Economic Crisis, Philly Study Group

Readings on the G20

2009-08-03T06:21:00.000-07:00

Analysis of last g20 in April
http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=19408

Why Pittsburgh Might have been chosen to host the g20
"Pittsburgh Hosting g20 summit" (Talks about the rise and fall and recovery of pittsburgh)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/28/g20-pittsburgh-us-hosting_n_208735.html

From the Resist G20 Group

'Meet the G That Killed Me'
http://resistg20.org/sites/resistg20.org/files/zines/g20_zine.pdf

Twenty People Commanding 6.7 billion
http://resistg20.org/node/60

Financial Crisis Movie Night - July 21st

2009-07-14T20:26:00.001-07:00

Financial Crisis Movie Night...now happening the third Thursday of every month.

July Selection:
Disobeying the Banks: The story of Enric Duran, a Catalan anti-capitalist activist, and his daring act of "financial civil disobedience"--492,000 euros worth of loans donated to social movements

The Secret History of the Credit Card: 2004 frontline expose on deregulation and deception in the credit card industry.

There will be a tutorial on how to obtain a free credit report after the movies.

Details
Tuesday July 21st
7 p.m.
Lava Space
4134 Lancaster Ave.

Financial Crisis Audiovisual Night Tues June 30th

2009-06-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

From LAVA site.

A one night documentary series on the financial crisis

7 p.m. Tues June 30th
LAVA Space
LAVA Space 4134 Lancaster
Available on #10 Trolley

Come stare at a screen and learn about the financial crisis...you don't event have to read! We'll be watching a 12 minute documentary entitled 'The Credit Crisis Explained' followed by a longer AV presentation called 'An Anarchist Analysis of the Credit Crunch'

Come hungry for information....and popcorn!

For more information check out the Philly Economic Crisis Reading Group blog

Proposal for Video Night, 30 Jun

2009-06-22T10:02:00.001-07:00

I think it would be cool to try to meet next next Tuesday (30 Jun) and watch two videos on the current credit crisis. I think we said we were going to meet the first and third Tuesday of the month, so it might make since to do a video with no readings and get back to readings on 7 Jul. We should invite other people and make popcorn two!

The first is called 'The Crisis of Credit Visualized' and is an animated short that explains the workings on the credit crisis. 12min. (Thanks to Jason for finding this!)

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

The second is a from a member of Ireland's Worker Solidarity Movement, an anarchist organization. From October 2008. 65min

Next time we meet?

2009-06-17T09:00:00.001-07:00

Hi Everyone

Since last night's meeting did not really happen i was wondering if people still wanted to meet two weeks from now or would want to meet next week say on Monday, or any other suggestions?

:-)

Eric

The End of Gold Standard

2009-06-08T17:28:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia seems to have comprehensive overviews of the end of the Bretton Woods system and Nixon's 1971 decision to delink the dollar from gold, humorously dubbed 'The Nixon Shock.'

"The Late Bretton Woods System"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system#Late_Bretton_Woods_System

"The Nixon Shock"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock

5 May Planning Meeting Notes

2009-06-08T17:23:00.000-07:00

These are the notes from the initial meeting where we planned out what we wanted to get out of the reading group

What we want to learn in this study group

Causes of the Financial Crisis
Progression/stages of capitalism
Banks/credit unions
“Stress tests”
Credit card debt
consumer credit
What is: 1)hyperinflation 2)deflation 3)stagflation
Wages and the crisis
City budget/social services
Taxes/types of taxes
Fiscal policy/The Federal Reserve
Immigration/US-mexico relations
Informal economy
Privatization
Regulation of the financial system
What is money?

Why study the economic crisis?

Develop a critique of capitalism
Envision alternatives/other systems
Personal empowerment
New perspectives/ability to talk to people
Better Organizing
Preserving and expanding social services
Fighting to win/strategies/vulnerabilities
The role of the gov't in the financial system

Potential projects once we learn about economics

Philly property market
Teach-in
Zine on unemployment and immigration
Population shifts in philly / displacement
City budget / taxes
Study of what kind of businesses operate in Center City?

Logistics

Blog
readings
Speeches by Obama
Multimedia

Center for Popular Economics 2009 Summer Institute

2009-06-05T13:12:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Jade for finding this.

After the Economic Meltdown: Building a Solidarity Economy

World Fellowship Center, Conway, N.H.
July 12-17, 2009

CPE’s Summer Institute CPE’s Summer Institute is a week-long intensive training in economics for activists, educators, and anyone who wants a better understanding of economics. We focus on how economic systems impact our lives and work every day. Our trainings are highly participatory and build on the knowledge and experience of our participants.
No background in economics is required.

Core Classrooms At the heart of the Summer Institute program are two core courses, one on the U.S. Economy, one on the International Economy. All participants must choose one core course. The core classes meet each day in the mornings. Below is a sample of topics.

More info here.

Readings for June 2nd

2009-05-26T06:56:00.000-07:00

Ch. 2: "The Construction of Consent" in David Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism

Sections 1-3 in Lorner Goldner's "The Biggest October Surprise of Them All"

The selection from A Brief History of Neoliberalism is available here on Google books. If you want to print, download this scanned version. Lorner Goldner's piece is here and the sections are clearly marked. You can also download an easy-to-print pdf.

Notes

Neoliberalism: The What?s and How?s

Labor lost a lot of power
Corporations moved to US south and overseas
Threatened workers w plant closures
opening of china
'United Capitalist Front' (competition can wait until after neoliberalism is implemented)
Elite's class conciousness
New York Fiscal Crisis
Increasing profitability and power of finance
1973 coup in Chile
Increasing millitary spending
Neoliberalism vs. neoconservatism--what's the difference?
Corporations give money to campaigns and increase political power
TO LOOK INTO: 1971 end of gold standard
Lowers price of dollars, makes US exports cheaper and devalues dollar-denominated loans
OPEC Price Shock 1973
Saudis / OPEC start recycling petrodollars to US investors who invest in foreign markets
Individualism/Rebellion --> fodder for capitalist marketing strategies (Harvey)
Dynamic/adaptive capitalism
People adapting too
Corporate liquidity/debt? What does it mean?

Slow-Motion Crisis since the 70s: Loren Goldner on the origins of the current crisis and its connection to the end of the post-war boom

2009-05-23T14:24:00.000-07:00

For next week, I've recommended a reading from Loren Goldner, who argues that capitalism as a world system has been in a slow-motion crisis really since the early seventies--and that things like what is called neo-liberalism, the growth of the financial sector and the decline of industry, the exclusion of more and more parts of the working class in the industrial heartlands of the "1st World" (outsourcing, deindustrialization, mass unemployment in former industrial cities, decline of living standards for workers)--are really part of capitalisms managing a slow-motion crisis since roughly 1973. Now these measures are starting to fall apart & he is looking for their roots in the contradictions of capitalism as such not only since the 70s, but with an eye to the history of 20th Century capitalism. The reading I recommended, (The Biggest October Surprise Of All http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/october.html) is noticeably difficult and what I'm bringing next week is itself an exerpt, but Goldner explains himself very clearly in an interview given on a Berkely, CA Radio Program "Guns and Butter" with bonnie Faulkner, on KPFA, April 4th, 2007.

The interview is titled "Fictitious Capital, Real Retrogression." 59:55 (click to play)

(Loren's website is here: http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner
He has an essay with the same title as the talk here: http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/retrogression.html)

Lastly, there's a video of Loren Goldner giving a talk on January 22, 2008 at the Whitechapel Center, in London, sponsored by Mute magazine.

Fictitious Capital and Today's Global Crisis a talk by Loren Goldner Part I
I don't know where or even if the second half of the talk has been posted. :(

Enjoy!

Midnight Notes Members at City From Below Conference

2009-05-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

In April 3 MN members had a really interesting panel discussion that includes analysis similar to the 'Promissory Notes' piece

Class Struggle and Crisis

Download

There's another one, not as closely related by still fascinating, about 'self reproducing movements.' If has Silvia Federici, MN member and amazing analyst of capitalist patriarchy and the economics of housework.

Urban Self-Reproducing Movements and Everyday Life

Download

There are tons of amazing audio and video at http://cityfrombelow.org/liveblog

Readings for May 19th

2009-05-06T15:37:00.000-07:00

"Crisis and Neoliberal Capitalism," by David Kotz, Dollars and Sense (Dec 2008)
"Capitalism Hits the Fan," by Rick Wolff. Dollars and Sense (Nov 2008)
"Promissory Notes," by Midnight Notes Collective (April 2009)
Glossary of Terms About Financial Crisis, Philly Budget Crunchers

Notes
Real Wages go down after '73 --> dependency on credit
What lead to this?

Corporate and economic elite 'got greedy' / wanted to make more profit
Where did competition come from?
70s- China opens a huge labor pool
50-60s Nationalist gov'ts in South America, followed by coups and right wing military gov'ts
Backlash against gains of social movements
Worker struggle in 1960s and early 1970s—destroying Keynesianism?
Did neoliberalism come out of this?

What was Keynesianism?

Gov't controlling interest rates and markets 'artificially'
regulates markets and gives people more comfortable living standard
came out of Great Depression
(Role of World War II in actually ending the great depression)
Creating jobs, social security, welfare, foodstamps

Keynesianism and Struggle

Gave people a means to struggle with
Powerful social movements of 1960s
Was a deal that people were asked to be included in...example of civil rights / black power movement
Other side: control, pacifier, means of regulating the poor
Keynesian deal mostly included white, male, unionized workers

The Neoliberal model

unregulated markets
privatizing all aspects of life
Attacking unions
Speculative markets
dismantling social services
profit over people

Resistance to neoliberalism: different or the same as resistance to keynesianism?

Rise of Neoliberalism:

Regean: attack on air-traffic controllers' strike
Paul Volcker: raising interest rate 20% in 1979
Now in Obama Admin
'Upward mobility for people
End of FDR era right to organize laws

Neoliberalism: Did it fail?

Succeeds in fucking over people globally
Failed in investment / deflated assets etc
Attempts to take over economies
Failure in iraq: US told by own puppets to get out, insurgency, struggling oil workers
IMF/WTO: weren't able to come up with trade rules that were universal, 'globalization failed'
“3rd world” governments refuse to sign away sovereignty, particularly around agricultural policies, where EU/US try to flood market

Natural resources and resistance to neoliberalism
What are the effects of nationalized vs. privatized natural resources?

Eg mexico: state oil company, not progressive
Resources dont' leave countries as fast when resources are nationalized
OPEC: formally colonized countries sell at artificially higher price
Brazil MST (landless worker movement)
India: self-ruled communities
Bolivia: privatization of gas stopped by protests
Regional gas integration in S. Am
Still entering into world market
Zapatistas
Chile: Pinochet never privatized copper mines

Still to cover: anti colonial struggles, 70s, 1968