|
Post by portrush on Mar 16, 2016 16:27:27 GMT -5
Worth watching with an open mind...
pr
|
|
|
Post by 3bid on Mar 17, 2016 17:07:18 GMT -5
Millions of ordinary Americans support Donald Trump. Here's why. Thomas Frank | Monday 7 March 2016 | The Guardian www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald-trump-why-americans-support When he isn’t spewing insults, the Republican frontrunner is hammering home a powerful message about free trade and its victims Let us now address the greatest American mystery at the moment: what motivates the supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump?
I call it a “mystery” because the working-class white people who make up the bulk of Trump’s fan base show up in amazing numbers for the candidate, filling stadiums and airport hangars, but their views, by and large, do not appear in our prestige newspapers. On their opinion pages, these publications take care to represent demographic categories of nearly every kind, but “blue-collar” is one they persistently overlook. The views of working-class people are so foreign to that universe that when New York Times columnist Nick Kristof wanted to “engage” a Trump supporter last week, he made one up, along with this imaginary person’s responses to his questions.
When members of the professional class wish to understand the working-class Other, they traditionally consult experts on the subject. And when these authorities are asked to explain the Trump movement, they always seem to zero in on one main accusation: bigotry. Only racism, they tell us, is capable of powering a movement like Trump’s, which is blowing through the inherited structure of the Republican party like a tornado through a cluster of McMansions.
Trump himself provides rather excellent evidence for this finding. The man is an insult clown who has systematically gone down the list of American ethnic groups and offended them each in turn. He wants to deport millions upon millions of undocumented immigrants. He wants to bar Muslims from visiting the United States. He admires various foreign strongmen and dictators, and has even retweeted a quote from Mussolini. This gold-plated buffoon has in turn drawn the enthusiastic endorsement of leading racists from across the spectrum of intolerance, a gorgeous mosaic of haters, each of them quivering excitedly at the prospect of getting a real, honest-to-god bigot in the White House.
All this stuff is so insane, so wildly outrageous, that the commentariat has deemed it to be the entirety of the Trump campaign. Trump appears to be a racist, so racism must be what motivates his armies of followers. And so, on Saturday, New York Times columnist Timothy Egan blamed none other than “the people” for Trump’s racism: “Donald Trump’s supporters know exactly what he stands for: hatred of immigrants, racial superiority, a sneering disregard of the basic civility that binds a society.”
Stories marveling at the stupidity of Trump voters are published nearly every day. Articles that accuse Trump’s followers of being bigots have appeared by the hundreds, if not the thousands. Conservatives have written them; liberals have written them; impartial professionals have written them. The headline of a recent Huffington Post column announced, bluntly, that “Trump Won Super Tuesday Because America is Racist.” A New York Times reporter proved that Trump’s followers were bigots by coordinating a map of Trump support with a map of racist Google searches. Everyone knows it: Trump’s followers’ passions are nothing more than the ignorant blurtings of the white American id, driven to madness by the presence of a black man in the White House. The Trump movement is a one-note phenomenon, a vast surge of race-hate. Its partisans are not only incomprehensible, they are not really worth comprehending.
Or so we’re told. Last week, I decided to watch several hours of Trump speeches for myself. I saw the man ramble and boast and threaten and even seem to gloat when protesters were ejected from the arenas in which he spoke. I was disgusted by these things, as I have been disgusted by Trump for 20 years. But I also noticed something surprising. In each of the speeches I watched, Trump spent a good part of his time talking about an entirely legitimate issue, one that could even be called leftwing.
Yes, Donald Trump talked about trade. In fact, to judge by how much time he spent talking about it, trade may be his single biggest concern – not white supremacy. Not even his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border, the issue that first won him political fame. He did it again during the debate on 3 March: asked about his political excommunication by Mitt Romney, he chose to pivot and talk about … trade.
It seems to obsess him: the destructive free-trade deals our leaders have made, the many companies that have moved their production facilities to other lands, the phone calls he will make to those companies’ CEOs in order to threaten them with steep tariffs unless they move back to the US.
Trump embellished this vision with another favorite leftwing idea: under his leadership, the government would “start competitive bidding in the drug industry”. (“We don’t competitively bid!” he marveled – another true fact, a legendary boondoggle brought to you by the George W Bush administration.) Trump extended the critique to the military-industrial complex, describing how the government is forced to buy lousy but expensive airplanes thanks to the power of industry lobbyists.
Thus did he hint at his curious selling proposition: because he is personally so wealthy, a fact about which he loves to boast, Trump himself is unaffected by business lobbyists and donations. And because he is free from the corrupting power of modern campaign finance, famous deal-maker Trump can make deals on our behalf that are “good” instead of “bad”. The chance that he will actually do so, of course, is small. He appears to be a hypocrite on this issue as well as so many other things. But at least Trump is saying this stuff.
All this surprised me because, for all the articles about Trump I had read in recent months, I didn’t recall trade coming up very often. Trump is supposed to be on a one-note crusade for whiteness. Could it be that all this trade stuff is a key to understanding the Trump phenomenon?
Trade is an issue that polarizes Americans by socio-economic status. To the professional class, which encompasses the vast majority of our media figures, economists, Washington officials and Democratic powerbrokers, what they call “free trade” is something so obviously good and noble it doesn’t require explanation or inquiry or even thought . Republican and Democratic leaders alike agree on this, and no amount of facts can move them from their Econ 101 dream.
To the remaining 80 or 90% of America, trade means something very different. There’s a video going around on the internet these days that shows a room full of workers at a Carrier air conditioning plant in Indiana being told by an officer of the company that the factory is being moved to Monterrey, Mexico, and that they’re all going to lose their jobs.
As I watched it, I thought of all the arguments over trade that we’ve had in this country since the early 1990s, all the sweet words from our economists about the scientifically proven benevolence of free trade, all the ways in which our newspapers mock people who say that treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement allow companies to move jobs to Mexico.
Well, here is a video of a company moving its jobs to Mexico, courtesy of Nafta. This is what it looks like. The Carrier executive talks in that familiar and highly professional HR language about the need to “stay competitive” and “the extremely price-sensitive marketplace”. A worker shouts “f*ck you!” at the executive. The executive asks people to please be quiet so he can “share” his “information”. His information about all of them losing their jobs.
Now, I have no special reason to doubt the suspicion that Donald Trump is a racist. Either he is one, or (as the comedian John Oliver puts it) he is pretending to be one, which amounts to the same thing.
But there is another way to interpret the Trump phenomenon. A map of his support may coordinate with racist Google searches, but it coordinates even better with deindustrialization and despair , with the zones of economic misery that 30 years of Washington’s free-market consensus have brought the rest of America.
It is worth noting that Trump is making a point of assailing that Indiana air conditioning company from the video in his speeches. What this suggests is that he’s telling a tale as much about economic outrage as it is tale of racism on the march. Many of Trump’s followers are bigots, no doubt, but many more are probably excited by the prospect of a president who seems to mean it when he denounces our trade agreements and promises to bring the hammer down on the CEO that fired you and wrecked your town, unlike Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Here is the most salient supporting fact: when people talk to white, working-class Trump supporters, instead of simply imagining what they might say, they find that what most concerns these people is the economy and their place in it. I am referring to a study just published by Working America , a political-action auxiliary of the AFL-CIO, which interviewed some 1,600 white working-class voters in the suburbs of Cleveland and Pittsburgh in December and January.
Support for Donald Trump, the group found, ran strong among these people, even among self-identified Democrats, but not because they are all pining for a racist in the White House. Their favorite aspect of Trump was his “attitude”, the blunt and forthright way he talks. As far as issues are concerned, “immigration” placed third among the matters such voters care about, far behind their number one concern: “good jobs / the economy”.
“People are much more frightened than they are bigoted,” is how the findings were described to me by Karen Nussbaum, the executive director of Working America. The survey “confirmed what we heard all the time: people are fed up, people are hurting, they are very distressed about the fact that their kids don’t have a future” and that “there still hasn’t been a recovery from the recession, that every family still suffers from it in one way or another.”
Tom Lewandowski, the president of the Northeast Indiana Central Labor Council in Fort Wayne, puts it even more bluntly when I asked him about working-class Trump fans. “These people aren’t racist, not any more than anybody else is,” he says of Trump supporters he knows. “When Trump talks about trade, we think about the Clinton administration, first with Nafta and then with [Permanent Normal Trade Relations] China, and here in Northeast Indiana, we hemorrhaged jobs.”
“They look at that, and here’s Trump talking about trade, in a ham-handed way, but at least he’s representing emotionally. We’ve had all the political establishment standing behind every trade deal, and we endorsed some of these people, and then we’ve had to fight them to get them to represent us.”
Now, let us stop and smell the perversity. Left parties the world over were founded to advance the fortunes of working people. But our left party in America – one of our two monopoly parties – chose long ago to turn its back on these people’s concerns, making itself instead into the tribune of the enlightened professional class, a “creative class” that makes innovative things like derivative securities and smartphone apps. The working people that the party used to care about, Democrats figured, had nowhere else to go, in the famous Clinton-era expression. The party just didn’t need to listen to them any longer.
What Lewandowski and Nussbaum are saying, then, should be obvious to anyone who’s dipped a toe outside the prosperous enclaves on the two coasts. Ill-considered trade deals and generous bank bailouts and guaranteed profits for insurance companies but no recovery for average people, ever – these policies have taken their toll. As Trump says, “we have rebuilt China and yet our country is falling apart. Our infrastructure is falling apart … Our airports are, like, Third World.”
Trump’s words articulate the populist backlash against liberalism that has been building slowly for decades and may very well occupy the White House itself, whereupon the entire world will be required to take seriously its demented ideas.
Yet still we cannot bring ourselves to look the thing in the eyes. We cannot admit that we liberals bear some of the blame for its emergence, for the frustration of the working-class millions, for their blighted cities and their downward spiraling lives. So much easier to scold them for their twisted racist souls, to close our eyes to the obvious reality of which Trumpism is just a crude and ugly expression: that neoliberalism has well and truly failed.
Thomas Frank is the author of Listen, Liberal or Whatever Happened to the Party of the People , published 15 March by Metropolitan Books.
|
|
|
Post by 3bid on Mar 18, 2016 3:56:54 GMT -5
Ireland to Prosecute Top Banker Who Destroyed Their Economy — Guess Where He Was Hiding
Claire Bernish | March 15, 2016 | The Free Thought Project
Boston, MA — A former head of a major Irish bank has been extradited from the U.S. and brought before Dublin District Court to face several charges stemming from the bank’s role in the 2008 financial crisis.
David Drumm, former chief executive of Irish Anglo Bank from 2005 until 2008, had been arrested in Boston in October 2015, and originally attempted to fight extradition — but he recently withdrew the objection and was returned to Ireland early on Monday.
Drumm faces 33 charges in Ireland, which echoes Iceland’s unprecedented move to hold its bankers criminally accountable for their role in that country’s economic meltdown. Though Drumm predictably denied wrongdoing, his charges include “fraud, forgery, misleading management reporting, unlawful lending, falsifying documents, and false accounting, linked to financial transactions prior to the collapse of Anglo,” according to the Irish Times.
Though prosecutors consider Drumm a flight risk — after all, he seemed to be seeking safe haven inside the United States — the court allowed the ex-banker to post bail under several conditions. Drumm’s passport is currently being held by the Gardaí (Garda Síochána, or Irish Police), and under the bail arrangement, he assured the court he would not apply for another and does not possess a U.S. passport.
Seven of Drumm’s relatives offered to put their houses on the line as ‘security’ for his bail, though the judge only required four names.
As RT reported, Drumm is alleged to have participated in transactions totaling around €7 billion between Anglo and a second lending institution, Irish Life and Permanent. Anglo “posted the worst corporate results in Irish history with losses of €17.5 billion for 2010.”
Drumm came to the United States in 2009, and reportedly refused to cooperate with an investigation. Prosecutors fear his “capacity to marshal significant sums” of money adds to the possibility Drumm could easily disappear.
However, his solicitor argued that in order to better prepare his defense — including sorting through the “millions of documents” and nearly 400 hours of phone conversations — Drumm needed to remain out of prison. As the Times noted, two “books” of evidence will need to be heard by the court — one of which entails bringing 120 witnesses to testify.
The former banking executive has not yet entered a formal plea. He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison if found guilty.
Iceland, and now Ireland, have taken action to hold criminal bankers accountable for their direct role in the economic devastation which enveloped most of the world beginning in 2008 — the exact opposite of what the US does.
As of October, Iceland’s criminal bankers had been sentenced to a combined 74 years in prison — with others awaiting trial. Then, the sale of one of its national banks meant a payout, albeit small, for every Icelandic citizen.
The U.S. notoriously and controversially bailed out its banks — essentially rewarding them, or at least, excusing them for the crisis they created.
Drumm was ordered by the judge to remain in Ireland.
Notably, according to RT, the Irish ex-banker has appealed a U.S. court’s refusal to grant him bankruptcy on over €10 million of debt.
thefreethoughtproject.com/irish-banker-facing-charges-extradition-us/#WYdeJSJYfELEVeiu.99
|
|
|
Post by 3bid on Mar 29, 2016 11:33:31 GMT -5
Oil drops as investors grow weary of rising supplyTue Mar 29, 2016 | By Amanda Cooper Oil prices fell on Tuesday, reflecting growing concerns that a two-month rally may be fading, as supply looked set to keep rising and there appeared to be little immediate prospect of demand keeping pace. The oil price has risen more than 45 percent since mid-February ahead of a meeting next month of the world's major producers to discuss an output freeze. But there is growing scepticism about the outcome of the meeting. "Verbal intervention, which has obviously helped the market greatly over the past two months, combined with a production slowdown in the U.S., has probably taken (oil) as far as it can. Now the market really wants to see some action," Saxo Bank senior manager Ole Hansen said. "We're seeing more and more commentators raise the flag and saying 'have we seen too much, too soon?' in terms of the rally across the sector." Brent crude futures LCOc1 fell by $1.20 to $39.07 a barrel by 1350 GMT (9.50 a.m. ET), having lost 7 percent in the last week, while U.S. crude CLc1 dropped by $1.32 to $38.07. OPEC and other major suppliers, including Russia, are to meet on April 17 in Doha to discuss an output freeze aimed at bolstering prices. The oil price touched session lows earlier after a source familiar with Iranian thinking said Iran would attend the meeting, but this did not mean it would take part in negotiations over production freezes. Kuwait said on Tuesday it had agreed with Saudi Arabia to resume production at the jointly operated Khafji field, which shut in October 2014 for environmental reasons, having been producing between 280,000 and 300,000 barrels per day. With ballooning global inventories, signs some OPEC members are losing market share, plus little evidence of a strong pick-up in demand, analysts said oil is likely to trade in a range. "There is a rebalancing on the way, but we are still running a surplus and stocks are building up as far as we can see," SEB commodities analyst Bjarne Schieldrop said. "There is a clear risk for a pull-back in Brent crude oil with a return to deeper contango again. Long positioning in Brent is at record highs and vulnerable for a bearish repositioning." Data on Monday from the InterContinental Exchange showed speculators hold the largest net long position in Brent futures on record. [O/ICE] U.S. commercial crude stockpiles were expected to have reached record highs for a seventh straight week, while refined product inventories likely fell, a Reuters survey showed late on Monday. API www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-idUSKCN0WU01Y
|
|
|
Post by 3bid on Mar 29, 2016 12:08:31 GMT -5
Dreaded 'stealth' supply becomes reality as U.S. drillers turn on 'ducks'
Mar 21, 2016 | By Liz Hampton and Devika Krishna Kumar
A dreaded scenario for U.S. oil bulls might just be becoming a reality.
Some U.S. shale oil producers, including Oasis Petroleum (OAS.N) and Pioneer Natural Resources Co (PXD.N), are activating drilled but uncompleted wells (DUCs) in a reversal in strategy that threatens to bring more crude to a saturated market and dampen any sustained rebound in prices.
When oil prices started their long slide in mid-2014, many producers kept drilling wells, but halted expensive fracking work that brings them online, waiting for prices to bounce back.
But now, with crude futures hovering near multi-year lows and many doubting recent modest gains that brought oil prices near $40 a barrel CLc1 can hold, the backlog of DUCs is already shrinking in some areas. In key shale areas such as Eagle Ford or Wolfcamp and Bone Spring in Texas such backlog has fallen by as much as a third over the past six months, according to data compiled by Alex Beeker, a researcher at Wood Mackenzie.
"If the number of DUCs brought online is surprising to the upside, that means U.S. production won't decline as quickly as people expect," said Michael Wittner, global head of oil research at Societe Generale. "More output is bearish.”
In the Wolfcamp, Bone Spring and Eagle Ford, the combined backlog of excessive wells remains around 600, Beeker estimates.
About 660 wells could be the equivalent of between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels per day of potential new supply, according to Ed Longanecker, president of Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association (TIPRO).
For now, most of the wells are activated in Texas, where proximity to refiners allows producers to sell their crude closer to benchmark prices, and by well-hedged companies that have locked in higher prices.
Still, the pace of fracking of the uncompleted wells may quicken if cash-strapped producers facing debt repayments can no longer afford to store their oil in the ground.
While the potential additional supply is a fraction of total U.S. production of around 9 million bpd, the fresh flow would reinforce concerns about a growing global glut just as Iran ramps up output and inventories in domestic storage tanks from the Gulf to Cushing, Oklahoma, test new highs on a weekly basis.
DISAPPEARING BACKLOG
Wood Mackenzie reckons that the backlog of excess DUCs will decline over the next two years, and return to normal levels by the end of 2017. It is expected to fall 35 percent from current levels in the Bakken and 85 percent in the Eagle Ford by the end of 2016. (Graphic:tmsnrt.rs/1PgAf4i)
With service costs down, now is a good time to bring a well online if a company has hedged its production and covered its costs, said Jonathan Garrett, an analyst with Wood Mackenzie. The U.S. crude breakeven for such wells is one-third lower than for new ones, according to Wood Mackenzie. Typically, average DUC inventory is around 550 in the Wolfcamp/Bone Spring formations and around 300 in the Eagle Ford, Beeker estimates.
In each of those formations, the excess has fallen by about 150-175 over the past six months, bringing the surplus to around 300 wells in each. "We're just going to be continuously completing the wells there (in the Permian) with our fleets and so you will not see any DUCs in Midland basin," Pioneer Chief Operating Officer, Tim Dove, told a recent earnings conference.
Rival Oasis is also focusing on drawing down its backlog this year, executives said during the company's last earnings call.
Both companies have locked in future sales at prices well above current levels. Oasis has 70 percent of its oil production for 2016 hedged above $50 a barrel and roughly 20 percent of its 2017 production hedged at about $47 a barrel.
Similarly, Pioneer has locked in a minimum price for 85 percent of this year's production. Not everyone can do it.
In North Dakota, the second-largest oil-producing state where producers like Whiting Petroleum Corp (WLL.N) sell their oil at steep discounts, it might not be economic.
There, the number of DUCs climbed above 1,000 in September before falling to 945 in December, according to the latest data from the state's energy regulator.
Bakken producer Continental Resources Inc (CLR.N), which made waves when it unwound its hedges in late 2014, has said it would continue to defer completions until prices rise.
Bakken discounts were just too steep, said Garrison Allen, a research associate at Raymond James.
"It doesn't make sense to do anything up there."
www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-shale-ducs-idUSKCN0WN0BK
|
|
|
Post by vulcanized crawler on Mar 29, 2016 12:51:44 GMT -5
leadership, jobs, growth, naked photos of a foxy first lady, what else do we need. the past few years, like 7 1/2, have been no jobs, no growth, and even playboy went clothed. geeeeez. GO TRUMP
|
|
|
Post by Duc N Altum on Apr 1, 2016 18:11:22 GMT -5
April fools? State Department Suspends Probe Of "Top Secret" Clinton Emails04/01/2016 While the media goes into a frenzy every time someone is punched or maced at a Trump rally, or frankly any time Trump says anything out of place (and lately he has has had more than his fair share of supply), what according to many is the real scandal, is quietly being doused with the media obligingly looking the other way. Moments ago, AP reported that the State Department has suspended its internal review into whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or her top aides mishandled emails containing information now deemed "top secret." www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-01/state-department-suspends-probe-top-secret-clinton-emails------------------ Hillary Clinton lying for 13 minutes straight. Published on Jan 29, 2016
|
|
|
Post by vulcanized crawler on Apr 1, 2016 18:55:18 GMT -5
more like 69 years straight
|
|
|
Post by Duc N Altum on Apr 1, 2016 19:44:12 GMT -5
"We Are Prepared To Fight" - In Dramatic Shift NATO Changes East European Doctrine From "Assurance" To "Deterrence"04/01/2016 Yesterday, during a briefing in Latvia's capital Riga, NATO Gen. Philip Breedlove said that NATO and the United States are switching their defense doctrine from assurance to deterrence in Eastern Europe in response to a “resurgent and aggressive Russia." Breedlove added that “We are prepared to fight and win if we have to ... our focus will expand from assurance to deterrence, including measures that vastly improve our overall readiness,” Breedlove said following talks with Baltic region NATO commanders. www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-01/we-are-prepared-fight-dramatic-shift-nato-changes-east-european-doctrine-assurance-d
|
|
|
Post by 3bid on Apr 1, 2016 20:02:42 GMT -5
Published on Mar 29, 2016
A disturbing trend: Western governments and their pliant mainstream media often blame Russia for many of the world’s woes. In fact the cottage industry known as “Putin did it” relieves many politicians and journalists of professional responsibility. Needless to say, this does not adequately explain Russia. CrossTalking with Mary Dejevsky, Matthew Dal Santo, and Anatol Lieven.
|
|
|
Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Apr 9, 2016 13:34:39 GMT -5
diamondsandgemms DIAMOND JEDi 14 hours ago portrush, carlos and 3 more like this. Post by diamondsandgemms on 14 hours ago
U.S. government does not need to tax the peoples pay , They have more than enough money coming inn , they just need to learn to manage the money they have.They collect money from their oil fields , natural gas fields , they make Billions a year from taxing oil and gas at the pumps .They tax everything , right down to your cell phone . Go ahead check , there is a federal tax charge on your statement . They make money off your water bill , your electric bill . Talk About Greedy , they tax you when you die if you leave anything behind and leave it to your children.SAD !!! 35% corporate tax rate , my God are they greedy !!!
What are they doing with all the money ? There are still people that live under bridges ! While our government lives High on the Hog !!! Sad !
|
|
|
Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Apr 12, 2016 8:56:11 GMT -5
sogwap DIAMOND JEDI WARLORD Post by sogwap on 27 minutes ago
Bloomberg - IMF Warns of Global Stagnation as It Cuts Growth Outlook Again bloom.bg/23ARpUi
A prolonged period of slow growth has left the global economy more exposed to negative shocks and raised the risk that the world will slide into stagnation, the IMF warned.
The International Monetary Fund cut its world expansion forecast, as weak exports and slowing investment dim prospects in the U.S., a consumption-tax hike saps growth in Japan, and a slump in the price of everything from oil to wheat continues to hobble commodities producers. The world economy will grow 3.2 percent this year, down from a projected 3.4 percent in January, the IMF said Tuesday in a quarterly update to its World Economic Outlook.
The weaker outlook is likely to weigh on finance ministers and central bankers from around the globe, who gather in Washington this week for spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank, as well as a Group of 20 session. The fund also cut its forecast for growth in 2017 to 3.5 percent, down from 3.6 percent three months ago.
“Growth has been too slow for too long,” IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld said in remarks prepared for a press briefing. “There is no longer much room for error.”
“But by clearly recognizing the risks they jointly face and acting together to prepare for them, national policy makers can bolster confidence, support growth, and guard more effectively against the risk of a derailed recovery,” he said.
The IMF cited among the biggest risks as a “return of financial turmoil itself, impairing confidence and demand in a self-confirming negative feedback loop.”
‘Scarring Effects’
“Another threat is that persistent slow growth has scarring effects that themselves reduce potential output and with it, consumption and investment,” the IMF said. “Consecutive downgrades of future economic prospects carry the risk of a world economy that reaches stalling speed and falls into widespread secular stagnation.”
The fund cited several political and geopolitical pressures, including the rise of populism in the U.S. and Europe; the U.K.’s June referendum on whether to stay in the European Union; and large-scale refugee inflows that add to strains in Europe.
While growth forecasts for the U.S. and euro area were marked down by 0.2 percentage point, the deepest reductions in advanced economies came in Japan.
The IMF cut its expansion estimate for the nation in half for 2016, to 0.5 percent, and projects a 0.1 percent contraction in 2017, compared with a previous forecast for 0.3 percent growth. The fund cited recent strengthening of the yen and weaker emerging-market demand for the forecast cut, and the scheduled consumption-tax increase for the 2017 slide.
One bright spot: The IMF upgraded its China growth forecasts by 0.2 percentage point for this year and next, following signs of “resilient domestic demand” and growth in services that offset weakness in manufacturing.
|
|
|
Post by portrush on Apr 13, 2016 11:04:36 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Apr 25, 2016 6:28:09 GMT -5
The TRUTH About the Economic Collapse
|
|
|
Post by 3bid on Apr 27, 2016 12:42:49 GMT -5
Washington Launches Its Attack Against BRICS
— Paul Craig Roberts | April 22, 2016
Having removed the reformist President of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Washington is now disposing of the reformist President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff.
Washington used a federal judge to order Argentina to sacrifice its debt restructuring program in order to pay US vulture funds the full value of defaulted Argentine bonds that the vulture funds had bought for a few pennies on the dollar. www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/27/us-vulture-funds-argentina-bankruptcy These vultures were called “creditors” who had made “loans” regardless of the fact that they were not creditors and had made no loans. They were opportunists after easy money and were used by Washington to get rid of a reformist government.
President Kirchner resisted and, thus, she had to go. Washington concocted a story that Kirchner covered up an alleged Iranian bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994. This implausible fantasy, for which there is no evidence of Iranian involvement, was fed to one of Washington’s agents in the state prosecutor’s office, and a dubious event of 22 years ago was used to clear Kirchner out of the way of the American looting of Argentina.
In Brazil, Washington has used corruption insinuations to get President Rousseff impeached by the lower house. Evidence is not necessary, just allegations. It is no different from “Iranian nukes,” Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” Assad’s “use of chemical weapons,” or in Rousseff’s case merely insinuations. The Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, notes that Rousseff “hasn’t been accused of anything.” The American-backed elites are simply using impeachment to remove a president who they cannot defeat electorally.
In short, this is Washington’s move against the BRICS. Washington is moving to put into political power a rightwing party that Washington controls in order to terminate Brazil’s growing relationships with China and Russia.
The great irony is that the impeachment bill was presided over by the corrupt lower house speaker, Eduardo Cunha, who was recently discovered to have stashed millions of dollars in secret Swiss bank accounts (perhaps his pay-off from Washington) and who lied under oath when he denied having foreign bank accounts. You can read the sordid story here: www.globalresearch.ca/us-complicity-after-vote-to-remove-brazils-president-key-opposition-figure-holds-meetings-in-washington/5521059
Kirchner and Rousseff’s “crimes” are their efforts to have the governments of Argentina and Brazil represent the Argentine and Brazilian peoples rather than the elites and Wall Street. In Washington these are serious offenses as Washington uses the elites to control South American countries. Whenever Latin Americans elect a government that represents them, Washington overthrows the government or assassinates the president.
Washington is close to returning Venezuela to the control of the Spanish elite allied with Washington. sjlendman.blogspot.com/2016/04/new-coup-plot-hatched-in-venezuela.html The presidents of Ecuador and Bolivia are also targeted. One reason Washington will not permit its British lapdog to honor the asylum Ecuador granted to Julian Assange is that Washington expects to have its own agent back in as President of Ecuador, at which time Assange’s asylum will be repealed.
Washington has always blocked reform in Latin America. Latin American peoples will remain American serfs until they elect governments by such large majorities that the governments can exile the traitorous elites, close the US embassies, and expel all US corporations. Every Latin American country that has an American presence has no future other than serfdom.
www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/04/22/washington-launches-its-attack-against-brics-paul-craig-roberts/
|
|