Profits Going Viral

Capital’s driven to make capital,

It must pursue profit unerringly;

Whatever the need, nothing’s for free

As profit views need as a very poor pal

Unless there’s a balance to settle the bill.

Then comes a pandemic, when society

Takes preference over economy:

There’s no profit if the workforce is ill.

Big pharma has to take a deep, deep breath,

Produce a vaccine before all is lost

And allow it to be given at cost,

Or the bottom line’s not-for-profit death.

But time will come for accumulation,

With year on year of virus mutation.

D. A.

 Despite all the friendly PR and promotion of fair trade there is little evidence efforts by the world’s top coffee roasters and traders to prevent human rights and environmental abuses are having any impact, with most farmers operating at a loss and unable to produce sustainably, a major coffee report said.

The coffee sector is valued at $200-250 billion a year at the retail level, according to the report, but producing countries receive less than 10% of that value when exporting beans, and farmers even less than that.

Coffee is grown on roughly 12.5 million farms globally, about 95% of which are labour intensive smallholdings that usually employ an entire farming family as well as seasonal workers. Coffee, in other words, provides a livelihood for tens of millions of people worldwide.

“Smallholder farmers are under constant pressure to cut costs, especially those related to labour and the environment,” said the report.

Peru estimates 25% of deforestation in the country is linked to coffee production.

Little evidence coffee companies’ sustainability efforts have impact: report | Reuters

The UN has warned that millions of people around the world are facing disaster from flood, droughts, heatwaves and other extreme weather, as governments fail to take the measures needed to adapt to the impacts of climate breakdown. 

Nearly three-quarters of countries around the world have recognised the need to plan for the effects of global heating, but few of those plans are adequate to the rising threat, and little funding has been made available to put them into force, according to the UN environment programme’s Adaptation report 2020.

Spending on measures to adapt to extreme weather has failed to keep pace with the rising need, according to UNEP. Only about $30bn (£22bn) is provided each year in development aid, to help poor countries cope with the effects of the climate crisis, which is less than half of the $70bn currently estimated to be needed. Those costs are set to increase further, to between $140bn and $300bn by the end of the decade.

About half of global climate finance should be devoted to adaptation, the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has said, with the rest going to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, while private companies are often willing to provide funding for some projects to reduce emissions, such as profitable renewable energy generation schemes in rapidly emerging economies, projects that help people adapt to the impact of climate change, such as early warning systems, flood barriers or storm drains, are often more difficult to finance.

Many countries will also struggle to find the resources for climate adaptation because of the coronavirus pandemic, the UN warned. The economic impacts of Covid-19 have pushed adaptation further down the political agenda across the world, while in the longer term the consequences of the pandemic are likely to put additional pressures on public finances, and “might change national and donor priorities in support of climate action”. 

Yet if countries were to prioritise a “green recovery” in their Covid-19 economic stimulus packages, they could help to solve many of these problems, UNEP noted. Economic studies have shown that measures to increase resilience to the impacts of the climate crisis – including planting trees, building flood barriers, restoring natural landscapes and protecting and updating infrastructure such as transport and communications networks – can all provide “shovel-ready” jobs of the kind needed to lift economies out of recession. That opportunity will be missed if countries stick to the economic rescue packages announced to date, which so far have failed to focus on a green recovery.

Countries adapting too slowly to climate breakdown, UN warns | Climate change | The Guardian

It starts with a look at the dark side of antidepressants (Drugs to drive you nuts: delights for the depressed).

 Next comes an article about the struggle of homeless squatters in California (Black Wednesday), then an interview with a member of the Minsk Socialist Circle about ‘What’s going on in Belarus?’ 

After that — a piece on the plight of Wikileaks journalist Julian Assange; an analysis of ‘What to expect from Biden and Harris’, the next in our series of personal accounts of ‘How I became a socialist’; and, as always, Reviews and Funnies.

For the electronic version of the issue use this link:

World Socialist No. 2 (Winter 2021)

For the print version go to:

WORLD SOCIALIST NO. 2 (Winter 2021)

We would appreciate your contributing a review on lulu.com.

 Again another think-tank highlights the detrimental and disproportionate impact of the pandemic on the less wealthy. Joseph Rowntree Foundation says lockdowns have hit incomes of those in insecure work the hardest.

People who were trapped in poverty before the pandemic have suffered the most financial damage during the crisis, according to its report.  Those who had been struggling to make ends meet before March last year were more likely to work in precarious jobs or sectors of the economy that had been hardest hit by lockdowns.

In its annual poverty report, the JRF charity said struggling families would find it harder to recover from the double-dip recession triggered by the renewed restrictions and rapid growth in Covid-19 infections.

According to the research, workers on the lowest incomes experienced on average the largest cut in hours at the start of the pandemic almost a year ago, with 81% of people working in retail and accommodation recording a drop in income. More than a third of single parents working in hospitality and over a quarter of those in retail were already living in poverty before their sectors were severely hit by restrictions.

In a reflection of the uneven economic impact caused by the pandemic, the foundation said that four in 10 workers on the minimum wage faced a high risk of losing their job, compared with just 1% of workers earning more than £41,500 a year.

Even before the pandemic struck, causing the deepest UK recession for more than 300 years, the foundation said that millions in the UK had lived through a “decade of deprivation” with little progress made on reducing poverty, rising hardship among working households, and a steady increase in child poverty. The charity said this rise was mainly because of the Conservative government’s austerity-era benefits freeze between 2016 and 2020, which meant that benefits had not kept up with the rising cost of living. Even after taking into account the boost for universal credit – launched as a temporary measure in March last year when Covid first hit – research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies showed that out-of-work households got £1,600 per year less in benefits than they would have done before the Tory austerity drive began a decade ago. 

Helen Barnard, the foundation’s director, said: “It is a damning indictment of our society that those with the least have suffered the most before the pandemic and are now being hit hardest once again by the pandemic. The government must now make the right decisions to avoid another damaging decade.”

Lowest paid in UK have suffered the most financially in the pandemic, report finds | Poverty | The Guardian

 Not surprisingly the COVID-19 pandemic dominated the news for 2020. Nevertheless, there were other humanitarian crises that were largely unreported. The relief agency CARE International produces  an annual report titled “Suffering in Silence,” on those neglected problems. 

Six African countries made the list, sharing a list of malaise ranging from internal displacement, hunger and malnutrition, and chronic poverty. 

Burundi, the fifth-poorest country in the world, topped the list with 2.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. The country has one of the highest rates of chronic malnourishment in the world, the report said. 

“The Central African Republic (CAR), Madagascar, Mali and Burundi have appeared on the list across multiple years, yet the people in these countries don’t get sufficient media attention,” the report said, highlighting a number of African nations on the list. 

The suffering is particularly acute for those living in the Central African Republic, a country whose “perennial” massive crises go largely underreported each year.  

“Despite its significant mineral deposits that include gold, diamonds and uranium, as well as rich arable land, CAR sits at second last on the 2019 Human Development Index,” the report added.

Madagascar is another underreported nation particularly ravaged by climate change, CARE highlighted. The island nation suffers from “recurrent, protracted droughts, and an average of 1.5 cyclones per year — the highest rate in Africa.”   The report stressed that an estimated one fifth of Malagasy people, some 5 million, are directly affected by recurring natural disasters, including cyclones, floods and droughts. 

 Non-African countries on the list also share an urgent need for aid amid food insecurity, but they also face conflict and climate change as structural factors fueling their humanitarian crises. 

 Guatemala is reeling from the aftermath of two back-to-back category four storms, Iota and Eta. Guatemala – considered a middle-income country by the World Bank – has had continued, moderate (3.5 percent) growth over the last five years. This economic stability, however, has not made much of a dent in poverty and inequality. Even before COVID-19, Guatemala had the sixth highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world with close to half (47 percent) of all Guatemalan children chronically malnourished and at risk for stunting. Also worrisome is the national maternal mortality rate which stood at 108 deaths per every 100,000 live births pre-COVID. Around thirty-five children out of every 1,000 born in Guatemala die before the age of five. In desperation, migrants continue to seek a way to the United States, despite the pandemic, and despite American law which in effect bars their entry. Pervasive poverty, high homicide rates driven by gang violence, and corruption – factors that pushed migrants to flee Central America pre-COVID – have not eased during the pandemic.

Pakistan, ranked seventh on the list and the world’s fifth most populous country, has been plagued by the intersection of conflict, the effects of climate change, and pervasive poverty. In 2020, “Pakistan suffered its worst locust plague in history, forcing the government to import wheat for the first time in six years,” the report said. This was followed by extreme flooding which destroyed crops, food supplies and livestock. 

Less than 10 kilometers from Australia’s most northern islands lies Papua New Guinea (PNG), one of the world’s most culturally diverse and naturally rich nations. It hosts over 800 languages and more than 1,000 distinct ethnic groups. However, in stark contrast to its neighbor, PNG is one of the least urbanized countries globally with the lowest life expectancy in the Pacific region. The island nation is prone to natural disasters. In 2020, it faced flooding, landslides and tremors in addition to the consequences of the global pandemic. PNG is endowed with a wide array of mineral resources, including crude oil, natural gas, gold, copper, silver, nickel and cobalt, and produces a range of primary commodities such as: timber, cocoa, coffee, tea and palm oil. Challenges in development remain to date because of the rugged territory which makes transport difficult. The country’s population of more than 8 million is largely rural (87 percent) and highly dispersed; spread out across the highlands and over 600 islands and atolls. In 2020, the UN estimated that about 4.6 million people in PNG (more than half of its population) are in need of humanitarian assistance. Only 46 percent of the population has access to improved drinking water and some parts of the country face challenges in nutrition, lacking a balanced diet. Pre-COVID-19, PNG’s health system

Ukraine, the only European country on the list, is one such example. Years of conflict in its eastern regions have lost relevance in today’s media landscape, CARE said. The elderly and women have been left most vulnerable. Fear of shelling, violent clashes, and the threat of landmines and explosive remnants of war are the daily reality for those living on either side of the front line. Many people are increasingly affected by mental health issues, both due to the fear of violence as well as the long-term socio-economic impacts of the conflict. Gender-based violence is a serious problem in Ukraine with about three-quarters of Ukrainian women having experienced some form of violence since age 15.

 Yet another statistic that indicates population decline rather than the Malthusian myth of a looming over-population problem.

Thefigures released by Germany’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) showed that the country had seen no increase in population for the first time since 2011.

 83.2 million people were living in Germany at the end of 2020. Destatis attributed the population plateau to lower immigration because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and an increase in the number of deaths.

Since German reunification, the population has — with only a few exceptions — tended to increase. However, this population growth has resulted exclusively from positive net immigration. Without more people immigrating than emigrating, the population would have been shrinking since 1972 with more deaths than births in every year since then. 

Germany’s birth or fertility rates have been well below global and even European averages ever since the Second World War.

The number of deaths appears to have risen noticeably. The estimate for 2020 is 755,000 to 775,000 births compared with at least 980,000 deaths.

The estimated net migration into Germany of between 180,000 and 240,000 for the year. That would be the fifth successive year in which the number sank following the peak during the migration crisis of 2015.

Germany population flatlines for first time in decade | News | DW | 12.01.2021

Last year, to mark the 75th anniversary of the UN, it conducted various townhall discussions, dialogues and an online survey from January until November, 2020. The report, Shaping Our Future Together, showed that people across the world were unified in their concerns, with the current coronavirus pandemic being the foremost in their minds.

The peoples of the world are unanimous – access to basic services such as universal healthcare must become a priority going forward. So too should global solidarity, helping those hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and addressing the climate change emergency. People around the world also called for safe water and sanitation, and education. Rethinking the global economy and making it more inclusive to tackle inequalities was another concern. Meanwhile addressing climate change and destruction to the environment also remained top long-concerns for respondents.

The collective thoughts of the world’s future by some 1.5 million people, including those from various organisations and networks, from all countries across the globe has been been highlighted in a global initiative by the United Nations, which it called the world’s largest conversation on the future people want.

“When you ask people about their fears and hopes for the future, when you ask people about their expectations of international cooperation about their priorities in the immediate, post-COVID, there is remarkable unity across generations, regions, income groups, education groups, and from people from different political direction,” Fabrizio Hochschild, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General.

Sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern and South-eastern Asia – had listed access to universal healthcare as an immediate short-term priority, according to the report. In these regions the call for increased support to places hardest hit by the pandemic and greater global solidarity ranked top. Next was the need for universal healthcare.

“This reflects the grim reality reported by UNDP – that daily COVID-19 related deaths have exceeded other common causes of death throughout much of 2020. Emergency services, health systems and health workers are under enormous strain around the world, with indirect health impacts also expected to rise,” the report noted.

UN Secretary-General, António Guterres noted that the COVID-19 pandemic “has had a disproportionate and terrible impact on the poor and dispossessed, older people and children, those with disabilities and minorities of all kinds”.

“It has pushed an estimated 88 million people into poverty and put more than 270 million at risk at acute food insecurity,” Guterres said. 

The second short-term priority was a call for greater global solidarity and increased support to places hardest hit by the pandemic. Indeed, Guterres said in his speech that the COVID-19 pandemic had highlighted serious gaps in global cooperation and solidarity.

“We have seen this most recently in vaccine nationalism, some rich countries compete to buy vaccines for their own people, with no consideration for the world’s poor,” he said. Guterres continued that the pandemic has highlighted the “deep fragilities in our world” and in order to tackle them we need to reduce inequality and injustice and to strengthen the bonds of mutual support and trust. He also added that the world needed “a networked multilateralism, so that global and regional organisations communicate and work together towards common goals”.

“And we need an inclusive multilateralism, based on the equal representation of women, and taking in young people, civil society, business and technology, cities and regions, science and academia,” he said.

Guterres said that while the pandemic was a human tragedy – it can also be an opportunity.

“The past months have shown the huge transformations that are possible, when there is political will and consensus on the way forward,” Guterres said.

 He ended that he was confident that working together the world can emerge from the pandemic “and lay the foundations for a cleaner, safer, fairer world for all, and for generations to come”.

COVID-19 Pandemic Shapes the Future World People Want | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)

It would appear that the World Socialist Movement does indeed express the interests and desires of our fellow-workers and it has come up with the required solutions necessary to end humanity’s problems. 

 At the beginning of the year one bitcoin was worth £5,614 before almost reaching £30,000 at the end of last week. Anyone who bought cryptoassets at the beginning of the year was sitting potentially on a 400% gain, an extraordinary return in a year.

Shares in London are back to where they were in late February last year. 

House prices in 2020 rose by 6%, helped by the chancellor’s temporary stamp duty holiday. 

 The Bank of England has infused the financial system with cash meant to be loaned to chase a positive rate of return but investors prefer to make outlandish short-term capital gains rather than income from productive investment.

Such policies have substantially increasing the net worth of the top 10% richest people who control half of Britain’s assets, such as shares and property. 

 The Guardian view on Covid’s widening gaps: the rich are getting richer | Coronavirus | The Guardian