The Corona Crash

Free market, competitive capitalism is dead. The separation between politics and economics can no longer be sustained. In The Corona Crash, leading economics commentator Grace Blakeley theorises about the epoch-making changes that the coronavirus brings in its wake. We are living through a unique moment in history. The pandemic has caused the deepest global recession since the Second World War. Meanwhile the human cost is reflected in a still-rising death toll, as many states find themselves unable—and some unwilling—to grapple with the effects of the virus. Whatever happens, we can never go back to business as usual. This crisis will tip us into a new era of monopoly capitalism, argues Blakeley, as the corporate economy collapses into the arms of the state, and the tech giants grow to unprecedented proportions. We need a radical response. The recovery could see the transformation of our political, economic, and social systems based on the principles of the Green New Deal. If not, the alternatives, as Blakeley warns, may be even worse than we feared.

Free market, competitive capitalism is dead. The separation between politics and economics can no longer be sustained. In The Corona Crash, leading economics commentator Grace Blakeley theorises about the epoch-making changes that the coronavirus brings in its wake. We are living through a unique moment in history. The pandemic has caused the deepest global recession since the Second World War. Meanwhile the human cost is reflected in a still-rising death toll, as many states find themselves unable—and some unwilling—to grapple with the effects of the virus. Whatever happens, we can never go back to business as usual. This crisis will tip us into a new era of monopoly capitalism, argues Blakeley, as the corporate economy collapses into the arms of the state, and the tech giants grow to unprecedented proportions. We need a radical response. The recovery could see the transformation of our political, economic, and social systems based on the principles of the Green New Deal. If not, the alternatives, as Blakeley warns, may be even worse than we feared.

IF UFOS DON'T EXIST, THEN THEY CAN'T CRASH. But something did crash near Corona, a tiny town not far from Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. And that crash has been dissected and debated ever since. Aviation/science writer Don Berliner and nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman, the original civilian investigator of the so-called Roswell incident, have delved into the controversy to find the truth. They sifted through once-classified government documents, interviewed military and civilian witnesses, pieced together evidence, considered alternative theories, and concluded that a UFO crashed near Corona-and the U.S. government knew it and covered it up. Crash at Corona proves that what was found in the New Mexico desert wasn't a weather balloon or a secret weapon-it was a UFO. "One of the more credible books arguing the existence of UFOs...Most arresting of all is the testimony of those who handled the debris, who had no opportunity to compare notes, yet have described the materials ...in almost identical language."-Publishers Weekly DON BERLINER has written more than 300 magazine articles and 25 books on aviation history and space and was also a staff writer for the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). He is board chairman of the non-profit Fund for UFO Research, Inc., and is a delegate to the UFO Research Coalition. STANTON T. FRIEDMAN is a nuclear physicist who has worked for General Electric, General Motors, Westinghouse, and other corporations. He is also the author of TOP SECRET/MAJIC and has appeared on Larry King, Unsolved Mysteries, and Nightline, and was involved with the documentaries UFOs Are Real and Flying Saucers Are Real. He was the final speaker at the fiftieth anniversary conference at the International UFO Museum and Research Center at Roswell, and has given more than 700 lectures on the subject of UFOs.

A kaleidoscopic account of the financial carnage of the pandemic, revealing the fear, grit, and gambles that drove the economy’s winners and losers—from a leading business reporter “A true masterwork . . . perceptive, well researched, and captivating.”—David M. Rubenstein, co-founder and co-chairman of The Carlyle Group, bestselling author of How to Invest It was the ultimate test for CEOs, and almost none of them saw it coming. In early March 2020, with the Dow Jones flirting with 30,000, the world’s biggest companies were riding an eleven-year economic high. By the end of the month, millions were out of work, iconic firms were begging for bailouts, and countless small businesses were in freefall. Slick consulting teams and country-club connections were suddenly of little use: Business leaders were fumbling in the dark, tossing out long-term strategy and making decisions on the fly—decisions that, they hoped, might just save them. In Crash Landing, award-winning business journalist Liz Hoffman shows how the pandemic set the economy on fire—but if you look closely, the tinder was already there. After the global financial crisis in 2008, corporate leaders embraced cheap debt and growth at all costs. Wages flatlined. Millions were pushed into the gig economy. Companies crammed workers into offices, and airlines did the same with planes. Wall Street cheered on this relentless march toward efficiency, overlooking the collateral damage and the risks sowed in the process. Based on astonishing access inside some of the world’s biggest and most iconic companies, Crash Landing is a kaleidoscopic account of the most remarkable period in modern economic history, revealing—through gripping, fly-on-the-wall reporting—how CEOs battled an economic catastrophe for which there was no playbook: among them, Airbnb’s Brian Chesky, blindsided by a virus in the middle of a high-stakes effort to go public; American Airlines’ Doug Parker, shuttling between K Street and the White House, determined to secure a multibillion-dollar bailout; and Ford’s Jim Hackett, as his assembly lines went from building cars to churning out ventilators. In the tradition of Too Big to Fail and The Big Short, Crash Landing exposes the fear, grit, and gambles behind the pandemic economy, while probing its implications for the future of work, corporate leadership, and capitalism itself, asking: Will this remarkable time give rise to newfound resilience, or become just another costly mistake to be forgotten?

A must-read polemic about why the 'recovery' from the 2007-08 crash mostly benefited the 1%, and how democratic socialism can save us from a new crash and climate catastrophe. For decades, it has been easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. In the decade leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, booming banks, rising house prices and cheap consumer goods propped up living standards in the rich world. Thirty years of rocketing debt and financial wizardry had masked the deep underlying fragility of finance-led growth, and in 2008 we were forced to pay up. The decade since has witnessed all kinds of morbid symptoms, as all around the rich world, wages and productivity are stagnant, inequality is rising, and ecological systems are collapsing. Stolen is a history of finance-led growth and a guide as to how we might escape it. We've sat back as financial capitalism has stolen our economies, our environment and even the future itself. Now, we have an opportunity to change course. What happens next is up to us.

What does the COVID 19 tell us about the climate breakdown, and what should we do about it? The economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic has been unprecedented. Governments have spoken of being at war and find themselves forced to seek new powers in order to maintain social order and prevent the spread of the virus. This is often exercised with the notion that we will return to normal as soon as we can. What if that is not possible? Secondly, if the state can mobilize itself in the face of an invisible foe like this pandemic, it should also be able to confront visible dangers such as climate destruction with equal force. In Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency, leading environmental thinker, Andreas Malm demands that this war-footing state should be applied on a permanent basis to the ongoing climate front line. He offers proposals on how the climate movement should use this present emergency to make that case. There can be no excuse for inaction any longer.

Draws on interviews with more than one hundred witnesses to reveal the story of the crash of a UFO in New Mexico in 1947 and the subsequent government conspiracy to conceal the truth

How should the left respond to electoral defeat, the leadership of Keir Starmer and a global crisis? British politics is in an extraordinary place. Grace Blakeley introduces an indispensable collection of analysis and comment. In Futures of Socialism, Sam Gindin and James Meadway reassess socialist strategy after the coronavirus; Dalia Gebrial and Siân Errington debate austerity and precarity; Joshua Virasami and Simukai Chigudu explore anti-racism and the legacy of Empire; and Leo Panitch and Momentum co-founder James Schneider probe the limits of parliamentary socialism. Chris Saltmarsh assesses the prospects for an eco-socialist Green New Deal and Cat Hobbs argues for the ongoing centrality of public ownership to socialist policy. Futures of Socialism takes an in-depth look at the reasons for Labour’s 2019 election defeat, with Unite’s Andrew Murray on Labour’s Brexit position, Tom Mills on the British media, Gargi Bhattacharyya and Jeremy Gilbert on better ways to build a political project, and Keir Milburn on generation left. The anthology also compares the fortunes of the British left with socialist movements overseas, in despatches from Europe and America. Blakeley draws on the talents of all sections of the post-Corbyn left to survey the prospects of “a movement that has dominated the horizons of our lives.”