Big Banks Face Another Round of U.S. Charges

Published on New York Times, by BEN PROTESS and JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG (and with Jenny Anderson and Matthew Goldstein), Oct 6, 2014.

The Justice Department is preparing a fresh round of attacks on the world’s biggest banks, again questioning Wall Street’s role in a broad array of financial markets … //

… The charges will most likely focus on traders and their bosses rather than chief executives. As a result, critics of the Justice Department might view the cases as little more than an exercise in public relations, a final push to shape the legacy of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who was blamed for a lack of criminal cases against Wall Street executives.   Continuer la lecture de « Big Banks Face Another Round of U.S. Charges »

Banned TED Talks

Continuer la lecture de « Banned TED Talks »

SYRIZA Rising: What’s Next For The Movements In Greece?

Published on ZNet (first on ROARMAG), by  Antonis Broumas and Theodoros Karyotis, Oct 4, 2014.

… Left-Wing Bureaucracy and the State:

In theory, the communist left relates with the state in instrumental terms. The conquest of the bourgeois state is presented as a necessary evil on the road to workers’ power. This approach, however, is immersed — even on a purely theoretical level — in a series of contradictions. Even in its most sophisticated versions it fails to address the issue of the dialectic relation between the vanguard party bureaucracy and the autonomy of the world of labor, or the possibility of achieving a transition towards an egalitarian society, when there is such disparity between the means employed and the goals proposed.   Continuer la lecture de « SYRIZA Rising: What’s Next For The Movements In Greece? »

Scotland's Referendum: Some lessons for Quebec … and Canada

Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin no. 1043, by Richard Fidler, Oct 3, 2014.

Superficially, the 55-45 victory of the No forces in Scotland’s referendum September 18 was a clear rejection of independence. The Yes forces won a majority only in the four poorest and most deprived of the nation’s 32 local divisions, although a class breakdown of the vote would show a majority of the working-class voted for independence.   Continuer la lecture de « Scotland's Referendum: Some lessons for Quebec … and Canada »

emerging economies: arrested development

Published on The Economist, Oct 4, 2014: The model of development through industrialisation is on its way out.

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS ago Shenzhen was a tiny fishing village just over the river from British Hong Kong. Its inhabitants, like most Chinese, lived in poverty. In 1978 the average income in America was about 21 times that in China. But in 1979 China’s leader, Deng Xiaoping, chose Shenzhen as the country’s first special economic zone, free to experiment with market activity and trade with the outside world. Shenzhen quickly found itself at the leading edge of Chinese economic development, using the same model as Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong itself had done at earlier stages.   Continuer la lecture de « emerging economies: arrested development »

… Europe Is Crumbling Into Collapse

Published on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, Oct 2, 2014.

… Yves here. The word “collapse” may seem overwrought when applied to Europe, but cold-blooded, clear eyed colleagues who have good connections and have spent a bit of time there recently say things that are broadly similar to Ilargi’s take. Despite the conventional wisdom that the cost of a Eurozone breakup is catastrophically and thus will never take place, that confidence may prove to be the currency union’s undoing. Ideological rigidity about austerity is leading to policies that are crushing large swathes of the population. And Europe, unlike the US, had enough of a tradition of popular revolt that that uprisings, either on the street or in the ballot box, are real possibilities, as the sudden rise of the anti-EU right shows.   Continuer la lecture de « … Europe Is Crumbling Into Collapse »

Fed Whistleblower Carmen Segarra, Snowden, and the Closing of the Journalistic Mind

Published on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, Sept 29, 2014;

… Now you might say, isn’t this media firestorm a great thing? It’s roused Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown to demand hearing. The Fed has been toadying up to Wall Street for years. Shouldn’t we be pleased that the problem is finally being taken seriously?   Continuer la lecture de « Fed Whistleblower Carmen Segarra, Snowden, and the Closing of the Journalistic Mind »

Beyond 2015: Is Another Development Possible?

Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin no. 1040, by Benjamin Selwyn, Sept 28, 2014.

A we near 2015, the United Nations (UN) will probably set new objectives on behalf of the global community to supersede the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs are held largely by the UN, the World Bank and many anti-poverty campaigners, which I label here the anti-poverty consensus, to have been a success. According to the UN, The First MDG – the objective of halving world poverty between 1990 and 2015 – was achieved already in 2010 … // Continuer la lecture de « Beyond 2015: Is Another Development Possible? »

Interview with Ebola Discoverer Peter Piot: It Is What People Call a Perfect Storm – part 1

Published on Spiegel Online International, Interview Conducted by Rafaela von Bredow and Veronika Hackenbroch, Sept 26, 2014 (Photo Gallery).

Almost four decades ago, Peter Piot was part of the team that discovered the Ebola virus. In a SPIEGEL interview, he describes how the disease was isolated and explains why the current outbreak is different than any that have come before.

SPIEGEL: Professor Piot, as a young scientist in Antwerp, you were part of the team that discovered the Ebola virus in 1976. How did it happen?   Continuer la lecture de « Interview with Ebola Discoverer Peter Piot: It Is What People Call a Perfect Storm – part 1 »

RACE IN AMERICA – The Violence of the Status Quo: Michael Brown, Ferguson and Tanks

Published on Antropology News, by Pem Davidson Buck, Sept 15, 2014.

Years ago I thought about writing a paper I would call “The Violence of the Status Quo.” I never wrote that paper. Perhaps now is the time—although it would have been appropriate any time in the last 500 years of US history. Michael Brown, yes, and as of August 19 four other young Black men, all unarmed, perhaps not perfectly behaved, but killed in the last month by White police under circumstances in which Whites are almost never killed by police … // Continuer la lecture de « RACE IN AMERICA – The Violence of the Status Quo: Michael Brown, Ferguson and Tanks »

Housing, Fair Wages, Water, Food, Schools — Ya’ Gotta Bomb them First

Looking at the hardware and software of the killers, Murder Inc., really sets out what we are up against – Published on Dissident Voice, by Paul Kirk, September 25, 2014.

You don’t need to be a Georgetown graduate of the diplomatic killing corps or a rocket scientist or some overpaid pig of entertainment journalism or pundit or war hero or black president or a member of the publishing class to understand what bombing Syria and Iraq and any other country means to the military and civilian murder machine. Below, just the facts, ma’am. Clearly laid out as the direct military profiteers engaged in killing people abroad or in their neck of the woods (sic) as in Israel, you know, all those companies that are the GE’s and Boeings of the world. But do not be misled — Americans and Westerners make their livings directly tand indirectly killing people. Continuer la lecture de « Housing, Fair Wages, Water, Food, Schools — Ya’ Gotta Bomb them First »

Progressive Struggles against Insidious Capitalist Individualism – Interview with Angela Davis

Published on Jadaliyya, by Frank Barat, Sept 24, 2014 (also on ZNet).

In this interview, Angela Davis, and activist, teacher, author, and icon of the Black Power movement, talks about the linkages among global struggles. Touching upon black feminism, the importance of the collective, Palestine, the prison-industrial complex, and much more, Professor Davis expounds on the role that the people can and should play.
(A shorter version of this interview was first published in The Nation http://www.thenation.com/article/181386/qa-angela-davis-black-power-feminism-and-prison-industrial-complex … // Continuer la lecture de « Progressive Struggles against Insidious Capitalist Individualism – Interview with Angela Davis »

The American Withdrawal from Iraq – the Debate

Published on International Affairs Forum, by Dr. Erik Lindell, Sept 24, 2014.

The “who lost Iraq” blame game has begun in earnest. Conservatives have attacked the Obama Administration for withdrawing all U.S. forces from Iraq at the end of 2011. It was premature, they argue, and contend that the current mess in Iraq, with the terrorist group ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) now taking control of Mosul and other cities in Northern Iraq, is attributable to this disastrous decision by the President.[1] With no American troops left after 2011 the political leverage of the U.S. diminished accordingly, leaving free -for- all sectarian clashes in its wake. Senator John McCain has been the most vocal critic of the President on this point, even claiming that the war had been “won” until the Obama Administration foolishly pulled all the troops out.   Continuer la lecture de « The American Withdrawal from Iraq – the Debate »

Europe's Original Sin: What Asylum Policy Says about the EU

Published on Spiegel Online International, an Essay by Jürgen Dahlkamp, Sept 22, 2014.

European asylum policy is a messy compromise that has led to vast suffering on the EU’s external borders. But having become used to our prosperity, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s time to talk about asylum, about our European Union with its execrable policy based on deterrence, fortification and deportation. It’s time to talk about the fact that people are starving, drowning and otherwise suffering on their way to our borders. And it’s time to address the question as to why these things happen every day: today, tomorrow and the day after that. Continuer la lecture de « Europe's Original Sin: What Asylum Policy Says about the EU »