Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve asked a U.S. appeals court to block a ruling that for the first time would force the central bank to reveal secret identities of financial firms that might have collapsed without the largest government bailout in U.S. history.
No Seat for Wall Street at Tea Party
Could all those populist pitchforks currently pointed at Washington be turned toward Wall Street instead?
That’s the question that ought to worry Wall Street executives as they prepare to pay themselves nice bonuses this month, hard on the heels of a government bailout of the financial system, and amid continuing job losses around the rest of the country. Financial firms know they’re in for heat on bonuses; they’ve already been chastised on national TV by President Barack Obama’s chief economist.
Big Government, Big Business — Conjoined Twins
CenterForAStatelessSociety.org
David Corn, writing in Mother Jones, takes issue with the popular sentiment:
For many decades, Americans have held negative attitudes toward the titans of industry. … But Americans also don’t fancy the counterbalance to corporate power: government. Since 1965, Gallup has asked survey respondents to choose the biggest future threat to the country: big business, big labor, or big government. Big government always wins — by a lot.
Osama: 10. The US: 0.
To better understand why Osama bin Laden is so far winning his struggle to oust the western powers from the Muslim world, let us go back to 1986, when I was covering the anti-Soviet war in then almost unknown Afghanistan.
Creatures from the Conservative Id
Shall I tell you what true evil is? It is to submit to you. It is when we surrender our freedom, our dignity, instead of defying you.
~ Captain Jean-Luc Picard confronts Armus, Dick Cheney’s sci-fi soul mate.
IT IS A MADHOUSE OUT THERE
By Chuck Baldwin
NewsWithViews.com
I think we need to face it: 2010 is more than a new year; it is also part of a new era in which all vestiges of normalcy and common sense have been left behind. In other words, it is a madhouse out there. Let me give you some examples of what I’m talking about.
THE EMOTION OF TYRANNY AND THE WISDOM OF JEFFERSON
We have recently heard the statement “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste… an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” (Rahm Emanuel in a Wall Street Journal interview)
FOREBODINGS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER
While sitting for a Christmas Eve photo-taking session expressly designed to magically deliver our Christmas in Canada to my adoptive parents in Italy, I could see within the “rushes,” so to speak, that our early attempts at a celebratory impression were failing.
Swine flu: “They Organized the Panic”. Inquiry into the Role of Big Pharma and WHO by Council of Europe
New Development: The German President of the Health Committee of the Council of Europe, Wolfgang Wodarg, is issuing accusations against the pharmaceutical lobbies and the governments. He has intitiated the start of an investigation by that body concerning the role played by the pharmaceutical in the campaign of panic about the virus.
Devaluation Sparks Chaos in Caracas
CARACAS — President Hugo Chávez’s decision to devalue Venezuela’s bolivar and impose a complicated new currency regime may paper over some growing cracks in the economy, but it is also setting the stage for bigger problems down the road for the country’s oil-rich nation and its populist leader.
“greed, stupidity, hubris and outright corruption”
The Other Plot to Wreck America
NYTimes.com
THERE may not be a person in America without a strong opinion about what coulda, shoulda been done to prevent the underwear bomber from boarding that Christmas flight to Detroit. In the years since 9/11, we’ve all become counterterrorists. But in the 16 months since that other calamity in downtown New York — the crash precipitated by the 9/15 failure of Lehman Brothers — most of us are still ignorant about what Warren Buffett called the “financial weapons of mass destruction” that wrecked our economy. Fluent as we are in Al Qaeda and body scanners, when it comes to synthetic C.D.O.’s and credit-default swaps, not so much.
Survivor, America: “It’s Only Going to Get Worse,” Gerald Celente Says
“It’s only going to get worse,” is the sobering forecast of Gerald Celente, director of the Trends Research Institute.
As discussed in a prior segment, Celente believes the “bailout bubble” is going to burst and the U.S. economy will slip back into recession, if not worse, in 2010.
Like all forecasters, Celente isn’t always right but he has predicted a number of major events, as detailed here.
