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My latest in The Guardian Just two weeks after Prof Allan Fels reported on the extent of monopoly power and resultant price gouging, Australia’s supreme body on competition law has delivered its answer. The Australian competition tribunal has determined that the banking industry has all the competition we need and that no harm will be done by allowing ANZ to swallow one of the few competitors to the Big Four by acquiring the banking operations of Suncorp. This was the latest in a...

Ο όρος «αξιολόγηση» δεν υπάρχει σε κανένα θεσμικό κείμενο τόσο της ΕΕ όσο και των προτάσεων νόμου της ΝΔ και του ΠΑΣΟΚ. Αντ’ αυτού υπάρχει ο όρος «διασφάλιση ποιότητας». Είναι χαρακτηριστικά τα σχετικά κείμενα του Ευρωπαϊκού Δικτύου για την Διασφάλιση της Ποιότητας στην Εκπαίδευση (ENQA) που αποτέλεσε και τον σύμβουλο της ΕΕ στην σύνοδο του Μπέργκεν. Τα σχετικά μέτρα δεν μιλούν για την πιο εύηχη ελληνικά «αξιολόγηση» αλλά για «διασφάλιση της ποιότητας» (δηλαδή κάτι σαν ISO) και...

When I was in college majoring in microbiology, we were taught that diseases like scrapie, Creutzfeldt-Jacob and kuru were caused by “slow viruses.” Over many years, it has become clear that misfolded proteins, not viruses, are the cause of these and other spongiform encephalopathies. Stanley Prusiner struggled for a long time to convince the scientific community of prions, for which he eventually got the Nobel Prize. There are many historical...

17th Forum of the World Association for Political Economy ‘Political Economy vs Economics in a turbulent multipolar world 2-4 August 2024, Panteion University, Athens, Greece The 17th WAPE Forum will be held 2-4 August 2024 at Panteion University, Athens, Greece. It is co-organised by WAPE (World Association of Political Economy – http://www.wapeweb.org/) and GAPE (Greek Association of Political Economy – https://politicaleconomy.gr/main/en ) and hosted by the Panteion...

from Lars Syll We certainly agree that regularities or models that explain or that give heuristic value over many different cases are highly desirable. But ones that do neither are not — especially if they use up huge resources along the way. When looking at the details, the Prisoner’s Dilemma’s explanatory record so far is poor and its heuristic record mixed at best. The only way to get a reliable sense of what theoretical input would actually be useful is via detailed empirical...

from Victor Beker and RWER issue 106 There was a time when it was thought that the main task of economics was to assure economic growth. For example, John M. Keynes predicted that “the day is not far off when the Economic Problem will take the back seat where it belongs” (Keynes 1931: 6). Then, once scarcity has been overcome, mankind would devote most of its efforts to real problems, the problems of life and human relations (ibid,). The impact of economic growth on the Earth environment...

One of the corollaries to the “life begins at conception” view is that all zygotes created by in vitro fertilization are fully human, so their deliberate destruction is ipso facto murder. This would effectively end IVF, since most zygotes will never be implanted. So sayeth the Alabama Supreme Court:“An embryo created through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) is a child protected by Alabama’s wrongful death act and the Alabama Constitution, the Alabama...

Την Κυριακή 18 Φεβρουαρίου, 6:30 μ.μ. η Δ.Ο.Ε. (Διδασκαλική Ομοσπονδία Ελλάδας) πραγματοποιεί διαδικτυακή εκδήλωση με θέμα «Οι όροι διαβίωσης και οι συνθήκες εργασίας των εκπαιδευτικών. Η επίδρασή τους στην εκπαιδευτική διαδικασία, τη διδασκαλία και τη μάθηση». Εισηγητές: 1.Σταύρος Μαυρουδέας, Καθηγητής Τμήματος Κοινωνικής Πολιτικής του Παντείου Πανεπιστημίου. 2. Βασίλης Τσάφος, Καθηγητής του Τμήματος Εκπαίδευσης και Αγωγής στην Προσχολική Ηλικία του Ε.Κ.Π.Α.  3. Απόστολος...

from Richard Norgaard and RWER issue 106 I object to the question on which this volume focuses. It assumes that biophysical limits are real and knowable rather than a human construct associated with a particular understanding of how natural systems might behave. Limits have been an extremely useful construct for critiquing the even simpler construct that assumes science and technology can provide unlimited economic growth. Nature, however, has zillions of limits that are crossed all of...