Tag Archives: US Politics

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Yanis Varoufakis, Ralph Nader, Tim Barker, Donna Murch and Simon Schama, interviewed by Christopher Lydon. https://varoufakis.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/varoufakis-nader-et-al-on-trump-normalizethis-open-source-radio.mp3 Normalize This! Last week, the election of Donald J. Trump came as a thunderclap. This week, the echoes are still ringing in the ears of the American polity. Reports of the demise of the Republican party turned out to be greatly exaggerated. And now it’s the...

The chances of Trump pursuing an economic stimulus that will benefit the lives of those he promised to help are slim. Republican presidents have a penchant for ditching their ideological commitment toward small government, turning into big deficit spenders soon after assuming office. Ronald Reagan’s legacy owes a great deal to his spectacular U-turn from admonishing federal government largesse to enlisting it enthusiastically, and with considerable effect, against America’s early 1980s...

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I had no doubt Donald Trump would win, just like I had no doubt Brexit would happen, so maybe I’m not as shell-shocked as you,” says Yanis Varoufakis. The former Greek finance minister is speaking to me several days after the Republican candidate’s historic victory. He doesn’t sound smug about being so prescient, more resigned, deflated, defeated. The left has been here before. Over the course of an hour-long conversation, Varoufakis soothed my caffeine-jangled nerves with the thought...

[Originally published here] The election of Donald Trump symbolises the demise of a remarkable era. It was a time when we saw the curious spectacle of a superpower, the US, growing stronger because of – rather than despite – its burgeoning deficits. It was also remarkable because of the sudden influx of two billion workers – from China and Eastern Europe – into capitalism’s international supply chain. This combination gave global capitalism a historic boost, while at the same time...

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Why is America still important? Below I copy the answer I gave in 2011 in the last chapter of The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the World Economy. (For those not familiar with the economic meaning of my Minotaur allegory, read this.) Today, as the Trump Presidency looms, I fear that that conclusion is even more pertinent…  [Excerpt from Chapter 9] The omens are not good. Never before have so many powerful people understood so little about what the world economy needs...

I had a bet with my American friend Stewart Brand that Trump would win. He wrote to me this morning: “You called it right. And I called it wrong. Groan. Now the weirdness!” I wrote back to him: “Welcome to the post-Liberal world. I think I know exactly how you feel – I remember the morning after Brexit, and the realisation that I lived in a country I didn’t really know anything about. It’s a genuine revolution – but one we didn’t recognise because we had nothing to do with starting it. We...