Time US leadership woke up to new economic era

This past month may be remembered as the moment the United States lost its role as the underwriter of the global economic system. True, there have been any number of periods of frustration for the US before, and times when American behaviour was hardly multilateralist, such as the 1971 Nixon shock, ending the convertibility of the dollar into gold. But I can think of no event since Bretton Woods comparable to the combination of China’s effort to establish a major new institution and the failure of the US to persuade dozens of its traditional allies, starting with Britain, to stay out of it.
This failure of strategy and tactics was a long time coming, and it should lead to a comprehensive review of the US approach to global economics. With China’s economic size rivalling America’s and emerging markets accounting for at least half of world output, the global economic architecture needs substantial adjustment. Political pressures from all sides in the US have rendered it increasingly dysfunctional.
Largely because of resistance from the right, the US stands alone in the world in failing to approve the International Monetary Fund governance reforms that Washington itself pushed for in 2009. By supplementing IMF resources, this change would have bolstered confidence in the global economy. More important, it would come closer to giving countries such as China and India a share of IMF votes commensurate with their new economic heft.

http://larrysummers.com/2015/04/05/time-us-leadership-woke-up-to-new-economic-era/ 

CIA Insider: "I was handed Janet Yellen's playbook and what's in it keeps me up at night"

Should the contents of Janet Yellen's playbook serve as a warning sign that something much more dangerous is approaching?
According to Jim Rickards, the CIA's Asymmetric Warfare Advisor, the answer is yes.
In a startling interview he reveals that all 16 U.S. Intelligence Agencies have begun to prepare for the biggest American collapse ever.
Making matters worse, his colleagues believe it could begin within the next 6 months.
However, the ground zero location for this global crisis is what makes his interview a must-see for every American.
Take a few moments to watch it below and decide for yourself.

http://moneymorning.com/ext/articles/rickards/janet-yellen-covert-playbook.php?iris=349665&ad=dark-yell1 

Jobs shocker may show economy is in real trouble

In the wake of March's tepid jobs creation, it may be time to take a harder look at this soft patch.

Even ahead of Friday's employment report, concerns were mounting about a growing pile of weak data. JPMorgan's economic research team cut their first quarter GDP growth forecast to a mere 0.6 percent on Thursday, citing poor consumer spending data.

Recent manufacturing data have also looked especially bad, with the ISM manufacturing index's March reading showing the slowest growth since May 2013. Separately, housing market indicators have been mixed, perhaps due to the harsh winter weather.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jobs-shocker-may-show-economy-210924798.html 

Disaster Is Inevitable When The Two Decade-Old Stock Bubble Bursts

Six years after the Global Financial Crisis, the U.S. stock market continues to soar to new heights with nary a pullback or correction. In this piece, I will explain why the stock market is experiencing a new bubble that is actually another wave of the bubble that has existed since the mid-1990s.
A two-decade old bubble? Yes, you’ve read that correctly. Most people will consider this assertion preposterous, but the facts don’t lie. Though the U.S. stock market has been experiencing a bubble for two decades, it will not last forever. I believe that the ultimate popping of this bubble will have terrifying consequences for both investors and the global economy that is tied so closely to the stock market.
The SP500 stock index has more than tripled since its low in 2009, but that doesn’t mean that we are out of the woods. On the contrary, this is the calm before the storm.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jessecolombo/2015/04/05/disaster-is-inevitable-when-the-two-decade-old-stock-bubble-bursts/?utm_campaign=yahootix&partner=yahootix 

Hillary Clinton Makes It Hard to Follow the Money

One way to evaluate presidential candidates is to follow the money. To whom is a politician beholden? To what extent are her personal financial interests at odds with the public interest? Which moneyed groups is he unlikely to flout?
Republicans and Democrats have their respective (if sometimes overlapping) fundraising bases. Very rich individuals sometimes support a given candidate. And then there's Hillary Clinton, whose relationship to money is even more complicated.
Her family's foundation is one complicating factor. "The Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from seven foreign governments during Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, including one donation that violated its ethics agreement with the Obama administration," the Washington Post reported last month.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/hillary-clinton-makes-it-hard-to-follow-the-money/388988/ 

We Send Teachers to Prison for Rigging the Numbers, Why Not Bankers?

The New York Times ran the story on April Fools’ Day of a jury convicting educators of gaming the test numbers and lying about their actions to investigators.

ATLANTA — In a dramatic conclusion to what has been described as the largest cheating scandal in the nation’s history, a jury here on Wednesday convicted 11 educators for their roles in a standardized test cheating scandal that tarnished a major school district’s reputation and raised broader questions about the role of high-stakes testing in American schools.

On their eighth day of deliberations, the jurors convicted 11 of the 12 defendants of racketeering, a felony that carries up to 20 years in prison. Many of the defendants — a mixture of Atlanta public school teachers, testing coordinators and administrators — were also convicted of other charges, such as making false statements, that could add years to their sentences.

This was complicated trial that took six months to present and required eight days of jury deliberations. It was a major commitment of investigative and prosecutorial resources. But it was not investigated and prosecuted by the FBI and AUSAs, but by state and local officials. In addition to the trial success, the prosecutors secured 21 guilty pleas.

Atlanta’s public schools, of course, did not engage in “the largest cheating scandal in the nation’s history.” The big banks’ cheating scandals left the Atlanta educators in the dust.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/04/bill-black-send-teachers-prison-rigging-numbers-not-bankers.html

Marxists and Crony Capitalists Driving the Information Highway Bus

By the time self-acclaimed whistleblower Edward Snowden blew the cover on the National Security Agency (NSA) forever more known as ‘Spies are Us’, it was already way too late for the privacy of online online private citizens.

Privacy, like commonsense and government altruism, doesn’t live here anymore.

Before NSA, we were already big-time data-based with every nuance and details of our private lives spied upon and standby stored by Google, FaceBook and other unsavory social networks on the take.

Blowback from the Snowden exposed NSA has über dominated the Big Brother spydom we’ve been talking about ever since.  Public outrage was guaranteed mostly because the NSA is a billion dollar government agency.

Little did we know when Snowden dropped his NSA bombshell that the IRS was spying on American citizens too, especially TEA Party members that the current administration regards as “bigoted”,  “bible-thumping””, “racist” dissidents.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/70890