T-TIP of the deregulation iceberg

'It is not just TTIP, across the board the EU is bowing to business pressure to do away with ‘burdensome’ regulation – regulation that tends to save lives, protect consumers and ensure standards' writes Linda Kaucher on the Institute of Employment Rights blog. Yet another example of capital treating the costs of social reproduction as an 'externality - a cost for which it bears no market responsibility' as described by David Harvey in Rebel Cities:
http://www.ier.org.uk/blog/eus-giant-and-secretive-deregulation-blitz

The 7 Deadly Myths that control the world economy...

Global Justice Now has done a great job in highlighting the 7 arguments that are presented as the deepest wisdom by Global Leaders on why the world economy is the way it is. Like a force of nature or some almighty God who we dare not anger, these myths are the foundations of Capitalism in the 21st Century. As the High Priests gather in the snowy tourist trap of Davos in Switzerland to consult the oracles, we are left to wait hopefully for signs that the Gods are appeased.

But the Global Justice Now campaign shows that even the slightest and quickest of examinations reveal that these 7 myths are man-made constructs. They are nothing more than simple justifications for a global economy where the worlds 80 richest people own more than half the wealth of the world. It is an outrage. They are lies. Read for yourself about Free Trade, the poverty of Africa, the Free Market … http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/dangerous-delusions

Meanwhile in Davos Global Union Leaders are shut out, prevented from meeting and speaking to World Leaders. But they are there and they are pointing the finger …
http://www.uniglobalunion.org/news/jennings-call-new-magna-carta-makes-waves-davos

Mutually incompatible

At the end of November the Government announced that nine English NHS Trusts had been selected for the Mutuals in Health: Pathfinder programme - described in a UNISON briefing as ‘part of the government’s drive to move more NHS services out of public ownership’. In a timely article on the lessons of the Hinchingbrooke hospital scandal, David Owen, believes Circle’s failure could derail the mutual bandwagon: ‘those who advocate “the market as the organising principle of the NHS”, have abused the term mutual as a less abrasive way of achieving their objectives. Fortunately, they have now been exposed, and happily so before the general election. Those who worry about the NHS can now rally, and let prospective candidates know exactly what they expect of all MPs in the next parliament. There is just enough time’
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/19/hinchingbrooke-hospital-scandal-mutual-privately-run