Enemy Alien: The Fight to Free Palestinian Activist Farouk Abdel-Muhti Dir. Konrad Aderer | 70 mins | documentary work-in-progress Discussion with Konrad Aderer, Sharin Chiorazzo, Jane Guskin, Shane Kadidal, Joanne Macri, David Wilson Wednesday, November 12 7:00 pmThe Brecht Forum 451 West Street New York, NY (between Bank and Bethune Streets; take the A/C/E/L to […]
Geography Archives: Japan
Developing Countries: Dangerous Times for the Internal Public Debt
Since the second half of the 1990s, the internal public debt of the world’s developing countries has increased significantly. This increase is now reaching alarming proportions in a number of middle-income countries. While some very poor countries have not yet been affected, the historical trend indicates a continuing rise in the debt level for developing […]
Israel’s Man of the Year Eluded Justice
After reading about Israel’s most recent Man of the Year Award recipient, I did not know whether to laugh or cry. It looks like the judging panel at the Israeli television station Channel 2 is in need of a public relations consultant. The recipient of this year’s award was Meir Dagan, the Chief of Mossad, […]
Afghan Resistance Is ‘Terrorist’ under Canadian Law, Khawaja Trial Judge Rules
In the first major prosecution under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act, Mohammad Momin Khawaja, a 29-year-old Ottawa-area software developer arrested almost five years ago, was convicted October 29 on five charges of participating in a “terrorist group” and helping to build an explosive device “likely to cause serious bodily harm or death to persons or serious damage […]
The Unfolding Crisis and the Relevance of Marx
Some of you may have been present at our meeting in this building in May this year, when I recalled what I had said to Lucien Goldman in Paris a few months before the historic French May 1968. In contrast to the then prevailing perspective of “organized capitalism,” which was supposed to have successfully left […]
Seized! The 2008 Land Grab for Food and Financial Security
Today’s food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab. On the one hand, “food insecure” governments that rely on imports to feed their people are snatching up vast areas of farmland abroad for their own offshore food production. On the other hand, food corporations and private investors, hungry for profits […]
Asia and the Meltdown of American Finance
The boardrooms and finance ministries of Seoul, Bangkok, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur are today filled with a fair degree of schadenfreude at America’s troubles. Schadenfreude is not a very nice emotion; Theodor Adorno once defined it as “unanticipated delight in the sufferings of another.” But asking Asia’s business and governing elites to repress shivers of […]
Misrepresenting the Financial Crisis: It Is Not Lack of Liquidity; It Is Insolvency and Lack of Trust
Bail Out Homeowners, Create Trust, and Unfreeze Credit Markets The bailout scheme imposed by the United States government misrepresents the ongoing credit crunch as a problem of illiquidity, i.e. lack of cash. In reality, the problem is a lack of trust due to widespread insolvency in the financial market. In such an environment of widespread […]
World’s Labor Federations React to Financial Crisis with Proposals from Re-regulation to Socialism
Labor unions around the world have reacted to the financial crisis and the economic recession with words and actions reflecting their national experience, their political ideology, and their leaderships. Unions and workers have already seen the financial crisis and the growing recession result in the closing of plants and offices, in shorter workweeks, pay cuts, […]
The Global Financial Crisis: Will South Africa Be Unscathed?
For the last several months, headlines about the global financial crisis have regularly made the front pages of international newspapers. Over this period, Europe and the US have come to realise that corporations are facing the worst economic crisis since the 1929 crash. In South Africa, however, articles on the global crisis have tended to […]
The Depression: A Long-Term View
The depression has started. Journalists are still coyly enquiring of economists whether or not we may be entering a mere recession. Don’t believe it for a minute. We are already at the beginning of a full-blown worldwide depression with extensive unemployment almost everywhere. It may take the form of a classic nominal deflation, with all […]
Iran: Comprehensive Sustainable Development as Potential Counter-Hegemonic Strategy
The questions regarding variations in social development, economic progress, and political empowerment have produced a voluminous literature over the past century, and because of the complexity of these issues, much important reflection will continue well into the future. In the early 1980s, a United Nations’ Commission coined the term “sustainable development” as a public statement […]
Can the Financial Crisis Be Reversed?
Página/12: What is your opinion about the decision of the Treasury Department to consider taking ownership stakes in many United States banks? Do you think this is the right political-economic strategy? I mean, will it lead to the recovery of the system? JBF: The Treasury Department proposal to purchase majority shares in major U.S. banks […]
The Financial Crisis of U.S. Capitalism
The Will Miller Lecture, University of Vermont, October 28, 2008 Like many people who do not live around here, and maybe some who do, I had not heard of Will Miller, so, on being invited to be part of the Will Miller Social Justice Lecture series, I went to the organization’s Web site and learned […]
Real Economy
To reassure myself completely, I visited my banker. He welcomed me with his usual warmth. “Your savings aren’t at risk at all,” he assured me in a firm voice, giving me a big pat on the back. “Having lost 30% of their value since the 15th of September, your various assets add up to 69,990 […]
Why Japan Clings to the Declining Dollar
Saori Katada* poses a most compelling question: why does Japan continue to denominate so much of its accumulated export earnings in dollars? Katada frames the question slightly differently, asking why Japan has not moved from being a “supporter” of the dollar-denominated currency regime in East Asia to being a “challenger.” But it’s essentially the same […]
A Primer on Wall Street Meltdown
Flying into New York Tuesday, I had the same feeling I had when I arrived in Beirut two years ago, at the height of the Israeli bombing of that city — that of entering a war zone. The immigration agent, upon learning I taught political economy, commented, “Well, I guess you folks will now be […]
The United States and the World: Where Are We Headed?
This paper was presented at the Alexandre de Gusmão Foundation and the International Relations Research Institute’s (IPRI) “Seminar on the United States” hosted by the Itamaraty Palace (Brazilian Foreign Ministry) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on September 29, 2008. Introduction The United States appears to be embarking on a transition on two major fronts: its […]
The Financial Crisis: Will the U.S. Nationalize the Banks?
The political conflict over the Bush administration’s plan for a bailout of the banks, brought about both by differences with the Democrats and even more intensely with rightwing Republicans, makes it highly unlikely that Congress will be able to pass a bailout plan that can stabilize the financial situation along the lines that Secretary of […]
The Financial Crisis: A View from the Left
Faced with the failure of the financial sector and the possible collapse of the economic system, Republicans and Democrats are working together feverishly to come up with a plan and find the funds to save the American financial system. The Congress that has been unable to provide adequate funding to health, education, housing, public transportation, […]
