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.
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?
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.
Capitalism as a Religion (tags)
"Capital is the only god that the whole world knows, sees, touches, smells, tastes and excites all our senses. It is the only god that doesn't encounter any atheists" (Paul Lafargue's little known genial satire "Religion of Capital" from 1887.
Misguided Calls for More QE (tags)
QE
For a Different Economics (tags)
Economists are criticized everywhere for their onesidedness, their focus on markets and their inability to deal with the burning problems... From neoclassical assumptions "more is better" or markets lead to efficient distribution, a perspective on the world results that sets efficiency over justice
Fed
AIPAC's Federal Reserve Vice Chairman (tags)
Fed
Bracing for An Eventual Day of Reckoning (tags)
markets
Yellen's Fed Assures Business As Usual (tags)
Fed
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.
Bilderberg Conference Convenes (tags)
anti-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.
Investigation, Impeachment of US Judge Jed Rakoff, Clerk Ruby Krajick Requested (tags)
The US Government coerced merger of Merrill Lynch and BofA involved alleged criminality by US and BofA senior officers, including Brian Moynihan and Ben Bernanke. US Judge Jed Rakoff and Clerk Ruby Krajick engaged in conduct of invalid litigation in alleged violation of the US law, and the publication of null and void court records in alleged violation of their Oaths of Office, as part of efforts to cover-up the alleged criminality by senior BofA and US officers.
Ruling on Behalf of Wall Street's "Super Rich": The Financial End Time has Arrived (tags)
"Alas, the Obama administration has backed the Geithner-Bernanke policy that “the economy” cannot recover without saving the debt overhead. The reality is that it is the debt overhead that is destroying the economy. So we are dealing with the irreconcilable fact that the Obama position threatens to lower living standards from 10% to 20% over the coming few years – making the United States look more like Greece, Ireland and Latvia than what was promised in the last presidential election. Something has to give politically if the economy is to change course. More to the point, what has to give is favoritism for Wall Street at the expense of the economy at large. What has made the U.S. economy uncompetitive is primarily the degree to which debt service has been built into the cost of living and doing business. Post-classical “junk economics” treats interest and fees as payment for the “service” for providing credit. But interest (like economic rent and monopoly price extraction) is a transfer payment to bankers with the privilege of credit creation. The beneficiaries of providing tax favoritism for debt are the super-rich at the top of the economic pyramid – the 2% whom Mr. Obama’s tax giveaway will benefit by over $700 billion. If the present direction of tax “reform” is not reversed, Mr. Obama will shed crocodile tears for the middle class as he sponsors the Deficit Reduction Commission’s program of cutting back Social Security and revenue sharing to save states and cities from defaulting on their pensions. One third of U.S. real estate already is reported to have sunk into negative equity, squeezing state and local tax collection, forcing a choice to be made between bankruptcy, debt default, or shifting the losses onto the shoulders of labor, off those of the wealthy creditor layer of the economy responsible for loading it down with debt."
A World Full of Super-Bubbles: Ben Bernanke (tags)
In the last months, Ben Bernanke has emerged as a problem-intensifier, not a problem-solver. The man who flooded the world with cheap dollars faces the waste-heap of a sinking ship making the Titanic seem like a little rowing boat.
U.S. Election 2012: Stewart Alexander Says Ben Bernanke Should Resign (tags)
U.S. Socialist Stewart Alexander says, “Bernanke’s speech and response to the U.S. economic crisis has revealed that Chairman Bernanke has failed in his responsibility to the nation and should resign. While providing future guarantees to Wall Street, Bernanke’s message only provided optimistic illusions for the tens of millions of working people that are struggling nationwide.”
"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 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
Will the Great Depression Be Repeated? (tags)
Global trade fell 30 percent three years after the crash. The US gross domestic product shriveled 40 percent. In 1932, every fourth American was without a job. In Germany, industry only produced half of what was produced three years before.
GERMANY: What Lessons Do We Learn from the Financial Crisis? (tags)
Rating agencies were paid by the firms to be rated. Ultimately rational individual conduct led to an irrational collective result. The lesson is clear. On the way of regulation or taxation, banks must be given a massive incentive to remain small.
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.
Daniel Estulin's "True Story of the Bilderberg Group" and What They May Be Plann (tags)
Their goal is a world with rulers and serfs, no middle class
Reviewing Ellen Brown's "Web of Debt:" Part V (tags)
Part V of Federal Reserve plunder
FDR's New Deal v. Obamanomics in Their First 100 Days (tags)
stark mirror opposites
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.
Lessons from the Great Depression: Christina D. Romer (tags)
This paper was presented at the Brookings Institution Washington D.C. March 9, 2009. Christina Romer, economics professor at Berkeley, is one of President Obama's economic advisers in the Council of Economic Advisers.
Back from the Wilderness: Joseph Stiglitz (tags)
Economy theory has long explained why unhindered markets do not correct themselves, why regulation was necessary and why the government had an important role to play int he economy. Many who worked for the financial markets forced a kind of market fundamentalism.
Bank of America Forces Workers to Suffer (tags)
Bank of America, founded in California, has pressured Republic Windows to withhold paychecks from workers, AFTER gettinga 45 bil bailout from our taxes.
Worse Than the Great Depression? (tags)
a distinct possibility
Growing financial crisis.
In the great US democracy, half of those eligible to vote are not registered, and half of those who are registered does not vote. Thus, the rulers are elected by only 25% of the electorate...
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."
Pelosi Pushed Book, While Taxpayers Revolted Over Bailout (tags)
When the Congress was debating the $700 billion bailout of the greedy bankers on Wall St., an overconfident Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in Baltimore hawking her book, “Know Your Power.” On Sept. 29, 2008, the House of Representatives, responding to a taxpayers’ revolt, rejected the Bush-Cheney Gang’s bailout scheme. Speaker Peolsi, in her library spiel, conveyed a false sense of security about the grim economic situation facing the nation.
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.
Paulson's Lies Escalating: What You Can Do About It (tags)
From the Market oracle, the most complete analysis with timeline and reference links describing the history of escalating lies of Secretary Paulson and Ben Bernanke.
The Shrinking Influence of the US Federal Reserve (tags)
Humiliation for Mr. Dollar: Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank, faces a general investigation by the International Monetary Fund. Just one more example of the Fed losing its power.
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.
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 Republican Candidate (4 and 5) (tags)
If this is a subject of interest to you, in the United States today there are five Cuban prisoners, separated one from the other by thousands of miles. They have no area that can be sarcastically called the “Hanoi Hilton”. Their suffering and the injustice of which they are victims will be known the world over; don't doubt it for a minute
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 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.
The Real Financial Tsunami is coming! (tags)
"The $690 billion worth of “interest only” ARMs due for interest rate hike between now and July 2008 are by and large not Sub-prime but a little higher quality, but only just. There are a total of $1.4 trillion in “interest only” ARMs according to the US research firm, First American Loan Performance. A recent study calculates that, as these ARMs face staggering higher interest costs in the next 9 months, more than $325 billion of the loans will default leaving 1 million property owners in technical mortgage default. But if banks are unable to reclaim the homes as assets to offset the non-performing mortgages, the US banking system and a chunk of the global banking system faces a financial gridlock that will make events to date truly “peanuts” by comparison. "
Questions to the Maestro Alan Greenspan (tags)
Listen to Thom Hartmann interview Alan Greenspan on Air America Monday Sept 24. Greenspan was responsible tor the credit problems that now shake the world finance markets. Did the maestro drastically lower interest rates to help the Bush administration?
A "Slow Motion Train Wreck" (tags)
Financial market turmoil and the Federal Reserve increases it
Fear of the Working Class At Home And Internationally Stirs Some Debate Among the Bankers (tags)
There is growing concern among sections of the capitalist class that the rising opposition to their global offensive and the market will get out of control.
News Junkie Scott's Blog (3/02/06) (tags)
Death of an Iraqi professor
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.
Mr. Greenspan and the German Way (tags)
Greenspan's dilemma is that interest rates must rise to reduce the trade deficit ($617B in 2004) and keep foreign investors ($2B a day) though this could burst the real estate bubble and raise consumer prices. US prosperity is a credit-b ased prosperity.
The Cancun Summit-WTO on the edge of abyss (tags)
WTO