CONSPICIOUS CONSUMPTION (2)

"For the outdoorsman who has everything, silversmith Adrian Pallarol has come up with the Leatherman Charge Dorado pocketknife. It sports a wide array of tools and knives inside its golden arms, and is engraved with 18-karat Andes gold on its handles. Only 25 will be produced, for $40,000 each." (Newsweek, 23 August) RD

CONSPICIOUS CONSUMPTION

"Vinyl has never sounded—or looked—so good. With music enthusiasts reverting to the authenticity of analog, these turntables spruce up the living room while doing justice to the record collection. The Montegiro Lusso looks every bit the work of art, with its silver and black stripes promising superior sound ($48,800; montegiro.de). Da Vinci Audio Labs created the AAS Gabriel, designed using the same process employed to cut the vinyl records it will play. The luxury edition is available in a 24-karat gold-and-white design ($46,600; www.da-vinci-audio.com). But the high note of turntables goes to The Reference II, by the Swiss manufacturer Goldmund. The 350-kilo turntable is delivered in five crates by three factory workers to ensure it is perfectly installed. Between 2008 and 2013 only five machines will be produced each year ($250,000; goldmund.com). With turntables like these, the days of digital music may be numbered." (Newsweek, 9 August) RD

Calton and Lenzie wealth and health differences

"social injustice is killing people on a grand scale...The toxic combination of bad policies, economics, and politics is, in large measure responsible for the fact that a majority of people in the world do not enjoy the good health that is biologically possible."

Social factors - rather than genetics - are to blame for huge variations in ill health and life expectancy around the world, a report concludes.

For instance, a boy living in the deprived Glasgow suburb of Calton will live on average 28 years less than a boy born in nearby affluent Lenzie.

The average life expectancy in London's wealthy Hampstead was 11 years longer than in nearby St Pancras.

A girl in the African country of Lesotho is likely on average to live 42 years less than a girl in Japan.In Sweden, the risk of a woman dying during pregnancy and childbirth is one in 17,400, but in Afghanistan the odds are one in eight.

The report, drawn up by an eminent panel of experts forming the WHO's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, found that in almost all countries poor socioeconomic circumstances equated to poor health.
"The key message of our report is that the circumstances in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age are the fundamental drivers of health, and health inequity."

GROWING OLD DISGRACEFULLY

In primitive society one of the greatest sources of human survival was the knowledge of the elderly. If you lived in a gathering/ hunting society the knowledge of where plants occurred, where animals existed and at what times of the year was essential for human society. Knowledge was power. So much was this the case for human survival that one of the first forms of religion was Ancestor Worship.
We no longer live in a gathering/hunting society; we live in a modern capitalist society. This is a society where the majority work for a wage or a salary and a tiny minority live off the surplus value that they produce. Inside this society attitudes towards the elderly are completely different. If they are poor they are looked upon as a burden by the capitalist class and some sort of creature that had they any decency would just disappear.
Away back in 1908 when state pensions were first paid in the UK there was the view that this piece of reform would end old-age poverty. People like David Lloyd George and Charles Booth hailed the legislation as a mayor breakthrough on the abolition of old-age poverty.
"Yet 100 years on, 2.5 million pensioners - more than a fifth of all those aged over 65 - still struggle to pay their bills and keep their home warm." (Times, 31 July) Such is the nature of capitalism and the lick-spittles that operate it that they have come up with a great new idea that will save the owning class millions.
"People will be forced to work until they are aged 70 if the basic state pension is to survive into the next century, according to the Government’s pension supremo. Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, the architect of radical reform in which the retirement age will rise to 68 by 2046, said that with no limit in sight for life expectancy, people are going to have to work even longer than he proposed." (Times, 31 July)
When I was very young an elderly man taught me about capitalism. One of the lessons he taught me was - the owning class need young men and women to provide for them, but we don't need them. As in primitive society, we must heed the elderly - knowledge is power.RD

The race for undersea oil and gas is driving sea bed claims

Britain is to formally present its case to the UN in New York for extending its territorial rights around Ascension Island in the South Atlantic.
States have rights over their resources - including oil or gas reserves - up to 200 nautical miles from the shoreline.
But the UK wants to extend those rights around Ascension on the grounds that the island's landmass actually reaches much further into the sea underwater.
Ascension Island is part of the British overseas territory of St Helena.
The UK will present its claim on Wednesday to the United Nations Commission for the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

POTENTIAL FOR CONFLICT

Potential for conflict
Fewer than a half of the world's maritime boundaries have been agreed, so there is big scope for disagreements
Experts say that fewer than half of the world's maritime boundaries have been agreed, and there is significant potential for conflict where more than one country submits claims to overlapping areas.

A BRAVE NEW WORLD

"The U.S. military is paying scientists to study ways to read people's thoughts. The hope is that the research could someday lead to a gadget capable of translating the thoughts of soldiers who suffered brain injuries in combat or even stroke patients in hospitals. But the research also raises concerns that such mind-reading technology could be used to interrogate the enemy. Armed with a $4 million grant from the Army, scientists are studying brain signals to try to decipher what a person is thinking and to whom the person wants to direct the message."
(Yahoo News, 15 August) RD

KING-SIZE LOOT

"With a fortune estimated at 35 billion dollars, Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej is the world's richest royal sovereign and oil-rich Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi is far back at No. 2, Forbes magazine reported Thursday. King Bhumibol, 80 and, at 62 years on the throne the world's longest-serving head of state, pushed to the top of the richest royals list by virtue a greater transparency surrounding his fortune, Forbes said. It said that the Crown Property Bureau, which manages most of his family's wealth, "granted unprecedented access this year, revealing vast landholdings, including 3,493 acres in Bangkok." Forbes called it a good year for monarchies, investment-wise. "As a group, the world's 15 richest royals have increased their total wealth to 131 billion dollars, up from 95 billion last year," Forbes said on its website." (Yahoo News, 21 August) RD

A SHITTY SOCIETY

"A surprising 20 million people in the European Union do not have access to decent toilets and suffer from a lack of hygiene, posing serious health risks, experts meeting at World Water Week in Stockholm said. "People think that in countries so bright, so rich, they don't have this kind of problem," Sascha Gabizon, the head of the non-governmental organisation Women in Europe for a Common Future and one of 2,500 water and sanitation experts attending the forum, told AFP. "The situation is not widely known among politicians in Brussels," she said. Countries from the former Eastern bloc which recently joined the EU are those most concerned but there are also isolated locations in western Europe, she said, citing France and Ireland as examples. In Bulgaria, 42 percent of the population lives in rural zones where only two percent of households are connected to a sewage system. In Romania, 10 million people live without access to pipes, and in the countryside, only 15 percent of residents have running water."
(Yahoo News, 21 August) RD

THE RICH LIVE LONGER

"It has long been the case that women live longer than men, whites live longer than blacks, and the rich and well-educated live longer than those who are less well off in schooling and wealth. In recent decades, the gender and race gaps have narrowed. But the opposite has happened with wealth and education. The rich and well-educated have pulled further away from the pack in life expectancy. This good-news-for-the-rich, bad-news-for-the-poor trend is recorded in a graph on page three of his report by the Congressional Budget Office. Overall, the report shows impressive gains in life expectancy. From 1980 to 2000, life expectancy at birth rose by more than 3 years and life expectancy at age 65 rose by about 1.5 years. In both cases, however, most of those extra years went to the richest and best educated." (New York Times, 20 August) RD

WHAT HOUSING PROBLEM?

There is a popular myth in the USA that any citizen, no matter how poor, can become the President. One of the stories is the popular notion of "log cabin to white house". The reality in modern capitalism is somewhat different. "Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own. "I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you." The correct answer is at least four, located in Arizona, California and Virginia, according to his staff. Newsweek estimated this summer that the couple owns at least seven properties. And a Politico analysis later in the day found McCain's family owns at least eight properties, according to property and tax records, as well as interviews."
(Yahoo News, 21 August) RD

SOLVING THE HOUSING PROBLEM

"A German man has been sentenced to nine months in jail after living in left-luggage locker 501 at Düsseldorf railway station for nine years. Mike Konrad, 29, had crawled into the locker when he walked out on his girlfriend in 1999, and had slept there ever since. Station staff finally decided to prosecute after they had evicted him from his cubby hole 200 times. As accommodation it was remarkably cheap: the £1.50 it cost Konrad to open the locker was normally refunded in the morning. However, he told a court in the city that he had been locked into his sleeping quarters “more times than I can remember” and then had to rely on the station staff to release him. “I always went to sleep with the door slightly ajar,” he said. “But kids like to lock me in for a laugh.” (Sunday Times, 17 August) RD

CASH BEFORE PRINCIPLES

"The French National Front says “Keep France for the French”. But not, it seems, in times of economic necessity. Last Monday L’Express magazine revealed that the far-right party averted bankruptcy earlier this month by accepting an offer of £11.7m for its Paris headquarters from a Chinese university." (Sunday Times, 17 August) RD

THE SEEDS OF CONFLICT

"For years, the US and the EU have been looking for ways of circumventing Russia for energy, especially in the light of the controversial cuts in supply it made to Ukraine, Belarus and the Czech Republic. The opening of the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) from Azerbaijan to Turkey should successfully enable the flow of 16 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas into Europe without Moscow's interference. However, with Georgia being the only viable country for the pipeline to go through - as Azerbaijan is technically at war with Armenia - the current crisis showed energy majors operating in the Caucasus how tenuous their grip on resources could become should the Kremlin intervene in the affairs of its neighbours again. The SCP was closed for a time during the latest violence. This is of particular concern to BP, which owns 25.5 per cent of the SCP, and is already in dispute with Moscow over the status of subsidiary TNK-BP." (Observer, 17 August) RD

AINT CAPITALISM WONDERFUL?

"As the world races to find solutions to the planet's climate woes, some 2,500 experts meet in Stockholm this week to put the spotlight on one of the most pressing issues, that of water resources, at World Water Week. ... Almost half of the world's population lacks proper toilet facilities, a situation that can have dire consequences on public health and which poses a challenge to resolve since water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource. ..Twenty percent of the planet's population in 30 countries face water shortages, a figure that is expected to hit 30 percent by 2025, according to the United Nations which has declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation. The meeting, which opens Monday and is entitled "Progress and Prospects on Water: For a Clean and Healthy World," will focus in particular on the dangers that the lack of adequate toilets and hygiene facilities presents to 2.6 billion people. "It's not very popular to talk about toilets and excrement and where to go when you are menstruating. This is something that makes people feel uncomfortable," Stephanie Blenckner, spokeswoman for the Stockholm International Water Institute that is organising the event, told AFP."Five thousand children die every day of diarrhoea because of a lack of hygiene and sanitation and nobody really cares," Blenckner said, stressing that educating decision-makers about these issues was a priority." (Yahoo News, 16 August) RD

A BLEAK FUTURE

"Oil exploration in the Amazon rain forest represents the latest, perhaps greatest, threat to preserving what remains of the world's largest remaining tropical wilderness, scientists said Wednesday. Scientists from Duke University said a new study revealed a Texas-size chunk of rain forest stretching across Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and western Brazil has been approved for petroleum exploration and production. "Filling up with a tank of gas could soon have devastating consequences to rain forests, their people and their species," said Dr. Stuart Pimm, a professor of conservation ecology at Duke and one of the study's authors." (Yahoo News, 13 August) RD

SNACKS FOR THE SUPER-RICH

"Caviar House & Prunier, on Piccadilly, has taken delivery of the Almas, a rare golden caviar once reserved for the Tsars of Russia. Despite the price - £920 for limited edition 50g tins - the shop claims a four-year waiting list." (Times, 19 August)RD

Economic formulas not medical ones decide treatment

Previously reported here has been the inherent failure of the National Health Service due to the constraints of capitalism to offer full effective treatments . Another report confirms Socialist Courier's diagnosis .

Some of the UK's top cancer consultants warn that NHS drug 'rationing' is forcing patients to remortgage their homes to pay for treatment. The specialists accuse the government drugs advisory body of 'rationing' too severely and call for a "radical change" in the way decisions are made.

In their letter, the 26 cancer specialists say the decision shows how "poorly" NICE assesses new cancer treatments."Its economic formulas are simply not suitable for addressing cost-effectiveness in this area of medicine," they write. "We have seen distraught patients remortgaging their houses, giving up pensions and selling cars to buy drugs that are freely available to those using health services in countries of comparable wealth."

Defending its policy of restricting palliative medicines .

"There is a finite pot of money for the NHS, which is determined annually by parliament,"NICE's chairman said."If one group of patients is provided with cost-ineffective care, other groups - lacking powerful lobbyists - will be denied cost-effective care for miserable conditions like schizophrenia, Crohn's disease or cystic fibrosis."

Capitalism is at its terminal stage , time to apply euthanasia to such a heartless system .

The British Epidemic of Poverty

An 'epidemic of poverty' in Britain is having a dramatic impact on the survival rates and health chances of children from poor families, an influential coalition will warn this week in a major report that casts doubt on government efforts to close the inequality gap.

The report, based on a wide-ranging analysis of government data, finds that children from poor families are at 10 times the risk of sudden infant death as children from better-off homes. And it reveals how babies from disadvantaged families are more likely to be born underweight - an average of 200 grams less than children from the richest families. Poorer children are two-and-a-half times more likely to suffer chronic illness when toddlers and twice as likely to have cerebral palsy.

'Poverty is now one of the greatest dangers faced by our children,' said Nick Spencer, one of the report's authors and professor of child health at the University of Warwick. 'If poverty were an infection, we would be in the midst of a full-scale epidemic.'

The End Child Poverty report highlights how socio-economic factors affect the entire life of children born into poverty, from foetal development and early infancy through to teenage years and adulthood.It found that children living in disadvantaged families are more than three times as likely to suffer from mental health disorders as those in well-off families and that infants under three years old in families with an annual income of less than £10,400 are twice as likely to suffer from asthma as those from families earning over £52,000.The report also suggests the health consequences of being born into poverty continue well beyond infancy. For example, adults who came from deprived families were found to be 50 per cent more likely to have serious and limiting illnesses, such as type two diabetes and heart failure.

'From the day they are born, children's health and very survival are threatened by family poverty,' said Donald Hirsch, co-author of the report , 'It is one of society's greatest inequalities that poor health is so dramatically linked to poverty. Children in the poorest UK families are at least twice as likely to die unexpectedly before their first birthdays than children in slightly better-off families. This is a huge injustice for the children in one of the richest nations in the world.'

The human price of the Games

From previous posts it can be guessed that some members of the Socialist Courier blog are no fans of the Olympic Games charade and another story highlights the hypocrisy of it .

In Hebei province, almost 80 billion gallons of emergency water is being sent to the capital through a series of canals hastily built over the past few months so to provide for the Games needs . The construction has displaced farmers, leaving some patches of land so parched that it's difficult for them to grow anything. Shortly after 2002, the central government approved a water diversion project aimed at relieving shortages in Beijing and other parts of the arid north by moving water from the Yangtze, the country's longest river. Two months ago, local authorities cut off access to the mountain reservoir, explaining the water was being saved for the Olympics. Such projects have caused a rift between Beijing and neighboring provinces, including Hebei and Shaanxi. Local officials warned of social upheaval and environmental consequences. But the central government proceeded anyway.Shanxi province, a major coal-producing region, can't even get permission to use the coal it needs. Instead, the resources are being earmarked for Beijing, exacerbating power shortages and resulting in massive blackouts in rural areas.

At the Tianjin port southeast of Beijing, usually one of the busiest in the country, empty ships wait for deliveries from suppliers whose trucks have been held up by roadblocks or whose factories have been closed out of concerns about pollution. With factories shut down, armies of migrant workers who rely on construction and other menial jobs are being sent home for the month without pay. Security concerns during the Games led authorities to prohibit the export of batteries and chemical products, he said; it's hard to get new supplies because factories are closed.