the party was internally fractious and snidely perceived as inaudible in national policy debates

Out of ideology, and probably incompetence as well, the tax shield instituted by the current administration functions in practice as a machine for subsidizing rentiers.

The Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force in late 2009, was intended to make EU governance more transparent and democratic, notably by replacing unanimous decision making in the European Council with a system of “qualified” majority voting for most policy areas, and also opening many ministerial council meetings to the public

which are then immediately belied by events a few weeks later

After months of reflection, the members of the now famous troika (the European Commission, the ECB, and the IMF) got the disastrous idea to tax all bank deposits

when we chose to share monetary sovereignty and set extremely picayune rules on public deficits

According to the dictionary, plutocracy (from the Greek ploutos, “wealth,” and kratos, “power”) is a system of government where money is the basis of power.

In 1865 Karl Marx said it was by reading Balzac that he learned the most about capitalism and the power of money.

the brief periods of chaotic expropriation that have always undermined the development of Latin America

We're also the only country that chose to close the schools one day per week [...] for catechism