The hand of accounting and accountancy firms in deepening income and wealth inequalities and the economic crisis: Some evidence

This paper looks at the economic crisis in the UK. It argues that everyday accounting practices are deeply implicated in the inequitable distribution of income and wealth, a major cause of the economic crisis engulfing the neoliberal economies. Without adequate purchasing power middle and low income households cannot make the purchases necessary for a sustained revival of the economic activity. Accounting calculations and discourses play a major role in the determination of wages and taxes. They prioritise the interests of capital over labour and the state and have systematically eroded labour's share of the gross domestic product. At the same time, despite a massive growth in corporate profitability, the UK state's share of the national wealth in the form of tax revenues has also declined. It is argued that accounting practices which label payment of wages to labour and payment of taxes to the state as ?costs? amplify capitalist concerns about private appropriation of surpluses and have played a major role in assigning such payments to negative spaces. Through the sale of tax avoidance schemes to corporations and wealthy elites, accountancy firms have facilitated a skewed distribution of income of wealth and further constrained the state's capacity to reflate the economy. Consequently, the tax burdens on the less well-off have increased and further eroded their purchasing power and possibilities of building a sustainable economy

Electronic-Specific Modeling of Nitric Oxide in a Recombining Air Plasma

International audienceAn electronic-specific collisional-radiative (CR) model of Nitric Oxide (NO) is presented and applied to the study of a recombining air plasma. This plasma is produced at local thermodynamic equilibrium at 8000 K and 1 atm by a 50-kW Inductively Coupled Plasma torch and passes at high-velocity through a water-cooled tube that forces rapid cooling and recombination. The electronic-specific model takes into account NO(C 2 Π) predissociation, spontaneous emission from the C 2 Π and D 2 Σ + states towards the A 2 Σ + state, and quenching of the excited states by various colliders. This model, alongside two other electronic-specific CR models developed for NO at NASA, is compared to measurements of NO excited states and electron densities along the tube length. Better agreement is obtained with the model presented in this work, especially because of the NO(C 2 Π) predissociation and NO C 2 Π and D 2 Σ + spontaneaous emission toward NO(A 2 Σ +). The electron overpopulation is also explained by the partial equilibrium between N and O atoms and electrons, and the slow depletion of N and O atoms by the NO recombination reactions