alanjjohnstone
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Latest poll No 51% Yes 39%Not Voting 2%Projected vote56% No44% Yes Between 700,000 and 1 million Scots may not participate in the decision to decide the country's future. John Downie, director of public affairs at SCVO, said: "We know that the top 20% of income earners are the most likely to vote, and as many as half of people in the bottom 20% don't vote."
I believe that the most effective treatment for depression is not medication but cognitive therapy which is expensive and limited availability. I doubt the Tories are going to spend money on the NHS to make it more readily accessible.
The economic book and the economic formula Steve Keen is praising.https://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/7/28/global-news/why-super-rich-are-running-scared-inequalityHis review has a great line
Quote:When the poor and the dispossessed complain about inequality, it’s only to be expected. But when part of the top 1 per cent of the top 1 per cent complain about it, it is truly time to worry — and preferably to act.Not too much changeshttp://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jul/27/first-world-war-state-press-reportingTariq Ali also recently complained that he was due to be interviewed by the BBC but when asked in advance what he would say on air which would be very anti government and anti-Israeli and critical of the BBC, the interview was cancelled at the last moment.Why do we rarely see Chomsky, Finkelstein, or Robert Fisk, a very seasoned Middle East reporter on the BBC.I recall during a Lebanon war, the BBC interviewed a well-spoken Israeli spokesperson but the Hezbullah representive's English was so poor i doubt he understood the questions much less reply effectively in his heavy excruciating accent. But i guess that met the BBC criteria for balance.Some may say New at 10 or Channel 4 news are not much better but we do not pay a special annual tax to maintain these.It has been pointed out that Haaretz, Israel's equivalent to the Guardian, is more critical of the Israeli government than the BBC ever is…although this is disputed by Israel.
Quote:Putin—whom he characterized as escalating the crisis inside Ukraine—“may actually light a fire” he cannot control. And not just in Ukraine or eastern Europe, Dempsey said, but globally.Is Piketty then a lesser evil? Is that what you are trying to infer, ALB?Didn't YMS pull up LBird for random name-dropping?
Anything can happen but it seems that bellicose sabre-rattling will be the most to expect.Lots of armament deals to Ukraine (and Poland) to be expected. The chill of the Cold War returning.
Quote:Denouncing or at least describing inequality seems to be the flavour of the month.My recollection is that it has been going on for a few years now. From Occupy Wall St and the 1%. Piketty and Saez have been pushing their stats for a while and as i mentioned before Stiglitz and Robert Reich have been cheerleading the inequality reform brigade against the CEOs with regular articles. Mostly what i have been asking for since this thread began is a much more determined attack on Piketty as it was easily foreseen that people were latching on to his book like leeches. All along i have been repeating ..so what if the book is a fine piece of research and according to one the best thing since slice bread, it was aways going to be his policy recommendations that would be focused upon. And that was not assisting the socialist case but was a disservice, and merely confirmed what we already knew without any requirement of equations…the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.Instead it is now the book that advocates wealth tax and inheritance taxes…and his caveats that he didn't think it can work in one country due to capital flight…and he thought it utopian to think it would be implemented world-wide, is all but forgotten as always the small-print exclusion clauses in an insurance policy … And this book ensures that capitalism goes on and on with another forlorn hope..The World Bank, IMF, OECD, can produce all the academic reports they wish that we are globally becoming "middle class"…that poverty is being reduced …But it doesn't match peoples reality or meet their expectations.
Indeed the Greens do cite him as support and i said before, he is the hook now that everybody wants to hang their coat from, Elizbeth Warren to Ed Milliband. The real validity of his research is simply ignored as LBird suggests, the politicians will fill in their own facts to Piketty. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/24/green-party-calls-wealth-tax-assets-multimillionaires
Quote:It also cites the work of French economist Thomas PikettyMore the reason to expose the weak policy that Piketty advocates, his inconsistency as ALB pointed out, and perhaps we could call it what it is, political cowardice, that he won't take his own findings to their logical conclusion and condemn capitalism per se.
A reasoned article on the tragedy in WWhttp://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1020/cold-facts-and-conspiracy-theories/
Not sure if i have got this right but this FT article (with a terrible title btw) seems to confirm what i have read in the Standard. The returns from "real" industry has been at historic low levels so the capitlist rather than investing in production diverted his finance to speculating on the money market where profits to be gained were higher.It also mentions how much cash hoarding (saving) is taking place, another symptom of lack of profit expectation from industry. Does Piketty confirm this switch of investment policy as contributory to inequality. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/54411224-132c-11e4-8244-00144feabdc0.html#axzz38RO7Q941I'm just wondering if this analysis is anyway accurate then it suggests the trend towards inequality is reversible if profits return to the "real" economy but i think that think this takes us into how can restoring profitablility by wage cuts or cuts in taxation share of business with its knock-on effect on welfare services alleviate inequality.Maybe it touches on the the Tendency of Law of Declining Profits argument, too. Not very clued up on that…another topic to add to my know nothing. It seems i just get these feelings about stuff …the sense that i'm missing something important that's not getting talked about.
You may be interested in these blogs to link to any other forums you are involved in. http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-gaza-war.htmlhttp://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2014/07/gaza-stripped-bare.htmlhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2014/07/gaza-suffers-again.htmlhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2014/07/to-end-war-our-peace-proposal.html
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/07/23/cdc-head-age-antibiotic-resistance-nighThe latest warning issued by head of US Public Health
At long last, something i can actually use on our blog !http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2014/07/thomas-piketty-jaccuse.html
