Chicago School Economists Got it Wrong. Strong Antitrust Policy Boosts the Economy (tags)
When mergers increase market concentration, we know that competition has been harmed even if to a small extent. Since this is the case, it makes sense to ask the merging parties to establish that the merger will provide benefits to the economy.
Selling off. The Price of Privatization in France (tags)
Liberalization and privatization have ultimately only confused consumers, but have whetted the appetite of the industry bosses and their puppets even more. The takeover of the state by the private sector is no longer about the realization of an ideological project.
How Misguided Financial Policy Strengthens the Right-Wing (tags)
Capitalism has shown how democratic processes can be easily evaded. The Chicago boys carried out their radical reform program that was known as shock therapy. This included dismantling social state structures, opening the market to foreign investors and shattering unions
Neoliberalism and Authoritarianism - A Symbiotic Pair (tags)
Rightwing populist parties mix the conventional rightwing authoritarian political style with neoliberal economic ideas emphasizing the free unregulated market and the sleek but strong state. For Hayek, unions allegedly threaten democracy and force a just redistribution policy.
Neoliberalism or New Freedom for Corporations (tags)
"The interests of merchants always differ from public interests. As a rule, they are interested in deceiving and misusing the general public" (Adam Smith). Keynes established that the market alone cannot ensure the prosperity of everyone.
Prohibiting Micro-Second Betting on the Exchanges (tags)
The financial sector that has gone off course should serve the real economy again in the future. The exchange functions like a gigantic casino. Throwing some sand int he gears with a transactions tax would slow down the speculation.
Challenging the Ruling Economic Orthodoxy: Economics Students Begin to Revolt (tags)
Pete Dolack writes the Systemic Disorder blog. He has been activist with several groups.
Egypt
Iraq Today: America's Genocidal Legacy (tags)
Iraq
class war
Mirror images and ideological straitjackets on the path from Solidarity to sellout (tags)
A particularly harsh brand of capitalism was instituted via shock therapy in Poland, against the repeatedly expressed will of Poles. Unemployment, severe wage cuts and a growth in poverty were the results, just as with today’s austerity programs.
class war
America's Genocidal Iraq War (tags)
Iraq
From Financial Crisis to Stagnation: An Interview with Thomas Palley (tags)
"The way economies are organized and function is significantly the product of social choices, not the product of nature. Over the past thirty years we (society) have embraced a set of economic ideas..."
In show of power, financiers impose will on Argentina’s Navy (tags)
Billionaire speculator buys bonds of indebted countries at pennies on the dollar and then uses every means possible to get them to pay him for the full value, regardless of the cost to those countries’ people.
Out of the Slump: The Only Road (tags)
A real analysis of the United State’s economic history is rarely discussed by politicians or media alike, since the conclusions that would be inevitably drawn would be out of step with what politicians are currently advocating.
After Mubarak: What's Next? (tags)
revolution
Ruling on Behalf of Wall Street's "Super Rich": The Financial End Time has Arrived (tags)
"Alas, the Obama administration has backed the Geithner-Bernanke policy that “the economy” cannot recover without saving the debt overhead. The reality is that it is the debt overhead that is destroying the economy. So we are dealing with the irreconcilable fact that the Obama position threatens to lower living standards from 10% to 20% over the coming few years – making the United States look more like Greece, Ireland and Latvia than what was promised in the last presidential election. Something has to give politically if the economy is to change course. More to the point, what has to give is favoritism for Wall Street at the expense of the economy at large. What has made the U.S. economy uncompetitive is primarily the degree to which debt service has been built into the cost of living and doing business. Post-classical “junk economics” treats interest and fees as payment for the “service” for providing credit. But interest (like economic rent and monopoly price extraction) is a transfer payment to bankers with the privilege of credit creation. The beneficiaries of providing tax favoritism for debt are the super-rich at the top of the economic pyramid – the 2% whom Mr. Obama’s tax giveaway will benefit by over $700 billion. If the present direction of tax “reform” is not reversed, Mr. Obama will shed crocodile tears for the middle class as he sponsors the Deficit Reduction Commission’s program of cutting back Social Security and revenue sharing to save states and cities from defaulting on their pensions. One third of U.S. real estate already is reported to have sunk into negative equity, squeezing state and local tax collection, forcing a choice to be made between bankruptcy, debt default, or shifting the losses onto the shoulders of labor, off those of the wealthy creditor layer of the economy responsible for loading it down with debt."
The "Houdini Recovery" under IMF-Type Austerity (tags)
the recovery is the big lie
Disaster Capitalism Headed to Haiti (tags)
worker exploitation follows disaster
Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism:" The Economic Agenda of Imperial America (tags)
How imperial America is funded
Putting Finance Capitalism "Back in Its Box" (tags)
Their scheme is permanent debt bondage
Barack Obama: Crime Boss (tags)
Obama's criminal partnership with Wall Street
E-Book of Tarpley's "Obama: Postmodern Coup The Making of a Manchurian Candidate (tags)
This book exposes Obama, but it does so from a standpoint that is fundamentally different from almost all other critical studies seen so far. The basic thesis shared by the authors of this book is that Obama is a right-winger, an elitist, a creature of Wall Street, and a deeply troubled personality, running far to the right of his main opponent, Sen. Clinton, on all major issues, including the two critical areas of economics and foreign policy.
Project Censored's Media Democracy Advocacy (tags)
Project Censored's holding the dominant media accountable.
The government-business looting of America.
F. William Engdahl's "A Century of War" - Part II (tags)
Part II of this epic book.
On the Anti-Democratic Character of Neoliberalism (tags)
Privatization, deregulation and cuts in social spending is the trinity of the free market, Naomi Klein explains. The consciou8s production of unemployment is anti-democratic. The conscious worsening of income- and assets distribution is anti-democratic.
"Capitalism and Freedom" Unmasked (tags)
The dark side of Milton Friedman's economics.
Reviewing Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" (tags)
The human wreckage of disaster capitalism.