In 2010, Michelle Holmes and Wendy Chen, physicians and faculty members at Harvard Medical School, published an observational study in The Journal of Clinical Oncology that showed that women with breast cancer who took aspirin at least once every week were 50% less likely to die of breast cancer. Continue reading
In response to our account of the mysterious large rise in Belgium’s Treasury purchases, The Fed is the great deceiver, it was suggested that the transaction would show up on the Fed’s balance sheet. However, the Fed is under no obligation to show the transaction. Continue reading
Is the Fed “tapering”? Did the Fed really cut its bond purchases during the three-month period November 2013 through January 2014? Apparently not if foreign holders of Treasuries are unloading them. Continue reading
“Any government with both the power and the will to remedy the major defects of the capitalist system would have the power and the will to abolish it altogether.” Continue reading
Among the mission statements of the University of North Dakota Department of Geology and Geological Engineering is that it “strives to develop in its engineering graduates keen insight and abilities to design an environmentally sound and sustainable future for humanity.” Continue reading
There is no need to sequester funds urgently needed by Main Street to pay for Wall Street’s malfeasance. Californians can have their cake and eat it too—with a state-owned bank. Continue reading
Two of the reasons Pennsylvania has no severance tax and one of the lowest taxes upon shale gas drilling are because of an overtly corporate-friendly legislature and a research report from Penn State, a private state-related university that receives about $300 million a year in public funds. Continue reading
The US economy is a house of cards. Every aspect of it is fraudulent, and the illusion of recovery is created with fraudulent statistics. Continue reading
Here is a well reasoned and said article, “The Doctrine of Fairness: It is Time,” and my reaction: One can build the case the Great Depression of the 1930s proved unfettered capitalism does not work for long under normal conditions. Continue reading
Lackawanna College, a two-year college in Scranton, Pa., has become a prostitute. Continue reading
Sixteen of the world’s largest banks have been caught colluding to rig global interest rates. Why are we doing business with a corrupt global banking cartel? Continue reading
One might argue against the sale of Development Corporation for Israel bonds, aka Israel bonds, to government entities in the USA because the proceeds fund Israeli violations of international law, particularly the colonization of the West Bank, and other activities which violate internationally accepted norms, to include maintaining Gaza as a vast open air prison. But although these policies are likely to have a negative impact on Israel’s credit rating in the future, it is the characteristics of the bonds themselves, chiefly their illiquidity, which should put them off limits for states and municipalities in the first place. Treasurers and pension fund managers who buy these toxic, illiquid obligations are putting taxpayers and retirees at risk. Continue reading
Taxpayers are paying billions of dollars for a swindle pulled off by the world’s biggest banks, using a form of derivative called interest-rate swaps; and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has now joined a chorus of litigants suing over it. Continue reading
The March payroll jobs report released April 4 claims 192,000 new private sector jobs. Continue reading
As we documented in previous articles, the gold price is driven down in the paper futures market by naked short selling by the Fed’s dependent bullion banks. Some people have a hard time accepting this fact even though it is known that the big banks have manipulated the LIBOR (London Interbank Overnight Rate—London’s equivalent of the Fed Funds rate) interest rate and the twice-daily London gold price fix. Continue reading
On March 20, 2014, European Union officials reached an historic agreement to create a single agency to handle failing banks. Media attention has focused on the agreement involving the single resolution mechanism (SRM), a uniform system for closing failed banks. But the real story for taxpayers and depositors is the heightened threat to their pocketbooks of a deal that now authorizes both bailouts and “bail-ins”—the confiscation of depositor funds. The deal involves multiple concessions to different countries and may be illegal under the rules of the EU Parliament; but it is being rushed through to lock taxpayer and depositor liability into place before the dire state of Eurozone banks is exposed. Continue reading
Investigative reporter Greg Palast is usually pretty good at peering behind the rhetoric and seeing what is really going on. But in tearing into Senator Elizabeth Warren’s support of postal financial services, he has done a serious disservice to the underdogs—both the underbanked and the US Postal Service itself. Continue reading
In a nearly $13 billion settlement with the US Justice Department in November 2013, JPMorgan Chase admitted that it, along with every other large US bank, had engaged in mortgage fraud as a routine business practice, sowing the seeds of the mortgage meltdown. JPMorgan and other megabanks have now been caught in over a dozen major frauds, including LIBOR-rigging and bid-rigging; yet no prominent banker has gone to jail. Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of all mortgages nationally remain underwater (meaning the balance owed exceeds the current value of the home), sapping homeowners’ budgets, the housing market and the economy. Since the banks, the courts and the federal government have failed to give adequate relief to homeowners, some cities are taking matters into their own hands. Continue reading
Economic theory teaches that free price and profit movements ensure that capitalism produces the greatest welfare for the greatest number. Losses indicate economic activities where costs exceed the value of production, thus investment in these activities is curtailed. Profits indicate economic activities where the value of output exceeds its cost, thus investment increases. Prices indicate the relative scarcity and value of inputs and outputs, thus serving to organize production most efficiently. Continue reading
The credit card business is now the banking industry’s biggest cash cow, and it’s largely due to lucrative hidden fees. Continue reading
Some years ago when I was Business Week’s columnist an up-and-coming academic economist published his conclusions that raising the minimum wage did not cause unemployment. An implication was that labor unions did not cause unemployment by forcing up wages. Continue reading
On January 17, 2014, we explained “The Hows and Whys of Gold Price Manipulation.” In former times, the rise in the gold price was held down by central banks selling gold or leasing gold to bullion dealers who sold the gold. The supply added in this way to the market absorbed some of the demand, thus holding down the rise in the gold price. Continue reading
“Epic in scale, unprecedented in world history.” That is how William K. Black, professor of law and economics and former bank fraud investigator, describes the frauds in which JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has now been implicated. They involve more than a dozen felonies, including bid-rigging on municipal bond debt; colluding to rig interest rates on hundreds of trillions of dollars in mortgages, derivatives and other contracts; exposing investors to excessive risk; failing to disclose known risks, including those in the Bernie Madoff scandal; and engaging in multiple forms of mortgage fraud. Continue reading
H. Ross Perot, the independent candidate for US president in 1992, said if NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, were passed you would hear a “giant sucking sound” as jobs left the US for Mexico. Continue reading
The economy has been debilitated by the offshoring of middle class jobs for the benefit of corporate profits and by the Federal Reserve’s policy of Quantitative Easing in order to support a few oversized banks that the government protects from market discipline. Not only does QE distort bond and stock markets, it threatens the value of the dollar and has resulted in manipulation of the gold price. Continue reading
Last week, I read Daniel Weeks’ article, “Poverty vs. Democracy in America,” which appears in The Atlantic’s January 2014 issue. As much as I respect Weeks’ advocacy for trying to clean American politics with the clear baptismal waters of democracy, and the many valid points he brings forth in this article, I feel very strongly that we, Americans, are time and again totally missing the point. Mr. Weeks included! Continue reading
The alleged recovery took a direct hit from Friday’s payroll jobs report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy created 74,000 net new jobs in December. Continue reading
Have you seen the economic recovery? I haven’t either. But it is bound to be around here somewhere, because the National Bureau of Economic Research spotted it in June 2009, four and one-half years ago. Continue reading
“I believe we have made a decision now that will permit us to create an economic order in the world that will promote more growth, more equality, better preservation of the environment and a greater possibility of world peace. We are on the verge of a global economic expansion that is sparked by the fact that the United States, at this critical moment, decided that we would compete, not retreat. In a few moments, I will sign the North American Free Trade Act into law. NAFTA will tear down trade barriers between our three nations. It will create the world’s largest trade zone and create 200,000 jobs in this country by 1995 alone. The environmental and labor side agreements initiated by our administration will make this agreement a force for social progress as well as economic growth.” Continue reading
December 23, 2013, marked the 100th anniversary of the Federal Reserve, warranting a review of its performance. Has it achieved the purposes for which it was designed? Continue reading
The Federal Reserve’s announcement on December 18 that beginning in January its monthly purchases of mortgage-backed financial instruments and US Treasury bonds would each be cut by $5 billion is puzzling, as is the financial press’s account of the market’s response. Continue reading
More than 5 years into the economic crisis created by Wall Street, recovery is a nothing but a meaningless word, mouthed by politicians. Yet just two years ago a bill was placed before the last Congress: the National Emergency Employment Defense Act (the NEED Act) Continue reading
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