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Finance and the Economy

Unimpressed With Post Office Banking Trial, Backers Eye New Initiative

March 2, 2022 Caitlin Reilly, Roll Call. , , ,
As lawmakers work on finishing fiscal 2022 appropriations, they’ll have to decide whether to keep a House spending provision that would allow some post offices to offer more financial services. Coming in the wake of a largely ignored U.S. Postal Service test of a check-cashing service, a new initiative could test whether the Postal Service can attract millions of Americans who now lack banking services, serve areas largely vacated by banks and make money by doing so. Those tests depend on the Senate going along with the $6 million for a pilot project in the House’s fiscal 2022 Financial Services appropriations bill. Lawmakers are trying to finish the appropriations work before the current continuing resolution expires on March 11.

The American Political Process Is Disconnected From Economic Reality

February 25, 2022 Richard D. Wolff, Counter Punch. , , ,
The growing disconnect between the capitalist system and the economic realities plaguing the United States is now nearing completion. On the ground, the accumulated problems of U.S. capitalism undermine its empire and challenge its very future. Meanwhile, the ever-deepening inequalities of wealth and income conjure up images of ancient Egypt’s pharaohs. Three economic crashes opening the new century (2000, 2008, and 2020) have shaken the system; so have the two wars America lost against very poor countries in the Middle East: Afghanistan and Iraq. The worst public health crisis in a century during the COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed how unprepared U.S. capitalism was and is, thereby imposing massive new human and financial costs lasting into the future.

Can Argentina Escape The Plague Of IMF-Imposed Austerity?

February 23, 2022 Jacob Sugarman, In These Times. , , , ,
The crush of people began at the 9 de Julio subway stop downtown, less than a block from the Buenos Aires obelisk, the city’s most recognizable monument. By 5:00 p.m. on February 8, thousands from over 100 trade unions, human rights organizations and student groups had blocked the main thoroughfare to protest a preliminary agreement between the Peronist, center-left government of Argentinian President Alberto Fernández and the International Monetary Fund. Amid a cacophony of competing drumbeats, demonstrators along Roque Saenz Peña bore signs that read “With the IMF, we return to the bottom,” “The IMF is poverty and unemployment,” and “Enough of austerity.”

Inside The Campaign To Abolish The Subminimum Wage

February 21, 2022 Rebekah Entralgo, Inequality.org. , , ,
As the economy recovers from a global pandemic, many business owners are pointing to labor shortages caused by the “Great Resignation” as a source of frustration. The term refers to the more than 33 million U.S. workers who have quit their jobs since the spring of 2021, largely due to low wages and burnout. The restaurant and service industry is experiencing one of the largest shockwaves to its workforce, adding just 108,000 jobs in January 2022, and remains 900,000 jobs short of where it was prior to the pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But restaurant workers and their allies are offering a different perspective: This is not a “Great Resignation,” but rather a Great Rejection of low-wage work.

Fossil Fuel Industry Doesn’t Create As Many Jobs As It Says It Does

February 16, 2022 Wenonah Hauter , In These Times. , ,
For years now, any discussion about climate action or the need to move off fossil fuels has run headlong into a familiar quandary: The industries fueling the climate crisis create good jobs, often in areas of the country where finding work that can support a family is incredibly difficult. This leaves activists gesturing towards well-intentioned goals like a “just transition,” a promise that likely rings hollow for workers and many labor unions because it’s hard to see where this has actually happened — even though, by every measure, we need to create some real policies that turn this vision into reality. While there are encouraging examples of labor unions throwing their support behind robust climate plans, it has proven difficult for the climate movement to find its way out of the jobs versus environment framing.

On Contact: The Precarious State Of The US Economy

February 14, 2022 Chris Hedges, RT. , , ,
A bipartisan group of senators are crafting legislation to impose sweeping sanctions on Russia if it engages in what they consider hostile action of any kind against the Ukraine. New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, calls the legislation “the mother of all sanctions bill.” The bill led in the House by Gregory Meeks of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, like Menendez a Democrat, demands that the administration “not cede to the demands of the Russian Federation regarding NATO membership or expansion.” This cuts off the ability to discuss Moscow’s core demands, including a ban on future NATO membership for Ukraine.

CEO-Worker Pay Resource Guide

February 13, 2022 Inequality.org. , , ,
Since 2018, U.S. publicly held corporations have had to annually report the ratio between their CEO and median worker compensation. Corporate lobby groups and allied Republicans fought hard to repeal, delay, or water down this disclosure mandate, a measure initially enacted as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation. But institutional investors weighed in heavily to defend pay ratio disclosure, as did hundreds of thousands of individuals outraged about the extreme pay gaps at the vast majority of large U.S. corporations. The CEO-worker pay ratios the new disclosures have begun revealing are boosting momentum behind efforts to use tax, contracting, and subsidy policy to narrow our compensation divides.

Rather Than Sink Main Street, The Fed Could Save It

February 11, 2022 Ellen Brown, Scheer Post. , , ,
Not only will raising interest rates not fix the supply crisis, but according to Alasdair Macleod, head of research at GoldMoney in London, U.K., that wrong medicine is likely to trigger the next financial crisis. He thinks it is imminent and will start in Europe, where negative interest rates brought the cost of doing repo trades to zero. As a result, the European repo market is now over €10 trillion ($11.4 trillion), far more than the capital available to unwind it (to reverse or close the trades). Rising interest rates will trigger that unwinding, says MacLeod, and the ECB lacks the tools to avoid the resulting crisis. Meanwhile, oil prices have risen over 50% and natural gas over 60% in Europe in the past year, “due to a supply crisis of its governments’ own making,” writes Macleod.

On Contact: The Gig Economy

February 9, 2022 Chris Hedges, RT. , , ,
After the end of World War II, two generations of workers in the United States were blessed with a period of unprecedented prosperity. Wages for the working class were high. Jobs were stable and came with benefits and health insurance. Unions protected workers from abuse by the business elites. Taxes on the wealthiest individuals and corporations was as high as 91%. The public school system provided a quality education to the poor and the rich. The nation’s infrastructure and technology were cutting edge and unrivaled. But by the 1970s, it all began to go south. Wages stagnated. Income inequality grew, until by 2008, the top wealthiest 10% of Americans received 87% of the economic growth, compared with 29% from 1933 to 1973. The good industrial jobs vanished. In their place rose the temp or gig economy, one where wages were low, the jobs were not secure and did not provide benefits, unions were emasculated, and the nation’s great democratic institutions, along with its infrastructure, crumbled into decay.

New Puerto Rico Debt Plan Is A False ‘Solution’

February 4, 2022 Sarah Molinari and Marisol Lebrón, Orinoco Tribune. , , ,
Activists and Puerto Rican community members protest against Steven Tananbaum, a board member of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), for his involvement in a hedge fund that owns over $2 billion of Puerto Rico’s debt, outside of the newly renovated and reopened MOMA in Midtown Manhattan on October 21, 2019, in New York City. Drew Angerer / Getty Images On January 18, Judge Taylor Swain of New York’s Southern District confirmed Puerto Rico’s eighth amended Plan of Adjustment (POA), setting into motion the closure of the largest municipal debt restructuring deal in the history of the United States. The POA modifies approximately $33 billion of the central government’s debt as part of Title III — the bankruptcy-like process established under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) — which has already cost Puerto Ricans $1 billion.

Túmin: The Alternative Currency Rebuilding Community In Mexico

February 4, 2022 Mattha Busand Clara Haizlett, Open Democracy. , , ,
In southern Mexico, Itzel Castro sits behind the counter at a small artisanal store tucked along a colorful side street. She welcomes customers as they browse shelves stacked full of food, books and accessories. When the customers check out, Castro offers them change – not in pesos, but in Túmin. Túmin is an alternative currency that emerged in Veracruz, Mexico in 2010. About the size of a credit card, Túmin notes are printed with vibrant illustrations that vary from state to state. Each Túmin note is equivalent to one peso, one minute of work or even one US dollar. It is both a unit of exchange and a currency that comes in 1, 5, 10, and 20 denominated notes. Castro works at Túmin Tienda in San Cristobal de las Casas, in the state of Chiapas.

How We Broke The Supply Chain

February 4, 2022 David Dayen and Rakeen Mabud, The American Prospect. , , ,
Anyone old enough to remember the Cold War is familiar with a scene routinely depicted on U.S. television at the time: the Soviet breadline. Warning Americans about life under communism, these clips showed Russian citizens lingering forlornly outside businesses for hours to obtain basic goods—indelible proof of the inferiority of central planning, and an advertisement for capitalism’s abundance. Breadlines, the Big Book of Capitalism assured us, could not happen in a market economy. Supply would always rise to meet demand, as long as there’s money to be made. Only deviating from free-market fundamentalism—giving everyone health care, for example—could lead to shortages. Otherwise, capitalism has your every desire covered.

Iran’s Economy Reveals Power And Limits Of US Sanctions

February 3, 2022 Maziar Motamedi, Al Jazeera. , , ,
Tehran, Iran – As economists, politicians, and pundits mull the threat of “swift and severe” United States economic sanctions against Russia should the latter invade Ukraine, one country that has long been in Washington’s crosshairs does not have to ponder what such punitive measures can do – Iran. Some 655 Iranian entities and individuals were sanctioned under the administration of former US President Barack Obama, according to data compiled by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). But the most brutal punishment kicked off in 2018, after former US President Donald Trump’s administration unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal with world powers and Iran’s banks were cut off from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication – SWIFT, the global financial messaging system.

In A Single Year, $1.78 Trillion Was Taken From The Working Class

February 2, 2022 Colleen Boyle And Eric Dirnbach, In These Times. , , ,
The fate of the Build Back Better Act is currently unknown. The bill would be the largest social spending achievement in decades and provide needed services and support to millions of families — with more than half of the proposed $1.75 trillion in spending going to child care, preschool, affordable housing, higher education and healthcare. But this proposed spending, over 10 years, is barely noticeable compared with the wages workers have lost over the past 40 years. In terms of productivity, wages should be significantly higher than they are, and the average worker continues to be shortchanged thousands of dollars annually. And much of the money workers should be getting is instead being pumped up to the top 0.3% of income earners.

Investing In Infrastructure And Rebalancing Trade Can Create Good Jobs For All

February 2, 2022 Robert E. Scott, Economic Policy Institute. , , ,
The mismanaged integration of the United States into the global economy has devastated U.S. manufacturing workers and their communities. Globalization of our economy, driven by unfair trade, failed trade and investment deals, and, most importantly, currency manipulation and systematic overvaluation of the U.S. dollar over the past two decades has resulted in growing trade deficits—the U.S. importing more than we export—that have eliminated more than five million U.S. manufacturing jobs and nearly 70,000 factories. These losses were accompanied by a shift toward lower-wage service-sector jobs with fewer benefits and lower rates of unionization than manufacturing jobs.
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