Archive for the 'Elite' Category
‘It’s very hard to spend $20 million a year, even $10 million’
April 5th, 2011Via: AP: While most of the country is still dealing with the daily realities of a struggling economy, University of California, Berkeley professor Robert Reich said the super-rich are richer today than they have ever been. “It’s very hard to spend $20 million a year, even $10 million,” said Reich, former Secretary of Labor during […]
How a Big U.S. Bank Laundered Billions from Mexico’s Murderous Drug Gangs
April 4th, 2011Bloomberg ran a great piece about this back in June 2010. What has happened since then? Of course, there was some wrist-slapping, but, “Now that the year’s ‘deferred prosecution’ has expired, the bank is in effect in the clear.” Via: Guardian: On 10 April 2006, a DC-9 jet landed in the port city of Ciudad […]
Genetically Modified Cows Produce ‘Human-Milk-Like Products’
April 3rd, 2011When I saw this story in the Telegraph, I thought that it had to be the tail end of some April Fool’s antics. Nope. Apparently, this is actually happening. The article below is from March. Via: Good: Earlier this month, China held an exhibition to showcase major technical achievements during its 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010). […]
Ivory Coast: Aid Workers Find 1,000 Bodies in Duekoue
April 3rd, 2011Is a NATO invasion going to follow? Via: Telegraph: The single biggest atrocity in the long battle for control of Ivory Coast has emerged after aid workers discovered the bodies of up to 1,000 people in the town of Duekoue. Charity workers who reached Duekoue said it appeared the killings had taken place in a […]
A Murder Foretold
April 1st, 2011Via: The New Yorker: Rodrigo Rosenberg knew that he was about to die. It wasn’t because he was approaching old age—he was only forty-eight. Nor had he been diagnosed with a fatal illness; an avid bike rider, he was in perfect health. Rather, Rosenberg, a highly respected corporate attorney in Guatemala, was certain that he […]
Libya-Owned Arab Banking Corp. Drew at Least $5 Billion From Fed in Crisis
April 1st, 2011Via: Bloomberg: Arab Banking Corp., the lender part- owned by the Central Bank of Libya, used a New York branch to get 73 loans from the U.S. Federal Reserve in the 18 months after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed. The bank, then 29 percent-owned by the Libyan state, had aggregate borrowings in that period of […]
Foreign Banks Tapped Fed’s Lifeline Most as Bernanke Kept Borrowers Secret
April 1st, 2011Via: Bloomberg: U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s two-year fight to shield crisis-squeezed banks from the stigma of revealing their public loans protected a lender to local governments in Belgium, a Japanese fishing-cooperative financier and a company part-owned by the Central Bank of Libya. Dexia SA (DEXB), based in Brussels and Paris, borrowed as […]
Fed Releases Discount-Window Loan Records Under Order
March 31st, 2011Via: Bloomberg: The Federal Reserve released thousands of pages of secret loan documents under court order, almost three years after Bloomberg LP first requested details of the central bank’s unprecedented support to banks during the financial crisis. The records — 894 files in PDF form that must be individually opened and read — reveal for […]
EPA Ready to Massively Increase ‘Permissible Radioactive Release’ Guidelines
March 31st, 2011Via: Tennessean: The EPA is preparing to dramatically increase permissible radioactive releases in drinking water, food and soil after “radiological incidents,” according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. … The radiation guides called Protective Action Guides or PAGs are protocols for responding to radiological events ranging from nuclear power-plant accidents to dirty bombs. Drinking water, […]
U.S. Says Libyan Rebels May Sell Oil
March 29th, 2011Via: Reuters: The United States on Monday gave a green light to sales of Libyan crude oil from rebel-held territory, giving a potential boost to forces battling Muammar Gaddafi. A U.S. Treasury Department official said Libyan rebels would not be subject to U.S. sanctions if they avoid entities linked to Gaddafi’s regime, which would allow […]
