How is it possible for Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to roll out a huge infrastructure programme requiring billions of rand and to slash the budget deficit (the proportion of government spending to GDP) from ––4.6% to –3% over three years without increasing taxes?...
markets
World music: myth or reality? | by Andre Marais
It is not unusual these days to walk into any music store and find a category called ‘World Music’ – most commonly displayed alphabetically, according to country and not artist, quite unlike the other products in the shop. The term has become a marketing ploy and a...
Durban COP17: failures in the making | by Patrick Bond
The failure of Durban’s COP17 – a veritable “Conference of Polluters” – is certain, but the nuance and spin are also important. Binding emissions-cut commitments under the Kyoto Protocol are impossible given Washington’s push for an alternate architecture that is also...
Green Capitalism: One neoliberal response to crisis | by Larry Lohmann
‘Let’s put a value on Britain’s ecosystem services’ – the slogan has a nice ring to it. Perhaps we don’t fully understand the value of the wild plants, animals, and natural cycles around us, and if we did, we could appreciate and protect them better.But what is it...
South African economy still vulnerable, volatile and violent to poor and working people | by Patrick Bond
A slow dawn of realisation is setting in among sensible elites: that the world economy isn’t going to recover according to any prior experience, that financial markets are rigged to transfer from the 99% to the 1%, and that ecological barriers are emerging fast on the...
Will the G20 save the world? | by Peter Wahl
The financial crisis, which is haunting the industrialised countries – with heavy effects on the entire world – served as a catalyst for the emergence of the G20 as the ‘premier forum for economic cooperation’, as the G20 defined themselves in their mandate.But the...
Boris Kagarlitsky: Economic policies after the death of neoliberalism | by Boris Kagarlitsky
The international economic system that took shape after the collapse of the Soviet Union is not dead yet, but it is dying. We see that daily, not only in reports on the crisis but also in other news from around the world that tells the same story: the system isn’t...
Living in Rats’ Alley – Europe’s Crash Landing | by Mike Whitney
“Italy is now mathematically beyond the point of no return.” –Barclays Capital The situation in Europe gets more depressing by the day. Policymakers have waited too long and now events are beyond their control. The only way to avert a disorderly breakup and another...
The World Is Locking Itself Into An Unsustainable Energy Future | by Marianne de Nazareth
The door to 2°C is closing,but will we be “locked-in” ? The world is locking itself into an unsustainable energy future which would have far-reaching consequences, warns the International Energy Association (IEA) in its latest World Energy Outlook report released in...


