Politics

This says a lot about the President. In his mind, he is dealing with a Madison-, Roosevelt- or Wilson-caliber crisis. And apparently the President also believes the political environment he must manage is even more partisan and poisonous…

Ron Paul’s campaign put out the video below. Move over, Barack Obama; now Ron Paul is “the one”.Meanwhile the Paul campaign believes the media, including Fox News, is shutting it out in favour of other lesser candidates. Jon Stewart has a…

The point is EMU is a political construct and unworkable in its present state. The question is whether the Europeans want to take the political steps like Eurobonds or fiscal integration that are necessary to support a stable currency…

In America everyone has been bellyaching about the S&P ratings downgrade like its an affront to the greatness of America. This is absolute rubbish. It’s pure denial and economic nationalism. Do you think the Germans would threaten to…

The essence of classical free market economics was to restrict Executive power – in an epoch when war-making power was the major abuse of national interests. Just as the lower house of bicameral legislatures had taken over the power to…

We repeat: the “debt problem” is a currency problem and the currency must and will collapse. The global monetary system exists at the pleasure of the Fed, which legally exists at the pleasure of Congress, which as we have learned only has…

As Mr Zapatero put it on Saturday, when he announced the date of Spain’s general election, the decision “is in the country’s interest” since from now on there will be certainty, and “certainty is stability”. While it is quite possible that…

Michael Hudson and William Hartung make the argument that military spending was exempted from cuts in the debt ceiling deal because it had strong backers who protected it. They also reveal that the US debt ceiling was put into place to keep…

Unfortunately for President Obama, the economy is not doing well. And the cuts envisaged in this deal make that problem worse. From an electoral standpoint this is already becoming a problem in key swing states like Pennsylvania.

The bill passed the House overwhelmingly. The Senate votes today. I will be speaking about the deal on BBC World News at 100PM ET.