FOIA documents reveal coordinated effort between Obama administration and Wall Street lobbyists to deliver unprecedented benefits for financial industry. WASHINGTON – Today, activist organization Rootstrikers criticized collusion revealed in new FOIA documents between US Trade Representative Michael Froman – formerly a high-paid Citigroup executive – and representatives of some of the largest financial institutions on Wall Street….
Tag: Corruption
Empire of Lies: How the US Continues to Deceive the World About Puerto Rico
Nelson A. Denis, Truthout “There are three kinds of lies,” said Mark Twain. “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Unfortunately for Puerto Rico, this is not an aphorism; it is an operating principle. Separated by an ocean and a language from the mainland, Puerto Ricans have watched the US government lie brazenly and repeatedly — to…
Economist Paul Craig Roberts: Greece Must Leave the Eurozone to Regain Its Sovereignty
Wednesday, 04 May 2016 00:00 By Michael Nevradakis, Truthout | Interview In Greece, the Syriza-led coalition government is now set to agree to new rounds of cuts and privatizations demanded by the country’s lenders. Prior to its initial election in January 2015, Syriza had promised to abolish the country’s loan agreements and austerity policies. Now,…
U.S. Suicide Rate Surges to a 30-Year High
WASHINGTON — Suicide in the United States has surged to the highest levels in nearly 30 years, a federal data analysis has found, with increases in every age group except older adults. The rise was particularly steep for women. It was also substantial among middle-aged Americans, sending a signal of deep anguish from a group…
Dave Johnson: Panama Trade Agreement: Was Tax Evasion The Point All Along?
The Bush administration negotiated the Panama free trade agreement without addressing Panama’s bank and corporate secrecy. Panama has little to “trade” with the U.S., so maybe leaving secrecy out of the agreement wasn’t an accident; it was the point. It provided a stamp of legitimacy and protections for “investors” moving their money to Panama. Panama…
Why Haven’t Bankers Been Punished? Just Read These Insider SEC Emails
Right after the financial crisis, an SEC lawyer fought a lonely struggle to get his agency to crackdown harder on Goldman bankers. He lost. by Jesse Eisinger ProPublica, April 21, 2016, 8 a.m. Fabrice Tourre is sworn in while testifying before a subcommittee investigating the role of investment banks during the Wall Street financial crisis….
Neoliberalism: The Ideology at the Root of All Our Problems
Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it.
The Plan Behind the TransPacific Partnership to Destroy National Sovereignty
The TransPacific Partnership is labelled as a “free trade” magic elixir that will cure all ills – Jobs! Prosperity! World Peace! – but in fact it’s a toxic brew that weakens the American body politic and the Constitution. And when you look at how it came about you see that those are design features, not…
A Voter’s Guide to Hillary Clinton’s Policies in Latin America Support for coup regimes, militarization and privatization, trade deals that wreak economic havoc—they reveal the failure of Clintonism.
By Greg Grandin April 15, 2016 There’s been too little discussion of Latin America through the Democratic primary, including at last night’s debate, which didn’t touch on it. One candidate, Bernie Sanders, doesn’t have much of a track record to examine, although his broad rejection of neoliberalism and interventionism bode well for turning a page…
POTUS: Grover Norquist Explains in 1:16 What Wall Street, Corporations and Billionaires Expect From The President of the United States
Grover Gets His Wish Who is Grover Norquist? In 1999 Grover Norquist was instrumental in securing early support for then Texas Governor George W. Bush, continuing a decades-long association with Karl Rove. (“The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund dubbed him “the Grand Central Station” of conservatism and told The Nation: “It’s not disputable” that…
U.S. Uncut: Media Silent as Massive Protest in D.C. Fills Jails Beyond Capacity
Nathan Wellman | April 11, 2016 Initial reports suggest that hundreds of protesters are being arrested outside Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., right now for participating in a peaceful demonstration against corporate money in politics. With over 53,000 tweets, #DemocracySpring is trending on Twitter and on Facebook, and the protest is still unfolding. However, some noted…
Susan Grigsby: Essential reading: Jane Mayer’s ‘Dark Money’
Indian Wells is a posh desert town in the Coachella Valley, neighbor to Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage, and known as much for its tennis stadium and golf courses as for its multimillion dollar homes. As Jane Mayer tells us in the introduction to her masterful and disturbing new book, Dark Money, it was the perfect place for…
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