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Ref.: Civic Events
Ref.: Arts & Education Events
Ref.: Public Service Notices
01.13 Hawaii, the Unique State
01.24 Can Apple “Rescue” US Education? (Graphics)
01.23 What You (Really) Need to Know
01.22 How to Forecast Weather Infographic w/Simple Explanations
Ref. : Letters to the editor
02.10 LET’S REMAKE THE WAY WE MAKE THINGS
02.09 Cancer rates triple among New York police officers who responded to 9/11
02.08 The seed emergency: The threat to food and democracy
02.07 Bill Gates backs climate scientists lobbying for large-scale geoengineering
02.04 Your Day at the Beach Could Soon Lead to a Night at the Hospital
02.03 Obama Won't Touch Climate With a 10-Foot Pole
02.03 Komen reverses decision to cut Planned Parenthood funding
02.03 Reforming EU Deep-Sea Fisheries Management
02.02 By defunding Planned Parenthood, the Susan G Komen Foundation betrays women
02.02 Ohio Tries to Escape Fate as a Dumping Ground for Fracking Fluid
01.31 Eleanor Smeal dissects Obama vs. Catholic Church controversy over birth control coverage - video
01.30 Scientists Call on Obama Administration to Use Science as Guide for Arctic
01.28 Universal health care proposal stalls in California Senate
01.27 Apple, Electronics and Environmental Ills
01.25 Solar Cheaper Than Diesel Making India’s Mittal Believer: Energy
01.24 Sounding an Alarm on Birds and Mercury
01.24 Why Don’t We Have Abundant Solar Power? Blame Financing, and Industry, not Science
01.22 The Money Traps in U.S. Health Care
01.22 Looking Inside the Twinkie
Ref. Dollars for Doctors - How Industry Money Reaches Physicians
Ref. 2010 Comparative Price Report Medical and Hospital Fees by Country - Graphics
Ref. Health at a Glance 2011 - OECD Indicators
Ref. : Why is Healthcare Absurdly Expensive in USA (Part 2) [Graphics] (Part 1 is here)
Video Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries
02.07 Did Obama make the economy worse? Not according to most statistics
02.02 ABC's Iran Propaganda
02.02 The Ongoing “Foxification” of the Wall Street Journal
01.30 While temperatures rise, denialists reach lower
01.29 Fox News psychiatrist: Newt Gingrich's affairs 'mean he might make a strong president'
01.22 ‘Shocking victory’: With SOPA shelved, Markos Moulitsas on a way forward for Internet policy - video
Daily The Daily Howler
02.05 Why the AGs Must Not Settle: Robo-signing Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg
02.04 THE CAGING OF AMERICA
02.03 Senate Votes To Ban Its Members From Insider Trading... Kind Of
01.31 Senate clears way for vote on insider-trading ban
01.25 Why all the robo-signing? Shedding light on the shadow banking system
01.25 In Iraq, Haditha case is reminder of justice denied
01.22 Still Not Clear on SOPA & PIPA? Infographic w/Simple Explanations
02.10 The Cancer in Occupy
02.10 How Opus Dei Influenced Rick Santorum
02.10 People Are Not Leaving the Labor Force
02.09 Obama, Explained
02.09 OPED: The White Underclass
02.09 EDITORIAL: A Terrible Transportation Bill
02.09 THE OBAMA MEMOS
02.06 Are Conservatives More Fearful Than Liberals?
02.04 Soaking the Poor, State by State
02.04 Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian's Rosy Outlook On The Future of Politics
02.03 SUPERBOWL XLVI: Are You Ready for Some Football???
02.03 Buffett rules: Sheldon Whitehouse introduces the Paying a Fair Share Act - video
02.02 Secrecy Shrouds ‘Super PAC’ Funds in Latest Filings
02.01 Rich Patrons Are Major Source of Romney’s Cash
01.31 How Newt Gingrich Crippled Congress
01.30 Corporate Rule Is Not Inevitable
01.30 Clashes in Oakland: 400 Arrests, Tear Gas, Flash-Bang Grenades
01.30 A European look at the US primaries - video
01.29 Obama’s Faux Populism Sounds Like Bill Clinton
01.25 Inside Romney’s Tax Returns: A Reading Guide
01.24 ILLUSIONS: Being Led Down the Primrose Path...???
01.24 Science Bulletins: Whales Give Dolphins a Lift - video
01.24 THE OBAMA MEMOS
01.22 Three Takeaways From South Carolina
02.10 This is no bailout for Main Street America
02.10 Why the Foreclosure Deal May Not Be So Hot After All
02.10 Matt Taibbi assesses the $26 billion settlement designed to aid victims of foreclosure fraud - video
02.10 Foreclosure Deal to Spur U.S. Home Seizures
02.08 Banks Paying Homeowners to Avoid Foreclosures
02.07 App Stores Create 500,000 U.S. Jobs
02.07 The Payroll Tax Fight
02.07 Obama super PAC decision: President blesses fundraising for Priorities USA Action
02.06 How Privatizing Government Shovels Cash to Parasitic Corporations and Undermines Democracy
02.05 We’re More Unequal Than You Think – Graphic: Unequal rise in income
02.03 PRIVATE INEQUITY
02.02 The New American Divide
02.02 American Airlines proposes to end all four pension plans
02.01 Economics 101
01.30 New Strategy, Old Pentagon Budget
01.30 Where Did All the Workers Go? 60 Years of Economic Change in 1 Graph
01.29 The Apple Boycott: People Are Spouting Nonsense about Chinese Manufacturing
01.29 Made in the World
01.28 Sugar daddy Adelson could save $500 million in taxes if his boy Gingrich wins - video
01.28 How Swedes and Norwegians broke the power of the ‘1 percent’
01.27 Unemployment in Spain Rises to 22.9%
01.27 Chinese Company Continues Plan To Replace Workforce With 500,000 Robots
01.27 Details Emerge of New Financial Fraud Unit
01.27 Not all jobs are equal
01.27 The Shift from Manufacturing to Service Economy - Graphic
01.25 Billionaires Occupy Davos as 0.01% Bemoan Inequality
01.24 Germany has the economic strengths America once boasted
01.23 State Capitalism: The visible hand
01.22 How Big Money Bought Our Democracy, Corrupted Both Parties, and Set Us Up for Another Financial Crisis - video
01.22 How U.S. lost out on Apple's iPhone work
02.03 What the Occupy movement must learn from Sundance
02.02 US plans to halt Afghan combat role early surprise Kabul
01.31 TABLE TALK
01.30 With its deadly drones, the US is fighting a coward's war
01.30 UN panel aims for 'a future worth choosing'
01.26 Iran is ready to return to nuclear talks
01.24 Reagan’s Hand in Guatemala’s Genocide
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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS:
Uncle Sam, Your Banker Will See You Now
Should the US proceed with sanctions intended to cause the Chinese currency to appreciate, “the Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar.”
The precarious position of the US dollar as reserve currency has been thoroughly ignored and denied. The delusion that the US is “the world’s sole superpower,” whose currency is desirable regardless of its excess supply, reflects American hubris, not reality. This hubris is so extreme that only 6 weeks ago McKinsey Global Institute published a study that concluded that even a doubling of the US current account deficit to $1.6 trillion would pose no problem.
Strategic thinkers, if any remain who have not been purged by neocons, will quickly conclude that China’s power over the value of the dollar and US interest rates also gives China power over US foreign policy. The US was able to attack Afghanistan and Iraq only because China provided the largest part of the financing for Bush’s wars.
If China ceased to buy US Treasuries, Bush’s wars would end. The savings rate of US consumers is essentially zero, and several million are afflicted with mortgages that they cannot afford. With Bush’s budget in deficit and with no room in the US consumer’s budget for a tax increase, Bush’s wars can only be financed by foreigners.
No country on earth, except for Israel, supports the Bush regimes’ desire to attack Iran. It is China’s decision whether it calls in the US ambassador, and delivers the message that there will be no attack on Iran or further war unless the US is prepared to buy back $900 billion in US Treasury bonds and other dollar assets.
The US, of course, has no foreign reserves with which to make the purchase. The impact of such a large sale on US interest rates would wreck the US economy and effectively end Bush’s war-making capability. Moreover, other governments would likely follow the Chinese lead, as the main support for the US dollar has been China’s willingness to accumulate them. If the largest holder dumped the dollar, other countries would dump dollars, too.
The value and purchasing power of the US dollar would fall. When hard-pressed Americans went to Wal-Mart to make their purchases, the new prices would make them think they had wandered into Nieman Marcus. Americans would not be able to maintain their current living standard.
Simultaneously, Americans would be hit either with tax increases in order to close a budget deficit that foreigners will no longer finance or with large cuts in income security programs. The only other source of budgetary finance would be for the government to print money to pay its bills. In this event, Americans would experience inflation in addition to higher prices from dollar devaluation.
This is a grim outlook. We got in this position because our leaders are ignorant fools. So are our economists, many of whom are paid shills for some interest group. So are our corporate leaders whose greed gave China power over the US by offshoring the US production of goods and services to China. It was the corporate fat cats who turned US Gross Domestic Product into Chinese imports, and it was the “free trade, free market economists” who egged it on.
How did a people as stupid as Americans get so full of hubris?
This commentary is republished in the Baltimore Chronicle with the permission of the author.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.
This story was published on August 16, 2007.
