Austerity

Why the British said no to Europe

A forewarning came when the Treasurer, George Osborne, the embodiment of both Britain’s ancient regime and the banking mafia in Europe, threatened to cut £30 billion from public services if people voted the wrong way; it was blackmail on a shocking scale.

The Left and the EU: Why Cling to This Reactionary Institution?

Across the Continent, the unelected officials who have usurped the power of national governments and asserted their right to determine the fates of countless millions, through their adherence to the damaging creed of neoliberalism, have wrought suffering on an unimaginable scale, casting millions into poverty and removing the last vestige of dignity people cling to in an economy that has fallen prey to the voracious claims of big business.

Rabbi Michael Lerner at Muhammad Ali’s Funeral

Rabbi Michael Lerner gives us all a lesson in Speaking Truth to Power at Muhammad Ali’s funeral – much to the discomfort of front row audience member Bill Clinton. Touching on justice for Palestinians, a basic income, and challenging Hillary Clinton to reverse America’s murderous foreign policy, Lerner wasn’t ever going to just go after Trump, but spoke of universal […]

Unhappy DWP Staff Telling Us Directly That They Are Unhappy

THE REALITY OF THE SITUATION HAS NOW HIT THEM. Some people mistake the reason why we stand outside Ashton Under Lyne Jobcentre. We stand there in protest of the disgusting regime enforced by the government. We also stand there to help and advise claimants, both are equally important. We don’t stand there shouting, our main purpose is to empower claimants, […]

The Grip of Death

When a profession fails to deliver, people inevitably suffer. When that profession happens to be the study and practice of economics, the entire world suffers.

Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake Wins Palm D’Or: DWP Inhumanity Exposed

DWP Inhumanity Needs to be Challenged Urgently. Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake needs to inspire us all to act against the political and moral debasement of the Tory government: You may have seen the reviews of Ken Loach’s film I, Daniel Blake. It reduced hardened film critics in Cannes to tears with its story about the cruelty that jobcentres and […]

UK media and the legitimisation of austerity policies

By featuring some perspectives whilst excluding others, UK media has played a crucial role in the legitimisation of austerity policies.

The media cannot tell people what to think in a simple manner. However by featuring some perspectives whilst excluding others it plays a crucial role in the legitimisation of policy and the exercise of power.

“Print the Money”: Trump’s “Reckless” Proposal Echoes Franklin and Lincoln

“Print the money” has been called crazy talk, but it may be the only sane solution to a $19 trillion federal debt that has doubled in the last 10 years. The solution of Abraham Lincoln and the American colonists can still work today. “Reckless,” “alarming,” “disastrous,” “swashbuckling,” “playing with fire,” “crazy talk,” “lost in a forest of nonsense”: these are […]

How A Bankrupt Germany Solved Its Infrastructure Problems

“We were not foolish enough to try to make a currency [backed by] gold of which we had none, but for every mark that was issued we required the equivalent of a mark’s worth of work done or goods produced. . . .we laugh at the time our national financiers held the view that the value of a currency is regulated by the gold and securities lying in the vaults of a state bank.”

The War on Savings: The Panama Papers, Bail-Ins, and the Push to Go Cashless

What we may be witnessing here is the 1% going after the 10% of people who, according to German researcher Margrit Kennedy, do not need to borrow but are “net savers.” Today the remaining 90% are “all borrowed up.” Either they are unwilling to borrow more or the banks are unwilling to lend to them, since they are poor credit risks. Who, then, is left to feed the machine that feeds the 1%, and more specifically the 0.001%?