Revolution Trainee

ugh This is poorly news

From the WTO News:

TRADE GROWTH TO SLOW IN 2012 AFTER STRONG DECELERATION IN 2011

World trade expanded in 2011 by 5.0%, a sharp deceleration from the 2010 rebound of 13.8%, and growth will slow further still to 3.7% in 2012, WTO economists project. They attributed the slowdown to the global economy losing momentum due to a number of shocks, including the European sovereign debt crisis.

Husband and I had a chat the other night (because he lives here now, and we can do that sort of thing) that the global elite really has nothing to gain from improving the global economy. Those that are in control (speculation, investment, day trading, ‘market bets’ - supply/demand no longer accurate determinants of economic behaviour) of the economy are making money regardless whether ‘the people’ are keeping their heads above water; some corporations and top elites have even done better during ‘the recession’. So without a slew of links, here’s my HT to Roubini - things aren’t going to get better for ‘the people’ (for a while).

When growth from trade slows, developing nations suffer the most (see Schellberg (2009) ‘Doha Recovery Critical for Global Economic Recovery), unable to ‘clear the development hurdle’. This will be a big setback for the UN Millennium Development Goals and, of course, billions of people globally. Expect developed nation ‘standard of living’ to return to the 1980s - prone to spikes of inflation and (more-so) closed markets - with the slight but notable return of manufacturing and improved relations with proximal trading partners.

(analysis limited to political economy of international trade; could be developed significantly using a (neo)realist frame: ‘resource wars’)

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Kro2 on Oxford Rd Occupied

*update photos from Northen Indymedia

Sorry I don’t have a photo.

There’s a group of about 15 individuals (and about 6 cops) ‘occupying’ the outdoor garden of the Kro2 on Oxford Road by the Manchester Universities. They’ve put a bunch of signs (couldn’t read them all b/c I was on the bus). They have a big white sheet hung up that says ‘Not another chain store’.

Just a bit of a pick me up on my way in… the ONE day I take the free bus and don’t walk in… I blame the dress I am wearing and the wind.

update: walking home (7:30 pm GMT) there was a group of about 5 males with a couple bikes and a dog hanging about the old entrance of Kro. a few metres away were 2 female police officers who seemed to be taking information and ids from 2 other males. they had written “Resist to Exist” on the sidewalk in front of Kro in chalk.

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We’re at the start of a revolution in the ways marketers and media intrude in — and shape — our lives. Every day, most if not all Americans who use the internet, along with hundreds of millions of other users from all over the planet, are being quietly peeked at, poked, analyzed and tagged as they move through the online world. Governments undoubtedly conduct a good deal of snooping, more in some parts of the world than in others. But in North America, Europe, and many other places, companies that work for marketers have taken the lead in secretly slicing and dicing the actions and backgrounds of huge populations on a virtually minute-by-minute basis. Their goal is to find out how to activate individuals’ buying impulses so they can sell us stuff more efficiently than ever before. But their work has broader social and cultural consequences as well. It is destroying traditional publishing ethics by forcing media outlets to adapt their editorial content to advertisers’ public-relations needs and slice-and-dice demands. And it is performing a highly controversial form of social profiling and discrimination by customizing our media content on the basis of marketing reputations we don’t even know we have.

Joseph Turow, The Atlantic. A Guide to the Digital Advertising Industry That’s Watching Your Every Click.

A longread excerpt from Turow’s new book The Daily You.

(via futurejournalismproject)

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Regional Marxism Conferences

sweet baby unicorns! is this really happening??!!

unitetheleft:

Are you inspired by Occupy Wall Street? Did you join the struggle for Troy Davis? Are you part of protests about the housing crisis in your city? Were you in the streets for SlutWalk to say “Enough is enough”?

Millions of people have come to the understanding that capitalism is no longer working. And millions of people around the world—from Cairo to Athens to New York City—are fighting back.

Marxism provides a revolutionary understanding of society and a strategy for getting rid of exploitation and oppression once and for all. The International Socialist Organization is organizing regional conferences in cities around the country in October and November to discuss what Marxists say about race, class and revolution—and the fight for a better world.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Meetings and courses include:

Why Marx was right

Why the working class can change society
— No power greater: Marxism and the centrality of class
— The 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike: A case study in working-class power
— The changing working class and the future of the labor movement

Black liberation
— Where does racism come from?
— The Black freedom struggle: From Martin Luther King to the Black Panthers
— Black liberation and socialism

Marxism and oppression
— The roots of racial oppression
— Theories of women’s oppression
— Can the working class liberate the oppressed?

Marxism, crisis and class struggle
— How capitalism works: What makes capitalism tick?
— How capitalism fails: The Marxist theory of crisis
— Crisis, exploitation and class struggle

Follow the link to find the conference near you!

(Source: )

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if you’re at all interested in markets, capitalism (anti/pro), finance, financial security, economics, politics, the Eurozone, recessions, downturns, or REVOLUTION … really anything at all in life, WATCH THIS.

this guy… he’s just so completely candid, and its startling.

Goldmann Sachs rules the world…

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