Poor people in the UK have to pay cash in advance to get electricity or gas, so when they can't afford both heat and food, their heat gets cut off immediately.

ALEC is organizing owners of coal-fired power plants to fight against EPA limits on CO2 emissions.

This is in addition to many state bills intended to keep the consumption of fossil fuel as high as possible. Their arguments are based on comparing the costs of avoiding global heating disaster with an impossible fantasy future.

Obama is trying to increase the effective extent surveillance by giving companies immunity for caving and handing over data on people in response to invalid subpoenas.

Intelligence agencies and workers rights: political surveillance at its worst.

Thomas Piketty and others propose a common eurozone income tax and a joint eurozone debt, to take over the debt of austerity-stricken countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece.

This seems like a step forward, but I think that an element of direct democracy is needed too. The European chamber could be unnecessary if the people vote directly as the second chamber.

If such a big change is done, it would be a good opportunity to allow governments to create money without borrowing it from private banks, which is greatly profitable to the owners of the banks at the public expense.