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SW Online's ongoing coverage and analysis
Economy in crisis
SUBJECTS BELOW:
The real face of the crisis
Analysis of the economy
LATEST NEWS AND ANALYSIS
Let them eat ethanol
For the 3 billion people who survive on less than $2 a day, the upward spiral in global food prices has meant a struggle for the right to eat.
Wal-Mart stoops to a new low
The country's largest corporation is trying to steal from a former employee who is now severely disabled.
The sub-prime blame game
The crackup of the storied Wall Street firm Bear Stearns has provided an object lesson in the double standards of American capitalism.
THE REAL FACE OF THE CRISIS
Wall Street or homeowners:
Guess who's getting a bailout?
The crackup of Bear Stearns ended with a bailout for Wall Street. But millions of homeowners will pay for the crisis Wall Street made.
Can you afford to feed your family?
For working families, a skyrocketing grocery bill is one of the most ever-present reminders that they have been making do with less.
An epidemic of boarded-up homes
When you drive around Providence, R.I., there are "for sale" signs and boarded-up homes everywhere.
City of a thousand foreclosures
The foreclosure crisis in Stockton, Calif., is only the latest chapter in the roller-coaster ride the city has been through over the past decade.
More and more workers are left...
Unemployed and no end in sight
For a growing number of workers, being unemployed means being unemployed for a very long time--and a desperate struggle to get by.
Worse is yet to come in housing crisis
Home foreclosures hit record levels in 2007--and there's a lot worse to come. That's the view of both homeowners' advocates and Wall Street firms.
Upside down priorities
Socialist Worker takes a graphic look at the growing gap between rich and poor in the U.S., and the twisted spending priorities of the U.S. government.
Losing their homes in...
The great mortgage swindle
Now that the bubble has burst, some of the filthy truth about what mortgage companies and Wall Street banks did in search of super-profits is starting to emerge.
Return of the robber barons
The arrogance displayed by today's financial magnates bears an uncanny resemblance to that of laissez-faire robber barons of a century ago.
Squeezed at the supermarket
Working families are getting hit with a financial crisis that, so far, has received little notice: A sharp increase in food prices that is making it harder than ever to make ends meet.
Paying for the mortgage mess
The real victims of the U.S. economy's spreading mortgage crisis aren't panicked investors or Wall Street banks, but working people.
"Cost containment" at Circuit City
In January, Circuit City employee Bobby Young received a certificate of excellence for 20 years of loyal service. On March 28, he received his pink slip.
Strong support for raising the minimum wage
Working for the minimum
This January, the minimum wage will rise in six states as a result of successful ballot initiatives that passed overwhelmingly in November.
New policies on capping wages and limiting health care
Wal-Mart tightens the squeeze on workers
In spite of a recent "community-friendly" public relations campaign, Wal-Mart is putting an even tighter squeeze on employees, and its main competitors are following suit.
Generous with the fortunes they did nothing to deserve
Do they expect us to be grateful?
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have grabbed headlines lately not for the record fortunes they've amassed, but because of the record sums they plan to give away to charity.
Class war USA
In every part of their lives, U.S. workers are having a harder time making ends meet--while the fantastic wealth of a tiny few grows even more obscene.
Retiring into poverty
Pensions were once considered one of the central features of the American Dream, but U.S. workers are waking up to a different reality today.
Corporate America's steals from workers and the poor
The class war economy
Rising profits and respectable increases in gross domestic product are happening side-by-side with falling wages, sinking family income, evaporating pensions and a failing health-care system.
Behind skyrocketing gas prices
Ripped off by the oil bosses
The biggest factor in gas price increases isn't a tightening global supply but oil company manipulation of refining capacity and inventories in the U.S.
Autopsy of the American Dream
The 2004-2005 edition of the Economic Policy Institute's State of Working America is out, and it depicts a deep social crisis resulting from Corporate America's 30-year war on workers.
How the rich rob the poor and the politicians make it all...
Perfectly legal
The system is rigged so that the wealth of U.S. society "trickles up." One little-noticed reason has to do with the injustices of the tax system.
Corporate America's CEO pay heist
The U.S. economy lost jobs again last year. But Corporate America's biggest bosses couldn't resist giving themselves a big fat raise anyway.
The growing gap between rich and poor
The U.S. economy as a whole--and corporate profits in particular--experienced record growth during the 1990s, but working Americans didn't benefit. Today the gap between rich and poor looms larger than ever.
ANALYSIS OF THE ECONOMY
Getting by with a little help from their Fed?
Can the Federal Reserve Bank save the U.S. economy? That's the hope and prayer of growing numbers of Wall Street executives.
Benefiting from more foreclosures
Why is the government failing to push for the most aggressive solutions to help homeowners facing the threat of foreclosure?
From bubble to bust
The wild swings on stock markets worldwide are highlighting fears that a severe recession is around the corner--if not already here.
Recession ahead?
The U.S. economy is on the skids and could be headed into recession--fast. That's the emerging consensus among the worried experts on Wall Street.
A bailout for the banks only
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's massive bailout fund for the mortgage crisis is designed entirely to save banks, not the millions of Americans who could lose their homes.
Signs of the next recession
The Federal Reserve Bank's decision to cut interest rates in mid-September proves that the threat of a recession accelerated by the bursting of the housing bubble is very real.
Sub-prime shock waves
After months of assurances that the crisis had been contained, the U.S. economy's sub-prime mortgage mess roared back to life and took down a new swath of victims.
A backroom deal on trade?
The crisis facing the U.S. empire in the Middle East is also playing out in American efforts to maintain economic dominance in Asia and Latin America.
The mortgage mess
In recent weeks, the so-called sub-prime mortgage market has crashed--a crisis that could mark the beginning of a far more dangerous stage of this financial cycle.
Is the stock market turmoil sign of a recession to come?
Economic storm warnings
The drop in world stock markets as March began raised the specter of recession in the U.S. and globally.
Alan Greenspan steps down as Fed Chief
"The central banker of neoliberalism"
Alan Greenspan's real accomplishments as the country's most important financial official are much different than the media praise he received when he stepped down.
The end of oil?
Underlying the recent surge in gas prices is a more serious long-term issue: rising demand for oil internationally, as production reaches its peak.
The decline of the dollar
The value of the dollar compared to other major currencies has declined sharply in recent years. What is the impact on working people?
Offshoring is only one of the causes of high unemployment
What's to blame for lost jobs?
Corporate outsourcing and offshoring of jobs has become a central question in the 2004 presidential elections, but the debate has only scratched the surface of the real reasons for job losses.
Renewed economic growth hasn't turned around job losses
The limits of recovery
Despite economic growth rates estimated at the fastest since the boom of the late 1990s, the U.S. job market remains lousy. Who's to blame?
Uproar over steel tariffs
Steel and the politics of "free" trade
Is American steel a rust-belt relic or a pillar of the U.S. economy? This question came to the fore after the World Trade Organization announced that the U.S. had violated WTO rules by placing tariffs on imported steel.
Why the U.S. isn't the "land of opportunity"
The myth of a classless America
We're constantly bombarded with the myth that we live in a classless society, based on equal opportunity for all. But beneath the surface, we find a different picture.
What's behind the fears of deflation?
The U.S. government's top financial officials sent shock waves through Wall Street when they admitted that the U.S. economy was at risk of deflation--the very thing that tore the bottom out of the economic system during the 1930s.
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