Union Pacific, one of the largest rail corporations in the United States, successfully fought off workers’ demands for paid sick leave.  Union Pacific was one of the major rail carriers involved in White House-brokered contract talks late last year that produced an agreement without any guaranteed paid sick days, rejecting a central demand of rail workers. Labor unions representing a majority of U.S. rail workers rejected the proposed agreement and threatened to strike, but Congress intervened in the long-simmering contract dispute in December to impose the White House-backed deal on employees

It said that it brought in record revenue and profits last year.

The company reported $7 billion in net income for 2022 as a whole and said it spent a whopping $6.3 billion repurchasing its own shares—significantly more than the $4.6 billion it spent on employee pay and benefits last year.

“Instead of buying back their own stock, UP should be investing in their employees by offering paid sick leave, reasonable schedules, and a better quality of life for railroaders,” Ed Hall, the newly elected president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, responded.

“President Biden campaigned on a week of paid sick leave for all working people, and then he had the opportunity right here but didn’t take action. He favored the corporations,” Matt Weaver, a rail worker and member of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division (BMWED) in Ohio.

While Blocking Paid Sick Leave, Union Pacific Spent More on Stock Buybacks Than Workers (commondreams.org)

Work, in all its forms, is what keeps society running. At best, our own work can be interesting and creative, if we’re not stuck in an unfulfilling role. Capitalism turns work into employment, with our job roles shaped by how profitable or cost-effective they are likely to be, more than by how useful or manageable they are. Even so, countless important tasks rely on volunteers and other unpaid labour.

  Analysis of Justice Department data shows that business prosecutions fell to a record low in fiscal year 2022 even as there appeared to be no shortage of wrongdoing— from healthcare fraud to large-scale price gouging.

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a nonprofit data-gathering outfit, noted Thursday that out of the more than 4,000 federal white-collar prosecutions last year, “under 1% or only 31 of these defendants were businesses or corporate entities.”

It pointed out that “This is the lowest number of criminal prosecutions of business entities for white-collar offenses since federal prosecutor tracking began for these in FY 2004,” TRAC observed. “The decision to criminally charge a business in contrast to an individual for engaging in white-collar criminal activity is exceedingly rare (just 1%).”

TRAC also found that “the prosecution of white-collar offenders in FY 2022 reached a new all-time low since tracking began during the Reagan administration.” 

In a report published in 2021, Public Citizen identified a number of major U.S. corporations bound by DOJ leniency deals that allowed them to escape criminal prosecution in exchange for reforming their practices. Corporations have often violated such agreements — and faced no consequences for doing so.

“Corporate crime — in the form of illegal pollution, fraud, reckless endangerment of consumers and workers, cartels, systematic rip-offs, and more — remains rampant, but corporate criminal prosecutions are at historically low levels,” Public Citizen president Robert Weissman said at the time. “It’s time to end leniency deals for corporate wrongdoers. Corporations are the ultimate rational actors: If they know the costs of breaking the law are worth it for expected monetary gain, then they will break the law — irrespective of the societal damage.”

US Corporate Prosecutions Hit Low in 2022 Under Biden (consortiumnews.com)

 Foul! Unfair! Capitalists of different States are crying because competing capitalists are screwing them over to give themselves an advantage. Are they really that naive?

“Germany and France have urged the EU to step up its support for domestic industry and unleash massive investments to keep from falling behind American companies in light of the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which they deem discriminatory.

On Sunday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron met in Paris to discuss how the EU should respond to the controversial American program.

The IRA is a $430 billion package passed by Congress in August that aims to fight climate change, boost social spending, combat inflation and reduce energy prices. It offers generous tax breaks for US companies that invest in clean energy and significant subsidies for domestic electric vehicles, batteries, and renewable energy projects.

The legislation has sparked fears in the EU that the “protectionist” measures may be “discriminatory” towards European companies. The bloc argues that the law doesn’t comply with international rules and would unfairly entice companies to shift investments to the US from Europe.

“The first thing is to make sure we as the European Union are not treated worse than immediate neighbours such as Canada and Mexico, for example – that cannot be accepted,” Scholz told a joint news conference with Macron at the Élysée Palace. The French president, who earlier slammed the subsidies provision in the IRA as “super aggressive,” added that the EU has “a real convergence on the responses we’re bringing.”

Leaders of the European bloc will meet next month to discuss their options. One of them is to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO). Also being considered is a support plan that would likely include more lucrative terms for member states to invest in domestic companies. EU funds may also be allocated to struggling enterprises, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

European Council President Charles Michel has proposed a new bond program to help offset financial inequality among EU member states and would allow cash-strapped nations to invest more in green technology. 

Meanwhile, a number of EU states, including Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden have warned that retaliatory subsidies could trigger a race among countries and cause a fragmentation in the internal market. More broadly, the measure could split the global economy and push consumer prices higher.”

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Dave C.

 Humpty Dumpty, meeting Alice in Wonderland, informed her that ‘When I use a word,’  ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

In George Orwell’s, 1984, the ‘Ministry Of Peace’ was responsible for carrying out war.

The European Union has a  “European Peace Facility’, a fund that the bloc uses to finance foreign militaries. Ukraine has already received €3.1 billion ($3.36 billion) from this fund, with the aid doled out in seven successive packages since the beginning of Russia’s military operation last February.” The “Peace” fund is now going to forward a further 542 million dollars of military aid to Ukraine, because, the EU “remains steadfast in our support for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

To all those who question why the wealth extracted from the global working class isn’t used to ameliorate all the suffering of millions in the world (caused by capitalism), what further proof is needed of where capitalism’s priorities lie?

“EU foreign ministers approved a fresh tranche of military aid to Ukraine on Monday, Swedish officials have said. The arms bonanza is worth $542 million, but does not include the German tanks that Kiev and its allies have their hopes pinned on.

The bloc’s 27 foreign ministers agreed on the €500 million ($542 million) package following discussions in Brussels. Sweden, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Council, announced the agreement on Twitter, stating: “We remain steadfast in our support for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

Money for the weapons will be drawn from the ‘European Peace Facility’, a fund that the bloc uses to finance foreign militaries. Ukraine has already received €3.1 billion ($3.36 billion) from this fund, with the aid doled out in seven successive packages since the beginning of Russia’s military operation last February.

This supply of arms to Ukraine represented an about-turn from the EU’s long-standing policy of not purchasing arms for use in foreign wars. Before last February, the ‘Peace Facility’ had only been used to supply non-lethal equipment to Georgia, Mali, Moldova, Mozambique, and Ukraine, for a total of less than $125 million.

To date, the US has underwritten most of Ukraine’s expenses, allocating more than $110 billion to the country’s economy and military since the conflict began and supplying progressively heavier and more powerful armaments.

However, Washington refuses to donate its M1 Abrams main battle tanks, leaving Ukrainian officials and their most fervent European supporters – predominantly the Baltic and Eastern European states – to press Germany into filling that role. 

Kiev has repeatedly requested that Germany supply its military with Leopard 2 tanks, and allow other European users of the Leopard to donate their fleets. Berlin has not yet made an official decision on sending its own Leopards, but Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Sunday that her government would not block Poland from sending its stock of the tanks to Ukraine.”

Russia has warned that Western arms deliveries will only prolong the conflict, while making Western nations de-facto participants. Should Germany give in and send its tanks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this week that they “can burn and they will burn like the rest [of the Western weapons.”

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Dave C.

Egypt with around 107 million inhabitants, is the region’s most populous nation. It also has the Middle East’s most powerful military. In Egypt food prices have doubled, salaries have halved, the value of the Egyptian pound plummets and banks are restricting withdrawals. 

Egypt’s currency has devalued by around one-third since late October and inflation currently stands at over 20%. Some economists suspect it’s even worse than that. They put the unofficial rate — which includes Egypt’s huge informal economy — as high as 100%.

Could Egypt soon become “the new Lebanon?”

“There are remarkable similarities between Lebanon’s now abjectly failed economy and Egypt’s struggling one,” Robert Springborg, an adjunct professor at Canada’s Simon Fraser University, wrote in a 2022 report for the Washington-based Project on Middle East Democracy. “The consequences of the collapse of confidence in Lebanon have been devastating but they would pale into near insignificance if repeated on an Egyptian scale,” he warned.

Egyptian poverty levels, for instance, are nearing those of Lebanon with at least 60% of Egyptians living in or near to the poverty line. 

“And then there’s the willingness of the political elite to callously enrich themselves at the expense of the state and the public,” said Timothy Kaldas, an expert on Egypt’s political economy and a policy fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. “That’s definitely also something the two countries also share.”

Egypt “on the brink of a financial and economic abyss,” Rabah Arezki, a former chief economist at the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa Region, wrote on January 18.

The pandemic decimated Egyptian tourism, one of the country’s big money earners. Then the war in Ukraine disrupted wheat supplies to the country, the world’s biggest importer of wheat.

Since 2014, the Egyptian government, led by President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, has promoted national “mega-projects” including the world’s longest, driverless monorail — at a cost of $23 billion (€21 billion); and a whole new city, the $50 billion (€46 billion) New Administrative Capital, near Cairo. These have artificially driven growth in the country. 

Many of the projects are also connected to the Egyptian military’s vast money-making business network. 

Policies like these, allowing state and military-owned enterprises to dominate the economy, have depressed the private sector in Egypt, discouraged foreign investment and seen the country become more dependent on foreign credit for its survival. Egypt owes over $155 billion (€138 billion), and roughly one-third of its national income goes toward servicing that foreign debt.

“The reason why the pandemic and the Ukraine war have had such a big impact is because of the investment strategy led by Sissi for nine years: Massive spending on huge projects, some of which were totally unnecessary or poorly conceived,” Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, told DW. “This made Egyptian finances very vulnerable, without providing the economy with real gains.”

A new IMF bailout may bring Egypt back from the brink yet again but it’s hard to say whether it can provide real relief for long-suffering citizens. The government and the country’s elites will try to retain their advantages and wealth, all the while seeking to wriggle out of concessions around, for example, decreasing the military’s economic power, Kaldas said. 

Economic crisis: Is Egypt the ‘new Lebanon?’ – DW – 01/20/2023

 Analysts at Retail Economics found that the UK’s least affluent households have almost £40 a month less spare cash than they did a year ago while the richest have gained a similar sum in the same period. 

The differing fortunes recorded on its cost of living tracker reflect a higher rate of inflation of 16.5% for those at the bottom end of the income scale, who spend two-thirds of their income on essentials such as food and energy, compared with 13.3% for those at the top, who spend just under half.

The wealthiest 20% of households had £36 a month more in discretionary income in December compared with a year before, as they enjoyed record earnings growth which offset rising energy and food bills. 

Richard Lim, the chief executive of Retail Economics, said: “…the wealthiest are actually seeing their discretionary spending power rise on the back of record earnings growth, while the least affluent see their spare cash eroded by inflation…”

Poorest in UK have £40 a month less to spare than a year ago, study finds | Family finances | The Guardian

 Russia is putting together a much larger military force.

An Army Division comprises of between 10000 to 15000 personnel.

An Army Corps comprises of between 20000 to 45000 personnel.

“The chief of Russia’s armed forces, Army General Valery Gerasimov, has said that Moscow intends to set up new military districts and put together fresh units to counter the most pressing security threats it faces, including a hybrid war in Ukraine, as well as Finland and Sweden potentially joining NATO.

“At the moment, such threats are the aspirations of NATO to expand by incorporating Finland and Sweden, as well as the use of Ukraine as a tool for waging a hybrid war against our country” by the US and its allies, Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov, who also heads Russia’s joint forces in Ukraine, said in an interview in newspaper Argumenty i Fakty on Monday.

According to the general, the Russian military’s response to those challenges will, among other things, include the creation of the Moscow and Leningrad military districts and the formation of three motorized rifle divisions in Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, which joined Russia in autumn after referendums, as did the Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Also on the agenda is putting together an army corps in the Republic of Karelia, located in Russia’s northwest and bordering Finland.

Speaking about the conflict in Ukraine, Gerasimov pointed out that the Russian military hasn’t seen hostilities of such scale and intensity in the country’s modern history and that Moscow was “opposed by almost the entire collective West.” 

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Dave C.

  In no state of the US, for instance, is the federal minimum wage ($7.25) enough to survive; even if it is raised to $15 – as the progressives have called for – the minimum wage would still not be enough for a working-class family to survive anywhere in the country. 

With stagnant wages and inflation at a 40-year high, almost 60% of Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck. 

Many of these people are on the brink of joining the 600,000 homeless people wandering around in a country with more than 17 million empty homes. There are 33 times more empty homes than homeless people.

 34 million people, including one in eight children, experience hunger while 30-40% of the U.S.’s food supply (40 million tons of food) is wasted every year. 

 ‘Risk’ is a  strategy board game of diplomacy for two to six players. The standard version is played on a board depicting a political map of the world, divided into forty-two, territories which are grouped into six continents.  Players form and dissolve alliances during the course of the game. The goal of the game is to occupy every territory on the board and, in doing so, eliminate the other players.

On the Wikipedia site, Russia is shown divided into five territories on the playing board and Ukraine is absolutely huge in comparison.

Many States are playing this game for real but you can’t be obliterated by nuclear missiles in the board game.

Russia is getting closer to inviting those States which are encouraging Ukraine (materially, financially, morally) to FAFO. A slightly ruder, but more threatening position than the American one of ‘don’t tread on me.’

F.M. Lavrov is correct to claim that, “Western powers are seeking to destroy everything Russian.” Inherent within Capitalism is the need to constantly compete for resources, of all kinds, to exploit. It is the nature of the beast. But the time is long past when the global working class should allow itself to be used s pawns in what is becoming an exceedingly dangerous game.

If Russia Today’s various media sites were not banned in many  ‘democratic’ and otherwise countries then more members of the working class would be able to judge for themselves the situation their ‘leaders’ were taking them into.

This Blog is neither pro-Russian, pro-Ukrainian or pro any capitalist or state-capitalist country. Truth, it’s said, is the first casualty of war. Don’t let there be any further casualties, anywhere, than there have already been.

In August 1914 the executive committee of the SPGB issued a statement: Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our good will and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism

THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS!

This still holds today.

“The current situation in Ukraine shows that the conflict between Russia and the West can no longer be defined as a “hybrid war” but is instead approaching being a real one, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

Speaking at a press conference following a meeting with his South African counterpart, Naledi Pandor, Lavrov also noted that this “almost real” war was something that the West “has been preparing for a long time against Russia.” The minister claimed that Western powers are seeking to destroy everything Russian, from the language to the culture that had existed in Ukraine for centuries, and even forbid people from speaking their native language.

Lavrov went on to point out that such practices have become commonplace throughout Ukraine and that the country’s last two presidents, Pyotr Poroshenko and current leader Vladimir Zelensky, have both turned into “presidents of war” and “Russophobic leaders” after gaining power, despite running their presidential campaigns under the promise of establishing peace.

The minister also recalled that Ukraine has adopted laws that prohibit using the Russian language in education, media, and even in everyday life. “And this is all supported by the West,” Lavrov said, adding that this support extends to neo-Nazi marches with swastikas and symbols of banned Nazi divisions being held across the country.

He also accused the West of turning a blind eye to the fact that Kiev’s forces continue to deliberately choose targets and carry out attacks in such a way as to terrorize the civilian population. “The West knows perfectly well that the Ukrainian regime deliberately bombs cities and towns using Western-supplied weapons,” the minister said.

Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s position that it has not carried out attacks in Ukraine against civilian infrastructure, and that the damage to it is attributable to Kiev’s regular practice of deploying heavy weapons and air defense systems in residential areas.

Despite the spiralling tensions, Lavrov noted that Moscow remains open to negotiations with Kiev, and warned that those who refuse talks should understand that the longer they are delayed, the harder it will be to find a solution.

The minister also asked the Ukrainian government to explain, perhaps through a third party, how it sees the situation in the country playing out and the possibility of negotiations with Russia.”

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Dave C.