Auteur/autrice : Heidi Barathieu-Brun

Published on Intrepid Report, by Ellen Brown,Nov 21, 2014.

While 49 state treasuries were submerged in red ink after the 2008 financial crash, one state’s bank outperformed all others and actually launched an economy-shifting new industry. So reports the Wall Street Journal this week, discussing the Bank of North Dakota (BND) and its striking success in the midst of a national financial collapse led by the major banks … //

… Excess deposits do not explain the BND’s record profits: … //
… The real reasons for its stellar success: … //

… The downsides of a boom:   Continuer la lecture de « Bank of North Dakota outperforms Wall Street »

Published on Spiegel Online International, by Katrin Kuntz, Nov 21, 2014 (Photo Gallery – Translated from the German by Paul Cohen).

A group of Belgium’s leading practitioners of euthanasia recently visited the Auschwitz concentration camp memorial to learn more about death and humanity. The trip proved to be just as controversial for the doctors as it did insightful … //

… Some 70 people gradually gather around Distelmans. The group consists of doctors, psychologists and nurses from Belgium, most of whom work in the area of euthanasia. One of them is Eric Vandevelde, who during the course of his career has killed 20 people at their own request even as he helps women give birth every day. He’s accompanied by his wife Colette, who was instrumental in introducing Belgium’s euthanasia law 12 years ago. Manu Keirse, a psychologist, is also on hand. Continuer la lecture de « Students of Death: Euthanasia Doctors Seek Existential Answers at Auschwitz – part 1 »

Published on Counterpunch, by WILLIAM BLUM, Nov 20, 2014.

… None of the photos accompanying this New York Times story online showed any of these Russian troops or armored vehicles. … //

… Where are these photographs? And how will we know that these are Russian soldiers? And how will we know that the photos were taken in Ukraine? But most importantly, where are the fucking photographs?

Why am I so cynical? Because the Ukrainian and US governments have been feeding us these scare stories for eight months now, without clear visual or other evidence, often without even common sense … // Continuer la lecture de « The Missing Burden of Proof – Russia Invades Ukraine: Again. And Again. And Yet Again »

Ideological foundations of the mainstream neoclassical economics – Published on Intrepid Report, by Ismael Hossein-zadeh, Nov 20, 2014.

There is now a widespread consensus that mainstream/neoclassical economists failed miserably to either predict the coming of the 2008 financial implosion, or provide a reasonable explanation when it actually arrived. Not surprisingly, many critics have argued that neoclassical economics has created more confusion than clarification, more obfuscation than elucidation. Economic “science” has, indeed, become “an ideological construct which serves to camouflage and justify the New World Order” [1].   Continuer la lecture de « Class interests as economic theory »

Published on The Guardian, by Spencer Ackerman in NY, Nov 19, 2014.

• Senators, mostly Republicans warning of leaving the country exposed to terrorist threat, voted to beat back the USA Freedom Act
• Failure to pass US surveillance reform bill could still curtail NSA powers
• Nearly 18 months after Edward Snowden’s disclosures, the USA Freedom Act has died

… It was the denouement to over a year’s worth of political drama, characterized by shifting alliances and a reduction in ambitions for constraining the NSA, even in a post-Snowden Congress.   Continuer la lecture de « US: Senate Republicans block landmark NSA surveillance reform bill »