International Careers Festival for Student Diplomats (Scholarships Available) 2018

Application Timeline:

• Deadline for scholarship applications: 15th December, 2017
• First deadline for applications and admission tests: December 22th 2017
• If there are vacancies after the first deadline, there will be a second deadline of January 26th, 2018.

If there are vacancies after the first deadline, there will be a second deadline of January 13th, 2017.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Rome, Italy

Eligible Fields of Study: These are suggested fields of academic study:

• RomeMUN: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, POLITICAL SCIENCE, LAW, COOPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT.
• Rome Business Game: ECONOMICS, MARKETING, MANAGEMENT ENGINEERING, COMPUTER ENGINEERING, STUDENTS/GRADUATES OF POLYTECHNICAL INSTITUTIONS.
• Rome Press Game: COMMUNICATION, LANGUAGES, LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY, TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETATION
• International Careers Course: ALL FACULTIES WELCOME TO APPLY

If you are applying for a scholarship, please note that precedence will be given to those applying from these faculties.

About the Award: Designed by the Giovani nel Mondo Association, The International Careers Festival aims to have talented students and recent graduates meet with hundreds of international opportunities. You might be just a single click from the opportunity that will change your whole life! Join thousands of young people from around the world and take part in a one-of-a-kind festival.

International Careers Festival offers you various workshops and seminars, stands where students can directly acquire practical skills, and not to mention the acclaimed marathon and final concert planned as the coronation of this annual event.

Therefore, Rome will be an unprecedented stage of ambition and tenacity, innovation and cooperation, and languages and cultures from around the world.

International Careers Fair

What is more, during the festival, you can take part in International Careers Fair. It is a large exhibition area open to both participants and the public alike. It will be divided into two different sections the education/university area and the work/internship area.

The Fair is the meeting and interaction point between thousands of students, whether they are looking for studying, training, internship, work opportunities, and industry experts.

Above all, the festival gives a unique opportunity for interaction and networking between brilliant young people, institutions, companies, NGOs, international organizations, and television and radio networks. It’s your time to get involved!

The Festival is composed of four main projects:

• Rome Model United Nations – It’s your turn to practice diplomacy with the simulation of the United Nations. Recommended for students interested in the topic, especially of international relations, diplomacy, political science or law.

• Rome Business Game – It’s your time to take the challenge! Take part in a simulation of business realities involving case study competitions. If you study economics, business, management, marketing, computer science or if you are curious about this topic you are more than welcome to join.

• Rome Press Game – This is the place where journalism and media (the web, tv, radio) simulation happens. It’s your time to play! Sign up today, especially if you study communication, media, translation and interpretation, literature or philosophy.

• International Careers Course – Provides you guidance course filled with practical workshops for a successful international career. Sounds exciting? It’s your time to learn!

You are free to choose the one most suited to your academic background, professional aspirations or general interest.

Type: Conferences

Offered Since: 2016

Eligibility: 

• High school students in their last two years
• undergraduate, postgraduate, I or II Level Master’s and doctorate students
• students who have graduated (no more than a year after receiving their diploma)

Selection: 

The scholarships, for which all those interested must apply before the 9th of December 2016, will be awarded after an analysis and selection by the Research Committee of the Giovani nel Mondo Association.

Once you have completed the Application form, you will be given access to your reserved section of the International Careers Festival’s website and must become a member of the Association by paying the annual membership fee of 15 euros. Once you have uploaded your payment receipt to your account, you will have access to the online English Language test. To apply for a scholarship, it is necessary to pass the test with a score of 90/100. If your score is equal to/over 90/100, you will have access to the scholarship application where you must answer a series of questions, upload your CV, and write an essay.

The scholarships are very competitive, therefore we recommend that you apply for a scholarship in the case that you cannot attend the event without one or if you believe you have all the required qualifications.

Number of Awardees: 200

Value of Scholarship: Partial or Full.

Scholarships DO NOT cover travel expenses. Many students who could not afford to come to our events would use crowdfunding sites to try and pay for fees and/or flights.

Duration of Program: 24th to the 27th of March 2018

How to Apply: 

The online application process for the various projects is simple and straightforward. It allows participants to choose the program best suited to their academic background to launch their careers and take advantage of one of the many scholarships available.

In order to take part in the festival, your English language skills must be at least B1. To complete the application, you must either take an online English test or upload a certificate confirming your level of English.

Finally, you have to submit the application form and pay the participation fee, either the whole amount or in two installments.

You may also apply for a scholarship to cover all programme expenses.

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: Giovani nel Mondo Association

US Consulate ‘She Makes It Happen’ Program for Women Fashion Entrepreneurs 2017

Application Deadline: Ongoing

To be Taken at: The United States Consulate 2, Walter Carrington Crescent, Victoria Island, Lagos

About the Award: She Makes It Happen! is an end of the year event, for women fashion entrepreneurs. Powered by African Fashion Development and Empowerment Centre (AFDEC) in partnership with The Public Affairs Department of U.S Consulate, Lagos Nigeria. The program Objective is to:

1.) Strengthen the entrepreneurial skills of exceptionally creative Woman owning micro, small & medium enterprises in the
Nigerian Fashion Industry,
2.) Provide Access to New Markets
3.) Share Experiences of successful Women in the Fashion Industry and
4.) Proffer a Platform for networking among Fashion Entrepreneurs within and outside the AFDEC Network.

Value of Program: The event is packed with fun activities including: -Awards -Exhibitions -Look book Showcase -Experience Sharing’Dialogue -Networking -Red Carpet -Comedy -Music

Duration of Program: 

Date: November 9th 2017
Time: 9am – 12noon

Visit Program Webpage for Details

Important Notes: PLEASE DO NOT REGISTER IF YOU WON’T BE AVAILABLE FOR THIS EVENT TO MAKE ROOM FOR OTHER APPLICANTS, AS LIMITED SEATS ARE AVAILABLE.

Global Social Venture Competition for Aspiring Entrepreneurs 2018

Application Deadline: 4th December, 2017

Global Finals: April 11-13, 2018

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Applicant’s chosen country and Graduate School Business and Society at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.

About the Award: The Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) empowers the next generation of social entrepreneurs by providing them with mentoring, exposure, and over $80,000 in prizes to transform their ideas into ventures that address the world’s most pressing challenges.

GSVC awards prizes to early-stage social venture teams that show the highest, most integrated financial and social returns – businesses that demonstrate blended value.

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: 

Eligibility Requirements for Ventures

• Submitted ventures should aim to be: financially sustainable or profitable; whether it is a for-profit, non-profit, or hybrid business model, your venture must aim to be self-sufficient on earned revenue.
• Submitted ventures should be scalable long term. This criterion will mean different things for each business. Scalability will take into account the potential for growth of the business, both financially and in its social impact.
• Submitted ventures must have a quantifiable social and/or environmental bottom lineincorporated into their mission and practices.
• Your entry must include a financial analysis as well as a Social Impact Assessment (SIA), including the Social Value Proposition and Social Indicators. Learn more on the SIA page of the website.
• Submitted ventures must be less than 2 years old (with the start of the venture marked by incorporation or first income, whichever occurred first) as of December 31, 2016.
• Submitted ventures may not be a wholly owned subsidiary of an existing entity (of either a for-profit or nonprofit entity).
• Submitted ventures must not have received more than $250,000 in funding from venture capital, private investors, grants (government or foundation), loans, or other funding sources (excluding in-kind) as of December 31, 2016.
• Lifetime revenue should not exceed $500,000 as of December 31, 2016.
• GSVC has the right to investigate funding and qualifications of ventures to assure that they are truly early stage.

Eligibility Requirements for Teams

• Your team must include a student, current or recent graduate*, from any level of higher education (undergraduate, masters level/graduate, or doctoral) in any area of study in the world;
• Recent students must meet the following criteria:  
  • Recent Bachelor’s degree holders must have completed their degree with four (4) years of the application deadline (December 31, 2016).
  • Recent Master’s or Doctoral level degree holders must have completed their degree within two (2) years of the application deadline (December 31, 2016)
• The student or recent student must be actively involved in the venture (i.e., a founder or co-founder, actively participating in development of the business or actively working on the business)
• Your team should include a statement describing the student’s level of involvement.
• The student or recent student must be one of the team’s presenters and must be available to answer judges’ questions regarding the business in the final two rounds of the competition.

Selection: The Global Social Venture Competition leads entrant teams through an experiential learning process to develop innovative, scalable solutions to the world’s greatest challenges.  Through our global network of 14 partner schools and competitions, we give teams the connections, support, and exposure needed to advance their social ventures.

Each of the competition’s three rounds also asks teams to build on past learnings and focus on distinct emphasis areas. A team’s ability to demonstrate progress in these areas will be an important determinant of its venture’s overall score, which in every round is evaluated on business potential, social impact potential, and likelihood of success.

Number of Awardees: 6

Value of Programme: 

• FIRST PLACE AWARD: $40,000
• SECOND PLACE AWARD: $25,000
• THIRD PLACE AWARD: $10,000
• PRIYA HAJI MEMORIAL AWARD: $2,500
• PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD: $1,500
• QUICK PITCH AWARD: $1,000

How to Apply: Apply here

Visit Programme Webpage for details

Award Provider: The Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC), University  of California, Berkeley

Who is Afraid of the Iranian Bomb?

URI AVNERY

I hate self-evident truths.

Ideals may be self-evident. Political statements are not. When I hear about a self-evident political truth, I immediately doubt it.

The most self-evident political truth at this moment concerns Iran. Iran is our deadly enemy. Iran wants to destroy us. We must destroy its capabilities first.

Since this is self-evident, the anti-nuclear agreement signed between Iran and the five Security Council members (plus Germany) is terrible. Just terrible. We should have ordered the Americans long ago to bomb Iran to smithereens. In the unlikely event that they would have disobeyed us, we should have nuclear-bombed Iran ourselves, before their crazy fanatical leaders have the opportunity to annihilate us first.

All these are self-evident truths. To my mind, all of them are utter nonsense. There is nothing self-evident about them. Indeed, they have no logical basis at all. They lack any geopolitical, historical or factual foundation.

Napoleon once said that if one wants to understand the behavior of a country, one has to look at the map.

Geography is more important than ideology, however fanatical. Ideologies change with time. Geography doesn’t. The most fanatically ideological country in the 20^th century was the Soviet Union. It abhorred its predecessor, Czarist Russia. It would have abhorred its successor, Putin’s Russia. But lo and behold – the Czars, Stalin and Putin conduct more or less the same foreign policy. Karl Marx must be turning in his grave.

When the Biblical Israelite people was born, Persia was already a civilized country. King Cyrus of Persia sent the “Jews” to Jerusalem and founded what can be called the “Jewish people”. He is remembered in Jewish history as a great benefactor.

When the State of Israel was founded in 1948, David Ben-Gurion saw in Iran a natural ally. It may now sound strange, but not so long ago Iran was indeed the most pro-Israeli country in the Middle East.

Ben-Gurion was an out-and-out realist. Since he had no intention whatsoever to make peace with the Arabs, a peace which would have prevented the original small State of Israel expanding without boundaries, he looked for allies beyond the Arab world.

Looking at the map (yes, he believed in the map) he saw that the Muslim Arabs were surrounded by a number of non-Arab or non-Muslim entities. There were the Maronite Christians in Lebanon (not Muslims), the Turks (Muslims, but not Arabs), the Kurds (Muslims but not Arabs), Iran (Muslim, but not Arab), Ethiopia (neither Muslim nor Arab) and more.

Seeing this, Ben-Gurion devised a grand plan: a “partnership of the periphery”, an alliance of all these entities surrounding the Arab world and which felt threatened by the emerging pan-Arab nationalism of Gamal Abd-al-Nasser and other Sunni-Muslim-Arab states.

One of the greatest enthusiasts for this idea was the Shah of Iran, who became Israel’s most ardent friend.

The “King of Kings” was a brutal dictator, hated by most of his people. But for many Israelis, Iran became a second home. Tehran became a Mecca for Israeli businessmen, some of whom became very rich. Experts of the Israeli Security Service, called Shabak (Hebrew initials of General Security Service) trained the Shah’s detested secret police, called Savak.

High-ranking Israeli army commanders traveled freely through Iran to Iraqi Kurdistan, where they trained the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in their fight against Saddam Hussein’s regime. (The Shah, of course, did not dream of giving freedom to his own Kurdish minority.)

This paradise came to a sudden end when the Shah made a deal with Saddam Hussein, in order to save his throne. To no avail. Radical Shiite clerics, who were very popular, overthrew the Shah and established the Shiite Islamic republic. Israel was out.

By the way, another element of the “Periphery” broke away too. In 1954 Ben-Gurion and his army chief, Moshe Dayan, hatched a plan to attack Lebanon and establish a pro-Israeli Maronite dictator there. The then Prime Minister, Moshe Sharet, who knew something about the Arab world, nixed this adventure, which he considered stupid. Thirty years later Ariel Sharon, another ignoramus, implemented the same plan, with disastrous results.

In 1982, the Israeli army invaded Lebanon. It duly installed a Maronite dictator, Basheer Jumayil, who signed a peace agreement with Israel and was soon assassinated. The Shiites, who populate the South of Lebanon, welcomed the Israeli army enthusiastically, believing that it would help them against the Sunni Muslims and withdraw. I was an eye-witness: driving alone in my civilian car from Metullah in Israel to Sidon on the Lebanon coast, I passed several Shiite villages and could hardly extricate myself (physically) from the embraces of the inhabitants.

However, when the Shiites realized that the Israelis had no intention of leaving, they started a guerrilla war against them. Thus Hezbollah was born and became one of Israel’s most effective enemies – and an ally of the Shiite regime in Iran.

But is the Shiite Iranian regime such a deadly enemy of Israel? I rather doubt it.

Indeed, when the religious fanaticism of the new regime in Iran was at its height, a curious business occurred. It became known as “Iran-Contra” affair. Some conservatives in Washington DC wanted to arm rightist insurgents in leftist Nicaragua. American laws prevented them from doing so openly, so they turned to – who else? – Israel.

Israel sold arms to the Iranian Ayatollahs (yes, indeed!) and gave the proceeds to our Washington friends, who transferred them illegally to the Nicaraguan rightist terrorists, called “Contras”.

The moral of the story: when it served their practical purposes, the Ayatollahs had no qualms at all about making deals with Israel, the “little Satan”.

Iran needed the weapons Israel sent them because they were fighting a war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It was not the first one. For many centuries, Iraq served the Arab world as a bulwark against Iran. Iraq has a large Shiite population, but the Iraqi Shiites were Arabs and had no real sympathy for their fellow-Shiites in Iran. They still have little.

Israel helped Iran in that war because it feared Saddam Hussein. Therefore, Israel helped to convince the US to invade Iraq. The invasion was highly successful: Iraq was destroyed, and the historic bulwark against Iran disappeared. So it was Israel which helped to remove the main obstacle to Iran’s hegemony over the Middle East.

Sounds crazy? Is crazy. Ben-Gurion’s grand design has been stood on its head. At present, the “periphery” of Lebanon and Iran, supported by Turkey, is our mortal enemy, and the Sunni bloc of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Egypt are our open or half-secret allies.

Here I hear the impatient reader shout: “Cut the bullshit, what about the nuclear danger? What about the mad ayatollahs obtaining atomic bombs and annihilating us?”

Well, I am not afraid. Even if Iran obtains nuclear bombs, I shall sleep well.

Why, for God’s (or Allah’s) sake? Because Israel is well provided with nuclear weapons and a second-strike capability.

Bombing Israel would mean the annihilation of Iran, the multi-millennial civilization, the proud heritage of innumerable philosophers, artists, poets and scientists. (The very word “algorithm” is derived from the name of the Persian mathematician al-Khwarizmi).

The current Iranian rulers may be fanatics (I doubt it) but they are not suicidal. There is not a single indication in that direction. On the contrary, they seem eminently practical people.

So why do they clamor against Israel? Because their aim is to become the dominant force in the Muslim world, and cursing Israel is the obvious way. As long as Israel does not make peace with the Palestinians, the Arab and Muslim masses everywhere hate Israel. Iran’s current leaders are very good at cursing the Little Satan.

Experts report that Islam has recently been losing strength as the main force in Iran, while Iranian nationalism has been gaining. The cult of Cyrus, who preceded Muhammad by more than 1200 years, is gaining ground.

Since the nuclear bomb was invented, no nuclear-armed country has ever been attacked. Attacking a nuclear-armed country simply means suicide. Even the mighty USA (the “Big Satan”) does not dare to attack little North Korea, whose endeavor to obtain a nuclear strike force is far from irrational.

The Public Bank Option: Safer, Local and Half the Cost

Ellen Brown

A UK study published on October 27, 2017 reported that the majority of politicians do not know where money comes from. According to City A.M. (London) :

More than three-quarters of the MPs surveyed incorrectly believed that only the government has the ability to create new money. . . .

The Bank of England has previously intervened to point out that most money in the UK begins as a bank loan. In a 2014 article the Bank pointed out that “whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money.”

The Bank of England researchers said that 97% of the UK money supply is created in this way. In the US, the figure is about 95%. City A.M. quoted Fran Boait, executive director of the advocacy group Positive Money, who observed:

“Despite their confidence in telling the public that there is ‘no magic money tree’ to pay for vital services, politicians themselves are shockingly ignorant of where money actually comes from.

“There is in fact a ‘magic money tree’, but it’s in the hands of commercial banks, such as Barclays, HSBC and RBS, who create money whenever they make loans.”

For those few politicians who are aware of the banks’ magic money tree, the axiom that the people should own the banks – or at least some of them – is a no-brainer. One of these rare politicians is Phil Murphy, who has a double-digit lead in New Jersey’s race for governor. Formerly a Wall Street banker himself, Murphy knows how banking works. That helps explain why he has boldly made a state-owned bank a centerpiece of his platform. He maintains that New Jersey’s billions in tax dollars should be kept in the state’s own bank, where it can leverage its capital to fund local infrastructure, small businesses, affordable housing, student loans, and other state needs. New Jersey voters go to the polls on November 7.

That means New Jersey could soon have the second publicly-owned depository bank in the country, following the very successful century-old Bank of North Dakota (BND). Other likely contenders among about twenty public banking initiatives now underway include Washington State, which has approved a feasibility study for a state bank; and the cities of Santa Fe in New Mexico and Los Angeles and Oakland in California, which are exploring the feasibility of their own city-owned banks.

A Bank Is Not Simply an Intermediary

An article in City Watch LA critical of the idea of a city-owned bank observed that Los Angeles formerly had a bank that failed, closing its doors in 2003 due to insolvency. The argument illustrates the confusion over what a bank is and what it can do for the local government and local communities. The Los Angeles Community Development Bank was not a bank. It was a loan fund, and it was designed to fail. It was not chartered to take deposits or to create deposits as loans, and it was only allowed to lend to businesses that had been turned down by other banks; in other words, they were bad credit risks.

With a loan fund, a dollar invested is a dollar lent, which must return to the bank before it can be lent again. By contrast, as the Bank of England acknowledged in its 2014 paper, “banks do not act simply as intermediaries, lending out deposits that savers place with them.” A chartered depository bank can turn one dollar of capital into ten dollars in bank credit, something it does simply by creating a deposit in the account of the borrower. If the bank’s books don’t balance at the end of the day, it borrows very cheaply from other banks, the Federal Home Loan Banks, or the repo market. It borrows at bankers’ rates rather than retail rates, and that is one of the many perks that a publicly-owned bank can recapture for local governments. Borrowing from banks rather than the bond market actually expands the circulating money supply, stimulating the local economy.

Compelling Precedents

Public sector banks, while rare in the US, are common in other countries; and recent studies have shown that they are actually more profitable, safer, less corrupt, and more accountable overall than private banks.

This is particularly true of the Bank of North Dakota, currently the only publicly-owned depository bank in the US. According to the Wall Street Journal, it is more profitable than Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan Chase. The BND is risk-averse, lends conservatively, does not gamble in derivatives or put deposits at risk. It is able to lend at lower than market rates because its costs are very low.

The BND holds all of its home state’s revenues as deposits by law, acting as a sort of “mini-Fed” for North Dakota. It has seen record profits for almost 15 years. It continued to report record profits after two years of oil bust in the state, showing that it is highly profitable on its own merits because of its business model. It does not pay bonuses, fees, or commissions; has no high paid executives; does not have multiple branches; does not need to advertise; and does not have private shareholders seeking short-term profits. The profits return to the bank, which either distributes them as dividends to the state or uses them to build up its capital base in order to expand its loan portfolio.

The BND does not compete but partners with local banks, which act as the front office dealing with customers. It does make loans that community banks are unable to service, but this is not because the borrowers are bad credit risks. It is because either the loans are too big for the smaller banks to handle by themselves or the smaller banks cannot afford the regulatory burden of lending in rural communities where they get only a few loans a year.

Among other cost savings, the BND is able to make 2% loans to North Dakota communities for local infrastructure — half or less the rate paid by local governments in other states. The BND also lends to state agencies. For example, in 2016 it extended a $200,000 letter of credit to the State Water Commission at 1.75% and a $56,000 loan to the Water Commission to pay off its bond issues. Since 50% of the cost of infrastructure is financing, the state can cut infrastructure costs nearly in half by financing through its own bank, which can return the interest to the state.

If Phil Murphy wins the New Jersey governorship and succeeds in establishing a New Jersey state-owned bank, expect a wave of public banks to follow, as more and more elected officials come to understand how banking works and to see the obvious benefits of establishing their own.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: Winners and Losers

BENJAMIN HACKETT

The details are out, and we know the winners and losers. Teachers would no longer be able to deduct a small amount of out-of-pocket school expenses; Donald Trump would still be able to deduct unlimited amount of fees paid to money managers and lawyers. There is a lot to love in the $1.5 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)—if you’re Donald Trump. Most of the Trump’s business ventures are structured as pass-through entities, in which the economic activity of the business is reported on the individual owner’s personal tax return. The TCJA caps the tax on business income reported on individual tax returns in what amounts to a $448 billion handout to business owners like the Trumps. In comparison, over the same time frame, the TCJA recoups about $4 billion of that money through abolishing tax credits for retirees with disabilities and adoptive families, among others. When Americans hear about slashing tax cuts for “special interest groups,” most think of oil or Big Pharma, but the Republicans apparently mean wage-earners and big families, because big business gets granted every perk on the corporate wish list while many ordinary Americans are in for some unwelcome surprises. High-income taxpayers currently may incur a modest limitation on their overall itemized deductions; the TCJA repeals this overall limitation on itemized deductions, which only affects wealthy Americans, and recoups some of that lost revenue by eliminating the deduction for student loan interest payments and repealing catastrophic medical expenses as an itemized deduction.

The estate tax, which affects only the modern John D. Rockefellers, the richest of the rich—the wealthiest 0.2% of all estates—is phased out before being abolished entirely, giving the top echelon of the 1%er’s a $172 billion windfall. The TCJA then turns around and repeals employer-funded adoption assistance programs, providing cost savings of less than $50 million over the next ten years. From what little we know of Donald Trump’s tax returns, we know that he is subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax—a tax assessed against people who benefit from too many tax loopholes and would pay too little tax otherwise. The TCJA repeals the Alternative Minimum Tax, saving the Trumps of the country about $700 billion. All of the figures cited are from the Republican-chaired Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation and, in my opinion, the Joint Committee on Taxation is likely understating how much the wealthy will benefit from the repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax, as tax advisors and money managers will rush to take full advantage of all of the loopholes that the Alternative Minimum Tax previously disincentivized, adopting tax planning strategies to more easily minimize the tax liability of America’s wealthiest families.

Some other tax credits that got the axe in the TCJA include expenditures to provide access to disabled individuals, clinical testing expenses for drugs that treat rare diseases, employer-provided child care, rehabilitation of historic buildings, and purchasing electric vehicles. Together, the cost savings of these socially beneficial provisions are negligible in comparison to the provisions that provide windfall savings to America’s billionaire class. The special carve-outs for industry largely remain intact; it’s only America’s working families that lose out on what little benefits they have under the current tax system. A lot has already been written about the repeal of the itemized deduction for state and local taxes and the capping of the deductions for mortgage interest and real estate taxes, and the effect it would have on ordinary Americans, especially ones in states like New York and California. One provision that hasn’t been talked about enough is the carried interest loophole—a special tax loophole exclusively for hedge fund managers and private equity partners that costs American taxpayers billions every year. The tax loophole is so egregious that Donald Trump himself vowed to repeal it, but the TCJA specifically preserves it, in another win for America’s moneyed elite. Donald Trump must answer to the American people why billionaire hedge fund managers should continue to receive lucrative special tax benefits while teachers and retirees lose out.

The case in favor of the TCJA can be summarized as follows: if you don’t know what’s in the bill, then the bill is a much-needed boon to hard-working middle class Americans; if you have read up on the bill, then, admittedly, middle class Americans will have to make some big sacrifices, but the TCJA is going to promote so much growth, and create so many jobs, that it’s worth the pinch to the working class. Congressional Republicans know from the Bush-era tax cuts that fiscal conservatives can be won over into embracing deficit-busting tax cuts with fuzzy math on future projected economic growth, even though such wildly optimistic economic growth has never panned out in the past. Congressional Republicans are also counting on that a few red-state Democrats can be convinced to vote in favor of what is, after all, a big handout to almost every Congressperson. If the TCJA passes with the support of a few red-state Democrats it will be proof of what we already know—that class divisions are more important than political affiliations, especially when all of the political class stands to personally benefit.

Trickle-down economics is a proven fraud. The International Monetary Fund, which is certainly not biased in favor of the working class, recently released a report stating that taxes could be raised on the top 1% of earners without negatively impacting economic growth. It’s common sense. If you give an extra $1,000 to a working class American family, that money will be reinvested into the economy in the form of purchasing gas, bread, and diapers; if you give an extra $1,000 to the average Congressperson, when they check their bank account they’ll be $1,000 richer, but it will not in any way affect their spending. If Congress wanted economic growth, it would be wage-earners who would receive the tax perks, rather than just business owners and Wall St. money managers. No amount of the TCJA’s funneling more money to the wealthy elite and exacerbating economic inequality is going to provide prosperity to ordinary families. Conservatives decry talk of the redistribution of wealth and class warfare, but the TCJA is the redistribution of wealth to the benefit of America’s richest and most powerful, and represents class warfare being waged against ordinary Americans.

If Congress was interested in middle class tax breaks, it would be trivially easy to pass a tax reform package—just ask what tax provisions benefit working Americans the most and increase those provisions, like personal exemptions and deductions for student loan interest. Instead these provisions are abolished outright under the TCJA, to cover pennies on the dollar of the windfall savings provided to the ultra-wealthy. If Congress was interested in job creation and economic growth, they would be discussing a desperately-needed infrastructure bill, preferably one modeled after the Works Progress Administration, which would put millions of Americans to work to rebuild America’s middle class at the same time as its roads and bridges. Instead, we have more of the same: a corrupt political system that exists to serve only the interests of the rich and powerful, at the expense of working people everywhere.

A Triumph Of Accountancy: The Paradise Papers

Binoy Kampmark

This was another case of the big and the powerful undercutting the tax systems of the world. But could anyone be genuinely surprised at the revelations to come out of the Paradise Papers on the workings of the tax haven industry?

Of the 13.4 million files revealed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and some 90 global media partners, 6.8 million stem from the offshore law firm Appleby. A further half million derive from the Asiaciti Trust based in Singapore, with six million obtained from corporate registries spanning 19 tax havens.

This is a field where denial is followed by qualification, and then, ultimately, a dismissive shrug.  Nothing exemplifies this more than the dispute over what a “tax haven” constitutes.  The Bermuda minister for finance, Bob Richards, for instance, rejects the suggestion that his country is a joyful tax haven for the stinking rich and robustly powerful.

Language and perception is everything here.  A tax haven, according to the Bermuda side of things, suggests terrorism and money laundering.  A no-tax or low-tax threshold is an entirely decent incentive.  “We didn’t pass a law to say,” disclaimed Richards, “that the Googles of this world don’t get taxed.”

Besides, claimed the evidently irritated finance minister, the UK was itself a tax haven.  “You have more billionaires resident in London than any place on earth.  They are not here for the weather, they are here for the tax climate.  We have a double standard going on here.”

Richards does have a point.  In the world of tax havens, countries with a supposedly more keen disposition to netting tax are found wanting. The Netherlands, for instance, is a the place of choice for General Electric, Heinz, Caterpillar, Time Warner, Foot Locker and Nike. In the sharp observation of Jesse Frederik, “The land of tulips and windmills, the home of the International Criminal Court, and the number one tax have for American multinationals.”

Combing through the papers has already revealed the activities of a few big fish, though again, there are few surprises.  US President Donald Trump, for instance, is the least surprising of all. Despite railing against the unelected global elites who do boardroom deals, his circle is filled with that very same ilk.  The corporate boardroom, in fact, stalks the land and haunts the cabinet.

Take US Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross.  His private equity firm W.L. Ross & Co., LLC was a company that became, in time, one of Appleby’s biggest clients. Despite divesting most of his empire, he retained a stake in the shipping company Navigator Holdings, with W.L. Ross being its largest shareholder. Navigating Holdings, in turn, does extensive business with the Russian gas processing and petrochemicals company SIBUR. A resounding tut-tut has duly followed.

Do these revelations actually matter?  The very fact that the Paradise Papers duly followed in the tracks of the enormous documentation in the Panama Papers is evidence that the enterprising accountant is always ahead of the plodding taxman.

Nonetheless, Will Fitzgibbon and Emilia Díaz-Struck would suggest in November 2016 for the ICIJ that the Panama Papers investigation had “produced an almost daily drumbeat of regulatory moves, follow-up stories and calls by politicians and activists for more action to combat offshore financial secrecy.”

The problem with such companies is that they, in a sense, have every right, or, to be more precise, liberty, to exist in an environment teaming with advisors on how best to trick the tax departments. Companies are not in the habit of feeding social consciences or the public good, and have an incentive to obtain the biggest dividends for their shareholders.

The problem is so endemic that even the ICIJ supplies a disclaimer noting how offshore companies and trusts have “legitimate uses”.  “We do not intend to suggest or imply that people, companies or other entities included in the ICIJ Offshore Database have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly.”  Precisely.

What is easy to ignore is the degree of collusion states afford companies.  Some are in the habit of encouraging companies to operate on their territory, the incentive here being a zero tax rate.   Capital duly migrates; outsourcing takes place.  Tax that would otherwise find its way into coffers is simply not collected.  Infrastructure and services duly suffers.

Matt Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy based in Washington sees an inexorable trend, one that threatens to reduce democratic practice to a shell.  The tax bases of the globe are shrinking, as is trust in state institutions.

“When its documented as well as it has that companies like Apple and Google and Microsoft – these incredibly profitable companies – are just able to use the tax system like a piñata, that just reinforces the belief that no-one cares about the plight of middle-income families.”

Till a good reason exists to abolish such entities as Mossack Fonseca or Appleby, the world of the tax haven will continue to thrive, however vigorous a prune it might receive from periodic bursts of moral outrage.

Complaints soar against Australian government’s welfare agency

Mike Head

More than 55 million phone calls to Centrelink, the Australian government welfare office, were met with a busy signal during the 2015–16 financial year—nearly double the 29 million a year before. A Senate estimates committee was belatedly told last month of this extraordinary rise, which had been hidden from public view.

Millions of welfare recipients were unable to get through to the agency that administers their payments, causing enormous frustration, anxiety and anger. Already struggling to survive on benefits that are far below the poverty line—single unemployed workers receive less than $40 a day—they were forced to spend hours waiting on phones.

This is another measure of the Liberal-National Coalition government’s contempt for those who depend on welfare, especially unemployed or disabled workers, and aged pensioners, as well as its determination to push them off benefits. In effect, the phone logjam is the latest in an endless series of moves by successive governments, both Coalition and Labor, to slash welfare spending at the expense of the working class.

Being unable to contact Centrelink can have serious consequences for some of society’s most impoverished and vulnerable members. This includes being cut off benefits for failing to report information, or being unable to complete applications for benefits. In the same year, the government accused tens of thousands of welfare recipients of falsely claiming payments worth $2.8 billion.

The government’s hostility toward social security dependents was further displayed at the Senate hearing. Department of Human Services official Renee Leon blamed automatic dialling apps for the sharp rise in failed calls.

“That’s not 55 million unique calls,” Leon told senators, asserting that about 20 percent of the calls were from repeat dialling apps. She stated: “55 million doesn’t mean there were 55 million people who tried to ring, because many of those were repeat calls.”

If people are using repeat dialling apps, it is because they know, from bitter experience, that they cannot contact Centrelink without resorting to such devices, which keep calling a number until it is ultimately answered.

Even according to official statistics, phone waits averaged almost 27 minutes at the height of the past year’s “robo-debt” outrage, when the government sent out 20,000 automated “debt notices” every week, demanding that current and former welfare recipients repay hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of dollars.

Seeking to intimidate people relying on pensions, unemployment benefits or other welfare payments, the government hired corporate debt collectors to hound them. It has also threatened to jail people unless they paid the demanded amounts or produced documents to disprove any alleged over-payments. Tens of thousands of people were wrongly accused of defrauding the welfare system, including disabled workers with mental health problems.

This is under conditions in which the ongoing destruction of jobs in manufacturing, mining, retail, public services and other basic industries has created mass unemployment in many working-class and regional areas, especially for young people. Currently, about three quarters of a million workers rely on the meagre Newstart (unemployment) allowance, under constant threat of being penalised or cut off altogether unless they pass onerous and often humiliating “work tests,” such as attending interviews, applying for 20 or more jobs a month, or performing unpaid charity work.

Recipients can have their benefits suspended or terminated for failing to notify Centrelink if they miss an appointment or interview, even because of ill-health or family emergency. Thus, not being able to phone Centrelink can result in being “breached,” leaving recipients in severe financial stress.

Anger over inability to contact Centrelink is just part of the seething discontent over the calculated mistreatment of welfare recipients by the government, through Centrelink. Recently released figures show complaints about the agency jumped by more than 50,000 in 2016–17.

The Department of Human Services’ latest annual report revealed that complaints rose to 168,709, from 113,746 in 2015–16. One in four complaints related to dissatisfaction with a decision, outcome or payment, including payments not being received.

About 28 percent of the complaints related to concerns about a claim, application, or assessment process. Centrelink’s jammed phone system was the subject of 16.2 percent of the complaints, which included concerns about wait times, engaged signals and call disconnections.

Centrelink workers also are paying the price of the government’s cost-cutting. Nearly 1,200 jobs were axed from the Human Services department in the Turnbull government’s 2017–18 budget, on top of about 5,000 job cuts since 2014. This ensures lengthy delays and destroys more working-class jobs. The remaining over-worked Centrelink staff are left to face the justified outrage of those trying to access basic social security rights.

Even worse is being prepared. Human Services Minister Alan Tudge recently announced a three-year $51.7 million contract with Serco, a global corporate services company, for a pilot program in which it will take over some of Centrelink’s phone-call facility. In what the government termed an unprecedented move for Centrelink, 250 Serco call centre employees will take calls about welfare payments. To extract profits from this take-over, Serco will only further run down the service provided to callers.

Tudge declared that this out-sourcing was the answer to the phone jam problem, thus seizing on the suffering the government itself has caused to pursue an obvious corporate agenda. The agreement with Serco, which has also profited from contracts to operate the government’s refugee detention centres, is another step toward the complete privatisation of government services.

The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), the main trade union covering the Centrelink workers, and most public sector workers nationally, has called for talks with the Human Services management. While publicly condemning the Serco deal, the CPSU will continue to stifle the opposition of its members, as it has done with all the previous job cuts.

The CPSU backs the return of another Labor government, but Labor is equally committed to further attacks on welfare. Last September it helped the Turnbull government pass an omnibus savings bill, cutting $6.3 billion from social spending over four years. Labor supported provisions such as 9 percent annual interest charges on alleged unpaid welfare debts.

The attack on welfare recipients is bound up with a wider offensive against the working class as a whole. Governments and employers want to increasingly force the unemployed into low-paid jobs on insecure, super-exploitative conditions. This is driving down wage levels, which have fallen in real terms for several years, while slashing social services in order to cut taxes for big business and wealthy individuals, and pour billions into military spending.

New Zealand: Labour-led government promotes nationalism and militarism

Tom Peters

In its first fortnight in office, the newly installed Labour-led government has made clear that it will advance a program of nationalism, anti-Chinese xenophobia and support for US warmongering.

The right-wing populist New Zealand First, which received only 7.2 percent of the vote, but held the balance of power, decided on October 19—four weeks after the election—to form a coalition government with Labour and the Greens rather than the conservative National Party.

Labour rewarded NZ First leader Winston Peters with the positions of foreign minister and deputy prime minister. NZ First deputy Ron Mark is the new government’s defense minister. The right-wing party ran a Trump-like campaign focused on scapegoating Asian immigrants for the deepening social and economic crisis.

Labour and NZ First have criticised capitalism, reflecting acute nervousness in the ruling elite over growing working class hostility towards the entire social order, which has produced record inequality. Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stated: “If you have hundreds of thousands of children living in homes without enough to survive, that’s a blatant failure.”

Labour is seeking to give itself a “progressive” veneer with meagre promises, such as a four dollar increase to the minimum wage by 2021—grossly inadequate given the soaring cost of living. Visiting Australia over the weekend, Ardern made a much-publicised offer to take 150 refugees from the detention centre on Manus Island. Canberra rejected the proposal.

The media, the trade unions and pseudo-left groups, are all promoting illusions in the Labour-Greens-NZ First coalition in order to trap the working class behind a capitalist government that will accelerate the assault on living standards, attack immigrants, and prepare for war.

While in opposition, Labour and NZ First repeatedly scapegoated foreigners, especially Chinese immigrants, who make up about 4 percent of the New Zealand population, for the housing crisis, low wages and other social problems. The government intends to cut migrant and foreign student numbers by up to 30,000 a year, or 40 percent.

The first item on Labour’s legislative agenda is to ban foreigners from buying houses. Calculated to stoke xenophobia, the ban will do nothing to address rising homelessness. Rents and house prices have soared due to rampant speculation, overwhelmingly by local investors. There is an estimated shortage of 71,000 houses and more than 33,000 unoccupied homes in Auckland alone.

Labour’s anti-Chinese campaign is closely connected with moves to align the country more openly with US warmongering. The Trump administration, escalating policies put in place by Obama, has demanded that US allies fully support the US military throughout the Asia-Pacific, in preparation for war against North Korea and China.

Following the NZ election, and before a government had been formed, US ambassador Scott Brown publicly intervened to stress the country’s importance as a US ally. Brown attacked the National government for describing Trump’s threat to annihilate North Korea as “not helpful.”

NZ First has endorsed a report by the US government-funded Wilson Center calling for an investigation into Chinese “interference” in New Zealand politics. The party has also demanded an “inquiry” into National Party MP Jian Yang, who is being witch-hunted as a Chinese “agent” because he taught English to Chinese military intelligence cadets more than 20 years ago.

While distancing New Zealand from China, the country’s second-largest trading partner, Labour and NZ First have agreed to reopen trade negotiations with Russia, which were cancelled following the 2014 US-backed coup in Ukraine and the subsequent annexation of Crimea by the Putin regime. The New Zealand Herald commented that thawing relations with Russia would “position New Zealand alongside the Trump administration.”

In another accommodation to Washington, the NZ First-Labour coalition agreement criticised the National government for co-sponsoring a United Nations Security Council resolution last year condemning Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. Trump vehemently opposed the resolution. The Jerusalem Post noted that Peters and Mark are “long-standing members” of the Parliamentary Friends of Israel group.

Pro-Labour commentator Chris Trotter told RadioLIVE on November 2 that Mark was “exactly the sort of person you want to have as your Minister of Defence: someone who actually knows what it’s like to be in a fight.”

Mark is a former NZ Army officer and also served, during the late 1980s, in the special forces of Oman, an absolute monarchy allied with the US. In April and June last year, he attacked the government for failing to equip the military “to prepare for war” and deter China’s growing presence in the Pacific. The NZ ruling elite relies on US imperialism to support its own predatory, neo-colonial domination over much of the Pacific, where it views China as an unwanted interloper.

Mark’s first action as minster on October 29 was to personally observe the biennial Southern Katipo military exercise, involving over 2,000 troops from New Zealand, Australia, the US and other countries. The nation’s largest military exercise, Southern Katipo is designed to prepare troops to intervene in a Pacific island country to suppress civil unrest.

Three days later, in a speech to the Returned and Services’ Association, Mark attacked journalists “who have never worn the uniform,” for criticising military operations. This was an apparent response to the book Hit and Run, which exposed how the Defence Force and the National government covered up the role of elite NZ forces in a massacre of civilians in Afghanistan.

Mark also said he would visit Iraq “as fast as we can.” Labour has reassured Australia and the US that it will keep more than 100 troops in Iraq, having ditched any pretence of opposing the war there.

The military will be aggressively promoted among young people. Labour and NZ First have agreed that the Defence Force’s Limited Service Volunteer program for “young jobseekers” aged 17 to 25 will double in size, from 800 to 1,600 recruits per year. NZ First has repeatedly called for unemployed youth to undergo military training.

The government plans to build a new museum to glorify the World War II Maori Battalion, a contingent of 3,600 soldiers that fought in North Africa, Greece and Italy. The unit is lauded by the Maori nationalist Mana Party as “one of the feared military units” in the war.

During a NZ First press conference on October 25, the party glorified Apirana Ngata, the Maori politician whose face appears on New Zealand’s $50 banknote. Ngata supported the Labour government’s efforts in WWII to enlist young Maori.

Peters hailed Ngata for “telling young Maori soldiers going off to their death that that’s the price of being equal in New Zealand.” NZ First Regional Development Minister Shane Jones added: “That’s the narrative that should be built into the Maori identity of New Zealand … It’s going to be elevated.”

These nakedly pro-war statements should be taken as a clear warning. The ruling elite is prepared to drag a new generation into even more devastating wars, demanding that they pay “the price of citizenship” by fighting and dying. The pro-imperialist liberals and pseudo-left groups supporting the right-wing, Labour-led government are seeking to cover up the immense dangers facing the working class.

NATO intensifies its preparations for war with Russia

Philipp Frisch

Against the backdrop of US aggression against North Korea, NATO is intensifying its preparations for war with Russia, the world’s second largest nuclear power. A report in the German news magazine Der Spiegel (Issue 43/2017) based on a secret NATO document indicates how far plans for war have progressed. The news magazine concludes: “In plain language: NATO is preparing for a possible war with Russia.”

In the document entitled “Progress report on the Alliance’s Enhanced Deterrence and Defence Disposition,” leading military figures call for a major boost to military capabilities in order to conduct a so-called “Major Joint Operation Plus.” The abstruse terminology in fact stands for a war involving the main military organisations of all NATO countries, i.e. hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Der Spiegel notes: “The period of the peace dividend is past, the command structures of the Cold War are returning.”

The secret report states that NATO must be able to “quickly strengthen one or more threatened allies, underpin peace and wartime deterrence, and support allies in the event of an attack.” The mobilisation of the necessary troops requires “robust military logistics and capabilities”. The lines of communication would have to extend from North America to the eastern and southern borders of the NATO Alliance.

The report notes that in particular, when relocating large-scale military units to Eastern Europe, NATO is insufficiently prepared, due to the reduction and increased demands of flexibility of the armed forces for foreign missions. In the field of logistics, “the risks involved in rapid reinforcement is considerable”. The alliance lacks low loaders for tanks and rail cars to move heavy equipment to the front. The infrastructure is not designed for the heavy battle tank of the German Army the 2Leopard 2.”

The core of the NATO paper is the demand for two new battlegroups comprising 2,000 troops.

The first of these units is based on the example of the Cold War Supreme Allied Command, which was to ensure the transfer of troops and supplies across the Atlantic for war in Europe. “According to high-ranking NATO military officers the sea route could prove to be an Achilles heel for replenishment in cases of emergency,” Spiegel writes. “In the secret meetings of the central command, analysts warned that Russia is able to manoeuvre its submarines in the Atlantic Ocean largely unobserved.” Based on the current command structure, NATO convoys in the Atlantic are defenceless.

The establishment of such a command unit would involve a massive militarisation of the North Atlantic. This is illustrated by a look at its historical precedent.

Up to its dissolution in 2003, the “Striking Fleet Atlantic” constituted the core of the Supreme Allied Command Atlantic. This included up to four aircraft carrier battle groups, two anti-submarine commandos, an amphibious unit for landing operations and 22,000 sailors. The purpose of this major federation was to maintain the supremacy of the seas between North America and Europe.

A second command unit known as “Rear Area Operation Command” is planned to organise the distribution of war supplies across Europe. According to Der Spiege l, its main task would be “to plan and secure logistics between Central Europe and the eastern member states….In reality the unit represents “the renaissance of the mobilisation concept of the Cold War”.

In plain language: the remit of the new battlegroup is to organise the deployment of large-scale contingents of troops at the Russian border and prepare an attack on Russia. Preparations are already in full swing and Berlin—the location of the command in Germany—is playing a key role. According to Der Spiegel talks between high-ranking US military officers and German officers had already taken place at the beginning of October, shortly after the federal election.

The first telephone conversation between German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) and her American counterpart James “Mad Dog” Mattis also centred on setting up the new command unit. This means that Germany, which has been engaged in a massive military build up for the past three years now and is seeking to increase its military presence in NATO, will become even more centrally involved in NATO’s preparations for war with Russia.

Der Spiegel comments “Domestically, the project would probably be unproblematic even in a possible Jamaica coalition with the Greens, because Germany would not provide combat troops, but only staff soldiers” This is confirmed by the aggressive rhetoric used by the Greens against Russia and the conduct of the exploratory talks for a Jamaica coalition, which has made clear there are only tactical differences between the various parties.

A decision on the establishment of new command structures is expected at the meeting of NATO defence ministers on 8 and 9 November in Brussels—despite increasing tensions within the NATO alliance.

The NATO secret report and the report in Der Spiegel both justify the preparations for a war, which would threaten millions of lives, as a response to the “Russian annexation” of Crimea. This turns reality on its head. There is nothing progressive about the Putin regime, and its own military policy increases the danger of war. But the real aggressors in Eastern Europe are the US and western powers. The United States has been systematically encircling and attempting to subjugate Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union 25 years ago, and in February 2014, both Washington and the German government supported a right-wing coup against the pro-Russian Yanukovych government in Ukraine.

The depiction of Russia as an aggressive superpower waiting for the chance to take over all of Eastern Europe, has been used by the imperialist powers to justify the deployment of NATO troops at the Russian border. In 2014/15, NATO increased its “Rapid Reaction Force” to 40,000 soldiers. Its so-called “spearhead” comprises four “multinational battlegroups” with 1,000 soldiers stationed in each of the three Baltic States and Poland, led by Great Britain, Canada, Germany and the US.

The secret report now calls for a further increase in size of these battlegroups. There is “insufficient assurance that the NATO Response Force will be able to react quickly and sustainably when necessary.” Der Spiegel makes clear that what is contemplated is not merely a reaction to Russian aggression but rather active preparations for war with Moscow. The magazine concludes “hardly anyone expects that Russia could actually attack a NATO country.”