138,000 residential and commercial properties in England and Wales are owned by offshore companies, with holdings in London alone worth a combined £55bn.  42,543 are in London, and concentrated in the most expensive areas. In the City of Westminster, which includes the central London areas of Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Belgravia, there are 9,066 offshore-owned residential properties, and a further 5,453 in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea,

Rex McKenzie, the lead researcher and a lecturer at Kingston University, found, “The billionaires and millionaires who use offshore services to buy houses are part of a transnational wealth elite that includes the world’s oligarchs, super-rich, kleptocrats, tax dodgers and criminals.”

More than 138,000 properties in England and Wales owned by offshore companies | UK news | The Guardian

 27% of  Europeans describe their financial position as “precarious”, defined as “one unexpected expenditure could change everything

 More than half see a serious risk it will become so over the coming months. They said they felt they faced a very or somewhat significant risk of falling into precariousness over the coming months – with one in five (17%) assessing the possibility as very high. Italians and Greeks were the most worried, with 70% and 68% respectively very or somewhat concerned. About 47% of respondents in Britain said they felt the risk of precariousness was significant, and 42% of those in France.

 80% of respondents said they had already been forced to make significant compromises, including cutting down on travel (62%) or heating (47%), borrowing from friends or family (42%), finding a second job (40%) and skipping a meal (29%).

More than half (54%) of more than 6,000 people across France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland and the UK told the pollster Ipsos their purchasing power had fallen over the past three years – mostly due to higher food, fuel, heating and rent bills.

In Greece, 68% of respondents said their spending power had fallen “a lot” or “somewhat” since 2019, followed by 63% in France, 57% in Italy, 54% in Germany, 48% in Britain and 38% in Poland.

Across the six countries, 64% said they were now “often” or “sometimes” unable to decide what to cut next as they had already cut what they could, 28% said they were overdrawn by mid-month, and 27% often or sometimes feared losing their home.

72% of parents across the six countries said they had cut back on their own leisure activities (76%), hair and beauty treatments (72%) and clothes budget (72%) in order to preserve their children’s quality of life. Almost half of parents across the six countries also said they regularly cut back on their own food to feed their children, while 66% said they had been forced to rein in their children’s activities, including outings and holidays.

 49% – including 50% in the UK – of parents said they were worried about not being able to meet their children’s needs in future, while 33% said they were already unable to ensure their children’s diet was as varied as they would like.

One in four Europeans say their financial position is ‘precarious’ | Cost of living crisis | The Guardian

 Despite living on the Italian peninsula since the 14th century, Romani people have historically been seen as outsiders in Italian society. That is why they, alongside Jews, were targeted by the fascist state from the 1920s to the 1940s. In 1926, just four years after coming to power, Benito Mussolini’s fascist government issued an order to expel all “foreign Gypsies” and “cleanse the country of all Gypsy caravans”. Those who remained were regularly harassed and arrested. In 1940, the internment of Roma and Sinti in Italian concentration camps began where many were either murdered, deported to Nazi death camps, or died of hunger or poor conditions.

Romani people continue to be viewed with suspicion and hatred. When Roma from the Balkans began arriving in Italy in the 1960s, the local authorities started putting them in so-called “nomad camps” based on the racist assumption that Romani people were vagrants. But the Yugoslav Roma were coming from a sedentary lifestyle, never having been nomadic in their lives. These policies persisted. Negative perceptions that Roma are criminals and illegal immigrants grew.

 In the 2000s, this allowed populist politicians like Berlusconi to politicise the issue and use it for electoral gain. Berlusconi subjected the Roma to police intimidation, illegal detentions and deportations. He justified the fingerprinting of Romani children, ethnic censuses of Romani people, and deployment of troops to crack down on so-called “Gypsy criminality”.  Segregated “nomad camps” became the de facto policy of choice for provincial authorities to accommodate Roma who could not be deported under a 2007 law, allowing expulsions of people deemed to “threaten” public safety. In later years, after the camps were neglected and left without access to basic services, the authorities started forcefully evicting Romani families from them. The Italian government started demolishing homes and turning families out onto the street without providing them with alternative accommodation. Berlusconi’s policies became a template for state violence against the Roma. Police raids and intimidation, the systematic use of punitive forced evictions and surveillance tactics against the Roma have continued under successive governments. Berlusconi’s anti-Roma campaign also paved the way for the far-right in mainstream Italian politics.

Salvini became deputy prime minister and interior minister and within a month of taking office, he called for a census of the Roma to facilitate their deportation, noting that “unfortunately” those holding Italian citizenship could not be deported. He also threatened to remove Romani children from their families if they were not sent to school. Salvini incited anti-Roma actions throughout Italy. Far-right groups such as Forza Nuova and Casa Pound organised anti-Roma marches and engaged in violent hate crimes against Romani communities.

Italy’s Roma fear what comes next with the election of Meloni who has a history of racist anti-Roma rhetoric.

Under Meloni, the plight of Italy’s Roma will only get worse | Opinions | Al Jazeera

The super-rich emits greenhouse gases at a level equivalent to the whole of France from their investments in carbon-intensive businesses.

Examining the carbon impact of the investments of 125 billionaires, the  report by Oxfam found they had a collective $2.4tn stake in 183 companies. 

On average each billionaire’s investment emissions produced 3m tonnes of CO2 a year; a million times more than the average emissions of 2.76 tonnes of CO2 for those living in the bottom 90% of earners. 

In total, the 125 members of the super-rich emitted 393m tonnes of CO2 a year – equivalent to the emissions of France, which has a population of 67 million.

The investments were held in the consumer industry, energy and materials, with an average of 14% of their investments in polluting industries, such as fossil fuels and cement. There was only one renewable energy company in the sample. Studies show that 50-70% of emissions from the super rich come from their investments.

 The report said that almost four million people would have to go vegan to offset the emissions of each of the billionaires.

Danny Sriskandarajah, Oxfam GB’s chief executive, said: “We need Cop27 to expose and change the role that big corporates and their rich investors are playing in profiting from the pollution that is driving the global climate crisis. It is people in low income countries who’ve done the least to cause it who are suffering the most – as we are seeing with the devastating drought in east Africa and catastrophic floods in Pakistan.” He explained,“The role of the super-rich in super-charging climate change is rarely discussed. This has to change. These billionaire investors at the top of the corporate pyramid have huge responsibility for driving climate breakdown. They have escaped accountability for too long.”

Super-rich’s carbon investment emissions ‘equivalent to whole of France’ | Greenhouse gas emissions | The Guardian

 Mohamed Nasheed, the former president of the Maldives, said: “Basic justice demands that those most responsible for causing the climate crisis should financially support those who are suffering most on the frontline of climate change.”

 The rich countries accept vulnerable countries face a “life or death situation”. Wealthy nations were supposed to provide US$100bn a year by 2020, a target has been missed. 

The US share of this, based on its past emissions, would be $40bn yet it provided only $7.6bn in 2020, the latest year for which data is available. Australia and Canada gave only about a third of the funding indicated by the analysis, while the UK fell $1.4bn short. The funding from Japan and France was largely in loans which often already carry high levels of debt.

Nasheed explained, “Currently we face a debt crisis because so many of the assets that we took loans to pay for are being destroyed by climate change. Ease the debt burden and we can all play our part.” Countries such as his have already collectively suffered $500bn in losses because of climate impact.

Nafkote Dabi, the climate change policy lead at Oxfam International, said: “This new analysis shows rich countries continue to fail to deliver their long-standing pledge of $100bn a year. The failure is all the more stark when you consider that the $100bn is minuscule compared to what is required to address the climate crisis…”

 The Cop26 president, Alok Sharma said trillions of dollars would be needed overall.

Revealed: US and UK fall billions short of ‘fair share’ of climate funding | Climate finance | The Guardian

 FTSE 100 chief executives’ pay soared by an average of 23% this year at a time when workers are seeing real terms pay cuts (and now seeing falling house prices too).

The jump in average pay, to close to £4m, was driven by record bonus payouts – as CEO’s achieved the lower pessimistic targets set during the pandemic.

The Financial Times has the story, and explains:

Many companies bounced back strongly as Covid-19 lockdowns ended, leading to an average CEO bonus of 86 per cent of the maximum available, up from 58 per cent last year and against a long-term average of 70 to 75 per cent, according to PwC.

The higher bonuses took overall average pay up from pre-pandemic levels of £3.6mn in 2018-19 and £3.7mn for 2017-18.

Clearsprings Ready Homes manages asylum seeker accommodation.

Profits for the year ending 31 January 2022 was £28 million, an increase of £24 million on the previous year.

The three directors share of dividends rose from £7m to £27,987,262.

Its annual report states ‘Demand for accommodation for asylum seekers has remained high throughout the year. This has been driven by an ever-increasing influx of asylum applicants to the UK due to high levels of political and economic turmoil in many countries.’

As Arthur Daly would say, ‘nice little earner’.

Asylum seekers in hotels receive £8.24 a week.

Folkestone and Hythe Councillor, Connor McConville, said, ‘Clearsprings are a company purely focused on maximising profit. They have no regard for providing humanitarian service.’

bit.ly/3DBQmwj

 شنبه ۱۵ اکتبر ۲۰۲۲

صدای انقلاب ایران

 “هیچ قدرتی در زمین نمی تواند ایده ایی را که زمانش فرارسیده متوقف سازد” ویکتور هوگو

تقریبا یک ماه از قیام در سراسر کشور مردم ایران گذشته است. مقاومت بی نظیر بر ضد حکومت قویا مسلح و مجرم جمهوری اسلامی صفحه ایی جدید در مبارزه تاریخی بر علیه سرکوب می باشد. سرکوب ها و بیرحمی های رژیم اخبار جدیدی برای هیچ کس نیستند.  از زمان تاسیس خشنش در تعاقب انقلاب ۱۹۷۹، پاسخ جمهوری اسلامی به همه درگیریهای اجتماعی همیشه سرکوب، یعنی زندانی کردن و کشتن تظاهرکنندگان بوده است.

لیکن، تظاهرات اخیر نشان داده اند که ترس نمی تواند بیشتر از این از پیوستن مردم ایران به جنبش های متنوع اجتماعی که در حال رشد کردن در جامعه هستند بشود. زنان در صف جلویی انتقال ترس به خشم هستند. چیزی که به مقاومت فزاینده بر ضد خشونت دولتی و بنیادگرایی مذهبی می گذرد، قول دوران جدیدی را می دهد.   

چیزی که شما شاهد آن در ایران هستید دارای تاریخ طولانی مقاومت  بر ضد یک رژیم مذهبی که درانقلاب سال ۱۹۷۹قدرت را با خشونت و سنگدلی در دست گرفت می باشد …” الهام هومینفر، دستیار پروفسر تندرستی  جهانی دانشگاه شمال غربی توضیح داد. از انقلاب ۱۹۷۹، زنان به طور قانونی و رسمی شهر وندان درجه دوم شده اند،  به طریقی که قبلا چنین نبود. قبل از ۱۹۷۹ ما تعداد بسیاری نا برابری های زن و مرد در ایران داشتیم، ولی این نابرابری آپارتا ید جدید بود…”

ما نبایستی تحت تاثیراشک های کروکدیل حکومت های غربی که سعی به تشویق برای نا آرامی و نارضایتی برای منافع خودشان دارند قرار گیریم. آن تنها به، به اصطلاح ضد امپریالیست ها مستمسکی ارایه می دهد که هم چون طوطی تبلیغات جمهوری اسلامی را که معترضان تنها عروسک های اسرائیل، عربستان سعودی و ایالات متحده هستند تکرار کنند.

در تضاد با آنان جنبش جهانی سوسیالیستی همبستگی اش را با زنان و مردان ایران ارایه می دهد و پشتیبان مبارزه آنان برای به زیر کشیدن یوغ آیت الله ها ست.

خشونت وسیله ایی موثر یک اقلیت برای ماندن در قدرت می باشد. ولی وقتی اکثریت به سمت انقلاب حرکت می کنند، خشونت دولت قادر نخواهد بود برای مدت طولانی ایی آنان را عقب نگه دارد .    

عشق من و تو                                نمی خواهی بدونی که آب از سر گذشته

عشق منو رد میکنی                                           با من چرا  قهر می کنی

من با تو قهرم                                نمی خواهی بدونی که آب از سر گذشته

عشق من و تو نمیخواهی بدونی                                   که میم لا م برنگشته

 من با تو قهرم                                 نمی خواهی بدونی پوپولیسم زنده گشته

عشق من و تو                                   نمی خواهی بدونی که اسلام بر نگشته

کارل مارکس شهرم                    نمی خواهی بدونی که مارکسیسم زنده گشته   

عشق من و تو                                    نمی خواهی بدونی که اسلام در گذشته

استاد شهرم  نمی خواهی بدونی                        که کارل مارکس زنده گشته    

استاد دهراست  نمی خواهی بدونی                               که نامش زنده گشته   

A translation of an earlier SOYMB post

SOCIALISM OR YOUR MONEY BACK: The voice of the Iranian revolution

The prospects of the Canadian economy taking an upswing is, to say the least, gloomy. Economists say Canada is headed for a recession and it’s going to hit earlier and harder and last longer than previously forecast. Most economists agree that a recession is inevitable, thanks to the Bank of Canada’s decision to hike interest rates at a fast pace. Doug Porter, the top economist for the Bank of Montreal, said the next recession is due to start early in 2023 and last for a year and a half. Of course capitalism being the unpredictable system that it is, these prophets of gloom and doom could be wrong and how exactly does Mr. Porter know when it will end? One thing is for sure; recession or not, life for the working class in Canada won’t be easy. 

Canada’s largest city, Toronto is in a terrible state. Emergency shelters are bursting at the seams, Public Housing is falling apart and the transit system is struggling to maintain its service. All this has been exacerbated by the province’s decision to stop contributing to many of the expenses it used to share with municipal governments. The situation was made worse by the pandemic which caused many workers to work from home so there was less coming in from transit fares. The law does not allow Toronto to run an operating deficit even in times of crisis. So what is the solution within capitalism? We don’t know if there is one, though it’s possible the city may contract out some services, thereby causing redundancies. Yet if anyone were suggest a society without money they would be thought of as nuts. 

On October 1 six provinces — Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador — raised their minimum legal wage. Other provinces have pay hikes scheduled over the coming months to reach the benchmark level of $15 an hour. This comes as the cost of living soars, with Canada’s annual inflation rate reaching a 40 year high in recent months. The problem is its too-little-too-late. For years reformers have fought for this hike and now they’ve got it, it’s just not enough. According to Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, ‘it really needs to be $20 an hour or more when we look at inflation and the cost of food and housing.’ In other words, no matter how hard unions and reformers try, due to the effects of capitalism all their best efforts don’t add up to much.

So this was the deal concerning affordable daycare. In the first year of the federal government’s five-year agreement, parents had been promised a 25% rebate on fees, retroactive to April 1, followed by a 50% cut by the end of this year, with fees reduced to an average of $10 a day by 2026. Sounds simple doesn’t it? But you know what? It’s not so simple, because we live under capitalism and its bedrock economic law – the pursuit of profit — will screw anything up. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has removed limits on profit making by day-care owners who receive federal funding. Private day care owners have said that removing red tape and restrictions on profit making are essential if they are going to remain in business. At present there is a stand-off between Ottawa and Ontario, as thousands of Ontario families wait for promised fee reductions. Another crazy situation caused by the effects of crapitalism. 

Stats-Canada’s latest report, issued on October 3, informs us that economic pressures pushed households to lose wealth as asset values declined amid the turmoil in the financial and housing markets, while interests rates and inflation increased. The average household net worth in the second quarter of 2022 was $940,560, down $65,400 from the first quarter. The debt-to-asset ratio increased for all age groups. The ratio measures the net worth by subtracting debts from someone’s assets. If debt increases and asset worth declines, then obviously net worth takes a hit and equally obviously it’s the working class who get hit the hardest. The least wealthy saw their average net worth drop by 12% from the first to second quarter, more than double the rate of the wealthier households. Should we be surprised? 

Recent months have seen one heck of a stink concerning Hockey Canada. Earlier this year, a victim of sexual assault filed a $3.55 million lawsuit against it, which was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. It has since come to light that a multimillion dollar fund was used to settle the lawsuit stemming from a 2018 sexual assault involving eight members of the junior national hockey team. Hockey Canada conducted an investigation but was unable to determine which players were involved. Various MPs are angry about the way the sporting bodies have handled the matter, particularly Liberal Hedy Fry, who complained about a ‘sweep-it-under-the-rug culture at Hockey Canada.’ Since then it has been revealed the fund was used to settle nine sex abuse claims against Hockey Canada going back to 1989. At the time of writing the federal government is conducting a review headed by Supreme Court Judge Thomas Cromwell and has frozen its funding to Hockey Canada, as have some private sponsors. In a socialist society mental health will have improved to such an extent that sexual violence will rarely occur and when it does both victim and perpetrator will receive the help they require. There will be no need to sweep it under a rug. 

In British Columbia the capitalist class is chopping down ancient cedars, many worth more than $20,000, at an alarming rate. More than 20,000 hectares of Haida forests are cut down each year, according to the University of British Columbia. This is screwing up the Haida Gwaii tribe something rotten, because they now have to drive hours to find old-growth cedars healthy enough to harvest for totem poles, canoes, boxes, masks, and weaving. Aerial photos show hectares of stumps scarring the landscape. Deforestation is getting close to watersheds that spawn salmon. Stocks of the fish, the main source of food for the Haida, are vanishing. As one Haida said: ‘The devastation of our land intensifies the trauma of our people.’ The capitalist class have shown scant regard for aboriginals anywhere if it stops them making a profit. If trees are worth $20,000, they ain’t gonna stop now. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on October 7 that his government would permanently ban leaders of Iran’s theocratic regime and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for human rights abuses. All this is in the wake of their murder of a young woman for wearing her headgear wrong. He also announced new economic and immigration sanctions. Deputy PM Chrystia Freedland said: ‘The Iranian regime is a state sponsor of terrorism. It is repressive, theocratic and misogynist.’ You could’ve fooled me, gal! It’s true that many political supporters of capitalism sincerely care about human rights, but let’s not kid ourselves: the capitalist class as a whole don’t give a rat’s behind about them. They would like the working class kept in its place, exploited without any means of protest. They know it won’t work like that, they have to give a little to keep a lot and what civil-rights the working class have anywhere are the fruit of tenacious struggle. There is only one solution — a society where such rights are a given. 

New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh said he has a plan to take on the new Progressive Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre at the next federal election. If he became PM, Singh promises to appoint a task force that would boost workers’ pay by cutting taxes and clawbacks on each extra dollar people earn, position Canada as the best place to invest, hire and make stuff, help the working poor and middle class by cracking down on tax dodging and evasion and simplifying Canada’s tax system; which is a lot of promises for a single sentence. All this is in response to all the great things Poilievre said he would do for the working class. The funniest thing in all this nonsense is the comment made by NDP national director Anne McGrath: ‘’It’s going to be an amazing contrast, like this really, really important contrast between the two.’ How could it be a contrast if they both want to administrate capitalism? 

The number of people who need better housing in Metro Vancouver has increased by more than 20,000 over the past decade, according to a census conducted by the Simon Fraser University’s city program. The term Core Housing Need refers to people who live in homes that stretch their budgets, are inadequate or unsuitable for them. Ten years back Metro Vancouver had 145,000 living in such conditions. Now the number has swollen to 166,000. This does not include the homeless. The program’s director, Andy Yan, said: ’The Vancouver region has not built enough housing for certain income brackets and in part I blame the speculators’ lust for profits.’ 

On October 21 Trudeau and several members of his cabinet traveled across Canada to mark the new legislation to freeze the sale of handguns. This is the government’s latest effort to restrict the sale of firearms. The freeze is part of bill C-21, now making its way through Parliament, which would make it harder to buy any kind of gun at all. The bill changes maximum penalties for some gun crimes and also creates new crimes. One must wonder what good it will do considering that last year 85% of the handguns the police captured that were used in crime in Canada were made in the US. In a masterpiece of understatement, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said: ‘C-21 is only part of the solution to the problem of gun violence in Canada.’ There is only one solution, buddy, and it won’t be found within capitalism. 

The Ontario elections of October 24 yielded few surprises. John Tory was re-elected in Toronto and Bonnie Crombie in Mississauga. Ex-NDP leader Andrea Horwath was elected Mayor in Hamilton, though the vote was close. The only slight surprise was Patrick Browns win in Brampton, considering the scandal and controversy that followed him until election night. What was not surprising is the low voter turnout, which overall was 43.5%. The general feeling is of mistrust and contempt for politicians. This may be a step in the right direction, but there’s a long way to go before the working class realize that the fault lies not with the politicians but with the crazy unworkable system they are attempting to run. 

Socialist Party of Canada

News from Canada: November 2022 – World Socialist Party US (wspus.org)

 More than one in four children with care worker parents are growing up in poverty, according to the TUC. 220,000 children – 28.4% – with at least one social care worker as a parent were in poverty and said the number was on course to rise to nearly 300,000 by the end of this parliament unless action was taken to improve pay and conditions in the sector.

The TUC said one in five key worker households, or 19%, have children living in poverty, with poverty especially prevalent in families where parents are nurses and public transport workers.

 50,000 children (25%) with public transport workers as parents are growing up in poverty and more than 100,000 children (10.8%) with teaching staff as parents are living in poverty.

The TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, said “Our amazing key workers risked their lives to get us through the pandemic. The very least they deserve is to be able to provide for their families. But many have been trapped in poverty and abandoned by this government…We can’t be a country where bankers are allowed to help themselves to bigger bonuses, while nurses and care staff are forced to use food banks…”

The TUC predicted that child poverty rates among key worker households would worsen unless action was taken to improve pay and conditions, after ministers announced another year of real-terms pay cuts for millions of key workers in the public sector.

 Public sector earnings have fallen in real terms by 4.3% since the financial crisis, with some professions experiencing falls of as much as 13%.

One in four children of UK care workers living in poverty, TUC finds | UK cost of living crisis | The Guardian