This video shows the SHOCKING figure of what our interest payments will be if we return to the rates of the 1980′s
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Tags: Business_Finance, Debt
Michael Ruppert
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael C. Ruppert is the founder and former editor of From The Wilderness, a newsletter and website dedicated to investigating political cover-ups. He is now CEO and President of Collapse Network, Inc.
On August 16, 2006 Ruppert announced that he was leaving the United States, citing years of harassment for his ongoing dissident activities.
After returning to Los Angeles, Ruppert started writing again. Jenna Orkin continued running the blog, with occasional commentary from Ruppert, until the launch of his Collapse Network in June 2010.
Ruppert was the subject of the 2009 documentary film Collapse, in which he was interviewed about his theories, writings and life story. He is now dedicated to his weekly show on Progressive Radio Network, and his music, writing and playing songs with the band “New White Trash.”
Tags: Collapse, Conspiracy theories
A ghastly day on Capitol Hill for Goldman Sachs’s top brass
“ONE of the worst days of my professional life” was Lloyd Blankfein’s characterisation of April 16th, when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed civil fraud charges against Goldman Sachs.
The bank and an employee were accused of failing to disclose that a hedge fund that had influenced the composition of a complex mortgage-debt transaction was also shorting it.
April 27th was surely not much better, either for the Wall Street firm’s boss or any of the six other current and former Goldman investment bankers who testified before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The roasting, which lasted more than ten hours, was as dramatic as any hearing focused largely on synthetic collateralised-debt obligations (CDOs) could be.
Tags: Finance, Goldman Sachs, Investment banks
The Supreme Court rules that businesses and unions may fund political messages in elections
BY THE narrowest of majorities, America’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday January 21st that Congress may not bar corporations and unions from paying to disseminate political messages at election time. The ruling is arguably a blow for free speech, although critics of the decision quickly concluded that it would lead to big business buying elections.
The case concerned “Hillary: The Movie”, a 90-minute documentary which portrays Hillary Clinton as a power-crazed gorgon. It is a dreary and unbalanced piece of hack work, but clearly protected by the Constitution. “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech,” says the First Amendment. Not “thoughtful, judicious speech”. Just “speech”. Yet the makers of “Hillary: The Movie” were forced to drop plans to distribute their work via cable for fear of being fined or jailed.
Tags: Citizens United, Federal Election Commission, Hillary Clinton, Politics, Supreme Court
China’s share of world markets increased during the recession.
It will keep rising
MANY people start the new year by resolving to change their old ways. Not China. On December 27th Zhong Shan, the country’s vice-minister of trade, declared that China will continue to increase its share of world exports.
Figures due out on January 11th are expected to show that China’s exports in December were higher than a year ago, after 13 months of year-on-year declines. China’s exports fell by around 17% in 2009 as a whole, but other countries’ slumped by even more.
As a result China overtook Germany to become the world’s largest exporter and its share of world exports jumped to almost 10%, up from 3% in 1999 (see chart).
China takes an even bigger slice of America’s market. In the first ten months of 2009 America imported 15% less from China than in the same period of 2008, but its imports from the rest of the world fell by 33%, lifting China’s market share to a record 19%. So although America’s trade deficit with China narrowed, China now accounts for almost half of America’s total deficit, up from less than one-third in 2008.
Trade frictions with the rest of the world are hotting up. On December 30th America’s International Trade Commission approved new tariffs on imports of Chinese steel pipes, which it ruled were being unfairly subsidised. This is the largest case of its kind so far involving China. On December 22nd European Union governments voted to extend anti-dumping duties on shoes imported from China for another 15 months.
Tags: Business_Finance, China, International Monetary Fund, Zhong Shan
IN RECENT months many economists and policymakers, including such unlikely bedfellows as Paul Krugman, an economist and New York Times columnist, and Hank Paulson, a former American treasury secretary, have put “global imbalances”—the huge current-account surpluses run by countries like China, alongside America’s huge deficit—at the root of the financial crisis.
But the IMF disagrees. It argues, in new papers released on Friday March 6th, that the “main culprit” was deficient regulation of the financial system, together with a failure of market discipline.
Tags: Financial crisis, International Monetary Fund, shadow banking system
Barack Obama’s team wades into a debate over what is driving foreclosures
NO PART of the financial crisis has received so much attention, with so little to show for it, as the tidal wave of home foreclosures sweeping over America.
Government programmes have been ineffectual, and private efforts not much better.
Now it is Barack Obama’s turn. On Wednesday February 18th he pledged $75 billion to reduce the mortgage payments of homeowners at risk of default. Lenders who help people to refinance their mortgages will receive matching subsidies from the government. These could reduce a borrower’s monthly payments to as little as 31% of their income, and last for up to five years.
Firms that service mortgages held by investors will also receive fees for successful modifications. As a stick, Mr Obama reiterated his intention to alter the bankruptcy code so that courts can reduce mortgage principal. The details will depend on negotiations with Congress.
Bank of America and Citigroup report awful results, prompting yet more government intervention
“I’VE had all the fun I can stand in investment banking at the moment,” said Kenneth Lewis, the boss of Bank of America (BoA), in late 2007. Investment banking had other ideas. BoA’s fourth-quarter results, a $1.8 billion loss announced on Friday January 16th, mark the first time since 1991 that the bank has dipped into the red. The losses were driven primarily by write-downs in its capital-markets divisions, although the credit risks in its loan books are also increasingly obvious.
Behind the debate over remaking U.S. financial policy will be a debate over who’s to blame.
It’s crucial to get the history right, writes a Nobel-laureate economist, identifying five key mistakes — under Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II — and one national delusion.
by Joseph E. Stiglitz January 2009
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan bookend two decades of economic missteps. Photo illustration by Darrow.
There will come a moment when the most urgent threats posed by the credit crisis have eased and the larger task before us will be to chart a direction for the economic steps ahead. This will be a dangerous moment. Behind the debates over future policy is a debate over history—a debate over the causes of our current situation. The battle for the past will determine the battle for the present. So it’s crucial to get the history straight.
What were the critical decisions that led to the crisis? Mistakes were made at every fork in the road—we had what engineers call a “system failure,” when not a single decision but a cascade of decisions produce a tragic result.
Let’s look at five key moments.
Tags: Financial
Ginna Lewis
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radio 74 live
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RADIO 74 was innaugurated on January 17, 1982, the first-ever English language FM radio broadcasting station in France and has continually operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
RADIO 74 has developed into an essentially bilingual english-french Christian radio network, oriented towards music, news and serious topics with thought-provoking conversation and interviews.
RADIO 74 website
http://www.radio74.org/
Special Award
Presented to Journalist
Ginna Lewis
for Excellence in Broadcasting
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