Let the advertising die! (tags)
Advertising leads to useless purchases because it often persuades consumers to have needs instead of satisfying existing desires. This leads to excessive consumption of resources and materials and thus damages the environment.
Raising interest rates to fight inflation is a crazy idea (tags)
A wrong analysis of the causes of inflation leads to wrong countermeasures. Wage restraint means a loss of purchasing power and does not change the increased energy prices. Higher interest rates will make loans more expensive, lead to less investment, eg renewable energies.
The modeling of the human and Final victory of materialism (tags)
Birgit Naujeck, clearly opposes 5G, transhumanism, any eugenics, and the disembodiment of our language, which leads to the rewriting of history and gender. The Final victory of materialism coincides with its implosion!
Lessons from the First New Deal for the Next One (tags)
Top Economist: As Pandemic Recedes, a Chance to Rethink Unemployment (tags)
The Chamber of Commerce, for example, has pushed the U.S. to stop expanded unemployment insurance benefits so that people will be forced to return to low-wage jobs. Some Republican-dominated states have jumped on board with this idea.
There is currently no alternative to national debt (tags)
A private economy left to its own devices is completely incapable of immanently combating the crisis. This is especially true for future-oriented investments for ecological modernization that serve climate protection. The vaccine against Covid-19, which will apparently be available shortly, would not exist without govt funding.
Financial Markets and National Socialism (tags)
Joseph Goebbels was appointed "Reich Minister for National Enlightenment and Propaganda "7 on March 15, 1933.: "The people should begin to think and react in a unified way. [...]" They should stand behind the actions of the government with full sympathy and support.
Everything works, nothing has to Is it even conceivable that after the crisis everything will continue as before? 28 realistic-utopian proposals for a completely renewed society after Corona
Hayek and the Social Question (tags)
Hayek, author of Road to Serfdom, said the market was self-healing and market outcomes were just outcomes. In his book "Submission is Freedom," Schreiner explains how public investments and market corrections are vital.
Ten Years After the Financial Crash (tags)
US economic statistics are dubious since financial markets are based on financial products and money out of nothing. Tax havens, micro-second betting, stock buybacks and corruption through lobbying are market-distorting and cause revenue shortfalls.
Economic Stagnation and its Mastery (tags)
Corporate profits explode while investments stagnate.Social housing declines with privatization. According to neoliberal theory, higher profits lead to grater investments and more jobs. In truth, higher profits lead to more use of tax havens and companies buying back their stock.
Neoliberal Austerity Leads to Deeper Crisis (tags)
A high state share in the economy, developed social states and readiness to intervene actively and anti-cyclically prevent falling into a depression. Trump's demonizing regulation, Medicaid, public schools, Head Start, Meals on Wheels, taxation and democracy must be resisted
Public Risks, Private Profits and Prosperity (tags)
All personal and corporate achievements are based on state investments in roads, schools, hospitals, community centers, airwaves, food safety, and water quality. The Apples and Googles of this world are businesses that developed the results of state-financed basic research...
Growth Criticism and Reduced Working Hours (tags)
Today's growth critics speak of the necessity of a post-growth society, a "renunciation society" or at least of a "green" capitalist model... A political transformation process is necessary. The economist John Maynard Keynes dreamt of a time when his grandchildren would only have 15hr wk.
The Crises of Today's Economy (tags)
The market is not a subject but an instrument. Nevertheless "the primacy of the market" replaced "the primacy of politics." Neoliberalism actually serves the interests of finance capital. A doctor whose therapy causes sicknesses cannot understand this. Our elites are in great distress.
The Digitalization of Labor (tags)
Robots and algorithms are ready to automate many activities like the manufacturing robot Baxter... John Maynard Keynes dreamt of a future in which the work week of his grandchidren would by only 15 hours.
The Works Progress Administration created 651K miles of highway, 124K bridges, 8K parks and 125K public buildings including 41K schools. In the US of Amnesia, corporate subsidies are called public necessities and public welfare unnecessary Orwell warned us of this inversion of language.
Economic Inequality Divides Economics and Society (tags)
An unequal distribution of income paralyzes the whole economy... Redistribution from top to bottom in a national economy ultimately depends on which social groups can enforce their interests more strongly.
Progress Means Reduced Working Hours (tags)
Shorter hours can lead to economic growth, higher productivity, greater output, more time sovereignty and better long-term health of workers. Closing one's eyes to these arguments and only thinking of short-term profit is hostile to the future and not only hostile to the economy.
Can Keynes Rescue Europe from the Euro Crisis? (tags)
Keynes' theories and concepts were pushed back with the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s. A complete change of course occurred when state spending cuts, lower wages and devaluations failed. The state spent money to create demand for products and services.
With slogans like "Less State, More Private," the state was run down for years. Neoliberal ideology managed to present it as a bureaucratic monster. Banks were bailed out. In the emergency, the most wicked neoliberal becomes the state fan. The history of innovations shows the state takes risks
Overdue farewell to dogma (tags)
Mainstream economics did not see the crisis coming – and so far it has not done much to overcome it. However, at least in the USA, a rethink has started.
The Catastrophe has Already Begun (tags)
Capitalist growth has become the problem, promotes famines and strangles full employment. Can the world be rescued? Mass unemployment has never lasted as long as today; global problems increase... A change of consciousness is necessary so the population strives for justice.
How Economists Change the World (tags)
Theory development is also a war over dominance. The goals of Hayek's war were expulsion of the Keynesians, liberalization of the financial markets, abandonment of full employment policy, dismantling the social state and weakening unions.
Thoughts on New Year's Eve (tags)
anti-war
Economics is Onesided and Reactionary (tags)
The homo oeconomicus cannot be our hope and is not desirable or future-friendly. The economic benefits to the capitalist entrepreneur are in contradiction to nature and to the person..We face completely oversized financial markets that have uncoupled from the real economy creating value.
"Too Smart to Fail" by Thomas Frank (tags)
The “sound” banker, alas! is not one who sees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows so that no one can really blame him. –John Maynard Keynes
How Neoliberalism Gained Hegemony (tags)
The pressing question is why do the masses vote against their own interests and applaud those who champion goals opposed to their well-being or welfare? Ideas prevail because power is on their side, not because they are better. Neoliberalism went from sect to cultural hegemony
TTIP: Threat to Democracy and the Constitutional State (tags)
The TTIP, the largest free trade zone comprising 800 million of the EU and the US is being secretly negotiated. Democracy and the constitutional state are threatened by 3-person arbitration courts where corporations can sue states and decisions are irreversible.
The Abiding Economics of John Kenneth Galbraith (tags)
From The Great Crash, we have of course the conviction that financial panics affect real activity. No one in the 19th century or with experience of agriculture ever seriously doubted that the economy runs on credit or that real activity depends on banks. Only in the higher reaches of academic life could such a thing be denied.
The "Great Transformation" of the 21st Century (tags)
An end of the Great Crisis is not insight at the beginning of the 21st century... The regime of finance-market driven accumulation has not brought forth any new formation of capitalism capable of development.
On the Death of John Kenneth Galbraith (tags)
The great economist John Kenneth Galbrath was shocked at the public squalor alongside private affluence. He devised the horse-sparrow theory, horses must be fed so the sparrows can live. A healthy economy means shrinking the financial sector and expanding the public sector.
Book Review: "The Victory of Capital" (tags)
A society can only provide for the future by investing today in the production of tomorrow...What may be sensible economically for a private individual or individual business could be harmful for the national economy, particularly when the economy staggers.
Consumption: Endless Growth is Senseless (tags)
Writing in 1930, John Maynard Keynes thought people would soon have everything they need and envisioned a 15-hour work week. In the midst of the worst economic crisis, he foresaw a world where people had to work much less because their needs were satisfied.
The "ABCs of Alternatives" published in May 2013 includes chapters on democratization, globalization criticism, global social rights, good work, Keynesianism, knowledge commons, liberation pedagogy, no person is illegal, peace, rebellion, redistribution and the WSF,
Bernanke Stays the Course (tags)
Fed
For Immediate End of Austerity Policy in Europe (tags)
The growth model forced in the past with redistribution from bottom to top and increasing export surpluses has failed. For years, the demands of the Alternative Economic Policy study group emphasized combating unemployment and poverty and, taming the financial markets.
Growth Euphoria and Distribution Reality (tags)
The chasm between poor and rich opens even more. The uncoupling of growth and quality of life on one side and productivity and work volumes on the other side make clear that "business-as-usual" leads to growing problems. German GDP grew 300% with 20% fewer workers.
John Maynard Keynes: "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren" (tags)
Writing in 1930, John Maynard Keynes thought the 15-hour work week would be enough for full productivity!
Austerity When Stimulus Is Needed (tags)
class war
The Fiscal Cliff Is A Diversion: The Derivatives Tsunami and the Dollar Bubble (tags)
The fiscal cliff is a bipartisan excuse to introduce austerity measures in the form of "needed" cuts to social safety net programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The stage is set for "Jason vs. Freddy" or Obama vs. Boehner as we the people wait to see which politician serial killer will be cutting the U.S. people with their sharp knives of austerity.
Economists Argue over Distribution Question (tags)
More and more economists take distribution questions seriously. When inequality becomes too great in a national economy, the economy becomes unstable. Private indebtedness and income inequality massively increased in the US Financial markets uncoupled from real economy
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.
In the Towrope of the Financial Markets (tags)
"High growth has a well-known hook. Surpluses are only possible when natural resources from clear water to rare earth are available, when the energy supply is guaranteed and when the pollutant sinks are sufficient.. The debtors are now those states that had to become indebted.."
Renewable energy solution to oil price hikes (tags)
Manila, Philippines: Akbayan Party today urged the Aquino administration to push for renewable energy as a long term solution to oil price hikes. Akbayan lawmaker Walden Bello said that the spiraling cost of fuel should send alarm signals to the government and stress the urgency of pushing for renewable energy to address the country’s energy needs.
Economics' sharpest critics regard it as an auxiliary science of astrology, a sect that sings its same little song. Classical authors like John Kenneth Galbraith are finally rediscovered. Exactness is impossible. The coming generation should be protected from mono-cultural ideology
The Invisible Hand Doesn't Help Any More (tags)
Neoclassicism starts from the assumpti8ons that people always act rationally and market processes always lead to optimal results on account of the price mechanism. The market fails. Its view of the person as Homo oeconomicus must be replaced by the Homo cooperativus.
Beyond the Homo Economicus (tags)
The Homo economicus is a kind of calculating machine on two legs that incessantly calculates personal benefits and profit. His conduct follows the model of rational expectations. Incursions of the state will make possible more social equality.
Book Review: "The Great Crash or the Century Crisis" by Elmar Altvater (tags)
Capitalism is at an end and the whole world is drawn into the mess. Preventing this is an ethical imperative and a political duty. The multiple crisis has dragged on for years. The political class allows this to happen. Political answers to the debacle can only be found with clarity on causes.
Stagnation as a Trend-Life with Satiated Markets, Stagnating Economies and Reduced Work (tags)
45 years ago JKGalbraith was shocked at the public squalor alongside private affluence. In 2008-10 trillions were given to banks and Wall St. so private losses became public losses. By relieving corporations of taxes, neoliberal supply side strategy worsens growth and employment.
Video: Massive Jobs Program Only Way Out (tags)
Economics changes with the times as states and individuals change. Once savings was the elixir and then spending was the elixir with John Maynard Keynes. Speculative investment only leads to exploding inequality and atrophy of public spirit.
Privatization of the State (tags)
Economics changes with the times as states and individuals change. Once savings was the elixir and then spending with John Maynard Keynes. The economy should serve humankind; humanity should not serve the economy. Privatization is part of the snake oil remedy.
The Crisis of Financial Market Capitalism as a Challenge for the Left (tags)
The crisis of neoliberal financial market capitalism broke out in its center and has one central systemic cause. This crisis was triggered by the independence of the financial sphere... A solidarity mixed economy, democracy and peace are alternatives.
We live on credit, shift costs and risks into the future and make possible a prosperity with the help of a policy of cheap money that is paid for by others. An interest-free money system would be a counter model to the growth pressure inherent in the present system.
The End of the "Golden Age" of Capitalism and the Rise of Neoliberalism (tags)
"The central point is that the financial sphere has the potential of developing into an autonomous subsystem of the whole economy with an enormous capacity of self-expansion..Like cancer, it has no internal control mechanism. It can only be brought under control by external interventions"
The history of the crisis of the western world that we all experience more or less consciously or unconsciously (or partly ignore) is a history of boundless lobbylism, political corruption, market fetishism and unbroken faith in growth..Economic theories were and are children of their time.
The Silence of Economists (tags)
In 1936 Keynes was the first established economist who explained how a free enterprise system in no way realized a state of balance by itself. The state must take an active role in crisis times to prevent an economic downswing ending in a catastrophe.
The Crisis, Money and Us (tags)
"One we had a coordinated social market economy. This `Rhine' capitalism embodied the insight gained in bitter experience that totally freed markets are self-destructive. This insight was lost somewhere between Friedman and Hayek, Thatcher and Reagan.."
IMF Considers Replacing the Dollar as Key Currency (tags)
More stability and efficiency will be created and money and the credit system de-politicized. In stress situations, a world central bank could serve as creditor "of last resort" to provide the necessary liquidity in the whole system in case of grave shocks.
Life after the Peak: Capitalism and the Market Economy (tags)
All over the world there are experiments with renewable energy, solidarity economies and non-profit economic forms. A growth acceleration law will be absurd when fossil energy runs out. We will need a growth de-acceleration law.
Will the Great Depression Be Repeated? (tags)
Global trade fell 30 percent three years after the crash. The US gross domestic product shriveled 40 percent. In 1932, every fourth American was without a job. In Germany, industry only produced half of what was produced three years before.
GERMANY: What Lessons Do We Learn from the Financial Crisis? (tags)
Rating agencies were paid by the firms to be rated. Ultimately rational individual conduct led to an irrational collective result. The lesson is clear. On the way of regulation or taxation, banks must be given a massive incentive to remain small.
Satiation or Two Limits of Growth: John Maynard Keynes (tags)
"The first great economic crisis of the 21st century marks the end of a failed political-economic experiment..The past 30 years of redistribution from bottom to top were a glistening epoch for the owners of capital.."
Economic Policy after the Financial Crisis: Keynes (tags)
Keynes saw political control of markets and a distribution and social policy in favor of lower income groups as essential prerequisites of a stable long-term macro-economic development.. Three-hour workdays or a 15-hour week would be enough.
Investments of the state in the infrastructure, in educational- and social services, are urgently necessary. One positive aspect of the crisis is that the financial sector has begun to shrivel. The shriveling of the financial sector must be accompanied and controlled by the state.
Risk Development and Dollar Inflation (tags)
Two articles by emeritus professor Elmar Altvater reveal the contradictions of credit or bubble prosperity in the counter-revolution of capital. As work cannot define us, competitiveness and profit maximization do not define the human experience Speculation could bring a new feudalism..
Welch's Marvelous Transformation (tags)
Nearly all the excesses summarized unter the terms turbo- or casino capitalism are based on the ideology of shareholder value: the rule of financial markets over the real economy, the short-term and short-sightedness of shareholders and waves of rationalizations."
Reviewing Ellen Brown's "Web of Debt": Part VI (tags)
Part VI of Federal Reserve Plunder
"From now on, you work only for the shareholder!" The disappearance of traditional paid labor relations accelerated by shareholder value strategies means the middle- and lower classes are permanently threatened in their social and economic existence.
The Misery of the WTO: For a Reinvention of World Trade (tags)
The crisis of the WTO has two causes: a lack of trust and an ideological prejudice. A lack of trust exists because the countries of the North judge trade with two standards: free trade for the South and protectionism for their own economies.
Fear of the Great Depression (tags)
The acute danger exists of a self-reinforcing downward spiral from deflation, increasing debts and new problems in the financial sector..Degenerate banks must be closed by the state in a controlled way. Politics must try to reduce the uncertainties of consumers.
Liberal Prof Confronts Socialist Audience (tags)
Grossmont College economics professor Shahrokh Shahrokhi was invited to speak at the January 12 meeting of Activist San Diego, but though he attacked "market fundamentalism" and called for more government regulation of the economy,,public equity purchases iin the major financial firms and an extensive stimulus plan, many in the audience didn't think his proposals went far enough. They also bristled at his contention that homebuyers who took out mortgages beyond their means were partly responsible for the current economic crisis.
The State Invests and Memorandum 2008 (tags)
When the state invests, it ensures that the economy will grow faster tomorrow than today: new streets, better schools and new eco-techniques. In a few years we will all earn more. Even German bank president Axel Weber urges a state economic program.
"Like the Fall of the Wall" (Joseph Stiglitz) (tags)
The mixture of low interests, excessive liquidity and lax oversight on money institutes led to the financial crisis. National indebtedness rose two-thirds in only eight years. The govt should immediately begin investing in the infrastructure, education and other projects.
Economic troubles are broad, deep and worrisome.
Democracy and the WTO: Alternatives to Free Trade (tags)
Trade policies that benefit multinational corporations are undemocratic and promote exploding inequality. "The negotiations are carried out on a supra-national plane where democracy or civil society interests fall by the wayside."
Reviewing F. William Engdahl's Seeds of Destruction - Part II (tags)
Agribusiness giants aim to control food worldwide and make it all genetically engineered.
Morgan Stanley Issues Full US Recession Alert (tags)
Morgan Stanley has issued a full recession alert for the US economy, warning of a sharp slowdown in business investments and a perfect storm for consumers as the housing slump spreads. Under the conservative definition, man is the servant of money. Long live alternative economics!
Neoliberalism in Crisis (tags)
Liberation theology warns the future of the first world is the third world. Everyday time is replaced by kairos time, the time of decision, when lawlessness masks as lawfulness. The language of proclamation runs crossway to the language of time. Cast your net on the other side!
The War on Working Americans - Part II (tags)
Part II of how American workers are losing out.
Market Efficiency Hokum (tags)
Debunking the myth that free markets work best.
Economist Milton Friedman dies at 94 (tags)
Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three U.S. presidents, died Thursday at age 94.
The Rise and Fall of the UN (tags)
One’s opinion of the United Nations reveals a lot about political consciousness; and because perception is usually based on experience, it’s only natural that people from different countries have opposing views about the UN and its pillar institutions— the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). In the United States, familiarity of the UN is limited to vague notions of ‘international democracy’ and ‘peacekeeping’, words that inspire the noblest of intentions; the World Bank and IMF on the other hand are institutions that invoke little reaction among the US public. How and by whom the UN was formed, whose interests it serves, and the actual history of its ‘peacekeeping’ missions are all things rarely examined. It is the purpose of this essay to look at the formation and development of the UN, and in so doing, attempt to show the evolution of the capitalistic system itself, which was ‘reborn’ upon the back of these hardly-neutral organizations.
Basic Income as a Democratic Civil Right (tags)
The ecnomic conditions in which the utopia of Aristotle or John M Keynes could become a real utopia objectively exist. We live under our real economic possibilities.The end of the work society is not the end of work but the transition to a really free society of citizens.
The economy is in a kind of balance with massive underemployment..Growth in purchasing power of upper income persons cannot balance the loss in purchasing power of normal, low-income and unempoyed persons..Unemployment is a capitalist law.
THE NEW AMERICAN SLAVERY (tags)
---------------- REPUBLICAN BANKRUPTCY LAW EXPLAINED ----------------
The New American Slavery (tags)
How do you like it? Dry?
Can King Midas Be Healed of his Sickness? (tags)
Healings from the sicknesses that injure us is rare because our longing for wholeness is so weak, easily diverted and quickly satisfied with many little gods.. We expect wholeness and healing from king Midas.. Unrestricted growth is the king Midas principle..
This is not even Pop culture, its Popsicle culture. Regurgitated to meet the demands of a reality-based celebrity-obsessed cultural cesspool that defies the notion of depth. Andy Warhol's theory of fifteen-minute fame was conceived in a pre-ADD mind-set. Who can even tolerate fifteen minutes without being bored to death or achingly distracted? Unless, like with Arnie and Maria, our force-fed celebrity fix is constructed from disposable, non-biodegradable plastic.
Exporting jobs is not free trade (bilingual) (tags)
Rethinking protectionism
Why offshore IT outsourcing can't be stopped (tags)
American programmers and other IT people were outstandingly unsympathetic when factory workers' jobs started going overseas, so the Libertarian techie "dog eat dog" creed requires them to be happy whenever the marketplace finds a way to pay IT workers less and increase business owners' profits.
Democratic Party History: a Revealing Rap Sheet (tags)
A history of the Democratic Party's role in co-opting and diverting independent political movements, while advancing the agenda of the global capitalist police state. This and similar pieces can be found at
Neo-liberalism (by Latuff) (tags)
Copyright-free artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff.