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AIG is chump change -- let's find corporate America's hidden billions

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Joe Conason - Mar. 23 (Opinion) - From the jaded perspective of the financiers, the uproar over the AIG bonuses may provide a welcome distraction from far more important (and lucrative) abuses in the world's offshore tax havens. So rather than continue arguing over chump change, it is long past time for the United States, with its international friends and allies, to demand accountability from the long list of tiny countries and principalities, from Andorra and the Cayman Islands to Singapore and Switzerland, where corporations, wealthy clients and unrepentant evildoers hide their assets.

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An unprecedented abyss of economic and social turmoil

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Bill Moyers Journal - By Bill Moyers, Mike Davis - Mar. 23 (Interview) - Once a meat cutter and a long haul truck driver, nowadays, Mike Davis teaches creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. This recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" has written so many books we can barely get them on the screen for you. Two of his histories of Los Angeles and Southern California, 'City of Quartz' and 'Ecology of Fear' were best-sellers. His latest: 'In Praise of Barbarians: Essays Against Empire.' Mike Davis, welcome to the JOURNAL. MIKE DAVIS: My pleasure, Bill. BILL MOYERS: Did you ever in your life imagine that America's financial system would become insolvent or that our way of life would be in such a sudden freefall? MIKE DAVIS: No. And I found myself in the position of, say, a Jehovah's Witness, who, of course, believes the end is nigh but then one morning wakes up, looks out the window, and the stars are falling from heaven. It's actually happened. Of course, people a lot like myself are famous for I think the phrase is we predicted eleven out of the last three depressions. So, no. BILL MOYERS: But I do think this time most everyone would agree with what you how you've described what we're going through as the mother of all fiscal crisis. Do you have a sense of the people you know being frightened right now? MIKE DAVIS: Oh, people are terrified, particularly where I teach in Riverside County. People have no idea you know, where to turn. UC Riverside is the largest percentage of working-class students in the UC system. And their families have scrimped and saved. And they've worked hard to get into courses that pointed toward stable careers and jobs. And now those futures are incinerated. What kind of choice do you make? You know, what do you study?

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"The Zombie Ideas Have Won" - Paul Krugman on $1 Trillion Geithner Plan to Buy Toxic Bank Assets

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Paul Krugman - Mar. 23 (Opinion) - it’s basically saying that, you know, there’s nothing really fundamentally wrong with our banking system; there’s just this crisis of confidence, and so nobody wants to buy, you know, asset-backed securities, nobody wants to buy stuff that’s ultimately backed by home mortgages, and if only we could get people to see that these things are really pretty decent assets, then the banks will be in fine shape. And that’s the trouble. You know, there’s an argument that says maybe they were somewhat underpriced, but to make this the centerpiece of your financial rescue plan is just—well, as I wrote in the column, it leaves me with a feeling of despair.

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Dam Politics: India's Leading Activist Medha Patkar Takes on Corporate Control of Water

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Medha Patkar, Amy Goodman - Mar. 23 (Interview) - when these centers, whether within India or outside India, such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the bilaterals, such as the USAID, the KfW, and whatnot, or ECD of Japan, which is now ODA, all of them come in with their money and their market interests and, you know, somewhere, apparently, state that this is joining the borrower country in achieving the public purpose, but in reality achieve the private purpose of their firms, their lending, their investments. Then the investment of the land, water, forests, of the minerals and the groundwater underneath, and of the human power itself, by the communities in this so-called borrower country, is always ignored bypassed, and not even properly valued and, rather, is destroyed for the private profits rather than serving the public purpose.

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The Big Takeover

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Mar. 22 (Opinion) - People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

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Not Insane

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New Yorker - By Hendrik Hertzberg - Mar. 22 (Opinion) - If the economic crisis necessitates a second stimulus—and it probably will—then a payroll-tax holiday deserves a look. But it’s only half a good idea. A whole good idea would be to make a payroll-tax holiday the first step in an orderly transition to scrapping the payroll tax altogether and replacing the lost revenue with a package of levies on things that, unlike jobs, we want less rather than more of—things like pollution, carbon emissions, oil imports, inefficient use of energy and natural resources, and excessive consumption.

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Thank God America Isn't Like Europe -- Yet

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Charles Murray - Mar. 22 (Opinion) - Do we want the United States to be like Europe? The European model has worked in many ways. I am delighted whenever I get a chance to go to Stockholm or Amsterdam, not to mention Rome or Paris. There's a lot to like -- a lot to love -- about day-to-day life in Europe. But I argue that the answer to this question is "no." Not for economic reasons. I want to focus on another problem with the European model: namely, that it drains too much of the life from life.

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UN names critical areas in reviving global economy

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Business Daily Africa - By Wandera Ojanji - Mar. 22 (News Report) - The UN has identified energy, transport, infrastructure and agriculture as the most critical areas in reviving the global economy and fighting poverty and the effects of climate change. The United Nations Environmental Programme (Unep) and other UN agencies cite the multiple economic, environmental and social benefits of investing a significant amount of the $3 trillion-worth of stimulus packages in renewable energies. These include wind, solar, geothermal and biomass; hybrid vehicles, high speed rail and bus rapid transit systems; ecological infrastructure including freshwaters, forests, soils and coral reefs and organic production.

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Treasury's toxic asset plan could cost $1 trillion

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AP - By Martin Crutsinger - Mar. 22 (News Report) - The Obama administration's latest attempt to tackle the banking crisis and get loans flowing to families and businesses rely on a new government entity, the Public Investment Corp. to help purchase as much as $1 trillion in toxic assets on banks' books.

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U.S. turning into Europe untrue, but wouldn't be all bad

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Philadelphia Inquirer - By Dick Polman - Mar. 22 (Opinion) - I can't fathom the new GOP hue and cry about how President Obama is supposedly trying to "Europeanize" the U.S.A. Think about it: If they couldn't successfully discredit his '08 candidacy by linking him to our terrorist enemies, how can they possibly discredit his '09 domestic agenda by linking him to our friends? But apparently that's their message du jour. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell warns of "the Europeanization of America," Newt Gingrich warns of "European-style socialism," 2012 hopeful Mitt Romney warns that America might morph into "government-dominated Europe," and a top conservative Web site has sounded the alarm by posting a photo of the Swedish flag, which perhaps is intended to warn us that, failing vigilance, we, too, will be saddled with onerous un-American concepts such as cradle-to-grave health care.

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Economists agree: Print. Money. Now.

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Andrew Leonard - Mar. 21 (News Analysis) - It is no secret that economists Tyler Cowen and Paul Krugman have profound differences on the proper role of how government should manage the economy. Over the course of the ongoing economic crisis, they've engaged in an enlightening debate about such topics as the effectiveness of Keynesian fiscal stimulus policies via their respective blogs and New York Times columns. The libertarian-minded Cowen is a fiscal stimulus skeptic; Krugman, notoriously, is not.

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U.S. Moves to Patch Mexico Rift

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Christopher Conkey - Mar. 21 (News Report) - The Obama administration began efforts Friday to ease an erupting trade dispute with Mexico by starting work on a new program to give Mexican truckers broader access to U.S. highways.

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AIG: Adventures in geopolitics

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

GlobalPost - By Thomas Mucha - Mar. 21 (Opinion) - China is the largest holder of U.S. debt, passing Japan in September for that honor. The country now owns roughly $1 trillion in U.S. Treasuries and other government-backed bonds, or about $1 dollar for every $10 in U.S. debt.

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A tough decision: Poke the dragon?

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

GlobalPost - By John Aloysius Farrell - Mar. 21 (News Analysis) - Analysts remember that the greatest damage caused by the Great Depression was not economic, but “political … it was World War II,” noted Stephen J. Stedman, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

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Economic Optimism From Australia's Prime Minister

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By David Ignatius - Mar. 21 (Opinion) - There's still a wide gap between American views (more stimulus!) and European (more regulation!), and many of China's policies remain a mystery. But as Rudd says, it's at least modestly reassuring that the G-20 will be the forum, China will be a player and America will be back in a leadership role.

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The Rise And Fall Of AIG's Financial Products Unit