When Corporations Rule the World, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 15Predatory Finance

You can’t make any money like this. The dollar is moving sideways, the movement is too narrow. . . . Anyone speculating or trading in the dollar or any other currency can’t make money or lose money. You can’t do anything. It’s been a horror.

—CARMINE ROTONDO, foreign exchange trader at Security Pacific Bank

One of the ideological premises of corporate libertarianism is that investment is by nature productive in the sense that it increases the size of the economic pie, adds to the net well-being of society, and therefore is of potential benefit to everyone. In a healthy economy, most investment is productive. The global economy is not, however, a healthy economy. In all too many instances, it rewards extractive investors ...