SolidarityEconomy.net

The picture in the ad immediately caught my attention. The photo was of a very dignified older African American man looking into the camera, very determined and equally pensive. Underneath his photo was a caption giving his name—T. Willard Fair—and the fact that he was the veteran of 40 years of struggle in the Civil Rights Movement.

This was certainly enough to pique my interest.

Beneath the caption was a statement declaring that the alleged threat to African Americans comes from documented and undocumented immigrants. He went on to suggest that any notion of legalizing undocumented workers was a slap in the face of African Americans. The ad is associated with a group called the “Coalition for the Future American Worker.”

Fair’s attack is not surprising, although the virulence and historical nature of it is very unsettling, particularly because it is bound to strike a chord among many African Americans.

Black America has been taking a prolonged economic hit since the mid 1970s. The economic reorganization which many people call de-industrialization has had a devastating impact on the (more…)

by Jerry Harris, SolidarityEconomy.net

.US hegemony rapidly disappearing

US economic and political hegemony has degraded further in the rapidly globalizing world. At the World Bank Paul Wolfowitz has lost control through his own corrupt crony capitalism. But his problems stem as much from Iraq as his current missteps. Globalists who fill the bureaucracy at the World Bank never were comfortable with the US unilateralist coming to their home and Wolfowitz opened the door for their attacks. That the US can no longer control the internal politics at the World Bank is a good indicator of how far its political influence has fallen. (more…)

[Note from SolidarityEconomy.net Editors: This article is significant because of its source. Timothy Garton Ash is no Leftist. He’s a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford (where Milton Friedman held forth until his recent death). He’s always been fiercely anti-communist.]

Our planet cannot long sustain the momentous worldwide embrace of the manufacture of desires

by Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian

What is the elephant in all our rooms? It is the global triumph of capitalism. Democracy is fiercely disputed. Freedom is under threat even in old-established democracies such as Britain. Western supremacy is on the skids. But everyone does (more…)

by Graham Bowley, Financial Times

Andy Hines is stuck in traffic. Predictable enough for Houston at rush hour, but frustrating none the less. The 44-year-old gesticulates with a wiry, tattooed arm at the lines of red tail- lights forecasting a slow drive ahead, but focuses most of his ire on something less immediately tangible: the future. Or rather, the role of futurology - his chosen profession - in the corporate world.

“I should have just gotten an MBA,” Hines says, explaining that futurists are seldom given credit for their ideas within the big organisations where (more…)

Interview with Heinz Dieterich
By Cristina Marcano, Rebelion.org

Q. Professor Dieterich, did you invent the concept of “Socialism of the 21st Century”?

A. Yes. I developed it, beginning in 1996. It has been published with its corresponding theory in book form, from 2000 on, in Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina, Central America, Brazil, and Venezuela, and, outside Latin America, in Spain, Germany, the People’s Republic of China, Russia, and Turkey. Since 2001, it has been appropriated all over the world. Presidents like Hugo Chávez and Rafael Correa use it constantly, and so do labor movements, farmers, intellectuals, and political parties. (more…)

by Jesse Jackson

One casualty of the debacle in Iraq seldom gets much press, but the inevitable focus on the mess in Iraq too often overshadows other vital challenges.

The American automobile industry is hemorrhaging. Today, Ford will announce that it will offer buyouts to 85 percent of its salaried work force. Ford is looking to lay off a staggering 52,000 employees by September 2007. Chrysler has already been merged with the German automaker Daimler-Benz. General Motors is gushing red ink. (more…)

by Seth Sandronsky

“We see an irrational economy that more and more requires prison cells for those who have no chance of finding their way onto employers’ payrolls.”

Does bigger mean better? Yes, for the conventional wisdom on the U.S. economy, the world’s largest in terms of output, or gross domestic product. Thomas Friedman of the NY Times is perhaps the leading voice for this view.Accordingly, citizens of developing nations will prosper if their leaders emulate the U.S. model of growth. Lost a bit in such rhetoric is the fact that the American economy also creates a big labor market surplus. Typically, the likes of Thomas Friedman sidestep this ongoing human tragedy of the grow-or-die U.S. economic model. (more…)

by Walter Mosley

This is the second installment in Walter Mosley’s cycle of essays on Cultural Famine. The introduction and first installment were published in the October 23 issue. –The Editors

“The rich get richer…” This truism is irrefutable. “…and the poor get poorer.” We look away from ourselves, and our loved ones, when the latter phrase is used to complete the saying.

Often only the first part of this age-old axiom is quoted. It’s as if we are silently saying, “There’s no reason to talk about the poor, about poverty. Let’s just accept the notion that money migrates toward money and leave it at that.” (more…)

by Randy Shaw

A new study—buried by the media—has found the United States second only to Switzerland in the disparity between the net worth of its top 10% and everyone else. The report follows a recent study that found that America’s wealthiest top 1% earned the highest share of the national income since the 1920’s. Only Switzerland exceeded America in its extent of skewed wealth distribution.

It was not that long ago that Americans would look at countries in South America or Asia and decry the vast disparities in wealth between the rich and everyone else. These nations were seen as politically controlled by a wealthy elite, who enriched themselves at the expense of the poor and middle-class. Based on the study, America now fits this category. (more…)

November 13, Science Daily

The shift toward a service-based economy won’t automatically reduce the amount of greenhouse gases (GHS) in the air, a University of Minnesota researcher has found. His research contradicts assumptions about global warming often preferred by some economists and national policy experts.

Sangwon Suh, an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota’s bioproducts and biosystems engineering department, uses a “life-cycle assessment” approach to quantify the environmental effect of products and services, taking into account all the materials and energy used to create a product or a service throughout its life-cycle.

(more…)

The rich, the poor and the growing gap between them

Jun 15th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition (view original article online)
The rich are the big gainers in America’s new prosperity

AMERICANS do not go in for envy. The gap between rich and poor is bigger than in any other advanced country, but most people are unconcerned. Whereas Europeans fret about the way the economic pie is divided, Americans want to join the rich, not soak them. Eight out of ten, more than anywhere else, believe that though you may start poor, if you work hard, you can make pots of money. It is a central part of the American Dream. (more…)

. Middle East investments soar

Flooded with money from soaring oil prices there has been an explosion of investment banks, private equity funds and venture capital coming out of the Middle East. But unlike the 1970s and 1990s when both governments and investors relied on international banks to handle their wealth local transnational capitalists are now guiding their own funds. That means petrodollars aren’t being recycled through New York and London but through such firms as Dubai’s Istithmar and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Funds are expect to hit $10B by 2007. David Jackson, chief executive officer at Istithmar says, “In 2003, people hardly understood what private equity and alternative investments really were; now every other day we get wind of another fund.” Says another banker, “In the past, they would just give the money and put it in the US. Now they want to do their own deals…” (more…)

A Green ‘High Road’
for Venture Capitalists

By Andrew K. Burger
EcommerceTimes.com

(Nov. 8, 2006) When it comes to alternative, renewable energy, European companies and countries have been leading the charge. “We see several trends concerning financial investments into solar energy,” said Edwin Koot, the founder and principal of Solar Plaza.

Making the Case for Enterprise Mobility: Wireless Management and Spend Control. Find out how AT&T was able to reduce spiraling enterprise mobility costs and boost the efficient use of assets.

Venture capital (VC) and private and public investments in alternative energy continue to grow at their highest rates since the OPEC crisis of the 1970s.

Around the world, the persistence of much higher fossil fuel prices, heightened power demands — particularly in the fast-developing economies of China and India — national employment trends, security concerns, and growing evidence of sharp climate changes are contributing to what amounts to a clean technology boom. (more…)

. Financial Times concedes world to China and India

“Over the next 30 years, China and India will grow to dominate the world economy. They will give birth to great industrial companies that own plants all around the world. National pride may suffer a little but economic nationalism and imperialism have had their day and that can only be a good thing.” Wow, UK globalists really need to talk to George W. and clue him into the future. What brought the former colonialists of England to accept their national decline; Tata of India is buying Corus, or what is the entire steel industry of the UK and the Netherlands. As the Financial Times points out, the historic tables have turned, not only has the British East India Company disappeared but “the current wave of globalisation, in contrast to that of the 19^th century, is led by the developing as much as the developed world.” Moreover, no one in the UK, not politicians nor workers, raised an alarm. Transnational capital has truly become global. (FT, 10/21/06 Empire strikes back as Tata bids for Corus, p. 6) (more…)

Millionaires are so last millennium. The new Forbes 400 list of richest Americans is billionaires only.

If you’re net worth is a mere $999 million, forget it. A billion means a thousand million, and that’s the Forbes 400 minimum — up from $900 million in 2005.

Donald Trump and two of his kids grace the Forbes 400 cover, but ranked No. 94 with $2.9 billion, Trump’s a long way from No. 1 Bill Gates with $53 billion.

The combined wealth of the 400 richest Americans is a record-breaking $1.25 trillion. That’s about the same amount of combined wealth held by the 57 million households who make up half the U.S. population.

(more…)