Austerity 'kills people'
- Details
- Written by Z Net
- Category: Analysis
Despite assurances by financial elites that austerity economics is a prescription to improve the lives of the masses, research contained in a newly published book shows that the push for steep cuts in wages, social programs, and public health programs is literally killing people throughout Europe and the US.
The book—titled The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills, written by David Stuckler, an Oxford University political economist, and Sanjay Basu, an epidemiologist at Stanford University—uses historical case studies from around the globe and throughout history to show "how government policy becomes a matter of life and death" during deep or prolonged financial crises.
Cheap clothes at cost of life
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- Written by INAM AHMED AND SYED ASHFAQUL HAQUE
- Category: Analysis
Shaheena is finally out of the building, but not alive. Rescuers on Sunday made a frantic effort to pull out Shaheena from the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza. She was alive then. The operation had to be suspended after a fire broke out at the site that day. Her death came as a great shock to everyone at the disaster site yesterday.
“Low prices. Every Day. On everything” — Wal-Mart’s new slogan replaces the old one in circulation since 2007 — “Save money. Live better”.
Both show the sad face of garment business. They also reveal the crux of the problem: when you want to go cheap, your operation will go cheap too.
Africans' remittances outweigh Western aid
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- Written by Mark Doyle / BBC
- Category: Analysis
Africans are helping themselves more than aid workers are, according to new research.
Analysis of cash flows by Hong Kong-based Ghanaian academic Adams Bodomo shows that Africans living outside the continent send more money home to their families than is sent by traditional Western aid donors in what is called Official Development Assistance (ODA).
Large-Scale Multilateral Action On Tax Havens Is Possible
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- Written by EJ Fagan /GFI
- Category: Analysis
Research from Niels Johannesen of the University of Copenhagen and Gabriel Zucman of the Paris School of Economics looks at the result of international agreements taken to prevent tax evasion in the wake of the global financial crisis. The results are not very encouraging for reformers:
Read more: Large-Scale Multilateral Action On Tax Havens Is Possible
Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
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- Written by Matt Taibi - Rolling Stone
- Category: Analysis
(From 'Other News' - Roberto Savio)
The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There's no price the big banks can't fix
Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.
Read more: Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
Globalisation Makes Poor More Vulnerable
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- Written by Ramesh Jaura/IDN
- Category: Analysis
Does globalisation promote development? If you scratch beneath the surface, the answer of OECD researchers to this crucial question in times of financial collapse and its atrocious consequences for the vulnerable sections of people around the world is: globalisation helps the rich get richer and the poor poorer.
POST-2015: «THERE IS A DANGER OF CONSULTATION OVERKILL»
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- Written by Interview with Jens Martens
- Category: Analysis
The UN has launched an extensive worldwide discussion on the new development agenda that is to succeed the Millennium Development Goals in 2015. Jens Martens, long-time observer of international development and environmental policy, cautions in an interview against consultation overkill and calls on NGOs to develop alternatives that go beyond what is currently politically feasible.
Read more: POST-2015: «THERE IS A DANGER OF CONSULTATION OVERKILL»
Common Vison for the World Bank Group
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- Category: News
The World Bank's vision for eradicating poverty by 2030 ... a good moment to remind us that WB's chairman Mc Namara promised in 1973 to eradicate extreme poverty by the year ... 2000
read the document 'A Common Vision for the World Bank Group'
also read the comments of the International Council for Social Welfare:
G20: In favour of growth and fighting tax evasion
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- Category: News
At a meeting of the finance ministers of the G20, an agreement was reached to favour growth (implicitly: to slowly abandon austerity) and to fight tax evasion. Could it be the beginning of real change?
Tax Justice for Social Justice
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- Category: Analysis
At the World Social Forum in March 2013 in Tunis, a Declaration on Tax Justice was adopted that states a couple of basic principles and prepares for common campaigns
ITUC Frontlines Report 2013
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- Written by ITUC
- Category: Analysis
The international trade union denounces the attack on collective bargaining led by the IMF as being 'an ideology without economic evidence'. It denounces its devastating impact on families, communities and economies ... Workers are in the frontline of a war on their living and working conditions.
