Two-tier workforce condemning millions to low-paid jobs, study warns

Gap between high- and low-paid jobs in UK is growing despite signs of economic recovery, according to new report
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/aug/31/two-tier-workforce-low-paid-jobs

India: the dark reality behind the west's idea of the sub-continent's success

The path to prosperity is not as straight and smooth as many would like to believe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/05/jason-burke-west-too-optimistic-about-india

Greece burns, but not its German arms contracts

Definitely it does sound hypocritical for the Germans to be demanding such social austerity in Greece, while at the same time maintaining massive arms contracts.  While of course Greece was profligate and would need help anyway, it needs to be highlighted when countries like German and France are imposing tough conditions, to lend money which will be used to pay bills owed to them! Furthermore it is a valid question as to whether inner core countries have been able to reduce military spending partially due to relying on (poorer) peripheral countries who have to maintain the border. Of course there is some sharing of resources in the EU, but psychologically there is more drive if one is on the perimeter. And of course military spending is often accompanied by corruption, so will always appeal to the government/elite who can profit from it, and in border countries the psychology may again enable them to convince the public to pay for it (and worth noting even some German companies have been fined/settled out of court with regards to corrupt deals with Greece).



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/19/greece-military-spending-debt-crisis?INTCMP=SRCH

Ah, it could be worse - we could be Greece - The Irish Times

Ah, it could be worse - we could be Greece - The Irish Times - Tue, Apr 17, 2012
Fintan O'Toole recognizes the 'could be worse' current mentality to something identified 50 years ago by a German writing about Ireland :"
?When something happens to you in Germany,? Böll noted, ?when you miss a train, break a leg, go bankrupt, we say: It couldn?t have been any worse; whatever happens is always the worst. With the Irish it is almost the opposite: if you break a leg, miss a train, go bankrupt, they say: It could be worse; instead of a leg you might have broken your neck . .
Böll was not engaging in colourful Paddywhackery. He realised that a culture in which people routinely answer the question ?How?s things?? with ?Ah sure, they could be worse? is one that has learned to defend itself against real and persistent pain: ??It could be worse? is one of the most common turns of speech, possibly because only too often things are pretty bad and what?s worse offers the consolation of being relative.?
Even more incisively, he suggested that this habit of mind is not mere passivity. On the contrary, it takes great creativity to sustain it: ?With us [Germans] when something happens our sense of humour and imagination desert us; in Ireland, that is just when they come into play. To persuade someone who has broken his leg, is lying in pain or hobbling around in a plaster cast, that it might have been worse is not only comforting, it is an occupation requiring poetic talents.?

Plasticine Philosophy

Money will always be necessary. But as a measure of worth, it's extremely limited and highly corrupting as Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists shows
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/06/deborah-orr-aardman-pirates-capitalism

The right remains obsessed with creating wealth, the left with redistributing it (though, obviously, redistribution is and will always remain an important aspect of civilised behaviour). The task of redefining wealth, with a view to diminishing the necessity of money itself, is a task that seems impossible. Yet it's no more impossible than the peacefully redistributive dreams of socialism.
 "Equality of opportunity" is really about maximising people's chances of competing in the jobs market, so that they can earn money to buy things, and thus transform their environment. Socialism is, in this crucial respect, just a sucker-punch feeder-system for capitalism.
What people really need is the ability to adapt to their environment, rather than be fobbed off with the promise that if they work hard, they can escape it. Humans need to start seeing money as the problem, not the solution. It will always be necessary. But as a measure of worth, as Pirate Captain learned, it's extremely limited and highly corrupting. Placing it at the centre of human existence is folly, and always has been.

Why do bankers get to decide who pays for the mess Europe is in?

Why do bankers get to decide who pays for the mess Europe is in? | Aditya Chakrabortty | Comment is free | The Guardian

Really the final act in the Greek tragedy?

Greece really seems to be caught between a rock and a hard place, and while of course as a country largely responsible for its own mess, are the individual voters really to be punished with years of misery for the incompetence of their government, or even of their society? Is it the economic equivalent of punitive repatriations after an aggressive and foolhardy war? On the one hand the Greeks played along with the game, the bloated state and the evasion of taxes, but on the other this was just one more example of the weaknesses in the global economic system we are all signed up to, since even if Greece borrowed recklessly, there were plenty ready to lend to them.
Personally I think the only long term option for Greece is total but rapid collapse via default and exit from the euro, and then perhaps at least some possibility to rebuild from the ground up a newer more stable society. Any other course, like the punitive loans and extreme "austerity" measures, will I think just drag out that collapse, and worse, make it unfairly distributed, so that those with the most resources, scrabble back to the top of the rubble that buries their compatriots.

I fear for a social explosion: Greeks can't take any more punishment | World news | The Observer