Geography Archives: Portugal

The current turmoil in financial markets around the world is another illustration of the damage that can be done by a bloated and politically powerful financial sector, combined with finance ministers and central bankers who identify with this sector and have their own right-wing policy agenda. Welcome to Europe, which has become the epicenter of […]

Until recently, the discussion on global imbalances focused on the current account deficit of the US and the current account surplus of China, making this a bilateral rather than a multilateral problem.  As a result, the process of rebalancing was seen as involving adjustments in either or both of these countries, and not so much […]

Markets can be irrational, as Keynes famously pointed out, and the Eurozone/Greek crisis is a classic example.  “The markets” for months have been demanding more blood from Greece, as the financial press has continuously and often unquestioningly reported: more commitment to spending cuts, tax increases, and “procyclical” policies that the bondholders, EU authorities, and the […]

Perhaps the wild swings in financial and stock markets over the last week will make people give closer scrutiny to what is going on in Europe, which would be a good thing for the world.  According to most news reporting, markets are worried about a potential default by Greece on its sovereign debt, and the […]

With Venezuela’s economy having contracted last year (as did the vast majority of economies in the Western Hemisphere), the economy suffering from electricity shortages, and the value of domestic currency having recently fallen sharply in the parallel market, stories of Venezuela’s economic ruin are again making headlines. The Washington Post, in a news article that […]

The political conflicts and street battles in Greece today foretell what is coming to many countries including the US.  The struggles are basically over what the government spends on and who pays the taxes.  In today’s class-divided societies, classes differ over what governments should do and who should pay the taxes.  Governments in such societies […]

Pity poor Angela!  The rock is Greece and its economic woes.  The hard place is North Rhine-Westphalia, where an extremely crucial election is due on May 9th — very soon but not soon enough!  And Chancellor Merkel is caught directly in the middle! Europe and the world have been waiting for Germany to commit itself […]

As I have noted previously, Latvia has experienced the worst two-year economic downturn on record, losing more than 25 percent of GDP.  It is projected to shrink further during the first half of this year, before beginning a slow recovery, in which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that it will not reach even its […]

Yet again, business leaders, politicians, academics, and media are blowing smoke around Greece’s efforts to cope with “national debt” problems.  Something far more important for the world than this small country’s financial travails is at stake.  Indeed, what is at stake affects us all.  What is happening in Greece parallels developments everywhere; only details and […]

The crisis facing the eurozone looks at first sight as German efficiency clashing with Portuguese, Irish, Greek and Spanish sloppiness.  But in many respects Germany has performed worse than the “peripheral” countries in the last decade.  The largest economy of the eurozone has been marked by slow growth, poor domestic demand, weak investment, high unemployment, […]

As the EU summit meeting convenes, Greece is dominating the agenda much more than Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel had wanted.  This week she has thrown cold water on the idea that Germany and other EU countries would take responsibility for helping Greece to roll over some of its debt, handing that job off to the […]

  Jayati Ghosh: What’s happening to Greece is in an interesting way what many developing countries have gone through.  It’s really an inability to have independent monetary and fiscal policies, combined with a fact that during the boom it was chosen as a favorite destination, which creates a situation where you then become uncompetitive.  Suddenly […]

It is sad and surprising that among the deluge of comments and letters on Greece in the European papers in the last few weeks, not one has gotten the most crucial point about the crisis.  Most commentators treat Greece’s domestic problems and those of other southern members of the European Monetary Union (EMU) as if […]

  The austerity measures imposed on Greek workers to reduce the deficits are nothing but a prelude of what may happen to the other European countries.  The Greek crisis demonstrates the divisions in the ruling class on the strategies to adopt. For the second time since December 2008, Greece is at the heart of politics […]

  A street of Guernica after the fascist bombardment of 26 April 1937 Greece faces a veritable economic Guernica, a massacre, in the face of which the European Left shows an unforgivable passivity.  What is imposed on Athens is meant as an example, to strike terror into Spain, Portugal, and even Italy.  But even France, […]

Global capitalism imploded in 2007.  The central causes of capitalism’s crisis include: the end of real wage increases in the US and the substitution of rising worker debt far beyond what workers could sustain; the buildup of excess global industrial capacity; the explosion of speculation and excess risk-taking by banks, other financial and non-financial corporations, […]

Among the many unfortunate features of capitalist history that tend to repeat themselves with depressing regularity is the conversion of crises of private activity in financial markets into fiscal crises of the state.  This is already happening once again, as the very expansion of public expenditure that was necessitated by the financial crisis (which itself […]

  Addressing delegates at the International Encounter of Left Parties held in Caracas, November 19-21, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez stated: “the time has come for us to convoke the Fifth International.”  Face with the capitalist crisis and the threat of war that is putting at risk the future of humanity, “the people are clamoring for” […]

Maria Charles and David B. Grusky.  Occupational Ghettos: The Worldwide Segregation of Women and Men.  Stanford University Press, 2004, 400 pp.  $US 55.00 hardcover (0-8047-3634-0). There is a substantial body of literature showing that, across time periods and nations, men and women have tended to do different types of work.  While many studies suggest that […]

Every week, Marcia Carroll collects examples of privatization (that is, corporatization of the peoples’ assets).  Looking at her website, Privatizationwatch.org, will either make you laugh helplessly or make your blood boil. The “off the wall” giveaways at bargain-basement prices of what you and other Americans own eclipses imagination.  The latest escapes from responsible government are […]