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The Great Bailout Swindle
The brilliant economist Michael Hudson lays out the stupidity of Paulson’s bailout plan and the lead role in Congress of Democrats in the bankers’ plot. What happened? What should be done? Read Hudson. PLUS the complete text of Alexander Cockburn and Fred Gardner’s probe of the McCain health dossier. Find the answers in CounterPunch newsletter. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories October 13, 2008 Michael Hudson October 10 / 12, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair / Douglas Valentine Noam Chomsky Ralph Nader Syed Saleem Shahzad Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Peter Morici Christopher Ketcham Stephen Martin Chellis Glendinning Saul Landau Ahmad Faruqui Adam Turl Serge Halimi Anthony DiMaggio John Ross José M. Tirado Paul Krassner David Macaray Robert Fantina David Yearsley Julian Clec'h Adam Engel Phyllis Pollack Missy Beattie Poets' Basement Website of the Day October 9, 2008 Robert Bryce David Vest Winslow T. Wheeler Andy Worthington Anthony DiMaggio Helga Serrano / Dave Lindorff Mats Svensson Rannie Amiri Website of the Day October 8, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Linn Washington, Jr. Mike Whitney Deepak Tripathi George C. Wilson Andy Worthington Charles R. Larson Patrick Irelan Matthew Koehler Stanley Heller Daniel Gross Kimberly Hartke Website of the Day October 7, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Uri Avnery P. Sainath Peter Morici Conn Hallinan Martha Rosenberg Binoy Kampmark October 6, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Tariq Ali Emily Horowitz Michael Hudson Ron Jacobs October 3 - 5, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Saul Landau Jonathan Cook Andy Worthington Dave Marsh Sasan Fayazmanesh John Ross Brian Cloughley Wajahat Ali Robert Schwartz Alan Nasser David Ker Thomson Peter Morici William Blum William S. Lind Michael Donnelly Thom Rutledge Manuel Garcia, Jr. Dave Lindorff Cindy Ellen Hill Paul Krassner Daniel White Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 2, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Joe Bageant Ralph Nader Mike Whitney Madis Senner Winslow T. Wheeler William Blum P. Sainath Website of the Day October 1 , 2008 Glen Ford Steven Conn Alan Maass / Lee Sustar Kenneth Couesbouc Stan Goff Adolfo Gilly Rannie Amiri Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Adam W. Parsons Dave Lindorff Douglas Valentine Adrien Rain Burke Website of the Day
September 30, 2008 Pam Martens Chris Floyd Stephen Martin Deepak Tripathi Mark Engler Jonathan Cook Dave Lindorff Manuel Garcia, Jr. Ahmad Faruqui John Chuckman David Macaray Fatemeh Keshavarz Website of the Day September 29, 2008 Mike Whitney Jeff Gibbs Paul Craig Roberts Peter Morici Tim Wise John Walsh Uri Avnery Alan Farago Andy Worthington David Michael Green Carl Finamore Iris Keltz Bill Hatch Website of the Day September 27 / 28, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Linn Washington, Jr. Christopher Ketcham Mike Whitney Kevin Alexander Gray Race in the Race: Is Obama Shining Us On? Anthony DiMaggio Mary Lynn Cramer Marc Levy / Stan Cox Saul Landau Ali Khan David Rosen Todd Alan Price Matts Svensson Ron Jacobs Robert Fantina Richard Rhames David Krieger Seth Sandronsky Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Day September 26, 2008 Moshe Adler Bill Quigley Jonathan Cook Manuel Garcia, Jr. Madis Senner Brian Cloughley Niranjan Ramakrishnan Joanne Mariner Dan La Botz David Macaray Website of the Day September 25, 2008 Michael Hudson Sharon Smith Ralph Nader Christopher Ketcham Eric Toussaint Robert Weissman David Estabrook Nikolas Kozloff Steve Early Judith Scherr Laray Polk Website of the Day September 24, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Nikolas Kozloff Robert Weissman Andy Worthington Steve Conn Karyn Strickler Diane Farsetta Dennis Loo John Halle Khalil Nakhleh Website of the Day September 23, 2008 Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. Michael Hudson Tariq Ali Patrick Dyer Franklin Lamb Joshua Frank Alan Farago Dave Lindorff Tanya M. Kerssen / Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day September 22, 2008 Michael Hudson Mike Whitney Christopher Ketcham Ron Jacobs Anne-Marie McManus Robert Weitzel Wajahat Ali John Ross Steve Breyman Patrick Bond Uri Avnery Carl J. Mayer Website of the Day September 20 / 21, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Michael Hudson Pam Martens Lila Rajiva Mike Whitney Richard Rhames Bill Moyers / Bill and Kathleen Christison Susan Block Robert Fantina Heidi Walters David Yearsley Raymond J. Lawrence David Rosen David Michael Green Anthony Papa Niranjan Ramakrishnan Howard Lisnoff John Goekler Missy Beattie Dave Zirin Charles R. Larson Tim Matson Susie Day Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend September 19, 2008 Steven T. Banko Mike Whitney Michael Hudson William Kaufman Brenda Norrell Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Clifton Ross Dave Lindorff Cynthia McKinney Susan Hurlich Michael Donnelly Website of the Day September 18, 2008 Benjamin Dangl Harvey Wasserman Susan Abulhawa Robert Weissman Anne-Marie McManus Corey D. B. Walker William S. Lind Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day September 17, 2008 Stephen Conn Forrest Hylton Patrick Cockburn Gregory Elich Ralph Nader Franklin Lamb Pam Martens Dave Lindorff Peter Morici Stanley Heller Douglas Valentine Website of the Day September 16, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Tiphaine Dickson Stan Goff Uri Avnery Michael Winship Jeff Halper Patrick Irelan Oscar Gonzalez Binoy Kampmark Fatemeh Keshavarz Sen. Russ Feingold Website of the Day September 15, 2008 Mike Whitney Peter Morici Patrick Cockburn Charles R. Larson Jonathan Cook Nikolas Kozloff Roger Burbach Helen Redmond David Michael Green David Macaray Ralph Nader Website of the Day
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October 13, 2008 Racism, Obama and the Fall of the American EconomyThe Law of the JungleBy FIDEL CASTRO Trade, within a society and between countries, is the exchange of goods and services produced by human beings. The owners of the means of production appropriate the profits. As a class, they are the leaders of the capitalist state and they boast of fostering development and social wellbeing through market. This they worship as an infallible God. In every country there is competition between the strongest and the weakest; the ones with more physical energy and better fed, those who learned how to read and write, who attended school and have more experience accumulated; the ones with more extensive social relations and more resources, and those within society who fail to have these advantages. Now, as far as the countries is concerned, there are differences between those with a better climate and more arable land, more water and more natural resources in the area where they are located, when there are no more territories to conquer; the ones mastering technology, having greater development and handling unlimited media resources and those who, on the contrary, do not enjoy any of these prerogatives. These are the sometimes enormous differences between the rich and the poor nations. It´s the law of the jungle. There are no differences between ethnic groups, however, when it comes to the mental faculties of the human being. This has been thoroughly proven by science. The present society is not the natural way in which human life evolved, but rather a creation of the mentally developed man without which his life would be inconceivable. Therefore, what is at stake is whether the human being will be able to survive the privilege of having a creative mind. The developed capitalist system, epitomized by the country with a privileged nature where the European white man brought his ideas, dreams and ambitions, is today in a crisis. But, it is not the usual crisis happening once in a number of years; not even the traumatic crisis of the 1930s but the worst of all crises since the world started to pursue this growth and development model. The current crisis of the developed capitalist system is taking place when the empire is about to change leadership in the elections to be held in twenty-five days; it was all that was left to see. The candidate of the two main parties that will say the last word in these elections are trying to persuade the bewildered voters --many of whom have never cared to cast a vote- that as candidates to the presidency they can secure the wellbeing and consumerism of what they describe as a people of middle class only, even though they are not planning to introduce any real changes to what they consider the most perfect economic system the world has ever known. The same world that, in their respective minds, is less important than the happiness of over three hundred million people who account for less than five percent of the world population. The fate of the remaining ninety-five percent of human beings, peace and war, the fit or unfit-for-breathing air, will highly depend on the decisions of the administrative leader of the empire, whether or not that constitutional position has any power at a time of nuclear weapons and space shields moved by computers in circumstances where every second counts and when ethical principles keep loosing their value. Still, the more or less nefarious role of the President of that country cannot be overlooked. Racism is deeply-rooted in the United States where the mind of millions of people can hardly reconcile with the notion that a black man, with his wife and children could live in the White House, which is precisely called White. It´s a miracle that the Democratic candidate has not met the same destiny as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and others who only a few decades ago dreamed of justice and equality. He is in the habit of looking at his adversary with serenity and of smiling at the dialectic predicament of an opponent gazing into space. The Republican candidate, on the other hand, who likes to enhance his reputation as a belligerent man, was one of the worst students in his class at West Point. He has confessed that he did not know any Mathematics; it can thus be assumed that he knew less of the complicated economic science. The truth is his adversary surpasses him in cleverness and composure. Something McCain has aplenty is age, and his health condition is not safe. I am bringing up these data to indicate that eventually -if anything went wrong with the candidate´s health, in case he is elected- the lady of the riffle, the inexperienced former governor of Alaska could become President of the United States. It can be noticed that she does not know a thing. Meditating on the current US public debt -$10,266 trillions- that President Bush is laying on the shoulders of the new generations in that country, I took to calculating how long it would take a man to count the debt that he has doubled in eight years. A man working eight hours a day, without missing a second, and counting one hundred one-dollar bills per minute, during 300 days in the year, would need 710 billion years to count that amount of money. I could not find a more graphic way to describe the volume of money that is practically mentioned every day now. In order to avoid a general state of panic, the US administration has declared that it will secure deposits that do not exceed 250 thousand dollars. It will be managing banks and such funds as Lenin would never have thought of counting with an abacus. We might be wondering about the contribution of Bush´s administration to Socialism. But, let´s not entertain any illusions. Once the banking operations go back to normal, the imperialists will return the banks to the private business as some other countries in this hemisphere have already done. The peoples always foot the bill. Capitalism tends to reproduce itself under any social system because it is based on selfishness and on man´s instincts. The only choice left to human society is to overcome this contradiction; otherwise it would not be able to survive. At this time, the ocean of money being poured into the world finances by the central banks of the developed capitalist countries is dealing a hard blow to the Stock Exchanges of the countries which resort to these institutions in an effort to beat their economic underdevelopment. Cuba has no Stock Exchange. We shall certainly find more rational and more socialist ways of financing our development. The current crisis and the brutal measures of the US administration to save itself will bring more inflation, more devaluation of the national currencies, more painful losses in the markets, lower prices for basic export commodities and more unequal exchange. But, they will also bring to the peoples a better understanding of the truth, a greater conscience, more rebelliousness and more revolutions. We shall see how the crisis develops and what happens in the United States in twenty-five days.
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