“For the past 35 years, the world’s largest financial institutions and most Western governments have worked to strip away all obstacles to the free flow of money from country to country,” and the results have been disastrous, the New Economics Foundation reports.
Oil and gas multinationals could lose up to 60 percent of their market value if the world cuts its carbon emissions to limit climate change, according to the world’s second-largest bank.
It is estimated that each year developing countries lose to tax evasion one and a half times the amount they receive in international aid. In the U.K. alone, the practice costs more than $91 billion annually, more than is spent on defense, welfare or education.
The New Economics Foundation released its new report ranking countries according to their levels of happiness, life expectancy and their ecological footprint. According to the study, Costa Rica is the happiest place in the world, while the U.S.—surprise, surprise—is less green and less happy than it was 20 years ago.