United States economic crisis

Five days after the US Senate released a report detailing the criminal activities of the banks and credit rating firms that precipitated the Wall Street crash, one of the named culprits, Standard & Poor’s, issued an ultimatum demanding an agreement on savage austerity measures ahead of the 2012 elections: here.

Richard D. Wolff, Richard D. Wolff’s Blog: “We may dispense quickly with the latter since they are not worth the cyberspace they waste. Conservatives ‘point with alarm’ – a gesture they enjoy – at US debt as if it proved, first, general profligacy in the forms of excessive social programmes and out-of-control entitlements (social security, Medicaid and Medicare), and second, the ‘obvious’ need to cut current budget deficits by cutting federal spending. These geniuses missed what S&P analyst Nikola Swann wrote or else they found it convenient to speak as if they had no clue about the realities of US debt. As Swann pointed out, from 2003-2008, the US deficit ranged from 2-5% of GDP, but it ‘ballooned to over 11% in 2009 and had yet to recover'”: here.

Sure, most CEOs are overpaid. But these 10 will make you seethe: here.

How You Can Have a Billion-Dollar Salary In America and Pay No Taxes: here.

Jobless rate for young workers in US highest since 1948: here.

Nearly a fifth of Britain’s poorest men die before they receive the state pension and the situation is set to get worse if the government presses ahead with plans to raise the age at which people qualify for it, former Labour pensions minister Malcolm Wicks warned today: here.

Anxiety about the US dollar’s role is being fuelled by the fact that far from being resolved, the global financial crisis that began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers two and half years ago, has simply mutated: here.