Another in my series about refuting the myth that Ronald Reagan, financial liberalization, or both ushered in an age of much faster economic growth.

Just to be clear: when I show that growth by every measure has been slower since 1980 than before, I’m not claiming that this shows that Reagan/finance caused the slowdown. The upper hand, in this case, is actually on the other foot: it’s the Reagan/finance enthusiasts who use the alleged fact of faster growth to make their case, so I’m just showing that it never happened.

It may seem absurd to suggest that American democracy today has anything in common with Russia or Poland in the early 1990s, or far-fetched to compare American businessmen and government officials with Russian clans and Polish nomads. But in the aftermath of the financial crisis in the United States, some things are starting to look familiar.

The post-communist players bear a striking resemblance to the interlocking handful of Wall Street–government policy deciders who "coincide" at the highest echelons of power and have come to be symbolized by "Government Sachs." From those who ruined Enron to those who wrought more recent Wall Street wreckage, a lack of loyalty to institutions, including the dearth of regard for shareholders and boards of directors, has characterized the modus operandi of the Wall Street players who brought on the financial crisis in America -- and the world.

In both the East European and U.S. cases, operators at the top challenge governments' rules of accountability and businesses' codes of competition, ultimately answering only to each other.