University of Michigan researchers: Income inequality has been rising rapidly in China and now surpasses that of the U.S. by a large margin
SWANBROW Diane
ANN ARBOR—Income inequality has been rising rapidly in China and now surpasses that of the U.S. by a large margin, University of Michigan researchers say.
That is the key finding of their study based on newly available survey data collected by several Chinese universities.
“Income inequality in today’s China is among the highest in the world, especially in comparison to countries with comparable or higher standards of living,” said Yu Xie, a U-M sociologist.
Xie, a researcher with the U-M Institute for Social Research, is co-author with U-M graduate student Xiang Zhou of an article published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers based their main analyses on data from the China Family Panel Studies, a large-scale survey project conducted by Peking University’s Institute of Social Science Survey. The project represents about 95 percent of the Chinese population in 25 provinces in mainland China. The work was started in 2010 in collaboration with U-M’s ISR (a formal partnership between the two institutes was established in 2005, with an emphasis on quantitative social science methods).
À une poignée de semaines des élections européennes, L’Humanité publie une double page de points de vue sur le Front de gauche [1]. Si l’on se fie à ces propos, l’espérance de vie dudit Front est bien courte.
This text proposes a series of concrete alternatives to counter the current crisis shaking Europe. It presents nineteen immediate measures that should be taken vis-à-vis finance in general and the banking sector in particular. In addition to these measures, it proposes to socialise the banking and insurance sectors, and to place them under citizen control. It then examines ten measures to be taken to reverse the crisis in a way that will be favourable to the vast majority of people. 1. Stopping austerity plans; 2. Repudiating all illegitimate, unsustainable, odious, and illegal public debt; 3. Cancelling all illegitimate and illegal private debt; 4. Increasing the resources of public authorities; 5. Decreasing inequalities by establishing fiscal justice; 6. Setting up legitimate government borrowing; 7. Developing and extending public services; 8. Strengthening the pension system based on intergenerational solidarity; 9. Radically decreasing working hours to guarantee jobs for everyone, and adopting an income policy that will bring about social justice; 10. Questioning the basis of the euro and taking action to build a different Europe, which would mean replacing the current treaties based on a true democratic process involving all the peoples of Europe. These are the propositions the CADTM is putting forward for discussion and debate.
On the eve of April 25, Portuguese society was smouldering from contradictions accumulated in half a century of dictatorship. At the heart of these contradictions was a war that lasted thirteen years, to hold on to the African colonies of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe. This conflict conditioned the whole of national life, because of the social suffering caused by the mobilization of two hundred thousand men, a tenth of the working population (a human cost equivalent to twice that of Vietnam), because of the wave of migration driven by hunger and the war, and because of the impossibility of a military solution, the only one contemplated by the regime.
Le scrutin législatif en cours revêt une importance toute particulière pour l’Inde, le favori des sondages promouvant un nationalisme agressif d’extrême droite, racial et religieux.
1) The last municipal elections represent a new worsening of the political balance of forces for the left and the labour movement. 150 cities of more than 10,000 inhabitants swung from SP or CP-led to the right or far right.
Le CADTM tient à apporter son soutien au peuple grec qui s’oppose aux diktats de la Troïka (Commission européenne, Banque centrale européenne, FMI). Les nouveaux prêts accordés en 2014 sont liés à un paquet de mesures antisociales qui vont dégrader un peu plus les conditions de vie de la majorité de la population grecque.
Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change started the publication of its 5th Assessment Report (or AR5), initially showing the work by the Working Group I, which deals with the physical basis of climate change. Now, the AR5 process continued with the publication of the “Summary for Policy Makers” by the Working Group II, concerning “impacts, adaptation and vulnerability.”
As the International Monetary Fund (IMF) prepares for its Spring meetings, new research reveals that the number of conditions it attaches to its loans are rising – and they continue to be linked to harsh austerity measures and interfere in sensitive policy areas. Conditionally Yours: An analysis of the policy conditions attached to IMF loans is the latest in a series of reports on the IMF’s lending practices produced by the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) over the past decade.
Les élections présidentielles du 25 mai ne stabiliseront pas le pays. Il faut que la population de toutes les régions soit saisie des grands enjeux et détermine ses droit sociaux et nationaux sur la base de l'indépendance du pays.
Le premier tour des élections municipales a rendu son verdict et il est national. Le Parti socialiste et donc le gouvernement et le président de la République subissent la sanction qu’ils espéraient éviter. L’UMP ne capitalise pas franchement sur cet échec. Mais le Front national en fait son miel. Au-delà de la victoire de Steeve Briois dès le premier tour et de ses bons résultats dans plusieurs autres villes, le FN a déjà fait élire 456 représentants dans les conseils municipaux…
“Here in Europe, the European Central Bank is not allowed to lend money to member States, so the monopoly for lending money to the public powers in the Euro zone is left in the hands of the private bankers who take full advantage of this in order to set the kind of interest rates that benefit them the most. In other words, they currently lend money to the BCE at 0.25% and then proceed to lend Italy money at 4%. When things are going badly for Italy, they lend us money at 6-7%. The citizens have to take the initiative when it comes to conducting a “debt audit”, asking the right questions and coming up with the answers themselves, without being too concerned about the fact that there is a major economics and finance expert.” 
Why does Bosnia-Herzegovina inspire so little interest and curiosity in the media and the political class when, on the contrary, Ukraine is front-page news? Is it because of its non-membership of the European Union? Is it because its name evokes the war that, twenty years ago, claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of men and women – more than 200,000 dead and 600,000 exiles – in the face of virtual indifference in the West as to what was happening one and a half hours by plane from Paris ? Or because it often wakes up to the call of the muezzin?
On 5 February, people set fire to the government building of Tuzla Canton, rebelling against criminal privatization, unpaid wages, and the corrupt ruling oligarchy. Violence was deemed necessary for people to finally get their voice heard, and overcome poverty. Ministers have resigned, and people have been taking control over political life. Soon after, more than 700 citizens gathered in Plenums, where they practice direct democracy. This "Tuzla effect" has spread throughout other towns in Bosnia Herzegovina... and this blast of anger has gained the streets in Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, in such a way that we're already speaking, in France and in Europe, of a Balkan "spring".
Sascha, Andrei, and Mira are members of AntiFascist Union Ukraine, a group that monitors and fights fascism in Ukraine. We sat down to talk about the influence of fascism in EuroMaidan, this is what they told me :
The socialist union "Left Opposition" offers its assessment of the Russian aggression in Crimea and the destructive role of Ukrainian nationalists. The intervention of Russian armies was made possible as a result of a split in Ukrainian society. Its unity is impossible with the oligarchs and chauvinists in power. Only solidarity will save Ukraine.
For weeks and weeks, we have been looking at Ukrainian events, trying to make sense of what has been happening in Kyiv and other cities. We had read many texts, comments and interviews and discussed about Maidan, but we had been always arriving only at new questions to be answered. Thus, when a possibility occurred to get in touch with Ukrainian comrades one of us tried to use it as best as he could. As a result of that effort and thanks to kindness and patience of Denis from a Kyiv branch of a revolutionary syndicalist group called Autonomous Workers Union the following interview came into existence. Hopefully, it will provide you with many useful insights into the Maidan movement and its context.
La chute de Ianoukovitch n’est pas “un coup” fasciste ; mais la composition et les orientations du “gouvernement d’union” soutenu par les puissances occidentales vont faire exploser l’Ukraine.
In Kiev tens of thousands risk their lives to protect the Maiden from police aggression. A participant in the January protests, socialist activist Ilya Budraitskis, argues that the left needs to be a stronger and more visible force in the movement.