“Now we’ve been reminded what Free Markets really do: they boom, they bust, they become monopolies, they collapse. They implode and impoverish people in ways that are gut level, not theoretical and abstract, and the people at the middle and bottom of the pile pay a much bigger price than the guys at the top. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been doing business with South America since 1984 and I know far better than most Republican talking heads what an over-regulated economy and trade regime really looks like. (You think America is bad? Try Bolivia.) But I’ve also seen how ugly it gets when elites are successful at relentlessly expanding their privileges, and I’ve never met or heard of anyone in that position — people who managed vast tracts of land with peasant labor, or privatized a government entity, or used connections to make a fortune on a government contract — who didn’t think what they were doing was morally right.” (11/17/08)