The presumption of mainstream economists and business journalists (as well as political and economic elites) is that the capitalist machine is the only possible one, and that it will work. Except it’s not: corporate profits have been growing (the red line in the chart above) but investment has been falling.
Morocco G20 Finance Meetings Make Few Decisions on Crisis Response (tags)
G20 finance ministers met on global economic growth, debt, inflation, expanding development bank aid, the pandemic and other crises.
G20 Finance Ministers Focus on Debt, Development and Dismal Economic Outlook in Gandhinaga (tags)
On Monday, G20 Finance Ministers hold their third meeting hosted in Gandhinagar by the Indian government.
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.
Power, Profit and Prestige (tags)
The United States was also constantly at war, after independence, with Native Americans. The U.S. armed forces engaged in a thousand military operations, large and small, against Native Americans between 1868 and 1890!
Economic Stagnation and its Mastery (tags)
Corporate profits explode while investments stagnate.Social housing declines with privatization. According to neoliberal theory, higher profits lead to grater investments and more jobs. In truth, higher profits lead to more use of tax havens and companies buying back their stock.
"Who is saving Whom?" shows what remains hidden. A tremendous redistribution from the bottom to the top.. Rescuing is taking place, for the 99% however there is no sign of a rescue.
Canadians Reject Harper: Hold the Cheers (tags)
Canada
Misguided Calls for More QE (tags)
QE
Financial Market Inflammation (tags)
Bubble formation covered up a period of long-lasting stagnation... Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers even spoke of stagnation as a "new normality"... The crisis consequences are shifted to other subjects. Unemployment and indebtedness are exported.
Liberating the Economy from Prejudices (tags)
Economics is not an immutable unchangeable fate but a human system where changing rules changes outcomes. James Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz are two well-known economists who question the myths of conventional economics, the self-healing, efficient and deregulated market
AIPAC's Federal Reserve Vice Chairman (tags)
Fed
US Universities of Shame (tags)
Israel
Janet Yellen Likely New Fed Chairwoman: Hold the Cheers (tags)
class war
Book Review: The unwinding by George Parker (tags)
"When the norms that made the old institutions useful began to unwind, and the leaders abandoned their posts, the Roosevelt Republic that had reigned for almost half a century came undone. The void was filled by the default force in American life, organized money."
Geekout Bookmarks 9/1/2013 (tags)
This is an irregular experimental feature to gather the links which I've posted to facebook and twitter over the past few days into a short digest. Most of the links are mainstream. I'll try to do better next time. Enjoy.
Larry Summers: Wall Street's Man (tags)
Fed
Criticizing Venezuela's Maduro Irresponsibly (tags)
Snowden
Open Letter re: anti-Israel student nominated to UC Regents (tags)
Sadia Saifuddin, a UC Berkeley senior and a member of the MSA and Students for Justice in Palestine, Muslim Brotherhood front groups that regularly sponsor “Israel Apartheid Weeks,” was recently nominated to become the University of California student regent for the 2014-15 academic year.
coup
Protest Sadia Saifuddin's nomination to UC Regents (tags)
Editors’ note: Sadia Saifuddin, a UC Berkeley senior and a member of the MSA and Students for Justice in Palestine, Muslim Brotherhood front groups that regularly sponsor “Israel Apartheid Weeks,” was recently nominated to become the University of California student regent for the 2014-15 academic year
America's Right-Wing Reinterprets the Crisis (tags)
A state is not a hardware store. It must contract debts in crisis times. Four years after the collapse of the US economy, the republicans send a former investment banker into the race who stands for a policy that got us into the real messThe right-wing was very successful in changing the discourse.
"Look," I said, "I donated to Obama's campaign because I thought he was almost as liberal as Richard Nixon, now I'm not so sure." The campaign worker started to cackle. "Mr. Batty, wait a minute, I want you to say that again. I'm going to put you on speaker."
class war
Bretton Woods 2.0: Soros New World Order Conference (tags)
new world order
Obama's New Chief of Staff and Economic Team (tags)
Wall Street dominated
Corporate Media's Version of Economic Justice (tags)
middle class destructions
Ruling on Behalf of Wall Street's "Super Rich": The Financial End Time has Arrived (tags)
"Alas, the Obama administration has backed the Geithner-Bernanke policy that “the economy” cannot recover without saving the debt overhead. The reality is that it is the debt overhead that is destroying the economy. So we are dealing with the irreconcilable fact that the Obama position threatens to lower living standards from 10% to 20% over the coming few years – making the United States look more like Greece, Ireland and Latvia than what was promised in the last presidential election. Something has to give politically if the economy is to change course. More to the point, what has to give is favoritism for Wall Street at the expense of the economy at large. What has made the U.S. economy uncompetitive is primarily the degree to which debt service has been built into the cost of living and doing business. Post-classical “junk economics” treats interest and fees as payment for the “service” for providing credit. But interest (like economic rent and monopoly price extraction) is a transfer payment to bankers with the privilege of credit creation. The beneficiaries of providing tax favoritism for debt are the super-rich at the top of the economic pyramid – the 2% whom Mr. Obama’s tax giveaway will benefit by over $700 billion. If the present direction of tax “reform” is not reversed, Mr. Obama will shed crocodile tears for the middle class as he sponsors the Deficit Reduction Commission’s program of cutting back Social Security and revenue sharing to save states and cities from defaulting on their pensions. One third of U.S. real estate already is reported to have sunk into negative equity, squeezing state and local tax collection, forcing a choice to be made between bankruptcy, debt default, or shifting the losses onto the shoulders of labor, off those of the wealthy creditor layer of the economy responsible for loading it down with debt."
ARE STOLEN TARP BAILOUT $$ MAKING THEIR WAY INTO MEG WHITMANS MEDIA BUYS IN CALIRORNIA ? (tags)
AMERICAN TAXPAYERS HAVE HAD TENS OF BILLION$ STOLEN FROM OUR AMERICAN PIGGY BANK VIA THE GEORGE BUSH ~ KARL ROVE TARP BAILOUT PONZI SCHEME.
THE NEW LATIN AMERICA FOR NOAM CHOMSKY (tags)
Interview of Noam Chomsky
Census Bureau Confirms Rising Poverty, Falling Incomes, and Growing Numbers of Uninsured (tags)
growing poverty and despair in America
Dems and Reps Unite for Cuts (tags)
While billionaires get bailed out and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue THE BUDGET CRISIS IS A LIE! THERE IS MONEY THE RICH ARE STEALING IT.
Daniel Estulin's "True Story of the Bilderberg Group" and What They May Be Plann (tags)
Their goal is a world with rulers and serfs, no middle class
The crisis calls for system alternatives and redistribution from top to bottom. Will the financial crisis encourage the transition to a new social order? A certain mix of good functioning markets and a strong welfare state leads to the best results.
targeting labor rights
Unraveling The Card Check Debate (tags)
Sometimes in politics a particular issue strikes at the core of deeper social-economic forces. Card Check - properly named The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)- is such an issue. EFCA, if implemented as proposed, would allow workers at any work place to join a union simply by having the majority of employees sign union authorization cards. The current law mandates that there be a secret ballot election one month after the requisite number of signed cards are submitted. This one-month period allows employers to mount campaigns to discourage employees from voting for a union, often using conscious distortions and intimidation as tactics. EFCA would prohibit newly unionized workers from striking for two years to gain a first contract. Moreover, if a first contract has not been negotiated within the first three months, a Federal Mediator can step in and impose a contract. Currently, employers who are compelled to recognize a union do not have to concede to a negotiated contract at all; and if, after one year a contract has not been negotiated, the union can be subjected to a vote of decertification, which is often the case.
The Obama Government: Take from the Poor and Give to the Rich (tags)
These past several weeks have witnessed a stunning attack on working people, with the Obama administration leading the charge. It started with Larry Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser, responding to the A.I.G. bonuses by pontificating about the sanctity of contracts: “We are a country of law. There are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts.” Like a mad dog pursuing its prey, he pounced on the conclusion that absolutely nothing could be done about the bonuses. Unfortunately, Summers voiced no similar outcry when the Obama administration, only weeks earlier, insisted that the U.A.W. contracts be renegotiated as a condition for the auto industry receiving a bailout, suggesting that a different set of rules applies to the rich than to the rest of us who constitute the majority and work for a living.
Toxic Plans for Toxic Assets (tags)
Obama stimulus from hell.
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford Lauds D.C. Money Launderer James Dale Davidson ! (tags)
'But his( South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's)career took a dramatic turn after he heard James Dale Davidson, founder of the National Taxpayers Union, give what Sanford recalls as an "apocalyptic" speech about excessive government spending. Sanford decided to run for Congress, pledging to end the deficit, eschew pay hikes and serve only three terms.' - Dec 01, 2008 McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
12/1 Lee Siu Hin: What We Should Expect from President Barak Obama? (tags)
If history can teach us something, the election of Obama and Clinton has many similarities: after the initial excitement we might experience the same disappointment and disillusion like Clinton-era--and even the possibility of Republicans can capitalize the public disappointment to regain the control of Congress at the future elections.....
Rosh Hashana Message: Celebrate Jewish Glasnost! (tags)
Despite a Backlash, Many Jews Are Questioning Israel