Something to think about. From Hesiod’s Works and Days:
Tag: Economic Crisis
Nov 15 2008
Who made the New Deal?
Original article, subtitled Lance Selfa recounts the history of an era that is still remembered for the important changes that benefited the working majority, via SocialistWorker.org:
COMPARISONS BETWEEN Barack Obama’s assumption of power and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s in 1933 have been many and varied.
Nov 11 2008
Layoffs mount, economic crisis deepens in the US
Original article, by Tom Eley, via World Socialist Web Site:
Monday brought a number of fresh indications-including mass layoffs, bankruptcies and negative labor market data-that the US is entering a deep economic crisis.
Nov 10 2008
A bailout for the auto industry?
Original article, a commentary subtitled Lee Sustar looks at the automakers’ demands for a taxpayer bailout–and what working people should demand in return, via SocialstWorker.org:
THE BUSH administration’s Wall Street bailout may be a prelude to a sweeping government intervention in the auto industry–even before Barack Obama takes office January 20.
Nov 08 2008
Europe’s growing wave of resistance to the crisis
Original article, a series of news reports, via Socialist Worker (UK):
Here’s the subtitle:
Across Europe there is a growing rebellion against attempts to make ordinary people pay for the economic crisis. Socialist Worker reports on the protests that have swept Greece, Italy and Germany in the past week
Oct 30 2008
Two good articles at Socialist Appeal (UK)!
The first, Top Economic Strategist warns of ‘Catastrophe and Revolution’ by Rob Sewell looks at warnings from a leading strategist of capitalism in the City:
We are facing the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Despite all the efforts to bail out the banking system, the economic crisis has only just started to bite. How deep or long the crisis will last is difficult to estimate, but given the financial house of cards built up in the last world boom, the capitalist system has entered unprecedented times, in which a depression cannot be ruled out.
Oct 29 2008
Capitalism is bankrupt
Original article, subtitled Their system creates recession, hunger and climate chaos, but they want you to pay, via Socialist Worker (UK):
Until A few weeks ago, supporters of free market capitalism were confident enough to proclaim that their system was the only way that the world could be organised. Now their certainties have vanished.
Oct 11 2008
World in Free Fall: Thanks George!
A number of economists predicted that the Iraq War would cause a financial crisis for the United States, even before it began.
In November of 2002, Yale University professor William Nordhaus was quoted in the Independent as warning that:
“A war in Iraq could cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars, play havoc with an already depressed economy and tip the world into recession because of the adverse effect on oil prices, inflation and interest rates.”
On the day that Bush began his bombing of Baghdad, a.k.a “Shock and Awe,” March 20, 2003, CBS Market Watch predicted that,
“If war with Iraq drags on longer than a few weeks or months most are predicting, corporate revenues will be flat for the coming year and will put the U.S. economy at risk of recession, according to a poll of chief financial officers.”
GWB & deregulation: a lethal cocktail. It has brought us to this point as only he can spend over $12,000,000,000 every month on democratizing Iraq. The rest of us will have to pay for the rest of our lives before our kids take over the debts, as will the next generation.
Cross-posted on the Big Orange & La Vida Locavore.
Oct 10 2008
Lessons of the 1990s recession in Japan
Original article, by Jared Wood and subtitled Is the US economy also heading for a ‘lost decade’?, via The Socialist (UK):
ECONOMISTS AND political leaders are looking to the recent economic history of Japan with growing fear. Japanese share prices are today 70% lower than at their 1989 peak, while property values are about 40% lower than they were in 1990. Economic (GDP) growth in the 1990s averaged less than 1% a year, leading economists to talk of the “lost decade”.
Oct 04 2008
On the Subject of Revolution
I posted a diary yesterday on the bailout for billionaires, which I adamantly oppose for reasons laid out in that diary. I was thoroughly pissed when I wrote it and some of my rhetoric became a bit heated (as my rhetoric sometimes will), and my meaning was misconstrued by some who read the piece. This is an effort to clarify.
Oct 01 2008
Market Bash: Command Line Economics and the Bastard Administration From Hell
Originally posted on ePluribus Media.
So, how’s your understanding of “geek” nowadays?
If you’ve a vague but functional sense of these terms and commands, you could probably have a lot of geeky fun:
cd us_fin_crisis | chown neotreasury | chmod -777 mrkt.values | finger taxpayers | exit >> /dev/null
If you don’t speak geek, here’s a handy reference guide.1
Systems Administrators, unix and linux gurus and other miscellaneous folks may take issue with my specific formatting and usage, but they’ll get the gist of it quickly.
If those of you tracking the financial markets noticed the rather interesting — and oddly unlucky — combination of the 777 point loss, you’ll begin to see why I made the connection. Another reason that I found it significant, passing through my old unix Systems Administration days, was the fond and not-so-fleeting memories of knowing — and sometimes being — a bastard systems administrator from hell.2
Sep 25 2008
The Next Financial Mess!!
Dealing in Debt!!
Everyone, almost, is in a complete Rage at what is happening, and has been allowed to happen by not only soft regulation but the ease on any regulation in the Banking Industry, Morgage Industry, Wall Street, and in a Rage you should be.
But want a better picture of the who got us here any why, leave your computer and go to the nearest mirror and take a Good Hard Long Look at the reflection coming back, Yep Folks, it’s most of you, and the rest of the shit hasn’t yet hit the fan, but it’s quickly coming!
Remember the clowns you hire to represent you in Washington, and local and state, are your clowns, you pay them.