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Showing posts with the label capitalism

January 21, 2010: The day corporate dictatorship destroyed the last remnants of US Democracy

globinfo freexchange     As we described many times in this blog, corporate power grew rapidly since the early 70s with the rise of neoliberalism and its subsequent establishment as the dominant culture, especially in the West.  In the motherland of neoliberalism, the United States, corporations essentially legalized corruption in politics during the 70s in order to capture the entire political system and put it under their complete control. As David Harvey describes in his book A Brief History of Neoliberalism :                          The supposedly ‘progressive’ campaign finance laws of 1971 in effect legalized the financial corruption of politics. A crucial set of Supreme Court decisions began in 1976 when it was first established that the right of a corporation to make unlimited money contributions to political parties and political action committees was protected under the First Amendment guaranteeing the rights of individuals (in this instance corporations) to freedom of speec

Julian Assange and the rapid decline of liberal Democracy

by system failure We are now in 2023, and after 1362 days, Julian Assange is still in prison. If you seek something to measure the decline of liberal Democracy in our days, the Julian Assange case will help you a lot. And it's most amazing that in the era of information overflow (with plenty of means available to transfer it almost instantly in every corner of the planet), there are still many people who are unaware of the Assange case.   The origins of this deterioration go back in 1968 when the Left made a disastrous compromise with the powers of the establishment. Since the early 70s and after Nixon's shock , the cultural domination of neoliberalism paved the way for the restriction of certain types of liberties in Western societies.  The 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 became the perfect opportunity for the establishment to abolish instantly a significant portion of the civil liberties that came out of the 1968 compromise. The liberal Democracy in the West suffered a heavy

Human workforce under severe threat as hyper-automation spreads rapidly

globinfo freexchange     Remember when US workers in fast-food industry were fighting for higher minimum wages? In September, there has been some news circulation about such a prospect concerning the state of California. Yet, while workers struggle hard to achieve even a small raise, the fast-food industry is at least three steps ahead using robots and hyper-automation as what appears to be an unbeatable competitor against human workforce!   Indeed, the first almost fully automated McDonald's opened recently in Texas:   At one McDonald’s location in Texas, robots are now serving up Big Macs. Amid a growing desire for fast food giants to automate their processes, the first mostly robot-run McDonald’s restaurant is currently being tested in Fort Worth, Texas. At this location, there are no human cashiers in sight. Even the restaurant itself is smaller and has no seating, designed to serve the grab-and-go crowd, rather than sit-down diners.   Upon entry, digital tills take customer o

Pro-Brexit capitalists desperately seek a suitable Thatcherite zombie to govern Britain

by system failure   We can almost certainly conclude that the removal of Boris Johnson from the position of the UK prime minister came as a result of a counter-attack of the liberal globalist faction against the pro-Brexit faction in the capitalist civil war .   And it is almost certain that the utterly grotesque political figure of Liz Truss was a far more easy target for the anti-Brexit liberal capitalists. It took them only 45 days to overthrow her, making her the shortest serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Liberal capitalists proved that Truss-type politicians are a 'piece of cake' for them, especially when they decide to mobilize the global markets and their agents inside the Tories.   As George Monbiot reveals , Truss' policies shaped by lobby groups like the Institute of Economic Affairs, the TaxPayers' Alliance and the Adam Smith Institute. It seems that these are some key groups behind BrexitCentral website. And together, they form a network of rig

Macron vs Le Pen: The terrible outcome of Left's 1968 disastrous compromise

by system failure   It has become completely normal now for people in the "free" and "democratic" West to vote for the "lesser of two evils". Despite the fact that there is nothing democratic and normal in dirty tactics (which include even internal-party coups) organized by bipartisan dictatorships against real-Leftist candidates, the outcome of this process is now considered the new norm. That is, a neoliberal (pseudo-Left for the US) candidate against an alt-right candidate, which is definitely a win-win situation for the capitalist elites against the working class in every country.   This ugly show is repeated election cycle after election cycle. The elites produce huge amounts of propaganda energy, through their corporate media, to remove any anti-establishment real threats. In the final round, they leave their most favored neoliberal Cinderella to face an alt-right bad witch.   Bad witch's role is to scary the liberal and the Leftist voters in ord

August 12, 2020: The day capitalism officially died and replaced by something even worse

globinfo freexchange   It was the 12th of August, 2020. Nine o'clock in the morning, in London, the news came out that the national income of Britain (GDP) had fallen by more than 20% . That had never happened before in the history of capitalism - British GDP falling by 21% or so in one year. It was not anticipated. The markets were expecting a fall of 8,9,10%. No one was expecting a 21% fall. Fifteen or sixteen minutes later, the London stock exchange went up by 3% . There can be no explanation of that along the lines of capitalism.     This is how the Greek economist, Yanis Varoufakis, described essentially the official death of capitalism and its replacement by something even worse. The thing he calls "technofeudalism". While Varoufakis in various discussions struggles to explain why capitalism is already dead, it's rather funny that people still willing to debate on something that's already dead (capitalism) against something that's far from being practi

It has started: Big corporations institutionalize land-grab to control the global food production

globinfo freexchange   As we were writing back in 2014:                        Having secured the new labor force through fully automated machines, what has left for the dominant elite now, is to take all the resources. Big corporations are grabbing huge cultivable areas especially in the developing countries in order to control food production.  We have come now to the point where big corporations literally institutionalize land-grab to control the global food production.   As The Grayzone recently revealed [emphasis added]:  In June 2019, the office of UN General Secretary António Guterres, without previous discussion in the General Assembly or any other intergovernmental process, signed a strategic partnership with the World Economic Forum. [...] The 2021 UN Food Systems Summit was initiated through a partnership with the World Economic Forum, with limited participation of other UN bodies, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization or the Committee on World Food Secu

Boris Johnson attributes UK's vaccine success to dead capitalism with a BS typical argument from the bankrupt neoliberalism

globinfo freexchange   It's almost grotesque the fact that many fans of capitalism still don't realize that capitalism is dead . And it's certainly grotesque the fact that they use the same, typical and obsolete bullshit arguments (coming straight from the bankrupt neoliberal ideology), to defend it.   It was UK's PM this time, Boris Johnson, who used such an argument to defend the already dead capitalism. An argument coming straight from the dustbin of history and from the grave of one of the most unpopular and unsuccessful PMs in UK's history: Maggie, the Iron Lady. According to a Johnson's private call with Conservative MPs that has been circulated by the mainstream media, the British PM hailed the fact that more than 28 million people have been given a first jab in the UK, saying: “ The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed my friends. ”   The response to this BS not only came almost immediately, but it also came fr

Nevada to become officially the testing field for the 21st century corporate feudalism!

globinfo freexchange   An early February short report by Associated Press passed rather unnoticed. Yet, it could be probably considered the best proof for what this blog claims for many years now. In short, the Western economic model is about to be transformed into something even worse than capitalism, towards a kind of 21st century corporate feudalism. And the US state of Nevada is about to become the testing field for such a transition in the most official way! As the AP reported [emphasis added]: Planned legislation to establish new business areas in Nevada would allow technology companies to effectively form separate local governments. Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak announced a plan to launch so-called Innovation Zones in Nevada to jumpstart the state’s economy by attracting technology firms, Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Wednesday. The zones would permit companies with large areas of land to form governments carrying the same authority as counties, including the ab

WallStreetBets Redditors brilliantly demonstrate a way to demolish Wall Street fraudulent Ponzi scheme

globinfo freexchange   WallStreetBets Redditors sent shock waves to speculative hedge funds who saw their gamble turn into a disaster, losing billions. The terror was evident on corporate media pundits' faces when they suddenly realized that their beloved Wall Street fraudulent system was successfully hijacked by outsiders.   As BusinessInsider reported :   Video-game retailer GameStop has dominated the headlines this week after its shares trebled in value in just three days this week, in a buying frenzy fueled by individual traders that have forced some of Wall Street's prominent hedge funds to close their bearish bets against the company with hefty losses.   GameStop's shares have hit record highs and the swarm of retail investors behind the rally have cheered each other on, primarily within the popular Reddit forum Wall Street Bets, which by Thursday, had around 3.5 million members.   Members have spent the past three weeks bidding up GameStop, which has se

The real reason corporate America fights Chinese high-tech giant Huawei so hard

globinfo freexchange   The short answer that comes immediately in mind is: competition.    Indeed, Huawei had been found frequently at the epicenter of Trump's "holly" trade war against China. Someone should expect this since Silicon Valley oligarchs see the Chinese high-tech giant rapidly penetrate into the global market, claiming bigger and bigger portion of the market pie.   As we reported previously, the US imperialist machine openly called Western allies (and particularly the UK), to sabotage China's economic and technological penetration in its Western sphere of influence, through a Foreign Policy article. According to the article, the UK appears to be the most suitable, among the US allies, to lead the race against China's 5G infrastructure deals with Western countries. In essence, it called the UK to play a leading role in sabotaging China's and Huawei's deals with the UK itself and other Western countries.   Also, according to MintPress , &

Pro-Trump capitalists fire the first serious warning shot in Capitol

globinfo freexchange In June, 2020, we wrote that, the whole picture indicates that all these far-right militia groups together with a significant part the US police force are forming a loony army of Trump defenders, driven by racism, ultra-conservative ideas and far-right extreme conspiracy theories. These fanatics have become so loyal to their leader - who happens to be the President of the United States - that they will do whatever it takes to see him in charge for another four years. As Trump's popularity has taken a downturn, his "brigades" are ready to take action in case he loses November's election. Especially if he loses marginally. Previously, we explained that, what we see now in the United States with Trump, is a counter-attack by the part of the American capital against the globalist faction. The faction that is primarily consisted by the liberal plutocracy . Therefore, as the capitalist class splits, the capitalists around Trump are now taking with the

George Monbiot got it half-right: There is a capitalist civil war, but not exactly the kind of war he describes

by system failure  Since at least July 2019, we were supporting the idea that Brexit is primarily the result of a capitalist civil war. Very few people (mostly in social media), were eager to accept this theory, while several were even mocking it as some kind of crazy conspiracy theory.    What puzzled us most, was the fact that even people from the global real Left were completely ignoring the capitalist-civil-war factor in Brexit equation during public debates. Many of them were seeing Brexit mainly as an angry response by the UK working class against the political and financial elites. We thought it would take forever to find someone from the Left to support the capitalist-civil-war theory.   Finally, at last, it was George Monbiot who spoke clearly about a capitalist civil war. And not only that. He correctly supported (as you can hear in the beginning of his analysis) that " The only way really to understand Brexit is as the outcome of a civil war within capitalism. "