A MURDEROUS BUSINESS (2)

"Russia's defence spending will grow by 27 percent in 2009, Interfax news agency quoted Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as saying on Tuesday. "Nearly 2.4 trillion roubles ($94.12 billion) will be allocated for the needs of national defence and security (in 2009)," Interfax quoted Putin as saying. "This is an increase of 27 percent."

(Yahoo News, 16 September) RD

UPMARKET DOWN-AND-OUTS

"Being homeless in this upper crust enclave is not exactly like living on the street in other places. There are handouts of $2,000 and bottles of Dom Perignon, lucky finds of Gucci shoes and diamond-encrusted bracelets, a chance to rub shoulders with rich and famous locals such as Mark Wahlberg and Master P, even empty houses to live in. "This is the finest place you can be," said Isaac Young, an affable 59-year-old with a wide grin and a smooth baritone voice who has been homeless in Beverly Hills since 1992. In this manicured community of 35,000, Rolls Royces and Lamborghinis glide around city streets, movie stars live in gated mansions and Rodeo Drive price tags provoke gasps from tourists. But the city also features about 30 rather scruffy residents who live in parks, bus shelters and alleyways. They're an incongruous sight amid the shows of superfluous wealth, underscoring the pervasiveness of the huge homeless population in Los Angeles County. Some 74,000 people live on the streets or in shelters, making the county the nation's capital of homelessness." (Yahoo News, 13 September) RD

A MURDEROUS BUSINESS

"The Bush administration is pushing through a broad array of foreign weapons deals as it seeks to rearm Iraq and Afghanistan, contain North Korea and Iran, and solidify ties with onetime Russian allies. From tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to missiles, remotely piloted aircraft and even warships, the Department of Defence has agreed so far this fiscal year to sell or transfer more than $32 billion in weapons and other military equipment to foreign governments, compared with $12 billion in 2005."

(New York Times, 13 September) RD

KNOWLEDGE AND PROFITS

Don’t Buy That Textbook, Download It Free

"In protest of what he says are textbooks’ intolerably high prices — and the dumbing down of their content to appeal to the widest possible market — Professor McAfee has put his introductory economics textbook online free. He says he most likely could have earned a $100,000 advance on the book had he gone the traditional publishing route, and it would have had a list price approaching $200. “This market is not working very well — except for the shareholders in the textbook publishers,” he said. “We have lots of knowledge, but we are not getting it out.” While still on the periphery of the academic world, his volume, “Introduction to Economic Analysis,” is being used at some colleges, including Harvard and Claremont-McKenna, a private liberal arts college in Claremont, Calif." (New York Times, 14 September). RD

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

"The Church of England owes Charles Darwin an apology for its hostile 19th-century reaction to the naturalist's theory of evolution, a cleric wrote on an Anglican Web site launched Monday. The Rev. Malcolm Brown, who heads the church's public affairs department, issued the statement to mark Darwin's bicentenary and the 150th anniversary of the seminal work "On the Origin of Species," both of which fall next year. Brown said the Church of England should say it is sorry for misunderstanding him at the time he released his findings and, "by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand (Darwin) still."
(CNN.com, 15 September) RD

CRISIS MANAGEMENT

"Had Lehman been handed a get-out-of-jail card, demands for similar treatment from other beleaguered businesses would have poured on to Paulson's desk. There are plenty of them. General Motors and Ford have made pre-emptive strikes. Remarkable, isn't it, how those who champion the survival of the fittest are quickly converted into supporters of lame ducks when they become one. Banks that deprecated state intervention while sloshing about in easy money are calling for the creation of government agencies to "facilitate the consolidation of the financial sector". (Daily Telegraph, 16 September) RD

PROFITS BEFORE PATIENTS

"Just about every segment of the medical community is piling on the pharmaceutical industry these days, accusing drug makers of deceiving the public, manipulating doctors and putting profits before patients. Recent articles and editorials in major medical journals blast the industry. Medical schools, teaching hospitals and physician groups are changing rules to limit the influence of pharmaceutical sales reps. and three top editors of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine last month publicly sided against the drug industry in a U.S. Supreme Court case over whether patients harmed by government-approved medicines may still sue in state courts." (Yahoo News, 11 September) RD

SUFFER THE CHILDREN

"One of the most comprehensive surveys of British living standards in recent years has revealed that almost a quarter of children will experience living in overcrowded accommodation in poor states of repair. The survey, conducted for the homelessness charity Shelter, also found that 13 per cent of children will live for at least a year in accommodation in poor states of repair." (Observer, 14 October) RD

CONSPICIOUS CONSUMPTION

"Menswear has a special edge this fall, thanks to the season's most extravagant fashion essential, which goes beyond the classic coat. Now men can strut around town in a peacoat made entirely of crocodile skin. Created by Véronique Nichanian, a leading clothing designer at Hermès, this piece of fashion was inspired by 16th-century European navies. Available in navy blue. $150,000." (Newsweek, 6 September) RD

SWEAT SHOP FASHION

"High street fashion brands are making "glacial progress" towards ensuring overseas workers earn a living wage, campaigners say today. The £36bn-a-year industry has only begun to "dabble" with moves to improve the "paltry" pay of those working for its suppliers, according to a report from the anti-sweatshop coalition Labour Behind the Label. Most companies say it will be years before they have a workable scheme. The report, published two days before the start of London fashion week, follows exposés of alleged sweatshop conditions, particularly among suppliers in Bangladesh and India. But the report's author, Martin Hearson, says garment workers in other countries including Turkey and Morocco and in Eastern Europe are also not getting a living wage. "The people who make our clothes live in poverty, usually earning half of what they need to meet their basic needs and those of their families. And 10 years since the bulk of the industry signed up to the principle that all workers should earn living wages, nothing has been done to make that principle a reality." (Guardian, 12 September) RD

THE RESTRICTIVE SOCIETY

Reuters Photo: A metal border fence stretches across a valley separating the US and Mexico, near Campo,...

"The U.S. Customs and Border Protection is putting off plans for a "virtual fence" being built by Boeing Co along the Mexico border and instead will focus on getting a physical fence in place, the Wall Street Journal said. The highest priority is to put out a system of physical fences and barriers that will keep people and vehicles from illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, Jayson Ahern, U.S. Customs and Border Protection deputy commissioner, told the Journal. The physical fence is over budget and needs $400 million more than is budgeted, people familiar with the situation told the paper." (Yahoo News, 10 September) RD

Reading Notes

- On filling the heads of soldiers with propaganda to make them perform their killing the more easily, from Edward Rutherford in “The Rebels of Ireland” “How many?” “Three hundred thousand?” Pincher despised the Irish and hated the Catholics, but he was not a dishonest man. “That number” he ventured , “may be somewhat high, you know.”“No, I assure you,” said Barnaby (one of Cromwell’s men) “It is so. The whole army knows it.” And now Doctor Pincher understood. The army of Oliver Cromwell, having questioned the need to convert the Catholics, had been fortified by these reminders of the atrocities to avenge. And he sighed. Every army, he supposed, has to be told a story. -
During the struggle between the capitalists and the aristocracy, the proletariat was used by the latter to win the fight and then cast aside, pointing the way to a new direction for the workers – class consciousness and political action. Gustav Bang in “Crises in European History” writes,”The proletariat had been betrayed and they knew it. They began to perceive that only through independent action could they make any progress. For obviously any cooperation with the bourgeoisie ran counter to all common sense, since the interests of the two classes were diametrically opposite. The capitalists were given added political power without the slightest gain to the workers – the circumstances attending the latter would be no less oppressive and slave-bound. The capitalists, with the aid of the workers, had acquired new powerful political means that could be used with equal effectiveness against the workers below and the landed aristocracy above. The emancipation of the working class must be its own class-conscious work.” On which rests much of our case for achieving socialism.
John Ayers

DYING FOR CAPITALISM

"The rate of suicides among-active duty soldiers is on pace to surpass both last year's numbers and the rate of suicide in the general U.S. population for the first time since the Vietnam war, according to U.S. Army officials. As of August, 62 Army soldiers have committed suicide, and 31 cases of possible suicide remain under investigation, according to Army statistics. Last year, the Army recorded 115 suicides among its ranks, which was also higher than the previous year." (CNN.com, 9 September) RD

Food for Thought

- In the world of the super rich, Toronto is a great place to be. There,$25 million will get you a super prime condo. In New York, that’s a downpayment and in London it doesn’t even count where condos sell for $11 800per square foot. A house in France reportedly sold recently for $775million and in India they are building a one billion dollar condo. That would be the one being built for Mukesh Ambani and his family of 6 whoneeded new digs when infighting with his brother over their father’s wealth made living in a 22 story building impossible. This new one is 27 stories but equivalent to sixty. It is in Mumbai, built on land bought way below market price from a trust that originally planned to build an orphanage for Mumbai’s countless orphans. More than half of the residents in Mumbai live in slums. (Toronto Star 16/08/08)
- That contrasts wildly with “The High Cost of Low Wages” (Toronto Star,22/08/08) which asked the question, “Why should billion dollar corporations be allowed to pay poverty wages in Canada?” (so the superrich can pay for billion dollar condos, stupid!) More than a million workers in Toronto earn less than $30 000 per year. As the economy shrinks and pinches the workers, big oil and banks report record profits.As we continually point out, don’t expect capitalism to work for the workers.- Capitalism also forces people to act in strange ways –
1.Jazz Airlinesrecently announced that in order to save weight, and therefore fuel, they were removing life jackets from all its planes, including those flying over water. Now you have to hang on to your seats, literally!
2.The high price of gas – a Kentucky woman was arrested for trading sex for the pricey commodity.
3. A German purse thief escaped a would-be captor byexposing her breasts and yelling rape.
4. A man is arrested in San Jose for breaking into a small airport and siphoning airplane fuel into his cargas. tank.
5. Police in Peel Region (near Toronto) arrested two men and confiscated fake high-end labeled goods worth $10 million.
6. In Toronto thieves make off with 14 catch basin (road sinks) covers for scrap value and leave gaping holes in the roadway edges. The rest are being welded on.(mostly taken from “Proof the World is getting Worse”, Toronto Star).-
On the environmental front, Clayton Ruby (Toronto Star 16/08/08)reports that the Alberta Tar Sands Project is the ‘single most destructive fossil fuel development in the world.’ There are 207 countries in the world that track the emissions they emit and the tar sands alone out performs 145 of them. Each day the project uses 300 million cubic feet of natural gas, enough to heat 3 million Canadian homes. Each barrel produced in Alberta produces three times the greenhouse gas emissions of a conventional barrel of oil, yet $50 billion a year is being invested there instead of developing new clean technologies. Is there a better example of how capital slavishly follows the path of greatest profit now, without regard to humans or their environment? Harper’s intensity targets which reduces emissions per unit while letting overall emissions rise freely on greater volume, Dion’s carbon tax that allows trading of carbon credits,and Layton’s ‘make the polluters pay’ (as if!) don’t even begin to address the problem, just as you would expect. Our government did go to Washington to tout the green energy (sic) of the tar sands. Unfortunately for them,while there, a large flock of ducks landed in the ever-growing tar ponds, died en masse, and hit the headlines.- In the 1990s, Big Tobacco was in a life and death struggle to retain market share as cigarette prices soared to $50/200. The answer was to work through Canada’s native reserves and smuggle cigarettes in at cheap prices. They got caught and the resulting civil settlement reported onAugust 1 (Toronto Star) said that Imperial Tobacco and Rothman’s, Benson &Hedges paid out $300 million. On the second of August the same newspaper reported that the federal government paid out compensation to the tobacco farmers, who are being squeezed out of the market by a diminishing customer base, to the tune of …$300 million! John Ayers

MODERN TIMES

"Over the past five years alone, the average earnings of chief executives of FTSE-100 companies have doubled to £3.2m. Their pay has been rising five times faster than their employees'. The top 1 per cent of the population now enjoy 23 per cent of national wealth, while the poorest half share a mere 6 per cent. For most of the 20th century, Britain became steadily more equal. For the past three decades the movement has been in the opposite direction and it is estimated that Britain's wealthiest person, Lakshmi Mittal, is worth more than twice as much as anybody in the past 150 years." (New Statesman, 11 September) RD

INVADE AND THEN PROFIT

"The Iraqi government is seeking to buy 36 advanced F-16 fighters from the U.S., American military officials familiar with the request told the Wall Street Journal. This move could help Iraq reduce its reliance on U.S. air power and potentially allow more American forces to withdraw from the country than had been proposed. The F-16, made by Lockheed Martin Corp, is the most sophisticated weapons system Iraq has attempted to purchase so far. Late in July, the U.S. Department of Defense had approved up to $10.7 billion in arms sales for Iraq, including a $2.16 billion sale of M1A1 Abrams tanks built by General Dynamics Corp. The U.S. recently announced F-16 sales to Morocco and Romania. Those sales, each for roughly $100 million per plane with training, related equipment and support included, offer an indication of how lucrative the Iraq deal could be for Lockheed Martin and its suppliers. Iraq now appears determined to significantly expand the air power of its military, which has become more competent and confident in recent months but depends heavily on the U.S. for air support. Iraq quickly has become one of the biggest weapons buyers in the world as it seeks to strengthen and professionalise its fighting force." (Yahoo News, 5 September) RD

POST-WAR PROFITS

"Royal Dutch Shell is to become the first western oil company to sign a deal with the Iraqi government since the US-led invasion of 2003, agreeing a plan to capture and use gas in the Basra region that could be worth up to $4bn." (Financial Times, 8 September) RD

CITY SLICKERS

"In 2004 a FTSE chief executive earned 54 times more than the least-paid employee, compared with nine times in the 1970s. In the US, always more extreme, the pay gap is an almost unbelievable 430 times." (Observer, 7 September) RD

THE INDIAN RUPEE TRICK

Many Asian countries are depicted as "third-world" where an undeveloped economy leaves millions starving, but here is an example of an Indian capitalist who has learned the trick of exploiting workers to make a fortune."Vijay Mallya, the founder and chairman of fast-growing Kingfisher Airlines, launched his first international route yesterday linking Heathrow with India's IT capital Bangalore - a daily service that puts the carrier in head-to-head competition with BA. ...The father-of-three, ranked 476th in Fortune's list of the world's wealthiest people, has 26 homes around the world and 260 vintage cars. He made his fortune as chairman of Indian drinks group United Breweries, the Kingfisher-beer owner that last year acquired Scotch whisky maker Whyte & Mackay for £595m." (Daily Telegraph, 5 September) RD

BEHIND THE RHETORIC

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili shakes hands with a U.S. Air Force member as he and Vice President Dick Cheney inspect humanitarian aid at an airport in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Sept. 4

Capitalist statesmen often speak of high ideals like freedom and democracy but behind the high-sounding rhetoric there is usually a harsh reality. A recent example was the US vice-president's speech in Georgia."Speaking in Georgia on Thursday, Cheney slammed Russia's "illegitimate, unilateral attempt" to redraw the country's borders and promised ongoing support for Georgia's efforts to join NATO. The Vice President's trip was accompanied by a $1 billion aid package announced in Washington Wednesday, for the purpose of rebuilding Georgia's shattered economy and infrastructure. Upon arriving in Azerbaijan on Wednesday, Cheney told the people of that country and their neighbours in Georgia and Ukraine that "the United States has a deep and abiding interest in your well-being and security." Fine words indeed, but behind them was a more sordid reason than concern for the well-being of the Georgian citizens. "Vice President Dick Cheney, on a tour of former Soviet Republics, was working to shore up U.S. alliances in the wake of Russia's military humiliation of Georgia - a mission whose outcome could have profound consequences for Washington's efforts to maintain and expand the flow of oil and natural gas to the West while bypassing Russia. " (Time, 4 September) RD