The world
Ukraine – is this the re-emergence of the USSR?
The mainstream media will probably keep us informed about the military manoeuvres around Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, but there is a great deal of politics and history behind this conflict.
Stan Grant has a short (6 minute) video providing some political and historical background. The explicit issue is about Russia’s fear that Ukraine is being pulled into a “western” sphere of influence. It’s also about Putin’s notion that the fragmentation of the USSR was a humiliating blow for Russia. The US and its European allies may be threatening tough sanctions, but Putin, who was prepared to take over the Crimea and bear the sanctions, will probably not be deterred by the present threats of sanctions if he invades Ukraine, and has reason to believe the US is bluffing.
Oh what a lovely pandemic!
“The wealth of the 10 richest men has doubled, while the incomes of 99 percent of humanity are worse off, because of Covid-19”.
That’s one of the findings of OXFAM’s report Inequality kills: the unparalleled action needed to combat unprecedented inequality in the wake of Covid-19.
The report is mainly about the corrosive effect of wealth and income inequality, both between rich and poor countries, and within countries. Over the last two years already existing inequality has interacted with Covid-19 to worsen the situation. The poor have been more likely to be struck by Covid-19, less likely to be vaccinated, and more likely to die, than the well-off.
At first sight it seems to be a typical call for re-distribution:
We can radically redesign our economy to be centred on equality. We can claw back extreme wealth through progressive taxation; invest in powerful, proven inequality- busting public measures; and boldly shift power in the economy and society.
Among other measures it calls for a 99 percent tax on individual wealth accumulated since the pandemic broke out.
But its final chapter “Pre-distribution to shift power and income in the economy” is a prescription, within a mainstream economic framework, to rid capitalism of its worst distortions: its failure to stop monopolisation, the weakening of unions and other bodies that once ensured income circulated in the economy, the run-down of public assets, and the alignment of economic and political power.
Lyn Morgain of Oxfam Australia explains the report’s findings, in a world and Australian context, on a 10-minute ABC Breakfast segment, including the way governments, including Australian governments, have allowed monetary and fiscal measures, intended to sustain the economy during the pandemic, to contribute to worsening inequality.
The World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum is underway, in virtual space rather than in its usual location at the Davos resort in Switzerland. Its theme this year is “Working together, restoring trust”.
You can hear Olaf Scholz, the new Federal Chancellor of Germany and Chair of the G7, giving what is essentially a keynote address, in which he puts flesh on to the ideas of “working together”, specifically to address global problems of public health and climate change, and “restoring trust”, to rebuild faith in in democracy, through ensuring that economic progress is to the benefit of all. Europe is going ahead with industrial transformation based on de-carbonization and “will no longer wait for the slowest and least ambitious”. (16 minutes of address, 12 minutes of discussion with the chair.)
The site has contributions from many other political figures and businesspeople, mainly to do with the economic transition around de-carbonization – no longer seen as a cost, but rather as an opportunity for economic development.
I understand Morrison is making a presentation. Here is a link – Friday morning Swiss time – a bit too late to include any comments this week.
World talent ranking: high-tax countries shine. Australia doesn’t.
The Swiss-based Institute for Management Development (IMD) has published its World Talent Ranking for 2021.
Although IMD is a typical business-oriented body, which tends to see low taxes as a positive for business, its report stresses the importance of publicly-funded education and the need for an effective health system (it’s amazing how a pandemic can shape economic awareness). Its #1 ranking goes to Switzerland (natürlich), but other countries in its top ten include Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Iceland, Finland, Netherlands and Germany – all countries that our economic elites would describe as socialist basket cases because of their high taxes.
Australia comes in at position 20, just scraping ahead of the UK, and having slipped quite a few places since 2020. We rank well on having plenty of “foreign highly-skilled personnel”, but miserably on investment in “apprenticeship” and “employee training”. That means that rather than investing in our own people, we free-load on others and leave our native population behind.
Public broadcasting under threat
Jonathan Yerushalmy alerts us to what’s happening to Britain’s public broadcaster, the BBC.
For years it has been funded by the quaint mechanism of a radio and television licence fee, presently £159 a year, a fee that is essentially paid by every household. It’s a regressive way to fund a public service, but it has given the BBC a degree of funding independence.
Yerushalmy points out that the government intends to abolish this funding model, and replace it with budgetary appropriations. In the transition to this new model it has already frozen the licence fee in nominal terms for six years, which will see inflation reduce its real funding and force program cuts. The Johnson Government is no friend of the BBC, and Nadine Dorries, the UK “Culture” Secretary, displaying an atrocious misunderstanding of the economics of broadcasting, wants to move the BBC to a more commercial model like private broadcasters.
The losers would be not only the people of Britain, but people around the world who watch or listen to BBC programs daily. While the BBC has a parochial bias (it is after all British) it has been reasonably free of political interference.
A recent Economist article – In its centenary year, the BBC looks vulnerable – points out that while some Conservative politicians see the BBC as a transplanted Pravda, most in the Johnson government see the BBC as an anti-Brexit voice, and want to rein it in to become more loyal to the government’s policy of withdrawal from Europe. It notes that people recently appointed to the BBC board have strong alignments to the ruling Conservative Party.
Understandably The Economist, although it is a competing media outfit, is strongly supportive of the BBC’s independence and strong funding for public broadcasting.