Add your news
You can add news from your networks or groups through the website by becoming an author. Simply register as a member of the Generator, and then email Giovanni asking to become an author. He will then work with you to integrate your content into the site as effectively as possible.
Listen to the Generator News online
The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
As well as Giovanni’s articles it picks up the most pertinent articles from a range of other news services. You can publish the news feed on your website using RSS, free of charge.
From Part 1 Another major engine of economic growth over the last three decades, child care, has also made us richer. We are now relieved of the burden of caring for our own children. We pay experts instead, who can do it much more efficiently. In ancient times entertainment was also a free, participatory function. Continue Reading →
Suppose you give me a million dollars with the instructions, “Invest this profitably, and I’ll pay you well.” I’m a sharp dresser — why not? So I go out onto the street and hand out stacks of bills to random passers-by. Ten thousand dollars each. In return, each scribbles out an IOU for $20,000, payable in five years. I come back to you and say, “Look at these IOUs! I have generated a 20% annual return on your investment.” You are very pleased, and pay me an enormous commission.
Now I’ve got a big stack of IOUs, so I use these “assets” as collateral to borrow even more money, which I lend out to even more people, or sell them to others like myself who do the same. I also buy insurance to cover me in case the borrowers default — and I pay for it with those self-same IOUs! Round and round it goes, each new loan becoming somebody’s asset on which to borrow yet more money. We all rake in huge commissions and bonuses, as the total face value of all the assets we’ve created from that initial million dollars is now fifty times that.
By CHRIS FLOYD – Counterpunch
Perhaps the most striking fact revealed by the global financial crash — or rather, by the reaction to it — is the staggering, astonishing, gargantuan amount of money that the governments of the world have at their command. In just a matter of days, we have seen literally trillions of dollars offered to the financial services sector by national treasuries and central banks across the globe. Britain alone has put $1 trillion at the disposal of the bankers, traders, lenders and speculators; and this has been surpassed by the total package of public money that Washington is shoveling into the financial furnaces of Wall Street and the banks. These radical efforts are being replicated on a slightly smaller scale in France, Germany, Italy, Russia and many other countries.
The effectiveness of this unprecedented transfer of wealth from ordinary citizens to the top tiers of the business world remains to be seen. It will certainly insulate the very rich from the consequences of their own greed and folly and fraud; but it is not at all clear how much these measures will shield the vast majority of people from the catastrophe that has been visited upon them by the elite.
teve Posselt sets out in his kayak again in his quest to save the Mary River.  To convey the views of thousands of Australians, Steve is taking their letters and petitions in his kayak from Brisbane to Peter Garrett’s electoral office in Sydney.  “Traveston Crossing dam will obliterate lungfish breeding grounds,†he says. Continue Reading →
WIDESPREAD rain during the long weekend has given a spring boost to crops and pastures and comes as a reprieve for those crops in the hardest-hit drought areas that were about to be cut for hay.
The North West, Central West and Hunter Valley fared particularly well, with Jerrys Plains scoring 66 millimetres, Narrabri West 44mm, Woolbrook 42, Geurie 41mm, Gwabegar 40mm and Brewarrina 37mm in the week to Tuesday.
Notable registrations in the south included 56mm at Taralga, 41mm at Quandialla, 32mm at West Wyalong and 22mm at Booligal.
Gardening personality Don Burke has been hired by timber company Gunns to help win support for its northern Tasmanian pulp mill. The move pits Burke against former ABC TV gardening identity Peter Cundall, who has been a vocal critic of the controversial project. The $2 billion proposal has stalled as tighter credit conditions force Gunns Continue Reading →