‘Unless, Paul Mason argues, we take advantage of the technological revolution we are living through and create a postcapitalist sharing society. If we let prices fall and delink work from wages, we can save the world from disaster.’
Tag: Capitalism
Donald Trump: Performance Artist or Closet Anarchist?
BAIER: [….] And you said recently, quote, “When you give [money], they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”
TRUMP: You’d better believe it.
BAIER: — they do?
TRUMP: If I ask them, if I need them, you know, most of the people on this stage I’ve given to, just so you understand, a lot of money.
TRUMP: I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people, before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me. And that’s a broken system.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you get from Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi?
TRUMP: Well, I’ll tell you what, with Hillary Clinton, I said be at my wedding and she came to my wedding. You know why?
She didn’t have a choice because I gave. I gave to a foundation that, frankly, that foundation is supposed to do good. I didn’t know her money would be used on private jets going all over the world. It was.
BAIER: Hold on…..We’re going to — we’re going to move on.”
Source: Trump’s Triumph: Billionaire Blowhard Exposes Fake Political System
Video starts at 1min 57secs…
Yanis Varoufakis and Brecht’s Threepenny Opera
Stern.de: You talk as if you were in the midst of warfare.
Varoufakis: It was a war. A financial war. Nowadays you don’t need tanks to defeat someone. You have your banks. It’s a bit like in Brecht’s ‘Threepenny Novel’ where it says: “The days of crude violence are over. You no longer have to send out murderers if you can simply send a bailiff.”
via Yanis Varoufakis: "They bury the values of democracy" – Ausland | STERN.de.
https://youtu.be/bl1HLS9DWXI?t=1h15m54s
Remember when debt relief was political?
It always has been political.
New York Times March 1991:‘Western governments have agreed to forgive about half the $33 billion that Poland owes them…’
via POLAND IS GRANTED LARGE CUT IN DEBT – NYTimes.com.
The International Monetary Fund Says Trickle-Down Economics Doesn’t Work
It is a testament to the power of global state ideology and its media system that this paragraph’s contents are not more widely known – especially considering the source!
‘…"If the income share of the top 20% (the rich) increases, then GDP growth actually declines over the medium term, suggesting that the benefits do not trickle down. In contrast, an increase in the income share of the bottom 20% (the poor) is associated with higher GDP growth," the report says.
The paper looks at 159 advanced and developing economies between 1980 and 2012, investigating how income is distributed in each society and its level of national growth. It finds that when the income share of the top 20% increases 1%, economic growth is then down 0.08% in the following five years. At the same time, a 1% increase for the bottom 20% leads to increased GDP of 0.38% in the following years…’
via The International Monetary Fund Says Trickle-Down Economics Don't Work | Co.Exist | ideas + impact.
An Open Letter From Thomas Piketty to Angela Merkel – Austerity Has Failed
In the 1950s, Europe was founded on the forgiveness of past debts, notably Germany’s, which generated a massive contribution to post-war economic growth and peace. Today we need to restructure and reduce Greek debt, give the economy breathing room to recover, and allow Greece to pay off a reduced burden of debt over a long period of time. Now is the time for a humane rethink of the punitive and failed program of austerity of recent years and to agree to a major reduction of Greece’s debts in conjunction with much needed reforms in Greece.
To Chancellor Merkel our message is clear; we urge you to take this vital action of leadership for Greece and Germany, and also for the world. History will remember you for your actions this week. We expect and count on you to provide the bold and generous steps towards Greece that will serve Europe for generations to come.
via Austerity Has Failed: An Open Letter From Thomas Piketty to Angela Merkel | The Nation.
Eric Holder’s Revolving Door of Legal Corruption
This is why his Justice Department coordinated repression against the Occupy Movement and he is now being rewarded for it.
‘[Obama’s U.S. Attorney General (Min. of Justice) Eric] Holder also did a great deal to protect big banks during his tenure at the Department of Justice.
As journalist Lee Fang pointed out in the Intercept on Monday, “The Department of Justice under Holder not only failed to pursue criminal prosecutions of the banks responsible for the mortage meltdown, but in fact de-prioritized investigations of mortgage fraud, making it the ‘lowest-ranked criminal threat,’ according to an inspector general report.”
Moreover, Holder is famous for his ethos and phrase: big banks are “too big to jail.”…’
via After 6-Year Tenure Not Prosecuting Banks, Eric Holder Returns 'Home' to Defend Them | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.
The diplomatic beatings administered to Syriza
Aditya Chakrabortty writes…
‘…The diplomatic beatings administered to Syriza since it came to power this year can only be seen as Europe trying to set an example to any Spanish voters who might be tempted to support its sister movement Podemos. Go too far left, runs the message, and you’ll get the same treatment.
Whatever the founding ideals of the eurozone, they don’t match up to the grim reality in 2015. This is Thatcher’s revolution, or Reagan’s – but now on a continental scale. And as then, it is accompanied by the idea that There Is No Alternative either to running an economy, or even to which kind of government voters get to choose.
The fact that this entire show is being brought in by agreeable-looking Wise Folk often claiming to be social democratic doesn’t render the project any nicer or gentler. It just lends the entire thing a nasty tang of hypocrisy.
via Greece is a sideshow. The eurozone has failed, and Germans are its victims too | Aditya Chakrabortty | Comment is free | The Guardian.
Tavis Smiley Interviews Chris Hedges (June 8, 2015)
https://youtu.be/ANxy9KGO2iQ
‘Chris Hedges describes how the media’s inability to do its job has weakened our democracy, and why the public’s loss of faith in traditional mechanisms of power has placed us on the brink of revolution.’
via The Tavis Smiley Show on PBS — Interview with Chris Hedges | June 8, 2015 – YouTube.
Goldman Sachs restricts workday to 17 hours a day
Go home before midnight, and don’t come back before 7am. Goldman Sachs – one of Wall Street’s toughest firms – has told interns they have got to work hard, but not too hard.
The new rules, introduced for this summer’s crop of investment banking interns, have been introduced “to improve the overall work experience of our interns”, a Goldman Sachs spokesman said. All of its summer interns across the world were informed of the new working hours rule on their first day in the office earlier this month.
Wall Street’s shift to caring capitalism comes in the wake of the death of a 21-year-old Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern who had regularly pulled all-nighters in a desperate bid to impress his bosses.
Moritz Erhardt was found dead in the shower at his London accommodation after working 72 hours straight. An inquest found he died of an epileptic seizure that could have been a triggered by his long working hours.
via Goldman Sachs restricts intern workday to 17 hours in wake of burnout death | Business | The Guardian.
Goldman Sachs only wants for their own employees what they also impose on entire nations…
Euronews video: 2011
Walmart hid $76bn of assets in foreign tax havens #LuxLeaks
‘…Walmart hid $76bn of assets in tax havens across the world, including $64.2bn managed by 22 different subsidiaries in Luxembourg, where Walmart has no stores, according to a study published on Wednesday.
The study, published by campaign group Americans for Tax Fairness and funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, alleged that Walmart has “kept its tax haven subsidiaries secretive by burying mention of their existence”. Walmart denied the claims.
[….] According to the report, since 2011 Walmart has transferred ownership of its stores in Brazil, Japan, Puerto Rico and South Africa to Luxembourg. It claims that Walmart’s Luxembourg operations paid less than 1% in tax on profits of more than $1.3bn between 2010 and 2013…‘
via Walmart hid $76bn of assets in foreign tax havens, new study claims | Business | The Guardian.
Obama at Nike HQ says ‘Just do it!’
Naomi Klein couldn’t even make a joke this sad…
‘…Obama tried to turn the focus away from potential job losses in the US to the potential to grow US exports. The president warned that the US must lead in trade negotiations. “If we don’t write the rules for trade around the world, guess what? China will,” Obama said. “And they’ll write those rules in a way that gives Chinese workers and Chinese businesses the upper hand.”
But apart from providing an apposite corporate slogan for the measure’s passage – “Just do it” – choosing Nike as a location didn’t quite reinforce his message….’
via Obama at Nike headquarters: why push trade deal at an outsourcing giant? | US news | The Guardian.
WikiLeaks leaks 17 secret documents of the ‘Trade in Services Agreement’
If it were not for Wikileaks would have anyone ever heard of TISA?? Short answer: No.
Thank you Julian Assange
WikiLeaks releases today 17 secret documents from the ongoing TISA (Trade In Services Agreement) negotiations which cover the United States, the European Union and 23 other countries including Turkey, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Pakistan, Taiwan & Israel — which together comprise two-thirds of global GDP. "Services" now account for nearly 80 per cent of the US and EU economies and even in developing countries like Pakistan account for 53 per cent of the economy. While the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has become well known in recent months in the United States, the TISA is the larger component of the strategic TPP-TISA-TTIP ‘T-treaty trinity’. All parts of the trinity notably exclude the ‘BRICS’ countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
via WikiLeaks – Trade in Services Agreement.
Video: WikiLeaks to offer $100,000 bounty for missing TPP trade treaty chapters
Today WikiLeaks has launched a campaign to crowd-source a $100,000 reward for America’s Most Wanted Secret: the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).
more info: https://wikileaks.org/WikiLeaks-issues-call-for-100-000.html
Global Capitalism means no transparency or real democracy
Representative Democracy is not compatible with Global Capitalism, apparently.
‘…Australian politicians have been told they can view the current confidential negotiating text for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, but only if they agree not to divulge anything they see for four years, despite expectations the deal could be finalised within months.[….]
The requirements listed were as follows:
“I will not divulge any of the text or information obtained in the briefing to any party, I will not copy, transcribe or remove the negotiating text” and “I further acknowledge that the negotiating text is confidential and sensitive; disclosure of the negotiating text may affect adversely TPP negotiations and Australia’s relations with other TPP partners.”
It concluded: “I therefore agree that these confidentiality requirements shall apply for four years after entry into force of the TPP, or if no agreement enters into force, for four years after the last round of negotiations.”…’
via Australian MPs allowed to see top-secret trade deal text but can't reveal contents for four years | Business | The Guardian.
Shell Oil tried to stop Science Museum climate program
‘…Shell tried to influence the presentation of a climate change programme it was sponsoring at the Science Museum in London, internal documents seen by the Guardian show.
The Anglo-Dutch oil group raised concerns with the museum that one part of the project “creates an opportunity for NGOs to talk about some of the issues that concern them around Shell’s operations”.
The company also wanted to know whether a particular symposium at the museum was “invite only” – as that would ensure “we do not proactively open up a debate on the topic [of Shell’s operations]”.
The concerns are raised in a series of emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and once again raise awkward questions about the influence of fossil fuel companies over Britain’s most valued cultural institutions….’
via Shell sought to influence direction of Science Museum climate programme | Business | The Guardian.
US Food Stamps Offer Best Economic Stimulus
Of course, the elite economists already know this – but who pays their salaries?
CNN.com / January 29 2008: ‘…The industry research firm Moody’s Economy.com tracked the potential impact of each stimulus dollar, looking at tax rebates, tax incentives for business, food stamps and expanding unemployment benefits.
The report found that "some provide a lot of bang for the buck to the economy. Others … don’t," said economist Mark Zandi.
In findings echoed by other economists and studies, he said the study shows the fastest way to infuse money into the economy is through expanding the food-stamp program. For every dollar spent on that program $1.73 is generated throughout the economy, he said.
[….] Finally, Moody’s report says business incentives such as tax breaks for buying new equipment – so-called accelerated depreciation – would give the least bang for the buck and potentially provide the slowest infusion of money. A dollar spent there would generate only 33 cents in the economy because, Zandi said, it takes longer for businesses to implement any benefit received….’
via Food stamps offer best stimulus – study – Jan. 29, 2008.
A Majority of US Public School Students Live in Poverty
I have no doubt that this is true, but how can this be true? WTF happened, America??!
‘Released by the Southern Education Foundation, the new analysis (pdf) used the most recent national census figures available to confirm that 51 percent of the students across the nation’s public schools were low income in 2013. According to the report’:
‘In 40 of the 50 states, low income students comprised no less than 40 percent of all public schoolchildren. In 21 states, children eligible for free or reduced-price lunches were a majority of the students in 2013.
Most of the states with a majority of low income students are found in the South and the West. Thirteen of the 21 states with a majority of low income students in 2013 were located in the South, and six of the other 21 states were in the West.
Mississippi led the nation with the highest rate: 71 percent, almost three out of every four public school children in Mississippi, were low-income. The nation’s second highest rate was found in New Mexico, where 68 percent of all public school students were low income in 2013.’
via ‘A Nation in Decline’: Majority of US Public School Students Live in Poverty | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.
V Is for Varoufakis — His family’s history
‘… Yanis Varoufakis traces his political consciousness to his childhood in “the junta era” — the years when Greece was ruled by dictatorship. “It was very hard to avoid being political,” he said. “It was all around you.” His father, he said, was raised as “a liberal enlightenment person, not a left winger,” but when he immigrated to Greece from Cairo in the late 1940s, the royalist-communist civil war was underway. One day, the police roughed him up but said they would release him if he signed a denunciation of communism. “He said, ‘Look I am not a Buddhist, but I would never sign a denunciation of Buddhism,’ ” Varoufakis said. “He read Rousseau at 13 years old, and he knew about civil liberties.” He ended up in a concentration camp with communists — and joined the Communist Party, which made finding work nearly impossible. Eventually, he got a low-paying job as a personal assistant to the owner of a steel company, and today, at age 90, he is its chairman. Varoufakis’s mother, a biochemist, made “a pittance,” he said, because she was a woman. She became involved in the feminist movement in the 1970s. Varoufakis was also a political activist from a young age. When he began his career as an academic at the University of Essex, he said, his slogan became “subvert the dominant paradigm,” which some of his students later put on a T-shirt.
Varoufakis left England in 1988 to teach at the University of Sydney, where he began a series of conversations about the global economy with the economist Joseph Halevi, the two of them among academics in their field who contested the notion then popular that the world had entered a new phase of “perpetual growth,” what the former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke called the “great moderation.” After the crash, Varoufakis decided to put those ideas into a book for a popular audience titled, “The Global Minotaur,” which presented the world, and Europe, as perilously yoked to the fluctuations of the American economy. When the crisis finally reached Greece, Varoufakis began working with the British economist Stuart Holland and, later, the American economist James Galbraith, on a pamphlet titled, “A Modest Proposal,” which identified four major crises in Europe — in banking, public debt, underinvestment and social welfare — and proposed solutions to each. “Europe is fragmenting,” they wrote. “As this happens, human costs mount, and disintegration becomes an increasing threat. . . . The fallout from a eurozone breakup would destroy the European Union, except perhaps in name. And Europe’s fragmentation poses a global danger.”
via A Finance Minister Fit for a Greek Tragedy? – NYTimes.com.
read ‘A Modest Proposal’ @ http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/euro-crisis/modest-proposal/
Cartoon Video: Obama is anti-Transparency when it has to do with ‘Free Trade’
‘Mark Fiore weighs in on the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership in his latest animation, “Obama Trades Transparency.” Watch the cartoon and read about the animator’s ideas on the trade deal below.’
via Truthdig.com
Five Big Banks Plead Guilty to Felony Charges, but No Real Punishment
‘For most people, pleading guilty to a felony means they will very likely land in prison, lose their job and forfeit their right to vote.
But when five of the world’s biggest banks plead guilty to an array of antitrust and fraud charges as soon as next week, life will go on, probably without much of a hiccup.
The Justice Department is preparing to announce that Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and the Royal Bank of Scotland will collectively pay several billion dollars and plead guilty to criminal antitrust violations for rigging the price of foreign currencies…’
via 5 Big Banks Expected to Plead Guilty to Felony Charges, but Punishments May Be Tempered – NYTimes.com.
Goodbye LieberLand #StupidLibertarians
perhaps he can use his bitcoins to bail himself out?
#StupidLibertarians
On Saturday, less than a month after Czech activist Vit Jedlicka declared himself president of a patch of land between Serbia and Croatia, and named it Lieberland, he was shortly detained by Croatian border police. Police from Serbia and Croatia have tried to prevent several people entering Lieberland.
Croatian police arrest ‘president’ of Lieberland
Libertarian Paradise 4EVAR…
The history of Hillary’s love of Bankers
Hillary Clinton is, of course, not her husband. But her access to his past banker alliances, amplified by the ones that she has formed herself, makes her more of a friend than an adversary to the banking industry. In her brief 2008 candidacy, all four of the New York-based Big Six banks ranked among her top 10 corporate donors. They have also contributed to the Clinton Foundation. She needs them to win, just as both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton did.
No matter what spin is used for campaigning purposes, the idea that a critical distance can be maintained between the White House and Wall Street is naïve given the multiple channels of money and favors that flow between the two. It is even more improbable, given the history of connections that Hillary Clinton has established through her associations with key bank leaders in the early 1990s, during her time as a senator from New York, and given their contributions to the Clinton foundation while she was secretary of state. At some level, the situation couldn’t be less complicated: her path aligns with that of the country’s most powerful bankers. If she becomes president, that will remain the case.
via ;The Clintons and Their Banker Friends, 1992-2016 – Truthdig.
Representative Parliamentary ‘Democracy is a religion that has failed the poor’
Giles Fraser writes about this week’s UK election:
‘…What difference did my vote make? Why indeed do people vote, and care so passionately about voting, particularly in constituencies in which voting one way or the other won’t make a blind bit of difference? And why do the poor vote when, by voting, they merely give legitimacy to a system that connives with their oppression and alienation? The anthropologist Mukulika Banerjee suggests a fascinating answer: elections are like religious rituals, often devoid of rational purpose or efficacy for the individual participant, but full of symbolic meaning. They are the nearest thing the secular has to the sacred, presenting a moment of empowerment.But is this empowerment illusory? Is, as Banerjee asks, “the ability to vote … a necessary safety valve which allows for the airing of popular disaffection, but which nevertheless ultimately restores the status quo. In such a reading, elections require the complicity of all participants in a deliberate mis-recognition of the emptiness of its procedures and the lack of any significant changes which this ritual brings about, but are a necessary charade to mollify a restless electorate.”…’
via Democracy is a religion that has failed the poor | Giles Fraser | Comment is free | The Guardian.
Noam Chomsky speaking to Chris Hedges about America today…
Noam Chomsky speaking to Chris Hedges about America today…
“I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime,” Chomsky added. “I am old enough to remember the 1930s. My whole family was unemployed. There were far more desperate conditions than today. But it was hopeful. People had hope. The CIO was organizing. No one wants to say it anymore but the Communist Party was the spearhead for labor and civil rights organizing. Even things like giving my unemployed seamstress aunt a week in the country. It was a life. There is nothing like that now. The mood of the country is frightening. The level of anger, frustration and hatred of institutions is not organized in a constructive way. It is going off into self-destructive fantasies.”
“I listen to talk radio,” Chomsky said. “I don’t want to hear Rush Limbaugh. I want to hear the people calling in. They are like [suicide pilot] Joe Stack. What is happening to me? I have done all the right things. I am a God-fearing Christian. I work hard for my family. I have a gun. I believe in the values of the country and my life is collapsing.”
via Chris Hedges: Noam Chomsky Has ‘Never Seen Anything Like This’ – Chris Hedges – Truthdig.