“We make or break human life every day of every year as probably no other force on earth has ever done in the past or will ever do again.”

The above rather dramatic quote comes courtesy of one Davison L Budhoo, a former International Monetary Fund economist who, in 1988, broke ranks with the Fund, publishing a scathing 150-page resignation letter. In it he accused the organization of corruption, self-interest and deceit.

The World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) is the most important source of development finance for the world’s poorest countries. A new round of finance is supposed to support goals such as inclusive growth, gender equity, and climate resilience. With an ill-devised proposal to increase IDA support for large infrastructure projects, including new mega-dams on the Congo and Zambezi rivers, the World Bank risks undermining these noble goals.

I hesitate to post this, because this is where many people get stuck, and then suppose that austerity is a good thing or that OMG (the hair on fire brigade) they accept the nonsense propaganda that even BHO has accepted entirely. Taxation of the wealthy is only a small part of the solution, and by the way the wealthy ARE NOT JOB CREATORS. 70 % OF NEW JOBS ordinarily come from small businesses. The actual wealth distribution is a political choice that has been made for us by the corruption of our political process and culture.

Readers, Vanity Fair every so often publishes great articles relative to economics and fiscal policies. This article is perhaps a measure too ironic for many people to notice, but it is a solid piece of real economics, a'la political economy. It also develops a very accessible description of economic "rents" which I will probably paraphrase for a new Re-Imagining trifold. "Rents" are all about how economies are structured, privatized and not. I am still doing related writing work with my awake time and then also dreamtime. Some interesting possibilities popping up locally.

This is the second part of my discussion of N. Gregory Mankiw’s column asserting that governmental competition is desirable for the same reason that private competition is. Mankiw was Chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors from 2003-2005. He was one of the principal architects of the perverse incentive structures that proved so criminogenic and drove the ongoing financial crisis.

LOUISIANA SUES BANKSTERS UNDER RICO LAWS: Will the Biggest Banks Finally Go the Way of the Gambinos?

It’s about time. One state has finally found the guts to go after the banks that created the MERS monster, invoking RICO laws.

Yes, MERS was part of a vast criminal conspiracy by the biggest banks (including the GSEs) to cheat counties out of property recording fees and to speed foreclosures while destroying the Western property law tradition.

It seems America’s bankers are tired of all the abuse. They’ve decided to speak out.

True, they’re doing it from behind the ropeline, in front of friendly crowds at industry conferences and country clubs, meaning they don’t have to look the rest of America in the eye when they call us all imbeciles and complain that they shouldn’t have to apologize for being so successful.

Over the weekend, Fitch -- the major rating company that, with its fellow majors, Moody's and Standard and Poor's, dominate the business of assessing the riskiness of debt instruments -- took a highly publi­cized step. It downgraded the credit-worthiness of the sovereign debts of many European countries. What a spectacle! These rating companies were dis­tinguished by their laughably inaccurate (to be ex­tremely polite) assessments of the risks associated with asset-backed securi­ties. Those assessments contributed to the economic crisis we are living through.

Dear Readers, thanks to the Google alerts utility these three articles were brought to my attention. This is a four part series, and the fourth piece has not be published yet. It is from a somewhat different viewpoint though kindred to the MMT/FF perspective. I'm being held hostage by a clutch of local trolls that are perpetrating a seemingly endless project of mischief. It seems to be a local reflection of the same sort of pernicious nonsense, as has been perpetrated by the financial and political trolls who have captured our process of governance. for now, Tadit Anderson

I write this column as I am flying home from presenting a keynote address Friday to the 32nd annual Burgenstock Meeting (now held in Interlaken, Switzerland). The Burgenstock meeting is one of the top international meetings on financial derivatives and attracts a mixture of senior regulators, market participants, and a scattering of academics. I changed the presentation I intended to make entirely in order to respond to Thursday’s famous Thursday keynote presenter, Dr. Hummler, the head of the oldest private bank in Swizerland. Dr.