Michael Hudson: Dress Rehearsal For Debt Peonage + transcript

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Updated: added transcript

Interview with Michael Hudson
Bonnie Faulkner
Guns and Butter

Home

August 28, 2009

“Dress Rehearsal For Debt Peonage” with economist Dr. Michael Hudson on why the banks are returning the bailout money; bank fees and penalties; banks prefer default to foreclosure; debt as wealth; Obama’s Financial Regulatory Reform Proposal and its six major flaws; the deregulation-by centralization ploy; failure to reform the economy will lead to debt peonage.

Memo to Bernanke: “No Wage Growth; No Recovery” By Mike Whitney + Did Bernanke save the world?

By Mike Whitney
August 28, 2009 “Information Clearing House”

A recent poll shows that most economists now believe that the recession, which began in December 2007, will end in the third quarter of 2009. There’s been an uptick in manufacturing and consumer confidence, and the decline in housing prices appears to be flattening out. Unfortunately, the return to positive GDP will likely be short-lived. The current surge in production is mainly the result of President Obama’s fiscal stimulus and the rebuilding of inventories that were slashed after Lehman Bros defaulted in September, 2008. These factors should boost GDP for two or perhaps three quarters before the economy lapses back into recession. The most serious problems facing the economy have not yet been addressed or resolved. Consumer spending and bank lending are still contracting, and the banks are buried beneath $1.5 trillion in toxic assets and non-performing loans. Also, the wholesale credit system, (securitization) which provided up to 40 percent of the credit flowing into the economy, is barely operating. No one really knows whether the system is salvageable or not. On a fundamental level, the financial system is broken and neither the Fed’s zero percent interest rates nor Obama’s gigantic fiscal stimulus has reversed the prevailing downward trend. Capital has stopped moving; the velocity of money has slowed to a crawl. It’s true, things are getting worse slower, but the signs of “recovery” are as faint and irregular as a dying man’s breath.

Netanyahu: Our lesson from the Holocaust is that threats to our existence must be nipped in the bud

Propaganda Alert
 
compiled by Cem Ertür
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
28 August 2009

This week, the leaders of Israel, UK, Germany and US launched yet another joint propaganda campaign against Iran. The aim is to get the UN Security Council to impose “crippling sanctions” on Iran, a step that would ultimately facilitate their next brutal invasion.

The Lawmaker by Michael Carmichael

by Michael Carmichael
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
PlanetaryMovement.org
August 28, 2009

He never lingered over the pain in his past.  Memories echoed in the domes, surrounding him with an aura of destiny. The pain of tragic loss; a sister in perpetual absentia; the echoes of bullets lacerating his brothers; a spiraling plane crash that shattered his spine; a panic underwater and the loss of an innocent life; his son’s loss of a limb; the perpetual onslaught of rumors whispering scandals; the wind in his face; the tides of the sea; sailing against the winds of time – these could not disturb his dream.  He focused his vision as he understood the pulse of time and the concentration of fury in pursuit of justice.  Keen, intent and open, in possession of certainty in equality, liberty and justice; he strode the corridors of power and knew the ways and means of Senates and Congresses and Presidents and Pentagons.  In a succession of houses or on the crest of waves rippling with monsters of the deep, he was schooled in the lessons of life by parents who nourished him.

Cindy Sheehan Martha’s Vineyard: Obama Driveway + Matthis Chiroux

Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
August 28, 2009

Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox

Cindy Sheehan at Martha’s Vineyard with Barack Obama

Obama on vacation – wars rage on (Sheehan on Russia Today)

with Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox

RussiaToday
August 28, 2009

Not all is smooth in Wonderland. As Obama vacations, thousands of troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. RT’s Anastasia Churkina investigates.

Michael Vick: Remorseful Eagle or Smirking Dirty Bird by Walter Brasch

by Walter Brasch
Featured Writers
Dandelion Salad
www.walterbrasch.com
Aug 25, 2009

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 27–The crowd at Lincoln Field gave superstar quarterback/convicted felon Michael Vick a standing ovation when he entered the game on the second play against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

On his first play for the Philadelphia Eagles, Vick tossed an easy shovel pass for a four yard gain. “It was unbelievable the way I was embraced and the warm welcome I received,” Vick told the Associated Press after the game.

In his other five plays, Vick completed three passes and rushed for a yard. Fans didn’t even boo him when a lateral was mishandled and led to a Jaguars touchdown.

Although there had been heated discussions, especially on talk radio the previous two weeks, outside the stadium were only a few protestors. Most fans told each other, their bartenders, and any reporters within a hundred yard radius they were pleased that with Vick, once the NFL’s highest paid player when he was with the Atlanta Falcons but now a possible back-up quarterback to All-Pro Donovan McNabb, the Eagles could finally win the Super Bowl.

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet

by Declan McCullagh
http://news.cnet.com
August 28, 2009 12:34 AM PDT

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

[…]

Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to “direct the national response to the cyber threat” if necessary for “the national defense and security.” The White House is supposed to engage in “periodic mapping” of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies “shall share” requested information with the federal government. (“Cyber” is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)

[…]

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet | Politics and Law – CNET News

h/t: CLG

see

the latest from Tom Burghardt: Obama Administration Seeks “Emergency Control” of the Internet – Antifascist Calling…

The Launching of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) by Tom Burghardt

President Obama on Cybersecurity + Securing Our Digital Future

Internet Threatened by Censorship, Secret Surveillance, and Cybersecurity Laws by Stephen Lendman

Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox: On The Pond + Martha’s Vineyard IVAW

Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox

Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
August 28, 2009

Martha’s Vineyard interview directly across from Obama’s vacation house.

The Italian Cinema And The Left – On Rediscovering Roberto Rossellini-Filmmaker By Gaither Stewart

by Gaither Stewart
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
28 August 2009

(Rome) The story of Roberto Rossellini is a very Italian story, encompassing Italy in change from the Fascist period and, reaching beyond his lived life, until 2009. Though Europe is not Europe without Italy, Rossellini’s story, in the strictest sense, is a very Italian story; not an European story. For Italy, separated from the rest of Europe by the Alps, is, and perhaps always has been, something apart, still today considered by North Europeans an exotic place to escape to. As is popularly said, Italy is a wonderful place to visit but hell to live in. The story of Roberto Rossellini deals with that paradox. Read Roberto Rossellini and think Italy of the past 75 years.

Stromboli – Roberto Rossellini (1949)

55:09 – Jun 2, 2008

no longer available

see

The Italian Cinema And The Left – On Rediscovering Roberto Rossellini-Filmmaker By Gaither Stewart

stimulator: Blame Canada

stimulator
August 27, 2009

http://submedia.tv/stimulator/2009/08…

This week:
1. We’re running out of oil, duh!
2. No Dawson Snitch
3. Canada’s Dirty Secret
4. Arctic Bounty
5. Climate Actions
6. Leonard Peltier
7. Rage
8. The Mutherfuckin Tar Sands

Philip Giraldi on Antiwar Radio + Conservative Mag: Sibel Edmonds Speaks, But No One is Listening

Scott Horton
Antiwar Forum
August 27, 2009

Philip Giraldi, contributing editor at The American Conservative magazine and columnist for Antiwar.com, discusses the long-awaited deposition of Sibel Edmonds, Marc Grossman’s 2001 outing of CIA front group Brewster Jennings, the failure of the MSM to cover news outside the left-right paradigm, the incredible level of corruption in the U.S. government and the influence of Turkish and Israeli lobbies in Congress.

Cindy Sheehan: Obama’s Policies Way Worse Than Bush!!

Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox

August 26, 2009