Global Noise takes on austerity: 'We are not going to be silent'

 

People make noise as they take part in a casserole march to protest against government's austerity reforms and the public payment of bank's debts on October 13, 2012 in Madrid. (AFP Photo / Pedro Armestre)

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/news/global-noise-demonstrations-378/

Demonstrators across the world are calling for an end to austerity as Global Noise protests kick off in more than 30 countries, including many in the Nobel Peace laureate European Union.

­The worldwide demonstrations on Saturday passed without incident, and Caleb Maupin from the International Action Centre explained what's driving the public to take to the streets.

RT: A year ago Occupy Wall Street spread across the world, and now it’s Global Noise. What is Global Noise all about? How is it different?

Caleb Maupin: Basically, Global Noise is saying we are not going to be silent. Because right now the banks are coming for us – they are cutting all of the programs. There is mass unemployment. There is cutting in government spending and the governments of the world are just having to pay back the banks.

And in the process, our future is being destroyed. It is impossible to get an education in this country without a rising debt. What we are saying is that we are going to be a global noise. We are the next generation, the youth part of the working class as our future is being destroyed. We are not going to silently sit back and let them destroy our future. We are going to be loud. We are going to be confrontational and we are going demand that this stop.

Austerity is a crime against the people. These cuts are a crime against us, and we are going to demonstrate and we are going to oppose it.

RT: America has not seen austerity cuts as of yet. But in Europe this is precisely what the Global Noise rallies were aimed against. Is it merely a show of support for Europe, or is there, say, a message in the demonstrations for the US presidential candidates?

CM: There are plenty of austerity cuts in the United States. Food stamps, a program which many millions of people depend on so they can have food, is being cut. College prices are going up. They had kind of halted it because they are planning after the elections to have austerity. All the major cuts are going to happen after the election.

But even with these latest debates, you see Romney and Ryan, Obama and Biden, they are all debating how much to cut. How responsibly can you get rid of Social Security, how responsibly can we do it? It is austerity, it is global austerity. Because, you know, Lenin spoke of it in his book – imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, because the banks kind of become the center of capitalism, its monopoly stage.

And right now it is a revolt against banks. Instead of people having to take all these cuts, why don’t they simply start the cuts to the banks? The government of the United States has the ability to do that. They can pass legislature saying that the banks have to be delayed, but instead they keep paying back the banks with these loans that have taken from the government, and programs that people need to survive on are being cut.

At a time of mass unemployment, millions of youth have great anger on what’s going on, and it is exploding into a global anti-capitalist rebellion. It is here in US. The phrase "we are the 99%" represents what millions of people understand, which is that a small elite, the bankers, capitalists, they own the world and the rest of us just get to live in it.

Well, it is time that we are heard. We are a global noise and we are going to rise up and demand a change to that situation.

RT: Presidential elections are coming up in the US and the Obama administration is criticized for the bailout, while Republicans are promising austerity. And what do you think the policy should be for the US here?

CM: I think whoever wins this election, it is very clear that after the election, it's over. They are going to begin an extreme amount of mass austerity. And the terms of the debate are sickening – the terms of the debate are essentially how much to cut. Some people say, we should just cut everything; others say we should just cut a little bit. No! The people don’t have to pay for the crisis the bankers created.

But that message is not part of the discourse in this country right now. The discourse is limited to one form of cutting or one form of cutbacks, and that is frightening. And that is why the Occupy movement came in. We are the 99%, or as the labor movement and progressive forces have said for a long time – class against class.

It is not Republicans versus Democrats. It is about the bankers versus the people – the people who sell their labor to survive and those who own the world.

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Moody’s cuts EU outlook to negative

 

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/news/moodys-eu-outlook-negative-293/

Moody’s ratings agency has downgraded its outlook on the Aaa rating of the European Union from ‘stable’ to ‘negative,’ linking the decision to a recent outlook downgrade of the bloc’s major economies.

"The negative outlook on the EU's long-term ratings reflects the negative outlook on the Aaa ratings of the member states with large contributions to the EU budget: Germany, France, the UK and the Netherlands, which together account for around 45 per cent of the EU's budget revenue," Moody’s said in a statement on Monday.

The agency also cut its outlook on the provisional (P)Aaa rating of the EU's medium-term note (MTN) program from ‘stable’ to ‘negative.’

The outlook downgrade comes after the agency changed to negative its outlook for Germany and Holland's Aaa ratings on July 23. Moody’s explained that it was reasonable to assume that the EU's creditworthiness should move in line with the creditworthiness of its strongest key member states. The outlook on France and the UK are also negative.

Moody’s warned that it may downgrade the European Union's rating if it decides to cut the ratings of Germany, France, the UK and the Netherlands.

The agency also added that the outlook for the EU could go back to 'stable' if the outlooks on the four major European economies are first.

 

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US debt eclipses economy, reaching $16 trillion this week

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/usa/news/us-debt-eclipses-economy-295/

The US government is about to announce its $16 trillion debt, a landmark number that has more than tripled during the last two presidencies. At 104 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product, the debt is now larger than the US economy itself.

The federal government closed Thursday with $15.99 trillion in debt – but some budget analysts think it most likely reached $16 trillion by the end of the day, the Washington Examiner reported. The news comes as Republicans and Democrats formally nominate their presidential candidates, and the official announcement will likely come on the first day of the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday.

“This is a grim landmark for the United States. Yet the president seems strangely unconcerned,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions of the Senate Budget Committee.

Each day, the debt grows by roughly $3.5 billion, or about $2 million per minute.

Twelve years ago, before the election of George Bush, the debt stood at $5.6 trillion. In the months before President Obama took office, the debt was $9.6 trillion. During the last presidency, it has increased by $6.4 trillion – two-thirds of its 2008 amount. The current president has overseen the largest debt explosion in US history.

This year marks the fourth consecutive year with a $1 trillion budget shortfall.

A top adviser to President Obama said the commander in chief had a “plausible plan” to stabilize the debt – without reducing it.

“You can’t balance the budget in the short term because to do that would be to ratchet down the economy,” adviser David Axelrod told Fox News on Sunday.

About 30 per cent of the total public debt is intragovernmental holdings, including money borrowed from Social Security’s trust fund.

“The national debt is certainly a ticking time bomb. There’s no question that if we don’t do something about it, it’s going off,” said Robert Bixby, the executive director of the Concord Coalition, an NGO promoting a balanced budget. “We’re spending about $200 billion on interest now. That’s much more than we’re spending on operations in Afghanistan, more than we’re spending on Medicaid.”

As the US debt makes history, the first group of baby boomers is now retiring and relying on government entitlements to get by.

While presidential candidate Mitt Romney, gave his speech at the RNC last week, a national debt clock ticked behind him to fill the convention's attendees with fear of a looming financial catastrophe.

The DNC is unlikely to feature a similar exhibit – but the federal government will likely announce its $16 trillion debt during the heat of the convention in North Carolina

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