Economic Briefs

News that "the world’s fourth largest 'black gold' producer" is chucking the Petrodollar — No more dollars, Tehran set to use Euros as main foreign exchange currency.

Chan Akya reminds us "that capitalism provides a readymade whipping tool, ie bankruptcy, that keeps errant capitalists in check," except, of course, for that "class of people who do not face the full force of the law because of who they happen to be" — Moral hazard is back.

A report that "deindustrialization, joblessness, middle-class flight, depopulation, and global market shifts gave rise to the urban hyper-ghettos of the 1970s, and the same forces are now afflicting the nation's countryside" — The Rural Brain Drain.

James Howard Kunstler looks back to "the September 2008 Wall Street meltdown" and says "the cause of it all" was "the on-the-ground material catastrophe of American suburbia" — Original Sin.

"The populist anger about Obama's bank bailouts transcends politics," says Dean Baker — Break Up America's Banks.