One of the commonest arguments against world socialism is that it is against human nature. According to that view there is something intrinsically basic about human behaviour that makes it impossible for people to behave in a co-operative, social fashion. This old defense of capitalism has recently received a body blow from recent scientific research."Biological research is increasingly debunking the view of humanity as competitive, aggressive and brutish. "Humans have a lot of pro-social tendencies," Frans de Waal, a biologist at Emory University in Atlanta, told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Monday. New research on higher animals from primates and elephants to mice shows there is a biological basis for behavior such as co-operation, said de Waal, author of The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society. Until just 12 years ago, the common view among scientists was that humans were "nasty" at the core but had developed a veneer of morality - albeit a thin one, de Waal told scientists and journalists from some 50 countries at the conference in Vancouver, Canada. But human children - and most higher animals - are "moral" in a scientific sense, because they need to co-operate with each other to reproduce and pass on their genes, he said." (Aljazeera, 21 February) RD
The Glasgow & Edinburgh Branches Blog. Towards a better understanding of the world, in order to change it.
Saturday, March 03, 2012
Friday, March 02, 2012
A DIFFERENT KIND OF LIFE
The owning class inside capitalism lead lives completely divorced from that of the working class who produce all their wealth. The multi-millionaire Ted Turner is a case in point. "Turner and his third wife Jane Fonda divorced in 2001, after 10 years of marriage, and the Oscar-winning actress has been replaced in his personal life by a complicated arrangement involving a quartet of other women. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter the media mogul and philanthropist, who owns 28 homes including 14 ranches, said a week per month for each girlfriend was "pretty much the general rule." (Daily Telegraph, 1 March) Not content with a different house every fortnight he swops wifes every week. RD
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Bleak Times
One in ten working-age people in Scotland will be on the dole by the end of the year, according to a new report.
Professor Brian Ashcroft, the editor of the commentary, blames in part the UK government’s austerity measures for choking off growth, describing it as a “serious economic policy mistake” which will be remembered for “generations”.
The core problem, the commentary suggests, is that the supply of labour is rising too fast compared to the number of jobs on offer. This mis-match between people and available jobs is now “identical to the trough of the recession”.
Professor Brian Ashcroft, the editor of the commentary, blames in part the UK government’s austerity measures for choking off growth, describing it as a “serious economic policy mistake” which will be remembered for “generations”.
The core problem, the commentary suggests, is that the supply of labour is rising too fast compared to the number of jobs on offer. This mis-match between people and available jobs is now “identical to the trough of the recession”.
ECONOMIC REALITY
Many workers may imagine in the present economic downturn all the news is bad, but it is not all doom and gloom. "The world's largest advertising group, WPP, has reported record profits, and says events such as the Olympics should boost business this year. Pre-tax profits were £1.008bn in 2011, up 18.5% on the previous year, with revenues topping £10bn." (BBC News, 1 March) The truth is that even in the worst economic times sections of the owning class keep coining it in. RD
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
COLD REALITY
The recent extremely cold spell in Eastern Europe left many workers in peril of their lives with many homeless workers dying of the cold. This was not the fate of the wealthy minority however. "Monaco-based potash tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlyev has bought the priciest piece of residential real estate in New York City, paying $88 million for a Manhattan penthouse, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Rybolovlyev purchased the apartment from a former head of Citigroup in the name of a trust for his daughter Yekaterina, a 22-year-old college student, the newspaper reported." (The MoscowTimes , 17 February) The demise of state capitalism in the former USSR has certainly ensured the warmth and comfort of the minority capitalist class in that country. RD
BABY ITS COLD INSIDE
One of the illusions that supporters of capitalism like to foster is that although capitalism may not be perfect it is improving. This seems like an idle boast when we consider the absolute necessity of staying warm. "More than nine million households will be living in fuel poverty within four years unless the Government directs £4bn a year from carbon taxes to families in greatest need, campaigners warn. More Britons die every year from living in a cold home than on the roads, they said, with the situation expected to worsen sharply because of soaring utility bills. A new study has revealed that there are a million more households already living in fuel poverty compared with previous estimates, taking the total to 6.4 million. The study, by energy efficiency experts Camco, suggests that the total will hit 9.1 million by 2016." (Independent, 27 February) The old pop song used to declare in order to stay a little longer with a girl friend "Baby Its Cold Outside", but now it seems with "improving" capitalism it is cold inside too! RD
The last volunteer
The last Scottish veteran of Spanish Civil War has died. Thomas Watters was a Glasgow Corporation bus driver who took his first-aid skills to Spain in the Scottish Ambulance Unit. He said the people who made up the International Brigades were not fighting men, but individuals who felt strongly about the need to combat the spread of fascism. "They went out there in ones and twos and the whole body was formed from all sorts of nationalities and languages. It was a huge job but they became very effective."
Socialist Courier takes the opportunity of his passing away to remind its readers of the Socialist Party's attitude to The Spanish Civil War.
Socialists are on the side of the exploited in their struggles against the landed and monied classes. This is true whether the workers concerned are socialist or not, organised or unorganised, and whether the struggle is a strike or a lock-out, or whether it is concerned with gaining "elbow room" for the working class movement, i. e., the right to organise, to carry on propaganda, to secure the franchise and parliamentary government. If there is no democracy, how could socialist ideas be spread? These struggles are all expressions of the class struggle and are in the line of development towards socialism. It is the plain duty of the organised workers in the more advanced countries to support and encourage such struggles, both at home and in the less advanced countries. While our members individually take part in struggles for objects other than Socialism the SPGB as a party does not. It exists and seeks support solely for Socialism, i.e. for activities which the non-Socialist organisations, including the reformist political parties, do not and cannot undertake. Therefore the SPGB only gives material support to socialist organisations.
Whether the Spanish workers were wise in participating in a struggle so costly in human lives may be debatable, but as they have decided to take the plunge, and as they have the most violent partisans of capitalism against them, socialists are, of course, on their side. It must be assumed that the Spanish workers weighed up the situation and counted the cost before deciding their course of action. That is a matter upon which their judgement should be better than that of people outside the country. It is difficult to blame anarchists who took up arms to defend themselves and their unions from murderous bosses; but we can perhaps look to the rejection of political democracy that preceded the civil war and gave the armed authoritarians the support they needed to break cover and launch their assault.
One thing shown is that is the difficulty or the impossibility of achieving real unity by merging together in a Popular Front parties and individuals who differ fundamentally in aim, outlook, and method. It was obvious in 1936 that it would be an enormous task to secure unity between long standing opponents like the Spanish Labourites, Anarchist-Syndicalists, Communists, Trotskyists, Liberal Republicans, Catholic Basque Separatists, etc. The frequent inability to secure effective and loyal co-operation, show that, even the stress of war will not make men who think differently work to a common programme. Neither in war nor revolution has anti-fascist Spain had a worse enemy than Stalinism. The Communist Party can best be summed up by the slogan "Better lose the war than allow the Revolution".
The simple truth was that at the time there never existed the basis for unity on the Republican side.
A war within capitalism could only be fought on capitalist terms. You can't have a democratic army, as the anarchists in the CNT found out. Party rivalries made it impossible to build up an efficient army. There was not one view of what kind of army to build, but three incompatible views—a revolutionary popular army like that of the French after the revolution, a "political" army like that of Russia, or a non-political army like the British. The Anarchists favoured the first, the Communists the second, and the army officers and Liberal-Republicans the third.
"Arming of the people is meaningless. The nature of military warfare is determined by the class directing it. An army fighting in defence of a bourgeois state, even if it should be antifascist, is an army in the service of capitalism . . . War between a fascist state and an antifascist state is not a revolutionary class war. The proletariat's intervention on one side is an indication that it has already been defeated. Insuperable technical and professional inferiority on the part of the popular or militia-based army was implicit in military struggle on a military front" - Agustin Guillamon, Friends of Durruti.
If you have an overwhelming majority, you don't need any army anyway. No amount of oppression can be made to work against it, as the Communist Party found out in Moscow in 1989. But that overwhelming majority has to know what it is about. And that is what the Friends of Durruti concluded:
"What happened was what had to happen. The CNT was utterly devoid of revolutionary theory. We did not have a concrete programme. We had no idea where we were going . . . By not knowing what to do we handed the revolution on a platter to the bourgeoisie and the Communists who support the farce of yesterday."
Murray Bookchin also writes "Not only did the CNT lack the support of a majority of the Spanish people, they argued, but it lacked the support of the majority of the Spanish working class. Anarchosyndicalists were a minority within a minority. Even within the CNT membership, a large number of workers and peasants shared only a nominal allegiance to libertarian ideals. They were members of the CNT because the union was strong in their localities and work places. If these people, and the Spaniards generally, were not educated in Anarchist principles, warned the moderates, the revolution would simply degenerate into an abhorrent dictatorship of ideologues." - Spanish Anarchists.
The International Brigades to this day hold a place of honour for many, who revere them as defenders of democracy and anti-fascists leading the way in a war that could have stopped fascism before the great slaughter of world war two. Many died, bravely; and their defence of Madrid reads like something from an epic poem. Their enthusiasm was not enough to actually save political democracy in Spain. Heroism is not enough, although there was plenty of that. We, in the Socialist Party, nevertheless, hold that it was not in the best interests of the socialist movement, or democracy, or of the conditions of the workers, to participate in wars such as the Spanish Civil, taking into account the consequences of these wars, participation could not be justified either by the hope of achieving socialism, the safeguarding of democracy or the improvement in the conditions of the working class. We could make the World Socialist Movement very much more popular by not constantly challenging popular working class thinking. We could adopt popular concerns as or own and jump on any number of bandwagons. We could quickly grow in numbers by lying and deceiving our fellow workers. But it almost goes without saying that by doing so we would abandon the struggle for socialism.
The "anarchist revolution" was first stopped by the Republican government with the Stalinist "Communists" in the lead and then savagely crushed by the Franco fascists. The losers, as always, were the common people, pawns in a struggle between power brokers. Those who weren't killed were crammed into Franco's concentration camps, penal labour battalions, or settled down to a hungry future. The country swarmed with 57 varieties of police. The Spanish Civil War cost 600,000 lives, ended with a Franco victory in March 1939, and the fascist dictatorship lasted until his death in 1975. Rubble doesn't make a good basis for building socialism.
Socialist Courier takes the opportunity of his passing away to remind its readers of the Socialist Party's attitude to The Spanish Civil War.
Socialists are on the side of the exploited in their struggles against the landed and monied classes. This is true whether the workers concerned are socialist or not, organised or unorganised, and whether the struggle is a strike or a lock-out, or whether it is concerned with gaining "elbow room" for the working class movement, i. e., the right to organise, to carry on propaganda, to secure the franchise and parliamentary government. If there is no democracy, how could socialist ideas be spread? These struggles are all expressions of the class struggle and are in the line of development towards socialism. It is the plain duty of the organised workers in the more advanced countries to support and encourage such struggles, both at home and in the less advanced countries. While our members individually take part in struggles for objects other than Socialism the SPGB as a party does not. It exists and seeks support solely for Socialism, i.e. for activities which the non-Socialist organisations, including the reformist political parties, do not and cannot undertake. Therefore the SPGB only gives material support to socialist organisations.
Whether the Spanish workers were wise in participating in a struggle so costly in human lives may be debatable, but as they have decided to take the plunge, and as they have the most violent partisans of capitalism against them, socialists are, of course, on their side. It must be assumed that the Spanish workers weighed up the situation and counted the cost before deciding their course of action. That is a matter upon which their judgement should be better than that of people outside the country. It is difficult to blame anarchists who took up arms to defend themselves and their unions from murderous bosses; but we can perhaps look to the rejection of political democracy that preceded the civil war and gave the armed authoritarians the support they needed to break cover and launch their assault.
One thing shown is that is the difficulty or the impossibility of achieving real unity by merging together in a Popular Front parties and individuals who differ fundamentally in aim, outlook, and method. It was obvious in 1936 that it would be an enormous task to secure unity between long standing opponents like the Spanish Labourites, Anarchist-Syndicalists, Communists, Trotskyists, Liberal Republicans, Catholic Basque Separatists, etc. The frequent inability to secure effective and loyal co-operation, show that, even the stress of war will not make men who think differently work to a common programme. Neither in war nor revolution has anti-fascist Spain had a worse enemy than Stalinism. The Communist Party can best be summed up by the slogan "Better lose the war than allow the Revolution".
The simple truth was that at the time there never existed the basis for unity on the Republican side.
A war within capitalism could only be fought on capitalist terms. You can't have a democratic army, as the anarchists in the CNT found out. Party rivalries made it impossible to build up an efficient army. There was not one view of what kind of army to build, but three incompatible views—a revolutionary popular army like that of the French after the revolution, a "political" army like that of Russia, or a non-political army like the British. The Anarchists favoured the first, the Communists the second, and the army officers and Liberal-Republicans the third.
"Arming of the people is meaningless. The nature of military warfare is determined by the class directing it. An army fighting in defence of a bourgeois state, even if it should be antifascist, is an army in the service of capitalism . . . War between a fascist state and an antifascist state is not a revolutionary class war. The proletariat's intervention on one side is an indication that it has already been defeated. Insuperable technical and professional inferiority on the part of the popular or militia-based army was implicit in military struggle on a military front" - Agustin Guillamon, Friends of Durruti.
If you have an overwhelming majority, you don't need any army anyway. No amount of oppression can be made to work against it, as the Communist Party found out in Moscow in 1989. But that overwhelming majority has to know what it is about. And that is what the Friends of Durruti concluded:
"What happened was what had to happen. The CNT was utterly devoid of revolutionary theory. We did not have a concrete programme. We had no idea where we were going . . . By not knowing what to do we handed the revolution on a platter to the bourgeoisie and the Communists who support the farce of yesterday."
Murray Bookchin also writes "Not only did the CNT lack the support of a majority of the Spanish people, they argued, but it lacked the support of the majority of the Spanish working class. Anarchosyndicalists were a minority within a minority. Even within the CNT membership, a large number of workers and peasants shared only a nominal allegiance to libertarian ideals. They were members of the CNT because the union was strong in their localities and work places. If these people, and the Spaniards generally, were not educated in Anarchist principles, warned the moderates, the revolution would simply degenerate into an abhorrent dictatorship of ideologues." - Spanish Anarchists.
The International Brigades to this day hold a place of honour for many, who revere them as defenders of democracy and anti-fascists leading the way in a war that could have stopped fascism before the great slaughter of world war two. Many died, bravely; and their defence of Madrid reads like something from an epic poem. Their enthusiasm was not enough to actually save political democracy in Spain. Heroism is not enough, although there was plenty of that. We, in the Socialist Party, nevertheless, hold that it was not in the best interests of the socialist movement, or democracy, or of the conditions of the workers, to participate in wars such as the Spanish Civil, taking into account the consequences of these wars, participation could not be justified either by the hope of achieving socialism, the safeguarding of democracy or the improvement in the conditions of the working class. We could make the World Socialist Movement very much more popular by not constantly challenging popular working class thinking. We could adopt popular concerns as or own and jump on any number of bandwagons. We could quickly grow in numbers by lying and deceiving our fellow workers. But it almost goes without saying that by doing so we would abandon the struggle for socialism.
The "anarchist revolution" was first stopped by the Republican government with the Stalinist "Communists" in the lead and then savagely crushed by the Franco fascists. The losers, as always, were the common people, pawns in a struggle between power brokers. Those who weren't killed were crammed into Franco's concentration camps, penal labour battalions, or settled down to a hungry future. The country swarmed with 57 varieties of police. The Spanish Civil War cost 600,000 lives, ended with a Franco victory in March 1939, and the fascist dictatorship lasted until his death in 1975. Rubble doesn't make a good basis for building socialism.
Monday, February 27, 2012
The World Bank
Glasgow branch is at present conducting a series of meetings on British banking so it maybe useful to add an international dimension.
The World Bank was established in 1944 to promote economic development and virtually every country is now a member. This spring the bank's 187 member countries choose a new president to succeed Robert Zoellick, whose term ends in July.
Until now, the unwritten rule has been that the US government simply designates each new president: all 11 have been Americans, and not one has been an expert in economic development, the bank's core responsibility, or had a career in fighting poverty or promoting environmental sustainability. Instead, the US has selected Wall Street bankers and politicians, presumably to ensure that the bank's policies are suitably friendly to US interests. US officials have traditionally viewed the World Bank as an extension of US foreign policy and commercial interests. With the bank just two blocks away from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, it has been all too easy for the US to dominate the institution.
For too long, its leadership has imposed US concepts that are often utterly inappropriate for the poorest countries and their poorest people. It completely fumbled the exploding pandemics of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria during the 1990's, failing to get help to where it was needed to save millions of lives. Even worse, the bank advocated user fees and "cost recovery" for health services, thereby putting life-saving health care beyond the reach of the poorest of the poor - precisely those most in need of it. In 2000, at the Durban AIDS Summit, [it was] recommended a new "Global Fund" to fight these diseases, precisely on the grounds that the World Bank was not doing its job. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria emerged, and has since saved millions of lives, with malaria deaths in Africa alone falling by at least 30 per cent.
http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/industry-insights/economics/resource-wars-and-other-crises-await-if-global-cooperation-fails
The World Bank was established in 1944 to promote economic development and virtually every country is now a member. This spring the bank's 187 member countries choose a new president to succeed Robert Zoellick, whose term ends in July.
Until now, the unwritten rule has been that the US government simply designates each new president: all 11 have been Americans, and not one has been an expert in economic development, the bank's core responsibility, or had a career in fighting poverty or promoting environmental sustainability. Instead, the US has selected Wall Street bankers and politicians, presumably to ensure that the bank's policies are suitably friendly to US interests. US officials have traditionally viewed the World Bank as an extension of US foreign policy and commercial interests. With the bank just two blocks away from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, it has been all too easy for the US to dominate the institution.
For too long, its leadership has imposed US concepts that are often utterly inappropriate for the poorest countries and their poorest people. It completely fumbled the exploding pandemics of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria during the 1990's, failing to get help to where it was needed to save millions of lives. Even worse, the bank advocated user fees and "cost recovery" for health services, thereby putting life-saving health care beyond the reach of the poorest of the poor - precisely those most in need of it. In 2000, at the Durban AIDS Summit, [it was] recommended a new "Global Fund" to fight these diseases, precisely on the grounds that the World Bank was not doing its job. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria emerged, and has since saved millions of lives, with malaria deaths in Africa alone falling by at least 30 per cent.
http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/industry-insights/economics/resource-wars-and-other-crises-await-if-global-cooperation-fails
Friday, February 24, 2012
A GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND?
One of the great illusions shared by nut case nationalists and religious freaks alike is that England unlike the rest of the world is something special and is in the words of William Blake " a green and pleasant land"."New data has revealed the number of people sleeping rough in England has risen by 23 per cent in a year. The figures were gathered by local authorities in a single night last autumn, and compared with an assessment 12 months earlier. The statistics show that on one night in 2011 there were 2,181 rough sleepers in England, up 413 from 1,768 on the same night the previous year. London and the South East had the highest number of rough sleepers with more than 400 in each region." (Independent, 23 February) Surely the concept of "pleasant" should at least include a pillow, a blanket and a mattress? RD
COMIC BOOK CAPITALISM
It has been recently reported that millions of workers are trying to exist on the equivalent of $1.25 a day, so what have we to make of the following news item? "A "jaw dropping" collection of early comic books has sold for $3.5m (£2.2m) at auction in New York. The trove of 345 comics had been bought by the late Billy Wright from Virginia when he was a boy. A copy of Detective Comics No. 27, which sold for 10 cents in 1939 and featured Batman's debut, got the top bid on Wednesday - raising $523,000." (BBC News, 23 February) It speaks volumes for the values of capitalism that a couple of comic books are of more value than human lives. RD
Heart care 'more likely for rich'
An estimated 182,000 people in Scotland have coronary heart disease (CHD), around 3.3% of the population. Rates of heart disease in Scotland remain the highest in Western Europe, despite new cases falling by nearly a third in the last 10 years.
There is evidence that rich people are more likely to receive NHS treatment for heart disease than poor people, according to the public spending watchdog.
In some more deprived areas around 25% of men over 75 have CHD but, according to Audit Scotland, people in deprived communities "are not always getting the same level of treatment as the rest of the population"
Thursday, February 23, 2012
A WONDERFUL TOWN?
The USA is undoubtedly the wealthiest country in the world and New York is probably the home to some of the richest capitalists in the world, but that is poor consolation for members of the working class trying to get by on the minimum wage. "New York is an expensive place to live, and unaffordable for workers struggling on $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage. Nineteen other states, recognizing that the federal minimum is too low for survival, even with food stamps or other government assistance, have increased their minimum above that level. Lawmakers in Massachusetts raised it to $8 an hour. Connecticut's is $8.25, and it is $9.04 an hour in Washington State. It is time for New York to raise its minimum wage enough to help more than 600,000 struggling workers." (New York Times, 12 February) RD
Targetting the vulnerable
Sick and disabled Scots and their families will lose out under UK Government benefit reforms, according to new figures published by Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS).
CAS says 115,000 Scots will lose out on sickness benefits over the next three years. Of these, 36,000 will only be eligible for Jobseeker's Allowance. They will face a drop in income of at least £27 a week, and will have to seek work. Another 65,000 will drop out of the benefits system altogether – either because it is deemed a partner can support them, or because they have not paid sufficient contributions having been out of work for a lengthy period. This group faces a loss of at least £99 a week.
22,500 people in Glasgow will lose entitlement to a total of £73.7 million, with 19,600 told they are not eligible for Employment and Support Allowance. Meanwhile, in West Dunbartonshire, 2800 people will lose entitlement, saving the Government £9.1m, but will be plunged into an employment hunt in an area where there are 20.6 people looking for every post advertised through a Jobcentre.
CAS says the only way for people to replace the income they will lose under the scheme is to find a job, but Ms McPhee, CAS Head of Policy, said this was unrealistic. "With unemployment at a 16-year high, the economy struggling to grow, and former sickness benefit claimants facing discrimination from employers, many of these people will struggle to find a job."
CAS says 115,000 Scots will lose out on sickness benefits over the next three years. Of these, 36,000 will only be eligible for Jobseeker's Allowance. They will face a drop in income of at least £27 a week, and will have to seek work. Another 65,000 will drop out of the benefits system altogether – either because it is deemed a partner can support them, or because they have not paid sufficient contributions having been out of work for a lengthy period. This group faces a loss of at least £99 a week.
22,500 people in Glasgow will lose entitlement to a total of £73.7 million, with 19,600 told they are not eligible for Employment and Support Allowance. Meanwhile, in West Dunbartonshire, 2800 people will lose entitlement, saving the Government £9.1m, but will be plunged into an employment hunt in an area where there are 20.6 people looking for every post advertised through a Jobcentre.
CAS says the only way for people to replace the income they will lose under the scheme is to find a job, but Ms McPhee, CAS Head of Policy, said this was unrealistic. "With unemployment at a 16-year high, the economy struggling to grow, and former sickness benefit claimants facing discrimination from employers, many of these people will struggle to find a job."
Scottish independence?
American billionaire Donald Trump is to throw the full might of the Trump organisation behind a Scottish anti-wind farm group.
The tycoon's staff, based at Trump Towers in New York, are to work on a daily basis with Communities Against Turbines Scotland (Cats). Trump is also sending his executive vice-president and legal counsel, George Sorial, to an anti-wind farm meeting to be held by the group in St Andrews, Fife, next Thursday. Sorial said the billionaire would use all of the resources at his disposal to do "whatever it takes" to prevent Scotland being "encircled by these monstrous turbines". He went on to state "We have agreed to provide financial support to Cats. We have agreed to assist them with marketing and PR. We have agreed to provide them with staff, with some of our team at our New York office working with them on a daily basis."Nothing to do with Trump's £750 million Balmedie golf resort, of course.
Work on the hotel has stopped while there is still a chance the offshore wind farm will be approved. Sorial added: "No sane developer would build a hotel that looks into what is essentially an industrial plant. Until this issue is resolved, as much as we would like to build the hotel, we will not."
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/trump-to-bankroll-scots-wind-farm-war.16833920
The tycoon's staff, based at Trump Towers in New York, are to work on a daily basis with Communities Against Turbines Scotland (Cats). Trump is also sending his executive vice-president and legal counsel, George Sorial, to an anti-wind farm meeting to be held by the group in St Andrews, Fife, next Thursday. Sorial said the billionaire would use all of the resources at his disposal to do "whatever it takes" to prevent Scotland being "encircled by these monstrous turbines". He went on to state "We have agreed to provide financial support to Cats. We have agreed to assist them with marketing and PR. We have agreed to provide them with staff, with some of our team at our New York office working with them on a daily basis."Nothing to do with Trump's £750 million Balmedie golf resort, of course.
Work on the hotel has stopped while there is still a chance the offshore wind farm will be approved. Sorial added: "No sane developer would build a hotel that looks into what is essentially an industrial plant. Until this issue is resolved, as much as we would like to build the hotel, we will not."
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/trump-to-bankroll-scots-wind-farm-war.16833920
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
THE REAL WORLD
As financial TV experts pontificate on the worsening economic European turndown it is worth reflecting on what it means to the workers who have to suffer its effects far from the comforts of the TV studio. "In the heart of central Athens, a stone's throw from the city's glorious ancient sites, another face of today's Greece is on show. Hundreds weave their way around the small, bare courtyard of the municipal soup kitchen, queuing patiently. Visitors have gone up by a quarter in the past few months as homelessness here reaches new heights. .... Homelessness has soared by an estimated 25% since 2009 as Greece spirals further into its worst post-war economic crisis." (BBC News, 4 February) RD
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
A DISASTROUS SYSTEM
Disasters like earthquake will occur in any social system, even world socialism, but at least once we are free from the production for profit motive of capitalism we will be better able to deal with such catastrophes. "A six-storey building that collapsed and killed 115 people during last year's earthquake did not meet construction standards, according to a government report. The report, which called it "technically inadequate", was contested by the building's designer. The Canterbury Television (CTV) building in Christchurch collapsed during the magnitude-6.1 earthquake on 22 February. It accounted for nearly two-thirds of the quake's 184 victims." (Guardian 8 February) In order to create the biggest possible profits production costs like building material has to be of the cheapest available as over a hundred grieving families now know to their cost. RD
you are being watched
Britain has 20% of the world's CCTV cameras, says a study, despite having only 1% of the world's population. There are at least 51,600 CCTV cameras controlled by local authorities in the UK – costing a total of £515m between 2007 and 2011.
Fife has the second-highest number of cameras in the UK and Aberdeen is sixth highest. Fife has 1420 cameras, which cost just under £1 million between 2007 and 2011. Aberdeen has 942 cameras, which cost £1.78m. Edinburgh City Council was the biggest spender in Scotland over the same period, amassing costs of £6.3m for just 232 cameras.
Nick Pickles, director of privacy and civil liberties at Big Brother Watch said "Britain has an out-of-control surveillance culture that is doing little to improve public safety but has made our cities the most watched in the world...There is no credible evidence that more cameras will reduce crime"
Fife has the second-highest number of cameras in the UK and Aberdeen is sixth highest. Fife has 1420 cameras, which cost just under £1 million between 2007 and 2011. Aberdeen has 942 cameras, which cost £1.78m. Edinburgh City Council was the biggest spender in Scotland over the same period, amassing costs of £6.3m for just 232 cameras.
Nick Pickles, director of privacy and civil liberties at Big Brother Watch said "Britain has an out-of-control surveillance culture that is doing little to improve public safety but has made our cities the most watched in the world...There is no credible evidence that more cameras will reduce crime"
Monday, February 20, 2012
Some Sottish business news
The number of customers in Scottish stores plummeted compared to the rest of the UK according to a new report that warns of “troubled times” ahead for Scotland.
The Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) has reported an 8.5 per cent drop in footfall in the three months to January 2012, which included the peak Christmas period, compared with the same three months to January 2011.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/troubled_times_for_shops_as_customers_fall_1_2126645
Industry confidence in the embattled construction sector took a further hit today as a major survey of employers flagged low expectations for jobs and profits. Two out of three Scottish building firms predicted publicly-funded construction activity will drop in 2012, and a third expect construction employment to fall. Most anticipate another difficult year for housebuilding within the private sector, with nine out of ten companies warning that the area would be stagnant or in decline in the next 12 months.
http://www.scotsman.com/business/construction_sector_fears_another_hard_as_nails_year_in_prospect_1_2126667
Heineken have dented hopes of better conditions for Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) pensioners after a three-year battle. Heineken, makers of Deuchars IPA, Newcastle Brown Ale and John Smiths have a refused to peg annual pension increases to inflation. A commitment to the Scottish brewer’s tradition of paying inflation-linked annual rises was made in March 2008, before the joint takeover by Heineken and Carlsberg.
http://www.scotsman.com/business/heineken_has_done_its_fair_share_on_s_n_pensions_1_2126664
The Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) has reported an 8.5 per cent drop in footfall in the three months to January 2012, which included the peak Christmas period, compared with the same three months to January 2011.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/troubled_times_for_shops_as_customers_fall_1_2126645
Industry confidence in the embattled construction sector took a further hit today as a major survey of employers flagged low expectations for jobs and profits. Two out of three Scottish building firms predicted publicly-funded construction activity will drop in 2012, and a third expect construction employment to fall. Most anticipate another difficult year for housebuilding within the private sector, with nine out of ten companies warning that the area would be stagnant or in decline in the next 12 months.
http://www.scotsman.com/business/construction_sector_fears_another_hard_as_nails_year_in_prospect_1_2126667
Heineken have dented hopes of better conditions for Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) pensioners after a three-year battle. Heineken, makers of Deuchars IPA, Newcastle Brown Ale and John Smiths have a refused to peg annual pension increases to inflation. A commitment to the Scottish brewer’s tradition of paying inflation-linked annual rises was made in March 2008, before the joint takeover by Heineken and Carlsberg.
http://www.scotsman.com/business/heineken_has_done_its_fair_share_on_s_n_pensions_1_2126664
Sunday, February 19, 2012
THE OLYMPIAN SPIRIT
This year sees the start of the Olympic Games, it will be a period of excessive nationalist nonsense in the world's media and the re-iteration of endless balderdash about fine sporting ideals. But, this is capitalism and sporting tradition comes a poor second to making a few bob out of a business opportunity. "London landlords are evicting tenants to cash in on the Olympic Games by charging tourists fortunes. Homes in the east London boroughs where many events are to be held are fetching between five and 15 times their typical rates as properties are rebranded as short-term Olympic lets." (Daily Mail, 3 February) RD
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
Take a stroll through certain streets in New York and you are almost certain to be approached by some homeless down-and-out looking for a few dollars. A similar stroll through Mumbai's streets will be even more likely to produce the same destitution. This of course is not the lot of all citizens of these mega-cities."The property market may be in poor shape in many parts of the world, but the super rich continue to spend eye-watering sums on new homes. The latest deal to grab headlines is a penthouse apartment with panoramic views of New York's central park, sold to a Russian fertiliser magnate for $88m (£56m). .... It is widely believed that the world's most expensive private dwelling is in Mumbai, India. The 27-storey Antilla tower, which boasts three helipads, six floors of parking and a series of floating gardens, was built at a cost of $1bn (£0.63bn) for India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani." (BBC News, 18 February) RD
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