Today’s tour of things econcomic, ecologic, and politic begins with questions from Hearst Newspapers:
Critics question desirability of relentless economic growth
Fresh-faced tech millionaires snap up glitzy new condos in San Francisco. Across America, construction is up and unemployment is down. Consumers are buying. The economy is growing.
Yet instead of applause, voices from across the political spectrum — Berkeley activists and Beltway conservatives, Pope Francis and even some corporate CEOs — are criticizing economic growth and its harm to the well-being of humans and the planet.
Ecologists warn that economic growth is strangling the natural systems on which life depends, creating not just wealth, but filth on a planetary scale. Carbon pollution is changing the climate. Water shortages, deforestation, tens of millions of acres of land too polluted to plant, and other global environmental ills are increasingly viewed as strategic risks by governments and corporations around the world.
Profits up in smoke from Raw Story:
Bummer: Colorado pot shops will run out of marijuana within days
Marijuana dispensaries in Colorado are finding it impossible to keep up with the demands of recreational users.
The first five days of days of legalized sales of marijuana have been big business for dispensary owners — so much so that some shops even closed early last Wednesday, the first day on which such sales were legal.
Supply simply can’t keep up with demand.
Off to Britain with a promise for Boomers from BBC News:
David Cameron pledges to ‘protect’ state pension
The state pension will continue to rise by at least 2.5% a year until 2020 if the Conservatives win the next election, David Cameron has said.
The PM pledged to keep the “triple lock” system, which ensures the state pension goes up by whichever is higher – inflation, wages or 2.5%.
He said it was “fair” to prioritise pensions even at a time when benefits for younger people were being slashed.
The London Telegraph offers a dire prescription:
George Osborne to cut taxes by extending austerity and creating smaller state
George Osborne will set out plans to cut taxes by extending the austerity programme and creating a permanently smaller State.
The Chancellor will say in a speech in Birmingham that Britain must face up to “hard truths” about the need to make more cuts and reforms to get a stable economy.
His comments come after David Cameron hinted that a future Conservative government will seek to cut taxes for “the lowest paid” before helping those on high salaries.
Despite almost four years of Coalition austerity, the Government is still borrowing too much and spending too much on interest on the national debt, Mr Osborne will say.
The Guardian offers another side of the austerian dream:
Buy-to-let property supremo shuts door on housing benefit tenants
One of Britain’s best-known landlords has issued eviction notices to every tenant who is on welfare, and told letting agents that he will not accept any more applicants who need housing benefit.
Fergus Wilson, who with his wife Judith owns nearly 1,000 properties around the Ashford area of Kent, has sent the eviction notices to 200 tenants, saying he prefers eastern European migrants who default much less frequently than single mums on welfare. He says the move is purely an economic decision and points out that private landlords are running a business.
One response, via The Observer:
Eviction of tenants on welfare ‘will create benefit blackspots’
A big landlord’s decision to reject housing benefit claimants is the latest symptom of a trend that could see the low-paid excluded from whole areas of the country, says a leading charity
Britain is witnessing the emergence of “benefit blackspots” as welfare claimants are forced to move out of the towns of their choice after being evicted from rented housing by private landlords.
Housing charity Shelter has warned that entire UK communities could become claimant-free zones, after the Guardian revealed on Saturday that one of Britain’s best-known landlords has sent out eviction notices to every tenant who is receiving benefits. Fergus Wilson, who owns almost 1,000 properties in Kent, has also informed letting agents that he now refuses to accept applicants who need housing benefit.
From Sky News, a rare concession?:
Barclays Poised To Back Down Over Pay Plans
The UK bank is expected to modify plans to award new role-based pay in cash after investor complaints, Sky News understands.
Barclays is expected to bow to demands by leading investors to revamp plans for a new pay scheme as it seeks to avoid reigniting a long-running feud over the remuneration of its top employees.
Sky News has learnt that several institutional investors have urged Barclays to alter a new role-based allowance for senior staff so that it is paid in shares instead of cash.
The shareholders have said that plans mooted by the bank to award share allowances to only its chief executive and chief financial officer do not go far enough.
On to Ireland and Banksters Behaving Badly from the Sunday Independent:
Bank staff fired after exposing corrupt official
ULSTER Bank fired a whistle-blower who lifted the lid on a senior official who took tens of thousands of euro to feed his addiction to gambling and luxury holidays, the Sunday Independent has learnt.
The official helped himself to thousands of euro from customers’ accounts as well as cash he received from clients to pay off loans. He also helped himself to an illegal loan during a gambling spree on the horses.
But instead of supporting a member of staff whose diligence led to the detection, Ulster Bank fired her, it has been alleged.
The Sunday Independent again, with more bankster news:
Banks ramp up pressure on families in arrears
DISTRESSED homeowners are coming under unprecedented pressure to cave in to repossessions following “massive escalation” of litigation by banks against struggling borrowers.
In the past four months, lenders have been demanding full or partial payment of arrears to “halt the legal process” and lift the threat of repossessions, documents obtained by the Sunday Independent reveal.
Off to France and the fast shuffle from New Europe:
Hollande goes abroad to shake off domestic criticism
French President Francois Hollande is hoping to score some overseas diplomatic victories after failing to convince critics at home of the merits of his socialist government’s economic measures as an engine of growth.
Hollande, who is the most unpopular French president on record, appears to be shifting gears by focussing more on the crisis in Syria and Iran and less on France’s economic revival. He became the first European leader to recognise Syria’s new opposition coalition as the sole representative of its people and as the “future government of a democratic Syria”. He has also called for a strong international response to allegations of the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
On to Spain and another unpopular personage with The Guardian:
Six in 10 Spaniards want king to abdicate, poll shows
Almost two-thirds of Spaniards want their king to abdicate and hand the crown to his son, according to a poll released on Sunday, the monarch’s birthday.
King Juan Carlos, who has been on the throne for 38 years, was once one of the world’s best-loved sovereigns, respected for his common touch and for helping guide Spain to democracy in the 1970s after the death of Francisco Franco.
But Spaniards have become increasingly frustrated by a long-running corruption investigation into the king’s daughter, Princess Cristina, and her husband, Iñaki Urdangarin – particularly at a time of economic crisis and widespread unemployment. Urdangarin has been charged with embezzling €6m in public funds. The couple deny any wrongdoing.
Curious obstructionism by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy alleged, via El País:
Basque abertzale left accuses Rajoy of trying to block peace talks
Former ETA inmates accept responsibility for violence, say they will join the political process
Terrorist organization expected to issue a statement over ex-prisoners’ announcement
Just one day after a large group of former ETA inmates publicly announced that it was willing to abide by a democratic process and give up the armed struggle, the Basque abertzale left on Sunday accused the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of “stonewalling” the peace process.
The abertzale’s main organizations — the Sortu coalition, LAB labor union and Emai youth group — said that thanks to the steps they have made, as well as the commitments announced by former inmates, there is “no stopping the peace” in the Basque Country.
On to Greece with a warning from MacroPolis:
Greece could still leave euro, says Simitis, PM who engineered entry
The threat of “Grexit” was supposed to have disappeared in 2013 but the man who led Greece into the euro, ex-Prime Minister Costas Simitis, believes that a departure from the single currency should not be ruled out.
In an op-ed in Sunday’s To Vima newspaper, Simitis cited the disastrous state of the Greek economy, public dissatisfaction in debtor and creditor countries and the unsustainability of Greek debt as three of the key reasons that the threat of a euro exit remains.
Simitis ruled out the possibility of Greek public debt being reduced to 124 percent of GDP by 2020, as the country’s European Union and International Monetary Fund programme aims to do. Greek debt stood at 321.8 billion euros, or almost 180 percent of GDP, in Q3 of 2013.
Questions from Neos Kosmos:
Budget surplusses questioned
US analysts claim a Greek default is possible in 2014
Amid record levels of unemployment and increasing poverty the better than expected primary budget surplus posted by Greece in 2013 is one of the few ‘success stories’ of Memorandum policies. However, influential analysts are saying that the surplus should give Greece’s lenders cause for concern as it will actually increase the likelihood of a default.
Kathimerini English confers:
Samaras and Venizelos to meet as coalition’s to-do list grows
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos are to hold their first meeting of the New Year on Tuesday, just over a week before the troika is due to return to Athens and with a growing number of issues troubling their two-party government.
Among the matters to be discussed by the two men are the complaints about a new 25-euro charge for patients who are treated at public hospitals and developing a fiscal plan for 2014 to 2017.
Greek Reporter fortifies:
Venizelos Under Siege in PASOK
PASOK Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos, who is a partner in the coalition government headed by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, the New Democracy Conservative chief, is facing growing unrest in his party that he’s working with his archrival as his party has plummeted to 5 percent in the polls.
Venizelos was named Deputy Premier/Foreign Minister by Samaras last year after abandoning his opposition to the firing of state workers at the national broadcaster ERT, which was shut down, and for supporting more crushing austerity measures which have created record unemployment and record poverty while ramping up anger against the ruling parties.
“Today’s situation is not the destiny of PASOK. Those people who are content with a small PASOK disconnected from society, a small store for personal gains, are ignoring the fact the new left was never small in this country,” it was reported his critics said, with the imbroglio becoming critical Greek news for the wobbly government.
And New Europe hits the road with neoliberal theft of the commons:
Happy New Year Suckers!
The Looting of Europeans
This is the end section in Greece (Patras-Athens) of European Highway E65, one of the main Trans European Networks (TEN). It is a two-way road; one lane for each direction, with no separation in the middle. Euphemistically, it is called a highway, but the Greeks call it a carmagnole (the Greek word for death-trap).
The European Commission has financed, so far, the construction of the Greek E65 and other highways with over €8bn.
In October 2007, the Greek Parliament ratified a law providing the concession of E65 and another four highways – all part of the famous, notorious for south Europe, TENs. The ratification provided the concession of the existing finished parts of the five highways for 30 years, giving the beneficiaries the right to collect tolls from the first day against the implementation of their construction. Until now, it is estimated that tolls collected amount to €3.5bn. The concession gives the prerogative to the beneficiaries to increase the tolls at will. National and EU contributions are also provided by the concession and are regularly paid.
After the jump, Ukrainian protest, Latin transformation, Asian privatizations, turmoil in Bangladesh, Thailand, and Cambodia, Chinese slowdown, vanishing sardines, and Fukushimapocalypse Now!. . .
On to the Ukraine with smaller crowds, down from last month’s seven figures via Europe Online:
Ukraine’s Klitschko says “moral support not enough”
Ukrainian opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko on Sunday told a mass rally in Kiev that the opposition needed more than “moral support” in its campaign against the government.
Addressing a rally of some 10,000 supporters in central Kiev, Klitschko renewed calls for the European Union to impose sanctions on the country’s leadership.
Off to Latin American and a major change from the Rio Times:
Estimated 23 Percent of Rio Favela Homes to be Legalized
Authorities report 103,000, or 23 percent, of the homes in Rio’s favela communities are in the process of receiving legal ownership titles.
The ‘irregular’ communities of favelas in and around the city are home to approximately 22 percent of Rio, and now following the UPP (Police Pacification Unit) program is an effort to legalize property titles. Authorities last week reported that 103,000, or 23 percent, of the homes are in the process of regularization, which will take years to complete.
There are several government bodies that originally owned the land, as well as some privately owned property, before the mass settlements developed at a time of oppressive economic hardship for many laborers migrating to the city.
From IPS-Inter Press Service, growing hopes:
Women Farmers in Chile to Teach the Region Agroecology
An organisation that brings together some 10,000 peasant and indigenous women from Chile is launching an agroecology institute for women campesinos, or small farmers, in South America.
For years, the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women (ANAMURI) has been training thousands of people through La Vía Campesina, the international peasant movement, working on the basis of food sovereignty, which asserts the right of people to define their own food systems.
But today it is undertaking its most ambitious project.
The Agroecology Institute for Rural Women (IALA) will be the first in Latin America to only target women. It is taking shape in the town of Auquinco – which roughly means “the sound of water” in the Mapuche indigenous language – in the district of Chépica, 180 km south of Santiago.
Off to Asia, starting with another flurry of privatizations, this time of Pakistani public sector enterprises via the Express Tribune:
Privatisation: A bold step, but companies must have been carefully selected
The government has directed the Privatisation Commission to immediately start the process of sale of PSEs through initial and secondary public offerings and transfer of 26% shares along with management control to the private sector.
It had committed to announcing a strategy for the sale of 30 companies by the end of September 2013 before the disbursement of second loan tranche by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Privatisation plan for the remaining, out of the total of 65 entities, had to be announced before the close of 2013.
However, the inclusion of highly profitable enterprises like Pakistan State Oil (PSO) in the list is incomprehensible. Only, if we take into account PSO’s performance in the last six months (July-December) of 2013, it is something the PML-N government can really boast of. In fact, all such state enterprises should be given required support and encouragement.
More trade dealing, this time in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, via Nikkei Asian Review:
Firms gear up as Asean eyes single market by end of 2015
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is putting on a last spurt in the coming two years toward the goal of creating a single market at the end of 2015.
The group will step up the elimination of tariffs within the regional bloc and the facilitation of member states’ mutual entry into the services sector to launch the Asean Economic Community (AEC), which is expected to activate a giant market of 600 million people.
Many businesses have already begun preparations to capitalize on the creation of the borderless market.
More privatizations, this time Down Under with the Australian Financial Review:
ACCC calls for big asset sell-off
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rob Sims has urged the Abbott government to sell key government-owned assets including Australia Post, Medibank Private and other state-owned energy and infrastructure companies. He also says the federal government’s root-and-branch review of competition laws will be more far-reaching than business expected.
Xinhua chronicles bubbling:
2013, booming year for Australian housing market
As Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology confirmed that 2013 was the hottest year on record in Australia, the real estate market in Australia has also seen its heat went up, attracting much attention from both local and foreign buyers.
Strong demand, short supply, weaker Aussie dollar and record low borrowing cost were the main factors that pushed the housing prices of Australian cities to a new high.
According to the RP Data-Rismark December Home Value Index, Sydney has the most expensive property market and also the strongest price growth. House values rose by 14.5 percent in Sydney in 2013, pushing the city’s median price to 655,250 AU dollars (587,800 U.S. dollars). This was followed by Perth and Melbourne, where values increased by 9.9 percent and 8.5 percent respectively.
Off to Bangladesh with a body count from Channel NewsAsia Singapore:
18 dead, polling booths firebombed as Bangladesh votes
Thousands of protesters firebombed polling stations and at least 18 people were killed as violence flared across Bangladesh on Sunday during a walkover election boycotted by the opposition.
Police said they had opened fire at protesters as they torched more than 200 polling stations and stole and burnt ballot papers to try to sabotage the poll.
Two of those killed were beaten to death while guarding polling stations in northern districts but most of the victims were opposition supporters.
More from Xinhua:
Bangladesh opposition calls fresh 48-hour strike demanding cancellation of elections
Less than an hour after the parliament elections concluded amid wide spread violence, Bangladesh’s main opposition has called a nationwide 48-hour strike from Monday morning demanding cancellation of Sunday’s general polls.
Osman Faruq, a spokesperson for Bangladesh Nationalist Party ( BNP), announced the strike at a press briefing, saying the strike also aimed at protesting “death of 21 opposition men on Sunday.”
Faruq termed the parliament elections as a “farce” .
Still more from the New York Times:
Low Turnout in Bangladesh Elections Amid Boycott and Violence
Amid a deepening conflict between Bangladesh’s two main political parties, the scene here in the capital as polls opened for the general elections on Sunday was ominous, with black-clad special forces units and soldiers in combat gear patrolling nearly empty boulevards.
Though final results had not been released by early Monday, official counts from Dhaka suggested that the turnout here averaged about 22 percent — a steep decline from the last general elections, when more than 87 percent voted.
Oin to Thailand and more turmoil from Channel NewsAsia Singapore:
Opposition protesters march through Thai capital
Thousands of Thai opposition protesters marched through Bangkok on Sunday to demand the prime minister step down, in a “warm-up” for their planned occupation of the city.
The demonstrators, who are seeking to curb the political dominance of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s billionaire family, say they will “shut down” Bangkok from January 13.
Plans from the Bangkok Post:
PDRC to end main rally site, seize 20 intersections
The main rally stage at Democracy Monument will be shut down on Jan 13, the day of the mass “shutdown” of Bangkok, anti-government protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban announced on Friday night.
Rally stages will be set up across the capital at 20 major intersections to disrupt the work of government officials and paralyse Bangkok, he said.
“Protesters from other provinces who miss the chance to join the main stage on Jan 12 can go to any other stages they want on Jan 13,” he said.
Cambodia next, and more labor discontent from Channel NewsAsia Singapore:
Cambodian opposition leaders summoned to court: party
Cambodia’s opposition leaders have been summoned to court on suspicion of inciting civil unrest, their party said, after the government of strongman premier Hun Sen moved to suppress growing street protests.
Hun Sen faces an increasing challenge to his nearly three-decade rule from striking garment workers as well as opposition supporters demanding that he step down and call a new election because of alleged vote fraud.
Off to China and numbers from the Global Times:
China’s economy expanded by 7.7 percent in the first nine months of 2013. GDP growth in the third quarter accelerated to 7.8 percent from 7.5 percent in the second.
On Dec. 25, a report submitted by the State Council (cabinet) to the country’s parliament said China’s economic growth in 2013 is likely to stand at 7.6 percent. That would be the weakest growth since 1999.
The PMI for the non-manufacturing sector, a key measure of business activity in the services sector, fell to a four-month low at 54.6 in December, as most industries strived to find new growth engines amid slowing exports.
Want China Times has the latest on the man who branded one of UC Berkeley biggest buildings:
Li Ka-shing to sell his only property in Nanjing
Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing announced Dec 31 that he is selling the International Financial Center, his only property in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing. Li prompted speculation last year on whether he was cashing out of Hong Kong and China after he sold more than 12 billion yuan (US$2 billion) worth of properties in China, reports the Guangdong-based Yangcheng Evening News.
ARA Asset Management Limited, a subsidiary of Li’s Cheung Kong Holdings in Singapore, is selling the property that is located in Nanjing’s central business district Xinjiekou. The center, which has been valued at 3 billion yuan (US$495 million), has an area of 109,000 square meters and is the tallest building in the area at 220 m since it was completed in May 2009.
Li pledged that his business empire would never leave Hong Kong during a recent interview. The businessman said he will not sell his businesses’ 3.8 million sq m of commercial properties in Hong Kong, such as the Cheung Kong Center, the Aon China Building, Hutchison House and the Center and another five million sq m of properties in Beijing and Shanghai. The properties are worth a total of at least HK$170 billion (US$21.9 billion) but they only amount to 0.5% of Li’s commercial properties abroad.
South China Morning Post probes:
China probes almost 37,000 officials for graft
Anti-corruption drive nets almost 37,000 officials between January and November 2013, as President Xi Jinping’s promise to tackle graft bears fruit
China investigated almost 37,000 officials suspected of corruption in more than 27,000 cases between January and November 2013, state media said on Sunday.
Out of the 27,236 cases, 12,824 resulted in “losses for the people” involving a total of 5.51 billion yuan (HK$6.99 billion), Xinhua news agency said without elaborating.
And the Global Times explodes:
Vanished into thin air
In response to demands from Beijing for reduced air pollution, the Hebei government in October launched “Operation Sunday” where teams of provincial officials attached explosives to private steel plant boilers and blew them up all over Tangshan.
After that, the old steel workers left the Tangshan area in search of new jobs. On top of lost factories and lost jobs is lost money: some villagers lent their savings to steel mill owners.
As China and Beijing finally faces up to air pollution so hazardous it makes headlines across the world, it is the humbler regions surrounding the capital city that are paying the price by cutting their own heavy industry.
Off to Japan, where legislators are worth$361,600 a head, via Jiji Press:
Assets of Japan New Upper House Members Grow
Assets held by 121 lawmakers in Japan’s House of Councillors who won seats in the July 2013 election averaged 37.7 million yen, a Jiji Press tally revealed Monday.
The figure is up 25 pct from the average for Upper House members elected in the previous 2010 poll, according to the tally, which is based on lawmakers’ reports submitted to the parliamentary chamber’s president.
The increase was chiefly because some lawmakers, mainly from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, reported a particularly large amount of assets.
Jiji Press again, with another neoliberal desideratum:
Japan Introduces New Tax Relief for Stock Investment
Japan introduced new tax incentives for small-lot stock investments this year in an effort to encourage households to shift their focus away from savings.
The tax relief, known as NISA, is closely watched on whether it will be able to get over 850 trillion yen in assets held by Japanese individuals in the forms of cash and savings to be invested in stocks and stock investment trust funds.
Under NISA, or the Japanese version of Britain’s Individual Savings Account system, capital gains and dividends from investments in stocks and stock investment trust funds of up to one million yen per year are exempt from tax for five years.
And on to Fukushimapocalypse Now!
The Japan Daily Press gives us our first alarming headline:
Steam rises from Fukushima reactor, cause still unknown
Yet another unanswered question about the actual state of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been added. Last December, mysterious plumes of steam was seen rising from the No. 3 reactor building and it is suspected that they probably contain radioactive materials, raising concerns once again about the safety of those doing decontamination work at the crippled plant.
Utility operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported on their website that on December 19, 24, 25 and 27, their surveillance cameras detected the rise of the plumes, appearing to come out of the fifth floor of the building. However, they did not offer any explanation as to the source or the cause of the steam. They say that the high levels of radiation have prevented them from conducting a close inspection of the building to determine what exactly is the reason behind the new activity on the site.
The Mainichi skims:
TEPCO allows contractors to dip into ‘labor fund’ increase
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), after announcing last November that “labor funds” would be increased for contract work on the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, told contractors that not all the money had to go to wage increases, effectively reneging on its earlier announcement, it has been learned.
When contracting out work, in addition to base money for wages, TEPCO sets aside extra funds to pay workers at the plant based on radiation exposure and the type of work they do. However, until a Nov. 8 announcement the company had not revealed exact numbers, saying that doing so would “affect future contracts and bids.” This was criticized as encouraging contractors and subcontractors to dip into the labor funds.
And for our first environmental headline, a case of collapse from the Los Angeles Times:
West Coast sardine crash could radiate throughout ecosystem
If sardine populations don’t recover soon, experts warn, the West Coast’s marine mammals, seabirds and fishermen could suffer for years.
In recent years scientists have gained a deeper understanding of sardines’ value as “forage fish,” small but nutrition-packed species such as herring and market squid that form the core of the ocean food web, funneling energy upward by eating tiny plankton and being preyed on by big fish, seabirds, seals and whales.
Now, they say, there is evidence some ocean predators are starving without sardines. Scarcity of prey is the leading theory behind the 1,600 malnourished sea lion pups that washed up along beaches from Santa Barbara to San Diego in early 2013, said Sharon Melin, a wildlife biologist at the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The Guardian gives us our final headline, from the top of the world:
Greenland explores Arctic mineral riches amid fears for pristine region
London Mining’s £1.5bn iron ore mine and new oil drilling licences for BP and Shell spark concern for environment
London Mining, a British mineral company, is trying to attract Chinese and other international investors to build a £1.5bn iron ore mine just outside the Arctic Circle in Greenland.
The move comes as BP and Shell join others exploring for oil and gas in the pristine waters off Greenland, amid heightened concern that the wave of industrialisation will damage the pristine environment.
