U.S. leads world in foreign weapons sales: report

By Jasmin Melvin Sep 6, 2009 Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States accounted for more than two-thirds of foreign weapons sales in 2008, a year in which global sales were at a three-year low, The New York Times reported on Sunday.Citing a congressional study released on Friday, the Times said the United States was involved in 68.4 percent of the global sales of arms.
U.S. weapons sales jumped nearly 50 percent in 2008 despite the global economic recession to $37.8 billion from $25.4 billion the year before.

Olbermann – “Younger Voters Think it’s a Toss-up” between Capitalism and Socialism

Check out this hilarious segment from Countdown with Keith Olbermann. He attacks the GOP’s attempts at labeling the Democrats as “Democratic Socialists” by explaining how “extraordinarily large numbers of Americans think socialism is a compliment.”

The Daily Show – Stockholm Syndrome

Wyatt Cenac travels to Sweden to witness the “tyranny” of socialism.

Part 1

Originally aired 4/21/09

Just 53% in US Prefer Capitalism To Socialism

Brian Montopoli, CBS News, April 9, 2009

Here’s a new Rasmussen Reports poll that could mean nightmares for Joe The Plumber: According to Rasmussen, just 53 percent of those asked say capitalism is a better system than socialism.

Twenty percent, meanwhile, said socialism is better. The remaining 27 percent weren’t sure.

Among those under 30, the support for capitalism is even weaker. Thirty-seven percent prefer capitalism, 33 percent favor socialism, and 30 percent are undecided.

“Republicans – by an 11-to-1 margin – favor capitalism,” note the pollsters. “Democrats are much more closely divided: Just 39% say capitalism is better while 30% prefer socialism. As for those not affiliated with either major political party, 48% say capitalism is best, and 21% opt for socialism.”

Click here for the original article

The Daily Show – Full Metal Budget

A humorous yet critical look at Obama’s defense budget.

Originally aired: 4/8/09

Obama’s Ersatz Capitalism

By Joseph Stiglitz, The New York Times, March 31, 2009

THE Obama administration’s $500 billion or more proposal to deal with America’s ailing banks has been described by some in the financial markets as a win-win-win proposal. Actually, it is a win-win-lose proposal: the banks win, investors win — and taxpayers lose.

Treasury hopes to get us out of the mess by replicating the flawed system that the private sector used to bring the world crashing down, with a proposal marked by overleveraging in the public sector, excessive complexity, poor incentives and a lack of transparency.

Let’s take a moment to remember what caused this mess in the first place.

As featured on Salon.com.

The New Deal Failed? Refuting Right-Wing Revisionist History

Jonthan Chait on The Colbert Report

U.S. spending bill funds Milwaukee streetcar system

One of Milwaukee's last street cars, operating about 60 years ago on the Wells St. line

By Larry Sandler of the Journal Sentinel, Posted: Mar. 13, 2009

Ending a 17-year-long dispute, Congress has thrown its support behind a modern streetcar system in downtown Milwaukee.

With local officials deadlocked over how to spend $91.5 million in long-idle federal transit aid, Sen. Herb Kohl and Rep. David Obey quietly inserted a provision in the massive federal omnibus spending bill to hand 60% of the money to the city for a downtown rail line and 40% to Milwaukee County for buses. President Barack Obama signed the $410 billion package into law Wednesday.

Simon Johnson discusses the economic crisis on Bill Moyers Journal

A critical discussion about the current financial crisis with former Chief economist for the IMF Simon Johnson.

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SIMON: The structure or banking system, the concentration of power in big financial institutions has to change. There’s a lot of appeal to FDR and what he did in the Great Depression. I would go back to Teddy Roosevelt 100 years ago, and think about trust busting. Okay? Now, the banks don’t violate existing antitrust laws. That’s ’cause our antitrust laws are 100 years old and need to be changed, okay? We need to break them up for exactly the same reason that Rockefeller and the oil interests, standard oil, at the end of the 19th century, was too powerful, economically and politically. And it had to be broken up.

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Part 1

The Cost of Empire

Miriam Pemberton: US government spending $100 B annually to maintain 1000 foreign military bases

From TheRealNews.com.

One-sided debate

March 7, 2009
By Paul Krugman
New York Times Online

One major sin of news coverage, especially on TV, is the way certain points of view just get excluded from consideration — even if many of the best-informed people hold those views. Most famously and disastrously, the case against invading Iraq was just not heard in the months before the war.

And still it happens. According to the invaluable Media Matters, the idea that the Obama stimulus plan might be too small — a view held by many well-known economists — basically went unreported on broadcast news during the stimulus debate. Out of 59 broadcasts addressing the plan, only 3 mentioned concerns that the plan was inadequate. And it’s actually even worse than that: one of those three involved Harry Reid talking about longer-term goals on health and education — and one of the other two was me.

Meanwhile, it’s rapidly becoming clear that yes, the plan was too small.

From Paul Krugman’s blog.