THE ECONOMY & YOU # (Daily Updated Videos & Articles)

European Markets – Relearning the AIG Lesson?
by Bill Bergman
Tuesday, 13. December 2011

Moral Hazard Facing the Many, to the Benefit of the Few
Several years ago, after American International Group (AIG) threatened some powerful players in the financial world with deserved extinction, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury extended massive financial aid to American International Group in 2008. This assistance didn’t just keep AIG afloat – it helped AIG make good on insurance and other financial promises it extended to large banks and other parties in financial markets. Some of AIG’s largest counterparties were actually based in Europe. In effect, the American Taxpayer was standing behind American International Group.

Some of AIG’s largest exposures arose due to a financial instrument called a credit default swap. These instruments allow one party (the ‘protection buyer’) to hedge themselves, or otherwise bet against, any financial difficulty for another party (the ‘reference entity’) by effectively paying a form of insurance premium to a third party (the ‘protection seller’). AIG wrote massive amounts of protection against default on a wide range of instruments exposed to the housing crisis in the U.S., including huge pools of mortgage-backed securities and other derivatives. When AIG couldn’t make good on its own promises backing these instruments, our central planners stepped in and saved the company and its counterparties. That’s one reason we as taxpayers own a large majority stake in AIG today, a position on which we still have significant losses (to the tune of billions of dollars).

Continue: [link to www.boilingfrogspost.com]

Bank of Canada Challenged in Legal Action: "Restore the Use of the Bank of Canada for Canadians"
December 20, 2011

PRESS RELEASE TORONTO, ON., CANADA- 19/12/2011

ECONOMIC THINK TANK CONFRONTS THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL POWERS IN CANADIAN FEDERAL COURT.

RESTORE THE USE OF THE BANK OF CANADA FOR THE BENEFIT OF CANADIANS AND REMOVE IT FROM THE CONTROL OF INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE ENTITIES WHOSE INTERESTS AND DIRECTIVES ARE PLACED ABOVE THE INTEREST OF CANADIANS AND THE PRIMACY OF THE CONSTITUTION OF CANADA

Canadian constitutional lawyer, Rocco Galati, on behalf of Canadians William Krehm, and Ann Emmett, and COMER (Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform) on December 12th, 2011 filed an action in Federal Court, to restore the use of the Bank of Canada to its original purpose, by exercising its public statutory duty and responsibility. That purpose includes making interest free loans to municipal/provincial/federal governments for “human capital” expenditures (education, health, other social services) and /or infrastructure expenditures.

The action also constitutionally challenges the government’s fallacious accounting methods in its tabling of the budget by not calculating nor revealing the true and total revenues of the nation before transferring back “tax credits” to corporations and other taxpayers.

The Plaintiffs state that since 1974 there has been a gradual but sure slide into the reality that the Bank of Canada and Canada’s monetary and financial policy are dictated by private foreign banks and financial interests contrary to the Bank of Canada Act.

The Plaintiffs state that the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were all created with the cognizant intent of keeping poorer nations in their place which has now expanded to all nations in that these financial institutions largely succeed in over-riding governments and constitutional orders in countries such as Canada over which they exert financial control.

CONTINUE: [link to globalresearch.ca]

Money Creation and the Bankruptcy of Major Banks: The Roles of the IMF, The European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve
by Bob Chapman / International Forecaster
December 21, 2011

Debt repayment is a subject few want to discuss, or that few understand. We know most of the largest banks in the world are broke along with at least 6-euro zone nations. There are many others, but the most concerning are the debts of major nations, which are supposedly solvent. Needless to say the US is deeply indebted and the Super-Congress Enabling Committee couldn’t even lay politics aside to cut spending increases.

A bill has been entered into Congress to prohibit US funds being used via the IMF to bail out European banks and governments. We see a scant chance of passage because of the elitist control of both Houses. On the other hand it makes little difference, because the Fed has opened the swap floodgates and other avenues of secret funding to “recapitalize,” bailout, European banks of all sizes and depths of default.

As we end 2011 it is all quiet on the Western Front. Behind the scenes unbeknownst to almost all the elitists are plotting and planning on how to extricate themselves from the morass they have gotten themselves into. How do they put the crisis on the back burner and extend the timeline? The vaunted 6 nations on the edge of default await aid, but one might ask from whom? That solution hasn’t even been sorted out as yet, and we now find France facing a possible two level lowering of debt ratings, but even Germany is not as solvent as they were thought to be. Could it be that France and Germany might not be able to repay their debts? Now you can understand why the money machine, known as the Fed, says nothing about their bailout of Europe. 95% of the population of the world doesn’t even know what a swap is. Even if they did understand they are never going to get the truth from the Fed. We saw that in court and GAO revelations recently.

Continue at: [link to globalresearch.ca]

Destroying the American Dream... Political Washington keeps cutting vital social benefits
by Stephen Lendman
December 21, 2011

Corporate greed and profits over people priorities launched nationwide OWS protests in hundreds of US cities for change.

Mindless of growing public rage, political Washington keeps cutting vital social benefits needing increases during hard times.

With real unemployment approaching 23%, earlier cuts affected:

Pell Grants help for college tuitions;

federal wages;

the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to help impoverished families have heat in winter;

the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP);

community healthcare centers;

nonprofit health insurance cooperatives;

HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other disease prevention programs;

WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) grants to states for supplemental foods, healthcare, and nutrition education for low-income families;

Head Start, providing comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income families with children;

the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (targeted earlier with more coming), providing food stamps for poor households;

community development block grants for housing, overall reducing HUD's budget by $1.1 billion;

Continue: [link to globalresearch.ca]

SUPERB graphical representation of the Eurozone crisis

What really caused the eurozone crisis?
22 December 2011

World leaders probably spent more time worrying about the eurozone crisis than anything else in 2011.

And that was in the year that featured the Arab Spring, the Japanese tsunami and the death of Osama Bin Laden. What's more, 2012 looks set to be not much different. But as eurozone governments hammer out new rules to limit their borrowing, are they missing the point of the crisis?

Continue here: [link to www.bbc.co.uk]

E-Mail Clues in Tracking MF Global Client Funds
December 20, 2011
By BEN PROTESS and AZAM AHMED

Federal authorities investigating the collapse of MF Global have uncovered e-mails that detail the transfers of money in the firm’s last days, including transfers that contained customer money, according to people close to the investigation.

One e-mail chain refers to the transfer of roughly $200 million that MF Global owed JPMorgan Chase on Oct. 28 — the firm’s last business day before it filed for bankruptcy. In that chain, a senior official in the firm’s Chicago office was told to make the transfer, said the people close to the investigation who requested anonymity because the inquiry was still open.

Continue: [link to dealbook.nytimes.com]

U.S. Retirement Assets Declined by $1.4 Trillion
By Eamon Murphy
12/22/11

Reteriment AccountsThe total value of Americans' retirement assets stood at $17 trillion at the end of September - a drop of 7.5% from the record high of $18.4 trillion recorded on June 30, 2011.

That's according to a report by the Investment Company Institute, a national association of asset managers. The $1.4 trillion decline can be attributed in part to the troubles of the stock market: The S&P 500 lost 13.9% during the third quarter. There was a slight silver lining to this threatening cloud: Retirement account balances took less of a hit than stock indexes, because of asset diversification and continuing contributions to retirement savings plans.

The nation's individual retirement accounts held $4.6 trillion at the end of the third quarter, which represents a decline of 8.5% from the end of the second quarter. Defined contribution plan assets dropped 7.5% during the same period, and government pension plans - federal, state, and local - fell 7.7%.

Continue: [link to www.dailyfinance.com]

Pell Grants help for college tuitions;

federal wages;

the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to help impoverished families have heat in winter;

the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP);

community healthcare centers;

nonprofit health insurance cooperatives;

HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other disease prevention programs;

WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) grants to states for supplemental foods, healthcare, and nutrition education for low-income families;

Head Start, providing comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income families with children;

the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (targeted earlier with more coming), providing food stamps for poor households;

community development block grants for housing, overall reducing HUD's budget by $1.1 billion;

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And who pays for all of this? Let's keep increasing the socialist handouts until everything is free. My taxes are already high enough - the spending is the problem. And don't guilt trip me by saying that the Little Sisters of the Poor need more money.

Especially federal wages - too f'n high. Let's start by eliminating 50% of the federal jobs and then cutting the pay of the remaining 50% by 50%.

A good start would be to significantly cut or eliminate the:

Department of Education
EPA
DHS (especially the TSA)
State Department (especially Foreign Aid)
HUD

Exactly!

The hundreds of TRILLIONS of dollars, year in year out, that's been spend by the military-industrial complex - mostly with no possibility whatsoever to see where the money's used for.

1% of that sum would be sufficicient to provide every homeless American with a roof over his head.

In a civilized society you take care of those who can't take care of themselves.

Department of Defence

and to stop invading countries that cause no thread to the US whatsoever.

Crush Labor and Impose Austerity: ECB Head Draghi’s Real Goal for the Eurozone
by Mike Whitney
December 23, 2011

Imagine if your banker offered to lend you a $150,000 to make up for the money that you’d lost on your home since the housing bubble burst in 2006. And, let’s say, he agreed to lend you this money for 3 years at rock-bottom rates of 1 percent provided that you post the contents of your garage (ie. rusty bikes, a bent basketball hoop, an old dollhouse, and rodent-infested luggage) as collateral on the loan.

Would that seem like a good deal to you?
On Wednesday, the European Central Bank (ECB) made this very same offer to over a hundred underwater banks in Europe, awarding them $640 billion (489 euros) in dirt-cheap 3-year loans in exchange for all manner of dodgy collateral for which there is currently no market. Now you, dear reader, know that when you try to sell something on Craig’s List and there’s very little interest; you have to drop the price in order to attract a buyer. That’s just how supply-demand dynamics work in a free market, right?

Au contraire. In fact, this rule never applies to bankers. When the junk assets on a bank’s balance sheet begin to fall in value, the banks just ring-up their big brother at the ECB or the Fed and demand a bailout, er, I mean, “swap liquidity for collateral that is temporarily impaired.” But the truth is, the garbage that the banks have accumulated–particularly the sovereign bonds from Italy, Spain, Greece, etc–is not merely “impaired”. These bonds will never regain their original value because the loans were made at the peak of a bubble. So, there’s as much chance that Greek bonds will bounce back in three years as there is that that tacky $650,000 McMansion you bought in Encinito in 2005 will claw its way back to par.

That’s not going to happen.

Continue: [link to globalresearch.ca]

Fed’s Once-Secret Data Compiled by Bloomberg Released to Public
December 24, 2011
By Phil Kuntz and Bob Ivry

Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg News today released spreadsheets showing daily borrowing totals for 407 banks and companies that tapped Federal Reserve emergency programs during the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis. It’s the first time such data have been publicly available in this form.

The day-by-day, bank-by-bank numbers, culled from about 50,000 transactions the U.S. central bank made through seven facilities, formed the basis of a series of Bloomberg News articles this year about the largest financial bailout in history.

Continue: [link to www.businessweek.com]


To download a zip file of the spreadsheets, go to DON'T_USE-THIS/Bloomberg-Fed-Data. For an explanation of the files, see the one labeled “1a Fed Data Roadmap.”

The Economic Solutions Of Vampires
Friday, 23 December 2011
Brandon Smith

The vampire bat is a horrifying pig-nosed wart of a creature which feasts in a manner that, believe it or not, is a rather familiar scene to those of us who closely study alternative economics. After erratically flittering about in the sinking evening sky, it targets the warmth of a sleeping farm animal and latches onto it with its claws. Carefully, it inserts a fang into a vein dense region of the creature’s body, and laps away at the blood. Normally, the oblivious livestock are completely unaware and helpless to the attack. The tiny parasite does not inflict an immediately mortal blow to its host, but over time, disease and physical debilitation result. The vampire has destroyed the animal, and, pathetically, the animal has no idea.

Just as in nature, the economic world has its own bloodsucking vermin in the form of banking elites which are a wretched drain on the whole of the human race. Without their vicious and predatory presence, I envision a world so rapturously above and beyond what we wallow in today that it is impossible to describe. The disgust many feel when considering the virulent feeding habits of the common mosquito or the slithering leech does nothing to compare to the utter gut churning revulsion I feel when studying the financial habits of banks like the Federal Reserve and the “too big to fails”. They are without a doubt the most malignant form of social cancer imaginable.

Continue: [link to www.alt-market.com]

The Money Masters
THE MONEY MASTERS is a NON-FICTION, historical documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money. The development of fractional reserve banking practices in the 17th century brought to a cunning sophistication the secret techniques initially used by goldsmiths fraudulently to accumulate wealth. With the formation of the privately-owned Bank of England in 1694, the yoke of economic slavery to a privately-owned "central" bank was first forced upon the backs of an entire nation, not removed but only made heavier with the passing of the three centuries to our day. Nation after nation has fallen prey to this cabal of international central bankers.

The Black Swan is on the Wing
The mathematical certainty of a financial implosion...

The Victorian Age, the Imperialist Mindset and Neo-liberal Corporate Capitalism - A History Lesson
by William Bowles
December 25, 2011
Strategic Culture Foundation

I don't remember much about my high school years. Some of the highs (few in number) come back to me but it was mostly lows which probably explains why I don't remember much. It's not that I was dumb, I just had no motivation, but I was interested in history, jazz and politics (thanks to my parents) and even won a prize for a history essay as well as starting up the school's first jazz appreciation society (not appreciated by the school I might add, the head of music tore down my posters).

But after a few years at school, I gave up trying at pretty much everything except building a working model of a steam engine, which I inherited from who knows how many previous generations of students. I added some copper steam tubes to the boiler and then left Wandsworth Comprehensive, at pretty much the same time as the steam engine all but disappeared from the British landscape.

For obvious reasons some aspects of life at school do stand out. I remember for example that our one official 'history' text book ended at 1914 and I wondered why (after all, it was the 1960s)? Revealing inadvertently perhaps, just how deeply imperialist thinking is embedded in British culture. 1914 was if you like, the 'official' date on which the British Empire ended.

The Imperialist mindset is not confined to just one sector of British society, it exists even within what passes for a left here. It's why successive so-called Labour governments have continued to carry out imperialist policies without missing a beat and found large segments of the Left supporting said Labour governments (with 'reservations' of course).

Continue: [link to globalresearch.ca]

Last Edited by RoXY on 12/25/2011 01:36 PM

Privatisation: Leading Canada's Public Healthcare to the "Free-market Guillotine"
by Stefan Christoff
December 25, 2011
rabble.ca

National discussion in Canada on the Conservative government's new healthcare financial ultimatum, a take-it-or-leave-it-style proposal, largely revolves around myths. First that financing alone is key to securing a sustainable public healthcare system and second that free-market economic winds will provide sustainable guidelines,* via GDP, for viable future government healthcare financing.

A surprise delivery from Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to provincial finance ministers, over a fancy lunch-in at the Chateau Victoria Hotel this past Monday, the plan offers no space for negotiation toward collective national solutions for public healthcare.

Essentially, the Conservative proposal works to strip federal responsibility in crafting, via national negotiations, coherent and sustainable healthcare systems in Canada's provinces and territories. A clear move away from the flawed but important Canada Health Act and a political node to provincial governments already working to allocate federal healthcare financing toward enhancing the corporate, for-profit sector role in delivering healthcare, as already seen extensively in Alberta and Québec.

Continue at: [link to globalresearch.ca]

* This is exactly what also happened here in Holland.

Unrelenting Global Economic Crisis: A Doomsday View of 2012
The economic, political and social outlook for 2012 is profoundly negative
by Prof. James Petras
December 25, 2011

Introduction
The economic, political and social outlook for 2012 is profoundly negative. The almost universal consensus, even among mainstream orthodox economists is pessimistic regarding the world economy. Although, even here, their predictions understate the scope and depth of the crises, there are powerful reasons to believe that beginning in 2012, we are heading toward a steeper decline than what was experienced during the Great Recession of 2008 – 2009. With fewer resources, greater debt and increasing popular resistance to shouldering the burden of saving the capitalist system, the governments cannot bail out the system.

Many of the major institutions and economic relations which were cause and consequence of world and regional capitalist expansion over the past three decades are in the process of disintegration and disarray. The previous economic engines of global expansion, the US and the European Union, have exhausted their potentialities and are in open decline. The new centers of growth, China, India, Brazil, Russia, which for a ‘short decade’ provided a new impetus for world growth have run their course and are de-accelerating rapidly and will continue to do so throughout the new year.

The Collapse of the European Union
Specifically, the crises wracked European Union will break up and the de facto multi-tiered structure will turn into a series of bilateral/multi-lateral trade and investment agreements. Germany , France , the Low and Nordic countries will attempt to weather the downturn. England - namely the City of London, in splendid isolation, will sink into negative growth, its financiers scrambling to find new speculative opportunities among the Gulf petrol-states and other ‘niches’. Eastern and Central Europe, particularly Poland and the Czech Republic , will deepen their ties to Germany but will suffer the consequences of the general decline of world markets. Southern Europe ( Greece , Spain , Portugal and Italy ) will enter into a deep depression as the massive debt payments fueled by savage assaults on wages and social benefits will severely reduce consumer demand.

Depression level unemployment and under-employment running to one-third of the labor force will detonate year-long social conflicts, intensifying into popular uprisings. Eventually a break-up of the European Union is almost inevitable. The euro as a currency of choice will be replaced by or return to national issues accompanied by devaluations and protectionism. Nationalism will be the order of the day. Banks in Germany , France and Switzerland will suffer huge losses on their loans to the South. Major bailouts will become necessary, polarizing German and French societies, between the tax-paying majorities and the bankers. Trade union militancy and rightwing pseudo ‘populism’ (neo-fascism) will intensify the class and national struggles

A depressed, fragmented and polarized Europe will be less likely to join in any Zionist inspired US-Israeli military adventure against Iran (or even Syria ). Crises ridden Europe will oppose Washington ’s confrontationalist approach to Russia and China .

The US : The Recession Returns with a Vengeance
The US economy will suffer the consequences of its ballooning fiscal deficit and will not be able to spend its way out of the world recession of 2012. Nor can it count on ‘exporting’ its way out of negative growth by turning to previously dynamic Asia, as China, India and the rest of Asia are losing economic steam. China will grow far below its 9% moving average. India will decline from 8% to 5% or lower. Moreover, the Obama regime’s military policy of ‘encirclement’, its economic policy of exclusion and protectionism will preclude any new stimulus from China .

Continue: [link to globalresearch.ca]

Grim Economic Prospects for 2012: Social Upheaval, Bank Defaults and Financial Chaos
by Bob Chapman
December 28, 2011
International Forecaster

The game goes on, as German leadership tells us the euro is stable, even as it hits yearly lows. We are told the problem is a crisis in several member states. That may be true, but they all are inseparable. The reassurance from politicians and bankers to calm the market place is beginning to fall on deaf ears. No matter what the cause of the debt crisis it exists and leadership as yet cannot find a solution. Even short-term solutions, such as the use of the EFSF are not going to work. All they will do is gain time. In that process, what happens if France’s credit rating is cut one or two levels? How can France then continue to participate?

The present French government has buried the government in losing investments, which we believe in June will force the electorate to choose the Front National to solve national problems. The public, as in most other countries are sick and tired of lies and incompetence from politicians, bankers and bureaucrats possessed with the creation of world government. At this point confidence in the euro is hanging by a thread and Europe’s leadership doesn’t know how to solve the problem. We have seen such crises of confidence often over the past 15 years. It is not unique, but the size of the euro zone is compelling, because the crisis touches so many people. Currency is the vehicle to bring about a solution, but if confidence is lost the currency cannot perform part of its role as monetization continues unabated, confidence continues to fall and inflation as a result flourishes.

It is not that EU leadership doesn’t want a solution; it is that there isn’t a solution, other then to purge the system. In that environment the politicians, bankers and bureaucrats have their power to control the people taken away from them and the citizens take back their countries and their liberty and freedom. The euro has been an unnatural experiment implanted as a nexus for world government. We predicted this in 1992 and nothing has changed. We expected failure and we now have that failure. After years of leveraged profits for the insiders the public is left with unpayable debt.

CONTINUE: [link to globalresearch.ca]

Wrecking America's Postal Service
by Stephen Lendman
December 28, 2011

At a time of open-checkbook military spending, multiple imperial wars, Wall Street bailouts, handouts to other corporate favorites, transferring unprecedented wealth to America's rich, and preserving their tax cuts and other benefits for more, austerity is impoverishing millions, destroying their futures, and wrecking America's Postal Service (USPS).

The 1970 Postal Reorganization Act (PRA) made the Postal Service self-sustaining. It was exempted from the general budget, funding laws, and executive branch control. It's run as an independent federal agency on its own.

During the 1970s and 1980s, by administrative decision, it was at times included and excluded from executive budgetary consideration, depending on whether surpluses or deficits occurred.

In the 1989 Omnibus Reconciliation Act, it was put permanently off-budget. Congress made it independently self-financing. Since then (with no federal funding), it shared off-budget status with the Social Security Trust Fund, supplemental military allocations, and black Pentagon and intelligence ones.

In early December, USPS announced closure of over half its mail processing centers, 28,000 job cuts, and ending overnight first-class mail delivery.

Beginning in March, cuts will take effect. Standards in place for over 40 years will end. First-class mail will take two or three days, not one. Second class for newspapers and magazines, third class bulk mail, and fourth class will take much longer.

Pensioners dependent on benefit checks to pay bills, anyone buying drugs and other essentials by mail, and businesses needing prompt delivery to operate effectively will be impacted.

CONTINUE: [link to globalresearch.ca]


(RoXY's comment):
In the past 4 years they've closed 80% of the post-offices in Amsterdam... Than they started to lay-off the regular post(wo)men and replaced them by (cheap) part-timers...

In the past 10 years I found 2 - maybe 3 letters in my box that were meant for my next door neighbour.

Since those cheap parttimers took over, it's an absolute mess. Some days half the neighborhood is reposting letters that are meant for people who sometimes live two streets away.

Want to complain? Than you need to take a day off, 'cos the lines are too busy - with other people who also want to complain about the delivery non-service.

There might be light at the end of the tunnel though, 'cos someone - a sollicitor - started a court case about a bill he didn't pay 'cos he never got it, and had to pay almost double 'cos of that.

In the past those cases - if any - were dismissed, but this time the judge charged the postal delivery company, to pay for the deficit.

That's great news for anybody who doesn't pay a bill in time, 'cos (s)he can now officially blame the delivery service, claiming he never received a bill in the first place...

Government of the Rich, by the Rich and for the Rich
by Patrick Martin
December 29, 2011

According to a study reported Tuesday, nearly half the members of the United States Congress are millionaires. Of the 535 legislators (100 members of the Senate and 435 members of the House of Representatives), at least 250 are millionaires and the median net worth is $913,000.

Sixty-seven senators are millionaires and the median wealth of the body’s 100 members is $2.63 million.

While the Senate has long been known as a millionaires’ club, the transformation of the House is a relatively recent phenomenon. The median net worth of members of the House of Representatives, excluding home equity, has more than doubled over the last 25 years, from $280,000 in 1984 to $725,000 in 2009 in inflation-adjusted dollars. During that same period, the median net worth of an American family fell from $20,600 to $20,500.

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times gave front-page treatment to the data, derived from figures collected by the Center for Responsive Politics. The articles reflect nervousness in the corporate-controlled media over the degree to which the rising personal wealth of members of Congress is discrediting the institution.

The Post commented: “The growing disparity between the representatives and the represented means that there is a greater distance between the economic experience of Americans and those of lawmakers.” The Times noted that “the wealth gap between lawmakers and their constituents appears to be growing quickly, even as Congress debates unemployment benefits, possible cuts in food stamps and a ‘millionaire’s tax.’”

The proportion of members of Congress who have no net worth outside their home equity — the economic position of a majority of the working class — has declined from one in five in 1984 to only one in twelve. The Times contacted the offices of 534 members of Congress to ask if they had friends or relatives who had lost homes or jobs since the 2008 financial crash. Only 18 responded, and only 12 reported even a second-hand contact with the impact of the economic crisis.

Continue: [link to globalresearch.ca]

Related thread: Thread: OUTRAGEOUS WAGES!!! # Put Politicians on Minimum Wage & Watch How Fast Things Change... (Page 4)

The Federal Reserve is Secretely Bailing out Europe
by Washington's Blog
December 29, 2011
Washiington's Blog

Former High-Level Federal Reserve Official: Fed Secretly Bailing Out Europe - Yes, We Are Bailing Out Europe

Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke told Congress that the Fed would not bail out Europe.

But he might have been less than forthcoming.

Former Vice President of the Federal Reserve bank of Dallas, Gerald ODriscoll, says that the Fed is secretly bailing out Europe:

Continue to video: [link to globalresearch.ca]