Unusually, Paris-based dissident financial pundit and gonzo broadcaster Max Keiser spends much of his latest podcast [mp3] speaking in a disturbing faux-MSM accent — discussing subjects as diverse as YouTube comments critical of his voice, “Peak Marijuana”, ice hockey tactics, Anderson Cooper’s reptilian heritage — and even a seemingly-sincere endorsement of this blog (!).
Perhaps better known to media-watchers in Europe (PressTV, Russia Today, BBC, and Al-Jazeera), Keiser and Stacy Herbert currently create two half-hour international TV shows and 120-mins of podcasts per week, in addition to other projects and occasional Euro MSM. Recent appearances on France-24 have been explosive, and scored well online — the French producers seem to be having fun picking lettuce-leaf academics for him to debate.
The last couple of years have seen the dramatic rise of a handful of pundits — let’s call them “The Brat Pack of Doom” — who are marginalized in US MSM for their criticisms of financial propaganda and the financial-political nexus.
[I know, I know: Faber is too old to be a "brat", he and Taibbi aren't shut-out of MSM, and Celente isn't a financial journalist. You could include other non-financial dissidents like Wester Tarpley or Wayne Madsen in this group.]
Hard to categorize — he once described himself as a “financial anarchist” — Keiser could possibly be described as a “progressive libertarian” of the sort emerging in the West these days. [A demographic without proper representation: Business-lobby-libertarianism dominates political branding in this area: e.g. Ron Paul, ACT Party NZ, etc.]
A Guardian hack attacked Keiser as “Mad Max” in 2005 after he teamed up with Zac Goldsmith to “pursue a fantastical scheme for making money by shorting Coca-Cola stock and distributing the proceeds to ‘victims of Coke’s business model in places like India and Cambodia’“. [KarmaBanque.] “What is it about the off-spring of the super rich?” the columnist asks, and suggests a reasonable penalty for class-traitors: “Trial without a jury, no right to silence and an unlimited fine at the end of it.” (This is the Guardian, remember!)
The most inaccurate slur is that Keiser is “anti free market” — as he and his guests frequently attempt to expose market manipulation, and Keiser often speaks to the effect that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with markets as price-finding mechanisms. By contrast, he appears to take umbrage with things like fiat currency, fractional reserves, bankster shenanigans, infinitely-leveraged zero-risk trades, profit-driven ecocide — and what he terms the “casino gulag economy“.
American Policy Center founder Max DeWeese wrote a column attacking Keiser as “a new kind of terrorist”, saying: “Keiser and his ilk hate business and they hate free enterprise and are using these tactics to redistribute wealth and cause chaos in the market place.” (Four years later, such a statement made openly would easily draw the addendum “…just like Goldman Sachs.”)
Says Keiser’s web page, “Karmabanque describes its audience as ‘Activists, Anarchists, and Hedge Funds.’ It’s a stock exchange of sorts, but with a brilliant and maniacal twist: it trades on the strength of boycotts.” To put it in the simplest possible terms, Keiser targets companies that are vulnerable to boycotts, such as Coca Cola, which relies heavily on daily consumer buying. Once the boycott has begun, Keiser tells his minions to buy options on the targeted company’s stock — options betting that the stock price will go down. As the boycott drags down the company’s stock, Keiser and his followers make a quick buck on the options.
Clearly projecting, DeWeese only sees self-interest in Keiser’s activism. Kinda reminds me of St. Augstine’s “City of God” story about Alexander and the Pirate, which goes something like this…
Once upon a time, a famous Pirate Captain was captured by Alexander the Great’s navy, and brought before him — and Alex is all like: “Hey dude, what’s your problem? Why do you think you own the seas?” And the Pirate Captain goes: “Why, the very same reason you lay claim to the entire motherfucking Earth! …I get my conquest on with a little ship, and you call me a “pirate”. But you do it with armies, corporations, banks and bureaucrats — and you’re called Emperor! …I’d like to speak with my legal counsel now.”
