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).
Vienna: Housing is a Human Right (tags)
Housing as a human right is subverted by the right of speculation. The Vienna Housing Fund buys up potential development land and prevents speculation. Rents in Vienna are half the rents in Munich.
Is Economic Speculation a Form of Structural Violence? (tags)
According to neoclassical economic theory, the financial markets return to equilibrium. Problems only occur because of state intervention. The roaring twenties led to an enormous stock euphoria. In 2018, companies inflate their stocks in a $70 billion stock buy back program.
The Renter Nation - Homes for All.org, 27pp (tags)
Housing as a human right is subverted by the "right" to speculation (cf. Arnold Kunzli in Housing as a Human Right http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003)/06/266635.shtml
Eliminating currency speculation would be simple. The big central banks, the American Fed, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Japanese Central Bank...$5.3 trillion whirl through the world daily seeking lucrative currency bets.
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.
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.
Politics Serving Free Financial Markets Creates False Incentives (tags)
Stable exchange rates, a strict regulation of (financial-) capital transactions, a transactions tax and low interest rates should make financial speculation so unattractive (“euthanasia of the profiteer”) that real investments would quickly expand to maintain full employment.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Bank Tribunal: In the Claws of Speculators (tags)
The enormous rise in prices of oil and food in the summer of 2008 was largely caused by speculation. Thousands upon thousands of people died of starvation at that time. Politics was a compliant accessory of the financial branch. The Bank Tribunal will be from April 9-11 in Berlin.
The Rules of the Game, Not the Players (tags)
In the last three decades, the financial markets have grown much faster than production.. The respective players (whether public or private) are not the problem but the rules of the game.. The goals and means of production must be redefined
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.
Only Lip Service: Interview with Heiner Flassbeck (tags)
Heiner Flassbeck describes the financial summit in Washington as failed. The UN expert says the central problems of speculation with exchange rates and raw materials were not addressed. The industrial countries divert from the real themes.
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.
Deregulated Markets and Alternative Economics (tags)
In the last ten years there was more speculationthan ever, more than before the 1930 worldwide economic crisis. A policy of deregulated financial markets made this possible. That real investment profits turn out relatively small encourages the speculation tendency.
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?
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.
Call on Gov. Schwarzenegger to Investigate Chemtrails (tags)
Calling for a State Level Investigation into the Aerial Spraying Campaign known as Chemtrails/Persistent Contrails.
Life is More than Capital (tags)
Ulrich Duchrow and Franz Hinkelammert focus on the mis-developments in the third world where privatization of the water supply led to higher prices. international conglomer-ates made profits and paid no local taxes.
IRAQ REVOLT: TACTICS OF DIVERSION (tags)
With questions of 9/11 and Africa's oil and "al-Qaeda" dominating headlines, it sure was lucky that Iraq returned to the front-page...or, was it more than just luck.
A comment on the media hype and inaccuracies coming from the media.