Early Warning Signs of Recession Flash Faintly in U.S. Jobs Data

As the economy again started off the year on a sour note, the glass-half-full crowd pointed to the strength of the U.S. jobs market as a reason not to worry. As long as payrolls are racking up monthly gains of 200,000 or more, the economy remains in fine fettle, or so the optimists would have it. Take a peek below …

Welcome to 2016! With Just a Touch of Mayhem

In China, stocks crashed on day one of 2016. No one really knows why. Some hardy souls blamed the manufacturing index that came in even lousier than in November. But manufacturing has been consistently lousy, and bad numbers are nothing new and not a reason for the sudden plunge in stocks. Whatever the reasons, the Shanghai Composite plunged 6.9%, the …

Yves Smith – Bernanke’s Cockroaches

Yet again, the long-suffering public is subjected to what passes for a leader during the crisis engaging in image-burnishing, in this case, Bernanke via an interview with the Financial Times: Ben Bernanke attacks Congress for failing to foster US rebound. The former Fed chairman is getting a round of media hype attention due to the publication of his memoirs. It may seem like …

Ellen Brown – Who Owns The Federal Reserve?

This article was first published by Global Research in October 2008 “Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders.” – The Honorable …

Alternative Visions – ‘US Fed Reverses Course on Rate Hikes? + ‘How Big Pharma is Killing Us’ – 09.25.15

Jack reviews briefly the apparent flip-flop by Janet Yellen, chair of the US central bank, in her talk on September 24, as she shifted course from last week’s Fed meeting, and signaled that a US interest rate hike will almost certainly come in December. How the Fed is now caught between its emerging, contradictory role as central bank for the US as well as for the global economy. Jack challenges Yellen’s view that US prices, now at 0.5%, will eventually rise as oil prices reverse and increase again and as the labor market in the US improves—and explains why this is not likely to happen soon. In the second half of the show, big Pharmaceutical companies are the topic. Jack explains how Wall St. and shadow bankers increasingly run Pharma and have turned it into a speculative investing center where drug price manipulation and gouging is increasingly the norm causing astronomically price hikes for life-saving drugs, with the result of killing of countless more Americans denied unaffordable drugs. How Wall St. has turned the industry, from what should be a public good, into a $500 billion speculative profits center with 20% annual rates of return, into a prime source of mergers and acquisitions profits for banks, and into a major tax avoidance (thru global tax ‘inversions’) industry that gets $100 billion in government R&D subsidies. Jack reviews in detail the latest scandal to hit the press this past week, with Turing Corp.’s 5000% increase for a pill to treat toxoplasmosis that prevents infections in pregnancies, cancer, and AIDs patients. Similar price manipulations delivering ‘rentier’ profits by Rodelis Corp., Valeant Corp., Alexion and Gilead Corps are reviewed. How the disease of finance capital is spreading throughout the US economy as bankers and corporate America continue to ‘kill’ Americans in the name of excess profits.

Philip Loring – It’s time for a new story of humanity’s place in the world

It goes without saying that humans are good at causing problems. Climate change, overfishing and widespread environmental contamination from chemical toxicants are all creations of our own making. But are we destined to create such problems? Many people believe so, and argue that our capacity for self-interest, avarice and ecological shortsightedness make us inherently unsustainable as a species. Not only …

Why it’s time for Germany to leave the eurozone by Mehreen Khan

Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, has drawn opprobrium and praise in equal measure for his suggestion that Greece takes a “time-out” from the eurozone. In proposing that Greece could be better off outside the euro, the irascible 72-year-old crossed a political rubicon: he confirmed that the single currency was “reversible” after all. But having broken the euro’s biggest taboo, commentators …

China’s Market Falls: a New Global Financial Crisis Next? By Jack Rasmus

China’s two main stock markets, the Shanghai and the Shenzhen Exchanges, plunged more than 30% in recent weeks from their previous record highs of June 12. The Shanghai dropped 30%, and the tech-stock heavy Shenzhen by 37%. That’s the steepest stock decline in China since 1992. The markets briefly stabilized on July 9. But the question remains, will they continue …

Banks Closed in Greece, China Stock Market Effectively Shuttered, Commodities Plunging: Is the 2008 Crisis Back With a Vengeance? By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

It’s starting to feel like we never actually emerged from the 2008 crisis: the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve simply threw $13 trillion at the crisis and walked away, hoping that an endless zero-interest-rate-policy (Zirp) would patch over the cracks in the global financial system. What we seem to have now is an endless series of rolling crises instead of one …

Does Wall Street Call the Shots at the FBI? – Pam Martens and Russ Martens

It is clear to most Americans that Wall Street’s financing of presidential and congressional campaigns is creating too many pals wearing blindfolds about epic corruption on Wall Street. The President, subject to Senate confirmation, selects the U.S. Treasury Secretary, the Chair of the Federal Reserve, the Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission – all of whom regulate Wall Street, …