Or… everyone pays the Piper
In emulating the American economic raison d’etre, China has attempted to develop its unique capitalist model while ignoring that it too will soon suffer the same fate for the same reason: Unsustainable debt. When examining the recent realities of Chinese banking and finance over the past year it seems the steam that president Xi Jinping touts as powering the engine of his purported economic miracle of a master-planned economy is only a mirage, now almost completely evaporated before his eyes. Continue reading →
Stanford University’s Hoover Institution still echoes the dire warning Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered in a January 13 speech. The speech, titled “The Restoration of Deterrence: The Iranian Example,” set forth a new policy of deterring “threats” to American interests by carrying out future political assassinations like that of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Al Quds Force commander Major General Qaseem Soleimani and Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at Baghdad International Airport. Pursuant to this same new policy, the chief treasurer for the Quds Force, General Abdul Reza Shahlai, narrowly escaped assassination in Yemen by American military forces. Continue reading →
‘Across the political spectrum, there is near consensus among these economists that a single-payer system would save money.’
A comprehensive new study that reviewed nearly three decades of existing analyses shows implementation of a single-payer healthcare system like Medicare for All could dramatically reduce costs in the United States, with savings likely experienced in the first year and definitely over the longer term. Continue reading →
The U.S. military is creating an imaginary 'space gap' to pour money into closing, wasting funds while increasing the risk of conflict.
With a stroke of a pen, Donald Trump created an entirely new branch of the armed forces last year. It’s the first new branch of the U.S. military since 1947. Continue reading →
The hashtag #CNNisTrash is the number one trend on Twitter as of this writing due to the network’s appalling treatment of Bernie Sanders in Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Iowa. Continue reading →
Maybe there's a reason nobody who voted in favor of that war—excluding George W. Bush—has won a presidential election.
While Biden and his surrogates like John Kerry continue to falsely claim that the former vice president and U.S. senator was not for the Iraq invasion, the Bernie Sanders campaign has rightly highlighted more documentation—such as this video—of Biden’s support for the Iraq invasion both before and after it happened. Continue reading →
It would be a serious error for progressives to buy into corporate media portrayals of the Sanders and Warren campaigns as destined to play a traditional zero-sum political game.
Corporate Democrats got a jolt at the end of last week when the highly regarded Iowa Poll showed Bernie Sanders surging into first place among Iowans likely to vote in the state’s Feb. 3 caucuses. The other big change was a steep drop for the previous Iowa frontrunner, Pete Buttigieg, who—along with Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden—came in a few percent behind Sanders. The latest poll was bad news for corporate interests, but their prospects brightened a bit over the weekend when Politico reported: “The nonaggression pact between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren is seriously fraying.” Continue reading →
The U.S. assassination of General Qassem Soleimani has not yet plunged us into a full-scale war with Iran thanks to the Iranian government’s measured response, which demonstrated its capabilities without actually harming U.S. troops or escalating the conflict. But the danger of a full-blown war still exists, and Donald Trump’s actions are already wreaking havoc. Continue reading →
Although the repo market is little known to most people, it is a $1-trillion-a-day credit machine, in which not just banks but hedge funds and other “shadow banks” borrow to finance their trades. Under the Federal Reserve Act, the central bank’s lending window is open only to licensed depository banks; but the Fed is now pouring billions of dollars into the repo (repurchase agreements) market, in effect making risk-free loans to speculators at less than 2%. Continue reading →
Throughout his military command of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ elite Quds Force, the late Major General Qassem Soleimani ensured that Iran had as its disposal an intricate network of military proxy forces, sympathetic Shi’a Islamic faithful, and armed wings of foreign political and religious allies prepared to respond to an American and/or Israeli military attack. With the Donald Trump administration’s assassination of Soleimani and Iraqi Shi’a militia leaders, all of whom were popular in Iran and Iraq for helping to defeat the Saudi/Israeli-supported Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, the Iranian retaliatory network established by Soleimani stands at a hair-trigger response to the U.S. premeditated murders. The network of Iranian proxies and allies crafted under Soleimani’s guidance—mostly non-state actors but with a few state players—will be Soleimani’s everlasting legacy in future history books on the Middle East and strategic warfare. Continue reading →
From 2017-2018, the agency approved 69 new pesticide products containing an ingredient the EPA recognizes as a “known” or “likely” carcinogen. Continue reading →
America’s greatest hero: Martin Luther King Jr
Posted on January 20, 2020 by Jack Balkwill
On the occasion of the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., I think it’s important to compare his accomplishments to that of others lionized in our culture as heroes. Continue reading →