Iran’s new U.N. nuclear envoy gets harsh reception

"Western envoys gave Iran’s new ambassador to the UN atomic agency a frosty welcome Wednesday, saying Tehran’s new government should waste no time proving to the world it does not want the bomb. Speaking at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors, US envoy Joseph Macmanus said Iran was refusing to comply with UN Security Council and IAEA resolutions demanding it suspend key parts of its nuclear programme. Iran denies seeking or ever having sought nuclear weapons and argues that the six UN Security Council resolutions passed against it since 2006 — four with sanctions attached — are illegal." Continue reading

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Misesians on 9/11, Then and Now

"I attended the Mises Institute’s Supporters Summit in 2001. Occurring shortly after 9/11, which was itself unsettling in its pointless bloodshed, we also knew that so much more bloodshed was to come, and that all the planned attacks on human liberty and decency, such as the USA-PATRIOT ACT, were all in the works. Libertarians were virtually alone in opposing the planned expansions of government power in the wake of 9/11, and we saw the attacks for what they were: criminal attacks on human persons and property which nonetheless have not been set right or rendered impossible by more than a decade of nearly untrammeled government theft, war, regulation, and spying." Continue reading

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FDR: Sowing the Seeds of Chaos

"The long-lasting imprint from FDR’s famous 'Hundred Days' did not stem from the bank holiday, national industrial recovery act, the farm adjustment act, the Tennessee Valley Authority, or the public works administration. Instead, it is lodged in the footnotes of standard histories; namely, FDR’s April 1933 order confiscating every ounce of gold held by private citizens and businesses throughout the United States. Shortly thereafter he also embraced the Thomas Amendment, giving him open-ended authority to drastically reduce the gold content of the dollar; that is, to trash the nation’s currency." Continue reading

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American Banksterism Through the Ages

"The Bank of the United States 'ran into grave difficulties through mismanagement, speculation, and fraud.' -- James J. Kilpatrick, The Sovereign States; '[Henry Clay's] income from this business [general counsel to the Bank of the United States] apparently amounted to what he needed: three thousand dollars a year from the bank as chief counsel; more for appearing in specific cases; and a sizable amount of real estate in Ohio and Kentucky in addition to the cash . . . . When he resigned to become Secretary of State in 1825, he was pleased with his compensation.' --Maurice Baxter, Henry Clay and the American System" Continue reading

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David Stockman on his Book and the Bailouts

"The panic and bailouts that followed were really about protecting the bonuses and incomes of very wealthy and politically well-connected managers at banks and other heavily leveraged businesses that were eventually deemed too big to fail. What followed was a massive transfer of wealth from the taxpayers and middle-class savers, in the form of bailouts and zero interest rates on bank deposits imposed by the Fed, to the so-called One Percent. As I show in my book, none of this was necessary to save the larger economy, since the losses that would have taken place as a result of the collapse would have been largely limited to Wall Street." Continue reading

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Bill Bonner: Where did the US$ 700 billion go?

"You remember TARP? It was the feds' $700 billion program to rescue the US economy from a correction. Neil Barofsky was in charge of it. So we decided to go down and ask him how it turned out: '[..] What did they do with the money? They were supposed to increase lending so as to help bring about a recovery. None of them did that. Instead, they used it to repay each other's loans. In other words, they used it to reduce the amount of credit available...not increase it. And they bought US agency bonds...just as you'd expect. And they paid out their bonuses. In other words, they looked out for themselves...just as you'd expect.'" Continue reading

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Treasury: $238b financial bailout ‘avoided catastrophe,’ only $3b outstanding

"The US Treasury said Wednesday the government’s massive response to the economic crisis five years ago paid off, avoiding a catastrophic breakdown of the financial system. In a report marking the anniversary of the bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers — which snowballed into the worst crisis since the 1930s — the Treasury defended deploying hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to save other banks, major financial institutions and auto companies. While the rescue effort required piling up government debt, it was necessary, said Treasury officials who briefed reporters." Continue reading

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Mises’ Answer to Would-Be Conspirators: You Will Lose

"The heart, mind, and soul of Austrian school economics is this: the free market provides better information and better incentives to satisfy customers than any rival system can ever offer. Therefore, the free market will grow at the expense of central planning. The decentralized decisions of people with money -- decisions informed by market pricing -- will be more accurate than the centralized decisions of any committee. This is why I really do not pay a lot of attention to the Bilderberg, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission. Ultimately, they are going to lose, just as their British equivalents and predecessors lost, 1914-1945. The digital genie is out of the bottle." Continue reading

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Luke Rudkowski Questions Larry Silverstein On WTC 7 [2011]

"There are so many unanswered questions about the days 9/11, and instead of making up theories and speculating, we go to the horses mouth to get answers. Sadly, the response we get from these questions only invites more speculation about what happened on 9/11." Continue reading

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Richard Gage Talks Global ReThink 911 Campaign

"The engineers and architects who signed the ReThink911 petition question the physics and science of the collapse of the twin towers as defined by the US Government. These building professionals are being joined in their calls by a growing number of lawmakers in Washington. Former Senators Bob Graham and Mike Gravel have called for re-opening the 9-11 investigation. But most recently Alan Grayson of Florida. Grayson recently stated on CSPAN that classified 9/11 documents should be released." Continue reading

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