THIS IS PROGRESS?

"There have been virtual fences, real fences, increased patrols and night-vision cameras. Now the latest initiative by the US to seal its increasingly porous border with Mexico harks back to one of the oldest approaches: dig a moat. City officials in Yuma, in south-western Arizona, have come up with a scheme to create a "security channel" along the nearby border by reviving a derelict two-mile stretch of the Colorado river. "The moats that I've seen circled the castle and allowed you to protect yourself, and that's kind of what we're looking at here," Yuma county sheriff Ralph Ogden told the Associated Press. (Guardian, 14 March) RD

A BRIGHT FUTURE?

No so long ago the capitalist media was full of futurologists predicting the four hour day, the three day week and retirement at fifty years of age. The big problem of the future would be leisure. How wrong all that nonsense was is shown by what is happening in the most advanced capitalist nation on earth. "A third of Americans 50 and over are not confident they will have enough money to retire, and more than two-thirds expect to keep working well into old age, according to a survey published Wednesday. The report, commissioned by retirement services firm SecurePath by Transamerica, suggests the surge in companies offering defined-contribution 401(k) plans has not displaced Social Security as the ultimate safety net for retirees." (Yahoo News, 12 March) RD

REFORMISM FAILS AGAIN (2)

"Despite a pledge to cut the health gap between the richest and poorest, the difference in life expectancy is widening, a government report shows. The aim is to reduce the differences in male and female life expectancy by 10% by 2010. But the report shows the gap between those in the most deprived areas of England and the rest of the country is getting worse. ...Professor Danny Dorling, an expert in human geography at Sheffield University, said the inequalities were now at "unprecedented levels". "This is the first Labour or Liberal government to see this gap widen."...David Sinclair, head of policy at Help the Aged said poverty was a "central consideration". He added: "It remains the case that those who are wealthier can afford to stay active and healthy, those in poverty cannot."
(BBC News, 13 March) RD

Debt for the workers

The [so-called] middle classes have become the latest victims of the spiralling debt crisis because of “super-inflationary” rises in the cost of living, a leading debt group said yesterday.

The Consumer Credit Counselling Service said that while steep rises in energy and mortgage costs had hit the oldest and poorest hardest, the increases had been so dramatic that even the professional classes were struggling. Experts said that the figures marked a more serious era in the country’s battle with debt because they showed that the problem had extended from borrowers with credit cards and personal loans to all households, irrespective of how much they had borrowed or what they earned.

Rises in mortgage costs have had a disproportionate impact on higherincome earners because they spend more of their disposable incomes on property, the counselling service said. It found that this group now spends 44 per cent of their net salary on their rent or mortgage, up from 34 per cent five years ago; households below the poverty line spend 8 per cent.

The figures came after Citizens Advice Bureaux reported a 35 per cent increase in inquiries from homeowners worried about paying the mortgage.

Experian, the credit reference agency, published a debt map of Britain yesterday, giving a breakdown of how much towns and cities owe. Residents of Chester-le-Street have borrowed the most on credit cards and loans, with an average amount outstanding of £5,248. Borrowers in Northern Ireland owe the least, with an average of £2,291. Experian said that mortgage balances had grown the most in areas that had experienced the highest house price growth in the past 12 months, such as Northern Ireland, Kensington & Chelsea and Wandsworth.

The average fuel bill has reached more than £1,000 a year after recent price rises by energy companies, while the average home loan went up by almost £9,000 between 2006 and 2007, from £118,536 to £127,039, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said.

Credit Action, another debt charity, said that second-home owners and older people who had taken out equity from their homes to help to fund their retirement were at particularly high risk from rising living costs, because of their exposure to the downturn in the property market as well as more expensive mortgage rates on these deals.

The counselling service said that the profile of those asking for help was becoming “older and poorer”. For the first time it found that customers over the age of 60 had the highest level of debt, at £29,642. The inflation rate for people over 75 is now 3.4 per cent, compared with an official inflation rate of 2.5 per cent, according to Alliance Trust, the investment group.
Other research showed that an increasing number of desperate homeowners are resorting to dangerous measures to get out of debt. In the past three years 6.5 million mortgage borrowers have lumped separate credit card and personal loan debts into one, according to Moneyexpert.com

The director of Credit Action, said: “This is a new era for the UK’s debt crisis. Previously, debt problems were confined to people with credit cards and loans. Now, everyone is struggling with essentials, such as utility bills and mortgages.”

Bankers still rake it in

Fred Goodwin regained his place as the highest-paid executive at Royal Bank of Scotland last year after taking home £4.2 million. Goodwin's pay package was up 5% from 2006 with a basic salary of £1.3m and a performance bonus of £2.9m. He also earned extra pension rights worth £772,000 in the course of the year and netted a paper profit of £1.2m after exercising cut-price options on nearly 500,000 shares under a performance scheme. Goodwin's pay package made him the best-paid of Royal Bank's executives. It could have been higher but he missed out on 286,579 shares that could have been awarded under a medium-term performance plan from 2005 as the company failed to meet targets.

Mike Fisher, who has gone to manage Royal Bank's portion of the ABN Amro business took home £2.4m in pay and bonuses, up 24% on 2006. Finance director Guy Whittaker who benefited last year from major pay-outs to compensate him for his move from Citigroup in 2006. In 2007, he received £3.35m in pay. Larry Fish, who ran the bank's US subsidiary Citizens Financial, also fell back in the pay stakes. He netted £6.6m in 2006 but in 20007 had to make do with around £2m in pay and bonuses.

In these times of financial troubles and credit crunch , isn't it good to see how those bankers are suffering hardship and sharing the woes with all us who are facing increased debt and higher bills .

For a socialist analysis of the present American capitialist crisis see Bubble Trouble

Glasgow - Edinburgh Day School

	Glasgow - Edinburgh Day School CAPITALISM IN THE 21st CENTURY Why Capitalism Can't Go Green. Paul Bennet Another Century of Wars? Gwynn Thomas The Tyrany of Copyright. Tristan Miller Saturday 10 May from 1 to 5pm Venue: Maryhill Community Halls, 304 Maryhill Road, Glasgow.
	---------------------------------------------------------- Each speaker will speak for up to 30 minutes, the rest of the session will be taken up by questions and discussions. Fresh tea, coffee and light refreshments will be available all afternoon. ------------------------------------------ Why Capitalism can't go green. 1.00 till 2.15 pm Capitalism is simply unable to run on green lines, as its motive force is expansion and domination, with no thought for the consequences for the people or the environment. In this talk Paul Bennett, Manchester Branch,will argue that capitalism is unable to cope with the ecological challenges that lie ahead, from global warming,to depletion of resources. Some writing on this subject Pepper Standard Bennet Eco-Socialism Another Century of War 3.45 till 5.00 pm The new century opened with the promise of a "peace dividend".Tensions between the Super-powers had relaxed and the risk of interstate war seemed to have receeded only to be replaced by an increasing number of wars within states.Wars in which 90% of the casualties are civilians and 80% of those are women and children. Of the 50 major conflicts fought during the 1990's small arms were the weapons of choice in 46 of them.. Gwynn Thomas, South London Branch, will argue that these are wars on the cheap Some writing on war Orwell Thomas BBC
	The Tyranny of copyright 2.15 - 3.45 pm Everything is owned inside capitalism. All the land, the factories, the seas and the farms. An equally pernicious aspect of capitalism is that it tries to own innovations and ideas, and indeed passes laws to protect their copyright. Copyright Tristan Miller, Central London Branch looks at copyright laws and recent attempts to have ideas free to all by developments in the internet. The internet was devised as free for all to access but capitalism fears this development in the 21st century and has tried to restrict free access. Some more writing on this subject. Chomsky Miller

MORE WORDS OF WISDOM

"The last French veteran of World War I, an Italian immigrant who lied about his age to join the Foreign Legion and fight in the trenches, died Wednesday aged 110, President Nicolas Sarkozy said. Lazare Ponticelli, the last of more than eight million men who fought under French colours in the 1914-18 war that tore Europe apart, died at the home he shared with his daughter in Kremlin-Bicetre, a Paris suburb. Reflecting on his wartime experiences, he once said: "You shoot at men who are fathers: war is completely stupid." (Yahoo News, 12 March) RD

CARING CAPITALISM

From San Diego comes news about how capitalism treats the homeless. In 2006, the Regional Task Force on Homeless estimated the homeless population at 9,600 countywide, which included 4,400 people within the city of San Diego "Esther Viti, who oversees the donation of public benches for a merchants' association in La Jolla, sent an e-mail to 45 other activists last week asking them to sit in three-hour shifts, no bathroom breaks allowed. "After all, you MUST OCCUPY THAT BENCH continually for three hours to prevent that homeless person from sitting on that bench," the e-mail said. Donors weren't happy that transients were sleeping on benches they had provided for the public, Viti said. The group previously tried installing benches with metal dividers that split the seats. Transients simply began sleeping upright, said Deborah Marengo, president of Promote La Jolla." (Yahoo News, 10 March) RD

SPGB at Stop The War

ANOTHER RAY OF HOPE

Socialists are often told that socialism is impossible because human beings are innately war-like and aggressive, but this report seems to suggest otherwise.
"More and more Israelis are avoiding mandatory military service— something long viewed in this country as a proud rite of passage. "In the past, it is true that not serving in the military was considered the exception," said Dr. Rueven Gal , author of "A Portrait of the Israeli Soldier" and former chief psychologist for the Israeli military. "In more recent years it became more tolerable and more acceptable to people." In 1997, according to army statistics, less than one in 10 Israeli men avoided their mandatory three-year military service. These days, it's closer to three in 10. Women, too, are opting out at a faster pace: Over the last decade, the number of women avoiding military duty rose from 37 percent to 44 percent." (Yahoo News, 2 March) RD

A RAY OF HOPE

The awful carnage in the hate-filled Middle East and the religious brutality there fills socialists with gloom but this report would seem to suggest that all is not lost.
"After almost five years of war, many young people in Iraq, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and sceptical of the faith that they preach. In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives. “I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.” Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighbourhood in southern Baghdad, said: “The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore.”
(New York Times, 4 March) RD

Budget - No relief for child poverty

Don't believe us - this , out of their own mouths .

John McDonnell , Labour Party MP , on the budget :-

" In 1999 the Government said it would halve child poverty by 2010 - taking 1.7m children out of poverty. To date it has missed its targets and only removed 600,000 children from poverty. In the pre-budget briefings pouring out of Number 10 and the Treasury we were all led to believe that the Chancellor would make a major announcement today to get the Government back on course to meet its target.Instead, the Chancellor has admitted defeat in the war against child poverty and has confirmed that the Government will not meet its 2010 target - and will leave over 2.5m children still living in poverty in the fifth richest countries in the world. The measures announced today will only remove at most a further 250,000 children from poverty by 2010.

In calculating child poverty the Government has massaged the figures by removing housing costs from the calculation. If these costs are put back the real assessment of child poverty confirms that in fact 3.5 million children will remain in poverty in our society.

If after eleven years in office, a Labour Government cannot meet such a basic aim of lifting our children out of poverty, many will judge this period of government as the greatest missed opportunity in the history of the Labour party."

Real soicialists have been saying since the formation of the Labour Party its members and supporters have always been deluded in the mistaken belief that Labour puts the poor before profits .

Poor Health for the poor

Socialist Courier has reported numerous times on the difference of quality of health between the privileged and un privileged and another report shows the gap between those in the most deprived areas of England and the rest of the country is getting worse. Despite a pledge to cut the health gap between the richest and poorest, the difference in life expectancy is widening, a government report shows.

The gap in life expectancy for women in the most deprived areas compared with the average was 2% wider in 2004-06 than in 1995-97. And the gap for women is now 11% wider. The difference in the infant mortality rate has been falling in recent years after a 2002 high, it is still significantly higher than it was a decade ago. For babies whose fathers have a "routine or manual occupation", the mortality rate in 2004-06 was 17% higher than that for the general population, compared to 13% in 1997-99.

Professor Danny Dorling, an expert in human geography at Sheffield University, said the inequalities were now at "unprecedented levels".
"This is the first Labour or Liberal government to see this gap widen. I can see why the government thought that just giving it time and spending money on it would work. But it worries me that there will be more excuses rather than an admission of failure."

David Sinclair, head of policy at Help the Aged said :
"It remains the case that those who are wealthier can afford to stay active and healthy, those in poverty cannot. "

Teaching War

This Saturday members of Glasgow and Edinburgh branches will be in attendnce at stop the war demonstration in Glasgow leafletting and selling the Socialist Standard . It is now a cliche to say that the first casuality of war is truth but the statement remains accurate .

Ministry of Defence teaching materials that give an unbalanced view of the Iraq war are being used in schools, teachers' leaders have said. He warned that some of its assertions, presented as facts, would be disputed by most teachers. There were no estimates of the numbers of people killed, wounded or made homeless by the military action, he said. The material therefore risked breaching the part of the 1996 Education Act concerned with balanced teaching of political issues .

He told reporters: "When you are dealing with something as controversial as Iraq and the different events that led up to the invasion, teachers are under a duty to present material that is balanced. The MoD material does not live up to that high standard..."

Mr Sinnott also criticised Army recruitment methods which he said did not present a balanced view of what joining the armed forces entailed. He said "unethical practices" had been unearthed in recent research by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. He claimed that youngsters from deprived backgrounds were being targeted by Army recruiters. Mr Sinnott said the recruiters engaged in "very dubious practices", targeting youngsters from poorer backgrounds.
"Youngsters from the most disadvantaged backgrounds have more limited opportunities in life than youngsters from better off backgrounds. It's simply a fact. I am not saying that youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds cannot get something from a career in the military.The Army has created a better life for some youngsters, but there are other youngsters who join up because they have little or no choice."

The teaching union will debate a motion at its upcoming conference which argues: "Military intervention in schools customarily presents a partisan view of war, largely by ignoring its fatal realities in favour of promises of travel, skill training and further or higher education course sponsorships otherwise often unavailable to young people, especially in area of high unemployment."

CAPITALISM ROTS THE BRAIN

"Exposure to traffic fumes for even a short time can alter the way the brain works, and may increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, a study suggests. Very small particles inhaled from polluted air can end up in the brain, where they induce a stress response and change the way it processes information, Dutch researchers report in the journal Particle and Fibre Toxicology." (Times, 11 March) RD

YET ANOTHER ILLUSION

"Sakena Yacoobi well knows the hardships of Afghan women, caught between a war and the hopelessness of poverty and illiteracy. Yet on International Women's Day Saturday, the Afghan educator will not ask the world to help Afghan women. Instead, she will ask Afghan women to help the world. In a time of growing conflict around the world, she believes the wisdom and compassion of women can offer a way out. "Women bring tolerance and patience," she says. "Women can bring solutions – we cannot accomplish that with weapons." She is one of several hundred prominent female leaders from 45 countries who have come to India this week to seek ways to raise women's voices worldwide, hoping that their ideas – so often ignored – begin to move the world away from war. (Yahoo News, 7 March)
It is not gender ideas that cause war it is capitalism. Is Yacoobi not aware that Israel had a woman leader during much of their wars, that Pakistan had a woman leader in their conflicts with India and that Mrs Thatcher was the UK prime minister during the war in the Falklands RD

All the way to the bank

The Times tells us that :-

Andy Hornby, HBOS's chief executive, took home a £1.9 million pay packet for the year, including an annual bonus of £449,000.

Peter Cummings, chief executive of HBOS's corporate business, was paid £2.6 million, after picking up a £300,000 bonus from the executive bonus scheme and a further £1.3 million from a separate bonus plan run by the corporate division.

Benny Higgins, who was ousted last year as head of HBOS's retail banking business, was paid £2.3 million, including his full annual salary and benefits of £900,000 and the same amount again as a payout.

Dennis Stevenson, the chairman, was paid £821,000, including £113,000 in benefits. Jo Dawson and Dan Watkins, the new joint heads of the retail business, were paid £1 million and £329,000 respectively.

DEMOCRACY IN ACTION?

"President Bush has vetoed a law preventing the CIA using interrogation techniques condemned by many as torture, because it “would take away one of the most valuable tools in the War on Terror”. ...The veto throws the spotlight back on to America's use of so-called coercive interrogation methods like waterboarding, the simulated drowning technique invented by Spanish inquisitors and adopted by regimes such as the Khmer Rouge." (Times, 10 March) RD

Income Tax - "It's not on "

"...completely unjust...Some people are talking about taking this to the European court of human rights." - What's got some people so het up ? Torture ? Exploitation ? Censorship ?Oppression ?

No - the tax-man is planning to to make life harder for the 2,000 British millionaires who call Monaco, the tax haven , home. The Guardian reports :-

Until now, tax rules that allow "non-residents" 90 days a year in Britain have contained a crucial loophole: the taxman has not counted "travel days" entering and leaving the country, allowing businesspeople to commute in on a Monday, leave on Wednesday, and claim to have spent just one day in the UK.It has in effect allowed Britons to spend most of the year - up to 270 days - working in Britain, while claiming to be residents of tax havens such as Monaco and to avoid paying tax. That will change under a stricter enforcement of the rules to be unveiled today which has unnerved tax lawyers serving Britons in several tax havens.
The change - likely to count travel days or overnight stays in the residency total - will particularly affect the so-called "Monaco mob", millionaire City workers whose commute entails a seven-minute helicopter ride from Monaco to Nice for a connecting flight to London, often by private jet, before a swift return to the Riviera.

"It's not just tax - it's about lifestyle. The streets are immaculate, there's no crime. You can have breakfast on your terrace, go skiing in the morning, and be back to the beach for the afternoon. I don't know a single person going back. They'll change their lifestyles - it's a nuisance - but they'll get round it."
The night for many "in-crowd" expatriates begins at the Bar Américain, with its Bentleys and Rolls Royces parked outside. The same faces dine in one of the two Michelin-starred restaurants in the Hôtel de Paris, and end the night in Jimmy'z, a nightclub where two shots cost €40 (£30)Another feature of the local nightlife is the well-dressed prostitutes with forced smiles who, more than one British resident admitted, are what "some of us spend our money on".

Roger Munns, who runs two property businesses for Monaco multimillionaires said "These people are quick thinkers. They can move quicker than the government" Those unwilling to change their commuting patterns, he said, were restructuring their companies to funnel money into their spouses' Monaco bank accounts.
A group of City bankers, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed they would "play the rules" to find a way to continue spending time at their desks in London while maintaining non-residency status and paying zero income tax.

"Most of these people running businesses and living in Monaco had got the whole system worked out - and it worked just fine," said Damian, a middle-aged "retiring accountant" and long-time Monaco resident. "And now the Treasury has moved the goalposts. It's not on."

It is an injustice , it is , isn't it ?

Food Shortages - "it's capitalism" - says a capitalist

We have reported on the rise in food prices that many commentators blame on changes in supply and demand for grain but the Times reports that the managing director of Greggs, the well known high street baker-shop chain , has attacked speculators for driving up the price of wheat and fuelling famine in Africa.

Michael Darrington said commodity traders were more to blame for spiralling food price inflation than poor harvests or farmland given over to biofuels.

“There are stocks of wheat and grain in the world, and crops are growing at the moment but funds are being set up as speculators see an opportunity to make some short-term money and someone has to pay for it. It's really sad for people in the developing world where food can account for 70 per cent of the family budget. Wheat is predominantly grown in America, Australia, Europe - the wealthier areas - and people in under-developed nations are hurting the most.” He added “I suppose that's just capitalism but it's jolly disappointing. If society looked down on these funds then perhaps it would make a difference.”

Can't pay - Can't have - So starve .