Economic Update – Public Service vs Private Profit – 12.24.17

Updates on Economic Threats: Corbyn vs Morgan Stanley, cars for super-rich, information vs profit, Fed chair Powell’s over-reach, why regulations are never enough, and corporate criminality. Interview with David Jette about public vs private banking. Download this episode (right click and save)

Alternative Visions – How Bankers Run the Fed and Donald ‘The Trumpet’ on Jobs – 06.23.17

Dr. Rasmus continues the review of the Federal Reserve Bank, showing how the private banks today control the Fed more than ever in recent decades. How the Fed’s structure permits private banking interests to dominate strategic decisions of the central bank, and how there control of the Fed is about to deepen further under Trump. Jack explains how the expansion …

Alternative Visions – US Fed Raises Rates Again + Part 3: Central Bankers at the End of their Ropes – 06.16.17

Dr. Rasmus reviews the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike decision this past week, showing how the Fed’s justifications for the rate hike based on ‘data’ are contradictory. How the data show no hike was justified. Rasmus explains how the Fed has been manipulating reporting the data on prices, unemployment and wages in order to justify 8 years of zero rate …

Alternative Visions – 8 Disturbing Economic Reports + Taming Trump Revisited – 04.14.17

As the euphoria of the false promise of Trump policies stimulating US economic growth continue to fade, host Dr. Jack Rasmus reviews several economic reports indicating not much has changed for the US and global economies since Trump’s election.  Jack reviews the IMF’s report on productivity that continues to slow (US productivity now less than 0.5% annual growth compared to …

Trends This Week – Markets on the rise? – 02.15.17

Markets and small business optimism continue to climb under President Trump, aided by deregulation, tax deals, and stimulus programs. While markets and employment have grown, real wages have hardly made gains, spelling out a spike in mortgage and subprime auto loan delinquencies. Added to the number of populist parties wanting out of the Eurozone, turmoil is looming over the commodity and equity markets, further pushing the prices of safe-haven assets such as gold.

Annie Machon – The West’s Shift Toward Repression

Forgive my “infamously fluent French” but the phrase “pour encourager les autres” – a reference to executing one powerful person to send a message to others – seems to have lost its famously ironic quality. It seems that the U.S. government is globally paying big bucks to people to encourage them to expose the crimes of their employers, but only …

Yves Smith – Why Economic Recovery Requires Rethinking Capitalism

In 2008, Queen Elizabeth II went to the London School of Economics to open a new academic building.  The British Monarch has made it a life’s work to avoid saying anything contentious in public, but this time she had a question for the economists: Why had they not seen the financial crash coming? Her question went to the heart of …

Alternative Visions – Central Bankers Out of Control – 09.23.16

Today’s show examines and discusses the past week’s major decisions by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan, and how they represent growing failure and desperation of central bank monetary policy globally. Bank of Japan promises to keep bond rates at zero for another ten years and to continue to inject money until inflation exceeds 2%. The Federal Reserve …