Archive | Commentary

  • The Myth of Conflict-Free Diamonds

    The issue of “blood diamonds” has once again made the news: Farai Maguwu, Director of Zimbabwe’s Mutare-based Centre for Research and Development (CRD), languishes under the long arm of Zimbabwe’s laws on alleged charges related to his research on Zimbabwe’s Marange mines.  According to a confidential 44-page report produced by investigators mandated by the Kimberley […]

  • Between Iran and Turkey

    The decrepit Arab establishment gets jealous as Iran and Turkey woo the Arab people. Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 23 July 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  The text above is an interpretation of the cartoon by Yoshie Furuhashi.  | Print

  • The Fed Can Just Hold Mortgage-Backed Securities, Reducing Interest Burdens

    The NYT portrayed the Fed as facing a serious dilemma in dealing with its portfolio of mortgage-backed securities (MBS).  It argued that it can either start selling them now and risk slowing the economy or wait until the economy has recovered more and risk losing money by selling them in a higher inflation environment. There […]

  • We

    Artavazd Peleshian, born in 1938, is an Armenian filmmaker.  We was produced by the Yerevan Film Studio and released in 1969 in the USSR.  About the film, Peleshian said: “If I had meant only the Armenian people, I would not have had the guts to call it We.  The Armenian people are a ‘we’ that […]

  • Iranian Street Art of A1one

      A1one is a street artist based in Tehran, Iran.  For more information about A1one, visit <www.kolahstudio.com/a1one>.  For more information about KolahStudio, go to <www.kolahstudio.com>.  See, also, A1one, “Dead Soldierz.” | Print  

  • Iranian Sociology and Its Discontents

    I recently returned from the quadrennial International Sociology Association’s World Congress held in Gothenburg, Sweden.  It’s kind of like the World Cup of sociology.  There I sat in on a session organized by the Iranian Sociology Association, where a few presenters, including its president Hossein Serajzadeh, discussed the state of social science in Iran.  I […]

  • The Fear of Secular Stagnation

    I love the prospect of secular stagnation (raised by Bob Reich) primarily because the answers are so easy: Let’s keep our eyes on the ball.  The problem in this picture is that we are capable of producing more goods and services than we want to consume.  It’s a problem of too little money chasing too […]

  • The Keynesian Cure

    J. Bradford DeLong calls for “more aggregate demand.”  Some of the responses: “More debt!  Let’s party!”  “Maybe we should stop looking for ways to keep moving at locomotive speeds.  Take a walk for a while.”  “So, the levees have failed and flooding has ensued.  Your plan is to pump like mad then rebuild in the […]

  • Co-opting the Anti-Nuclear Movement

    No medium of propaganda is as powerful and effective as film.  Think of the classics, the most notorious efforts to sway the public with the electrifying and collective passion of cinema: racial apartheid was justified in the US with Birth of a Nation.  The Soviets glorified their revolution with The Battleship Potemkin.  Then there was […]

  • The Color of Pomegranates

      Sayat Nova Sergei Parajanov (9 January 1924 – 20 July 20 1990) was a Soviet Armenian filmmaker. | Print  

  • The Urgent Need for Job Creation

      Excerpt: Between December 2007 — the official first month of the recession — and December 2009, the U.S. economy lost more than eight million jobs.  Even if the economy creates jobs from now on at a pace equal to the fastest four years of the early 2000s expansion, we will not return to the […]

  • If Business Confidence Explained Lack of Hiring, Then Hours Per Worker Would Be Increasing

    Business people always want more money.  That is part of being in business.  (Has Goldman Sachs or General Electric ever said they want lower profits?)  This means that their spokespeople can be counted on to complain about taxes, regulations, wages, or anything else that costs them money.  Sometimes what they say is not true. This […]

  • Silent Screech

      “I don’t think that a 55-year-old man can cancel an underground metal concert anywhere in the world except Iran.  Gradually, I’m beginning to understand the concept of protest . . . except that this time the neighbors are the ones who are protesting.” Hamid Najafi Rad is a filmmaker based in Tehran, Iran.  This […]

  • Rebuilding a Demolished Palestinian Home

      Day One of the ICAHD Work Camp, July 19, 2010 Rubble covers the tile floor at the site of the demolished home we are beginning to rebuild in the East Jerusalem section of Anata, a Palestinian town divided between occupied “East” Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.  Activists from the United States, Britain, Germany, […]

  • The Sentencing of Lynne Stewart

      “At all times throughout history the ideology of the ruling class is the ruling ideology.” — Karl Marx Lynne Stewart is a friend.  She used to practice law in New York City.  I still do.  I was in the courtroom with my wife Debby the afternoon of July 19th for her re-sentencing.  Judge John […]

  • The Beginning

    Artavazd Peleshian, born in 1938, is an Armenian filmmaker.  The Beginning was released in 1967, for the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution. | Print

  • Military Action against Iran: Impact and Effects

      Executive Summary: This report concludes that military action against Iran should be ruled out as a means of responding to its possible nuclear weapons ambitions.  The consequences of such an attack would lead to a sustained conflict and regional instability that would be unlikely to prevent the eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran […]

  • Dead Soldierz

      A1one is a street artist based in Tehran, Iran.  For more information about A1one, visit <www.kolahstudio.com/a1one>. | Print  

  • Treasure Islands: Mapping the Geography of Corruption

    When is a tax haven not a tax haven?  When Mauritius’ Vice Prime Minister Ramakrishna Sithanen says so.  “We are a not a tax haven,” stated Sithanen, who is also the country’s Minister of Finance.  Ironically, Sithanen would go on to reveal that ring-fenced financial services (FS) — the legal and financial secrecy vehicles facilitating […]

  • Srebrenica 15 Years After: The Politicization of “Genocide”

    It has become an annual ritual each July to commemorate the “Srebrenica massacre,” which dates back to July 11-16, 1995.  The now institutionalized characterization is that “8,000 [Bosnian Muslim] men and boys” were executed by the Serbs at that time, in “the worst mass killing in Europe since the Second World War.”  This memorial is […]