts where we taxpayers get nothing in return for the billions we pump into them
My point regarding the financial system is simple. It is the circulatory system of the world. If you kill it, then the world collapses. Period. If you really think that is what we need to do then fine, just realize the ramifications. Our financial assets are in institutions from Kiev to Pudong, and vice versa. Businesses from Microsoft to the drycleaner on the corner rely on those institutions functioning. To let the banks go down without an orderly transition (and yes capital) is suicide.
This does not mean I want to reward the bad guys. I want to nationalize to ensure orderly transition. But I also want to wipe out the owners, fire the management, and drag the bonus people into court. You know, engorgement, justice.
February 23, 2009 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like your idea. It may be almost unworkable, given that as I understand it every mortgage got bundled lots of others and then they were cut up and rebundled, like somebody making muffins and selling them individually. So each muffin holder has only a piece of a mortgage - unless I totally misunderstood the process. But I'm all for the solution in any case!
February 22, 2009 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
If anybody is interested I just posted a fun animated video explaining the Credit Crisis
February 22, 2009 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the positive tenor and forward thinking on this post. I fully agree that it is time for solutions. I just don't want the solutions to take us back to the same place we are in. As far as I can tell, the effort seems to be dedicated to get the exiting system back on the track. If the world is going to spend trillions of dollars on something, we had better not spend it on a "correction."
February 22, 2009 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I, for one, am reducec to trusting the trustworthy posters here. How I determine that (trustworthiness) is a trade secret! But you've qualified!
February 22, 2009 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am "reduced" - even if I don't always proofread!
February 22, 2009 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm honored.
February 22, 2009 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I confess I do share your fear that we are not thinking outside the box enough. We need to dramatically rework system so that it helps society. We can't keep perpetuating the myth speculator capitalism, or the immoral idea that greed is intrinsically good. It is only good if the outcomes are good. I was only arguing that I am not sure if we are ready to blow it up yet, which if we killed the banks is what would happen.
In the theory of Moral sentiments Adam Smith wrote that in a society if all the wealth is concentrated and owned by only a small number of people, then it will not be stable. He also argued about the paramount importance of individual (Christian) conscience in all actions, without which his invisible hand would not work. He considered this work to be his masterpiece and the Wealth of Nations to be an addendum. Today we have striped both the morality and the common sense away from the system he described. We should replace it.
Someone once asked me the question: "what would it take for you to join a revolution?" I suppose I think that we still have a lot of good things in our system that are worth saving, but the juries still out.
Excellent post and a great collection of links.
February 22, 2009 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Each "expert" points to the sub-prime mortgages as the root of the problem.
I put a blog up the other day with a link to a state legislator who is working on this problem. http://www.mlive.com/business/mid-michigan/index.ssf/2009/02/state_rep_andy_coulouris_propo.html
In the article is a comment from a grassroots level person talking about the realities. I quote:
The ideas being discussed here at TPM and all over the place are good...I'm glad there is talk. Discussion is part of the process. But, talk is just talk and there comes a time when the walk has to begin. The road won't be smooth...
There are gonna be roadbumps from folks like the one quoted above. If the lenders have all the say so, nothing will get accomplished. Everybody is gonna see a problem, everybody is gonna put up barricades, everybody is gonna have some little piddly thing to nitpick and in the meantime....
I haven't studied how nationalizing financial institution works so I don't want to give an opinion out loud where I'd get flogged. I just know people are getting pushed out of their homes when most of them are trying their best to work in good faith with their lender.
Really, it's time to take off the kid gloves. If the 'experts' agree what the root cause is, then it's time to come down hard with the hammer. The sub-prime lenders played with matches. They got burned. Take the matches away from them before they burn down the whole damn country.
February 22, 2009 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know child Flower of mine. You are a lot brighter than I look.
February 22, 2009 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
When Obama said that there would be incentives for banks to work with folks, my first response was "we'll see." I keep hearing ads and road babble that "banks have nothing to gain from foreclosures." It seems to me like how we got into this mess was them selling mortgages up the line. From that point they really didn't seem to have a vested interest in whether a mortgage worked or not.
Am I missing something here? Are these banks ones who played derivatives roulette?
February 22, 2009 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rowan. Next time try to document things better. I putting together a book on this. Of course it will contain only your writing and cites.
Thanks for your support.
Oh and you are hereby awarded the Dayly Knightly blog of the day, given to all of you from all of me.
The only thing I really know about toxic assets is that Goldfinger wanted to nuke Fort Knox.
By the way this blog and the comments are awesome.
February 22, 2009 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I DO try to provide sources. In part because of the academic/teacher in me, and in part because it drives me nuts when folks refer to things and I spend hours trying to find where they are getting the info. (The corporate media is renowned for this) Early in my blogging career I got (rightfully) nailed for not checking where an assertion came from. In going back and checking I found that the source I had used had actually misstated what their source had said.
Also, I have more experience being trolled :-( than engaging in civil dialog.
And from all of me to all of you, I return the intellectual hug.
February 22, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
However, the ideology combines with the ranking of corporations as fictive "individuals" and therefore that they should be protected from the intrusion of government in their affairs.
Behold the root of the problem.
In fact the reason we are in the mess we are is because corporations 'first amendment rights' of buying politicians with large monetary donations to them or their parties. It is legalized bribery masquerading as 'free speech' protecting the nonexistent rights of fictive 'individuals'.
February 23, 2009 12:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree - partially. One of the things that radically undermined the power of the people was the transformation of Political Action Committees which shifted the power to highly paid industry lobbyists.
February 24, 2009 12:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
We have a systemic condition that will only be resolved by isolating the regulators (congress) from the regulated (pick whatever sector of commerce you wish). In the current scheme, the regulators and the regulated act as one. This is an impossibly conflicted arrangement.
Congress, first and foremost has to represent individual citizens. If you want to express this in total federal tax dollar terms, we currently have federal tax revenue from individuals being in the 84% range and taxes from business in the 16% range. Yet legislation more frequently favors the numerical minority. This, in fact, has been a major contributor to the current mess.
Anyone, public or private, who is unwilling to acknowledge this as a thoroughly flawed arrangement is either clueless or a liar or both.
February 23, 2009 5:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
.
Hello ... Rowan
I took some time last Friday and researched a little bit of your background. You've had a very interesting if not a somewhat unsettling adventure upon life's path... You seem to have acquired from your adventure a strong ability and deep desire in attempting to see the whole picture from top to bottom and left to right. Makes for a good professor of Sociology.
What started me off on my research of your background was a post here at the Cafe that you had posted two weeks ago. And that post is directly related to your opening of this current post...
Here is what really caught my attention in your previous post:
That particular point that I have highlighted in your post caused me to sit straight up and see the whole picture of these "toxic derivitive instruments" much more clearly.
I'm not suprised but it does amaze me that only one person commented at that post.
I advise others to read her entire post.
Economic "Stimulus" Considerations
I am happy to see that this current post has brought about a healthy discussion of your opinions and the opinions of the members here at the Cafe.
Thanks for taking the time to visit here.
~OGD~
February 23, 2009 6:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hi OGD,
Thanks for taking the time to research me, and to read "Economic Stimulus Considerations." I know in my own effort to try to make sense of the global economic collapse, it was that piece of information that made clear to me that nations trying to throw a life vest on the problem was not going to work. Further, doing any digging at all on the larger debacle leaves one screaming at most of the corporate reporting on this - and our politicians as well.
I think that part of the reason the "bigger picture" is not discussed and explained is because then they would have to tell people just what economic globalization means. It may take them a while to spin that story into a bright fairy tale.
Complex problems do not always require complex solutions.
February 23, 2009 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink