[Marxism-Thaxis] unemployment

[Charles Brown]

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn02132009.html 

Every president since Reagan, particularly Clinton, has jimmied the 
unemployment criteria to produce an undercount. The actual number for the two 
months is nearer one and three quarter million. The actual total unemployment 
rate, according to statistician John Williams, by pre-Reagan criteria, rose to 
18 per cent in January, from 17.5 per cent in December.


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[Marxism-Thaxis] In Defense of Washington and Wall Street

[Charles Brown]

In Defense of Washington and Wall Street
Robert Fitch
 

1. The Crisis of 2007-2008
THE VERY ELDERLY ARE PRONE TO FALL. And 
unlike infants who also tumble frequently, each time seniors stumble, they risk 
a disabling or even a fatal injury. 
On August 9th 2007, after an unparalleled quarter century long expansion, which 
had been checked in the developed 
countries only mildly and briefly, capitalism finally tripped and lost its 
balance with predictable results: banks tottered, while credit and commercial 
paper markets writhed in paralysis.

After about a month, though, notwithstanding 
the failure of the markets to unfreeze, the crisis was declared over. The 
palsied patient was deemed well enough to 
resume normal activity -- a diagnosis apparently confirmed when two months 
later, on October 9th, the Dow Jones 
Industrial Average reached 14,164, an all time high.

The March 2008 meltdown of two hedge funds 
belonging to Bear, Stearns suggested otherwise. A pillar of the "shadow banking 
system" that had emerged over the 
last two decades, Bear was forced into liquidation, sold to J.P. Morgan for 
$256 million. Scarcely more than a year
 earlier it was said to be worth $68.7 billion. Yet this stunning write-down 
barely moved Wall Street's needle. 
The market continued to move choppily until September 14th 2008, when Mr. FIRE 
(as in finance, insurance and real 
estate) fell again, with even more dire consequences. That Sunday, Lehman 
Brothers filed for bankruptcy. Later in 
the day, Merrill, Lynch announced its liquidation. Just two days later, AIG, 
the world's largest insurance company, 
was taken over by the government. This time, Wall Street had suffered the 
equivalent of a broken neck.

Even in the immediate aftermath of the 
1929 Crash, the biggest Wall Street banks didn't fail. They continued to lend. 
(The wave of failures by thousands 
of heartland banks came later.) But in 2008, it was precisely the big banks 
which formed the leading vector of 
the collapse. Within a period of 200 days, the five biggest U.S. investment 
banking houses -- the institutions 
that since the Reagan era had given Wall Street its swagger and identity -- had 
either gone bankrupt, or forced to find 
a merger partner or re-organized themselves as bank holding companies.

Whenever the spinal cord is severed at the
 top two vertebrae, i.e., at the neck, the greatest immediate peril is that the 
victim stops breathing. The September 
2008 crisis was marked by increasingly desperate measures to keep big FIRE from 
asphyxiation. The measures taken included 
flooding the system with liquidity -- almost unlimited loans and loan 
guarantees. The Bush Administration came up 
with a $700 billion plan to deleverage the banks (i.e., raise their dangerously 
low ratio of equity to debt) by
 buying their bad mortgage-backed securities. And when that didn't work, passed 
legislation which amounted to a 
semi-nationalization of the remaining big banks -- the equivalent of cutting a 
hole in the patient's trachea.

By October's end FIRE was breathing, albeit
 with a tube provided by the U.S. guarantee of inter bank loans. But breathing 
is not walking. A financial system 
in which banks lend only to other banks refusing to act as intermediaries to 
the non-financial sector-- is still non-functional.


In the midst of the anarchy, the headline 
"Capitalism in Convulsion" appeared not in The Militant or The People's World, 
but in the August, salmon colored pages 
of The Financial Times.1 Unlike the Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) crisis 
or the dot.com bust which were more or 
less confined to the G-7 countries, or the Asian, Mexican, Argentinean crises 
-- which remained localized within the 
Third World -- the crisis of 2007-8 was truly global. It spread from America to 
Europe to Latin America to Asia 
and even to remote Iceland which was all but officially bankrupt and forced to 
await rescue from the IMF. Nor was 
the crisis confined to capitalism's financial sub-system. Production was 
shrinking, consumption was off. Even foreign 
trade, the main driver of the world economy, was contracting. "There is a real 
possibility of a real, deep, international 
depression," said one senior monetary official at a G20 meeting in Dubai who 
spoke on the condition of anonymity, calling 
the crisis "the worst in 100 years."2

2. The Meaning of the Meltdown
IN 1989, THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL was widely
 interpreted as a failure of the Communist system. But not by its supporters. 
They favored minimalist interpretations.
 Liberal Stalinists saw it as a reaction to certain overzealous GDR officials 
in the security apparatus; conservatives
 as the failure of those same officials to contain the illegal exodus. Still 
others blamed Soviet Premier Gorbachev's 
blundering efforts to deregulate the Soviet system, which they insisted was 
still fundamentally sound.

Similarly, the present crisis can be interpreted 
in various ways. Not as th

[Marxism-Thaxis] Stop the execution of Troy Davis!

[The Nation Magazine]

EmailNation

[]


Dear EmailNation Subscriber,

Troy Davis has been on death row in Georgia for 18 years for the 
murder of a Police Officer in Savannah; a murder he maintains he did 
not commit. And, after 18 years, the case against him has crumbled. 
His execution date has been delayed 3 times because the pieces just 
don't add up. Now, the state of Georgia may be about to kill the 
wrong man. Follow the links below and join Amnesty International 
USA's call to 
urge
 
Georgia Governor Perdue to prevent the execution of Troy Davis.

All best,
Peter Rothberg
The Nation

[]

 


Troy Davis was convicted in 1991 for the murder of a police officer. 
After 18 years on death row, the state of Georgia is prepared to kill 
a man who may be innocent:
Tell
 
Georgia Governor Perdue to prevent the execution of Troy Davis!
[]

[]

[]

[]

[]

[]

Dear EmailNation Subscriber,

The state of Georgia seems determined to kill Troy Davis. Despite 
mounting evidence proving his innocence, Troy's life still hangs in 
the balance. 
Urge
 
Georgia Governor Perdue to exercise leadership and prevent the 
execution of Troy Davis!

While Troy Davis has sat on death row for the last 18 years, the case 
against him has crumbled. His execution date has been delayed 3 times 
because the pieces just don't add up. The state of Georgia may be 
about to kill the wrong man:

* 7 of the 9 witnesses have recanted their testimonies
* No murder weapon nor any physical evidence has been found to 
link Troy to the crime
* And if that wasn't enough to cast a shadow of doubt: One of the 
remaining two witnesses has actually been implicated as the real killer
[]

[]

[]

  

 
Take Action for Troy Davis.


Troy Davis remains on death row in Georgia

 

Troy Davis was sentenced to death despite a tainted case and serious 
claims of innocence.


Take Action Now!

 

[]

[]

[]


[]


Pursuing the case against Troy Davis is an outrageous display of 
injustice. The family of police officer Mark MacPhail, whose life was 
tragically cut short by this crime, and the people of Georgia deserve 
true justice. It cannot be accomplished by executing a man with such 
strong claims of innocence.

The story of Troy Davis is not over. You have the power to help tip 
the scale in favor of justice. 
Please
 
take action today.

Sincerely,

Sue G. Vaughn
Director, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign
Amnesty International USA

[]
 

Donate





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Please do not reply to this email as it will not be answered.
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[Marxism-Thaxis] Guatemala apologizes to Cuba for Bay of Pigs

[Charles Brown]

Fox 40 KTXL TV/DT Sacramento 
Guatemala apologizes to Cuba for Bay of Pigs 

By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ 


HAVANA (AP) — Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom apologized to Cuba on 
Tuesday for his country's having allowed the CIA to train exiles in 
the Central American country for the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. 


"Today I want to ask Cuba's forgiveness for having offered our 
country, our territory, to prepare an invasion of Cuba," Colom said 
during a speech at the University of Havana. "It wasn't us, but it was 
our territory." 


He added that he wished to apologize "as president and head of state, 
and as commander in chief of the Guatemalan army." 


About 1,500 Cuban exiles trained under CIA guidance in Guatemala 
before invading the island beginning April 17, 1961, in an 
unsuccessful bid to overthrow Fidel Castro's communist government. 


The invasion ended after less than three days, with about 100 invaders 
killed and more than 1,000 captured by Cuban forces. 


Colom, whose government is considered center-leftist, said he was 
asking Cuba's forgiveness as "a sign of solidarity and that times are 
changing," and to "reaffirm my idea that Latin America is changing." 


At the height of the Cold War, the Guatemalan military government of 
Miguel Ramon Ydigoras Fuentes allowed the CIA to train an exile force 
in the rural province of Retalhuleu. Known as the 2506 Brigade and 
comprising mostly Miami-area Cuban exiles, the group was determined to 
overthrow Castro's government — which had brought the Soviet bloc 
closer than ever to the continental United States by seizing power in 
Cuba 28 months before. 


The invaders landed at Playa Larga at the innermost part of the Bay of 
Pigs, on the southern coast of central Cuba. The fighting later moved 
south, to Playa Giron, where Castro's forces triumphed after less than 
72 hours, when U.S. President John F. Kennedy failed to provide air 
support. 


Colom said Tuesday that "Cuba deserves its own destiny, a destiny that 
you all built with this revolution of 50 years." 


"Defend it," he said, referring to the guerrilla uprising that brought 
Castro to power on Jan. 1, 1959. "Defend it like you have always 
done." 


Colom's comments drew sustained applause from his Cuban audience. 


Like Cubans, Guatemalans harbor a deep resentment toward the United 
States for past violence. The CIA helped topple the democratically 
elected government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 and Washington backed a 
series of hardline military and civilian governments during that 
country's 36-year civil war, in which 200,000 Guatemalans died or 
disappeared before peace accords were signed in December 1996. 


During a visit to Guatemala in March 1999, President Bill Clinton said 
any U.S. support given to military forces or intelligence units that 
engaged in "violent and widespread repression" was wrong. "And the 
United States must not repeat that mistake." 


During Colom's state visit to Havana, he awarded his country's highest 
honor to Castro, though it was unclear if he would meet with the 
ailing, 82-year-old former president, who has not been seen in public 
since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006. 


The Guatemalan president's was the latest in a string of recent visits 
to Havana by regional leaders, including Panama's Martin Torrijos and 
Rafael Correa of Ecuador. 


Fidel Castro, who ceded power to his younger brother Raul about a year 
ago, met with two other visiting Latin American presidents, Cristina 
Fernandez of Argentina and Chile's Michelle Bachelet. Photographs of 
him with each of the presidents were later released by their 
respective governments, and a series of photos featuring Castro and 
Bachelet appeared in Cuba's communist newspaper Granma on Tuesday. 


Link: http://www.fox40.com/pages/landing_world_news/?Guatemala-apologizes-t... 


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