Credit rating agencies do a terrible job of forecasting their clients’ futures, and yet their ratings can have catastrophic effects on financial markets and on vast swathes of the world economy. Clearly something needs to change here. Could a proposed new European agency help?
by Brian Kallor. We in the modern West have grown up surrounded by mountains of food – grown, picked, processed, preserved, cooked and refrigerated for us, and in such quantities that a third of it is through away uneaten, and obesity presents a major health crisis. Fossil fuels made this brief state possible, and now that we see their end on the horizon we must reacquaint ourselves with the more basic methods of getting nutrition — ideally allowing more of us, not just to survive, but to eat well.
As Naomi Klein has been pointing out recently, effective action on climate change requires changes that go well beyond simple shopping decisions about which lightbulb to buy – what’s actually needed is political change on a global level. Rather than shrinking back from this idea, what if we embraced it and recognized that such change, if carefully planned and implemented, could bring about vital improvements to the lives of most people around the world?
Brian Davey has produced two more posters for the Occupy movement which can be downloaded from this site. They describe the Eurozone crisis and the “monetocracy”: the one percent who exercise power over the rest of us.
In a follow-up to her earlier post on preparing your household for a currency crisis, Theresa Carter suggests a range of practical preparations that communities can make in order to build resilience.
by Brian Davey. There are really three dimensions to the current crisis: the banking and finance dimension of elite fraud; a crisis of uneven development accentuated by competition that has reached outer limits; and a limits to growth crisis. Action to clear up any one of these problems will not succeed without our working on the others as well.
In his chapter from the New Zealand edition of Fleeing Vesuvius, Laurence Boomert gives an account of a lifetime built on accepting and rejecting Vesuvius and the progressive actions taken to beat the odds. “The foreground will seem like the end of the world but I see, through the smoke and ruins of that which must fall, a wiser, more humble, more determined humanity with 10,000 years of social and technological success stories to draw on, setting a new course for the future.”
The news overnight from Brussels is that the 17 euro countries, led in this particular respect by France, have refused to allow the UK to exclude itself from their emerging plans to regulate financial transactions.
by Theresa Carter. What happens if the money in your pockets is worthless overnight? The future of the Euro is not looking too bright, nor is our relationship with it. Whether it crashes, we leave it or we are asked to leave – it is something worth preparing for.
Richard Douthwaite, co-founder of Feasta and much-loved colleague and friend, died on November 14th 2011 after a long illness. We will miss his unique and far-ranging intellect, the clarity of his thought and writing, his warmth and his laughter. Tributes to him have come in from around the world and you can read them here.
In line with his wishes, we are continuing with our scheduled events and publishing of articles.
Professor Mary Mellor –
Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Northumbria
Chair of the Sustainable Cities Research Institute
Date: Saturday 11th February, 6pm
Venue: Boole 2, UCC, Cork
Date: 17th, 18th & 19th of February, Cloughjordan, Tipperary.
The aim of this weekend conference is to introduce the CSA concept to communities and growers on the island of Ireland. The event will bring together food producers and emerging Irish CSA’s while creating networking and learning opportunities with experienced initiatives from across Europe.
Feasta’s Autumn conference examined measures that this country could adopt to secure its economic future which would not leave it reliant on external factors largely outside of its control. Scenarios explored included the potential collapse of the eurozone. The conference featured prominent international and Irish economists and was aimed at economists, politicians, policy-makers, business people, social partners, and other key decision-makers.
‘Land value tax’ would be fairer, says Mark Drakeford AM Welsh Labour AM Mark Drakeford has given his backing to a “land value tax”. The Cardiff West AM’s championing of the tax comes as the Silk Commission investigates giving the Assembly new fiscal powers. In an article for the Institute of Welsh Affairs, Mr Drakeford [...]
Ronan Lyons’s report on Site Value Tax in Ireland is available for download. The report assesses the obstacles to implementing SVT in Ireland and how these can be overcome. It also assesses the revenue potential of the tax and the distribution of land values in Ireland.
By Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer living in Dublin, Ireland. Cross posted in Naked Capitalism In 2008 profits in the US economy crashed out. But they soon bounced back. This bounce was largely due to the profits being reaped in the financial sector – which sickened many given that 2008 was in large measure [...]
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