Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Articles”
The Credit Market Is Manipulated Giant American banks said they had to be bailed out or else the American economy would crash. It wasn’t just the $700 billion “Tarp” bailout in 2008. In reality, a large portion of the big banks’ profitscome from taxpayer bailouts and subsidies (see this, this and this). At the same time, the big banks have sat on the money the government threw at them – with …
Perhaps they believe that their underground survival bunkers with bullet-resistant doors and geothermal power and anti-chemical air filters and infrared surveillance devices and pepper spray detonators will sustain them for two or three generations. Perhaps they feel immune from the killings in the streets, for they rarely venture into the streets anymore. They don’t care about the great masses of ordinary people, nor …
I have struggled to find words to express what I thought and felt as I watched the videos ofAlton Sterling and Philando Castile being killed by the police. Thursday night, I wanted to say something that hasn’t been said a hundred times before. It finally dawned on me that there is nothing to say that hasn’t been said before. As I …
“The danger is, as ever with these things, unintended consequences.” So wrote Prime Minister Tony Blair to President George W. Bush in 2002, as Bush prepared to invade Iraq. Blair’s unstinting support of US policy, notwithstanding numerous unknowns and acknowledged large-scale obstacles, is more than a case of over-optimism or misplaced friendship. For as the Chilcot Commission has just concluded after a …
With populism running wild in Europe and in the United States — the Brexit and American presidential candidate Donald Trump questioning U.S. alliances being just two obvious examples — suddenly people are asking the big questions about the future of Western institutions that should have been asked after the Cold War ended. Both the Brexit and Donald Trump seem to …
Over the last few years, a growing numbers of authors have convincingly argued that America’s social order is in a deepening crisis. Among these studies are: Louis Uchtelle, The Disposable American (2007); Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine, (2008); Don Peck, Pinched (2011); Donald Barlett and James Steele, The Betrayal of the American Dream (2012); D. W. Gibson, Not Working (2012); and Barbara Garson, Down the Up Escalator (2013). These and other writers …
Imagine you are a shareholder in a big company and the top executives are sitting on huge amounts of cash and are not interested in putting it to work through productive capital investments, research and development, reducing company debt or paying employees a higher wage. What would you want done about it? Since you and other shareholders are the owners …
The Big Oil cartels have, for decades, been poisoning the Gulf of Mexico, the Persian Gulf and many other oceans and ocean floors with uncounted millions of gallons of toxic crude oil via their risky, and very leaky deep water oil wells. It wasn’t just the crime against the planet that British Petroleum and Dick Cheney’s Halliburton perpetrated in the …
The June temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 71.8°F, or 3.3°F above the 20th century average, surpassing the previous record of 71.6°F set in 1933. The year-to-date (January-June) temperaturewas 50.8°F, 3.2°F above the 20th century average, making it the third warmest on record. The June precipitation total for the contiguous U.S. was 2.46 inches, 0.47 inch below the 20th century average, the 14th driest on record. Record flooding devastated …
California’s “Adult Use of Marijuana Act” (AUMA) is a voter initiative characterized as legalizing marijuana use. But critics warn that it will actually make access more difficult and expensive, squeeze home growers and small farmers out of the market, heighten criminal sanctions for violations, and open the door to patented, genetically modified (GMO) versions that must be purchased year after year. …
