DREAM ON

"Tax avoidance by the super-rich costs the British taxpayer £13bn a year - enough money to increase old-age pensions by 20 per cent. The first ever forensic study of Revenue figures to establish the true scale of tax avoidance by some of the wealthiest people in Britain will pile pressure on the government to prevent the tax burden falling disproportionately on ordinary working people." (Observer, 27 January) RD

F1 - EFF THE SYSTEM

"A record price has been set for a British vehicle registration number plate after a businessman paid £375,000 to buy F1. Afzal Kahn, 37, smashed the previous record of £331,000 paid 18 months ago for M1, to purchase the plate from the Essex County Council. The Bradford entrepreneur, who has built a £75 million fortune through Kahn Design, his specialist car design company, plans to display the plate on his £317,000 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren supercar." (Times, 26 January) RD

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY

"A restaurant in Britain's financial district has devised a 2,000-dollar-a-head menu for high-flyers to eat into their substantial bonuses, the Financial Times said Saturday. Vivat Bacchus has already taken at least half a dozen bookings for the 1,000-pound (1,347-euro, 1,980-dollar) meal since it began taking reservations on Friday, the business daily said. "Many of them work in the City and often ask for something unique during bonus season," co-owner Neleen Strauss was quoted as saying, adding that some people were unconcerned despite fears for the state of the world economy. "I have found over the years when bad news begins to circulate around the stock market, our City customers never fully lose their appetites," she said. The menu includes royal Seruga caviar, fresh Bahama rock lobster linguini, grilled Wagyu fillet steak, a 15-variety cheese board and chocolate souffle with clotted cream. Each course is washed down with its own glass of wine, including Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Chateau D'Yquem, although diners can upgrade their vintages at extra cost." (Yahoo News, 26 January) RD

Child-care Blues

Childcare costs are rising above the rate of inflation, with parents paying more than £8,000 a year, a charity report suggests.

The Daycare Trust says costs nationally rose 5% last year. Inflation is 2.1%. The average cost of a full-time nursery place for a child under the age of two in England was £159 per week. It also said that the cost of childcare in out-of-school clubs had risen by six times more than the rate of inflation to an average of £43 a week.

The trust said that Britons paid more for childcare than elsewhere in Europe, and many did not claim tax credits and vouchers, which can lower costs.

"Claiming tax credits - which can cover up to 80% of childcare costs - and vouchers from your employer can cut the cost of childcare considerably." said Daycare Trust joint chief executive "But even so, parents in the UK are still paying a bigger share - around 70% on average - of this spiralling cost than their neighbours in Europe, where the average is nearer 30%."

Mortgage Blues

AROUND 123 homes will be repossessed every day during 2008 as people struggle to keep up with their mortgage repayments, research claimed today.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said just under 45,000 people would lose their home during the year as the cost of servicing a mortgage remains close to record levels .

The figure is in line with estimates from the Council of Mortgage Lenders, which also expects 45,000 homes to be taken over by lenders, while City watchdog the Financial Services Authority said that 840,000 mortgages were a "cause for concern" due to their riskier lending characteristics.

It said a first-time buyer couple who were both on the bottom 25 per cent of earnings, bringing in £26,595 a year after tax, would now have to save the equivalent of 104 per cent of their joint annual take-home pay, or £27,729, in order to afford the deposit, fees and stamp duty for a typical home.

THE DISTORTION OF RESEARCH

David Hind, editorial director of The Bodley Head publishing, in a talk he gave at the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers & Commerce."Attacking astrology, New Ageism and religious fundamentalism is fun and profitable. The trouble starts when it distracts us from far more serious threats to reason...First let us look at the corporations. They pose as the trustworthy guardians of science, yet when they deem it necessary they will manipulate research to ensure the results fit their marketing needs. They even suppress research results outright, with sometimes lethal consequences. These are not accidental and occasional failings: maximising profits is what corporations are for....The pose of trustworthiness, for all its demonstrable falsity. Reaps them vast rewards, in the form of direct and indirect subsidies from the taxpayer. In the UK, for example, under a formula agreed by government and business at the end of 2004, 28 per cent of the money spent on branded drugs is earmarked to support R&D, a subsidy worth more than £2 billion every year. The largest part of this money is spent looking for ways to transform diseases of affluence and lifestyle disorders into chronic, and therefore revenue-generating conditions..." (New Scientist, 19 January) RD

BUSH IN SAUDI ARABIA

"As a Saudi soldier with a gold sword high-stepped in front of him, President Bush walked slowly beside King Abdullah through the shivery grey mist enveloping the kingdom, following the red carpet leading from Air Force One to the airport terminal. When the two stepped onto the escalator, the president tenderly reached for the king’s hand, in case the older man needed help. He certainly does need help, but not the kind he is prepared to accept. ...Blessed is the peacemaker who comes bearing a $30 billion package of military aid for Israel and a $20 billion package of Humvees and guided bombs for the Arabs." (New York Times, 16 January) RD

CONSPICIOUS CONSUMPTION

"The Swiss company Caran d'Ache pays homage to watch making with a new limited-edition fountain pen. Known as the 1010—for the time at which a clock face is considered balanced, and which almost all watch ads display—the pen's body resembles watch gears and the clip a watch hand. Five-hundred silver-plated, rhodium-coated instruments will be sold for $19,000 apiece, and ten 18-karat-gold models will retail for $174,000. It's a sure way to add value to one's signature." (Newsweek, 28 January) RD

A BRAVE NEW WORLD?

"Here's a vision of the not-so-distant future: Microchips with antennas will be embedded in virtually everything you buy, wear, drive and read, allowing retailers and law enforcement to track consumer items — and, by extension, consumers — wherever they go, from a distance. A seamless, global network of electronic "sniffers" will scan radio tags in myriad public settings, identifying people and their tastes instantly so that customized ads, "live spam," may be beamed at them. In "Smart Homes," sensors built into walls, floors and appliances will inventory possessions, record eating habits, monitor medicine cabinets — all the while, silently reporting data to marketers eager for a peek into the occupants' private lives." (Yahoo News, 26 January) RD

INDIAN RUPEE TRICK

Inside capitalism everything has a price even your organs as this news report from New Delhi shows. "As many as 500 poor labourers may have been tricked into operations by a gang of organ traders selling kidneys in a wealthy suburb of the Indian capital, according to a report Friday. Police in Gurgaon, home to call centres and high-rise buildings, raided a house late Thursday on a tip-off from a middleman who was arrested earlier this week, the Indian Express daily reported. Two people, including a doctor, were arrested while three others who had recently been operated on were taken to hospital, the report said. Two men who were yet to be operated on were also rescued. Gurgaon police commissioner Mohinder Lal told the paper that the labourers were paid between 50,000 (1,250 dollars) and 75,000 rupees for a kidney. The kidneys were later sold by doctors for between 800,000 and one million rupees, Lal said, citing information from those arrested Thursday. (Yahoo News, 25 January) RD

1957 and 2006 - Are we better off ?

What difference does 50 years make for the working class . Are we all better off . Well , it certainly appears that way . UK household income has doubled in real terms over the last fifty years. And the pattern of family spending has also changed dramatically. Basic necessities including food accounting for a smaller proportion of our family budget, while spending is up on leisure activities, travel and motoring. Income going to housing makes up a greater share.

According to the BBC and the Office of National Statistics

In 1957, spending on food, fuel and rent , the basic three items , made up nearly half of all household expenditure. Taken together with clothing and travel, basics made up nearly two-thirds of family spending. The main luxuries for the ordinary family were tobacco and alcohol, which combined made up just under 10% of spending. The biggest other luxury item was meals eaten out making up 3% of spending. Four of the top ten spending items were food or drink, with spending on meat, fruit, vegetables and beer all in the top twenty.
Overall, the average family spent a total of £14.30 per week in 1957, out of a gross income of £16. In today's money, spending was £243 per week.

In 2006 the average household spent £456 out of a gross income of £642 before taxes.

In five decades, spending on most basics has declined sharply, with food making up only half as much of the average household budget as it did in 1957. And half of that food budget now consists of meals and takeaways - a new category introduced in the l970s.

But the cost of housing, including mortgage interest payments or rent, has more than doubled since 1957. Mortgage interest payments or rent accounted for 19% of spending in 2006, up from 9% in 1957Using a slightly broader measure of housing costs, which includes council tax, insurance and home improvements, UK households spent an average of £143 a week on housing-related costs in 2006 - or 22%.

Motoring and travel costs have doubled from 8% of spending in 1957 to 16% in 2006, mostly because of rising car ownership .

There are big social divisions in the ownership of some popular consumer goods, and the greater affluence is at least partly a result of more families having two incomes - both parents going out to work .

And But there are big differences in consumption between rich and poor.
Nearly every household in the richest tenth of the population had a computer and an internet connection. In contrast, among the poorest tenth, only 31% have computers and 21% have an internet connection. And 56% of that group have mobile phones, compared to 92% of the richest tenth. The pattern of car ownership also varies sharply by income, with less than a third of the poorest tenth of households owning a car, compared to 94% of the richest tenth of families.

Nor are we happier it is claimed .

According to economist Richard Layard of the London School of Economics, once people can afford the basics, happiness does not increase with income when comparing happiness among rich and poor countries. And looking at surveys of happiness over time, he says levels of happiness have not changed across either the UK - or US - in the last 30 years, despite the doubling of living standards in both. Moreover, the availability of new goods can just make people more jealous of what they are unable to afford, especially for the less well-off.

Other studies show that what we have lost in the last 50 years is time. Strikingly, most families now talk more in the car than at home.

Paradoxically , while we spend more on leisure goods than half a century ago, we have less time to enjoy our free time - increasing numbers of households need two earners as earlier said and working hours have increased even if there has been an official reduction , since doing overtime has climbed .

Blair - quids in

My , isn't he going to be busy man for business . First he has a job with J P Morgan Chase Bank as reported here , although the fee turned out to be 5 times what we believed at the time - $5 million a year . Now Zurich Financial Services AG, Switzerland's biggest insurer have said former Tony Blair has agreed to advise the company on international politics according to Bloomberg.com .
Blair will specifically help the insurer with its climate initiative, the Zurich-based insurer said today in a statement. He will also advise Chief Executive Officer James Schiro on general political trends and developments. No word on the filthy lucre yet though, but it's rumoured to be another half million or so .

SOUTH CAROLINA REMEMBERS

"Although the election has become all about "change", precious little of that commodity can be found in this corner of the Old South. This is where the Confederate battle flag from the Civil War still flutters outside the state capital in Columbia, next to a large statue of Ben "Pitchfork" Tillman, a former Governor who justified and even participated in lynching." (Times, 25 January) RD

NOT SO PRIMITIVE

Daniel Everett once was a missionary in Brazil dealing with so-called primitive tribes, but his experience of the Piraha people made him give up that calling to become a linguist. When asked how he had changed his views he replied: "They lived so well without religion and they were so happy. Also they did not believe what I was saying because I did not have any evidence for it, and that made me think. They would try so hard to understand what I was saying, but it was utterly irrelevant to them. I began to think: what am I doing here, giving them these 2000-year old concepts when everything of value I can think of to communicate to them they already have?" (New Scientist, 19 January) RD

AN INHUMAN SOCIETY

There are many examples of how capitalist society favours property rather than human life, but this is just about the craziest example we have come across recently.
"A Spanish driver who collided with a cyclist is suing the dead youth's family $29,300 for the damage the impact of his body did to his luxury car, a Spanish newspaper reported on Friday. Businessman Tomas Delgado says 17-year-old Enaitz Iriondo caused $20,500 of damage to his Audi A8 in the fatal 2004 crash in La Rioja region, El Pais newspaper reported. Delgado, who has faced no criminal charges for the incident, wants a further 6,000 euros to cover the cost of hiring another vehicle while his car was being repaired, El Pais said."
(Yahoo News, 25 January) RD

GREAT WALL OF CHINA

The biggest division in China today is between the rich and the poor. The advances of Chinese capitalism have left the working class well behind. "Despite its growing wealth, China still has a large number of poor people struggling with dramatic increases in the price of daily essentials such as pork, which jumped by 50%. Inflation hit an 11-year year high in November. Thursday's figures show that it fell back in December, although at 6.5% it remains a worry. The government has introduced a range of price controls recently aimed at bringing the cost of ordinary goods, particularly food, under control. Dramatic price rises have led to social unrest in the past and Beijing cannot afford for its millions of poor to go hungry." (BBC News, 24 January) RD

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE?

We are often told that capitalism is a very sophisticated system and that only bankers, investors and stockbrokers can be trusted to deal with its complexities, but recent events suggest otherwise. "French bank Societe Generale says it has uncovered "massive" fraud by a Paris-based trader which resulted in a loss of 4.9bn euros ($7.1bn; £3.7bn). The bank said the fraud was based on simple transactions, but concealed by "sophisticated and varied techniques". It also announced fresh losses of 2.05bn euros related to the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US. The losses are four times greater than those made by Nick Leeson, the rogue trader who brought down Barings Bank. Leeson was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in jail. ... Richard Fuld, the chairman of Lehman Brothers, told BBC News in Davos that "nothing stuns me; nothing really surprises me these days." (BBC News, 24 January)
It seems that even these so-called masters of the universe haven't a clue about the slumps and booms of capitalism. RD

NINE TO FIVE KILLER

The old saying "hard work never killed anyone", like most old sayings, turns out be nonsense."Work really can kill you, according to a study on Wednesday providing the strongest evidence yet of how on-the-job stress raises the risk of heart disease by disrupting the body's internal systems. The findings from a long-running study involving more than 10,000 British civil servants also suggest stress-induced biological changes may play a more direct role than previously thought, said Tarani Chandola, an epidemiologist at University College London. "This is the first large-scale population study looking at the effects of stress measured from everyday working life on heart disease," said Chandola, who led the study. "One of the problems is people have been skeptical whether work stress really affects a person biologically." (Yahoo News, 22 January) RD

OUR BETTERS?

From a very early age members of the working class are taught to respect authority and look up to "our betters". One of those would undoubtedly be Boris Johnson. His birth, education, wealth and social standing would certainly qualify him for that position. The following news item shows that notwithstanding birth, wealth and social standing he is still a bit of an idiot. "Boris Johnson has apologised for referring to black people as "piccaninnies" and talking about "watermelon smiles". During a debate for the London mayoral contest on Monday, the Conservative candidate said he was "sad" that people had been offended but insisted the words had been taken out of context." (Guardian, 23 January) RD

LIVING ON TICK

The desperate lives of many workers are haunted by debt and poverty. Just how widespread this misery has spread can be seen by this item.
"The scale of Britain's credit dependency is revealed today by a study that shows more than five million people are spending more than they earn every month. The research into the scale of the ''buy now pay later" culture has found spending on eating out, leisure and holidays has soared above inflation and income in the past decade. Millions of people are increasingly using credit to fund their lifestyle and loan repayments have risen at twice the level of income since 1997 as people try to emulate the profligate behaviour of high-spending celebrities." (Daily Telegraph, 22 January) RD