Corporations account for 78 of the world’s 100 largest economies, yet they remain cloaked in mystery. TNI’s State of Power 2020 report takes a deep dive into capitalism’s preeminent institution. On November 5, 2015 a failure at the Germano iron ore mine’s tailings dam in Mariana, Minas Gerai state, Brazil caused hundreds of tons of toxic mud to sweep downstream, killing 19 people and contaminating the Doce River for many hundreds of kilometers.
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On the other hand, socialism was the name adopted by Western European — and especially Scandinavian — “welfare-state” governments, which aimed to regulate markets comprised still mostly of private capitalist firms. This led many people to associate socialism with robust public spending and government intervention in the marketplace.
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A five-alarm fire has broken out in a little known, but critically important area of the financial system where high-quality bonds are swapped for cash. The “repo” market, which is short for repurchase agreements, is part of the nondeposit, shadow banking system that remains largely unregulated despite the fact that it was ground zero in the 2008 financial crisis.
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Things aren’t working out the way many of us hoped. But we could learn something from this small entrepreneurial nation. The 21st Century is not working out the way many of us hoped: we witness the failure of nations and politicians to address the climate crisis, as well as social unrest in many countries over the failure of a neoliberal economic model that has neglected social equity and environmental sustainability. The Financial Times has even called for “a more sustainable and inclusive form of capitalism.”
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We’re in the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, but the top line numbers don’t tell the whole truth. Low unemployment is finally starting to produce some wage gains, but it is going to take much more to raise living standards for wide swaths of the workforce. Black unemployment and underemployment is still too high, black college graduates have seen their wages fall, inaction from federal policymakers on the minimum wage has dropped the wage floor from under workers at the low end of the wage ladder, and workers are still thwarted in their efforts to bargain collectively for better wages from their employers.
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Eisenhower surly must be spinning in grave given how much influence the military industrial complex wields today. In 1960, the military budget stood at $344 billion; today, the military complex, including the ever-growing intelligence apparatus, cost taxpayers over $1 trillion. Military spending for the period October 1, 2019, through September 30, 2020, is at $989 billion and covers the Dept. of Defense, veterans’ benefits, international military assistance, nuclear weapons spending and military intelligence.
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Why do so many Americans deeply distrust government? One part of the reason, two top economists suggested to a key congressional committee this week, just might be the most basic — and familiar — of the economic statistics the federal government produces. That stat — gross domestic product, or GDP — “measures the market value of the goods, services, and structures produced by the nation’s economy,” as calculated by the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. The Bureau generates new GDP figures for every quarter of the year, and the release of these figures regularly makes headlines.
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As every year, mainstream economists lined up to laud the choice. Dani Rodrik declared it “a richly deserved recognition.” Richard Thaler, who won the award in 2017 (here’s a link to my analysis), extended his congratulations to the Banerjee, Duflo, and Kremer and to the committee “for making a prize that seemed inevitable happen sooner rather than later.” While Paul Krugman, the 2008 Nobel laureate, refers to it as “a very heartening prize—evidence-based economics with a real social purpose.”
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Over this weekend, China’s Yuan currency broke out of its band and devalued to more than 7 to $1. At the same time China announced it would not purchase more US agricultural goods. The Trump-US Neocon trade strategy has just imploded. As this writer has been predicting, the threshold has now been passed, from a tariff-trade war to a broader economic war between the US and China where other tactics and measures are now being implemented.Trump will no doubt declare that China is manipulating its currency. A devaluation of the Yuan has the effect of…
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For many, the economic recovery being touted by the mainstream media has not yet affected them. About 25% of Americans say that a decade after the housing bust that caused the Great Recession, they are doing worse. Almost half of Americans are not doing any better at all too. If you believe the mainstream media, the economy is robust and the unemployment rateis at a 49-year-low. But not all Americans have recovered from the Great Recession. According to a new survey from Bankrate of about 3,000 Americans, 23% of people who were adults when the recession started in December 2007 say they are now financially worse off than they were before the recession hit.
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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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On a “mission to save my neighborhood,” Burnell Cotlon, an Army veteran, built his Lower 9th Ward Market literally by hand, shingle by shingle. Today, his counter wall features cameo shots with Mark Zuckerberg. The launderette out back was donated by Ellen DeGeneres. There are shiny apples and $4.50 pork chop plates. His grocery store is seen as an oasis. But Mr. Cotlon’s gambit to help revive a stagnant Lower 9th Ward faces a new challenge: the Dollar General down the street. A boom in dollar stores across the United States since the Great Recession – three open every day on average – has provided both hope and despair in communities struggling for economic footholds.
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One of the big trends of 2017 was the ongoing “retail apocalypse,” the apparent disaster of declining sales and store closures facing brick-and-mortar retailers. Well, 2018 was more of the same. One year after rounds of store closures by J.C. Penney and Macy’s, 2018 brought shutdowns by Sears and Toys “R” Us—not to mention Mattress Firm, Bon-Ton, Abercrombie & Fitch and more. But just how apocalyptic is this retail apocalypse? CityLab took a closer look at the data and found a much more ambiguous picture than the headlines might suggest.
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In 2018, a very significant economic change occurred, which sealed the fate of the U.S. economy as well as some other economies around the globe. This change was the shift of central bank policy. The era of stimulus and artificial support of various markets, including stocks, is beginning to fade away as the Federal Reserve pursues policy tightening, including higher interest rates and larger cuts to its balance sheet. I warned of this change under new Chairman Jerome Powell at the beginning of 2018 in my article ‘New Fed Chairman Will Trigger Stock Market Crash In 2018’. The crash had a false start in February/March, as stocks were saved by massive corporate buybacks through the 2nd and 3rd quarters.
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In recent years, many researchers and social activists from very different countries, like myself, have rediscovered the notion of the commons as a key idea to deepen social and environmental justice and democratise both politics and the economy. This reappropriation has meant questioning the vanguardist and hierarchical visions, structures and practices that for too long have characterised much of the left. This concept has resurfaced in parallel with the growing distrust in the market and the state as the main suppliers or guarantors of access to essential goods and services. The combined pressures of climate change and the crisis of capitalism that exploded in 2008…
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