Alternative Visions – Panama Papers’ Revelations & What’s Happening in Europe (French protests, Dutch voters, Brexit-Grexit, German Economy) – 04.08.16

Jack discusses this past week’s revelations out of Panama of the massive tax sheltering, avoidance and fraud by the US and global economic elites. The economic tax ‘wikileaks’ revelations show global politicians deeply implicated, including Iceland, UK, Argentina prime ministers. Jack refers listeners back to his 2006 ‘War at Home’ book and the ‘Great American Tax Shift’ and writings ever since on this topic, available at his blog, jackrasmus.com and website, www.kyklosproductions.com/articles/html. Where the US, Euro, Russian, China 1% hide their money in 27 global ‘jurisdictions’, estimated conservatively at $11 trillion today. Phone Congress ‘repatriation’ tax proposals of 2005 and 2016 are explained, recent inversion deals, and how and why US corporations hold more than $2T offshore today. In the second half of the show, Jack reviews growing events in Europe, with French workers and students staging massive protests against ‘labor law reforms’, Dutch voters rejecting inclusion of Ukraine into the EU, why odds favor a UK (Brexit) from the Eurozone this June, why a Greek ‘Grexit’ may follow as the IMF threatens to renege on last August’s Greek bailout, and new evidence of a Germany economic slowdown. (For further analysis of Europe, see except of Jack’s chapter 6, ‘Europe’s Chronic Stagnation’, from his 2016 book, ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy’, posted on his kyklosproductions website above).

Alternative Visions – Europe’s Central Bank Expands Its QE in Response to Japan’s – 03.11.16

Last month the Bank of Japan (BoJ) expanded its QE program and negative interest rates (NIRP) in a desperate attempt to reboost its stock market and Yen exchange rate. This past week the European Central Bank (ECB)went a step further, as both the ECB and BoJ continue to engage in ‘dueling QEs’ that are intensifying global currency wars and slowing global trade. ECB chairman, Mario Draghi, lowered the Eurozone’s negative rate on government bonds another notch, now to -0.4%. Reportedly half of all government bonds in Europe now trade at negative rates. In addition, the ECB raised its monthly buying amount from $66 billion to $88 billion, and now will buy corporate bonds as well. The move subsidizes Euro corporations, lowering their costs of borrowing and insurance (CDS) on bonds, a move to offload the $1.5 trillion in corporate non-performing loans in Europe. Jack Rasmus explains why this won’t have any effect on the Eurozone real economy but will temporary boost stocks and currency. Jack also reviews why global oil prices have risen recently to $40 a barrel, Japan’s official return to recession after doctoring GDP numbers last 3Q2015, China’s latest ‘mini-stimulus’, the US deepening control of Ukraine’s economy, and the significance of the ‘Socialist’ government in France new attack on eliminating the 35 hr. workweek, where 90% of all jobs created in 2015 were part time and temp, and the mass protests now emerging there. Jack concludes with brief introduction to his forthcoming May 2016 book, ‘Looting Greece: The Emergence of a New Imperialism’, and his next book out October 2016 entitled, ‘Central Bankers on the Ropes’, both from Clarity Press. (see his blog, jackrasmus.com and Clarity Press for more information).