The Superiority Conceit of the West Crumbles (tags)
When people in the West are confronted with the knowledge that the feeling of their own superiority was a deception or swindle, the awakening will surely be traumatic. We should not gloat because the people who have never known anything but western propaganda are deceived and defrauded
Rethinking the State and Rent Madness (tags)
The right to housing for everyone must be understood as a public challenge and presupposes the de-commodification of the housing supply, a democratization of urban policy, and breach with the real estate exploitation coalition.
Advice on Corona and Budget 2020 (tags)
Emancipatory politics is characterized by the fact that interests are negotiated. The post-Corona phase will show what can be learned about the relation between politics and capital. Civil society should be engaged and resistant to ruling politics
Affordable Rents? A State of Emergency Intensifies (tags)
Rents explode in cities after massive sales of public housing to brutal investors. In 1987, there were 5.5 million social apartments in Germany. Today, there are 1.5 million. Land speculation was prevented in Vienna. The Vienna Housing Fund buys up possible development land.
Against the Rent Madness and For a Nonprofit Orientation! (tags)
The Alternative Housing Summit on Sept 21 in Berlin discussed alternatives to the market-based housing policy. Exploding rents and lack of affordable housing are the most burning social questions. More market is not the solution! Housing for People, not for Profits!
Promote Public Housing! (tags)
A basic principle of the market economy is that the market only reacts to solvent demand, not to needs. If a need is not reflected in a solvent demand, the market simply does not react. The supply side expansion of affordable housing is key, not subject promotion.
The Fairy-tale of the End of the Financial Crisis (tags)
Between 2008 and 2010, the EU Commission approved state aid of 4.3 trillion euros. The potential crisis of the global economy has grown and not declined. A system crash was prevented by the actions of central banks and states.
Non-Profits versus Profit Maximization (tags)
Cooperation and competition strengthen each other. Creating a non-profit or cooperative housing sector is the only remedy to gentrification and commodification as rental prices go through the roof. Housing often mutates from a human and social necessity to a speculative asset.
Bombing Strengthens the Islamic State (tags)
The attempts to stop Islamic terror through military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq have brought about the opposite. These attempts destabilized societies in those countries, promoted terror and triggered great streams of refugees. So the policy of the West bears a joint responsibility.
TISA: Everything Will Be Marketed (tags)
A new agreement (TISA, Trade in Services Agreement) could privatize drinking water and health care through the back door. The resistance by many non-governmental organizations to the free trade agreement TTIP seems to pick up speed
With PPP, Public Treasuries are Plundered (tags)
According to the neoliberal myth, higher profits lead to increased investments and more jobs. In truth, investments have declined in this decade. Corporations used their profits to speculate on foreign currencies and buy back their own stock. Crises are chances to rethink private and public.
A Financial Boom Despite the Crisis (tags)
For the banks, deficit state budgets become important clients. They compensate the private demand for credit. The financial boom is completely based on support measures of state organs. An economic upswing is not in sight.
The Bank Tribunal in Berlin (tags)
Even today most radical market liberals do not see beyond their ideological blinders and explain the financial market crisis as a state breakdown. The financial catastrophe is a fiasco of their religious doctrine. The catastrophe plunged the dominant economy into a crisis of meaning.
Attac's Bank Tribunal: The Jury's Verdict (tags)
This crisis did not break out over society like a force of nature. Financial managers spread the legend that financial crises belong to capitalism as water belongs to the ocean and that euphoric phases of bubble formation and the bursting of bubbles come and go like the seasons.
Financial Injections Ensure the Assets of the Rich (tags)
The money must be taken from those who profited from the past financial system. Thus a tax reform must be on the agenda. A state investment program is also urgently necessary. The past growth model of global capitalism is in a structural crisis. A new economy is beyond profit.
Memorandum 2005: Alternative Economic Policy (tags)
In Germany and the US, the corporation is often stylized as the suffering servant. The market is made sacrosanct; all problems are defined as interferencs with the market. Profits soar and investments fall. Corporations pay increasingly less tax.