Now Playing: Saturday morning subscription excerpts with coffee
Topic: Required Reading
The deflation time bomb
By Mike Whitney
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jan 14, 2008, 01:03
We are to about see how much George Bush really believes the “supply side” mumbo-jumbo he's been spouting for the last seven years.Last week's Labor Department report confirmed that unemployment is on the rise (5 percent) and that corrective action will be required to avoid a long and painful recession.
There's a good chance that the Chameleon in Chief will jettison his “trickle down” doctrine for more conventional Keynesian remedies like slashing interest rates, government programs, and tax relief to middle and low-income people.
Last Monday, Bush announced that his team of economic advisors was patching together an “Economic Stimulus Package” that will be unveiled later this month in the State of the Union Speech. The goal is to rev-up sagging consumer spending and slow down business contraction.
Ironically, the UK Telegraph dubbed the stimulus plan Bush's “New Deal.” It's a shocking about-face for a president that has been clobbering the middle class since he took office and who balks at even providing temporary shelter for disaster victims.
Now Bush is going to have to give away the farm just to keep the economy from crashing. Good luck. Clearly, the prospect of a system-wide meltdown in banking, real estate and equities has become a "Road to Damascus" moment for lame-duck George.
US elections: Just like the movies
By Ramzy Baroud
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jan 14, 2008
The United States political process bears an uncanny resemblance to a Hollywood production. Elections and speeches are scripted to the letter, politicians put on a tirelessly rehearsed act, catering endlessly to the whims of the target audience.A successful Hollywood filmmaker can't afford to risk raising issues in a way that don't immediately reflect audience sympathies. Good politicians vying for votes are similar in that they speak according to the already existing expectations -- and prejudices -- of the voting public.
Rarely do candidates stand behind a podium without amending or overriding their personal beliefs in return for generating applause. You would hardly hear, for example, of a US presidential candidate getting booed by an audience.
Candidates do not bring fresh principles to the table, but instead shape their views based on what national and local polls tell them matters to the voting public. And what matters is largely manipulated by the media and the state.
Their combined scare tactics convinced most Americans of outright falsehoods, such as Saddam's ties to 9/11, his stockpiles of WMD, the "liberation" of women in Afghanistan, and so forth.
Space invaders: Five million aliens for Hillary
By Greg Palast
Online Journal Guest Writer
Jan 14, 2008, 00:57
State Rep. Russell Pearce of Mesa Arizona has warned us: "There is a massive effort under way to register illegal aliens in this country."
... Maybe there aren't 5 million illegal voters for Hillary or Obama or Edwards. Maybe there are just 500. Maybe there are none.
I called Rep. Pearce's office to get a couple of the names of these illegal voters. After all, it should be easy as pie to catch them: they have to give their names and addresses to register and vote. Odd thing, out of 5 million illegal registrants, the representative, after a week of looking, couldn't provide me the name of one. Not one.
Another Republican politician, this one in New Mexico, the sponsor of the voter ID law there, said on the floor of the state legislature that she had the names of two illegal voters. Well, that's a start.
I called her, Rep. Justine Fox-Young (yes, that's her name, and she has the ID to prove it).
Q. Justine, you've uncovered felony criminals [illegal voting is a jail-time crime in every state]. Do you have the names?
A. Oh, yes!
Q. Really? Wow! Did you turn these names over to the US attorney?
A. Well, no. . . .
Q. You had evidence of a crime and you didn't have the bad guys arrested?
A. Not exactly.
Duck, cover, upchuck
By Frank Scott
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jan 15, 2008
So the evil Iranians menaced our warships, and all because those ships were sailing in their waters, thousands of miles from our own shores. Isn't it shocking? And the fact that our media repeated every word of the absolutely ridiculous and hilarious, if it weren't so dangerous, story as though it was all true? Why that's just our democratic freedom in action.While AIPAC and the evangelical Zionists in Washington were all pressing the panic button, millions of Americans had to be laughing, if not crying, at this patently absurd scare story, but our leadership either rattled word sabers or remained in stunned silence waiting for its orders.
Was this a Comedy Central production, with idiotic dialog that might be expected during the writers strike?
Luckily, once again the fissures in our ruling class revealed themselves, as only one day after this science fiction story broke, another revelation was made even though millions knew it years ago: the famed Tonkin Gulf incident which got us into the Vietnam war was a contrived nonevent.
The president and congress, with only one outspoken dissent, rushed into a war that killed millions of Southeast Asians, more than 50 thousand Americans and tore the nation apart for years, for a fiendish lie foisted on the people by a disgraceful government and a willing and compliant media.
Could it happen again? Of course, given the gullibility of so many under the thought control of so few, but sectors of the ruling class who fear the current regime will destroy their system, rose to the occasion once again.
That's the good news, the bad being that among our alleged representatives there was either collective silence or the usual rumblings of anti-Iranian bigotry and war talk.
What's a democratic nation to do?
Bush's voodoo stimulus package: $250 rebate for every taxpayer
By Mike Whitney
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jan 18, 2008
In the next couple of weeks, George W. Bush will prove that the last 30 years of supply-side, free market economics was nothing more than a overripe pile of horse manure. In fact, right now, the B-52s are being loaded with pallets-full of freshly-minted hundred dollar bills which will be air-dropped from sea to shining sea as soon as King George gives the nod.Think I'm crazy?
The Bush "Stimulus Package" is the biggest and most obscene hyper-inflationary swindle ever perpetrated on the American people. It's a $100 billion, taxpayer-funded, bailout that is being slapped together at breakneck speed to forestall a collapse in consumer spending, an exodus of foreign capital, and a painful slide into recession.
And, guess what? Both political parties are on board.
It is an act of utter desperation designed to address the catastrophe that was created by the Federal Reserve.
Greenspan's subprime boondoggle is now in full crisis mode and threatening to deliver a knockout punch to the global economy.
That's why the lights are blinking red at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And, that's why the whole 535-member army of lacquer-haired political jacklegs who run the Congress are racing around in circles trying to find solutions.
The emergency bailout scheme is spearheaded by Goldman Sach's former head honcho and current Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson. Paulson warns that the economy is slumping "rather materially" and needs a massive jolt of capital to keep from sinking altogether.
"We are looking at things that could be done quickly," Paulson opined. "Time is of the essence."
Paulson sounds more and more like a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He'd be better off concealing his fear and coming clean with the American people about the dismal state of the economy.
