Lauren McCauley – Making Case for Clean Air, World Bank Says Pollution Cost Global Economy $5 Trillion

Air pollution is the fourth-leading cause of premature deaths worldwide and the problem only continues to worsen, but governments have been reluctant to make the dramatic changes necessary to curb polluting industries in favor of cleaner alternatives. In an effort to strengthen the case for action, the World Bank along with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at …

Alternative Visions – The New Financial Imperialism How It Works – 09.02.16

Dr. Jack Rasmus summarizes his just published book this month, ‘Looting Greece: A New Financial Imperialism Emerges’, Clarity Press, Sept. 2016, explaining how debt and credit are becoming new and even more efficient and generalized means by which the more powerful capitalist countries are beginning to extract and transfer wealth from the smaller and more vulnerable. Jack describes the various techniques and means by which financial measures are used to extract surplus. Greece is a case example of the new imperialism taking shape increasingly globally. ‘Looting Greece’ is a sequel to Dr. Rasmus’s January 2016 publication, ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy’, which described how the shift to financial investing is slowing down the global economy, and how a new global finance capital elite is increasingly dominating national economies and slowing growth. In the last half of the show, Rasmus reviews the major economic events of the past week, including today’s US job numbers, recent US manufacturing data, the US central bank meeting—and why the Fed will raise interest rates for certain before year end and the impact that will have on a shift to fiscal spending in 2017 andthe US economy’s coming recession in 2017-18 as well as on emerging markets, China and US corporate profits. The show concludes with a commentary on recent IMF and BIS reports on the global economy.

James K. Galbraith – From the destruction of Greece to democracy in Europe

IN PROTESTING the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I, John Maynard Keynes wrote: “The policy . . . of depriving the lives of millions of human beings, of depriving a whole nation of happiness should be abhorrent and detestable — abhorrent and detestable, even if it were possible, even if it enriched ourselves, even if it did not sow the …

JOHN MAULDIN – These 6 Charts Show Why the Average American Is Fed Up

The last 20 years have brought great wealth to a few while most of the population was lucky to break even. Whether you’re a member of the elite/protected class or one of the unprotected, it’s hard to deny this reality. Household income is going nowhere Here’s an update of Doug Short’s household income chart:

Lauren McCauley – Billionaire Bonanza as Wealth Surges Among One Percent

There is little doubt that the global one percent is winning. In fact, a new study has found that the number of billionaires reached an all-time high in 2015 at the same time that their portfolios and piggy banks also continued to grow to record proportions. According to the 2015-2016 Billionaire Census by international market research firm Wealth-X, which bills itself as …

Peter Spence – US economy ‘close to stagnant for almost a year’ as growth shudders

Hopes of US interest rate rises were pushed into the distance on Friday, as figures showed that the world’s largest economy had slowed sharply and was near stagnation for almost a year. The  US economy grew by just 0.3pc in the three month period to the end of June, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Economists had anticipated …

Michael Snyder – Painful To Watch: This Is The Weakest U.S. Economic ‘Recovery’ Since 1949

Most of us have never witnessed an economic “recovery” this bad.  As you will see below, the average rate of economic growth since the last recession has been the lowest for any “recovery” in at least 67 years.  And unfortunately, the economy appears to be slowing down even more here in 2016.  On Friday, I talked about how the U.S. economy …

ERIC ZUESSE – How Corrupt America Is

The best reporting on the depth of America’s dictatorship is probably that being done by Atlanta Georgia’s NBC-affiliated, Gannett-owned, TV Channel “11 Alive”, WXIA television, “The Investigators” series of local investigative news reports, which show, up close and at a cellularly detailed level, the way things actually work in today’s America. Although it’s only local, it displays what meets the legal standards of …

AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD – Italy must choose between the euro and its own economic survival

Italy is running out of economic time.  Seven years into an ageing global expansion, the country is still stuck in debt-deflation and still grappling with a banking crisis that it cannot combat within the paralyzing constraints of monetary union. “We have lost nine percentage points of GDP since the peak of the crisis, and a quarter of our industrial production,” …

Paul Kiel – So Sue Them: What We’ve Learned About the Debt Collection Lawsuit Machine

A couple of years ago, we set out to find out more about the growing use of the courts to collect consumer debts. How many lawsuits are filed? Who is filing them? Who is getting sued? The suits are filed in state and local courts, and many states rely on antiquated systems or only keep data at the county level. …