ONE TO MISS

"His birth was marked by a double rainbow and a new star, he hit 11 holes-in-one in his first game of golf, finishing 38 under par, and throughout his life he has performed heroic feats impossible for mere mortals. When he shouts, "huge storms happen". The life of North Korea's ailing leader, Kim Jong-il, has long been extravagantly window-dressed by the state's diligent chroniclers, but now it is about to get the full regal treatment with a new movie chronicling his exploits from childhood to living legend. North Korea's state media said this week that the first part of a multi-series documentary about Mr Kim's birth, childhood and early achievements, when he developed "military ideas and theories and tactics of [his father] President Kim Il-sung", has already been produced. Although other propaganda movies extol Mr Kim's boundless virtues – one records that he came down from the heavens accompanied by a huge snowstorm – this will be the first to "comprehensively deal... with his revolutionary exploits", said the Korean Central News Agency." (Independent, 17 July) RD

UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS

"Hotel cleaners in some of London's top hotels are paid less than half the minimum wage to service rooms that cost up to £400 a night. An investigation by The Times has revealed a pattern of ruthless exploitation in which immigrants desperate for work are paid a pittance for their labour at some of the capital's luxury establishments. A number of workers have told The Times that gang masters are fiddling employee's timesheets so that they earn only £100 for a 40-hour week." (Times, 31 July) RD

POVERTY AND ILL HEALTH

"People living in the poorest parts of Scotland are 64 per cent more likely to get type 2 diabetes than those in affluent areas, health campaigner have said. The charity Diabete UK Scotland also said those with the condition in deprived areas were more likely to develop complications, Type 2 diabetes usually affect middle-aged or older people, but is more frequently being found in younger people." (Times, 28 July) RD

GOD AS A HISTORY MAKER

"The Christian right is making a fresh push to force religion onto the school curriculum in Texas with the state's education board about to consider recommendations that children be taught that there would be no United States if it had not been for God. Members of a panel of experts appointed by the board to revise the state's history curriculum, who include a Christian fundamentalist preacher who says he is fighting a war for America's moral soul, want lessons to emphasise the part played by Christianity in the founding of the US and that religion is a civic virtue. ...One of the panel, David Barton, founder of a Christian heritage group called WallBuilders, argues that the curriculum should reflect the fact that the US Constitution was written with God in mind including that "there is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature", that "there is a creator" and "government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual"....Another of the experts is Reverend Peter Marshall, who heads his own Christian ministry and preaches that Hurricane Katrina and defeat in the Vietnam war were God's punishment for sexual promiscuity and tolerance of homosexuals." (Guardian, 22 July) RD

MORE CONSPICIOUS CONSUMPTION

"New York – A giant gem will hit the auction block in New York this autumn with the sale of the 32-carat emerald-cut Annenberg diamond, which is expected to fetch as much at $5 million, Christie's said on Wednesday. The flawless ring-mounted diamond, owned by philanthropist Lee Annenberg, widow of publishing magnate Walter Annenberg, leads the auction house's magnificent jewels sale on October." (Yahoo News, 22 July) RD

THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR?

"Service with a smile is no longer just a catchy slogan, Japanese railway staff are now required to check their chirpiness every morning. Keihin Electric Railway has introduced a "Smile Scan" system at 14 of its railway stations, and staff are being asked to double check their grins at the door. They sit down in front of a computer with nothing more than a web cam, log in, and the system then judges just how well they make or fake a smile. The system also gives feedback such as "Your smile is getting better" or even just "Smile like you're happy!"
(Yahoo News, 23 July) RD

"OUR BETTERS" IN ACTION

"Three city majors, two state politicians and five rabbis were among 44 people arrested across New Jersey yesterday when federal agents cracked an alleged Soprano-style crime ring accused of bribery, money laundering and trafficking body parts and counterfeit handbags. In a sweep that shocked even residents hardened to the state's endemic corruption, officer from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) raided synagogues, government offices and a Jewish school early yesterday before bussing suspects to the FBI headquarters in Newark." (Time, 24 July) RD

2 FOR 1 CHURCH OFFER

"The Church of England has developed a two-in-one wedding and baptism service as it seeks to make peace with families "living in sin". The "batch and hatch" liturgy allow wedding couples to baptise their children after the ceremony. Parent can even get baptised themselves. The intention is to encourage cohabiting parents to marry, but critics said that the service appeared to sanction having children outside of marriage. One of the Church's own bishop described the move as "nutty". (Times, 23 July) RD

LAND OF THE FREE?

"This summer, on a remote stretch of desert in central Utah, the National Security Agency will begin work on a massive, 1 million-square-foot data warehouse. Costing more than $1.5 billion, the highly secret facility is designed to house upward of trillions of intercepted phone calls, e-mail messages, Internet searches and other communications intercepted by the agency as part of its expansive eavesdropping operations. The NSA is also completing work on another data warehouse, this one in San Antonio, Texas, which will be nearly the size of the Alamodome. The need for such extraordinary data storage capacity stems in part from the Bush administration's decision to open the NSA's surveillance floodgates following the 9/11 attacks. According to a recently released Inspectors General report, some of the NSA's operations -- such as spying on American citizens without warrants -- were so questionable, if not illegal, that they nearly caused the resignations of the most senior officials of both the FBI and the Justice Department. Last July, many of those surveillance techniques were codified into law as part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FAA)" (Salon.com, 22 July). RD

When the killing stops?

An article in the Metro (28th July) a colonel Stuart Tootal said “I was extremely fortunate not to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)” “Suicide has accounted for more Falklands vets than the conflict did and it was a fairly conventional war”
Reminds me of a statistic I read about the Vietnam war where 58 thousand US soldiers died and over 122 thousand committed suicide after the war ended.

ALL RIGHT FOR SOME

35 chefs working out of a tent in a field, serving hot food for 700
celebrities

As celebrities and models sit down for lobster salad and beef with Cartier's wealthy customers, there is no mention of economic woes.
"Recession? What recession?" quips a 20-something model as she lights a cigarette after the meal. "In my world there is no recession."

An invite to Cartier's own marquee, where Mr Mosimann plies his trade, is the hottest ticket.
This year marks the jeweller and watchmaker's 25th year as main sponsor, and the company remains committed to the exclusive event. ( BBC NEWS 28th July)
"I don't want to spend money just to spend money," says Arnaud Bamberger, managing director of Cartier UK, wary of recessionary pressures. "But I do feel that when you have built up something over a number of years and it has legitimacy then I don't want to lose the momentum."

THREAT AND COUNTER-THREAT

Jafari said Israel was entirely within the reach of Iran.

Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, has repeatedly described Iran's nuclear program as a threat to its existence. Iran refuses to recognize Israel.
Jafari said Israel was entirely within the reach of Iran.
"Our missile capability puts all of the Zionist regime (Israel) within Iran's reach to attack," Jafari said. "The Zionist regime is too small to threaten Iran."(msnbc 25th July)

DOLE MONEY CHAOS

Kenneth Kottwitz, a laid-off cabinet maker in Phoenix, waited three months for his benefits to arrive. He exhausted his savings, lost his apartment and moved to a homeless shelter.
Luis Coronel, a janitor at a San Francisco hotel, got $6,000 in back benefits after winning an appeal. But in the six months he spent waiting, there were times when he and his pregnant wife could not afford to eat.
“I was terrified my wife and daughter would have to live on the street,” Mr. Coronel said.
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said: “Obviously, some of our states were in a pickle. The system wasn’t prepared to deal with the enormity of the calls coming in.”
The program’s problems, though well known, were brushed aside when unemployment was low. “The unemployment insurance system before the recession was as vulnerable as New Orleans was before Katrina,” said Representative Jim McDermott, Democrat of Washington, who is chairman of a House panel with authority over the program. ( msnbcnews 24th July)

FROM SPY TO TYCOON

"Alexander Lebedev is telling the story of how he met his girlfriend, Elena Perminova, who is 22 and heavily pregnant. We are sitting in the dining room of Lebedev's house in the ultra-exclusive enclave of Rublyovka, just west of Moscow, early this year. The house includes an underground pool with a cherub-laden fresco on the ceiling, Italian marble floors and a huge ovoid window onto a grand staircase that, Lebedev says, is typical of classical Italian architecture. Outside, there are four or five guards milling around in the driveway. Former President Boris Yeltsin once lived beyond the trees on the other side of a nearby tennis court, now covered in snow. A black BMW with tinted windows, its engine running, sits next to a wall that wraps around the compound. Lebedev, 49, dressed in jeans and a white button-down shirt and black vest, is sporting his signature glasses with rectangular lenses. He has tousled grey hair and a mostly English accent that sounds carefully studied, because that's exactly what it is - in the 1980s, Lebedev spied for the KGB while posing as an economic attachÉ at the Soviet embassy in London." (Yahoo News, 17 July) RD

BAD NEWS FOR OTHERS

"The FTSE 100 registered its sixth consecutive gain on Monday, its longest rally of the year so far. But Smith & Nephew lagged behind the trend after its house broker voiced swine flu fears. The orthopaedic device maker fell 2.4 per cent to 440¾p after Cazenove said the pandemic could lead hospitals to cancel elective procedures." (Financial Times, 20 July) RD

GOOD NEWS FOR SOME

"Some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies are reaping billions of dollars in extra revenue amid global concern about the spread of swine flu. Analysts expect to see a boost in sales from GlaxoSmithKline, Roche and Sanofi-Aventis when the companies report first-half earnings lifted by government contracts for flu vaccines and antiviral medicines. The fresh sales – on top of strong results from Novartis of Switzerland and Baxter of the US, which both also produce vaccines – come as the latest tallies show that more than 740 people have died from the H1N1 virus, and millions have been affected around the world. ... A report last week from JPMorgan, the investment bank, estimated that governments had ordered nearly 600m doses of pandemic vaccine and adjuvant – a chemical that boosts its efficacy – worth $4.3bn (€3bn, £2.6bn) in sales, and there was potential for 342m more doses worth $2.6bn."
(Financial Times, 20 July) RD

A GRAVE BUSINESS

Willie Esper, a gravedigger who helped expose an alleged scheme to dig up
graves and resell plots at Burr Oak Cemetery in suburban Chicago, says another
worker warned him to keep his mouth shut or risk losing his job.

Loose bones kept turning up as he practiced digging holes with a backhoe in a supposedly unused section of Burr Oak Cemetery, a historic black graveyard near Chicago. Esper refused to keep his mouth shut about the grisly things he saw, leading to the arrest of four cemetery workers accused of digging up and dumping hundreds of bodies and reselling their plots.

(msnbc 21st July 09)

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Describing themselves as 'good squatters', the men said they had plastered the
ceilings, linked up the electricity and had running water in the three storey
eight bedroom house in which they live rent free

"Squatters have moved into a £3 million property on one of the richest streets in Britain, only a few doors down from royalty, financiers and an industrialist billionaire. The three men, from Romania and France, have been living at the run-down house on The Bishops Avenue in Hampstead, north London, for the last two months. Not far away lies Lakshmi Mittal's £40 million gated home, Summer Palace, while members of the Saudi Arabian and Brunei royal families own large properties further along the road." (Daily Telegraph, 15 July) RD

A MAD, MAD WORLD

"A French court will examine whether the elderly heiress to the L'Oreal fortune, Europe's richest woman, was in her right mind when she lavished gifts worth close to $1.4 billion on a younger male friend. Prosecutor Philippe Courroye, who has been probing for over a year the gifts made by Liliane Bettencourt to photographer and socialite Francois-Marie Banier, told Reuters on Wednesday the case would come to trial in September. Banier, 62, a fixture in fashionable Paris circles for four decades, has received artwork, checks, cash, life insurance and other gifts from Bettencourt since 2002. Judicial sources estimate the total value of the gifts at about 1 billion euros. "What I have given to Francois-Marie Banier, though it's a lot, is not that much when you put it in perspective," Bettencourt told the newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche in December, in her only interview on the matter. Bettencourt, 86, is the biggest shareholder in cosmetics giant L'Oreal, the company her father founded. Her fortune was estimated at $13.4 billion by Forbes this year, placing her in 21st position on the magazine's list of billionaires." (Yahoo News, 15 July) RD

A CARING SOCIETY?

"A bleak picture of a mental health service that tolerates bullying and houses children alongside adults in breach of guidelines is revealed in a damning report from a government monitoring body. The Mental Health Act Commission claims many more patient deaths will occur through inadequate staffing and lack of training. The 248-page study, the last by the commission before it is replaced by the new Care Quality Commission, highlights how patients put on suicide watch are often poorly observed, leading to tragedies half-concealed by "falsification" of nursing records." (Observer, 19 July) RD

A BOOM DURING THE SLUMP

"The greed and self-centredness of the bankers that helped to cause the credit crunch is costing taxpayers around the world billions of pounds - but has brought a counter-cyclical boom to one business off the Essex coast. The Causeway Retreat, on a private island in the Blackwater estuary, has had a flood of stressed and substance-abusing financiers. ...Bankers account for about 60% of clients at the retreat, which occupies all of 400-acre Osea Island. ... A week's stay in the luxurious manor house costs £10,000; more mundane cottage accommodation is £5,000 per week." (Observer, 12 July) RD

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

"What does a Danish shipping magnate give himself for a birthday? Well if you're Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller, who turned 96 on Monday, you get yourself an 82-foot sailing yacht, according to the daily Berlingske Tidende said. The $11 million boat is a Finnish-built Swan and is Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller's eighth yacht, the paper said. Like his earlier boats, it will be christened "Klem," which means "hug" in Danish and is formed by the first initials of the names of his daughters Kirsten and Leise and his late wife Emma Maersk, the newspaper said. Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller's billions comes from the A.P. Moller-Maersk's Group, which is the world's biggest container shipping company." (Yahoo News, 13 July) RD

GREEN SHOOTS OF RECOVERY?

"UK unemployment rose by a record 281,000 to 2.38 million in the three months to May, the Office for National Statistics has said. The jobless rate increased to 7.6%, the highest in more than 10 years. The number of people claiming unemployment benefit increased by 23,800 in June to 1.56 million, which was less than analysts had forecast. Unemployment among young people has been especially acute, as firms cut jobs to reduce costs in the downturn."
(BBC News, 15 July) RD

WARLORDS AND WASHINGTON

"The Bush administration repeatedly sought to block investigations into alleged killings of up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners by a US-backed Afghan warlord in 2001, The New York Times reported Friday. Top US officials discouraged separate probes by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the State Department and the Pentagon into the mass killings because it was conducted by the forces of General Abdul Rashid Dostam, a warlord then on the Central Intelligence Agency's payroll, the Times said on its website. Dostam's militia had worked closely with US Special Forces during the US-led invasion and was part of the Northern Alliance, which helped the United States topple the Taliban." (Yahoo News, 10 July) RD

CHICKEN FEED FOR SOME

"London Mayor Boris Johnson dismissed the £250,000-a-year he earns from a second job as "chicken feed". Mr Johnson also insisted it was "wholly reasonable" for him to write newspaper columns on the side because he did them "very fast". The comments risk infuriating millions of Londoners struggling to make ends meet amid the economic downturn. And they are unlikely to please David Cameron, who has ordered his shadow cabinet to give up extra work in the run-up to the general election to show their "commitment". Mr Johnson, who is paid nearly £140,000 for his day job, was quizzed over his lucrative contract with the Daily Telegraph during an interview for the BBC's HARDTalk programme. He responded: "It's chicken feed." (Independent, 14 July) RD

THIS IS DEMOCRACY?

"In 2000, Jon Corzine spent tens of millions of his personal fortune to vault himself from political obscurity to the United States Senate. In 2005, he spent millions more to jump from Washington to Trenton and become New Jersey's governor. This year he's opening his wallet again as he looks to overcome a steep deficit in the polls to win re-election, in what could be the ultimate test of whether money trumps all in politics today. Throughout American history, personal wealth has often played a significant role in winning political office. But as campaigns are increasingly decided by 30-second TV ads and sophisticated get-out-the-vote efforts, the two major parties are increasingly looking to recruit individuals with personal fortunes that can help bankroll campaign costs that now more often than not run into the tens of millions of dollars."
(Yahoo News, 9 July) RD

SUPERMARKET EXPLOITATION

"Foreign fruit pickers are taking home as little as £45 a week at a company which provides some of Britain's largest supermarkets with thousands of tonnes of fruit, an investigation by The Independent has found. S&A Produce, which supplies both Tesco and Sainsbury's, employs thousands of eastern Europeans who are given a specific work visa allowing them to work for the company. They are attracted by the prospect of earning up to £200 a week by picking fruit on its farms in Herefordshire and Kent. The workers are officially paid the minimum wage of £5.74, a comparatively high sum for foreign nationals who often have an average annual income of less than £3,000 in their own countries. But employee pay slips obtained by The Independent show that the real hourly rate for the company's fruit pickers often amounts to less than half the minimum wage once a series of obligatory charges has been deducted." (Independent, 10 July) RD

A WASTEFUL SOCIETY

"... If this weren't bad enough, new research has identified and quantified a whole new layer of waste that has been obscured until now. A new book, Waste: Uncovering The Global Food Waste Scandal, based on three years' research by author Tristram Stuart, suggests that at least 25 per cent of fresh fruit and vegetables produced in Britain is wasted before it even reaches the shops. Piles of imperfect potatoes, spinach, tomatoes and other produce are left in the ground to rot, sent to landfill, or to anaerobic digestion, which generates power from the foul gases that arise." (Independent, 9 July) RD

EVEN THE DAILY MAIL!

"Official statistics show that the gap between rich and poor has widened under Labour, with the poorest 10 per cent forced to survive on an income of just £87-aweek compared to £96 in 1997. Health inequalities have also increased, growing 4 per cent for men and 11 per cent for women." (Daily Mail, 10 July) RD

A CLUELESS POPE

At first glance it might appear that His Holiness is getting bang up to date and having a go at the capitalist system, but on closer examination it is no such thing. "Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday condemned the “grave deviations and failures” of capitalism exposed by the financial crisis and issued a strong call for a “true world political authority” to oversee a return to ethics in the global economy. The pontiff’s call for stronger government regulation was made in his third and eagerly awaited encyclical, Charity in Truth, which the Vatican chose to issue on the eve of the G8 summit of rich nations being held in Italy." (Financial Times, 7 July)
What kind of fairy tale society does he live in when he talks about "a return to ethics in the global economy"? Capitalism is a society based on class ownership, exploitation and the profit motive. To talk of ethics in such a society is nonsensical and "government regulation" is powerless to deal with the slump and boom cycle of capitalism. The Holy Father should abandon his foray into political economy and stick to what he does best - scaring the shit out of believers and passing the collection plate. RD

HARD TIMES, HARD CHEESE

"Tesco are to put security tags on cheese.The metal strips, usually put on alcohol, razor blades and CDs, has been added to everyday items such as Cathedral City cheddar cheese and steak. If the strips are not deactivated at the checkout tills then an alarm is set off. The store in Brockworth, Gloucester, has acted because of a spike in thefts following the economic downturn." (Daily Telegraph, 7 July) RD

THE REALITIES OF CAPITALISM

Every Sunday the pulpits will thunder with the usual Christian nonsense. "Thirst not after the material things of life" ..."Blessed are the poor" and so on ad nauseum. Away from the fairy stories of the bible however the church like every other organisation has to deal with the realities of the capitalist system. "The Church of England is to debate several money-saving measures to cope with the recession, falling investment returns and a £352m pension deficit. At this weekend's General Synod, the governing body for the Church of England, clergy and laity will look at proposals such as trimming the number of bishops and other senior clergy and encouraging churchgoers to donate up to 10% of their earnings. A paper prepared by the diocese of Bradford noted that despite a "large decline" in church membership and full-time paid clergy, there had been no serious consideration given to the need to reduce the number of senior posts and the structures around them." (Guardian, 11 July)
The Church of England is finding that in a recession businesses have to cut their overheads - and that applies to the soul-saving business too. RD

Food for Thought 2

- Ontario continues to be the leader in job losses in this recession with 234 000 jobs lost since October 2008 (60 000 in May). Most are in the highly unionized manufacturing sector.
- Many workers who try to escape uncertainty and giving up most of the value they create to someone else by setting up in business for themselves learn security doesn't apply to capitalism. The Toronto Star recently reported on the case of an Iranian immigrant who paid $160 000 for a shoe repair shop in a Toronto mall only to find his lease was cancelled after three years when the mall "restructured". Now he'll be back to working for someone else, if he is lucky.
- Socialists are fond of calling economists of today the cheerleaders of capitalism, as Marx called those of his day `vulgar economists'. Thomas Walkom, political economist for The Toronto Star wrote, "(Adam) Smith argued that only labour (by which he meant entrepreneurial businessmen) created value and that government and its hangers-on added nothing." Say what! Where does the worker come in here? If this is the drivel economists are taught, no wonder the public never gets the truth.
- Some people are doing alright though. On May 30th. George Bush and Bill Clinton arrived in town to discuss the state of the world and answer questions for those dumb enough to ante up a few hundred dollars for a seat. The luminaries reportedly made $150 000 each for a couple of hours `work'.
- Speaking of pigs at the trough, more details emerged in the Ehealth scandal in Ontario. Consultants were paid $2 700 per day and then had the nerve to bill for coffee and doughnuts on top. One commented "I, unfortunately, happen to like muffins and chocolate chip cookies". So there! The CEO received a $114 000 bonus after just 5 months on the job.Meanwhile, at communications giant, Nortel, where the management staff declared bankruptcy, paid no severance to fired workers, and reduced their pensions to 69%, (while paying themselves $45 million in bonuses) an executive pleaded to the House of Commons Finance Committee, that the reason was he applied for bailout money and was turned down. Strange, an independent financial analyst who studied the case said that she believed that the company went into bankruptcy protection to avoid paying the severance bill, even though it had $2.5 billion (US) on hand. (Toronto Star 19/June/09). Somebody is not telling the truth. Guess who!
- While we are thinking of pigs, spare a thought for the plight of the world's millionaires. In this recession, their ranks have been reduced by 15% to just 8.6 million, and their total asset values plunged 20% to only $32.8 trillion (US)! That averages out to just over $37 million each, so we don't need to open food banks for them just yet. (Toronto Star (26/June/09).
John Ayers

Food for Thought

- How does government work for you? For Peru's Indians, not very well at all. While protesting oil and gas exploration on their lands, they were attacked by government forces protecting the rights of big capital, killing at least 30 protestors.
- The phony war on drugs waged by governments around the world continues apace. No country is free of drugs and in Mexico 40 000 troops, aided by the $1.6 billion US aid package, wage a war that has resulted in 10 700 deaths in the last three years but no decrease in drug trafficking.
- Then we can blame the government for the crap that goes on in its Schools. Recently, a grade 6 teacher in our Catholic school system had his students tie a letter to god to a helium balloon and let it go. Guess what? Somebody found one, replied to the student concerned, and this is proof that god exists, "I think a hundred years have passed since the famous,"Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus' letter. Perhaps this will have the same kind of snowball effect like – Yes, Bailey, there is a god" (Toronto Star) I'm happy that god is paired with Santa Claus because it puts in the correct context, but what drivel passes for education!
-How else does government spend money and resources? Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan are brought back to Toronto along the `Highway of Heroes' and given an autopsy. That's not to determine the cause of death because if you have bullets in your body or your head is blown off, the cause is pretty obvious. No, their findings are sent to military analysts to help generate better armour, equipment, and battlefield medical practices. Seems like the more bodies that come in, the more important information is gathered and the better the armour. Now if they put the same thought and energy into stopping war….is there no end to stupidity in capitalism?- Apparently, what government is not doing, among many things, is provide affordable housing for those in need. Toronto has 68 000 people on the waiting list and there are 130 000 in Ontario. They have been told to expect to wait ten years even though the Ontario government promised (in)action in 2007 John Ayers

OUR BETTERS IN ACTION

In the nature of capitalism it is necessary to have wise and learned people in control. Thus the need for politicians, diplomats, senior civil servants, financiers, political economists, bankers and lawyers. The list goes on and on of people who produce no wealth whatsoever but must be looked up to as "our betters" because they understand and can operate the system. So what are we underlings to make One of the defences of present day society and its class divisions is that because of the complex of this piece of farce?
"It would appear that the bank branded "Germany's Dumbest Bank" by Bild newspaper after an error handed $426 million to Lehan Brothers as it collapsed, can't get anything right. An executive at KfW Bankengruppe fired for the error has won a court case and two year's salary and bonuses." (Times, 3 July)
The whole thing beggars belief - far from them controlling capitalism, it controls them. Let’s get rid of this crazy system! RD

A BNP SUBMARINE?

The success of the British National Party at the recent European elections surprised many. Their success was put down by some as due to their new more "moderate" policies. How "moderate" they have become can be gauged by the following."Boats carrying illegal migrants to Europe should be sunk Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National party, said yesterday. In a provocative intervention, Griffin, elected to the European parliament last month, called on the EU to introduce "very tough" measures to prevent illegal migrants entering Europe from Africa. "If there's measures to set up some kind of force or to help, say the Italians, set up a force which actually blocks the Mediterranean then we'd support that," Griffin told BBC Parliament's The Record Europe. "But the only measure, sooner or later, which is going to stop immigration and stop large numbers of sub-Saharan Africans dying on the way to get over here is to get very tough with those coming over. Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats."
(Guardian, 9 July) Nick Griffin as a U-Boat commander is the sort of fantasy that must appeal to the crazed nationalism of some of the BNP membership. RD

AN UNCARING SOCIETY

"The body of an 85-year-old woman has been found inside her flat in central Edinburgh, five years after she was last seen by neighbours. The remains of Isabella Purvis were discovered only after water from her flat dripped into the property below. ... Last year, the body of an elderly woman, who had relatives living nearby, was recovered from a property in Stirling, 12 months after her death. An old man in Highland region who had died at home remained undiscovered for some time, despite the fact that he was a cancer out-patient and had missed medical appointments." (Times, 4 July) RD

Capital Accumulation Discussion Meeting

	An aspect of Marxian economics : Capital Accumulation
	COMMUNITY CENTRAL HALLS, 304 MARYHILL ROAD, GLASGOW (5 MINUTES FROM ST. GEORGE’S CROSS UNDERGROUND STATION) Wednesday the 15th July 2009 8.30pm P. Hendrie will open the discussion on this subject.
	Out Dated Marxism ?
	We are all aware of the critics of Karl Marx who say that he may have had something to say about early capitalism, but his criticisms are old-fashioned and out of date. Away back in 1867 Marx wrote about the "so-called primi-tive accumulation of capital" wherein he showed how the capitalist class in England had obtained its great wealth by such acts as the enclosure acts to throw peasants off their land. Today a similar process is taking place in Peru. "President Alan Garcia laboured Saturday to contain Peru's worst political violence in years, as nine more police officers were killed in a bloody standoff with Amazon Indians fighting his efforts to exploit oil and gas on their native lands. The new deaths brought to 22 the number of police killed — seven with spears — since security forces moved early Friday to break up a roadblock manned by 5,000 protesters. Protest leaders said at least 30 Indians, including three children, died in the clashes. Authorities said they could confirm only nine civilian deaths, but cabinet chief Yehude Simon told re-porters that 155 people had been injured, about a third of them with bullet wounds." (Associated Press, 6 June) Far from being outdated Marx's view on the development of capitalist ownership is being re-enacted in today’s newspaper headlines.
	What is Marxian economics?
	At the moment output is falling, unemployment is growing, prices are rising in essential goods -all things that no one wants to happen, but which nevertheless do. What this means is that the human social activity of producing and dis-tributing wealth is not under the conscious control of human beings. They do not control the condi-tions under which they produce and distribute wealth but, on the con-trary, are subject to laws which, while not themselves laws of nature, operate as if they were, as an external force governing human activities. Economics is precisely the study of "the laws" which govern human activity in the field of wealth production and distribution. An important point must be made straight away: economic laws only come into operation under certain social circumstances-when, in fact, the production and distribution of wealth is not under conscious social control. When, as today, the means of production are monopolised by a section only of society and are used to produce wealth to be sold on a market with a view to profit. In other words, economic laws are the laws of capitalist production and they will not operate when capitalism has been abolished through the establishment of socialism (when production will be for the direct use of the whole community). This is why we said that these laws are not natural laws. To say that they are, would be to assume that capitalism was the natural form of human society. Which is the mistake made by the early theorists of economics or "political economy" as it was then called, such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo who Marx criticised for doing so. Indeed this is what Marx's Critique of Political Economy (the title of a book he published in 1859 as well as the sub-title of Capital) basically amounts to. Nevertheless, as long as capitalism exists, these laws exist and operate just like natural laws; they govern human activity in the field of wealth production and distribution and act as external constraints on what humans can do. An understanding of these laws is very important; it is in fact a basic part of our case since it leads to the conclusion that capitalism just cannot be reformed so as to serve the common interest and therefore must be abolished if today's social problems are to be solved. Our interest in economics is simply to understand how capitalism works, and not at all to recommend policies for governments to pursue. This is an important point since "economics" and "economists" today are regarded, and regard themselves, as policy advisers.
	Don't recycle Capitalism, BIN IT
	Glasgow Branch of the Socialist Party

CANCER AND THE PROFIT MOTIVE

"Supplies of vital medicines, including those used in the fight against cancer, are running short because UK pharmacies and drug wholesalers are selling them abroad to maximise profits. ... The shortage is being caused by the falling value of sterling which has meant that UK pharmacies and drug wholesalers can earn greater returns by selling medicines to the continent. ... Last night leading cancer charities expressed alarm at the situation. "Cancer Research UK urges the Department of Health to ensure that no patient experiences any delay in getting prescription drugs," said Hilary Jackson, the organisation's policy manager. "We are concerned to hear of cases where patients have been delayed access to prescribed medication or have to find an alternative supplier. This causes extra distress at an already difficult time."
(Observer, 5 July) RD

CAPITALISM POLLUTES

"The pollution caused by half a century of oil extraction in Nigeria is one of the world's most disturbing examples of the curse of natural resources, a global rights lobby group said Tuesday. Amnesty International said environmental pollution in Nigeria's southern oil region, the Niger Delta, had deprived tens of millions of people of their basic rights to safe food, clean water and good health. In a damning report released Tuesday, Amnesty described the situation in the Niger Delta, home to 31 million people, as a "human rights tragedy" which had fuelled anger and conflict. "People living in the Niger Delta have to drink, cook with, and wash in polluted water; they eat fish contaminated with oil and other toxins -- if they are lucky enough to still be able to find fish," said the report. Farmland in the region, one of the most important wetlands on earth, is being destroyed by oil spills." (Yahoo News, 30 June) RD

THIS SPORTING LIFE

"Sport, of course, is all about the glory of winning and (if you are British) the nobility of defeat. Oh no it's not. It's all about the money. Which is why, Max Duthie, of Bird & Bird, says: "In almost every major sport today there are tensions between the regulatory bodies on the one side and the players or the teams on the other - and normally the argument is over money." Certainly in the three sports stories that are dominating this week - the Formula One punch-up, the Wimbleton showdown and the Sentana knock-out - the lawyers have all been poised, on the bench, waiting to make their entrance when required. Patrick Wheeler, of Collyer Bristow, says that there are four key areas of law that come into play in a sports dispute: intellectual property, contract, competition and regulation. All four are pertinent in the Formula One controversy." (Times, 25 June) RD

A SENSE OF VALUE?

"A rare antique whisky miniature has fetched £1,500 at auction – the equivalent of £750 per nip. The 90-year-old single malt, from the iconic Springbank Distillery in Campbeltown, Argyll, contains only two measures worth of whisky. But the 5cl bottle attracted interest from around the world at Bonhams' whisky auction in Edinburgh. Bonhams' whisky consultant Martin Green said: "Springbank is very highly rated in the single malt world, and this is a 1919 – the very earliest vintage put on the open market. "It is iconic, highly collectable, exclusive and also highly drinkable. You'd get two or maybe three good measures out of it." (Scotsman, 20 June) RD

MIND THAT GAP

"India needs to curb a concentration of wealth greater than that seen in Brazil and Russia or risk becoming hostage to a corporate oligarchy that will depress its rapid economic growth. A study funded by the Asian Development Bank found that, by early last year, India had 50 billionaires who together controlled wealth equivalent to 20 per cent of gross domestic product and, reportedly, 80 per cent of stock market capitalisation. “This concentration of wealth and influence could be a hidden time bomb under India’s social fabric,” warned the report. It was prepared by economists for the US-based Emerging Markets Forum."
(Financial Times, 24 June) RD

PENURY AT THE PALACE

"The Queen is seeking the first increase in the annual civil list for nearly 20 years to plug a looming £5m-a-year funding gap for the royal household. Palace officials have told the Treasury they need the dramatic rise to the £7.9m grant because they are exhausting their cash reserves and cannot make further cuts in spending. ...The £7.9m annual grant covers the cost of the official royal households, from banquets and furnishings to housemaids and footmen. Accounts to be published tomorrow reveal the monarchy costs more than £40m a year in public funds, excluding security costs, which are thought to be about £50m per year."
(Sunday Times, 28 June) RD

A WORLD WITHOUT LEADERS

"For about 94,000 of the 100,000 years of human history, people lived and organised themselves as hunter-gatherers without a centralized leadership apparatus. Hunter-gatherers began the transition to early chiefdoms and embryonic states between 3,000 and 6,000 years ago. Only in the previous 100-500 years have there been state-level polities. The earliest human societies were acephalous: they existed without formal rulers or leaders. For this reason, they were also probably without heroes, a pattern which is starkly at odds with what has been claimed of human history generally and which also contrasts with the contemporary leadership field." Taken from the inaugural lecture by the Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge "Leadership: Its genealogy, configuration and trajectory."
(Independent, 17 June) RD

A CANCEROUS SOCIETY

"Washington – Millions of people living in nearly 600 neighbourhoods across the country are breathing concentrations of toxic air pollutants that put them at a much greater risk of contracting cancer, according to new data from the Environmental Protection Agency. The levels of 80 cancer-causing substances released by automobiles, factories and other sources in these areas exceed a 100 in 1 million cancer risk. That means that if 1 million people breathed air with similar concentrations over their lifetime, about 100 additional people would be expected to develop cancer because of their exposure to the pollution. (Associated Press, 24 June) RD

SCRAPING BY ON £342,500 A YEAR

Sir Fred Goodwin has accepted a reduction in his pension payout, but some claim
his charity is a PR exercise

"Sir Fred Goodwin, the former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive who led the company to the brink of collapse and whose £16m pension provoked national outrage, has agreed to a £200,000 reduction in his annual payout. The 50-year-old, who was in charge of RBS when it recorded the worst losses ever seen by a British company, has volunteered to have his pension reduced from £555,000 a year to £342,500 – a cut of 38 per cent." (Independent, 19 June) RD

A $40MILLION BARGAIN

"Hedge fund supremo Louis Bacon, the founder of London-based Moore Capital, recently bought a house in Oyster Bay Cove, Long Island. I say "house" but the 17,900 sq ft, 10-bedroom, 10-bathroom, 15-fireplace, Normandy -style pile could safely be described as a mansion. That's not all. Located on the 60-acre estate, just past the tables, is an indoor tennis court. Yup, indoor tennis. ... Northwood has been on the market for almost three years, with a price tag of up to $40m (£24m)." (Sunday Times, 28 June) RD

CHRIST AND CAPITALISM

"Any reasonable reading of the Gospels will tell you that Christ was not automatically hostile to people who are in wealthy occupations." Stephen Green, HSBC chairman and Anglican priest. (Observer, 28 June) RD

LOADED BUT LOONY

"Shari Arison, Israel's richest woman and the controlling shareholder of the country's second-largest bank, said on Sunday she has visions and receives messages "from above," but they do not influence the management of her companies. Arison set off an uproar in Israel after she revealed that information in an interview with Channel Two broadcast late on Saturday. "I get a picture, I can feel it. If it's fire, I feel like I'm burning. If people are dying I feel pain," she confirmed in an interview with Reuters. The Israeli-American Arison along with her brother inherited billions of dollars from her late father Ted Arison, who founded Carnival Corp, the world's biggest cruise ship operator. She is the controlling shareholder in Bank Hapoalim and controls Housing and Construction, Israel's biggest construction company. She said these visions are meant to help lead the world elsewhere. To this end, she is releasing her first book this week, entitled "Birth - When the Spiritual and the Material Come Together," which details her journey both spiritually and in business." (Yahoo News, 22 June) RD

DOWN AND OUT DOWN UNDER

The OECD report says retirees should take out annuities which offer a guaranteed
retirement benefit

"An OECD report on pensions has found Australia has one of the highest rates of poverty for people aged over 65. The report says more than one in four Australian seniors live in poverty by international measures, which is the fourth highest old-age poverty rate in OECD countries, after Ireland, Korea and Mexico." (ABC News, 24 June) RD

THE PRICE OF COAL

"Ten-year old Yilong is already a statistic. Born at the center of China's coal industry, the boy is mentally handicapped and is unable to speak. He is one of many such children in Shanxi province, where coal has brought riches to a few, jobs for many, and environmental pollution that experts say has led to a high number of babies born with birth defects. Experts say coal mining and processing has given Shanxi a rate of birth defects six times higher than China's national average, which is already high by global standards. "They looked normal when they were born. But they were still unable to talk or walk over a year later," said farmer Hu Yongliang, 38, whose two older children are mentally handicapped. "They learnt to walk at the age of six or seven. They are very weak. Nobody knows what the problem is."
(Yahoo News, 23 June) RD

POVERTY? AN INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY

"Responding to the global recession, former U.S. President Bill Clinton's philanthropic summit this year will focus on ways for companies to profit from tackling poverty, climate change, health and education. To keep companies engaged in fighting the world's problems amid an economic crisis that has seen millions of people lose their jobs, summit organizers said the meeting had to evolve from an event where corporate chiefs showed up and just wrote checks to support humanitarian work. "We recognized that the CGI (Clinton Global Initiative) of old was no longer going to be a feasible model to move forward on," said Edward Hughes, CGI's deputy director and director of program for the fifth annual summit this September." Companies couldn't simply treat us as a place where their foundation would come and write checks to NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), but rather for them to remain engaged, (CGI) had to deliver value to their core bottom line, to their business operations," he said. "We needed to justify this as being a real value-return exercise." ... This year, the Clinton Global Initiative will concentrate on four new areas -- harnessing innovation for development, strengthening infrastructure, developing human capital and financing an equitable future. It says each of those areas offers companies investment opportunities, while at the same time tackling world ills."
Yahoo News, 23 June) RD

OWNERSHIP AND KNOWLEDGE

When technology makes knowledge globally available, reshaping the economics of
buying and selling it becomes crucial

"Ten years ago, a piece of software called Napster taught us that scarcity is no longer a law of nature. The physics of our universe would allow everyone with access to a networked computer to enjoy, for free, every song, every film, every book, every piece of research, every computer program, every last thing that could be made out of digital ones and zeros. The question became not, will nature allow it, but will our legal and economic system ever allow it? This is a question about the future of capitalism, the economic system that arose from scarcity. Ours is the era of expanded copyright systems and enormous portfolios of dubious patents, of trade secrecy, the privatisation of the fruits of publicly funded research, and other phenomena that we collectively term "intellectual property". As technology has made a new abundance of knowledge possible, politicians, lawyers, corporations and university administrations have become more and more determined to preserve its scarcity. So will we cling to scarcity just so that we can keep capitalism?" (New Scientist, 24 June) RD

SORRY, BUT NO MONEY

"The Senate unanimously passed a resolution yesterday apologizing for slavery, making way for a joint congressional resolution and the latest attempt by the federal government to take responsibility for 2.5 centuries of slavery. "You wonder why we didn't do it 100 year ago", Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), lead sponsor of the resolution, said after the unanimous-consent vote. "It is important to have a collective response to collective injustice. The Senate's apology follows a similar resolution passed last year by the House. One key difference is that the Senate version explicitly deals with the long-simmering issue of whether slavery descendants are entitled to reparations, saying that the resolution cannot be used in support of claims for restitution. The House is expected to revisit the issue next week to confirm its resolution to the Senate version." (Washington Post, 19 June) RD

HARD TIMES

"For a royal who was once rumoured to ask his valet to squirt toothpaste on to his toothbrush for him, the idea of belt-tightening may seem alien. But even the Prince of Wales is feeling the pinch from the recession. Despite being one of the country's richest landowners, with a £600m estate to bankroll everything from his eco-friendly Aston Martin sports car to ski holidays in Klosters, the heir to the throne responded to the economic crisis by slashing his personal spending last year by £500,000, according to figures published in an annual review. By ordinary standards, the cutbacks could hardly be described as brutal, but they suggest a prince who is at least attempting to economise. He has, the review revealed, opted to take holidays with his wife at his home in Scotland rather than travelling to Switzerland on expensive ski trips as he has done in previous years. The Duchess of Cornwall did not take a sailing holiday with friends in the Greek islands as she has often done and wears the same dresses several times, a recycling habit also picked up by the prince who said to be getting more wear out of his suits, courtiers said." (Guardian, 23 June) RD

THE LORD WILL PROVIDE?

"The Church of England is to debate trimming the number of bishops and other senior clergy, amid falling investment returns and a £352m pension deficit. The measure, proposed by the diocese of Bradford, will be discussed at next month's meeting of the General Synod, the church's legislative body. In a paper the diocese said that despite a "large decline" in church membership and full-time paid clergy there had been no serious consideration given to the need to reduce the number of senior posts and the structures around them. In 2008 the church commissioners, who manage investments for the Church of England, spent £7.3m maintaining houses for diocesan bishops and £14.5m in grants for bishops' support staff, office and working costs. At a briefing yesterday the synod general-secretary, William Fittall, said the church was experiencing "acute" financial pressures: "We are not in a situation of panic but we are in a situation of real pressure and a huge increase in pension costs is a real problem." (Guardian, 23 June) RD

381 x $140 MILLION, WOW!

"Washington – A top Air Force general, crossing swords with Pentagon leadership, says a proposed cap on the number of F-22 stealth fighters puts America at "high risk" of compromising military strategy. In a June 9 letter to a senator, Gen. John Corley, commander of the Air Force's Air Combat Command, wrote: "In my opinion, a fleet of 187 F-22s puts execution of our current national military strategy at high risk in the near to mid term." General Corley's letter, obtained by the Monitor Thursday, came in response to a query from Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) of Georgia, where parts of the F-22 Raptor are built. The 187 cap is the symbolic centrepiece of Defence Secretary Robert Gates's budget request, which aims to rein in defence procurement costs. He has said it is time to wrap up the program to buy the $140 million-a-copy plane. The Air Force had long disagreed, calling for as many as 381 planes as recently as last year, in apparent defiance of Mr. Gates." (Christian Science Monitor, 18 June) RD

THE ADVANCE OF CAPITALISM

Behind the flowery rhetoric of reformist politicians on so-called "green" issues there lies the brutal reality of capitalism's need to expand. Capitalism is a highly competitive society, with each national group in a fierce battle for markets. Here is a small example of how the expansion of capitalism is deforesting the planet. " Uganda has lost nearly a third of its forest cover since 1990 due to expanding farmlands, a rapidly growing human population and increased urbanisation, a government report said on Friday. In 1990, the east African nation had more than five million hectares of forest cover but by 2005 only 3.5 million hectares (8.6 million acres) remained, the report, published by Ugandan's National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), said. If deforestation continues at the present rate Uganda will have lost all its forested land by 2050, it warned." (Yahoo News, 19 June)
Only a society with production solely for use can save the forests, the oceans and eventually humankind itself. RD

AN UPSIDE-DOWN SOCIETY

"A collection of more than 3,000 inverted stamps has sold at auction in New York for more than $5 million. The two-day auction by Spink Shreves Galleries ended Friday. The collection was amassed by Pittsburgh stockbroker Robert H. Cunliffe, who died last year. Charles Shreve, president of the Dallas-based gallery, says it was the most comprehensive collection of inverts ever formed. Inverted stamps result when different colors and elements are printed in separate press runs and a sheet gets flipped upside-down between press runs."
(Associated Press, 19 June) RD

LAND OF THE FREE?

Kenneth L. Wainstein testified about surveillance in Fall 2007 at a Senate
committee hearing.

"Washington — The National Security Agency is facing renewed scrutiny over the extent of its domestic surveillance program, with critics in Congress saying its recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged, current and former officials said. The agency’s monitoring of domestic e-mail messages, in particular, has posed longstanding legal and logistical difficulties, the officials said. Since April, when it was disclosed that the intercepts of some private communications of Americans went beyond legal limits in late 2008 and early 2009, several Congressional committees have been investigating. Those inquiries have led to concerns in Congress about the agency’s ability to collect and read domestic e-mail messages of Americans on a widespread basis, officials said. Supporting that conclusion is the account of a former N.S.A. analyst who, in a series of interviews, described being trained in 2005 for a program in which the agency routinely examined large volumes of Americans’ e-mail messages without court warrants. Two intelligence officials confirmed that the program was still in operation."
(New York Times, 17 June) RD

ONE BILLION REASONS FOR SOCIALISM

"One billion people throughout the world suffer from hunger, a figure which has increased by 100 million because of the global financial crisis, says the UN. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said the figure was a record high. Persistently high food prices have also contributed to the hunger crisis. The director general of the FAO said the level of hunger, one-sixth of the world's population, posed a "serious risk" to world peace and security. The UN said almost all of the world's undernourished live in developing countries, with the most, some 642 million people, living in the Asia-Pacific region." (BBC News, 20 June) RD

"EXPERTS" IN ACTION”

" an economics profession that had wandered down so many blind alleys in recent decades that, in the United States between 1985 and 2000, out of 7,000 academic articles produced under the aegis of the National Bureau of Economic Research, only five mentioned fiscal policy, and the consensus was that markets were so perfect that crisis such as we have recently been experiencing simply could not happen." (Times, 14 June) RD

Capitalism is working as normal.

Capitalism is working as normal.

1.02 billion people hungry.

The faces behind the numbers.

One sixth of humanity undernourished - more than ever before.

19 June 2009, Rome - World hunger is projected to reach a historic high in 2009 with 1 020 million people going hungry every day, according to new estimates published by FAO today.The most recent increase in hunger is not the consequence of poor global harvests but is caused by the world economic crisis that has resulted in lower incomes and increased unemployment. This has reduced access to food by the poor, the UN agency said."A dangerous mix of the global economic slowdown combined with stubbornly high food prices in many countries has pushed some 100 million more people than last year into chronic hunger and poverty," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. "The silent hunger crisis — affecting one sixth of all of humanity — poses a serious risk for world peace and security. We urgently need to forge a broad consensus on the total and rapid eradication of hunger in the world and to take the necessary actions.""The present situation of world food insecurity cannot leave us indifferent," he added.Poor countries, Diouf stressed, "must be given the development, economic and policy tools required to boost their agricultural production and productivity. Investment in agriculture must be increased because for the majority of poor countries a healthy agricultural sector is essential to overcome poverty and hunger and is a pre-requisite for overall economic growth."

Full report below.

http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/20568/icode/

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Capitalism is working as normal.Let us work to get rid of this foul system and establish a free access society of socialism/communism.Production for use based upon, voluntary labour, access to its produce based upon, self determined need.

A democratic society without nation states ,elites,leaders,markets and their corolary, buying and selling.

What is socialism? F.A.Q. What is capitalism?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

RECESSION RECRUITMENT (2)

"Annapolis, Md. – Applications have surged at the nation's three top military academies as tough economic times coincide with stepped-up recruiting efforts by the Army, Navy and Air Force schools, making the prospect of free college and a steady job look sweeter. The recession has already helped drive higher military recruitment and retention. Stronger student response to recruiting campaigns by the three academies, who want to increase minority ranks in the officer corps, comes as the recession has reduced college scholarships and other financial aid. As of this week, the U.S. Naval Academy was out in front with a 40 percent increase in applications compared with last year. Annapolis received about 15,300 applications for about 1,230 positions — the highest number of applications the academy has received since 1988."
(Associated Press, 16 June) RD

PRICEY, BUT A NICE EXHAUST NOTE!

"Is this the best Aston ever? Just maybe. By fitting a mighty 6.0-litre V12 engine into its petite Vantage, the company has created a car few machines can rival for character and driver appeal. The £135,000 model is also well engineered, and a treat to spend time in. Squeezing into the figure-hugging driver's seat is no mean feat, but immensely rewarding. And we can't think of anything with a better exhaust note! (First Post, 17 June) RD

A SENSE OF VALUES?

"A rare Abraham Lincoln stamp that was stolen from Indiana in 1967 and surfaced 39 years later in Chicago has sold at auction for more than $430,000. The stamped envelope was auctioned Saturday at Manhattan's Robert A. Siegel galleries. The buyer is Arthur K.M. Woo, a doctor who would reveal nothing more about himself. He paid $431,250 for the 90-cent stamp, against a pre-sale estimate of $300,000 to $400,000, including the buyer's premium." (Associated Press, 14 June) RD

THE HIGH COST OF DYING

"Execution by firing squad will be halted in Beijing by the end of the year, to be replaced by lethal injection. The ruling is designed to make the death penalty less cumbersome and to reduce the trauma to all involved, including executioners and family, the Beijing Youth Daily reported. One legal expert said: "The execution process is rather bloody, placing great pressure both on the criminal and on those involved in carrying out the sentence." China has been slow to switch to lethal injections because of the extra costs - each dose of potassium cyanide costs 300 yuan ($5.48)" (The Australian, 17 June). RD

ITS A MAD, MAD WORLD

"Such is the lack of work that the £80 million transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo ranks as 31st in the league table for UK mergers and acquisitions this year by Thomson Reuters. I wonder about such deals: it's a bit like when you read that some idiot has paid £10,000 for an exotic goldfish - you think, what if it dies? I am told that footballers such as Ronaldo are insured. But if they suddenly hit a run of bad play? There must be some temptation to arrange an "accident" for the insurance money, surely?" (City Diary by Martin Walker, Times, 16 June) RD

THE POOR GET POORER

"The burden of rising unemployment in England is falling mainly on the most deprived areas and threatens to undermine the government’s anti-poverty drive, Financial Times research has shown. An analysis of people signing on for the jobseeker’s allowance in the first four months of this year indicates nearly two-thirds of the 344,000 increase was in areas with above-average levels of deprivation. This confirms other data suggesting this downturn, far from being a mainly middle-class recession focused on south-east England, is primarily hitting low-income workers in the traditional industrial heartlands such as the Midlands and northern England. Even though there are signs of a modest return to growth nationally in manufacturing and services, parts of these regions may take longer to recover. Unemployment, currently at 2.2m, is likely to continue to rise for several months." (Financial Times, 15 June) RD

RECESSION RECRUITMENT

The quality of new soldiers is increasing as a lack of civilian jobs prompts fitter, smarter men to opt for a career in uniform. The influx of "recession recruits" has pushed the drop-out rate on the infantry's gruelling, basic-training course below 30 per cent for the first time. Brigadier James Stevenson, Commandant of the School of Infantry, said that economic slumps historically boosted army recruitment." (Times, 15 June) RD

A SHAMEFUL WASTE

"China spent $84.9 billion (£53 billion) on is military last year, second only to the United States, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Its report said that France moved into third place in spending with Britain fourth. Military spending worldwide rose by 4 per cent to $1.46 trillion, the report said." (Times, 9 June) RD

BABY, IT'S COLD INSIDE

"The government was today urged to offer more help to the millions of families in fuel poverty due to rising energy prices. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee said ministers had failed to meet statutory obligations to end fuel poverty and called on them to set up an action plan to help people struggling with energy bills as a matter of urgency. It warned the resources available for tackling fuel poverty were "inadequate and getting worse". Anyone spending at least 10% of their income on heating and lighting their home is deemed to be living in fuel poverty. ...Jonathan Stearn, energy expert for Consumer Focus, said it was "outrageous" that there were still more than 5 million vulnerable households struggling to afford to heat and power their homes. He added: "The government's energy efficiency schemes are simply not up to scratch. Immediate investment is needed in a radical and co-ordinated action plan if we are to lift millions of the poorest pensioners, families and disabled people out of fuel poverty and cut carbon emissions." Michelle Mitchell, charity director for Age Concern and Help the Aged, said: "The report sounds a loud wake-up call for the government, whose strategy to tackle fuel poverty is miles away from reaching its targets." (Guardian, 10 June) RD

HOME OF THE BRAVE?

"Brunswick, Maine - The old, run-down trailer in the backcountry near Norridgewock wasn't much to look at, but it was home. That was before the landlord died, setting in motion events that left Michelle DeStoop, Bobby Landry and their six children without a place of their own. After losing their home, they sold their car to a junkyard when they couldn't afford to have it repaired. Without a car, they couldn't get around. Low on money, they lost their meager possessions when they couldn't pay the bill for storage. Homelessness often means life in soup lines and on city streets, but as a new study commissioned by the state shows, it isn't confined to cities. It also can be found across rural areas, so concealed that some people are surprised it exists at all, the study finds." (Associated Press, 6 June) RD

GUNS YES, HEALTH NO

"The health service will face the most severe and sustained financial shortfall in its history after 2011, a report by NHS managers warns. The NHS Confederation report says the health service in England will not survive unchanged, the BBC has learned. Managers at its conference will be told they face an "extremely challenging" financial outlook. ...The report, to be published on Wednesday, warns any modest cash increases could be outstripped by rising costs within the health service. This would leave the NHS in England facing a real-terms reduction of between £8bn and 10bn over the three years after 2011." (BBC News, 10 June) RD

Reading Notes

- "It was the first time I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically any building of any size had been seized by the workers. Every shop and café had an inscription saying it was collectivized; even the boot blacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black.Waiters and shop walkers looked you in the face and treated you as equals. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. There were no private cars; they had all been commandeered. It was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist.Above all there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in a capitalist machine." George Orwell, describing the workers' Catalonia in the Spanish Civil War in "Homage to Catalonia. Not quite socialist yet (boot blacks? Waiters?) but a hint of the feeling when the real socialist revolution comes along!
For socialism, John Ayers

THE PRICE OF OIL

"Royal Dutch Shell and the families of Ken Saro-Wiwa, an executed Nigerian opposition leader, and other activists hanged by the military government in 1995, on Monday agreed a $15.5m settlement in a New York court case stemming from allegations the oil group was complicit in the executions. The settlement, in which Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary denied any liability, ended a 13-year campaign by relations and supporters of Saro-Wiwa to hold the company accountable. A spokesman for the plaintiffs said $5m of the settlement to be paid by Shell would be put into a trust fund to promote education and welfare in the Ogoniland region of the Niger delta. The balance would be shared among 10 plaintiffs after legal costs were met. Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists were hanged after leading a campaign against Shell’s activities in the region and the then military-led government. ...Oil production stopped in Ogoniland in 1993 when Shell ceased operations amid mass protests led by Saro-Wiwa against the environmental damage alleged to have been inflicted by the company’s operations. The plaintiffs had alleged that at the request of Shell, and with its assistance and financing, Nigerian soldiers used deadly force and massive, brutal raids against the Ogoni people throughout the early 1990s to repress a movement against the oil company." (Financial Times, 9 June) RD

Food for Thought 4

- The number of homes repossessed by banks in Toronto rose 44% from March 2008 to this March.
- Further afield, the star economy of the neo-cons, Ireland, has crashed and burned further and faster than any European economy, posting the biggest drop in GDP of any industrialized nation since the Great Depression. The C.D. Howe and Fraser Institutes praised Ireland in 2003 for aggressive tax reduction that `yielded enormous benefits'. Prosperity was founded on low-cost labour, an advantage it soon lost. (Toronto Star, 3/May/09).
- On the health front, the good news is that the swine flu has disappeared. Unfortunately, it reappeared as H1N1, renamed by the World Health Organization in deference to the pork industry. Rick Arnold of Common Frontiers calls it NAFTA flu and argues multi nationals are getting away with dire conditions not allowed north of the Mexican border. The first case occurred near the hog farms of US giant Smithfield Farms ($12 billion annual sales). In the US, Smithfield was fined $12.6 million in 1997 for dumping raw sewage into a river. Do you see a pattern here?
- Fast food companies are adding vitamins to their food so they can advertise them as healthy eating. So French fries cooked in trans fat but containing vitamin C are healthy. Will these guys ever quit trying to circumvent good practices in the name of profit? No, and we can't expect them to do so while the profit system is in tact.
- Similarly, the Canadian government is getting worried as California passed a climate change bill with a low carbon fuel standard, and other states may follow. After failing to influence Arnold Schwarzenegger, claiming that targeting the oil sands would divert money to oil rich countries that fund terrorism and threaten our security (as if the US would fall for that one – they made it up in the first place!), our government has started an intense education program for our top diplomats so that they will be able to present Canada as a clean energy super power. That's the dirtiest project on earth we are talking about!
- Michelle Obama showed support for the poor by showing up at a Washington food bank wearing sneakers, $540 sneakers by the Paris house of Lanvin! The fact that people were lining up to receive handouts while she was able to spend that kind of money on casual shoes was apparently lost on her. She should have thrown the shoes to the crowd. One shoe would have fed a family for a month. Hell, a lace would have fed them for a week!
John Ayers

Food for Thought 3

- The auto manufacturers continue to go after workers' benefits during these difficult economic times, as we expect. After reaching a deal two months ago, the US government ordered the contracts re-opened and further cuts to benefits. The workers lose another $15/hour in wages and benefits, on top of the $6/hour already taken. They lose cost of living allowances, one week of paid vacation, a $1,700 Christmas bonus, $3,500 in one-time holiday pay, school tuition assistance and semi-private hospital care. Pensioners lose cost of living increases. Today, GM filed for bankruptcy, will receive further government funds ($20 billion) to restructure and come back firing 21 000 employees and closing many dealerships (and firing their employees). Not to be outdone, Ontario Premier McGuinty, rejected a call for executive pay at companies receiving government money to be capped at $400 000, but he was not slow in joining other governments in insisting on pay cuts for workers. Let's hope the workers in that industry become a bit more class conscious through all this turmoil. John Ayers

A SENSE OF VALUES?

"A legendary rare stamp, a 'Post Office' Mauritius One Penny Red, sold Friday at an auction in Germany for 210,000 euros (277,000 dollars), disappointing its previous owner, who had been expecting more. Ullrich Schulze had mislaid the ancient postage stamp in one of his albums 20 years ago, forgetting where he had put it. But he stumbled on it recently and put it up for sale. There are thought to be only 15 of the stamps in existence."
(Stamp Collection News, 25 May) RD

EDUCATION'S REAL ROLE

There is a widespread illusion that the purpose of education, especially higher education, is to produce well-rounded human beings who are equipped with a basic thirst for knowledge and curiosity about the world around them. It is a wonderful concept but like most of capitalism's ideas it is a complete fraud. "England's department for higher and further education has been scrapped, just two years after its creation. The prime minister has created a new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills under Lord Mandelson. Universities do not figure in the name of the new department, whose remit is "to build Britain's capabilities to compete in the global economy". Number 10 said it would invest in a higher education system committed to widening participation. The role would include "maintaining world class universities, expanding access to higher education, investing in the UK's science base and shaping skills policy and innovation". (BBC News, 5 June)
Far from being concerned about an individual's intellectual development, inside capitalism the purpose of education is dictated by the industrial and commercial needs of the owning class. The UK must compete for world markets therefore it needs an educated working class. RD

OUTDATED MARXISM?

We are all aware of the critics of Karl Marx who say that he may have had something to say about early capitalism but his criticisms are old-fashioned and out of date. Away back in 1867 Marx wrote about the "so-called primitive accumulation of capital" wherein he showed how the capitalist class in England had obtained its great wealth by such acts as the enclosure acts to throw peasants off their land. Today a similar process is taking place in Peru. "President Alan Garcia labored Saturday to contain Peru's worst political violence in years, as nine more police officers were killed in a bloody standoff with Amazon Indians fighting his efforts to exploit oil and gas on their native lands. The new deaths brought to 22 the number of police killed — seven with spears — since security forces moved early Friday to break up a roadblock manned by 5,000 protesters. Protest leaders said at least 30 Indians, including three children, died in the clashes. Authorities said they could confirm only nine civilian deaths, but cabinet chief Yehude Simon told reporters that 155 people had been injured, about a third of them with bullet wounds." (Associated Press, 6 June)
Far from being outdated Marx's view on the development of capitalist ownership is being re-enacted in today's newspaper headlines. RD

Food for Thought 2

- Perhaps religion has the pension answer. Preacher Tin La Haye tells us re collapsed retirement savings, " Don't worry about it – I don't think we are going to be spending our retirement. The upper-taker (Jesus) is going to catch us first. If He's coming, He better hurry and get here before the federal government. Every morning you can wake up and say, `Lord, is this the day?'And don't worry about it, no matter how young or old you are – you are not going to miss a thing. Because what's ahead is much better than we've got now – particularly after the last election…Personally, I've never been a lover of socialism."
OK then, we don't have to worry about old age. However, it didn't stop La Haye exhorting his following to write out checks to support him and his traveling entourage and keep them in a life of luxury. (Toronto Star, 16/May/2009). John Ayers

Food for Thought

- As workers lose their pension money, in RSPs or from failing employers, and six out of ten Canadians have no company pension, The Canadian Labour Congress once again shows its `work with capitalism' stance by calling for a new pension model, not an end to the employment system.
- Along with the auto industry (projected 2009 loss at $2.1 billion), and the stock market (down $34 billion), the Canada Pension Plan has lost $23.6 billion. No worry for the managers, though, as the top four executives of the plan not only take home paychecks of $300 000 to $500 000, they also get bonuses of $7 million to share, for losing the $23.6 billion. The average CPP benefit for workers is $501.82/month!
- The federal government has announced that its budget deficit will be $50 billion, not $34 billion as previously announced and just a few months after finance minister Flaherty predicted a small surplus. The bailouts are the excuse but it seems money is slow to trickle down to where it is needed as the old ploy of requiring provincial and local matching funds has been used. Either they can't match it or the funds get tied up in the red tape of three government levels. Either way, for the unemployed it will be a long, desperate wait for work and the means of living. For example, the Toronto Star (17/May/09) reported that a machinist laid off after two years work in an auto parts plant qualified for just 28 weeks @ $284/week, less than half his regular (low) pay. Capital chews you up and spits you out.
John Ayers

MAKING A "KILLING"

"Britain and other EU countries sold military equipment worth millions of pounds to the Sri Lankan Government in the last three years of its bloody civil war with the Tamil Tigers, The Times has learnt. Britain approved commercial sales of more than £13.6 million of equipment including armoured vehicles, machinegun components and semiautomatic pistols, according to official records. ...The approval of the sales still raises the question of whether weapons from the EU were used in the last five months of Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war, during which UN officials estimate that 20,000 civilians were killed." (Times, 2 June) RD

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEKEEPERS?

"A former US Marine, Pastor Ken Pagano of New Bethel Church of Louisville, Kentucky said the church would celebrate the Fourth of July and "our rights as Americans". Rev Pagano said he wanted responsible handgun owners to attend this service openly wearing their sidearm, on 27 June, the Saturday preceding Independence Day. The move would be symbolic, however: the firearms must be unloaded and in a secure holster. The priest said he would also invite gun shop owners to attend the service in order to tell about their services. There would be patriotic music along with a presentation about the right of Americans to own firearms, including military-style automatic machine guns." (Daily Telegraph, 5 June) RD

LAZY WORKERS?

"More than 1,800 people turned up at an hotel where a recruitment day was being held to hire 25 people to work in a new shop that is opening in a former Woolworths store. The discount store QD is due to open in Wellingborough, Nothamptonshire, later this month."
(Times, 3 June) RD

GREEN SHOOTS?

"US companies cut more than half a million jobs last month as the recession continued to chip away at the country’s labour market, while the service sector shrank more than expected. Private companies cut 532,000 jobs from their payrolls in May, according to a survey by ADP Employer Services. Although that was fewer than the revised 545,000 jobs slashed in April, the number was worse than many predicted and pushed shares lower on Wednesday morning." (Financial Times, 3 June) RD

IMPROVING CAPITALISM?

"A UN report says hunger in South Asia has reached its highest level in 40 years because of food and fuel price rises and the global economic downturn. The report by the UN children's fund, Unicef, says that 100 million more people in the region are going hungry compared with two years ago. It names the worst affected areas as Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The report says South Asia's governments need to urgently increase social spending to meet the challenge. It says that climate change and urbanisation also need tackling. According to the World Bank, three quarters of the population in South Asia - almost 1.2 billion people - live on less than $2 (£1.2) a day. And more than 400m people in the region are now chronically hungry.
(BBC News, 2 June) RD

THE PRICE OF GOLD

"The bodies of another 25 people have been found in a disused South African gold mine, where 36 illegal miners were killed in a fire at the weekend. "The bodies are not burnt. It seems more of a case of gas or smoke inhalation," said Tom Smith from Harmony, which owns the Eland mine. He said the bodies had been found by other miners, as the abandoned shaft was too dangerous for the firm's staff. Harmony says nearly 300 illegal miners were arrested in the area recently. Illegal mining is rife in South Africa where prospectors often sneak past security at one mine and then exit from a different shaft, miles away. The BBC's Mpho Lakaje in Johannesburg says the authorities have launched an investigation to establish how many people have died. Mr Smith said the bodies had been recovered from depths of up to 1.4km (0.9 miles) underground, reports the Reuters news agency. (BBC News, 2 June) RD

MEGA-DEATH MARKETPLACE

"The annual Asia Security Conference, a forum for discussion, brought together some of the world's main arms-makers with military chiefs nervously eyeing their neighbours' moves and looking to upgrade defences in a region full of long-running insurgencies, potential maritime disputes and growing wealth. "Defence suppliers find it very important to be here to make a set of contacts," said Jonathan Pollack, professor of Asian and Pacific Studies at the U.S. Naval War College. Japan's defence minister told the gathering that the country, anxious about North Korea's latest nuclear test, would not strike first but it was still looking to boost its air force with Lockheed Martin F-22 fighter jets. Top executives from firms such as Boeing, the Pentagon's No.2 defence supplier, flew to Singapore to rub shoulders with potential clients, as they look to expand foreign sales at a time when the Obama government is starting to cap defence project spending." (Yahoo News, 31 May) RD

GLOBAL DISASTER

"The first comprehensive report into the human cost of climate change warns the world is in the throes of a "silent crisis" that is killing 300,000 people each year. More than 300 million people are already seriously affected by the gradual warming of the earth and that number is set to double by 2030, the report from the Global Humanitarian Forum warns. "For the first time we are trying to get the world's attention to the fact that climate change is not something waiting to happen. It is impacting seriously the lives of many people around the world," the forum's president, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, told CNN" (AOL News, 29 May) RD

CAPITALISM IN ACTION

"Early this year, the king of Saudi Arabia held a ceremony to receive a batch of rice, part of the first crop to be produced under something called the King Abdullah initiative for Saudi agricultural investment abroad. It had been grown in Ethiopia, where a group of Saudi investors is spending $100m to raise wheat, barley and rice on land leased to them by the government. The investors are exempt from tax in the first few years and may export the entire crop back home. Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) is spending almost the same amount as the investors ($116m) providing 230,000 tonnes of food aid between 2007 and 2011 to the 4.6m Ethiopians it thinks are threatened by hunger and malnutrition." (Economist, 21 May) RD

A DEPRESSING SYSTEM

"British workers are experiencing panic attacks and insomnia because of stress associated with the economic downturn, a survey has suggested. Norwich Union Healthcare polled 200 GPs, 200 business leaders and 1,000 employees for its Health of the Workplace survey. Half the workers admitted to being stressed, while one in five is suffering depression. A leading GP said people now had better access to talking therapies. The annual Norwich Union healthcare study found workers are putting increasing amounts of time and effort into their jobs. About half are going into work when they are ill and working longer hours, while just over a third are not taking lunch breaks." (BBC News, 29 May) RD