Curious but revealing messages are in circulation about consumption. For example, it often must be “stimulated.” Consumption is actually demanded to get growth going. That already says a lot. Under capitalism, supply is obviously not the purpose, nor is production the means to provide needs with the desired goods. It’s the other way around: consumptive need is the means to advance the purpose of corporate growth.
The crisis of worldwide, capitalist business is entering its third year. It began in the summer of 2007 as a disruption of a specialized segment of the U.S. financial sector, when the devaluation of securities in which home mortgage and other debt had been used as speculative business items led to the insolvency of the special-purpose vehicles constructed for the purpose of creating and marketing these items. The crisis consequently spread further and further.
Caution is in order when world leaders find an idealistic motto for their plans for world politics, announcing a dream for a better world or a mission for humanity. The submissive habit of checking the leading personalities for credibility — whether they honestly mean what they say and have the means to keep their fine promises — doesn’t do. However hopeful or skeptical, however quickly or deeply disappointed civic-minded souls may be, they are all credulous.
One thing is clear to states as a result of the destruction of all sorts of capital, on whose success they and “we all” live: the services of financial institutions terminated through mismanagement are one, if not the, pillar of the common good. The economic capacity of the financial sector is to be maintained or, as the case may be, restored; the banks are to be enabled to use their financial power once gain. Their rescue is being carried out by the authorities providing the funds that the banks are authorized, and usually also able, to generate.
[Translated from the weekly radio analysis of GegenStandpunkt Publishers, October 6, 2009]
Now that the world’s biggest banks are collapsing and assets valued at many billions are vanishing into thin air, politicians, economic experts, and journalists worry about the effects of these collapses on such a thing as the “real economy.” This is noteworthy, for until just recently a difference between stock market prices and bank yields on the one hand, and the wealth that comes out of production and sale of useful things on the other hand, was entirely unknown.
On the occasion of NATO opponents’ wrong criticism of the celebrations of NATO's sixty year anniversary, we published a leaflet criticizing their arguments. In response, we received the following letter.
One is supposed to imagine it roughly the following way: the crisis drags on because business simply hasn’t got going again. That’s because the banks, “lifeline of our economy,” aren’t supplying business people with the loans they need. They don’t do this because they are sitting on “lots of toxic assets,” which is why there is simply ”no more trust” between them nor in their dealings with the rest of the business world. So it’s clear that the state absolutely has to help them trust again, thereby helping all of us out of the crisis.
After the president — considered to be “leftist” — intended to get approval from the people by referendum for a “constituent assembly” against parliament, the electoral tribunal, and the supreme court, the armed forces staged a coup and deported Zelaya to Nicaragua. For the first time, the U.S. expressly condemned a military putsch in their backyard, denying recognition to the new government, and declaring the affair to be a precedent for their new foreign policy.
How Barack Hussein Obama mastered the path to 44th President of the United States has led to an orgy of admiration for this man. And not only among the American electorate and its opinion leaders, but also among other citizens of the world who couldn’t even vote for him. In addition, the election campaign and accession to power of the first black leader of the world's most powerful state are considered an exemplary testament to the beauty and effectiveness of democracy.