Bank of England official: Occupy Movement right about global recession

The Occupy Movement has found an unlikely ally in a senior Bank of England official, Andrew Haldane, who has praised protesters for their role in triggering an overhaul of the financial services sector.

Haldane, who oversees the City for the central bank, said Occupy acted as a lever on policymakers despite criticism that its aims were too vague. He said the protest movement was right to focus on inequality as the chief reason for the 2008 crash, following studies that showed the accumulation of huge wealth funded by debt was directly responsible for the domino-like collapse of the banking sector in 2008.

Speaking at a debate held by the Occupy Movement in central London, Haldane said regulations limiting credit use would undermine attempts by individuals to accumulate huge property and financial wealth at the expense of other members of society. Allowing banks to lend on a massive scale also drained funding from other industries, adding to the negative impact that unregulated banks had on the economy, he said.

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Is The World Abandoning The U.S. Economy?

Go to any university, any center of equities trade, any meeting place for financial academia, any fiscal think tank, and they will tell you without the slightest hint of doubt in their eyes that the U.S. economy is essential to the survival of the world.

To even broach the possibility that the U.S. could be dropped or replaced as the central pillar of trade on the planet is greeted with sneers and even anger.  But let’s set aside what we think (or what we assume) we know about the American financial juggernaut and consider the sordid history of the money powerhouse myth.

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Romney to bosses: Tell workers how to vote

In a June 6 conference call that went unreported before Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney urged an audience of small business owners to do something that’s long been considered illegal in the U.S. until just recently: He asked the bosses to tell their workers how they should vote in November.

“I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections,” Romney told members of the ostensibly nonpartisan National Federation of Independent Business, an anti-union group whose endorsements tend to align with Republicans.

“And whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope — I hope you pass those along to your employees,” he added. “Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision and of course doing that with your family and your kids as well.”

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Democracy Now! National and Global News Headlines for Thursday, October 18

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told a courtroom at Guantánamo Bay that the United States had killed more people in the name of national security than he is accused of killing on 9/11. Mohammed addressed the court during a hearing ahead of his trial for coordinating the attacks. Speaking through a translator, Mohammed said that while about 3,000 people were killed on 9/11, the United States has killed thousands or even millions. He said: "Many can kill people under the name of national security. And to torture people under the name of national security. And detain their children under the name of national security." He went on to say: "I don’t want to be long, but I can say that the President can take someone and throw him in the sea in the name of national security. And so well he can also legislate the killings, assassinations, under the name of national security, for American citizens. My only advice to you that you do not get affected by the crocodile tears. Because your blood is not made of gold and ours made of water. We are all human beings."

#NDAA In case you missed the BIG news yesterday...

We are all now under the threat of #NDAA. Again. We had a reprieve for a few months from May to September, 2012. The case will next be heard in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, then it goes to the Supreme Court.


A federal appeals court has extended a temporary stay of a district court judge's order barring the government from using an indefinite detention provision in a defense bill passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama late last year.

A three-judge motions panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit issued the order Tuesday afternoon, indicating they saw flaws with the scope and rationale for U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Forrest's original order blocking the disputed provision of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011.

"We conclude that the public interest weighs in favor of granting the government's motion for a stay," Appeals Court Judges Denny Chin, Raymond Lohier and Christopher Droney wrote in a three-page order that also expedited the appeal.

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