Essays

Ben Bernanke – Revisiting The Helicopter Speech

"He referred to economist Milton Friedman’s famous 'helicopter drop' of money as a solution for deflation. In essence, the suggestion was that, if there is deflation, it may be cured simply by dumping new currency from helicopters. For this suggestion to come from a member of the Board of Governors of the Fed caused many economists and investors to worry that the US economy may not be in the most competent hands. The comment was so unnerving that much of the rest of the speech failed to generate much discussion; yet, in it, Mr. Bernanke revealed other points from his philosophy on dealing with deflation that most certainly deserve review." Continue reading →

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The Fiscal Cliff’s Structural Endgame

"This Grand Bargain is coming apart as the promises made to everyone cannot possibly be met. Claims on welfare and disability programs are skyrocketing at the same time that the demographics of an aging populace are causing 10,000 people a day to enter Social Security and Medicare, the two costliest government programs. Meanwhile, the upper middle class that pays most of the taxes has been slammed with lower income and a devastating drop in their housing-based net worth." Continue reading →

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Will Grigg: “Damned from Memory”: When the Drug War Turns on its Own

The 'war on drugs' is a narcotics price support program and a public works project for the coercive sector (especially the prison-industrial complex). It also provides an apparently bottomless well of revenue to fund the projects in subversion and state terrorism carried out by the CIA and its affiliates. Investigators like John McLaughlin are rewarded for gathering up huge volumes of tiny fish – and severely punished when they disturb any of the politically protected barracudas." Continue reading →

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Privacy and the Government’s Dossier on You

"The bureaucracy is inscrutable and powerful. Its resources dwarf each person's. The purposes of this spy-bureaucratic machine are unknown to the individual. It is making decisions over lives but people are not privy to them and can't affect them. The power relationship between you and government is altered drastically when the government creates a dossier on you. You are in the dark. You are helpless and powerless. You feel that way, and you are. You are placed on the defensive. You no longer can act freely. Your freedom and your privacy both vaporize. You become fearful of speaking to others and expressing yourself because this is going into your dossier." Continue reading →

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Michael Reichert and the Road Pirates of Collinsville, Illinois

"The Collinsville PD conducts dozens of identical stops each week, and roughly half of its operating budget comes from seizures of cash and property through civil asset forfeiture. Despite the fact that Reichert was fired twice after being put on the so-called Brady List (police officers whose documented dishonesty disqualifies them from testifying in court) he is in charge of instructing other Collinsville officers in the dark arts of manufacturing 'probable cause' for vehicle searches. This makes a certain cynical sense when it’s understood that the Collinsville PD is engaged in a cut-throat competition with road pirates in the employ of four other police agencies." Continue reading →

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Keep Families Together: An Anarchist Christmas Message

"Mass incarceration and mass deportation are not separate policies that both happen to destroy families. Rather, they are two different facets of the prison industrial complex. The same corporations that operate prisons for profit also profit by running immigration detention centers. These companies back politicians that support authoritarian laws on both immigration and criminal justice issues. When people of color have their families violently broken apart by the state, the prison industrial complex profits. This Christmas, I urge you to organize against the prison industrial complex and the state apparatus that have broken so many families apart." Continue reading →

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The Forever Wars of Frederick & Kimberly Kagan

"Kimberly is currently president for the oddly named Institute for the Study of War while Fred is the director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. Fred’s brother Robert is at the Brookings Institution and has also been a foreign policy adviser to both John McCain and Mitt Romney. The Kagans are classic neocon entrepreneurs who rely on nepotism and cronyism to work their way through the system. Kimberly studied ancient history at Yale under Donald Kagan and then married his son. She is now billed as a 'military expert' by the neocon media in spite of her lack of any actual military experience." Continue reading →

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Kyle Bass at AC2012: The Engtanglement

"Kyle Bass is the managing director and principal of Hayman Advisors LP’s, general partnership which was formed in December 2005. Kyle Bass is also a mortgage credit portfolio advisor to few asset management companies and manages or advises over $4 billion of investments in the residential mortgage-backed securities market. Mr. Bass is also a Director of the Asset Backed Securities at Credit Derivatives Users Association. He is also a member of the Serengeti Asset Management Advisory Board and is a member of the endowment’s board of the University of Texas Investment Management Co which bought $1 billion Gold bars in 2011." Continue reading →

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Why the Poles keep coming: The British welfare trap

"If I was in a position of a British single mother I have not the slightest doubt that I would choose welfare. Why break your back on the minimum wage for longer than you have to, if it doesn’t pay? Some people do have the resolve to do it. I know I wouldn’t. Until our policymakers start to see things through the eyes of those ensnared in welfare traps, nothing will change. The Poles are not caught in this welfare trap. For then, the work premium is far higher. If you had designed a system to keep the poor down, in would not look much different to the above." Continue reading →

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In France’s Welfare State Status Quo, Are We Seeing America’s Future?

"In 2009, 11.2 million French persons received welfare payments, out a total population of 65.3 million. This amounted to $78 billion in payments. Moreover, these 11 million beneficiaries have families (parents, spouses, children); thus, more than 35 million people are actually benefiting directly or indirectly from welfare payments, which is more than 50 percent of the French population. If this rate were applied to America, about 157 million Americans would be relying on welfare. Owing to the amount of money poured into welfare, should it be expected that there is a 'social return on investment' and that the living conditions of French citizens are improving?" Continue reading →

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