The Right Honourable John Key MP
38th Prime Minister of New Zealand
Incumbent
Assumed office 19 November 2008
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Governor General	Anand Satyanand Jerry Mateparae
Deputy	Bill English
Preceded by	Helen Clark
31st Leader of the Opposition
In office 27 November 2006 – 8 November 2008
Deputy	Bill English
Preceded by	Don Brash
Succeeded by	Phil Goff
12th Leader of the National Party
Incumbent
Assumed office 27 November 2006
Deputy	Bill English
Preceded by	Don Brash
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Helensville
Incumbent
Assumed office 27 July 2002
Majority	20,547 (56.49%)[1]
Personal details
Born	(1961-08-09) 9 August 1961 (age 50) Auckland, New Zealand
Political party	National Party
Spouse(s)	Bronagh Key (1984–present)
Children	Stephie Max
Alma mater	University of Canterbury Harvard University
Signature
Website	Official website

John Phillip Key (born 9 August 1961) is the 38th Prime Minister of New Zealand, in office since 2008. He has led the New Zealand National Party since 2006.

Born in Auckland before moving to Christchurch when he was a child, Key attended the University of Canterbury and graduated in 1981 with a bachelor of commerce, also later undertaking management studies at Harvard University in Boston. He began a career in the foreign exchange market in New Zealand before moving overseas to work for Merrill Lynch, in which he became head of global foreign exchange in 1995, a position he would hold for six years. In 1999 he was appointed a member of the Foreign Exchange Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York until leaving in 2001.

Key entered the New Zealand Parliament representing the Auckland electorate of Helensville as one of the few new National members of parliament in the election of 2002 following National's significant defeat of that year. He has held the seat since then. In 2004, he was appointed Finance Spokesman for National and eventually succeeded Don Brash as the National Party leader in 2006. After two years as Leader of the Opposition, Key led his party to victory in both the November 2008 and the November 2011 general elections.

As Prime Minister, Key leads the Fifth National Government of New Zealand which entered government at the beginning of the late-2000s recession in 2008. In his first term, Key's government implemented a GST rise, personal tax cuts and a raise in the minimum wage. In February 2011, a major earthquake in Christchurch, the nation's second largest city, significantly impacted the national economy and the government formed the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority in response. In its second term, Key's government announced a policy of partial privatisation of state-owned assets. In foreign policy, Key announced the withdrawal of New Zealand Defence Force personnel from their deployment in the war in Afghanistan, signed the Wellington Declaration with the United States and pushed for more nations to join the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership.

Personal life[link]

Key was born in Auckland, New Zealand, to George Key and Ruth Key (née Lazar), on 9 August 1961. His father was an English immigrant and a veteran of the Spanish Civil War and World War II.^[2] He died of a heart attack in 1967. Key and his two sisters were raised in a state house in the Christchurch suburb of Bryndwr by his Austrian Jewish immigrant mother.^[3][4]

He attended Aorangi School, then Burnside High School, and earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree in accounting from the University of Canterbury in 1981.^[3][5] He has attended management studies courses at Harvard University.^[6]

Key met his wife Bronagh when they were both students at Burnside High School. They married in 1984. She also has a BCom degree, and worked as a personnel consultant before becoming a full-time mother. They have two children, Stephie and Max.^[4]

Before politics[link]

Key's first job was in 1982, as an auditor at McCulloch Menzies, and he then moved to be a project manager at Christchurch-based clothing manufacturer Lane Walker Rudkin for two years.^[7] Key began working as a foreign exchange dealer at Elders Finance in Wellington, and rose to the position of head foreign exchange trader two years later,^[8] then moved to Auckland-based Bankers Trust in 1988.^[3]

In 1995, he joined Merrill Lynch as head of Asian foreign exchange in Singapore. That same year he was promoted to Merrill's global head of foreign exchange, based in London, where he may have earned around US$2.25 million a year including bonuses, which is about NZ$5 million at 2001 exchange rates.^[3][9] Some co-workers called him "the smiling assassin" for maintaining his usual cheerfulness while sacking dozens (some say hundreds) of staff after heavy losses from the 1998 Russian financial crisis.^[4][9] He was a member of the Foreign Exchange Committee of the New York Federal Reserve Bank from 1999 to 2001.^[10]

In 1998, on learning of his interest in pursuing a political career, the National Party president John Slater began working actively to recruit him. Former party leader Jenny Shipley describes him as one of the people she "deliberately sought out and put my head on the line–either privately or publicly–to get them in there".^[4][11]

Member of Parliament[link]

Auckland's population growth, as evidenced in the 2001 census, led to the creation of a new electorate called Helensville, which covered the north-western corner of the Auckland urban area.^[12] Key beat long-serving MP Brian Neeson (whose own Waitakere seat had moved on paper to being a Labour seat by the boundary changes) for the selection. At the 2002 elections Key won the seat with a majority of 1,705, ahead of Labour's Gary Russell, with Neeson, now standing as an independent, coming third.^[13] Key was re-elected with ease at the 2005 election garnering 63% of votes cast in Helensville,^[14] and increased his majority again in 2008, gaining 73% of the electorate vote.^[1]

Electorate office of John Key, located between Waimauku and Huapai on State Highway 16

Finance spokesman[link]

In 2004, Key was promoted to the Opposition front benches by party leader Don Brash and was made the party spokesman for finance. In late 2006 Brash resigned as leader, citing damaging speculation over his future as the reason. His resignation followed controversies over an extramarital affair, and over leaked internal National Party documents which were later published in the book The Hollow Men.^[15]

Leader of the Opposition[link]

In his maiden speech as leader on 28 November 2006, Key talked of an "underclass" that had been "allowed to develop" in New Zealand, a theme which received a large amount of media coverage.^[16] Key followed this speech up in February 2007 by committing his party to a programme which would provide food in the poorest schools in New Zealand.^[17]

He relented on his stance in opposition to Sue Bradford's Child Discipline Bill, which sought to remove "reasonable force" as a defence for parents charged with prima facie assault of their children. Many parents saw this bill as an attempt to ban smacking outright.^[18] Key and Prime Minister Helen Clark agreed a compromise giving police the discretion to overlook smacking they regard as "inconsequential".^[19]

In August 2007, Key came in for criticism when he changed his position regarding the Therapeutic Products and Medicine Bill:

"John Key had finally slipped up. National's leader had told the Herald on Tuesday he would have signed up to a New Zealand First-initiated compromise on the stalled Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill had he seen it – and was still willing to sign up – only to change his mind yesterday after his remarks appeared in print."^[20]

Also in August 2007, Labour's Trevor Mallard hinted in Parliament that Labour were going to try to link Key to the 1987 "H-Fee" scandal, which involved Key's former employer Elders Merchant Finance and a payment to Equiticorp Chief Executive Allan Hawkins. Hawkins and Elders executive Ken Jarrett were later jailed for fraud. Key forestalled the accusation by declaring that he had left Elders months before the event, that he had no knowledge of the deal, and that his interview with the Serious Fraud Office during the investigation into the affair could only have helped to convict the people involved. This statement was supported publicly by then-SFO director Charles Sturt.^[21][22]

Labour MPs criticised Key for not releasing specific policy information at their annual conference. Key responded that National would set its own policy agenda and that there was adequate time before the next election for voters to digest National Party policy proposals.^[23]

On 25 July 2008, Key was added to the New Zealand National Business Review (NBR) Rich List for the first time. The list details the wealthiest New Zealand individuals and family groups. Key had an estimated wealth of NZ$50 million.^[24] Key is the wealthiest New Zealand Member of Parliament.^[25]

Prime Minister[link]

John Key (right), with (from left to right) son Max, wife Bronagh, and daughter Stephie, celebrating on election night, 8 November 2008

Key became Prime Minister following the general election on 8 November 2008 which signalled an end to the Labour-led government of nine years under Helen Clark. The National Party, promoting a policy of "change", won 45% of the party vote and 59 of the 122 seats in Parliament (including a two-seat overhang), a substantial margin over the Labour Party, which won 43 seats.

Key was sworn in as Prime Minister on 19 November 2008 along with his new cabinet.^[26] His first international outing as Prime Minister was the 20th APEC meeting in Peru the following day.

Arriving at the Ngapuhi Te Tii marae the day before Waitangi Day 2009, Key was briefly shoved and grabbed by two protesters before diplomatic protection officers pulled them off. He told reporters he was "quite shocked" but continued onto the marae and spoke, while police took the two men away and charged them with assault.^[27][28]

Key has also been tied with the National Cycleway Project since its conception at the national Job Summit in early 2009. He proposed it, and as Minister for Tourism, was instrumental in getting NZ$50 million approved for initial construction work.^[29]

In January 2009, after addressing Chinese New Year celebrations at the Greenlane ASB Showgrounds, Key tripped after coming down a small set of stairs in front of cameras leaving him with a broken right arm and "embarrassed".^[30]

Controversies[link]

During the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, Key was a proponent of Hosni Mubarak's government, citing his support of Israel and refusing to call for his resignation. When asked after the fall of Mubarak whether he had called on the Egyptian leader to step down, he said "no", but welcomed his resignation as the best possible means of restoring order in Egypt.^[31] In 2011, Key was caught up in a controversy over the purchase of government limousines which he denied knowledge of initially but later reports surfaced his office was aware. He was accused of being dishonest and eventually apologised, calling the deal sloppy.^[32][33]

In October 2011, Key made a statement where he claimed Standard and Poor's had said at a meeting in the prior month that "if there was a change of Government, that downgrade would be much more likely", this claim was contradicted by S&P after Key's credibility had been called into question.^[34][35] Just before the election in November 2011, a recording was made of a conversation between John Key and ACT Party candidate John Banks that they considered private.^[36] Mr Key made a complaint to the police who began an investigation to ascertain whether any laws had been broken. He refused to answer media questions about what was said and the recording, which became known as the "teapot tapes", dominated media discussion in the days before the election. The unreleased recording allegedly concerns the leadership of ACT and disparaging remarks about elderly New Zealand First supporters.^[37]

UN Security Council bid[link]

John and Bronagh Key meet Barack and Michelle Obama at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, 23 September 2009.

Key launched New Zealand's campaign for a Security Council seat at the UN General Assembly meeting in September 2009.^[38] He met briefly with US President Barack Obama and former US President Bill Clinton. While in New York, Key appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman. He read out the Top Ten list, 'Top Ten Reasons You Should Visit New Zealand'.^[39]

Political views[link]

Key's views are largely aligned with his own party's view. However he also notes the differences between his predecessor are more of style and focus rather than view.^[40] Key has in the past noted others' concern at the pace of asset sales, but argued that the arguments against selling assets in the 1980s were largely irrational.^[41] In a 2002 interview he said "some form of orientation towards privatisation" in health, education and superannuation, such as giving firms tax breaks for employer super schemes, made sense.^[42] After leading the National party to victory in the 2011 election, Key rejected that the National Party lacks a mandate to partially sell off state-owned assets, he acknowledged that some New Zealanders were anxious about the mixed ownership model. "But I think we got a mandate."^[43]

Key has a mixed voting record on social issues: he voted against the bill creating civil unions,^[44] claiming that this represented his constituents' views but he supports them personally.^[45] He was part of a large block of MPs voting to defeat a bill that defined marriage as being between a man and a woman.^[46] Key has also stated that he does not oppose gay adoption.^[47]

In regard to addressing the social destruction caused by binge drinking, in 2008 Key voted for an ill-fated attempt to raise the legal drinking age from 18 back to 20 ^[48] but subsequently ignored a Law Commission recommendation to increase levies on alcohol.^[49] He claimed there was 'no appetite' for such a move.^[50] A 'suppressed' report on public attitudes to alcohol law reform eventually came to light indicating that in 2010, when he made this claim, 56% of New Zealanders supported a price increase.^[51]

Key says that he believes that global warming is a real phenomenon, and that the Government needs to implement measures to reduce human contribution to global warming.^[52] Key has committed the National Party to working towards reducing greenhouse emissions in New Zealand by 50% within the next fifty years.^[53] Commentators note that as recently as 2005, Key made statements indicating that he was sceptical of the effects and impact of climate change.^[52][54]

Key with his predecessor, Helen Clark

Critics note that Key has changed his views on the Iraq war since becoming leader of the opposition. In 2003, as an opposition MP, Key emphasised National's position of supporting New Zealand's traditional allies, the United States and Australia. Key came under fire in the New Zealand Parliament in August 2007, when the Government claimed that had Key been Prime Minister at the time, he would have sent troops to Iraq.^[55]

Like his predecessor Helen Clark, Key views a New Zealand republic as "inevitable", although probably not for another decade. "If Australia becomes a republic there is no question it will set off quite an intense debate on this side of the Tasman," he said, "We would have to have a referendum if we wanted to move towards it." ^[56] Key later stated that he is a monarchist, and that a New Zealand republic would "Not [happen] under my watch".^[57]

Religious views[link]

Key attends church frequently but is agnostic when it comes to belief in God.^[58][59] He has stated that he does not believe in an afterlife, and sees religion as "doing the right thing".^[58] Key's wife, Bronagh (née Dougan) Key, is the daughter of Northern Irish emigrants of mixed religious descent.^[60] Key is the third prime minister or premier of New Zealand (after Julius Vogel and Francis Bell) with Jewish ancestry.^[61]

See also[link]

• Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak (New Zealand)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Key

Wikinews has related news: Exclusive interview with New Zealand politician, John Key

• Official website
• Prime Minister of New Zealand official website
• Profile at New Zealand National Party website
• Profile at Parliament of New Zealand website
• Releases and speeches at Beehive website
• The New Zealand Herald feature: John Key–the unauthorised biography

Paul Craig Roberts (born April 3, 1939) is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics.^[1] He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service who has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy.

Roberts is a critic of Israel, calling Gaza "the world's largest concentration camp" populated by people who were "driven out of Palestine so that Israel could steal their land." Roberts has been a critic of both Democratic and Republican administrations. Although Roberts praised Ronald Reagan, he has compared supporters of George W. Bush to "brownshirts with the same low intelligence and morals as Hitler's enthusiastic supporters." He has opposed the War on Drugs and the War on Terror stating it has "made widows and orphans of millions of Muslims". He believes the official explanation for the events on 9/11 is a "scientific impossibility".

Publication[link]

He has written or co-written eight books, contributed chapters to numerous books and has published many articles in journals of scholarship.

His writings frequently appear on OpEdNews, Alex Jones' Prisonplanet.com, Antiwar.com, the web site VDARE.com. LewRockwell.com, CounterPunch. He is a contributor to the American Free Press which is critical of the New World Order and Israel. Roberts has been featured as a guest on the Political Cesspool radio show.^[2]

In order to create a coherent uncensored and unedited archive of Robert's writings, paulcraigroberts.org ^[3] was created by the The Institute For Political Economy and appeared in January 2012. His articles continue to appear in other venues, but are first available on this website along with links to relevant videos and books.

Biography[link]

Roberts is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He was a post-graduate at the University of California, Berkeley and at Merton College, Oxford University.^[4] His first scholarly article (Classica et Mediaevalia) was a reformulation of "The Pirenne Thesis."

In Alienation and the Soviet Economy (1971), Roberts explained the Soviet economy as the outcome of a struggle between inordinate aspirations and a refractory reality. He argued that the Soviet economy was not centrally planned, but that its institutions, such as material supply, reflected the original Marxist aspirations to establish a non-market mode of production. In Marx's Theory of Exchange (1973), Roberts argued that Marx was an organizational theorist whose materialist conception of history ruled out good will as an effective force for change.

From 1975 to 1978, Roberts served on the congressional staff. As economic counsel to Congressman Jack Kemp^[5] he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill (which became the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981) and played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy.^[4] His influential 1978 article for Harper's,^[6] while economic counsel to Senator Orrin Hatch,^[7] had Wall Street Journal editor Robert L. Bartley give him an editorial slot, which he had until 1980.^[8] He was a senior fellow in political economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, then part of Georgetown University.^[5]

From early 1981 to January 1982 he served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. President Ronald Reagan and Treasury Secretary Donald Regan credited him with a major role in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, and he was awarded the Treasury Department's Meritorious Service Award for "outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States economic policy."^[4] Roberts resigned in January 1982 to become the first occupant of the William E. Simon Chair for Economic Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, then part of Georgetown University.^[9] He held this position until 1993. He went on to write The Supply-Side Revolution (1984), in which he explained the reformulation of macroeconomic theory and policy that he had helped to create.

He was a Distinguished Fellow at the Cato Institute from 1993 to 1996. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.^[4]

In The New Color Line (1995), Roberts argued that the Civil Rights Act was subverted by the bureaucrats who applied it and, by being used to create status-based privileges, became a threat to the Fourteenth Amendment in whose name it was passed. In The Tyranny of Good Intentions (2000), Roberts documented what he saw as the erosion of the Blackstonian legal principles that ensure that law is a shield of the innocent and not a weapon in the hands of government.

Recognition[link]

In 1987 the French government recognized him as "the artisan of a renewal in economic science and policy after half a century of state interventionism" and inducted him into the Legion of Honor on March 20, 1987. The French Minister of Economics and Finance, Edouard Balladur, came from France to present the medal to Roberts at a ceremony at the French Ambassador's residence in Washington, D.C. President Reagan sent OMB Director Jim Miller to the ceremony with a letter of congratulation.^[4]

In 1992 he received the Warren Brookes Award for Excellence in Journalism from the American Legislative Exchange Council. In 1993 the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of the top seven journalists in the United States.^[4]

Views[link]

Criticism of Bush[link]

Roberts opposed the Iraq War and writes frequently on the subject. On May 18, 2005, in response to the publication of the "Downing Street memo," Roberts wrote an article calling for Bush's impeachment for lying to Congress about the case for war.

Roberts was also a critic of a potential Bush administration attack on Iran. In an August 15, 2005 article, he states "Bush...dismisses all facts and assurances and is willing to attack Iran based on nothing but Israel's paranoia."

Although his criticisms of Bush often seem to align him with the political left, Roberts continues to praise Ronald Reagan and to endorse many of Reagan's policies, arguing that "true conservatives" were the "first victims" of the neoconized Bush administration.^[10] He has said that supporters of George W. Bush "are brownshirts with the same low intelligence and morals as Hitler's enthusiastic supporters."^[11]

Israel[link]

In an article for Counterpunch magazine titled "Pirates of the Mediterranean", Roberts wrote that for 60 years, Israel has replicated "the 17th, 18th, and 19th century theft of American Indian lands by US settlers." Roberts repeated charges that Gaza is "the world largest concentration camp" populated by people who were "driven out of Palestine so that Israel could steal their land." He called the U.S. State Department a "puppet" of the Israelis and the U.S. itself a "puppet state" of the Israelis. He concludes the article by claiming that "there’s no money for California, or for Americans’ health care, or for the several million Americans who have lost their homes and are homeless, because Israel needs it."^[12]

The pro-Jewish [Anti-Defamation League] has criticized Dr. Roberts as promoting anti-semitism for his increasing focus on "criticism of Israel and Jews" making his writings "popular with fringe publications on both the left and the right".^[13] However, Dr. Roberts nominated Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper for the Nobel Peace Prize and he cautions against confusing a right-wing Zionist government with world Jewry. In one of his classic columns, "What Became of Western Morality?" (January 2005), he noted that it is Israeli newspapers, not American ones, that protest the Israeli government's atrocities against Palestinians:

"It is the goyim moralists who are silent, not the Jews. It is the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, not the goyim media, that provides reports of Israel’s abuse of Palestinians. Gideon Levy’s “The Neighborhood Bully Strikes Again” was published in Haaretz on Dec. 29, not in the goyim press. Levy’s words—”Once again, Israel’s violent responses, even if there is justification for them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom”—are not words that can appear in American print or TV media. Such words, printed in Israeli newspapers, never reach the goyim."

Dr. Roberts cautions against blaming all Jews for crimes of a right-wing government:

"The world will need to remember that although Israel is a Jewish state, it is a state whose policies many Jews find objectionable, just as a majority of American Jews oppose President Bush’s wars of aggression in the Middle East and his unconstitutional policies at home. We must not confuse Israel’s Zionist government with world Jewry, just as we must not confuse the American people with the war criminals in the Bush regime.

"Consider, who do you trust with your civil liberties, the U.S. Department of Justice or the ACLU’s phalanx of Jewish attorneys? [Dr. Roberts according to Who's Who In America is a member of the ACLU, a Jewish organization.]

"We must avoid the mistake that was made by blaming the German people for Adolf Hitler. It was the aristocratic German military that tried to remove Hitler. In contrast, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi blocked the attempt to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Pelosi is a discredit to California, but shall we blame all of America for Pelosi’s defense of war criminals? How can we do so when U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich courageously read out the articles of impeachment on the House floor?

"Are all Americans guilty because Kucinich did not prevail?" ^[14]

Neoconservatives and the South Ossetia War[link]

In an interview on August 27, 2008, on a broadcast of The Alex Jones Show, Roberts stated that he believed that influential neoconservatives affiliated with the Bush administration were leading the United States into a nuclear confrontation with Russia over the situation in Georgia and South Ossetia. Roberts gave the conflict “almost total certainty if John McCain gets in office" and stated that the conflict would be in a timeframe of about two or three years.^[15]

2009–2010 Iranian election protests[link]

In a June 19–21, 2009 article in CounterPunch about the protests following the re-election of Ahmadinejad, Robert stated that while "the protests ... no doubt have many sincere participants," they "also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in Georgia and Ukraine. It requires total blindness not to see this."^[16]

September 11, 2001 attacks[link]

Of the 9/11 Commission Report he wrote in 2006, "One would think that if the report could stand analysis, there would not be a taboo against calling attention to the inadequacy of its explanations." (see Criticisms of the 9/11 Commission Report). He has reported what he says are findings by experts that conclude there is a large energy deficit in the official account of the collapse of the three WTC buildings, and says that this deficit remains unexplained.

Roberts comments on the "scientific impossibility" of the official explanation for the events on 9/11 and says those engineers and physicists who accept this theory are wrong. On August 18, 2006, he wrote:

I will begin by stating what we know to be a solid incontrovertible scientific fact. We know that it is strictly impossible for any building, much less steel columned buildings, to “pancake” at free fall speed. Therefore, it is a non-controversial fact that the official explanation of the collapse of the WTC buildings is false... Since the damning incontrovertible fact has not been investigated, speculation and “conspiracy theories” have filled the void.^[17]

On the (back) cover of Debunking 9/11 Debunking (2007) he is quoted:

Professor Griffin is the nemesis of the 9/11 cover-up. This new book destroys the credibility of the NIST and Popular Mechanics reports and annihilates his critics.Book Cover Quote

Roberts adding that the so-called neoconservatives intended to use a renewal of the fight against terrorism to rally the American people around the fading Republican Party. "The administration figures themselves and prominent Republican propagandists ... are preparing us for another 9/11 event or series of events," he said. "You have to count on the fact that if al Qaeda is not going to do it, it is going to be orchestrated."

When Anwar al-Awlaki, who was linked to some of the hijackers was killed by a drone attack, Roberts objected, calling it "The Day America Died". He wrote that although Awlaki was critical of "indiscriminate assaults on Muslim peoples" and "told Muslims that they did not have to passively accept American aggression", the US lacked evidence that either Awlaki was a real threat or an Al Qaeda operative^[18]

US media[link]

• "Anyone who depends on print, TV, or right-wing talk radio media is totally misinformed. The Bush administration has achieved a de facto Ministry of Propaganda."^[19]
• "The uniformity of the US media has become much more complete since the days of the cold war. During the 1990s, the US government permitted an unconscionable concentration of print and broadcast media that terminated the independence of the media. Today the US media is owned by 5 giant companies in which pro-Zionist Jews have disproportionate influence. More importantly, the values of the conglomerates reside in the broadcast licenses, which are granted by the government, and the corporations are run by corporate executives—not by journalists—whose eyes are on advertising revenues and the avoidance of controversy that might produce boycotts or upset advertisers and subscribers. Americans who rely on the totally corrupt corporate media have no idea what is happening anywhere on earth, much less at home."^[20]

Society[link]

"If I had time to research my writings over the past 30 years, I could find examples of partisan articles in behalf of Republicans and against Democrats. However, political partisanship is not the corpus of my writings. I had a 16-year stint as Business Week's first outside columnist, despite hostility within the magazine and from the editor's New York social set, because the editor regarded me as the most trenchant critic of the George H.W. Bush administration in the business. The White House felt the same way and lobbied to have me removed from the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies... In their hatred of "the rich," the left-wing overlooks that in the 20th century the rich were the class most persecuted by government. The class genocide of the 20th century is the greatest genocide in history."^[19]

Outsourcing jobs[link]

Roberts has testified before the US–China Commission and written many articles pointing out that the offshoring of high productivity, high value-added jobs in manufacturing and professional services is dismantling the ladders of upward mobility that made the U.S. an opportunity society. Consequently, he is an opponent of Global Labor Arbitrage.

War on Drugs[link]

Though Roberts worked for the Reagan administration, which implemented a "zero tolerance" and "Just Say No" policy on illegal drugs and increased spending to combat drugs, in 2007, he penned an article on the web site VDare.com criticizing the excess of the War on Drugs which he termed the "militarization of local police".^[21]

War on Terror[link]

Roberts asked "Is the War on Terror a Hoax", and claims it has "killed, maimed, dislocated, and made widows and orphans of millions of Muslims in six countries". Roberts called the attacks "naked aggression" on civilian populations and infrastructure which constitute war crimes.]]".^[21]

Republican Party[link]

Roberts is seriously dismayed by what he considers the Republican Party's disregard for the U.S. Constitution. He has even voiced his regret that he ever worked for it, avowing that, had he known what it would become, he would never have contributed to the Reagan Revolution.^[22]

American democracy and oligarchy[link]

Roberts has been increasingly critical of what he deems as the lessening of democracy in the U.S.; instead accusing it of being run by oligarchs by stating:

"The west prides itself that it is the standard for the world, that it is a democracy. But nowhere do you see democratic outcomes: not in Greece, not in Ireland, not in the UK, not here, the outcomes are always to punish the innocent and reward the guilty. And that's what the Greeks are in the streets, protesting. We see this all over the west. There is no democracy, there are oligarchies, some of these smaller European countries are not even run by their own governments, they are run by Wall Street... There is probably more democracy in China than there is in the west. Revolution is the only answer... We are confronted with a curious situation. Throughout the west we think we have democracy, we hold ourselves up high, we demonize China, we talk about the mafia state of Russia, we talk about the Arabs and so on, but where is the democracy here?" ^[23]

Cessation and resumption of journalism[link]

On March 26, 2010, Roberts announced he was "signing off" as a journalist in a column titled "Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It".^[24] However two months later another article by Roberts had appeared in counterpunch.org.^[25]

On March 26, 2010, in a farewell column titled, "Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It,"^[26] Roberts effectively announced his journalistic retirement. The article, published at Counterpunch.org, begins: "There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest." It proceeds to a bitter chronicle of the demise of American intellectual integrity, particularly that of financial journalists and economists. These have been thoroughly corrupted by monetary inducements to misrepresent and ignore what has been, in effect, the systematic dismantling of the nation's productive life, in the name of globalization. He holds the members of his own journalistic profession largely responsible for abetting relentless outsourcing of American industry, thereby gutting the American middle class and effectively dooming the nation's future. He describes his own ostracism from mainstream media access, the consequence of his relentless and unflinching criticism of the demolition process over the past decade. His column ends, "The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off."

Published works[link]

Books[link]

• Alienation and the Soviet Economy (1971, 1990) ISBN 0-8419-1247-5
• Marx's Theory of Exchange, Alienation, and Crisis (1973, 1983) ISBN 0-03-069791-3
• The Supply Side Revolution: An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington (1984) ISBN 0-674-85620-1
• Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy (1990) ISBN 0-932790-80-1
• The Capitalist Revolution in Latin America (1997) ISBN 0-19-511176-1
• The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy (1995) ISBN 0-89526-423-4
• The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice (2008) ISBN 0-7615-2553-X
• How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds (2009) ISBN 978-1-84935-007-5

Articles[link]

• CounterPunch
• Creators Syndicate
• LewRockwell.com
• Antiwar.com
• VDARE
• World News Daily Information Clearing House

References[link]

1. ↑ Roberts, Paul Craig (June 10, 2004). The Real Reagan Record (August 31, 1992). National Review. Retrieved on February 27, 2010.
2. ↑ "GUEST LIST". http://www.thepoliticalcesspool.org/guestlist.php. Retrieved November 29, 2009. 
3. ↑ www.paulcraigroberts.org
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5} Biography - Paul Craig Roberts
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} The Bulletin, 30 January 1981, "Roberts nominated"
6. ↑ Paul Craig Roberts, "Disguising the tax burden: Little-known facts beneath the rhetoric of reform", Harper's, March 1978
7. ↑ Bruce Bartlett, Human Events, 28 January 2002, "'Rich' Pay More Than What's Fair.", 58(4), p14
8. ↑ Paul Craig Roberts, Washington Times, 17 December 2003, "Two who made a difference"
9. ↑ Toledo Blade, 19 January 1982, Treasury Dept. Economist Quits Post: Advocate of Tax-Cut Plan Going To Georgetown U
10. ↑ Paul Craig Roberts: Who Will Save America?
11. ↑ The Reality Beneath the Flag-Waving
12. ↑ Counterpunch
13. ↑ Syndicated Columnist Paul Craig Roberts Promotes Anti-Semitism Syndicated Columnist Paul Craig Roberts Promotes Anti-Semitism
14. ↑ 09-01- 2009 article
15. ↑ Infowars
16. ↑ Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated "Color Revolution?" Is This the Culmination of Two Years of Destabilization by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS]
17. ↑ Roberts, Paul Craig (2006-08-16). "What we know and don’t know about 9/11". Information Clearing House. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14566.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-06. 
18. ↑ "the day america died". lewrockwell (London). October 3, 2011. http://lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts328.html. 
19. ↑ ^{19.0 19.1} Paul Craig Roberts: Who Will Save America?
20. ↑ VDARE.com: 08/16/06 - What We Know And Don’t Know About 9/11
21. ↑ ^{21.0 21.1} Paul Craig Roberts, Drug War Has Militarized Your Local Police
22. ↑ The mother of all messes
23. ↑ Video Interview: Co-Founder Of Reaganomics, Paul Craig Roberts, "There Is Probably More Democracy In China Than There Is In The West" May 2011
24. ↑ "Good-Bye: Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It" (counterpunch.org March 24, 2010)
25. ↑ Progressives Want "Direct Action" But a Disarmed Public by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS counterpunch.org June 18–20, 2010
26. ↑ http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03242010.html | Good-Bye: Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It (March 24, 2010)

External links[link]

• paulcraigroberts
• Column archive (2003-2009) at Antiwar.com
• Column archive (2006-2010) at Creators Syndicate
• Column archive (1995-present) at LewRockwell.com
• Column archive (1995-2009) at Vdare.com
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Works by or about Paul Craig Roberts in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Profile at SourceWatch
• Nomination of Paul Craig Roberts To Be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, President Ronald Reagan, January 30, 1981

Interviews and articles

• Paul Craig Roberts interviewed on Alex Jones Show regarding active nuclear threat within next 2-3 years
• Paul Craig Roberts interviewed by Webster Tarpley^{[dead link]}
• Roberts' first article calling for Bush's impeachment^{[dead link]}
• Chuck Harder Interviews Paul Craig Roberts
• A Brief Interview with Paul Craig Roberts
• Downloadable audio interview with Scott Horton

Paul Craig may refer to:

• Paul Craig (law professor)
• Paul Craig (soccer)

This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

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This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2012)

Craig Roberts (born 25 January 1991) is a Welsh actor. He is best known for playing the lead role of Oliver Tate in the coming-of-age comedy-drama film Submarine, and for playing the character Rio in The Story of Tracy Beaker.

Life and career[link]

Roberts was born in Maesycwmmer, Caerphilly, Wales.

He has appeared as the vampire fanatic Robin Branagh, in two seasons of the television show Young Dracula. He has also appeared in Care and Casualty.

Roberts appeared in the pantomime 'Snow White' in Worthing, where he played the evil queen's sidekick 'Drax' in January 2009. In 2008 he worked with Y Touring Theatre Company where he played the part of 'Ryan' in a UK national tour of 'Full Time' which was a play that explores issues of racism, sexism and homophobia in football. He also appeared in the BBC Three television show Being Human and the online spin-off series Becoming Human as Adam.^[1]

Roberts starred in the 2010 film Submarine^[2] which also stars Paddy Considine and Yasmin Paige.^[3][4]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

1. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y5m86
2. ↑ Henry Barnes (2011-03-15). "'I love deadpan': Richard Ayoade and Craig Roberts on Submarine | Film | guardian.co.uk". Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/15/richard-ayoade-craig-roberts-submarine. Retrieved 2012-03-15. 
3. ↑ White, James (2009-11-06). "Paddy Considine starring in Submarine". TotalFilm.com. http://www.totalfilm.com/news/paddy-considine-starring-in-submarine. Retrieved 2012-03-15. 
4. ↑ "Submarine stars Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige: Q&A". Film4. http://www.film4.com/features/article/submarine-craig-roberts-yasmin-paige-interview. Retrieved 2012-03-15. 

External links[link]

• Craig Roberts at the Internet Movie Database

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