Two noteworthy news items for this week: First, the Guardian ran an article last week regarding the soon to be published Social Mobility and Child Poverty report on, well, social moblity and child poverty in the UK. According to the paper, leaked findings of the report indicate a gloomy future
Continue readingTag: austerity
Parchment in the Fire: Rather than savage cuts, Switzerland considers “Star Trek” economics – Salon.com
Rather than savage cuts, Switzerland considers “Star Trek” economics – Salon.com. By gathering over 100,000 signatures – which they delivered last Friday along with 8 million 5-cent coins representing the country’s population – activists have secured a vote by Switzerland’s parliament on an audacious proposal: providing a basic monthly income
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Austerity pushing Europe into social and economic decline, says Red Cross | World news | The Guardian
Austerity pushing Europe into social and economic decline, says Red Cross | World news | The Guardian. Europe is sinking into a protracted period of deepening poverty, mass unemployment, social exclusion, greater inequality, and collective despair as a result of austerity policies adopted in response to the debt and currency
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jordan Brennan and Jim Stanford put to rest any attempt to minimize the growth of inequality in Canada: (I)ncome inequality has reached a historic extreme. Inequality was high during the 1920s and 1930s (the “gilded age”), but fell sharply during the Second World
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Greece’s democracy in danger, warns Demos, as Greek reservists call for coup | World news | theguardian.com
Athens riot police fire tear gas at an anti-fascist protest calling for action against the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party following a rapper’s murder. Photo: Milos Bicanski/Getty No country has displayed more of a “backslide in democracy” than Greece, the British thinktank Demos has said in a study highlighting the crisis-plagued
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Merkel’s Victory, Everyone’s Loss: The Burden Of German Mercantilism On Europe
Merkel’s Victory, Everyone’s Loss: The Burden Of German Mercantilism On Europe. John Weeks The electoral victory of Angela Merkel brings bad news to the rest of Europe. Without doubt it means the continuation of the national economic policies that have all the other euro zone countries suffering from recession. While
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Democratic constitutions a ‘barrier’ to neo-liberal ‘reforms’
Check out @EurozoneCrisis’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/EurozoneCrisis/status/383338023402090496 Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Austerity, Democracy, Eurozone Crisis, neoliberalism
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Why have the Irish not revolted?
Reblogged from Sráid Marx: The defeat of the opposition to the property tax and the ability of the Government to impose a second Croke Park austerity deal might lead many to conclude that resistance to austerity has been defeated. Even before this many have commented that while Greece has witnessed
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Paul Dechene interviews Maude Barlow about the downside of privatizing public infrastructure: Somebody asked me to point blank explain the difference between private and public and I said, profit. That’s the difference. In a public system, it’s the same amount of money; you’re
Continue readingdrive-by planet: ‘Into the Fire’ video: targeting of immigrants in Greece by the authorities and Golden Dawn fascists
Into the Fire sends a powerful message about the xenophobia and violence faced by immigrants in Greece struggling to survive against steep odds. A large percentage were driven to seek asylum not as a matter of choice but because of war and other problems in their countries of origin. Many
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Annie Lowrey reports on the still-spreading blight of income inequality in the U.S.: An updated study by the prominent economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty shows that the top 1 percent of earners took more than one-fifth of the country’s total income
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: A Fine Balance: GDP Growth by Sector and the Impact of Austerity
The second-quarter GDP numbers confirm that Canada’s continuing “recovery,” such as it is, is still balancing very precariously on a knife-edge between expansion and contraction. The various sources of growth vary widely in their current momentum. The overall net balance is barely positive. And coming austerity in the public sector could
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
This and that for your Labour Day reading. – Jared Bernstein writes about the fight for fair wages in the U.S. fast food and retail industries. And Karen McVeigh notes that political decision-makers are starting to try to get in front of the parade of workers seeking a reasonable standard
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: The Age of Austerity
The government of Ontario is pleased to announce that it’s improving the lot of those who rely on disability and social assistance benefits. Rates are being raised by 1%. Since that’s below the rate of inflation it’s really not an improvement at all. The poorest among us will fall further
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – The Economist takes a look at the effect of a “lean in” philosophy toward work – and finds that we’d get better results encouraging creative development rather than needless busy work: All this “leaning in” is producing an epidemic of overwork, particularly in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Alison Bennett reports on the OECD’s work on offshore tax avoidance, highlighting the “stateless income” that’s shuffled around the globe so as to avoid contributing to social good anywhere: Policymakers around the world are stepping up efforts to tighten rules because a growing
Continue readingAlex's Blog: Austeria
Mad scientist selling his utopian project to the master of Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) “Austeria”. An informal talk to OMSSA’s 2013 Learning Symposium, held in Ottawa, Ontario from June 16 to 19, 2013.
Continue readingAlex's Blog: Austeria
Informal talk to OMSSA’s 2013 Learning Symposium, held in Ottawa, Ontario from June 16 to 19, 2013.
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: What Bruce Livesay said
Rabble.ca has picked up a piece from The Progressive Economics Forum by Bruce Livesay that discusses, among other things, the large amounts of money in uncollected taxes resulting from corporations and the wealthy taking advantage of tax havens. Not to mention the way governments, including our own, are trying to
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: How Offshore Tax Havens Destroy Governments
Last fall, Greek magazine editor Kostas Vaxevanis published in his magazine Hot Doc a list of 2,000 wealthy Greeks who were hiding taxable savings in the Geneva branch of HSBC. The list had been furnished years earlier by the then French finance Minister Christine Lagarde to the Greek government, who did nothing
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