Mathew D. Rose – Investigative Journalist specialised in Organised Political Crime, Ruediger Rossig – Investigative Journalist, Balkan Expert, Nick Shaxson – Investigative Journalist and Author of “Treasure Islands” and David Shirreff – Former finance and business journalist at The Economist and Author of “Break up the Banks!”, Playwright are the editors of the new progressive weblog Brave New Europe, featuring texts from dozends of well-know authors.
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The dangers of TiSA, even of a failed TiSA
Legal scholar Jane Kelsey from New Zealand has assembled an extremely well-informed report about the negotiations for the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). You learn about the main corporate sponsors of these negotiations, organized in “Team TiSA”, which have privileged access to official negotiators. Kelsey also exposes, how the TiSA sponsors took many of their extreme proposals for the prevention of regulation of finance and data abuse from rejected earlier attempts at agreements and how they continue to plug them into any trade agreement that comes along. This report is thus required reading for anybody who deals with trade agreements or data privacy issues.
Pressure is mounting on Draghi and the G30
Emily O‘Reilly is the EU Ombudsman, an arbiter for the public’s complaints about EU-institutions. She has earned a reputation for being tough. She wants written answers from Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank, the EU’s monetary and banking surveillance institution. He has to explain how he makes sure that he does not divulge insider information or runs into conflicts of interest as a participant of secret talks with bankers in the so-called Group of Thirty (G30). O’Reilly’s questions, published on her website, make it plain that she will not easily be convinced.
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Bundesbank rejects 100%-money based on sophistry and false claims
In its April monthly report, Deutsche Bundesbank explains that banks create money ex-nihilo and rejects the proposal of 100%-money. The full English version is now online. The arguments employed to discredit 100%-money are a mix of sophistry and misleading or false statements.
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Bundesbank corrects textbook mistakes on money creation, rejects 100%-money
In the April-edition of their monthly report, the Bundesbank has belatedly joined the Bank of England in explicitly stating that the treatment of banks and money creation in most textbooks is wrong: banks are not intermediaries; they create money ex-nihilo. This helps the Bundesbank to reject criticism that central banks are currently “printing” too much money. At the same time, the Bundesbank rejects the proposal of 100%-money, i.e. bank deposits fully backed by central bank money.
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Will California’s minimum wage put “non-elite restaurants“ out of business, as “Harvard-Shock-Study” suggests?
Recently, California’s legislature decided that by 2022 the state’s minimum wage will rise to $15 from currently $10. A number of cities, including San Francisco, have already started hiking their own minimum wage. Thus, a Harvard-linked study of the effects of these regional minimum wage hikes on restaurant closures met with great media interest in California and beyond. The popular anarcho-finance website Zero Hedge titled “Harvard Shock Study”. Breitbart found its own anti-elite twist with the headline “Harvard Research: Minimum Wage Hikes Put Non-Elite Restaurants Out of Business”. We take a closer look at the findings of the study.
IMF tells governments how to subvert public resistance against elimination of cash
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington has published a Working Paper on “de-cashing”. It gives advice to governments who want to abolish cash against the will of their citizenry. Move slowly, starting with seemingly harmless measures, is part of that advice.