the price of oil

A barrel of Brent crude oil is about 159 litres and costs about $86.50, or £62.85. It sells for about £227. Roughly, then, it costs 39p a litre and sells for 143p a litre, 3.6 times (that is, nearly quadruple) the cost.

universal basic income

Following up on my earlier 2019/03/universal-basic-income blog, I just looked up "universal basic income" on the websites of the three big welfare rights charities I used to work for: CPAG, DRUK and Working Families. Searching for "universal basic income" at cpag.org.uk and workingfamilies.org.uk yields no results, while disabilityrightsuk.org does best with its round-up, 18 March 2019, of two new reports about Universal Basic Income. 

Next Book Group on universal basic income

​At last, about 9 years after its inception, this blog may have found its raison d'etre as a record of the Gentle Readers Book Group, established 2014.

rentier capitalism vs free market

Rentiers are the people who live off income gained from property and other assets – above all the “0.01ers”. Good book on this is The Corruption of Capitalism (Why rentiers thrive and work does not pay) by Guy Standing:

Accidental Anarchist film

Accidental Anarchist: Life Without Government is a rare instance of TV putting anarchism in a favourable light. You can see the trailer at www.accidentalanarchist.net. Produced by BBC Scotland and shown on BBC4 Storyville on Sunday 23 July 2017 at 21:50, the one-hour film tells how:

Carne Ross was a career diplomat who believed western democracy could save us all. But after the Iraq war he became disillusioned and resigned. This film traces Carne's worldwide quest to find a better way of doing things - from a farming collective in Spain, to Occupy Wall Street to Rojava in war-torn Syria - as he makes the epic journey from government insider to anarchist.

Marx's Capital

Critisticuffs has a Capital Reading Group on the first six chapters of Volume 1.

growthism

In economics, a recession is a negative economic growth for two consecutive quarters. Anything less than annual three per cent growth in GDP, however, is traditionally also viewed with concern in our times.

Anti-Austerity Alliance in Ireland

Ireland elected six new socialist TDs (the Irish Dail's equivalent of MPs) at the February 2016 election. The vote reflected continuing resistance to austerity and in particular the powerful campaign against water charges, as reported in socialistworker.co.uk.

Rethinking Capitalism edited by Mariana Mazzucato

Rethinking Capitalism: Economics and Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth, co-edited by Mariana Mazzucato and Michael Jacobs, (published by Wiley / Political Quarterly, 2016) is another recommendation from Friend RNP, reviewed here on marianamazzucato.com:

The Courageous State by Richard Murphy

In The Courageous State: Rethinking Economics, Society and the Role of Government Richard Murphy

argues that neoliberalism has bred weak governments led by weak politicians who believe implicitly in the supremacy of the market. It has created a cowardly state: a state that sees responsibility and then runs away from it. Worse, the weak politicians who run our cowardly state want power solely to ensure that as much tax revenue as possible is used to benefit the private sector that they idolise. But neoliberal theory is wrong – it has created the crises we’re suffering. And it has no solution to them.

EU referendum betting odds

Betting odds indicate 62 per cent probability of UK voting to stay in EU (as at 15 June 2016), having dropped from 78 per cent probability in the last few weeks. Nevertheless 62:38 is not a neck and neck race!

Custard creams and the 'network of global corporate control'

Custard creams and the 'network of global corporate control' -: Custard creams and the 'network of global corporate control' - great blog by www.lowimpact.org

Malaya: UK tried to exterminate communists in 1950s

Malaya - Web of Deceit Chapter 16

Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea

Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Brown University professor Mark Blyth, 2015 -

Benefit Cap letter in Essex County Standard Friday 5 June 2015

Colchester has the dubious distinction of being home to the first victims of the new Tory government’s Benefit Cap, as reported by the Daily Mirror on 28 May.

Kenneth Boulding on economists and Quakers

"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist." So said Kenneth Boulding (1910-1993), economist, educator, poet, religious mystic and Quaker, who wrote The Evolutionary Potential of Quakerism, published by Pendle Hill in 1964.

Is your money really there?

The government allows profit-seeking private banks to create our money supply as debt. Ninety-seven per cent of all money first enters the economy as debt, when the banks loan it into circulation. The money system now has most of us trapped in debt. Worse still, we need growth in order to find the money to pay the interest we owe the banks. But we cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. Thus, our money system is directly contributing to the destruction of the eco-systems on which we depend.

Pope Francis calls for action on climate change and capitalism

Go to www.democracynow.org/2014/12/31/pope_francis_calls_for_action_on to hear how Pope Francis is set to make history by issuing the first-ever comprehensive Vatican teachings on climate change, which will urge 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide to take action.

Growthism: "Capital in the Twenty-first Century" by Thomas Piketty

Great commentary by Rupert Read on Thomas Piketty’s "Capital in the Twenty-first Century"and its "growthism". He writes that one limitation of Piketty’s political economy "has already been fairly widely commented on: Piketty’s almost complete failure, after a promising start in chapter 1 of his book, to analyse his subject in relation to Marxian questions of class or exploitation. I will focus here, however, on the other fatal absence from Piketty’s political economy: his failure to take seriously the ecological limits to growth."

Tories propose taking £3bn off the poor to fund £3bn tax cuts for the rich

According to BBC News the Tories propose taking £3bn off the poor to fund £3bn tax cuts for the rich.