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Currently viewing entries in the Economic Crisis category.
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Economic Crisis for June 27th, 2009
“Lobbyists for financial institutions—the people responsible for the collapse of our economy—-have been scheming and wrangling to gut the reforms that could stop another economic breakdown” says Mediachannel News Director Danny Schechter. He further informs that many observers see a deeper crash still coming with a depression quietly deepening, “even if most us cling to our perennial optimism and trust in the changemaker we can believe in.”
- Who Can We Bank On, Who Can We Trust, As Crisis Sharpens? by Danny Schechter — Zcommunications
Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer says that “the Bush-Obama strategy of throwing trillions at the banks to solve the mortgage crisis is a huge bust. The financial moguls, while tickled pink to have $1.25 trillion in toxic assets covered by the feds, along with hundreds of billions in direct handouts, are not using that money to turn around the free fall in housing foreclosures.” And, “aside from a tight mortgage market, the problem in preventing foreclosures has to do with homeowners losing their jobs. Although President Obama was wise enough to at least launch a job stimulus program, a far greater amount of federal funding benefits Wall Street as opposed to Main Street.”
Further, with state and local governments beingforced into draconian budget cuts, firing workers who are among the most reliable in making their mortgage payments, the Obama administration won’t spend even a small fraction of what it has wasted on the banks to cover state shortfalls.
- Foreclosure Fiasco by Robert Scheer — Truthdig
New research by economic historians Eichengreen and O’Rourke, Financial Times Editor compare the current economic crisis with the early phase of the Great Depression, in terms of the stock market crash and the collapse of world trade: “Globally we are tracking or doing even worse than the Great Depression … This is a Depression-sized event.”
Financial Times editor Martin Wolf, quotes approvingly from their work which also predicts that because current governments are applying the lessons taken from the Great Depression, that the thirties disaster need not be repeated. Two opposing dangers arise, he writes. One is that the stimulus is withdrawn too soon, as happened in the 1930s. The other danger is that stimulus is withdrawn too late resulting in unsustainable government funding and continued deficits.
The recession tracks the Great Depression — by Martin Wolf — Financial Times
A Tale of Two Depressionsby Barry Eichengreen and Kevin H. O’Rourke — VOX
“Marxism has been out of favour so long, even its jargon sounds refreshing,” writes Ian Brown as he surveys and interviews well known Marxists Leo Panitch, Paul Street and Doug Henwood about how they interpret the collapse of the world’s largest corporations and the state’s decision to take them into partial public ownership.
- The 18th Brumaire of Barack Obama by Ian Brown — Globe and Mail
Journalist Barbara Ehrenreich surveys the perennially poor and the working poor to determine how the economic crisis is affecting them.
Too Poor to Make the News by Barbara Ehrenreich — New York Times
Imagine: Prosperity without growth by Murray Dobbin — Rabble.ca
Canadian journalist Murray Dobbin argues that the dual economic and climate crises “have arrived just in time to wake us up, just in time for us to choose to save the planet and ourselves from a truly grim future. Not just rising oceans and the loss of coastal communities — but a nightmarish dystopia characterized by global social unrest, the rise of fascism, mass starvation and wars over energy and water”.
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Economic Crisis for June 7th 2009
Was the GM bankruptcy the best solution? We look at alternatives to bankruptcy and what could have been accomplished under government ownership.
The New York Times reports on President Obama’s plans for the “new General Motors”.
- Obama Is Upbeat for G.M.’s Future by Bill Vlasic and Nick Bunkley —The NY Times
Multinational Monitor Editor Robert Weissman argues that instead of declaring bankruptcy, the government could have announced the taking of GM through eminent domain. Nationalisation would have been better for shareholders, bondholders and the United Automobile Workers union. And with complete control of the company, the government could have explicitly set out to manage General Motors in the public interest.
- GM Nationalization: The Path Not Taken, Choices Still Ahead by Robert Weissman — Multinational monitor blog
Economist journalist Greg Palast shows how the Obama GM bankruptcy policy arranges for workers’ pension fund to be used to pay off $6 billion loans to the likes of JP Morgan and Citibank.
- Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM by Greg Palast — Gregpalast.com
Film maker Michael Moore, writing from his home base in Flint Michigan, urges President Obama to convert auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices, in the same manner and urgency that President Roosevelt in 1942 ordered GM to halt all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns.
- Goodbye, GM by Michael Moore — Common Dreams
Robert Weissman argues that President Obama’s bankruptcy and restructuring plan— shaped by a secretive, unaccountable group of Wall Street expats without expertise in the industry — seems designed above all to perpetuate GM as a corporate entity. Preserving corporate GM should be not an end, but a means to protecting workers and their communities, preserving the U.S. manufacturing base, forcing the industry onto an innovative and ecologically sustainable path, and advancing consumer interests.
- Bankrupt Thinking by Robert Weissman — Multinational monitor blog
Retired CAW trade unionist Herman Rosenfeld takes on arguments that promote a concessions approach by auto workers as the solution to the auto crisis.
- On Auto Collective Bargaining Issues by Herman Rosenfeld — Worker Solidarity Blogspot
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Economic Crisis for May 27th, 2009
When will the recovery begin? Will it be full and vigorous or slow and limp? Is fiscal stimulus and money expansion helping? And how much? These questions are being debated daily in the business press and also in progressive media. The Financial Times, which comes out of London, is the world’s premier source of business intelligence. This roundtable discussion on the economic crisis presented by The New York Review of Books and PEN World Voices took place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on April 30. The participants were former US senator Bill Bradley, Niall Ferguson, Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini, George Soros, and Robin Wells, with Jeff Madrick as moderator. The article that follows, by Mike Whitney was published on Counterpunch, an excellent web site of critical opinion. The next one, by Andre Damon, comes from the World Socialist Web Site.
The final article in this collection addresses President Obama’s policies as regards the teetering auto industry. In this article published in Global Research, Shamus Cooke argues that Obama’s policy represents “the greatest single attack on American workers since the Great Depression.”
The Crisis and how to deal with it — New York Review of Books
The Real Lesson of the Financial Crisis by Mike Whitney — Counterpunch.org
World economy in freefall by Andre Damon — World Socialist Website
On Obama’s Chopping Block: It’s The Turn of General Motors by Shamus Cooke — Global Research
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Economic Crisis for May 5th 2009
The business press and government officials are desperately looking for signs that the economic crisis is ebbing and recovery is on the way. The articles by Saskia Sassen and Roger Altman argue that this crisis is not going away. Kim Scipes looks at the US economy before the financial meltdown and finds deep roots of the crisis in the real economy. Bill Moyers interviews William Black about the fraud being perpetrated by the US banking system (three parts). Mark Engler takes up the question of whether US domination of the global economy is coming undone. Contrary to the analysis of Panitch and Gindin featured in earlier segments of Best of the Web, Engler argues that US domination will not survive the economic crisis.
Empire Foreclosed? by Mark Engler — Foreign Policy in Focus
Neo-Liberal Economic Policies in the United States: The Impact of Globalization on a ‘Northern’ Country by Kim Scipes —The United Association for Labor Education
Too big to save: the end of financial capitalism by Saskia Sassen — opendemocracy.net
Bill Moyers’ Journal — The best way to rob a bank is to own one: America’s Institutionalized Con Game
- part one of three — youtube
- part two of three — youtube
- part three of three — youtube
Why this will not be a normal cyclical recovery by Roger Altman — Financial Times
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The Automotive industry and the Economic Crisis for April 18th, 2009
The crisis in the auto industry reached a new level this week. These articles provide both an industry and union perspective with Canadian Dimension collective member Sam Gindin offering a radical and comprehensive green proposal to reorganize the industry.
Chrysler lays it on the line to workers by Greg Keenan and Karen Howlett — The Globe and Mail
Statement by CAW President Ken Lewenza in response to the Nardelli-LaSorda letter to Chrysler workers April 17, 2009 — The Globe and Mail
The Auto Crisis: Placing Our Own Alternative on the Table by Sam Gindin — The Socialist Project
Unionism’s last stand by John R. MacArthur — Toronto Star
Bailing out Corporations but not Pensioners is Immoral by Mohamed Elmasry — Media Monitors Network
Airlines, autos: You can’t cut your way out of crisis by Jim Stanford — The Globe and Mail
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