Books, Articles, Talks, Videos, Songs, and Stageplays on
Politics and Economics in America

The Scourge of Neoliberalism:
US Economic Policy From Reagan to Trump

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The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy From Reagan to Trump While the capitalist system has undergone numerous restructurings throughout its history, capitalist elites purpose in restructuring has remained the same: to restore and/or extend their hegemony. The current restructuring, operative since 1978, is called Neoliberalism. The book examines Neoliberalism as both an Idea and an historical practice composed of a particular mix of fiscal-monetary-trade-industrial policies that began with the latest US capitalist restructuring in the late 1970s, continuing to evolve to this day. The book further explains the deeper material forces giving rise to - as well as now undermining - the Neoliberal policy regime, with special focus given to the crisis of Neoliberalism in the wake of the 2008-09 global crash, Obama's failure to resurrect it, and Trump's current doomed effort to restore it in a new, more aggressive form. Evidence why Neoliberalism is destroying US Democracy concludes the book's analysis.

Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of the Fed

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Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of the Fed Describes how US federal governments, often in cooperation with the largest US private banks, introduced and expanded central banking functions from 1781 through the creation of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Based on an analysis of the evolution of the US banking system - from pre-1781, through the 1787 US Constitutional Convention, Congressional debates on Hamilton's reports to Congress, the rise and fall of the 1st and 2nd Banks of the United States, and through the long period of the National Banking System form 1862-1913, the book shows how central banking in the US evolved out of the private banking system, and how following the financial crash of 1907 big New York banks pushed through Congress the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, creating a central bank which they then managed for their interests.

CENTRAL BANKERS AT THE END OF THEIR ROPES?
Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression

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Central Bankers At the End of Their Ropes? is a comprehensive critique of central banks’ policies in the 21st century, explaining why the massive injections of free money to the banking system since the 1970s enabled the creation of excess corporate debt that has led to financial bubbles and repeated crises. Since 2008 the central banks have bailed out the banks to the tune of more than $20 trillion, providing a temporary solution to that crisis which, at the same time, is creating conditions for the next. The book addresses the growing contradictions of central banking, why they are failing in their functions, targets and tools, and proposes a radical democratization and restructuring to transform them to serve the public interest and not the private banks.

LOOTING GREECE,
A New Financial Imperialism Emerges

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Looting Greece...
• Reveals clearly who calls the shots in the Eurozone—the hardliners, not the remnants and political residue of what was once European social democracy.
• Follows the negotiations in their excruciating detail as the Troika tightens the screws from 2009 to the present.
• Shows how Europe’s financial elite enriches itself on Greek debt, privatizations and financial manipulations, turning Greece into an Economic Protectorate.

SYSTEM FRAGILITY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

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Sytem Fragility in the Global Economy: Just as contemporary economics failed to predict the 2008-09 crash, and over-estimated the subsequent brief recovery that followed, economists today are again failing to accurately forecast the slowing global economic growth, the growing fragility, and therefore rising instability in the global economy. This book offers a new approach to explaining why mainstream economic analyses have repeatedly failed and why fiscal and monetary policies have been incapable of producing a sustained recovery. It explains why the global economy is slowing long term and becoming more unstable, why policies to date have largely failed the trend, and why the next crisis may therefore prove even worse than that of 2008-09. Systemic fragility is explained as rooted in 9 key empirical trends: slowing real investment; a drift toward deflation; credit and liquidity explosion; rising levels of global debt; a shift to speculative financial investing; the restructuring of financial markets and labor markets; the failure of Central Bank monetary policies; and the ineffectiveness of fiscal policies-each trend of which is addressed in separate chapters in the book. The book concludes with a critique of mainstream economics, Marxist, and Minskyan approaches to explaining financial cycles and the author's own theory of why the global economy is becoming systemically unstable.

OBAMA'S ECONOMY: Recovery for the Few  
Book plus video DVD plus 66 slide Powerpoint slideshow

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Obama's Economy: Recovery for the Few, explains how the weakest and most lopsided economic recovery since 1947 has been the direct outcome of failed economic policies of the Obama administration and US Federal Reserve bank since February 2009. The book provides seven specific reasons why Obama's three recovery programs since 2009 have failed to generate sustained economic growth. Tracing the evolution of Obama policies from the election campaign in 2008 through 2011, the book explains how the US economy is still continuing on a 'stop-go' trajectory of short, shallow economic relapses followed by weak and unsustained recoveries and why it will suffer yet a 'third relapse', or a worse double dip recession, in 2013. The book concludes by offering an 'Alternative Program for Economic Recovery', which focuses on new measures to restore jobs, housing, and local government in the short term that require major structural economic reforms in the U.S. tax, retirement and banking systems to implement. Proposals are additionally offered to reduce household, small business, and local government debt as well as measures to restore historic rates of income growth for working and middle class households.

This copy of the book includes a full 1.5 hour video DVD presentation and a 66-slide Powerpoint slideshow. To purchase the book only, scroll down to the next item on this page and click on its "Add to Cart" button.

OBAMA'S ECONOMY: Recovery for the Few  

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Obama's Economy: Recovery for the Few, explains how the weakest and most lopsided economic recovery since 1947 has been the direct outcome of failed economic policies of the Obama administration and US Federal Reserve bank since February 2009. The book provides seven specific reasons why Obama's three recovery programs since 2009 have failed to generate sustained economic growth. Tracing the evolution of Obama policies from the election campaign in 2008 through 2011, the book explains how the US economy is still continuing on a 'stop-go' trajectory of short, shallow economic relapses followed by weak and unsustained recoveries and why it will suffer yet a 'third relapse', or a worse double dip recession, in 2013. The book concludes by offering an 'Alternative Program for Economic Recovery', which focuses on new measures to restore jobs, housing, and local government in the short term that require major structural economic reforms in the U.S. tax, retirement and banking systems to implement. Proposals are additionally offered to reduce household, small business, and local government debt as well as measures to restore historic rates of income growth for working and middle class households.

AN ALTERNATIVE PROGRAM FOR ECONOMIC RECOVERY  

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Part 1 of An Alternative Program for Economic Recovery explains the seven specific reasons why the economic recovery under Obama since 2009 has failed for all but the wealthiest few and largest corporations. Central among the seven reasons, it is argued, are Obama's basic failure to develop programs to provide jobs for 25 million unemployed, to save 11.4 million homeowners from foreclosure, and to solve the problem of the continuing deterioration of state-local government finances.

In Part II the pamphlet offers programs in eight specific areas as an Alternative Economic Recovery Program: in the short term, programs to create 17 million jobs, proposals to prevent further foreclosures and stabilize falling home prices, and to restore state-local government finances; in the intermediate term proposals are described which would fundamentally restructure the tax system, the banking system, and the retirement system necessary to enable the jobs-housing-local government programs; and in the longer term proposals are offered to prevent a repeat of the current economic crisis focusing on eliminating today's massive debtload weighing on households and government and on raising real incomes for working and middle class households. The above eight specific program areas (jobs, housing, local government, bank-tax-retirement restructuring, and debt-income recovery) are all necessary, it is argued, for any sustained economic recovery from the continuing recession, and to prevent an eventual further economic collapse within the next 5 years.

EPIC RECESSION: Prelude to Global Depression

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Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression is a 336 page book, published May 2010, by Palgrave-Macmillan (U.S.) and Plutopress (global), that reveals the deep origins of the current economic crisis, explains why current Obama policies have failed, and offers an alternative, comprehensive 28 point program for economic recovery. Jack Rasmus explains how the current crisis is similar to prior Epic Recessions in the U.S., in 1907-1914 and 1929-1931, and quite unlike 'normal' recessions since 1945. Rasmus describes how the current crisis is neither a full blow depression or a short lived contraction followed by a swift return to growth, but a crisis followed by a period of extended stagnation that may yet slip into a classic depression. Developing a new theory of its causes and evolution that departs from mainstream economic analysis, Jack argues that preventing a possible descent into depression will require a basic restructuring the U.S. economy through a massive job creation program, a nationalizing of residential housing and consumer credit markets, a fundamental restructuring of the tax system, a new type of Federal Reserve and banking structure, and measures that restore a long term redistribution of income.

The WAR AT HOME: Economic Class War in America

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The War At Home: The Corporate Offensive From Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, is a 534 page, extensively researched, nonfiction book that describes the evolution of corporate-government policies from 1980 to 2005 that have shifted more than a $1 trillion dollars a year, every year, from 90 million American middle and working class households to the wealthiest 10% and corporations. With more than 500 references and 45 tables and graphs, the book examines in detail topics such as the Great American Tax Shift, the 30 Year Pay Freeze, Free Trade and the loss of 10 million jobs, the creation of more than 40 million part time and temporary jobs, the destruction of unions, dismanting of the postwar pension and healthcare systems, and the theft by Congress and Presidents of more than $2 trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund. Solutions and proposals are offered to reverse the current corporate offensive at the end of each chapter, as well as a new proposal for reorganizing the trade union movement in the concluding chapter. According to labor historian, Harvey Schwartz, if you liked Howard Zinn's book, A People's History of the United States, then "you are going to love the new book by Jack Rasmus...an excellent complement and companion to Zinn's popular work."

Click to read the book's Contents and the Preface.

Articles on Economics and Politics  

Recent articles by Jack Rasmus from 'Z' magazine, 'In These Times', and other publications on the current economic and political crisis in the U.S. Topics include the current global financial and economic crisis, the collapse of health care financing and retirement systems in the U.S., shifting tax burden, shelters and corporate fraud, deregulation and social security privatization, the 30-year pay freeze, radical restructuring of job markets, the corporate free trade offensive, explosion in CEO pay and capital incomes, growing global income inequality, decline of American unions, and increasing class-biased policies of political parties. Articles may be downloaded for free by individuals. Reproduction in multiple quantities requires written permission of the author.
Cartoons by Jim Swanson.

  Audio CDs

Audio CDs of Jack's public talks and radio show interviews--on topics from the current financial crisis, recession, economic policies of the Bush administration, growing income inequality in America, etc.--are available at for download and listening. Click on the image to the left or on the heading of this section to open the Audio CDs page.

Interviews and talks range from 20 minutes to 2 hours and include presentations and extended audience Q & A with Jack. Audio CDs may be ordered for a nominal cost of $9, plus $3 shipping and handling. (Talks and interviews may not be duplicated for distribution without the written permission of the author).

  Songs & Music

Selections of original songs and soundtracks of stageplays by Jack Rasmus may be accessed for listening and download. Songs address themes of political protest in the Brechtian-Epic Theater tradition and contemporary cabraet in various musical styles. Click on the songsheet image, 'Song of Solidarity', to the right to listen to a sample song selection. Also available for listening are selected scenes from the 2003 stageplay, 'Fire on Pier 32', about the history of the west coast longshore workers from the 1934 San Francisco General Strike to the present. A full soundtrack of the 2.5 hour stageplay is also available for purchase. Click the heading of this section to open the Songs and Music page where you can play select songs and scenes, and order a soundtrack. (Songs and soundtrack may not be duplicated for distribution without the written permission of the authors).
Music composed by Joyce McBride

  VIDEOS: Public Talks, Interviews, and Stage Plays

Videos of Jack's public talks, in terviews and presentations on the economic crisis, environment and politics are available on DVD for a nominal cost. Jack Rasmus Productions is also proud to present on DVD the full length, 2.5 hour stage play, "Fire on Pier 32", which was performed to sold out audiences in San Francisco in 2003. "Fire" is story in 3 acts, performed by an ensemble cast of 12, with original songs, staged in the 'Epic' Theater tradition, about the west coat longshore workers and their union from the events of the 1934 San Francisco General Strike through the historic lockout in late 2002. Click on the photo for more details about videos of Jack's speeches, presentations and the play and how to order.

Collected Stage Plays by Jack Rasmus  

THE COLLECTED PLAYS features five full-length stage plays on American History, Labor, and political themes. Included in the volume are "1934: THE MUSICAL," a two hour production in the Epic Theater tradition about the San Francisco waterfront in 1934 with 10 original songs, chorus, choreography, and visuals. The two-part four hour play, "OUR TIME", a multimedia production about the transformation of America in the 20th century based on scenes of American Presidents from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush. "LOCKOUT", a play about contemporary labor conflicts in the grocery, hotel and west coast ports since 2002. The acclaimed 2.5 hour multimedia production, "FIRE ON PIER 32", about the history of the west coast longshore workers and their union, the ILWU, from the 1930s to 2002. And "HOLD THE LIGHT", about a six month labor strike of young workers. Click the photo for more information about each play.