Adnan Al-Daini

The economic crash is not caused by workers having too much power, or employment laws stifling business. It is the result of a deregulated financial system, greed and usury in a market that is not free but rigged.

Exploitation and oppression have been with us since the dawn of time, by the strong of the weak, men of women, the rich of the poor.  A measure of civilised societies is their effectiveness in mitigating and controlling such unfair and unjust practices.

Laws and regulations limiting the powerful have been won through constant struggle and sacrifices by the masses, led by remarkable individuals to whom we should be grateful.  They stood up to tyranny and the orthodoxy of the time. Without them, for example, women would not have the vote, and slavery would still be with us today. 

It is no accident that exploitation of workers by corporations and the wealthy is worse in developing countries.  The conditions for such exploitation are present; they have no unions to protect the workers, no health and safety laws, chronic unemployment, no welfare safety net for the unemployed, disabled and vulnerable, and endemic corruption of politicians and officials.

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Stephen Lendman

Syria's conflict isn't an uprising, revolution or civil war. It's lawless Western aggression. It targets an independent government and its people. Doing so violates fundamental international law. Washington planned it years ago. It wants puppet leaders installed. It's Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya 2.0. America destroys nations to control and plunder them. War on humanity is waged for unchallenged global dominance. Syria is ground zero. Other targeted states come later. Proxy death squads are used. They're heavily armed, trained and directed. They reign terror on Syrian civilians. They've murdered thousands of noncombatant men, women and children. At issue is ravaging and intimidating Syria to submission. Foreign militants show no mercy. Their presence has been well known all along. Media scoundrels now admit it. At the same time, their framing deceives more than explains.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Readers ask me from time to time to recommend a book from which they can learn about economics.

The problem with reading a book to learn economics that is taught in the universities and practiced in Washington is that economics is now a highly formalized subject based on abstract models and assumptions and has been mathematized. It is not that the subject is totally useless and without any applicability to real world problems. Rather, the problem is that the discipline both lags an ever-changing world and got some things wrong at the beginning. Consequently, learning economics places one inside a box where some of the tools and understanding provided are outdated and incorrect.

For example, every textbook will draw a picture of agriculture as the perfect example of competitive markets in which “no producer’s output is large enough to affect price.” This made sense when one-third of the US work force was on family farms. Today, American agriculture is dominated by corporations and agribusiness. Additionally, part of the disastrous financial deregulation pushed by no-think economists and special interests was the removal of position limits on speculators. Formerly, speculators smoothed agricultural and commodity markets by buying and selling in order to stabilize price over periods when supply and demand were out of balance. Now speculators can dominate markets and rig prices to the benefit of their profits. There are many such examples where economics no longer speaks to the real world.

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