By Barry Eichengreen & Kevin H. O’Rourke Voxeu.org “This is an update of the authors’ 6 April 2009 column comparing today’s global crisis to the

Obama Initiative Seeks Fix To Finance Regulations Yahoo Finance (17 Jun 09) Obama Bank Revamp May Stall as Competing Issues Mount Bloomberg.com (15 Jun 09)

Background Information A new food safety bill is on the fast track in Congress-HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. The bill needs

Photo By: Joel Black Dr. Sam Chachoua is a talented physician who had to leave the United States for reasons of safety and to protect

Photo: PA By Andrew Alderson For the first time since the Second World War vegetables are being grown in the Palace’s grounds alongside ornamental plants.

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The Bush Doctrine, Economic Warfare and Your Investment Portfolio By Rob Kirby In a military sense, we are all familiar with and can visibly recognize

By: Jean-LeonGerome For a long time, I have believed that community prayer can play an important role in transforming communities. That said, I don’t know

Chicago’s 49th Ward The participatory budgeting networks are abuzz with excitement about the participatory budgeting effort being introduced in the 49th Ward of Chicago. The

By: Kurt Nimmo Washington, D.C. – Congressman Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency Act, HR 1207, has reached and surpassed the level of 218 cosponsors in

Doctors Warn: Avoid Genetically Modified Food By Jeffrey M. Smith On May 19th, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) called on “Physicians to educate

This is the second week of the month. That means I am headed over to Westpoint, Tennessee on Thursday, June 11th, to join Franklin Sanders

By: Valuation Review A new announcement from Fannie Mae calls for all appraisal data to be submitted electronically beginning March 2010. Uh oh, there goes

Chicago’s 49th Ward I thought I would create a space where readers could post links or other information on governmental resources related to Chicago’s 49th

By: MercoPress In 2008, the world total military expenditure was an estimated 1.464 trillion US dollars, accounting for an increase of 4% in real terms

Vatican Study Endorses GMOs for Food Security Analysis: The academy aimed less to conduct an objective appraisal than to mobilize public support By John L.

Palmer pigweed in a Southern cotton field. By Clea Caulcutt The gospel of high-tech genetically modified (GM) crops is not sounding quite so sweet in

ATA Truck Tonnage Index Fell Another 2.2 Percent in April American Trucking Association (26 May 09) Association of American Railroads – Weekly Traffic Report “Lower

Chrysler Asset Deal Stayed by U.S. Supreme Court Bloomberg.com (8 Jun 09) U.S. Says TARP Issue Out of Court’s Reach Scotusblog.com (8 Jun 09) Reference:

By Dena Aubin and John Parry – Analysis NEW YORK (Reuters) – Is Campbell’s Soup a better bet than U.S. government debt? No, we’re not

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[I get fascinating feedback. Here is an example. Worth thinking about the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) and whether the oil price manipulations were part of an intentional

Photo: Douglas Jackson of E-Gold By Kim Zetter Jackson, 51, is the maverick founder of E-Gold, the first-of-its-kind digital currency that was once used by

Photo by: Media Gallery The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on April 28, 2009, on the question of whether state officials are barred by the

My good friend Jason Eaton wants a new logo for his website Social Thread. So he is having a design competition. It is an interesting

Mark Lundeen has just published week 86 in his “Bear Market Race to the Bottom Series.” View the series to date at Gold Speculator—weeks 69

by Dennis Cauchon Benefits, such as Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance and health care, accounted for 16.2% of personal income in the first quarter

Photo By: Wall Street Geek By Marcy Gordon and Greg Risling Angelo Mozilo, the man who rode the housing boom to build Countrywide Financial Corp.

By David Weidner The reality of shareholder enfranchisement is harsh and depressing, a testament to the intractability of the system and the apathy of participants.

Alas, the official statistics grow ever more suspect. Here are some comments on the real unemployment numbers. May Employment Report Not Believable Temp Work Helps

Youtube As discussed in last night’s Solari Report, the top story of the week is the abrogation of the social contract in America. Bernake alluded

By Peter Zeihan The global recession is the biggest development in the global system in the year to date. In the United States, it has

Below are the top 20 financial institutions by market capitalization in 1999 and then in 2009. Read article

View both charts in larger format View article

If you want to get an in-depth overview of the many problems facing the American food system, here is a good overview. Related Links: Support

By Shawn Dady Tennessee Representative Frank Nicely has been quietly working on a cow-share bill for the state of Tennessee. This is a very good

By: Kirby Anaylytics Newsletter

QUITO, May 30 (Reuters) – Ecuador’s government-run central bank has ordered private banks to repatriate $1.2 billion in overseas deposits and investments to help jump-start

[CAF Note: But are they buying real gold or paper gold?] By Andrew Frye Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., the third-largest U.S. life insurer by

Credit: John Tenniel by Greg Palast They may be crying about General Motors’ bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into

By Michael McNutt Although Gov. Brad Henry vetoed similar legislation 10 days earlier, House members Monday again approved a resolution claiming Oklahoma’s sovereignty. Unlike House

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin By Elana Schor Can these contractors guide the bailout with the public interest in mind while simultaneously courting bailout-related business for

A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they

Now that a variety of factions have harvested the planet for trillions of dollars in the latest round of financial pump and dumps, the questions

By Andrew Lehman It was clear to me that in preparation for going public, Google was actually seeding its searches with inefficiencies in order to

By Barbara Bradley Hagerty Ninety percent of Americans say they pray — for their health, or their love life or their final exams. But does

By Chelsea Schilling As part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Chrysler is terminating one-fourth of its franchises – but some say its catalog of doomed

Paul Albert Bartholome, Crying Girl By Duncan Gardham and Paul Cruickshank Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer

Jae-Soon Chang, The Associated Press: “The US and South Korea put their military forces on high alert Thursday after North Korea renounced the truce keeping

by Alex Ansary February 25, 2009 If you were thinking that the only things we have to be concerned about include wars, famines, and economic

There are positive ways to align our economic activities with our natural environment, and then there are negative ways. A sales tax is one of

Feel like saving the world today? Great ideas to take action to protect independent farmers and healthy food – Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance –

An interactive map of vanishing employment across the country, updated with the latest figures. [Click the image to go to the Slate website to view

With trial balloons floating regarding the possibility of preventative detention and now government vaccine programs, the control necessary to keep the dollar high and government

Gold Derivatives: The Tide Turns By Reg Howe On May 19, 2009, the Bank for International Settlements released its regular semi-annual report on the over-the-counter