Recently in Economy Category

The WTO's Raw Deal on Services. 7/17/08. FPIF. Desperate to clinch a new global trade deal, World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy is planning to convene a "mini-ministerial" meeting in the third week of July. The aim of the meeting is to come up with agreements to liberalize trade in agriculture, industry, and services. These sectors have been the focus of the so-called Doha Round of WTO negotiations that have dragged on since 2001.

Plutocracy Reborn. The Nation. 6/11/2008.

Chart One: Re-creating the Gap that Gave Us the Great Depression

The most precise data on the income of America's most affluent have come, in recent years, from the work of economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. Their most recently updated figures for income inequality in the United States, available online from the Emmanuel Saez home page, cover the years 1913 (the first year of the modern federal income tax) through 2006.

The Rich and the Rest of Us. John Cavanagh & Chuck Collins. The Nation. 6/11/2008.

Over the past three decades, market-worshiping politicians and their corporate backers have engineered the most colossal redistribution of wealth in modern world history, a redistribution from the bottom up, from working people to a tiny global elite.

Falling like a ton of bricks. Nick Mathiason. Guardian/UK. 6/15/2008.

After 15 years of continuous growth, the housebuilding industry is coming apart. With his company's shares down 90 per cent, Mark Clare, boss of Barratt, tells Nick Mathiason he suspects a 'short-selling conspiracy' - but hints he needs to raise cash

New homes slump worst since 1945. Nick Mathiason. Guardian/UK. 6/15/2009.

The number of homes built in Britain this year will plunge to its lowest level since 1945 and plummeting construction activity is expected to lead to the loss of 100,000 jobs. The country's most senior housebuilders confirm that completions will be around 100,000, some 70,000 less than last year.

World crude production has peaked: Pickens. Jasmin Melvin & Missy Ryan. Reuters. 6/17/2008.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - World crude oil production has topped out at 85 million barrels per day even as demand keeps climbing, helping to drive a stunning surge in prices, billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens said on Tuesday.

RBS issues global stock and credit crash alert. Abrose Evans-Pritchard. Telegraph/UK. 6/18/2008.

The Royal Bank of Scotland has advised clients to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets over the next three months as inflation paralyses the major central banks.

Destroying African Agriculture. Walden Bello. Foreign Policy in Focus. 6/03/2008.

Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to biofuel feedstock has been a factor in food prices shooting up, the more primordial problem has been the conversion of economies that are largely food-self-sufficient into chronic food importers. Here the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) figure as much more important villains.

Price rises hit Indonesia parents. Lucy Williamson. BBC. 6/04/2008.

Financial pressures in Indonesia are driving more families to give up their children, a report says.

Americans $1.7 trillion poorer. Tami Luhby. CNN. 6/05/2008.

Americans' net worth falls for the second straight quarter as home and stock prices decline, but it may not hurt consumer spending, experts say.

Experts see no early end to world's food crisis. Renee Schoof. McClatchy. 5/14/2008.

WASHINGTON -- The world's deep hunger crisis could go on for years, and in the long run it'll take a new scientific agricultural revolution to help farmers in the poorest countries produce enough food, experts said Wednesday at congressional hearings.

Some rural communities pushed to the edge by high cost of fuel. Tom Kizzia & Tom Hopkins. Anchorage Daily News. 5/16/2008.

Last winter, old people in Emmonak sometimes brought six-gallon plastic jugs to the tank farm at 20 below. They would pull the jug home on a sled, carrying enough stove oil to heat their house for the rest of the week.

Nigeria power shortage to persist. BBC. 5/30/2008.

Nigeria will not be able to generate enough electricity for its population until at least 2015, President Umaru Yar'Adua has said.

Trade boss criticises financial mess. Steve Schifferes. BBC. 5/30/2008.

The boss of one of the world's most important economic organisations has said the lack of regulation in world markets was the root cause of the financial crisis which has hit world economic growth.

Food stamp recipients pinched by high food prices. Dawn Babwin. Associated Press. 5/16/2008.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Danielle Brown stands outside a South Side market at midnight, braving the spring chill for her first chance to buy groceries since her food stamps ran out nearly two weeks ago.

Economic Toll Mounts From High Oil Prices. Graham Bowley & David Jolly. NY Times. 5/23/2008.

Oil prices leaped above $135 a barrel in overnight trading on Thursday, a new record that underscored the growing pressures that runaway energy prices are placing on some of the biggest names in global industry.

Oil: A Global Crisis. Geoffrey Lean. Independent/UK. 5/25/2008.

The invasion of Iraq by Britain and the US has trebled the price of oil, according to a leading expert, costing the world a staggering $6 trillion in higher energy prices alone.

Redesigning Corporate Law. Robert Hinkley. Resurgence 2002.

AFTER TWENTY-THREE years advising large corporations on securities offerings, mergers and acquisitions, I left my position because I was disturbed by the game. I realized that the many social ills created by corporations stem directly from corporate law. It dawned on me that the law, in its current form, actually inhibits executives and corporations from being socially responsible. So in June 2000 I decided to devote the next phase of my life to making people aware of this problem. My goal is to build consensus to change the law so that it encourages good corporate citizenship rather than inhibiting it.

Solidarity is in the air. Margaret Jones.

Resistance is as transnational as capital.
SEATTLE, 1999; WASHINGTON and Prague, 2000. Names and dates that by now are household words. Every few months, it seems, another festival of anti-globalization is celebrated, to the accompaniment of banners, chants, samba bands, tear gas -- and, it must be confessed, the throwing of cobblestones and the smashing of windows the mass media so delight to pounce on. These periodic anti-capitalist carnivals have become a cultural fixture almost as predictable as the World Cup. Whether they are merely a safety valve for the pent-up frustrations of activists worldwide, or the harbingers of sweeping global change, remains to be seen. In either case, they are, without a doubt, in common with the anti-globalization movement as a whole, the nurseries of some remarkable solidarity and creative co-operation between very disparate groups.

Participatory Economics: A Theoretical Alternative to Capitalism. Michael Albert. Parecon. 2004.

[We seek] a condition of society in which there should be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor master's man, neither idle nor overworked, neither brain-sick workers, nor heartsick hand workers, in a world, in which all would be living in equality of condition and would manage their affairs unwastefully, and with the full consciousness that harm to one would mean harm to all--the realization at last of the meaning of the word commonwealth. -- William Morris(1)

Global Problems, Local Solutions. Wendell Berry. Resurgence. 2006.

If governments fail to protect their citizens, then those citizens must protect themselves by developing local economies.

LET US BEGIN by assuming what appears to be true: that the so-called "environmental crisis" is now pretty well established as a fact of our age. The problems of pollution, species extinction, loss of wilderness, loss of farmland, loss of topsoil may still be ignored or scoffed at, but they are not denied. Concern for these problems has acquired a certain standing, a measure of discussability, in the media and in some scientific, academic, and religious institutions.

Mom forced to live in car with dogs. Thelma Gutierrez & Wayne Drash. CNN. 5/20/2008.

SANTA BARBARA, California (CNN) -- Barbara Harvey climbs into the back of her small Honda sport utility vehicle and snuggles with her two golden retrievers, her head nestled on a pillow propped against the driver's seat.

Argentina Tries to Reconcile Exporting Food With Prices at Home. Monte Reel. Wa. Post. 4/26/2008.

Child Labor Rings Reach China's Distant Villages. David Barboza. NY Times. 5/10/2008.

LIANGSHAN, China -- The mud and brick schoolhouses in the lush mountain villages of this remote part of southwestern China are dark and barebones in the best of times. These days, they also lack students.

US Urged to Reform Foreign Aid. Ida Wahlstrom. One World. 5/09/2008.

WASHINGTON, May 8 (OneWorld) - More than 800 development and human rights activists are gathering here this week, developing and calling on Congress to implement new strategies to tackle world poverty and hunger.

The Myth of the Stay-at-Home Mom. Paul Nyhan. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 5/13/2008.

The media buzzed in recent years with reports of mothers opting out of the work force to raise their children. It turns out the revolution among mothers has been canceled -- and maybe never even started.

Many Hispanics Are Hit Hard by Economic Slump. Many Many Hispanics Are Hit Hard by Economic Slump. Peter Goodman. NY Times. 5/13/2008.

DALTON, Ga. -- In his first years in the United States, Carlos B. Jacinto endured the itinerant life of a Guatemalan migrant worker, from picking fruit in Florida to moving logs at a sawmill in Washington. Eventually, he settled here in northern Georgia and erected a middle-class American life.

Multinationals Make Billions In Profit Out of Growing Global Food Crisis. Geoffrey Lean. Independent/UK. 5/04/2008.

Speculators blamed for driving up price of basic foods as 100 million face severe hunger

Load Up the Pantry. Brett Arends. Wall Street Journal. 4/21/2008.

I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.

No, this is not a drill.

Biofuels starving our people, leaders tell UN. Allegra Stratton. Guardian/UK. 4/28/2008.

The leaders of Bolivia and Peru have attacked the use of biofuels, saying they have made food too expensive for the poor.

India rules out new farm debt aid. BBC. 4/22/2008.

India's agriculture minister has rejected calls for additional debt cancellation for millions of farmers.

The Great Shopping Spree, R.I.P.. Robert J. Samuelson. Newsweek. 4/28/2008.

For two decades, it's been driven by rising debt levels. At the end of 2007, household borrowing was a dizzying $14 trillion.

Despite Tough Times, Ultrarich Keep Spending. Christine Haughney & Eric Konigsberg. NY Times. 4/13/2008.

Who said anything about a recession? Sometime between the government bailout of Bear Stearns and the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that America lost 80,000 jobs in March, Lee Tachman spent roughly $50,000 last month on a four-day jaunt to Miami for himself and three close friends.

A faltering economy hasn't slowed American CEOs' pursuit of wealth. David Walsh. World Socialist Web Site. 4/16/2008.

The incomes of American chief executives surged ahead in 2007 and into early 2008, despite an economy that was beginning to unravel and various half-hearted (or less) efforts to bring the process under control.

Wall Street Winners Get Billion-Dollar Paydays. Jenny Anderson. NY Times. 4/16/2008. Hedge fund managers, those masters of a secretive, sometimes volatile financial universe, are making money on a scale that once seemed unimaginable, even in Wall Street's rarefied realms.

GLOBALISATION: New Curbs on Investment From the South. Julio Godoy. International Press Service. 4/14/2008.

BERLIN, Apr 14 (IPS) - Germany's decision to introduce controls on investments from the South in strategic domestic sectors is yet another indicator of growing protectionism in European and other industrialised countries against the neo-liberal globalisation they once masterminded.

Made in China. Finlo Rohrer. BBC. 4/14/2008.

In the run-up to the Olympics some opponents of China's regime are boycotting not just the games but all Chinese products. There have been many boycotts before, but with its dominance in manufacturing, those vowing not to buy Chinese face an especially tough challenge.

Toxic shock: how the banking industry created a global crisis. Jill Treanor. Guardian/UK. 4/08/2008.

The warnings began eight years ago, but even the most respected financiers did not understand all the risks

The banking industry is gripped by a credit crisis that has taken the US economy to the brink of recession. Two banks have, in effect, been nationalised, house prices are tumbling and it is harder to secure a home loan. In a major investigation, Jill Treanor looks at the flawed financial products at the heart of the credit crunch and explores how the banks brought the crisis on themselves and how it could mark a return to basics.

IMF plans gold sale to raise $6bn. BBC. 4/07/2008.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has proposed selling some of its gold holdings as part of radical plans to shore up its troubled finances.

Credit crunch costs '$1 trillion'. Stevern Schifferes. BBC. 4/09/2008.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that potential losses from the credit crunch will reach $945bn (£472bn) and could be even higher.

As income gap widens, recession fears grow. Tami Luhby. CNN. 4/09/2008

Incomes fell for poor and stagnated for middle-class families since late 1990s, making it tougher for them to weather economic downturn.

For Many, a Boom That Wasn't. David Leonhardt. NY Times. 4/09/2008.

How has the United States economy gotten to this point?

It's not just the apparent recession. Recessions happen. If you tried to build an economy immune to the human emotions that produce boom and bust, you would end up with something that looked like East Germany.

The World Bank's Carbon Deals. Janet Redman. Foreign Policy In Focus. 4/10/2008.

It was the first day in a long week of the consultations, PowerPoint presentations and high-level cocktail parties that accompany the World Bank's Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C. Already tensions were running high in a tightly-packed conference room downtown. Bank staff huddled on one side and non-profit groups on the other. The topic that drew so much attention first thing Monday morning: Climate change and the Bank's plans for plunging its fingers deeper into the expanding multi-billion-dollar carbon-trading pie.

Food Price Rises Threaten Global Security - UN. David Adam. Independent/UK. 4/09/2008.

Rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability, the UN's top humanitarian official warned yesterday after two days of rioting in Egypt over the doubling of prices of basic foods in a year and protests in other parts of the world.

Globalization, trade and recession take a toll on Martinsville, Virginia. Tony Pugh. McClatchy. 4/10/2008.

Food prices stir poverty concern. Al Jazeera. 4/11/2008.

The price of coarse rice, the staple food of poor Bangladeshis, has more than doubled in a year [EPA]

The International Monetary Fund has said that rising food prices threaten to undermine gains made in cutting poverty and could further strain the global economy.

Foreclosure Machine Thrives on Woes. Gretchen Morgenson & Jonathan Glater. NY Times. 3/30/2008.

As Jobs Vanish and Prices Rise, Food Stamp Use Nears Record. Erik Eckholm. NY Times. 3/31/2008,

Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s.

Oregon's healthcare lottery. Rajesh Mirchandani. BBC. 3/30/2008.

In what is believed to be the first such move, a US state is running a lottery in which the prize is health insurance.

Microfinance's Success Sets Off a Debate in Mexico. Elizabeth Malkin. NY Times. 4/05/2008.

VILLA DE VÁZQUEZ, Mexico -- Carlos Danel and Carlos Labarthe turned a nonprofit that lent money to Mexico's poor into one of the country's most profitable banks.

Blue Collar, Bare Cupboards. Sasha Abramsky. In These Times. 3/28/2008.

Ten miles outside Eugene in west central Oregon, little wooden houses and mobile homes make up the town of Alvadore. The homes are too far apart to give the town--population 1,358--the appearance of a city, yet too close together for it to come off as true countryside. Old, domestically manufactured cars line the streets, as well as a few rundown mom-and-pop convenience stores.

Rich clients' assets to hit $75 trillion by 2012: study. Reuters. 3/27/2008.

LONDON (Reuters) - Wealth held by rich investors with assets over $1 million is set to grow 50 percent in the next five years to $75 trillion, according to a report published on Thursday.

Asian rice crisis starts to bite. Hannah Belcher. Al Jazeera. 3/29/2008.

Cambodia has become the latest Asian country to impose restrictions on exports of rice - the staple food for half the world's population.

High Rice Cost Creating Fears of Asia Unrest. Keith Bradsher. NY Times. 3/29/2008.

HANOI -- Rising prices and a growing fear of scarcity have prompted some of the world's largest rice producers to announce drastic limits on the amount of rice they export.

Struggling homeowners find little hope in federal program. Kevin Hall. McClatchy. 3/29/2008.

WASHINGTON -- In the nearly four months since Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson challenged mortgage lenders to modify distressed home loans voluntarily to ease record numbers of foreclosures, it remains difficult to gauge the program's success.

Grain prices soar globally. Daniel Ten Kate. Christian Science Monitor. 3/25/2008.

Bangkok, Thailand - - Rice farmers here are staying awake in shifts at night to guard their fields from thieves. In Peru, shortages of wheat flour are prompting the military to make bread with potato flour, a native crop. In Egypt, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso food riots have broken out in the past week.

Food prices rising across the world. CNN. 3/25/2008.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- If you're seeing your grocery bill go up, you're not alone.

From subsistence farmers eating rice in Ecuador to gourmets feasting on escargot in France, consumers worldwide face rising food prices in what analysts call a perfect storm of conditions. Freak weather is a factor. But so are dramatic changes in the global economy, including higher oil prices, lower food reserves and growing consumer demand in China and India.

Debt: Our 9 Trillion Pound Gorilla. Susan Douglas. In These Times. 3/25/08.

Who would have thought that we might ever miss Ross Perot?

Squawking at us with his graphs and pie charts about the dangers of deficit spending and the mounting national debt, Perot was especially outraged that the debt had gone from $1 trillion in 1980 to $4 trillion by 1992.

Immigrants Come Here Because Globalization Took Their Jobs Back There. Jim Hightower. Hightower Lowdown. 2/07/2008.

Seal-the-border hysteria is everywhere. Instead of blaming immigrants for America's problems, let's look at executives on both sides of the border.

    The wailing in our country about the "invasion of immigrants" has been long and loud. As one complainant put it, "Few of their children in the country learn English ...The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of the importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious."

Cereal prices hit poor countries. BBC. 2/14/2008.

The rising price of cereals such as wheat and maize is a "major global concern", the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says.

What Created This Monster?. Nelson Schwartz & Julie Creswell. NT Times. 3/23/08. The role of deregulation of the financial industry and the use of derivatives to "Spread risk."

Up to 70% interest - credit card aimed at the poor. Patrick Collinson. Guardian UK. 2/12/2008.

A new credit card aimed at millions of low-income families is to charge interest at up to 70% - the highest ever charged by a credit card company.

Best U.S. factory jobs in rising jeopardy. Mark Trumbull. Christian Science Monitor. 2/15/2008.

As productivity abroad rises, US manufacturing is competing by trimming workers and wages.

A new round of cutbacks by Detroit's automakers carries a larger message - that America's manufacturing workers are under new pressure in jobs where labor unions had once been able to command middle-class wages for assembly-line jobs.

Poverty Is Poison. Paul Krugman. NY Times. 2/18/2008.

 "Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain." That was the opening of an article in Saturday's Financial Times, summarizing research presented last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Low unemployment rate hides rise in long-term jobless. Kevin G. Hall. McClatchy. 2/18/2008.

WASHINGTON -- Bill Clinton's campaign famously defined the 1992 election with the phrase, "It's the economy, stupid." Today, "It's the jobs, stupid."

The latest employment figures, released in late January, showed a 52-month streak of job creation ending with a loss of 17,000 jobs in January. The Bush administration acknowledged the contraction, but pointed to the national unemployment rate of 4.9 percent to say that the labor market wasn't a harbinger of recession.

Sub-prime CEOs defend high wages. BBC. 3/07/2008.

Executives have been defending before a Congressional committee large salaries and pay-off packages earned while their firms were hit by the sub-prime crisis.

3 CEOs made $460 million - House panel. Ben Rooney. CNN. 3/06/2008.

House oversight committee prepares to investigate why executives at companies battered by the mortgage crisis were awarded big payouts.

Three chief executives with ties to the mortgage crisis were paid $460 million over five years, according to a congressional report issued Thursday.

A Global Need for Grain That Farms Can’t Fill. David Strietfeld. NY Times. 3/09/2008.

LAWTON, N.D. — Whatever Dennis Miller decides to plant this year on his 2,760-acre farm, the world needs. Wheat prices have doubled in the last six months. Corn is on a tear. Barley, sunflower seeds, canola and soybeans are all up sharply.

Local-only currency in Portland? Think plastic. Joseph Rose. Oregonian. 2/24/2008.

Nondollars - Advocates of "buy-local" money consider debit cards instead of paper bills -- a national first

America's economy risks mother of all meltdowns. Martin Wolf. Financial Times/UK. 2/19/2008.

"I would tell audiences that we were facing not a bubble but a froth - lots of small, local bubbles that never grew to a scale that could threaten the health of the overall economy." Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence.