Michael Hudson & Richard Wolff: Europe Under the Crunch [16:50m video]

from Grit TV. A most fascinating discussion regarding the economic collapse in Europe and the US and what might be done about it.

We've heard plenty about the recession in the U.S., but what about the rest of the world? Countries across Europe have faced budget crunches and conservative governments are using the crisis as an excuse to roll back the social safety net that most have enjoyed for decades. Many of the problems--and the solutions--sound sadly familiar. Lowered taxes on the rich and corporations, falling wages, and deregulation led to the crisis, which is being shifted onto the backs of the working class--as Michael Hudson notes, putting the class war back in business. Hudson joins us in studio, along with Richard Wolff, to discuss the economic crisis in Europe, what we can learn about the response to it and apply back at home. Here's a hint: it involves organized labor.

Treasure Island: A Case Study in Shareable Journalism

by Jeremy Adam Smith from Shareable. 

As corporate sponsored journalism continues to degenerate, there may be a new model emerging to tell the truth about our lives.

"Civically minded journalists, who in the past weren't used to collaboration, are inventing new ways of telling stories about the community that are not reliant on corporate control or funding,"

This Is What You Eat

by Marc Perton from The Consumerist. 

See a great graphic and what the US corporate food industry is doing to Americans to increase their profits.

If you are what you eat, this graphic from Visual Economics may not make for the best inspirational reading. Then again, is there really anything so bad about drinking 53 gallons of soda or eating 85 pounds of fat and oil each year? (No, you don't have to answer that.)

Foreclosures Continue To Increase Dramatically In 2010

by Michael Snyder from Business Insider.

Back in 2007 and 2008, experts tell us that most foreclosures were due to toxic mortgages.  People were being suckered into mortgages that they couldn't afford with "teaser rates" or with payments that would dramatically escalate after a few years, and when those mortgages reset, the people who had agreed to them no longer could make the payments.

But now RealtyTrac says that unemployment has become the major reason for foreclosures.  Millions of Americans have become chronically unemployed during the economic downturn and many of them are losing their homes as a result.

WikiLeaks Obtains Copy of Tony Hayward’s Resignation Letter [humor]

from The Daily Goat.  Enjoy

First as Tragedy, Then as Farce [10:57m video]

by Slavoj Zizek from RSA and You Tube. 

The renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek challenges your thinking about charity.

A Police State You'd Better Believe In

by Jack Kenny from New American.

 ...we should not let a smooth talking political leader like our current President talk us out of the civil liberties he seemed zealous to protect when the perpetrators of the coming police state were Republicans in the White House and the cabinet. We had a changing of the guard on January 20, 2009, but the goals of our national jailers remain the same. The bars and the barbed wire are still being put in place, but the names and the faces of the wardens have changed. That's the only real "change" we have gotten from the Obama administration. The rest is merely verbal sleight of hand and rhetorical windsong. It is "change" they can deceive with.

This week in Change

by Glenn Greenwald from Salon.

So there's your Week in Change:  tens of billions more appropriated for war through supplemental spending tricks and without conditions or timetables, attacks on war opponents for being Troop-Haters, threats to criminally prosecute journalistic outlets (such as WikiLeaks) which publish classified information on the grounds of being Traitors, and a major expansion of the Government's ability to spy on your private communications without even obtaining warrants.  And it's only Thursday morning, so think how much more Change can happen in the next two days.

A Great Quote from a Comtemporary Patron Saint of Capitalism

from VoltaireNet and Current Concerns, an excerpt from the preface to the book, Free Fall, by Joseph Stiglitz: 

The current crisis has uncovered fundamental flaws in the capitalist system, or at
least the peculiar version of capitalism that emerged in the latter part of the twentieth
century in the United States (sometimes called American-style capitalism). It is not
just a matter of flawed individuals or specific mistakes, nor is it a matter of fixing a few minor problems or tweaking a few policies.

But, not to worry all you capitalism loving people out there, he is not arguing for a change of system. He concludes the preface with the following:

But in the aftermath of the Great Depression, we did succeed in creating a regulatory
structure that served us well for a half century, promoting growth and stability. This
book is written in the hope that we can do so again.

It sounds like "tweaking" to me.

 

On Walkers, Extra Men, and Professional Houseguests

by Jamie Johnson from Vanity Fair. 

This week's offering about the lives and concerns of what are referred to as the 1% Americans. After all they share this great country with us and we need to know about their daily lives and concerns. For those of you who would like to get to know them better, the article provides some tips on how you can associate with them. ;-)

The End of Capitalism?: Interview of Alex Knight – Part 2B. Social Limits and the Crisis

from The End of Capitalism. A must-read series if you are to be an aware citizen activist.

In this 3rd segment of the interview Alex Knight continues to develop his thesis that "the global capitalist system is breaking down due to ecological and social limits to growth and that a paradigm shift toward a non-capitalist future is underway."

Trends to Barbarism and Prospects for Socialism

by James Petras from Dissident Voice. 

The only problem I have with this essay is that the author barely mentions the impact on capitalism that ecological limits will have on it. Working people of the world face a race against time as capitalism is the engine, if we are unable to stop it, that will drive humanity off the cliffs of environmental degradation, resource exhaustion, and climate change.

In ancient society ‘barbarism’ and its carriers ‘the barbarians’ were envisioned as threats by outside invaders from outlying regions descending on Rome or Athens. In contemporary Western societies, the barbarians came from within, among the elite of society, intent on imposing a new order which destroys the social fabric and productive base of society, converting stable livelihoods into insecure deteriorating conditions of daily life.

Mainstream Economists: "Mission Accomplished"

from Washington's Blog.

Numerous current stories show how disconnected mainstream policy-makers are from reality.

For example, Ryan Grim points out that there is an "unbelievable disconnect" between the American people (who are people are against the Afghanistan war) and Congress and the political elite (gung-ho to escalate this never-ending war)...

US and Cambodia in controversial lockstep

by Clifford McCoy from Asia Times Online. 

Because items like this never make it into mainstream news coverage, few Americans have any idea of how the US "military-industrial complex", that former President Eisenhower warned us about, is running amok provoking military confrontations nearly everywhere in the world. And now they are also performing such exercises with the South Korean navy! The same thing has been going on with Columbia, and I can't remember how many other places I've read a little about!

Can you imagine how the same mainstream news corporations would cover news of joint military exercises in Mexico involving the armed forces of China?

The Wages of Sin: Former Citi Execs Pay Token Fines for Lying to Investors

by Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism. 

She illustrates how the drivers of profit for the ruling class can and do lie with impunity. Well, don't all ruling classes and servants have their perks? The author doesn't seem to realize that the system creates sociopaths and lavishly rewards their criminal behavior.

Everything You Need to Know About Global Warming in 5 Minutes

by Barry Ritholtz from The Big Picture. 

Even some key players in the capitalist system are getting the message that their system is in deep doo-doo. But the author hasn't given up hope to save the system. He concludes the article with this statement:

Global warming will be the most important investment issue for the foreseeable future.  But how to make money around this issue in the next few years is not yet clear to me.

Time out

Putting society before shareholders: What work is really worth

by Pierre Rimbert from Le Monde Diplomatique. 

Some researchers in the UK studied the remuneration of workers from a social utility point of view rather than from the conventional point of view which emphasizes enhancement of capitalist profits. The results are very enlightening.

Is WikiLeaks the antidote to the Washington K Street Kool-Aid?

by Sibel Edmonds from Boiling Frogs.

This former FBI worker and heroic whistle-blower looks at the significance of the recent WikiLeaks disclosures.

The sheer scope of the growth and the extensive privatization of intelligence and security was so profound that it represented “an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in oversight.”

...The perpetual Taliban/Al Qaeda threat fueled a perpetual war that could never be won, justifying an endless string of restrictions on civil liberties and governmental transparency, which then prevented Americans from seeing how their money was spent. Locked out of this “alternative geography of the United States,” Americans have become helpless to stop their democracy and their economy from being lifted right out from under them.

IMO they are not helpless, but feel helpless because they have not yet figured out who is deceiving and oppressing them. Once they figure that out, and WikiLeaks is making a big contribution to that process, they will then come up with their own solutions.

Thanks to the revelations the word was finally out that whatever impact the “war on terror” had made on terror worldwide ( which many claimed it made only worse)  it was above all, a spectacular boondoggle.

Sudan: Oil Companies Alleged to be Complicit in War Crimes

by Miles Ashdown from Toward Freedom. 

International oil companies that support the government of Sudan wreck their havoc on the Sudanese in the pursuit of profits. The recent history of the Sudan illustrates a worst case example in the neo-liberal period of capitalism.

“We’re talking about rape, murder, torture, arson, looting, arbitrary bombing by high-altitude bombers as well as by helicopter gunships, driving people into uninhabitable areas like the swamps where many people suffered and died due to exhaustion, hunger, diseases,” said Wesselink, who worked on the ECOS report entitled “Unpaid Debt.”