Dilip Simeon's blog

The last time there was open war between major European powers was in 1945. The last time the Northern Hemisphere was this hot was probably 125,000 years ago. Yet the FTSE 100 is worth more than ever, corporate profits are higher than ever, there are more British billionaires than ever. And oil companies are richer than ever. If we took climate change seriously, the petroleum industry would be bankrupt. These firms borrow billions against the future value of reserves they are yet to drill, but atmospheric physics demands we can’t burn that carbon if we wish civilisation to survive. If our modern societies are to continue to exist in recognisable form, oil companies’ assets are worthless. And if we aren’t, they are still worthless... https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/heatwave-climate-crisis-nhs-fossil-fuel-capitalism-hunger/ Banks are incentivised to fund climate chaos. Here’s how to change that The world’s largest banks are investing billions into heavily polluting industries, ...

Several of the major central banks are stuck in a trap of their own making. This includes the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, and others. The credit-based global financial system we have constructed and participated in over the past century has to continually grow or die. It’s like a game of musical chairs that we have to keep adding people and chairs to in order for it to never stop.  This is because cumulative debts are far larger than the total currency supply, meaning there are more claims for currency than there is currency. As such, too many of those claims can never be allowed to be called in at once; the party must always go on. When debt is too big relative to currency and starts to get called in, new currency is created, since it costs nothing other than some keystrokes to produce.  It’s like this for most major countries...  In other words, claims for dollars (debt) grows far more quickly than the economy’s ability to...

A group of millionaires have joined protests against the World Economic Forum gathering of the business and political elite in Davos , Switzerland, demanding that governments “tax us now” to tackle the burgeoning gulf between rich and poor.  The unlikely protesters, who describe themselves as “patriotic millionaires” , called on world leaders attending the annual conference on Sunday to immediately introduce fresh taxes on the wealthy in order to tackle the “cost of living scandal playing out in multiple nations around the world”. The charity Oxfam recently said rising inequality could push as many as 263 million more people into extreme poverty in 2022, reversing decades of progress. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/22/millionaires-join-davos-protests-demanding-tax-us-now-taxation-wealthy-cost-of-living-crisis Walter Benjamin: Capitalism as Religion (1921) Noam Chomsky: Internationalism or Extinction (Universalizing Resistance) Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexis...

Around the world, many countries are  becoming less democratic . This backsliding on democracy and “ creeping authoritarianism ,” as the U.S. State Department puts it, is often supported by the same industries that are escalating climate change. In my new book, “ Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis ,” I lay out connections between these industries and the politicians who are both stalling action on climate change and diminishing democracy. It’s a dangerous shift, both for representative government and for the future climate. Corporate capture of environmental politics:  In democratic systems, elected leaders are expected to  protect the public’s interests , including from exploitation by corporations. They do this primarily through policies designed to secure public goods, such as clean air and unpolluted water, or to protect human welfare, such as good working conditions and minimum wages. But in recent decades, this core democratic principle th...

Heading into the highlands of Tasmania, some 250 miles south of the Australian mainland, narrow black-topped roads meander through a wide river valley bounded by distant mountain bluffs. Two-track paths splinter off into grassy pastures, past skeletal trees bleached by sun and drought. All along the way, small signs dangle from wire fence lines:  Danger Prohibited Area Poison . Little else would suggest that these fields represent the nucleus of the global opioid supply chain - the starting point for one of the world's largest drug markets. In Bothwell, a village where trucks packed with sheep idle outside a gas station, I met a farmer named Will Bignell. Bignell, a boyish guy in his thirties, with tousled hair and bright green eyes, was something of a reluctant seventh-generation farmer. He'd left his family's farm in the midst of a prolonged drought, moved to Hobart, Tasmania's capital city, and started a family. Then, in 2009, Bignell began making the hour-long com...

According to the IMF, Ukraine's war-ravaged economy could shrink by up to 35% this year if Russia's invasion becomes a protracted conflict. This will have serious consequences on the Ukrainian popular classes who are reeling under serious difficulties. At the end of 2021, Ukraine was already burdened with $94 billion in public debt on its shoulders, 61.7 per cent of its GDP. The war is going to seriously aggravate the situation. Of course, the most tragic is the terrible loss of life and human suffering, but the material destruction too is enormous. The Ukrainian working people are left to bear the brunt as they are attacked from all directions - socially, politically and economically. We present a 2018 article dealing with the Ukrainian debt to Russia. The issue is more relevant than ever as the London court case on the matter, is still on. A month back, the Argentine Senate approved an IMF deal in a bid to avoid a debt default. The controversial agreement restructures $45 b...

If you’re unlucky enough to reside in a town where data centers house computer servers storing everything from financial data for giant corporations to military secrets, you’re likely to find that a loud, whining noise becomes life’s agonizing background. The sound peaks and subsides, but it’s always there, never allowing you to fully relax. Eventually, the stress of this kind of ambient noise can wear you down,  doubling your risk of mental illness , as well as  increasing your risk of diseases like heart attack and stroke . Living in an economy dominated by neoliberal principles can feel kind of like that: a background hum of constant psychological stress. The sense of precariousness never really goes away. Instead collectively of sharing the risks of life, we’re increasingly saddled with the heavy burdens of existing in an overwhelmingly complex, modern world. We’re lonely individuals, fighting to stay afloat no matter what our situation. There are a few lucky winners, su...

“Our demands most moderate are: we only want the earth.” These are the words of James Connolly, an Irish revolutionary who took part in the Easter Rising of 1916. Connolly was fighting against British colonial oppression in Ireland but his fight was for more than that. His fight was against all forms of oppression. Connolly understood that Ireland had first to rid itself of the British before it could deal with all other injustices, especially those caused by capitalism. According to him, “the day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go.” What Connolly wanted was to win. He knew that fighting to win was what was important. He also knew that reforms or “patching up” were not good enough. Over a hundred years after Connolly’s execution, capitalism still dominates. If anything, it’s more deep-rooted and more injurious particularly because of neoliberal policies which have resulted in unprecedented levels of income and wealth inequalities and environmental devastation....

How do the banks continue to get away with it? The  latest revelations  about Credit Suisse provide yet another glimpse into the corrosive nexus of banks, corporations, accountants, lawyers and financial intermediaries that enables the wealthy and political elites to profit from illicit practices. The bank itself is no stranger to predatory practices. Since 2001 it has been  fined at least 47 times  by the US authorities and paid fines totalling $10.7bn. Since 2010, it has also been fined on at least six occasions by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and paid fines  totalling  more than £300m. The fines have become just another cost of doing business, and are passed on to customers. Credit Suisse is not alone. The roll of dishonour shown by the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Pandora Papers, HSBC leaks, Luxembourg leaks and others shows that virtually every major bank is involved in predatory practices. All these leaks have provoked a public deba...

It is rare and often uncomfortable to discuss the relationship between race and capitalism. Attributing certain economic systems to race relations and even discrimination are generally seen as reductive and even racist. Yet it is important to recognise that capitalism has a racial origin in the West – which knowingly placed white populations, and in particular Anglo Saxons, on top of the economic pyramid. This is evident through an examination of one of its core tenets: private property rights. Neoliberal Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto helped to legitimise the idea in the West and around the world that property rights are the fundamental enabler of private enterprise, social mobility and even economic equality. To de Soto, the reason why developing countries have not achieved high-income status and have not been able to enact capitalism ‘properly’ has little to do with cultural differences or the effects of centuries of exploitation, repression and inappropriate governance syste...

Some links to select recent articles, discussions and interviews: Article explaining Cryptos and why they are not like cash. In the Wire on Dec 17 at:  https://thewire.in/tech/shedding-a-bit-of-light-on-cryptos-what-are-they   Article explaining that Crypto Promoters are the Very Rich and the Libertarian argument for Cryptos is not correct. H W News on Dec 14  https://hwnews.in/business-finance/crypto-promoters-are-the-very-rich/176991   “Shadows of the Pandemic: What the Latest GDP Numbers Tell us about the Nature of India's Recovery”.  The Wire . 5 December, 2021. It is at https://thewire.in/economy/covid-19-pandemic-india-economy-gdp-numbers-recovery    “With the Omicron Variant, Let’s Hope for the Best and Prepare for the Worst”. The Wire. 4 December 2021.  https://thewire.in/health/with-the-omicron-variant-lets-hope-for-the-best-and-prepare-for-the-worst   “This path of development is toxic”.  Mainstream....

Jake Johnson/ Common Dreams      In the nearly three decades since 1995, members of the global 1% have captured 38% of all new wealth while the poorest half of humanity has benefited from just 2%, a finding that spotlights the stark and worsening gulf between the very rich and everyone else.  That’s according to the latest iteration of the  World Inequality Report , an exhaustive summary of worldwide income and wealth data that shows inequities in wealth and income are “about as great today as they were at the peak of Western imperialism in the early 20th century.” “Indeed, the share of income presently captured by the poorest half of the world’s people is about half what it was in 1820, before the great divergence between Western countries and their colonies,” the report notes. “In other words, there is still a long way to go to undo the global economic inequalities inherited from the very unequal organization of world production between the mid-19th and...