last weekend which is quite an eye opener on current US economics. It is from a conspiracy viewpoint but is not that far fetched and a lot of the details could be easily verified. The author Matt Taibbi is an editor with Rolling Stone magazine and some further information regarding Matt can be found on Wikipedia. The full title of the book is "Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America." It covers in sufficient detail the shenanigans of the past few years as well as some history of the people and entities involved.
A lot of the book tells us what we already know. Something is broken in America.
We know about the huge lobbying money that hits DC and suspect that gas prices are not based on supply and demand, and that health insurance is to expensive but Matt goes into more detail regarding these and other matters.
Goldman Sachs has always been an interesting phenomenon with alumni all over the political spectrum but Matt goes further pointing out the many cases where "Goldman politicians" were making decisions that ended up being very advantages to Goldman.
The argument in favor of minimal regulation is that capitalism is self balancing. The irony here is that the health and financial sectors are being heavily subsidized by the Government through bailouts and policies whilst the upper echelons of these sectors make huge incomes.
Some links to excepts can be found below
The Great American Bubble Machine. From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression and they're about to do it again
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405
Exclusive Excerpt: America on Sale, From Matt Taibbi's 'Griftopia'
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/exclusive-excerpt-america-on-sale-from-matt-taibbis-griftopia-20101018
