The Fed’s Worst Nightmare: What If ZIRP And Asset Bubbles Actually Retard Growth? - Peter Schiff - David Stockman's Contra Corner →

“Since the markets crashed in 2008, central banks around the world have worked feverishly to push up the prices of financial assets and to keep consumer prices rising steadily. They have done so in the official belief that these outcomes are vital ingredients in the recipe for economic growth. The theory is that steady inflation creates demand by inspiring consumers to spend in advance of predictable price increases. (The flip side is that falling prices “deflation,” strangles demand by inspiring consumers to defer spending). The benefits of inflation are supposed to be compounded by rising stock and real estate prices, creating a wealth effect for the owners of those assets which subsequently trickles down to the rest of the economy. In other words, seed the economy with money and inflation and watch it grow.

Thus far the banks have been successful in creating the bubbles and keeping inflation positive, but growth has been a no show. The theory says the growth is right around the corner, but like Godot it stubbornly fails to show up. This has been a tough circle for many economists to square.

Two explanations have emerged to explain the failure. Either the model is not functioning (and higher inflation and asset bubbles don’t lead to growth) or the stimulus efforts thus far, in the form of zero percent interest rates and quantitative easing, have been too timid. So either the bankers must devise a new plan, or double down on the existing plan. You should know where this is going. The banks are about to go “all in” on inflation.”

Sunnis in Iraq Often See Their Government as the Bigger Threat - NYTimes.com →

"Worse, a growing list of indiscriminate shelling and airstrikes by the Iraqi military has widened the gap between Sunnis and the government, while making the country’s violence seem ever more inescapable.

Khalid Abduljabar Ahmed, who arrived at the school in Alam last week minutes after the airstrike at the abandoned school, said he saw “horrible scenes.”

“Burning children. Half bodies, and blood everywhere,” he said. (...)

The fatalities from the bombing threatened to alienate Sunnis in an area “that had been a pocket of local resistance to ISIS,” said Zaid al-Ali, the author of “The Struggle for Iraq’s Future.”

One of the district’s prominent tribes, Al Jabour, had been openly fighting with ISIS in the area, he said. Mr. Ali, who has extensive contacts in Iraq, said that residents of Tikrit, one of Iraq’s most important Sunni cities, had been clamoring for the army to rid the city of the militants.

The airstrikes at the school sent a “terrible message,” he said: “If you resist ISIS, you can still be attacked. You suffer at the hands of ISIS, and at the hands of the government.”"

Since 9-11 America's Insane Foreign Policy -- Continued Under Obama -- Has Killed a Million and Created ISIS | Alternet →

"Rumsfeld told them, "We have two choices. Either we change the way we live, or we must change the way they live. We choose the latter. And you are the ones who will help achieve that goal."

Since then, the United States has launched more than 94,000 air strikes, mostly on Afghanistan and Iraq, but also on Libya, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Rumsfeld's plan has undoubtedly achieved his goal of changing the way people live in those countries, killing a million of them and reducing tens of millions more to lives of disability, disfigurement, dislocation, grief and poverty."

Enough Already! Bombing Iraq Over Three Decades | David Stockman's Contra Corner →

"Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, for example, who served as a Middle East envoy for George W. Bush, warned in October 2002 that by invading Iraq, “we are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started.”

Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser in the first Bush administration, said a strike on Iraq “could unleash an Armageddon in the Middle East.” Former South African President Nelson Mandela said Bush was “introducing chaos into international affairs.” But George W. Bush brushed those warnings aside and proceeded with his plans."

“ISIS” is Arabic for “Khmer Rouge” | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community →

“Before the bombings, the Khmer Rouge were a marginal communist sect of perhaps 4,000 members.  They opposed Cambodian premier, Lon Nol, an ally of the U.S.  They used the fact of the U.S. bombings as a recruiting tool to build a national cadre of militant activists to overturn Nol’s government.

Chhit Do, a Khmer official, commented later, “Every time there was a bombing, we would take the people to see the craters.  Sometimes they literally shit their pants.  That was what made it so easy for the Khmer Rouge to win the people over.”  Within five years the ranks of the Khmer Rouge had swelled to over 70,000.

Under the leadership of Pol Pot, one of the greatest murderers in history, the Khmer Rouge toppled the Cambodian government in 1975, thus beginning the Cambodian Genocide.”