Robert Reich is great. His historical analysis is sound, though hardly radical. His economics challenge the dominant media narrative. If his illuminations work for you, fine. But sorry no, Robert Reich is not the resistance. Reich is only playing the foil to Trump's villain. And how hard is that, really? Reacting to Trump is the Democratic Party line. Resistance means more than the third law of physics. But this focus on the Mueller probe is not even that. It's pure fourth fundamental state of matter.
Tag: Economics
Can a currency system be localized?
A friend of mine is studying alternative money systems in Boulder, and has solicited input from her varied professional circles. Here are the questions she poses about localizing community transactions: 19969
Marx professor David Harvey offers take on Crises of Capitalism, illustrated
CUNY Distinguished Professor David Harvey offers a 13-part online reading of Das Capital, Volume 1. But catch this mesmerizing dry- erase presentation of Harvey's talk THE CRISES OF CAPITALISM.
Bob Edwards asks “We still Top Dog?”
Longtime neo-liberal shill and NPR war drummer Bob Edwards consults a soothsayer to placate his weekend audience's fears about where their hopeful handbasket appears to be headed. To his question about the USA still being top dog, the economic clairvoyant's answer is YES. Also, America has the psyche and bipolarity of a teenager, leaving us to infer also the same self-unawareness. But the big question was about President Obama's apparent inability to change the course set for him. YEP. The tracks of Bush's trainwreck read like your palm. Nothing to be done.
Vaneigem on energy as commodity
NMT's in-house Situationist has been conceptualizing a way forward well expressed in this May 2009 interview of Raoul Vaneigem: "We are being “offered” biofuels on the condition we agree to transgenic rapeseed farming. Eco-tourism will accelerate the plundering of our biosphere. Windmill farms are being built without any advantage to the consumers. Those are the areas where intervention is possible. Natural resources belong to us, they are free, they must be made to serve the freedom of life. It will be up to the communities to secure their own energy and food independence so as to free themselves from the control of the multinationals and their state vassals everywhere. Claiming natural power for our use means reclaiming our own existence first. Only creativity will rid us of work. ... 12375
The economic quicksand that sinks us
Funny how it is that when both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party both have the same economic program, that so many of the same actors are pointing fingers at each other? But then again what could we really expect from these two partisan camps run by the same economic interests? 7431
Apres nous, le Depression
If it matters what to call this financial crisis, what is it? Is America in a recession? When does a deep recession approach a depression? When is an economic crash revealed to be a collapse? Before we can rename the Great Depression, as we did the Great War (WWI), in deference to this latest, we would do better to address the cataclysm which left this depression. 6379
A fine mess you got us into, said the fat man to the little man
I'm convinced the economic "mess" we find ourselves in, is of the Laurel and Hardy variety. The iridescent definition of "mess" leads us to infer that our predicament-mess, results from a clutter-mess of options. To hear the parade of experts, our financial mess is a chaotic tangle to dumbfound even a string theorist. I think it's more like a job for CSI. This "mess" is painted to obscure an entirely un-messy crime scene. The common American is in a mess alright, we're staring at a bare bank vault floor. 6362
Who is the economy calling stupid?
Okay, I've had enough of our readiness to believe, about the economy, that nobody knows what's going on. Nobody will tell you what's going on, is what's going on. 6081
The American dyslexia for economics
The interest rate for banks is down to zero. B of A and Citibank are still charging 39%. What again does economic news have to do with me? The biggest news on the economy was BREAKING NEWS a week ago: the US economy is in a recession, and has been for over a year. Can news a year old still be news? What news exactly are we getting from the experts, economists and other mesmerists paraded on the television every evening? 5775
Uncle Tom’s Hotel Rwanda
Let's clear something up for the sake of poetic justice. Uncle Tom was a maltreated slave who bore his burden with dignity. He was no collaborator, no stool pigeon, no upper class of black slave that kept the lower savages in order. That "Uncle Tom" is what the term has come to mean: a white man's black man, owing perhaps to the original character's civilized humanity which a white reader might not have expected to be a capacity of an African slave. The neo-Uncle Tom is a Tutsi. 703
Save the Copper Cobalt Coltan of Congo?
COpper, CObalt and COltan are among the precious resources we are sucking from the COngo. Could their names too derive from a common origin? We're hearing suddenly of horrendous atrocities from there, although the Congolese have been suffering for over a decade. Has excess violence begun to threaten our mineral supply? 704
Alan is shocked!!!!!
Alan Greenspan represents more than any individual anywhere, the bipartisan fact that there is no real difference between the 2 chosen parties of our corporate dictatorship here in America. Let's fact, it... Greenspan has been the darling of both the Democratic and Republican Parties for a very long time now. He's The Man! 5228
How a ‘credit crunch’ can help kick an economic depression into place
In a system...where the entire continuity of the...process rests upon credit, a crisis must obviously occur -- a tremendous rush for means of payment -- when credit suddenly ceases and only cash payments have validity. At first glance, therefore, the whole crisis seems to be merely a credit and money crisis. And in fact it is only a question of the convertibility of bills of exchange into money. 4991
Economic meltdown and the deafening silence of Barack Obama
Barack Obama has had ample opportunity to articulate a different program than George Bush and McCain's foreign policy of continual war, militarism, and imperialism yet failed to do so. But still possibly some redeeming of his character and political program was possible in regards to domestic issues? However he has completely failed that test, too, and has shown no signs of opposing any of the Bush-McCain agenda to transfer the colossal private debt of America's private financial institutions onto the Federal Budget itself. In short, he too favors bankrupting the American people as a whole by saddling the American tax payer with private debt run up by the super rich economic elites of our country. 4858
George Will’s vocabulary outshines him
COLORADO SPRINGS- Some people look smaller in person than they do on TV. Many of us only know George Will from newsprint, but in person he's an organ grinder's monkey, amusingly agile, if a little threatening, but basically smallish and tethered to somebody asking for money. 4685
Global economic rapists are at it again
Why protest the G8 Summit July 7-9? Those hoodlums always look so determined. Here's the rationale by the Emergency Exit Collective: 3650
SEIU July 17 protest of private equity
Join the Service Employees International Union, Move-On and Amnesty International to demonstrate for tax reform to curb abuse by private equity firms and buyout barons raiding our jobs and economy.
Eco-conscious, yes. Sustainable? Hardly.
The First Affirmative Financial Network may be green and may encourage eco-progressive development, but offering investors continued profits based on growing market activity is a far cry from an environmentally sustainable footprint.
An American Socialism?
In the current housing bankruptcy "crisis" which was in fact created by the privately owned Fed through interest rates that reached 1% in 2003 combined with lax oversight of the banks, the bail out now being talked about in Congress will help... no surprise... the banks by and large. It is meant to deceive the public again by using words such as "helping" the homeowners, or "saving" peoples homes. NOTE: When you save a mortgage you save the bank's payments by insuring they keep coming in. Besides the fact that people don't own their homes, the banks do! 3031
Death spiral economy
The fascist business model in full view, unapologetic. Unaccountable. The Democrats have no intention of changing it. They have to protect their major donors. Obama is fully backed by Wall Street capitalists. He talks the talk of reform but he cannot and won't walk the walk. He won't tell you the real problem is the FED who created this mess. He's just another black face in a high place. Powerless. Selling the illusion of hope. No substance. 2988
Knowing we are in over our heads
One reason we have governments, for you inquiring civil libertarians, is for guidance. I can certainly think of two matters which might always evade common man's grasp: nutrition and economics. 2694
Nobel Prize impostor to speak at CC
Colorado College, our evolving Neo-Liberal Arts school, has been inviting a slew of globalization advocates to intone on patriarchal economics. The latest, game theory "Cold Warrior" Thomas Schelling, will speak on Thursday, Feb. 21st. Schelling is being lauded as a "Nobel Laureate of Economics." Except there is no such thing as a Nobel prize for economics. 2656
Will economic stimulus avoid recession?
The capitalists system is in meltdown. The apologist candidates won't tell us what the real problems are because they were asleep at the wheel and have voted in support of and taken part in the corrupt capitalist system. They're all millionaires!!!! It's time to start a new economy and new currency, end war, cut the military budget to 1/4 of what it is and dismantle the Fed. ...and the parasitical Stock Market gambling casino that robs those who produce goods and services of their bounty. 2675
When America wheezes…
"When America sneezes, Asia catches a cold." Or so the adage goes. NPR referred to it as a cliche, and canvassed the foreign press for regional varients. The news being, apparently, that the American economy hiccuped or other such trifle. I cannot help thinking of Chekhov's The Death of a Government Official, adapted for the stage as The Sneeze. 2519