Posted by smeddum on November 23, 2010
what’s left
November 23, 2010
By Stephen Gowans
If you read Mark McDonald’s article in The New York Times, “‘Crisis Status’ in South Korea After North Shells Island”, the answer depends on whether you paid attention to the headline, the expert commentary, and the tone of the article, or whether you paid attention to the facts. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by seumasach on November 23, 2010
“I find it embarrassing – to blame our trade partners and creditors for our predicament. Worse yet, it is frightening that there is obviously no plan of attack for dealing with the structural issues of the US. The Geithner/Bernanke “global rebalancing” gimmick is to have China and the “developing” economies inflate domestic demand and stimulate imports. In the meantime, we stay the course with massive deficits, monetization and near-zero interest rates. This approach has no chance of rectifying the country’s deep structural impairment nor resolving global imbalances. It does, however, increase the odds of a crisis of confidence in the US debt markets and currency.”
Doug Noland
23rd November, 2010
Click on above link for full bulletin
With eurozone tensions on the rise, Wednesday’s headline from the Financial Times read “Anger at Germany boils over”. “Bernanke Fires Back, Takes Aim at China,” was how the Wall Street Journal titled its analysis of the Federal Reserve chairman’s speech on Friday morning in Frankfurt. Paul Krugman also takes direct aim at Germany and China – and throws in the Republicans – with his “Axis of Depression” piece in Friday’s New York Times. In a troubled backdrop beckoning for level-headed analysis and cooperation, the mood has turned decidedly ideological and hostile.
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: End of empire, QE2 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 23, 2010
Cailean Bochanan
23rd November, 2010
We haven’t had to wait long after the G20 summit for hostilities to break out. In a speech at a conference of European central bankers in Frankfurt Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve had the temerity to blame China for the “excessive or volatile capital inflows” caused by dollar devaluation or quantitative easing. Let’s hope the Europeans took note of the new, abrasive style. After all, it’s also directed at them.
If the media is awash with anti-China propaganda it is also barking as never before for the end of the eurozone as if it was they who had just embarked on a lunatic programme of currency devaluation. But the idea is to bounce them into it, to break up the EU and to loot the place, which having never fully been subjected to the rigours of Thatcherism still has an air of complacent prosperity compared to the bombed out squalor of large areas of the US/UK. There are still juicy pickings there and City of London sharks, strategically placed and sensing weak EU leadership, have got the scent of blood.
Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: no new bailout, stop the bailout | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 22, 2010
19th November, 2010
Radiation from Wi-Fi networks is harmful to trees, causing significant variations in growth, as well as bleeding and fissures in the bark, according to a recent study in the Netherlands.
Posted in Studies and statements showing mobile phone health risk | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 22, 2010
Jean-Claude Paye
22nd November, 2010
In a blaze of publicity, the European Union has just adopted a regulatory code for hedge funds to manage the systemic risk that they impart to the general economy. In reality, observes Jean-Claude Paye, the new directive is a sieve which will have an effect contrary to that announced. Its real objective is to summarily control the European funds, while opening the door to U.S. funds which will be able to speculate without restriction at the expense of Europeans.
Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: hedge funds | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 22, 2010
In a recent column, “The Stench of American Hypocrisy,” I noted that US public officials and media are on their high horse about the rule of law in Burma while the rule of law collapses unremarked in the US. Americans enjoy beating up other peoples for American sins. Indeed, hypocrisy has become the defining characteristic of the United States.
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Posted by seumasach on November 22, 2010
Prof.Michael Hudson
22nd November, 2010
Here’s the quandary that the U.S. economy is in: The Fed’s quantitative easing policy– creating more liquidity so that banks can lend more – aims at helping the economy “borrow its way out of debt.” But banks are not lending more, for the simple reason that a third of U.S. real estate already is in negative equity, while small and medium-sized businesses (which have created most of the new jobs in America for the past few decades) have seen their preferred collateral (real estate and sales orders) shrink. How can banks be expected to lend more to re-inflate the economy’s asset prices while wages and consumer prices continue to drift down? The “real” economy as a whole therefore must shrink.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: dollar collapse | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 20, 2010
Pepe Escobar, 2010
20th november, 2010
Be afraid. Be very afraid. At the Lisbon summit this Friday and Saturday, a gargantuan, innocuously sounding, self-described “military alliance of democratic states in Europe and NorthAmerica” that happens to be a Cold War relic sits in its own nuclear-adorned couch to speculate what it is actually all about.
Posted in Disband NATO!, Drive to Global War | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 18, 2010
Cailean Bochanan
18th November, 2010
When Obama announced his latest quantitative easing scheme I assumed Britain would follow suit. Surprisingly they didn’t. Usually we move in tandem with our American partners but here there was a divergence. I had argued in the past that the pound functioned in much the same way as the dollar as a global reserve currency though very much under its wing. What was going on?
QE2, the latest quantitative easing programme was an attempt to run another free ride at the expense of the rest of the world: in fact, the culmination of thirty years of doing exactly that. Wasn’t Britain interested in the same racket: we could do with it since we have nothing else to fall back on. Unless, that is, we have our sights on a free ride off the European Union.
Tonight’s Channel 4 interview of the Irish Minister for Europe, Dick Roche, gave a strange impression. Presenter Jon Snow seemed absolutely desperate to get Roche to admit that the bailout was on the way whilst the latter remained fairly laid back about it all. It all aroused my suspicion: are the Brits are using all their influence to bounce Dublin into this? Why?
The rationale behind the bailout is that it is necessary to prevent contagion specifically of the European periphery, notably Spain and Portugal. It is here , it transpires that UK bank’s exposure is massive: so there is more at stake than just £143 bullion invested in Ireland. Surely, this explains why the British response to this bailout is so different from their response to the Greek bailout. That was poo-pooed as, on the one hand, a sign of the imminent demise of the eurozone and on the other an attempt to shore up French and German banks exposed to Greek debt. But this time the mood music is much more positive. We are even happy to contribute to it ourselves- a nice touch when you consider the likely beneficiaries- whilst allowing our eurosceptics to run a simultaneous moaning campaign. Incidently, David McWilliam, an Irish eurosceptic, anglophile economist and also a sudden enthusiast for EU bailouts has pointed the finger again at French and German banks notably neglecting to admit to the British interest. Is this the elephant in the room?
Let’s wait to see how this unfolds but I have a sense the Brits have pulled off a coup here. The implications are rather disturbing- already the EU seems to have shown weakness in dealing with the City of London’s hedgefunds. Now Merkel has backed down precipitately over the issue of a haircut for Ireland’s creditors.The EU’s exposure on their western flank to City wrecking operations hasn’t been dealt with. Can the City really rerun a neo-colonial racket in Ireland courtesy of the EU?
Posted in Ireland, Uncategorized | Tagged: Ireland | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 18, 2010
18th November, 2010
Facetious title — but here’s an updated list of bank exposure to eurozone peripherals (in this case Ireland, Portugal and Greece) to ponder, as Ireland nears its bailout:
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Posted by seumasach on November 18, 2010
18th November, 2010
IT may seem strange that London has volunteered to help shoulder the cost of any Irish bailout when Britain has remained resolutely outside the eurozone.
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