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Home  Influence Powerholders News
News - Influence Powerholders
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Clean, Green, Safe and Smart |
by Michael T. Klare -- July 15, 2010 -- Because our current energy path leads toward greater reliance on fuels acquired from environmentally and politically hazardous locations, no amount of enhanced oversight or stiffened regulations can avert future disasters like that unfolding in the gulf. Only a dramatic change in course—governed by an entirely new policy framework—can reduce the risk of catastrophe and set the nation on a wise energy trajectory. (Full Article)
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Wealthy Reap Rewards While Those Who Work Lose |
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by Adrianne Appel -- July 9, 2010 -- The riches of the wealthiest North Americans grew by double digits in 2009, primarily from interest their money earned when it was invested in the stock market and elsewhere, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group. Millionaires in the U.S. and Canada saw their wealth increase 15 percent in 2009, to a total of 4.6 trillion dollars, the report found. (Full Article ) |
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The Debt Treadmill Must Be Stopped |
by David Rosenberg -- June 8, 2010 -- People have to understand that 80 per cent or higher debt-to-GDP ratios are a new dynamic and a game changer in Europe and the United States. If my reading is accurate, debt restructuring will be the next wave and will be extremely painful. (Full Article)
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Towards a New Economy and a New Politics |
by Gus Speth -- May 28. 2010 -- The U.S. political economy is failing across a broad front—environmentally, socially, economically, and politically. Deep, systemic change is needed to transition to a new economy, one where the acknowledged priority is to sustain human and natural communities. Policies are available to effect this transformation and to temper economic growth and consumerism while simultaneously improving social well-being and quality of life, but a new politics involving a coalescing of progressive communities is needed to realize these policies. (Full Article)
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Socialism, Capitalism, and Other Fallen Stock |
by Pierre Tristam -- May 9, 2010 -- The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press just released a survey testing reactions to political rhetoric—whether people react positively or negatively to words like “progressive” or “socialism” or phrases like “states’ rights” or “civil liberties.” The results were not surprising in some regards. (Full Article)
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The Power of the Bond Market Near and Far |
by Arthur MacEwan -- May, 2010 -- Money is power. The people and institutions that buy government bonds have the money. They are “the bond market.” By telling governments the conditions under which they will make loans (i.e., buy the governments’ bonds), they are able to greatly influence governments’ policies. (Full Article)
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Christian Doctrine Fueled Dehumanization: UNPFII Report |
by Valerie Taliman -- May 3, 2010 -- A groundbreaking report examining the roots of Christian domination over indigenous peoples and their lands was released this week at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. The Vatican's Doctrine of Discovery was based on the premise that all non-Christian land belonged to no one because no Christians were living there and no Christian monarch or lord had yet claimed dominion. Once Christian monarchies like Spain or France claimed the right of dominion, that claim was transferred to political successors over centuries. (Full Article)
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The Death of Self-Interest Fundamentalism |
by Joe Brewer -- April 28, 2010 -- The birth place of modern market fundamentalism, in the guise of "rational choice theory", was the military think tank that gave us the disastrous arms race. Untested and theoretical, it quickly spread throughout the highest levels of government, then whipped through the economics departments of many prominent universities, spurred the creation of public policy analysis as a "scientific" field, and undergirded today's global institutions of economic governance. (Full Article)
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European Activists Against Economic Growth |
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by Julio Godoy -- April 19, 2010 --The global environmental crisis requires replacing the existing capitalist model of production with one that promotes "selective degrowth" of the economy and the restricted and responsible exploitation of natural resources, according to European experts and activists. (Full Article) |
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The Great US Foreign Policy Flaw |
by Mark Weisbrot -- April 10, 2010 -- By facing off squarely against one of the most important political forces of the 20th and 21st centuries -- national self-determination -- Washington is not only placing itself on the wrong side of history. It is guaranteeing that the United States will be involved in any number of "long wars", indefinitely, and generally slowing the pace of economic and social progress in the world. (Full Article)
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How Wikileaks Shone Light on World's Darkest Secrets |
The Independent -- April 8, 2010 -- Wikileaks is the natural destination for anyone with sensitive information to leak who does not know and trust a particular journalist. So far, despite numerous court actions, not a single source has been outed. The website is at the forefront of a new information era in which the powerful, corrupt and murderous will have to feel a little more nervous about their behaviour. (Full Article)
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by Noam Chomsky -- March 26, 2010 -- Growing popular outrage has not challenged corporate power. The future depends on how much the great majority is willing to endure, and whether that great majority will collectively offer a constructive response to confront the problems at the core of the state capitalist system of domination and control. (Full Article)
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Growth Versus Development |
by Dennis Meadows -- March 1, 2010 -- We need to know how to convert the policies and the institutions which gave us physical expansion to ones which give us development--to the things that give us culture, understanding, peace, friendship, love, the things that are really important to society. (Full Article)
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World's Top Firms Cause $2.2tn of Environmental Damage, Report Estimates |
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by Juliette Jowit -- Feb. 18, 2010 -- Report for the UN into the activities of the world's 3,000 biggest companies estimates one-third of profits would be lost if firms were forced to pay for use, loss and damage of environment. (Full Article) |
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10 Ways to Stop Corporate Dominance of Politics |
by Fran Korten -- Jan. 25, 2010 --The recent Supreme Court decision to allow unlimited corporate spending in politics just may be the straw that breaks the plutocracy’s back. Pro-democracy groups, business leaders, and elected representatives are proposing mechanisms to prevent or counter the millions of dollars that corporations can now draw from their treasuries to push for government action favorable to their bottom line. But what can be done to limit or reverse the effect of the Court’s decision? Here are 10 ideas. (Full Article)
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Bright Green Action as Economic Development Strategy |
by Alex Steffen -- Jan. 10, 2010 -- Throughout much of the developed world, but especially in North America, the debate about sustainability is routinely framed as a trade-off between the environment and the economy. The problem is, no such trade-off exists. (Full Article)
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The Blowback Effect, 2020 |
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by Michael Klare -- Jan. 5, 2010 -- By the end of the second decade of this century our world is likely to have a genuinely different look to it. Momentous shifts in global power relations and a changing of the imperial guard, just now becoming apparent, will be far more pronounced by 2020 as new actors, new trends, new concerns, and new institutions dominate the global space. (Full Article) |
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The Real Top Ten Stories of the Past Decade |
by Robert Freeman -- January 1, 2010 -- The media are awash with talking heads bloviating about the top stories of the last decade. The amazing thing is how little is ever mentioned about the stories that really mattered, those that affected the very nature of our society, its institutions, and the relation of the people to their state and society. (Full Article)
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America's Race to the Bottom |
by David Michael Green -- Dec. 12, 2009 -- In the past three decades, the income of the richest Americans quadrupled, while the income of the lowest ninety percent actually fell. Today, the median wage is lower than it was in the 1970s, even though productivity has grown by nearly fifty percent. (Full Article)
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Cap & Dividend: A Clear Winner |
by Sarah van Gelder -- Dec. 11, 2009 -- This is a much better approach to reducing climate change than the cap and trade. First, polluters would pay for the right to pollute; they would buy carbon emissions permits at an auction, instead of getting the majority of them for free. Second, American families strained by the poor economy would benefit. Each person would get an equal share of the proceeds from the auction. (Full Article)
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“What is the good of having a nice house without a decent planet to put it on?” Henry David Thoreau
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