Tag Archives: corruption

McCloskey Wants to Change the Title and the Substance of Her Article on Corruption

Posted on March 8, 2015 by William Black | 3 comments

By William K. Black
Quito: March 8, 2015

Deirdre McCloskey has responded with two comments (to date) to my series of articles critiquing her book review in the Wall Street Journal of two new books about corruption. We welcome her to the pages of New Economic Perspectives and invite her to provide an article or series of articles presenting her views on elite white-collar crimes such as fraud and corruption of whatever length she thinks best. The harm done by these crimes is so severe that these topics well warrant extended discussion and debate. NEP is one of the rare economic blogs that devotes considerable space to these topics.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged corruption, McCloskey, white collar crime

McCloskey’s First “Cheer for Corruption” is also a Cheer for Fraud

Posted on March 6, 2015 by William Black | 9 comments

By William K. Black
Quito: March 5, 2015

In my first column in this series I discussed the gaping contradiction in Deirdre McCloskey’s book review of two books on corruption. The title of her article captures the immorality of her proposed “sermons” on corruption: “Two Cheers for Corruption.” McCloskey urges us to embrace many forms of corruption because she asserts that they add to economic efficiency and justice.

“But corruption can be efficient and just, too. It can be good for efficiency if, say, bribes are paid to get around bad laws (such as most of the building codes in American cities) or to smooth the course of sales by U.S. businesses to the Egyptian military. And the turkey at Christmas supplied by Tammany Hall justly helped the poor—if they voted right.”

McCloskey’s first of three “cheers for corruption” is inherently a cheer not only for corruption, i.e., bribery and extortion, but also a cheer for four types of felonies by elite white-collar criminals. The first crime is deliberately violating the building safety codes. The second crime is covering up that underlying crime through corruption – the bribery and/or extortion of the building safety code inspectors.

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Posted in William K. Black

Tagged banksters, corruption, fraud, white collar crime

Why Does the Media Ignore Timothy Geithner’s Disastrous Leadership of the NY Fed?

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Devin Smith | 8 comments

By William K. Black
(Cross posted at Benzinga.com)

Remember nine months ago when Timothy Geithner assured us that it was “extremely unlikely” he would take a position on Wall Street?

The media meme when Geithner announced that he was stepping down as Treasury Secretary and taking a position as a “senior fellow” with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) was what a superior human he was for not taking a job with Wall Street. The “extremely unlikely” (to no one’s surprise) was announced nine months later. The private equity firm Warburg Pincus has hired Geithner as its President.

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