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Non-Aligned Movement gathers in Venezuela to resist dictatorship of dollar
GlobalizationOfficially founded in 1961 by post-colonial icons like Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Jawaharlal Nehru of India, and Yugoslavian leader Josef Tito, NAM was originally conceived as an alliance between countries seeking independence from both the US and Soviet power blocs during the height of the Cold War. Nearly 30 years since the end of the Cold War, the US is still attempting regime change operations or carrying out unparalleled economic aggression against NAM member states.
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The Global Currency War Has Begun
GlobalizationFor the past decade or more, US policy has been to use both monetary policy and tax policy to subsidize capital incomes to the tune of trillions of dollars a year, every year. It used to be that monetary (Fed) and fiscal policy were used to ‘stabilize’ the economy in the event of recession or inflation. No longer. A decade and more of using these policies to subsidize capital incomes has led to the effective negation of the effectiveness of these policies for economic stabilization.
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U.S. Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses
GlobalizationUnlike medieval serfdom, people subject to this End of History scenario can choose to live wherever they want. But wherever they live, they must take on a lifetime of debt to obtain access to a home of their own, and rely on U.S.-sponsored control of their basic needs, money and credit by adhering to U.S. financial planning of their economies. This dystopian scenario confirms Rosa Luxemburg’s recognition that the ultimate choice facing nations in today’s world is between socialism and barbarism.
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Trump’s Trade Threats are Really Cold War 2.0
GlobalizationTrump’s trade tantrum is that other countries are simply following the same economic strategy that once made America great, but which neoliberals have destroyed. U.S. negotiators are unwilling to acknowledge that the United States has lost its competitive industrial advantage and become a high-cost rentier economy. Its GDP is “empty,” consisting mainly of the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) rents, profits and capital gains while the nation’s infrastructure decays and its labor is reduced to a part-time “gig” economy.
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NAFTA renewed. Now what?
GlobalizationWas the push to renegotiate NAFTA only about Trump playing to his base? Was Trump reacting to a decline in the American empire? Was it about moving away from multilateral agreements to bilateral ones where U.S. strength weighs heavier? Is the narrowing of options that the renegotiation of NAFTA exposed just about free-trade agreements, or does it point to a more general characteristic of capitalism today?
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Neoliberalism’s Dark Path to Fascism
Economic CrisisNeoliberalism as economic theory was always an absurdity. It had as much validity as past ruling ideologies such as the divine right of kings and fascism’s belief in the Übermensch. None of its vaunted promises were even remotely possible. Concentrating wealth in the hands of a global oligarchic elite—eight families now hold as much wealth as 50 percent of the world’s population—while demolishing government controls and regulations always creates massive income inequality and monopoly power, fuels political extremism and destroys democracy.
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One Key Way NAFTA 2.0 Reinvigorates Canadian Sovereignty
Canadian PoliticsThe federal government should pursue new agreements — as New Zealand has done under the re-born Trans-Pacific Partnership — to drop ISDS. We should respect each other’s democracies and courts and, if some companies have doubts, they have the option to negotiate for ISDS in their government contracts, buy insurance against political risks, or just decline to invest in unreliable countries.
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Review of the Renegotiated NAFTA: Benefits and Drawbacks to Canada
GlobalizationOne can’t help wondering what Tommy Douglas and the CCF-NDP of a previous era would do at a time such as this. In all likelihood, they might assess that because of the elimination of chapter 11 and the energy proportionality rule, this is a somewhat better deal for Canada, but nevertheless, they would advocate that we give a six-month notice and simply get out of our current partial economic straitjacket. Is there any prospect of the NDP ever being revived in the way the British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn suddenly became aware of its original socialist roots?
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on NAFTA 2.0
GlobalizationFor many years, the Council of Canadians and others have been writing and advocating to get rid of Chapter 11, the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process. These are the provisions that allow corporations to sue countries over decisions, even if they are made in the public interest. For years, Canada has faced corporate lawsuits that made provinces renounce public auto insurance, accept toxins, and pay for refusing dangerous quarries. Now, at the request of the U.S., there will be no ISDS process between U.S. and Canada.
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Trudeau clings to Chapter 19 in NAFTA, but why?
Canadian PoliticsLet us also remember that the NAFTA talks not only lack transparency and genuine public input, but they are now being rushed, in part, so that they can be concluded under outgoing NAFTA-friendly Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, rather than Andrés Manuel López Obrador (who was elected on July 1 and is to be sworn into office on December 1). NAFTA is part of the architecture of corporate rule, the Chapter 19 provision doesn’t change that fundamental truth.
