Friday, Jan 27th 2012
On the 12th of January 2010, Haiti was devastated by an earthquake which struck some 10 miles Southwest of the capital Port-au-Prince. Recording 7.0 on the Richter scale, it left 220,000 people dead, over 300,000 more injured. Haiti’s already inadequate infrastructure was also severely affected as the earthquake damaged or destroyed as many as 250,000 [...]
This article was originally posted today on Socialist Economic Bulletin.
There’s a very good piece on LabourList titled ‘Who Didn’t Predict a Riot?’ It lists many of the bodies or leading individuals who warned that deep cuts to public spending would lead to social unrest and violence. The short piece is worth reading in full, but [...]
Looting with the lights on | Naomi Klein
Klein on the daylight riotious behavior of global capitalists and the unleashing of the global “saqueos”, after the Argentinian mass looting, known as “el saqueo - the sacking”. In Argentina the use of el saqueo was politically significant “because it was the very same word used to describe [...]
The context: In the middle of a mighty bushfire the fire brigade just held a summit between its chief fire fighters (Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy) to discuss the importance of biodiversity, leaving the flames to destroy the forest. Italy and Spain are collapsing. The EFSF, the only institution that was set up to deal [...]
The publication of the European Union (EU) and German 2nd quarter GDP figures, following those for the US and Japan, completes the data regarding the state of the business recovery in the main developed economies. The picture is completely clear - Figure 1:
By the 2nd quarter of 2011 none of the major regions among the developed [...]
The Coalition of Resistance is organising a European conference against Austerity, Cuts and Privatisation, and in defence of the Welfare State on Saturday 1st October in London.
You can register and get details about the European Conference Against Austerity & Privatization here.
From the website:
The economic crisis of 2008 is still gripping Europe. Governments are telling us [...]
Who leaked the S&P downgrade news?
Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. credit rating late last Friday, and the news wasn't much of a surprise. Wall Street had heard a rumor early on that the downgrade was coming. News sites reported the rumor all day.
Unless it was all a huge coincidence, it's likely that someone in [...]
Don Peck in The Atlantic | Can the Middle Class Be Saved?
In October 2005, three Citigroup analysts released a report describing the pattern of growth in the U.S. economy. To really understand the future of the economy and the stock market, they wrote, you first needed to recognize that there was “no such animal as [...]
From a Rioter
This is for all ye toffee-nosed fuckin sadists out there
callin for rough justice.
Fuck the fuckin lot of ye
down into the ground
is what I say.
Ye’re just dronin the same old crap
as all those bullshit experts
and all those fuckin broadloid hacks
that make their fuckin fortune outta lyin
and ye’re only a fuckin crow chorus
for all the fiddlin [...]
Andrew Watt | The real causes of lax regulation of the financial sector: more transparency on lobbying needed in Europe
One of the calumnies of liberal/conservative commentators and politicians, and some mainstream economists, when the financial crisis broke in 2007/2008 was that it was all the fault of – you guessed it – government.
[...]
What occurred was [...]
