The turmoil in financial markets and the bailout to the tune of $700
billion has turned the public eye and wrath on Wall Street and
Washington. While millions are aware of the triggering causes, ranging
from predatory lending to deregulation to insatiable greed, what isn’t
so obvious is the longer-term process that brought our financial system
and economy to the edge of the abyss.
If there were such a thing as a perfect economic storm, I would say we are close to it.
The housing crisis continues and shows no sign of ending; credit and money markets are either churning or freezing up; the stock market is gyrating; unemployment is leaping upward (sharply so in the communities of the nationally and racially oppressed); poverty is up and wages are down; oil and food prices are climbing; the value of the dollar is falling sharply compared to other currencies; the level of indebtedness is astronomical and will be difficult to unwind in the near term. And we sit on the edge of a financial collapse with all the accompanying dislocation and hardship that it would bring.
As the Bush administration attempts to ram a bailout package of nearly one trillion dollars through Congress, it begins to feel like Colonel Sanders asking the public to trust him to take care of the chickens.
If it weren’t so damn serious, there would be something almost comical about it. Here we have the White House, which has squandered trillions of dollars over eight years, and its point man, Hank Paulson, fresh from 38 years of gaming the financial system while working at Goldman Sachs, insisting that Congressional leaders hand over a trillion dollars to them with no debate and no strings attached.
by Joelle Fishman, Chair, Political Action Committee, CPUSA, 09/23/2008 17:17
The shockwaves from the financial crisis have left working class families in every part of the country in a state of great worry and fear.
Over $100 billion of public money has been spent to bail out huge financial corporations while millions of people are losing their homes, losing their health care, losing their pensions, losing their jobs and losing college loans. Those who have been paid the least, African American, Latino and women workers, are losing the most.
by Scott Marshall, Vice Chair and Labor Commission Chair, 05/02/2008 11:08
I’ve always wanted a button that reads, “Workers of the world unite, back by popular demand” — almost as long as I’ve wanted one that says, “May Day, made in the USA.”
May Day 2008 would have been a great time for both.
Why do communists hate capitalism so much? Why do you think it's a failure? How would a communist society be any better? Haven't those been horrible failures too?
Scott Marshall, Labor Director of the Communist Party USA, appeared on Arkansas Talk Radio, KARN 102.9. In this 15 minute segment, he spoke about the Communist Party USA, the current economic crisis, a green economy, and much more.
Last weeks data on unemployment is the latest confirmation that the economy is going south. Nothing that the federal government or Federal Reserve Bank has done so far has contained a widening and spreading economic recession. The economic downturn that was triggered by the collapse of the housing bubble and the seizing up of credit and money markets is winding its way to nearly every sector of the economy and to every region of the country.
The United Auto Workers struck American
Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday when no deal was reached on a new labor pact. The largest proportion of American Axle parts are for GM’s pickups and SUVs. Affected are more than 3,600 workers in plants in Michigan and New York.
This morning President Bush signed the Central American Free Trade Act-Dominican Republic (CAFTA) a trade agreement between the United States, and El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic. Last week the bill narrowly passed the Senate after midnight-hour wrangling, threats and bribery by the Republican Party. The Communist Party, USA denounces this agreement and believes it bodes ill for the working people of the U.S. and Central America...
Over the past two decades, the entire structure of retirement security, as well as other public and social programs, has come under increasing attack from corporations, White House administrations and the ultra-right. This assault has greatly increased under the administration of George W. Bush. (From the People's Weekly World Newspaper)
by Scott Marshall, Vice Chair and Labor Commission Chair, 09/25/2003 14:35
Thousands will be marching in the streets of Miami, Florida, during the week of Nov. 17-21, protesting the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA). They will pour into Miami from all over the country and from all over the world. The protesters will be trade unionists, anti-globalization activists, environmentalists, family farmers, religious activists, civil and human rights activists. Thousands will come to Miami to make their voices heard at a meeting of trade ministers from around the Americas.
by Jarvis Tyner, Executive Vice Chair, 01/08/2003 10:56
We are living through a very dangerous period. The Bush Administration and most Republicans in Congress are using the events of September 11th to push their reactionary agenda: imperialist aggression abroad, racism and austerity at home. We are in the middle of a deepening economic crisis made worse by the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, the great corporate scandals of 2002, and the right-wing policies of the Bush Administration.
by Scott Marshall, CPUSA Vice Chair and Chair, CPUSA Labor Commission, 02/09/2002 00:00
Capitalism may well be facing its worst crisis since the Crash of 1929. I say that fully aware that, as a friend of mine once put it, you Communists have accurately predicted ten out of the last 2 real economic crises.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - In Tennessee, we have felt the loss of more than 25,000 textile and industrial jobs due to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Many of these jobs were union jobs that paid workers good wages for a 40-hour workweek.
The US economy was already suffering record job loss before the terrible events of September 11. In August the AFL-CIO estimated that 800,000 manufacturing jobs had been lost in the current economic downturn for the working class that was already a deep recession.
Will the economic downturn be a slight dip, a mild bump, or deep drop off the edge? Conrad Schuler, an economist with the German Communist Party, looks at the recession from afar.
Across the state, labor unions and people's organizations are marching, demanding, "Seize the Power - Stop the rolling blackmail," and invoking the right of eminent domain to reign in out of control profit gouging.
On the 225th Anniversary of the declaration of Independence, we affirm our commitment to the revolutionary ideals which ring in so much of the original.
Archive
Struggles
