if the federal minimum wage had grown at the same rate as Wall Street bonuses over the past three and a half decades, it would currently be $61.75 an hour instead of $7.25.

According to fresh data from the New York State Comptroller, the average bonus dished out to Wall Street employees jumped 20% to a record $257,500 in 2021 as big banks reported huge profits despite widespread havoc caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Last year’s average Wall Street bonus was the highest since 2006, prior to the Great Recession.

The comptroller’s office points out that while the securities industry comprises just 5% of private-sector employment in New York City, it makes up one-fifth of total private-sector wages.

According to fresh data from the New York State Comptroller, the average bonus dished out to Wall Street employees jumped 20% to a record $257,500 in 2021 as big banks reported huge profits despite widespread havoc caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Last year’s average Wall Street bonus was the highest since 2006, prior to the Great Recession.

The comptroller’s office points out that while the securities industry comprises just 5% of private-sector employment in New York City, it makes up one-fifth of total private-sector wages.

Taking the new figures into account, Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies notes in a report that the average Wall Street bonus has soared by 1,743% since 1985.

“By contrast, typical American workers lost earnings power in 2021,” Anderson writes, noting that high inflation has eroded the modest wage gains seen by ordinary people. “Average weekly earnings for all U.S. private-sector employees rose by only 2% between January 2021 and January 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

Anderson adds. “While ordinary workers are struggling with rising costs for basic essentials, Wall Street bankers have seen their bonuses rise further into the stratosphere.”

‘Jaw-Dropping’: Wall Street Bonuses Have Soared 1,743% Since 1985 (commondreams.org)

A new analysis out Wednesday found the value of shares held by the CEOs of just eight fossil fuel corporations has surged by nearly $100 million since the start of the year—further evidence, experts say, that oil and fracking executives are capitalizing on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to consolidate their wealth.

The executives of fracking and liquefied natural gas (LNG) companies Cheniere, EQT, and EOG Resources; pipeline giants Kinder Morgan and Enbridge; and industry powerhouses Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil see Russia’s deadly assault, which began on February 24, as a “goldmine” and “are in a mad dash to profit” from it, according to researchers at Food & Water Watch.

“While carnage happens in Ukraine, these predators are taking advantage of global price increases that have sent company stocks soaring,” they wrote, adding:

 “The value of Cheniere CEO Jack Fusco’s company stock is up $25 million from January to March 10. ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods’ stock holdings have increased by $25 million over the same period. The value of Kinder Morgan CEO Steven Kean’s stock has jumped nearly $15 million. Some of these corporate leaders have sold shares to cash in on the crisis. ConocoPhillips’ Ryan Lance sold shares for $23 million in mid-February, while Chevron’s Michael Wirth sold $14 million in stock by late February.”

“This data shows that a small handful of fossil fuel CEOs are making enormous and unconscionable profits from this invasion and the ensuing humanitarian crisis,” Food & Water Watch research director Amanda Starbuck said in a statement.

Many fossil fuel firms, including those examined by Food & Water Watch, have rewarded investors with share buybacks and dividend bumps in recent months.

According to researchers, the eight companies under scrutiny “announced stock buybacks and repurchase authorizations in the last year totaling over $25 billion. It’s also enough to heat the homes of over 33 million people for the winter 

Fossil Fuel CEOs Making ‘Unconscionable Profits’ Amid Ukraine Crisis: Analysis (commondreams.org)

 Stephen Shenfield, a comrade in the World Socialist Party of the United States, will be participating at the launch of the State of the Region Report 2021 of the Center for Baltic and East European Studies at Sodertorn University, Stockholm, Sweden, entitled ‘The Many Faces of the Far Right in the Post-Communist Space’ with a paper on Russian nationalism. 

A virtual launch of the Report will be conducted on Zoom on April 4, during 3—5 pm Central European or UK Time. He will be one of the speakers.

For more details, program and Zoom link and to access or order the Report, please go to: 

https://www.sh.se/english/sodertorn-university/calendar/events/2022-04-04-launch-of-cbees-state-of-the-region-report-2021-the-far-right-in-the-post-communist-space

 нет войне

O Truth, how many falsehoods are broadcast in thy name

The USA and its allies in Europe won the Cold War when the USSR finally collapsed in 1991. It was a humiliating defeat for state-capitalist Russia. Ukraine, an area that had been contested for centuries, became an independent state. The violence which is an integral element of world capitalism has erupted yet again. Once again we see how capitalism cannot develop an effective means of preventing violence.  Force is a necessary part of capitalism.

The workers of the world have everything to gain by peaceful co-operation, and everything to lose by war. The principal causes of war can be abolished by destroying the political and economic supremacy of the exploiting class. Enough has been said over the year to show that those who are aware of the real forces at work in the modern capitalist world hold out little hope for a future in which war will not rear its ugly and brutal head.

 The only political organisation in this country to consistently hold and propagate the view, during that the League of Nations and then the United Nations would inevitably fail in its professed purpose of preventing war was the Socialist Party. We knew that peace would not come merely from the setting up of “right” machinery, nor would war come because we may lack this machinery. We knew that, given the capitalist system, with the competitive struggle for markets and its conflicts over spheres of influence, etc., war was inevitable. As a result, our analysis was not welcomed by the many peace groups. It is not sufficient to work simply for peace. Our task is to work for a new social order. 

 Problems still remain because the causes of war were not removed. When the capitalists are faced with threats to their interests they will not stop to consider the “rights” or “justice” of the case. They will not forfeit their “right” to act in their own interests. They will move to defend these regardless of the legalities of international law.

“…war, organised war, is not a human instinct. It is a highly planned and co-operative form of theft. And that form of theft began ten thousand years ago when the harvesters of wheat accumulated a surplus, and the nomads rose out of the desert to rob them of what they themselves could not provide.” Jacob Bronowski wrote in The Ascent of Man.

The decision on whether and when to use force is therefore dictated first and foremost by our national interests. In those specific areas where our vital or survival interests are at stake, our use of force will be decisive and, if necessary, unilateral.

The Socialist Party because it understands the nature of capitalism and its inevitable development refuses to be lulled by all sorts of reformers who pander to ignorance by claiming to have solutions for problems that are incapable of solution within the framework of capitalism. We are aware that this attitude is unpopular.

Research conducted by Chatham House last month indicated that most Belarusians do not want their country to participate in this war, and they believe that Belarusian involvement will have catastrophic ramifications. 

Belarusians can be divided into two groups based on whom they support.

The first group gets most of its information from state television, and supports Russia. 

The second group receives news from the independent media, and supports Ukraine. 

The first backs Lukashenko, the second opposes him. 

About 1,000 Belarusians have already been arrested for peacefully protesting; others are sabotaging infrastructure used by the Russian military. 

Hundreds have joined volunteer detachments of the Ukrainian army.

Most Belarusians are united in their objection to the war into which Lukashenko has dragged them. Whether they can make their voices heard or will be silenced again remains to be seen.

Lukashenko is dragging Belarus closer to a war that most of its citizens don’t want | Ryhor Astapenia | The Guardian

The new Nationality and Borders Bill will make the UK “one of the most anti-refugee countries in the world”, a leading international charity has said.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which employs over 35,000 personnel across 70 countries, branded Commons votes on Tuesday night “shameful” after the Tory MPs ripped out amendments proposed by the House of Lords. Tory MPs reinserted clauses that will allow the government to send refugees offshore and detain them indefinitely – a policy which aid groups say has caused “terrible suffering” when tried by Australia.

“It’s shameful that the government has rejected these moderate, sensible changes, which would have removed some of the cruellest elements of the Nationality and Borders Bill,” Sophie McCann, MSF’s UK advocacy officer, said. “In its current form, the bill will enshrine the UK as one of the most anti-refugee countries in the world, at a time when the devastating impact of war and conflict is absolutely evident.” 

Ms McCann added, “The government cannot be serious about this bill – it is unworkable, exorbitantly expensive, and inhumane, targeting some of the most vulnerable people in the world.” She continued, “There is nothing ‘fair’ about criminalising, detaining, pushing back and imprisoning refugees in offshore detention centres simply because of how they arrive in the UK. Closing off routes to the UK will only push people into the hands of criminal gangs and into more dangerous methods of attempting the journey.”

Pauline Chetcuti, head of policy at the charity Oxfam, said the bill “flagrantly undermines our obligations under international law”, adding, “The Ukrainian conflict painfully illustrates how innocent civilians everywhere have no choice but to flee conflict, persecution and violence. We need an asylum system that is based on the principle of protection, not punishment,” she said.

UK among ‘most anti-refugee countries in the world’ thanks to borders bill, says Médecins Sans Frontières | The Independent

 Living standards in Britain are expected to fall at the fastest annual rate since the mid-1950s and will take until at least 2024 to return to pre-Covid levels, according to the government’s independent economic forecaster.

 Real household disposable incomes per person would fall by 2.2% in 2022-23 as earnings from work fail to keep pace with soaring inflation.

It said the fall would be the biggest in a single financial year since modern records began in 1956-57, and that it would take until 2024-25 for inflation-adjusted living standards to return to their pre-pandemic level.

The OBR said the damage for families would mean lower levels of consumer spending in the UK economy.

The number of UK households struggling with large debts increased by a third in 2021, even before the winter rise in energy prices and the removal of the £20 uplift in universal credit payments.

Analysis and research carried out by the Jubilee Debt Campaign found that in September 2021 almost 10% of households reported that loan and interest repayments were a heavy financial burden, a 35% increase on the previous year’s figures.

Households also reported that their average monthly loan repayments reached a record £373 in 2021, up 22% on the year before and the highest figure for at least a decade.

Surging food and petrol costs have added to the strain on finances since the research was done, and the Jubilee Debt Campaign said the rising cost of living threatened “to push people who are already living on the edge further into debt and poverty”.

Citizens Advice said 5 million people had indicated that they would not be able to afford April’s energy price rises, while in a survey by the Money Advice Trust one in five adults said they were likely to borrow or use credit in the next three months to cover essentials.

 Analysis of households’ reports of repayments on unsecured debt, so does not include mortgages. It showed that in nominal terms and when inflation was adjusted for, these were running higher than over the past decade.

Joe Cox, the senior policy officer at Jubilee Debt Campaign, said, “The worsening debt crisis is toppling households up and down the country … “

Number of UK households with large debts rises by a third | Borrowing & debt | The Guardian

TRADE UNIONS AND THE TROTSKYIST LEFT 

Speaker:  Howard Moss.

Sunday morning, 27 March, at 10am BST. Please note that the clocks will have gone forward, therefore this is GMT + 1.

To participate in one of our talks contact Discord Admin for special invite or email spgb@worldsocialism.org.

 Often neglected because of its geographical isolation is the small World Socialist Party (New Zealand) that presently exists of a mere handful of members. This was not always the situation. It has had a presene in New Zealand for over 70 years, and existed as a formal socialist party since 1930.

Despite a series of progressive social legislation as well as being a fertile breeding ground for quack remedies to cure capitalism such as with the Douglas social credit movement, the history of New Zealand politics provides ample proof that reformism cannot solve the problems of the working class. Jacinda Ardern’s government has not succeeded in fixing poverty and it has offered many excuses for its failure.  Living costs in New Zealand have risen sharply as has the price of homes, however, workers’ wages have lagged a long way behind.  Ardern’s government has shown little enthusiasm for redistribution of the riches of the wealthy, much less abolish the rich which is the goal of we socialists. 

The extent of wealth inequality in supposedly egalitarian New Zealand has been laid bare by 2020 figures showing the wealthiest individuals have over NZ$140bn in trusts – and overall have nearly 70 times more assets than the typical New Zealander.



The data show that New Zealand’s wealthiest 1% of adults – around 38,000 people – have $141bn in trusts. Another 150,000 or so people, rounding out the rest of the wealthiest 5%, have trusts worth a further $122bn.



The 1% have an average of $3.6m held in trusts, $1.6m in shares and $470,000 in cash. Their debts are on average just $80,000. The typical person in the 1% is worth $6.2m.

In contrast, the typical New Zealander is worth only $92,000 – 68 times less. 



Among those in the poorest half of the country, meanwhile, the average person owns assets worth just $46,000 and has debts of $33,000, leaving them with a net worth of $12,000. They have negligible wealth in trusts and on average just $4,000 in the bank, leaving them vulnerable to sudden financial shocks.



When it comes to those on middle income – the 40% of the country who are above the mid-point but below the wealthiest 10% – have a higher net worth, on average $352,000, most of it tied up in housing.



Overall, the wealthiest 10% have 59% of all the country’s assets and the middle income is around 39%. That leaves the poorest half of the country with just 2%.

What distinguishes the WSP(NZ) from other political organisations is that it insists that it is futile to concentrate on just a part of capitalism’s problems. The only effective policy is to campaign exclusively for its abolition and replacement with socialism.

The New Zealand socialists have a fresh new website that they hope will introduce younger recruits to the Party. 

 https://www.worldsocialism.org/nz/