Robin Hood Tax

The following is from War on Want's website http://www.waronwant.org/about-us

Dear Supporter, 

 Tell Cameron To Back A Robin Hood Tax At The G20 In one week, David Cameron will travel to meet world leaders at the G20 Summit in Cannes.  At this meeting, French President Nicolas Sarkozy will ask governments to sign up to a Robin Hood Tax.  This is a once in a generation opportunity to secure this tax.
We have the support of over 115 organisations in the UK, millions of ordinary people, 1,000 international economists, hundreds of parliamentarians, campaigners in over 50 countries, world leaders such as Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, and global figures such as Bill Gates.
But we don’t have the support of the UK Government.
Ask Cameron to choose the people, not the banks >>
Millions of people around the world are standing up to say the financial system is broken, that it needs reform.  This is the first step.  A Robin Hood Tax would be the most popular tax in history.
While Cameron is at Cannes, he must act for those hit hardest by the financial crisis. Act to protect essential public services in the UK, to tackle poverty at home and overseas, and to address climate change.
So please, tell David Cameron to help make history at the G20. Tell him to ignore the banking lobby and take a stand that will be admired worldwide. 
Tell him to vote for Robin Hood >>

About the Robin Hood Tax:

The financial crisis that has swept across the world economy since 2008 has destroyed jobs and livelihoods in developed and developing countries alike. The colossal bailouts given to the banking sector by UK taxpayers have raised the prospect of public service cuts and further reductions in social welfare.
War on Want and many other campaigns organisations, trade unions, women's organisations and faith groups are now calling for the introduction of a financial transactions tax on banks, known as the Robin Hood Tax, to repay some of their debt to society and to provide ongoing funding for public services and social welfare programmes into the future.

A tax on the banks' transactions in foreign currencies, shares and derivatives would raise significant sums for spending on public services, climate change mitigation and anti-poverty programmes, both in the UK and overseas. If applied globally at an average rate of 0.05%, such a tax could raise as much as £250 billion every year.
The UK already has a stamp duty of 0.5% on share transactions, and it is perfectly possible for the government to introduce its own currency transactions tax on sterling alone. Calculations published by War on Want and the United Nations University show that even at the tiny rate of 0.005%, a sterling currency transactions tax would raise an estimated £3bn each year in additional revenue for use on anti-poverty programmes.
Including other major currencies such as the yen, dollar and euro would increase that figure many times over - but the good news is that the UK does not need to wait for others to implement a Robin Hood tax. The British government can introduce a currency transactions tax on sterling right now.

War on Want launched the first UK campaign for a Robin Hood tax (technically named the Tobin Tax after economist James Tobin) on foreign currency transactions in the wake of the East Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. Millions of people in Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea and the Philippines lost their jobs and their livelihoods as foreign currency speculators withdrew their money from Asian economies almost overnight. A Tobin Tax would stem the rapid flow of 'hot money' in and out of currencies, bringing stability so as to prevent a recurrence of the chaos caused in the East Asian crisis.

The film below, produced as part of War on Want's original Tobin Tax campaign, shows what happens when currency speculators prey on developing economies. Our thanks to Radiohead and Ewan McGregor for their contributions.

To view these videos (snce they don't want to load here) go to http://www.waronwant.org/campaigns/tax-not-cuts/the-robin-hood-tax or to see the Bill Nighy one (my favourite) go to you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYtNwmXKIvM


About War on Want:

War on Want fights poverty in developing countries in partnership with people affected by globalisation. We campaign for human rights and against the root causes of global poverty, inequality and injustice.



Poverty is political. The decisions of politicians in rich countries can mean life or death for people in developing countries. We have the power to reshape the global landscape - to ensure that people across the world can live in justice and peace.

War on Want works with some of the bravest and most inspiring groups in the world. In rural communities, in factories and sweatshops, in conflict zones and on the margins of society, we work with people fighting for real, lasting change.

UK riots: pass me a brick!

Official statistics from the Ministry of Justice and Home Office on the UK riots (August 2011) were revealed today. They contradict Iain Duncan Smith's (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions)  view that gang members played a significant role in causing the riots. Instead, the figures show that the overwhelming majority (87%) were not gang members, but were from socio-economically deprived areas and low educational backgrounds. More than two thirds of the young people involved were classed as having special educational needs and one third had been excluded from school in the past year. More than 42% received free school meals.

These figures should prompt the Government to investigate the root causes of the disturbances. They should start by listening to the youth involved and asking how they view their society and community - They could ask about the increasing divide between rich and poor, job prospects, or whether people feel that they have a role within the local community. Then, they could reflect on their cuts (£95 billion over next five years) as introduced in March. Large-scale cuts on public services always disproportionately affect the poor and vulnerable, increasing social inequality.

Perhaps, they will find that the problems do not lie with the rioters, but with a society which promotes inequality through unrestrained capitalism. A society that creates temporary happiness based on social comparison and materialism. Research by Unicef suggests that the UK is one of the worst places to live as a child or teenager in the developed world – largely thanks to the growing gulf between the haves and have-nots.

After investigating root causes, the Government could decide to create policies designed to tackle social inequality (although they've shown no interest yet, but fingers crossed). Or, they may continue to blame gang members, failed multi-culturalism and bad policing. Whatever they decide, it will be up to us to support, respect, love, or just tollerate one another. Struggle brings people together - whether it is to smash corporate windows, or clean up the mess.

Latest Climate Change Science

As lifted straight from Greenpeace's climate change blog: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/climate/deniers-exposed-confirmed-again-climate-chang/blog/37463/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social_network&utm_term=21_10_11_2300&utm_campaign=climate

Deniers exposed. Confirmed again: climate change is real.

Blogpost by Anna K - October 21, 2011 at 16:38 1 comment

In an amusing turn of events today, a scientific study funded largely by climate skeptics has shown that the established scientific consensus on climate change is, in fact, correct.
It comes as no surprise to Greenpeace that the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) programme has found that the world is – wait for it – rapidly warming. The study puts them in agreement with what top climate-science institutions NASA and NOAA, and the University of East Anglia in the UK, have been saying for decades.
The programme – which was largely funded our favourite ‘1%’ oil billionaires the Koch Brothers – intentionally assembled a group of scientists from a range of positions on climate change, including many who had never worked on the issue before. This way, the scientific group could not be ‘biased’ towards reinforcing the existing consensus. The group also uses a new data-analysis methodology which is not only reliant on the small number of weather stations that have been able to provide consistent data over the long term.

The 39,028 weather stations which were used in the BEST study. The black spots are considered 'rural' and blue spots are 'urban'.

The deniers were hoping that this study would prove the oft-repeated, untrue, and misleading climate-denier claim: that the higher average temperatures observed worldwide have been caused by an over-reliance of readings based in cities, which suffer from the ‘urban heat island’ effect.
The story has been covered in The Economist, The Guardian, the BBC and the Washington Post, among many others.

Now let’s spread it through social media: please ‘like’ and share this post and news articles with your friends – especially anyone who is confused about the science.
Now that the scientific report deniers were once so eagerly anticipating has been publicly released, climate deniers are now desperately attacking the methodology – which, as the very best science should be, is totally transparent.

Temperature trends at a) all land-based weather stations and b) only rural stations. Both show a similar warming trend.

While the scientific peer review process is not yet complete, the astrophysicist in charge of the program, Richard Muller, has decided to pre-release the papers before publication, in order to get the broadest possible range of feedback.
It just goes to show – you can’t argue with the scientific method. You must test your hypotheses and act based on the outcomes. Greenpeace prides ourselves on basing our campaigns on the very best scientific and economic research, as well as honesty and integrity. After all – in climate politics as in our personal lives – those who are honest will be respected and supported in the long run.
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You are reading Greenpeace’s Climate Rescue blog. This blog aims to demonstrate the progress made by the ever-growing movement of thousands of organizations who are working to create political change on climate change.

The Occupy Movement

Grassroots activism on a global scale has rocked the capatilist cradle. With its roots in Spain, the Occupy movement spread to New York where thousands protestors joined the Occupy Wall street protests, their aim, to raise awareness on issues of inequality and injustice in a capitalist system. A tide of discontent has swept across societies whose democratic institutions increasingly serve the interests of financial institutions and transnational corporations rather than representing the views of citizens.
It has been just over a month since thestart of Occupy Wallstreet and the movement has spread to over 160 cities accross the globe. Unfortunatley, Trichy is not one of them, so I've been following the movement online. This is a great video which demonstrates contrary views from onlookers of the occupy london branch of the movement. Enjoy :-)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2011/oct/17/occupy-london-we-re-here-indefinitely-video?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3486

For more information, such as events near you, go to the official site at http://www.occupytogether.org/

1 moon in India

One moon since arriving at Delhi international airport, I have begun to settle in India. I have descended the caste hierarchy as my skin darkens and have resisted the temptations of numerous adverts for skin whitening products as recommended by India’s most glamorous stars.

I’ve spent the morning with my Lonely Planet, reading up on sights and activities in the state of Tamil Nadu. There is a world within Inidia to explore and I need to make the most of my free time here. However, exploring opportunities are limited as volunteers and staff at the NGO (non-government organization) work six day a week and travelling times are lengthy. For now though I am loving getting to grips with the work at our work placement, the Narikuravar Education and Welfare Society (NEWS).  The Narikuravar people are semi-nomadic gypsies who have maintained their own cultural norms including fox-hunting and bead making.  They have been wrongly classed in Tamil Nadu as ‘Most Backward Class’ but have recently campaigned successfully to be recognized as a ‘Scheduled Tribe’ status, which is one rung below the Indian caste system and ensures access to government-funded programmes designed to alleviate from poverty. However, due to the speed of beaurocracy in India it may still be another two to five years before the change in status brings any practical changes. (Having just asked my development worker colleague (of Indian origin) how to describe the Narikuravar, the words used I cannot express!) Apart from ‘unchangeable’ which I thought was interesting. I’ll come back to this in 5 months time!

We have now met all of the five communities where NEWS works, where 80% of villagers live in absolute poverty of less than 1$ a day and literacy levels are low at 10-20%. Meeting people in the communities has been critical. It has enabled us to develop empathy and understanding of current difficulties as well as motivating us to work hard for real localised change. Also, face-to-face introductions, running games for children, asking about community needs and how we can help, is important for building a collaborative working relationship built on trust and openness. This is a critical issue for NEWS whose need to improve working relationships with communities is a priority. Communities other than Deverayaneri, where NEWS is based feel discriminated against and inferior on the basis that they are not receiving all of the services available to them. Their feelings are justified too. It seems that despite being the victims of discrimination and prejudice based on the entrenched Indian caste system, within the Narikuravar communities exists a hierarchy of its own. This serves to ignite distrust between communities and NEWS is regarded with suspicion by village leaders. Dev is the only community to have a school, hostel, and a Chidya group. Chidya is an community based organization (CBO) run by members of the community to make and sell Mala – religious beads which have been  the traditional source of Narikuravar income for centuries. The income generated from the sale of beads can help the community develop education, health and livelihood programmes. Although, even Chidya is riddled with community divides based on intra-family disputes which threaten the group’s progress.

Development is never a straight-forward process but the benefits from being a grass-roots, organic NGO lead by people from the communities the organization aims to serve, is that if run democratically, the NGO will be much better placed to overcome local challenges than an external development agency.  We are looking at strengthening board membership to include more members from communities other than Dev as a priority in being able to build trust between NEWS and its communities. Other key priorities shared by each community include improving access to water and sanitation, and the education of children. Speaking English is regarded highly within communities as a language which can shake off the shackles of poverty through gaining respect for Narikuravar whilst enabling artisans to sell their produce to a wider market. Also, education is vital to enabling communities to diversify their livelihoods, access services/funds and gain vocational training and jobs which can secure a steady income. Education is an important weapon against the discrimination and prejudice experienced by people of a Scheduled Tribe Status allowing communities to redress the imbalances of power within societal systems. 

Yesterday, I was pleased to run a staff meeting based on the meetings we had when I was part of the Home Treatment Service in Folkestone - community-based team in the NHS, working to improve the quality of life for people with a dementia. I was keen for us to develop a list of priorities for NEWS. After brainstorming we ranked priorities in three levels of importance.

Top priorities included: Increase visibility of NEWS; develop a corpus fund to save money for use when funds are restricted; strategic planning; improve documentation of NEWS’ work; sustain valuable staff; improve communication.  

Next priorities: Networking; NGO management; Education; Spoken English; Nutritional food and shelter for hostel children.

Next, next priorities: Establish income-generating groups in communities; community development; strengthen board members; infrastructure.

I pushed for community development, and income-generating groups/community based groups to be in the highest priority group and am still unclear at present as to why they’re not, but I will investigate!

After this we did a paper-carousel (technique learnt from my Global Xchange days with VSO) on each community’s needs and we will develop an action plan during next week’s meeting, based on the Camberwell Assesment of Needs for the Elderly (CANE), which we used in the NHS. This was effective for intervention planning and evaluating progress on a week-by-week basis. It’s very exciting stuff! We also had an excellent secretary who kept minutes during meetings and so this has been replicated with one staff member volunteering for the role.

So in summary, I’m excited about the work placement as the cause is a good one and there is lots of work for us to be getting on with and in many different areas. It will be a challenge to bring about much change in the limited 3 months the volunteers are her for and a lot of effort will be needed to ensure that any progress is made sustainable by working closely with and sharing skills with NEWS’ staff.

Money and International Development

How have economic institutions and transnational corporations influenced development?
 

World Bank/IMF Development Committee 2009

The 1980s saw recession in the industrialized world, high interest rates, debt and balance of payment crises rain down on poor countries with disastrous consequences. Social expenditures were dumped and instead came the stabilization and painful structural adjustment. The use of aid was subjugated unashamedly to donor agendas, to expanding the global economy and protecting it from financial risk. The World Bank and IMF pushed a macroeconomic agenda known as the Washington Consensus which was all about prudent fiscal and monetary policies, control of inflation and leaving things to the market. Their loan packages required countries to cut services, depress wages and as a consequence throw millions of people out of work. There was a new emphasis on private flows of capital and on opening up private-public partnerships – often a recipe for private profit by corporations and their allies, and public theft of people’s resource base and livelihoods. Structural adjustment brought new orthodoxies of deregulated markets, dismantling of trade barriers, privatization, the shrinking of government, and cutbacks of social expenditure to indebted developing nations. There were massive lay-offs in the public sector, unemployment spiraled and budgets for health, education and social safety nets reduced. Structural adjustment may have helped salvage the international banking system but it hindered struggling local economies.

Developing nations became incredibly vulnerable and transnational corporations took full advantage. By the end of the 20^th century, corporations had become the principle designers and controllers of the world economy and conducted two thirds of the world’s trade. Many are richer and more powerful than nation states. The giant logo-land they produce is the familiar face of globalization and the part that has been most heralded as improving the economic prospects of the developing world by creating jobs and purchasing power. Governments compete for their business by lowering taxes and labour regulations, creating inhumane ‘export processing zones’.  The purpose of these companies is devoid of moral purpose and their only legal obligation is to act to ensure maximum profits for their stakeholders, not for the advancement of the human condition. Poverty in the form of rock-bottom wages is the comparative advantage these environments offer. However, if labour is cheaper and more malleable elsewhere, if better deals can be cut for tax holidays and the political environment is more secure, workers will loose their jobs tomorrow. When these people are asked what they find most difficult about this regime, the most frequent response is insecurity and powerlessness. There is no growth here of a kind in which people with fraying livelihoods can share. On the contrary, where they look like potential competitors, the poor are systematically cut out. Because capitalism has come into the periphery from the centre, rather than nurtured from within, it has served to constrict, not to advance development.

Finally, people in the South are not the only ones to have suffered in consequence of deregulated markets. When, in the 1990s, the World Bank and IMF ordered developing nations to open up their financial markets under the pretence of development, there was an explosion of electronic financial transactions. Money chased money on short-term speculation rather than real goals and services. The effect was artificial confidence, volatility, debt and global recession. Millions in the developed world face unemployment, insecurity and hardship, and the poor and vulnerable have once again been hardest hit. Counties who have been unable to keep their financial institutions afloat have borrowed heavily and face the same burdensome IMF and World Bank policies designed to stabilize global markets at the expense of people’s livelihoods. Those who were not responsible have been heavily punished whilst responsible but unaccountable institutions have been bailed out with public funds. There is growing public discontent with these institutions, their lack of ethics and the social injustice on which they seem to thrive. When democratic institutions, responsible for protecting citizens from exploitation, bow to the wishes of corporations, relinquish power and become unable to regulate and control them to the effect of becoming inferior, they are no longer able protect its citizens from corporate policies and greed.  Citizens in the North and South have responded with social cooperation and are demonstrating their unwillingness to accept a society whose institutions are governed by unaccountable, for-profit corporations. Until global financial institutions and transnational corporations become accountable to the public and the imbalance of power and wealth is addressed, inequalities between rich and poor seem likely to increase. Economic and social injustices provoked by the policies of a money-centered, rather than person-centered global system, will continue to negatively affect poor people’s standard of living in the name of development. 


Activists protest outside IMF/World Bank Meeting


Most of this is lifted straight from the New Internationalist's author Maggie Black's and her excellent pocket size book 'International Devlopment' http://www.newint.org/books/no-nonsense-guides/international-development/

Development's Dark Side

International Development – Who benefits?

The task of development is often seen as linking up those living in traditional economies to the economic mainstream. Around 2 billion people still live outside this or at its fringes. The mainstream has driven the once dependable, if limited, economies of millions of people to ruin. These economies are invisible to planners and treated as though they do not exist. The 1 billion people who supposedly live on less than $1 a day are dependent on their environment for water, fuel, food, fodder, housing materials and medicinal plants. When these are taken away, the enormous disadvantages to these people are never recorded as they are not based on money. They do not exist in standard economic analysis.  The consequence to these people is rising social stress, although difficult to assess as figures for street children, prostitution, child labour, trafficking, forced displacement, early marriage, informal trading, casual employment and marginal incomes are elusive and unreliable. National state population averages for any indicator obscure localized downward trends and discrepancies amongst populations. This helps reduce the visibility of many disadvantaged groups and and allows false assumptions to be made about their lives. One of the most shocking characteristics of livelihood shrinkage is the way it leads to increased codification of females’ nurturing, childbearing and sexual capacities – resources at the bottom of the barrel when there is nothing else left to scrape.

Globalisation of the world’s economy has concentrated opportunities and rewards amongst certain groups while marginalizing others. The effects of corporate decisions reverberate all the way down to the alley, huts and shanties where poor people live. Their resource base is reduced, the prices they can get for produce and labour stagnate or decline, while those they pay for essentials rise and services that used to be free now have to be paid for. Yet, economic development is central to any significant advance in social wellbeing and there can be no release from poverty without economic growth. This at least, remains the central orthodoxy. However, if as presently constructed it actually prevents people form living productive, dignified lives then something needs to change. Instead of reducing gaps between North and South, rich and poor, development has caused them to widen.

A dedicated development process would be one that helped bring about and empathetic transition from a traditional way of life to one in which choice and opportunity are expanded and health and productivity improved. Much more investment should therefore be put into micro-development planning and implementation at a local level which builds bridges between informal and traditional economies and the modern domestic economy. If that means countries cannot pay off their debts, then debts should be adjusted or written off. The whole aid and development industry should redesign its machinery to respect hat what happens in the local context is central, rather than ornamental to the great national plan. Marginalised people are not passive victims. Their success at coping in the face of almost insuperable odds is evidence of resourcefulness. The vast majority live in an informal, and in some cases, invisible economy that needs to be supported, not eclipsed. Destroying the economy in the name of poverty reduction is the worst form of development hypocrisy.   

Most of this is lifted straight from the New Internationalist's author Maggie Black's and her excellent pocket size book 'International Devlopment' http://www.newint.org/books/no-nonsense-guides/international-development/

The sun rises in India.

 

The sun rises in India. Its hot. Hotter than usual as the heat of the 2011 summer prolongs well into the monsoon season. At night, the tension between heat and humidity errupts into electrical battlefields, some nights eerily silent, others with the thunder to match the magnificent light displays. The rain comes in heavy bursts. Having a shower on the roof proves challenging. The drops fall like a thousand fists of fury and hit the skin without splashing. I conceed defeat and use the shower to rinse the soap off.

My journey to India began earlier this year. A friend was keen to do Global Xchange with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) but we discovered that he'd just missed the boat. Previously a youth programme for 18-25 year olds, VSO have reduced the upper age limit to 22. Fortunately for me another programme caught my eye. I found out about a new programme in its pilot year which was looking for Volunteer Leaders with some experience of volunteering oversas and who could guide young volunteers abroad. The International Citizenship Service is a DFiD sponsored programme involving 6 charities with a history of overseas volunteer development work. Lead by VSO, the six organisations organise three month work placements with their partner Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) in 'developing' countries for 18-22 year olds. I sent my C.V. attended interview and got a place with Skillshare International. With a beamig smile I later discovered I had been given a six month placement in Swaziland starting in January. However, as a place in India opened up starting in September, I decided I couldn't wait for the new year and swapped placements. I attended a three day training in London, where I met the two other volunteers on the same placement as me, Sharon and Melody. I flew to Dheli on the 13th September.


I have created this blog for three purposes: share experiences, record my learnings, inspire others to think globally and act locally.

Why volunteer?
I believe in volunteering as a means to break barriers between people, helping to reduce prejudice and discrimination. In a world where gobal institiutions and governments enforce macro-economic policies as standard 'development' policy, and bow to the growing wealth and power of trasnational corporations, volunteering is an important weapon against these policies, helping to faciltate change at a local level.