Dean Baker - Will an Incompetent European Central Bank Be Allowed to Wreck the World Economy?

Published on Tuesday, December 6, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/dec/05/ecb-save-eurozone-fed-must-step-in

by Dean Baker

The world is eagerly waiting to see if the European Central Bank (ECB) will take the steps needed to save the euro. Specifically, is the ECB prepared to act as a central bank and guarantee the sovereign debt of the countries in the eurozone as the lender of last resort ordinarily does in a crisis?

If not, there is little doubt what the outcome will be. The austerity being imposed on country after country will slow GDP growth and throw workers out of jobs. Higher unemployment will worsen deficits, since it means less tax revenue coming in and more unemployment benefits and other transfers being paid out. Higher deficits will cause investors to worry about the solvency of the government, leading interest rates to rise.

This gives us the famous downward spiral that already sank Greece's economy and government. It will soon sink Italy and Spain – unless the ECB starts acting like a central bank. The fallout from disorderly defaults from these two countries will cause banks throughout the eurozone to become insolvent, leading to another post Lehman-type freeze-up of the financial system.

The end result will be a second recession and another sharp spike in unemployment, not just in the eurozone, but almost certainly across the globe. The finances and the economies of the eurozone are too intertwined with the rest of the world to envision a meltdown that doesn't also push the rest of the world into recession. At the end of this story, the euro itself is likely to be placed in the dustbin of history, another failed monetary experiment.

This story is especially painful since this crisis is the outcome of one set of failed policies layered on top of another set of failed policies. The original downturn came about because the ECB, like the Fed and the Bank of England, chose to ignore the buildup of enormous housing bubbles and the resulting economic imbalances. It was 100% predictable that the collapse of these bubbles would lead to a serious recession. The financial crises that accompanied this collapse was also a predictable outcome of the rapid disappearance of trillions of dollars of wealth. Yet, the central bankers at ECB and elsewhere were completely caught by surprise.

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Tony Cartalucci - US Caught Meddling in Russian Elections!

Putin compares US funded NGOs to Judas the betrayer

By Tony Cartalucci

landdestroyer.blogspot.com - 2011-12-05

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2011/12/us-atempts-to-overthrow-russian.html

December 4, 2011 - What would Americans say if they found their polling stations and certain political parties entirely infiltrated by Chinese money, Chinese observers, and Chinese-backed candidates promoting China's interests in an AMERICAN election? The answer ranges from incarceration, to trials featuring charges ranging from fraud, to sedition and even treason with sentences ranging from decades to life in prison, perhaps even death, as well as possible military action for what could easily be considered an act of war.

Indeed, the attempted subversion of a foreign nation and/or meddling in its elections are acts of war, an act of war the United States government through its various "Non-Governmental Organizations" (NGOs) have been committing on and off for decades around the globe. In fact, the very "Arab Spring" is a geopolitical conflagration tipped off by this vast network of Western backed NGOs.

The New York Times in its article, "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings," clearly stated as much when it reported, "a number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington."

The Times would continue by explaining, "the Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department."

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Glenn Greenwald - George Orwell on the Evil Iranian Menace

SALON.COM   Sunday, Dec 4, 2011 4:53 PM Eastern Standard Time

"Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them"

By Glenn Greenwald

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/04/george_orwell_on_the_evil_iranians/singleton/

(updated below – Update II [Mon.])

The U.S. has long had Iran virtually encircled as a result of the American occupation of Afghanistan on Iran’s Eastern border, its invasion of Iraq on its Western border, its NATO ally Turkey hovering on Iran’s Northwestern border, some degree of military relationship with Turkmenistan on Iran’s Northeastern border, and multiple U.S. client states sitting right across the Persian Gulf (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain, where the massive U.S. Fifth Fleet is stationed). Additionally, some combination of the U.S. and Israel has bombarded Iran with multiple acts of war over the last year, including explosions on Iranian soil, the murder of numerous Iranian nuclear scientists (in which even one of their wives was shot), and sophisticated cyberattacks. Meanwhile, top American political officials from both parties are actively demanding that an Iranian revolutionary cult be removed from the list of Terrorist organizations (just coincidentally, they’re all on the cult’s payroll). In the past decade, the U.S. and/or Israel have invaded, air attacked, and/or occupied Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (to say nothing of the creation of a worldwide torture regime, a system of “black site” prisons around the world to which people were disappeared, and a due-process-free detention camp in the middle of the Caribbean Ocean where many people remain encaged for almost a full decade without charges). During this same time period, Iran has not invaded, occupied or air attacked anyone. Iran, to be sure, is domestically oppressive, but no more so — and in many cases less — than the multiple regimes funded, armed and otherwise propped up by the U.S. during this period. Those are all just facts.

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Shocking News - The US financial situation simplified

The US financial situation simplified: This makes it very easy to understand the present situation. This country won't be able to go another four years at this rate. How those in charge can't see this is a total mystery.

Why the U.S. was downgraded:

• U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000

• Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000

• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000

• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000

• Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000

Let's now remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:

• Annual family income: $21,700

• Money the family spent: $38,200

• New debt on the credit card: $16,500

• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710

• Total budget cuts: $385

Michael Klare - Obama’s Risky Oil Threat to China

Posted on December 6, 2011, Printed on December 6, 2011
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175476/

Obama’s Risky Oil Threat to China 
By Michael T. Klare

When it comes to China policy, is the Obama administration leaping from the frying pan directly into the fire?  In an attempt to turn the page on two disastrous wars in the Greater Middle East, it may have just launched a new Cold War in Asia -- once again, viewing oil as the key to global supremacy.

The new policy was signaled by President Obama himself on November 17th in an address to the Australian Parliament in which he laid out an audacious -- and extremely dangerous -- geopolitical vision.  Instead of focusing on the Greater Middle East, as has been the case for the last decade, the United States will now concentrate its power in Asia and the Pacific.  “My guidance is clear,” he declared in Canberra. “As we plan and budget for the future, we will allocate the resources necessary to maintain our strong military presence in this region.”  While administration officials insist that this new policy is not aimed specifically at China, the implication is clear enough: from now on, the primary focus of American military strategy will not be counterterrorism, but the containment of that economically booming land -- at whatever risk or cost.

The Planet’s New Center of Gravity

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Stephen Leahy - Kyoto Protocol on Life Support

Published on Tuesday, December 6, 2011 by Inter Press Service

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/06-0

by Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, South Africa - The United States has become the major stumbling block to progress at the mid point of negotiations over a new international climate regime say civil society and many of the 193 nations attending the United Nations climate change conference here in Durban.

"The U.S. position leads us to three or four degrees Celsius of warming, which will be devastating for the poor of the world," said Celine Charveriat of Oxfam International.

"They are proposing a 10-year time out with no new targets to lower emissions until after 2020," Charveriat said.

At COP 15 in Copenhagen the U.S. committed to reducing its emissions 17 percent from 2005 by 2020. This is far short of what is widely agreed as necessary: cuts in fossil fuel emissions 25 to 40 percent below those in 1990 by U.S. and all developed nations.

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TerraDaily - Brazil says Amazon deforestation down to lowest level

by Staff Writers, TerraDaily.com
Brasilia (AFP) Dec 5, 2011

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Brazil_says_Amazon_deforestation_down_to_lowest_level_999.html

Brazil said Monday that the pace of deforestation in its Amazon region fell to its lowest level since authorities began monitoring the world's largest tropical rainforest.

The head of the National Institute of Space Research (INPE), Gilberto Camara, said deforestation dropped to 6,238 square kilometers (2,408 square miles), between August 2010 and July this year, down 11 percent compared with the same period in 2009-20100.

"It's the lowest deforestation rate measured since INPE began its monitoring in 1988," Camara told a press conference.

"It's a great victory for Brazil. It's the lowest deforestation rate. The Amazon is a great instrument for carbon sequestration," one of the tools to combat global warming, said Aloizio Mercadante, the minister of science and technology.

Still, the area deforested in the year ending in July is four times the size of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, according to the state Agencia Brasil.

Between August 2009 and July 2010, the Brazilian Amazon lost 7,000 square kilometers (2,700 square miles) of rain forest, until then the smallest loss recorded.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached a historic peak of 27,700 square kilometers (10,700 square miles) in 2003-2004.

Monday's announcement came a day before the Brazilian Senate was due to adopt a reform of forestry legislation which could reduce the protected area.

The bill, which would have to be approved by the Chamber of Deputies, has the backing of Brazil's powerful agribusiness sector.

The current forestry code, which dates back to 1965, limits the use of lands for farming and mandates that up to 80 percent of the Amazon remain intact.

Authorities say key reasons for Amazon deforestation are fires, the advance of agriculture and stockbreeding and illegal trafficking in timber and minerals.

Michael Hirsh - Has a War with Iran Already Begun?

Published on Monday, December 5, 2011 by The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/has-a-war-with-iran-already-begun/249467/

by Michael Hirsh

Two incidents that occurred on Sunday--Iran's claim of a shoot-down of a U.S. drone, and an explosion outside the British embassy in Bahrain--may have been unrelated. But they appear to add to growing evidence that an escalating covert war by the West is under way against Iran, and that Tehran is retaliating with greater intensity than ever.

Asked whether the United States, in cooperation with Israel, was now engaged in a covert war against Iran's nuclear program that may include the Stuxnet virus, the blowing-up of facilities and the assassination or kidnapping of scientists, one recently retired U.S. official privy to up-to-date intelligence would not deny it. 

"It's safe to say the Israelis are very active," the official said, adding about U.S. efforts:  "Everything that [GOP presidential candidate] Mitt Romney said we should be doing--tough sanctions, covert action and pressuring the international community  -- are all of the things we are actually doing." Though the activities are classified, a senior Obama administration official also would not deny that such a program was under way. He indicated that the U.S. was not involved in every action, referring to recent alleged explosions at Isfahan and elsewhere. But, he added: "I wouldn't assume that everything we do is coordinated."

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Washington's Blog - The Real Reason for Obama’s Threat to Veto the Indefinite Detention Bill (Hint: It’s Not to Protect Liberty)

By Washington's Blog

Global Research, December 5, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28055

Obama Wants to Veto the Indefinite Detention Bill Because It Would Hold the U.S. to the Geneva Convention

I – like everyone else – am horrified by the Senate’s passage of legislation that would allow for indefinite detention of Americans.

And at first, I – like many others – assumed that Obama’s threat to veto the bill might be a good thing. But the truth is much more disturbing.

As former Wall Street Street editor and columnist Paul Craig Roberts correctly notes:

The Obama regime’s objection to military detention is not rooted in concern for the constitutional rights of American citizens. The regime objects to military detention because the implication of military detention is that detainees are prisoners of war. As Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin put it: Should somebody determined “to be a member of an enemy force who has come to this nation or is in this nation to attack us as a member of a foreign enemy, should that person be treated according to the laws of war? The answer is yes.”

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Melanie Newman & Oliver Wright - Caught on camera: top lobbyists boasting how they influence the PM

Melanie Newman, Oliver Wright
The Independent, 6 December 2011
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/caught-on-camera-top-lobbyists-boasting-how-they-influence-the-pm-6272760.html

*Special undercover investigation: Executives from Bell Pottinger reveal 'dark arts' they use to burnish reputations of countries accused of human rights violations

One of Britain's largest lobbying companies has been secretly recorded boasting about its access to the heart of the Government and how it uses the "dark arts" to bury bad coverage and influence public opinion. An undercover investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, published in The Independent today, has taped senior executives at Bell Pottinger:

* Claiming they have used their access to Downing Street to get David Cameron to speak to the Chinese premier on behalf of one of their business clients within 24 hours of asking him to do so;

* Boasting about Bell Pottinger's access to the Foreign Secretary William Hague, to Mr Cameron's chief of staff Ed Llewellyn and to Mr Cameron's old friend and closest No 10 adviser Steve Hilton;

* Suggesting that the company could manipulate Google results to "drown" out negative coverage of human rights violations and child labour;

* Revealing that Bell Pottinger has a team which "sorts" negative Wikipedia coverage of clients;

* Saying it was possible to use MPs known to be critical of investigative programmes to attack their reporting for minor errors.

Reporters from the Bureau posed as agents for the government of Uzbekistan – a brutal dictatorship responsible for killings, human rights violations and child labour – and representatives of its cotton industry in a bid to discover what promises British lobbying and public relations firms were prepared to make when pitching to clients, what techniques they use, and how much of their work is open to public scrutiny.

In Uzbekistan, child labour is used in cotton fields to fulfil state quotas and the country also has a terrible human rights record: the think tank Freedom House put it on its 2011 list of the "Worst of the Worst" repressive regimes.

'I've been working with Hilton, Cameron, Osborne, for 20 years'

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