"Bob Chapman" - Plummeting Dollar -- A New Wave of Treasuries and Toxic Waste

By Bob Chapman

Global Research, April 27, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24515

We believe there will be something similar to a QE3 by another name and the Fed will probably have to create some $2.5 trillion to buy Treasuries, Agencies, and toxic waste and perhaps inject funds into the economy. Japan certainly won’t be a buyer and probably will be a seller. China has indicated that they won’t be purchasers in the future either. The question also arises concerning the continued purchase of these securities by countries in the oil producing Gulf States, which are in turmoil. The three countries make up 45% of Treasury purchases. As we pointed out in previous issues the second half of 2011 should be monstrous. Even if the fed buys all the Treasury and Agency bonds they’ll still have to deal with a lower dollar and high inflation. Then there is high unemployment and raging gold and silver prices. There is also the question of US debt, federal, state and municipal debt, along with wars in the Middle East and North Africa. 

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"Bob Chapman" - Plummeting Dollar -- A New Wave of Treasuries and Toxic Waste

By Bob Chapman

Global Research, April 27, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24515

We believe there will be something similar to a QE3 by another name and the Fed will probably have to create some $2.5 trillion to buy Treasuries, Agencies, and toxic waste and perhaps inject funds into the economy. Japan certainly won’t be a buyer and probably will be a seller. China has indicated that they won’t be purchasers in the future either. The question also arises concerning the continued purchase of these securities by countries in the oil producing Gulf States, which are in turmoil. The three countries make up 45% of Treasury purchases. As we pointed out in previous issues the second half of 2011 should be monstrous. Even if the fed buys all the Treasury and Agency bonds they’ll still have to deal with a lower dollar and high inflation. Then there is high unemployment and raging gold and silver prices. There is also the question of US debt, federal, state and municipal debt, along with wars in the Middle East and North Africa.       

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"Margaret Flowers" The Push for Privatization of Medicare & Medicaid Spells Disaster

By Dr. Margaret Flowers

Global Research, April 27, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24521

Republican and Democratic Plans for Medicare and Medicaid Misguided: Push for Privatization will Accelerate Costs and Deaths

Leadership in Washington recognizes the damage our soaring health care spending is doing to our entire economy. Although their rhetoric differs, recent budget proposals from both Republicans and Democrats mistakenly place the blame on Medicare and Medicaid. Cuts to and privatization of these important public insurances will place us on a dangerous path that will leave health care costs soaring and more patients unable to afford necessary care.

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“Vi Ransel” - Manufacturing Poor People

By Vi Ransel

Global Research, April 27, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24525

Even as the overall population of the world continues to increase, the increase in the number of poor people outstrips that growth.  How is this possible?  Are the poor simply breeding like rabbits, increasing their numbers geometrically in a suicidal, lemming-like production line of poverty-stricken people?  Or are they getting some outside aid in their catastrophic endeavor?

In just the past 50 years, the Rich People of the "First", or Western World have invested heavily, through their banks, industries and other corporations, in the poorest regions of the "Third" World in Africa, Asia and Latin America, home to the majority of the world's poor.  Transnational corporations are attracted by the richness of these people's natural resources, the richness of profits off cheap labor, the near total lack of environmental and worker safety regulations and the non-existent benefits for said labor.

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“Think Progress” - Main Street Rage: Americans Protest Awful GOP Budget Plan at Town Halls Around the Country

By , ThinkProgress

Posted on April 27, 2011, Printed on April 28, 2011

http://www.alternet.org/story/150757/main_street_rage%3A_americans_protest_awful_gop_budget_plan_at_town_halls_around_the_country

At town hall events across the country, Americans are confronting members of Congress who voted for the House Republicans' radical budget, which effectively ends Medicare, slashes Medicaid, hacks away at domestic spending, and extends tax breaks for the wealthy. The entire House GOP caucus except for four lawmakers voted for Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) budget earlier this month, claiming a mandate from the November elections to drastically reduce domestic spending. But Republicans went beyond any semblance of responsible budget tightening to a radical deconstruction of core pillars of the health, safety, and security of the country. Recent polls show Americans are firmly opposed to Ryan's budget proposal, with over 70 percent of Republicans opposing cuts to Medicare, while over 80 percent of Americans overall disapprove of cuts to the social safety net program. And Americans are clearly demonstrating their displeasure with their GOP lawmakers, who are in their home districts for this month on recess from Congress. Last week, as lawmakers began holding town hall sessions in their districts, a number of Washington commentators wondered, "If the Ryan budget is so unpopular, where are the town-hall meltdowns?"

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"Mike Whitney" - The Big Shakedown -- Bernanke's Boondoggle

http://counterpunch.com/whitney04252011.html

By MIKE WHITNEY

The New York Times is bit late to the party but, better late than never, right?

Times economics writer Binyamin Applebaum has just discovered that the Fed's bond buying program--aka QE2--has lit a firecracker under stocks but done zilch for the real economy. Applebaum--who apparently never trolls the econo-blogs to expand his understanding of what's going on in the world of finance-- is "shocked" that Bernanke's $600 billion "credit easing" strategy has turned out to be an utter boondoggle that's had no measurable impact on output, unemployment or growth. Who could've known? But let's allow Applebaum to speak for himself:

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"Henry Giroux" - Disappearing Youth -- At the Limits of Neo-Liberal Politics

http://counterpunch.com/giroux04252011.html

By HENRY A. GIROUX

With the upcoming elections taking place in Canada, there are a number of questions that need to be raised about the role of young people in politics. Such questions might focus on the role young people might play in imagining a social order in which the ultimate measure of a society is to be found in the embrace of democratic institutions, values, and social relations rather than in the dynamics of a market-driven society that spends millions on useless wars, generates massive inequalities in wealth and income, and wages what amounts to a war on nature. While Canadian  politicians exchange clichés and lite barbs with each other, little is said about the state of young people or what it might mean to furnish the economic and educational conditions necessary for future generations to have decent health care, affordable and quality education, and a vision of the common good, one that imagines an enlarged and deepened democracy. The upcoming Canadian election should make clear as French cultural critic Theirry Pech points out that a democracy that “lives and breathes in the intervals between votes,” represents a society in the making, one that should be guided by a quest for equality, justice, and freedom not just for some but for everyone, especially disadvantaged youth. The importance of such issues becomes clearer in looking at the state of politics and young people in both Canada and the United States.

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"Dean Baker" - Deficit Fever -- Looney Tune Time Among the Elites

http://counterpunch.com/baker04262011.html

By DEAN BAKER

We already knew that the folks involved in debating and designing economic policy had a weak understanding of economics, that is why they couldn't see the $8 trillion housing bubble that wrecked the economy, but now it seems that they are breaking their ties to reality altogether. The country is still smoldering in the wreckage of the collapsed housing bubble, but the victims have left the policy debate altogether.

Twenty-five million people are unemployed, underemployed or out of the workforce altogether, but that's not on anyone's agenda. Millions of homeowners are underwater in their mortgage and facing the loss of their homes, that's also not on anyone's agenda. Tens of millions of baby boomers are at the edge of retirement and have just lost their life savings. This also is not on anyone's agenda.

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"Ralph Nader" - Chernobyl 25 Years Later

http://counterpunch.com/nader04272011.html

By RALPH NADER

The disaster at Chernobyl's reactor on April 26, 1986 continues to expose humans, flora and fauna to radioactive lethality especially in, but not restricted to, Ukraine and Belarus. Western countries continue to reflect an under-estimation of casualties by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

IAEA's figures top off at 4000 fatalities since 1986 that is highly questionable given IAEA's conflict of interest between its role of promoting nuclear power and monitoring its safety. An agreement between the IAEA and the World Health Organization (WHO) provides for WHO's deference to IAEA's casualty figures which has compromised WHO's priority of advancing health in the world. The United Nations naturally adopts the IAEA figures and the West's nuclear regulatory agencies, similarly committed to promotional functions, ditto these under-estimations.

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"Child Health Safety" - US Government Concedes Hep B Vaccine Causes Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Child Health Safety

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/us-concedes-hep-b-causes-lupus/

Here we present the US Federal Court’s decision and order in full below.

The claimant in this case was dead when the damages were awarded. Tambra Harris died on November 9, 2009. Tambra’s mother and Administratix of her estate, Louvonia Deniece Harris, was substituted as petitioner, and an amended petition was filed on October 15, 2010.

Hepatitis B vaccine is given to US infants at birth for a disease which they are not at risk of.

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