#economic affairs

[definitelytherepublicofireland]

@official-ikea weather update: if it's this shit in the Midlands I don't want to imagine dingle

[felixwylde]

Tufton Tories, cry or laugh?

Well, sometimes you just have to shed a tear, or you’ll end up laughing your head off, don’t ya?So, when does that old saying “you’ve gotta laugh, or you’d cry” go a bit too far? When does the laughter stop, and you’re left feeling all miserable?When your family gets caught up in the dodgy dealings of some rich folks with some questionable ideas, what’s the right thing to do?Can you believe they…

[definitelytherepublicofireland]

the three operas: soprano, tenor and hillbilly screeching

How many Opera GX accounts are they?

@operagxreal

@opera-gx-official

@true-opera-gx (it says blog not found? I know you exist)

And any other ones,

Are you part of a multiverse of what?

[vintageseawitch]

Project 2025's economic plan is essentially let billionaires do whatever the hell they want more than ever before with more tax breaks, privatizing/stripping away Medicare, social security, & the VA, deporting 10 million people, many of whom have lived here since they were children, turning 40 hour work weeks into 160 hour work months & allowing companies to get away with not paying overtime, etc. i would count what they want to do with LGBTQIA+ people is also part of their economic plan because sending them to concentration camps or simply executing them for existing as they are would probably cost tax payer dollars.

[workersolidarity]

🇷🇺 THE DURAN UPDATE ON THE RUSSIAN ECONOMY

"a couple of years ago, five or six years ago the Russian economy, the priority for the Russian government was sorting out the banking Financial system. Creating a strong financial system within Russia. Remember in the 1990s Russia had no real financial institutions, [they had] phoney institutions, they were fake institutions. They didn't function like proper Banks do. So the government spent a huge amount of time sorting out Banks, sorting out the financial system. They spent a huge amount of time rebuilding living standards, creating a functioning consumer Market [and] sorting out services. What they're now doing, the focus that they have at the moment is on industrialization and on industrial expansion, and this is not the primary focus and we see investment as I said in Industry surging, and this I think is going to be the future now. We're going to see industrial expansion probably for the next couple of years and alongside that, what goes with that, which will be Capital controls and this period when the ruble was freely convertible is, I think, coming to an end and I think people need to understand that. So that makes the way in which the Russian economy is going to be run from now, at this point on, it's going to make it more like China and indeed India then it has been previously."

- Alex Mercouris 11/05/23

@TheDuran

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[prose2passion]

interesting background to all the shit happening. Also, junktank is a useful word.

[indizombie]

Last year, the German government authorized arms exports worth a total of €326.5 ($355.3 million) to Israel. Of this amount, €20 million was earmarked for weapons of war while the remaining €306.3 million was reserved for defense equipment. According to media reports, the supplies include 3,000 portable anti-tank weapons, 500,000 rounds of ammunition for fully and semi-automatic firearms as well as other fuses and propellants. Much of the over €300 million was spent on armored vehicles, military trucks and safety glass. Until the fall of 2023, only €38.5 million worth of military exports to Israel had been approved in Germany. That figure rose sharply after October 7. In November, the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control, which overseas arms exports, stated that as a consequence of the attack, "applications for the export of military equipment to Israel" would be decided upon according to priority. The share of weapons of war amounts to nearly 6% of the total volume — in 2022, it was 2%. As a result of the significant increase in arms exports from Germany to Israel, the latter now ranks seventh among the prime recipients of Germany military technology. Ukraine tops the list, receiving over €4 billion worth, while Norway and Hungary fall in second and third place respectively, both receiving over €1 billion.

Andreas Noll, ‘War in Gaza: Germany supplies 30% of Israel's arms imports’, Deutsche Welle

[joytri]

Hello, hello! This is my Economics Blog researching and writing about various policies, current affairs, and interesting facts related to Economics 📈🏛️ If you find the human mind, news, environmentalism, and business particularly fascinating, this is a blog you are sure to like. Do check us out!! We would be incredibly grateful for your support <3 Thank you!! 🌎✨

[internationem]

me: barely survived first semester

also me: i should do a SECOND major!

[sillychillly]

Let’s paint a picture:


The US is the most incarcerated country in the world. On both a volume and per capita basis
60% of US people are living paycheck to paycheck


Medical Issues are the cause of most bankruptcies


There is no guarantee of healthcare, vacation, paid parental leave, or sick leave


The US has the world’s largest economy.


If you are a typical worker for Walmart or another top employer, the CEO is on average compensated ~400x more than you.


The US spends more than the top 10+ countries combined on the military & more than most countries’ military on the US police force.


Life Expectancy is going Down not up.


The country isn’t working for the average US citizen


We can adjust the US’ Trajectory by believing & investing in our people. We are one of the most diverse people in the world, who value individuality, speaking one’s mind, and taking care of family & friends.


We deserve to share in the US’ massive economy instead of gains & benefits disproportionately going to the top .01%.

[bumblebeeappletree]

The UN launched the International Decade of Indigenous Languages on December 16 to draw attention to the endangerment of many Indigenous languages and to persuade people to preserve, revitalize, and promote them before they’re lost to history.

UN General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi said of the resolution, ‘With each Indigenous language that goes extinct, so too goes the thought: the culture, tradition, and knowledge it bears. That matters because we are in dire need of a radical transformation in the way we relate to our environment.’

According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Indigenous people speak more than 4,000 of the world’s approx 6,700 languages while making up less than 6% of the world’s population. It’s estimated that more than half of these languages will go extinct by 2100.

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[definitelytherepublicofireland]

Do you want to join us in the war against IKEA?

what did the swedes do now

[k-star-holic]

"The Doctor Master Kim3." Should I have brought in Lee Gyeung-young? "Romance" is gone, and "arbitrary conflict" remains!

Source: k-star-holic.blogspot.com

[the-funtime-autocrat]

Examples of the developmental state are familiar in East Asia: Japan and the four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore), plus post-Mao China. But the East Asians borrowed the developmentalist model from Germany and the United States, which in their successful attempts to catch up with industrial Britain in the 19th century had used their own variants of the tradition, associated with Friedrich List in Germany and Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay in the U.S. The roots of developmentalist economics can be traced back to mercantilism and cameralism in early modern Europe and even further back to Renaissance Italy. (There was no “fascist model” of economics. Mussolini’s regime might be classified as an authoritarian developmentalist state, but the short-lived Nazi economy was based first on preparation for war and then on plunder and slavery.) Ironically, during the Cold War, when the U.S. supposedly illustrated the virtues of free enterprise, the U.S. had its own successful developmental-state industrial policy, orchestrated by the Defense Department through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and other agencies. In the 1990s, libertarians and neoliberals claimed that the information technology revolution proved the superiority of the free market to government when it comes to innovation. But the major tools of the computer age, from digitization to the global internet to the computer mouse were developed by government contractors reliant on U.S. taxpayer money. It is no coincidence that U.S. productivity and innovation sputtered in this century, when neoliberal Democrats and libertarian Republicans decided to let the free market develop the next wave of technologies. It turns out that venture capitalists and advertisers are more interested in addictive online sites like Facebook and Twitter than in robots and cures for cancer. Without exception the major advances in basic technology during the post-1980s era of free market utopianism have been largely funded by the federal government.

Michael Lind, “Cold War II” (January 3rd 2023).

[harrison-abbott]

Musings on Brexit

I was reading a newspaper article today about what’s happened to the UK economy since Brexit. And amongst the details was an example of a trade deal that Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison (then Australian PM) made last year. It was hailed as a huge post Brexit achievement by Boris and co. at the time. And apparently it will contribute to a 0.02% rise in British GDP – which will come into effect in 15 years’ time.

The same article pointed out that Paris overtook London this week as Europe’s most valuable stock market, for the first time ever. Since Brexit (the initial vote in 2016), Paris’ CAC 40 index is up 47% and London’s FTSE 100 slumped at 16%.

There were trading deals the govt made with Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Japan, post-Brexit, which were basically replacements of deals that the UK had with each country pre-Brexit. They only had to make the arrangements for a second time, because Brexit legislation had scrapped formal affairs.

And I’m just reading another article just now, about how Brexit has affected the UK workforce, which says, that;

One in four workers in the hospitality sector were Non-British before Brexit, and that afterwards there are now approx. 188 000 vacancies within this sector, this winter.

Similarly, the shock to the supply chain industry was seen earlier this year, as food product deliveries dropped severely from overseas lorry drivers. This forced the government to backtrack on Brexit policies, whereby they then offered 5000 temporary visas to foreign lorry drivers in order to boost the supply network. This was insignificant, considering that the haulage industry estimates the lorry driver shortage post-Brexit being around 100 000.

And here I’m reading that, within the two years since the severance from Europe, the weaker pound has left UK households worse off across the nation, through the increased cost of imports, occurring in higher inflation and lower real wage growth. The International Economic Review reckons that Brexit has increased consumer prices by 2.9%, costing the average household an extra £870.

^^^ Aye, so there you go. You could argue quite reasonably that Brexit was the worst geopolitical muck up in the history of the planet. That’s the way I see it anyway.

[workersolidarity]

🇨🇳🇷🇺 RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN MEETS WITH CHINESE PRESIDENT XI JINPING AT THIRD BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE FORUM

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Chinese President Xi Jinping Wednesday for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing.

As the host country, Republic of China President Xi Jinping spoke first, thanking the Russian President and pointing to the implementation of the agreements and celebrating record trade between the two countries, which is approaching $200 Billion this year.

"Mr President, during the ten years since 2013, the two of us have held 42 meetings and established good business-like relations and a strong personal friendship" President Xi said.

"Mutual trust in our political relations is steadily growing. Close and effective strategic collaboration is being maintained. Bilateral trade has achieved historic records and is approaching the target of $200 billion we have set."

After the opening ceremony of the forum, President Xi Jinping introduced Russian President Vladimir Putin, who spoke at the Belt & Road Forum.

The Russian President thanked President Xi for his invitation and congratulated the Chinese President on the 74th Anniversary of the establishment of the People's Republic of China.

"Next year will be an anniversary year for both your country and the diplomatic relations between our countries. On October 2, 1949, the next day after the establishment of the PRC, the USSR was the first to recognise the new China" President Putin said to the Chinese President in his speech.

President Putin pointed to the Chinese President's visit in March, saying this was a special sign indicating the close "level and nature" of relations between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation.

"One and a half years after my last visit, all of us, our large delegation, are in Beijing again. We can see that the city is developing and prospering, and we are very glad for our Chinese friends," President Putin told the Chinese leader.

"Your idea of promoting wide-ranging cooperation between the countries of the historical Silk Road, which was put forward ten years ago, has gained momentum."

President Putin further told President Xi that although plans are being designed and implemented, the nations involved may be unsure how a project will turn out, however China, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, is always highly successful in its endeavors, and he thanked the Chinese President for their collaboration, saying all parties gain from the arrangement.

President Putin went on to promote the initiatives of the Belt and Road programme, pointing to the Chinese President's ideas, which Putin described as intended to benefit the whole of mankind and wished the Chinese President success in this noble undertaking.

"Under the difficult present-day conditions, it is particularly relevant to maintain close foreign policy coordination, something we are doing now. Today, we will discuss all of this, including, and primarily, our bilateral relations."

President Putin finished by saying, "You have just mentioned our bar – our objective of reaching $200 billion in trade this year. If we look at the year-on-year figures – we analysed this yesterday evening – the 200-billion target was reached between this day a year ago and today, and this bar will certainly be exceeded by the end of the calendar year. Therefore, we are advancing very confidently on the bilateral plane as well."

The Russian President then thanked his Chinese counterpart before the official Forum began, after which the Russian President spoke at length about cooperation between the two powers.

During his remarks at the Forum, President Putin told the audience that the essence of the Belt and Road Initiative is to "promote creative and constructive interaction" throughout the international community.

"We pointed out on numerous occasions that Russia and China, just as the majority of other countries, share the striving for equal and mutually beneficial cooperation towards universal, sustainable and lasting economic progress and social welfare based on respect for the civilisational diversity and the right of every state to its own development model," President Putin said in his speech.

President Putin went on, "The Belt and Road initiative is based on these fundamental principles and fits in very well with the integration processes that are ongoing in many regions. It also corresponds to the Russian ideas of creating an integration contour that will ensure the freedom of trade, investment and employment and will be complemented with interconnected infrastructure."

President Putin said the Belt and Road programme meshes well with the Russian idea of creating greater Eurasian partnership, expanding cooperation and interaction between like-minded nations and the integration of multilateral organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which Russia is successfully developing with its post-Soviet partners.

President Putin further emphasized new agreements between the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China on the development of the EAEU and Belt and Road programme, along with a non-preferential agreement on trade and economic cooperation between the EAEU and China. To this end, a joint commission was established to "align our efforts to implement this agreement."

"In February 2023, we adopted an expanded roadmap, which provides, in part, for the development of relations between the EAEU and China in trade policy and the digitisation of transport corridors," President Putin said.

The Russian leader further noted the importance of the initiatives, saying they were an, "integral part of Russia’s national development strategy, the strengthening of our economic, technological and financial sovereignty, as well as the modernisation and expansion of infrastructure."

The Russian President told audiences he believes the Belt and Road Initiatives were very important to participating countries and pointed to the expansive Russian territories for enhancing the connectivity between the Russian Federation and its partners.

The Russian President mentioned the various infrastructure projects being implemented through the Belt and Road, telling the audience that, taken together, the projects will allow participants to create an "integral transport and logistics network" and to "diversify freight traffic through more effective, reliable and safe" transportation.

"For example, we are building the North-South international corridor in European Russia, which President Xi has mentioned. It will connect Russian ports on the Baltic and Arctic seas to ports in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Seamless rail connectivity, as professionals say, will be ensured throughout this route, from Murmansk in the north of Russia to Bandar Abbas in Iran," President Putin said.

"Another north-south transport artery will run via the Urals region and Siberia. Its main elements are the modernisation of the central part of the Trans-Siberian Railway, including the West-Siberian Railway line running across several regions of Siberia, namely the Omsk, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo and Tomsk regions and the Altai Territory. The other elements are the construction of the Northern Latitudinal Railway, as we call it, towards the ports on the Arctic Ocean and the Yamal Peninsula in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, and a new North Siberian Railway from the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area towards our largest railway network comprising the Trans-Siberian Railway and Baikal-Amur Mainline."

After the initial speeches and meetings, President Xi Jinping of China and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet on the sidelines to further discuss trade, economic cooperation, as well as the global and regional situation. The Russian delegation included a large number of senior officials, including the Vice Premier, representatives of the Foreign Ministry, Economic Development agencies, as well as representatives from the Transportation and Finance departments.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews