Economy/Economics

Mural in one of the FARC reincorporation zones (Photo by Viviana Rocha)

With what Naomi Klein calls “galloping momentum,” the “Green New Deal” promoted by newly-elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) appears to be forging a political pathway for solving all of the ills of society and the planet in one fell swoop. It would give a House Select Committee “a mandate that connects the dots between energy, transportation, housing, as well as healthcare, living wages, a jobs guarantee” and more.

The Green Party of England and Wales is extraordinary. Whilst I’ve no idea whether it’s very different to other Green Parties around the world, it is totally different to any other large political organisation in Britain. Full disclosure: I’m a member of the Greens, so obviously I have some partisan interest. Nevertheless, I think I can prove beyond reasonable doubt that it is extraordinary.

The full quote by Porfirio Díaz is: “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.” Mexican President Díaz (1876-1880 and 1884-1911) got it at least half right. Mexico has suffered in the shadow of the Colossus of the North, but Mexico is not poor. Mexico is rich in many ways, yet it also has been impoverished. And Mexico has been greatly underappreciated by North Americans.

It is “budget time” again!

China’s economic philosophy is a far cry from that of the west.

Regulations have to do with what is allowed and what is not allowed. They establish what an individual, organization, or business can or cannot do. Regulations shape behaviors, actions, conduct, aims, and outcomes.

I was at a city hall meeting in Beaverton, Oregon, the other day when a few questions I had for the presenters dropped jaws. We’ll get to that later, the jaw-dropping effect I and those of my ilk have when we end up in the controlled boardrooms and chambers of the controllers – bureaucrats, public-private clubs like Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, and both political operatives and those who liken themselves as the great planners of the world moving communities and housing and public commons around a giant chessboard to make things better for and more efficient in spite of us.

The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.
― D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature
He who does not travel, who does not read,
who does not listen to music,
who does not find grace in himself,
she who does not find grace in herself,
dies slowly.
— Brazilian poet Martha Medieros

Almost forty years ago I invented direct democracy – or so I thought at the time. I had been raised in Rhodesia, a racist and mostly fascist country, and had just moved to England. Although England considered itself a fine example of democracy (and still does), I was puzzled how such a fine democracy could have an unelected head of state, and a parliament where more than half its members are unelected.