By Joan Veon
October 6, 2008

Understanding World Events and the Credit Crisis

For many of us, reading history does not provide us with the flavor of life, the uncertainties of the moment and the fears of facing the truth of the situation. The events over the past six weeks and more specifically from August, 2007 have provided us with a myriad of events which leave even the most astute observer speechless. Over the past fourteen years, I have written extensively about a global currency, global tax, global stock exchange, global central bank, and world government. I have stated on many occasions that world government is not coming, it is here. In order to bring in world government, it will have to be through crisis—continuing, constant crises. The solution will be world government, total integration of all the countries of the world.

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By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
October 6, 2008

America has become a pretty discouraging place. Americans, for the most part, will never know what happened to them, because they no longer have a free and responsible press. They have Big Brother’s press. For example, on September 28, 2008, a New York Times editorial blamed the current financial crisis on “antiregulation disciples of the Reagan Revolution.”

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Jacob Saulwick
October 6, 2008

Bush and Paulson are communists. That’s the word on the street, anyway. While the US President and his Treasury Secretary lay out a trillion-dollar guide rope for the country’s financial industry, even the Europeans baulked on the weekend at creating a common pool of taxpayer money to prop up failing banks.

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by Ann Berg
October 6, 2008

Threatening an imminent economic collapse, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke have bamboozled Congress into enacting the most brazen confiscatory scheme ever concocted by government. The scheme would have American taxpayers fork over $700 billion of their cash to help recapitalize some of the country’s biggest banks – the same banks that recently larded their bigwigs with $62 billion in bonuses.

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David Wighton, Business and City Editor
October 6, 2008

The credit crisis, which has been building slowly for the past year, is now moving so fast that governments around the world are finding it impossible to keep pace.

On Saturday Angela Merkel, the German leader, criticised last week’s decision by the Irish to guarantee all deposits in their leading banks without consulting other European countries. The Irish Government said that the move was forced on it by the threat of a run on one of its banks. Only a day later Ms Merkel was forced to take almost the same action in almost the same circumstances.

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By Nick Baker and Sarah Jones

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stock-index futures dropped after bank bailouts in Europe widened and lower crude prices weighed on oil companies, deepening concern that credit-market losses will worsen a global economic slowdown.

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by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

The current economic crisis is the inevitable consequence of what I call Hamilton’s Curse in my new book of that name. It is the legacy of Alexander Hamilton and his political, economic, and constitutional philosophy. As George Will once wrote, Americans are fond of quoting Jefferson, but we live in Hamilton’s country.

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by Vin Suprynowicz

Who’s to blame for the current meltdown of the financial sector, caused by the dependence of so many corporate balance sheets on defaulting home mortgages?

Since the White house has been occupied by a Republican – and one with low approval ratings, at that – for the past eight years, many may be inclined to agree with Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the fault lies with “failed Republican do-nothing policies.” (She would have said “laissez-faire,” but she knows her constituents would assume she was referring to a kinky new sex club.)

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by Michael S. Rozeff

My earlier articles on the current economic and financial problems begin last January and continue to today. (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) Little did I think that we would end up where we are today, with the Congress passing the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

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SWITCH: GOP BIG GOVERNMENT HEGEMON

By: Bob Strodtbeck
Monday, October 06, 2008

The very name casts a euphoric spell over anyone who consider “ditto heads”, “hannitized”, Republican, and conservative synonymous. Hurricane Sarah, “The Pit Bull with Lipstick”, is, after all, evidence that the Republican Party is serious about controlling government spending and getting government off the backs of decent, hardworking Americans.

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THROW THE SCOUNDRELS OUT

By: David Brownlow
Monday, October 06, 2008

Make no mistake - the U.S. Congress is staging a coup. Any illusory notion that we have a constitutional form of government, or that we run any semblance of a market driven economy, has been effectively obliterated. The international bankers put a gun to our heads and threatened to pull down the whole system unless we handed over our country. Senator Gordon Smith and his congressional collaborators dropped their weapons and surrendered without firing a shot.

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Roger Hedgecock
October 06, 2008

Now that the Messiah of Change, his opponent the Maverick for Reform and an incumbent Republican president have joined to push through a taxpayer bailout of banks that amounts to a federal takeover of the financial industry, what do “We the People” do now?

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59 percent say they’d kick out all members of House, Senate

October 05, 2008

If given the choice, a new poll reveals, 59 percent of Americans would sweep Capitol Hill clean of the current batch of senators and representatives to elect an entirely new Congress.

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By Jimmy Burns in London and Daniel Dombey in Washington
October 6 2008

The British government yesterday risked fuelling a rift with the US and some members of the Afghan government by supporting a military commander’s statement suggesting that the war against the Taliban cannot be won.

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By Leslie Berestein and Sandra Dibble
October 5, 2008

After a particularly violent week in Tijuana that has left 54 dead in a fierce cartel power struggle, experts on both sides of the border fear the worst is yet to come.

Since early last year, Mexican President Felipe Calderón has deployed thousands of soldiers and federal police to drug-route battlegrounds such as Baja California, Chihuahua and Michoacan. Experts say it’s clear that the recent bloodbath along the border, felt especially hard in Ciudad Juarez and Nuevo Laredo and now increasingly in Tijuana, is the backlash.

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Oct 5

Visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned that Israel would strike archfoe Iran before it was able to develop nuclear weapons, in comments published on Sunday.
“I honestly don’t believe (a nuclear weapon) will give any immunity to Iran,” Kouchner said in an interview conducted in English with Israel’s Haaretz newspaper during a two-day visit to the region.

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by D. van Oort & J.F.A. Davidson

“How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: What would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive?”–

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Almost overnight, its population became the wealthiest on Earth. Tracy McVeigh in Reykjavik finds that the credit crunch is making the cash disappear

Tracy McVeigh
Sunday October 5 2008

The snow has arrived early in Reykjavik after an unusually long and warm summer. The freeze has brought out the ghostly green haze of the aurora borealis - the Northern Lights - the shape of which shifts dramatically across the tiny city’s black skies.

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Command for Africa Is Established by Pentagon

By THOM SHANKER
October 4, 2008

WASHINGTON — For decades, Africa was rarely more than an afterthought for the Pentagon.

Responsibilities for American military affairs across the vast African continent were divided clumsily among three regional combat headquarters, those for Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East. Commanders set priorities against obvious threats, whether the old Soviet Union and then a resurgent Russia, a rising China or a nuclear North Korea, or adversaries along the Persian Gulf.

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By Michael Liedtke
Sunday October 5

Financial crisis likely to yield biggest banking shakeout since savings-and-loan meltdown

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Here’s a safe bet for uncertain times: A lot of banks won’t survive the next year of upheaval despite the U.S. government’s $700 billion plan to restore order to the financial industry.

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By CJ Graham
October 5, 2008

My email is filled with letters from truly fearful Americans. Never before, have I experienced this level of fear from citizens. It is incredibly disconcerting.

Fears expressed are from every possible point of view, all seemingly unrelated. Fears of illegal immigration, shadow government, terrorism, war, failing economy, loss of sovereignty and liberty indicate a distrustfulness of the intentions of our government and I think is well founded.

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By PAIGE ST. JOHN
October 5, 2008

When Florida lawmakers expanded the state’s hurricane fund in 2007 to force lower premiums, they tied the ability to deliver billions in insurance coverage to something as volatile as tropical storms: Wall Street.

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By DAVE LINDORFF
October 3 - 5, 2008

The grassroots rebellion that led to the House’s rejection of the Bush Administration’s Wall Street bailout bill on Monday flamed out on Friday, overwhelmed by a massive lobbying campaign by Wall Street and by a propaganda push in the corporate media in favor of passage.

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PA
Sunday, 5 October 2008

The public should not expect “a decisive military victory” in Afghanistan, Britain’s most senior military commander in the country warned today.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said the aim was to reduce the uprising to a level at which it could be managed by the Afghan army and made clear that this could involve talking to the Taliban.

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William N. Grigg

It will be years before we can accurately assess the collateral damage done by the housing bubble’s collapse. One likely consequence of the bust will be a sudden reversal of fortunes for a few cynical people making a living as immigration control demagogues as the tide of illegal immigration from Mexico and Latin America subsides. People earnestly concerned about “border security” will welcome this news. Those capitalizing on such sentiments will greet it with something other than unfettered enthusiasm.

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By Hellmuth Tromm
Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) — Hypo Real Estate Holding AG, the ailing German property lender, said a 35 billion-euro ($49 billion) government-backed bailout plan collapsed as commercial banks withdrew their support.

“The bank is in a very difficult situation,” Hypo Real Estate spokesman Hans Obermeier said in a telephone interview. “We hope everyone involved in the discussions is aware of this.”

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By Dr. Patrick Jonston
October 5, 2008

I am amazed at the liberty Americans are willing to give up for a little treat. Americans were overwhelmingly against the bailout of Wall Street executives and high-rolling bankers. Investors who took big risks to earn big profits must also bear the losses. According to many experts, the government bailout only postpones the inevitable, making it much more painful and expensive over the long run. It also devalues the dollar through the Federal Reserve’s inflationary printing of money to meet Congress’ deficit demands. Over 400 economists – some renown - have signed a petition to strongly oppose the bailout. It failed in the House the first time, in part, because of the strong disapproval of most of Congress’ constituents.

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by Sheldon Richman

Advocates of the free market are sometimes parodied for their seemingly all-purpose answer to any problem: Let the market handle it. What may sound like a simplistic answer, however, is actually the most complex prescription imaginable. In the modern world, the workings of any particular market are so complicated, they are beyond the grasp of mere mortals. Moment by moment, day by day, so many subtly interrelated decisions are made by so many people worldwide that no individual or group could possibly understand the big picture in any detailed way. So there is nothing simplistic about proposing the market as a solution to an economic problem. It’s short way of saying: let the multitude of knowledgeable people seeking profit, risking their own money, and responding to incentives find a solution based on persuasion not force. Translated that way, it sounds like a promising approach.

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By Martin Hutchinson

The 777.68-point nosedive in the Dow Jones Industrial Averageon Monday was the single-biggest point drop ever, eradicating $1.2 trillion in shareholder wealth, and leaving mainstream investors feeling shell-shocked after the House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion banking bailout bill.

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By: Bob Chapman
5 October 2008

Well, what a surprise, we’ve been sold down the river for the usual “thirty pieces of silver” by our Congress and our President, working together in unison, for the nth time.

The $700 billion bailout, a mere sideshow, sweetened with 150 billion in pork, has now been approved so that Wall Street can continue to game the system and its hapless suckers, the American sheople. Just put some pork in, and the hungry piranha in Congress would legislate their own mothers into slavery for a nice juicy morsel of that pork. And never mind the moral hazard dripping from the pork, because that makes it taste all the sweeter.

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Nick Juliano

‘Ridiculous’ to think program doesn’t violate Posse Comitatus, ACLU lobbyist tells Raw

The Department of Homeland Security has been given the money it needs to begin turning international spy satellites within the country’s borders, despite lingering fears about the program’s lack of focus and the potential for it to infringe upon Americans’ civil liberties.

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NEW YORK , September 30, 2008 — The New York Stock Exchange will implement new circuit-breaker collar trigger levels for fourth-quarter 2008 effective Wednesday, October 1, 2008.
Circuit-breaker points represent the thresholds at which trading is halted marketwide for single-day declines in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). Circuit-breaker levels are set quarterly as 10, 20 and 30-percent of the DJIA average closing values of the previous month, rounded to the nearest 50 points.

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By Sheriff Jim R. Schwiesow, Ret.
October 4, 2008

The past couple of weeks we have watched the economy of the nation unravel in a series of consistent and unrelenting economic catastrophes of unprecedented gravity. The fact is that the whole financial system was, prior to these events, deeply touched by a rot, decay and corruption that was consciously papered over and hidden by the clandestine and criminal machinations of corporate officers and a great number of debased career politicians who are complicit by virtue of the sale of their integrity for money. It is the sad fate of the people today to be subject to such and to have their destinies delivered into the hands of the debauched and debased quasi mobsters that rule over them.

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Verizon has announced that they will be stopping access to tens of thousands of Usenet discussion areas including the very popular alt.* groups that have been around since the late 1980s.

Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe said only a select few newsgroups/discussion groups would be offered to customers going into the future. It appears the decision is in response to political “strong-arming” from New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo who wants strong restrictions on all newsgroups.

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By Bob Chapman
October 4 2008

A dish of Bailout with a side of pork, shareholders vaporized by Derivatives Death-Star, We all await the financial markets implosion, No problems solved by the bailout, Stay prepared for a full shutdown of the financial system with some cash on hand, Credit default swaps unregulated point in the chain

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GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS, PART 4: How we got here -Iain Macwhirter traces the history of financial mismanagement, fraud and complex mathematics that combined to culminate in a run on – and the collapse of – some of the world’s biggest banks

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Proposals to monitor all our communications are an intolerable assault on liberty in the name of security

AC Grayling

In the Queen’s speech this autumn Gordon Brown’s government will announce a scheme to institute a database of every telephone call, email, and act of online usage by every resident of the UK. It will propose that this information will be gathered, stored, and “made accessible” to the security and law enforcement agencies, local councils, and “other public bodies”.

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by William Cox
October 3, 2008

On this date, October 3, 2008, the American people were betrayed by those whom they had elected to represent them. The members of Congress who voted for the Wall Street “bailout” violated their oath of office to “support and defend the Constitution” … “that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same” … “and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: …”

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By Eric Martin

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks slid, capping the worst week for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index since the 2001 terrorist attacks, on concern the $700 billion bank bailout isn’t enough to unlock credit markets and prevent a recession.

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by J. R. Nyquist
10.03.2008

I It frightens me to hear politicians play the “blame game.” Those who blame others for national problems are attempting to focus the hatred of their listeners against a particular person. Most often the person targeted is already unpopular. It is therefore safe to lay everything at this person’s door, saying that he is at fault, that he should be punished, that a particular odium should attach to his name. The salvation of the country, therefore, is promoted by vilification. Such is an absurd course which prepares the way for disastrous policies. At the moment we see that President Bush or Vice President Cheney are the scapegoats of the hour. When the Great Depression was underway, several decades ago, President Herbert Hoover was singled out for blame. In Germany the Nazis liked to blame the Jews, who are still blamed for the world’s ills by Islamic leaders. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin likes to blame the United States for the world’s economic problems, though the Kremlin has always embraced economic stupidity as a matter of state principle.

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by Declan McCullagh
October 3, 2008

IRS undercover operations: Privacy invasion?
The bailout bill also gives the Internal Revenue Service new authority to conduct undercover operations. It would immunize the IRS from a passel of federal laws, including permitting IRS agents to run businesses for an extended sting operation, to open their own personal bank accounts with U.S. tax dollars, and so on. (Think IRS agents posing as accountants or tax preparers and saying, “I’m not sure if that deduction is entirely legal, but it’ll save you $1,000. Want to take it?”) That section had expired as of January 1, 2008, and would now be renewed.

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By Andrew C. Wallace
October 3, 2008

“For the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country”-men for becoming a little aware of how badly they are being manipulated. Officials in government, corporations and media, along with illegals, who caused this destruction, should plan on running for their very lives. Government officials who refuse to comply with the Constitution and desires of the People have no legitimate power, they are Criminals, Rogues, Usurpers and Traitors.

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by Sheldon Richman

As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.

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by Paul Chen
10/4/2007

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s appearance at the New York City based Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) on 25 September 2007, was an official endorsement and expression of solidarity on the North American Union agenda.

Harvard University educated CNN Veteran anchor Lou Dobbs, has further confirmed the official endorsement of the Stephen Harper Minority Conservative government on North American Union, or “New America”.

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PARIS/LONDON, October 3 - French prime minister Francois Fillon said on Friday the world stood on the ”edge of the abyss”, gripped by a global financial crisis now threatening industry, trade and jobs worldwide.

Fillon’s words echoed a growing sense of alarm sweeping EU capitals ahead of an expected U.S. Congressional vote on Friday on a $700 billion bailout plan for the financial industry. Approval is far from certain.

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By Darrell Preston

Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) — Rising borrowing costs are starting to pinch states, cities and towns across the country, forcing municipalities to cut back on everything from road improvements to maintenance on schools.

Louisiana postponed plans to sell $500 million of bonds this month, while in Chicago, school officials will have to decide which improvements will go forward after delaying a similar offering. Erie County, New York, has delayed dozens of capital projects.

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By Shobhana Chandra and Rich Miller

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) — U.S. payrolls plunged in September, signaling the economy may be heading for its worst recession in at least a quarter century as the 13-month-old credit crisis on Wall Street finally hits home on Main Street.

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Tim Reid
October 3, 2008

The fate of America’s $700 billion financial rescue package, and the health of the global economy, may hinge on a 39-cent tax break for an Oregon firm that makes children’s wooden arrows — although, if today’s vote is close, the Alaskan fishermen who were affected by the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, and who stand to gain $223 million in tax breaks if the