Competing Currencies and Ron Paul – Mismatch or Monetary Heaven?
– by Staff Report
Dominant Social Theme: Competing currencies are impractical and just a way for the Rothschild-driven free-market movement to
The Left and Women's Reproductive Rights
– by Tibor Machan
Dr. Tibor Machan
But one of the contemporary Left's favorite doctrines, communitarianism, doesn't agree. By their standards we belong to the community. Check out what Charles Taylor says about this in his book, Sources of the Self, or, even better, read the famous American Leftist, Cora Weiss, who was a prominent American anti-war advocate during the Vietnam era and claimed that refugees who have fled Vietnam were traitors because, she argued, "Every country is entitled to its people [who are] the basic resource that belongs to the country." (Washington Post, May 29, 1978)
Is Washington Deaf As Well as Criminal?
– by Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts
Israel is a tiny, insignificant state, created by the careless British and the stupid americans. It has no power except what its american protector provides. Yet, despite Israel's insignificance, it rules Washington.
When a resolution introduced by the Israel Lobby is delivered to Congress, it passes unanimously. If Israel wants war, Israel gets its wish. When Israel commits war crimes against Palestinians and Lebanon and is damned by the hundred plus UN resolutions passed against Israel's criminal actions, the US bails Israel out of trouble with its veto.
Britain's Tax Fugitives Program Should be Seen Within a Larger Aggressive Ambit
– by Staff Report
globe
Dominant Social Theme: Not paying your fair share is morally wrong.
Free-Market Analysis: What's going on with Britain these days? As with America, its top government officials are getting increasingly aggressive when it comes to projecting power overseas.
Now they're going to distribute "most wanted" posters of tax cheats. Being this is the 21st century, a lot of the distribution will take place electronically. Apparently, it's enough to be simply charged with a crime (see article excerpt above).
It's not just taxes; it's everything ... That's the bigger concern.
Federal Labor Law and Mob Tyranny
by James Bovard
Since Barack Obama took office, the National Labor Relations Board
has become a hotbed of controversy. Republicans charge that the NLRB is
brazenly favoring unions and thwarting corporations on one bogus
pretext after another. Unfortunately, those controversies are simply the
latest chapter in a long history of federal subversion of freedom of
contract.
Prior to the 1930s, courts and legislatures generally refused to recognize that individual workers’ right to make their own contracts could be nullified by the demands of groups of other workers. Massachusetts judge Frederick Arnold ruled in 1912, “To enforce a collective contract would be to deny the individual’s liberty to make his own contract.” Judges at that time recognized and respected voluntary collective bargaining contracts but not collective bargaining contracts that prohibited other workers from making their own contracts. Since the essence of a contract is voluntary consent by every party to the agreement, a collective bargaining agreement could not forcibly impose contract terms on workers who did not support the agreement.
Prior to the 1930s, courts and legislatures generally refused to recognize that individual workers’ right to make their own contracts could be nullified by the demands of groups of other workers. Massachusetts judge Frederick Arnold ruled in 1912, “To enforce a collective contract would be to deny the individual’s liberty to make his own contract.” Judges at that time recognized and respected voluntary collective bargaining contracts but not collective bargaining contracts that prohibited other workers from making their own contracts. Since the essence of a contract is voluntary consent by every party to the agreement, a collective bargaining agreement could not forcibly impose contract terms on workers who did not support the agreement.
America’s Empire of Bases Gets More Expensive
America’s Empire of Bases Gets More Expensive
John Glaser
Most dramatically, in 2009, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev of Kyrgyzstan, host to the Manas Transit Center, initiated a bidding war between the United States and Russia by threatening to close the base. He extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from both sides, in the form of a Russian assistance package and a renewed lease at a higher rent with the United States. Since 2008, the United States also has paid transit fees, about $500 million annually, to the Uzbek and other Central Asian governments to ship equipment bound for Afghanistan through the Northern Distribution Network.
Romney the Businessman?
Romney the Businessman?
Mitt Romney has focused his run for the presidency on the superior skills he developed as a successful businessman, asserting that he alone has the knowledge, the experience, and the personal grit needed to repair the U.S. economy. Let us accept for a moment that Romney’s preferred narrative is true, i.e., that he actually was a respectable and honorable businessman, not just a predatory capitalist who bought up failing companies so he could enrich himself by stripping them of their assets and putting their employees out of work. If Mitt is the real thing, one should expect a president who will be a careful and cautious manager, making rational decisions based on available information, because whether businesses succeed or fail frequently depends on making the right judgments at the right time. Government admittedly provides services that do not exactly fit into a normal business model, but there nevertheless exists a broad consensus that a rational process should prevail that confers benefits on most of the citizens most of the time. As the dissatisfaction of most Americans with the status quo derives from the belief that the federal government is reckless and unresponsive and does not actually address the needs of the people, Romney’s claim that he can right what is wrong in the economy provides a compelling reason to vote for him.
Grover Norquist Takes On the War Party
Grover Norquist Takes On the War Party
Conservative leader attacks Romney-Ryan for refusing to cut the military budget
Grover Norquist is a bit of a punching bag for both the Hollywood-DC left and the neoconservative right. On the left, he’s often held up as an example of everything that’s supposedly wrong with the conservative movement and the GOP: his “no tax hike” pledge is excoriated by the Huffingtonpost-MSNBC-TPM axis of Obamaism as typical of “know-nothing” conservatism. On the neocon right, he’s viciously attacked as an “Islamist,” a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood far more dangerous than, say, Huma Abedin — in part because he’s an influential conservative married to an
The man with the plan
The man with the plan
Mitt Romney’s choice for vice-president is risky for him, but good for America
The economy. No miracle cure
The economy
No miracle cure
Bucking up this recovery is harder than it was in the past
WASHINGTON, DC
IF THERE is a theme to the American presidential campaign, it
may be: “Imagine the alternative”. President Barack Obama’s campaign
will argue that his actions prevented an economic catastrophe. Mitt
Romney, by contrast, will claim that Mr Obama’s missteps frustrated the
strong recovery that should have followed so deep a downturn. America,
Mr Romney recently claimed, “should be seeing 200-, 300-, 400,000 jobs
[added] a month to regain much of what has been lost. That is what
normally happens after a recession, but under this president we have not
seen that kind of pattern.”
Growth has clearly been tepid. The American economy managed just 1.5%
annualised GDP growth in the second quarter, down from 2% growth at the
start of the year. Hiring is merely creeping along. On August 3rd the
Labour Department estimated that American employers added 163,000 jobs
in July, better than the 73,000 monthly average in the second quarter
but slower than the promising pace earlier in the year, when firms added
more than 225,000 jobs a month.
The euro
The euro
Tempted, Angela?
A controlled break-up of the euro would be hugely risky and expensive. So is waiting for a solution to turn up
But for this very practical woman there is also a practical reason to start contingency planning for a break-up: it is looking ever more likely. Greece is buckling (see article). Much of southern Europe is also in pain, while the northern creditor countries are becoming ever less forgiving: in a recent poll a narrow majority of Germans favoured bringing back the Deutschmark. A chaotic disintegration would be a calamity. Even as Mrs Merkel struggles to find a solution, her aides are surely also sensibly drawing up a plan to prepare for the worst.
Paul Ryan's Randianism
Democracy in America
American politics
Paul Ryan's Randianism
Is Paul Ryan a hypocrite?
by W.W. | HOUSTON
DUNCAN BLACK, blogging as Atrios, spies hypocrisy in Paul Ryan's bio:
survivor benefits received after the death of his father, Ms Walsh writes:
Public high school.Mr Ryan, you see, has admitted to a fondness for Ayn Rand, the author of the modern classics "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged", books loved and loathed in equal measure. Joan Walsh makes a point similar to Mr Black's in a Salon piece that dubs Mr Ryan a "Randian poseur" in its headline. After noting that Mr Ryan in part paid for his out-of state tuition at an Ohio public university with Social Security
Public university.
Worked for family business.
Congressional staffer, with service jobs for additional money.
Speechwriter for Jack Kemp.
Staffer for Sam Brownback.
Member of Congress.
Capitalism, just as [Ayn] Rand envisioned.
Standard Chartered and Iran
Schumpeter
Business and management
Standard Chartered and Iran
Hush money
by T.E. | NEW YORK
IT COULD have been disastrous. Standard Chartered was facing a hearing before New York state’s Department of Financial Services
(DFS) on August 15th that would have certainly aired embarrassing
information. Instead it will be expensive. The bank has acceded to a
fast settlement of the charges that it had illicitly processed $250
billion in transactions with Iran, paying $340m in civil penalties and
agreeing to various other provisions.
As a result of the deal, the bank's management is temporarily off the hook for personal liability. Just as important, they will not have to defend the bank's actions before the regulator. The agreement also appears to cap potential penalties which, in theory, could have included losing a critical license to operate in America and thus provide its vast emerging-markets network with cross-border dollar transactions.
As a result of the deal, the bank's management is temporarily off the hook for personal liability. Just as important, they will not have to defend the bank's actions before the regulator. The agreement also appears to cap potential penalties which, in theory, could have included losing a critical license to operate in America and thus provide its vast emerging-markets network with cross-border dollar transactions.
A moment of truth for Dilma
Brazil
A moment of truth for Dilma
The president needs to do more to tackle the “Brazil cost”
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