Ukrqaine war: The second victim is freedom of expression (tags)
Democracy in crisis - A battle for public opinion is raging. The war in Ukraine is just the latest arena in this battle. Obviously, the same schemes are at work that were also observed during the coronavirus pandemic: Views were predetermined, dissent defamed. Society is forgetting how to hold debates and wrestle over opinions, forced by the state.
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.
Nord Stream as a reason for war (tags)
Only the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines ultimately cleared the way for the EU, and Germany in particular, to become long-term buyers of U.S. natural gas surpluses and to keep the price at a profitable level for U.S. fracked gas producers, even in the long term.
At Easter, "a strong signal must be sent against a policy of military confrontation, against a new global arms race and against an increase in the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction," is the reason given for the call to actively participate in the Easter marches.
We only live in half a democracy (tags)
The machine used in the production process counts more in the constitution than the working person who created this machine in the first place. As a result, the employees in the production process are hopelessly inferior to the capital owners. That is the legal situation. But it doesn't have to stay that way.
Collective working-time reduction is long overdue (tags)
The overall economic fact is further that from 1960 to 2019 the volume of work (despite reunification) increased only from 56.2 to 62.6 billion hours (by 11.4%), while the potential labor force grew from 26.3 to 46.5 million persons, i.e. by 76.8%.
The Cure is the Sickness, 2001 (tags)
"Good policy" in the sense of the Washington Consensus can be paraphrased with these ten principles. The key to development successes lies only in a correct policy mix. Development backlogs, continuing poverty and so forth are referred back everywhere to "bad policy".
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?
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.
Competition Ideology and Power Reality (tags)
Competition cannot be an end-in-itself. Uncontrolled private power leads to misuse. Uncontrolled competition increasingly destroys itself through concentration and centralization processes. Bastard Keynesianism helps the banks. People diverted from real cause of crises
The Supposed "Omnipotence" of Politicians (tags)
The key to a new peace policy could lie in denouncing mechanisms of economic coercion that are not only states and politicians. As the warnings of Eisenhower and JFK teach us, politics is massively subject to the influences of economic power.
Growth Criticism and Reduced Working Hours (tags)
Today's growth critics speak of the necessity of a post-growth society, a "renunciation society" or at least of a "green" capitalist model... A political transformation process is necessary. The economist John Maynard Keynes dreamt of a time when his grandchildren would only have 15hr wk.
The Unending Story of the Achievers (tags)
All personal and corporate success depended on state investments in roads, schools, hospitals, community centers, airwaves, food safety and water quality. The achievers' myth ignores this, Austrian researcher Bruno Rossmann explains.
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.
Free Trade and Economic Growth instead of Democracy and Ecology (tags)
The TTIP agreement between the EU and the US creates a parallel private arbitration system where corporations can sue states for lost profits and decisions are irrevocable. Labor and environmental regulations can be invalidated as “takings” or “indirect expropriation.”
Average wages in the US are lower than 30 years ago. Profits and income inequality explode, not investments. The austerity policy that has always worsened unemployment and economic growth is promoted as without alternative by German chancellor Merkel.
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.
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.
Germany
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...
Economic Policy, the Schwabian Housewife and Francois Hollande (tags)
"What is rational for individuals leads collectively into a cul-de-sac.. The fundamental error is that economic policy believes the crisis can be fought with the logic of a family budget. For that reason, the collapse of the euro zone threatens." France goes a different way than Italy and Spain.
"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.
Prosperity without Growth (tags)
Production cannot increase forever. For the developed economies of the western world, prosperity without growth is a necessity and not a utopian dream any more. See the links to five free Internet books..
The Dangerous Doctrine of Justification (tags)
While religion can make people happier by giving connection to a larger whole, it can also make them blind and neurotic. Self-righteousness is the grand delusion distorting life in the church and outside the church (cf. Eberhard Juengel).
The neoliberal growth strategy ofr reducing the price of labor led to a system change from Keynesianism to neoliberal capitalism. Neoliberals never sought full employment. Rather their policy aimed at the permanent division of society.
Saving is not a Solution (tags)
The capital markets repeatedly force the real economy to its knees. The savings orgy should help heavily indebted states regain the trust of the financial markets. In a play from the madhouse, states must run into debt to bailout their money-houses.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Welch's Marvelous Transformation (tags)
Nearly all the excesses summarized unter the terms turbo- or casino capitalism are based on the ideology of shareholder value: the rule of financial markets over the real economy, the short-term and short-sightedness of shareholders and waves of rationalizations."
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.
"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.
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.
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.
Foreign countries will not finance US wars and US consumption for ever. The US must accept the new reality that countries want to diversity, not accumulate dollars. What becomes of a country that refuses systemic criticism and sets missions and agendas above facts and realities?
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.
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.
"Did marxism and nationalism win the war while capitalism and nationalism won the peace? Tom Hayden asked. The domino theory, the justification of Washington governments, turned out to be dreadfully wrong.
CUBA: el secreto de la Era de Acuario (tags)
Este 13 y 14 de Mayo se efectuará en Bruselas, Bélgica, el encuentro pomposamente titulado: “Quo Vadis Cuba, escenarios de transición en el final de la era de Castro”...
Warning of the American Friend (tags)
What primarily motivates US foreign policy-economic interests or a religious mission consciousness? A special world view is added to the economic interests In this perspective, economic liberalism brings political freedom and both together lead to peace and free trade.
From Iraq War to Middle East War (tags)
Bush ignores everything that experts, the opposition majority and the US public want.. Bush's course recalls Nixon's 1970 invasion of Cambodia, expanding the battle while swearing withdrawal.
Military-Industrial Complex (tags)
The fusion of the new American patriotism with religious fundamentalism developed into the most powerful legitimation resource for continuing the MIC. Stability and containing conflict are obviously not the goals of the neoconservatives.
Governing against the People (tags)
The dream of 1989 that democracy and capitalism can be reconciled fades.. Elected governments orient their decisions in trans-national groups and global finance markets.
Defending Human Dignity: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (tags)
The chapter of German resistance remains rather narrow compared with the wide support that Hitler could count on up to the end that enabled him to act mercilessly against all opposition.
More Time for Life, Laughter and Love (tags)
"Fewer and fewer persons produce more and more goods in an ever shorter time through increasingly efficient technology, better training and growing labor intensity." Growth cannot solve mass unemployment.
Uncontrolled capitalism proved to be a completely wrong track toward the end of the 19th century. The governing church of work does everything so people only have time and strength for two things in life: work and job-hunting. The 30-hour work week could be a life-giving goal.
"Nine-Eleven" Retrospective (tags)
After declaring war on terrorists, an endless war, the balance sheet is rather depressing three years later-and after two wars. Many terrorism experts see America's reaction to Sept 11 as catastrophic. A gift was given to the terrorists with the iraq war.
Capital and Labor: Deeds Must Follow Criticism (tags)
A new balance between capital- and labor income is necessary. Unfortunately the opposite is happening. The constant lowering of capital taxation in Germany fans the European tax lowering competition. The public infrastructure deteriorates.
America's Preventive War as Ultimate Risk (tags)
Never before has a democratic state threatened so openly to repudiate the basic norm of all law, the prohibition of violence.. Apart from self-defense, no war is legal.. The American government does not feel bound to the fundamental norms of law and ethics.
"With Rumsfeld, one enters a plane of freely-floating aggressiveness not bound to any principles or any special competence. Psychological textbooks know unbridled ruthless tyrants as failures. Rumsfeld may be a successful cross-breeding.."
"The neoliberal medicine Less State and More Market does not work.. That the neoliberal medicine does not heal the economy and society but damages them must be clear to everyone who hasn't suc-cumbed to the neoliberal delusion."
Silence is Deadly. Anti-War Day Sept 1, 2003 (tags)
"The US wages a pure imperial war of conquest with the admitted lies that its own country and the world had to be preventively defended against the threat of weapons of mass destruction.. God is with us on the way to the Americanization of all cultures.."
Annan sees World Order in Crisis (tags)
"The United Nations was forced to an outsider role by the Iraq war, Annan grieved. `What are the rules when we consider allowing preventive strikes or wars? Who makes the decision? Was Iraq only an exception or is it a precedent?'"
"The US attacked Iraq. The US dictated this war to the whole world. They showed they considered nothing but their national security and their national interests.. This war dictatorship is the dictatorship of arbitrariness and unpredictability."
"The US attacked Iraq. The US dictated this war to the whole world. They showed they considered nothing but their national security and their national interests.." Translated from the German in Utopie kreativ, May 2003