deficit
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NHS: Your right to know By Grahame Morris MP
What has often gone unnoticed [in the privatisation of the NHS] is the democratic deficit. The erosion of our rights to question those who run public services and spend our money. This is what prompted me to introduce a Ten Minute Rule Bill calling for Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation to be extended to private… Continue reading
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Mass austerity to be outlined in UK government spending review By Robert Stephens
WLGA director Steve Thomas commented last week, ‘We know that in England, in the first year of the cuts process in 2010-11, libraries were closed en masse, we saw leisure centres closed, we saw huge staff reductions across English local government—in total I think there’s been around 230,000 job losses. That carnage continues.’ Continue reading
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Reshaping Fiscal Policies In Europe: Enforcing Austerity, Attacking Democracy By Hugo Radice
These proposals, when fully implemented, will not only enforce a permanent regime of fiscal austerity, but also further remove macroeconomic policy from democratic control. For these reasons they need to be vigorously fought right across Europe. But if readers in the UK imagine that they are not affected, since we are not in the Eurozone,… Continue reading
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America’s Deceptive 2012 Fiscal Cliff By Michael Hudson
When World War I broke out in August 1914, economists on both sides forecast that hostilities could not last more than about six months. Wars had grown so expensive that governments quickly would run out of money. It seemed that if Germany could not defeat France by springtime, the Allied and Central Powers would run… Continue reading
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War or prosperity? UK’s price tag for Afghan war rises to $30 billion while cutting vital social services at home
“The UK has revealed that the cost of its involvement in the war in Afghanistan has reached $27.6 billion, and may end up being as much as $32.5 billion. Meanwhile, the UK continues to slash domestic social services to reduce its budget deficit. Continue reading
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Video: Venezuela's Housing Revolution
“Great Housing Mission” seeks to address soaring housing deficit, democratize city space Continue reading
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Video: Austerity and Low Wages will Lead to Years of Recession
Engelbert Stockhammer: Europe has shown that cuts in public spending and lowering wages leads to deep stagnation Continue reading
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Video: Restructuring Europe – For Whom?
The structural reform now being discussed in Europe would mean an even more neoliberal agenda Continue reading
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A different kind of Europe By Trevor Evans
The growth of private international financial institutions since the 1970s has seriously curtailed the ability of national governments to exercise democratic control over economic policy. This was vividly demonstrated early in the 1980s, when capital flight forced the French government to abandon its programme of progressive economic reforms. Since then, finance has become much stronger,… Continue reading
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Euro-US cold winter/ seething anger BY Eric Walberg
The eviction of demonstrators last week is an ominous metaphor for ruling elites, whose own days are surely numbered, ponders Eric Walberg Continue reading
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Greece Newslinks 3-6 October 2011
6 October 2011 — williambowles.info 6 October 2011 Greece government workers stage protest strike San Francisco Chronicle As Greece struggles to avoid a catastrophic default, demonstrators in Athens expressed outrage over their misfortune and bewilderment at a crisis that shows no signs of easing. “Nobody knows what’s going on. Every day they say something different. Continue reading
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Libya — Lather, Rinse, Repeat — Syria: Liberal Imperialism and the Refusal to Learn By Maximilian C. Forte
One detects a strong tendency among liberal imperialists and assorted self-designated “progressives” to think of their actions and thoughts as being above history, as if residing in some altostratus of unimpeachable rectitude. If they pretend to act and think as if they were gods, it is not an historical accident. At the end of their… Continue reading
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UK: They destroy, we create: join Artists of the Resistance By Luna 17
‘Len McCluskey calls for a ‘broad strike movement’ to stop the coalition’s ‘explicitly ideological’ programme of cuts. Government cuts are decimating education, welfare, health, sports and the arts. We are told that they are inevitable; that the only choice we have is between music classes for our kids or care for our elderly. Continue reading
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MEDIA LENS ALERT: “VEILED THREATS” OF “INDUSTRIAL CHAOS”
On 19 September, the Sunday Times ran a major interview with Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (Andrew Davidson, ‘King of compromise alone on a tightrope’, Sunday Times, business section, 19 September, 2010; online article is hidden behind a pay wall). The bias was clear even from the text immediately following the… Continue reading
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VTJP Palestine/Israel Newslinks 22 August, 2010: A case of decency deficit: Israel’s sickness goes beyond one soldier and her Facebook pictures
22 August, 2010 — VTJP News International Middle East Media Center Hebron: Israeli Military and Policemen Shut Three Palestinian Shops IMEMC – 22 Aug 2010 – Sunday August 22, 2010 – 17:19, Every Saturday for the last several months, Youth Against the Settlements has led a nonviolent action — “Open Shuhada Street” — at the Continue reading
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Book Review: Consenting Adults? By William Bowles
Capital which is global in scope, is able to move across national borders without let or hindrance, but that ‘democracy’ (where it exists) stops at national borders. And in an age of global capital, the nation state is incapable of dealing with issues that affect the entire planet. And nation states, driven by parochial interests,… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 