State Debts - The Primal German Fear (tags)
Unlike a private homebuilder, the state can be indebted and never expect the entire debt to be repaid. For most, taxes are a book with seven seals. A tax-cutting lobby exploits our unease over taxes for their purposes. Social cohesion declines and milieu egoism increases.
China's 6.9% Growth: The Superiority of the Plan (tags)
China has brought hundreds of millions out of poverty in only three decades thanks to the opening of the economy. In 1978, 90% of the population lived below the absolute poverty line of $1.90 a day. Today, there are `only' 43 million, three percent of the population of 1.4 billion.
The "Security Conference" - A Fraudulent Labeling (tags)
We say: No more world war fantasies and war preparations. Peace instead of NATO - Human dignity instead of the military - Reason instead of Trump.
Propaganda: Making Alternatives Disappear (tags)
The main responsibility of a government in a "democracy" is protecting the minority of the ownership class against the majority of the non-owners...The neoliberal indoctrination systems serve in the manufacture of ignorance.
Why are the Lambs Silent? (tags)
Techniques-fragmentation and propaganda- make serious violations of moral norms by the ruling elites morally and cognitively invisible to the population. With many examples, professor Mausfeld gives insight in the management of our democracy and how people are kept in apathy.
Unconditional Basic Income Raises the Right Questions (tags)
In the basic income society, work is what one wants, not what one must. Work is the contribution I make, not the obligation I meet to survive..."Alone I can become free but I cannot become free alone. The drama of becoming free is a social drama" (Swiss philosopher Stefan Brotbeck)
Politics Faded Out the Constitutional Offensiveness of Trade Agreements (tags)
The arbitration jurisdiction with the ISDS mechanism is the most controversial point of the two trade agreements. US corporations could file lawsuits against the German prohibition of gas production through fracking. Public interest laws could be stylized as "indirect expropriation."
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.
The European Commission suspended the secret TTIP negotiations for four months to get citizen consultation on the Investor-State-Dispute SettlementThis proposed parallel system with 3-person courts of arbitration allows corporations to sue for lost profits. Decisions are irrevocable.
TheInheritance of Inequality and Rethinking Growth (tags)
The economy exists for people, not vice versa. Economics should be pluralist, not a monolith. The economy should be embedded in society; society should not be embedded in the economy. Thomas Piketty and alternative economics emphasize inequality and mass unemployment.
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.
Structural Weaknesses of Capitalism (tags)
Ignorance and ideology replaced facts and economic fairness under Reagan. Reagan appealed to the Laffer curve and argued tax cuts bring higher revenues, He confused investment and speculation, SROs and SUVs, militarism and security and decried government as the problem.
In polls many people massively criticize this system of market-conforming democracy and then vote for it with large marge majorities. This cognitive dissonance is the result of a reeducation of society. The values and norms are success and efficiency...
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.
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..
Capitalism Doesn't Need Democracy (tags)
The minority of a minority have seriously damaged the public interest for personal enrichment. The community itself is culpable for not resisting its plundering.and choosing representatives that defend its interests.
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."
In Afghanistan, NATO Has No Military Goals (tags)
Population sectors open initially to the western invasion are turning today to the Taliban. The Karsai government is hated as never before on account of its corruption, cronyism and the brutality of warlords supporting the government.
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.
Calories on the Table, not in the Tank (tags)
For decades nearly all countries of the third world had to follow the "Washington Consensus"-a strategy of opening to the world market.. Wheat and corn land in the tank, not on the table. All of our dependence on the car appears here most perversely.
"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.