Brendan Barrett

Specially Appointed Professor, Center for the Study of Co*Design, Osaka University

Totnes

Demise of Totnes Pound won’t Stop this English Town Pushing Back Against Austerity

The Totnes pound is just one example of the kind of outside the box thinking that has kept this local community resilient in the face of austerity. Since 2010, the pressure on local authority budgets across England has been intense, with a 50% decline in central funding support.

June 20, 2019

ISIL and the Confused Energy Picture

For everyone following today’s energy developments the overall picture is confusing, to say the least.

September 3, 2014

Preserving the sources of life

The term “the commons” is typically defined as land or resources belonging to or affecting the whole of a community.

July 17, 2014

To power up or power down? That is the question

Recently I read that our challenge in the twenty-first century is to triple global energy demand “so that the world’s poorest can enjoy modern living standards, while reducing our carbon emissions from energy production to zero”.

June 18, 2013

Oil crunch and Eurozone crisis

We are three and a half years into the Eurozone crisis that kicked off in October 2009 when Greek minister of finance George Papaconstantinou made it apparent to the outside world that his country’s budget was essentially a gaping hole. The recent bailout (or bail-in where depositors and creditors have to pay their share) of the Cyprus banks is just the latest chapter in this ongoing story of recession, austerity measures, high unemployment, strikes, protests, credit rating cuts, financial reforms and leadership resignations. But what if, on top of all of this, the price of oil was to spike at over US$200 a barrel? Would that mark the end of the Eurozone?

April 16, 2013

Japan as the new normal: Living in a constrained economy

I am struggling to come to terms with the possibility that Japan may economically be the “new normal”. By “new normal” I mean a situation where the economy is in recession for prolonged periods of time, seeing only fleeting periods of growth. My struggle relates to the fact that conventional wisdom would suggest that after two decades of recessionary tendencies, Japan should be an economic and societal wreck. But quite the opposite is the case. In many respects Japan seems to be doing fine.

January 10, 2013

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