Niall Ferguson compares US to Japan’s “lost decade”
Posted by smeddum on November 18, 2008
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: failing banks, Failing industries, Great Depression 2, Lou Dobbs, Niall Ferguson, US economy | Leave a Comment »
South America: Recession Can Be Avoided
Posted by smeddum on November 18, 2008
South America: Recession Can Be Avoided
by Mark Weisbrot
Monthly Review
Can South America escape the wrath of the economic and financial storms that have their epicenter in the United States? Since the financial meltdown began in mid-September, the bond markets of most of the region (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela) have been hit, as well as most of their stock markets and a number of currencies. The steep drop in commodity prices in recent months has also reduced export and government revenue to a number of countries (Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Chile) where previously high prices of agricultural crops, minerals, and hydrocarbons has contributed to a growth spurt over the last few years. The old adage that “When America gets a cold, Latin America catches pneumonia” has been widely cited.
However, there is good reason to believe that South America, in particular, can weather this storm with minimal damage if it adopts the right macro-economic policies. First, these countries are not very much tied to the U.S. economy, which is in the midst of a deep recession. Exports from Brazil and Argentina to the United States, for example, are less than one percent of those countries’ economies. Second, the financial institutions of these countries, for various reasons, did not buy the toxic mortgage-backed securities and other “troubled assets” that have tanked US and even European banks, nor did they engage in the kind of over-leveraging and other risky practices that have brought down the U.S. financial system. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: South America | Leave a Comment »
Overloading of Towns and Cities with Radio Transmitters (Cellular Transmitter): a hazard for the human health and a disturbance of eco-ethics
Posted by seumasach on November 17, 2008
1
Overloading of Towns and Cities with Radio
Transmitters (Cellular Transmitter): a hazard for
the human health and a disturbance of eco-ethics
Karl Hecht, Elena N. Savoley
IRCHET International Research Centre of Healthy and Ecological Technology
Berlin – Germany
diagnose-funk
1. A Very Serious Warning 36 Years Ago
“The electromagnetic radiations emanating for radar, television, communications systems,
microwave ovens, industrial heat-treatment systems, medical diathermy units, and many other
sources permeate the modern environment, both civilian and military.”
“Unless adequate monitoring and control based on a fundamental understanding of biological
effects are instituted in the near future, in the decades ahead, man may enter an era of energy
pollution of the environment comparable to the chemical pollution of today.”
“The consequences of undervaluing or misjudging the biological effects of long-term, lowlevel
exposure could become a critical problem for the public health, especially if genetic
effects are involved.”
These quotations are excerpts from the US government report “Program for Control of
Electromagnetic Pollution of the Environment”, which was published in December 1971. The
government report was drafted starting in December 1968 by an expert group made up of nine
people, “The Electromagnetic Radiation Management Advisory Council”. “The President’s
Office of Telecommunications Policy” issued the order. This report was an urgent warning for
the future.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Ecological and Public Health Crisis, Studies and statements showing mobile phone health risk | Tagged: EM radiation health hazard | Leave a Comment »
EU’s Juncker questions UK, U.S. crisis “leadership”
Posted by seumasach on November 17, 2008
“The Americans and the British had all the time they needed to accept the Eurogroup’s proposals for better regulation of the financial markets,” he said.
“That is something they specifically didn’t want, and so now it is not appropriate for them to pretend to lead others,” Juncker told parliament.
17th November, 2008
Britain and the United States should not portray themselves as shaping Europe’s response to the financial crisis having in the past rejected regulatory reform, Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker said.
“Two years ago at the G7 meeting under the German presidency of the G7 we were fairly blunt in calling for more elaborate rules for the financial markets,” Juncker, who chairs meetings of euro zone finance ministers, told the European Parliament.
“Those who refused to play ball just a little while ago cannot now pretend to be the trailblazers dictating Europe’s reaction,” he told the assembly during a debate on Monday.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: financial collapse | 1 Comment »
America’s Economic Crisis Is Beyond The Reach of Traditional Solutions
Posted by seumasach on November 17, 2008
“America’s economic troubles will rapidly accumulate if the dollar loses its reserve currency role. To protect the dollar and the Treasury’s credit standing, the US needs to curtail its foreign borrowing by reducing its budget deficit. It can do this by halting its gratuitous wars and slashing its unnecessary military spending which exceeds that of the rest of the world combined. The empire has run out of resources, and the 700 overseas bases must be closed.”
Paul Craig Roberts
12th November, 2008
By most accounts the US economy is in serious trouble. Robert Reich, an adviser to President-elect Obama, calls it a “mini-depression,” and that designation might be optimistic. The Russian economist, Mikhail Khazin says that the “U.S. will soon face a second ‘Great Depression.’” It is possible that even Khazin is optimistic.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: financial collapse | Leave a Comment »
The world has never seen such freezing heat
Posted by seumasach on November 17, 2008
Christopher Booker
16th November, 2008
A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Ecological and Public Health Crisis | Tagged: global cooling | Leave a Comment »
Canada and its Genocide: What has Caused the “Apology” and “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”: A Chronology of Key Recent Events
Posted by seumasach on November 17, 2008
Unrepentant: Kevin annett and Canada’s Genocide
Preamble: The true history of what has brought about the official acknowledgment of genocide and deaths in Canadian Indian residential schools during 2007 and 2008 is being lost and rewritten by a current campaign of misinformation by the government, churches and media of Canada.
This campaign is portraying the government’s “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” as the architect and cause of this change, when the TRC itself is the product of the grassroots work of Kevin Annett and his circle of residential school survivors, whose constant public action, advocacy and research since 1996 has forced the government to finally act.
Posted in Rights of indigenous peoples | Tagged: Kevin Annett, Rights of indigenous peoples, Unrepentant: Kevin Annett And Canada’s Genocide | Leave a Comment »
Could the UK face a sterling crisis, or are we in one already?
Posted by seumasach on November 17, 2008
Professor Willem Buiter’s blog is an indispensable guide to the unfolding of the Great British economic catastrophe.
Willem Buiter
17th november, 2008
In an earlier post to this blog, I raised the possibility that the UK might face a triple financial crisis: a combined banking crisis, sovereign debt crisis and sterling crisis. Let me be clearer than I was before about what I mean by a financial crisis. A financial crisis is a situation where quantity rationing of would-be borrowers and would-be sellers of securities suddenly replaces normal market clearing through variations in interest rates or market prices of securities.
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, financial collapse | Leave a Comment »
How likely is a sterling crisis or: is London really Reykjavik-on-Thames?
Posted by seumasach on November 16, 2008
November 13th, 2008
With the pound sterling dropping like a stone against most other currencies and credit default swap rates on long-term UK sovereign debt beginning to edge up, this is a good time to revisit a suggestion I made earlier on a number of occasions (e.g. here, here and here), that there is a non-trivial risk of the UK becoming the next Iceland.
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, join the euro! | Leave a Comment »
Financial crisis demonstration in Iceland
Posted by seumasach on November 16, 2008
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: bankrupt iceland, join the euro! | Leave a Comment »
Pakistan shuts NATO supply line
Posted by seumasach on November 16, 2008
17th November, 2008
See also:
Cornered in Afghanistan,the US organise a terrorist attack in Pakistan
PAKISTAN cut off the main NATO supply route into Afghanistan yesterday, citing Taliban and al-Qa’ida attacks on the Khyber Pass, the perilous mountain trail that carries most supplies into the war-torn country for the 35,000-strong coalition force.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Afghanistan. Khyber Pass | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 