The Man Behind California’s “Developing Economy”

...or perhaps the title to this article should read, "one of the men...." Nevertheless we feel the person in question here is a great example of California's (and therefore America's) ruling class.

In this week's Anderson Valley Advertiser ("America's Last Newspaper") Will Parrish and I have written the first of a four part series on Richard C. Blum and Dianne Feinstein's vast political and economic empire.

We titled it "Richard Blum: The Man Behind California's Developing Economy."

If you want to read it please consider getting a subscription to the AVA. It's a fantastic little newspaper filled with some of the best muckraking reporting and analysis anywhere.

In the name of accuracy and education we're publishing some further reading and references below.

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Selected references used in “California is a Developing Economy, and Guess Who's Developing it?”, Anderson Valley Advertiser, February 3:

Paragraphs 1-4:

* Blum Center for Developing Economies Web Site

*Upton Sinclair's book The Goose Step

*California is a Developing Economy, and Guess Who's Developing It?, or Blum's Business with the Bechtels

5-9:

* .23 percent of the population own 50 percent of the land is from Susan George, How the Other Half Die, Penguin Books, p. 24.

*“85 percent of urban dwellers in the Third World are consigned to living on illegal squats in hellish shanty towns under conditions of grinding poverty” is from Winter King, “Illegal Settlements and the Impact of Titling Programmes,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 44, no. 2, September 2003, p. 471.

*Regarding Haiti, see, for example, “Our Role in Haiti's Plight” by Peter Hallward

10-14:

*“The Court-Approved Lies of Charles Hurwitz” by Mark Scaramella

*“Those White House Coffee Klatches: Who Went, What They Got” by Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn

*Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters

15-20:

*“The Feinstein Files” by Peter Byrne

*“Senator's Husband's Firm Cashes In On Crisis” by Chuck Neubauer

*“They Pledged Your Tuition” by Bob Meister

20-24:

*“Amid Protest, Key Panels Urge Los Alamos Bid” by Keay Davidson

*“Bankrupt State of California Starts Selling Office Buildings”