Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Poverty is a “political choice” Steven Pinker is “full of shit”

The Greek crisis five years on: What Yanis Varoufakis did and didn't do and whether there was an alternative. Are there lessons to be learnt? Who is paying the cost of capitulation? Eric Toussaint's scathing critique of the former finance minister of Greece. Capitulating to Adults

A terrible covid-19 response forced doctors onto hunger strike

Leave it to the market

Coronavirus and the Economic Crisis

Big Pharma can't be trusted to solve Coronavirus

"Impossible to anticipate the spur for rebellion. In Lebanon, it was a tax on the use of WhatsApp; in Chile, it was the rise in subway fares; in Ecuador and in Haiti, it was the cut in fuel subsidies. Each of these conjunctures brought people to the streets and then, as these people flooded the streets, more and more joined them. They did not come for WhatsApp or for subway tokens. They came because they are frustrated, angry that history seems to disregard them as it consistently favours the ruling class." There is something that's ours on the streets and we're going to take it back

In 1998 the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial that said that the IMF ‘has not been fighting financial fires but dousing them with gasoline’. The IMF pours the first tranche of gasoline. Vijay Prashad has an update The IMF does not fight financial fires but douses them with gasoline

"If you take away freedom, all four seasons and I will die"

Tapia points out that  “the evolution of CO2 emissions and the economy in the past half century leaves no room to doubt that emissions are directly connected with economic growth. The only periods in which the greenhouse emissions that are destroying the stability of the Earth climate have declined have been the years in which the world economy has ceased growing and has contracted, i.e., during economic crises. From the point of view of climate change, economic crises are a blessing, while economic prosperity is a scourge.” Climate change and mitigation Related: Climate change, uneven development and poverty, obscene inequality, comsumerism, destruction of the environment, exploitation, etc. Is there a solution? Instead of inventing ways to minimize resource consumption, our smartest companies like Apple and Google work only to invent “needs” we don’t really need: drones, robots, iPhones 5-6-7, 3D printers, hoverboards, the “Internet of Things,” self-driving cars, biometric T

Greece: Financial terrorism and Tsipras' capitulation "Syriza became yet another party of the state. This was reflected, not just in the predictable results of their management of austerity (poverty continues to rise , the health system is still undergoing perpetual crisis and shortages , etc), but in the wider conservatism of the government. Though it promised to reform foreign policy, democratise the security forces, and support migrants, Syriza wet in the opposite direction on almost every front. Never before, at least since the dictatorship, has the Greek state's foreign policy been so closely aligned to the US and Israel . Tsipras referred to Jerusalem as Israel's capital before Trump did. On immigration, too, Syriza has been servile, bailing Merkel out with a  deal favouring what used to be called  'illegal pushback'. It has deployed security forces against refugee rights movements. The old security state, with its record of corruption and far-right co

Also goes by the name "the international mother fucker" It is more beautiful when it is headed by a feminist/a feminist mother.  There is no shortage of people who want to lead a criminal institution with a global reach and they are proud of it. I recommend Eric Toussaint's writings

Breaking news We have never been so close to equality, global justice, development and prosperity for all. Now both the IMF and the World Bank are headed by women! That will certainly make a radical change in the operation of global capitalism. 

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) "1. The domestic policies of the BRICS states follow the general tenor of what one might consider Neoliberalism with Southern Characteristics. 2. The BRICS alliance has not been able to create a new institutional foundation for its emergent authority. It continues to plead for a more democratic United Nations, and for more democracy at the IMF and the World Bank. 3. The BRICS formation has not endorsed an ideological alternative to neoliberalism. 4. Finally, the BRICS project has no ability to sequester the military dominance of the United States and NATO... The force-projection of the United States remains planetary. If we look into the entrails of the system, we will find that its solutions do not lie within it. Its problems are not technical, nor are they cultural. They are social problems that require political solutions. The social order of property, propriety, and power has to be radically revised..."

A good background of the current state of affairs The EU: from social-democratic dream to neo-liberal nightmare

What is the value of the economic reforms imposed on the Arab world?

Hickel goes against the grain, but wants to correct and better manage capitalism with modest solutions. Yet I think the book is worth reading. The Divide:  A brief guide to global inequality and its solutions

"More than seven years after the beginning of the popular uprising in Syria, which increasingly turned into an international war, the causes of this eruption are often forgotten. When they are discussed, the vast majority of authors reduce the uprising to a struggle against authoritarianism while neglecting its socio-economic roots almost entirely." Syria: the social origins of the uprising

With the inability of the state to invest, large-scale plunder has taken place. Also, complicity in crimes with the U.S. Anti-corruption is symptomatic of a deeper problem. Neither side of the political spectrum ever bucks their shared Atlanticist bent. In late 2014 Romania’s growing European diaspora propelled Klaus Iohannis—a nonentity in national politics, but heralded as an efficient German by the mythologizing middle classes. In 1990, 86 per cent of Romanians went to the polls; in 2008 and again in 2017, a mere 39 per cent. Once the badlands of neoliberal Europe, Romania has become its bustling frontier. "The Romanian banking system was taken over by Société Générale, Raiffeisen and the Erste Group. Its energy sector fell to Österreichische Mineralölverwaltung of Vienna and České Energetické Závody of Prague. Its steel manufacturing went to Mittal, its timber production to the Schweighofer Group, its national automobile, the Dacia, to Renault. Much of what isn’t yet

Portugal "Voters ushered Mr. Costa, a center-left leader,  into power  in late 2015 after he promised to reverse cuts to their income, which the previous government had approved to reduce Portugal’s high deficit under the terms of an international bailout of 78 billion euros, or $90 billion. Mr. Costa formed an unusual alliance with Communist and radical-left parties, which had been shut out of power since the end of Portugal’s dictatorship in 1974. They united with the goal of beating back austerity, while balancing the books to meet eurozone rules. The government raised public sector salaries, the minimum wage and pensions and even restored the amount of vacation days to prebailout levels over objections from creditors like Germany and the International Monetary Fund. Incentives to stimulate business included development subsidies, tax credits and funding for small and midsize companies." Portugal dared to cast aside austerity  ...