Crony Capitalism: It's All-American Now!

"Crony capitalism." Wasn't that what caused the Asian financial melt-down of 1997? Wasn't that what we were all told?

Take a trip back in time. The U.S. stock market is booming. It's the '90s! But currencies are collapsing in Southeast Asia. Banks are failing. Unstable, corrupt, corporatist regimes in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia... they handed out benefits to too few cronies. They protected national champion firms. They manipulated their currencies to the breaking point. They were crony capitalists, and everyone knew it.

Check out Walter Donway new commentary essay "Crony Capitalism versus 'Making' Money." Walter shows how much the chickens have come home to roost. Today, in America, after our own financial melt-down, we elect cronies-in-chief! Who's been acting like a third-world country now? And let me give a hat-tip to John Stossel, who called out the cronies in 2010.