The odds of the UK recovering the position it had before Brexit are extremely low, I think. Even Brazil is better positioned to recover what it lost in the last 10 years...
#UK#Brexit#Globalization#Elections: "The British prime minister called a general election for July 4, and like Biden he is weighed down by deep public pessimism over the economy. But unlike Biden, Sunak can’t claim that pessimism is disconnected from hard data.
Britain has had one of the worst performances of major economies since the pandemic broke out in 2020, with lower growth, higher inflation and weaker investment than its peers.
Blame bad luck, and bad choices. Some of those choices fall at the feet of the Tories, in particular the decision to leave the European Union. But that doesn’t mean Labour, which might form the next government, will do better. And in that lie lessons for the rest of the world: whatever the flaws of globalization, turning your back on it can be costly, and difficult to undo.
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Between early 2016 and the end of 2023, British investment fell 17% relative to other developed economies, according to J.P. Morgan. Half of that can be plausibly tied to the administrative barriers and uncertainty brought on by Brexit. A study co-written by Jonathan Haskel, a policymaker at the Bank of England, put investment in the U.K. 10% lower in 2022 than if the pre-2016 trend had persisted."
#Austerity#Populism#Europe#Globalization#Inequality: "Governments have repeatedly adjusted fiscal policy in recent decades. We examine the political effects of these adjustments in Europe since the 1990s using both district-level election outcomes and individual-level voting data. We expect austerity to increase populist votes, but only among economically vulnerable voters, who are hit the hardest by austerity. We identify economically vulnerable regions as those with a high share of low-skilled workers, workers in manufacturing and in jobs with a high routine-task intensity. The analysis of district-level elections demonstrates that austerity increases support for populist parties in economically vulnerable regions, but has little effect in less vulnerable regions. The individual-level analysis confirms these findings. Our results suggest that the success of populist parties hinges on the government's failure to protect the losers of structural economic change. The economic origins of populism are thus not purely external; the populist backlash is triggered by internal factors, notably public policies."
Ready for news that will shock nobody? It turns out globalization mostly helps out the richest 10% and has little to no impact on the poorest.
"The influence of globalization on income inequalities worldwide was greater than we had expected. We were particularly surprised that these differences were mainly due to the gains of the richest and that the lower income groups benefited little or not at all."
#Capitalism#Globalization#Monopolies#Antitrust#Unions: "Here's a silver lining to global monopoly capitalism: it means we're all fighting the same enemy, who is using the same tactics everywhere. The same coordination tools that allow corporations to extend their tendrils to every corner of the Earth allows regulators and labor organizers to coordinate their resistance.
That's a lesson Mercedes is learning.
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This is that unexpected benefit to globalism: the fact that Mercedes has extrusions into both the American and German political spheres means that both American and German workers can collaborate to bring it to heel.
The same is true for antitrust regulators. The multinational corporations that are in regulators' crosshairs in the US, the EU, the UK, Australia, Japan, South Korea and beyond use the same playbook in every country. That's doubly true of Big Tech companies, who literally run the same code – embodying the same illegal practices – on servers in every country."
#ISDS#PoliticalEconomy#Capitalism#Neoliberalism#Globalization: "ISDS settlements are truly grotesque: they're not just a matter of buying out existing investments made by foreign companies and refunding them money spent on them. ISDS tribunals routinely order governments to pay foreign corporations all the profits they might have made from those investments.
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Governments, both left and right, grew steadily more outraged that ISDSes tied the hands of democratically elected lawmakers and subordinated their national sovereignty to corporate sovereignty. By 2023, nine EU countries were ready to pull out of the ECT.
But the ECT had another trick up its sleeve: a 20-year "sunset" clause that bound countries to go on enforcing the ECT's provisions – including ISDS rulings – for two decades after pulling out of the treaty. This prompted European governments to hit on the strategy of a simultaneous, mass withdrawal from the ECT, which would prevent companies registered in any of the ex-ECT countries from suing under the ECT.
It will not surprise you to learn that the UK did not join this pan-European coalition to wriggle out of the ECT. On the one hand, there's the Tories' commitment to markets above all else (as the Trashfuture podcast often points out, the UK government is the only neoliberal state so committed to austerity that it's actually dismantling its own police force). On the other hand, there's Rishi Sunak's planet-immolating promise to "max out North Sea oil."
But as the rest of the world transitions to renewables, different blocs in the UK – from unions to Tory MPs – are realizing that the country's membership in ECT and its fossil fuel commitment is going to make it a world leader in an increasingly irrelevant boondoggle – and so now the UK is also planning to pull out of the ECT."
2023 saw the #MiddleEast pivot to #Asia accelerating significantly.
According to the 2023 report by #AsiaHouse - independent think tank & advisory service that enables commercial, political, and economic engagement between Asia, the Middle East & Europe.
#Trade between these regions increased by 34.7% from US$383bn in 2021 to US$516bn in 2022 & is growing faster than previous reports’ projections.
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"he didnt improve their lives, non of their problems got any better under him, all #turmp gave them was a way to give a big middle finger to Democrats, to people who live in cities and the rest of the counrty"
"they believe their economic fortunes are deciden by #globalization and late stage capitalism, they feel neither party is going to reverse closures of rual #pharmacies and rual hospitals
Ottawa’s policy of preventing #Chinese companies from investing in #Canadian listed firms may be put to the test after #Vancouver based #OsinoResources Corp. agreed to be bought by #YintaiGold Co. Ltd. for $368 million.
Yintai’s main interest in #Osino seems to be the latter’s gold project in central #Namibia.
#AI#GenerativeAI#Globalization#Fauxtomation#LowWages: "Globalization is key to maintaining the guy-in-a-robot-suit phenomenon. Globalization gives AI pitchmen access to millions of low-waged workers who can pretend to be software programs, allowing us to pretend to have transcended the capitalism's exploitation trap. This is also a very old pattern – just a couple decades after the Mechanical Turk toured Europe, Thomas Jefferson returned from the continent with the dumbwaiter. Jefferson refined and installed these marvels, announcing to his dinner guests that they allowed him to replace his "servants" (that is, his slaves). Dumbwaiters don't replace slaves, of course – they just keep them out of sight:"
On this day, the prevailing theme is transformation and globalization. Challenges may lie in navigating changes with wisdom and embracing inclusivity. Expect shifts that require integrating diverse perspectives for growth.
Today in Labor History November 30, 1999: Thousands of activists, students, union members, environmentalists and others shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in Seattle. It was the first large-scale demonstration in the United States to protest “globalization” and the beginning of many similar protests. The WTO protest raised awareness of corporate greed while simultaneously promoting the delusion that, with a few reforms, capitalism and democracy would serve the needs of the people.
Why #Navajo is the world’s hardest language to learn
The tonal #NativeAmerican#language differentiates words based on #pitch and makes Spanish conjugation look like child’s play.
by Tim Brinkhof, November 27, 2023
"Concentrated in #Arizona and #NewMexico, the Navajo are one of the largest Native American groups in the United States. Consisting of up to 400,000 tribal members, they are thought to have originated from northwestern #Canada and were forcibly moved to their present location by the federal government in the 1860s during #TheLongWalk.
"Traditional Navajo families live in circular mud-and-log homes called hogans, create intricate ceremonial paintings made of sand, and hold four-day runs (a ritual called kinaalda) to celebrate young girls turning into adult women.
"Arguably, the most important aspect of Navajo culture is their language. Also known as #Diné#Bizaad (the “people’s language”), Navajo is similar to #Apache, from which it separated between 1300 and 1525 AD. Both Navajo and Apache belong to a language family called #Athabaskan, which, providing evidence for their geographic origin, is also spoken by native tribes in #Yukon, #Alaska, and #BritishColumbia. As with other Native American languages, #globalization and #discrimination threaten Navajo’s survival. In 2017, the number of fluent speakers was estimated at 170,000, less than half of the tribe’s population.
"Learning Navajo isn’t easy. Compared to other complicated but more widely spoken languages, like Korean or Arabic, there are limited resources available to non-speakers. Mastery of Navajo language also requires a level of familiarity with Navajo customs, something even some Indigenous people no longer have access to.
"That said, the most daunting aspect of learning Navajo is the language itself. Described by linguists Robert W. Young and William Morgan as a 'hopeless maze of irregularities,' its unique grammar, syntax, and tonal pronunciation are so indecipherable to outsiders that, during the Second World War, the American army used Navajo as a form of military code."
#Europe#Music Culture #Globalization#CulturalDiversity: "If European countries invested in music and culture as South Korea did, would this accelerate this trend and introduce the world to more Polish pop, German hip-hop and French rock? Current investment in music and culture suggests that this could already be happening. Germany increased its cultural budget by 7% in 2022 and Berlin’s investment in culture for 2024 is more than twice that of England’s. Poland, before the pandemic, invested twice as much as the EU average.
However, there have not been similar investments in English-speaking countries. In Britain, the royalties company PRS for Music will cut funding to its charitable arm for new artists by £1.75m in 2024. Because of cuts in state arts funding, everything from grassroots music venues to classical music, music education and nightclubs are under severe threat. And with it, over time, the dominance of English language music.
From J Balvin to Maluma, what emerged with Psy is now the norm, rather than the exception. Ed Sheeran’s The Shape of You was the most streamed track of the 2010s on Spotify – but English-language artists, take note: the next global hit we all hum along to is as likely to be in German, Polish, French, Korean or Spanish."
The #IMF/World Bank meetings in Morocco reflect US/NATO tensions with China and #BRICS nations.
The #US seeks to maintain its veto power, while BRICS de-dollarization efforts challenge US dominance. The US demands that quota increases exclude emerging markets, which clashes with IMF's rules.
#China may withdraw its subscriptions from these organisations if their policies conflict with its or BRICS interests.
Last night we watched groundbreaking anti-corporate #documentary ‘Controlling Interest: The World of The Multinational Corporation’ (1978).
It mentions the starvation & displacement of rural Brazilians due to replacement of black bean crops (for local human consumption) with soy bean crops (for export - mostly to feed farmed animals). 1/?