How much would you pay someone to put up a Christmas tree? We took to the streets of Edinburgh this week to ask people this to demonstrate the disproportionate costs that come with Private Finance Initiatives. Under a complex and unfair PFI contract, Alistair Darling had to pay £900 for the UK Treasury’s Xmas tree. This […]
This is a guest blog post written by Mark Borthwick. You can contact him via: MDBorthwick@gmail.com This piece refers to the English student loan system and when it refers to the government it is referring to the government at Westminster and not at Holyrood. Extract This blog post aims to illustrate how student loans work […]
This article was written by one of our volunteers, Elena Scarso, and edited by Jubilee Scotland. The 2008 financial crisis involved serious consequences for the whole Western world. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the southern side of Europe, historically the poorer than the northern countries, were the worst affected.Spain, Greece and Italy had […]
This article was written by Dr Scott Arthur. In 2006 Alex Salmond told Scotland that “PFI was a quick fix and a costly mistake”. If elected (he was), he was going to ensure “our public assets can be held in trust for the nation all without the unnecessary private profit that is part and parcel of […]
There are more slaves on the planet today, than there have ever been at any point in history. Ever. This does not even take into account those who operate under debt slavery – i.e. those who are not enslaved but have no means to get out of their situation – for example sweatshop workers. In […]
This week has been awash with news on the Scottish debt problem. Put simply every year Scottish Local Authorities are forced to allocate on average 42% of their income from council tax to servicing debts, many of them procured since 2008. The problem is not that local authorities have been borrowing to finance large scale […]
8-15 October marks the Global Week of Action again Debt. Timed to coincide with the anniversary of the assassination of Thomas Sankara, former President of Burkina Faso and outspoken debt activist, debt week is a time when Jubilee organisations across the world come together to take action for debt justice. You can read the statement […]
Kirani James, newly crowned Commonwealth and Olympic 400 metre Champion, was born on the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada. His astounding successes have been a great source of pride for a population still reeling from the devastating effects of Hurricane Ivan. As a small island with a population of just 110,000, Grenada relies on a […]
Want to know the basics of global debt? Eager to understand how we can have an impact on vast global systems? Need to talk about the issues we campaign on in the classroom? This education guide is for you! Containing information on how countries get into debt into the first place, a history of campaigning […]
Want to know what’s going on in the world of debt? Head over to our blog, where you’ll be able to catch up on debt news from across the globe in our monthly debt developments briefings prepared by Charlotte. Spread the word…
The Guardian newspaper has developed a new visual resource to show the level of debt of the world’s states. The ‘Developing World of Debt’ map highlights that developing countries still owe $4 trillion, and that 12 countries – Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Gambia, Grenada, Haiti, Kiribati, Laos, Maldives, São Tomé and Príncipe, Tajikistan, Tonga and Yemen – are at high risk of not being able to pay their debts.