The Top 10% Versus the Bottom 50%
Category: Capitalism
US Congress plots to save dollar dominance amid global de-dollarization rebellion
Wednesday, 28 June 2023 — Geopolitical Economy Report
The US Congress held a hearing titled “Dollar Dominance: Preserving the U.S. Dollar’s Status as the Global Reserve Currency”, as countries around the world join the de-dollarization rebellion.
The US Congress held a hearing to discuss the growing international movement toward de-dollarization.
Numerous lawmakers expressed concern over what they referred to as mounting
“threats” to the “supremacy” of the dollar, warning that China and Russia are challenging the US-dominated international financial system.
Why 3 US banks collapsed in 1 week: Economist Michael Hudson explains
Wednesday, 15 March 2023 — Geopolitical Economy Report
Economist Michael Hudson analyzes the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate, and Signature Bank, explaining the similarities to the 2008 financial crash and the US government bailout.
Economist Michael Hudson analyzes the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate, and Signature Bank, explaining the similarities to the 2008 financial crash. [inc. transcript.]
Michael Hudson: Why the US banking system is breaking up
Sunday, 12 March 2023 — Geopolitical Economy Report
Economist Michael Hudson responds to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, and explains the similarities with the 2008 financial crash and the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s.
A run on American Union Bank in 1932
The California-based, cryptocurrency-focused Silvergate Bank collapsed on March 8. Two days later, Silicon Valley Bank went down as well, in the largest ever bank run. The latter was the second-biggest bank to fail in US history, and the most influential financial institution to crash since the 2008 crisis.
Economist Michael Hudson, co-host of the program Geopolitical Economy Hour, analyzes the disaster:
Arguments Against Despair
Thursday, 9 March 2023 — Media Lens
Eliot Jacobson is a retired professor of mathematics and computer science who regularly appears on our Twitter feed discussing the climate crisis. He sends tweets under the grim title, ‘Your “moment of doom” for the day’. These channel the latest news on rapidly rising carbon emissions and temperatures, catastrophic examples of extreme weather, and so on. It’s depressing fare, and Jacobson is candid about the level of anguish he feels:
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Radhika Desai & Michael Hudson: rise of US dollar imperialism
Saturday, 25 February 2023 — Global South
The rise of US dollar imperialism, and why it failed – with Radhika Desai & Michael Hudson
Economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson explain the relations between money and debt, their role in imperialism, and the rise of the US dollar system.
Transcript from https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/02/10/money-dollar-system-radhika-desai-michael-hudson/:
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The West-loving liberals slowly squeezed out of non-European Eurasia?
Tuesday, 16 February 2023 — Geopolitics And Climate Change
In many nations of the non-West there has been/is a dangerously Western liberally enamoured part of the elite, and even of the general population, that would be more than happy to act as the compradors or Quislings of the Western elites. Living a very comfortable life while selling out their nations and general populations. Many are connected to the NGO-complex that acts as a Western-paid opposition, and may be more a member of a nation’s diaspora than have grown up within their home country’s political, economic and social milieu, or are simply the rich that would love to monetize their assets in US dollars and hob nob with the global Western elite across the world. In the parts of Eurasia outside the US-captured Europe, these West-loving liberals are slowly being squeezed out.
Manifesto for an Ecosocial Energy Transition
Sunday, 12 February 2023 — Climate & Capitalism
An appeal to leaders, institutions, and our brothers and sisters, from the Ecosocial and Intercultural Pact of the South.
On February 10, a collective of movements, civil society organizations, activist groups and their partners launched this Manifesto. A collective effort of dozens of groups and individuals in the Global South, the manifesto outlines the shortcomings of the status quo, “clean energy” approach of the richer countries of the Global North to the transition away from fossil fuels. It also offers new visions of ecosocial transition and transformation that are gender-just, regenerative, and popular, that are at once local and international.
Profiteering from Death
Monday, 6 February 2023 — Craig Murray
How much of Shell’s record US $40 billion profit was due to the Ukraine war and freezing Russia out of the market?
If you apply the “excess deaths” methodology we became familiar with during covid, comparing profit against a running average of the previous five years, we get a figure of about $25 billion “excess profit”.
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, February 2023
Wednesday, 8 February 2023 — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
Reading matter that really matters. Seven new books on how the world works, from cells to imperialism
Ecosocialist Bookshelf is a monthly column, hosted by Ian Angus. Books described here may be reviewed at length in future. Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement, or that C&C agrees with everything (or even anything!) these books say.
Keynes and the left
Tuesday, 7 February 2023 — Michael Roberts Blog
“The theories of John Maynard Keynes provide the sound intellectual framework for the views which trade unionists had always instinctively held and known to be right” (TUC, 1968, p. 85)
The ideas and theories of John Maynard Keynes still dominate the economic views and policy proposals of the leaders of the labour movement in the major capitalist economies. Keynes is seen as offering a ‘third way’ between the pro-capitalist ‘free market’ economics that dominates the universities (and among the strategic advisers of government) and the opposite of dangerously revolutionary Marxian economics. Keynes argued that, with a judicious range of policy measures, capitalism can be made to work better and can be managed so that it meets the needs of the many, without disrupting the social structure of society.
Nestlé’s Blatant Misconduct Shows Us the Darkness of Capitalism
Tuesday, 7 February 2023 — CoverAction Magazine
[Source: boucherie-abolition.com]
From inventing the need for mass-scale baby formula leading to the deaths of infants, to redirecting much needed water from impoverished areas to bottle and sell back to the same communities, to exploiting child labor and slavery, Nestlé will stoop to any moral low to make a buck.
[This article inaugurates Ms. Gjovik’s new column for CovertAction Magazine spotlighting the abuses of U.S. multinational corporations worldwide.—Editors]
‘End Stage Capitalism’: Collapsing Britain And The Climate Crisis
Thursday, 26 January 2023 — Media Lens
People in power get nervous when the population’s trust in national institutions plummets. It has often been a precursor of significant social unrest, even revolutions.
90% of world’s people to face combined extreme heat and drought
Monday, M9 January, 2023 — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
Compound threats will most severely affect poor people and rural areas
More than 90% of the world’s population is projected to face increased risks from the compound impacts of extreme heat and drought, potentially widening social inequalities as well as undermining the natural world’s ability to reduce CO2 emissions in the atmosphere — according to a study from Oxford University’s School of Geography.
THE DAYS OF THE US TECH LEVIATHANS ARE DRAWING TO A CLOSE
Sunday, 8 January 2023 — ThePlanningmotivedotcom
The advent of the information age – the fusion of the internet plus computing power plus advanced algorithms, takes off at the end of the 1980s. Its development within the USA and its strategic economic importance allows the USA to once more dominate the global value chain. As a result, US Tech corporations become monopolies harvesting super profits. But this 30-year reign could be ending
the-tech-leviathans-stumbles.pdf
Watch: Introducing Geopolitical Economy Report: Multipolarista is evolving
Sunday, 8 January 2023 — Multipolarista
We are excited to announce the creation of the independent media outlet Geopolitical Economy Report – an evolution and expansion of Multipolarista. Our team will be growing, and we have exciting new projects planned, including a regular show with economists Michael Hudson and Radhika Desai.
Editor-in-chief Ben Norton explains the changes (and the continuity).
SDG7: The Impossible Energy Transformation
Friday, 6 January 2023 — Unlimited Hangout
The alleged purpose of the United Nation’s (UN’s) Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) is to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.” The real impacts of its implementation couldn’t be more different. Renewable energy is neither renewable nor sustainable and the SDG7 energy transition is only making the problem of energy poverty worse.
“If there is to be a livable future, it will be a future offline”
Sunday, 1 January 2023 — Canadian Dimension
Jonathan Crary’s new book excoriates the digital world of late capitalism
Review by Owen Schalk
Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World
Jonathan Crary
Verso, 2022
At this point, it is a commonplace that the techno-optimist promises of the Internet’s early proponents were either naïve or lies.
Claims of the system’s power to connect far-flung individuals and enrich one’s social life are risible. In the West, at least, the Internet’s primary effect has been to dissipate social energies into simulated flickers of friendship, comradery, or antagonism that more often than not ripple into nothingness before any deeper human experience can take root, rendering a large chunk of one’s time and attention pointless beyond the fact that it can be monetized to the benefit of seemingly omnipresent tech companies.
Ecosocialist Bookshelf: The Best of 2022
Saturday, 31 December 2023 — — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
Ian Angus selects his favorite red and green books from the past year
Ecosocialist Bookshelf is a monthly column, hosted by Ian Angus. Books described here may be reviewed at length in future. Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement, or that C&C agrees with everything (or even anything!) these books say.
Drug regulation – How does it work?
Saturday, 31 December 2022 — Dr Malcom KenDrick
Before laying into the drug regulators, and their inexorable move towards the dark side, I thought I should try to explain a bit more about who decides what drugs should be used, and for what conditions.
The New Dark Age 