The US economy grew 2.5 percent in 2023 over 2022, according to the first estimate of real GDP for Q4 released this week. This was greeted with rapture by Western mainstream economists—the US is motoring and the ‘recession forecasters’ have been proved badly wrong. Earlier in the week, it was
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Canadian Dimension: BRICS: Getting bigger, but is it any stronger?
From left, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Chinese President Xi Jinping, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pose for a group photo at the BRICS summit in Johannesburg on August 23. Photo by Alet Pretorius/AFP/Pool. The three-day summit
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Reconstructing Ukraine: Private capital floods in
Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak introduces Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the first day of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London, June 21, 2023. Photo courtesy AP. The 2023 Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC23) ended in London last Friday. It was a continuation of the cycle of meetings beginning in 2017.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: SVB: From the valley to the chasm
Last Friday, Californian bank Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) became the largest bank to fail since the 2008 financial crisis. In a sudden collapse that shocked financial markets, it left billions of dollars belonging to companies and investors stranded. SVB took deposits from and made loans to companies in the heartland
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Russia-Ukraine: the economics of one year of war
Illustration by Ziniu Chen. Photo courtesy the US Department of State. It’s just a year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I am not going to discuss the politics of this war in this article. There are plenty of sources for debate on this. Instead, I want to look at
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Keynes and the left
Street art depicting John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) in Lisbon. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. “The theories of John Maynard Keynes provide the sound intellectual framework for the views which trade unionists had always instinctively held and known to be right.” — British Trade Union Congress, 1968 The ideas and theories of
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Central banks are applying ‘shock therapy’ to quell rising global inflation
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Photo by Sharon Farmer/Flickr. Shock therapy was the term used to describe the drastic switch from a planned publicly owned economy in the Soviet Union to a full-blown capitalist mode of production. It was a disaster for living standards for a decade. Shock doctrine was
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Italy: Lurching to the right
Giorgia Meloni and the Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) party look set to win the upcoming Italian general election over a deeply divided centre-left coalition. Photo by Vox España/Wikimedia Commons. Italy goes to the polls this Sunday, September 27. This is a snap election forced on Italy’s president because the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Will global inflation subside?
Photo by Christopher Hollis/Wikimedia Commons Is the global inflationary spiral peaking? And if it is and inflation is set to fall over the next year, then has the inflation scare been just a momentary blip and now things will start to turn back to the previously low pace of inflation
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The Inflation Reduction Act and the four horsemen of the climate apocalypse
Mystic Generating Station, a gas and oil-fired power plant, located on the Mystic River in Everett, Massachusetts. Photo by Fletcher6/Wikimedia Commons. The announcement that US President’s Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has got the backing of pro-business Democratic Senator Joe Manchin has been greeted with a wave of optimism that
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Is China headed for a crash?
Once again, Western ‘experts’ are predicting a financial crash in China. “China is flailing,” says one commentator; another says “a debt bomb is about to explode.” These would-be Cassandras reckon China’s demise will be driven by the bursting of the property bubble, excessive debt and the grinding down of the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: A tightening world
Supply bottlenecks generated during the COVID slump globally have now been compounded by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, particularly in energy and food, resulting in rising inflation. Photo by Atoms/Unsplash. It’s been a big week for the major central banks. First, the European Central Bank (ECB) called an emergency meeting because government
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Australia: Turning for the worse?
Photo by Thomas White/Reuters If you agree that there is an imperialist bloc of countries that dominates and controls the world, then Australia should be included. It may be a new and smaller entrant to the bloc, and it may be just a satellite of US imperialism in the Asia-Pacific,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Inflation: Wages versus profits
Illustration by American labour cartoonist Fred Wright, updated to reflect increases in corporate profits, prices and wages over the past two years. Image from Wikimedia Commons. The Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey set the attitude of the mainstream view on the impact of inflation in February, when
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The great inflation debate rages on
If the major economies slow down sharply or even enter a slump by the end of this year, inflation too will eventually subside—to be replaced by rising unemployment and falling real wages. Image from Shutterstock. The inflation debate among mainstream economists rages on. Is the accelerating and high inflation rate
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The end of dollar dominance?
The shift in international currency strength after the Ukraine war will not form into some West-East bloc, but instead towards a fragmentation of currency reserves, argues Michael Roberts. Image by Kai Pfaffenbach. Last summer when the US fled Afghanistan, I wrote a post on the history of US dollar dominance.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Korea: From Moon to Yoon
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol. Photo from Facebook. In South Korea’s presidential election, held every five years, the conservative candidate, Yoon Suk-yeol of the People Power Party gained a narrow victory over the ‘progressive’ Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party. The turnout at 77.1 percent, high by international standards,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Russia: From sanctions to slump?
Russia’s central bank in Moscow. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. The economic war between the US-led NATO alliance and Russia is heating up alongside the real war in Ukraine itself. In response to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the US and Europe have upped the ante in imposing economic sanctions.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Views on China
How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate Isabella M. Weber Routledge, 2021 China’s Great Road: Lessons for Marxist Theory and Socialist Practices John Ross Praxis Press, 2021 China’s Engine of Environmental Collapse Richard Smith Pluto Press, 2021 The Chinese Communist party’s central committee recently held its sixth plenum,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: COVID vaccines: Calling the shots
The public-private development of a vaccine for COVID-19 is not designed to prioritize global access. It is designed to maximize profits. Photo by Prasesh Shiwakoti/Unsplash. Before the COVID-19 pandemic engulfed the world, the big pharmaceutical companies did little investment in vaccines for global diseases and viruses. It was just not
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