Subjects Archives: Financialization

Sasha Lilley: Protests against Wall Street have inspired many people to move their money from big banks to smaller banks and credit unions and encourage others to do the same.  Why might you be skeptical of this effort? Doug Henwood: There are several reasons.  First of all, I think a lot of the big banks […]

In a 1956 interview with Anna Louise Strong, Mao described American imperialism as a paper tiger.  Of course, the military strength of the United States is unparalleled, especially because this country accounts for about half of worldwide military spending.  Even so, the last three significant wars have shown that the country has been unable to […]

On November 6th, thousands of protesters staged a colorful encirclement of the White House in Washington D.C., protesting against the Keystone XL pipeline project and against expansion in extraction of tar sands oil.  Within just four days after this bold direct action, Obama ordered a thorough review of the pipeline plan and suspended decision-making on […]

  The current Occupy Movement has captured people’s imagination and refocused the national discussion on issues of economic injustice, social stratification, and corruptions of American democracy.  Contrary to what some people might think, the Occupy Movement is not composed solely of “young, idealistic college kids.”  People of many different ages, ethnicities, and ideological persuasions are […]

The Occupy Wall Street uprising has taken the nation by storm, beginning in the Financial District in Manhattan and then spreading to cities and towns in every part of the country and around the world.  The anger over growing inequality and the political power of the rich that has been bubbling under the surface for […]

  The Social Economy Context The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has clearly expressed the hopes and great potentialities of the working class both in the U.S. and globally.  The 99 percent are speaking up and saying that they will no longer do the bidding of the 1 percent.  In essence it is the revolt […]

  It costs the state of New Jersey more money to hold a prisoner for one year than to fund one Princeton student’s tuition.  Here’s an overview of the disturbing trend of prioritizing prison over higher education in the US. PublicAdministration.Net was created as an online informational resource for individuals looking to pursue public administration-related […]

  In his Republic, Plato analogized elites to guard dogs who must be educated as to whom they must guard against and whom they must protect.  One of Plato’s nightmare scenarios was a ruling class that lost the ability to make this distinction and turned wholly predatory on its sustaining population.  Enter our present-day banking […]

The Knowledge Liberation Front proposes bankruptcy and basic income as “knowledge against financial capitalism.”  But does this proposal not actually serve as knowledge for financial capitalism: i.e., Bankruptcy + Basic Income = Social Democracy under the Neoliberal Regime of Accumulation?  An example of how the Left, not the Right, innovates capitalism? — Ed. See, also, […]

September 21, 2011 Senator Joseph Lieberman Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee United States Senate SH-706 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510-0703 Congressman Darrell Issa Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee House of Representatives 2347 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515-0549 If the U.S. Postal Service were forced […]

In recent days the press has reported that President Dilma Rouseff has denied having tried to influence the Brazilian central bank to lower short-term interest rates, as the bank did on August 31 from 12.5 to 12.0 percent.  The fact that she would feel obligated to make such a statement shows that there is a […]

Brazil’s economy is slowing, but the government is increasing its primary surplus by cutting spending, which could slow the economy more.  In June, industrial production fell by 1.6 percent, and economic activity fell for the first time since 2008.  Although monthly figures are erratic and don’t necessarily indicate any trend, the overall picture raises questions […]

During the recent “Debt Ceiling” debacle, many warned that the failure to lift the debt ceiling would lead to a “first ever” US default and to numerous financial catastrophes, including the demise of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. “First Ever Default?”  Think again. Forty years ago this month, on August 15, 1971, […]

Communiqué The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Comandante Hugo Chávez, communicated by telephone with the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the afternoon of the 15th of August, 2011. President Ahmadinejad said to President Chávez that, in this sacred month of Ramadan, he and millions of Iranians are praying […]

  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 […]

  Herman Rosenfeld is a member of the Canadian Socialist Project and the Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly, a new initiative aiming to reinvigorate working class and radical politics in the city.  He spoke to Tom Denning about the methods and activities of GTWA and the challenges it faces. Who initiated the GTWA, and with what […]

  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 […]

  Rating Agency: “Don’t take it wrong, but some companies are paying me to come here to tell you that you have no future.” Juan Ramón Mora is a cartoonist in Barcelona.  This cartoon was first published in his blog on 14 July 2011 under a Creative Commons license.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | […]

  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 […]

There has been considerable discussion of basing the Social Security cost of living adjustment (COLA) on the Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (C-CPI-U) as a “painless” way of generating large budget savings.  This view reflects serious confusion about what the switch to the C-CPI-U involves.  (The switch would also lead to higher […]