Economy & Trade


In the Face of a Pandemic, the World Turns to Trade

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MEXICO, Oct 29 2020 (IPS) - Greatly affected by the coronavirus pandemic, international trade can play a key role in the economic recovery, but it must overcome obstacles, such as protectionism and commercial disputes, especially between the United States and China.

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Q&A: Human Trafficking Survivor Harold D’Souza: “The Perpetrators are More Aggressive Than Ever”

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NEW YORK, Oct 21 2020 (IPS) - The fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic continues: as more people around the world lose their livelihoods, human trafficking is on the rise. Support services for survivors have been shut, and past gains to combat it have been reversed. Funding has dried up.

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Milton Friedman Versus Stakeholder Capitalism

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct 13 2020 (IPS) - Milton Friedman was arguably the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century, associated with promoting ‘neo-liberal’, free-market, shareholder capitalism.

Friedman’s monetarist economics is now widely considered irrelevant, if not wrong, especially with the low inflation associated with ‘unconventional’ monetary policies following the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

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Regressive Taxation Must Be Reversed

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sep 8 2020 (IPS) - With many in the world experiencing declining living standards, there has been growing frustration. Many hope that progressive taxation will improve things. While some economies once had progressive tax systems, recent decades have seen regression.

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Donald Trump, Working Class Hero?

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SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 7 2020 (IPS) - In his early February annual State of the Union address, US President Donald Trump typically hailed his own policies for increasing wages and jobs to achieve record low US unemployment. Directly appealing to labour for a second term, Trump claimed exclusive credit for the US “blue-collar boom”.

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Black Americans are Bearing the Brunt of Coronavirus Recession – This Should Come as no Surprise

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As the COVID-19 pandemic worsened in April, many Americans were shocked by the extent that black Americans were being disproportionately impacted: higher infection rates, more deaths and greater job loss. But many black Americans were not surprised. This is not new. The same dynamic has been going on at times of crisis for decades and […]

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Coronavirus, New Threat for Mexican Migrant Workers in the U.S.

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MEXICO CITY, Apr 21 2020 (IPS) - As the high season for agricultural labour in the United States approaches, tens of thousands of migrant workers from Mexico are getting ready to head to the fields in their northern neighbour to carry out the work that ensures that food makes it to people’s tables.

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CORRECTED VERSION: Stock Market Bubble Threat

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Mar 11 2020 (IPS) - The US is currently still in a stock market bubble which, if history is any guide, is likely to end, as argued by Thomas Palley. While President Trump would, of course, like to sustain it to strengthen his November re-election prospects, the Covid19 black swan is already showing signs of pricking the bubble

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Stock Market Bubble No Basis for Shared Prosperity

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Mar 10 2020 (IPS) - The US is currently still in a stock market bubble which, if history is any guide, is likely to end, perhaps soon due to Covid19. President Trump would, of course, like to sustain it to strengthen his November re-election prospects.

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Personal Conviction Versus Fandom: The Case of Mitt Romney

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STOCKHOLM / ROME, Mar 3 2020 (IPS) - The great American impeachment show has ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. The dirt was washed away from President Trump, the perfect Teflon Guy. Maybe his invulnerability comes from the fact that he appears to be more of a brand than a real person, adapted to a frame of mind that increasingly dominates social media – cheap entertainment, shallowness, vulgarity, invectives, and catchy phrases without support in well-founded facts. Trump is all and nothing, a shape shifting trickster pretending to be the role model for voiceless masses.

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