The grand experiment of the European Union and of the 17-member Eurozone is far too significant for Europeans to let it fail.The problem: Right now, the EU is buffeted with low growth, high unemployment, high public and private sector debt, and politic…
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RedBedHead: Harper-nomics Is Recipe For Global Depression & Trade Wars
I feel like I’m repeating myself, having just written that the global crisis is not a crisis of debt but, rather, that the debt is a symptom of the long term decline in the rate of profit. Now, I read Stephen Harper and British Tory Prime Minister Davi…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Debt Is Not The Cause Of The Crisis
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Stephen Harper are all over the media attacking European Union politicians for failing to take decisive action to deal with the “debt overhang”, particularly in places like Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy. This failu…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The similarities between debt crises and currency crises
During the nineties, the predominant form of economic crisis that could hit a nation was the currency crisis whereby the value of a countries currency drops precipitously. Most infamously was the Asian financial crisis, whose effects rolled around the…
Continue readingRedBedHead: European Revolt Against Austerity Picks Up Steam
Strikers in Italy resist austerity.
It seems apparent that European politicians somehow missed out the economics class where they explain how massive cuts to public spending in the middle of an economic contraction makes things worse. They also miss…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Greece: Bigger Than Lehman Brothers
What a frigging disaster. Back in 2008, the US Federal Reserve let the Lehman Brothers investment bank – which held more than a bellyful of toxic debt, go to the wall. It was meant to bring “calm” to increasingly panicked financial markets. That will p…
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Austerity Leads to Suicide Rate Increase
Friday’s Vancouver Sun had a short item that you might have missed, “Suicides up, road deaths down due to recession.” It’s in the bottom corner of page B5: Suicides rates rose sharply in Europe in 2007 to 2009 as the financial crisis drove unemployment up and squeezed incomes, with the worst hit countries like Greece […]
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Greek Sovereign Debt Crisis a Sovereignty Crisis
Greek Parliament, Syntagma Athens – by kouk News outlets around the world have focused heavily on the so-called Greek Sovereign debt crisis this week. The proposed solution–an IMF loan package requiring “austerity measures” and a fire-sale of public assets–has sparked massive unrest in the capital, where people from all walks
Continue readingRedBedHead: Greek Austerity Vote Is Just The Beginning
There was a certain amount of hand-wringing by the business press and politicians internationally that the PASOK government of Greece might not be able to pass the second austerity package in a year. However, it seemed unlikely that more than a handful…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Live Stream: 48-Hour Greek General Strike Against Austerity
The fight is on. Greek workers are under a massive assault as international bankers, speculators, governments and capitalists try to force a brutal austerity package down their throats. Last year’s austerity has already doubled the unemployment rate to…
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Greece at a Crossroads
Now that the Greek government has survived a confidence vote in Parliament, the stage is set in Greece for further confrontations ahead of next week’s decision on the new “austerity” plan demanded by the “troika” – the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the European Union (EU). While the origins of […]
Continue readingRedBedHead: A View From The Volcano: Report From Greece
This is a fascinating interview from the British Socialist Worker Newspaper on what’s going on in Greece. All we’re really getting is the maneuverings and panic of the politicians and the bankers. This interview with a socialist gives a flavour of what…
Continue readingRedBedHead: China or Greece: Which Is The Next Lehman Brothers?
Back in 2007, when the US Fed let the 100-year old Lehman Brothers investment bank go belly up, it was like a blasting cap that blew apart the global economy. While there was some recover last year and early into 2011, the global economy – and the econ…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Greek Meltdown: People vs Banks
Forget the riots in Vancouver by angry hockey fans, things are really on the boil in Greece. After a year of austerity measures that have all but killed the economy and which have driven down living standards substantially, the government is coming bac…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Support The Strikes To Defend Pensions
Usually even the mention of Margaret Wente’s name can ruin my day but her article in today’s Globe & Mail is actually not too bad in terms of laying out the terms of the strike and lock-out at Canada Post and Air Canada respectively. Of course, in …
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: When Steve Says You’re Fine, Call An Ambulance
The Greeks should have seen it coming when, just a couple of weeks ago, Stephen Harper pronounced himself confidant that Greece was on the road to a full economic recovery. As a guy who supposedly earned a Masters degree in economics from some di…
Continue readingRedBedHead: The Return Of Stagflation?
Those of us around in the 1970s will remember the term stagflation – a combination of economic stagnation and inflation that created a conundrum for bourgeois economists: do you move to rein in inflation by tightening credit and imposing wage and price…
Continue readingDrive-by Times: Focus magazine’s Venus insult triggers lawsuit
A cover of the German magazine Focus that shows the Venus de Milo holding up a middle finger accompanied by the words ‘Cheater of the Euro family’ continues to provoke outrage in Greece. The cover and accompanying article in Focus triggered a dissing m…
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