Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen announced yesterday that the Fed will hike interest rates for the first time in almost a decade.

The last time that the fed raised rates was June 2006, shortly before domestic and global markets crashed and the Fed was forced to dramatically lower rates to nearly zero.

The idea is simple: when interest rates are low, business and the government are encouraged to borrow at those low rates; ideally to use that super-cheap money for productivity improvements.

In the private sector, that means things like upgrading factories with new machinery and purchasing new technologies to make their operations more efficient.

In the public sector, the federal government in the past, like with Eisenhower's national highway system, takes the opportunity of near-zero rate loans to build out infrastructure, and for other large projects that provide positive returns over time.

And for the past 7 years - most of the past decade - the private and public sector could take advantage of a near-zero borrowing rate.

For 7 years, if Congress had passed a sweeping infrastructure bill, it would have only had to pay one-quarter of one percent interest on the loan, or very low rates in that neighborhood.

That means if we had borrowed 1 trillion dollars to rebuild our nation's crumbling roads and bridges, we would have only had to pay back 2.5 billion dollars of interest at the end of the borrowing period.

To put that in perspective, he EPI estimated in last year that if the federal government borrowed just a quarter of a trillion dollars - 250 billion dollars - and invested it in infrastructure, we would see a 400 billion dollar ANNUAL boost to GDP.

That 250 billion dollar investment would also create 3 million new jobs in just the first year. And all those now-employed people would be paying taxes into the federal coffers, instead of taking unemployment benefits out of the federal coffers.

But the radical right-wingers in the House and Senate blocked every attempt in Congress to boost federal investment in infrastructure, and now that window for borrowing at near-zero rates is closing.

Read more here.

-Thom

Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10pm... Will the Budget Bill Gut Food Safety Labeling? (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)

Thursday's Daily Stack 

Hour One: The Ominous Omnibus Bill
- Congressman Mark Pocan, U.S. Congressman (D-WI, 2nd District)    

Article: "The Good, The Bad, And The Strange: A Budget Deal Guide" by Alan Pyke, Josh Israel, Aviva Shen.

Article: "Capitol Hill sledding ban lifted in spending bill" by Tim Devaney.

Article: "Restoring regular order in congressional appropriations " by Peter C. Hanson.

Article: "Brokered convention" by Wikipedia.

 

Article: "Taking anti-depressants during pregnancy linked to autism: study" by Jessica Firger.

Article: "N.Y. Man Pleads Guilty To Recruiting For ISIS, Could Face 30-Year Prison Term" by Bill Chappell.

Book: Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty.

Article: "Michael Milken" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Turing Pharma CEO Martin Shkreli arrested - Reuters witness" by Reuters.

Article: "Martin Shkreli Arrested on Fraud Charges" by Stephanie Clifford and Andrew Pollack.

Article: "Lawyer for Martin Shkreli Hikes Fees Five Thousand Per Cent" by Andy Borowitz.

Article: "Sanders wins Communications Workers of America endorsement" by Dan Merica.

Article: "Pentagon Officers: We Quit if Trump Wins" by Nancy A. Youssef.

Hour Two: The Rise of the "New Chinese Order"
- Peter Navarro, Crouching Tiger: What China's Militarism Means for the World/UC-Irvine    

Article: "Everything you need to know about the next Democratic debate" by Noah Weiland.

Speech: "America's Pacific Century" by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, November 10, 2011.

Article: "Unrestricted Warfare" by Wikipedia.

 

Article: "Bernie Sanders Gives Martin Shkreli's Donation to an HIV Clinic" by Daniel Reynolds.

Site: Democratic Underground

Case: "Buckley v. Valeo", 1976.

Article: "The Powell Memo or Powell Manifesto".

Article: "Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Linda Sanchez Endorses Hillary Clinton" by Daniela Franco.

Article: "5th Republican debate transcript, annotated: Who said what and what it meant" by Team Fix.

Article: "Support the Benyounes Family".

Article: "Five years ago today, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire - but ISIS has replaced promise of Arab Spring" by Al Jazeera.

Site: 23andMe.

Book: Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach.

 

Talk Media News Segment:
- Bob Ney 

Book: "Sideswiped: Lessons Learned Courtesy of the Hit Men of Capitol Hill" by Robert Ney.

Site: Carl Wolfson.

Article: "Pelosi, White House Support Plan Allowing U.S. Crude Oil Exports" by Billy House, Kathleen Miller, Erik Wasson.

Article: "Congress Omnibus Spending Bill 2015: US Solar Shares Rise On Key Tax Credit Extensions" by Maria Gallucci.

Article: "Congress Slips CISA Into a Budget Bill That's Sure to Pass" (Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act) by Andy Greenberg.

Article: "Freddie Gray's parents plead for calm as the first cop to face trial over his death walks FREE from court" by Mia De Graaf.

Site: "Goats for the old Goat".

Site: Governor Free Don Siegelman.

Hour Three: Dow/DuPont Merger...Bad for People, Bad for the Planet
- America's Lawyer Mike Papantonio, Ring of Fire Radio  

Article: "Chemical giants Dow Chemical and DuPont announce $130bn merger" by Sam Thielman.

Article: "DuPont Found Liable in Teflon Toxin Trial" by Sharon Lerner.

Site: theyrule.net

Article: "Wall Street's disastrous 'fix' for Puerto Rico" by Charles Gasparino.

Article: "Vaccine injury fund tops $3.5 billion, as patients fight for payment" by Jessica Boehm.

Article: "2nd Amendment". A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Article: "The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Second amendment was Passed to Protect Slavery" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention of 1787" by James Madison.

Article: "The Debates In The Convention Of The Commonwealth Of Virginia, On The Adoption Of The Federal Constitution." - June 24 1788, Patrick Henry.

Article: "The Debates In The Convention Of The Commonwealth Of Virginia, On The Adoption Of The Federal Constitution.".

Book: Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas by Sally E. Hadden.

Article: "Bernie Sanders has earned Democracy for America's endorsement in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primary with an astonishing, record-breaking 87.9% of the vote".

Article: "The Hidden History of the Second Amendment" by Carl T. Bogus, 1998.

Site: Carl T. Bogus, Professor of Law at Roger Williams University.

Article: "Did Lactose Tolerance Trigger the Indo-European Expansion?" by Fjordman.

Article: "Jonesboro approves new maintenance code governing the interior and exterior of all buildings" by AP.

Article: "Transcript: Rachel Maddow interviews Hillary Clinton".

Article: "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis.

 

Event: Ann Arbor, MI, Saturday, May 14, 2016 "Better Together Festival" celebrating 20 Years of Women with ADHD 

    

Friday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET 

 

I'll be talking to Independent Journalist H.A. Goodman abot why he believes Bernie Sanders Will Become President...

 

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