TRADE AND DIPLOMACY

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown was recently criticised by certain elements of the press for being less than enthusiastic about the visit of the Dalai Lama and not being outspoken in criticising China. Behind his stance of course was the economic importance of China to UK capitalism. "And the value of the Chinese economy to the UK should not be underestimated. It is the sixth largest importer and the tenth largest export market by value for UK companies. Both top 10 lists are made up of the USA and eight European countries. Anglo-Chinese trade is growing at a rate almost unmatched by any other major market. In 2007, imports into Britain increased in value by 21% to £18.8bn while exports increased by 15% to £3.8bn."
(Liverpool Daily Post, 4 June) RD

ANOTHER LABOUR FAILURE

"The number of children living in poverty has risen for a second year, a government report says. The government called the rise in poverty levels "disappointing" and the increase may threaten its target of halving child poverty by 2010. The number of children living in poverty rose by 100,000 in 2006-2007 to 2.9 million before housing costs. Pensioner poverty increased for the first time since 1998, rising by 300,000 to a total of 2.5 million. The number of children and pensioners in poverty is greater once costs such as rent and mortgages are taken into account. "This is a disgrace. We are watching more and more pensioners drop further below the poverty line," said Mervyn Kohler of Help The Aged." (BBC News, 10 June) RD

THE PLIGHT OF THE HOMELESS

Mrs. Thatcher described Britain as a property owning democracy, even earlier some patriot talked about "an Englishman's house is his castle", but the harsh reality of capitalism paints a different picture. "More than a quarter of young working households are unable to get on to the property ladder because of mortgage difficulties and house prices that remain unaffordable. The worst affected areas are London and the south-west, where more than 40 per cent of young households, aged between 21 and 40, are unable to access the housing market. Overall, more than 28 per cent of young working households are unable to purchase property at the lowest level in their local housing market. The report will add to fears that young home buyers are still priced out of the market in spite of evidence of falling house prices – mostly because of the lack of available finance for first-time buyers, seen as among the more risky borrowers. The study, compiled by Professor Steve Wilcox, of the University of York, based on data from Hometrack, defines young working households as those on incomes too high to claim housing benefit but too low to access the lowest level of the property market in their local area." (Financial Times, 4 June) RD

A CLUELESS LEFTY

When Billy Bragg the pop singer started his recent Canadian tour he was interviewed by the local media and revealed why this well intentioned would-be rebel is completely clueless politically. "I learned all my politics the year of the miners' strike," Bragg recalls, from his home in Dorset, England. "I learned from experience, not textbooks. And I've still never read Marx." (The Globe and Mail, 4 June) This would explain why this performer although expressing sympathy with striking worker could welcome the election of a Labour government and later on when disillusioned by their failure support various left wing reforms. A brief study of the works of Marx might have prevented such follies. RD

LAND OF THE FREE?

"In advertising these days, the brass ring goes to those who can measure everything — how many people see a particular advertisement, when they see it, who they are. All of that is easy on the Internet, and getting easier in television and print. Billboards are a different story. For the most part, they are still a relic of old-world media, and the best guesses about viewership numbers come from foot traffic counts or highway reports, neither of which guarantees that the people passing by were really looking at the billboard, or that they were the ones sought out. Now, some entrepreneurs have introduced technology to solve that problem. They are equipping billboards with tiny cameras that gather details about passers-by — their gender, approximate age and how long they looked at the billboard. These details are transmitted to a central database. (New York Times, 31 May) RD

THE PRIORITIES OF CAPITALISM

There is much debate in the national media about how many billions of dollars, euros and pounds should be spent on armaments but little on how much should be send in preventing infant deaths from lack of vitamins. "Malnutrition should be the world’s major priority for aid and development, a panel of eight leading economists, including five Nobel laureates, declared yesterday. ...The provision of supplements of vitamin A and zinc to children in developing countries, to prevent avoidable deficiencies that affect hundreds of millions of children, is the most cost-effective way of making the world a better place, the Copenhagen Consensus initiative has found. ... The jury of economists chose to emphasise malnutrition, and micronutrient supplements in particular, because of the major effects that comparatively moderate financial investments could have. Around 140 million children suffer from vitamin A deficiency, which can cause blindness, immune system problems and death, or zinc deficiency, which can stunt growth. Supplements of these nutrients, however, are both effective and extremely cheap – at 20 US cents per person per year for vitamin A and $1 for zinc. For just $60m a year, it would be possible to provide capsules of both micronutrients to 80 per cent of undernourished children in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia." (Times, 31 May) RD

CARING CAPITALISM (2)

"The Burmese government has lashed out at international aid, saying that starving cyclone survivors can live on frogs and fish instead of foreign handouts. Meanwhile camps of survivors are being forcibly cleared by the army and the people trucked back to their villages, without the supplies they need to survive." (Daily Telegraph,30 May) RD

BIG BROTHER IS HERE

"It's possible that someone has been reading your e-mails, listening to your phone calls, and tracking your Internet use. No, it's not a foreign spy. It's not even your ex—it's your employer. And she doesn't even need to tell you she's doing it. Employers can legally monitor their workers however they want. They can log and review all computer activity as long as they own the machines. The most popular method of keeping tabs on employees is to track Internet use: A whopping 66 percent of companies monitor employee Internet activity, according to a survey released in February by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute."
(PC Magazine, 26 May) RD

CARING CAPITALISM

"New Orleans— Mayor C. Ray Nagin recently suggested a way to reduce this city’s post-Katrina homeless population: give them one-way bus tickets out of town. Mr. Nagin later insisted the off-the-cuff proposal was just a joke. But he has portrayed the dozens of people camped in a tent city under a freeway overpass near Canal Street as recalcitrant drug and alcohol abusers who refuse shelter, give passers-by the finger and, worst of all, hail from somewhere else. While many of the homeless do have addiction problems or mental illness, a survey by advocacy groups in February showed that 86 percent were from the New Orleans area. Sixty percent said they were homeless because of Hurricane Katrina, and about 30 percent said they had received rental assistance at one time from the Federal Emergency Management Agency."
(New York Times, 28 May) RD

DANGER, MEN AT WORK

The callous treatment of the working class in the USA is highlighted by David M Uhlman, professor of law at the University of Michigan. "Employers rarely face criminal prosecution under the worker-safety laws. In the 38 years since Congress enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act, only 68 criminal cases have been prosecuted, or less than two per year, with defendants serving a total of just 42 months in jail. During that same time, approximately 341,000 people have died at work, according to data compiled from the National Safety Council and the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the A.F.L.-C.I.O." (New York Times, 27 May) RD

GROWTH INDUSTRY

"The number of prisoners in England and Wales passed 83,000 for the first time yesterday. ...The Prison Officers’ Association predicted that the prison population would reach 100,000 in four years." (Times, 28 May) RD

CAPITALISM ADVANCES

"The Amazonian city of Altamira played host to one of the more uneven contests in recent Brazilian history this week, as a colourful alliance of indigenous leaders gathered to take on the might of the state power corporation and stop the construction of an immense hydroelectric dam on a tributary of the Amazon. At stake are plans to flood large areas of rainforest to make way for the huge Belo Monte hydroelectric dam on the Xingu river. The government is pushing the project as a sustainable energy solution, but critics complain the environmental and social costs are too high. For people living beside the river, the dam will bring an end to their way of life. Thousands of homes will be submerged and changes in the local ecology will wipe out the livelihoods of many more, killing their main food sources and destroying their raw materials. For the 10,000 tribal Indians of the Xingu, whose lives have changed little since the arrival of Europeans five centuries ago, this will be a devastating blow." (Independent, 23 May) RD

NO CREDIT CRUNCH HERE

"Ferrari understands a titan's need to feel special. This month, the Italian exotic carmaker debuts its One-to-One Personalization Program, a dedicated atelier at its Maranello factory. After a private tour of the Ferrari assembly line, patrons meet with a designer and choose all the bespoke details that make a Ferrari a Ferrari, paging through different hides of leather, choosing their favorite seat style and ordering custom-made luggage that fits perfectly in the ever-so-handcrafted trunk. "Think of it as a fashion house where you select all the fabrics, the colors, the trims so that your car is like no one else's," says Ferrari's director of communications Davide Kluzer. "We understand that when you spend this kind of money on a sports car, the last thing you want is to park next to someone who's got the same look." For now the program is reserved exclusively for buyers of Ferrari's $260,000 flagship 612 Scaglietti—a 5.7-liter, V-12, which sprints to 97kph in a thrilling four and a half seconds. The company hasn't suffered a whit from the world's economic jitters; there is a two-year waiting list for a car. If the One-to-One program is a hit, Ferrari will expand the personalized studio to include its other models." (Newsweek, 26 May) RD

TAINTED RESEARCH

"On campuses nationwide, professors and administrators have passionately debated whether their universities should accept money for research from tobacco companies. But not at Virginia Commonwealth University, a public institution in Richmond, Va. That is largely because hardly any faculty members or students there know that there is something to debate — a contract with extremely restrictive terms that the university signed in 2006 to do research for Philip Morris USA, the nation’s largest tobacco company and a unit of Altria Group. The contract bars professors from publishing the results of their studies, or even talking about them, without Philip Morris’s permission. If “a third party,” including news organizations, asks about the agreement, university officials have to decline to comment and tell the company. Nearly all patent and other intellectual property rights go to the company, not the university or its professors."
(New York Times, 22 May) RD

LOW INCOME = LOW LIFEPAN

"A new American Cancer Society report shows that education level can have a profound effect on people's health -- including whether they die from cancer and other diseases. According to the report, death rates among the most educated Americans decreased significantly from 1993 to 2001, while those of the least educated leveled off or went up for some causes. The study offers still more evidence of deepening socioeconomic disparities affecting quality-of-life and survival in the United States. "This study shows a real disparity in mortality between the haves and the have-nots in this country," said Ahmedin Jemal, PhD, American Cancer Society Strategic Director, Cancer Occurrence and lead author of the study." (Yahoo News, 18 May) RD

THE AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

"Philomena Gist understands why it hurts so much to be on food stamps. After all, she's got a master's degree in psychology. "There's pride in being able to take care of yourself," says the Columbus, Ohio, resident, laid off last year from a mortgage company and living on workers' compensation benefits while recovering from surgery. "I'm not supposed to be in this condition." Neither are many of the 27.5 million Americans relying on government aid to keep food on their tables amid unemployment and rising prices. Average enrollment in the food stamps program has surpassed the record set in 1994, though the percentage of Americans on food stamps is still lower than records set in 1993-95. The numbers continue to climb." (USA Today, 18 May) RD

HOW CAPITALISM WORKS 2

In Afghanistan, where people literally live on bread, many are reduced to buying bread crusts by the gram and softening them with water to make their meals. Must be because the harvest failed, right? No, last year was a good harvest but prices have risen sharply on the commodity market putting it out of the reach of ordinary Afghanis. Likewise, in Cambodia, children have to leave school to collect bamboo shoot, frogs and crabs to supplement the family food because rice is scarce in that country – no, it’s actually plentiful but most is exported and what is available is unaffordable. The madness of capitalism! Actually, this is how it works – “The Philippines (govt.) went to the international auction table (for rice) like a high stakes gambler, desperate to win rice for its 88 million people – lots of it, in fact 675,000 tonnes. But when regular supplier Vietnam upped the ante to something close to $1,200 per tonne, The Philippines held its cards and walked away. Gutsy? Or just plain foolish?’ (Toronto Star 11/05/08). This is how food is supplied? Crazy!
John Ayers

HOW CAPITALISM WORKS 1

Workers produce all the goods, in return they receive a wage, what's the problem with that?
Recently, at one of Canada’s favorite coffee Shops, Tim Horton’s, an employee gave a crying baby a tidbit, a tiny donut worth 16c retail. She was fired by the manager. It turned into a public relations nightmare as the story hit the media and the employee had to berehired but the message is loud and clear – employees have no rights to the product they produce.
John Ayres

CLASS RESULTS

While cyclone Nargis devastated Burma leaving thousands dead and more destitute, not only did junta leader Than Shwe refuse much needed help (sound like New Orleans?) but went ahead with his daughters’ glittering wedding, “While millions struggle to fill their daily rice bowls, he(Than) celebrated his daughter’s wedding with a multi-million dollar feast, the bride encrusted in jewels and an ocean of champagne flowing for applauding guests” (Toronto Star 17/05/08)
John Ayres

BIG BROTHER IS COMING

"Ministers are to consider plans for a database of electronic information holding details of every phone call and e-mail sent in the UK, it has emerged. The plans, reported in the Times, are at an early stage and may be included in the draft Communications Bill later this year, the Home Office confirmed. (BBC News, 20 May) RD

IS THIS YOUR FUTURE?

"One in four older people are so worried about their future that they are making themselves ill, a survey has suggested. The ICM poll for Help the Aged showed a fifth of over-65s felt their quality of life had worsened in the last year and one in 10 said they were often lonely. The study of Britain's elderly also highlighted ageism, neglect, poverty, isolation and deprivation.
(BBC News, 20 May) RD

A CYCLONE OF DEBT

The recent cyclone in Burma is estimated to have killed 130,000 people in a few hours but this being capitalism the long term effect of this natural disaster has become a social disaster for thousands of the survivors. Take the case of Daw Aye as reported in The Times (31 May). "There was the disaster of her fisherman son, drowned at sea in a storm that was never noticed outside of Burma. There was the disaster of widowhood: her husband died six years ago of an illness to which Daw Aye cannot even put a name. Cyclone Nargis at least spared the rest of her family, although it destroyed her newly built wooden house along with 300 of the 500 dwellings in the village of Thaungche, on the Rangoon River. Having survived bereavement, flood and homelessness, Daw Aye is now facing a potent and more insidious enemy: crippling debt. She has six surviving children, and in the months since the cyclone she has had only two handouts from the Burmese authorities, a total of no more than a few pounds of rice." Her oldest surviving son works as a farmhand for about £10 a month and her adult daughter earns even less mending fishing nets, so in order to feed her family and build an open-fronted shelter of bamboo and palm leaves in which they now live, she was forced to go to a moneylender. She borrowed about £150 but the village money lending terms are 10 per cent or £15 a month, more than her family can earn. She is faced with the choice of hunger or lifelong debt. Daw Aye's plight is not unique. The latest figures available put the dead and missing at 134,000 and it is estimated that about 750,000 will need long term food aid. This is understandable when it seems that about 280,000 cattle and water buffalo were killed and one million acres of arable land were flooded in southwest Burma. Fish is hardly likely to be counted as a life saver when it is reckoned that 2,649 fishing boats were lost in the storm along with 18,000 fishermen.Brother Thu Sita, a monk from Thaungche monastery, said: "It was hard enough to rebuild their houses. Then the problem is finding enough food to eat. People borrow money, they get into debt to feed themselves. And there is so little from outside. All that we can do as monks is to share a little of our food and help them psychologically. But as far as their future goes, they are on their own." Socialists advocate a completely new society based on production for use not profit, but of course natural disasters like cyclones and earthquake will still occur. The major differences will be that no one will live the hand to mouth existence of Daw Ayre and her fellow villagers. Everyone will work to the best of their ability and take according to their needs. In addition when natural disasters do occur everyone will rush to aid the victims, unlike today where greedy moneylenders exploit their plight and all well-meaning monks can do is offer psychological assistance.R.D.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Socialist Party Discussion Group

18 June 8.30pm, Central Community Halls,

304 Maryhill Road, Glasgow

Socialism as A Practical Alternative

John Cumming of Glasgow Branch Will Open The Discussion For About 10 to 15 Minutes.

The Rest Of The Evening Will Be Taken Up With Your Questions And Points Of View.

Some of The Ideas that Will Be Discussed Are

Is It Possible To Have A World Without Money?

Can Human Beings Behave In A Cooperative Fashion?

Is Human Nature Compatible With Socialism?

Who Makes The Decisions Inside Socialism?

How Do We Deal with Crime Inside Socialism?

Admission Free All Welcome

CAPITALISM FAILS AGAIN

"The U.N. children's agency said in a statement Tuesday an estimated 126,000 Ethiopian children urgently need food and medical care because of severe malnutrition — and called the current crisis "the worst since the major humanitarian crisis of 2003." The U.N. World Food Program estimates that 2.7 million Ethiopians will need emergency food aid because of late rains — nearly double the number who needed help last year. An additional 5 million of Ethiopia's 80 million people receive aid each year because they never have enough food, whether harvests are good or not." (Yahoo News, 20 May) RD

GOD AND MAMMON

"Employees counting donations at a popular Hindu shrine in southern India will no longer have to take off their underpants at work after the local human rights commission intervened. Police and temple authorities imposed the dress code at the Sabarimala hill shrine in Kerala five years ago after thefts were reported from the shrine's strong room. Employees in the vault, all of whom were men, were made to work topless wearing only a dhoti -- a cotton wrap worn around the waist -- with nothing underneath." (Yahoo News, 23 May) RD

WE ARE NOT ALONE

"Public opinion across Europe, Asia and the US is strikingly consistent in considering that the gap between rich and poor is too wide and that the wealthy should pay more taxes. Income inequality has emerged as a highly contentious political issue in many countries as the latest wave of globalisation has created a “super class” of rich people. (Financial Times, 18 May) RD

HUMAN BEHAVIOUR IN CRISIS

"The dire situations in cyclone-battered Myanmar and quake-tossed southwestern China and the impulse of many to offer relief have a lot to do with human nature. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors likely did it, and non-human primates do it. We are hard-wired to help others, to drop everything in crisis situations, scientists say. "People do really respond in these crisis situations where it's really a short-term matter of life or death," said Daniel Kruger at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. The motivation to give dates back to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, he said." (Yahoo News, 19 May)) RD

THE BEAR NECCESSITIES

"The polar bear should be removed from the endangered species list because its protected status will hamper drilling for oil and gas in Alaska, the state's Republican Governor has demanded." (Times, 23 May) RD

MEDIEVAL NONSENSE

"Over the past year alone I have received requests from around 350 people who think they are possessed by an evil spirit," says Father Joerg Mueller, who heads a group of priests, doctors and therapists to deal with the problem. "Therapy hasn't worked for them; they want exorcisms - a prayer that can free them." ... "Father Gabriele Amoth, the Vatican exorcist-in-chief, has performed the ritual more than 40,000 times. The Vatican aim appears to be to place one exorcist in each diocese to ensure that the distressed do not drift away from the Church." (Times, 22 May) RD

MORE MADNESS

"The Harry Winston Opus 8 looks like a seventies LCD watch, but it's actually hand-wound and mechanical, with the elements displaying the time pushed up by a tiny disc. Only 50 were made, from white gold, and they sold out fast. The price? Around £215,000." (Times Magazine, 24 May) RD

ADSPEAK NONSENSE

Joan O'Connor, Coca-Cola spokeswoman, on Glaceau Vitaminwater, the company's first bottled water since the Dasani disaster : "This is not water; it’s an active lifestyle brand." (Times, 24 May) RD

CAPITALIST MADNESS

"Even Giorgi Armani has now designed a pen - all understated black with silver embellishment. The fountain pen will be on sale in Harrod's from June for £2,300." (Times, 23 May) RD

Nature loss 'to hurt global poor'

Damage to forests, rivers, marine life and other aspects of nature could halve living standards for the world's poor, a major report is to conclude.

G8 environment ministers meeting in Japan last weekend agreed a document noting that "biodiversity is the basis of human security and... the loss of biodiversity exacerbates inequality and instability in human society". But the main CBD target agreed by all signatories at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992 - to "halt and begin to reverse" biodiversity loss by 2010 - is very unlikely to be met.

A new International

Even in the 19th Century it w2as recognised that capitalism was a world wide system and that the working class required an international workers association to effectively resist the bosses .

Once again trade unions are recognising the global effects of the employers and are re-organising appropriately .

The Finiancial Times reports a historic alliance between Unite, Britain's biggest trade union, and the almost 1m-strong United Steelworkers union in North America is about to create the first transatlantic union, with more than 2.5m working members.

The move is designed to provide greater protection for workers whose jobs are threatened by the spread of global capitalism. The UK and US partners hope unions from other countries will join the alliance, increasing its strength.

Amicus had previously signed co-operation deals with USW and the International Association of Machinists in the US, and the IG Metall union in Germany, while the T&G had forged working relationships in the US with the Teamsters and SEIU, the services sector union.

Previous examples of cross-border union co-operation include T&G's support for the Teamsters' campaign against FirstGroup, the UK-based bus and train operator accused of frustrating attempts by unions to organise workers at its expanding US business.

"One of the main reasons for the merger between Amicus and the T&G was our desire to create an international trade union that would be able to deal with multinational companies on an equal footing and organise working people in even greater numbers," said Derek Simpson, Unite's joint general secretary last year."Multinational companies are pushing down wages and conditions for workers the world over by playing one national workforce off against another. The only beneficiaries of globalisation are the exploiters of working people and the only way working people can resist this is to organise and band together."

the last post

Mail late ? Lost letter ? Package damaged ? That local post office shut down ?

Never mind . Royal Mail's boss has been rewarded for his efficiency ...at least according to Royal Mail bosses .

Chief executive Adam Crozier earned more than £3m last year.

Mr Crozier got just over £1m in pay and pensions, plus a bonus of almost £2m.

Royal Mail said Mr Crozier had exceeded expectations and met all the targets set for him.

Losses for 2007 had widened to £279m, compared with a loss of £10m a year earlier.

Its stamped letters business made a loss for the first time in the last financial year.

2,500 post offices were being closed to save money

THE REALITIES OF CAPITALISM

"Dagaari, Somalia - The global food crisis has arrived at Safia Ali’s hut. She cannot afford rice or wheat or powdered milk anymore. At the same time, a drought has decimated her family’s herd of goats, turning their sole livelihood into a pile of bleached bones and papery skin. The result is that Ms. Safia, a 25-year-old mother of five, has not eaten in a week. Her 1-year-old son is starving too, an adorable, listless boy who doesn’t even respond to a pinch." (New York Times, 17 May) RD

LEGAL TAX DODGERS

"Some of Britain's biggest listed companies, including several that have threatened to re-domicile abroad, paid little or no corporation tax in Britain in 2007. Research by The Times shows that the FTSE-100 companies - Cadbury, Standard Chartered and British American Tobacco, which have a combined market capitalisation of £75 billion, employed almost 11,000 UK staff and generated more than £6 billion in global profits, - paid zero corporation tax in Britain last year." (Times, 20 May) RD

AN IMPOSSIBLE DREAM?

Socialists are always told that we are dreamers. That capitalism is the only system possible and that we should accept it. When we talk of the millions that have died in wars, famines and natural disasters we are told that even inside socialism natural disasters will occur. We accept that, but what of the recent natural disasters that have occurred inside China and Burma? Attempts to relieve the effects of the Burmese disaster have been hindered by a ruling clique fearful of their grip on power and in China the evidence seems to point to an awful natural disaster made more awful by capitalism's production of cheap buildings to keep down costs. Inside socialism no one will die of hunger or war and when natural disasters occur we will deal with them in a compassionate fashion. This may appear dream-like to supporters of capitalism, but that is only because they support the nightmare society of capitalism. RD

RYANAIR! WHAT'S RYANAIR?

"Users of private jets have struck on an exciting new way to save the planet. Instead of flying solo on a jet, the super-rich can now team up to share a plane. The brainwave comes from The Private Jet Club, which suggests that its mile high version of the car pool would be ideal for people who desperately need to get to their second home in France, or to a conference or a trade event." (Times, 20 May) RD

Lazy Workers !!!

From the BBC

A 30-year-old Toyota worker who collapsed at one of its plants had died of overwork.
It emerged that the man had worked 106 hours of overtime in his final month, most of it unpaid.

Unions say that companies generally see working unpaid overtime as a sign of loyalty. Toyota has a reputation for using employees' ideas to improve production methods and efficiency and reduce costs.

And they dare call workers lazy

A SENSE OF VALUES?

"The massacre of the silverback Senkekwe, along with five other rare apes, made the cover of US magazine Newsweek under the headline "Gorilla Warfare". In Britain, the "Murders In The Mist" prompted The Sun to launch its own campaign, and around the globe people wrote in to media outlets, telling of the sleepless nights and trauma the images had caused. For Anneke van Woudenberg, the Congo specialist for Human Rights Watch, it was a case of gritting one's teeth. "Kill a mountain gorilla in Congo and it gets much more coverage than five million dead," she says. "It irks me every time." Trawling through the archives of British newspapers for the first four months of 2008, the point is hammered home. The slaughter of elephants in Congo to make ivory chopsticks appears to be the most widely reported story. Another popular item is the arrest of sorcerers suspected of stealing or shrinking human penises. Breaking the trend of wildlife stories and wild tales are Financial Times articles about Congo's vast mineral resources, a Guardian feature on plans to build the world's biggest dam across the Congo river and a report about Kinshasa's vibrant music scene in this newspaper. Conspicuously absent are dispatches about the humanitarian crisis, the legacy of the worst conflict since 1945, and a crisis that is still killing an estimated 1,200 people every day. Although Congo's war officially ended in 2002, malaria, cholera and malnutrition mean that the equivalent of the population of Manchester will be wiped out this year. (Independent, 12 May) RD

THE STUPIDITY OF CAPITALISM

"Even if the shot isn't dazzling, now the golf-ball marker can be. Tri Mark Golf's luxe version is handcrafted from 18-karat white gold and studded with diamonds, citrine, amethyst and peridots. It's also highly functional, with a numbered measuring system that lets golfers figure out how many putter heads away the ball is. And when not dressing up the green, it can be put on a chain and worn as a necklace; buy it for $10,500 (trimarkgolf.com)." (NewsWeek, 5 May) RD

A STRANGE KIND OF FREEDOM

"An Afghan journalism student sentenced to death for insulting Islam denied the charges before an appeals court Sunday, saying he only confessed to questioning the religion's treatment of women because he was tortured.. ...Afghan media have flourished since the fall of the hard-line Taliban regime following a U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Newspapers and TV and radio stations have opened nationwide. But journalists face violence for news stories that criticize government leaders, warlords and religious clerics or challenge their often authoritarian views. (Yahoo News, 18 May) RD

LAND OF THE FREE?

"The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan, officials said, in a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come. The proposed detention center would replace the cavernous, makeshift American prison on the Bagram military base north of Kabul, which is now typically packed with about 630 prisoners, compared with the 270 held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba." (New York Times, 17 May) RD

WORDS OF WISDOM

"Albert Einstein regarded religions as "childish" and "primitive legends", a private letter he wrote a year before his death has revealed. The great scientist's views on religion have long been debated, with many seizing upon phrases such as "He [God] does not throw dice" as evidence that he believed in a creator. But the newly-unveiled letter, a response to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, has cast doubt on the theory that Einstein had any belief in God at all towards to the end of his life. In the letter, dated January 3 1954, he wrote: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." (Daily Telegraph, 13 May) RD

Marketing kids and education

David Buckingham, a professor at the Institute of Education, University of London and a leading authority on children and the media, said that the "privatisation" of schools could be affecting children's education...The involvement of commercial companies in the running of schools - that's something which potentially has implications for children's wellbeing," he said.
"From my point of view commercial resources in classrooms - Shell's introduction to the oil industry, Coke machines in schools - there's a continuum from there to commercial companies that provide school meals, to commercial companies being involved in education on all sorts of levels including management...Carphone Warehouse, Microsoft, Dixons and Granada Learning are all running academies. The schools minister, Lord Adonis, has said that every school should be in partnership with a business, and the government is promoting trust schools, which see businesses helping to run and advise schools.
Buckingham said the links went further than academies. Firms were increasingly sponsoring school sport, music classes and homework clubs, in what amounted to "privatising" state schools, he said...Buckingham said there was convincing evidence that the amount of marketing to children was intensifying and it was happening at a younger age.

THE NEW COLONIALISTS

"Chinese companies will be encouraged to buy farmland abroad, particularly in Africa and South America, to help guarantee food security under a plan being considered by Beijing. A proposal drafted by the Ministry of Agriculture would make supporting offshore land acquisition by domestic agricultural companies a central government policy. Beijing already has similar policies to boost offshore investment by state-owned banks, manufacturers and oil companies, but offshore agricultural investment has so far been limited to a few small projects."
(Financial Times, 8 May) RD

NICE FOR WHOM?

"Britain faces two years of economic pain and could sink into recession, the Governor of the Bank of England has warned. Mervyn King gave notice of a further squeeze on living standards, forecasting that inflation would climb to 3.7 per cent and remain high for two years. "The nice decade is behind us," he said." (Times, 15 May) RD

SAME MAG - DIFFERENT LIFES

"90 per cent of Tanzia's 36 million people live on less than £1 a day." (Page 17)
"No other supercar catches onlookers off-guard as seductively as a Ferrari, finds Polly Vernon. Ferrari F430 Spider F1 - £137,852." (Page 74)
(Observer Magazine, 11 May) RD

A MODERN THEOLOGIST?

"The current Bishop of Durham, fourth most senior cleric in the Church of England (after Canterbury, York and London), is also its leading evangelical theologian. Time magazine recently described him as "one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought" and "a hero to conservative Christians worldwide". He has also just written a book, Surprised by Hope, in which he spells out a view many will find extraordinary. It is not just that, as an evangelical, he believes forcefully in the authority of scripture and the historical truth of the Gospels. Nor is it that, like most on that conservative wing of the Church, he is strongly opposed to gay priests. The Right Reverend Wright believes in the literal truth of the Resurrection. The day will come, he says, when Christ will come to join the heavens and the earth in a new creation and the dead will rise." (New Statesman, 10 April) RD

PROFIT AND LOSS

A shocking example of capitalism's priorities was recently revealed.
"There is growing concern that the Health and Safety Executive is failing at its job as it struggles with a growing number of workplace deaths. The HSE has reduced the number of its inspectors by around 25 per cent in five years from 916 to 680. Firms on average face an HSE inspection just once every 14.5 years. ... Last year 77 construction workers died, up from 60 in 2006." (Observer, 11 May)
Last year the HSE under spent its budget by £12 million, so from the standpoint of profit and loss what are 77 grieving families? RD

CHRISTIAN DECLINE

"Church attendance in Britain is declining so fast that the number of regular churchgoers will be fewer than those attending mosques within a generation, research published today suggests. The fall - from four million people who attend church at least once a month today - means that the Church of England, Catholicism and other denominations will become financially unviable. ... According to Religious Trends, a comprehensive statistical analysis of religious trends in Britain, published by Christian Research ..." (Times, 8 May) RD

UNEXPECTED PRAISE

Socialist are used to journalists parodying the works of Karl Marx and extolling the virtues of capitalism so it comes as a pleasant surprise to read Simon Caulkin, the Management Editor in the Business and Media section of the Observer having something worthwhile to say on the subject.
"Along with creeping monopolies, growing inequalities and the all-absorbing momentum of the capitalist markets, Marx foresaw many of the effects of globalisation, which he called "the universal interdependence of nations", not least the effect of an international "reserve army of the unemployed" in disciplining and depressing the wages of workers in the developed economies. His description of the "cash nexus" foreshadowed the economic rationality at the centre of today's mainstream economic and management theories." (Observer, 11 May) RD

PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION

"In the semi-arid forests of the Chaco region of Paraguay, where summer temperatures top 40C (104F), the continent's last non contacted Indians outside of the Amazon basin are on the run, their traditional forest home increasingly encroached upon by ranchers. ... These formerly nomadic tribes’ people struggle to maintain a semblance of their traditional way of life in camps on the edge of the agricultural colonies that invaded their territory." (Times, 6 May)
This process called by Karl Marx the so-called primitive accumulation of capital was dealt with him in his Das Kapital (1867), mirrors what had happened in Europe at the beginning of capitalism. "In actual history it is notorious that conquest, murder, briefly force, play the great part ...As a matter of fact, the methods of primitive accumulation are anything but idyllic." (Page 668) A view echoed by one of the Indians in the Times - "The whites are violent. They just want land. We are afraid of them, they are very aggressive." RD

A WARMONGER SPEAKS

"John Bolton, America’s ex-ambassador to the United Nations, has called for US air strikes on Iranian camps where insurgents are trained for war in Iraq. Mr. Bolton said that striking Iran would represent a major step towards victory in Iraq. While he acknowledged that the risk of a hostile Iranian response harming American’s overseas interests existed, he said the damage inflicted by Tehran would be “far higher” if Washington took no action. “This is a case where the use of military force against a training camp to show the Iranians we’re not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do,” he said. “Then the ball would be in Iran’s court to draw the appropriate lesson to stop harming our troops.” Mr Bolton, an influential former member of President George W Bush’s inner circle, dismissed as “dead wrong” reported British intelligence conclusions that the US military had overstated the support that Iran was providing to Iraqi fighters." (Daily Telegraph, 6 May) RD

THE NUTTY PROFESSOR

"Marxist historian, Professor Eric Hobsbawm, 90, tells the Morning Star, the comrade's bugle, that Communism is finished because "the industrial working class" isn't interested any more. But Communism is flourishing in China where it takes the form of state capitalism."
(Daily Mail, 1 May) RD

AN UPPER CLASS TWIT

On Henry Conway, 25 year-old son of disgraced MP Derek Conway: "We might reasonably have hoped that, having being exposed as receiving £32,000 in parliamentary allowances while an undergraduate at Cambridge, he might have felt chastened and laid low. The more naive among us might even have hoped he would get a proper job, with a view to paying back some of the taxpayer's money. But, no. Last month Conway - who once threw a party called "F*** off I'm rich" - arrived at Mahiki, a naff London cocktail bar favoured by Prince William and Harry, in a horse-drawn carriage and dressed as a Regency dandy." (Times, 8 May) RD

CRISIS! WHAT CRISIS?

"Auction houses Sotheby's and Christie’s are confident of selling up to $1.8bn of Impressionist, postwar and contemporary artworks during the New York season beginning on Monday– 25 per cent more than last year – in spite of signs of nervousness among collectors." (Financial Times, 9 May) RD

BUSINESS AS USUAL

"Burma is still exporting rice even as it tries to curb the influx of international donations of food bound for the starving surviviors of the cyclone that killed up to 116,000 people. Sacks of rice destined for Bangladesh were being loaded on to a ship at the Thilawa container port at the mouth of the Yangon River at the end of last week, even though Burma's "rice bowl" region was devastated by the deadly storm a week ago. The Burmese regime, which has a monopoly on the country's rice exports, said it planned to meet all its contractual commitments."
(Observer, 11 May)
Inside capitalism business is business, and the fact that millions of Burmese risk death by starvation is of no concern. That is how capitalism operates, during the Irish potato famines foodstuffs were still being exported from Ireland. RD

THE KILLER SYSTEM

Supporters of capitalism claim that it is the most efficient way to run society, but that is a claim that rings hollow to millions of hungry people today, as even one of capitalism's stoutest supporters is forced to admit. "Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation,
The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry." (4 May) RD

WORDS OF WISDOM

"What's more, the genomes of complex creatures reveal a lack of any intelligence or foresight. Your DNA consists largely of millions of defunct copies of parasitic DNA. The inescapable conclusion is that if life was designed, the designer was lazy, stupid and cruel." (New Scientist, 19 April 2008) RD

RELIGIOUS CANT

"The Archbishop of Westminster has urged Christians to treat atheists and agnostics with "deep esteem". Believers may be partly responsible for the decline in faith by losing sense of the mystery and treating God as a "fact in the world", he said in a lecture. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor called for more understanding and appreciation between believers and non-believers. The leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales said that a "hidden God" was active in everyone's life." (BBC News, 8 May)
This hidden god may well be evident to the well fed Archbishop but he remains well hidden to the millions of starving children throughout the world. RD

THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER?

"The number of homeowners facing repossession orders after failing to keep up with mortgage payments is up, says the Ministry of Justice. It says the number of orders made by the courts in England and Wales at an early stage of the repossession process rose 17% in the first quarter of 2008. There were 27,530 orders made, up from 23,438 in the same period of 2007."
(BBC News, 9 May) RD

A DEPRESSING SOCIETY

"Depression symptoms could be a problem for large numbers of teenagers, suggest surveys for the Children's Society. More than a quarter of 14 to 16-year-olds questioned said that they frequently felt depressed. A leading child psychiatrist said more support, and resources, for parents were essential to tackle the problem. (BBC News, 24 April) RD

DIGNITY? NO WAY

"Eight out of 10 nurses say they have left work distressed because they have been unable to treat patients with the dignity they deserve, a poll suggests. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) poll of more than 2,000 UK nurses cited washing and privacy as key issues." (BBC News, 27 April)
The NHS is provided for members of the working class. They are the class that produce all the wealth of the world but being poor can ill afford the best of housing, food or even medical care. Dignity for the only worthwhile class in society is a foreign concept. RD

WORDS OF WISDOM

"Global food price rises are leading to "silent mass murder" and commodities markets have brought "horror" to the world, the United Nations' food envoy told an Austrian newspaper on Sunday. Jean Ziegler, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told Kurier am Sonntag that growth in biofuels, speculation on commodities markets and European Union export subsidies mean the West is responsible for mass starvation in poorer countries. Ziegler said he was bound to highlight the "madness" of people who think that hunger is down to fate. "Hunger has not been down to fate for a long time -- just as (Karl) Marx thought. It is rather that a murder is behind every victim. This is silent mass murder," he said in an interview. Ziegler blamed globalization for "monopolizing the riches of the earth" and said multinationals were responsible for a type of "structural violence." "And we have a herd of market traders, speculators and financial bandits who have turned wild and constructed a world of inequality and horror. We have to put a stop to this," he said." (Yahoo News, 20 April) RD

KNOCKING SHOPS KNOCKED BACK

"Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest, has been hit by the global credit crunch so badly that it has issued a memorandum to senior executives telling them that brothel visits and adult channels in hotel rooms cannot be claimed on expenses. ...A Deutsche Bank insider said: "In the good old days, you could pass off a trip to a knocking-shop as a restaurant if the name wasn't too obvious. But we're in an uptight, locked-down new Puritanism now, not helped by sub-prime or VW." (Independent, 23 April) RD

THE HORRORS OF CAPITALISM

"The Australian government has launched an investigation into claims that aboriginal children seized from their parents during the 1920s and 1930s were secretly used as guinea pigs for leprosy treatments. The allegations surfaced at a Senate inquiry this week into plans to compensate the "stolen generation" of aboriginal Australians who were taken from their families as part of a government programme. "As well as being taken away, they were used... There are a lot of things that Australia does not know about," Kathleen Mills, a member of the Stolen Generations Alliance and an indigenous elder, told the hearing. Ms Mills said children held at a compound in Darwin were injected with serums designed to be used in the treatment of leprosy – a practice which seriously damaged their health. Her uncle, who worked there as a medical orderly, had told her about the sinister goings-on." (Independent, 20 April) RD

CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?

"Walking around the Salon International De La Haute Horlogerie, the annual luxury-watch trade fair in Geneva, Switzerland, it is difficult to get much of a sense of the impending disaster that stalks the world's financial markets. On the first day I was shown a baguette-set tourbillon wristwatch made by Jaeger-LeCoultre, retailing for €409,840; three orders had been taken before lunch—and the fair hadn't even officially opened yet. Across the country, at Switzerland's other, older watch fair in Basel, Jean-Claude Biver, the effervescent boss of the newly resurgent sports brand Hublot, told me he took orders for €159.4 millions' worth of watches, compared with €81.9 million at last year's fair. If anything, the problem that many brands have encountered is managing to deliver all the watches for which they have taken orders." (Newsweek, 12 April) RD

MORE PROFIT MEANS MORE HUNGER

"This year global production of biofuels will consume almost 100 million tons of grain – grain that could have been used to feed the starving. According to the UN, it takes 232kg of corn to fill a 50-litre car tank with ethanol – enough to feed a child for a year. The UN last week predicted "massacres" unless the biofuel policy is halted. Jean Ziegler, the UN's special rapporteur on the right to food, said biofuels were "a crime against humanity", and called for a five-year moratorium." (Independent, 16 April)
The UN can issue all sorts of pious resolutions, but if is more profitable to produce bio-fuels than food, then that is what capitalism will do. RD

THE DISTORTION OF SCIENCE

Producers of genetically modified foodstuffs often claim that it is the answer to world food shortages but recent research suggest otherwise.
"Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining, repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis. The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields. ...The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best non-GM soya available." (Independent, 20 April)
Despite the claims of capitalist firms like Monsanto, GM crops are not the answer. Why do they make such claims? To them profits is the main consideration, not science. RD

100 YEARS OF POVERTY

The columnist Richard Morrison on pensions "The old-age pension is 100 years old. When Asquith introduced it in 1908, it was five shillings a week - a sum that was regarded as shamefully low by progressives in his party. But if even that paltry figure had kept pace with the growth in Britain's GDP, the state pension should now be £161 a week. The actual figure? £90.70p. Some progress." (Times, 30 April) RD

Indian wealth

According to the BBC , UK developers are heading to India in search of wealthy new customers for their luxury flats. But why would anyone invest in London's wobbly property markets? Because the super-rich still have plenty of cash to spend.

One of the world's most expensive homes is currently being built in Mumbai for Reliance head Mukesh Ambani. His personal skyscraper will boast six storeys just for parking cars, and is expected to cost nearly $2 billion by the time it is complete.

Nick Candy, one half of the design and development firm Candy & Candy, is in Mumbai to drum up interest for his own super-luxury project, One Hyde Park. The central London project is offering apartments - to the right kind of customer - for an average of £20m. Mr Candy is a man used to dealing with the fabulously rich. But he says, "I'm flabbergasted by the amount of wealth in India. It's staggering."
Candy & Candy specialises in strictly top-end property. Its customer base is a roll-call of the super rich: royals, entrepreneurs, private company bosses. It's now looking to open an office in India. India now has more billionaires than any other country in Asia - 36 at the last count. Together they are worth nearly $200bn. India's top three richest people are all successful businessmen, but have made their money in old-economy industries, such as oil and property.
And while they have thrived in India's new economy, they have all built their wealth on fortunes inherited from their parents.

Many of those super-rich are now keen to invest their wealth around the globe. But why would Indian investors want to put money into London's property market now the boom is over?
"It's going to be very tough in America, and I think the UK will probably mirror it six months later," admits Mr Candy. But, he says, this applies only to properties under £2m where buyers need to borrow the money. There, you can expect "serious reductions in prices", according to Mr Candy - "and you're looking at a lot more than 10%." For top-end property - costing more than £5m - he thinks prices will be stable. There are not many people who can afford that level of luxury - and in London, there are still very few properties for them to buy.

Besides, says Mr Candy, "they've still got huge amounts of wealth. Maybe it's come down from $1bn to $500m - or if they've been very unlucky, it's $50m. But it's still huge amounts of wealth."

And of course they are the economic migrants that the government want .

Blair's Riches

Tony Blair have bought a £4 million stately home that once belonged to the late Sir John Gielgud, it was reported . The Grade 1 listed mansion in Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, has seven bedrooms, a drawing room, ornamental gardens and two paddocks. The house, South Pavilion, built in 1704, is said to have been snapped up by the Blairs before being put on the open market. It has undergone extensive renovation since it was Gielgud's home and now includes a four-bedroom converted outbuilding.

The Blairs' property portfolio already includes two houses in London, two flats in Bristol and a home at Trimdon Colliery, Co Durham, in his former constituency.

Seems as if he has no problem with the credit crunch that his pay-masters in the banking world created .

tails we win , heads you lose

Before it was rising house prices that left workers unable to get a foot on the housing ladder , now its the refusal of mortgages .

It is reported that Building Societies are now only lending to one in 10 would-be homeowners, compared with a traditional level of almost one in five. A 68% decline means that building societies are scaling back lending as a result of the credit crunch even more severely than major mortgage bank rivals, such as Halifax and Cheltenham & Gloucester.

And for those workers lucky to have a house , prices in the UK are dropping by almost £500 every week . The Halifax said the average home price has fallen £8,136 since the start of the year reaching £189,027 - a fall of £479 a week. Two other surveys - from the Nationwide and Hometrack - also said it was the first time since the mid-1990s that house prices were down year-on-year.

Seema Shah, economist at Capital Economics, said: "The last time we saw two such large falls in consecutive months was during the depths of the housing market crash of the early 1990s, and even those falls fell short of the declines seen in the past two months...With the economy and labour market set to weaken further, our forecast for a 20% fall in house prices by end-2009 is firmly on track,"

Under capitalism , workers just can't win

SOMETHING SMELLS HERE

"To the small town of San Giovanni Rotondo, in Southern Italy, they came in their thousands - devotees of St Pio of Pietrelcina, better known as Padre Pio, whose remains went on display to the public for the first time since his death 40 years ago. ... Padre Pio, was born in 1887 and died in 1968, is Catholicism's most widely and fervently worshipped saint. During his lifetime he was believed to have borne the stigmata - the wounds of the crucified Jesus - on his body, to have performed many miracles of healing, to have had the capacity of being in two places at the same time and to have emitted a strong aroma of wild flowers."
(Times, 25 April) RD

LABOUR RE-DISTRIBUTES WEALTH!

"The fortunes of Britain's richest 1,000 have risen by £53 billion, almost 15 per cent, in the last year. Their wealth has quadrupled from £99 billion to £412.8 billion since Labour came to power in 1997." (Times, 28 April) RD

Mayday Rallies

SPGB members and sympathisers will be out and about at the Mayday rallies in Edinburgh and Glasgow this coming weekend, distributing Socialist Standards and leaflets .

Details of Saturday's Edinburgh Mayday Rally here

Details of Sunday's Glasgow Mayday Rally here

Mayday belongs to the workers – we have a world to win, and we can win it.

FREESCALE CLAYMORE HOVERS STILL

In an article published on this site
We reported that plans of the possible stopping of production at the former Motorola semiconductor plant at in East Kilbride under the codename Operation Claymore. Various assurances were made about demanding answers etc, however, it seems everyone is still in the dark
in an article named, Are we next?, ask Freescale workers. EKMail, Wednesday the 30th April reports, Freescale bosses have moved to deny rumours they have brought in temporary HR staff to oversee mass redundancies at the troubled plant. In a week when another major employer JVC announced it was to shut up shop at the end of July after months of speculation, these rumours point to a new low in the morale of the 900 workers at the Kelvin industrial estate factory.
The former Motorola semiconductor plant at in East Kilbride was taken over by the new Texan owners, Freescale, last year, it was reported that they were putting the giant plant up for sale.
The plant was opened up in 1969, it is thought that Freescale will only keep their research and development arm which would save about 300 jobs at most. However, 900 workers are set to lose employment.
At that time Local MP Adam Ingram says he has been told nothing officially by Freescale and would be demanding answers tomorrow. It seems he never got any answers because workers say they have been growing increasingly frustrated with bosses who they accuse of keeping them in the dark over the plant’s future. A worker at the plant reports
“The latest rumour is that they have started some HR people on six month contracts. It’s only rumoured, but we reckon that it’s to make up the redundancy packages. But nobody upstairs is saying anything. Not a word.”The worker believes there are worrying parallels to be drawn between the fate of JVC in College Milton and the Kelvin technology manufacturer.He said: “The feeling here is that the closing of JVC was inevitable. “The writing has been on the wall for some time there, as it has been here for a while. There are certain similarities between JVC and Freescale. They weren’t told what was happening there either and it is the same here. It just seems to be the way things are now.“It’s the old mushroom syndrome – keep them in the dark and feed them a load of crap.”
The profit motive will always prevail in a capitalist society, lets go for a society that gets rid of the profit motive, Socialism.

GLOBAL BONDAGE

"Some of the world's leading computer makers don't want you to know about Local Technic Industry. It's a typical Malaysian company, one of many small makers of the cast-aluminum bodies for hard-disk drives used in just about every name-brand machine on the market. But that's precisely the problem: it's a typical Malaysian company. About 60 percent of Local Technic's 160 employees are from outside Malaysia—and a company executive says he pities those guest workers. "They have been fooled hook, line and sinker," he says, asking not to be named because others in the business wouldn't like his talking to the press. "They have been taken for a ride." It's not Local Technic's fault, he insists: sleazy labor brokers outside the country tricked the workers into paying huge placement fees for jobs that yield a net income close to zero. ...So why don't those foreign employees just quit? Because they can't, even after they find out they've been cheated. Malaysian law requires guest workers to sign multiple-year contracts and surrender their passports to their employers. Those who run away but stay in Malaysia are automatically classed as illegal aliens, subject to arrest, imprisonment and sometimes caning before being expelled from the country." (Newsweek, 21 April) RD

Heart-breaking

It is reported that the number of people in Scotland's poorest areas dying from heart disease has dropped , however, despite the drive to reduce the difference in life expectancy between the rich and poor, experts said there was little evidence the decline in heart disease deaths was any greater in deprived communities than elsewhere.
Those living in areas of deprivation are still at higher risk of dying from coronary heart disease . GPs in deprived areas have 30% more coronary heart disease patients and are likely to have less time for all of them.

33,000 MORE HOMELESS

"Homeowners face the threat of soaring repossessions this year, with a 25 per cent increase in the number of properties expected to be seized by the banks and building societies as mortgage costs remain stubbornly high. According to a report today from the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR), more than 33,000 borrowers will lose their homes once their fixed-mortgages, agreed prior to the credit crunch, come to an end and interest costs rise." (Observer, 27 April) RD

DOES CAPITALISM WORK?

"In Cameroon, 24 people have been killed in food riots since February, while in Haiti, protesters chanting, "We're hungry" forced the prime minister to resign this month. In the past month, there have been food riots in Egypt, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Madagascar. The World Bank now believes that some 33 countries are in danger of being destabilized by food price inflation, while Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, said that higher food prices risked wiping out progress towards reducing poverty and could harm global growth and security." (Daily Telegraph, 22 April) RD

BUSINESS AS USUAL

"An electronics factory in East Kilbride is to close with the loss of 300 jobs, a union has told BBC Scotland. JVC will shut in July and work will be moved to Poland, a Unite official said. Jimmy Farrelly said employees at the College Milton plant, which makes television sets, had been "stunned" by the announcement." (BBC News, 26 April)
A TU official may well be "stunned", but socialists are not. That is how capitalism operates. Inside capitalism you must.on pain of extinction, cut your costs to survive. Three hundred workers on the dole? Who cares, this is capitalism. RD

US INTEREST IN AFRICAN OIL

"In any event, America's attitude has changed sharply since a Pentagon report in 1995 said that Africa was of “very little traditional strategic interest”. The administration has so far spent $127m on AFRICOM and has asked for another $389m for 2009. America's key interests in Africa remain terrorism and oil. Terrorists linked to al-Qaeda attacked the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, killing more than 200 people. America gets more than 15% of its oil from Africa, and the figure is rising. It also worries about China's growing influence there." (Economist, 10 April) RD

BIG BROTHER IS LISTENING

"Hundreds of benefit fraudsters have been caught out by lie-detector technology. More than 370 people were identified fiddling their benefits in Lambeth, South London. As part of the pilot project, Lambeth Council staff phoned 2,000 residents and used Voice Risk Analysis, which picks up tiny changes in the voice that show a person is lying. Benefit staff then made further checks to see if claims needed investigation. A total of 638 people were investigated and 377 were caught lying and had their benefits stopped or decreased." (Times, 21 April) RD

Our betters

Tax-exile , Lord Laidlaw of Rothiemay, Scotland's fourth-richest man , flew prostitutes from Britain to a £6000-a-night hotel suite in Monte Carlo, where they drank champagne, before indulging in lesbian and bondage sex acts , reports the Herald .

The peer is said to have more or less single-handedly bankrolled the Scottish Conservatives and has loaned or donated Tory HQ around £6m. He is also one of the key benefactors to Boris Johnson's bid for the London mayoralty, having handed over £25,000 to the Henley MP's campaign to oust Ken Livingstone.

The peer has a love of fast boats, fast cars and helicopters. As well as his £3m home in Monte Carlo, he has a £4m vineyard on the French Riviera, a £10m estate near Capetown, a £2m home in London's Eaton Square, a mansion in Scotland and a £14m home in Hampshire.

Same paper , different article , the more frequently men use prostitutes, the more likely they are to be sexually aggressive towards other women, according to new research.

Many of the men believed that the money paid cancels out the harm caused. Jan Macleod, development officer with the Women's Support Project, said:
"[of these men] Somehow they kid themselves that these women are there out of choice and that they are earning lots of money and that it means they are doing nothing wrong."

Grangemouth Strike

Unions in dispute are often depicted as selfish workers striking out of self interest. These workers are striking to prevent their company’s pension scheme being undermined for future workers joining the scheme. They are standing up to protect the pensions of future generations of workers in their industry. Isn't that altruism ? Isn't that self-sacrifice ?

Jim Ratcliffe, 55, owner of the strike-torn Grangemouth refinery , reported to be 25th in this years Times Rich List with wealth of £2.3 billion will have no doubt secured the future of his future generations and progeny .

Ratcliffe has grown Ineos rapidly by making ever-bigger acquisitions funded mostly with debt, says Breakingviews.com. “How come, one might ask? Surely even in today’s markets where liquidity is sloshing around, one needs to fund at least 20% of a deal with equity?” Ratcliffe gets round that requirement by using Ineos as the equity – focusing single-mindedly on growing cash flow to increase the company’s debt capacity. “That way, Ineos is ready to be used as collateral for the next deal”, ensuring that “every few years, he can triple or quadruple in size”.

Nor is Ratcliffe averse to blackmailing .

Having acquired ICI’s Runcorn chlorine plant in 2000, “after one of the longest due diligence exercises in recent history”, Ineos decided it had been “sold a pup” and began petitioning the taxpayer to bail it out. Ratcliffe went for broke, asking the Government for £300m: the alternative, he said, was the closure of the plant with the loss of some 133,000 associated jobs.
The press consensus was that “Ratcliffe of Runcorn should be sent packing”, but he nevertheless still managed to extract £50 million.

BP and Shell will together make record profits of more than $68 billion this year if the oil price stays at current levels, according to City forecasters.

the rich list

Credit crunch ...food inflation ...property price crash ...Yet the UK's super-rich have never been richer reports the BBC . The richest 1,000 people in Britain have seen their wealth quadruple under Labour, according to The Sunday Times Rich List published today.
The top 1,000 richest people in the country now have more than £400 billion between them, it estimates - up almost £53 billion in the last year. A fortune of £80m is needed to be one of Britain's richest 1,000 people - up from £70m in 2007.

Philip Beresford, who has compiled the list since it was first published in 1989, said: "Until now, the 11 years of Labour government have proved a boon for the super-rich, rarely seen before in modern British history..."

“The 11 years of Labour have been absolutely fantastic for the super-rich,” said Philip Beresford, “Having a friendly Labour government has almost been better than having a Tory one..."

RICH LIST TOP 10
Lakshmi Mittal, steel (£27.7bn)
Roman Abramovich, oil and industry (£11.7bn)
The Duke of Westminster, property (£7bn)
Sri and Gopi Hinduja, Industry and finance (£6.2bn)
Alisher Usmanov, Steel and mines (£5.7bn)
Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli, pharmaceuticals (£5.6bn)
Hans Rausing and family, packaging (£5.4bn)
John Fredriksen, shipping (£4.6bn)
Sir Philip and Lady Green, retailing (£4.3bn)
David and Simon Reuben, property (£4.3bn

THE NAME IS BOND - CAPITALIST BOND

Capitalism pervades everything in modern society. If you buy a football shirt it will advertise a beer or a soft drink. Formula 1 car racing would be impossible if advertising logos didn't cover every space on the cars and the drivers. It is in the entertainment business though that this pervasive influence is growing at an astonishing speed. "The name is Bond, James Bond. And he likes his Martinis shaken, not stirred. That is, as long as they are Smirnoff. Product placement is playing an increasingly important role in Hollywood blockbusters. The last Bond film bore a string of high-end sponsors, such as Omega, Sony, Ford and Sony Ericsson. Television shows have also lured advertisers, often preferring product placement or sponsorship over traditional advertising. .. The expectation is that television advertising will become more about the 30-minute sponsored advertisement than the 30-second shot." (Times, 21 March) RD

health of the workers

Yet another finding that being poor increases the chances of an early death .

A clear link between wealth and health has been highlighted in a study of middle-aged Americans. Being better-off was associated with a significantly lower risk of stroke between the ages of 50 and 64. Other findings linked a lack of wealth with higher blood pressure, excessive weight, diabetes and heart disease.

Scientists analysed data from 19,445 men and women involved in in the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study which surveys people aged 50 and over every two years. Over an average period of eight-and-a-half years, a total of 1542 of the participants suffered a stroke.
The researchers divided the participants' wealth levels into six categories. They found that the 10% at the bottom of the wealth ladder had three times more stroke risk between the ages of 50 and 64 than those at the top, excluding the "ultra-rich".

Dr Mauricio Avendando, from the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who co-led the research, said:
"Lack of material resources themselves, and particularly wealth, appear to strongly influence people's chances to have a first stroke."

There should be a health warning placed upon every worker - wage slavery can lead to premature death .

NOT TOO TOUGH

"A handful of the City's top hedge fund managers shared an extraordinary payout of more than $2 billion last year as star dealers profited from the meltdown in America's sub-prime mortgage markets. Top of the UK list of mega-earners for the year were Noam Gottesman and Pierre LaGrange, the two co-founders of GLG Partners, the $24 billion London based hedge fund. Mr Gottesman and Mr LaGrange were paid a staggering $350 million each, according to Alpha, a specialist hedge fund magazine that yesterday published a list of the top 50 best-paid managers worldwide for 2007." (Times, 16 April) RD

TOUGH AT THE TOP?

"At £70,000 for only 50 minutes' effort, it works out at a rate of £80k an hour. Amazingly, canny Paris Hilton got paid that incredible sum just for turning up at trendy Mayfair nightclub Mahiki on Monday night. But does the It Girl appreciate her good fortune? Hardly. We can reveal the heiress turned up two hours late for her appearance at Prince Harry's favourite watering hole. (Daily Mirror, 16 April) RD

NO OLD BANGERS HERE

"A Bentley Arnage, the marque's top-of-the-range vehicle, costs between £170,000 and £230,000 for the Brooklands coupe version. The Continental, a sporty and cheaper model, starts at £125,000." (Times, 27 April) RD

LEST WE FORGET

Amongst the most awful diseases that may strike us, surely one of the worst must be Alzheimer’s, the one that hits us when we are old and ruins our memory. The capitalist class can look after their elderly but workers are forced to rely on the NHS.
"Nearly 100,000 patients with Alzheimer's a year will be refused drugs that could delay the onset of the disease, the Court of Appeal has heard. ...NICE guidance in 2001 recommended the drugs - which can make it easier to carry out everyday tasks - should be used as standard. But advice published in November 2006, stated that the drugs should only be prescribed to people with moderate-stage disease. NICE said the drugs, which cost about £2.50 a day, did not make enough of a difference to recommend them for all patients and were not good value for money." (BBC News, 15 April)
Needless to say the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) do not instruct the capitalist class not to waste £2.50 a day on their parents or grandparents. Only workers are told it is not "good value for money". RD

Poor little rich Guy

Guy Ritchie has complained that British people are being priced out of the property market by "big money" foreigners who are buying all the desirable properties in central London. The film-maker and husband of Madonna railed against the rising price of property saying it was almost impossible to buy a house in central London "unless you've got 10 million quid".

Madonna and Guy's homes

* A £7m family townhouse in Marylebone
* A £6m, 10-bedroom property next door
* Two mews cottages close to the Marylebone house, one bought for £900,000
* Two properties used by the Kabbalah religious sect: a £3.6m building in the West End used as its headquarters and a £1.6m five-storey townhouse in Regent's Park
* A 1,200-acre estate in Wiltshire, bought for £9m
* An £8m house in Beverly Hills
* An apartment in New York

another failed reform target

Ministers have been accused of doing too little to cut the bills of 4.5 million people suffering fuel poverty despite promising extra help for the most needy households. Campaigners said almost one in five householders were living in fuel poverty and that ministers faced missing targets for eliminating fuel poverty by 2016.

Dave Prentis, Unison's general secretary, said many of his members were forced to choose between food and heating last winter.

Campaigners, union leaders and opposition MPs dismissed as inadequate a package of measures announced to cut the number of people forced to spend more than 10 per cent of their income on fuel bills.

the shopping price hike

High food costs have added £15 to a weekly supermarket shop for a family of four in the UK, new research suggests.

Comparison website MySupermarket says a basket of 24 staple items including tea bags, milk and eggs costs 15% more than it did 12 months ago. The findings are based on its price comparisons of certain everyday items at Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda.

The increases mean that families spending an average of £100 a week on food will be spending £780 a year more at a time when customers are under increasing pressure from higher mortgage, petrol and energy costs.

Johnny Stern, managing director of MySupermarket said: "The conclusion is that supermarkets are passing on a sizeable amount of the increased costs."

The price of wheat, rice and maize have nearly doubled in the past year . Analysts have warned that the higher prices are threatening to drive an extra 100 million people worldwide into poverty.

White loaf at Sainsbury's and Tesco: 65p - up 20%
Butter: 94p - up 62%
English mild cheddar: £1.52 - up 26%
Garden peas at Tesco: £1.79 - up 63%
Basmati white rice: £1.45 - up 61%

CAPITALISM STARVES

"Haiti’s hunger, that burn in the belly that so many here feel, has become fiercer than ever in recent days as global food prices spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures. Saint Louis Meriska’s children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day. His eyes downcast, his own stomach empty, the unemployed father said forlornly, “They look at me and say, ‘Papa, I’m hungry,’ and I have to look away. It’s humiliating and it makes you angry.” (New York Times, 18 April) RD

The police and the class war

Scotland's rank and file police are to call for the right to strike, currently denied them by law.
Members of the Scottish Police Federation , representing ranks up to chief constable, will debate the issue at their annual conference.

Police are prohibited by law from striking. The nearest they came to industrial action was a demonstration last year when 22,000 off-duty officers south of the Border protested over the pay deal they had been given. Many officers believe not being able to strike means they enter pay negotiations at a disadvantage and there is an increasing feeling within the federation that pay levels have been slipping.