North America
Honduras: Military Coup Engineered By Two US Companies?
In writing my new book Hoodwinked (Random House, Nov 2009 publication date), I recently visited Central America. Everyone I talked with there was convinced that the military coup that had overthrown the democratically-elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, had been engineered by two US companies, with CIA support. And that the US and its...
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Arctic: Canada Leads NATO Confrontation With Russia
Continuing the pattern by top Canadian federal officials over the past year of issuing blunt and bravado statements aimed at Russia over the Arctic, on August 1 Defence Minister Peter MacKay was paraphrased as “warn Russia that Canuck fighter jets will scramble to meet any unauthorized aircraft” as a mainstream Canadian news agency less...
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Clinton in Africa: Promoting US corporate interests
International media attention is focused this week on the visit of the US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, to seven countries in Africa. Judging by the behaviour of representatives of many African governments, there are great expectations that this visit – following so closely after President Obama’s two earlier visits to Egypt and Ghana...
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U.S. War Privatization Results in Billions Lost in Fraud, Waste and Abuse–Report
At a hearing in Washington today, the federal Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan is releasing a 111-page report that represents its “initial investigations of the nation’s heavy reliance on contractors.” According to a release on the hearing: More than 240,000 contractor employees, about 80 percent of them foreign nationals, are working...
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How the Poorest Americans Dropped Out of Politics
In the 2008 election, lower-income Americans voted at significantly lower rates than higher-income Americans. This was not, in itself, news. Just as in 2004, more than 60 percent of voters came from families above the median household income of $50,000. That family income is a significant predictor of individual voting is a long-standing and...
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Can Treasury Sneak IMF Money Through the Supplemental?
Almost completely lost in the drama over the war supplemental for Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan is a sneaky play by the US Treasury Department to get $108 billion in tax dollars for the International Monetary Fund through the supplemental. Of course, if Treasury can get the money through the supplemental, it can avoid any...
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Democracy Going Dark: FBI’s Multi-Billion High-Tech Surveillance Program
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2010 reveals that America’s political police intend to greatly expand their high-tech surveillance capabilities. According to ABC News, the FBI is seeking additional funds for the development of “a new ‘Advanced Electronic Surveillance’ program which is being funded at $233.9 million for 2010. The...
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Financial Implosion and Stagnation: Back To The Real Economy
But, you may ask, won’t the powers that be step into the breach again and abort the crisis before it gets a chance to run its course? Yes, certainly. That, by now, is standard operating procedure, and it cannot be excluded that it will succeed in the same ambiguous sense that it did after...
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U.S. Injecting Billions Into Foreign Central Banks
For more than a year, the U.S. Federal Reserve System has been increasingly acting as the world’s central bank, injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into foreign government treasuries in an effort to increase liquidity in those countries. The foreign central banks have used the U.S. currency to bail out financial institutions within their...
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The Secrets of the Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve Act was legislated in 1913 to end recessions, panics and depression. Over that almost 100-year period they have been eminently no more successful then their predecessors. The Fed is a private corporation, which guides US monetary policy. Its staff is from Wall Street, banking, and transnational conglomerates and occasionally from academia....
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US Monetary System in a ‘State of Permanent Siege’
THE LEVEL OF PUBLIC IGNORANCE on the topic of the U.S. and world monetary system is astonishing. This is part of the plan, of course, because the monetary elite control not only the financial system but also the news media, the publishing industry, and the educational system. The blueprint for control was put together...
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It’s time to make the Federal Reserve accountable to the people
On May 5, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) grilled Federal Reserve inspector general Elizabeth Coleman. What knowledge did she have of Bloomberg’s report that the Fed had made trillions of dollars in off-balance sheet transactions? Did she know who received the trillion dollars that was added to the Fed’s balance sheets since last September? Was...
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The Case Against the Fed
By far the most secret and least accountable operation of the federal government is not, as one might expect, the CIA, DIA, or some other super-secret intelligence agency. The CIA and other intelligence operations are under control of the Congress. They are accountable: a Congressional committee supervises these operations, controls their budgets, and is...
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Ron Paul warns about economic crisis in 2003
Ronald Paul is an American physician and Republican Congressman for the State of Texas, who gained widespread attention during his unsuccessful bid for the 2008 Republican Party presidential nomination. He supports low taxes, free markets, and the restoration of the gold standard. He is strongly opposed to the American involvement in the War in...
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Why Does the Fed Operate in the Dark?
President Obama has made an impressive commitment to run an open administration, posting contracts and spending on the Internet wherever possible. For some reason, there has been no effort to extend this openness to the Fed. This creates a bizarre disjuncture in public policy. When the Treasury loans money to a troubled bank or...
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The cost of empire: US government spending $100B annually to maintain 1000 foreign military bases
Last week President Obama unveiled his record-spending 2010 budget proposal, which included a slight increase in funding for the Pentagon when compared with George Bush’s budget of 2009. Though the specific details of the budget won’t be released until April, the president has promised to increase troop recruitment while cutting “cold-war” weapons programs that...
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Bolivia and the Unites States
New Bolivian Constitution marks first recognition of indigenous autonomy in 500 years Sinclair Thomson discusses the passing of a historic referendum in Bolivia that saw an over 60% support from the population. The referendum is precedent setting as, he says, “this is the first time Bolivia ever had a popular democratic vote on a...
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US policy makes things worse in Pakistan
Aijaz Ahmad: US policy will lead to thousands of new recruits for al- Qaeda Based in New Delhi, Aijaz Ahmad is Senior Editorial Consultant, and political commentator for the Indian newsmagazine, Frontline. He has taught Political Science, and has written widely on South Asia and the Middle East.
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Roosevelt New Deal v/s Obamanomics in Their First 100 Days
With good reason, progressive economists reflect positively on Roosevelt’s New Deal even though: – it failed to end the Great Depression; – had many flaws; – did too little for blacks, women, immigrants, small farmers, agricultural workers, and the poor; – let blacks be persecuted, discriminated against, and in the South denied their voting...
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Taking on the banking cabal
Speaking about President Obama’s stimulus package and newly announced budget, William Engdahl says the fundamental causes of the economic crisis were missed. Until Obama reinstates Glass-Steigel restraints on banking which were repealed by the Clinton administration in 1999 and begins to re-regulate the financial system, there will not be a flow of healthy...
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The Wall Street Ponzi Scheme called Fractional Reserve Banking
Part5: Understanding Money Borrowing from Peter to Pay Paul Bernie Madoff showed us how it was done: you induce many investors to invest their money, promising steady above-market returns; and you deliver – at least on paper. When your clients check their accounts, they see that their investments have indeed increased by the promised...
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The Money Masters Letter on the $700 Billion Bank Bailout
Patrick Carmack, Producer of The Money Masters DVD open letter to American citizens on the $700 bailout Dear Fellow American Citizen: The ongoing, severe economic turmoil in our nation – destined to get worse if the right remedy is not enacted – was predicted in our video The Money Masters as the inevitable result...
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Wealth and politics in Congo
Congo has fallen prey to a lot of people that want to loot its natural resources The crisis in Congo shows no signs of slowing down, as government forces continue to battle rebel groups loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda. Investigative journalist and author Wayne Madsen, of “The Wayne Madsen Report,” believes that Congo...
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Meltdown 101: Subprime Mortgages and the Road To Financial Ruin
Just how did we get into this economic mess? The answers are both complex and troubling. Blame greed, irresponsibility, lax government oversight, conflicts of interest and especially blind faith in a housing boom that seemingly had no end. But end it did, setting off a chain reaction that has left the economy in tatters...
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The Real Truth behind the Citigroup Bank Nationalization
On Friday November 21 the world came within a hair’s breadth of the most colossal financial collapse in world history according to bankers on the inside of events with whom we have contact. The trigger was the bank which only two years ago was America’s largest, Citigroup. The size of the US Government de...
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US Government as Owner of AIG could dispose of Counterparties
Finally US authorities have gotten ‘tough’ with the predator financial institutions. The world has been waiting for such decisive intervention since an unending series of Government bailouts of financial institutions began early in 2008 amounting to now trillions of taxpayer dollars. Now, with the world’s largest insurance giant, AIG, the White House Economic Council...
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Federal Reserve sets stage for Weimar-style Hyperinflation
The Federal Reserve has bluntly refused a request by a major US financial news service to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from US taxpayers and to reveal the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Their lawyers resorted to the bizarre argument that they did so to...
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In Debt We Trust: America Before The Bubble Bursts
Emmy-winning journalist Danny Schechter investigates America’s mounting debt crisis in this latest hard-hitting expose. The film reveals the unknown cabal of credit card companies, lobbyists, media conglomerates and the Bush administration itself who have colluded to deregulate the lending industry ensuring that a culture of credit dependency can flourish.
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The relevance and importance of Gold in the World Monetary System
Peter Millar: Seven-fold increase in gold needed to avert debt depression While it is almost three year old, a study of the enduring importance of gold in the world economic system by R. Peter W. Millar, founder of Valu-Trac Investment Research Ltd. in Scotland (www.valu-trac.com), seems ever more compelling to share with you. Millar...
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Dollar Collapse FAQs
What is a fiat currency? A currency that’s created and controlled by a government. In other words, it exists by government “fiat.” Using the dollar as an example, the U.S. Federal Reserve creates new dollars simply by printing them or injecting electronic “reserves” into the banking system. The supply of dollars thus depends on...
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Welcome to the New Cold War
These last few days, the Persian Gulf became a sideshow. Exit evil Iran and a phantom al-Qaeda; enter the remixed Evil Empire—Russia, a real-life superpower complete with nuclear weapons. The US establishment for years gloated about the end of the Cold War and treated Russia like Wiemar Germany. In February 1990, Bush Sr. and...
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The geopolitics of Georgia: F. William Engdahl
US attempts to get Georgia into NATO, coupled with its desire to erect an anti-missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech republic would give it first strike capability towards Russia. Moscow sees this as a national security threat against the sovereignty of Russia. Political economist F William Engdahl believes this is the geopolitical...
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‘Iraq isn’t a war about oil’. The bottom line. ‘It is about oil’.
Bill Moyers on Big Oil and Iraq “Oh no, they told us, Iraq isn’t a war about oil. That’s cynical and simplistic, they said. It’s about terror and al Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from WMD. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire,...
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Option Pricing for Beginners
(One of our objectives is to help non-specialist readers understand what they are reading in the news. Read Financial Crisis for Beginners.) I’ve had two posts so far on the terms under which Treasury sold back to Old National the warrants on Old National stock that Treasury got in exchange for its TARP investment,...
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Financial Innovation for Beginners
(One of our objectives is to help non-specialist readers understand what they are reading in the news. Read Financial Crisis for Beginners.) Kevin Drum pointed me to Ryan Avent’s insightful review of Ben Bernanke’s recent speech on financial innovation. (How’s that for the Internets in action?) Bernanke’s brief was simple: to defend financial innovation...
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“Bad Banks” for Beginners
(One of our objectives is to help non-specialist readers understand what they are reading in the news. Read Financial Crisis for Beginners.) What is a bad bank? . . . No, I don’t mean that kind of bad bank, with which we are all much too familiar. I mean the kind of “bad bank”...
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Federal Reserve for Beginners
(One of our objectives is to help non-specialist readers understand what they are reading in the news. Read Financial Crisis for Beginners.) We had a comment last week asking for an explanation of, roughly, what it is that the Federal Reserve does, so I thought that would be a good topic for a Beginners...
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Who owns the Fed?
The Fed now owns the world’s largest insurance company-but who owns the fed? “Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers;...
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