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I was one of the only economists who predicted the financial crash of 2008 – in 2017 we need to make urgent changes

Ann Pettifor The Independent Online Economics is driven by ideology – it is ideology, not science, which drives them to assert that bank bailouts are tolerable but policies that protect the poor aren’t. Unsurprisingly, these flawed theories and models are a great comfort to…

13 January 2017 · 4 min read

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Democrats can’t win until they recognize how bad Obama’s financial policies were

By Matt Stoller Washington Post

He had opportunities to help the working class, and he passed them up. By Matt Stoller* Washington Post During his final news conference of 2016, in mid-December, President Obama criticized Democratic efforts during the election. “Where Democrats are characterized as coastal…

12 Jan 2017 · 9 min read

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Andrei Tsygankov: “The US establishment, not the Kremlin, is undermining normalisation with Russia”

European Politics and Policy Blog The release of an intelligence report on Russian interference in the US presidential election, alongside allegations of links between Donald Trump and the Kremlin, have strained US-Russia relations. Tsygankov* argues that there remains a…

12 Jan 2017 · 6 min read

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Saudi Arabia’s dream of becoming the dominant Arab and Muslim power in the world has gone down in flames

Saudi Arabia’s military pressure on Assad served only to make him seek more help from Russia, precipitating intervention which the US was not prepared to oppose Patrick Cockburn The Independent As recently as two years ago, Saudi Arabia’s half century-long effort to establish…

11 Jan 2017 · 6 min read

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Reading Burma

By Sebastian Strangio, Los Angeles Review of Books I. THE NATION OF BURMA was born under a dark star.

11 Jan 2017 · 22 min read

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"Soares is dead: long live Soares", cries Portugal

By Mario Dujisin Lisbon

By Mario Dujisin Lisbon (OTHER NEWS) – The death of Mario Soares, former Portuguese prime-minister, president, and historic leader of Lusitanian socialism, demonstrated just how united the Portuguese are with regards to his past and his historical projection. Analysts…

10 Jan 2017 · 3 min read

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Poor Darwin – Robots, Not Nature, Now Make the Selection

By Baher Kamal

By Baher Kamal ROME, Jan 2017 (IPS) – When British naturalist Charles Darwin published in 1859 his theory of evolution in his work On the Origin of Species, he most likely did not expect that robots, not nature, would someday be in charge of the selection process. In his On the…

10 Jan 2017 · 6 min read

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A Threat to U.S. Democracy: Political Dysfunction

Eduardo Porter Economic Scene The New York Times Is American democracy broken? There are precedents around the world for the kind of political jolt the United States experienced in November.

9 Jan 2017 · 6 min read

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American Unintelligence on Russia (Op-ed)

Washington’s long-awaited, deeply disappointing assessment of alleged meddling by the Kremlin Kevin Rothrock The Moscow Times U.S. officials released a declassified intelligence report on Friday repeating the monumental accusations against the Kremlin that have been circulating…

9 Jan 2017 · 6 min read

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Universal Basic Income and Radical Populism: Making the Link

By Jay Ogilvy Stratfor

By Jay Ogilvy Stratfor What are we utterly wrong about today? Think of the way we look back at practices like slavery and colonialism that were so commonly accepted in their time but were later rejected as offenses against basic morality.

6 Jan 2017 · 10 min read