Archive | February, 2009

See, also, Hajir Palaschi, “Interview with Shahla Lahiji on Women’s Presence in the Labor Market: No Vocation Must Be Prohibited for Women,” Trans. Yoshie Furuhashi, MRZine, 18 February 2008. The Iranian Revolution and its aftermath have generated many debates, one of which pertains to the effects on women’s labor force participation and employment patterns.  For […]

She’s called Emmely; her real name is Barbara E. — with the family name omiited in line with legal practice here.  All over Germany people are talking about her, most frequently with anger in their voices.  For Emmely, a cashier in East Berlin, was fired by her discount store employer for allegedly filching 1.30 euro […]

  If, therefore, a conclusion can be drawn from military violence it is that . . . there is a lawmaking character inherent in it. — Walter Benjamin The scale of Israel’s twenty-two-day attack on Gaza in December 2008-January 2009 — which killed 1,300 people and damaged or destroyed about 15% of all its buildings […]

  How Should Venezuela Face the Coming Recession? Presently much of the industrialized world is in a severe economic recession.  The United States, Europe, and Japan are definitely in one and other important countries such as China are close to being in one. So far most South American countries have not entered into a recession.  […]

Thirty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed equity and social justice as the Revolution’s main objective.  His successor, Ayatollah Khamene’i, continues to refer to social justice as the Revolution’s defining theme.  Similarly, Presidents Khatami and Ahmadinejad, though they are from very different political persuasions, placed heavy emphasis on social justice in their political rhetoric.  Yet the […]

  As the financial crisis that erupted in 2007 unfolds in an economic cataclysm which, it is now clear, is unprecedented in the history of capitalism, world leaders without exception reveal themselves as politically and ideologically bankrupt in their efforts to bring it under control.  This is most obviously demonstrated by their insistence on the […]

Statement by James K. Galbraith, Lloyd M. Bentsen, jr., Chair in Government/Business Relations, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin and Senior Scholar, Levy Economics Institute, before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, Hearings on the Conduct of Monetary Policy, February 26, 2009. Mr. Chairman and […]

John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon.  He is the coauthor with Fred Magdoff of The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences, recently published by Monthly Review Press. MW: Do you think that the American people have been misled into believing that the current financial […]

Executive Summary This paper makes projections of wealth for 2009 for the baby boom cohorts (ages 45 to 54 and ages 55-64) using data from the 2004 Survey of Consumer Finance.  It updates an earlier paper on this topic from June of 2008 using projections for housing and stock values that are more plausible given […]

Delegates to the World Economic Forum at Davos this year came despondent and left in despair.  Both the discussions and the new evidence released at and during the Forum indicated that the global crisis was not just bad, but worse than originally anticipated.  One damaging projection came from the IMF in its January 2009 Update […]

  Economic ignorance is widespread in the United States. People think they know something about the subject, but few do.  My mother is convinced that China is the cause of all our economic problems.  When I challenge her, she doesn’t think it matters that I have spent forty years studying and teaching the dismal science.  […]

  The 4th quarter US GDP figures confirm that the economic downturn, in its domestic aspect, is taking the classic form of an investment-led decline. As seen in Figure 1 US fixed investment already started to fall from the 1st quarter of 2006 onwards — US consumer expenditure and GDP, in contrast, continued to rise […]

  Written, shot, edited, and directed by Tatu Laukkanen and Matti Pohjonen, in collaboration with NEGATIVEWARMACHINE in Helsinki, Finland.  “Philosophy of Dogs,” Part III of Elephantasma? (a feature-length experimental documentary film that examines economic change in Bombay, India from three different angles), “has already managed to get censored from one seminar on Indian economic growth” […]

It is true that banks are less leveraged, but the outflow of capital is intensifying.  Internationalized industry is hit by global overproduction, and lower prices of raw materials depress growth.  Moreover, attempts at stimulation collide with reduced resources from the central economies. Those who expect geopolitical benefits to follow from the crisis forget that the […]

  Our Plan of Action: Communique #2 We, the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council, have had our first meeting and discussed the strategy and tactics we plan on using in combating the insanity and greed of the college administration’s food policies. We then declared the following: we will be circulating a petition among the student body.  […]

A delightful surprise awaited us as the 3rd phase of Digna Rabia (Dignified Rage) began on January 2nd.  Philosophers, writers, activist organizations, journalists, musicians, and the EZLN participated in panels, all addressing the general theme of Otro Mundo, otra política (Another world, another politics).  Several thousand packed the CIDECI auditorium to overflowing and managed to […]

23.02.2009 I hope you will understand that after everything I have been through I am neither physically nor mentally capable of facing the media on the moment of my arrival back to Britain.  Please forgive me if I make a simple statement through my lawyer.  I hope to be able to do better in days […]

John Gibler, Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, 356 Pages, City Lights Publishers (January, 2009). Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, calls Mexico home, as do millions of impoverished citizens.  From Spanish colonization to today’s state and corporate repression, Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, by John Gibler, is written from […]

When Israel’s 18th parliament opened today, there was only one Arab woman among its intake of legislators. حنين زعبي Haneen Zuabi has made history: although she is not the first Arab woman to enter the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, she is the first to be elected for an Arab party. Sitting in her home in […]

Is talking about homosexuality still a taboo?  In the Arab world, specifically Lebanon, the answer to this question is yes and no.  Sure, you can have an actual discussion about homosexuality.  People can freely discuss homosexuality being a disease, unnatural, and even disgusting.  The Arab world doesn’t seem to have an issue with such discussions. […]