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

POISONED BY CAPITALISM

"More than 2,000 children have been found to have lead poisoning because Chinese factories greedy for profit have spewed out pollutants without carrying out even the most minor environmental monitoring. Officials announced yesterday that 1,354 children under 14, who had been living and going to school for more than two years within a few hundred metres of a manganese smelter, had excess lead in their blood. Local officials said that the numbers could rise when further tests were carried out." (Times, 21 August) RD

A WONDERFUL TOWN?

"It's too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when it’s almost illegal to be poor. You won’t be arrested for shopping in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, you’re well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life — like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering. City officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about the ordinances that afflict the destitute, most of which go back to the dawn of gentrification in the ’80s and ’90s. “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless or a millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance,” a city attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., said in June, echoing Anatole France’s immortal observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.” (New York Times, 8 August) RD

Why the SNP Must Fail

Community Central Hall, 304 Maryhill Rd. 19 August 8.30pm

Community Central Hall, 304 Maryhill Rd. 19 August 8.30pm

Community Central Hall, 304 Maryhill Rd. 19 August 8.30pm

In his talk Vic will look at the birth of the SNP and why it’s nickname was “ The Tartan Tories” and he will explain how the SNP was transformed from the mere handful it had been until the late 1950s to the major political force it is in Scotland today.

Vic will also look at the conflict which raged in the SNP for decades between the traditionalists and the pragmatists and why the triumph of the latter paved the way for this rags-to-riches transformation.

The SNP can hardly wait for the next General Election when it expects to make the substantial gains, probably at the expense of Labour, which it hopes will be a major step towards their goal of a fully independent Scotland.

Could this happen at some point in the future and would it be in the interests of the working class in Scotland if it did?

Community Central Hall, 304 Maryhill Rd. 19 August 8.30pm

LAZY WORKERS?

"Feel like you’re working a lot harder these days, putting in longer hours for the same pay — or even less? The latest round of government data on worker productivity indicates that you probably are. The Labour Department said Tuesday that the American work force produced, at an annual rate, 6.4 percent more of the goods they made and services they provided in the second quarter of this year compared to a year ago. At the same time, “unit labour costs” — the amount employers paid for all that extra work — fell by 5.8 percent. The jump in productivity was higher than expected; the cut in labour costs more than double expectations."
(msnbc.com, 11 August) RD

RECESSION? WHAT RECESSION?

"Recession has shaken nearly every corner of the U.S. economy but Trinity Yachts is still turning out custom-built luxury boats, thanks in part to a sagging U.S. dollar. Trinity, the largest U.S. mega-yacht builder, will deliver eight sumptuously outfitted boats this year from its shipyards in Gulfport, Mississippi and New Orleans. The yachts ooze indulgence, with interiors laden with fine millwork, marble flooring, wine cellars, high-end home theatres and onboard submarines designed for underwater sightseeing. Prices range from $25 million to $80 million." (Yahoo News, 9 August) RD

PIE IN THE SKY

Even in an economic downturn, preachers in the “prosperity gospel” movement are drawing sizable, adoring audiences. Their message — that if you have sufficient faith in God and the Bible and donate generously, God will multiply your offerings a hundredfold — is reassuring to many in hard times ( NYTimes aug 15th )

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING

Big Brother: It has been revealed that there are 4.2million closed circuit
TV cameras in the UK

"Britain has one and a half times as many surveillance cameras as communist China, despite having a fraction of its population, shocking figures revealed yesterday. There are 4.2million closed circuit TV cameras here, one per every 14 people. But in police state China, which has a population of 1.3billion, there are just 2.75million cameras, the equivalent of one for every 472,000 of its citizens. Simon Davies from pressure group Privacy International said the astonishing statistic highlighted Britain's 'worrying obsession' " (Daily Mail, 11 August) RD