This madness of shoveling cash over to Wall Street has to stop. The first two rounds did little for the 99% who have been clobbered thanks to Wall Street gambling but somehow, Bernanke wants to continue. What is good for Wall Street is clearly not good for the rest of the US.
US central bank chief Ben Bernanke sparked a surge in share values on Friday after he signalled his willingness to embark on a third phase of money creation to boost the US economy.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed the day with a gain of 90 points after the chairman of the Federal Reserve gave a robust defence of past central bank interventions, which, traders said, prepared the ground for a third round of quantitative easing should the economic picture worsen. France's CAC and the German DAX closed up 1%.
In his much anticipated a speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Bernanke described the current economic situation as "far from satisfactory". He said that high rates of unemployment were a "grave concern, not only because of the enormous suffering and waste of human talent it entails, but also because persistently high levels of unemployment will wreak structural damage on our economy that could last for years".
I went on CNN this morning to talk about the two political conventions, including the topics of the media fact-checkers deciding that Paul Ryan has a difficult time with the truth, and Chris Matthews standing up to RNC chair Reince Priebus' not so subtle racist attacks on the President.
Things got a little heated as the conservative on the panel attempted to shut down any discussion that might differ with her her view that the media is all biased, except Fox - she says they're "real journalists."
And I'm sure Stalin loved Pravda too.
Keep an eye out for the new conservative war on truth talking point that we simply must get rid of "fact-checkers." (You'll note that while the left sometimes disagrees with fact-checkers, the right wants them destroyed.) The fact-checkers did their job and rightfully pointed out that Paul Ryan set a record for lies in his convention keynote.
But a party that basis itself on lies simply cannot permit independent thought, comment, or truth. So the Republican party has waged a decades-long war on the independent judiciary, on the media, and now the political "fact-checkers." On anyone and everyone capable of establishing, or guilty of attempting to establish, an independent truth.
What conservatives don't understand is that the only reason the truth has a liberal bias is because conservatives gave up on the truth years ago, when they realized they couldn't win elections if the public knew the truth about us and about them. They even set up an entire TV network devoted to misinforming the public, Soviet-style.
So keep all of that in mind when you watch this video, and get a first-hand view of how Republicans shut down any discussion and debate that veers from the party lie.
PS I'm loving this comment left by reader Ron Thompson:
If I try to avoid someone who has tried to murder me, I don't think it's fair to say that I have a "bias" against them. The same thing is true of The Truth and conservatives. I think The Truth may have obtained a restraining order prohibiting conservatives from coming any closer to it than a city block. That's why they're never in the same room together. And when they come into contact, as here, it's like matter meeting anti-matter--neither can survive exposure to the other. Problem is, there are millions of conservatives, and only a limited amount of Truth, and we can't use up all of it on minor targets like Jennifer Rubin.
When central bankers talk about more quantitative easing to help spur markets, remember this. While millions around the world go hungry or pay more for food, the bankers are cashing on enormously on the crisis. Barclays is being named here but don't forget that both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley also operate in this space.
There used to be rules against profiting from items like food but that became old fashioned and required modernization by the political class. If they can't make a single case out of losing trillions of dollars during the banking crisis, it's obvious at this point that the political class won't be interested in reforming this revolting business.
Oxfam's private sector adviser, Rob Nash, said: "The food market is becoming a playground for investors rather than a market place for farmers. The trend of big investors betting on food prices is transforming food into a financial asset while exacerbating the risk of price spikes that hit the poor hardest."
The World Development Movement report estimates that Barclays made as much as £529m from its "food speculative activities" in 2010 and 2011. Barclays made up to £340m from food speculation in 2010, as the prices of agricultural commodities such as corn, wheat and soya were rising. The following year, the bank made a smaller sum – of up to £189m – as prices fell, WDM said.
The revenues that Barclays and other banks make from trading in everything from wheat and corn to coffee and cocoa, are expected to increase this year, with prices once again on the rise. Corn prices have risen by 45 per cent since the start of June, with wheat jumping by 30 per cent.
Consumer sentiment climbed to a three-month high in August as households made progress paying down debt, but future expectations remained grim, a survey on Friday showed.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's final reading on overall consumer sentiment this month rose to 74.3, its highest since May and above economists' expectations of 73.6. In July, the number stood at 72.3.
Buying was bolstered by price discounts and low interest rates, the survey found. But the biggest source of optimism was tied to success in trimming debt.
Martini, once favoured by Vatican progressives to succeed Pope John Paul II and a prominent voice in the church until his death at the age of 85 on Friday, gave a scathing portrayal of a pompous and bureaucratic church failing to move with the times.
"Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our cassocks are pompous," Martini said in the interview published in Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
"The Church must admit its mistakes and begin a radical change, starting from the pope and the bishops. The paedophilia scandals oblige us to take a journey of transformation," he said in the interview.
It's travel day for me as I fly over to Charlotte for the DNC. By the time I reach the hotel I'm going to be a zombie and then I'll be up at a ridiculous hour on Monday morning. I haven't been through Charlotte in maybe 15 years so am curious how it has changed.
Our visit to the vet yesterday was a success and cat girl is healing nicely after surgery. We both gasped a bit at the size of the incisions and really see why she's been so slow to move around the last few days.
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