The official unemployment rate now exceeds 9.5 percent – the worst in at least 25 years. The unofficial – including discouraged, underemployed, and otherwise discarded workers – rises above 15 percent.

A recent poll showed that only about half of Americans think capitalism is better than socialism, while the rest are unsure or see socialism as a better idea. With the collapse of the financial system and the economy, the ideology of the free market has fewer and fewer adherents.

If the last 30 years were an era of reaction, then the coming decade could turn into an era of reform, even radical reform. Six months into the Obama presidency, I would say without hesitation that the landscape, atmosphere, conversation and agenda have strikingly changed compared to the previous eight years.

Until Sunday, December 31, 2006, I had been holding for about three weeks a second job at a gas mart/convenience store in Indianapolis, Indiana. This gas mart/convenience store is one of many for this several-state chain-store company...

Some good news, if it could be called that, came out in the business media this week. First, the Commerce Department revised downward its estimate of the GDP growth for the first quarter of this year from negative 5.7 percent to negative 5.5 percent. The economy didn't collapse as badly as first thought.

Finance ministers of the G8, meeting at Lecce in Italy during the latter part of week ending June 14, were cautiously optimistic. The final communiqué noted that in the aftermath of efforts at financial stabilization and fiscal stimulation “there are signs of stabilization in our economies...

Accurately sensing a growing anxiety among Americans that an economic turnaround hasn't been swift enough, the Obama administration last week made a strong push to announce the speed up of economic stimulus projects.

The BRIC summit held on Tuesday, June 16, in Yekaterinburg has discussed a wide range of issues from the current financial crisis to some long-term issues such as food, energy security and public health.

We, the undersigned economists, business leaders, and health care experts, urge the new President and Congress to reform America's health care system—to move boldly to cover all Americans with health insurance, to bring down health care costs and create improved quality and value within the health care system.

Many place its origin in the bursting of the real estate bubble in the United States; others, in excessive consumerism. Whatever its origin, just like global warming, the economic crisis has expanded worldwide and no one has been able to escape.

Evidence mounts that while the Obama administration's economic stimulus package may have help to slow the pace of jobs loss, its goal of saving or creating three and a half million jobs is not in sight. The severity of the new jobless number was not lost on the White House.

HAVANA, Cuba, June 11 (acn) – The President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Evo Morales, affirmed on Thursday that capitalism is unable to solve the current world economic crisis, and highlighted how the natural resources are nationalized in his country and not poverty.

I've had a few of my progressive friends say to me, "You know Keith, I'm not that happy about the president not really going after those quirks in the Bush administration, I'm not that pleased that we haven't heard as much as we want to hear about a public option. What about 100 percent auction for cap and trade? What about these issues that we care about?"

Accurately sensing a growing anxiety among Americans that an economic turnaround hasn't been swift enough, the Obama administration this week made a strong push to announce the speed up of economic stimulus projects.

Richard Wolff (Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst) has released a DVD titled Capitalism Hits the Fan. It contains a lecture he gave November 19, 2008, along with some supporting graphics.

A recent poll showed just about half of Americans think capitalism is better than socialism. With the collapse of the financial system and the economy, the ideology of the free market has fewer and fewer adherents.

The USA is by all accounts the richest nation on Earth. Hardly surprising, really: rich natural resources allied to rapidly developing industry and commerce gave it a head start.

When would losing 345,000 jobs from the economy in a single month seem like a big break? After eight straight months of losing more than 500,000 or 600,000 per month, this month's unemployment numbers put out by the Department of Labor (DOL) must seem like a refreshing change.

Things are not always as they appear. In proving this old proverb, Karl Marx explained some key features of capitalism in a way that remains relevant today. Towards the end of the first chapter of Capital, Vol. 1, after having established the validity of the labor theory of value, Marx presents a section on the Fetishism of Commodities.

With the monthly unemployment numbers for the month of May due Friday, June 5th, economists estimate the national unemployment rate will rise from 8.9 percent to 9.2 percent, with the total job losses over the course of the month to be slightly lower than in April.