Category: News Collapse of Society
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First Shell, now ExxonMobil–the oil industry haters strike low blows
Shell Oil was attacked by Greenpeace and the Yes Men back in early summer in a sophisticated, cynical social media strategy. One of the key features was creating videos and a website that looked so much like the real Shell ads and website that it was bound to confuse. I predicted that this would not be the last of this sort of campaign. Sure enough, now ExxonMobil is being targeted in this particularly dark and cynical ad-lookalike. It’s called “Exxon hates your children.” It does seem to have the almost redeeming qualities that the anti-Shell campaign …
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GMO controversy now hits General Mills and Cheerios hard
As if to illustrate the point I was making about the coming controversies around GMO foods, General Mills looks to have lost control of its Facebook page over GMO concerns. An activist organization has “outed” Cheerios as having GM ingredients resulting in what appears to be Cheerio’s and General Mills losing control of their Facebook page. Curious about what horrible, baby-killing ingredient that General Mills was sneaking into their breakfast cereal, I tried to get some info about the genetically modified ingredients causing all the stir. Sadly, the only thing I could find was all-out fear tactics without any real information or evidence of…
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GMO–salmon in headlines now, but this is just a start
The FDA is stalling approval of a GMO salmon being produced by AquaBounty–delays that may force the company out of business. This, despite the FDA finding in 2010 that the fish are safe and pose little harm to natural fish or the environment. GMO, genetically modified organisms, specifically food and crops is very controversial. Proposition 37, a ballot initiative in California that would have required labeling for GMO food went down to defeat. Backers accused Monsanto, the favorite target of anti-production food activists, for funding a campaign to defeat it. (I’m sure if it had passed, the backers would have proclaimed…
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What’s Up For 2013? “We simply do not know” but:
Gerald Epstein Prognostication is a fool’s errand…maybe that’s why we economists like to do so much of it, especially this time of year. John Maynard Keynes was no fool, but even he couldn’t help making forecasts. Keynes famously predicted, for example, that over time there would be such abundance of capital that investments would yield close to 0{660353129f8d892044c993645a1c75194301fec6786a7f617c15adde0b0011e9}, bringing about the “euthanasia of the rentier.” Though interest rates are now quite low, the rentiers are still, unfortunately, going strong. Keynes’ willingness to engage in such forecasts is all the more interesting because, better than most economists – then and now — Keynes understood the pitfalls of economic prediction. As emphasized by my colleague James Crotty, among others, central to Keynes’…
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Honoring Alice Amsden and Albert Hirschman: Trailblazers in Development and Political Economics
Gerald Epstein On the last day of 2012, we note the passing of two brilliant economists who have done much to contribute a broad and deep understanding of economic history and institutions. Triple Crisis has written of the passing, life, and work of Alice Amsden, the brilliant development economist from MIT, who contributed enormously to our understanding of technology and industrial policy to the dramatic rise of Asian economies, among others. We also recognize here Albert Hirschman, the brilliant political economist, who crossed disciplinary boundaries and had a deep commitment to learning from economic history and political institutions. Hirschman died on December 11, 2012 at the age of 97. According to the New York Times, Hirschman learned the …
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The IMF’S Institutional View On Capital Flows: Back To The Future
Yilmaz Akyuz As the crisis in advanced economies (AEs) has laid bare the deficiencies of unfettered financial markets and developing countries (DCs) have started exploring ways and means of counteracting destabilizing capital inflows triggered by quantitative easing and historically low interest rates in major AEs through various measures, the IMF has been compelled to reconsider its position on capital account liberalization. After two years of pondering it has now come up with an Institutional View, discussed in its Executive Board and endorsed by most Directors. It is meant to guide Fund advice to members and Fund assessments in the context of surveillance, while it is also reiterated that…
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Econ4: Statement on Healthcare
We are economists who think that the economy should serve people, the planet and the future. The United States ranks first in the world in health care spending per person, but only 45th in life expectancy. The average American sees a doctor less often than the average Canadian, the average Briton, or the average resident of most industrial democracies. The average life expectancy of white Americans without a high school degree has fallen since 1990 by three years for men and five years for women. This paradoxical combination of first-class costs and second-rate performance is a result of a multi-…
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Stephen Resnick, professor of economics at UMass-Amherst, dies at age 74
On January 2nd, we lost a brilliant economist, Stephen Resnick, one of the founding members and a cornerstone of the heterodox Economics Department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Steve, a devoted and fabulous teacher, touched the lives of hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students over his career. Steve, along with his colleague Richard Wolff, worked tirelessly for decades to transform Marxian Economics and influenced the researching and teaching of scores of students. He will be sorely missed. Here we reprint an early obituary, written by one of his former students from Umass. -Gerald Epstein Greg Saulmon, writing in The Republican: Jan 3rd, 2013, Stephen A. Resnick, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts who won the school’s distinguished teaching award and is…
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The Return of Austerity-The View From Africa
Leonce Ndikumana Following the intense debate on the fiscal deficit during the U.S. presidential campaign, fiscal consolidation continues to dominate discussions in policy circles and academia. The large fiscal deficit in the U.S. and sovereign debt woes in the Eurozone are used by proponents of the “small government” mantra as a means to advance the belief that fiscal consolidation is the only way to bring the economy back to sustained growth and full employment. While the arguments are not new, the current circumstances of a global recession and a slow recovery in the U.S. make it somehow easier for …
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What We’re Reading and Writing
What We’re Reading Frank Partnoy and Jesse Eisenger, What’s Inside America’s Banks and Should More Bankers Be in Prison Bretton Woods Project, The World Bank and Industrial Policy: Hands on or Hands off Michael Lim and Joseph Lim, Asian Initiatives at Monetary and Financial Integration Engelbert Stockhammer and Ozlem Oneran, Wage-Led Growth What We’re Writing C.P. Chandrasekhar, India’s Triumph in Rice Matias Vernengo, On the State of Macroeconomics Leonce Ndikumana, Austerity: A View From Africa Gerald Epstein, Rich Should Be Happy With Cliff Deal
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Solving Emerging Debt Crises
Martin Khor The issue of foreign debt has made a major comeback. This is due to the crisis in Europe, in which many countries had to seek big bailouts to keep them from defaulting on their loan payments. Before this, debt crises have been associated with African and Latin American countries. In 1997-99, three East Asian countries also joined the indebted countries’ club. This year, European countries, notably Germany, insisted that private creditors share the burden of resolving the Greek crisis. They had to take a “haircut” of about half, meaning that they would be repaid only half the amount they were…
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Say Goodbye To The Good Life
Will this be the last normal holiday season that Americans ever experience? To many Americans, such a notion would be absolutely inconceivable. After all, in the affluent areas of the country restaurants and malls are absolutely packed. Beautiful holiday decorations are seemingly everywhere this time of the year and children all over the United States are breathlessly awaiting the arrival of Santa Claus. Even though poverty is exploding to unprecedented levels, most families will still have mountains of presents under their Christmas trees. Of course a whole lot of those presents were purchased with credit cards, but people don’t like to talk about that. It kind of spoils the illusion. Sadly, the truth is that our entire economy is a giant illusion. The…
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Government Dependents Outnumber Those With Private Sector Jobs In 11 U.S. States
America is rapidly becoming a nation of takers. An increasing number of Americans expect the government to take care of them from the cradle to the grave, and they expect the government to dig into the pockets of others in order to pay for it all. This philosophy can be very seductive, but what happens when the number of takers eventually outnumbers the number of producers? In 11 different U.S. states, the number of government dependents exceeds the number of private sector workers. This list of states includes some of the biggest states in the country: California, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Maine, Kentucky, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, New Mexico and Hawaii. It is…
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The Good, The Bad And The Ugly From The Fiscal Cliff Deal
The fiscal cliff deal contains more bad news than it does good news. Yes, the tax increases on the middle class could have been much worse, and we should be thankful that Congress at least did something for the middle class. Unfortunately, they didn’t do enough. Every American worker is going to pay higher taxes next year as a result of this deal. The fiscal cliff deal represents the biggest tax increase in 20 years, and it is also projected to increase the U.S. national debt by an additional 4 trillion dollars over the next decade. In the final analysis, U.S. government finances are still wildly out of control and we are …
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50 Predictions For 2013
Are you ready for a wild 2013? It should be a very interesting year. When the calendar flips over each January, lots of people make lots of lists. They make lists of “resolutions”, but most people never follow through on them. They make lists of “predictions”, but most of those predictions always seem to end up failing. Well, I have decided to put out my own list of predictions for 2013. I openly admit that I won’t get all of these predictions right, and that is okay. Hopefully I will at least be more accurate than most of the other armchair prognosticators out there. It is important to look ahead and try to get a handle on what is coming, because I believe that the…
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A Massive Electromagnetic Pulse Could Collapse The Economy In A Single Moment
What would you do if all the lights went out and they never came back on? That is a question that the new NBC series “Revolution” asks, but most people have no idea that a similar thing could happen in real life at any moment. A single gigantic electromagnetic pulse over the central United States could potentially fry most of the electronics from coast to coast if it was powerful enough. This could occur in a couple of different ways. If a powerful nuclear weapon was exploded at a high enough altitude, it could produce an electromagnetic pulse powerful enough to knock out electronics all over the…
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Happy New Year Middle Class: The Fiscal Cliff Is Going To Rip You To Shreds
The middle class has quite a gift welcoming them as the calendar flips over to 2013. Their payroll taxes are going to go up, their income taxes are going to go up, and approximately 28 million households are going to be hit with a huge, unexpected AMT tax bill on their 2012 earnings. So happy New Year middle class! You are about to be ripped to shreds. In addition to the tax increases that I just mentioned, approximately two million unemployed Americans will instantly lose their extended unemployment benefits when 2013 begins, and new Obamacare tax hikes which will cost American taxpayers about a trillion dollars over the next decade will start to go into effect. If Congress is not able to come to some sort of a deal…
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16 Things About 2013 That Are Really Going To Stink
The beginning of the year has traditionally been a time of optimism when we all look forward to the exciting things that are going to happen over the next 12 months. Unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of things about 2013 that we already know are going to stink. Taxes are going to go up, good paying jobs will continue to leave the country, small businesses will continue to be destroyed, the number of Americans living in poverty will continue to soar, our infrastructure will continue to decay, global food supplies will likely continue to dwindle and the U.S. national debt will continue to explode. Our politicians continue to pursue …
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65 Percent Of Americans Believe That 2013 Will Be A Year Of Economic Difficulty
Do you believe that economic trouble is coming in 2013? If so, you have a lot of company. According to a brand new Gallup poll that was just released, 65 percent of Americans believe that 2013 will be a year of “economic difficulty” while only 33 percent of Americans believe that 2013 will be a year of “economic prosperity”. Gallup has been asking this question for a lot of years, and the percentage of Americans that are anticipating economic difficulty in the year ahead has not been this high since the early 1980s. And without a doubt, there are a whole lot of reasons to be deeply concerned about …
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D-FOX: Please contact us if you can read this
To D-fox: if you’re reading this, please contact us at thecomingcrisis@gmail.com. It’s important — we believe.
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British Parliament Erupts over State of Carpeting
Article by The Coming Crisis. Read entire story here.
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Global warming, the tool of the West?
For years, the Elites of the West have cranked up the myth of Man Made Global Warming as a means first and foremost to control the lives and behaviors of their populations. Knowing full well that their produce in China and sell in the West model and its consiquent spiral downward in wages and thus standards of living, was unsustainable, the elites moved to use this new “science” to guilt trip and scare monger their populations into smaller and more conservatives forms of living. In other words, they coasted them into the poverty that the greed and treason of those said same elites was already creating in their native lands.What better way to staunch protests at worsening economic and…
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Flu vaccine will NOT work for one in ten Americans, says CDC as fears grow over spread of flue across country
This year’s flu season is one of the quickest and most aggressive on record, and the evolving strain is causing problems for doctors as the vaccine will not work for one in ten cases.Doctors continually send samples of the flu cases that they treat to the Centers of Disease Control so that they can understand what strands of the flu are spreading rapidly, and they use that information to create the vaccine sent out nationally.’We did about as good as we could have done to put the right three strains of flu into the flu vaccines that are available on the market,’ CDC spokesman Thomas Frieden said.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article…
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Deadly Flu sweeps America: ‘Particularly aggressive’ strain of winter virus leaves 18 children dead as experts warn epidemic will worsen
The U.S. has been hit with a particularly aggressive early flu season this year with widespread reports of the illness across the country, hospitalizing 2,257 people and leaving 18 children dead before the end of 2012.And health officials say the numbers haven’t even peaked yet.’I think we’re still accelerating,’ Tom Skinner, a Center for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman, told reporters.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2257597/Flu-infections-sweep-America-hospitalizing-thousands-leaving-18-children-dead-complications-going-worse.html
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Paul Ali Slater Shot: Brave mother shoots home intruder five times in face after he cornered her in attic as she shielded her nine-year-old twins
As a home invader broke into her house in Loganville, Georgia, a mother of twins armed herself and hid with the children in an attic crawlspace. When Paul Ali Slater, pictured top left, reached the top floor, he found himself staring at the barrel of a .38 revolver. Protecting herself and her children, the unidentified mom emptied the chamber, missing only once. Slater tried to escape in his truck, but his injuries would not let him get far, and he crashed in a nearby wooded area, pictured right.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2257966/Paul-Ali-Slater-Intruder-shot-times-face-neck-cornering-mother-kids-attic.html
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Baton Rouge Mall Brawl: Flash mob at Mall of Louisiana goes horribly wrong when massive 200-person brawl breaks out instead
A flash mob at the Mall of Louisiana turned violent last night, causing the shopping center to be evacuated.As many as 200 young people were in the food court of the Baton Rouge mall for an apparent flash mob, but things turned ugly quickly.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2258022/Baton-Rouge-Mall-Flash-mob-goes-horribly-wrong-massive-200-person-brawl-breaks-instead.html
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Violence returns to the streets of Belfast
Article by The Coming Crisis. Read entire story here.
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Earth is fucked.
After extensive mathematical modeling, scientist declares “Earth is fucked” IO9Brad Werner has a simple question: Is the Earth fucked? He also has a remarkably complicated methodology yielding a very simple answer: yes, unless people start a serious global rebellion….So, to sum up: even our best efforts at environmental management are doomed to fail, unless massive scale resistance movements start springing up and send our cultural personality back toward a pre-technological era. Science has given you your mandate, people: Go blow some shit up.Put more scientifically…Despite weak economy, CO2 emissions to grow 2.6 percent in 2012: study ReutersCarbon dioxide emissions …
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Annoying IEA Report
I’m going to try to give y’all some tools to refute that annoying IEA report that just came out — the one that says the US will be the “new Saudi Arabia” and a net exporter of energy. I doubt this community has any new people reading it, and if you’ve been here for a while, you know this report is bullshit, but you need to know why because all these smug, optimistic cornucopians are going to be bringing the article to your attention in hopes of defeating everything you’ve ever told them about energy production.I’m going to skip the IEA report itself and go straight to the facts.US oil production has indeed surged in recent …
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Dmitry Orlov: Peak Oil Lessons From The Soviet Union
Dmitri Orlov on peak oil and climate change.
