Austerity
UK Prime Minister leaving, but she did the job she was brought in to do
Theresa May tearful resignation has produced a number of conflicting reactions. There is the “poor May” faction, claiming she was given an impossible job: to deliver Brexit in a country and political parties split down the middle, and throwing in a little admiration for her resilience (where others saw stubbornness),… »
Ending austerity: make tax fairer and more transparent
Kate Pickett, University of York and Richard Wilkinson, University of York To end austerity and make the economy work better for the whole country requires transforming the tax system. It is time for the UK to have a grown-up, national conversation about tax, to gain support… »
G20: False dilemmas, theatre and cruelty
Today, the G20 is a meeting that politically represents the interests of large corporations and global finance. In other words, it serves the business of capital and in no way takes into account the well-being of the people who live on this earth. The small or big differences that may… »
UN criticises UK austerity induced poverty…so…mission accomplished?
“The UK government has inflicted “great misery” on its people with “punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous” austerity policies driven by a political desire to undertake social re-engineering rather than economic necessity, the United Nations poverty envoy has found. “Philip Alston, the UN’s rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, ended… »
Brexit: austerity tipped balance towards Leave, new study suggests
Thiemo Fetzer, University of Warwick for The Conversation You might think that two years after the EU referendum, there would be nothing more to say about what caused the Leave vote. In fact, it’s only now that we might be getting to the bottom of it. The… »
British austerity policies lie at heart of soaring homelessness and related health harms, argue experts
Science Daily reports on a British Medical Journal article by Mark Fransham and Danny Dorling at the University of Oxford calling for action on welfare reform and the housing market. “The number of people officially recorded as sleeping on the streets of England rose from 1,768 in 2010 to… »
LEAKED: Commission trying to woo German conservatives by sacrificing Europe to austerity
Scarcely a week after the European Council turned its back on the democratic will of Europe’s citizens, we have been greeted by another ominous move that at once confirms our fears about the authoritarian direction the EU has adopted, while strengthening our resolve not to allow it… »
Jeremy Corbyn to Morgan Stanley: “Yes, we are a threat to a damaging and failed system”
After Morgan Stanley warned that a Labour government could pose as much of a risk to British business as Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn posted a video in in his Facebook page saying that the investment bank was right to consider them a threat. “Bankers like Morgan Stanley should not run our country,… »
Schäuble leaves but Schäuble-ism lives on
By Yanis Varoufakis for DiEM25. Wolfgang Schäuble may have left the finance ministry but his policy for turning the eurozone into an iron cage of austerity that is the very antithesis of a democratic federation, lives on. What is remarkable about Dr Schäuble’s tenure was how… »
The Eurozone is ‘bouncing back’? Tell that to the people of Spain and Greece
EU citizens living under squeezed financial circumstances could be forgiven for wondering whether European Commission President Juncker was having a joke at their expense when he spoke recently about how Europe’s economy is finally bouncing back. After a tumultuous decade triggered by the global financial crisis… »