Tag Archives | Economy

A World In Denial

By on January 4, 2012 in News 6
Donald Rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld

Geoffrey Wheatcroft writes in the New York Times:

Could there be a single phrase that explains the woes of our time, this dismal age of political miscalculations and deceptions, of reckless and disastrous wars, of financial boom and bust and downright criminality? Maybe there is, and we owe it to Fintan O’Toole. That trenchant Irish commentator is a biographer and theater critic, and a critic also of his country’s crimes and follies, as in his gripping if horrifying book, Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger.

He reminds us of the famous if gnomic saying by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the United States secretary of defense, that “There are known knowns… there are known unknowns … there are also unknown unknowns.” But the Irish problem, says Mr. O’Toole, was none of the above. It was “unknown knowns.”

What he means is something different from denial, or evasion, irrational exuberance or excess optimism.

… Read the rest

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Worker-Owners of America, Unite!

By on December 16, 2011 in News 11

Gar Alperovitz chimes in on the re-evolutionary convergence of capitalism and socialism into a hybrid paradigm in a recent article in the NY Times:

The Occupy Wall Street protests have come and mostly gone, and whether they continue to have an impact or not, they have brought an astounding fact to the public’s attention: a mere 1 percent of Americans own just under half of the country’s financial assets and other investments. America, it would seem, is less equitable than ever, thanks to our no-holds-barred capitalist system.

But at another level, something different has been quietly brewing in recent decades: more and more Americans are involved in co-ops, worker-owned companies and other alternatives to the traditional capitalist model. We may, in fact, be moving toward a hybrid system, something different from both traditional capitalism and socialism, without anyone even noticing.

Some 130 million Americans, for example, now participate in the ownership of co-op businesses and credit unions.

… Read the rest

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The Bank Bailout Was Actually $8 Trillion

By on November 28, 2011 in News 49

largeAh, free-market capitalism — the economic system that works best, provided that one infuses $8 trillion to stave off total collapse. The Atlantic Wire writes:

Remember the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program with which the federal government came to the rescue of faltering banks in 2008? Well, according to a Bloomberg report, that was just a fraction of the financial help the Federal Reserve Bank wound up doling out to troubled lenders. The real total was reportedly closer to $8 trillion, after you add up benefits outside TARP, including emergency loans given at below-market rates:

The amount of money the central bank parceled out was surprising even to Gary H. Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1985 to 2009, who says he “wasn’t aware of the magnitude.” It dwarfed the Treasury Department’s better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S.

… Read the rest

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A Ron Paul Economy

By on October 18, 2011 in News 74

Ron PaulWhat would a Ron Paul economy look like? Suzy Khimm connects the dots for the Washington Post:

Ever wonder what Ron Paul’s America would look like? Then read the budget outline that Paul released as part of his 2012 presidential bid. It promises to cut $1 trillion during his first year in office, balance the budget by 2015, withdraw us from all foreign wars and eliminate five Cabinet-level agencies in the process. Economists across the political spectrum say the impact of such drastic government spending cuts would be majorly disruptive and harmful to the economy in the short term.

“At the scale he’s talking about, it’s unlikely you could have an immediate reduction in government without hurtling the economy into recession,” says Kevin Hassett, economic policy director for the American Enterprise Institute and chief economic adviser to John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. Hassett maintains that Paul’s plan for a limited government “would be really positive” in the long run.

… Read the rest

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We’re Facing Worst Financial Crisis Ever – Bank Of England

By on October 7, 2011 in News 9

When uber-establishment figures like Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England (UK central bank) warn of an impending financial apocalypse, you know things are out of control. The Telegraph has the bad news:

The world is facing the worst financial crisis since at least the 1930s “if not ever”, the Governor of the Bank of England said last night.

Sir Mervyn King was speaking after the decision by the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee to put £75billion of newly created money into the economy in a desperate effort to stave off a new credit crisis and a UK recession…

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Federal Regulators Sue Big Banks Over Mortgages

By on September 6, 2011 in News 3

resize_bank_of_america_signWill the Obama administration finally approach national banks with an iron fist? The New York Times reports:

A bruising legal fight pitting the country’s most powerful banks against the full force of the United States government began Friday, as federal regulators filed suits against 17 financial institutions that sold the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nearly $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities that later soured.

The suits are the latest legal salvo fired at the banks accusing them of misdeeds during the housing boom. Investors fled financial shares Friday amid growing concern that the litigation could last for years and undermine earnings and balance sheets in the process.

The complaints were filed just as the stock market closed Friday afternoon, but with word leaking out of the impending legal action during the trading session, shares of Bank of America fell more than 8.3 percent, while JPMorgan Chase dropped 4.6 percent and Goldman fell 4.5 percent.

… Read the rest

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Obama Readies Jobs Plan While The Right Plans To Scuttle It In A Country Facing Economic Apocalypse

By on September 4, 2011 in News 26

Labor Day New York 1882

New York, Labor Day Weekend 2011: The magic wand is being readied in the White House as the President and his minions finally unwrap the mother of all jobs plans that will be revealed to the rest of us in a speech next Thursday before the cameras and Congress with the gravitas-packed aura of a State of the Union Address.

Attention, collapsing Economy: you finally have the big man’s attention. Nearly 70 organizations are pressing the President to take strong action.

Please give him a break. He’s been busy tending Empire business — waging GWOT warfare on IraqAfghanistanLibyaYemenPakistanSomalia et al …

Call it the greatest “long war” in American history: an unending and unbelievably expensive intervention justified as necessary to keep us safe.

We can assume that contingency plans for new wars with Syria, Iran and the Republic of Wikileaks are being drafted as we speak.

The challenge this week is to bring together all of the Administration’s sophisticated strategic planning, disciplined focus and ‘get it done’ fervor finally to straighten out this out of control economic mess.… Read the rest

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