PTZeleza's blog

Perhaps far more than any part of the world, the Asian dimension of the American financial crisis is the most intriguing. A flood of cheap goods and money from Asia lulled the United States into a false sense of economic prosperity, in which Chinese and Japanese reserves and Arab petrodollars financed rising deficits and debt-driven consumption most evident in the housing bubble.  read more »

The financial crisis in the United States is spreading rapidly to several parts of the world. What is its impact on Africa and how do African analysts view as its causes and consequences for their countries, the continent, and the world at large?  read more »

As I write, the U.S. House of Representatives has just voted 228-205 to reject the mammoth $700 billion rescue package for the financial industry. Predictably, disappointed Wall Street is plunging. The financial meltdown is now such that the news of collapsing banks is no longer big news, not even when the 109 year old Washington Mutual collapsed last week, the biggest bank to fail in American history.

   read more »

C.L.R. James Lecture, St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York, September 22, 2008.   read more »

A political earthquake is taking place in South Africa with the ouster of President Thabo Mbeki by his party, the African National Congress, which formally asked him to resign yesterday as the country's president. The embattled president who lost the party leadership to his bitter rival and former deputy, Jacob Zuma, last December (who he fired in 2005 over corruption allegations), has agreed to resign, bringing to an end a long political career marked by triumphs and tragedy.  read more »