15 Economic Statistics That Just Keep Getting Worse
Link: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/15-economic-statistics-that-just-keep-getting-worse
A little over a week ago, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner penned an article for the New York Times entitled "Welcome To The Recovery" in which he touted the great strides that the U.S. economy was making. But with unemployment still dangerously high and with foreclosures and personal bankruptcies continuing to set all-time records, should we really be talking about a "recovery"?
PermalinkTop US Senator Assassinated As Obama “Weather War” Plunges World Into Chaos
Link: http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1396.htm
A new report prepared for Prime Minister Putin by Russia’s foreign military intelligence directorate (GRU) states that a former top United States Senator, Ted Stevens, was assassinated this week after he attempted to gather evidence “proving” that President Obama has unleashed America’s devastating “weather weapons” against the World.
dollar hits 15-year low versus yen
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/9216198
Dollar index soars as risk appetite wanes * Dollar hits 15-year low vs yen at 84.72 yen
Deficit in July Totals $165.04 Billion
Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704901104575423601722830706.html
The U.S. government spent itself deeper into the red last month, paying nearly $20 billion in interest on debt and an additional $9.8 billion to help unemployed Americans. Federal spending eclipsed revenue for the 22nd straight time, the Treasury Department said Wednesday. The $165.04 billion deficit, while a bit smaller than the $169.5 billion shortfall expected by economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires, was the second highest for the month on record. The highest was $180.68 billion in July 2009.
Obama’s jobless “recovery”
Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/pers-a11.shtml
In the aftermath of last week’s disastrous jobs report, the Obama administration continues to claim that the US economy is recovering and to reject any serious measures to create jobs or provide relief to the tens of millions without work. Nearly 30 million Americans—one out of every six workers—are either unemployed or underemployed. Long-term joblessness has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression, with nearly half of the officially unemployed without a job for more than six months. Of these, 1.5 million—the so-called “99ers”—have been out of work for 99 weeks and have exhausted all their benefits and extensions.
US Federal Reserve reassures markets, offers no help to the unemployed
Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/econ-a11.shtml
The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday acknowledged the slowdown in US economic growth and moved to reassure the financial markets, while taking no measures to seriously address the worsening jobs crisis. Concluding a one-day meeting in Washington DC, the central bank’s policy-making Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced a largely symbolic decision to use the cash from maturing mortgage debt, mortgage-backed securities and Treasury bills that it holds to purchase new Treasury securities, rather than allowing its $2.3 trillion balance sheet to decline.
Pakistani floods affect millions, but level of international aid pitiful
Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/paki-a11.shtml
With monsoonal rains continuing, the worst flooding in Pakistan in 80 years is still spreading. Pakistani relief organisations and government agencies are stretched to the limit. Yet despite urgent appeals from the UN and other aid organisations, the level of international aid is pitiful, even measured against the limited assistance donated in other recent disasters.
Israel army chief: More force next time
Link: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m68752&hd=&size=1&l=e
The chief of staff of Israel's military told investigators on Wednesday that his forces should have been more forceful during their deadly takeover of a ship carrying aid to the besieged Gaza Strip on May 31. Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi was speaking to an internal Israeli commission investigating the attack on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, where Israeli commandos killed nine passengers in international waters. The Mavi Marmara was part of the "Freedom Flotilla" that planned to challenge Israel's naval blockade of Gaza...
New Outrages Keep Gushing From BP
Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/11-3
With BP's well capped and CEO Tony Hayward exiled to Russia, perhaps you thought that surely there will be no additional revelations about BP to enrage you. But now comes this: prison labor. In its national PR blitz to buff up its image, the oil giant has loudly been boasting that it has hired devastated, out-of-work local people to handle the clean-up. Many have been hired, but the people themselves say not nearly enough. The Nation magazine now reports a big reason for the shortfall - BP has been using inmates to do much of the shoveling and scooping to remove oil from Louisiana beaches.
BP Links Compensation With Continued Oil Production In The Gulf
Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/11-7
BP has managed to link the fate of its $20 billion oil spill victims compensation fund with its continued ability to pump oil from the Gulf of Mexico.
Social Security Coalition: Don't Cut It
Link: http://www.truth-out.org/social-security-coalition-dont-cut-it62207
Over 100 state and national organizations representing over 50 million Americans has formed the Strengthen Social Security coalition to send a strong message to politicians who are on a mission to cut Social Security benefits: Don't mess with it. Despite what you're hearing from Democratic and Republican deficit hawks and President Obama's Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Social Security doesn't add one penny to the deficit.
Serial Denial and the Permanent War System
Link: http://www.truth-out.org/serial-denial-and-permanent-war-system62224
Two months ago, I wrote that the Obama administration and the U.S. command in Afghanistan faced an "Iraq 2006 moment" in the second half of 2010 - a collapse of domestic political support for a failed war paralleling the political crisis in Bush's Iraq War in 2006. Now comes Republican Congressman Frank Wolf to make that parallel with 2006 eerily precise.
News in Brief: Health Insurance Executives Cash in While Planning Rate Hikes, and More
Link: http://www.truth-out.org/news-brief62221
According to a report from Health Care for America Now and as reported in The Los Angeles Times, the executives of the top five for-profit health insurance companies raked in nearly $200 million and, at the same time, planned major rate hikes. The executives at Cigna Corp., Humana Inc., UnitedHealth Group and WellPoint Inc. each received raises in 2009. Only one executive saw his pay check decrease - by nearly $6 million. Many of these companies were also rewarded financially, with profits soaring over 20 percent in just two quarters.
The Bad Old Days
Link: http://www.truth-out.org/the-bad-old-days62216
Someone once told me that I'm the kind of guy who runs toward a fight. He said it like it was a bad thing - pretty much because I was fighting with him at the time - but I never forgot it, and have since taken it as a badge of honor. There's nothing wrong with running to the sound of the guns if the struggle is brutal, vital, and in need of another body, especially if one more person can make a difference.
DNC: GOP Senate nominee ‘thinks necrophilia is entertainment’
Link: http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0811/dnc-gop-senate-nominee-kicks-men-crotch/
"Today the party of Bob Dole, Jack Kemp and Dick Lugar nominated a candidate who kicks men in the crotch, thinks of scenes of necrophilia as ‘entertainment,’ and runs an operation where women are forced to bark like dogs," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan, in a statement e-mailed to Raw Story.
US Judge OKs confession extracted by threatening suspect with rape
Link: http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0811/15yearold-gitmo-detainee-threatened/
In one of the first military commissions held under the Obama administration, a US military judge has ruled that confessions obtained by threatening the subject with rape are admissible in court.
How the Military Destroys the Lives of Soldiers Who Try to Tell the Truth
Bradley Manning is not the first military whistleblower to have his life ruined. The military is infamous for trying to silence soldiers who speak out against the war. Last week, Representative Mike Rogers called for the execution of military whistleblower, Private Bradley Manning. His crime? Sharing the “Collateral Murder” video and the classified Afghanistan “war logs” with Wikileaks, which exposed the truth behind the failing war in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s cooperation with the Taliban, and potential war crimes. The 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst said he felt it was "important that it gets out...I feel, for some bizarre reason...it might actually change something.” He is currently in jail at Quantico, on suicide watch, and is facing up to 50 years in prison for exposing information the American public has the right to know.
What They Do in Our Name
Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26129.htm
Thanks to Wikileaks and heroic leakers inside the military, we now know the U.S. government has killed many more innocent Afghan civilians than we were aware of heretofore. We also know that American military and intelligence personnel roam Afghanistan assassinating suspected bad guys. Sometimes they kill people they later acknowledge weren’t bad guys at all. “Bad guys,” like “Taliban,” is implicitly defined as anyone who resists the U.S. occupation force and the corrupt puppet government it keeps in power.
The Rubin Con Goes On
Link: http://www.thenation.com/article/153974/rubin-con-goes
Robert Rubin The corruptions of journalism were on full display when CNN’s Fareed Zakaria turned to Robert Rubin this past Sunday for advice on how to fix the financial crisis that he, as much as anyone, caused. I was trapped on a treadmill in front of an overhead television and unable to turn the thing off in time to avoid this assault on my mental and physical health.
Russian S-300 systems in Abkhazia threaten regional balance of forces - Georgia
Link: http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20100811/160161949.html
The deployment of S-300 air defense systems in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia threatens the balance of forces in the region, Georgia's State Minister for Reintegration Temur Yakobashvili said on Wednesday. The commander of the Russian Air Force, Col. Gen Alexander Zelin announced earlier on Wednesday that Russia had deployed S-300 missiles in Abkhazia to protect the airspace of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in conjunction with other air defense means deployed by the Ground Forces.
U.S. Trade Deficit Unexpectedly Widens to $49.9 Billion in June
The U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly widened in June by a record $7.9 billion as imports rose and shipments abroad declined. The $49.9 billion gap was the biggest since October 2008 and followed a $42 billion shortfall in May, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Exports dropped by the most in more than a year.
Chemicals in water supply near Chicago linked to cancer
Link: http://www.naturalnews.com/029431_water_supply_chemicals.html
A report by the Chicago Tribune has revealed that officials in the village of Crestwood, just outside Chicago, have been secretly introducing tainted well water into the town water supply for years.
Blackwater guards indicted for murder
Link: http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0811/blackwater-workers-charged/
A federal grand jury has added an additional indictment to a former Blackwater employee involved in the murders of two Afghan civilians in May of 2009, according to The Virginian-Pilot.
Oil spill: BP nears deal to continue drilling in Gulf of Mexico - Video
BP was on Tuesday night close to safeguarding its future in the Gulf of Mexico as it neared a break-through deal aimed at smoothing relations with the Obama administration.
Russia's Agony a "Wake-Up Call" to the World
Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52455
VIENNA - A wind turbine on an acre of northern Iowa farmland could generate 300,000 dollars worth of greenhouse-gas-free electricity a year. Instead, the U.S. government pays out billions of dollars to subsidise grain for ethanol fuel that has little if any impact on global warming, according to Lester Brown.
Blaming Teachers and Firefighters, Not Wall Street Tycoons Economists Without a Clue
Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/baker08112010.html
The latest cool thing for the Washington elite is to beat up on school teachers and firefighters for their overly generous pensions. It turns out that some of these public sector employees get enough money in their pensions that they can actually enjoy a decent retirement.
A War on Wikileaks? Unhinged at the US State Department and Pentagon
Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/forte08112010.html
In the interest of full disclosure, I am one of Wikileaks’ many financial donors. I have downloaded their entire Afghan War Diary, and numerous other documents in the past, and I have shared them. I am also one of the critics of some aspects of the Wikileaks review process. Some might rush to conclude that this puts individuals such as myself in a difficult position. Not from our standpoint. Instead the difficult positions are owned by the U.S. State Department and Pentagon, whose emissions have been chock full of absurd assertions, twisted logic, while appealing to us with as much charm as that of a delinquent about to commit date rape: first the appeal to our good side (ethics), then the threat of destruction (prosecution).
U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don’t Even Know It
Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article20108
Laurence Kotlikoff, an economics professor at Boston University, talks about the state of the U.S. economy. Kotlikoff speaks with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television’s InsideTrack." (Source: Bloomberg) Let’s get real. The U.S. is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills.
Did The CIA Assassinate Matt Simmons For Blowing The Whistle On The BP Gulf Oil Spill Coverup? - Video
Was Matt Simmons, an oil industry expert, assassinated by the CIA for turning whistleblower over the coverup of the BP Gulf Oil Spill?
Stimulating The Crash
Link: http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/stimulating-the-crash/
The chair of President Barack Obama’s White House Council of Economic Advisors quit last week, the day before the elitist no-nothings in charge declared their “surprise” that 130,000 more jobs were lost in July.
Connecticut GOP elects Wrestling Mogul over the guy who predicted the Financial Meltdown
Not a shocker… just a disappointment that once again illustrates the reality of politics in America. The millionaire former head of WWE, Linda McMahon, won the Connecticut GOP primary last night– having outspent her opponents and enjoying name recognition from her wrestling celebrity, as well as having the GOP establishment behind her– beating out Peter Schiff.
Army Doctor Refuses Deployment, Doubts Obama’s Birthplace
A highly decorated 18-year Army veteran was officially charged with disobeying orders and dereliction of duty after refusing to be deployed to Afghanistan because he questions whether Barack Obama is eligible to be president.
Alex Jones: Big brother is watching you - Video
Verizon and Google have announced that they hope to regulate the internet by controlling access and the speed of the internet to different websites. In other privacy news, Air France has announced that they will install cameras into every seat to watch their passengers; civil rights activists are crying foul saying it invades people’s privacy too much.
Brazil will back Iran sanctions
Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/08/2010811171030436791.html
Brazil's president has signed a decree stating his country will abide by United Nations sanctions against Iran even though it had worked to avoid them. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the president, signed the decree "because there is a tradition of carrying out [UN] Security Council resolutions, including those we don't agree with," Celso Amorim, the foreign minister, told reporters.
Russia's wheat ban hits Egypt hard - Video
Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/video/2010811135513251991.html
A major drought in Russia means Egyptians face the risk of missing their daily bread. Egypt, which imports around 60,000 tonnes of wheat a month from Russia, must now look elsewhere to satisfy the demand of a hungry population after Russia halted all its wheat export.
Obama signs $26b state aid bill after House OK
House lawmakers scurried back to Capitol Hill yesterday — booking last-minute flights and canceling appearances at town halls — and approved a $26 billion package that will provide aid to states, including an additional $655 million for Massachusetts.
Gulf Coast Fishermen Challenge US Government over Dispersants
Link: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2010/08/11/gulf-coast-fishermen-challenge-us-govern
Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010, t r u t h o u tCommercial Fishing communities in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida have united to demand that local, state, and federal agencies force BP to discontinue the use of toxic dispersants and conduct better testing before reopening fishing waters.
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