War almost always causes inflation.As liberal economist James Galbraith wrote in 2004:War causes inflation. Every major war in the past century brought inflation to some degree. And so did two upheavals in the Middle East, the Yom K…
Posts Tagged ‘George Bush’
War Causes Inflation … And Inflation Allows The Government to Start Unnecessary Wars
January 2nd, 2011 |
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UK PM Cameron challenges Bush’s water boarding saved lives claim
November 11th, 2010 |
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Prime Minister David Cameron has challenged former US President George Bush”s claim that the use of water-boarding saved British lives. In his book Decision Point, published this week, Bush said the use of the technique – a kind of simulated drowning – on terror suspects “helped break up plots” to attack Heathrow and Canary Wharf. [...]
George W. Bush Forgives Kanye West ["TODAY Show" VIDEO]
November 10th, 2010 |
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Former President George W. Bush has “absolutely” forgiven Kanye West for calling him a racist five years ago. “He called me a racist,†Bush told NBC’s Matt Lauer last week. “And I didn’t appreciate it then. I don’t appreciate it now. It’s one thing to say, ‘I don’t appreciate the way he’s handled his business.’ [...]
Kanye West’s Katrina rant most disgusting moment of Presidency: Bush
November 4th, 2010 |
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Former US President George W. Bush has revealed that the most disgusting moment during his regime was when Kanye West criticized him at a Hurricane Katrina benefit. Rapper West, infamously declared on the televised Concert for Hurricane Relief, “George Bush doesn’t care about black peopleâ€, blaming him for the reason that America helps “the less [...]
George W. Bush: “Kanye West Katrina Racist Outburst Worst Moment Of Presidencyâ€
November 3rd, 2010 |
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Kanye West: Ruining lives. One simple-minded Southerner at a time. Before he was Tweeting in all-caps or storming stages on unsuspecting country stars, the gabby “Golddigger” rapper was flipping the bird at the highest-office in the land: The US presidency. And Kanye’s big mouth had a lasting impact on inept conservative George W. Bush. President [...]
Tyra Banks Granted Restraining Order Against Stalker
October 21st, 2010 |
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Ty-Ty’s got a psycho. Former supermodel Tyra Banks has asked a Los Angeles judge for protection against “mentally unstable celebrity stalker” she believes has been trailing her every move since 2006. In the documents, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court Tuesday and obtained by TMZ, Tyra seeks a restraining order against Marten Williams, Jr. [...]
Tyra Banks Fears Mentally Unstable Stalker
October 20th, 2010 |
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Model Tyra Banks is scared to death of a “mentally unstable celebrity stalker” and now she’s asking a judge for protection. The man in question, 39 year old Marten Williams, claims to have killed George Bush, Jr., (who is still alive & well), as well as asserting that Michael Jackson is alive and living in [...]
Kanye West he was wrongly branded as ‘racist’
September 6th, 2010 |
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In a bid to clear his image, Kanye West has taken to Twitter to claim that he was wrongly branded as ‘racist’. The rapper had a meltdown on Twitter and he posted a series of 70 Tweets. “They wanted yall to believe I was a monster,†the Daily Star quoted him as saying. “Some people’s [...]
Kanye West Apologizes To Taylor Swift…Again…On Twitter
September 6th, 2010 |
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(Sigh…) We’ve heard of holding on to the past, but nearly a year after the fateful incident, Kanye West is still feeling bad about ruining Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. In fact, he’s posted an epic 200-Tweet apology in an attempt to clear his conscience. After infamously interrupting Taylor’s moment [...]
Big mistake
August 31st, 2010 |
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How America’s opinion of the Iraq war has changed
OVER seven years after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, America’s direct military involvement is now coming to an end. President Barack Obama will set out his new policy in a speech from the Oval Office on Monday August 31st. American public opinion on the war has changed enormously during that time. When George Bush prematurely declared an end to major combat operations in May 2003 most Americans were behind the war, with only a quarter saying it was a mistake according to Gallup polling data. But the public’s mood turned when allegations of torture by US soldiers came to light in early 2004. The bloody terror campaign by Sunni militia groups, which began in earnest in 2006 and killed Iraqis by the thousands and American troops by the hundreds, also had a profound effect on opinion.
More Daily charts …
Schumpeter: Two cheers for Sarbanes-Oxley
July 1st, 2010 |
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The Supreme Court gets it right by tweaking, but not overturning, the controversial legislation
AMERICAN business people of a conservative nature have been dreaming about driving a stake through the heart of the Sarbanes-Oxley act ever since the legislation was passed, back in 2002, in the wake of the Enron, Tyco, WorldCom and Global Crossing scandals. George Bush rightly described the legislation as “the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt”. But to its critics it is far-reaching in the wrong direction. The American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think-tank, has dismissed Sarbox as a “colossal failure”. Ron Paul, a Texan libertarian, has argued that it puts America at a competitive disadvantage. The Wall Street Journal thunders that it has “imposed hundreds of billions of dollars in costs on business with no noticeable decline in financial scandals”. Newt Gingrich has urged Congress, the body that he once dominated, to repeal the act.
But how could it be killed? A few years ago a conservative group called the Free Enterprise Fund thought that it had found the answer. The heart of Sarbox is a body called the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. The board’s job is to regulate the accounting industry—in effect, to audit the auditors. The Free Enterprise Fund argued that the board violated the separation-of-powers clause of the constitution, because its members are hired by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), rather than by the president. They also argued that, because the legislation has no “severability clause”, a problem with just one part of the legislation invalidates the whole thing. …
30 Historical Figures Recreated in Lego
June 28th, 2010 |
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If you thought a star on Hollywood Boulevard or being on the cover of Vogue was a sign of celebrity status, think again. The new benchmark is whether you’ve been recreated in Lego yet.
Disarmament and counter-proliferation: Old worry, new ideas
April 15th, 2010 |
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After some moral victories over nuclear matters, America’s hardest test looms
TO HEAR Barack Obama talk about the “unprecedented threat” that terrorists might one day set off a nuclear bomb, it would be easy to assume that little has changed since the days of George Bush. But having adopted his predecessor’s diagnosis, Mr Obama is proposing a different treatment. Where Mr Bush disliked arms treaties and favoured muscular unilateral action—he invaded Iraq on the grounds that he could not afford to wait for proof of Saddam Hussein’s (non-existent) banned weapons to come in the form of a “mushroom cloud”—Mr Obama is performing an intricate multilateral dance.
His introductory bow came in Prague last year, when the president set out his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. Then, in September, he held out his hand to Russia by announcing a reconfiguration of America’s anti-missile defence system. The couple’s twirl concluded last month with an agreement to cut each side’s nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed warheads. …
Logic v politics
April 8th, 2010 |
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Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev sign a new strategic arms-reduction treaty in Prague
HE HAD stopped over briefly in Prague for a handshake with Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, on a new strategic arms-reduction treaty—and a new start also, it is hoped, in relations with America’s still prickly cold-war rival. And then Barack Obama was due back in Washington to play host to more than 40 heads of government for his own nuclear-security summit on April 12th and 13th. Mr Obama wants pledges from them to secure nuclear materials around the world and to crack down harder on illicit traffickers, ahead of next month’s five-yearly review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the world’s main bulwark against proliferation and nuclear terrorism.
Yet when it comes to recasting America’s own nuclear-weapons policy to deal more efficiently with the same threats, Mr Obama may have a battle ahead. In many ways, this week’s delayed nuclear posture review simply brings America’s official nuclear thinking into line with long-standing practice, including that of his more warlike predecessor, George Bush. With the demise of the old Soviet threat, nuclear weapons play a diminishing role in America’s defences. Like Mr Bush, Mr Obama plans instead to rely more on America’s array of powerful conventional weapons to deter future adversaries in a crisis. …
Professional line-sitter not to get the world’s first iPad!
April 3rd, 2010 |
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With the iPad mania reaching its peak just hours before Apple starts selling its game-changing tablet in the US Saturday morning, there was bad news for someone special who has been heading the waiting line outside Apple’s Manhattan flagship since Tuesday to become the first person to get the gizmo.
Professional line-sitter Greg Packer, who was [...]
New start
March 27th, 2010 |
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Russia and America agree to sharp cuts in their deployed warheads and delivery systems
IT HAS been a good week for Barack Obama. After passing his long-awaited health-care bill, he has now struck an equally long-awaited deal with Russia to reduce the two countries’ nuclear stockpiles. On Friday March 26th he announced that Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, had agreed to a follow-on treaty to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which was signed in 1991 and expired last December. The new deal will cut both countries’ arsenals by about a third from the maximum that would have been allowed under a deal struck in 2002 between George Bush and Russia’s then-president, Vladimir Putin. The new deal will lower the countries’ arsenals to 1,550 deployed warheads each and 700 delivery systems (intercontinental land-based missiles, submarine-based missiles and strategic bombers).
It had been widely expected, but is welcome nonetheless. Russia has been keen to reduce the cost of maintaining its large stockpile of nuclear weapons and Mr Obama has talked about getting eventually to a world free of all nuclear weapons. The treaty must next be ratified in Russia’s Duma and in America’s Senate, in the latter case with 67 votes of 100. But in America it should not be a partisan issue. Mr Obama noted positive discussions he has had with leading senators of both parties on the foreign-affairs committee, John Kerry, the Democrat, and the Republican ranking member, Richard Lugar. The White House addressed a potential sticking point, saying the new deal does not place any limits on testing, development or deployment of current or planned America missile-defence programmes. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, expressed the hope that Russia would co-operate with a redesigned missile-defence system in Europe. Russia was pleased at the inclusion of language referring to the clear relationship between offensive systems and missile defence. …
Bush Shakes Hands With Haitian, Wipes Hand On Clinton’s Shirt
March 24th, 2010 |
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Well…he’s never been accused of being America’s classiest leader.
The BBC News recently followed former Presidents Clinton and Bush on their mission trip to the earthquake-ravaged region of Haiti. In one video shot by the news organization, it appears that after shaking hands with locals, George W. promptly wipes his hand on Clinton’s button-down.
After the whole [...]
George W. Bush “Miss Me Yet?†Billboard Puzzles Minnesota Residents
February 9th, 2010 |
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The hunt is on for the person responsible for a billboard that causing quite a bit of confusion in rural Minnesota. The billboard, which feature a picture of former president George W. Bush and the tagline “Miss me yet?,” went up in Wyoming, Minnesota last week. In the days since its debut, residents have been [...]
NASA’s new mission: Space to thrive
February 4th, 2010 |
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A long-overdue overhaul of America’s space agency has been announced
IN 2004 George Bush announced a plan for America’s space agency, NASA, to return to the moon by 2020, land there, explore the surface and set up a base. The moon would then serve as a staging post for a journey to Mars. It was, unfortunately, unclear how this modest proposal would be paid for and, as work began and costs spiralled, the “vision” seemed more science fiction than science.
On February 1st, reality caught up. The back-to-the-moon programme, Constellation, with its Ares rocket (pictured), fell victim to Barack Obama’s need to find cuts. The Office of Management and Budget described it as over budget, behind schedule and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest. The office also said Constellation had sucked money from other, more scientific programmes, such as robotic space exploration and Earth observation. …