[Local_activists] The economy,etc.

[Wanda Ballentine]

http://rt.com/politics/us-financial-war-currency/
US declares financial war on world - economist Michael Hudson
Very illuminating video

http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/83-83/3848-the-end-of-free-trade-globalization
The End of Free-Trade Globalization
William Greider
We have reached the endpoint of globalization as 
we have known it. It cannot continue as before, 
because the United States is essentially tapped 
out. Goliath has fallen and cannot get up. Who 
will lend a hand? Not China, obviously, but also 
not Japan and the Asian Tigers, or the European 
nations. All are dealing with their own problems. 
All but the smallest economies run perennial 
trade surpluses with the United States. Giving up 
some of those surpluses means surrendering some 
portion of domestic growth in order to stabilize 
the system. No one wants to go first. This is a 
dangerous impasse, the kind that can easily slip 
into a general unwinding—that is, depression—if 
not resolved smartly. "The world is no longer in 
a common foxhole...but in many different 
foxholes," observes economist Paul McCulley of 
PIMCO, the world's largest bond house. Japan and 
South Korea devalue their currencies to protect 
their exports (so has the United States). Brazil 
puts limits on capital inflows to stop foreign 
money from destabilizing its economy. Currency 
war is a surrogate for trade war, one of the few 
levers governments can still manipulate unilaterally.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/one-piece-of-moderately-good-economic-news-and-14-pieces-of-bad-economic-news-that-are-so-horrifying-you-might-not-want-to-read-them-standing-up
One Piece Of Moderately Good Economic News And 14 
Pieces Of Bad Economic News That Are So 
Horrifying You Might Not Want To Read Them Standing Up

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,727457,00.html
Germany Blasts Bernanke
Results of Fed Stimulus Could Be 'Horrendous'

http://steadystate.org/thermodynamic-roots/
Herman Daly - Thermodynamic Roots of Economics

http://www.alternet.org/story/148749/greedy_bankers_are_like_coke_fiends?page=entire
Greedy Bankers Are Like Coke Fiends
Good grief - they really are - By using magnetic 
resonance imaging studies, the Harvard researcher 
Hans Breiter and his colleagues have found that 
the craving for money activates the same regions 
of the brain as the craving for cocaine, or sex, 
or any other instant and intense pleasure.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/28/real_estate/robosigner/index.htm
I was a robo-signer
-- It only took him a second to sign each 
foreclosure document...Of course, he didn't have 
time to actually read the paperwork he was 
signing, ... in some cases, he didn't even know 
what documents he was putting his pen to.  "I had 
no idea what I was signing,  Either you were in or you were out."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/04-4
Suburban Poverty by the Numbers

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/19-iconic-products-that-america-doesn%27t-make-anymore-535569.html
19 Iconic Products That America Doesn't Make Anymore
Includes video on Budweiser being sold to overseas company

http://www.truth-out.org/obama-create-jobs-executive-order64901
Obama Should Create Jobs by Executive Order
On May 6, 1935, with the country in the midst of 
the Great Depression and with indirect efforts to 
create jobs having not moved the needle of 
unemployment rates, President Franklin D. 
Roosevelt signed Executive Order 7034 and 
appropriated $4.8 billion for the Works Progress 
Administration (WPA). The WPA put millions of 
Americans to work constructing buildings, 
painting murals to decorate them and performing 
plays for audiences that had never before seen a 
dramatic production. In the process, many were 
saved from poverty and starvation and the economy began to revive.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/To-what-shrinking-extent-d-by-Richard-Clark-101110-280.html
To what shrinking extent do the rich any longer need the rest of us?

http://www.alternet.org/story/148786/how_the_wealthy_organized_to_rip_everyone_else_off_--_and_what_you_can_do_to_stop_it
How the Wealthy Organized to Rip Everyone Else 
off -- And What You Can Do to Stop It
The policies that benefit a tiny fraction of 
Americans resulted from a long-concerted effort 
by the wealthy to thwart laws that might give the rest of Americans a chance.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/taxes/outrageous-ceo-perks-this-years-top-nine/19695811/
Outrageous CEO Perks: This Year's Top Picks

http://www.alternet.org/story/148687/class_war_spurs_violent_clashes_in_europe_--_why_are_americans_just_letting_the_super_rich_win
Class War Spurs Violent Clashes in Europe -- Why 
Are Americans Just Letting the Super Rich Win?
It is time for Americans to reclaim the concept 
of class war, to actively combat the great 
squeeze ruining the lives of untold millions of Americans.

Where the money is going

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/05-3
US to Step Up Military Presence Across Asia, into Indian Ocean
US Sets Eyes on Southern Defense Outposts

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hmuDhk6gDGOjUtRZAT866kfUXV8g
US to spend 500 million dollars on embassy in Afghanistan

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/guam/8085749/US-to-build-8bn-super-base-on-Pacific-island-of-Guam.html
US to build £8bn super base on Pacific island of Guam

http://www.businessinsider.com/top-10-us-arms-deals-in-history-2010-11
The Real Reason For Obama's Trip To India: The 
Sixth Biggest Arms Deal In U.S. History

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Historic-British-French-Mi-by-Andrew-Steele-101102-937.html
Historic British/French Military Deal Highlights 
Further Global Power Consolidation That We're Told Isn't Happening
For years various individuals have warned about 
the desires of the world elite to merge all 
nations into a single global government that the 
elite themselves would control. Though over the 
past many decades people who talked about a "New 
World Order" have been met with rolled eyes and 
ridicule, the constant trend throughout recent 
history has been one that has pushed nations 
towards this aim. From the IMF announcing steps 
towards a global currency, to this latest 
military agreement...to the scientific tyranny of 
body scanners and RFID tracking being promoted by 
governments and industry, even the staunchest 
skeptic can't deny that humanity is being herded 
into a direction in which power is being rapidly 
consolidated into the hands of fewer and fewer 
people. This is not based on the will of the 
masses but on the will of those who would benefit 
from such a consolidation, with the global elite 
pushing self-empowering solutions to the 
calamities they created in the first place.

http://www.truth-out.org/thom-hartmann-rebooting-the-american-dream-07112010
Rebooting the American Dream - 11 Ways to Rebuild 
Our Country: Back to the Future
Truthout is proud to bring you an exclusive 
series from America's No. 1 progressive radio 
host, Thom Hartmann. Starting today, we'll be 
publishing weekly installments of Hartmann's 
acclaimed new book, "Rebooting the American 
Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country." We invite 
Truthout readers to join us over the next 12 
weeks as, chapter by chapter, we explore these 
groundbreaking ideas for national transformation. 
We begin today with the book's introduction.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.html?_r=1
Our Banana Republic
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
You no longer need to travel to distant and 
dangerous countries to observe such rapacious 
inequality. We now have it right here at home — 
and in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, it 
may get worse.  The richest 1 percent of 
Americans now take home almost 24 percent of 
income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As 
Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent 
series on inequality, the United States now 
arguably has a more unequal distribution of 
wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

http://www.alternet.org/story/148796/as_the_country_falls_apart%2C_it%27s_time_for_our_revolution?page=entire
As the Country Falls Apart, It's Time for Our Revolution
A call to arms from Ted Rall's new book, "Anti-American Manifesto."
Though small in numbers, anarchists and 
"deepgreen" anti-civilization environmentalists 
are highly influential in what passes for the 
American Left, publishing well-regarded books, 
magazines, and blogs that inspire many people. 
Deep-green types fantasize about a collapse 
scenario that will save the world without anyone 
having to lift a finger. They imagine an 
involuntarily deindustrializing economy that 
allows the earth to heal while people gather to 
form small clans and low-impact villages based on 
ideals of equality. Here is a quote from Jan 
Lundberg, a deep-green proponent of "peak oil" 
theory: "New social norms and tribal law will 
help break from the past and possibly outlaw 
incipient reversion to the failed system of 
exploitation of people and nature. In any case, 
the 'new' model of sharing and cooperation will 
outdo in productivity any vestiges of the old 
models of selfishness and trying to insulate 
oneself or one's family from the surrounding changed world."
That would be nice, but I don't see how the 
deep-green idyll could logically follow the 
disintegration of the United States government. 
Theoretically, people might form intentional 
communities (the current term for communes) 
and/or polyamorous clans of one hundred to one 
hundred fifty in Ecotopia (the term for a 
theoretical independent Pacific Northwest), 
living off the land, all local and 
sustainable-like. But these utopian societies 
won't be able to count on being left alone to 
live peacefully. The millions of partisans who 
follow Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and right-wing 
televangelists happen to be the best-armed people 
around, and they despise just about everyone who 
doesn't think and pray like them. They will see 
collapse as affirmation of their beliefs that 
secular liberalism is destructive. They will also 
see it as an opportunity to create a new, ordered 
world atop the ashes. They will act to stop 
teenage sluts from getting abortions, teach 
niggers a lesson, and slaughter those spics, 
dots, and everyone else who doesn't fit into 
their vision of what and who is right. Anarchists 
may opt out of revolution, but counterrevolution will come to them.
Interview with Ted Rall
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/#40134425

http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/05/rachel-maddow-on-right-wing-media/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29
Rachel Maddow on the lunatic “facts” on the Internet

http://www.federaljack.com/?page_id=14636
What happens if we lose the Internet?