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 Curse of Financial Entrepreneurship (tags)
We are not prisoners of bad decisions made in the past. We can and should rein in Wall Street, break up its five giant “too-big-to-fail” banks, support local and state banks, resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act’s divide between investment & commercial banking, tax all financial transactions
Time to end the panic mode (tags)
Tyrannies reverse the rule of law. They turn law into an instrument of injustice. They cloak their crimes in false legality. They use the outward decorum of courts and trials to disguise their criminality.
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 President as Businessman (tags)
Trump's gigantic tax cuts will only benefit the rich. Revenue losses of six trillion dollars are expected for the first decade after the Trumpian tax cuts start. Trump sells the illusion that the old order can be restored.
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
Rethinking Economic Policy! (tags)
The economic crisis calls for social-democratic answers. The fading mass purchasing power (in Germany) is due to the increasing inequality of income and wealth. Deregulation promotes social problems like precariousness and greater income inequality.
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.
Neoliberal Indoctrination (tags)
Neoliberalism tells the poor and weak that they are responsible for their misery. The true extent of social poverty barely reaches the public. A re-feudalization bomb rages and investors seek privatizing the public education system. People are atomized. Fragmentation is intentional.
Oxfam Study: Six Reasons to be Outraged (tags)
Whether inequality harms or benefits was disputed for a long while. It could motivate individuals to more effort and stimulate growth, one side believed. It takes the chances for education and development from those who are poorer, the other said... Money buys power.
Casino Capitalism and Profit Maximization (tags)
In the 1960s the average holding time for stocks was 10 years. Now the holding time is not 9 months but 22 seconds. Like shareholder value, profit maximization leads to exploding inequality and the waste of resources. States are weakened by tax cuts.
Wealth is not a Private Affair (tags)
The US faces a revenue- and a war-spending crisis. The top tax rate was over 70% from 1938 to 1982; corporations put trillions in tax havens. Alternative economics emphasize profit maximizing is not profit making. In financial capitalism,Profits explode, not investments.
Casino Capitalism and Profit Maximization (tags)
“The state is consciously weakened to speed up the redistribution from bottom to top because that corresponds to the dogmas of the neoliberal ideology.” Our state was systematically weakened in the last 15 years by extensive tax cuts. I remember the lowering of the top income tax rate.
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.
"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.
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
Harvard
class war
The Generational Contract is not the Problem (tags)
The battle is between poor and rich, not young against old. In Germany, the political reforms of the past twelve years r4elieved the wealthy and employers. The top tax rate and corporation taxes were lowered. Then the low-wage sector was developed.
Financing the Government: Romney Must Get the Message (tags)
The role of the state and the necessity of common action is a main theme in the political debate. Regulation ensures the same rules for everyone in competition. Conservative politicians in the US underrate the importance of publically provided education, technology and infrastructure.
Going Viral: Moors' Law for Oil says $7 a gallon gasoline in '17 (tags)
Moore's Law for transistor count is ending, but now there's Moors' Law for oil and it says gasoline -- US national average -- will be $7 in 2017 as oil reaches $120 a barrel. The law is named for Kent Moors, a professor Duquesne U. Specifically, the price of oil and the number of cars in China, which drives it, double every 5 years. These murderous prices change everything in society.
The Left, Labor and Occupy (tags)
Barely half a year after it burst on the scene, the Occupy Wall Street movement is splintering left and right. This was inevitable in a movement that was united only in what it opposed and could never put forward a positive program, whether of reformist "demands" on the capitalist state or of revolutionary action against it. Liberals, who latched onto Occupy hoping it could pressure the Democratic Party in a more populist direction, want to expel "black bloc" anarchists. Reformist social democrats rail against "ultraleftists" in Occupy and cozy up to the labor tops. On the other side, many (but not all) anarchists oppose unions. Some are simply arrogant petty-bourgeois labor haters. Others are grappling with real problems, but with skewed analysis and dead wrong conclusions. Discussion of recent workers' struggles, from Wisconsin to West Coast longshore, underlines that the key question is leadership, but not just replacing one set of bureaucrats with another. Unions have always faced vicious anti-labor laws, but we have the power to defeat them. It is necessary to drive out the pro-capitalist bureaucracy, the labor lieutenants of capital, in order to turn the unions into instruments of revolutionary class struggle.
Learning from Roosevelt (tags)
Harry Hopkins, head of WPA under Roosevelt, created 4 million jobs in 2 months. How many jobs in health care, education, bridge repair, community centers and journalism could be created today? Solutions are not lacking, only political will. Viva sharing and redistribution!
The Tax System is Out of Control (tags)
Citi-group and Bank of America operate many branch offices in tax havens. The use of tax havens deprives the state of $100 billion annually. "These tax havens accelerate the transfer of assets from local communities and the global South to the bank accounts of the richest..."
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.
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."
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 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.."
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."
LÓPEZ PERITO, EL MARISCAL DEL FRACASO (tags)
LÓPEZ PERITO, EL MARISCAL DEL FRACASO
Obama Year One: Betrayal and Failure (tags)
Obama's shocking betrayal
Leopards Can’t Change Their Spots, Nor Can Capitalists (tags)
Despite all the rhetoric, nothing much has changed and the fundamental contradictions of the system remain. The only solution is to rid ourselves of it.
Obama and the Crisis of Expectation (tags)
With Obama elected President but not yet inaugurated, the question on everyone’s mind is, “what’s going to happen next?” Millions of people around the world are hoping that a Obama presidency will radically change the course of US politics, and with it, world politics. This is especially true for the huge numbers of mostly young volunteers working for Obama’s campaign, most of whom had never been involved in politics before. And while it is impossible to predict the future precisely, one can make an educated guess as to Obama’s future actions, based on answering two fundamental questions: which social class is Obama and the Democratic Party going to represent while in office, and what are the current interests of that class. For example, if Obama were to act in the interests of the working class, a number of measures would be immediately taken, such as increasing wages, improving healthcare, funding schools, ending war, etc. If, on the other hand, Obama is going to represent the ruling class, we can expect policies similar to the Bush Presidency, who long ago proved himself to be a puppet for the banks and corporations.
Barack Obama, new mouthpiece of ruling class interests (tags)
In renewing its great traditions of struggle, the American proletariat will have to fight the coming blood and tears policy of the Obama presidency
A reality check.
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.
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.
P&F Congressional Candidate Calls For Closure Of Kaiser Hospital Complex In Downey CA (tags)
Peace and Freedom Party Congressional candidate Dina Padilla is calling for the closure of the Downey toxic site in which Kaiser has built a hospital complex and toxic site developer Stuart Lichter has built the Downey Studio. These sites have not been properly cleaned up and movie and Kaiser workers have gotten sick from contamination
Pulling the plug won't mean the end of the world; there is an alternative. Let's do a Kevorkian on this rotten system.
More war ahead to save a criminal president
NEW YORK STATE, HILLARY, SCHUMER, BUSHFRAUD, MOSSAD CRIME WAVE CONTINUES (tags)
It can now be reported that the short sales on insurance company stocks have been traced to an elaborate New York state "Ponzi scheme." This includes the use of U.S. Intelligence Agency-based black accounts and crooked accounting procedures aka "past-posting." This activity is directly linked to former CEO of American Insurance Group (AIG), Hank (Maurice) Greenberg and the out-of-control Israeli Mossad. The short sales and put options that were placed on the Chicago Board of Options pre 9/11 were funded through the American-Turkish Council and Kissinger Associates with brokerage firm Bear Stearns and American Insurance Group disguising the profits as end of the year derivatives.
TRULY Independent 9/11 Research (tags)
Before you decide whether or not to believe a word I say, it might do well to consider that in the last five years, I have had some forty or so email accounts hacked to uselessness as well as half a dozen mailing lists. I have dealt with literally, many thousands of electronic attacks, from files disappearing from my home computer (key files researching Booz, Allen, & Hamilton) to an unending stream of attempts at depositing worms and viruses in my hardware, sometimes to the tune of several hundred in a week. When I broke the connection to remote piloting, or unmanned aerial vehicles, and Teslian physics, my sister's house burned to the ground and a week later, my brother's apartment caught fire. During this time, I have had two dogs poisoned, about a year apart.
FERC under GW Bush regime contributes to genocide (tags)
Recent GW Bush/Cheney regime influenced FERC decision to relicense Klamath River dams contributes to the genocide of indigenous nations (Yurok, Hupa, Karuk) living along the Klamath River ecosystem.
Poor and Elderly Die in California Heat Wave (tags)
The deaths during California's recent heat wave were due to market forces not natural causes
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
The time is now to rally around hemp for energy independence and reduction of global warming.
Economism, Economic Ethics and Donations (tags)
Economism is the great ideology of our time. It claims that (1) resisting the market is impossible and (2) submitting to the market is best for everyone. Both are not true. Embedding the market in principles of useful-ness to life has a priority as an ordering task.
Who is the REAL nuclear threat? (tags)
The real nuclear threat is Israel. The Talmudic Zionists Jew pulled off 911 with high US offical Zionist help, both NORAD, plus FEMA, plus Pentagon, Plus Bush and administrative allies, and sold you the Moslems did it. Who else would benifinit from the Iraq fiasco? They were hoping to get Israel cheap oil and US world hegdemony.
A Mexican Response to Arnold Schwarzenegger (tags)
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With society awash in cash workers are expected to take cuts and be thankful
George W. Bush and his Watergate (tags)
"Bush's famous speech of January 2002 wherfe he described Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the axis of evil was written by David Frum, a neoconservative ally of Perle. The neoconservatives were the chief authors of Bush's war on terrorism since September 11.
Pre-9/11 World Trade Center Power-Down (tags)
Did the World Trade Center towers undergo a deliberate “power-down” on the weekend prior to the 9-11 terrorist attacks? According to Scott Forbes, a senior database administrator for Fiduciary Trust, Inc. – a high-net investment bank which was later acquired by Franklin Templeton – this is precisely what took place. The perfect time for CIA agents to plant explosives to bring down the towers
The New America- Darth VAder or Frankenstein's Monster? ( Part 2 Of 2) (tags)
Using unusual personal experience and studied general observation to denote the horrific transformation of America, via mass-conditioning, pop-culture media programming, the military, and of course the legislature and police to train and harvest the slaves to serve the New World Mafia's black market profits and control.
South Cal Fire NOT A Wildfire - 'Just' Another Arson (tags)
What I am saying, in short, is that there is a team of arsonists throughout the country that have for some time escaped recognition by most of the media as the major networks, instead spin it into a wildfire debate (Sierra Club included).
I HAVE LOST MY 40TH OR SO ADDY DUE TO NWO NET FORCE / COINTELPRO OPS (tags)
ONE DOES NOT GET ATTACKED SO FOR BEING OFF COURSE. I am publishing sensitive material, sensitive to the Bush cartel, hiding behind a facade of national security. This is it folks. This is the information that the international order, the group that smacked our psyches upside the head on September 11, 2001, does not want out there.
CIA Conducted Air Crash Simulation on 9/11/01 (What are the chances?!?) (tags)
Here's another admission which destroys the government's lie that it couldn't possibly have foreseen the use of planes to ram buildings.
GOP = Goldwater's Old Party? (tags)
Antiwar libertarian bloggers and Internet columnists often link to left-of-center websites like Indymedia, Common Dreams, Alternet.org and CounterPunch while others consider voting for Democratic candidate Howard Dean.
Impeachment Is Not Enough (tags)
By now its clear to everyone, that Bush lied to congress about weapons of mass destruction. He lied to the American people. He had aides lie to the Untied Nations. He lied about the connection between Iraq and bin Laden. He lied about Nigeria. He lied about chemical and biological weapons. He lied about the underlying reasons to wage war. He lied blaming others for his lies. He lied about his staff; they are all a bunch of convicted felons and retreads from his daddy’s administration. He lied and good men died because he lied.
Global Power Elites and the New Wars (tags)
"A representative republic was transformed into a plutocracy. Privatizing public property was a continuous tendency during the whole modern age." The average net worth of the 400 richest Americans rose tenfold by 1999..The Bush administration has martial plans, not a Marshall plan." From the German
Mitre Corp., Warren Buffet, Global Hawk, and September 11, 2001 (tags)
Buffet also markets Biz Jets, which CEO's all over the world are buying up as the latest fad. Of course, this means that Warren Buffet, consumate money launderer and second in wealth in the US only to Mr. William Gates, the very man that may have been at the heart of the play calling on September 11 (he was at least playing along), makes the machines the powerful fly in. Fear of death always works, doesn't it?