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Back from the brink — the United States fiscal situation in 2013
America may have avoided a fiscal cliff this week, but Republicans are determined that spending cuts must happen in the future to bring the nation’s $16-trillion debt under control. So where does the U.S. get its money, and where does it spend it? Hopefully this graphic clears up any misconceptions.
Rolling Jubilee: How Occupy Wall Street aims to bail out the 99% by buying and forgiving debt
Rolling Jubilee is a plan to use money pooled from donations to buy distressed consumer debt at marked down prices. Lenders often sell debts for pennies on the dollar to third parties who either try to collect on it or bundle it up for resale. But, instead of collecting it like a debt agency would, the group, known as Strike Debt, would forgive the debt.
‘Enough is enough!’ Anti-austerity strikes sweep Europe
Police and protesters clashed in Spain, Italy and Portugal on Wednesday as millions of workers went on strike in organized labour’s biggest Europe-wide challenge to austerity policies since the eurozone debt crisis erupted three years ago.
Hundreds of flights were cancelled, schools were shut, factories were at a standstill and trains barely ran in Spain and Portugal where unions held their first joint general strike. Stoppages in Belgium interrupted international rail services.
“I’m on strike because those who work are basically being blackmailed into sacrificing more and more in the name of debt reduction, which is a big lie,” said Daniel Santos de Jesus, 43, who teaches architecture at the Lisbon Technical University.
Photo: A man holds a flare as thousands of people from France and Belgium demonstrate during an anti-austerity protest in Lille, France, Nov. 14. (Philippe Hugen//AFP/Getty Images)
As we reported in the Financial Post, household debt in Canada has surpassed the U.S. for the first time in 12 years, with the Canadian debt-to-income ratio hitting a record 148.1%. See all of Gary Clement’s cartoons.
