Veronika Wild

Sign of the Times Pardon me, I’m not an economist, but I fail to see how cutting the wages of low paid workers and the poor will save the economy. According to Stephen Koukoulas of The Guardian , Australia currently has around 725,000 unemployed people and 1,067,000 people who are underemployed, not counting those who have given up looking. You are officially 'employed' even if you only work one hour a week. Even if and it’s a big if , employers do put on another worker, also on a low wage, where will the extra money come from to buy more beer,   another coffee or more things? The same goes for cutting pensions.  Our retirees, unemployed people and those on disabilities have also come in for their share of cost cutting, so less money will be spent in the community, especially as all other costs are rising, and wages have barely moved since the Global Financial Crisis, despite significant increases in corporate profitability.  Instead, it will be like a reverse stimulu...

It’s really hot and sticky so I am sitting here in my beautifully stitched second-hand Japanese kimono and wondering if it too was made by slave labour. Did it help to pay for a child's education, help a daughter take care of a parent, or just enable someone to live for another day? No, not a picture of my kimono. This is Watcher. a friend's fractal  design. See more at Schlaraffenland  They are even more spectacular with light and sound. Listen to one on You Tube It makes me think that perhaps consumer boycotts are not always the way to go. Though they are one of the most effective tools in our armoury against abuses of various kinds, don’t  they always hurt the little people at the bottom of the food chain most? I am thinking of a small and beautiful French restaurant here which folded when all things French were condemned during the era of French nuclear testing in the Pacific. I also think of the millions labouring in sweatshops when we say let’s not...