Author: Alicia

By Meghan Rouillard

“Is continued technological progress indispensable for continued human existence, as well as simply advantageous?”

That is a question posed by Lyndon LaRouche in his 1984 economics textbook, “So, You Wish to Learn All About Economics?” It is a question to which he and Russian-Ukrainian biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky would answer: yes.

Any scholar of the work of V.I. Vernadsky who seeks to fashion him as a modern day environmentalist, opposed to the development of human economy and a believer in the idea that human development is not sustainable, is a liar. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence. Today, mankind faces a series of crises which are “environmental” in nature, the Western U.S. drought being one example. If mankind is going to be able to approach, let alone solve, such crises on our planet, only an accurate understanding of Vernadsky’s ideas, as opposed to what constitutes modern-day environmentalism, will allow us to do so.

Man must be allowed to have more impact on the global water cycle, not less, to solve the Western drought crisis. See Managing the Global Water Cycle

Vernadsky’s later writings focus heavily on his concept of the “Noösphere,” the “sphere of influence” of human reason on Earth (although not limited to that, notably with the case of man’s later forays into space) in the same way that the biosphere is the sphere of influence of life. But Vernadsky’s discussion of the Noösphere is not only apparent in his later writings, but also in his early writings, notably in a piece from 1925 called “Human Autotrophy,” an article written for publication in France during a period when Vernadsky was working there, also the year before one of his most famous works “The Biosphere” was published in Russian. Someone might try to call (and has called) Vernadsky an “environmentalist” by exclusively citing this early well-known writing, which is a rigorous study of the biosphere, but which does not refer in much detail to the activity mankind. They might try to weasel around the fact of his later work on the Noösphere by referring to it as simply his acknowledgment of the role of mankind on Earth as significant, reflected in this quote:

“Man is profoundly distinguished from the other organisms by his action on the environment. This distinction, which was great from the beginning, has become immense with the passage of time.”

But today’s environmentalists (the Jerry Brown’s among us) would impose on such a quotation their own view that this distinction is also the difference between “natural” and “destructive.” However, Vernadsky’s early presentation on Human Autotrophy, where he outlines the idea that there are no limits to growth when science and human reason are able to reign, and that they should reign, would expose those who would impose their opinions on Vernadsky’s work as a charlatan or worse.

Anyone who has read Lyndon LaRouche’s textbook on physical economy cited above will find a particular resonance between their ideas.

In a video presentation entitled “The Power of Labor” based on his 1984 economics textbook, Lyndon LaRouche said:

“Technological revolutions redefine in a fundamental way at least part of the spectrum of natural resources which mankind may employ efficiently. Without endless technological progress society is doomed sooner or later.”

V.I. Vernasky

In the 1925 presentation, Vernadsky expresses a very similar view:

“At the beginning of last century, the imminent scarcity of natural resources was not yet perceived, because the energy at man’s disposal in this era was still largely connected to ancient material forms of existence … To resolve the social question it is necessary to plumb the foundations of human power—to change the form of nourishment and the sources of energy which man uses.”

In his 1984 economics book, LaRouche discussed the problem of resource depletion:

“At any level of technology, certain aspects of man-altered nature are the principal “natural resources” upon which raw-material production depends… If this spectrum of the varieties of natural resources required by such a technological culture is depleted, the society is obliged to employ relatively poorer and less accessible varieties of these resources…”

Similarly, in his presentation on Human Autotrophy, Vernadsky elaborates the problem:

“The reserves of natural resources decrease visibly. If their usage grows with the same force, the situation will become grave. In two generations one would detect a scarcity of iron; petroleum would also quickly become scarce; in a few generations, the question of coal would become tragic. It is the same for most of the other natural resources. The dearth of coal would be particularly grave, because it is coal which procures for man the energy necessary for society in its present form.

“This is an inevitable phenomenon, because man uses the stores of natural resources which were formed throughout myriads of centuries and which could not be replenished except in the same length of time. These reserves are necessarily restricted. Similarly if one found other unknown sources, or if one used the less rich or deeper concentrations—one would only push back the date of the critical period—but the troubling problems would remain unresolved.”

Textbook on the fundamentals of physical economics, So, You Wish To Learn All About Economics?, published by Lyndon LaRouche in 1984.

In his economics textbook, LaRouche discusses the fraud of the idea of limits to growth, referencing in particular a book by that name published in 1972 by the Club of Rome. He notes that the authors created a sophistical argument, admitting that it is only without technological progress that there are limits to growth, but using models which discount the possibility of new discoveries which would allow for such progress.

LaRouche outlined the proper answer to this problem:

“These effects of depletion are resisted, or even successfully suspended, by technological progress… If technological progress is sufficiently rapid, the economy will grow successfully despite depletion of part of the spectrum of required natural resources…

“Only societies whose cultures commit them to successful technological progress, as a policy of practice, are qualified to survive and to prosper. Indeed, only such societies are morally qualified to survive, as the society based on the law and culture of Rome was not.”

And now we hear from Vernadsky, focusing, as LaRouche also does, on harnessing the power of the atom, but more importantly on the idea that creative science can tackle any challenge:

“The solution to these problems takes shape as a result of scientific progress outside of all social preoccupation. After generations, science, in its quest for truth, is forced to discover new forms of energy in the world and great organic chemical syntheses. It labors with very insufficient means, the only ones available in human society today, where the situation is in striking contradiction with its [science’s] real role as producer of wealth and of human power.

“This scientific movement can be accelerated by creating new methods of research; it can’t be stopped. Because there is not a force in the world which can shackle human understanding in its march, once it has understood, as in the present case, the scope of the truths which are opened before it.

“…Until now, the power of fire in its multiple forms was almost the sole source of energy for society. Man obtained it by the combustion of other organisms or their fossil remains.

“Some decades ago, he began systematically to replace it by other sources of energy, independent of life—first by hydropower. The quantity of hydropower—the motive force of water—existing on the terrestrial surface was measured. And it was seen that, large as it seems, it is not sufficient by itself for societal requirements.

“But the reserves of energy which are at the disposal of reason are inexhaustible. The force of the tides and ocean waves, radioactive atomic energy, solar heat are able to give us all the power needed.

“The introduction of these forms of energy into life is a matter of time. It depends on problems whose solutions present nothing impossible.”

You might still be left wondering, while this is quite interesting, what is meant by “Human Autotrophy” anyway? In fact, in this presentation, Vernadsky’s premise is addressing man’s reliance on food, and on agriculture, which, as we now see in California, depends directly on resources such as water. Vernadsky addresses the tragedy of great famines which have plagued mankind. While he playfully posits ways that man could get around such dependence (something which would be a very practical consideration for space colonization), he returns to these fundamental questions of principle— that, as he put it, “the reserves of energy which are at the disposal of reason are inexhaustible.” This conclusion is not only optimistic, but it is true. As Lyndon LaRouche also wrote in “So You Wish,” on the subject of water: “We must not only distribute water supplies; we must manufacture them.” In Vernadskian terms, this is a task for the Noösphere.

By Meghan Rouillard

“Is continued technological progress indispensable for continued human existence, as well as simply advantageous?”

That is a question posed by Lyndon LaRouche in his 1984 economics textbook, “So, You Wish to Learn All About Economics?” It is a question to which he and Russian-Ukrainian biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky would answer: yes.

Any scholar of the work of V.I. Vernadsky who seeks to fashion him as a modern day environmentalist, opposed to the development of human economy and a believer in the idea that human development is not sustainable, is a liar. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence. Today, mankind faces a series of crises which are “environmental” in nature, the Western U.S. drought being one example. If mankind is going to be able to approach, let alone solve, such crises on our planet, only an accurate understanding of Vernadsky’s ideas, as opposed to what constitutes modern-day environmentalism, will allow us to do so.

Man must be allowed to have more impact on the global water cycle, not less, to solve the Western drought crisis. See Managing the Global Water Cycle

Vernadsky’s later writings focus heavily on his concept of the “Noösphere,” the “sphere of influence” of human reason on Earth (although not limited to that, notably with the case of man’s later forays into space) in the same way that the biosphere is the sphere of influence of life. But Vernadsky’s discussion of the Noösphere is not only apparent in his later writings, but also in his early writings, notably in a piece from 1925 called “Human Autotrophy,” an article written for publication in France during a period when Vernadsky was working there, also the year before one of his most famous works “The Biosphere” was published in Russian. Someone might try to call (and has called) Vernadsky an “environmentalist” by exclusively citing this early well-known writing, which is a rigorous study of the biosphere, but which does not refer in much detail to the activity mankind. They might try to weasel around the fact of his later work on the Noösphere by referring to it as simply his acknowledgment of the role of mankind on Earth as significant, reflected in this quote:

“Man is profoundly distinguished from the other organisms by his action on the environment. This distinction, which was great from the beginning, has become immense with the passage of time.”

But today’s environmentalists (the Jerry Brown’s among us) would impose on such a quotation their own view that this distinction is also the difference between “natural” and “destructive.” However, Vernadsky’s early presentation on Human Autotrophy, where he outlines the idea that there are no limits to growth when science and human reason are able to reign, and that they should reign, would expose those who would impose their opinions on Vernadsky’s work as a charlatan or worse.

Anyone who has read Lyndon LaRouche’s textbook on physical economy cited above will find a particular resonance between their ideas.

In a video presentation entitled “The Power of Labor” based on his 1984 economics textbook, Lyndon LaRouche said:

“Technological revolutions redefine in a fundamental way at least part of the spectrum of natural resources which mankind may employ efficiently. Without endless technological progress society is doomed sooner or later.”

V.I. Vernasky

In the 1925 presentation, Vernadsky expresses a very similar view:

“At the beginning of last century, the imminent scarcity of natural resources was not yet perceived, because the energy at man’s disposal in this era was still largely connected to ancient material forms of existence … To resolve the social question it is necessary to plumb the foundations of human power—to change the form of nourishment and the sources of energy which man uses.”

In his 1984 economics book, LaRouche discussed the problem of resource depletion:

“At any level of technology, certain aspects of man-altered nature are the principal “natural resources” upon which raw-material production depends… If this spectrum of the varieties of natural resources required by such a technological culture is depleted, the society is obliged to employ relatively poorer and less accessible varieties of these resources…”

Similarly, in his presentation on Human Autotrophy, Vernadsky elaborates the problem:

“The reserves of natural resources decrease visibly. If their usage grows with the same force, the situation will become grave. In two generations one would detect a scarcity of iron; petroleum would also quickly become scarce; in a few generations, the question of coal would become tragic. It is the same for most of the other natural resources. The dearth of coal would be particularly grave, because it is coal which procures for man the energy necessary for society in its present form.

“This is an inevitable phenomenon, because man uses the stores of natural resources which were formed throughout myriads of centuries and which could not be replenished except in the same length of time. These reserves are necessarily restricted. Similarly if one found other unknown sources, or if one used the less rich or deeper concentrations—one would only push back the date of the critical period—but the troubling problems would remain unresolved.”

Textbook on the fundamentals of physical economics, So, You Wish To Learn All About Economics?, published by Lyndon LaRouche in 1984.

In his economics textbook, LaRouche discusses the fraud of the idea of limits to growth, referencing in particular a book by that name published in 1972 by the Club of Rome. He notes that the authors created a sophistical argument, admitting that it is only without technological progress that there are limits to growth, but using models which discount the possibility of new discoveries which would allow for such progress.

LaRouche outlined the proper answer to this problem:

“These effects of depletion are resisted, or even successfully suspended, by technological progress… If technological progress is sufficiently rapid, the economy will grow successfully despite depletion of part of the spectrum of required natural resources…

“Only societies whose cultures commit them to successful technological progress, as a policy of practice, are qualified to survive and to prosper. Indeed, only such societies are morally qualified to survive, as the society based on the law and culture of Rome was not.”

And now we hear from Vernadsky, focusing, as LaRouche also does, on harnessing the power of the atom, but more importantly on the idea that creative science can tackle any challenge:

“The solution to these problems takes shape as a result of scientific progress outside of all social preoccupation. After generations, science, in its quest for truth, is forced to discover new forms of energy in the world and great organic chemical syntheses. It labors with very insufficient means, the only ones available in human society today, where the situation is in striking contradiction with its [science’s] real role as producer of wealth and of human power.

“This scientific movement can be accelerated by creating new methods of research; it can’t be stopped. Because there is not a force in the world which can shackle human understanding in its march, once it has understood, as in the present case, the scope of the truths which are opened before it.

“…Until now, the power of fire in its multiple forms was almost the sole source of energy for society. Man obtained it by the combustion of other organisms or their fossil remains.

“Some decades ago, he began systematically to replace it by other sources of energy, independent of life—first by hydropower. The quantity of hydropower—the motive force of water—existing on the terrestrial surface was measured. And it was seen that, large as it seems, it is not sufficient by itself for societal requirements.

“But the reserves of energy which are at the disposal of reason are inexhaustible. The force of the tides and ocean waves, radioactive atomic energy, solar heat are able to give us all the power needed.

“The introduction of these forms of energy into life is a matter of time. It depends on problems whose solutions present nothing impossible.”

You might still be left wondering, while this is quite interesting, what is meant by “Human Autotrophy” anyway? In fact, in this presentation, Vernadsky’s premise is addressing man’s reliance on food, and on agriculture, which, as we now see in California, depends directly on resources such as water. Vernadsky addresses the tragedy of great famines which have plagued mankind. While he playfully posits ways that man could get around such dependence (something which would be a very practical consideration for space colonization), he returns to these fundamental questions of principle— that, as he put it, “the reserves of energy which are at the disposal of reason are inexhaustible.” This conclusion is not only optimistic, but it is true. As Lyndon LaRouche also wrote in “So You Wish,” on the subject of water: “We must not only distribute water supplies; we must manufacture them.” In Vernadskian terms, this is a task for the Noösphere.

“We are Winning. Don’t Negotiate. Don’t Screw it Up!”—Wise words from Lyndon LaRouche. Tune in to today’s show at 1pm Eastern, and discover what you can do to keep history moving forward.

Gerhard Schroeder, former German Chancellor, said on May 5, “NATO and the EU, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other, are not enemies. They should become partners again.” Speaking at a conference in Germany, Schroeder said that both the Bush and Obama approaches to Russia have a “wrong and dangerous tone,” pointing to Obama’s statement that Russia is only a “regional power.” He said the EU-Russia relationship must be built on dialogue and cooperation, “otherwise Europe will not be a safe home for us and future generations.”

While there is a deafening silence from American leaders other than Lyndon LaRouche on the celebrations in Moscow, one old World War II soldier, former Senator and Presidential candidate Bob Dole, spoke out on U.S.-Russia relations on May 8 to Sputnik, no doubt to the horror of the current crop of psychotic Republican leaders: “We have got to get back together again. We are both good people in each country. We just have to somehow get Putin and Obama or the next president maybe to have another reset. We would not have made it without each other in World War II. You lost millions of people and you made the greatest sacrifice. Huge losses—generations of young men.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, while giving in to Obama and the British by boycotting the Victory Day Parade on Red Square on May 9, did go to Moscow today to lay a wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow, to honor the dead from World War II. Merkel said to Putin: “With today’s visit I would like to show that we are working with Russia and not against it.”

Lyndon LaRouche noted in this regard that Merkel is at best a conflicted figure who can not be trusted, representing not only Germany’s real economic and political interests, but also the financial interests within Germany who serve London and Wall Street. It is those imperial interests that are driving for war with Russia, precisely to break up the BRICS alliance so massively displayed this weekend in Moscow, with both economic deals and a powerful display of military power involving forces from Russia, China, and India, among others.

Putin, in his press conference after their meeting, reflected this recognition of the different interests within Germany, appealing directly to the industrial forces. Putin said:

Putin went on to discuss the relative calm in Ukraine since the Minsk agreements, noting that “we differ considerably in our assessment of the events that led to the anti-constitutional coup in the Ukrainian capital in February 2014,” but praising the “Normandy format” of meetings between Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine as the necessary approach to peace. He insisted, however, that the only guarantee of peace would be “direct dialogue between Kiev, Donetsk, and Lugansk.”

The May 9 conference of the Zürich-based citizens’ initiative, Impulswelle (Impulse Wave), “Does the Future of Switzerland Lie in Eurasia?” has raised the challenge for Switzerland, as the only sovereign country in Western Europe, to become a model for others by combining cooperation with the BRICS, with the simultaneous introduction of a credit system on the model of Alexander Hamilton with a true National Bank and Glass-Steagall.

Schiller Institute founder and chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the lead guest speaker, addressed the attentive audience of 80 with a strategic overview of the New Silk Road paradigm of the BRICS and how it has now drawn in the majority of nations on the planet as an alternative to the dying and dangerous trans-Atlantic system. She pointed out that “all the roosters on the rooftops are predicting the next crash, and even the old chicken Christine Lagarde of the IMF too.”

Social and economic chaos and thermonuclear war are unavoidable unless the BRICS option is taken up. The wars of George W. Bush and Obama have created a wave of refugees totaling up to 57 million desperate human beings—a polarizing issue in Switzerland—who must be helped with the New Silk Road development plans of the BRICS. Zepp-LaRouche then brought up the oft-ignored challenge that there is no way around the need to immediately alter the course of the United States itself, drawing upon its best traditions, as with Alexander Hamilton and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

She concluded by illustrating how the California water crisis, and desertification throughout the world prove that our weather system is actually a galactic system, as easily seen with the role of cosmic rays in generating the precipitation of water, but also the long-term galactic and solar cycles. Humanity must expand its mastery of such processes, as the 15th-Century genius Nicholas of Cusa began to do for modern European culture: Imago Viva Dei—the living image of God—Man, not merely as a passive image of God, but as an active co-participant in the ongoing Creation. For Chinese culture, Confucius defined the same standard in terms of having, or, losing, the Mandate of Heaven.

She was followed by guest speaker Dr. Karl Eckstein, the Honorary Consul of the Russian Federation in Zürich, who spoke in his capacity as a long-time business consultant with the countries of the former Soviet Union. He stressed that the Anglo-Saxon world is using the criminal geopolitics of imperial Britain’s Halford Mackinder against Eurasia. Russia has proposed numerous options for cooperation, as with a joint missile defense system in the Caucasus, but these have been systematically rejected due to the geopolitical dictates against Russia and Eurasia.

Prof. Marc Chesney of the Zürich University Institute of Banking and Finance, a well-known Glass-Steagall advocate, spoke of the strategic parallels of World War I with its senseless death and destruction via trench warfare, and the ongoing financial war against humanity which is decimating lives and the real economy by means of financial derivatives, systemic instruments of mass destruction.

The presentation of Zürich Gymnasium teacher René Machu, a founding member of Impulswelle, “A Swiss National Bank in Service of the Real Economy and the Citizenry,” opened with a description of the national bank, the First Bank of the United States, founded by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, as the anti-monetarist credit system anchor against the British imperial financial system. They say a central bank must be “independent, but from whom, from government influence or, in fact, from control of the citizens?” The Swiss National Bank “is a hybrid between a central bank in private hands, and the First Bank of the United States of Hamilton.” A true National Bank for Switzerland must be dedicated to the Common Good, control a sovereign currency, generate credit for infrastructure into a Glass-Steagall banking system, be under control of the citizenry, and act in the present based on what the nation wants to achieve for the future: that is what defines a credit system.

The opening presentation of leading Impulswelle member, biologist Ruth Frei, and the concluding presentation of Linz- based Wilhelm Augustat, head of Peace Through Culture—Europe, both emphasized that the causes of conflicts, and also the solutions, lie in the realm of culture. Augustat provoked the audience that there is no “Europe” as such, but that there has only been Eurasia, with its history with all the complex interactions of different peoples and cultures, who now need to establish concrete collaboration at the spiritual level of culture and ethics. To avoid having Western Europeans see the BRICS as a mere abstraction, that history must be understood, going back to even pre-Roman Imperial times, up through the role of the church after Rome’s collapse, including the Mongol presence in Russia, which had been mentioned earlier in Karl Eckstein’s presentation.

The BRICS and the New Silk Road offer that opportunity, and he hopes that a free Switzerland—free through its own indigenous spirit, unlike Austria with its imposed neutrality—can lead the way in Europe to the BRICS. The BRICS comes to Switzerland, not for some money in its banks, but to partake of that spirit.

As the May 13 date nears for Obama’s summit meeting with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) led by Saudi Arabia, Obama is fueling the Wahabbi plan for genocidal population wars in the name of countering Iranian “aggression.” Since the P5+1 signing of the framework of a nuclear agreement with Iran on April 2nd, the GCC has been in genocidal overdrive, in a gruesome population war of civilian killings and blockades in Yemen and in plans for an escalated campaign against Syrian President Bashar al Assad through the formation of a “new” Syrian opposition army called the “Army of Conquest,” that involves Saudi-Turkish-GCC backing for jihadists.

On Wednesday, Reuters published a story—leaked to them by “U.S. sources”—that Obama “is expected to make a renewed U.S. push” to offer the GCC “allies … a region-wide defense system to guard against Iranian missiles.” According to a Washington intelligence source, this is only the latest revelation about the massive arms deals and weapons systems that Obama is planning to offer the GCC at the summit, which he called right after the P5+1 agreement in order to quiet the protests of the Gulf Sunni oligarchs about Iran.

But, Obama’s games on behalf of the British-Saudi empire are actually setting the conditions for a greater war—as Lyndon LaRouche communicated in the April 3, 2015, webcast where Jeff Steinberg delivered Mr. LaRouche’s response to the question: “what are the broader implications” of the deal that had been signed one day earlier.

“The problem is not with the deal,” Steinberg said. “The problem is what President Obama has systematically refused to deal with, since the day he came into office as President. He’s refused to deal with the fact that the Saudis represent a grave threat to the entire situation, not only in the Middle East, but around the world: That you’ve got a British-Saudi apparatus, that is behind the drive for war, the provocations of terrorism….”

So, under Obama, “if you’re unwilling to take on the real tough nut, the real source of instability, the real threat of general war today, then how can you even look at something like a P5+1 agreement, without coming to the conclusion that the whole thing is a set-up! And it’s virtually an invitation, to the Saudis, to their British patrons in the royal monarchy apparatus, to the Israelis, to launch the kinds of provocations that are certain to lead to, minimally, a full-blown regional war….”

Individual GCC countries have already purchased components of ballistic missile defense, such as Patriots and THAAD (Terminal-High Altitude Area Defense), but Obama is pushing for the GCC to form a unified military command so that the US can install a BMD system in the Gulf — a clear provocation.

Recall that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blasted the US and NATO for continuing to push for BMD systems, even though the nuclear deal with Iran was progressing and thereby removing the need for BMD systems. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin was even more explicit, noting in a Twitter post that the BMD was “never about Iran.”

EIR Founding Editor Lyndon LaRouche said today that “putting Glass-Steagall back into effect is the only way to start a revival of the U.S. economy. Let it bankrupt big financial institutions,” LaRouche added. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, recently announced for President, had just held a press conference to talk about “breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks” by some means other than legislation to restore Glass-Steagall, which is already in the House with nearly 50 sponsors. “If you don’t restore Glass-Steagall, it’s just not competent,” LaRouche said.

LaRouche’s view is that Bush and Obama have wrecked the U.S. economy to such a degree since Glass-Steagall was abolished, that there is no substitute for restoring it, “and then create the future credit system immediately needed to get production going again. We don’t have a solid, skilled labor force any more,” he said, after 15 years mass unemployment and misemployment under these Presidents. “But create skilled and productive employment, and people will have to get the skills on the job. Why is President Obama having so much trouble ramming his ‘free trade’ scheme down throats in Congress? The answer is not in Congress, but in important categories of constituents who know just how bad the U.S. economy has gotten under this President.”

“Hamilton is my war cry,” LaRouche said. “We have to create an economy the Hamilton-Lincoln way. The people have lost their skills and their incomes — they’re dying. We need a radical change, but a change certified by Alexander Hamilton’s successful policy.

“And we need to create a new Presidency around this. Not after the 2016 election — now.”

Behind the U.S. GDP zero-growth reported in the first quarter — which will be revised to negative growth as more data comes in — is the ongoing collapse in the vital area of business capital investment. It has stagnated with essentially no growth at all for seven years, negative net growth when depreciation of capital is taken into account. Big businesses can borrow at virtually zero interest; small businesses, not at all; and the big businesses, banks, oil companies, etc. are all using this borrowed debt to buy their own stock and buy other companies. Business capital investment fell in April for the seventh consecutive month, and the overall drop is 7% since last September. It is actually 9% lower over the year since April 2014.

No capital investment, no productivity growth. It fell by 2.1% in the first quarter; by 1.9% in the last quarter of 2014; and so on back. This is not even real productivity, but simple production or service performed per man-hour.

Productivity decline means real wage decline, the story of Obama’s “recovery,” and everyone, of course, knows it. Do they want to buy a “trade agreement” from this man?

The ADP Payrolls report on private-sector job creation in April, released today, was weak. It claims a 169,000 increase in private sector employment in the month. The March increase was revised downward to about the same, 174,000. This survey’s figures have fallen every month since last November’s 242,000; i.e., when oil prices collapsed.

Want Water? Manage our Galactic Environment—Just like most processes on planet earth, the water cycle is controlled by solar and galactic factors. Join us at 12 Eastern.

Want Water? Manage our Galactic Environment—Just like most processes on planet earth, the water cycle is controlled by solar and galactic factors. Join us at 12 Eastern.

Join Lyndon LaRouche and members of the LaRouchePAC Policy Committee as we discuss the week’s upcoming political challenges. We begin at 1pm Eastern, every Monday.

Join Lyndon LaRouche and members of the LaRouchePAC Policy Committee as we discuss the week’s upcoming political challenges. We begin at 1pm Eastern, every Monday.

Join Lyndon LaRouche and members of the LaRouchePAC Policy Committee as we discuss the week’s upcoming political challenges. We begin at 1pm Eastern, every Monday.

Join Lyndon LaRouche and members of the LaRouchePAC Policy Committee as we discuss the week’s upcoming political challenges. We begin at 1pm Eastern, every Monday.