[The Liberty Insight Newswire is an aggregation of what we consider to be important financial and political news and commentary from across the web.]

There is so much going on in global finance and politics these days it’s impossible to keep track of it all. From the hourly rumor mill on the European Greek bailout, to OWS, to manipulations and rules changes in the gold and silver markets, to fraud and insolvency at the banks and big news at the Ron Paul campaign that doesn’t make the news. Below are a few articles of particular interest. If you still crave more, Goldsilver.com has been doing a great job keeping up with things on their industry news feed.

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Ron Paul Proposes $1T in Specific Budget Cuts
Politico.com October 17, 2011

Ron Paul has been making a lot of news these days. Unfortunately, you won’t find it in the news as this article entitled Ron Paul Media Blackout Confirmed explains. So, in case you hadn’t heard, Ron Paul has introduced his budget plan to cut $1T in year one of his presidency and balance the budget in three years. I at least expected some “news” reports blasting specific cuts he is recommending.

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Non-Partisan Government Report: Federal Reserve is Riddled with Corruption and Conflicts of Interest
Washington’s Blog, October 20, 2011

Is it any surprise that Fed directors of the banks, nominated by the banks, and for the banks have a conflict of interest when they decide who gets bailouts and loans? No wonder the OWS people are pissed.

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Naomi Wolf: How I was arrested at Occupy Wall Street
The Guardian, October 19, 2011

Naomi Wolf is an author who’s recent book, The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, examines historical examples of Fascism and the steps governments take to subvert social and political liberty. The ten steps she outlines include: 5) Harass citizens’ groups, 6) Engage in arbitrary detention and release, and 10) Suspend the rule of law. How ironic then, that she was arrested for peacefully walking down the sidewalk during a protest.

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Visualizing The True Cost Of The First Bank Bailout: $3.5 Trillion And Rising At Over $1 Trillion Every Year
Zerohedge.com, October 21, 2011

This amazing chart shows how the rate of increase in the national debt increased dramatically after the bank bailouts.

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Ironic “Scariest Chart Ever” Redux – America Will Surpass 100% Debt To GDP On Halloween
Zerohedge.com

Speaking of charts and irony, check out this chart of our debt to GDP. As the article points out, we haven’t had a national debt exceeding 100% of GDP since WWII. Of course back then we didn’t have huge state and municipal debts and private debts on top of it. We were also the world’s greatest exporter. And we didn’t have a politically irrevocable entitlement program consuming over 40% of our budget. Next stop… Greece.

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BofA Said to Split Regulators Over Moving Merrill Derivatives to Bank Unit
Bloomberg, October 18, 2011

What a boring title. It should read, “B of A fucks its customers and taxpayers with an illegal accounting gimmick and a complicit Federal Reserve looks the other way!” Basically, B of A moved trillions of dollars of crappy derivatives from it’s uninsured Merrill Lynch subsidiary to the B of A bank which is flush with customer deposits transferring the risk of these bad assets from Merrill’s counterparties to B of A customers. The FDIC is rightfully pissed because they will be on the hook when these derivatives go bad. Also, it may be that in a B of A bankruptcy, the holders of these risky derivatives will take priority over depositors who willingly took no risk. There is an excellent analysis of the situation here.