The top graph is taken from “Left Business Observer” . Real income is adjusted for inflation. So, the working class, or 95% of the population, the part who actually produce the wealth of the USA have had their wages/income flattened since 1967 whereas the top 5%, the bourgeoisie or capitalist class have seen their real incomes increase quite a bit. The second graph shows the real productivity increases of the working class over the years since the 1940s. Note how productive of wealth you and your fellow workers are and how you’re becoming ever more productive as a class. Aside...
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Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who during his ten years in power has introduced extensive state-capitalist measures based on the country’s oil wealth, has embarrassed his international fan club in recent weeks with a series of gaffes when on diplomatic business. Chávez has long entertained close relations with such “anti-imperialists” as Colonel Gaddafi, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Belarussian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko, but his recent speeches have offered a particularly useful insight into the real content of his “21st century socialism” and “Bolivarian revolution”. Once again it is clear that “21st century socialism” is nothing but classic “20th century...
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Ha Ha Ha. From the NYT: almost three years after stepping down as chairman of the Federal Reserve, a humbled Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending. “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” he told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. A few weeks ago when I declared us all socialists I never thought that would...
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A long time ago Milton Friedman asked Richard Nixon why he never took his economic advice to which Tricky Dick replied “We are all Keynesians now”. Less than ten years later Ronald Reagan would declare “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.”, and we were all Reaganomists now. At least until last week. What makes this economic downturn different from the other recessions post-1980 is not so much the size, but the reaction of the powers that be. While Treasury Secretary Lex Luther wanted a 700 billion dollar blank check that “may not be...
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From Marx and Coca Cola: As you are probably aware of by now the government has decided to bail out the two mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. From the Land Down Under: REPUBLICAN presidential hopeful John McCain backed a US government takeover of two mortgage giants overnight while his Democratic rival warned that taxpayers should not bail out their shareholders. McCain said that it had to be done. I agree. If the two behemoths failed it would result in massive repercussions not just for the share holders or American homeowners, but to the entire world economy. Even...
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And this man wants to be president. From MSNBC : Senators John McCain and Barack Obama released their Senate financial disclosure statements on Friday, revealing that Mr. McCain and his wife had at least $225,000 in credit card debt…The bulk of the McCains’ obligations stemmed from a pair of American Express credit cards that are held in Cindy McCain’s name. According to the disclosure reports, which present information on debts in a range rather than providing a precise figure, Mrs. McCain owed $100,000 to $250,000 on each card. Unlike the millions of Americans who can’t afford to pay their...
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What’s that old saying about the capitalist selling you the rope to hang him? ‘Free Tibet’ flags are made in China. From Marx and Coca Cola
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This article was recommended to us by a Haitian friend of the WSP. We reprint it for the information contained – the on the ground conditions as our contact in haiti confirms them. It doesn’t reflect the WSP policies. •••••• America’s Role in Haiti’s Hunger Riots By Bill Quigley Monday 21 April 2008 Riots in Haiti over explosive rises in food costs have claimed the lives of six people. There have also been food riots worldwide in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivorie, Egypt, Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. The Economist, which calls the current crisis the...
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A Critical Look at the Left’s Flirtation with Islamic Fundamentalism -from Communicating Vessels Magazine Issue 19 “I have striven not to laugh at human actions, nor to hate them, but to understand them.” Baruch Spinoza THE WORLD HAS undoubtedly changed since the late 1980s. No one can deny that when the Berlin wall crumbled and the bureaucratic socialism of the Soviet Union imploded, the Western world was in a state of jubilant euphoria. You could view images of excited people chipping away at the wall that separated East Germany from West Germany. But in the years following those moments...
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From our friend at Marx and Coca Cola Recently at a campaign event Barack Obama made the following comment about the dying Rust Belt towns in Pennsylvania: You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion...
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