The alleged Oct.7, 2023 massacre of israelis by hamas never happened : conclusive proof.
The center will not hold (tags)
The existing late capitalist ideology in the center of society, the tattered national identity, is being driven to barbaric extremes in reaction to the crisis. Neo-liberalism, with its social Darwinism and economic nationalism, provided the springboards that the new right used.
Ukraine: Expansion of the battle zone (tags)
Russia is vastly superior in this type of warfare – which resembles an industrially operated process of destruction – because the Kremlin can draw on far greater reserves. Putin's gamble on a war of attrition is paying off. It is not just about the superiority of tanks, artillery and ammunition, or about the increasing Russian air superiority. It is above all about manpower.
Multiple crisis and catastrophe (tags)
The official self-image of bourgeois society remains strangely untouched by crises. They are understood as improbable and short-lived interruptions of what are actually successful processes. Disruptions and crises are denied, are considered technical and, through a variety of individual measures, if not solvable, then at least postponable into the future.
A look back makes the outlook easier: A speculative boom in 1929 leads to a stock market crash and recession, the budget deficit increases, the austerity policies drive the economy into a depression. Tensions within and between countries increase, scapegoats are sought, anti-Semitism and protectionism are spreading.
Capitalism is not in a position to solve the social and ecological crisis that it is causing. An open-ended transformation of the system is inevitable, and a struggle for transformation will be waged – especially against the fascist threat. Conscious reflection on the systemic crisis is the best antidote to the conspiratorial crisis talk of the New Right.
Developing a common transformational project and building counter-power remains the central task of the left. Especially in areas of social infrastructure, such as housing and healthcare, profit maximization has a particularly devastating effect. The strategy of socialization, i.e. the transfer of private property into democratic structures, can provide orientation here.
Memorandum 2022 and Memorandum 2023 (tags)
The Bremen study group on Alternative Economic Policy has been publishing analyses since 1975. Sustainable infrastructure Investments, de-carbonization, environmental safeguards, work protections and welfare regulations are primary as well as resisting profit maximization and environmental destruction.
COP28 Climate Summit Negotiations Focus on Commitments for Developing Countries to Adapt a (tags)
Most Developing Countries Spend More on Debt Service than on Addressing Country Climate Crisis Challenges
There is broad agreement that freedom should not only be measured in terms of one's own well-being, but also in terms of others, especially the socially disadvantaged, and in solidarity with those who lack recognition. The strong welfare state is widely accepted, even by those who pay more than they receive.
Asylum policy: how to create a permanent crisis (tags)
The principle of repression instead of adapting the asylum system to changing circumstances had long been established by this time. The discourse is being whipped up from the right. In its dispatch, the (German) Federal Council justifies its repressive package of measures with the dissatisfied mood among the population towards "delinquent asylum seekers."
Pope Francis Releases "Laudate Deum" Ahead of Global Economy and Climate Meetings (tags)
Pope Francis urged international cooperation to tackle environmental crises, in a document released today. Laudate Deum – which in Latin means “Praise God” – is a follow-up to his 2015 Laudato Si, the most comprehensive Encyclical on climate and the environment.
Zombie movies are an apocalyptic genre, in which there is an inkling that the given social order cannot last & has reached its development limits. The first great wave of zombies hit the Western culture industry during the crisis period of the seventies of the 20th century, when the "Golden Age" of post-war capitalism, full employment and mass consumption came to an end.
Russia's victory in an economic war (tags)
If perspectives for ways out of the increasingly worsening crises of capitalist socialization are to emerge, it is indispensable to look at the whole of conditions and their complex entanglements. It is necessary to break with the myths and life lies of the 'free West' as well as with those of a mission for a Russian empire or any other autocratic fundamentalism.
Climate strike: How elites have been fighting Generation Alarm for five years (tags)
Some activists are later sentenced to pay millions in damages, others have to spend months in prison for their civil disobedience. In the Bild newspaper, RWE boss Rolf Martin Schmitz calls them "eco-terrorists." But neither heat, nor summer drought, nor coal protests led the politicians to ask questions about the climate.
Welcome to post-democracy! (tags)
In the current systemic crisis, this capitalist pseudo-democracy is producing a real dystopia on a par with the nightmares of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley: the apparently responsible citizen (in reality a powerless object in the heteronomous process of capital exploitation) chooses the way in which his intensified exploitation and alienation is to be concretely organized and perfected.
The end of the "Golden Age" of cqapitalism and the rise of neoliberalism (tags)
The rise of the neoliberal world economic system marked by the dominance of financial markets – whose financial superstructure collapses over us – resulted from the radical economic crises of the early 1970s that seized nearly all western industrial countries.
Authoritarian Capitalism (tags)
The banks and auto corporations were bailed out and rescued and the ensuing public debt was invoked in order to cut public expenditures on health care, education, pensions, and public salaries. Furthermore, a new race to the bottom has started.
Car Plants Are Making Medical Equipment - And Things Should Stay That Way (tags)
The time has come for progressive nationalization and socialization. This includes the financial sector, because only if we gain control over the financing of socially necessary areas of production will it be possible to ensure that we as a society can plan our future.
The pace of business rationalization has accelerated to such an extent that in the core sectors of world market production, fewer and fewer workers are needed despite growing output of goods. Thus, the development of productive power has reached a point at which it makes absolutely more labor superfluous in each period.
Inflation in the Age of Finance Capitalism (tags)
The shift of profit-striving from the real- to the financial-economy lowered economic growth Unemployment and atypical jobs soared. The welfare state was weakened. At the same time, financial wealth grew exorbitantly (the DAX increased 14-fold since 1988).
Can state-capitalist China inherit the USA as hegemon? (tags)
China's growth is also running on credit, and the People's Republic is similarly highly indebted as the descending Western centers of the world system.10 The Chinese deficit economy is generating even far greater speculative excesses than was the case in the U.S. or Western Europe,
Why China wont replace the US as hegemon. Chaos instead of hegemony (tags)
China's growth is also running on credit; the People's Republic is similarly indebted to the descending Western centers of the world system. This trend toward de-dollarization can only be properly understood against the backdrop of the imperial descent of the United States.
The contradictory capitalist mode of production is thus not only the driving force[11] behind the mounting debt and economic crises,[12] it is also the cause of the unfolding climate catastrophe. “Man-made” climate change is in large part the result of the social system.
New old financial crisis (tags)
Since Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate Corporation, & Signature Bank all toppled within a week in the U.S. & now First Republic Bank has also run into trouble, there are increasing signs that the next big financial crisis could now erupt with force. $9 trillion has been injected into the "U.S. market."
Financial crisis and The time of change (tags)
A utopian society will have learned to decentralize power, to keep it manageable and controllable, instead of creating supranational institutions and conglomerates. Look at the EU & Brussels, an estimated 25,000 lobbyists besiege and work the deputies and commissioners.
Pause for Thought: Money without Value in a Rapidly Disintegrating World (tags)
The tanking economy is the cause of these “misfortunes”. What we are sold as external threats is in fact the ideological projection of the internal limit of capitalist modernity. In systemic terms, emergency addiction keeps the comatose body of capitalism artificially alive
"One must expect a tsunami of global inflation, further impoverishment and mass migration (of cheap labor) - and all of this will be blamed on Putin. One must expect the return of pandemic threats that support ongoing efforts to globalize vaccine passports and the digitization of life."
China's peace plan & It's about everything (tags)
In times of crisis, right-wing populists, with the benevolent support of influential media, play the national card and pit disadvantaged groups of people against each other. Scapegoats, like Jews in the past and refugees today, are blamed for the collapse of the welfare state and security.
Journalism is in denial about itself & China's Mediation (tags)
If you live on a powder keg, you have to avoid sparks. Therefore, especially in crises, truthful, trustworthy communication and respectful communication in society is more important than ever. The fourth estate in the state is failing now - as it has in recent crises.
The right to water and 7 challenges to the welfare state (tags)
Visions need concrete, tangible measures that provide security in times of uncertainty and reliably carry all people through the huge changes...The indispensable ecological transformation must also become a social one.
Democracies against Autocracies & Decline of Civilization (tags)
The time of decadence, i.e. the creeping decay of civilization, in which we find ourselves again today, is characterized by fear, nihilism, radicalism and depression. The decline is seen as the unalterable end of a nostalgically transfigured past while life loses all meaning.
Davos: Crises, Developing Country Debt, WB Forecasts (tags)
World Bank Cuts Global Growth Forecast as Developing Countries Struggle with Debt
Negotiated Solution - No Alternative! (tags)
NATO intervention seems unlikely so far, after U.S. President Biden ruled out direct military intervention even in the run-up to the war...Nevertheless, a further escalation of the war cannot be ruled out. At present, the powerless left has only the option of fighting for peace. (TKonicz)
Battle for Social Democracy and Unfettered Capitalism (tags)
Two opposing schools of thought face each other at the sickbed: neoliberalism and social democracy. Didn't the death-bells of neoliberals ring in the course of the financial market crisis? Were not neoliberals unmasked who first caused the whole mess with their deregulation?
Reflections on the Political Crisis and Right-wing Populism (tags)
The policies of neoliberal globalization have driven an enormous strengthening of transnational corporations and finance capital, and at the same time the division between rich and poor, between the top "1%" and the rest of the "99%"[28].
Lockdown light - Corona crisis and capitalism (tags)
The pandemic and countermeasures have effects shaped by the neoliberal form of capitalism[ that has dominated since the 1980s. 1.the independence of the financial sphere ,2.the fragmentation of the labor markets, and 3.the weakening of social systems.
Social division in the schools and 7 challenges to the welfare state (tags)
The most difficult task will be to redefine prosperity not only in philosophical concepts, but also in concrete tangible and experiential terms detached from consumption. Many are already working on this. The United Nations adopted a strategy for a blueprint for peace and prosperity
Farewell to the unipolar world and Disaster capitalism (tags)
The sanctions have already proved to be a dangerous boomerang because they hit Europe harder than Russia... It is a suicidal illusion to try to win a war against the raw materials giant Russia - which possesses more than a third of all fossil energies and raw materials on earth...
Against the cannabilism of capital (tags)
The subjectless rule of capital and Working class hero (tags)
Fortunately, his death did not silence him. The opposite is the case. Because John Winston Lennon became more immortal through the assassination than he already was as a member of the most successful band of all times. Not a martyr - but a working class hero.
The attacks on Nord Stream and the elephant in the room (tags)
In an interview with Berliner Zeitung, U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs said that destroying Nord Stream would be contrary to Russia's interests; the country would lose "income, financial assets & bargaining power." The U.S., would "benefit strategically and financially."
IMF Predicts Global Economy to Lose $4 Trillion (tags)
The global economy is more fragile noted IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.
Spiral downward and No exit! (tags)
The austerity dictates imposed on the Eurozone are only exacerbating the crisis they are supposed to be fighting. The austerity measures are leading to a collapse in domestic demand.
The necessary breach and Rackets and Rockets (tags)
The climate movement should not be afraid of being accused of radicalism. It is a matter of sheer collective will to survive to solve this monstrous problem. Capitalism, in its compulsion to grow, is incapable of reducing resource consumption and emissions.
Total Competition or Repressive Administration of People (tags)
An awareness of the monstrosities of our glorious capitalist society is the first prerequisite for thinking beyond that society.:..The regularities of capitalist society are not laws of nature, so they can be abolished in principle. With such abolition, a new society can become possible.
The lure of unreason and The crisis profiteers (tags)
The essence of transhumanism is pathological. This ideology is carried by psychopaths and narcissists. Such people love only themselves, their infallibility and uniqueness. The others are only mass. Mass is despised by "the unique".
Energy crisis: market intervention by policymakers is necessary (tags)
We are in the middle of a multiple energy crisis. The supply of energy is in danger, and prices will continue to rise. This is not only a problem for private households and companies. There is a danger that persistently high inflation will become entrenched. Then severe economic depression
Hysterical Populism and the Appetite of Leviathan (tags)
The relationship between economy and social order has been turned upside down: economy is no longer a function of an overarching culture, but conversely, "human society has sunk to being an accessory of the economic system" (Karl Polanyi). RK was founder of Exit & Krisis blogs.
Making yourself comfortable in capitalism (tags)
"Whoever has a wife should behave as if he had none, ... whoever buys as if he were not the owner, whoever makes use of the world as if he did not use it" (1 Cor 7:29f). Paul is speaking here to people who were "called" as slaves into the messianic church (1 Cor 7:21).
95 Theses Against the Rule of the Financial Markets (tags)
The financial markets have made themselves independent of the real economy. As the selling of indulgences led to Martin Luther's 95 Theses in 1517, the rule of speculative financial markets has led to revenue shortfalls of US cities and states. Tax havens hide between $22-33 trillion.
Myths of the Crisis and Enemy Images in the Media (tags)
The Ukrainian ambassador was quoted in the FAZ as saying: "All Russians are now our enemies". This rhetoric is classic enemy image cultivation... This homogenization is so pre-Enlightenment and always wrong.
The Poetization of the World and Behind the Curtain (tags)
When the poet says "autumn," he can mean a season but at the same time he can also mean melancholy, farewell, decline, the dying of a happy love affair (inside). Schelling had already praised this capacity "What we call nature is a poem that is locked in secret, wonderful writing."
A new quality of crisis (tags)
From the systemic urge to self-destruction arises the survival necessity of the emancipatory overcoming of capital. The capitalist regime of constraint must be transformed into history. The struggle for the transformation of the system has to be the central moment of left practice.
The window of opportunity is closing (tags)
Oscar Wilde wrote: "A map of the world in which Utopia is not marked is not worth looking at, for it undercuts the shore on which mankind will eternally land." "Disobedience, for anyone versed in history, is man's true virtue. Through disobedience came progress..." (Wilde 2014)
Stress for the soul. Climate change triggers stress and despair (tags)
Psychology understands fear as an arousal that primarily causes displeasure. Fear is never rational, but sometimes it is appropriate and serves as an alarm. Anxiety disorders, on the other hand, according to the common definition, are directed at non-existent dangers...
Social consequences of the Corona crisis in Austria (tags)
Two million Austrians suffer income losses from the Corona crisis. Good news comes today from New Zealand (half-price transit), Finland (affordable apartments for the homeless) and Great Britain (four-day work with five-day pay). This good news is reported by Scoop.me.
Labor fetish and anti-semitism (tags)
"Work makes you free" was written above the gate of the Auschwitz death camp. How did the Nazis come up with that? Isn't work something meaningful, something good? What does it have to do with Auschwitz, of all places? Because work and meaningful activity are, two different things.
Ukraine: A war for the disintegrating world order (tags)
The consequences of rearmament and economic sanctions are foreseeable: among other things, the aggravation of crises through higher economic burdens. They can already be seen in the form of price increases for heating oil, fuel and gas.
A radical peace movement is needed more than ever (tags)
The prevention of Ukraine's integration into NATO is likewise not a snap idea of an irrationally acting Russian President Vladimir Putin, but a basic consensus within the Russian state oligarchy.
War as crisis accelerator (tags)
Opportunistic parts of the German left are already sorting themselves into NATO supporters and cheerleaders of hollow Western values, who are peddling the stale bourgeois-liberal ideology one last time before the Western states also sink into barbarism.
Peace policy instead of escalation (tags)
We call on the peace movement and all people interested in peace in Europe to participate in public actions, information booths, vigils, demonstrations and initiatives for these demands. to stop the march into the abyss.
The instrument of using half-truths is found in Nato propaganda where it cherry-picks Russian law-breaking in the Crimea crisis to portray Russia as a threat, forgetting the Western-blamed law-breaking in the weeks before: the pro-Western Yatsenyuk "interim government."
What 2022 is about: eliminating conservatives with progressive economic policies (tags)
A labor shortage that is slowly taking shape and the demand for progressive taxation of high wealth, which is being championed in many countries, will make it possible to change the economy and society in Austria and Europe for the better. They will help us eradicate poverty.
Children suffer strongly from homeschooling in Lockdown (tags)
The situation, which UNICEF described as a "catastrophic education crisis" at the beginning of March, continues. In addition, errors, stereotypes, misjudgements and trivialization prevail in the discussion about children, Corona and digital distance learning.
How is Corona changing the world of work? (tags)
What was born out of necessity is to become the new standard: The pandemic-related expansion of mobile work is leading to considerations to change the organization of work, to change business areas online. In addition to savings in real estate and travel costs, companies also expect this to increase flexibility.
The health care system keeps people sick because it does not view them holistically... When it comes to chronic illnesses, conventional medicine fails because it sees the human being as a machine. A new biopsychosocial medicine sees the human being as a whole.
The Last Stage of the Middle Class (tags)
Money capital is fleeing into the speculative financial markets because investments in new factories have become unprofitable. While growing parts of society are impoverished or even impoverished outside of production, only a simulative accumulation of capital through financial bubbles takes place...
Capital is losing its capacity for productive investment and is turning to the financial markets, which are more profitable. It is with this money that the war machine and the trade deficit are financed. The US is under great pressure to constantly show that it is in control.
System Transformation or Barbarism (tags)
Overcoming capital is thus a necessity for survival. Consequently, the climate question is not a question of burden sharing, it is not a question of social security. The global exploitation process of capital, in which resources and energy are burned to make more money...
What will it be like after the pandemic? (tags)
From the March outbreak to the end of May 2020 alone, over forty million people filed initial claims for unemployment benefits. Images of endless lines in front of soup kitchens went around the world. In the meantime, the USA threatened to sink into chaos.
Corona crisis turns into social crisis and The Taboo in Glasgow (tags)
"We are about to drive the world to the wall at full speed." Glasgow creates only lukewarm symptom therapy The example shows that hardly anyone dares to seriously name and research the basic problems of economic growth and population growth.
Capitalist crisis policy is ultimately in a crisis trap... The central banks' billion-dollar "quantitative easing" may have prevented the collapse of the world financial system in 2020, but it is only a postponement of the crisis.
On the "end of the climate crisis" (tags)
"Global warming, environmental degradation, and growing inequality are primarily the consequences of an unleashed economic mode that is focused on profit and quarterly numbers, but not on the well-being of people and nature."
Is China in danger of collapse? and Anti-economics and anti-politics (tags)
In the process of modernization, the relationship between market and state can be boiled down to the formula of a general law: the more market, the more state... The bloated market and the bloated state can only live or die together.
Toward a new economic policy paradigm (tags)
Over the years, the institutionally enshrined budget discipline has created a considerable investment backlog. Important investments in infrastructure, education and climate protection have not taken place.
There is an alternative to maximizing profits (tags)
In a new encyclical, the Pope denounces the pursuit of profit. The Sonntagszeitung spoke about this with the business ethicist Peter Ulrich. He defends the Holy Father, criticizes the managers and calls for economy for fifth graders..Financial products seek to make money out of money, without the inconvenient real economy.
Is Green Growth the Solution? (tags)
Just as every millimeter of social progress must be fought for against capital interests, the protection of nature and climate must also be won against the rulers. In these struggles lies the future of the planet.
He who is without sin should cast the first stone. The author says the church lost a great chance at regaining credibility if it would have questioned or relativized the vaccine syringe faith. No one can serve two masters, mammon and God. Everyone should be vaccinated and then the lockdown ended, Jens Berger said.
Economic Crisis in the Anthropocene (tags)
They are in a life-and-death struggle for the future of American democracy and from their point of view – and I happen to share this view – that depends on their not losing the congressional majority to the GOP in 2022, which doesn’t necessarily end American democracy, but it takes us in a direction which is really bad.
Beyond market and state (tags)
The dominant, financial market-oriented factions of capital are using the crisis to further enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else by attempting to appropriate even the wealth of society that is yet to be generated in the medium term by indebting the state.
Corona containment and capital utilization (tags)
In the Corona crisis, it became obvious that our capitalist economic system is not suited to protect human life. There must finally be an end to eternal growth, the exploitation of nature and people and the shortage of time, an end to "more & more, faster & faster and further & further."
The big crash isn't just hitting the stock markets (tags)
The author reminds us that "never in history has a crisis been solved by printing money." The states and central banks had "maneuvered themselves into a dead end from which they can no longer get out" through their own fault.
How is Corona changing the world of work? (tags)
Exceptional situations do not necessarily have to be handled in an authoritarian manner; efficiency does not have to be generated in command structures. Independent action by employees becomes productive in democratic structures - perhaps the Corona crisis has also triggered processes that go in this direction.
Workout. The Crisis of Labor and the Limits of Capitalist Society (tags)
The Third Industrial Revolution represents a qualitative break in the history of productivity growth. This is because microelectronics facilitated a radical reorganization in production overall such that labor lost the central importance that it previously had and the application of knowledge became the main force.
The present crisis means that, to a degree previously undreamt of, ever-greater numbers of human beings will simply be declared “superfluous.” The much-invoked “new role of the state” has not the slightest chance of recreating a 1960s style social welfare capitalism, with full employment and a rising standard of living.
Climate Crisis and Social Transformation in the Age of Corona (tags)
The temporary moratorium on economic activity in large parts of the world has done nothing at all to change the fundamental logic of the capitalist mode of production, which is driven by the end-in-itself motion of endlessly reproducing abstract wealth, represented by money.
An economy that does not grow can nevertheless always change and even improve in the process. It can become more ecological, for example. Last year, for example, CO2 emissions fell by almost six percent - more than at any time since the Second World War.
Housing and Public Employment (tags)
How does the interplay of supply and demand affect the housing market? What influence does the financial market have on housing prices? What happens when tenant protection in tenancy law is relaxed and the market is given more leeway?
Criminal banks and criminal capitalism (tags)
Since the 1970s, the real economy and the financial economy have been increasingly diverging. Gigantic assets vagabond around the globe, desperately looking for profitable investment opportunities.
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.
"We were paralyzed for a long time" (tags)
Only in dialogue with those who are strangers to us can we become discerning, can we develop political wisdom. If it is true that we are tipping into a particular form of oligarchy, we should consider how we might supplement our representative system - to re-democratize it.
What moves the "Generation Greta"? (tags)
The global economy is in free fall. Social life and public debate are largely paralyzed, the usual protest and organizing formats of the social movements are completely blocked. Decisive decisions are made in the mode of emergency decrees and huge rescue packages. The politically unthinkable becomes possible,
Saving the planet by disempowering the elites (tags)
Humanity is at the final crossroads of becoming aware of the drama of the ecological and peace crisis in which it finds itself. The book "The Eco-Catastrophe" is a wake-up call to take note of the seriousness of the situation, to accept the Herculean tasks ahead, to understand the growth ideology of global capitalism.
Crisis of Privatization - Return of the Public Sphere (tags)
The water supply for the population of Paris is to be completely restored to public ownership from 2009 on, as the Socialist mayor Delanoe announced on June 2nd 2008... Adam Smith already advocated that such “public goods“ have to be provided by the state.2
Unemployment myth and "Migrantization" of precarity (tags)
Involuntary unemployment is afflicted with many prejudices, which impute a supposed lack of motivation and utility to those affected. Although these prejudices are easy to refute, politicians and representatives of the media cling to the neoliberal notion of individual guilt in unemployment. Unemployment has structural causes.
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.
Zero hunger, zero hypocrisy (tags)
Today, flight from hunger and war often enough does not lead to a new "home," but to a refugee shelter, homelessness, or deportation back into misery. In view of the worldwide crises and the distribution struggles still to come, where will this lead, if not to mass "homelessness"?
The Last Stage of the Middle Class (tags)
The emancipatory overcoming of the modern commodity-producing system and the associated separation requires a social intervention on a high level. The second article "The Collapse of Modernization" was published in Oct 2004. Robert Kurz, editor of the German leftist Krisis journal, died too early at 69.
The Corona crisis is currently overshadowing three crises that are also currently being - covertly - negotiated: First, an economic crisis since the fall of 2019. Second, the crisis in municipal finances Third, an investment crisis, better known as an investment backlog.
Corona vaccines-nothing would work without public funding (tags)
"The Covid 19 crisis is a perfect test of whether a more public health approach to innovation and production will prevail in the years ahead. Although recent vaccine news has raised hopes, it has also exposed the broken business model of the pharmaceutical industry and cast doubt on the prospects of getting a vaccine to people..."
Never waste a good crisis (tags)
The negotiation of society after Corona is now beginning, and it is now important to strengthen positive tendencies such as the expansion of the public health system, a more planned economy and social solidarity. But these appeals only cover up their own helplessness and lack of advice. .
Crisis rent instead of debt trap (tags)
Store closings, event cancellations, slumping orders, short-time work and job losses, especially in precarious employment, have left many unable to afford their apartments or rented commercial space. Despite initial easing, there is no end in sight.
Open Letter: Write off debt, win the future! (tags)
We are fortunate to have a creditor that does not have to fear losing its money: the ECB (European Central Bank). Our proposal is therefore very simple: let us conclude an agreement between the European states and the ECB. The ECB writes off the debt it holds (or converts it into perpetual interest-free debt).
Corona and psychology: Fear works against democratic coexistence (tags)
The current "simultaneous consolidation and weakening of the state" (Nicos Poulantzas) are two sides of the same coin: the rise of the punitive state goes hand in hand with growing social insecurity and disenfranchisement, rather than an increase in rule-breaking and crime. State authority & police strengthen
A better future after COVID-19 (tags)
People must decide how they want to live and what they want to produce in a fair ecological exchange that respects the interests of all people. This would also reverse the logic of competition between countries which is based on lowering labor costs, and promote ecological goals.
Pandemic leads to massive concentration in the marketplace (tags)
“We need a much more democratic system, we need to democratize all bits of the state – we need collective power" https://theface.com/culture/the-corona-crash-grace-blakeley-interview-coronavirus-economy-uk?token=44
Why capitalism compels renunciation and we could work less (tags)
How much human and natural resources are squandered on taxation, trade and advertising, how much on labor administration, justice, police, prisons, armaments, military? How many people work overtime without end, suffer heart attacks and burnout, wear themselves out in the brutal competition?
8 points for a global agenda of structural change in the COVID-19 pandemic (tags)
"We can have democracy or concentration of wealth, not both," said Justice Louis Brandeis, the longest-serving Supreme Court justice."
Strengthening the welfare state (tags)
Trump's smear campaigns, scapegoating, fear mongering, $8-trillion tax heists, corporate welfare, attacking the poor, minorities, seniors, disabled, children and students have left democracy in intensive care. Helicopter money, a Marshall Plan for journalism and ending wars could revive the debate culture.
Easing into a New Normality of the Crisis (tags)
With the intertwining of the Corona and economic crises, massive distribution struggles are already looming. Society, in a collective effort to prevent illness, has downsized its economic activity. This collective decision must not serve to enrich a few. The radical taxation of the great fortunes is indispensable.
Born Free, Die Free, L’Hiyot Am Chofshi (tags)
Liberty & Freedom vs. Covid-19 Lockdowns, Vaccinations, Power Grabs
Corona Measures: When children are the ones who suffer (I and II) (tags)
The government seems to be abdicating its responsibility by 1) not supplying the population with masks, 2) not compensating people so they can stay away from workplaces, 3) eliminating school meals for hundreds of millions of children and 5) not including children in decision-making.
Invitation to New Thinking (tags)
The pandemic has made the risk of our extensive lifestyle tangible. For this global crisis is not an exogenous shock. Rather, crass, profit-oriented globalization has fueled its spread.
Many Crises-One System: Counter Power in Catastrophe Capitalism (tags)
A revolution does not come out of nowhere, but emerges from the struggles in the here and now. The point is that we can only fight for social or ecological progress against capitalist principles.
Self-reference in capital and in ourselves (tags)
"Lateral thinkers" defend their freedom. Capital serves no other purpose than the irrational end in itself of the multiplication of itself.
Climate crisis and social transformation in times of corona (tags)
Companies go bankrupt, workers are laid off, and because the sources of income dry up, millions of people can no longer even buy the most basic necessities... What counts is whether the things produced can be sold on the market and make a profit.
The discussion about Corona (tags)
Corona can only become a kairos if we gain the theoretical capacity of recovery and create the conditions for a transformation. Taking the healthcare system away from the markets and obliging large companies to be oriented in the common good would be steps to infrastructure socialism.
Journalism reeks of betrayal of democracy (tags)
A "new normality" has taken root in our society. A climate of fear and severe, permanent encroachments on fundamental rights are shaping politics and social life. From the beginning of the pandemic, the media and politics have created a reality that almost treats the principles of democracy with contempt.
US billionaires got $1 trillion richer during Corona (tags)
A recent study by the Institute for Policy Studies determined that the 647 billionaires in the USA have been able to increase their assets by $960 billion since the beginning of the corona crisis in mid-March by the cut-off date of November 17.
The New Deal and Self-destructive Donald Trump (tags)
From 1929 to 1932 industrial production halved and in a chain reaction over 5000 banks went bankrupt. Farmers' incomes shrank by 70 percent, unemployment rose to 25 percent, and there were no welfare state measures to cushion the misery.
Corona contsainment could cause more suffering than it prevents (tags)
UNICEF calculated that an additional 150 million children were pushed into poverty as a result of the economic collapse provoked by the quasi-global lockdown in spring. Already in July, experts from the World Food Program (WFP) warned that the Corona crisis could threaten an additional 130 million people
Democracy beyond Corona (tags)
Whether the experiences of the lockdown will result in lasting damage in the sense of a democratically consumptive "new normality" depends not least on whether it is possible to take up and strengthen the very existing democracy-building impulses and initiatives - from "Black Lives Matter" to "Fridays for Future".
Lockdown and curfews, state of emergency and tracing apps, compulsory testing and quarantines, serial stops, compulsory masks, short-time work and mass unemployment, waves of bankruptcies and extended poverty traps: the COVID-19 disaster has escalated the chronic crisis of capital utilization with falling profits.
Debts are not a problem (tags)
The Democrats have learned from their mistakes. This time they want a big stimulus package to invest in infrastructure and climate protection. This change in sentiment is partly thanks to Keynesians like Paul Krugman, who have always called for government investment when the economy is paralyzed.
The new normality is characterized by fear, social distancing and increasing state control. Many fear that the current situation could become permanent and that our liberal democratic legal system could be transformed into a dictatorial system of injustice.
Behavior and body in the sights of capital (tags)
The proclamation of states of emergency in the spring of 2020, even if not in all countries, helped to consolidate a state crisis management system that overturned constitutions and now completely bypassed democratic decision-making processes.
The future of humanity and the earth require a break from the rule of capital and the security state.... The political public is now at least beginning to discuss again how to deal with the constitution and fundamental rights. It remains to be seen what will become of them.
Trump has no concrete strategy for restoring economic growth or for defeating CoViD19 (tags)
Trump is faking it on the economy, just as he’s faking it on the pandemic, just as he’s faked everything his whole life
Trump's track record in the summer of the 2020 pandemic is disastrous, 1K deaths every day with a total of around 150K. More than 30 million Americans are receiving unemployment benefits. Trump is trying to turn Biden into the destroyer of America.
Europe needs an effective guarantee of youth solidarity (tags)
The Youth Guarantee could create an entry-level job market in the public or non-profit sector - in other words, jobs that serve the common good. It is the austerity policy in the wake of the financial and economic crisis that has delayed the socio- and ecological transformation.
A fair and solid crisis financing (tags)
The contrast between the EU and the US in COVID financing could hardly be greater. McDonald's operators, Marathon Oil (over $400 million), Exxon, Chevron and Sea World received relief and will reduce their future tax payments. Tax gifts characterize the US way of corruption and contradict these recommendations.
How to generate unemployment and deflation (tags)
The theory put forward by fair-weather philosophers that the pandemic will be a salutary shock leading to a better, more sustainable world is wrong. Less is not more, but less. Corona is not an opportunity, it is an evil. We can only hope that one day it will pass.
The turn to less: Corona and the consumption dilemma (tags)
The Corona crisis could be the beginning of a better normality. Corona could make a turning point in history. The global North has benefited from unequal trade relations. Global employment has lost its role as the center of life. We must get out of the old path dependencies.
The state must cushion the economic impact (tags)
Heiner Flassbeck expects a slump of the German GDP of 20-30%, Neither Trump nor Merkel said a word about stabilizing the economy. You can't just shut down the economy and then hope nothing happens. Companies, banks and people must be supported. Money must go to those now becoming unemployed..
Economic impact of corona lockdowns (tags)
Even before the current lockdown-induced economic depression, the assets of the lowest 20 percent of US households - between 2007 and 2019 - had fallen by about a third according to the Wall Street Journal, and their incomes had fallen by 2 percent in real terms
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
The economy for faith healers (tags)
Due to the sharpening contradictions of late capitalist socialization, barbarism, not reason, is increasing. Reason is not advancing in the overall historical movement, as once postulated by Hegel. Only the overcoming of this false whole, would offer humankind a chance of survival.
The Job Guarantee in the Corona Pandemic (tags)
If the tax system is not reformed in an equitable manner, this will probably mean 10 to 20 years of cutbacks, starving basic services such as education, health, and care, as was the case in many European countries after the 2008 financial crisis.
The four walls are not what we think they are (tags)
For Arendt, modernity in general is characterized by the loss of the world. The private home cannot compensate for all that is lost. The private home must be a part of the "world." By being imprisoned, we have lost our freedom and the world itself.
The chances of the Corona crisis (tags)
Public debt only became a problem after the bank bailouts...Crises cause fear and reinforce deep-seated anxieties.. The market under capitalism is not an efficient distribution mechanism, but a means to enrich private corporations at the expense of society and its environment.
End of a Career. Obituary The "Swabian housewife" (tags)
The "Swabian housewife" dominated politics. Now she was buried by her inventor. The state is not a business or a housewife but can borrow and become indebted to help present and future generations. System change, not climate change! Fight ignorance, not immigrants!
Disease, Power and Capitalism (tags)
Have you tried DeepL.com, academia.edu, grin.com or grammarly.com? Send me your comments and/or discoveries - as we await the reopening of the libraries and the Biden landslide! Will the great comedian Stephan Colbert be the dark horse candidate?
Climate crisis and social transformation in the age of Corona (tags)
Material wealth in the form of useful things and utilities is only a means subordinated to the objective of capital accumulation and is sacrificed when that objective can no longer be achieved… Without the state, capitalist society would fly apart immediately.
Corona epidemic and Yemen (tags)
Authorities first wanted to calm down and played down the pandemic. Afterward, they had to convince the population to keep unusual physical distance, to wash their hands well at all times, and to refrain from major events. Finally, they wanted the population to accept the lockdown.
Our normality is not returniing (tags)
If the government's response to the debt accumulated during the crisis is austerity, it will make the situation even worse. It is therefore right to call for a more active and visionary state policy that shows a way out of the crisis. What form will these policies take?
Corona and the collapse of modernization (tags)
Corona is the trigger but not the cause of the worsening crisis situation. It will accelerate the disintegration of capitalism. Pragmatism and cooperation on an international scale are called for. Infrastructure socialism takes health care from the market and insists on the common good
The Forgotten History of the Financial Crisis (tags)
In the United States between late 2008 and early 2009, 800,000 people were losing their jobs every month. By 2015, over nine million American families would lose their homes to foreclosure—the largest forced population movement in the United States since the Dust Bowl.
Wave of layoffs in the US election campaign (tags)
The corona pandemic triggered the most massive job losses in the USA since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Unemployment rose to its highest level in more than 70 years. In April alone, 20.5 million jobs outside agriculture were cut, according to the government
The war metaphor in the Corona crisis (tags)
Instead of a positive elimination of conditions, a social regression could also occur: intensified competition in the fight for market share, "exclusive solidarity" (Klaus Dörre) in the fight for jobs and welfare benefits. Will governments master the crisis?
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
The welfare state - anchor of stability in the crisis (tags)
Work, income and wealth must be distributed more fairly, and a number of "rules of the game" in our society must be changed. The upheaval forced by the crisis will hopefully force even hard-boiled defenders of the existing to rethink.
Corona, capitalism and nature (tags)
"Radical reforms are needed. The policies of the last forty years must be reversed. The government must play a stronger role in the economy. It must no longer regard public services as costs but as investments. Redistribution is back on the agenda."
What was thought to be temporary has remained until today. Snowden warns of a similar process in the context of a real crisis. Surveillance is accepted The virus is dangerous. But the destruction of our rights is fatal because it is permanent, Snowden believes.
The car industry and the climate crisis (tags)
The car companies should now be converted into providers of mobility needs based on socio-ecological sustainability. Reduction of working hours-short full time of an average of 30 hours/4 days per week for all-part of the radical change for human survival amid plutocratic economics.
Freedom of Asembly is Sick (tags)
The denial of these problems and the refusal to deal with the destructive effects of capitalism are the reason why the USA is particularly ill-equipped to face future challenges.
Corona pandemic: Black Swan on the Way to Depression (tags)
The question is whether the broad masses have learned anything from the last crisis, whether they can build up such strong pressure not to be asked to pay again for the costs of rescuing large companies, banks and states.
"We do not live in capitalism" (tags)
After the transition to Atlantic turbo-capitgalism, little can be recognized from the earlier times of the initiatives of the social market economy. In this situation, the counter-factual and fact-immune creed of all conservatives is enmeshed in a deep unconsciousness about the world.
Economics in the times of the coronavirus (tags)
Most people’s thinking is determined by the development of the Covid-19 crisis, the return of “the hour of executive power” (Gerhard A. Ritter), i.e. state of exception legislation, and the fears which it evokes as well as the economic measures in response to the health crisis.
How South Korea will contain coronavirus without curfew (tags)
South Korea tests almost 3 times as many people as Germany, 84K a week. Social distancing works in Japan and South Korea. Japan has closed schools but lets restaurants and shops stay open.
Is Capitalism Out of Order? (tags)
Growing debt is actually not a big problem in a growing economy as long as it does not grow faster than the gross domestic product (GDP). The debt mountain of the capitalist world system is growing much faster than the world economic output.
Don't Panic. Solidarity. Read (tags)
Some experts are sure that the only thing that will stop the virus permanently is for everyone to stay at home for a few weeks. Model China. The drastic quarantine has obviously worked, if you believe the Chinese government, the number of inflected people is decreasing.
How Singapore has taken control of the virus and avoided panic (tags)
The city-state has learned a lot from the sars crisis and is not letting the coronavirus get it down. Not all recipes are transferable to other countries, but some are. And unusual measures are taken to ensure the cohesion of society.
The finance-dominated regime of accumulation and the crisis in Europe (tags)
Prof. Demirovic gives us charts on profits, private indebtedness and wages that show profits explode and wages and investments stagnate in 40 years of neoliberalism.
The Hypnosis of Patriotism (tags)
Patriotism is an unnatural,unreasonable, harmful feeling for our times, which causes much of the evil from which mankind suffers.
Make Social Democracy Great Again (tags)
Erik Olin Wright spoke of smashing, taming, escaping and eroding capitalism as alternatives of the transformational left. We must resist the "selective perception" of the elite that ignores market distortions, market failures, state failures, and the attack on the poor, seniors and students
The Exodus from the Mega-Machine (tags)
His book "The End of the Mega-Machine. History of a Failed Civilization" explores the origins of economic power. For 40 years, the global economy has headed into a structural crisis. This crisis is hidden by growing indebtedness.
Sanctions Are Like Bombs (tags)
Venezuela is one of 41 states that depend on external food assistance to avert a humanitarian crisis. The US government is copying its blockade policy against Cuba. There is hardly any criticism of US sanctions. Six million, 60% of the population, are sustained by the food program.
Fighting the Causes of Flight (tags)
The refugee debate is back but only the symptoms are in the spotlight. Refugees are fought instead of the causes of flight. The political failure is as dreadful as the forgetfulness of the media and politics. More than 70 million persons are fleeing from war, persecution and conflicts.
"We Gotta Get Out of this Place" (tags)
"Bourgeois theorists have always believed capitalism to be “everlasting” because, they claim, it is in accordance with “human nature.” For them, all crises are only cyclical and transient:" This interview is from www.exit-online.org, 2/23/2016
Amidst Puerto Rico Financial Crisis, Island Religious Leaders Call for Global Debt and Tra (tags)
San Juan, Puerto Rico - Last week, Archbishop Roberto González—the leader of the Archdiocese of San Juan, the Secretary General of the Puerto Rico Bible Society—Reverend Heriberto Martínez and the island's Catholic Charities head, Reverend Enrique Camacho released a statement urging solidarity with countries wrestling with debt crisis and economic challenges.
From Enlightenment to Counter-Enlightenment (tags)
Brilliant minds elevated "the market" into a "higher being" of the post-modern age to which we must submit. The primacy of the market replaced the primacy of politics. Dr. Schulmeister is an economic researcher in Vienna whose latest book is "The Road to Prosperity" (2019).
What is a Crisis? A Retrospect on the 2008 Economic and Financial Crisis (tags)
The economic guild interprets crisis through an ideological lens. The financial crisis is redefined as a state debt crisis. Illuminating the systemic causes of crisis or discussing the crisis proclivity of the capitalist system is not possible anymore.
Please Disrupt Capitalism! and The Return of Hope (tags)
The old quotation from Gramsci describes our plight: "The old dies and the new cannot come into the world. It is the time of the monster." The Good News is that the time of no alternatives is over. The Bad News is that the wrong alternatives and discussed.
Please Disrupt Capitalism! and The Return of Hope (tags)
The old quotation from Gramsci describes our plight: "The old dies and the new cannot come into the world. It is the time of the monster." The Good News is that the time of no alternatives is over. The Bad News is that the wrong alternatives are discussed.
Greta Thunberg's speech on economic growth (tags)
Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling.
IMF Issues Debt and Financial Crisis Warnings (tags)
As the Spring World Bank and IMF meetings begin, the IMF issued concerns over unsustainable debt and a possible financial crisis in two reports. African and Latin American debt experts are releasing new analysis of growing debt at the meetings.
IMF Warns of Global Financial Crisis Risk (tags)
For the second day in a row, the International Monetary Fund raised concerns of pending financial crisis. Ahead of the Spring IMF and World Bank meetings, the IMF released the Global Financial Stability Report, warning of "vulnerabilities" in corporate debt, house values and sovereign (country) debt.
The Crisis of Democracy (tags)
Decisions affecting social development are in the hands of private investors and state policy depends on their actions. The increasingly unequal income and wealth distribution was the result of a strategic government policy that reacted to a capitalist crisis.
What are the Alternatives to Neoliberal Globalization? (tags)
Capitalism seemed to have a more social or civilized face for a time. After Roosevelt's New Deal and the defeat of fascism, gradual development of the social state occurred in Europe. Unions were accepted. The rulers were forced to political and social concessions.
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.
The Populist Makers and Dangerous Optimism (tags)
The people vote and capital decides. Another capitalism appears that is marked by an anti-liberal and intolerant culture. The goal of the new capitalists is the same as the old capitalists: to make the rich even richer. The governing elites gamble away the future of coming generations.
The Attack of Corporations and the Rich on the Rest of Society (tags)
Inconceivable sums were given out without hesitation when the banks were bailed out from bankruptcy. The rich triumph and despise others as losers. Corporations and the rich must desist from their selfishness and accept their responsibility for society again.
From Progressive Neoliberalism to Trump - and Beyond (tags)
At first sight, today’s crisis appears to be political. Its most spectacular expression is right here, in the United States: Donald Trump—his election, his presidency, and the contention surrounding it. But there is no shortage of analogues elsewhere:
G20 Discusses Preventing Financial Crisis and Small Island Economies (tags)
President Trump arrived in Buenos Aires on Thursday for the annual G20 meetings.
The Death of Small Businesses in Big Cities, Explained (tags)
Not even shopping locally can save your favorite mom-and-pop — the problem is much, much bigger than that. The legendary punk record store Bleecker Bob’s in 2008. The store closed in 2013 due to high rents and was replaced by a frozen yogurt chain.
Socialism in American English (tags)
The attacks of Republicans on the welfare system are driving the US population to the left. Proposals for a universal health care enjoy the support of around 70% of US citizens. Teacher strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Colorado demand a political change.
IMF Lowers Global Growth Projections and Raises Concerns of Financial Crisis (tags)
Bali, Indonesia - The International Monetary Fund released the World Economic Outlook Report and lowered global growth projections to 3.7 percent for 2018 and 2019.
The Criminality of the Elites (tags)
The offenses of the upper classes are hardly publicized. People wait in vain for strong interventions in the economic realm. Financial criminality harms the state, the community and economic growth (e.g. high-frequency trading, shadow banking, financial products)
After Lehman Brothers, Experts Say Global Financial Crisis Can Happen Again (tags)
September 15th marks the ten-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers investment firm collapse, symbolizing the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis.
Crisis Regulation in Global Capitalism (tags)
The globalization euphoria waned with the 1997 Asian crisis. Hundreds of billions were needed to bailout bankrupt banks. The US with its high solvent demand stabilized the world economy for a long time. The US could become indebted in its own currency.
Is the Financial Crash 2.0 Coming? (tags)
Market ideology has been on the advance since the 1980s. Only a few voices warned of the risks and instability of the liberalized financial markets. After they profited from the generous bailout packages, the banks began to speculate against the most indebted countries.
Senate Bill offers Debt Relief for Puerto Rico (tags)
New Senate legislation offers additional options for Puerto Rico to cut its debt. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Ed Markey (D-MA) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) introduced the US Territorial Relief Act. If Congress passes the act, US Territories that experience natural disasters could qualify for debt relief.
Capital as Climate Killer (tags)
The growth pressure of the world economy makes a resource-sparing social order only possible beyond capital. The seeming rationality of capitalist goods production serves an irrational end-in-itself - the multiplication of capital.
Iranian Regime Buys 8 billion in Rusian made s-300 Ground to Ground Offensive Missiles (tags)
The Iranian government has a ;rage port facility where they are able to import and export russian and chinese manufactured armaments. They are also involved by air into Syria and possibly Sudan. They are not delivering meals nor medicine they are expiring the Revolutionary Guards
The System Question as a Survival Question (tags)
A fundamental social alternative to the permanent capitalist chaos is sought. A rational social discourse on system alternatives would be an antidote to populism and to the irrational identity-mania that spreads. The public discusses headscarves while late capitalism sinks in crisis
Interview with Social Philosopher Friedhelm Hengsbach (tags)
The financial markets have uncoupled from the real economy since the middle of the 1970s. Politicians listen and react to every sound from the financial sector. Who paid for the bank bailout? The general public or the state made itself poor and guaranteed capital.
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.
There is outrage over the nationalist economic policy of "America First." The parallels to the 1929 system crisis are obvious. The unstable house of cards could now finally collapse. Credit-financed demand is created for a goods-producing system that suffocates in its own productivity.
The systemic reasons for the crisis are more important than a sudden fall in prices. Stocks are held on average 22 seconds, not 6 months or ten years. Real-capitalism is a plus-sum game. Financial capitalism is a zero-sum game.
Crisis 2.0: A Policy for the 99% (tags)
The capital surpluses are a constant source of new speculative waves and maneuvers. The crisis of state finances is mainly a crisis of tax refusal. The elites shifted the tax burden from businesses and high incomes to consumer taxes and fees.
Debt, Corruption and Tax Policies Impact Poverty, Says Vatican at United Nations (tags)
During United Nations Human Rights Council meetings last week, Archbishop Ivan Jurkovič, the Geneva based Vatican representative stated, “We can no longer frame the debt crisis as an exclusively economic problem. It affects future generations, as well as the social conditions that allow the enjoyment of human rights of vast numbers of people entitled to the solidarity of the whole human family.”
The Future as Transformation (tags)
There is no future with present-day capitalism. Capitalism stands for a movement of endless profit-making. Only a radical breach with the capitalist accumulation dynamic can nurture the hope of a reasonably tolerable future for human civilization on this planet.
The Unsettling Truth about the Rolling Back of Dodd-Frank Regulations (tags)
The Unsettling Truth about the Rolling Back of Dodd-Frank Regulations
The democracy crisis, the neoliberalism crisis and the crisis in the Democratic Party led to the Trump victory. Capitalism is largely deregulated with a comparatively meager public sector except for the defense industry.. The legitimation crisis of neoliberalism helps the emancipatory left.
Capitalism Criticism 2.0 (tags)
"Capitalism contains crisis as rain clouds contain rain" (Jean Juares, 19th century socialist). Profits increase in the neoliberal model, not investment (Nicolas Krowall). The competitive pressure drives businessmen to reduce investments in labor and wages.
The Welfare State in Crisis (tags)
Since 2008, crisis was the defining political theme. "No one should be fooled about the majority will of the population regarding taming wiled finance capitalism. The system could only be bailed out from collapse with taxpayer guarantees." (Habermas 2010).
Trump is More than "Silly Tricks" (tags)
Trump will run the US as a big business is run. Trump did not come out of nowhere. Trumpism is an expression of a reactionary revolt of those angry because they were politically stripped of power. Trump turns reality upside down.
IMF and World Bank Meetings Begin With Growth Forecasts and Crisis Risk Warnings (tags)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank begin their annual meetings which run between October 13th and 15th.
IMF Reports Global Growth and Releases New Ways to Predict Economic Crisis (tags)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) releases its biannual report on global economic stability and presents new indicators it says can help predict financial crisis.
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.
Trump Calls for Puerto Rico's Debt to be "Wiped Out" (tags)
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, President Trump called for Puerto Rico's debt to be wiped out.
Puerto Rico and US Virgin Island Religious Leaders Issue Debt and Aid Statement As Preside (tags)
As President Trump visits Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, island religious leaders are calling for aid, debt relief and measures to end child poverty. The statement is issued by San Juan's Catholic Archbishop, Roberto González Nieves, St. Thomas' Catholic Bishop Herbert A. Bevard and Evangelical Bible Society Head Reverend Heriberto Martínez.
Harvey Didn’t Come Out of the Blue. Now is the Time to Talk About Climate Change. (tags)
Now is exactly the time to talk about climate change, and all the other systemic injustices — from racial profiling to economic austerity — that turn disasters like Harvey into human catastrophes.
Archbishop and Evangelical Leader Tell Congress to Reduce Puerto Rico Child Poverty (tags)
Puerto Rico religious leaders are urging Congress to reduce child poverty on the island by granting equal access to US health care funding and child tax benefits.
The US's Public Housing Crisis May Worsen With Trump Budget (tags)
As of 2016, fully 90 percent of the nation's public housing households were headed by someone who is elderly, has disabilities, worked (or had recently worked) or was subject to work requirements through another program. Many are dependent on public housing...
How the World Heads for the Next Crash (tags)
Governments secure the money of the rich. State debts have grown in nearly all countries of the world since 2010. Ten years after the outbreak of the financial crisis, the economy is again in a standstill or mired in crisis. Trump wants to cancel the recent bank regulations and cut corp taxes.
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.
Capitalism as Regressive Descent Society (tags)
The escalator is going down and no longer up as in the "social modern age." The social trend drives toward precariousness and the accompanying social descent. Social institutions and securities are being cleared away.
G7 Could Move Financing for Famine Relief, Says Religious Development Group (tags)
As G7 leaders continue to meet in Taormina, Italy, relief groups like Oxfam International are intensifying calls for aid monies to address famine.
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
Puerto Rico Religious Leaders Write Judge as Bankruptcy Process Begins (tags)
Puerto Rico religious leaders sent a letter to Judge Laura Taylor Swain as she presides over the first bankruptcy proceeding in San Juan to restructure more than $70 billion in debt.
Puerto Ricans Gather at Diaspora Summit as Island Begins Bankruptcy Process (tags)
Puerto Ricans from across the United States and the Caribbean island are meeting in New York City to discuss the island's economic crisis.
Capitalism in the Faith Crisis (tags)
Trust in the "invisible hand" is a religious exercise ensuring a rule over people that is destructive and fatal. Christians and Marxists wage a common struggle against the spirit, logic, and praxis of the false money-god and its servants.
Social Security works. Don't let Trump destroy it (tags)
Millions of people count on Social Security for their survival. Over 60 percent of seniors rely on Social Security payments for at least half their income. Approximately one-third of seniors rely on Social Security payments for at least 90 percent of their income.
Puerto Rico Oversight Board Mediates Last Ditch Debt Negotiations (tags)
Within weeks, Puerto Rico will likely enter bankruptcy proceedings tailored by Congress specifically for the US territory.
Poverty Returns with Misguided Policy (tags)
The state should represent the public interest and yet private or special interests are in the driver's seat. Trump's proposed 2018 budget is a sledgehammer with cuts to Meals-on-Wheels, school lunches, WIC food assistance, National Institute for Health, EPA, PBS and Legal Services
Gramsci on US President Trump: "Delicate and Dangerous" (tags)
The rulers integrate the ruled in their "hegemony." Our essential task is conquering power for the working class. I believe life means taking sides. Indifference is apathy, parasitism, cowardice and iws the opposite of life.
After the economic crisis in 2008, the neoliberal fairytale of austerity was given a new boost. The neoliberal ideology reflects the idea the dismantling of the welfare state is urgently needed. Austerity means that all state expenditures are reduced to a minimum...
Puerto Rico Religious Leaders Ask Congress to Pass Debt Crisis Actions (tags)
"As religious leaders in Puerto Rico, we urge you to act on behalf of the 3.4 million American citizens living on the island," wrote two prominent ministers to Congress about policies to help the debt-troubled island.
Trumpism and the Working Class (tags)
Trumpism understood via Dimitrof
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...
Democracy and the Social State (tags)
Finance capitalism and Citizens United turn life, language and democracy upside down as the $150 million given by Wall Street to Hillary Clinton fall under the rubric "social engagement." With these theses, Franz Segbers emphasizes the social state as the foundation of democracy.
Neoliberal Crisis Policy has Failed (tags)
The term "invisible hand of the market" goes back to Adam Smith. This assumes all economic activity promotes the common good. Neoliberalism's survival is surprising because its theoretical assumptions are dubious. People cling to neoliberal prescriptions against reality.
US and Puerto Rico Faith Groups Send Congress Recommendations on Island's Crisis (tags)
Religious leaders in Puerto Rico and Jubilee USA urged a new Congressional task force to reform US laws to promote economic growth in Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico Archbishop Urges Congress, Governor and Creditors to Solve Debt Crisis (tags)
Ahead of a likely House vote this week, San Juan's Roman Catholic Archbishop, Roberto González Nieves OFM, announced his support for Puerto Rico debt crisis legislation in an op-ed to The Hill.
Is this the world's most radical mayor? Ada Colau of Barcelano (tags)
Adfa Colau spent the first years of the new millennium embroiled in activism, protesting and campaigning against wars, poor housing and gentrification. While working for the PAH, she developed her distinctive style of speech, which rests on a sincere, if carefully crafted, populism.
Planned Crises or Alan Greenspan's "Tsunami" (tags)
Greenspan knew his policy would create a financial bubble that ultimately had to burst. The subsequent crisis was consciously accepted since it speeded up the process of creative destruction. Lessons from the 2008 financial meltdown include shrinking the financial sector and expanding the public sector.
The Financial Crisis in the Light of the Social Market Economy (tags)
In 2007 and 2008 the US housing market almost completely collapsed. The crisis was brought about by a combination of state- and market failures. Extensive deregulation and violation of the liability principle were jointly responsible.
Politics in the Age of Acceleration and Sharing (tags)
Why do international crises always come over us so suddenly, seemingly without any signal? This happens because we consistently ignore all the signs. We want to know everything in real time-and miss the big connections. Whoever sows weapons reaps refugees.
Congress Releases Draft Puerto Rico Bill to Address Financial Crisis (tags)
The House Committee on Natural Resources released draft legislation to address Puerto Rico's debt crisis.
Puerto Rico Governor Calls for Halt on Debt Lawsuits (tags)
Puerto Rico's Governor Alejandro García Padilla says Congress should put a hold on litigation against the indebted US territory until a proposed Congressional solution to its debt crisis is in place.
Radio Spots Focus on Puerto Rico Crisis Ahead of Sunshine State Presidential Primary (tags)
A religious development organization is running radio spots focused on resolving Puerto Rico's debt crisis on 238 stations across Florida.
Jubilee USA Launches Puerto Rico Radio Spots Ahead of Super Tuesday (tags)
The religious development coalition Jubilee USA is launching radio spots focused on Puerto Rico's debt crisis ahead of "Super Tuesday" presidential primary elections.
Congressional Hearing Examines Puerto Rico Debt Crisis (tags)
The US House of Representatives held its second hearing on Puerto Rico's debt crisis this year. The hearing focused on potential legislative solutions including bankruptcy protection and an economic oversight board
Puerto Rico Cuts Services as Budget Gap Grows (tags)
Puerto Rico's government continues to cut public services as the economic crisis worsens. The Government Development Bank announced this week that the island's budget gap is $2 billion higher than expected. The prison system in Puerto Rico can no longer pay a vendor that feeds inmates. Some special education teachers are no longer being paid.
Social Inequality Today (tags)
The neoliberal rollback has created growing instabilities. An advancing process of de-democratization and social re-feudalization is connected with the rise of the new "super-rich." Piketty warned of the growing inequality between rich and poor.
Puerto Rico Plans to Default on New Year's Day (tags)
Puerto Rico plans to default on part of its $1 billion debt payment due January 1.
Puerto Rico Population Drops 10% Over Past Decade (tags)
Census Bureau estimates Puerto Rico's population shrinks by 10%, mostly during the island's financial crisis.
"Who is saving Whom?" shows what remains hidden. A tremendous redistribution from the bottom to the top.. Rescuing is taking place, for the 99% however there is no sign of a rescue.
At UN, Archbishop Calls for Puerto Rico Negotiations (tags)
Puerto Rico Archbishop Calls for Negotiated Settlement to Island Debt Crisis. Catholic Leader Asks "Vulture" Funds to Stop Lobbying Congress.
Puerto Rico Avoids Default Governor Announces Revenue "Claw-Back" to Fund Government Ser (tags)
Puerto Rico doesn't default under outrageous debt structuring.
Turkey's Downing of a Russian Fighter Jet Moves the Doomsday Clock Very Close to Midnight (tags)
To NOT Have the World "Go Into the Dark" (Per LBJ's Daisy Commercial Warning) the Mainstream Media & Administration Should Discard President Obama's "Look Forward Not Back" Iraq War Policy & Investigate & Report On Its Real Origins, Goals & Relationship to the Present Crisis -- the Solution to Which Is U.S.-Russian Partnership.
Economic Crises as Sicknesses and Catastrophes (tags)
The 2008 financial crisis is often wrongly described as a "state debt crisis" where cause and effect are inverted and economists and the market are released from responsibility. Sickness and catastrophe metaphors dominate discussion
For 40 years, the Bremen study group has published memorandums. The council of experts promoted the profits of businesses, not aggregate economic demand. Mass unemployment surpassed the 5 million mark because of neoliberal structural reforms.
Time for a New Detente Policy (tags)
The past subordination under the US policy oriented to regime change and chaos in the Middle East must be ended. A diplomatic offensive to end the war in Syria on the path of negotiation with Russia is necessary. Since March 1999, NATO was expanded with a dozen countries.
State Indebtedness: The Beloved Enemy (tags)
"The slow one now will later be fast as the present now will later be fast." The state unlike the Swabian housewife can become indebted to invest in a more social and more human future. All personal and corporate profit depends on state investment in roads, schools, food safety etc.
Vladimir Putin: Peace Champion (tags)
Putin
US Imperial Wars Responsible for Refugee Crisis (tags)
refugees
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.
US Media Ignore US Responsibility for Refugee Crisis (tags)
refugees
Refugee Crisis Straight Talk (tags)
anti-war
Puerto Rico’s Religious Leaders Call for Debt Relief and End to Austerity (tags)
Puerto Rico’s religious leaders called for debt relief in the face of the $72 billion financial crisis burdening the Caribbean US territory. At a press conference in San Juan, leaders of the principle religious groups laid out six principles to resolve the crisis.
Differing Views on China (tags)
China
Monied Interests Run America (tags)
Fed
Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza (tags)
Israel
markets
Crisis, Debt and the Development Perspective, 123 pp (tags)
700 free movies, 700 free E-books and 450 free audio books are ours at www.openculture.com. Enjoy the feast - in the land of disconnect and reversible cups!
IMF: Greek Debt Untenable (tags)
Greece
Pope Francis Calls for Global Bankruptcy Process (tags)
Pope Francis called for an international bankruptcy process in a news conference as he left Latin America on Monday. According to the Associated Press, when asked about the Greek debt crisis, Francis stated, "if a company can declare bankruptcy, why can't a country do so and we go to the aid of others?" Francis offered further comments noting that too many countries are struggling with high debts and he suggested a United Nations bankruptcy proposal could be the solution.
Troika Plan for Greece: Endless Pillage and Regime Change (tags)
Greece
Troika Intends Starving Greece Into Submission (tags)
Greece
TTIP: Trifling Economic Advantages at the Cost of Democracy and the Public Interest (tags)
TTIP represents a crisis for democracy and the constitutional state. Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO describes the TTIP as “secret tribunals” where only “foreign investors” can sue. Frank Bsirske of the German Verdi service union said the TTIP is a “black box” transferring sovereignty.
The Lie of the Weak State (tags)
The good condition of German labor markets is in reality in a catastrophic state...Unemployment is an "act of violence" against every unemployed person and represents an enormous waste for society as a whole.
Western Long Knives Out for FIFA's Sepp Blatter? (tags)
FIFA
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.
UN Accuses Saudi Arabia of Killing Yemeni Civilians (tags)
Yemen
Hypocritical and Hippocratic Economic Policy in Europe (tags)
The crisis is multilayered-a bank crisis, a crisis of wealth distribution and a misallocation of capital between long-term real investments and virtual financial investments.. The frugal Schwabian housewife is not a suitable model.
Less Growth and Less Work (tags)
French economist Thomas Piketty described neoliberalism or finance capitalism as an "inequality machine." Profits soar and investments are delayed. Keynes spoke of three phases: investments, surplus and stagnation. Reduced working hours is the only way to full employment.
Degrowth - a vocabulary for a new era, 19pp (tags)
From a degrowth perspective, the current economic crisis is the result of systemic limits to growth. It is not a cyclical crisis or fault in the credit system.
Poroshenko Prepares for More War (tags)
Ukraine
Ukraine
anti-war
Profit-Making is Different Than Profit-Maximizing (tags)
Discussions of jobs and the economy are often marked by trivialization, distortion, unreality and wishful thinking, The neoliberal model promotes profits, not investments and rationalization and digitalization lead to mass unemployment. System analysis and market failure are often glossed over
Rebirth of the One-Thousandth Society (tags)
The richest thousandth (0.1%) could increase their share in the total wealth very intensely since the 1980s. Their share is as much as the bottom 90%..While the millionaires increased their wealth enormously, the mass of the population is exposed to the continuing economic crisis.
New Geo;olitical/Financial Bombshells (tags)
geopolitics
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.
US/Russia Reset? Hold the Cheers (tags)
anti-war
This introduction to Tomasz Konicz' "On the Search for Alternatives to the Permanent Capitalist Crisis" (2014) is translated from the German. Empire could be replaced by republic as excess could be replaced by access and more by enough Capitalist contradictions/dislocations are signs.
Putin's Annual Marathon Press Conference Tour De Force (tags)
Putin
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.
Capitalism and Its Crisis Proclivity (tags)
The liberal economists of the 19th century claimed no crises could occur in capitalism since every supply creates its demand. On the other hand, Marx and Engels recognized early on the causes for crises in capitalism. The contradictions of the accumulation process lead to crises.
Austerity Policy as Momentous Mistake (tags)
The IMF's austerity policy of the last years was misguided. That austerity policy led to intensified growth declines and increasing unemployment... Public investments could raise economic growth both in the short- and long-term.
Ukraine: Waging War During Economic Crisis Conditions (tags)
Ukraine
The poorest and weakest persons must pay the price for misguided political decisions. Political-economic decisions decide over the life and death of persons. The New Deal stands for an effective debt reduction. Germany has been an active driver of austerity.
The Myth of the Unexpected Crisis and Security (tags)
Many knew the rise of housing prices had to end some time or other... Four theses explain why the Fed was not active during the real estate boom: power of lobbyists, market ideology, trust in abstract academic models and inflation targeting.
New Economy and New Prosperity (tags)
Economic structures that form the basis for social prosperity have become dysfunctional. The financial markets have expanded their original function and are now self-financed markets in which protection from risks has become a highly speculative business.
Karl Polanyi - Still Actual 50 Years After His Death (tags)
Karl Polanyi was the author of "The Great Transformation." As in Polanyi's times, the absurdity of the market utopia must be made clear and confronted with social reality. Freedom and democracy are goals to defend, not markets.
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
The BRICS: Challengers to the Global Status Quo (tags)
Can the BRICS wrest control of the global economy from the United States and Europe, or will their internal contradictions tear them apart?
Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West's Fault (tags)
NATO's eastward expansion is at the heart of the Ukraine crisis. Sec of State Baker promised Gorbatchev that NATO would not expand eastward if the Berlin wall were allowed to fall. Can't the West understand Putin's security concerns if NATO extends to Russia's borders?
8 Things to Know About the Iraq Crisis (tags)
We have options to support the people of Iraq, as well as tackle this crisis in a way that reflects America's best interests and 21st century realities. The US can work through the United Nations.
7 Rip-Offs that Corporations and the Wealthy Don't Want You to Know (tags)
The US faces a revenue crisis and a war-spending crisis fueled by corporate tax evasion and an out-of-control empire-building foreign policy. As offense was and is called defense in Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Iraq and Afghanistan, double speak triumphs in the US.
Both Germany and the US follow an economic policy without enlightenment. Slight economic stimulation will not solve problems of mass unemployment and corporate welfare. Tax evasion of corporations and tax cuts for the super-rich lead to suffering and a revenue crisis.
Learning from Roosevelt: HIs "New Deal" (tags)
The Civilian Conservation Corps helped overcome the basic pessimistic mood in society. Within a few months, 500,000 young persons had hope again. The government should intervene in case of an economic emergency.
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.
Memorandum on Leaked TISA Financial Services Text (tags)
This memorandum provides a preliminary analysis of the leaked financial services chapter of the Trade in Services Agreement dated 14 April 2014.
Veteran and Families of Military hold Press Conference (tags)
Press conference to be held outside Veterans Administration to highlight heath care crisis at the VA. Today, it has become increasingly likely that the U.S. government will once again take military action in Iraq.
IMF Reviews International Financial Crises Solutions (tags)
As the IMF reviews solutions to international financial crises, religious and development groups urge reforms to protect the poor.
Free internet Book: The triumph of failed ideas, 286 pp (tags)
Free Internet books like Swiss, Austrian, Polish and German critical economists could help us to a sustainable future-friendly economy where the tax code is revised and the top 1% pay more taxes than their secretaries.
Financial Market Inflammation (tags)
Bubble formation covered up a period of long-lasting stagnation... Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers even spoke of stagnation as a "new normality"... The crisis consequences are shifted to other subjects. Unemployment and indebtedness are exported.
Putin's Diplomatic Gambit (tags)
Ukraine
America's Hidden Hunger Crisis (tags)
hunger
The new indebtedness is a consequence of the crisis caused by the financial industry-and in no way owed to an excessive social state, demographic change and so forth.. There are many critics of this policy of mastering crisis by flooding the financial markets with fresh money.
West Buries Truth on Ukraine (tags)
Ukraine
Stoking Confrontation with Russia (tags)
Ukraine
Ukraine
Confronting Russia and China Militarily (tags)
imperialism
The Future of the Captured State (tags)
Ukraine
Kiev Breaks Easter Truce (tags)
Ukraine
Four-Party Agreement on Ukraine (tags)
Ukraine
IMF World Economic Outlook: Economy Improves for Some as Inequality Persists (tags)
Debt Restructuring Process Discussed by IMF and G20
Growing East/West Divide (tags)
Ukraine
Liberating the Economy from Prejudices (tags)
Economics is not an immutable unchangeable fate but a human system where changing rules changes outcomes. James Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz are two well-known economists who question the myths of conventional economics, the self-healing, efficient and deregulated market
The US Occupy Movement - Since the Eviction from the Squares (tags)
Robert Ogman studied social theory at The New School in New York and was active in the alterglobalisation movement. Following the evictions of the Occupy encampments in late 2011, he met with and interviewed participants. Today he lives in Berlin.
Akbayan : Filipinas ' Nueva Izquierda en el 16 (tags)
Discurso de clausura de Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello en 16o Aniversario Evento de Akbayan , Buffet Cocina Internacional, Quezon City, 30 de enero 2014
Ukraine
In the Whirlpool of Deregulation (tags)
The economy changed from real- to finance capitalism since the 1970s. This was not an accidental development. The economic researcher Stephan Schulmeister sees a pattern where deregulation created problems that were fought with more deregulation.
Modesty as an Economic Model (tags)
"This completely deregulated sphere (derivatives) ultimately grew to greater dimensions than the real economy. That was undoubtedly absolute madness..A smaller financial sector need not be unconditionally bad.. The economy is a faith like every other..."
The Rent Crisis in Los Angeles (tags)
There is a growing housing and rent crisis in Los Angeles. The resistence is here and growing.
Akbayan: the Philippines' New Left at 16 (tags)
Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello's closing remarks at Akbayan’s 16th Anniversary Event, Buffet International Cuisine, Quezon City, Jan 30, 2014
Obama's MyRA Proposal: Hold the Cheers (tags)
class war
Capitalism as a Secularized Religion (tags)
It is never too early or too late to challenge the dominant narrative. Capitalism is a fetish social formation, a demolishing of being not a reform of being. Capitalism may be the first case of an indebted cult, not an atoning cult, possibly the most bloodthirsty cult of humanity's history.
Jubilee USA Urges Business and Political Leaders at World Economic Forum to End Corporate (tags)
Washington, DC - Heads of state, financial ministers, celebrities and representatives from many of the worlds most powerful corporations are meeting in Davos, Switzerland for the 2014 World Economic Forum.
Fiscal Policy in the Crisis: Lessons and Policy Implications, 29pp (tags)
Christina Romer is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley and served as President Obama's chief economic adviser for a time.
Book Review: "The Greatest Predatory Attack of History" (tags)
The 1933 Glass-Steagal law created a firewall between commercial and investment banks and prevented speculators from gambling with the money of savers. Restoring Glass-Steagal would restore trust and public spirit. Profit-making is not profit-maximizing; speculating is not investing.
The Tiger and His Trainers (tags)
How preposterous to think we can avert the next crisis without regulating or shriveling the financial sector, addressing income inequality and radically rethinking the meaning and assumptions of economics? Hans-Jurgen Urban likens the financial crisis to a tiger breaking from his cage and sees the welfare state and unions as trainers
Sooner or later “peak soil” will follow peak oil. This kind of mastery of the economic and financial crisis leads inevitably to a food crisis and even to a hunger crisis in many poor world regions. Isn’t expanding public services commanded for ecological and social reasons?
Gaza's Humanitarian Crisis Deepens (tags)
Israel
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.
Tea Party: Extremism of the Middle (tags)
The Tea Party wants to return to an idyllic past that never really happened. The Tea Party wants to stop the accelerating descent of the white middle class by driving ideological ideas to the extreme. The right-wing hardliners believe capitalism could be reanimated if the state were shattered.
VIDEO: "Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis" 46 min (tags)
By spending $4 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions, Wall Street banks carried out a "quiet coup" (Simon Johnson). Banks own this place (Sen. Dick Durbin). The state has become the "errand boy" of the banks (Bill Moyers)
Philippines: They Destroy, We Suffer (tags)
Capitalism is destroying the planet. Now we suffer. The devastating horror unleashed by monster-typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) upon the eastern and central Philippines regions is unspeakable. As of writing, estimates of the number of casualties and actual damages are tentative because many areas remain isolated and communications, power, road and port systems are down.
Is Capitalism at an End? (tags)
The capitalist system in its current form is no longer fit for today's world. The system that led us into crisis has long been ourdated. The brave new world of neoliberalism lies in ruin. Surveys show that a majuority of people regard capitalism as unjust and unsocial.
Market-conforming Democracy (tags)
Market-conforming democracy," Angela Merkel's guiding idea, is a pleasant-sounding description of plutocracy where the forms still exist but their substance is "financialized," where myths of privatization. corporate beneficence and self-healing markets are zombie gods.
Studying Economics Today is Like Brainwashing (tags)
The blind trust in efficient markets must be replaced and bankers given a new understanding. Profit making is different than profit maximization. Banks should be a public function, not a casino and the real economy and the environment not abandoned.
China Calls for De-Americanizing (tags)
China
From Summit to Summit: Lost Generation and Lost Decade (tags)
Neoliberal economic thinking explains unemployment as a balance phenomenon with only supply-side causes: poorly trained, wrong place, excessive wage demands and an overly generous social state.. Youth unemployment of 30 or 60% is a catastrophe.
Who is System Relevant - Banks or the People? (tags)
We are experiencing the most brutal form of the neoliberal credo since the financial crisis: privatization of profits and socialization of losses. EU crisis policy bails out banks and drives the population into misery. We must change direction. We need a change of paradigms in policy.
Congressional Candidacy Responds to Earth in Crisis (tags)
Veteran Earth First! organizer, pioneering anti-GMO direct action activist, and medical marijuana protester Congressional candidate Andy Caffrey opens 2014 campaign office and Earth First! event center in Humboldt County.
The Thirteen Commandments of Neoliberalism (tags)
"Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, the neoliberal project stood out from other strains of right-wing thought.... It was a moveable feast, and not a catechism fixed at the Council of Trent."
Cost of the Crisis, 72pp (tags)
The cost of the Wall Street-caused financial collapse and ongoing economic crisis is more than $12.8 trillion. $12.8 dramatically understates the true costs of the crisis because so much is simply unquantifiable.
Video: Bruce Gagnon: The Deadly Connection: Endless War and Economic Crisis (tags)
Bruce Gagnon, is Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and long-time member of Veterans For Peace.
Ten Theses on the Crisis and its Solution (tags)
Problems don't disappear when they are ignored. Deregulation is a collective and political crisis. Language and democracy are endangered when arsonists are called firefighters, when private losses become public losses and crime in the suits is normalized as a business model.
Syrian Conflict Resolution: Stamp Out Terror (tags)
Syria
Alternatives to Stagnation and Depression (tags)
Politics has fought the symptoms of the great crisis with banking- and economic packages while its systemic causes remain untouched… The hardest phase of the great crisis is ahead of us, not behind us. All sectors try to safeguard their position through spending cuts...
Destroying Greece to Save It (tags)
class war
The Dislocation of Homo Oeconomicus (tags)
"Students rate the teachers and demand a very specific kind of knowledge from them: it should be measurable, packaged and practical and cannot contain any uncertainties. Experimenting or thinking is not desired. There is a relation between service-provider and customer..."
Normal Catastrophes and The Industrialization of Thinking (tags)
Instead of offering enlightenment about social reality, the media function as an amusement enterprise and immobilizing machine. Information mutates into infotainment... Advanced civilization is marginalized in many social areas into a sanctuary of the elites.
Addicted to Liquidity Injections (tags)
Bernanke's announcing of lower monthly printing of money was enough to make stock exchanges collapse in many threshold countries. The monetary policy of printing money and zero interest is caught in a vicious circle. Liquidity glut generates credit growth.
They want capitalism without democracy; we want democracy without capitalism (tags)
The policy of crises and impoverishment disrupts our lives and the lives of millions of people in the world. More than 300 persons were gravely injured through blows, tear gas and pepper spray. Blockupy had an important political success.
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.
"Politics prepared the ground for financial war" (tags)
The current economic crisis is a product of political mistakes, economic incompetence and criminal energy. Capitalism altogether has been a declaration of war. Politics bungled deregulation. The wisdom of the market never existed.
VIDEO: Offshore Profit Sharing (tags)
Apple shifted 64% of profits ($78 billion over four years) to entities (AOI and AOS) in Ireland with no employees and no activities. Corporations avoiding paying taxes is a destructive business model. Should we close unjustified loopholes?
Economic Ethics After the Crisis (tags)
Peter Ulrich is an emeritus professor of Economic Ethics at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland and author of Integrative Economic Ethics (2008). The economy should be embedded in society; society should not be embedded in the economy. The invisible hand is a myth to be unmasked.
The exodus from the casino capitalism producing ever faster and ever deeper crises cannot succeed without a broad and powerful democratic base. Parliamentary democracy is urged to finally take up the struggle around the primacy of politics
The Elite Look Down on Democracy (tags)
The thought-models of the economy have conquered all other social sciences. The person in these models is a homo oeconomicus, a rational agent whose only drive is maximizing his benefits. Only an action with the driving force of egoism is rational.
The State Should Rescue the Market Economy (tags)
A balance recession is more than a temporary slump of the economy. During a balance recession, private economic actors try to reduce their debts. The cheap money seeps out on the financial markets where it leads to new bubbles. The labor market does not function like other markets. Falling wages did not lead to more employment - as claimed for decades.
Financial War - How Banks and Bandits Endanger our Democracy (tags)
Political failure follows market failure. Participation in system criminality is without risk of prosecution. The financial crisis is not only a system failure. It was caused by human actions in the banking sector that are objectively punishable.
Neoliberalism as a Variety of Social Darwinism: Ten Million More Unemployed (tags)
Social cuts are a danger for democracy..When fear of social descent or collapse seizes the middle class, the danger grows that exclusion-ideologies may gain acceptance like racism, nationalism or social Darwinism..The economic future is given away on the altar of an ideology that raises location competition to the leitmotif of political-economic policy.
Asset Distribution and the Financial Crisis (tags)
A perverse system arose out of the interaction of deregulation of the financial system and polarization of asset distribution. A reform of the financial system can only be part of the repair of the system. When wages grow again with productivity, an economic balance will be possible
Budget Cuts and Happy Times (tags)
For around three decades, a Troika from Wall Street, the US Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve pushed global (capital) investments with a mixture of tax cuts, cheap credits and overrated securities.
San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr Drops Taser Proposal (tags)
San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr is the fourth chief in a decade to propose cops use tasers while talking people out of public crisis. For the fourth time, this proposal was met with powerful citizen opposition..
The BRIC - States: World Economy on a Silk Thread (tags)
In 2013 for the first time since the beginning of European industrialization, the production volumes of the threshold- and developing countries will surpass the volumes of the triad. Sinking real investments is true for all `developed' countries.
Secret FDIC Plan to Loot Bank Accounts (tags)
grand theft
Are Reforms of the Financial Sector Enough? (tags)
This article focuses on seven errors and seven remedies of the financial crisis. The financial crisis was also a crisis of easy money. For years and again today, speculators exploited the situation that money was and is very easy to borrow in the US and Japan.
Public Banking: What Better Time Than Now (tags)
public banking
Depositor Haircuts: The New Normal (tags)
class war
End the WTO and the Stop the new wave of Free Trade Agreements (tags)
Call to action of the Indonesian People's Movement Against Neocolonialism-Imperialism toward Bali WTO Ministerial meeting on 3-6 of December 2013
Cyprus Seeks 11th Hour Deal (tags)
Cyprus
America's Retirement Crisis (tags)
class war
Tax Evasion and the Social State (tags)
The good social state invests in the social, in the education of children of the new lower classes... Taxes is the price we pay for a civilized society (Oliver Wendell Holmes).. The state share must increase in a developed society since ever greater demands are made on the state.
When Theory and Reality Diverge (tags)
Politics forces crises and prevents their ending every day by holding to its ideological blinders. The state is not a private household and spending cuts always strike back on other actors of the economy. When theory and reality diverge, the theory is wrong, not the reality.
Child Poverty Massively Increases through EU Austerity Programs (tags)
Caritas warns "lost generations" are growing up in Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland. The Cairitas study blames the austerity programs for the impoverishment of children. A new prioritization and an even distribution of the burdens of the debt crisis are demanded.
The Liberal-Regressive Modern Age (tags)
The financial crisis of the states-dramatically intensified by the costs of bailing out the banks-shifts the costs to the broad population without touching the wealth of the economic elites. Political governing is increasingly uncoupled from the approval and influence of citizens.
Spectacle of Irrationality (tags)
The bailout umbrella may establish a modern kind of feudal rule. The abdication of politics is one of the worst consequences of the financial crisis. Many politicians believe the market-radical nonsense that tax cuts finance themselves.
class war
Responding to financial crisis: are austerity and suffering inevitable? (tags)
Austerity in a recession is counter-productive. Lower taxes and lower wages mean lower demand, lower GDP, lower state revenue and higher unemployment.
Vulgar Materialism: The Madness of Growth and the Casino (tags)
Renouncing on growth or tolerating a shriveling economy is hard. Greece is a shocking example. Many people cut down the last trees because they could not afford heating oil. Nature is the first victim in an economic crisis. Whole generations are traumatized.
Tim Geithner's Legacy of Shame (tags)
grand theft
Three Approaches to the Economic Crisis (tags)
Before 1980, wages, productivity, investments and production pushed one another and ensured general prosperity. After 1980 wages were dropped as a driving force of economic demand. Demand gaps were filled by consumer credits.
Cancellation of Illegitmate Debts Instead of Bailout Umbrellas for Financiers (tags)
The inflation of public indebtedness was an essential element for the enhanced power of financial capital. That inflation was a result of a conscious under-financing of the state and is a lever to enforce an austerity policy. Financialization intensified the pressure to precariousness.
U.S. Cannot Tell Iran to Abandon its Nuclear Program (tags)
Interview conducted by Iranian journalist Kourosh Ziabari with Mark Vorpahl
Barry Commoner (1917-2012) (tags)
The economic theory of socialism does not demand an unlimited growth. The capitalist agrarian economy and industry wear out the two exclusive sources of wealth: the earth and workers. Capitalist accumulation and the finite earth are in contradiction.
In Greece, the functioning society was undermined until it finally collapsed. The crisis has destroyed the social state. A person becomes a kind of predatory wild animal in dramatic situations as now seen in Greece. He only sees himself and his own survival.
More Evidence of Chupacabra than Bipartisan Fiscal Cliff Hype (tags)
The bipartisan hype over the so-called "fiscal cliff" is an attempt my the status quo to institute severe austerity measures that would effect seniors, disabled and other people dependent upon the social safety net that is set up on the chopping block by BOTH Democrats and Republicans. There may be more evidence of the mythical chupacabra (goat sucker) than there is proof of any upcoming fiscal cliff. Either way we are dealing with some really mangy bloodsuckers!
Five Minutes with Noam Chomsky: The Euro Crisis and the Welfare State (tags)
"Europe’s policies make sense only on one assumption: that the goal is to try and undermine and unravel the welfare state. And that’s almost been said. Mario Draghi said that the social contract in Europe is dead. Perhaps not ‘dead’ but under attack."
Stagnation, not growth, is the norm for mature capitalism (tags)
The dynamics of a mature capitalist economy result in stagnation and financialization, creating deepening inequality.
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.
Ideology and Morality: What the Financial Crisis teaches about functioning of democracy (tags)
Moralizing is a form of argumentation found in many ideologies and academic systems of thought.. State interventions, we were taught, are bad because they run counter to the objective laws of the market.. The market is a social institution that we interpret in different ways..
To Krugman, the increasing ideological blindness of German politicians can only be explained by their belief that "hard times must be the necessary punishment for earlier excesses." Krugman overlooks that the hard times and excesses do not concern the same people.
“IMF is dead, a walking dead” - FDC Philippines (tags)
MANILA, Philippines – As the first female chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) visited the country for the first time and met with Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III Friday morning, debt watchdog Freedom from Debt Coalition staged a protest near the Malacañan Palace, in solidarity with the peoples of the Eurozone.
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
banking
Book Announcement: Hijacking the Holy Qur'an and Islam (tags)
Why is the Holy Qur'an and Islam so easy to Hijack for "imperial mobilization"?
Free Internet Book: "The World Crisis" (tags)
Once the source of hope, the US is often a source of fear. Closing most of the 700+ bases would be a step from empire to republic. Security is a political and social challenge, not only a military project. Development should be a right, not only a hope and a promise..
Nationalizing banks works for the short term; why not permanently? (tags)
Temporary nationalization of big banks worked in Norway and Sweden. Permanent nationalization would avoid a return to the speculation and destruction of bankers.
Against Growth Mania and Fair Redistribution (tags)
How can we rebuild our society so we manage with less growth and not collapse when growth does not occur? Consumption beyond a certain level is pathological, a compensation or substitute for missed life (cf. Erich Fromm).
Banks, Bankers and Banksters (tags)
An unrestrained speculative capitalism emerged out of investment capitalism. New financing instruments are invented. Risks are trivialized or glossed over to soothe the population. Boundless indebtedness becomes the norm. The new age led to immediate profit eclipsing investment.
Is Capitalism Collapsing? (tags)
One of the causes for the obvious helplessness of the governments is that they function as simple receivers of orders of the financial industry. The financial industry has no interest in a policy that would make it liable for its inflicted disaster..
Another Road for Europe (tags)
Europe is in crisis because it has been hijacked by neoliberalism and finance. Along the road to another Europe, visions of change, protest and alternatives have to be woven into a common framework. Finance should be prevented from destroying the economy.
America's Right-Wing Reinterprets the Crisis (tags)
A state is not a hardware store. It must contract debts in crisis times. Four years after the collapse of the US economy, the republicans send a former investment banker into the race who stands for a policy that got us into the real messThe right-wing was very successful in changing the discourse.
Bailout Fraud and Unaccountability (tags)
fraud
Neoliberalism was the Godfather of the Financial Industry (tags)
Keynesianism was replaced by neoliberalism that guided the fallow investment capital into speculation.The development of social systems and the rise of real wages contributed to social peace and stabilizing the economic upswing by strengthening mass consumption.
The economic crisis, the massive indebtedness of the country and Obama's election have radicalized politics and voters. Ryan's budget proposal was recently described as a fairy tale that would in no way stop the economic decline. Others call his plan a joke.
Irrational Draghi Exuberance (tags)
class war
Bona Fide Eurozone Crisis (tags)
class war
On the Solutions of Liberal Economists (tags)
The crisis has shaken economics to its foundations. The neoliberal mainstream has lost its support; economists alternate between self-doubt and arrogance. Once they believed in the rationality of economic actors and markets and the notion that financial management exists to serve the real economy.
Assad Resignation first Step to Peace and Democracy in Syria (tags)
Akbayan Party strongly condemns the continued violence and terror perpetrated by Bashar Al-Assad and the Syrian government forces against Syrian citizens who have long demanded democracy and freedom from Assad’s authoritarian leadership. The Assad regime’s aggressive crackdown on pro-democracy forces has emboldened elements within the opposition to respond in a similarly destructive manner and has left Syria in a virtual state of civil war.
class war
"The barbaric core of capitalist socialization is on full display in the present system crisis. The propagandists of totalitarian economism come in the mask of democrats. Economic-profitability thinking is imposed on society. Our society has long been viewed as a business."
Lessons from Manila floods on climate change, responses (tags)
As the Philippine government dithered and made excuses for its grossly inadequate response to the catastrophic floods — which inundated 80% of the country's capital, Manila — Sonny Melencio was leading a grassroots relief effort that brought the first food supplies in days to some of the poorest and most badly affected communities.
Democracy in Crisis: The Terror of the Economy is a Danger to Democracy (tags)
There is a powerful crisis dynamic that is stronger than the will of the sovereign and its democratic institutions. When capital relations fall into crisis, everything can be instrumentalized: the basic law, democracy, human rights and human life. Economic pressure creates extremism of middle.
Why Washington Accepts Mass Unemployment (tags)
The Fed is more worried about inflation than mass unemployment. Maybe the guaranteed basic income and/or community centers are the antidotes to elite failures and market failures. Vancouver BC has 23 community centers that have a multiplier and cushioning effect.
Stop the neo-liberal crisis politics - dispossess the beneficiaries! (tags)
We are experiencing the deepest crisis of capitalism since the great depression of the 30s.
Emergency Central Bank Intervention Coming? (tags)
class war
Approaching Financial Abyss (tags)
class war
On Friday, July 6, President Obama signed into law a bill that would renew transportation programs and extend low interest rates on student loans for one year. While this minimal gesture resulted in, no doubt, sighs of relief from those burdened by student debt, tucked away within the bill's pages was a little-noticed proposal to further erode the funding of workers' pensions. The bill was a brilliant sleight of hand where what it appeared to be giving with one hand distracted the public from what it was taking away with the other.
For a European Anti-Crisis Front (tags)
Lowering the public debt burden is not an end-in-itself. Debts could serve to stimulate the economy and improve the living conditions of the victims of the crisis. Debt reduction must occur mainly by increasing the tax revenues (higher tax rates and combating tax evasion), not only by cuts.
World Economies on Life Support (tags)
class war
New Economic Thinking - Turning Away from the Market Fetish (tags)
"New economic thinking" rejects the view of the person as "homo oeconomicus" reduced to maximization of individual benefits and offers a more comprehensive and realistic concept in which justice, norms, routines and emotions appear. "Homo recipocans" is an alternative.
Who is Responsible for the Crisis of Capitalism? (tags)
Capitalism has long sedimented into a natural state of humanity about which there is no more reflection than about gravity. The crisis broke out because all the actors brilliantly fulfilled their economic functions in the market economy.
Groups urge world leaders to reject “Green Economy” in Rio+20 summit (tags)
MANILA, Philippines - Various cause-oriented groups warned the Philippine delegation and world leaders attending the three-day United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil not to fall into the trap of believing that the proposed "Green Economy" is "a tool and mechanism for sustainable development."
The Crisis and Beyond: Thinking Outside the Box (tags)
Claude Hillinger is a professor of economics at the University of Munich.
"Occupy may have already accomplished more than the 68ers" (tags)
"In bad times, politics hearkens back to the simple, heavy-handed neoliberal thought model. Neoliberalism simply says what the rich and powerful like to hear. The trust and faith of the younger generations in the established system is broken.."
class war
Capitalism Can Be Cured (tags)
"The Occupy movement protests worldwide against the power of banks. The Indignados in Spain demonstrate against the system that gives them this crisis and high unemployment. No saying has been criticized more vigorously than Margaret Thatcher's `there is no alternative'."
Contagion Affects Europe (tags)
Class war
America's Student Loan Racket (tags)
student loans
NAFTA and European Union: Different sides of the Atlantic but same function (tags)
The logic of the multi-national euro currency is tighter economic integration and loss of popular sovereignty.
"A seeming consensus among economists can virtually force the shaping of political opinions.. For 30 years, neoliberalism marginalized all other schools, above all Keynesianism - and all of us hit a brick wall.."
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.."
Diagonal newspaper from Madrid English version available now! (tags)
Since last week you can enjoy some articles that has been translated to english from this news paper all the info is available here: http://diagonalperiodico.net/-English-.html
Debt Tribunal and Green Socialism (tags)
Qualitative growth, breaking out of the box of quantitative growth, is the key to solving mass unemployment, environmental destruction and trade imbalance. A job in education costs 1/10 what a job in a chemical dye plant costs. The media is part of a system that refuses change.
Greece Reflects Growing Economic Turmoil (tags)
class war
Economist criticizes "pathological allegience" to economic models (tags)
The crisis was born when Maggie Thatcher and then Bill Clinton deregulated the financial markets. The explosive force that was detonated was incalculable. Economics gave support because it provides models.
The Banks Should Serve the Real Economy (tags)
Democracy, risk and liability are turned upside down when trillions bailout the banks and workers, unemployed and pensioners must pay the bill! We live from those who say No to trivialization of crisis, to the state being reduced to a trough or errand boy for the banks (Bill Moyers). The economy should be a part of life, not a steamroller crushing creativity.
Predatory Capitalism Failed (tags)
class war
Democracy, risk and liability are turned upside down when trillions bailout the banks and workers, pensioners and unemployed must pay the bill. We live from those who say No to corruption, to the state reduced to a trough or errand boy for the banks (Bill Moyers).
Democracy instead of Fiscal Pact (tags)
Against the authoritarian-neoliberal EU, we champion a democratic and social-ecological Europe of the many!
class war
Millionaire's Tax is the Best Debt Brake (tags)
Sahra Wagenknecht is a leader of the Left party, Die Linke, in the German Bundestag and author of "Freedom instead of Capitalism." Learning from other cultures is a strength, not a weakness. The University of British Columbia had a tuition freeze for 6 or 7 years and kept tuition at $2300.
Charting a path out of impasse for Greece, and other countries (tags)
Should Greece remain within the eurozone or should it return to the drachma?
The great austerity war (tags)
The great austerity war: what caused the US deficit crisis and who should pay to fix it? The right-wing coalition has been so successful over recent decades that the long-run challenges facing the country today are daunting.
2012 can not bring anything good having put wolves caring the hen house.
The Systemic Causes of the Crisis (tags)
The crisis is 30 years old, not 4 years old. The causes of the crisis can be found in the real goods-producing economy, not in the financial markets. The wildly proliferating financial markets did not drag the industry into crisis but kept alive the industry through credit-financed demand.
In the crisis, there was a paradigm based on the belief in unlimited economic growth on a planet with infinite resources. This paradigm identifies happiness with wealth, well-being with accumulation of material goods and progress with consumerism.
What is the Origin of Wealth? (tags)
"Europe faces the choice of falling apart in the crisis or taking steps to another economic model," 50 scholars from the advisory board of Attac Germany declared. They make the connection between the chaos of the financial markets and the scandalous distribution of wealth
Medrciless Samaritans and 10 Causes of the Crisis (tags)
"There is no society. There are only individual men and women," said Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher, the former British Prime Minister, had a great share in the crisis in which Europe, capitalism and democracy find themselves.
Gaza
The Error is in the System (tags)
The financial crisis mutated into a global economic crisis and a state debt crisis. The financial crisis was not a "bump in the road" or an industrial accident but a systemic and structural crisis that caused $11 trillion of wealth to vanish while millions lost their jobs. homes and pension
$3.8 trillion budget sets up election-year fight with Republicans (tags)
The US faces a revenue crisis and a war spending crisis. The Congress, a millionaires' club, isn't about upholding the constitution but maintaining plutocracy and crony capitalism. Without the social contract and government of the people, we become wolves to each other.
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.
The Rule of Supply-Side Economists (tags)
Supply-side economists dominate wherever one looks in politics, economics and the media. That wages and salaries are not onl.y costs but also demand usually doesn't interest supply-side economists.
Wall Street Excess and Main Street Distress: the Apple Connection (tags)
Apple’s march to market supremacy has been accomplished at tremendous cost to both American and Chinese workers
OCCUPY PRESS RELEASE: 8 CHALLENGES TO WELLS FARGO (FEB 6, 2012) (tags)
8 CHALLENGES FOR WELLS FARGO (OCCUPY ACTIVISTS MEETING; MON, FEB. 6, 2012) On Monday -- Feb 6th -- active members of the national Occupy movement who have been involved in addressing the foreclosure and related banking industry crisis, presented below 8 challenges to Wells Fargo. Though the 7 Occupy Activists do not speak for the entire Occupy movement, they do, however, believe these are legitimate concerns of many in the Occupy movement relating to the U.S. foreclosure crisis. They represent growing calls for action throughout the movement and we call upon Wells Fargo to immediately address these challenges. See PDF Nand or Text.
Dominant Economy Pretends Its Breakdown Was Unforeseeable (tags)
The consensus of the past two decades on how the macro-economy functions is shattered. The breakdown of the dominant economy is a consequence of the financial crisis, the "great shock."
8 CHALLENGES TO WELLS FARGO FROM OCCUPY ACTIVISTS (tags)
8 CHALLENGES TO WELLS FARGO FROM OCCUPY ACTIVISTS ISSUED AT HISTORIC OCCUPY-WELLS FARGO MEETING ON FEB 6, 2012 (AT WELLS FARGO'S INVITATION TO OCCUPY THE ROSE PARADE ACTIVISTS).
The core of all western-individualist ideas of justice is the principle of personal responsibility. Everyone is responsible for the consequences of his/her actions. This motivates as well as disciplines. "We punish the virtuous and reward the squanderers."
Forecasting Economic Decline (tags)
class war
So much crisis was never analyzed with a crisis-conditioned satisfaction guarantee! Instead of seeking culprits, we must seek the systemic causes of the indebtedness dynamic. These gigantic debt mountains were necessary to keep capitalism functioning. Fewer and fewer workers can producer more and more goods in an ever-shorter time.
Justice Before Efficiency (tags)
The market economy must be bound to the principles of a fully-developed civil society. More is involved than a belated redistribution. A citizen is basically a social being. To overcome feudalism, precedence must be given to human- and civil rights over the power based on property.
The New Normal: Economic Weakness and Decline (tags)
class war
"Nature and people are `fictional commodities. When they submit completely to market mechanisms and when markets are not regulated, this leads to people dying who don't find buyers for their labor power..."
Neoliberal Vicious Circle (tags)
"One of the peculiarities of the neoliberal globalization is that its protagonists seek to fight the devastations — for which they bear responsibility — by the same means that cause the devastations. They call these means »market liberalization« or simply »liberalization«.
Ongoing Global Economic Crisis (tags)
class war
Shock Strategy for Europe (tags)
The cocktail of social cuts, deregulation and privatization struck societies like a blow. The economy hit the wall; social securities were taken away. The debt problems were used as "timely opportunities" to gain new ground for the free market.
Crisis Conditions Grip Eurozone (tags)
class war
Grim 2012 Economic Outlook (tags)
class war
The Worthless Value System of the Financial Branch (tags)
The Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman wrote: "In a free economic system, there is only a single responsibility for the actors. Businesses must be carried out for the greatest possible profitability." To believers in the self-healing market, questions about guilt, humility and pangs of conscience must sound like questions from another world.
"The illegitimate debts must be cancelled" (tags)
A neoliberal tax policy followed for twenty years drastically lowered the taxes paid by private corporations on their profits, above all by big business. The debts are not an incomprehensible plague but the result of a conscious and completely unjust policy.
Global Economic Tremors (tags)
class war
Alternative for the Euro Zone (tags)
In a new study, leftist economists from a dozen EU countries criticize the policy of the German government in the Euro crisis. Its analysis and the proposed solutions are wrong. The state deficits are not the cause of the crisis. The financial crisis caused the state deficits.
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.
class war
The Crisis, Trust and Homeowners (tags)
Capitalism cannot function any more without credit-financed debt on account of its increasing productivity. The recession will come because the indebtedness-dynamic can hardly be maintained with which the capitalist zombie-economy is kept alive in its pseudo-life.
Free Internet Book: Towards a Wage-Led Recovery (tags)
This free Internet book was published in the International Journal of Labor Research, November 2011.
John Holloway, Hillel Ticktin, Immanuel Wallerstein on Capitalism's Crisis (tags)
Marxists have been predicting the disintegration of capitalism for so long that most people - including most Marxists - stopped believing it would ever happen. But today anyone who reads the financial press knows that the system is in an unprecedented crisis with no clear way out. The following articles offer a variety of ways of understanding the crisis so we can begin to create a world beyond capitalism:
Central Bank Intervention: Much Ado About Nothing (tags)
class war
At Risk Eurozone Sovereign Credit Ratings (tags)
Eurozone
Criticism of Economists (tags)
Economists with their models could predict the values of economic variables but did not foresee the greatest worldwide economic crisis in 80 years. Mechanical-deterministic neoclassicism is a self-contained theoretical model offering simple answers.
Spreading Eurozone Contagion (tags)
class war
Neoliberalism as Greatest Error in the History of Economic Thought (tags)
Efficiency and prosperity can only be realized on capitalist markets when the economic system is bound in a social order under the primacy of politics. Democratic legitimated politics and the provision of public goods is derived from the "anatomy of market failure."
Deepening Debt Contagion (tags)
economy
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.
What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral. (tags)
"One group has been especially vocal about shaping a new narrative of the credit crisis and economic collapse: those whose bad judgment and failed philosophy helped cause the crisis."
Kicking the Cannes Down the Road (tags)
economy
Seven Billion ... And Rising (tags)
The world’s population surpassed 7 billion on October 31. But except for perhaps the anti-family planning lobby, this was a milestone that few were in a mood to celebrate.
Dissing Europe's Flawed Bailout Scheme (tags)
class war
Critical thinking and cultural shock have the power to turn the world upside down (like Jesus' parables and zen koans). Trivializing structural/systemic economic problems as motivational, psychological, bumps in the road or industrial accidents is a perversion.
Eurozone Bailout Deal: Hold the Cheers (tags)
class war
When Financial Management Paralyzes Democracy (tags)
The 2010 Attac Bank Tribunal in Berlin was a civil society legal proceeding that decried the speculative business model: take excessive risks and burden taxpayers with the costs. Rating agencies should be public. Banks that are too big to fail are too big to exist and should be broken up
Occupy World - The Protest Against the Financial System Intensifies (tags)
Since the beginning of the financial crisis, governments from Berlin to Washington solemnly vowed to regulate the financial system more strongly, close the casino on the financial markets and call to account financially the speculators.for their inflicted damage. Deeds did not follow.
Global Economic Crisis Deepens (tags)
economy
UPDATE: Foreclosure Purgatory, MA Rules Against Buyer Of Foreclosed Home, Millions Tainted (tags)
?In the end, all of us are paying a price for this mortgage crisis. And all of us will pay an even steeper price if we allow this crisis to continue to deepen?.? President Obama explained. ?But if we act boldly and swiftly to arrest this downward spiral, every American will benefit.? President Obama
economy
Six Proposals for Helping the 99% (tags)
Solidarity, social justice and sharing open doors while tax cuts for the super-rich only lead to exploding inequality. double standards and cynicism. Access could replace excess. The empire could be superseded by the republic.
what is an economic bubble? An anarchist answer.
Troubled Eurozone Finance Capital (tags)
economy
The crisis is 30 years old, not three years old. The causes of the crisis should be tracked down in the real goods-producing economy, not in the financial markets. The financial markets were keep alive up to the collapse of the speculative bubble by credit-financed demand.
Some further thoughts on the OWS movement (tags)
I have been following the Occupy Wall Street developments with interest because ultimately I consider the only reasonable way entrenched elites become unseated is if there is mass action by citizens. I do not think military coups are a very sound way to lay the groundwork for grassroots
Video: Durbin - Boycott B of A (tags)
Peace and resistance are part of our nature as antibodies are part of our bodies. Viva Occupy Wall Street! Viva Occupy K-Street!
We Pay for Their Crisis (tags)
Making a game sound appealing whose frauds are obvious is increasingly hard for the governments. The neoliberal vision was always a society of the asocial. The categorical imperative of neoliberalism was always an open and cynical attack on the working class.
Learning Nothing in 80 Years (tags)
The crisis began in the US where the government became heavily indebted after September 11, 2001 in the war against terror and where property owners, banks and hedge funds long lived openly on credit. The German government was laughed at when it prohibited short-selling in 2010
Underway to Plutocracy: Financial Crisis (tags)
No promise of salvation can be imputed to capitalism any more.. The market is regarded as a natural law and power of fate. Nothing but Darwinism was left of the liberals' hope for progress. That Darwinism rejoices in the survival of the fittest and the sorting out of weaker debtors.
The Economy Sinks in a Deep Crisis of Meaning (tags)
Economists are compared with astrologers and mocked as crystal-ball readers because they are frequently way off the mark with their growth forecasts. Economists have not learned the great lessons. Mainstream economy entrenched itself behind a model world and often faded out reality.
Imploding Bubble Economies (tags)
economy
Is Capitalism Devouring Its Children? (tags)
The state was extorted by the banks. Bailing out the banks was regarded as without alternative..Rating agencies should become public institutions and system-relevant banks dismantled. Growth- and stability funds should be established as the credit-givers of last resort.
Video: Understanding the Financial Crisis (tags)
Distorted incentives drove the failure of risk management. There was an evaporization of trust in 2008. In September, Lehmann Brothers and AIG went bankrupt.
PRESS RELEASE Victimized Homeowners Fight Back (tags)
Years into the housing, foreclosure crisis homeowners continue to struggle and banks have not stopped their abuses against families across America. Listen to what victimized homeowners are doing in fighting the corruption. LISTEN LIVE HERE...http://goharrison.com/live/
Politics in the Crisis Trap (tags)
A discontinuance of debt-financed economic programs leads to an economic slack period resulting in stagnation and recession. Crisis policy finds itself in a philosophical paradox. The political class can only choose between more indebtedness up to state bankruptcy (with hyper-inflation) or harsh austerity programs.
The World is Out of Joint (tags)
The financial crisis has become a state debt crisis. "The rise of democracy was not possible without the social and legal civilizing of capitalism. The deregulation euphoria of democratic governments made possible the incredible ascent of the financial oligarchy."
Activists Discuss Debt Debate, Wonder How We Let Right Control It (tags)
Congressmember Bob Filner, San Diego labor leader Lorena Gonzalez and three other speakers appeared as part of a panel convened by Activist San Diego for their regular meeting August 15. The ostensible purpose was to discuss the recent debate in Washington over raising the nation's debt ceiling, but it soon turned into a discussion of how the Right managed to take over the debate, frame it the way they wanted and get virtually everything they wanted -- including promises of large cuts in government spending that will only worsen the economy and risk not only a double-dip recession but an outright depression. Filner talked not only about President Obama's willingness to concede the domestic agenda to the Republicans but his and the Democrats' Congressional leaders utter unwillingness to end the unaffordable wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
Manifesto of Appalled Economists: The Shocked and the Outraged (tags)
Tax cuts for the super-rich and corporations promised economic growth and more jobs but produced exploding inequality and generalized insecurity. The US faces a revenue crisis and a war spending crisis. Tax cuts, wars and bailouts of banks and firms caused massive US deficit.
PRESS RELEASE/UPDATE: Homeowners Fight Back (tags)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Reclaiming the "American Dream" As the foreclosure and housing crisis continues to take a toll on families across America, homeowners are now sharing their experiences and arming themselves with information and resources to help those who are facing a difficult time in keeping their homes.
PRESS RELEASE: Homeowners Fight Back (tags)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Reclaiming the "American Dream" As the foreclosure and housing crisis continues to take a toll on families across America, homeowners are now sharing their experiences and arming themselves with information and resources to help those who are facing a difficult time in keeping their homes.
From the Debt Showdown into Recession (tags)
The scenario of an economic double-dip is very likely without additional economic measures. The budget cuts may bring about a recession. The republicans in Congress threaten to concoct an economic crisis if they are not allowed to cut spending. Our greatest problem is low spending.
Video: Tax Havens and the Men Who Stole the World (tags)
The financial crisis mutates into a worldwide economic crisis. Corporate fraud, regulatory failure and expansion of the financial sector lead to atrophy of public spirit. Harry Hopkins and FDR created 4 million jobs in 2 months. Work must be redefined and shared.
California Prison Crisis Sparks Statewide Hunger Strike --interview w/ Critical Resistance (tags)
We discuss the recent statewide hunger strike initiated by prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison. The strike is put in context, alongside a statewide grassroots movement calling for cuts in prison spending to address California?s budget crisis, and a recent US Supreme Court ruling that calls for the reduction of California state prisoners by at least 30,000, in response to overcrowding.
The US, the Debt Superpower (tags)
The state bailout of these gigantic real estate institutes, banks and insurances and the enormous economic package to get the crisis-weakened economy on its feet again is one of the essential causes of the present debt crisis. In two decades, $5.5 trillion was spent on a dozen wars.
Debts and a New Beginning (tags)
Problems don't disappear when they are ignored. Through deregulation, the law of profit maximization and government failure, the financial sector was expanded and made independent of the real economy. 14 million jobs could be created through the Internet.
On the Failure of the Mainstream Economy (tags)
The neoliberal mainstream economy and its political backers experienced their Waterloo with the most serious financial and economic crisis in eight decades. States bailed out banks and banks made money by lending back to states. A policy of reduced working hours is necessary.
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.
Global Economic Crisis Deepening (tags)
Depression
Greece must deny to pay an odious debt (tags)
In times of harsh neoliberal austerity and limited national sovereingty, the denial to pay an odious and illegitimate debt is a moral, political and social need. (by Nicolas Mottas/American Chronicle)
Spanish Voters Reject Austerity (tags)
financial terrorism
"Beyond Growth" congress in Berlin, May 20-22. 2011 (tags)
A "Beyond Growth" congress will be held in Berlin, May 20-22. 2011. The driving forces of growth, the limits of growth, the crisis of the work society, an economy beyond growth, justice and the globalized world, sharing and the good life will be discussed.
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.
S & P Downgrade Targets Entitlements (tags)
serfdom
The U.S. is More Greek than Greece (tags)
Deficit economies were organized mainly by finance capital. The expansion of this credit-financed mass demand went along with the expansion of the financial sector. Trillions of dollars and Euros were pumped in the stabilization of financial markets.
Causes and Consequences of the Financial Crisis (tags)
The neoliberal restructuring and globalization of capitalism has led to states becoming the spoils of financial capital. The neoliberal program is enforced with the help of states. Governments only react to the conditions set by the economically powerful. This is the end of politics.
The financial crisis became an economic crisis and mutated into a state budget crisis when trillions were given to "system relevant" banks and private losses became public burdens. What is Plan B?How can the financial sector be shriveled? Can state banks (like NDakota) be a model?
Renewable Energy is a Reality and not a Vision (tags)
Germany gains more energy from solar technology than Japan gains from all its nuclear reactions. Development in this area occurred much faster in the last years than many expected. Ten years ago no one would have believed we would gain 17% of our supply from renewables.
The World Social Forum (Feb 6-11, 2011) (tags)
"Another world is possible," Susan George declared at Porto Alegre. 80,000 activists came to Dakar. The world has changed, not only through the financial crisis that showed the market often causes more problems than it solves. The WSF has become a source of hope for a just world.
Message to Japanese Friends (tags)
The origins of the Fukushima Crisis and the Financial Crisis are similar - a governmental integrity crisis and criminal abuse by large corporate interests at enormous expense to the People.
Stimulus Should Be Looking Pretty Good Right About Now (tags)
With states cutting budgets to the bond, we are seeing how painful the economic crisis is without federal funding to help soften the blow.
The End of the Long 20th Century (tags)
The US no longer has the necessary financial means to maintain its worldwide military machine (which now drives the US deeper in indebtedness to the international financial markets). The failure of the Project for a New American Century shows the US has not succeeded in subjecting the world
The Shift of Power to the East and South (tags)
The shift of political and economic power from West to East and North to South and the rapid development of technological innovations have created a completely new reality..The claim of the US and Europe to being masters of the universe must be ended.
The word crisis describes a turning point where a decision about direction must be made. A dramatic turning point where business as usual is not an option does not correspond to our picture of an ordered world.
Government Shutdown - Budget Crisis (tags)
Blackmail, by anyother name, is still blackmail Legal abdication of duties, Legal right to create own system of governance. Suggested mirror government of current duties. Maintain Private space until official offices are cleared. Use security forces to secure buildings.
One Land, Two Economies (tags)
Economic prosperity and progress for the president are obviously synonymous with robustly higher profits for businessmen and stock speculators. The large majority of Americans must suffer more because the crisis is not over for them.
EAST, OCCIDENT AND BRAZIL (tags)
Brazil needs quickly to build a reasonable nuclear dissuasion power to defend petroleum in his coast.
Business in Crisis: Vulnerable to Attack (tags)
Sectarian leftists love to moan about the power of capitalism. It seems it cannot be upended or even reformed. Activists are hooked on hopelessness. Is it any wonder why activists are caught blindsided by events like Tunisia, Egypt, and Wisconsin? These recent actions are manifestations of resistance against the presumed neoliberal order.
Dollar-Yuan Currency War (tags)
The value of the Yuan is not the cause for the US trade and balance of payments deficits. The reasons are the high state indebtedness (armaments/ wars and tax gifts to the rich) and the indebtedness of private households. The US has a trade deficit with 90 countries.
Manifesto of Appalled Economists (tags)
State debts may be caused more by reduced corporate tax revenues than excess spending. Through "location competition," corporations play off state and countries and harvest tax write-offs and sweetheart-assessments. Through "state capture," the state becomes a trough.
"Globalize the Struggle, Globalize the Hope!" (tags)
No to market-based business deals proposed by the governments of industrialized countries and transnational corporations, the thousands of solutions to the climate crisis are in the hands of the people.
Economists Rediscover the Distrribution Question (tags)
Higher taxes for the rich-traditionally a horror to liberal economists-appear in a new light as state transfers to poorer sectors. Those richer than 95% pocket around 20% of the total income. It was less than half as much at the end of the 70s.
IMF Working Paper: "Inequality, Leverage and Crises" (tags)
"A financial crisis can reduce leverage if it is very large and not accompanied by a real contraction. But restoration of the lower income group's bargaining power is more effective."
Criminological Perspective: Collapse of the US Justice System and the Financial Crisis (tags)
Like the Great Depression before it, the current financial crisis in its essence is a system-wide integrity crisis. Unless integrity of the financial and justice systems in the US is addressed, socio-economic and civil society conditions are unlikely to improve in the foreseeable future.
The Grover Norquist Project at Pacifica Radio (tags)
Whistleblowers as far back as 2005 warned that KPFA's budgets were not sustainable. Why were the warnings repeatedly disregarded?
America after the Attempted Assasination (tags)
For three decades, incomes and assets were increasingly unequally distributed in the US. While economic output increased 60% from 1990-2008, median income only rose 10%. All governments since Reagan's first term drove this development with their tax cuts, subsidies and neglect of educ.
Link to 576-page Final Report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (tags)
Happy reading! The truth will still make some of us free!
Dexia Holding v Countrywide and the Sub-prime Crisis - the Scope of the Fraud May Begin to (tags)
The complaint signals a break of ranks in the tight formation of banks, attorneys, judges, and regulators, and rebellion by northeastern states against fraud epidemic that was spawned in the southwest. "Corruption of the courts and the legal profession" is at the crux of the fraud.
Education crisis in California (tags)
After several years of continuous budget cuts, California’s schools are in dire straits. The state superintendent of public instruction, Tom Torlakson, went so far as to call it a “state of financial emergency.” Newly re-elected Democratic Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed budget, however, includes widespread cuts to higher education and social services in an attempt to close the $25.4 billion deficit. Inequality in California is so staggering that the wealth of the richest Californian, Lawrence Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corporation, estimated at $27 billion, would eliminate the entire state deficit.
Economic Turmoil in 2011 (tags)
economic trouble
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"
Guns. Violence. Tucson. Mexico. China: The tentacles of capitalism (tags)
The capitalist class desperately try to separate the actions of individuals from society. There is no "system". Capitalism is never to blame, only the crazed and murderous actions of flawed individuals.
Lanny Davis: Lobbyist for Despots (tags)
anything for a buck
True and False Causes of the Financial Crisis (tags)
If we can produce enough for all in superfluity-and we are already technically in this position-why must the whole enormous social wealth be squeezed through the needle of buying and selling, money, profit and growth? We all deserve something better than capitalist crisis economy.
Chavez Given Enabling Law Power (tags)
legal in Venezuela
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.."
Economics is not a Science (tags)
"Observations are central in a subject like economics where experiments are not possible.. Mathematics is misused to transport a certain ideology, the neoclassical theory of the market.. Capitalist crisis phenomena have made a fool of the harmony theory of the market.."
BTL:Talks, Not Threats, are Best Way to Reduce Tensions in Korea Crisis (tags)
BETWEEN THE LINES - A four-time winner of the Connecticut Associated Press Broadcast Award for Best Feature in the non-commercial category, this syndicated, half-hour program provides a platform for individuals and spokespersons from progressive organizations generally ignored or marginalized by the mainstream media. Between the Lines covers a wide range of political, economic and social topics.
Haiti's Deepening Cholera Crisis (tags)
an imperial crime
Worldwide Economic Crisis 2.0 or the Collapse of Neoliberal Finance Capitalism (tags)
The present crisis is a consequence of the fact that exploding business profits found inadequate investment opportunities in the productive sector and turned instead to financial speculation. Deregulation created "law-free" spaces" with the abrogation of all political controls.
Who's Behind the Deficit Crisis (tags)
From the U.S. to Europe media and politicians are singing the same tune: "budget deficits must be drastically reduced -- by cutting social programs -- so that global bond investors do not threaten the economy." Not since the "war on terror" was announced has government policy been so shrouded in confusion and unanswered questions. In the same way we are not to ask how U.S. foreign policy has angered millions in the Middle East, we must remain equally silent about questioning the recent history behind the current "deficit crisis.”
Haiti's Cholera Epidemic Sparks Outrage (tags)
anger over mistreatment
The Financial Crisis and the Failure of the Modern Economy (tags)
The US government debt shot up from 2.9% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2008 and 11.9% in 2009. At the summits of Washington, London and Pittsburg, the goat was made the gardener. Ineffective rules were resolved that hardly helped regulate the financial markets.
The IMF Dictates More Than Ever (tags)
"Many developing countries that were independent in food production at the start of the 1980s import food necessary for their populations today. The subsidized agriculture of western countries has flooded the cou9ntries of the South. Haiti imports the rice that it once cultivated.."
Manifesto of French Economists: Why We Are Shocked (tags)
On October 11 three million French workers were on strike against President Sarkozy's authoritarian attacks on social security and pensions. "Despite its obvious debacle, the neoliberal dogma is still regarded as the only correct economic system."
Rich ones they escape from the crisis jumping of the abyss.
In the 1960s, JKGalbraith warned of two worlds: private affluence and public squalor. Now after the neoliberal counter-offensive, more than half of US states struggle with deficits. Without the social contract, we become wolves to each other.
Ex-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker Criticizes the Federal Reserve (tags)
"Altogether the 81-year old Volcker can hardly see anything good in the development of the financial system over the last 25 years."
The Road to World War III - The Global Banking Cartel Has One Card Left to Play (tags)
"The global elite have consistently used a strategy of arming and funding both sides of armed conflicts. While opposing populations kill each other off, they make off with their natural resources. When they confront a government that cannot be bribed or provoked into civil or regional war, they fund brutal death squads, attempt military coups and intimidate them by giving weapons to undemocratic neighboring regimes. If all that doesn’t work, they are declared a threat to national security and the US military, private contractors and NATO forces invade and occupy the country. These terrorist strategies are not limited to the Middle East and Africa, just ask our neighbors throughout Latin America about the School of the Americas. Contrary to popular belief, the horrendous torture techniques inflicted upon people in Abu Ghraib, Iraq were not an isolated incident. Many of those brutal torture techniques were developed over years by torturing innocent civilians throughout Latin America."
The Political Consequences of Stagnation (tags)
My apologies to T. S. Eliot, but September, not April, is the cruelest month. Before 9/11/2001, there was 9/11/1973, when Gen. Pinochet toppled the Allende government in Chile and ushered in a 17-year reign of terror. More recently, on 9/15/2008, Lehman Brothers went bust and torpedoed the global economy, turning what had been a Wall Street crisis into a near-death experience for the global financial system.
GREAT CLUE THAT THE GEORGE BUSH JR ~ KARL ROVE TARP THEFT REALLY WAS WELL PLANNED OUT !!! (tags)
ADD THIS ARTICLE ALSO 2 YOUR BUSH JR ~ KARL ROVE PONZI TARP FILES...little ripped~off American taxpayers !!!
Philippines: Hostage Killings – PLM calls for an independent inquiry (tags)
Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Labouring Masses) commiserates with the families of the eight Chinese nationals killed in the tour bus hijacking in Manila on Monday, August 23. The blunders of the Philippine police and officials in the hijacking crisis, which led to the deaths of the eight tourists, are indefensible from many aspects.
"Capitalism has Failed" (tags)
"The investments of businesses are ridiculously low, as low as after the Second World. The reason for this may be the immense indebtedness of private households. The only thing that blossomed in the US in the last years was Wall Street-that is now killing itself.."
The Banking and Financial Crisis (tags)
"The transition from a long-term to a short-term orientation went along with the exaggerated profit goals. The approach of shareholder value sets maximum profits and dividends in the center of business policy and no longer long-term investments and the interests of employees.."
Capitalists, Global Warming, and the Climate Justice Movement (tags)
(This essay was published in Anarcho-Syndicalist Review, #54, Summer 2010, pages 23-28. For this internet edition I've made a few more changes and additions). An urgent analysis of the climate crisis and call to action.
Financial Crisis as Organized Irresponsibility (tags)
In the years 2002-2006, guaranteeing mortgage credits was the greatest source of profit for investment banks. US policy massively promoted and in no way curbed awarding dubious credits. In 2003 Warren Buffett described derivatives as "financial weapons of mass destruction."
Fear of Crash: Book Review (tags)
In "Crisis without Resistance," Werner Seppmann analyzes the "intimidation offensive of capital." "The attack on the living standards of wage-earners becomes an essential component of capital accumulation." Fear of falling is a reason for defensive conduct of crisis victims.
Crisis as Permanent State (tags)
The Federal Reserve pumped far more than a trillion without stimulating the economy. 250,000 new jobs must be created month after month to reach the 4.7% unemployment rate before the crisis. 125,000 persons stream on the labor market every month.
A Permanent Housing Collapse? (tags)
The recent chaos that erupted when 30,000 people waited hours in the Atlanta, Georgia heat to receive applications for subsidized housing is a mere symptom of a worsening national problem. The housing market appears to be on a never-ending downward spiral, with the much-discussed "recovery" always around the next corner.
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.
Afghanistan troop deployment inclining Tonga to militarisation says NGO (tags)
A Tonga NGO says the decision to send troops to Afghanistan could drive the kingdom down the same path as Fiji.
Restore Financial Sanity (tags)
Restore Financial Sanity and the People's Wealth
US Capitalism in Crisis: An Emperor With No Clothes (tags)
The champions of US capitalism are having to get used to a changing global stage on which they play a diminishing role
Worldwide Economic Crisis: Two Opposite Models as Answers (tags)
In a large part of the population, there is a consensus that capitalism has no answers to the great social challenges of social security, hunger and climate change. An alternative investment program (emphasizing children, culture and climate change) gives a long-term answer.
True and False Causes of the Financial Crisis (tags)
The jubilant singing about free enterprise as the supposedly best of all worlds sounds much quieter than at the beginning of the 1990s. We urgently need alternatives. This is now a matter of survival. As it was taboo to doubt the rule of the church in the Middle Ages, the thought prohibition of questioning the market economy is in effect.
Gaza's Electricity Crisis (tags)
one of many problems under siege
What “Jobless Recovery” Means in Capitalism (tags)
The phrase “jobless recovery” entered the capitalist lexicon in 2002. But since then nobody want to be associated with these phrase. Although a lot of economist tried to use this term as a byword. Still noboy want to own up to this infamous phrase. The term “jobless recovery “ had been associated with the terms of momentary statistical growth and corporate profits on books of accounts and in the stock market rather than in terms of production, employment and improvement of the people's living conditions.
The Financial and Economic Crisis as a Normative Orientation Crisis (tags)
Prof. Ulrich presents three core theses: (1) Economics is not an end-in-itself but the means to the good life and human coexistence. (2) There is no "free" enterprise system free of ethical and political prerequisites. (3) The need for emancipatory economic citizenship rights.
The Global Political Awakening and the New World Order (tags)
"The global debt crisis, which is beginning in Greece, and spreading throughout the euro-zone economies of Spain, Portugal, Ireland and ultimately the entire EU, will further consume the UK, Japan and go all the way to America.[50] This will be a truly global debt crisis. Government measures to address the issue of debt focus on the implementation of ‘fiscal austerity measures’ to reduce the debt burdens and make interest payments on their debts. ‘Fiscal austerity’ is a vague term that in actuality refers to cutting social spending and increasing taxes. The effect this has is that the public sector is devastated, as all assets are privatized, public workers are fired en masse, unemployment becomes rampant, health and education disappear, taxes rise dramatically, and currencies are devalued to make all assets cheaper for international corporations and banks to buy up, while internally causing inflation – dramatically increasing the costs of fuel and food. In short, ‘fiscal austerity’ implies ‘social destruction’ as the social foundations of nations and peoples are pulled out from under them. States then become despotic and oppress the people, who naturally revolt against ‘austerity’: the sterilization of society."
Greece. The IMF, the E.U.'s Dictate and German Responsibility (tags)
The unrelenting pressure to cut fiscal spending imposed by the IMF and the European Union has exacerbated the crisis. By dictating the austerity program, it leaves those people to pay for the crisis who played no part in bringing it about and already shoulder the burden of capitalism's crisis.
Is Obama Powerless Against BP ? (tags)
After BP successfully placed a cap to divert some of the spewing oil into tankers, thousands of gallons continue to flow daily into the gulf. August is slated as the earliest date that any permanent solution may emerge. BP remains totally in charge of potentially the largest environmental disaster in the earth’s recorded history, a fact that proves — in “check mate” fashion — that corporations dominate the inner workings of the U.S. government, a truth previously revealed by the bank bailouts. More than one gigantic eco-system may be destroyed by BP, and the President of the U.S. is sadly reduced to lecturing in “serious tones,” with daily adjustments of tone based on the results of polling agencies.
Free from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (tags)
"The World Crisis and Beyond," 178p, "The Idea of Global Social Rights," 4p and "The Turmoil within the Elite, the Course of the Crisis and the Left," 4p
The Financial Market Must Become a Public Service (tags)
An institutional crisis faces us, not individual failure. Egoism makes one short-sighted; greed makes one blind. Capitalism is not simply a market system. Capitalism is a social order. Therefore it cannot be left to economists to decide which laws of the market should operate.
NO TO ANOTHER WAR IN THE KOREAN PENINSULA, NO TO BRINKMASNHIP. (tags)
As Asian-Americans and speaking in behalf of the progressive Filipino-American community, the Alliance-Philippines (AJLPP) expresses serious concern over the crisis in the Korean Peninsula. The People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (DRPK) or the North Korea ( as the US wants to call it) said Tuesday it was severing all relations with South Korea and cutting communications links in protest at claims that it had sunk one of Seoul's warships.
Overcoming the Dominance of Finance Capital (tags)
Changing power relations means taking up the social and political struggle against finance capital and regaining control over social resources. Reversing the redistribution of income from top to bottom is a prerequisite for containing the money flows in the financial sector.
Growing Homelessness in America (tags)
Washington's indifference to a growing problem
The IMF's mid-life crisis (tags)
The IMF has long been opposed to capital controls and punished countries. Now the IMF is wrestling with this issue. Exchange rate stabilization should be a priority in the context of unraveling economies. The IMF will be meeting in Toronto in June 2010.
BRAZIL IN 2025: DESTRUCTION or DEVELOPMENT (tags)
Brazil commemorates... but the black clouds didn't vanish.
Greece: Blood and tears for the proletariat! (tags)
In order to resist the policy of blood and tears which the bourgeoisie inflicts on it, the proletariat has no other possibility than the resumption of the class struggle, starting with the rejection of anti-worker measures by the government and the calls for “national solidarity”, and for sacrifices “to defend the fatherland and democracy”.
The Rebirth of Economic Thought from the Ashes of the Crisis (tags)
Reagan announced the state was "the problem" for the functioning of the economy. State action could not solve economic problems. The latest reality of economic crisis thoroughly destroyed the neoclassical theses. The crisis showed its ideological limitation and conditionality.
How Recessions Cause Wars and Revolutions (tags)
A quick glance around the globe reveals a ruined international economy, wars and more wars in the works, and revolutionary movements aplenty — all connected phenomena. No, the apocalypse is not coming; but the international economic system currently used to arrange the social order is crumbling, taking everyone down with it. The global capitalist system is in far worse shape than most people realize: it may only take the tiny economy of Greece to go bankrupt to break this camel’s back — and finally the word “recession” will be antiquated and “depression” will be in vogue.
Emergency Brake for Speculators (tags)
The private indebtedness brought about by unscrupulous financial managers mainly in the US was almost completely transferred to state budgets.
Memorandums on Alternative Economic Policy (tags)
The social state, solidarity, sharing and social justice open doors while neoliberal deregulation leads to exploding inequality, generalized insecurity and disappearance of the public spirit.
Greenspan and the Guilt of Others (tags)
Before the committee, Greenspan immediately went on the offensive (cf. Creole trick). The irresponsible loans of banks caused the crisis, not the low interest of the Fed. The Fed failed in regulating the banks because its employees were not neutral.
Governor Candidate Ask: Is Wall Street in the California Governor’s Race? (tags)
Two California governor candidates, Republican Candidate Steve Poizner and PFP Candidate Stewart Alexander are sharing the concerns of millions of Californians; how deep was Meg Whitman’s involvement during the period when she serve on the board of Goldman Sachs. Stewart Alexander says “California is in a deep financial crisis and Californians need to know how much did Goldman Sachs contributed to the state’s financial crisis and what part did Meg Whitman play.”
For a Proletarian and Communist May 1st! (tags)
Workers! The general conditions of life and work have been deteriorating for years, becoming ever more intolerable.
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.
The Global Economic Crisis: Riots, Rebellion and Revolution (tags)
"In the same month, the highest-ranking general in the United States, “Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ranks the financial crisis as a higher priority and greater risk to security than current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” He explained, “It's a global crisis. And as that impacts security issues, or feeds greater instability, I think it will impact on our national security in ways that we quite haven't figured out yet.”[22] Rest assured, they’ve figured it out, but they don’t want to tell you."
There is only one economy (tags)
The stock exchange produces nothing. Speculations and bets do not create any assets, even if the daily stock market reports on television try to get us to believe the opposite. That the financial markets make themselves independent is the result of political decisions.
VIDEO: The crisis of neoliberalism (tags)
Happy Fossil Fools Day! Confusing means and ends, part and whole, personal and public, and real and imaginary are signs of hubris, not enlightenment, Without the social state, we become wolves to one another and mistake corp profits with health!
Analysis of George Friedman's book.
Capitalism and Democracy (tags)
Citizens are protected from incursions of the state and on the other side must accept the sovereignty of the state and the general law as prerequisites of property and security. Whoever has visions should be the physician. A good physician will urge changing one's way of life.
A LEGITIMATE BRUNI FOR SALE (tags)
French politics turned a Mexican family drama.
OSASCO IN TV - CRITIC OF THE JOURNALISTIC REASON (tags)
Meditations on the "drip blood" TV journalism.
Third Party Revolution Endorse Stewart Alexander for California Governor (tags)
Stewart Alexander says the most severe crisis California is facing is a leadership crisis; “After electing an actor for governor in 2003 and 2006, most Californians are reluctant to support the three choices representing the two big money parties. Republican frontrunner Meg Whitman has no political experience and Republican Steve Poizner sounds a lot like Schwarzenegger without the accent. Democrat Jerry Brown has not made his position clear on many of the major issues facing California voters.”
Finance Capitalism Devalues Labor (tags)
Businesses are capital investments in the hands of shareholders. Consequently managers only serve the interests of shareholders.
Caught in the Infinite Loop of a Nightmare (tags)
Since politics has no strategies of its own to re-stabilize the economic system, it hopes in the self-healing powers of the market after the bank bailout... The hosts of decision-makers were simply "falsely programmed" in their education.
March 4 Socialist Program to Defend Education (tags)
On March 4, students and workers throughout California and the US will demonstrate against the attack on public education and increases in tuition that are making a college education unaffordable for the majority of working class youth.
Debt Dynamite Dominoes: The Coming Financial Catastrophe (tags)
-When the crisis is over, the middle classes of the western world will have been liquidated of their economic, political and social status. The global economy will have gone through the greatest consolidation of industry and banking in world history leading to a system in which only a few corporations and banks control the global economy and its resources; governments will have lost that right. The people of the western world will be treated by the financial oligarchs as they have treated the ‘global South’ and in particular, Africa; they will remove our social structures and foundations so that we become entirely subservient to their dominance over the economic and political structures of our society.-
The Neoliberal Agenda is Over and The Despised Social State (tags)
Neoliberalism is the political-economic experiment of individualizing social risks and claiming growth and employment will be higher. This claim is refuted convincingly by the global financial crisis destroying enormous assets and causing growth and employment to crash.
20 Theses against a Green Capitalism (tags)
Is a Green New Deal possible? These theses were published in an English translation in: Prager Fruhling (Prague Spring) in December 2009.
VIDEO: Joseph Stiglitz' "Freefall" on BookTV (tags)
"Incentives matter. Short-sighted behavior on an annual basis involved excessive risk taking. `Too big to fail' is ersatz capitalism socializing losses.
Climate Justice, Not Growth Mania (tags)
"In green capitalism, the bio-crisis is at the center of the growth strategy. The Green New Deal represents a kind of ecological inversion of Kennedy's famous sentence: Ask not what you can do for the environment but what the environment can do for you..."
Trillions down the drain (tags)
The truth will make some of us free. Savvy businessmen with their financial productions and financial innovations brought the world economy to the brink of collapse. Closing tax havens and shadow banking, redistribution from top to bottom and food security would help restore trust.
Greed, the Corrupt System and Shadow Banking (tags)
A sudden change of thought patterns has occurred. For thirty years, the dogmas were in effect: trust in the self-healing powers of the market, the sleek state is the best of all possible states and economic policy will be unnecessary if the central banks fights inflation.
"We are in the Greatrest Financial Bubble of all Time" (tags)
"An old world perishes as a new world arises-pictorially comparable to a caterpillar that dies because the butterfly comes to life. What is called financial crisis is only a superficial symptom.. One of the main causes of the debacle is the Americanized corporate governance." (F.Malik)
"The World Crisis and Beyond" - 177p. pdf file (tags)
Michael Brie and Rick Wolff also contributed at the conference.
"Concepts must be developed against the global demand-deficit. Repairing the financial system is not enough. The economic-political prescriptions of the past - flexible wages and restricted social benefits - would worsen the situation."
A TEACH-IN on the ECONOMIC CRISIS-FORO COMUNITARIO INFORMATIVO SOBRE LA ECONOMIA (tags)
A TEACH-IN on the ECONOMIC CRISIS Find out about the causes of the current economic recession, its impact and its victims
Lessons From America's Lost Decade (tags)
"The fact that the United States has embraced "voodoo economics" for 30 years and refuses to recognize the statistical evidence of Reaganomics' abject failure suggests that the larger lesson of this era –– is that the U.S. political process is dysfunctional."
Crises Have Disproven Mainstream Neo-Classical Economics (tags)
"According to Tax Commissioner Cory Fong: North Dakota has been able to weather the economic crisis.
Mafia, racism and the crisis of democracy in Italy (tags)
“When there is the slightest suspicion of a public figure having contacts with organized crime, we have to make a clean sweep.” Paolo Borsellino
Prerequisites for Overcoming the Financial Crisis (tags)
"In analyzing financial crises, real causes should be differentiated from the side-effects. One of the essential causes for the current crisis is the discrepancy between the linear growth of the real economy and the exponential growth of financial management created by the derivative-economy,"
The Next Crash is Brewing (tags)
The economic way of thinking enforced for a quarter of century is one of the structural factors that helped this "economy of depression" breakthrough. This dominant doctrine denies the role of demand and concentrates on the problems limiting the supply of goods & services
in the eye of the storm (tags)
in the eye of the storm
"False values" and "structural blackmail" (tags)
The creation of speculative bubbles creates false values, which lead to huge bonuses. The financial crisis was triggered by falling housing prices. The crisis was met with government bailoutsx but the "moral hazard" was not countered.
All Cards on the Table: For a Social Ecological New Deal (tags)
The neoliberal and fossilist finance market capitalism has become a discontinued model. With his New Deal, Roosevelt introduced state pensions, unemployment insurance and the minimum wage, reduced working hours and strengthened unions.
Lessons from the Crisis (tags)
Governments are extorted by multinational corporations. Those who made massive profits with bank business must now answer for the losses. The taxpayer may not pay for their crises. If control is not exercised by politics, banks will become absolute rulers with a state guarantee.
The Economic Crisis Ends; the Political Crisis Begins (tags)
First Iceland, then Ireland, now Greece. Much of Europe is mired in inescapable debt and bankrupt nations, the result of crashing banks, bank bailouts, and soaring unemployment. The U.S. and U.K. watch from a distance, knowing their turn is next. The European corporate-elite — like their American counterparts — lavished non-stop praise on the “bold yet necessary” decision to bail out the banks; the economy was supposedly saved from “impending collapse.” But every action has an equal but opposite reaction. Bailing out the banks saved the butts of dozens of European bankers, but now millions of workers are about to experience a thundering kick in the ass.
The system itself is degenerate. The great financial crisis is the trigger for seeking another capitalism. Deregulation becomes an end-in-itself; the state per se is of the devil. The state should be taken seriously as a production factor.
Worldwide 136 cities of millions at the coasts are directly endangered by the rising sea level.. The president cannot win a two-front war against the conservatives.. Over 100 German regions resolved to be completely renewable by 2025.
Filipinos join global action in Copenhagen Vs Climate Change (tags)
As world leaders negotiate on carbon emission limits, Filipino activists join tens of thousands of activists all around the world in mobilizations dubbed “People’s Assembly to Reclaim Power and Avoid Climate Crisis.” “We are in solidarity with the people who fight for climate justice. This big protest action is a testament to the people’s demand for quick and meaningful action by national governments and international institutions like the United Nations,” said Filipino climate activist Clemente Bautista of Philippine Climate Watch Alliance. “But as expected, leaders and government of capitalist countries like the United States, Japan, and European Union are evading responsibility and sabotaging the negotiation,” he said in a statement e-mailed to media outfits.
Protecting Capitalists or the Welfare State (tags)
Banks and hedge brought disaster upon themselves and their customers with their "innovations" and financial products.. Financial management may never be uncoupled from the real economy and lead a life of its own without economic justification or social responsibility.
Call to the Peoples of México to Organize the Revocation of the Presidency of Felipe Calde (tags)
"This crisis brings into question the future of the Mexican Nation and it’s people. In this political scheme by the grand capitalists, domestic and foreign, we lack hope. The Mexican people do not have a place in this world of neoliberal globalization except as pariahs and a disposable labor force. Given these circumstances, we need a patriotic transformation and a democratization of the political system, the economy and the culture that can confront this deep crisis of our country and the problems of the Mexican people. We need a transformation that will push out the bourgeois oligarchy and the political class that governs the state and the imperialist domain of Mexico. There is a need to construct a new majority that includes all of the patriotic forces that will install a new government and a new state. A new majority that is capable of taking back control and the property of the productive forces and strategic resources of the nation, and also able to guarantee sustainable development, social justice, national sovereignty, the autonomy of the indigenous pueblos and the practice of popular democracy."
New Study Shows Ten States Face Fiscal Crisis (tags)
Crises in states worsen
Enough is Enough
Report Back From Inside the Occupation of Campbell Hall, UCLA (tags)
LOS ANGELES – November 21, 2009 – Just after midnight in the early hours of Thursday November 19th a group of about 30 students seized Campbell Hall on the UCLA campus and began their occupation of the building. The building was renamed Carter Higgins Hall in honor of the two black liberation activists who were assassinated by the FBI on the UCLA campus during the sixties. The takeover was in response to the current budget crisis and to quote from the students’ statement; “reaches beyond the Regents, beyond the criminal budget cuts in Sacramento, beyond the economic crisis, to the very foundations of our society”.
UCLA CRISIS FEST: Protest for education (tags)
n November 18th, hundreds of union members and students from all over California will converge on UCLA in the leadup to the system-wide protest of the Regents meeting. With the support of union and student groups, there will be a day and night Tent City outside of Pauley Pavillion to house our convergence!
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.
NDF -EV URGES PEOPLE TO ACT ON UTILITIES CRISIS (tags)
PESANTE NEWS today learned through news sources that NDF-EV or The National Democratic Front-Eastern Visayas today expressed solidarity with the people over the crises in electricity and water in Tacloban and the rest of Leyte and the region. "The people of Tacloban are struggling to get such basic needs as electricity and water," said Fr. Santiago Salas, NDF-EV spokesperson. "But the Petilla and Romualdez political dynasties not only ignore this, they add further to the mess by squabbling over water administration as one of the political spoils at stake in the 2010 election. Meanwhile, the people are fuming at the lack of water and furthermore anticipate a power rate hike on top of that problem. Poor water and electricity services are not unique to Tacloban but widespread in the region because of government neglect."
The High Risk Business of Banks (tags)
The model of financial market capitalism collapsed with the greatest crisis of the financial markets since the worldwide economic crisis at the end of the 20s. The enormous accumulation of financial assets was based on redistribution of incomes continuing for 30 years.
A New Paradigm: The New Deal of the 1930s (tags)
The New Deal that led out of the worldwide economic crisis in the 1930s was based on the combination of a new technical-economic model with a new socio-economic model. Obama's achievement is not turning the necessity of overcoming the crisis against the social principle
The climate- and financial crises have one thing in common. Both are consequences of a gigantic market failure. Nature and the future of humanity are not at the table when market actors negotiate conditions and aim at their advantages.
Building community centers could be a way to learn from O Canada and break from the false religion of the market and profit. When the market and competition are made absolute, they become idols. CEOs are called job creators and workers "cost-factors."
Election in jeopardy! Ballots not sent. See this to get yours--BY TOMORROW!
Chavez’s Lines: ¡¡Viva El Che!! (tags)
"As I write today Saturday, in the early hours of the morning I receive fresh news about the evolution of the crisis: “According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), the economic crisis pushed 61 million people into unemployment in 2009, and the world there are now 241 million unemployed workers, the largest number of unemployed persons in history.” (IAR Noticias) “It is expected that the number of poor people [in the U.S.], will grow to 90 million by 2010, while at least 59 million will join the ranks of the unemployed, as stated by the Central Bank president Robert Zoellick.” (IPS) There's nothing coincidental that Venezuela is one of four countries in the world that advanced four positions in terms of Human Development Index according to the United Nations Human Development Report 2009. And it is no coincidence that, according to the report, we are the country with the best distribution of income across Our America, that is, with the best rate, to use Bolivar’s term, of established and practiced equality."
The "return of the state" as crisis administrator (tags)
The prodigious inflation in the financial markets over the last 30 years was not caused by wilful or incorrect political decisions, but is the expression of a structural crisis of the valorisation of capital, a crisis that began with the end of the post-war Fordist boom.
How Neoliberal Ideology Destabilized the World Balance: Krugman and Galbraith (tags)
"If the depression has not openly erupted, all the features of the 1930s are having a spectacular comeback." (Paul Krugman) To free the US from the claws of private interests, James Galbraith urges the public authority to set social and ecological norms.
Capitalism Criticism 2.0 (tags)
Marx identified the falling rate of profit and the self-destruction of competition as contradictions of capitalism. Wages do not keep up with investments in machinery. Speculation and the explosion of the financial markets were encouraged by deregulation and higher profits.
THE CRISIS IN HONDURAS AND THE BRAZILIAN PRESS (tags)
Brazilian journalists are legitimating the coup d'état in Honduras.
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.
Germany: The Calm Before the Storm (tags)
"The Left must become a catalyst of resistance to the crisis in order to gain strength. Impoverishment does not make anyone enlightened. Despair and anger do not necessarily lead to progressivism. People may be just as likely to give up...."
Beyond Market and State (tags)
In a "post-democracy," the interests of global corporations prevail with the continuing facade of democratic institutions and procedures. Interest in politics in the population is very low. Criticism of neoliberalism brings together many movements and groups.
THE FINANCIAL CRISIS AND THE PAPER OF THE MEDIA (tags)
Tolerance zero with the Americans.
Apoyamos la lucha de obreros de Terrabusi Kraft contra los despidos y la persecución (tags)
¡Ningún despido en Terrabusi!
Last Dance for Capitalism (tags)
Capitalism reaches its inner limit and strangulates itself and the environment. Increasingly effective measures lead to fewer and fewer workers producing ever-greater quantities. The real economy becomes an appendage of speculation bubbles.
Patrick Jost - Solutions for Today's Housing Crisis! (tags)
Patrick Jost has ideas to solve today's housing crisis.
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.."
The Crisis of Capitalism: Credit-Doping (tags)
"The social market economy blows the wealth of this society in speculation rather than in higher wages, higher pensions or unemployment benefits.. All capital transactions with tax havens should be prohibited.. Instead of democratization, we growing centralization in a few hands.."
Capitalism is the Problem: System Error (tags)
The chaos that we now witness is only the latest crisis of the global economic system. The system has not succeeded in keeping profits at the level of the postwar years. What is good for one capitalist is not necessarily good for the system. Triple-digit billions have been pumped into system
World Bankers Agree: The Recession is Over...Maybe (tags)
Few would consider the opinions of the world's central bankers to be unbiased or even accurate. These self-proclaimed wise men of international finance didn't see the recession coming until it blew up in their faces - a blast that destroyed their credibility. Nevertheless, it is interesting to hear them talk, not because they're fun to listen to, but because of "the messaging" that rich investors use religiously in placing their stock market bets, while the rest of us are given a calming sermon, so that the bankers' lackeys - the politicians - may continue ruining the country uncontested.
The Crisis of Speculative Capitalism (tags)
The bubble bursts when debtors cannot pay and a bankruptcy crisis develops at the end.. The illusion of the stock exchange as a roulette with guaranteed permanent profits burst with the New Economy bubble..Only the worldwide regulation of the financial markets can avert their collapse.
In the US, people have lived above their means for years and now must permanently lower their living standard. In America as in Europe, economists expect a tremendous rise in unemployment in the fall. This does not mean people will shop more.
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.
We Fight Capitalism, Not the Crisis of Capitalism (tags)
Capitalism is a social system, not a natural law. Capitalism has proven it cannot end wars, prevent crises or make possible a good life for all people. Instead of solidarity, the capitalist social system teaches us envy and egoism. Now those who privatized the state cry for state bailout packages.
Global Depression and Regional Wars (tags)
economic hard times and wars
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.
Self-Abandonment of the System (tags)
The banks are seemingly on Victory Street and taxpayers face bankruptcy. Bailing out banks by printing money is a dubious recovery. Paulson, Bernanke, Summers and Geithner are the architects of a policy of easy money. The money given to banks does not reach the economy.
Workers can take advantage of a serious crisis too. (tags)
Capitalists aren't the only ones that should be taking advantage of a good crisis. Workers shouldn't let a crisis go to waste either.
Dems and Reps Unite for Cuts (tags)
While billionaires get bailed out and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue THE BUDGET CRISIS IS A LIE! THERE IS MONEY THE RICH ARE STEALING IT.
The Crisis in the Crisis or How Sick is the System (tags)
Crisis is a synonym for experiences of difference. It changes something. Afterwards nothing will be as in the past. Until recently the "manager" and "business" were models for all areas of life. Do private vices always become public virtues?
"The Open Internet is in Danger" (tags)
The IT-branch is part of the solution. The best solution is balance or eco-social equalization. The Finnish constellation produces the greatest prosperity. Higher prosperity arises out of a state of balance, not under Brazilianization conditions.
Attac France on the Stiglitz Report (tags)
If the world really lives through a systemic crisis, solutions must also be sou9ght on this plane. Regrettably the mandate limits the commission to reform the international monetary system. The UN is the only institution with a democratic legitimacy.
Political countervailing power of the G-millions against the economism of the neoliberals can only be formed with a long breath.. The grass grows from below; words fall empty from the top.
DALUYONG: Surging to Confront the Crisis of Our Times (tags)
Filipino American youth, both immigrant and US-born, are agitated and getting ready to tell the rest of the country where they stand and how they are to respond to the current economic crisis affecting their families, their education, their work, and their rights. They are concerned over current immigration policies, race relations, exploitation of women and children, and how these and other issues are linked to the broader global economic crisis and war. They are surging forward to claim what is inherently theirs – the future.
The Return of the State (tags)
The state is welcome again in this plight. The brazenness with which those who caused the crisis now demand state subsidies to bailout the financial system is just as breathtaking as the state readiness to fulfill this demand.
A 25-Hour Week Would Be Enough (tags)
Prestigious businesses urge their workers to work less. In principle, rising productivity is full of blessings. It made possible reducing working hours since the Second World War. In crisis, the music stops playing. This crisis could be a chance to reform our working hoiurs model.
Daluyong: National Filipino American Youth Consultation (tags)
Daluyong: Surging to Confront the Crisis of Our Times is a national Filipino American Youth Consultation that will bring together progressive youth from California, New York, and Chicago to assess, share, and plan the necessary steps to advocate for our community’s concerns and to build a broad movement and program towards fundamental change.
FDC to G8-funded World Bank: Cancel all illegitimate debts (tags)
MANILA, Philippines. Members of the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) staged a protest action in front of the World Bank office here today to demand the total and unconditional cancellation of all debts it is claiming from the Philippines and developing nations. The protest action coincided with the opening of the Group of Eight Nations’ (G8) 35th Summit in Italy which sets among its agenda the development of a comprehensive response to the global economic crisis.
The Crisis and the Left: Democratizing instead of Privatizing (tags)
"Neoliberalism has no future..Since time immemorial, (neo-) liberals have wanted as little democracy as possible as an unavoidable evil that should not get in the way of the real kingdom of freedom, the capitalist market economy.."
"The logic of the stock corporation leads to all profits ultimately being used to raise the stock price which promotes speculation." The only way to solve mass unemployment, destruction of the environment and trade imbalance is to break out of the system and pursue qualitative growth."
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..
"We are moving into a world-historical situation where all the points of social, economic and political life will be reset..A revolutionary process is only possible when a radical reform gets going.. A radical redistribution from top to bottom must be fought for.."
"The basic trust in capital still exists. Modern capitalism has gained a firm place in our subconscious. The debacle of the global financial markets should have led to a rethinking long ago. But the culprits will probably get off lightly because the capitalist system is held as divinely ordained."
Decommissioning a Superpower (tags)
"From July to September 2008, China reduced its investment in the US real estate banks Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The US tgovt needs $1.5 billion in foreign credits day after day..The greatest debtor of the world cannot force the law of trade on its creditors any more.."
New UC Chancellors hired for $400,000+ during Budget Crisis (tags)
Susan Desmond-Hellman was named the new chancellor of UC San Francisco with a salary of $450,000, a nearly 12 percent increase over her predecessor. Earlier this month, she informed students and staff that the budget crisis in the state would force sharp cuts in university programs and services.
2015-The Year of the Final Crisis (tags)
"We are victims of an ideology of perpetual economic growth. This growth mania now collides with reality. Ideologies usually seem very normal. For a long time people believed they cou9ld pay ransom for their sins with litters of indulgence.."
PGMA CONSOLIDATES US FORCES, MEET AND GREET FIL-AM COMMUNITY (tags)
With the Kapampangan music sung by the choir, amidst heavy security and with a intimate mostly Kapampangan crowd, Philippine President Gloria-Macapagal Arroyo met and greets the Filipino American community in Los Angeles in a breakfast meeting at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel last June 21. The President paid tribute to the Filipino American overseas workers PGMA also mentioned the fact that “ more than two-thirds (2/3) of all overseas remittances to the Philippines comes from the more than3 million Filipinos in the United States.” She also acknowledges that these remittances keeps the Philippine economy floating.
VIDEO: Schwarzenegger's Shock Therapy - Poor Pay For Sins Of The Rich (tags)
Now that Washington has ruled out an immediate bailout for California, we know who will pay the ultimate price for the crisis born on Wall Street: the state's most vulnerable citizens. And with many states facing similar crises, this could be a preview of where the country as a whole is headed.
With pro-market leaders, the road ahead will be difficult for working people. (tags)
It is the responsibility of all activists to learn from the past and help our movement change course.
Are Mexican Workers ‘stealing our jobs’? (tags)
The Crisis in the Mexican Auto Sector
Ecological Justice Instead of Growth Economy for the Rich (tags)
"Now the market, the god of neoliberals, cannot help any more and speculators cry for the already instrumentalized state.. Studying pre-capitalist approaches is vital to develop a post-capitalist vision. The vision of the Bible is an economy of enough for all, an economy for life."
Economic Crisis and the Crisis of Neoliberal Ideology (tags)
The crisis has his origins in the "real" economy. Inequality is the ideological motor of neoliberfalism. German president Kohler described the financial markets as a monster. The metaphor has changed from market as rational subject to monster.
Austria: Crash Instead of Cash (tags)
In 1978 the Bretton Woods system broke down since the US abandoned the key function of the US dollar to print money to finance the Vietnam War.. The liberalization of the financial markets started a mechanism in which the worldwide population loses.
Italy - Document of summit protest against G8 economy in Lecce, June 12-13 2009 (tags)
In 2001 G8 met in Genova. They were violent days of the suspension of civil rights that still weigh on the collective consciousness, along with the memory and sorrow for the death of Carlo Giuliani. They were also days in which the "greatest men of the earth" developed the new creed of liberal globalization as it was a new universal religion.
Italia - Manifiesto para la contra-cumbre del G8 sobre la economía Lecce 12-13 Junio 2009 (tags)
En el 2001 el G8 se reunió en Génova. Fueron días de violenta suspensión de los derechos civiles que todavían pesan en la conciencia colectiva, junto al recuerdo y al dolor por la muerte de Carlo Giuliani. Fueron también días en los cuales los “grandes de la tierra” deshuesaron el nuevo credo de la globalización liberista como si fuese una religión universal.
Bailout Jobs, Not Banks! (tags)
The real state of German public finance is kept secret from the public although the public should pay the bill. Union leaders parrot the fairy-tale of the evil bankers who alone caused the whole debacle. Automakers produce for the storage yard
Manipulation - How Markets Really Work (tags)
Insiders move markets up or down for profit.
the Deeper Origins of the Economic Crisis (tags)
For all the horror the global economic crisis has caused for so many people, one progressive consequence has emerged: many of these people are becoming politically conscious — searching for information to better understand their political and economic system. They want to know how things got the way they did and what can be done about it. Unfortunately, much of the resulting analysis has focused too little on actual causes, and too much on abstract financial details and other consequences of deeper economic problems. Therefore, the typical explanation of the economic crisis goes as follows: depression-era financial regulations were tossed aside, and banks were allowed to merge into new institutions that then invented ways to transform debts into assets, which were gambled away on the stock exchange to the tunes of trillions of dollars. All of which is true. What’s missing, however, is why.
The Market Must Serve Society (tags)
In the past, the village green and market swuare were surrounded by the church, town hall, school and hospital. Without these social institutions, there would be no market. This is also true for today's global financial markets.
We persuaded ourselves permanent economic growth was the answer to all questions. We should now engage in a growth debate about the nature of this growth, not whether we should renounce on economic growth. Increased GDP can mean destruction of foundations in long-term
Socialist Stewart Alexander: Washington and Capitalism in Shambles (tags)
Since President Barack Obama took office in January, the U.S. economy has gone from bad to worst. Nationwide, home foreclosures continue to climb, consumer spending is down due to the credit crisis, more than 6 million Americans remain unemployed, and while paychecks are shrinking, inflation and gas prices are on the increase. The U.S. economy and capitalism is in a total mess.
Yet another blatant betrayal by heads of organized Labor in San Francisco (tags)
SEIU 1021 members voted down a concessionary contract because they were "confused". The higher up the Union ladder you go the more contemptuous of workers you become.
The End of Neoliberalism and the Crisis of Capitalism (tags)
"Guaranteeing the social infrastructure and social security for everyone should be central instead of guarantees for banks and corporations and socialization and democratization of the economy instead of nationalization!"
Zhibin Gu: China's deadly troubles vs global financial crisis: challenges, conflicts, war (tags)
Is global financial crisis leading to new world wars? Which nation is to emerge as the next global leader, China, India, US, or Europe? How to walk out current traps of employment, shrinking business, and leadership crisis? Should entrepreneurship lead politics and competition?
Attac Catalogue for Democratizing the Financial Markets (tags)
The financial industry contributed over $5 billion in the last year in campaign gifts and lobbying to ensure that Wall Street oligarchs have their way in the media and congress. Attac is a global justice network committed to shriveling the financial markets.
Reviewing Ellen Brown's "Web of Debt:" Part IV (tags)
Federal Reserve plunder Part IV
Zhibin Gu: China vs global financial crisis: trends, challenges, wars (tags)
Is global financial crisis leading to new world wars ahead? Which nation is to emerge as the next global leader, China, India, US, or Europe? How to walk out current traps of employment, shrinking business, and leadership crisis? Should entrepreneurship lead politics and competition?
Raising the banners of socialism in the United States (tags)
The members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and our friends would promote socialism whether or not there was a worldwide capitalist economic crisis. But if there was any time to revive the socialist movement and build a multinational working-class party of revolutionaries, we believe that the time is now. We realize that we are not raising the banners of socialism and calling for revolution in the United States in a vacuum.
For the Resumtion of the Class Struggle! (tags)
The economic crisis which has crashed down on society has already had and for a long time will have disastrous consequences for the lives of the masses, as every worker can see in his daily life or her work. The bourgeois economists themselves admit it: they do not know what the causes of the crisis are – satisfying themselves by blaming the greed of the bankers or excessive financial deregulation – and they do not know when it will end and give way to the long-awaited “economic recovery”. The current crisis is the crisis of the capitalist mode of production, incapable of stopping itself, forced to produce always more commodities, at a certain point it comes up against the limits of the market.
The End of Finance Market Capitalism: Renaissance of Socialism? (tags)
The crisis offers an historical chance to civilize an unbridled capitalism with reform policy. The future relation of market and state is the focus of attention.. Financial markets are characterized by herd behavior. Risk consciousness disappears.
An Alternative Explanation for the "Health Emergency" in Mexico (tags)
Viruses make great excuses.
It is not a conjunctural crisis (tags)
"instinct is the hereditary knowledge of a specific program of life"
The Vacuum of World Trade Breaks Down (tags)
The unbridled free market was an illusion that gave free rein to greed and speculation and the dominance of the financial markets. Shareholder value made the profits of shareholders absolute and set short-term gain over long-term necessity.
The crisis calls for system alternatives and redistribution from top to bottom. Will the financial crisis encourage the transition to a new social order? A certain mix of good functioning markets and a strong welfare state leads to the best results.
"Low-Wage Capitalism" Author Speaks in San Diego (tags)
Fred Goldstein, contributing editor of the Workers' World newspaper and author of the new book "Low-Wage Capitalism," spoke at the Malcolm X Library April 18 and described the current economic collapse as a classic "crisis of overproduction" in the Marxist sense. Though Wall Street greed and the bursting of the housing bubble played a part, he said, the real cause was the capitalist class's success in driving working people's wages down, not only in the U.S. but worldwide, to the point where workers can no longer afford to consume the products they produce. He called for a mass progressive movement to make explicit economic demands, especially jobs.
The Foxes Guard the Henhouse (tags)
The banks must be forced to give credits to small and medium-size businesses. The general strike in France on January 29 was a sign of hope. Shriveling the financial markets must be the goal. Free trade is the wrong medicine.
With Our Opponent On The Ropes, It’s Time To Go On the Offensive (tags)
The pages of the capitalist press reveal the level of concern they have over the survival of their system
Lessons from 1929: Christina Romer (tags)
Roosevelt's debt-financed spending packages were historically unique since balanced state budgets were the norm..Roosevelt's New Deal led to an increase of nine to thirteen percent in the real GDP between 1934 and 1938. Charlie Rose's interview with Ms Romer is life-giving.
Putting Finance Capitalism "Back in Its Box" (tags)
Their scheme is permanent debt bondage
The IMF and Romania: A Road Less Travelled (tags)
IMF policies have left shattered economies.
The Anti-Tax Protests: Not Just for the Right Wing (tags)
On tax day, April 15th, "Anti-tax" protests were held all over the nation, with some success. Thousands of people showed up in certain cities to vent their frustration with what was supposed to be a protest against taxation in general. The outcome was quite different. If one looked at the signs that were carried by the majority of the participants, messages were being sent that were impossible to disagree with: tax money should not be given to banks and corporations. Of course. Ordinary people should not have their taxes raised through higher sales taxes, and additional taxes on alcohol, cigarettes, property, or gas. Right on.
Disarm the Markets! New Attac Basis Text (tags)
The therapy depends on the diagnosis. Mechanisms, instruments and actors can be identified whose action and teamwork led to the crash. The age of a unipolar world was very short. An historical chance is opening against finance capitalism.
Fighting Foreclosure in South Africa: An Open Letter to US Activists (tags)
As the worldwide economic meltdown continues, it's becoming clear that the fight against foreclosures is not simply an American issue. As US activists come to terms with the human consequences of the crisis, there is much to be learned from activists elsewhere. This is a letter of support and solidarity from a group of South African activists with considerable experience fighting evictions.
The Culture of Mistrust (tags)
"Total mistrust prevails on the financial market. How can the state restore trust when trust in the state was decried for years? When all public affairs are changed into private affairs, citizens only see themselves as private citizens and the state becomes a business.."
Venezuela: The People’s Struggle is the Best Response to the Crisis! (tags)
* Soon El Libertario #56 will be available in the street and on the Internet (www.nodo50.org/ellibertario). El Libertario is the voice of free ideas and independent social movements in Venezuela and Latin America. As a preview of its usual combative, irreverent and uncompromising position with regard to authoritarian power and oppression, here's the editorial:
¿Quién ha matado a Ian Tomlinson? Carta de Principito a Keynes (tags)
Señor; me pregunto quien ha matado a Ian Tomlinson y para qué sirve esta víctima mortal de la última reunión del G20. Hoy se ha divulgado el video que ofrece imágenes de una muerte provocada por el disfuncionamiento de los servicios del orden. . La imagen de usted y de su proyecto, escenificados en el segundo artículo de la portada de la edición del 31 de marzo del Boletín del Banco Mundial, me. ha sorprendido y brindado una perspectiva para los planteamientos expuestos al principio de este párrafo. . En efecto, el mencionado artículo presenta, en la introducción, un poema épico sobre su persona y en el desarrollo, un planteamiento de la idoneidad de su proyecto para confrontar la crisis que nos aqueja. Mi extrañeza no provenía de las proclamaciones de keynesianismo en los discursos del "orden”, sino de la oportunidad de mostrar las degradaciones y violaciones que ha sufrido su proyecto, en un momento en que las consecuencias de estas profanaciones son manifiestas en la actualidad. El sacrificio de que usted es victima tiene más consenso que el sacrificio de Ian Tomlinson, aunque aquél no revela perspectivas importantes de este.
The Crisis of Finance Market Capitalism as a Challenge for the Left (tags)
"The problems we face today cannot be solved with the minds that created them" (Albert Einstein).
RALLY HITS BANK BAILOUTS From Wall Street to Los Angeles Demonstra (tags)
From Wall Street to Los Angeles Demonstrations Connect Bailouts to Joblessness and Housing Crisis
Bail Out People, Not Banks: Protesters Picket Bank of America Downtown Corporate Building (tags)
LOS ANGELES, April 3, 2009 – Demonstrators staged a protest outside Bank of America’s downtown office building on Friday calling for an end to bank bailouts and foreclosures and evictions.
This struggle demands more than setting up wind turbines, buying more economical cars and rehabilitating houses. An historically unique pact is necessary between North and South, between industrial countries and threshold and developing countries.
You don’t want to pay for the crisis of capital? Then just don’t do it. (tags)
A critique of the calls for demonstrations against the G20 in Berlin, Frankfurt and London under the slogan “We won't pay for your crisis! – For a solidarity society”
Tremors on the Global Market (tags)
The causes of the current crisis in the international financial markets, which is threatening to develop into a genuine global market crisis, have been attributed by almost all commentators and economic experts to the uninhibited freedom granted speculation.
Venezuela: ¡Ante la crisis, lucha de l@s de abajo! (tags)
* Dentro de poco estará en la calle y en Internetel # 56 de El Libertario, vocero de ideas libres y movimientos sociales autónomos en Venezuela y Latinoamérica. Como un anticipo de su habitual contenido combativo, irreverente y sin concesiones frente al poder autoritario y la opresión, aquí va el Editorial:
Global Day of Action: We Will Not Pay for Your Crisis March 28 Berlin (tags)
Dominance of the profit logic and economization of all areas of life must be ended. Capitalism cannot solve global problems like poverty, insecurity, climate change, destruction of the environment, wars and dismantling democracy-it causes them!
Arsonists as the Fire Brigade (tags)
Supported by ideologically-blinded deregulators, the "masters of the universe" dominant in Wall Street and the City of London could bend the rules of the game on the global financial markets. Their shadow banking system existed above politics and regulators.
Fallen Stars: On the Greed of Bankers and a New Morality (tags)
The economic ethicist Ulrich Thielemann explains how greed, false theories and the herd instinct caused the massive financial crisis. They had the theory when we make profits that is ultimately good for everyone.
The Casino is Closed: Reasons for the Crash (tags)
Ulrich Schafer discusses the greed for fast money, a world without rules and why the market alone cannot regulate everything. The crisis has a pre-history. The state simply abandoned control over many economic areas. The financial world in particular was left to itself.
YouTube-Susan George on the Crisis (tags)
Susan George, author of 14 books including "The Debt Boomerang," is honorary president of Attac (France). In this address from Nov 3, 2008, she shows how the financial crisis can be used to tackle other crises.
Updating the Militarization and Annexation of North America (tags)
The North American Union is still viable.
Obama's Mistake in Reasoning (tags)
The accumulation of capital in fewer and fewer hands first made possible the worldwide economic crisis. For Obama's economic policy to be successful, he must reverse the assets disparity and force the 10% with two-thirds of the assets to solidarity through higher taxes.
PHILIPPINES: Thousands of Women Marched to Demand Full Employment (tags)
Amidst a deepening economic crisis engendered by the global financial meltdown, thousands of women workers belonging to the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) poured out into the streets of key Manila, Cebu, Davao, General Santos and Cotabato, on the occasion of the International Women’s Day to demand full employment and equality between women and men.
Financial Markets: Is No One Responsible? (tags)
Enlightenment is part of overcoming crisis, not only money packages. Ten officials in every boardroom is not the solution. Rather the problem is the incredible transformation of the modern bank into a service enterprise with an adjacent casino.
Stiglitz Calls for Global Solutions to Crisis (tags)
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that the only way to fix the world's economic crisis is to act globally. Speaking at the Development Policy Forum in Berlin on Monday he said the reform of the world's financial institutions wasn't going fast enough.
Faith in the Invisible Hand of the Market is Over (tags)
The people will not be so easily convinced of liberalization, deregulation and privatization. On the contrary, people will have a clearer consciousness of the primacy of politics. The false incentive systems in the businesses must be removed.
Alexander: Socialists Say Nationalize All U.S. Banks (tags)
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan thinks it’s necessary to temporarily nationalize some banks. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in recent statements has indicated that the nationalization of some banks may be necessary under certain conditions, and many economic analysts believe nationalization is only a matter of time; however, socialists nationwide say nationalization of all U.S. banks is now necessary to achieve a national economic recovery.
Putin and China: US Responsible in the Economic Crisis (tags)
Investment banks, the pride of Wall Street, have practically ceased to exist, Putin added. In only twelve months, their losses exceeded the profits of the past 25 years. Wen said the blind pursuit of profit led to the worst crisis since the Great Depression of 1929.
Systemic Failure: Capitalism "Lays an Egg" (tags)
deepening economic crisis
GERMANY: Oscar Lafontaine on the Financial Markets (tags)
"The present crisis cannot be overcome without a regulation of the financial markets.. When banks are given billions through the so-called bank bailout and these billions disappear somewhere, that is a misappropriation or embezzlement of tax funds.."
23 Theses on the Capitalist Crisis (tags)
Since the middle of the 1990s, the real economy only grew on account of the expansion of credit. After the dot.com crisis, the floodgates were opened. In the next four years, the Fed brought more dollars in circulation than in the whole 200-year US history.
Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Economic Crisis (tags)
economic conditions worsening
As the revered godlike head of the Federal Reserve, Greenspan pursued a policy of cheap money. Whenever the financial markets began to correct their own madness, he opened the floodgates for more money..The world stares so intensely at growth that it forgets distribution.
Robert Jensen Challenges Patriotism, Industrialism (tags)
University of Texas journalism professor Robert Jensen spoke in San Diego February 21. His talk was billed as a challenge to the idea of patriotism, but he also said flatly that the industrial mode of production and the way of life it has allowed are no longer sustainable and the world's population will have to live in small, self-sufficient local communities. His speech also attacked "the coarsening of the culture" represented by the easy availability of pornography.
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.
A very important letter I received. A very important list I send. (tags)
So, dear President Lula, I ask you to breathe in the example of President Barack Obama and to give us vigorous measures against the crisis that unemployes thousands of people also here.
Attac Sweden: The time has come: Let's shut down the financial casino (tags)
Attac's statement on the financial crisis and democratic alternatives. A historic window of opportunity is opening. It will depend on pressure from public opinion whether a real change of course is achieved.
Capitalists Attempting to Redefine Socialism (tags)
Since Congress passed the first $168 billion government stimulus, the “S” word has become a favorite term for the corporate media in referring to socialism. It would be more appropriate to use the “S” word to refer to “stimulus” because it is evident that the capitalists are moving no closer to a transition to socialism; however, as the U.S. economic crisis continues to expand and the failure of capitalism become more apparent to the world, the wealthy ruling elite are now sustaining capitalism with one stimulus after another.
CRISIS RAISES RISK OF SOCIAL UNREST IN ASIA (tags)
The global economic crisis heightens the potential for social unrest in Asia, where millions of people suddenly out of work will demand governments take swift and decisive action, analysts said.In the Philippines, of the country’s 36 million labor force, an estimated 40,000 to 200,000 workers are expected to lose their jobs this year, the National Economic and Development Authority said.
China's iron curtain: corruption, global financial crisis, banking, jobs, politics (tags)
How is global financial crisis aiding China Is corruption to bankrupt China soon? What is really inside Chinese business, government, banking, and finance world? Is global financial crisis accelerating the ongoing corruption and labor cisis? Get lastest analysis and knowledge by leading experts.
Obama's "War on Terror" (tags)
continuity, not change is assured
Time for a Bad Ideas Bank (tags)
The global economic disaster plunges economics into a legitimation crisis-not yet noticed by the vast majority of the affected. The current financial crisis involves dogmas that markets function best and correct their own mistakes.
Missing Links: An Intellectual Bailout (tags)
The financial crisis has killed the claim that economics deserves to be treated as a science. The measure of a science is its capacity to explain, predict, and prescribe. And most economists not only failed to anticipate the nature and evolution of the catastrophe, but their conflicting recommendations exposed the unreliability of their knowledge.
Philippines: Don’t revive the “Monster of Morong, Bataan” (tags)
Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) to Philippine Congress: Don't revive Bataan Nuclear Power Plant
Will Obama Start the Next Trade War? (tags)
While campaigning to be president, Obama gave the general impression that he would act “cooperatively” to solve international problems, moving away from the Bush strategy of irresponsible “unilateralism.” But Obama took an aggressive stance towards China even on the campaign trail, including the accusations of “currency manipulation,” “violating intellectual property rights,” and “devaluing their goods.” Of course, the average American cares nothing about these types of crimes, nor should they.
Portland's Town Hall Meeting on the Economic Crisis (tags)
On January 31st, Portland Oregon held an important — perhaps historic — mass meeting in response to the economic crisis. Dozens of unions and other progressive organizations were able to attract over 800 people to hear an analysis of the crisis itself, proposed solutions, and a variety of workshops which included everything from labor rights, trade and immigration, and a "green economy." It is believed that this was the first such event in the country.
Competing Ideologies: Davos v. Belem (tags)
alternate ideological views
No One Can Escape the Crisis (tags)
From a long-term perspective, the crisis could bring about a radical rethinking in politics and the economy away from the mantra of shareholder value and the pursuit of short-term profits. The neoliberal model of the Washington consensus has revealed its fundamental weaknesses.
Recession Raises the Question of Meaning (tags)
The facade of a sound world suddenly crumbles. Are the funds available to the productive economy or are they sinking in the swamp of a degenerate global financial- and economic system? An economy that prioritizes human needs and nature is primarily regional.
An Umbrella for Workers (tags)
The economic crisis is a structural crisis where productivity has soured and wages have stagnated. The fraud in public regional banks must end. Unemployment benefits must increase. Michael Schlecht is a union spokesperson for the German Left party (Die Linke).
The Blood of the Black Sheep (tags)
Crisis and Catharsis. Capitalism begins its great self-purging to remain what it is. The Wall Street boys and girls have not forgotten how to make money amid crisis. The speculation bubbles burst. The fictional wealth dissolves in thin air thanks to falling home prices and stock prices.
The state wants to save the banks - why?
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 Future Role of the State: Guaranteeing Rights (tags)
"The modern state as a constitutional state and participative democracy has a universal social security function and overall responsibility for the development of the economy according to basic rights."
The Structural Crisis of the Financial System (tags)
"Introduction of taxation on speculative financial transactions must go along with a genuine nationalization that involves a change of the actual banking system into a public system and fixes the role of money as a neutral means of exchange for services."
From the Churches for Middle East Peace (tags)
A request from the churches for Peace in the Middle East
The Genesis of the Financial Crisis: Greed and Repression (tags)
The self-healing market, the market that corrects itself, is at the heart of the perfect economic story. The financial crisis (now banking, real estate, jobs and credit crises) has forced the reconsideration of the role of the state. Psychology helps unmask religion of the market.
A Trillion Dollar Recovery (tags)
This article by the editor of The Nation was published 12/31/2008.
Mass Mobilization In Los Angeles On Obamas Inauguration Day! (tags)
This is a Call out for all those out there fed up with the U.S. government. Their Abuse of the Economic Crisis among the American People and the Global Community. For the Continuous Murders commited by the LAPD and Surrounding Police Authorities and the Constant Racial Profiling and Discrimination done by the Police. This is For the U.S. Involvement in Israel and the Gaza Massacre which has claimed over 300 lives. Mass Mobilization In Los Angeles On Obama's Inauguration 200 N Spring St, Los Angeles-Also Known As Los Angeles City Hall. This is a Call out for all those out there fed up with the U.S. government. Their Abuse of the Economic Crisis among the American People and the Global Community. For the Continuous Murders committed by the LAPD and Surrounding Police Authorities and the Constant Racial Profiling and Discrimination done by the Police. This is For the U.S. Involvement in Israel and the Gaza Massacre which has claimed over 300 lives. So! A Call out to all, passionate, hopeless romantics, to all families who struggle, to all races, ethinicities, genders, Homosexuals Bisexuals, Transgendered, to all anarchists and marxists, democrats and republicans, to all those who are unhappy with the current state of the world. Lets Make Obama, the United States, and the Rest of the world Know that We Arent going to Stand for the Oppression the U.S. Government, Police,and Other Governing Bodies Commit.
To discuss economics and the Gaza Strip, the International Crisis WS continues. (tags)
Television and Radio Network Paraná Educativa will promote discussions on economy and war in the Gaza Strip, continuing, this way, The International Crisis WS.
On the Financial Crisis in the 20:80 Society (tags)
The question is how we deal with the 20:80 society, not whether the 20:80 society is coming because the development is irreversible. In the long-term, work will disappear.. Jobless growth has become the normal condition.The end of work can be a great leap for humanity.
"A new system of independence and self-economization replaces the old. The system of the click-economy breaks into the journalistic world." The world has changed politically and technologically. The print media is only a caricature of journalism.
Mass Mobilization In Los Angeles On Obamas Inauguration Day! (tags)
This is a Call out for all those out there fed up with the U.S. government. Their Abuse of the Economic Crisis among the American People and the Global Community. For the Continuous Murders commited by the LAPD and Surrounding Police Authorities and the Constant Racial Profiling and Discrimination done by the Police. This is For the U.S. Involvement in Israel and the Gaza Massacre which has claimed over 300 lives.
Venezuela: No concentration of power is ever revolutionary (tags)
*As Chavez attempts to allow indefinite presidential reelections for himself by way of the approval of the Referendum for Constitutional amendment, anarchists publish this declaration, which is also the Editorial of El Libertario #55, January-February 2009 (now on line, in Spanish www.nodo50.org/ellibertario).
From Real Estate Speculation to Collapse of Global Deficit Economy (tags)
Joy to the world, the world of fallen idols and bubble transfer. The truth will set us free but the truth is a process, not a cudgel or stimulus. After the dot-com bubble, trillions were "invested" in real estate speculation. The crisis of the work society is the background for low interests.
World and US Situation, 2008 (tags)
For more than two years, we revolutionaries had observed the impending total unravelling and complete discredit of the "free market" pretense of monopoly capitalism and the full bankruptcy of the policy of "neoliberal globalization." But the leaders of the US and other imperialist countries and the puppet states were always lying and boasting about the so-called strong fundamentals of their economies. Only recently have they been compelled by the circumstances to admit that the US and global capitalist system are beset by the worst economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Venezuela: Ninguna concentración de poder es revolucionaria (tags)
* Ante la tentativa de Chávez de permitirse para sí la reelección presidencial indefinida, vía la aprobación por Referéndum de una enmienda constitucional, l@s anarquistas hacemos pública esta declaración, que también es el Editorial de El Libertario, # 55, enero-febrero 2009.
Unless things change fast, human history will show that the phenomenon of “retirement” was limited to one generation. After World War II, when European and Japanese economies stood in tatters, American capitalism could fulfill “the American dream,” since there was little foreign competition to speak of. For the first time ever, workers were promised that — after working thirty or so years — they would be able to securely retire. That was largely the case…for one generation.
Global credit crisis: support the London declaration (tags)
The recent international conference on Responsible Credit in London has made a declaration calling on governments and banks to take action to protect vulnerable people during the economic crisis.
Argentinian band May Suyai anticipated World Finantial Crisis in a song in 2004. (tags)
Singer of May Suyai, the Argentinian Jorge Daher, mentioned the current finantial crisis in a song called. "Watch your forehead, hide your hand". When asked about this song and his statement about world´s situation, Daher said that this song is the prelude of events to happen as a consequence to this global chrisis, he also said that when appropriate moment comes, he will explain the lyrics to this song. Daher, who is also a writer, had finished his book "Mijlov y un lejano paraje". When asked about his poor english pronountiation and why he sings in English, he just said. "Message is what it takes, messenger someday will passaway". It seems to be a new master is on his way At the moment, I just can say that Daher, had foreseen this crisis in a time, that Capitalism globalization, and occident cultures were enjoying the day to day growing, and noone could think that currents fact were likely to happen. Carolina Suarez free lance Jornalist Further information May Suyai - home page: http://www.kiara-cd.com.ar song: Watch your forehead hide your hand Argentinian band May Suyai anticipated World Finantial Crisis in a song in 2004.
The International Crisis WS almost Final Report (tags)
The solemnity of closure had the presence of governors of Parana, Roberto Requião, of Sao Paulo, Jose Serra, of Santa Catarina, Luiz Henrique da Silveira, and Senator Alvaro Dias, in addition to the speakers as teachers and economists as Carlos Lessa and Darc Costa.
Day 7 of the revolt in Greece (tags)
The Greek Intifada continues and the government is unable to impose its control in the country, spreading fears among the ruling classes all over the European Union.
Estados Unidos: de la derrota en Irak a la crisis capitalista mundial (tags)
La derrota del candidato de Bush en las elecciones norteamericanas y el triunfo de Obama, el primer presidente negro, marcan algo mucho más profundo que un mero recambio electoral. La caída de Bush es la caída del proyecto político, económico y militar imperialista de “nuevo orden mundial”, derrotado por una rebelión mundial de trabajadores y pueblos oprimidos. El crack económico es una de sus directas consecuencias.
May the Anger of the Unemployed and Students be Tranformed into Combativeness for the Resumption of the Class Struggle of the Proletariat !
Memorandum 2008 Summary-Crisis Underrated (tags)
Without increasing internal demand, the upswing based on replacement investments and exports cannot continue. Without reduced working hours, adequate jobs will not be created in a world of reduced work volumes, rationalization and information technology.
The crisis hits the auto industry (tags)
A didactic drama about jobs
III-the International Crisis WS Report (tags)
The Master in Economics and official of the Ecuadorian Central Bank, March Naranjo Chiriboga, asked help from the Mercosur countries, mainly from Brazil, to overcome the global financial crisis. He believes that Ecuador, which has no own currency and uses the U.S. dollar for internal commercial transactions, will feel the results of crisis in a more pronounced way and will be one of the most affected countries in Latin America.
Human Rights Begins at Home (tags)
On December 10th, 2008, DAMAYAN Migrant Workers Association celebrates the 60th anniversary of United Declaration of Human Rights with the domestic workers, women, im/migrants, people of color and all oppressed people whose human rights are under attack and are struggling for justice, dignity and liberation. Filipino im/migrant women workers continue to face the brunt on the deepening global economic crisis and are subjected to rampant human rights violations perpetrated by bad employers, diplomats, governments. We demand that individuals and institutions be accountable for upholding the basic rights of all people as recognized in the United Declaration of Human Rights and the need to develop additional protection for domestic workers. Like Marichu Baoanan, a Filipina nursing school graduate and caregiver who filed 15 counts of trafficking, forced labor and racketeering against former Philippine Ambassador to the United Nations Lauro Baja, women workers from around the world have first-hand experience of abuse, dehumanization and enslavement. Marichu was forced to make the painful and risky decision of migrating abroad in the interest of her family's survival. While she expected to earn a living in a forieign land, away from her family and familiarity of her homeland, she did not anticipate the slave wage equivalent to 6 cents per hour, 18-hour working conditions and being subjected to routine insults, curses and humiliation.
Financial Crisis and the Poor (tags)
The financial market crisis has long spilled over on the real economy. Therefore politics is called to do everything so the economy starts up again and unemployment is prevented. Without strong pressure, frauds will continue unchanged in the global financial casino after losses are socialized
II-The international Crisis WS Report, Curitiba, Pr, Br (tags)
Watch it now at web tv at http://www.aenoticias.pr.gov.br/tv-aovivo.php
The International Crisis Report, from Curitiba, PR, BR (tags)
Adjusting to avoid the concentration of the financial system, maintaining that system under the domain of public power and invest in infrastructure and in social policies are functions that the state should recover from the current global crisis. That is what said the teacher called Alex Izurieta, senior secretary of
The Global Economic Crisis - Bad and Worsening (tags)
the crisis is deepening
The capitalist system does not make a mistake; it is the mistake. Capitalism is the problem. The solution would be an independent-socialist social order whose highest principles are mutual aid, respect for nature and a nonviolent rule-free humanly just world.
Grand Mufti Blames Financial Crisis on ignoring God's rules (tags)
In a sermon before midday prayers at the mosque, Saudi Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh said the global financial crisis stems from and allowing "riba" or usury, prohibited in Islam. "Today we watch as this financial crisis enfolds and some companies and banks go bankrupt. This is the result of ignoring God's rules. Muslims must abide by God's rules, and build their economies accordingly," he told the faithful.
The way to overcome the crisis and keep jobs. (tags)
Good Paragaph from Socialists re Auto Crisis (tags)
The socialists had one of the most incisive single paragraphs I have read about the auto crisis.
After the Bankruptcy (Jurgen Habermas) (tags)
The privatization mania has ended. Politics is necessary for the public interest, not the market. A tension always exists between capitalism and democracy because the market and politics are based on opposite principles.
"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.
Financial Crisis: Bending and Breaking (tags)
The governments still strike the pose of successful crisis management. The points are set for a state-sanctioned survival of neoliberlaism through bending and breaking, Instead of raising mass income, the state finances capital investments to liven up the domestic economy.
The New Deal - in the US and Germany (tags)
A radical rethinking, a New Deal, is on the agenda. The worldwide depression can only be countered with stronger economic regulation, increased public spending and fiscal measures. This means an end to privatizations and rebuilding the essential infrastructure.
International WShappens December the 6th to the 11th (tags)
We want a debate not from the perspective of the market because the market heralds resolved now that they will make the solution for what themselves caused, with their bad conduction of economic policy
Buy Nothing Day Organizers Confront the Economic Meltdown Head On (tags)
The economy should be a part of life, not a steamroller crushing creativity and self-realization. Bailing out speculators while ignoring the imperatives of reducing working hours and building community centers is a blindness.
GM, The NY Times, & Marxism 101 (tags)
As Socialists, we are consistently asked to present our ideas in a clearer, easier to understand manner. To achieve this goal, I’ll enlist the help of former Governor of Massachusetts and candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, who appeared in the New York Times Op-Ed section on Nov. 19th. Romney’s piece, entitled “Let Detroit Go Broke,” laid bare the intent behind the angry rhetoric used by politicians against the proposed bailout for the “Big Three” automakers. Whereas the giant Wall Street banks received over 1 trillion dollars — so far— without barely having to ask, an industry that actually produces something has to beg for a handout. Why the difference?
The Financial Crisis in Biblical and Theological Perspective (tags)
The owners of capital started to create a bubble in the financial markets through various kinds of speculation in order to drive up the returns by derivatives, options etc, creating Casino Capitalism, de-linked from the real economy.
Why the collapsing of the financial bubble is not the fault of "greedy bankers"
Lurching Toward Gomorrah: More Signs of An Unstoppable Economic Meltdown (tags)
a deepening economic crisis
Germany | Day of Action for the militant group trial (tags)
DECENTRALISED Action DAY for the militant group trial 13th 2008 Get involved with your own actions on the day of decentralised actions for the Militant Group Trial.
Some thoughts on the current economic crisis and capitalism
The global crisis is a crisis of capitalism (tags)
It is time for the workers and the poor in the Philippines to prepare for the worse the moment its government keeps on repeating the mantra that the economic fundamentals remain good and thus there is little to worry about effects of the global recessionary trend. The world found itself in the present mess precisely because of such blind faith in neoliberal fundamentalism.
Bankruptcy of the Last Utopia (tags)
The economy should be a part of life, not a steamroller crushing creativity and self-realization. The economy should serve humankind; humanity should not serve bankers, SUVs and sports stadiums. The same Chinese letter represents crisis & opportunity.Will future be more human?
Rich of the World, Enrich Yourselves! (tags)
Financial jugglers speculating with food, oil and other raw materials caused double-digit inflation and made staple foods like rice and wheat into luxury items for millions. Neoliberalism with one blow managed to drive nation states to the defensive.
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.
Philippine social movements storm US Embassy (tags)
Philippine social movements hit G-20 summit’s exclusivity, call for a new and democratic world order
Sharp drop in migrants’ money transfers from US (tags)
Mexico depends on migrants' remittances for eight percent of its Gross Domestic Product compared to 12 percent in Guatemala and no less than 18 percent of El Salvador's GDP. And these are the official statistics, which do not include US dollars passing the US border under car mats.
International seminar to discuss how to exit the financial crisis announced (tags)
He criticized the conduction of economic policy by Brazilian Central Bank. "The CB is throwing money in the market without taking a specific concern with the change in the economic model, with public investment." Our concern is to analyze the crisis from the perspective of individuals, of the nation, and not
Welcome to Finance Market Capitalism (tags)
The financial market escapades must be the problem because capitalism itself cannot be the problem. The state bailout measure prepares the ground for inflationary developments.
Carlos Lessa proposes control of exchange rate for Brazil to overcome the crisis. (tags)
He says the biggest obstacle to Brazil overcome the crisis and get strengthened out of it is the Central Bank’s President Henrique Meirelles, formed by the Bank of Boston, and that will do nothing that would undermine the private banks.
Greed is the Nature of the System (tags)
Politics was corrupted byt he economy and lost control to the economy. In the private enterprise system, there are too many incentives that oppose the public interest. When company pensions end, workers speculate. When high profits are the norm, companies speculate.
Tribunal for Speculators (tags)
The collapse of the delusional neoliberal idea frees our view for the necessity of a completely different society and a planetary social contract. Bankers are jungle highwaymen. Investments only pay where human rights are realized. The price of rice soared 83% within only six months.
Obama and the Deep State: Is there Hope? (tags)
Recently some ominous statements by two very big political insiders has been making the buzz on certain blogs. It turns out that both Colin Powell and Senator Joe Biden have publicly stated that Obama will see a major international crisis early on in his presidency. According to Biden this crisis will test Obama's "mettle," and according to Powell, will "come along in the 21st or 22nd of January that we don’t even know about right now."
The Death of Capitalism (tags)
This latest crisis may be the last one that capitalism can survive.
What the Economic Crisis Means for Us and How to Defend Ourselves (tags)
Gloom and Doom-----The pillars of the U.S. capitalist economy are crumbling and falling all around us while the federal government frantically races from one crisis to another, throwing money at them as if throwing water on a fire. It could well turn out that the money represents only a few drops of water thrown on threatening flames that will soon billow into an out-of-control wildfire so that nothing President-elect Barak Obama has proposed will succeed in averting the disaster.
More from the Front Lines of the Financial Crisis (tags)
The worst is yet to come.
Bush administration denies funding for FBI probe of mortgage mess (tags)
The Bush administration is rejecting FBI pleas for more agents to investigate crimes that helped trigger the global financial meltdown, bureau sources said this week.
The wages of sin have come due.
The Grand Illusion-Mega-Bubble World Economy (tags)
Self-righteousness is really the grand illusion. The global North consumes the resources of the global South. We are literally devouring the future. Given resource scarcity and climate change, the world economy as a whole is a bubble economy, a monstrous bet on an impossible future.
Public Enemy Number One (tags)
Fed- engineered crisis.
Financial Market Capitalism: Neoliberalis become State Socialists (tags)
Neoliberalism is neither new nor liberal. All freedom is demanded for capital, even though human dependence is intensified and human existences destroyed. The state becomes a functionary for neoliberal concepts. The debts of Fannie/Freddie are added to the nine trillion.
Income Distribution is Perverse (tags)
Redistribution of income is central. Another economy is necessary in which people are more important than profit percentages. A shareholder value philosophy ruthlessly downsizes and closes plants in pursuit of maximum profit.
What “incredibly tough” foreign policy actions is Obama preparing? (tags)
"Obama won the Democratic presidential nomination by presenting himself as the more consistent antiwar candidate, and the Democratic ticket in public pledges to end the war in Iraq and adopt a less militaristic stance. But behind closed doors, before select audiences of the financial and political elite, Biden has given a glimpse of the real perspective of the Democratic wing of American imperialism."
Pese a sus crisis, el capitalismo no se derrumbará ... (tags)
La crisis financiera que, en realidad, había comenzado a mediados de 2007 con las primeras quiebras de los fondos especializados en las famosas subprimes, no ha cesado de aumentar hasta llegar a tomar en este verano su forma más aguda.
Tinkering with Symptoms (tags)
The bailout plan does not tackle the causes of the financial crisis. The question remains why financial institutions should be saved from a crisis they created and in which they earlier earned vast amounts of money. The American government has no Plan B.
The Neediest Need Help Like the Banks (tags)
The same state haggles over every bowl of soup for welfare recipients. For banks, billions appeared overnight. There must also be money for higher wages and more social services.
Growing financial crisis.
"The Financial Crisis has made Heroes out of Rogues" (tags)
The state should make the economy more social and democratic. The conversions of Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel and Peter Steinbruick from market fetishism to state optimism were cabaret-style conversions. Democracy should dominate the economy.
Past sins are coming home to roost.
Capitalism changed into "finance-driven" capitalism. The profit rates for industrial capital fell in the past decades. Washington could be paralyzed under the debt yoke like Japan in the early 1990s. After decades of market idolization, the US has rediscovered political power.
Anatomy of the American Financial Crisis (tags)
Can a repetition of the US Great Depression of the 1930s or Japan's more recent protracted recession of the 1990s be avoided? Both were results of a severe banking crisis. The answer is yes, if the vicious cycle of asset price decline and banking credit crunch can be avoided.
The Philosophies of Deregulation and Neoliberalism are Dead in the West (tags)
"The patient suffers massive internal bleeding and is given a blood transfusion. The banks lent money and accepted inflated assets as security. This bubble burst..Those who pocketed profits for years want to pin the losses on the taxpayers."
Part 2- World Capitalist Crisis (tags)
We expect more of the use of cheap labour in the less developed countries like China and India in order to produce cheap raw materials and semi-manufactured consumer products for the imperialist countries and thereby maximize imperialist profits. In fact the US capitalist are hell bent on transferring high paying industries to the third world and even already cheap service industries like call centers and car assemblies and other production lines in a vain attempt to cut jobs, paying insurances and other workers benefits that the people are demanding in the face of the capitalist made crisis.
The problem is that a large part of US real estate financing, the "subprime" market for real estate credits to poor borrowers, functioned according to the model of a chain letter. Radical redistribution, nationally and internationally, is the command of the hour.
AJLPP Analysis on the Current World Capitalist Crisis (tags)
The capitalist bailout rammed into the US Congress has infused into the banks more than $ 500 B out of the $ 700 appropriations. But despite the huge infusion to the capitalist system, the crisis marched on with impunity. The Alliance-Philippines (AJLPP) believes that the latest unraveling of the “free market” dogma, the ultimate exposure of the failed concept of “neoliberal globalization” and the gravity of the current level of the economic and financial crisis of the imperialist powers headed by the US is now totally exposed to the whole world. But this phenomenon must be explained and understood and should not be feared. We must act to face this crisis with renewed determination and readiness to struggle for the people and to change this rotten system.
The October Surprise - Global Panic (tags)
It's not over.
The current crisis of the developed capitalist system is taking place when the empire is about to change leadership in the elections to be held in a few days; it was all that was left to see.
Deforestation Costs More than Financial Crisis (tags)
It is a steep bill. Our shrinking forests cost us up to $5 trillion a year -- far more than the current banking crisis. Environmentalists hope the sobering calculation, made by a European Union commissioned team, will focus political will on funding conservation.
V.P. Candidate Alexander: U.S. Economy is Beyond Recession (tags)
Socialist Vice Presidential Candidate Stewart A. Alexander says the measures that are being taken by the Fed, in the midst of this growing economic crisis is an indication that the U.S. economy has now passed the stage of a recession and is now in the early stage of a depression. “It will take more than printing truck loads money and bailing out the capitalists to prevent the U.S. and global economy from slipping into a deeper depression.”
Lee Sustar explains that the mayhem in the markets this week is symptomatic of a deeper crisis--and the leaders of the most powerful governments aren't sure what to do.
"The Market is not a Safe Bank" by Helmut Schmidt (tags)
This crisis was avoidable. The fact that American investment banks are not subject to any normal bank supervision is scandalous. Financial transactions must be subject to rules and security standards. The heavier the traffic, the more rules and regulations are needed.
"Worse than in the Iraq War" (tags)
"A recapitalization of relatively sound banks could be vital for creating trust in the financial system. This must happen in a way that prevents privatizing profits while socializing losses. One can learn good crisis management in the example of Sweden's banking crisis in the 1990s
The Fleecing of America (tags)
Public and private looting.
America is now a hellhole
Mark Engler on the Financial Crisis (tags)
"This crisis is a crisis of deregulation. Deregulated market fundamentalism causes crises. This is a crisis of financialization. An ever-larger part of the economy switched to financial speculation or gambling. Greed is systemic."
AJLPP Condemns Capitalist Bailout (tags)
he US House of Representatives approved a $700 billion bailout package for US banks, under pressure from all sides as the effort to head off a spreading financial crisis hung in the balance. President Bush happily signed the bill into a law at the White House today. October 3, 2008.
Project Censored's Media Democracy Advocacy (tags)
Project Censored's holding the dominant media accountable.
SUPER-ESTAFA DE WALL STREET (tags)
Súper-rescate estatal: Un negocio "privado" de los bancos que controlan la Reserva Federal
The government-business looting of America.
Political Economy of the Financial Markets (tags)
Financial markets are not described here as anonymous zones of self-regulation but as instruments of private actors enforcing their own business interests on state institutions. Structural deficits cause the crises, e.g.massive liquidity.
Paulson go out. Truth about "unbelievable" big 2008 crash (tags)
Barack Obama: "No necesitamos sólo un plan para Wall Street. Hay que incorporar medidas de salvación para miles de ciudadanos" que están perdiendo sus casas y sus ahorros, declaró Obama. "Tampoco podemos cometer el error de que el dinero de los contribuyentes sea usado para corregir malas decisiones" ////////////////////// “Durante un par de años, el capital desafió a la ley del valor, inflando su valor más allá de su capacidad de reproducción real, pero la ley del valor se ha cobrado la afrenta a un precio enorme. Ha quedado de manifiesto que la ganancia capitalista es un objetivo muy estrecho para desenvolver productivamente la riqueza social acumulada. La crisis mundial plantea la reorganización social general sobre nuevas bases” ////////////////////////////////// euroimmersion.com: La crisis no es culpa de las “subprime” o hipotecas ninha. La crisis tampoco es culpa de la codicia de unos banqueros. La crisis no se supera con una “regulación” sino con un cambio radical y con nuevos paradigmas que abandonen las trampas y falsedades neoliberales de la Escuela de Chicago por otras más acordes con la sociedad del conocimiento en que tenemos que avanzar. La actual crisis obliga a revisar el modelo entero y a decir la verdad: la globalización no ha producido nada de crecimiento ni bienestar para nadie ha sido un modelo fracasado y de muy corto alcance histórico pero a la vez ha permitido el robo y la concentración de poder y dinero como nunca antes en la historia de la humanidad en una casta dirigente parásita que no ha aportado nada a la sociedad. Crash 2008: la mayor estafa bancaria, bursátil y económica de la historia. Los datos más importantes. Paulson go out. All the truth about this "unbelievable" big 2008 crash
Dollar is over, says Carlos Lessa (tags)
To Lessa, "dollar is over" and it’s necessary that a new "Bretton Woods" establishes new parameters to global economy.
NO TO BUSH-PELOSI BAILOUT OF WALL STREET GREED! TIME FOR PEOPLE’S ACTION AND REAL CHANGE! (tags)
The Bush-Pelosi proposed law bailing out Wall Street capitalist greed and hyper-profit,will hit the American poor and middle class even harder, and prolong the crisis. Time to stop the bill! Time to change Wall Street-coddling politicians! Time to go into the streets and make the people's voice heard!
No to the Bailout of the Capitalist Speculators! (tags)
The financial crisis that has been heating up since early 2007 reached the boiling point in late September. Credit markets virtually stopped functioning. A full-blown panic swept stock markets worldwide. The U.S. economy is in the throes of a recession that could turn into a Depression lasting for years. In these dire straits, the Wall Street speculators who set off this crisis are demanding that the government rescue them with a bailout priced at $700 billion. The actual costs will be far higher, a trillion dollars or more. Meanwhile, the Democrats are pushing hardest for the Bush bailout of the banks. Presidential candidate Barack Obama blames "greed" for the crisis on Wall Street (capitalism without greed?) and says there must be no "blank check to Washington" -- meaning he's for putting in a few conditions as window dressing. Following in the Democrats' footsteps, the AFL-CIO labor bureaucrats called a demo for "No Blank Check for Wall Street." Yet no amount of regulation will stop the boom-bust cycle of capitalism. Meanwhile unemployment lines are growing and a million families were thrown out of their homes by bank foreclosures in the last year. While the fat cats, Democrats and bureaucrats are all going for the Bush bailout to prop up U.S. capitalism, revolutionary Marxists oppose this trillion-dollar giveaway to the Wall Street speculators, calling instead for a program of transitional demands leading to the expropriation of the banks and the entire bourgeoisie through workers revolution.
Democrats push for quick adoption of Bush plan to bail out Wall Street (tags)
Where is the common ground between the libertarian and socialist perspective in opposing the GW Bush 700 billion for billionaires bailout? Why did Democrats bite into GW's fishhook by accepting this theft of taxpayer dollars to support irresponsible and criminal banking corporations??
The Credit Crisis may reflect concern with likely growing trade union power. (tags)
The credit crisis may reflect a likely increase in the power of the trade union movement as a consequence of decisions made at the UN.
Bail-Out, Economic Democracy and the Socialist Path (tags)
David Schweickart, political philosopher, discusses the financial crisis, what it exposes about capitalism, how it can set the stage for economic democracy, and open the socialist path.
America in Decline: Richard Sennett (tags)
In the race to the bottom, the worship of profit and the self-healing market, education, retraining workers, social mobility and intercultural learning fall by the wayside. School districts spend 600 times more for sports than for natural sciences. The US imports engineers and programmers.
Pulling the plug won't mean the end of the world; there is an alternative. Let's do a Kevorkian on this rotten system.
Pacifica Los Angeles KPFK Listeners Ask:Will Censorship of Socialist Perspectives Continue (tags)
With candidates of socialist perspective taking the lead on issues in the 2008 election, listeners of self-proclaimed Pacifica "Revolutionary Radio" KPFK wonder if the station will continue to censor their candidates and positions and ignore their core point that, as a matter of empirical fact, liberal reform has failed and shows no prospect for success with an Obama election.
V.P. Candidate Alexander: Fed Rescue Plan a Temporary Fix (tags)
Vice Presidential Candidate Stewart A. Alexander, says the $700 billion rescue plan is only a temporary fix for an economy with many fractures. “The root cause of the U.S. economic crisis is the system, capitalism; and every 75 years a new bailout plan becomes necessary.”
Karl Marx's Accurate Prediction (tags)
Karl Marx's accurate prediction about the continuing crises in capitalism and the resultant concentration of the world's wealth in fewer and fewer hands and the impoverishment of workers
... Fiscal paradises are prospering; people are suffering. Is this how humanity’s well-being can be guaranteed?
Reviewing Danny Schechter's "Plunder" (tags)
A masterful account of the subcrime crisis.
Bankruptcies Prohibited (tags)
Capitalism is a system based on debts and credit. To function, it needs trust, trust that banks will always meet their obligations. Fannie and Freddie could not do this any more. Alan Greenspan promoted market forces after extremely overrating them.
US Economy in the toilet (tags)
ECONOMIC CRISIS AFFECTS ELDERLY (tags)
Recession whatever they call it, marches on! They called it “ jobless growth”, a “slowdown” an economic crisis and all politicians call it except by its true name. Why are they so afraid of this word? Although it affects everyone, politicians and bourgeois econimist refuse to call it by its name. But the hard facts tells the truth. Now, the seniors and older Americans are the latest victims of these recession.
Energy and Climate - Hunger and Money (tags)
At the World Economic Forum, the extensive global crisis is trivialized to four "great risks." The neoliberal elite does not want a system change. It wants to assure itself against the threatening fourfold injustice. A 20% loss in the global social product could be avoided.
NO RICE CRISIS IN THE PHILIPPINES: MAYOR JOJO BINAY IN LA VISIT (tags)
“There is no rice crisis in the Philippines. It is an artificial crisis created by the GMA administration in the urban areas o use for its political maneuvers and economic benefits” This was the stand of Presumptive presidential candidate for the President of the Philippines. Makati Ciy mayor Jejomar Binay when asked about the rice crisis in the Philippines. Binay held a press conference at Bahay Kubo restaurant in Historic Filipinotown Los Angeles, August 27,2008. Addressing a jam packed hall with Filipino community leaders from all over California. ” The real rice crisis happened in 1964 at the time of President Diosdado Macapagal. That was the real rice crisis when everybody even the rich and poorest was lining up for the rice. I was very young then and I still remember.
Gloria "Makapal" Arroyo's SONA: as usual and of course (tags)
As usual, Gloria Arroyo resorted to lies, stage gimmicks, misrepresentation, misdirection, and statistical hocus pocus to conceal the true state of the nation. Of couse, she again did all these with her characteristic overbearing aplomb. As usual, she blamed the global crisis for the current national crisis. Of course, she failed to mention her role in implementing the imperialist policies of globalization, liberalization, and VAT collection that have led to greater impoverishment, hunger, and desperation among the Filipino masses.
Monetary Policy and Stagflation (tags)
50 countries already show double-digit rates; 42% of the world population is affected. Monetary policy reacts helplessly to stagflation. The financial bubble economy is an excess. When consumers finally spend the money they don't have, everything will be just fine.
Hunger, The Silent Tsunami (tags)
Rice, the main food for nearly half of the world's population, costs twice as much as in December. The economic policy of the World Bank forced on countries on account of neocolonial trade relations is responsible for the unproductivity, not only the traditional small farmer system.
Fannie, Freddie, Food and Fuel (tags)
The financial crisis deepens with the nationalization of IndyMac and the likely bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie May by the US taxpayer. The financial crisis has company as inflation, and in particular huge increases in global food and energy prices, enters the fray. The American economic model has been discredited and the American century has lasted but a few decades. These developments have and will further open up a new period in the struggle between capital and labor on the world stage and the US working class will have a major role to play as it re-connects with its militant traditions.
"Stop the Biofuel-Madness!" (tags)
"The high oil price and the food crisis threaten the existence of over a hundred million people." (Walden Bello) "People in poor countries must starve so the rich can continue driving their cars." Growing plants for biofuels is a crime against humanity.
Joint Statement on the 34th G8 Summit in Tōyako, Hokkaidō, Japan
The problem is that a large part of US real estate financing, the so-called subprime market for real estate credits to poor borrowers, functioned according to the model of a chain letter. Radical redistribution, nationally and internationally, is the command of the hour.
The population has to get used to gas prices three times higher than four years ago. Rising energy- and food prices and the real estate crisis accelerate pauperization tendencies in the US.
Hunger, GMOs and Speculation (tags)
Like many other countries, Kenya provided its own staple foods until the 1980s. Today the country imports 80% of its food. To buy up the entire grain harvest of the US, only $120 billion is needed-a small amount for speculators on currency market
The Time is Ripe: Democratic Controls of the Financial Markets! (tags)
Like the melting of the dollar, the energy, food and housing crises have systemic roots, the logic and dynamic of maximum profit.. The US is experiencing a "margin call." The world wants its money back. The economy and the financial markets should serve people, not vice versa.
Crisis Populism and Rose-Colored Glasses (tags)
When it concerns socializing the losses of the financial disaster, the head of Deutsche Bank no longer believes in the "self-healing power of the market." The bankruptcy of neoliberalism is blatant.
"Oil Crisis Changes Globalization" (tags)
In the poorest hundred countries, the high oil price is intensifying hunger and poverty. "These people stand at the edge of a possible disaster," Jeremy Rifkin says. The high prices for oil, gasoline and gas change the rules of globalization.
World Bank president Robert Zoelick compared the food shortage to the Old Testament's "seven plagues" but forgot to mentionthe eighth is the World Bank itself. The World Bank insists on agricultural production for export, not for the local supply of the population.
On the 110th Independence Day of the Philippines, June 12, 2008 (tags)
As Filipinos and Filipino Americans, the Alliance Philippines (AJLPP) with pride and passion, we commemorate the 110th anniversary of the proclamation of Philippine Independence on June 12, 1898 and the victory of the Philippine revolution of 1896 against 333 years of Spanish colonialism and oppression. On this momentous occasion let us pay tribute to all our heroes who fought for our freedom. On this auspicious day, we remember that the Philippine flag was first displayed, the national hymn was played and the independence from Spain was proclaimed in the balcony of the home of general Emilio Aguinaldo in Kawit, Cavite. At that time almost all of Luzon was liberated and under the control, of the revolutionary forces except for Manila and some Spanish outpost in the Visayas and in Mindanao was still holding out. The formation of the first bourgeois democratic republic in Asia on January 23, 1899 followed. But just to be destroyed by a new colonial power- the Imperialist United States of America. By waging an imperialist war of aggression against the young republic and its people from 1899 to 1913 in a “war of pacification” against the Filipinos, the United States occupied the Philippines for 48 years. The Filipinos lost almost 2 million people during the Filipino=-American War.
V.P. Candidate wants U.S. ethanol production cut to feed poor (tags)
A recent report prepared by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization identified 22 nations that are threaten by the global food crisis; riots, due to food shortages are now occurring in most of these poor countries. To prevent the escalation of the present world food crisis, Stewart Alexander, Vice Presidential Nominee for Socialist Party USA, wants a freeze or a roll back on U.S. ethanol production to the levels prior to December 2007.
Global Economic Meltdown (tags)
Financial Instability is Leading to an Economic Catastrophe
The Seven Energy-Related World Crises (tags)
The market is not total, absolute and self-healing but a tool helpful after we decide what kind of society we want. The state has a social nature and can't be only a power and security state or treasure chest for the super-rich and special interests.
CUBA propone: Una gran Operación Milagro (tags)
No hace falta mucho dinero, sino voluntad política. Podemos hacer mucho con poco. Pero juntos podríamos hacer mucho más. Hace falta una gran Operación Milagro: el milagro de la cooperación justa y solidaria...
"A Crime against Humanity" (tags)
When you fill the tank of an ethanol car with 50 liters, you burn over 700 pounds of corn. A Zambian child could live a whole year from that. More regulation instead of more market access is vital for developing countries. A rebellion of conscience is needed.
The Energy Crisis: so why isn't anyone doing anything about it? (tags)
Yeah, right --- we all know about the energy crisis.
Game of Deceived Deceivers (tags)
The worldwide game with fictional assets has a few winners and many losers. Who has deceived whom in the game of deceived deceivers is hardly clear. The world econmy is too important to be left to gamblers. We need far more than a few new surveillance cameras and watchmen in the casino
Will the Neoliberal Consensus Survive the Banking Crisis? (tags)
These are hard times for the neoliberal consensus whose message was forced worldwide for three decades by the ruling classes in the imperialist metropolises on free capital flows. Business data is a fetish constructed for the goal of profit maximization.
Farewell to Neoliberalism (tags)
State interventions in the economy are unpopular and generally regarded as "against the system"-when the state interferes in profiteering. In the case of a crisis, the losses should be socialized.
Why Are Banks Failing, Mr. Giegold? (tags)
The crisis will cost massive job losses and strain public budgets. The policy of market opening that refuses social and ecological regulations is a disaster. We must raise new taxes. Closing the tax havens would also be desirable.
Mexico Exports Corn and Impoverished Farmers (tags)
Food that Mexico could have easily produced itself must be purchased for ten billion dollars every year from the US. Today Mexico can offer ruined farmers as its most important export article. Prices for corn, wheat and rice soared 40-50 percent within eight months.
Sandbox Liberals Practice Damage Control: World Bank and IMF (tags)
The IMF and the World Bank are not self-critical. With their conditions on developing countries, these two institutions crafted the economic structures that led to today's disaster. The world economy functions according to the rules of power and profit logic.
Global Food Crisis: The Fury of the Poor (tags)
What we are beginning to face is not just an acute bottleneck, but a worldwide, fundamental food crisis. This crisis is so dire that it is obliterating any progress made in recent years in fighting disease and starvation.
The Role of Speculators in the Global Food Crisis (tags)
Vast amounts of money are flooding the world's commodities markets, driving up prices of staple foods like wheat and rice. Biofuels and droughts can't fully explain the recent food crisis. Hedge funds and small investors bear some responsibility for global hunger.
SEIU CA Workers Speak Out On Crisis In SEIU: Part 1 & Part 2 (tags)
A crisis is growing within the SEIU which is the largest union in California with 650,000 members. This video is of a forum of SEIU members from throughout California who discuss some of the issues the members face with mega-mergers of locals and labor management partnerships that threaten the conditions and benefits of California SEIU members
World Food Crisis Threatens Rich Nations (That's Us), Too (tags)
Unless we act fast for a global consensus on the price spiral, the social unrest induced by food prices in several countries will conflagrate into a price contagion, leaving no country-developed or otherwise-unscathed.
Carta de la señora Maigret a ZP (tags)
Señor presidente; la alegoría de los derechos cívicos de los violadores que se está produciendo en los debates sobre las actualidades francesa y española, que coordino me parece extremadamente inquietante. Más exactamente debería usar nauseabundo. Mi inquietud aumenta cuando compruebo que efectivamente, la imagen de la actualidad de su régimen parece reiterar esta apología.
Carta de Antoine Roquentin a Jean-Paul Sastre (tags)
Señor autor; lo lograste; soy lo que has hecho de mi. Esta certeza no es un simple síntoma de resignación. Es, asimismo, una liberación de energías y una posibilidad de usar las últimas para el planteamiento del discurso de la actualidad de hoy, 15 de abril de 2008, por el simple hecho que ya hace muchos años que murió mi autor.
Workers Pay for Their own Impoverishment (tags)
A whole series of factors are combining to undermine the financial position of banks. None of this happened by chance. It is only to be expected that brokers should seize every opportunity to line their pockets. They use innovations to kid themselves they can abolish risk.
Militants slam lifting of rice import quotas (tags)
- Militant groups on Tuesday attacked President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s decision to lift rice import quota as a way to ease the rice shortage the country is reportedly experiencing. The farmers group Kilusang Mayo Uno said that removing the quota would benefit only the rice cartel, which KMP claims is behind the rice supply shortage and is allegedly manipulating prices. KMP chair Rafael Mariano explained that even with the quota of 300,000 metric tons of rice, the private sector only imported less than 10 percent of that volume over the past two years because of high world prices and local tariffs on imports.
The greatest risks threaten through the crisis of the financial system, through further price increases for food, the sensitivity of global supply routes and the increasingly expensive sources of energy. 2008 could develop into a worldwide crisis year.
The Downhill Plunge Speeds Up (tags)
The state has a social nature and cannot only be power and security state. In crisis, we are all Keynesians. Taboo for a long time, the New Deal program slowly sounds promising again. The 1933 "Home Owners Loan Act" was created in the first 100 days of Roosevelt's presidency.
The Present Rice Crisis in The Philippines (tags)
The Philippine Peasant Support Network (Pesante)-USA, a Filipino farmers, environmental and human rights advocacy group based in Los Angeles expressed dismay over the US-Arroyo regime’s way of solving the present rice crisis in the former rice producing nation of the Philippines. The Philippine government is going to buy two million metric tons of rice abroad at a cost of $600 or P24,600 per metric ton, that will be P49.2 billion, which is 146 times than the Philippines annual post-harvest budget. President Arroyo already released P1.5 billion to boost rice production especially in the top 10 poorest provinces. The rice will be imported- from of all places-- the United States and Vietnam.
Psychology has a great influence on developments of the world econmy. In Tokyo, the G7 states agreed to avoid negative terms to not worsen the situation. Neither the extreme price drop of the dollar nor of the Yen were mentioned in the final declaration.
Financial Meltdown A "Gigantic Fraud"! (tags)
Leading Economic Writer: Financial Meltdown A "Gigantic Fraud" - Says Americans "duped" by "serpent-tongued" elite!
The Rescuers of Capitalism (tags)
Banks all over the world bought these speculative objects through subsidiaries called "special conduits" that did not appear on the official balance sheets. The mortal sins of the economy are the specualtive practices, not state interventions.
The Asian Crisis of 1997-1998: Deregulation (tags)
Enormous capital streamed in short-term monetary investments that could dissolve at any time, not in lasting direct investments. Higher stock prices and home prices fueled the credit boom. Deregulated finance markets are everything but efficient.
Global Casino Capitalism (tags)
What began with cheap money for American homebuyers has expanded to the greatest financial market crisis since the war. The whole extent of bad credits with banks is not yet known, let alone the effects on the world economy.
Attac Germany on the Subprime Crisis (tags)
The crisis can't be solved with a few surveillance cameras in the global casino. The party was quickily over when the real estate prices stopped soaring. Investors are often guided by a herd behavior. Sustainable economy should have a prioirity over short-term profits.
As long as the policies of the rich North represent a mixture of cruel carrot-and-stick maneuvers, coupled with basic contempt for the South, we can expect more lethal North-South tensions, more powerful boomerangs hurled back at us.
Peak Oil: The Global War for Oil (tags)
Despite optimistic estimates, the market seems to accept peal oil since the rich oil companies are not investing in new refineries. The 150-year American expansion explains the military option. Speculation caused the tenfold increase of a barrel of oil from $10 (1998) to $100 (2008).
Brzezinski Seizing Control (tags)
- The attack on the US embassy in Belgrade, Serbia by gangs of drunken students is a classic Brzezinski operation. The tactic of having an incensed rent-a-mob of swarming adolescent patsies attack the US Embassy in order to gin up a crisis is one of Zbigniew's signature specialties. During the time that Brzezinski was running the foreign policy of Trilateral puppet Jimmy Carter, there were bloody attacks on the US embassies in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, both countries that featured prominently in Brzezinski's arc of crisis theory-
The Crisis of Speculative Capitalism (tags)
Since the end of July 2007, the world economy was shocked by a new severe crisis of the financial markets. The courage to regulate the financial markets to prevent a future uncoupling from the productive economy is still obviously absent. The hour of truth will inevitably come.
Phase of collapse of US real economy (tags)
It is neither a “remake” of the 1929 crisis nor a repetition of the 1970s oil crises or 1987 stock market crisis. It is truly a global systemic crisis, that is to say a crisis affecting the entire planet and questioning the very foundations of the international system upon which the world was organised in the last decades.
US Crisis Sends Europe's Housing Market into Free Fall (tags)
Investor George Soros sees the worst economic crisis since the Second World War as the aftermath of heavy debts and the credit crunch. Speculative greed for profits and contempt for whistle-blowers led to the crisis. Will there be system correction or only cosmetics?
The crisis of Kenya and the hypocrisy of the WSF (tags)
*A member of the collective editorship of the Venezuelan publication El Libertario (www.nodo50.org/ellibertario, in Spanish & English) exposes the inconsistencies of the bureaucracy that manipulates the World Social Forum through a reading of their evasive silence with regards to the tragedy that Kenya is experiencing today.
The current Gaza crisis reviewed.
The Subprime Tsunami Reaches the EU (tags)
Subprime mortgage credits in the US should not have been issued. Nevertheless subprime credits were extended in the volume of $1.3 trillion. An avalanche of expropriation roars in the valley. The banking crisis spills over into the credit system in the real economy.
Dislocations and Crises (tags)
Liberalization of the finance markets started a mechanism where the broad mass of the world's population lost. Only a few conglomerates and wealthy persons are winners.
The Truth About Your Bad Home Loan (tags)
Fighting Back - Borrower's Trust has been violated - Understand Foreclosure and Eviction - Do Not Move before you have to!
Banking- and Mortgage Fraud (tags)
The whole great world of money is infected by the banal greed for more and more. Wasn't the art of making more money out of money the most noble and top-paid pursuit? Deregulation and liberalization have consequences for democracy and the economy.
After the crisis of 1997, not one important fianncial reform was carried out in the world. Liberalizationof capital markets causes instability and not necessarily growth. In South Korea, the IMF recommended the sale of state banks to US investors.
European Central Bank pumps $500 bn into banking system (tags)
TO SUCCEED over the global credit crunch in aftermath of sub-prime crisis, the European Central Bank (ECB) has announced to grant a record double loan to its banks. The ECB has decided to pump 348.6 billion euros ($501.5 billion) into the banking system through its banks. Though lending to banks at 4.21% rate of interest is available only for two weeks, it is expected that the grant will boost the diminishing confidence of the bank.
Bali: A Missed Opportunity (tags)
The gap between the urgent threat of global warming and the collective will to do something about it has never been greater. The recently concluded Conference on Climate Change in Bali was a grand opportunity to act. Instead, it was another missed opportunity. Unfortunately, the United States played a very negative role, standing in the way of consensus at every turn. And unfortunately, the rest of the world thought that seducing the US into a new agreement on climate action was top priority, resulting in a Bali Roadmap that was very sketchy.
The Dollar and US Hegemony (tags)
The dollar devaluation since 2001 is a necessary adjustment for the twin US deficits, the national budget deficit and the foreign trade deficit. US imports are nearly double US exports. A drastic change of lifestyles is imperative where modesty and simplicity are encouraged.
PHILIPPINES: On Makati Siege; A crisis of institutions (tags)
The incident unfolding in Makati City today is not surprising. It is a logical conclusion to the abuses committed by the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) administration, from the dismissal of the impeachment complaint to the clamp down of democratic and constitutional processes.
Mortgage Crisis Jeopardizing Working Class Families (tags)
If the two corporate parties, the Democrats and Republicans, take a wait-and-see attitude while the mortgage lenders and multi-billionaires take the hard-earned family resources of millions of Americans, the results will be catastrophic for working class families, and ultimately for our entire economy.
"Chaos is a Sign for the System's Fall" (tags)
Bush is an absolute disaster. Instead of withdrawing and adjusting to the changed geopolitical situation, he leaped suddenly into the abyss. Capitlaism is in crisis because endless capital accumulation can no longer be guaranteed to capitalists. Speculation reaps bitter fruits.
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!
True Intent of Gaza's Collective Punishment (tags)
The intention of this long-planned crime is the 'softening up' of the world's largest Concentration Camp, paving the way for an Israeli attack which was planned alongside 'disengagement'. Regardless of the reasons, this is an illegal policy.
Money for Firefighting & Prevention; Not for War (tags)
The World Socialist Website has 2 excllent articles providing the details of the Southern California fire crisis and their relation to the neglect of our domestic needs in favor of war profiteering.
What is the Border Patrol doing in an evacuation zone? (tags)
We have witnessed the presence of the Border Patrol in Fallbrook during a brief visit we made earlier today. We witnessed them entering into Mexican neighborhoods and we believe there is absolutely no reason for the Border Patrol to be present in this time of crisis. Their presence in fact discourage people who may be in need to seek aid.
A Hundred and Fifty Years Later and Marx Still Prevails (tags)
Marx Was Right But Don’t Tell Them
Submissiveness Toward the Finance Markets (tags)
Finance market transactions must be made more expensive. Finance market critics warn of a casino capitalism. Are businesses only objects of speculation for global invewstment capital?
Real Estate Crisis in the US (tags)
Credit failures in the real estate business threaten the whole payment system between banks, private businesses and households handled through short-term credits..The US real estate crisis affects other economic sectors and countries and cal also lead to a shift in class relations.
Deregualtion and liberalization have contributed to the present chaos. Through deregualtion and internationalization, getting into and out of investments as fast as lightning becomes possible.
La última gran estafa de la banca especuladora y global (1) (tags)
HAN LLEVADO LA RUINA A MILES DE FAMILIAS HONESTAS Y TRABAJADORAS, ESTAFA QUE VA DE LOS INTERESES DE USURA DE LAS HIPOTECAS A LOS AHORROS INVERTIDOS INGENUAMENTE EN HEDGES FUNDS....
Alexander: US Government Should Protect Homeowners (tags)
Stewart A. Alexander, a presidential hopeful with Peace and Freedom Party and Social Party USA, says President Bush and Congress could do more to protect homeowners during this nationwide home mortgage crisis. Alexander has ruled out a federal bail-out of mortgage lenders and believes homeowners need federal protection; he is introducing several steps to ease this national crisis.
Billions Dissolve in Thin Air (tags)
While the political class practices faith healing, all the participants know the end is coming when more speculative bubbles burst. The popular dogma that financial markets and the world economy are more efficient when deregulated and liberalized is over.
Beware of Falling Bankers! (tags)
Like the car, our sacred cow that is not discussed, speculation and prosperity based on credit are taboo subjects. The system is corrupt and its answers wrong. Will we mend our own pockets as China closes its wallet? Critical thinking, culture shock, alternative economic and Jesus' parables can be new beginnings.
The Coupon Clippers Get A History Lesson From One Of Their Own (tags)
Bourgeois theoreticians take measures to assure their class that the present crisis will pass. "Do not panic" is the message. Good times will return and the robbery can go on. Time for a history lesson.
The present economic crisis has the capitalist class calling for state intervention again. They claim another bout of memory loss, they simply "forgot" the business cycle exists.
HELICOPTER BEN UNLEASHES DOLLAR HYPERINFLATION (tags)
Washington DC – August 12, 2007 – By deciding to ante up $38 billion for a hopeless bailout of predatory Wall Street hedge funds and the banks that stand behind them, Federal Reserve Chairman Helicopter Ben Bernanke has placed the bankrupt US dollar on a direct course towards the precipice of hyperinflation.-
Solving the Fatah-Hamas Impasse (tags)
I was reading a news article on former Palestinian Information minister Dr Mustafa Barghouthi on An Najah University's (Nablus, Palestine) website when I stumbled upon this article on a Palestinian solution to the impasse between Fatah & Hamas below. It calls for reform of the PLO, dissolvement of the emergency gov, Hamas gov, & to end the current factionalism running rampant in territories by allowing all factions to join a new reformed government composed of other political parties: PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
Political Crisis in El Salvador (tags)
A political crisis of explosive proportion is looming this week in El Salvador. In an apparent Effort to decapitate the leadership of one wing of the social movement, Salvadoran national police detained and imprisoned leaders of the Association of Rural Communities for the Development of El Salvador (CRIPDES), a social organization which has worked since the 1980’s with over three hundred organized communities to advocate for their rights. Along with 10 community members, the leaders were placed in “preventative detention” for up to three months pending trial by special tribunal on charges of terrorism.
Loan defaults escalating: Big Finance and governments Responsible (tags)
Many articles have been written on the tactic of pervasive and continuous debt as a form of economic social management. However, few financial ‘wizards’ and politicians understood the ramifications of such a tactic. To meet regular needs average people have been forced to borrow at rates never before seen. As a result of the created necessity to borrow large amounts and the ease of obtaining large loans, a rapid increase in loan defaults is occurring. Perhaps statistical information on the ‘spike’ in long term debt servicing and mortgagee defaults highlights the failure of the debt strategy. Hailed at the time as the optimum method of economic and social management, today it is proving to be just another strategy of big business appropriating more at the expense of EVERYTHING and everyone else.
Venezuela's Withdrawal from the IMF and the World Bank (tags)
With their emancipation from the Bretton Woods institutions, the states of Latin America now try to lessen their dependence. A Bank of the South could assume the role of structural creditor in the future.
Imperial Multilateralism in Crisis (tags)
For half a millenium, the West-first Spain and Portugal, then England and lastly the US-ruled the world. This position is now seriously put in question by the newcomers.. In reality the IMF and the World Bank are dominated by the US.
The New World Currency Crisis (tags)
The US lost its absolute superiority as an industrial- and export-state..The US balance of payments deficit has nearly doubled since the 1980s..A hard landing of the dollar becomes more likely the longer the Asian exchange rate correction is delayed.
Why Bush is Always Right (tags)
With his signing statements, the president blurs the separation of powers and creates a grey zone where everythiing is possible.. Bush's crusade has become a murderous fiasco.. The coming constitutional crisis could develop into a purifying storm.
Basic Income: Freedom for Every Individual (tags)
Katya Kipping rightly characterizes basic income as a democracy package. Solving a material question and strengthening civil rights and personal autonomy are joined.
Frantic Lunge from Drowning Conservative (tags)
Howard’s latest glib contribution, ‘Australia Rising’, delivered at the Queensland Media Club today, is yet another attempt to claw back into favour and steal attention away from the Murdoch endorsed future Prime Minister, Kevin (I can suck harder than you) Rudd. Howard’s spin-doctors have been working overtime to no avail it would seem. Following the ridiculous and desperate attempts to steal the agenda with infantile attacks on US presidential candidates, the HIV positive and most recently Howard's very revealing and ‘removed’ call for divine intervention regarding the water crisis, the “Australia Rising” speech will no doubt be greeted by the public with all the disdain it deserves!
The War On Freedom by Nafeez Ahmed E-book (tags)
This is an E-Book edition of Nafeez Ahmed's 2002 book, The War On Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked, September 11th 2001
Al Gore Seeking 500,000 Signitures to Congress Tomorrow. Please Sign his Petition (tags)
Al Gore Seeking 500,000 Messages to Congress by the Time He Testifies There Tomorrow. Email from Al Gore, March 20, 2007.
The Tasks of the Immigrant Workers’ Movement: For a working class program! (tags)
As we approach the first anniversary of the immigrant worker mega-marches, the struggle for our rights continues. We defeated the Sensenbrenner bill, and yet the attacks on the families of undocumented workers have intensified. Dozens of raids, the limitation of habeas corpus, the militarization of the border, “no-match” letters, and other attacks on our class must be met with a decisive response! We need a clear program of struggle that can lead us to victory – to full amnesty and equal rights for all immigrant workers and their families.
The Big Meltdown: PAUL KRUGMAN - Financial Crisis; Democrats seek more war funds than Bush (tags)
KRUGMAN: If we’re going to have a financial crisis, here’s how it will play out. THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AND MORE
Command & Control of the Tonkin Gulf Incident (tags)
This is a Document from the Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, Weapons Systems Evaluation Group, labled "Top Secret" entitled "COMMAND AND CONTROL OF THE TONKIN GULF INCIDENT 4-5 AUGUST 1964" dated 26 Feburary 1965
Volumes of Research Daily Now Says - CLIMATE IN CRISIS (tags)
Climate change: 'It is, in fact, a crisis'
Darfur crisis- the worse is yet to come (tags)
The crisis in Darfur could become "infinitely worse" if a deal to send a combined United Nations and African force is not implemented quickly, the U.N. humanitarian chief said Saturday.
Stopping the New Arms Race: Nov 16 @ UCLA (tags)
Because the University of California manages the nation's two nuclear weapons research and design laboratories it stands at the center of an unfolding political and ecological crisis of unprecedented proportions. The Coalition to Demilitarize the UC* calls upon students, staff, faculty, and community members to attend the UC Regents’ meeting in Los Angeles on November 16 to demand the Regents to divest the university’s good name and intellectual resources from the new arms race.
OAXACA, MEXICO-BOLETÍN DE PRENSA - DECLARACIóN SANTO DOMINGO (tags)
Les estamos enviando la DECLARACIÓN DE SANTO DOMINGO, primeros acuerdos y resultados del proceso de diálogo.
The Financial Crisis of the IMF (tags)
The IMF is an extremely undemocratic system. Instead of one country-one vote, the good capitalist principle one dollar-one vote was in effect from the beginning. Whoever paid most had the most votes and the greatest influence.
Boletin de Prensa- Oaxaca, Mexico, Oct.16,2006 (tags)
LA “INICIATIVA CIUDADANA POR EL DIÁLOGO” EXHORTA AL SENADO A DESAPARECER PODERES EN OAXACA
Student/Farmworker Alliance Days of Action! (tags)
1-2 Punch! Nationwide McDonald's actions Oct. 27-28th From 'sweet spot' to sore spot!... This October 27-28th, join students and young people across the country in standing with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to end sweatshops and modern-day slavery in the fields!
Brinkmanship Tactics or Coup D'Etat?: Removing Hamas (tags)
One could not but wonder whether the real Israeli-U.S.-backed provocateurs' aim is to bring about the downfall of both Abbas and Hamas in order to maintain and sustain a pre-Hamas comfortable status quo, where their interests and privileges are preserved and the interests of their backers are ideally served.
Humboldt State Budget Cuts, Suspicion other schools affected, call to action / for allies (tags)
Humboldt State Budget Cuts, Suspicion other schools affected, call to action / for allies
Not to the evict of the Almagro`s Assembly ! (tags)
¡No al desalojo de la Asamblea de Almagro!
Sign Petition: Save the Berkeley Housing Authority (tags)
The Berkeley Housing Authority is in a crisis and needs you help!
All Sides Wanted Escalation (tags)
The kidnapping crisis could have been solved very differently through a prisoner exchange. Since negotiations were impossible with either Hamas or Hezbollah, a military strike was presumably the only possible reaction.
Cuba and Bush's elections (tags)
It is surrounded by this panorama that the plan Bush proclaims an electoral new system for Cuba. Before they should repair his, consumed by such a serious crisis as insoluble.
Is the Arab Spring turning to Dust under Israeli Bombardment? BACKFIRE (tags)
Some press reports suggest, moreover, that a lot of Lebanese, seeing their capital under attack from Israel, are rallying behind Hizbullah. Even many formerly pro-American Christian Lebanese are deeply upset that Bush seemed to say it was all right for the Israelis to bomb their civilian airport and blockade the whole country. If the country goes to new elections, the results could be quite different this time.
Missile Crisis in a Teacup (tags)
A considered and balanced view of the media event presently saturating the airwaves, the “North Korean Missile Crisis”, would reveal an hysterical, farcical over-reaction! The Korean so-called long range ICBM explodes on launch – good one, Kim! But notice how quick the coalition of willing criminals are to utilise anything to distract the public attention away from the criminality of Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Camp Bond Steel (occupation base in the Balkans which utilises the services of East European child sex slaves to service American troops). THIS IS AMERICA, policeman of the world, welcome to ‘freedom’, exploitation and the pollution that is American culture. [The world needs the USA like it needs a hole in the head!]
In the Stagnation Trap: Capitalist Development (tags)
Demands for a different distribution and re-distribution, for economic democracy and social regulation opposing market radicalism must be in the foreground. Crisis and opportunity are represented by the same Chinese letter.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Public Forum on Palestine: Behind the Crisis in Gaza (tags)
This Friday night, join the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition to discuss the crisis in Palestine caused by the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza.
Re-Regulation of the Economy (tags)
"Finance markets become judges over the economy punishing mistakes with (threaten-ed) capital flight." Resisting re-regulation represses blind spots and confuses the goat and the gardener, the market and the fire dept and the problem and the solution.
Re: iAC Forum US and Sudan (tags)
Isma'il Kamal has been traveling widely, giving various versions of this talk. Its not what you'd expect, however
BTL:Stop the War, Save the Environment (tags)
Interview with Ibrahim Ramey, Climate Crisis Coalition, conducted by Between the Lines' Melinda Tuhus
Protestas estremece a Puerto Rico Trabajadores dicen: ¡Que pague los ricos! (tags)
Manifestaciones y marchas de protestas han estremecido a Puerto Rico desde el Primero de Mayo contra el cierre de agencia gubernamentales que dejaron a 95.000 desempleados.
Washington renews demand for cuts to Social Security, Medicare (tags)
The Bush administration, echoed by much of the mass media, seized upon reports released May 1 on the fiscal health of the Social Security and Medicare system to renew its demand for drastic cuts to these two major entitlement programs, thereby gutting retirement benefits and health care for older Americans. According to the reports, issued by the trustees of the programs’ trust funds, the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund is projected to become insolvent by 2018, due largely to rapidly rising costs of American health care outstripping the payroll taxes that fund the program. The report on Social Security indicates that this program will be able to pay out 100 percent of benefits until 2040, when the trustees predict the fund will be exhausted—a year earlier than previous projections. After that it would be able to cover 74 percent of promised benefits out of revenues until 2080, when it would decline to 70 percent.
Precarious of the World! (tags)
May Day is a response to the crisis of traditional union representation. The loss in influence and fighting strength of the unions has its cause in the changed working conditions in so-called post-Fordism. The eight-hour day is increasingly replaced.
Why politicians hate immigrants (tags)
Throughout the history of the United States immigrant workers have been the victims of racism, exploitation, and in times of war, internment and violent attacks. While Spanish-speaking immigrants have had especially turbulent periods in the past, only recently have politicians made attempts at further marginalizing this already oppressed layer of society. Why these attacks are suddenly reemerging is something left unexplained in the mainstream media, and is thus an important issue to examine.
CREATE-A-CRISIS: Anti-Immigrant Bill Flap Created by Bush & Co (tags)
I would stake next year's morning coffee supply on that !he sudden big flap over the so called "anti-immigrant" bill ( Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illega Immigration Control Act of 2005) is yet another manufactured crisis, designed to pull Bush's quickly charring fat out of the fire.
ACTÚE - Academia de Periodismo Activista (tags)
A Academia de Periodismo Activista es un Frente de Acción integrada al Movimiento Humanista, que actúa contra la violencia, la discriminación y tiene el Ser Humano como valor céntrico.
Philippines: Lifting of PP 1017 - The beginning of Arroyo’s downfall (tags)
March 3, 2006 The lifting of Presidential Proclamation 1017 is a victory for the Filipino people! It was not the will of GMA, but the will of a determined people, who had continuously fought and challenged the proclamation and held protest actions to oust her from office, that made such lifting possible.
Global Poultry Industry is the Root of the Bird Flu Crisis (tags)
GRAIN says factory farmng cause of bird flu epidemic
Danish Cartoons: Freedom of expression or licence to insult (tags)
With tthe publication of the Danish cartoons under the pretext of freedom of opinion, the European papers not only show an elementar respect for moslims, they also are escalating the existing tensions
Can the State Save Us from Work? (tags)
Whenever more profits are produced with fewer and fewer workers, income should be separated from work. Every citizen should automatically receive a part of the money cake to buy goods produced without his help and find his or her own fujlfillment.
Baradei is Isareli lackey (tags)
Israel is putting itself into grave danger.
Today's internationalization of capital is part of a drastic crisis process.. In the 1970s, several hundred so-called multis existed worldwide. Today there are 60,000 multi-national businesses with 50 million employees.
The Work Society and the Work Religion (tags)
Work is only a part or fragment of life. Where it becomes everything as a steamroller or religion, it leads to idiotism where social questions and reproduction are ignored.
Mis-portraying Conflict in Dar Fur and its Usages (tags)
The events of Dar Fur are tragic; but some of the activism arround it is not without its own agenda.
Instead of overcapacities and selling houses to each other, America is called to radical economic change and sustainability. The economy should servie humanity. Progress and work should be redefined for the post-fossil age.
Pension schemes and the labor market are in an irreconcilable opposition. This schizoid argumentation has long sunk into mass con-sciousness..A society with the highest productivity of world history chains seniors to production longer than in the Middle Ages.
Katrina’s Aftermath: The Catastrophe Continues (tags)
Katrina was not a natural disaster; it was and still is a social disaster. Katrina and its aftermath is the market at work for you
China's Global Reach: Book Review (tags)
China is rising and understand its consequences
CRFI Declaration on the youth uprisings in France (tags)
November 7 Declaration of the Coordinating Committee for the Refoundation of the Fourth International
Consumer Shock at the Pump (tags)
Life was disrupted when the world faced the first oil price crisis in the winter of 1973. People in the southern US are experiencing this today.. Around a quarter of US production was lost through the hurricane.
When Americans Learn Fear (tags)
The German writer for DIE ZEIT describes anoher scenario for an oil crisis in America that would be similar to past experiences: a sudden price jump on the oil market could accelerate the loss of trust in the American economy.
Katrina and the Prehistory (tags)
Robert Scheer in "The Nation" wrote that the catastrophe was the result of a campaign to systematically demonize the role of the central government in American life.
Irrationalism and Ideology in Risk Capitalism (tags)
Reductionist worldviews promise "order" in the mixed-up social consciousness.. Psycho-analysis has coined the term "regression" for this process of escapism..Psychic regres-sion involves withdrawal to a state of original immediacy, an earlier less complex stage.
UCSB Disorientation Guide (tags)
The UC Santa Barbara Disorientation guide is a radical resource to connect activists on and off campuses working for social change.
Chaos on the Way to Organized Chaos (tags)
The hurricane, Kristol says, made visible a greater problem, the increasing number of Americans caught in an endless cyclone of poverty.. A million more Americans lived in poverty in 2004 compared to 2003.
Now is the Time? Now is the Time! The Potential of the Gulf Coast Crisis (tags)
Now is the Time? Now is the Time! The Potential of the Gulf Coast Crisis: Points for Discussion and Intervention
How I Solved Sweden's Finance Problems (tags)
"Sweden has strong public finances today. Sometimes I compare the Swedish model with a bumblebee..I believe in our welfare model. It survived the crisis of the nineties. It will help us master the demographic challenges."
Alternatives: Another World is Possible! (tags)
"The neoliberal policy of the last years is entangled in a deep legitimation crisis. Unemployment is not lowered through social cuts..Dismantling democracy and increased repression go along with militarization.. Another world is possible..."
CyberRadicalism: Book by Carl Davidson & Jerry Harris (tags)
15 essays developed over the past decade through the Chicago Third Wave Study Group's efforts to redefine a new Marxism for the 21st Century. .
Goodbye Philippine President Gloria Arroyo (tags)
8 July 2005 AKBAYAN Party today said that the speech made by the President last night announcing that she will not resign and will push instead for major constitutional reforms indicates that "house is already burning." Akbayan also called the speech of the President, which called for the resignation of all Cabinet members, as a feeble pitch to preempt the expected withdrawal of support from key Cabinet officials.
Speculations on Future US Policy (tags)
Without any concessions, Condoleezza Rice suggested that gulfs could be bridged and cooperation with Europe promoted. Her sneer made it seem: cooperation on our conditions. Many factors will stop the "arrogance of power" (Sen Fulbright).
BTL:Shortage of Nurses in U.S. Connected to Cost-Cutting, Restructuring and... (tags)
...Disrespect ~ Interview with Suzanne Gordon, author and journalist, conducted by Between the Lines' Scott Harris
Update on Self-Help Graphics protests & mass meetings (tags)
the following was pulled from Mark Vallen's weblog, an artist who has been covering that story and more....... www.art-for-a-change.com/blog
The New Inequality Machine (tags)
From the middle of the seventies, the interest rates exceeded the real growth rates. This made it even more attractive for owners of capital to invest their money in the financial markets rather than the real economy.
The Crisis of Work and its Future (tags)
"Producing more with less labor, distributing the fruits of technical progress better, crea-ting a new balance between required work and freely disposable time and giving every-one the possibility for a more relaxed life and more varied jobs are the new goals.."
Representatives of orthodox market theory are not weary emphasizing that the causes of crises only refer to economic errors in the afflicted countries. This 1988 Austrian warning calls us to resist the ideology of market fundamentalists.
Genocide, Gender, Awareness, Action - Feb. 28 - Mar. 3 (tags)
Gender issues in genocide will also be discussed during this week of activities at UCLA
If These Chickens Come Home to Roost, We're Sitting Ducks (tags)
Instead of wasting a fortune on the trumped up War on Terror, the government should be bolstering the nation’s health defenses against a much bigger natural threat—bird flu—which could even get a low-tech assist from a terrorist with an egg carrier.
Al Gore speaks on Global Climate Crisis in Beverly Hills, CA (tags)
Beverly Hills, CA - Al Gore spoke in Beverly Hills California February 15, 2005. he was the VIP guest speaker,. the title of the event was "Global CLimate Crisis: What you don't know , but should" He spoke for 45 minutes followed by a 20 minute Q and A. His used multimedia display graphics, audio and video to illustrate the "serious" nature of f his talk. This included a special anamated cartoon by the makers of "The Simpsons" . It also included new evidence documenting the the increasing speed of global warming around the gloge and it devestating consiquences. You can listen to the entire speach and Q and a at: http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=11323
Bush seems to have learned the same thing as former president Reagan from the histori-cal experience of the 1930s.. What helps are tax cuts and cuts in social spending.
Save the Children launches effort to safeguard (tags)
Online initiative offers another way to help
The government must act when entrepre-neurial rationality leads to undesired results. Who else can act? The government must renew the jobs program.. The capitalist world economy is in an over-production crisis. Businesses ..are part of social life.
The Phony Social Security Crisis (tags)
Bush's Phony Social Security Crisis Gains National Attention!
The Economy of the Plundered South (tags)
The panacea of export orientation that the IMF and the World Bank promoted in the last 25 years for the South has led to absoute disaster..There is an alternative, abandoning export orientation and strengthening domestic demand.
Wendy Campbell: The Secret Relationship Between Israel and Oil: What the US Media Hides (tags)
The US media has been covering for Israel for decades...
Nader Shows Courage Bush and Kerry Lack (tags)
While Bush and Kerry vie to show who is more uncritically supportive of right-wing Israeli government policy, Nader has the courage to expose how powerfully the pro-Israeli government lobbying effort in the U.S. is distorting public debate on the Israel-Palestine crisis.
Annulling Debts as a Great Step (tags)
"The goal must be redefined beyond goods production and abstract labor, beyond the market and the state.. The great step of debt cancellation occurs when the burden can no longer be endured. The new finance capita-lism is a bubble and debt capitalism.."
"After reading stacks of documents from the investigations and talking to energy experts, I found more smoking guns in California's energy crisis than in a Clint Eastwood movie, and none of them have Ken Lay's prints on them." -- Kathryn Jones, 2001
Secondary Illiterates: The Crisis of Education in Western Industrial Countries (tags)
"Euroepan literacy and the schooling of society were not generous civilizing gifts to people but part of that process described as `inner colonialization'..Infrastructural institu-tions are not market enterprises but overall social conditions for the market economy.."
"Anything they'd ask you, you'd have to lie" (tags)
On May 17, 2001, Enron Chairman Ken Lay held a secret meeting in Beverly Hills for VIPs (including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Milken) to lobby the Calif Legislature to protect deregulation. That same day the Bush/Cheney administration unveiled their national energy policy which adopted seven of Ken Lay's "suggestions."
END of SUBURBIA Producer Coming to Los Angeles June 21-23 (tags)
"Peak Oil is the story of the decade, and virtually no one was talking about it...I instantly recognized an opportunity to present some very complicated ideas in a very visual way that most of us could relate to" - Barry Silverthorn
Section 8 Housing Voucher Programs In Crisis (tags)
The Nations Housing Voucher Programs Are In A Crisis!
A short peice in response to the recent beheading of Nick Berg.
No blank check for Donald Rumsfeld (tags)
Practical Idealism weighs the Rumsfeld matter
Venezuela: The Coup Makers- the Invisible U.S. Hands (tags)
U.S. War in Venezuela
We strongly doubt that building democracy in Iraq will rally America (tags)
In our annual forecast we stated that the election was Bush's to lose, and he is making an outstanding attempt to lose it. Why? Because he has needlessly adopted a two-tier policy: a complex and nearly hidden strategic plan and a superficial public presentation.
BTL:Food Industry Pushing Junk Food a Prime Contributor to Obesity Crisis (tags)
Interview with Kelly Brownell, director of the Yale University Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, conducted by Between the Lines' Melinda Tuhus
pacifica national truth & reconciliation commission (tags)
a call to those politically active in the free-pacifica & other alternative media struggles, to create a formal proposal (purpose, internal organization, process, methods, goals, implementation, etc.) for a pacifica national truth & reconciliation commission.
TODAY 4 PM-6 PM: Crisis In Haiti - Democracy Now! Special Broadcast (tags)
Pacifica Radio Special Broadcast - Haiti in Crisis Co-produced by Democracy Now!, the WBAI Haiti Show and Flashpoints Sunday, Feb. 29, 2004 4-6 PM EST
Pentagon report and global environmental crisis (tags)
The Pentagon is saying in the report printed below that world capitalism is going to be thrown into severe crisis by the developing environmental catastrophe. For all activists, and for the working class in general, this is the most important report to be made available to us in decades.
Mad Cow and the Crisis in Food Production (tags)
Mad Cow
Call for an International Congress of the IV International (tags)
This call for an international congress of the Fourth International comes from the Movement for the Refoundation of the Fourth International.
The Crash has Already Begun (tags)
"The crash has already begun! Every crash comes inthree steps, the stock market crash, the banking industry crash and finally the real crash, the collapse of the economy, businesses, jobs and the financial system.. The coming depression is the correction.."
Cities and states face brutal cutbacks (tags)
BALTIMORE – In what could be called a “Thanksgiving massacre,” public school officials here handed out pink slips to 710 Baltimore City Public School (BCPS) employees. At least 1,000 are expected to have lost their jobs by January.
Enron E-Mails Show Arnold Met With Ken Lay (tags)
Enron E-Mails Show Arnold Met With Ken Lay During Energy Crisis
Arnie Schmoozed with Ken Lay while CA Suffered (tags)
While Californians suffered through the rigged blackouts -rigged by Enron and other vulture corporations - where was Arnie? He was scmoozing with Ken Lay and could hardly have given a damn!
Building Bridges Radio-Unemployment Crisis:Portrait of Inequality (tags)
Building Bridges Radio presents this 28 min radio program:A Portrait of Inequality –Today’s Unemployment Crisis - TO LISTEN CLICK ON INDYMEDIA LINK
With a $38 billion state deficit, California is labeled the nation's basket case. The election to recall the governor will be held this fall. It will determine if Bush and his gang will gain control of the state.
A Revolutionary View of the California Recall and Bipartisan Budget Crisis (tags)
Don’t Throw Your Vote Away by Giving It to the Democrats or the Republicans! OUT WITH THEM ALL! DON’T VOTE YES OR NO ON THE CALIFORNIA GOVERNORS RECALL The Recall is a Trap to Make Workers Pay for the Capitalist Crisis! VOTE FOR THE SOCIALIST CANDIDATE C.T. WEBER for GOVERNOR! PEACE & FREEDOM PARTY Organize Now to Build a Workers Party!
Let's transform the "Recall Davis" campaign into one of "Total Recall" of all Democratic and Republican candidates.
"Another world is possible and another economy is necessary, an economy in which massive social resources are used according to plan..`We are attacked as in the dying phase of the Weimar republic'." This review is translated from the German.
The Painful Truth Comes Out (tags)
California Democrats caught plotting against the little guy via hidden microphone. Admissions of involvement in harming the educational system, and instigating a budget crisis.
The Death of Dr.Kelly-Britain rocked by Political crisis (tags)
Irag-Blair
More State Intervention (tags)
"The German economy has skidded into a recession.. In a recession, the state must take a leadership role in solving the main problem, inadequate demand.." Translated from the German
BTL:Move to Recall California Gov. Gray Davis Ignores GOP Role in... (tags)
...Energy Companies' Robbing of State's Consumers. Interview with Tyson Slocum, research director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Program, conducted by Between the Lines' Melinda Tuhus
California budget targets health care (tags)
Last November, the California government announced the most severe budget crisis in California’s history—a budget shortfall of $38 billion for fiscal years 2003 and 2004. One month later, Governor Gray Davis imposed emergency budget cuts of $10.2 billion. These cuts are exacerbating a chronic health care crisis affecting nearly all counties in California. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jun2003/cali-j24.shtml
Liberalism And The Arab World's Crisis (tags)
Liberalism is the main feature for the change that is underway in our present world. And unless the Arabs realize that fact, they will not be able to accompany time.
Misuse Of Islamic Values Indicates Crisis In Arab Thought (tags)
During the Iraq war we were bombard with fetwas, often contradicting one another -- most were associated with the positions of governments or expressed the interests of conflicting groups.
Iraq Crisis Hour By Hour (tags)
Notice in particular 1743. This is basically an admission that the war has nothing to do with Saddam Hussein or Weapons of Mass Destruction® (The White House 2001).
Oil stocks are at a 27 year low! Anti-war poster: cheaper gas (tags)
11 x 17 poster
HOW VENEZUELAN ANARCHISTS VIEW THE CHAVEZ CRISIS (tags)
A conversation on how Venezuelan anarchists view the Chavez crisis with a libertarian comrade of the CRA (Comisión de Relaciones Anarquistas / Commission of Anarchist Relationships) of Venezuela on "Canarias Libertaria" on december 10, 2002.
The Privatization of the World (tags)
"State tax receipts rapidly decline through the globalization of capital. Heavily indebted states, provinces and communes have become economic crisis factors instead of being active as masters of crisis. They sell off cheaply the state table silver."
Venezuelan Crisis: Rich protesters against Socialist Chavez (tags)
As the international media ignores the perturbations in Venezuela, Chavez delivers speech at World Social Forum in Porto Allegre recounting the crisis situation in Venezuela caused by the wealthy, upper-class syndicates and their oppostion to nationalized petroleum and other proposed leftist-Chavezian laws projects
DOSSIER: NO WAR FOR EMPIRE NOW ONLINE (tags)
A Long Term Strategy for the Antiwar Movement
Music for Peace - musicians respond to the crisis in Iraq. (tags)
A new website for musicians who support peace.
New CESR fact sheets about the Iraq crisis (tags)
New CESR fact sheets about the Iraq crisis
The Will to Paralysis: The Crisis of Shareholder Capitalism (tags)
Scapegoats or black sheep are used to evade the crisis of the system. Considering matters more exactly would be very appropriate. Are manifestations of corruption and tax evasion normal side-effects of a system fixated on money?
AMERICA WILL USE SHUTTLE ACCIDENT TO WHIP UP WAR NATIONALISM (tags)
Watch for the Shuttle accident to be cynically manipulated to whip up a phony "national unity" in the service of America's genocidial war against Iraq.
Pakistani Marxist MP, Manzoor Ahmed (tags)
Pakistan
Assessing the Humanitarian Tragedy in Iraq (tags)
No modern humanitarian emergency has been as intensely examined as the humanitarian crisis in Iraq in this decade. Since 1990, more than thirty major studies have been conducted on the impact of the war and the continuing economic sanctions
BTL:Korean Crisis Aggravated by Hostile Rhetoric and... (tags)
...U.S. Military Violence Against Civilians.Interview with Karin Lee,senior associate with the East Asia Policy Education Project at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, conducted by Between the Lines' Scott Harris.
"Violently shattering the cartel of OPEC is discussed openly in the US..This calculation is irrational and can only accelerate the crash Less peace will be brought to Iraq..The US creates a qualitatively new state of emergency through its attack as defense."
The Wilderness Lives: The End of Prehistory as a Beginning (tags)
"The status quo is limited and not lasting from eternity to eternity as the quasi-religious worship of capital asserts. This worship of capital handed over to its own destructive dynamic is still dominant but not unchallenged." H. Thielen lives in Brazil.
Ballots across the West promise Power to the people (tags)
Public ownership of electric power is an idea whose time has come – at least in San Francisco, Las Vegas and in the Big Sky state of Montana. Voters in these western locales have a chance to vote Nov. 5 for ballot questions that open the way for city or state takeover or buyout of private utility companies.
BTL:Conference on 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis Offers Lessons for... (tags)
...Today's International Confrontations.Interview with Peter Kornbluh, of the National Security Archive conducted by Between The Lines' Denise Manzari
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SUNDAY HERALD DISCOVERS 'SMOKING GUN' DOCUMENT ABOUT AMERICA'S ATTACK ON IRAQ (tags)
The Sunday Herald, which broke the story about the Project for a New American Century document advocating a global American Empire, now uncovers a document which is another SMOKING GUN revealing the real reasons for the proposed US attack on Iraq. This reason--in case anybody still believes the lies about 'Weapons of Mass Destruction,' Terrorism, or 'Saddam as a new Hitler'--can be spelled O-I-L.
Africa AIDS Crisis Worsening (tags)
The HIV/AIDS pandemic is playing a key role in the worsening health crisis in Zambia and southern Africa, according to James Morris, the U.N. secretary-general's special envoy for the humanitarian crisis in six southern African countries.
9/11 events: Our grief is not a cry for war (tags)
NEW YORK – As events marked the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, New Yorkers, in all their diversity, turned out to remember those who died, to honor those who rushed to the aid of the World Trade Center (WTC) victims and to call for peaceful solutions to terrorism.
World AIDS Crisis Worsening (tags)
The AIDS pandemic will rapidly worsen, with the number of cases possibly doubling in sub-Saharan Africa in five years, according to an analysis by US intelligence officials.
take our Gmaize or starve (tags)
they call themselves humanitarian, but in pushing GM food on to third world countries they are opportunistically exploiting other peoples tragedies
Solar May Be State Energy Crisis Legacy (tags)
A toehold for solar energy may be a positive and lasting legacy of California's electricity crisis.
update
Proof the CA Energy Crisis was Corporate Manipulation/Theft (tags)
Probably no one reading the LA-IMC newswire will be surprised by this -- but here's (some of) the proof that last year's California Energy Crisis was thoroughly manipulated by the unregulated, parasitic energy corporations. A similar story was on the front page of today's (5-7-02) LA Times and the New York Times also had a lead article on the matter. Sorry for re-posting corporate media here, but I think it's important for this to be accessible on the LA-IMC newswire for posterity's sake. BTW, Pacifica Radio's Democracy NOW! had an excellent segment this morning about this as well.
‘The Real Middle East Crisis’ Enters New Season With A Sure Shot Twist (tags)
The latest string of rock fights, suicide bombers, exchanges of rifle fire, failed peace conferences and land negotiations, retaliatory bombings, media whitewashing and PR campaigns, increases in military presence, and calls for peace began this month on ‘The Real Middle East Crisis’. According to Neilson ratings.... For the rest of this article feel free to take a minute and visit http://www.saviorass.com/archives/mideast/mideast.html or click on the link below. Thank you.
Demonstrate Your Support For Women Prisoners! (tags)
Saturday APRIL 27th, 1pm Demonstration against the health crisis at Central California Women's Facility!
Medical Crisis in Palestine (tags)
The outstanding Palestine Red Crescent Society, a medical organization, has been providing very informative hourly and daily updates on the crisis in Palestine, where they are literally operating under fire. Their website with the latest up date as of 4/5/02 at 8 p.m. is: http://www.palestinercs.org/Press%20Releases/PRCSUpdateApr52002.htm
The People's Summit on High-Level Nuclear Waste: Rethinking the Waste Crisis (tags)
The People’s Summit on High-Level Nuclear Waste is a gathering of people from impacted communities to discuss our country’s high-level waste crisis; to confront conflicts among us and develop consensus to unify ourselves and solidify our commitment to a waste policy inclusive of ordinary people’s needs.
2002 Cal Gov Race: Energy Crisis Hoax (tags)
The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) issued a 58-page repot, entitled "Hoax: How Deregulation Let the Power Industry Steal $71 Billion From California," showing that the contrived California "energy crisis" of one year ago was a coordinated plan with the Legislative votes for taxpayer bailouts of the energy companies, as FTCR pointed out at the time. The report is in PDF format at:http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/utilities/rp/rp002169.pdf
COHA: Argentine Crisis Far More Than Just Economic (tags)
"Argentine crisis far more than just economic…. Argentina today is the antithesis of the good civil society. Due to the massive corruption which for decades has been the protoplasm of the country's bureaucracy, media, armed forces, judiciary and presidency, the vast bulk of Argentines are alienated from the establishment. Today, it is a country that clearly no longer works. As a result, the population views its leaders with raw cynicism and only trusts its athletes."
Bush Commission: No Social Security Crisis (tags)
There is no crisis today, and everyone on the commission knows it. According to their own numbers, Social Security can pay all promised benefits for the next 37 years. And the shortfall over the whole 75-year planning period is small relative to our national income (less than three-quarters of one percent). While the commissioners may say something different, its actions confirm the facts: there's no need to deal with Social Security anytime soon.
Humanitarian Aid Group Critical of U.S. Military Food Drops During... (tags)
Nicholas DeTorrente, executive director of Doctors Without Borders' U.S. office, critically assesses the Afghan refugee crisis and the Bush administration's decision to air drop military food rations over Afghanistan.
Bush called: "..ignorant, a madman, taking America to hell" --press conf. (tags)
WEBCAST of 9/28/01 press conference in Wash. DC on PREVENTION OF TERRORISM using proven Vedic defense shield technology. 15 min. intro. by Dr. John Hagelin, Natural Law Party followed by rare public address by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1 hr.)
In what should be recognized as scandalous opportunism, the Bush Administration and the pro-free trade think tanks have been exploiting the political leverage they've gained in the wake of the S11 tragedies to try to win "Fast Track Trade Authority" for the pResident.
Media's Role During the Nation's Crisis: Investigative Journalism or... (tags)
Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with journalist and author Danny Schechter, executive editor at Mediachannel.org, who, over the last four decades, has worked for both corporate and independent media outlets. He examines the role of the press since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Bush Rallies Public Support for War Against Terrorism But Critics Warn... (tags)
Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive Magazine, who assesses the Bush administration's handling of the national crisis and the political climate that has emerged following the terror strikes against the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Environmental Groups Drop Campaign Criticizing Bush (tags)
"We lost the stomach, both personally and individually, for some of the fights we had been engaged in prior to that," Craig Culp, a spokesman for Greenpeace in the United States, said.
Beyond War.
Comprehensive Pacifica Crisis Chronology (tags)
This chronology began as an attempt to get the Pacifica Crisis history straight in my own mind. It proved useful, and so I post it here for everyone else. It's major lesson is that the crisis was a long time coming.
Building Bridges Internet Labor Radio-3 Crises:Argentina, Pacifica & Welfare (tags)
Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report is broad- casting Wednesday, August 8 from 8-9pm over WBAI RADIO IN EXILE over www.wbix.org.Tonight we explore 3 crises: Argentina's financial meltdown, Welfare in the U.S. and continuing purges at WBAI-Pacifica
Major Energy Crisis Rally Today, 11:30am Downtown LA (tags)
Come one, come all! A major union-sponsered rally, about the energy crisis, will happen today (8-01) at the downtown federal building (225 Temple), beginning at 11:30am and going until 1pm.
The Ecological Crisis and Finance Activism as the Achilles Heel (tags)
The planet is in a state of crisis. We are shredding the interlocking web of life on which we depend. This post is dedicated to examining finance activism as the strategic lever to transform the landscape of an unaccountable, unsustainable and fundamentally perilous global system that is destroying lives and land. In fighting such a system, we need targets that help us connect local struggles and global struggles.
Medea Benjamin on the Energy Crisis: For Public Power! -- SCADA conference, 6-24 (tags)
Medea Benjamin provides a brilliant, succinct critique of California's energy crisis; and makes a clarion call for public power. From the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action (SCADA) conference in Los Angeles on June 24, 2001.
Gregory Palast On The "Energy Crisis" (tags)
Overview of an expatriate's incisive reporting on the manipulation, money and politics behind California's manufactured "energy crisis."
Gregory Palast On The "Energy Crisis" (tags)
Overview of an expatriate's incisive reporting on the manipulation, money and politics behind California's manufactured "energy crisis."
Comments to CPUC on electric rate increases (tags)
California Public Utiities Commission is taking public comments on proposed electric rate increases. This letter suggests a cost-shifting approach to address the "crisis."
Bush Coming To Southern California (tags)
Bush Heading to State This Month
Racism on the Rise Part 1: Penn State Crisis (tags)
There is a serious crisis at Penn State right now--the first letter describes the situation, and the second gives an update. Please circulate this as widely as possible.
April Fools' Rate Hikes (tags)
The Disneyland Democrats had their state convention in Anaheim, California this April Fools' weekend and still insist on following their PG&E whore, Gov Gray Davis, like the blind fools they are, as he leads their party to sure oblivion into the gubernatorial campaign of 2002
Californian's are paying for new PG&E investments, not power crisis (pt-2 text) (tags)
While the current "energy crisis" looms on for Californian's, many still question the real reason behind the hype. Most all of the media reports focus on the superficial aspects of this serious issue, only alternative news sources are digging deeper to reveal the true story.
CA Power Crisis: The Enron/Bush Connection (tags)
California's power crisis goes all the way to the White House. Enron, Bu$h's largest donor, is the leading business connection behind our state's disconnection. Now Bush says we'll have to pollute more.
Electoral Crisis: Read the Iron Heel by Jack London (tags)
Ive said it before, but if this ongoing crisis develops into full scale emergency, you have perhaps a couple of weeks to familiarise yourself with this "textbook" of plutocratic power seizure...
download flyer about Palestine (tags)
dowload a flyer about the current crisis in Palestine. Copy it and distribute it widely in your town. www.tao.ca/~plantingseeds