Over the past year, what appeared as hopeful signs, that Left governments were emerging as powerful alternatives to right-wing pro-US regimes, is turning into a historic rout, which will relegate them to the dustbin of history for many years to come. The rise and rapid decay of left-wing governments in France, Greece and Brazil is not the result of a military coup, nor is it due …
The ECB’s Noose Around Greece: How Central Banks Harness Governments
Remember when the infamous Goldman Sachs delivered a thinly-veiled threat to the Greek Parliament in December, warning them to elect a pro-austerity prime minister or risk having central bank liquidity cut off to their banks? (See January 6th post here.) It seems the European Central Bank (headed by Mario Draghi, former managing director of Goldman Sachs International) has now made good on …
IMF: Weaker Unions = Higher CEO Pay
As labor unions have declined in most countries around the world, CEO paychecks have ballooned. And that’s not just a coincidence, according to new research from the International Monetary Fund. In the latest issue of the IMF’s Finance & Development journal, researchers Florence Jaumotte and Carolina Osorio Buitron give a preview of their forthcoming study on the links between unionization rates and …
FBI Quietly Declassified Secret Files Attesting Hitler Fled to Argentina in 1945
 Essentially there are no creditable holes in the story line. We even have witnesses reporting the right things at the right times. Hitler and Eva exited Berlin weeks before the actual end. They then made it safely to either Spain or Portugal to await war’s end and their pick up by two submarines. These craft could likely handle two each. …
Eight Lessons for Progressives Inspired by Syriza
You can’t watch what is unfolding in Greece and not marvel at the clarity, fortitude and nerve of the new government there. In fact, we’re pretty sure that many progressives across North America are saying to themselves, even if just quietly, “We’d sure like to do that.” And who wouldn’t? Syriza is standing up to the powers-that-be in European capitalism in …
The Greek Debt Interim Agreement: Necessary Step or Sell-Out?
By Jack Rasmus –
Last Friday, February 20, Greece’s Syriza government agreed to a four month extension of the current debt package that has been in effect since Greece’s last debt renegotiation in 2012, thus agreeing to the main demand of the Troika that it do so as a condition for further negotiations. Some have read this as a ‘sell-out’ by Syriza of its election promises to reject the austerity measures the Troika established in 2010 and 2012, which have kept Greece in a condition of perpetual economic depression for the past half decade. By agreeing to continue current debt arrangements for another four months, critics say Syriza has also reneged on its promise to reject the Troika’s previous debt deal. The same critics argue that Syriza should have simply declared ‘no’ to extending both the current debt package and related austerity measures by the February 28 expiration date. And if the Troika didn’t like it, so be it; Greece should just leave the Euro currency zone.