The Robin Hood Tax, aka Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) or Tobin Tax was first proposed by John Maynard Keynes among others around 1936. Its purpose was to develop fairer taxation and curb speculation (today particularly relevant to rapid short-term currency speculation). The EU is in the process of implementing it also as a way of raising capital to soften austerity measures that followed the banks bail ou ...

Further to the Pressenza report on Mohammed Yunus call to the West to help make the clothes industry safer after nearly 1200 died in the collapse of a factory building, an international agreement has been signed by several companies to ensure fire regulations, health and safety monitoring, better salaries and working conditions as well as unionisation. Labour groups have drawn up an industry-wide agreement ...

Here are a few facts: 1) In the postwar period, the amount of money that Wall Street dealt with every year represented approximately 15 percent of the US GDP. In 1975 it was 17 percent, at the end of the 80s it was up to 35 percent and ten years later it reached 150 percent of the US GDP. In 2006, before the subprime bubble burst, it exceeded 350 percent. In other words, the money that circulated every year ...

In an increasingly interconnected world where trillions of dollars worth of goods and services are traded annually, the rapidly expanding market for low-carbon and environmentally friendly products will create new opportunities, the United Nations environmental agency today reported. The report, Green Economy and Trade – Trends, Challenges and Opportunities, finds that developing countries with abundant ren ...

We have been led to believe that consumer power can modify the unethical behaviour of big corporations (may be it can, in a small way) and promote a better society. The difficulty is in knowing what the manufacturers of the products we consume are up to. The collapse of the building in Bangladesh with the loss of hundreds of lives highlighted, again, the working conditions of the people who make our cheap c ...

A number of British overseas territories that function as Tax Havens have agreed to a higher level of transparency opening their books to the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. “In a statement, the [UK] Treasury said that Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands have agreed to much greater levels of transparency of bank accounts held in those jurisdiction ...

By Marta Molina April 29, 2013 To commit an act of civil disobedience requires one to let go of their fear, understand their enemy and their enemy’s power. It must be rooted in good strategy and be supported by an organized group. But most importantly, the action must help to build alternatives to the power structures it confronts. This type of action is exactly what 38-year-old Enric Durán, a Catalán from ...

By Roberto Savio* | IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint ROME (IDN | Other News) - For a long time it was a given that while Europe was based on defending a more just society, with social values and solidarity, the United States was based on the glory of individualism and competition, and anything public was considered “socialist”. One of the main accusations of the last electoral campaign in the United States was tha ...

Corruption is a problem in developing countries because poverty creates unbearable living conditions and early death. Money, for many, is survival and the moral problem of stealing (corruption being one form) may fade into the background. Corruption in the developed world has a different face. It is not a matter of survival. It is only a matter of greed. And the corruption takes forms which are "legal" and ...

Ministers from several Latin American nations have met in Ecuador to discuss ways to deal with the exploitative practices of some multinational companies operating in the region. The First Ministerial Meeting of Latin American Countries Affected by Multinational Interests has been held with the aim of working out a common action plan in this regard. Addressing the meeting's opening ceremony on April 22, Ecu ...