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During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: 1. Austerity, 2. Scapegoating Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal Immigrants’ for Unemployment, and 3. The Iron Heel.
Democracy?: As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99% — Only the 1% Voted For Austerity — The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico
Images of the Day:
Quotes of the Day:
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CPI no longer measures the cost of maintaining a constant standard of living.
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CPI no longer measures full inflation for out-of-pocket expenditures.
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With the misused cover of academic theory, politicians forced significant underreporting of official inflation, so as to cut annual cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security, etc.
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Politicians look to expand further the concept of artificially-suppressed cost-of-living adjustments in current budget-deficit negotiations, through the use of the Chained-CPI (see Special C-CPI Supplement at end of this document).
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Use of the CPI to adjust retirement benefits, private income or to set investment goals impairs the ability of retirees, income earners and investors to stay ahead of inflation.
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Understated inflation used in estimating inflation-adjusted growth has created the illusion of recovery in reported GDP.
The Moon-Putin Plan: One Possible Path To Peace: One could be forgiven for not having heard of it since it disrupts the standard “North-Korea-Problem” narrative, but there is a realistic solution to the crisis that liberal and progressive appeasers are keeping silent about. This is the Moon-Putin Plan unveiled in September in Vladivostok. President Moon outlined it as nine “bridges” of cooperation linking South Korea to Russia via North Korea—“gas, railroads, ports, electricity, a northern sea route, shipbuilding, jobs, agriculture, and fisheries.” Siberian oil and gas pipelines would be extended to Korea, both North and South, as well as to Japan. Both Koreas would be linked up with the vast rail networks of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, including high-speed rail, and the Eurasian Economic Union, which includes the Trans-Siberian Railway. In the words of Gavan McCormack, “North Korea would accept the security guarantee of the five (Japan included), refrain from any further nuclear or missile testing, shelve (‘freeze’) its existing programs and gain its longed for ‘normalization’ in the form of incorporation in regional groupings, the lifting of sanctions and normalized relations with its neighbour states, without surrender.” This Moon-Putin Plan has the potential to satisfy all the states involved, possibly even the US. One would think, “Done deal. Problem solved.” Yet mainstream journalists in Japan and English-speaking countries have largely ignored it, and even very few non-mainstream journalists have covered it. — North Korea: The Deafening Silence around the Moon-Putin Plan
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Oregon Court: Banning Fossil Fuel Facilities is Constitutional An Oregon appeals court ruled that restricting fossil fuel infrastructure is constitutional, overruling a lower appeals court decision. It’s an important victory in the fight against climate change, and for local self-determination, says Nicholas Caleb of the Center for Sustainable Economy
Norman Finkelstein on Gaza’s Martyrdom (1/4) In his groundbreaking new book “Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom,” Norman Finkelstein argues that Israel, with U.S. backing, has caused a “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza, and that international human rights groups have failed to uphold justice for its besieged people
U.S.:
The New Gilded Age: First Time Arrogance, the Second Time Vengeance In his 1852 essay, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” Marx recalls a saying from Hegel, “that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice.” Marx adds, “He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” Often forgotten, Marx follows with an equally telling observation: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” He warns, “The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” That nightmare defines 21stcentury U.S. politics. by David Rosen
Environment:
Humanity’s Big Fight: The Corporate Ownership of Food and Water From GMOs in our food to extracting all of the water Privatization and corporate ownership of our food and water is what is at stake. The greed that has allowed companies to create patents on food and to siphon off water and sell it back to the world is as disturbing as ever. Following are ways which a cabal is trying to control 2 of our most basic needs – food and water. By Christina Sarich
Gov. Jerry Brown Already Expanded Offshore Oil Drilling in State Waters California Governor Jerry Brown today joined Oregon Governor Kate Brown and Washington Governor Jay Inslee in condemning Trump’s plan to expand oil and gas drilling in federal waters – at the same time that California regulators under Brown have expanded offshore oil drilling by 17 percent in state waters.“This political decision to open the magnificent and beautiful Pacific Coast waters to oil and gas drilling flies in the face of decades of strong opposition on the part of Oregon, Washington and California – from Republicans and Democrats alike,” the governors proclaimed in a joint statement. by Dan Bacher
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
ACLU Says New Jersey Prisons’ Banning of “The New Jim Crow” Is Unconstitutional America’s jails and prisons have long since banned and censored books that the institutions determined posed a material danger to the safety of inmates and employees. There is a logic, at least, to prohibiting how-to manuals on crafting homemade weapons or escaping confined spaces. But at least two prisons in New Jersey have gone a step further, deciding to ban Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking work on the rise of mass incarceration in America, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” according to a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey to the state’s Department of Corrections By Shaun King
Labor:
Economy:
Shhh! Trump’s Wall Street Regulators Keep Public in the Dark Under the Obama presidency, a key executive of the scandalized Wall Street bank, Citigroup, was secretly in charge of selecting the people who would fill top administration posts in Obama’s White House and cabinet, while the bank was in the midst of the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history. The staffing recommendations included top posts at the Justice Department, which would fail to prosecute any major Wall Street executives for the crimes leading up to the financial crash of 2008. (See our prior reporting on this here and here.) Under Trump, who ran on a populist platform, the top cop of Wall Street at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, is a lawyer who had represented 8 of the 10 largest Wall Street banks prior to his nomination by Trump and confirmation by the U.S. Senate to become SEC Chairman. The U.S. Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, who also sits at the helm of the Financial Stability Oversight Council to make sure Wall Street doesn’t blow up the economy again, was actually a foreclosure king at OneWest Bank Group. The top national bank regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees Wall Street’s biggest and serially charged banks like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, is now headed by Mnuchin’s former pal at OneWest Bank Group, Joseph Otting. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
2018: the world turned upside down Donald Trump welcomed the New Year in his own inimitable manner: surrounded by his social and political clan in the opulent surroundings of his exclusive Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, accompanied by a representative gathering of all segments of US society – from movie stars to billionaires. “It will be a fantastic 2018,” Trump assured his guests, as he entered the gilded ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, accompanied by the fixed grin of first lady Melania Trump and the tailor’s dummy that passes for his son Barron, and predicted the stock market would continue to rise and businesses would come to the US at “a rapid clip”. All this was music to the ears of his well-heeled guests who are slavering at the prospect of the juicy profits and tax cuts that their hero has so generously promised to deliver. It was a truly unforgettable scene that would not have been out of place in The Godfather. By Alan Woods
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Usury is, as defined today, the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender. Originally, usury meant interest of any kind. A loan may be considered usurious because of excessive or abusive interest rates or other factors. Historically in Christian societies, and in many Islamic societies today, charging any interest at all would be considered usury.[3][4][5] Someone who practices usury can be called a usurer, but a more common term in contemporary English is loan shark.
How a Supreme Court ruling killed off usury laws for credit card rates A 1978 court case changed the industry — and put cards in everyone’s pockets. … The ruling provided a transitionary moment for both the banking industry and a handful of entrepreneurial states — most notably South Dakota and Delaware. The states saw an opportunity to dramatically expand their job bases during a deep recession by luring credit card companies to relocate into their borders. The ruling let credit card issuers “export” nationally whatever interest rate was allowed in the state in which they were headquartered. To induce the companies to relocate, some states simply dropped their usury laws. Several large issuers bit on the deal, relocated and it became anything goes for credit card rates. By Pat Curry
The U.S. government’s predatory-lending program America earns $3 billion a year charging strapped college parents above-market interest. “It’s like ‘The Sopranos,’ except it’s the government.”America earns $3 billion a year charging strapped college parents above-market interest. “It’s like ‘The Sopranos,’ except it’s the government.” By Michael Grunwald
