Toma nota.../Take note...

The corporate world is plagued by a drive to “gigantism” that is a veiled form of monopolistic and oligopolistic trends dominating all other trends of globalization (some of them beneficial). This drive to gigantism is nothing new; it started with the Industrial Revolution of the XIX century, but its development has become overwhelming and crushing with the forming of blocs of firms, holding companies, and conglomerates that are amassing even greater resources. In addition, globalization has given way to the proliferation of mergers. These consolidations exhibit the same disregard for restraint and employ similarly disruptive means of expansion as those in stock market manipulations and hostile merge/takeover, among other strategies giving way to the formation of powerful cartels (oligopolies) and monopolies. Joseph Stiglitz offers us in the article that follows a partial remedy, so that these large conglomerates cannot evade their fiscal responsibilities.

How Can We Tax Footloose Multinationals? 

Apple, Google, Starbucks, and companies like them all claim to be socially responsible, but the first element of social responsibility should be paying your fair share of tax. Instead, globalization has enabled multinationals to encourage a race to the bottom, threatening the revenues that governments need to function properly.

New York, Feb.13.– In the last few years, globalization has come under renewed attack. Some of the criticisms may be misplaced, but one is spot on: globalization has enabled large multinationals, like Apple, Google, and Starbucks, to avoid paying tax.

Apple has become the poster child for corporate tax avoidance, with its legal claim that a few hundred people working in Ireland were the real source of its profits, and then striking a deal with that country’s government that resulted in its paying a tax amounting to .005% of its profit. Apple, Google, Starbucks, and companies like them all claim to be socially responsible, but the first element of social responsibility should be paying your fair share of tax. If everyone avoided and evaded taxes like these companies, society could not function, much less make the public investments that led to the Internet, on which Apple and Google depend.

Global warming is a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the Earth's atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other pollutants. According to the NASA, sunlight passes through the atmosphere and warms the Earth surface; this heat is radiated back toward space. But then, most of the outgoing heat is absorbed by greenhouse gas molecules and re-emited towards the Earth and warming its surface. "On Earth, human activities are changing the natural greenhouse. Over the last century the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) ... Warmer conditions will probably lead to more evaporation and precipitation overall ...  [ Read more ] 

Extreme cold gripping Midwest does not debunk global warming, experts say

“A cold snap in the teeth of global warming is no more unusual than a cool day in summer. Both happen,” one climate scientist said.

Jan.29.– The massive cold weather front that has descended over the Midwest this week has commentators straining for analogies (“deep freeze,” “arctic outbreak” and “ice age”), and at least some people wondering what has become of global warming.

According to the latest Democracy Index from the Economist Intelligence Unit, democracy did not go into decline in 2018 for the first time in three years. The index rates 167 countries by 60 indicators, including electoral processes and civil liberties. Just as populists with autocratic tendencies have won elections in recent years, so too has political participation shot up. But this year’s results may signal only a pause, not an end, to democracy’s retreat".

A welcome break: The retreat of global democracy stopped in 2018

Jan.8.– Democracy stopped declining in 2018, according to the latest edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index. The index rates 167 countries by 60 indicators across five broad categories: electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties.

It is stricter than most similar indices: it concludes that just 4.5% of the world’s people live in a “full democracy”. However, the overall global score remained stable in 2018 for the first time in three years. Just 42 countries experienced a decline, compared with 89 in 2017. Encouragingly, 48 improved.

Cuando los británicos votaron a favor del Brexit no imaginaban las duras consecuencias que ese intempestivo divorcio causaría al Reino Unido y a su estabilidad económica. Por eso, una cantidad cada vez mayor de ciudadanos cree ahora que haría falta un segundo referendo, pero Theresa May insiste en oponerse a la idea y su obstinación entró otra vez en juego el 17 de diciembre cuando señaló que no habría un segundo plebiscito, porque iba a “fracturar la fe del pueblo británico”. No obstante, hay rumores que afirman que algunos miembros del gabinete de May intentan preparar las bases para un segundo referendo cuando se rechace su plan del Brexit. Quienes favorecen un segundo referendo aducen que los votantes saben mucho más ahora que en 2016, y por lo tanto pueden tomar una decisión más informada sobre una resolución crítica en términos históricos capaz de desbloquear el atolladero en el Parlamento."

Parlamento británico pide control sobre futuros acuerdos comerciales tras el Brexit

La comisión parlamentaria insta a Theresa May que los órganos nacionales y autonómicos puedan contribuir en las negociaciones con terceros países tras la salida de la UE

El próximo 14 de enero se someterá a votación el Acuerdo de salida del Brexit en Westminster y todo parece indicar que no será aprobado

Londres, Dic.28.– El Parlamento británico ha confirmado este viernes que quiere controlar el proceso del Brexit al pedir al Gobierno de la primera ministra, Theresa May, que someta a su aprobación todos los acuerdos comerciales que se negocien tras la salida de la Unión Europea.