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Economic crisis

US First Quarter GDP: Recovery Or Just Another Rebound?

May 8, 2021 Jack Rasmus, Counterpunch. , , ,
This past week the US Commerce Department released its early estimates for US GDP for the 1st Quarter 2021, January through March. If we are to believe the numbers, the US economy grew a respectable 6.4% during the period. But did it really? And does it represent a strong recovery underway? Or just a rebound, as the economy reopens in the services sector; and once the reopening concludes, will the economy flatten out again—as it did with last summer’s 2020 partial reopening that collapsed in late 2020? The first thing for readers to understand is the 6.4% is not really 6.4% for the first three months of 2021. The US is one of the few countries that reports its GDP figures in an ‘Annual Rate’ (AR) percentage. Most other advanced economies do not.

Increasing Desperation As The US Capitalist System Declines

April 24, 2021 Richard D. Wolff, Counterpunch. , , ,
Like all previous economic systems in recorded history, capitalism is on track to repeat the same three-step trip: birth, evolution, and death. The timing and other specifics of each system’s trip differ. Births and evolutions are commonly experienced as positive, celebrated for their progress and promise. The declines and deaths, however, are often denied and usually feel difficult and depressing. Notwithstanding endlessly glib political speeches about bright futures, U.S. capitalism has reached and passed its peak. Like the British Empire after World War I, the trip now is painful. Signs of decline accumulate. The last 40 years of slow economic growth have seen the top 10 percent take nearly all of it. The other 90 percent suffered constricted real wage growth that drove them to borrow massively (for homes, cars, credit cards, and college expenses).

Massive Protests In Beirut Over Rapidly Declining Living Conditions

April 5, 2021 People's Dispatch. , ,
Scores of ordinary Lebanese citizens participated in a massive protest demonstration in the Lebanese capital, Beirut on Sunday, March 28, 2021 to express their disapproval and anger over the worsening socio-economic situation in the country. The situation has resulted in severe uncertainty about the future and extreme hardships in the lives of the common Lebanese people, a report by the Middle East Monitor stated yesterday. The demonstrations organized by the Lebanese Communist party also railed against the administrative vacuum existing in the country because of the dominant political parties not being able to reach an agreement on government formation. The interim government has been more or less powerless to make any significant governmental decisions towards improving the citizens’ lives and to rescue the failing economy.

Polarization, Then A Crash: Michael Hudson On The Rentier Economy

January 5, 2021 Lynn Fries, Global Political Economy. , , ,
I'm delighted to have Michael Hudson join us today. He'll be discussing how under a neoliberal shift from industrial to finance capitalism, today's most pressing economic conflict is not simply between labor and employers. It's a conflict in which rentier interests have the upper hand over labor, industry and government together. This is the political economy in which the COVID-19 economic shock is playing out with dire consequences. Michael Hudson is a research professor of economics at the University of Missouri - Kansas City and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. Michael Hudson's latest book is "And Forgive Them Their Debts."

Capitalism’s Worst Nightmare

November 4, 2020 Richard Wolff, Democracy at Work. , , ,
On this week's show, Prof. Wolff explores what major social changes will flow from today's combination of major economic crash and the viral pandemic (capitalism's worst nightmare). To answer, we consider how European feudalism changed after its 14th century combination of economic decline and the bubonic plague. The two big changes then were (1) switching from a decentralized to a strong state, monarchical feudalism and (2) transition from feudalism to capitalism. The two big parallel changes now are...
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