For a borderless pragmatism. Outline of a Progressive Migration Policy (tags)
Immigration leads to stronger economic growth, which in turn creates jobs, Without migration, we would all be sitting in Olduvia in East Africa, as we were 100,000 years ago. About 3% of the world's population, about 215 million people, live in a state other than the one in which they were born. Migration has always existed.
The new normality is characterized by fear, social distancing and increasing state control. Many fear that the current situation could become permanent and that our liberal democratic legal system could be transformed into a dictatorial system of injustice.
Corona epidemic and Yemen (tags)
Authorities first wanted to calm down and played down the pandemic. Afterward, they had to convince the population to keep unusual physical distance, to wash their hands well at all times, and to refrain from major events. Finally, they wanted the population to accept the lockdown.
Affordable Rents? A State of Emergency Intensifies (tags)
Rents explode in cities after massive sales of public housing to brutal investors. In 1987, there were 5.5 million social apartments in Germany. Today, there are 1.5 million. Land speculation was prevented in Vienna. The Vienna Housing Fund buys up possible development land.
Against the Rent Madness and For a Nonprofit Orientation! (tags)
The Alternative Housing Summit on Sept 21 in Berlin discussed alternatives to the market-based housing policy. Exploding rents and lack of affordable housing are the most burning social questions. More market is not the solution! Housing for People, not for Profits!
The Supposed "Omnipotence" of Politicians (tags)
The key to a new peace policy could lie in denouncing mechanisms of economic coercion that are not only states and politicians. As the warnings of Eisenhower and JFK teach us, politics is massively subject to the influences of economic power.