Economy/Economics

It is now almost six months since the Paris climate deal was agreed—the first legally binding commitment on curbing carbon emissions by all 195 United Nations countries. Nearly 170 of these countries have now formally signed the deal, notwithstanding concerns that the UK’s decision to leave the EU may jeopardise its full ratification. But what are the longer term prospects of governments drastically ramping up their mitigation efforts in order to meet the ambitious 1.5°C emissions target and prevent runaway global warming?

In his book The Joy of Tax: How a Fair Tax System Can Create a Better Society, Richard Murphy, UK Tax Justice Network co-founder, offers a radically pioneering approach to tax and fiscal policy.  Murphy is one of the first economists to link tax policy to the 400- year-old reality that nearly all money is created by private banks out of thin air.

With a week to go, the UK’s referendum on whether to stay in or leave the EU (European Union) is finely balanced and, some  pollsters say, leaning towards ‘Leave’. This has caused consternation in the marbled corridors around Westminster.

Dear Mr. President Xi Jinping,
Dear Mr. President Vladimir Putin,
The re-emerging specter of nuclear catastrophe is once again haunting the world.
The West is trying to isolate and provoke two great, proud, powerful and sovereign countries; China and Russia. It appears that the pathological desire to gain (or more precisely, re-gain) full control over the entire world is fully restraining all remaining flickers of rationale and humanism inside the brains of the politicians and business ‘elites’ in Washington, London and elsewhere.

Over and above the greed and corruption of wealthy and powerful individuals, the leaked ‘Panama Papers’ revealed the need for a worldwide, standardised tax code, as part of a radical new global economic model. Not globalisation – which is ideologically based, designed by the ruling elite and set up to serve the interests of national and multi-national corporations and banks, but a new and just system designed to meet the needs of everyone, with sharing and social justice at its heart.

For 32 years I have called Venezuela home. Its mountains have given me beauty, its barrios have given me music, its struggles have given me purpose, and its people have given me love.
Its Bolivarian Revolution gave me hope. How could I not feel hope when most of my neighbors, ages 2 to 70, were studying, right in our little potato-growing town in the mountains of western Venezuela. How could I not be hopeful when 18 neighbor families received new homes to replace their unhealthy, crowded living spaces?

Failing institutions, nations or empires are often run by people whose capacities reflect the deteriorating material conditions. The greater the crisis, the more likely that morally crippled, mentally challenged or psychologically disturbed leadership may assert command. But when disastrous conditions are systemic and transcend borders, the weapons handled by the incompetents are the most lethal in recorded history and the area blanketed in propaganda and ignorance extends from municipality to province to nation, far more than a local population is under assault.

As suggested by Jane Mayer in Dark Money, never have two members of one American family spent so much time and money to control our democracy, and in their effort, foster economic damage for most Americans. The guilty parties: Charles and David Koch. It is also likely that self-delusion and insularity from the less-fortunate have rendered both impervious to any recognition that their course is detrimental to the well-being of a great majority of Americans.

I can’t take a budget that eliminates marketing, outreach and in-person assistors seriously.
— Teresa Mosqueda, member of the Washington State Health Benefit Exchange board.
You can’t afford to get sick, and you can’t depend on the present health care system to keep you well. It’s up to you to protect and maintain your body’s innate capacity for health and healing by making the right choices in how you live.
— Dr. Andrew Weil, an American physician, author, spokesperson, and sort of guru for holistic health and integrative medicine.

About 10% of Canadians live in poverty. That figure is even higher in major cities, such as Toronto where the number of children living below the line is nearly 25%. In India, 22% of the people live in poverty. A “guaranteed annual income” (GAI) could wipe out this poverty at a stroke.