Trump and the Danger of Fascism (tags)
Peace is the imperative that should outweigh escalation and the unspeakable risk of global war! The constitutional state must not be confused with the security state or the emergency state as Rousseau and the social contract must not be confused with Thomas Hobbes and the punishing or fearsome state. People would fight endlessly without the state or Leviathan, he said.
When will we finally end the party of the arms companies? (tags)
The people, however, want the opposite. They are afraid of war. They want peace and civil conflict resolution. They want social welfare and a decent standard of living.That is what politics should focus on. Unfortunately, in the current hysterical mood, there are only a few who have the courage to be pilloried as "party crashers", pro-Putin, pro-Hamas, pro-Mullah and other autocrats
The peace teaching of Jesus of Nazareth is thrown to the wind (tags)
Jesus, the Christ, taught love of God and neighbor, nothing else, but this has to be learned. But if not even the clear teaching of peace of Jesus of Nazareth in the biblical Gospels is taken seriously and followed by Bible believers, then we can conclude that the Bible mix has caused enough mischief for long enough.
"We don't have to be enemies" (tags)
We demand a ceasefire. The release of the hostages. An end to the military occupation of Palestine. We stand side by side with our Palestinian friends.There is no alternative to peace in Israel and Palestine. Not for Jews, not for Palestinians and not for the other people who live there. This is not naïve, but realistic and pragmatic. It is not radical, but the only option to end the suffering
What is literature for? (tags)
Since 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, humankind has made a tremendous leap backward. We are witnessing the systematic dismantling of the welfare state, the atomization of the working class, the collapse of union membership, the abandonment of any attachment to republican principles. Mainstream discourse encourages us to resign.
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.
The military will not solve a single problem (tags)
Solidarity could also be understood and implemented differently: as a concept that reduces violence and aims at protecting human lives in concrete terms. This includes not only refugee aid, humanitarian aid & all conceivable diplomacy. It is also important to examine whether social resistance measures planned for the short term make sense in this highly escalated situation.
Housing is a human right (tags)
To guarantee the human right to housing, a fundamental change in policy would be required at all levels. At all levels - federal, state and local - the social housing provision should be enforced against private profit interests. The non-profit status of housing must be revived. Housing must not be a commodity, it must not be the object of speculation and profit interests.
Russia's victory in an economic war (tags)
If perspectives for ways out of the increasingly worsening crises of capitalist socialization are to emerge, it is indispensable to look at the whole of conditions and their complex entanglements. It is necessary to break with the myths and life lies of the 'free West' as well as with those of a mission for a Russian empire or any other autocratic fundamentalism.
Climate strike: How elites have been fighting Generation Alarm for five years (tags)
Some activists are later sentenced to pay millions in damages, others have to spend months in prison for their civil disobedience. In the Bild newspaper, RWE boss Rolf Martin Schmitz calls them "eco-terrorists." But neither heat, nor summer drought, nor coal protests led the politicians to ask questions about the climate.
The visions of a possible peace in Ukraine differ among all parties. For Russia, it is a matter of ensuring that Ukrainian territory no longer poses a threat to its own security. Therefore, it primarily wants to achieve the demilitarization of Ukraine. It must not become a deployment area for NATO.
Car Plants Are Making Medical Equipment - And Things Should Stay That Way (tags)
The time has come for progressive nationalization and socialization. This includes the financial sector, because only if we gain control over the financing of socially necessary areas of production will it be possible to ensure that we as a society can plan our future.
Four taboo truths about the Ukraine war (tags)
Like every war in history, the Ukrainian war has a prehistory that does not begin with Russia's invasion of the neighboring country nearly a year ago, or even in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea to Russia. Second, the war has an immense potential for escalation.
Inflation, Ukraine & China (tags)
What impresses me is China's diplomatic engagement. And I say that also in terms of their role in restoring diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Our diplomacy, American diplomacy, seems to me reactive, unimaginative, and ineffective. Chinese diplomacy, on the other hand, seems to me to be more imaginative.
The sacred cow & The propaganda machine (tags)
These campaigns by politics & the media, which prescribe an extremely narrow framework of what can be said, narrow freedom of expression to the Western narrative. Those who dare to express dissent are grabbed by their livelihoods.
January 30, 1933 and Media makes politics (tags)
Edward Bernays, an important developer of modern propaganda, wrote almost a hundred years ago: "The manipulation of the opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate form an invisible government..."
Battle for Social Democracy and Unfettered Capitalism (tags)
Two opposing schools of thought face each other at the sickbed: neoliberalism and social democracy. Didn't the death-bells of neoliberals ring in the course of the financial market crisis? Were not neoliberals unmasked who first caused the whole mess with their deregulation?
The Prince of Hell and Peace in Ukraine is possible (tags)
There is little truth in war. If you want to survive, any means must necessarily be acceptable. In this scenario, lying is not a sin, not something to be outlawed, but simply an option to achieve one's own goals. It is therefore normality.
War in Ukraine. Nato taboos fall (tags)
This military-scientific glorification of a war that has long been hopeless for both sides, which is also supported by some media, leads to the postulation of the prospect of victory against one's better judgment. What is meant, however, is more likely a victorious peace.
The American century was yesterday (tags)
"The people can always be made, with or without the right to vote,to follow the orders of the leaders. It is very simple. One need nothing to do but to tell the people that they are being attacked, and to reproach the pacifists of their lack of patriotism and putting the country in danger. This method works in every country." (Hermann Goering,1946)
Lockdown light - Corona crisis and capitalism (tags)
The pandemic and countermeasures have effects shaped by the neoliberal form of capitalism[ that has dominated since the 1980s. 1.the independence of the financial sphere ,2.the fragmentation of the labor markets, and 3.the weakening of social systems.
Charity means toppling the powerful from their thrones and The cry of the poor (tags)
There is no distinction between structural violence, which is the basis of the capitalist social order, and counter-violence. "First of all, I would like to state that there is a violence from which all other violence derives: the violence of oppression." (Dom Helder Camara).
In the eye of the typhoon, Hardened fronts & The Nuclear War Bluff (tags)
Nuclear war is a big bluff & the last means of the cult to enforce its Great Reset to control & decimate humanity. Now is the time to recognize this & not be fooled again by the dilettantes in the Western governments. The growing worldwide resistance will end all plans of the globalists.
The property question and A new age of censorship is dawning (tags)
There is another good news, if not two good news, which are directly connected. A majority of people reject capitalism and want a different system. It is not difficult to link the global crises that threaten our very existence to our prevailing economic and social order.
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.
Question sanctions and The cry of the poor (tags)
In Germany, we tend to moralize and romanticize in politics. This prevents us from taking a sober view of world events. We fail to recognize that the U.S. is ruthlessly asserting its own interests, against enemy and friend. The interests of the EU and the U.S. have long since ceased to coincide.
We are witnessing the collapse of diplomacy (tags)
We, who keep this society running, are footing the bill, while the super-rich and big corporations are lining their pockets, making profits from the crises.
Opportunity instead of crises and End this madness! (tags)
Almost no one asks what an economic policy looks like that no longer subordinates everything to economic growth: How to reduce the debt mountain to a reasonable level without GDP growth? How can pensions be secured without GDP growth and employment be guaranteed?
Opportunity instead of crises and End this madness (tags)
History teaches that major course corrections usually emerge from crises. However, far-sighted economists and politicians should start thinking today about how to shape a future without debt crises, without ecological and social exploitation, and without compulsive growth.
Energy crisis: market intervention by policymakers is necessary (tags)
We are in the middle of a multiple energy crisis. The supply of energy is in danger, and prices will continue to rise. This is not only a problem for private households and companies. There is a danger that persistently high inflation will become entrenched. Then severe economic depression
Guidance to the system change, Parts 1 and 2 (tags)
World War II led to U.S. domination of the political West, which was able to make its mark on the part of the world it more or less controlled. Led and dominated by the military-industrial complex, any efforts of autonomous state developments that contradicted its interests were suppressed.
Hysterical Populism and the Appetite of Leviathan (tags)
The relationship between economy and social order has been turned upside down: economy is no longer a function of an overarching culture, but conversely, "human society has sunk to being an accessory of the economic system" (Karl Polanyi). RK was founder of Exit & Krisis blogs.
There is no alternative to ceasefire negotiations and The rebel withn us (tags)
There is no alternative to negotiations on ceasefires and ceasefires, is there? That is where all the power should be concentrated. If that succeeds, the bombing will also stop.
The window of opportunity is closing (tags)
Oscar Wilde wrote: "A map of the world in which Utopia is not marked is not worth looking at, for it undercuts the shore on which mankind will eternally land." "Disobedience, for anyone versed in history, is man's true virtue. Through disobedience came progress..." (Wilde 2014)
Putin is our new tsar, quite simply. I call him an authoritarian modernizer who stands in the balancing act between neoliberalism and monarchist tradition and wants to reorganize the country from this position.
The modeling of the human and Final victory of materialism (tags)
Birgit Naujeck, clearly opposes 5G, transhumanism, any eugenics, and the disembodiment of our language, which leads to the rewriting of history and gender. The Final victory of materialism coincides with its implosion!
It was the West that, immediately after the end of the East-West confrontation, once again made war a "normal means" of international politics. Russia is now following suit, more than twenty years behind.
Ukraine: A war for the disintegrating world order (tags)
The consequences of rearmament and economic sanctions are foreseeable: among other things, the aggravation of crises through higher economic burdens. They can already be seen in the form of price increases for heating oil, fuel and gas.
Russia really wants only one thing: to prevent Ukraine from becoming a full NATO country. Against the background of the current overall political situation, the West's behavior points to one thing above all: Its own population is to be kept in suspense by a succession of shocks.
"In 10- to 59-year-olds, there is a 15-fold higher risk of death from corona vaccination compared with corona infection" (6). https://pathologie-konferenz.de/ The broad majority is always mistaken - or allows itself to be misled. Children need love and closeness, not coercion!
Destrosying what is destroying the planet? (tags)
The decisions of the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow are a disaster. They seal the course for a drastic and irreversible heating of the earth, which threatens the survival of hundreds of millions of people and countless animal and plant species.
A good future beyond the market and the state (tags)
In the midst of a blindly globalized society, we are atomized workers and consumers divided by competition, who are in contact with each other primarily through monetary and labor relations and only exceptionally and temporarily represent common interests. We become increasingly helpless...
How is Corona changing the world of work? (tags)
What was born out of necessity is to become the new standard: The pandemic-related expansion of mobile work is leading to considerations to change the organization of work, to change business areas online. In addition to savings in real estate and travel costs, companies also expect this to increase flexibility.
Omicron and the Black Seers (tags)
Hope is not in season at the moment. The doomsayers determine the program and the policy. And unfortunately, the "Festival of Hope" just around the corner won't change that.
The Trojan Horse and Away from the Herd (tags)
In "Away from the Herd," the author compares the modern plight with docile submissive people in WW1. "Tagore criticizes modern civilization, which is crushed by materialism. He compares it to a giant giraffe: intelligence has grown into excess and has departed from the heart, the body is wasting away.
Toward a new economic policy paradigm (tags)
Over the years, the institutionally enshrined budget discipline has created a considerable investment backlog. Important investments in infrastructure, education and climate protection have not taken place.
Against all reason and The Afghan Debacle (tags)
Like the chaotic flight of the U.S. Army from Vietnam in 1975, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 highlights the failure of the geopolitically based "war and nation-building concept" of the U.S. and NATO countries.
Is Green Growth the Solution? (tags)
Just as every millimeter of social progress must be fought for against capital interests, the protection of nature and climate must also be won against the rulers. In these struggles lies the future of the planet.
Limitation to 1.5 degrees is not possible with our economic system (tags)
In economics, an international mainstream dominates, which establishes optimized formal models that exclude many areas of economic relations, such as feminism, historical school, as well as post-Keynesianism, which considers the importance of demand and demand to be at least as important as good conditions for companies.
For a democratic polarization (tags)
The new world economic crisis has shown yet again that one can't leave it to the market to provide for a strong economy. In any case, it is a truism that a community with a certain quality of life depends to a great extent on resources that the market does not produce.
Because man is a human being (tags)
People don't have to remain victims. Rebellion and resistance against a disease-causing system serve to stabilize psychological existence and social coexistence. The basis for resistance is sensitization: perceiving that society is deprived and disenfranchised by privatization, for example, that people are violated.
I consume, theerefore I am (tags)
People who, according to Erich Fromm, are afraid of freedom, who, suffer from "mental constipation" according to Wilhelm Reich, With consumer freedom, the long tradition of Enlightenment thinking is simply erased:
It is long past time to finally bury the intervention doctrine, which has been marketed under the euphonious title "responsibility to protect"[5] since 2001, and to brand it for what it was from the beginning: a neocolonial project.
Intolerance network: How right-wing ultras are built up with the support of big companies (tags)
CitizenGo is intended to build nothing more and nothing less than "the most influential international Christian-inspired mobilization website," according to the published documents. For years, the radical anti-feminist network has been campaigning against women's rights, such as abortion rights.
How is Corona changing the world of work? (tags)
Exceptional situations do not necessarily have to be handled in an authoritarian manner; efficiency does not have to be generated in command structures. Independent action by employees becomes productive in democratic structures - perhaps the Corona crisis has also triggered processes that go in this direction.
Power excess without end: Politics suffers from "long covid" (tags)
"Whoever should once play with the state of emergency to restrict freedom will find my friends and me on the barricades in defense of democracy, and this is meant quite literally," Willi Brandt once said. And what are the citizen sheep of today doing? They are lining up for their second vaccination injection.
Femicide? We still call it homicide!!! (tags)
Why they still call it femicide?
Lockdowns Do Not Control the Coronavirus (tags)
The political reaction is disproportionate, it is authoritarian, dogmatic and it is excessive. There is no question about that. And we as citizens expect to be informed and treated in a science-based, rational and measured way. Why is the hospital system overloaded?
Our World is Not For Sale! (tags)
People's Global Action (PGA) was organized in a decentralized way by movements from all parts of the world. But we had no staff and no fixed funding. Everything was through crowdfunding. People were inspired by what PGA stood for, which was, first, the rejection of capitalism.
There is currently no alternative to national debt (tags)
A private economy left to its own devices is completely incapable of immanently combating the crisis. This is especially true for future-oriented investments for ecological modernization that serve climate protection. The vaccine against Covid-19, which will apparently be available shortly, would not exist without govt funding.
Zero hunger, zero hypocrisy (tags)
Today, flight from hunger and war often enough does not lead to a new "home," but to a refugee shelter, homelessness, or deportation back into misery. In view of the worldwide crises and the distribution struggles still to come, where will this lead, if not to mass "homelessness"?
Corona and state. The winner is the one who defeats the pandemic (tags)
Societies in Europe have accumulated enormous wealth, but a few wealthy people have appropriated it. With this wealth, the comprehensive work break and all solidarity measures can be financed without any problems. That is why we demand the introduction of a Europe-wide Covid solidarity levy on high wealth.
Does Corona policy threaten our fundamental rights? Scientist warns of "creeping process" (tags)
The state is allowed to restrict citizens in a pandemic so as not to endanger public health. But the state doesn't have the right to harm citizens. It does not get to decide which life is worth protecting and which is not. This article was published in German on 2/22/2021.
Life Lies of the Islands of Prosperity (tags)
The embarrassing secret of the 'Western' model of society and development is that it only works under very specific political and economic, ecological and social conditions. Preconditions that lie essentially outside this model and are hidden or made invisible by the social actors of its glorifying preservation. '
Crisis rent instead of debt trap (tags)
Store closings, event cancellations, slumping orders, short-time work and job losses, especially in precarious employment, have left many unable to afford their apartments or rented commercial space. Despite initial easing, there is no end in sight.
Corona in global retreat (tags)
The number of reported cases in the US has fallen massively since the beginning of January-by around 60 percent. Experts consider the Corona measures in the US to be less stringent than in many European countries.
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?
Self-reference in capital and in ourselves (tags)
"Lateral thinkers" defend their freedom. Capital serves no other purpose than the irrational end in itself of the multiplication of itself.
Vienna: The Most Livable City of the World (tags)
As early as the zero hour, about ten years ago, we developed the vision of the Smart City with the involvement of civil society. Citizens have said quite clearly: cars out, public transport and pedestrians in.
The new normality is characterized by fear, social distancing and increasing state control. Many fear that the current situation could become permanent and that our liberal democratic legal system could be transformed into a dictatorial system of injustice.
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.
Tax haven USA wants to dry up other tax havens (tags)
Two US states lure with particularly lax laws for companies. Constructions such as mailbox companies, which help to conceal the true owners of companies, are flourishing. The American government can certainly be accused of double standards in this matter:
How to generate unemployment and deflation (tags)
The theory put forward by fair-weather philosophers that the pandemic will be a salutary shock leading to a better, more sustainable world is wrong. Less is not more, but less. Corona is not an opportunity, it is an evil. We can only hope that one day it will pass.
The state must cushion the economic impact (tags)
Heiner Flassbeck expects a slump of the German GDP of 20-30%, Neither Trump nor Merkel said a word about stabilizing the economy. You can't just shut down the economy and then hope nothing happens. Companies, banks and people must be supported. Money must go to those now becoming unemployed..
The contagion of revolt spreads…Revolts everywhere! (tags)
The chances of the Corona crisis (tags)
Public debt only became a problem after the bank bailouts...Crises cause fear and reinforce deep-seated anxieties.. The market under capitalism is not an efficient distribution mechanism, but a means to enrich private corporations at the expense of society and its environment.
End of a Career. Obituary The "Swabian housewife" (tags)
The "Swabian housewife" dominated politics. Now she was buried by her inventor. The state is not a business or a housewife but can borrow and become indebted to help present and future generations. System change, not climate change! Fight ignorance, not immigrants!
Corona epidemic and Yemen (tags)
Authorities first wanted to calm down and played down the pandemic. Afterward, they had to convince the population to keep unusual physical distance, to wash their hands well at all times, and to refrain from major events. Finally, they wanted the population to accept the lockdown.
Extremely Growing Inequality Destroys Democracy (tags)
When one percent have half of the wealth, mistrust and cynicism drown out public spirit and trust between the generations. A fair tax system means ending tax havens, micro-second trading, stock buybacks and insider trading.
On the Power of Money: Three by Eugen Drewermann (tags)
Only faith (as in a religion), the "invisible hand," the "law" of the "free" market can judge everything. State interventions can only be annoying. The market itself is allegedly "social". Everyone acts according to his advantage. The system is not social but criminal and unjust.
How South Korea will contain coronavirus without curfew (tags)
South Korea tests almost 3 times as many people as Germany, 84K a week. Social distancing works in Japan and South Korea. Japan has closed schools but lets restaurants and shops stay open.
Social Inequality and Universal Basic Income (tags)
The welfare state in Germany is not as efficient as in the Nordic countries. In Germany, more than twice as many persons are at risk of income poverty - particularly children and single parents. We have to make a decision: entrepreneurial paradise or a little less faith in the market.
Housing as a human right is subverted by the right of speculation. The Vienna Housing Fund buys up potential property and prevents speculation. Rents in Vienna are much lower than in Munich. The state must intervene since private developers cannot build affordable units
Chaos.Thbe New Age of Revolutions (tags)
The End of the Megamachine brings to light the roots of the destructive forces threatening the future of humankind today. Dismantling Western progress mythologies, Scheidler shows how the logics of endless capital accumulation have devastated both human societies & ecosystems
Totalitaianism of Self-Optimization (tags)
"Feel-don't think" is the mantra of the illuminated who accept the social dislocations. This is a withdrawal to private solutions in view of the mounting collective problems. Mindfulness therapy fits perfectly into the contemporary I-fixation that rules many lives.
Economists criticize the austerity religion and demand investments. Germans ardently believe in economic fairy-tales that the 2007/2008 world financial crisis was a crisis of state indebtedness and that state debts burden future generations,
Karl Polanyi on Unfettered Capitalism (tags)
Karl Polanyi condemned profit greed and deregulated markets. Today's capitalism critics are his heirs and don't know it. An unfettered capitalism is responsible for the world coming out of joint. "Finance capital was put in the driver's seat."
Ten Years After the Financial Crash (tags)
US economic statistics are dubious since financial markets are based on financial products and money out of nothing. Tax havens, micro-second betting, stock buybacks and corruption through lobbying are market-distorting and cause revenue shortfalls.
Affordable Rents? A State of Emergency Intensifies (tags)
Rents explode in cities after massive sales of public housing to brutal investors. In 1987, there were 5.5 million social apartments in Germany. Today, there are 1.5 million. Land speculation was prevented in Vienna. The Vienna Housing Fund buys up possible development land.
Against the Rent Madness and For a Nonprofit Orientation! (tags)
The Alternative Housing Summit on Sept 21 in Berlin discussed alternatives to the market-based housing policy. Exploding rents and lack of affordable housing are the most burning social questions. More market is not the solution! Housing for People, not for Profits!
Is the Financial Crash 2.0 Coming? (tags)
Market ideology has been on the advance since the 1980s. Only a few voices warned of the risks and instability of the liberalized financial markets. After they profited from the generous bailout packages, the banks began to speculate against the most indebted countries.
Promote Public Housing! (tags)
A basic principle of the market economy is that the market only reacts to solvent demand, not to needs. If a need is not reflected in a solvent demand, the market simply does not react. The supply side expansion of affordable housing is key, not subject promotion.
The Shortwave Report 07/27/136/18 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of international news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio and the internet. With times, frequencies, and websites for listening at home. 3 files- Highest quality broadcast, regular broadcast, and slow-modem streaming. NHK Japan, Radio Havana Cuba, Radio Deutsche-Welle, and Sputnik Radio.
Social Policy as Social Infrastructure (tags)
Work and income must be uncoupled. In Germany, thanks to higher productivity and information technology, 30% more was produced from 1970-2010 with 30% fewer workers. Demonizing China will not resuscitate the Rust Belt. Social policy is crucial.
The (Temporary) End of Globalization (tags)
Protectionist measures could lead to losses of prosperity and increase the pressure to introduce more measures. Before the 2008 crisis, world trade grew over 6% per year (now 2%). Why must US consumers pay more for imports from the EU? Why are European consumers punished?
Amazon, the Elephant in the Bookshop (tags)
Amazon is one of many examples of a gigantic problem. International corporation s shirk from contributing their just share to financing the community. Hosts of advisers and lawyers have created a "tax avoidance industry."
5 Questions on Tax Justice (tags)
Tax justice must be created and tax avoidance stopped to fight inequality and poverty. Apple paid 0.0005% tax on its profits in Ireland - merely 50 euros on a million euros profits. Corporations dodge their just contribution as part of society through tax avoidance.
The systemic reasons for the crisis are more important than a sudden fall in prices. Stocks are held on average 22 seconds, not 6 months or ten years. Real-capitalism is a plus-sum game. Financial capitalism is a zero-sum game.
Do Germans really want to align themselves with evil? (tags)
In Germany many women are being subjected to sexual abuse by Muslim migrants but their leader Angela Merkel seems captured by the EU and UN and unable to properly defend the country's culture and way of life. My recent book describes the creation of an 'evil' ideology at the UN.
Working Digitally in Just Economies (tags)
Reducing working hours is an attractive scenario, an optimistic picture of a possible future of society. Less than 2% of German workers labor in agriculture, down from 40% in the 19th century. The future of work is person-related work. The state must intervene with subsidies.
State Investments and the Public Sector (tags)
The public infrastructure is something positive, even from a business perspective. it is a kind of advance concession, increases the entrepreneurial production potential and lowers the production costs. If state investments are trifling, this will have negative long-term effects
Refused sharing and rediscovery of sharing are signs of this time. "This economy kills." So Pope Francis judges socio-economic conditions. Taxing the rich is vital. With additional revenue, workers would not feel threatened by immigrants
Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) (tags)
Closing tax havens, ending tax competition, and prohibiting profit-shifting are necessary for a fair tax system. The richest 1% in Pennsylvania could receive another $3 billion from Trump’s tax scam! Democracy is different than plutocracy. Problems do not disappear when they are ignored.
The Driving Force of Global Inequality (tags)
Behind closed doors, a powerful industry has developed worldwide since the 1980s: tax avoidance. Taxes that are avoided must be compensated by higher taxation of households with lower incomes.
The Fairy-tale of the End of the Financial Crisis (tags)
Between 2008 and 2010, the EU Commission approved state aid of 4.3 trillion euros. The potential crisis of the global economy has grown and not declined. A system crash was prevented by the actions of central banks and states.
State Indebtedness as a Power Strategy (tags)
Contracting debts exploded under neoliberalism since the 1980s - unlike the state debts in the Keynesian era from the 1950s to the 1970s - and produced s structural debt bondage for the overwhelming majority.
Facing a Possible State of Emergency (tags)
The danger of authoritarian "solutions" grows when the constitutional state is dismantled, undermined or suspended. Basic western values were betrayed in the so-called "war on terror." All persons have the same inalienable human rights irrespective of nationality, origin or religion.
Become a Solidarity Person (tags)
The majority of the world's population doesn't want to know anything about globalized neoliberal capitalism anymore. Many millions are dying in the consequences. The political institutions are extorted by financial elites and their media aids. The interests of big owners of capital dominate.
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
Attempt the Impossible! Theses for a New Left Majority (tags)
The Brexit vote and the American presidential election have dramatically accelerated the crises of classical neoliberal policy. The exit from neoliberalism can only succeed in a social movement and cannot only be a matter of a government or of the parties.
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.
A society of social descent, precariouisness and polarization has emerged out of the society of ascent and social integration. The modern age continues developing but backward. The social state, is a de-commodifying institution since it socializes risks.
Low Taxes is an Act of Desperation (tags)
A low business tax can be counter-productive if a deadbeat infrastructure arises through lower state revenues. Lowering business tax rates leads first to enormous budget holes. Employees will bear this burden at the end.
Democracy and the Uncanny Power of Money (tags)
Growing inequality is the greatest political problem of our time. Governments are often only actors or puppets of an anonymous regime for the benefit of the privileged where the interests of simple people do not count.
Ethics and the Profit System: Global Change of Values Necessary (tags)
Profit-making is not profit-maximizing. From the magic word profit-mongering is derived the absurd unequal distribution of wealth, cheating of consumers, the exploitation of workers and ultimately the abolition of democracy. An invisible hand makes business profit into common good
Democracy and the Social State (tags)
Finance capitalism and Citizens United turn life, language and democracy upside down as the $150 million given by Wall Street to Hillary Clinton fall under the rubric "social engagement." With these theses, Franz Segbers emphasizes the social state as the foundation of democracy.
Causes of Great Problems Faded Out in Elections (tags)
Elections today have one thing in common: they don't change anything. Pseudo-battles dominate in which the actors are intensely focused on evading the burning questions and diverting the electorate from the real causes of problems..
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.
Who Owns the Sky? The Climate in the Globalization Trap (tags)
The bad news is that there are more inconvenient truths. Climate change is present, not future. Globalization and protection of the atmosphere do not go together. Climate policy has a past. Economic profit dominance always has a priority over climate protection.
The Shortwave Report 05/06/16 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of international news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio and the internet. With times, frequencies, and websites for listening at home. 3 files- Highest quality broadcast, regular broadcast, and slow-modem streaming. Spanish National Radio, Radio Havana Cuba, Sputnik Radio, and Radio Deutsche-Welle.
Tax Havens: Threat for Public Budgets (tags)
The common good is abused. The struggle against tax havens is a struggle for the rule of law and democracy. Apple, Google, Amazon, Boeing and GE shift tens of billions to tax havens. According to a 2013 article, one building in Delaware has 285,000 mailbox firms.
How Much State Does the Social Market Economy Need? (tags)
The use of property is only legitimate within the limits of the public interest. Whoever takes a risk must bear it and be liable for the losses. The state has the political task of laying down effective rules for risk assessment, liability and providing transparency. Distributive battles intensify.
The Shortwave Report 03/18/16 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of international news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio and the internet. With times, frequencies, and websites for listening at home. 3 files- Highest quality broadcast, regular broadcast, and slow-modem streaming. NHK World Radio Japan, Radio Deutsche-Welle, Radio Havana Cuba, and Spanish National Radio.
This crisis is only another warning shot of the current economic system and offers a window of opportunity to leave behind the neoliberal path of development taken since the end of the 1970s. The root of the problem is the economic model based on growth and exploitation of nature.
Social Inequality Today (tags)
The neoliberal rollback has created growing instabilities. An advancing process of de-democratization and social re-feudalization is connected with the rise of the new "super-rich." Piketty warned of the growing inequality between rich and poor.
The Rich are the True Social Parasites (tags)
In the past, social events and revolts shaped a generation. That changed in the 1990s. Identity is drawn from the consumption of brands. Therefore the public longing today is for better products and no longer for a better world.
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)
Can Keynes Rescue Europe from the Euro Crisis? (tags)
Keynes' theories and concepts were pushed back with the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s. A complete change of course occurred when state spending cuts, lower wages and devaluations failed. The state spent money to create demand for products and services.
The Middle Class Abolishes itself (tags)
Middle class citizens with a little wealth who invested this on the stock exchange are responsible for certain jobs becoming more and more precarious... Many economists claim market forces regulate themselves and society doesn't need to intervene.
The Shortwave Report 08/07/15 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of international news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio and the internet. With times, frequencies, and websites for listening at home. 3 files- Highest quality broadcast, regular broadcast, and slow-modem streaming. Radio Deutsche-Welle, Radio Havana Cuba, Sputnik Radio, NHK World Radio Japan, and Spanish National Radio.
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.”
The Shortwave Report 04/24/15 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of international news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio and the internet. With times, frequencies, and websites for listening at home. 3 files- Highest quality broadcast, regular broadcast, and slow-modem streaming. NHK World Radio Japan, Sputnik Radio, Radio Deutsche-Welle, and Radio Havana Cuba.
The Shortwave Report 04/17/15 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of international news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio and the internet. With times, frequencies, and websites for listening at home. 3 files- Highest quality broadcast, regular broadcast, and slow-modem streaming. Radio Deutsche-Welle, Radio Havana Cuba, NHK World Radio Japan, and Sputnik Radio.
Free collection of articles.
Fast Track, TPP and TTIP Should Be Scrapped! (tags)
How scandalous that communities and states should lose sovereignty to corporations! In the TTIP, corporations can sue states for lost profits. Public interest legislation can be called a trade barrier or indirect expropriation.
Homo Economicus and Dethronement of the Profit Principle (tags)
Max Frisch summarized economism int he formula: "what brings profit is rational." Economism is a business ethics conception, a justification theory for profit maximization that declares ethics superfluous. Ultimately this is an "ethic" without morality.
Digitalization Makes Us Happily Unemployed! (tags)
Political upheavals often precede technical revolutions.. The digital revolution hardly seems to have produced social or political revolutions.. Digitalization penetrates and changes the economy and life of people as the industrial Revolution once did.
TTIP: Redistribution of Power, not Free Trade (tags)
The TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement) involves the redistribution of power away from the parliaments and to the executive and its unelected lobbyists. The TTIP does not involve freedom of trade.
10 Strategies of Manipulation Revisited (tags)
Sylvain Timsit shows how society is influenced and what information is deemed relevant. http://libyaagainstsuperpowermedia.org/2012/03/05/sylvain-timsit-ten-techniques-for-the-manipulation-of-public-opinion/
Thomas Piketty and the Growing Inequality in Capitalism (tags)
"When capital profit is permanently higher than the growth rate for production and income which was the case up to the 19th century, capitalism automatically produces unacceptable and arbitrary inequalities that radically put in question the achievement principle..."
Putin: Sanctions Violate International Law (tags)
sanctions
TTIP: Threat to Democracy and the Constitutional State (tags)
The TTIP, the largest free trade zone comprising 800 million of the EU and the US is being secretly negotiated. Democracy and the constitutional state are threatened by 3-person arbitration courts where corporations can sue states and decisions are irreversible.
Mainstream Economics: Monocultures at the University (tags)
The "Plural Economics Network" challenges breaking through the monoculture and intellectual one-sidedness in economics...Instead of viewing our varied social problems from different perspectives, all the answers are derived from very similar models.
The new indebtedness is a consequence of the crisis caused by the financial industry-and in no way owed to an excessive social state, demographic change and so forth.. There are many critics of this policy of mastering crisis by flooding the financial markets with fresh money.
TTIP: A Tranatlantic Constitution of Corporations? (tags)
TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, endangers the economy, health and food policies of countries outside the EU and the US. The Investor-State Settlement mechanism gives corporations the same status as nation states. A flood of lawsuits can be expected.
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.
Billy Graham: Pro Christ or Anti Christ (tags)
Billy Graham was more a representative of the imperial American elite than a follower of the meek and humble Jesus. He comforted every president for 70 years in their shameful Korean War, Vietnam War and Iraq War. Fast cleaning and Graham soap marked "God's machine gun."
This economy kills!: Pope Francis (tags)
The Cold War in internal church policy may be coming to an end. A religion without mysticism is merely a philosophy. Mysticism is a specifically modern form of faith. God's presence is no longer self-evident or plausible to the entire world. Francis' church is a hospital under the open air.
Seven Good Reasons for a More Just Tax Policy (tags)
In the US, the top tax rate was over 70% from 1938 to 1982. Reagan cut the top rate to 35% and changed taxation from corporate to individual leading to exploding inequality and generalized insecurity. Taxation, investment, labor market, trade and distribution policies must change.
The "ABCs of Alternatives" published in May 2013 includes chapters on democratization, globalization criticism, global social rights, good work, Keynesianism, knowledge commons, liberation pedagogy, no person is illegal, peace, rebellion, redistribution and the WSF,
Capitalism is not the Opposite of the State (tags)
Without the permanent intervention of the state, there would be no functioning capitalism. No economic branch depends on the state like the financial branch The deregulation was based on the trick of slandering state regulation as strait-jackets.that could strangle the economy.
The Dislocation of Homo Oeconomicus (tags)
"Students rate the teachers and demand a very specific kind of knowledge from them: it should be measurable, packaged and practical and cannot contain any uncertainties. Experimenting or thinking is not desired. There is a relation between service-provider and customer..."
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.
Lobbyism: The Erosion of Democracy (tags)
The developments of the last decades point in a dangerous direction. Democracy threatens to become an empty husk with formal demands for democratic decisions while the contents are defined by tiny elite circles (catchword “post-democracy”). A living democracy is vital.
Economic Ethics After the Crisis (tags)
Peter Ulrich is an emeritus professor of Economic Ethics at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland and author of Integrative Economic Ethics (2008). The economy should be embedded in society; society should not be embedded in the economy. The invisible hand is a myth to be unmasked.
The Elite Look Down on Democracy (tags)
The thought-models of the economy have conquered all other social sciences. The person in these models is a homo oeconomicus, a rational agent whose only drive is maximizing his benefits. Only an action with the driving force of egoism is rational.
Financial War - How Banks and Bandits Endanger our Democracy (tags)
Political failure follows market failure. Participation in system criminality is without risk of prosecution. The financial crisis is not only a system failure. It was caused by human actions in the banking sector that are objectively punishable.
People still believe in the “faster, higher and bigger.” This fiction is maintained through over-chemicalization, over-technization, genetic manipulation or simply bribery of the judges. People lie to themselves.
Asset Distribution and the Financial Crisis (tags)
A perverse system arose out of the interaction of deregulation of the financial system and polarization of asset distribution. A reform of the financial system can only be part of the repair of the system. When wages grow again with productivity, an economic balance will be possible
Are Reforms of the Financial Sector Enough? (tags)
This article focuses on seven errors and seven remedies of the financial crisis. The financial crisis was also a crisis of easy money. For years and again today, speculators exploited the situation that money was and is very easy to borrow in the US and Japan.
Growth Euphoria and Distribution Reality (tags)
The chasm between poor and rich opens even more. The uncoupling of growth and quality of life on one side and productivity and work volumes on the other side make clear that "business-as-usual" leads to growing problems. German GDP grew 300% with 20% fewer workers.
Tax Evasion and the Social State (tags)
The good social state invests in the social, in the education of children of the new lower classes... Taxes is the price we pay for a civilized society (Oliver Wendell Holmes).. The state share must increase in a developed society since ever greater demands are made on the state.
Child Poverty Massively Increases through EU Austerity Programs (tags)
Caritas warns "lost generations" are growing up in Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland. The Cairitas study blames the austerity programs for the impoverishment of children. A new prioritization and an even distribution of the burdens of the debt crisis are demanded.
Newspeak Rules: How Neoliberalism Explains the World (tags)
Originally positive terms were devalued in the last decades (social state became "welfare dictatorship") Social dislocations are charged to the impacted themselves. The scandal of poverty mutates to the scandal of the poor themselves.
Cancellation of Illegitmate Debts Instead of Bailout Umbrellas for Financiers (tags)
The inflation of public indebtedness was an essential element for the enhanced power of financial capital. That inflation was a result of a conscious under-financing of the state and is a lever to enforce an austerity policy. Financialization intensified the pressure to precariousness.
Workaholics and Burnout (tags)
"Real life is unlived because one has traded oneself and everything one has for a promise of success and career that turns out to be nothing but a race without a goal or end."
The Cup (R)money passes us (tags)
Remember the neoliberalism of Reaganomics was an ideology that is carried out from America in Germany-with all its consequences from deregulation of the banking sector and the labor market and the change from the market economy to market society up to rule of the financial sector.
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.
Freedom without Equality is Only Half Freedom (tags)
Social security guaranteed by welfare state institutions ensures security and freedom. Security is one of those resources that guarantees autonomy. Whoever can lead life free from anxiety is freer. Material privileges lead to a privileged access to power. Wealthy lobbies can buy laws today and normal citizens feel cut off.
European Bank Socialism (tags)
The motto "Too big to fail" frees the financial sector from all chains. In the future, the banks will not have to assume any liability for taking irrational risks. Instead they can commit fraud without limit-in a system that already leads us to the brink and creates millions of unemployed.
Cloud-sourcing and Cloud-working: Brave New World of Work (tags)
"Nothing is more absurd than to try to enforce capitalist property relations within the expanse of the World Wide Web.. In the ideal case, the competing persons in the asocial networks should become part of a `cloud' of living workers.."
Neoliberalism was the Godfather of the Financial Industry (tags)
Keynesianism was replaced by neoliberalism that guided the fallow investment capital into speculation.The development of social systems and the rise of real wages contributed to social peace and stabilizing the economic upswing by strengthening mass consumption.
The Social State: A Wondrous Promise (tags)
The social state is an instrument of social pacification. It was a reaction to the extreme social and political dislocations. While Europe sank into chaos and fascism, Roosevelt developed the social state in the US that was exported after the war to Western Europe.
"The barbaric core of capitalist socialization is on full display in the present system crisis. The propagandists of totalitarian economism come in the mask of democrats. Economic-profitability thinking is imposed on society. Our society has long been viewed as a business."
The Capitalism of Hopelessness (tags)
Regulated capitalism reached its peak in the class compromise of the 1960s when representatives of workers could put the screws on the steamroller CEOs a little. The enemy and dynamic are lost to capitalism. Capitalism flows into a society without utopia and alternative.
Democracy in Crisis: The Terror of the Economy is a Danger to Democracy (tags)
There is a powerful crisis dynamic that is stronger than the will of the sovereign and its democratic institutions. When capital relations fall into crisis, everything can be instrumentalized: the basic law, democracy, human rights and human life. Economic pressure creates extremism of middle.
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.
The Shortwave Report 05/18 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of international news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio and the internet. With times, frequencies, and websites for listening at home. 3 files- Highest quality broadcast, regular broadcast, and slow-modem streaming. Spanish National Radio, NHK Japan, Radio Havana Cuba, and the Voice of Russia.
Economist criticizes "pathological allegience" to economic models (tags)
The crisis was born when Maggie Thatcher and then Bill Clinton deregulated the financial markets. The explosive force that was detonated was incalculable. Economics gave support because it provides models.
Millionaire's Tax is the Best Debt Brake (tags)
Sahra Wagenknecht is a leader of the Left party, Die Linke, in the German Bundestag and author of "Freedom instead of Capitalism." Learning from other cultures is a strength, not a weakness. The University of British Columbia had a tuition freeze for 6 or 7 years and kept tuition at $2300.
How Goldman Sachs Rules the World (tags)
Hank Paulsen had famous examples: Robert Rubin, Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, also changed from Goldman Sachs into politics. Europe and the US are firmly in the grip of Goldman Sachs.
Economics' sharpest critics regard it as an auxiliary science of astrology, a sect that sings its same little song. Classical authors like John Kenneth Galbraith are finally rediscovered. Exactness is impossible. The coming generation should be protected from mono-cultural ideology
The core of all western-individualist ideas of justice is the principle of personal responsibility. Everyone is responsible for the consequences of his/her actions. This motivates as well as disciplines. "We punish the virtuous and reward the squanderers."
Whatever we think of the Democratic Party, like it or not, in the current political emergency, we are going to HAVE to align with them and vote for every Democrat on the ballot over every Republican — not because the Democrats are that progressive but because the Republicans plan a sweeping Right-wing revolution comparable to the changes Germany went through when Hitler took power in 1933, and the Democratic Party is one essential vehicle we will need to use to stop them.
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.
Occupy World - The Protest Against the Financial System Intensifies (tags)
Since the beginning of the financial crisis, governments from Berlin to Washington solemnly vowed to regulate the financial system more strongly, close the casino on the financial markets and call to account financially the speculators.for their inflicted damage. Deeds did not follow.
Underway to Plutocracy: Financial Crisis (tags)
No promise of salvation can be imputed to capitalism any more.. The market is regarded as a natural law and power of fate. Nothing but Darwinism was left of the liberals' hope for progress. That Darwinism rejoices in the survival of the fittest and the sorting out of weaker debtors.
The Capitalism of Hopelessness (tags)
The capitalism of hopelessness is a capitalism where the enemy is lost, where capitalism can no longer fulfill its promise of prosperity for the people as in the 1960s and where capitalism neutralizes all utopian energy and alternatives. Public jobs must be created in the emergency.
Manifesto of Appalled Economists: The Shocked and the Outraged (tags)
Tax cuts for the super-rich and corporations promised economic growth and more jobs but produced exploding inequality and generalized insecurity. The US faces a revenue crisis and a war spending crisis. Tax cuts, wars and bailouts of banks and firms caused massive US deficit.
The Game with Ignorance and the Growth Panacea (tags)
A world wide economic and financial order decays to a pure end-in-itself and no longer serves people. A system build on an ideology in which everything-even the person-becomes a product is legitimated by apologists who trivialize derailments of social life as "normal."
Fukushima Mon Horreur - The Dream of Economic Reason Gives Birth to Tremendous Catastrophe (tags)
In "Anti-Duhring," Frederick Engels explained that nature also has a history and that capitalism tends to destroy its own foundations and nature. The negative is bound to the positive as conservation of energy is bound to transformation of energy.
"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.
Japan's Leaking Water Radiation 100,000 Times Above Normal (tags)
nuclear disaster
Begrudgingly for Freedom (tags)
This past week the leaders from ten member nations of the UN Security Council finally went ahead and voted to approve helping the Libyan rebels by imposing a no-fly zone over Libya. Gadhafi’s planes, ant-aircraft systems and some of his ground troops “posing a risk to civilians” are being targeted and that is a good thing as it is a measure of help and good faith with the size forces we currently have in the region we can easily provide. It is the least our nation can do (and in Libya the most we should do) as we made such a mess of Iraq, due to one administration basing everything on the say so of one person from Iraq and ignoring reams of evidence from multiple experts warning there was no justification for such action. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/13/60minutes/main20042166.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody) Saddam Hussein is gone and that’s good, but due to that administration we were shamed as a nation on not just a national stage but in front of the globe.
Calls for military intervention in Libya? (tags)
"The Imperialist powers, they’re economies wrecked by the hubris endemic to their systems, would like nothing better than to seize, Libya’s petroleum assets during this time of eternal turmoil. And why wouldn’t they desire to invade now? They get to derail revolution and they get the oil! This would be London and Washington’s wet dream. And it would be a disaster for the people everywhere! In fact we may ultimately find that their dirty, greedy hands were behind the disaster in Libya in order to create pretexts for actions “imperial in nature” all over Africa. At any rate, no progressive person can believe that “western intervention” will be other than another grotesque rape of the people of the African continent. Please do all you can to resist this horrible possibility? The western powers simply cannot be trusted. Defend the Libyan nations’ right, and indeed all the revolutionary peoples’ of Africa’s’ right to self-determination. No less, and in fact, much more is at stake."
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.
Eight Theses on the New Culture of Work (tags)
Person-oriented work and labor-intensive work are vital in a post-industrial economy wrestling with decreasing resources. Work and security must be uncoupled like work and income. Reducing working hours is the only way to guarantee the right to work for all.
The Shortwave Report 08/20 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio. With times and freqs for listening at home. 2 files- broadcast and slow-modem streaming. Free to rebroadcast. China, Netherlands, Cuba, Russia, and Germany.
A Financial Boom Despite the Crisis (tags)
For the banks, deficit state budgets become important clients. They compensate the private demand for credit. The financial boom is completely based on support measures of state organs. An economic upswing is not in sight.
Worldwide Economic Crisis: Two Opposite Models as Answers (tags)
In a large part of the population, there is a consensus that capitalism has no answers to the great social challenges of social security, hunger and climate change. An alternative investment program (emphasizing children, culture and climate change) gives a long-term answer.
This is not a social state any more (tags)
Building community centers (as in Vancouver BC), redistributing income and assets from top to bottom, reducing working hours, expanding the public non-profit sector and accepting housing, education and health care as rights not privileges would be important steps to a bright future.
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.
Capitalism and Democracy (tags)
Citizens are protected from incursions of the state and on the other side must accept the sovereignty of the state and the general law as prerequisites of property and security. Whoever has visions should be the physician. A good physician will urge changing one's way of life.
The Neoliberal Agenda is Over and The Despised Social State (tags)
Neoliberalism is the political-economic experiment of individualizing social risks and claiming growth and employment will be higher. This claim is refuted convincingly by the global financial crisis destroying enormous assets and causing growth and employment to crash.
Elite democracy leads to corruption of wealth distribution, language and community. "We must be wounded to be healed" (Dorothee Soelle).
Lessons from the Crisis (tags)
Governments are extorted by multinational corporations. Those who made massive profits with bank business must now answer for the losses. The taxpayer may not pay for their crises. If control is not exercised by politics, banks will become absolute rulers with a state guarantee.
International education strike network-meeting in Berlin 15.th – 17.th of January 2010 (tags)
Becouse of the international Studentsprotest there is the first official international education strike network-meeting at th Humbold University Berlin from the 15.th unitil the 17.th of January 2010. In europe now there are more than 280 universities occupied and the students have claims to those respnsible wich are a must for a sensible education. Worldwide more then 580 universities are participating with the protestactivities. the most of those are also occupied
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.
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: The Berlin Wall & Kristallnacht (tags)
Imperialist USA is making much of the 20th anniversary of the end of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, the eve of the 71st anniversary of Kristallnacht, November 10, 1938, the latter being when the Nazis promoted a reign of terror against Jews, rounding up most who still remained in Nazi Germany, including this writer's grandfather, a 58 year old man in a wheelchair. Where was the US when the Nazis aided Fascist Franco in Spain in 1936 when fascism could have been stopped easily? And how does Germany compare to the backward USA today?
The Shortwave Report 11/06 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio. With times and freqs for listening at home. 2 files- broadcast and slow-modem streaming. Free to rebroadcast. China, Netherlands, Cuba, and Russia.
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.
Is Growth Only Possible Through Inequality? (tags)
Does capitalism make the rich richer and the poor poorer instead of creating prosperity for everyone as promised? Inequality declined considerably between 1930 and 1970 in western industrial states.
Planned Economy Instead of Chaos Economy (tags)
For years US imports have doubled US exports. For 10 years China has contributed $2 billion a day to finance US consumerism. Trade policy in the WTO, GATT and NAFTA have led to mass unemployment. Part time work for all and/or unconditional basic income could humanize society and assure dignified life.
Building community centers could be a way to learn from O Canada and break from the false religion of the market and profit. When the market and competition are made absolute, they become idols. CEOs are called job creators and workers "cost-factors."
Capitalism Criticism 2.0 (tags)
Marx identified the falling rate of profit and the self-destruction of competition as contradictions of capitalism. Wages do not keep up with investments in machinery. Speculation and the explosion of the financial markets were encouraged by deregulation and higher profits.
Globalization and the New Political Movements (tags)
Attac, a global justice network in many European countries, demands closing off-shore tax havens and debt cancellation for the third world. The word globalization has a function as a threat. Be flexible because capital is flexible and the state can do nothing!
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.
The Crisis of Speculative Capitalism (tags)
The bubble bursts when debtors cannot pay and a bankruptcy crisis develops at the end.. The illusion of the stock exchange as a roulette with guaranteed permanent profits burst with the New Economy bubble..Only the worldwide regulation of the financial markets can avert their collapse.
Review: Karl Polanyi-How the State Created Capitalism (tags)
In "The Great Transformation" (1944), Karl Polanyi deconstructs the myth of a free market economy that develops naturally and spontaneously and the idea of the state as a counter-pole to capital. The transformation of labor and land into commodities was a painful process.
Economic Policy after the Financial Crisis: Keynes (tags)
Keynes saw political control of markets and a distribution and social policy in favor of lower income groups as essential prerequisites of a stable long-term macro-economic development.. Three-hour workdays or a 15-hour week would be enough.
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.
Austria: Crash Instead of Cash (tags)
In 1978 the Bretton Woods system broke down since the US abandoned the key function of the US dollar to print money to finance the Vietnam War.. The liberalization of the financial markets started a mechanism in which the worldwide population loses.
The Market Must Serve Society (tags)
In the past, the village green and market swuare were surrounded by the church, town hall, school and hospital. Without these social institutions, there would be no market. This is also true for today's global financial markets.
Water is a Human Right, not a Commodity (tags)
In Bolivia there was a bloody struggle over water. Indigenous persons led the water war in Cochabamba. Water is a human right and must be withdrawn from the logic of profit maximization.
The End of Finance Market Capitalism: Renaissance of Socialism? (tags)
The crisis offers an historical chance to civilize an unbridled capitalism with reform policy. The future relation of market and state is the focus of attention.. Financial markets are characterized by herd behavior. Risk consciousness disappears.
Financial Markets: Is No One Responsible? (tags)
Enlightenment is part of overcoming crisis, not only money packages. Ten officials in every boardroom is not the solution. Rather the problem is the incredible transformation of the modern bank into a service enterprise with an adjacent casino.
Faith in the Invisible Hand of the Market is Over (tags)
The people will not be so easily convinced of liberalization, deregulation and privatization. On the contrary, people will have a clearer consciousness of the primacy of politics. The false incentive systems in the businesses must be removed.
23 Theses on the Capitalist Crisis (tags)
Since the middle of the 1990s, the real economy only grew on account of the expansion of credit. After the dot.com crisis, the floodgates were opened. In the next four years, the Fed brought more dollars in circulation than in the whole 200-year US history.
Venezuela: Why Unlimited Re-election is Bad for the Revolution (tags)
A supporter of Hugo Chavez' anti-imperialist efforts explains why he is nevertheless opposed to Venezuela's recent constitutional amendment abolishing term limits.
The Limits of the US as Teacher (tags)
"Ivan average consumer supports the new self-confident policy of the Kremlin and hardly worries about democracy and human rights. The West must free itself from the illusion its own values can be forced on countries. The change must come from within."
An Umbrella for Workers (tags)
The economic crisis is a structural crisis where productivity has soured and wages have stagnated. The fraud in public regional banks must end. Unemployment benefits must increase. Michael Schlecht is a union spokesperson for the German Left party (Die Linke).
On the Financial Crisis in the 20:80 Society (tags)
The question is how we deal with the 20:80 society, not whether the 20:80 society is coming because the development is irreversible. In the long-term, work will disappear.. Jobless growth has become the normal condition.The end of work can be a great leap for humanity.
"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.
From Real Estate Speculation to Collapse of Global Deficit Economy (tags)
Joy to the world, the world of fallen idols and bubble transfer. The truth will set us free but the truth is a process, not a cudgel or stimulus. After the dot-com bubble, trillions were "invested" in real estate speculation. The crisis of the work society is the background for low interests.
The New Deal - in the US and Germany (tags)
A radical rethinking, a New Deal, is on the agenda. The worldwide depression can only be countered with stronger economic regulation, increased public spending and fiscal measures. This means an end to privatizations and rebuilding the essential infrastructure.
Bankruptcy of the Last Utopia (tags)
The economy should be a part of life, not a steamroller crushing creativity and self-realization. The economy should serve humankind; humanity should not serve bankers, SUVs and sports stadiums. The same Chinese letter represents crisis & opportunity.Will future be more human?
Income Distribution is Perverse (tags)
Redistribution of income is central. Another economy is necessary in which people are more important than profit percentages. A shareholder value philosophy ruthlessly downsizes and closes plants in pursuit of maximum profit.
"The Financial Crisis has made Heroes out of Rogues" (tags)
The state should make the economy more social and democratic. The conversions of Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel and Peter Steinbruick from market fetishism to state optimism were cabaret-style conversions. Democracy should dominate the economy.
Justice for Yemeni Sheik (tags)
Important Appeals Court decision.
Excesses of Supply Theory (tags)
In Germany, the competitiveness of businesses is still set above strengthening domestic demand. Therefore Germany could skid into a recession. In the US, trickle-down economics, tax cuts benefiting the top 1% and military Keynesianism make the economic future ominous.
Hunger, The Silent Tsunami (tags)
Rice, the main food for nearly half of the world's population, costs twice as much as in December. The economic policy of the World Bank forced on countries on account of neocolonial trade relations is responsible for the unproductivity, not only the traditional small farmer system.
The Nature of the Christian Faith and the New Atheism (tags)
New atheism fights against fundamentalism, human religion, sees all violence as the product of faith, doesn't recognize the positive good in the church and theology and conflates all faith with fundamentalist literalism and reductionism. That Jesus is the way means no mone is alone.
Farewell to Neoliberalism (tags)
State interventions in the economy are unpopular and generally regarded as "against the system"-when the state interferes in profiteering. In the case of a crisis, the losses should be socialized.
Global Casino Capitalism (tags)
What began with cheap money for American homebuyers has expanded to the greatest financial market crisis since the war. The whole extent of bad credits with banks is not yet known, let alone the effects on the world economy.
Inequality and Equal Opportunity: A German Perspective (tags)
A fifth of Germans no longer believe the national economy is just. With false signals, false promises and false goals, politics kindles the feeling of injustice. The idea of equal opportunity turns out to be the grand delusion of Germany.
The Crisis of Speculative Capitalism (tags)
Since the end of July 2007, the world economy was shocked by a new severe crisis of the financial markets. The courage to regulate the financial markets to prevent a future uncoupling from the productive economy is still obviously absent. The hour of truth will inevitably come.
On the Anti-Democratic Character of Neoliberalism (tags)
Privatization, deregulation and cuts in social spending is the trinity of the free market, Naomi Klein explains. The consciou8s production of unemployment is anti-democratic. The conscious worsening of income- and assets distribution is anti-democratic.
Reforms and the System Question (tags)
According to Marxist perspectives, capitalism develops with crises and ruptures. Possibilities of revolutionary social upheavals open up in these crises. The old wisdom of the Fordist age that cars cannot buy cars has lost all value to the elites.
Retirement under capitalism (tags)
Sometimes small statistics can have huge implications. The U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics recently reported that the age at which U.S. workers retire has risen for the first time in 100 years. According to the report, in the mid-1980s, 18 percent of people in their late 60s still had jobs; today, it is 29 percent. Millions of U.S. workers can no longer look forward to the “Golden Years” of guaranteed Social Security, Medicare health insurance and employer pensions. One in four baby boomers surveyed said they would likely never be able to retire – in other words, they will “work until they drop”. For those that do want to retire, the age at which they can do so is also being systematically raised. Workers born in 1960 or later must wait until age 67, rather than 65, to get their full Social Security benefits. There is talk of raising it further to 70. The mainstream media took scant notice of this, and for good reason; it’s a huge indicator of deeper processes that are destroying the standard of living of workers in the United States and internationally. A quick look into why workers are delaying retirement – if they have the “luxury” of retiring at all – points a condemning finger at the current state of international capitalism, while at the same time warning younger workers of the even worse conditions they’ll certainly face under the auspices of the capitalist system.
More reports on international solidarity with anarchist prisoners Jose and Gabriel (tags)
Jose Fernandez Delgado and Gabriel Pombo da Silva are anarchists from Spain who are now serving 14 and 13 year sentences respectively in German prison.
The Future of Work-driven Society (tags)
When less and less time needs to be spent working for a living in Western industrialised countries, this partial freedom of gainful occupation is increasingly becoming a problem for those dismissed. The vision of working less and living longer is a utopia that is also realistic.
Billions Dissolve in Thin Air (tags)
While the political class practices faith healing, all the participants know the end is coming when more speculative bubbles burst. The popular dogma that financial markets and the world economy are more efficient when deregulated and liberalized is over.
Beware of Falling Bankers! (tags)
Like the car, our sacred cow that is not discussed, speculation and prosperity based on credit are taboo subjects. The system is corrupt and its answers wrong. Will we mend our own pockets as China closes its wallet? Critical thinking, culture shock, alternative economic and Jesus' parables can be new beginnings.
Privatization Endangers Democracy (tags)
Neoliberal hegemony or market radicalism is a danger for democracy because economic mechanisms replace politics. Neoliberals change the understanding of justice in society. The less generous the social benefits, the more powerful must be its security machine.
Competition and the Legal System (tags)
Competition is not always a fountain of economic development..Certain academic findings are dangerous for the functioning of norm systems. The critic becomes the delinquent. Several wicked mosquitos may be criticized, not mosquitos in general.
Guaranteed Income, Guaranteed Dignity: War on Poverty (tags)
Part of what's holding back a guaranteed annual income is perception and language. All people should share in increasedc productivity. In Germany, the GDP rose 300% from 1950-2000 with 20% fewer workers.
Regional Economics Against Climate Change (tags)
Modern industrial society faces a dilemma. On one hand, people of industrial countries do not want to abandon their assets and habits or way of living. On the other hand, the climate problem ends up in destruction of humanity if emissions continue as in the past
Basic Income Strengthens Workers' Negotiating Power (tags)
Basic income would be an effective instrument against the growing poverty, a kind of democracy package and a good vehicle for self-determined reduced working hours..Some leftists have a hard time because they follow a certain work fetishism
Monthly Pay for Everyone (tags)
A basic income means an income-securing existence allowing participation in social life. The basic income would do away with work coercion and tests of neediness.
Congress on Solidarity Economy (tags)
Solidarity economy is part of a strategy against neoliberal exactions. Economic self-help must not be used as a social fig leaf for the continued neoliberal reorganization of society.
Preventing Wars in the Nuclear Age (tags)
"As a wave cannot exist for itself but always shares in the waves of the ocean, we can never experience our life for ourselves alone but only in the shared experience of life around us. The ethic of reverence for life demands that we do something for people."
Every School as a Small Business (tags)
The Bertelsmann foundation reorganizes German schools according to market criteria. A privatization of the political is occurring worldwide today.. Bertelsmann keeps a tight reign on public libraries, schools and universities through performance standards and control instruments.
Globalized capitalism means precarity and exclusion in the North and increasing exploitation and impoverishment in the South. Global social rights could be a counter-power.
Creditor instead of Citizen (tags)
Do the capital markets undermine democracy?
How Israel is Engineering the "Clash of Civilizations" (tags)
The trajectory of a long-running campaign that gave birth this month to the preposterous all-party British parliamentary report into anti-Semitism in the UK can be traced back to intensive lobbying by the Israeli government that began more than four years ago, in early 2002.
From War Against Terror to Anti-Fascist War (tags)
The government only wanted to divert from its failure in the anti-terror battle and cover up the war in a new way.. Fascists nowhere came to power without open support of at least some capital forces.
How Much Poverty Can a Society Endure? (tags)
Pretending that justice is possible with growing inequality is pure ideology. Distribu-tive justice is the key for a peaceful future.. Spending for the welfare state has not grown in Germany.
Interview with Jurgen Moltmann (80) (tags)
Hope is a power in this life to begin life again, to be reborn in an affirmation of life from deep depression.. Hope continues like a star over our life.. We developed political theology to break through this prison `religion is a private matter'.
Problems with Europe's nuclear plants raise worries just as the energy was gaining support (tags)
By Susan Sachs | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Asbestos Attacks from the White House (tags)
The White House manipulated the reports of the EPA about the air quality in the environment of Ground Zero after the attacks and thus exposed all the relief workers, residents and employees in south Manhattan to extreme health risks.
The dominant policy only knows the language of violence. Whoever tries solving problems with violence only produces more violence.. A war against terror is not waged. This is a war against a whole people.
Is the Dollar Hegemony Ending? (tags)
The demand for dollars will fall significantly when oil is transacted in euros. The US must control its twin deficits and reduce its foot-print to keep the confidence of foreign credi-tors. Radical restructuring and removal of incompetent leadership could avert crash.
Nazis and Neo-Cons: compare and contrast (tags)
It’s not uncommon to hear a left-leaning person denounce the Bush administration with a barrage of Nazi-related epithets. The slurs are typically blurted out in anger with little thought to evidence or validity. In fact, whenever analogies are made linking a person or current event to either the Nazis or Holocaust, accusatory responses of “exaggeration” and “slander” are usually justified; it is indeed immature to randomly compare anything to the machine of Nazism that took the innocent lives of so many. While taking this into full consideration, the following is nevertheless an attempt to make some unpleasant connections.
Weekend of Resistance: New Website - GreenScare.org (tags)
A new website has been launched to help kick off the Weekend of Resistance against the Green Scare. Resist the Green Scare!
The genre of entertainment films about war and the military is described as mili-tainment Presenting war as entertainment means ignoring intellectual analysis tohighlight emotional war stories.
Anti-Arab Racism Prevalent in Israel According to Poll (tags)
A recent poll confirms what many Arab Palestinians already knew - many Israeli Jews hold racist views toward Arabs. Israeli parties with anti-Arab platforms made electoral gains in the recent elections. What does this mean for the Arabs of Palestine?
THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN JEW IN RACIST-MARXIST ISRAEL (tags)
Before Israel became a state in 1948, Jews world-wide were filled with the Zionist propaganda that Israel would be a homeland for all Jews, a refuge for persecuted Jews, a truly democratic country, and the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.
Se puede? Not by protest alone (tags)
It only took a day for the effect of the immigration protests to be known. On May 2nd politicians from both parties gave a wealth of interviews and speeches that clarified their positions: nothing had changed. In fact, many had remarked that the protest had a ‘backlash effect’, hardening and inflaming the already conservative opinions of Republicans, while dulling the already flimsy stance of Democrats. Trent Lott, in speaking for many on the right, implied that a massive deportation sweep during the protests would have been appropriate, given that “we had ‘em all in a bunch”. On the other side of the isle, Diane Feinstein gave a more passive response to the protests, representing the unaffected character of most Democrats to the millions who appeared in the streets; the passionate outcry from the masses was referred to as ‘counterproductive’, since protesting does not “changes votes on the floor of the senate”— the latter point is certainly true, becoming more obvious as pro-immigration and anti-war protests continue to draw millions, but fall onto deaf ears in Congress. Demonstrations, boycotts, protests, or any other indication of public opinion has proven unable to sway the actions of either party. The façade of the two-party system is unveiling itself with impressive speed as social tensions near the boiling point.
Unions and the Growth Mania (tags)
The more productivity advances, the less labor is needed to realize a certain growth rate.. A de-acceleration can reduce the increase of labor productivity and lead to more employment.. A strategy beyond growth should be developed.
Dubious Evidence against Iran (tags)
Albright assumed that US government circles launched the flasified report in the New York Times to exert political pressure.. Washington knew the information was untrue, the nuclear weapons expert said.
Can the State Save Us from Work? (tags)
Whenever more profits are produced with fewer and fewer workers, income should be separated from work. Every citizen should automatically receive a part of the money cake to buy goods produced without his help and find his or her own fujlfillment.
Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee Statement on "World Can't Wait" (tags)
The following is a statement from the Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee on "World Can't Wait" (WCW), the organizers of tomorrow's "Bush Step Down" protests.
On the Scandinavian Model (tags)
The Scandinavian model could help us find our way to social compromise and true security through investments in education and apprenticeships. Has our wealth blinded us to alternatives and encouraged our altered state of paralysis, insecurity and fear?
The Work Society and the Work Religion (tags)
Work is only a part or fragment of life. Where it becomes everything as a steamroller or religion, it leads to idiotism where social questions and reproduction are ignored.
Against the Neoliberal "Modernization" of the Labor Market (tags)
he predicted employment effects of the neoliberal strategy do not go beyond expanding low-wage sectors and under-employment.
Spain Betrayed (by the anarchists) (tags)
For the first time in history Anarchists had the possibility of applying their theories on a grand scale. They enjoyed an unparalleled authority in Catalonia, the decisive and most industrialised region in Spain, and had the unconditional support of the overwhelming majority of the proletariat. The truth of a theory, like the efficacy of a remedy, is verified according to experience. What remains of the theories of Bakunin, Kropotkin and Malatesta [131] after the Spanish experience? For decades we Marxists have demonstrated the limited and petit-bourgeois character of Anarchist concepts.
The total commercialization of the world has triumphed..A dynamic of growth withdrawal could be initiated through a few simple measures..Internalizing costs would drastically change our societies..Democratic local initiatives are realistic.
Finland has the highest productivity in the EU and the lowest rich-poor differential. Inequality is not a panacea. According to a 2004 study, the Scandinavian model is the best protection against increasing income differences and poverty rates.
Paul Samuelson Attacks a Dogma (tags)
The best-known economist of the world doubts that shifting services to india and buying cheap goods from China bring advantages to Americans when the income of workers falls through foreign competition. The rich North will lose its monopoly profits under the conditions of globalization.
Competition is not a Natural Law (tags)
Instead of working out and overcoming the causal problems, people put a veil of the fun society over the whole-as in the times of Rome..Ideologues elevate the principle of competition into a natural law to immunize the market econmy from all criticism.
GATS as a Political Project (tags)
The goal of GATS is the worldwide liberalization in trade and investments for the service sector.. Call 1-800-828-0498 and urge your senators to reject any budget reconciliation that includes Medicade cuts.
Consumer Shock at the Pump (tags)
Life was disrupted when the world faced the first oil price crisis in the winter of 1973. People in the southern US are experiencing this today.. Around a quarter of US production was lost through the hurricane.
"The Market Has No Heart": Paul Samuelson (tags)
A post-Katrina economics must emphasize parallel worlds, solidarity and human dignity to safeguard long-term necessities and creativity. If all countries only become more competitive, mass unemployment will result. What is public must remain public.
WTO/Codex to Ban Organic Food, Vitamins; force Irradiated GMO food down our throats... (tags)
December 31, 2009. The date that Codex Alimentarius will go into effect. "Codex Alimentarius" means "food rules" in Latin. The organization was born in 1962 when the UN established the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) as a "Trade Commission". It was created to regulate, and thus control, every aspect of how food and nutritional supplements are produced and sold to the consumer. It is solely about trade and the profits of multi-national corporations. Codex would effectively ban most organic food from being sold worldwide and force all food to be irradiated in the name of "safety." By using the World Trade Organization's economic sanctions against companies who do not comply with Codex rules, all animals raised for food will have to be fed antibiotics and hormones, and most nutritional vitmains and supplements will be banned. Visit http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/marketingmaterial/codex-flyer-1.pdf for details.
Fa;se Hopes: The Debate about Growth (tags)
"Developed industrial countries do not need global economic growth but a better distribution of economic success.. The dependence of tax revenues and social spending on economic growth is a homemade fairytale.."
"The US economy grows but depends on the rest of the world supplying hundreds of billions of more goods to the US every year than come from the US.. This will not last forever.."
"How can the state finance itself in times of worldwide competition without damaging the national econmy? How can it find the old strength without creating new poverty?.. There is no system-conforming way out of this vicious circle.."
The New Inequality Machine (tags)
From the middle of the seventies, the interest rates exceeded the real growth rates. This made it even more attractive for owners of capital to invest their money in the financial markets rather than the real economy.
Other causes contribte to the economic misery besides the distribution problems. There are two developmental problems. There is the shift of profit from labor to capital. There is the worldwide opening of markets causing wage pressure.
Anyone who has studied the history of the Nazis would be hard pressed to differentiate between a Nazi and a Neoconservative.
Health in Neoliberalism (tags)
A cost explosion has not occurred in legal health insurance in Germany. If there is a financial problem, it is the problem of inadequate revenues. Mass unemployment is the central cause of the rising health premiums.
A Moralist on the Social State (tags)
A hundred years ago eight farmers worked to feed one non-farmer. Today one farmer feeds 88 persons..Income from assets and business activities have been consistently relieved of taxes in the last 25 years. Profits soar while investments fall.
Globalization and the Social State (tags)
The economy exists for people, not vice versa. The economy needs a framework offering orientation to economic actors and showing the limits of the tolerable. This framework is not a limitation of freedom but the necessary condition for success..
Hope and Disappointment (tags)
We are saved but in hope. The hopoe that one sees is not hope since one cannot hope for what one sees.. Hope is as vital as the air we breathe.. Hope even if is only as weak as a straw keeps alive our longing for freedom.
Paid Work and Basic Income (tags)
The goal of basic income advocates is to neutralize capitalism in one of its central premises: the generalziation of paid labor as the only or at least dominant path of securing existence. The future would be brighter if this were on the agenda.
The Politics of Irrationality in its Second Term (tags)
Bush is not the problem but the symptom of a democracy that is gravely endangered.. Neoconservative men and women believe that the end justifies the means and the choice of political means does not ultimately concern the citizen at all.
The Future of the World at Stake (tags)
Every good republican knows the world is solid Kerry territory. A survey by pollsters HI Europe earlier in October found that, if Europeans had a vote, they would back Kerry over Bush by a 6 to 1 margin. Bush would win just 6% in Germany, 5% in Spain..
The Iraq War has Increased Terrorism (tags)
"The British and American population does not believe that the war against iraq has made the world safer..Only 30 percent in the US agree with the government.. The Iraq war represents a great diversion from the global struggle against terrorism.."
The Social State is a Civilization Achievement (tags)
"The social state is a civilization achievement Since free enterprise mechanisms alone cannot guarantee social security, the state has the task of guaranteeing social security for all and pursuing a policy of social equali-zation. Democracy needs a social foundation
Social Security is Not for Sale (tags)
The market is a tool effective after fundamental political questions are answered: What kind of society do we want? Are education, health care, housing, water and land public goods or privileges?
Nuclear Energy Belongs in the Technology Museum (tags)
Nuclear energy is still too expensive and too dangerous. Huge amounts of water are needed in a time of increasing water shor-tage. Uranium supplies are limited. $1 trillion was spent on nuclear research while renewable energy fell by the wayside.
Women Raped Before Their Husbands (tags)
Statements and findings by non-governmental organisations and human-rights groups detail how one female detainee had been raped 17 times in one day by ‘Iraqi’ police in the presence of US troops. Another NGO reported of how one mother-of-four killed herself after being held by her hair and raped in front of her restrained husband, who was forced to watch.
Secondary Illiterates: The Crisis of Education in Western Industrial Countries (tags)
"Euroepan literacy and the schooling of society were not generous civilizing gifts to people but part of that process described as `inner colonialization'..Infrastructural institu-tions are not market enterprises but overall social conditions for the market economy.."
Army Disciplines Soldier who opened the Prisoner Abuse scandal (tags)
Sgt. Samuel Provance was notified by the Army that he was an official witness, and on May 14, his company commander ordered him not to talk. Instead, Provance decided he would give interviews to set the record straight.
Nettles, Nettles, Everywhere: Collect wild herbs! (tags)
Stinging Nettles grow like weeds in the canyons and woods all down the West Coast. Spring is the time to collect them. You can dry them, or make oil or vinegar infusions, tinctures, hair tonics, teas...
Urgent Calls Needed for Peace Activist Kate (Raphael) and.. (tags)
Kimberley Anne Gray Frederick Batzler and Gustav Fridolin. International Womens Peace Service:
The Crash has Already Begun (tags)
"The crash has already begun! Every crash comes inthree steps, the stock market crash, the banking industry crash and finally the real crash, the collapse of the economy, businesses, jobs and the financial system.. The coming depression is the correction.."
"Two currencies exist for prosperity: money and time.. What we need is shorter full-time work for everyone, a new culture of contented-ness and an intelligent working hours policy oriented in the needs of people." translated from the German
Asylum is a Human Right: A Dishonored Promise (tags)
"For a long while, the human right to asylum was a mere proclamation and never had a legally binding character for nation states. The human right to asylum is the hope of millions of refugees for a secure existence." translated from the German
This is a war against each and every individual, Israeli or not, religious or not, Zionist or not, right, left or center, who identifies himself or herself as Jewish.
The Environment is Always an Economic Boom: Debating the Rightwing (tags)
The five rightwing arguments for downsizing ecology are criticized. "Ecological moderniza-tion triggers innovations, creates jobs, opens up export chances and lowers health costs.. In Switzerland per capital energy consumption could be reduced two-thirds.."
"The gigantic blackout (that will certainly not be the last) was a direct consequence that the US is so exemplary in the special neoliberal disciplines privatization and lower costs..Profit maximization at any cost leads to abstract cost cutting pressure." From German
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.
More State Intervention (tags)
"The German economy has skidded into a recession.. In a recession, the state must take a leadership role in solving the main problem, inadequate demand.." Translated from the German
A short history of the rise of Italian and German fascism and the reasons for the occurrence. Excerpted from Michael Parenti's book Blackshirts and Reds.
Millions stop work as anti-war protests sweep Europe and beyond (tags)
"backers of Washington's hard line like Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and Australian Prime Minister John Howard are defying hostile public opinion.... On the other side of the globe, Howard was hounded by anti-war protesters who hurled eggs and tomatoes at his car...
RICHARD PERLE CAUGHT RUNNING A $100-MILLION SHEIK-DOWN (tags)
Richard Perle, one of the most outspoken war party figures in and around the Bush Administration, has been caught in a $100-million attempted blackmail ``sheik-down'' of the Saudis, which could land him in jail.
The Privatization of the World (tags)
"State tax receipts rapidly decline through the globalization of capital. Heavily indebted states, provinces and communes have become economic crisis factors instead of being active as masters of crisis. They sell off cheaply the state table silver."
I don’t know about you, but I am mighty tired of the warmongers making constant comparisons between Germany 1939 and Iraq 2003. This is not only disingenuous, it is dishonest.
The Wilderness Lives: The End of Prehistory as a Beginning (tags)
"The status quo is limited and not lasting from eternity to eternity as the quasi-religious worship of capital asserts. This worship of capital handed over to its own destructive dynamic is still dominant but not unchallenged." H. Thielen lives in Brazil.
California’s Global Warming Law Will Only Bring State Motorists What They Already Ha (tags)
Despite auto industry denouncements, California's new global warming law will usher in a new age of environmentally-sensitive cars that auto companies already are making or preparing to build.