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Deepening Economic Crisis: How Deep, Where Is It Headed, Who is Accountable?
To many, the recent economic downturn could be a rough patch to a full collapse as a financial crisis hits the nation’s markets; add in that the United States is nine months into a significant acceleration in expected energy and food price increases. The distressful interaction is known as a “scissors crisis†among economists. We’ll also discuss the economic sub-genres, such as Military Keynesianism, GWOT spending, and housing markets. This, while Californians made a run on IndymacBank, the biggest bank crisis since 1984. Indymac was started by three former high level people from Countrywide.
Quote: “Even though Iraq is a bad idea, the value of the US military to this country is rising not falling.â€
Guests – Rick Wolff, Professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts at Amherst Rick teaches at the Brecht Forum and the New School in New York City. (Read Rick’s article, Economic Blues in the Monthly Review)
Max Fraad Wolff , freelance researcher, strategist, and writer in the areas of international finance and macroeconomics. Max’s work can be seen at the Huffington Post, The AsiaTimes, Prudent Bear, SeekingAlpha and many other outlets.
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Rick Wolff – Interview January 2007
Uneven Distribution of Wealth: Goldman Sachs 16.2 Billion Dollar Christmas Bonus?
Michael Smith talks with Professor Rick Wolff, formerly the head of the Economics Department at the University of Massachusetts and currently the NASDAQ professor of Economics at the New School University and Catherine Albisa Executive Director of the National Economics and Social Rights Initiative – NESRI. Albisa is also an attorney specializing in the implementation of human rights standards in the United States. She is the former director of the Human Rights in the US program at the Center for Economic and Social Right and was the Associate Director of the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School.
Both guests discuss their reactions to and the implications of the recent 16.2 billion dollar bonus that the investment banking house of Goldman Sachs announced just before Christmas.
More than $50 million went to the Goldman Sachs Chairman alone. Pfizer, the drug company, paid a “severance package†of $200 million to its just-resigned chief executive. Many other large corporations acted similarly. All this is legal, given the laws and rules that corporations win from their political “allies.†Indeed, the latest ruling by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allows corporations to obscure what they pay top executives (the New York Times, December 27, 2006, page C1, called it “a victory for corporationsâ€).
Read Story Here by Professor Rick Wolff.