Link: http://www.alternet.org/economy/155025/what_if_the_greedy_rich_paid_their_share_8_things_to_know_about_wealth_and_poverty_in_the_us/

We're far from poor -- we just have a wildly lopsided distribution of wealth that makes us seem poor. America is loaded. We are not a struggling nation ready to go under. We are not facing an enormous debt crisis despite what the politicians and pundits proclaim. We are not the next Greece.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/15/romney-to-welfare-mothers-you-need-to-go-to-work/

Republicans have spent the last week attacking President Barack Obama after a Democratic CNN contributor said that Ann Romney, who is the mother of five, had “never worked,” but it turns out that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has also said mothers on welfare “need to go to work.”

Link: http://theintelhub.com/2012/04/15/u-s-roads-and-bridges-being-built-by-chinese-companies-as-american-economy-teeters-on-collapse/

A recent report by ABC has confirmed what many have claimed for years; infrastructure jobs are going directly to foreign countries, particularly China.

Link: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=46891

It is a mistake is to equate the American Empire with the Money Power.
The American Empire is just a tool, an expendable vehicle. Its coming destruction will allow the Money Power’s to achieve its goal of global despotism.

Link: http://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/bernankes-warning-we-stand-on-the-precipice-of-economic-destruction/

Chairman of the Illuminist FedRes stating the obvious. But who caused of this problem? Illuminist banksters! Illuminist banksters engineer all the wars to lead America into debt slavery. Illuminist banksters then create money out of thin air to monetize (ie. buy) US treasuries. Americans are then made to pay back these debts with interest to the FedRes. What a wonderful scam! The world is heading towards a global economic, financial and monetary meltdown leading to WW3! This is the western Illuminati’s plan!

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/14/gop-rep-i-have-little-tolerance-for-those-with-high-student-loans/

If someone is looking for sympathy for their high student loans, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) would not be among those providing any support. According to audio obtained by Think Progress, the congresswoman appeared on G. Gordon Libby show Friday afternoon, saying she “never borrowed a dime of money” during her time in college before lashing out at those burdened with heavy loans.

Link: http://youtu.be/AN8KLqmVH1g

With help from the government, the tax code, and their own money, there's no limit to how rich the super-rich aim to be -- disconnecting themselves further and further from the American people as a result. Bill Moyers examines the gap.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPhxLaq8aLQ

Rigged elections, looting the country, un-regulated oil company profits, endless wars based on endless lies...

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/video/2012/apr/12/jeffrey-sachs-us-economy-video

Jeffrey Sachs in conversation at the Guardian Open Weekend. Here, he discusses how globalisation has exacerbated income inequalities and the control over politics exerted by the rich, citing the Occupy movement which he describes as a 'public relations hazard not a health hazard'

Link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iK2Mw52DptYDQMUIfUAwpqeYJN0A?docId=24e3c33b2b464d1d859b3261fdac8ff1

The global lending organization cited the failure of the administration's signature foreclosure-prevention program in a report it released Tuesday on household debt. Fewer than 1 million mortgages have been modified under the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, the IMF noted. That's far short of the administration's initial goal of helping 3 million to 4 million struggling homeowners. Nearly 8 million Americans have faced foreclosure since the housing bubble burst in late 2006

Link: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/iran-escalates-again-cuts-oil-shipments-spain

Those hoping for a quick and painless resolution to the Iranian question may have just seen their hopes dashed, following the breaking news from Iranian Press TV, according to which not only is Iran not seeking to appease its Western counterparts, but is, in fact escalating. From Press TV: "Tehran has cut oil supply to Spain after stopping crude export to Greece as part of its countersanctions,

Link: http://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-american-foreclosure-story-the-struggle-for-justice-and-a-place-t

Sheila Ramos' grandsons, 10 and 13, started crying. They wanted to know where the house was. There wasn't one. There was only a tent. They had flown from Florida, after Ramos had fallen hopelessly behind on the mortgage for her three-bedroom home, to this family-owned patch of rural land on Hawaii's Big Island. There, on a July night in 2009, they pitched a tent and, with no electricity, started a new life.

Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/235523.html

Tehran has cut oil supply to Spain after halting crude export to Greece as part of its countersanctions against the European Union (EU), mulling oil supply cuts to Germany and Italy now, Press TV reports.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31042.htm

While politicians in Washington recklessly call for bombing Syria and Iran, they ignore the economic costs of failed US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such costs call into question the condition of the US economy and are not without significant social and political implications. They also call into question the competence of leadership elites in the US, not to mention fundamental issues of governance involving the preservation of constitutional democracy.

Link: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/brazil-global-aerospace-leader-4661/

If you ask a Brazilian “who invented the airplane” you may be surprised by the answer. This is because most Brazilians attribute that distinction, not to the Wright Brothers, but to Alberto Santos-Dumont. Dumont flew a biplane for a distance of 60 meters before a crowd of Parisians in the fall of 1906. It was the first documented flight in the world and while the Wright Brothers did fly at Kitty Hawk in 1903, in 1906 they were not very well-known.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/sony-a10.shtml

Japan’s Sony Corporation plans to cut 10,000 jobs?6 percent of its global workforce of 168,200?over the next two years, according to media reports that surfaced Monday.

Link: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8421-the-suicidal-state-and-the-war-on-youth

In spite of being discredited by the economic recession of 2008, market fundamentalism has once again assumed primacy as a dominant force for producing unprecedented inequalities in wealth and income, runaway environmental devastation, egregious amounts of human suffering and what Alex Honneth has called an "abyss of failed sociality."(1) The Gilded Age is back with big profits for the ultra-rich and large financial institutions and increasing impoverishment and misery for the middle and working class.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/health-care-law-will-add-340-billion-to-deficit-new-study-finds/2012/04/09/gIQAti1o6S_story.html?hpid=z2

President Obama’s landmark health-care initiative, long touted as a means to control costs, will actually add more than $340 billion to the nation’s budget woes over the next decade, according to a new study by a Republican member of the board that oversees Medicare financing.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/154920/the_making_of_a_rampage_murderer%3A_what_the_brutal_life_of_oakland_shooter_one_l._goh_says_about_america/?page=entire

The cruelty, predation and concentration of wealth today has sparked a new type of murder that has more in common with insurgency violence than serial murder.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/heal-a09.shtml

Americans made fewer visits to the doctor last year and were issued fewer prescriptions, a clear indication that many people are struggling to pay for health care. This decline came despite the introduction of 34 new medicines by the pharmaceutical industry, the largest number in a decade.

Link: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/614.php

The claim that economic crises and austerity have an uneven impact on the working-class ? with the greatest effects being felt by women and children ? is one we hear often on the Left. However, with some important exceptions, this claim is all too often just an aside or a footnote. In this article, I want to look at the economics of austerity in two ways: first, by thinking about the uneven impacts of austerity on women and families and, second, by looking at austerity itself as a gendered phenomenon.

Link: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2012/04/09/east-timor-a-lesson-in-why-the-poorest-t

Small, impoverished countries can often present the greatest threat to predatory power, because if they cannot be intimidated and controlled, who can?

Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/235001.html

They are seeking to increase this military aid for Israel's missile systems and establishing an automatic multi-year program, which I repeat and I quote, 'will not require annual approval.'"

Link: http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=18472

Congressman Dennis Kucinich tells the sheeple how the Federal Reserve Creates 7.77 Trillion American Dollars FROM NOTHING!!!

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/jobs-a07.shtml

The US Labor Department on Friday reported that the US economy added a mere 120,000 net jobs in March, less than half the average monthly payroll growth over the previous three months. The jobs figure was far below the 200,000-plus predicted by economists and pointed to a stagnating or worsening labor market in the coming months.

Link: http://drtom.posterous.com/bailing-out-the-titanic-with-spoons

You can pay me to write, but not to lie. It's going to be complicated but it doesn't have to be. There are a lot of "I wants" in here, but I want them anyway. I want the Constitution back in place, and the basis for ALL our laws as it's supposed to be. I want the government's eyes out of my bedroom and their fingers out of my daughter's vagina. I want everyone to carry a gun who is qualified and competent with a gun and I want them to be able to defend themselves and their homes and families.

Link: http://presstv.com/detail/234920.html

Interview with Allen Roland, freelance alternative press online columnist, Sonoma ‎California. ‎So, we are still in the midst of a depression. The administration is doing everything it can do to paint a rosy picture, but has nothing to fall back on." The Egan-Jones agency has downgraded the US credit rating for the second time to AA as debt to GDP surpasses the 100 percent mark and is worsening. Press TV has interviewed Allen Roland, freelance alternative press online columnist in Sonoma California about the latest down grade adjustment to the US economy; how the administration is performing their duty to accurately inform Americans; and how this is affecting US consumers. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Link: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/nfp-big-miss-120k-expectations-205k-unemployment-82

The unemployment rate drops to 8.2% for one simple reason: the number of people not in the labor force is back to all time highs: 87,897,000.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/pers-a06.shtml

On March 25 of this year, the European Union celebrated the 55th anniversary of its foundation with the passing of the Treaties of Rome. The celebrations were a quiet affair compared to the pomp, and pageantry which marked the EU anniversary five years earlier. On that occasion leaders of the continent’s political parties and states met together with trade union leaders in the German capital city of Berlin to indulge in an orgy of self congratulation.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/spai-a06.shtml

Last week’s general strike in Spain displayed the readiness of the working class to resist the austerity measures being imposed by the right-wing Popular Party (PP) government, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31010.htm

In writing about the relentless collapse of Western economies, I frequently point to “forty years of plummeting wages” for Western workers, in real dollars. However, where I have been remiss is in quantifying the magnitude of this collapse in Western wages.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31003.htm

Imagine a country in which the very richest people get all the economic gains. They eventually accumulate so much of the nation’s total income and wealth that the middle class no longer has the purchasing power to keep the economy going full speed. Most of the middle class’s wages keep falling and their major asset – their home – keeps shrinking in value. Imagine that the richest people in this country use some of their vast wealth to routinely bribe politicians. They get the politicians to cut their taxes so low there’s no money to finance important public investments that the middle class depends on – such as schools and roads, or safety nets such as health care for the elderly and poor.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30991.htm

More than two years ago I began warning readers of the most heinous acts of fraud ever perpetrated by the Western banking crime syndicate, which I dubbed “economic terrorism”. These swindles involved nothing less than the destruction of entire European economies, solely so that the banksters could profit on approximately $100 trillion in bets they had placed on the debts of these economies.

Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-05/egan-jones-cuts-u-s-rating-one-step-to-aa-citing-growing-debt.html

Egan-Jones Ratings Co. cut the U.S. credit rating one step to AA, the second downgrade in nine months and two levels below its highest grade, with a negative outlook citing the nation’s increasing debt burden.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/ford-a04.shtml

Three years after Obama’s restructuring of the US auto industry, top executives at the car companies are raking in huge salaries and bonuses. The payouts underscore who has benefited from the president’s much-touted “recovery” of Detroit.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/euro-a04.shtml

The latest figures released by the official European Union statistics agency Eurostat reveal that unemployment across the euro zone rose for the 10th consecutive month and topped 17 million, or 10.8 per cent of the workforce, in February. The official jobless rate is the highest since the introduction of the euro 15 years ago and represents an increase of 1.5 million unemployed compared to one year ago.

Link: http://www.realzionistnews.com/?p=711

The BRICKS resist and lead the way to a new and better world order

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/03-1

The tell-all defection of Greg Smith, a former Goldman Sachs executive, provided an insider’s view of the moral corruption of the Wall Street banks that control of much of America’s economy and politics. Smith confirms what insightful observers have known for years: the business purpose of Wall Street bankers is to maximize their personal financial take without regard to the consequences for others.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/pers-a02.shtml

The first quarter of 2012 has seen a huge surge in stock prices around the world. Japan’s Nikkei index rose by 20 percent. Britain’s FTSE and Germany’s DAX were both up by more than 14 percent.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/154787/how_the_big_energy_companies_plan_to_turn_the_united_states_into_a_third-world_petro-state_/

Will North America become not just the next boom continent for energy bonanzas, but a new energy Third World?