MUSLIM HYPOCRISY

"Morocco has become one of the largest winemakers in the Muslim world, with the equivalent of 35 million bottles produced last year. Wine brings the state millions in sales tax, even though Islam appears to be on the rise politically. "Morocco is a country of tolerance," said Mehdi Bouchaara, the deputy general manager at the Celliers de Meknes, the country's largest winemaker, which bottles over 85 per cent of national output. "It's everybody's personal choice whether to drink or not." The Celliers have flourished on this tolerance. The firm now cultivates 2,100 hectares (5,189 acres) of vineyards, bottling anything from entry-level table wine to homemade sparkling wine and even a high-end claret, Chateau Roslane, aged in a vaulted cellar packed with oak barrels imported from France. The winery now dwarfs virtually any other producer in Europe. On paper, wine is "Haram," or forbidden to Muslims. But Bouchaara said the firm's distribution is all legal since it only sells to traders authorized by the state, who in turn officially sell exclusively to non-Muslim tourists. Statistics, however, show that Moroccans consume on average one litre (a quarter of a gallon) of wine per person each year, and the Moroccan state itself is the largest owner of the country's 12,000 hectares (29,652 acres) of vineyards." (Associated Press, 6 April) RD

MORE "EXPERT" FAILURE

"The Washington Post has just dropped its separate City section and runs financial coverage in with the rest of the news. The New York Times is about to do the same.
What? Downgrade the importance of economics, bailouts and bust banks just as they grip the world by the windpipe? Was there ever such a decision so out of time? Two comments. Whole sections of expertise didn't help readers to see what was coming. And since its come, there isn't the advertising left to make them fly away." (Observer, 5 April) RD

old and in the way

A quarter of UK pensioners feel their lives are getting worse.

Michelle Mitchell from Age Concern and Help the Aged said: "Loneliness, depression, poverty and neglect blight the lives of millions of older people and for many, evidence shows the situation is getting worse, not better...."

Yet all the charities can do is make plaintive pleas to government for reforms . To be frank, campaigning charities like Age Concern and Help the Aged have got no chance at all of getting governments to change their practice of putting profits before people. And it is not because they believe merely in lobbying that dooms them to failure. As long as the capitalist system continues to exist, its economic laws will operate to put profits before people, and governments will have no choice but to dance to this tune.

RECESSION? WHAT RECESSION?

"Although most City eateries suffered a drop-off in lunchtime trade, three bankers from Deutsche Bank spotted at the Coq d'Argent clearly were determined not to let the great unwashed prevent them from having a decent lunch. A contact on a neighbouring table claims the trio drank their way through three bottles of wine at £120 a time." (Times, 2 April) RD

Food for Thought 2

- Bernard Madoff’s wife was able to withdraw $10 million dollars the day before he surrendered. The feds said,
“ The process (of scrutinizing the money) gives us the right to look at all of it to try to prove that Mrs. Madoff did not earn this money on her own”.
Now, let’s see, @ minimum wage, $10/hour, that would take her…500 years! Either she’s a very old lady, or she must have earned more than the minimum wage!

- In the recession news, the unemployed number in the US has officially hit 12.5 million and construction has soared, of tents, that is. A recent picture in the Toronto Star showed people and tents beside a railway line. A locomotive is passing close behind them with a fluttering American flag and the Union Pacific flag painted on the side and the words, “Building America” beside them. Ironic indeed!

- In Ontario, it’s up and down for the 1.3 million poor, as usual. On the good side, the minimum wage increases 75 cents per hour to $9.50, and the child tax credit doubled to $92 per child per month. The bad news is that on that basis you would still be well below the poverty line and the premier is hinting that next year’s planned increase in the minimum wage may have to be shelved until the economy improves, by which time any gains would be more than wiped out by inflation. Back to the old treadmill!

- And the ridiculous? The Ontario Energy Board has put aside money to be more flexible with those who can’t pay bills, i.e. not to charge interest on unpaid bills, and to help those people to become more energy efficient and have lower bills in the future. Only problem is the poor don’t own their houses and the landlords are not interested in refits because they don’t pay the utilities.
John Ayers

ALIENATION WRIT LARGE

"Mary Merchant, 72, who died of natural causes in her locked house in 25 acres of land, lay undiscovered with her dog, which died of thirst, for 18 months in South Carolina. Her house was sold for tax arrears before her body was found." (Times, 2 April) RD

Malnutrition in the UK ?

“We think we are heading towards malnutrition happening here in the UK.” - Save the Children’s Colette Marshall told the BBC. "Benefits simply haven’t been enough and with rising food costs it means that families cannot afford to give children proper decent food. "

Children are being deprived of dietary staples and instead are being raised on cheap packaged food high in fat, salt and sugar. The Grocer magazine shows food prices rising by almost a fifth over the past year, with basic essentials such as rice and milk among the worst hit.

Food for Thought

- Some of the rich are hurting, too. The top 5 American banks Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, and HSBC Bank, lost a combined total of $587 billion just on derivatives in 2008.

- The City of Gold, Dubai, is cancelling 1 500 work visas per day, and 53% of current construction projects, worth $582 billion are on hold.

- Warren Buffet had to make do with just $175 000 in pay for 2008, the same as the year before. He also lost $25 billion in net worth as it plunged from $62 billion to just $37 billion. How do they get by!

- Banks can recoup some of their losses through the usual immigrant practice of sending money home, by charging foreign exchange and service fees for the transfer, which amount to $2 billion per year.

- The AIG bonuses of $220 million for running their company into the ground are well publicized, but Canada’s Nortel beats that story. After laying off 1100 employees, they sought, and got, bankruptcy protection so they didn’t have to pay them severance packages, but just a couple of weeks later, they awarded themselves $45 million in bonuses, 8 senior executives taking home $7.3 million collectively. Not bad for failing, wonder what they would have got for succeeding!

- Manulife’s retiring CEO pulled in $13.25 million for 2008 (down From $17 million in 2007) and $12.6 million for 2009 even though he will retire in May
John Ayers

A GRATEFUL GOVERNMENT?

"Although almost 4,000 military staff annually are found to have some form of mental disorder, in just over three years only 115 British personnel or veterans were compensated for the psychological injuries of war. Under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme any soldier or veteran who can show a service-related mental disorder lasting at least six weeks is eligible for a £3,000 payout." (Times, 28 March) RD

A HOUSING BARGAIN

"Los Angeles – The widow of producer Aaron Spelling is placing "The Manor" in the exclusive Holmby Hills neighbourhood on the market for a jaw-dropping $150 million, making it by far the most expensive home for sale in the U.S. The French chateau-style mansion has 56,500 square feet of space on more than 4.6 acres and is the largest home in Los Angeles County. Among the neighbours are the Los Angeles Country Club and, not too far away, the Playboy Mansion." (Yahoo News, 27 March) RD

A BRAZILIAN NUT

"Weighing just 79 pounds and barely four feet tall, the 9-year-old girl, from Alagoinha, a town in the northeast, underwent an abortion when she was 15 weeks pregnant at one of the 55 centres authorized to perform the procedure in Brazil. Abortion is legal here only in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is at risk. The doctors’ actions set off a swirl of controversy. A Brazilian archbishop summarily excommunicated everyone involved — the doctors for performing the abortion and the girl’s mother for allowing it — except for the stepfather, who stands accused of raping the girl over a number of years. “The law of God is above any human law,” said José Cardoso Sobrinho, the archbishop, who argued that while rape was bad, abortion was even worse." (New York Times, 27 March) RD

THE RETREAT OF RELIGION

In primitive times people worshipped volcanoes, river gods and thunder gods; but with the advance in human knowledge of the elements the old witch doctors were discredited. Now religion having failed with the weather retreated to birth and death as the great unknowable for business. With Christian churches emptying they now have to look for a new dodge. Here is what one bright spark has come up with. "Information Age Prayer is a site that charges you a monthly fee to say prayers for you. A typical charge is $4.95 per month to say three prayers specified by you each day. "We use state of the art text to speech synthesizers to voice each prayer at a volume and speed equivalent to typical person praying," the company states. "Each prayer is voiced individually, with the name of the subscriber displayed on screen." Prices, however, are dictated by the length of the prayer. As noted in the Information Age Prayer FAQ, "A discounted prayer will cost less than other prayers of similar length." (Yahoo News, 26 March)
The writer of that article stated, "I'm fascinated by the intersection between religion and technology, as are some well-known science fiction writers. For example, if a machine can say a prayer for you, why not have a fully robotic pope and clergy?" The choir boys would certainly be safer! RD

THE MUSIC JUNGLE

Everything inside capitalist society is secondary to the profit motive. So it comes as no great surprise to hear that the popular-music industry is a victim of the rapacious demands of the commodity-producing society. Here is the highly successful pop song-writer and singer, formerly of the Eurithymics, Annie Lennox on the dog-eat-dog nature of the business.
"The music industry is a bloody nightmare. The egos, the slightly criminal elements, the betrayers, the ones who want to screw you." (Observer, 29 March) RD

A DEPRESSING SOCIETY

"Up until last year, for most bankers in the City and on Wall Street, the word "depression" had a specific, economic meaning. But since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September, it has come to have a much more personal and devastating resonance for an increasing number of financiers. Rehabilitation clinics on both sides of the Atlantic are experiencing a boom in the number of financial sector workers seeking help for anxiety, depression, stress and addicted-related issues amid colossal redundancy programmes on Wall Street and in the City and severe losses across world capital markets." (Times, 25 March) RD

COCAINE AND CAPITALISM

"More than 10,000 people have died since President Calderon of Mexico committed troops to tackle the six main cartels in December 2006. Beheadings have become a common way of enforcing discipline within the cartels. Earlier this year Santiago Meza, Aka "the Stew Maker", confessed to having dissolved more than 300 gangland execution victims in acid."
(Times, 25 March) RD

The Recession - it is a death sentence

The World Bank is issuing even bleaker warnings about rising poverty and hunger in the developing world. Initially, it estimated that 46 million people in developing countries could be pushed into poverty. Now, that level is up another 7 million.
“We estimate that about 130 million people were pushed into poverty from the food crisis and if you add the financial crisis on top of that we are estimating that about 53 million more people could be pushed into poverty as a result of the financial crisis,” World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said

The World Bank estimated that the current financial downturn may add between 200,000 and 400,000 additional infant deaths per year on average in the 2009 to 2015 period. That means a total of 1.4 million to 2.8 million more infant deaths, if the financial strain continues.

"...When you talk about the financial crisis becoming an unemployment crisis in the developed world, in the developing world for many poor people it’s not an issue of unemployment, it’s an issue of life and death.”

KINSHIP AND CAPITALISM

Capitalism perverts every human relationship it touches, but this is surely one of the most awful examples of the cash nexus inside this dreadful society.
"A couple from Detroit pleaded guilty to killing their two-year-old son and trying to cremate him on a barbecue grill so that they could collect his welfare benefit. Sentences are due to be passed next month." (Times, 25 March) RD

SCRAPING BY ON $43 MILLION

"HARTFORD, Conn. – Former United Technologies Corp. chief executive George David and his wife are doing battle in Hartford in a divorce trial that shines light on the couple's extravagant lifestyle. David and Swedish countess Marie Douglas-David married in 2002. They signed a post-nuptial agreement in 2005 that would give the 36-year-old Douglas-David $43 million when the couple divorces. The 67-year-old businessman wants the court to uphold the agreement. His wife says the money isn't enough to maintain her $53,000-per-week living expenses. Their divorce trial started Wednesday because they were unable to reach an out-of-court settlement. David stepped down as chief executive of United Technologies last year, but remains chairman of the board. He has an estimated net worth of $329 million."
(Yahoo News, 18 March) RD

Who owns the North Pole - Part 14

And you thought that the continuing saga for political and economical and military domination of the mineral-rich arctic regions had been forgotten about but we now read of further developments .

Russia has announced plans to set up a military force to protect its interests in the Arctic. In a document published on its national security council's website, Moscow says it expects the Arctic to become its main resource base by 2020.
The document foresees the Arctic becoming Russia's main source of oil and gas within the next decade. In order to protect its assets, Moscow says one of its main goals will be the establishment of troops "capable of ensuring military security" in the region.

With an estimated 90 billion untapped barrels of oil, Russia's strategy is likely to cause concern among other countries with claims to the Arctic.

COMIC BOOK CAPITALISM

This news item sums up the madness that is capitalism, occurring as it does in a world where millions are forced to eke out a pitiful existence on less than $1 a day.
"New York – A rare copy of the first comic book featuring Superman has sold for $317,200 in an Internet auction. The previous owner had bought it for less than a buck. It's one of the highest prices ever paid for a comic book, a likely testament to the volume's rarity and its excellent condition, said Stephen Fishler, co-owner of the auction site ComicConnect.com and its sister dealership, Metropolis Collectibles." (Yahoo News, 14 March) RD