The Accidental Controversialist: Deeper Reflections on Thomas Piketty's "Capital"
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- Written by Thomas I. Palley
- Category: Analysis
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a six hundred and eighty-five page tome that definitively characterizes the empirical pattern of income and wealth inequality in capitalist economies over the past two hundred and fifty years, and especially over the last one hundred. It also documents the grotesque rise of inequality over the past forty years and ends with a call for restoration of high marginal income tax rates and a global wealth tax.
His book has tapped a nerve and become a phenomenon. In laying a solid blow against inequality, Piketty has also become an accidental controversialist. That is because his book has potential to unintentionally trigger debate over so-called "free market" capitalism. The big question is will that happen?
Read more: The Accidental Controversialist: Deeper Reflections on Thomas Piketty's "Capital"
A need for a re-think of the World Bank's policy on tax havens
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- Written by Mathieu Vervynckt/Eurodad
- Category: Analysis
On 7 April, the World Bank Group published a report on the first year of implementation of its policy on the use of Offshore Financial Centres (OFCs) – commonly known as tax havens – in its private sector operations. The report, which comes after repeated calls from civil society organisations for a stronger policy, fails to include the necessary information to make a proper assessment of the Bank’s implementation efforts. Once again, it exposes the inadequacies of the current policy in terms of tackling tax evasion and avoidance.
Read more: A need for a re-think of the World Bank's policy on tax havens
A European FTT
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- Written by EU Council of Ministers
- Category: News
Official press briefing concerning the European FTT at today's meeting of EU ministers of finance ... see p. 9
a sad result ...
A slippery ladder: 2.8 billion people on the brink
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- Written by Shawn Donnan, Ben Bland and John Burn-Murdoch/FT
- Category: Analysis
The precarious rise from poverty of millions in the emerging world.
Muljoko, a 27-year-old cleaner who works in one of Jakarta’s gleaming office towers, has all the trappings of a newly minted member of the middle class. He owns a motorcycle, slings a Sony smartphone and has a futuristic-looking phone-watch strapped to his wrist that he uses to text friends during working hours.
He is infinitely better off than when he was growing up in an impoverished farming village in southern Sumatra. Like millions around the world over the past three decades, Muljoko has risen out of poverty and is now a proud member of Asia’s emerging urban middle class.
And yet, a closer look at his finances – and his aspirations – reveals that his place in the middle class is much more fragile than it seems.
Read more: A slippery ladder: 2.8 billion people on the brink
New data from the International Comparison Program: Is China already the biggest economy?
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- Written by ICP and WB
- Category: Analysis
The International Comparison Program (ICP) released new data today showing that the world economy produced goods and services worth over $90 trillion in 2011, and that almost half of the world’s total output came from low and middle income countries.
Under the authority of the United Nations Statistical Commission, the 2011 round of ICP covered 199 economies - the most extensive effort to measure Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs) across countries ever. ICP 2011 estimates benefited from a number of methodological improvements over past efforts to calculate PPPs.
Read more: New data from the International Comparison Program: Is China already the biggest economy?
Rewriting global tax rules could increase developing countries’ corporate tax revenues by over 100%
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- Written by Winnie Byanyima/Oxfam
- Category: Analysis
“Corporations are rigging the rules and taking advantage of poor countries, fuelling a vicious cycle of inequality. ”
OECD’s current tax action plan is flawed because it excludes poorest countries
The G20’s plan to tackle corporate tax dodging, devised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), needs a radical shake up so that developing countries can capture their fair share of foreign business activity, according to a new report published today by Oxfam.
Social protection: a key to a fair society
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- Written by ITUC
- Category: Documents
ITUC's frontline report 2014 on social protection: a must read
Tame Corporate Power, Reduce Inequality
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- Written by ITUC
- Category: Analysis
ITUC May Day Statement
Building Workers’ Power is vital to drive economic, industrial and social transformation. The international system today is heavily stacked against workers and their families, and governments are increasingly cowered by big finance and big business.
A tiny proportion of the world’s population holds vast power and wealth, while millions upon millions of people have no job or work in precarious and exploitative conditions for little reward.
CIVIL SOCIETY RALLIES TO PREVENT PRIVATIZATION OF POST-2015 PROCESS
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- Written by Luke Holland / CESR
- Category: Analysis
After a lengthy process of consultation and deliberation, talks over the post-2015 sustainable development agenda are now moving into the cut and thrust of practical negotiation. As the process enters this more overtly political phase, there is a very real threat that the voice of powerful actors, especially those from the private sector, may drown out global civil society’s demands for a human rights-based framework, and with it the possibility of a genuinely transformative agenda.
Read more: CIVIL SOCIETY RALLIES TO PREVENT PRIVATIZATION OF POST-2015 PROCESS
28 April: Life and health at work are not an option but a right
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- Written by ITUC
- Category: Analysis
Despite the world’s outcry which followed the death of 1.138 workers in the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory building in Bangladesh a year ago, or the silent death of more than 107,000 workers a year due to asbestos exposure, workers around the world continue to see employers and governments prioritising “competitiveness” or cutting vital inspection and enforcement services and removing regulatory protection over workers’ lives and health.
Read more: 28 April: Life and health at work are not an option but a right
Some Reflections on Thomas Piketty's Capital in the XXIst century
- Details
- Written by Thomas Palley
- Category: Analysis
Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a six hundred and eighty-five page tome that definitively characterizes the empirical pattern of income and wealth inequality in capitalist economies over the past two hundred and fifty years, and especially over the last one hundred. It also documents the grotesque rise of inequality over the past forty years and ends with a call for restoration of high marginal income tax rates and a global wealth tax.
(Also a debate on this same book with Krugman and Stiglitz)
Read more: Some Reflections on Thomas Piketty's Capital in the XXIst century
