Headlines:

• WP – $410 Billion Spending Bill Passes

• AP: 1 in 50 American children experiences homelessness

• CNN: Saudis order 40 lashes for elderly woman for mingling

• BusinessWeek: The Incredibly Shrinking Media

• JP Morgan to up outsourcing to India by 25%

MORE ON MADOFF: Daily Beast Says More Indictments Likely

In a Daily Beast exclusive, Lucinda Franks says investigators are zeroing in on 20 to 50 people, including family members. Plus, how Madoff is “jerking around” investigators, allegations of money laundering in his inner circle, and his brother’s house transfer to his wife.

Two days before Bernard Madoff enters an 11-count guilty plea in Manhattan federal court, the investigation into his giant Ponzi scheme has broadened to include a number of suspected co-conspirators, according to federal officials involved in the case. Sources say new information has surfaced that suggests several members of Madoff’s inner circle transferred assets to their wives, transactions thought to be laundered through an English bank. Ruth Madoff, who was considered “innocent at first,” according to this source, is believed to have received at least $70 million from her husband and is now therefore a target of the investigation. READ FULL STORY HERE

Blast From The Past

FT editorial titled “A survival plan for global capitalism:”

J.K. Galbraith wrote that 1929 stood alongside 1066, 1776, 1914, 1945 and 1989 in its importance. The world today was shaped by the efforts of governments to overcome the economic meltdown of the 1930s – and the consequences of their failures. Even if this economic crisis is not as bad as the Great Depression, it will have epoch-moulding consequences. This week the Financial Times starts a series on the “Future of Capitalism.” Much, however, depends on the success of next month’s meeting of the Group of 20 in London and how successful governments are at ending this worldwide crisis. The intellectual impact of the crisis has already been colossal. READ FULL STORY HERE

Time For Rage?

• Tom Hayden: Rage Is Good

• David Degraw: Rage Is Happening

Your Letters

William Whitten responds to my piece on the financial crisis in Europe with this quote:

“There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.” – Keynes.

Sharla Immak says: String All the Bankers up

All those loans that were made for Americans to buy houses was little more than fraud. We let mobster banks run amuck, and now we are paying for it. The government needs to seize all the banks, kick the fraudsters out (or jail them), and break them all down. Redefine what is a bank to begin with. Redefine what private property is. Is it right to have all the banks own the property and have all the people homeless or in rental properties that are also chokingly exorbitant?

No. We have been taken by the elite and by bankers.

Jason Paz adds:

If We Don’t Prosecute the Rascals, They’ll Do It Again

It’s already happening. The bankers have returned for another $750 billions gift. Why shouldn’t they continue to rob us? The Republicans are shameless. The Democrats bow and scrape because they are a couple votes short of cloture. Instead, they should invoke NSPD-51 and throw the GOP into prison as enemy combatants. George Bush will never win the humanitarian of the year award, but he could make the Republicans jump through the hoop.

Rich Coleman writes about dirty money:

With reference to your article “Do Americans Realize How The Crisis Breeds Global Chaos?,” here’s what I don’t understand:

If the following article is true, where is all THAT money???

Dirty Money Foundation of US Growth and Empire—Size and Scope of Money Laundering by US Banks* By James Petras, Professor of Sociology, Binghamton University, La journada [Mexico], 19 May 2001

There is a consensus among U.S. Congressional Investigators, former bankers and international banking experts that U.S. and European banks launder between $500 billion and $1 trillion of dirty money each year, half of which is laundered by U.S. banks alone. As Senator Carl Levin summarizes the record: Estimates are that $500 billion to $1 trillion of international criminal proceeds are moved internationally and deposited into bank accounts annually. It is estimated that half of that money comes to the United States. READ FULL STORY HERE

“Bones” writes from Rapid City, South Dakota

This isn’t Doomsday…but you can see it from here. Additional references and resources:

Professor Michael T. Klare of Hampshire College and Human Rights has already received these references, thanked me, and stated: “I will examine them closely.” (“A Planet at the Brink. Will Economic Brushfires Prove Too Virulent to Contain?”) David S. Mason, Professor of Political Science at Butler University in Indianapolis, has posted them on his personal blog. (“The End of the American Century”) -wrb.

Economic Depression and Systemic Collapse in America.

“My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what’s really going on to be scared.” – P. J. Plauger, Computer Language, March 1983

The resources I’ve enclosed below are by credible people – professionals, educators, journalists, policy makers, businessmen and nationally and internationally recognized experts. For example, Joseph M. Miller retired as a board member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. One of his associates is a physicist who worked for Control Data Corporation. The other, Marion Butler, has a background as a CFO. Niall Ferguson holds a Chair in the history department at Harvard. There’s an article by Israeli historian Martin van Creveld. Dr. Krassimir Petrov is from Prince Sultan University, Saudi Arabia. Pranab Bardhan is a professor of economics at Berkley. David Rosenberg is Merrill Lynch’s North American Economist. Carmen M. Reinhart is a professor of economics at the University of Maryland. Phil Howison is from Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand. Professor Michael T. Klare’s article is also included.

Most of the other resources were prepared by people with similar backgrounds. Individually, and as a group, their work appears to lead to the same general conclusion: Life as we’ve always known it is just about over. Additional link to references here, here, here and here.

Mark Fox writes:

I always enjoy your column. The one question that no one seems to touch is this:

Why does the wife and/or wife and family of crooked scum bags get to keep any of the ill gotten gains? Ken Lay’s wife ended up quite well and now the argument or part of the ‘plea bargain’ is how much Maddoff’s wife gets to keep. Seems the people (including wife & family) who were harmed by these scum bags don’t get this special treatment. The ‘bibliography’ is ten pages long…and growing.

Mark Stenzler has a quickie:

From today’s (March 10, 2009) NY Times web site:

“The Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the financial system needed to be regulated “as a whole” and that stricter oversight of banks would not be enough.” Hey, Benny, where the hell have you been? You’re a little late out of the gate…

OK, gang, that’s what we have for you today. Much thanks to Dissectrix, Cherie Welch, for the “green machine.”

Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org