The global solution: private or public?

Inflation, risk of global recession, growing inequality and rising debt for the global south, global warming, war – I could go on.  These are the fault-lines exhibited in the world economy in 2022.  What is to be done about it?  It is revealing to consider the solutions offered by analysts writing for the IMF in

The future of work 2 – working long and hard

In the first post of my Future of Work series, I looked at the impact of working from home and remote work which has mushroomed since the COVID pandemic. In this second part, I want to consider the impact of work on people’s lives and health and how that will pan out over the next

A tightening world

It’s been a big week for the major central banks. First, the European Central Bank (ECB) called an emergency meeting because government bond yields were rising sharply in the more indebted Eurozone economies like Italy and Spain.  That threatens to deliver a new sovereign debt crisis as happened after the Great Recession from 2010-2014, leading

Socialist economic development – a review

I recently participated in a zoom seminar to review a new book entitled Socialist Economic Development in the 21st Century by Alberto Gabriele and Elias Jabbour.  Gabriele is a Senior Researcher at Sbilanciamoci, Rome, Italy and Elias Jabbour is an Assistant Professor at the School of Economics, at Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil. You

The scissors of slump

Last week, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the US Congress that “We now are entering a period of transition from one of historic recovery to one that can be marked by stable and steady growth. Making this shift is a central piece of the President’s plan to get inflation under control without sacrificing the

The future of work 1 – remote working

This is the first in a series of posts on the future of work since the pandemic slump. A few weeks ago, the world’s richest man Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, told his employees that they must return to the office or get out of the company.  Musk wrote in an email that everybody at Tesla

Food, famine and war

If anything proves that famine and food insecurity are man-made rather than due to vagaries of nature and the weather, it is the current food crisis that is putting millions globally close to starvation.  The Russia-Ukraine war has highlighted the global food supply disaster but this was brewing well before the war. The food supply

Colombia: a turn to the left?

Colombia has a presidential election today (29 May).  According to public opinion polls, in the lead is Gustavo Petro.  A former M-19 guerrilla member, Petro took part in peace talks that paved the way for the M-19 to disarm and form a left-wing political party in 1990.  He later served a term as mayor of

Australia: turning for the worse

If you agree that there is an imperialist bloc of countries that dominates and controls the world, then Australia should be included.  It may be a new and smaller entrant to the bloc, and it may be just a satellite of US imperialism in the Asia-Pacific, but it still fits the bill as part of

Crypto unTethered

Last Thursday the $1.3tn cryptocurrency industry was hit heavily when ‘stablecoin’ Tether — a critical cog in the crypto market — briefly failed to maintain its link with the US dollar.  A stablecoin is a crypto currency coin that is tied to an existing fiat currency, namely the US dollar, making it easy to switch