General strike in Italy against government handling of the crisis

Hundreds of thousands of workers downed tools and took to the streets in a four hour stoppage stating "we won't pay for the crisis".

The strike by the General Confederation of Italian workers (CGIL) shut down postal services nationwide, transport services and airports in several cities and many automobile manufacturers, in some of which strikers were joined by members of other unions.

Despite the rain, tens of thousands marched in Rome, 200,000 workers rallied in Bologna, 30,000 in Turin, 50,000 in Milan, 40,000 in Naples, 10,000 in Genoa and many more gathered elsewhere.

In the face of the crisis, with Italy now officially in recession, workers are demanding higher wages, better pensions, more labour rights and lower unemployment.

The union called off stoppages were transport workers in flood-hit Rome and Venice.

http://libcom.org/news/general-strike-italy-against-government-handling-crisis-13122008

What recession means for us

An analysis of the likely impact of the coming recession on workers' lives and a rallying call for collective action to mitigate that impact.

The recession is here. We're told to tighten our belts and brace ourselves for redundancies, wage and service cuts. Politicians and business leaders are united in saying we should pay for a crisis not of our making [see box for a brief history of the crisis]. A recession is simply when the economy shrinks for 6 months in a row. What this means for individual firms is a squeeze on profits, and we can be certain that unless we do anything about it, that’s going to mean a squeeze on us, as our employers try to protect those profits.

Even public sector workers will feel the squeeze as the government tries to recover the billions already spent on bailing out the banking system, and to make ‘efficiency savings’ in the face of falling tax revenues. But wait, isn’t Gordon Brown going to make the rich pay with higher taxes? You’d certainly think so from the press. The Times, on its front page no less, even pictured Brown waving the red flag of communism. Alas, reality is rather different.

The Financial Times reassured its affluent readership with a more honest take on matters. Of £104bn worth of clawbacks the government is expected to make, just £2bn is expected to come from taxing the rich. That’s less than 2 percent of the total, and even that doesn’t take into account that the rich will try and pass on their burden by increasing their incomes at the expense of our wages. It’s also quietly forgotten that the top rate of income tax is still nearly 20 percent lower than under Margaret Thatcher’s pro-rich government.

A further £18bn is planned to come from regressive taxes. These are taxes that affect you more the less you earn. No trouble for the rich here. The rest is scheduled to come from public service cuts and wildly optimistic forecasts for a rapid economic recovery – when the recession has only just officially started! [Jan 09] So behind the headlines the plan is clear; they want to make us pay for their crisis. So how is the recession going to affect us?

Redundancies
One way in which the cost of the crisis is passed onto us is through redundancies. Unemployment is predicted to increase to as much as 3m in the next couple of years. This means over a million people will lose their jobs. Already the news is full of layoffs, and it’s set to get worse. Obviously redundancy hits those laid off in the pocket. This is especially the case if they’re agency staff or haven’t been in the job long, which means they don’t get much, if any, redundancy pay. But redundancies also hit those ‘lucky’ enough to keep their jobs as they have to work harder to make up.

Unemployment
Not content with mass layoffs, just when the economy is proving incapable of keeping people in work, the government is planning to cut benefits bills by punishing unemployed people for not finding jobs! A recent report recommended that unemployed workers should be made to either look for work or do community service “from 9 to 5” in order to earn their £60 dole money. That works out at £1.50 an hour! A whole host of other attacks are planned, such as forcing single parents with children over the age of one and many people currently signed off sick to look for work or have their benefits stopped. Of course, the whole point of a recession is there’s not many jobs to look for.

Wage cuts
Those of us who keep our jobs can’t expect to escape the punishment. Wages will be attacked directly; workers at JCB factories recently voted to take a £50 a week pay cut to avoid redundancies. This kind of ‘between rock and a hard place’ offer is likely to become more common with workers nervous about losing their jobs. But wages can be cut in less visible ways too. If workers can be made to work harder and faster, or longer days or through their breaks, we end up doing more work for the same pay. This will often be making up for the work of colleagues made redundant, saving the boss cash. Whenever your boss asks you to “give 110 percent for the team,” this is what they have in mind. Of course we pay the price in stress and burnout, but at least we’ve got a job, right?

Public service cuts
A further £35bn of the government clawbacks are scheduled to come from public sector spending cuts. This will mean cuts to public services and further attacks on public sector workers pay and conditions. Front-line services are expected to be hit, so alongside the attacks on unemployment benefit, the health service is expected to be hit particularly hard alongside cutbacks to schools, social housing, energy efficiency programmes, GP surgeries and flood defences. Of course if you can afford private healthcare and to move out of flood-risk areas, this probably won’t bother you. For the rest of us it’s bad news.

Repossessions and evictions
Another way the recession will hit us is through a rise in home repossessions and evictions as people fall behind on mortgage repayments and rent. Repossessions are already at record levels, and set to rise further. The government is encouraging banks, including those it now owns, to go easy on repossessions, effectively tolerating squatting. No doubt they’re conscious that chucking families out on the street is not likely to be popular. But they’re in a bind. If they don’t repossess people, why should anyone pay their mortgages at all? If the government steps in to nationalise the homes of mortgage defaulters as has been suggested, this just raises the amount they have to claw back through the other means discussed above. The absurdity is we could see people being chucked out on the street while houses stand empty and can’t be sold.

So is it all doom and gloom?
It doesn’t have to be! If we’re honest, we’re not in a very strong position and we’re likely to take the brunt of this crisis unless we set about changing that. There are various things we can do, ranging from simple things you’re probably doing already to daring acts of collective action to win the things we need. So…

Talk to your workmates - on your breaks or in the pub after work. We’re all in the same boat, just realising this is a step towards doing something about it. When you realise your problems aren’t personal but social, all sorts of possibilities for mutual aid open up. Beware bosses claiming they’re in the same boat too; who do you think they’d throw overboard first?

Network with other workers - in your area or sector. Do you have friends or friends-of-friends working locally in the same sector as you? Consider going for a coffee or a pint to swap experiences and find out if there’s anything you can learn from each other, or ways to help each other out (like handing out leaflets at each others workplaces so the boss can’t victimise you).

Consider collective action. Collective action covers a whole range of things, but the principle is that while on our own we are weak, when we act together we can achieve more than the sum of our parts. Examples include going in a group to the manager's office to support colleagues being made redundant or pressured into working longer or harder. There’s safety in numbers. Or deciding with your workmates to ‘work-to-contract’ - taking your breaks and leaving on time in response to pressure to do more work. It’s easier to say no to the boss when you know your workmates are doing the same.

More dramatically, things like occupations can win major concessions. When workers were laid off at a factory in Northern Ireland recently they occupied the plant for 48 hours demanding improved redundancy terms. They won. By acting together they turned the tables on the bosses, who expected them to go home alone and ‘think things over.’ Instead they showed the inevitable wasn’t so inevitable. It isn’t always easy to take collective action, but it starts from realising what we have in common with other workers, and what we don’t have in common with the politicians and bosses trying to shift the costs of the crisis onto us. We can’t fight back on our own, but together we have a chance.

http://libcom.org/library/what-recession-means-us

Barack Obama says US 'will maintain strongest military on planet'

Mr Obama promised greater use of diplomacy and greater emphasis on building alliances around the world as he formally introduced his national security team, which included Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

But the former Illinois senator, whose rise was built on his opposition to the Iraq war, delivered a message of surprising toughness that at times could have come from George W Bush.

Mr Obama said: "To ensure prosperity here at home and peace abroad, we all share the belief we have to maintain the strongest military on the planet."

With the responsibilities of office just seven weeks away, he added that his administration was "absolutely committed to eliminating the threat of terrorism".

"We cannot tolerate a world where innocents are being killed by extremists," Mr Obama said in the wake of Bombay attacks, adding that he was "heartbroken" by the deaths of six Americans in the massacre.

"We have to bring the full force of our power, not only military but diplomatic and political, to deal with the threats," he said, also vowing that the US would stand with India.

Flanked by his new appointments, Mr Obama said he was a "believer in strong personalities and strong opinions", in order to avoid the White House lapsing into "group think". But, recalling the model of former President Harry Truman, he said that "the buck will stop with me".

Mr Obama offered fulsome praise for Hillary Clinton, whom he confirmed as secretary of state and his most controversial appointment. During the Democratic primary campaign he repeatedly criticised her support in the senate for the Iraq war, and dismissed her foreign experience as first lady as little more than drinking tea on the fringes of power.

Acknowledging that "it is fun for the press to stir up old quotes" from the heat of a campaign, he referred to Mrs Clinton as a "dear friend" and left the stage arm in arm with his former foe.

Janet Napolitano will be the new head of homeland security, and Susan Rice, will be ambassador to the United Nations.

Eric Holder, will become the first black attorney general if confirmed.

Robert Gates is staying on as defence secretary, and Gen James Jones, a former marine who led Nato in Afghanistan and who since November 2007 has acted as a special security envoy in the Middle East, becomes national security adviser.

All of Mr Obama’s nominees are expected to win quick confirmation in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/3540167/Barack-Obama-says-US-will-maintain-strongest-military-on-planet-as-Clinton-confirmed-top-diplomat.html

Anarchist Communist Statement On The Global Economic Crisis And G20 Meeting

1.The current crisis is typical of the crises that regularly appear in the capitalist economy. "Overproduction", speculation and subsequent collapse are inherent to the system. (As Alexander Berkman and others have pointed out, what capitalist economists call overproduction is actually underconsumption: capitalism prevents large numbers of people from fulfilling their needs, and so undermines its own markets.)

2.Any solution to the crisis prepared by capitalists and governments will remain a solution within capitalism. It will not be a solution for the popular classes. Indeed, as in every crisis, the workers and the poor are paying – while financial capital is being bailed out with huge sums. This is likely to continue. No change within capitalism can resolve the problems of the popular classes; still less can such a solution be expected from individual politicians, such as Barack Obama. The most such politicians can do is play a part in offering the capitalists a way out, and perhaps in throwing the working class some crumbs.

3.The bank bailouts show not only whose interests the state serves, but the hollowness of capitalist commitment to free markets. Throughout history, capitalists have stood for markets when it suits them, and state regulation and subsidies when they need it. Capitalism could never have existed without state support.

4.In the US, the UK and elsewhere, the bailouts have taken the form of nationalisation of troubled financial institutions – with the full support of capital. This shows that capitalists have no fundamental problem with state ownership, and that nationalisation has nothing to do with socialism. It can also be a method of screwing the working class. We ourselves, not the state, need to take control of the economy.

5.Owing to the globalisation of capital under neo-liberalism, the ruling class recognises that the solution must be global. The G20 is meeting from 15 November to discuss the crisis. This is significant. The rulers of the US, Europe and Japan are coming to realise that they cannot handle the crisis on their own; that they need, not only one another, but other powers, notably China (which is emerging as a top industrial producer, and is on its way to becoming the world's third-biggest economy). India, Brazil and other "emerging" economies will have seats at the table. This may mark a recognition – under discussion for some years – that the G8 alone are no longer the world's economic decision makers. It is likely to signal a shift in the running of the global economic system.

6.We place no hopes in the inclusion of new capitalist powers. China's rulers may claim to be socialist; others, such as Lula of Brazil and Motlanthe of South Africa, may present themselves at times as champions of the poor. But in fact, all are defenders of capitalism, exploiters and oppressors of the people of their own countries, and, increasingly, imperialist or sub-imperialist exploiters of the people of other countries.

7.If the crisis is to lead to anything other than complete defeat for the global popular classes, poverty, exploitation and war, the popular classes must mobilise. We must demand bailouts, not for the capitalists, but for us. We anarchist communists will fight for those who got homes on subprime mortgages to be bailed out and keep their homes. We will continue to engage in and support struggles for jobs with better wages and shorter hours, housing, services, health services, welfare and education, protection of the environment. We fight for an end to imperialist wars and to repression of our class and its struggles.

8.We present these demands in response to the G20 meeting, and will continue to present them in the future. Through such demands, and through direct action to bring them about, we will work towards building a global movement of the popular classes that can put an end to capitalism, the state and the crises they create.

Signed:
Alternative Libertaire (France)
Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (Italy)
Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (Australia)
Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (South Africa)

Self-Proclaimed Anarchists Drop Banners on G20

This morning, at approximately 5:13 am, a group of hooligans and self-proclaimed anarchists made their displeasure for the G20 known, with two frickin’ sweet banner drops in the federally-occupied territory of Washington, DC.
These hoodlums knew that the G20 was preparing to spread propoganda about the benevolence and success of their antiquated system, so they took it upon themselves to drop some real knowledge on the people. LITERALLY.

See you at the summit,
self-proclaimed anarchists

http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/144717/index.php

Union Del Barrio on Obama, Elections

Real change will only come from those who struggle for dignity, justice and self-determination.

With the historic election of Barack Obama as President of the United States we can say with certainty that there has been a paradigm shift in the mythology of capitalist white rule. Without a doubt the backwards concept of race superiority has suffered a blow, but the transfer of political power from one capitalist party to another should not be taken lightly. Race relations has entered a new level of discussion in an empire that has built its existence on the genocide of indigenous people, the theft of African labor and the premise of expansionism under the ridiculous assertion of divine intervention to settle land and conquer people. The significance of the 2008 U.S. presidential election is that for the first time in the history of capitalism, the most powerful country in the annals of human history will be led by a black man. This phenomenon signals a decline in the ability of white power capitalism to rule openly and viciously as it has since its inception; but more importantly it signals the need for those that financed the Obama campaign to promote president elect Obama as the beacon to keep alive this unjust and decadent capitalist system. In short, president-elect Obama was formed by the elite and will rule with the elite, but the historical feat of a black politician winning the presidency of the United States cannot be taken for granted.

The election of the first black president of the United States signals for us as well a new paradigm of struggle. Certainly the triumph of Obama cannot and does not mean that our struggle for self-determination, justice and dignity is now over. Quite the contrary, our struggle must be intensified, it must be unyielding. For in a time in which the empire finds itself in the midst of the worst economic crisis, a crisis that has propelled the rest of the world into a certain global economic depression. In a time in which endless war is a failed and only remaining strategy for the empire to plunder the resources of the peoples of the world. In this time, in which our communities are under siege, raided, persecuted, deported by one of the most sinister campaigns ever launched by the empire within its boundaries. In this time in which the wall of death has been built all along the borderlands as a damming monument erected by the empire in order to reassure its theft of our lands. That horrendous monument not only destroys communities, divides our people, wounds our collective memory, but it kills with impunity.

In a time of crisis for those in power, we offer our commitment to struggle, our willingness to be free, our hope for a better tomorrow. In a time of the elite’s crisis we must seize the moment and transform their crisis into our victory, their weakness into our triumph, their hesitation into our steadfast movement forward, change only comes when we, those who have been persecuted, exploited, incarcerated, marginalized, disenfranchised, stand together and say enough, and demonstrate our ability to resist. For the empire is more dangerous when it is wounded, when its ideals are shattered, when its economic systems are in turmoil, the United States and its capitalist system has an outstanding ability to be resilient. It has risen triumphant and empowered on many occasions out of multiple crises, for such is the nature of the empire. It must self-degrade to gain strength. Their crisis will not become our victory until we build a movement with enough political strength to once and for all rid our people of the yolk of oppression.

Apologists of the empire, and those scrambling to hold on to the now dilapidated notion of white power will say, that Obama as president of the United States signifies the end of class and race relations in the United States. The end of history, the triumph of the Civil Rights Movement; nothing can be further from the truth. Race and class differences have been taken to never-before seen levels, while for the first time the white minority ruling elite must address race relations when addressing the political superstructure, the system however is still very much entrenched in white power, it is still resilient, it is still powerful and it will not concede much more political space.

This is precisely why capitalism was in need of a facelift and the reason why the Democratic Party has won the contest for control, not only of the White House, but also for Congress. It is based primarily on the capitalists’ prospects and ability to confuse poor working class people into believing that some change has occurred and that this “change” will represent their interests. We don’t believe this for a minute. Capitalism by any other name is still capitalism, oppression by any other means is still oppression, and colonialism by any other face is still colonialism.

For these reasons the results of this election should not be an assertion that change is coming. We have always stated that both the Republican and Democratic parties are representatives of the ruling class, therefore their interests lie in keeping the wealth produced by the working poor. Obama, who was criticized by his opponent for his comments on wealth distribution, reaffirmed his stance by stating that all he wants is to go back to the tax structure of the 1990s. This point is best illustrated in the open thievery which took place last month, as the largest bailout packages in the history of capitalism were negotiated by Congress- of which both McCain and Obama were a part of. The bailout was a safety net for some of the largest corporations and was paid for at the expense of poor people the world over.

There is no evidence to suggest that the election of Obama will fundamentally change the economic problems faced by the great majority of people living within and outside of the political borders of the United States. After all, Obama attended the elite places of learning of the United States; his candidacy was supported by the ruling class of the United States. Obama as president, by itself, does not signify a fundamental change to the reality of working people and oppressed people within the boundaries of the United States, on the contrary, everything points towards the need for the United States to continue the theft of resources of the people the world over in order to rescue and maintain the economic system known as capitalism.

The triumph of Obama, over the war criminal McCain, must be viewed as a weakening of the socio-political understanding of class and race of the empire. But this feat, by itself does not guarantee change, although we recognize that the election of a black man to the White House is of historic proportions, now is the time for people of color and working people who live within the boundaries of the United States to unite

The struggle we have before us, beyond the Presidential election, is the need to articulate what we mean by change. Our immediate task is to organize ourselves in every community, in every school, in every field, in every factory, hotel, prison, and wherever we may find ourselves; for one thing is true, that while the economic crisis continues to escalate, those in power will continue to fire workers, all the while more and more people continue to have their homes stolen by banks in the form of foreclosures.

This is why we support the efforts of those that call for a moratorium on foreclosures, those who call for a halt to the raids and deportations, and those that call for reparations for the African community as well as support for cleaner sources of energy and the elimination of green house gases, and finally the rights of people to determine who they want to marry regardless of gender.

To all workers we say that your struggle to build unions and independent associations at every worksite, free from ICE raids and intimidation by the bosses signifies change. The struggle of women for inclusion and equality in our society, to combat all forms of gender violence is and must continue to be part of our change. To all educators: your struggle to infuse class-consciousness in the classroom despite the criminal budget cuts is our struggle. The struggle of the youth and students for education, cultural, social and political participation is our struggle. The struggle for relevant education and access to higher learning is our change. The struggle for human rights by grass-root community organizations that document migra and police brutality and have organized themselves to promote raids-free communities is the change that we need. To all non-profit workers: your struggle to provide the necessary tools and resources to help grassroots organizations build a movement from the bottom and to the left and rid social movements of the paralysis generated by the non-profit industrial complex, is the change that we are building. To the intellectuals and academia: your struggle to generate ideas, write our history and analyze our social conditions despite the restrictions of bureaucracy of think tanks is the change that is coming. For artists and cultural workers: the canvas, the mural, the musical instrument, spoken word, their body, their written word, la flor y el canto, and to those who continue to use culture as the most beautiful tool against oppression, this is the change that we must build. To the environmentalists who have struggled tirelessly against degradation, pollution, health rights, toxic-free communities, yours is the change we must build.

We must unite for self-determination of all oppressed people no matter the nationality; we must unite as a working class people; and our struggle must be an anti-imperialist struggle, based on the struggles of all of us, when that happens then change becomes possible. Ours is not a change based on empty hopes for a better future; it is based on a need to ensure that all of us build a better community, a better society, a better world.


http://illvox.org/2008/11/10/union-del-barrio-on-obama-elections/

Calling all for a Anti-Capitalists bloc November 15th against the World Economic Summit

On November 15th the ruling elite of the 20 richest
nations will converge in Washington DC for a
“World Economic Forum.” The decisions the
G20 make ultimately will benefit a small handful of
transnational corporations and further the
exploitation of all oppressed people.

As the world economy continues towards
depression – working class people needs
will become less and less head by this
system. It is up to us to harness a new
message against capitalism and the state.

On November 15th we are calling for
anti-capitalists to meet up at 10:00AM at DuPont
Circle for a march against capitalism.

Please wear black tops and black bottoms.

Spokes council to be at 10:00 AM there at DuPont circle

If you are interested in endorsing the call please e-mail uasleepercell@gmail.com


www.uasleepercell.wordpress.com

another world is possible -A sleeper cell of Unconventional Action.

Chevron Faces Suit Over Nigerian Violence

Larry Bowoto's left arm is still scarred and numb where a soldier's bullet struck it in 1998 while he was aboard a Chevron oil platform in Nigeria. During the course of the incident, Bowoto was shot several more times, another man was wounded and yet another was killed.

[Larry Bowoto protests in front of Chevron headquarters in San Ramon after he attended a shareholders meeting in May. (Paul Sakuma / AP)]Larry Bowoto protests in front of Chevron headquarters in San Ramon after he attended a shareholders meeting in May. (Paul Sakuma / AP)
On Monday, in only the second trial of its kind, a federal jury will convene in San Francisco to decide whether Bowoto and his companions were violent hostage takers or innocent victims - and whether a U.S. corporation, whose foreign subsidiary summoned the security forces, is responsible for the bloodshed.

"I'm not a violent person," Bowoto, 44, said through an interpreter during a recent Bay Area visit. "We were peaceful protesters" who "never expected Chevron to be so brutal."
Chevron denies claim

The San Ramon oil company paints a different picture: Bowoto, the company says, led a group of armed men who seized the platform, demanding jobs and money, and held 200 employees captive during three days of fruitless negotiations before Chevron's Nigerian subsidiary - Chevron Nigeria Ltd. - called for military help.

"This is a case of right versus wrong, legal versus illegal, peaceful negotiation versus violent extortion," Chevron said in a statement.

In May, after Bowoto appeared at Chevron's shareholders' meeting and said the company "must give up violence as a way of doing business," CEO David O'Reilly called his remarks "outrageous" and said Bowoto was guilty of "a criminal act."

Nineteen plaintiffs, including Bowoto, accuse Chevron of colluding with a notoriously violent military force to quell the protest. The case represents a 21st century application of one of the nation's oldest laws, the Alien Tort Claims Act.

Passed by the first Congress in 1789, the law lets foreigners file damage claims in U.S. courts for international human rights violations anywhere in the world. Originally focused on sea piracy, the law took on new life with rulings in the 1980s that allowed survivors of foreign torture to sue military leaders who entered the United States.

A 2004 Supreme Court ruling limited the law's scope to the most serious abuses of internationally accepted legal standards but left the door open for suits against multinational companies that allegedly collaborate with repressive governments.

In the only such case to go to trial, a federal jury in Alabama last year absolved the Drummond coal company of responsibility for the killings of three union leaders by paramilitary forces in Colombia. Judges have dismissed several other suits, under the Supreme Court's stringent standard, and a few have been settled.
Unocal settled Burma suit

A suit against Unocal by Burmese villagers, who blamed the company for forced labor, rape and torture by soldiers at a natural gas pipeline, was scheduled for trial in Los Angeles in 2005, but the company settled it for an undisclosed amount of money. A suit similar to Bowoto's, filed against Royal Dutch Shell by Nigerians including relatives of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a writer and activist hanged by the military regime in 1995, is scheduled to go to trial in New York in February.

"Courts have been vigilant in allowing only the most well-founded cases to go forward," said attorney Marco Simons of the nonprofit advocacy group EarthRights International, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. A victory in this case, he said, would send a message to corporations operating abroad that "if they are complicit in human rights abuses, they can expect to be held accountable."

Chevron, while maintaining the villagers' claims are unfounded, also says that the 1789 law "provides a financial incentive to attack U.S.-based corporations with international operations" and that the plaintiffs "are using the U.S. courts to intervene in Nigerian affairs."

The events date from May 1998, when members of the Ilaje tribe in the Niger Delta went to Chevron Nigeria's Parabe platform, 9 miles off the Atlantic coast, to protest the company's employment practices, and what they described as the destruction of fresh water, farm lands and fishing by oil drilling and dredging.

"It now takes four or five hours to find any usable water," Bowoto said in his recent interview with The Chronicle, describing the conditions that he said still exist. "It takes days to find any significant fish. The same thing has happened to farming."
Threat of 'mass riot'

Chevron, in court papers and public statements, described the protesters as a group of "armed youths" carrying machetes, knives and clubs and demanding jobs and money. The company cited letters from "Concerned Ilaje Citizens," including Bowoto, to Chevron earlier that month warning that refusal to allocate jobs fairly "could lead to mass riot" and asking, "Which language do you understand? Is it violence or sea piracy, war or peace?"

But plaintiffs' lawyers have a faxed message sent by a company official to the U.S. Embassy on the third day of the protest, describing the villagers as unarmed and saying the situation "has remained calm since their arrival."

Soldiers arrived the next morning on helicopters leased from Chevron. One villager, Arolika Irowarinum, was shot to death. Two men were wounded - Bowoto, who was shot several times, and Bassey Jeje. A fourth man, Bola Oyimbo, allegedly was beaten and tortured, and later died of unrelated causes.

Chevron says its subsidiary was simply reporting a crime when it contacted security forces and had no reason to anticipate violence. The plaintiffs counter that the company was well aware of the soldiers' violent reputation and approved the plan that led to the attack.

Those are factual disputes that a jury must resolve, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said in a pretrial ruling. She said jurors also must decide whether Chevron's control over its subsidiary was so extensive that it should be held responsible for any wrongdoing.

The trial is scheduled to last five weeks.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/10/26-2

Wealth Gap Creating a Social Time Bomb

Growing inequality in US cities could lead to widespread social unrest and increased mortality, says a new United Nations report on the urban environment.

In a survey of 120 major cities, New York was found to be the ninth most unequal in the world and Atlanta, New Orleans, Washington, and Miami had similar inequality levels to those of Nairobi, Kenya Abidjan and Ivory Coast. Many were above an internationally recognised acceptable "alert" line used to warn governments.

"High levels of inequality can lead to negative social, economic and political consequences that have a destabilising effect on societies," said the report. "[They] create social and political fractures that can develop into social unrest and insecurity."

According to the annual State of the World's cities report from UN-Habitat, race is one of the most important factors determining levels of inequality in the US and Canada.

"In western New York state nearly 40% of the black, Hispanic and mixed-race households earned less than $15,000 compared with 15% of white households. The life expectancy of African-Americans in the US is about the same as that of people living in China and some states of India, despite the fact that the US is far richer than the other two countries," it said.

Disparities of wealth were measured on the "Gini co-efficient", an internationally recognised measure usually only applied to the wealth of countries. The higher the level, the more wealth is concentrated in the hands of fewer people.

"It is clear that social tension comes from inequality. The trickle down theory [that wealth starts with the rich] has not delivered. Inequality is not good for anybody," said Anna Tibaijuka, head of UN-Habitat, in London yesterday.

The report found that India was becoming more unequal as a direct result of economic liberalisation and globalisation, and that the most unequal cities were in South Africa and Namibia and Latin America. "The cumulative effect of unequal distribution [of wealth] has been a deep and lasting division between rich and poor. Trade liberalisation did not bring about the expected benefits."

The report suggested that Beijing was now the most egalitarian city in the world, just ahead of cities such as Jakarta in Indonesia and Dire Dawa in Ethiopia.

In Europe, which was generally more egalitarian than other continents, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Slovenia were classed as the most equal countries with Greece, the UK and Spain among the least. "Disparities are particularly significant in the cities of eastern Europe, larger Spanish cities and in the north of England," it said.

It documents the seemingly unstoppable move of people away from rural to urban areas. This year it is believed that the number of people living in urban areas exceeded those in the countryside for the first time ever, but the report says there is no sign of the trend slowing.

"The dramatic transition between rural and urban communities is not over. Urbanisation levels will rise dramatically in the next 40 years to reach 70% by 2050," it predicts.

The most dramatic urbanisation has been taking place in China, with many millions of people moving from the countryside to cities. The report says 49 new cities have been built in the past 18 years. The rapid transition to an urban society has brought great wealth but also many negative results.

"China has attained some of the deepest disparities in the world with urban incomes three times those in rural areas. Inequalities are growing, with disproportionate rewards for the most skilled workers ... and serious problems for the unemployed and informal workers."

Urban growth rates are highest in the developing world, which absorbs an average 5 million new urban residents a month and is responsible for 95% of world urban growth. The report predicts that Asian cities will grow the most in the next 40 years and could have 63% of the world urban population by 2050.

Tokyo is expected to remain the world's largest mega city, with 36.4m people by 2025. But Mexico City, New York, and Sao Paulo could give way in the league table to Mumbai, Delhi and Dhaka. Kinshasa and Lagos are the two African cities expected to grow the most, with each adding more than 6 million people by 2025.

Rather than countryside to city movement, which has marked rapid population growth in the last 40 years, the UN expects more people to move from city to city.

Capital cities in particular are attracting much more of countries' investments and are growing fast. Some are becoming home to nearly half a country's population.

But the report also identified what it believes is the emergence of a new urban trend, with many cities now shrinking in size. The populations of 46 countries, including Germany, Italy, Japan and most former soviet states, are expected to be smaller in 2050 than they are now, and in the past 30 years, says the report, more cities in the developed world have shrunk than grown.

It found that 49 cities in the UK, including Liverpool and other old industrial centres in the north of England, and 100 in Russia reduced in size between 1990 and 2000, mainly because of unemployment. In the US 39 cities are smaller now than they were 10 years ago.

The reasons for the decline of cities was mostly economic, but the report says that the environment is now an important factor.

Air quality and pollution from mines, power plants and oil exploration have been responsible for population losses in India, Mexico and Africa, it says. "Cities tend to struggle most with health-threatening environmental issues, such as the lack of safe water, sanitation and waste."

http://www.truthout.org/article/102308D

Layoffs rise with world financial crisis

The financial crisis and credit squeeze is beginning to have deeper economic and social consequences for working people worldwide despite the injection of hundreds of billions of dollars into the banking system by Washington and imperialist governments in Europe.

“U.S. industrial activity is falling at the fastest pace in decades,” noted Investor’s Business Daily October 16, “adding to evidence that the credit crunch is causing the economy to reverse faster than expected.”

Nationwide production at factories, mines, and utilities declined 2.8 percent in September, the largest monthly drop since December 1974, according to the Federal Reserve.

These figures reflect rising layoffs and plant closures as workers face what could become the deepest recession in decades. General Motors is closing its SUV plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, on December 23, laying off 1,200 members of the United Auto Workers. The company also announced that a stamping plant near Grand Rapids, Michigan, employing some 1,500 workers, will shut its doors at the end of 2009. Daimler AG, the world’s largest maker of heavy vehicles, said October 14 it is closing plants in Oregon and in Ontario, Canada, eliminating 3,500 jobs. Alcoa, the largest U.S. aluminum company, is shutting its smelter in Rockdale, Texas, cutting 660 jobs by early December.

Retail sales decline
U.S. retail sales have declined for three months in a row, the first time this has happened since 1992, when records began being kept. In September sales were down 1.2 percent, which included a decline of nearly 4 percent in sales of cars and auto parts and 2.3 percent in clothing and furniture purchases. Linen ‘n Things, once the second largest U.S. home furnishings chain and now in bankruptcy, is conducting liquidation sales at its 371 stores. Circuit City, the nation’s second largest electronics retailer, said as an alternative to bankruptcy it may close at least 150 stores, cutting thousands of jobs.

Construction of new homes and apartments dropped to an annual rate of 817,000 in September, the Commerce Department reported October 17. Excluding January 1991, housing starts have never been lower since records began in 1959.

Officials of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Agency have said that the transit system there faces major cutbacks because funds it borrowed from American International Group to lease trains and buses are no longer available. The giant insurance company nearly collapsed in September and Washington bailed it out with nearly $123 billion. Transit agencies in San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., face similar problems, reported USA Today.

Meanwhile, the U.S. budget deficit for the just-ended 2008 fiscal year rose to $455 billion. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that for the current fiscal year this will rise more than 50 percent to about $700 billion.

Banks may sit on bailout funds
Sinking hundreds of billions of dollars by the capitalist rulers into the banking system with the aim of unlocking the credit freeze has had little effect. Banks receiving this money are under no obligation to lend it. “It’s clear that the government would like us to use the capital,” said Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, according to the New York Times. “If you are a bank that is filling a hole, you obviously can’t do that.”

Since mid-2007 the nine largest U.S. commercial banks have written off $323 billion in “troubled assets.” This wipes out their combined reported profit of $305 billion since 2004. “Banks may sit on the capital,” noted the October 17 International Herald-Tribune. “Some analysts say the banks may use it to acquire weaker competitors.”

The most devastating impact of the financial crisis is on the semicolonial countries, where toilers have faced depression conditions for years. With weakening currencies, the massive debts owed to banks in imperialist centers become all the more unpayable. Declining prices of exported commodities and raw materials compound the problem. Since August 4 the Mexican peso has sunk 20 percent to an all-time low against the dollar. The Brazilian real has dropped 26 percent over this time period. South Korea’s currency, the won, is down 30 percent against the dollar this year.

Banks that have invested in stocks, bonds, and other paper products on the so-called emerging markets for much higher return rates have massively withdrawn these funds. “More than $1.3 trillion in value has been wiped off emerging market stocks this year in cities such as Moscow, Sao Paulo, Jakarta and Osaka,” stated the Washington Post. The global credit crisis has also led the governments of Hungary and Ukraine to seek outside help to bail out their banks. The European Central Bank is providing Budapest with $6.4 billion. Kiev is requesting $14 billion from the International Monetary Fund.

http://www.themilitant.com/2008/7243/724303.html

Global stock selloff

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Global fears about the financial crisis deepened on Friday as stock markets the world over fell sharply and government officials scrambled to contain the damage.

Expectations for a coordinated response grew while the world's finance ministers and central bankers prepared to meet this weekend in Washington. President Bush is expected to make a statement about the financial crisis shortly after 10 a.m.

In the United States, stock futures were trading sharply lower - a sign that investors are bracing for a rough time at the opening bell.

European markets got off to a terrible start. Within the first 10 minutes of trading, London's FTSE, the CAC in Paris and the XETRA DAX in Frankfurt, Germany, had all sloughed off about 10% of their values.

European markets recovered some, but all were down generally 6% to 10% by late morning.

Russia's volatile stock markets were closed on Friday. Government financial officials suspended them before trading was scheduled to open, according to the Russian Trading System. The markets will remain closed until further notice.

One economist said the markets are nearing their bottom. "We are getting mighty close," according to Tom Hougaard with City Index in London. "I have no doubt that with in the next 48 to 72 hours, we will find a low."

Asian markets ended lower. The Nikkei Exchange in Japan closed down 9.6%.

Meanwhile, the Australian All Ordinaries index closed more than 8% lower and South Korea's KOSPI index finished the day off 4.3%.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down about 8% in afternoon trading and Mumbai's BSE SENSEX was down 7.4%.

The losses brought more attempts by government officials to reverse the tide.

The Bank of Japan injected $45 billion into financial markets - the largest single-day amount in history - and India's central bank made $8.2 billion available.

Three European central banks offered $120 billion in overnight cash to markets, in an effort to keep a strained financial system flush with cash, the Associated Press reported. The European Central Bank offered $100 billion, the Bank of England $10 billion and the Swiss National Bank $10 billion.

A day earlier, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority cut its key interest rate by half a percent - its second such recent move.

On Wednesday, the British government said it would make available $87 billion to the nation's eight largest banks in an effort to shore-up their capital positions. In return for the infusion of capital the British government will receive preferred shares of those banks.

Iceland seized control of its three largest banks. Officials with the Italian government have said they are looking at their own bank rescue plan similar to the British efforts.

In the United States, where the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department have already taken numerous steps in recent days, speculation grew that the government might take even more dramatic action like making direct capital investments in banks.

The selloff followed another brutal day on Wall Street on Thursday. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 679 points - or 7.3%. The Dow, Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq all closed at five-year lows.

Over the last seven sessions, the Dow has lost 2,271 points, or 20.1%. Since hitting an all-time high of 14,164.53 one year ago Thursday, the Dow has lost 39.4%.

Debt and Exploitation: The Coming Economic Crisis

Unless you have been stuck in a cave somewhere over the past few weeks, you have no doubt heard about the financial crisis south of the border. You have also likely heard Canadian officials and business people claim that the Canadian economy is doing just fine and is immune from the US turmoil. We can hardly expect them to say other wise, not least during an election. But in fact there is more than a good chance that Canada will follow the US into a major economic crisis.

If this does happen it will not be just because financial deregulation has allowed the banks to risk our savings on the crisis-ridden financial markets. It will also not be just because investors have created new and high-risk ways to play the global financial casino. It will not even be just because the US market, where most of Canada's exports go, will have closed shop. For sure, financial deregulation and so-called “free trade” shoulder a lot of the blame for this mess. But the fundamental source of the problem goes beyond these policies. We are about to reach the limits of the economic model that has been imposed on us for the past 30 years.

This model can be called the “low wage/high debt” economic model. Beginning in the early 1980s it has come to replace the old “high wage/high production” model. Under the old model, companies sought to turn big wage gains made by workers' struggles into profits by: a) demanding a faster pace of work (higher productivity) and b) by encouraging a culture of consumerism so that workers would use their high wages to buy the vast amount of goods being produced. This came to be know as the productivity deal.

At the end of the 1970s workers began to break this cycle by demanding and winning both higher wages and social services (a higher social wage) while refusing to increase the pace of work which had already reached super-human speeds. Thus companies found their profits under attack as the better quality of life for workers came to clash with the needs of bosses to make a profit.

In response governments all over the world and of all political stripes began to attack the wage and social services gains made by workers. In Canada this began with the Mulroney government and has continued to this day regardless of which party has been in power. And this attack has largely been successful. A recent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives shows that real wages today (that is when inflation is taken into account) are at the same level as the 1970s. At the same time, spending on social services has been drastically cut. Hence the “low-wage” part of the new economic model.

But low wages present a major problem for profits. If wages are too low than workers cannot afford to buy the increasing number of goods being produced. The misery that this means for workers is not the problem from the point of view of business. The problem is that if goods cannot be sold then profits are not made. This is a classic problem of overproduction. The low-wage model is thus inherently unsustainable.

One way that big business and big government have tried to get around this problem is by pushing through free trade policies like NAFTA and the upcoming Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) that let companies sell their goods all over the globe. In this way, companies can reduce their dependence on the wages or consumption power of their Canadian workers. However this has not really solved the problem of overproduction since the wages of all workers everywhere have been under attack. In the case of Canada, the wages of the American worker, our biggest export market, have been reduced even more than Canadian workers. At best, free trade only delays the day of reckoning.

Another strategy is to lower the price of goods consumed by one group of workers by reducing the wages of another group of workers. This is the true meaning of Wal-Mart. By super-exploiting workers in China and other countries, companies can lower their prices to a point where workers in Canada can afford them despite their lower wages. In this way the sweat and blood of workers overseas is used to build a thin and tattered safety net for Canadian workers. But this strategy is also unsustainable.

For one, super-exploited workers always resist, driving up wages. For example, China is brimming with workers struggles (the China Labour Bulletin reports tens of thousands of strikes and other workplace stoppages per year). These have recently forced the Chinese government to pass a new labour law that contains some gains for workers. Further, the prices of key goods cannot be reduced in this way. Goods such as houses, cars, education and others require such high levels of work and technology that no matter how low wages get, they will always costs thousands of dollars. If workers cannot afford to buy these goods in large quantities, profits cannot be realized and crisis follows. But this has not yet happened. Why?

This brings us to the second part of the “low wage/high debt” economic model. The availability of cheap credit has allowed workers to borrow large sums of money and consume way past their means. This reason, more than any other, explains why the low-wage economy has not yet come to a grinding halt. Low mortgage interest rates, zero-percent car financing, credit cards in every wallet and a “pay day” loan shop at every corner have allowed high levels of consumption to continue even as wages are reduced. For companies this is the best of both worlds. Low wages combined with high sales mean astronomical profits. For workers this has meant insecurity at work and anxiety over soaring debts. None of this is a problem for business as long as it continues. But you don't need a PhD in economics to figure out that eventually people will not be able to make payments on their loans with decreasing wages and rising interest rates.

This is precisely what is happening now in the US housing market where millions of Americans have had their homes taken away as they are unable to pay their mortgages. The fact that banks and investors turned these loans into stocks and gambled with them on the financial markets, losing trillions in the process, is a serious issue. But in the long run it is not as serious as the fact that millions of workers in the US are defaulting on their debts. In addition to housing, credit card debt in the US totals nearly 1 trillion dollars and auto financing debt is also in the hundreds of billions. (Globe and Mail, September 27, B1) No taxpayer bailout, no matter how big, will solve this problem (not that the bailouts of Wall Street investors is meant to help anyone but rich investors).

In other words, the “low wage/high debt” US economy is imploding. And Canadians, according to a recent report by investment firm Merill Lynch, are only slightly less in debt as the average American. (The Hamilton Spectator, September 24) What are the chances that Canadians will also start defaulting on their mortgages, credit cards, student debts, auto financing and a myriad of other debts which we have been forced to take on because our wages do not stretch far enough? Even without increasing food and oil prices, it is very likely that what we are seeing in the US today is only a frightening preview of things to come.

The US also provides a sneak peek into what is likely to happen if we leave the solution to the same people who got us into this mess: trillion dollar bailouts for the rich and increased repression for the rest of us. If we self-organize and struggle for a better alternative, the outcome may be different, perhaps radically so.

Banks Get Bailed Out, People Get Thrown Out

The Esquivel family were evicted yesterday from their home in Roslindale. That same morning they had gone to the Boston Municipal Court in a last effort to stop the eviction. The judge did not rule in their favor. Raul and Anna Esquivel came back from court, tears streaming for their face, to find about 10 police officers on and around their property and another 40 people protesting the eviction. The picket was lively and emotional. Around forty people came out to support the Esquivels. The blockade was called by City Life/Urbana, and supported by many community groups, including Dorchester People for Peace, SEIU 615, the Boston No Eviction Network, the Boston Workers Alliance and others. At one point it appeared that the eviction was going to be called off. To this news, Anna Esquivel danced and people cheered. Yet about 30 minutes later, there was another call saying the eviction was in fact going to take place that same day at 2:30 pm.

There so many things that are wrong with this, first that the Esquivel family had tried in vain to negotiate with Deutsche Bank: they had offered to pay rent, other family members had offered to purchase the house at the appraised market value. This is a reoccurring phenomenon: the banks are not negotiating with families in foreclosed properties, instead they kick families onto the street and have empty buildings because then this, nominally will not be considered a loss. Not a loss for whom and to what expense, I ask myself. Families are being thrown out, displaced; communities are being destroyed so that a bank won't call it a loss?! Adding to the injustice: just a day before this eviction, Bush proposed a $700B bail out for the banks. This would be the largest transfer of money in all of history. One of the arrestees defending the Esquivel's home pointed out that in Boston it has been working class people of color who are being evicted from their homes while white business men are being bailed out. One thing is for sure, these men will sleep comfortable tonightt, and may even be able to choose among several houses in which to sleep.

At about 3:00 pm the constable and a moving truck came to remove the Esquivel's belongings. They family only had time to throw their things in trash bags and get out. They were crying, the grandchildren screaming. As the constable tried to walk up the stairway to deliver the eviction notice, the protesters surrounded him, shouting "shame!" Police moved in immediately, four people were arrested - taken away in police vans.

Yesterday a beautiful home in Roslindale was standing empty, and the Esquivel family were left wondering where they were going to sleep. Ana said they were going to look for a place in a shelter. The fact that the Esquivel family was evicted from their home is despicable. Those being bailed out are the same who implemented the policies that are having devastating economic effects for the majority of the population. As this sham government spends billions on war and occupation and bails out big financial institutions, it is working class and immigrant families that are paying the bill. We must not become resigned in the face of this crisis. We need to come out again and again to show these greedy banks that we will not be moved without a fight. As Ana Esquivel said, "This is still a victory because we will continue to fight together!"

http://www.nefac.net/en/node/2434

The Free Market Preachers Have Long Practised State Welfare for the Rich

According to Senator Jim Bunning, the proposal to purchase $700bn of dodgy debt by the US government was "financial socialism, it is un-American". The economics professor Nouriel Roubini called George Bush, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke "a troika of Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the United Socialist State Republic of America". Bill Perkins, the venture capitalist who took out an ad in the New York Times attacking the plan, called it "trickle-down communism".

They are wrong. Any subsidies eventually given to the monster banks of Wall Street will be as American as apple pie and obesity. The sums demanded may be unprecedented, but there is nothing new about the principle: corporate welfare is a consistent feature of advanced capitalism. Only one thing has changed: Congress has been forced to confront its contradictions.

One of the best studies of corporate welfare in the US is published by my old enemies at the Cato Institute. Its report, by Stephen Slivinski, estimates that in 2006 the federal government spent $92bn subsidising business. Much of it went to major corporations such as Boeing, IBM and General Electric.

The biggest money crop - $21bn - is harvested by Big Farmer. Slivinski shows that the richest 10% of subsidised farmers took 66% of the payouts. Every few years, Congress or the administration promises to stop this swindle, then hands even more state money to agribusiness. The farm bill passed by Congress in May guarantees farmers a minimum of 90% of the income they've received over the past two years, which happen to be among the most profitable they've ever had. The middlemen do even better, especially the companies spreading starvation by turning maize into ethanol, which are guzzling billions of dollars' worth of tax credits.

Slivinski shows how the federal government's Advanced Technology Program, which was supposed to support the development of technologies that are "pre-competitive" or "high risk", has instead been captured by big businesses flogging proven products. Since 1991, companies such as IBM, General Electric, Dow Chemical, Caterpillar, Ford, DuPont, General Motors, Chevron and Monsanto have extracted hundreds of millions from this programme. Big business is also underwritten by the Export-Import Bank: in 2006, for example, Boeing alone received $4.5bn in loan guarantees.

The government runs something called the Foreign Military Financing programme, which gives money to other countries to purchase weaponry from US corporations. It doles out grants to airports for building runways and to fishing companies to help them wipe out endangered stocks.

But the Cato Institute's report has exposed only part of the corporate welfare scandal. A new paper by the US Institute for Policy Studies shows that, through a series of cunning tax and accounting loopholes, the US spends $20bn a year subsidising executive pay. By disguising their professional fees as capital gains rather than income, for example, the managers of hedge funds and private equity companies pay lower rates of tax than the people who clean their offices. A year ago, the House of Representatives tried to close this loophole, but the bill was blocked in the Senate after a lobbying campaign by some of the richest men in America.

Another report, by a group called Good Jobs First, reveals that Wal-Mart has received at least $1bn of public money. Over 90% of its distribution centres and many of its retail outlets have been subsidised by county and local governments. They give the chain free land, they pay for the roads, water and sewerage required to make that land usable, and they grant it property tax breaks and subsidies (called tax increment financing) originally intended to regenerate depressed communities. Sometimes state governments give the firm straight cash as well: in Virginia, for example, Wal-Mart's distribution centres receive handouts from the Governor's Opportunity Fund.

Corporate welfare is arguably the core business of some government departments. Many of the Pentagon's programmes deliver benefits only to its contractors. Ballistic missile defence, for example, which has no obvious strategic purpose and is unlikely ever to work, has already cost the US between $120bn and $150bn. The US is unique among major donors in insisting that the food it offers in aid is produced on its own soil, rather than in the regions it is meant to be helping. USAid used to boast on its website that "the principal beneficiary of America's foreign assistance programs has always been the United States. Close to 80% of the USAid's contracts and grants go directly to American firms." There is not and has never been a free market in the US.

Why not? Because the congressmen and women now railing against financial socialism depend for their re-election on the companies they subsidise. The legal bribes paid by these businesses deliver two short-term benefits for them. The first is that they prevent proper regulation, allowing them to make spectacular profits and to generate disasters of the kind Congress is now confronting. The second is that public money that should be used to help the poorest is instead diverted into the pockets of the rich.

A report published last week by the advocacy group Common Cause shows how bankers and brokers stopped legislators banning unsustainable lending. Over the past financial year, the big banks spent $49m on lobbying and $7m in direct campaign contributions. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spent $180m in lobbying and campaign finance over the past eight years. Much of this was thrown at members of the House financial services committee and the Senate banking committee.

Whenever congressmen tried to rein in the banks and mortgage lenders they were blocked by the banks' money. **** Durbin's 2005 amendment seeking to stop predatory mortgage lending, for example, was defeated in the Senate by 58 to 40. The former representative Jim Leach proposed re-regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their lobbyists, he recalls, managed in "less than 48 hours to orchestrate both parties' leadership" to crush his amendments.

The money these firms spend buys the socialisation of financial risk. The $700bn the government was looking for was just one of the public costs of its repeated failure to regulate. Even now the lobbying power of the banks has been making itself felt: on Saturday the Democrats watered down their demand that the money earned by executives of companies rescued by the government be capped. Campaign finance is the best investment a corporation can make. You give a million dollars to the right man and reap a billion dollars' worth of state protection, tax breaks and subsidies. When the same thing happens in Africa we call it corruption.

European governments are no better. The free market economics they proclaim are a con: they intervene repeatedly on behalf of the rich, while leaving everyone else to fend for themselves. Just as in the US, the bosses of farm companies, oil drillers, supermarkets and banks capture the funds extracted by government from the pockets of people much poorer than themselves. Taxpayers everywhere should be asking the same question: why the hell should we be supporting them?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/30/marketturmoil.subprimecrisis