Andropov
21st October 2008, 12:04
Falling apart at the seams.
Last weekend the Euro politicians put together the biggest bank bailout in history. Just three days later and everything’s falling apart at the seams again. European shares tumbled. Falls of up to 7% took place in the value of shares. The $250bn from the Euro banks seemed to be of no value in stopping the collapse of the money markets. While the system is far from collapse it is now clear that we may be moving towards a worldwide recession. It is undoubtedly the worst recession since the great depression in the 1930’s. Nine out of ten of the shares to fall the most are in resource stocks. Rio Tinto the mining company saw shares drop 17%in one day.
Rather than be grateful to Governments pouring money into the banks the bankers are now demanding that they be allowed to pay out dividends to
their share holders. The British Prime Minister sunk £37bn into three banks to keep them afloat. The Irish Government guaranteed the survival of all the Irish based banks. The USA Government is handing over vast sums of money to financial firms virtually free.
And the bankers want more. That is the reality of capitalism. Having demanded for years a free market economy without any restraints or Government controls, the banks, when the **** hits the fan, want Government intervention in terms of money, ie taxpayer’s money but still want no Government regulation.
It is easy for the British prime Minister to blame "irresponsible" bankers. Yet it was he who for ten years presided over a period of cheap credit. Low interest rates may have been to stimulate the economy but a major affect was the creation of mountains of debt not only for financial institutions but also for the ordinary person in the street.
Credit cards were given out hand over fist to people who had no way of paying back the debts they accumulated. Every week homes were bombarded with gloss leaflets encouraging people to sign up to the latest offer from the credit card companies. TV and films pushed the consumer life style down people’s throats. Three foreign holidays a year was the norm, women should live like the WAGS and the men emulate the life style of the David Beckam’s of this world. Trade union values of solidarity and brotherhood and equality were derided. The individual consumer was king. Working class areas lost their sense of solidarity as the values of the free market were embraced by unemployed youth turned on the glorification of drug culture. Crime soared in working class areas and anti social behaviour drug taking knife culture and a callous disregard for our fellow humans took hold.
In the meantime it is the taxpayers in the main who will bear the main burden of the collapse of the system and the on set of recession. The budget introduced this week by the Irish Government will lower disposable incomes by 1%. VAT has been increased and a 1% levy on all incomes under Euros100, 000 is introduced and 2%for incomes over euros 100,000. Naturally there is no change in corporation tax.
Those set to experience the greatest losses in the coming year are those who lose their jobs, and have difficulty in finding new employment. Changes in the jobseekers allowance mean that the unemployed will now be worse off.
On top of that there has been a cull of Government agencies. One of the most prominent is the Combat Poverty agency now to be merged into the Department of Social and Family Affairs. A thorn in the side of the Government in the past with regular critiques of policy the agency now loses its independence and one doubts any more criticisms of policy. There were tax increases across the board, on income, Vat and duty rates. There were cutbacks in public services. One commentator speaking of the budget said
“If you leave aside the elderly, the women and the children, no-one else feels any pain.”
Two years ago the Republic’s economy was booming and the government had more money than it could spend. Now it is bust.
House prices in the south are down more than 10 per cent in the past year.
Meanwhile in the North the unemployment numbers have raised by 1200 the biggest increase in 22 years. Most of the job losses are from the construction industry. However the North’s economy is relatively better off in comparison with both the 26 counties and Britain due to the high number of public sector jobs. However the % of people, who are economically inactive, is a staggering 26.7 % the highest of all UK regions.
What is happening to European economies has to be seen in an international context.
“Over the past year, the number of hungry people in the world increased from some 850 million to 925 million, as a direct result of higher food and energy prices. Since early 2007, protests about high food prices and general living costs have occurred in almost 60 countries, with violence occurring in more than 20 of these. The current crisis will push the number of hungry people to well over one billion, about one-sixth of the world's population.”
The costs of hunger are not sufficiently widely known. Half of the almost 10 million children under the age of five who die annually do so from a combination of malnutrition and easily preventable disease. Tens of millions of children suffer from physical and mental stunting as a result of chronic malnourishment of pregnant women and children under two years. The costs in terms of lost human potential and economic development of countries are enormous. (Tom Arnold is chief executive of Concern Worldwide)
The poorest of the poor spend 50-70 %of their income on food and live on less than 50 cents a day. Very few of the promises made by richer nations to help the hungry have translated into action.
That is why it is so important for republicans in Ireland to not only examine and understand the reasons for the current crisis in capitalism but also to take, a view point not from a narrow nationalist perspective, but to look at the whole issue from an internationalist perspective.
Long derided and almost forgotten about by the intelligentsia of the world because of the failure of Stalinism and the collapse of the totalitarian Eastern regimes the ideas of Karl Marx are now once more coming back to prominence.
“The history of all hitherto existing society [2] is the history of class struggles”.
“The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.”
“Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other -- bourgeoisie and proletariat.”
“The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.”
“The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation.”
“The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. “
“Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.”
(http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/cl...manifesto.html (http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html))
Last weekend the Euro politicians put together the biggest bank bailout in history. Just three days later and everything’s falling apart at the seams again. European shares tumbled. Falls of up to 7% took place in the value of shares. The $250bn from the Euro banks seemed to be of no value in stopping the collapse of the money markets. While the system is far from collapse it is now clear that we may be moving towards a worldwide recession. It is undoubtedly the worst recession since the great depression in the 1930’s. Nine out of ten of the shares to fall the most are in resource stocks. Rio Tinto the mining company saw shares drop 17%in one day.
Rather than be grateful to Governments pouring money into the banks the bankers are now demanding that they be allowed to pay out dividends to
their share holders. The British Prime Minister sunk £37bn into three banks to keep them afloat. The Irish Government guaranteed the survival of all the Irish based banks. The USA Government is handing over vast sums of money to financial firms virtually free.
And the bankers want more. That is the reality of capitalism. Having demanded for years a free market economy without any restraints or Government controls, the banks, when the **** hits the fan, want Government intervention in terms of money, ie taxpayer’s money but still want no Government regulation.
It is easy for the British prime Minister to blame "irresponsible" bankers. Yet it was he who for ten years presided over a period of cheap credit. Low interest rates may have been to stimulate the economy but a major affect was the creation of mountains of debt not only for financial institutions but also for the ordinary person in the street.
Credit cards were given out hand over fist to people who had no way of paying back the debts they accumulated. Every week homes were bombarded with gloss leaflets encouraging people to sign up to the latest offer from the credit card companies. TV and films pushed the consumer life style down people’s throats. Three foreign holidays a year was the norm, women should live like the WAGS and the men emulate the life style of the David Beckam’s of this world. Trade union values of solidarity and brotherhood and equality were derided. The individual consumer was king. Working class areas lost their sense of solidarity as the values of the free market were embraced by unemployed youth turned on the glorification of drug culture. Crime soared in working class areas and anti social behaviour drug taking knife culture and a callous disregard for our fellow humans took hold.
In the meantime it is the taxpayers in the main who will bear the main burden of the collapse of the system and the on set of recession. The budget introduced this week by the Irish Government will lower disposable incomes by 1%. VAT has been increased and a 1% levy on all incomes under Euros100, 000 is introduced and 2%for incomes over euros 100,000. Naturally there is no change in corporation tax.
Those set to experience the greatest losses in the coming year are those who lose their jobs, and have difficulty in finding new employment. Changes in the jobseekers allowance mean that the unemployed will now be worse off.
On top of that there has been a cull of Government agencies. One of the most prominent is the Combat Poverty agency now to be merged into the Department of Social and Family Affairs. A thorn in the side of the Government in the past with regular critiques of policy the agency now loses its independence and one doubts any more criticisms of policy. There were tax increases across the board, on income, Vat and duty rates. There were cutbacks in public services. One commentator speaking of the budget said
“If you leave aside the elderly, the women and the children, no-one else feels any pain.”
Two years ago the Republic’s economy was booming and the government had more money than it could spend. Now it is bust.
House prices in the south are down more than 10 per cent in the past year.
Meanwhile in the North the unemployment numbers have raised by 1200 the biggest increase in 22 years. Most of the job losses are from the construction industry. However the North’s economy is relatively better off in comparison with both the 26 counties and Britain due to the high number of public sector jobs. However the % of people, who are economically inactive, is a staggering 26.7 % the highest of all UK regions.
What is happening to European economies has to be seen in an international context.
“Over the past year, the number of hungry people in the world increased from some 850 million to 925 million, as a direct result of higher food and energy prices. Since early 2007, protests about high food prices and general living costs have occurred in almost 60 countries, with violence occurring in more than 20 of these. The current crisis will push the number of hungry people to well over one billion, about one-sixth of the world's population.”
The costs of hunger are not sufficiently widely known. Half of the almost 10 million children under the age of five who die annually do so from a combination of malnutrition and easily preventable disease. Tens of millions of children suffer from physical and mental stunting as a result of chronic malnourishment of pregnant women and children under two years. The costs in terms of lost human potential and economic development of countries are enormous. (Tom Arnold is chief executive of Concern Worldwide)
The poorest of the poor spend 50-70 %of their income on food and live on less than 50 cents a day. Very few of the promises made by richer nations to help the hungry have translated into action.
That is why it is so important for republicans in Ireland to not only examine and understand the reasons for the current crisis in capitalism but also to take, a view point not from a narrow nationalist perspective, but to look at the whole issue from an internationalist perspective.
Long derided and almost forgotten about by the intelligentsia of the world because of the failure of Stalinism and the collapse of the totalitarian Eastern regimes the ideas of Karl Marx are now once more coming back to prominence.
“The history of all hitherto existing society [2] is the history of class struggles”.
“The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.”
“Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other -- bourgeoisie and proletariat.”
“The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.”
“The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation.”
“The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. “
“Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.”
(http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/cl...manifesto.html (http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html))