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Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
Astonishing Incongruities
Is It Time to Bail Out of the US? California State Controller John Chiang announced on January 26 that California’s bills exceed its tax revenues and credit line and that the state is going to print its own money known as IOUs. The template is already designed. Instead of receiving their state tax refunds in dollars, California residents will receive…
Read more »In America, Speaking the Truth Is a Career-ending Event
“The evidence is sitting on the table. There is no avoiding the fact that this was torture.” These are the words of Manfred Nowak, the UN official appointed by the Commission on Human Rights to examine cases of torture. Nowak has concluded that President Obama is legally obligated to prosecute former President George W. Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald…
Read more »Another Real Estate Crisis Is About To Hit
For a picture of the US real estate crisis, imagine New Orleans wrecked by Hurricane Katrina, and before the waters even begin to recede, a second Katrina hits. The 1,120,000 lost US retail jobs in 2008 are a signal that the second stage of the real estate bust is about to hit the economy. This time it will be commercial…
Read more »The Humiliation of America
“Early Friday morning the secretary of state was considering bringing the cease-fire resolution to a UNSC vote and we didn’t want her to vote for it.” Olmert said. “I said ‘get President Bush on the phone.’ They tried and told me he was in the middle of a lecture in Philadelphia. I said ‘I’m not interested, I need to speak…
Read more »America's Shame
Why does Israel have a right to exist, but Palestine doesn’t? This is the question of our time. For sixty years Israelis have been stealing Palestine from Palestinians. There are maps available on the Internet and in Israeli publications showing the shrinkage over time of what was once Palestine into what Palestine is today—a small number of unconnected ghettos or…
Read more »The collapsing US economy
Will the Government Turn to the Printing Press? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nonfarm payroll employment declined by 3,445,000 from December 2007 through December 2008. The collapse in employment is across the board. Construction lost 520,000 jobs. Manufacturing lost 806,000 jobs. Trade, transportation and utilities lost 1,495,000 jobs (retail trade accounted for 1,120,000 of this loss). Financial…
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The Difficulty Of Being An Informed American
The American print and TV media has never been very good. These days it is horrible. If a person intends to be informed, he must turn to foreign news broadcasts, to Internet sites, to foreign newspapers available on the Internet, or to alternative newspapers that are springing up in various cities. A person who sits in front of Murdoch’s Fox…
Read more »Somber Thought For The New Year—Will There Be A Recovery?
Economists will scoff at the question in the title. But that’s because they are trying to fit the present into the past. In the past recoveries were routine, because recessions were temporary restraints resulting from the Federal Reserve putting the brakes on an overheating economy. By restraining the supply of money and credit, the Fed caused inventory buildup, layoffs, and…
Read more »The American Puppet State
President George W. Bush was in his stand-up comedian role when he declared that he wanted to be remembered as a fighter for human rights. Seldom has a fighter for human rights amassed Bush’s death toll. According to Information Clearing House, Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq has resulted in 1,297,997 dead Iraqis. Millions more have been wounded, and millions…
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