would LOVE to hear him say this at a Haim Saban funded event and/ or AIPAC banquet. muwahahaha.

With regards to Iceland, it is a poorly-diversified small fish in a big pond whose wild currents were created by others and which the small fish is powerless to mitigate. Diversificaton is having little bits in all manner of different productive fields. It has little to do with regulation or deregulation. A very large chunk of Iceland's GDP came from financial services. When the financial crisis hit, Iceland's economy got hit big-time so bad that other governments took an interest. It's like a 21yo getting smashed on the night of his birthday by borrowing the money from friends, then the friends demand their money back the next day which the 21yo just doesn't have.

A lot of times "deregulation" is not actually free-market mechanics at all but a newly-negotiated deal between industry and government power-brokers whereby (some) industry is favored in a way it previously wasn't, but it could actually be handouts or turning a blind-eye to shoddy business practices rather than allowing companies the freedom to operate. one problem is that way too many people seem to take a mystical (i.e black box) approach to understanding business and the market. The second problem is that it's very difficult for people to conceive of a system operating efficiently without centralized control or compensation and "tweaking".

I was young during these episodes, but I remember them as clearly as a boy with politically-minded parents and Haitians in his family could. It's true that Haiti has been a mess for much of its post-independence history, but Clinton left it worse off than before he imposed his colonialist, neoliberal will disguised as humanitarianism and "democratic values" upon it, and the effects of his decisions are still being felt there today, and will be for the foreseeable future. Part of my family is French and Haitian, and discourse within this side of the family about what Clinton was doing to Haiti had a profound effect on me, and it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth regarding Clinton to this day. He did similar things to Mexico in spreading the NAFTA cancer with his own "special" caveats, though significantly less bloody and irreparable. Let's not forget his failures in Yugoslavia, and his absolutely deplorable, disgusting, conscious failure to act in Rwanda while a million people or more were being hacked to death with machetes. I'm certainly not one who believes that one nation is better than another or that military intervention is the preferable first option or should be even considered in most situations; however, ongoing genocide is the "trump" card for me, and I feel that now that we live in a world with an international community and access to functioning media outlets where we know what's going on virtually everywhere, there is absolutely no excuse to allow the continued, deliberate rapid mass extermination of one people by another. Let's not forget Clinton's block in the UN Security Council regarding Rwanda intervention, the infamous "acts of genocide" vs. "genocide" distinction.

I can't believe he actually talked about the "demonstrated shortcomings of unimpeded free market capitalism".

Sorry for the long, disorganized rant…