Subjects Archives: Financialization

The labour relations on South African farms continue to maintain race, gender, and class inequalities as a central character of work and life.

Bitcoin had gone from around USD 4,000 to USD 64,000, a sixteen fold increase, in 20 months. Other cryptocurrencies had even more ridiculous price increases in the same time period – Ethereum had a 50 fold increase, Solana 500 times, and LUNA had a 1,000 times increase. Now, these cryptocurrencies are crashing down.

Central banks all over the capitalist world are raising, or are about to raise, interest rates as a means of countering the currently rampant inflation, which is certain to push a world economy that is barely recovering from the effect of the pandemic, back towards stagnation and greater unemployment.

On Friday, May 6, the Federal Reserve released data showing that consumer credit (debt) has been accelerating since the fourth quarter of last year, with revolving credit (largely credit card debt) speeding up at an even greater pace since the third quarter of 2021.

The American establishment and the new cold-warriors of that country put the blame on the Sri Lankan government’s developing close economic relations with China (and we shall no doubt hear much more of it in the coming days); others blame the sheer “irresponsibility” of the government which is accused of “sleeping” when Sri Lanka’s external debt was building up.

Communard Robert Longa defended an industrialization process that counters capitalist logic.

U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said his goal is “to get wages down,” complaining workers have too much power in the labor market. Economist Michael Hudson says this is “junk economics,” and corporate monopolies are driving inflation, not wages.

World military spending has passed U.S.$2 trillion for the first time, according to new data published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Last year was the seventh consecutive year that world military spending increased; total expenditure has almost doubled this century.

Cryptocurrencies are collapsing across the etherspace. Neil and Jonathan talk to Izabella Kaminska, founder of the Blind Spot and keen cryptowatcher, about Terra, Luna and Tether, the death spiral of the stablecoins, and whether anyone in the real world should care.

Trade unions are angered over the government’s military spending on Ukraine which they say would be better spent on raising workers’ wages at a time when the economy is predicted to slide into recession.

Surging Trade As Bilateral Relations Grow Closer China and Russia have grown increasingly close in recent years, including as trading partners, in a relationship that brings both opportunities and risks as Russia reels from tough new sanctions led by the West in response to its invasion of Ukraine. Total trade between China and Russia jumped […]

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR: Central bank policies have often worsened economic crises instead of resolving them. By raising interest rates in response to inflation, they often exacerbate, rather than mitigate business cycles and inflation.

The material benefits of this pause to student loan payments are not something to be taken lightly. But considering the pause has clearly helped borrowers survive, the question for the Biden administration is simple: Why not make it permanent, and cancel all student debt?

In our latest video, we go deep into U.S. sanctions, their consequences and the media manipulation around them.

The multipolar financial world is here. The United States can survive it–but only with major political and economic changes at home. It’s time to start thinking about what those need to be.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who’s once again in the running for the presidency, says that “God willing” he hopes to see the creation of a Latin American currency capable of overcoming the region’s dependence on the dollar.

With the publication of Orientalism in 1978, Edward Said would become one of the most influential scholars of our era. The book transformed the study of the history of the modern world, as it offered insights into how racist discourses created and maintained European empires.

President Biden’s 2022 State of the Union Address included a call for a $15 federal minimum wage. According to an Economic Policy Institute study, a phased increase to a $15 federal minimum wage by 2025 would raise the earnings of 32 million workers—21% of the workforce, no small thing. 

The American establishment and the new cold-warriors of that country put the blame on the Sri Lankan government’s developing close economic relations with China (and we shall no doubt hear much more of it in the coming days); others blame the sheer “irresponsibility” of the government which is accused of “sleeping” when Sri Lanka’s external debt was building up.

“At a time when over half of the people in this country live paycheck to paycheck,” the Vermont senator wrote, “should we really be providing a multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout for Bezos to fuel his space hobby?”