nakedempire


The American Empire in a Changing World



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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

''Drug-Financed Salafi Jihadism''

a great read..........From Lew Rockwell
By Peter Dale Scott

''What particularly concerns me is the relative absence of public response in America to a long-term Pentagon-CIA agenda of aggressive military expansion – of dominationism, if you will. No doubt many Americans may think that a global pax Americana will secure a period of peace, much like the pax Romana of two millennia ago. I myself am confident that it will not: rather, like the imperfect pax Britannica of a century ago, it will lead inevitably to a major conflict, possibly another nuclear war. For the secret of the pax Romana was that Rome, under Hadrian, withdrew from Mesopotamia and accepted strict limits to its area of dominance. Britain never achieved that wisdom until too late; America, to date, has never achieved it at all.

And so very few in America seem to care about Washington’s global domination project. We have seen much critical examination of why America fought in Vietnam, and even the American involvement in atrocities like the Indonesian massacre of 1965. Authors like Noam Chomsky and Bill Blum have chronicled America’s criminal acts since World War Two. But only a few, like Chalmers Johnson and Andrew Bacevich, have written about the progressive consolidation of a war machine that now dominates America’s political processes.''


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''Globalizing the Global War on Terror''

From TomDispatch
By Andrew Bacevich

''As he campaigns for reelection, President Obama periodically reminds audiences of his success in terminating the deeply unpopular Iraq War.  With fingers crossed for luck, he vows to do the same with the equally unpopular war in Afghanistan.  If not exactly a peacemaker, our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president can (with some justification) at least claim credit for being a war-ender.

Yet when it comes to military policy, the Obama administration’s success in shutting down wars conducted in plain sight tells only half the story, and the lesser half at that.  More significant has been this president’s enthusiasm for instigating or expanding secret wars, those conducted out of sight and by commandos.''

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''A Civil War in Mexico?''

From NACLA

''It is time to raise some serious questions about the “war on drugs” in Mexico. Considering that the human toll over the last five years now tops 50,000 fatalities, this futile struggle could more accurately be described as a civil war. According to historian Melvin Small and political scientist J David Singer in their 1982 book, Resort to Arms International Civil Wars 1816-1980, an internal conflict is classified as a civil war if the battle-related fatalities reach a threshold of 1,000 and the state military is responsible for a number of those fatalities. Under these criteria, Mexico’s current violent confrontation of death and destruction between narcotrafficking organizations and state forces can be classified as a civil war.''

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LA: ''Foreclosures and resulting blight infest once-safe neighborhoods''

From LATimes

''William Perez has been waiting a long time to tell someone all the sad and crazy things he's seen.

Perez runs a crew that crisscrosses Los Angeles and the Antelope Valley doing the dirty but essential job of cleaning up homes that have been foreclosed and then trashed by humans and neglect.

 "The good news about this place," he told me as we stood inside one such property on Wilmington Avenue in Watts, "is that there's no fleas."

No fleas, but plenty of trash, and an odor most foul. The people living there had been evicted six weeks earlier. They left behind mattresses, clothes and boxes of cereal. Some days later, thieves broke in, punched holes in the ceiling and stole about $100 worth of copper plumbing.


Perez told me the main reason foreclosed homes fall into disrepair is that there are simply too many for his crews to maintain. And the reason there are so many, we all know, is that during the last boom lenders doled out home loans like candy to people who couldn't afford them.''

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''Colombia Denounced for Continued Impunity for Human Rights Crimes''

From Upside Down World

"Civilians – especially indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant and peasant farmer communities, human rights defenders, community leaders and trade unionists – continued to bear the brunt of the human rights consequences of the long-running internal armed conflict," the report says.

"More than 45 human rights defenders and community leaders, including many working on land issues, and at least 29 trade union members, were killed in 2011," it adds.''


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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

''Asia's Mad Arms Race''

From Foreign Policy in Focus

''Asia is currently in the middle of an unprecedented arms race that is not only sharpening tensions in the region but also competing with efforts by Asian countries to address poverty and growing economic disparity. The gap between rich and poor—calculated by the Gini coefficient that measures inequality—has increased from 39 percent to 46 percent in China, India, and Indonesia. Although affluent households continue to garner larger and larger portions of the economic pie, “Children born to poor families can be 10 times more likely to die in infancy” than those from wealthy families, according to Changyong Rhee, chief economist of the Asian Development Bank.''

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''Lies and Consequences in Our Past 15 Wars''

From TruthOut........read the rest .....here

AFGHANISTAN
''Prior to 2001, the Taliban was willing to turn Osama bin Laden over to a third country if he was promised a fair trial and no death penalty, and if some evidence of his guilt of crimes were offered.  In 2001, the Taliban warned the United States that bin Laden was planning an attack on American soil.  In July 2001 the United States was known to have plans to take military action against the Taliban by mid-October.''

''Bilderberg 2012: Dark Cabal Meet to Plot Final End Game''

From InfoWars

''Nonalignment 2.0 and India’s Strategic Direction''

From Foreign Policy Journal

''An influential paper, Nonalignment 2.0, written by a galaxy of strategic thinkers is doing the rounds of the seminar circuit in New Delhi. A product of their collective opinion, the document was intended by its authors Sunil Khilnani, Rajiv Kumar, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Prakash Menon, Nandan Nilekani, Srinath Raghavan, Shyam Saran and Siddharth Varadarajan, to set off a debate on the direction and content of India’s foreign policy and strategic orientation. In this the document can be said to have succeeded, with the authors, in defending their argument, making it more visible.''

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''How FBI Entrapment Is Inventing 'Terrorists' - and Letting Bad Guys Off the Hook''

From Rolling Stone

''The guy who convinced the plotters to blow up a big bridge, led them to the arms merchant, and drove the team to the bomb site was an FBI informant. The merchant was an FBI agent. The bomb, of course, was a dud. And the arrest was part of a pattern of entrapment by federal law enforcement since September 11, 2001, not of terrorist suspects, but of young men federal agents have had to talk into embracing violence in the first place.''

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''18,000 years in jail: Turkish court charges Israeli officers over Gaza flotilla deaths''

From RT.com

''A Turkish judicial panel has unanimously approved demands for a sentence of combined 18,000 years behind bars for IDF ex-chief of staff and other officials responsible for the murders of activists on the Mavi Marmara cruise ship in 2010.
­

The Istanbul court has formally pressed charges against four senior officers of the Israeli Defense Forces who commanded the operation against the Gaza flotilla two years ago. Nine passengers of a Turkish ship were killed as they tried to bring aid to Gaza, the subject of an Israeli military blockade.''

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Pat Buchanan exposes the NEO-CONS and the Israeli Lobby: ''How Bill Kristol Purged the Arabists ''

pat, thank you for writing this.................From Pat Buchanan

"Kristol was treated like royalty and came off as … a Party warlord,” bragging “about how all the hostile elements to inside the Party were purged over the last 30 years — (and) no one (now) dared to question the power of the .”

“The big story in the Party over the last 30 years, and I’m very happy about this,” said Kristol, is the “eclipsing” of the -James Baker-Brent Scowcroft realists, “an Arabist old-fashioned Party … very concerned about relations with Arab states that were not friendly with … ."

Now the neocons are worming their way into the Romney camp, dropping us hints on whether John Bolton or will be the next secretary of state.''

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''US hard line in Iran talks driven by Israel''

From Asia Times Online

''Negotiations between Iran and the United States and other members of the P5+1 group in Baghdad ended in fundamental disagreement over the position of the P5+1 offering no relief from sanctions against Iran.

The two sides agreed to meet again in Moscow on June 18 and 19, but only after Iran had threatened not to schedule another meeting, because the P5+1 - the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain plus Germany - had originally failed to respond properly to its five-point plan.

The prospects for agreement are not likely to improve before that meeting, however, mainly because of an inflexible US diplomatic posture that reflects President Barack Obama's need to bow to the demands of Israel and the US Congress on Iran policy.''

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'NYPD loses face and first Occupy Wall Street trial'



From RT.com

''The Coming Meltdown in College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Any Time Soon''

From BlogMaverick
By Mark Cuban

''Its far too easy to borrow money for college.  Did you know that there is more outstanding debt for student loans than there is for Auto Loans or Credit Card loans ? Thats right. The 37mm holders of student loans have more debt than the 175mm or so credit card owners in this country and more than the all of the debt on cars in this country. While the average student loan debt is about 23k. The median is close to $12,500. And growing. Past 1 TRILLION DOLLARS.

We freak out about the Trillions of dollars in debt our country faces. What about the TRILLION Dollars plus in debt college kids are facing ?''

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''China’s Peaceful Return to Africa?''

From ISN Blog

''During the 2006 China-Africa summit, which convened officials from 48 African countries, the Chinese government handed out billions of dollars in investment for infrastructure projects and loans, under the banner of “the common pursuit of friendship, peace, cooperation and development” . A year later, the EU tried to copy this language at their EU-Africa summit, held in Lisbon. Much like the ISN’s pro-con discussion last week on foreign investment in Africa[link], they pointed to the dangers as well as the opportunities in China’s increased engagement with Africa, and pointed fingers at Zimbabwe for violating Human Rights. African leaders were not impressed. They emphasized the colonial past, did not appreciate the finger pointing, and did not find what little investment the EU had to offer very convincing in comparison to China’s hand-outs the year before. The positions of African governments, however, have changed since then. It will be interesting to see how China reacts.''

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''Libya, Africa and Africom''

From CounterPunch


''The scale of the ongoing tragedy visited on Libya by NATO and its allies is becoming horribly clearer with each passing day. Estimates of those killed so far vary, but 50,000 seems like a low estimate; indeed the British Ministry of Defence was boasting that the onslaught had killed 35,000 as early as last May. But this number is constantly growing.

The destruction of the state’s forces by British, French and American blitzkrieg has left the country in a state of total anarchy – in the worst possible sense of the word. Having had nothing to unite them other than a temporary willingness to act as NATO’s foot soldiers, the former ‘rebels’ are now turning on each other. 147 were killed in in-fighting in Southern Libya in a single week earlier this year, and in recent weeks government buildings – including the Prime Ministerial compound – have come under fire by ‘rebels’ demanding cash payment for their services. $1.4billion has been paid out already – demonstrating once again that it was the forces of NATO colonialism, not Gaddafi, who were reliant on ‘mercenaries’- but payments were suspended last month due to widespread nepotism.''

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''Tepco may try to remove unused fuel assemblies from feared No. 4 pool''

From Japan Times

''The attempt would be a test run for securing the dangerous pool, which has become a priority because the building that housed the reactor and the pool — which sits on the fifth floor — was ripped apart by a hydrogen explosion in the early days of the nuclear crisis last year and could collapse in a strong earthquake. That might dump hundreds of fuel rods on the ground, where they would burn up and release even more radiation than in last year's crisis.''

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''A Soros-Made “New World Order” Takes Shape at the UN''

From Strategic Culture
By Wayne Madsen

''Major multinational corporations and the financial and non-governmental organization network of George Soros have taken effective control of a number of United Nations functions within the UN Secretariat and within the organization's specialized agencies. The goal of this alliance is to re-draw the map of the world for the benefit of the global elites and the “top 1 percent.”

The United Nations, which once prided itself on transparency, has now become a bureaucratic behemoth where decisions are made in closed door meetings attended by diplomats, mostly from English-speaking Western countries; corporate representatives; NGO officials tied to Soros and other entities like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations; and current and former CIA officers, some of whom act under U.S. State Department cover. It is a fact of life that today a number of UN agencies and elements are funded by private money.''

''Imperialism and Disinformation''

From Dissident Voice

''When the establishment disinforms about weapons-of-mass-destruction in Iraq and kills a few million people based on this lie, what claim to credibility does the establishment have thereafter? This is but one lie in a historical series of lies in which distant peoples have been slaughtered and their lands taken over.3

The latest disinformation comes from the BBC,4 dutifully picked up from AP and reported elsewhere.5 There was no impartiality in the BBC story; starting with the title — “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows” — it was presented from the outset as cut and dry who had perpetrated the massacre.''

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''Looming Reversal of Centralization as Empires Disintegrate''

From Market Oracle
By Gary North

THE LAW OF EMPIRES

''Empires disintegrate. This is a social law. There are no exceptions.

The first well-known social theorist to articulate this law was the prophet Daniel. He announced it to King Nebuchadnezzar. You can read his analysis in Daniel 2. Verses 44 and 45 are the key to understanding the law of empires.

The Roman Empire is the model. But there is a serious problem here. There are at least 210 theories of why it fell. There are so many that even my 1976 Ron Paul office colleague Bruce Bartlett gets credit for one of them – on Wikipedia, no less. He has made the big time!

In any case, Rome did not collapse. It wasted away over several centuries, wasting the treasure of its citizens along with it.

I suppose there were highly educated people who came to the voters in the late Roman republic and said something like this: "Unless decisive action is taken now, Rome will go bankrupt." If so, they were right. But it took a lot longer than they thought.

These days, it does not take nearly so long.

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''BBC illegally uses image of Iraqi victims as propaganda against the Syrian government''

From Lizzie Phelan

''Di Lauro said: "Somebody is using illegaly one of my images for anti syrian propaganda on the BBC web site front page. 
Today Sunday May 27 at 0700 am London time the attached image which I took in Al Mussayyib in Iraq on March 27, 2003 (see caption below) was front page on BBC web site illustrating the massacre that happen in Houla the Syrian town and the caption and the web site was stating that the images was showing the bodies of all the people that have been killed in the massacre and that the image was received by the BBC by an unknown activist. Somebody is using my images as a propaganda against the Syrian government to prove the massacre."

see the evidence 

Phony ‘Houla Massacre’: ''How Media Manipulates Public Opinion For Regime Change in Syria''

great article on media disinformation..........From InfoWars

''Take notes. Because this is how it’s done, time and time again – another clear example how large media outlets can effectively drive reality in the direction of their choosing, and this is why so many millions of public media consumers are left misinformed and dis informed, eventually leading to a marginal public endorsement of Washington, London and Tel Aviv’s interventionist foreign policy objectives.

Hours after this fake story was circulated in the GMT timezone, it made its way to EST, as the New York Times picks up the ball and runs it down the field. Here the story is further refined to streamline it with regime change policy objectives, codifying reality within North American sector.''

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''Hugo Chavez notches up three million Twitter followers''

From NTN24

''Firebrand Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez now has more than three million followers on Twitter, making him the most popular Latin American politician on the site -- a milestone he celebrated on Monday.

"To the three million followers, I sent a special thank you! We will use this platform to pursue our battle of ideas!" Chavez wrote early Monday, shortly after the number of followers topped the three million mark.''

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''Arizona Homeowners File Suit Against State for Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Fund Raid''

From FireDogLake

''The response to the foreclosure fraud settlement fund raid in multiple states, now up close to a billion dollars, has been shockingly muted. No progressive group or housing-focused organization has done much more than grumble about the fact that money intended to go to homeowners is being diverted into state budgets all over the country.

But one state is trying to fight back. In Arizona, a group of homeowners have filed a lawsuit against state Attorney General Thomas Horne and State Treasurer Doug Ducey, arguing that the $50 million the state will skim off the settlement payout for the General Fund (out of a total of $97.7 million) violates the settlement agreement.''

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''Yen-yuan direct trading to start in June''

From AP

''Japan and China are expected to start direct trading of their currencies as early as June as part of efforts to boost bilateral trade and investment, according to reports.

With the planned step, exchange rates between the yen and the yuan will be determined by their transactions, departing from the current "cross rate" system that involves the dollar in setting yen-yuan rates, Kyodo News said on Saturday.

The two governments are eyeing setting up markets in Tokyo and Shanghai, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.

The yen-yuan exchange system would help businesses in the world's second- and third-largest economies reduce risks associated with exchange rate fluctuations in the dollar and cut transaction costs, Kyodo said.

It will be the first time that China has allowed a major currency except the dollar to directly trade with the yuan, Kyodo said.''

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Monday, May 28, 2012

''The Corporate Players Behind the Demise of the Caribbean Banana Trade''

From NACLA

''The corporate control over the entire chain of production and the brutality of the corporations during their reign in Latin America became the stuff of popular culture, as seen by Gabriel García Márquez’s retelling of the massacre of striking workers in Cienaga, Colombia, in 1928. But perhaps the most famous example of the power of the multinational fruit corporations comes from the role of United Fruit in convincing the Eisenhower administration that the election of Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala, and his plans of moderate land reform, would transform the country into a Soviet base.

Perhaps more importantly, land reform in Guatemala would affect the ability of United Fruit to maintain its monopoly on arable land and limit its ability to maximize profit through the exploitation of landless workers. As shareholders in United Fruit, Allen Dulles, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, and his brother John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State under Eisenhower, were central to planning the 1954 overthrow of Arbenz, under Operation PBSUCCESS.''

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''Dahlia Wasfi Epic Speech''


From 2010.....POWERFUL

''How the US Sold Africa to Multinationals''

From TruthOut

''The new G8 scheme to help African farmers does nothing to address the problems that are at the core of hunger and malnutrition. More likely, it will serve only to further poverty and inequality across the continent. The elites of the first world work together with the elites of the third world in the name of helping peasant farmers, but it nobody consults the peasant farmers themselves. Perhaps Obama could spend a week or two living with his Kenyan family members to find out what they actually want and need before he suggests another program to "help" the people of Africa.''

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''Kadhafi’s Africa: The Untold Story''-by J-P Pougala

From Africa News


'THE REAL REASONS FOR THE WAR IN LIBYA'

''It was Libya’s Kadhafi who gave all of Africa its first real revolution in modern times: by ensuring universal coverage of the continent via telephone, television, radio-broadcast and the many other applications such as telemedicine and long-distance learning; for the first time in history, a low-cost connection became available across the continent, and even into rural areas thanks to a bridging WMAX system.

The story begins in 1992 when 45 African countries created the RASCOM organization to acquire an African satellite in order to bring down the cost of communications across the continent.

At that time, calling from or to Africa had the most expensive call rates in the world, since there was a surcharge of 500 million dollars which Europeans collected annually on telephone conversations even within some African countries, just to transmit voice messages via European satellites like Intelsat. An African satellite would barely cost 400 millions dollars payable once and thus avoiding the 500 million annual rental fees. Which banker wouldn’t finance such a project?

But the difficult part of the equation remained unsettled: how does a beggar gain their freedom from exploitation by their master by borrowing money from this same master to achieve this?''

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''China rejects US criticism on human rights''

From France24

''China on Friday condemned a US report about Chinese human rights violations, calling it “fraught with prejudice”, and said that problems in the US meant it had no right to lecture other countries.''

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''Washington’s Hypocrisies''

From Foreign Policy Journal
By Paul Craig Roberts

''The US government is the second worst human rights abuser on the planet and the sole enabler of the worst—Israel.  But this doesn’t hamper Washington from pointing the finger elsewhere.

The US State Department’s “human rights report” focuses its ire on Iran and Syria, two countries whose real sin is their independence from Washington, and on the bogyman- in-the-making—China, the country selected for the role of Washington’s new cold war enemy.''

'Inside Job'



‘Inside Job’ provides a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, the film traces the rise of a rogue industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia. It was made on location in the United States, Iceland, England, France, Singapore, and China.

Farewell Address : President Dwight Eisenhower : Jan 17, 1961

From Ricthuse

http://www.youtube.com/user/ricthuse?feature=watch

'Americans don't share global domination policies of their leaders'

From RT.com

''RT talks to Peter Dale Scott - former diplomat, poet and prominent anti-war advocate. He says that the US corporate superstructure conglomerate - including financial interests, the defense industry, oil companies and the media - brazenly manipulate American society.''

''Why Do So Many Journalists Pretend That the Saudis and the US Part Company Over Islamization?''

amen............From 'There are no Sunglasses'

''You have been swallowing the lies and following the liars for far too long.  Every president since Reagan has used Islamist jihadis as the principle tool in the American toolbox, only we have always allowed them to pretend that this military process of sowing jihad was actually something called "limited warfare," or "conflict management."  Until We the People open our eyes to these obvious facts we will continue to fight unwinnable conflicts--BECAUSE THAT IS THE WAY THAT THE PENTAGON WANTS IT.  What else explains the fact that the greatest military that money can buy, for the world's only "Superpower," has not won a single war since WWII?

I can't say it any plainer than this--
The CIA  continually creates the wars that American soldiers die in, while the President of the United States keeps giving the murderous spy agency the "green light" to start new wars for the express purpose of causing the bloody dismemberment of American troops and all of their innocent victims.  Every battle of the so-called "terror war" has been fought against CIA mercenary armies.  The real Army wages war against the CIA's "Blackwater" armies.  Why else do so many of us call them "Al-CIA-da"?''

read the rest here 

'Col Barry Turner - Committee of 300 John Coleman'


''China wary of bilateral ties between India and Myanmar''

From Hindustan Times

''China is both Myanmar's most influential foreign neighbour and its most nervous. No country is as deeply entrenched in the economy of Myanmar while being so wary of the political reforms that began there last year. This poses a challenge to India on several levels.''

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'Two Eurosceptics vs Three Europhiles'


From News Of The Globe

''Fabian4Liberty- Dollar Collapse Likely''

From Investors Hangout

http://www.youtube.com/user/Fabian4Liberty

''CHINA & U.S. Currency Crisis''

From... http://www.youtube.com/user/Fabian4Liberty

''How Hyperinflation Happens''

From Don't Tread On Me
By Silver Shield

''Since I believe that hyper inflation is the most likely out come I want to look at it a little further.
Hyperinflation has two technical aspects to it, 1. the quantity of money is essential.  If there are a lot of dollars relative to the amount of real goods and services out there it is a prerequisite to a hyper inflation.  If we double the money in quantity relative to the good or services the end result is that prices will double because there are twice as much dollars in circulation. This very clearly points out that inflation of the currency does not really cause prices to rise as much as you need more worth less dollars to buy the exact same amount of goods as before.''


read more here 

''Paper Money: The Barbarous Relic''

From ETF Daily News

''For those not familiar with the mechanics of national economies, the gold standard has often been referred to over history as “the Golden Handcuffs”. How did it acquire this intimidating nickname? Because it absolutely limits our governments from any extreme/insane fiscal or monetary policies without the consequences of those policies being immediately known to the general public.

A government trying to run huge deficits (like the U.S. government was doing during the Vietnam War), would quickly see its “bank account” (i.e. the national gold reserves) quickly evaporate as paying for those deficits emptied the government’s Treasury. Thus ultimately the primary reason that a gold standard is despised (or rather feared) by all the charlatan money-printers like Keynes and the deadbeat governments of modern Western economies is that a gold standard forces governments to pay their bills.''

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''U.S. Thinks Road to Bahrain's Heart Is Through Its Appetite for Weaponry''

From Foreign Policy in Focus

''This month the US lifted restrictions on a host of sales to the Bahraini military, going well beyond previous exemptions made since the 2011 freeze on a US$53 million arms deal, reportedly in the hopes of raising the profile of Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa at home following his visit to the US''

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''Nothing Grows Forever''

from 2010 ..........From Mother Jones

''In essence, endless growth puts us on the horns of a seemingly intractable dilemma. Without it, we spiral into poverty. With it, we deplete the planet. Either way, we lose.

Unless, of course, there's a third way. Could we have a healthy economy that doesn't grow? Could we stave off ecological collapse by reining in the world economy? Could we do it without starving?''

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''Improving the Banking System''

From Resource Investor

.............''commercial banks are not free to issue their own currency. Bank money has to be denominated in the currency issued by the national central bank and the banks are legally required to redeem their sight deposits in the currency of the central bank at any time. However, the need to back any single deposit of their clients does not necessarily mean that the bank is keeping all our money in their vaults at all times. According to current regulations, they just have to keep a tiny fraction of it. This is the legal reserve ratio. In the euro zone this is 2% of banks’ total deposits; and for this reason we call it a fractional reserve monetary system. This system allows for easy expansion of the money supply, but it also involves a significant risk: that of bank runs caused when depositors all try to take their money out of banks at once.''

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''JPMorgan Chase and Central Banking''

From Market Oracle

''Many free-market advocates wonder: why is it that I am a champion of free markets, privatization, and deregulation everywhere else, but not in the banking system? The answer should now be clear: Banking is not a legitimate industry, providing legitimate service, so long as it continues to be a system of fractional-reserve banking: that is, the fraudulent making of contracts that it is impossible to honor.''

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''The Trouble With Banks''

From Hedged.biz

''There is something wrong with the fractional reserve banking system. It should have become clear post 2008 but it hasn't. 
Banks at their simplest form take deposits, (borrow money) usually short term, and lend money, usually medium to long term. They also augment their short term borrowings with the issue of longer term debt instruments. So banks borrow on the one hand and lend on the other, making a margin, being the difference between the rate at which they borrow and the rate at which they lend.''

Sunday, May 27, 2012

''Greece financial crisis-On the Edge with Max Keiser''-05-24-2012

From PressTV

''New age colonialism: West buying up Third World?''

From RT.com

''Multinational corporations are buying up swathes of land in underdeveloped countries in an unchecked scramble towards new-age colonialism. So-called “land grabbing” sees western powers vying for economic control of the developing world’s resources.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently gathered with members of the corporate elite and NGOs to develop guidelines against “land grabbing”.  Matters have been prepared over the last three years, leading to the present guidelines being published at the beginning of May 2012. While in principle a perfectly legitimate idea, it’s best to stay cautious.''

read more 

''BBC Children of the Tsunami''


From BBC

''Media Lies and the Onset of War – James Corbett Reports''

From Corporate Media Exposed

''At the beginning of this year, James Corbett, video casting for Global Research, produced an outstanding report on the connections between media manipulation and the onset of war.

Essentially, the corporate media, using military industrial complex produced propaganda, sells outright lies to the American people in order to secure support for endless war.''

http://corporatemediaexposed.com/

''A Mess the 45th President Will Inherit''

From Jesse's Cafe Americain

.....''Little noticed is that on Tuesday Team Obama took its first formal steps toward putting taxpayers behind Wall Street derivatives trading -- not behind banks that might make mistakes in derivatives markets, but behind the trading itself. Yes, the same crew that rails against the dangers of derivatives is quietly positioning these financial instruments directly above the taxpayer safety net.''

''U.S. taxpayers thinking that they couldn't possibly be forced to stand behind overseas derivatives trading will not be comforted by remarks from Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler. On Monday he emphasized his determination to extend Dodd-Frank derivatives regulation to overseas markets when subsidiaries of U.S. firms are involved...''


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''The Brotherhood and Mubarak''

From Aljazeera

''For years the Muslim Brotherhood was officially banned by Egypt's government, but following the 2011 revolution, the fall of Hosni Mubarak and the country's first free parliamentary elections, the Brotherhood - with its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party - has emerged as Egypt's most powerful political force.

This film traces the Muslim Brotherhood's gradual integration into the Egyptian political system - despite the attempts of Mubarak to suppress the organisation during his 30-year rule.''

see video here 

''Spent Fuel Rods Drive Growing Fear Over Plant in Japan''

From NYTimes

''Fourteen months after the accident, a pool brimming with used fuel rods and filled with vast quantities of radioactive cesium still sits on the top floor of a heavily damaged reactor building, covered only with plastic.

The public’s fears about the pool have grown in recent months as some scientists have warned that it has the most potential for setting off a new catastrophe, now that the three nuclear reactors that suffered meltdowns are in a more stable state, and as frequent quakes continue to rattle the region.''

''Syria, Yemen, & America’s Quest for Imperial Dominance''

From 'There are no Sunglasses'


''At the G8 summit last week, President Obama and other officials in his administration, began utilizing the talking point of Yemen being a model to be emulated in Syria. Ostensibly, they were referring to the “peaceful” transition of power in Yemen as an example of what they would like to see in Syria.

However, the comparison goes much deeper than simply this superficial connection. The truth is that Yemen represents, in more ways than one, the blueprint that the US imperialist ruling class would like to see applied to the escalating conflict in Syria.''

''Keiser Report: Reform = Crime To Favor Wall St. Crooks'' With Luke Rudkowski

From Rt.com


"In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss the 99% knocking on Timmy Geithner's door looking for 'reform' of criminal behavior. In the second half of the show Max talks to independent video journalist, Luke Rudkowski, about livestreaming to the world from a smartphone and his recent work covering the NATO summit in Chicago.''

''Demographics is Destiny - Harry Dent''


From Casey Research

''Harry Dent, Founder and President of HS Dent Foundation, explains why he believes deflation is coming instead if inflation at the latest Casey Research Conference, "Recovery Reality Check" in Weston, Florida.''

''Reggie Middleton breaks down "Muppetology," Face Ripping IPO's, and the Chinese Wall! ''

From RT.com

''Rob Johnson’s poignant warning against both bubbles and austerity''

From Yanis Varoufakis

''Rob Johnson’s main point is that, following the Crash of 2008, our world is in a state of structural disequlibrium (which is pretty much what I have been arguing in my Global Minotaur). In this disequilibrium state, there is a global excess demand for ‘safe assets’. And since we cannot ALL own safe assets at once (just like not all nations can have, simultaneously, a trade surplus), unless investors find the courage to invest in less than perfectly safe assets, then no assets will be safe, all assets will wither, and a new Global Depression will be upon us. Moreover, given the oligopolisation of savings, due to the concentration of global savings in a small number of sovereign wealth funds, the risk aversion of the sovereign wealth fund managers is threatening to undermine any chance of the global rebalancing which is, whether we like it or not, a prerequisite for a Global Recovery.''

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