Kevin's home of interesting stuff: March 2015

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

America: The "Nursing Home" Economy | Zero Hedge

America: The "Nursing Home" Economy | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Bill Bonner via Acting-Man blog,

Victims of Demography

The key feature of age is that it happens no matter what you think. What does this mean? It means the “old countries” – their assets and their institutions, at least the ones that depend on population, income and credit growth – are “fastened to a dying animal” and are not likely to survive in their present form.

Today, these countries, including the US, are victims of demography. Older people get more money from the government. And they pay less in taxes. Old people also slow the rate of GDP, for obvious reasons: They are not adding to output; they are living on it.

As people age, the whole society – its institutions, its laws, its customs, its economy and its markets – ages, too. They all become as familiar, comfortable and shabby as a well-worn shoe. An economy is not independent of the people in it. The economy ages with them. And when they reach retirement age, the economy gets arthritis.

ClubOrlov: License to Kill

ClubOrlov: License to Kill: Jakub Rozalski The story is the same every time: some nation, due to a confluence of lucky circumstances, becomes powerful—much more pow...

Monday, 30 March 2015

The Way Out | KUNSTLER

The Way Out | KUNSTLER

It’s not what most people think: a return to some hypothetical “normality,” with the ghost of Ronnie Reagan beaming down like a sun-god under his lopsided pompadour, and all the happy self-driving GM cars toodling back and forth from WalMart-to-home loaded to the scuppers with new electric pop-tart warmers and 3-D underwear printers. (Or drone deliveries of same from Amazon.com.)

I mean, surely the thinking folk out there must be asking themselves: what is the way out of this Federal Reserve three-card-monte, one-percenter-stuffing, so-called “economy,” and what is the destination of this society when that mendacious model for living fails?

The New Normal: Making Up Your Mind For You | Zero Hedge

The New Normal: Making Up Your Mind For You | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog

Increasingly over the past year or so, when people ask me what I do, and that happens a lot on a trip like the one I’m currently on in the world of down under, I find myself not just stating the usual ‘I write about finance and energy’, but adding: ‘it seems to become more and more about geopolitics too’. And it’s by no means just me: a large part of the ‘alternative finance blogosphere’, or whatever you wish to call it, is shifting towards that same orientation.

Not that no-one ever wrote about geopolitics before, but it used to be far less prevalent. Much of that, I think, has to do with a growing feeling of discontent with the manner in which a number of topics are handled by the major media and the political world. Moreover, as would seem obvious, certain topics lay bare in very transparent ways how finance and geopolitics are intertwined.

In the past year, we’ve seen the crash of the oil price, which will have – financial and political – effects in the future that dwarf what we’ve seen thus far. We’ve seen Europe and its banks stepping up their efforts to wrestle Greece into – financial and political – submission. And then there’s the nigh unparalleled propaganda machine that envelops the Ukraine-Crimea-Russia issue, which has bankrupted the economy of the first and imposed heavy economic sanctions on the latter, for political reasons.

The Burning Platform

The Burning Platform

Obituary – March 25

Donald Alexander Malcolm Jr.

Captain Donald Alexander Malcolm Jr., 60, died Feb. 28, 2015, nestled in the bosom of his family, while smoking, drinking whiskey and telling lies. He died from complications resulting from being stubborn, refusing to go to the doctor, and raising hell for six decades. Stomach cancer also played a minor role in his demise.

Don cherished family above all else, and was a beloved husband, father and grandfather. He met his future wife, Maureen (Moe) Belisle Malcolm, after months at sea, crab fishing. He found her in his bed and decided to keep her. Their daughter Melissa was born “early” six months later. They decided to have a boy a couple years later, and ended up with another daughter, Megan. He taught his girls how to hold their liquor, filet a fish and change a tire. He took pride in his daughters, but his greatest joy in life was the birth of his grandson Marley, a child to whom he could impart all of his wisdom that his daughters ignored.

Facebook Reveals its Master Plan – Control All News Flow | Liberty Blitzkrieg

Facebook Reveals its Master Plan – Control All News Flow | Liberty Blitzkrieg

Michael Krieger | Posted Tuesday Mar 24, 2015 at 1:49 pm

In recent months, Facebook has been quietly holding talks with at least half a dozen media companies about hosting their content inside Facebook rather than making users tap a link to go to an external site.

The new proposal by Facebook carries another risk for publishers: the loss of valuable consumer data. When readers click on an article, an array of tracking tools allow the host site to collect valuable information on who they are, how often they visit and what else they have done on the web.

And if Facebook pushes beyond the experimental stage and makes content hosted on the site commonplace, those who do not participate in the program could lose substantial traffic — a factor that has played into the thinking of some publishers. Their articles might load more slowly than their competitors’, and over time readers might avoid those sites.

- From the New York Times article: Facebook May Host News Sites’ Content

Last night, I came across an incredibly important article from theNew York Times, which described Facebook’s plan to provide direct access to other websites’ content in exchange for some sort of advertising partnership. The implications of this are so huge that at this point I have far more questions than answers.

Sunday, 29 March 2015

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Repeal, Don’t Reform the IMF!

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Repeal, Don’t Reform the IMF!

written by ron paul

march 29, 2015

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A responsible financial institution would not extend a new loan of between 17 and 40 billion dollars to a borrower already struggling to pay back an existing multi-billion dollar loan. Yet that is just what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) did last month when it extended a new loan to the government of Ukraine. This new loan may not make much economic sense, but propping up the existing Ukrainian government serves the foreign policy agenda of the US government.

Since the IMF receives most of its funding from the United States, it is hardly surprising that it would tailor its actions to advance the US government’s foreign policy goals. The IMF also has a history of using the funds provided to it by the American taxpayer to prop up dictatorial regimes and support unsound economic policies.

Frost Heaves « The Burning Platform

Frost Heaves « The Burning Platform

Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer

Each year around this time the local road crews begin posting the 6 ton limit signs on the secondary roads. What happens is that as the daily thaws near the surface freezes overnight above the frost line in the subsoil, the paved roads begin to rise and the following day as it thaws once more, fall into declivities leaving a washboard of ruined macadam in its wake. The weight of vehicles that roll over these paved areas determine the extent of damge left behind with larger vehicles inflicting the most damage.

The longer the period of thawing and the deeper the years frost line render the verdict for each road, some ruined permanently, other left with easily recognized soft spots and ruts that locals drive around like a blind horse for the next eight months when Winter sets the roads up once more in deep ice and some form of drive-ability. I have no idea how much cumulative damage is done to alignments, under-bodies, u-joints and exposed electrical wires, but if cast off hubcaps and randomly worn tires are a sign, it’s got to be in the high hundreds of millions. At least there is a seasonal version of job security for those handy enough with tools to fix the problems caused by the frost heaves.

We’ve learned that the snow always melts over the septic tank first, that the grasses have already begun to green up before the last of the snow is gone, and that when you see plumes of white smoke rising above the clefts and folds of the local valley it isn’t fire that’s causing it, it’s steam jetting skyward from the countless evaporators hidden in sugarhouses throughout the area. A sugarhouse is a simple affair, usually longer than wider, often windowless featuring a huge store of firewood parked under an adjacent overhang where it is easily accessible. Atop the sugarhouse is what appears to be a smaller version built centrally with louvers that drop down on hinges to rest on the sugarhpuse roof when it is in operation.

Saturday, 28 March 2015

A Tale Of Two Streets: Main Street Lagging, Wall Street Booming | Zero Hedge

A Tale Of Two Streets: Main Street Lagging, Wall Street Booming | Zero Hedge

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

The most important number in yesterday’s GDP revisions for Q4 was $16.20 trillion. That’s the annualized constant dollar (2009 $) value of final sales during the quarter and, naturally, it was not mentioned in any of the media reports. But its important because the final sales figures strains out the noise of quarterly inventory fluctuations, and thereby provides a reasonable benchmark for where the overall economy currently stands.

In that context, the second most important number was $14.97 trillion—the real final sales number recorded for Q4 2007 on the eve of the Great Recession. As a matter of calculation, the rate of change between those two points over the last seven years is 1.1% per annum, and it embodies the tale of how main street is lagging while Wall Street is booming.

The starting point for appreciating that proposition, therefore, is to recognize that there is no point whatsoever in comparing the Q4 figure with the prior quarter—–or even with the cumulative gain since the bottom of the recession back in June 2009. Those kinds of comparisons are the gist of the Keynesian narrative that both Wall Street and Washington assiduously peddle—-but they are designed to rationalize the status quo, not to elucidate the real condition of our national economy.

"We're Just One Archduke Away..." | Zero Hedge

"We're Just One Archduke Away..." | Zero Hedge

The American Dream Part 2 - We Now Live In A "Pimpocracy" | Zero Hedge

The American Dream Part 2 - We Now Live In A "Pimpocracy" | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Bill Bonner via Acting-Man blog,

Shabby Immensity

Today, we continue mouth wide open (Part 1 here) … staggered by the shabby immensity of it … a tear forming in the corner of our eye.

Yes, we are looking at how the US economy, money and government have changed since President Nixon ended the gold-backed monetary system in 1971. It is not pretty.

We already know about the money. Since 1971, it’s been a credit-based, not a gold-based, system. The pre-1971 economy had three key characteristics:

1) It was healthy – Industry made things and sold them at a profit

2) It was fair – Financial progress was fairly evenly distributed.

3) It was solvent – The US was a creditor, not a debtor, nation.

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Cartoon by David Horsey

De-Dollarization Continues As Russia Seeks AIIB Membership | Zero Hedge

De-Dollarization Continues As Russia Seeks AIIB Membership | Zero Hedge

As we noted a week ago, Vladimir Putin’s calls for a Eurasian currency union clearly demonstrate that the Russian President is acutely aware of the fact that the unipolar world of the 1980s is long gone. Putin’s security council also made it clear this week that the Kremlin is well aware that the sole aim of US foreign policy is preserving Western hegemony via an implicit (and sometimes explicit) policy ofcontainment aimed at perpetuating the idea of US exceptionalism. Moscow then took the rhetoric up a notch on Thursday, accusing the US of attempting to take the “mutual” out of “mutually assured destruction” (i.e. Moscow thinks Washington is trying to tip the nuclear power balance).

Given all of this, we weren’t surprised to learn that Putin is now backing a Russian bid for membership in China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (for a summary of AIIB developments, see here). Here’s more via RT:

Why We Feel So Poor (In Two Charts) | Zero Hedge

Why We Feel So Poor (In Two Charts) | Zero Hedge

Submitted by John Rubino via Dollar Collapse blog,

Among the many things that mystify economists these days, the biggest might be the lingering perception, despite six years of ostensible recovery, that the average person is getting poorer rather than richer. Lots of culprits come in for blame, including the growing gap between the 1% and everyone else, negative interest rates (which starve savers and retirees of income) and the crappy nature of the new jobs being created in this recovery.

But one that doesn’t get much mention is the changing nature of the bills we’re paying. It seems that Americans are spending a lot more on health care, which leaves less for everything else. Here’s an excerpt from a MarketWatch report of a couple of weeks back, with two charts that tell the tale:

"Electric Cars Are Doing More Harm Than Good" Professor Warns | Zero Hedge

"Electric Cars Are Doing More Harm Than Good" Professor Warns | Zero Hedge

"An electric car does not make you green... You’re better off filling up at the pump," if you live in Canada. According to a new study by professor Chris Kennedy, even if every driver in Canada made the switch - from gas to electric - the total emissions might not actually go down... since in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, electric cars generate more carbon pollution over their lifetimes than gas-powered cars. Paging Al Gore...

As CBC reports, trying to go green by replacing your gas guzzler with an electric car? In some provinces, that may actually be worse for the environment, a University of Toronto researcher says.

The Enemy of My Enemy « The Burning Platform

The Enemy of My Enemy « The Burning Platform

The Enemy of My Enemy

Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan

The forces that do not want a U.S. nuclear deal with Iran, nor any U.S. detente with Iran, are impressive.

Among them are the Israelis and their powerful lobby AIPAC, the Saudis and their Sunni allies on the Persian Gulf, a near unanimity of Republicans and a plurality of Democrats in Congress.

Is there a case to be made for a truce in the venomous conflict that has gone on between us since the taking of U.S. hostages in 1979? Is there any common ground?

To both questions, President Obama and John Kerry believe the answer is yes. And they are not without an argument.

OPERATION JADE HELM « The Burning Platform

OPERATION JADE HELM « The Burning Platform

Know your enemy. They know who their enemy is – YOU.

Special forces set to swarm Southwest and operate undetected among civilians in massive military exercise

Operation Jade Helm will see 1,200 service members including Green Berets and SEALs and special forces from the Air Force and Marines in July
Soldiers armed with blank rounds will operate in and around towns in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado for 8 weeks
The so-called Realistic Military Training has some residents fearful the drill is a preparation for martial law

Seven Southwestern states will soon be infiltrated by 1,200 military special ops personnel as part of a controversial domestic military training in which some of the elite soldiers will operate undetected among civilians.

Operation Jade Helm begins in July and will last for eight weeks. Soldiers will operate in and around towns in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado where some of them wil drop from planes while carrying weapons loaded with blanks in what military officials have dubbed Realistic Military Training.

US-Russian crew blasts off for record-setting one-year ISS flight

Greece Prepares To Leave | Zero Hedge

Greece Prepares To Leave | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

Speculation and expert comments are thrown around once more – or still – like candy on Halloween. Let me therefore retrace what I’ve said before. Because I think it’s really awfully simple, once you got the underlying factors in place.

But first, if one thing has become obvious after Syriza was elected to form a Greek government on January 25, it’s that the party is not ‘radical’ or ‘extremist’. Those monikers can now be swept off all editorial desks across the world, and whoever keeps using them risks looking like an awful fool.

All Syriza has done to date, when you look from an objective point of view, is to throw out feelers, trying to figure out what the rest of the eurozone would do. And to make sure that whatever responses it got are well documented.

Because of course Greece (through Syriza) is preparing to leave the eurozone. Of course the effects and consequences of such a step are being discussed, non-stop. They would be fools if they didn’t have these discussions. And of course there will be a referendum at some point.

There’s just that one big caveat: Syriza insists on needing a mandate from its voters for everything it does, whether that may be kowtowing to Greece’s EU overlords or walking away from them. At present, however, it doesn’t have a mandate for either of these actions.

Thursday, 26 March 2015

How The Education System Destroys Social Networks | Zero Hedge

How The Education System Destroys Social Networks | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Jeffrey Tucker via The Foundation for Economic Education,

I was at a restaurant for lunch and had time to visit with the waitress, who turns out to be a college graduate from a good institution. She has a degree in European languages. Here she is waiting tables with nondegreed people, some five years her junior, some 10 years her elder.

She is making good money, but so are her co-workers. You have to wonder: given her position, what was the professional advantage to her of those four hard years in school and the $100K spent on them? What were the opportunity costs?

This is not another article to disparage the value of a college degree. I would like to raise a more fundamental question. It concerns the strange way in which our education system has overly segmented our lives into a series of episodic upheavals, each of which has little to do with the other, the value of one accomplishment being oddly disconnected from the next stage, and none of them directly connecting to our professional goals except in the unusual case.

From the earliest age until adulthood, we’ve been hurled from institution to institution in a way that eventually sets young people back from developing continuity of plans and a social support system to realize their goals. At the end of it all, people find themselves back where they started: figuring out their market worth and trying to find a buyer for their services.

Instead of drawing down on accumulated capital, they end up starting fresh at age 22. Even after years of building social capital, they are drawing down on a nearly empty account.

DANGER WILL ROBINSON « The Burning Platform

DANGER WILL ROBINSON « The Burning Platform

It’s funny how the truth sometimes leaks out from the government. I’m guessing that Mr. Ted Berg will not be working for the Office of Financial Research much longer. This new agency was created by the Dodd Frank Law and is supposed to protect consumers from the evil Wall Street banks. But we all know the evil Wall Street banks wrote the bill, have gutted the major provisions, have captured all the regulatory agencies, own the Federal Reserve, and control all the politicians in Washington D.C. So, when an honest government analyst writes an honest truthful report that unequivocally proves the stock market is grossly overvalued and headed for a crash, the Wall Street banking cabal will surely call the top government apparatchiks to voice their displeasure. Truth is treason in an empire of lies.

The soon to be fired Mr. Berg’s verbiage is subtle, but pretty clear.

Wednesday, 25 March 2015

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The Tried-And-True Blueprint For Raising Taxes | Zero Hedge

The Tried-And-True Blueprint For Raising Taxes | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

As the global economy slides into recession and the U.S. economy catches a cold, the blueprint for raising taxes will be dusted off in every state.

The blueprint for raising taxes in the modern era was first established in 1913 when the federal government instituted permanent income taxes. Prior to 1913, income taxes were viewed as wartime emergency measures to raise money for the immensely costly prosecution of war.

Here's the blueprint for raising taxes:

1. Declare the tax is an emergency measure.

2. Start the tax out at a low rate to minimize resistance.

3. Levy the tax only on the wealthy to play the "it's only fair" card.

The Only Truly Compliant, Submissive Citizen in a Police State Is a Dead One « The Burning Platform

The Only Truly Compliant, Submissive Citizen in a Police State Is a Dead One « The Burning Platform

Guest Post by John W. Whitehead

“Do exactly what I say, and we’ll get along fine. Do not question me or talk back in any way. You do not have the right to object to anything I may say or ask you to do, or ask for clarification if my demands are unclear or contradictory. You must obey me under all circumstances without hesitation, no matter how arbitrary, unreasonable, discriminatory, or blatantly racist my commands may be. Anything other than immediate perfect servile compliance will be labeled as resisting arrest, and expose you to the possibility of a violent reaction from me. That reaction could cause you severe injury or even death. And I will suffer no consequences. It’s your choice: Comply, or die.”— “‘Comply or Die’ policing must stop,”Daily KOS

Americans as young as 4 years old are being leg shackled, handcuffed, tasered and held at gun point for not being quiet, not being orderly and just being childlike—i.e., not being compliant enough.

Americans as old as 95 are being beaten, shot and killed for questioning an order, hesitating in the face of a directive, and mistaking a policeman crashing through their door for a criminal breaking into their home—i.e., not being submissive enough.

www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2015/march/22/after-a-twelve-year-mistake-in-iraq-we-must-just-march-home/?tag=Obama

After a twelve year mistake in Iraq we must just march home

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Twelve years ago last week, the US launched its invasion of Iraq, an act the late General William Odom predicted would turn out to be “the greatest strategic disaster in US history.”

Before the attack I was accused of exaggerating the potential costs of the war when I warned that it could end up costing as much as $100 billion. One trillion dollars later, with not one but two “mission accomplished” moments, we are still not done intervening in Iraq.

President Obama last year ordered the US military back into Iraq for the third time. It seems the Iraq “surge” and the Sunni “Awakening,” for which General David Petraeus had been given much credit, were not as successful as was claimed at the time. From the sectarian violence unleashed by the US invasion of Iraq emerged al-Qaeda and then its more radical spin-off, ISIS. So Obama sent the US military back.

Cont...

Tuesday, 24 March 2015

RICH, POOR & MATH « The Burning Platform

RICH, POOR & MATH « The Burning Platform

The Canadian Housing Bubble Has Begun To Burst | Zero Hedge

The Canadian Housing Bubble Has Begun To Burst | Zero Hedge

Don’t look now but slumping crude prices are hitting the Canadian housing market like a freight train. Energy accounts for 10% of Canadian GDP and around 25% of exports and the swift fall in oil prices is having a profound effect in the nation’s oil producing regions. Take Calgary for instance, where single-family home sales fell 34% last month. As the following chart shows, Alberta derives some 30% of its provincial revenues from energy royalties and as one TD analyst quoted by the Calgary Heraldrecently noted, “the effects of significantly lower oil prices had already turned up in resale activity, with sales in Calgary and Edmonton down more than 40 per cent and 30 per cent respectively, from October to January [and] as resale activity slows, prices usually follow.”

Cont...

Artist's Impression Of US-Israeli Relations | Zero Hedge

Artist's Impression Of US-Israeli Relations | Zero Hedge

Are NGOs Agents of Subversion? « The Burning Platform

Are NGOs Agents of Subversion? « The Burning Platform

Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan

Though “Bibi” Netanyahu won re-election last week, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will still look into whether the State Department financed a clandestine effort to defeat him.

Reportedly, State funneled $350,000 to an American NGO called OneVoice, which has an Israeli subsidiary, Victory 15, that collaborated with U.S. operatives to bring Bibi down.

If we are now secretly pumping cash into the free elections of friendly countries, to dump leaders President Obama dislikes, Americans have a right to know why we are using Cold War tactics against democracies.

After World War II, my late colleague on CNN’s “Crossfire,” Tom Braden, delivered CIA cash to democratic parties in Europe imperiled by communist parties financed from Moscow.

But that was done to combat Stalinism when Western survival was at stake in a Cold War that ended in 1991.

Hopefully, after looking into OneVoice and V15, the Senate will expand its investigation into a larger question: Is the U.S. using NGOs to subvert regimes around the world? And, if so, who decides which regimes may be subverted?

Orwell & Kafka Do America: How The Government Steals Your Money - "Legally," Of Course | Zero Hedge

Orwell & Kafka Do America: How The Government Steals Your Money - "Legally," Of Course | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Due process and rule of law have been replaced with "legalized" looting by government in America.

Did you know that the government of Iran steals your cash if they find more than loose change in your car? They don't arrest you for any crime, for the simple reason you didn't commit any crime; but it isn't about crime and punishment--it's about"legalizing" theft by the state.

So the government toadies don't charge you with a crime or arrest you--they just steal your money.

Pity the poor Iranian people--clearly, there is no rule of law to protect them from their predatory, rapacious, fake-democracy, quasi-totalitarian government.

Did you also know that if you deposit too much money in modest sums, the government of Iran steals all your deposits? They will claim--oh, the twisted logic of Orwellian, repressive governments--that you are obviously a drug dealer who is avoiding laws that require banks to report large deposits to the government.

Once again, you won't be charged with a crime--in true Orwellian fashion the suspicion that you may have committed a crime is sufficient reason to steal your cash. Pity the poor Iranian people, living in such a banana-republic kleptocracy.

ClubOrlov: Financial Feudalism

ClubOrlov: Financial Feudalism: Once upon a time—and a fairly long time it was—most of the thickly settled parts of the world had something called feudalism. It was a way...

The Saker interviews Paul Craig Roberts « The Burning Platform

The Saker interviews Paul Craig Roberts « The Burning Platform

Via The Vineyard of the Saker

I had been wanting to interview Paul Craig Roberts for a long time already. For many years I have been following his writings and interviews and every time I read what he had to say I was hoping that one day I would have the privilege do interview him about the nature of the US deep state and the Empire. Recently, I emailed him and asked for such an interview, and he very kindly agreed. I am very grateful to him for this opportunity.

The Saker

——-

The Saker: It has become rather obvious to many, if not most, people that the USA is not a democracy or a republic, but rather a plutocracy run by a small elite which some call “the 1%”. Others speak of the “deep state”. So my first question to you is the following. Could you please take the time to assess the influence and power of each of the following entities one by one. In particular, can you specify for each of the following whether it has a decision-making “top” position, or a decision-implementing “middle” position in the real structure of power (listed in no specific order)

Federal Reserve
Big Banking
Bilderberg
Council on Foreign Relations
Skull & Bones
CIA
Goldman Sachs and top banks
“Top 100 families” (Rothschild, Rockefeller, Dutch Royal Family, British Royal Family, etc.)
Israel Lobby
Freemasons and their lodges
Big Business: Big Oil, Military Industrial Complex, etc.
Other people or organizations not listed above?

Who, which group, what entity would you consider is really at the apex of power in the current US polity?

RESOURCE CRISIS: Climate Change: how to make the problem bigger. Le...

RESOURCE CRISIS: Climate Change: how to make the problem bigger. Le...: Results of a search for "world hunger" using Google Ngram Viewer . Clearly, the perception of hunger as a major world prob...

Regime Change: America's Failing Weapon Of International Deception | Zero Hedge

Regime Change: America's Failing Weapon Of International Deception | Zero Hedge

Authored by Ben Tanosborn,

For years, Winston Churchill’s famous quote, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried,” has served as Americans’ last word in any political discussion which requires validation of the US government, no matter how corrupt or flawed in its behavior, as the best in the planet, comparatively or by default. Never mind the meaning that Mr. Churchill had intended back in 1947, or how the international political panorama has changed during the past seven decades.

These remarks were made by Britain’s prime minister before the House of Commons a few months before there was a changing of the guards in the “Anglo-Saxon Empire” as the Brits gave away their colonial hegemony in favor of the super-influential economic and military power represented by the United States. And that was symbolically marked by Britain’s relinquishing its mandate in Palestine, and the creation of Israel.

Such reference to democracy in the quote, explicitly defining it as a “government by the people,” basically applied to Britain and the United States at the close of World War II; but such condition has deteriorated in the US to the point where the “common people” no longer have a say as to how the nation is run, either directly or through politicians elected with financial support provided by special interests, undoubtedly expecting their loyalty-vote. Yet, while this un-democratization period in our system of government was happening, there were many nations that were adopting a true code of democracy, their citizens having a greater say as to how their countries are governed. Recognizing such occurrence, however, is a seditious sin for an American mind still poisoned by the culture of exceptionalism and false pride in which it has been brainwashed.

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