World-News

The American Prospect
by Jeff Faux

11/23/09

The word from Washington and Wall Street is that the worst is over. Sure, it will take a while for jobs to recover, for housing to come back, and for wages to rise. But we are definitely on the road to recovery from the biggest debt-bubble collapse since 1929. Maybe. There were actually two debt bubbles. One was driven by Americans borrowing against unsustainable inflation in housing prices. The other was driven by America borrowing against unsustainable inflation in the price of the U.S. dollar. One more bubble is left to pop. … The central threat here is not the currently rising federal deficit. … Rather, the core problem is the accumulating debt that the U.S. economy as a whole owes to the rest of the world, a result of a more chronic condition: 25 years of buying more in the global marketplace than we have been selling — and borrowing to make up the difference...

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=one_more_bubble_to_go



The critical unraveling of US society

Amped Status
by David DeGraw

11/23/09

You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Before exposing the root causes of this breakdown, let’s look at some vital statistics and facts: (1) The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The US already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the middle class and poor much harder than the top one percent, the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99% of the US population has grown to a record high...

http://ampedstatus.com/the-critical-unraveling-of-us-society


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=U.S.+economy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=financial+crisis
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=bubble
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=recovery
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=federal+deficit
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Wall+Street
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=middle+class
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=housing
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=borrowing
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Jeff+Faux

Dean Baker, Truthout: "The country is being bombarded with stories claiming that record budget deficits threaten our children's future and jeopardize the credibility of the dollar. These stories are a serious problem - they have hugely confused the public about the nature of the country's economic crisis. And both parties share the blame."

http://www.truthout.org/1123094



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=economic+crisis
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=budget+deficit
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=bipartisan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Dean+Baker

Scott Galindez, Truthout: "This weekend, thousands of people gathered at the gates of Fort Benning to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the killings of 14-year-old Celia Ramos, her mother Elba Ramos and the six Jesuit priests with whom she worked at the Central American University in San Salvador. Nearly 5,000 people are gathered in the pouring rain, according to Larry White, a protester who spoke to Truthout."

http://www.truthout.org/1122098



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=School+of+the+Americas
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Fort+Benning
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Scott+Galindez

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/23-2

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Gingrich, Palin, GOP Offer Magic Jobs Solution: More Tax Cuts Now!

Art Levine, Truthout: "With the economy still reeling from unemployment at 10.2 percent, Democrats and progressives are battling a barrage of GOP-driven misinformation about the first $787 billion stimulus plan as they look to create a new, targeted, fast-acting jobs program, possibly before Christmas. Aiming to cash in - literally - on growing public anger over joblessness, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich separately returned this week to the Republican nostrum of wide-ranging tax cuts, mostly for the rich, as the answer to every problem under the sun - in this case, unemployment."

http://www.truthout.org/topstories/112209ms01



Sarah, Don't Go Rogue; Go Home

Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Truthout: "With the release of her new book, 'Going Rogue: An American Life,' former Alaskan Governor and Republican Party vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is once again being given a spotlight she does not deserve. Under normal circumstances, Palin would have drifted into obscurity by now; a political has-been, who never was. Instead, a sub-par politician with no substantial constituency, no command of relevant issues and no solutions to substantive problems is being given air and face time as though she really matters. The simple reality that few are willing to articulate is, if she were not relatively attractive, of European ancestry and a woman, Sarah Palin would be day-old bread."

http://www.truthout.org/1123095

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Why can’t we look away from Sarah Palin?

AlterNet
by Vanessa Richmond

11/24/09

Sarah Palin is a liar who is unfit for public office. This is generally accepted. And yet, she’s getting more attention than people who are honest, sane and actually holding office, and also more than people, even celebrities, who are arguably insane and vapid. Media and audiences clearly can’t take their eyes and ears off her, much as they might want to. I’m among them. Every day, I’m surprised and perplexed that she’s still in the news and on talk shows, then I watch more and read more about her. I am surely one of those liberal media elite haters she keeps referring to, and if this continues, she’s going to have to acknowledge we’re her main audience, if not her base. The question is why...

http://tinyurl.com/y9pqws3



Tea Party, meet the Religious Right

The American Prospect
by Michelle Goldberg

01/13/10

Next month’s Tea Party National Convention has been making news for the fat fee Sarah Palin is commanding — $100,000, according to many reports. But the gathering, to be held at Nashville’s Opryland Hotel, is interesting for another reason as well: It marks the attempt of the old-school Christian right to take over the tea-party movement. Speakers joining Palin include Rick Scarborough, Roy Moore, and Joseph Farah, men who are radical even by religious-right standards. Their presence shows that the tea-party movement is no longer merely populist, libertarian or anti-government, if it ever was. It is theocratic. Indeed, after several months in which the religious right seemed lost and dispirited, it has found a way to ride the tea-party express into renewed relevance...

http://tinyurl.com/ycqdfjx


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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The Palin Paradox

Rehabilitating a Vengeful Rogue Going P.T. Barnum

By Robert S. Becker

Palin's circus obeys Barnum's model, "There's a sucker born every minute."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24062.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Palin
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Gingrich
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=GOP
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Tea+Party
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=religious+right
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=stimulus
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=$787
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=unemploy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Joseph+Farah
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Gary+Younge
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Art+Levine
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Wilmer+J.+Leon
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Vanessa+Richmond
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+S.+Becker
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Michelle+Goldberg

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/23-4



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+withdrawal
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=military+base
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Nick+Turse

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/23-6



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Patriot+Act+Provisions
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=William+Fisher

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/mckinnon1.1.1.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=imperialism

http://www.lewrockwell.com/spl/fed-rage.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Federal+Reserve
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bernanke
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Ron+Paul
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Jennifer+Liberto

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north785.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Wall+Street
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/north

Independent Institute
by Robert Higgs

11/22/09

A sensible person, surveying all of this wreakage and pondering how such a debacle might be avoided in the future, certainly would have concluded that the government should cease and desist from artifically spurring the real estate market by subverting traditional underwriting standards for mortgage loans. Those standards include, for example, a substantial down payment, usually 20 percent, and well-documented sources of income sufficient to permit the buyer to service the loan, usually a steady job or substantial assets. During the crisis since mid-2008, however, the government has not done what a sensible person would have concluded it should do. Indeed, it has done the opposite...

http://www.independent.org/blog/?p=4069


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=real+estate
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=mortgage
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Higgs