Global News and Analysis

Source: Truthout

Buried beneath the sensational revelations making headlines in the wake of the Panama Papers is a simple truth about the importance of fair and effective tax systems: revenues from taxation — whether from company profits, capital gains or wages — are crucial for maintaining nationwide mechanisms of economic sharing that safeguard the basic needs of citizens. Not only does the redistribution of tax revenue allow governments to fund safety nets and public services designed to keep poverty at bay, it maintains the infrastructure needed to facilitate a wide variety of social and economic activities, from public transport and roads, to schools and hospitals. read more

Source: The Nation

Support for coup regimes, militarization, and privatization; trade deals that wreak economic havoc—they reveal the failure of Clintonism.

There’s been too little discussion of Latin American through the Democratic primary, including at last night’s debate, which didn’t touch on it. One candidate, Bernie Sanders, doesn’t have much of a track record to examine, although his broad rejection of neoliberalism and interventionism bode well for turning a page on US policy in the region. The other, Hillary Clinton, has accumulated a deep record, both before and during her tenure as secretary of state, which is worth examining in depth. So, in the interest of helping New Yorkers decide as they head to the polls on Tuesday, here’s a brief guide: read more

Source: The Guardian Unlimited

Charity analysis of the 50 biggest US businesses claims Apple have $181bn held offshore, while General Electric has $119bn and Microsoft $108bn

US corporate giants such as Apple, Walmart and General Electric have stashed $1.4tn (£980bn) in tax havens, despite receiving trillions of dollars in taxpayer support, according to a report by anti-poverty charity Oxfam.

The sum, larger than the economic output of Russia, South Korea and Spain, is held in an “opaque and secretive network” of 1,608 subsidiaries based offshore, said Oxfam. read more

Source: The Guardian Unlimited

Bill Clinton isn’t the first person to blame ‘black-on-black crime’ for higher poverty and prison rates among black Americans

The idea that it is black folks and our supposedly immoral and savage culture that creates our disproportionate rates of poverty and imprisonment is everywhere: cop shows, news media, movies set in black neighborhoods and high-school social studies classes have all perpetuated this misconception. And some are now using this old, false idea to disparage Black Lives Matter, saying that the real problem facing black communities isn’t police violence, racist oppression or economic exploitation but “black-on-black crime”. We hear this all over the place, from news columnists to Ray Lewis to Rudy Giuliani – and, most recently, reiterated by Bill Clinton. read more

Source: Yes! Magazine

In his new film, “Where to Invade Next,” Michael Moore shows us what free college and health care for all can actually look like.

In an election year, we hear endless promises of what our politicians will do to help the people. But are the ideas we’re hearing from Bernie Sanders and others—like Medicare for all, free college tuition, paid family leave—just slogans to pander to voters suffering under stagnating wages and burdensome debt? Could those ideas ever actually take hold? read more

Source: The Nation

There aren’t a lot of certainties left in the US presidential race, but here’s one thing about which we can be absolutely sure: The Clinton camp really doesn’t like talking about fossil-fuel money. Last week, when a young Greenpeace campaigner challenged Hillary Clinton about taking money from fossil-fuel companies, the candidate accused the Bernie Sanders campaign of “lying” and declared herself “so sick” of it. As the exchange went viral, a succession of high-powered Clinton supporters pronounced that there was nothing to see here and that everyone should move along. read more