New Economic Perspectives Fri 2010-07-02 17:26 EDT

Europe's Fiscal Dystopia: The ``New Austerity'' Road to Neoserfdom

Michael Hudson

Europe is committing fiscal suicide -- and will have little trouble finding allies at this weekend's G-20 meetings in Toronto. Despite the deepening Great Recession threatening to bring on outright depression, European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet and Prime Ministers from Britain's David Cameron to Greece's George Papandreou (president of the Socialist International) and Canada's host, Conservative Premier Stephen Harper, are calling for cutbacks in public spending...It is a self-destructive logic. Exacerbating the economic downturn will reduce tax revenues, making budget deficits even worse in a declining spiral. Latvia's experience shows that the response to economic shrinkage is emigration of skilled labor and capital flight...A half-century of failed IMF austerity plans imposed on hapless Third World debtors should have dispelled forever the idea that the way to prosperity is via austerity. The ground has been paved for this attitude by a generation of purging the academic curriculum of knowledge that there ever was an alternative economic philosophy to that sponsored by the rentier Counter-Enlightenment...

Europe's Fiscal Dystopia; Neoserfdom; new austerity; New Economic Perspectives; Road.

Mon 2009-12-21 18:29 EST

China's Economy: Decoupling from what? - Drorism*

One of the most popular memes repeated by mainstream media since the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year is the idea that China will manage to avoid the consequences economic downturn by shifting from an export-based economy to one based on local consumption...the "decoupling" theory proved to be false: The downturn in the developed world had a significant impact on China's economic well-being, causing a dramatic rise in unemployment and a sharp slowdown in economic growth...A new study published by Professor Hung Ho-fung...compares China's development path to that of other Asian economies, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. It provides a concise summary of political and economic events in East-Asia since World War II as well as some colorful predictions and recommendations...

China s Economy; decoupled; Drorism.

Calculated Risk Tue 2009-09-08 14:43 EDT

Survey: ``The Anguish of Unemployment''

CalculatedRisk

Unemployment survey by the Rutgers University John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development: A comprehensive national survey conducted among 1,200 Americans nationwide who have been unemployed and looking for a job in the past 12 months, including 894 who are still jobless, portrays a shaken, traumatized people coping with serious financial and psychological effects from an economic downturn of epic proportion.

Anguish; Calculated Risk; survey; unemployment.

Mon 2007-11-05 00:00 EST

PrudentBear

Road to Ruin: Credit Bubble Bulletin, by Doug Noland; "subprime and the SIVs were peanuts in comparison to the CDO market. Well, the CDO marketplace is chump change compared to Credit Default Swaps and other over-the-counter (OTC) Credit derivatives that...have never been tested in a Credit or economic downturn"; CDS debacle looming

Prudentbear.