British workers’ living standards dropped in May at a record rate after pay rises failed to keep pace with inflation.

Earnings growth increased across the private and public sector by 4.3% in the three months to May excluding bonuses, the Office for National Statistics said, but that left pay down by 2.8% year on year – a record fall.

The TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, said that “UK workers are suffering the worst pay squeeze in modern history”.

Torsten Bell, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said it was “staggering” that the top 1% of earners – those with pay packets above £170,000 – had secured an 11% pay rise.

UK living standards fall at record rate as inflation soars | UK unemployment and employment statistics | The Guardian

Crises are not caused by the evil machinations of individuals; they have their root cause in the way a society is organised. Surely, it is not now doubted that wars are born of the fight for spoils between capitalists. Throughout the last hundred years, the economic objects of the various wars have stood out so clearly 

The only way in which mankind can bring about a social change and build a fraternal society, free of war, is to establish socialism. This will come about as the conscious act of a socialist working-class. Modern war arises from the conflicting economic interests of the various national capitalist groups. The competitive nature of capitalist society sets one corporation against another and which, in the world at large, sets one government against another over the capture of markets for exports, over access to raw materials, the control of trade routes and over the occupation of strategic points. These disputes take the form of intricate manoeuvres in the political, diplomatic and military fields over the control of spheres of influence. he important fact is that these disputes are inseparable from capitalism and that they go on all the time. That is why governments maintain armed forces. That is why the long history of international organisations and conferences for disarmament and peace is a history of failure. This is the basic explanation of the global wars of capitalism which have been going on all the time and of the continual state of tension in which capitalism lives. The inevitable result of all this is that military conflict is part of our lives as long as we live under capitalism.

Under such situations, it is futile to take a moral stand against violence in itself. Many peace campaigners have proved their sincerity and courage, but this does not alter the fact that their views are out of touch with reality. The only way in which war can be removed from our lives is to remove capitalism and replace it with socialism. It requires that a socialist working-class democratically gain control of the machinery of government for the purpose of abolishing capitalism and establishing socialism. Wealth will be produced solely for use and not for the profit of a minority.

This will remove the basic cause of war and will therefore remove the apparatus of war—the armed forces and their weapons. The working-class of the world must first understand and want a new socialist society. They must, in other words, free themselves from ideas which at present keep capitalism in being and consciously choose the new world in which men and women can truly live in harmony and build a world fit for human beings.

The Socialist Party advocates for the removal of a system of society which works out to the detriment of the many. The peace campaigners are out for an alteration of government whereby the wars between capitalist countries can be reduced or abolished. Peace propagandists by no means are united in condemning capitalist society, and they are mostly opposed to a real change in the system altogether. The Socialist Party denounces capitalism and  declares in favour of a new system wherein capital and capitalist governments cease to exist.

To reiterate, the Socialist Part’s attitude to war is that war as we know it is produced in the main by the conflict between the interests of capitalists of various nations. It is born of the rivalry between sellers of goods for profit, and it can only die when selling for profit is abolished. In other words, the socialist theory holds and capitalist practice proves that only by ending the entire capitalist system can war with all its attendant horrors cease. 

All sorts of appeals are made to the Socialist Party to join forces with “anti-war” groups, but it is deaf to all such cries. Not because we do not yearn for the cessation of the war. By no means so. The Socialist Party knows full well the horrors that are always following in the wake of war. We know and feel the wreckage of human ties, the break-up of family life, the sorrow and suffering arising from the brutal carnage. But there are two important reasons why we cannot associate with the various “Stop the War” organisations.

Firstly, because we abide by the dictates of the class struggle. Because we stand for socialism and they do not. Because we refuse to associate with those who support the capitalist class during “peace” time and who fight for the subjection of the working class. Therefore we cannot ally ourselves with these pro-capitalists. We refuse to lower the socialist red flag to march with the enemies of socialism. We know that, given the realisation of the whole of the peace programme, the terrors and misery of working-class slavery would be left untouched for the better. The very men who seek our help for “peace” now would be amongst the first to go to “war” against the working class.

The second reason for which we cannot unite with the stop the war movement is that it is impotent for its very object. Even if we held that it was policy to unite to stop the war it would be foolish to join in the programme of these societies. What machinery have they for stopping wars? None. Appeals to capitalists are their general methods. They propose to leave in power the makers of wars, the capitalist class. They intend to continue the profit-making system which itself produces commercial rivalry and inevitably international warfare. If you wish to stop all wars you must stop all commercial rivalry and to do this you must work for socialism.

The Socialist Party is not a specifically pacifist organisation. We are opposed to war on socialist grounds in that wars today are fought over rival capitalist interests concerning sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets and investment outlets and strategic points and areas to protect these. This is why we say that members of the majority class of those obliged to work for a wage for a living have no interests at stake in them and so should refuse to take part in the killing and maiming of their fellow workers from some other country. We also consider that a socialist majority that has won control of political power democratically should reserve the right to use armed force, if necessary, to deal with any armed resistance to the establishment of socialism by some recalcitrant pro-capitalist minority should this occur. 

 “This is not ‘the new normal. The climate crisis will continue to escalate and get worse as long as we stick our heads in the sand and prioritize profit and greed over people and planet. We are still sleepwalking towards the edge.” Greta Thunberg

There is nothing natural about famines in the twenty-first century. While a complex set of factors drove food insecurity, the slide into mass death is man-made, driven by international inaction. This crisis was predictable and preventable. It has been unfolding despite two years of repeated warnings. The lack of action reflects a wider failure of the international system. The global response is failing and major donors waiting for others to step up will cost thousands of lives.

It is already too late to stop people from dying, but there is still a window of opportunity to scale aid efforts to reduce the levels of death and suffering. Yet the international system is sitting in neutral at precisely the moment it needs to be accelerating.

 The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is calling for urgent action in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, with specific concern for intensifying famine in Somalia that has been dangerously neglected by the international community.  Today, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia make up 2% of the world’s population but are home to 70% of the world’s most extremely food insecure.

By the time a famine is officially declared later this year, it will be too late to save hundreds of thousands of lives. IRC teams on the ground report that people are dying already from starvation. Yet the crisis has struggled to attract the attention and funding it desperately requires.

The number of people going hungry in the region is set to surpass 20 million by September – nearly a doubling compared to late 2021. 

Over three million of these people are already experiencing the most extreme levels of hunger, increasing their risk of death. 

The worst affected is Somalia, which is entering a famine that the IRC expects to be even more severe than the 2011 famine that killed 260,000 people. It is a country hurtling towards a catastrophic famine. Adjusting for total population, that would be on par with 6.5 million deaths in the United States, including more than 3 million children under 5 years old – the equivalent of more than six COVID-19 pandemics.  Presently in Somalia, food aid is only 20% funded, nutrition 18% and health 10%. 

This year, Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya are in the middle of their longest, most severe drought in decades and have been disproportionately affected by the Ukraine conflict, given they were reliant on Russia and Ukraine for 90% of their wheat imports. Increased global food prices would not have had such a significant impact if drought had not already devastated agriculture. And the worst is yet to come. Reduced access to fertilizers coincided with the region’s main planting season, so the effects will not be fully seen until future harvests later this year and next year.

What we are seeing is a failure of political will to apply lessons and act before it is too late. Promises and pledges are not translating into change for people in the world’s crisis zones. Funding for East Africa is falling far short of previous responses to past famine warnings around the world. Across East Africa today, an emergency appeal for the drought has received only 38% of the funds required for May to December 2022

The generous funding for Ukrainians stands in sharp contrast to severe underfunding in East Africa. While Ukraine represents 5% of the world’s humanitarian needs, it has received 20% of global aid this year and more than four times as much humanitarian funding as Somalia. Donors have provided $56 per Somali in need of aid compared to $121 per Ukrainian in need of aid.

A famine declaration will tell us when it is too late – that people are already dying en masse, not how many lives we can still save. Waiting to respond based on retrospective data to formally declare famine conditions will condemn hundreds of thousands to unnecessary death. Every day of inaction is a matter of life or death.

Watchlist Crisis Alert: Unnatural Disaster in East Africa – Somalia | ReliefWeb

IRC Report

https://tinyurl.com/4a2bktsz PDF

 In recent months, corporate bosses, its media lap-dogs and top Federal Reserve officials have pointed to workers’ wages as a factor in surging prices, which have pushed overall inflation in the United States to a four-decade high.

The AFL-CIO’s latest annual analysis of top executive pay was published Monday with the following conclusion: “CEOs, not working people, are causing inflation.”

The AFL-CIO’s new report attempts to reframe the national inflation discussion, emphasizing that while wage increases won by ordinary workers are drawing outsized attention from policymakers and executives, CEO pay hikes significantly outpaced the wage increases of rank-and-file employees last year. 

“Runaway CEO pay is a symptom of greedflation—when companies increase prices to boost corporate profits and create windfall payouts for corporate CEOs,” the new analysis states.

The report shows that “in 2021, CEOs of S&P 500 companies received, on average, $18.3 million in total compensation.”

“CEO pay rose 18.2%, faster than the U.S. inflation rate of 7.1%,” the analysis finds. “In contrast, U.S. workers’ wages fell behind inflation, with worker wages rising only 4.7% in 2021. The average S&P 500 company’s CEO-to-worker pay ratio was 324-to-1.”

The highest-paid executive among S&P 500 companies last year was Expedia’s Peter Kern, who brought in an eye-popping $296 million in total compensation.

Other executives at the top of the 2021 list were Amazon CEO Andy Jassy ($213 million), Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger ($179 million), Apple CEO Tim Cook ($99 million), and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon ($84 million).

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond said that “last year, Amazon delivered the highest CEO-to-worker pay ratio in the S&P 500 Index with a pay ratio of 6,474 to 1.”

“Amazon’s new CEO Andy Jassy received $212.7 million in total compensation,” he noted. “What did Amazon’s median worker earn last year? Just $32,855… Corporate profits and runaway CEO pay are responsible for causing inflation, not workers’ wages.”

Economist Dean Baker similarly argued that soaring executive pay is contributing to inflation, which has eroded modest wage gains that many ordinary workers have seen since late 2020.

“We… transfer tens of billions of dollars upward to CEOs and other top corporate executives through the corrupt corporate governance structure that we have instituted,” writes Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “In this context, it is not surprising that even mediocre CEOs can get paychecks in the tens of millions of dollars annually. And, it is not just the CEO. If the CEO gets $20 million, the chief financial officer might get $10 to $12 million, and even third-tier executives may get $2 to $3 million.”

‘CEOs, Not Working People, Are Causing Inflation’: Report Shows Soaring Executive Pay (commondreams.org)

 America’s massive lead problem came into focus in 2015, when thousands of mostly Black residents in the city of Flint, Michigan, were found to have been poisoned by lead in their drinking water. Since then it has become clear that this problem is systemic and widespread, and that many other Americans lack access to water that is reliably safe and clean. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said there are no safe levels of lead, which is now recognized as a neurotoxin that can cause lower IQ, developmental delays and behavioral problems in children, as well as kidney and cardiovascular problems in adults. But there are still up to 12.8m houses and apartment buildings connected to the water system with lead lines in the US, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Biden had promised to rid the nation of lead contamination of its water supply. Yet the 2021 infrastructure spending package approved by Congress contained only enough federal funding to replace a third of the country’s lead pipes – leaving cities to figure the rest out for themselves.

The issue is now of low-income residents being left out of lead line replacements – or even getting more lead because of partial fixes. Studies have found that black and brown children are far more likely to have elevated levels of lead in their blood and to live in older homes with lead lines, yet it tends to be wealthier white residents who take advantage of local programs that offer property owners loans to replace lead pipes.

Cities that are undertaking lead replacement programs often ask homeowners to pay to replace the portions under their private property. If owners don’t pay, some cities essentially cut the lines in half, removing the city-owned portions of the lead lines but leaving the lines on private property intact. One problem, for those in buildings with no replacements, is that they still have lead pipes. Another is that disrupting or cutting the old pipes can cause more lead to break loose and flow into the residents’ water.

“We’re just dealing with so many other things in our community,” said Monica Huertas, a social worker, who runs a neighborhood environmental group. “It’s the water, it’s the soil, it’s the jobs, it’s the color of your skin … Our community’s overburdened and we’re all overworked and underpaid.”

Revealed: US cities refusing to replace toxic lead water pipes unless residents pay | Water | The Guardian

 A report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released last week finds that since the $7.25 an hour wage was established in 2009, its real value has declined 27 percent, bringing the value of the federal minimum wage to its lowest point in 66 years.

Further, the value of the minimum wage is 40 percent lower when compared to its highest historical value of about $12.12 in 1968 after adjustment for inflation.

The last time that the federal minimum wage was lower than its current value was in 1956, when it was worth $7.19 in 2022 dollars.

 The MIT living wage calculator has found that, for instance, a single mother with two children making the federal minimum wage would need to work 235 hours a week – more hours than exist in a week – in order to make a livable wage.

Economists say that, if the minimum wage were raised in proportion to the productivity gains over the decades, the federal minimum wage would be $31.67 an hour. If it were raised alongside Wall Street executive bonuses since 1985, it would be $44.12.

 Although fast food and other service workers have been waging a campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, even that number – over twice the federal minimum wage – is now only worth the equivalent of $11.65 in 2012 dollars, which is the year that Fight for $15 began.

The Value of the Federal Minimum Wage Is at a 66-Year Low (truthout.org)

 While Europe swelters under an unprecedented heatwave, making daily life intolerable, in the Horn of Africa, a persistent prolonged drought is making life unliveable.

Four consecutive rainy seasons have failed. Water wells have dried up, crops have withered and millions of livestock have died, resulting in mass displacement.

“The impact of the drought on children is devastating,” said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Director for Emergency Operations. “In Somali region alone, over 900,000 people have been displaced. Drought not only means lack of water. It means that children are going hungry and thirsty every day. They are forced to walk miles in search of food and water and often they have to drink from contaminated water sources. This leads to malnutrition and other killer preventable diseases like diarrhea.”

“This climate-induced crisis is a malnutrition crisis for children and not just in Ethiopia but across Africa,” said Fontaine. 

Malnutrition rates are increasing at an alarming rate due to the drought. Across the four drought-impacted regions, an estimated 600,000 children will require treatment for severe acute malnutrition by the end of the year. 

In the Somali region, there has been a 43 per cent increase in severely acute malnutrition admissions for under 5 children in May 2022 compared to May 2021.

 The side-effect of the war in Ukraine is also set to tip more families in Africa over the edge and will exacerbate food insecurity with increasing fuel prices and reduced availability of wheat imports. Ethiopia imports 67 per cent of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

“This means prices of cooking oil, bread and wheat flour are reaching new records in local markets and even families not living in humanitarian crisis cannot meet their daily food needs.” said Fontaine.

UNICEF Emergency Director, Manuel Fontaine, visits drought stricken Somali region and calls for an immediate scaled up humanitarian response to save millions of children – Ethiopia | ReliefWeb

The Rail Delivery Group, which represents the rail companies, said it had rejected a cost-of-living pay rise for RMT memberson the grounds that it would be ‘unfair to taxpayers’ given the emergency funding the government had provided to the industry during the pandemic.

 Yet just last week, the UK’s largest train operator, FirstGroup, boasted to investors that profits for this year were “ahead of expectation” and pledged to resume dividend payouts. The company handed its shareholders £500m in December 2021.

Abellio, which runs Greater Anglia, East Midlands Railway and West Midlands Railway, contributed €355m (£305m) to the profits of its sole shareholder – the Dutch state railway – according to latter’s 2021 annual report.

UK Treasury chief secretary Simon Clarke said private and public sector workers should exercise “pay discipline” and take real-terms pay cuts to curb inflation. However, rail bosses have largely seen their pay continue to rise, or faced only superficial cuts.

The CEOs of the six biggest train companies took home a combined salary of more than £5m in 2020.

In the last financial year, FirstGroup CEO Matthew Gregory was paid £840,000 – 6% more than he received in 2019-2020 and 30 times more than what the company’s lowest-paid workers earned, according to its latest annual accounts. 

By contrast, rail companies offered the RMT a 2% pay rise, with an additional 1% contingent on accepting changes to their terms and conditions, in their latest round of negotiations. 

Go-Ahead Group, which operates the Govia Thameslink Railway, paid its interim chief financial officer a salary of £100,000 a month from September 2021 to March 2022 while it recruited a permanent replacement. The company recently announced it would resume paying dividends in 2022, having last paid out £30m to shareholders in 2019.

Rail strikes: Top train firm paid shareholders £500m last year | openDemocracy

 President Volodymyr Zelenskyy banned men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving Ukraine albeit with various exemptions.

Men who seek to leave Ukraine choose the route via Crimea, which was annexed by Russia. Others enrol in a foreign university, find a job as a volunteer emergency aid driver or try to cross the so-called green border on foot.

Social networks offer various tips. The Instagram account “Departure for Everyone” has more than 14,000 followers. 

 “Legal Move Abroad,” a Telegram channel, has more than 53,000 followers.

 And its backup channel, “Help at the Border,” has more than 28,000. 

In May, Odesa lawyer Alexander Gumirov launched a petition demanding Kyiv lift the ban on men travelling abroad and calling instead for the recruitment of volunteers. In just a few days, the petition gathered 25,000 signatures. Gumirow considers the ban pointless. “If a person wants to defend his free, beloved native country, his home and his family, there is no need for a ban on leaving,” he said, adding that a ban is unnecessary, too, if people don’t want to defend their home.

How Ukrainian men try to get around the ban to leave the country | Europe | News and current affairs from around the continent | DW | 19.07.2022