Archive for the 'Financial Crisis' Category

Targeting the Main Enemy: Low-Road Finance Capital

by Editors @ Tuesday, October 13th, 2009. Filed under Economic Democracy, Economy, Financial Crisis

 The Dominance of the Financial

Sector has Become a Mortal Danger

to our Economic Security

 

 

By Robert Creamer
Huffington Post

Over the last several decades, the financial sector has grown relentlessly. It has doubled in size over the last 14 years. During the period 1973 to 1985 the financial sector never earned more than 16% of domestic profits. This decade, it has averaged 41% of all the profits earned by businesses in the U.S. In 1947 the financial sector represented only 2.5% of our gross domestic product. In 2006 it had risen to 8%. In other words, of every 12.5 dollars earned in the United States, one goes to the financial sector, much of which, let us recall, produces nothing.

That growth has not been among community or regional banks -- or credit unions. I'm talking about Wall Street.

Wall Street's growth is one big reason that most of America's economic growth during the last decade has flowed into the hands of investment bankers, stock traders and partners in firms like Goldman Sachs. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that fully two-thirds of all income gains during the last economic expansion (2002 to 2007) flowed to the top 1% of the population. And that, in turn, is one of the chief reasons why the median income for ordinary Americans actually dropped by $2,197 per year since 2000.

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A Better Plan: Forget Wall St, Fund Local Credit Unions Directly

by Editors @ Sunday, May 17th, 2009. Filed under Economic Democracy, Financial Crisis, High Road Economics

 

Graphic: Ptolemy, the Earth Centric

 

Team Obama's Flawed Cosmology:

A Universe Revolving Around Banks

By Arianna Huffington
Huffington Post

A series of recent meetings with members of Barack Obama's economic team (including running into Larry Summers on my way to an appointment in the West Wing, leading to a spirited back-and-forth that made me feel like I was back at Cambridge, debating the smartest kid in the class), left me with a pair of indelible impressions:

1) These are all good people, many of them brilliant, working incredibly hard with the best of intentions to solve the country's financial crisis.

2) They are operating on the basis of an outdated cosmology that places banks at the center of the economic universe.

Talking about our financial crisis with them is like beaming back to the 2nd century and discussing astronomy with Ptolemy. Just as Ptolemy was convinced we live in a geocentric universe -- and made the math work to "prove" his flawed theories -- Obama's senior economic team is convinced we live in a bank-centric universe, and keeps offering its versions of "epicycles" and "eccentric circles" to rationalize their approach to the bailout. And because, like Ptolemy, they are really smart, they are really good at rationalizing.

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Exposing the Crisis: Richard Wolf’s DVD

by Editors @ Monday, May 4th, 2009. Filed under Economic Democracy, Economy, Financial Crisis, Socialism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DVD promo image above: Still of title from Richard Wolfe video. Use link below to view the entire one hour lecture in a Preview Mode. 

Capitalism Hits the Fan

 



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Message to Obama: What To Do When a Flawed Bailout Fails

by Editors @ Saturday, May 2nd, 2009. Filed under Economic Democracy, Financial Crisis, Socialism

 

What To Do When

the Bailout Fails

By David Schweickart

Tikkun Magazine


May 1, 2009

Dear President Obama,

We have never met, although we are neighbors of sorts. I live a couple of blocks from your Hyde Park home. We vote at the same polling place, Beulah Shoesmith Elementary School.

My daughter Karen has met you. She took two classes from you when she was in law school at the University of Chicago. My granddaughter Lauryn has met you, too-although she doesn't remember the occasion. Karen brought her to class one day, shortly after her birth. Karen and Lauryn both attended your inauguration, ticketless but with much enthusiasm. I wasn't there, but I share their enthusiasm.

Which is why I am writing you this letter. You have somehow, against all odds, become president. You are in position to do things that few others on this planet are in position to do. (more...)

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‘Buy Out, Not Bail Out’ - Coops as a Working Class Solution

by Editors @ Saturday, April 25th, 2009. Filed under Economic Democracy, Financial Crisis, Labor Movement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo: Ontario's Algoma Steel, a 5000 worker cooperative

Coops and the global financial crisis

Cooperatives have been more resilient to the deepening global economic and jobs crisis than other sectors. ILO Online spoke with Hagen Henry, chief of the ILO’s Cooperatives Branch.

The ILO is the International Labor Organization, created in 1919, as part of the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, to reflect the belief that universal and lasting peace can be accomplished only if it is based on social justice. The ILO brings together governments, workers and employers, as the world's only tripartite multilateral agency. It is dedicated to bringing decent work and livelihoods, job-related security and better living standards to the people of both poor and rich countries.

ILO Online: Why does the ILO promote cooperatives?

Hagen Henry: The ILO views cooperatives as important in improving the living and working conditions of women and men globally as well as making essential infrastructure and services available even in areas neglected by the state and investor-driven enterprises. Moreover, values that are at the heart of the cooperative movement are central to creating decent jobs. Cooperatives are close to a democratic, people-centred economy which cares for the environment, while promoting economic growth, social justice and fair globalization. Cooperatives play an increasingly important role in balancing economic, social and environmental concerns as well as in contributing to poverty prevention and reduction.

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Finance Capital’s ‘Whole Series of Ponzi Schemes’

by Editors @ Tuesday, April 14th, 2009. Filed under Economic Democracy, Financial Crisis, Marxism, Socialism

 

 David Harvey

Explores the

Logic of Capital

 

A Socialist Review Interview by Joseph Choonara, April 2009

Joseph Choonara spoke to acclaimed Marxist theoretician David Harvey about capitalism's current crisis and his online reading group of Karl Marx's Capital which shows the revival of interest in this work.

Some commentators view the current crisis as arising from problems in finance that then impinged on the wider economy; others see it as a result of issues that arose in production and then led to financial problems. How do you view it?

It's a false dichotomy that's being posed. There is a more dialectical relationship between what you might call the "real" and "financial" sides of the economy. There is no question that there has been an underlying problem of what I would call "over-accumulation" for a considerable time now. And in part the movement into investing in asset values rather than production is a consequence of that. But as the search for new forms of asset value developed you also saw financial innovation that created the possibility of investment in hedge funds and those sorts of things. (more...)

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