Europe

The Quiet Triumph Of Oil And Gas In Obama’s Policies

It was announced Friday afternoon, when no one was supposed to pay attention: after years of controversy, heated rhetoric, intense lobbying, and stiff opposition from some unlikely bedfellows, the Obama Administration decided in favor of the US oil and gas industry. With major geopolitical impact.

‘ECB’s Desperation Is Taking On Epic Dimensions’

In my interview with Voice of Russia, I talk about the ECB’s fears for its own existence. I use Spain, which is stuck in an existential crisis, as an example of the greatest “achievement” of central banks: the separation of economic reality from stock markets. And I get a chance to lambaste the French finance minister who is once again barking up the wrong tree.

Germany ‘Second Economic Miracle’ And Other Psychedelic Feats

At first blush, the German economy appears to be ailing – at first blush because the stock market, in its omniscient manner, is predicting wondrous developments as it hop-scotches from one all-time high to the next. This relentless optimism has morphed into a breeding ground for projections into outright magnificence. But inconvenient data is getting in the way.

When Flight Safety Gets Outsourced To China

Aircraft maintenance was a highly paid blue-collar job that required education, training, manual skills, and brains. It was one of the perfect American middle-class jobs with generous healthcare, retirement, and vacation benefits; and free flights! They were working for icons like Delta, American Airlines, Continental, TWA, or Pan Am. Icons indeed!

The EU’s Out-Of-Control Intelligence Services That Everyone Pretends Don’t Exist

Officially, the EU doesn’t have an intelligence service. It’s dependent on the national intelligence services of its members. Officially. In reality, it is building an intelligence apparatus of six services, populated already by 1,300 specialists, some operating overseas, with vast databases at their fingertips. Much of it beyond any kind of democratic control.

Starving the World for Power and Profit: The Global Agribusiness Model

Contributed by Don Quijones: A daily ration of bread is now beyond the reach of roughly a billion people on planet Earth. What’s more, hunger is spreading like a pandemic, making incursions from its traditional strongholds in the global south to towns and cities across depression-hit Southern Europe. In Greece….

Class-Action Lawsuits Come to France

In theory, a class-action lawsuit allows the little guy to stand up to a big corporation and seek redress. Alone, the little guy wouldn’t have the means. Justice comes down to money, and class-action lawsuits add leverage. In theory. It’s a world-famous American product, infested with flaws. And it’s about to be imported by … France!

The French Government’s Exquisite Bullying

The French government is saddled with enough problems; in theory, it no longer needs to create new ones. But now it wrote another excellent chapter in its tome on how to interfere with private-sector businesses, hamper entrepreneurs, and encourage them to start up their operations elsewhere instead of creating jobs in France.

Luxembourg Is Not The Next Cyprus, Not Yet, But….

Luxembourg, with a population of just over half a million, smaller even than the other speck in the Eurozone, Cyprus, ranks in the top three worldwide in per-capita GDP. In a Eurozone wealth survey, it had the highest average household wealth. Only Cyprus, a former off-shore banking center in the Eurozone, came close. Yet Luxembourg is threatened with ruin.

The Spanish Unemployment Powder Keg

Austerity succeeded in trimming the bloated government sector. But instead of picking up the slack, the private sector destroyed jobs almost four times faster! The hope is that this fiasco will finally reverse course, that something will click and start a virtuous cycle before the unspeakable happens. But so far, it has relentlessly gotten worse.