Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Leave it to the market

"Now that the Algerian masses have gained their streets back, many obstacles lay ahead. This regime is perhaps one of the most entrenched in the region that, with a small fix, could again fill its pockets and co-opt large swaths of the population, oppositional forces, and maintain discipline within its own ranks. If oil prices don’t bounce back soon, Algerian elites could still attract new investments in the oil sector that could fill state coffers with enough cash to reinstate the whole chain again to its pre-2014 levels. Like most people around them, Algerians have very little organizational power. This has shown people across the region that  sudden outbursts  could carry a protest this far at best. That Algerians have still poured into the streets in larger numbers every Friday since February 22 is impressive. However, it would be a mistake to expect hundreds of thousands of people to show up to protest indefinitely. Some popular organization has to emerge now and pr...

"The current UK government nevertheless continues to drive outsourcing into the state’s most complex and socially essential service domains. It’s enough to make Leonid Brezhnev blush." "Why public sector outsourcing is less efficient than Soviet planning"

"Carillion is a very graphic confirmation that outsourcing public services and sectors to private companies to ‘save money’ on ‘inefficient’ public sector operations is a nonsense.  The reason for privatisation and outsourcing has really been to cut the costs of labour, reduce conditions and pension rights for employees and to make a quick buck for companies and hedge funds.  But such is competition for these contracts that, increasingly, private companies cannot sustain services or projects even when they have cut costs to the bone.  So they just pull out or go bust, leaving the taxpayer with the mess. It’s a microcosm of capitalist economic collapse." Interesting links about studies on privatisation. Carillion and the 'dead end' of privatisation

Some good news at last The U.K. Faces Longest Fall in Living Standards on Record