May 2013
9 posts
“On the economic front we lack - to borrow a phrase of M. Reynaud - not material...”
– John Maynard Keynes, How to Pay for the War
Juramento a Hitler de la División Azul
¿Juráis ante Dios y por vuestro honor de españoles absoluta obediencia al jefe supremo del ejército alemán, Adolf Hitler, en su lucha contra el bolchevismo y que combatiréis como valientes soldados dispuestos a dar vuestra vida en cada momento por cumplir este juramento?
Do you swear before God and your honor as Spaniards absolute obedience to Adolf Hitler, leader of the German army, in the...
¿Existe una brecha de género dentro del...
Existen todavía pocos datos, pero las encuestas que han preguntado sobre un hipotético referéndum sobre la independencia de momento indican que los hombres son más favorables a este proyecto que las mujeres. Según las dos últimas encuestas del CEO y también en el Barometro del GESOP de invierno existe una brecha de género:
La diferencia de género es particularmente drástica cuando se plantea la...
Richard Florida, "The Link Between High Levels of... →
Especially interesting to think about the Spanish case:
Communities with lots of homeowners may restrict labor mobility, generate longer commutes, and lower rates of new business formation.
A few things The Economist had to say about...
Nov 21, 1970:
It is still to early to judge Dr Allende, although the debate in foreign capitals about where he is likely to lead his country and perhaps the continent as a whole is more heated than ever. The deserted mansions of Santiago are the judgment of Chile’s moneyed people on the first marxist who has tried to rule them. Many of them have taken refuge in Argentina, the country that is...
April 2013
16 posts
“I just like monkeys. Don’t ask me why, I just do. I’ve got one...”
– Bernard Berrian
“This is not a time to commit sociology”
– Stephen Harper
Henry Farrell, "There is no alternative" →
Where they are in opposition, European social democrats don’t know what to offer voters. Where they are in power, they don’t know how to use it. Even in the United States, which has never had a social democratic party with national appeal, the Democrats have gradually changed from a party that belonged ambiguously to the left to one that spans the limited gamut between the...
Steve Randy Waldman, "The generalized resource... →
A really interesting post:
“Technology” is not a tangible thing that can be publicly owned and sold for proceeds. But like oil in the ground, it is a resource the scale of whose product far exceeds the reward required to incentivize its production. If we imagine technology as a source of value embedded in most goods and services, we can distribute claims upon it simply by distributing new...
Todd Gordon & Jeffery R. Webber, "Honduran... →
An interesting piece via Jacobin:
The democratic delusion on offer here has been a staple of US-Honduran relations since the late nineteenth century. If Lobo is the latest emblem of that delusion in practice — having apparently re-established law and order after the unseemly interruption of Micheletti — he also exposes its ruthless center: elections as theater, direct rule by capital, and...
“In the early seventeenth century, King Philip III of Spain ‘died of a...”
– Harald Welzer, Climate Wars
Los Concordatos son para dictadores
Solo hay que mirar el listado de Concordatos que nos facilita la Santa Sede para ver con que tipo de gobierno pactaba el Vaticano.
1929: Italia bajo Mussolini (Pactos Lateranenses entre la Santa Sede e Italia)
1933: Alemania bajo Hitler (Concordato entre la Santa Sede y el Tercer Reich)
1940: Portugal bajo Salazar (Concordato entre la Santa Sede y la República de Portugal)
1950: España bajo...
“..members of the Basque clergy explicitly taught that since indirect taxes were...”
– Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen
“This is the heritage from our ancestors and we need to preserve it…Rather...”
– Financial Times - Indonesia moves to outlaw black magic
George Monbiot, "Communism, welfare state – what's... →
Monbiot hits the nail on the head:
Last week I ran a small online poll, asking people to nominate inspiring, transfiguring ideas. The two mentioned most often were land value taxation and a basic income…These ideas require courage: the courage to confront the government, the opposition, the plutocrats, the media, the suspicions of a wary electorate. But without proposals on this scale,...
¿Cual es el Plan B para los socialdemócratas de...
Una enorme desconexión mental se ha abierto entre el núcleo de Europa y su periferia. Una realidad mundana en el centro coexiste con una desastrosa en la periferia, lo cual significa que no se comparte la sensación de urgencia alrededor de la Unión con respeto a la crisis del euro.
Según una visión de la crisis, el mercado se auto-regula y por lo tanto, tras un periodo de doloroso ajuste, los...
March 2013
10 posts
1 tag
Kendra Coulter, "Targeting change: Retail and... →
My friend Kendra is doing some great work at Revolutionizing Retail agitating for a fair deal for retail workers. Her latest article is well worth reading:
Unionization plays a role in raising retail standards, and workers of all ages are choosing unions as a way to tangibly improve their conditions and gain greater respect. Public policy should also be strengthened and expanded to ensure all...
Luc Eyraud and Anke Weber, "The Challenge of Debt... →
An interesting IMF paper via Paul Krugman. Abstract:
Studies suggest that fiscal multipliers are currently high in many advanced economies. One important implication is that fiscal tightening could raise the debt ratio in the short term, as fiscal gains are partly wiped out by the decline in output. Although this effect is not longlasting and debt eventually declines, it could be an issue if...
Gangnam
“The fully illuminated earth radiates disaster triumphant.”
“In May 2009, Gongan county in Hubei province ordered state employees...”
– An imaginative alternative to austerity from Richard McGregor’s The Party.
Orley Ashenfelter et al, "Wine tasting: Is... →
A pretty funny piece:
As has often been shown, the neural representation of experienced pleasantness is determined by the knowledge of the price of a wine (Plassmann et al. 2007). That is, if we think a wine is expensive we perceive its quality as being superior, all other things being equal. This suggests that, on many occasions, quality is not an objective trait of a commodity, it rather seems...
Henry Farrell, "Post-Democracy in Italy and... →
An excellent post over at Crooked Timber:
Grillo’s movement, and other leftwing movements want more democracy rather than less, but they aren’t able clearly to articulate how this would work. They would like to recover a better way of doing democracy in a post-democratic Europe but they are not sure how to start. Engaging with the system as it is, e.g. by entering into government in coalition...
February 2013
18 posts
3 tags
Some recent writing
January 25 (Agenda Pública) - La brecha de empleo en España
February 4 (SEJ) - Spain is Different!
February 8 (SEJ) - The Socialist International: What Is It Good For?
February 26 (Agenda Pública) - Que el último en irse apague la luz
February 27 (Blog Alternativas) - Por treinta piezas de plata
Dane Clouston, "Elephants Left in the Room -... →
From Compass’ interesting Elephants Left in the Room series, a defense of the universal inheritance:
To tackle this “Elephant in the Room”, every UK-born UK citizen ought to receive a basic minimum British Universal Inheritance at a financially reasonably responsible age - say 25. Inheritance Tax should be reformed to finance this, focusing on the two separate aspects – the giving and the...
Peter Frase, "Post-Work: A Guide for the... →
A great little piece from Jacobin:
Post-work socialism has a proud, if dissident tradition, from Paul Lafargue to Oscar Wilde to Bertrand Russell to André Gorz.
3 tags
¿No hay una revolución porque no hay jóvenes?
Hay pocos jóvenes en España. El país ha transitado la transición demográfica.
La sociedad española lleva tiempo envejeciendo, y la oleada de emigración provocada por la crisis está intensificando esta tendencia.
¿Puede ser que ni ahora, ni nunca más, existirá una masa joven de tamaño suficiente como para provocar un cambio? No lo sé.
Fuentes: INE, INSEE, US Census International Data Base
...
John Schmitt, "Why Does the Minimum Wage Have No... →
A great piece from John Schmitt:
The employment effect of the minimum wage is one of the most studied topics in all of economics. This report examines the most recent wave of this research – roughly since 2000 – to determine the best current estimates of the impact of increases in the minimum wage on the employment prospects of low-wage workers. The weight of that evidence points to little or no...
3 tags
Sorprenent enquesta sobre la independència del...
El NDP, partit socialdemòcrata canadenc que va arrasar al Quebec en les últimes eleccions federals, ha presentat una proposta, “Llei de la Unitat” que pretén aclarir “l’Acta de la Claredat”. L’Acta de la claredat especifica que el govern canadenc només podria entrar en negociacions sobre la secessió de qualsevol província canadenca si fos fruit d’un...
Larry Elliott, "Canada's problems are about to... →
Canada’s problems, by contrast, are about to begin. True, growth has been plumped up by high commodity prices and prospects of slightly faster growth in the global economy during 2013 will help the extractive sector. Canada’s banks were better able to cope with the global financial storm. But the real reason growth has been strong is booming property prices. That is about to end. In...
Joe Guinan, "Social democracy in the age of... →
This article and the Democracy Collaborative it mentions are both worth checking out:
The difficulties facing social democrats today are deeply embedded in their history. Always more pleased with itself than its record would warrant, social democracy must now make a true reckoning with that history if it is to emerge from the current crisis as a continuing force for progressive change.
Un Plan Marshall para Europa →
Propuesta de la Confederación de Sindicatos Alemanes (DGB) para un programa de coyuntura, inversión y desarrollo para Europa.
Esto es un documento importante:
El momento exige un cambio de rumbo, en el que se sienten las bases para el futuro y, con ello, se estabilice la coyuntura actual. Europa necesita una senda de crecimiento y modernización proyectada en el largo plazo, que garantice el...
3 tags
Mariano Rajoy explicando como generar confianza
Entrevista de Mariano Rajoy en el Telediario de TVE el 16 de noviembre del 2011, a los 6:00:
¿Y en la primera legislatura, cuatro años, ¿dónde debería estar razonablemente nuestra tasa de desempleo?
Eso es muy difícil decir. Ya le digo, lo importante es ir dando pasos en la buena dirección, ir generando confianza, que el inversor se anime a invertir y ganar también la confianza fuera….Por...
Barry Eichengreen, "Our Children’s Economics" →
In contrast to the economics of those years, economics today is a mature, well-established discipline. And, like any mature discipline, it advances incrementally rather than in revolutionary steps.
This presumption is almost certainly mistaken. It reflects the same error made by scholars of technology who argue that all of the radical breakthroughs have already been made. As this view is...
3 tags
Javier López: La reforma laboral no funciona. ¿O... →
fjavilopez:
Se acaba de cumplir un año de la reforma laboral y el resultado obtenido es bochornoso. 700.000 parados más, 780.000 cotizantes menos, un desemepleo del 26% y una tasa de paro juvenil que ha escalado hasta el 56%.
Nuestro mercado laboral hace aguas y la mayoría de medios han recordado los datos…
3 tags
¿Quién ganaría un referéndum sobre la...
Artur Mas convocó las elecciones del 25N con la retórica de que serían plebiscitarias. Pero unas elecciones parlamentarias no tienen la misma dinámica que un referéndum. No se puede extrapolar de la composición del parlamento cual sería la “voluntad del pueblo” en un hipotético referéndum. Para empezar, un referéndum sería una persona-un voto mientras que la composición del Parlament...
Daniel Aldana Cohen, "Democracy or Eco-Apartheid" →
Rationing was a traumatic word during the Obamacare debate, though for Canadians like me, its effectiveness as a scare word was puzzling. Access to resources is obviously already rationed by income and wealth. Isn’t it better to ration fairly, according to need?
