Banking

When Renters and Homeowners and Small Businesses need a Bailout, the Fed gives it to Big Corporations

By Nomi Prins | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – To say that these are unprecedented times would be the understatement of the century. Even as the United States became the latest target of Hurricane COVID-19, in “hot spots” around the globe a continuing frenzy of health concerns represented yet another drop down the economic rabbit […]

Banking

The US Tax System is a vast Ponzi Scheme that only Benefits the Wealthy

F. Douglas Stephenson

( Gainesville Sun ) – There are no easy answers to financing U.S. health insurance, mental health care, social services, public health and other services for nearly 330 million individuals. The USA is a very large country and financing services must be tailored to this reality. Accordingly, funding government programs requires us to muster the […]

Banking

What’s the Point of Bailing out Hurting CEOs if they Just use Funds to Buy Back Stock & Feather their Nests?

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Occasionally President Trump likes to play defender of the common man. The frequent attacks on NAFTA and the promise to replace it with a better trade deal are one instance. Recently the effort to build a bipartisan stimulus response to the deepening economic losses occasioned by the […]

Banking

Bernie Sanders and the Poor Little Rich Boys: Why Billionaire Financiers are Bullying the Democratic Party

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Quiet concerns about a possible Sanders victory became a loud and agitated freakout after the Senator’s resounding victory in Nevada. The anguish came from the financial hub of the centrist Democratic establishment. In an incoherent rant, for which he later apologized, Chris Matthews drew a confused and […]

Banking

Is the Fed’s Agenda a Threat to Trump’s Reelection?

John Buell

(Special to Informed Comment) – President Trump recently reported on another one of those perfect conversations. Jerome Powell and he purportedly talked about interest rates and the importance of keeping them low to maintain a booming economy. Powell of course reported on no such conversation. In any case, however, the imagined conversation highlighted such issues […]

Banking

‘Slowbalization’: Is the Slowing Global Economy a Boon or Bane?

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Some economists worry the world has passed “peak globalization.” But that could be good for the planet. By John Feffer, August 14, 2019. Print South Korea is now a rule-abiding participant in the global economy. If North Korea traded its nuclear weapons program for a peace treaty, security guarantees, […]

Banking

Not the Onion: Ivanka Trump in running for World Bank Head

Juan Cole

WASHINGTON (Ma’an) — Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, and US President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, are reportedly among possible US candidates to replace the outgoing World Bank President Jim Yong Kim. Earlier this week, Jim Yong Kim announced he would be stepping down as the World Bank’s president three […]

Banking

Wall Street, Inequality and the Anger of the People

Nomi Prins

( Tomdispatch.com ) – As we head into 2019, leaving the chaos of this year behind, a major question remains unanswered when it comes to the state of Main Street, not just here but across the planet. If the global economy really is booming, as many politicians claim, why are leaders and their parties around […]

Banking

The United States of Monopoly Rule

Jim Hightower

(Afterwords) – Five banks control half of all U.S. financial assets, and six conglomerates control 90 percent of our media. Monopolies aren’t merely un-American — they’re virulently anti-American. They suppress our fundamental values of fairness and opportunity for all. Our people have instinctively rebelled at monopoly avarice — from the Boston Tea Party to the […]