Bernie Sanders

Peel back the layers of the TPP and you’ll find what some believe to be a “corporate Trojan horse.” Disguised as “free trade,” the TPP’s provisions and tactics undermine Constitutional safeguards and national sovereignty. But there’s also a silver lining. The TPP exposes who, in the marbled halls of political power, is working for whom. It forces politicians to put their cards on the table, and by their hands you will know them. Packaged as a gift to the American people that will renew industry and make us more competitive, the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a Trojan horse. It’s a coup by multinational corporations who want global subservience to their agenda. Buyer beware. Citizens beware.

Should Gary Gensler truly be Clinton's chief financial officer, and should Hillary become America's next president, then ladies and gentlemen, in the fine tradition started by Hank Paulson who nearly brought the entire wastern world to ruin, the next US Treasury Secretary will be the following fine former Goldman Sachs employee and "champion for everyday Americans."

GE’s announcement that its getting out of the finance business should be a reminder of how crony capitalism is corrupting and debilitating the American economy. The ostensible reason the company is unceremoniously dumping its 25-year long build-up of the GE Capital mega-bank is that it doesn’t want to be regulated by Washington as a systematically important financial institution under Dodd-Frank. Oh, and that its core industrial businesses have better prospects. We will see soon enough about its oilfield equipment and wind turbine business, or indeed all of its capital goods oriented businesses in a radically deflationary world drowning in excess capacity. But at least you can say good riddance to GE Capital because it was based on a phony business model that was actually a menace to free market capitalism. Its deplorable raid on the public purse during the Lehman crisis had already demonstrated that in spades.

Like her or hate her, Elizabeth Warren this week unequivocally told Fortune's Sheila Bair "No," she would not run for President, reflecting that for a Democratic nominee to win, "they need to speak to America’s families about the economic crisis in this country. It starts with the recognition that Washington works for the rich and powerful and not for America’s families." We bring this up, since, as OpenSecrets reports, despite her reputation as an anti-Wall Street populist, Warren would have been the wealthiest of the potential 2016 presidential candidates currently serving in Congress.

What happens when rapacious cartels run out of billion-dollar-profit products? They jack up the price of what was previously low-cost. And why are they able to raise prices by 388% to 8,000% at will? Because they can.

Our political-financial system has gone from the dysfunctional to the failed to the surreal. Speculation, once left to individuals and investors, is now federally sponsored, subsidized and institutionalized. When this sham finally buckles and the next shoe falls and rates do eventually rise, the stock market will tank, liquidity will die, and the broader economy will plunge into a worse Depression than before. We are not there yet because of these coordinated moves and the political force behind them. But we are on a precarious path to that inevitability.

Yellen’s acting routine is worthy of an Academy Award. In her role, she plays a caring, sweet, grandmotherly type figure all concerned about the poor and middle-class, when reality points to a career as a staunch, frontline protector of the bankster oligarchy.

During this week’s Senate hearings, Janet Yellen was asked by Senator Bernie Sanders if the U.S. was a capitalist democracy or has morphed into an oligarchy. While readers of this site already know the answer to this question, which was recently proved empirically by a Princeton and Northwestern academic study, it was still stunning to note her unwillingness to answer the question...

For the past 5-6 years the United States has experienced something that no one ever thought could happen.

Moments ago The Hill reported that what many thought was absolutely impossible, may in fact become a reality: President Obama is considering issuing an executive order (#394,039,993,837?) to raise the minimum wage for Federal Workers... and in the process - with the help of that other central planner par excellence Bern-ellen - lap all those other Banana republics that everyone so enjoys making fun of.

The Administration Treats Congress Just Like the American People: With Scorn and Disdain

"Members of Congress have the same privacy protections as all U.S. persons" - NSA

The real life magic-mushroom, banana dictatorship envisioned by George Orwell just went full retard.

Context is key...

Starting at 1147ET, Rand Paul began his James-Joycean discussion on US-based Drone strikes, six hours later (and with some minor aid from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)), he is still going. Have you ever felt so strongly about something that you were willing to talk about it for over six hours? From Cruz's note that today is the 177th anniversary of the fall of (or stand at) the Alamo to Paul's rhetorical (we think) question to the President: "Are you going to just drop a hellfire missile on Jane Fonda?" We suspect the night is yet young as the snowquester continues.