The New Green Deal

 
Who pays for Greta Thunberg`s security, her hotels, her travel and the rest of it?  Is the school strike all that it has been made out to be? Why is the mainstream media not asking these serious questions?

=======================

Perhaps the clue lies here:

Mark Carney, former Bank of England Chief, says we need a new green financial economy.

"This year the threats from climate change spurred demonstrations across the world and prompted the parliaments in the United Kingdom and many other countries to declare a “climate emergency...” 

"A new, sustainable financial system is under construction. It is funding the initiatives and innovations of the private sector and amplifying the effectiveness of governments’ climate policies—it could even accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy."

"Unfortunately, like virtually everything about the response to climate change, this new sustainable financial system is not developing fast enough for the world to reach net zero..."

"To bring climate risks and resilience into the heart of financial decision making, climate disclosure must be comprehensive, climate risk management must be transformed, and sustainable investing must go mainstream. "

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/12/a-new-sustainable-financial-system-to-stop-climate-change-carney.htm#

The UN global goals

The UK Column returned after its summer break and briefly mentioned the campaigning organisation Extinction Rebellion.
Mike Robinson referred to Ian R Crane`s remark that Extinction Rebellion `are absolutely campaigning for citizens assemblies to take over from parliament, and, in fact, they`re involved with an organisation which is aiming to replace the House of Lords`."

There were other examples of how representative democracy is being undermined by what has been called `participatory democracy`. These organisations include NGOs and charities which push forward their own political agendas outside of parliament. 

Brian Gerrish remarks: "The House of Lords deliberately collapsed, but don`t worry we`ve got the solution here. Right? "

"Right," agrees Mike Robinson.  "OK, so let`s move on to this then. So #100 Ways AidWorks and this is all about international aid and this is, apparently, according to the International Development Secretary Alok Sharma, `is all about developing infrastructure in emerging countries - emerging markets. So he has decided to set up a new commission which is going to bring together leading experts to turbocharge quality infrastructure projects in developing countries. The commission is going to be made up of UK and international business `- common purpose [?] - `the very best of British expertise and will make recommendations to improve the planning, delivery and financing of infrastructure projects`."

"Well, so why doesn`t Britain just join the Belt and Road initiative then? Because surely that`s what that`s doing, because that seems to be quite successful at building infrastructure projects in developing countries at the moment. But no, that`s the wrong type of infrastructure project, of course. What this is all about is the UN global goals and the 2.5 trillion dollar funding gap that there is to fulfill the global goals. So this commission which is being established is going to make sure that the UK gets involved in financing and developing infrastructure and promotes inclusive growth, while meeting the Paris climate commitments."  

"So that`s what it`s all about. And so he said an extra 2.5 trillion dollars is needed every year to end poverty in developing countries and the UK must mobilise private-sector investment to overcome this challenge. `Alongside the life-saving work of UK aid we need to boost infrastructure projects that form the backbone of economic growth.` That`s fantastic stuff," says Mike Robinson sarcastically.

"Well in the meantime then, the G7 has been going on and well let`s just have a brief look at some of the headlines from the media on this. This is the Guardian. `We need to cancel the next G7. Let`s resume them when Trump is gone.` [Michael H Fuchs] We`ve got Business Insider. `Trump`s G7 performance shows how he`s living in a totally different reality and isolating the US from the rest of the world.` And the Guardian again. `Birritz was an empty charade. The G7 is a relic of a bygone age.` [Simon Tisdall]. And what are the sort of views that are being expressed in these articles ?...Trump is a problem. The G7 is not equipped to work towards its goals and the biggest obstacle is the US president, Donald Trump."

"This is one of the Guardian articles. `The goal of G7 is to bring together some of the world`s most prosperous democracies to coordinate on the most important issues of the day whether on climate change or responding to Russia`s invasion of Crimea or making gender equality a reality. The G7 countries are supposed to lead, crafting policies that can foster global peace and prosperity in ways that uphold democratic values`."

"And if everybody has managed not to throw up in the nearest bin over that, then it goes on to say that Trump wants America to work alone to destroy the current global trading system/foreign assistance that helps address transnational challenges, ignore human rights and doesn`t believe climate change is real. `The G7`s an annual long weekend of toddler daycare for Trump` - it`s the language ... but in the meantime then the other focus was all about Emmanuel Macron, what a brilliant global leader he is, and, of course, he was leading the way to agree to help Brazil to fight the Amazon fires. This is, you know, the fact that the Amazon allegedly is burning and we`ve all got to get together globally and intervene in... Brazil ."

"So that was the Rio Times. `G7 Agrees to Help Brazil Fight Amazon Fires, Says French President Macron.` Well Brazil didn`t like that very much. They`ve rejected the 22 million dollar aid package and this is really what it`s about, Balsonaro saying `Other heads of state sympathised with Brazil after all respect for the sovereignty of any country is the least that can be expected in a civilised world.` So really what he`s complaining about is that G7 was attempting to ride roughshod over his decisions about... how he was going to deal with this problem and he went on to say this: `Thanks for Donald Trump. We are having great success in fighting fires. Brazil is and will continue to be an example for the world in sustainable development. The fake news campaign fabricated against our sovereignty will not thrive. The US can always count on Brazil.` So he`s seeing it as an attack on him. and on his government and so on."

"So the question I wanted to ask was, you know, what is the situation with these fires? And in fact if we look at NASA`s Earth Observatory website and their section on the fires in Brazil it says: `In the Amazon, fire season has arrived. In the Amazon region, fires are rare for much of the year because wet weather prevents them from starting and spreading. However, in July and August, activity typically increases due to the arrival of the dry season. Many people use fire to maintain farmland and pastures and to clear land for other purposes, typically activity peaks in early September and mostly stops by November. As of August 16 2019, an analysis of NASA satellite data indicated that the total fire activity across the Amazon basin this year has been close to the average in comparison`."

" Now anybody looking at the mainstream media coverage of this would think that the entire Amazon rainforest was burning down. But NASA here quite clearly saying that... `the level of fires at the moment is about average for the last 15 years. They say the
Amazon spreads across Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and parts of other countries. Though activity appears to be above average in the states of Amazonas and Rondônia, it has so far appeared below average in Mato Grosso and Pará, according to estimates from the Global Fire Emissions Database, a research project that compiles and analyses NASA data`."

"And then we have this. This is Forbes which is attempting to put a bit more clarity on the situation and I recommend this article because it`s actually quite detailed and ...what`s interesting is that the main expert that they`re talking to is somebody from the International Panel of Climate Change. [United Nations, IPCC] and what he`s saying - well first of all, he`s talking about the claim that the Amazon is the lungs of the world and he says - this is his language - it`s bullshit. There`s no science behind that. The Amazon produces a lot of oxygen but it uses the same amount of oxygen through respiration. ... and the article goes on to say neither is the Amazon forest burning down"

"So this is Daniel Nepstad, the environmentalist they have got to, and he said `we don`t know if there are any more forest fires this year than in past years which tells me there probably isn`t. I`ve been working on and studying these fires for 25 years and our `on the ground ` networks are tracking this.`  So he`s quite clear about that and the sort of claims that are being made about the whole thing and it is clearly an attack on the sovereignty of Brazil."

Returning to Extinction Rebellion and its attack on the globe:    

"As Thunberg’s yacht rounded the Statue of Liberty, it was met by a flotilla of 17 support boats, each with its sail printed with a message spelling out a recommended sustainable development goal, as promoted by the United Nations. These included combating discrimination and promoting peace, as well as using less plastic, not wasting food or water, using public transportation and vaccinating children against diseases ."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/28/greta-thunberg-arrival-in-new-york-delayed-by-rough-seas?

`Parent Next` for risky parents

"Chia is one of 68,000 parents who have been placed on a new government program, Parents Next, after receiving a call from Centrelink assessing whether they are at risk of `long-term welfare dependency`..."

"Parents say they have been forced by their providers to attend activities such as `story time`, swimming lessons or playgroup, or told to sign up to education courses at their own expense, even if they already hold qualifications..."

"The government announced the expansion of the $263m program in the May budget following a two-year trial, during which 3,510 participants had their payments suspended."

"`It’s offensive that the government believes that … women aren’t trying to do what they can to increase the welfare of themselves and their child,` Terese Edwards, the chief executive of the National Council of Single Mothers, told Guardian Australia."

"Now that it was compulsory and women faced penalties for not complying, Edwards said it had gone `from a soft touch … to almost blaming women for undertaking unpaid care`."

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/06/single-parents-forced-to-attend-story-time-or-lose-centrelink-payments?fbclid=IwAR0DAdl9EziHR-NZ265rDezgH0pZK9lvwi4Sp1Z8DnCymi5r4y2wdrzLUkc

Limiting the children of the poor

Is this eugenics for the working poor and those out of work? 

"Tory MSP Michelle Ballantyne suggests other parties attempts to paint the Conservatives as unreasonable means they fail to consider the real drivers of poverty and inequality." 

"She criticises the previous tax credit system introduced by Labour, saying it `allowed debt to spiral both for the individual and the government`. " 

"Responding to an intervention on the two child limit, Ms Ballantyne says this policy is about fairness." 

"She insists it is fair that people on benefits cannot have as many children as they like while families who don't claim benefits have to make decisions about the number of children they can have."
[BBC]

While driving more to poverty ? 

"SNP Christine Grahame MSP has tabled a motion in the Scottish Parliament condemning those comments. She also claimed Mrs Ballantyne`s position as patron of a Borders foodbank `where she will have come face-to-face with people driven into hardship by Tory welfare cuts` as the `height of hypocrisy`."

https://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/news/michelle-ballantyne-msp-bites-back-at-calls-for-her-resignation-1-4822587

And hypocrisy is coming from all directions ?

"The Scottish Government is totally to blame for this scandal as they were warned repeatedly, from August 2011, that Westminster planned to devolve the DWP Social Fund to councils in England and the government in Scotland, with a recommendation dump the poor on councils to spread the DWP social fund (and all responsibility) across councils and just send people for food parcels at your own discretion instead."

"MP's and MSP's from every single political party in Scotland knew full well this would mean millions being sent for food parcels across the UK if they did not give small interest free crisis loans in their replacement system, as the DWP did, once the DWP Social Fund was devolved."

Read more https://melkelly60.wixsite.com/whatthepapersdontsay/single-post/2018/07/13/1365-million-Scots-26-ate-from-food-parcels-in-20178?fbclid=IwAR32N6Ibq9D2MbKWWxM0iFeesVlaM3xc4EFhI422XBkEbTNkB2SMlApTXkk

The data capital of Europe

At the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal attended by Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon, the first speaker said: "Our ambition is to be the data capital of Europe, a place with the mix of university led innovation, brilliant graduates and an ecosystem of entrepreneurial incubation and scale up and growth nestled next to global companies which drives growth and draws in investment."

Note the words: `data capital of Europe` and `nestled next to global companies`.  Regionalisation, big data and the establishment of a network of city states are global movements being pushed by our governments to centralise power FOR the benefit of the big global companies.

The speaker goes on: "As we sign the deal today we see the benefits in major initiatives which are already taking shape, many of which will unfold in this building"....  He sees some of these initiatives in open banking, in health and social care, robotics, communications technologies and the creative industries... Other benefits of the city region deal will be to "work across sectors, in education, local authorities, business, government, for shared ends and collective benefits."

Future leaders here we go !

In other words this is `joined up working`, Common Purpose language. It really means the dismantling of local democracy and the privatisation of public services, again, for the benefit of the big global companies, all dressed up in verbiage to suggest this is something wonderful.

The risky interdependent world

Mike Robinson speaks on UK Column News, 26 July 2018.

"We`re starting with trade today," he says. "International trade, because that`s something that Theresa May`s been talking about a lot. Well, Liam Fox was talking about it yesterday at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. He was making the case for free trade."

"And he said, `In my first speech as the secretary of state for international trade I set out the case for an open and liberal trading environment, and the speech was in Manchester, home of the Industrial revolution and a city with iconic associations with free trade. That was nearly two years ago when trade barely registered on the radar of most of our media. Now of course it`s right at the top of NAFTA and all the rest of it, but he said: `It`s therefore a good time for us to examine our attitudes to trade from first principles and to measure them against our domestic priorities and international obligations`. And he started talking about Adam Smith and David Ricardo and he said, `Now of course since those days, since 1817, the world has changed beyond all recognition yet the experiences of globalisation and of technological advances, unimaginable in Ricardo`s time, have only served to validate his theory. The principles of free and open trade underpinned the multilateral institutions, rules and alliances, and helped rebuild post war Europe and the world beyond. It helped usher the fall of communism and tear down the iron curtain facilitating seventy years of global prosperity and have raised the living standards of hundreds of millions of ... human beings across the world`. `Indeed,`  he said, `free trade has allowed us to take one billion of our fellow human beings out of poverty in just one generation, one of the great achievements of history`. " 

"Well, what a liar ! Because let`s look at the Guardian. Here, this is some time ago. `UK government warned over sharp rise in child and pensioner poverty`."

"So Britain the bastion of free trade is experiencing the benefits of free trade, and poverty is rising as a result."

Brian Gerrish. "And that`s precisely what we`re exporting to the rest of the world... as resources are hoovered out of these countries."

"Absolutely. Well any parts of the world that we have any influence over, but if we contrast that with China, `China has almost wiped out urban poverty`...They haven`t done that through free trade ....mainly through having a development agenda."

"So let`s go back to Liam Fox again. `But effect of protectionism is as close to settled science as anything in economics will ever be: it means reduced productivity gains and lost economic growth`."

"So of course Britain being the bastion of free trade is not into protectionism but unfortunately Britain has falling productivity. So not quite sure where he`s going with that one either."

"So let`s get back to Liam. He said: `The global economy continues to rebound from the dark days of the financial crash and ensuing recession experienced by many large economies`."

Mike Robinson then points to another article in the Financial Times: `Nomura profits tumble 91% on fixed income, equities slump`, and then to the Wall Street Journal: `Prolonged Slump in Bond Liquidity Rattles Markets`.

"I don`t think you`re too right about that one either, Liam, but anyway we go on. He said: `In areas such as steel production we have seen new technologies enable us to produce the same output with far fewer employees`. That`s really good stuff there. Yes fantastic`."

"And in a separate part of the speech he said: `And worse, in a world of globalisaton where interdependence is increasing and where disruptions in one part of the world can quickly ricochet around the rest, our ability to act unilaterally with impunity is diminishing by the day`. "

"So this is supposed to be a speech about promoting free trade and here is the key point:  because globalisation and the British model of free trade, as is currently perceived, is one where we are absolutely interdependent on everybody else in an equally collapsing western world... because it`s the first world countries that we`re interdependent upon. So I wanted to highlight this in particular because, of course, as Brian mentioned yesterday Dominic Raab has been talking about the government stockpiling food and the excuse for the requirement to stockpile food was Brexit and the potential for No Deal and the issue of: `would we be able to import food any more from the European Union?`  And so I thought I`d have a little bit of a look at this in the context of Liam Fox`s comment about us being `increasingly in an interdependent world, and there being risks in that`."  

 
"So the quote on screen there: `It would be wrong to describe it as the government doing the stockpiling. And, of course, the idea that we only get food imports into this country from one continent is not appropriate`."

"Well, is that true? Well it turns out that Britain imports 50% of its fruit and vegetables, but on top of that, we are only able to produce 25% of the fruit and vegetables we consume in this country. So only 25% of what we eat is produced in the United Kingdom. Thirty percent of the fruit comes from Europe. Eighty percent of our vegetables comes from Europe. So I`m not quite sure how that ties in with Dominic`s idea that `we only get... imports ...from one continent is not appropriate`... Because of course the point here is that thirty percent and that eighty percent is all seasonal. So supermarkets import fruit and vegetables from Europe when it`s appropriate to do so and they import fruit and vegetables actually from other parts of the world, but south America in particular, during the winter months when it`s not being produced in Europe."

"So 50% of our fruit and vedge imported and we only produce 25% of what we consume in this country but Theresa May has a big plan, Brian. We don`t need to worry about it because she`s going to deal with farming and she`s going to deliver a farming policy which supports agriculture and improves the environment. So this is what she had to say:..."

"Scrapping the Common Agricultural Policy ... provides funds in return for public goods, like improving water quality, reducing emissions and planting wild flower meadows ... are fundamental to our new approach."

"So the fundamentals to Theresa May`s approach, bearing in mind that what has been highlighted by this is the issue of the potential of a No Deal Brexit, is the issue of food imports and the lack of independence in our capability of food production. We`re not going to produce more food because she`s going to scrap the Agricultural Policy and then she`s going to divert the funds into what has been described as public goods which is about turning farmland, productive farmland, into wild meadows."

Brian Gerrish: "Which of course is all Millenium Goals and Agenda 21..."

"Absolutely. So my question then comes down to this: why would we not want to be producing our own food? Is it that we`re not going to need food in the coming decades? I`m just going to remind everybody of the outstanding debt graph that we show from time to time and the key aspect of this on the right hand side of the doughnut there is ...[the] black hole ... in the ability to pay state pensions. Again, is the British government not expecting there to be too many old people left to pay pensions to in the coming decades?"

Brian Gerrish: "I think that`s exactly where they`re going, Mike, and I know at the moment we have a vast amount of information coming into the UK Column which is back on the subject of the deaths of particularly elderly people in the NHS. Of course an increasing number of people worried about the death statistics, Sir Brian Jarman being one of those people. Euthanasia is coming in which, unfortunately, we will be moving on to in a moment. So yeah I think the government`s agenda is there will be less people. David Cameron was talking about two million people diagnosed with dementia in 2050 I think the deadline for that. It could have been 2040 ... And the inference is we need to get rid of those people."

Mike Robinson: "So if we take everything that Liam Fox is saying and we put it with what Dominic Raab was saying and also with the realities of food production in this country, and pension provision in this country, the picture`s not looking too good and well maybe we should be having more serious conversations about this because this is a result of government policy and not something which is unavoidable. It`s absolutely avoidable and if we were looking at productivity and developing our farming industry in this country and our food production in this country we`d be in a much better position."

Brian Gerrish. "Absolutely. Well as we move through the news today I think we`ll be looking at some of those policy areas. But let`s come in with just this statement. We decide who lives and dies and only we. Now I took this headline because I was going to talk about Boris Johnson in a minute. But somebody else flagged up a headline which we really have to cover and it`s this one. Dutch doctor reprimanded for `asking family to hold down euthanasia patient` This is truly truly disgusting. And it gives us a glimpse of where we`ll be going in this country because there`s many people pushing to follow Holland on this. But the story is a doctor has been formally reprimanded by the Dutch medical complaints board for carrying out euthanasia on a 74-year-old woman with dementia, despite her resistance."

"The woman refused a cup of coffee containing a sedative and when she struggled, the doctor asked her husband and daughter to hold her down so she could insert a drip containing the lethal injection."

"The case is the first time since the Dutch euthanasia law was passed in 2002 that a practitioner has been formally censured. According to the Dutch NOS broadcaster, the public prosecutor will announce after the summer if the doctor will face criminal prosecution."

"So we`re now into the heart of it. We have euthanasia whether you like it or not. It`s coming into western European policy and, of course, the Dutch lead on this has already been pushed and pushed to come in through the UK system. MM, the lady had dementia; she`s held down and she`s effectively, in my terms, murdered. For whose benefit? Well presumably the state, because the state, ultimately, didn`t have to pay for her care."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E833ooQPvMo

Transforming mental health with apps

Towards the end of this edition of UK Column News, Mike Robinson said there was good news from the government. It was going to be `supporting each and every child and young person to fulfil their potential by transforming mental health services in this country.`

`Hundreds of new mental health workers will start working in and near schools and colleges from next year.`

`Schools and colleges will train a dedicated mental health lead to ensure young people get the help they need.`

`The first teams to begin working in schools and colleges will be in `Trail Blazer Locations` by the end of 2019`...

"So this is fantastic news," says Mike Robinson sarcastically. "Apparently 8,000 counsellors are going to go into schools to protect, well, what some mainstream media were calling a generation crushed by digital pressures. And so this is all about dealing with children that are getting involved in unhealthy online behaviours. And who`s behind this? "

"But of course it`s the illustrious Matt Hancock. Here he is, the health and social care AI boss. And he`s urging parents and also technology companies to do more to protect the young from pressures of social media. And how`s he going to do that? Apparently when he was speaking to the BBC Newsbeat, the sort of teenage news service, this morning he said there needs to be more use of apps in the National Health Service. And so we`ve got to do loads more in that area. The use of technology and apps is the way to do it. So this is a quote from him."

"`One of the things I`ve done in different parts of government is make sure that it`s more tech savvy and digital... We need more apps. How else can we maintain the business model?`"

"Because of course he has his own app. He promotes his own app. And if we have more apps we can have more apps on children`s phones and therefore children can suffer more mental health issues and then they can put more people into schools to deal with those mental health issues. And then they can produce more apps. ... It`s a fantastic business model and for the taxpayer it`s a great deal and I must applaud Matt Hancock for his brilliant business head."

Brian Gerrish: "It gets even better, Mike, because we understand that Westminster has now got an online game targeted, of course, at children; so a child can log into that particular site and experience what it is like to be an MP, waking up and having coffee and toast while you answer emails and you then follow through your day with a game generating what happens..."

"Presumably when children are playing that game it`s helping them to be mentally ill !"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SScV9DRIpk

PFI projects for schools under criticism again

"Financing projects such as schools and hospitals privately costs taxpayers billions of pounds more than public sector alternatives, parliament's spending watchdog says."

"A report suggests a group of schools cost 40% more to build and a hospital 70% more to construct than if they were financed by government borrowing."

"The National Audit Office report identifies costs and benefits of PFI."

"The Treasury said it only approved PFI contracts that were value for money."

"The collapse of Carillion, which was working on numerous PFI projects, has renewed criticism of such schemes."

"The NAO report, which was written before the collapse of Carillion, found 716 public projects were active under PFI and its successor PF2, with annual costs amounting to £10.3bn in 2016/17."

"PFI projects will cost the taxpayer a further £199bn by the 2040s, it said."

"The watchdog said the cost of raising capital was higher for PFI projects compared with government-raised funds, and found there were other additional costs."

"However, the government said PFI projects improved public services, offered better value for money and shifted risk away from the public sector..."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42724939

Noam Chomsky/talks at Google/working class education

Says Chomsky: "It is worth remembering that working class education was a very serious phenomenon. It goes way back. It goes back to the late 19th century here, early industrial revolution. If Irish blacksmiths could get enough money they would hire a boy to read to them - while he`s working. And reading meant what we now call classics: modern contemporary literature."

"There were young women from the farms called factory girls who were kind of compelled to get into the textile factories in eastern New England and they had their own publications. You read them, they bitterly condemn the fact that the industrial system was depriving them of their culture; of their dignity; their independence. You`re selling yourself, not what you produce. You know it`s quite different. "

"And part of it was an attack on the culture - same in England. And there was a massive study, an interesting study, by a guy named Jonathan Rose of the reading habits of the English working class and it turns out his own conclusion is that they were better educated than the aristocrats.... They may not have gone to school and certainly didn`t go to Oxford but ... the rising working class had its own institutions of education and culture which was significant. A lot of that has been destroyed."

"In all kinds of ways Google doesn`t help..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C-zWrhFqpM


See The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes

Fair play

By Alan Honick

"Everyone—100 percent of an admittedly tiny sample—remembered their first encounter with fairness in its negative incarnation. My hypothesis is that this pattern holds, if not universally, at least among a very high percentage of individuals."

"We apparently begin with fairness as our default position. We’re surprised and affronted when we first face a situation that seems unfair, so that’s what we remember."

"It seems we’re predisposed to prefer and expect fairness..."

　

"While that seems to be clear evidence that a sense of fairness and altruism are linked in individual development, it gives only a suggestion that these personality traits may be, to some degree, encoded in our genes. By 15 months environmental influences, such as parenting style and sibling interactions, have undoubtedly begun to shape behaviour."

"Whatever the roots of causality that underlie these prosocial behaviors, it seems remarkable that a sense of fairness and altruism should be evident so early in life, with such marked variability in its expression. The experiments performed by Ernst Fehr and colleagues demonstrated that prosocial behaviors emerge as children learn to interact within a social milieu. Sommerville’s experiments suggest the possibility that some individuals may develop a strong sense of fairness more naturally."

http://evonomics.com/are-we-born-with-a-sense-of-fairness/

The multilateral Investment Court

"More than 280 000 citizens from across Europe have signed a petition against the plan, known as the 'multilateral investment court'."

"The Multilateral Investment Court would create a global court exclusively available to foreign investors to sue governments. According to the EU’s proposal investors could go to the new court using existing investment treaties which have proven to be dangerous to public policies aimed at protecting people and the environment."

https://act.wemove.eu/campaigns/no-global-corporate-court

The proposal for MIC and the drive for profit before people does expose the push for global happiness and wellbeing as the piece of nonsense it is.

Scottish Students Speak Out About UK Child Poverty

"With this week’s budget, the Chancellor doubled down on a failed economic model. The government will continue cutting spending into the next parliament, and earlier this week, it was revealed that the Treasury has asked most departments to find an extra 6% of savings."

"But austerity isn’t working. Having dropped the last government’s fiscal plan, the OBR now expects that the Chancellor won’t succeed in his new goal of balancing the public finances as soon as possible in the next parliament..."

"Public spending cuts mean less money circulating in the economy. Since 2010, the Treasury’s strategy has been to offset this effect by allowing the Bank of England to pump new money into financial markets. Last year, the Chancellor gave the Bank of England the go-ahead to create an additional £70bn through its quantitative easing programme. So while the spending squeeze continues to hurt those on moderate and low incomes the most, new money is being created for the financial sector, benefitting the privileged few."

"And the long-term indicators are still of a slow recovery, from which many people are left out... And while budgets are being cut, the number of people using food banks is on the rise. Around 30% of the population, equivalent to 19 million people (a rise of 4 million since 2008) are living below the nationally-recognised minimum income standard."

http://positivemoney.org/2017/03/budget/

The Great Moot Of Nottingham

FAKE HOPE! FAKE AUSTERITY! FAKE DEMOCRACY!

By Justin Walker, British Constitution Group

"My patience is exhausted. My colleagues are right. The political party system in Britain today is simply an affront to the electorate as it works completely against truly accountable and representative democracy, not to mention transparency and simple common sense. To use a phrase favoured by MPs today, it is just ‘not fit for purpose’. It is broken! "

Corporate and vested interests meet the Bradbury Pound:

"It is a system of closed and ultimately controlled governance that deliberately prevents the provable truth from being allowed to come out; it is a system that wholly protects the corporate and vested interests of the City of London (The Crown Corporation) at the expense of our national overall prosperity and well-being; and worst of all, it is a system which deliberately hides and shields the institutional abuse of children – and if anyone has doubts about this, just look at how MPs have refused point blank to help in the case of Melanie Shaw. This is a classic case of where the paedophile protecting Establishment has closed ranks on an extremely vulnerable and now wrongly incarcerated woman whose only crime is that she ‘knows too much’ about what’s really going on within the higher echelons of our political class."

"But why is it now that I have finally lost my patience with these party-serving politicians when so many of my fellow campaigners had already done so a long time ago? Well, despite all the evidence to the contrary, it’s because I still believed that there were good and honourable people within parliament who would do the decent thing when confronted with undeniable evidence about what was really happening to our country. Two of those people were Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell."

https://www.britishconstitutiongroup.com/sites/default/files/documents/Fake%20Hope%2C%20Fake%20Austerity%2C%20Fake%20Democracy-2.pdf

Unfortunately Justin was soon to be disappointed.

It is a good article with links to his e-books about the Bradbury Pound which he sees as a sensible way for the country to get out of its economic woes.

He is also encouraging people to get along to the Great Moot of Nottingham. See his article for more details.
　

A way of thinking

 

Eerily predictive:

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."

Carl Sagan

The Demon-Haunted World: science as a candle in the dark

CETA trade deal will not be debated in House of Commons

 

"A full parliamentary debate on a controversial trade deal between the EU and Canada will now not be happening, despite assurances in October from Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox that it would."

"The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is awaiting a vote in the European Parliament on 15 February. Opponents of the trade have argued that much like its sister agreement TTIP, CETA would hand a raft of new powers over to multinational corporations, and would pose a threat to public services, as well as environmental and labour protections."

"Nick Dearden, the director of Global Justice Now said:"

"Over three months ago Liam Fox was criticised by a parliamentary committee over the lack of debate on this controversial and far-reaching trade deal between the EU and Canada. And Liam Fox was at pains to assure the committee that this debate would take place. It’s disgraceful and disingenuous that Fox is now trying to bypass a thorough parliamentary process that he had committed to in order to avoid more rigorous scrutiny of a trade deal that would threaten public services, labour rights and consumer standards in the UK."
http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/news/2017/feb/1/liam-fox-reneges-promise-hold-parliamentary-debate-controversial-trade-deal

Austerity in Ireland

The unavoidable dystopian future

Pentagon Video Warns of “Unavoidable” Dystopian Future for World’s Biggest Cities from The Intercept on Vimeo.

"The video, used by the Joint Special Operations University, states that megacities will be breeding grounds for `adversaries and hybrid threats,` and that the U.S. Army is unprepared."

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Maybe it is time for another vision:

"Students are increasingly looking beyond academic curricula, which continue to present a single perspective on economics. While the internet abounds with valuable learning materials, they remain scattered. Exploring Economics aims to consolidate these materials on a central online platform."

"Within the debate on pluralism in economics, a number of ‘heterodox’ schools of thought are discussed as neglected or emerging alternatives to mainstream economics. However, comparisons between these schools - for example in terms of their assumptions, topics of inquiry, and strengths and weaknesses - are often absent or ad hoc. We therefore aim to systematise the diversity of economic approaches."

"Exploring Economics aims to enrich economic teaching as well as to promote self-criticism, reflection and openness within economics."

https://www.exploring-economics.com/en/project/