finance

Kiev hopes to sell state-run companies to US investors – PM

RT | June 9, 2015 Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk hopes to sell the country’s state-owned companies to the US. American investors will get the assets “on the most transparent conditions” if they decide to invest, he said. The statement comes ahead of a Ukrainian-American investment conference in Washington on July 13. “We want to […]

A Critique of “US Grand Strategy toward China”

We will have a very strong (military) presence, very strong continued posture throughout the region to back our commitments to our allies, to protect and work with our partners and to continue ensuring peace and stability in the region, as well as back our diplomacy vis-à-vis China on the South China Sea.
— David Shear, US Department of Defense’s Assistant Secretary for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs

Washington’s Two Track Policy to Latin America

Everyone, from political pundits in Washington to the Pope in Rome, including most journalists in the mass media and in the alternative press, have focused on the US moves toward ending the economic blockade of Cuba and gradually opening diplomatic relations. Talk is rife of a ‘major shift’ in US policy toward Latin America with the emphasis on diplomacy and reconciliation. Even most progressive writers and journals have ceased writing about US imperialism.

Derailing Amtrak

The dangerous underfunding of US infrastructure was underscored by a fatal train derailment on May 12th. The tragedy did not deter the House Appropriations Committee from voting to slash Amtrak funding the very next day. There are ways Congress could fund its massive infrastructure bill without raising taxes. But the conservative-controlled Congress seems to have other plans for the nation’s profitable public assets.

If “Too-Big-to-Fail’’ Means “Too-Big-to-Jail” It Should Mean “Too-Big-to-Be”

In a couple of days, the so-called US Justice Department will be announcing an “agreement” reached with five large banks, including two of the largest in the US — JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup, the holding companies for Chase and Citibank — under which these banks or bank holding companies will plead guilty to felonies involving the manipulation of international currency markets.

Economic Disinformation Keeps Financial Markets Up

May 8. Today’s payroll jobs report is more of the same. The Bureau of Labor Statistics claims that 223,000 new jobs were created in April. Let’s accept the claim and see where the jobs are.
Specialty trade contractors are credited with 41,000 jobs equally split between residential and nonresidential. I believe these are home and building repairs and remodeling.
The rest of the jobs, 182,000, are in domestic services.
Despite store closings and weak retail sales, 12,000 people were hired in retail trade.

Techno-Financial Capital and Genocide of the Poorest of the Poor

The war and its results have turned Yemen back a hundred years, due to the destruction of infrastructure … especially in the provinces of Oden, Dhalea, and Taiz.
— Izzedine al-Asbali, Yemeni Human Rights Minister

Yemen is devastated. There are no roads, water, or electricity. Nobody’s left but thieves.
— a resident of Sanaa, Yemen