Mike Whitney: In your new book, The ABCs of the Economic Crisis: What Working People Need to Know, you allude to right-wing think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, which promote a “free market” ideology. How successful have these organizations been in shaping public opinion about capitalism? Do you think that […]
Subjects Archives: Political Economy
Personal Income and Outlays: September 2009
Personal income decreased $0.1 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) decreased $0.2 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, in September, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) decreased $47.2 billion, or 0.5 percent. In August, personal income increased $17.4 billion, or 0.1 percent, DPI increased $14.1 […]
Why the Health Insurance Excise Tax Is a Bad Idea
Twenty years ago, 60,000 workers from New York City to Maine rallied against healthcare cost-shifting at the telecom giant then known as NYNEX (since “rebranded” as Verizon). NYNEX was a very profitable, multinational company seeking to capitalize on a demoralizing decade of lost strikes, contract givebacks and widespread unionbusting. At a time when many […]
Why We Need to Give This Rotten System the Heave-ho
Fred Magdoff and Michael D. Yates. The ABCs of the Economic Crisis: What Working People Need to Know. Monthly Review Press, 2009. Books that start out with quotes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth make me nervous. Like many of my fellow workers, I have attended far more rock concerts — or pro wrestling matches — than […]
The Iran Versus U.S.-Israeli-NATO Threats
It is spell-binding to see how the U.S. establishment can inflate the threat of a target, no matter how tiny, remote, and (most often) non-existent that threat may be, and pretend that the real threat posed by its own behavior and policies is somehow defensive and related to that wondrously elastic thing called “national security.” […]
Terminal Stage
“Would it not be better to administer euthanasia?” Enrique Lacoste Prince is a Cuban cartoonist based in Havana. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | | Print
The Impending Indian Government Offensive against the Adivasi Inhabited Hilly Regions: Statement of Concern and Protest by Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky and Others
Analytical Monthly Review On Monday, October 12th, it was reported that Manmohan Singh — despite the request of air chief marshal P. V. Naik to permit IAF personnel in helicopters to attack inhabitants of the hilly regions — had announced that the armed forces would not be deployed against the domestic left-wing opponents of the […]
Central Banking in an Uncertain Age
There is no doubt that the financial sector in India was generally much less affected by the global financial crisis of the past year than in many other developed and developing countries. This is not to say that Indian finance was unaffected: there were wild swings in external capital flows (particularly portfolio flows) as well […]
Capitalism: A Love Story: A Political Film Review
Michael Moore‘s latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story, is so far ahead of the historical/political curve that even people who consider themselves progressives will have to run at full speed to keep up with this renegade filmmaker. Moore has always been ahead of the curve. Twenty years ago with Roger & Me he demonstrated a […]
Dismantling the Prisonhouse of Nations: A Socialist Prison Reform Proposal (SPRP)
The USA: Prisonhouse of Nations The United States deserves the title, the Prisonhouse of Nations:1 The US imprisons more of its citizens than any nation in the world. As of midyear 2008, over 2.3 million US citizens were behind bars and the prison population continues to expand as a result of the growing inequality and […]
Labor: A Renewal of Solidarity and Struggle — or Continued Decline?
The following report on the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh is posted by Jerry Tucker, special correspondent to the Monthly Review and MRZine. Tucker is a former International Executive Board Member of the UAW and a founder of the New Directions Movement within that union. He is also a co-founder of the Center for Labor […]
Senate Finance Committee Rejects Any Public Option
The momentous decision to reject any public option by the Senate Finance Committee today underscores how completely private insurance companies dominate Congressional activity. The author of the bill for the committee, Liz Fowler, is herself a former VP of WellPoint, the nation’s largest private health insurer. This highlights the importance of the single payer, […]
Why I Oppose G20
Anastasia Pinto is executive director of the Center for Organizing, Research and Education in India.
Why Should Russia Bail Out America?
The Obama administration’s decision to scrap the Bush era anti-missile defense plans in Eastern Europe was actually expected. Nonetheless, this was a very pragmatic move on the part of Washington. However, the immediate talk and plans for a different American-led “stronger, smarter, and swifter” anti-missile strategy was not helpful. I will reserve judgment on […]
A Victory for Single Payer at AFL-CIO Convention
It started with a Single Payer caucus at 8 in the morning where Mark Dudzic, Rose Ann DeMoro, and others brought us up to date on how they saw the day unfolding. The two-resolution agreement was holding up. The resolutions would be discussed after the Obama speech. The general sentiment of the meeting was that […]
The Financial Crisis One Year On
Exactly one year ago, the Wall Street investment bank Lehmann Brothers was allowed to go bust, in a move that is generally seen to have brought on the global financial crisis. Shock waves hit the financial markets; stock markets collapsed in waves of contagion across the world; credit seized up in most developed and many […]
The Financial Crisis and Imperialism
BMR:What is the likely impact of the present financial crisis on geopolitics, especially if the crisis is considered in the context of the energy crisis including the peak oil issue, the food crisis, The Great Hunger, the environmental crisis, and the declining dollar? Will the world experience war(s) as an effort to survive? Will monopoly-finance […]
Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story Will Find a Ready Audience
When I first met Michael Moore more than 20 years ago he was showing a half-finished documentary to a few dozen people in a classroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was funny and poignant and had a powerful message. He had taken a second mortgage on his house — equipment for filmmaking was a lot […]
Capitalism: A Love Story
Michael Moore Presents Capitalism: A Love Story at the 66th Venice Film Festival Michael Moore: “It’s Not Possible to Believe in Capitalism and Democracy at the Same Time” Trailer For more information about Michael Moore’s new film, go to <www.michaelmoore.com> and <www.capitalismalovestory.com>.
Unemployment Jumps to 9.7 Percent, as Economy Loses Another 216,000 Jobs
The unemployment rate hit 9.7 percent in August, up from 9.4 percent in July. According to the establishment survey, the economy shed 216,000 jobs in August. In addition, the job loss numbers for June and July were revised up by 49,000. This puts the average rate of job loss over the last three months at […]
