[lbo-talk] Barbara Ehrenreich Loses Her Mind

[Jim Straub]

I happen to be reading that right now, actually.  It is an awesome book!
Besides everything else, it makes for really fun reading, because so many of
the escapades of those crooks were like class conscious slapstick comedy
movies.  Hilarious stuff.  The whole eerie railroad series of scandals
literally had me laughing out loud, I wish someone would write a new
narrative book focusing just on them.  Speaking of this Josephson book, will
the book about the us ruling class you're writing be like it, doug, but
updated to present times?  because pound for pound, I think the funniest and
most robber-baronly series of embarrassign scandals by corrupt right-wingers
these days was the whole conrad black broohahah.  I guess he got offf on
most charges, but still, all that crap seemed pure josephson.

No kidding. It's salutary to be reading Josephson's Robber Barons
> right now. Practically the whole history of the U.S. economy in the
> second half of the 19th century was of securities fraud, stock
> manipulation, and massive booms and busts. Big time speculators were
> ruined often. The economy spent a lot of time in depression. Yet the
> U.S. grew into a massive industrial power anyway.
>
> Doug
>
>