If people stash their wealth or earn income overseas, that is just fine — as long as their tax authorities get the information they need to tax that wealth or income according to the law, and as long as money laundering and financial crimes can be effectively tracked, and so on. Where there are cross-border barriers to legitimate tax collection, law enforcement and other instruments of democratic societies, then there is an offshore problem.

The only credible way to provide the necessary information is through so-called automatic information exchange (AIE), where governments make sure the necessary information is available across borders, as a matter of routine.

The fourth edition of the annual TNI State of Power report, coinciding with the international meeting in Switzerland of what Susan George calls “the Davos class”. This series seeks to examine different dimensions of power, unmask the key holders of power in our globalised world, and identify sources of transformative counter-power.

France and Austria sought on Thursday (22 January) to break deadlocked talks with nine other European countries for a financial transaction tax, by proposing that it be applied to cover a wide range of transactions, at low rates, starting next year.

In a joint letter to counterparts from the other countries, the French and Austrian finance ministers also suggested that one of the 11 ministers involved take charge of steering forward negotiations.

Unemployment will continue to rise in the coming years, as the global economy has entered a new period combining slower growth, widening inequalities and turbulence, warns a new ILO report.

By 2019, more than 212 million people will be out of work, up from the current 201 million, according to the World Employment and Social Outlook – Trends 2015  (WESO). (read the report)

“More than 61 million jobs have been lost since the start of the global crisis in 2008 and our projections show that unemployment will continue to rise until the end of the decade. This means the jobs crisis is far from over so there is no place for complacency,” ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said.

The employment situation has improved in the United States and Japan, but remains difficult in a number of advanced economies, particularly in Europe.

Extreme inequality is the defining challenge of our time, but it is not inevitable, and can be tackled. Much can be done to even it up, and make the world a fairer place. The richest 1 % will have more than all the rest in 2016!

Read the new Oxfam Report on inequality

Working people and their families need a new business model to stop the disintegration of democracies and economies. The world needs investment and jobs, said Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation.

The People’s Health Movement (PHM) calls on health activists and public health practitioners around the world to hold their governments accountable for the work of WHO. Governments must be accountable both for their contribution to WHO (financial and technical) and for their implementation of agreed policies.  Governments must be held accountable by the activists, organisations and movements who care about better health domestically and who also stand in solidarity with people in other countries – Health for All!

After a series of crises with severe economic and social consequences in the 1990s and early 2000s, emerging and developing economies (EDEs) have become even more closely integrated into what is widely recognized as an inherently unstable international financial system. Both policies in these countries and a highly accommodating global financial environment have played a role.

Not only have their traditional cross-border linkages been deepened and external balance sheets expanded rapidly, but also foreign presence in their domestic credit, bond, equity and property markets has reached unprecedented levels. New channels have thus emerged for the transmission of financial shocks from global boom-bust cycles. Almost all EDEs are now vulnerable irrespective of their balance-of-payments, external debt, net foreign assets and international reserve positions although these play an important role in the way such shocks could impinge on them.

Stability of domestic banking and asset markets is susceptible even in countries with strong external positions. Those heavily dependent on foreign capital are prone to liquidity and solvency crises as well as domestic financial turmoil. The new practices adopted in recent years including more flexible exchange rate regimes, accumulation of large stocks of international reserves or borrowing in local currency would not provide much of a buffer against severe external shocks such as those that may result from the normalization of monetary policy in the US. And the multilateral system is still lacking adequate mechanisms for an orderly and equitable resolution of external financial instability and crises in EDEs.

Read the Report

Today, the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission has published a first analysis of Amazon´s tax deals in Luxembourg. The Commission has started an investigation to determine whether these practices have led to illegal state aid for the company.

If this assessment is confirmed, the Commission could claw back such unjustified subsidies.

The campaign against the supposed dangers of SYRIZA is aimed at intimidating Greek voters into renouncing their right to change. It is also intended, in the event of a SYRIZA victory, to cause part of European public opinion to reject the Greek Coalition of the Radical Left in order to avoid Podemos winning the autumn 2015 Spanish elections in its wake. Other surprises could be in store from countries such as Cyprus, Portugal and Slovenia if their citizens considered that it would be worth trying to replace disastrous ultraconservative policies by left-wing measures. European leaders and the large private corporations that support them are aware that the majority of the Eurozone population has a negative opinion of the policies that have been implemented in recent years, and would be ready to vote for change. A SYRIZA victory would represent a major threat to the mainstream parties, whether conservative or “socialist”, fearing that the contamination could spread to Spain.