Posts tagged ‘debt’

Where Did the Debt Come From?

by , posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2012 at 6:00 pm

from the Center for American Progress

We hear a lot about our debt. And it is a pressing issue. But where did it come from? Michael Linden, the Center for American Progress’s Director of Tax and Budget Policy, looks at what happened in the 10-years since the Congressional Budget Office projected a massive surplus.

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Greek Society Unravels Under Austerity Measures

by , posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2012 at 3:22 pm

from The Real News Network

Costas Lapavitsas: Merkel’s visit to Greece shows Eurozone leadership don’t want to push Greece out, but situation is explosive as people are furious at austerity measures

Most Greeks Look to Left for Solutions, but Far Right Gaining Strength

Costas Lapavitsas Pt.2: Left party Syriza leads polls but conditions for fascism also developing as crisis deepens

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“Global Noise” Protests Against Austerity and Debt Spread Worldwide

by , posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2012 at 7:48 am

from The Real News Network

Occupy Wall Street targets Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, other economic elite

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Financialization and the World Economy

by , posted on Sunday, September 30th, 2012 at 7:36 pm

from The Real News Network

Gerald Epstein, Political Economy Research Institute, and Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst): Financialization of the economy has been developing since the late 19th century and is now at historic Levels

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Pam Brown: Occupy Debt

by , posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2012 at 8:19 pm

from GRITtv with Laura Flanders

We as a society view our monetary debts as a moral issue: We took out the money, we should have to pay it back. The problem with this logic is that the money we are giving the banks, financial institutions and our government never existed before the interest we incurred piled up.

Pam Brown of the Occupy Student Debt Campaign and Strike Debt says there’s another way out of our predicament: If our numbers are large enough, we can collectively refuse to pay back the trillions that are being extorted from us.

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One Year of Occupy Wall Street

by , posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2012 at 6:59 pm

from The Nation

One year ago on September 17, a few activists began a peaceful protest just outside Wall Street in New York’s financial district. That action sparked a sweeping movement of public space “Occupations,” in which citizens could air their grievances against corporate greed, protected interests and much more. Encampments sprang up across the world, from Oakland City Hall to St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Police cleared out the tents months ago, but the networks of activists, young and old, remain intact, as evidenced by this weekend’s packed schedule of Occupy actions. Watch this video to see what activists, union workers and students in debt are planning for the second year of Occupy.

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Matt Taibbi: The Secret to Mitt Romney’s Fortune? Greed, Debt and Forcing Others to Pay Bill

by , posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2012 at 1:27 pm

from Democracy Now!

… the old-school industrialists, like Mitt Romney’s father, they were men and women who built communities. They had factory towns. They were very anxious to leave, you know, hard legacies that people could see: hospitals, churches, schools—you know, the Hersheys of the world, the Kelloggs. But these new owners have absolutely no allegiance to American workers, American places, American communities. Their only allegiance is to the investors and to themselves. And so, it’s not at all uncharacteristic to have these situations where people are pleading for their jobs or they’re saying, you know, “We’ll tighten our belts, if you just make this concession and keep us.” That’s irrelevant to the Mitt Romney/Bain Capital/Carlyle Groups of the world. They’re entirely about making profits. And if that means shipping jobs to China or eliminating jobs, that’s what they’re going to do. And that’s the new generation of corporate owners in this country. — Matt Taibbi

A new article by reporter Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone sheds new light on the origin of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s fortune, revealing how Romney’s former firm, Bain Capital, used private equity to raise money to conduct corporate raids. Taibbi writes: “What most voters don’t know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: By borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America’s top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.”

See also: “On Mitt Romney, Bain Capital and Private Equity,” by Matt Taibbi, Taibblog, Rolling Stone online, posted: August 29, 2:15 PM ET

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Roots of Correa’s Ecuador

by , posted on Friday, July 20th, 2012 at 8:38 am

from The Real News

A big grassroots movement shaped this South American republic’s new policies.

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