ALL RIGHT FOR SOME (2)

"More MPs are set to stand down at next year's general election in order to take advantage of "golden handshakes" of up to £65,000 that will not apply at future elections. Senior figures in all political parties warned that the new expenses regime announced on Wednesday will provide a "perverse incentive" for MPs to "take the money and run", as one put it. Whips believe another 50 could decide to quit, on top of the 114 who have already announced that they will leave Parliament. The Committee on Standards in Public Life, chaired by Sir Christopher Kelly, said the pay-offs of up to a year's salary should be cut to two months' wages if MPs retire rather than are made "redundant" by losing their seats at an election. That would reduce the "golden goodbye" of a long-serving MP from £64,766 to £10,794, on current salary levels." (Independent, 5 November) RD

DRUG PUSHERS PAY OFF

"Could you imagine how much money you would have to have to be able to spend $609,000 a day? What would you expect to receive for that amount of money? Who has that kind of money to spend, especially during a "recession"? According to the latest issue of Time magazine, in the first 6 months of this year, the pharmaceutical industry spent about $609,000 a day to influence lawmakers. Can you imagine the financial payoff they must expect to get to be able to spend that kind of money? This does not include all the money they spend on advertising as well. The drug industry has 1,228 registered lobbyists. This equals 2.3 lobbyists for every member of congress. Obviously, the pharmaceutical industry does not want to be left out of the current healthcare reform debate and are willing to pay handsomely to make sure they aren't. The return on that investment has already been considerable. As drug lobbyist Jim Greenwood says, "We've done very well." (Dr Brian's Blog, 26 October) RD

A PROPERTY OWNING DEMOCRACY?

"New figures from Credit Action show that a property is repossessed every 11 and half minutes as the recession begins to bite. The debt organisation also said that 9,300 people are visiting Citizens Advice every day as their struggle to cope with their personal debts. Total UK personal debt at the end of September 2009 stood at £1,459bn. The twelvemonth growth rate remained at 0.8pc said Credit Action." (Daily Telegraph, 3 November) RD

A DOSE OF PROFIT

"GlaxoSmithKline is getting rich from swine flu vaccine sales. GSK, which has already sold 440m doses of its vaccine Pandemrix worldwide, said sales would hit £1bn this quarter. GSK confirmed in July that it would cost developed countries about 7 Euros (£6.30) for each dose, but it has declined to reveal production costs amid speculation it costs as little as £1 a dose to make." (Observer, 1 November) RD

ALL RIGHT FOR SOME

"As workers up and down the UK sat at home last week worrying about whether they would still have a job in a month's time, a raucous crowd of hedge fund managers and investment bankers at the Whisky Mist nightclub in Mayfair pulled yet more vodka out of their huge ice bucket and called for the waiter to bring another bottle of Dom Perignon, served with a sparkler. ...In London nightspots last week, the City's finest were spending with a swagger. ...As City workers once again prepare for corporate excess, and investment banks such as Goldman Sachs get ready to pay record bonuses, new bars, restaurants and nightclubs are springing up around the office tower blocks in the City and Canary Wharf to feed demand." (Observer, 1 November) RD

REAL LIFE MONOPOLY

REAL LIFE MONOPOLY

When we were children around about the time that we were tiring of Ludo and Snakes and Ladders we discovered the board game Monopoly. I can't remember the details or the rules - something about cards that said such things as "Pass Go, collect £200" - "Go to jail" - "Get out of jail". In real life it is usually found that going to jail meant the only people to collect money were the lawyers, but whatever the rules were it was good fun building hotels in Park Lane while your opponent was stuck in a hovel in the East End somewhere or off to jail and not collecting £200.

When we grew up of course we quickly learned that the Grosvenor Hotel and a mansion in Park Lane were not for "the likes of us". Our fate was to be members of the working class who had to work for a wage or a salary and lead an anxious life between weekly or monthly pay cheques. However there are people who wheel and deal in such properties and a recent newspaper article gave some details of these deals.

Two separate properties in Park Lane valued at £5m-£6m, one in Grosvenor Street for £10m and one in Reeves Mews at £25m. The astonishing thing about these desirable residences is that they have been vacant for between five and ten years. According to the empty properties officer for Westminster council Paul Palmer the owners intend to keep them empty for the present.

"There are an estimated 1m empty homes in the UK, and as empty properties officer for Westminster council, Palmer is responsible for about 3,000 of them. Every day he visits some of the ritziest addresses in the capital and does his best to get them lived in again. What makes his job unique is the staggering value of the properties on his books; some of his Mayfair mansions are worth as much as £50m, even in their dilapidated state. ... The properties usually aren't abandoned for reasons which might prompt sympathy. Palmer believes many elusive owners don't have the slightest intention of bringing them back to life. "So often offshore owners have little or no interest in the property as a building it is merely an asset to be traded as they see fit," he says adding that offshore firms are tricky to track down." (Guardian, 17 October)

The article points out that in some cases where property is owned by offshore companies, no UK capital gains tax is payable, and there are cases where the wheelers dealers sell a £1m property after a year for £2m and avoid the 18% tax. These traders do not look upon these properties as places to live but as chips in their grown-up game of Monopoly. All of this financial skullduggery goes on against a background of millions of workers living in sub-standard housing, thousands homeless and hundreds even sleeping in the streets around about these empty luxurious mansions.

Compared to the complexities of capitalism socialism is a simple social system. Houses will be built for people to live in, not counters in a horror version of the kids' board game like we have today. At 21 Upper Grosvenor Street there is a house valued at £25m, it has been empty for more than ten years. Once we establish world socialism it will be occupied immediately by a family at presently homeless. A simple socialist solution to a problem that capitalism finds insoluble.

RD

END OF A DREAM

END OF A DREAM

Ever since the publication of his "Unsafe at Any Speed" in 1965 Ralph Nader has been the darling of radical circles in the USA. Here was a man who dared to question the power of such capitalist concerns as General Motors. He went on to found scores of progressive non-profit organisations. He even ran as a Green Party and later an Independent candidate for the President of the USA. On one occasion he even polled almost 3 million votes. Capitalism however is a resilient social system and his attempt at reforming capitalism has ended up with him looking to the capitalists to solve the problems. He is on tour at present to promote his first fictional book entitled "Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us". This has led some of his former supporters to doubt his reasoning. "There is a poignancy in listening to Ralph Nader these days. Here is a man who, for the last 45 years, has hurled his body at the engine of corporate power. He’s dented it more than anyone else in America. But he knows it’s still chugging, even more strongly than ever. Nader understands that he’s losing. He understands that we’re losing—we who believe in democracy, we who care about justice. But if our only hope is with a handful of billionaires, we’re in a lot worse shape than I thought." (The Progressive, 28 September)

HUMAN EVOLUTION

HUMAN EVOLUTION

"Despite evidence that human evolution still functions, biologists concede that it's anyone's guess where it will take us from here. Artificial selection in the form of genetic medicine could push natural selection into obsolescence, but a lethal pandemic or other cataclysm could suddenly make natural selection central to the future of the species. Whatever happens, Steve Jones, an evolutionary biologist at University College London says, it is worth remembering that Darwin's beautiful theory has suffered a long history of abuse. The bastard science of eugenics, he says, will haunt humanity as long as people are tempted to confuse evolution with improvement. "Uniquely in the living world, what makes humans what we are in our minds, in our society, and not in our evolution," he says." (TIME, 23 October) RD

HOW ABOUT SOCIALISM?

A crop of genetically modified canola grows in a field in Lake Bolac, in
the Western District of Victoria, Australia, Sept 29 2009

With food prices remaining high in developing countries, the United Nations estimates that the number of hungry people around the world could increase by 100 million in 2009 and pass the one billion mark. A summit of world leaders in Rome scheduled for November will set an agenda for ways to reduce hunger and increase investment in agriculture development in poor countries. What will drive the next Green Revolution? Is genetically modified food an answer to world hunger? Are there other factors that will make a difference in food production?

( New York Times, 26th October ) RD

DEMOCRACY, US STYLE

Michael R Bloomberg, the Wall Street mogul whose fortune catapulted him into New York's City Hall, has set another staggering financial record: He has now spent more of his own money than any other individual in United States history in the pursuit of public office. Newly released campaign records show the mayor, as of Friday, had spent $85 million on his latest re-election campaign, and is on pace to spend between $110 million and $140 million before the election on Nov 3. That means Mr. Bloomberg, in his three bids for mayor, will have easily burned through more than $250 million __the equivalent of what Warner Brothers spent on the latest Harry Potter movie. The sum easily surpasses what other titans of business have spent to seek state or federal office. New Jersy's Jon S Corzine has plunked down a total of $130 million in two races for govenor and one for United States Senate. Steve Forbes poured $114 million into his two bids for President and Ross Perot spent $65 million in hid quest for the White House in 1992 and $10 million four years later.
(New York Times, 23 October) RD

CAPITALISM ISN'T WORKING

Women spreading wet rice to dry in Bangladesh after record rains in July

Scientist and development experts across the globe are racing to increase food production by 50% over the next two decades to feed the world's growing population, yet many doubt their chances despite a broad concenus that enough land, water and experise exists. The number of hungry people in the world rose to 1.02 billion this year, or nearly one in seven people, according to United Nations Food and Argriculture Organisations, despite a 12 year concentrated effort to cut the number. The global recession added at least 100 million people by depriving them of the means to buy enough food, but the numbers were inching up even before the crisis, the United Nations noted in a report last week. "The way we manage the global agriculture and food security system doesn't work" said kostas G Stamoulis, a senior economist at the organisation. " There is this paradox of increasing global food production, even in developing countries, yet there is hunger."

( The New York Times, 22 October 09) RD

NO OLD BANGERS HERE

LEXUS

"Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Corvette, Lotus -- you can name all the ultra high-end sports vehicles in the auto industry and none of these cars hail from Japan, home of the Camry, Corolla, Civic and other family-oriented models. But the Lexus LF-A is finally ready for production after nine years in development. Just 500 units of the most powerful and most expensive car Toyota has ever produced will be available worldwide. The car offers 560 horsepower, a top speed of 202 miles per hour (325 kilometers per hour), your choice of 12 shades of leather and a price tag of over €255,000." (Independent, 22 October) RD

LAZY WORKERS?

Chris Kelsey, right, director of the C.R. England truck driving school in Burns
Harbor, Ind., received several hundred applications for an administrative
assistant position that was eventually filled by Tiffany Block, 28.

"As soon as the job opening was posted on the afternoon of Friday, July 10, the deluge began. C.R. England, a nationwide trucking company, needed an administrative assistant for its bustling driver training school here. Responsibilities included data entry, assembling paperwork and making copies. It was a bona-fide opening at a decent wage, making it the rarest of commodities here in northwest Indiana, where steel industry layoffs have helped drive unemployment to about 10 percent. When Stacey Ross, C. R. England’s head of corporate recruiting, arrived at her desk at the company’s Salt Lake City headquarters the next Monday, she found about 300 applications in the company’s e-mail inbox. And the fax machine had spit out an inch-and-a-half thick stack of résumés before running out of paper. By the time she pulled the posting off Careerbuilder.com later in the day, she guessed nearly 500 people had applied for the $13-an-hour job. “It was just shocking,” she said. “I had never seen anything so big.”

(New York Times, 21 October) RD

It often takes over three years following the death of a construction worker before a company is brought to trial and convicted.

Trade Unions are continually forced to pursue a reassessment of Health and Safety legislation. The employers in the Building Industry Management are again under scrutiny by the building workers’ union UCATT, here are a couple of extracts from the Autumn issue of the ‘Building Worker’ which only demonstrates once again that while we continue to live in capitalism, ‘running fast to stay still ‘ will always be no solution for workers.
Another young Scottish construction worker killed
UCATT Regional Secretary Harry Frew was shocked and saddened to hear of a young worker killed on a construction site in Troon, Ayrshire
" We will await the results of the HSE investigation but it is clear from the recent fatality figures that the construction industry is just as dangerous as at the time of the major health and safety summits called by the government in 2001 and 2004, we hope the upcoming summit will bring about a cultural change in the industry to health and safety. This only adds to the figures of workplace fatalities spiralling out of control this year. This year construction deaths leapt by 31%.”Last year 79 people were killed on construction sites and the HSE acknowledge that at least 70 per cent of those deaths are caused by management failures to take adequate health and safety measures.Yet Another construction fatality hits Scotland
UCATT Regional Secretary Harry Frew was shocked and saddened to hear of a young worker killed on a major construction site at the Earlsburn windfarm near Stirling. A 19 year old man died after falling 100ft while working inside a turbine.
He stressed: " This only adds to the figures of workplace fatalities which is spiralling out of control this year. Last year construction deaths leapt by 25%."Last year 79 people were killed on construction sites and the HSE acknowledge that at least 70 per cent of those deaths are caused by management failures to take adequate health and safety measures.
"The continued scale of fatalities reinforces our demand for Corporate Killing legislation, " said Mr Frew.A UCATT commissioned report has revealed that convictions of companies responsible for the death of construction workers have fallen by nearly three-quarters. The reports findings come at a time when construction deaths are rising.The report Levels of Convictions and Sentencing Following Prosecutions Arising from Deaths of Workers and Members of the Public in the Construction Sector undertaken by the Centre for Corporate Accountability on behalf of construction union UCATT, has been published to coincide with Workers Memorial Day (April 28). It reveals that in a six-year period from 1998 to 2004 Health and Safety Executive prosecutions in construction deaths plummeted from 42 per cent to just 11 per cent. The study covered the deaths of 504 construction workers. It often takes over three years following the death of a construction worker before a company is brought to trial and convicted.

Vatican thumbs up for Karl Marx after Galileo, Darwin and Oscar Wilde

Karl Marx, who famously described religion as “the opium of the people”, has joined Galileo, Charles Darwin and Oscar Wilde on a growing list of historical figures to have undergone an unlikely reappraisal by the Roman Catholic Church.
L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said yesterday that Marx’s early critiques of capitalism had highlighted the “social alienation” felt by the “large part of humanity” that remained excluded, even now, from economic and political decision-making.

“We have to ask ourselves, with Marx, whether the forms of alienation of which he spoke have their origin in the capitalist system,” Professor Sans wrote. “If money as such does not multiply on its own, how are we to explain the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few?”
(Times 22nd October 09)

THE STATISTICS BEHIND

Sheri West operated a shelter for homeless people, but last year she lost her
home in Cleveland and had to sleep in her car.

We are all familiar with the awful figures of unemployment and the re-possession of homes of the working class but behind these statistics lie the real shock of the lack of confidence to the personality of the people involved. Here is a particular nasty example of the trauma that can be experienced by even relatively comfortable workers who lose their jobs and their homes.

"Cleveland — The first night after she surrendered her house to foreclosure, Sheri West endured the darkness in her Hyundai sedan. She parked in her old driveway, with her flower-print dresses and hats piled in boxes on the back seat, and three cherished houseplants on the floor. She used her backyard as a restroom. The second night, she stayed with a friend, and so it continued for more than a year: Ms. West — mother of three grown children, grandmother to six and great-grandmother to one — passed months on the couches of friends and relatives, and in the front seat of her car. But this fall, she exhausted all options. She had once owned and overseen a group home for homeless people. Now, she succumbed to that status herself, checking in to a shelter.
“No one could have told me that in a million years: I’d wake up in a homeless shelter,” she said. “I had a house for homeless people. Now, I’m homeless.” Growing numbers of Americans who have lost houses to foreclosure are landing in homeless shelters, according to social service groups and a recent report by a coalition of housing advocates." (New York Times, 19 October)

The real lesson to be learned from Sheri's plight is that there is no security for members of the working class. That is how capitalism operates - one minute in charge of a homeless shelter, the next being homeless yourself! RD

DOLE QUEUE RECRUITMENT

"Aided by a bleak job market, the U.S. military met all of its recruitment goals in the past year for the first time since it became an all-volunteer force in 1973, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. Military services have been stretched thin by conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, giving added weight to recruitment efforts as President Barack Obama considers sending another 40,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year. The United States already has 67,000 troops in Afghanistan and about 119,000 in Iraq. Pentagon officials said recruitment gains were fueled by the deepest U.S. recession since the Great Depression and an unemployment rate nearing 10 percent." (Reuters, 13 October) RD

THIS IS COMMUNISM?

Reuters – BYD (Build Your Dreams) president Wang Chuanfu sits inside
the BYD E6 Electric Car

"China's super-rich have bounced back from the financial crisis with a vengeance, and China now has more known dollar billionaires than any other country bar the United States, according to a new report released on Tuesday. The annual Hurun Report said China has 130 known dollar billionaires, up from 101 last year. The number in the United States is 359 while Russia has 32 and India 24, according to Forbes magazine. China's rich are getting richer, with the average wealth on the list $571 million, up almost one-third from last year, said compiler Rupert Hoogewerf." (Reuters, 13 October) RD

Food for Thought

Reading Notes
"Competition is the complete expression of the battle of all against all which rules in modern society. This battle, a battle for life, for existence, for everything, in case of need a battle of life and death, is fought not between the different classes of society only, but also between individual members of these classes.
Each is in the way of the other, and each seeks to crowd out all who are in his way, and to put himself in their place. The workers are in constant competition among themselves. The power-loom weaver is in competition with the hand-loom weaver, the unemployed or ill-paid hand-loom weaver with him who has work or is better paid, each trying to supplant the other. But this competition of the workers among themselves is the worst side of the present state of things in its effect upon the worker, the sharpest weapon against the proletariat in the hands of the bourgoisie.
Hence the effort of the workers to nullify this competition by associations, hence the hatred of the bourgoisie towards these associations, and its triumph in every defeat which befalls them".
Frederick Engels, "The Condition of the Working Class in England" (p108)

UNDERNOURISHED

"Yesterday the UN's annual report on global food security confirmed that more than a billion people - one sixth of the world's population - are undernourished and said that the number was growing even before the economic crisis, which had only made the situation worse."
(Times, 15 October) RD