William’s Words

- William Morris continues with his description of capitalist production as War
in the pamphlet, “How We Live and How We Might Live” (page 21),

"Meantime, let us pass from this “competition between nations to that between the organizers of labour, great firms, joint stock companies; capitalists in short, and see how competition stimulatesproduction among them: indeed it does do that; but what kind of production? Well, production of something to sell at a profit, or say production of profits: and not how war commercial simulates that: a certain market is demanding goods; there are, say, a hundred manufacturers who make that kind of goods and every one of them would if he could keep that market to himself, and struggles desperately to get as much of it as he can, with the obvious result that presently the thing is overdone, and the market is glutted, and all the fury of manufacture has to sink into cold ashes. Doesn’t that seem something like war to you? Can’t you see the waste of it – waste of labour, skill, cunning, waste of life in short? Well you may say, but it cheapens goods. In a sense it does; and yet, only apparently as wages have a tendency to sink for the ordinary worker in proportion as prices sink:”
A good analysis of how economic crises come about and relevant given our situation today.
John Ayers

WHAT HOUSING PROBLEM?

"Each of the 80 floors in the world's first moving skyscraper — with offices and a hotel, topped by apartments — will rotate 360 degrees, all at different speeds. Designed by Italian architect David Fisher and located in Dubai (another is planned for Moscow), the prefab, wind-powered tower will cost an estimated $700 million. The residences will sell for $3.7 million to $36 million. The building should be completed in 2010." (Time, 27 October) RD

THE SAME DIFFERENCE

Amidst the misguided euphoria about the election of a Democratic Party president it is a sobering thought that whether there is a Republican or Democratic legislation capitalism carries on as usual. "Although there is a widespread belief that Wall Street prefers Republican presidents, most studies show that the market has actually done better under Democrats. Since 1901, the Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 7.2 percent a year on average under Democratic presidents and 3.2 percent under Republicans, according to Ned Davis Research. Looking at a more recent time period - 1944 through mid-2008 - the S&P was up 10.7 percent a year on average with a Democrat in the White House versus 8 percent with a Republican, according to International Strategy & Investment." ( San Francisco Chronicle, 4 November)
Changing the ruling party doesn't change the exploitation system that is capitalism. RD

AINT RELIGION WONDERFUL?

"A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said. Dozens of men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said." (Yahoo News, 1 November) RD

MERRY XMAS?

"Major high-street retailers are targeting poor families with bad credit records to prop up their Christmas sales during the credit crisis. Dozens of high street stores are taking part in a doorstep lending scheme which charges poor families extreme rates of interest. Woolworths, Comet, B&Q and Mothercare and 92 other retailers have been accepting vouchers that are repaid by borrowers at an annual percentage rate of 222 per cent – more than 10 times the rate of a credit card." (Independent, 28 October) RD

NEW YORK - OLD PROBLEM

Gina Catana and her grandchildren, Emily, 2, and Christopher, 3, at the administration building for a Bronx shelter. The number of families entering homeless shelters has been increasing

"In what some see as a sign of the economic downturn’s impact on the city’s poorest, more families entered the homeless shelter system in September than in any other month since data has been collected. Some 1,446 families entered shelter in September, city officials said. That was the highest number in one month since the city began keeping track 25 years ago. In each of the past three months, the city has seen record numbers of families admitted to shelter. With the increase, roughly 9,300 families are now in shelter, or more than 28,000 people. In 2003, when the previous record was set, the average daily census of families in shelter was 9,200." (New York Times, 29 October) RD

VATICAN BONUSES

"The Vatican has reintroduced a system of clocking in, nearly 50 years after it was last phased out. Senior clerics will have to swipe plastic cards when entering and leaving, all in a drive to improve time-keeping and efficiency. ... Lay and ecclesiastical staff working in the tiny city state, are now using the swipe cards. The cards have been issued to everyone from the lowest office staff to the heads of departments, even if they are priests and archbishops, though there has been no mention if Pope Benedict XVI carries one. ...It is all part of a drive to increase efficiency and to make the Vatican more meritocratic. Next year there are plans to introduce performance-related pay."
(BBC News, 3 November)
Capitalism is a social system that needs concepts like "performance-related pay", but we wonder how it will operate in the Vatican. One miracle equals how many euros? Two visions equal more or less than one miracle? We foresee some difficulties when disputes go to arbitration! RD

statistics and lies

The press made head-lines of this report :
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Growing Unequal? report published on 21st October 2008 found that “since 2000, income inequality and poverty have fallen faster in the UK than in any other OECD country”

However , not much was reported on this report Poverty and inequality in the UK: 2008 by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) published in June this year, which found that in the UK “income inequality has risen for its second successive year and is now equal to its highest-ever level (at least since comparable records began in 1961)”.

The OECD report covers the period from 2000 to 2005, whereas the IFS report covers data up until 2007. The IFS report notes an increase in poverty in the last two years which includes an extra 300,000 children living in poverty between 2005 and 2007, and nearly a half a million pensioners entering poverty in the same period. Overall relative poverty increased by 400,000 in 2006/07 alone. Therefore it could be that 2000 to 2005 was the halcyon period of UK poverty reduction (OECD), but this has been reversed in the subsequent two years (IFS).

even so , the positive spin placed on the OECD report couldn't disguise its other findings , that the “the gap between rich and poor is still greater in the UK than in three quarters of OECD countries”. It also states that “the wage gap has widened by 20% since 1985”, and that “child poverty rates are still above the levels recorded in the mid-1980s”

Neither report studied actual wealth distribution which shows that wealth inequality has expanded most aggressively in the years between 1996 to 2003 – the period of Labour in government.

Not considered was that personal debt ballooned in the UK from 102% of personal income in 1997 to 160% of personal income by the end of 2005 and now with the credit crunch unraveling insolvency and re-possessions loom ahead .

From LEAP

Alright for some , eh ?

Amanda Staveley , former girlfriend of Prince Andrew , is set to bag almost £40million in commission paid to her advisory firm, PCP Capital Partners, for brokering last week's £3.5billion capital injection into Barclays Bank by Middle East investors , according to The Independent.

PCP Capital Partners, which Ms Staveley founded in 2005, acted for Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nah-yan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, to deliver his £3.5bn personal investment into Barclays in return for a 16 per cent shareholding of the bank.
As part of the overall £7.3bn investment Barclays unveiled on Friday, the bank is also raising up to £2bn from Qatar's sovereign wealth fund and £300m from a member of Qatar's royal family.
PCP's total commission will be £110m, but after other advisers are paid Ms Staveley's firm will earn a £40m profit. While PCP also has a handful of other partners including David Mellor, the former Tory MP, Ms Staveley is expected to pocket the majority of the £40m.

Ms Staveley also previously brokered the takeover of Manchester City football club in August by the same sheikh, Mr Mansour, who is investing in Barclays.

Ms Staveley first started to make her mark with the sheikhs and the Arabian Gulf's kingpins when she set up a restaurant in Cambridge-shire after persuading her bank manager to lend her £180,000. Crucially, she set up her Stocks eatery close to the British horseracing hub of Newmarket.The patrons of the restaurant, where Ms Staveley would work while also dabbling in her alternative career of dealing in shares worth thousands of pounds, included senior staff from the Godolphin stables owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and the most powerful racehorse owner on the planet.
This is where the seeds of her association with the Middle East's wealthiest figures were sown.

Not what you know but who you know , it appears

HARD TIMES

"The number of repossessions in Britain soared by 71 per cent in the three months to June. The Council of Mortgage Lenders has forecast that total repossessions this year will rise by 50 per cent to 45,000." (Times, 1 November) RD

CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD?

"Two rival monks are posted at all times in a rooftop courtyard at the site of Jesus' crucifixion: a bearded Copt in a black robe and an Ethiopian sunning himself on a wooden chair, studiously ignoring each other as they fight over the same sliver of sacred space. For decades, Coptic and Ethiopian Christians have been fighting over the Deir el-Sultan monastery, which sits atop a chapel at the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The monastery is little more than a cluster of dilapidated rooms and a passageway divided into two incense-filled chapels, an architectural afterthought alongside the Holy Sepulchre’s better-known features. And yet Deir el-Sultan has become the subject of a feud that has gone far beyond the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. The Ethiopians control the site, but the Egypt-based Copts say they own it and see the Ethiopians as illegal squatters. The quarrel has erupted into brawls — in 2002, when the Coptic monk moved his chair into the shade and too close to the Ethiopians, a dozen people were hurt in the ensuing melee."
(Associated Press, 25 October) RD

US GURU SHOCKED

"Greenspan 1963: Writing in Ayn Rand's Objectivist Newsletter, Greenspan declared as myth the idea that businessmen "would attempt to sell unsafe food and drugs, fraudulent securities, and shoddy buildings. It is in the self-interest of every businessman to have a reputation for honest dealings and a quality product."Greenspan 2008: Testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Greenspan recanted: "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief...." This modern [free market] paradigm held sway for decades. The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last year."
(Yahoo News, 23 October) RD

CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?

For those not feeling the global economic crisis -- and not content just to wear diamond earrings -- a Japanese company on Thursday unveiled a line of mobile telephones encrusted with diamonds. Japan's Softbank Mobile said it will sell 10 of the phones, each studded with 537 diamonds of 18.34 carats from Tiffany & Co. The "Softbank 823SH Tiffany" phone will sell for around 1.3 million yen (13,265 dollars), the company said. The phone has a top that flips open to a display also designed by the luxury New York jeweller. Japan is the world's largest market for luxury goods and nearly everyone owns a cell phone, leading fashion companies to try to tap into the mobile market. Earlier this year Softbank rival NTT DoCoMo Inc. launched a cell phone designed by Italian brand Prada. Fellow designer Gucci also started a website for Gucci goods accessible only by Japanese mobile phones."
(Yahoo News, 30 October) RD

40 years of Shelter

Shelter , the campaign organisation which was formed to combat homelessness commemerates its 40th anniversary . 40 years on and still they concede that homelessness is a problem thats not been solved by reforms and legislation .

"I think it would be fair to say this: there was a housing crisis in 1966-1968 when Shelter Scotland was founded and we have today, sadly, a housing crisis of a different nature, but one which impacts on people's lives in really quite harmful ways...." Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland conceded .

As William Morris once wrote "The palliatives over which many worthy people are busying themselves now are useless because they are but unorganised partial revolts against a vast, wide-spreading, grasping organisation which will, with the unconscious instinct of a plant, meet every attempt at bettering the conditions of the people with an attack on a fresh side."

According to the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which said 11,054 homes were taken in the three months to the end of June, compared with 6,476 during the same period of 2007. A total of 312,000 people were in mortgage arrears at the end of the second quarter , a 16 per cent jump on the same period of 2007.

H0me repossession cases have doubled in Scotland since the start of the credit crunch says the Scotland on Sunday

Nothing like a wee job

Scotland

Statistics of occupational ill health, safety and enforcement

• Rate of self-reported ill health prevalence per 100 000 people employed in the last 12 months, 2007/08 (LFS) - 4200
• Rate of reportable injury per 100 000 workers, 2006/07 (LFS, averaged) - 1000
• Number of fatal injuries to workers in 2007/08p (RIDDOR) - 32
• Number of major injuries to employees in 2007/08p (RIDDOR) – 2 721
• Offences prosecuted by HSE, 2007/08 - 140
• Offences prosecuted by local authorities, 2007/08 - 10

http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/regions/scotland/index.htm

HOW THE OTHER 5% LIVE

"Once it was the Greeks who commanded the best boats. Aristole Onasis's yacht, Christina O, hosted Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Eva Peron and Sir Winston Churchill who were all photographed on board. Then the Arabs became involved. Ten years ago, Diana, Princess of Wales, was photographed sunbathing on Mohamed Al Fayed's yacht the weekend before she died. But in the past five years the Russians have turned it into a different league. Your bog-standard super yacht now costs between £40 and £70 million depending on the interior specification. The running costs tend to be about £5 million a year for the bigger vessels." (Times, 23 October) RD

THE BLESSINGS OF RELIGION

"It's the smell I remember. Shahnaz's face -- what was left of it -- reeked of a day old barbeque, left out in the rain. Her flesh was a mess of charred meat: her skin, the soft flesh of her cheeks, and the bones beneath had been burned away. Her nose was gone. Her lips hung down over her chin like melted wax. Her left eyelid couldn't close, so it watered all the time in an endless stream of tears. Shahnaz -- who was 21 years old -- had been punished by having acid thrown in her face. Her crime was to be a Muslim woman who wanted to be treated as equal to a man. Shahnaz loved education -- especially science, and poetry. But when she got married -- at the insistence of her family -- her husband ordered her to stop schooling and start breeding. "You are a woman, that is your only job," he said. But she refused. She wanted to work for herself, and enrich her mind. So she kept going to school, despite his beatings and ragings and threats. So one day her husband and his brothers carefully gathered up battery acid, pinned her down, and hurled it into her face. She ended up in the Acid Survivor's Foundation in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where I saw her earlier this year. In Bangladesh, acid attacks on "uppity" women are epidemic, peaking in 2002 with more than 500 women having their faces burned off. Fewer than 10 percent of the attackers are ever convicted, because juries and judges say the women bring it on themselves by wearing 'revealing' clothes, or refusing to obey men. Munira Rahman, director of the foundation, explains ..." (Yahoo News, 23 October) RD

A DREADFUL FUTURE

The world is on the brink of an avalanche in the spread of devastating weaponry, a new global non-proliferation group warned Tuesday, saying that a nuclear incident would dwarf the September 11 attacks. The Middle East, particularly Iran, is a potential tipping point, according to Gareth Evans, co-chair of the newly formed International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. Evans, a former Australia foreign minister, said the world had been "sleepwalking" on the issue of atomic weapons for a decade. "The devastation that could be wreaked by one major nuclear weapons incident alone puts 9/11 and almost everything else (in) to the category of the insignificant," he said, referring to the attacks inflicted on the United States in 2001. ...Evans told reporters there were between 13,000 and 16,000 nuclear warheads actively deployed around the world and that it was "really a bit of a miracle" that a nuclear catastrophe had not occurred during the Cold War or afterwards.
(Yahoo News, 21 October) RD

A PROPERTY OWNING DEMOCRACY?

"The housing crisis still has a choke hold on America: In September, 81,312 homes were lost to foreclosure, according to a report released Thursday. RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed properties, said that 851,000 homes have been repossessed by lenders since August 2007. In September, 265,968 troubled borrowers received foreclosure filings - such as default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. That's a decline of 12% from the record high number of filings in August, but 21% more than in September 2007." (CNNMoney.com, 23 October) RD

POVERTY AND CRIME

"The growing financial crisis is a double whammy for police in many U.S. cities: They face budget cuts as they brace for an expected surge in burglaries, thefts and robberies. "Police departments are going to have do more with less," said Chuck Wexler of the Police Executive Research Forum, a national law enforcement association based in Washington. "I expect police budgets for the foreseeable future to be flat or decline. That will mean less ability to put officers on extended tours and overtime during peak crime hours; it might mean deferring hiring officers for the future," he said. Although there has long been debate over the connection between crime and the economy, most of the criminologists, sociologists and police chiefs interviewed by Reuters forecast a rise in crimes in certain categories in the coming months as the United States heads deeper into recession territory. Crime has increased during every recession since the late 1950s, said Richard Rosenfeld, a sociologist at the University of Missouri-St Louis."
(Reuters, 21 October) RD