An enormous debt bomb threatens the US federal government and the nation’s financial system unless warring politicians can agree on a plan to defuse it. However, there are even bigger debt bombs ticking away beneath us all, of which fewer people are aware. It may be impossible to disarm all of them, but action is required to minimize the casualties.
Let’s start by focusing on the immediate US debt threat, then widen our view to take in longer-term and more serious liabilities that have the potential to bring down the entire global industrial economy.
Germany benefited from the cancellation of most of its debt as of February 27, 1953 (...) no other country has received such a favourable treatment. - Eric Toussaint
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27.2.2023
Open Letter to Christian Lindner, Finance Minister of Germany
Seattle has become the first US city to ban discrimination based on caste after a vote by the city council.
Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, who wrote the legislation, said the fight against caste bias "is deeply connected to the fight against all forms of oppression".
"Our government is working tirelessly to pad the multibillion-dollar profits of domestic agribusiness corporations by pushing GE corn," said one U.S. environmental group.
Environmental groups on Tuesday accused the Biden administration of putting the profits of big agribusiness over public health and critical pollinators by attempting to obstruct the Mexican government's ongoing push to ban genetically engineered corn.
Last year’s combined $200bn profit for the ‘big five’ oil and gas companies brings little hope of driving down emissions
While 2022 inflicted hardship upon many people around the world due to soaring inflation, climate-driven disasters and war, the year was lucrative on an unprecedented scale for the fossil fuel industry, with the five largest western oil and gas companies alone making a combined $200bn in profits.
We hope you enjoyed Wednesday’s webinar on the Canadian Pension Climate Report Card.
If you missed the webinar, or if you want to share the recording with others, view the slides or review links we shared, you can now do that on our website:
Winter 2023 (New Politics Vol. XIX No. 2, Whole Number 74)
An Interview with Alyssa Battistoni
Alyssa Battistoni teaches political theory at Barnard College. She is the co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso 2019) and is currently writing a book titled Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature. Phil Gasper spoke with Alyssa on behalf of the New Politics editorial board on November 4, 2022.
