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Commentary Weisbrot: Don't Cry for the IMF, Argentina

Commentary, May, 29 2001 Mark Weisbrot
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How many times can the most powerful financial institution in the world -- the International Monetary Fund -- make the same mistake? The answer seems to be: as many times as it wants to. As Argentina teeters on the brink of defaulting on its $150 ...

Commentary Weisbrot: Bob Kerrey's Nightmare Tells the Story of Vietnam

Commentary, May, 07 2001 Mark Weisbrot
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Some people are wondering why the New York Times and CBS' 60 minutes II would spend two and a half years investigating war crimes allegedly committed by former Senator Bob Kerrey 32 years ago in Vietnam. But this is journalism at its best: it is f...

Commentary Weisbrot: Why We Need Free Trade for Life-Saving Medicines

Commentary, April, 22 2001 Mark Weisbrot
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The story of the decade, and perhaps the century, has finally made it to the front pages: millions of people who could be saved are dying from AIDS. The reason for their unnecessary, premature, and often agonizing deaths is now becoming clear: it ...

Commentary Weisbrot: Beyond Tax Relief for the Prosperous Few

Commentary, February, 27 2001 Mark Weisbrot
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The political success of the Bush Administration's tax cut strategy will depend on how much they can deceive people as to who gets what. Most Americans, no matter how much they hate paying taxes, do not believe that the richest people should be fi...

Commentary Weisbrot: Can Haitian Democracy Survive?

Commentary, February, 17 2001 Mark Weisbrot
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As President Jean-Bertrand Aristide takes the reins of power in Haiti for the third time in ten years, a debate over his presidency is taking place in US foreign policy circles and the press. The discussion centers around whether Aristide is "full...

Commentary Weisbrot: Still Hasn't Found What He's Looking For

Commentary, November, 06 2000 Mark Weisbrot
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Star power had boosted the movement to cancel the debt of the world's poorest countries, even if there is still little to show for its efforts. At the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Prague last month, the most interesting s...

Commentary Weisbrot: Clinton in Colombia: The Ugly American

Commentary, October, 04 2000 Mark Weisbrot
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When President Clinton announced his trip to Colombia, he said his purpose was "to seek peace, to fight illicit drugs, to build its economy, and to deepen democracy."

Commentary Weisbrot: Protests Keep Spotlight on IMF and World Bank Failures

Commentary, September, 26 2000 Mark Weisbrot
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PRAGUE, September 25-- With thousands of people converging from throughout Europe to demonstrate against the IMF and World Bank at their annual meetings, many people here in Prague are wondering what all the fuss is about. Security is tight, and r...

Commentary Weisbrot: World Bank Can't Seem to "Think Different"

Commentary, September, 07 2000 Mark Weisbrot
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The World Bank spends millions of dollars each year on public relations, promoting the idea that the organization is well-run, accountable, transparent, and working for "a world free of poverty" (the slogan on their web site). This effort has grow...

Commentary Weisbrot: Verizon Workers Defend the Right to Organize

Commentary, August, 19 2000 Mark Weisbrot
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Workers at Verizon Communications had a lot of reasons to go out on strike against the nation's largest provider of local telephone and wireless services: loss of jobs to non- union sub-contractors, forced overtime, overbearing management. And a...

Commentary Weisbrot: Police Abuses Won't Stifle Protests

Commentary, August, 13 2000 Mark Weisbrot
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"When protest becomes effective, governments become repressive." Tom Hayden summed it up in an axiom three decades ago, while describing his own trial on conspiracy charges for organizing protests against the Vietnam War.

Commentary Weisbrot: Venezuelan Elections Offer Hope of Real Reform

Commentary, August, 02 2000 Mark Weisbrot
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The electoral victory of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday, greeted with celebration by the country's poor majority, may have implications beyond Venezuela's borders.

Commentary Weisbrot: Trade Trumps Human Rights in Supreme Court Decision

Commentary, July, 18 2000 Mark Weisbrot
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The Supreme Court's unanimous decision yesterday to strike down the Massachusetts Burma law says more about the pro- business bias of the present Court than it does about the legal principles involved in the case.

Commentary Weisbrot: Labor in 2000: No Place to Go?

Commentary, June, 07 2000 Mark Weisbrot
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In the movie version of Steven King's classic, "The Dead Zone," Christopher Walken reads the mind of the mother of a demonic serial killer. His psychic powers discern that she had long been aware of her son's vicious murders. His eyes widen with s...

Commentary Weisbrot: Four Dead in Ohio: Thirty Years Later

Commentary, May, 05 2000 Mark Weisbrot
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May 4 will mark thirty years since four students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University were murdered by Ohio National Guardsmen. It is no exaggeration to call it murder, since the students were unarmed and-- given how far they were f...

Commentary Weisbrot: Protesters 2, Multinational Monsters 0

Commentary, April, 22 2000 Mark Weisbrot
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It's amazing what an organized group of people can accomplish when their cause is just and they are willing to be stubborn and creative about it. Last December they knocked the wind out of the WTO in Seattle. Now this diverse and expanding movemen...

Commentary Weisbrot: Spring Protests in Washington, D.C: Another Seattle?

Commentary, March, 24 2000 Mark Weisbrot
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The Clinton administration claims to have learned something from the outpouring of protest against the World Trade Organization (WTO) last December. "Those who heard a wake-up call in Seattle got the right message," said President Clinton. Maybe s...

Commentary Weisbrot: Drug Companies Fight Prescription Benefits for Seniors

Commentary, February, 15 2000 Mark Weisbrot
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What are the limits to corporate greed in the year 2000? We may be about to find out. The pharmaceutical companies, whose rate of profit is more than three times the average of other corporations, have been using their enormous clout to block pres...

Commentary Weisbrot: Time to End Debt Slavery

Commentary, October, 31 1999 Mark Weisbrot
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It has become a truism that "there are no easy answers" to the world's most pressing economic and social problems. The phrase is often repeated by academics, policy wonks, and others whose occupation immerses them in the details of real or imagine...

Commentary Weisbrot: Budget Baloney

Commentary, October, 20 1999 Mark Weisbrot
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How much falsehood and stupidity should the media allow to go unchallenged in public debate? At what point do journalists and the press have an obligation to step in and supply the necessary facts and explanations, so that the public can have a ch...

Commentary Weisbrot: The Looting of Russia

Commentary, September, 29 1999 Mark Weisbrot
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What were they thinking? When executives at the Bank of New York saw billions of dollars floating in from the home computer of a Russian businessman with ties to organized crime there, did they really believe that these were just ordinary profits?

Commentary Weisbrot: Growing Concerns Over WTO

Commentary, September, 25 1999 Mark Weisbrot
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In just a couple of months thousands of environmentalists, steel workers, longshoremen, AIDS activists, farmers, and others will descend upon Seattle in a "mobilization against globalization." They will hold marches, protests, teach-ins, and confe...

Commentary Weisbrot: Washington Fiddles While East Timor Burns

Commentary, September, 15 1999 Mark Weisbrot
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The violence and crisis in East Timor has raised pointed questions about U.S. foreign policy and what we stand for in the world. It was only months ago that we bombed Serbia for 78 days, killing hundreds and perhaps thousands of innocent civilians...

Commentary Weisbrot: What Everyone Should Know About the Budget Debate

Commentary, September, 03 1999 Mark Weisbrot
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This commentary is for those who really want to understand the debate that has been raging over what to do with the projected Federal budget surpluses over the next 10 years. It's not as difficult as it seems.

Commentary Weisbrot: Trade Wars: Where's the Beef

Commentary, August, 16 1999 Mark Weisbrot
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Should countries have the right to set health and safety standards for the food that their citizens eat? Should they be allowed to exclude foreign-produced foods that don't meet national standards? Or should these questions be decided by the World...

Commentary Weisbrot: Fed Preemptive Strike

Commentary, July, 09 1999 Mark Weisbrot
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The Fed launched a "pre-emptive strike" this week against an unseen enemy -- inflation -- by raising interest rates one-quarter percentage point. With inflation at its lowest level in 30 years (2.1%), why would the Fed want to start down a path th...

Commentary Weisbrot: No Change at Treasury

Commentary, May, 17 1999 Mark Weisbrot
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Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin picked a good time to resign. As a senior White House official said, Rubin "made his fortune selling at the top of the market."

Commentary Weisbrot: Give Peace A Chance

Commentary, May, 05 1999 Mark Weisbrot
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How long can NATO continue bombing Yugoslavia? The Clinton administration's answer so far has been, "as long as it takes" for Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to capitulate to its demands.

Commentary Weisbrot: The Debacle in Kosovo

Commentary, April, 08 1999 Mark Weisbrot
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The bombing of Yugoslavia is turning out to be a foreign policy debacle of disastrous proportions, yet most of the chattering class insists that we can turn things around if we only commit more troops. We have heard that before.

Commentary Weisbrot: Keep Hope Alive

Commentary, March, 02 1999 Mark Weisbrot
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Who says one person can't make a difference? Jesse Jackson, Jr. has shaken things up in Congress by taking on the establishment and offering a bold alternative to our shameful foreign economic policy in Africa.

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