"Dirty Money" Foundation of U.S. Growth and Empire

[Doug Henwood]

Gregory Geboski wrote:

>Once it's on the books in a "legitimate" institution, or invested in 
>a "legitimate" enterprise, is there any reason to expect "dirty" 
>money (talk about your relative terms under capitalism) to have any 
>special characteristics that would allow it to be distinguished from 
>"legitimate" capital? Why would "dirty" money have to be balanced by 
>"dirty" money?

Didn't say it had to. But the demand for imported drugs and other 
contraband wouldn't appear in the numbers. So saying that the inflow 
of dirty money on the capital account helps finance the (presumably 
legit) deficit on the current account assumes there's no dirty 
current outflow to finance. The dirty books could balance completely 
separately from the "clean" ones (leaving aside the fact that while 
money comes with blood on its cheek, capital comes dripping blood 
from every pore...).

Doug