El movimiento “Ocupemos” ha experimentado un desarrollo estimulante. Hasta donde mi memoria alcanza, no ha habido nunca nada parecido. Si consigue reforzar sus lazos y las asociaciones que se han creado en estos meses a lo largo del oscuro periodo que se avecina –no habrá victoria rápida– podría protagonizar un momento decisivo en la historia [...]

Mas allá del famoso canal, Panamá posee una riqueza cultural y ecológica excepcional. La selva de los indígenas Ngäbe es un paraíso para anfibios y reptiles. Grandes intereses económicos pretenden inundar una parte de la misma para generar la llamada energía “limpia”. Dos bancos europeos, uno alemán y otro holandés se unen al Banco Centroamericano [...]

On the History of the U.S. Economy in Decline The Occupy movement has been an extremely exciting development. Unprecedented, in fact. There’s never been anything like it that I can think of.  If the bonds and associations it has established can be sustained through a long, dark period ahead — because victory won’t come quickly — [...]

The European Stabilization Mechanism The Goldman Sachs coup that failed in America has nearly succeeded in Europe—a permanent, irrevocable, unchallengeable bailout for the banks underwritten by the taxpayers. By December 2011, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, former vice president of Goldman Sachs Europe, was able to approve a 500 billion Euro bailout for European banks [...]

One of my first jobs as a junior reporter was to meet flights bringing famous people to Australia. Growing up in a country far from everywhere (except, as my father would say, “where you come from”),  I was led to believe that Australia’s honour was at risk unless a well-known person from Over There said [...]

The Interest Rate Swaps that Are Bankrupting Local Governments The “toxic culture of greed” on Wall Street was highlighted again last week, when Greg Smith went public with his resignation from Goldman Sachs in a scathing oped published in the New York Times.  In other recent eyebrow-raisers, LIBOR rates—the benchmark interest rates involved in interest rate swaps—were shown [...]

Apuntes sobre un programa para enfrentar la crisis   Hemos reseñado en otros artículos como la crisis fiscal es el resultado de una política aplicada desde hace décadas por el Estado burgués semicolonial costarricense, a través de sus distintos gobiernos, con la que han estado de acuerdo el conjunto de la burguesía y su personal político.

In reality, a $25bn mortgage deal with banks is a drop in the ocean – given US homeowners’ $700bn of negative equity Big announcements of breakthrough legislative deals during election campaigns should be taken with huge grains of salt. Generally more rhetoric than reality, they sometimes contain real concessions made by politicians seeking votes. So it [...]

Why the AGs Must Not Settle A foreclosure settlement between five major banks guilty of “robo-signing” and the attorneys general of the 50 states was pending for Monday, February 6th; but it is still not clear if all the AGs will sign. California was to get over half of the $25 billion in settlement money, and [...]

The Wall Street Journal reported on January 19th that the Obama Administration was pushing heavily to get the 50 state attorneys general to agree to a settlement with five major banks in the “robo-signing” scandal.  The scandal involves employees signing names not their own, under titles they did not really have, attesting to the veracity [...]