Dictatorship of Capital

Rolling Stone documents the gutting of the American middle class. 

Chile's shabab (that wonderful term for the revolutionary youth of the Arab Spring) protest the Dictatorship of Capital.

Libor-ation

Steal $10, go to jail for ten days.

Steal $10,000, go to jail for ten years.

Steal $1 million, go to jail forever.

Steal trillions and trillions, and you're Barclays and 20 other too-rich-to-tax-oversee-or-minimally-regulate banks. That means you pay a tiny wrist-slap fee for gouging consumers, municipalities and governments for decades. Conservatively assuming 0.0001% on $500 trillion in annual transactions, we're talking an effortless profit stream of $50 billion, all without exercising a single brain cell -- and maybe twice that, assuming that we're dealing with twisted, psychopathic lying scum of the planet.

Newsflash: Economic Depression Causes Depression

Horribly depressed all day. Heard of ZIRP (zero interest-rate policy) economics? Well, say hello to  ZINF -- the zero-income, no-future economy.


My multiple degrees screw me even more, because noone takes my applications seriously. At least they're polite, and put the appellation "Dr." in front of my name.

When you're unemployed, all the lies we tell ourselves to make everyday life in the prisonhouse of neoliberalism somewhat bearable recoil, through some weird dialectical logic, into a collective wall of despair.
 "You have to hustle". Have been. Am right now. Isn't working.

"Networking". I'm not friends with Ivy academics or hedge fundies. Everyone I know is clinging to their current job, unemployed, or busted-ass broke.

"Apply to things outside your field." Have been. Isn't working.

"Stay positive". It's all I can do to survive. I swear, and may the titanium-graphene nanoclaws of Bearzilla be my witness, if I ever became actually negative, I'd stuff myself into the nearest meatgrinder.

Nations Which the Gods Wish to Destroy...

...first have their public educational systems destroyed by privatization-mad plutocrats and fundamentalist nutters. 

Louisiana has led the way, and here are the results -- publicly-funded schools which deny evolution and teach the Loch Ness monster as fact (additional gory details are here). 

Video Linkage

First, a proper Youtube link to a previous video. Walkthroughs 6 and 7 are on the way, honest.

Investigative Journalism

Yasha Levine demolishes neoliberal flack.

Brokenness

Rick Perlstein has this wonderful essay on the brokenness of the US political class, which now rivals only the Middle Eastern oligarchies in terms of sheer self-destructive greed.

Today's antineoliberal screed: MC Amin's The Situation Must Change.

Bearzilla 2.0

Bearzilla reboots its energy-rent strategy. Expect major investments in renewables - something Russia needs for its own internal energy efficiency, as well as a future source of post-hydrocarbon revenues (Russia has tons of existing hydro, as well as vast solar and biofuel potential). 

The World Neoliberalism Made

Ever had the feeling that everything around you is utterly and completely broken?

That's exactly right. Don't worry, it's not just you -- the entire planet is angry at being systematically swindled, robbed, cheated, and ripped off by plutocratic elites. Welcome to the 21st century!

Leave No Crowbar Behind

The digital crowbar club has increased by one: the indispensable Yanis Varoufakis will now be blogging weekly for Valve on digital economies. Welcome to the Revolution, Yanis!

Also, check out Diane Ravitch's excellent blog, one of the sharpest critiques of the plutocrats' war on public education -- yes, it's a war, and the casualties are our children.

The War on Public Services Is A War On You

Private opulence, public squalor was the signature of the British Victorian era, and now it's becoming the norm in an increasingly ramshackle, deindustrialized and destitute US.

The myth spread by the bankster swine who swindled, conned, or outright stole trillions of dollars of other people's money is that America is too poor to pay for public services (never mind the trillion we waste every year fighting enemies which don't exist anymore, or the trillions spent on bankster bailouts). It's a time of shared sacrifice, so their stooges and quislings bleat.

Utter bilge. First of all, public workers make less than private workers (public workers have a different skill mix, which throws off straight-line comparisons, but compared as service-workers to service-workers, public jobs pay less).

Second, bankster vampires have been gaming the municipality bond market for decades, raking off huge fees and dumping toxic assets and shady deals onto the public books. This is part of the same strategy of debt servitude which has been destroying the US middle class for thirty years: instead of taxing the rich, float bonds ultimately paid for by the middle class.

Third, Astroturf pressure groups cooked up by obnoxious billionaires create the illusion of popular assent for additional neoliberal scams which further enrich the 1% and impoverish the 99%. Often these take the form of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which claim to be fighting for the 99% -- and then stab us in the back behind closed doors. Just watch this incredible video of Stand For Children's co-founder Jonah Edelman openly take credit for destroying Chicago's teachers unions, by pushing the failed and bogus drill-to-kill agenda of educational testing and privatization through Illinois's legislature.

Gandhi Was A Videogame Designer

Lest yesterday's post make First World readers swoon overhastily over India's democracy, two prominent Indian human rights activists of the People's Union for Civil Liberties were jailed for life.

Their crime: carrying a small amount of cash, as well as what the authorities term "Maoist" literature. Not for any actions, weapons or explosives, mind you -- just thoughts.

One of the most singular contradictions of the industrializing world is that its citizens live the burden of the colonial past on the most personal level imaginable. The British colonial regime which plundered India for centuries is gone, but India's postcolonial elites all too frequently act with the same disdain and arrogance as their British predecessors.

Incidentally, this contradiction is what makes the contemporary media productions of the industrializing world so rich, multifaceted and dynamic. The greatest artists of these nations have to answer not just to the toils of the present, but the travails of the past, and this gives their best work the sort of deep, world-shaking energy missing from most First World media productions (with the signal and honorable exception of today's videogame culture, which is transnational through and through). They are battling not just for justice in the present, but for the dignity of the past.

Television for the Global 99%

For decades, American commercial media ruled the global airwaves. But now the rest of the world is creating their very own world-class films, TV shows and digital media.

Latest case in point: Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan delivers some of the best-written, most engaging, well-researched and emotionally honest television you will ever see. Tune in online to Satyamev Jayate ["Truth Will Prevail"] -- English subtitles available on the site, and also on Youtube. Watch and learn for an insight into how the global 99% live.

Slow Boil

Latest from Europe (aside from the impending revolution brewing in Greece): transnational audiences slap down greedhead media oligopolies in the European Parliament.

Canadian 14-year-old is smarter than all the world's neoliberal economists combined.

Tired of being fleeced by Wall Street banksters? Time to create our own, publicly-owned, democratically-accountable banks (more recipes are here).