By Paul Krugman.
I live in a very sheltered world, yet I know young people just out of college who can’t find employment; men in their late 50s who have lost their jobs and think they will never find another; and families barely scraping by, terrified by what might happen if anyone were to get sick. These days, there are terrible stories everywhere you look.
Yet some Americans who have secure jobs and rather high incomes are feeling very sorry for themselves because it’s possible …

By Chris Hedges.
The ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes spent his life battling the assault on democracy by tyrants. It is disheartening to be reminded that he lost. But he understood that the hardest struggle for humankind is often stating and understanding the obvious. Aristophanes, who had the temerity to portray the ruling Greek tyrant, Cleon, as a dog, is the perfect playwright to turn to in trying to grasp the danger posed to us by movements from the tea party to militias to the …

By Barry Grey, 6 October 2010.
US corporate profits are soaring in the midst of the deepest economic slump since the Great Depression, on the basis of a ruthless policy of using mass unemployment to slash wages and heighten the exploitation of American workers. In order to make the impoverishment of the working class a permanent feature of American life, companies are hoarding vast amounts of cash rather than hiring workers and expanding output.
These are the conclusions that flow from a Wall Street Journal analysis of second-quarter 2010 corporate profits, reported …

By the Editor.
My curiosity was piqued when a friend told me of the upcoming Wall Street documentary exposé ‘Inside Job’. It’s got some pretty good reviews, and perhaps it will pack enough punch to educate the general public about the theft of taxpayer money that constituted the euphemistically termed ‘bailout’. Online reviews have praised the film, “A wake-up call of macroeconomic proportions”, “Economics explained beautifully” – certainly sounds worth a watch.
Admittedly though, you have to be quite naive to think that a genuine expose of Wall Street could …