This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook

Happy harvest holiday. Today we leave the usual format of the show, as we often do on holidays. There will be no live guests, and Janine Bandcroft continues to boycott the Student Union Building in sympathy with the UVSS workers' strike, grinding on now into its fifth week.

 

Canada spends today waiting; waiting on the Fates of the economy, and waiting for an election that could determine no less than the ultimate survival of the nation. Tomorrow, the federal polls will open, the stock markets will open, and the country will cast itself into the future. The direction this nation will take for the remainder of the century, or perhaps the continuance of Canada as we know it, hangs in the balance.

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com

 

 

 

As you all know by now, the global economy is imperilled. The reasons for this are not so complicated as to defy understanding, and neither are the solutions. For too long, corporate forces have had their way with the legislation put in place during the last great crash of global finance, undoing protections put specifically in place to forestall exactly what we face today. This was not an accident, or even bad policy decisions recently made, though those have certainly exacerbated the situation.

From Reagan, through to the departing George W. Bush, successive administrations allowed massive deregulation in the areas governing the creation and valuation of currency, that paper promising repayment we pass to each in everyday transactions. They have allowed value be determined not by actual capital, things held in bond, or invested in the creation of value, but by layers of gambles and hedge bets on the future prosperity of the economy. This gaming house activity by its very nature creates an exaggeration of worth, an inflation in the form of bubbles, which magnifies the economy, making it appear more valuable than it really is. These bubbles expand, as bubbles naturally do, to the point where the air within them exceeds the substantive strength of their constituent material. Then, they pop!

We've seen a succession of bubbles grow and pop over the last twenty years: The tech. bubble pop; the dot.com bubble bust; the real estate bang; and now the stock market blast. In each case, rampant, unregulated speculation was allowed to gain control of these markets, turning them into pyramid schemes where insiders made like bandits, and the rest of us got hosed. That's where we stand right now: Screwed, blued, and tattooed, the masses, we hoi polloi are holding our collective breath, wondering; "What the hell comes next?

It's not the first time the world has looked into the abyss. In the first segment, a look back into our future with Mr. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

 

 

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.

Some past guests include: M. Junaid Alam, M. Shahid Alam, Joel Bakan, Maude Barlow, David Barsamian, Rhoda Berenson, William Blum, Luciana Bohne, William Bowles, Mordecai Briemberg, Vincent Bugliosi, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Michel Chossudovsky, Diane Christian, Juan Cole, David Cromwell, Murray Dobbin, Jon Elmer, Reese Erlich, Anthony Fenton, Jim Fetzer, Laura Flanders, Chris Floyd, Connie Fogal, Glen Ford, Susan George, Stan Goff, Amy Goodman, Robert Greenwald, Denis Halliday, Chris Hedges, Sander Hicks, Julia Butterfly Hill, Scott Horton, Robert Jensen, Dahr Jamail, Chalmers Johnson, Diana Johnstone, Kathy Kelly, Naomi Klein, Brewster Kneen, Anthony Lappe, Frances Moore Lappe, Jason Leopold, Jeff Leys, Dave Lindorff, Jim Lobe, Jennifer Loewenstein, Wayne Madsen, Stephen Marshall, Linda McQuaig, George Monbiot, Loretta Napoleoni, John Nichols, Kurt Nimmo, David Orchard, Greg Palast, Mike Palecek, Michael Parenti, Robert Parry, John Pilger, Kevin Pina, William Rivers Pitt, Justin Podur, Lila Rajiva, Jack Random, Sheldon Rampton, Paul Craig Roberts, David Robb, Paul de Rooij, John Ross, David Rovics, Danny Schechter, Vandana Shiva, Norman Solomon, Starhawk, Grant Wakefield, Paul Watson, Bernard Weiner, Mickey Z., Howard Zinn and many others.
 

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