Global Economy

Sanctions – Wrecking Ball In A Global Economy

May 30, 2022 Sara Flounders , Workers World. Educate! China, Global Economy, Russia, Sanctions, Ukraine, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

U.S. government strategists are using sanctions as a wrecking ball to demolish the globalized economy. It is a desperate struggle to preserve their global hegemony and a unipolar world. The policy of consciously demolishing supply chains of essential products amounts to a reckless war on defenseless civilian populations. Sanctions disrupt trade worldwide and send shockwaves far beyond the countries directly targeted. This is well understood by financial planners. “Food shortages — it’s going to be real,” President Joe Biden said in Brussels March 25 at a NATO press conference, an ominous warning reported around the world. “The price of the sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia. It’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well.”

G7 Downplays US Sanctions’ Role In Food Shortage

May 28, 2022 John Ross, Consortium News. Educate! Food and Agriculture, Global Economy, Hunger, US Sanctions

“There is really no true solution to the problem of global food security without bringing back the agriculture production of Ukraine and the food and fertilizer production of Russia and Belarus into world markets despite the war.” These blunt words by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres accurately describe the present global food crisis. As the U.S. and the G7 (comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) insist that cutting off food exports from Ukraine poses the biggest threat to world food security, rather than admitting the far more powerful negative effect of Western sanctions against Russia, their propaganda does immense damage to the world’s understanding and capability of avoiding a looming global food disaster.

The Ongoing Economic War

May 22, 2022 Michael Hudson, The Unz Review. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Global Economy, Ukraine

The current war is dividing the world into two parts. There’s going to be a US dollar area of the US, Europe and its satellites. And there’ll be a multipolarity; there’ll be a group of Russia, China together and basically they will be making their proposal of a different way of organising the world economic affairs to Africa, Latin America and other Asian countries. And other Asian countries, Latin America and the global south will see that it can get a better deal with Russia and China than it can get with the United States. PS: On the flip side of that coin, one could argue that the existing situation, world order, has only been cemented by this war. You see NATO more aligned than ever, you see Europe more aligned than ever. You see Finland and Sweden on the brink, perhaps, of joining NATO.

What Is Happening In The Global Currency Market?

May 9, 2022 People's Dispatch. Resistance Report Finance and the Economy, Global Economy

Ukraine has been an issue in the news but behind the scenes what has really been of interest to a lot of people is what is happening in the global currency market. The ruble fell very dramatically. It has now come up and has reached almost parity with the dollar, or where it was before the Ukraine war started. But more than that, the fact $300 billion of Russian reserves were seized, essentially frozen, the Russian Central Bank is under sanctions, what does it mean for countries which maintain a currency surplus in other currencies, whether it is dollars, euros or whatever denomination, what happens to them? Does it mean the basis of international trade, which assumes that even if I’m holding money in your bank it’s really my money and that is what the basis of trade is, is at risk if this thing happens?

Cost Of The Ukraine War Felt In Africa, Global South

May 4, 2022 Ramzy Baroud, Common Dreams. Educate! Africa, Global Economy, Global South, Ukraine, Wars and Militarism

While international news headlines remain largely focused on the war in Ukraine, little attention is given to the horrific consequences of the war which are felt in many regions around the world. Even when these repercussions are discussed, disproportionate coverage is allocated to European countries, like Germany and Austria, due to their heavy reliance on Russian energy sources. The horrific scenario, however, awaits countries in the Global South which, unlike Germany, will not be able to eventually substitute Russian raw material from elsewhere. Countries like Tunisia, Sri Lanka and Ghana and numerous others, are facing serious food shortages in the short, medium and long term. The World Bank is warning of a "human catastrophe" as a result of a burgeoning food crisis, itself resulting from the Russia-Ukraine war.

The Different Ways That US And Chinese Governments Use Their Power

May 2, 2022 Richard D. Wolff, Counter Punch. Educate! Capitalism, China, Finance and the Economy, Global Economy

Russia’s war on Ukraine both reflects and deepens a global split that should remind us of Karl Marx’s famous remark: “No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces, for which there is room in it, have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society.” The United Kingdom already lost its particular social order—its empire—while the United States is now losing its. Despite differences, both of these social orders shared a mostly private form of capitalist relations of production (the organization of enterprises centered around private employers and employees). That social order has given way to a different, mostly public form of capitalist relations of production where state officials are major employers.

I Cannot Live On Tomorrow’s Bread

April 29, 2022 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Global Economy, Inflation

On April 19, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its annual World Economic Outlook, which forecasted a severe slowdown in global growth along with soaring prices. ‘For 2022, inflation is projected at 5.7 percent in advanced economies and 8.7 percent in emerging market and developing economies – 1.8 and 2.8 percentage points higher than projected in … January’, the report noted. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva offered a sobering reflection on the data: ‘Inflation is reaching the highest levels seen in decades. Sharply higher prices for food and fertilizers put pressure on households worldwide – especially for the poorest. And we know that food crises can unleash social unrest’.

87% Of IMF Loans Forcing Austerity On Crisis-Ravaged Nations: Analysis

April 20, 2022 Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams. Educate! Austerity, Finance and the Economy, Global Economy, International Monetary Fund

The conditions of nearly 90% of the International Monetary Fund's pandemic-related loans are forcing developing nations suffering some of the world's worst humanitarian crises to implement austerity measures that fuel further impoverishment and inequality, an analysis published Tuesday by Oxfam International revealed. Oxfam found that "13 out of the 15 IMF loan programs negotiated during the second year of the pandemic require new austerity measures such as taxes on food and fuel or spending cuts that could put vital public services at risk." This stands in stark contrast with IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva's admonition to the European Union last year that the wealthy bloc should not endanger its economic recovery with "the suffocating force of austerity."

The Coming Global Financial Revolution

April 5, 2022 Ellen Brown, Scheer Post. Educate! De-dollarization, Finance and the Economy, Global Economy, Oil and Gas

The first challenge by a major power to what became known as the petrodollar has come in 2022. In the month after the Ukraine conflict began, the U.S. and its European allies imposed heavy financial sanctions on Russia in response to the illegal military invasion. The Western measures included freezing nearly half of the Russian central bank’s 640 billion U.S. dollars in financial reserves, expelling several of Russia’s largest banks from the SWIFT global payment system, imposing export controls aimed at limiting Russia’s access to advanced technologies, closing down their airspace and ports to Russian planes and ships, and instituting personal sanctions against senior Russian officials and high-profile tycoons.

World Bank Downgrades Global Growth Forecast

January 13, 2022 Nick Beams, WSWS.org. Educate! Financial Crisis, Global Economy, World Bank

As the Omicron variant of COVID-19 rips through the world’s population, the World Bank has forecast slowing global growth for 2022 as well as the following year in its Global Economics Prospects report issued on Tuesday. While it was certainly not its intention, the report is an exposure of the claims by capitalist governments that no serious public health measures can be undertaken to eliminate the pandemic because they would be detrimental to the “economy.” In fact, as the figures in the report make clear, the policy of “let it rip” being pursued by virtually all governments is producing ever worsening economic conditions. No changes will be made, however, as the economy is completely subordinated to finance capital which opposes any measures that impede the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a rapacious oligarchy.

The Great Recoil Of Neoliberal Globalization

October 24, 2021 Paolo Gerbaudo, ROAR Magazine. Strategize! Financial Crisis, Global Economy, Globalization, Neoliberalism

The current political era is best understood as a “great recoil” of economic globalization. It is a moment when the coordinates of historical development seem to be inverting, upsetting many of the assumptions that dominated politics and economics over the last decades. This moment corresponds to the “second movement” socialist economic historian Karl Polanyi described in his book The Great Transformation, when phases of capitalist expansion recede and are met by “societal responses.” According to Polanyi, in phases of profound crisis like that opened by the 1929 Wall Street Crash, society tends to act defensively, erecting forms of social protection against a capitalist logic that has manifestly failed to deliver prosperity, yet becomes even more aggressive in its attempts to extract profit.

On Contact: Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Part 1

September 26, 2021 Chris Hedges, RT. Resistance Report Capitalism, Chris Hedges, Global Economy, Neoliberalism

On the show, the first of a two-part interview, Chris Hedges discusses with Professor David Harvey the reconfiguration of global capitalism, the contradictions of neoliberalism, the financialization of power, the commodification of spectacle, rate versus mass of surplus value, and other issues fundamental to economic theory. David Harvey, distinguished professor of anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is a leading theorist in the field of urban studies. Library Journal calls Professor Harvey “one of the most influential geographers of the later 20th century.” Professor Harvey earned his Ph.D. from Cambridge University and was formerly professor of geography at Johns Hopkins, a Miliband fellow at the London School of Economics, and Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at Oxford.

To Counter US Hostility China Moves Towards People-Centered Policies

September 5, 2021 Moon of Alabama. Create! China, Global Economy, People Centered Human Rights

This development allowed China to make enormous investments in infrastructure. It also generated the resources necessary to eliminate poverty. It is no coincidence that this development happened while the U.S. was wasting money on wars in the Middle East. As the U.S. is now step by step retreating from those wars to confront China the country needs to prepare itself for the new environment.

The Decline Of Western Power

July 21, 2021 Craig Murray, Consortium News. Educate! China, G7 Summit, Global Economy, NATO

The really interesting thing about the G7 summit is that it wasn’t interesting. Nobody expected it to change the world, and it won’t. John Pilger pointed out the key fact. Twenty years ago, the G7 constituted two thirds of the world economy. Now they constitute one third. They don’t even represent most of the world’s billionaires any longer, though those billionaires they do represent — and indeed some of the billionaires they don’t represent — were naturally pulling the strings of these rather sluggish puppets.

Global Food Prices Post Biggest Jump In Decade

June 6, 2021 The Straits Times. Educate! COVID-19, Food and Agriculture, Global Economy, Inflation

London - Global food prices have surged by the biggest margin in a decade, as one closely watched index jumped 40 per cent last month, heightening fears that the inflation initially stoked by pandemic disruption was accelerating. The year-on-year rise in the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) monthly index was the largest jump since 2011, as commodity prices surged. The higher inflation will hit poorer countries reliant on imports for staple goods. For richer countries, the cost of raw ingredients accounts for only part of the overall price paid for products at supermarkets and restaurants. But the rise in raw material prices has been so steep that big firms like Nestle and Coca-Cola have said they would pass on any increases.

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