Immanuel Wallerstein - China and the United States: Rivals, Enemies, Collaborators?

The relations of China and the United States are a major preoccupation of the chattering classes (bloggers, the media, politicians, international bureaucrats). The analysis is usually posed as the relation between the declining superpower, the United States, and the rapidly rising “emergent” country, China. In the western world, the relation is usually defined negatively, China being seen as a “threat.” But threat to whom, and in what sense?

There are some who see China’s “rise” as the resumption of a central position on the globe, a central position that they once held and are now resuming. There are some who see it as something very recent – as China’s new role in the shifting geopolitics and world-economic relations of the modern world-system. FULL STORY

Michael Parenti - Democracy and the Pathology of Wealth

Joe Rogan Podcast - Peter Joseph 2012-01-06

NewScientist - Capitalist Network That Runs the World

The top 10 of the 147 superconnected companies:

1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc

As protests against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy. FULL STORY

Richard Wolff - Capitalism Hits the Fan (Lecture)

Vivek Chibber - Capitalism and the State (Lecture)

Alessio Rastani - Eurozone Market Will Crash Within 12 Months

IMF issues dire warning on world economy

The world economy has entered a "dangerous new phase" of sharply lower growth, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.

Olivier Blanchard, the IMF's chief economist, said late on Tuesday that the global economy's "recovery has weakened considerably", adding that "strong policies are needed to improve the outlook and reduce the risks".

The IMF expects the US economy to grow just 1.5 per cent this year and 1.8 per cent in 2012, down from its June forecast of 2.5 per cent in 2011 and 2.7 per cent next year.

As a result, the international lending organisation has sharply downgraded its economic outlook for the US and Europe through the end of next year.

To achieve even that still-low level of growth, the US economy would need to expand at a much faster rate in the second half of the year than its 0.7 per cent annual pace in the first six months.

Last month Standard & Poor cut the long-term US credit rating by one notch to AA+ with a negative outlook, amid fears about budget deficits. FULL STORY

The Social-Democratic Illusion

By: Immanuel Wallerstein (iwallerstein.com)

Social-democracy had its apogee in the period 1945 to the late 1960s. At that time, it represented an ideology and a movement that stood for the use of state resources to ensure some redistribution to the majority of the population in various concrete ways: expansion of educational and health facilities; guarantees of lifelong income levels by programs to support the needs of the non-”wage-employed” groups, particularly children and seniors; and programs to minimize unemployment. Social-democracy promised an ever-better future for future generations, a sort of permanent rising level of national and family incomes. This was called the welfare state. It was an ideology that reflected the view that capitalism could be “reformed” and acquire a more human face. FULL STORY

Maoist Rebel News - China Converting US Debt To Gold

Peter Joseph - Zeitgeist solutions for the world (Interview)

Noam Chomsky - U.S. Economic Crisis (Interview)

Census Data Shows Rising Poverty in U.S.

By: Catherine Dodge (bloomberg.com)

The U.S. poverty rate rose to the highest level in almost two decades and household income fell in 2010, underscoring the lingering impact of the worst economic slump in seven decades.

Data released by the Census Bureau today showed the proportion of people living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent last year from 14.3 percent in 2009, and median household income declined 2.3 percent. The number of Americans living in poverty was the highest in the 52 years since the U.S. Census Bureau began gathering that statistic. Those figures may have worsened in recent months as the economy weakened. FULL STORY

"The Money Masters" (Documentary)