World Economy: Capitalism lurches from one crisis to another ;

Despite vast amounts of imperial data to the contrary, the great majority of writers on imperialism continue to describe and analyze US imperialism strictly in economic terms, as an expansion of “capital accumulation”, “accumulation on a world scale”. In fact the major and minor US imperial wars have more to do with “capital dis-accumulation”, in the sense that trillion dollar flows have gone out from the US, hundreds of billions of dollars in profits from resource sites have been undermined, markets for exports have been severely weakened and exploitable productive labor has been uprooted.nbsp;

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Global Inequality Reaches Levels Not Seen in Nearly 200 Years

Global income inequality has returned to levels recorded in the 1820s—when the Industrial Revolution produced sizable wealth gaps between the rich and poor—according to a new report released Thursday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The sweeping study, "How Was Life? Global Well-Being Since 1820," uses historical data from eight world regions to present for the first time "systematic evidence" of trends in areas such as health, education, inequality, the environment, and personal security over the past 200 years."

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Monsanto’s Genetically Modified Crops Will Not Feed The World

There are 7.2 billion people on the planet. There will be 9.6 billion by 2050. The demand for food will double… [Using GM food and data science is] the only thing that will enable us to feed the planet without encroaching on the forests and wetlands….This represents a business opportunity, but from a societal perspective, it’s very important.” Robert Fraley, CEO of Monsanto, Winner of the World Food Prize 2013

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US Global Power in the 21st Century: Military or Economic Imperialism?

Despite vast amounts of imperial data to the contrary, the great majority of writers on imperialism continue to describe and analyze US imperialism strictly in economic terms, as an expansion of “capital accumulation”, “accumulation on a world scale”.

In fact the major and minor US imperial wars have more to do with “capital dis-accumulation”, in the sense that trillion dollar flows have gone out from the US, hundreds of billions of dollars in profits from resource sites have been undermined, markets for exports have been severely weakened and exploitable productive labor has been uprooted. At the same time US imperialist state ‘dis-accumulates capital’, multi-national corporations, especially in the extractive sector are expanding, “accumulating capital” throughout Latin America.

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GMOs are Everywhere and Should be Labeled, Study Finds

Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are present in many common products including breakfast cereals, chips, and infant formula—including some that carry misleading labels like "natural," according to a study released Tuesday by the nonprofit Consumer Reports.

Based on its findings, combined with the results of a survey (pdf) by the Consumer Reports National Research Center showing nearly three-quarters of all Americans seek to avoid GMOs when they shop, Consumer Reports is calling for mandatory labeling of GMOs in food and a ban on the meaningless "natural" label.

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4 Reasons We Should Take America's Inequality Personally It's infuriating.

It was recently reported that Americans greatly underestimate the degree of inequality in our country. If we were given proper media coverage of the endless takeaway of our country's wealth by the super-rich, we would be infuriated. And we would take it personally.

Each of nine individuals (Gates, Buffett, two Kochs, four Waltons, Zuckerberg) made on average so much from their investments since January 2013 that a median American worker would need a quarter of a million years to catch up. For the most part it was passive income, new wealth derived from the continuing productivity of America's workers.

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The Afro-pessimistic ‘Rising’ and Afro-optimistic Uprising

Whenever an African agitates for self-determination in Africa , he is quickly jumped on by critics and dismissed as a tribalist. He is ridiculed as a backward ethnic chauvinist, whose sole-purpose in agitating for a new state is a desire for a fiefdom where he can lord it over others whose only crime is belonging to a different ethnic group.

He is reviled as a throw-back to a backward African past, an aberration, an intellectual dwarf who is incapable of grasping and living by higher ideals that other more educated, progressive African people live by. He becomes an object of pity. He is perceived as having failed to conform to modernity, and has decided to cover up his failures by romanticizing about a distant, backward past. If only he were a little bit more modern looking, ideological, and a little bit more intellectually refined, he would see how backward it is to agitate for separation, especially something as backward as an ethnic-based state in Africa.

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