economic crisis

Take, for instance, labor rights. While those promoting the trade deal said it would advance workers in member nations and allow the formation of unions, the actual language in the agreement offers only false promises of progress. In fact, countries with abysmal labor standards will have to do little, if anything, to comply with the commitments of the TPP’s labor chapter. A country may have to adopt a minimum wage, but even one penny an hour would be sufficient to meet the requirements of the TPP.

While elected officials often use hyperbole to talk about so-called critical votes they make, this is one time they won’t be. The lives of millions of Americans will beadversely affected if those on Capitol Hill ultimately vote to approve the TPP. That’s why we and our coalition partners are speaking out forcefully against this deal. And it’s why lawmakers must side with their constituents over corporate interests when they ultimately consider the trade agreement next year.

European Union officials have categorically ruled out any possibility of a debt write-down. Restructuring in the form of a lengthening of maturity or perhaps a lowering of interest rates is still on the table, but it would have very debatable long-term results.

“People would take to the streets because they hoped they could make an actual difference,” she says. “Now it is clear that our hopes were false.” That said, so far the only coherent argument about how Greece could adopt an anti-bailout strategy has been presented by Popular Unity, a new political front that includes SYRIZA’s left wing that split from the party by refusing to accept the new bailout. However, Popular Unity has failed to convince Greek voters and did not gain parliamentary representation.

he has begun to challenge the dominant terms of debate and mark out a distinctive territory for the party, instead of accepting that he has to operate on the established political terrain. Labour needs to succeed in this if it is to survive as a party.

Then there is the simple fact that the words ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ are being uttered in the mainstream media. What is going on here can be understood as putting out feelers towards a way of expressing potential elements of a different common sense – and beginning to delineate a new political frontier.

In recent decades we have seen the long decline of a social democracy in which politics has been reduced to technocratic administration and arguments over detail. There has been little confrontation between contesting political positions.

The threat of zero or negative inflation means that households and firms, which are heavily indebted, find it difficult to service their debt, partly because its real value increases with falling prices and also because current household income is falling and firms are reluctant to invest in view of expected falling demand.

This is the ECB-handicap hypothesis (Angeloni et al. 2003). In terms of labour market reforms, this hypothesis suggests that labour markets should become more flexible if more jobs are to be created, which would promote growth.

Inflexible labour markets do not appear to be as important as insufficient aggregate demand in explaining the euro area’s inability to increase income and employment. If at all important, they are so in the long run.

Two months after the February 28 interim agreement between Greece and the EU ‘troika’—the IMF, European Commission, and European Central Bank—in which both sides agreed to continue negotiating—little has changed. In fact, led by its de facto spokesperson, hardline German finance minister, Walter Schaubel, the Troika’s position has continued to harden since February 28.

These measures are particularly annoying to the northern Europe finance ministers and their bankers, since other European governments have introduced, or have plans to introduce, many of the very same ‘labor market reforms’ in their countries. Deepening labor market reforms everywhere throughout the Eurozone is a prime objective of business interests and their center-right politicians and governments.

It has been estimated that more than US$250 billion in assets would be eventually affected by a default, and no one knows the connections linking these assets—i.e. what are the possible contagion effects. The memory of the Lehman Brothers default in 2008 is obviously stronger in the USA than it is today in Europe—hence the Furman public warning. Privately, US officials are even more concerned than Furman, according to the business press.