April 06, 2009

“The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government”, says Simon Johnson, a chief economist with the International Monetary Fund in 2007 and 2008. In an article entitled “The Quiet Coup” in the May, 2009 issue of the Atlantic magazine he (with James Kwak) goes on to say that “if the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S.,

It would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform and if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time”.America is in financial crisis but instead of the financial oligarchy being broken up to permit essential reform they are continuing to use their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed immediately to pull the economy out of its nosedive.