United States

Authored by John Coumarianos, originally posted at MarketWatch.com,

One view of what caused the Great Depression in the 1930s is that the Federal Reserve failed to prevent a collapse in the money supply.

This is the famous thesis of Milton Friedman’s and Anna Schwartz’s A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, and it was, more or less, the view of Ben Bernanke when he was chairman of the Federal Reserve.

The global economy today resembles that of the 1930s in several ominous ways.

Authored by Ben Tansoborn,

Either our minds have softened in the United States, or our hearts have hardened way beyond the callous stage.  Or, likely both!

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

The US economy died when middle class jobs were offshored and when the financial system was deregulated.

Jobs offshoring benefitted Wall Street, corporate executives, and shareholders, because lower labor and compliance costs resulted in higher profits. These profits flowed through to shareholders in the form of capital gains and to executives in the form of “performance bonuses.” Wall Street benefitted from the bull market generated by higher profits.

Submitted by Claire Bernish via TheAntiMedia.org,

Canada’s Cape Breton Island has become the unofficial escape option for their neighbors to the south should Donald Trump manage to be elected the next president of the United States. A website promoting the plan greets visitors with the following:

“Hi Americans! Donald Trump may become the President of your country! If that happens, and you decide to get the hell out of there, might I suggest moving to Cape Breton Island!”

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has accused the U.S. of arming “terrorists” who recently carried out a deadly suicide bombing in the heart of the capital Ankara on Wednesday. The Turkish President blames the Kurdish rebel group YPG- who have been defending their territories in Syria from the Islamic State/ISIS terrorists and who have been under attack by Turkish military- for Wednesday’s deadly suicide attack in Ankara, and accuses Barack Obama of arming them.