Here is a very fast overview of how Wall Street and Organized Crime profit “legally” and without regard to the public interest. Click on logo itself.
Wall Street: bribe Congress to pass deregulation and ensure that Goldman Sachs remains in control of the US Treasruy regardless of who is President. Use information asymmetries and data pathologies to play the individual investor for the fool that they are, believing in what Michael Lewis called “Liar's Poker” in his 1980'sbook. Ride Initial Public Officerings (IPO) by manipulating the starting price, riding the hike, and then passing all the inflated stocks and the attendant risk to the individual investor. It's called “exploding the client”
The NYT article today addresses one means by which Goldman Sachs in particular has profited at taxpayer expense. On the organized crime side, as one of the Mafia chiefs said on his way back to Italy after serving a long prison sentence, “Nothing happens without both the Vatican and the politicians (local to national) general approval.” (as recollected). Moises Naim in his book ILLICIT (see our review) estimates that organized crime is $2 trillion a year “business” on top of the $7 trillion a year “legal” business. Someone else has calculated that bribes to government officials world-wide total roughly $1 trillion a year, which suggests a very equitable split between those who steal and those who allow the stealing in return for bribes to look the other way and NOT protect the public interest.
The Journal of Public Intelligence is committed to helping the public create public intelligence in the public interest. While the New York Times has been helpful in providing the above story, it is two decades too late. they knew this long ago, but as with most stories (such as informed opinions against going to war against Iraq) the management of the New York Times repressed stories. They only “break” stories now after they come out on the Internet–hence, public intelligence must press for more “citizen journalism” and more collective intelligence applied to all activities affecting the commonwealth of publics. See True Cost Meme under the Honour Society.
