US Businesses Not Being Strangled By Regulation And Taxation, World Bank Says

“Overall, however, the ease of doing business in the U.S. remained unchanged at No. 4 worldwide even as Washington complains that the regulatory and tax burden is making matters worse.”

Read more

Source :Forbes

New Inequality Data Likely to Boost “Occupy” Movement

“Lawmakers have effectively blocked all efforts to increase taxes on the corporations and wealthiest individuals, initiatives supported by about two-thirds of the public, according to the poll.”
“The CBO findings should bolster popular support for such efforts. While the after-tax income of the poorest 20 percent of U.S. households grew by an average of less than one percent per year”

Read More

Source : Common Dreams

#21 Collected Reading

Quote of the week

“Brazil was the first country to pass a law guaranteeing a minimum income: in 2004, President Lula signed the law guaranteeing “an unconditional basic income, or citizenship income” for every Brazilian citizen or foreigner resident for five years or more. The payment will be of equal value, payable in monthly amounts and sufficient to cover “minimal expenses in food, housing, education and health care,” taking into account “the country’s level of development and budgetary possibilities.”

— Living in the End Times :by Slavoj Zizek


1.Sweden’s free school experiment 

“Osterman also doesn’t believe it’s necessarily a bad thing. “We are becoming a school for ambitious immigrants,” he said.
But as I was leaving his school, one of his students, Mohammed Mahmoud, put it differently. “This is a school for criminals,” he declared, to laughter. “Nobody’s working in this school, because no one here has any future.”

education,sweden,policy,culture

Source :The Guardian

2. What Do You Want to Say You’ve Done?

“Instead, base your career decisions (at least in part) on what hope to say when you look back on your life. You may not always succeed, but are unlikely to look back with regret on those decisions that gave you the opportunity to reach your aspirations.”

culture,life

Source : Harvard Business Review


3. Facebook and the Epiphanator: An End to Endings?

“I do not enjoy Facebook — I find it cloying and impossible — but I am there every day. Last year I watched a friend struggle through breast cancer treatment in front of hundreds of friends.”

media,culture,usa

Source :New York Magazine

4. UK riots were product of consumerism and will hit economy, says City broker

“The dominant ethos of ‘I buy, therefore I am’ needs to be challenged by a shift of emphasis from material to non-material values.”

capitalism,uk,riots,culture

Source : The Guardian

5. NYTimes: Where Pay for Chiefs Outstrips U.S. Taxes

“The authors of a new study said their findings suggested that current United States business policy was rewarding tax avoidance rather than innovation.”

economics,policy,tax rate,usa

Source : The New York Times

Hope you like this collection. Please comment, share and most of all enjoy.

– Kaushik

#13 Collected Reading

Quote of the week

“When there is no longer any violence, there is no need for help Therefore you should not demand help, but abolish violence. Help and violence form a whole And the whole has to be changed” – Brecht

1. Holy cow, taxman! Featherweight activist fights battle against the dodgers

“It’s no coincidence that when this government came into power almost the first thing it did was raise VAT rates so that ordinary people would pay more tax and then cut corporate tax rates.”

Economics, Policy, Tax Rate,UK

Source :The Guardian

2.Connective Spaces in Medellín

“Juan Carlos’ comments about countering gang activity through positive use of public space strike an important tone in the role of public space in Medellin.”

Community, Culture, Place, Urban

Source : Connective Spaces


3.When Sweden Rules the World

“Acceptance of failure. Finally, if all of this so far makes Swedes sound like superhumans, take heart. They do in fact fail – pretty often, as it turns out. But here again a good cultural pressure-release valve comes to their assistance: a willingness to accept and learn from failure. While other cultures might blindly contend that failure is not an option, Swedes generally accept that some failure is bound to happen.” 

Culture, Policy, Sweden

Source : Creative Social Blog

4. Adam Curtis Blog: RUPERT MURDOCH – A PORTRAIT OF SATAN

“When Murdoch heard the news that John Major had been re-elected he was on the lot at Twentieth Century Fox. He said two words: ” We Won” “

Media, UK, Culture

Source : BBC

5. There Is No Such Thing as a Free Market 

“Thus seen, the ‘freedom’ of a market is, like beauty, in the eyes of the beholder. If you believe that the right of children not to have to work is more important than the right of factory owners to be able to hire whoever they find most profitable, you will not see a ban on child labour as an infringement on the freedom of the labour market. If you believe the opposite, you will see an ‘unfree’ market, shackled by a misguided government regulation.”

Economics, Culture, Markets, Global, Policy

Source : Truthout

Hope you like this collection. Please comment, share and most of all enjoy.

– Kaushik