Umair Haque - "The End of Opulence" - shown at TEDxOxbrige 2011

Umair Haque is a London-based consultant, economist, and author of The New Capitalist Manifesto. He is also a contributor (columnist and blogger) to Harvard Business Review, where he focuses on capitalism and creating prosperity in the 21st century. In this talk prepared for TEDxOxbridge 2011, Umair discusses the "meaningful" economy from the end of the economic paradigm of opulence.

James Howard Kunstler: Peak Oil and Our Financial Decline

videonation

In this fifth video in the series “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, author, blogger and social critic James Howard Kunstler opens up on two circumstances he sees running neck and neck “that are going to put us out of business as an advanced industrial civilization”—the “fiasco” in banking, money and finance and the unfolding “energy predicament.” He explains that the crises are really all about "capital" and that we need to look at how wealth has been accumulated and deployed for productive purposes.

Kunstler suggests that “cheap abundant energy” has facilitated ever-increasing industrialization for centuries. But now that society is in a period of self-destructive capital accumulation, he expects debt to increase as abundance in energy drops. The tremendous amount of accumulated debt, “a by-product of cheap abundant energy,” will mean that in the future governments will be less able to make investments in socially-beneficial programs.

He also criticizes the US environmental movement for shying away from the problem of energy. The movement is unable to talk about walkable neighborhoods, smaller cities, or investing in rail or water transit, an “intellectual failure of the culture to have a coherent conversation from people who ought to be leading” such a conversation.

Go here to learn more about "Peak Oil and a Changing Climate," and to see the other videos in the series.

- Kevin Gosztola

Source: http://www.thenation.com/video/157892/james-howard-kunstler-peak-oil-and-our-financial-decline

Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us

Speaker: Professor John Quiggin
Chair: Professor Andrea Prat

Available as: mp3 (35 MB; approx 75 minutes)

This event was recorded on 25 November 2010 in Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
The recent financial crisis laid bare many of the assumptions behind market liberalism--the theory that market-based solutions are always best, regardless of the problem. For decades, their advocates dominated mainstream economics, and their influence created a system where an unthinking faith in markets led many to view speculative investments as fundamentally safe. The crisis seemed to have killed off these ideas, but they still live on in the minds of many-- even some of those charged with cleaning up the mess. John Quiggin explains how these dead ideas still walk among us--and why we must find a way to kill them once and for all if we are to avoid an even bigger financial crisis in the future. John Quiggin is professor of economics at the University of Queensland in Australia.

DOCUMENTAIRE LE MONDE SELON JOSEPH STIGLITZ

http://rodolphepilaert63.wordpress.com/ Le monde selon Stiglitz Prix Nobel d’économie 2001 et ex-conseiller de Bill Clinton, Joseph Stiglitz parcourt le monde, pointant les dérives d'une économie globalisée. Éclairant. Joseph Stiglitz commence son voyage par une visite de Gary, la ville de l’Indiana où il a grandi. Ancien fleuron de l’acier et de l'automobile, cette cité industrielle est aujourd'hui sinistrée. Mittal, le célèbre groupe indien, a racheté Inland Steel, la dernière usine en activité. Et comble de l’ironie, le maire, Rudy Clay, se prépare à partir en Asie dans l’espoir d’inciter des entreprises chinoises à investir dans sa ville. Documentaire de Jacques Sarasin (France, 2008, 1h28mn) Coproduction : ARTE France, Les Productions Faire Bleu, Swan Productions Du Botswana à l’Équateur, de l'Inde aux États-Unis en passant par la Chine, Joseph Stiglitz et ses interlocuteurs – le président équatorien Rafael Correa, l’ancien président du Botswana sir Ketumile Masiré, des ouvriers, des bushmen chassés de leurs terres, des paysans indiens au désespoir – mettent en lumière les dérives et les paradoxes qui régissent le monde d’aujourd’hui. Un exemple : étrangement, les pays riches en matières premières (pétrole, minerai…) souffrent plus de la pauvreté et des inégalités que les autres ; c'est ce que les économistes appellent le "paradoxe de l'abondance".
http://www.arte.tv/fr/Comprendre-le-monde/Le-monde-selon-Stiglitz/2484602.html

James Galbraith from TASC on Vimeo.

Professor James Galbraith speaking at the TASC Annual Lecture, June 4th 2009

As an independent think-tank, TASC develops policy alternatives based on the values of equality, sustainability, accountability and democracy.

"TASC challenges the existing consensus and offers new thinking and fresh ideas on ways to create a more equal and democratic society"
- Fintan O'Toole

Read http://www.progressive-economy.ie/ for an alternative take on the Irish economy by members and friends of the TASC Economists' Network

The Real News Network

Thoroughly modern Marx Pt.1

Marx was a realist; the real romantics think you can have capitalism without great crisis

Leo Panitch, economist and Professor at York University, talks to Paul Jay about the relevance of Marxist theories in studying today’s global economy. Panitch discusses the ideological crisis of the free market theory and notes that at this time “Marx would not be offering policy advice to governments about what is to be done in the face of this crisis; he would tell people to overcome their social isolation, form new collective organizations and identities, and make a social revolution.”

Bio
Leo Panitch is the Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and a Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at York University in Toronto. Panitch is also the author of "Global Capitalism and American Empire" and his most recent release "American Empire and the Political Economy of International Finance".

FP Magazine: Thoroughly Modern Marx

The Real News Network

Too big to fail? Nationalize

Can G20 avert the crisis?

Leo V. Panitch is the Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and a Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at York University in Toronto. Panitch is also the author of "Global Capitalism and American Empire" and his most recent release "American Empire and the Political Economy of International Finance".

Obama should save banks not bankers

Thomas Ferguson is a political scientist and author who studies and writes on politics and economics, often within an historical perspective. He is a Political Science professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is also a a contributing editor of The Nation. He is also the author of several books, the recent of which is Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political System

Fair Trade for All:

How Trade Can Promote Development

By Joseph E. Stiglitz

In his new book, Joseph Stiglitz (and co-author Andrew Charlton) elaborate on the details of what a truly ideal development round would look like for the world economy, with specific attention to how less developed countries have been disadvantaged in the negotiating process.

Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development

CARNEGIE COUNCIL Videos

Obama should save the banks, not the bankers

The Real News Network

Tom Ferguson: Stimulus package is dangerously small; plan for toxic assets shovels money to bankers

Bio
Thomas Ferguson is a political scientist and author who studies and writes on politics and economics, often within an historical perspective. He is a Political Science professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is also a a contributing editor of The Nation. He is also the author of several books, the recent of which is Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political System

“The Zombie Ideas Have Won”–Paul Krugman

on $1 Trillion Geithner Plan to Buy Toxic Bank Assets

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is preparing to unveil a plan today to purchase as much as $1 trillion in troubled mortgages and other assets from banks. The government is reaching out to hedge funds, private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds to help buy the toxic assets. The Obama administration has described the plan as a public-private partnership, but most of the actual money will be put up by the government.

We (Democracy Now!) speak with Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, and a columnist at the New York Times. His latest book is The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008.

This crisis of capitalism is not all bad news

Jayati Ghosh: We're entering period of financial crisis, but this provides opportunity for real change

Jayati Ghosh (b. 1955-) is Professor of Economics and currently also Chairperson at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi, India. Her specialities include globalization, international finance, employment patterns in developing countries, macroeconomic policy, and issues related to gender and development. She was educated at Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), and the University of Cambridge.

Taking on the banking cabal

Engdahl: President Obama has left intact a brain dead banking system that is out of control

Speaking about President Obama's stimulus package and newly announced budget, William Engdahl says the fundamental causes of the economic crisis were missed. Until [President] Obama reinstates Glass-Steigel restraints on banking which were repealed by the Clinton administration in 1999 and begins to re-regulate the financial system, there will not be a flow of healthy credit into the healthy economy.

Bio

F William Engdahl is an economist and author and the writer of the best selling book "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order." Mr Engdhahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. Mr. Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively. He is based in Germany.

The Real News

Discussing the roots of the economic crisis, economist and author Richard Wolff says, "we took on a level of debt that no working class in any country at any time in the history of this planet had ever did before, and the result is that you build an economy on a house of credit cards." He continues to say that, "the fundamental issue is that we've run out of ways to keep this going, the wages are not going up and the credit is now tapped out."

Will Obama's stimulus solve the crisis? Pt1

Wolff: Stimulus won't succeed if the structural changes that lowered wages are not addressed

A house of credit cards Pt2

Wolff: Low wages, weak unions and consumer culture led to an economy built on a house of credit cards.

Bio
Richard D. Wolff is an Economist, Author, and Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and New School University. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Paris I (Sorbonne). He has authored or co-authored 10 books including The Economics of Colonialism, Bringing It All Back Home: Class, Gender and Power in the Modern Household, and Rethinking Marxism. His recent work has concentrated on analyzing the causes and alternative solutions to the current global economic crisis.

"The Troubling Economics and Politics of Today's Global Financial System:

Diagnosis and Suggestions for a Replacement"
Full Presentation (1 hr 11 mins)

Thomas Palley holds a B.A. degree from Oxford University, and a M.A. degree in International Relations and Ph.D. in Economics, both from Yale University. He has published in numerous academic journals, and written for The Atlantic Monthly, American Prospect and Nation magazines.

He was formerly Chief Economist of the US–China Economic and Security Review Commission. Prior to joining the Commission, he was Director of the Open Society Institute's Globalization Reform Project, and before that he was Assistant Director of Public Policy at the AFL-CIO.

He has written extensively on matters of macroeconomic theory and policy, international finance and trade, economic development, and labor markets.

CIGIonline - IGLOO
CIGI'07 - IGLOO
Lecture Videos - IGLOO

The Real News Network

Obama speaks to Congress

Palley: Obama’s speech didn't mention unions nor tackle the structural problems within the US economy

Discussing President Obama’s Address to the Joint Session of Congress, Thomas Palley, economist, and author says “we’ve heard nothing about trade, we’ve heard nothing about globalization... worker rights and labor markets, we’ve heard nothing about corporate power. You’re seeing here the absence of issues that deal with the structural problems… in the US economy.”

Part 2 of this interview will be published shortly.

Bio
Thomas Palley is an economist living in Washington DC. He holds a B.A. degree from Oxford University, and a M.A. degree in International Relations and Ph.D. in Economics, both from Yale University. He has published in numerous academic journals, and written for The Atlantic Monthly, American Prospect and Nation magazines. Dr . Palley was formerly Chief Economist with the US - China Economic and Security Review Commission. Prior to joining the Commission he was Director of the Open Society Institute's Globalization Reform Project, and before that he was Assistant Director of Public Policy at the AFL-CIO.

Super Rich: The Greed Game

Global Financial Crisis

As the credit crunch bites and a global economic crisis threatens, Robert Peston reveals how the super-rich have made their fortunes, and the rest of us are picking up the bill.

STWR Videos

Rebooting the Global Economy

FORA.tv

Joseph Stiglitz: Think of the bailout as a giant garbage dump, offering taxpayer cash for banks' trash.
Highlights
Bad Bank is 'Cash for Trash'
G20 Major Step Forward, But Still Flawed

Two years recession, or ten years of hell?

F William Engdahl: US economy has been hollowed out over the last 15 years and debt load is staggering

Two years recession, or ten years of hell? Part 1
In this first segment of the interview, Paul Jay discusses how the global economic crisis will impact Europe with author and political economist William Engdahl. Engdahl says Italy is experiencing the worst economic crisis it has seen in 30 years, and the British economy is “falling off a cliff.” He says the European situation is “differentiated,” that “it’s a little bit different from what’s going on in North America, especially in the United States.” In Europe, he explains, “it is more an indirect knock-on effect of the United States financial meltdown.” He says the question now is whether the European Union is going to try and decouple its dependency on the US dollar and begin to form regional currency blocks like many nations around the world are starting to do.

Two years recession, or ten years of hell? Pt.2
To understand the significance of this moment to the U.S. and European economy, Paul Jay continues this discussion with F. William Engdahl, political economist and author. Putting the conversation in context, Engdahl explains that, “the deindustrialization of America in the 1970s and 1980s was replaced by the growth of Wall Street and the major banks.” He continues in England, the entire industrial economy, with the exception of a few tiny pockets of the defense industry, has really become “a hollowed out wreck. It’s really a service economy now.” As far as the emerging demand by protesters in Europe for the nationalization of banks, Engdahl says, “it’s a very real possibility.”

Bio
F William Engdahl is an economist and author and the writer of the best selling book "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order." Mr Engdhahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. Mr. Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively. He is based in Germany.

Conversations with History

Elizabeth Warren

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren for a discussion of the economic pressures confronting the two income middle class family as it struggles to pay mortgages, health care, and education costs. Professor Warren offers surprising answers to "Who goes bankrupt and why?" and explores the role of banks and credit card companies in tightening the squeeze on the average American family. The interface between politics and the law in addressing these problems is explored.

UCTV Programs with Elizabeth Warren

Conversation with Elizabeth Warren, cover page