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Crafty smurfs behind Chinese currency flight overseas

Details: Written by Teresa Lopez / GFI; Category: Articles; Created: 19 February 2016

A growing army of Chinese savers, worried about the depreciating value of their country’s Yuan currency, are surreptiously removing their nest-eggs overseas in a practice known as “smurfing”. So much Chinese money is being exported by the thrifty smurfs that the Beijing authorities are worried at a growing imbalance showing up on the economy’s books.

Poul Thomsen (IMF), Greece and IMF Cynicism

Details: Written by Daniel Munevar / Social Europe; Category: Articles; Created: 18 February 2016

For the casual reader, Poul Thomsen’s recent piece on the role of the IMF in the bailout review negotiations taking place between Greece and the Troika would seem balanced and reasonable. At the end of the day, as he has argued elsewhere, the numbers simply need to add up. For that, there is a trade-off between the “ambition of the reforms” Greece needs to impose and the amount of debt relief that can be granted by its European partners. Put bluntly, more austerity implies less debt relief and vice versa.

Thomsen argues that given the contentious character of the negotiations the IMF is simply there as a friendly companion that supports both its Greek and European partners to make the tough decisions required to develop a program that adds up. However, for someone who is more familiar with the role that the IMF in general, and Thomsen in particular, has played in putting Greece in the precarious situation in which it finds itself today, his piece can only be defined as brazen and cynical.

In order to unpack Thomsen’s argument, we need to go by parts:

Ultimately a program must add up: the combination of reforms plus debt relief must give us and the international community reasonable assurances that by the end of Greece’s next program, after almost a decade of dependence on European and IMF assistance, Greece will finally be able to stand on its own”

'Unmask the Corrupt' Campaign

Details: Written by Transparency International; Category: Articles; Created: 17 February 2016

Transparency International (TI) says it will impose social sanctions on the world’s nine most symbolic cases of grand corruption as voted by the public in its new campaign, Unmask the Corrupt.

“The nine cases were chosen based on popular voting by the public and also because of their widespread impact on human rights,” a TI spokesperson wrote to OCCRP via email. The campaign will focus attention on “the less visible side of grand corruption, such as laws allowing [for] anonymous companies and those who facilitate corrupt deals.”

According to a news release by TI, the campaign faced a vote-rigging problem during the online election process. The organization found fake registrations for votes cast by unknown parties in an attempt to manipulate the vote.

“Lying, cheating, stealing and fraud are the tools of the corrupt. We want to pursue sanctions against as many of these cases as possible. We cannot single out just one case, they all must be dealt with,” said Transparency International Chair José Ugaz in response to the attempted vote fraud.

The nine top cases selected for the campaign include:

Indicators are in fashion in SDG era ... What about human rights?

Details: Written by Claudio Schuftan / PHM; Category: Articles; Created: 16 February 2016

So much is offered to us through indicators-stuffed networks that we live in constant awe for not being able to absorb it all --and much more so, not having the time for reflection (so as to use the same for effective human rights accountability purposes). (Albino Gomez)

1. The sayings

‘What gets measured, gets done’.

‘What is counted is the only thing that counts’.

‘Today’s investments in country health information systems will lead to a better tomorrow for billions of people’.

‘Accurate and timely health data are the foundation to improving public health’. (J.Y. Kim, M. Moellmann)
are terribly misleading and flawed.

Is the U.S. enabling tax evasion?

Details: Written by Vikram Mansharamani; Category: Articles; Created: 12 February 2016

The combination of increasing inequality and anemic economic growth has thrown a political spotlight on tax havens. Research has shown that governments are losing at least $200 billion in potential tax dollars every year because of them. And politicians throughout the world are feeling pressure to address this perceived injustice.

Consider, for example, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s recent comments about companies “routing income through the Bahamas or the Cayman Islands or wherever” in an effort to minimize or avoid taxes. Clinton would like the United States to capture lost tax revenues from corporations booking profits in their offshore subsidiaries.

Successes and failures of the left

Details: Written by Francine Mestrum; Category: Articles; Created: 11 February 2016

The victory of Syriza in Greece, a leftwing government in Portugal, the wonderful success of Podemos in Spain, a new chairman for the Labour party in Great Britain, the amazing victories of Bernie Sanders in the democratic caucuses in the US.

It is far too early to make a final analysis of what is happening, but one thing seems to be clear: many people, and most of all young people, seem to want something different in politics, they do not believe in neoliberal TINA-politics anymore, they think the world is far too unequal, they know they are the 99 % while it is the remaining 1 % that takes all the important decisions and pays no taxes. They know the ‘establishment’ or ‘la casta’ only listen to those who pay them, the CEOs of hedge funds, oil or car companies, the pharmaceutical industry, the mining corporations …

But we should have no illusions.

IMF on gender and income inequality

Details: Written by Francesca Rhodes, Oxfam UK; Category: Articles; Created: 11 February 2016

Gender inequality and its impact on economic growth have risen up the IMF agenda under current managing director Christine Lagarde’s leadership. In October 2015, the IMF published the staff discussion note (SDN) Catalyst for change: Empowering women and tackling income inequality, following a series of earlier gender-focused SDNs. The series has focused on the ways in which gender inequality has a negative impact on female labour force participation rates, which in turn has a negative effect on macroeconomic growth and stability. Previous SDNs have focused on gender inequalities in unpaid care; education: access to productive inputs: tax incentives and legal restrictions to women’s work.1 The latter links gender inequality to another issue on which the IMF has published research – income inequality.

Quiet revolution in sustainable development finance

Details: Written by Aldo Cagliari; Category: Articles; Created: 10 February 2016

The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) recently launched the report of its Financial Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System (“the Report”), established in early 2014 to explore how to align the financial system with sustainable development, with a focus on environmental aspects.

UNEP’s Financial Inquiry set out to respond three questions: 1) under what circumstances should measures be taken to ensure that the financial system takes fuller account of sustainable development?, 2) what measures have been and might be more widely deployed to better align the financial system with sustainable development? and 3) how can such measures best be deployed?

20 African countries still do not treat women as equal citizens

Details: Written by Flavia Mwangovya / Equality Now /Pambazuka; Category: Articles; Created: 09 February 2016

Everyone has the right to be born with a nationality – safe, fearless and free – and secure in their human right to equally transfer, acquire, change or retain it. There is no reason why over 50 countries around the world – 20 of which are in Africa - should still have sexist nationality and citizenship laws, which largely discriminate against women, potentially putting them and their families in danger and denying them the rights, benefits and services that everyone should enjoy.

What free roaming chickens and accounting tricks have in common

Details: Written by Matt Gardner / ITEP; Category: Articles; Created: 08 February 2016

Is offshore tax avoidance a victimless crime? That was the question underlying my recent visit to the Cayman Islands, where I spent a whirlwind weekend helping to film a BBC2 documentary on the real-world impact of tax havens on economic inequality.

On paper, at least, the Cayman Islands is an economic powerhouse. The latest data from the Internal Revenue Service show that U.S.-based corporations claim that their subsidiaries earn $51 billion a year there, an astonishing figure for an island nation that has a population of just 59,000.

Five reasons why a Universal Basic Income won't solve Technological Unemployment

Details: Written by Henning Meyer / Social Europe; Category: Articles; Created: 04 February 2016

There has been a buzz recently about the idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) and why it could be a solution to technological unemployment. VOX reported a few days ago that Y Combinator, a start-up incubator, is about to start a five-year research project on how a UBI could work. Noah Kulwin over at re/code also has a useful article on this including a broad overview over existing work on the basic income. In the spirit of discussion I’d like to bring together some of the arguments I have made over recent years for why the basic income is not a suitable solution for technological unemployment but another option – a job guarantee – could be. So let’s start with the assumptions.

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