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High Level Rats Who Bail from the Rat Race: Disillusioned Conservative Cabinet Level and Financial Class Insiders

By Karl North | March 1, 2015

There exists a long history and literature of criticism of the modern social system based on the concentrated wealth and power of private capital. Most of the critics are writing from outside the centers of power. What is new is the radical rejection of the system now voiced by people with long careers high enough in the system to view its inner workings, who have left those careers in disgust with what they have learned and have begun writing regularly about it. Here is a short list of these system expatriates and links to their exposés.

1. Paul Craig Roberts. Many govt positions including Treasury Undersecretary in Reagan administration. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

“By supporting Israel, declared to be a terrorist state by a few moral governments that still exist, and accused of war crimes by the UN General Secretary, Washington is in violation of its own laws against supporting terrorist states. Of course, Washington itself is the leading terrorist state. Therefore, it is illegal under US law for Washington to support itself.  Washington, however, does not accept law, either domestic or international, as a constraint on its actions. Washington is “exceptional, indispensable.”  No one else counts. No law, no Constitution, and no humane consideration have authority to constrain Washington’s will. In its claims Washington surpasses those of the Third Reich.” http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/11/reckless-interventions/

2. David Stockman. Director of the OMB under President Reagan, former US Representative, best-selling author of The Great Deformation, and veteran financier who held executive positions in Blackstone and Salomon Bros.: thus, an insider’s insider. Few people understand the ways in which Washington DC, The Fed, and Wall Street work and intersect better than he does. http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/

“If you look at the entire radar screen of things developing both domestically and internationally, we are plunging deep into a perfect storm of policy failure. The American Imperium is collapsing. There is blowback everywhere.” [from concurrent failures in US policy across foreign, monetary, economic, and fiscal fronts]

3. Chris Martenson. Former financial class professional, research economist, affluent Connecticut conservative. Left that life to co-author Peak Prosperity.com and The Crash Course, which explain why industrial civilization is at peak prosperity and on the way permanently down.

“It’s time to face the facts: A dangerous convergence in the economy, energy and the environment will make the ‘twenty-teens’ one of the most challenging decades ever. The Crash Course explains this predicament and provides sufficient context to support the idea that it is well past time to begin preparing for a very different future.”

4. Nate Hagens. Former successful Wall St. careerist who managed investment for the 1%. Vice President at Salomon Bros. and Lehman Bros. Co-creator of The Oil Drum, long the most informative website on the peaking of industrial civilization. Second life as lecturer on life in the energy descent, with a new PhD in natural resources. The Converging Economic and Environmental Crisis

“The financial crisis that has blighted the world’s richest countries since 2008 was a turning point in human history because it ushered in an era in which economies will tend to shrink rather than grow. Incomes will decline because the natural resources required for growth—particularly oil, the lifeblood of the world economy—can no longer be extracted in growing quantities.” Fleeing Vesuvius

5. Charles Hugh Smith. Quitting a potential career as a financial analyst, he continues as a freelance writer and carpenter who currently runs a blog critique of world economic and financial affairs.  http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html In his own words,

“The blog is #7 in CNBC’s top alternative financial sites, and is republished on numerous popular sites such as Zero Hedge, Financial Sense, and David Stockman’s Contra Corner. I am frequently interviewed by alternative media personalities such as Max Keiser, and am a contributing writer on peakprosperity.com.”

He has published a book on how to leave the rat race. Get a Job, Build a Real Career, and Defy a Bewildering Economy

6. Joseph Stiglitz. Nobel Prize winning economist and Columbia University professor with high level advisory positions in the Clinton administration. Former Chief Economist at the World Bank, he left in disgust to become a radical critic of the failed economic development goals and policies of the Bank, the IMF, the Treasury Department and other such institutions that manage investment and economic policy in the US and underdeveloped nations. Author of Globalization and Its Discontents

7. Michael Hudson. Economics professor and former Wall Street analyst and consultant. Now writes scathing critiques at http://michael-hudson.com/ of how the US and its financial class handle world affairs. His many books include Global Fracture: The New International Economic Order

8. Jeffrey Sachs. Even the butcher of Bosnia, whose smooth talking masked the NATO and CIA orchestrated break-up of Yugoslavia, has become a critic of the same policies as applied in the Mideast. Sachs is trying to cleans his legacy, but his pessimism about the overall direction of the US is real.

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