Current Reading

Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, 2e (2002)

2012-02-08T18:00:00.024-06:00

Richard Clogg.
A Concise History of Greece, second edition.
Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Book information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com; Wikipedia on the Author.

A volume in the series Cambridge Concise Histories.

This book consists mostly of political history of modern Greece (i.e., since Greece's independence from the Ottoman Empire during the 1820s) with occasional mentions of economic and cultural history. The book has many illustrations, the lengthy captions to which contain most of the book's cultural history content. The book is relatively weak in economic history.

Links:

Greece, Wikipedia.

History of modern Greece, Wikipedia.

Greek culture, Wikipedia.

Economy of Greece, Wikipedia.

Western Europe, Wikipedia.

Balkans, Wikipedia.

See also my recent post on the book by Jason Manolopoulos,
Greece's 'Odious' Debt: The Looting of the Hellenic Republic by the Euro, the Political Elite and the Investment Community: link.

Addition, 10 Feb 2012:

The following table offers a summary of some major cultural, political and economic differences between Greece and western Europe. This may be obvious information for people well versed in History but for myself I think it's a useful tool to remind ourselves of the major differences between two very distinct regions. I find that too often in contemporary reporting on Greece's current government debt crisis these deeply ingrained cultural differences are not often mentioned and consequently most discussions fail to adequately explain why Greece's economic performance has been so different from that of western, and especially northwestern, Europe.

time period	western Europe	Greece
3rd - 5th centuries	Split of Roman Empire: Western Roman Empire	Split of Roman Empire: Eastern Roman Empire = Byzantine Empire
5th century	final collapse of Western Roman Empire	Byzantine Empire ascendant
5th - 15th centuries	Middle Ages; regional kingdoms	Byzantine Empire; Byzantine Greece; Medieval Greece
7th century	Latin language persists as the common language of western Europe until the 17th/18th centuries when French emerges as the lingua franca of western Europe	Medieval Greek language becomes the official language of Byzantine Empire during 7th century and persists through that empire's end
11th - 15th centuries	East-West Schism: Roman Catholic Christianity	East-West Schism: Eastern Orthodox Christianity
15th century	successful resistance to Ottoman Empire expansion throughout 15th, 16th & 17th centuries, e.g., Siege of Vienna	final collapse of Byzantine Empire and subjugation to Ottoman Empire; Fall of Constantinople; Ottoman Greece; Ottoman Greeks
14th - 17th centuries	Renaissance; humanism	Ottoman Greece; Ottoman Greeks
16th - 17th centuries	Scientific Revolution	Ottoman Greece; Ottoman Greeks
16th century	Protestant Reformation	Ottoman Greece; Ottoman Greeks
18th century	Enlightenment	Ottoman Greece; Ottoman Greeks
late 18th century	French Revolution	beginning of Greek independence movement
early 19th century	suppression of revolutionary France and beginning of rise of bourgeois modern nation states	following conclusion of Napoleonic wars the victorious / dominant western powers extend their gaze beyond western Europe and undertake support of Greek independence movement
early 19th century, 1820s - 1830s	Romanticism intellectual movement; fantasies of ancient Greece (Philhellenism) motivate intellectuals' propagandizing for Greek independence from Ottoman Empire; poet Byron dies in Greece 1824	Greek independence from Ottoman Empire achieved during 1820s; First Hellenic Republic
19th century	Industrial Revolution and economic development	fledgling Greek state underwritten by European "Protecting Powers" (Britain, France and Russia) as part of their long-term strategy against Ottoman Empire; Kingdom of Greece; Greco-Turkish relations; Megali Idea
late 19th century	continuing economic and industrial development	Megali Idea; Greco-Turkish War (1897), Greece defeated; Greco-Turkish relations
early 20th century	continuing economic and industrial development	Megali Idea; Balkan Wars (1912-1913); National Schism; Greco-Turkish relations
World War I aftermath	recovery from World War I	Megali Idea; National Schism; Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), Greece defeated; domestic consequences of defeat shatter an already divided Greek society; expulsion of ethnic Greeks from Turkey; Second Hellenic Republic (1924-1935); Greco-Turkish relations
1936 - 1941	Fascism in western Europe (Spain, Italy, Germany)	"paternalist-authoritarian" Metaxas Regime (1936-1941)
World War II	World War II	Axis occupation of Greece during World War II
1946 - 1949	beginning of recovery from World War II; beginning of Cold War	Greek Civil War (1946-1949), the first Cold War conflict; results in another bitter division of Greek society that will lead to severe political dysfunction during 1960s
1967 - 1974	continuing robust economic growth	1960s Greek political dysfunction leads to military dictatorship, 1967-1974; Metapolitefsi, period of post-junta restoration of civilian democratic government
1974 - present	economic growth; Economy of the European Union; Eurozone	Third Hellenic Republic; Greco-Turkish relations

Rojas, The Sorrows of Carmencita: Argentina's Crisis in a Historical Perspective (2002)

2012-01-28T18:00:00.001-06:00

Mauricio Rojas.
The Sorrows of Carmencita: Argentina's Crisis in a Historical Perspective.
Stockholm: Timbro, 2002.

Book information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Blustein, And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out): Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina (2005)

2012-01-02T18:00:00.002-06:00

Paul Blustein.
And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out): Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina.
New York: PublicAffairs / Perseus Publishing Group, 2005.

Book information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Manolopoulos, Greece's 'Odious' Debt: The Looting of the Hellenic Republic by the Euro, the Political Elite and the Investment Community (2011)

2011-12-25T18:00:00.006-06:00

Jason Manolopoulos.
Greece's 'Odious' Debt: The Looting of the Hellenic Republic by the Euro, the Political Elite and the Investment Community.
London: Anthem Press, 2011.

Book information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Book Notices and Reviews:

Buttonwood, "Be aware of Greeks bearing books," The Economist, 08 June 2011.

Hamish McRae, "A tragedy, from the nation that invented it," The Independent, 12 June 2011.
Note: The title of this review is a symptom of the western Europeans' confusion of the ancient Greece they idealize from what they learned in school Classics versus the far less illustrious realities of modern Greece. That is, the culture that "invented" tragedy existed 2,500 years ago and has very little to do with modern Greece which has a corrupt underdeveloped third-world economy and whose government during its nearly (and only) 200 years of existence has been chronically indebted to western European powers.

Dereck Conway, "Greece's 'Odious' Debt written by Jason Manolopoulos," Epilogue, PressTV, 29 August 2011 (with guests Rodney Shakespeare and Marco Pietropoli).

"The book explores the historical legacy and psychological biases that have shaped an on-going drama. While leaders of the European Union criticize 'the markets' for destabilizing the single currency, Manolopoulos interrogates the shared beliefs of the EU and the investment banking community - and how they colluded for a decade in the illusion that lending huge sums to peripheral Euro zone countries was safe."
A very good introduction to the topics of this book.

Other Links:

Jason Manolopoulos, "You can blame the Greeks – but they have been betrayed by their leaders: Shocking examples of kleptocracy by the political elite explain the ferocity of the reaction. And it is this which has repercussions for the rest of Europe," The Independent, 18 June 2011.

"Odious debt," Wikipedia.

"European sovereign debt crisis," Wikipedia.

"2000s European sovereign debt crisis timeline," Wikipedia.

"Greek government debt crisis," Wikipedia.

"Argentine economic crisis (1999-2002)," Wikipedia.

"Optimum currency area," Wikipedia.

Yanis Varoufakis, the blog of a Greek economist who frequently discusses Eurozone issues.

Antonis Kamaras, "The Origins of the Greek Financial Crisis: Letter from Thessaloniki," Foreign Affairs, 13 December 2011.

Zero Hedge, has frequent reports on the Eurozone.

ekathimerini.com, news of Greece in English.

See also my recent post of links to Kyle Bass's letters to investors: link.

Kyle Bass and the World Economic Outlook: conversations and interview

2011-12-03T18:00:00.017-06:00

A conversation with Kyle Bass, AmeriCatalyst, November 2010:

[via Zero Hedge]

Kyle Bass, BBC HARDtalk, November 2011:

[via Zero Hedge]
Note: The hostile and condescending questioning by the interviewer doesn't allow him to explain his answers in any detail, but does provoke him into letting off a few memorable quotes. See the friendlier AmeriCatalyst conversations for explanations of his economic outlook.

Kyle Bass redux, AmeriCatalyst, November 2011:

[via Zero Hedge]

Links from the November 2011 AmeriCatalyst conversation:

An article recommended by Bass:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb & Mark Blyth, "The Black Swan of Cairo: How Suppressing Volatility Makes the World Less Predictable and More Dangerous," Foreign Affairs, May/June 2011.
At one time you could get a PDF of the article here.

The books recommended by Bass are:

Bethany McLean & Joe Nocera. All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis. New York: Portfolio / Penguin Group (USA), Inc., 2010.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com; Wikipedia: McLean; Wikipedia: Nocera.]

Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth Rogoff. This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton University Press, 2009.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com; Wikipedia: Reinhart; Wikipedia: Rogoff.]

Read the latest letter to investors from Kyle Bass, Hayman Capital Management, L.P., 30 November 2011: at Zero Hedge; at Scribd.
Some earlier letters: 14 Feb 2011; 11 May 2010.

Another notable person who has called attention to (and studied) the macroeconomics of (unsustainable) debt is Steve Keen.

Update, 01 Jan 2012: Additional item mentioned by Bass:

"The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2011 to 2021," The Congress of the United States, Congressional Budget Office, January 2011.

"CBO's 2011 Long-Term Budget Outlook," The Congress of the United States, Congressional Budget Office, June 2011.

"The Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update," The Congress of the United States, Congressional Budget Office, August 2011.

For more information see Budget and Economic Information, Congressional Budget Office.

Note that US government budget economists (by law?) base their analyses on unrealistically optimistic (i.e., empirically false) expectations for key economic variables: (1) a plateau (non-increase) in the amount of US government debt as a percent of GDP; (2) a decreasing unemployment rate; (3) increasing tax revenues; (4) decreasing yearly government budget deficits as a percent of GDP.

Filkins, The Forever War (2008)

2011-11-19T18:00:00.003-06:00

Dexter Filkins.
The Forever War.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf / Random House, Inc., 2008.

Book information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com; Wikipedia on the Book; Wikipedia on the Author.

This is a book for people who choose to ignore various unpleasant facts, such as: U.S. government corruption; the personal corruption and venality of the people installed in leading elective and appointive positions in the U.S. government, and their consequent corrupt policy and actions; the economic motivations for wars; historical context; imperialism; cultural and sociological differences of people in other regions and nations. There are many other books one could read to understand those things in relation to the U.S. government's quest for military and economic dominance in Iraq and other places. Instead Filkins offers personal stories of the "little people," individuals caught up in events, the passive victims upon whom the winds of war blow.

The U.S. Police State: Occupy Wall Street, Part 10

2011-11-16T14:00:00.002-06:00

My previous OWS posts are: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9.

The USA shows more and more signs of a police state.

Nick Turse, "What Happened When I Tried to Get Some Answers About the Creepy NYPD Watchtower Monitoring OWS," AlterNet, 06 November 2011.

Turse writes:
He seemed confused and ended our conversation abruptly with: “It’s much more than simple words.”

Here's what's "much more than simple words:" authoritarianism. The police internalize their position in the hierarchy and follow orders without question; that's their job; they are selected and trained for that behavior. That is the nature of all hierarchical organizations including, of course, corporations. If you care to understand more about this human behavior you could begin with Bob Altemyer's The Authoritarians (free book!).

Heather Digby Parton, "Militarising the police from Oakland to NYC," Al Jazeera, 14 November 2011.

Glenn Greenwald, "A police raid suffused with symbolism," Salon.com, 15 November 2011.

Chris Hedges, "This Is What Revolution Looks Like," Truthdig.com, 15 November 2011.

Amy Goodman, "The Brave New World of Occupy Wall Street," Truthdig.com, 15 November 2011.

Gregg Levine, "Oakland Mayor Jean Quan Admits Cities Coordinated Crackdown on Occupy Movement," capitoilette, 15 November 2011.

Yves Smith, "Police State: #OWS, Other Crackdowns Part of National, Coordinated Effort; Bloomberg Defies Court Order to Let Protestors Back into Zuccotti Park [Update: Judge Rules in Favor of City]," naked capitalism, 15 November 2011.

Yves Smith, "Video of Police Assaulting #OWS Protestor and Punching Woman in the Face," naked capitalism, 15 November 2011.

Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh, "Police Crackdowns on Occupy Protests from Oakland to New York Herald the 'New Military Urbanism'," Democracy Now!, 16 November 2011.

Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh, "As Occupy Enters Third Month, a Look at How Protesters Are Building a Global Movement," Democracy Now!, 16 November 2011.
A very good general discussion; and includes a notable interview with Daniel Ellsberg.

Kevin Gosztola, "NYPD Press Repression at Occupy Wall Street Eviction," FireDogLake, 16 November 2011.

David Atkins, "A Sanitized Eviction," Hullabaloo, 16 November 2011.

Video and Radio: Occupy Wall Street, Part 9

2011-11-13T16:00:00.003-06:00

My previous OWS posts are: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8.

Annie Leonard, "The Story of Broke: Why There's Still Plenty of Money to Build a Better Future," The Story of Stuff Project.

Chris Hedges, "Chris Hedges speaking at Occupy Wall Street, Part 1," 09 October 2011.

Chris Hedges, "Chris Hedges speaking at Occupy Wall Street, Part 2, Q & A," 09 October 2011.

Liam Tate, "A Beginners Guide to 'Occupy'," Vimeo, 02 November 2011.
A collection of voices from Occupy Bristol (UK).

Stand Up! Chicago, "Gov. Scott Walker gets checked, Mic Checked!," Stand Up! Chicago, 03 November 2011.

Keith Olbermann, "Occupy Oakland: Scott Campbell describes being shot with a rubber bullet by Oakland police in an unprovoked attack," Countdown, Current, 07 November 2011.

Michael Hudson, "Now We’re Talking: Alan Minsky of KPFK Interviews Michael Hudson," Michael-Hudson.com, 04 November 2011.

C.S. Soong, "Anarchism in Thought, and in the Streets," Against the Grain, 07 November 2011.

Sasha Lilley, "Wall Street, Populism, and the Left," Against the Grain, 08 November 2011.
A conversation with Doug Henwood.

Michael Hudson, "Occupy Systemic Change: Lauren Lyster of RT Interviews Michael Hudson," Michael-Hudson.com, 08 November 2011.

"VIDEO: Meet Occupy Denver’s newest leader: A dog," The (Toronto) Star, 09 November 2011.

PolarityMovie, "Occupy Denver Elects Its Leader Shelby, Part 2," YouTube, 08 November 2011.

Media-PR Committee, "Occupy Denver Elects Leader," Occupy Denver, 08 November 2011.
This move by Occupy Denver is an attack on the idea of corporate personhood. This may have to be explained to people every time it is mentioned; however, I expect the corporate media will not do that.

Jim Newell, "Insane Congressman Joe Walsh Screams at His Constituents," gawker.com, 09 November 2011.
Picture of an authoritarian defender of the "too big to fail" banking corporations and the "free market." Note: the "free market" is a fantasy of ideologues and propagandists.

"Occupy Everywhere: On the New Politics and Possibilities of the Movement Against Corporate Power." Sponsored by The Nation and The New School for Public Engagement, 10 November 2011.
A panel discussion with Michael Moore, Patrick Bruner, Rinku Sen, William Greider, and Naomi Klein; moderated by Richard Kim.

Dave Zirin, "Penn State and Berkeley: A Tale of Two Protests," The Nation Blog, 10 November 2011.

Update, 16 Nov 2011: Additional links follow.

Michael Brissenden, "Wall Street occupied," 7.30 - ABC, 11 October 2011.
An Australian news report.

"Slavoj Zizek: Capitalism with Asian values," Talk to Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, 29 October 2011.
This video was initially posted by Al Jazeera with the title "Slavoj Zizek: 'Now the field is open.'"

Eric Cantor Mic Checked at Rice University, 10 November 2011.
Via Daily Kos.

Agence France-Presse, "Hawaiian singer surprises Obama summit with ‘Occupy’ song," The Raw Story, 13 November 2011.

PeteB2, "AWESOME: Artist Performs 99%-er Song in Front of Obama & World Leaders at APEC Conf (W/Video)," Daily Kos, 13 November 2011.

Links from the Daily Kos diary: Makana, "We Are The Many;" www.yeslab.org/APEC.

"Blue Cross CEO Discusses Health Care Business," C-SPAN, 14 November 2011.
Mic check begins around 3:30. Via naked capitalism Links, 15 Nov 2011.

#occupybaltimore Mic Checks Karl Rove, YouTube, 15 Nov 2011.

Karl Rove vs. OWS Mic Check round 2, YouTube, 15 Nov 2011.

Occupy Music: Occupy Wall Street, Part 8

2011-11-11T20:30:00.015-06:00

"The People United Will Never be Defeated," Ursula Oppens, pianist; Frederic Rzewski, composer.

Frederic Rzewski, Wikipedia.

"Blood Money" by Brandon Carter.

Lyrics at OccupyWallStreetMusic.com.

"Finally Here" by The Roaring featuring Ari Herstand.

Lyrics at The Roaring.

"Hope, Struggle and Change" by Roy Zimmerman.

Roy Zimmerman: RoyZimmerman's Channel - YouTube; RoyZimmerman.com.

Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales, "Legendary Folk Duo Crosby & Nash on Soundtracking Movements from the 1960s to Occupy Wall Street," Democracy Now!, 10 November 2011.

Occupy Music: Sounds of the 99%.
The cover art is from "Faces of Occupied Wall Street #1" by Molly Crabapple.
A compilation album by a range of musicians. Released 15 October 2011. Much better than you might expect!

Protest Music, Daily Kos.
A Daily Kos group; lots of diaries under this heading.

Occupy Music, a Facebook Community.

Occupy Los Angeles Teach In: Occupy Wall Street, Part 7

2011-11-10T22:00:00.004-06:00

Occupy Los Angeles held a Teach In on November 5th and 6th, 2011. Schedules were posted for Day 1 and Day 2.

Videos from Day 1:

Robert Reich:

Robert Scheer:

William K. Black:

Bill Black's talk also posted at New Economic Perspectives.

Joel Rogers:

Ellen Brown:

Video from Day 2:

David DeGraw:

Occupy the Hood: Occupy Wall Street, Part 6

2011-11-09T21:00:00.057-06:00

My previous posts on this topic are: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5.

Links for Occupy the Hood Organizations:

Facebook: OccupyTheHood.

Twitter: @OccupyTheHood.

Twitter: search #OccupyTheHood.

Tumblr: tagged occupy the hood.

General Information and News Articles Related to Occupy the Hood:

People of Color Organize!.

Black Agenda Report.

Black Agenda Report: category Occupy the Hood.

Blackstonian: category Occupy The Hood and links for Occupy The Hood Boston.

Boston.com, "Dispatches from Dewey Square: What is Occupy the Hood?," 04 Nov 2011.

Time, "Is Occupy Wall Street Too White?," 20 Oct 2011.

WAMU DCentric, "‘Occupy the Hood’ and How to Boost Protest Diversity," 13 Oct 2011.

Al-Jazeera English, "'Occupy the Hood': Including all of the 99%," 10 Oct 2011.

Black Enterprise Next, "Should You Care about Occupy The Hood?," 10 Oct 2011.

Village Voice, "Occupy the Hood Aims to Bring More Minorities Into the Occupy Wall Street Fold," 07 Oct 2011.

Longer Essays, Video:

Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin, "Why I Support Occupy The Hood," BreaktheChains.info, 10 October 2011.

Joy Moses and Jasmin Jones, "Occupying Wall Street Together: People of Color Matter in the Movement," Center for American Progress, 20 October 2011.

Glen Ford, "Occupy All the Harlems, to Save Ourselves from the Dictatorship of Wall Street," Black Agenda Report, 02 November 2011.

Bruce A. Dixon, "Occupy Where? What's In It For Black and Brown People?," Black Agenda Report, 02 November 2011.

MontanaMaven, "On Bruce Dixon's 'Occupy Where?'," Corrente, 04 November 2011.

The Black Institute, "Occupy Black America," The Black Institute Blog, 04 November 2011.

Denise Oliver Velez, "Occupy the Hood: Communities of color and the Occupy movement," DailyKos, 06 November 2011.

Bryan K. Bullock, "Occupy the Hood," People of Color Organize!, 07 November 2011.

Taryn Hart, "Occupied Media: Interview With NEDAP's Josh Zinner," Plutocracy Files, 09 November 2011.
A discussion of predatory finance and no consequences for economic criminals.

On the Social Consequences of Economic Austerity: Policies of Economic Cruelty

2011-11-04T13:00:00.068-05:00

Politicians and policy makers KNOW what the social consequences of economic austerity policies will be, but they so act anyway. Why?! An increase in the suicide rate (observed in many societies and across time) is merely one, perhaps the most spectacular, consequence. Here is a small collection of articles and books on this topic, a paltry introduction to a broad and deep problem that politicians and the corporate media seem to prefer that you would overlook.

Yves Smith, "Hidden Cost of Greece, Euro Crisis: Suicides," Naked Capitalism, 20 September 2011.

Jonathan Schell, "Cruel America," The Nation, web edition 28 September 2011; print edition 17 October 2011.
"Budget decisions do not involve the death penalty, yet for many they are matters of life and death."

Christopher Humphrys, "Greece is slipping into the abyss," The Telegraph, 01 October 2011

"Joe Biden: There Will Be A Huge Increase In Murders And Rapes If The Federal Government Doesn't Spend More Money To Help The Economy," The Economic Collapse, 12 October 2011.

The Economic Collapse blog has many articles on the subject of the social consequences of economic decline.

James Gilligan. Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others. Polity, 2011.
Book information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

William Davies, "The Political Economy of Unhappiness," New Left Review, No. 71, September-October 2011.

Christopher Torchia, "Greece: crisis takes toll on health," Associated Press, 09 October 2011.
For The Lancet article itself, see the next item:

Alexander Kentikelenis, et al., "Health effects of financial crisis: omens of a Greek tragedy," The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 10 October 2011.

Kentikelenis's (Cambridge Univ) other work includes:

Alexander E. Kentikelenis, "Assessing the Link between Financial Liberalization and Saving," ESDS International Case Study, January-March 2009.

Chloe Hadjimatheou, "Confronting suicide as Greek social problems mount," BBC World Service, 17 October 2011.

Mario Queiroz, "Portugal: Crisis Pushes Women into Prostitution," IPSNews, 19 October 2011.

I think people need to understand their society as it actually exists, rather than indulging in the comfortable fantasies that politicians and propagandists promote. (Note: the main venues and disseminators of those fantasies are corporate news media and entertainment.) The following book may help some people acquaint themselves with real data.

Sasha Lilley, "Snapshot of America," Against the Grain, KPFA, 27 July 2011.
A fifty minute discussion with Cynthia Enloe (Wikipedia; Clark Univ) and Joni Seager (Bentley Univ). Enloe and Seager are authors of:
The Real State of America Atlas: Mapping the Myths and Truths of the United States. Penguin, 2011. [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]

Eugene Jarecki, Move Your Money (2009)

2011-11-01T14:00:00.004-05:00

Move Your Money (2009) is a short film by Eugene Jarecki and the Move Your Money project.

Jarecki discussed the film on Democracy Now!:
Amy Goodman, Move Your Money: Campaign Grows to Divest From "Too Big to Fail" Banks to Local Banks, Credit Unions, Democracy Now!, 01 November 2011.

The November Fifth Bank Transfer Day group says they are not associated with Occupy Wall Street.

Bill Maher on Ending Abusive Relationships - with Your Bank, another Move Your Money short film.

Last but not least, Eugene Jarecki made the film Why We Fight (2006) (Archive.org; Google Video; Wikipedia; film website) which I strongly recommend. (The film takes its title from the World War II film series directed by Frank Capra.)

Occupy Wall Street, Part 4: More Articles, Some Video

2011-10-21T07:00:00.010-05:00

Dylan Ratigan, "Constitutional Moments: The People's Voice," The Huffington Post, 14 October 2011.

Jeffrey Sachs, "Message to Wall Street," The Huffington Post, 17 October 2011.

Glen Greenwald, "What Are Those OWS People So Angry About?," Salon.com, 17 October 2011.
Greenwald is the author of the forthcoming book: With Liberty and Justice For Some.

Anne Applebaum, "Is the Occupy Movement Anti-Democratic?," Slate.com, 17 October 2011.
How can we explain the kind of thinking that's on display in this article? It is well know that devotion to ideology can make people say and do stupid things. But I think it's more than just ideology in this case: if the people were to regain control of their government (from the banks and other corporations that now control it) and began to investigate and prosecute economic crimes, the people's government might also have the power and fortitude to prosecute war crimes, and that is something the neo-conservatives and their puppets must fear. So I'd expect to hear more obfuscatory nonsense from the neocon sympathizers.
For more right-wing ideologists see Pajamas Media.

Carol Smith, "A Victory for #OccupyWallStreet in the Most Unlikely of Places?," naked capitalism, 18 October 2011.

Yves Smith, "Tom Ferguson: Congress is a 'Coin Operated Stalemate Machine'," naked capitalism, 18 October 2011.
One of the sources of the U.S.'s problem is a systemically corrupt political system. Exposing and understanding the mechanics of the corruption is very helpful. Thomas Ferguson shows how the corruption works in the U.S. Congress.

James Rickards, "Jim Rickards’ First Hand Account of Occupy Wall Street Protest: Shine a Light," King World News, 14 October 2011.
Rickards is the author of the forthcoming book: Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis.

David Graeber, "On Playing By The Rules – The Strange Success Of #OccupyWallStreet," naked capitalism, 19 October 2011.
Graeber is the author of the recently published book: Debt: The First 5,000 Years.

Russ, "Underlying Ideology of the 99," Volatility, 12 October 2011.

RiverDaughter, "OccupyWallStreet: We have been starving the wrong beast," The Confluence, 17 October 2011.

Bureau of Public Secrets, "The Awakening in America," Bureau of Public Secrets, 15 October 2011.

Chris Hedges, Interview at Times Square NYC, OccupyNYTV, 15 October 2011.
Also posted at MaxKeiser.com, 19 October 2011.
Hedges makes several notable comments in this brief interview, including: on the nature of social movements; on the failures of U.S. establishment leaders.
See also the OccupyNYTV channel at YouTube.
A talk by Chris Hedges last year: "Death of the Liberal Class", 17 October 2010.

Keith Boykin, "Everything the Media Told You About Occupy Wall Street Is Wrong," The Huffington Post, 19 October 2011.

Brandon Smith, "Sausage the Riot Dog Coming to America?," Zero Hedge, 10 October 2011.

Michael Nagler and Stephanie Van Hook, "Corporations are not people: We hold these truths to be self-evident...," Waging Nonviolence, 11 October 2011.

Phil Rockstroh, "Punching a Hole in Bubbles of Denial and Addiction: Late Capitalism and Its Discontents of the American Autumn," CommonDreams.org, 13 October 2011.
Unusually poetic and philosophical expression of the sensibility behind movements like Occupy Wall Street.

"American Autumn," Adbusters #98, Nov/Dec 2011.

Ron Boyer, "'American Autumn' Will Depend on People, Not Parties," Truthout, 26 September 2011.
An interview with Margaret Flowers of October2011.org.

Michel Chossudovsky, "Occupy Wall Street and 'The American Autumn': Is It a 'Colored Revolution'? Part I," Global Research, 13 October 2011.

Amy Goodman, "Former Financial Regulator William Black: Occupy Wall Street a Counter to White-Collar Fraud," Democracy Now!, 19 October 2011.

Andy Kroll, "How Occupy Wall Street Really Got Started," Mother Jones, 17 October 2011.

Charles Hugh Smith, "Semi-Random Notes on the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Movement," Of Two Minds, 20 October 2011.

A Sampling of Right-Wingers:

Jonah Goldberg, "Sorting Out the ‘Extremists’: The difference between Wall Street protestors and the Tea Party," National Review Online, 07 October 2011.

Mark Steyn, "American Autumn: The zombie youth 'occupying' Wall Street are contemptuous of the world that sustains their comforts," National Review Online, 08 October 2011.

Mark Steyn, "Crisis of Decadence: A society can live on the accumulated capital of a glorious inheritance for only so long," National Review Online, 15 October 2011.

Victor Davis Hanson, "Railing Against Reality: What are the root causes of the multifaceted unrest in the Western world?," National Review Online, 20 October 2011.

My summary: There is a uniform unwillingness or inability among the right-wingers to recognize the variety of issues that mobilize Organize Wall Street but fall outside the right-wing cliches and themes they have used for decades to attack their political opponents. For example, corporate fraud, government corruption, and the active participation of the corrupt two-party political duopoly in enabling corporate fraud are absent from their analysis.

But I do commend Steyn for recognizing the serious problem of student debt. Why would a society impose a huge debt burden on people seeking higher education? Christopher Newfield has addressed some of this problem in Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class (2008; 2011).

Occupy Wall Street, Part 3: Recent Articles and Videos

2011-10-17T18:00:00.087-05:00

(My previous posts on this topic are: Part 1; Part 2.)

General Sources:

http://occupywallst.org/.

Occupy Wall Street Media, Kickstarter.
Has links to The Occupied Wall Street Journal.

Wall Street protests, The Progressive.

Occupy Wall Street, The Guardian.

Occupy Wall Street, CommonDreams.org.

Occupy Wall Street, Al Jazeera English.

Articles & Videos:

Reggie Middleton, "Why Occupy Wall Street When You Can Control Wall Street?," BoomBustBlog, 12 October 2011.
Also posted at MaxKeiser.com.
This 24 minute video is both entertaining and contains informative economic statistics (I paused it several times to look at the charts, tables, etc.). In particular, US real estate prices are a long way from bottoming. And there's a great Malcolm X video included.
Also, I endorse Reggie's observation in the notes to the video on BoomBustBlog regarding the non-existence of a middle class. People whose main income source is Wages (see Line 7 of your IRS Form 1040) are working class, however high their wages. The middle class is better understood as the comfortable working class. Splitting the middle class from the working class is part of a divide-and-rule strategy; consider, for example, the anti-union sentiment among the middle class. I think it's necessary to discuss these economic class issues to help people recognize that they should identify with the 99% who have legitimate grievances against exploitative corporations and a corrupt government that serves those corporations instead of the people.
I am less optimistic about the idea of organizing large numbers of small depositors - "Depositor Activism" - to force banks to change their policies. The weakness is not just in the "herding cats" aspect of the idea. Given how the banks now control the corrupt U.S. government, I expect the organizers of such a campaign would face illegal and highly punitive actions by the government; they would be subjected to the kinds of arbitrary "asset forfeiture" confiscations now used in other areas. (You do know what the U.S. government does to people it unilaterally declares are "terrorists" or "unlawful enemy combatants," don't you?)

trashtelevision, "Occupy Wall Street Simplified," YouTube.
This does indeed vastly oversimplify the issues, by focusing only on the bailouts.

Steve Fraser, "Tomgram: Steve Fraser, The Street of Torments; The All-American Occupation: A Century of Our Streets Vs. Wall Street," TomDispatch, 13 October 2011.
Tom Engelhardt's introduction describes a demonstration by the Egyptian Association for Change, USA in support of Occupy Wall Street that took place in Washington Square Park during the weekend of 08-09 October.

John Feffer, "The Age of Activism," Foreign Policy in Focus, 15 March 2011.

John Feffer, "Wall Street (Unlike)," Foreign Policy in Focus, 11 October 2011.

Ariel Dorfman, "Tomgram: Ariel Dorfman, A Warning for Barack Obama; Salvador Allende Has Words for Barack Obama from the Other Side of Death," TomDispatch, 09 October 2011.
Tom Engelhardt's introduction describes a march out of Zuccotti Park with Occupy Wall Street on Wednesday, 05 October.

Ariel Dorfman, "Ariel Dorfman's Message to Youth Who Want Change," The Nation, 22 September 2011.

Paul Krugman, "Losing Their Immunity," The New York Times, 16 October 2011.

Nicholas D. Kristof, "America’s ‘Primal Scream’," The New York Times, 15 October 2011.

October 15th - Global Day Of Action, Occupy Wall Street.

Bernie Sanders, "Six Demands to Make of Wall Street," CommonDreams.org, 12 October 2011.

Peter Dreier, "Will Occupy Wall Street Be Co-opted?," The Huffington Post, 12 October 2011.

Barbara Ehrenreich, "The Guys in the 1% Brought This On," The Progressive, 12 October 2011.

David J. Lynch, "Growing Income Gap May Leave U.S. Vulnerable," Bloomberg.com, 13 October 2011.

Jeff Madrick, "A Zuccotti Park Education," NYRblog at The New York Review of Books, 11 October 2011.
You can watch Stiglitz's & Madrick's afternoon teach-in here.

Immanuel Wallerstein, "The Fantastic Success of Occupy Wall Street," Commentary No. 315, Fernand Braudel Center - SUNY Binghamton, 15 October 2011.

EuroCatalyst, "Kyle Bass @ AmeriCatalyst 2010 | 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind', 2010.
via: Tyler Durden, "Some Words of Advice from Kyle Bass," Zero Hedge, 16 October 2011.
The charts and interpretation by Kyle Bass explain why the Europeans have been acting so desperately to prevent a sovereign debt default by Greece and the other PIIGS. Zero Hedge also has many articles showing how interlinked the large international banks are in their holdings of various debt instruments. Hence the propping-up of Dexia recently. One big sovereign or bank default and Bass's domino default scenario starts to happen.

Juan Cole, "Mayor Bloomberg and Occupy Wall Street by the Numbers," Informed Comment, 15 October 2011.

Chris Hedges, "A Movement Too Big to Fail," TruthDig, 15 October 2011.

George Washington, "Is Anyone Dumb Enough to Believe that Obama Supports the 99%?," Washington's Blog, 17 October 2011.

Russ Certo, "'A Walk In The Park' - A High Level Banker's Take On #OccupyWallStreet... And Other Musings," Zero Hedge, 17 October 2011.
This is not a satire of banker cluelessness. It's the real thing!

"Map: See Major Events and Arrests From #OWS," Mother Jones, 04 October 2011.
Article also includes informative economic data.

Matt Taibbi, "My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters: Hit bankers where it hurts," Rolling Stone, 12 October 2011.

Eliot Spitzer, "Occupy Wall Street Has Already Won," Slate.com, 13 October 2011.

Alan Taylor, "Occupy Wall Street Spreads Beyond NYC," The Atlantic, 07 October 2011.
A nice collection of photographs.

Max Keiser rallies the troops in Greece – Syntagma, Athens 16/6/11, MaxKeiser.com, 15 October 2011.
The two videos here show Max Keiser was doing #OccupyWallStreet-type consciousness raising in June 2011 in Greece; he speaks to the Athens Lawyers Association and to a large outdoor crowd.
If you're interested in hearing more I recommend "[KR197] Keiser Report – Pirates & Protesters!," 15 October 2011.

Brian Rogers, "Guest Notes From The Sales Desk - A Few Thoughts On The Occupy Wall Street Movement," Zero Hedge, 14 October 2011.

Adrian Chen, Meet the Guy Who Snitched on Occupy Wall Street to the FBI and NYPD , gawker.com, 15 October 2011.
Adrian Chen, Right-Wing Rabble-Rouser Leaks Thousands of Occupy Wall Street Emails, gawker.com, 15 October 2011.
Another self-appointed agent provocateur and, like last week's, he's a right-wing exhibitionist.

My opinion: among many other reforms, the U.S. needs a new Pecora Commission. This was discussed on Bill Moyers Journal, 24 April 2009.
William K. Black is frequently suggested as the leader of a new Pecora Commission. He is ready and willing: "Enforce the Laws for the 99%", 17 October 2011.

Occupy Wall Street, Part 2: What & Why are they protesting? Some answers.

2011-10-13T00:00:00.003-05:00

There is no excuse for any confusion about the concerns / demands / objectives of #OccupyWallStreet, as we have heard so frequently from the propagandists for the status quo. The issues are obvious to the 99%. Further, we recognize the mainstream media protestations that "they have no spokesman" and "they have no list of demands" as feeble excuses to avoid an open discussion of issues that would threaten an insecure and corrupt establishment, a status quo whose illegitimacy increases by avoiding and denying open discussions. Here are some explicit expressions of our concerns.

Alan Grayson explains it to the nihilistic right-winger P.J. O'Rourke:
"Alan Grayson on Occupy Wall Street," Real Time with Bill Maher, 07 October 2011.
Here's a longer excerpt from that episode showing the other panelists wallowing and festering in their snide faux ignorance: link.

Some articles by Digby and from her blog Hullabaloo:

Heather Digby Parton, "The class warfare the rich don't understand," Al Jazeera English, 10 October 2011.
Digby, "Dissonance among the peasants," Hullabaloo, 12 October 2011.
David Atkins, "Poor widdle babies," Hullabaloo, 12 October 2011.

Some video reports:

Hip-Hop Artist Immortal Technique: No More Free Passes for Our Government, Democracy Now!, 11 October 2011.
This is only a small sampling of Democracy Now!'s excellent reporting on Occupy Wall Street.
Andre Damon and C. W. Rogers, "Youth speak on the Democratic Party and socialism," World Socialist Web Site, 11 October 2011.
Don't fear the S-word. Check out Roy Zimmerman's song "Socialist!"

A website for general education:
Connect the Dots: Civics & Policy Basics for the Busy Majority

The editors of Foreign Affairs get it:

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, "The Fight for 'Real Democracy' at the Heart of Occupy Wall Street: The Encampment in Lower Manhattan Speaks to a Failure of Representation," Foreign Affairs, 11 October 2011.
Sidney Tarrow, "Why Occupy Wall Street is not the Tea Party of the Left," Foreign Affairs, 10 October 2011.
George Packer, "The Broken Contract," Foreign Affairs, 11 October 2011.

Paul Krugman gets it:

Paul Krugman, "Confronting the Malefactors," The New York Times, 06 October 2011.
Paul Krugman, "Panic of the Plutocrats," The New York Times, 09 October 2011.

Henry Blodget at The Business Insider gets it; he explains things perhaps more simply, and with lots of charts:

Henry Blodget, "CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...," The Business Insider, 11 October 2011.
Henry Blodget, "Finally, A Clear Explanation Of What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About," The Business Insider, 09 October 2011.
Henry Blodget, "KRUGMAN: Hurray For The Wall Street Protests — Finally Americans Are Angry At The Right People," The Business Insider, 07 October 2011.
But this article doesn't mention the massive frauds practiced by people in the mortgage industry, that was instigated and encouraged by the banks.

An unfortunate but necessary concern: that #OccupyWallStreet may be co-opted by the status quo:

Glen Greenwald, "Can OWS be turned into a Democratic Party movement?," Salon.com, 11 October 2011.
Rick Klein, "Democrats Seek to Own 'Occupy Wall Street' Movement," ABC News / Yahoo! News, 11 October 2011.
Eric Lichtblau, "Democrats Try Wary Embrace of the Protests," The New York Times, 10 October 2011.
Bill Van Auken, "Ex-SDS leader seeks to herd Wall Street protest behind Obama," World Socialist Web Site, 12 October 2011.

Steve Keen: Interview 08 Oct 2011 and Launch Video 09 Oct 2011

2011-10-12T10:00:00.051-05:00

Interview
[KR194] Keiser Report: Price Propaganda, The Keiser Report, 08 October 2011.
The interview with Steve Keen begins at 13:04.

Launch Video
Debunking Economics II Launch Video, Steve Keen's Debtwatch, 09 October 2011.
This is a 45 minute talk by Steve Keen followed by a talk by Ann Pettifor.
The organizers of the talk apologize for the flickering screen and provide a link to Keen's slides. Here's a copy of that link for the slides.

Steve Keen's book is: Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor Dethroned?, Zed Books, 2011.

Book information: Publisher; Book website; Amazon.com.

Steve Keen's website: Steve Keen's Debtwatch.

A summary of Keen's argument: George Monbiot, It's in all our interests to understand how to stop another Great Depression, The Guardian, 10 October 2011.

Bonus link:
Sign Language, Occupy Wall Street, 09 October 2011.

Occupy Wall Street, Part 1: Alternative Media Reactions to an Episode of Corporate Propaganda

2011-10-10T18:00:00.370-05:00

"Naomi Klein: Protesters Are Seeking Change in the Streets Because It Won’t Come From the Ballot Box," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.

Cenk Uygur, "CNN Anchor Mocks Occupy Wall Street - Cenk Responds," The Young Turks, 06 October 2011.

As this episode illustrates, I think one can only conclude that the corporate media intentionally seeks to mislead its viewers (although of course they would deny that). In seeking to understand why the U.S. population is so ignorant, not only about the world outside U.S. borders, but about their own country, one must identify the source, the instrument, of their ignorance. As in many other cases it's too easy, and wrong, to blame the victims for their ignorance. They are deliberately kept ignorant and there is a reason why that ignorance is sustained, encouraged, promoted.

You can learn some of the history of the great American ignorance machine by watching Adam Curtis's film The Century of the Self (BBC, 2002).

Meanwhile, I encourage you to switch to the alternative media. Some examples:

Democracy Now! (Amy Goodman)
The Young Turks (Cenk Uygur)
GRITtv (Laura Flanders)

Links on #OccupyWallStreet and/or the Media:

Occupy Wall Street.
Occupy Together.
Occupy Austin.
We Are The 99 Percent at Tumblr.
October 2011: Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed (this is the "Stop the Machine" group).
freeman, "Occupy Wall Street’s Misconceptions According to Obama’s Job Czar," FireDogLake, 10 October 2011.
I have always thought that Jeff Immelt was a very strange choice by Obama for a U.S. "Jobs Czar". And after viewing Leslie Stahl's puff-piece I still think that.
Charlie Grapski, "Anatomy of a Deception: How a Conservative Magazine Attempted to Discredit the Occupy Movement," FireDogLake, 10 October 2011.
Agents provocateur, whether employed by the government or otherwise, will attempt to disrupt and subvert every popular movement.
"Stéphane Hessel on Occupy Wall Street: Find the Time for Outrage When Your Values Are Not Respected," Democracy Now!, 10 October 2011.
Links for Hessel's book Time for Outrage / Indignez-vous!: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.
Yves Smith, "On #OccupyWallStreet and the Power of Open Source and Consensual Processes," naked capitalism, 10 October 2011.
"Today Liberty Plaza had a visit from Slavoj Zizek," OccupyWallSt, 09 October 2011.
I think Slavoj Zizek is one of the more interesting thinkers of our time.
Yves Smith, "#OccupyWallStreet Publishes First Issues of 'The Occupied Wall Street Journal'," naked capitalism, 09 October 2011.
You can read or download copies from this article. Also, BreakingCopy website has copies and links for Issue 1 and Issue 2.
MontanaMaven, "Is This the Start of the Century of 'We'?," Corrente, 08 October 2011.
Brian Baresch, "Social Movements Expert on Occupy Austin," kut.org, 07 October 2011.
Alan Maki, "An excellent interview with Michael Parenti about 'Occupy Wall Street'," FireDogLake, 06 October 2011.
I had difficulty playing this audio until I pasted the second link (http://www.kdvs.org/m3u.php?show_date=2011-10-02&show_id=1838&kbps=192&show_name=New%20Day%20Jazz) into the Advanced Open File... menu of VLC. As usual, everyone has to figure things out for themselves. Note that the first hour of this audio file is music and poetry; the Parenti interview is in the second hour (of three) beginning at 1:04:20 and is about a half-hour long. I think of Michael Parenti as in the same league as Noam Chomsky, but he's a much better public speaker than Chomsky. Michael Parenti's website.
""We Are the 99%": Voices From the Occupy Wall Street March," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.
"Naomi Klein: Protesters Are Seeking Change in the Streets Because It Won’t Come From the Ballot Box," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.
"Naomi Klein: Keystone XL Oil Pipeline Controversy Shows How Wall Street Is Occupying U.S. Gov’t," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.
Second part of the interview in the preceding link.
"Naomi Klein on Occupy Wall Street & Chile: Courage to Ask Questions We Don’t Have Answers For," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.
Continuation of the interview after the above two links.
John Schmitt, "Occupy Wall Street Gets What the 'Very Serious People' Have Missed for 30 Years," AlterNet, 06 October 2011.
Naomi Klein, "Occupy Wall Street: The Most Important Thing in the World Now," The Nation, 06 October 2011.
A version of this article appears in Issue 2 of The Occupied Wall Street Journal on page 1.
"Frances Fox Piven at Occupy Wall Street: 'We Desperately Need a Popular Uprising in the US'," Democracy Now!, 04 October 2011.
Insightful observations, and it's a pleasure to listen to someone who the right-wingers target for demonization.
"Joseph Stiglitz rocks Zuccotti Park," Corrente, 04 October 2011.
If you don't know who Joseph Stiglitz is -- he isn't just some grey-bearded old fart -- I recommend you check out his website, read his popular essays (popular meaning non-technical), and watch the trailer for Around the World with Joseph Stiglitz; his best know book may be Globalization and Its Discontents (2002). And Jeff Madrick is no slouch himself, either; his latest book is Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present (2011). Yet these are the kinds of people whom the U.S. mainstream media tell you are a bunch of hippies stinking up the place in NYC.
Occupy Wall Street archive at Democracy Now!
Nathan Schneider, "Occupy Wall Street: FAQ," The Nation, 29 September 2011.
A version of this article appears in Issue 1 of The Occupied Wall Street Journal under the title "Occupation for Dummies" on page 4.
Andrew Orlowski, "Adam Curtis: The TV elite has lost the plot," The Register, 20 November 2007.
Andrew Orlowski, "Adam Curtis : an audio special," The Register, 23 November 2007.
Adam Curtis "gets it" as expressed especially the first two audio clips here; and I suppose this is why I find his films & blog so watchable & re-watchable.
btw, Curtis mentions Radio Popbitch as an alternative to Pandora. I like the sound of it!
Andrew Orlowski, "Sudden outbreak of democracy baffles US pundits," The Register, 03 October 2008.
Note: This article refers to when the US Congress rejected the first version of the TARP.

Bacevich, "Tailors to the Emperor"

2011-10-06T18:00:00.006-05:00

Andrew Bacevich, "Tailors to the Emperor," New Left Review, Number 69, May/June 2011, pages 101-124.

There was a time when U.S. presidents would explicitly deny that the USA had any interest in offensive military action and that despite the USA's huge arsenal, it was for defensive purposes only. Then, somehow, that policy changed. And that policy was institutionalized with the September 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States, also know as the "Bush Doctrine," a policy of "pre-emptive war" and "preventive war." And now the Obama administration continues that policy with the self-annointed authority to kill anybody anywhere in the world. How did we get to this place in history? In "Tailors to the Emperor" Bacevich explains it as a product the Wohlstetter School of the neo-conservatives.

Some other, related items:

Andrew Bacevich, "An End to Empire: The Cold War and Long War are over—it’s time to return to reality," The American Conservative, 07 September 2011.

Jim Lobe, "How neo-cons influence the Pentagon ...," Asia Times Online, 08 August 2003.

Karen Kwiatkowski, "In Rumsfeld's Shop: A senior Air Force officer watches as the neocons consolidate their Pentagon coup," The American Conservative, 01 December 2003.

Karen Kwiatkowski, "Conscientious Objector: A senior Air Force officer watches civilians craft the war plan," The American Conservative, 15 December 2003.

Karen Kwiatkowski, "Open Door Policy: A strange thing happened on the way to the war," The American Conservative, 19 January 2004.

Karen Kwiatkowski, "The new Pentagon papers," Salon.com, 10 March 2004.

Adam Curtis, The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear, BBC, 2004.

Added after this post originally published:

"Saddam Shame" by Roy Zimmerman:

Alex Schaefer, artist (painter)

2011-09-29T18:00:00.002-05:00

Alex Schaefer ‘Burns’ The Wrong Bank Again, 28 Sept 2011.

From early September 2011:

The Art of Burning Banks, 05 Sept 2011.

Links for the full episode of The Keiser Report featuring an interview with Alex Schaefer, 07 Sept 2011 (#180 or #181 ?):

From August 2011:

Alex Schaefer’s depiction of a Chase branch going up in flames drew the attention of L.A. police, 28 Aug 2011.

Another brilliant Chase on fire by ALEX SCHAEFER, 28 Aug 2011.

Alex Schaefer's website: http://alexanderschaefer.blogspot.com/.

Smith, "Why Liberals Are Lame: McCarthyite Identity Politics as Cover for Bankrupt Policies"

2011-09-28T18:00:00.002-05:00

Yves Smith, "Why Liberals Are Lame: McCarthyite Identity Politics as Cover for Bankrupt Policies," Naked Capitalism, 28 Sept 2011.

Roy Zimmerman, musician

2011-09-25T18:00:00.011-05:00

"Socialist!" by Roy Zimmerman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMLgEnDGkG4

"Vote Republican" by Roy Zimmerman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ege_RBhh37A

... and many more very funny songs at YouTube.

His website: http://www.royzimmerman.com/

Curtis, "The Curse of TINA"

2011-09-14T18:00:00.119-05:00

Adam Curtis, "The Curse of TINA," The Medium and the Message, 13 September 2011.

Curtis laments the absence of new ideas during the current economic crisis and identifies one reason for that lack in the ascendency of "think tanks." He examines the origins of "think tanks," focusing on the UK's Institute of Economic Affairs, and demonstrates that they are basically public relations fronts for the status quo. Curtis's argument is based on the UK experience, but his observations apply equally to the U.S., e.g., American Enterprise Institute; Cato Institute. See Curtis's film The Century of the Self (2002) which describes the rise of Public Relations in the U.S. On the rise of technocratic government see his films The Trap (2007) and All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011). The "TINA" of the title refers to the status quo / right wing / libertarian / laissez-faire / neoliberal bludgeon that "There Is No Alternative" which has been widely accepted in the post-Cold War era.

I find Curtis's excerpts from his film The League of Gentlemen (one of six in his Pandora's Box series (1992)) especially interesting: he recounts the UK's adoption of Monetarism policy during the Thatcher period which resulted in massive unemployment, factory closures, etc. in an effort to control inflation. The identical policies, instigated by Paul Volker, were implemented in the U.S. beginning in 1979-1980 during the last years of the Carter administration and throughout the Reagan administration. The behind-the-scenes blundering that led to this policy change in the U.S. is described by Judith Stein in Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010) [publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com].

Curtis, The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom (2007)

2011-09-09T18:00:00.019-05:00

Adam Curtis.
The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom.
BBC, 2007.

Part One : F**k You Buddy (watch it at: Google Video; Archive.org)

[Don't let the title of Part One deter you from watching it; the title refers to a strategy in Game Theory. The application of mathematical Game Theory (and other similarly simplistic, reductive, and highly abstract analytical tools) to human societies is a major theme of The Trap (and also of Curtis's most recent film All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace). Another major theme, most directly addressed in Part Three, involves the ideas of Positive liberty and Negative liberty.]

Part Two : The Lonely Robot (watch it at: Google Video; Archive.org)

Part Three : We Will Force You To Be Free (watch it at: Google Video; Archive.org)

Links:

Adam Curtis, Wikipedia.
The Trap, Wikipedia.
Adam Curtis_The Medium and the Message, his blog at BBC.
The Trap, BBC's webpage for The Trap at archive.org.

Chomsky, Understanding Power (2002)

2011-09-08T18:00:00.001-05:00

Noam Chomsky.
Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky.
Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel, editors.
New York: The New Press, 2002.

Book information: publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

This book offers an excellent introduction to Chomsky's political analysis. It consists of very readable edited transcriptions of Chomsky talks / discussions / interviews conducted from the late 1980s through the late 1990s. The editors have provided a very useful resource in their extremely detailed notes available at www.UnderstandingPower.com.

Keen, "A much more nebulous conception"

2011-09-07T18:00:00.004-05:00

Steve Keen, "'A much more nebulous conception'," Steve Keen's Debtwatch, 04 September 2011.

Keen explains the fundamental role that change in debt plays in the macro economy, a fact that is ignored in neoclassical economics ideology, which currently dominates U.S. economic policy.

Note: Steve Keen is the author of Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences (Pluto Press Australia & Zed Books UK, 2001 [Google Books; Amazon.com]). Book website (for the Second Edition, 2011): link.

Charles Hugh Smith, "Currency Wars, Trade and the Consuming Crisis of Capitalism"

2011-09-06T18:00:00.001-05:00

Charles Hugh Smith, "Currency Wars, Trade and the Consuming Crisis of Capitalism," Of Two Minds, 06 September 2011.

(I first saw an edited version this article at Zero Hedge. And don't overlook this explanation for the Swiss devaluation.)

Some other, related articles:

Charles Hugh Smith, "Marx, Labor's Dwindling Share of the Economy and the Crisis of Advanced Capitalism," Of Two Minds, 31 August 2011.

Robert Gordon, "The Wages of Destroying Labor Bargaining Power: Nearly 30% of Job Losses Due to Management Cutting Pie in Favor of Capital," Naked Capitalism, 28 August 2011.

Smith, "The Decline of Manufacturing in America: A Case Study"

2011-09-05T18:00:00.002-05:00

Yves Smith, The Decline of Manufacturing in America: A Case Study, Naked Capitalism, 05 September 2011.
There are also many insightful comments accompanying the article.

Note: Yves Smith is the author of ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, March 2010. [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Read it if you want to understand the origins of the USA's current economic problems.

Lofgren, "Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult"

2011-09-04T16:00:00.002-05:00

Mike Lofgren, "Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult," Truthout, 03 September 2011.

John Michael Greer, "The Twilight of Meaning"

2011-08-20T18:00:00.005-05:00

I generally endorse the sentiments of the following articles, particularly the suggestion to pay more attention to books, music, whatever, older than yourself (after you have unplugged yourself from the U.S. propaganda system).

Lambert Strether, "How to replace popular culture with something worthwhile," Corrente, 20 August 2011.

Strether's article is mainly an extended quote from the following article:

John Michael Greer, "The Twilight of Meaning," The Archdruid Report, 17 August 2011.

Yafa, Big Cotton (2005)

2011-08-13T18:00:00.019-05:00

Stephen H. Yafa.
Big Cotton: How A Humble Fiber Created Fortunes, Wrecked Civilizations, and Put America on the Map.
New York: Viking / Penguin Group (USA), Inc., 2005.
[Google Books; Amazon.com.]

Paperback edition re-titled:
Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary Fiber.
New York: Penguin Books, 2006.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]

Stephen Yafa, author's website; book webpage at the author's website.

This book is a very limited introduction to some very large topics. The author is a journalist(?) who begins and ends the book with personal accounts of Lowell, Massachusetts, where he grew up in an economically depressed city from which the textile industry had fled long ago, and today a place where the National Park Service operates a park and museum complex on early Nineteenth Century industrialization (Lowell National Historical Park). In between, the author gives an introduction to the first industrial revolution in textile manufacturing in northern England (spinning jenny; spinning mule; water frame; James Hargreaves; Samuel Crompton; Richard Arkwright; Cromford Mill); early Nineteenth Century industrialization in the U.S. north east (Samuel Slater; Boston Associates; Francis Cabot Lowell; Boston Manufacturing Company; Paul Moody; Nathan Appleton; Waltham-Lowell system; Merrimack Manufacturing Company; Lowell, Mass.; Lowell Mill Girls; Amoskeag Manufacturing Company); the spread of the slavery-based cotton production system from the coastal south east U.S. westward during the first half of the Nineteenth Century; some discussion of the political economy of the slavery-based cotton exporting South (King Cotton) versus the industrializing North; Northern textile factory labor issues (the transition from native-born to more easily oppressed immigrant labor); Twentieth Century U.S. agricultural subsidies; clothing marketing; blue jeans.

However, the author has chosen a huge topic, or range of topics: the industrialization of textile manufacture; slavery and wage labor; domestic and international trade; economic growth and decline; deindustrialization; all of these topics unfold over time-scales of decades and centuries and in more places than just England and the United States. There is no way one person could adequately discuss these in one small book. The author, after describing the initial mechanical inventions that started the industrial revolution in England, focuses almost exclusively on the United States. He also indulges in a cheerleading nationalism, such pervasive nationalism that it affects his vocabulary: "we" experience or do things. Who are these unspecified "we" people? U.S. Americans, of course. So the book provides a very narrow and mostly historical look at the textile industry. There is little or no discussion of changes in the U.S. textile industry during the Twentieth Century (discussion on how and why the industry moved from the U.S. north to the U.S. south and then to other countries is absent). Therefore, despite its title, the book is wholly inadequate as a history of cotton; the book is not a history of an industry; not a history of one or a few firms; nor a history of technology. If one wants to understand the textile industry as it operates today and is likely to evolve in the near future, this book has very little to offer.

Smith, ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism (2010)

2010-11-26T18:00:00.004-06:00

Yves Smith.
ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, March 2010.

Book information: publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

naked capitalism, a blog edited by Yves Smith.

Video Trailer for ECONned: The Book

Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital: 1848-1875 (1975; 1996)

2010-11-24T18:00:00.005-06:00

Eric Hobsbawm.
The Age of Capital: 1848-1875.
New York: Vintage Books / Random House, 1996.

Book information: publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Eric Hobsbawm, Wikipedia.

Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming (2008)

2010-07-27T18:00:00.004-05:00

Spencer R. Weart.
The Discovery of Global Warming.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008.

Book information: publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

The Discovery of Global Warming, a book website that vastly expands upon the printed book and which the author has updated after the book's publication (most recently July 2009 as of this writing).

Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 (1962; 1996)

2010-06-09T18:00:00.003-05:00

Eric Hobsbawm.
The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848.
New York: Vintage Books / Random House, 1996.
"Originally published: London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962."

Book information: publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Eric Hobsbawm, Wikipedia.

Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2007)

2010-01-30T18:00:00.002-06:00

David Harvey.
A Brief History of Neoliberalism.
Oxford University Press USA, 2007.

Book information: publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

David Harvey, Wikipedia.

Flannery, The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People (1994)

2009-12-24T18:00:00.010-06:00

Tim Flannery.
The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People.
New York: Grove Press, 2002.
"Originally published: Australia : Reed Books Australia, 1994."

Book information: publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Edition I read: New York : George Braziller, 1995 (Google Books; Amazon.com).

Links:

Tim Flannery, Wikipedia.
Tim Flannery, his official website.
Tim Flannery, Grove/Atlantic (his publisher in the USA).
Tim Flannery, articles at The New York Review of Books.
Tim Flannery - reasons to be hopeful, The Science Show, ABC Radio National, 1 January 2011 [mp3 audio file]. Flannery mentions his most recent book, Here on Earth: An Argument for Hope (2010) [publisher].
Two men in a tinnie (2006). Flannery and a companion take a canoe trip through the Murray-Darling Basin during the recent drought period. See also Drought in Australia, Wikipedia.
Main Points from The Future Eaters, by Tim Flannery, from the course notes for HIST 381: Australia & New Zealand by Prof. Tom Isern, NDSU.
Those interested in Australia and/or New Zealand will find the notes and links at Isern's HIST 381: Australia & New Zealand very helpful. In addition to Isern's notes on Flannery's The Future Eaters I recommend his Bibliography for HIST 381.
David Johnson (School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, James Cook University).
The Geology of Australia, Second Edition.
Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Book information: publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Baker, Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy (2009)

2009-12-09T22:04:00.001-06:00

Dean Baker.
Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy.
Sausalito, California: PoliPoint Press, 2009.

Book information: publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Baker, The United States since 1980 (2007)

2009-12-09T01:55:00.001-06:00

Dean Baker.
The United States since 1980.
New York: Cambridge University Press, March 2007.

Book information: publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Links:

Dean Baker, Wikipedia.

Dean Baker. Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Beat the Press, Baker's blog at The American Prospect's website.

Dean Baker. Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy. Sausalito, California: PoliPoint Press, 2009.
(publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)

Links: U.S. Politics & Government

2009-10-21T19:34:00.005-05:00

Teryn Norris & Jesse Jenkins, Will America Lose the Clean-Energy Race?, CommonDreams.org, 29 July 2009.

Naomi Klein, Let's Put an End to Sarah Palin-Style Capitalism, AlterNet, AlterNet.org, 30 July 2009.

Brad Friedman, Formerly-'Gagged' FBI Whistleblower Details Congressional Blackmail, Bribery, Espionage, Corruption in Remarkable Videotaped Deposition, The Huffington Post, 27 August 2009.

Adele M. Stan, The Wing-Nut Code: What Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin Are Really Saying to Their Followers, AlterNet, alternet.org, 02 September 2009.

Max Blumenthal, Eisenhower's Forgotten Warning and the Threat of Authoritarian Currents in Our Politics, AlterNet, alternet.org, 03 September 2009.

Juan Cole, Where Have All the Broad Shoulders Gone? Or, Labor Day in a Kleptocracy, Informed Comment, 07 September 2009.

Matt Taibbi, Sick and Wrong: How Washington is screwing up health care reform – and why it may take a revolt to fix it, Rolling Stone, 03 September 2009.

James Howard Kunstler, The Labor Day Blues, Clusterfuck Nation, 07 September 2009.

Daniel Dombey, President procrastinator, FT.com, 07 September 2009.

Marshall Auerback, Iron Triangles: Wall St, Big Pharma, and insurance industry perfect power games, New Deal 2.0, 08 September 2009.

Iron triangle, Wikipedia.

Paul M. Johnson, Iron triangles, A Glossary of Political Economy Terms, Department of Political Science, Auburn University.

Corporatocracy, Wikipedia.

Corporatism, Wikipedia.

Corporatocracy, SourceWatch.

Corporatocracy, Google Search.

Robert Higgs, Quasi-Corporatism: America’s Homegrown Fascism, The Independent Institute, 31 January 2006.

Thomas L. Friedman, Our One-Party Democracy, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 08 September 2009.

It's so obvious that now even Tom Friedman talks about it openly, although he says that that the U.S. one-party government is due to the retreat of Republican ideologues into head-in-the-sand irrelevance, rather than acknowledging that the two dominant parties are both the instruments of a corporatocracy for which the public good appears secondary.

David Sirota, Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel's Health Care Speech, The Huffington Post, 09 September 2009.

dday, The Poor, The Adrift, The Uninsured, Hullabaloo, 10 September 2009.

And in the following essay a right-winger rationalize neglect and discrimination.

Robert Rector, Understanding Poverty in America, National Review Online, 10 September 2009.

Chris Bowers, If You Think Corporations Run the Government Now…, Open Left, 10 September 2009.

Steve Almond, Glenn Beck is the future of literary fiction, Salon.com, 12 September 2009.
"A handful of right-wing bestsellers have recast mundane cultural dislocation into riveting epics of paranoia."

Robert Reich, Where the White House is placing its healthcare bets, Salon.com, 11 September 2009.

Joe Conason, Republican politicians have no empathy, Salon.com, 11 September 2009.

David Sirota, We've seen this healthcare trigger before, Salon.com, 12 September 2009.
"The provision is designed to make us wait for a public option that will never come."

Richard Benjamin, Inside the mind of Joe Wilson, Salon.com, 11 September 2009.
"America is changing, and that makes white people like Joe Wilson -- and Michele Bachmann -- very nervous."

Juan Cole, A Tale of Two Joe Wilsons, a Tale of Two Americas, Informed Comment, 11 September 2009.

Dave Lindorff, In Praise of 'Joe' Wilson: What's Wrong with Calling Out Lies in Congress?, AfterDowningStreet.org, 11 September 2009.
"We need more honesty in Washington, not more civility."

Barbara Ehrenreich and Dedrick Muhammad, The Recession’s Racial Divide, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 13 September 2009.

Adam Nagourney, Politics and the Age Gap, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 13 September 2009.

When the Baby Boomers were young this was called the Generation Gap. It's interesting how things change when they're on the other side of it.

Glenn Greenwald, Is the Right's attack on Obama's legitimacy new or unprecedented?, Salon.com, 12 September 2009.

Frank Rich, Obama’s Squandered Summer, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 13 September 2009.

Hendrik Hertzberg, Lies: Obama, the Republicans, and health care reform, The New Yorker, 21 September 2009.

Thomas B. Edsall, Angry Populism Could Save The GOP, The Huffington Post, 15 September 2009.

Andy Kroll, Dispatches from America: A well-oiled influence machine, , 16 September 2009.

"More than US$1 million a day is shelled out in the United States for lobbying on health-related issues, a massive endeavor in which 3,300 lobbyists are involved. Then there are the 2,400 lobbyists working on financial industry issues and 1,000 defense-related lobbyists. In total, 12,500 federally registered lobbyists ply their trade in Washington - and they're only a small slice of the pie."

Stephen Green, America's Strange Health Care Debate: The Most Expensive System, But Not the Best , CounterPunch.org, 16 September 2009.

Franklin Spinney, Bin Laden's Latest Message: The Nuttiness of the War on Terror, CounterPunch.org, 15 September 2009.

Dan Froomkin, Who Will Harness The Rage?, The Huffington Post, 18 September 2009.

America's Workers, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 18 September 2009.

Tula Connell, ‘Young Workers: A Lost Decade’, AFL-CIO NOW Blog, 01 September 2009.

the report: Young Workers: A Lost Decade [PDF file], AFL-CIO, 2009.

Bruce Judson, Economic Inequality: The Wall Street Journal Is Just Wrong, The Huffington Post, 16 September 2009.

Jason Leopold, Did Bush Continue to Secretly Operate Total Information Awareness?, truthout, 18 September 2009.

On the President's Surveillance Program.
See also: Total Information Awareness;
Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Wikisource provides a copy of the Unclassified Report on the President's Surveillance Program.

Bob Herbert, The Scourge Persists, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 18 September 2009.

Michael Winship, Wall Street buys Washington, Salon.com, 19 September 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, CIA Directors conclude CIA shouldn't be investigated for murder, Salon.com, 19 September 2009.

David Sirota, Washington's selective deficit disorder, Salon.com, 19 September 2009.
"They blew billions on wars and bailouts, but spending cash that actually helps people seems to bother politicians."

Justin Elliott, TX Board Of Ed Member: Minorities Must Be Thankful To 'The Majority' For Giving Them Rights!, TPMMuckraker, 18 September 2009.

digby, What Moved Him [Irving Kristol], Hullabaloo, 19 September 2009.

See also the comments.

Paul Campos, To the manner born, Rocky Mountain News, 28 January 2009.

digby, Regional Power [of the Republican Party], Hullabaloo, 19 September 2009.

Christopher Caldwell, Why the GOP Is Doomed, Hoover Digest, No. 4, 1998.

digby, "Respects The Corporate Form", Hullabaloo, 19 September 2009.

Alex Massie, Americans treating Presidents like Kings. Monarchy restored surreptitiously, by dint of general stupidity, Cyrano's Journal Online, 20 September 2009.

Frank Schaeffer, Right-Wing Hatemongering Fueled by Christianity?, AlterNet, AlterNet.org, 21 September 2009.

Rachel Weiner, Josh Treviño, GOP Consultant: "My Red Hair And Pale Skin IS My Passport", The Huffington Post, 21 September 2009.

Tom Tomorrow, Our awesome post-racial society, This Modern World, Salon.com, 21 September 2009.

Michael Lind, Intellectual conservatism, RIP, Salon,com, 22 September 2009.

Robert Reich, So much happening in D.C., so little to show for it, Salon.com, 09 October 2009.

* Simon Johnson and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 09 October 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, On the government's owners, Salon.com, 10 October 2009.

David Michael Green, A Hapless Presidency: Hanging Out with Barry, CounterPunch.org, 09 October 2009.

David D. Kirkpatrick, Lobbyists Fight Last Big Plans to Cut Health Care Costs, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 11 October 2009.

Richard Lardner, Associated Press, Weapons failed US troops during Afghan firefight, Salon.com, 11 October 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, Jonathan Weiler on authoritarianism in American poitics, Salon.com, 11 October 2009.

Links: Political Economy

2009-10-20T19:17:00.003-05:00

David Goldman, Dave’s Top 10 Reasons the Recession Will Last Forever, Inner Workings Blog Archive at Asia Times, 05 August 2009.

David Goldman, All New! Dave’s (additional) 10 Reasons Why the Recession Will Last Forever, Inner Workings Blog Archive at Asia Times, 24 September 2009.

Penn Bullock, Friedman Economics: Is Fed chairman Ben Bernanke a follower of John Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman?, Reason Magazine, 01 September 2009.

Elizabeth Warren, Real Change: Turning Up the Heat on Non-Bank Lenders, The Huffington Post, 03 September 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, Tactical Error: Health Care vs Finance Regulatory Reform, The Big Picture, 09 September 2009.

Menzie Chinn, Tracking the Consumption Decline, Econbrowser, 09 September 2009.

Damien Hoffman, Exclusive Interview: Economist John Mauldin, Wall St. Cheat Sheet, 09 September 2009.

Alison Fitzgerald and Christine Harper, Lehman Monday Morning Lesson Lost With Obama Regulator-in-Chief, Bloomberg.com, 11 September 2009.

Alex Berenson, A Year After a Cataclysm, Little Change on Wall Street, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 11 September 2009.

Eamon Javers, Summers: High unemployment for years, Politico.com, 11 September 2009.

The Editors, Why Wall Street Reforms Have Stalled, Room for Debate Blog, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 11 September 2009.

Yves Smith, Another Lehman Mess: No One Can Run the Software, naked capitalism, 12 September 2009.

Steve Lohr, Wall Street’s Math Wizards Forgot a Few Variables, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 13 September 2009.

Gretchen Morgenson, Fair Game - But Who Is Watching the Regulators, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 13 September 2009.

Yves Smith, IMF Head Says Crisis Set to Continue, naked capitalism, 13 September 2009.

Michael Panzner, Food for Thought: What big stories aren’t being told?, Financial Armageddon, 11 September 2009.

David Cho, Steven Mufson and Tomoeh Murakami Tse, In Shift, Wall Street Goes to Washington, The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, 13 September 2009.

George Washington, Top Economists Say We Must Break Up the Insolvent Banks (Government Says Let’s Make Them Bigger), naked capitalism, 11 September 2009.

Mark Deen and David Tweed, Stiglitz Says Banking Problems Are Now Bigger Than Pre-Lehman, Bloomberg.com, 14 September 2009.

Karl Denninger, But I Thought It Was Just A "Panic"?, The Market Ticker, 13 September 2009.

Karl Denninger, How Far Does The Lawlessness Go?, The Market Ticker, 11 September 2009.

Peter Boone and Simon Johnson, Economic Donkeys, The Baseline Scenario, 13 September 2009.

Stephen Mihm, Why capitalism fails: The man who saw the meltdown coming had another troubling insight: it will happen again, The Boston Globe, 13 September 2009.

On Hyman Minsky.

via: The Big Picture.

Jesse, Robert Reich on Moral Hazard and Obama's Failure, Jesse's Café Américain, 14 September 2009.

Jesse, "It has now become clear that this was no ordinary crash." [on the Criminal Activity at the Heart of Iceland's Collapse], Jesse's Café Américain, 14 September 2009.

Arianna Huffington, Why Obama Won't Be Able to Reform Wall Street, The Huffington Post, 14 September 2009.

See also comments.

Nomi Prins, The Next Meltdown, The Daily Beast, 14 September 2009.

Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta, Lots of Fear Remains Over Economy, Job Losses, Poll Finds, WashingtonPost.com, 15 September 2009.

Simon Johnson and James Kwak, Lehman Brothers and the Persistence of Moral Hazard, The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, 15 September 2009.

Henry CK Liu, Power Without Credibility, Part 1: Bogged down at the Fed, Asia Times, 11 September 2009.

Henry CK Liu, Power Without Credibility, Part 2: A lost decade ahead, Asia Times, 15 September 2009.

Henry CK Liu, Power Without Credibility, Part 3: Politics of the financial crisis, Asia Times, 17 September 2009.

David Goldman, The sticky dollar reserve system, Asia Times, 14 September 2009.

* Edward Harrison, Financial Reform: Not happening but the need is clear, naked capitalism, 16 September 2009.

Steve Keen, It’s Hard Being a Bear (Part Four): Good Economic Theory, Steve Keen's Debtwatch, 15 September 2009.

TPC, China Will Be a Bigger Bubble than Japan, The Pragmatic Capitalist, 16 September 2009.

The general tone of this sounds to me like wishful thinking by insecure Westerners. China's recent policy of encouraging its people to purchase gold may absorb lots of its hot liquidity, if not completely dominate the world's supply of precious and strategic metals, another fear emerging in the West. Note also the interesting table at the end of the post: "Speculative manias and geopolitical shifts." The comments do a good job of refuting this post. Rather than worry about some hypothetical future bubble in China, we have a far greater, already existing, problem with the USA's government debt, insolvent banks, corrupt policy apparatus, and their forthcoming consequences.

Andy Xie, What We Can Learn as Japan's Economy Sinks, Caijing.com.cn, 16 September 2009.

Jesse, US Dollar Long Term Chart and a Scenario for Dollar Devaluation, Jesse's Café Américain, 16 September 2009.

Global systemic crisis: In pursuit of the impossible recovery, Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin, No. 37, LEAP/E2020, 16 September 2009.

Jason Linkins, Shortlist For FT Business Book Award Short On Selections That Take On The Financial Crisis, The Huffington Post, 17 September 2009.

Business Book of the Year 2009, FT.com, 17 September 2009.

Cardiff Garcia, The 10 books to help you understand the crisis, The Big Picture, 05 June 2009.

Keith Bradsher, China’s Economy Is Back, While U.S. Still Ails, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 17 September 2009.

Lisa Lambert, "Option" mortgages to explode, officials warn, Reuters.com, 17 September 2009.

Yves Smith, Wells’ Commercial Real Estate “Ticking Time Bomb” And Coming CRE Woes, naked capitalism, 18 September 2009.

Exposure at Default: As Banks Shrink, So Does the Economy, The Institutional Risk Analyst, 16 September 2009.

Teri Buhl, Wells Fargo’s Commercial Portfolio is a ticking time bomb, BankImplode.com, 17 September 2009.

* Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene, A deluded G-20, Asia Times, 17 September 2009.

Toni Straka, North America Takes The Backseat in Prosperity, The Prudent Investor, 17 September 2009.

Liaquat Ahamed, The Future of Global Finance, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 17 September 2009.

Yves Smith, Will Peak Oil Pricing = [imply] Perma[nent] Recession [for Developed Economies]?, naked capitalism, 17 September 2009.

See also the comments.

Gregor Macdonald, Clarion Call from Cantarell, Gregor.us, 23 August 2009.

Many of the other essays at Gregor.us look worth reading.

Poornima Gupta, Silicon Valley warning: Detroit still doesn't get it, Reuters.com, 18 September 2009.

digby, Keep An Eye On This [the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the "new Pecora Commission"], Hullabaloo, 18 September 2009.

David Streitfeld, Bill Comes Due, Vexing Housing and Banking Agencies, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 18 September 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, Pomboy: Deflation, Not Inflation, Is The Greater Threat, The Big Picture, 19 September 2009.

George Washington, Steve Keen Out-Thinks Larry Summers, naked capitalism, 20 September 2009.

Chris Hedges, Globalization Goes Bankrupt, Truthdig, 20 September 2009.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, HSBC bids farewell to dollar supremacy, The Daily Telegraph, 20 September 2009.

George, Are Financial Blogs Trustworthy?, The Big Picture, 20 September 2009.

Damien Hoffman, Medal of Honor: Top Analyst Josh Rosner Nailed the Crisis, Wall St. Cheat Sheet, 22 September 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, Volcker: Reinstate Glass Steagall, The Big Picture, 24 September 2009.

Damien Hoffman, If Corporations Cannot Vote, Should They Have The Right To Spend Money In Elections?, zero hedge, 24 September 2009.

Tyler Durden, DOE Highlights Collapsing Energy Demand, zero hedge, 24 September 2009.

Tyler Durden, Exhaustion Rate Hits New Record: More Than Half Of Unemployed Exhaust Benefits Before Finding A Job, zero hedge, 24 September 2009.

Edmund L. Andrews, Global Economic Forum to Expand Permanently, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 24 September 2009.

Edward Harrison, Obama caves to pressure on consumer financial protection, naked capitalism, 24 September 2009.

Jesse, Federal Reserve Eyes the US Money Market Funds, Jesse's Café Américain, 24 September 2009.

Jesse, Do Ben and Tim = Thelma and Louise?, Jesse's Café Américain, 25 September 2009.

* Mohamed El-Erian, Return of the old ways of thinking threatens recovery, FT.com, 28 September 2009.

John P. Hussman, We're Speaking Japanese Without Knowing It, Weekly Market Comment - Hussman Funds, 28 September 2009.

Mark Thoma, "New Income Inequality Data: Surprising and Frightening", Economist's View, 29 September 2009.

Barry C. Lynn, How Detroit Went Bottom-Up, The American Prospect, 28 September 2009.
"Outsourcing cleared the way for a discreet but dangerous monopolization of the auto industry."

Edmund L. Andrews, World Bank Head Sees Dollar’s Role Diminishing , The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 28 September 2009.

* Edward Harrison, The recession is over but the depression has just begun, naked capitalism, 01 October 2009.

Good exposition, with documentation, on how the US economy has evolved over the last 40 or more years.

Hiroko Tabuchi, Chinese Economic Juggernaut Is Gaining on Japan, The New York Times, 01 October 2009.

Yves Smith, Plans to Move Away From Dollar Pricing of Oil, naked capitalism, 05 October 2009.

Robert Fisk, The demise of the dollar, The Independent, www.independent.co.uk, 06 October 2009.
"In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading."

Mike Whitney, Dollar Hysteria: Is the Sky Really Falling?, CounterPunch.org, 06 October 2009.

Edward L. Glaeser, What Happened to Argentina?, Economix Blog, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 06 October 2009.

Niall Ferguson, Too Big to Live: Why we must stamp out State Monopoly Capitalism [PDF file], Centre for Policy Studies, October 2009.

Thornton Parker, How Economists Are Missing Another One, The Big Picture, 08 October 2009.

Edward Harrison, How did economists get it so wrong (parody version)?, Credit Writedowns, 08 October 2009.

Bruce Krasting, FHFA's DeMarco Speaks - Ouch!, Bruce Krasting, 08 October 2009.

* Simon Johnson and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 09 October 2009.

Paul Craig Roberts, Marx and Lenin Reconsidered, CounterPunch.org, 07 October 2009.

Yves Smith, “Capitalism: A Love Story”, naked capitalism, 11 October 2009.

Simon Johnson, Diana Farrell And The White House Theory Of Bank Size, The Baseline Scenario, 13 October 2009.

Read the WhoRunsGov.com profile of Diana Farrell and recognize that neolibral economics/market fundamentalism/de-industrialization/off-shoring and their effects on the American people are not accidental nor mysterious forces beyond the control of mortals; and that the Republican and Democratic parties today follow a single economic policy and diverge from each other far less than partisans lead the general public to believe.

Yves Smith, Krugman on Sick Banks, Bad Policy Choices, and Team Obama’s (Misplaced) Anger, naked capitalism, 19 October 2009.

Links: Militarism, Empire, War

2009-09-26T03:51:00.004-05:00

Robert C. Koehler, Cheap Frames of Expensive War, CommonDreams.org, 30 July 2009.

Stanley Kutler, Lesson of Vietnam Lost in Afghanistan, Truthdig, truthdig.com, 20 August 2009.

Richard A. Oppel Jr., Marines Fight With Little Aid From Afghans, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 22 August 2009.

David Sirota, The Science Fiction of Military Marketing, CommonDreams.org, 28 August 2009.

Tom Engelhardt, G.I. Joe, Post-American Hero: The Long, Slow Death of American Triumphalism [Tomgram: The Next War, On-Screen and Off], TomDispatch.com, 26 August 2009.

Patrick Cockburn, Life and Death in Baghdad as Americans Leave, CounterPunch, counterpunch.org, 17 August 2009.

Scott Horton, Once Upon a Coup, No Comment blog at Harper's Magazine, 27 August 2009.

* Sherwood Ross, Rise of Mercenary Armies Menace World, Help White House Thwart Peace Movement, The Smirking Chimp, 31 August 2009.

* David Swanson, Bush's Third Term?: You're Living It [Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: David Swanson, The More Things Change], TomDispatch, TomDispatch.com, 01 September 2009.

Chris Floyd, The 16th Term: Obama's New Betrayals are Old, Old Hat, Empire Burlesque, 02 September 2009.

* Glenn Greenwald, The looming political war over Afghanistan, Salon.com, 03 September 2009.

Thom Shanker, Despite Slump, U.S. Role as Top Arms Supplier Grows, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 06 September 2009.

Paul Craig Roberts, Indefensible Nation: US Hypocrisy Astonishes the World, CounterPunch.org, 07 September 2009.

Tom Engelhardt, Is America Hooked on War? [Tomgram: War Is Peace], TomDispatch.com, 17 September 2009.

Alex Massie, Americans treating Presidents like Kings. Monarchy restored surreptitiously, by dint of general stupidity, Cyrano's Journal Online, 20 September 2009.

Carol Becker, Forty Years Later Calley Speaks Up, truthout, 23 September 2009.

* Tom Engelhardt, How to Trap a President in a Losing War: Petraeus, McChrystal, and the Surgettes [Tomgram: A Military That Wants Its Way], TomDispatch, tomdispatch.com, 24 September 2009.

Gary Hart, The President in Chains, The Huffington Post, 24 September 2009.

* Gary Wills, Entangled Giant, The New York Review of Books, 08 October 2009.

Links: Propaganda, Media, Manufacturing Consent

2009-09-26T03:32:00.002-05:00

Byard Duncan, Why the Right's 'Astroturfing' Propaganda Is Textbook Psychopathic, AlterNet, alternet.org, 15 August 2009.

Mike Shedlock, Orwellian Madness "Bernanke Saved The World", Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis, 21 August 2009.

Justin Raimondo, The Coming Media Bailout, Antiwar.com, 26 August 2009.

Gene Lyons, The media can't handle the truth, Salon, Salon.com, 27 August 2009.

David Sirota, The Science Fiction of Military Marketing, CommonDreams.org, 28 August 2009.

Chris Floyd, Big Brass Bull: Pentagon Deceit on Media Manipulation Confirmed, Empire Burlesque, 28 August 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, The Washington Post's Cheney-ite defense of torture, Salon.com, 29 August 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, Bailout Profits? Don’t Make Me Laugh!, The Big Picture, 31 August 2009.

Matt Taibbi, Bailout Propaganda Begins, Taibblog - True/Slant, 01 September 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, Who are Broderian anti-investigation journalists really protecting?, Salon.com, 03 August 2009.
"Establishment journalists and pundits know they are culpable in war crimes; that's why they want to Look Forward."

Glenn Greenwald, Meet the Press's idea of a "debate", Salon.com, 07 September 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, Time Magazine: the liberal bias of facts, Salon.com, 17 September 2009.

* Glenn Greenwald, The distracting benefits of ACORN hysteria, Salon.com, 17 September 2009.

digby, Influencers, Hullabaloo, 18 September 2009.

Links: Sociology, Culture, etc.

2009-09-26T03:13:00.002-05:00

The Four Horsemen - Hour 1 [Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris], Google Video, 30 September 2007.

The Four Horsemen - Hour 2 [Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris], Google Video, 30 September 2007.

DVD available at RichardDawkins.net; Amazon.com; Netflix.

Video of a conversation among them.

Chris Floyd, Bait and Switch: Using Diversity to Disguise Inequality, Empire Burlesque, 27 August 2009.

Mr. Floyd refers to the essay:
Walter Benn Michaels, What Matters, London Review of Books, vol. 31, no. 16, 27 August 2009.

Mr. Michaels' essay is a review of:
Kjartan Páll Sveinsson, editor. Who Cares about the White Working Class?. London: The Runnymede Trust, 2009.

A similar publication exists, refering to the USA:
Ruy Teixeira & Joel Rogers. America's Forgotten Majority: Why the White Working Class Still Matters. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
(Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)

Helaine Olen, Corporate Dominance of Every Aspects of Our Lives Is Suffocating Us, AlterNet, alternet.org, 07 August 2009.

review of:
Doug Rushkoff. Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back. New York: Random House, 2009.
(Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)

Patrica Leigh Brown, Invisible Immigrants, Old and Left With ‘Nobody to Talk To’, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 30 August 2009.

Greg Laden, The Falsehoods: The poor and the dark skinned have more babies than the rich and the light skinned, Greg Laden's Blog, 31 August 2009.

* Henry A. Giroux, Living in a Culture of Cruelty: Democracy as Spectacle, truthout, 02 September 2009.

Alice Waters, Want to Teach Democracy? Improve School Lunches, The Huffington Post, 03 September 2009.

Ed Vulliamy, Is America ready to admit defeat in its 40-year war on drugs?: A wave of decriminalisation is sweeping through Latin America, The Observer, guardian.co.uk, 06 September 2009.

Juan Cole, Where Have All the Broad Shoulders Gone? Or, Labor Day in a Kleptocracy, Informed Comment, 07 September 2009.

Historicism, Wikipedia.

Which frame of Historicism are you, a politician, or whomever, using to interpret human events? Is that variant of Historicism valid in that or any context? Perhaps Historicism is a figment of the human imagination (similar to the way the human brain is hard-wired to recognize human faces, and does so even in contexts that are meaningless, such as in a photo of Mars or in a tree stump; this is know as pareidolia).

Clive Thompson, Is Happiness Catching?, The New York Times Magazine, NYTimes.com, 10 September 2009.

* Henry A. Giroux, The Spectacle of Illiteracy and the Crisis of Democracy, truthout.org, 15 September 2009.

Terence Tao, A speech for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences [on the future impact of internet-based technologies on academia], What’s new blog, 17 September 2009.

Frank Schaeffer, Right-Wing Hatemongering Fueled by Christianity?, AlterNet, AlterNet.org, 21 September 2009.

‘Rural Brain Drain’ Turns Small Towns Into Ghost Towns, Truthdig, truthdig.com, 21 September 2009.

Links: Science, Medicine, and Policy

2009-09-26T02:31:00.003-05:00

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Fourth Quadrant: A Map of the Limits of Statistics, Edge, Edge.org, 15 September 2008.

Is There Life on Mars?, Nova, PBS, original broadcast date: 30 December 2008.

Teryn Norris & Jesse Jenkins, Will America Lose the Clean-Energy Race?, CommonDreams.org, 29 July 2009.

Greg Palast, Katrina, Four Years Later: Expert Fired Who Warned Levees Would Burst, Crooks and Liars, 26 August 2009.

On Ivor van Heerden and the cowardice of Louisiana State University administrators.

Article also at GregPalast.com.

Fred de Sam Lazaro, Two Decades On, India Eye Clinic Maintains Innovative Mission, Online NewsHour, PBS, 02 September 2009.

On the Aravind Eye Care System of India (Aravind.org; Wikipedia).

The World at Night, Online NewsHour, PBS, 03 September 2009.

Astronomers Without Borders.

Ari LeVaux, Milk May Endanger Your Health, and the Dairy Industry Knows It, AlterNet, alternet.org, 07 September 2009.

Dennis Overbye, After Hubble Repair, New Images From Space, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 09 September 2009.

Hubble Opens New Eyes on the Universe, HubbleSite, hubblesite.org, News Release Number: STScI-2009-25, 09 September 2009.

Spae Telescope Science Institute.

William J. Broad, From Deep Pacific, Ugly and Tasty, With a Catch, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 09 September 2009.

Martin Fackler, Tuna Town in Japan Sees Falloff of Its Fish, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 19 September 2009.

Different locations and species, same problem.

Elisabeth Malkin, Mexico Now Enduring Worst Drought in Years, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 12 September 2009.

Chip Ward, Red Snow Warning: The End of Welfare Water and the Drying of the West [Tomgram: Chip Ward, The Ruins in Our Future], TomDispatch, TomDispatch.com, 13 September 2009.

Charles Duhigg, Toxic Waters - Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 12 September 2009.

This shameful situation is a direct result of the anti-regulation policies advocated most vociferiously by the Republican Party, but also supported by the corporation-friendly DLC Democrats. The DLC provides further evidence that there is little difference between the Republicans and Democrats in US politics.

John M. Broder and James Kanter, Europeans Say U.S. Lacks Will on Climate, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 20 September 2009.

Links: Geopolitics

2009-09-26T01:52:00.007-05:00

Honduras:
- John Nichols, Totalitarian Rightists Put Orwellian Spin on Honduras Coup, The Beat blog at TheNation.com, 02 July 2009.
- Greg Grandin, Battle for Honduras -- and the Region, The Nation, thenation.com, 12 August 2009 [31 August 2009 print edition].
- Robert Naiman, Coup Protestor Gang-Raped by Honduran Police, CommonDreams.org, 25 August 2009.
- * Benjamin Dangl, The Road to Zelaya's Return: Money, Guns and Social Movements in Honduras, truthout, truthout.org, 22 September 2009.

Lockerbie:
- Daniel Tencer, Was Pan Am 103 bomber freed in exchange for oil?, The Raw Story, 29 August 2009.
- Jason Allardyce , Lockerbie bomber 'set free for oil', Times Online, timesonline.co.uk, 30 August 2009.
- * Chris Floyd, Outrageous Behavior: Bogus Bluster From Bigwigs Hides Lockerbie Truth, Empire Burlesque, 05 September 2009.

Japanese Politics:
- Martin Fackler, With Bold Stand, Japan Opposition Wins a Landslide, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 30 August 2009.
- Mark Lander and Martin Fackler, U.S. Is Seeing Policy Thorns in Japan Shift, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 01 September 2009.
- Amitabh Pal, New Japanese Leadership Causes Discomfort in the U.S., The Progressive, 03 September 2009.

China & Natural Resources:
- Gene Laverty, PetroChina to Buy Athabasca Oil-Sands Project Stakes, Bloomberg.com, 31 August 2009.
- John Duce and Gene Laverty, PetroChina Agrees Biggest North America Acquisition , Bloomberg.com, 01 September 2009.
- Timothy Williams, China Oil Deal Is New Source of Strife Among Iraqis, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 05 September 2009.
- David Goldman, The sticky dollar reserve system, Inner Workings Blog Archive at Asia Times, 14 September 2009.
  "China would swap its whole US$2 trillion portfolio of US Treasury securities for food, energy and mineral producing capacity, except that no-one will buy their Treasuries, and no-one will sell them the farmland, oil fields and mines."

Afghanistan:
- Elizabeth Rubin, Karzai in His Labyrinth, The New York Times Magazine, 04 August 2009.
- Derrick Crowe, In Afghanistan, We Know Failure When We See It, The Huffington Post, 31 August 2009.
- Juan Cole, The U.S. is spread dangerously thin in Afghanistan, Salon.com, 03 September 2009.
- Juan Cole, Afghanistan Roiled by NATO Air Strikes that killed almost 100, Informed Comment, 05 September 2009.
- Juan Cole, EU Foreign Ministers Condemn NATO; German Opposition Attacks Merkel on Afghanistan; Kunduz Residents Furious at West, Informed Comment, 06 September 2009.
- Paul Craig Roberts, Indefensible Nation: US Hypocrisy Astonishes the World, CounterPunch.org, 07 September 2009.
- M. K. Bhadrakumar, Afghan war reaches a tipping point, Asis Times, 08 September 2009.
  
  "The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's air strikes in the northern province of Kunduz on Friday, which killed or injured more than 100 people, have left Afghan blood equally on the hands of all NATO countries. The incident shows this is no mere fight against terrorism; it is about NATO's role as a global political organization and the "unfinished business" of the Cold War - as well as about defining the new world order."
- Pepe Escobar, Enduring Freedom until 2050, Asis Times, 08 September 2009.
  
  "In only 450 days, the number of troops in Afghanistan has swelled from 67,000 to 118,000. Since 2001, the United States has spent $179 billion in the country, while its European allies have burned $102 billion. The tragicomedy is clear: the US and its allies will do - and spend - whatever it takes to implant military bases on the doorstep of Russia and China, and to get their gas pipeline on track."
- Tom Engelhardt, Afghanistan by the Numbers: Measuring a War Gone to Hell [Tomgram: Measuring Success in Afghanistan], TomDispatch, TomDispatch.com, 08 September 2009.
- Chris Floyd, Metrics of Monstrosity: Free Falling in Afghanistan, Empire Burlesque, 09 September 2009.
- Pamela Constable, After Rescue, Recriminations: Afghans Angry Over Death of Interpreter In Raid That Freed N.Y. Times Reporter, The Washington Post, 10 September 2009.
- M. K. Bhadrakumar, Why the US is afraid of 'Afghanization', Asis Times, 12 September 2009.
- Conn Hallinan, Afghanistan: What Are These People Thinking?, Antiwar.com, 13 September 2009.
- Juan Cole, US Dependence on Northern Supply Routes destabilizing North, Threatening Central Asia, Informed Comment, 14 September 2009.
- William Pfaff, All U.S. Presidents Need a War to Call Their Own — and Obama Has His, Truthdig.com, 16 September 2009.
- Joe Klein, The Afghanistan Problem: Why Are We in Helmand?, Time, 17 September 2009.
- * Juan Cole, Is Afghanistan Vietnam or Iraq? Arguing with Obama and Rubin, Informed Comment, 17 September 2009.
- Derek Henry Flood, A dangerous new Afghan road opens, Asis Times, 18 September 2009.
- * Ann Jones, Meet the Afghan Army: Is It a Figment of Washington's Imagination? [Tomgram: Ann Jones, Us or Them in Afghanistan?], TomDispatch.com, 20 September 2009.
- Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karen DeYoung, Changes Have Obama Rethinking War Strategy, The Washington Post, 21 September 2009.
- Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti, Taliban Widen Afghan Attacks From Base in Pakistan, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 23 September 2009.
- * Rory Stewart on Afghanistan, Bill Moyers Journal, 25 September 2009.
Taliban:
- Gareth Porter, The ISI and the Taliban: U.S. Officials Protect Pakistan Aid to the Taliban, CounterPunch, 05 August 2009.
- Jean MacKenzie, Are US taxpayers funding the Taliban?: USAID probes the possibility that contractors give a cut to the Taliban, GlobalPost, 02 September 2009.
- Juan Cole, US Aid Monies May support Taliban Activities, Informed Comment, 04 September 2009.
- Syed Saleem Shahzad, Taliban put their heads together, Asis Times, 19 September 2009.

John Feffer, Book Review: US hegemony slips into history, Asia Times, 12 September 2009.

review of:

Terrence Edward Paupp. The Future of Global Relations: Crumbling Walls, Rising Regions. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
(Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)

Sreeram Chaulia, Netanyahu plays a Russian rope trick, Asia Times, 15 September 2009.

Links: Political Economy

2009-09-10T17:25:00.004-05:00

Barry Eichengreen, The Last Temptation of Risk, The National Interest, May/June 2009.

Simon Johnson and James Kwak, Finance: Before the Next Meltdown, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Issue #13, Summer 2009.

via: The Baseline Scenario.

Teryn Norris & Jesse Jenkins, Will America Lose the Clean-Energy Race?, CommonDreams.org, 29 July 2009.

Naomi Klein, Let's Put an End to Sarah Palin-Style Capitalism, AlterNet, AlterNet.org, 30 July 2009.

Scott Thill, Why Corporations, Emerging Powers and Petro-States Are Snapping Up Huge Chunks of Farmland in the Developing World, AlterNet, AlterNet.org, 11 August 2009.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Cameron dare not copy Obama's disastrous economic policies: Should he come to power, the Conservative leader must avoid the calamitous mistakes of the American president, The Observer, guardian.co.uk, 16 August 2009.

Simon Johnson, The Two-Track Economy, The Baseline Scenario, 20 August 2009.

Simon Johnson, More On The Two-Track Economy — From The WSJ And Others, The Baseline Scenario, 29 August 2009.

Mike Shedlock, Orwellian Madness "Bernanke Saved The World", Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis, 21 August 2009.

Jim Hightower, Holding Wall Street Bankers Accountable, JimHightower.com, 28 August 2009.

Gene Laverty, PetroChina to Buy Athabasca Oil-Sands Project Stakes, Bloomberg.com, 31 August 2009.

John Duce and Gene Laverty, PetroChina Agrees Biggest North America Acquisition , Bloomberg.com, 01 September 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, Bailout Profits? Don’t Make Me Laugh!, The Big Picture, 31 August 2009.

Lee Adler, Forbes Polls the Wackosphere and Gets An Earful, The Wall Street Examiner, 31 August 2009.

William D. Cohan, The Final Days of Merrill Lynch, The Atlantic, September 2009.

Matt Taibbi, Bailout Propaganda Begins, Taibblog - True/Slant, 01 September 2009.

Rob Johnson & Lynn Parramore, Jim Chanos Warned Brown, Geithner, and Others about Coming Financial Crash in 2007, The Huffington Post, 01 September 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, How the Bailouts Should Have Gone, The Big Picture, 02 September 2009.

Rick Newman, How the Bailouts Could Have Gone Better, US News & World Report, 01 September 2009.

Unemployment, Labor Policy

Mike Shedlock, Cut My Pay, But Please Give Me A Job, Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis, 01 September 2009.

Steven Greenhouse, Low-Wage Workers Are Often Cheated, Study Says, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 01 September 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, Data Points to Ongoing Economic Woes, The Big Picture, 02 September 2009.

Yves Smith, Unemployment: The Harder You Look, The Uglier It Appears, naked capitalism, 02 September 2009.

Henry Blodget, Unemployment is Much Worse Than You Think, The Business Insider, 04 September 2009.

Employment-Population Ratio, Part Time Workers, Average Workweek, Calculated Risk, 04 September 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, Recession Job Losses: 3 Views, The Big Picture, 05 September 2009.

Pimco's Tony Crescenzi: Structural Changes in the Economy Will Lead to Long-Term Job Losses, Washington's Blog, 06 September 2009.

Juan Cole, Where Have All the Broad Shoulders Gone? Or, Labor Day in a Kleptocracy, Informed Comment, 07 September 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, Total 10 Year Job Gains: Negative 203k, The Big Picture, 07 September 2009.

Michael Luo, Out of Work, and Too Down to Search On, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 07 September 2009.

Kirk Ladendorf, Caught in global shift, city's high-tech manufacturing jobs are vanishing, Austin American-Statesman, 08 September 2009.

Yves Smith, Manpower: Hiring Plans Hit New Low, naked capitalism, 08 September 2009.

Yves Smith, 40% of Working Age Californians Jobless, naked capitalism, 08 September 2009.

George Washington, How Bad Will Unemployment Get, and What Can We Do About It?, naked capitalism, 08 September 2009.

Ian Bremmer & Nouriel Roubini, Don’t Expect the U.S. and China to Form a ‘Strategic Alliance’ Anytime Soon, WSJ.com, 01 September 2009.

Penn Bullock, Friedman Economics: Is Fed chairman Ben Bernanke a follower of John Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman?, Reason Magazine, 01 September 2009.

James Kwak, Revisionist History, The Baseline Scenario, 02 September 2009.

Paul Krugman, How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?, The New York Times Magazine, NYTimes.com, 02 September 2009.

Paul Krugman, A few notes on my magazine article, Paul Krugman Blog, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 05 September 2009.

Paul Krugman, School for Scoundrels: Book Review - 'The Myth of the Rational Market,' by Justin Fox; and 'The Sages,' by Charles R. Morris, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 06 August 2009.

Some responses to Krugman's Magazine essay:

Jane Smiley, Other Economists in the Room, The Huffington Post, 03 September 2009.

Comments - Links 9/4/09, naked capitalism, 04 September 2009.

James Kwak, Krugman on Economics, The Baseline Scenario, 04 September 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, How Economists Got It Wrong, The Big Picture, 05 September 2009.

Dirk Bezemer, Why some economists could see the crisis coming, FT.com, 07 September 2009.

Ryan Grim, Priceless: How The Federal Reserve Bought The Economics Profession, The Huffington Post, 07 September 2009.

Dave Johnson, Who Opposes American Manufacturing?, The Smirking Chimp, 03 September 2009.

Johnson has written elsewhere on this topic:

Dave Johnson, Who Would Be Against American Manufacturing?, Blog for Our Future, Campaign for America's Future, OurFuture.org, 01 September 2009.

Dave Johnson, Who Opposes American Manufacturing? II, Blog for Our Future, Campaign for America's Future, OurFuture.org, 03 September 2009 [this is the Smirking Chimp essay noted above].

More of his essays: Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future, OurFuture.org.

James V. Grimaldi, Washington Redskins React to Fans' Tough Luck With Tough Love, The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, 03 September 2009.

Michael McKee, Stiglitz Says U.S. Economic Recovery May Not Be 'Sustainable', Bloomberg.com, 04 September 2009.

via: Jesse's Café Américain.

Alan S. Blinder, The Wait for Financial Reform, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 05 September 2009.

Karl Denninger, 2009 Labor Day Ponderings ..., The Market Ticker, 06 September 2009.

* Karl Denninger, Labor Day Musings Part II, The Market Ticker, 07 September 2009.

Michael Lind, Who are the wealth creators?, Salon.com, 07 September 2009.

Yves Smith, Deflation Worries Looking More Credible, naked capitalism, 07 September 2009.

* John Robb, Nice depiction of a system in decline, John Robb's Weblog, 07 September 2009.

Kevin G. Hall, A year after financial crisis, the consumer economy is dead, McClatchy Newspapers, 08 September 2009.

Bob Ivry, Christine Harper and Mark Pittman, Missing Lehman Lesson of Shakeout Means Too Big Banks May Fail, Bloomberg.com, 08 September 2009.

George Washington, The Economy Will Not Recover Until Trust is Restored, naked capitalism, 10 September 2009.

Yves Smith, Trade Tensions With China Quietly Escalating, naked capitalism, 10 September 2009.

Donald L. Barlett & James B. Steele, Good Billions After Bad, VanityFair.com, October 2009.

"As the Bush administration waned, the Treasury shoveled more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in tarp funds into the financial system — without restrictions, accountability, or even common sense. The authors reveal how much of it ended up in the wrong hands, doing the opposite of what was needed."

Links: U.S. Politics & Government

2009-09-07T15:07:00.005-05:00

Chris Floyd, Symbol for Sale: Obama Cashes Cronies' Chips, Empire Burlesque, 29 July 2009.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Cameron dare not copy Obama's disastrous economic policies: Should he come to power, the Conservative leader must avoid the calamitous mistakes of the American president, The Observer, guardian.co.uk, 16 August 2009.

Scott Thill, Why Are Cops Tasering Grandmothers, Pregnant Women and Kids?, AlterNet, 17 August 2009.

Michael Lind, Liberalism without labor unions?, Salon.com, 25 August 2009.

Lind doesn't quite say so explicitly, but his essay makes clear that there is no Left/Social Democratic/Labor political party in the U.S. As others have observed, the U.S. has two right wing Corporation/Business parties and, with the enablement of the major media, the range of public political discourse is very narrow. I think this is one source the widespread government and policy inaction in the face of obvious injustices, inequalities, and simple inefficiencies (areas where the public good suffers to the benefit of narrow private interests).

Glenn Greenwald, Thomas Paine v. the Right's torture defenders, Salon.com, 25 August 2009.

Chris Floyd, Wrist-slap and Tickle: Obama Goes Mild on CIA Torture, Empire Burlesque, 25 August 2009.

Brian Donohue, The Corporate Person Without a Country: AIG Spits in America's Eye, Again, CommonDreams.org, 25 August 2009.

Mary Dejevsky, A mean streak in the US mainstream: The US tolerates more inequality, deprivation and suffering than is acceptable here, The Independent, independent.co.uk, 25 August 2009.

via CommonDreams.org.

Amy Goodman, Who Is Obama Playing Ball With?, TruthDig, truthdig.com, 25 August 2009.

* Glenn Greenwald, Even The New Republic now calls for a party purge of corporate-owned "centrists", Salon.com, 27 August 2009.

This is one of Greenwald's best summaries of the dysfunctions in American politics; it's one of the best essays I've read in years for understanding how recent American politics works.

Chris Floyd, Bait and Switch: Using Diversity to Disguise Inequality, Empire Burlesque, 27 August 2009.

Mr. Floyd refers to the essay:

Walter Benn Michaels, What Matters, London Review of Books, vol. 31, no. 16, 27 August 2009.

Mr. Michaels' essay is a review of:

Kjartan Páll Sveinsson, editor. Who Cares about the White Working Class?. London: The Runnymede Trust, 2009.

Jim Hightower, Holding Wall Street Bankers Accountable, JimHightower.com, 28 August 2009.

* Money-Driven Medicine, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 28 August 2009.

This documentary broadcast on Bill Moyers Journal is derived from the book:

Maggie Mahar. Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much. HarperCollins, 2006.
(Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)

Glenn Greenwald, Bill Moyers on the health care debate, Democrats, and Afghanistan, Salon.com, 29 August 2009.

An anecdote:

Joe Goldblatt (patient), From the Patient's Mouth: My Dentist and Why I Believe National Health Care Works, Ysabel de la Rosa, 29 August 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, It's time to embrace American royalty, Salon.com, 30 August 2009.

Paul Krugman, Missing Richard Nixon, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 30 August 2009.

Chris Rowthorn, Extremism in Defense of Servitude, The Smirking Chimp, 30 August 2009.

Dan Froomkin, Cheney Still Manipulating People -- Now In Public, The Huffington Post, 31 August 2009.

Tom Tomorrow, Once upon a time, the citizens of a large nation turned into monsters ..., This Modern World, Salon.com, 01 September 2009.

Ted Rall, We Have Met the Nazis, And They Are Us., The Smirking Chimp, 31 August 2009.

Ed Kilgore, The return of the welfare queen: Healthcare reform has brought back the right's favorite wedge issue -- government handouts for the "undeserving," Salon.com, 31 August 2009.

Scott Horton, American Diplomats Advocated "Nuremberg Defense", The Huffington Post, 01 September 2009.

Matt Taibbi, Maria Bartiromo shows us how media has helped sandbag health care reform, Taibblog - True/Slant, 02 September 2009.

Ed Pilkington, CIA doctors face human experimentation claims, guardian.co.uk, 02 September 2009.

* Dan Froomkin, Paging A Different President Obama, The Huffington Post, 03 September 2009.

* Glenn Greenwald, The looming political war over Afghanistan, Salon.com, 03 September 2009.

Rebecca Boone, John Ashcroft Can Be Sued For Post-9/11 Detentions, Court Rules, The Huffington Post, 04 September 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, Major ruling against Ashcroft highlights evils of preventive detention, Salon.com, 05 September 2009.

Scott Horton, And Now: Fredo, the Opera, No Comment blog at Harper's Magazine, 03 September 2009.

Bill Moyers, A Bill Moyers essay on health care reform, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 04 September 2009.

Josh Marshall, Adventures in the Rabbit Hole, Talking Points Memo, 27 August 2009.

* Henry A. Giroux, Living in a Culture of Cruelty: Democracy as Spectacle, t r u t h o u t, 02 September 2009.

Alan Colmes, The Van Jones Story, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, 06 September 2009.

Pareene, Who is Van Jones?, Gawker, 04 September 2009.

* Sara Robinson, Conservative Derangement Syndrome: What Are They Thinking?, Blog for Our Future, Campaign for America's Future, OurFuture.org, 04 September 2009.

* Jane Hamsher, Van Jones: A Moment of Truth For Liberal Institutions in the Veal Pen, FireDogLake, 06 September 2009.

David Sirota, Taking the Movement Out of the Obama White House, Open Salon, Open.Salon.com, 06 September 2009.

Michael Bader, The Psychology of the Right-Wing's Anti-Government 'Death-Panel' Delusions, AlterNet, 05 September 2009.

Links: Propaganda, Media, Manufacturing Consent

2009-08-25T18:37:00.001-05:00

Robert Parry, Iran-Contra's 'Lost Chapter', ConsortiumNews.com, 30 June 2008.
"As historians ponder George W. Bush’s disastrous presidency, they may wonder how Republicans perfected a propaganda system that could fool tens of millions of Americans, intimidate Democrats, and transform the vaunted Washington press corps from watchdogs to lapdogs."

Includes link for a draft chapter omitted from an Iran-Contra report (Google Books link) detailing the Reagan administration's domestic propaganda efforts.

Tanner Mirrlees, Media Capitalism, the State and 21st Century Media Democracy Struggles: Tanner Mirrlees interviews Robert McChesney, Cyrano's Journal Online, 07 August 2009.

digby, Missing The Point, Big Time, Hullabaloo, 13 August 2009.

Some observe that it is Chuck Todd's incompetence that qualifies him for his job; that quality makes for a compliant and submissive journalism.

* batocchio, Silent Questions, Hullabaloo, 13 August 2009.

Chris Hedges, Book Review: Chris Hedges on Alex S. Jones’ ‘Losing the News’, TruthDig, truthdig.com, 13 August 2009.

* Glenn Greenwald, Fringe leftist losers: wrong even when they're right, Salon.com, 20 August 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, Bush critics: still evil, crazy extremists, Salon.com, 23 August 2009.

Links: Sociology, Culture, etc.

2009-08-25T18:32:00.001-05:00

Paul Pettitt, Odd man out: Neanderthals and modern humans, British Archaeology, no. 51, February 2000.
"New research shows that Neanderthals were far more sophisticated than was thought ten years ago. Still, modern humans wiped them out in the end."

Michael R. Dove, Dreams from His Mother, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 10 August 2009.

On the life and work of Ann Dunham.

Ann Dunham. Surviving Against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia. Duke University Press, December 2009.
(Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)

* batocchio, Silent Questions, Hullabaloo, 13 August 2009.

Clive Thompson, Can Game Theory Predict When Iran Will Get the Bomb?, The New York Times Magazine, NYTimes.com, 12 August 2009.

On the work of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita (Wikipedia; NYU; Hoover Institution).

Bruce E. Levine, Fundamentalist Consumerism and an Insane Society, Z Magazine, February 2009.

Folwell Dunbar, Soft Measures: You don't always need a standardized test to know a school is in trouble. Just look in the boys' john., Miller-McCune Online Magazine, 21 August 2009.

Links: Science & Science Policy

2009-08-25T18:28:00.001-05:00

Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber, Annals of Mathematics: Manifold Destiny: A legendary problem and the battle over who solved it, The New Yorker, 28 August 2006.

On the proof of the Poincaré conjecture by Grigori Perelman.

Carol Kaesuk Yoon, Reviving the Lost Art of Naming the World, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 11 August 2009.

On Biological classification, a particular domain of Taxonomy.

Charles Duhigg, Debating Just How Much Atrazine Is Safe in Your Water Glass, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 22 August 2009.

Atrazine, Wikipedia.

Links: Geopolitics

2009-08-25T18:24:00.001-05:00

Nikolas Kozloff, Colombian Elites Fear Bolivaran Revolution: As Hostilities Loom, Propaganda War with Venezuela Heats Up, CounterPunch, counterpunch.org, 14 August 2009.

The Af-Pak Channel: A Project of Foreign Policy and the New America Foundation, Foreign Policy, website established in 2009.

Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, Jihadistan: A primer on the epicenter of global terrorism, Foreign Policy, July or August 2009.

On the Afghanistan - Pakistan border region.

* Rory Stewart, The Irresistible Illusion, London Review of Books, 9 July 2009.

On US & UK policy towards Afghanistan.

Links: U.S. Politics & Government

2009-08-24T20:24:00.004-05:00

Jerome Karabel, The Reasons Why, The New York Review of Books, Volume 26, Number 1, 08 February 1979.

A review of Werner Sombart's Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?

Howard Zinn, Sacco and Vanzetti, ZNet Classics, 14 April 2007.

* Chalmers Johnson, Chalmers Johnson on Our ‘Managed Democracy’, TruthDig, truthdig.com15 May 2008.

review of:
Sheldon S. Wolin. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. Princeton University Press, 2008.
(Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)

* Gabriel Kolko, Searching For Enemies: The Contours of Recent American Foreign Policy, CounterPunch, counterpunch.org, 31 July 2009.

Excerpt from Gabriel Kolko's most recent book:
World in Crisis: the End of the American Century. Pluto Press, 2009.
(Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)

William Blum, Blum’s Anti-Empire Report: No change under Obama, Cyrano’s Journal Online, 05 August 2009.

Originally published at:
William Blum, The Anti-Empire Report, Number 72, KillingHope.org, 04 August 2009.

Sara Robinson, Fascist America: Are We There Yet?, Campaign for America's Future, OurFuture.org, 06 August 2009.

Sara Robinson, Fascist America II: The Last Turnoff, Campaign for America's Future, OurFuture.org, 11 August 2009.

These essays were also published at AlterNet; Orcinus; FireDogLake.

Al Schumann, Oh, no! Fascism!, Stop Me Before I Vote Again, 11 August 2009.

Mark Thoma, The Reconstruction of Authority, Economist's View, 11 August 2009.

Jennifer Levitz, Cities Tolerate Homeless Camps, WSJ.com, 11 August 2009.

Jon Perr, The Iron Law of Birtherism, Crooks and Liars, 11 August 2009.

Observations on a region (the U.S. South / Bible Belt) of social dysfunction across many issues.

David Michael Green, My 1933 Nightmare, The Smirking Chimp, 11 August 2009.

William Pfaff, There’s a Solution in Afghanistan — but Not the Way We’re Headed, TruthDig, 11 August 2009.

Scott Shane, Interrogation Inc.: 2 U.S. Architects of Harsh Tactics in 9/11’s Wake, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 12 August 2009.

David Johnston and Mark Mazzetti, Interrogation Inc.: A Window Into C.I.A.’s Embrace of Secret Jails, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 13 August 2009.

* Robert Parry, Palin's 'Death Panel' and GOP Lying, The Smirking Chimp, 12 August 2009.

Rick Perlstein, In America, Crazy Is a Preexisting Condition: Birthers, Town Hall Hecklers and the Return of Right-Wing Rage, The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, 16 August 2009.

Alexander Cockburn, Health Plans and Death Plans, CounterPunch, counterpunch.org, 14 August 2009.

Bruce Wilson, MSNBC's Maddow Show Propels Growing Scandal Over Washington's "Christian Mafia", AlterNet, alternet.org, 18 August 2009.

Johann Hari, Republicans, religion and the triumph of unreason: How do they train themselves to be so impervious to reality?, The Independent, independent.co.uk, 19 August 2009.

Paul Craig Roberts, Americans: Serfs Ruled by Oligarchs, Antiwar.com, 20 August 2009.

* Glenn Greenwald, Fringe leftist losers: wrong even when they're right, Salon.com, 20 August 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, Bush critics: still evil, crazy extremists, Salon.com, 23 August 2009.

William Pfaff, Reality Is Its Own Caricature for U.S. in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Truthdig, truthdig.com, 20 August 2009.

* George Lakoff, The Policy-Speak Disaster for Health Care, t r u t h o u t, 20 August 2009.

* Chris Hedges, This Isn’t Reform, It’s Robbery, Truthdig, truthdig.com, 23 August 2009.

Links: Political Economy

2009-08-24T20:15:00.003-05:00

William Greider, Dismantling the Temple, The Nation, 15 July 2009 [03 August 2009 printed edition].

* Karl Denninger, Economic Bottom Calls: Willful Ignorance, The Market Ticker, 08 August 2009.

Again: this recession is different (worse than any previous post-WWII recession); and the reasons why it's worse require attention.

Tyler Durden, Open Market Operations and Statistics, zero hedge, 08 August 2009.

Very good analysis illustrating how the Fed throws money at the banks.

Eva Joly, Iceland is being blackmailed, The Iceland Weather Report, 06 August 2009.

Michael Lewis, Wall Street on the Tundra, Vanity Fair, April 2009.

Toby Sanger, Iceland's Economic Meltdown Is a Big Flashing Warning Sign, AlterNet, 21 October 2008.
"Iceland followed the prescriptions of a right-wing ideologue, and its economy paid a severe price."

* Mark Weisbrot, US economic myths bite the dust: America is not the internationally competitive land of small businesses that politicians love to tout, guardian.co.uk, 13 August 2009.

via: t r u t h o u t.

Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-1998 [PDF], Quarterly Journal of Economics, volume 118, number 1, 2003, pages 1-39.

Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-2002 [PDF], November 2004. [Published in: A.B. Atkinson and T. Piketty, editors. Top Incomes over the Twentieth Century: A Contrast between European and English-Speaking Countries. Oxford University Press, 2007.]

Emmanuel Saez, Tables & Figures updated to 2007 [XLS].

Emmanuel Saez, [Summary for the broader public] Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States (Update with 2007 estimates) [PDF], 05 August 2009.

via: Income Inequality Is At An All-Time High: Study, The Huffington Post, 14 August 2009.

Emmanuel Saez, Income and Wealth Concentration in a Historical and International Perspective, 21 February 2004. [Published in: A. Auerbach, D. Card, and J. Quigley, editors. Public Policy and the Income Distribution. Russell Sage Foundation Publications, 2006.]

Karl Denninger, Why "Normal" WILL NOT Return, The Market Ticker, 16 August 2009.

Tyler Durden, A Detailed Look At The Stratified U.S. Consumer, zero hedge, 15 August 2009.

Jesse, Why the Austrian, Keynesian, Marxist, Monetarist, and Neo-Liberal Economists Are All Wrong, Jesse's Café Américain, 20 August 2009.

Stephen Amidon, Why I love Britain's socialized healthcare system, Salon, salon.com, 22 August 2009.

Andy Xie, Boom and burst: Don’t be fooled by false signs of economic recovery. It’s just the lull before the storm, The Big Picture, 24 August 2009.

Forecast for 2009 - 2011.

Barry Ritholtz, Existing Home Sales Far Worse Than Advertised, The Big Picture, 24 August 2009.

Links: Militarism, War

2009-08-18T13:36:00.003-05:00

Nick Thorpe, Origins of war: Mesolithic conflict in Europe, British Archaeology, no. 52, April 2000.
"The Mesolithic era is often characterised as a kind of golden age of harmony with nature and peaceful co-existence between people. Not so, writes Nick Thorpe."

Note: The Mesolithic era in Europe refers to the period from around 11,700 BC (end of the last glacial period) until as recent as 5000 BC.

Chalmers Johnson, The Military-Industrial Complex: It's Much Later Than You Think [Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, Warning: Mercenaries at Work], TomDispatch.com, 27 July 2008.

Justin Raimondo, The New Neocons: The left wing of the War Party raises its ugly head, AntiWar.com, 13 May 2009.

Discusses the politics of the Center for a New American Security.

James Dao, Older Recruits Challenge Army and Vice Versa, The New York Times, 17 June 2009.

Chris Floyd, Dexter's Legions in Afghanistan: The "Good" Killers of the "Good" War?, CounterPunch.org, 22 June 2009.

David Price, Obama's Classroom Spies: Son of PRISP, CounterPunch.org, 23 June 2009.

Also published at AlterNet.org, 24 June 2009.

Jake Lynch, How America is constantly at war, The Sydney Morning Herald, smh.com.au, 24 June 2009.

via: Watching America.

Robert C. Koehler, The Iron Triangle: 10,000 years of organized warfare - and no end in sight, The Smirking Chimp, 26 June 2009.

David Bromwich, America's Wars: How Serial War Became the American Way of Life [Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: David Bromwich, America's Serial Warriors], TomDispatch, TomDispatch.com, 21 July 2009.

UAVs: The Future of Warfare in America, Truthdig, truthdig.com, 23 July 2009.

William Pfaff, U.S. Foreign Wars Not Going According to Plan, Truthdig, truthdig.com, 23 July 2009.

Jeremy Scahill, Feingold: White House is Whistling Past Afghan Graveyard, The Nation, 24 July 2009.

Mark Mazzetti and David Johnston, Bush Weighed Using Military in U.S. Arrests, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 24 July 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, The Cheney plan to deploy the U.S. military on U.S. soil, Salon.com, 25 July 2009.

* Chalmers Johnson, Three Good Reasons To Liquidate Our Empire: And Ten Steps to Take to Do So [Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, Dismantling the Empire], TomDispatch, tomdispatch.com, 30 July 2009.

* Gabriel Kolko, Searching For Enemies: The Contours of Recent American Foreign Policy, CounterPunch, counterpunch.org, 31 July 2009.

Excerpt from Gabriel Kolko's most recent book:
World in Crisis: the End of the American Century. Pluto Press, 2009.
(Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)

Dahr Jamail and Jason Coppola, Militarizing the Homeland, t r u t h o u t, 06 August 2009.

John Feffer, Our Suicide Bombers: Thoughts on Western Jihad [Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: John Feffer, Their Martyrs and Our Heroes], TomDispatch.com, 06 August 2009.

Jeff Huber, Perpetual War for Perpetual War, The American Conservative, 06 August 2009.

Paul Craig Roberts, Do You Feel Safe Now? Proud?, AntiWar.com, 07 August 2008.

Walter Pincus, Military Analysts Expect Long-Term, Costly U.S. Effort in Afghanistan, The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, 09 August 2009.

Dahr Jamail and Sarah Lazare, Echo Platoon: Warehousing Soldiers in the Homeland [Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: Jamail and Lazare, Lost in Military Limbo], TomDispatch, tomdispatch.com, 09 August 2009.

Chris Floyd, Addicted to War: America's Brutal Pipe Dream in Afghanistan, Empire Burlesque, chris-floyd.com, 11 August 2009.

William Pfaff, There’s a Solution in Afghanistan — but Not the Way We’re Headed, TruthDig, 11 August 2009.

Christopher Drew, A Soldier’s Eye in the Sky, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 11 August 2009.

Lizette Alvarez, Women at Arms: G.I. Jane Breaks the Combat Barrier, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 15 August 2009.

Steven Lee Myers, Women at Arms: Living and Fighting Alongside Men, and Fitting In, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 16 August 2009.

Links: Propaganda, Media, Manufacturing Consent, Social Control

2009-08-13T09:39:00.006-05:00

Chris Hedges, The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free, TruthDig, TruthDig.com, 29 June 2009.

Books mentioned in Hedges' TruthDig essay include:
- Stuart Ewen. Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture. Basic Books, 1976, 2001.
  (Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)
- Stuart Ewen. PR! A Social History of Spin. Basic Books, 1996.
  (Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)
- Gustave Le Bon. The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1896.
  (Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library; Google Books.)
- Walter Lippmann. Public Opinion. New York: Macmillan, 1922; Free Press Paperbacks, 1997.
  (Google Books; Amazon.com.)
Hedges' essay also discusses the works of: Jacob Riis; Lewis Hine; Walker Evans; Upton Sinclair; James Agee.

Hedges' most recent book is:
Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, Nation Books, July 2009.
(Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)

Mike Allen and Michael Calderone, Washington Post cancels lobbyist event amid uproar, Politico.com, 02 July 2009.

David Carr, A Publisher Stumbles Publicly at the Post, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 03 July 2009.

Andrew Alexander, A Sponsorship Scandal at The Post, The Washington Post, 12 July 2009.

Alexander's essay clearly indicates that the Post's senior management doesn't understand their business. This appears to be a common feature of many of the U.S.'s large corporations: a focus on finance and ignorance of the organization's operations.

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, 'The Select Few' Are Cashing in: Shocking Corruption at the Washington Post, AlterNet, 12 July 2009.

Laura Miller, History is bunk after all, Salon.com, 09 July 2009.

review of:
Margaret MacMillan, The Uses and Abuses of History (Canadian and UK title; American edition title: Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History).

Glenn Greenwald, Chuck Todd's arguments against investigations, Salon.com, 15 July 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, GE's silencing of Olbermann and MSNBC's sleazy use of Richard Wolffe, Salon.com, 01 August 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, The scope -- and dangers -- of GE's control of NBC and MSNBC, Salon.com, 03 August 2009.

Dean Starkman, Don’t Dismiss Taibbi: What the mainstream press can learn from a Goldman takedown, The Audit, Columbia Journalism Review, 06 August 2009.

* Robert Parry, Palin's 'Death Panel' and GOP Lying, The Smirking Chimp, 12 August 2009.

Links: Sociology, Culture, etc.

2009-08-12T09:35:00.003-05:00

The 100 People Who Are Changing America, The RS 100: Agents of Change, Rolling Stone, 18 March 2009.

Matt Taibbi, Fareed Zakaria's Manifesto: Capitalism Doesn't Rip Off People, People Rip Off People!, The Smirking Chimp, 25 June 2009.

Fareed Zakaria, The Capitalist Manifesto: Greed Is Good (To a point), Newsweek.com, 13 June 2009.

Juan Cole, Michael Jackson, Islam and the Middle East, Informed Comment, 26 June 2009.

Kelefa Sanneh, Out of the Office: Fast bikes, slow food, and the workplace wars, The New Yorker, 22 June 2009.

Jeffrey Brown, Media Take Second Look at Coverage of Jackson's Death, PBS Newshour, 10 July 2009.

Commentary on how news of Michael Jackson recently crowded out other news in the major media.
But this sort of thing has been going on for (a long time / forever); for example, see Project Censored, which documents the kind of stories routinely crowded out of or omitted from news coverage, and thus ignored, generally for political/economic reasons. Some contend that it is actually the very nature and purpose of the U.S. major media to keep public scrutiny away from subjects and interpretations that threaten the powerful and their financial interests.

Shannon Rupp, Science Discovers Celebrities Are Useful for Something, The Tyee, TheTyee.ca, 03 July 2009.

James Howard Kunstler, The Man in the Mirror, Clusterfuck Nation, Kunstler.com, 29 June 2009.

David Yearsley, Tara, America's Dream House, CounterPunch.org, 10 July 2009.

Chris Hedges, The Man in the Mirror, Truthdig , 13 July 2009.

Tamar Lewin, University of California Makes Cuts After Reduction in State Financing, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 10 July 2009.

A society that regards Education as a business has a serious problem.

Before the fall: California's universities in trouble, The Economist, 06 August 2009.
"California’s financial crisis jeopardises one of the world’s finest universities."

Frank Rich, She Broke the G.O.P. and Now She Owns It, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 12 July 2009.

John Kay, Managers doomed to repeat the mistakes of history, The Financial Times, FT.com, 14 July 2009.

The Invisible Library.

* Chris Hedges, Resist or Become Serfs, TruthDig.com, 06 April 2009.

T. A. Frank, Golden Erring, Washington Monthly, July/August 2009.
"Once the embodiment of America’s possibilities, California has become the embodiment of the country’s delusions."

review of the book:
Kevin Star. Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950–1963. Oxford University Press, 2009.
(publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)

Note that this is just one volume in Starr's series: Americans and the California Dream.

* David Seaton, Today's America is a class act, David Seaton's Blog, 22 July 2009.

Nikolas Kozloff, The Coup and the U.S. Airbase in Honduras, CounterPunch.org, 22 July 2009.

Jack Hitt, Radovan Karadzic’s New-Age Adventure, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 22 July 2009.

Helene Cooper, Meet the New Elite, Not Like the Old - Affirmative Action and America’s Leaders, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 25 July 2009.

Greg Palast, The Day the President Turned Black (But has he turned back?), GregPalast.com, 29 July 2009 [also published at The Huffington Post].

Barbara Ehrenreich and Dedrick Muhammed, The Destruction of the Black Middle Class, The Huffington Post, 04 August 2009.

Michael Pollan, Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 02 August 2009.

* Daniel Ellsberg, Hiroshima Day: America Has Been Asleep at the Wheel for 64 Years, Truthdig, 05 August 2009.

Chris Hedges, So Much for the Promised Land, Truthdig, 03 August 2009.

Mark Ames, Revenge Of The Nerd: What The Media Won’t Tell You About The Rampage Killer Who Attacked A Pittsburgh Aerobics Class, The eXiled, 05 August 2009.

Michael Massing, The News About the Internet, The New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 13, 13 August 2009.

Barbara Ehrenreich, Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 08 August 2009.

Links: Science & Science Policy

2009-08-11T13:38:00.003-05:00

Keith Badsher, A Drought in Australia, a Global Shortage of Rice, The New York Times, 17 April 2008.

This article is one in a noteworthy series: The Food Chain.

Tara Parker-Pope, How the Food Makers Captured Our Brains, The New York Times, 22 June 2009.

John Noble Wilford, Stone Age Flutes Found in Germany Offer Clues to Early Music, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 24 June 2009.

Nicholas D. Kristof, It’s Time to Learn From Frogs, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 27 June 2009.

On Endocrine Disruptors: TEDX — The Endocrine Disruption Exchange; Wikipedia article on Endocrine disruptors.

Evanthia Diamanti-Kandarakis et al., Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals: An Endocrine Society Scientific Statement, Endocrine Reviews, 30 (4): 293-342, 2009.

Paul Krugman, Betraying the Planet, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 28 June 2009.

On U.S. climate change policy.

Anil Ananthaswamy, Sea level rise: It's worse than we thought, New Scientist, issue 2715, 01 July 2009.

Alex Morales, Dengue-Carrying Mosquitoes Spread to 28 U.S. States, Group Says, Bloomberg.com, 08 July 2009.

Deborah Zabarenko, Climate change could boost US dengue fever cases, Reuters.com, 08 July 2009.

Dengue fever expanding its foothold in Texas, Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy, University of Minnesota, 09 August 2007.

Dengue fever a risk in south Texas, CDC says, Reuters.com, 09 August 2007.

Dengue Fever & Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF), Infectious Disease Control Unit, Texas Department of State Health Services.

James Hansen, G-8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change, The Huffington Post, 09 July 2009.

Joseph Romm, NASA's James Hansen Recycles Myths in His Pointless Attack on U.S. Climate Action, The Huffington Post, 10 July 2009.

Leslie Kaufman, Disillusioned Environmentalists Turn on Obama as Compromiser, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 10 July 2009.

Charles Siebert, Watching Whales Watching Us, The New York Times Magazine, NYTimes.com, 12 June 2009.

Joel Achenbach, Space Station Is Near Completion, Maybe the End: Plan to 'De-Orbit' in 2016 Is Criticized, The Washington Post, 13 July 2009.

Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, Why America is flunking science, Salon, Salon.com, 13 July 2009.

Paul Krugman, Why markets can’t cure healthcare, Paul Krugman Blog, NYTimes.com, 25 July 2009.

Links: Geopolitics

2009-08-11T09:05:00.007-05:00

Juan Cole, The Scam of Energy Independence, Informed Comment, 07 August 2008.

Paul Craig Roberts, Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated "Color Revolution?": Is This the Culmination of Two Years of Destabilization, CounterPunch.org, 19 June 2009.

Juan Cole, Chatham House Study Definitively Shows Massive Ballot Fraud in Iran's Reported Results, Informed Comment, 22 June 2009.

Andrew Cockburn, How the U.S. Has Secretly Backed Pakistan's Nuclear Program From Day One: The Obama Adminstration is Helping to Upgrade Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons, CounterPunch.org, 24 June 2009.

Guy Lawson, The Making of a Narco State, Rolling Stone, 04 March 2008.

"As Mexico descends into brutality and lawlessness, the government itself has become a tool of the drug lords."

Eric Lichtblau, Documents Back Saudi Link to Extremists, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 23 June 2009.

"... evidence of extensive financial support for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups by members of the Saudi royal family ...."

Mark Scheffler, China v. US: My empire is bigger than yours: Video: Historian Niall Ferguson ruminates on the world's most important rivalry, GlobalPost, 24 June 2009.

Paul Farmer, Who removed Aristide?, London Revuew of Books, 15 April 2004.

James G. Neuger, Debt Burden Quickens Power Shift as G-8 Loses Clout, Bloomberg.com, 07 July 2009.

Ben Holland, Obama Push for Caspian Energy Routes Imperiled by Refugee Clash, Bloomberg.com, 08 July 2009.

Dahr Jamail, The Dirty War, t r u t h o u t, TruthOut.org, 09 July 2009.

Shane Bauer, Iraq's New Death Squad, The Nation, 03 June 2009.

F. William Engdahl, Media Disinformation: "Saudis give nod to Israeli raid on Iran": Contrary to Times accounts, relations between Ahmedinejad and Saudi King Abdullah seem to be cordial, Global Research, 09 July 2009.

Norman Solomon, Escalation Scam: Troops in Afghanistan, t r u t h o u t, 09 July 2009.

John Richard Cookson, Major Eurasian Pipeline Deal to Help Diversify Gas Supplies, PBS Online NewsHour, 13 July 2009.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, EU-Ukraine-Russian Gas Crisis in Retrospective: It's Just the Beginning, The Cutting Edge, 06 February 2009.

Greg Palast, Oil and Indians Don't Mix, GregPalast.com, 12 July 2009.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Torture, Rendition, Terror & Oil: A Primer on "Deep Politics", The Cutting Edge, 09 February 2009.

Conn Hallinan, Blood and Oil in Central Asia, Foreign Policy In Focus, 15 July 2009.

Pepe Escobar has also written frequently on the geopolitics of oil & gas pipelines in the Middle East and Central Asia. Many of his articles are published at Asia Times. See also his books:
- Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War. Nimble Books, 2007.
  (Google Books; Amazon.com.)
- Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad During the Surge. Nimble Books, 2007.
  (Google Books; Amazon.com.)
- Obama Does Globalistan. Nimble Books, 2009.
  (Google Books; Amazon.com.)
Pervez Hoodbhoy, Whither Pakistan?, CounterPunch.org, 17 July 2009.

Harry Hurt III, China’s Wide Reach Across Africa, Off the Shelf, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 19 July 2009.

Review of:
Serge Michel and Michel Beuret. China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa. Nation Books, 2009.
(publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)

Andrew J. Bacevich, Best Intentions: An Appreciation of Graham Greene, World Affairs Journal, Summer 2009.

Eric Schmitt and Jane Perlez, Pakistan Objects to U.S. Expansion in Afghan War, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 21 July 2009.

Muriel Kane, Whistleblower: Bin Laden was US proxy until 9/11, Raw Story, 31 July 2009.

Ben Simpfendorfer. The New Silk Road: How a Rising Arab World is Turning Away from the West and Rediscovering China. Palgrave Macmillan, May 2009.
(publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.)

Links: U.S. Politics & Government

2009-08-10T15:56:00.003-05:00

Heather, Saxby Chambliss Thinks The Iranian People Don't Remember the 1953 CIA Coup, Video Cafe, Crooks & Liars, 19 June 2009.

Gary Kamiya, Night of the living neocons, Salon.com, 18 June 2009.

"The shameless fools whose Iraq folly empowered Iran's hard-liners are back, smearing Obama as an appeaser."

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, U.S. Pursues a New Way To Rebuild in Afghanistan, The Washington Post, 19 June 2009.

John R. MacArthur, Obama a Very Smooth Liar, CommonDreams.org, 17 June 2009.

Justin Raimondo, The New Neocons: The left wing of the War Party raises its ugly head, AntiWar.com, 13 May 2009.

Chris Floyd, A Brand New Day -- Yea, Verily, Morning in America!, Empire Burlesque, 23 June 2009.

Arthur Silber, Obama's Obscene Speech in Cairo: Lies in the Service of Death, Once Upon a Time..., 08 June 2009.

Chris Floyd, Speech Therapy: Pretty Words in Cairo Hide Brutal Realities of Power, Empire Burlesque, 04 June 2009.

Chris Floyd, Death of the Republic, Part CLXVIII, Empire Burlesque, 01 June 2009.

Sean Wilentz, How Bush Destroyed the Republican Party, Rolling Stone, 04 Sept 2008.

Matt Taibbi, It's a Class War, Stupid, Rolling Stone, 15 July 2008.

Glenn Greenwald, Noted Obama admirer lambasts him on civil liberties, secrecy, Salon.com, 23 June 2009.

Megan Slack (ProPublica), White House Drafts Executive Order To Allow Indefinite Detention Of Terror Suspects, The Huffington Post, 26 June 2009.

Ari Melber, Obama Courts Disaster With New Detention Plan, The Huffington Post, 26 June 2009.

Dafna Linzer and Peter Finn, White House Weighs Order on Detention: Officials: Move Would Reassert Power To Hold Terror Suspects Indefinitely, The Washington Post, 27 June 2009.

* Glenn Greenwald, Obama contemplates Executive Order for detention without charges, Salon.com, 27 June 2009.

Michael O'Brien, Obama issues signing statement on $106B war bill, The Hill, 26 June 2009.

Lila Shapiro, Obama Issues Signing Statement On War Spending Bill, The Huffington Post, 27 June 2009.

Todd S. Purdum, It Came from Wasilla, Vanity Fair, vanityfair.com, August 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, The suppressed fact: Deaths by U.S. torture, Salon.com, 30 June 2009.

Mark Leibovich, Who Can Possibly Govern California?, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 05 July 2009.

Jason Leopold, Eager to Tap Iraq's Vast Oil Reserves, Industry Execs Suggested Invasion, t r u t h o u t, truthout.org, 03 July 2009.

Michael Lind, All sides blame McNamara for Vietnam, Salon.com, 07 July 2009.

Theresa Amato, Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny, AlterNet, AlterNet.org, 07 June 2009.

An excerpt from the book:
Theresa Amato. Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny. New York: The New Press, 2009.
(publisher; Amazon.com.)

Turning The Camera Around: Health Care Stakeholders, NPR, NPR.org, 09 July 2009.

Peter Overby and Andrea Seabrook, Need For Campaign Cash Opens Door For Lobbyists, NPR, NPR.org, 09 July 2009.

Joe Conason, The losers who gave us Sarah Palin, Salon, Salon.com, 10 July 2009.

Peggy Noonan, A Farewell to Harms, The Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com, 10 July 2009.

Will Bunch, Robert McNamara and America's Tragic Memory Loss, The Huffington Post, 06 July 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, The new Report on illegal spying is not a real investigation, Salon.com, 11 July 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, Our political class in a nutshell, Salon.com, 11 July 2009.

Frank Rich, She Broke the G.O.P. and Now She Owns It, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 12 July 2009.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Obama: Regime Rotation, The Cutting Edge, 26 January 2009.

Frank Rich, They Got Some ’Splainin’ to Do, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 19 July 2009.

Sam Tanenhaus, Conservatism Is Dead: An intellectual autopsy of the movement, The New Republic, 18 February 2009.

Michael Bronner, Hussam Mohammed Amin: Former Iraqi Weapons Monitor Describes U.S. Abuse For First Time, The Huffington Post, 23 July 2009.

The illegal mistreatment (i.e., torture) of prisoners in Iraq was standard U.S. policy of Bush/Cheney. And the Obama administrtion is looking the other way.

William Rivers Pitt, Worst Case Scenario, t r u t h o u t, 21 July 2009.

Mark Mazzetti and David Johnston, Bush Weighed Using Military in U.S. Arrests, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 24 July 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, The Cheney plan to deploy the U.S. military on U.S. soil, Salon.com, 25 July 2009.

Bernard Chazelle, How to Argue Against Torture, The Smirking Chimp, 24 July 2009.

Jeremy Scahill, Feingold: White House is Whistling Past Afghan Graveyard, The Nation, 24 July 2009.

UAVs: The Future of Warfare in America, Truthdig, truthdig.com, 23 July 2009.

digby, We're Just Different, Hullabaloo, 30 July 2009.

"There has to be a reason that the US, of all the industrialized nations, the richest country in the world, is so hostile to social welfare programs. There are a lot of contributing factors, not the least of which is our vaunted individualism. But one of the fundamental reasons America is so resistant to programs that provide for the common good is that there is a long tradition of rejecting any proposal that taxes white people to pay for programs that benefit non-whites." - digby

Joan Walsh, Is GOP using race to block Obama agenda? Ya think?, Salon.com, 30 July 2009.

digby, Southern Strategery, Hullabaloo, 26 November 2003.

Christopher Caldwell, The Southern Captivity of the GOP, The Atlantic, June 1998.

David Bromwich, The Character of Barack Obama, The Huffington Post, 04 August 2009.

Thomas B. Edsall, For The Modern GOP, It's A Return To The "White Voter Strategy", The Huffington Post, 04 August 2009.

Francis Schaeffer, Right-Wing Turncoat Gives the Inside Scoop on Why Conservatives Are Rampaging Town Halls, AlterNet, AlterNet.org, 07 August 2009.

Sara Robinson, Fascist America: Are We There Yet?, Orcinus , 07 August 2009.

Also published at AlterNet: Is the U.S. on the Brink of Fascism?, 07 August 2009.

Amanda Marcotte, Let’s hope Sara’s completely wrong about this, pandagon.net, 07 August 2009.

Links: Political Economy

2009-08-10T08:17:00.003-05:00

Gretchen Morgenson, Too Big to Fail, or Too Big to Handle?, The New York Times, 20 June 2009.

Dean Starkman, The Most Important Financial Journalist of Her Generation (i.e., Gretchen Morgenson), The Nation, 17 June 2009.

Devin Leonard, Treasury’s Got Bill Gross on Speed Dial, The New York Times, 20 June 2009.

Olivier Blanchard, What is needed for a lasting recovery, The Financial Times, FT.com, 18 June 2009.

via: naked capitalism.
Note that Olivier Blanchard is chief economist of the IMF.

Dean Baker, Health Care Protectionists Cannot Even Envision Trade, Beat the Press / The American Prospect, 20 June 2009.

Michael Hudson, Obama's (Latest) Surrender to Wall Street: How the Financial Reform Plan Protects the Status Quo, CounterPunch.org, 22 June 2009.

* Chris Hedges, The American Empire Is Bankrupt, TruthDig.com, 14 June 2009.

Hedges refers to two articles, one by Michael Hudson and the other by John Lanchester. They are:

Michael Hudson, Washington is unable to call all the shots, Financial Times, 15 June 2009.
(Hedges calls Hudson's article "The Yekaterinburg Turning Point: De-Dollarization and the Ending of America’s Financial-Military Hegemony.")

John Lanchester, It’s Finished, London Review of Books, 28 May 2009.

Paul Krugman, Health Care Showdown, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 22 June 2009.

Andrew E. Kramer, Russia Facing Long Recession, World Bank Says, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 24 June 2009.

Vineet Nayar, The Employability Crisis is a Global Crisis, Bloomberg.com, 24 June 2009.

A good example of globalist thinking; illustrates the challenges American workers face, especially wage variation due to international factors. Also, note the author's explicitly stated functions of the "education system."

Rob Preston, Top Indian CEO: Most American Grads Are ‘Unemployable’, Global CIO Blog, InformationWeek, informationweek.com, 03 June 2009.

William Pesek, Soros Goes Long as World Bank Shorts Recovery, Bloomberg.com, 26 June 2009.

Louis Uchitelle, Despite Recession, Demand for Skilled Labor Is High, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 23 June 2009.

Scott Thill, Will the 'Dollar Wars' Kill What's Left of the American Dream?, AlterNet.org, 26 June 2009.

James Kwak, The McAllen Problem, The Baseline Scenario, 21 June 2009.

Jeff Gerth and Brady Dennis, How a Loophole Benefits GE in Bank Rescue: Industrial Giant Becomes Top Recipient in Debt-Guarantee Program, The Washington Post, 29 June 2009.

via: Jesse, Government Bails Out General Electric , Jesse's Café Américain, 29 June 2009.

Richard Teitelbaum and Hugh Son, Unwinding at AIG Prompts Pasciucco to Ponder Systemic Failure, Bloomberg.com, 01 July 2009.

David Rosenberg (and Hale "Bondad" Stewart), Just "Shoot" Me, [Invictus (?) 29 June 2009], The Bonddad Blog, 02 July 2009.

Hale "Bonddad" Stewart, Don't Expect a Consumer-Led Recovery, The Huffington Post, 16 June 2009.

Matt Taibbi, The Great American Bubble Machine, Rolling Stone, 02 July 2009.
"Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression."

Matt Taibbi, On giving Goldman a chance, Taibblog, True / Slant, TrueSlant.com, 30 June 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, Gasparino vs Taibbi, The Big Picture, 06 August 2009.

Simon Johnson, How To Blow A Bubble, The Baseline Scenario, 07 August 2009.

David Brooks, Chinese Fireworks Display, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 02 July 2009.

On Niall Ferguson's description of the China-US relationship, "Chimerica," and James Fallows more moderate view, at the Aspen Ideas Festival [video link].

Guy Dinmore, Pope condemns capitalism’s ‘failures’, The Financial Times, FT.com, 07 July 2009.

Paul Solman, For Ex-Cons and Laid-off Execs Alike, Dim Job Hopes, PBS Newshour, 08 July 2009.

Some of the more bizzare and sad things I have ever seen: unemployed middle-aged ex-middle-managers talking in business jargon; ex-convicts being coached in job seeking.

Michael Lewis, The Man Who Crashed the World, Vanity Fair, vanityfair.com, August 2009.

On Joseph Cassano, former head of A.I.G.’s Financial Products unit.

Bob Herbert, The Human Equation, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 10 July 2009.

Joe Weisenthal, Shanghai Redefines Subprime Construction: Building Just Falls Over, Clusterstock, 29 June 2009.

* Robert H. Frank, The Invisible Hand, Trumped by Darwin?, The New York Times, 11 July 2009.

via: Mark Thoma, Trumped by Darwin?, Economist's View, 11 July 2009.

* Paul Krugman, What Economists Can Learn from Evolutionary Theorists, A talk given to the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy, [date unknown by me].

via: Mark Thoma, What Economists Can Learn from Evolutionary Theorists, Economist's View, 29 November 2006.

Barry Ritholtz, Holding Securitizers Liable for Dubious Loans, The Big Picture, 12 July 2009.

Unemployment and GDP, Calculated Risk, 11 July 2009.

Second Stimulus Debate: Geithner vs. Krugman and Delong, Calculated Risk, 12 July 2009.

Jesse, The China Bubble and the Convergence of Oligarchies, Jesse's Café Américain, 10 July 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, The events preceding Goldman Sachs' new "blowout profits", Salon.com, 13 July 2009.

* Conn Hallinan, Blood and Oil in Central Asia, Foreign Policy In Focus, 15 July 2009.

Binyamin Appelbaum, Bailout Overseer Says Banks Misused TARP Funds, The Washington Post, 20 July 2009.

* Simon Johnson and John Talbott, Who caused the economic crisis?, Salon.com, 22 July 2009.

Simon Johnson and John Talbott, "I would shut down the hedge fund industry", Salon.com, 23 July 2009.

Simon Johnson and John Talbott, Fix the economy? Curb corporate America, Salon.com, 24 July 2009.

* Robert L. Borosage, The Debtor's Dance: the U.S.-China Exchange, The Huffington Post, 29 July 2009.

* Michael Lind, Can Obama be deprogrammed?: The president is a prisoner of the cult of neoliberalism, Salon.com, 04 August 2009.

* Jesse, US Consumer Demand Off a Cliff as the Crisis Deepens, Jesse's Café Américain, 06 August 2009.

Includes charts that illustrate & justify the assertion that the current recession is different. In light of this, the following seems particularly notable:

Tim Iacono, Consumer credit contracts sharply, The Mess That Greenspan Made, 07 August 2009.

Bianco Research, The Credit Crisis: The Largest Outlay In American History, The Big Picture, 07 August 2009.

James Bamford, A Pretext for War (2005)

2009-07-21T22:00:00.003-05:00

James Bamford.
A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies, with a new Afterword.
New York: Anchor, May 2005 (first published by Doubleday, June 2004).

Book information: publisher; Wikipedia; Google Books; Amazon.com.

James Fallows on China

2009-07-02T14:56:00.005-05:00

James Fallows.
Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China.
New York: Vintage, December 2008.

Book information: publisher, Amazon.com.

James Fallows, Wikipedia.

James Fallows' blog and article archive at The Atlantic.

The book is a collection of essays previously published in The Atlantic. Most of the essays are available online. Collecting them in book form results in an introduction/survey of contemporary China. The essays are:

Postcards From Tomorrow Square, December 2006

Mr. Zhang Builds His Dream Town, March 2007

Win in China!, April 2007

China Makes, The World Takes, July/August 2007

Macau’s Big Gamble, September 2007

The View from There, November 2007

The $1.4 Trillion Question, January/February 2008

“The Connection Has Been Reset”, March 2008

China’s Silver Lining, June 2008

How the West Was Wired, October 2008

After the Earthquake
(This essay did not appear in The Atlantic and is not on their website. It gives a brief account of the aftermath of the May 12, 2008 Sichuan earthquake in four Sichuan villages a month or two after the event.)

Their Own Worst Enemy, November 2008

Some other publications by Fallows on China and East Asia:

Looking at the Sun: The Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political System, Pantheon, 1994; Vintage, 1995.
(publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com)

“Be Nice to the Countries That Lend You Money”, The Atlantic, December 2008.

Musical Chairs, The Atlantic, March 2009.

China's Way Forward, The Atlantic, April 2009.

2009-06-19T13:01:00.011-05:00

Political Economy:

David Leonhardt, The China Puzzle, The New York Times, 13 May 2009.

Julian Delasantellis, Oh, impotent Washington, Asia Times, 14 May 2009.

"The saddest part of the ultimately degrading spectacle of the now totally discredited US bank stress tests is how they indicate the impotence of the US government when it comes to addressing national problems which necessitate a sacrifice by well-heeled interest groups."

* Sahm Adrangi, Will The Dollar Standard Collapse?, Clusterstock at The Business Insider, 18 May 2009.

This is a discussion of the unusually prescient book: Richard Duncan, The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures, revised edition, Wiley, 2005 (publisher, Google Book Search, Amazon.com).

Tim Rayment, Joseph Cassano: the man with the trillion-dollar price on his head, The Sunday Times, 17 May 2009.

On AIG.

Leo Kolivakis, Is Inflation Inevitable?, Pension Pulse, 11 May 2009.

Christian Broda, Piero Ghezzi, Eduardo Levy-Yeyati. The new global balance: Financial de-globalisation, savings drain, and the US dollar, VoxEU.org, 22 May 2009.

Bill Bradley, Niall Ferguson, Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini, George Soros, Robin Wells, et al. The Crisis and How to Deal with It, The New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 10, 11 June 2009.

Barry Eichengreen & Richard Baldwin, editors. Rescuing our jobs and savings: What G7/8 leaders can do to solve the global credit crisis, VoxEU.org, October 2008.

Edward Harrison, Guest post: More thoughts on the fake recovery, naked capitalism, 23 May 2009.

Edward Harrison, It’s the writedowns, stupid, Credit Writedowns, 19 March 2009.

** Chalmers Johnson, Why the U.S. Has Really Gone Broke, Jesse's Café Américain, 28 April 2009.

Mark Gilbert, Dollar Is Dirt, Treasuries Are Toast, AAA Is Gone, Bloomberg.com, 21 May 2009.

Javier Blas, Africa almost giving land away, says UN, FT.com, 24 May 2009.

Javier Blas, Food security fuels land grab, says report, FT.com, 24 May 2009.

Jamil Anderlini, China stuck in ‘dollar trap’, FT.com, 24 May 2009.

Keith Bradsher, China Grows More Picky About Debt, The New York Times, 20 May 2009.

Satyajit Das, Fear & Loathing in Financial Products: The Finance-Government Complex & The End of U.S. Economic Dominance, Wilmott.com, 26 May 2009.

Echos the observations of: Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, The Atlantic, May 2009.

Benjamin M. Friedman, The Failure of the Economy & the Economists, The New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 9, 28 May 2009.

Andy Kroll, Six Ways the Financial Bailout Scams Taxpayers, TomDispatch, 26 May 2009.

"The Greatest Swindle Ever Sold: How the Financial Bailout Scams Taxpayers, Subsidizes Wall Street, and Props Up Our Broken Financial System"

Also published at AlterNet.org

* Gretchen Morgenson & Don Van Natta Jr, In Crisis, Banks Dig In for Fight Against Rules, The New York Times, 31 May 2009.

* Atul Gawande, The Cost Conundrum: What a Texas town can teach us about health care, The New Yorker, 01 June 2009.

Reviews of this important essay by: James Kwak / The Baseline Scenario; Andrew Leonard / How the World Works / Salon.com.

Joe Nocera, Poking Holes in a Theory on Markets, The New York Times, 05 June 2009.

Elizabeth Warren, Unsafe at Any Rate: If it's good enough for microwaves, it's good enough for mortgages. Why we need a Financial Product Safety Commission., Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Issue #5, Summer 2007.

via: Jane Bryant Quinn, Loan-Shark Lenders Have Date With Hangman, Bloomberg.com, 03 June 2009.

Sandy B. Lewis & William D. Cohan, The Economy Is Still at the Brink, The New York Times, 06 June 2009.

Comments on this article: Yves Smith, The Team Obama Con Game Gets Official Notice, naked capitalism, 07 June 2009.

** Joseph E. Stiglitz, Wall Street and the Third World, VanityFair.com, July 2009.

"Every crisis comes to an end—and, bleak as things seem now, the current economic crisis too shall pass. But no crisis, especially one of this severity, recedes without leaving a legacy. And among this one’s legacies will be a worldwide battle over ideas—over what kind of economic system is likely to deliver the greatest benefit to the most people. Nowhere is that battle raging more hotly than in the Third World, among the 80 percent of the world’s population that lives in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, 1.4 billion of whom subsist on less than $1.25 a day. In America, calling someone a socialist may be nothing more than a cheap shot. In much of the world, however, the battle between capitalism and socialism—or at least something that many Americans would label as socialism—still rages. While there may be no winners in the current economic crisis, there are losers, and among the big losers is support for American-style capitalism. This has consequences we’ll be living with for a long time to come."

Robert Reich, The Great Debt Scare: Why Has It Returned?, Robert Reich's Blog, 10 June 2009.

Simon Johnson, China Pushes Hard, The Baseline Scenario, 01 June 2009.

Simon Johnson, Mr. Geithner Goes to China, The Baseline Scenario, 30 May 2009.

James Kwak, Regulatory Capital Arbitrage for Beginners, The Baseline Scenario, 30 May 2009.

Charles Hugh Smith, Why the Present Depression Will Be Deeper than the Great Crash of 1929, of two minds, 04 June 2009.

Simon Johnson, Brazen Tunneling and Inflation, The Baseline Scenario, 28 May 2009.

Geopolitics:

Pepe Escobar, Blue Gold, Turkmen Bashes, and Asian Grids: Pipelineistan in Conflict (Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: Pepe Escobar, Pipelineistan Goes Af-Pak), TomDispatch, TomDispatch.com, 12 May 2009.

John Taylor, Exploding debt threatens America, FT.com, 27 May 2009.

Mark Danner & Bruce Fein, Democracy and Empire, Bill Moyers' Jorunal, 01 May 2009.

The above is a supplement to:

Mark Danner & Bruce Fein, Bill Moyers' Jorunal, 01 May 2009.

David Pilling, The truth of the US’ Pakistan clinch, FT.com, 10 June 2009.

Gary Leupp, The Main Result of the "War on Terror": The Destabilization of Pakistan, CounterPunch.org, 29 May 2009.

The U.S. Police / Security / Surveilance State:

Naomi Klein, China's All-Seeing Eye, Rolling Stone, 29 May 2008.

"With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export."

Tim Dickinson, Under Surveillance: Q&A With Naomi Klein, Rolling Stone, 29 May 2008.

China's All-Seeing Eye: A Nation Under Surveillance : Photos, Rolling Stone.

Glenn Greenwald, Defeat of Graham-Lieberman and the ongoing war on transparency, Salon.com, 09 June 2009.

** Glenn Greenwald, The Illegal Spying Game, played over and over, Salon.com, 18 June 2009.

James Risen & Eric Lichtblau, E-Mail Surveillance Renews Concerns in Congress, The New York Times, 16 June 2009.

Militarism:

Robert Draper, And He Shall Be Judged, GQ, men.style.com, June 2009.

On Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon's Bible-quoting intelligence reports.

Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Afghanistan/Pakistan: Where Empires Go to Die, truthout, 15 May 2009.

* Chris Hedges, The Disease of Permanent War, truthout, 18 May 2009.

Howard Zinn, Changing Obama's Military Mindset, The Progressive, May 2009.

"Obama once said, 'It's not enough to get out of Iraq; we have to get out of the mindset that led us into Iraq.' What happened to that Obama?"

Also published at AlterNet.org and CommonDreams.org.

Norman Solomon, The March of Folly, Continued, CommonDreams.org, 21 May 2009.

Carol E. Lee, Barack Obama pledges to keep U.S. 'dominance', Politico.com, 22 May 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, Hailing the leader as a War President and the powers that go with it, Salon.com, 21 May 2009.

"Does America have any other kind of President besides War Presidents?"

Jeremy Scahill, Obama Has 250,000 'Contractors' Deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and is Increasing the Use of Mercenaries, AlterNet.org, 01 June 2009.

Jeremy Scahill on Today's War, Bill Moyers' Journal, 05 June 2009.

Michael M. Phillips, Army Deploys Old Tactic in PR War, WSJ.com, 01 June 2009.

Torture:

Juan Cole, The hidden hand of Dick Cheney, Salon.com, 13 May 2009.

Dan Balz, As Cheney Seizes Spotlight, Many Republicans Wince, The Washington Post, 14 May 2009.

Marcy Wheeler, The 13 people who made torture possible, Salon.com, 18 May 2009.

Jonathan S. Landay & Warren P. Strobel, Cheney's speech ignored some inconvenient truths, McClatchy Newspapers, 21 May 2009.

Joe Conason, Another round for democracy, Salon.com, 22 May 2009.

Ben Armbruster, Liz Cheney Reveals That Fear Of Prosecution Motivates Dad’s Media Blitz Defending Torture, Think Progress, 22 May 2009.

Robert Parry, New York Times Helps the Bushies, Again, The Smirking Chimp, 22 May 2009.

Alfred W. McCoy, Confronting the CIA's Mind Maze: America's Political Paralysis Over Torture, TomDispatch.com, 07 June 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, How civilized, law-abiding countries imprison terrorists, Salon.com, 10 June 2009.

Sociology, Culture, etc.:

* William Astore, Selling Education, Manufacturing Technocrats, Torturing Souls: The Tyranny of Being Practical (Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: William Astore, Educating Ourselves to Oblivion), TomDispatch, 28 May 2009.

Rick Shenkman, How Ignorant Are We?: The Voters Choose ... but on the Basis of What?, TomDispatch, 01 July 2008.

Shenkman is the author most recently of: Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter, New York: Basic Books, 2008.
(publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)

Patchwork Nation: American communities in a time of change, The Christian Science Monitor.

Martin Felando, Introduction to The 5 Moments, The 5 Moments, June 2009.

Describes the structure of movie/film screenplays.

Science:

Jonah Lehrer, Don’t!: The secret of self-control, The New Yorker, 18 May 2009.

Peter Aldhous, Humans prefer cockiness to expertise, New Scientist, 10 June 2009.

Propaganda:

Dean Baker, Reporters With Pom-Poms: Cheerleading the Recovery, CounterPunch, 03 June 2009.

Modern Media Madness: Brooke Gladstone and Jay Rosen on the hype and the headlines, Bill Moyers Journal, 05 June 2009.

Michael M. Phillips, Army Deploys Old Tactic in PR War, WSJ.com, 01 June 2009.

NYT's Pentagon Propaganda: Misleading report on Guantánamo and terrorism, FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy in Media, 27 May 2009.

James Fallows, More on Obama and "educational" rhetoric, James Fallows' blog at TheAtlantic.com, 17 June 2009.

* Glenn Greenwald, The Washington Post fires its best columnist. Why?, Salon.com, 18 June 2009.

** Glenn Greenwald, The Washington Post, Dan Froomkin and the establishment media, Salon.com, 19 June 2009.

U.S. Politics & Government:

James Ridgeway, A Brief History of the Radical, Violent Right: How Racist Hate Groups Joined Up with Abortion Terrorists, AlterNet, 06 June 2009.

Willem Buiter, The browning of America, FT.com, 30 May 2009.

In this article "browning" means something like "decreasing Green" where "Green" refers to Environmentalism, public policy that controls human impact on the Earth.

American Dissenters, Bill Moyers Journal, 12 June 2009.

Celebrating Thomas Paine, Bill Moyers Journal, 12 June 2009.

Thomas Paine, Wikipedia.

Glenn Greenwald, House Democrats prioritize loyalty to the president over their own judgment, Salon.com, 17 June 2009.

"A primary criticism of the GOP Congress was excessive loyalty to the president. Has that changed in the Obama era?"

Astronomy

2009-06-04T12:32:00.003-05:00

William Castleman, "Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party."

via: Ethan Siegel, Wide-Angle Lenses and Astronomy, Starts With A Bang!, 29 May 2009.

The Global Economic Crisis

2009-05-29T00:34:00.004-05:00

Harry Kreisler's series Conversations with History recently assembled a thematic group of Conversations on "The Global Economic Crisis." (The list below may include more Conversations than were in that group.)

Niall Ferguson: The Ascent of Money, 22 October 2008.

Publications mentioned in this Conversation:
- Niall Ferguson. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. The Penguin Press, November 2008.
  (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)
- Niall Ferguson. The Cash Nexus: Economics And Politics From The Age Of Warfare Through The Age Of Welfare, 1700-2000. New York: Basic Books, 2002.
  (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)

Barry Eichengreen: Historical Perspective on the Global Economic Crisis, 22 January 2009.

Publications mentioned in this Conversation:
- Barry Eichengreen & Richard Baldwin, editors. Rescuing our jobs and savings: What G7/8 leaders can do to solve the global credit crisis, VoxEU.org, October 2008.
- Barry Eichengreen. The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond. Princeton University Press, 2006, 2008.
  (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)
- Barry Eichengreen. Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System, second edition. Princeton University Press, 2008.
  (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)

David M. Kennedy: Lessons from FDR's New Deal, 03 February 2009.

Publications mentioned in this Conversation:
- David M. Kennedy. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. Oxford University Press, 2001.
  (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)
- David M. Kennedy. Over Here: The First World War and American Society. Oxford University Press, 1980, 2004.
  (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)
- David M. Kennedy. Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger. Yale University Press, 1970; ACLS Humanities reprint & e-book, 2008.
  (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)
- James M. McPherson. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford University Press, 1988.
  (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)

Martin Wolf: Causes and Consequences of Global Economic Collapse, 19 February 2009.

Publications mentioned in this Conversation:
- Martin Wolf. Fixing Global Finance. The Johns Hopkins University Press, September 2008.
  (publisher; Amazon.com.)
- Martin Wolf. Why Globalization Works, second edition. Yale University Press, 2005.
  (publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com.)
- Martin Wolf at the Financial Times.

James A. Leach: Congress, Globalization, and the Economic Crisis, 17 March 2009.

In contrast to the above episodes on Economics, I found greater personal interest & inspiration in Harry's recent Conversations with scientists:
Lucy Shapiro;
John Harte;
Neil Shubin;
Amory Lovins.

2009-05-17T10:56:00.004-05:00

Political Economy:

John Bogle, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 28 September 2007.
(John Bogle "is the founder and retired CEO of The Vanguard Group." [Wikipedia])

* Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler, Countours of Crisis: Part I, Dollars & Sense (also archived at GlobalResearch.ca), 31 December 2008.

Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler, Countours of Crisis: Part II, Dollars & Sense (also archived at GlobalResearch.ca), 28 April 2009.

Milestones in the Carmakers’ Crisis: Major events in the automakers' decline and rescue efforts, The New York Times, 16 February 2009.
Points to NYT articles from July 2008 through April 2009.

Yalman Onaran, Colleges Flunk Economics Test as Harvard Model Destroys Budgets, Bloomberg.com, 01 May 2009.

Dwight Cass & Edward Hadas, Banks Are Prevailing in a Tug of War, The New York Times and BreakingViews.com, 03 May 2009.

Allan H. Meltzer, Inflation Nation, The New York Times, 03 May 2009.

Paul Krugman, A history lesson for Alan Meltzer, Krugman's blog at The New York Times, 04 May 2009.

Devin Leonard, How Lehman Got Its Real Estate Fix, The New York Times, 03 May 2009.

Robert Kuttner, Reviving Pecora's Ghost, The Huffington Post, 03 May 2009.

Pecora Part II?, Bill Moyers' Journal, 24 April 2009.

Heist!
(When I saw this website it had a 15 minute trailer for the film, in addition to links to the interviewees publications and other information.)

Dean Baker, Outsourcing Top Management: The Lesson of Fiat-Chrysler, The Huffington Post, 04 May 2009.

Matthew Richardson & Nouriel Roubini, We Can't Subsidize the Banks Forever, WSJ.com, 05 May 2009.

Greg Mitchell, How Media Will Pay for Poor Warning on Financial Collapse, The Huffington Post, 05 May 2009.

* Robert L. Borosage, Corruption Is Dangerous to Your Health, The Huffington Post, 05 May 2009.

Michael J. Moore & Jamie McGee, Wall Street Firms Will Revert to Pre-Crisis Model, Cohen Says, Bloomberg.com, 05 May 2009.

RandySF, Mark Penn: Obama Might Offend the Wealthy, Daily Kos, DailyKos.com, 05 May 2009.

Shiyin Chen & Liza Lin, Global Crisis ‘Vastly Worse’ Than 1930s, Taleb Says, Bloomberg.com, 07 May 2009.

William Greider, The Good Times as We Knew it Aren't Coming Back, So Now What?, AlterNet.org, 08 May 2009.

Martin Wolf, Why Obama’s conservatism may not prove good enough, FT.com, 12 May 2009.

* Nouriel Roubini, The Almighty Renminbi?, The New York Times, 13 May 2009.

Dean Starkman, Power Problem: The business press did everything but take on the institutions that brought down the financial system, Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 2009.

Tyler Durden, CT Attorney General: "It's Time To Shatter The Old Boys Club Of Rating Agencies", Zero Hedge, 14 May 2009.

* Tyler Durden, Mark Patterson: "It's A Sham. The Banks Are Insolvent", Zero Hedge, 14 May 2009.

Anthony Faiola & Lori Montgomery, Trade Wars Launched With Ruses, End Runs, The Washington Post, 15 May 2009.

Ryan Chittum, So That’s Why the Press Won’t Cover Elizabeth Warren!: NPR badgers oversight panel chair over her legitimacy, The Audit, Columbia Journalism Review, 15 May 2009.

Jason Linkins, "Planet Money" Reporter Paints Elizabeth Warren As Agenda-Driven, The Huffington Post, 15 May 2009.

Yves Smith, Thought Police I: More Analysis of NPR Trying to Discredit Elizabeth Warren, naked capitalism, 15 May 2009.

Yves Smith, Thought Police II: Media Airbrushing (Including Removal of Article With Negative Comments on TARP), naked capitalism, 15 May 2009.

Special Feature: Inside The Banking Crisis, Bill Moyers' Journal.

This page assembles episodes and segments related to U.S. economic news over the last few years.

Josh Harkinson, How the Nation’s Only State-Owned Bank Became the Envy of Wall Street, Mother Jones Blog, 27 March 2009.

* Edward Harrison, Guest post: A populist interpretation of the latest Boom-Bust cycle, naked capitalism, 15 May 2009.

* Jesse, The Worst Is Yet to Come, Jesse's Café Américain, 15 May 2009.

"Today reminds me of the briefly sunny period in 1930-1 when most economists and public officials agreed that the Depression was already over and the economy was back on track."

Geopolitics:

Richard Spencer, China's growth more Occident than design, Telegraph.co.uk, 09 April 2009.

Pepe Escobar, The myth of Talibanistan, Asia Times, 30 April 2009.

"The Taliban's activities in Buner in Pakistan - which prompted a sharp response from the military - have raised concern over the country to the level of hysteria; that it is about to fall to an army of turbans. This is not going to happen. What is happening is that the United States, to legitimize the next stage in the Af-Pak war, is creating a new uber-bogeyman - Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud."

Shahan Mufti & Juan Cole, Bill Moyers' Journal, 15 May 2009.

Jalal Ghazi, America Creating 'Talibanization' in Pakistan, Say Arab Media, New America Media, 15 May 2009.

Jeremy Scahill, US Soldiers in Afghanistan Told to "Hunt People for Jesus... So We Get Them into the Kingdom" (Video), The Huffington Post, 04 May 2009.

Jeff Sharlet, Jesus Killed Mohammed: The Crusade for a Christian Military, Harper's Magazine, May 2009.

Neela Banerjee, Religion and Its Role Are in Dispute at the Service Academies, The New York Times, 25 June 2008.

Michael Scheuer, Obama’s Afghan-Ignorant Policy Guide, AntiWar.com, 06 May 2009.

Malcolm Gladwell, How David Beats Goliath, The New Yorker, 11 May 2009.

Geography:

The Hot Spots for Organic Food [Farms, actually], The New York Times, 02 May 2009.
Some interesting maps associated with the article.

Militarism, Propaganda, Torture:

Rachel Weiner, Mike Pence Descends Into Gibberish After Evolution Questions From Chris Matthews (VIDEO), The Huffington Post, 05 May 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, Obama administration threatens Britain to keep torture evidence concealed, Salon.com, 12 May 2009.

* Siv O'Neall, Will Democracy Forever Remain an Illusion?, Axis of Logic, 12 May 2009.
Also posted at The Smirking Chimp.

Rory O'Connor, Why Is the Mainstream Media Seduced by Torture?, AlterNet, 13 May 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, The massive expansion of America's "Hard Left", Salon.com, 13 May 2009.

Jennifer Steinhauer, Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More, The New York Times, 13 May 2009.

For a good introduction to U.S. militarism see: Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, Oxford University Press, August 2006 (publisher; Amazon.com; "Conversations with History").

Joe Conason, We tortured to justify war, Salon.com, 14 May 2009.

Alex Koppelman, Cheney's torture trap for Democrats, Salon.com, 15 May 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, We wouldn't want to inflame anti-American sentiment, Salon.com, 14 May 2009.

2009-04-30T21:46:00.004-05:00

Essays, etc.:

Edward Harrison, How big banks earned so much money this quarter, naked capitalism, 22 April 2009.

David Fiderer, IMF Numbers Show a Great Economic Hole That Will Frame Partisan Debate, The Huffington Post, 22 April 2009.

Matt McGrath, World's major rivers 'drying up', BBC News, 22 April 2009.

Clare Davidson, Why water, oil and coal do mix, BBC News, 09 February 2009.
Explains how water is necessary for electric power generation. Has links to many other articles on water resources; see particularly: Mapping future water stress.

Andrea Ball, Despite recent rain, drought persists: Normal rainfall in 2009 still not enough to fix dry soil, low lakes, stressed plants., Austin American - Statesman, 25 April 2009.

Mark Schneider, Guatemala: the next to fall?, GlobalPost, 16 April 2009.
Another instance where poverty plus low social investment (schools, health care, etc) plus drug prohibition results in violence and corruption.

Glenn Greenwald, Meet the Press and the media's distortions of the prosecutions debate, Salon.com, 20 April 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, The Pulitzer-winning investigation that dare not be uttered on TV, Salon.com, 21 April 2009.
[Television networks employ and prominantly feature Pentagon propagandists.]

Glenn Greenwald, Jane Harman: Angry, partisan, civil liberties extremist, Salon.com, 21 April 2009.

* Glenn Greenwald, Three key rules of media behavior shape their discussions of "the 'torture' debate", Salon.com, 23 April 2009.

* James Kwak, The Missed Opportunity, The Baseline Scenario, 22 April 2009.
The comments here are quite good.

via: Andrew Leonard, Why do the banks think they can push Detroit around?, How the World Works, Salon.com, 22 April 2009.

James V. DeLong, The Coming of the Fourth American Republic, The American (an AEI publication), 21 April 2009.

Lewis testified that U.S. urged silence on Merrill deal, Reuters, 23 April 2009.

Eamonn Fingleton, How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years, CounterPunch.org, 23 April 2009.

Meanwhile, Fortune magazine says "The case began with his flabbergasting confession, which set off the investigation."
James Bandler & Nicholas Varchaver, How Bernie did it, Fortune, 24 April 2009.

Harry Markopolos, Wikipedia.

Allison Kilkenny, Noonology, The Smirking Chimp, 24 April 2009.

On torture apologist Peggy Noonan ("Some things in life need to be mysterious") and similar thinkers. Russ Feingold speaks for many. A recent Noonan column (24 Apr 2009).

Paul Krugman, Reclaiming America’s Soul, The New York Times, 24 April 2009.

The Hearing - An Economic Policy Discussion Moderated by Simon Johnson and James Kwak (of The Baseline Scenario), The Washington Post, initiated April 2009.

Jeremy Scahill, Are Leading Democrats Afraid of a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture?: Congress was Briefed in Real Time on Bush-Era Torture Tactics. Is That Why They Prefer Whitewash Commissions and Closed Door Hearings?, CounterPunch.org, 24 April 2009.

Frank Rich, The Banality of Bush White House Evil, The New York Times, 26 April 2009.

Tom Jacobs, Conservatives Live in a Different Moral Universe -- And Here's Why It Matters, AlterNet.org, 25 April 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, Democratic complicity and what "politicizing justice" really means, Salon.com, 24 April 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, David Broder and media culpability for Bush crimes, Salon.com, 26 April 2009.

* Glenn Greenwald, Top Senate Democrat: bankers "own" the U.S. Congress, Salon.com, 30 April 2009.

Andrew J. Bacevich, Farewell, the American Century: Rewriting the Past by Adding In What's Been Left Out (Tom Englehart, Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, Whose Century Was That?), TomDispatch, TomDispatch.com, 28 April 2009.

This essay also appears at Salon.com with video of Bacevich.

Daniel B. Wood, The Crisis Hasn't Hit Everywhere: 10 States Weathering the Economic Storm, AlterNet.org, 27 April 2009.

The states are: Alaska, Wyoming, Louisiana, Nebraska, Texas, Iowa, New Mexico, Utah, Oklahoma, South Dakota.
Not on the East or West coasts; lesser participation in housing boom; natural resources a large fraction of economy; diversified economy [the last two are not necessarially mutually exclusive, though historically in undeveloped states/nations the initial exploitation of natural resources is associated with a lack of economic diversification].

Karen J. Greenberg, Kiss the Era of Human Rights Goodbye: What Bush Willed to Obama and the World, (Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: Karen Greenberg, Human Rights in the Dust), TomDispatch, TomDispatch.com, 30 April 2009.

Mark Danner, The Red Cross Torture Report: What It Means, The New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 7, 30 April 2009.

Cenk Uygur, Condi Rice Pulls A Nixon: When the President Does It, That Means It is Not Illegal, The Huffington Post, 30 April 2009.
Also posted at DailyKos.
Includes video.

2009-04-22T19:04:00.004-05:00

Essays, etc.:

Linda Scott & Roberto Villalpando, Time lapse of drought conditions in Texas, Austin American-Statesman, updated weekly.

Edouard Husson, Dollar Hegemony and the Economics of Unilateralism: France and Germany have just missed another opportunity to challenge the dollar standard, AntiWar.com, 10 April 2009.

Michael Hudson, Financing the Empire, CounterPunch.org, 30 March 2009.

Philip Sherwell, Barack Obama uses Bush funding tactics to finance wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Telegraph.co.uk, 10 April 2009.

Justin Raimondo, The Suicide of the West: Who killed our economy -- "foreigners," or Washington, Wall Street, and the War Party?, AntiWar.com, 10 April 2009.

Eric Alterman, The Impressive Hypocrisy of the GOP, The Daily Beast, 09 April 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, New and worse secrecy and immunity claims from the Obama DOJ, Salon.com, 06 April 2009.

Paul Krugman, Tea Parties Forever, nytimes.com, 12 April 2009.

Rachel Weiner, Krugman: "Republicans Have Become Embarrassing To Watch", The Huffington Post, 13 April 2009.

Frank Rich, Awake and Sing!, The New York Times, 11 April 2009.

Keith Bradsher, China Slows Purchases of U.S. and Other Bonds, The New York Times, 12 April 2009.

Matt Taibbi, The peasant mentality lives on in America, The Smirking Chimp, 14 April 2009.

Terri Gross, Fighting America's 'Financial Oligarchy', Fresh Air, PBS, 15 April 2009.
Interview of Simon Johnson of The Baseline Scenario and author of The Quiet Coup, The Atlantic, May 2009.

Martin Wolf, Is America the new Russia?, FT.com, 14 April 2009.

See also:

Dmitry Orlov. Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects. Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada: New Society Publishers, June 2008.
(publisher; Google Book Search; Amazon.com)

Glenn Greenwald, The ultimate reaping of what one sows: right-wing edition, Salon.com, 14 April 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, How to Puff Up Earnings, Goldman Sachs Style, The Big Picture, 14 April 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, Fmr Secy O’Neil: TARP Goal Deceive Public, The Big Picture, 15 April 2009.

Michael Lind, America is not a Christian nation, Salon.com, 14 April 2009.
"Religious conservatives argue the Founding Fathers intended the United States to be a Judeo-Christian country. But President Obama is right when he says it isn't."

Glenn Greenwald, The differing views of the "rule of law" in Spain and the U.S., Salon.com, 14 April 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, The significance of Obama's decision to release the torture memos, Salon.com, 17 April 2009.

Chris Floyd, Tortured Logic: Obama Writes Off Old Crimes While Promoting New Outrages, Empire Burlesque, 16 April 2009.

Michael Hayden & Michael B. Mukasey, The President Ties His Own Hands on Terror, WSJ.com, 17 April 2009.
Bushies attempt to defend the indefensible.

Scott Shane, Waterboarding Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects, The New York Times, 19 April 2009.

Marcus Baram, Pundits Whitewash Torture, The Huffington Post, 19 April 2009.

Scott Shane & Mark Mazzetti, In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Look at Past Use, The New York Times, 21 April 2009.
Note: "Harsh Tactics" is the NYT euphemism for Torture.

Senator Carl Levin, New Report: Bush Officials Tried to Shift Blame for Detainee Abuse to Low-Ranking Soldiers, The Huffington Post, 21 April 2009.

Paul Krugman, Grand unified scandal, Paul Krugman Blog, 22 April 2009.

Drew Westen, The Five Strands of Conservatism: Why the GOP is Unraveling, The Huffington Post, 16 April 2009.

Martin Feldstein, Inflation is looming on America’s horizon, FT.com, 19 April 2009.

Nathan Gardels, The Coming Demise of the Dollar Reflects the Rise of the Rest, The Huffington Post, 21 April 2009.
An interview with Joseph Stiglitz.

Nelson D. Schwartz, Spain’s Falling Prices Fuel Deflation Fears in Europe, The New York Times, 20 April 2009.

Paul Krugman, China’s Dollar Trap, The New York Times, 02 April 2009.

Mark Engler, Neocon Fantasies of Empire Crushed: the New Global Reality, AlterNet.org, 21 April 2009.
Originally published as Empire Foreclosed?, Foreign Policy in Focus, 17 April 2009.

Hale "Bonddad" Stewart, If This Is An Improving Economy, We're In Trouble, The Huffington Post, 19 April 2009.
Antidote to deceptive happy-talk from various government officials.

naked capitalism : I often find the essays and links at this blog most instructive.

Link to notable recent IMF reports.

2009-04-09T13:58:00.004-05:00

Essays, etc.:

Matt Taibbi, The Big Takeover, Rolling Stone, 19 March 2009.
"The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution."

The Dirty Dozen, Rolling Stone, 25 March 2009.
"Meet the bankers and brokers responsible for the financial crisis - and the officials who let them get away with it."

Glenn Greenwald, A major difference between conservatives and progressives, Salon.com, 24 March 2009.

Extreme Ice, NOVA, PBS, 24 March 2009.

About the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets; a major issue is to understand the rate of melting and the increase of that rate. Don't overlook that episode's page of references to Links and Books. I especially recommend:

* Al Gore, New thinking on the climate crisis, TED.com, March 2008.

Thomas B. Edsall, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, The Huffington Post, 23 March 2009.

Yves Smith, Has the Gaming of the Public-Private Partnership Begun?, naked capitalism, 25 March 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, New Home Sales Fell 41% in February 2009, The Big Picture, 26 March 2009.

Steve Thompson & Tanya Eiserer, Dallas police chief apologizes for conduct of officer who drew gun on NFL player outside hospital, The Dallas Morning News, 26 March 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, Comparing the U.S. to Russia and Argentina, Salon.com, 26 March 2009.

Bill Moyers, William Greider on the Geithner Plan, Bill Moyers' Journal, PBS, 27 March 2009.

Nicholas Dawidoff, The Civil Heretic - Freeman Dyson, The New York Times Magazine, 29 March 2009.

Jeffrey Sachs, Making Rich Guys Richer, The Huffington Post, 29 March 2009.

Ann Pettifor, Challenging the Dogma of Yesterday's Men, The Huffington Post, 29 March 2009.

** Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, The Atlantic, May 2009.

"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time."

James Kwak, What the IMF Would Tell the United States, If It Could, The Baseline Scenario, 26 March 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, Britain responds to the "rule of law" nuisance, Salon.com, 27 March 2009.

* Michael Hudson, Financing the Empire, CounterPunch.org, 30 March 2009.

James K. Galbraith, No Return to Normal: Why the economic crisis, and its solution, are bigger than you think, The Washington Monthly, March/April 2009.

Obama Administration, The Costs of Inaction: the Urgent Need for Health Reform, HealthReform.gov, 30 March 2009.

Jonathan Chait, Why the Democrats Can't Govern, The New Republic, 15 April 2009.

Peter Finn & Joby Warrick, Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots, The Washington Post, 29 March 2009.

Dan Froomkin, Bush's Torture Rationale Debunked, WashingtonPost.com, 30 March 2009.

Susie Madrak, The Torture Apologists Have No Place Left To Hide, Crooks and Liars, 30 March 2009.

Sam Tanenhaus, Conservatism Is Dead: An intellectual autopsy of the movement, The New Republic, 18 February 2009.

Alan Wolfe, Conservatism and a Tale of Two Kristols, TNR.com, 09 February 2009.

Barry Ritholtz, Financial Institutions, Market Cap, 1999-2009, The Big Picture, 31 March 2009.

This image captures an important part of "the big picture."

William Greider, Trust Your Guts, The Nation, 26 March 2009.

(This article appears at AlterNet.org under the title "A Scary Corporate Coup Is Under Way -- We've Got to Stop It." It covers similar ground as the articles by M. Taibbi and S. Johnson above.)

Michael Osinski, My Manhattan Project: How I helped build the bomb that blew up Wall Street, New York, 29 March 2009.

Felix Salmon, Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street, Wired, 23 February 2009.

James Kwak, Structured Finance for Beginners, The Baseline Scenario, 29 March 2009.

Yves Smith, Japanese Expert Criticizes US Wishful Thinking on Economic Crisis, naked capitalism, 02 April 2009.

Thomas Geoghegan, Infinite debt: How unlimited interest rates destroyed the economy, Harper's Magazine, April 2009.

About an economy based upon Usury.

Der Spiegel staff, Joseph Stiglitz: "It's going to be bad, very bad", Salon.com, 03 April 2009.

Jeffrey Sachs, The Geithner-Summers Plan is Even Worse Than We Thought, The Huffington Post, 08 April 2009.

Bill Moyers & Michael Winship, Obama: Stop protecting Wall Street bankers from Main Street, Salon.com, 09 April 2009.

Bill Moyers, William K. Black: CSI Bailout, Bill Moyers' Journal, PBS, 03 April 2009.

Glenn Greenwald, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and Wall Street's ownership of government, Salon.com, 04 April 2009.

2009-03-24T23:30:00.003-05:00

Essays, etc.:

The Future of Capitalism, Financial Times, FT.com, 2009.

Robert Dreyfuss, The Freeman Affair: Is the Israeli Lobby Running Scared? Or Killing a Chicken to Scare the Monkeys, Tomgram, TomDispatch.com, 15 March 2009.

Danny Schechter, Is the Hunter Being Captured by the Game? How the Permanent Power Structure Is Trying to Stop Obama, The Smirking Chimp, 16 March 2009.

Sneezing Panda.

Scott Horton, The Heirs of Father Coughlin, No Comment blog at Harper's Magazine Harpers.org, 17 March 2009.

Dave Lindorff, Who's calling the shots now? The Death of American Empire, The Smirking Chimp, 18 March 2009.

Simon Johnson, Causes of a Great Inflation: Tunneling for Resurrection, The Baseline Scenario, 19 March 2009.

Robert Freeman, Does America Face the Risk of a Fascist Backlash?, AlterNet.org, 19 March 2009.

Michael Lewis, Mass Hysteria Over AIG Obscures Simple Truths, Bloomberg.com, 20 March 2009.

Frank Rich, Has a ‘Katrina Moment’ Arrived?, The New York Times, 22 March 2009.

Henry Blodget, Geithner's Five Big Misconceptions, The huffington Post, 23 March 2009.

I am certain that Mr. Geithner does not hold these misconceptions personally; rather, I believe that these misconceptions are being foisted on the ignorant (and powerless) taxpayers by public officials and others (establishment propagandists) to the benefit of the owners and creditors of the banks and who would otherwise experience catastrophic (to them) losses if the ordinary rules and practices that apply to everybody else were followed.

Paul Krugman, Financial Policy Despair, The New York Times, 23 March 2009.

David Barboza, China Urges New Money Reserve to Replace Dollar, The New York Times, 23 March 2009.

Andrew Batson, China Takes Aim at Dollar, WSJ.com, 24 March 2009.

In his press conference 24 March 2009, President Obama said explicitly he does not think the world needs a new international reserve currency. I expect such a currency will emerge despite U.S. objections within a generation, perhaps by 2030 or 2040.

Barry Ritholtz, The Annual Existing Home Sales MSM Errata, The Big Picture, 24 March 2009.

A widespread misinterpretation of economic statistics by the mainstream media is no accident.

Mark Danner, US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites, The New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 6, 09 April 2009.

Current Reading

Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, 2e (2002)

Rojas, The Sorrows of Carmencita: Argentina's Crisis in a Historical Perspective (2002)

Blustein, And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out): Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina (2005)

Manolopoulos, Greece's 'Odious' Debt: The Looting of the Hellenic Republic by the Euro, the Political Elite and the Investment Community (2011)

Kyle Bass and the World Economic Outlook: conversations and interview

Filkins, The Forever War (2008)

The U.S. Police State: Occupy Wall Street, Part 10

Video and Radio: Occupy Wall Street, Part 9

Occupy Music: Occupy Wall Street, Part 8

Occupy Los Angeles Teach In: Occupy Wall Street, Part 7

Occupy the Hood: Occupy Wall Street, Part 6

More Links: Occupy Wall Street, Part 5

On the Social Consequences of Economic Austerity: Policies of Economic Cruelty

Eugene Jarecki, Move Your Money (2009)

Occupy Wall Street, Part 4: More Articles, Some Video

Occupy Wall Street, Part 3: Recent Articles and Videos

Occupy Wall Street, Part 2: What & Why are they protesting? Some answers.

Steve Keen: Interview 08 Oct 2011 and Launch Video 09 Oct 2011

Occupy Wall Street, Part 1: Alternative Media Reactions to an Episode of Corporate Propaganda

Bacevich, "Tailors to the Emperor"

Alex Schaefer, artist (painter)

Smith, "Why Liberals Are Lame: McCarthyite Identity Politics as Cover for Bankrupt Policies"

Roy Zimmerman, musician

Curtis, "The Curse of TINA"

Curtis, The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom (2007)

Chomsky, Understanding Power (2002)

Keen, "A much more nebulous conception"

Charles Hugh Smith, "Currency Wars, Trade and the Consuming Crisis of Capitalism"

Smith, "The Decline of Manufacturing in America: A Case Study"

Lofgren, "Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult"

John Michael Greer, "The Twilight of Meaning"

Yafa, Big Cotton (2005)

Smith, ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism (2010)

Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital: 1848-1875 (1975; 1996)

Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming (2008)

Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 (1962; 1996)

Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2007)

Flannery, The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People (1994)

Baker, Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy (2009)

Baker, The United States since 1980 (2007)

Links: U.S. Politics & Government

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Links: Science, Medicine, and Policy

Links: Geopolitics

Links: Political Economy

Links: U.S. Politics & Government

Links: Propaganda, Media, Manufacturing Consent

Links: Sociology, Culture, etc.

Links: Science & Science Policy

Links: Geopolitics

Links: U.S. Politics & Government

Links: Political Economy

Links: Militarism, War

Links: Propaganda, Media, Manufacturing Consent, Social Control

Links: Sociology, Culture, etc.

Links: Science & Science Policy

Links: Geopolitics

Links: U.S. Politics & Government

Links: Political Economy

James Bamford, A Pretext for War (2005)

James Fallows on China

Astronomy

The Global Economic Crisis