Prof. Ismael Hossein-Zadeh – Who Owns the Federal Reserve Bank—and Why is It Shrouded in Myths and Mysteries?

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. (Henry Ford) Give me control of a Nation’s money supply, and I care not who makes its laws. (M. A. Rothschild) The Federal Reserve Bank (or simply the Fed), …

Alternative Visions – Central Banks Running Amuck – 12.18.15

Jack reviews the state of the US and global economy, focusing on US interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and its consequence for the US and global economies. In the review of this week’s economic events, the arrest of Pharma CEO Skrelli, what’s going on with Argentina and the resurgence of Neoliberalism in South America, and the US Congress’s passing of another $650 billion in tax cuts for corporations and the rich are also addressed. Next show: Jack continues review of his latest book, ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy’, now available from his blog, jackrasmus.com, discussing why economists and their theorists continue to get the global economic picture wrong.

Michael Snyder – December 14th To 18th: A Week Of Reckoning For Global Stocks If The Fed Hikes Interest Rates?

Are we about to witness widespread panic in the global financial marketplace?  This week is shaping up to be an absolutely critical week for global stocks.  Coming into December, more than half of the 93 largest stock market indexes in the world were down more than 10 percent year to date, and last week stocks really started to slide all over …

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.

Exposing The Lie Behind The “Strong Jobs Recovery” In One Chart

With all eyes glued to Friday’s payrolls report, we thought it worth reiterating some ‘facts’ about US employment data. As ECRI notes, the sustained decline in the official jobless rate – now approaching the Fed’s estimate of “full employment” – is a misleading indicator of labor market slack. The data shows thatthe so-called jobs recovery has been spearheaded by cheap …

Mike Bird – The Fed is at risk of repeating one of the biggest mistakes in the history of the US economy

Everything seems to be going wrong in the global economy right now. Chinese growth is slowing, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is officially in a bear market, Greece is heading into elections, and emerging markets around the world are feeling the strain of the strong US dollar. In the advanced world, the United States and United Kingdom are seeing some decent growth, …

Biotech stock bubble set for massive implosion: Stocks rose 88% AFTER Fed chair admitted they were overvalued by J. D. Heyes

If you’re trying to understand today’s stock market and are having some degree of difficulty, you’re not alone. The markets are confusing enough sometimes for experts, so they can be particularly baffling for laypersons. Still, a few economic basics ought to be pretty simple to understand, right? Wrong – apparently. About a year ago, as documented by the Zero Hedge website, Federal Reserve …

The Federal Reserve Board, Jobs and the Rewriting of Economic History By Dean Baker

As most people know, economists are good at rewriting history. We have seen this in the last few years as the collapse of the housing bubble and the ensuing downturn has been turned into one of those unavoidable tragedies that could not have been prevented. After all, no one could have imagined that house prices wouldn’t keep going up forever …

How Much Money Did the Fed Dump into the Stock Market? By Joshua Krause

Ever since the housing crash of 2008 and the stock market crash that followed, there has been an undeniable trend in our economy. As soon as the Fed began its quantitative easing program, the stock market started to recover. The more cash they dumped into the economy, the higher NASDAQ would soar. To the central planners in Washington, this was a recovery, …

Shelby’s Fed Reform Bill Is Just Moving Deck Chairs on the Titanic – Pam Martens and Russ Martens

Senator Richard Shelby, Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, is set to release details of his proposed financial reform legislation today which Wall Street hopes will have so much smoke and mirrors to appease the liberal and conservative factions on the Committee that no one will notice that it’s another big sellout to Wall Street. The bill will hold out …