January « 2010 « Advocacy International

The crisis – time to defend Europe’s local governments

Last Thursday I was back in Brussels, invited by the European Parliament’s special committee on the financial, economic and social crisis. My mission – to highlight the really serious financial problems now facing Europe’s local and regional governments, just as growing un-(and under) employment make their public services ever more essential.

I gave them the key points of the November 2009 survey of national local government associations which CEMR had conducted. The results were overwhelmingly pessimistic… three quarters said things had got worse for their members (the individual towns etc.) during 2009, and about half thought they would get worse in 2010 – under 10%, mainly in Scandinavia, thought they would improve this year. Over two-thirds thought that councils’ budgets would reduce in real terms in 2010, and a similar proportion said their income had reduced substantially in 2009.

Continue reading… ›

Unjust for Iceland to take sole responsibility

Published in the Financial Times: January 7, 2010

From Ms Ann Pettifor and Mr Jeremy Smith.

Sir, The president of Iceland’s refusal to approve repayment to the British and Dutch governments should be welcomed (January 5). The pause gives the Anglo-Dutch governments an opportunity to withdraw their demand for full repayment from the government of Iceland, a country whose population at 317,000 is somewhat smaller than Leicester’s.

Continue reading… ›

Bankers' failure to fulfil their role

From the Guardian.co.uk

I was astonished to read Lord Myners’s assertion that banks use our deposits to lend out to businesses and homebuyers. (Comment, 25 January). This is simply not the case, and has not been the case since 1694 when the British banking system was established, and intangible bank money began the process of creating deposits in the banking system.

We have just lived through a period of asset price inflation

Continue reading ›

A tale of two presidents

One is president of a country of about 300,000 people — Iceland — a country about the size of Virginia, President Olafur R. Grimsson. The second is president of a country of about 300,000,000 people, the United States. President Obama.

Both their presidencies have been scarred by the financial crisis. Both have had to balance the interests of their people against the interests of their bankers.

President Obama has allowed that balance to tilt in favor of the bankers.

Continue reading… ›