Progressive Commentary Hour – 03.28.17

The Unauthorized Biography of David Rockefeller – David Rockefeller is dead. But what does it mean? How do we measure the life of someone who has shaped the modern world to such an extent? Join us for this week’s edition of The Progressive Commentary Hour as Gary plays The Corbett Report where we examine David Rockefeller’s life, his works and the world that he left in his wake.

Nadia Prupis – Wall Street and Private Prisons ‘Licking Their Lips’ Over Trump Presidency

A new report from the research organization In the Public Interest (ITPI) highlights the banks that finance the private prison industry—and with a Trump administration on the horizon, they could be in for a windfall. Six banks have played a major part in bankrolling the two largest private prison firms, CoreCivic (formerly the Corrections Corporation of America) and the GEO …

Kissinger hindered US effort to end mass killings in Argentina, according to files

Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger jeopardized US efforts to stop mass killings by Argentina’s 1976-83 military dictatorship by congratulating the country’s military leaders for “wiping out” terrorism, according to a large trove of newly declassified state department files. The documents, which were released on Monday night, show how Kissinger’s close relationship to Argentina’s military rulers hindered Jimmy Carter’s carrot-and-stick …

Dominic Frisby – Why we should fear a cashless world

The health food chain Tossed has just opened the UK’s first cashless cafe. It’s another step towards the death of cash. This is nothing new. Money is tech. The casting of coins made shells, whales’ teeth and other such primitive forms of money redundant. The printing press did the same for precious metals: we started using paper notes instead. Electronic banking …

Trends This Week – The Economic Meltdown: It’s Global. Period. – 01.27.16

Want to know the truth behind those wild swings in global markets? Listen to this program with global master forecaster Gerald Celente. The facts prove it. With just three trading days left in January, in the history of the Dow Jones, there has never been a new year that has rung in on such a down note. And the wild market ride has spread far beyond Wall Street. Just one week ago, the global equity rout sent the MSCI All-Country World Index into bear territory. From China to Japan, from the UK to France, stocks were down more than 20 percent from 2015 highs. Among the higher-risk emerging markets, stocks dove to their lowest levels since May 2009. Overall, some $15 trillion in global equity values has been lost since the year began. Beyond diving equities, commodity prices are down to 1991 levels, according to the Bloomberg Commodity Index. Thus, among many resource-rich nations whose exports have sharply fallen along with the prices of the commodities they sell, their currencies’ value also has dramatically declined. There’s a rough ride ahead. Prepare. Prevail. Prosper.

Maya Gold – Top Ten CEOs’ Pay Is an Annual Raise for Half a Million Workers

America, chief executive pay is now 300 times more than the average worker. That’s a high enough ratio that presidential candidates are taking note on both sides of the aisle. Senator Bernie Sanders listed the statistic in a statementsupporting mandated CEO disclosure of salaries, and CEO Trump himself declared that the numbers were “disgraceful.”   However, even on a topic …

Valentin KATASONOV – Ukraine’s Default, Kiev’s Desperate Maneuvers, and IMF’s Backroom Deals

Ukraine is headed straight toward a full-scale default on its public debt, which currently totals $70 billion, of which $40 billion is owed to foreign creditors, about half of whom are private lenders, while the others are official state or public entities (such as foreign governments and international financial institutions). Strictly speaking, Ukraine has already defaulted, because on September 23 …

Pam Martens and Russ Martens – Citigroup Was Using Taxpayer Bailout Funds While Committing Its Foreign Currency Felony

While the U.S. taxpayer was involuntarily shoveling over $2 trillion in bailout funds and loans into Citigroup from 2008 to 2010, the bank was committing at least one admitted felony on its foreign currency trading desk. And if ongoing testimony in a London court is to be believed, the U.S. Justice Department could have brought charges against individuals instead of …

Peter Lee – Making Sense of China’s Stock Market Meltdown

I suppose much of the journo commentariat was born since 2008 and therefore has no memory of TARP, Too Big To Fail, or Jamie Dimon rolling around naked inside a gigantic vat of taxpayer money, so there has been a considerable amount of handwring about how the CCP defiled the purity of the stock market by flinging a trillion or so …

Banker Deaths: JPMorgan Tech Workers Have New Conspiracy Theories; Former Intern Allegedly Commits Suicide By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

Since December 2013 there have been a rash of unusual deaths among workers at JPMorgan Chase, including alleged leaps from buildings and two separate alleged murder-suicides in New Jersey. A noteworthy number of the deaths have been among technology workers. With the exception of Julian Knott, who was a high level technology expert for JPMorgan in both London and later …