The Bank of England boss urged workers not to ask for big pay rises, to help stop prices rising out of control.

Loopholes in the U.S. tax code have made the payment of estate, gift, and generation-skipping taxes effectively optional for the “ultrawealthy.” Over the next 24 years, the richest American families could avoid paying about $8.4 trillion in taxes, while passing $21 trillion on to heirs. 

The Americans for Tax Fairness report—entitled Dynasty Trusts: Giant Tax Loopholes that Supercharge Wealth Accumulation – details how loopholes have made the payment of estate, gift, and generation-skipping taxes—collectively called wealth-transfer taxes—effectively optional for the “ultrawealthy” and thereby accelerate the “accumulation of dynastic wealth.”

“Ultrarich families use dynasty trusts—the term for a variety of wealth-accumulating structures that remain in place for multiple generations—to ensure their fortunes cascade down to children, grandchildren, and beyond undiminished by wealth-transfer taxes,” the report explains.

Some U.S. states, such as South Dakota, have even changed their laws on dynasty trusts to attract wealthy residents.

The lobbyist group, Patriotic Millionaires, said, “There’s no denying our economy and democracy are rigged in favor of the ultra-wealthy. When the richest 100 Americans have 60,000 times more political power than the bottom 90% of people— it’s time to get dynastic wealth under control.”

Tax-Dodging Billionaire Dynasties Could Cost US $8.4 Trillion: Report (commondreams.org)

 Starbucks on Tuesday reported a 31% increase in profits during the final three months of 2021, but the massive Seattle-based coffee chain nevertheless announced plans to further raise its prices this year. 

Starbucks’ revenue grew to $8.1 billion at the tail-end of 2021, a 19% jump compared to the previous year.

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson saw his compensation soar by 39% to $20.4 million in 2021.

Starbucks employees are increasingly fighting back against their low wages and poor working conditions by launching union drives.

Historian Andy Lewis argued that Starbucks’ explanation for the impending price increases amounts to nothing more than “word salad to hide corporate greed.”

Starbucks Profits Soar by 31%—But It’s Raising Prices Anyway (commondreams.org)

Almost daily, the pledges made at COP26 are being broken or bent. 

A politician linked to wide-scale deforestation in the 1990s and his Panama Papers-named associate, a Singaporean shell company, and the owner of an agricultural consultancy in Australia are among the figures behind a carbon trading deal worth an estimated $80bn in Borneo.

The Nature Conservation Agreement (NCA) ostensibly protects 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of jungle in the Malaysian state of Sabah from logging for the next 100 years.

But the deal was made in absolute secrecy and without credible due diligence, a tender process or public consultation, according to Indigenous leaders, activists and NGOs.

The NCA gives 30 percent of Sabah’s revenue from carbon credit sales – estimated to be $24bn over the life of the contract – to a company in Singapore, Hoch Standard, with no history in carbon trading.

An estimated 25,000 Indigenous people live in forest reserves in Sabah, with an undocumented number living on the fringes of reserves making up 39 different ethnic groups. Yet Indigenous leaders in the state, where about 60 percent of the population belong to native ethnic groups, say they were kept in the dark about the deal.

“The whole thing was very hush-hush,” Adrian Banie Lasimbang, a former Malaysian senator and Indigenous activist.

A whistleblower with firsthand knowledge of the deal told Al Jazeera, speaking on condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation.

“ Sabah could become the world leader in the monetisation of natural capital and carbon credits. But instead, we created a template other countries can use to pilfer and abuse the system.”

‘Very hush-hush’: Borneo’s $80bn carbon deal stokes controversy | Business and Economy News | Al Jazeera

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), an independent think tank, shows the growing gap between productivity and worker pay since 1979, during which productivity grew 3.5 times as much as pay.

 If wages had kept pace with productivity, then the median hourly wage (adjusted for inflation) in 2017 would have been $33.10. The actual median hourly wage in 2017 was $23.15, a gap of $9.95 per hour.

In 2017 alone, then, the average worker lost $17,385 — because wages have not kept up with productivity.

This means — in 2017 alone—the total amount of income lost to all production and nonsupervisory workers was $1.78 trillion.

 Total household debt has increased as workers take out loans to cover the wages they used to get.

Labor’s average share of GDP in the 1950s was 63.6%. In the 2010s, that share was 59.4% — a downward shift of 4.2 percent, about $1 trillion of lost labor compensation each year. 

 Corporate profits have been soaring. Companies have been paying employees an increasingly smaller share of the value their labor produces. they increased dividend payments to shareholders.

In 2017 alone, dividends paid by U.S. businesses totalled $1.5 trillion. Between 1979 and 2020, domestic corporations paid shareholders $27 trillion.

The wealth workers should have received has, arguably, instead been given to shareholders through dividends — a mechanism which functions like an upward distribution of wealth. 

Of the $1.8 trillion not paid to workers in 2017, $1.5 trillion went to shareholders instead. The richest 10% of Americans own 84% of the value of shares of stock.

For the 2017 tax year, aggregate data from the IRS shows that 83% of dividends went to filers with an adjusted gross income of more than $100,000 — roughly the top 18% of filers.

What’s more, 37% of all dividend income went to the top 0.3% of filers — those who took home more than $1 million. These individual tax filings don’t account for the dividends given to institutional investors — the primary shareholders of publicly traded companies, which include financial management companies and pension funds.

 In a Single Year, $1.78 Trillion Was Taken From the Working Class – In These Times

 Myanmar’s annual employment losses in 2021 amounted to an estimated 8%, or 1.6 million jobs lost, indicating a sizable decrease from employment of 20.5 million in 2020, the International Labor Organization (ILO) stated in its January 2022 report. The estimates cover the whole labor force of Myanmar, including formal and informal economy workers. The country’s construction, garment, tourism and hospitality industries were among the hardest hit, according to the report, as were rural farmers.

25 million people (almost half Myanmar’s population) were living in poverty by the end of 2021, and 14.4 million people are now in need of humanitarian assistance, the ILO reported. The number of people living in poverty in Myanmar is expected to have more than doubled from before the pandemic, according to the World Bank.

The World Bank, meanwhile, said in its January report that Myanmar’s economy is about 30% smaller than it might have been in the absence of the pandemic and the military coup. International sanctions, a halt in foreign aid and the withdrawal of foreign investors have all pushed Myanmar to the brink of economic collapse.  Businesses all over Myanmar are facing bankruptcy.

Myanmar on brink of economic collapse one year after military coup | Asia | An in-depth look at news from across the continent | DW | 01.02.2022

 With the Blessing of the State

O bless the British bourgeois state indeed

For its many benefits and largesse,

There are so, so many hardships and distress

As profit taking triumphs over need.

Government employs executive power

To mitigate the very worst effects,

But whichever party the voter elects

Prospects for many are reduced and dour.

There are honest politicians for sure,

With such good intentions, trying their best,

Yet for all their reforms, what isn’t addressed

In this rich world, why do the poor stay poor?

The fiscal blessings the state arranges,

Aim to ensure nothing really changes.

D. A.

All Socialist Party meetings/talks/discussions are currently online on Discord. Please contact spgb.discord@worldsocialism.org for instructions on how to join. 

Friday 4 February 7.30pm GMT

 811 million people – or 10 percent – of the world’s population go to bed hungry each night, 161 million more than the previous year.

Afghanistan is among the highest levels of food insecurity around the world. At least 37.7 million of its population of 40 million people – 93 percent – do not have enough food.

A record 23 million Afghans face acute hunger, with nearly 9 million a step away from famine, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

Two in five children (38 percent) under the age of five face chronic malnutrition – that is inadequate nutrition over a long period of time – which has led to stunted growth. Up to 1 million children under five are at risk of dying from malnutrition.

Yemen is one of the world’s poorest countries. According to the latest figures from the WFP, nearly half of the country (14.3 million) of 30 million people do not have enough food.

Nearly half (47.5 percent) of the country’s children under the age of 5 face chronic malnutrition.

A seven-year war has left at least 4 million people displaced and thousands dead.

After more than 10 years of conflict, Syrians are facing unprecedented levels of poverty and food insecurity. Some 12.4 million Syrians, out of a population of 20 million, do not know where their next meal will come from, an increase of 4.5 million in the last year alone and the highest number ever recorded.

Nearly one in three children (27.9 percent) under the age of 5 are living with chronic malnutrition.

Over the past few weeks, bitter winter conditions have compounded the poverty of millions of displaced people in northwest Syria where the cost of living has skyrocketed over the past year.

South Sudan is suffering its highest levels of food insecurity and malnutrition since independence in 2011.

According to the WFP, more than half the population (6.6 million out of 11 million) have insufficient food. One in three children under five suffers chronic malnutrition.

The continued conflict and the worst flooding in decades have wreaked havoc on vulnerable communities.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has the largest number of highly food insecure people in the world: some 43.3 million out of the population of 106 million.

According to Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), 27 million people in the DRC are highly food insecure, with 857,000 children and 468,000 women likely suffering from acute malnutrition.

Somalia’s deteriorating security conditions and a crippling dry season has left upwards of 90 percent (11.4 million) of the East African country’s 12.3 million people hungry.

According to Famine Early Warning Systems, people have experienced not only a decrease in food supply and income, but also a prolonged drought, flooding in early 2020, a desert locust surge, the economic impact of COVID-19, and security issues with armed groups. 

Infographic: Hunger and food insecurity in maps and charts | Infographic News | Al Jazeera