The Netherlands: Rutte Government under fire over costly healthcare and educational student loan programs - by RM

The Netherlands privatized Healthcare and Educational programs are not proving to be one of  the Dutch PM's Rutte success stories. As a matter of fact, they are both a disaster, too costly and worst of all undemocratic.

It seems that Mr. Rutte and some of his colleages in the Dutch Government don't seem to be aware that education and healthcare, are not, and can never be seen as marketable commodities.

They are a basic democratic right for everyone, poor or rich, and must be free and widely available to all citizens.

The present privatized health and educational programs, applied by the Dutch Government and a few other Governments in the EU, and around the world, are not only undemocratic, they are also proving to be a financial barrier in providing proper education and healthcare to every level of the population, and when all is said and done, actually do not benefit the overall economy.

It is regrettable that some countries, including the Netherlands, have turned these basic human rights, related to education and healthcare, into marketable commodities.

Almere-Digest

The Netherlands becomes World's Biggest Importer of Chocolate

 In 2018, Dutch cocoa bean imports stood at 1.1 billion kg, more than half of which came from Ivory Coast. This makes the Netherlands the largest importer of cocoa beans in the world. Approximately three-quarters are destined for domestic industrial processing while around one-quarter are resold directly to other countries. This is reported by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) on the basis of new research into destinations of Dutch goods imports.

The Netherlands is a major importer of some important agricultural commodities such as cocoa beans, palm oil (third largest country in the world in terms of import value), soybeans (fourth largest) and coffee (fifth largest). In terms of total volume, the Netherlands is the fourth largest importer of palm oil and eighth largest of coffee.
 
Read more at: The Netherlands becomes World's Biggest Importer of Chocolate

Netherlands Headed For Unprecedented Crisis?: Millions Of Retirees Face Pensions Cuts Thanks To The ECB - "This Report is Questionable say Dutch Government insiders" - by Tyler Durden

When one thinks of pensions crisis, the state of Illinois - with its woefully underfunded retirement system which issues bonds just to fund its existing pension benefits - usually comes to mind. Which is why it is surprising that the first state that may suffer substantial pension cuts is one that actually has one of the world's best-funded, and most generous, pension systems.

According to the FT, millions of Dutch pensioners are facing material cuts to their retirement income for the first time next year as the Dutch government scrambles to avert a crisis to the country's €1.6 trillion pension system. And while a last minute intervention by the government may avoid significant cuts to pensions next year - and a revolt by trade unions -  if only temporarily, the world finds itself transfixed by the problems facing the Dutch retirement system as it provides an early indication of a wider global pensions funding shortfall, not to mention potential mass unrest once retirees across some of the world's wealthiest nations suddenly finds themselves with facing haircuts to what they previously believed were unalterable retirement incomes.

At the core of the Dutch cash crunch is the ECB's negative interest rate policy, which has sent bond yields to record negative territory across the eurozone, and crippled returns analysis while pushing up the funding requirements of Dutch pension funds.

Ahead of a parliamentary debate on Thursday on this hot topic issue, the Dutch minister for social affairs and employment, Wouter Koolmees, will write to lawmakers to outline his response to the pension industry’s problems, the FT reported.

Read more: Netherlands Headed For Unprecedented Crisis: Millions Of Retirees Face Pensions Cuts Thanks To The ECB | Zero Hedge

Netherlands-Court decission: Netherlands does not have to help kids from ISIS parents trapped in Syria

The Netherlands will not have to retrieve children of Dutch citizens awaiting their fates in Syrian detention and displacement camps, the kids of Dutch women who left the Netherlands to enter conflict zones in Syria and Iraq. The Appellate Court in The Hague overturned a lower court's ten-day old order on an emergency appeal filed on behalf of the Dutch government.

Read more at:
https://nltimes.nl/2019/11/22/netherlands-help-kids-trapped-syria-appellate-court

Tourism: Spain set for tourism record as U.S. visitors counter Brexit blues

Spain is on track for a record year of tourist arrivals, the seventh straight year of new highs, with U.S. and Asian visitors countering the disruption of Brexit and collapse of tour operator Thomas Cook, the industry minister said on Wednesday.

Read more at:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-spain-economy-tourism/spain-set-for-tourism-record-as-u-s-visitors-counter-brexit-blues-idUKKBN1XU20E

The Netherlands: Two gov't parties now support women's quota in listed companies

A mandatory women's quota for executive positions in listed companies is now one step closer. Coalition party CDA expressed support for a quota to ensure that at least 30 percent of listed companies' top positions are filled by wmen. The party, along with coalition partner D66, is submitting a motion calling on the government to adopt the recent proposal.

Read more at:
https://nltimes.nl/2019/11/21/two-govt-parties-now-support-womens-quota-listed-companies

Democracy: The Shocking Paper Predicting the End of Democracy - by Rick Shenkman

Everything was unfolding as it usually does. The academics who gathered in Lisbon this summer for the International Society of Political Psychologists’ annual meeting had been politely listening for four days, nodding along as their peers took to the podium and delivered papers on everything from the explosion in conspiracy theories to the rise of authoritarianism.

Then, the mood changed. As one of the lions of the profession, 68-year-old Shawn Rosenberg, began delivering his paper, people in the crowd of about a hundred started shifting in their seats. They loudly whispered objections to their friends. Three women seated next to me near the back row grew so loud and heated I had difficulty hearing for a moment what Rosenberg was saying.

What caused the stir? Rosenberg, a professor at UC Irvine, was challenging a core assumption about America and the West. His theory? Democracy is devouring itself—his phrase — and it won’t last.
As much as President Donald Trump’s liberal critics might want to lay America’s ills at his door, Rosenberg says the president is not the cause of democracy’s fall—even if Trump’s successful anti-immigrant populist campaign may have been a symptom of democracy’s decline.

We’re to blame, said Rosenberg. As in “we the people.”
Democracy is hard work. And as society’s “elites”—experts and public figures who help those around them navigate the heavy responsibilities that come with self-rule—have increasingly been sidelined, citizens have proved ill equipped cognitively and emotionally to run a well-functioning democracy. As a consequence, the center has collapsed and millions of frustrated and angst-filled voters have turned in desperation to right-wing populists.

His prediction? “In well-established democracies like the United States, democratic governance will continue its inexorable decline and will eventually fail.”

Read more: The Shocking Paper Predicting the End of Democracy - POLITICO Magazine

Posted by EU-Digest at 10:02 PM