How I Learned to Stop Worrying
and Love the Deficit
By John Miller | November 17th
You would have thought the budget deficit had morphed into Dr. Strangelove’s doomsday machine from the howling that followed the publication of CBO projections in August. Read more »
That ’70s Crisis
By Alejandro Reuss | November 6th
Stagflation, gas lines, high unemployment: What can the crisis of U.S. capitalism in the 1970s teach us about the current crisis and its possible outcomes? Read more »
Have the Rich Won?
By Sam Pizzigati | October 28th
Today’s super rich are doing fantastically better, than when D&S was founded 35 years ago. In 2006, the top 400 averaged an astounding $263 million each in income, and paid just just 17.2% of their incomes in federal tax. Read more »
Building a Better Austin from Below
By Carlos Pérez de Alejo | October 14th
The Worker Defense Project has mobilized thousands of immigrant workers to combat exploitation in Texas’ construction industry. Read more » | View videos »
Unemployment Compensation:
A Broken System
By Marianne Hill | September 22nd
Millions of workers have lost their jobs in the current recession, and many more are sure to join them. But unemployment insurance provides income to help tide these workers over this rough patch, right? Not so fast. The share of unemployed workers receiving benefits has gradually shrunk since the 1970s. Read more »
The Bailouts Revisted
By Marty Wolfson | September 14th
Bank of America got bailed out, but Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail. AIG was rescued, but in July federal authorities refused to bail out a significant lender to small and medium-sized businesses, the CIT Group. What is the logic behind these decisions? Who is being bailed out—and who should be? Read more »
Keynes, Wage and Price “Stickiness,” and Deflation
By Alejandro Reuss | September 7th
Did Keynes think that ‘sticky’ wages and prices were the cause of depressions? No. Did he think falling wages and prices could be the solution? No again. Keynes argued that in fact deflation is likely to deepen economic depressions. Read more »
(Economic) Freedom’s Just Another Word for... Crisis-Prone
By John Miller | August 31st
While the global economy is in recession, many of the star performers in the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom are tanking. Read more »
Beyond the World Creditors’ Cartel
By Dariush Sokolov | August 12th
One group of financiers seems to be doing nicely in the global recession: the International Monetary Fund and other “IFIs” are enjoying a return to relevance and lining up for increased funding. Read more »
Ponzi Schemes, Bubbles, and Banks
By Arthur MacEwan | July 30th
What is the difference between a Ponzi scheme and the way the banks and other investors operated during the housing bubble? Read more »
Land Reform Under Lula
By Chris Tilly, Marie Kennedy,
and Tarso Luís Ramos | September 29th
As Brazil’s president finishes up his second term, land redistribution has stagnated, the government continues to bet on agribusiness as a development strategy, and powerful regional politicians are moving to criminalize the land seizure movement as “terrorist.” Read more »
The Physical and Economic Devastation of Gaza
By Jennifer Olmsted | July 7th
Israel’s three-week military attack against the Gaza Strip last December came at a time when the Palestinians—on the West Bank and all the more so in Gaza—already faced dire economic circumstances.
Read more »
Contours of Crisis III: Systemic Fear and Forward-Looking Finance
Third in a series of articles on the current crisis.
By Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan | June 11th
The rituals of finance condition investors to look forward and price assets based on expected future earnings. But what happens during a systemic crisis, when the future of capitalism itself is in doubt?
Read more »
All That Glitters Is Goldman Sachs
By Robert Zevin | May 20th
“When I told a friend who runs a program in community economic development the subtitle of my talk, ‘A Primer on Skullduggery in High Finance,’ he replied, ‘Isn’t that redundant?’” Read more »
Changing the Auto Industry from the Wheels Up
By Alejandro Reuss | May 13th
The problems of the U.S. auto industry call for radical solutions. Read more »
Contours of Crisis II: Fiction and Reality
Second in a series of articles on the current crisis.
By Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan | April 28th
Economists tell us that the current crisis is our punishment for letting the fiction of finance distort the real economy. But what exactly is this “real” economy and how does finance distort it? Do the economists have a clue?
Read more »
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Shovel-Ready in Canada
By Maurice Dufour | February 19th
Pundits are praising the financial health of the United States’s northern neighbor—but should they? Read more »
Picking Up the Crumbling Pieces
Sixth and Final Installment in a Series on the Subprime/Securitization Panic
By Larry Peterson | February 4th
A look at the medium- and longer-term significance of the crisis, and specifically at what must be dealt with comprehensively to avoid serious long-term economic weakness. Read more »
A New Vision for the Department of Labor
By Kim Bobo | January 28th
Billions of dollars in
wages are stolen from millions of workers every
year. Here’s how the Department of Labor could stop it.
Read more »
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