Hazards of Unregulated Free Market Capitalism #17: Vulture Funds

Those of you (probably not reading my blog) who still have unquestioning faith that so-called Free Market economies (the particular variety with few if any regulations governing the behavior of entities within) will "regulate" themselves and play nice with the Earth, Nature, and Man-Kind should read this eye-opening commentary, a blurb of which is found below:

From salon.com:

Donegal International is a breed of investor known as a "vulture fund" -- though such an association is a foul slur upon a bird that never deserved such calumny. Surely, no living creature other than a human being could conceive of and carry through so insidious a business plan as buying up the debts of destitute African nations at bargain rates and then turning around and suing those same nations for vastly inflated sums.

The inspiration for this commentary is at documentarian Greg Palast's site.

Now I realize, buying debt is a common practice (at least in America) -- one can buy foreclosed houses, cars, property, etc. Given that we save -1% of our incomes on average, this would suggest there's a high risk of debt sales.

But buying government debts?? Who needs to invade a country -- if it's poor, just buy its debt and threaten to sue it out of existence with an army of lawyers. Settle with payments of property instead of cash.

Hmm, anyone want to buy New Orleans' debt after Katrina? Nothing illegal about it. It's a Free Market, after all. Would hurt the Economy if we stopped such a thing...
*petting* Poor little Economy. Silly regulators trying to hurt you. Oh, but what about the the Children! We must regulate regulate regulate! Nudity? Ban! Words? Ban! Evolution and other un-Godly ideas? Ban! Filthy World out there must be kept away from the Children! Filthy World tarnished by sinful Mankind, made by the Intelligent Designer. Oh, but Corporations -- those are good for the Economy. Good little Economy. There there. *petting*