Epochal nature of financial crisis must be grasped by unions
Richard Seymour — July 1, 2010 2 Comments
The truly epochal nature of this crisis needs to be registered before a proportionate response can be mustered, and I have the sinking feeling that as far as the labour movement is concerned, the last people to get it will be the union bureaucracy
Economics
Britain’s nasty government
Richard Seymour — June 28, 2010 0 Comments
At the moment, polls show that the government’s strategy is working, and that most people acquiesce in the cuts agenda. I would say ‘support’, rather than acquiesce, but this would imply that the agenda was being approved rather than met with terrorised compliance
Economics
Jan Nederveen Pieterse on Globalization and Empire
Matt Kennard — June 20, 2010 2 Comments
The fundamentals of American weakness are its shrinking share of world manufacturing, its gargantuan consumption, low savings rate, faulty policies (massive military spending, massive war spending, deep tax cuts) and gigantic financial deficits. Some problems are structural (high American health care costs are a function of lack of restraint on pharmaceutical industries and reflect the large influence of business interests); this prompts outsourcing, which further weakens the American economy. The military interventions are destabilizing (increase risks for others) and costly (adding to American economic problems) and erode American legitimacy. So the problems are not merely overstretch
Economics
Overbearing directives and privatisation have left UK mired in debt
Alex Meikle — June 20, 2010 1 Comment
Despite three decades of attempting to restrain public spending by a succession of governments, incluing the new Coalition government, it has gone on rising. Why?
Economics, Politics
Chinese workers kick back
Richard Seymour — June 16, 2010 0 Comments
The Chinese working class is on the move: there is a wave of strikes taking place across China, and they’re winning. Workers at Honda have won a 30% pay increase in the latest strike affecting that company, while workers at FoxConn have reportedly been offered a 100% increase in ‘basic pay’ (with strings attached) after strikes and a string of employee suicides
Economics, Politics
China’s new strategy for African minerals
Matt Kennard — June 1, 2010 1 Comment
“It is no big secret that it’s the ambition of many junior exploration companies to discover a good deposit, de-risk it, then have a mining major approach you and your shareholders with an attractive offer,” said Mark Parker, managing director of African Eagle, an exploration company working in Africa. “Obviously, with China’s current voracious appetite for raw materials, Chinese companies are the obvious suitors at the moment.”
Economics
Japan’s eikaiwa industry in serious trouble after the bankruptcy of GEOS
Jordan Pearson — May 25, 2010 7 Comments
There once was a time when recent university graduates could escape to Japan to stave-off adulthood and responsibility for a few more years while making a decent living and paying off their student loans. The days of this glorious loophole in adult life are now all but over with the bankruptcy of Japan’s largest remaining language school, Geos less than three years after the spectacular collapse of Japan’s biggest language school chain, Nova Corporation. This latest bankruptcy from an industry giant surely signals the final nail in the coffin of the large scale eikaiwa (English conversation school) industry.
Economics
Willie Walsh is trying to bust the union
Richard Seymour — May 24, 2010 0 Comments
The cabin crew staff, for their part, have been patient and tolerant. They have accepted voluntary redundancies and wages cuts. BA workers have even worked for free when asked to do so. That is a staggering act of generosity toward their employers, an investment in the future of the company, which has been rewarded with outright malice and contempt. It is all the more astonishing when you consider that cabin crew salaries start at £12k a year, which is just on the poverty threshold. They have sought agreement at every stage and have been consistently rebuffed, and their good faith betrayed. They are at the end of their tether, forced to strike action by an aggressive management intent on smashing the union
Economics
Joseph Stiglitz on the left turn in Latin America and the privatization of Iraq
Matt Kennard — April 27, 2010 4 Comments
I think we live in a different world than we lived in the 1980s. In the 1980s the CIA could get away with change of regimes that it didn’t like in other countries. We are in a different world, and we are in a world in which that kind of strategy risks backfiring. And it happened in Venezuela: after the US attempted coup, Chavez’s electoral vote increased markedly, and I think it’s partly because countries don’t like the US coming in and changing their government from the outside. No matter where it is, in general it’s not welcome
Economics, Editor's Pick
Resource nationalism is back
Matt Kennard — April 13, 2010 1 Comment
And analysis of the two rounds of oil and gas contracts in Iraq shows that US companies won only two of the 18 contracts, both in joint ventures with other companies. Of the 18 contracts, three received no bids at all. The reason for this is particularly onerous profit limits set by the Iraqi government, with the bid price often being bought down by over 100 per cent
Economics, Editor's Pick
New responsibilities for mining companies
Matt Kennard — April 4, 2010 1 Comment
The industry-wide obsession with ‘sustainability’ and CSR started around the turn of the millennium as mining companies started to feel the effects of their bad reputation in their ability to operate around the world. Some of the leading companies set up the International Council on Mining & Metals (ICMM) to promote ‘sustainability’ and CSR. Chief executives of mining companies talk about the need for a “social license” – or a lack of community backlash – to work in foreign countries