Economic-union Books

In this original book, Mark Baimbridge, of the University of Bradford, and Philip Whyman, of the University of Central Lancashire, study the economic relationship between Britain and the EU. Part 1 includes a cost-benefit analysis of our EU membership, beyond anything that any government has ever dared to do. Parts 2 and 3 examine Economic and Monetary Union in theory and practice. Part 4 explores alternative futures for Britain, including an independent Britain, with alternative economic policies to promote our national economic development.

Their cost-benefit analysis concludes, "EU membership and the momentum towards deeper political and economic integration have consistently undermined UK national interests." From 1973 to 2000, our total cumulated trade deficit with the EU was £90.6 billion, while our trade with the rest of the world was £70.9 billion in surplus. This widening trade gap cost us more than a million manufacturing jobs. The Common Agricultural Policy raises the average family's food bill by £36 a week. We also lose out on the Common Fisheries Policy and the EU budget.

The authors argue that EMU's effects on us would be `overwhelmingly negative'. The conditions for joining would undermine the economy, while burdening British taxpayers. They sum up, "Economic growth would be stymied, unemployment would rise dramatically and the disaster of UK participation in the ERM would be repeated, but this time there would be no easy escape!"

EU supporters say that any autonomy is impossible under globalisation, so that we may as well give up our sovereignty to the EU. But when we left the Exchange Rate Mechanism (the rehearsal for EMU) in 1992, we were able to devalue the pound by 20%, so the economy grew and unemployment fell.

Now, however, the growing integration of the EU threatens what autonomy we still have. The EU Constitution would bind us more tightly, imposing EMU on us whether we like it or not. The authors propose instead that we could choose, as an independent sovereign nation, the economic strategy that we want, so we could rebuild industry to serve the interests of the people, not the minority `political and business elites'.

What a gem. This book ranks up there with Alec Nove which is very unusual. What is especially great about this book is that because it focuses on just 1917-1921 it actually goes into more detail about proposed policies and debates about policies, policies enacted for brief periods, planned policies, the ideological and structural reasons behind enacting policies, etc. It is a political history in ways, but just about the structure of the planned economy. Brilliant little book.

It was slightly weak in trying to tie it all together with mobilization and with the short chapter at the end about the next 60 years. But that can be safely skimmed and ignored.

Cahiers de Droit Fiscal International Volume LXXXVIII a - 2003: Trends in company/shareholder taxation: single or double taxation?

Description

The Panel examines the on-going efforts by governments to keep their company shareholder tax systems competitive with other countries and (where relevant) compliant with international and EC law. In particular the demise of imputation in several countries and its replacement with shareholder relief systems of various kinds is discussed, as well as the recent US proposal to abolish its long standing classical system. In addition to the treatment of dividends, the Panel considers the extent to which the treatment of capital gains on shares in an international setting is now being viewed as part of the company shareholder tax issue.

volume LXXXVIII b - 2003: Consumption taxation and financial services

Arthur Seldon, when Editorial Director for the free market Institute of Economic Affairs, forecast long before the event that Russia (the Soviet Union as then was) would go capitalist before the end of the century. As often is the case with one of Britain's unsung intellectuals, his prediction came true albeit a few years earlier than even he expected.

In this short but excellent text, Philip Vander Elst begins from the starting point of Ludwig von Mises position in the socialist calculation debate of the 1930s. He demonstrates that the opponents of Mises and also Hayek did not prove their case and explains why their position, mistakenly accepted as the winning arguement, was false.

From there Vander Elst moves to examine the planning processes of the Soviet Union and shows how the planning of such a gargantuan empire is technically impossible given the number of products involved, the number of producers involved and without even taking into account the changes that invariably take place.

This precedes a consideration of the historical record of the USSR and an exposition of how technological transfer between the industrialised west and the USSR has taken place over the years and of how that transfer was diverted by the USSR authorities to be used to try to keep up with western economic progress.

The author concludes that even with the transfer of technolgy to the Soviet Union and the updating of workers skills is insufficient to maintain the technological and economic standards of the Soviet Union, He argues that the planning process is fatally flawed in that it contains an inherent contradiction. Technology transfer can only work if it is set in an environment which allows it to adapt quickly to change ie in a free market or capitalist environment. Ultimately he sees the collapse of the system and the emergence of some form of capitalism.

This is a well written, easily read, closely argued book which was originally published in 1981. A very prescient Research Monograph indeed.

Firstly let me begin by stating that I have read this work cover to cover three times and several chapters many times more. It is the best I have read to date and I have nearly every work (in English) on the Caspian - in regards to energy expliotation there is, so I do speak from a position of knowledge.

Although printed in early 2000 I did not get my copy until mid 2000. Compared to other works this is in a league of its own - both for content and the broad range of contributors. One of the things that bug me about works on the Caspian region is that IRan is relegated to a passing comment - because America's influence or its pipeline mentality seems to overcome other writers. This does work does not. Iran is central through this work.

Divided into 5 sections, with 16 chapters, this work natually being an edited work allows the reader to pick and choose sections or chapters to read. I particularly enjoyed the emphaise throughout the work on Iran - it was even-handed in its measure - which is what you would expect.

As with other works there is a section on the legal perspective of the Caspian and the chapter by Mirfendereski is very good - providing insights I have not come across in other works or articles.

The work is nearly 300 pages in length including notes, and was worth all of the $..... I paid for it - hardcover and a falling Australian Dollar did not help. This book is for those already with a reasonable knowledge of the region and with that in mind other introductory works such as Amineh or Crossiant/Bulents works may be better suited for the novice - of course there will always be overlaps between similar works but by far this is the best yet.

Part of the reason why I enjoyed this work so much is that it focuses on littoral communities of the region (and a brief chapter to America as well)(can't get away from them ) so in that regard it is not an all in one compendium, and there is a strong emphasis throughout the work on the actual Caspian Sea itself - as well as the energy reserves. It is a good book and worth the money.

I enjoyed this book and learned a lot from it; how did the Soviet Union manage the concept of luxury, which would seem to be antithetical to communism? The book is well written and full of good historical detail; it also has intellgent theoretical analysis. I would use it in a class on consumer culture.

Berend's novel is a great account of the political, social, and economic changes Central and Eastern Europe went through after WWII. The book is very well organized and easy to follow, making this book read more like a story than a boring old history book.

In this edited examination of central labor councils in the United States Ness and Eimer provide a comprehensive examination of the challenges and opportunities that the U.S. labor movement has in activating the dormant labor councils. The writers demonstrate that U.S. labor councils have a long history that veer from their counterparts elsewhere, they represent powerful building blocks toward a stronger workers movement.

Now that the U.S. national unions are examining structure once again, they must take note of the work of this book, which is as relevant today as ever. Unions simply will not expand through using their leverage unless they view see labor in its new iteration--one that is dispersed throughout metropolitan regions. Perhaps the most daring AFL-CIO effort is the restructuring of its own house. The editors and writers of this book provide a field guide on how to transform unions and build worker power. This book provides concrete studies of Los Angeles, Milwaukee, King Conty (Seattle) and San Jose and Silicon Valley.

Among the contributors are the leading analysts of American labor today: Stephanie Luce, Immanuel Ness, Joel Rogers, and Stewart Acuff.

This volume gathers rich political writings by Leon Trotsky from the last two years before his expulsion from the Soviet Union by the reactionary bureaucracy headed by Joseph Stalin.

Trotsky takes up broad questions of interest to revolutionary movements everywhere: from the economic foundations of post-capitalist society, to the fight for effective participation by workers and farmers in political debate and decision-making, to big challenges of revolutionary internationalism. You see him grappling with the complex questions posed by the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and its leading party, and the tactical challenges posed in waging a political fight at a time when it was still possible to return the party to its original, revolutionary course. You can learn a lot from his writings on world developments and debates over what revolutionists should do: revolutionary and class struggles in China, Britain and Germany, shifting economic and political relations among the imperialist powers, and much more.

I'd suggest studying this book along with some of Trotsky's other major writings, including The Revolution Betrayed, Leon Trotsky on China, and The Stalin School of Falsification. And for bringing these issues up to today's world, Capitalism's World Disorder: working-class politics at the millennium, and Their Trotsky and Ours, both by Jack Barnes.

At the end of 1985, according to the IAEA nuclear power reported by the CMEA countries as follows: Bulgaria 31.6, Czechoslovakia 14.6, East Germany 12, Hungary 23.6, Yugoslavia 5.1, and USSR 10.3. Bulgaria in the 90s was expected an electric capacity of 6,000 megawatts; Bulgaria is one of the heaviest users of nuclear energy per head of population; Czechoslovakia in the 80s move to nuclear power was expected to reduce 10 million metric tones of coal per year: projected to need 5,000 MW by the end of the 90s and 10,000 MW by the turn of the century; Czechoslovakia electricity needs by the year 2020 will need to be 70 percent nuclear; Hungry's nuclear capacity reached 1,760 MW in the 1986-90 with the construction of two reactors; Hungry's planned capacity of 5,760 MW provided by 6 reactors in the 90s; Hungry's electric energy production will rise 40 percent by the end of the century; Romania produced 70 billion kilowatt/hours of electricity in 1985. Electricity was the most important energy of the twentieth century even more important than oil discovery and extraction. Planners schedules represented tight timelines, MW potential to capacity realization, and an undeviating focus to achieve 38,000 MW before the turn of the century.

Chernobyl nuclear disaster marks a watershed in the history of world nuclear power. Chernobyl as a location for a nuclear reactor was attractive because Chernobyl was in a remote rural region of the Ukraine. Another factor was its distance from major cities and the natural river system render Chernobyl a suitable location. In 77 a graphite moderated 1000 MW reactor came online and by 1986, Chernobyl hit 3000 MW capacity and provided 10% of USSR total electricity generation.

Boris Tokarasky sounded an alarm of dangerously deficient technical standards. Tokarasky said the turbines and piping were identical to coal fire plants. Boris Semenov implicated a big problem, experiments taking place at the time of the accident.

Experimental tapering may have caused part of the reactor water too turn into steam. Zirconium has an affinity to oxygen. Zirconium does not interact with graphite. The steam combined with the Zirconium alloy protecting the fuel rods and at high temperatures Zirconium reacted to form Zirconium oxide and hydrogen. The hydrogen exploded and destroyed the top of the reactor and exploded through part of the roof. The graphite began to burn and threatened to destroy the building and other four reactors increase the potential collateral damage.

A hydrogen explosion occurred. Soon after the hydrogen explosion, a crane fell onto the core reactor causing pressure that sucked water out of the core leading to a dramatic spike in power from 6 to 50 percent increase in capacity. The damaging factors were the graphite caught fire, the absence of water caused by the leak prevented radioactivity containment, and lack of adequate containment. Fire breaks out at about 1,000 degree Celsius. The normal operating temperature is 280 degrees Celsius. The reactor was inadequate to prevent an accident from above. Instead of a Western type cap over the reactor, the reactor cap was replaced with a water basin underneath it. The emergency system was geared for a lesser event like a 90 mm pipe break. The safety features worked but were not adequate standards.