Lebanon defaulted Monday on a $1.2 billion Eurobond. The decision by the government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab not to meet the payment comes amid a spiralling financial and economic crisis, protests, increasing poverty and other signs of social disintegration within the country, as well as the first deaths from the novel coronavirus.
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The spread of the COVID-19 virus has caused not only a world health crisis, but may also cause a deep economic depression. The fabric of society is becoming strained to the breaking point, and social, economic, and political catastrophes are already erupting in a variety of forms. We live in a society in which our very existence is constantly dominated and constrained by the dual imperatives of profit and competition.
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Iran has been subject to crippling U.S. sanctions and military provocations in recent weeks. The most recent U.S. escalation began in mid-July when the U.K., through its territory of Gibraltar, seized an Iranian oil tanker accused of violating E.U.-imposed sanctions against Syria. Iran has since taken three “foreign” tankers into custody and placed 17 Iranians accused of spying for the CIA under arrest. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the 2020 election buzz has been temporarily drowned out by the deaths of over thirty people in three mass shootings.
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We haven’t seen stock prices slide like this in a long time, and if this keeps up we could soon be looking at an avalanche. Our rapidly escalating trade war with China and more bad U.S. economic numbers pushed stocks down once again this week, and at this point the Dow Industrial Average has now fallen for five weeks in a row. We haven’t seen a losing streak this long since June 2011, and it is yet another indication that we have reached a major turning point. Some positive comments about China from President Trump on Friday helped to lift stocks a little…
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In the summer of 2009, economists reported that one-third of the capital equipment in the United States stood idle while some 17 percent of the workforce were either unemployed, forced into part-time jobs, or “discouraged” from even seeking work. The Great Recession revealed just how much surplus capital and surplus labor was simply lying about, even in a time of urgent need. In this context, it’s no surprise that people started looking for ways to put labor and capital back together. Interest spiked — especially in worker-owned enterprises — and cities from New York to Madison, Oakland and Jackson, started investing in worker-owned businesses and business incubators.
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Every time I sit down with economist Richard Wolff, he demonstrates why the field of economics is so necessary in the cultural critique of our American empire. In my recent interview with him, we discussed why the thriving economy touted by President Donald Trump hasn’t translated into real gains for the majority of Americans. We also went over what is hidden by the economic indicators that allow the financial industry to celebrate while so many Americans are still suffering.
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I have mentioned the very visible decline of the USA and its associated Empire in many of my articles already, so I won’t repeat it here other than to say that the “ability to exert influence and impose its will” is probably the best criteria to measure the magnitude of the fall of the USA since Trump came to power (the process was already started by Dubya and Obama, but it sure accelerated with The Donald). But I do want to use a metaphor to revisit the concept of catastrophe. If you place an object in the middle of a table and then push it right to the edge, you will exert some amount of energy we can call “E1”.
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On Meet the Press yesterday, Utah Senator Mike Lee said about our climate change crisis, “all the proposals I’ve seen so far that would address any of these issues would devastate the U.S. economy.” This is considered a reasonable explanation of maintaining the status quo. This is the insanity built into capitalism. Lee was specifically explaining why he would not support a carbon tax, the single most direct, rational, and market-friendly way of restricting carbon emissions. The context for the question was the release on Friday of a report from the US government itself saying that, within a century, climate change could cost our country “hundreds of billions of dollars annually” and kill thousands of additional Americans per year.
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On October 12, 2018, hundreds of women, men, children, youth and the elderly decided to leave Honduras as a desperate response to survive. The massive exodus that began in the city of San Pedro Sula, reached more than 3 thousand people by the time the group crossed to Guatemala. The caravan, which is headed north to Mexico first, and to the United States as the goal- is the only alternative this people have to reach a bit of the dignity that has been taken from them. They are not alone in their journey. Various waves of Hondurans, whose numbers increase every hour, are being contained by Honduran security forces on their border with El Salvador and Guatemala.
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The key issue to emerge from the semiannual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) held in Bali, Indonesia last week is that 10 years out from the 2008 global financial crisis the conditions have been created for another economic and financial disaster. And those in charge of the global economy have no means of preventing it, not least because the very policies they have carried out over the past decade have helped prepare it. It was somewhat symbolic that the meeting took place in the immediate aftermath of the devastating earthquake and tsunami on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, which again underscored the extent to which the record growth of social inequality, accelerating after 2008…
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Bali, Indonesia -The International Monetary Fund releases its “Global Financial Stability Report” ahead of its Annual Meetings held this year in Southeast Asia. The report finds that short-term risks to financial stability rose in the last 6 months. “The IMF is saying our economy is stable now, but there are some serious risks to stability on the horizon,” noted Eric LeCompte who tracks IMF reports as the Executive Director of the religious development coalition Jubilee USA. “The IMF is also saying that inequality is on the rise and the global economic recovery is still not shared by everyone.” This is the second major IMF report this week which raises concerns of pending financial crisis. On Tuesday, the IMF released its World Economic Outlook report.
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Is another “Great Depression” on the horizon? It would be easier to dismiss these words from Nouriel Roubini, Marc Faber or other doom-and-gloom prognosticators. Coming from Christine Lagarde’s team, though, they take on a new dimension of scary. The International Monetary Fund head isn’t known for breathlessness on the world stage. And yet the IMF sounded downright alarmist in its latest Global Financial Stability report, stating that “large challenges loom for the global economy to prevent a second Great Depression.” Even some market bears were taken aback. “Why,” asks Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse Blog would the IMF use this phrase “in a report that they know the entire world will read?”
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More than any other presidency in modern history, Donald Trump’s has been a veritable sociopolitical wrecking ball, deliberately stoking conflict by playing to xenophobic and racist currents in American society and debasing its political discourse. That fact has been widely discussed. But Trump’s attacks on the system of the global U.S. military presence and commitments have gotten far less notice. He has complained bitterly, both in public and in private meetings with aides, about the suite of permanent wars that the Pentagon has been fighting for many years across the Greater Middle East and Africa, as well as about deployments and commitments to South Korea and NATO.
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NEW YORK — On the afternoon of December 31, 1999, I boarded a flight from Chicago O’Hare airport for San Francisco International and found myself seated next to a bear of a man, who, at 6 feet 6 inches tall, and more than 300 pounds, squeezed into the middle seat of an emergency row. His unkempt sandy blonde beard contrasted with a ratty, tent-sized red plaid shirt. As we hit cruising altitude, he introduced himself as “Gary” and began to tell me his life’s story. He’d run with a wild crowd in Illinois, smoked way too much meth, gotten locked up, then released, locked up again, released a second time. With the help of a good woman, he said, he finally kicked his drug habit — though he’d gained nearly 100 pounds in the process — and decided a change-of-scenery would do him good. Hence, he was relocating to the backwoods of northern California.
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The headline economic indicators – GDP growth, the unemployment rate, the stock market — all say that the United States is in the midst of a sustained economic expansion that was slow to develop after the Great Recession. But a deeper look at US performance offers far less cause for celebration. America is mired in a social progress recession. Data from the Social Progress Index, the first ever rigorous measurement of social performance across a broad range of indicators and all major countries, reveals that the quality of life and opportunities for many Americans is lagging. The fact is that our country is failing on many of the things we hold most dear. And it’s getting worse. The Social Progress Index focuses exclusively on social outcomes (not spending or inputs), capturing key aspects of quality of life, including health, water and sanitation, personal safety, education, and environmental quality.
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