"Crony capitalism" defined

It is as Bernie Sanders has foreseen it, you might say.

With its publication of thousands of less-than-flattering emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta over the past two weeks, Wikileaks has done much to undermine Hillary Clinton in her ongoing effort to appeal to millennials who see Washington as a corrupt town where big business and big government are deeply intertwined.

Excerpts from various six-figure speeches that Clinton made in 2013 and 2014 reveal a politician who is not only quite friendly with Wall Street in private, but somewhat resentful of the American public for constantly attacking and scapegoating big banks for the financial crisis...

Although these leaks don’t reveal anything new about Clinton, they do vindicate many of her critics on the left who have long criticized her ties to Wall Street and maintained that she is too comfortable with the neoliberal status quo. On both the progressive left and libertarian right, Clinton is largely seen as a symbol of “crony capitalism.”

Of course, crony capitalism — a term used to describe an economic and political system in which government officials and big business are closely connected, and thus promote each others’ interests over the public good — was the main target of the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign.

Excerpted from a Salon op-ed.  Lots more at the Wikipedia entry.

The term "crony capitalism" made a significant impact in the public arena as an explanation of the Asian financial crisis. It is also used to describe governmental decisions favoring "cronies" of governmental officials. In this context, the term is often used interchangeably with corporate welfare; to the extent that there is a difference, it may be the extent to which a government action can be said to benefit individuals rather than entire industries...

Crony capitalism exists along a continuum. In its lightest form, crony capitalism consists of collusion among market players which is officially tolerated or encouraged by the government... The term crony capitalism is generally used when these practices come to dominate the economy as a whole or to dominate the most valuable industries in an economy...