The spin is in! The Trump administration’s economic ‘message bearers’, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Kevin Hasset, the president’s senior economic adviser, have launched a coordinated effort to calm the growing public concern that the current economic contraction due to the COVID-19 pandemic may be as bad (or worse) than
Continue readingAuthor: Jack Rasmus
Canadian Dimension: COVID-19 and the working class
Flyers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport wearing facemasks on March 6th, 2020 as the COVID-19 coronavirus spreads throughout the United States. Photo by Chad Davis (Flickr). US politicians and media are today reporting approximately 1,700 confirmed or presumptive cases of the coronavirus or COVID-19. The actual number, however, is almost
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Global Financial Asset Deflation: Prelude to Next ‘Great Recession’?
Traders and floor officials at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, March 9. The Dow closed down by 2,000 points for the first time ever. Yesterday morning, on March 9, financial asset markets imploded. US stocks are now further collapsing by 7 percent. The same can be said for
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Super Tuesday and the Irrevocable Split in the Democratic Party
Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Photo by David J. Phillip/AP. As another Super Tuesday has come and gone, the key takeaways are already evident. The first is that the last minute dropping out of the primary race by Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar—and
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: South Carolina Primary: What Does It Mean?
From left: Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden, former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar take the stage before the Democratic debate. What are the political ‘takeaways’ from yesterday’s South Carolina
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Bernie Sanders and the Desperation of Democratic Elites
Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders rallies with supporters in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, February 26, 2020. Photo by Jonathan Ernst. The events of the past week show a growing desperation in the ranks of the Democratic Party’s corporate-driven leadership as the Sanders campaign has assumed a clear
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Trump’s ‘Red Meat’ State of the Union Speech
US President Donald Trump steps to the podium to begin his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. On Tuesday, Donald Trump delivered a State of the Union speech that revealed his 2020 election strategy, designed to roil and mobilize his
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Trump’s Iran ‘Punching Bag’: US Provocations to Continue
Trump’s assassination of Iran’s general and senior diplomat, Qassim Suleimani, was a clear provocation by the United States, designed to produce an escalated military response by Iran. That did not happen. Iran did not take the bait. It responded minimally and appears to have done so in a way to
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Trump’s ‘déjà vu’ wartime playbook
History repeats itself, as they say. But in the age of American empire, not just twice. Or even three times. But with disturbing regularity. The past half century shows two things about how America goes to war. First, it creates a provocation based on a lie. Second, it then makes
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: How Trump’s neoliberal agenda is destroying democracy
President Donald J. Trump Speaks at the 2019 National Association of Realtors Legislative Meetings on Friday, May 17, 2019 at the Marriott Wardman Park. Photo by Brian Copeland (Flickr). The following is an excerpt from Jack Rasmus’s new book, The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Argentina and the next Global Financial Crisis
President Mauricio Macri and Managing Director of the IMF Christine Lagarde, at the 2018 G7 Summit in Canada • Photo by Casa Rosada (Argentina Presidency of the Nation) On August 12, 2019, financial markets in Argentina crashed. The stock market contracted 38% in just one day. The currency, the Peso,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The Global Currency War Has Begun
Over this weekend, China’s Yuan currency broke out of its band and devalued to more than 7 to $1. At the same time China announced it would not purchase more US agricultural goods. The Trump-US Neocon trade strategy has just imploded. As this writer has been predicting, the threshold has
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: US vs. China: From Tariff War to Economic War
Photo by Thomas Peter/Getty Images This past weekend, June 29, 2019 Trump and China president, Xi, met again at the G20 in Japan in the midst of a potential further escalating trade war. But the outcome looks eerily similar to that of the prior G20 meeting in Buenos Aires on
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: None Dare Call It Victory: U.S. 2018 Elections
Photo by U.S. Embassy Canada For months, the leadership of the Democratic Party hyped the message that a ‘blue wave’ was on its way that would politically engulf Trump and reverse his policies. Well, the wave washed up on shore on November 6, 2018, but Trump barely got his feet
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Trump’s Phony Trade War
Illustration by DonkeyHotey What’s going on with Trump’s trade offensive? There’s a dual track policy underway: One a phony trade war with US allies; the other a potential (but not yet) trade war with China, that may also in the end prove less than a bonafide ‘trade war’ as well.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Who Profited From the $440 Billion Greek Bailout? Not Greeks
Photo by Jon Mitchell
This week marks the first anniversary of the 2015 Greek debt crisis, the third in that country’s recent history since 2010. Last Aug. 20-21, 2015, the ‘Troika’—i.e., the…
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Global Corporate Cash Piles Exceed $15 Trillion
Photo from Public Domain The global economy is slowing – from China to Brazil to South Africa and beyond. Currency wars initiated in 2013 by Japan’s introducing a ‘quantitative easing’ (QE) monetary policy, intensified in 2015 by Europe introducing its own ‘QE’, and exacerbated still further by Saudi Arabia initiating
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