Normal Is Up To Us.

        While we suffer under this pandemic, to hear the political ballerinas talk of getting back to normal, if this statement wasn't so hypocritical and tragic for the ordinary people of this country, it would be laughable. For our lords and masters, getting back to normal, means run out to work, if you have a job, and spend you spare time consuming. They desperately need you to get their tills wringing, they are getting nervous because we are not being able to be milk to their liking, we are needed to get their loot growing again.
      Try to imagine "normal" with mass unemployment a certainty. As the covid19 virus creeps invisibly across the land, unemployment keeps rising. Below is a wee glimpse of what awaits us in the new "normal" that our corporate and political bosses want us to return to. We have to create the new normal, one that sees to the needs of all our people and jettisons the pampered parasite class, that want to risk your health and well-being for the sake of their power, wealth, and privileges. Don't be a sucker.
       The latest job losses to be announced is in the shape of DW Sports, entering into administration this week with the risk of 1,700 job losses.
Other job losses already announced:
Up to 5,000 job cuts at Upper Crust owner SSP Group
Up to 700 jobs at Harrods
About 600 workers at shirtmaker TM Lewin
1,900 jobs at Café Rouge-owner Casual Dining Group
1,000 jobs at Pret A Manger
1,700 UK jobs at plane-maker Airbus
1,300 crew and 727 pilots at EasyJet
550 jobs are going at Daily Mirror publisher Reach
450 jobs going at Selfridges
650 job losses at Alexander Dennis, bus makers
1,200 job losses at Dyson
up to 1,200 job losses at The National Trust
British Airways 12,000
BP 10,000
Rolls-Royce 8,000
Centrica 5,000
Swissport 4,000
Boots 4,000
Restuarant Group 3,000
Restaurant Group owns Frankie & Benny’s and Wagamama
Up to 5,000 job cuts at Upper Crust owner SSP Group
Up to 700 jobs at Harrods
About 600 workers at shirtmaker TM Lewin
1,900 jobs at Café Rouge-owner Casual Dining Group
1,000 jobs at Pret A Manger
1,700 UK jobs at plane-maker Airbus
1,300 crew at Easyjet
727 pilots at EasyJet
550 jobs are going at Daily Mirror publisher Reach.

 

        This list is by no way complete and comprehensive, there are a multitude of small business that are shedding employees, with some closing down completely.
       A fair list of people looking for work with the pandemic far from over, and the furlough scheme ending in a couple of months. That simple action alone, will see employers jettison employees by the lorry load. Now think very hard about getting back to normal, especial if you are in one of the families affect by those daily growing numbers. 

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Prepare.

 

       The Covid19 seems to be on the decline here in UK, though we should still be very cautious on how we conduct ourselves in public. However, I think we should be shifting our main focus on the aftermath. We are facing massive unemployment and that of course, will hit the ordinary people hard. The list of companies planning to pay off workers grows by the day. Yes, we will get the usual rhetoric from our bungling political ballerinas  about how they will put in place schemes to help get the unemployed back to work. This usually translates into giving big business millions of tax payers money to employ some more people. The money will be taken up, but the jobs will be minimal. 

     With the downturn in employment there is a downturn in tax revenue to the state apparatus, this added to the monumental debt that the government has run up, will mean a savage cut in government spending. You all know what that means for the ordinary people of this country. A freeze of public sector workers pay, possible cuts, or having to do more work for the same pay, as the government cuts staff levels. more zero hours contracts, decimating working conditions, there's a queue waiting to take your job, drastic cuts to all social services, closure of public facilities, libraries, swimming pools, etc. and of course more privatisation as the state farms out more services to the private sector and sells of public assets to its corporate buddies, to help raise cash. Under our economic system there will be no quick fix, we the ordinary people will have to grin and bear it for some considerable time to come.

 I'm a very rich banker, trust me!!

    Or of course, we can start to organise our communities around mutual aid, that grows independence and solidarity across our communities and at the same time frees us from the dependency of the profit making market place of capitalism. There are a multitude of ideas from swap shops, clothes, books, toys, etc. to skill sharing schemes. I'm sure our imagination and skills can come up with a catalogue of ways we can enhance our lives and at the same time, short circuit and undermine, the corporate beasts that would rather you starved than they run without a profit.

   There is a storm coming, we can prepare to defend ourselves, or we can appeal to our rich and wealthy lords and masters, to please help us and give us a wee handout.

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The End Is Nigh.

       Everybody is, rightly so, concentrating on getting through this nightmare pandemic, but we should also be focusing on what about after this? The political ballerinas and their experts keep talking about getting back to "normal", well I think you can forget the return to normal, as it will just not be there. There will be massive unemployment as business after business is, and will continue, to go down the plug hole. Not that I for one ever wanted to return to their normal of struggle to survive, while we keep the parasite class in luxury.

    The pandemic is being the seed sower of mutual aid, we have seen it grow in community after community, and should become our plan for a return to our created "normal", freed from the destructive profit motive that has blight humanity for centuries. As far as capitalism is concerned, let's all unite and say "The end is nigh"

   Some recent figures from America can give some insight on what to expect economically, after we get through this pandemic. Remember in this crazy economic system we are tied to the rise and fall of the mighty dollar.

The following from The UNZ Review:

1– Unemployment is off-the-charts

       Thursday’s jobless claims leave no doubt that the country is in the grips of another severe recession. More than 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance in the last week. That number exceeds the gloomiest prediction of more than 40 economists and pushes the two-week total to an eye-watering 10 million claims.

According to CNBC:

       “Those at the lower end of the wage scale have been especially hard-hit during a crisis that has seen businesses either cut staff outright or at best freeze any new hiring until there’s more visibility about how efforts to contain the coronavirus will work.

      “We’ve lived through the recession and 9/11. What we’re seeing with this decline is actually worse than both of those events,” said Irina Novoselsky, CEO of online jobs marketplace CareerBuilder.” (CNBC)

According to New York Magazine:

      “Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis projected Monday that job losses from the coronavirus recession would reach 47 million and push America’s unemployment rate to 32.1 percent — more than 7 points higher than its Great Depression–era peak.”

2– Service Sector has been walloped by the virus

      Services account for 70% of the US economy, but presently the sector is in meltdown. According to the analysts at Wolf Street: “Employment contracted sharply and hours were reduced for those still employed. “The employment index plunged from +6.1 to -23.8, also the lowest level on record…

       Retailers got whacked. The Retail Sales Index of the Texas Retail Outlook Survey collapsed from the already beaten-down level of -2.5 in February to an epic all-time low of -82.6 in March… (Also) the general business activity index collapsed from the beaten down level of -5.0 to a historic low of -84.2….

        Comments from retail executives were somber:… “Most of our business has gone to zero except for essential locations such as hospitals, military bases and prisons… We are contemplating at this moment sending most employees home while our owners determine whether they can afford to pay reduced salaries and cover benefits for a short period while we see if things improve or worsen” (Wolf Street)

3– Economic carnage extends across sectors

      Business Insider: “Recession risks are rising as coronavirus spreads around the world…The crisis will clobber airlines, shipping, hotels, and restaurants…

     “Sectors reliant on trade and the free movement of people are most exposed,” said Benjamin Nelson, a Moody’s vice president and co-author of the report.

Carmakers, gaming, and retail will be hit hard by supply chain disruptions, the analysts said…

     “A lengthy outbreak would affect economic activity for longer, leading to heightened recessionary dynamics and a more significant demand shock,” Moody’s said. “A sustained pullback in consumption would hurt corporate earnings, prompt layoffs, and weigh on consumer sentiment.” (Business Insider)

      Car sales have also dropped dramatically in the last two weeks. On Wednesday, Hyundai reported that sales had seen a decline of 43 percent for March compared to the same period in 2019. That’s a drop from 61,177 vehicles in March 2019 to just 35,118 during the same month in 2020. All other car manufacturers are experiencing similar weakness in demand.

Continue reading HERE: 

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Corporations Or People.

      When ever capitalism is in trouble, that's when it shows its true colours, its callous and brutal plundering, like 2008, when they engineered trillions of taxpayers cash into their diminishing coffers after their insane gambling spree.

     Now here we are with humanity facing one of the worst pandemics in living memory, and capitalism is on its knees, time to get their grub thieving hands on more of taxpayers money, to safeguard their shareholders. Here in the UK our lords and masters are literally throwing billions of pounds at big business, with the pretext that they are thinking of the ordinary people by saving their jobs, shear bullshit. Other countries are of course following, suit the US being a prime example.

     30% of the American population may soon be out of work, people are struggling to afford the basic necessities, food and rent becoming luxuries. While this hell goes on for the ordinary people, Boeing is demanding a $60 billion bailout of taxpayers money, which will go to bailout their shareholders and CEO. This will debated in the Senate today, and will no doubt pass with a nod of the corporate beast's buddies, sitting there with the taxpayers purse strings in their grubby little hands.

     There should be  a forceful demand from us the ordinary people, that ensures any bailout is to help the people who are at the real cutting edge of this tragedy, the ordinary people. Pour billions and trillions into the protection and safety of people and to hell with shareholders and CEO. We built this world, after this disaster we can build a better world, free from shareholders and CEO, free from the destructive greed driven profit motive.

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Where Have all the People Gone?

       Where have all the people gone! In this video you get a horrifying glimpse of the warehouse of tomorrow, only it is here today. Just how boring and mind numbing can it be to stand in the one spot all day just lifting things from one rack to another rack? As you look round that warehouse the absence of people is striking and I have no doubt that the few that are employed there will soon be replaced by other robots. This is the shape of tomorrow's world, the corporate greed merchants will have no use for people except to consume. That is where the problem gets complicated, with mass unemployment, no jobs unless you are a robot, poverty and deprivation will be endemic in most countries. No wages no purchases, so as the corporate world gets more efficient and produces more and more, the number of those who can afford the goods, gets less and less. 

       With today's technology we have the ability to produce for everybody, to see to the needs of all, and so eliminate poverty. However as long as we persist in this insane greed driven system of profit for the few, we will see goods pile up and poverty grow. We will see large high-tec production units shutting down, not because everybody has enough, but because the corporate owner isn't making a profit from the production. Insanity, in other words capitalism.

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THE BIG SOCIETY????

    

       Millionaire Cameron's “BIG SOCIETY” is certainly going to be big on unemployment. At present there are approximately 2.5 million people unemployed in the UK with about 1.5 million claiming Jobseekers Allowance. These figures are set to rise rapidly if the experts have done their sums properly. According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, (CIPD) the private sector will lose most with the rise in VAT to 20%, they reckon that the increase VAT will throw approximately another 250,000 people on the dole from the private sector. John Philpott, chief economist with CIPD has stated that, ”The full impact of the coalition government's planned fiscal tightening has been underestimated.” The CIPD also says that their calculations show that the impact of VAT rise and the government's spending cuts will cost approximately 900,000 jobs from the private sector and 725,000 jobs from the public sector. Their estimate is that the coalition's cuts will cost the UK 1.6 million jobs over the next 5 years with the private sector taking the biggest hit.

        Well there you have it, the “BIG SOCIETY” everybody on the dole, services cut to the bone and everybody running around helping in charity organisations to alleviate the suffering of the poor, of which they themselves are part.

        How much of all this suffering will affect the millionaire cabal in the Westminster House of Hypocrisy and Corruption that are implementing this grand plan? Not one of them will feel the least bit of pain as the deprivation increases on the rest of society. Why do we accept the will of the millionaire class that inflicts this suffering on us, knowing that it is all to the benefit of their friends in the millionaires' club. Their cronies in the financial sector will be wining and dining them from now until they are buried. They know how to work together for their mutual benefit, isn't about time we the workers done the same? Why let parasites feed of your body, let's get rid of this whole system of privilege and power to the wealthy, and replace it with a system of co-operation, mutual aid, and sustainability that works for the benefit of all our people.

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