Mois : janvier 2016

Published on ASIA TIMES, by ASIA UNHEDGED China, Jan 21, 2016.

The People’s Bank of China BPOC on Wednesday said it wants to issue its own digital currency to cut the costs of circulating traditional paper money, boost policymakers’ control of money supply and improve the efficiency of global transactions.

The central bank set up a research team in 2014 to study digital currencies and application scenarios, according to a statement posted on the regulator’s website.   Continuer la lecture de « China’s central bank mulls issuing digital currency »

How to kill the demos: the water struggle in Italy

Published on ZNet (first on Roarmag.org), by Andrea Muehlebach, January 20, 2016.

On November 28, 2015, water activists from the Southern Italian region of Campania staged a massive protest in the city of Naples. Some 5,000 water activists and environmentalists, trade unionists and workers from Naples’ water works protested a recently passed regional law that aims to centralize water management and set the stage for water privatization … // Continuer la lecture de « How to kill the demos: the water struggle in Italy »

Published on ZNet, by Paul Rubin, Jan 18, 2016.

The labor movement in this country is in deep crisis. All too many unions are losing members, confronting deteriorating job conditions, and fighting defensive battles. One would think that labor in conservative, right-to-work states would be in the worst shape of all. But this is not necessarily so. One union local in historically conservative Arizona has continued to grow not just in size but, more importantly, in influence. I believe there are lessons here for labor activists across the nation … //

… Internal Organizing/Education: Continuer la lecture de « Whither Unions? – Organizing Lessons from a Right-To-Work State »

… and How Not to Be Fooled – Published on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, Jan 17, 2016; (first by Larry Schwartz on AlterNet).

… Americans, as P.T. Barnum once noted, are not all that difficult to fool, and our nation’s somewhat weak math skills don’t help. A Pew Research Center report issued last year, which studied test results of 15-year-olds, ranked the United States 35th in the world in math. Not only has this weakness in understanding numbers created opportunities for mass exploitation by Big Pharma and other industries, it has led to needless and mostly unwarranted fear. While Americans don’t understand math, be assured that corporations do, and they happily use it to mislead and obfuscate in the name of selling their products.   Continuer la lecture de « How Corporations and Politicians Lie With Numbers »