A Financial Katrina

This is a lecture given by Dr. David Harvey of the City University of New York on the global financial crisis we're currently embroiled in.

Harvey has been studying and teaching Marx's Kapital for roughly four decades (his lessons are actually available for free on his site) so his interpretation is definitely unorthodox but it's a very interesting perspective on how/why all of this is occurring and what it actually means for ordinary individuals.

And don't worry, he's not just spewing a bunch of academic Marxian jargon - it's all in the plain English of high finance, so it shouldn't be any less comprehensible than ROBTV or CNN's market coverage/investment advice.

~link

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_{This lecture was delivered on October 29 2008 at the panel discussion for The Disruption: Left Interpretations of the Financial Crisis at the CUNY Graduate Centre.}

Whatever doesn't kill you...

[hey this is a p. bad post but fortunately this might be a lot more readable!!]

As it turns out, Prime Minister Harper will be in Peru today promoting free trade at the APEC summit this weekend.

Quoth the raven,

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to tout free trade as an antidote to the global economic crisis when he attends the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru this weekend.

Free and open markets are the best way to ensure the global economy rebounds quickly, according to Harper, who departs for Lima on Friday morning.

Of course! The best cure for a global crisis brought on by unregulated markets is to deregulate more markets, naturally.

It’s good to see the Conservatives are still as ideological as ever – I was beginning to worry they might respond to our economic stress in a way that made sense.

Fortunately Tom d’Aquino of the completely non-biased Canadian Council of Chief Executives is setting the record straight:

Tom d'Aquino, president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, said APEC leaders must push hard to keep markets open.

"The worst thing in the world at a time of great difficulty would be if people would try to build up barriers and fortresses against direct foreign investment or the openness of international trade," d'Aquino said.

He’s right, the worst thing a small nation could do right now would be to take steps to maximise their right to economic self-determination and use what little control they have over their economic destiny to try and inoculate themselves against what is essentially a viral pandemic in neo-liberal capitalism.

You would think that if anyone gleaned anything from watching the evolution of the current financial quagmire, it would be that any advice coming from an organisation made up of CEOs should probably be immediately discarded.

Maybe instead someone should try listening to these guys for once.

"History has shown that crises on this scale lead to social and political instability with unpredictable and often tragic results. Working families have an enormous stake in the response to this crisis. Already, for more than two decades social cohesion has been under stress as a result of growing inequality in most countries. Today, those who are losing homes, jobs and pensions as a result of the financial crisis, for which they bear no responsibility, as taxpayers are being called on to bail-out those who are responsible. The G20 governments [they're not talking APEC in this context, but the same principles apply - ed.] must acknowledge the urgent need to begin work on a more inclusive, just and democratic system for the governance of global markets."