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home / subscribe / donate / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq [IMG] The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! The Timebomb Who Would be President Those who know him well regard him as a deceitful, violent, unstable liar who collaborated with the enemy and then postured as a hero. Meet the Real John McCain in this special, subscriber-only issue of CounterPunch newsletter, reported by Alexander Cockburn, Jeffrey St. Clair and Douglas Valentine. Why did Cindy McCain become a drug addict who, Phoenix doctors claim, at least three times sought medical attention for injuries consonant with physical violence? Why did Ron and Nancy Reagan shun him and try to derail his political career? Under the terms of the 14th Amendment is McCain actually barred from ever sitting in the Oval Office? Find the answers in CounterPunch newsletter. Subscribe now. ALSO, read David Price on the incredible case of Nicolas Flattes, whom the US government is trying to blackmail into becoming a spook! Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year ! Today's Stories October 2, 2008 Now Available from CounterPunch Books! October 2, 2008 When Push Comes to Pull The Inside Story of the Paul Craig Roberts How the Foreign Banker Invasion Sends Markets Shannon Five's Smashing Can a Bailout Succeed? Reeling Victory Over the Bush War Machine October 1 , 2008 By MADIS SENNER By Harry Browne Glen Ford The realization of how foreign central banks [IMG] The Last Hold Up contributed to our current financial maelstrom has been lost in the debate over resuscitating the US [IMG]Born Under a Bad Sky: Steven Conn economy and saving failing financial institutions. Notes from the Dark Side Trashing Sarah Palin: the For over two decades foreign central banks, of the Earth Boomerang Effect particularly Japan's and China's, have been pumping By Jeffrey St. Clair money into America, de facto loaning us money, so Alan Maass / Lee Sustar that we could buy their goods, thereby stimulating RED STATE REBELS: Why Not a Bailout for the their economies. This deliberate policy choice, to Tales of Grassroots Rest of Us? build their economies on the backs of US consumers Resistance from the Heartland not only led to a deterioration of our country's Kenneth Couesbouc balance sheet but contributed to the excesses we are [IMG] The Blame Game: When Wall know suffering from. Street Pigs Sprout Wings Edited by Push Versus Pull Jeffrey St. Clair Stan Goff and Joshua Frank How the Republicans Can Whether foreign capital is "pushed" or "pulled" into How the Press Led Win (And Deserve It) a country has important implications. Money that is the US into War pulled into a country does so because its Adolfo Gilly investments are attractive. Money that is pushed [IMG] Racism, Domination and into a country does so for a variety of factors Buy End Times Now! Bolivia extraneous to the host country. In this case the host country, the US, is getting money not because New From Rannie Amiri of the investment opportunities it provides but CounterPunch Books Bombs in the Levant rather because foreign countries want to stimulate Americans to buy their goods. History shows that The Secret Language Ismael Hossein-Zadeh money pushed into a country can lead to financial of the Crossroads: The Recurring Myth of bubbles and borrowing binges in the host country as HOW THE IRISH Peak Oil it must readjust to the inflow. Think of it like INVENTED SLANG giving your college age child large sums of money By Daniel Cassidy Adam W. Parsons each week. Food and Markets WINNER OF THE Economists may argue over whether money has been AMERICAN BOOK AWARD! Dave Lindorff pushed or pulled into the US. There is no arguing Bums' Rush to the that starting in the early 1980's when the Reagan [IMG] Bailout: Where are the administration began dismantling regulations that Click Here to Buy! Hearings? foreign central banks started aggressively buying US treasuries($2.7 Trl. held in the Fed's custody Cassidy on Tour Douglas Valentine account alone and does reflect Eurodollars, bank Click Here for Dates & Venues The Bush Continuity Plan? deposits, Foreign exchange swaps, Eurobonds, etc. held). We have consistently adjusted to this inflow "The Case Against Israel" Adrien Rain Burke by running record trade and current account Michael Neumann's Devastating The Party's Over: an Open deficits, ones that have historically brought Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Letter to Nancy Pelosi calamity. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan remarked over four years ago how America's ability [IMG] Website of the Day to run deficits had gone well beyond historical Click Here to Buy! Sarah Palin's Beauty norms. We have not been forced to pay the piper yet Pageant because foreign governments continue to "push" money Saul Landau's Bush and Botox into the US to maintain growth of their economies at World with a Foreword by Gore our expense. Vidal September 30, 2008 This massive inflow of capital (dollar purchases) [IMG] over the last two decades has not caused a surge in Click Here to Order! Pam Martens our economic growth which has chugged along at only What Wall Street Hoped to a modest rate. It has led to a host of speculative Win bubbles beginning with the 1987 stock market bubble and the innumerable crashes and ensuing bailouts Grand Theft Pentagon Chris Floyd that followed. It has also led to a borrowing binge How They Made a Killing on The Shadow of the by US consumers who are now saddled with massive the War on Terrorism Pitchfork: Elite Panic on debt($2.6trl.). In other words, all this money Wall Street flowing into the US has not led to a commensurate [IMG] surge in US growth but has significantly Stephen Martin deteriorated our country's and citizen's balance [IMG] A Biological Walk Down sheet and made us vulnerable. Within a few decades Wall Street we have gone from being the world's largest creditor to being its largest debtor. Deepak Tripathi [IMG] A Bitter Harvest in The long term consequence of letting a country Afghanistan continue to "push" money into a host country can be devastating. China, for example, has consistently Mark Engler intervened in foreign exchange markets by buying [IMG] Bad Money dollar denominated bonds and paying for it by selling its own currency to keep its value low and [IMG] Jonathan Cook prop up the dollar ("push" money in). By letting the The Attack on Zeev Chinese and others keep the value of the dollar [IMG] Sternhell: Has Israel artificially high and their currency value low, US Become a Breeding Ground exports have been made non-competitive in foreign [IMG] for Jewish Settler markets. This has prevented us from exporting our Terrorism? way out of our trade deficit which is the mechanism [IMG] by which trade imbalances are corrected. Over time Dave Lindorff this has meant the gutting of US exporting The Power of No industries and a significant loss of jobs. Manuel Garcia, Jr. Fighting the last War Time for a General [IMG] Strike? Economists and politicians are notorious for fighting the last war rather than understanding the [IMG] Ahmad Faruqui current predicament. Today, fearing a repeat of the In Cold Blood: Buried Great Depression, the Federal Reserve is pumping [IMG] Alive in Pakistan money into the system and Washington is bailing out financial institutions. The problem is not a policy [IMG] John Chuckman choice, albeit regulation would help, it is viewing Will the Bride Wear the world from a lens of the 20th century instead of White? As Rome Burns, the 21st century. Bristol Palin Prepares to [IMG] Tie the Knot with Mr. Technology and globalization are altering the world The Occupation "Sex on Skates" at an increasingly rapid rate. In 2007 Russia by Patrick Cockburn redefined war when it waged cyber war on Estonia by David Macaray flooding its Internet servers with so many requests [IMG] Blaming the Labor Unions that their whole system crashed. Similarly, we have been attacked by foreign countries that have given [IMG] Fatemeh Keshavarz us a Trojan horse of money that has deteriorated our What Obama Could Have financial health and given us a false feeling of [IMG] Said superiority and security, thereby making us vulnerable. [IMG] Website of the Day 538: a Cognitive Map of Washington needs to collar Wall Street, not further American Politics indulge it. Wall Street was the architect in creating the financial structures, products and the [IMG] September 29, 2008 liquidity that was necessary to enable large sums of money to breech our borders. For its collaboration Mike Whitney Wall Street has profited handsomely, from the shill Black Monday selling stocks, to foreign exchange traders, to participants in the US bond & money markets, to Jeff Gibbs investment bankers, to the mutual fund industry to [IMG] "Just Say No!" to Reverse players in derivatives markets and all have profited Humanitarian Imperialism Robin Hood from the financial invasion of the US. By Jean Bricmont Paul Craig Roberts Time For a Change Why America Should Listen to Ahmadinejad Instead of bailouts and easy money we need bold [IMG] initiatives from a government that understands that Peter Morici we live in world that is smaller and increasingly [USEMAP] The Bailout and the linked by cross-border capital flows and the Economy Internet. If the financial system is an integral [IMG] part of our well being and national security, then Tim Wise the government should move swiftly to seize control [IMG] Racism as Reflex of banking institutions and remove our vulnerability to the whims of foreign central banks and [IMG] John Walsh speculators. We need to nationalize financial Sarah Palin is a Rotten institutions to insure that they act in America's Mom interest, not their own self-interest that has no allegiance except to the bottom line. [IMG] Uri Avnery Israeli Fascism: Yes, It In addition, the government should do everything in [IMG] Can Happen Here its power to control and preferably outlaw derivative securities. Derivatives are securities [IMG] Alan Farago whose value derives from another security and Hell to Pay: the require a minimal amount of money down to buy. They [IMG] Financial Collapse and are a financial innovation of the last 30 years that the Housing Market have been behind every financial crisis and bailout [IMG] of the past few decades from the 1987 stock market Andy Worthington crash (stock index futures), to Long Term Capital [IMG] Is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Management in 1998 (interest rate derivatives) to Running the 9/11 Trials? our current $700 billion buyout of banks [IMG] precipitated by their purchases of toxic derivatives David Michael Green (credit/sub prime/mortgage derivatives). Derivatives [IMG] Where's the Repudiation? give speculators enormous power and leverage that they used to attack the British pound in 1992, to Carl Finamore attack the Asian currencies during the Asian Capitalism on Steroids; contagion in 1997/98 and recently to push the price [USEMAP] Labor on Tranquilizers of oil higher. If it were not for derivatives that allow for speculation in oil and basic foodstuffs CITY BEAUTIFUL Iris Keltz the price of food and oil would be much, much lower. By Tennessee Reed Postcards from the DNC Remember, it was margin buying (leverage) that led to the stock market crash of 1929 and margin buying [IMG] Bill Hatch was a precursor to modern derivatives (leverage). Take This Shrimp Slayer! [IMG] No doubt financial institutions, speculators and Website of the Day other special interest would be against draconian [IMG] Tina Fey as Palin, Round measures to seize control of financial institutions Two and outlaw derivatives. But bold initiatives are [IMG] needed at this time of national crisis. The world is September 27 / 28, 2008 changing and unless we see and understand this we are doomed. Bailouts have not worked since 1987 and Alexander Cockburn will continue to fail. We the people in the form of [IMG] How McCain Blew It government need to reassert ourselves if democracy is to survive. People need to rule, not money! [IMG] Linn Washington, Jr. Alaska's Blacks and Madis Senner, CPA, is a former global money manager Palin: a Strained turned faith based activist who is calling for Relationship Jubilee where we start anew [IMG] (www.JubileeInitiative.org) . He has written for the Christopher Ketcham NY Times, Barrons and others. He is author of [IMG] An Israeli Trojan Horse Japanese Euroderivatives (1990). He can be reached at madiss(at)verizon.net. [IMG] Mike Whitney The People vs. the Your Ad Here Banksters [IMG] Kevin Alexander Gray Race in the Race: Is Obama Shining Us On? Shop at Amazon.com [IMG] Anthony DiMaggio The Unspoken War: [IMG] Pakistan, the Media and Nuclear Weapons [IMG] Mary Lynn Cramer [IMG] Their Assets; Our Debts: How Economic Crises Are [IMG] Overcome Marc Levy / Susan Erony [IMG] War Jokes Wanted: No Laughing Matter Stan Cox [IMG] Livestock of Mass Destruction: Germ Labs in [IMG] the Heartland Saul Landau Election Drizzle Ali Khan Meltdown in American Markets: an Islamic Perspective David Rosen The Great Fear: the Sexual Politics of Sarah Palin Todd Alan Price Bailing Out the Foes of Public Eduction Matts Svensson The Red and White Bird in Gaza Ron Jacobs Pakistan Through the Eyes of a Native Son Robert Fantina McCain and the Economy Richard Rhames Hank-ering for a Bailout David Krieger The U.S.-India Nuclear Proliferation Deal Seth Sandronsky Rethinking Charter Schools Charles R. Larson Dear Mrs. Abacha: a Nigerian Email Romance Kim Nicolini Sadism in the Desert Poets' Basement La Morticella, Holt, Moser and Buknatski Website of the Day The Great Schlep September 26, 2008 Moshe Adler Bailing Out Wall Street Won't Save Main Street Bill Quigley The U.S. War on Unarmed Working Mothers Jonathan Cook When Archaeology Becomes a Curse Manuel Garcia, Jr. Visions of Pinpoint Control: the Romance of Laser Weapons Madis Senner Why the Bailout will Fail Brian Cloughley US Raids in Pakistan: Violations of Sovereignty Niranjan Ramakrishnan Oh, Henry! Joanne Mariner Passport Fraud and Torture Dan La Botz The Financial Crisis: a View from the Left David Macaray Ralph's Management Indicted by Federal Grand Jury Website of the Day Nader and Obama Girl at the Office September 25, 2008 Michael Hudson The Insanity of the $700 Billion Giveaway Sharon Smith Democrats and Corporate Bailouts Ralph Nader Who Will Show Some Backbone Against the Bailout? Christopher Ketcham The Economy of Dead Sperm (or What I Learned From My Race-Car Grandpa Who Had No Bankers) Eric Toussaint Is Another Third World Debt Crisis in the Offing? Robert Weissman Getting Wall Street Pay Reform Right David Estabrook A Better Bailout Plan Nikolas Kozloff The Voyage of the SS Peter the Great Steve Early The High Price of Purple Dissent Judith Scherr Blue Helmets in Haiti Laray Polk South Ossetia and Abkhazia: Notes from the Inside Website of the Day Letterman Spanks McCain September 24, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts The Bitter Fruits of Deregulation Nikolas Kozloff Palin at the UN: a Tutorial from Uribe Robert Weissman The Financial Crisis: How and Why Congress Should Play for Time Andy Worthington The Guantanamo Trials: Govt. Says Six Years Not Long Enough to Prepare Evidence Steve Conn Will Nader's Warning be Acknowledged in the Presidential Debates? Karyn Strickler The $700,000,000,000 Power Punch Diane Farsetta Stealth Marketers Gone Wild Dennis Loo Poisoned Legacy John Halle Wealth Tax Now! Khalil Nakhleh Palestinians Under the Occupation Website of the Day Nader: Debate Crasher September 23, 2008 Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. Bail Out on This Bailout Michael Hudson Henry Paulson and the New Yazoo Land Scandal Tariq Ali Why was the Marriott Targeted? Patrick Dyer A Death Row Visit with Troy A. Davis Franklin Lamb Hezbollah and the Palestinians Joshua Frank Oppose Barack Obama? How Dare Thee! Alan Farago Pushing the Referees: How the Financial Crisis Occurred Dave Lindorff The Bailout Will Kill the Dollar Tanya M. Kerssen / Roger Burbach Bolivia's Popular Upheaval Harvey Wasserman Nuclear Power Liabilities Dwarf Bush's Wall Street Bailout Website of the Day Hammered by the Irish: the Video September 22, 2008 Michael Hudson The Paulson-Bernanke Bank Bailout Plan: Will the Cure be Worse Than the Crisis? Mike Whitney Mushroom Clouds Over Wall Street Christopher Ketcham Let It Collapse! Ron Jacobs The Predators' Bailout Anne-Marie McManus Lost in the Rhetoric of Crisis Robert Weitzel The Twin Terrors of the Holy Land: a Sexy Fundamentalist and a White-Haired Zionist Wajahat Ali An Interview with Howard Dean John Ross A New Cold War Comes to Latin America Steve Breyman Does the U.S. Really Need Cluster Bombs? Patrick Bond On the Bellies of the Filth Uri Avnery Fly, Tzipora, Fly Carl J. Mayer An Open Letter to Michael Moore (AKA God's Pen Pal): Whatever Happened to Voting Your Conscience? Website of the Day Stop the Execution of Troy Anthony Davis September 20 / 21, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Is This the Stake Through Neoliberalism's Heart? Michael Hudson America's Own Kleptocracy Pam Martens The Wall Street Model: Unintelligent Design Lila Rajiva Putting Lipstick on an AIG Mike Whitney Full-Spectrum Breakdown Richard Rhames A Bailout to Nowhere Bill Moyers / Michael Winship The NY Yankees and the U.S. Economy Bill and Kathleen Christison The Making of Recent U.S. Middle East Policies: a New Study of Neocon Influence Susan Block Palin as Venus in Furs: the Dominatrix Politics of Drilling and Killing Robert Fantina Republicans and Subpoenas: Never the Twain Shall Meet Heidi Walters Hung Up on Route 36: an 18-Wheeler and a Nuclear Cask David Yearsley Germany's Lost Organs: When Bigger Was Better Raymond J. Lawrence The Politics of Tribulation: Sarah Palin and the Rapture David Rosen One Billion Pills Later: Viagra at 10 David Michael Green Living in Sarah Palin's America Anthony Papa Imprisoned Voters and the Elections Niranjan Ramakrishnan Freddie, Fannie, Daddy, Nanny Howard Lisnoff When We Notice the Homeless John Goekler Leaving Every Child Behind Missy Beattie Impalement Dave Zirin Leave Josh Howard Alone Charles R. Larson Holden Caulfield, Rest in Peace Tim Matson Too Big for His Birches: Woodlot Economics Susie Day Attack of the Angry Fetus Poets' Basement Corseri, Gibbons, Jenkins and Ford Website of the Weekend Dylan & Baez: Deportees [IMG] September 19, 2008 Steven T. Banko McCain's Passion Play Mike Whitney The Point of No Return Michael Hudson The Dow Jones' Wonderfully Cheesy Addition William Kaufman Shattering the Glass-Steagall Act: the Bi-Partisan Origins of the Financial Crisis Brenda Norrell The Fall of Lehman Bros.: Blowback for Black Mesa? Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor The New Rhetoric of Racism: Why Won't Obama Call It Out? Clifton Ross Bolivia: Cleaning Up the Bull Ring Dave Lindorff Hang On to Your Wallets: the Government's About to Rescue Us! Cynthia McKinney Seize the Time! Susan Hurlich Storm Survivors: a Dispatch from Cuba Michael Donnelly Let's Hand It All Over to the Democrats (They Helped Create This Mess) Website of the Day The Crisis Explained September 18, 2008 Benjamin Dangl The Machine Gun and the Meeting Table Harvey Wasserman The Senate's Drill, Drill, Drill Scam Susan Abulhawa The Lobby Has Spoken: Biden and Israel Robert Weissman After the Fall: the Financial Re-Regulatory Agenda Anne-Marie McManus McCain's Cinderella: the Fetishization of Sarah Palin Corey D. B. Walker The Poverty of 21st Century Progressivism William S. Lind Senator O'Bush: Why Obama is Wrong on Iran and Afghanistan Ron Jacobs Washington's False Logic of Torture Dave Lindorff American and China: Joined at the Hip Binoy Kampmark How Damien Hirst Got Away With It Website of the Day An Invisible Army September 17, 2008 Stephen Conn Palin and the Politics of Big Oil Forrest Hylton Reactionary Rampage in Bolivia Patrick Cockburn Petraeus Leaves Iraq Gregory Elich Inside North Korea Ralph Nader How the U.S. Auto Industry Wrecked Itself Franklin Lamb The Palestinians of Shabra-Shatila Pam Martens The Gang's All Here: Bush, McCain and the Old Iran/Contra Team Dave Lindorff The End of the Blue Chip Economy Peter Morici The Damage Deepens Stanley Heller The Killing of Count Folke Bernadotte Douglas Valentine Rambling David Foster Wallace Website of the Day Free Cindy McCain! September 16, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts US Economy: Rudderless and Reeling from Direct Hits Tiphaine Dickson Citizen Palin: Why Sarah Palin Quoted Westbrook Pegler Stan Goff America is Now Rome: an Open Letter to Christian Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan Uri Avnery Tzipi's Choice Michael Winship Lipstick on Polar Bears Jeff Halper Warehousing Palestinians Patrick Irelan Bolivia Versus the Empire Oscar Gonzalez Who's Dumber? Ike's Refugees or Wall Street's? Binoy Kampmark Cheney and His Records Fatemeh Keshavarz Muslims are at Peace with You Sen. Russ Feingold Restoring the Rule of Law Website of the Day The Next Great Rock Band? September 15, 2008 Mike Whitney The Tumbrils Roll at Dawn Peter Morici Toxic Lehman Patrick Cockburn Take Another Look at the Surge Charles R. Larson The Maverick Has No Clothes Jonathan Cook The Expulsion of Palestinians from Jaffa Nikolas Kozloff Racist Rhetoric in Bolivia Roger Burbach Morales Confronts the Insurrection: Bolivia and the Echoes of Allende Helen Redmond Where's the Health Care Bailout? David Michael Green The Democrats Do Poland David Macaray The Boeing Strike Ralph Nader Remembering Peter Camejo Website of the Day The Ballad of Sarah Palin