Entries from Byline Portal tagged with 'Economy'
Pieces of Junk are the Choice in Crisis Time
by Valentina Ovalles R., El Universal, Venezuela - The González family was leaving the country. One fine day, on visit to the Museum of Transport, they found a Sunday antique market. They contacted one of the sellers and while they...
Isolation Devastates East Jerusalem Economy
by Jillian Kestler-D'Amours, IPS, Italy - Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of...
Chileans Debate Whether Wealth Weighs in Glaciers or Gold
by Kalynne Dakin, Global Voices, Netherlands - Two of humankind’s most treasured resources–water and gold–have instigated a conflict between an indigenous community and a Canadian mining company over an isolated swath of Chile’s Atacama region....
Hong Kong Political Veteran Elsie Tu Criticises Tycoons With No Conscience
by Colleen Lee, South China Morning Post, China - Political veteran Elsie Tu laments the widening income disparity in Hong Kong and has taken a shot at tycoons who have no conscience. The former lawmaker and urban councillor, who turns...
Bloody Compact Discs: Thatcher's Detractors Came From All Classes
by Olga Khazan, Atlantic, USA - Margaret Thatcher died of a stroke this morning at the age of 87, but not everyone is mourning. Though she was revered by many, some Britons are marking the death of a woman who...
Economy in Motion
by Lídice Valenzuela, Latinamerican Press, Peru - Two years after the reforms to the Cuban socioeconomic model began, one must ask: have substantial changes to the life of this Caribbean nation of 11 million people been observed? What is missing...
Women Make Flowers Pay
by Catherine Wilson, IPS, Italy - In Honiara, capital of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, women are taking the lead in developing a burgeoning floriculture industry. At the same time, their enterprise is contributing to community resilience as...
Making Connections: From Shock And Awe To Wall Street
by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Eurasia Review, Spain - When we occupied Freedom Plaza in October, 2011, we made the connection between US Empire and the corporate control of our political process, between unlimited military spending and cuts to...
Is the ‘China Dream’ Really a ‘Strong Military Dream’?
by Rachel Wang, Tea Leaf Nation, China/USA - On March 3, an article entitled “Focusing and Building up a ‘Strong Military’ Dream” appeared on the front page of the PLA Daily. At first glance, the article appeared to be a...
Italian Elections: Europe's Lost Generation Finds Its Voice
by Fiona Ehlers, Julia Amalia Heyer, Mathieu von Rohr and Helene Zuber, Der Spiegel, Germany - For years, Europe's young have grown increasingly furious as the euro crisis has robbed them of a future. The emergence of Beppe Grillo's party...
In Search of Independence for African Waters
by Chika Ezeanya, Pambazuka, Kenya - The African Union is at the conclusive stages of fashioning an African cabotage regime that will ensure that only vessels owned by Africans will trade within the continent’s coastal waters....
Renowned French Economist to Join Obama’s Team
by Aude Mazoue, France 24, France - France’s Esther Duflo, a star economist who was once named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, has been nominated by US President Barack Obama to help shape US...
Good-Enough Racial Equality at World Bank
by Adrienne Smith, Pambazuka, Kenya - The effort to abolish racial discrimination within the World Bank largely depends on the whims of its president and his perception of what is good enough for blacks....
Young French Losing Hope as Prospects Fade
by Julia Amalia Heyer, Der Spiegel, Germany - As in other struggling European economies, the youth of France face dire prospects. Some 26 percent are unemployed, and almost as many live in poverty. Though the problem has been there for...
Low-Income Americans Are Facing the Real Cliff
by Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC, USA - If Congress can’t reach a deal by New Year’s, 2.1 million people will be kicked off unemployment benefits. Not only would that be catastrophic for millions of low-income families across the country, it could...
EU Nations Agree to Eurozone Banking Union
by Olivia Salazar Winspear, France 24, France - EU finance ministers reached an agreement on Thursday granting the European Central Bank new powers to supervise eurozone lenders beginning in early 2014, in what is Europe’s first major step toward a...
Children in Britain Are Going Hungry – Where Are Their Defenders?
by Zoe Williams, Guardian, UK - Charities are trying to grout the gaps left by government cuts, but they can't afford to upset their major funder....
Why Bankers Rule the World
by Ellen Brown, Asia Times, Hong Kong - In the 2012 edition of Occupy Money released this month, Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35% to 40% of everything we buy goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers,...
The Poor Will Be the First over the Fiscal Cliff
by Bryce Covert, The Nation, USA - The bottom 20 percent of Americans will see their taxes go up by an average of $209, reducing their after-tax income by nearly 2 percent. The top 40 percent, however, will only see...
The Debate about Wealth Must Start with Morals
by Zoe Williams, Guardian, UK - Of the many lessons from history the obvious ones are, firstly, that the market will decide – but always, for some queer reason, in favour of the person who's already winning....
Serbia Sinks into Depression
by Vesna Peric Zimonjic, IPS, Italy - “Roughly a third of the population has experienced mental disorder due to the current economic crisis that has taken its toll in the form of unemployment and growing poverty,” Nadja Maric Bojovic, head...
Nanna and Pop’s Unpaid Labour Keeping the Economy Ticking
by Angela Priestley, Women's Agenda, Australia - The shortfalls in structured childcare become clear when so many parents are turning to their own parents for assistance -- whether it's the prohibiting costs, location, opening hours or sourcing a reasonable childcare...
Syria Banks Pay Price of War with First Losses
by Hadeel al Sayegh, The National, UAE - Months of violent conflict are weighing heavily on Syria's banking sector with many branches closing their doors and foreign lenders chalking up big losses....
Generation Nixed: Why Canada’s Youth Are Losing Hope for the Future
by Tavia Grant and Janet McFarland, Globe & Mail, Canada - Crippling debt to buy credentials no one wants. Low-paying, short-term jobs that put middle-class prosperity out of reach. And, for good measure, the prospect of a penurious retirement....
A New Wave of Stores Keep German Villages Alive
by Renuka Rayasam, Der Spiegel, Germany - German villages are slowly dwindling and residents are suffering as they lose places to meet and shop within walking distance of their homes. Now concerned villagers are trying to stabilize bleeding populations by...
Sanctions Are Pushing Iran towards Nuclear Talks, Just Not US Sanctions
by Heidi Moore, Guardian, UK - Sanctions against Iran are working but you won't have heard that at the presidential debate – because the US has Europe to thank....
The Brasilia Consensus, a Model for Latin America
by Estrella Gutiérrez, IPS, Italy - Following the extreme neoliberalism of the Washington Consensus, which gave rise to a lost decade in social terms, Latin America is experimenting more successfully with a home-grown formula: the Brasilia Consensus, which combines the...
Actually, Iran Sanctions Aren't Working
by Dina Esfandiary, Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic - There are two misconceptions about sanctions on Iran and the country’s currency crisis: one, that sanctions are the only cause for the rial’s free fall in value last week. And two,...
Portuguese Women — Poorly Rewarded for Good Education
by Isabel Nery, Visão, Portugal - In a single generation, Portuguese women cleared away obstacles impeding their ability to receive a genuine education. But they must still break through the glass ceiling in the public and private sector workplaces where...
Dear Hanna Rosin: I'm Doing Fine! Love, the Patriarchy
by Bryce Covert, The Nation, USA - The purpose of feminism was never to win a battle of us versus them. Remember the slogan “A world that is good for women is good for everyone”? The point is equality—which is...
Thousands March in Paris against 'Austerity'
by Rachel Holman, France 24, France - Chanting "resistance", demonstrators took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to protest against austerity policies and Europe’s new budget treaty, in the first major demonstration since President François Hollande took power four...
The TPP: A Quiet Coup for the Investor Class
by Hilary Matfess, Foreign Policy in Focus, USA - American democracy is in a sorry state when corporations are granted more access to even the text of sweeping government agreements than the public and its elected officials. Although corporate influence...
Qatar Pours Cash into France’s Troubled Suburbs
by Rachel Holman, France 24, France - The French government announced earlier this week that it would contribute to a fund to economically reinvigorate the country’s disadvantaged suburbs, or “banlieues” as they’re known in France. While on the surface the...
Europe Flees from “Arab Winter”
by Barbara Spinelli, La Repubblica, Italy - The anti-Western demonstrations in Arab countries and the turn the "Arab Spring" is taking in several countries are shouting out a challenge to Europe. But Europe, looking inward to its economic and institutional...
India's Politics Rule - Economy Be Damned
by Swati Lodh Kundu, Asia Times, Hong Kong - With the aim of staying relevant for their constituencies so that they can be re-elected in the next term, the focus is increasingly on undertaking populist measures which leads to immediate...
Why the ‘Mommy Wars’ Is a War against Women
by Anne Kingston, Maclean's, Canada - Pitting women who work against women who stay at home isn’t the solution—unless the goal is to avoid talking about complex issues and to force women to identify themselves exclusively through a domestic and...
Germany: Living to Responsibility
by Yekaterina Kudashkina, Voice of Russia, Russia - The eurozone took a great sigh of relief Wednesday as the German Constitutional Court ruled that the German President Joachim Gauck could sign the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and fiscal pact into...
Family Well-Being Tied to Men's Work Lives
by Joan C. Williams and Anne-Marie Slaughter, SF Gate, USA - "As long as it's viewed as more 'manly' for men to prepare for marathons than to spend time with their children, those of us who want an ambitious career...
The Myth That Japan Is Broke: The World's Largest "Debtor" Is Now the World's Largest Creditor
by Ellen Brown, Truthout, USA - Japan's massive government debt conceals massive benefits for the Japanese people, with lessons for the US debt "crisis."...
Health for All
by Zubeida Mustafa, Zubeida Mustafa, Pakistan - It is said that modern healthcare is accessible to only 15 per cent of the population of Pakistan. In other words, nearly 150 million men, women and children in this country are denied...
Berlin Restores Realpolitik
by Adriana Cerretelli, Il Sole-24 Ore, Italy - Neither Berlin, nor its northern allies, nor Mario Draghi’s ECB intend to reduce the pressure that they believe to be necessary for the restoration of the stability, cohesion and credibility of the...
Black Autumn for the Euro
by Teresa de Sousa, Público, Portugal - If August was relatively reassuring on the sovereign debt front, the signals that we are moving towards a “Black September” for the euro are getting stronger. The distrust between the "virtuous" states and...
'There Is No Reason to Wait for Revolution. It Is Here Already in Each of Us'
by Rebecca Walker, Guardian, UK - Author Rebecca Walker outlines a utopian vision of a world after capitalism underpinned by a moral and spiritual revolution....
How the Private Sector Didn’t Solve Ghana’s Water Crisis
by Judith Amanthis, Pambazuka, Kenya - Ghana is a wealthy country, as is Africa as a whole. Government investment, rather than privatisation or international aid, offers the best solution for water services in Ghana....
Marieme Jamme: Shaping Africa's Tech Revolution
by Robyn Curnow, CNN, USA - Senegalese-born Marieme Jamme is at the forefront of the technology revolution that is slowly transforming Africa. As chief executive of Spot One Global Solutions, a UK-based company that helps information technology organizations gain a...
Employment Eludes Kashmir's Youth
by Prerna Suri, Al Jazeera, Qatar - No new industries coming up in Indian-administered state, which is still feeling the effects of civil unrest....
Big Problems But a Big Future
by Elizabeth Donnelly, Chatham House, UK - Whether by accident or design, Nigeria is destined to become Africa’s largest economy. The kind of economic growth it will experience in the coming years and the extent to which this will transform...
Juarez Rebounds...Sort of
by Sarah Hill, Boston Review, USA - Juarez, Mexico is slowly recovering from decades of violent crime fueled by drug cartels....
Occupied Palestine: Making the Abnormal Normal
by Georgina Reeves, The Palestine Chronicle, USA - Minor inconveniences can mean major delays in occupied Palestine, where daily life is anything but normal....
EU’s Leaders Roam Uncharted Waters
by Melle Garschagen, NRC Handelsblad, The Netherlands - If Europe as a whole cuts back and taxes are raised, the economy won’t grow. This will fuel unemployment, the slump will worsen in the short term, and resistance against reform will...
Medical Bills Drive Many U.S. Women into Debt
by Maggie Fox, MSNBC, USA - “Women, particularly those in their childbearing years, are uniquely at risk for being unable to afford the care they need, having trouble with medical bills, and having high out-of-pocket costs,” said Commonwealth Fund vice...
African Nations Agree to Put a Price on Nature
by Ola Al-Ghazawy and Aisling Irwin, SciDev Net, UK - Ten African nations have pledged, ahead of Rio+20, to include the economic value of natural resources in their national accounts....
Women Must Be at the Forefront of Rio+20, and Beyond
by Isabelle de Grave, IPS, Italy - Unlocking women’s energies and allowing them to become drivers of change could fuel the motor of sustainable development. The question is whether world leaders meeting at the Rio+20 summit in Brazil will squander...
New French Government Partially Lowers Pension Age
by Shirli Sitbon, France 24, France - France's Socialist government said Wednesday it moved to lower the retirement age to 60 for those who began working when they were very young, partially undoing an unpopular and much-protested reform of recently-departed...
How to Leave Your (Euro) Lover
by Ellen Brown, Asia Times, Hong Kong - The treaties binding the 17 member nations are just a set of rules, entered into by mutual agreement; and rules can be bent or broken, especially in crises. The European Central Bank...
Syrian War Profiteers Cash In on Insurgency
by Nadia Bitar, Der Spiegel, Germany - EU sanctions were designed to undermine rich businesspeople propping up the Assad regime in Syria. But they are actually helping entrepreneurs with close ties to the government. Syrian profiteers are cashing in by...
Cambodia's Orphan Business
by Juliana Ruhfus, Al Jazeera, Qatar - Well-intentioned volunteers have helped to create a surge in the number of residential care homes as impoverished parents are tempted into giving up their children in response to promises of a Western-style upbringing...
Was It Just a Mirage Then?
by Lola Nayar, Outlook, India - With the economy in a bind and the government clueless and apathetic, the Indian middle class sees its dreams unravel....
Turkey: Contradictions
by Nicole Pope, Today's Zaman, Turkey - The prime minister’s idyllic depiction of loving mothers surrounded by numerous children may appeal to traditionalists, but it is increasingly at odds with the realities of life in modern, largely urban, Turkey. Demographic...
A Laboratory for the Advancement of Women
by Anna Reimann, Der Spiegel, Germany - The heated political debate continues in Germany over whether or not the country needs a gender quota at the highest levels of the private sector. Norway introduced such measures years ago -- and...
10 Things Billionaires Probably Don't Want You To Know
by Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks, Huffington Post, USA - Our money-obsessed society tends to celebrate great wealth as evidence of exceptional talent, innovation or accomplishment. In reality, spectacular fortunes are more likely the result of luck, ruthlessness, cheating, or...
Beautiful Venezuela: Tourism with a Social Conscience
by Tamara Pearson, Venezuela Analysis, Venezuela - Its contextualised tourism aimed at fomenting community organisation, encouraging environmental and ecological awareness and appreciation, rescuing local culture and collective history, and promoting solidarity and knowledge exchange between countries and regions....
E-tolling Threatens South Africa's Credit Rating
by Lisa Steyn, Mail & Guardian, South Africa - The controversial e-tolling of Gauteng's major highways could very well tip South Africa's credit rating over the edge, ratings agency Moody's says....
Banks Could Sink the Euro
by Caroline de Gruyter, NRC Handelsblad, The Netherlands - Forget the debate about austerity versus growth, the future of the single currency is being played out in the banking sector. As a result of the crisis, governments and financial institutions...
May Day and the Revolution of Everyday Life
by Marina Sitrin, Yes!, USA - We are now again a part of the rest of the globe, where May Day is a day to celebrate our power—people's power, that of workers, precarious and unionized, immigrants and migrants, radicals of...
Work in Germany – a Nightmare for Bulgarians
by Katharina Iskandar, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany - With the promise of jobs and income, more and more Bulgarians are being lured to Germany. There, however, they run into race-to-the-bottom wages and illegal accommodation. Frankfurt has become the centre of...
Indignado Generation Finds Happiness Abroad
by Aleksandra Lipczak, Polityka, Poland - Thousands of young people, often educated, are leaving Portugal and Spain. Europe doesn’t need them while Africa and South America receive them with open arms....
The Real War on Moms
by Irin Carmon, Salon, USA - The Romneys and other Republicans have nothing to offer parents other than manufactured outrage....
Europe's Pain Is Coming America's Way
by Frida Ghitis, CNN, USA - It's a good bet that just as Europe has come up against the reality that deficits cannot grow forever, so too will America. Investors, who have taken losses in the European debacle, will start...
Crunch Time in Zimbabwe's Banking Sector
by Tendai Marima, Al Jazeera, Qatar - A liquidity crisis in the southern African country highlights the urgent need for banking and regulatory reforms....
What Future for a Greece in Crisis?
by Kirsty Hughes, OpenDemocracy, UK - An early spring Sunday afternoon in Athens finds tourists and Greeks alike chattering away in cafes and on terraces soaking up the sunshine. But a walk around the centre soon reveals boarded up shops...
Emigration – a Beautiful Mirage
by Patrícia Carvalho, Público, Portugal - Along with a lost generation of young people in low-paid and insecure jobs, the crisis is now pushing couples with families to seek work elsewhere in Europe. Unfortunately, arriving in foreign countries ill-prepared, not...
Sex, Reproduction, and the MDGs
by Mandy Van Deven, RH Reality Check, USA - Why Funding for Reproductive Health Care is Critical to Combatting Global Poverty...
For a New Highway, from Rio to Delhi
by Estefanía Marchán, The Hindu, India - Brazil and India can benefit from each other's experience for an inclusive development agenda....
Black Sheep of Finance
by Ellen Brown, Asia Times, Hong Kong - When we remove our myopic US blinders, it turns out that globally, not only are publicly owned banks quite common but that countries with strong public banking sectors generally have strong, stable...
Feeling of Family Fades as Expatriates Scattered to the Wind
by Maryam Ismail, The National, United Arab Emirates - As the search for a better life spreads us across the world, I somehow feel like an old Roman citizen of the empire, where one could move from the Iberian Peninsula...
The Richer Sex
by Cathy Gulli, Macleans, Canada - One-third of women now earn more than their husbands, and not everyone is happy....
Youth Unemployment: South Africa's Ticking Bomb
by Claire Price, Mail & Guardian, South Africa - "We have seen in almost every direction around Johannesburg, periodic violent protest actions led by young people and women, the two sections of the community that bear the brunt of that...
Greece Lurches to Left Amid Radical Austerity
by Julia Amalia Heyer, Der Spiegel, Germany - A radical austerity drive has triggered the biggest political upheaval in Athens since the end of the military dictatorship in 1974. So far, it is leftist parties who have benefitted the most...
2012: The Year of the Cooperative
by Jessica Reeder, Yes!, USA - The United Nations has named 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives, and indeed, co-ops seem poised to become a dominant business model around the world....
Any Strategy for Growth Must Include Decent Childcare for All
by Polly Toynbee, Guardian, UK - Reversing our dwindling birthrate would do much more for the economy than making people work longer into old age....
Freeganism: The Final Frontier?
by Lisa Steyn, Mail & Guardian, South Africa - Rather than contributing to further waste, freegans aim to curtail garbage and pollution by reclaiming and using discarded goods....
Bridge Southern Europe and the Mediterranean
by Robin Niblett and Claire Spencer, InDepthNews, Canada - The Mediterranean stands as a dividing line between a prosperous Europe and a poor North Africa at a time when deeper economic ties could provide part of the solution to both...
Iran Sanctions Good for Business in Tiny Omani Port
by Juliane von Mittelstaedt, Der Spiegel, Germany - The West's sanctions against Iran have made it harder for people there to get their hands on various luxury goods. But, for the inhabitants of a tiny Omani port just across the...
Even Educated Young Women Face Poor, Jobless Future
by Guadalupe Cruz Jaimes, IPS, Italy - 2012 will be a "very challenging" year for Mexico in terms of job creation, as Chinese goods begin flooding the country as a result of the implementation of a trade agreement that opens...
Jumps in Food Price Trigger Calls for Derivative Regulation
by Anke Rasper, Deutsche Welle, Germany - Price hikes for staple foods hit poor people in developing countries the hardest. Speculation is part of the reason why food prices are peaking again and leaving nearly a billion people without adequate...
China: Building a Cultural Front against the West
by Antoaneta Becker, IPS, Italy - President Hu Jintao of China made headlines in the early days of the new year saying China and the West were engaged in an escalating culture war, and calling on Chinese people to strengthen...
Is the Eurozone Crisis Changing EU-China Relations?
by Alicia Sorroza, Real Instituto Elcano, Spain - The economic and financial crisis affecting Europe seems to be changing the map of the interests involved in the EU-China relationship....
Thoughts on Why Energy Use and CO2 Emissions Are Rising as Fast as GDP
by Gail Tverberg, Our Finite World, USA - World industrial production has self-organized in a way that assigns different roles to companies operating in the three country groups, as a way to minimize manufacturing costs. Over the long term, this...
The Inequality Behind Chile’s Prosperity
by Silvia Viñas, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, USA - Despite dire statistics on Chile’s inequality, the country’s prosperity cannot be denied and its steady economic growth is looked upon with admiration during the current financial crisis. Nevertheless, unless it effectively...
Jayati Ghosh Receives ILO Decent Work Research Prize
by Jayati Ghosh, International Labor Organization, Switzerland - Professor Ghosh called for an urgent shift in economic policy to reduce inequality and address the needs and aspirations of working people....
Politicans and Business Close Ranks Against Berlusconi
by Fiona Ehlers, Der Spiegel, Germany - Things are getting lonely at the top for Silvio Berlusconi. After members of his own party distanced themselves from the Italian prime minister, business owners are now calling for his resignation....
Europe’s Financial Flop Fund
by Cerstin Gammelin, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany - The EFSF was meant to save the single currency. And yet it has found no buyers. Investors are shying away from a complicated, uncertain financial product whose weaknesses the politicians are trying to...
Emerging Economies Join G20 Coalition to Tax Speculation
by Sarah Anderson, Institute for Policy Studies, USA - Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have been the strongest supporters of taxing financial transactions for nearly two years. A few months ago, the European Commission also reversed its earlier opposition...
Balancing Act
by Nicole Pope, Today's Zaman, Turkey - The wide gender disparity on the economic front could have a long-term impact on the sustainability of Turkey's growth. The WEF tracks the male/female ratio in countries around the world because it believes...
'People’s Forum' Brings Optimism ahead of G20
by Aurore Cloe Dupuis, France 24, France - Protesters and NGOs marching in Nice on Tuesday ahead of the G20 summit in Cannes say growing anti-capitalist protest movements are a great cause for hope....
Children of Immigrants Hit an Economic Ceiling
By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times, USA - Even the well-educated find it tough to earn middle-class wages, and some end up in the farm fields where their parents toiled to give them better lives....
Local Money Creates Wealth Outside the Bubble
by Mira Luna, Shareable, USA - Where national currency is not available because of overall scarcity or there is not enough market value for the work, local currencies can create real, tangible wealth we can see and control. Investing in...
Fear Is Gobbling up Politics
by Brigitte Fehrle, Frankfurter Rundschau, Germany - Out of fear and ignorance, the politicians have been trying since the beginning of the financial crisis to beat the financial markets with their own weapons – and they can still flourish many...
How to Make Inequality Obsolete
by Linda McQuaig, The Star, Canada - Already, the occupiers have made an economic system that has dominated for the past 30 years — based on unbridled greed at the top and indifference to the well-being of the bottom 99...
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