By ARNO J. MAYER - August 26, 2011

For a while it looked as if Western Europe’s imperial-colonial era had drawn to a close and as if the imperial benefits and burdens it bequeathed to the U.S. were about to be liquidated, as well. But this turns out to be a gross historical misconstruction.

By Noam Chomsky - Znet

...[I]t is “a common theme” that the United States..."is in decline, ominously facing the prospect of its final decay.” It is indeed a common theme...and with some reason. But an appraisal of US foreign policy and influence abroad and the strength of its domestic economy and political institutions at home suggests that a number of qualifications are in order...[D]espite America’s decline, in the foreseeable future there is no competitor for global hegemonic power.

"Karl Marx had it right. At some point capitalism can destroy itself because you cannot keep on shifting income from labor to capital without not having excess capacity and a lack of aggregate demand, and that's what's happening." -- Nouriel Roubini

The US economy is the big exception in global capitalism: its national credit and the wealth of the world are the same.

By Shamus Cooke - August 16, 2011

For the wealthy and corporations this is a life and death struggle. The Great Recession has already bankrupted the banks and corporations who were not fit enough to survive under a crumbling market economy. The existing companies are thus forced to squeeze more work for less pay out of their workers, since labor is the most flexible cost of any business. Pushing labor costs down -- and...social programs -- is thus the priority of the corporations and their paid-for politicians across the globe, since the global economy is tightly connected and they all play by the vicious rules of the market.

Despite a deepening global depression, establishment economists are in denial. On June 9, the Wall Street Journal said those surveyed expected slow, steady growth through 2011, despite high US unemployment, a housing depression, European sovereign debt in crisis, and the unreported insolvency of major French and other banks.

A new publishing house in Minneapolis, Subsect Press, will be releasing a book to describe how a non-hierarchical, regenerative and anti-capitalist society can meet human needs.



With its loan business, the banking industry achieves something remarkable. In its hands, money is capital — many times over. It makes the deposits of its cash depositors grow through interest payments. It puts money at the disposal of its loan customers, which strengthens their power to generate profits and both obligates and enables them to make interest payments. The net interest generated by the banking industry increases the capital with which it conducts its business.

One sign is the enormous worldwide financial shock, erasing nearly $8 trillion of equity wealth since late July. Another is teetering global economies, notably across Europe and America. Still another is growing poverty, deprivation, and despair for millions without jobs, enough income, or futures.

Forced austerity is hammering workers globally because Obama and other Western leaders won't provide help when it's most needed. As a result, living standards are plummeting as economies teeter.

Slow-motion fiscal collapse perhaps explains its current state after decades of mismanagement. The chickens are now coming home to roost big time, hitting ordinary people hardest, suffering under a protracted Main Street Depression.

Main Street America is in a protracted Depression.

Bad policies assure bad results. Destructive ones assure calamities. Well before Obama took office, bipartisan initiatives plotted a course for disaster.

By Stefan Steinberg - 16 July 2011

The representatives of finance capital are well aware that their counter-revolutionary policy will provoke social upheavals. Their answer is the preparation of new and more repressive forms of rule.

By Ellen Russell - rabble.ca

Neo-liberalism's genius is its ability to blame the victim. Thus the sub prime crisis was the result of irresponsible home buyers, and the Greek crisis is the result of greedy Greeks living beyond their means. Once the victim is blamed, it justifies imposing a world of pain on those who are already suffering.