LaRouche

Spanish Collapse Can Bring Down the Trans-Atlantic System this Weekend

Abruptly, but lawfully, the Spanish debt crisis has erupted over the past 48 hours into a systemic rupture in the entire trans-Atlantic financial and monetary facade, posing the immediate question: Will the European Monetary Union and the entire trans-Atlantic financial system survive to the end of this holiday weekend?

Late on Friday afternoon, the Spanish government revealed that the cost of bailing out the Bankia bank, which was nationalized on May 9, will now cost Spanish taxpayers nearly 24 billion euro—and rising. Many other Spanish banks are facing imminent collapse or bailout; the autonomous Spanish regions, with gigantic debts of their own, are all now bankrupt and desperate for their own bailout. Over the last week, Spanish and foreign depositors have been pulling their money out of the weakest Spanish banks in a panic, in a repeat of the capital flight out of the Greek banks months ago.

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Timothy V. Gatto

In the Twenty-first Century there are two distinct economic models. The predominant is Capitalism and the other is Socialism .Communism has fallen by the wayside as a system that is too easily usurped by totalitarianism. Capitalism is a socio-economic system that eventually is run by the rich and takes advantage by the rich at the expense of the working class that is the prime mover of the system. Capital dictates the direction of Capitalism.

Since the Early 1970's the economic model of Capitalism has favored the upper 20% of moneyed capital. The 1% has been the prime engine that dictates the direction that Capitalism seems to be moving. These people are the CEO's and the moneyed interests behind the direction that Capitalism has moved. Some are members of the corporate structure, others are not, being the financial backers that the corporations get their funding from. These are banks, hedge funds and private inventors. All of these entities demand that they have a distinct say in the direction that the corporation takes.

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by Stephen Lendman

NATO arrives everywhere violently. Chicago was no exception. Residents were terrorized for days.

Many are still recovering. For some, it's from hospital beds. Others are behind bars. Chicago cops upheld their odious reputation. The city is notorious for being America's police repression capital.

On May 25, the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) Chicago chapter assessed days of police brutality. More on that below.

Former NLG leader Arthur Kinoy (1920 - 2003) spoke for like-minded activists, saying: "We, as lawyers, are fighting to keep the First Amendment alive in the legal arena. The people are fighting to keep the First Amendment alive in the streets, in their homes, in the factories, in the legislative halls, in the political arena."

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by Stephen Lendman

Destructive neoliberal mandates harm US and European societies. Canada's conservative government force-feeds similar policies.

They include wage and benefit cuts, less social spending, privatization of state resources, mass layoffs, deregulation, tax cuts for corporations and super-rich elites, and harsh crackdowns against resisters.

It's also about sharply hiking college tuition fees, student anger, and criminalizing public responses. More on that below.

In the 1980s, it was called Reaganomics, trickle down, and Thatcherism. In the 1990s, it was "shock therapy." Today, it's austerity. The result is unprecedented wealth transfers to corporate favorites and privileged elites.

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by Greg Palast

Will “Beyond Petroleum” oil giant BP pick the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest today in Baku, Azerbaijan? If so, I wouldn’t be surprised.

When I was arrested by the military police of Azerbaijan during my investigation of BP for Channel 4′s Dispatches in 2010, one of the cops who surrounded our crew in the desert told us, with great pride:

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