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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 […]
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Triplet Crises and the Ghost of the New Drachma
Much of the discussion surrounding the Greek crisis revolves around the probability and implications of a sovereign default and on whether the introduction of a national currency (which, for simplicity, we could call the new drachma) would help pull the Greek economy out of recession (see for example Manasse 2011 on this site). Less […]
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Beyond the Crisis: Markets, Planning, and a Utopian Vision Inspired by the American National Football League
The Crisis, especially in Europe, is all-consuming. Every day our minds are hijacked by its latest twist. Here in Athens, a general strike almost brought the government to its knees and has kick-started a process that will, inevitably, lead to what can only be described as regime change. While history is preparing the next regime […]
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When Push Comes to Shove? Exposing the Empty Threat to Kick Greece Out of the Eurozone
A sword of Damocles, we are told, is hanging over Greece. Even the Greek EU commissioner says that Greeks must accept that their country will be run, nay micromanaged, by a committee of foreign creditors, or else Greece will be kicked out of the eurozone. This threat is found upon a flagrant lie. Greece cannot […]
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What the Left Front Did Wrong in West Bengal
The curiosum of a ‘red regime’ with a knack to get re-elected term after term for over more than three decades within the ambit of a full-fledged multi-party democracy has finally disappeared. The Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has not merely lost the poll in West Bengal, it has been […]
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Michal Kalecki and the Economics of Development
In the long and impressive catalogue of Michal Kalecki’s contributions to economics, the proportion of writings devoted to what is now called “development economics” is relatively small. And most of his work in this area is concise to the point of being terse, in short articles that simply state some crucial principles, typically without much […]
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An Independent Citizens’ Debt Audit for Ireland
Introduction We, the undersigned, are sponsoring a citizens’ debt audit for Ireland. In the interest of transparency, we wish to know how the Irish debt — especially the bank debt for which the state has assumed responsibility — was incurred and to whom it is owed. We sponsor this audit as organizations that have […]
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On the Political Economics of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s Political Death
What follows below is about the economic and political significance of the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK hereafter), the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. It will say nothing about the merits (or lack thereof) of the charges against DSK. All cases of alleged sexual assault brought against high-profile men place two equally important […]
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On the True Agenda behind Der Spiegel’s Story That Greece Is Thinking of Exiting the Euro
The Spiegel story that “Athens is considering withdrawing from the euro zone” is not exactly false — just economical with the truth. Yes, a few weeks or months ago, the Greek government commissioned (as it ought to) several secret studies of the repercussions of various scenarios involving different forms of debt restructure, including one desperate […]
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Invitation to URPE Summer School: “Topics in Radical Political Economy: Marxist Theory”
We invite graduate students and young researchers to participate in the URPE (Union for Radical Political Economics) Summer School entitled “Topics in Radical Political Economy: Marxist Theory,” which will take place in Amherst, Massachusetts on the UMass campus on May 24-27, 2011 (right before the World Association for Political Economy conference on May 27-29). […]
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State and Municipal Debt: The Coming Crisis?
Testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on TARP and Financial Resources, 15 March 2011 Thank you, Chairman McHenry and Ranking Member Quigley, for inviting me to testify before the subcommittee and to share my views on the debt problem facing state and local governments. I will make three main points in my […]
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From Places Like Mine and Yours
On the progressive potential of small, quasi-autonomous states (like Scotland, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, etc.). . . . The strong Scottish accent was conspiring with the noisy pub background to make it difficult for me to understand the words spoken in my ear by an imposing trade union figure. Thankfully, I managed to decipher his words, […]
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It’s the (German) Banks, Stupid!
Or what’s behind Germany’s hesitant statements on Greek debt restructuring, Ireland’s move against subordinated bondholders, and the ECB’s stance on interest rates. . . . Europe is at it again, trying to pretend that it has stemmed the tide of insolvency through its program of lending huge amounts of money (at high interest rates) to […]
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House Prices Continue Sharp Decline
The Case-Shiller 20-City index fell sharply again in December, dropping a full percentage point from its November level. This is the third consecutive month that it has fallen by at least 1.0 percent. It is now down by 4.3 percent from its peak in July. Nineteen of the 20 cities had a drop in prices. […]
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Public Sector Squeeze
A national campaign is now fully launched to make local public sector employees pick up a major share of the costs of economic crisis. Years of rising spending and falling revenue have carved a path of destruction through federal, state, and local budgets. Deficits and debts have mounted, eroding taxpayer support for government spending […]
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Families Divided by US Deportation
Past US administrations have deported illegal immigrants, but under President Obama the process has accelerated. This video was first released by Al Jazeera on 19 January 2011. | Print
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They Don’t Make Them Like They Used To! Why Even the Best Post-war Economist Ended Up a Tragic Figure
The Crash of 2008 and its ghastly aftermath was not just an economic crisis but also a crisis aided and abetted by economics. Previously I have written about the Econobubble (the handmaiden of the “real” Bubble) and the toxic theories of economists who were very recently rewarded with the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. Following […]
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Daniel Ellsberg: WikiLeaks Precursor and Unsung Foe of Neoliberal Economics
This is not the first time thousands of classified documents have been “liberated,” revealing to a stunned public how their government has waged a concerted war of disinformation against them for the purposes of bending their will to the demands of a pointless war: a war on the altar of which the deceived public are […]
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Latin American Lessons for the European Crisis: Interview with Michael A. Lebowitz
Michael A. Lebowitz will deliver the Fourth Annual Lecture in Memory of Nicos Poulantzas (“Building Socialism of the 21st Century: The Logic of the State”) on Wednesday, 8 December 2010, 7 PM, at the auditorium of the Goethe Institute (Omirou St. 14-16) in Athens, Greece. Mr. Lebowitz, is Marxism still relevant today? I ask […]
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The College Conundrum: Why the Benefits of a College Education May Not Be So Clear, Especially to Men
Excerpt (Endnotes Omitted): At least since the early 1990s, the share of young people earning a four-year college degree has not increased as quickly as many economists would like. A higher share of young people today have college degrees than at any point in our nation’s history, yet many economists remain concerned that the […]