The war in Ukraine will indeed be a bonanza for the likes of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. First of all, there will be the contracts to resupply weapons like Raytheon’s Stinger anti-aircraft missile and the Raytheon/Lockheed Martin-produced Javelin anti-tank missile that has already been provided to Ukraine by the thousands.  

In a January 2022 call with his company’s investors, Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes typically said that the prospect of conflict in Eastern Europe and other global hot spots would be good for business, adding that “we are seeing, I would say, opportunities for international sales. The tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.”

In late March, in an interview with the Harvard Business Review after the war in Ukraine had begun, Hayes defended the way his company would profit from that conflict:

“So I make no apology for that. I think again recognizing we are there to defend democracy and the fact is eventually we will see some benefit in the business over time. Everything that’s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DoD [the Department of Defense] or from our NATO allies, and that’s all great news. Eventually, we’ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business over the next coming years.”

The bigger stream of profits, however, will come from assured post-conflict increases in national-security spending here and in Europe justified, at least in part, by the Russian invasion and the disaster that’s followed.

In fact, military contractors have much to look forward to. More than half of the Pentagon’s $6.5 billion portion of the emergency-spending package for Ukraine is designated simply to replenish DoD inventories. 

For U.S. arms makers, however, the greatest benefits of the war in Ukraine won’t be immediate weapons sales. The representatives of the arms companies were already plugging the long-term challenge posed by China, a greatly exaggerated threat, but the Russian invasion is nothing short of manna from heaven for them, the ultimate rallying cry for advocates of greater military outlays. Even before the war, the Pentagon was slated to receive at least $7.3 trillion over the next decade, more than four times the cost of President Biden’s $1.7 trillion domestic Build Back Better plan.

Ukraine And The Profits Of War| Countercurrents

  The United States’ 735 billionaires have seen their collective wealth soar by 62% over the past two years while worker earnings have grown just 10%.

According to new calculations by Oxfam America, U.S. billionaires now own a combined $4.7 trillion in wealth, much of which goes completely untaxed. 

“While the pandemic grinds on, it is shocking to realize, and accept, that three-quarters of low-wage workers do not have access to paid sick leave,” said Gina Cummings, vice president of advocacy alliances and policy at Oxfam America. “It needs to be said that a vastly disproportionate share of these workers are women and people of color, making this a civil rights issue. This is not just morally unacceptable, it’s dangerous for everyone. 

‘Stain on Democracy’: Tax Day Study Shows US Billionaires Now Own $4.7 Trillion (commondreams.org)

 One person’s misfortune is another’s opportunity to make a fortune. 

The rise in global food prices has helped three members of the super-rich Cargill family, who majority-own of one of the world’s largest food companies, join the ranks of the world’s 500 richest people.

Siblings James Cargill, Austen Cargill and Marianne Liebmann – all great-grandchildren of William Wallace Cargill, who founded the Cargill company in 1865 – this week joined the Bloomberg Billionaires list of the richest 500 people alive. Each of them has an estimated $5.4bn (£4.1bn) fortune – up a fifth so far this year. They join Cargill’s other great-grandchildren Pauline Keinath and Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer on the richest 500 list. They each have fortunes of about $8.06bn.  Three more Cargill family members – Alexandra Daitch, Sarah MacMillan and Lucy Stitzer – are also billionaires. The extended family controls about 87% of the company and is ranked as the 11th richest family in the world, with a collective fortune of about $50bn.

 The giant Cargill food company, which employs more than 155,000 staff in 70 countries and is expected to report record profits this year, outstripping 2021’s record-breaking $5bn profit. Cargill, which has its headquarters in Minnesota, reported a 63% increase in profits last year to almost $4.93bn – the biggest in its 157-year history. Revenues rose by 17% to $134bn.

Eric Muňoz, Oxfam America’s senior policy adviser for agriculture, said: “Right now we’re seeing food prices skyrocket, which is taking a devastating toll on the most vulnerable communities. Exorbitant food prices, alongside the Covid-19 pandemic, are pushing families in countries like Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and South Sudan to the breaking point. – Meanwhile, the richest have seen their profits soar…”

Soaring food prices push more Cargill family members on to world’s richest 500 list | The super-rich | The Guardian

 Women in the poorest areas of England are dying earlier than the average female in almost every comparable country in the OECD nation except Mexico. The average life expectancy in most deprived areas is 78.7 years, which is almost eight years fewer than those living in England’s wealthiest areas.

The UK ranks overall 25th out of 38 OECD countries when it comes to the number of years a woman can expect to live. 

Women living in the 10% most deprived parts of England have a lower life expectancy than the average woman in countries such as Colombia (79.8 years), Latvia (79.7 years) and Hungary (79.6 years). 

 Life expectancy for women in the poorest areas is well below the UK average of 83.1, the England average of 83.2, and the OECD average of 83.4.

Some of the most deprived areas in England include the local authority areas of Blackpool, Knowsley, Liverpool and Middlesbrough. The least deprived areas include Chiltern, Hampshire, Hart and Rutland.

The gap in life expectancy between women in the richest and poorest areas is 7.7 years. Women in the 10% least deprived areas in England live on average 86.4 years – higher than the overall life expectancy for women in any OECD country, except Japan, which has the highest level for all OECD countries at 87.3 years.

Jo Bibby, the director of health at the Health Foundation, said,  “The stark reality is that the poorest can expect to live shorter and less healthy lives than their richer counterparts.” Bibby said the government must focus on providing secure jobs, adequate incomes, decent housing and quality education to improve women’s health in the poorest areas, otherwise levelling up “will remain little more than a slogan”.

Clare Bambra, a professor of public health at Newcastle University said it highlighted the “vast scale” of health inequalities in England, which were “likely to worsen through the very real health threats posed by the rising cost of living”.

Hannah Davies, the health inequalities lead at the Northern Health Science Alliance,  described the findings as “shocking”. She added: “Inequalities between the richest and poorest in England are morally and economically unacceptable and the devastating impact they’re having on the poorest women is shown here clearly…”

“There’s really clear evidence that poverty is related to lower life expectancy,” says Jemima Olchawski, chief executive of the Fawcett Society. “Over a decade of austerity and rising poverty levels have hit women hardest. They’re more likely to be working on the lowest incomes, to be lone parents or to retire with a lower pension.”

Women in England’s poorest areas die younger than in most OECD countries | Life expectancy | The Guardian

As the mid-terms approach, the media circus is in full flow and it appears the aim is to keep the public’s eyes as far away from reality and the real issues as possible. There are issues that should be the primary focus of the media, placing them squarely in front of the electorate and the candidates. But they aren’t and they won’t be because the news outlets support the status quo. 

The only reason the vast majority of Biden’s’s supporters haven’t abandoned him is the fear and loathing of Trump and his followers in the Republican Party. Lesser evilism remains Biden’s best hope in winning the Biden’s stakes popularity.  We hear it said countless times that while Biden has indeed been a colossal failure, voting for him is essential given the alternative is pro-Trumpers and although Biden has been a failure, Trump proved to be far worse. It has been said over and over again. No matter how bad the Democratic candidate may be, the Republican will be worse. Democratic voters have mostly resigned themselves to the idea that Biden is useless except for keeping a greater evil at bay. However, in every election, one candidate will always be less evil than the other. Deciding on that basis not merely does no good; it actually does harm. The effect of the policy of choosing the “lesser evil” is that over time it makes the choice worse. At first, the “lesser of two evils” voting doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. After all, it rests on the principle that what matters for choosing between X and Y is their relative merit, and then one should choose the better (or less bad) of the two. However, it is really all about scaring people into one particular camp. Lesser evil proponents create apathy, not conviction. Voting for the lesser evil produces never-ending cycles of voter dissatisfaction and disillusionment with those elected, both Democrats and Republicans.

Biden made no secret during his election campaign of his “moderate” political outlook. A central theme of his campaign, in fact, was the need for bipartisanism to counter the trend toward politics becoming too “ideological”. Those who now criticize Biden for being yet another spineless Democrat were not paying attention to the statements he made. Biden made no secret of his deeply-held principle of never sticking to any principle. He has never claimed to be anything but a “pragmatist”, which is a nicer way of saying “opportunist”. Biden has not budged from his belief that the solutions to the problems plaguing the United States can be found lying in the middle of the political road, so to speak. Biden’s drive to the Presidency, from promises so vague as to almost defy analysis, from its inception through its planning to its execution was known for its single-minded cynicism. He left many Trump Administration policies intact. How can Biden be blamed for all those false expectations? The signs that Biden was more of a wolf in sheep’s clothing were there for all to see. Biden, for all his syrup-drenched liberal rhetoric and strong grand-fatherly likeability factor, has always supported a free market system. Despite evident disillusionment with Biden  by the Democratic Party progressives, they have urged people to work for change through the Democratic Party – a recipe for endless failure and frustration. While protesting that we are not being rewarded sufficiently in forging our chains, we then cooperate in putting the shackles to our own ankles by voting for latest slick marketing ploy coming from the mouth of the newest political product of Corporate State Inc. It’s no secret that the American electoral system is mainly public relations extravaganza, a marketing affair. 

Give people two options, neither of which they find appealing, convince them that a third option, a genuinely attractive one such as socialism, is just not practicable and that they must thus choose between the bad and the worse, and you’ll be able to get them to choose something they would never otherwise choose. You can get people to do anything that way. You start by offering them a choice between something that is just marginally unpleasant and something that is really repellent. Once you’ve gotten them to choose the marginally unpleasant, you raise the bar (just a little mind you, you don’t want them to catch on to what you’re doing). Now you offer them a choice between something to which they have really strong objections and something that is deeply offensive. Most people, of course, will choose the former, if they think it’s either that or the latter. Now you offer people who’ve become inured to living under objectionable conditions a choice between even worse conditions and something that is truly unthinkable. It’s not a mystery what they will choose. If you vote for a candidate whose farther right than you would prefer that is shifting the political “center” to the right. Republicans aren’t responsible for the increasingly conservative face of the Democratic Party. Democrats are. If we are ever going to see a real political change of the sort progressive reformers purport to want, then we are going to have to be brave enough to risk losing elections. Which shouldn’t require all that much bravery when one thinks about it, because real progressives have been losing elections for as long as anyone can remember. If you vote for a democrat because you think of yourself as progressive you are wasting your vote because what you are actually saying is that you are willing to support a candidate who is not really progressive, that the Democrats can continue their relentless march to the right and that you will back them all the way. That is, if you vote for a Democrat because you say you are progressive, you are saying one thing and doing another. But actions, as everyone knows, speak louder than words. You can go on posturing about how progressive you are, but if you vote for a Democrat that posturing is empty.

The rallying cry for a voter boycott movement is, “if voting changed anything, they’d abolish it.” It is not difficult to sympathize with that sentiment; however, it is self-defeating. By doing nothing non-voters simply make it easier for plutocrats to dominate. They will claim legitimacy even if only just 5 percent of them cast their ballot. The capitalist class would simply interpret the failure to vote as proving people lacked the responsibility, education and intelligence to wisely manage their affairs. Not voting is an abdication of democracy. Talking and protesting are not effective enough and usually result in manipulation and endless debates with little or no concrete actions. Nor do we want to see cracked heads and pepper-sprayed innocents. Voting is one of the foundations of a free and democratic society, and it is the responsibility of every worker to do everything in their power to ensure the continuation of our hard-fought-for freedoms. We must either become more democratic, with more voter participation or sit back and watch the U.S. fall deeper and deeper into neo-fascism. 

We need to start voting for what we really want. Instead of the lesser of the evils, for a change, let’s vote for what we really want. People need to decide exactly what it is they’re working for and it cannot be simply another version of capitalism. The environmental threat to the planet is rapidly approaching and the only hope for the planet and humanity is to bring down the whole charade of capitalism as soon as possible. The absence of organization and serious discussion about moving forward from mere protest is troubling.

 Sophie McCann, advocacy officer at MSF UK, said, “…we are urging the Home Office to reconsider: they must drop the inhumane policies in the borders bill and commit to providing safe and legal routes for all people fleeing war and persecution. Make no mistake, this government knows quite well what the impact of this policy will be – it is knowingly and willingly subjecting refugees to horrific suffering.” 

McCann said: “There are almost no safe ways for someone fleeing war, persecution or poverty to travel to the UK. Instead of helping those most in need, the nationality and borders bill will increase people’s risk of dying trying to get here.”

During a parliamentary debate last November – held the day after 27 people drowned in the Channel as they tried to cross from France – Patel assured MPs that the bill “does create safe and legal routes”. However, the Home Office has now admitted that the proposed legislation, which is due to go back to the House of Commons this week, in fact contains no provision to provide safe government-backed routes for asylum seekers.

Priti Patel accused of misleading parliament over controversial borders bill | Immigration and asylum | The Guardian

 In a new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), over 60 percent of corporations in Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Tennessee and Wisconsin paid zero state corporate income taxes in varying periods between 2015 and 2019.

 In Colorado, 71 percent of corporations didn’t pay income taxes between 2017 and 2019, and in Florida, a whopping 92 percent of corporations paid zero income taxes between 2016 and 2019.

Between 12 and 27 percent of corporations with $1 billion in taxable income were able to dodge state corporate income taxes entirely over the four years studied.

 In a handful of states, like Ohio and Texas, corporations aren’t subject to corporate income taxes at all.

the effective state and local corporate tax rate has fallen by half, despite surging corporate profits. In 1989, it was 5.2 percent; as of 2017, it was only 2.6 percent. If effective tax rates for corporations hadn’t started declining in the last few decades, EPI finds, then state and local governments would have taken in $57 billion more in revenue. 

As revenues are declining, states are becoming more and more reliant on federal funding and taxes paid by regular households in order to maintain roads and bridges, provide clean water, and fund education. The data suggests that reduced revenues likely have a direct impact on spending. Declining revenues also negatively affect Black and women workers, who are disproportionately employed with state and local tax revenues.

Along with forcing regular taxpayers to shoulder much of the tax burden, there is no evidence that any of these state and local tax cuts “trickle down” to workers, the report finds. Instead, these tax cuts appear to benefit the richest Americans the most. 

Mary Kay Henry, international president of the Service Employees International Union, expressed frustration over how easy it is for corporations to dodge paying state and local taxes.

“It’s absolutely unconscionable that while the two million members of SEIU who clean buildings, care for the elderly and provide essential public services pay their taxes every year, billionaires and their corporations are getting a free ride.” 

Majority of Corporations Don’t Pay State Income Taxes in at Least 7 States (truthout.org)

Between 2014 and 2018, the 25 wealthiest Americans collectively earned $401bn, but paid just $13.6bn – about 3.4% of that – in taxes, according to a ProPublica investigation into the finances of the wealthiest Americans.

ProPublica looked at the tax records of the top 0.001% wealthiest Americans, using a trove of tax filings from 2013 to 2018 to dive into the wealth of the 400 richest Americans, all of whom earn more than $110m a year.

 It found that the wealthy benefit from lower tax rates on financial assets and deductions from charitable contributions to keep their taxes low.

The difference in tax rates between the wealthiest Americans and the average worker comes down to two critical factors.  

First, the wealthy have their income taxed at a lower rate because much of their wealth is accumulated through investments, like stocks; and second, the wealthy are able to use large charitable donations to get huge deductions.

Instead of the standard paycheck that most American workers get, which includes deductions for social security and Medicare taxes, the wealthiest Americans get their income through financial assets, like stocks, that are generally taxed at a lower rate. The long-term capital gains rate has been 20% since 2013.

Billionaires in tech pay the lowest tax rate, an average of 17% of their income, largely because their wealth comes from such investment income. Bill Gates, whose income from 2013 to 2018 was an average of $2.85bn a year, paid an average effective federal income tax rate of 18.4%. Lauren Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, earned an average of $1.57bn and paid an average tax rate of 14.8%. Ten of the top 15 earners on the list are billionaires who made their money in tech.

In comparison, the average single worker earning $45,000 paid an average tax rate of 21%. A married couple with one child who earns $200,000 paid a rate of 26%. In 2018, the highest top rate on ordinary income, which excludes investments, was 37%, yet the average tax rate for the 400 wealthiest Americans was 22% from 2013 to 2018.

Executives and founders of private equity companies, of which there are 43 on the list, can get taxed at a lower rate through a loophole that allows them to report fees from managing clients’ money as an investment income, which is taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income.

Along with getting taxed at a lower rate through having an investment income, the wealthiest Americans can also write off huge chunks of their income by deducting large charitable donations. Michael Bloomberg, who earned an average of $2.05bn a year from 2013 to 2018, had 66% of his income deducted, giving him one of the lowest tax rates of the group – 4.1%.

Wealthiest Americans pay just 3.4% of income in taxes, investigation reveals | US income inequality | The Guardian

 Refugees fleeing conflicts or persecution do not have the luxury of entering Britain legally. If they had the time and opportunity to apply for a UK visa they would not in essence be refugees. Seeking asylum routinely involves entering a territory without prior permission.

Regards the Boris Johnson and Priti Patel planned deportation of refugees Gillian Triggs, the assistant high commissioner at the UNHCR,  accused the UK of “attempting to shift its burden to a developing country” and warned that the arrangement signed off by Patel “would not comply with the UK’s international legal responsibilities”, adding: “All the indications are that it will be unworkable.”

The proposals seemed designed to appeal to anti-migrant sentiment in the UK, she suggested.

 Triggs said, “… we are in an environment in which populist governments will appeal to their rightwing, anti-migrant sentiment and this would presumably be part of that.”

Triggs also warned that the UK was introducing a discriminatory approach towards refugees, offering an uncapped scheme for asylum seekers from Ukraine and a “draconian” system for refugees from other countries.

“At the political level, we are seeing levels of discrimination,” Triggs said. “We are deeply concerned that the processes appear to be discriminatory. One of the fundamental principles of international law is non-discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnicity or nationality.”

Rwanda’s population density is almost double that of Britain’s. It is a country almost twice as crowded as ours. Yet per capita it already hosts five times as many refugees as the UK. As well as hosting Congolese and Burundian refugees, Rwanda has recently offered itself as a host country for the emergency evacuation of refugees trapped in dire conditions in Libya.  Rwanda is among the world’s 25 poorest countries. The UK is among the world’s 10 richest countries. 

UN refugee agency condemns Boris Johnson’s Rwanda asylum plan | Immigration and asylum | The Guardian

 Last month there was a lot of fuss about the non-dom status of Akshata Murthy, wife of the Chancellor Rishi Sunak. This meant she did not pay tax in the UK on her income from elsewhere (she is the daughter of a big Indian IT boss and is said to be richer than the queen).

Socialists do not take sides on how the capitalists divide up the payment of taxes among themselves, but one aspect of this whole discussion was well worthy of comment. Many reports referred to Murthy’s earnings. But her income, from dividends and profits, was certainly not earned by her.

Workers earn when they sell their labour power for a wage, whether it is in the factory, office, shop, call centre, school, hospital, building site or what have you. They have to work for an employer, enabling whoever employs them to make a profit.

In contrast is unearned income, which is ‘income not acquired through work. Examples of unearned income, also known as passive income, include interest from savings accounts, bond interest, alimony, and dividends from stocks’ (Investopedia). The dividends, and presumably various forms of interest too, constitute Murthy’s income, which is certainly not earned in the ways that the wages or salaries of the vast majority of people are earned.

So when you read about the supposed ‘earnings’ of the super-rich, the Musks, the Zuckerbergs, think a little about what that means. They do not get their vast wealth from their own labour and do not earn it: they become rich through exploiting the rest of us. ‘Unearned income’ is in their case a euphemism for exploitation.

PB