An interesting article from The Economist detailing the screwed up propositions that revised California’s educational funding, then revised the revision, then revised the revision to the revision.
Hans Rosling published a GapMinder animation showing that in the last 50 years not only has Haiti’s per-capita income actually declined, but neighboring Barbados has seen a five-fold increase in income and a life expectancy jump that puts them equivalent to the US.
Al Jazeera has a story on Glencore, the world’s largest commodities trader, and its insane profiteering to the detriment of the poor of the world.
The firm employs about 57,000 people, generated a turnover of $145billion in the past year and has assets worth more than $79billion. Glencore’s media department refused interview requests from Al Jazeera. Based in Baar, Switzerland, where regulation is minimal, the company’s sprawling interests span Bolivian tin mines, Angolan oil, zinc producers in Kazakhstan, Zambian copper mines and Russian wheat operations.
“Glencore’s vertical integration really is unprecedented,” said Devlin Kuyek, a researcher with GRAIN, a non-profit international organisation working on food security.
“Glencore owns almost 300,000 hectares of farm land and it is one of the largest farm operators in the world. They are engaging in speculation on the grain trade and have immense market power,” he told Al Jazeera.
Global food prices have climbed recently, returning close to their 2008 peak, when bread riots swept parts of the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean.
I had originally posted an interesting tax-related infographic here, but after looking at it for a while I decided the representation of tax burden (corporate vs citizen)
was disingenuous. So instead let me post a better graphic and a link to an interesting article from MotherJones.