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Iran was a great place to visit: American tourist
Interview by Ahmadreza Tavassoli
Unfortunately most of the people in the world, because of massive negative propaganda run by some media corporations, consider Iran as an unfriendly country. But when people visit Iran, they see a reality which is very different from the perception created by the mainstream media. Instead they find a country which has close to 15000 years of recorded history and civilization with a very attractive literature and culture and of course with the warmest people.
Dr. Philip Price is an American tourist who came to Iran in April 1999 to see his Iranian friend Mohammad. Before that, he had visited some other countries like Italy, Mexico, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece. So he is very familiar with different people and cultures.
Now 10 years later, I had an opportunity for a friendly conversation with him about his memorable trip to Iran. I think what he has to say will be interesting for people who want to see the facts and other sides of Iran.
Enough Bad Banks; We Need Good Ones in a New System
John Hoefle
We have said, repeatedly, that the attempts to bail out the global banking system, including the U.S. banks, are not working, will not work, and can not work. Not only will they not restore the banking system to solvency, but they are actually making the economic crisis worse.
There are several problems with the bailout process. One is that the global financial system, with its quadrillion dollars-plus derivatives bets and hundreds of trillions of dollars of worthless securities and unpayable debts, is hopelessly insolvent. This is, and has been from the beginning, a full-blown banking crisis; the widely touted "subprime crisis" and "credit crunch" were marketing slogans created for the purpose of hiding the true nature of the problem, and positioning the banks to lobby for a public bailout under the guise of protecting the so-called "little guy."
To Protect and Serve
I wish I was a graphic artist, 'cuz I just designed (in my muddled head) a great new Nobama T-shirt. All I can do is describe it . . .
Background: the popular headshot image of the prez, but not in the colors that remind me of a bruise I developed on my shoulder in 1968, the result of a just-missed-my-noggin swing of a riot stick by a cop who took exception to my use of the word "pig" in reference to his ugly self. No, the colors are shades of gray - nothing quite white, nothing quite black. Perfect.
A Day of Reckoning for the USA
Norm Lowry
“The foundation of all Mental Illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.” Carl Jung
Lately, I have been inordinately baffled. The combined government & media sources of the world tell the tale of whole countries sitting on the edge of fiscal insolvency; civil unrest now becoming commonplace; starvation & suicide deaths soaring; staggering rises in unemployment; food shortages; rising threats & escalating wars. In my country (USA), the stories are the same…maybe 46 of 50 States, 80% of US cities & 2 of 3 US banks are fiscally insolvent; likely 1 of 5 workers unemployed or working part-time (due to lack of suitable employment); home foreclosures up 80% in 2008 (worse yet expected in 2009).
Toxic Plans for Toxic Assets
Stephen Lendman
Exit Paulson, enter Geithner with the latest "no banker left behind plan" - aka whatever Wall Street wants, Wall Street gets. Yet, the reception was underwhelming. The Dow plummeted 382 points while investors took shelter in bonds and gold. AP reported that "the new bank rescue plan landed with a thud on Wall Street" as investors worried that no end to the crisis is in sight. Editorial and op-ed commentaries were near unanimously negative and some especially critical.
At a February 9 congressional briefing, lawmakers greeted Geithner with laughter and sarcasm, but most of it is just politics. Bailout opponent Brad Sherman (D, California) asked for details and a dollar amount, but instead got generalities about what he announced the next day - a plan to:
PROMISES, PROMISES AND OBAMESE SEDUCTION
Gaither Stewart
“To seduce also means to destroy”
I ran into a reference to The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits and found the suggestive old poem extensively reproduced and commented on line. The work consists of a poem, The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves Turn'd Honest, and an extensive prose commentary. The poem which first appeared in 1705 was intended as a commentary on England, as the Dutch Englishman, Bernard de Mandeville, saw it. Here is a stanza:
-
A Spacious Hive well stock'd with Bees,
That lived in Luxury and Ease;
And yet as fam'd for Laws and Arms,
As yielding large and early Swarms;
Was counted the great Nursery
Of Sciences and Industry.
No Bees had better Government,
More Fickleness, or less Content.
They were not Slaves to Tyranny,
Nor ruled by wild Democracy;
But Kings, that could not wrong, because
Their Power was circumscrib'd by Laws.
Obama, like Bush, is Throwing Public Money into a Black Hole
Rodrigue Tremblay
“The [financial] crisis was not a failure of the free market system and the answer is not to try to reinvent that system. ...Government intervention is not a cure-all." - President George W. Bush, Thursday November 13, 2008
"There is no cause to worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue." - Andrew W. Mellon, Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury. September 1929
"While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed the worst and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover. There is one certainty of the future of a people of the resources, intelligence and character of the people of the United States - that is, prosperity."
President Herbert Hoover, May 1, 1930
The Mossad’s Arab writers
Khalid Amayreh
“If good befalls you, it grieves them; but if some misfortune overtakes you, they rejoice at it. But if ye are constant and do right, not the least harm will their cunning do to you; for Allah Compasses round about all that they do” Surat A’ali Imran, (the House of Imran), III, v. 119
“I call on the Israeli army to crush these Palestinian terrorists who are at Iran’s beck and call; chase the rebels of Hamas, annihilate its lunatics and demented leaders who are disguised as men of faith, crush them and exterminate them and teach them a lesson which they will never forget just as you taught the terrorist Hizbullah a harsh lesson in 2006….So deliver Gaza from the grip of Hamas. These Palestinians, wherever they go, they take with them terror, corruption, trouble l, tumult and ingratitude…..!”
The Futility Of Not Creating Debt Free Currency
Eric V. Encina
U. S. President Obama is presenting all the positive sides of the "stimulus package" and pushing its ratification in the halls of Congress. Likewise, the Philippine President Marcapagal is carrying out a comparable program to uplift his own country's ailing economy, create jobs and save the financial system from total collapse. However, the problem with the stimulus packages created by these two leaders is that the money to be used to jumpstart business activities, obviously, provides a "band-aid remedy" coming from borrowings and taxes, which will create the same results of crisis in the long run except that it will be even bigger and more catastrophic. Therefore, the best kind of repair for the economic downturn is the creation of debt free money by governments' financial arms.
A Short History of US Government Handouts
Stephen Lendman
Global economies are withering while Washington conceives "Financial Recovery Plan(s) from Hell," according to economist Michael Hudson in his latest February 11 article. Bankers demand more trillions, "or (they'll) plunge the economy into financial crisis." What they want they'll get, and here's where things now stand.
On February 10, Bloomberg.com reported that Treasury Secretary Geithner "pledged government financing for as much as $2 trillion....to spur new lending and address banks' toxic assets, seeking to end the credit crunch hobbling the economy." Hudson calls it "Stage One of a two-stage plan," so far unannounced, to transfer trillions more to corrupt bankers who caused the problem in the first place, yet taxpayers will get little more back than the bill.
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