The vampire squid: Value, crisis and the power of finance

Over the last five decades the power and global reach of financial institutions and finance capital to organize economic, social and political life has grown seemingly unchecked. This is manifested in the ability of international markets to limit the economic sovereignty of states; the power of activist shareholders to dictate policy to company management, often at the expense of long‐term strategy and employment creation; and the advantages offered by returns to investments in financial assets over those in manufacturing and services. All of these developments have contributed to the apparently inescapable triumph of neoliberalism and the deepening of global inequality. They have also led to the economic havoc of the 2008 financial crisis, which plunged the global economy into a period of austerity from which it has not yet emerged (Thompson, 2017). It is no wonder, then, that money markets and financial institutions have fallen from being the vaunted legislators of the world to become, for some, its new pariahs. A new consensus is emerging that many of our economic ills stem from the fact that banks and financiers, instead of merely facilitating the production of ‘real’ wealth in the form of services and goods, have slipped their bonds to become independent players in their own right. They are now seen at best as the tail wagging the dog and at worst as outright parasites: ‘a great vampire squid’, as one journalist described Goldman Sachs, ‘wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money’ (Taibbi, 2010)

Decolonisation of institutional structures in South African universities: A critical perspective

In 2015, using social media, a new generation of South African university students launched the social justice movement #FeesMustFall. The call for social justice, equity and equality has been a burning issue in South Africa’s education system since the dark days of apartheid. In 1976, non-white students revolted against the apartheid government and many lost their lives during the protest. On 15 October 2015, 40 years later, students from all demographics mobilised to launch a protest under the theme #FeesMustFall against institutional racism which did not die with apartheid. The roots of this movement are symptomatic of deep social and economic concerns rooted in the apartheid history of South Africa. Through the use of social media, students mobilised protest marches in all regions of the country to demand justice, equality and equity. This paper discusses and describes the lack of transformation in South Africa’s higher education which has perpetuated institutional racism for decades

Chronic and structural poverty in South Africa: Challenges for action and research

Ten years after liberation, the persistence of poverty is one of the most important and urgent problems facing South Africa. This paper reflects on some of the findings based on research undertaken as part of the participation of the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape in the work of the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), situates it within the broader literature on poverty in South Africa, and considers some emergent challenges. Although PLAAS’s survey, being only the first wave of a panel study, does not yet cast light on short term poverty dynamics, it illuminates key aspects of the structural conditions that underpin long-term poverty: the close interactions between asset poverty, employment-vulnerability and subjection to unequal social power relations. Coming to grips with these dynamics requires going beyond the limitations of conventional ‘sustainable livelihoods’ analyses; and functionalist analyses of South African labour markets. The paper argues for a re-engagement with the traditions of critical sociology, anthropology and the theoretical conventions that allow a closer exploration of the political economy of chronic poverty at micro and macro level

Middle East - North Africa and the millennium development goals : implications for German development cooperation

          Closed-loop controlled combustion is a promising technique to improve the overall performance of internal combustion engines and Diesel engines in particular. In order for this technique to be implemented some form of feedback from the combustion process is required. The feedback signal is processed and from it combustionrelated parameters are computed. These parameters are then fed to a control process which drives a series of outputs (e.g. injection timing in Diesel engines) to control their values. This paper’s focus lies on the processing and computation that is needed on the feedback signal before this is ready to be fed to the control process as well as on the electronics necessary to support it. A number of feedback alternatives are briefly discussed and for one of them, the in-cylinder pressure sensor, the CA50 (crank angle in which the integrated heat release curve reaches its 50% value) and the IMEP (Indicated Mean Effective Pressure) are identified as two potential control variables. The hardware architecture of a system capable of calculating both of them on-line is proposed and necessary feasibility size and speed considerations are made by implementing critical blocks in VHDL targeting a flash-based Actel ProASIC3 automotive-grade FPGA