- This week marks 40 years since the end of the gold-standard dollar and with it the Bretton Woods system. Here’s Gerald Epstein on what in meant at the time, essentially a US default by another name. And here’s Larry Elliot on why it still matters today.
- Vinay Gupta has a hard hitting essay/rant on the collapse of the economic system and what we can do about it. “Now, who’s going to get up to work in the morning, and pretend that what they’re doing matters?” he asks.
- Zygmunt Bauman, a familiar name to any cultural studies student, shares his perspective on consumerism and the London riots on Adbusters: “Objects of desire… are nowadays many and varied – and their numbers, as well as the temptation to have them, grow by the day. And so grows the wrath, humiliation, spite and grudge aroused by not having them – as well as the urge to destroy what have you can’t.”
- Facing the aforementioned collapse, now might be a good time to spare a few bob to help to crowdfund the next incarnation of the In Transition film.
The Earthbound Report 