Our Economic Ruin Means Freedom for the Super-Rich by George Monbiot
The model is dead; long live the model. Austerity programmes are extending the crises they were meant to solve, yet governments refuse to abandon them. The United Kingdom provides a powerful example. The cuts, the coalition promised, would hurt but work. They hurt all right – and have pushed us into a double-dip recession. This result was widely predicted.
The Meltdown According to Stiglitz
Freefall:America, Free Markets, andthe Sinking of the World EconomyBy Joseph E. StiglitzW.W. Norton & Co., 361 pp; $27.95 Barack Obama ran for President on the promise of "change we can believe in." When it comes to the financial crisis, he has instead "only slightly rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic," writes Joseph E.
Debt deal: anger and deceit has led the US into a billionaires' coup
There are two ways of cutting a deficit: raising taxes or reducing spending. Raising taxes means taking money from the rich. Cutting spending means taking money from the poor. Not in all cases of course: some taxation is regressive; some state spending takes money from ordinary citizens and gives it to banks, arms companies, oil barons and farmers. But in most cases the state transfers wealth from rich to poor, while tax cuts shift it from poor to rich. So the rich, in a nominal democracy, have a struggle on their hands.
The Wobbly West - Anders Åslund
Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA – Early in the financial crisis, a major emerging-market investor told me: “This is not a global, but a semi-global financial crisis.” He was right: it really was a crisis of the United States, Europe, and Japan. Among emerging markets, only Eastern Europe was badly hit.
'Freefall' Excerpt: Too Late To Fix The Biggest Banking Blunder In History?
Reprinted from Freefall by Joseph Stiglitz. Copyright (c) 2010 by Joseph E. Stiglitz. Used with permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Why are we debating cuts to Social Security? - Opinion
The Washington elites apparently believe that we are in the worst downturn since the Great Depression because of free spending seniors running wild with their Social Security cheques. What else could explain their obsession with cutting Social Security benefits? The fashionable cut these days is adopting a "chained" consumer price index for the annual cost of living adjustment. This chained index would reduce the size of the adjustment by 0.3 percentage points annually. This cut is especially pernicious. Since it is cumulative, it would hit the oldest of the elderly hardest.
Neo-liberal capture of the policy making process in Europe
Mainstream macroeconomics has mounted a range of arguments over the years to argue against any discretionary involvement by governments or regulators in the economy. The claim is always that the ‘market’ will self regulate and weed out bad players and produce the best outcomes with the least resources each period of activity. Various fancy terms are introduced into textbooks that make these arguments seem to have scientific weight. In narratives, there is often claims that left-wing groups blurred as trade unions have too much influence on political processes, particularly when a non-conservative party is in power.
Corporate power has turned Britain into a corrupt state
If you're under attack, create a diversion. David Cameron and Nick Clegg have been floundering as the spectre of Westminster sleaze has returned to haunt them. Four years after the MPs' expenses scandal engulfed British politics, yet another alleged scam has been exposed. First a Tory MP and then a clutch of greedy peers were caught on camera apparently agreeing to take cash from journalists posing as representatives of foreign companies. "Make that £12,000 a month," grinned Jack Cunningham, Tony Blair's former "enforcer". Cameron and Clegg had promised to deal with parliamentary influence-peddling, and done nothing about it.
Asia’s BRICs Hit the Wall - Jaswant Singh
Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space NEW DELHI –India’s democratic credentials do not impress Francis Fukuyama, who two decades ago prophesied the “end of history,” as being a catalyst for the country’s economic growth. Fukuyama finds excessive “patronage politics and fractiousness” in India – flaws that stand in stark contrast to China’s speedier, though not necessarily cleaner, political system.
