The FCI’s Bizarre Logic
The Karnataka government’s plan to launch its “Anna Bhagya” scheme on July 1 under which it was planning to provide 10 kg of free rice per month to each family below the poverty-line has run into problems because of the…
The Implications of Dollar Hegemony
How exactly is the dollar’s status as reserve currency related to imperialism? This question has two parts: how this status of the dollar is related to U.S. imperialism, and how it is related to the overall imperialist arrangement. The dollar’s…
Pitfalls of Export-Led Growth
After Sri Lanka and Pakistan, Bangladesh has become the third country in our neighbourhood to become afflicted by a serious economic crisis. It has asked for a $4.5 billion loan from the IMF, apart from $1 billion from the World…
The Q4 GDP Estimates for 2022-23
The estimates of India’s Gross Domestic Product for the fourth quarter of 2023 were released on May 31. These show a growth rate of 6.1 per cent over the fourth quarter of the previous year, which is higher than the…
Is “De-Globalisation” Occurring?
Many economists these days talk of a process of “de-globalisation” taking place; some others talk of the neoliberal regime of yesteryears no longer existing. Of course, nothing remains the same forever: as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus had said “You cannot…
Exchange Rate Depreciation and Real Wages
Most people, including even trained economists, fail to appreciate the fact that an exchange rate depreciation, if it is to work in reducing the trade deficit in a capitalist economy, must necessarily hurt the working class by lowering the real…
The US Debt Ceiling Debate
Under pressure from globalised finance capital, most countries of the world have enacted legislation fixing the size of the fiscal deficit as a proportion of GDP; generally it is 3 per cent, and in India it is 3 per cent…
Public Opinion and Imperialism
A New York Times News Service report reproduced in The Telegraph of Kolkata (May 7), discusses the findings of a global public opinion survey carried out by the Bennett Institute of Public Policy of Cambridge University. These show that the…
The Grim Unemployment Scenario
The data on unemployment brough out by the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) present a grim picture. Not only has the unemployment rate increased sharply for some years now, starting from even before the pandemic, but the figure…
Threats to the Hegemony of the Dollar
Janet Yellen, the US treasury secretary, has finally acknowledged what has been obvious to most people for quite some time, namely that the imposition of sanctions against countries that the US is hostile to, runs the risk of jeopardising the…