Category Archives: Infrastructure

Puerto Rico: 1427 Hurricane Maria Deaths

Government of Puerto Rico presents report to Congress acknowledging 1427 Hurricane Maria details– more than twenty times the previous estimate it had given. Meanwhile, prospects for meaningful debt relief remain slight.

Court Rules that Portland Oil Terminal Ban Does Not Violate the Commerce Clause

The court ruled that the city’s ban on new fossil fuel terminals within its borders did not violate the Commerce Clause, which is the main argument the oil industry has used against bans like the ones in Portland, Oregon and other cities.

What’s with the New York City Subway System?

Climate change, aging cars, signals, and tunnels, plus looting by the political class and the bankers.

Why I Hate Google, Twitter, and Facebook

Google, Twitter, and Facebook are anti-democratic for both readers and writers.

The Jobs Guarantee, “Make-Work,” and FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

Recapturing the lost history of the FDR administration

China’s Strategic Investments in Europe: The Case of Maritime Ports

The EU is rethinking its policies on foreign direct investment. Recent Chinese investment into ports may impact the final rules.

What India Can Teach the US About a Federal Job Guarantee

As Bernie Sanders’s proposal for a federal job guarantee attracts criticism, it is worth mulling India’s successful rural job guarantee program, enacted in 2005.

China’s Bid To Assist Assad In Syrian Reconstruction Is About Security and Profit

China sees a nation-building opportunity in Syria that the US won’t consider.

Monopoly Capitalism: At The Breaking Point?

Michael Hudson discusses monopoly capitalism on the Laura Flanders show.

Tesla Encounters the Material World

The likely failure of Tesla’s hyper-automated manufacturing process, and the externalities of battery fires in electric vehicles.

Aliso Canyon Disaster Highlights Risks, Inadequate Safety Rules Governing Natural Gas Storage

Report documents how the self-regulation fairy proved itself as inept in protecting the public from dysfunctional management decisions that compromised safety and led to the Alito Canyon natural gas disaster.

Was Carillion’s Collapse the Beginning of the End for the UK’s Outsourcers?

Two large British outsourcers are also on the verge of collapse, and the vultures are circling.

Trump’s Bogus Infrastructure Plan Takes the U.S. Further Down the Road of Rentier Capitalism

The public-private partnerships Trump proposes are a sick neoliberal joke.