Friday, August 31, 2012

Matt Taibbi: The Secret to Mitt Romney's Fortune? Greed, Debt and Forcing Others to Pay Bill

Source: Democracy Now
Date: 8/30/2012
by: Amy Goodman, Matt Taibbi

Video Description

DemocracyNow.org - A new article by reporter Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone (Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital) sheds new light on the origin of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's fortune, revealing how Romney's former firm, Bain Capital, used private equity to raise money to conduct corporate raids. Taibbi writes: "What most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: By borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth."

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Saturday, August 25, 2012

SR 67 IMF Paper Supports Monetary Reform???

Source: bstill3
Date:  8/18/2012
by: Bill Still

Video Description
Here is the DONATE link:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=billstill3@...
A new IMF research paper supports monetary reform.

Editor's Note: Below I am including both the link to the recent IMF paper "The Chicago Plan Revisited" as well as the Irving Fisher book "100% Money and the Public Debt" mentioned in Bill Still's SR 67 update.
  1. The Chicago Plan Revisited - IMF

  2. Irving Fisher: 100% Money and the Public Debt

Thursday, July 19, 2012

11 International Agreements That Are Nails In The Coffin Of The Petrodollar

Source: The Economic Collapse
Date: 7/17/2012
Is the petrodollar dead?  Well, not yet, but the nails are being hammered into the coffin even as you read this.  For decades, most of the nations of the world have used the U.S. dollar to buy oil and to trade with each other.  In essence, the U.S. dollar has been acting as a true global currency.  Virtually every country on the face of the earth has needed big piles of U.S. dollars for international trade.  This has ensured a huge demand for U.S. dollars and U.S. government debt.  This demand for dollars has kept prices and interest rates low, and it has given the U.S. government an incredible amount of power and leverage around the globe.  Right now, U.S. dollars make up more than 60 percent of all foreign currency reserves in the world.  But times are changing.  Over the past couple of years there has been a whole bunch of international agreements that have made the U.S. dollar less important in international trade.  The mainstream media in the United States has been strangely quiet about all of these agreements, but the truth is that they are setting the stage for a fundamental shift in the way that trade is conducted around the globe.  When the petrodollar dies, it is going to have an absolutely devastating impact on the U.S. economy.  Sadly, most Americans are totally clueless regarding what is about to happen to the dollar.

One of the reasons the Federal Reserve has been able to get away with flooding the financial system with U.S. dollars is because the rest of the world has been soaking a lot of those dollars up.  The rest of the world has needed giant piles of dollars to trade with, but what is going to happen when they don't need dollars anymore?

Could we see a tsunami of inflation as demand for the dollar plummets like a rock?
The power of the U.S. dollar has been one of the few things holding up our economy.  Once that leg gets kicked out from under us we are going to be in a whole lot of trouble.
The following are 11 international agreements that are nails in the coffin of the petrodollar....
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Read the rest here.

Editor's Note:  For a primer on the petrodollar system, see “THE COMING COLLAPSE OF THE PETRODOLLAR SYSTEM” BY JERRY ROBINSON.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

7/12/2012 Japan hit by record rains: 10 killed, 20 missing, 50,000 evacuated (PHOTOS, VIDEO) — RT


Video Description
People wade through a flooded street caused by heavy rains in Kumamoto, southwestern Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo July 12, 2012 (Reuters/Kyodo)

Ten people died and at least 20 are missing after heavy rain hit southwestern Japan, particularly in the country's southernmost main island of Kyushu, police and firefighters said.

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Read the rest here

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