Cyprus as a sympton of EU's rot; The Margaret Thatcher legacy; Britain's welfare state under threat; 'Meat' the evidence

1 Cyprus as a symptom of EU’s rot (Slavoj Zizek in The Guardian) There is a well-known joke from the last decade of the Soviet Union about Rabinovitch, a Jewish man who wants to emigrate. The bureaucrat at the emigration office asks him why, and Rabinovitch answers: "There are two reasons. The first is that I'm afraid that in the Soviet Union, the communists will lose power, and the new power will put all the blame for communist crimes on us, Jews – there will again be anti-Jewish pogroms …" "But", interrupts the bureaucrat, "this is pure nonsense, nothing can change in the Soviet Union, the power of the communists will last forever!" "Well," responds Rabinovitch calmly, "that's my second reason."

It is easy to imagine a similar conversation between an EU financial administrator and a Cypriot Rabinovitch today. Rabinovitch complains: "There are two reasons why we are in a panic here. First, we are afraid that the EU will simply abandon Cyprus and let our economy collapse…" The EU administrator interrupts him: "But you can trust us, we will not abandon you, we will tightly control you and advise you what to do!" "Well," responds Rabinovitch calmly, "that's my second reason."

This is the deadlock at the core of Cyprus's predicament: it cannot survive in prosperity without Europe, but nor can it with Europe – both options are worse, as Stalin would have put it. What we can see emerging on the horizon are the contours of a divided Europe: its southern part will be increasingly reduced to a zone with a cheaper labour force, outside the safety network of the welfare state, a domain appropriate for outsourcing and tourism. In short, the gap between the developed world and those lagging behind will now exist within Europe itself.

Cyprus by definition cannot repay its debt, while Germany and the EU simply cannot go on throwing money to fill the Cypriot financial hole. Both stories obfuscate the key fact: that there is something wrong with the entire system in which uncontrollable banking speculations can cause a whole country to go bankrupt. The Cyprus crisis is not a storm in the teacup of a small marginal country, it is a symptom of what is wrong with the entire EU system.

This is why the solution is not just more regulation to prevent money laundering and so on, but a radical change in the entire banking system – to say the unsayable, some kind of socialisation of the banks. The lesson of the worldwide crashes after 2008 is clear: the whole network of financial funds and transactions, from individual deposits and retirement funds to the functioning of all kinds of derivatives, will have to be somehow put under social control, streamlined and regulated. This may sound utopian, but the true utopia is the notion that we can somehow survive with only cosmetic changes.

2 The Margaret Thatcher legacy (Stephanie Flanders on BBC) There really was no modern British Prime Minister who presided over a greater transformation of the nation's economy than Baroness Margaret Thatcher. When she left office, nearly every aspect of British economic life had changed fundamentally. People will debate for a long time what she meant when she said "there's no such thing as society". But in Britain in the late 1970s it's fair to say there was no such thing as the consumer. When she left, politicians spoke of little else. For better or worse, we can agree that she helped force the rise of the individual at the expense of the collective. 

In the wake of World War II, Britain - and most other countries - put the state in charge. For decades after, the assumption of Labour and Conservative governments alike was that the state knew best. The rule was "regulate first, ask questions later", and if you wanted to consult someone about it you talked to the unions, or the CBI. In policy terms, the individual consumer was nowhere to be seen.

Whether it's the reform of the unions, the end of exchange controls, mass privatisation, sale of council houses, or Big Bang, the big thing about Margaret Thatcher was that she was the first leader of a major economy to seriously confront that statist post-war consensus. She wasn't the only one. The first stirrings of a global move against the state were already there, when she came to office. It was Jim Callaghan, after all, who famously said we could no longer "spend our way out of a recession". And of course Ronald Reagan was elected soon after her, in 1980.

For any economist, the shift in favour of the market is the legacy to remember first. That is the change that is literally all around us, and very unlikely to go away. In the wake of the financial crisis, some say the market is now too free - that we give too much power to the consumer, and pile too much risk onto the individual. That's an important and ongoing debate. 

3 Britain’s welfare state under threat (Irfan Husain in Dawn) The British welfare system, introduced by the Labour government just after the Second World War, was among the first to put a safety net under the poor and the unemployed. In conjunction with National Health, the elaborate system that provides free health care to millions, the British state became a pioneer in protecting the most vulnerable sections of society.

Inevitably, the cost of such a system is bound to be high: today, about a third of public spending goes on pensions, unemployment benefits, housing and health. In these days of austerity, the Conservative government has unleashed a wide range of cost-cutting measures. Although the majority supported the government in its determination to reduce the huge public debt, people are now feeling the impact of these policies.People are also seething over the fact that while they are being asked to face the brunt of these cuts, bankers and corporate types have gone scot-free. Indeed, newspapers are still reporting on the obscene bonuses and golden handshakes these robber barons have received recently.

The bitter cold and the recession have emptied the high streets of shoppers, adding to the chill retailers have faced these last few years. Many familiar shops in Devizes are shut, and the only new enterprise I have seen is a new antiques shop.

4 ‘Meat’ the evidence (Khaleej Times) Nowadays, we are constantly bombarded with messages to reduce our meat intake. And there are a plethora of reasons for that: While excessive consumption of red meat has been linked to coronary disease and obesity, even lean meat is considered unhealthy.

It’s true that many of us cannot go through the day without eating chicken, the questionable way poultry is raised in factory farms and its susceptibility to pathogen contamination has raised a huge debate in the past decade about the ill-effects of widespread chicken consumption on public health. However, the scientific correlation between meat consumption and poor health still warrants a closer explanation. Exactly how can the love for steak and mutton korma be potentially fatal is still a story that requires precise clarification. But now, scientists are making headway in figuring out the exact mechanisms in which meat consumption can be damaging to health.

According to a study published in the journal Nature Medicine, the compound carnitine in meat is broken down by bacteria in the gut, and this triggered a series of reactions that caused higher levels of cholesterol and a higher risk of heart disease. Carnitine is broken down into a gas, which was converted in the liver to a chemical called TMAO. This particular chemical is strongly associated with the increase in fatty deposits in blood vessels, which is a leading cause of heart disease.

With this increase of scientific evidence pinpointing the negative effects of meat consumption, we all need to reconsider our dietary habits. Those of us who are hooked on to donner kebabs and beef burgers need to see the writing on the wall: The secret to good health lies in cutting down our meat intake and increasing vegetables and fruits in our diet. Increasing up the vegetarian content of our diets won’t just have a positive impact on our health, it will also be good for the environment, which has been under great stress due to an overwhelming increase in commercial meat farming.