| The term red pill and its opposite, blue pill, are pop culture terms that have become a common symbol for the choice between the blissful ignorance of illusion (blue) and embracing the sometimes painful truth of reality (red). |
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- Superior Biotechnology Leads to Superior Drugs
- The Delusion of Regulating Risk
- Talk of a Greek Exit Gets Louder
- Doug Casey on Taxes and Freedom, Part II
- Is Facebook the Rusty Hinge of the Stock Market?
- Fitch Downgrades Japan
- Doug Casey on Taxes and Freedom
- Greeks Run on Banks as Euro-Confidence Wanes
- To the Class of 2012
Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded
John Perkins has seen the signs of today’s economic meltdown before. The subprime mortgage fiascos, the banking industry collapse, the rising tide of unemployment, the shuttering of small businesses across the landscape are all too familiar symptoms of a far greater disease. In his former life as an economic hit man, he was on the front lines both as an observer and a perpetrator of events, once confined only to the third world, that have now sent the United States—and in fact the entire planet—spiraling toward disaster.
Here, Perkins pulls back the curtain on the real cause of the current global financial meltdown. He shows how we’ve been hoodwinked by the CEOs who run the corporatocracy—those few corporations that control the vast amounts of capital, land, and resources around the globe—and the politicians they manipulate. These corporate fat cats, Perkins explains, have sold us all on what he calls predatory capitalism, a misguided form of geopolitics and capitalism that encourages a widespread exploitation of the many to benefit a small number of the already very wealthy. Their arrogance, gluttony, and mismanagement have brought us to this perilous edge. The solution is not a “return to normal.”
But there is a way out. As Perkins makes clear, we can create a healthy economy that will encourage businesses to act responsibly, not only in the interests of their shareholders and corporate partners (and the lobbyists they have in their pockets), but in the interests of their employees, their customers, the environment, and society at large.
We can create a society that fosters a just, sustainable, and safe world for us and our children. Each one of us makes these choices every day, in ways that are clearly spelled out in this book.
“We hold the power,” he says, “if only we recognize it.” Hoodwinked is a powerful polemic that shows not only how we arrived at this precarious point in our history but also what we must do to stop the global tailspin.
Who Captured the Fed?
A hundred years ago, monetary policy – control over interest rates and the availability of credit – was viewed as a highly contentious political issue. People on the left of the political spectrum feared the central bank would be used to prop up Wall Street banks; those on the right thought it would unduly expand the role of government, giving too much power to politicians.
In the 1980s we entered a phase in which the Federal Reserve, along with other major central banks around the world, was seen as independent and run by technocrats supposedly immune from political pressure.
But in the light of the crisis of 2008 and its aftermath, we have to ask: Has our central bank fallen back under the influence of special interests?
The origins of the Federal Reserve System lie in an emotional debate, conducted more than 100 years ago, about whether the government should seek to affect interest rates – and support the credit of Wall Street firms during times of crisis – and, if so, how.
The Panic of 1907 convinced many people that the United States needed a central bank of some kind. A complete collapse of the financial system was too scary a prospect. But there was also a longstanding American aversion against ceding too much power to big banks.
At the dawn of the republic, Thomas Jefferson railed against the risks posed by government backing for concentrated power in the financial sector. President Andrew Jackson fought to abolish the Second Bank of the United States in the 1830s, the leading private bank of his day, which helped manage public finances and the banking system. Consequently, there was nothing resembling a central bank in the United States for much of the 19th century.
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United We Fall: Three Nations, Two Sides, One Union
A film by Bryan Law and Dan Dicks, United We Fall is a documentary about the North American Union that is being developed right now between Canada, the United States and Mexico. For years this topic has been debated in the news and in political circles as being a possible future for North America. In recent years, the mood has shifted and a rift is developing between those who want a deeply integrated North American community, and those who wish to retain their national sovereignty. This film takes a look at both sides by interviewing both insiders and activists who have been at the heart of this heated debate. The film also looks to the broader agenda of building a world government and its implications.
Senate passes insider-trading bill
Washington (CNN) — Aiming to restore voters’ faith in Congress, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Thursday that makes clear it’s illegal for members of Congress, their staffs and many executive-branch employees to trade stocks and other securities based on inside information learned on the job.
The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, which President Barack Obama has urged Congress to approve, passed 96-3.
The bill states that insider trading is criminal and requires public disclosure online of any trades within 30 days of a transaction. It was aimed initially just at Capitol Hill. However, Republicans clamored for the inclusion of executive-branch employees.
“The same standards should apply to the White House and the executive agencies that spend hundreds of billions of dollars at the president’s direction,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.
Obama, referring to his State of the Union address, said in a statement: “Last week, I called on Congress to pass a bill that makes clear that Members of Congress may not engage in insider trading. … So I’m pleased the Senate took bipartisan action to pass the STOCK Act. I urge the House of Representatives to pass this bill, and I will sign it right away.”
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, issued a statement after the Senate vote saying the House may take up the STOCK Act next week.
“We will quickly review the entire bill and the amendments that were added today to ensure that public servants, whether in the legislative or executive branch, do not personally profit from insider information. It is critical that the bill we send to the president guarantees that the same rules apply to those in the federal government as they do to everyone else,” Cantor said in the statement.
Senators approved an amendment by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, that Republicans said would require about 28,000 senior executive-branch employees to abide by the new disclosures. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Connecticut, a key backer of the bill, opposed the provision, warning its reach could be far broader. He said it would affect as many as 300,000 federal workers, including “drivers (and) secretaries.”
Lieberman wanted to include only about 2,000 of the most senior executive-branch employees — those “who hold positions most equivalent to those of us in Congress who are policymakers,” he said.
Shelby said his approach “creates parity, fairness and true transparency.”
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$1.2 Billion ‘Vaporized’ Under Obama Bundler Jon Corzine’s ‘Leadership’ at MF Global
Former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine had little trouble finding $500,000 in his role as a top Obama campaign bundler, but locating the missing $1.2 billion in customer funds he oversaw as the head of MF Global funds is proving far more difficult–impossible even, reports the Wall Street Journal.
A person close to the investigation told The Journal that a “significant amount” of customers’ money appears to have “vaporized”:
Nearly three months after MF Global Holdings Ltd. collapsed, officials hunting for an estimated $1.2 billion in missing customer money increasingly believe that much of it might never be recovered, according to people familiar with the investigation.
As the sprawling probe that includes regulators, criminal and congressional investigators, and court-appointed trustees grinds on, the findings so far suggest that a “significant amount” of the money could have “vaporized” as a result of chaotic trading at MF Global during the week before the company’s Oct. 31 bankruptcy filing, said a person close to the investigation.
Many officials now believe certain employees at MF Global dipped into the “customer segregated account” that the New York company was supposed to keep separate from its own assets—and then used the money to meet demands for more collateral or to unfreeze assets at banks and other counterparties as they grew more concerned about their financial exposure to MF Global.
During a House hearing in December, Mr. Corzine said he “doesn’t know” where the $1.2 billion went or is.
ACTA Copyright Treaty Sparks Protests In Latest Anti-Piracy Battle
In the United States, a massive Internet protest last week led by Wikipedia and Google drove congressional leaders to place controversial anti-piracy legislation on hold.
But in other parts of the world, another proposal to increase copyright enforcement is gaining momentum, despite protests from opponents concerned about Internet censorship.
On Thursday, the European Union and 22 of its member states signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA — a major step toward enforcement of the copyright treaty. Eight countries, including the United States, had signed the agreement this past fall.
ACTA has always been controversial because the international negotiations that began in 2007 took place in secret. But now, opponents of the treaty have developed new muscle after witnessing the success of the Internet outcry against the two U.S. bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).
In Poland, hundreds took to the streets this week to protest the government’s intention to sign ACTA. Several popular Polish websites replaced their regular content with statements expressing concerns about ACTA, and government websites were taken offline in an apparent denial-of-service attack coordinated by the hacker group Anonymous.
