The United Nations has added its voice to the growing list of international organisations, including the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, warning that interest rate hikes imposed by the US Federal Reserve are creating the conditions for a financial crisis and global recession.
Interest rate hikes leading to recession, UN says
Tag: profit margins
US Lawmakers Say Student Loan Forgiveness Will Hurt Military Recruiting
Nineteen members of the US House of Representatives have written a letter [PDF] to President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin cautioning that the partial cancellation of student debts can have the unintended consequence of reducing military recruitment in the United States.
US Lawmakers Say Student Loan Forgiveness Will Hurt Military Recruiting
Pledging “pain,” Federal Reserve declares war on the working class
In his speech Friday at the Federal Reserve’s annual summit in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell made one thing clear: America’s financial oligarchy is determined to make the working class bear the cost of the deepening economic crisis.
Pledging “pain,” Federal Reserve declares war on the working class
Calling a recession and blaming it on interest rates
The latest US GDP figures for second quarter of 2022 renewed the debate about whether the US economy was in a recession or not. Real GDP contracted in the second quarter of this year by a 0.9% annualised rate (or by 0.2% quarter over quarter). That meant the US economy had contracted for two successive quarters, and so ‘technically’ (by that definition) was in a recession. Real GDP is now up only 1.6% from Q2 2021. And business investment is slowing, up only 3.5% from this time last year, the slowest rate since the end of the COVID slump in 2020.
Calling a recession and blaming it on interest rates
The scissors of slump
Last week, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the US Congress that “We now are entering a period of transition from one of historic recovery to one that can be marked by stable and steady growth. Making this shift is a central piece of the President’s plan to get inflation under control without sacrificing the economic gains we’ve made.”
It’s true that the US economy since the depths of the pandemic slump, (which remember in terms of national output, incomes and investment was the worst since the 1930s – even worse that the Great Recession of 2008-9) has made a recovery. But it could hardly be described as ‘historic’. And as for the claim that the US economy, the best performing of the major economies in the last year, is heading towards ‘stable and steady growth’, that is not supported by reality.
The scissors of slump
Capital’s profitability now depends on ‘lockdowns’, acute social enclosure, and ‘medical’ tyranny
Why capitalism now needs ‘lockdowns’ (social enclosure/segregation) and ‘medical’ tyranny
Because capitalism is working towards its own abolition by replacing commodity-producing labour with automated machines, capital’s profitability is increasingly dependent on low wages, high unemployment, public debt, state purchases, the centralisation of wealth, and — frankly — depopulation.
Why capitalism now needs ‘lockdowns’ (social enclosure/segregation) and ‘medical’ tyranny
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 