...the US will have 2% growth indefinitely–no real recovery, no double dip, no banking crisis, but no bank stock rally. Government spending now comprises 40% of American national income, up from 30% in 2000. That’s the same proportion as in Germany; “socialist” Sweden is at 47%. By contrast, ex-communist Russia is at just 34%, and China at 18%.

Allegedly, Jamal Jarrah also used Lebanese Hizb ut-Tahrir militants, an Islamist organization based in London and especially active in Central Asia. Hizb ut-Tahrir, which advocates non-violence, is accused of masterminding many attacks in the Ferghana Valley. It was with the intention of curbing this group that China began its rapprochement with Russia within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Ron Paul is America's leading voice for limited, constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, a return to sound monetary policies, and a sensible pro-America foreign policy.

Destination Europe: residents from overseas

The Turkish man claimed bin Laden had died of natural causes in 2006 and that the US Navy SEALs had simply found and opened the terror mastermind’s grave.

A hugely important provision for Congress to authorize a new worldwide war has been tucked away inside the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill was marked up by members of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) last Wednesday that poured into Thursday morning (2:45 a.m. to be exact). An article in the Army Times reveals that the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team will be redeployed from Iraq to domestic operations within the United States.

Strauss Kahn's proposed reforms while providing a "human face" to the IMF did not constitute a shift in direction. They were formulated within the realm of neoliberalism. They modified but they did not undermine the central role of IMF "economic medicine". The socially devastating impacts of IMF "shock treatment" under Strauss-Kahn's leadership have largely prevailed. Dominique Strauss Kahn arrived at the helm of the IMF in November 2007, less than a year prior to September-October 2008 financial meltdown on Wall Street. The structural adjustment program (SAP) was not modified. Under DSK, IMF "shock treatment" which historically had been limited to developing countries was imposed on Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Under the helm of DSK as Managing Director, the IMF demanded that developing countries remove food and fuel subsidies at a time of rising commodity prices on the New York and Chicago Mercantile exchanges. The hikes in food and fuel prices, which preceded the September-October 2008 Wall Street crash, were in large part the result of market manipulation. Grain prices were boosted artificially by large scale speculative operations. Instead of taming the speculators and containing the rise in food and fuel prices, the IMF's role was to ensure that the governments of indebted developing countries would not in any way interfere in the "free market", by preventing these prices from going up. These hikes in food prices, which are the result of outright manipulation (rather than scarcity) have served to impoverish people Worldwide. The surge in food prices constitutes a new phase of the process of global impoverishment. DSK was complicit in this process of market manipulation. The removal of food and fuel subsidies in Tunisia and Egypt had been demanded by the IMF. Food and fuel prices skyrocketed, people were impoverished, paving the way towards the January 2011 social protest movement:

Zhirinovsky’s reference to the Kuril Islands in connection with the devastating tsunami that hit Japan in March is a not so subtle suggestion that Russia had something to do with causing the natural disaster that killed thousands, led to the Fukushima crisis and threatened to derail Japan’s economic recovery.

Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran: What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers' central bank in Switzerland.