Lucas Davis – Addicted to oil: US gasoline consumption is higher than ever

August was the biggest month ever for U.S. gasoline consumption. Americans used a staggering 9.7 million barrels per day. That’s more than a gallon per day for every U.S. man, woman and child. The new peak comes as a surprise to many. In 2012, energy expert Daniel Yergin said, “The U.S. has already reached what we can call`peak demand.” Many others agreed. The U.S. Department …

Global Research News Hour – U.S. Campaign 2016: Searching for Democracy in a Broken System – 03.21.16

Politics has been called a rigged game, with elites using money and organizational resources to pull the puppet strings of most candidates for high office. However, the entrance into the race for US president of candidates Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump who both reject funding from Wall Street threatens to challenge that truism.

This week’s Global Research News Hour attempts to cut through the propaganda and jargon and assess what real options are out there for making substantive and humane political change.

William Blum is a long-time critic of US foreign policy. He has authored five books including his most recent, America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy – The Truth About US Foreign Policy and Everything Else. He also publishes the “Anti-Empire Report” on his site www dot williamblum dot org. In this interview, Blum outlines his reservations about Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the problematic media coverage of the campaign, and the astonishing view that Trump may actually be the less objectionable in certain respects than both Sanders and Clinton.

Mark Robinowitz is publisher of oilempire dot us, a political map to connect the dots. He has been a writer, political activist, ecological campaigner and permaculture practitioner for over three decades. He is also author of the forthcoming Peak Choice: cooperation or collapse, an uncensored guide to Earth, energy and money. In this interview, Robinowitz equates the choice between the Democrats and the Republicans to one between death by lethal injection and death by the electric chair. He outlines the mechanisms employed to stop any threat to the establishment from ever becoming elected president. He also explains how the energy and economic decline is becoming reflected in the politics of the Trump campaign.

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – End of the Line – 09.30.15

Our debt-based monetary system conceals a brutal fact: indebtedness to private sources for the acquisition of money is an unnecessary scourge on our economy and societal well-being. But with everyone, including local and state governments, in debt over their heads there’s nowhere to get more without digging the hole deeper. Systemically, the debt-money regime has run its course. Happily, alternatives are being explored in the form of outright free public issue of money directly to the people — “QE for the People.” We look at several dimensions of these ideas. Ellen speaks with noted UK professor and author Mary Mellor about the democratization of money and financial systems. Co-host Walt McRee discusses the current Bretton Woods IV Convocation which is focusing on the vital need for reclaiming public control of money, and on the Public Banking Report Matt Stannard takes a look at the morality of money.

Leid Stories – 07.16.15

World Money Woes: Bankruptcies, Bailouts and Big-Trade Boondoggles

Diplomatic scholar, historian, attorney and prolific author Dr. Gerald Horne takes a look at major international trade issues and corresponding shifts in global power, and the impact of these factors on U.S. foreign and domestic policy.

Horne is the John J. and Rebecca Moores chair of history and African American studies at the University of Houston. He also teaches graduate courses in diplomatic history. He has written more than 30 books, and more than 100 scholarly papers and reviews, on struggles against imperialism, colonialism, fascism and racism.

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – Monetary Reform: Trending – 06.03.15

Remarkable changes are underway in the world of monetary policy, theory and even the forms of money itself. Beyond just technology, these new forms and re-forms of the dominant money control systems are being pushed by the need for fairer economic distribution as well as raging battles between global private banks and citizens of Greece, Spain, Canada and more. This week Ellen speaks with Uli Kortsch, president of Global Partners Investments, who advocates replacing money creation by private banks through “fractional reserve lending” with government-issued money, and we visit with colleagues in London working on something similar. Co-host Walt McRee discusses a new series of workbooks designed to enable more local investment while Matt Stannard discusses the humanitarian concerns imposed by the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Orwellian Global Economy? “Backwardation”, Negative Interest Rates and the Gold Market – Bill Holter

We live in a truly messed up and Orwellian world if you will.  In many parts of Europe, interest rates are negative.  Savers “pay” for the privilege of banks to hold their money, lenders pay sovereign treasuries to lend, new homeowners who borrow to buy property are paid to borrow.  This situation where borrowers get paid and lenders pay also exists …

Alternative Visions – US Economy Stalls Again-4th Time in 4 years! – 05.01.15

Dr. Jack Rasmus analyzes US 1st Quarter GDP numbers, where US economic growth flattened out to a mere 0.2%–the fourth such collapse in the US economy in as many years. Is it due to the weather, as some argue? Is there something wrong with US statistics, showing four collapses since 2009 all occurring in the winter? Or are there real economic explanations for why the US economy periodically surges in the summer then stalls out in the winter, as it has since 2011? Will this winter 2015’s stall be followed by another ‘temporary surge’ in growth this summer?

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – Next! – 04.22.15

In the world of monetary reformists, there’s a clear understanding that things not only shouldn’t continue as they are, they can’t continue as they are – that systemic failure is upon us as current social and political outcomes tear at the fabric of civil life. Ellen speaks with Gar Alperovitz, one of America’s most venerable reformist thinkers and policy experts, about his new “The Next System Project” to help design and precipitate what should happen next.