CAPITALISM IN ACTION

"Changing weather patterns have decimated crops in several of the world's poorest countries this year, leaving millions in need of food aid and humanitarian workers warning about the dangerous effects of climate change. Farmers in Nepal have been able to produce only half their usual crop, said an Oxfam International report released last week. Livestock are dying of malnutrition in Yemen, according to the humanitarian news service IRIN. And the Red Cross is bracing for the effects of heavy rains across 16 West and Central African nations. All three are the result of extended atypical weather events -- drought, rain, or untimely combinations of both -- in places where subsistence farmers have long depended on predictability. In Nepal, more than 3 million people -- about 10 percent of the population -- will need food aid this year, said Oxfam." (Yahoo News, 2 September) RD

HUMANS ARE SOCIAL BEINGS

Hurricane Katrina: A disabled woman is rescued in Pascagoula, Miss., Aug. 29,
2005

"But ask any New Yorker about, say, the blackout of 2003, and you’re likely to get not a shudder of horror but wistful reminiscences about people spontaneously directing traffic when the signals went dark. As Rebecca Solnit documents in “A Paradise Built in Hell,” a landmark work that gives an impassioned challenge to the social meaning of disasters, this same sort of positive feeling has emerged in far more precarious circumstances, from the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 to Hurricane Katrina. Disasters, for Solnit, do not merely put us in view of apocalypse, but provide glimpses of utopia. They do not merely destroy, but create. “Disasters are extraordinarily generative,” she writes. As the prevailing order — which she elliptically characterizes as advanced global capitalism, full of anomie and isolation — collapses, another order takes shape: “In its place appears a reversion to improvised, collaborative, cooperative and local society.” (New York Times, 1 September) RD

Reading Notes

The industrial epoch alone has built up every spot between these old houses to win a covering for the masses whom it has conjured hither from the agricultural districts and from Ireland; the industrial epoch alone enables the owners of these cattle sheds to rent them for high prices to human beings, to plunder the poverty of the workers, to undermine the health of thousands, in order that they alone, the owners, may grow rich.In the industrial epoch alone has it become possible that the worker scarcely freed from feudal servitude could be used as mere material, a mere chattel; that he must let himself be.
"The Condition of the WorkingClass in England", p.87).

A CHILLING PROSPECT

"Iran has until late September to respond to the latest international proposal aimed at stopping the Islamic Republic from developing a nuclear weapon. Under the proposal, Iran would suspend its uranium enrichment program in exchange for a U.N. Security Council commitment to forgo a fourth round of economic and diplomatic sanctions. But if diplomacy fails, the world should be prepared for an Israeli attack on Iran's suspected nuclear weapons facilities. As Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently acknowledged: "The window between a strike on Iran and their getting nuclear weapons is a pretty narrow window." If Israel attempts such a high-risk and destabilizing strike against Iran, President Obama will probably learn of the operation from CNN rather than the CIA. History shows that although Washington seeks influence over Israel's military operations, Israel would rather explain later than ask for approval in advance of launching preventive or pre-emptive attacks. Those hoping that the Obama administration will be able to pressure Israel to stand down from attacking Iran as diplomatic efforts drag on are mistaken." (Los Angles Times, 30 August) RD

THE FAILURE OF CHARITY

Women and children gather at a food distribution centre in Ethiopia's Oromiya
region

"The spectre of famine has returned to the Horn of Africa nearly a quarter of a century after the world's pop stars gathered to banish it at Live Aid, raising £150m for relief efforts in 1985. Millions of impoverished Ethiopians face the threat of malnutrition and possibly starvation this winter in what is shaping up to be the country's worst food crisis for decades. Estimates of the number of people who need emergency food aid have risen steadily this year from 4.9 million in January to 5.3 million in May and 6.2 million in June. Another 7.5 million are getting aid in return for work on community projects, as part of the National Productive Safety Net Program for people whose food supplies are chronically insecure, bringing the total being fed to 13.7 million." (Independent, 30 August) RD

Food for Thought

On the environmental front, Peter Gorrie (Toronto Star, 22/08/09) wrote,
"Lobbyists hired by the American coal industry sent forged letters, purporting to be from non-profit groups opposed to the US climate-change plan, to members of Congress. The oil industry is organizing 20 'public rallies' supplying props, speakers, and busloads of placard-carrying company employees – their chants well rehearsed – to mimic grass roots opposition to the Clean Energy and Security Act."
Would we expect anything different form a profit driven system? Meanwhile, in China, the world's new leader in greenhouse gas emissions, there is a push to become the world leader in electric power, not, say manufacturers, to save the planet but to make money and conserve oil. Seventy per cent of China's energy comes from coal and with another 5 billion tons in the ground, we can expect China to continue to be number one. John Ayers

Food for Thought

Despite the cheerleaders, read Economists' use of number crunching to show that the recession is over, other numbers show the opposite.Toronto’s jobless rate rose to 11.5% from 8.5% one year ago, and welfare cases rose 12 000 to 87 450 over the same period. For the 18-24 age group, unemployment is up to 20%, leaving many students to face more debt to be paid off after graduation. Great system!
- Then there are the effects of capitalism. The Brighton Independent reported that 19%, or 1 000 soldiers and police serving in Afghanistan have been discharged for psychological strain, a jump of 50% over the last year.
- Imagine this – you buy a condominium in Florida for $430 000 forRetirement. Then the market crashes and all other buyers walk away. You are left as the sole tenant in a 32 -storey building! Of course, there are plenty of homeless people who could fill it up, but they don’t count without the cash. Only in capitalism could you encounter something this stupid!
John Ayers

Early Death: Greater Returns!

After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.
The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die. The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money. (New York Times September 6th)
It's your patriotic duty. no doubt.

CHAMPAGNE SOCIALISTS!

In the past when Southern Californian fruit growers were faced with a glut and falling prices they let the fruit rot on the trees. When castigated for this apparent madness they pointed out the quite logical capitalist argument that they would have to pay pickers wages for fruit they couldn't sell. When again they were taken to task for this argument they were offered by some charitable organisations the prospect of them supplying free labour and they would distribute to the needy. Again the fruit growers had an answer to that.
"Every year charitable organisations buy at cut-rate prices our unsold surplus. Giving it away would even spoil that source of income for us."
The fruitgrowers may have appeared heartless but from an economic standpoint letting the fruit rot seemed the logical action. A similar solution is being followed today by French wine producers.
"Hopes of a glut of cheap champagne are set to be dashed when vineyards meet next week to agree on a big cut in production to prop up prices. With sales falling, producers may be ordered to leave up to half their grapes to wither on the vine in an attempt to squeeze the market." (Times, 29 August)
Capitalism is a crazy system, obviously inside socialism we would deal with the problem by drinking more champagne! RD

HARD TIMES

"The wealth of Russia's richest children, offspring of the super-rich oligarchs, has been shrunk by the credit crunch. Only 54 children now stand to inherit at least $1 billion each, compared with 112 before the crisis. The money the "mini-garchs" could inherit has also shrunk, from a collective $450 billion in 2008 to $107 billion, according to a league compiled by Finans magazine. Top of the list is Yusuf Alekperov, 19, only child of Vagit Alekperov, president of Lukoil, who is worth an estimated $7.6 billion. The children of Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea FC, fill the next five places , with $2.7 billion each." (Times, 1 September) RD

Food for Thought

How capitalism works 3

The same author ( Davie Oliver ) describes how the banking industry isWinning the battle against being regulated after receiving billions in handouts (Toronto Star, 09/08/09) ,

"You would think after global financiers triggered the current, unprecedented world-wide recession and credit crisis, they might embrace inevitable reforms that their reckless conduct made necessary. The US government pumped life sustaining cash into 20 banks but their powerful lobbying groups are resisting any legislation to curtail their activities, they jacked up credit card interest to 27% and more, have hastily foreclosed on borrowers, heedless of Washington’s plea to do the opposite, they have set aside billions for employee bonuses and they still lend a high 35 times their capital reserves.

'Olive did manage to come up with,' But, as profit maximizing institutions, their imperative is to focus even harder on making money."

Doesn't this describe every enterprise in capitalism? John Ayers

Food for Thought

How capitalism works 2
Those who hoped for a better system of organizing capitalism,more social justice etc after the governments of the world bailed out the'bad boys' of the system, are going to be sorely disappointed according toDavid Olive Toronto Star (The Era of Big Government already in retreat).He posits that the greedy are flexing their muscles again and ready tostep back into their natural position of command. He cites the town hallmeetings across America where mention of 'Obamacare', a pale version ofuniversal health care is greeted with Nazi salutes and Sieg Heil!Organised of course by those big boys who want to continue raking in themoney at the expense of a system based on human need. Unfortunately, Olive doesn’t mention that this is just the norm in capitalism. John Ayers

Food for Thought

How capitalism Works 1
The Toronto Star (22/08/09) recently revealed that the pharmaceutical industry is involved in a scam to give academic credence to its advertising claims. Common in the US, it has now arrived in Canada. Mcgill University (Montreal) professor Barbara Sherwin lent her name to an article extolling the virtues of estrogen that was, in fact,ghost written by the company itself. Any underhand method of promoting commodities and making money is, apparently, acceptable, and any scientist can be bought. John Ayers

A MODEST SORT

Away back in the bad old days we had ruthless dictators with over-bearing ideas of their own importance but today's leaders are much more modest fellows. In the past we had people like the despot Stalin who regularly polled over 100% at "elections", nowadays in "democratic" Belarussia we have more self-effacing creatures at the helm of state. "The Belrussian strongman, Alexander Lukashenko, admitted that he rigged the 2006 election because, he said, his popularity was so vast that the true margin of victory was unbelievable and had to be cut from 93 to 80 per cent." (Times, 28 August) RD

NOT SO HOLY

Japanese high school students wearing masks in Tokyo May 17, 2009

"Catholic churchgoers in Tokyo will have to do without holy water for now as the H1N1 influenza outbreak prompts Japanese churches to take steps to prevent the spread of the virus. The Franciscan Chapel Centre in Tokyo is one church that has decided to empty the holy water basins, into which parishioners traditionally dip their fingers and bless themselves by making a sign of the cross." (Yahoo News, 21 August) RD

GREEN SHOOTS? WHERE?

"Network Rail has revealed plans to cut 1,800 maintenance jobs ... Fujitsu, the computer giant, is cutting 1,200 jobs - one in ten of its workforce in Britain. Lloyds Banking Group is shedding a further 200 posts in a fresh round of cuts that takes its total job losses this year to 7,500. About 850 jobs were lost with the closure of 142 Allied Carpets outlets by administrators. GKN, the engineering group, announced that a further 1,200 workers would be made redundant, in addition to the 2,500 jobs already cut. In the three months to June, unemployment climbed to 7.8 per cent - its highest level in 13 years. Economists are predicting that jobless numbers will soon pass three million to rival the worst levels of the 1980s. (Times, 28 August) RD

CAPITALISM IS MAD

Elsie Poncher is selling her husband's burial spot directly above film legend
Marilyn Monroe so that she can pay off pay off the $1.6 million mortgage on her
Beverly Hills home.

When socialists explain that world socialism is a new society wherein all wealth will be produced solely for use and not sale and that there will be no wages, prices or rent inside socialism we are often accused of madness! To these defenders of capitalism there is something sane about people starving while food is destroyed. We wonder what they make of the following news item though. There are people today trying to survive on less than $2 a day at the same time as some crazed millionaires can get away with this madness. "Even in death, Marilyn Monroe is still snagging millionaires. An unidentified deep-pocketed fan who clearly prefers blonds placed the winning $4.6 million bid Monday in an eBay auction for the crypt directly above the sexy screen icon's grave. Beverly Hills widow Elsie Poncher put her husband's strategically positioned crypt on the auction block with a starting price of $500,000. Bidding soared to $4.5 million three days later." (Daily News, 24 August) Elsie Poncher is selling her husband's burial spot directly above film legend Marilyn Monroe so that she can pay off pay off the $1.6 million mortgage on her Beverly Hills home. RD

RELIGIOUS ROOTS

"In brief, the number of American non-believers has doubled since 1990, a 2008 Pew survey found, and increased even more in some other advanced democracies. What's curious is not so much the overall decline of belief (which has caused the Vatican to lament the de-Christianization of Europe) as the pattern. In a paper last month in the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, Gregory Paul finds that countries with the lowest rates of social dysfunction—based on 25 measures, including rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, unemployment, and poverty—have become the most secular. Those with the most dysfunction, such as Portugal and the U.S., are the most religious, as measured by self-professed belief, church attendance, habits of prayer, and the like." (Newsweek, 31 August) RD

HONG KONG HOUSING

"It's cramped and stale in what Lau Chi-lok calls home: a 20-square-foot portion of an apartment that he shares with 21 other men. For $167 a month, Lau gets the top bunk in what the government euphemistically calls a "bed space," or cubicle dwelling — a tiny rectangular area, partitioned by thin wooden slabs or steel mesh wire to safeguard the resident's belongings, barely large enough for a mattress. At least there's air-conditioning, turned on at 9 p.m. every summer night. For most people in Hong Kong, the lives of Lau and his roommates are a world apart, hidden behind gated doors and dark stairways. But this is home to thousands of Hong Kong's urban slum dwellers, who are barely making ends meet and — in this year's downturn — putting off dreams of a better life. Across Victoria Harbour from Hong Kong's central business district, in a neighbourhood of bright neon signs and bustling vendors, 33-year-old Lai Man-law has been looking for a job for the past year while living in a mesh-wire 18-square-foot cage. "It's dirty and hot. There are cockroaches and bedbugs, and the air-conditioning doesn't work," he says. Every major metropolis has its share of slums; the U.N. estimates that one-third of the developing world's urban population lives in them, with nearly 40% of East Asian urban dwellers living in slum conditions." (Time, 21 August) RD

LA BELLE FRANCE?

French Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie visits the prison of Orleans in
central France. Alliot-Marie.

"France's overcrowded prisons are to be issued with preventive "kits" to help stem an alarming rise in suicide rates among inmates, the justice minister said on Tuesday. Since the start of the year, 81 prisoners have killed themselves in French jails, which are designed for a maximum of 51,000 inmates but currently house more than 62,000, according to official government figures. The International Prison Observatory this month put the figure even higher, at 88, attacking what it called a "worrying" trend in French jails. Under new measures, inmates identified as high risk will receive kits with tear-proof bedding and single-use paper pyjamas to prevent in-cell hangings, which accounts for 96 percent of all suicides." (Yahoo News, 18 August) RD