Interesting, that an organisation that represents the richest people in the World, should publish a report on inequality, which has been caused by its members. The World Economic Foundation (WEF) has done little to improve equality or to combat climate change. If anything, things have got worse, since the publication of ‘The Spirit Level’ in 2009: https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/the-spirit-level!
In fact, things have only got worse since the formation of the Club of Rome (1970) and the publication of its report ‘Limits to Growth’ 1972: http://www.donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Limits-to-Growth-digital-scan-version.pdf.
The same can be said about the United Nations, Brundtland Report, ‘Our Common Future’, 1987: http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf. An issue, with the Brundtland Report, was that it pushed Growth, as answer, which is what the WEF does, so well!
What is the real purpose of this new report, more ‘smoke and mirrors’?
Recovering the early economic programmes of Die Grünen
The UK’s Sustainable Development Commission (disbanded by the present Conservative Government) produced a report called Prosperity without Growth in 2009. I do not know, if they used any of the material from the earlier Die Grünen economic programmes (link below) from the eighties? But it is a pity that the German Green Party, that recognised that continued growth, could not continue, broke up. And that we just seem to be recycling old ideas, without them materialising into actions.
Back in 2011, at the UK’s Green Party conference in Cardiff. At a fringe meeting, Equality without Growth, the author of the Prosperity without Growth, Tim Jackson. Spoke about the need for the Green Party to show real leadership, by pushing forward an agenda for Degrowth. Something that was needed as the Global North was suffering from the financial melt-down. Unfortunately, the UK’s Green Party promotes the continued pursuit of economic growth!
Source: Recovering the early economic programmes of Die Grünen
‘NYT’ and ‘NYRB’ publish important pieces on Jewish terrorism
The New York Times and New York Review of Books have published big important pieces describing Jewish terrorism in Israel and its occupied territories, but both pieces are romantic, and propose to save Zionism and Israel from this inherent element.
Source: ‘NYT’ and ‘NYRB’ publish important pieces on Jewish terrorism
“Numbers should be a light, not a crutch”
Unfortunately, the use of percentages (%) instead of hard figures is used within all Government departments including the NHS (National Health Service). Even the Health Protection Agency HPA), in their reply to a planning application for a biomass incinerator in Davyhulme, Trafford. Stated it was acceptable because it would only increase the local death rates by 0.06 per year.
application predicts that the particulate emissions from the plant would result in a 0.011% increase in deaths brought forward (paragraph 12.180). This is also expressed as 0.06 deaths brought forward per annum for this population. The applicant considers this impact “would not be noticeable”.
Of course, any increase in the local death rate is totally unacceptable. And, yet we have a Government department, the HPA, supposedly responsible for the protection of human health finding it acceptable. Though they put it as, ‘would not be noticable’!
We also have the use of percentages, when they talk about ‘fracking fluid’. The highly toxic cocktail of water, sand and chemicals they use in high-pressure hydraulic fracturing of shale gas. Hydraulic fracturing for shale gas is likely to involve the use of large quantities of clean water, typically 10,000 to 30,000 m3 water per well (10,000,000 to 30,000,000 litres). Which is mixed with sand, around 5% and other fluids at around 2%. Which makes it sound as miniscule amount, until you do the maths and 2% = 300,000 to 600,000 litres of highly toxic and carcenigenic fluidsbeing added. Which has the potentail to seep into aquifers and pollute drinking water.
As the blog below ststaes, it is time the Government stopped hiding behind percentages, and gave clear figures that people can clearly understand.
Global tax evasion, equality and quantitative easing…
I would disagree with comment that UKIP has grown considerably. The media and especially the BBC, have given Farage and UKIP, disproportionately more publicity than they deserve. Whilst the Green Party, with an MP since 2010, a number of MEPs, control of Brighton and considerable influence in some other councils. Does not get the media response it deserves, even being denied again, a place at a leaders debate on BBC TV. It is not just Murdoch’s media empire that is an obstacle to true democracy.
The Group of twenty (G20) committed to finding a global solution for tax evasion after the financial crisis, and in 2009 it agreed to make arrangements for the exchanging of tax information between tax administrations around the world. In October this year the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the G20 officially endorsed the automatic exchange of tax information between all OECD and G20 countries as well as major financial centres that participate in the annual meeting of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes in Berlin. A status report on committed and not committed countries or jurisdictions and whether they will start reporting information in 2017 or 2018, is to be presented to G20 leaders during the annual summit held in Brisbane in less than two weeks. Australia along with thirty-eight other countries that include China, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong have…
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The Republican, Issue One
An interesting article about the Peterloo Massacre and one of the important people Richard Carlile, fighting for democracy in the UK. Something that is still, sadly lacking, due to the ‘first-past-the-post’ system. Unfortunately, far too many middle-class, so-called socialist, think Marxism is the only socialist movement the UK had. Marx plagiarised the work of early British, French and German socialists, to produce a work of contradictions.
The Republican Issue One
The Republican was first published on this day, August 27th, 1819. Its creator was Richard Carlile, who was one of the intended speakers at the St Peter’s Fields reform meeting before the yeomanry transformed the occasion into the Peterloo Massacre. Shocked by the spectacle of unarmed men women and children being cut to pieces just because they wanted to hear a bit more about democracy, Carlile wrote an account of the event for Sherwin’s Weekly Political Register which led to his instant prosecution.
The Prince Regent also put pen to paper. He took the initiative of writing personally to congratulate the troops on how promptly and efficiently they had put the plebs to the sword.
(You see, soldiers who slaughter civilians aren’t committing a crime. People who point that soldiers slaughter civilians are the real criminals.)
Carlile changed the name of his paper to
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Peterloo Massacre 195th Anniversary
August 16th was the 195th Anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre, and a commemoration of the event was held on the 17th August 2014, on Windmill Street on the edge of the original site. A number of different groups had walked in from other parts of Lancashire to represent the original marches to join the Peterloo Rally.
Maxine Peake had appeared the year before at the Manchester International Festival, doing a reading of Shelley’s Masque of Anarchy
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A number of Ancoats Dispensary Trust and supporters, were at the event.
Growing inequality
The Institute of Fiscal Studies has published a report comparing this year to that of 1977, the Silver Jubilee year. Of course it does not tells us anything anyone with common sense does not already know, that those on a the higher payer bracket are getting considerable more in comparison to the majority.
They highlight the inequality by using the median not average as most politicians and media use, and state:
There are numerous ways of illustrating the way in which the gap between
the rich and the poor has increased. In 1977, the person 90% of the way up
the income distribution had an income 1.7 times as high as the person in
the middle of the distribution and 3.0 times as high as the person just
10% of the way up the distribution. By 2009–10, this person at the 90th
percentile had an income more than twice the median and more than four
times as high as the person at the 10th percentile.
The figures for those at the very top are even more dramatic. The income
share of the richest 1% has nearly trebled. Even after tax, the richest 1% of
households took home nearly 9% of all income in 2009–10 compared with
3% in 1977.
The also mention how the make-up of the workforce has changed with more women in work than men. And of course, the type of work has shifted to banking and public services. Another issue is education, with education leading to more equality. Looking at their figures, the opposite has happened in this country.
In 2011, nearly a quarter of the working-age population – and a third of
those aged 25 to 30 – were in possession of a degree. Only 3% had a
degree back in the late 1970s. The change has been more dramatic for
women than for men. Proportions of men and women with degrees are
now the same. In 1977, only two women in a hundred were educated to
degree level compared with five in a hundred men. At the same time, the
advantage conferred by having a degree in terms of higher earnings has
actually increased. The huge increase in the supply of graduates has been
more than matched by an increase in demand.
At the other end of the educational spectrum in 1977, nearly 80% of
working-age people had left school at 16 or earlier, compared with just
over 40% now.
Though in their summary, they appear to downplay the inequality and state that materially we are better of. Not those at the bottom, who are struggling to heat their homes and have enough nutritional food on the table.
patricktsudlow 