NewsTrust - Global Economy - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

Romney Embraces Growth, Leaving Austerity To Europe

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jon Ward - May. 19 (Opinion) - Austerity is out. Growth is in. And Mitt Romney's campaign has taken notice. Politicians in Europe and in President Barack Obama's administration can't get enough of the G word these days. "Growth must be a priority, at the same time as we put in place some fiscal compact to improve our finances," said the new French President Francois Hollande, during a visit with Obama in the Oval Office on Friday.

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Paul Krugman on Eurozone: "The Whole Thing Could Fall Apart in a Matter of Months"

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Paul Krugman, Amy Goodman - May. 17 (Interview) - The European economic crisis is expected to top the agenda at the G8 meeting tomorrow at Camp David. In Greece, voters will soon head to the polls for another round of elections which will be viewed by many as a referendum on the Euro. Our guest today, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, warns the current bank run in Greece could spiral into the end of the Eurozone. "It is really quite shocking,” Krugman says. “I hate to sound apocalyptic.” Meanwhile, France's new finance minister has reiterated that the country's new socialist government will not ratify the European Union's fiscal pact calling for greater austerity. [Transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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What You've Heard About Greece Is Not True

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Richard Parker: - May. 17 (Comment) - You've probably come across reports that the Greeks are feckless tax evading...

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Austerity is Sinking Economies from Europe to U.S.

Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, William Black - May. 15 (Interview) - White-collar criminologist and former senior financial regulator William Black addresses the grassroots reaction to austerity measures in Europe -- from the "Indignados" movement in Spain to the anti-bailout elections in France and Greece -- as well as in the United States, where the Occupy movement is re-emerging as the presidential campaign gets into full gear. "Finance is supposed to simply be a middleman to help the real economy," Black says. "It in fact now completely dominates and is a parasite on the real economy. German austerity has pushed the entire eurozone into recession and the periphery into Great Depression-level unemployment. And the same arguments are being made in the United States and are used as a pretext to try to destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It is economically illiterate, but politically attractive." [includes rush transcript]

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Austerity Is So Wrong!

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Daily Beast - By Paul Krugman - May. 06 (Opinion) - In a new book, End This Depression Now!, Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman says the current economic problems can be fixed both more easily and more quickly than anyone imagines. But politicians’ desire to slash spending is deeply destructive, and he details why austerity is so appealing even to Very Serious People—and why it’s such a bad idea.

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Noam Chomsky on America's Economic Suicide

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - May. 05 (Interview) - The US and Europe are committing suicide in different ways. In Europe it’s austerity in the midst of recession and that’s guaranteed to be a disaster. There’s some resistance to that now. In the US, it’s essentially off-shoring production and financialization and getting rid of superfluous population through incarceration.

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Capitalism's Dirty Secret: Corporations Don't Create Jobs, They Destroy Them

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Lynn Parramore - Apr. 03 (Opinion) - For the last four decades, U.S. corporations have been sinking our economy through the off-shoring of jobs, the squeezing of wages, and a magician’s hat full of bluffs and tricks designed to extort subsidies and sweetheart deals from local and state governments that often result in mass layoffs and empty treasuries.

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Punk Economics: Lesson 3

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

YouTube - By David McWilliams - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - Irish Economist David McWilliams discusses the dangers of playing games with liquidity, in Lesson 3.

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World Bank Nominee Tied to Monsanto Shareholder Bill Gates, Soros

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - By Tim McCoy - Mar. 28 (Opinion) - Obama nominated Dartmouth University president Jim Yong Kim, M.D. to head the United Nations World Bank. Most people think that UN agencies benefit poor people, but this is far from the truth.

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Mike Daisey: Reports of my Death have been Greatly Exaggerated

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

mikedaisey.blogspot.com - By Mike Daisey - Mar. 20 (Opinion) - In the last forty-eight hours I have been equated with Stephen Glass, James Frey, and Greg Mortenson. Given the tenor of the condemnation, you would think I had concocted an elaborate, fanciful universe filled with furnaces in which babies are burned to make iPhone components, or that I never went to China, never stood outside the gates of Foxconn, never pretended to be a businessman to get inside of factories, never spoke to any workers. Especially galling is how many are gleefully eager to dance on my grave expressly so they can return to ignoring everything about the circumstances under which their devices are made. Given the tone, you would think I had fabulated an elaborate hoax, filled with astonishing horrors that no one had ever seen before. Except that we all know that isn’t true.

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TED: Paul Gilding: The Earth is full - Paul Gilding (2012)

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

TED - Mar. 01 (Advocacy) - Have we used up all our resources? Have we filled up all the livable space on Earth? Paul Gilding suggests we have, and the possibility of devastating consequences, in a talk that's equal parts terrifying and, oddly, hopeful. Paul is an independent write

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As Romney Releases Tax Returns, Fmr Senate Investigator Says: We've Got To Start Taxing Corporations

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jan. 24 (Interview) - tax evasion could seriously cripple the already struggling economy. Blum appears in "We’re Not Broke," a documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film examines widespread corporate tax evasion in the United States and the increasing role of offshore tax havens. "Has [Romney] cheated? No," Blum says. "What he’s done is take full advantage of a system that has been structured the way it is because of political influence and a tremendous amount of lobbying money on Capitol Hill...

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How, Exactly, Does Trade Bring Prosperity?

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Stan Sorscher - Jan. 11 (Opinion) - I work for a labor union in the aerospace industry. We are 100% in favor of trade. We make products the rest of the world wants to buy. With increased trade we expect more prosperity. Instead, we see the American economy de-industrializing and job security at historic lows. So, what's going wrong?

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Ex-Greek PM George Papandreou on Greece's Fiscal Crisis and Why He Backs Occupy Movement

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 09 (Interview) - In an exclusive interview, we speak with former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, who is attending the U.N. climate change summit in Durban, South Africa. Papandreou was forced to resign last month when he suggested holding a national referendum to allow the Greek people to have a say in whether they would accept the European Union’s bailout plan which would necessitate severe austerity cuts. We speak to Papandreou about the financial crisis, the role of banks and the importance of the growing Occupy Wall Street movement. "The Occupy Wall Street movements ... are saying something very, very specific. That inequality in the end is an inequality of power. And we need to redistribute power, not just money. Power –– and this is I think the Democratic challenge that we have today," Papandreou says. [Rush transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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Mohamed A. El-Erian: Prepare for a Different Financial Landscape

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Mohamed A. El-Erian - Dec. 05 - With the European crisis continuing to dominate the news, many people now realize that today's global economy faces an unusually uncertain outlook.

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Special Investigation: Who’s Behind the “Information Attacks” on Climate Scientists?

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Think Progress - By Climate Guest Blogger - Nov. 01 (Opinion) - by Sue Sturgis, in an Institute for Southern Studies repost This week, in a courtroom in Prince William County, Virginia, a hearing will take place that could have implications for the privacy rights of scientists at colleges and universities across the country. It’s part of a lawsuit brought by the American Tradition Institute, a free-market [...]

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Worker Ownership Cooperatives Are Our Way Out of This Mess

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Op Ed News - By Michael Cheverie Dewey - Oct. 21 (Opinion) - I first heard of the Mondragon Cooprative of the Basque in Spain, back in 1994. My Mom had been telling m the Family History of the Cheveries who are Basque. The French had kicked the Cheverie's out of France. We ended up on Prince Edward Island. The English tried to kick us out of there. My Ancesters went andn hid in the woods for 15 yars and had lots of kids. I told my Mom, ''I want to know what they are doing now?'' 2 weeks latter she showed me an Article in the Catholic Digest, about Mondragon's Worker Ownership.

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How Christian Fundamentalism Helped Empower the Top 1% to Exploit the 99% | Occupy Wall Street

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - Oct. 15 (Opinion) - As the Occupy Wall street movement spreads across the country and the world, we must bring attention to the enablers of the top 1 percent exploiting the 99. Fundamentalist religion made this exploitation possible. Evangelical fundamentalism helped empower the top 1 percent. Note I didn't say religion per se, but religious fundamentalism. Why? Because without the fundamentalists and their "values" issues, many in the lower 99 percent could not have been convinced to vote against their (our) economic self-interest; in other words, vote for Republicans who only serve billionaires. Wall Street is a great target for long-overdue protest, but so are the centers of religious power that are the gatekeepers of Republican Party "values" voters that make the continuing economic exploitation possible.

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An Open Letter to Wall Street

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

truth-out.org - By William Rivers Pitt - Oct. 04 (Editorial) - ...Really, why don't they just go home? Don't these people have jobs? I hate to be the Irony Police, but that's pretty much the whole point. They can't, and they don't. Have homes and jobs, I mean.

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Paul Krugman: 50 Percent Chance Global Economy Will Enter Recession

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Harry Bradford - Sep. 09 (Interview) - Even though Obama's jobs plan is "bolder and better" than Paul Krugman expected, the Nobel-Prize winning economist still told Bloomberg Television on Friday that it might not be enough to stave off global recession. The risk of global recession is "quite high, maybe 50 percent," Krugman told Bloomberg. He added: "The risk of something that feels like a recession is much higher than that. My central belief is that we're likely to have higher unemployment a year from now than we do today." Krugman said that while Obama's plan "could make a noticeable difference to the economy," Republican opposition to the President's proposal, on top of the euro zone crisis, still makes recession a substantial possibility.

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Obama's "21st Century Trade Deals" Look a Lot Like the Same Bad Policies He Campaigned Against

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Timothy A. Wise, Kevin Gallagher, Comment Is Free - Sep. 09 - Starting this week in Chicago, the US will be hosting the first major trade negotiations since the "Battle in Seattle" World Trade Organisation talks came here in 1999.

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The Economy Is Doomed Says Charles R. Morris

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 09:01:10 -0700

The Daily Beast - By Charles R. Morris - Aug. 11 (Opinion) - Over the last few days, global markets have been surging and collapsing like a teeny-bopper’s hormones. The Monday swoon was precipitated by the downgrading of the U.S. credit rating by one of the major credit agencies, while the Tuesday resurrection was in reaction to Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s promise to keep interest rates near zero in perpetuity if necessary. Neither of those was a real event. Treasury risk premiums fell after the credit action, and American banks and corporations are already sitting on some $3 trillion in cash that they can’t spend. More free money won’t change anything. Gloom descended again on Wednesday, this time because of credit worries in Europe, which is at least a real problem. A deeper reason for the high market anxiety, however, is the sad state of financial governance in both Europe and the United States. The paralyzing standoff between the two major American parties was dramatized by the idiocies of the debt-ceiling debate. President Obama’s Monday speech only added to the nervousness by underscoring how far apart the parties were.

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Slouching Toward a Double-Dip, for No Good Reason

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Robert Reich - Aug. 08 (Opinion) - Imagine your house is burning. You call the fire department but your call isn't answered because every fire fighter in town is debating whether there will be enough water to fight fires over the next ten years, even though water is plentiful right now. (Yes, there's a long-term problem.) One faction won't even allow the fire trucks out of the garage unless everyone agrees to cut water use. An agency that rates fire departments has just issued a downgrade, causing everyone to hoard water. While all this squabbling continues, your house burns to the ground and the fire has now spread to your neighbors' homes. But because everyone is preoccupied with the wrong question (the long-term water supply) and the wrong solution (saving water now), there's no response. In the end, the town comes up with a plan for the water supply over the next decade, but it's irrelevant because the whole town has been turned to ashes.

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Framing the Climate Justice Story

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

resistinc.org - By Patrick Reinsborough - Jul. 01 (Opinion) - As movements around the planet mobilize to counter the effects of climate destabilization on their communities, cultures and ecosystems, a framing battle of global significance is underway. In the climate fight, as with so many other struggles, the heart of the framing battle is naming the problem, since how we define the problem determines what solutions are possible.

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Climate Change: Crisis and Challenge

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

resistinc.org - By Orin Langelle, Anne Petermann - Jul. 01 (Opinion) - There is no better example of the interconnection of the root causes of social injustice, ecological destruction and economic domination than climate change. Climate change may well be humanity’s greatest challenge. It is a crisis that must be rapidly addressed if catastrophe is to be averted.

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