tagged w/ Economic Crisis
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The conventional wisdom in Washington and in most of the rest of the world is that the roaring Chinese economy is going to pull the global economy out of recession and back into growth. It’s China’s turn, the theory goes, as American consumers — who propelled the last global boom with their borrowing and spending ways — have begun to tighten their belts and increase savings rates.
The Chinese, with their unbridled capitalistic expansion propelled by a system they still refer to as “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” are still thriving, though, with annual gross domestic product growth of 8.9 percent in the third quarter and a domestic consumer market just starting to flex its enormous muscles.
That’s prompted some cheerleading from U.S. officials, who want to see those Chinese consumers begin to pick up the slack in the global economy — a theme President Barack Obama and his delegation are certain to bring up during next week’s visit to China.
“Purchases of U.S. consumers cannot be as dominant a driver of growth as they have been in the past,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said during a trip to Beijing this spring. “In China, ... growth that is sustainable will require a very substantial shift from external to domestic demand, from an investment and export-intensive growth to growth led by consumption.”
That’s one vision of the future.
But there’s a growing group of market professionals who see a different picture altogether. These self-styled China bears take the less popular view: that the much-vaunted Chinese economic miracle is nothing but a paper dragon. In fact, they argue that the Chinese have dangerously overheated their economy, building malls, luxury stores and infrastructure for which there is almost no demand, and that the entire system is teetering toward collapse.
A Chinese collapse, of course, would have profound effects on the United States, limiting China’s ability to buy U.S. debt and provoking unknown political changes inside the Chinese regime.
more at link...
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29330.htmlThe conventional wisdom in Washington and in most of the rest of the world is that the... more
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The Election Day 2009 was not good for Obama. His party lost Virginia and New Jersey. His electorate, made by young people and Afro-Americans, didn't go to vote.
Is it an alarm bell?
http://www.inaltreparole.net/en/world/elezioni2009usa041109.htmlThe Election Day 2009 was not good for Obama. His party lost Virginia and New Jersey.... more
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3QQ09Rj2tY
Vice President Joe Biden is joined by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maryland Governor Martin OMalley as he reports on the success of the Recovery Act in creating or saving over a million jobs so far. October 30, 2009.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3QQ09Rj2tY
Vice President Joe Biden is joined by... more
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The United States economy, the world's largest, unofficially emerged from recession in the third quarter of the year, growing at a better-than-expected annualised pace of 3.5%.
The growth, spurred by rebounding consumer spending and investment in home-building, marked the first positive quarter since the second quarter of last year. Economists had expected a figure of around 3.3% after a drop of 0.7% in the second quarter.
The return to growth means the US was in recession for four consecutive quarters, a better performance than Britain, which remains in recession after six quarters in a row of contraction.The United States economy, the world's largest, unofficially emerged from recession in... more
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Commissions are often created to defer tough decisions; to forge a consensus around a hard solution to a genuine problem; and, rarely, actually to delve into underlying facts. The Angelides commission (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/business/16inquiry.html?_r=1), officially chartered by Congress this summer as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, has the chance to be that third kind of commission, gathering the missing empirical data on fundamental questions that can guide future decision-making.
We already know an awful lot more about what happened last year than we did in 1932, when the legendary Pecora commission(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecora_Commission) was created to investigate the Wall Street crash. We know the fundamental violations of sound banking practice and regulatory failures that brought us to the precipice. Yet there are still critical areas that would benefit from the commission's detailed analysis: four structural issues that have not yet received adequate attention and one particular transaction that is still highly ambiguous.Commissions are often created to defer tough decisions; to forge a consensus around a... more
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Moby donates 100% of the proceeds from his California concerts to domestic violence shelters that had lost state funding.
The California State Legislative cut 50% of the state funds, and Gov. Schwartzenegger cut the other 50%, leaving absolutely no money for the shelters.
Moby's attention to this issue has helped restore funding (at least in the short term) to the shelters through an emergency legislation signed by Gov. Schwartzenegger.
More in the video at link.Moby donates 100% of the proceeds from his California concerts to domestic violence... more
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islek
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added this
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14 days ago
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The Big Mac, long a symbol of globalization, has become the latest victim of this tiny island nation's overexposure to the world financial crisis.
Iceland's three McDonald's restaurants - all in the capital Reykjavik - will close next weekend, as the franchise owner gives in to falling profits caused by the collapse in the Icelandic krona.
"The economic situation has just made it too expensive for us," Magnus Ogmundsson, the managing director of Lyst Hr., McDonald's franchise holder in Iceland, told the Associated Press by telephone on Monday.
Lyst was bound by McDonald's requirement that it import all the goods required for its restaurants - from packaging to meat and cheeses - from Germany.
Costs had doubled over the past year because of the fall in the krona and high import tariffs on imported goods, Ogmundsson said, making it impossible for the company to raise prices further and remain competitive with competitors that use locally sourced produce.
A Big Mac in Reykjavik already retails for 650 krona ($5.29). But the 20 percent increase needed to make a decent profit would have pushed that to 780 krona ($6.36), he said.
That would have made the Icelandic version of the burger the most expensive in the world, a title currently held jointly by Switzerland and Norway where it costs $5.75, according to The Economist magazine's 2009 Big Mac index.
The decision to shutter the Icelandic franchise was taken in agreement with McDonald's Inc., Ogmundsson said, after a review of several months.
McDonald's, the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, arrived in Reykjavik in 1993 when the country was on an upward trajectory of wealth and expansion.The Big Mac, long a symbol of globalization, has become the latest victim of this tiny... more
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Via National People's Action, here is some footage from the protesters at the ABA conference. From the footage, it's clear there are some strong emotions from the protesters.
At one point a protester grabs a megaphone and says:
"The American Bankers Association has helped loosen the rules that protect us, allowing the unfettered greed that has brought us to the brink of a recession. And for those bankers who are members and support the ABA's war against the working and middle class, shame on you!"
The crowd soon begins chanting "Shame On You!" in unison.
Via Progress Illinois' Twitter feed, here's more video of Sen. Durbin's speech. In this section, he calls for a "showdown" with Wall Street.
According to the Twitter feeds of National People's Action and the SEIU, the protesters are headed to the ABA's "Roaring '20s"-themed cocktail party. (Perhaps the ABA is not aware of the irony of having such an event.)
Sen. Dick Durbin spoke in front of the protesters earlier today. Here's a clip from the video, in which Durbin tells the story of homeowner who was struggling to stay in her home -- and was apparently talked into agreeing to a seemingly atrocious mortgage. The woman's mortgage was riddled with hidden fees and by, "the types of things even a Wall Street lawyer couldn't explain to anyone," Durbin said.
The American Bankers Association's annual convention in Chicago has become the scene for a series of major protests, which are set to continue through Tuesday. Dubbed "the Showdown in Chicago." (http://www.showdowninchicago.org/index.html) (Check back here frequently for updates on the protests.)
Groups like the National People's Action, the Service Employees International Union, Americans For Financial Reform and the AFL-CIO are expected to turn out with thousands of protesters. Sen. Richard Durbin (D - Illinois) is scheduled to address the protesters Sunday evening. Conference speakers include Newt Gingrich, conservative columnist George Will and FDIC chairman Sheila Bair.
Check out these photographs of the "Showdown in Chicago," taken by organizers of the protest.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/25/showdown-in-chicago-prote_n_333245.htmlVia National People's Action, here is some footage from the protesters at the ABA... more
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The best solution to our environmental problems is to end prohibition. There is no other viable option short of the immediate end to military conflict that will have the same positive impact on the ecosystem.
Our first step towards a sustainable existence should begin with cannabis. Its assimilation into our civilization is the safest, simplest, most efficient immediate solution that we can implement in time to prevent an ecological catastrophe.
Cannabis is a plant, and its use is as old as civilization itself. It has thousands of immediate and potential applications. Its cultivation rejuvenates the soil, it can replace wood products, it’s medicinal, and it can be used as building material, textiles, paint, plastic, fuel, paper, food and body care. It is one of the most important bounties of nature. It’s a plant that we were meant to use.
So what’s the hold up? The short answer is America’s “War on Drugs”. The United States started a legislative war on this plant genus almost a century ago and they do not want to give up the fight.
The war on drugs is not a war between nations; it’s a corporate war on people, irrelevant of their nationality or ethnicity. It is a war against citizens of the United States and those of other nations. It’s a war without borders. It has gone through multiple mutations and over the last few decades grown into the monstrosity that it is today. It is a one sided war declared by nations on their citizens. A conflict not reciprocated by the citizens. It is a war that is sustained entirely do to ignorance, fear, and greed.
If there is such a thing as a just war, then the war on drugs is on the other end of the spectrum. It is the most unjust war that has ever been. It is a war exclusively waged for money. Every other war throughout history has had at least one other fathomable pretence. The war on drugs doesn’t.
The irony is that this war and the destruction that it unleashes can be brought to an end within an instant, if it was so desired. All that is required is to end prohibition, to repeal one law.
We know that the end to prohibition will have positive effects for our society because precedent for this has already been set. When prohibition of alcohol ended, so did most of the violence associated with gang warfare, as did much of the corruption in government. When prohibition ended, precious resources were made available again and a major source of revenue and employment was established through the sale of alcohol and its associated paraphernalia.
These same results have also been observed in Portugal’s experiment with drug decriminalization. The United Nations has also confirmed these findings in its annual report on the state of global drug policy, and many countries have been paying-heed and following Portugal’s example. Decriminalization is sweeping through major parts of Latin America as well as numerous municipalities and States within the United States of America.
The only reason that America’s Federal “War on Drugs” still continues to this day is because its so-called adversaries, criminal organizations and certain sectors of government, don’t want it to end since its continuation guarantees them flow of funds.
All of the above is common knowledge to anyone who has remotely researched this topic, or for that matter, even thought about it. After all, who in their right mind would ever approve of a war on nature, a war on a plant, a war on a plant that’s not even poisonous, a war on a plant that is actually beneficial for us, our society, and the ecosystem? You would have to be deranged to do such a thing. But this is exactly what we have done. We have been waging a war on a plant for almost a century. We have been waging a war on cannabis that spans the globe, costs trillions of dollars, destroys millions of lives, and consumes precious resources.
On the behest of certain corporations and a small minority that profit from prohibition, we have been CONTINUED>>>The best solution to our environmental problems is to end prohibition. There is no... more
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Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., which has yet to repay $45 billion in federal assistance, has more lobbyists than any other company who registered to try to shape legislation regulating the financial industry, U.S. Senate records show.
The New York-based bank, 34 percent-owned by the U.S. government, is listed as a client by 46 of the 1,537 lobbyists who filed with Congress to work on President Barack Obama’s push for rules to limit financial risks and impose stricter consumer protections.Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., which has yet to repay $45 billion in federal... more
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A massive rally in Chicago next week aims to express public displeasure with the massive bank bailout outside the American Bank Association annual meeting. Protesters will converge at 11:30 on Monday, October 26, at 301 North Water Street, where the meeting is taking place.
"The same financial institutions that caused the economic crisis and took billions in taxpayer bailouts are back to earning incredible profits," rally organizers—including Public Citizen, the AFL-CIO, and Change to Win—declare. "Meanwhile, Americans face shrinking pensions, rising foreclosures and unemployment, state budget cuts, predatory lending, outrageous overdraft fees, and sky-high credit card interest rates."
Protesters will demand oversight and accountability and reforms that would rein in the banks. It is an important moment, since Congress takes up regulatory legislation, including the idea of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, this month.
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The site calls for criminal penalties for the bankers: "On the one-year anniversary of the Banksters blowing a hole in the global economy, no employee of a major American bank or financial institution is behind bars," Bankster points out. "Compare this to what happened after the Savings and Loan heist almost 20 years ago. No less than 1,852 S&L officials were prosecuted and 1,072 were jailed. Over 500 CEOs and top officers were indicted. What is going on here? Don't we believe in holding people accountable anymore? Tell the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI to get cracking!"
Among the other citizens' groups featured on the site are the "10 percent is enough" campaign that brings together leaders from all the major world religions to oppose usurious interest rates on moral grounds.
And just in time for Halloween, the anti-death-bonds campaign focuses on an issue Michael Moore brought to light in his new movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story": employers and investment firms such as Goldman Sachs taking out life insurance policies on working people and naming themselves the beneficiaries, so they can benefit from your death.
All of these issues should galvanize public opposition to the banks' control of their own regulators in Washington. As Bankster puts it, "If you want to rein in the Banksters and if you think America deserves better than a ‘boom and bail’ economy, you need to muscle up and weigh in." Only engaged citizens can stop the banks.
more at link....A massive rally in Chicago next week aims to express public displeasure with the... more
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Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A 40 percent jump in Wall Street bonuses this year may bring relief to New York City and Albany as the state and its biggest metropolis struggle with a combined $14 billion in budget deficits this fiscal year and next.
New York investment houses will dole out $26 billion in bonus checks by the end of March, said Alan Johnson, president of compensation consultant Johnson Associates Inc. The money will probably boost sales of multimillion-dollar co-op apartments and generate extra income-tax revenue for state and city governments.Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A 40 percent jump in Wall Street bonuses this year may bring... more
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The level of poverty in America is even worse than first believed.
A revised formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations show that approximately 47.4 million Americans last year lived in poverty, 7 million more than the government's official figure.The level of poverty in America is even worse than first believed.
A revised... more
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Recent Headlines: $140 billion! Record Payday for Wall Street - Goldman Sachs 2009 Bonuses Could Buy Insurance for 1.7 Million Families
Paraphrasing a very insightful quote: ‘The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Goldman Sachs, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such a magnitude entails is left out of the mainstream media, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.’
The American middle class, once the only effective counter weight to Wall Street greed, has been decimated. Over 25 million people, in what was the US middle class, are now in full-blown crisis mode and urgently need to increase their income.
Over 25 million people in crisis mode! Every seven seconds, another American family is kicked out of their home. We are confronted by a lost generation of young workers who cannot find jobs. Despite all the talk of health care reform, there is no meaningful reform coming for years, if at all, while right now over 45,000 Americans will die preventable deaths this year, and bankruptcies continue to skyrocket due to the cost of medical bills.
Millions upon millions of uninsured, unemployed, underemployed, stressed out and sick people fight through every day and urgently need to get some justice.
And while this is happening, the Wall Street fat cats are reaping billions in bonuses and profits – billions in bonuses and profits that they obtained from using taxpayer money… OUR MONEY. Billions in profits that they are allowed to get away with because their puppets are running the government and making up the rules of this rigged game.
Their profits and the cost of the “government” taxpayer bailout, “the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such a magnitude entails” is almost impossible to get the average citizen to truly comprehend. TRILLIONS of dollars is not something that people have had experience with. It is an absolutely huge amount that is almost beyond common comprehension.
However, a revealing new survey suggests that an outraged significant majority is coming to the realization that an organized financial cartel has taken over the government and robbed the US public blind.
more at link....Recent Headlines: $140 billion! Record Payday for Wall Street - Goldman Sachs 2009... more
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As economic cutbacks continue to slice up our social infrastructure, it's time to look more seriously at the futility of paying vast sums to keep pot illegal.
I'm writing this on the day marijuana entrepreneur Marc Emery is being taken in handcuffs to the U.S. to plead guilty for selling marijuana seeds from his multimillion-dollar Vancouver-based mail-order business.
Leaving aside all the galling issues about U.S. legal control over a Canadian business, the arrest of a Canadian citizen who has never visited the U.S., the inexplicable length of his expected sentence - five years incarceration in the U.S. for a one-month offence in Canada - the victimless nature of his crime and the self-defeating wounds he inflicts on himself from incendiary pro-pot campaigning, his case highlights the role of pot as the elephant in the B.C. economy.
A 2004 Fraser Institute study roughly estimated the B.C. marijuana crop's value at around 2% to 4% of the province's GDP. That was before the recession. Go to any small town in B.C., look around at the pine-beetle kill and the shuttered mills and ask yourself what's still selling.
As economic cutbacks continue to slice up our social infrastructure, it's time to look more seriously at the futility of paying vast sums to keep pot illegal: last week's Union of B.C. Municipalities motion asking for more federal money to fight gangs is only the latest indicator of how our widely-flaunted anti-pot laws are hurting communities financially - as well as generating crime and disrespect for the law. Pot sales are fuelling the franchising of Hell's Angels subsidiaries in small towns all over the province as other economic opportunities dry up.
Who pays and who benefits from keeping pot possession a criminal offence? Ordinary citizens pay, in police, fire-inspection, court and jail costs, while access to the plant stays as high as ever.
As the Fraser Institute study concluded: "The broader social question becomes not whether we approve or disapprove of local production, but rather who shall enjoy the spoils." The current beneficiaries are organized criminals, small-time dealers, illegal growers, police, lawyers and related law-enforcement industries.
Legalizing and taxing pot would immediately save money. An open letter signed by 500 U.S. economists, including Milton Friedman, suggested that replacing pot prohibition with taxation and regulation in the U.S. would save $7.7 billion annually and generate $6.2 billion a year in new revenue if legalized marijuana were taxed like alcohol or tobacco. The Washington legislature is looking at a 2010 bill that would reclassify possession from a crime to a civil infraction with a $100 penalty. A legislative committee estimates a net financial gain of $17 million a year if the bill passes.
Tobacco-like controls, regulations, age restrictions and warning labelling would mitigate abuse. Police could cut back forces and focus on real dangers.
There are a multitude of barriers to making this happen, not least of which is jeopardizing our relationship with our American neighbours. But how long are they going to hang onto anti-drug laws that have turned their southern flank into a drug state run by warlords? Pressure to decriminalize is very much alive south of the border. As far back as 1972, a bipartisan Congressional commission recommended decriminalization. Fourteen states representing a third of the U.S. population have since decriminalized marijuana use. Cities like Seattle have officially made adult marijuana use the "lowest law-enforcement priority."
B.C. has an edge in the pot business. Give Emery credit for putting Vancouver on the international map as a pot hot spot. Canada already has more than 2,000 federally sanctioned medical-marijuana growers - some in grow-ops near you. We have expert growers in every municipality in the province. Just think if they could grow in greenhouses instead of converting wood-frame homes CONT'D>>As economic cutbacks continue to slice up our social infrastructure, it's time to look... more
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Today the President pushed one of the core pillars of his vision of a new economic foundation back to the fore. Reforming our financial system and restoring common sense regulation and oversight is the only way to ensure that the economic catastrophe that began a year ago never returns. Having met just before with those suffering as a result of abuse, fraud, and deception at the hands of financial institutions, the need was never more evident.
This morning we launched a new page dedicated to this initiative, including a video from Austan Goolsbee of the Council of Economic Advisers laying out what's in it for you, and let there be no doubt that there will be a sustained focus on this issue from the White House as the President’s plan goes through Congress.
As for the special interests who are already gearing up to fight this as hard, if not harder than insurance companies have fought health reform, the President made clear he is ready for the fightToday the President pushed one of the core pillars of his vision of a new economic... more
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An interesting article on the inherent morality of capitalism.
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