Archive | Commentary

The howls of surprised economists were everywhere last week as the government reported on Tuesday that July had the sharpest single-month plunge in existing home sales on record.  The next day the Commerce Department reported that new home sales hit a post-war low in July. All the economists who had told us that the housing […]

Veterans for Peace president Mike Ferner responds to President Obama’s rebranded occupation of Iraq. A veteran’s perspective makes it clear that two major points must be made in response to President Obama’s announcement regarding combat troops leaving Iraq. First, there is no such thing as “non-combat troops.”  It is a contradiction in terms.  It is […]

Adel Yaraghi is an Iranian filmmaker. | Print

The New York Times told readers that the Fed’s ability to take steps to boost the economy are limited because: The dramatic expansion of the national debt — which began in the Bush administration, via hefty tax cuts and two wars — has ratcheted up fears that, one day, creditors like China and Japan might […]

The biggest economic question facing Brazil, as for most developing countries, is when it will achieve its potential economic growth.  For Brazil, there is a simple, most relevant comparison: its pre-1980 — or pre-neoliberal — past. From 1960-1980, income per person — the most basic measure that economists have of economic progress — in Brazil […]

Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 5 January 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes. | Print

August 26, 2010 Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said today that the Islamic Republic has proposed to Russia that the two countries create a joint consortium to fabricate fuel for the Bushehr reactor and other nuclear power plants that Iran plans to build in the future.  Salehi reportedly […]

Miners in Potosí, Bolivia set off sticks of dynamite as cold winter winds zipped through the city, passing street barricades, protests, hunger strikers, and an occupied electrical plant.  These actions took place from late July to mid-August against the perceived neglect of the Evo Morales administration toward the impoverished Potosí region. This showdown in Bolivia […]

I.  Apartheid of a Special Type In the previous section I made a distinction between historical apartheid (unique to South Africa) and apartheid in its generic form — a structured system of political exclusion and social marginalization on the basis of origins (including but not restricted to race).  I concluded that Israel is different from […]

Uncle Sam tries to batter down the door to the Taliban stronghold . . . by banging the heads of Karzai and Zardari, not his own, against it. Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 24 August 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  The text […]

5 May 2010 “There is a shadow of something colossal and menacing that even now is beginning to fall across the land.  Call it the shadow of an oligarchy, if you will; it is the nearest I dare approximate it.  What its nature may be I refuse to imagine.  But what I wanted to say […]

“Our city will be the Dubai of the North.  Just think about it.  We were the Venice of the North, but we’ll become the Dubai of the North.  We have to keep in step with the times.  The first step is the Gazprom Tower.” Film Concept: Dmitry Vilensky and Olga Egorova (Tsaplya).  Director: Tsaplya.  Screenplay: […]

  In a 1965 essay, the great development economist Albert Hirschman bemoaned the tendency of those in his profession to look for the next panacea.  Unfortunately, various panaceas have come in and out of fashion since Hirschman wrote. During three decades of neo-liberalism, development economists and policymakers have celebrated three inter-related strategies: (1) free markets, […]

Fox News accuses the Kingdom Foundation, which has funded (State Department-approved) Imam Feisal “I-Am-a-Supporter-of-the-State-of-Israel” Abdul Rauf of the Cordoba Initiative (dubbed “Ground Zero Mosque” and even “Terror Mosque” by the nutty Right) in the past, of also funding “radical madrasas all over the world.”  But it fails to mention that the Kingdom Foundation is a […]

Is there an economic recovery underway?  Was there one that has now stopped?  Will our current recession, partly recovered from, now tumble downward again in a second or “double” dip?  Mainstream politicians, journalists, and academics are engaged in hot and heavy debates about recoveries and double dips.  Yet the economic reality for most Americans is […]

Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 22 August 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  | Print

  Rupert James is a co-founder of the Human Eye Corporation. | Print  

“The peace movement, sexist as it was, expressed disenchantment with violence, super-technology and imperialism.” — Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born; Motherhood as Experience and Institution Pictures of former Israeli soldier Eden Abargil posing in front of blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinian prisoners have caused some controversies in the media.  Abargil did not think she had done […]

The early years of the Left Front government in West Bengal in the late seventies had been marked by severe power cuts in Calcutta (as it then was) and elsewhere in the state.  One evening as “load-shedding” began, a little urchin in a slum neighbouring a high-rise jumped up and down clapping his hands, shouting: […]

The two major civil service unions on strike against the South African government vow to intensify pressure in coming days, in a struggle pitting a million members of the middle and lower ranks of society against a confident government leadership fresh from hosting the World Cup. Along with smaller public sector unions, teachers from the […]