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The lawsuit that could freeze speech against billionaires
A gas mogul’s case against Beto O’Rourke could deter candidates from ever talking about money in politics.
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How not to deal with a debt crisis
Jayati Ghosh warns against historically disastrous approaches to the sovereign-debt crisis hitting low- and middle-income countries.
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The perils of Pious Neoliberalism in the Austerity State: The Fifty-First Newsletter (2022)
The International Labour Organisation’s Global Wage Report 2022–23 tracks the horrendous collapse of real wages for billions of people around the planet.
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Beating around the bush: polycrisis, overlapping emergencies, and capitalism
It is in vogue nowadays to describe the multifaceted and intertwined crises of capitalism without referring to capitalism itself. Obscure jargon of ‘overlapping emergencies’ and ‘polycrisis’ are brought up to describe the complexity of the situation, and they serve, with or without intention, to conceal the culprit, namely the totality of capitalist relations.
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Herman Daly: An economist for eco-social activists
A new book explains how an economist, in challenging the orthodoxy, has helped activists change the world.
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Stop worshiping central banks
Preoccupied with enhancing their own ‘credibility’ and reputations, central banks (CBs) are again driving the world economy into recession, financial turmoil and debt crises.
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The OPEC’s decision to cut oil output
WHAT is called OPEC+, that is the 13 members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) together with 11 other petroleum exporting countries led by Russia, decided on October 5 to cut their oil production by 2 million barrels per day, starting from November. The U.S. had been pressing OPEC not to take this decision.
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Inflation phobia hastens recessions, debt crises
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 27, 2022 (IPS)—Inflation phobia among central banks (CBs) is dragging economies into recession and debt crises. Their dogmatic beliefs prevent them from doing right. Instead, they take their cues from Washington: the U.S. Fed, Treasury and Bretton Woods institutions (BWIs). Costly recessions Both BWIs—the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World […]
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1980s’ redux? New context, old threats
As rich countries raise interest rates in double-edged efforts to address inflation, developing countries are struggling to cope with slowdowns, inflation, higher interest rates and other costs, plus growing debt distress.
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A “lost decade” for developing countries?
Developed countries use 3.5% of their income to pay interest on their debt, while developing ones must use 14%, which complicates their situation.
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Why Coinbase’s balance sheet has massively inflated
Coinbase recently filed its interim financial report. It makes pretty grim reading. A quarterly net loss of over $1bn, net cash drain of £4.6bn in 6 months, fair value losses of over 600k…
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Stagflation: From tragedy to farce
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR. Half a century after the 1970s’ stagflation, economies are slowing, even contracting, as prices rise again. Thus, the World Bank warns, “Surging energy and food prices heighten the risk of a prolonged period of global stagflation reminiscent of the 1970s.”
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Economics and the law of the hammer
As yours truly has reported repeatedly during the last couple of years, university students all over the world are increasingly beginning to question if the kind of economics they are taught–mainstream economics–really is of any value. Some have even started to question if economics is a science.
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USA: World’s largest producer of oil AND its largest oil consumer
According to an analysis by Elements Newsletter based on the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2022, roughly 43% of the world’s oil production came from just three countries in 2021 — the US, Saudi Arabia, and the Russian Federation. Together, these three countries produced more oil than the rest of the top 10 combined.
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Real debt trap: Sri Lanka owes vast majority to West, not China
Sri Lanka owes 81% of its external debt to US and European financial institutions and Western allies Japan and India. China owns just 10%. But Washington blames imaginary “Chinese debt traps” for the nation’s crisis, as it considers a 17th IMF structural adjustment program.
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Cryptocurrencies must die
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.
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The inhumanity of capitalism
For over two years now, the world has been facing a pandemic the like of which has not been seen for a century, and which has already taken 15 million lives according to the WHO, without being anywhere near an end.
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2005-22′: The crisis of western capitalism behind the left and far right radicalism
It is simply impossible to understand what is going on now in the world if we don’t take into consideration the crisis the globally dominant Western capitalism has been facing since 2008.
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African leaders opting for nonalignment amidst tensions in Europe
In addition to today’s fuel and energy crises, food insecurity has been a major issue for a number of reasons and, with the current Russian-Ukrainian war, a global food crisis and hunger is a real risk. Unfortunately, this may pave the way for a kind of food diplomacy and food wars.
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Beyond Eurocentrism
If you really want decolonisation, go beyond cultural criticism to the deep structural insights of economist Samir Amin.