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- Written by: Kamran Mofid
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Swedish riots: A stark rise in inequality has brought about unprecedented rioting in Stockholm
…”The first thing to observe about Sweden is how rapidly a gulf is opening up between rich and poor. Between 1985 and the late 2000s, according to the OECD thinktank, Sweden saw the biggest growth in inequality of all the 31 most industrialised countries. It's important not to overstate this: the country remains one of the most egalitarian in the world – but it is taking big steps in the wrong direction. Swedes used to pride themselves on their sense of moderation, what they referred to as lagom. Prime ministers were supposed to live as modestly as school teachers. Compare that with the recent craze in for vaskning. It means sinking, and refers to a practice adopted by young, gilded Swedes of buying two bottles of champagne and then ordering the barman to pour one down the plughole. When Matilda von Sydow described it to me, I thought it was some urban legend, but no: she has seen it happen in Stockholm's swanky Stureplan. As she says: "Imagine being an unemployed teenager in Husby and hearing about such practices." And that's the other thing: while much of the initial rise in inequality was about rich Swedes getting richer, increasingly poor Swedes are getting pushed backwards, either by unemployment and incapacity benefits getting relatively meaner, or by the rise in joblessness. On some measures, one in four young Swedes are out of work. In some towns, they are handed money to emigrate to richer Norway. Von Sydow lives in Oslo and observes: "In any local cafe, the barista will be a Swede."- Details
- Written by: Kamran Mofid
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Privatisation agenda locks Australia into failure
…”Serco has over a billion dollars’ worth of contracts with Canberra to manage the never-ending stream of asylum boats. No other country in the world has outsourced these services to so few companies (you can count on on one hand the corporations receiving the vast bulk of the government’s money). In recent years, countless alleged cases of mismanagement and price-gouging have been documented within Serco and the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. These include Canberra’s failure to impose an independent auditing regime to monitor the multinational’s conduct in its many centres and the apparent failure to address potential remaining asbestos risks at Villawood.
Despite such problems, both the Labor and Liberal parties support the model currently in place for immigration detention, and few voices in the mainstream media challenge the underlying philosophy of having a for-profit company managing some of the most vulnerable people in society. The results are high rates of self-harm, mental health problems and attempted suicide (all documented last week in a damning report by the Commonwealth and immigration ombudsman), restricted media access and unnecessary commercial-in-confidence agreements between the government and corporations. There is an ethically blurry environment where the more refugees arrive on our shores, the more profits companies make.- Details
- Written by: Kamran Mofid
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“Mark Blyth, author of Austerity: the History of a Dangerous Idea, argues that not only has the policy of slashing state spending so far failed to repair the economy, it can never work. Instead he proposes that economists take a version of the Hippocratic oath to 'do no harm'. He says that policymakers must examine the evidence of austerity's failure and not be afraid to change their minds before it's too late”.
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