Criticl sur Twitter : "Shadow Banks Explained... Must Read! #politics #UniteBlue... Shadow Banks Explained. It sounds cool.
But what does it mean? Though economists struggle to define shadow banks in laymen terms, or explain why the public should care, it is actually really simple; it’s just a disguised bank that dodges banking regulations by dividing up its business model, and it’s a problem because they’re unregulated, huge, and if they fail we all fail -again. Through various loopholes, innovative business structures, and corporate partnerships, shadow banks have reinvented what it means to be a bank, and it’s paid off. Former Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, described shadow banking as -basically- multiple businesses that, “...collectively, [carried] out traditional banking functions--but do so outside…” of the traditional banking system; by partitioning a single bank into multiple businesses and then working in concert with one another, the shadow banking system can bypass rules and safeguards.
SocialTimes sur Twitter : ".@Criticl_me: A New Platform to Nurture and Empower Citizen Journalism. The Pirate Party - the politics of protest: Rick Falkvinge at TEDxObserver. ‘Don’t interact, don’t talk, they are not humans’ - Gitmo guard's basic orders. Virtually Everything the Government Did to WikiLeaks is Now Being Done to Mainstream US Reporters. At Freedom of the Press Foundation, we believe it’s vital to defend WikiLeaks’ right to gather and publish classified information in the public interest, just as it’s vital to protect the rights of Associated Press and Fox News to do the same.
Under the law, the AP, Fox News, and WikiLeaks are no different (a fact that even the government argues ). If one falls, the others will not be far behind. Despite this fact, many journalists and mainstream media organizations purposefully stayed silent when WikiLeaks first came under attack by the Justice Department in early 2011. That disappointing silence left open the possibility that the Justice Department could use those same tactics against others in the future. And unfortunately now it's clear: virtually every move made by the Justice Department against WikiLeaks has now also been deployed on mainstream US journalists. Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government? The Money Myth: Jem Bendell at TEDxTransmedia2011. Rosner and Markowitz, Your Body Is a Corporate Test Tube. Just over three years ago, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig leased by BP killed 11 people, injured 17, and -- according to government estimates -- polluted the Gulf of Mexico with 210 million gallons of Louisiana sweet crude.
It turns out, however, that the casualty toll didn’t end with those 28 workers. The real number may reach into the thousands. Last year, BP pled guilty to 14 felonies stemming from the disaster, including misleading Congress about the amount of oil that gushed into the gulf. But that wasn’t the only way BP attempted to cover up the extent of the spill. The main method was using 1.84 million gallons of a substance known as Corexit that acts to “attach itself to leaked oil, break it into droplets, and disperse them into the vast reaches of the gulf, thereby keeping the oil from reaching Gulf Coast shorelines.” How Industrial Toxins Entered the American HomeThe story of how Americans became unwitting test subjects began more than a century ago. Critical Social Inquiry Lecture. Glenn Greenwald on the High Cost of Government Secrecy. Report: Wealthy Thrive and Poorest Dive as Surge in US Inequality Continues.
The great wealth divide in the United States has only become more exacerbated since the recession, as national policies have buoyed only the wealthiest Americans while the remainder have been left adrift.
According to a new analysis (pdf) of Census Bureau data published Tuesday by the Pew Research Center, since the economy officially emerged from the recession in mid-2009, the wealthiest 7 percent of households saw soaring gains of an estimated $5.6 trillion, while the remaining 93 percent—111 million households—saw their overall wealth fall by an estimated $0.6 trillion. Corporate Tax Cheats on Tax Day: A Descent Into the Circles of Hell. Tax cheats on Tax Day: Bank of America gets 82 percent of its revenue in the U.S., yet claimed $7 billion in U.S. losses and $10 billion in foreign profits to avoid paying taxes.
Watch We're Not Broke online. Podcast discussion with two of America's leading Iran experts: the Leveretts. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, right, faces objections from MPs during a speech to the parliament in Tehran on 3 February.
NSA Whistleblower: Spy Agency Gathering Info on ‘Virtually Every US Citizen’ National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney said on Friday that the US government is secretly gathering information “about virtually every US citizen in the country,” in “a very dangerous process” that violates Americans’ privacy.
NSA Headquarters Binney, who resigned from the NSA in 2001 over its sweeping domestic surveillance program, delivered a keynote address at the HOPE Number 9 hackers conference in New York. “They’re pulling together all the data about virtually every U.S. citizen in the country…and assembling that information,” Binney explained. “So government is accumulating that kind of information about every individual person and it’s a very dangerous process.” In the decade after 9/11, in an environment of acute threat inflation, covert national security agencies like the NSA have been flooded with new funding and broadened powers. US news media has devolved to 'carnival act' - Hedges — RT Op-Edge. Published time: March 27, 2013 01:55 AFP Photo / Joe Raedle.
An Analytic Synopsis of US Industrial Agriculture. This essay was written as a result of a conversation I had with a friend when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer working with small farmers in rural Paraguay.
We were discussing the violent imperialism that is US foreign policy in the context of its many military aggressions when I brought up US industrial agriculture as a similarly grave and multi-faceted problem with tremendous moral consequences. James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world? The premises and purposes of American exceptionalism. (updated below) Last week, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon, and the US - the country with the world's largest stockpile of that weapon and the only one in history to use it - led the condemnation (US allies with large nuclear stockpiles, such as Britain and Israel, vocally joined in).
Responding to unnamed commentators who apparently noted this contradiction, National Review's Charles Cooke voiced these two assertions: He followed that with this: Nobody can reasonably dispute that North Korea is governed by a monstrous regime and that it would be better if they lacked a nuclear weapons capability. Gilens-IDR. Glenn Greenwald: Obama’s Secret Kill List "The Most Radical Power a Government Can Seize" This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. NERMEEN SHAIKH: Glenn, I want ask you about another subject. On Tuesday, the New York Times published a major exposé about how President Obama personally oversees a, quote, "secret kill list" containing the names and photos of individuals targeted for assassination in the U.S. drone war.
According to the Times, Obama signs off on every targeted killing in Yemen and Somalia and the more complex or risky strikes in Pakistan. Individuals on the list include U.S. citizens as well as teenage girls as young as 17 years old. Ὁ τόκος/ἡ βία. David Graeber writes in Debt: The First 5,000 Years: "The story of the origins of capitalism, then, is not the story of the gradual destruction of traditional communities by the impersonal power of the market. It is, rather, the story of how an economy of credit was converted into an economy of interest; of the gradual transformation of moral networks by the intrusion of the impersonal -- and often vindictive -- power of the state. " (pg 332) Definitions of words tend to get morphed, and the word "capitalism" is no exception. What people today will tell you means "free enterprise" was originally a term coined by socialists to denounce the system of exploitation and monopoly.
Capitalism is not just a commodity market system, a system of wages, or a "right" of increase; it is the systematic extraction of increase from labor through exploitative property. Psywar : Full Documentary HQ. Anwar Al-awlaki: What the media and government won't show you. Is the internet creating an echo chamber where you only hear those who agree with you. American Households Hit 43-Year Low In Net Worth. Get Breaking News First Receive News, Politics, and Entertainment Headlines Each Morning. Sign Up WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – The median net worth of American households has dropped to a 43-year low as the lower and middle classes appear poorer and less stable than they have been since 1969.
According to a recent study by New York University economics professor Edward N. Wolff, median net worth is at the decades-low figure of $57,000 (in 2010 dollars). According to Wolff, between 1983 and 2010, the percentage of households with less than $10,000 in assets (using constant 1995 dollars) rose from 29.7 percent to 37.1 percent. Over that same period of time, the wealthiest 1 percent of American households increased their average wealth by 71 percent. As noted by Daily Finance, from 1983 to 2010 the share of total wealth held by the richest 10 percent of American households increased from 68.2 percent to 76.7 percent. 9/11: LET'S GET EMPIRICAL - David Ray Griffin. Quote of the Day: Bernie Sanders. Obama Accepts Transparency Award In Private.
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama accepted an award for making the government more open and transparent – presented to him behind closed doors with no media coverage or public access allowed. Bernie Sanders: “The Walton family owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans” John Brennan's extremism and dishonesty rewarded with CIA Director nomination. (updated below - Update II) Prior to President Obama's first inauguration in 2009, a controversy erupted over reports that he intended to appoint John Brennan as CIA director. Poll: 77% say D.C. hurting the nation - Kevin Robillard.
More than three-quarters of Americans believe the way politics works in Washington, D.C., is actively harming the country, according to a new poll. Democrats, Republicans and independents all believe politics is causing “serious harm to the country,” according to the Gallup Poll on Monday. The belief is most widespread among the GOP, where 87 percent of Americans believe politics is hurting the United States. Contrary to "Entitlement Society" Rhetoric, Over Nine-Tenths of Entitlement Benefits Go to Elderly, Disabled, or Working Households. Some conservative critics of federal social programs, including leading presidential candidates, are sounding an alarm that the United States is rapidly becoming an “entitlement society” in which social programs are undermining the work ethic and creating a large class of Americans who prefer to depend on government benefits rather than work.