The policy of unrelenting austerity adopted by the European political elite has driven up unemployment across the continent to record levels, as shown in data released Tuesday by the Eurostat statistics agency. Unemployment in the 17 European countries that make up the euro zone rose in November to 11.8 percent, …
Read Matt Taibbi’s article: Secret and Lies of the Bailout from the latest Rolling Stone. Most of us knew we’d been had but Taibbi manages to put it all together in a clear, lucid and riveting fashion. The degree of subterfuge from the highest levels of government over the bailouts was/is breathtaking. …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.6MB) | Embed
The Obama administration and top Democrats in Congress were pleased with the Jan. 4 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report showing an upward tick in employment and a slight dip in the national unemployment rate, at 7.8%. It’s yet another sign that Obama’s economic strategies are working, they said — a …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (11.1MB) | Embed
Forecasters expect the U.S. Labor Department on Friday to report the economy added 155,000 jobs in December — substantially less than is needed to pull unemployment down to acceptable levels. The tax-and-spending package passed by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives provides little prospects of improvement, as the U.S. …
Most economists recognize the “fiscal cliff” as an invented crisis. High unemployment is the real problem, yet where is the political pressure on this? Today’s guest is Robert Pollin, professor of economics at UMAss Amherst and founding co-director of its hgily regarded Political Economy Research Institute (PERI). In his new …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (13.9MB) | Embed
Why the system must collapse. Progress simply does not have the life-changing importance or job-creating potential of the invention of the automobile, air conditioning, electricity, indoor plumbing, gas stoves for the kitchen… A reminder that Alan Greenspan did, in fact, exist. He is not just an ugly fantasy from the …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.9MB) | Embed
About 100,000 more people moved away from California in 2011 than relocated to the Golden State, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau. The trend can be explained, in part, in monetary terms. Even in an economic boom, the cost of living in California has …
How can the mainstream media claim that the U.S. economy is “improving” when it is painfully obvious to anyone with a brain that the middle class is being absolutely eviscerated? According to numbers that were just released, the number of Americans on food stamps rose by more than 600,000 in …
Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) calls the government’s latest jobs and unemployment reports “nonsense numbers.” There are a number of ongoing problems with the released numbers. For example, the concurrent-seasonal factor adjustments are unstable. The birth-death model adds non-existent jobs each month that are then taken out in the annual downward …
While the U.S. Congress views the convergence of more than $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts set for Jan. 1 as a “fiscal cliff,” the metaphor misses the economic reality of what could follow. The image popularized by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke describes an immediate plunge, not the series of …
When Luo Yang, who was in charge of research and development on the J-15 carrier-based fighter jet, died of a heart attack on November 25, he was under extreme stressful work conditions. He died on the day that the J-15 had completed a successful landing on the Liaoning, China’s first …
The Labor Department reported Friday that the United States added 146,000 jobs in November, barely enough to keep up with population growth. The net payroll increase was below the average monthly number for the past two years of 150,000. The US unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent, down from 7.9 …
More on the absurd unemployment statistics published in the U.S. last week. Things have not improved, they have worsened. The story of Britain’s fateful encounter with addiction to debt, the rollercoaster and the unstoppable march to economic, financial and social chaos. The meeting with destiny approaches. It will shake the …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB) | Embed
The massive amount of notional derivatives exposure means that no amount of quantitative easing can offset the problem of a monumental collapse in the financial sector. The point-of-no-return has long-since been passed. Too big to fail? The major banks are far too small to cope… The unemployment numbers out today …
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.7MB) | Embed
While both candidates in the recent election period were busy telling voters about their fictional economic programs, the real economic program that would emerge post-election was being formulated and debated by the elites of both parties and their corporate benefactors. Behind the scenes for months before the election, heads and …