AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy. The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted b ...

The Cypriot parliament has thrown out a controversial plan to skim €5.8bn from savers' bank accounts, in a move that risks plunging the eurozone into a fresh crisis and heightens expectations that the cash-strapped nation will seek a funding lifeline from Russia. Cyprus has just 24 hours to find a solution to its funding gap before its banks are due to reopen following the dramatic no vote on Tuesday night, ...

Angry Cypriots try in vain to withdraw savings as eurozone bailout terms break taboo of hitting bank depositors. European finance ministers have agreed an £8.7bn bailout for Cypruswhich includes all Cypriot bank customers handing over up to 10% of their savings. Cyprus becomes the fifth country after Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain to turn to the eurozone for financial help amid the region's debt crisis ...

ATHENS — It has been so elaborately repeated that it almost borders on ritual: Greece’s troika of lenders leaves Athens with disagreement over whether the country should receive billions of euros in fresh financial aid. Greek officials scramble to tackle demands for more austerity to obtain the money, even as social distress deepens. The cycle was staged again Thursday as the Greek government tried to figur ...

Digital manufacturing with 3D printers is for some enthusiasts an anti-consumer concept, promising a return to a craft ethos and an end to outsourcing. But this may not be the real future of the technique. The third industrial revolution might come with personal or digital manufacturing, when what used to be bought in a shop could be made at home with such tools as laser cutters, 3D printers and computer nu ...

Via Mint Partners' Bill Blain, Today’s big event was Italy's 10% auction. Buyers can’t ignore yield, and I suspect many were “encouraged” to participate. But a decent Italy auction doesn't change the brutal facts. Electoral fall-out blankets the Euro battlefield, but it was decisions made years ago that have brought us to this blasted heath. Markets are caught in... Stalemate. On one side you have the disbe ...

Unions question the wisdom of austerity as unemployment grows and a contracting economy means less tax revenue. Greece’s austerity policies could create a crisis of insolvency within the country, undermining the very reason they were implemented – to repay the country’s debt - says the country’s biggest labour confederation. “I am afraid that we may see a phenomenon that could cause a social explosion,” say ...

Why is the Netherlands a tax haven? What kind of consequences does this have for our country, and others? Who gains, and who loses? Real World Economics presents an evening, together with the Center for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), where we will discuss the answers to these questions. More importantly, alternatives will be presented that can tackle the issue of tax injustice. Unitary taxat ...

The essence of the story is simple. Raytheon is reported to have developed software “capable of tracking people’s movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networking websites”. Whether the details of the story are correct, and whether Raytheon’s software is particularly good at doing what it is supposed to do isn’t really the main point: the emergence of software like this was al ...

This is part of a press release published in the 7th if February by the the Small Enterprises’ Institute of the Hellenic Confederation of Professionals, Craftsmen and Merchants (IME GSEVEE). The institute a non-profit organization that carries out studies and surveys, concerning the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises of the Greek economy. Although the approach of the study is strictly business-orient ...