THE FUTILITY OF REFORMISM

"One result of Ethiopia’s dreadful famine in 1984, when at least 1m people starved to death, was the invention of celebrity activism on behalf of the world’s most miserable. Band Aid, then Live Aid, then ever more sophisticated networking and the airing of films of starving children on television helped persuade rich countries’ governments to double aid to Africa as part of a wider set of promises to meet the UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals laid out in 2000, the first of which is to “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger” by 2015. Despite progress in setting up early-warning systems, better procurement methods and the rapid delivery of nutrition in the form of foil packets of plumpy nut, the Horn of Africa has remained a hunger zone. The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says the present drought is the worst there since 1984. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is usually slow to press the panic button, says it may be the tragedy of the decade. At least 17.5m people, the agencies reckon, may face starvation. The WFP is trying to feed 14m of them. High food prices, together with civil strife, the assassination of aid workers by jihadists, and piracy against food convoys sailing from Kenya to Somalia have combined with drought and desert to create a catastrophe. Some 12m of the hungry are in Ethiopia, 3m in Somalia, 2m in Kenya and Uganda, the rest in Eritrea and Djibouti." (Economist, 30 October)

This is typical of the futility of a policy of reformism, many well-intentioned people spend an enormous amount of energy and time in trying to patch up capitalism only to find that instead of a million starving to death they now have over 17 million threatened with the same fate. The only way to solve this awful problem is to abolish the system that produces it and bring about world socialism. RD

A CUT PRICE BARGAIN

"The seller of one of the world’s most luxurious yachts – the 164ft Alibella – is offering a €9.5m (£8.1m) discount to a buyer prepared to complete a deal within the next 30 days. Alibella – which has been finished with gold leaf and marble and comes complete with a helicopter landing pad – is one of a number of super yachts to have had millions of pounds slashed from their asking price in recent weeks. Edmiston & Company, the London-based yacht brokers, have offered Alibella to its clients just six months after the super yacht was launched and delivered to its unidentified owner. “The current global economic conditions have produced a number of interesting opportunities on the large yacht market,” wrote William Christie, a broker at Edmiston, in an e-mail to clients. “The brand new 50 metre Benetti, Alibella [has been] reduced in price by €9.5m ... the owner will sell at this massively reduced price if the deal can be completed in under 30 days.” The discount reduces the cost of the yacht – which can accommodate 14 guests in six cabins – to €24.5m." (Daily Telegraph, 17 November) RD

WHAT RECESSION?

Palladio, the house on Bishops Avenue bought by Lev Leviev for £35 million

"Three enormous houses in Hampstead with billionaire price-tags are being launched in London's depleted and depressed property market with as much chutzpah as if there had been no recession at all. Jersey House in The Bishops Avenue at £40 million, The Mansion and The Villa, both in Courtenay Avenue, at £35 million and £25 million, are looking for mega-rich buyers." (Daily Telegraph, 12 November) RD

OLD AND COLD

"Millions of elderly people will heat just one room in their homes this winter to cut down on soaring heat bills. Research by the charity Help the Aged found that 4.5 million people planned to live in one room in the coldest months. Many would stay in bed longer to keep warm, the charity found. A spokesman said: "It is a scandal that in a civilised society we are behaving in this way." Energy bills have risen by about 30 per cent this year." (Times, 10 November) RD

BORN IN THE USA

"Bruce Springsteen wants to make sure one bank remains solvent: the Community Food Bank of New Jersey. The singer will appear in a newspaper ad for the state's largest food bank that says: "We Can't Let This Bank Fail!" Springsteen has been a supporter of the food bank for 23 years, often donating proceeds from concerts or encouraging fans to bring food donations to his shows. This is the first time he's lent his image to the anti-hunger campaign. The Community Food Bank says the economy has resulted in a 30 percent increase in those needing food and could lead it to ration supplies for the first time in its 26-year history. The food bank assists charities serving a half-million people each year." (Yahoo News, 11 November) RD

DIEING FOR A JOB

"Sixty corpses of would-be refugees from Somalia and Ethiopia were found on a beach in Yemen over the weekend after smugglers forced many of them overboard, an international aid agency said on Monday. Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said the latest victims on the notoriously perilous smuggling route came across the Gulf of Aden from the Somali port city of Bosasso, fleeing war and poverty at home." (Yahoo News, 3 November) RD

YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY

"If it was not evident already how much developers in Dubai value the input of a celebrity name, the news that Kylie Minogue is to be paid about $4.4 million (£2.8 million) to officially open the $1.5 billion Atlantis Hotel on November 20 should silence any doubters. The Australian singer's first performance in the Middle East will be part of a $35 million extravaganza billed as the most expensive party yet held - the fireworks alone are to cost $6.58 million. But why bother with such expenditure? The Atlantis has already attracted huge publicity over its £13,000 a night suites." (Times, 31 October) RD

Profiting from the poor

Consumer Focus said it estimated power suppliers were making up to £550 million a year in extra charges from people on pre-payment meters. Typical customers using the devices were often those on the lowest incomes . Energy firms were using customers who pay for their gas or electricity through pre-payment meters to help subsidise cheaper deals for others.

"The energy companies are making the most money out of those on pre-payment meters and often those are the people on the very lowest incomes." said CF spokesperson

Energy awareness group National Energy Action said pre-payment metered customers paid on average £359 more a year than those with normal meters. This contrasts with the extra annual cost of between £85 and £100 to maintain the pre-payment boxes - a sum estimated by energy industry regulator Ofgem.

An NEA spokeswoman also added: "Once you are in debt you are effectively blocked from switching to cheaper deals."

AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

"Families are flooding homeless shelters across the United States in numbers not seen for years, camping out in motels or staying with friends and relatives, homeless advocates say. "There are lots of families hemorrhaging into homelessness and we need to figure out how to put a tourniquet on the hemorrhaging," Philip Mangano, the homelessness czar appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002, told Reuters. There is little time to waste. The U.S. unemployment rate is at a 14-year high and more job losses are forecast, while the Mortgage Bankers Association says nearly 1.5 million homes are in the process of foreclosure."
(Reuters, 12 November) RD

LAZY WORKERS?

"And U.S. employees do love to work. According to the Expedia.com 2007 Vacation Deprivation Report, "51.2 million Americans are vacation deprived, earning (14 days) and taking (11 days) the least amount of vacation days among their international counterparts." Furthermore, the number of U.S. workers not using all their vacation days is on the increase (31% in 2005, 33% in 2006 and 35% in 2007)." (PC World, 4 November) RD

TURN THE OTHER CHEEK?

"Israeli police rushed into one of Christianity's holiest churches Sunday and arrested two clergyman after an argument between monks erupted into a brawl next to the site of Jesus' tomb. The clash between Armenian and Greek Orthodox monks broke out in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, revered as the site of Jesus' crucifixion, burial and resurrection. The brawling began during a procession of Armenian clergymen commemorating the 4th-century discovery of the cross believed to have been used to crucify Jesus. The Greeks objected to the march without one of their monks present, fearing that otherwise, the procession would subvert their own claim to the Edicule -- the ancient structure built on what is believed to be the tomb of Jesus -- and give the Armenians a claim to the site." (Associated Press, 10 November) RD

MORE RELIGIOUS NONSENSE

"Thousands of people flocked to a remote jungle in southeast Nepal to see a boy, some believe is a reincarnation of Lord Buddha, who reappeared after being missing for more than a year, police said on Tuesday. Seventeen-year-old Ram Bahadur Bamjon spoke to devotees from nearby villages on Monday in the remote forest in Ratanpuri, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Kathmandu, Prakash Sen, a police constable said. Bamjon made international headlines in 2005 when tens of thousands of people turned up to see him sitting cross-legged under a tree in a dense forest for nearly ten months. reportedly without food and water." (Reuters, 10 November) RD

Food for meaty Thought

And what about the animals? The turkey dinner for holidays is huge in N.America. Capitalism has seized the opportunity to make big profits by, “A miracle of modern science, the birds grow cheaply, quickly, and uniformly especially when treated according to protocol in an industrial-scale setting. What they do best is convert the least amount of feed, which costs money, to the largest amount of breast meat, which makes money. Sure, they can’t reproduce naturally, fly, forage well, or even live long beyond their market-weight date (thanks to genetic problems like ruptured aortas, hypertension, and lameness). But these ‘robot turkeys’ get big and meaty right quick.”
(from Harrowsmith Country Life Magazine, October 2007 – and, believe it or not, the article came with the ‘how to cook your turkey’ tips!) John Ayers

Food for Thought

A big issue for Canadians is the preservation of our universal “free” Health care. Especially as half the 1.5 million American families that go bankrupt each year do so due to medical causes. In Canada we have creeping privatization as for profit clinics keep popping up contravening the Canada Health Act but never challenged by any level of government. These clinics are slowly stripping the health care system of doctors, nurses, other health care professionals, and resources. They charge fees that most Canadians cannot afford, such as $13-20 000 for knee surgery.
- Still on health, cigarette manufacturers, virtually chased out of the shrinking tobacco market in North America, have found new ones in the Third World (will it ever get to Second place?). China is the land of cheap cigarettes with ads such as, “This special product was created…as an appreciation to all women in style. Because you deserve the best” (message on packs of ‘low side stream lady’ rose flavoured cigarettes, Toronto Star, 25/10/08). Apparently it’s going well as smoking kills over a million in China every year!
- Still in China – Toronto Star headline, “Crisis Slows China’s March to Capitalism”. Ignoring the fact that they have always been capitalist, the story tells how a business couple saw the writing on the wall for their company so they took the money and ran, throwing 6 000 employees out of work. This is portrayed as ‘raw capitalism’, China style. Is it any different from the Canadian manufacturing companies who, over the last five years, have run from Canada to greener (as in green money) pastures, throwing 300 000 workers out of a job.
- And in the irony section - Mao’s personal airliner, a national relic, is on the auction block as it’s taking up too much space on a mall parking lot, needed for more shoppers!
- Canada’s election is over, thankfully quite a bit shorter than our neighbors to the South. Nevertheless it cost $300 million to stage the election not counting what the parties spent, to get an almost identical parliament to the last one – a Conservative minority with a few more Conservatives and NDP and a few less Liberals and a million voters for the Green Party with not one seat for them. The largest block of votes actually went to the No Voters – 41%, plus the estimated 8% who don’t bother to register, giving 49%. The Conservatives ‘won’ with less than 40%. Four out of five adults did not want Harper as PM! Some democracy!
John Ayers

One law for them , another law for us

So much for government assurances of sympathetic treatment for mortagage arrears by the banks during this credit crunch and slump.

The Financial Times reports a landmark High Court ruling under a 1925 law has paved the way for mortgage lenders to sell the homes of borrowers in arrears without seeking a court order after just TWO mortgage payments have failed .

The judgment dismissed the human rights defence of the homeowners in arrears and backed the right of GMAC-RFC, a specialist subprime and buy-to-let lender that is part-owned by General Motors, to appoint receivers and auction the property. The former homeowners were then evicted for trespassing by the new owner, Horsham Properties. The sale circumvented the court process through which judges can give struggling borrowers more time to arrange repayments .

John Gallagher, principal solicitor with Shelter, the housing charity, said the case “gives the green light” for lenders to sidestep courts with legal remedies “rooted in the 19th century and repugnant to most people’s sense of justice”.

Food for Thought

October 17th. was UN Day to Eradicate Poverty. Last year about 43 Million people took part in the global Stand Up, Take Action campaign. In addition, The Toronto Star editorial (26/10/08) headline read, “Vital to Reduce Poverty This Year”. Why this year, I’m not sure, as they have been saying this for about 100 years. How are we doing so far? The same newspaper highlighted the growing phenomenon of tent cities around North America. In Las Vegas, they are sprouting up in the shadow of the glitzy casinos. Can anything be more obscene? And they are not all mental health migrants. Seven out of ten are people from the area who have lost their houses in the current mortgage melt down. In Victoria, BC, a new by-law had to be rushed in to enable Police to move in and break up their tent city. “Ask not what your government can do for you…yadda yadda yadda” asJohn Kennedy once said. Indeed! - Never fear, however, Toronto City Council has found the solution. The notorious, poverty and crime ridden Jane/Finch area has been rebranded as University Heights with spiffy new banners hanging from the light poles. Now doesn’t that sound better? I’ll bet the people there feel richer already!- But wait! Our federal government will come to the rescue. Apparently they are not as cash-strapped as they thought and had us believe. Those poor, poverty-stricken banks, that have reported record profits for as long as I can remember, have received a gift from our government of $25 billion. And, the war in Afghanistan will cost $18 billion by the withdrawal date of 2011. Surely, the end of poverty must be in sight now. ! Not- On the environment, 46 scientists from ten countries, who are studying the Arctic, have concluded that Fall temperatures are 5C above normal, and accompanied by unprecedented rates of rising sea levels and the attendant effect on marine and mammal life. Is it time to act yet?- John Ayers

Reading Notes

- A few examples of how capitalism works and why:- “British Railway construction in Argentina was dramatic – from 1000 kilometres in 1871 to 12 000 kilometres two decades later, but entirely commercial in motivation: to move wheat and meat to ports.”-

“The effort to ensure a plentiful supply caused bloody conflict as one European country after another sought to establish monopolies over the produce of India’s Malabar coast (pepper, ginger), Sri Lanka (cinnamon)…”i.e. economic causes for war.-

“The meat-packing industry made beef an everyday luxury, but there was nothing benevolent about these butchers. Chicago became the world’s largest concentration of industrial capital, mass production, and human misery.” (see also Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle”).-

“Every tonne of sugar consumed in Europe came at the cost of one slave’s life.”-

“In Mexico, the pre-conquest population of five to ten million was just 1.6 million in 1618. In the future United States, the native population shrank from two million in 1500 to 750 000 in 1700 and just 325 000 in 1830.” No wonder the Indian T-shirt says, “Fighting Terrorism Since 1492”. All the above come from “A Brief History of Globalization”, by AlexMacGillivray.
John Ayers

credit crunch bites

The number of Scots declared bankrupt is rising at record levels, figures have revealed.
Finance experts PKF said in the third quarter of 2008, 5,998 people had been made bankrupt or entered a voluntary repayment agreement with creditors.
The firm said this was an increase of 26.7% on the previous quarter and a 70% rise on the same quarter of 2007.
A total of 14,008 Scots have been made bankrupt so far this year, while the total figure for 2007 was 13,814.
PKF said around 20,000 Scots could be declared bankrupt by the end of 2008.

work is bad for your health

Writing in the European Journal of Oncology, Prof Watterson, an expert in occupational health, said "In Scotland more people die from occupational cancers than die from road traffic fatalities, murder and suicide all combined."
He estimated that about 10% of all cancers were work related.While the issue is usually associated with older industries involving asbestos, Prof Watterson said carcinogens were present in diesel, pesticides, silica, wood dust and solvents. He added that Scotland gives a higher priority to road deaths and murders, which claimed about 1,250 lives in 2003/04, than it does to tackling work-related cancers.

Socialist Standard November 2008

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

editorial: contents: Also available as HTML (image lite) and PDF

Pages: 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Green Health - Red Revolution

from the bbc
Across the country, there are "health inequalities" related to income and social deprivation, which generally reflect differences in lifestyle, diet, and, to some extent, access to medical care.
This means that in general, people living in poorer areas are more likely to be unhealthy, and die earlier.
However, the researchers found that living near parks, woodland or other open spaces helped reduce these inequalities.

While the health specialists and enviromentalists place their faith in capitalism re-designing cities , the SPGB once more argues only socialism will create the conditions for the separation of town and countryside to wither away.

William’s Words

- William Morris continues with his description of capitalist production as War
in the pamphlet, “How We Live and How We Might Live” (page 21),

"Meantime, let us pass from this “competition between nations to that between the organizers of labour, great firms, joint stock companies; capitalists in short, and see how competition stimulatesproduction among them: indeed it does do that; but what kind of production? Well, production of something to sell at a profit, or say production of profits: and not how war commercial simulates that: a certain market is demanding goods; there are, say, a hundred manufacturers who make that kind of goods and every one of them would if he could keep that market to himself, and struggles desperately to get as much of it as he can, with the obvious result that presently the thing is overdone, and the market is glutted, and all the fury of manufacture has to sink into cold ashes. Doesn’t that seem something like war to you? Can’t you see the waste of it – waste of labour, skill, cunning, waste of life in short? Well you may say, but it cheapens goods. In a sense it does; and yet, only apparently as wages have a tendency to sink for the ordinary worker in proportion as prices sink:”
A good analysis of how economic crises come about and relevant given our situation today.
John Ayers

WHAT HOUSING PROBLEM?

"Each of the 80 floors in the world's first moving skyscraper — with offices and a hotel, topped by apartments — will rotate 360 degrees, all at different speeds. Designed by Italian architect David Fisher and located in Dubai (another is planned for Moscow), the prefab, wind-powered tower will cost an estimated $700 million. The residences will sell for $3.7 million to $36 million. The building should be completed in 2010." (Time, 27 October) RD

THE SAME DIFFERENCE

Amidst the misguided euphoria about the election of a Democratic Party president it is a sobering thought that whether there is a Republican or Democratic legislation capitalism carries on as usual. "Although there is a widespread belief that Wall Street prefers Republican presidents, most studies show that the market has actually done better under Democrats. Since 1901, the Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 7.2 percent a year on average under Democratic presidents and 3.2 percent under Republicans, according to Ned Davis Research. Looking at a more recent time period - 1944 through mid-2008 - the S&P was up 10.7 percent a year on average with a Democrat in the White House versus 8 percent with a Republican, according to International Strategy & Investment." ( San Francisco Chronicle, 4 November)
Changing the ruling party doesn't change the exploitation system that is capitalism. RD

AINT RELIGION WONDERFUL?

"A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said. Dozens of men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said." (Yahoo News, 1 November) RD

MERRY XMAS?

"Major high-street retailers are targeting poor families with bad credit records to prop up their Christmas sales during the credit crisis. Dozens of high street stores are taking part in a doorstep lending scheme which charges poor families extreme rates of interest. Woolworths, Comet, B&Q and Mothercare and 92 other retailers have been accepting vouchers that are repaid by borrowers at an annual percentage rate of 222 per cent – more than 10 times the rate of a credit card." (Independent, 28 October) RD

NEW YORK - OLD PROBLEM

Gina Catana and her grandchildren, Emily, 2, and Christopher, 3, at the administration building for a Bronx shelter. The number of families entering homeless shelters has been increasing

"In what some see as a sign of the economic downturn’s impact on the city’s poorest, more families entered the homeless shelter system in September than in any other month since data has been collected. Some 1,446 families entered shelter in September, city officials said. That was the highest number in one month since the city began keeping track 25 years ago. In each of the past three months, the city has seen record numbers of families admitted to shelter. With the increase, roughly 9,300 families are now in shelter, or more than 28,000 people. In 2003, when the previous record was set, the average daily census of families in shelter was 9,200." (New York Times, 29 October) RD

VATICAN BONUSES

"The Vatican has reintroduced a system of clocking in, nearly 50 years after it was last phased out. Senior clerics will have to swipe plastic cards when entering and leaving, all in a drive to improve time-keeping and efficiency. ... Lay and ecclesiastical staff working in the tiny city state, are now using the swipe cards. The cards have been issued to everyone from the lowest office staff to the heads of departments, even if they are priests and archbishops, though there has been no mention if Pope Benedict XVI carries one. ...It is all part of a drive to increase efficiency and to make the Vatican more meritocratic. Next year there are plans to introduce performance-related pay."
(BBC News, 3 November)
Capitalism is a social system that needs concepts like "performance-related pay", but we wonder how it will operate in the Vatican. One miracle equals how many euros? Two visions equal more or less than one miracle? We foresee some difficulties when disputes go to arbitration! RD

statistics and lies

The press made head-lines of this report :
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Growing Unequal? report published on 21st October 2008 found that “since 2000, income inequality and poverty have fallen faster in the UK than in any other OECD country”

However , not much was reported on this report Poverty and inequality in the UK: 2008 by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) published in June this year, which found that in the UK “income inequality has risen for its second successive year and is now equal to its highest-ever level (at least since comparable records began in 1961)”.

The OECD report covers the period from 2000 to 2005, whereas the IFS report covers data up until 2007. The IFS report notes an increase in poverty in the last two years which includes an extra 300,000 children living in poverty between 2005 and 2007, and nearly a half a million pensioners entering poverty in the same period. Overall relative poverty increased by 400,000 in 2006/07 alone. Therefore it could be that 2000 to 2005 was the halcyon period of UK poverty reduction (OECD), but this has been reversed in the subsequent two years (IFS).

even so , the positive spin placed on the OECD report couldn't disguise its other findings , that the “the gap between rich and poor is still greater in the UK than in three quarters of OECD countries”. It also states that “the wage gap has widened by 20% since 1985”, and that “child poverty rates are still above the levels recorded in the mid-1980s”

Neither report studied actual wealth distribution which shows that wealth inequality has expanded most aggressively in the years between 1996 to 2003 – the period of Labour in government.

Not considered was that personal debt ballooned in the UK from 102% of personal income in 1997 to 160% of personal income by the end of 2005 and now with the credit crunch unraveling insolvency and re-possessions loom ahead .

From LEAP

Alright for some , eh ?

Amanda Staveley , former girlfriend of Prince Andrew , is set to bag almost £40million in commission paid to her advisory firm, PCP Capital Partners, for brokering last week's £3.5billion capital injection into Barclays Bank by Middle East investors , according to The Independent.

PCP Capital Partners, which Ms Staveley founded in 2005, acted for Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nah-yan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, to deliver his £3.5bn personal investment into Barclays in return for a 16 per cent shareholding of the bank.
As part of the overall £7.3bn investment Barclays unveiled on Friday, the bank is also raising up to £2bn from Qatar's sovereign wealth fund and £300m from a member of Qatar's royal family.
PCP's total commission will be £110m, but after other advisers are paid Ms Staveley's firm will earn a £40m profit. While PCP also has a handful of other partners including David Mellor, the former Tory MP, Ms Staveley is expected to pocket the majority of the £40m.

Ms Staveley also previously brokered the takeover of Manchester City football club in August by the same sheikh, Mr Mansour, who is investing in Barclays.

Ms Staveley first started to make her mark with the sheikhs and the Arabian Gulf's kingpins when she set up a restaurant in Cambridge-shire after persuading her bank manager to lend her £180,000. Crucially, she set up her Stocks eatery close to the British horseracing hub of Newmarket.The patrons of the restaurant, where Ms Staveley would work while also dabbling in her alternative career of dealing in shares worth thousands of pounds, included senior staff from the Godolphin stables owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and the most powerful racehorse owner on the planet.
This is where the seeds of her association with the Middle East's wealthiest figures were sown.

Not what you know but who you know , it appears

HARD TIMES

"The number of repossessions in Britain soared by 71 per cent in the three months to June. The Council of Mortgage Lenders has forecast that total repossessions this year will rise by 50 per cent to 45,000." (Times, 1 November) RD

CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD?

"Two rival monks are posted at all times in a rooftop courtyard at the site of Jesus' crucifixion: a bearded Copt in a black robe and an Ethiopian sunning himself on a wooden chair, studiously ignoring each other as they fight over the same sliver of sacred space. For decades, Coptic and Ethiopian Christians have been fighting over the Deir el-Sultan monastery, which sits atop a chapel at the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The monastery is little more than a cluster of dilapidated rooms and a passageway divided into two incense-filled chapels, an architectural afterthought alongside the Holy Sepulchre’s better-known features. And yet Deir el-Sultan has become the subject of a feud that has gone far beyond the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. The Ethiopians control the site, but the Egypt-based Copts say they own it and see the Ethiopians as illegal squatters. The quarrel has erupted into brawls — in 2002, when the Coptic monk moved his chair into the shade and too close to the Ethiopians, a dozen people were hurt in the ensuing melee."
(Associated Press, 25 October) RD

US GURU SHOCKED

"Greenspan 1963: Writing in Ayn Rand's Objectivist Newsletter, Greenspan declared as myth the idea that businessmen "would attempt to sell unsafe food and drugs, fraudulent securities, and shoddy buildings. It is in the self-interest of every businessman to have a reputation for honest dealings and a quality product."Greenspan 2008: Testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Greenspan recanted: "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief...." This modern [free market] paradigm held sway for decades. The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last year."
(Yahoo News, 23 October) RD

CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?

For those not feeling the global economic crisis -- and not content just to wear diamond earrings -- a Japanese company on Thursday unveiled a line of mobile telephones encrusted with diamonds. Japan's Softbank Mobile said it will sell 10 of the phones, each studded with 537 diamonds of 18.34 carats from Tiffany & Co. The "Softbank 823SH Tiffany" phone will sell for around 1.3 million yen (13,265 dollars), the company said. The phone has a top that flips open to a display also designed by the luxury New York jeweller. Japan is the world's largest market for luxury goods and nearly everyone owns a cell phone, leading fashion companies to try to tap into the mobile market. Earlier this year Softbank rival NTT DoCoMo Inc. launched a cell phone designed by Italian brand Prada. Fellow designer Gucci also started a website for Gucci goods accessible only by Japanese mobile phones."
(Yahoo News, 30 October) RD

40 years of Shelter

Shelter , the campaign organisation which was formed to combat homelessness commemerates its 40th anniversary . 40 years on and still they concede that homelessness is a problem thats not been solved by reforms and legislation .

"I think it would be fair to say this: there was a housing crisis in 1966-1968 when Shelter Scotland was founded and we have today, sadly, a housing crisis of a different nature, but one which impacts on people's lives in really quite harmful ways...." Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland conceded .

As William Morris once wrote "The palliatives over which many worthy people are busying themselves now are useless because they are but unorganised partial revolts against a vast, wide-spreading, grasping organisation which will, with the unconscious instinct of a plant, meet every attempt at bettering the conditions of the people with an attack on a fresh side."

According to the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which said 11,054 homes were taken in the three months to the end of June, compared with 6,476 during the same period of 2007. A total of 312,000 people were in mortgage arrears at the end of the second quarter , a 16 per cent jump on the same period of 2007.

H0me repossession cases have doubled in Scotland since the start of the credit crunch says the Scotland on Sunday

Nothing like a wee job

Scotland

Statistics of occupational ill health, safety and enforcement

• Rate of self-reported ill health prevalence per 100 000 people employed in the last 12 months, 2007/08 (LFS) - 4200
• Rate of reportable injury per 100 000 workers, 2006/07 (LFS, averaged) - 1000
• Number of fatal injuries to workers in 2007/08p (RIDDOR) - 32
• Number of major injuries to employees in 2007/08p (RIDDOR) – 2 721
• Offences prosecuted by HSE, 2007/08 - 140
• Offences prosecuted by local authorities, 2007/08 - 10

http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/regions/scotland/index.htm

HOW THE OTHER 5% LIVE

"Once it was the Greeks who commanded the best boats. Aristole Onasis's yacht, Christina O, hosted Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Eva Peron and Sir Winston Churchill who were all photographed on board. Then the Arabs became involved. Ten years ago, Diana, Princess of Wales, was photographed sunbathing on Mohamed Al Fayed's yacht the weekend before she died. But in the past five years the Russians have turned it into a different league. Your bog-standard super yacht now costs between £40 and £70 million depending on the interior specification. The running costs tend to be about £5 million a year for the bigger vessels." (Times, 23 October) RD

THE BLESSINGS OF RELIGION

"It's the smell I remember. Shahnaz's face -- what was left of it -- reeked of a day old barbeque, left out in the rain. Her flesh was a mess of charred meat: her skin, the soft flesh of her cheeks, and the bones beneath had been burned away. Her nose was gone. Her lips hung down over her chin like melted wax. Her left eyelid couldn't close, so it watered all the time in an endless stream of tears. Shahnaz -- who was 21 years old -- had been punished by having acid thrown in her face. Her crime was to be a Muslim woman who wanted to be treated as equal to a man. Shahnaz loved education -- especially science, and poetry. But when she got married -- at the insistence of her family -- her husband ordered her to stop schooling and start breeding. "You are a woman, that is your only job," he said. But she refused. She wanted to work for herself, and enrich her mind. So she kept going to school, despite his beatings and ragings and threats. So one day her husband and his brothers carefully gathered up battery acid, pinned her down, and hurled it into her face. She ended up in the Acid Survivor's Foundation in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where I saw her earlier this year. In Bangladesh, acid attacks on "uppity" women are epidemic, peaking in 2002 with more than 500 women having their faces burned off. Fewer than 10 percent of the attackers are ever convicted, because juries and judges say the women bring it on themselves by wearing 'revealing' clothes, or refusing to obey men. Munira Rahman, director of the foundation, explains ..." (Yahoo News, 23 October) RD

A DREADFUL FUTURE

The world is on the brink of an avalanche in the spread of devastating weaponry, a new global non-proliferation group warned Tuesday, saying that a nuclear incident would dwarf the September 11 attacks. The Middle East, particularly Iran, is a potential tipping point, according to Gareth Evans, co-chair of the newly formed International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. Evans, a former Australia foreign minister, said the world had been "sleepwalking" on the issue of atomic weapons for a decade. "The devastation that could be wreaked by one major nuclear weapons incident alone puts 9/11 and almost everything else (in) to the category of the insignificant," he said, referring to the attacks inflicted on the United States in 2001. ...Evans told reporters there were between 13,000 and 16,000 nuclear warheads actively deployed around the world and that it was "really a bit of a miracle" that a nuclear catastrophe had not occurred during the Cold War or afterwards.
(Yahoo News, 21 October) RD

A PROPERTY OWNING DEMOCRACY?

"The housing crisis still has a choke hold on America: In September, 81,312 homes were lost to foreclosure, according to a report released Thursday. RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed properties, said that 851,000 homes have been repossessed by lenders since August 2007. In September, 265,968 troubled borrowers received foreclosure filings - such as default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. That's a decline of 12% from the record high number of filings in August, but 21% more than in September 2007." (CNNMoney.com, 23 October) RD

POVERTY AND CRIME

"The growing financial crisis is a double whammy for police in many U.S. cities: They face budget cuts as they brace for an expected surge in burglaries, thefts and robberies. "Police departments are going to have do more with less," said Chuck Wexler of the Police Executive Research Forum, a national law enforcement association based in Washington. "I expect police budgets for the foreseeable future to be flat or decline. That will mean less ability to put officers on extended tours and overtime during peak crime hours; it might mean deferring hiring officers for the future," he said. Although there has long been debate over the connection between crime and the economy, most of the criminologists, sociologists and police chiefs interviewed by Reuters forecast a rise in crimes in certain categories in the coming months as the United States heads deeper into recession territory. Crime has increased during every recession since the late 1950s, said Richard Rosenfeld, a sociologist at the University of Missouri-St Louis."
(Reuters, 21 October) RD

POVERTY IN THE USA

"The ranks of low-wage working families increased by 350,000 between 2002 and 2006, raising their numbers to nearly 9.6 million, or more than one in four of the nation's working families with children. The report by the Working Poor Families Project, an advocacy group that analyzed census data, defined low-wage families as those earning less than double the poverty rate. For a family of four, that would have been an annual income of $41,228 or less in 2006. The report's author, Brandon G. Roberts, attributed the increase to the growth in low-paying jobs, from health-care aides to cashiers, that form an increasing share of the nation's service-based economy. Many of those families struggle to pay for basics, such as health care, food and housing, a battle that Roberts said has grown more acute in the past two years as the economy has stagnated. "The stark reality is that too many American families have been in economic crisis long before this year," said Roberts, director of the non-partisan Working Poor Families Project, which advocates for state policies to improve the lives of low-income working families. "Even before this year's economic crisis, the conditions for working families were getting worse, not better." The report adds to the growing body of data illustrating that the dynamics of the modern economy have been unkind to many working Americans. Even as the economy grew at a generally robust pace from 2002 to 2006, fewer jobs were created than in previous economic expansions. And some 4.7 million of the jobs that were created paid salaries that would leave a family of four in poverty, according to the report. Overall, the report said, more than one in five jobs in 2006 paid poverty-level wages." (Washington Post, 15 October) RD

ANOTHER FRAUD EXPOSED

"For as long as man has worshipped a god, there have been forgers, crafty hucksters who seize on a believer's desire to possess material proof of the divine. In Jerusalem, it is a bountiful trade. The old adage is that if all the splinters of the True Cross were gathered from across Christendom, it would yield a wooden crucifix the size of a Manhattan skyscraper. Even back in the Middle Ages, pilgrims visiting Jerusalem told of hawkers who sold counterfeit bones and relics of saints. But indisputable historical evidence that Jesus Christ, or any of the other Biblical prophets, truly existed is something that eludes religious scholars. There was therefore much excitement in 2001 when a reclusive Tel Aviv collector, Oded Golan, announced that a stone reliquary had come into his possession inscribed with the words "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." The discovery of the ossuary was hailed in some quarters as a spectacular archaeological find — solidly circumstantial proof, at last, of Christ's existence. For it would have held the remains of the Apostle James, who was killed in A.D. 62 and is described in the Bible as Jesus' brother. When the James ossuary toured Canada in October 2002, it attracted thousands of the curious and faithful. Some visitors kneeled in quiet prayer. But back in Israel, police detectives, along with a growing posse of biblical scholars, were growing sceptical of the ossuary's authenticity. After a two-year investigation, police in December 2004 charged the antiquities collector and four others of forgery, alleging that the James ossuary was a clever fake and that Golan had masterminded an international ring of thieves that over the past 20 years had duped major museums and collectors out of millions." (TIME, 16 October) RD

A BOOMING INDUSTRY EVEN IN A RECESSION

France's former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua arrives at a Paris courthouse
for the opening of a trial over a vast France-Angola arms scandal that involves
the son of late French President François Mitterrand and dozens of businessmen,
politicians and public figures

A recent issue of the magazine TIME (14 October) highlighted the immense profits to be made in capitalism even in a trade recession. " Need to start a war? No problem. While stock markets grate and financial institutions (and even whole countries, like Iceland) teeter on bankruptcy, one global industry is still drawing plenty of high-end trades and profits: weapons."
The article reported the case in a Paris courtroom where 42 officials went on trial for taking millions in kickbacks and organising huge arms commissions from the Angolan government during the mid-1990s. This group, which included a former French Interior minister and the son of the late French President Mitterand, were charged with having supplied almost $800 million worth of arms to Angola, including 12 helicopters, 6 naval vessels, 150,000 shells and 170,000 mines.
The Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos used this huge stockpile to crush the US-backed Unita rebels during Angola's devastating civil war. It is worth noting that Dos Santos is reckoned to have made millions of dollars from the transaction and that he is still in power with no prospect of a fraud trial for him.
The source of this arms hardware was the huge stockpiles of Soviet weapons left behind when the Soviet Union collapsed. The French businessman Pierre Falcone allegedly plied Angolan officials with tens of millions of dollars - some of it stuffed in in suitcases - and deposited other sums in offshore accounts.
You might imagine that these shady dealings having been brought to light could no longer occur, but you would be dreadfully wrong. "Researchers say arms trading has boomed in the decade since the Angolagate scandal was uncovered. That's partly due to hightened supply. As ex-Soviet republics emerged as economic actors in their own right, several countries developed national arms industries, refitting weapons from their stocks and manufacturing new weapons of their own. These industries have taken off in in recent years. Ukraine has about 6 million light weapons from Soviet stockpiles, and has modernised tanks, anti-aircraft missiles and other weaponry, says Hugh Griffiths, an expert on illicit weapons at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute."
"It is very difficult to stop arms trafficing, because there is no control," says Griffiths, who has researched Ukraine's arsenal for the US government. Although NATO funds Ukraine to destroy its stockpiles, "the Ukrainians realize how much money they can make by selling surplus weapons," he says. In an action that broke no laws, the Ukrainians shipped about 40,000 Kalashnikov rifles to Kenya last year during the tense standoff following the country's disputed presidential election."
As the struggle for oil and minerals intensifies inside capitalism we have rebel conflict in Chad, Sudan, Congo and elsewhere. This conflict needs weapons and so the arms trade legitimate or otherwise flourishes. In Africa and all over the world capitalism reigns supreme. The basis of capitalism is production for profit, so in its remorseless drive for profit it leads to conflict, and eventually armed conflict. It is the nature of the beast to maim and kill and all attempts to civilise it by such grandiose titled groups like the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute are doomed to failure. As the expert Hugh Griffiths himself admits - "there are plenty of arms out there - so long as you have the money to pay for it."
RD

DRIVEL BABY, DRIVEL

"Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said Thursday that God blessed the nation with oil and gas resources and other forms of energy that should be tapped to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign suppliers. The Alaska governor told supporters at Elon University that she and GOP presidential nominee John McCain will develop new energy sources. "God has so richly blessed this land, not just with the oil and the gas, but with wind and the hydro, the geothermal and the biomass," Palin said. "We'll tap into those." Palin said some of the countries the U.S. relies on for energy use their resources "as a weapon." And she said the billions spent each year on oil imports should be circulated within the country "for the sake of the nation's security." "We need to drill here and drill now," Palin said as the crowd chanted "drill baby, drill." (Washington Times, 16 October) RD

WAR IS MENTAL

"The number of British military personnel discharged from the armed forces following a “nervous breakdown” has risen by 30 per cent since the start of the Afghan war. More than 1, 3000 have been medically discharged since 2001 when operation first began against the Taliban, new figures revealed. Of these, 770 belong to the army, which has borne the brunt of overseas operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. ...The rising numbers of service personnel leaving for psychological reasons will fuel concerns that thousands of soldiers face being traumatised by their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. Health charities claim that as many as one in 10 soldiers will develop a mental health problem from the horrors of combat." (Observer, 19 October) RD

NOT ONLY THE LAW

A judge has thrown out a Nebraska legislator's lawsuit against God, saying the Almighty wasn't properly served due to his unlisted home address. State Sen. Ernie Chambers filed the lawsuit last year seeking a permanent injunction against God. He said God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents in Omaha, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants." Chambers has said he filed the lawsuit to make the point that everyone should have access to the courts regardless of whether they are rich or poor. On Tuesday, however, Douglas County District Court Judge Marlon Polk ruled that under state law a plaintiff must have access to the defendant for a lawsuit to move forward."
(Associated Press, 15 October) Charles Dickens had Mr Bumble declare "the law is an ass - a idiot". If he was alive today perhaps Dickens would have declared US senators and judges equally asinine. RD

ANOTHER MARKET GURU

Mr Brown blames the unregulated stock dealers, Mr Cameron blames Mr Brown and socialists blame the slump/boom cycle of capitalism, but here is someone with yet another explanation.
"From his base in India's financial capital Mumbai, Raj Kumar Sharma has been tracking the turbulence in the world stock markets and has come to one firm conclusion -- it was written in the stars. As an astro-finance specialist, he has made a career on predicting whether the Bombay Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, Dow Jones or FTSE-100 will go up or down by studying favourable or unfavourable planetary alignments. Where many blame banks overstretching themselves or inadequate financial controls and policy, Sharma sees a clash between fiery Saturn and its arch enemy Leo as a key factor in the recent financial turmoil. "Leo is the sign of the sun and the sun is the father in Indian astrology," he told AFP. "But the son (Saturn) and his father (the sun) don't get along, so whenever they are sitting in the same house together, they always fight and create ill-will and danger in the market," he said." (TIME.com, 16 October) RD

POVERTY RECRUITS

"The economic crisis could help the military recruit and retain troops, Pentagon officials said Friday, potentially ending years of extraordinary bonuses and waivers that have become necessary to keep enough troops to fight two wars. "We do benefit when things look less positive in civil society," said David S.C. Chu , undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness." (Yahoo News, 10 October) RD

A REAL BARGAIN

"Presciently, the high-end Japanese bathroom-fixtures manufacturer Toto chose a time when the economy is circling the drain to launch its newest product - a $5,000 commode with a super-efficient flush. The Neorest 550 seems at first a senseless money tank, but at a swellegant downtown New York City launch party last week, the press and interested parties were almost persuaded that this fixture is more than a very dear john - if used right, it's good for the environment and it could even save you money. How? Consider the following. You'll save on toilet paper. Go ahead, toss the tissue. You're not getting your hands anywhere near your netherlands. The Neorest does it all for you: It offers a squirt of water in the rear, a squirt of water in the front, a squirt of water that pulses or a gentler stream for tough days. You can adjust pressure and direction from the comfort of your seat. Then there's a down under blow drier. No wonder the manufacturers prefer the term "Integrated Personal Cleansing System" to toilet. Or latrine." (Time, 11 October) RD

READ 'EM AND WEEP!

"In These Grim Economic Times, Here's A Gamble That's Tough To Resist. Cartier's Handsome Poker Case, Made Of Sycamore Wood And Decorated With Red And Black Marquetry, Comes With 360 Chips In Five Different Colours, Five Dice And Two Decks Of Cartier Cards. Place Your Bets; There's Already A Waiting List, Despite The $10,100 Price Tag."
(Newsweek, 13 October) RD

IT’S A MAD, MAD WORLD

"Robert Tchenguiz, the property entrepreneur, lost £1bn in just 24 hours after being forced to offload his stakes in J Sainsbury and Mitchell & Butlers as the fallout of the Icelandic banking crisis hit corporate UK. Mr Tchenguiz lost up to £600m on the sale of a 10 per cent holding in Britain’s third-biggest supermarket chain and about another £400m on his exit from the pub company, making the entrepreneur one of the biggest individual casualties of the credit crunch in the UK. He was said to be taking a philosophical approach to his losses." ( Financial Times, 8 October)
When I was a kid my mother read me the riot act about foolishly spending two shillings (20p) on the Grand National horse race. My mother and I were less than philosophical, but then unlike Mr Tchengiiz we were members of the working class. Lost £1 billion ? I shudder to think what my old lady would have said. RD

BUDDY CAN YOU SPARE A GRAND

Outside in the streets of New York you may be asked by some homeless worker for change, but not everybody in that city is finding capitalism a harsh society. "One of the quietest, most private rooms around is the discreetly deluxe Ty Warner Suite, which literally looks down on Manhattan from the 52nd story of the 52-story Four Seasons Hotel at 57 East 57th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues. With its travertine floors, grand piano, health spa and remote-controlled bidet, it is uncontested as the city’s most expensive temporary rental, clocking in at a Bolshevik Revolution-producing price of $30,000 a night."
(New York Times, 6 October) RD

CAPITALISM IS WORLDWIDE

"The Russian government will start buying stocks next week, spending billions to help prop up stricken markets, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Friday as parliament approved anti-crisis measures designed to get cash moving quickly into the troubled banking sector. Russia's stock markets remained closed after heavy sell offs."
(Associated Press, 10 October) RD

A FRIGHTENING FUTURE

"Pentagon officials have prepared a new estimate for defense spending that is $450 billion more over the next five years than previously announced figures. The new estimate, which the Pentagon plans to release shortly before President Bush leaves office, would serve as a marker for the new president and is meant to place pressure on him to either drastically increase the size of the defense budget or defend any reluctance to do so, according to several former senior budget officials who are close to the discussions." (CQ Today, 9 October) RD

Who cares about the poor ?

Our hearts bleed for them ...i think not . More than £100 billion will be wiped off the personal fortunes of Britain's wealthiest industrialists and entrepreneurs in the coming months as tumbling stock markets and sliding property prices take their toll according to The Times . What will the effect be on those super-rich , i wonder . One less house in their tropical paradises , one less luxury limosine ...

Certainly it will not the same as the consequences the Credit Crunch will have on the working class .

The number of people seeking advice from the Citizens Advice Bureau about how to manage their debts has surged by a third in the past year according to this BBC report. 77,000 new callers in England and Wales with mortgage and loan arrears.

"These figures show how the current economic situation is hitting vulnerable and low-income households the hardest."

Mortgage lenders, on average, started repossession action when people were four months into their arrears. No government bail-out or rescue for the poor .

House repossession was rated as the event most likely to cause mental health problems according to a survey.

"Even for people lucky enough to hang on to their home, the stress and worry of arrears building up can be enough to harm your mental health - this survey shows it worries millions of us."

CAPITALIST PRIORITIES

We live in a society where millions try to survive on a $1.25 a day, where children die for the lack of clean water and yet this society spends billions of dollars trying to find more efficient ways to kill people. The priorities of socialism would be to feed, clothe and shelter its citizens but capitalism has other priorities. "Top U.S. Army officials on Monday said a $160 billion Future Combat Systems modernization program managed by Boeing Co and SAIC Inc was "on budget, on track," but could see changes over time. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said the Army was going through a detailed review of 14 separate weapon systems included in the program to ensure that the technologies involved were on schedule. "We're committed to Future Combat Systems. It's just a question of adjusting as the world changes, and as the need changes," Army Secretary Pete Geren told reporters at the annual Association of the U.S. Army meeting. ...The Army's FCS program is a family of 14 manned and unmanned aerial and ground systems, tied together by communications and information links."

(Yahoo News, 6 October) RD

PUTING HIS FOOT IN IT

Last year when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown outlined his annual budget speech with these words - "Britain's growth will continue into its 60th and 61st quarter and beyond ...Inflation has fallen from 3% to 2.8%, and will fall further this year to 2% ...Looking ahead to 2008 and 2009 inflation will also be on target. And we will never return to the old boom and burst." (quoted in Time, 13 October)
He was warmly applauded by the Labour benches and praised by the press for his sagacity and prudence. What a difference a year makes. Inflation stands at about 4.7%, mortgage lender Bradford and Bingley has been nationalised and a deep economic recession looks likely. Capitalism is an anarchic, uncontrollable system. Boom and burst are the very foundation of capitalism. No doubt a future Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer will in turn pretend that he can control this mad profit system. RD

A MUCH BETTER IDEA

Robert Reich, former US secretary of labour, commenting on the recent economic crisis showed that he understood that China was a capitalist country when he said "There are still only two kinds of capitalism. There's authoritarian capitalism as in China and Singapore, and there's democratic capitalism as in US and Europe. If there's anyone out there who has a better idea, I'm sure the world would love to hear it." (Newsweek, 13 October)

If someone can get us Mr Reich's address we will send him a subscription to the Socialist Standard so he learn about the socialist alternative. RD

SOUTH AFRICAN NIGHTMARE

The end of Apartheid and the election of the ANC to power was supposed to see the grinding poverty of the townships ended, but the ANC have turned out to be powerless to run capitalism in a way that would end exploitation and poverty. Despite 14 years of power the ANC are just another political party dedicated to running capitalism. "A dusty maze of concrete, sheet metal and scrap wood, Diepsloot is like so many of the enormous settlements around Johannesburg, mile after mile of feebly assembled shacks, the impromptu patchwork of the poor, the extremely poor and the hopelessly poor. Monica Xangathi, 40, lives here in a shanty she shares with her brother’s family. “This is not the way I thought my life would turn out,” she said. Her disappointment is not only with herself; she is heartsick about her country. Fourteen years after the end of apartheid, South Africa — the global pariah that became a global inspiration — has lapsed into gloom and anxiety about its future, surely not the harmonious “rainbow nation” so celebrated by Nelson Mandela on his inauguration day." (New York Times, 5 October) RD

THE JOYS OF FREEDOM

"Two Turkish immigrants who were reduced to begging on the streets after being released from prison are pleading with authorities to send them back to jail, judicial sources said Wednesday. Sahin Eren and Erden Vardar were arrested in July, 2006 in southern Spain in possession of 11 kilogrammes (24 pounds) of heroin. But confusion over their date of arrest forced a judge to release them in July as the two-year legal period of preventive detention had passed. Since then, the two men have begged on the streets of Madrid, where they sleep in a Red Cross hostel. They have pleaded with the judge to send them back to prison, a request he denied as they have not been convicted and sentenced." (Yahoo News, 1 October) RD

The Crunch of the Matter

From one of our comrade fellow bloggers

Quoth Alistair Darling:
"The Financial Services Authority has announced a further increase from tomorrow to the compensation limit for retail bank deposits to £50,000 per depositor, which means £100,000 for joint accounts. That measure will ensure that 98 per cent. of accounts are fully covered."

Now, quoth Iain Duncan Smith:
"At the Dispatch Box, the Chancellor mentioned, quite rightly, that our protection covers about 98 per cent. of all depositors, but he will also recognise that we have significantly more money on deposit than Germany does. The reality is that that 2 per cent. represents a very significant amount of money. What concerns me right now is that, given the febrile nature of the markets—watching little things and then panicking—if they see any flight of capital, even that 2 per cent., towards Germany, it could cause another stampede and another crisis. I recognise the Chancellor's problem about indicating what he may or may not do, but does he not recognise that that 2 per cent. alone is perhaps enough to tip over the markets if they saw a flight of that money to, say, Germany or even Ireland?"

So, what they are saying is that the vast majority of accounts in the UK hold less than £50,000 (£100,000 for joint accounts) in retail banks.What they are saying is that there is an incredible disparity of wealth - but that the very wealthy have the capacity to cause crises by the overwelming might of their money.

Let's be clear, what this means. Economic crises are not natural phenomena, they are the results of the owners of society exerting their influence. They are profoundly political - the wealthy making us dance to their tune. The wealthy on strike.
Capitalism causes a crisis by its very existence, starvation, starvation related diseases, gross poverty, curtailled life-spans, wars - they are all ignored as background noise.
When the capitalists feel the pain, then we are all made to jump.
This isn't a case of being for or against bail-outs - after all, who can blame the man with a gun to his head - but a matter of being for or against capitalism.

Our only demand must be: "End class society!" else this will all happen again. It is not a glitch, it is politics, the political decision of the real voters to vote with their feet.

From our discussion forum
Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton has an interesting article in the current New Statesman:http://tinyurl.com/4h4ss8
"The problem lies deeper. Most Americans can no longer maintain their standard of living. Remember, Wall Street's near-meltdown originated with the bursting of the great housing bubble. That bubble had allowed millions of Americans to take money out of their homes byusing their rising home values as collateral for loans. But now the bubble has burst, those homes can no longer be used as piggy banks.…The bubble masked this basic reality: for most Americans, earnings have not kept up with the cost of living. The earnings of non-government workers who are paid by the hour - and who comprise 80 percent of the American workforce - are lower today than they were in 2000, adjusted for inflation. They are barely higher than they were in the mid-1970s"

This fact is so undeniable, that even the `CIA world fact book' (a US foreign policy reference guide - http://tinyurl.com/33l9f8) describes the situation in the US as:
"The onrush of technology largely explains the gradual development ofa "two-tier labor market" in which those at the bottom lack theeducation and the professional/technical skills of those at the topand, more and more, fail to getcomparable pay raises, health insurance coverage, and other benefits.Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have goneto the top 20% of households."

Now, for Reich this becomes a basic under consumptionist theory –that Labour was unable to buy back its produce. In simpler terms, it shows the basic failure of the sub-prime lending model. Lending to labour when wages aren't rising meant the whole of that lending relied on continually rising house prices, as soon as the rise stopped, the pyramid scheme failed.I think the most significant part of this crisis is that it shows how capitalism cannot meet workers' needs. All the talk of irresponsible lending masks the fact that in order to get and keep a roof over their heads, workers resorted to massive quantities of debt... this is where our focus should lie.
Obviously, upping wages would not simply end the problem, because cash strapped firms would be unable to pay them. But I think thisdoes confirm a class centric view that a weak working class is actually bad for capitalism – certainly, for advanced markets. I once read that the US industrialised so rapidly due to the small sizeof its skilled working class – this compelled industrialists toinnovate and improve the intensive exploitation of capital. The converse is true if skilled Labour is plentiful.More pertinently, if productivity has been rising without wage rises to compensate, this too could affect the quantity of money capital kicking around, hence feeding the stock market/banking bubbles...As I say on my blog today, the crisis is nakedly political - what weare calling a crisis is tantamount to strike action by the owners of the world, as they try to protect their investments and their income.I think we need to avoid giving the impression that it is a mechanistic problem, rather than the result of conscious human action in an unequal society...[An] interesting factoid from Alistair Darling's statement yesterday, by guaranteeing accounts up to £50K (£100K in joint accounts) they are guaranteeing 98% of deposits. That's a gross amount of inequality,because the remaining 2% contain collosal amounts of cash, sufficient to cause bank runs by their chasing security and returns.

That 98 per cent of deposits contain less than £50,000 but of the 2 per cent that were above this, they accounted for about half of the total amount desposited. In other words, the top two per cent have as much on deposit as the other 98 per cent put together, yet another confirmation of the Party's case over the years.

DON'T recycle Capitalism - Bin it.

Socialist Standard October 2008

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MORE RELIGIOUS NUTCASES

"In Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where the rule of law sometimes takes a back seat to the rule of God, zealots are on a campaign to stamp out behavior they consider unchaste. They hurl stones at women for such "sins" as wearing a red blouse, and attack stores selling devices that can access the Internet. In recent weeks, self-styled "modesty patrols" have been accused of breaking into the apartment of a Jerusalem woman and beating her for allegedly consorting with men. They have torched a store that sells MP4 players, fearing devout Jews would use them to download pornography."
(Yahoo News, 4 October) RD

DAFTER AND DAFTER

"A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye. Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive. The question of how much of her face a woman should cover is a controversial topic in many Muslim societies. The niqab is more common in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but women in much of the Muslim Middle East wear a headscarf which covers only their hair. Sheikh Habadan, an ultra-conservative cleric who is said to have wide influence among religious Saudis, was answering questions on the Muslim satellite channel al-Majd."
(BBC News, 3 October) RD

old and in debt

After a lifetine of labour and drudgery what do we hve to look forward in thetwilight of our years - more debt .

A study of over 60s who sought help from CAS found debt levels had risen to £17,767 since 2004, but more than a quarter had a debt of over £25,000. The report, Growing Old Together: Older CAB Clients and Debt, claimed that average debt levels for this group were 29 times their monthly income.

The research found that household bills, such as council tax and utility bills, created the most anxiety for older people and that they were using credit to pay them

City scandals

INSIDERS AND OTHERS

We can see today how easily stock mar­kets can tremble when investors get the jit­ters over, say, the mere rumour of a small increase in interest rates or some other trivial matter. Imagine what those jitters will be like when the socialist movement begins to grow. V. V.

A Glasgow comrade gives an insight to share dealings of yesteryear.( or “Is it this year?” )

Did you get your British Gas shares ok? What's that, you didn't bother? Well, neither did most other workers who had the chance, and no one knows how many of those who did buy the shares will hold on to them. It was estimated that on the day after the sale, around one tenth of the shares had already changed hands as small-time buyers sold out to the big institutions like insurance com­panies and pension funds. This is what hap­pened with British Telecom shares. When they were first sold in 1984 the number of individual shareholders was 2.3 million. By May 1986 the number was down to 1.6 mill­ion, a drop of over 30%, and this figure is cer­tain to fall still further as time passes.

Nevertheless, interest in the stock market is a lot higher than ever it was before. Until recently most people only ever saw the stock market quotations in the newspapers if they accidentally turned over two pages at once, but the saturation coverage by the media of the government's privatisation programme has changed all that. Also, the fear of unemployment has ensured that many employees of quoted companies follow the share price of those companies as a guide to their job prospects.

However, the workings of the stock mar­ket remain a mystery to the vast majority of people and this helps preserve the silly notion that financiers, stockbrokers and the like who do understand it are brainier than the rest of us. Actually, it's not nearly as difficult as it seems One of the main reasons why someone not involved in finance finds it baffling is the frequent use of several different words to describe one item. For example, government "stock , which pays a fixed rate of interest, is also called "gilts" (gilt-edged) or "consols" (consolidated) while "securities" is simply the a11-embracing name for stocks and shares of all kinds.

Different types of shares have different rights and rewards. The "ordinary" shares are the ones which actually own the com­pany. Holders of these have full voting rights and receive a variable dividend depending on the company's profits, if any, and what the directors decide to pay out. These shares are also referred to (more confusion) as "equities". "Preference" shares usually have no vote but entitle holders to a fixed dividend ahead of the ordinary shareholders assuming there is something to pay out. "Deben­tures" are loans made to companies by investors who receive fixed-interest whether the company makes a profit or not.

Until October 1986 members of the Lon­don Stock Exchange had to be British-born. And although they would angrily denounce "who does what disputes in factories, ship­yards, etc.. they had their own restrictive practice. This meant that only those who were brokers could buy and sell securities for the public and they made their money by charging clients a fixed commission. "Job­bers", on the other hand, bought and sold on their own account but could only deal with the public through the brokers and made a living from the difference between the prices at which they bought and sold. So brokers couldn't act as jobbers and vice-versa. Since October membership of the Exchange is open to other nationals and the difference between brokers and jobbers is abolished along with fixed commissions. Now the price on deals is negotiable

All of these changes, known as "de-regu­lation", are the result of the Big Bang" we have all heard so much about. The idea is to make the London Stock Exchange more competitive with its main rivals in New York (Wall Street) and Tokyo. After all, if custom­ers can have their business carried out more cheaply in New York or Tokyo then that is where they will make their deals and the new computerised communications technology makes that easy to do. This new technology also means that dealers in London will now transact business in their offices and the Stock Exchange floor will be almost deserted from now on

Any stock market must protect its reputa­tion for honest dealing If investors think that they may be ripped-off then they will take their business elsewhere and this is why the New York and London Stock Exchanges are trying to curb "insider dealing". The most notorious insider is the Wall Street speculator, Ivan Boesky, who for years had apparently anticipated the rise in price of var­ious securities which he bought on a huge scale. Hailed as a genius, Boesky had simply been using confidential information passed to him, for a cut, by people who were profes­sionally engaged in takeover bids which would push up the price of the shares involved.

It is hard to imagine that Wall Street didn't know what Boesky was up to. No one can consistently tell in advance what the market will do. The anarchy of capitalist production sees to that. When every company in every industry is making its plans independently of all the others, and when all of them are sub­ject to forces beyond their control such as decisions taken by foreign governments or even their own, then how can future market trends be forecast with any certainty? The truth is that large-scale insider dealing has been the norm for a long time and will con­tinue in the future whatever steps are taken to eliminate it. So much for the claim fre­quently made on behalf of the capitalists that their high returns are justified because they are the risk takers''. Not if they can help it, they're not!

What about the other claim that the capitalists are the wealth creators" because of their activities in the stock market? The real wealth of society consists of human beings using their physical and mental energies plus the resources of nature to produce the goods and services society needs. This wealth is legally owned by the owners of the enter­prises whose workers have produced it. All the workers receive in return for their efforts is a part of the total value produced in the form of their wages and salaries. The remain­der, surplus value in the form of dividends and interest, belongs to the owners of the various stocks and shares. These securities are merely legal title to this surplus and it is this title which is being traded when sec­urities are bought and sold. So capitalists create not a scrap of wealth and stock exchanges are only the places where surplus value is divided between them.

Even so, the enormous power of the capitalists makes them seem invincible and many workers, even against their wishes, cannot see how capitalism can ever be top­pled. But the power of the capitalists does not lie in the amount of pounds, dollars and francs they own. It lies in the fact that the vast majority of workers still see production for profit as the only possible method of produc­ing and distributing society's wealth. If that idea should weaken due to the growth of socialist consciousness in the world's work­ing class then the power of the capitalists would not look so invincible at all.

We can see today how easily stock mar­kets can tremble when investors get the jit­ters over, say, the mere rumour of a small increase in interest rates or some other trivial matter. Imagine what those jitters will be like when the socialist movement begins to grow. Who will be willing to invest then? Capitalism depends for its continued exis­tence on working-class support for it. When that support crumbles then so too will the power of the capitalists. V. V.

Socialist Standard February 1987

Reading Notes

- More definitions from the Devil’s Dictionary:-

- Infidel – In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion. In Constantinople, one who does.

- Idiot – A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.

- History – An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

- Heathen – A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.

-for socialism John Ayers

GOD AND MAMMON

"God squared up to Mammon last week as the two most senior figures in the Church of England rode into battle against City traders. John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, condemned as "bank robbers and asset strippers" the dealers who made millions by betting that shares in HBOS would fall in price. ... In The Spectator, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Cantebury and a self-confessed "hairy lefty", praised Marx for his attacks on capitalism and said more regulation was essential. Was all this criticism a little hypocritical, though? Ekklesia, the liberal Christian think tank, pointed out that the Anglican church used speculative methods for its own investments when it set up a currency hedging programme in 2006, in effect short-selling sterling....This year the church, with billions invested in stocks and shares, returned a record profit of 9.4%." (Sunday Times, 28 September) RD

BABY, IT'S COLD INSIDE

"The number of households in fuel poverty in the UK rose to 3.5 million in 2006, government figures show. The figures from the Department for Environment and the Department for Business show this is an increase of one million on 2005 levels. Fuel poverty is defined as households who spend more than 10% of their income on fuel. The Unite union said thousands more people are likely to suffer from fuel poverty this winter. The figures include around 2.75 million homes classed as "vulnerable" -containing a child, elderly person or someone with a long-term illness. The number of homes in fuel poverty in England rose from 1.5 million in 2005 to 2.4 million in 2006, including an extra 700,000 vulnerable households."
(BBC News, 2 October) RD

Food for Thought

- The current market meltdown is no mystery to socialists, just the normal operation of the capitalist mode of production. Booms and busts are created by the anarchy of production and will continue as long as capitalism lasts. Still, it’s amazing to see the wild market gyrations,and even more to witness the attempted bailouts. During the week of September 15-19, The Toronto stock exchange lost 515 points on Monday, lost 27 points on Tuesday, lost 349 points on Wednesday, gained 186 points on Thursday, and gained 848 points on Friday, after $180 billion had been pumped into the global financial system by the world’s central banks.Unfortunately, by September 29th., the markets lost $1 trillion, making $4.2 trillion in losses for the year and the American government is considering a $700 billion bailout, and that’s on top of several rescue attempts for large financial institutions.(AIG Insurance CO. got $85billion). Of course, that’s all in the casino economy, not the real one, but the worker will get hit again through job losses as the recession deepens and through his/her small investments or pension fund losses. Even Sir Isaac Newton was moved to remark, after losing a fortune in the South Sea Bubble,
“ I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not themadness of men.”

- Meanwhile, the excesses continue. CEO of the failed Lehman Brothers Walked away with $34 million in salary this year, and the CEO of AIG collected $14 million for overseeing the demise of his company (CBC radio). Richard Gwynne (Toronto Star, 26/09/08) reported that the pay of corporate executives increased from 27 times that of an average worker in 1973 to 400 times as much today. That means the executive has earned, by afternoon tea on the first day of the year, as much as the worker will get for a year’s toil!

- In Dubai, they have created a $1.5 billion tourist island, shaped in the form of a palm tree and with hotels that have $25 000 per night rooms.- Against all this talk of trillions and billions we learn that the UN has finally committed $3 billion over the next seven years, about $400 million per year, to the elimination of malaria. Malaria kills one million peoplea year, mostly infants, none of whom have any shares on the stock market and thus do not qualify for a trillion dollar bailout.

- The bleeding of manufacturing jobs in Ontario continues apace as Toyota cuts a shift and 1200 jobs its Woodstock plant. They may get something but it won’t compare to the CEOs parachutes.

- An article in the Toronto Star (19/09/08) reported that a national poll showed that nine out of ten Canadians thought it was “very” or “somewhat” important that the federal budget help the poor. Yet, Canada’s percentage of low-income people has never been lower than 10 percent in the last 40 years, and 150 000 to 300 000 people sleep on our streets or in shelters.They are still waiting for the ‘trickle down effect’ from the rich and famous.

- Haiti, battered by several hurricanes in the past weeks has to rely on star power to get aid. Actor Matt Damon and musician Wyclef Jean flew in to publicize the plight of the islanders. Give them credit for trying but if they have to wait as long as the Make Poverty History campaign, it will be a long recovery.

- Prisoners appearing in court in Durham Region (just east of Toronto)have had their cheese sandwiches cut to a granola bar and juice box to save money. They are finding it hard to concentrate on proceedings. A lawyer commented, “ In a 12-hour period, the prisoners are being fed the nutritional equivalent of what I scatter in the yard for the birds in the morning.” (Toronto Star).

- Ontario Premier, Dalton McGuinty has made bold strides to fight the economic crisis. After making poverty a priority, but doing next to nothing, he announced last week that trying economic times mean ‘adjustments’ to the programme. Say no More! - An agency to help new immigrants to settle in our region and servicing 40 000 people has had its funding cut by the federal government and two thirds of its workers laid off. The foregoing is to emphasize the fact that when the needy are in trouble, there is never any money, but when the multi-billionaire corporations are mired in a mess of their own making, trillions magically appear to their rescue, somewhat similar to the vast amounts of money that appeared at the outbreak of WWII after a decade of deprivation and starvation for the workers who were constantly told there was no money for them and their families. As I said at the beginning, this is the normal operation of the capitalist mode of production.
John Ayers