http://www.projectallende.org/ Political Economics of South America, San Francisco to Buenos Aires overland, 2003-2007 en-us tones@projectallende.org 2010-03-02T21:26:16+00:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2010_03.html Returning for a moment to Economics and Finance from my activities in Ecology. In the end it is all the same thing really. I translated the following piece by a professor of mine on the takeover of the Argentine Central Bank by the Elected president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Funny in Argentina that seems to a bigger problem than a takeover by the IMF or the Club de Paris (go figure) 151@http://www.projectallende.org/ Argentina 2010-03-02T21:26:16+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2010_01.html This article was sent to me by the author Patrick Bond from South Africa. Patrick presents it today at the World Social forum tenth anniversary in Porto Alegre (Brazil). It is an Africa- and US-centric viewpoint of the collapse of... 150@http://www.projectallende.org/ Environment 2010-01-27T12:29:12+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2010_01.html O.K. Copenhagen is over and it showed that the UNFCCC COP process is not yet capable of the incredibly urgent task that it has been tasked to do. So what? Wait for another calamity in COP-16 Mexico City December... 149@http://www.projectallende.org/ Bolivia 2010-01-18T18:54:01+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2010_01.html Five days ago I returned to South America to gather my thoughts. Back from Denmark, people ask what I had seen in Copenhagen. Most of those asking were short on hope and long on fear, there were still a few... 148@http://www.projectallende.org/ Environment 2010-01-13T13:17:27+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2009_12.html Wednesday December 16th, “Reclaim Power” day in Copenhagen, inside the Africans are shouting at the Ethiopians and outside the Climate Justice advocates are shouting at the COP who they accuse of being co-opted by corporate lobbyists. To a lobbyist... 147@http://www.projectallende.org/ Political Economics 2009-12-16T19:56:54+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2009_12.html 146@http://www.projectallende.org/ Environment 2009-12-16T13:05:30+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2009_12.html The lobbyists in Copenhagen are paid by organizations who don’t agree with . They sleep in five star hotels renamed “Bright Green” for the show. Quarterly results blur their vision. They don’t go to museums any more. 145@http://www.projectallende.org/ Environment 2009-12-13T07:44:28+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2009_12.html 144@http://www.projectallende.org/ Environment 2009-12-11T16:43:32+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2009_12.html Naomi Klein was in fine form as she opened the Klimaforum09 counter-conference in Copenhagen Monday night 7/12. She gave a keynote opening speech to open the summit of ecological NGO’s that bills itself as The People’s Climate Summit. 143@http://www.projectallende.org/ Environment 2009-12-08T15:31:33+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2009_12.html Hello from Denmark, Decided to come freeze my little tush off in Copenhagen for eleven days for global warming (COP-15, look it up). Sounds like fun? Well, sort of! Anyway I'm writing articles for a few people here and... 142@http://www.projectallende.org/ Environment 2009-12-08T13:47:30+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2009_09.html A call to unite to deal with emerging world crises. Instead of trade treaties and investments (the destructive macinations of economics), lets construct a truly sustainable future before it is too late. 141@http://www.projectallende.org/ 2009-09-07T19:02:50+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2009_07.html Saturday morning, Buenos Aires; while the city sleeps off a hangover dreaming of a delicious breakfast or nightmare public hospitals full of A H1N1 patients, I read the Financial Times to find out what is really going on in the world. I do it so you don't have to! So I come across this short, dare I say, boring. piece by Ms. Henny Sender, one of the video starlets of the FT.com website. Henny is a dead-pan, middle aged, east-coast financial commentator who spends a lot of time with Private Capital. She says it like it is. What is Private Capital? Remember "Mergers and Acquisitions" in the 1980's? Same thing! They got a bad name for unemployment in the UK so they changed their name. Private Capital buy and sell companies. Henny's article is about them buying and selling banks. Sounds boring? Yes I know! But I promise to get right to the point. Private Capital are just that! They leverage secret multi-billion dollar investments from the very VERY rich by using their executive-level connections with investment banks. This gives them an inflated bag of cash which they use to buy collapsing companies. Once bought. they are dissected, the bad bits thrown to their friends in the government to be "rescued", then they sell off the juicy bits for a profit which they use to pay off the investment bankers, the private clients and the overpaid executives. What I like about this short article is its frankness and completely amoral standpoint. It clearly states that "rescued" banks take taxpayers cheap loans and invest them at speculative higher rates for a profit. Meanwhile they resist making productive loans due to uncertainty in the "recovery" (those green shooty darling buds of may (frost-bitten in June). And guess what? No loans, no recovery! Casino capitalism is left on life support in the public wards of the nations of the world like our A H1N1 patients. In a nutshell; governments advised by rich investment bankers, are fattening up hopelessly useless parts of a failed capitalist system feeding them a drip of free money so they are beefed up for consumption by the rich. They are then digested and spat out at a profit for those same rich investment bankers. Consolidating capital at the top while taxes rise and jobs are lost for the middle classes. Is this really the point I ask myself? 139@http://www.projectallende.org/ Economics 2009-07-04T15:44:53+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2009_06.html Americas Program Report: A New Financial Architecture for Latin America, Part 1, by Tony Phillips Part one of a two part series Im writing about financial architectures for Latin America and the Caribbean. I intend to make this the... 137@http://www.projectallende.org/ Economics 2009-06-02T00:17:23+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2009_05.html Copenhagen is the new Kyoto. Later this year in Copenhagen the political and economic agents of the planet will decide for you and your progeny what shall be done to prevent a violent change in the planet's weather systems from... 136@http://www.projectallende.org/ Environment 2009-05-30T15:45:32+00:00 http://www.projectallende.org/archives/2009_04.html G-20 Reloaded, by Tony Phillips This crisis is big, very big. Previous efforts have failed. Trillions of good dollars have been thrown after bad. The G-20 leaders announced in their communiqué that the "crisis […] has deepened since we... 135@http://www.projectallende.org/ Economics 2009-04-26T15:10:05+00:00