Billionaire Charles Koch’s foundation has bankrolled three conservative legal groups leading the court battle to eliminate prohibitions against tenant evictions during the Covid-19 pandemic in America.

At the same time, Koch’s corporate empire has suddenly stepped up its real estate purchases during the pandemic – including making large investments in real estate companies with a potential financial interest in eliminating eviction restrictions.

 Between 2017 and 2019, the Charles Koch Foundation contributed almost $7.7m to three conservative organizations, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation and the New Civil Rights Alliance have been pushing federal courts to strike down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) eviction moratorium, which is designed to protect millions of Americans from being thrown out of their homes during the pandemic. The groups have so far won two rulings. But since the Covid-19 pandemic began, Koch Industries has been ploughing money into real estate.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the billionaire’s corporate conglomerate “is emerging as a major real-estate investor during the pandemic, using its robust cash reserves to buy properties at beaten-down prices and betting on a longer-term recovery”.  Koch Real Estate Investments made a $200m preferred-equity investment in Amherst Holdings LLC’s single-family rental business. Koch Real Estate Investments began a financial relationship with Ladder Capital Corp., culminating in a $32m equity investment in December. 

In February, the Texas Public Policy Foundation convinced a federal judge in Texas to declare the CDC’s eviction moratorium unconstitutional. In March, a federal judge in Ohio sided with the Pacific Legal Foundation, ruling that the CDC “exceeded the scope of its authority” with its eviction ban.

Charles Koch funded eviction push while investing in real estate companies | Koch brothers | The Guardian

“For too long our politicians, leaders & corporations have fed us the SAME lies, the SAME broken promises, the SAME too-little-too-late solutions, the SAME destructive fossil fuels. But we know that if we keep doing things the SAME way, we are doomed.” Official account of the UN Envoy on Youth, Ms Jayathma Wickramanayake .

The Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) has put leaders and policymakers on notice that they are not willing to listen to the same conversations, suggestions and unmet promises as it launches a massive youth mobilisation campaign, with the hashtag #samesucks. 

 The £300,000 saved in a cost-cutting exercise during the refurbishment of the 24-storey Grenfell council block between 2014 and 2016 that led to combustible aluminium panels being substituted for the planned non-combustible zinc on the exterior of the block has cost the council over £500m, £406m on its response and recovery efforts in almost four years since the disaster,  in addition to the costs to the taxpayer of the ongoing public inquiry, which hit £117m by the end of March this year, most of which was taken up with lawyers’ bills.

 At least nine persons have become new billionaires since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, thanks to the profits from pharmaceutical corporations.

The nine new billionaires have a combined net wealth of $19.3 billion, enough to fully vaccinate all people in low-income countries 1.3 times.

The CEOs of Moderna and BioNTech top the list of nine individuals who became billionaires on the back of the rollout of vaccines against Covid-19.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel is the richest new ‘vaccine billionaire,’ followed by Ugur Sahin, his counterpart from BioNTech. Each is now worth over $4 billion. Others on the list include three Moderna investors, the chair of a firm contracted to manufacture and package Moderna’s product, and the three co-founders of the Chinese vaccine producer CanSino Biologics.

Eight others, whose wealth had already topped the billion-dollar benchmark when the pandemic hit, have seen their wealth grow significantly. They include people linked to China’s Chongqing Zhifei Biological and Sinopharm, India’s Cadila Healthcare and the Serum Institute of India, and holders of BioNTech stock.

Vaccine billionaires are being created as stocks in pharmaceutical firms rise rapidly in expectation of huge profits from the COVID-19 vaccines over which these firms have intellectual ownership control.

“These billionaires are the human face of huge profits many pharmaceutical corporations are making from the monopoly they hold on these vaccines,” said Anna Marriott, the health policy manager at charity Oxfam, a member of the People’s Vaccine Alliance. “We need to urgently end these monopolies so that we can scale up vaccine production, drive down prices, and vaccinate the world. What a testament to our collective failure to control this cruel disease that we quickly create new vaccine billionaires but totally fail to vaccinate the billions who desperately need to feel safe.”

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of another Alliance member, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, said it was “obscene that profits continue to come before saving lives,” as patent holders refused to share their technology.

Heidi Chow, Senior Policy and Campaigns Manager at Global Justice Now, said:

“As thousands of people die each day in India, it is utterly repugnant that the UK, Germany and others want to put the interests of the billionaire owners of Big Pharma ahead of the desperate needs of millions.

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS, said:

“While the companies making massive profits from COVID vaccines are refusing to share their science and technology with others in order to increase the global vaccine supply, the world continues to face the very real risk of mutations that could render the vaccines we have ineffective and put everyone at risk all over again. The pandemic has come at a terrible human cost, so it is obscene that profits continue to come before saving lives.”

The nine new vaccine billionaires, in order of their net worth are:

Stéphane Bancel, Moderna’s CEO (worth $4.3billion)Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech (worth $4 billion)Timothy Springer, an immunologist and founding investor of Moderna (worth $2.2bn)Noubar Afeyan, Moderna’s Chairman (worth $1.9 billion)Juan Lopez-Belmonte, Chairman of ROVI, a company with a deal to manufacture and package the Moderna vaccine (worth $1.8 billion)Robert Langer, a scientist and founding investor in Moderna (worth $1.6 billion)Zhu Tao, co-founder and chief scientific officer at CanSino Biologics (worth $1.3 billion)Qiu Dongxu, co-founder and senior vice president at CanSino Biologics (worth $1.2)Mao Huinhoa, also co-founder and senior vice president at CanSino Biologics (worth $1 billion)

 Solar, wind and tidal power are renewable but what is needed to convert those resources into electricity — minerals like cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, and the rare-earth elements (REEs)  are not. Some are far scarcer than oil, and capitalist competition and conflicts over control of those vital resources may well persist.

Electric vehicles uses substantial amounts of copper, and require cobalt, graphite, lithium, manganese, and rare earths for their engines and batteries.  According to the IEA, a typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional oil-powered vehicle. These include the copper for electrical wiring plus the cobalt, graphite, lithium, and nickel needed to ensure battery performance, longevity, and energy density (the energy output per unit of weight). In addition, rare-earth elements will be essential for the permanent magnets installed in EV motors.

 Wind turbines need manganese, molybdenum, nickel, zinc, and rare-earth elements for their electrical generators.

For the time being with wind and solar power accounting for only about 7% of global electricity generation and electric vehicles making up less than 1% of the cars on the road, demand is being met by supply. However, the International Energy Agency (IEA), in its report, “The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions,” predicts the demand for lithium in 2040 could be 50 times greater than today and for cobalt and graphite 30 times greater if the world moves swiftly to replace oil-driven vehicles with EVs. Potential sources of them are limited.  In other words, the world could face significant shortages of  vital raw materials materials. 

“As clean energy transitions accelerate globally,” the IEA report noted ominously, “and solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars are deployed on a growing scale, these rapidly growing markets for key minerals could be subject to price volatility, geopolitical influence, and even disruptions to supply.”

“Today’s supply and investment plans for many critical minerals fall well short of what is needed to support an accelerated deployment of solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. 

The most critical minerals, lithium, cobalt, and those rare-earth elements, production is highly concentrated in just a few countries, a reality that could lead to the sort of geopolitical struggles that accompanied the world’s dependence on a few major sources of oil.  Just one country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), currently supplies more than 80% of the world’s cobalt, and another — China — 70% of its rare-earth elements.  At present, approximately 58% of the world’s lithium comes from Australia, another 20% from Chile, 11% from China, 6% from Argentina, and smaller percentages from elsewhere. A U.S. firm, Lithium Americas, is about to undertake the extraction of significant amounts of lithium from a clay deposit in northern Nevada.  Four countries — Argentina, Chile, the DRC, and Peru — provide most of the copper. In other words, such future supplies are far more concentrated in far fewer lands and hands than oil and gas. Already the Socialist Standard has drawn attention to the focus on Greenland for its resources.

Many promising ore sources lie in countries like the DRC, Myanmar, Peru, and Russia where such conditions hardly apply. For example, the current turmoil in Myanmar, a major producer of certain rare-earth elements, has already led to worries about their future availability and sparked a rise in prices.

China may not produce significant amounts of cobalt or nickel, but it does account for approximately 65% of the world’s processed cobalt and 35% of its processed nickel. And while China produces 11% of the world’s lithium, it’s responsible for nearly 60% of processed lithium. When it comes to rare-earth elements, however, China is dominant. Not only does it provide 60% of the world’s raw materials, but nearly 90% of processed REEs.

there is no way the United States and other countries can undertake a massive transition from fossil fuels to a renewables-based economy without engaging economically with China.  Efforts will be made to reduce the degree of that reliance, but there’s no realistic prospect of eliminating dependence on China for rare earths, lithium, and other key materials in the foreseeable future. If a Cold-War-like stance toward Beijing arose or if the USA were to try to “decouple” its economy from that of the China, as advocated by many “China hawks” in Congress, the United States would have to abandon its plans for a green-energy future.

Either a future in which capitalists begin fighting over the world’s supplies of important minerals or simply abandoned their plans for a Green New Deal and let the planet burn.

Adapted from here

There are 171 billionaires in the UK, 24 more than a year ago.

 The combined wealth of billionaires in Britain grew by more than one-fifth.

The richest person is Sir Len Blavatnik.  He increased his wealth by £7.2bn during 2020. The increase in Blavatnik’s £23bn over the past 12 months was mainly down to his investment in the Warner Music record label, which floated on New York’s Nasdaq stock market in June.  In the US, Blavatnik mainly gave to Democratic politicians before 2014, but his spending then shifted to the right, with donations of millions of dollars to Republican causes and a $1m donation to Donald Trump’s inaugural committee.  He owns a mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens that has been valued at £200m.

Property magnates, David and Simon Reuben, were listed as Britain’s second-wealthiest, with a combined fortune of £21.5bn.

 Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Sunday Times and other media interests, was not included on the basis that he is based in the US, but his $23.5bn fortune, according to Forbes, would have placed him third.

The gains reaped by the billionaire class came in a year that the government was forced to step in to pay the wages of millions of Britons, funded by borrowing unprecedented in peacetime. At the same time governments and central banks have stepped in with huge fiscal and monetary interventions that have sustained, and in many cases added to, the fortunes of the wealthy.

 Hamas and Israel agree a ceasefire.

Image thanks to

Neither Israel, Nor Palestine: No War but the Class War | Leftcom

 92% of candidates standing for the Vietnam’s 500-seat National Assembly are Communist Party members.

Of the 868 candidates, 74 are independents. Independents must be vetted by the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, which the party essentially controls.

The economic reforms of Doi Moi brought the arrival of Vietnamese billionaires.

In 2018, income share held by highest 10% for Viet Nam was 27.5 %. Viet Nam income share held by lowest 10% was at level of 2.5 % in 2018. 

 Oxfam warned today that it cannot reach around 450,000 or more people in Gaza because of fighting and aerial bombardment. The destruction and indiscriminate threat to life makes any emergency aid, at the moment, impossible to mount. 

Many water wells and pumping stations have been damaged by Israel’s bombardments. These facilities are the only way for people living in Gaza to get clean water. 40 percent of Gaza water supplies have been affected. 

People are struggling to secure food, water, and medicines. Many have been forced to spend their savings or are trying to sell assets. 

Many who have lost their homes have been forced into temporary shelters.

As much as 200,000 hectares of agricultural land has been bombed or is currently inaccessible to farmers because of the danger of attack. Transport and movement around Gaza is not only unsafe but now made highly difficult because of the bomb damage to roads and debris from destroyed buildings. Some routes are blocked entirely. Oxfam warns that it could take weeks to start meaningful repairs and organise some recovery and resumption of normality for people in Gaza, even if a ceasefire was declared today.   

Shane Stevenson, Oxfam Country Director for the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, said, “The scale of suffering is immense yet we cannot respond properly. Until the security situation improves things will quickly deteriorate further. The aerial assaults have taken lives and any sense of safety, but they are also taking away people’s options to cope – to buy food and supplies, and to go about their lives.  Families are telling us that they are too scared to leave their homes for food and some have already run out of drinking water. The people of Gaza are psychologically exhausted and fearful and exposed. They need peace now in order to pick up the broken pieces of their lives.” 

Stevenson continued, “Gaza is also in the midst of coping with the Covid pandemic. People need access to water and medicines and hospitals to halt the virus spread and help nurse sufferers to recovery. Adding conflict on top of Covid feels like a recipe for disaster.”

Nearly half a million people out of reach in Gaza – Oxfam – occupied Palestinian territory | ReliefWeb

 The civil service is one of the largest employers in the country, with a workforce of about 445,000 people across the UK. The class composition of the senior ranks of the civil service has barely changed since 1967, research reveals. Within the civil service, the higher you progress, the less likely you are to find people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

 just 12% of senior Treasury staff coming from low socio-economic backgrounds. Overall, only 18% of the 6,000-strong cohort of senior civil servants come from disadvantaged backgrounds, while 25% of this group was independently educated.

 In order to be successful, the research notes, civil servants need to master this behavioural code. It involves using an RP accent (received pronunciation, the middle class accent of southern England); adopting an “emotionally detached and understated self-presentation”; and displaying “an intellectual approach to culture and politics that prizes the display of in-depth knowledge for its own sake (and not directly related to work)”. 

“Those from low socio-economic backgrounds find this code alienating and intimidating but one which they must assimilate in order to succeed,” concludes the report.

 The path to senior positions is like a labyrinth: in theory there is a route to the centre for everyone but it is largely hidden. Although formal promotion protocols are sensitive to issues of diversity and inclusion, interviewees said mastery of a series of “unwritten rules” provided the most effective map through the labyrinth.

Sam Friedman, the report’s author and incoming professor of sociology at the LSE explained, “Strikingly it is those from privileged backgrounds who hold the upper hand in unpicking these hidden rules.”

 In 1967,  analysis showed the proportion of senior civil servants from lower socio-economic backgrounds was higher than it is today (19% in 1967, compared with 18% today).

Class of senior civil servants has barely changed since 1967, report reveals | Civil service | The Guardian