re-posting from the [reclaim-spaces] list, originally in Black Agenda Report

Tear Down the Ghetto: The Price is Wrong
http://www.nathanielturner.com/teardownghettopriceiswrong.htm

What the misanthropic Jenkins calls a "small mental adjustment" is
actually a government-
subsidized economy of destruction -rather than production- divorced
totally from human needs but instead dictated by the demands of those
who deal in "moneyness."

Michael Hudson on the fiscal policy continuity from Reagan's supply side 'voodoo' through (Bill) Clinton-era government by Goldman Sachs bond traders (a tradition continued with Bush's appointment of Paulson) to the present crisis.

Further detailed coverage from Libcom (http://libcom.org) of the  class struggle that continues to rage in Bangladesh, focusing here on how the global 'food crisis' works concretely in this case. The effect of farming techniques imposed during Asia's 'Green Revolution' is addressed, although this needs to be put related to the world trade 'diplomacy' which since WW2 has made 'developing' countries dependent on food imports (see M. Hudson, Super Imperialism), and to the present commodity price bubble inflated by investment attempting to hedge its way out of exposure to perilous financial 'products'.

Detailed summary by Michael Hudson (author of the essential Super Imperialism, new edition: Pluto Press, 2003) of US government moves over the last few weeks to rescue Wall Street's fictitious wealth claims by turning upside-down the New Deal-era agencies designed to keep small producer-debtors from going under.  Treasury Secretary Paulson will pay whatever it costs to fund "creditors to lend debtors enough money for them to pay the interest costs so as to keep current on their loans", even if it means bankrupting Medicare and Social Security.  In this respect Paulson may be closer than the neo-Georgeist Hudson to the minority-marxist intuition that 'capital's executive committee' has to bail the gamblers out because financial looting is by now the only possible basis for accumulation.  But Hudson's ongoing account of this kind of policy as the 'socialization of risk' is vindicated today more obviously than ever.  The other side of this, of course, is that when, government withdraws from 'the market', leaving a policy vacuum for the FIRE sector to fill, as Hudson describes, state action to condition and coerce labour tends to go into overdrive.  As Elizabeth Povinelli observes in the current issue of Mute (http://www.metamute.org/en/Doing-it-for-the-Kids), in practice this often means mortal risk-taking becomes compulsory for the asset-poor, at the same time as the biggest  gambling debts are being 'forgiven'.
From Counterpunch (www.counterpunch.org)

Great to see the heads of mega banks fulminating against fiction and innuendo as a 'careless talk costs banks' ethos is pounded into their employees and rivals are threatened with retaliation for daring to speculate (ahem) on their illiquidity... a bit like the last season of The Wire, which is looking mighty prophetic in its articulation of the relations between lies, non-reproduction and the (more or less open) collapse of once 'great' institutions.

'Walkabout' a poem submitted by Michael Hampton would have fitted excellently with the collection of verse published as part of our recent issue on credit, debt and financial crisis. As a late arrival it joins the site here and as part of our Ongoing accumulation of fiscal verse 

This starts off as sounding like a Bobo anti-gentrification rant - 'what! you mean Clapham is suffering from rising prices! The poor middle classes can't afford to dine out anymore! The vile bankers are to blame.' However, as it runs on there are useful breakdowns of financial instruments, musings on risk, and vague as it is, pretty accurate linking of the bubble economy to deleterious material and social transformations in the fabric of London. It may just amount to little more than brow-beating, but I found this useful to both link gentrification/regeneration and the credit bubble but also some sort of marker of how the repercussions of the credit crunch might be playing out

THREE TALKS BY LOREN GOLDNER
London, Jan 19th, 21st and 22nd, 2008

New York-based Marxist Loren Goldner is giving a series of talks in London this month, hosted by Mute magazine [http://metamute.org]

In Mute 2.6 fictitious capital collided with hypermetrical verse distemper[*].  What follows makes matters worse by further entangling these things with forthcoming Mute subject matter: baby biometrics, tax credit tagging for Hard To Let Families, etc.