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S HA D O W N E T WO R K S
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Shadow Networks
Financial Disorder and the System
that Caused Crisis
FRANCISCO LOUÇÃ
A N D M I C HA E L A S H
1
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3
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First Edition published in 2018
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Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/8/2018, SPi
Acknowledgments
In the preparation of the book, assistance from Eugenia Pires is gratefully acknowl-
edged. Her research was crucial for drafting the first chapters describing the
functioning of the shadow banking system. The work of Adriano Campos and
Nuno Moniz was essential for the compilation of data on the revolving door
between politics and business. Katherine Gabriele, Scott Keating, Shannon Kelly,
Zhe Liu, Taylor Smith, and Anna Watzker of the University of Massachusetts
Amherst provided invaluable research assistance, compiling micro-biographies
of center-liberal party and government people in a dozen developed economies
for further analysis of the revolving door. R. Bruce Harper and Roberta Garner
provided thoughtful feedback at many stages. Gerald Friedman and Robert Pollin
reviewed the full manuscript, and we thank them for careful reading and helpful
suggestions. In two different seminars held in Lisbon and Arrábida, Portugal,
our colleagues Tanya Araújo, Ricardo Cabral, Helder Coelho, Samuel Eleutério,
Gerald Epstein, Larry King, and Kevin Young provided important comments
and a fruitful discussion. João Ferreira do Amaral and Mariana Mortágua also
commented on previous versions of the book and we appreciate their careful and
critical assessment, as well as the suggestions of some anonymous referees for OUP.
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Contents
Introduction 1
I. T H E WO R L D O F S HA D O W F I NA N C E
1. Greed and the Adventures of Homo economicus 17
2. Shadows in Times of Crash 30
3. The Whole Alphabet Soup 51
Appendix A. The Realm of Shadow Finance: How and How Much 65
II. W H O D E C I D E S ? D E R E G U L AT I O N
AND DEREGULATORS
4. Big Business and Family Business 83
5. The Liberalizers: Justifying Free-Market Finance 104
6. Deeds and Doctrines of the Central Bankers 122
Appendix B. Skeptics and Critics vs. True Believers 147
III. P LU T O C R AC Y A N D O L I G A R C H Y
7. Consensus by Schooling and Power: The Indoctrination of the Elites 171
8. The Revolving Door 208
IV. T H E W E B O F P O W E R
9. The Wild Side of the Street 245
10. Capital Controls: The Emergency Brakes 267
Appendix C. Can the Institutions Be Trusted? 279
V. T H E WO R L D W E L I V E I N
11. A Long Stagnation, or Capitalism without Growth 297
12. China, A New Global Player 315
13. The Shadow Society and Its Fictitious Capital 329
Bibliography 347
Index 385
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FIGURES
TABLES
Introduction
This book investigates two questions, how did finance become hegemonic in the
capitalist system; and what are the social consequences of the rise of finance? We
do not dwell on other topics, such as the evolution of the mode of production
or the development of class conflict over the longer run. Our theme is not
the genesis, history, dynamics, or contradictions of capitalism but, instead, we
address the rise of financialization beginning in the last quarter of the twentieth
century and continuing into the twenty-first century. Therefore, we investigate
the transnationalization of the circuits and processes of capital accumulation that
originated the expansion and financialization of the mechanisms of production,
social reproduction, and hegemony, including the ideology, the functioning of
the states, and the political decision making. We do not discuss the prevailing
neoliberalism as an ideology, although we pay attention to the creation and
diffusion of ideas, since we sketch an overview of the process of global restructuring
of production and finance leading to the prevalence of the shadow economy.
Shadow finance, or the non-regulated part of the financial system, is a crucial
part of the operation of big banks and financial agencies and lives in their orbit,
notwithstanding the impressive value it manages. It is a form of economic power.
We explore the mechanisms of reproduction of the power of finance and observe
that the fundamental characteristics and successes of finance, with its reliance on
shadow finance, have been projected into an entire shadow economic system.
Beginning with finance, we discuss how the shadow system was developed, how
it recruits its personnel, how it reproduces its ideas and organizations, how it
dominates political decision, how it conditions choices, and how its power grows
in the world of volatile financial markets.
We will thus discuss the shadow system and some of the tensions and dangers it
creates. The threats are always political, but at the end of the second decade of the
twenty-first century, we face a combination of dangerous politics and dangerous
economics. The imminent perils are Trump and his administration, the speculative
bubble generated by the massive injections of liquidity by the central banks, the
mountain of debt in China, and the continued fragility of the euro.
But market indicators—“the numbers”—seem to indicate otherwise: during the
first half of 2017, the FTSE index for banking registered spectacular growth of
24 percent, especially for the US banks and in some cases for the European banks.
By the end of 2017, the S&P500 index reached a historical maximum and peaked
at 82 percent above its 2007 finish. The European stock market has been exuberant
under the ECB and Mario Draghi’s stimuli, and a comfortable wealth effect among
the owners of financial assets stimulated new housing bubbles. Business seems
once again to be back on its feet.
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2 Shadow Networks
We document the emergence of the shadow economy and the role of deliberations
and actions by central bankers, regulators, government officials, and other decision
Introduction 3
4 Shadow Networks
institutions are robust processes for the definition of social norms, of established
ideas, of public opinion, and even of electoral majorities. Ideas did not create the
world, but they are part of it; they do not invent changes, but can justify them, and
justifications are indeed necessary. The acceleration of capital accumulation and
the vast increase in social inequality was hard for the broader public to swallow.
Acceptance of the new social and economic order required convincing arguments
presented by a coherent ideological apparatus and a demonstration of consensus
by leading social institutions.
As we shall see in the following chapters, as shadow finance and the shadow
economy imposed their rules, the new regime called for armies of imaginative
deregulators, fearless liberalizers, independent central bankers arguing for their
liberation from democratically established norms, professors of economics plan-
ning the indoctrination of the university students from the richest families, coop-
erating think tanks following what they called “good economics,” and networks of
firms and different institutions financing, defining, and applying the new law of
the land.
8 In the popular election, Hillary Clinton got 2,868,691 more votes than did Donald Trump (CNN,
2017).
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Introduction 5
proposal also includes enormous tax cuts for the wealthy with appeal to the
potential for job creation and trickle-down benefits. While Republican delivery
of this standard proposal typically uses accounting gimmicks to mask the effect
on deficits, which traditional Republicans claim to deplore, Trump evinced less
concern about the effect on fiscal balance. Trump also promised infrastructure
investment—adding a xenophobic spin, the most heralded infrastructure project
was a wall on the US-Mexico border to keep out “illegal immigrants,” a favorite
scapegoat of the populist wing of the Republican Party. The promise of jobs
building infrastructure was undoubtedly a key element of Trump’s electoral
success in traditionally Democratic rustbelt states. Wisconsin had last voted for
a Republican in Reagan’s 1984 landslide, and neither Michigan nor Pennsylvania
had voted Republican since 1988.
Neoliberal scolds associated with the Democratic Party emphasized the fiscal
irresponsibility of the Trump proposals but failed to create an alternative vision of
developing infrastructure, providing good jobs, or improving the distribution of
income with redistributive fiscal policy.9
Trumponomics is a puzzle from which coherence has yet to emerge. Some
elements, in particular trade skepticism and infrastructure spending, represent a
break with the neoliberal consensus. Other portions, including continued free rein
given to finance, the reduction of social protections, and the likelihood that any
infrastructure spending that does emerge will be carried out in the form of public-
private partnerships, conforms more closely to the neoliberal model.
There is no question that Trumpism carries some of the trappings of populism
and right-wing extremism, including, per Robert O. Paxton’s definition, an “obses-
sive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by
compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity . . . ”10 Yet it is not clear that a really
distinct model will emerge.
The greatest long-term dangers of Trumponomics are military spending
(including a domestic security state) and denial of climate change. With respect to
the military, Trump has turned heavily to hawks for positions in his cabinet and has
already seeded conflict with China with an ostentatious and provocative dalliance
with Taiwan. Military expenditure has historically proven a reliable means of
generating bipartisan support for public spending and fiscal stimulus without
the usual concern for balanced budgets. Trump is additionally committed to an
overhaul of US nuclear capabilities, to leaning on allies to purchase American-
made military hardware, and to wiping out Islamist insurgencies in southwest
Asia. Although the stimulative capacity of military spending is less than that of
domestic spending,11 military Keynesianism remains a potent economic force.
The risk of escalating conflict that accompanies increased military spending is
substantial.
9 During the campaign, Trump was evasive on the subject of worker protections. At her speech at the
Republican Convention, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, a close confidant and adviser, suggested support for
paid family leave for new parents—a longstanding gap in social protection in the United States. Trump
also expressed support for an increase in the minimum wage to $10 per hour from the current $7.25 per
hour which has prevailed since 2009. At the same time, Trump campaigned against the Obama health
care reforms which extended health insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans.
10 Paxton (2007). 11 Pollin and Garrett-Peltier (2009).
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6 Shadow Networks
With respect to climate change, Trump has surrounded himself with climate-
change deniers and executives of fossil-fuel companies. Chasing key votes in
depressed mining states, Trump promised to restore the US coal industry by lifting
regulations that he blamed for the decline of coal employment. A difficulty for
Trump is that market forces, in particular, the rapid reduction in the price of
electricity thanks to new technologies in both natural gas and in renewables, have
likely placed the coal industry beyond the help of deregulation. But coal can still do
enormous climate damage on its way out the door. The consequences of inaction
on climate change are grave and cumulative.
For our analysis, does Trump fit into the shadow economy? In terms of person-
nel, Trump’s cabinet is drawn from the elite nomenklatura of the shadow economy,
complete with MBAs from the best schools, with C-suite experience, and with long
engagement in the financialized economy, especially at Goldman Sachs. Trump’s
men (overwhelmingly) are coarser and cruder than the operatives whom they
displace. They come from an uglier, xenophobic and racist, part of the shadows.
Trump’s working-class supporters expect their candidate to do something. But it is
hard to picture Trump’s men significantly intervening in the flows of labor, goods,
and capital, the system of tubes that carry wealth for the one percent.
In terms of consequences, the outcomes are harder to predict. The failure to
reckon fully with the crash of 2007–8 and to acknowledge and remedy the broad
decay of working class wellbeing for a generation has sown seeds of which Trump’s
election is but one sprout.
At one of the magic moments of his electoral run, Donald Trump chastened
finance as “a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions
that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that
money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations.”12
In short, money still rules Washington. The enshrinement of Goldman Sachs
in the Trump administration signals the maturity and resilience of a political
and economic force unequaled since the House of Morgan, the empire of the
12 The New York Times quoted this speech and noted the contradiction, as the nominees for the
new administration were presented and the “elite was embraced” (30 November 2016). Beginning
with the election, Trump rapidly and fully aligned with the most anti-worker wing of the Republican
Party. The first nominee for Secretary of Labor, an executive of the fast-food industry, the sector of
the economy most dependent on low wages, held such a long and flamboyant record of opposition to
the minimum wage, overtime, and other worker protections that he was ultimately forced to withdraw
from consideration. The commitment to overturning the Obama health care reforms indicates that the
populist rhetoric of the campaign can find no place in Trump’s government.
As the Trump administration took shape, the financiers emerged and took office as possibly the
richest government in history. Trump named Wilbur L. Ross, Jr., an investor in distressed assets, as
Secretary of Commerce and billionaire Betsy DeVos, to head the Department of Education. Elaine
Chao, the Secretary of Transportation, joins the government directly from the board of Murdoch’s
News Corporation and also enjoyed experience at Wells Fargo Bank.
Perhaps most striking is the reliance on veterans of Goldman Sachs. Steven Mnuchin, a co-investor
of George Soros and ex Goldman Sachs man, serves as the powerful Secretary of the Treasury.
Steve Bannon, whose interregnum between Goldman Sachs and the White House, was marked by
management of the right-wing media site Breitbart.com, was special adviser to the President. While
Goldman was merely a stop on Mnuchin’s and Bannon’s circuits through power, Gary Cohn, a longtime
and senior Sachs executive served as National Economic Adviser. Three months after Trump’s election,
shares of Goldman Sachs were up by 36 % (The Economist, March 18, 2017).
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 9/8/2018, SPi
Introduction 7
banker J.P. Morgan (1837–1913). President Trump built his unexpected triumph
on a declaration of war against Wall Street and Washington. Trump even singled
out Goldman Sachs by name, first in attacks on his Republican rival Senator
Ted Cruz, whose wife is a Goldman Sachs executive, then on his Democratic rival
Hillary Clinton whose paid confidential speeches to it and other banks deflated
Democratic support and convinced undecided voters of the insincerity of her more
populist stances, and finally in a thinly veiled appeal to anti-Semitic stereotypes
about secret leagues of Jewish bankers seeking to control the world.13
Throughout the campaign, Trump dabbled in economic populism, promising
a return to Glass-Steagall as a symbol of a once-great America led by industry
not finance, in spite of the fact that his aides promised to annihilate the Volcker
Rule regulating banking. Yet immediately upon his victory, Trump wholeheartedly
embraced these creatures from the financial swamp. As a matter of fact, Trump’s
campaign and, even more so, his cabinet picks rejected financial regulation. As
a consequence, a repeal or substantial diminishment of the Dodd-Frank Act, the
relatively mild financial reform law passed in the wake of the scandals and crash
of 2007–8, seems likely. Trump’s dance with finance reflects a longstanding tension
on the right between a populist tendency and a fundamental alignment with the
goals of elites.
“He can speak their language,” explained Gary Kaminsky, a former vice chair-
man of J.P. Morgan Stanley, defending Mnuchin’s appointment.14 Precisely.
To understand the arrival of the Trump era and what has and has not changed,
we explore the language, social behavior, and rules and organization of the finan-
cialized economy and its shadows.
Skin and cut into joints one or two young chickens, and remove
the bones with care from the breasts, merrythoughts, and thighs,
which are to be separated from the legs. Mix well together a
teaspoonful of salt, nearly a fourth as much of mace, a little grated
nutmeg, and some cayenne; flatten and form into good shape, the
boned joints of chicken, and the flesh of the wings; rub a little of the
seasoning over them in every part, dip them into beaten egg, and
then into very fine bread-crumbs, and fry them gently in fresh butter
until they are of a delicate brown. Some of the bones and trimmings
may be boiled down in half a pint of water, with a roll of lemon-peel,
a little salt, and eight or ten white peppercorns, to make the gravy
which, after being strained and cleared from fat, may be poured hot
to some thickening made in the pan with a slice of fresh butter and a
dessertspoonful of flour: a teaspoonful of mushroom-powder would
improve it greatly, and a small quantity of lemon-juice should be
added before it is poured out, with salt and cayenne if required. Pile
the cutlets high in the centre of the dish, and serve the sauce under
them, or in a tureen.
CUTLETS OF FOWLS, PARTRIDGES, OR PIGEONS. (ENTRÉE.)
(French Receipt.)
Take closely off the flesh of the breast and wing together, on either
side of the bone, and when the large fillets, as they are called, are
thus raised from three birds, which will give but six cutlets, take the
strips of flesh that lie under the wings, and that of the merrythoughts,
and flatten two or three of these together, that there may be nine
cutlets at least, of equal size. When all are ready, fry to a pale brown
as many diamond-shaped sippets of bread as there are fillets of fowl,
and let them be quite as large; place these before the fire to dry, and
wipe out the pan. Dip the cutlets into some yolks of eggs, mixed with
a little clarified butter, and strew them in every part with the finest
bread-crumbs, moderately seasoned with salt, cayenne, and
pounded mace. Dissolve as much good butter as will be required to
dress them, and fry them in it of a light amber-colour: arrange them
upon the sippets of bread, pile them high in the dish, and pour a rich
brown gravy or Espagnole round, but not over them.
FRIED CHICKEN À LA MALABAR. (ENTRÉE.)
This is an Indian dish. Cut up the chicken, wipe it dry, and rub it
well with currie-powder mixed with a little salt; fry it in a bit of butter,
taking care that it is of a nice light brown. In the mean time cut two or
three onions into thin slices, draw them out into rings, and cut the
rings into little bits about half an inch long; fry them for a long time
gently in a little clarified butter, until they have gradually dried up and
are of a delicate yellow-brown. Be careful that they are not burnt, as
the burnt taste of a single bit would spoil the flavour of the whole.
When they are as dry as chips, without the least grease or moisture
upon them, mix a little salt with them, strew them over the fried
chicken, and serve up with lemon on a plate.
We have extracted this receipt from a clever little work called the
“Hand-Book of Cookery.”
HASHED FOWL. (ENTRÉE.)
Raise from the bones all the more delicate parts of the flesh of
either cold roast, or of cold boiled fowls, clear it from the skin, and
keep it covered from the air until it is wanted for use. Boil the bones
well bruised, and the skin, with three quarters of a pint of water until
reduced quite half; then strain the gravy and let it cool; next, having
first skimmed off the fat, put it into a clean saucepan, with a quarter
of a pint of cream, an ounce and a half of butter well mixed with a
dessertspoonful of flour, and a little pounded mace, and grated
lemon-rind; keep these stirred until they boil, then put in the fowl,
finely minced, with three or four hard-boiled eggs chopped small,
and sufficient salt, and white pepper or cayenne, to season it
properly. Shake the mince over the fire until it is just ready to boil, stir
to it quickly a squeeze of lemon-juice, dish it with pale sippets of fried
bread, and serve it immediately. When cream cannot easily be
obtained, use milk, with a double quantity of butter and flour. To
make an English mince, omit the hard eggs, heat the fowl in the
preceding sauce or in a common béchamel, or white sauce, dish it
with small delicately poached eggs (those of the guinea-fowl or
bantam for example), laid over it in a circle and send it quickly to
table. Another excellent variety of the dish is also made by covering
the fowl thickly with very fine bread-crumbs, moistening them with
clarified butter, and giving them colour with a salamander, or in a
quick oven.[90]
90. For minced fowl and oysters, follow the receipt for veal, page 231.
FRITOT OF COLD FOWLS.
Cut into joints and take the skin from some cold fowls lay them into
a deep dish, strew over them a little fine salt and cayenne, add the
juice of a lemon, and let them remain for an hour, moving them
occasionally that they may all absorb a portion of the acid; then dip
them one by one into some French batter (see Chapter V.), and fry
them a pale brown over a gentle fire. Serve them garnished with very
green crisped parsley. A few drops of eschalot vinegar may be mixed
with the lemon-juice which is poured to the fowls, or slices of raw
onion or eschalot, and small branches of sweet herbs may be laid
amongst them, and cleared off before they are dipped into the batter.
Gravy made of the trimmings, thickened, and well flavoured, may be
sent to table with them in a tureen; and dressed bacon (see page
259), in a dish apart.
SCALLOPS OF FOWL AU BÉCHAMEL. (ENTRÉE.)
Raise the flesh from a couple of fowls as directed for cutlets in the
foregoing receipt, and take it as entire as possible from either side of
the breast; strip off the skin, lay the fillets flat, and slice them into
small thin scallops; dip them one by one into clarified butter, and
arrange them evenly in a delicately clean and not large frying-pan;
sprinkle a seasoning of fine salt over, and just before the dish is
wanted for table, fry them quickly without allowing them to brown;
drain them well from the butter, pile them in the centre of a hot dish,
and sauce them with some boiling béchamel. This dish may be
quickly prepared by taking a ready-dressed fowl from the spit or
stewpan, and by raising the fillets, and slicing the scallops into the
boiling sauce before they have had time to cool.
Fried, 3 to 4 minutes.
GRILLADE OF COLD FOWLS.
Carve and soak the remains of roast fowls as for the fritot which
precedes, wipe them dry, dip them into clarified butter, and then into
fine bread-crumbs, and broil them gently over a very clear fire. A little
finely-minced lean of ham or grated lemon-peel, with a seasoning of
cayenne, salt, and mace, mixed with the crumbs will vary this dish
agreeably. When fried instead of broiled, the fowls may be dipped
into yolk of egg instead of butter; but this renders them too dry for
broiling.
FOWLS À LA MAYONNAISE.
Carve with great nicety a couple of cold roast fowls; place the
inferior joints, if they are served at all, close together in the middle of
a dish, and arrange the others round and over them, piling them high
in the centre. Garnish them with the hearts of young lettuces cut in
two, and hard-boiled eggs, halved lengthwise. At the moment of
serving, pour over the fowls a well-made mayonnaise sauce (see
Chapter VI.), or, if preferred, an English salad-dressing, compounded
with thick cream, instead of oil.
TO ROAST DUCKS.
[Ducks are in season all the year, but are thought to be in their
perfection about June or early in July. Ducklings (or half-grown
ducks) are in the greatest request in spring, when there is no game
in the market, and other poultry is somewhat scarce.]
In preparing these for the spit, be careful
to clear the skin entirely from the stumps of
the feathers; take off the heads and necks,
but leave the feet on, and hold them for a
few minutes in boiling water to loosen the
skin, which must be peeled off. Wash the
inside of the birds by pouring water through
Ducks trussed.
them, but merely wipe the outsides with a
dry cloth. Put into the bodies a seasoning of
parboiled onions mixed with minced sage, salt, pepper, and a slice of
butter when this mode of dressing them is liked; but as the taste of a
whole party is seldom in its favour, one, when a couple are roasted,
is often served without the stuffing. Cut off the pinions at the first joint
from the bodies, truss the feet behind the backs, spit the birds firmly,
and roast them at a brisk fire, but do not place them sufficiently near
to be scorched; baste them constantly, and when the breasts are
well plumped, and the steam from them draws towards the fire, dish,
and serve them quickly with a little good brown gravy poured round
them, and some also in a tureen; or instead of this, with some which
has been made with the necks, gizzards, and livers well stewed
down, with a slight seasoning of browned onion, some herbs, and
spice.
Young ducks, 1/2 hour: full sized, from 3/4 to 1 hour.
Obs.—Olive-sauce may be served with roast as well as with
stewed ducks.
STEWED DUCK. (ENTRÉE.)
Truss them like boiled fowls, drop them into plenty of boiling water,
throw in a little salt, and in fifteen minutes lift them out, pour parsley
and butter over, and send a tureen of it to table with them.
CHAPTER XV.
Game.
TO CHOOSE GAME.
Hares and rabbits are stiff when freshly killed, and if young, the
ears tear easily, and the claws are smooth and sharp. A hare in cold
weather will remain good from ten to fourteen days; care only must
be taken to prevent the inside from becoming musty, which it will do
if it has been emptied in the field. Pheasants, partridges, and other
game may be chosen by nearly the same tests as poultry: by
opening the bill, the staleness will be detected easily if they have
been too long kept. With few exceptions, game depends almost
entirely for the fine flavour and the tenderness of its flesh, on the
time which it is allowed to hang before it is cooked, and it is never
good when very fresh; but it does not follow that it should be sent to
table in a really offensive state, for this is agreeable to few eaters
and disgusting to many, and nothing should at any time be served of
which the appearance or the odour may destroy the appetite of any
person present.
TO ROAST A HAUNCH OF VENISON.