The Last Recession? Or Our Best Opportunity for Hope?

As the drama of the bursting bubble of Wall St. gives way to a slower, but steady and painful, economic decline, the first and most important question we should ask is “Should we try to blow another bubble, or should we reject bubble culture values for something entirely different?”

United States – Nov 2

Deer hunting with Jesus: Joe Bageant interview
Seismic shifts in the political landscape
A scary Halloween with Sarah Palin
Stiglitz: Reversal of fortune
Obama lays plans to deaden expectation after election victory
The Senate and the union hall: Where American climate policy will succeed or fail

A politics of crisis: low-energy cosmopolitanism

2008 is the year of a triple shock: the global food crisis (which made the realities of food-insecurity palpable), the global oil-price rise (which put localised transition on the agenda as never before) and the global financial hurricane (which gave the state as agent a new lease of political life). The long-term consequences can at present be only dimly discerned. [Discussion of leftism and localization]

Peak greed

At one time I decided to give greed a chance, immerse myself in it by devoting all of my waking hours to the study of money. If bankers and I were sharing the same floor of Hell, such an obsession couldn’t be all bad. Maybe Hell just needed a makeover. We could spruce it up, refinance it, remodel…



Socialism from above – Oct 21

Deficit rises, and consensus is to let it grow
Economists weigh in on the need for stimulus spending
UK Telegraph: We’re all socialists now, comrade
JPMorgan economist: “If you socialize enough of the financial system, it has to work”
Here comes stimulus – question is how
Bernanke: It’s time for stimulus plan