Frankly, I had never heard of Westbrook Pegler so the story came as timely and informative for me. I plan to read more about Pegler. An aside, I was just reading over Erskine Caldwell's, *Tobacco Road* again which paints a much different picture of the small town and the minds that go along with it than Pegeler paints.
Credit is what the financial markets want - but credit is not good for America's economic health (it is like starting a new meth lab in Wasilla Alaska). It serves only to create bubbles which eventually lead to recessions--and God forbid, depressions. The problem is on the demand side--there ain't none. What has made this such a problem is free-trade which is not really free-trade but a cover for labor arbitraging.
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Roubini seems to be fighting a battle against incestuous amplification that has taken over academic economics. This article has shored up my long held educated opinion that recessions/depressions are caused by financial markets going as far back as the South Sea Bubble; and that if you don't regulate them with an iron fist a financial catastrophe will happen.
The article leaves one with the impression that there could be a lot of blow-back for the U.S. This is complicated by the fact that the U.S. is still looking at Russia through Cold War spectacles. The whole thing right now is a mare's nest which could escalate into another foreign policy disaster like Iraq.
It failed to mention the term "deregulation". Let's face it, people in the financial sector are not saints--far from it. Without rules and regulations, they are no different than criminals.
If the story by Lewis was an attempt to deflate the importance of McClellan's testimony in light of outright evil of the Bush Administration, he succeeded.
The press has flatly ignored this story. I did a LexisNexis Academic search and couldn't come up with anything of substance.
The role of journalism is to print the facts. In McCain's case these are the facts. This man flip-flops like no other politician.
A simple concise report of a case, but the ramifications could be earthshaking. Good interview with RFK Jr on MSNBC.
Conspicuous by its absence was FTA and the fact that free-trade is undermining the American middle-class.
The commodity bubble has been growing hugely in the aftermath of the housing bubble deflation. It is a fact, but there needs to be more public awareness of this issue. Good story in this respect.
It just adds to the claim that McCain doesn't really care about veterans. His own military record is troubled. Why the press are still not reporting on McCain the collaborator, and his involvement with the fire on the USS Forrestal in which 234 Naval personnel died is astonishing.
Lots of evidence. There is only one conclusion: McCain is a warmonger. God help America if this man gets elected.
The story was a typical banal gloss of McCain's years as a POW, not to mention a gloss of his years in Washington as a notable chameleon who will say and do anything to get elected.
I have never supported free-trade. It is a euphemism for shipping American jobs and industries to penury nations so greedy American corporations can profit from not having to pay living wages to their own fellow citizens. This story is a snapshot of the aftermath of free trade: there are no real jobs left just our credit cards. It is sad. Paul A. Samuelson, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and professor emeritus at MIT, has reassessed free-trade. He pointed out that real losses from free-trade could exceed the benefits affecting not just local industries but doing serious damage to the economy as a whole.
Robert Fisk is one British journalist who should get an award for journalistic ethics. Just read his bio. He is very knowledgeable about the Middle-East. British journalists don't write in the typical namby-pamby American style so some Americans my consider his words to be largely opinion. If they are opinion, it is 'educated opinion'--not wrong opinion.
I would like to see a journalist take on the myth of free-trade which is really behind the collapse of the American empire. Paul A. Samuelson, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and professor emeritus at MIT, has reassessed the advantages of free-trade. It is simplistic to assume that it is win-win. In fact, it may do serious damage to the economy as a whole.
I liked the anecdotal stuff. It shows a real trend. Senator Obama may have a problem with the rustic blue-collar whites who make up 20% of the electorate. But he is making inroads everywhere else with the other 80%.
There was a bias subtending the reporting. Among other things, the story glossed over the negatives that infuriated those Republicans who supported Ron Paul and may support Bob Barr. It was very gentle with McCain.
Dazzling! Keep in mind that Rumsfeld reported in 2003 that the Pentagon could not account for 2.3 trillion dollars. Journalists need to keep the pressure on the huge waste in the Pentagon that it is no friend of the economy. It's a cash cow for corrupt American corporations at the expense of almost every American.
Nice overview with a great historical context at the beginning. People need to be reminded that the U.S. military is corrupt from the top down; moreover it is backdoor corporate welfare. These parasites are robbing "we the people" of an infrastructure badly needed, and much more.
