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Wall Street’s Killing Fields
The pundits are very busy these days looking for scapegoats among the swindlers, liars and manipulators who by their greed and excesses have caused the meltdown that led to this mother of all stock market crashes. Now it’s true that in the midst of every economic boom some masters of the universe exercise no scruples in grabbing their share, and then some, of the profit bonanza; and when conditions sour, find novel ways of hiding their true bottom lines to keep investor capital coming their way.
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Perspectives on the U.S. Financial Crisis
It is time to take stock. The centrality of the American economy to the capitalist world – which now literally does encompass the whole world – has spread the financial crisis that began in the U.S. housing market around the globe. And the emerging economic recession triggered in the U.S by that financial crisis now threatens to spread globally, as well.
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Responding to the challenge of Peak Oil
With the conservation of resources will come the necessity to stabilize and reduce human populations. The challenging reality is that making society sustainable will require a large-scale reform of governments and economic systems, and the use of mechanisms of authority to apply penalties and offer incentives.
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War on shareholders
The left fulminates against capitalism, against corporations. It rarely names names. It is time to do so. Capitalism is a system, an evil system. It is right to rage against it. But, if we want to change the system, let us pick better targets than the system itself. The corporation is the principal mechanism through which capitalism’s evil goals are pursued.
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The Economic Basis of Imperial Power
International economic power is increasingly dispersed between the competing major power blocs. However, one power centre – the U.S. – has greater domination over more sectors than the other power blocs.
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Mining Towns and the New Hinterland Crisis
The long-term decline in mine-industry employment occurs in the post-1970s historical context of globalization, in this way differing from the earlier generation of post-war hinterland crisis that devastated agricultural towns. The crisis is engulfing other resource-dependent towns, notably in forestry and fishing, as well as rail towns.
