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Home  Influence Powerholders Reference Documents Economics, Jobs & Trade
Economics, Jobs & Trade - Reference
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Economics in Crisis: What Do We Tell the Students? |
by Kamran Mofid and Steve Szeghi -- April 23, 2010 -- The profession of economics requires a revolution in thinking if it is to play a constructive role in solving the multiple and multi-dimensional crises that so engulf our world, our species, and the fabric of human community. We are running out of time. (Full Article)
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NEF -- Jan. 25, 2010 -- Whether or not the stumbling international negotiations on climate change improve, our findings make clear that much more will be needed than simply more ambitious reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This report concludes that a new macro economic model is needed, one that allows the human population as a whole to thrive without having to relying on ultimately impossible, endless increases in consumption. (Full Book) |
Sprott Asset Management -- Sept. 2009 -- The US dollar (USD) is the world’s “reserve currency”. This status is arguably the greatest privilege enjoyed by the US as an economic entity. Most people don’t appreciate its significance. As the world’s reserve currency, the USD is used by other countries across the globe to back up their own respective paper currencies. This has worked quite well…until now. (Full Article)
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Is America too Big to Fail? |
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by Richard Worzel -- June 2009 -- America has, for decades, been piling up debts to be paid by later generations, ably aided and egged on by the U.S. Congress, which loved the fact that it could make promises of immediate benefits to voters, especially vote-happy seniors, and leave the tab for someone else to pick up. Moreover, lobbyists and voter interest groups make it very hard for any elected official to resist the temptation to raid our children’s piggy bank, because our children and grandchildren don’t have enough votes to stop us. (Full Article) |
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From a Failed Growth Economy to a Steady-State Economy |
by Herman Daly -- June 5, 2009 -- We have many problems but apparently only one solution: economic growth. The growth economy now fails in two ways: (1) positive growth becomes uneconomic in our full-world economy; (2) negative growth, resulting from the bursting of financial bubbles inflated beyond physical limits, though temporarily necessary, soon becomes self-destructive. (Full Article)
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Capitalism's Self-Inflicted Apocalypse |
by Michael Parenti -- Jan. 21, 2009 -- The present economic crisis has convinced even some prominent free-marketeers that something is gravely amiss. Truth be told, capitalism has yet to come to terms with several historical forces that cause it endless trouble: democracy, prosperity, and capitalism itself, the very entities that capitalist rulers claim to be fostering. (Full Article)
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Beyond the Bailout: Agenda for a New Economy |
by David Korten -- Jan. 2009 -- The financial crisis has put to rest the myths that our economic institutions are sound and markets work best when deregulated. Our economic institutions have failed, not only financially, but also socially and environmentally. This, combined with the election of a new president with a mandate for change, creates an opportune moment to rethink and redesign. (Full Article)
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The Coming Capitalist Consensus |
by Walden Bello -- Dec. 24, 2008 -- Will government ownership, intervention, and control be exercised simply to stabilize capitalism, after which control will be given back to the corporate elites? Are we going to see a second round of Keynesian capitalism, where the state and corporate elites along with labor work out a partnership based on industrial policy, growth, and high wages – though with a green dimension this time around? (Full Article)
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Mother Jones -- Nov./Dec. 2008 -- Global warming. Foreign oil. Bank meltdowns. Here's how to tackle them all at once. A collection of articles about the new economy. Writers include Al Gore, Joseph Stiglitz, Bill McKibben and others. (Full Article)
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by Dr. James Glenn -- Oct. 31, 2008 -- Like most Americans I’ve been watching the dramatic, and often titillating, finger pointing exchanges between Wall Street, Congress, the media, and the candidates. Mostly incredulity, because few of these people, pundits, politicians, or patricians has gotten the story right about our recent financial apocalypse. Let me set the record straight, once and for all. (Full Article) |
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The Financial Panic of 2008 |
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by David Chapman -- Oct. 6, 2008 -- Financial panics are rare events but when they occur they generally wipe out at least half and sometimes more of investors' stock market wealth. Capitalism, it seems, has a knack for creative destruction. Does that mean that investors should never invest in the stock market? Of course not. Eventually it recovers, but it usually takes years. (Full Article) |
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Wall Street Meltdown Primer |
by Walden Bello -- Sept. 26, 2008 -- Wall Street has been effectively nationalized. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department are making all the major strategic decisions in the financial sector.At $700 billion, the biggest bailout since the Great Depression is being desperately cobbled together to save the global financial system. (Full Article)
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Cotton Symbolizes Global Trade System's 'Iniquity' |
by Francis Kokutse -- Sept. 18. 2008 -- West African countries produce five percent of the world's cotton and 15 percent of the global cotton fibre trade. Yet West African cotton farmers are among the poorest in the world.Their purchasing power is only five percent that of farmers in Europe, the U.S. and Japan. (Full Article)
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One Thing is Clear from the History of Trade: Protectionism Makes You Rich |
by George Monbiot -- Sept. 9, 2008 -- The people in poor countries know that trade is essential to pull them out of poverty. But they also see that unless it is conducted fairly, it impoverishes them more. Neoliberal economists claim rich countries got that way by removing their barriers to trade. Nothing could be further from the truth. (Full Article)
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Impasse: Are We Nearing the End of the Corporate Globalization Era? |
by Deborah James -- August 27, 2008 -- In the lakeside town of Doha negotiators threw in the towel on their seven fruitless years of trying to expand a particular, corporate-driven set of policies, to which the majority of governments have said "no", time and time again (in Seattle in 1999, Mexico in 2003, and Geneva in 2006). (Full Article)
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Do You Want Free Trade -- or Fair Trade that Helps the Poor? |
by Johann Hari -- August 1, 2008 -- How do poor countries turn into rich countries? The institutions that dominate world trade have a simple answer: all markets, all the time. They tell poor countries to abolish all subsidies, protections and tariffs that protect their own goods. There's just one problem: every rich country got rich by ignoring the advice we now so aggressively offer. (Full Article)
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Associated Press -- July 6, 2008 -- The almighty U.S. dollar is mighty no more. It has been declining steadily for six years against other major currencies, undercutting its role as the leading international banking currency. The long slide is fanning inflation in the U.S. and playing a major role in the run-up of oil and gasoline prices everywhere. (Full Article)
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The IMF's Dwindling Fortunes |
by Mark Weisbrot -- April 27, 2008 -- In just the last four years, the IMF’s total loan portfolio has shrunk from $105 billion to less than $10 billion; over half of the current portfolio consists of loans to Turkey and Pakistan. To cut costs, the agency is reducing staff and closing offices. (Full Article)
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by Alf Field -- Jan. 8, 2008 -- The world is dealing with a Sub-Prime crisis, an Evaporation of Credit crisis, a Banking Solvency crisis, a US Dollar crisis and an International Monetary crisis. This article discusses the symptoms, the disease, the cure and personal investment strategies. (Full Article) |
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Seeding the Sustainable Economy |
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Worldwatch Institute -- Jan. 2008 -- Where the conventional economy depends largely on fossil fuels, is built around use-and-dispose materials practices, and tolerates extreme poverty even amid stunning wealth, the evolving sustainable economy seeks to operate within environmental boundaries and serve poor and rich alike. Chapter one of the book State of the World 2008. (Chapter One) |
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Only One Reason to Grant a Corporate Charter |
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by David Korten -- Dec. 8, 2007 -- We must identify the deep systemic causes of the social and environmental crises unfolding all around us -- no matter how troubling the resulting conclusions may be. Our future depends on a dramatic cultural and institutional transformation to reduce aggregate consumption and achieve an equitable distribution of economic power. (Full Article) |
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The World Trade Organization |
by Global Exchange -- updated Oct. 28, 2007 -- The World Trade Organization is the most powerful legislative and judicial body in the world. By promoting the "free trade" agenda of multinational corporations above the interests of local communities, working families, and the environment, the WTO has systematically undermined democracy around the world. (Full Article) Also, the Top Reasons to Oppose the WTO (Full Article).
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Manifesto on Global Economic Transitions |
International Forum on Globalization and The Institute for Policy Studies -- Sept. 2007 -- The planet’s ecological, social and economic systems are on the verge of catastrophic change, for which few societies are prepared. Efforts by governments to respond to the impending emergency are thus far grossly inadequate. Efforts by corporations and industries to reform their behaviors remain largely enclosed by systemic limits that require continued growth and profit above all other standards of performance. (Full Report)
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Africa needs less, not more, World Bank intervention |
by Jake Hess -- July 5, 2007 -- The World Bank's policies have played a major role in locking Africa in the prison of underdevelopment and dependency; their destructive nature is revealed by the fact that rich countries running the Bank systematically ignore the same prescriptions they force on the poor. (Full Article)
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Alternative Finances - The World Trade Organisation We Could Have Had (Must Read) |
by Susan George -- Jan. 2007 -- Now is the time to rediscover John Maynard Keynes’s revolutionary ideas for an international trade organisation and adapt them to rebalance the world’s economies in the 21st century. (Full Article)
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“We have the technologies to restore the earth’s natural support systems, to eradicate poverty, to stabilize population, and to restructure the world energy economy and stabilize climate. The challenge now is to build the political will to do so. Saving civilization is not a spectator sport. Each of us has a leading role to play. ” Lester Brown
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