Structural Adjustment

BRICS BANK: DOING DEVELOPMENT DIFFERENTLY?

by Brunn Nagara

12 April 2013

The annual Brics summit held during the week in Durban, South Africa, focused on what that muscle can do - challenge the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the way development finance is conducted, as well as the Western dominance that has prevailed in both Bretton Woods institutions. More

CYPRUS : AS THE FINANCIAL CRISIS DEEPENS, WILL THE LESSONS BE LEARNT?

by Martin Khor

12 April 2013

The Cyprus crisis has again shown that over-dependence on the financial sector and an unregulated and liberalised financial system can cause havoc to an economy. More

GLOBAL FINANCIAL FLOWS, AID AND DEVELOPMENT

by Eurodad

30 March 2013

This paper - written by Eurodad for CONCORD’s Aidwatch coalition - sets out all the financial resources potentially available for development. It examines their key characteristics and discusses their poverty and sustainable development impacts, as well as the implications for aid. More

SEISMIC ELECTION RESULTS IN GREECE

by Eric Toussaint

9 May 2012

,Syriza, the radical left-wing coalition comes first in all major cities and among people aged18-35,,Its campaign advocated suspending debt payment and cancelling austerity measures More

SPAIN : MEANINGS AND PROSPECTS OF NEW BUDGET CUTS

by News Agencies

2 April 2012

Just hours after a general strike, which magnitude and extension were denied, Spain’s government has announced $36 billion in new budget cuts, as it attempts to reassure the European Union that it will not need a financial bailout. More

THE LESSON FROM ICELAND’S ECONOMIC RECOVERY: LET BANKS GO BUST

by Matthew Partridge

5 March 2012

Governments around the world bailed out their financial sectors. However, Iceland took a different tack. The government declared that it would only save domestic bank account holders - everyone else would have to fight over the remaining assets More

LOST BILLIONS: TRANSFER PRICING IN THE EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES

by Alex Marriage

18 February 2012

Eurodad partners Publish What You Pay Norway has released a new report on transfer pricing in the extractive industries More

FINANCIAL CRISIS OR CRISIS OF CAPITALISM?

by Michel Husson

23 June 2010

The current crisis originated in the financial arena but quickly spread to all of the so-called real economy. This observation raises two questions. A theoretical question: how to analyze the relationship between finance and the real economy and their responsibility for the crisis? And a more practical question: what are the channels of transmission from one to another and how to reverse financialization? More

THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS, THE GREAT DEPRESSION OF THE XXI CENTURY.

by Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall

24 May 2010

The following text is the Preface of The Global Economic Crisis. The Great Depression of the XXI Century, Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall (Editors), Montreal, Global Research, 2010, which is to be launched in late May. More

UNITED STATES : STATE BUDGET BLUES - LOOKING FOR FUNDS IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES

by Marianne Hill

29 December 2009

Experts anticipate that federal dollars going to state programs will be scaled back, with funding levels increasing only in targeted areas such as health care and energy. So shortfalls in state budgets will continue for years to come unless states either enact more cuts or update their antiquated tax systems. More

THE LESSONS OF DUBAI

by Nouriel Roubini

2 December 2009

Although Dubai World’s financing issues are not a surprise and are relatively small given global credit losses, they are a reminder that the vulnerabilities and imbalances that contributed to the credit crunch have not disappeared. More

NEW REPORT FINDS IMF AGREEMENTS HAVE INCLUDED POLICIES THAT COULD WORSEN ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN IN 31 OF 41 COUNTRIES

by Mark Weisbrot, Rebecca Ray, Jake Johnston, Jose Antonio Cordero and Juan Antonio Montecino.

7 October 2009

A new discussion paper from the Center for Economic and Policy Research finds that 31 of 41 countries with current International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreements have been subjected to pro-cyclical macroeconomic policies that, during the current global recession, would be expected to have exacerbated economic slowdowns. More

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS ONE YEAR ON

by Jayati Ghosh

18 September 2009

Today there is talk of recovery everywhere, even in currently recessionary Europe and certainly in the US. So was the emergency response successful? And have policy makers learned the important lessons from the crisis? More

THE BAILOUTS REVISITED

by Marty Wolfson

15 September 2009

Who got bailed out and why? Is there any alternative to “Too Big to Fail”? If we want to help the people who are suffering in this crisis and recession, then we should make financial policies with them directly in mind. Just throwing money at the banks will not get the job done. More

UNITED STATES: ONE YEAR OF BANKSTER BAILOUTS AND MELTDOWN MADNESS

by John Nichols

14 September 2009

One year ago today, the economic time bomb that George Bush and Dick Cheney had spent two terms constructing - on a platform of deregulations furnished by Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich - blew up. The explosion created the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression. And it sent unemployment rates soaring to the highest levels in a quarter century. More

CAPITALISM IN CRISIS, GOVERNMENT IMPOTENT

by Rick Wolff

11 September 2009

Government policies over the last two centuries of capitalism’s ascendancy have neither ended nor replaced crises as the system’s method for correcting capitalist excesses. More

DOING BUSINESS 2010: WORLD BANK DISCOURAGES EXTENSION OF SOCIAL PROTECTION

by International Trade Union Confederation

10 September 2009

The International Trade Union Confederation denounces that latest edition of the Bank’s highest circulation publication discourages countries from adopting social protection schemes by designating governments that do so as anti-business. More

ARGENTINA: RETURNING TO THE IMF IS NOT FOR FREE

by Mariela Bembi and Pablo Nemiña

9 September 2009

In the past weeks, several voices, including from the same government of Cristina Kirchner, were heard in favour of Argentina’s return to the IMF, allowing the institution to carry out the review of the economy known as Article IV. More

MANAGING CRISIS IN JAMAICA AND CUBA

by Robert Buddan

8 September 2009

In Cuba, the economy is the top priority and food security is regarded as nothing less than a matter of national security. In Jamaica, the economy is the priority, although winning by-elections seems to come close More

RUSSIA’S ECONOMY : NORMAL REMEDIES WON’T WORK

by Dmitri Travin

14 August 2009

The economic crisis in Russia has proved much more serious than was expected in the autumn of 2008, when the first signs of a serious downturn became apparent. Experts are currently talking more and more about the imminent so-called second phase of the crisis, when bad debts on a massive scale will lead to the collapse of the banking system. More

THE DEFLATING ECONOMY

by Mike Whitney

13 August 2009

There should be a modest uptick in GDP in either in the 4th quarter 2009 or the 1st quarter 2010. This will mark the end of the current 20 month-long recession, but not the end of the crisis. The blip in growth doesn’t mean that the troubles are over or that the economy is on the way to recovery. It simply means that Obama’s $787 billion fiscal stimulus is beginning to kick in, giving a boost to consumer spending and generating short-term economic activity. Regrettably, when the stimulus (...) More

NOT HOME YET

by James Surowiecki

3 August 2009

Even as the economy seems to be stabilizing, mortgage delinquencies continue to rise, with nearly two million foreclosure filings already this year More

US BANK BAILOUT TO COST $23.7 TRILLION

by Andre Damon

22 July 2009

The federal government’s bailout of Wall Street may cost $23.7 trillion, according to a statement given to Congress Monday by the lead overseer of the Treasury’s bailout program, Neil Barofsky, special inspector-general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). More

SOME USD 5 TRILLION ON FINANCIAL SUPPORT SINCE THE CRISIS BEGAN, BUT ALMOST NOTHING HAS REACHED THE MOST VULNERABLE COUNTRIES

by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

22 July 2009

Supachai Panitchpakdi, head of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said that Capital flows to poorer states and export earnings have together collapsed by USD $2 trillion since the credit crunch began. "This is an alarming trend, and it’s not a result of their own doing." More

BAIL-OUT OR BLOW-OUT? IMF POLICY ADVICE AND CONDITIONS FOR LOW-INCOME COUNTRIES AT A TIME OF CRISIS

by Eurodad

26 June 2009

Eurodad’s new research "Bail-out or blow-out? IMF policy advice and conditions for low-income countries at a time of crisis" shows that the IMF is still advising stringent fiscal and monetary policies to low income countries as well as controversial structural reforms. More

STAGES IN THE NEW DEBT DEFLATION FISHER-MINSKY CRISIS

by Arturo Guillén R.

19 June 2009

The global crisis is the most important capitalist crisis since World War II. It is a new type of debt-deflation crisis, highlighting the limits of the finance-dominated regime of accumulation in place since the 1980s and characterized, among other things, by securitization, that is, a financing regime based on issuing securities and derivatives. More

NAFTA’S SERFS: FROM WAGE SLAVERY TO DEBT SLAVERY

by Kent Paterson

17 June 2009

The growing indebtedness of Mexican credit card users has actually created a new opportunity for the shadowy, high-interest lender. To pay off high-interest credit cards, some debtors look again to the agiotistas. Meanwhile, delinquency rates on U.S. credit card accounts topped 5% at the end of the last year, with default rates continuing to climb upward during the first few months of 2009. More

ARE EASTERN EUROPE PROBLEMS GOING TO SPILLOVER?

by Nouriel Roubini

11 June 2009

The collapse of the Thai baht in July 1997 helped spark the Asian financial crisis. Could events in Latvia spawn a similar contagion? Eyes are focused on this small Baltic economy—amid growing talk of a devaluation—because of the potential for spillover effects into its fellow Baltic states, Sweden and the broader Eastern European region. More

SOUTH AMERICAN TRADE AND CURRENCY VOLATILITY

by Tony Phillips

9 June 2009

Latin America is rich in real terms, however its financial infrastructure is primitive. This means that many national and international transactions pass unnecessarily via northern financial centers, sometimes requiring two hard currency conversions from buyer currency to dollar to seller currency. More

LATVIA’S CRISIS DEEPENS

by Kathleen Moore

7 June 2009

Not so long ago it was the fastest growing economy in the European Union. But boom turned to spectacular bust last year as the global financial crisis swept across Eastern Europe, popping Latvia’s real-estate bubble. More

CHINA AND THE US DOLLAR TRAP

by Sebastian Mallaby

1 June 2009

Chinese authorities are searching for a way to reduce their exposure to the greenback. The surest method would be to stop buying so many U.S. Treasury bonds; but that would mean allowing the Chinese currency to rise against the dollar, which would hurt Chinese exporters when they are already suffering. More

LATIN AMERICAN LEADERS ARE CALLED TO PARTICIPATE IN UPCOMING UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON THE WORLD CRISIS (G-192)

by Social Movements

29 May 2009

Social movements of Latin American send and Open Letter to Heads of State encouraging their participation in the upcoming celebration in New York, June 24 to 26, of the United Nations’ Conference on the Developmental Impacts of the Financial and Economic Crisis. More

ALL THAT GLITTERS IS GOLDMAN SACHS

by Robert Zevin

28 May 2009

The Bush administration and the Obama administration have simply abandoned the principles that worked for Roosevelt through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in the first days of his administration, that worked in the Savings and Loan Crisis in the early 90’s, that worked in Sweden as well at the same time and that have been understood by capitalist central bankers for 150 years. Save the depositors not the bank owners or bondholders. More

UN SUMMIT ON FINANCIAL CRISIS DELAYED UNTIL LATE JUNE

by News Agencies

27 May 2009

The UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development was originally slated to be held on June 1-3, with an aim to find a common and lasting solution to address the ongoing financial and economic crisis of the world. More

ASIAN COUNTRIES CREATE AN INDEPENDENT USD 120 BILLON FUND TO FACE THE CRISIS

by OID-IDO

25 May 2009

The idea of the "pool" stemmed from the devastation Asian nations suffered from the 1997-98 financial crisis. But turning the idea into a real mechanism has been possible on last weeek end , in the background of the world crisis. More

HAS THE RECESSION BOTTOMED OUT?

by Steve Schifferes

22 May 2009

By some measures, the global recession seems to be accelerating, with unemployment rising and overall economic activity falling. But there are some signs that the rate of decline is slowing. How significant is the evidence for a turning point? More

CANADA’S PRIME MINISTER IS URGED TO PARTICIPATE IN FORTHCOMING UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON THE WORLD CRISIS (G-192).

by Halifax Initiative Coalition

18 May 2009

An open letter urges Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen harper, to give the United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis the political weight it deserves and to participate in the meeting as the country’s Head of Government. More

EUROPEAN SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS CALL FOR NEXT JUNE 1-3 UNITED NATIONS SUMMIT (G- 192)

by European Cross-Sectoral Network on the Combined Crises

14 May 2009

A call to UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development (1- 3 June 2009), and especially the European leaders attending the event to focus on reforms that directly benefit people and the planet. More

TOWARDS A WESTERN/EASTERN EUROPE BANKING AND SOCIAL TSUNAMI

by Catherine Samary

12 May 2009

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was called to the rescue by Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine... which are confronted with a fall in growth and in foreign exchange rates, with capital flight and a banking crisis. The policies of budgetary austerity, under the pressure of the IMF and of the European Union, are producing governmental crises. More

HAS BERNANKE PULLED THE ECONOMY BACK FROM THE BRINK?

by Mike Whitney

12 May 2009

Digging out of the current recession won’t be easy. The wholesale credit system will have to be rebuilt, just as the financial system will have to be re-regulated and reset at a lower level of economic activity. That means higher unemployment, smaller GDP, and falling demand. More

TAX HAVENS AND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

by Rachel Keeler

11 May 2009

Over the years, trillions of dollars in both corporate profits and personal wealth have migrated “offshore” in search of rock bottom tax rates and the comfort of no questions asked. From offshore havens to financial centers, banking secrecy faces scrutiny. More

AUSTRALIA: WHEN CASHED-UP IMF OFFERS TO HELP, STEER WELL CLEAR

by Ross Buckley

5 May 2009

Make no mistake, the worst of the global crisis is still before us.This collapse in trade and capital flows will seriously damage the fragile economies of poorer countries. More

CONCERNS: UN CONFERENCE ON WORLD CRISIS (G192)

by François Houtart

4 May 2009

Letter to Social Movements, Non-Governmental Networks and Intellectuals. Facing the systemic and global crisis, the G20 has presented a series of measures, without consulting the majority of the countries of the world. More

ECONOMY ON THE ROPES

by Mike Whitney

2 May 2009

The economy continued to shrink in the first quarter of 2009 at an annual pace of 6.1 percent, making it the worst recession in more than 50 years. More

USA: CALCULATING THE LOSSES OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

by Billy Wharton

30 April 2009

The resulting losses have not just been financial. Significant social stress produced by the financial shock has translated into externally and internally directed violence. More

IMF/WORLD BANK SPRING MEETINGS: FINANCE MINISTERS IN WASHINGTON FAIL TO DELIVER ON G20 PROMISES

by Eurodad

29 April 2009

Impoverished countries don’t know yet on how much they will count and the extent to which the IMF will grant this finance at reasonable terms and avoid making past mistakes. More

AUSTRALIA: WHO PAYS FOR THE RECESSION?

by Graham Matthews

27 April 2009

On April 23, the Australian Financial Review reported that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had “dramatically downgraded its outlook” for the Australian economy, predicting a recession similar to the 1990s downturn and an unemployment rate of up to 8% next year. The IMF said the economy was set to contract by 1.4%. More

IMF PREDICTS A HISTORICAL RECESSION IN 2009

by OID-IDO

22 April 2009

The International Monetary Fund is predicting a "severe recession" of global proportions in 2009 and a "gradual" recovery in 2010. According to the World Economic Outlook, GDP will shrink by 1.3% in 2009 before growing again by 1.9% in 2010. More

USA: NEW WAVE OF HOUSINGS FORECLOSURES

by Mike Whitney

21 April 2009

Due to the lifting of the foreclosure moratorium at the end of March, the downward slide in housing is gaining speed. More

IMF APPROVES U$S 47 BILLION NEW CREDIT TO MEXICO, BUT THE FOCUS IS PLACED IN EASTERN EUROPE.

by News Agencies

20 April 2009

Mexico is the first nation to be granted the IMF credit under its newly created ’flexible credit line’ (FCL) available to strongly performing economies with fewer strings attached, to tide over the worst economic crisis in over 60 years. More

THE CRISIS IS FAR FROM OVER

by Michel Husson

19 April 2009

The degree of coordination among the capitalist authorities (governments, banks, IMF, sovereign wealth funds, European institutions, etc.) is advancing under the pressure of the emergency. But it is not enough to make us envisage the establishment of a new Bretton Woods. More

G20 COMMUNIQUÉ: SOME PROGRESS ON GOVERNANCE AND FINANCE, BUT A LONG WAY TO GO

by Eurodad

17 April 2009

The fight against tax havens has progressed in the last few weeks much further than anybody could have imagined a couple of years ago. But the progress seems to be essentially rhetoric. More

REGULATIONS DO NOT PREVENT CAPITALIST CRISES

by Rick Wolff

16 April 2009

From FDR to Obama, capitalist crashes brought state interventions into the economy that always included new or increased regulations. Immediately after (and sometimes already during) every phase of regulation, boards of directors and major shareholders of many US corporations began to undermine that regulation. More

THEIR CRISIS, OUR CHALLENGE

by David Harvey

14 April 2009

The term ‘national bail-out’ is therefore inaccurate, because they’re not bailing out the whole of the existing financial system - they’re bailing out the banks, the capitalist class, forgiving them their debts, their transgressions, and only theirs More

G20: HOW NOT TO RULE THE WORLD

by Jayati Ghosh

13 April 2009

Not much could have been expected from this G20 Summit. Despite the urgency of a global economy going rapidly over the cliff, there is still too much disagreement about most issues among the members. Even so, the resulting communiqué released with so much fanfare is deeply disappointing. More

RUSSIA: BANKING CRISIS DEEPENS

by Emma O’Brien and William Mauldin

10 April 2009

Russian banks’ bad loans will quadruple to $70 billion this year, deepening the country’s worst financial crisis since the government’s 1998 debt default More

UNITED STATES: IS THE BAILOUT PLAN BREEDING A GREATER CRISIS?

by Paul Craig Roberts

8 April 2009

If the U.S. dollar loses its reserve currency status, the United States will not be able to pay for its imports. The ensuing crisis would dwarf the current one. More

WORLD CRISIS: THE KEY ISSUE HERE IS FEAR AND LACK OF CONFIDENCE

by Andrew Kliman

7 April 2009

I can’t make a prediction as to how far things are going to fall. But there is a danger of a collapse of prices and jobs well beyond the government’s ability to manage. More

THE US DOLLAR QUESTIONED: CHINA AND RUSSIA PROPOSE STUDIES TO CREATE A NEW INTERNATIONAL RESERVE CURRENCY

by Oleg Shchedrov and Daisy Ku

4 April 2009

Russia proposed on Thursday an IMF or G20 study on creating a new international reserve currency and China reiterated support for a broader discussion of the dollar’s role that was missing at the London G20 summit. More

TRANSFORMING THE WORLD IN CRISIS

by Conference of Prague 2009

3 April 2009

NGO`s discussed for three days in Prague the root causes, impacts and responses to the financial crises, economic meltdown, climate change, mismanagement of natural resource use, increasing inequity and volatile food and oil prices from the systemic perspective of the world’s poor and vulnerable. More

A G20 MEETING FOR NAUGHT

by Eric Toussaint and Damien Millet

2 April 2009

The G20 was not created in order to provide genuine solutions; it was hastily summoned a first time in November 2008 to salvage the powers that be and try and to plug the breaches in capitalism. More

LATIN AMERICA : ARGENTINA AND CHINA TO SIGN INEDIT $10.2 BLLLION CURRENCY SWAP DEAL

by News Agencies

31 March 2009

Argentina and China have tentatively agreed to swap equivalente $10.2 billion worth of their currencies to enable South America’s second-largest economy to avoid using dollars in trade between the nations, banking officials said Monday. More

CZECH REPUBLIC AND HUNGARY: FINANCIAL CRISIS TAKES POLITICAL TOLL

by Zoltán Dujisin

30 March 2009

The weak governments in Hungary and the Czech Republic have fallen, raising questions on the future of liberal economic reform and the influence of the U.S., the European Union and Russia in the region. More

FISCAL STIMULUS PLANS: THE NEED FOR A GLOBAL NEW DEAL

by Isabel Ortiz

27 March 2009

This article reviews the fiscal stimulus packages announced in 43 countries. In March 2009, the total amount announced for these stimulus plans is US$ 2.18 trillion, or 3.5% of world’s GDP, mostly in higher income economies. More

GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD : BILLIONS MORE FOR FAILED BANKS

by Dean Baker

25 March 2009

As a result, the banks are likely to still have several hundred billion of bad assets on their books even after this plan has been put in place. The Obama administration will then be forced to go to Congress with yet another bailout proposal More

EUROPEAN NGOS MEET THE EU WORLD BANK EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS IN BRUSSELS

by Eurodad

24 March 2009

This week European NGOs met the EU World Bank Executive Directors on the occasion of their annual visit to Brussels. On the table for discussion there were the issues of the Bank’s response to the financial crisis, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) supported oil projects in Ghana. More

NO RETURN TO NORMAL

by James K. Galbraith

21 March 2009

Why the economic crisis, and its solution, are bigger than you think. More

EUROIFINET LAUNCHES A POSITION PAPER ON THE FINANCIAL CRISIS AND CAPITAL FLIGHT, DEBT AND IFIS

by Eurodad

12 March 2009

The paper highlights that there is a broad, global systemic crisis with environmental, social, economic and democratic dimensions; and that there is a need for new structures and a new paradigm More

"THE BAILING OUT OF THE SYSTEM RIGHT NOW IS GOING ON WITH TAXPAYER FUNDS BUT WITHOUT THE SAY OF THE PUBLIC"

by Mike Whitney

9 March 2009

John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is the coauthor with Fred Magdoff of The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences, recently published by Monthly Review Press. This is a heavily abridged version of an interview was conducted by Mike Whitney that first appeared at Dissident Voice - http://www.dissidentvoice.org More

POOR COUNTRIES TO NEED UP TO 700 BILLION DOLLARS

by Jim Lobe

9 March 2009

In the latest in a series of increasingly dire predictions, the World Bank Sunday warned that developing countries may need up to 700 billion dollars in external financing this year due to the squeeze in global credit markets which has seen a dramatic plunge in private investment.
In a new report, prepared for next weekend’s meeting of the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Britain, the bank predicted that global gross domestic product (GDP) will actually decline in (...) More

WHATEVER’S HAPPENED TO GLOBAL BANKING?

by C.P. Chandrasekhar & Jayati Ghosh

7 March 2009

The call for nationalization of banks in developed countries, even if for a temporary period, marks a potential ideological shift. Even staunch free market advocates are declaring that nationalization is inevitable. This article examines the factors explaining this acceptance of public ownership and the implications that this has for the future of banking regulation. More

WHAT KIND OF A “NEW” BRETTON WOODS WILL EMERGE FROM THE CRISIS?

by John Dillon

6 March 2009

As the world undergoes the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s, political leaders of various persuasions have been talking about convening a new Bretton Woods conference to re-design the global financial system. The rhetorical calls for a new Bretton Woods sound appealing. But it is not at all clear whether a new, more just and sustainable order will emerge. Currently minor re-forms that will only shore up an unjust economic order seem more likely. More

LATIN AMERICA FACES THE GLOBAL CRISIS

by Claudio Katz

3 March 2009

The capitalists of Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina receive the assistance that should be allocated for the destitute. The social-liberal and neo-developmentalist governments all follow statist programs on behalf of the rich and powerful and do not coordinate their anti-crisis policies. More

FROM GLOBAL FINANCE TO THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE BANKS

by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin

26 February 2009

The call for nationalization of the banks provides an opening for advancing broader strategies that begin to take up the need for systemic alternatives to capitalism More

TIME FOR PERMANENT NATIONALIZATION

by Fred Moseley

24 February 2009

But there is a better alternative, a more equitable, “taxpayer friendly” option: Permanently nationalize banks that are “too big to fail” and run these banks according to public policy objectives (affordable housing, green energy, etc.), rather than with the objective of private profit maximization. The nationalization of banks, if it’s done right, would clearly be superior to current bailout policies because it would not involve a massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to bondholders. More

WILL IMF LOANS HURT THE POOR THIS TIME AROUND?

by Bretton Woods Project

15 February 2009

While the IMF undertakes high-speed reviews into its lending instruments and conditionality, it continues to make crisis loans with heavy conditionality that may adversely impact the poor in developing countries. More

JUST SAY ’’NO’’ TO THE CREDIT RATING AGENCIES

by Gerald Epstein

9 February 2009

The credit rating agencies have got us, coming and going. First they help cause the biggest economic calamity since the 1930’s. And now they tell us we can’t take the fiscal measures needed to get us out of this mess. Meanwhile, they are laughing all the way to the bank (that is, if they can find one that is still solvent). Why are we still listening to them? More

A NEW NEW DEAL UNDER OBAMA?

by John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney

1 February 2009

With U.S. capitalism mired in an economic crisis of a severity that increasingly brings to mind the Great Depression of the 1930s, it should come as no surprise that there are widespread calls for “a new New Deal.” More