SENATOR Bernie Sanders who is a “socialist” by his own admission and is campaigning with some success for nomination as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in the coming elections in the United States, has come out with a proposal for a Financial Transactions Tax, whose proceeds are to be used for making college education free for all students in public institutions.

THE Narendra Modi government is winding up the National Development Council, an apex body consisting of the prime minister, the concerned central cabinet ministers, and all state chief ministers together with their concerned cabinet colleagues, which supervised the planning process in the country, gave final approval to the various five-year plans, and met periodically to take stock of issues and policy measures relating to economic development.

THE liberal defence of capitalism takes two distinct forms in economic theory. One states that the capitalist system operates in a manner that ensures full employment of all resources and produces the bundle of goods it does with “efficiency”, which is defined as a state where no more of any good within this bundle can be produced without having to produce less of some other good.

THE central government sets up a Pay Commission about once every ten years to recommend what the structure of salaries, allowances and pensions for its current and retired employees should be. The seventh Pay Commission had been set up accordingly by the UPA government before it left office and it submitted its report to the finance minister on November 19, with the suggestion that its recommendations should be implemented with effect from January 1, 2016.

THE United States is putting in place a new architecture of global corporate rule through a series of investment treaties which it is negotiating with several countries at present. When all these treaties come into effect, the extent of their jurisdiction will cover as much as 80 percent of the global GDP, ie, virtually the entire world economy. These treaties include a set of Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).