Recently, one of a series of pitchmen trying to sell their financial products to me proposed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that will make more dollars the more the US dollar goes down in value. Continue reading
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Category Archives: Economy
Why QE3 won’t jumpstart the economy—and what would
The Fed’s announcement on September 13, 2012, that it was embarking on a third round of quantitative easing has brought the “sound money” crew out in force, pumping out articles with frighting titles such as “QE3 Will Unleash’ Economic Horror’ On The Human Race.” The Fed calls QE an asset swap, swapping Fed-created dollars for other assets on the banks’ balance sheets. But critics call it “reckless money printing” and say it will inevitably produce hyperinflation. Too much money will be chasing too few goods, forcing prices up and the value of the dollar down. Continue reading
The Revolution From Above
Today the Western peoples are experiencing the destruction of their well being that is comparable to what the one percent in Rome imposed on Roman citizens and conquered peoples. Continue reading
Spinning bad financial news into good
Friday’s payroll jobs report says that 96,000 new jobs were created in August and that the unemployment rate (U.3) fell from 8.3% to 8.1%. As 96,000 new jobs are not enough to keep up with population growth, the decline in the U.3 unemployment rate was caused by 368,000 discouraged job seekers giving up on finding employment and dropping out of the work force as measured by U.3. Discouraged workers are not included in the U.3 measure of unemployment, which makes the measure useless. The only purpose of U.3 is to keep bad news out of the news. the U.3 unemployment rate only measures those who have not been discouraged by the inability to find a job and are still actively seeking employment. Continue reading
Where is today’s Pecora Commission?
The Pecora Commission was named for Ferdinand Pecora, the fourth chief counsel of the investigation into the causes of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The commission launched in 1932 by a majority Republican Senate and continued under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, turned out to be one of the highlights of FDR’s crusade to rebuild America’s wrecked economy during the Great Depression. Continue reading
The myth that Japan is broke: The world’s largest ‘debtor’ is now the world’s largest creditor
Japan’s massive government debt conceals massive benefits for the Japanese people, with lessons for the U.S. debt ‘crisis.’
In an April 2012 article in Forbes, titled “If Japan Is Broke, How Is It Bailing Out Europe?,” Eamonn Fingleton pointed out the Japanese government was by far the largest single non-eurozone contributor to the latest Euro rescue effort. This, he said, is “the same government that has been going round pretending to be bankrupt (or at least offering no serious rebuttal when benighted American and British commentators portray Japanese public finances as a train wreck).” Continue reading
The economic religion of finance capital
The Virgin birth. The Chosen People. The resurrection of the dead. The free market. Continue reading
Don’t count out the labor movement
Almost every conservative political columnist, pundit, commentator, blogger, and bloviator has written about the decline and forthcoming death of the labor movement. Continue reading
The MF Global Magical Mystery Tour
It is impossible to make up a fantasy tale that rivals the manifestations of the outlandish MF Global scandal. The evaporation of customer’s monies into an intentional off shore stash is tragic enough, but the indignity of allowing “no consequences” for a horrific crime against all investors is inexcusable. Continue reading
Fixing the mortgage mess: The game-changing implications of Bain v. MERS
Two landmark developments on August 16 give momentum to the growing interest of cities and counties in addressing the mortgage crisis using eminent domain. Continue reading
America’s descent into poverty
The United States has collapsed economically, socially, politically, legally, constitutionally, and environmentally. The country that exists today is not even a shell of the country into which I was born. In this article I will deal with America’s economic collapse. In subsequent articles, i will deal with other aspects of American collapse. Continue reading
Saving the Post Office: Letter carriers consider bringing back banking services
On July 27, 2012, the National Association of Letter Carriers adopted a resolution at their National Convention in Minneapolis to investigate establishing a postal banking system. The resolution noted that expanding postal services and developing new sources of revenue are important to the effort to save the public Post Office and preserve living-wage jobs; that many countries have a successful history of postal banking, including Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States itself; and that postal banks could serve the 9 million people who don’t have bank accounts and the 21 million who use usurious check cashers, giving low-income people access to a safe banking system. Continue reading
Friday’s jobs report: More lies from ‘our’ Big Brother
In his report on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest jobs and unemployment report, statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) writes: “The July employment and unemployment numbers published today, August 3rd, were worthless and likely misleading. . . . Suspecting at one time that the jobs numbers were being rigged against him by his own Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), President Richard M. Nixon proposed a new approach to reporting the numbers. Although the proposed changes never were implemented, several decades later the BLS adopted reporting methods that were somewhat parallel to the late president’s thinking.” Continue reading
Escape from economics
Readers ask me from time to time to recommend a book from which they can learn about economics. Continue reading
Our money in their banks: Why?
As Republicans stride in the direction of hardcore fascism and Democrats mince toward a soft-core police state, America endures a campaign with no substance allowed to interfere with corporate capital’s electoral show. Unless the Green Party attracts citizen attention by adhering to the substance of democratic ideals that contrast with the political pimping of the major parties, the people will face endless television mudslinging battles between political pornographers trying to entice them to vote for a lesser evil. As usual. Continue reading
Titanic banks hit LIBOR iceberg: Will lawsuits sink the ship?
At one time, calling the large multinational banks a “cartel” branded you as a conspiracy theorist. Today, the banking giants are being called that and worse, not just in the major media but in court documents intended to prove the allegations as facts. Charges include racketeering (organized crime under the U.S. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO), antitrust violations, wire fraud, bid-rigging, and price-fixing. Damning charges have already been proven, and major damages and penalties assessed. Conspiracy theory has become established fact. Continue reading
The Libor scandal in full perspective
The article about the Libor scandal, coauthored with Nomi Prins, received much attention, with Internet repostings, foreign translation, and video interviews. To further clarify the situation, this article brings to the forefront implications that might not be obvious to those without insider experience and knowledge. Continue reading
Banksters take us to the brink
Every day brings more reminders of the terrible unfairness that besets our country, the tragic reversal of fortune experienced by millions who once had good lives and steady jobs, now gone. Continue reading
The real Libor scandal
According to news reports, UK banks fixed the London interbank borrowing rate (Libor) with the complicity of the Bank of England (UK central bank) at a low rate in order to obtain a cheap borrowing cost. The way this scandal is playing out is that the banks benefitted from borrowing at these low rates. Whereas this is true, it also strikes us as simplistic and as a diversion from the deeper, darker scandal. Continue reading
Another breach in the wall of a corrupt system: The LIBOR scandal
On July 2, LaRouchePAC wrote in a report sent to me, “Most cases of financial fraud are presented to the public as cases of individual crimes, committed by individuals or small groups of individuals—as corrupt acts by elements within an otherwise honorable system. But every once in awhile a case comes along that blows that fiction out of the water and reveals that it is the system itself that is corrupt. Rather than rotten apples spoiling the barrel, a rotten barrel is spoiling the apples. The corruption comes from the top.” Continue reading
Con Ed uses its power to lock out union workers
Consolidated Edison Company of New York, our gas and electric power baron, and representatives of the Utility Workers of America will resume contract talks tomorrow. But there seems no end in sight to the lockout of 8,500 workers or the union’s protest at the utility’s Gramercy Park headquarters, and as New Yorkers continue to swelter in the ongoing heat wave. Continue reading
Banking on zeros
I was just on Press TV with Gabriel Talmain, professor of economics, and Shabbir Razvi, economist. Both men are based in London, a fact that explains a linguistic mishap I had that was baffling, infuriating, then finally amusing. We’ll get to it. Continue reading
Government by the banks, for the banks: The ESM coup d’état in Europe
On Friday, June 29, German Chancellor Angela Merkel acquiesced to changes to a permanent Eurozone bailout fund—“before the ink was dry,” as critics complained. Besides easing the conditions under which bailouts would be given, the concessions included an agreement that funds intended for indebted governments could be funneled directly to stressed banks. Continue reading
Geithner and Bernanke demand mega-bailout of Europe
Shades of the 2008 Hank Paulson, three-page ransom note to the Treasury for a $700 billion bailout for banks or the world economy would collapse. This time the LaRouche Political Action Committee reports that “Capitol Hill sources confirmed that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are demanding that Congress prepare emergency legislation for yet another hyperinflationary bailout of the hopelessly bankrupt trans-Atlantic financial system.” Continue reading
$4 trillion conflict of interest: Investment bankers on Fed boards
Who else but Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders would have the courage to blow the whistle on the $4 trillion Fed scam involving near zero-interest Federal Reserve loans and other financial assistance that went to banks and businesses of at least 18 current and former Federal Reserve regional bank directors in the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse, all documented in the Government Accountability Office records? Continue reading
Bank for International Settlements on big banks
The shadow-banking component that adds to the risk of non-regulatory oversight just deepens the mystery behind the most powerful banking institution that runs roughshod over global finance. In order to gain an insight into the complexity of deception, examine the function of the BIS. The granddaddy of all central banks, the Bank for International Settlement, latest BIS Annual Report 2011/2012, foretells future financial consolidation. Continue reading
Why the Senate won’t touch Jamie Dimon: The JPM derivatives propping up U.S. debt
When Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase Bank, appeared before the Senate Banking Committee on June 13, he was wearing cufflinks bearing the presidential seal. “Was Dimon trying to send any particular message by wearing the presidential cufflinks?” asked CNBC editor John Carney. “Was he . . . subtly hinting that he’s really the guy in charge?” Continue reading
Writing off the elderly
When neoconservatives, politicians, and high ranking military officers speak of a 30-year war against terrorism, there is no discussion about its affordability or whether the one significant attack (September 11, 2001) that is attributed, perhaps incorrectly, to Muslim terrorists justifies an open-ended war against a dozen countries. There is no discussion of the burden on future generations of the massive increase in the public debt in order to finance today’s wars. Continue reading
Off the agenda: The unresolved question of Egypt’s economy
A new Egypt demands a new constitution and president. Many pressing questions also need to be addressed, including the religious-secular divide, the value of Sharia in the making of law, citizenship, minority rights, the rule of civil society, foreign policy, and much more. Continue reading
American Dream now fantasized in Mandarin
Oh, irony of ironies! We have been accusing the Chinese Mainlanders for years of stealing Americans’ intellectual property with predictably inscrutable results. Now that they have come into possession of the American Dream—some might say, lock, stock and barrel—will our embassy in Beijing present the latest rulers of the Mao Zedong dynasty—Mao Tse-tung to those of us who still romanize Beijing as Peking—with a formal complaint . . . asking perhaps, to have our Dream back or, at the very least, have them forgive most of the 1.2 trillion dollars which the United States owes them? Continue reading
Greece and the euro: Fifty ways to leave your lover
The Euro appears to be a marriage of incompatible partners. A June 1 article in the UK Telegraph, titled “Why Europe’s Love Affair with the European Project Is Ending,” reported that two-thirds of 9,000 respondents thought that having the euro as their single currency was a mistake. Continue reading
Collapse at hand
Ever since the beginning of the financial crisis and quantitative easing, the question has been before us: How can the Federal Reserve maintain zero interest rates for banks and negative real interest rates for savers and bond holders when the US government is adding $1.5 trillion to the national debt every year via its budget deficits? Not long ago the Fed announced that it was going to continue this policy for another 2 or 3 years. Indeed, the Fed is locked into the policy. Without the artificially low interest rates, the debt service on the national debt would be so large that it would raise questions about the US Treasury’s credit rating and the viability of the dollar, and the trillions of dollars in Interest Rate Swaps and other derivatives would come unglued. Continue reading
