EU politics
Politico: Italy fines Amazon €1.13 billion for abusing market dominance
Competition agency also orders Amazon to set ‘fair and non-discriminatory standards’ for third-party sellers. Read here
Monopolies
Austerity
Jason Hickel – The Age of Imperialism is Not Over—But We Can End It
Capitalist accumulation has always depended on cheap labor and resources extracted from the Global South. To end this violence we need a post-capitalist transition—otherwise, as climate breakdown accelerates, the ceaseless search for profit will drive […]
Economics
Branko Milanović – How to share vaccines between the poor and the rich
We shall encounter the same problem with climate change. The rich countries will horde all the new technologies, leaving poor countries to continue their fossil fuel course. Branko Milanović is an economist specialised in development […]
Economics
ILSR – Amazon’s Toll Road
Amazon’s dominance of online retail means that small businesses have little choice but to rely on its site to reach consumers. This report finds that Amazon is exploiting its position as a gatekeeper to impose […]
Deregulation
Deborah James – What’s at Stake at the World Trade Organisation?
What irony: The WTO Ministerial meeting has been cancelled as a new, virulent strain of COVID, resulting from the lack of vaccines in underdeveloped nations – the handiwork of the WTO – starts to sweep […]
Economics
Michael Hudson – Falling into Line: Turning Endless Deficits into a Power Base
“The Federal Reserve has been single handedly financing the stock market and the bond market. The government has been giving away monopoly privileges to increase profits, to help support stock and bond prices, and that’s […]
Economics
The Counterbalance – How finance drives monopoly: Private Equity
This is the first part of a series about how finance concentrates economic power. By Nicholas Shaxson Subscribe to The Counterbalance now Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International In July Darren Jones, the […]
Climate Crisis
Dean Baker – Imagine if Stopping Climate Change Was More Important than Making Climate Change Billionaires
This is an aspect of stopping climate change that has been hardly articulated: sharing technology and getting rid of patents. Look what the opposite has achieved with regard to Covid. Pharma billionaires, but little progress. […]
Economics
Matt Stoller: Too Big to Sail: How a Legal Revolution Clogged Our Ports
We are now in a giant parking lot game that threatens the global economy. Thank deregulation and the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1998. Read here
Economics
Michael Hudson – We Make the Rules
Economist Michael Hudson discusses the update of his book “Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire” and the financial motivations behind the US new cold war on China and Russia. Hudson has published a […]