Germany’s Fascist Party Just Won Control Of A State Government
09-10-2026 ~ The Alternative for Germany party’s victory in the Saxony-Anhalt state election is an ominous coup for the far right.
The far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party scored a landslide victory this past Sunday in Germany’s Saxony-Anhalt state election, although it fell short of a majority in its bid to form the first far right state government in the country’s postwar history. It won 43.8 percent of the vote, more than doubling its share of the vote five years ago in the region, while Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union slumped to a historic low of 17.2 percent, down from 37.1 percent in 2021.
This shocking result has been a long time in the making. Neofascist ideology has been creeping into Germany’s mainstream political arena for the past few decades even though the country’s domestic intelligence agency has classified the AfD as an “extremist party” because its leaders have espoused far right rhetoric. Indeed, the party, which has grown rapidly since it was formed in 2013, is not hiding its racism and authoritarianism and has been quite blunt in its rejection of a liberal, pluralistic society.
Unsurprisingly, AfD leaders are exuberant over their party’s election success in Saxony-Anhalt and seem to think that the tide has finally turned to the point that winning in the next national election with at least 40 percent of the vote is now within reach. Meanwhile, the leaders of Spain and Portugal’s largest far right parties rushed to congratulate the AfD for its victory in Saxony-Ahhalt, as well as Hungary’s former prime minister Viktor Orbán. So did Elon Musk, posting a resounding “Well done!” on his social media platform X in response to a post from AfD’s co-leader Alice Weidel.
How realistic is the prospect that Germany may have a far right federal government by 2029? A recent poll indicates that if national elections were held today, the AfD would indeed emerge victorious with 28 percent of the vote. The reasons for this unsettling development are complex and may go beyond pure economics, although the state of the economy figures prominently into the equation, especially in east Germany, where Saxon-Anhalt is located, and where the AfD is particularly strong.
More than three decades after Germany’s 1990 reunification, there is still a wide gap between east and west. As numerous studies have pointed out, “East Germany is still 20% to 25% poorer than West Germany.” People living in East Germany have realized that convergence under neoliberalism has proved to be a mirage. Under the massive privatization scheme that was launched after 1990 by the government agency Treuhandanstalt, East Germany’s entire state-owned economy was privatized while its industrial base was decimated as thousands of publicly owned enterprises were closed or sold, leading to massive unemployment and triggering a demographic crisis as young and educated people moved westward in search of jobs and better living conditions.
Treuhand’s essential role was to organize the looting of East German industry and public wealth. As Hanna Behrend, a leading academic in the former German Democratic Republic wrote in her edited volume German Unification: The Destruction of an Economy,“Within less than three years, Treuhand destroyed or handed over to West German big business for next to nothing national property to the value of at least several hundred billion Deutschmarks … By 1994 … Treuhand had privatized 13,800 industrial enterprises; a further 3,354 had been closed down.”
This experience with “shock therapy,” which essentially converted East Germany into Berlin’s colony, remains firmly embedded in the collective memory of most East Germans. As Federal Commissioner for East Germany Elizabeth Kaiser has pointed out, many young people in what used to be East Germany see West German culture and lifestyles as deeply foreign to them. People living in small towns and rural regions not only earn “below-average incomes,” they also see their infrastructure continue to collapse while public transportation and medical facilities are “no longer comprehensively guaranteed.” Indeed, as Kim Leonie Kellermann at Ruhr University in Bochum has shown, the mass layoffs that resulted in East Germany because of the Treuhand privatization policies had profound effects on political alienation and mistrust of mainstream parties, “even up to 30 years after unification.” Read more
Taxpayers Must Not Be On The Hook For Bailing Out The AI Industry
Prof.dr. Gerald Epstein is Professor of Economics and a founding Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
09-06-2026 ~ Hundreds of billions of dollars are flooding the AI industry. Economist Gerald Epstein says this bubble could burst.
The U.S. economy is heading toward uncharted territory. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming business operations and all areas of finance, the national debt is on an unsustainable fiscal path, and most middle-income Americans cannot keep up with rising costs. Moreover, as hundreds of billions of dollars are flooding into artificial intelligence, there are serious concerns that an AI bubble could trigger another bailout with taxpayer money.
In the interview that follows, leading progressive economist Gerald Epstein, who initiated and directs the Game Changers project at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, talks about AI’s impact on finance and the bailout problem and how a transformative public finance strategy can revive democracy, promote equity and social justice, and build strong and sustainable communities. Epstein is professor of economics and founding co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute.
C.J. Polychroniou: AI is possibly the fastest-growing technology in history and is already reshaping the U.S. economy in innumerable ways as organizations of all kinds are deploying AI tools across every functional area. But there are many public concerns surrounding AI, including whether it is becoming “too big to fail.” If so, taxpayer money may be used yet again to bail out private companies and institutions from collapse. What are the dangers here?
Gerald Epstein: There are indeed many public concerns about the economic and financial implications of AI. But let me focus on AI’s impact on finance as there are legitimate fears that the government may be asked at some point to bail out the AI industry, especially given the close ties of the Trump administration to AI firms.
As Marc Jarsulic and I argue in our Game Changers policy analysis “No More Bailouts,” the AI investment boom is increasing the level of risk for AI-related firms. The reason is that for these investments to be profitable, AI revenue will need to grow substantially. But some financial analysts doubt that the revenue will materialize. For example, in Bain’s Technology Report 2025, it is estimated that capital expenditures of $500 billion per year would be required to cover anticipated AI demand. To fund this investment, annual AI revenue would need to increase to $2 trillion. However, after accounting for likely cost reductions at the AI firms, Bain’s research concluded that their annual revenues would fall $800 billion short of that mark.
In that context, some of the risks of the AI-led investment boom have been shifted to financial markets as the AI boom is relying increasingly on debt. The revenues of the tech monopolies are extraordinary, but they are insufficient to pay all the costs of data centers. In 2025, the capital expenditures of the top five hyperscalers were more than 30 percent of their total revenue. They are projected to rise to more than 40 percent by the end of 2026. This has forced these companies to turn to debt and equity markets for finance. In 2025, major tech hyperscalers alone issued $120 billion in debt, but the figure was pushed toward $175 billion in 2026 and is expected to rise to $300 billion annually in the coming years.
A distorted government response to an AI-bust is in the cards. A rational policy response to an AI bust would not include bailouts of AI-related firms or their creditors. The investment boom, and the debt that helps finance it, have been engineered by sophisticated actors aiming to dominate a potentially lucrative innovation. There is no ex ante (“before the event”) government safety net for financial bets of this kind. Caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”) applies to the firms playing the AI domination game if it ever applied to anyone. Unfortunately, we cannot count on a rational response from the current administration. Extensive conflicts of interest and cronyism mean that government bailouts for insiders would be on the table. Hyperscalers and other AI-related firms have received extraordinary government support. The Trump administration has taken over 90 federal actions to help the AI industry, including executive orders easing permitting for massive data centers, federal support for AI exports and reducing regulatory barriers for the industry. The Trumpian transactional quid pro quo is apparent. Nvidia and Intel have given the government equity to curry favor. A number of major AI companies contributed several million dollars to Trump’s White House demolition — a.k.a. his “ballroom” — fund. And AI firms continue to finance MAGA. This is business as usual for Trump.
If AI goes south, we should expect major pressures from the Trump administration for a debt- or taxpayer-funded bailout.
Bailout operations are a trademark of neoliberalism. That being said, what is the actual problem with bailouts, and how do we put an end to the bailout problem?
Charles Kindleberger, the famed MIT economic historian, summed it best when he said that international financial crises are “a hardy perennial” of capitalism. Going back to the 16th century, bubbles and crashes have occurred roughly every 10 years. And government bailouts have not been far behind. As Andrew Haldane, former chief economist of the Bank of England, put it, “Historically, the link between the state and the banking system has been umbilical. Starting with the first Italian banking houses in the 13th century, banks were financiers of the sovereign.”
Sovereign defaults were frequent and dangerous for banks. But, as Haldane noted, “For the past two centuries, the tables have progressively turned. The state has instead become the last-resort financier of the banks” through bailouts and other supports.
Ominously, writing in 2009, Haldane noted that “Today, perhaps the biggest risk to the sovereign comes from the banks. Causality has been reversed.” In other words, these days, the pressure for massive bailouts can get so powerful that the resulting government debt can be destabilizing for the entire economy. The extreme financial deregulation cemented by Alan Greenspan, Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin, and others, best exemplified by the overthrow of the New Deal-era Glass-Steagall Act, paved the way for the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-2009. The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 tried to put new guardrails into place but began to be eroded by both Democrats and Republicans even before the ink was dry. It has now practically been torn up by the Trump administration in its push for all-out war on financial regulation. Read more
Can Decentralized Energy Prevent The Next Crisis?
John P. Ruehl – Independent Media Institute
09-05-2026 ~ As electrification expands and power systems face growing insecurity, struggling countries and territories are turning to decentralized energy out of necessity. Meanwhile, major powers are testing whether it can keep vulnerable grids operational while advancing their geopolitical interests.
After International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol labeled the ongoing global energy turmoil the “biggest energy security threat in history” in April, events over the summer vindicated his warning. The United States authorized the grid operator Southwest Power Pool, Inc. to use backup generation resources in 17 states it serves amid growing demand and extreme heat in late July, while droughts forced European nuclear plants to reduce or halt operations in August. EU gas stocks reached a record low during the last week of August, and Bangladesh further tightened restrictions on business operating hours as its gas shortage worsened.
Weather extremes continue to disrupt energy production and supply routes, alongside wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. Additionally, rising global electricity demand resulting from economic development, growth of electric vehicles, and the AI boom is adding pressure on systems meant for a more energy-stable era. After decades of expanding supply and security, the 2020s have brought a more strained energy system amid a fragmented global political order, affecting countries across the economic and resource spectrum.
The strain is also renewing interest in rethinking how to overhaul the centralized, aging 20th-century energy systems. Many national electricity grids were built as urbanization and industrialization made it economical to generate electricity at massive power plants and transport it over long distances, despite the fact that “up to 35.655 percent of the energy transmitted is lost throughout this process,” a 2025 study in the Journal of Electrical Systems and Information Technologyfound.
The development of solar panels, batteries, smaller generators, and digital control has allowed energy production and storage to be partly decentralized. Some of these smaller technologies are classified as distributed energy resources (DERs), which can operate independently or feed electricity into the main grid, and be combined into microgrids to keep local areas powered when the wider grid goes down.
Most advanced decentralized energy development has occurred in wealthier countries with stable governments. Major private companies such as General Motors and Tesla can meanwhile use their own software to connect household batteries and solar panels to the grid. But poorer countries and territories facing conflict, disasters, and general economic hardship are now testing whether DERs and distributed energy can help maintain electrification as older systems buckle.
Ukraine Under Attack
After more than four years of war, Russia has destroyed much of Ukraine’s larger power plants and transmission systems. “Russia has systematically targeted energy infrastructure with missile and drone strikes, destroying or occupying roughly two-thirds of Ukraine’s prewar power generating capacity,” states Ukrainian international investment company System Capital Management (SCM).
Amid constant rebuilding efforts, Russia is increasingly targeting smaller facilities as well. Having also severed its connections to Russian energy, Ukraine’s prewar generation capacity has fallen by almost half, from 56.1 gigawatts (GW) to 27 GW, according to a 2025 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Ukraine’s integration with the Continental European Grid has provided some relief via imports. But Ukraine is also building locally supported microgrids to reduce its dependency on vulnerable transmission networks while ensuring they are widely dispersed to make individual installations less attractive targets. Solar microgrids are keeping critical infrastructure such as hospitals and water systems running when the main grid fails.
Smaller gas turbines have proven useful, but renewable energy has become essential to maintaining energy supply. In 2025, Ukrainian company DTEK Renewables partnered with British clean energy company Octopus Energy Group to install rooftop solar and battery storage at 100 business and public sector sites over three years, according to SCM. Ukrainian cities have meanwhile established “‘invincibility points,’ or earmarked emergency shelters equipped with heat, communication, and basic necessities,” states Business Insider. The central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia currently has five microgrids combining local generation such as solar, gas, and hydropower with storage, while five wind farms are to be added within the next two years.
Ukraine is also ensuring that its larger energy projects are geographically distributed. The pace of deployment in Europe’s poorest country amid the war has been striking. In 2025, DTEK and American company Fluence brought Ukraine’s largest battery storage online, with a total capacity of 200 megawatts; it is spread across six sites. The approximately $145 million project was built in just six months, a quarter of the time it takes comparable projects in Europe. Ukraine’s urgency has made it “one of the fastest-developing renewable markets in Eastern Europe,” according to the German-Ukrainian Energy Partnership.
The results are promising, if uneven. On sunny days, Ukraine’s solar capacity can produce large electricity surpluses, followed by severe deficits when conditions change or Russia attacks. The coming winter will test how far Ukraine’s emerging network of smaller generators, storage systems, and microgrids can reliably support the vulnerable centralized network. Read more
GOP’s Anti-Socialism Resolution Reveals The Party’s Ultra-Reactionary Nature
C.J. Polychroniou
09-03-2026 ~ In essence, the resolution by Republicans denounces all policies seeking improvements in collective welfare.
On Tuesday, the US House of Representatives approved a resolution sponsored by Republican Study Committee Member Jeff Crank (R-Colo.) to condemn socialism “in all its forms.” Eight Democrats voted with Republicans in favor of this red scare tactic ahead of the November midterm elections, which accentuates the Democrat’s divide.
The ideological divide between the establishment and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is profound, and the resolution condemning socialism is indeed part of a concerted strategy on the part of the GOP to wreak further havoc on the Democratic Party.
It is also important to take note of the fact that the resolution does not merely condemn socialism but opposes the implementation of all socialist policies in the United States. In essence, it denounces all policies seeking improvements in collective welfare.
Policies seeking improvements in collective welfare cover a wide range of objectives, like addressing massive economic inequalities, offering all people access to high-quality healthcare services, providing free public services, supporting individuals who experience various forms of income loss, protecting the environment, and so on. These policies may or may not be part of a strictly socialist agenda, but they are designed to promote economic justice and to enhance social cohesion and social welfare.
Indeed, many European countries have been actively pursuing policies seeking to bring about improvements in collective welfare at least since the end of World War II. The scope of some of these policies has shrunk considerably in the age of predatory capitalism, which is what the GOP anti-socialism resolution stands for, but no political party of any ideological stripe in the rest of the western world espouses the myth of social Darwinism to attack policies seeking to improve collective welfare. In fact, Europe’s far-right parties and movements advocate a strong welfare state and promise more government spending on native-born citizens (while excluding immigrants), especially in light of the ongoing erosion of social programs under neoliberalism.
There are many different types of socialism. For instance, European socialism (otherwise known as social democracy) has nothing to do with communism as the world experienced with the founding of the Soviet Union and bears no resemblance whatsoever to certain authoritarian and self-proclaimed socialist regimes that flourished during the Cold War in certain parts of the non-western world (Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, among others). The claim that socialism leads inevitably to totalitarianism and tyranny is pure propaganda to scare the ignorant. Socialist parties have ruled for long periods of time in most northern European countries, with those societies ranking globally at the top of major indexes for economic stability and personal freedoms while experiencing low rates of crime. Read more
Who Has The Right To Tell Our Story: The Fight Over Cultural Heritage In The United States
09-02-2026 ~ Cultural heritage is under attack in the United States. The National Historic Preservation Act’s Section 106 regulation, which balances economic development and historic preservation, has been rewritten to leave historic places in the path of the wrecking ball at the federal government’s whim. Developers contend that a new regulation is required because the Section 106 process is too slow, too unpredictable, and too costly. They argue that locking up lands from oil and gas extraction, timber interests, and mining costs jobs and denies the country needed resources. But they’re wrong. Section 106 does not cost jobs, money, or time. Allowing the public to comment on what happens on public land is not to be deplored but celebrated. Most importantly, once destroyed, cultural and historic sites are irretrievably lost, and all of us diminished.
While currently playing out in the United States, fights about heritage are not unique to America. Battles between development and preservation play out across the globe—in countries rich and poor, autocratic and democratic, and new and old. Some of these struggles escalate into loud, contentious, take-no-prisoners pitched battles.
Economic development is often a Faustian bargain for local and affected communities. The lure of a better life must be weighed against unknowable and incalculable costs to one’s way of life. Most communities embrace the jobs, improvements, and well-being that ensue from development. What they fear is severing ties to land and places—some known and others yet to be discovered—that hold meaning and values essential for their community to persist. For local, Indigenous, and diasporic communities, severing these ties is yet another cut added to the thousands of previous cuts that continues to transform their culture in ways they do not like and that they cannot control.
Many developers and government officials mistake cultural heritage as a “soft” or secondary concern for communities. They base their arguments for development on economic and material concerns, convinced that these are paramount in the minds of community members. For some, these arguments resonate. But for most, economic and infrastructure improvements are only beneficial if they do not transform society into something foreign and unrecognizable. As one Mongolian camel herder explained to me, “We would like the comforts promised by the mining companies but not at the expense of being Mongolian. We’ve been poor for a thousand years; being poor is not that big a deal. Not being nomads or having nomads in the country would be the end of our way of life and the end of Mongolia.”
On August 27, 2026, more than 600 organizations sent an open letter to Congress outlining their opposition to the proposed changes to Section 106. Why the outrage? It’s simple. Though couched as common sense reform to enable economic development, the rewrite of the Section 106 regulation is nothing less than the federal government’s attempt to usurp control over whose history counts and whose can be disregarded. If the proposed regulation is simply about the timeliness and cost of development projects, then it would not have elicited so much opposition. Many in the preservation community offered to engage in regulatory reform. But the authors of the proposed change are not interested in reform. Their objective is to control the country’s historical narrative—whose story gets told and whose story is forgotten.
History is replete with attempts to legitimize the present by destroying vestiges of the past. Ofttimes these attempts are resisted, sometimes violently. In these clashes, groups are oppressed and their material culture destroyed. Rarely are such attempts forgotten or forgiven. Remarking on the guilty verdict in the case of Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi for destruction of ancient texts in Timbuktu, Mark Ellis of the International Bar Association, stated in 2016: “Politically, there will be those who will question why Bensouda [then-International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda] is focusing on ancient sites rather than going after rape, torture and murder convictions, but destruction of cultural heritage is not a second-rate crime. It’s part of an atrocity to erase a people.”
We need to wrest control of the past from the federal government and give it back to the people of this country. This is not a fight we sought. But it is the fight we must win. All of us need to spread a message about why Section 106 matters and why we will not let the government destroy it. Simply put, we will not give up the right to tell who we were and what we did through the places we lived, as we want it to be known free from government censure or control.
By Jeffrey H. Altschul
Author Bio: Jeffrey H. Altschul is the co-president of the Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis.
Source: Human Bridges
Credit Line: This article was produced by Human Bridges.
How The US Is Driving The Rise Of The Businessmen-Politician
John P. Ruehl – Independent Media Institute
08-31-2026 ~ The ultrawealthy have always influenced politics, but the Trump administration has brought them directly into policymaking. The phenomenon is already global, creating new channels of influence within and between states.
As his superyacht Boardwalk docked in Venice as part of the “Freedom 250 Coastal Diplomacy Italy initiative” in July, billionaire US Ambassador Tilman J. Fertitta was greeted by protests. Fertitta was traveling across the country to meet “with local business leaders, celebrities and Americans on board the yacht,” according to CNN. The incident captured a growing trend of ultrawealthy business figures in positions of political power.
Fertitta is one of several billionaire US ambassadors, alongside those serving in the UK, Turkey, France and Monaco, and the Organization of American States. Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and outside adviser Jared Kushner are also billionaires, along with Trump’s commerce secretary, education secretary, interior secretary, head of NASA, and administrator of the small business administration.
The Trump administration includes 57 cabinet members and senior officials with net worths of more than $100 million, according to El País. A more informal integration of billionaires into diplomacy was seen during Trump’s May 2026 visit to China. More than a dozen CEOs and senior executives, including BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Blackstone’s Stephen A. Schwarzman, NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang, and Tesla’s Elon Musk, joined the US delegation.
Businessmen have long been prominent in local American politics. A 2021 study by political scientist Patricia A. Kirkland of more than 3,200 mayors in 263 cities found that nearly a third of mayors have either been business owners or have executive experience, making it the most common prior profession. But Trump’s second term has brought the ultrawealthy into government at a rapid, top-down scale, believing that their experience building companies, managing organizations, and negotiating deals makes them better equipped than established politicians dependent on outside funding.
The ongoing billionaire-politician surge has tapped into a wider anti-establishment mood in the country, and the shrinking of the permanent bureaucracy under DOGE has further elevated political appointees and outside advisers.
But it is neither a new American phenomenon nor confined to the United States. More than 11 percent of the world’s billionaires have held or sought political office, according to a 2023 study in Perspectives on Politics, spanning various government systems. The trend is reshaping international relations as governments adapt to this change.
The Rise and Return of the Politician Businessman
Businessmen were just one of many professions who entered politics in early America, alongside lawyers, landowners, veterans, and merchants. But industrialization allowed some to build enormous fortunes through railroads, manufacturing, banking, and natural resources. Compared with Europe’s more aristocratic systems, American industrialists increasingly found opportunities to buy their way into political power.
By the early 20th century, several businessmen had reached Washington’s inner circles; banking and industrial magnate Andrew Mellon became Treasury secretary in 1921, while banker Jesse H. Jones chaired the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and later became commerce secretary. During World War II, hundreds of executives entered the government as “dollar-a-year-men” to help manage war efforts, including General Motors president William S. Knudsen.
Their direct political influence hit a wall after WWII, as military veterans came to dominate political office. A 1956 Timearticle noted businessmen’s declining involvement, quoting an industrialist who complained that “the same old warhorses” remained dominant in both parties. Lawyers, though in slow decline, also remained powerful, making up 60 percent of Congress in 1960, while a variety of staffers, campaign officials, policy advisers, and career bureaucrats emerged as another growing political class.
By the end of the 20th century, however, billionaires were again testing the limits of how far wealth could take them. Ross Perot’s presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996 showed that personal fortunes could propel businessmen onto the national stage, helping inspire Trump’s first presidential run in 2000. Michael Bloomberg’s successful run for New York City mayor in 2002, where he served until 2013, showed that the GOP could embrace the model, with others like Bill Haslam demonstrating its reach into state government as he became the governor of Tennessee (2011–2019).
Trump’s 2016 victory accelerated the trend. His appointment of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state in 2017 signaled that corporate experience was treated as a governing asset, while billionaire businessman Robert Johnson was appointed ambassador to the UK.
Democrats embraced the billionaire politician model, too. Mark Dayton became senator for Minnesota in 2001 and later served as its governor between 2011 and 2019. Bloomberg (now a Democrat) and Tom Steyer both sought the presidential nomination in 2020, while J.B. Pritzker has served as Illinois’ governor since 2019.
The growing overlap between business and political figures has greatly influenced geopolitics. Major technology, finance, energy, and defense firms close to the White House also operate global infrastructure and supply chains that foreign governments depend on. Elon Musk’s Starlink, for example, is essential to Ukraine’s war effort.
The Trump administration’s decision to own major stakes in private companies has further tied corporate interests more closely to US policy, raising questions about how this new fusion of business and government will affect Washington’s dealings abroad, as other countries manage their own class of politicians with vast wealth. Read more