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Michael Fox is a writer and economist based in Los Angeles. He has been a corporate controller, professor, and small business entrepreneur. After a life-altering accident, he spent five years learning more about medicine and the healthcare industry than he ever intended. In addition to writing about economics and related geopolitical issues, he is passionate about the performing arts and writes theatre, film, and opera criticism.
SHARE Monday, December 28, 2009 Clean-Up Time
At the end of year one - what went right, what went wrong, and where passsions ought to be directed. The US was so trashed, many of us aren't seeing the positive achievemnts made since President Obama took office, and that we are right now only 7 weeks into the first Obama budget! Part I of 3
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 17, 2009 Jennifer Jones, RIP: A truly Great Lady
A tribute to the great lady, who selflessly created and ran one of the greatest museums, and put only her husband's name on it. Oh, yeah, and she was also a tremendous oscar-winning movie star
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, November 16, 2009 Going Vogue
Sarah Palin's mostly fictional memoir has just been released to atrocious reviews and all that pesky fact-checking. So she'll need to pursue a medium of artistic expression at which she really excels: Fashion Modeling! It's time for Sarah to be Going Vogue!
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 5, 2009 Tea Party vs. Two Party
The Republican Party is imploding, but Democrats should take no glee in the mess on the right, unless they play it right. It should be seen as a warning bell: Let the Republicans fracture into two parties, but it is critical that liberals fix – and maintain – the Democratic Party, and thus retain a majority that can advance a progressive agenda. We must not allow a party schism to occur in the Democratic Party.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 1, 2009 TCM Depression Film Festival is a Must See
Check out the TCM Depression Film Fest and see how artists of the Great Depression era left a legacy to reflect their time - so analagous to ours.
SHARE Friday, September 25, 2009 Hollywood and Motown Slip Through an Economic Looking Glass
Michael Fox returns from hiatus and the other side of the looking glass to find the Auto Industry in Los Angeles and Film Production in Detroit! See pictures of the stunning electric sedans coming from Tesla and Fisker in California, then drive them to the multiplex (where 35 movies were filmed just last year in Michigan).
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 15, 2009 Diva China's Turn
It is time to become concerned - very concerned - about China. In recent weeks, China has gone on a manic international spending spree, and made her own rules about how to do business with Western firms (ie: don't like the negotiators - arrest them for treason). We are at a critical crossroads with China. So what they're up to now is a MUST READ!
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 16, 2009 Iranian Election Exposes Obama's Gay Rights Lies (Really!)
Michael Fox draws the parallel between the projected -and dashed - hopes of the Iranian electorate and the directly dashed hopes the American Gay community projected onto Obama.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 15, 2009 Miracles Whipped
President Obama is performing exactly as he said he would, yet many people projected onto him every dream they had, even when he told them something quite different from what they may have wanted to hear. Michael Fox brings you a reality check - and reminds you why patience is necessary:
SHARE Thursday, April 30, 2009 Economic Treason
The Chrysler bankruptcy exposes a tale of dangerously greedy enormous corporate incest - and ultimately, a treasonous act against the economic interests of the United States. The failure of Cerberus' ownership at Chrysler ties to Republican politicians, Bernie Madoff, and credit derivative swaps, and It is time for President Obama to put an end to this criminal activity. How? It's all about AIG...
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 25, 2009 Hubris Never Dies
The NY Times is running a woe-is-me "open letter" from the former head of commodities trading for AIG, who takes no blame for anything - just seeks sympathy for having to leave his job. This is just one of so many stories coming out - all of which seem to lack one major component: personal responsibility!
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 11, 2009 ECONOMIC PATRIOTISM (or, No Ford in My Futura)
ECONOMIC PATRIOTISM used to be called protectionism, but that was when the government enforced it. The French government is revisiting it, and if the US won't, we, as consumers, should. This is more than a "buy American" thing, because the two newest "American Cars" from Ford are being made in Mexico - by workers being paid less than the Chinese! MUST READ!
SHARE Wednesday, February 25, 2009 Fashion Emergency!
As President Obama outlined the introduction of his rational design for the American Economy, that wide swath of Americans who have been blowing their wads on aspirational luxury goods. Now luxury and high-end retail companies are being taken to the trash! It's time for some new perspective.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 19, 2009 Chronicling the Economic Apocalypse
I spent several years documenting the whittling-away of the economy in real time, but recently have found myself just observing. I have no interest in "I-told-you-so's". It's going to take a lot of Clorox to clean up the dirty diaper, and sometimes that much bleach can stink worse than the soiled mess itself. Now we get to see who's hid how much in Switzerland. This is getting as juicy as it already is scary!
(12 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 4, 2009 Socialism is not a Four-Letter Word
Free-market, for-profit health insurance is killing America, yet, Socialism - applied to our healthcare - is treated as a dirty word. It's time to take back the word, and in so doing, take back our healthcare from the bloated companies that deny us the coverage for which we pay (then spend a fortune to convince so many amongst us to believe they provide the world's best system!)
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 31, 2008 What Happy New Year?
Greeting 2009: A most dismal New Year projection, as the economy, the foreign policy, the state of various minority communities, and even (clutch the pearls!) The Rich! are all falling apart. Bush/Cheney are leaving Obama the worst mess since the one Buchanan passed off to Lincoln.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, December 1, 2008 Breaking News - Broken Economy
More than a year after this column called the economy what it is, Bloomberg reports today, December 1, 2008, that the recession began a year ago. How timely, late-breaking, and informative of them. Meanwhile, local TV newsrooms are firing their highest-paid old guard anchors - what's the connection? Read on...
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 23, 2008 Euphemistically Speaking
Words frame how we see the world, and our language has been re-shaped to fit the times. It's time to re-boot the system. After all, what is a financial product, anyway (is it a service, perhaps)? Michael Fox explains why we must reject the bad vocabulary imposed by the business school set with darker motives.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 12, 2008 Hangover Time: Focus on the Treasury
Barack Obama has perhaps the largest and finest transition team ever assembled, and appears poised to assume the White House with every position staffed. First on the agenda, Secretary of the Treasury. Michael Fox has some thoughts about who should - and should not - be considered.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 2, 2008 Coming and Going in Style: Obama's Policy on the Arts
Not since LBJ created the National Endowment for the Arts has an American President thrown a spotlight on the importance of the Arts in American society. FDR made funding artists of every discipline: muralists, sculptors, painters, writers, photographers, theatre groups, filmmakers and musicians all were included in the WPA endowments. Obama has arguably the most important Arts Policy since Roosevelt
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, October 31, 2008 A Suicide Note*
Halloween is the time for ghoulish fiscal nightmares! Blood-curdling horrors of Wall St.'s death in this most gloomy October. Boo!
SHARE Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Sarita - The Musical
Sarah Palin as Evita Peron - Life imitates Art imitates Life.
Michael Fox steps back from economics this week to have some fun imagining Gov. Palin's next career move, as we discover her 6-digit makeover, her legislative agenda, and her wasteful, self-indulgent spending of the Alaskan budget.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, October 6, 2008 Living in the New Depression
Why there it's not a Recession: it's the new Depression; what it means to you and your lifestyle and how long it will last are very relevant questions, and for perhaps the first time in history, because of film, we have some insight into living through such times.
(11 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 18, 2008 The Pain in Spain is Mainly McCain
John McCain has embarassed himself in a radio interview in which he seems incapable of distinguishing Europe from Latin America. If it weren't for that darn recording technology, you might not believe what you hear!
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 17, 2008 Broke!
The bailout of AIG and the fire-sale of Merrill Lynch have exposed the failure not only of the casino-based economy, but the circumvention of the entire governmental system, as well as the plummeting commodities markets and the neutering of congress. Wall Street, Washington, and, no doubt, you - are broke.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, September 12, 2008 Year Two of the New Depression
Michael Fox returns from a hiatus with his latest column that greets the second year of the New Depression: The damage done in the first year has been massive, and the criminals, like Washington Mutual's CEO are still leaving with cash rather than handcuffs.
Still, the rebuilding may just begin with Detroit. Here's how.
SHARE Thursday, September 11, 2008 Year Two of the New Depression
Michael Fox returns from a hiatus with his latest column that greets the second year of the New Depression: The damage done in the first year has been massive, and the criminals, like Washington Mutual's CEO are still leaving with cash rather than handcuffs.
Still, the rebuilding may just begin with Detroit. Here's how.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, July 18, 2008 Bush's Nixon-in-China Move – Iran as the "October Surprise"
History repeats itself, and October Surprises are nothing new. Michael Fox explains who's going to Teheran, and how gasoline will be $2.50 a gallon after labor day. And why none of it will really work, but it's worth calling their bluff.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 12, 2008 Corporate Leaders Demanding Government Regulation
Did you get the letter yet? Did you see the hearings? CEOs are begging the government to re-institute regulation and oversight. It's a stunning change caused by deregulation run amok. Now even the intended beneficiaries have had enough. Enough is enough.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 9, 2008 Horreur Nucléaire vs. Wind Power Now
Yesterday's under-reported nuclear accident in Southern France may contaminate the French Riviera. So why wouldn't the mainstream media report it right before tourism season? Michael Fox exposes this catastrophe. Meanwhile, uber-oilman T. Boone Pickens is unrolling his plan promoting wind farms and a clean energy future for the U.S. (without nukes). Read more...
SHARE Wednesday, July 2, 2008 Fighting Petrofraud on the Fouth of July
Speak out with your wallet. Change your plans for the Fourth of July! Data show that U.S. and Chinese petroleum demand is finally going down in response to high prices. As the Fourth of July weekend is to Exxon what Christmas is to Macy's, cutting demand this weekend is a steop towards fighting back against unnecessarily high oil prices.
SHARE Monday, June 30, 2008 Petrofraud and the New Depression
How Bush's legacy may well be the unintentional shift to fuel efficiency and conservationism in the United States. It was brought about by thieving, war, and insatiably feeding his oligarchy, but nonetheless, the tide has turned and the American people now get it (after getting it for seven years, metaphorically). Today's column includes "what you can do"
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 19, 2008 Blood in Your Tank: Petrofraud War
The war was the Mother of All R&D Expeditions - and four companies get the goods. What grade are you putting in your tank: A-, B-, or O-?
SHARE Tuesday, June 17, 2008 June is Bustin' Oil All Over
The petrofraud oil bubble is inevitably going to burst, and, exceeding the devastating unregulated financial bubbles before it, this one will not just cause ruin to millions of investors, but the blowback may take the perpetrators with it.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 2, 2008 The Republican Revolution You Haven't Heard About
While the media have allotted 24-hr punditry and prognostication to the dull-as-dirt Democratic Primaries, the fasacinating story of the (still-continuing) Republican primaries has gone overlooked!
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 11, 2008 Blowing Bubbles
One financial bubble after another has sustained the International investor class to the detriment of the American public. The latest bubble will cause much worse destruction than any of the previous ones. and it's already out of control.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 29, 2008 Grain Market Manipulation = Petrofraud Redux
In what has to be the largest single theft in history, this week $150 billion will be distributed, via the American public, from the Treasury to the accounts of grain speculators and oil companies. Meanwhile, just try to find a bag of rice! The markets are being manipulated, and you're paying the tab (or starving). All coming to you courtesy of both Bush and Pelosi - extortion in the spirit of bipartisanship!
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 26, 2008 The Other Costs of War: An Evening with Scott Ritter and Cole Miller
Meet two American heroes, Scott Ritter speaks truth to power to prevent war, and Cole Miller is helping the most innocent victims - innocent, severely burned Iraqi children. Let their stories inspire you!
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 25, 2008 The Other Costs of War: An Evening With Scott Ritter and Cole Miller
Two American heroes you should know more about: One confronting the human results of war, one child at time, and the other spreading truth and reason to try to avoid another war (again)...
(11 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 20, 2008 Fool's Gold
As Bernanke prints valueless money, devaluating the dollar more every month, the economy spirals into both hyperinflation and depression. The dollar coins in your pocket are made of fool's gold - but investing in the real stuff can save you from the worst that is yet to come.
SHARE Thursday, April 10, 2008 Beat The Clock!
The deregulation crowd has but seven months to push through their ultimate goal of destroying every financial safeguard FDR put in place. The race is on to stop them!
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 3, 2008 Sour Sixteen, or The Dirty Diaper Theory
What year is this? The last year of a Bush administration leaves myriad travails for the successor. Economics, Bush style, leave a mess in their wake.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 3, 2008 Deja News? -Why Online Media Matter
Support your online media, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because the mainstream media are lagging so far behind! Here's why sites such as this one are so cruciial!
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 22, 2008 Putting Out the Fire With Gasoline
Keeping track of the financial collapse - and the yet-unnoticed transition to a fully fascist economy, with the first major, open, government-corporate merger.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, March 17, 2008 The Stearnest Bear Market: Bloody Sunday
Good Morning! Is your bank still in business? Because Michael Fox was up all night watching the world's markets collapse (and most of the banks are down for the count!)
SHARE Thursday, March 13, 2008 Who's Sorry Now?
It's time for some serious atonement in New York - but from Wall Street, the financial press, and the architects of the new Depression!
SHARE Friday, March 7, 2008 American Banking Bunko: The WaMu Mob Gets The Loot
As Congress holds another toothless hearing on compensation practices, Michael Fox exposes the corrupt accounting being used at Washington Mutual
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, February 29, 2008 Crunch Time on the Bread Line
The worldwide grain shortage is coming to a grocery store near you - and expect staggering inflation on your food staples - from cookies to liquor!
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, February 22, 2008 Depression + Inflation + Famine = Chaos!
Housing down, Prices up, now Food supplies are threatened. It may be time to learn how to economically live through such times, because they're coming.
SHARE Thursday, February 14, 2008 When the Swiss Say Money's Tight, The Depression's Gone Global
UBS, the behemoth Swiss bank, has given up on auctioning American-issued bonds. Our deteriorating economy can't even find buyers for our debt anymore. The depression deepens - yet more!
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, February 8, 2008 Depression Enters Phase Two
The worldwide economy is crumbling faster than the polar icecap. This week, consumer credit is being cancelled, and the securities insurers are being downgraded. Gold, anyone?
SHARE Thursday, February 7, 2008 The Whoresrace
Michael Fox takes on the media's coverage of the presidential horserace - and it's not just the MSM tis time, but "progressive media" as well!
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 7, 2008 The Whoresrace
Michael Fox takes on the lazy whores of liberal media, who are doing no better at covering "the horserace" than anyone in the MSM.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 7, 2008 Meet the Weimar Dollar
The Stimulus Package being pushed by Bush and Pelosi threatens to further deteriorate the value of the dollar. It's happened before...
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 22, 2008 The Few, The Proud, The Vulnerable
The Marine Corps is inducting unfit recruits, and this is the story of one. This one hit too close to home.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 22, 2008 Rage, Wrath, and the Whole New World
Michael Fox is back, and presenting the controversial problem facing the economists and financial players who have awakened to learn that their religious belief in free-market deregulation has failed. Perhaps they may see a kinship in those communist economists who woke up in the 90s to discover their beliefs turned upside down.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 16, 2007 Double Digit Inflation is Here
Government statistics have been hidden so efficiently that there has been no coverage of the astoundingly high wholesale inflation rate- and you'd better know!
SHARE Saturday, December 8, 2007 County Counting on a Surfboard and a Prayer
Dare we take glee as wealthy, super-Republican Orange County, CA has become nearly insolvent after investing nearly a third of the County's treasury in mortgage-backed securities? Michael Fox thinks they won't learn a thing from it anyway - so go ahead and enjoy the schadenfreude.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 29, 2007 Obama on the Line(s)
The discussion of drug use amongst presidential candidates, specifically Obama and Romney, reveals a larger sociopolitical problem: there is no reasonable discussion about drugs, and it's high time there was. Michael Fox takes on the vocabularly of "experimentation"
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, November 23, 2007 "No Regrets?" Mr. Greenspan Has No Shame!
Alan Greenspan sees utterly no personal responsibility for himself in the creation of the New Depression. Michael Fox has a few doubts for the man who refuses to acknowledge his share of the blame.
SHARE Tuesday, November 20, 2007 Rush Limbaugh vs.Yale Psychiatrist On Raising Boys
American boys are being raised in more enlightened ways, reflecting the progress in society. This, of course, doesn't sit well with pseudo macho Rush Limbaugh, who puts in his valueless two cents by attempting to deride the messenger, Yale University child psychiatrist Dr. Michael Kaplan, whose life's work has been dedicated to the development of healthy children
SHARE Thursday, November 15, 2007 Tinseltown Gets Real
Report from the streets of L.A.: the whole town is standing by the striking writers. The "man on the street" is fed up with the power and gluttony of the media conglomerates.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 10, 2007 Surviving the New Depression II: The End of the Gilded Sultans
Demand an end to the new Gilded Age! In the second installment of his series on survivng the New Depression, Michael Fox takes on the AMT, taxing the Private Equities, and outrageous compenstions to failed CEOs.
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, November 9, 2007 Why John Edwards Must be the Democratic Nominee
John Edwards is the most electable candidate, and the best choice for Democrats. Unlike Hillary and Obama, he is the corporate pirates' worst nightmare - and that's why they've marginalized him. Don't let him be overlooked.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, November 9, 2007 After D-Day: Your Guide to the New Depression
The new depression has begun, and now it's up to us to heal it and create a new strong American economy. Herewith, the first three steps...
SHARE Thursday, November 8, 2007 In Cold Homophobes
The Phelps family, of the Westboro Baptist Church, famously the "God Hates Fags" crowd has got their comeuppance. And ironic legal representation.