The United States has an archaic piece of legislation, passed in 1917, which puts a ceiling on the magnitude of the debt of its federal government in absolute dollar terms. (Since the various state governments in the US are not allowed to run fiscal deficits and hence incur debt, the federal debt is synonymous with […]
Geography Archives: United States
The Struggle against Stupidity: European and U.S. Governments Continue Wrecking Their Economies
All money managers’ eyes were on the U.S. jobs report this morning after the U.S. stock market yesterday suffered its biggest drop since 2009 and panic surged through financial markets worldwide. The headline numbers were not as bad as many had feared: the U.S. economy added 117,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate edged […]
Labor Idle As Obama, Democrats Back “Raw Deal” for Working People
After it was too late to make a difference, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry denounced the debt-ceiling agreement as “a raw deal for working people and the 30 million Americans who are still looking for work.” In fact, neither SEIU, the AFL-CIO, nor AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka aggressively mobilized union members against the deal […]
What Everyone Should Know about the “Debt Crisis” in the U.S.
Since the U.S. “Debt Crisis” has been a big international story for the last few weeks, it is worth clarifying what is real and what is not. First, the U.S. government does not have a “debt crisis.” The U.S. government is paying net interest of just 1.4 percent of GDP on its public debt — […]
Unraveling the Unemployment Insurance Lifeline: Responding to Insolvency, States Begin Reducing Benefits and Restricting Eligibility in 2011
Excerpt: State lawmakers enacted a range of policies in 2011 to amend their unemployment insurance (UI) programs, most of them motivated by insolvent state trust funds. Most notably, six states passed unprecedented cuts in the duration of benefits, for the first time reducing benefit weeks to less than the decades-long accepted standard of 26 […]
Iran and al-Qa’ida: Can the Charges Be Substantiated?
Last week, the Obama Administration formally charged the Islamic Republic of working with al-Qa’ida. The charge was presented as part of the Treasury Department’s announcement that it was designating six alleged al-Qa’ida operatives for terrorism-related financial sanctions. The six are being designated, according to Treasury, because of their involvement in transiting money and operatives for […]
India: Saying No to Iranian Oil to Please America
“[A]n assessment of whether India is fully and actively participating in United States and international efforts to dissuade, isolate, and, if necessary, sanction and contain Iran for its efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear weapons capability (including the capability to enrich uranium or reprocess nuclear fuel), and the means to […]
U.S. Sanctions and China’s Iran Policy
The Financial Times reports that Iran and China are “in talks about using a barter system to exchange Iranian oil for Chinese goods and services, as U.S. financial sanctions have blocked China from paying at least $20 billion for oil imports.” According to the story, Tehran and Beijing are now discussing how to “offset” the […]
From Lender of Last Resort to Global Currency?Sterling Lessons for the US Dollar
Financial crises are bad news for the status of the currency in which the turmoil is denominated, right? So the US-made financial crisis must be bad for the dollar, right? And especially so because of the expansive dollar monetary policy that has ensued, right? Ambiguity on What “Strong Currency” Means Several economists appear to […]
Sense and Nonsense in the Balanced Budget Debate: A Socialist Response
The Republicans have successfully changed the main emphasis of the economic debate from job creation to deficit control. Why the urgency for balanced budgets? After all, this anemic “recovery” has set itself apart from all previous post-war turnarounds precisely by its manifest failure to generate jobs. Economic growth needs to considerably exceed 3% per […]
Brazil Needs to Quit Haiti
U.S. diplomatic cables now released from Wikileaks make it clearer than ever before that foreign troops occupying Haiti for more than seven years have no legitimate reason to be there; that this a U.S. occupation, as much as in Iraq or Afghanistan; that it is part of a decades-long U.S. strategy to deny Haitians the […]
What Happened at Fukushima and Why It Can Happen Here
“The primary cause is an extended loss of power at the power plant, as ironic as that might be. When the earthquake occurred, the normal grid was lost, and the plant’s own in-plant power from the generators was also lost because of the result of the earthquake. . . . The tsunami came in […]
Price Formation in Financialized Commodity Markets: The Role of Information
Excerpt: The mid-2000s marked the start of a trend of steeply rising commodity prices, accompanied by increasing volatility. The prices of a wide range of commodities reached historic highs in nominal terms in 2008 before falling sharply in the wake of the financial and economic crisis. Since mid-2009, and especially since the summer of […]
Global Oil Prices
There was a time when global oil prices reflected changes in the real demand and supply of crude petroleum. Of course, as with many other primary commodities, the changes in the market could be volatile, and so prices also fluctuated, sometimes sharply. More than anything else, the global oil market was seen to reflect not […]
Prisoners Strike against Torture in California Prisons
The torture of prisoners in U.S. custody isn’t confined to foreign countries. For more than two weeks, inmates at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison have been on a hunger strike to protest torturous conditions in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) there. Prisoners have been held for years in solitary confinement, which can amount to torture. […]
Still Trying to Detonate a War against Syria
Still lacking a fire starter called diplomacy, Uncle Sam fails to detonate a war against Syria. Hamid Karout is a Syrian cartoonist. This cartoon was first published in Tishreen on 14 July 2011; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes. Cf. “‘The OIC has a strong desire to build national dialogue between governments and […]
Blues on the Border: Legendary Rock Guitarist Javier Batiz Plays and Sings for “My Beloved and Beautiful Tijuana”
Javier Batiz, the great Mexican rock-and-roll guitarist, played and sang last week in a concert that embodied and gave voice to everything that is most wonderful about Tijuana and the U.S.-Mexico border region. Batiz, who since he was thirteen has played in the bars and nightclubs of Tijuana, performed this time with the Baja California […]
Why the Euro Is Not Worth Saving
The Euro is crashing today to record lows against the Swiss Franc, and interest rates on Italian and Spanish bonds have hit record highs. This latest episode in the Eurozone crisis is a result of fears that the contagion is now hitting Italy. With a two-trillion dollar economy and $2.45 trillion in debt, Italy is […]
The Politics of Iran’s Space Program
Iran’s recent successful launch of a second satellite into orbit has drawn considerable attention around the world. As in the past, Iran’s announcement of the launch of its domestically built satellite into space received mixed reactions in the West. Some mainstream U.S. media treated the announcement with skepticism and ridicule. “Before you cancel that European […]
Power and Water at Risk: The Energy-Water Collision
Excerpt: Cooling power plants requires the single largest share of U.S. freshwater withdrawals: 41 percent. This water dependence threatens both the availability and the quality of our water resources. . . . The water use habits of power plants pose risks, not only to the water sources and to other users, but also to […]
