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Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
The U.S. Criminal Justice System Is Collapsing
The Christmas season is a time to remember the unfortunate, among whom are those who have been wrongly convicted. In the United States, the country with the largest prison population in the world, the number of wrongly convicted is very large. Hardly any felony charges are resolved with trials. The vast majority of defendants, both innocent and guilty, are coerced…
Read more »Bush Lawyer John Yoo—The Best Case Against Immigration
The US government does not have a monopoly on hypocrisy, but no other government can match the hypocrisy of the US government. It is now well documented and known all over the world that the US government tortured detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and that the US government has had people kidnapped and “renditioned,” that is, transported to third…
Read more »The Cost of U.S. Hegemony is Beyond Reach
Undeterred by massive budget deficits from wars, a falling economy, and financial bailouts, the US government has managed to start a new cold war with Russia. Last Friday, the Russian military announced that it was developing a new generation of ballistic missiles in response to the US government’s decision to deploy ballistic missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic.…
Read more »America's Moronic Iraq Policy Means More Muslim Immigration
According to all accounts the US faces its worse economic crisis since the Great Depression with $2 trillion in near-term financing needs for bailouts and economic stimulus. This is an enormous sum for any country, especially for one that is so heavily indebted that it is close to bankruptcy. If the money can’t be borrowed abroad, it will have to…
Read more »The Crisis Has Hardly Begun
“The prospects of a government rescue for the foundering American automakers dwindled Thursday as Democratic Congressional leaders conceded that they would face potentially insurmountable Republican opposition,” reported the NY Times last Friday. [Chances Dwindle On Bailout Plan For Automakers, By David M. Herszenhorn, November 13, 2008] Wow! The entire country is steamed up over the Republicans bailing out a bunch…
Read more »America's Economic Crisis Is Beyond The Reach of Traditional Solutions
By most accounts the US economy is in serious trouble. Robert Reich, an adviser to President-elect Obama, calls it a “mini-depression,” and that designation might be optimistic. The Russian economist, Mikhail Khazin says that the “U.S. will soon face a second ‘Great Depression.’” It is possible that even Khazin is optimistic. I cannot predict the future. However, I can explain…
Read more »Conned Again
If the change President-elect Obama has promised includes a halt to America’s wars of aggression and an end to the rip-off of taxpayers by powerful financial interests, what explains Obama’s choice of foreign and economic policy advisors? Indeed, Obama’s selection of Rahm Israel Emanuel as White House chief of staff is a signal that change ended with Obama’s election. The…
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The World Tires of Dollar Hegemony
What explains the paradox of the dollar’s sharp rise in value against other currencies (except the Japanese yen) despite disproportionate US exposure to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression? The answer does not lie in improved fundamentals for the US economy or better prospects for the dollar to retain its reserve currency role. The rise in the dollar’s…
Read more »Reality Overthrows “History's Actors”
”This is no longer the muscular and arrogant United States the world knows, the superpower that sets the rules for everyone else and that considers its way of thinking and doing business to be the only road to success… Gone are the days when the US could go into debt with abandon, without considering who would end up footing the…
Read more »Additional Thoughts on the Bailout
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. Just as the Bush regime’s wars have been used to pour billions of dollars into the pockets of its military-security donor base, the Paulson bailout looks like a Bush regime scheme to incur $700 billion in new public debt in order to transfer the money into the coffers…
Read more »A Solution To The Financial Crisis?
Readers have been pressing for a solution to the financial crisis. But first it is necessary to understand the problem. Here is the problem as I see it. If my diagnosis is correct, the solution below might be appropriate. Let’s begin with the fact that the financial crisis is more or less worldwide. The mechanism that spread the American-made financial…
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The Bailout Will Fail
America has become a pretty discouraging place. If Ronald Reagan was still with us, I wonder if he would again refer to the United States as a city on a hill, a light unto the world. I think not. Reagan brought America back from discouragement, but it didn’t stick. Subsequent administrations erased Reagan’s accomplishments. Reagan defeated stagflation and ended the cold war,…
Read more »The Bailout Is A Fraud
In my last column I discussed the bailout as proposed and noted that the proposal cannot succeed if it impairs the US Treasury’s credit standing and/or the combination of mark-to-market and short-selling permits short-sellers to prosper by driving more financial institutions into bankruptcy. A reader’s comment and an article by Yale professors Jonathan Koppell and William Goetzmann raises the…
Read more »Can A Bailout Succeed?
Not without these elements and possibly not with them For the first time in recent memory Congress listened to the American people and blocked Paulson’s bailout of his rich buddies by US taxpayers. The same Congress that refuses the public’s demand that the Bush regime be held accountable and its gratuitous wars halted refused to hand over $700 billion to…
Read more »Has Deregulation Sired Fascism?
Remember the good old days when the economic threat was mere recession? The Federal Reserve would encourage the economy with low interest rates until the economy overheated. Prices would rise, and unions would strike for higher benefits. Then the Fed would put on the brakes by raising interest rates. Money supply growth would fall. Inventories would grow, and layoffs would…
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US Economy: Rudderless and Reeling From Direct Hits
We were promised a “New Economy” of high-tech tradable services to take the place of the offshored manufacturing economy. Wondering what had become of the
Read more »U.S. Economy—Temporary Respite, Permanent Decline
Americans were alarmed last June as the price of oil raced toward $150 per barrel. Today, as the price falls toward $100, Americans feel relieved. They have forgotten that prior to the Bush regime’s wars, the price of oil was $30 per barrel. Similarly with the dollar. Despair ruled as the dollar fell to 1.6 to 1 euro. Now with…
Read more »War With Russia Is On The Agenda
Thinking about the massive failure of the US media to report truthfully is sobering. The United States, bristling with nuclear weapons and pursuing a policy of world hegemony, has a population that is kept in the dark–indeed brainwashed–about the most important and most dangerous events of our time. The power of the Israel Lobby is an important component of keeping…
Read more »Are You Ready For Nuclear War?
Pervez Musharraf, the puppet installed by the US to rule Pakistan in the interest of US hegemony, resigned August 18 to avoid impeachment. Karl Rove and the Diebold electronic voting machines were unable to control the result of the last election in Pakistan, the result of which gave Pakistanis a bigger voice in their government than America’s. It was obvious…
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The Neocons Do Georgia
The success of the Bush Regime’s propaganda, lies, and deception with gullible and inattentive Americans since 9/11 has made it difficult for intelligent, aware people to be optimistic about the future of the United States. For almost 8 years the US media has served as Ministry of Propaganda for a war criminal regime. Americans incapable of thinking for themselves, reading…
Read more »The Daily Show Live From The White House
The Bush Regime imbeciles don’t know when to stop. With the world still rolling in laughter from John McCain’s claim that “in the 21st century nations don’t invade other nations,” the moronic US secretary of state declared: “This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten a neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get…
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From Stupid to Moronic to Evil
“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.” John Stuart Mill Many years ago, during the 1970s if memory serves, neoconservative Irving Kristol, echoing John Stuart Mill, called his conservative party, the Republican Party, “the stupid party.“ Kristol was referring to the Republican’s inability to compete on the…
Read more »Marching Off Into Tyranny
In last weekend’s edition of CounterPunch, Alexander Cockburn updates the ongoing persecution of Sami Al-Arian by federal prosecutors. Al-Arian was a Florida university professor of computer science who was ensnared by the Bush regime’s need to produce “terrorists” in order to keep Americans fearful and, thereby, amenable to the Bush regime’s assault on U.S. civil liberties. The charges against Al-Arian…
Read more »Bush's War On Terror—Silly But Serious
Now that military officers selected by the Bush Pentagon have reached a split verdict convicting Salim Hamdan, a onetime driver for Osama bin Laden, of supporting terrorism, but innocent of terrorist conspiracy, do you feel safe? Or are we superpower Americans still at risk until we capture bin Laden’s dentist, barber, and the person who installed the carpet in his…
Read more »Are You Ready to Face the Facts about Israel?
“On October 21 (1948) the Government of Israel took a decision that was to have a lasting and divisive effect on the rights and status of those Arabs who lived within its borders: the official establishment of military government in the areas where most of the inhabitants were Arabs.” Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History I had given up on finding…
Read more »The Mother of All Messes
Republicans are sending around the Internet a photo of a cute little boy whose T-shirt reads: “The mess in my pants is nothing compared to the mess Democrats will make of this country if they win Nov. 2nd.” One can only wonder at the insouciance of this message. Are Republicans unaware of the amazing mess the Bush regime has made?…
Read more »Making Americans Unsafe
The Bush Regime’s “terrorist” protection schemes have reached the height of total incompetence and utter absurdity. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, a private organization that defends the US Constitution that inattentive Americans neglect, there are now one million names on the “terrorist” watch list. One of them is that of former Assistant US Attorney General Jim Robinson,…
Read more »Little War Criminals Get Punished, Big Ones Don't
National Public Radio has been spending much news time on Darfur in Western Sudan where a great deal of human suffering and death are occurring. The military conflict has been brought on in part by climate change, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Drought is forcing nomads in search of water into areas occupied by other claimants. No doubt…
Read more »Enabling Tyranny—Brigitte Bardot And Other Victims
< border='0' width='255' height='320'> I recently read that Brigitte Bardot, now in her 70s, has been arrested as a hate criminal for complaining that Muslims in France slaughter sheep without first stunning them. The famous actress is known for her sympathy with animals, but the French government preferred to interpret her remarks as hatred for Muslims. Prosecutor Anne de Fontette…
Read more »A Work Force Betrayed
The collapse of world socialism, the rise of the high speed Internet, a bought-and-paid-for US government, and a million dollar cap on executive pay that is not performance related are permitting greedy and disloyal corporate executives, Wall Street, and large retailers to dismantle the ladders of upward mobility that made America an “opportunity society.” In the 21st century the US…
Read more »Buchanan, MacDonogh, Pilger Books Explode Illusion Of American Exceptionalism
Which country is the rogue nation? Iraq? Iran? Or the United States? Syndicated columnist Charley Reese asks this question in a recently published article. Reese notes that it is the US that routinely commits “acts of aggression around the globe.” The US government has no qualms about dropping bombs on civilians whether they be in Serbia, the Middle East, or…
Read more »Surviving Sailors Break Their Silence 40 Years After Israeli Attack on US Navy Ship
Hustler Magazine, July 2008 June 8, 1967 — the fourth day of the Six Day War between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan — was a beautiful day in the Mediterranean. The USS Liberty was in international waters off the coast of Egypt. Israeli aircraft had flown over the USS Liberty in the morning and had reported that the ship…
Read more »A Totally Lawless Regime
Think about this question: In the 21st century what regime is more lawless than the Bush Regime? Everyone is entitled to his own answer. The only answer I can come up with is the Zimbabwe regime of Robert Mugabe. Voted out of power in the last election, the great man hasn’t left. Zimbabweans are going to have to vote again,…
Read more »Elect Obama or Fall Into Tyranny
As articles by John Pilger, Alexander Cockburn and Uri Avnery make clear, by groveling before the Israel lobby, Obama has dispelled any hope that his presidency would make a difference. Obama told the lobby that in order to protect Israel he would use all the powers of the presidency to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon. As in the…
Read more »John Yoo, Totalitarian
John Yoo stands outside the Anglo-American legal tradition. His views lead to self-incrimination wrung out of a victim by torture. He believes a President of the US can initiate war, even on false pretenses, and then use the war he starts as cover for depriving US citizens of habeas corpus protection. A US attorney general informed by Yoo’s memos even…
Read more »Obama Grovels To Lobby— GOP Grovels To Tyranny
As articles by John Pilger, Alexander Cockburn and Uri Avnery make clear, by groveling before the Israel Lobby, Obama has dispelled any hope that his presidency would make a difference. Obama told the Lobby that, in order to protect Israel, he would use all the powers of the presidency to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon. As in the…
Read more »Can Truth Retain Its Independence?
Justin Raimondo has a good column this morning on Antiwar.com. It is written as a fundraiser. But what it shows is that journalists (and whistle-blowers) who tell the truth in America are more likely to be pummeled than rewarded, whereas those who lie for powerful interest groups live high on the hog. It wasn’t just Bush, Cheney, and the neoconservatives…
Read more »War Abroad and Poverty at Home
The US Senate has voted $165 billion to fund Bush’s wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq through next spring. As the US is broke and deep in debt, every one of the $165 billion dollars will have to be borrowed. American consumers are also broke and deep in debt. Their zero saving rate means every one of the…
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