Economics

A particularly insightful opinion piece by Giles Fraser [1] for the Guardian reminds us that “In the 1980s, for example, the Greeks spent an average of 6.2% of their GDP on defence compared with a European average of 2.9%. In…

On the evening of Friday 3rd July, thousands of people gathered in Berlin for a demonstration under the slogan “Nein! Oxi! No! to austerity – Yes to Democracy!”. Organized by Blockupy Berlin, a broad section of the population and followers…

By the Jubilee Debt Campaign Greece’s debt crisis is coming to a head. On Sunday, Greeks will vote on whether to accept the further round of austerity ‘offered’ by the institutions last Friday – a deal which would bind Greece…

Going to Worlk from the TUC [UK’s Trades Union Congress] is campaigning for a rejection of the revised Investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS tribunals in the Free Trade Agreement between the EU and the US. “The vote is back on…

As the days count down to the 5th of July and the Greek referendum on whether to accept Europe’s demands for more austerity, which looks increasingly like a referendum on whether to stay in the Euro or leave it, our…

Human Wrongs Watch Development cannot be sustainable if it does not address the challenge of climate change, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 29 June 2015 told Member States as he opened a High-Level Event on Climate Change convened in…

There is endless commentary in the media about which way Greeks should vote to avoid an apocalypse. Some say Greeks should continue to accept the conditions required by the IMF, the European Central Bank and the European Commission. Others say…

We reproduce here some views from Podemos and Nobel Laureate in Economics Joseph Stiglitz In view of the situation in Greece, and following the breakdown in the negotiations by the Eurogroup, Podemos wishes to communicate the following: 1.- Last Monday,…

…when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know…

While third-party certification systems for organic products are doing an excellent job at what they were designed for and have vastly increased the global market and awareness of organic products, Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) offer a complementary, low-cost, locally-based system…