Month: June 2012

Save the Euro? Who for?

This piece was written as part of a debate currently being run by Open Democracy called “Writing on the wall for the Eurozone”. You can read the other pieces written for the debate at the Open Democracy site. http://www.opendemocracy.net/freeform-tags/writing-on-wall-for-eurozone   The strongest force holding the Euro together is the political force of creditors. Were the currency to …

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Secret State

Work takes me away for a few days and then on the weekend I shall be talking at the TUC summer School in Bradford. Maybe see some of you there. In the meantime some thoughts for you to consider. We are all now sadly familiar with the role of Off-shore tax havens. They allow companies …

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The Eurofiscal Corruption Contest – The Portuguese Entry

Portugal’s entry in the EuroFiscal Corruption Contest is a more modest affair than Spain’s. It centres round a simple fact, which I picked up a few days ago from Bloomberg, that Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s president, is the biggest shareholder in Portuguese cable-television company Zon Multimedia (ZON) SGPS SA, and holds 19 percent of Portuguese …

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