The economics of the pandemic policy
The trade-off has never been between lives and ‘the economy’. It has always been a trade-off between lives and the opportunity to boost profits.
economics
Austerity isn’t over. It will resume, but it has been suspended for one year
The claim for the latest Tory Budget is that ‘austerity is coming to an end’, and has been dutifully echoed by the Tory press and the BBC.
In reality austerity policies will continue long into the future, extending the longest recorded fall in living standards in this country.
Economic lessons from the left governments in Latin America – and a comparison to China
Recent events in Latin America entirely refute the claim in the Western media that the right wing was carrying all before it in the continent.
The new shape of world politics – disorder in the West, stability in the East
The following article on ‘The New Shape of World Politics – Disorder in the West, Stability in the East’ analyses the reasons for the Trump administration introducing tariffs against China and the background to the recent G7 and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summits.
Trump’s economic destabilisation
Leading official forecasters do not expect the main industrialised countries’ growth to accelerate in the next period, and the UK economy is expected to be the weakest of all.
The ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Political Crisis – from Reagan & Thatcher to Trump & Brexit
The following article by John Ross, setting out the economic forces underpinning the current political crises in the US and Britain, was previously published here by Socialist Economic Bulletin.
Every day the media reports deepening political destabilisation gripping both major ‘Anglo Saxon’ countries – the US and UK. Most important for the world, of course, is US political instability where almost daily crises hit the Trump administration – resignation of the President’s Chief of Staff, sacking of the head of the FBI, public attacks by the President on members of his Cabinet, virulent public and even obscene denunciations by the President’s advisers of each other, numerous Congressional investigations, sensational leaks from inside the national security agencies the FBI and CIA, open campaigns by key mass media such as the New York Times and CNN to remove the President etc. This US domestic political instability is clearly tightly intertwined with crises and developments in world politics – US relations with Russia, US disputes over the Iran nuclear deal, differences over US policy to China etc.