Finance and Economy

Why Britain’s Housing Crisis Heralds The Next Financial Crash

February 10, 2016 Steve Rushton, www.occupy.com Educate! Finance and Economy, Housing, United Kingdom (UK)

By Steve Rushton for Occupy - Housing prices in London have risen by 50% in the last five years. If the U.K. property bubble goes boom, it will be proportionally bigger than the U.S. housing bust at the onset of the financial crisis in 2007. How did we get here? For starters, U.K. banks in 2015 lent over £1 trillion ($1.4 trillion) for housing, accounting for 70% of newly made loans. The result is that when this bubble pops, it could catalyze another global financial meltdown. While there are many other possible triggers, the next financial crash is more likely than not.

Incomes Decline, Poverty Increases: Fed Declares Victory, Chokes Economy

January 4, 2016 Robert Hennelly, www.salon.com Educate! Finance and Economy, Income, Poverty

By Robert Hennelly for Salon. Earlier this month when Fed chair Janet Yellen offered her rationale for raising interest rates, it was sadly reminiscent of President George W. Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech, given on the USS Abraham Lincoln when he declared that major combat operations in Iraq were over in 2003. Yellen spoke from her well-feathered perch about the “considerable progress that has been made restoring jobs, raising incomes, and easing the economic hardship of millions of Americans.” A few days later Congress passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill and $700 billion in tax breaks before they went on their holiday. The president signed off on it all and headed off for his spectacular vacation to Hawaii.

Terror, Climate Chaos, Financial Crisis: Costs Of ‘Doing Business’

December 29, 2015 Nafeez Ahmed, www.middleeasteye.net Educate! Climate Change, Finance and Economy, Terrorism

By Nafeez Ahmed for Middle East Eye - Fifteen years into the 21st century, humanity has made little progress in addressing major threats to civilisation. In fact, on terrorism, climate change and the economy, we’re not making progress at all, but making things worse. The "war on terror" has been waged for 14 years since 9/11, but far from terror being defeated, it has metastasized into a regional quasi-state occupying parts of Iraq and Syria. Despite the much-lauded "binding" climate accord agreed in Paris, the governments most responsible for carbon emissions are still avoiding the reductions necessary to prevent us breaching crucial tipping points into dangerous climate change.

Another Money Is Possible: Holland Leads Experiment In Basic Income

November 15, 2015 Steve Rushton, www.occupy.com Educate! Finance and Economy, Guaranteed basic income, Income, Universal Income

By Steve Rushton for Occupy.com. The Netherlands is seeing a revolution around money that is already getting underway, as the Dutch seek trial schemes that include basic income principles. The plan complements ongoing Parliamentary discussions inspired by citizen pressure to created positive money. That is, when society makes money for the public good rather than the banks creating money as public debt. Of the 393 municipalities in the Netherlands, 10 to 15 of them are working on plans for a basic income-inspired trial, with some planning to start next year. Interest is emerging in another 40 municipalities, including all of the country's largest cities. This means a large portion of the Dutch population will witness, and many will directly experience, this trial.

Bernanke: More Execs Should Have Faced Prosecution

October 6, 2015 Peter Cooney, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Federal Reserve, Finance and Economy

By Peter Cooney for The Huffington Post, WASHINGTON, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday that more corporate executives should have been prosecuted for their actions leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. Bernanke told USA Today that the U.S. Justice Department and other law enforcement agencies focused on investigating or indicting financial firms. "But it would have been my preference to have more investigation of individual action, since obviously everything that went wrong or was illegal was done by some individual, not by an abstract firm," Bernanke was quoted as saying.

Biosphere Collapse: Biggest Economic Bubble Ever

July 19, 2015 Dr. Glen Barry, www.ecointernet.org Create! Capitalism, Climate Change, climate crisis, Finance and Economy

By Dr. Glen Barry in Ecointernet.org. Newspapers are full of disastrous warnings if economic growth does not return to Greece, or if it drops a couple points in China. Rarely in human history have so many been so fundamentally wrong about a matter of such importance as the desirability, and even the possibility, of perpetual economic growth. The real threat to human well-being is not that there is too little economic growth. Rather, it is that there is too much, and that we have overshot how much growth can occur without collapsing our shared environment. The industrial growth economy is ravaging natural ecosystems. Stocks of natural capital – including water, soil, old-growth forests, wild fish, etc. – are being pillaged to artificially inflate short-term economic growth numbers.

Those Who Lead Greece To Surrender Should Be Opposed

July 12, 2015 Stathis Kouvelakis, www.jacobinmag.com Educate! Austerity, European Union (EU), Finance and Economy, Greece

By Stathis Kouvelakis for Jacobin - A simple conclusion emerges from all this: with the moves it has made in the last week, the government has achieved nothing other than a full return to previous entrapment, from a much more unfavorable position, under the pressure of even more relentless economic asphyxiation. It has managed to squander the powerful injection of political capital from the referendum in record time, following at all points the line of those who had opposed it and who have every reason to feel vindicated, despite being trounced at the ballot box. But the referendum happened. It wasn’t a hallucination from which everyone has now recovered. Yesterday, late in the evening, it sent to all members of parliament (MPs) a hastily written, twelve-page text, written in English by experts sent by the French government and based on Tsakalotos’ request for a €50 billion loan to the ESM. This is nothing but a new austerity package — actually, a “copy and paste” of the Juncker plan rejected by the electorate a few days ago. Its core is all too familiar: primary surpluses, cuts in pensions, increase in the VAT and other taxes, and a handful of measures to give it a slight flavor of “social justice” (e.g., an increase in the corporate tax rate by two points).

US Economy Collapses Again – 4th Time in 4 years

May 14, 2015 Jack Rasmus, www.telesurtv.net Educate! Economic collapse, Finance and Economy

Data released last week by the U.S. government showed the U.S. economy came to a near halt in the first three months of 2015, falling to nearly zero – i.e. a mere 0.2 percent annual growth rate for the January-March quarter. The collapse was the fourth time that the U.S. economy in the past four years either came to a virtual halt or actually declined. Four times in four years it has stalled out. So what’s going on? In 2011, the U.S. economy collapsed to 0.1 percent in terms of annual growth rate. At the end of 2012, to a mere 0.2 percent initial decline. In early 2014, it actually declined by -2.2 percent. And now in 2015, it is essentially flat once again at 0.2 percent. The numbers are actually even worse, if one discounts the redefinitions of GDP that were made by the US in 2013 . . . Back those redefinitions out, and the U.S. experienced negative GDP four times in the last four years. We get -0.2 percent in 2011, 0 percent in 2012, -2.5 percent in 2014 and -0.1 percent earlier this year.

The History Of Oil, Protest And The Economy

April 12, 2015 Patrick Robbins, www.thischangeseverything.org Educate! Finance and Economy, Oil, Protest

In 2011, political theorist Timothy Mitchell published Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil, which argues that the fossil fuel industry “helped create both the possibility of modern democracy and its limits.” The book begins with the rise of coal: the rigid, concentrated structure of its production and distribution networks made them highly vulnerable to disruption by militant workers, who were able to achieve new and unprecedented forms of political power as a result. All that changed with the global shift from coal to oil, with its comparatively flexible networks and less reliance on workers—a shift that consolidated the power of the fossil fuel giants, and was also closely linked to the creation of the idea of an “economy” based on endless GDP growth. I recently spoke with Mitchell at his Columbia University office about Carbon Democracy, and how the book resonates with the climate fight.

Newsletter: Respect Our Human Rights Or We’ll ‘Shut It Down’

December 13, 2014 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Bankers, Climate Justice, Corruption, Education, FCC, Finance and Economy, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, GMOs, Healthcare, Human Rights, Internet Freedom, Monsanto, Net Neutrality, Police abuse, Racism, Torture, TPP, Undercover police, Worker Rights and Jobs

This week we marked the 66th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was signed by the United States at its inception but has never been ratified. Perhaps because we live in a country that does not protect our human rights, many people in the United States lack an understanding that they exist. In the work for justice, important tasks are to learn about our rights, recognize that they are being violated and to stand up with the demand that these rights are honored. Throughout history it has been organized people-power that has won rights. We cannot expect to gain them any other way. We’ll highlight many areas where people are fighting for rights.

‘Unstoppable’ Homeowners Fight Foreclosure Fraud In Los Angeles

October 12, 2014 Senka Huskic, www.occupy.com Resist! Finance and Economy, Foreclosure, Housing, Mortgage Fraud

Another group is blooming – one that is refusing to remain silent, refusing to helplessly watch what is happening to families around the country, and to our country as a whole. From this group I have learned that our lives are interconnected, and that every single step, every decision, can change the outcome of not only our personal lives but the lives of those we don’t even know. I have learned that hope can never be destroyed, even in the midst of the biggest and darkest fights we’re facing. The following is an interview with Maegan Donovan Nikolic and Carlos Marroquin, two people in California who lost their homes due to mortgage fraud and wrongful foreclosure – and who, in the aftermath, decided to stand up and demand justice. Their work is a great example of how all our communities should follow their lead, unite, and support each other.

A Good Week In Fight To Stop Tar Sands

September 29, 2014 Andrea Germanos, www.commondreams.com Resist! Energy, Environment, Finance and Economy, Tar Sands

Opponents of tar sands got some good news this week. Oil and gas company Statoil announced Thursday that it was shelving its Corner tar sands project in Alberta. The Norwegian firm's decision to postpone the project "for a minimum of three years" is due to economic costs of labor and materials, according to a press statement from the company. A similar announcement was made earlier this year by French energy firm Total, which said it was shelving its Joslyn tar sands mine in Alberta because of escalating costs. In addition, Shell announced in February that it was stopping work on its Pierre River mine in the Alberta tar sands.

Can A Treaty To Regulate Arms Trade Become Law?

September 29, 2014 Joel Jaeger, www.ipsnews.com Organize! Finance and Economy, militarism, United Nations, Wars and Militarism

With state support moving at an unprecedented pace, the Arms Trade Treaty will enter into force on Dec. 24, 2014, only 18 months after it was opened for signature. Eight states – Argentina, the Bahamas, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Saint Lucia, Portugal, Senegal and Uruguay – ratified the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) at a special event at the United Nations this past Thursday, Sep. 25, pushing the number of states parties up to 53. As per article 22 of the treaty, the ATT comes into force as a part of international law 90 days after the 50th instrument of ratification is deposited.

Casinos Just Aren’t The Answer

September 16, 2014 Froma Harrop, www.nationofchange.org Educate! Finance and Economy

Casino revenues in New Jersey are down 44 percent from their 2006 high, but the business is rough everywhere. The huge Harrah's in Tunica, Mississippi, has also shut its doors. The casino business is now in the advanced "cannibalizing" stage as competitors eat what's left of each other's lunch. By "competitors," we mean both the casinos and the states relying on their revenues. Atlantic City's special tragedy is what was traded for the casino fantasy. Nowadays cities run entire visitor campaigns around the sort of fabulous old architecture Atlantic City so easily discarded. Imagine what today's entrepreneurs could have done with a mythical beach resort smack in between New York and Washington!

The Empire Economy Does Not Serve The Economy Or People

July 26, 2014 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Empire, Finance and Economy, Wars and Militarism

World history is filled with empires, e.g. the Roman and Byzantine empires, the European colonial empires, various ancient Iranian empires, the Arab Caliphate and Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union to name a few. These historic empires have one thing in common: they no longer exist. As the lifecycle of empire wanes, rather than being a benefit to the home country, sustaining empire becomes more expensive than it is worth. While the US economy and military remain the largest in the world, the economy is faltering and losing its vitality. Chalmers Johnson, a CIA analyst who became a critic of the agency and author of a series on US Empire, writes: “Thirty-five years from now, America's official century of being top dog (1945-2045) will have come to an end; its time may, in fact, be running out right now."

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