Subjects Archives: Political Economy

The recent bailout agreement between the International Monetary Fund and Sri Lanka fails to address the economy’s structural problems. Instead, it focuses on highly regressive measures that disproportionately affect the working poor and are likely to exacerbate the country’s ongoing debt distress.

On March 8, 2023, General Laura J. Richardson of the United States (U.S.) Southern Command gave testimony at a congressional hearing wherein she issued a warning to U.S. lawmakers about the expansion of Chinese influence in the Caribbean that were at odds with purported U.S. interests in the region.

The summit in Havana ends with document that also highlights the role of technology for development.

The time needed for understanding is delaying the radical decisions that are needed immediately. This premise is fundamental. If we wait for people to understand fully, we do not save ourselves. We do not save the planet.

THE G-20 meeting in Delhi was occurring in the midst of an acute economic crisis of the world economy.

Dilemmas of humanity abound. There is little need to look at statistical data to know that we are in a spiral of crises, from the environmental and climate crisis to the crises of poverty and hunger.

On August 26, a lone white gunman, 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmeter, fired 11 rounds from his semi-automatic weapon into the windshield of a car parked outside a Jacksonville Dollar General, killing the African American driver. Then he walked into the discount store, and fatally shot two other African Americans before turning the gun on himself.

This accusation surfaced during the commencement of a historic trial, marking the most significant antitrust case in the U.S. in over twenty years.

India being the host country, the triumphalist tom-toming that G20 summit on September 9-10 was a “success” is both understandable and probably justifiable.

The planet has been laid to waste, and society pays for the waste in both money and lost years of life.

Washington also provided a US$203-million funding for support to transparency and accountability of institutions.

Nicolas Graham’s book on forces of production and fossil-fuel capitalism gives an important analysis of why fundamental change is needed to solve the climate crisis, finds John Clarke

“Needless to say, changes that benefit the working class of our country are not going to be easily handed over by the corporate elite. They have to be fought for—and won.”

Humans have an infinite capacity for wishful thinking, but a revolutionary project is by definition a recognition that wishes are for fairy tales.

One of the most glaring plot holes in the official mainstream narrative on Ukraine is the way US officials keep openly boasting that this supposedly unprovoked war which the U.S. is only backing out of the goodness of its heart just so happens to serve U.S. interests tremendously.

THE fossil fuel industry, particularly the oil and natural gas lobby, always has new cards. Earlier, the fossil fuel industry came up with carbon credits: We, the rich countries, will burn coal, oil and natural gas so that we can continue with our current lifestyles but “compensate” by planting trees in poor countries.

This month, we discuss democratic possibilities for public finance with Saule Omarova, the Beth and Marc Goldberg Professor of Law at Cornell University and President Biden’s original nominee for Comptroller of the Currency. Her and Robert Hockett’s “finance franchise” metaphor for modern banking-–according to which the federal government is the franchisor and chartered banks are all franchisees–renders an often-times opaque system intuitive and readily politicizable.

It seemed utterly absurd that, even as the Australian federal government announced its purchase of over 200 tomahawk cruise missiles—because that is exactly what the country needs—there are moves afoot to prune and cut projects conducted by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).

AT the Johannesburg summit of the BRICS countries, it was decided to expand the group beyond its original five, namely, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, to include six more countries.

Once again, the Western media Establishment, and sadly some on the left, are talking up an impending economic disaster in China, when the truth is quite the opposite, argues JOHN ROSS.