Public Employee Press

CNR forum looks at recession

The DC 37 Campus of the College of New Rochelle presented its fifth round-table program April 23 at the union. The panel of professors — Luis Barrios, Dan Kryston, Rosemari Mealy and moderator Nibaldo Aguilera — made presentations on the current “Great Recession,” the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

“For working-class people this is not a new crisis,” said Dr. Aguilera, who chairs CNR’s Social Sciences and Communications Dept. He pointed out that the failure of the real wages of American workers to rise, a factor in causing the recession, began in the 1970’s.

Professor Kryston provided a brief overview of the U.S. financial system from 1789-2009 and pointed out that economic recessions come in cycles. He also encouraged students to “go beyond the sound bites that you hear on television” and use non-commercial radio stations and independent periodicals as important sources of information that take more critical views of current affairs.

In her presentation, Dr. Mealy, assistant director of the Ed Fund, said a new and radical critique of financial institutions on Wall Street is needed. She challenged college students to play a significant role in history by filling the intellectual vacuum.

Barrios criticized the prevalent U.S. profits-at-all-cost economic approach. “When they build a hospital here, it’s not because they want to provide health care for everyone, it’s so that they can sell us something,” he said.