Efforts to cap CO2 emissions are adverse to human health and welfare
By Craig D. Idso, Ph.D. | The Hill | January 30, 2014
In his State of the Union address, President Obama advocated an energy policy aimed at reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), which he claims are causing catastrophic changes to the earth’s climate and “harming western communities.” In his policy prescription, the president advocates a combination of increased regulation of the energy and transportation industries and more government spending on research designed to bring low-carbon-emitting sources of energy, i.e., so-called renewables, to market. He considers those actions to be the only viable options “leading to a cleaner, safer planet.”
But the president’s concerns for the planet are based upon flawed and speculative science; and his policy prescription is a recipe for failure.
With respect to the science, Obama conveniently fails to disclose the fact that literally thousands of scientific studies have produced findings that run counter to his view of future climate. As just one example, and a damning one at that, all of the computer models upon which his vision is based failed to predict the current plateau in global temperature that has continued for the past 16 years. That the earth has not warmed significantly during this period, despite an 8 percent increase in atmospheric CO2, is a major indictment of the models’ credibility in predicting future climate, as well as the president’s assertion that debate on this topic is “settled.”
Numerous other problems with Obama’s model-based view of future climate have been filling up the pages of peer-reviewed science journals for many years now, as evidenced by the recent work of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, which published a 1,000-page report in September highlighting a large and well-substantiated alternative viewpoint that contends that rising atmospheric CO2 emissions will have a much smaller, if not negligible, impact on future climate, while generating several biospheric benefits.
Concerning these benefits, atmospheric CO2 is the building block of plant life. It is used by earth’s plants in the process of photosynthesis to construct their tissues and grow. And as has been conclusively demonstrated in numerous scientific studies, the more CO2 we put into the air, the better plants grow. Among other findings, they produce greater amounts of biomass, become more efficient at using water, and are better able to cope with environmental stresses such as pollution and high temperatures.
The implications of these benefits are enormous. One recent study calculated that over the 50-year period ending in 2001, the direct monetary benefits conferred by the atmospheric CO2 enrichment of the Industrial Revolution on global crop production amounted to a staggering $3.2 trillion. And projecting this positive externality forward in time reveals it will likely bestow an additional $9.8 trillion in crop production benefits between now and 2050.
By ignoring these realities, Obama’s policy prescription is found to be erroneous. The taxation or regulation of CO2 emissions is an unnecessary and detrimental policy option that should be shunned. Why would any government advocate to increase regulations and raise energy prices based on flawed computer model projections of climate change that will never come to pass? Why would any government advance policy that seeks to destroy jobs, rather than to promote them? Why, in fact, would they actually “bite the hand that feeds them?”
We live in a time when half the global population experiences some sort of limitation in their access to energy, energy that is needed for the most basic of human needs, including the production of clean water, warmth, and light. One-third of those thus impacted are children. An even greater portion finds its ranks among the poor.
As a society, it is time to recognize and embrace the truth. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Its increasing concentration only minimally affects earth’s climate, while it offers tremendous benefits to the biosphere. Efforts to regulate and reduce CO2 emissions will hurt far more than they will help.
Idso is lead editor and chief scientist for the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.
Washington and São Paulo: Spying and a Fading Friendship
Rousseff and Kirchner at the UN, 2013. – Roberto Stuckert Filho
By Mark Weisbrot | NACLA | January 30, 2014
The only thing missing from Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s speech at the UN General Assembly last month was “it still smells like sulfur.” For those who don’t remember, these were the immortal words of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez in 2006, describing the podium where “the Devil”—his name for President George W. Bush—had spoken the day before. Chávez’s speech received hearty applause and prompted some New Yorkers to hang a banner from a highway overpass that said “Wake Up and Smell the Sulfur.”
Dilma’s speech also got a lot of applause at the General Assembly, and because she spoke immediately before President Barack Obama, her remarks were even more pointed. She presented a stinging rebuke to the Obama administration’s mass surveillance operations, at home and abroad:
“As many other Latin Americans, I fought against authoritarianism and censorship, and I cannot but defend, in an uncompromising fashion, the right to privacy of individuals and the sovereignty of my country. In the absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy. In the absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for the relationship among nations. We face, Mr. President, a situation of grave violation of human rights and of civil liberties; of invasion and capture of confidential information concerning corporate activities, and especially of disrespect to national sovereignty.”
Dilma also took a swipe at Obama’s previously planned—and then cancelled due to popular demand—bombing of Syria: “[W]e repudiate unilateral interventions contrary to international law, without Security Council authorization.”
Her remarks were a reminder, and for some a new discovery, that the differences among the left-of-center governments of South America on hemispheric and foreign policy issues were mostly a matter of style and rhetoric, not of substance. The speech came in the wake of the cancellation of Dilma’s scheduled October state visit to the White House, which would have been the first by a Brazilian president in nearly two decades. It was another blow to the Obama administration’s tepid efforts to improve relations with Brazil, and with South America in general.
At this moment, U.S.-South American relations are probably even worse than they were during the George W. Bush years, despite the huge advantage that President Obama has in terms of media image, and therefore popularity, in the hemisphere. This illustrates how deeply structural the problem of hemispheric relations has become, and how unlikely they are to become warmer in the foreseeable future.
The fundamental cause of the strained relationship is that Washington refuses to recognize that there is a new reality in the region, now that a vast South American majority has elected left governments. In Washington’s foreign policy establishment—including most think tanks and other sources of analysis and opinion—there has been almost no acknowledgement that a new strategy might be necessary. Of course, most of the foreign policy establishment doesn’t care much about Latin America these days. And there is no electoral price to be paid for stupidity that leads to worsening relations with the region. On the contrary, the main electoral pressure on the White House comes from the far right, including neocons and old-guard Cuban-Americans. And Obama is not above caving to these interests when the White House and State Department are not already on their side. But among those who do care about Latin America—from an imperial point of view—the lack of imagination is breathtaking.
The establishment has, over the past 15 years, sometimes adopted a “good left, bad left” strategy that sought first and foremost to try and isolate Venezuela, often lumping in Bolivia, Ecuador, and sometimes Argentina as the “bad left.” But in the halls of power, they really do not like any of the left governments and are hoping to get rid of them all. In 2005, according to State Department documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. government promoted legislation within Brazil that would have weakened the Workers’ Party, funding efforts to promote a legal change that would make it more difficult for legislators to switch parties. This would have strengthened the opposition to Lula’s Workers’ party (PT) government, since the PT has party discipline but many opposition politicians do not.
So it is not surprising that Brazil has been, according to the documents revealed by former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, the top Latin American target for U.S. spying. It is a lot like all the other left governments that Washington would like to get rid of, only bigger. It is true that countries with U.S.-allied governments like Mexico were also targeted, but in the context of Brazil’s alliance with other left governments, the large-scale espionage there—which reportedly included monitoring of Dilma’s personal phone calls and emails—takes on a different meaning.
In the past decade of Workers’ Party government, Brazil has lined up fairly consistently with the other left governments on hemispheric issues and relations with the United States. When the Bush administration tried to expand its military presence in Colombia, Brazil was there with the rest of the region in opposition. The same was true when Washington aided and abetted the overthrow of “targets of opportunity” among the left governments: Honduras in 2009 and Paraguay in 2012—although in these cases Washington and its allies still prevailed. Brazil also supported other efforts at regional integration and independence, including UNASUR (the Union of South American Nations), which has played an important role in defending member countries from right-wing destabilization attempts as in Bolivia in 2008, or in the April elections in Venezuela, where the Obama administration supported opposition efforts to overturn the results with obviously false claims of electoral fraud (A CEPR study showed that the probability of getting the April 14 election day audit results confirming Nicolás Maduro’s win, if the vote had actually been stolen, was less than one in 25 thousand trillion).
Lula made a conscious decision that Brazil would look more to the south and less to the United States as a leader in its foreign and commercial policy. In an interview with the Argentine daily Pagina 12 this past October, he explained how important the turning point of Mar del Plata was, when the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was finally buried at the Summit of the Americas in 2005:
“It was fundamental that we had stopped this proposal to form the FTAA, at Mar del Plata. It was not a true project of integration, but one of economic annexation. With its sovereignty affirmed, South America looked for its own path and a much more constructive one. . . . When we analyze this history of South America we can see that it is one great conquest. If we had not avoided the FTAA, the region would not have been able to take the economic and social leap forward that it did in the past decade. Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela played a central role in this process. Néstor Kirchner and Hugo Chávez were two great allies in accomplishing this.”
In 2002, when Lula was elected, Brazil’s exports to the United States were 26.4% of its total exports. By 2011, they were down to 10.4%. Meanwhile, China’s economy is by some measures already bigger than the U.S. economy, and it may well double in size over the next decade. That projection, which would require only a 7.2% annual rate of growth, is quite probable, as likely as any ten-year projection for the United States—perhaps even more so. The United States will become increasingly less important to Brazil, and to South America generally. Given that Washington still does not respect Latin American sovereignty, much less the goals and aspirations of its democratic governments, the steady decline of U.S. economic power has to be seen as a good thing for the region.
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy.
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The Un-Development of the US Economy
By Paul Craig Roberts | CounterPunch | January 29, 2014
A few days ago, I explained how economists and policymakers destroyed our economy for the sake of short-term corporate profits from jobs offshoring and financial deregulation.
That same week Business Week published an article, “Factory Jobs Are Gone. Get Over It,” by Charles Kenny. Kenny expresses the view of establishment economists, such as Brookings Institute economist Justin Wolfers who wants to know “What’s with the political fetish for manufacturing? Are factories really so awesome?”
“Not really,” Kenny says. Citing Eric Fisher of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, Kenny reports that wages rise most rapidly in those states that most quickly abandon manufacturing. Kenny cites Gary Hufbauer, once an academic colleague of mine now at the Peterson Institute, who claims that the 2009 tariffs applied to Chinese tire imports cost US consumers $1 billion in higher prices and 3,731 lost retail jobs. Note the precision of the jobs loss, right down to the last 31.
In support of the argument that Americans are better off without manufacturing jobs, Kenny cites MIT and Harvard academic economists to the effect that there is no evidence that manufacturing tends to cluster, thus disputing the view that there are economies from manufacturers tending to congregate in the same areas where they benefit from an experienced work force and established supply chains.
Perhaps the MIT and Harvard economists did their study after US manufacturing centers became shells of their former selves and Detroit lost 25% of its population, Gary Indiana lost 22% of its population, Flint Michigan lost 18% of its population, Cleveland lost 17% of its population, and St Louis lost 20% of its population. If the economists’ studies were done after manufacturing had departed, they would not find manufacturing concentrated in locations where it formerly flourished. MIT and Harvard economists might find this an idea too large to comprehend.
Kenny’s answer to the displaced manufacturing workers is–you guessed it–jobs training. He cites MIT economist David Autor who thinks the problem is the federal government only spends $1 on retraining for every $400 that it spends on supporting displaced workers.
These arguments are so absurd as to be mindless. Let’s examine them. What jobs are the displaced manufacturing workers to be trained for? Why, service jobs, of course. Kenny actually thinks that “service industries–hotels, hospitals, media, and accounting–have taken up the slack.” (I don’t know where he gets media and accounting from; scant sign of such jobs are found in the payroll jobs reports.) Moreover, service jobs have certainly not taken up the slack as the rising rate of long-term unemployment and declining labor force participation rate prove.
Nontradable service sector jobs such as hotel maids, hospital orderlies, retail clerks, waitresses and bartenders are low productivity, low value-added jobs that cannot pay incomes comparable to manufacturing jobs. The long term decline in real median family income relates to the movement offshore of manufacturing jobs and tradable professional service jobs, such as software engineering, IT, research and design.
Moreover, domestic service jobs do not produce exportable goods and services. A country without manufactures has little with which to earn foreign exchange in order to pay for its imports of its shoes, clothing, manufactured goods, high-technology products, Apple computers, and increasingly food. Therefore, that country’s trade deficit widens as each year it owes more and more to foreigners.
A country whose best known products are fraudulent and toxic financial instruments and GMO foods that no one wants cannot pay for its imports except by signing over its existing assets. The foreigners buy up US assets with their trade surpluses. Consequently, income from rents, interest, dividends, capital gains, and profits leave US pockets for foreign pockets. It is a safe bet that Hufbauer did not include any of these costs or maybe even the loss of US tire workers’ wages and tire manufacturers’ profits when he concluded that trying to save US tire manufacturing jobs cost more than it was worth.
Eric Fisher’s argument that the highest wage growth is found in areas where higher productivity manufacturing jobs are most rapidly replaced with lower productivity domestic service jobs is beyond absurd. (Possibly Fisher did not say this; I’m taking Kenny’s word for it.) It has always been a foundation of labor economics that workers are paid the value of their contribution to output. Manufacturing employees working with technology embodied in plant and equipment produce more value per man hour than maids changing sheets and bartenders mixing drinks.
In my book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism And Economic Dissolution Of The West (2013), I point out the obvious mistakes in “studies” by Matthew Slaughter, a former member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, and Harvard professor Michael Porter. These academic economists conclude on the basis of extraordinary errors and ignorance of empirical facts, that jobs offshoring is good for Americans. They were able to reach this conclusion despite the absence of any visibility of this good, and they hold to this absurd conclusion despite the inability of a “recovery” (or lack of one) that is 4.5 years old to get off the ground and get employment back up to where it was six years ago. They hold to their “education is the answer” solution despite the growing percentage of university graduates who cannot find employment.
Michael Hudson is certainly correct to call economists purveyors of “junk economics.” Indeed, I wonder if economists even have junk value. But they are well paid by Wall Street and the offshoring corporations.
What the Brookings Institute’s Justin Wolfers needs to ask himself is: what is the redefinition of economic development? For my lifetime the definition of a developed economy is an industrialized economy. It has always been “the industrialized countries” that occupy the status of “developed economies,” contrasted with “undeveloped countries,” “developing countries,” and “emerging economies.” How is an economy developed if it is shedding its industry and manufacturing? This is the reverse of the development process. Without realizing it, Kenny describes the unravelling of the US economy when he describes the decline of US manufacturing from 28 percent of US GDP in 1953 to 12% in 2012. The US now has the work force of a third world country, with the vast bulk of the population employed in lowly paid domestic services. The US work force no longer looks like the work force of a developed country. It looks like third world India’s work force of three decades ago.
Kenny and junk economists speak of the decline of US manufacturing jobs as if they are not being offshored to countries where labor is cheap but replaced by automation. No doubt there has been automation, and more ways of replacing humans with machines will be found. But if manufacturing jobs are things of the past, why is China’s sudden and rapid rise to economic power accompanied by 100 million manufacturing jobs? Apple computers are not made in China by robots. If robots are making Apple computers, it would be just as cheap to make the computers in the US. The Chinese manufacturing workforce is almost the size of the entire US work force.
US companies employ Americans to market the products that are produced abroad for sale in the US. This is why US corporations employ Americans mainly in service jobs. Foreigners make the goods, and Americans sell them.
Economic development has always been about acquiring the capital, technology, business knowledge, and trained workforce to make valuable things that can be sold at home and abroad. US capital and technology are being located abroad, and the trained domestic workforce is disappearing from disuse and abandonment. The US is falling out of the ranks of the industrialized countries and is on the path to becoming an undeveloped economy.
Obama and Friends Discover Inequality
By Jack Rasmus | January 28, 2014
Today, January 28, 2014, President Obama will address the nation in his State of the Union (SOTU) speech to Congress. A major theme of the address will be the growing income inequality in the US.
His speech represents an echo of similar themes and talks that have been presented this past week at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. That’s where every January the big capitalists of the world gather to discuss amongst themselves the major issues of the past year and what to do about them—in between being entertained by various cultural celebrities and performers who have been allowed into their club as junior partners in wealth. The annual Davos cultural events are not unlike the small venue side-shows held in the big Las Vegas casinos: the entertainers strut and sing while the real betting and dice-rolling discussions involving future capitalist policy initiatives go on behind ‘invitation-only’ doors requiring tickets for entry costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend ( the typical ticket price of entry for a Corporate CEO and his entourage at Davos, for example, exceeds $500,000).
This year the WEF and global capitalists have ‘discovered’ income inequality, now accelerating and intensifying worldwide to a dangerous degree, and especially in the US. The dimensions of the inequality problem have grown so severe in recent years it may, they themselves are now warning, result in unwanted ‘social unrest’ in the near future.
Now that it has become an ‘acceptable’ discussion theme, Obama and Democrat party politicians (and a few clever Republicans) have also discovered income inequality. Together they plan to raise the rhetoric on the topic in upcoming midterm and 2016 national elections. Therefore, in Obama’s SOTU speech today we’ll hear some basic facts about the problem, some vague proposals that are never intended get to the earliest legislative stages, and a lot of general talk about how improving ‘opportunity’ is the only answer to reducing inequality—all of which means let’s not do anything significant in the short run but instead focus on very long run solutions like improving childhood education, creating long run opportunities, and other very long term solutions.
The politicians’ new discovery of inequality follows liberal academics discovery of the same in recent years. Well known fellows like Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, Joe Stiglitz, James Galbraith and others have all written their books on the topic in recent years. But they too, like the politicians they support, have been very careful about recommendations for resolving the problem, mostly repeating time-worn, mushy old liberal proposals involving ‘education and opportunity’ once again.
The growing income inequality in the US goes back at least to the late 1970s, accelerating during the 1980s and early 1990s, and then again after 2000 under George W. Bush. It’s grown the worst under Barack Obama, with latest figures showing the wealthiest 1% households accruing for themselves since 2009 nearly all (more than 90%) of all the income gains during the so-called ‘recovery’.
More recent, damning revelations about the extent of growing inequality go back to 2002 at least—long before the politicians and the more well known liberal economists acknowledged it. In 2002 University of California, Berkeley economist, Emmanuel Saez, began publishing his analyses of IRS income data, since all pre-existing sources of income inequality by the government and business more or less obfuscated the true picture. Saez has updated his ground-breaking results periodically ever since. Most of what is reported and published about the income gains of the wealthiest 1% are from his researches.
This writer relied heavily on Saez’s data in his 2004 book, ‘The War At Home: The Corporate Offensive From Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush’, which attempted to identify the various policies since the late 1970s that have been largely responsible for the inequality shift that Saez so well documented in 2002. Saez’s hard data—then and ever since—is irrefutable. However, the political implications behind Saez’s data were not spelled out, except for some suggestions concerning the tax structure.
But Income inequality in the US is no accident. It has conscious, deliberate origins, to be found in the policy initiatives of corporate America since the late 1970s, and the willingness of the politicians Corporate America elects in Congress, Presidents, and at State levels—Democrat and Republican alike—to implement those policy initiatives.
There’s the tax restructuring in favor of the rich and their businesses, the free trade and offshoring, the atrophying of the real minimum wage, the dismantling of real pensions and employer contributions to healthcare, the shift from full time permanent jobs to part time and temp work, the destruction of unions and higher paying union jobs, the displacing of higher paid jobs with technology, substitution of credit for lack of wage growth, failure to invest in the US by corporate America, so on and so on. That’s why jobs, real wages, and incomes for the vast majority of American households has stagnated at best, and declined in real terms for most. That’s why wage earners’ income of the bottom 80% households have contributed to income inequality.
But all that’s still only half the story of income inequality. The other ‘half’ of the story is why the incomes of the 1% have risen so sharply as well. Both their rise, and the stagnation-decline of the bottom 80%, are jointly responsible for the income inequality.
Corporate America and their politicians, and the policies they’ve initiated and implemented, are responsible for the accelerating capital incomes of the rich (1%), very rich (0.1%), and mega-rich (0.01%). And much of that has to do with the enabling of financial asset speculation and financial securities inflation that has been the defining characteristic of the US (and global) economy since at least the 1980s. Reagan unlocked that door. Clinton opened it. And George W. kicked it in. And Obama has done nothing to repair the entry.
Real solutions to income inequality would have to include proposals not only to enable the recovery of incomes of the middle working class, and the working and non-working poor, but would have to include proposals to reign in the runaway income accumulation of the very rich, the mega-rich and their friends. But you won’t hear the latter even suggested in Obama’s SOTU speech. What you’ll hear are token long run proposals to slow the decline in income growth for the working poor perhaps, and a lot of vague suggestions about the middle class.
What the middle class needs is decent jobs and tens of millions of them, just to restore what has been lost in the past 15 years. There are still 20 million unemployed in the US, and more than 5 million more have left the labor force. 60% of the jobs that have been created since 2009 have been low paid, while 58% lost have been high paid. Retirement systems are broken and retirees income for tens of millions are in freefall. Obamacare has meant those with insurance now have to pay more for less. Tens of millions of students are effectively indentured and can’t find jobs. If Obama and his politicians want to do something about income inequality, let’s hear concrete legislative proposals to address these issues now, immediately, in the short run.
It took the Krugmans, Reichs, and Stiglitzes only a decade to ‘discover’ their academic colleague, Saez’s, significant work. Better late than never, I suppose. However none of the liberal economists bother to point the finger at the politicians responsible, especially their Democratic party friends, for the inequality trends. But if anything serious is going to be done about income inequality in the US, it will have to include not only real, short term solutions to raise the incomes of the many but also serious, real measures to take back the excessive income gains of the rich and super-rich as well. For the latter will be necessary to fund and restore decent jobs and wages, to revitalize a crumbling retirement system, to save a collapsing healthcare system, and, yes, even to provide affordable education opportunities for all.
Oil majors eager to enter Iran market: Zangeneh
Press TV – January 25, 2014
Iran’s oil minister says major world oil companies have voiced readiness to set up shop in the country.
Oil giants attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss city of Davos announced that they were interested to enter the Iranian market, said Bijan Namdar Zangeneh in Tehran after returning from Davos where he attended the conference.
“Iran’s presence at the Davos meeting was very positive and the reaction of prominent international corporations attests to that,” he said.
Zangeneh touched upon his meetings with high-ranking officials of oil companies at the WEF, and said, “These companies were interested in working in Iran and many of them arranged plans for talks.”
He also referred to the Oil Ministry’s plans to develop a new model for oil contracts, and noted that a committee was set up four months ago to examine the existing contracts and pinpoint the merits and demerits of the structure of buy-back deals.
“We are holding talks with oil companies to have their viewpoints as well,” Zangeneh pointed out.
The new model of contracts should fulfill the expectations of the government and, at the same time, attract oil firms, the Iranian minister said.
A draft of the model will be ready by next month and it will be discussed at a meeting of experts in Tehran, Zangeneh projected.
On the sidelines of the OPEC ministerial meeting in Vienna in early December 2013, Zangeneh said Tehran would like to see seven oil giants – namely Total, Royal Dutch Shell, Norway’s Statoil, Eni and British Petroleum, as well as the US Exxon and Conoco – make investment in the Islamic Republic’s energy sector once US-led sanctions are lifted.
On January 20, the Council of the European Union suspended part of the sanctions it had imposed against Iran following the Geneva nuclear deal between Tehran and the Sextet of powers – the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany.
The new measure incorporates suspension of a 2012 ban on insuring and transporting Iran’s crude oil and the sanctions on trade in gold, precious metals and petrochemical products.
South Africa miners demand 100% wage increase
Press TV – January 23, 2014
Thousands of platinum miners in South Africa have embarked on a strike demanding their entry-level pay be doubled to nearly 1,200 dollars a month.
Workers at Impala Platinum, Anglo American Platinum, and Lonmin mines embarked on an indefinite strike on Thursday, crippling output at the world’s three biggest platinum producers.
Striking miners chanted slogans as they marched to Wonderkop Stadium near the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana.
The protest, organized by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, is the biggest industrial action in South Africa’s platinum sector since 2012, when police shot and killed 34 striking miners in Marikana.
South Africa’s mining companies have been rejecting calls for a wage increase, pointing to weaker profits and rising costs.
South Africa’s mining sector has been paralyzed by a series of wildcat strikes over miners’ low pay since August, 2012. The strikes have also damaged South Africa’s reputation as an investment destination.
The three top platinum companies operating in the African country say strikes cost the industry a total loss of output amounting to about USD 1.2 billion in 2012 and 2013.
South Africa possesses nearly 80 percent of the world’s known platinum reserves. The country’s mining sector directly employs around 500,000 people and accounts for nearly one-fifth of the country’s gross domestic product.
The real causes of the catastrophic crisis in Greece and the “Left”
By Takis Fotopoulos | The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, Vol. 9, Nos. 1/2 (2013)
1. The integration of Greece into the EU is the real cause of its catastrophic crisis
The almost complete destruction of the lower classes in Greece is not due to the causes usually attributed to it by the “Left”. 1 In fact, contrary to the misleading “explanations” provided by this Left and the Right alike, the actual cause is the full integration of the Greek economy into neoliberal globalization, through its accession into the EU. This has meant the complete transformation of Greece into an economic and political protectorate of the Transnational Elite.2 The catalyst for this crisis was Greece’s unofficial default, which, however, was merely the consequence of the destruction of its production structure, as a result of the opening, and liberalization of markets imposed by the EU, following Greece’s entry in 1981. It is therefore no wonder that both the Left (apart from the Communist Left) and the Right––in fact, the entire Greek establishment––are fully united in not challenging the main cause of the present economic destruction: Greece’s membership in the EU.
In other words, contrary to the deceptive pre-election promises of SYRIZA, (which is an organic part of the Euro-left that has just chosen its leader, A. Tsipras, as its candidate for president of the EU Commission), there is no way that an EU/EMU Member State could refuse to apply the policies imposed by neoliberal globalization, as borne out by History with Mitterrand, Lafontaine, Hollande, et. al. It is equally disorienting to state, as SYRIZA does, that, if elected to power, it would revert the catastrophic legislation imposed by the well known ‘Troika’ (representing the IMF, the EU and the ECB) in the past three years or so.
The above deceptive promises are based on the myth that neoliberalism is some kind of a mistaken ideology or a doctrine 3 upheld by “bad” politicians such as Thatcher, Merkel, Blair, etc. However, neoliberal globalization is, in fact, a systemic phenomenon implying, also, that the EU members’ economic growth does not rely anymore mainly on the domestic market but on the international market (within the EU and without) and that it is the Trans-National Corporations (TNCs) that control world production and trade, and–– through the Transnational Elite 4 ––the international political, military and cultural institutions. So, only if the EU governments were taken over by the Euro-Left and they then forced the TNCs based in EU to operate solely within the EU area––imposing in the process strict social controls on the movement of capital and commodities from the other economic blocks (i.e. those of the Far East and America)––only then could the European economy be indifferent to its own level of competitiveness and live in the Euro-Left’s nirvana, happily ever after. In fact, however, EU is moving in exactly the opposite direction of further integration within the New World Order (NWO) defined by neoliberal globalization! This is clearly shown by the current negotiations between EU and US for a Transatlantic Free Trade Area.
2. Capitalist globalization can only be neoliberal
The Euro-elites simply cannot afford to lose more of their competitiveness. In fact, the real reason for the creation of EU and later of the Eurozone had nothing to do with the ideals of freedom, democracy, human values and the rest of its ideology, as EU’s history has clearly shown. It was the growing gap in competitiveness (in terms of EU’s share of world exports) during the 1980s, which led the Euro-elites to speed up the integration procedures, which were mostly dormant up to then. The EU economic failure was clearly due to the fact that the competitiveness of its commodities was increasing at much slower rates than those of is competitors, particularly in the low cost countries of the Far East. 5 As supporters of the EU and its integration were claiming at the time, only a market of continental dimensions could provide the security and the economies of scale that were necessary for the survival of the European capital in the hyper-competitive global market that was just emerging at the time.
However, despite the high degree of integration achieved by the ‘Single European Act’ in the 1990s, and even despite the creation of the Eurozone, its decline in competiveness continued. Thus, whereas the share of Euro-exports to world exports was 35.8% in 1990, ten years later, it has fallen to 29.7% and by 2010 it has fallen further to 26.3%! 6 In other words, within two decades, the Eurozone countries have lost more than a quarter of their competitiveness, measured in terms of their share in world exports. Although the Euro-elites are well aware of the fact that a significant part of their ‘loss’ of exports is, in fact, due to their de-industrialization––because of the move of industrial capital by the TNCs (most of them based in the metropolitan countries including the Eurozone ones) towards the low-cost paradises of China, India and the rest–– this is obviously no consolation to their own workers (and electorates), which benefit very little (if at all!) by globalization!
The present EU policies therefore, are not the result of a conspiracy or a satanic plot of the elites to exploit further the European workers but simply of the fact that the opening and liberalization of markets required by globalization, so that TNCs could expand their activities further, inevitably led to the present neoliberal policies implemented by every country fully integrated into the New World Order. To put it simply, globalization in a capitalist world can only be neoliberal and the rest is mythology adopted by today’s bankrupt world “Left”––apart from the genuine (but diminishing) anti-systemic Left.
3. Competitiveness is the rule
If, therefore, we accept the premise that the Euro-elites have no other option but to improve their competitiveness within the globalized economy, the next question is how competitiveness can be improved. There are two main ways in which a country’s competitiveness could improve: either by changing relative prices; i.e. squeezing the prices of locally produced commodities with respect to those produced abroad by squeezing wages and salaries, or by improving productivity of locally produced commodities, which may lead to lower cost of production without reducing real wages and salaries or to better quality products, etc. Changing relative prices in the former way is the easy solution, as it could be implemented, almost at a stroke, in case a country controls its own currency and Greece itself has repeatedly resorted to devaluation policies in the post-war period to improve, temporarily, its competitiveness. In case, however, a country does not control its currency, as is the case of Greece in the Eurozone, the only other option, given its historically low level of labor productivity because of the lack of investment in research and development, is the presently implemented policy of squeezing wages and salaries in the hope that the cost of production will fall accordingly. In fact, the level of Greek productivity of labor, for instance, has always been historically much lower than that of the Eurozone (in 2006 it was just 77% of the average Eurozone one7, something which is not that much peculiar if we take into account the fact that the proportion of productive investments to the GNP is much higher in the European ‘North’ than in the ‘South’ in general and Greece in particular.
So, if we start with the premise that the uneven levels of competitiveness and productivity are unavoidable in an economic union like the EU, which consists of countries at highly different levels of development (as they have been historically formed within a very uneven development process like the capitalist one), then we may easily understand the causes of the crisis in countries like Greece. The fact, therefore, that a Eurozone country like Greece, facing a problem of low competitiveness, cannot devalue its currency (i.e. change its relative prices without the need for suppressing domestic wages and incomes) is not the cause of the crisis. This may be the cause of a similar competitiveness crisis of an advanced capitalist country like Germany but not of a country like Greece where low competitiveness is a development problem. Particularly so, when the Greek entry to the EU and later to the Eurozone had, itself, significantly exacerbated the development problem by effectively dismantling the productive structure of the country, as its infant industry and agriculture were not capable to compete with the imported commodities, following the opening and liberalization of markets imposed by the Single Market. Under these conditions, even a Greek exit from the Euro and a devaluation of the drachma that will be re-introduced in its aftermath, could only have temporary effects on Greek competitiveness, unless mass investment in its productive structure takes place at the same time, which is far from guaranteed in an internationalized market economy.
4. The EU as a mechanism to transfer surplus from its “South” to its “North
In other words, competitiveness at the core Euro countries, which are characterized by higher levels of labor productivity than in the South, mainly depends on keeping wages and prices under control, so that German commodities continue to be competitive (because of their higher quality and so on) compared to similar commodities produced in East Asia and beyond. On the other hand, competiveness in the European periphery, which consist of countries with lower levels of labor productivity, like Greece, mainly depends on improving productivity through new investment on R&D. Therefore, the competitiveness problem in the South is mainly a development problem and refers to the need of creating a strong productive base, which will not be formed within the process of uneven capitalist development (as today), but within a process of social control of the economy to create a self-reliant economy.
Yet, despite the fundamental difference concerning the causes of low competitiveness between the “North” and the “South” of the EU, in the framework of the post-Maastricht Europe, a common policy was adopted for all member countries––a policy that was determined by the needs and the interests of the North. Thus, the Single Market did not mean the unification of peoples, as the EU propaganda presented it, not even the unification of states, but simply the unification of free markets. ‘Free markets’, however mean not only open markets (i.e. the unhibited movement of commodities, capital and labour), but also flexible markets (i.e. the elimination of any obstacle in the free formation of prices and wages, as well the restriction of state role in the control of economic activity, which implies the drastic restriction of the element of ‘national economy’. This was the essence of the neoliberal globalization characterizing the new institutional framework of the EU; i.e., that the state control of the domestic market of each member state (which was drastically restricted within the Single Market of 1992) was not replaced by a corresponding EU control of it, apart from some (mostly nuissance) regulations on uniformity, etc. In other words, the new institutions aimed at the maximization of the freedom of organized capital, whose concentration was facilitated in any way possible, and the minimization of the freedom of organized labor, whose co-ordination was restricted in any way possible and mainly through the unemployment threat.
If Germany is indeed the country which was on the receiving end of the greatest benefits from joining EU and the Eurozone, whereas the countries of the European South received the least benefits out of it, this was far from accidental or due to the bad designing of the Eurozone as post-Keynesians and other reformists (including the Euro-Left!) argue. When the Eurozone was institutionalized at the beginning of the new millennium Germany already enjoyed relatively high levels of labor productivity and competitiveness and the new currency essentially has ‘frozen’ the relative deviations between the advanced North of the Eurozone and the much less advanced South (parts of which were, in fact, underdeveloped). Then, the Single Market itself, under conditions of a common currency, brought about a relative equalization of commodity prices and a certain increase in wages in the South, as workers were struggling to maintain the real value of wages and at the same time to narrow the gap in wages with Northern workers. On the other hand, German employers were in a much better position to suppress wage rises because of the difference in labor productivity they enjoyed due to advanced technology and investment in R&D, but also due to better relative prices. As Wolfgang Münchau put it, “Germany entered the Eurozone at an uncompetitive exchange rate and embarked on a long period of wage moderation. Macroeconomists would say Germany benefited from a real devaluation against other members”.8 If we add to this, that the countries in the South no longer had the power to devalue their currencies, whereas Germany did not have any need to devalue its currency as long as it could keep wage rises in pace with labor productivity increases, then we can understand why (and how) the Eurozone essentially functions as an economic mechanism to transfer economic surplus from the countries of the European South to those in the North and particularly Germany.
5. The disorienting role of the “Left”
The obvious conclusion is that it is impossible to take any radical measures to exit from the current economic (and not only!) disaster, without a unilateral exit from the EU along with a cancelation of the debt (for which the people were never asked anyway), as well as the discarding of all legislation imposed by the Troika and the adoption at the same time of the necessary geostrategic changes. Only this way, Greece could retrieve the minimum required economic and national sovereignty for a strategy for economic self-reliance, which is necessary for the permanent exit from the crisis, through building a new productive structure to meet its needs.
This means that the views that we could implement another policy even within the Eurozone, as SYRIZA suggests, or that it would suffice to exit from the Euro (without the parallel direct and unilateral exit from the EU) to implement a radically different economic strategy (as other Left organizations suggest), are completely misleading. This is because, as I tried to show above, the cause of the present economic catastrophe in Greece is neither the austerity policies of the Troika, as the supporters of the former view claim, nor the poor design (and implementation) of the Euro that led us to deficits and massive debt, as argued by the supporters of the latter view.9
Thus, supporters of the former view (Laskos and Tsakalotos), in fact, reproduce the myths of an obsolete internationalism according to which the struggle of the European proletariat within the EU will reverse the austerity policies, despite the fact that, after almost five years of economic crushing of the popular strata, there has not been even a single (“official” or unofficial) European strike against these policies! On the other hand, the supporters of the latter view (Flassbeck and Lapavitsas), acting as the “Plan B” of the Euro-elite––in case it is forced to expel (temporarily or permanently) Greece from the Eurozone––argue for a Greek exit from the Euro, but not from the EU. However, in both cases, the failure of the proposed policies can be taken for granted, although the consequences will not be identical.
Thus, in the first scenario of a SYRIZA-based government (which looks likely following the Euro elections that could well function as a catalyst for general elections) it is a matter of time for its failure to become evident, if it insists on its pro-EU and pro-Euro policy. Despite its present rhetoric, it would simply have to follow the same economic policies as the present government, perhaps with a minor relaxation of austerity policies (assuming that the Euro-elites will find a way to cancel part of the Debt to make the rest of it payable). As markets will remain open and liberalized under a Syriza government (the party never challenged this fundamental tenet of neoliberal globalization), labor markets will also continue to be flexible. However, open and liberalized markets mean:
- wages and salaries will be kept at around their present minimum levels, or, at least, these levels will be the basis for any future increases strictly linked to productivity rises;
- Public Health and Education will never recover from their present dismantling, as the government will have to continue implementing the present Eurozone strict fiscal policies to keep budget deficits under strict controls;
- the selling out of the social wealth of Greece, following privatizations of essential services like electricity, water, transport, ports and airports, communications (and now even Greek islands!) will not be reversed, making the implementation of any effective social policy to protect the victims of globalization impossible;
- Unemployment may marginally fall from the present almost 30% of the working population (and 60% of young people) only to the extent that foreign investors will be attracted by the present extremely low wages/salaries and the ‘political stability’ that SYRIZA might secure. However, given the strong competition on this front by other low-wage countries in the Balkans and beyond (East Asia), unemployment is bound to be stabilized at very high levels for any foreseeable future, with young Greeks having either to work in Greece’s “heavy industry” (as the establishment calls tourism) or emigrate.
Clearly, this Latin-Americanization (or Balkanization) of the Greek economy will become permanent under SYRIZA’s pro-EU policy, and in the elections to follow a (likely brief) period of SYRIZA in power, the party will probably have the fate of the social democratic party PASOK, which has effectively been demolished. In fact, this would simply be the belated end of the Euro-Left in Greece, following the similar end of this kind of “Left” in the rest of Europe, in the era of globalization. Yet, the International “Left” is unable to see all this and would be ready to celebrate the possible victory of SYRIZA in the next elections,10 whereas Leo Panitch, (writing for the well known international “Left” newspaper which fully supported all the criminal wars of the Transnational Elite in the last two decades) is so enthusiastic about the new kind of ‘progressive’ reform SYRIZA represents that he became almost lyrical when reading that Tsipras “spoke in terms of the ‘historic opportunity’ that now exists for a left alternative to the current capitalist ‘European model’. 11 This, at the very moment when the same Tsipras is also indirectly praised by the New York Times, the leading organ of the Transnational Elite, presumably as a ‘serious’ Left politician worthy of its trust, compared to the ‘loony left’ they so despise:
“Mr. Tsipras…has backed away from past rhetoric about abandoning the euro and said he does not want Greece to drop out of the 18-country zone that uses the currency. But he does want a fundamental reworking of the terms of Greece’s bailout funds, worth 240 billion euros, or about $328 billion.“Our intention is to change the framework, not smash the euro”, he said.12
On the other hand, in the case of the second scenario; i.e., of a Left government that decides a Greek exit from the Euro (but stays in the EU), the image would be much more blurred, as the reintroduction and significant devaluation of the reintroduced drachma would initially bring in some positive results. But, these would be completely temporary, unless they were accompanied by a parallel radical restructuring of the productive structure, based on social decisions and not left to the market forces, as both scenarios implicitly or explicitly assume. And this brings us back to the need for a strategy of self-reliance that presupposes a Greek exit from both the Euro and the EU.
The main reason why both approaches are not only wrong, but also completely misleading, is that they are not based on the fact that the current devastating crisis is due to structural reasons having everything to do with the uneven capitalist development process, which is further exacerbated in the era of neoliberal globalization and the consequent policies implemented by the EU, and very little to do with the broader financial crisis 13, austerity policies, or the debt itself and the ways to deal with it.
Thus, as far as austerity policies are concerned, it is obvious that they are a consequence and not the cause of the devastating crisis. The solution, therefore, to the “problem” is not just the redistribution of income at the expense of profits and in favor of wages, as (supposedly is the conclusion drawn by a “Marxist” kind of analysis), as this inequality is nothing new but an inherent characteristic of the capitalist system. Unsurprisingly, despite growing world inequality during the era of neoliberal globalization, the system has enjoyed a sustained period of expansion throughout this period, with world GDP rising at an average 2.9% in the 1990s and 3.2% in the period up to the beginning of the latest financial crisis (2000-08). 14 Furthermore, the only case that a systematic redistribution of income against the rich took place in a capitalist system was when the tax burden was shifted to the rich during the social democratic period (approx. 1945-1975). However, this kind of redistribution is simply not feasible anymore in the NWO of Neoliberal Globalization, since Trans-national Corporations can easily move to tax havens like Ireland, India, etc. leaving massive unemployment and poverty behind them.
Yet, neither the deficits and the consequent debts were created by reckless fiscal policies nor, as more sophisticated variations on the same theme maintain, because of the fact that the German elite were suppressing wage rises at a time when the other elites in the Eurozone, and particularly the elites in the Euro periphery, were doing the exact opposite. This policy, according to the same argument, had created an artificial competitive advantage and consequent Balance of Payments (BP) surpluses in Germany and, vice versa in the European South; i.e., low competitiveness and BP deficits. This, in turn, had led to excessive borrowing by the peripheral countries, (made easy by the fact that it was backed up by a strong currency, the Euro) up to the moment that the fiscal “bubble” burst, when the consequent shortage of liquidity made lending to these countries much tighter, leading to the well known debt crises in countries like Greece. Not surprisingly, the Euro-elite, has just decided to adopt an even tighter economic control of the Euro-members, through the Banking Union. 15
6. Concluding remarks
The crucial, therefore, issue arising is the following one: can a small Euro-peripheral country like Greece afford not to implement the policies of neoliberal globalization today? Or, should, (as the present “Left” suggests), the millions of unemployed and poor wait for a radical change in the balance of forces in the EU and the Eurozone, so that a new pan-European Left government proceeds with the ‘progressive’ reforms suggested by its supporters? Alternatively, should they better wait for a new socialist revolution in order to proceed with genuine socialist policies, as suggested by the dwindling anti-capitalist Left? My sympathies would, of course, be (as have always been) for an anti-systemic Left, as it is the only one which struggles against its full integration into the system and the NWO. Yet, it is obvious to me that, today, this Left is no less millenarian than the integrated into the system “Left”, and as such is equally useless to the victims of globalization, who every day lose even more of their hope for any better future, many of them increasingly resorting to suicide.
Under these conditions, it is clear to me that only if a country broke away from the internationalized market economy and pursued a policy of self-reliance, it could retrieve the necessary degree of economic and therefore national sovereignty, so that it is the people who will be determining the economic process; i.e., which economic and social needs are met and how, instead of leaving this life-and-death issue to ‘market forces’ and the Social Darwinism they inevitably imply. This, for a country like Greece would imply the need for the creation ‘from below’ of a Popular Front for Social and National Liberation 16 (instead of relying on the professional politicians of the “Left” or of the Right), which will formulate a program for the radical changes needed to achieve the short term aim of restoring full social control on all markets, unilaterally cancelling the Debt and all related legislation imposed by the Troika, as well as a unilateral exit from the EU. Although socialization of the banking system and of the de-nationalized industries, particularly those covering basic needs (energy, water, transport, communication, etc.) will be necessary even at this early stage, yet, the medium-term aim will have to be economic self-reliance, so that the basic needs of all citizens are met through the rebuilding of the economic structure according to social needs rather than according to market demand. On the other hand, the issue of the systemic change; i.e., whether Greece would be in the future a state-socialist society, an Inclusive Democracy,17 or a radical kind of social democracy, will be determined by the people themselves at a later stage once the present crucial problems concerning their survival have been sorted out.
In fact, Greece will not be alone in such a struggle against the NWO and neoliberal globalization. Not only the peoples in other countries in the European periphery and beyond would follow its example when they realize that there is a way out of the present catastrophe, HERE and NOW, but also the peoples who already fight against neoliberal globalization would also join the common struggle against the New World Order of neoliberal globalization. In fact, this struggle is already intensifying from Latin America (Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, et. al.) up to the Eurasian peoples of the ex-USSR, and the peoples in the Arab countries (I do not, of course, mean the pseudo-revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt or the engineered insurrections in Libya and Syria),18 who shed their blood every day in the struggle for their national and social liberation.
[1] See e.g. the recent book by two members of the SYRIZA leadership, ( one of them a member of Parliament representing the party), Christos Laskos and Euclid Tsakalotos, Crucible of Resistance: Greece, the Eurozone and the World Economic Crisis, (Pluto Press, Sept. 2013).
[2] Takis Fotopoulos, “Greece: The implosion of the systemic crisis”, The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Winter 2010); see, also, Greece as a protectorate of the transnational elite, (Athens: Gordios, November 2010).
[3] see e.g. Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine:The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, (London: Penguin, 2008).
[4] see for the meaning and significance of the Transnational Elite in administering the NWO, Takis Fotopoulos, Subjugating the Middle East: Integration into the New World Order – Vol. 1: Pseudo-Democratization, (Progressive Press, 2014), Part I.
[5] Thus, whereas the EU share of world exports was stagnant between 1979 and 1989 , the US share increased by 3.5% and the Far Eastern share increased by a massive 48% ,(World Bank, World Deνelopment Report 1991, Table 14).
[6] World Bank, World Development Indicators 2002, (Table 4.5) & World Development Indicators 2012, (Table 4.4).
[7] World Bank, World Development Indicators 2008, Table 2.4.
[8] Wolfgang Münchau, “Germany’s rebound is no cause for cheer”, Financial Times, 29/8/2010.
[9] Heiner Flassbeck and Costas Lapavitsas, Left-Wing Strategies to Solve the Euro Crisis, (Rosa Luxemburg Foundation:: Berlin, May 2013, and full version in “The systemic crisis of the euro – true causes and effective therapies”.
[10] See e.g. Andreas Bieler, “Crucible of Resistance: Class Struggle Over Ways Out of the Crisis”, Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 926 January 10, 2014; Reproduced also in Global Research.
[12] Andrew Higgins, “Opposition Dissent Tempers Greek Attempts at Optimism”,
The New York Times, 12/1/2014.
[13] Takis Fotopoulos, “The myths about the economic crisis, the reformist Left and economic democracy”, The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, Vol. 4, No. 4, (October 2008).
[15] ‘Big step’ reached in rescue plan for eurozone banks, BBC News, 12/12/2013; See, also, Maria Snytkova, “European countries lose bank sovereignty”, English Pravda, 2012/2013
[16] see Takis Fotopoulos, “Neoliberal Globalization and the need for popular fronts for national and social liberation”, The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy, Vol. 9, No. 1/2 (2013), (under publication).
[18] Takis Fotopoulos, Subjugating the Middle East: Integration into the New World Order – Vol. 2, Engineered Insurrections, (Progressive Press, 2014).
European pension funds increase Israel boycott pressure
MEMO | January 20, 2014
ABP, the world’s third-largest pension fund, said the fund might exclude the stocks ‘as a last resort’ if the Israeli banks fail to act
According to a report in The Financial Times today, three major European pension funds with a combined total of almost €500 billion of assets are “reviewing their holdings in Israeli banks over concerns that the banks finance illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian-occupied territories.”
The three investors are Dutch ABP, the world’s third-largest pension fund, Nordea Investment Management, and DNB Asset Management. In addition, Norwegian pension fund KLP has confirmed it will be examining “dilemmas linked to financing [of Israeli settlements].”
An ABP spokesperson said the fund might exclude the stocks “as a last resort” if the banks fail to act. Nordea, meanwhile, is expected to meet the Israeli banks in March and take a decision on a possible withdrawal of investment at a meeting in May.
As the FT highlights, “the reviews come after PGGM, the second-largest Dutch pension fund, two weeks ago became the first big investor to dump its holdings in five large Israeli banks : Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, First International Bank of Israel, Israel Discount Bank and Mizrahi Tefahot.”
The news comes two days after Israeli television broadcast remarks by the government’s top negotiator and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who warned that a “crisis” in the peace process will see Israel hit by a “wave” of boycott pressure. Last week, Shas party chair Aryeh Deri urged financial assistance to business owners in the West Bank “hurt by international boycotts”.
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Obscene wealth: World’s 85 richest have same wealth as 3.5 billion poorest
RT | January 20, 2014
The world’s 85 wealthiest people have as much money as the 3.5 billion poorest people on the planet – half the Earth’s population. That’s according to Oxfam’s latest report on the risks of the widening gap between the super-rich and the poor.
The report, titled “Working for the Few,” was released Monday, and was compiled by Oxfam – an international organization looking for solutions against poverty and injustice.
The document focuses on the extent of global economic inequality caused by rapidly increasing wealth of the richest people that poses the threat to the “human progress.”
A total of 210 people became billionaires last year, joining the existing 1,426 billionaires with a combined net worth of $5.4 trillion.
“Instead of moving forward together, people are increasingly separated by economic and political power, inevitably heightening social tensions and increasing the risk of societal breakdown,” the report stated.
Also, according to the Oxfam data, the richest 1 percent of people across the globe have $110 trillion, or 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the planet’s population – which effectively “presents significant threat to inclusive political and economic systems.”
“It is staggering that, in the 21st century, half of the world’s population — that’s three and a half billion people — own no more than a tiny elite whose numbers could all fit comfortably on a double-decker bus,” Oxfam chief executive Winnie Byanyima told a news conference.
And the number of the rich is steadily growing: for example, in India the number of billionaires skyrocketed from six to 61 in the past 10 years, and their combined net worth is currently $250 billion.
The report comes ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos which begins later this week, and urges the world leaders to discuss how to tackle this pressing issue.
Among the solutions presented by Oxfam are measures to avoid tax dodging and using economic wealth to pressure governments, looking for political benefits. Also, the organization calls for “making public all the investments in companies and trusts for which they are the ultimate beneficial owners,” as well as “challenging governments to use tax revenue to provide universal healthcare, education and social protection for citizens.”
Oxfam also said that there are many laws that favor the rich, which were lobbied for in a “power grab” by the world’s wealthiest people.
Since the late 1970s, tax rates for the richest have fallen in 29 out of 30 countries for which data are available, according to Oxfam.
“A survey in six countries (the US, UK, Spain, Brazil, India and South Africa) showed that a majority of people believe that laws are skewed in favor of the rich,” the report said.
For instance, almost 80 percent of the Spanish and the Indians, as well as over 60 per cent of the US and the UK residents, either agree or strongly agree that “the rich have too much influence over where this country is headed.”
Iran may spend unfrozen oil money on plane parts: Official
Press TV – January 19, 2014
Iran is likely to spend oil funds, expected to be unfrozen with the implementation of its nuclear deal with world powers, for aircraft and car spare parts, an Iranian deputy oil minister says.
Ali Majedi made the remarks in an interview with The Wall Street Journal as Iran’s nuclear accord with the Sextet of world powers is to take effect on Monday.
He said Iran may spend its oil money, currently stuck in foreign banks, on machinery and spare parts for aircraft and automotive industries.
World powers are set to ease sanctions on Iran under last November’s interim nuclear accord.
The sanctions relief is targeted at Iran’s aircraft, automotive and petrochemical industries. Billions of dollars in oil revenues will be also unfrozen.
Majedi said unfreezing Iran’s petrodollars opens “a new window of cooperation with the Europeans and the US.”
The official said Iran may also consider buying stocks in Asian refineries in a bid to strike long-term oil sale contracts.
“With sanctions, it’s difficult. We are trying to be ready” for the time when sanctions on Iran’s oil are lifted, said Majedi.
On January 12, Iran and the Sextet of world powers finalized an agreement to start implementing the Geneva nuclear deal from January 20. The accord is aimed at setting the stage for the full resolution of the West’s decade-old standoff with Tehran over its nuclear energy program.
Under the nuclear deal, the European Union will suspend 2012 sanctions against insuring and transporting Iranian crude oil.
The EU will also suspend embargoes on gold, precious metals and petrochemical products and raise the ceiling on financial transfers not related to remaining sanctions.
If everything takes place according to the plan, as of Monday, EU companies will be authorized to insure or transport Iranian crude oil to Tehran’s major customers, China, India, Japan, Korea, Turkey and Taiwan.
The Missing Quote from the King Memorial
By Don DeBar | Black Agenda Report | January 17, 2012
“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own Government… I cannot be silent.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
While the insiders in Washington parse the meaning of the paraphrased words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. regarding his own epitaph, his true legacy – the one that many believe led to his murder – has been whitewashed from the King Memorial entirely.
Speaking at the Riverside Church in New York City, exactly one year – to the day – before he was shot and killed in Memphis, Dr. King announced that he was expanding his focus on America’s national shame of segregation to include its international crime of war on the people of Vietnam:
“(I)n the ghettoes of the North over the last three years — especially the last three summers, (a)s I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask — and rightly so — ‘what about Vietnam?’ They ask if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”
The King Memorial lists a total of 15 direct quotes and a paraphrase (currently in controversy) from Dr. King’s words; yet, curiously, this particular quote – which ties together the struggle for social and economic justice at home with the actions of the government abroad in an elegant and profound way – did not make the list.
Here are the quotes that appear on the Inscription Wall of the Memorial:
“We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” (16 August 1967, Atlanta, GA)
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” (1963, Strength to Love)
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” (10 December 1964, Oslo, Norway)
“Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.” (18 April 1959, Washington, DC)
“I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world.” (25 February 1967, Los Angeles, CA)
“If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.” (24 December 1967, Atlanta, GA)
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” (16 April 1963, Birmingham, AL)
“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.” (10 December 1964, Oslo, Norway)
“It is not enough to say ‘We must not wage war.’ It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace.” (24 December 1967, Atlanta, GA)
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” (25 February 1967, Los Angeles, CA)
“Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.” (4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York, NY)
“We are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs ‘down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.'” (5 December 1955, Montgomery, AL)
“We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.” (16 April 1963, Birmingham, AL)
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” (16 April 1963, Birmingham, AL)
Within the list, there is one quote which deals directly with the Vietnam war, two that deal directly with war, and others that deal, in one way or another, with issues of war and peace in general. One is lifted from the Riverside speech.
Inscribed on the Stone of Hope are two statements – one, a direct quote, the other, the paraphrase of his words that is at the center of the present controversy:
The first, from the “I Have a Dream” speech, is “Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope” – the quotation that serves as the basis for the monument’s design. The words on the other side of the stone read, “I Was a Drum Major for Justice, Peace, and Righteousness,” which is a paraphrased version of a longer quote by King: “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.” The memorial’s use of the paraphrased version of the quote has been criticized (Wikipedia).
Nowhere on the monument is there any mention of Dr. King’s clearly-stated indictment of American foreign policy as being intrinsically evil (above); nor is there any mention that America’s wars are the cause of economic hardship at home:
“There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”
At the dedication of the King Monument last October, President Barack Obama invoked the words of Dr. King – some of them – without even mentioning war:
“When met with hardship, when confronting disappointment, Dr. King refused to accept what he called the ‘is-ness’ of today. He kept pushing towards the ‘ought-ness’ of tomorrow.
“And so, as we think about all the work that we must do –- rebuilding an economy that can compete on a global stage, and fixing our schools so that every child — not just some, but every child — gets a world-class education, and making sure that our health care system is affordable and accessible to all, and that our economic system is one in which everybody gets a fair shake and everybody does their fair share, let us not be trapped by what is. We can’t be discouraged by what is. We’ve got to keep pushing for what ought to be, the America we ought to leave to our children, mindful that the hardships we face are nothing compared to those Dr. King and his fellow marchers faced 50 years ago, and that if we maintain our faith, in ourselves and in the possibilities of this nation, there is no challenge we cannot surmount.”
Obama even went so far as to impute to Dr. King words that, if the record is any indication, are mere sterile parodies of the words of this Nobel Peace Prize winning minister:
“If he were alive today, I believe he would remind us that the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing all who work there; that the businessman can enter tough negotiations with his company’s union without vilifying the right to collectively bargain. He would want us to know we can argue fiercely about the proper size and role of government without questioning each other’s love for this country — with the knowledge that in this democracy, government is no distant object but is rather an expression of our common commitments to one another. He would call on us to assume the best in each other rather than the worst, and challenge one another in ways that ultimately heal rather than wound.”
Not a word about “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” – this is particularly odd when one considers that the US is now currently involved in more war and destruction, in more places and involving more people, weaponry and expense, than at the time Dr. King uttered those words in 1967.
As to the shared status with the President as a fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner, in contrast to the Commander-in-Chief’s actions over the past three years, Dr. King said:
“I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was also a commission, a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for ‘the brotherhood of man.’ This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I’m speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men — for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this One? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?”
Quite a different interpretation of the charge that comes with joining the company of other Nobel Peace Prize winners than that demonstrated by the man who sat silent during the siege of Gaza (“Only one President at a time”), expanded the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into Pakistan, Libya, Bahrain, Syria and, soon, Iran. Could we imagine Dr. King conducting – or sanctioning – a six-month bombing campaign for “humanitarian reasons”? Or might he instead feel compelled to speak out:
“And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.
“They must see Americans as strange liberators.”
“Strange liberators,” indeed…
Don DeBar is a journalist and political activist residing in Ossining, NY. He currently serves as senior producer for WBAIX.org, an internet news and public events outlet featuring progressive producers who were purged from Pacifica Radio.
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$1.5bn up in smoke: US THAAD missile stockpile dries up defending Israel against Iran
By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | July 2, 2025
According to American media, defense news outlets, and independent analysts, the 12-day Israeli military aggression against Iran significantly depleted the US stockpile of THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) interceptor missiles.
Citing official sources, American magazine Newsweek reported on Friday that the US transferred a substantial portion of its advanced missile defense capabilities to support the Israeli regime, an effort with questionable results and a critical impact on US strategic reserves.
THAAD, developed by Lockheed Martin arms manufacturing company, is a key component of Israel’s multi-layered air defense architecture. It is designed to intercept medium-range ballistic missiles, including those launched from Iran and Yemen.
The US-made system is capable of targeting short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during their terminal phase, whether inside or outside Earth’s atmosphere.
THAAD uses a “hit-to-kill” method, relying on kinetic energy rather than explosive warheads to destroy incoming threats, intercepting at altitudes of up to 150 km and ranges between 150-200 km.
Operated exclusively by American personnel, the US military maintains eight THAAD batteries with an estimated 350–400 interceptors in total. The eighth battery was activated during the June 20 Israeli aggression against Iran and is capable of intercepting hypersonic missiles. … continue
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