Apple’s China surrender on August 14, 2017“This is very dangerous precedent which can lead to same moves in countries like UAE etc. where government control access to internet.” -Star VPN, Twitter, Jul 30, 2017 Caving in for the profit margin; stripping a function for the sake of the state rather than the customer. That’s the Apple approach, nudged along by political […]
The despotism of the pound on October 16, 2016While British Prime Minister, Theresa May, keeps insisting that Brexit pathway will be a smooth, relatively painless process filled without dramatic compromise to lifestyle and outlook, the traders, stockbrokers and wolves of the City have gone about their own business. They, the suggestion goes, knew better, whereas the idiotic Brexiteer ventured to the ballot in […]
Labouring hours: Swedens six-hour working day on August 27, 2016“The establishment of a normal working-day is the result of struggle between capitalist and labour.” Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Ch 10 Lengthy hours of work are never a good recipe for feeding the productivity machine. In Calvinist notions of hard work, the harder such toil is engaged in, the greater the prospects of gain. Combined […]
The flagging the TPP: the US election and free trade politics on August 21, 2016Being savaged by Donald J. Trump on one side of the electoral aisle, and modestly beaten by the Democratic presumptive candidate, Hillary Clinton, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is lying somewhere between near death and miraculous survival. Those breathing life into that unfortunate beast remain politicians who embraced the mythology of free trade while never questioning […]
Meddlesome empire: Obama and client Britains EU referendum on May 1, 2016Good to see that history, if it does not possess historical cunning, as Hegel rather foolishly observed, has, at the very least, some humour. US President Barack Obama has been busy making it his business to make sure that Britain remains in the European Union after the referendum elections of June. The urging has all […]
Investigating the Banksters: the Australian banking industry on April 17, 2016 “I know it’s completely wrong but fuck it, I might as well. I thought fuck it. We’ve got so much money on it, we just had to do it.” -Colin Roden, Westpac managing director group treasury, ABC, Apr 6, 2016 When conservative politicians start re-discovering their roots and insist that a corrupt financial order […]
Clash of the Ignobles: The IMF, the European Commission and Greece Debt on April 17, 2016The International Monetary Fund has been at odds with other partners in the Greece bailout saga. Its economists have wondered whether strangling a state with the noose of austerity is a decent way of either eliminating debt, let alone stimulating growth. Not that the body has gone entirely anti-austerity. The European Commission, and the European […]