Exclusively in the new print issue of CounterPunch
HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.
Archives by Tag 'economics'
Padua, Italy.
Making economics and politics appear separate is one of the chief characteristics of capitalism as a system of class rule, as Ellen Mieksins Wood has pointed out in many of her writings. But it is how politics is manifested AS economics and e...
“Eurozone banks’ demand for European Central Bank funding surged to a two-year high on Tuesday, as fast spreading sovereign debt worries left lending markets virtually frozen and the ECB the only available funding option for many institutions....
The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation has just concluded its annual summit in Honolulu, once President Obama’s home turf. It will probably be most remembered for the traffic jams it created in the Waikiki Beach area, to the consternation of residents and tourists alike....
Editor’s Note: Occupy Oakland is part of a global movement that is questioning the basic structures of the political and economic system to an extent not seen since 1968. Whether it will succeed in changing these structures is unclear. But it has already...
Last Tuesday, I awoke in lower Manhattan to the whirring of helicopters overhead, a war-zone sound that persisted all day and then started up again that Thursday morning, the two-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street and a big day of demonstrations in New York City. It ...
With so called “technocrats” being installed in Italy and Greece to lead governments through austerity programs, the discussion of who benefits from these programs and who pays remains largely in the background. When benefits are discussed they are usually couched in ...
We live in an enigmatic age, far more complex as the years go by and certainly since the disappearance of the Soviet Union in 1991. With the failure of so many reformers avoidance of cynicism about all causes is now an overwhelming challenge. In a sense, it is the r...
The problem of bank loans gone bad, especially those with government-guarantees such as U.S. student loans and Fannie Mae mortgages, has thrown into question just what should be a “fair value” for these debt obligations. Should “fair value” reflect what debtors ca...
“Italy is now mathematically beyond the point of no return.”
–Barclays Capital
The situation in Europe gets more depressing by the day. Policymakers have waited too long and now events are beyond their co...
“America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing…I can’t stand my own mind.”
– Allen Ginsberg
Space is being occupied. What does that space stand for? What does its occupation convey? There are q...
The Keynesian view that the government can fine tune the economy through “appropriate” fiscal and monetary policies to maintain continuous growth at or near full employment is based on the idea that capitalism can be controlled by the state and managed by professional...
Athens
Greece last week was paralysed by a 48-hour general strike that began Wednesday and cast doubt on the unpopular government’s ability to implement reforms demanded by the European Union in return for further bailout money.
Black-maske...
Last March I reviewed Matt Taibbi’s important book Griftopia, an entertaining account of...
The elite financial press continues to promote their Baltic austerity model. Last month in CounterPunch, Michael Hudson and I showed how Anders Aslund, from the bank-funded Petersen Institute, kicked the snowball down the hill to roll and grow regarding the...
Where is Henry Ford when you need him?
You may remember Henry — the ruthless industrialist who nonetheless refused to be hobbled by suicidal ideology when it came to doing business. He realized as his workers cranked thousands of new cars off the assembly lin...
More than 10 years ago, before 9/11, Goldman Sachs was predicting that the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) would make the world economy’s top ten — but not until 2040. Skip a decade and the Chinese economy already has the number two spot all to its...
Mumbai
Air India might not be doing as well we’d like it to. But the braveheart who flew it fearlessly into dense clouds of debt is doing okay. Praful Patel (who no longer holds the aviation portfolio) added, on average, over half a million rupees (j...
While most of America suffers through recession and unemployment, luxury retailers and service providers are doing quite well. With corporate profits remaining high, the moneyed elites continue to enjoy 5-star hotels, private jets, fancy jewelry, and splendid works of art...
Martin Tomley previously worked at a major US bank. Now he writes on financial matters and the economy at ...
Across two evenings this week, we’ve been offered America’s future in a couple of visions. Neither of them offered the prime vitamin of bearable politics, the promise of good cheer and a better life at the end of a shortish tunnel.
Version one came in t...
On Thursday night Barack Obama delivered his highly anticipated jobs speech. At this point, it’s fair to say that he’s gone back to the usual predictable stuff—a one-year extension of the payroll tax cut, a continuation of unemployment benefits, some addit...
National political discussion of the economics and budgets over the last two decades have been dominated by the debate over President Clinton’s tax increase and President Bush’s subsequent reversal of this tax hike. If we narrow down the focus to the hike on t...
Who knows what, if anything, congressional Tea Partiers and their fellow travellers had in mind when they signed on to Grover Norquist’s “no new taxes” pledge. Those not in the grip of obscure theocratic doctrines probably thought that the pledge is in line with l...
When Toni Negri, now 78, writes and speaks, there is something Latinate in his linguistics, yet the discourse is clear, disciplined, lucid, and playful. His bearhug greeting is muscular and powerful, as are the workings of his formidable intellect. We need his kind of thi...
The European Central Bank (ECB) is run by people who are not very good at economics. They continue to adhere to a fundamentally wrongheaded view of the economy and the central bank’s role within it. Unfortunately there is no internal pressure for change because, lik...