The anonymous blogger behind Namawinelake, a prominent watchdog blog that chronicled Ireland’s efforts to deal with its economic crisis, has stopped publishing, triggering a wave of speculation as to the blogger’s identity and his or her reason for quitting.
Under the slogan “You are not a loan, you are not alone,” Occupy Wall Street’s “Strike Debt” group is aiming to inject life into a resistance movement against debt repayment. The operation is gaining worldwide support, and could very well revive the protest movement which was born a year ago.
My last piece for OuiShare is about how collaborative economy is destroying jobs, and what we can do about it. Long story short:
The major point of the Collaborative Economy is that value creation is being scattered among society. This makes it difficult to be measured. For instance, consumers are now involved in the co-production of the products they buy. The problem is not only that they do not get paid for their contribution, but a large number of companies would not even exist if they could not use open-source tools created by communities of developers , long before these businesses were even created, for free. In other words, a large amount of the market economy’s profits is built on a large free lunch – the one of the non-market economy.
Which of course, leads me to the conclusion of the basic income:
Philosophically, this would be a compensation for what the French economist Yann Moulier Boutang calls the “retribution for pollinisation”, or a reward for all non-marketable values we create by accident, like bees that fertilize flowers by carrying pollen.
I wrote a piece on Report Out Loud about the History of unconditional basic income, its philosophical and economic justifications, along with the current situation of the idea among civil society and politics. You can read this important post (in French) by clicking here.
I am pleased to announce the launch of ouishare.net, the media platform of the OuiShare community, for which I will be the editor in chief of the French version.
You will find on it our highlights of the collaborative economy both in French and English, as well as our analyses of socio-economic changes underway.
The central bank of Cyprus has been discretely bailing out cypriot banks through emergency liquidity assistance operations since september 2011, my analysis reveals. Read it here.
An initiative to establish a new federal law “For an unconditional basic income” was formally introduced in Switzerland in April. The idea, which consists quite simply of giving a monthly income to all citizens that is neither means-tested nor work-related, has generated commentary throughout the Swiss blogosphere. My review can be read on Global Voices.
A rumor is currently trending in France: Sarkozy would be the instigator of the launch by Eurex of a new market for derivative on French bonds. For some, the move is intended to stimulate market pressure on french debt and thus give credit to austerity speeches. However, these information are highly subject to misunderstandings and fake informations.
You can read my analysis on my english blog.
French press get it wrong about the so called “deal” reached by the Irish government with the ECB and European Commission.
Legal limbo, conservativeness of monetary authorities, and lobbying from traditional actors: tomorrow’s finance startups struggle to emerge in France. Read my investigation on the topic here (in french).