Here’s the other aspect I’m not sure the book deals with: avoiding taxes. All that debt, then bankruptcy, is a write off. It is also a classic money laundering technique. It is super complicated. But that’s the idea.

As Lao Tzu said, “the more complicated the laws, the more devious the criminals.”

“These are the Plunderers”, by Gretchen Morganstern which was reviewed by National Public Radio today.

Their themes, titles and release dates are so similar I thought they were the same work!

It is an example of the new breed of predatory Capitalism I’ve brought up here lately. Its about companies that make money, not by designing, making and marketing a useful product or service, but by manipulating stocks and prices, attacking firms when they get into a temporary jam, and by bribing their management (legally, of course) into selling their own companies down the river in return for big bonuses and golden parachutes.

They target promising and productive companies, manipulate the price of their stock, and buy them cheap (usually with borrowed money). They then cannibalize their assets, chop them up for parts, or otherwise run them into the ground by skimping on maintenance and growth, and by exploiting their workers and their good name. Then they sell them off cheap and leave them with a pile of debt.

U used to work for a company in the 1980s that was raped like this. Gulf Oil Corporation. In one year, we went from one of the Seven Sisters, one of the biggest and most profitable energy companies on the planet, to a dried up husk of a firm, reduced to a couple of refineries and a string of New Jersey filling stations.

Its what Mitt Romney called “Vulture Capitalism”. And of course, its all perfectly legal because the pirates who commit these crimes lobby business-friendly politicians into making sure the rules are fixed in their favor. So much for the Law of Supply and Demand.

Capitalism works–in theory. But in practice, bad actors learn how to manipulate the system so it works for them, but not for anyone else. The only way to stop it is with good legislation, strong unions and sound regulation. But that’s considered “Socialism” in today’s business environment. Even suggesting it gets you labeled as a Communist these days.

I hate to keep harping on this, but it is the single biggest threat to our prosperity and freedom these days. The system is decadent, and corrupt. And it is unraveling from the inside out.