Video: G20 – Make or break? William F. Engdahl
Engdahl: The question in the EU is – will they go down with the dollar system or find their own way?
Posted with vodpod
Updates from March, 2009 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
InI
-
InI
Their crisis, our challenge – Red Pepper interviews David Harvey
In a far reaching interview with Red Pepper, David Harvey argues that the current financial crisis and bank bail-outs could lead to a massive consolidation of the banking system and a return to capitalist ‘business as usual’ – unless there is sustained revolt and pressure for a dramatic redistribution and socialisation of wealth
Does this crisis signal the end of neoliberalism? My answer is that it depends what you mean by neoliberalism. My interpretation is that it’s a class project, now masked by a lot of rhetoric about individual freedom, liberty, personal responsibility, privatisation and the free market. That rhetoric was a means towards the restoration and consolidation of class power, and that neoliberal project has been fairly successful.
-
InI
People's power confronts global crisis By Tony Iltis
28 March 2009
‘Fat cats in terror after anti-capitalists attack Fred the Shred’s home’, was the headline on the right-wing British Daily Mail’s March 26 report that the luxurious Edinburgh mansion of former Royal Bank of Scotland CEO Sir Fred Goodwin had been vandalised by a group calling themselves ‘Bank Bosses Are Criminals’.
Goodwin, nicknamed ‘Fred the Shred’ in reference to the sackings he has overseen, was forced to retire in October due to his role in the collapse of the RBS, which was revived with a £20 billion taxpayer-funded bailout.
Such was the anger at his £700,000-a-year retirement package that even PM Gordon Brown felt compelled to condemn it as ‘unjustifiable and unacceptable’, the Mail said.
The Mail also raised the spectre of ‘anarchists … plotting mayhem at next week’s G20 summit in London’.
-
InI
World Depression: Regional Wars and the Decline of the US Empire Part I By Prof. James Petras
30 March, 2009 Global Research
Introduction
All the idols of capitalism over the past three decades crashed. The assumptions and presumptions, paradigm and prognosis of indefinite progress under liberal free market capitalism have been tested and have failed. We are living the end of an entire epoch: Experts everywhere witness the collapse of the US and world financial system, the absence of credit for trade and the lack of financing for investment. A world depression, in which upward of a quarter of the world’s labor force will be unemployed, is looming. The biggest decline in trade in recent world history – down 40% year to year – defines the future. The immanent bankruptcies of the biggest manufacturing companies in the capitalist world haunt Western political leaders. The ‘market’ as a mechanism for allocating resources and the government of the US as the ‘leader’ of the global economy have been discredited. (Financial Times, March 9, 2009) All the assumptions about ‘self-stabilizing markets’ are demonstrably false and outmoded. The rejection of public intervention in the market and the advocacy of supply-side economics have been discredited even in the eyes of their practitioners. Even official circles recognize that ‘inequality of income’ contributed to the onset of the economic crash and should be corrected. Planning, public ownership, nationalization are on the agenda while socialist alternatives have become almost respectable.
-
InI
MEDIA LENS: Children Of Darkness – Killing ‘Them’ – Part 2
Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
31 March, 2009
To be fair to the BBC, Rageh Omaar’s observation generalises: the whole of British journalism is a “white man’s club” dominated by the “class thing”.
In March, media magnate Rupert Murdoch received the American Jewish Committee’s National Human Relations Award. The plaudits heaped on Murdoch recalled the words of the 4th century Buddhist poet, Aryasura:
“When virtue is given as a name to one devoid of virtue, it has a harsh and grating sound, as if it were contempt instead of praise.” (Aryasura, The Marvelous Companion, Dharma Publishing, 1983, p.127)
-
InI
COHA: Francisco Caamaño Deñó, Presente
COHA is pleased to release the first in what will be an ongoing series of articles on forgotten Latin American heroes. Today’s commentary on a celebrated Dominican constitutionalist will be followed in the coming weeks by features on a revolutionary Colombian priest, the father of Barbadian independence and a persecuted Dominican democrat.
- Francisco Caamaño Deñó was a nationalist and Constitucionalista revolutionary during the 1965 U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic’s civil conflict
- He struggled to help restore the democratically-elected government of Dr. Juan Bosch after he had been pushed out by the military
All war comes at some cost. The loss of human life, damage to infrastructure and sagging national morale are often among the most painful consequences of armed combat. The Dominican Republic’s Civil War of 1965 was no exception. During the 1960s, Dominican citizens found themselves embroiled in both internal and external conflicts. Within the country, they found themselves faced with growing political discord. It was during this spreading conflict that the revolutionary military officer Francisco Caamaño Deñó came to national prominence.
-
InI
Global Recession: Protectionism and Diversification in the U.S. and South America
- Peru and Chile maintain free market principles and diversification of trading partners
- Brazil, Chile, Colombia and the U.S. implement huge stimulus packages
- Argentina, Paraguay, and Ecuador attempt to protect their economies by imposing new tariffs
- The G-20 summit this April could offer global solution to the crisis
As the G-20 meeting is about to begin in London, the outlook for Latin American growth in 2009 is grim, as the tempo of foreign direct investment (FDI) and loans stand-by credits and development funds plummet, the demand for commodities diminish, and foreign remittances plunge.The World Bank vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean, Pamela Cox, is forecasting 0.3 percent growth for Latin America this year, down from the originally 2.7 percent predicted in January. Cox anticipates that countries most closely linked with the U.S. economy will be hit the hardest. Thus, NAFTA, CAFTA and the U.S.-Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA) may prove particularly harmful for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean in the foreseeable future.
-
InI
Geithner's ‘Dirty Little Secret': The Entire Global Financial System is at Risk By F. William Engdahl
When the Solution to the Financial Crisis becomes the Cause
29 March, 2009 – Global Research
US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has unveiled his long-awaited plan to put the US banking system back in order. In doing so, he has refused to tell the ‘dirty little secret’ of the present financial crisis. By refusing to do so, he is trying to save de facto bankrupt US banks that threaten to bring the entire global system down in a new more devastating phase of wealth destruction.
The Geithner Plan, his so-called Public-Private Partnership Investment Program or PPPIP, as we have noted previously is designed not to restore a healthy lending system which would funnel credit to business and consumers. Rather it is yet another intricate scheme to pour even more hundreds of billions directly to the leading banks and Wall Street firms responsible for the current mess in world credit markets without demanding they change their business model. Yet, one might say, won’t this eventually help the problem by getting the banks back to health?
-
InI
Israeli settlement building threat in West Bank
Just a day after promising to be a partner for peace with the Palestinians, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister-designate, appears to be preparing to build Israeli settlements on more West Bank land
Posted with vodpod -
InI
Video – Geithner's Oligarchs
Engdahl: Obama must confront the oligarchical power of Wall Street to solve crisis
Posted with vodpod -
InI
Media Lens: Children Of Darkness – Killing ‘Them’ – Part 1
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
30 March, 2009
Al-Qaeda – Who Else?
On March 23, BBC online reported another bloody day in Iraq:
“It was the second bomb attack in Iraq on Monday, with an earlier explosion near the capital. Baghdad, killing at least eight people.
“The BBC’s Hugh Sykes, in Baghdad, says al-Qaeda have launched several attacks in Diyala since losing support in other parts of Iraq.”
(news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7959918.stm)The foe, naturally, was the global bad guy, “al-Qaeda”. Thirty years ago the BBC would have declared them “Communists” or “Marxists”. We wrote to the BBC’s “man in Baghdad” the same day:
-
InI
How world economy develops as global financial crisis deepens By Liu Yifang
The deepening financial crisis is biting the real economy, dragging western nations into severe slumps, and choking world trade.
BEIJING, March 27 (Xinhua) — As the crucial Group of 20 (G20) financial summit in London on April 2 approaches, the world economy is still struggling with its worst downturn since the 1930s.
The deepening financial crisis is biting the real economy, dragging western nations into severe slumps, and choking world trade.
-
InI
Shame on us!
29 March, 2009
What will happen next? Will Palestinian kids be duped into playing music to Israeli pilots who exterminated Gaza children with White Phosphorus?
By Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem
It is really hard to write on this subject without getting angry. We all know the extent to which Israel can be evil and satanic. After all, we Palestinians have been on the receiving end of Israeli savagery for decades. In fact, being thoroughly tormented and killed by the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of the holocaust has always been and continues to be “the” Palestinians’ way of life.
However, for some Palestinians to allow themselves to be duped to sing and play music to their oppressors and child-killers is simply beyond the pale of human dignity.
-
InI
Aftermath (6) “The only BMW shop in Gaza.”
29 March 2009
In this new series of personal testimonies, PCHR looks at the aftermath of Israel’s 22 day offensive on the Gaza Strip, and the ongoing impact it is having on the civilian population.
Text and images by Malian/PCHR.
Nasser Al ‘Amoudi, with his biker’s jacket and sunglasses, embodies the essence of a car enthusiast. For years he has been the proud owner of the only BMW spare parts shop in the Gaza Strip. People would travel from every corner to purchase second hand parts from his shop. Now Nasser’s workshop and garage, which were worth $300,000 before the Israeli army destroyed them during their latest offensive, lie in tatters, and his financial security has gone.
Nasser Al ‘Amoudi on his motorbike outside the remains of his BMW Spare Parts shop. © Malian/PCHR
-
InI
Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-up By Prof. Michael Hudson
29 March, 2009 – Global Research
I am traveling in Europe for three weeks to discuss the global financial crisis with government officials, politicians and labor leaders. What is most remarkable is how differently the financial problem is perceived over here. It’s like being in another economic universe, not just another continent.
The U.S. media are silent about the most important topic policy makers are discussing here (and I suspect in Asia too): how to protect their countries from three inter-related dynamics: (1) the surplus dollars pouring into the rest of the world for yet further financial speculation and corporate takeovers; (2) the fact that central banks are obliged to recycle these dollar inflows to buy U.S. Treasury bonds to finance the federal U.S. budget deficit; and most important (but most suppressed in the U.S. media, (3) the military character of the U.S. payments deficit and the domestic federal budget deficit.
-
InI
Total Meltdown and Civil Unrest: Wall Street's Manipulated Stock Market Rally By Matthias Chang
26 March, 2009 – Global Research / FutureFastForward.com
The numbers that have been bandied about is beyond the comprehension of the average Joe Six-Packs. I cannot even figure out $500 billion, what more $500 trillion. Ninety per cent of government leaders are also unable to figure out the enormity of the global debt sink-hole.
So, I have accepted the fact that 97 per cent of Americans will just accept whatever explanations and excuses thrown at them by President Obama, Fed Bernanke and Treasury Geithner for bailing out the banks and failing to prevent the implosion of the economy by summer of 2009.
Obama inherited the mess created by war criminal Bush, aided and abetted by Alan Greenspan, Bernanke and Geithner, so he can be excused for there is nothing that he can do at this late hour to change the outcome. But the rest should be lynched!
-
InI
"Wanted: Red-Green Alliance for Radically Democratic Reorganization of Production By Rick Wolff
Private capitalism (in which productive assets are owned by private individuals and groups and in which markets rather than state planning dominate the distribution of resources and products) has repeatedly demonstrated a tendency to flare out into overproduction and/or asset inflation bubbles that burst with horrific social consequences. Endless reforms, restructurings, and regulations were all justified in the name not only of extricating us from a crisis but also finally preventing future crises (as Obama repeated this week). They all failed to do that.
The tendency to crisis seems unstoppable, an inherent quality of capitalism. At best, flare-outs were caught before they wreaked major havoc, although usually that only postponed and aggravated that havoc. One recent case in point: the stock market crash of early 2000 was limited in its damaging social consequences (recession, etc.) by an historically unprecedented reduction of interest rates and money supply expansion by Alan Greenspan’s Federal Reserve. The resulting real estate bubble temporarily offset the effects of the stock market’s bubble bursting, but when real estate crashed a few years later, what had been deferred hit catastrophically.
-
InI
UK government advisors call for a new society By Rob Edwards
29 March, 2009
‘The market was not undone by rogue individuals or the turning of a blind eye by incompetent regulators. It was undone by growth itself.’
The economic system is broken, and attempts by governments to fix it by kick-starting growth and consumerism are ‘delusional’ and ‘pathological’, the Westminster and Holyrood governments will be warned by their own advisers this week.
A ground-breaking report by the leading environmental advisers to First Minister Alex Salmond and Prime Minister Gordon Brown will deliver a damning verdict on capitalism and demand a radical shift to a fairer, more sustainable society.
-
InI
-
InI
Big Banks Pull off the Ultimate Bait & Switch By Rolfe Winkler
27 March, 2009
We’re not quite as healthy as we thought we were. Oops. (WSJ)
J.P. Morgan Chase Chief Executive James Dimon said…that March was a little tougher than the first two months of the year….Bank of America…CEO Kenneth Lewis also said that March had been a tougher month for his bank. [Convenient that they decided to dump this information on Friday afternoon, and at the close of a very good week].
Readers may recall that a few weeks ago, those two CEOs—along with Citi’s Vikram Pandit—said the first two months of the year had been very good:
Pandit, March 10th: “We are profitable through the first two months of 2009 and are having our best quarter-to-date performance since the third quarter of 2007.”
Dimon, March 11th: “Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said Wednesday that the bank was profitable in January and February…”
Lewis, March 12th: “We have been profitable for the first two months of the year,” Lewis told reporters after a speech in Boston today.
This was possibly the most nakedly self-serving bullshit the big bank CEOs have offered to date. (“bullshit” being a technical term of course, see Harry Frankfurt)
