Capitalist austerity, workers’ opposition

This video is called Goldman Sachs banker Greg Smith slams firm in New York Times resignation letter.

USA: Greg Smith, an executive director at Goldman Sachs, announced his resignation Wednesday in an op-ed piece published in the New York Times, denouncing the bank’s “toxic” culture of avarice and fraud: here.

Nomi Prins, Nomi Prins’ Blog: “Today, I have received dozens of media requests and hundreds of emails regarding former Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith’s gutsy, and internationally resonating, public resignation. I applaud Smith’s decision to bring the nature of Goldman’s profit-making strategies to the forefront of the global population’s discourse, as so many others have been doing through books, investigative journalism, and the Occupy movements over the past decade since my book, Other People’s Money, was written after I resigned from Goldman”: here.

Robert Reich | Wall Street Greed: Why Greg Smith’s Critique Is Way Too Narrow. Robert Reich, Robert Reich’s Blog: “Greg Smith, a Goldman Sachs vice president, resigned his post Wednesday with a stinging public rebuke of the firm on the oped page of the New York Times – accusing it of no longer putting its clients before its own pecuniary goals”: here.

Goldman Sachs Sex Trafficking Controversy: Company Sells Stake In Village Voice Media: here.

Documents in foreclosure fraud settlement highlight lawlessness of the banks: here.

How We Cured “the Culture of Poverty,” Not Poverty Itself. Barbara Ehrenreich, TomDispatch: “Fifty years later, a new discovery of poverty is long overdue. This time, we’ll have to take account not only of stereotypical Skid Row residents and Appalachians, but of foreclosed-upon suburbanites, laid-off tech workers, and America’s ever-growing army of the working poor. And if we look closely enough, we’ll have to conclude that poverty is not, after all, a cultural aberration or a character flaw. Poverty is a shortage of money”: here.

By Patrick Martin in the USA:

Greece comes to the American Midwest

Bankers’ dictatorship for Detroit workers

15 March 2012

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder announced Tuesday night that he was demanding the establishment of an unelected financial control board to run the city of Detroit, with the power to tear up and rewrite union contracts and impose across-the-board cuts in spending, including the selloff of city assets.

Detroit would be the largest American city to be subjected to such a financial dictatorship since an Emergency Financial Control Board was imposed on New York City in the mid-1970s. The measures to be taken against city workers will be far more drastic than those of 35 years ago, however. Detroit’s crisis is the consequence of the long-term decline of the US auto industry, and of American capitalism as a whole.

The city has shrunk to barely one-third of its 1950s population—from two million to barely 700,000—and there are only two functioning auto plants in the “Motor City.” The majority of the city’s population is impoverished, and the official unemployment rate is over 30 percent. Vast sections of the city are abandoned, with weeds growing in empty lots. Neighborhoods have been ravaged by house fires and the deterioration of essential services like street lighting, garbage collection and fire protection.

Protest over closure of Detroit Day School for the Deaf: here.

The two main Spanish unions, Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) and Union General de Trabajadores (UGT), have called a general strike for March 29 against the latest labour legislation: here.

Italy, Spain and Greece erupting against EU austerity: here.

Spain: Yesterday’s general strike against new labour laws imposed by the right-wing Popular Party government was backed by millions: here.

On March 29 Spain held a general strike in protest against the new labour laws being introduced by the centre-right Partido Popular government: here.

Spanish government unveils €27 billion in budget cuts: here.

Savage Spanish cuts will stoke a fire that no firewall can keep at bay: here.

In Barcelona, Austerity With an Iron Fist. Peter Gelderloos, Truthout: “Criminalizing public meetings, expanding police powers and weaponry, and applying anti-terrorist measures to street protests: it sounds like Spain in the Franco years, but all of these measures have been proposed in Spain in just the last couple of weeks. Far from being a throwback to the years of dictatorship, these repressive developments go hand in hand with the current economic crisis. Considering the connection between the 15M plaza occupation movement and the subsequent Occupy movement that spread to several countries around the globe, between the March 29th general strike in Spain and the upcoming May 1st general strike called in the United States, between the brutal austerity measures implemented already a year or two ago by the government in Madrid and the increasing signs of shakiness from more stable EU countries such as France, Spain is, if anything, ahead of the curve”: here.

UNEMPLOYMENT in the UK rose by 28,000 in the last three months, to 2.67 million: here.

On Friday, the Italian cabinet approved a reform advanced by the unelected Monti government to scrap Article 18 of Italy‘s labor code: here.

Occupying Democracy: A Moral Revolution for Social Justice. Alan James Strachan Ph.D. and Janet Coster M.A., Truthout: “There are many philosophical justifications for favoring the wealthy and powerful. The Gospel of Wealth, Social Darwinism, Manifest Destiny, God’s Will and ‘trickle-down economics’ are but a few of the rationales. These rationalizations are a sign of pathological narcissism, i.e., the overvaluing of oneself and the undervaluing of others springing from greed, insecurity, fear and the lust for power. Such philosophies stand in stark contrast to the teachings of many spiritual traditions and the dictates of love, compassion and empathy”: here.