June 8th. A Win For Capitalism.

       I find it infuriating, though I have grown to expect it, how our political ballerinas jump on transient figures as if they were tablets of stone. The Teresa May, “strong and stable” cabal, have been spouting about how, under their “strong and stable” spell on the bridge of this sinking ship, the UK is the fastest growing economy in the developed world. They continue with this mantra even although the latest figures puts the UK at the bottom, equal to Italy. The latest figures put Canada at the top, followed by Germany, then Japan, next comes France and near the bottom that mighty capitalist juggernaut the US, then UK and Italy equal, languishing at the bottom. But what does the truth matter, this is the season of spewing bigger lies, the Theatre of Illusions is in full swing, with its latest production, “The General Election”. This farce ends on the 8th. of June, but its consequences will be felt for years to come. Will it be on with the full frontal attack on the social fabric of our society, or will it be a rearrangement of some of the crumbs and crusts from the table of opulence being distributed among the so deserving poor. Which ever Messiah takes their place on the throne of UK money machine, the capitalist exploitation will continue, we the ordinary people will continue to produce all the wealth in the country, and will continue to struggle and fight for decent life, while all that wealth we produce, finds its way into the coffers of the already obscenely wealthy and over privileged exclusive club of our lords and masters. June the 8th. may change the label on the package, but it is still the same old box of lousy tricks. I for one will not be excited nor disappointed at the result, I will predict that result now, here on this wee blog, it will be a win for capitalism.

 

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Action Against Workfare And Sanctions.

       As the Crooks and Liars competition, (the general election) snarls and grunts its way towards the finishing line, we have been bombarded with economical magic formulae, which are supposed to transform our lives. There has been a myriad of variations on how to reduce the "deficit" allowing us to enter the promised land. Our lives are to be governed by what is good for business, the assumption being that if the CEOs of the corporate world are happy, then they will make our lives better. All bullshit of course.  

       As far as I am aware, not one entrant to the Crooks and Liars competition, has mentioned anything about stopping workfare, and getting rid of sanctions. These two planks of the capitalist "economic recovery" are without doubt responsible for untold misery in our communities. They are responsible for pushing people to food banks, skipping meals, not heating their homes, running up debt, and a host of other diseases of the capitalist system.

      This week sees the start of a week of action against workfare, (slave labour) and sanctions, (vindictive punishment of the vulnerable). Sadly most of what is advertised seems to be in London, hopefully as the week progresses we will see increasing protest events spreading right across the country.. Remember, workfare is an attack on wages and working conditions, and that affects us all.

Information from Boycott Workfare:

No workfare. No sanctions. Whoever wins we will resist!
      As the general election campaign gets underway we are already seeing politicians calling for more of the same policies. More workfare. More sanctions. Yet we know that these policies have been a total disaster. It is shameful that workfare and sanctions are supported by all the main political parties. This is why we are holding a week of action in the week before the election. We need your help to expose and challenge workfare and sanctions policies and the political lies that underpin them.----------

Read the full article and list of events HERE:

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Capitalist Success Doesn't Look At Poverty.

     In capitalist Europe, Germany is seen as the shining example of capitalist success. It is meant to be what the rest of Europe should try to aspire to, prosperity for all. Of course like all the tales of capitalist success, as far as the ordinary people are concerned it is all an illusion. The German Joint Welfare Association report on poverty for 2013 shows a very definite pattern of increasing poverty for Germany as a whole. It also states that from 2006 to 2012 the growth of poverty was steady going from 14% to 15.2%. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), approximately 10% of German children live in families whose income is below the poverty line. A UNICEF study finds that 8.6% of children in Germany have long term experiences of poverty that seriously affect their entire future. It also finds that more than 1 million adolescents have spent more than one third of their childhood and youth living in poverty. 

       Officially, homelessness doesn't exist in Germany, there are no official figures held by the state. So we have to rely on estimates made by independent groups that offer social assistance to such people. One institution that offers assistance to homeless, Bundesarbeitgemeinschhaft Wohnungslosenhilfe (BAG) states that their figures suggest that there are approximately 591,000 homeless in Germany, however if you add the homeless immigrants, the total looks more like 860,000, roughly the same size as the population of one of Germany's largest cities, Cologne. This figure breaks down as, approximately one third are women, almost the same number are young people and children, men making up 39%. BAG also estimates that approximately another million are under threat of homelessness, or living in sub-standard housing. It also estimates that some homeless with families can get some temporary accommodation with friends and relatives, but approximately 35,000 single people face living on the streets. A further figure from BAG states that in the winter of 1996/97, a staggering 27 people froze to death on the streets of Germany, one of the worst figures among the world's most prosperous nations.

      That is the irony, one of the most prosperous nations on the planet and poverty, homelessness and freezing to death on the streets is accepted. It is the economist apologists for the capitalist system that can only see one side of the equation and spout German as a success story. Germany is growing rapidly in wealth, according to Manager Magazin, October issue, the assets of the richest 100 have increased during the last twelve months by 5.2% to a staggering €336.6 billion and there are 135 billionaires living in Germany and according to a recent study by Credit Suisse, there are approximately 1.7 million, “dollar millionaires” living in Germany.

       In this insane capitalist world, success means rich getting richer, and the rest can go to hell in handcart.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

All Fall Down.

     Listening to the Cameron millionaire cabal spouting about growth in the economy, and how we in the Uk are ahead in the European recovery, makes you wonder how well their medication for delusion is working. The latest “growth” is now thought to be cash being spent by those who have received compensation from the banks after being miss-sold some of the banks' favourite gambling scams. So as long as the banks keep getting fined and people keep getting compensation, people will keep spending, well those few on the receiving end of the banks con-fund. Hardly the signs of a powerhouse economy in growth. In countries claiming “recovery”, it has been a no-wage increase economy, so a no-growth recovery for the ordinary people.

      However it is not just the UK that is kidding itself on about “growth”, it is a Western malaise, the delusion of the perpetual growth maniacs. It just isn't there. The world economy is in decline, the world's financial institutions are in extreme stress condition. As America tries in vain to save itself, by limiting “quantitive easing” (printing monopoly money) it is adding to the chaos and worries of the rest of the world.

     What this means for you and I, is the threat of deprivation on a scale never witnessed before, as country after country tries to “balance the books” by slashing the social fabric, the living conditions, of the ordinary people. How do you balance the books when the world's total debt is in excess of $700 trillion, and the world's total GDP is only approximately $69 trillion? What this means is that if every penny of the world's wealth was put to paying off the debt, it still would not be clear in ten years time. To make matters worse, more than 90% of the world's money is not real money, it is funny money, phoney money, created monopoly money, it is illusional. Any wonder that the financial house of cards is about to collapse? We have to organise now for that inevitable collapse, we can create a better world free from the cancer of profit and growth.

This from A World To Win:

A contagion of capital flight is hitting Argentina, India, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Hungary and Turkey. A dramatic reversal in the global marketplace, which began in May and is accelerating with every new shock statistic, is forcing the governments of “emerging” economies to savage the living standards for their already low-income populations.

Each country has a different story to tell: worse or better attempts at managing their economies; higher or lower levels of foreign currency reserves; more or less extremes of corruption of government ministers; levels of civil unrest ranging from the benign to insurrectionary. But the source of the crisis invading their borders lies elsewhere, beyond their control. 

- See more at: http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/sick-global-economy-hit-by-new-contagion.html#sthash.v4CoE9xp.dpuf

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See Through The Smoke And Mirrors.

        Do you not get really pissed-off listening to those pretty butterfly people who live in the rarified atmosphere of the political machine, spouting how the economy is growing faster than expected? All their meaningless phrases of dropping unemployment, economic growth, and falling inflation, seem like you are watching a fantasy movie, something far removed from the real world that you and I inhabit.

      Of those individuals who have come off the unemployment register, how many are in workfare schemes working for nothing? How many are on zero hours contracts getting four hours today, nothing tomorrow, and perhaps twelve hours next week? The truth is that in this country there are now more people in poverty and working, than in poverty and not working. While those pretty butterfly people in expensive suits, go on about the steady growth, they preside over a country that has more than 3.5 million children living in poverty, that's 27% of all children in the UK. Of course poverty isn't spread equally across the country, in some local wards the child poverty rate varies from 50% to 70%. Your post code will dictate the quality of your children's lives, no matter what illusions the political parasites spout. According to new research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the number of (childless) adults of working-age in poverty is predicted to rise by over 40% by 2020. It also shows that the 2020 child poverty targets will be missed and the number of children in poverty will increase unless drastic action is taken now.

      There is a kind of whoopin' and haulrin' from our political illusion weavers of the good times just around the corner, when in fact the whole global economy is tettering to a grinding halt, with all the attendant misery that this holds for you and I the ordinary people. Capitalism has succeeded in doing what it was set up to do, make a few people very, very rich, at the expense of the vast majority. It was never intended, nor could it possibly, see to the needs of all the people, they need to be exploited for that wealth to accumulate in the hands of the parasite class.

      The world is very rich in resources and skills, yet it is awash with poverty, this is no accident, nor unavoidable, it is the result of the economic system that is foisted on us by those who stand to gain the most from that system. Until we get rid of that exploitative system of greed, we are heading deeper into a world of deprivation, wars and misery.

This extract from an interesting article on A World To Win:

       With demand from emerging economies slowing, prices on the global commodities exchanges are dropping. The price of an ounce of gold – the universal measure of the value of commodities – dropped last year from $1,900 to $1,200.

      Deflation has another damaging result. The real value and cost of debt actually increases. Highly indebted countries, corporations and individuals around the world had better take note. Talk of a “recovery” is not only premature but entirely ignores what’s really happening in the global economy.

Read the full article HERE:

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That Elusive Growth Thingy.

      Austerity isn't working for that elusive "growth", across the globe the "experts" keep cutting the expectations of economic growth. So what's their answer? More "structural reforms", in other words, more of the failed austerity. The policies that are devastating the living standards across the world, according to those "experts" have to be re-doubled. Corporate growth means more than the wellbeing of people, screw a generation or two, as long as our failed and unjust economic system survives. Wage increases in the UK for the last year were running at an average of 0.8%, while inflation is steady at 2.8%, in real terms, that's a massive wage cut. Wage cuts are only part of the question, thousands of working people are paid so low that they have to rely on benefits of one kind or another, and with benefit cuts coming into play, poverty's cruel hand is grabbing the coattails of more and more individuals and families.

       Falling wages, slashed benefit cuts and rising unemployment, all, so we are told, necessary, for what? Necessary for the survival of an economic system that will never see to the needs of the ordinary people. Necessary for the survival of a system that pampers parasites. The world is not short of resources, we have enough to see to the needs of all on this planet. Warehouses are full of food and other necessities of live. We don't, not because we don't know how to go about it, nor is it because we don't want to see to the needs of all. No, its because the rich and wealth, through their political puppets, forbid such actions to take place without there being a profit in it for them. In the corporate world, life is cheap, but commodities are expensive.

From A World To Win:

 "--------Summarising the latest set of global data, leading economics professor Eswar Prasad says: “The global economic recovery remains stuck below takeoff speed, unable to achieve liftoff and facing the risk of stalling.”          

        Prasad’s warning that “politicians around the world continue to avoid tough structural reforms, instead relying on central banks to continue propping up growth”, implies a redoubling of the assault on living standards that has produced 60% unemployment among young people in Greece and Spain."

Read the full article HERE:

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NUMBER CRUCHING.

      In times of economic turmoil, with all kinds of predictions from all sorts of pundits, the poor lay person has to turn to the experts for what is the true picture. Sadly economics is no science, in spite of all the economists telling you otherwise. It is a matter of you pays your money and you takes your pick. Turning to the various experts for what is on the cards for our so called “economic future” the figures are as varied as the the old school ties that spout them. Lets take that well informed and nose to the ground profit hungry bunch the Confederation of British Industry, (CBI) they have down graded their previous prediction for growth in the economy from a minuscule 0.3% to and even more miserable 0.2%, after all they should know. However another well informed bunch of experts come up with a different set of numbers, the British Chamber of Commerce lower their prediction, from 2.2% down to a modest 1.9% growth. So the experts say it is all down grading, but if you don't like those figures well just turn to another bunch of experts, the Office of Budget Responsibility. Now, if you're an optimist then these are the boys for you, their star gazing comes up with an increase in growth of 2.3% that's up from their previous prediction of 2.1%. So the future is rosy, or it is miserable, it depends on your chosen expert. What we can be sure of is the fact that what this millionaire cabal of public school thugs are implementing will mean real hardship for millions of ordinary folk and super bonuses for the millionaire club. Ah well, that's capitalism.

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