Families are spending an average of £89 more a month on energy, food and fuel than they were before the pandemic, Lloyds Banking Group said.

Lloyds’ chief executive, Charlie Nunn, said about 20% of the bank’s customers had had to adapt their spending “significantly” to rising prices, forcing them to refrain from purchases such as white goods and computers. He added that customers had cancelled or blocked 2.2m subscriptions services such as Netflix since the summer of 2021.

 UK banks have largely benefited from nine consecutive months of interest rate rises by the Bank of England, where policymakers have been trying to get soaring inflation under control. Rising rates are usually good news for bank finances, since banks are able to charge borrowers more for loans and mortgages, which in turn increases their net interest margin – a key measure of profitability and growth. Lloyds pre-tax profits for the three months to the end of June were in line with the same period last year at just over £2bn, exceeding analyst estimates of £1.6bn.

Lloyds’ net interest margin – the difference between what it earns from loans and pays for deposits – rose to 2.87% in the second quarter compared with 2.5% last year.

Lloyds lays bare impact of soaring inflation on everyday customers | Lloyds Banking Group | The Guardian

 According to Save the Children, families in Myanmar have lost on average more than half of their income since the political crisis and escalation of conflict in February 2021. The economic crisis drove an increase in the share of households experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity between August and October 2020. Since February last year, the country has suffered further economic decline, with mass job losses, business closures and a weakening of the Myanmar currency (kyat), which has affected households across the country.

Shaheen Chughtai, Regional Advocacy Director for Save the Children in Asia, said: “More than a year on from the coup, millions of children do not have enough to eat and families are having to beg or borrow to survive. These new figures are especially sobering at a time where humanitarian response is severely underfunded. At a time when children in Myanmar need us most, they are being let down by the international community…”

The economic impact of the political crisis, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, has left families struggling to feed themselves and their children.

Some 80% of families said food was their primary concern, with adults in one in five households cutting back on meals in order to feed their children. 

A third of households are borrowing food or relying on help from others to feed their families.

Families are reporting an average price increase of between 30% and 70% for basic foods.

Even middle-income households are now being pushed below the poverty line.

Earlier this year, Save the Children reported that at least 150,000 children had been forced to flee their homes due to violence, and last month reports showed that the number of children out of school had doubled over the past two years.

https://reliefweb.int/report/myanmar/families-myanmar-lose-more-half-their-income-year-conflict-says-save-children

 Shell reports record profit of $11.5 billion

Oil giant Shell has doubled its profits in the last quarter, thanks to the surge in energy prices since the Ukraine war began which are hammering households and businesses.

Shell has reported record adjusted earnings of $11.47bn (£9.4bn) for the last quarter, up from $5.5bn in April-June 2021, as it benefitted from higher realised prices, higher refining margins, and stronger gas and power trading. That smashes Shell’s record quarterly profit of $9.1bn racked up in January-March, and above analyst forecasts.

The company will funnel more cash to investors, announcing a share buyback programme of $6bn in the third quarter.

  Meanwhile, the UK’s energy price cap could hit £3,850 per year in January. BFY Group, a utilities consultancy, warns that more vulnerable households, on prepayment meters, could see energy bills of £500 for the month of January alone. Consumers were also warned that annual charges of more than £3,500 a year, or £300 a month, could become the norm “well into 2024”.

(1) Shell’s profits hit record $11.5bn, as UK households face winter energy bill pain – business live (theguardian.com)

Although our attitude towards nationalism has been stated many times, there are still those who do not understand it or cannot reconcile it with what they are supposed to be the socialist point of view. It is not easy to oppose the emotionalism of powerful patriotic movements but that difficulty is not removed by being acquiescent and avoiding adopting the Marxist analysis

Let us set out the Socialist Party’s answer to the appeals of the patriot that all citizens ought to defend the independence of the country in which they live. Our answer is plain and definite. Under capitalism all the workers in every land are wage slaves. In wars between capitalist nations, victory or defeat,  leaves their position in society unchanged. Even the standard of living of the workers in both the “victorious” and “defeated” countries alters little. The abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism is the sole issue for the Socialist Party.

Should workers support wars waged by capitalist States? Should workers support nationalist movements? The Socialist Party’s reply to both questions is an unambiguous no! We support no capitalist war and we support no nationalist movement. Wars waged by capitalist State involves no working-class issues, and on no account would socialists support them. The Socialist Party alone in this country consistently opposed every capitalist war. 

 The only enemy of the working class is the capitalist class. Therefore to urge the workers to fight for Britain, China, Russia or Ukraine is to ask them to neglect the problems and the interests of their class. Such propaganda under capitalism, on whatever pretext, is anti-socialist. In comparison with the loss of working class life and limb in war, the difference between exploitation by domestic capitalists and exploitation by foreign capitalists matters nothing at all to workers. We hold an attitude of unqualified hostility to capitalist wars. 

We are interested in one struggle only, class struggle the endeavour by wage earners to overthrow capitalist private property and all forms of the wages system. The national movements blazing away in different parts of the world are not working-class, but capitalist, in their aim. We, therefore, oppose them. Patriotism has the effect of binding together the classes in each geographical area. The Socialist Party desires that conflicting class interests shall be recognised, not obscured.

Socialism and patriotism are irreconcilably antagonistic. Patriotism is anti-working class and Russian nationalism is no less so than is British. The one encourages the other. We wish to stifle both so neither can thrive.  The assumption by some on the left-wing that the enemies of the Western powers are necessarily the friends of socialism is too shallow to need refutation.  It has been argued that  that the existence of foreign control enables capitalist politicians to blame the evils of their system on to the “foreigner.” Against this, however, must be placed the great harm wrought by the exaggeration of national feeling, and hatred of foreigners. This breeds a state of mind quite unsuited to working-class organisations: and saps the solidarity of members of the working-class with each other.

Consequently, the Socialist Party is frequently branded as a“puppet” of imperialism because we tell the workers that rule by one section of the capitalist class does not differ in essentials from rule by another section. Instead, we tell the truth, which is that another nation’s “independence” should concern no more the workers there than does British “independence” matter to us. Their governments are all operating on behalf of the capitalist class. Just as we told fellow workers in past wars not to support the wars of the ruling class, so we tell the Russian and Ukrainian workers now.  Does any objective observer believe for one moment that Ukrainian capitalists are one whit less brutal in their exploitation of their workers than  the Russia, or for that matter are UK, EU, US, or any other Imperialist capitalist class?  The Ukrainian workers will be no better off when they have had a change of masters imposed.

Capitalism as a world system is not weakened by the victory or defeat of our respective nation-states. The lives of workers are needlessly sacrificed to satisfy the interests of the ruling class. The Socialist Party can proudly boast that it has never urged the workers to fight in or prepare for capitalist wars, and has never, directly or indirectly, aided any political party doing so.

Our advice to both Ukraine’s and Russia’s workers is to build up organisations to fight their own capitalist class—they will need them soon enough. Our advice to all workers is to acquaint themselves with their own class interests and get rid of the illusion that they can dictate foreign policy to their masters.

 In a speech in Washington at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Sir Stephen Lovegrove, the UK’s national security adviser warned, the West risks the initiation of nuclear conflict with China or Russia because of a “breakdown of communication” with the two countries.

He believed the deterioration of communication with China and Russia had created a higher risk of “rapid escalation to strategic conflict”.

“The cold war’s two monolithic blocks of the USSR and Nato – though not without alarming bumps – were able to reach a shared understanding of doctrine that is today absent,” he said. “Doctrine is opaque in Moscow and Beijing, let alone Pyongyang or Tehran.”

Lovegrove, who was appointed to Whitehall’s most senior defence role in March 2021, added: “During the cold war, we benefited from a series of negotiations and dialogues that improved our understanding of Soviet doctrine and capabilities and vice versa. This gave us both a higher level of confidence that we would not miscalculate our way into nuclear war. Today, we do not have the same foundations with others who may threaten us in the future – particularly with China…”

Poor communication ‘raises risk of nuclear war with China or Russia’ | Nuclear weapons | The Guardian

 Mexico is facing its worst water crisis in 30 years as reservoirs serving about 23 million people dry up. The climate crisis has caused consistently hotter summers, and this year’s La Niña weather patterns created the perfect conditions for severe drought. More than half of Mexico is suffering from drought, and the national water authority, Conagua, declared a state of emergency in four northern states. Several cities have now reached the point of critical water scarcity when water supplies ran out.

While drought grips Mexican cities like Monterrey with people lining up with buckets for brackish water Coca-Cola and other firms are still extracting groundwater. The drought in North Mexico means taps run dry. People cannot afford bottled water so water tankers (pipas)  are the only way to deliver water to homes and businesses. Monterrey is facing a “sanitary crisis” as those who cannot afford bottled water drink unclean water from the pipas.

Anger is growing that beverage companies with bottling plants, including Coca Cola and Heineken, are extracting billions of litres of water from public reservoirs. Several brewers and soft drinks companies have factories in the city, and these use about 60 times the amount consumed by the city’s population, nearly 90bn litres a year in total, and over half of that – nearly 50bn litres a year (or 50m cubic metres) – is water from public reservoirs. activists have popularised the phrase: activists have popularised the phrase: “No es sequía, es saqueo” (“It’s not drought, it’s plunder”) 

Jaime Noyola, director of the Alliance of Users of Public Services, says his organisation predicted the crisis months ago. The public-interest group regularly protests outside government buildings. They allege that local leaders, including the governor of Nuevo León state, Samuel García, are directly profiting from drinks companies’ water use.

“From the behaviour of the companies, we don’t see anything that indicates they will give up water voluntarily,” Noyola says. “And on the part of the local and state government, there’s a crisis of ineptitude, and they blame everyone but themselves.”

Though a group of drinks companies, including Arca Continental and Coca-Cola, have collectively pledged to give up 28% of the water they use while the drought continues, the companies did not mention lowering prices of the essential drinking water they sell.

“How do you assign a price to water? It’s a human right,” says Noyola. “But these companies, namely Coca-Cola, in selling bottled water as the only potable water source, have made their product obligatory. Now water costs nearly as much as gasoline.” 

Mexico is the world’s largest per-capita consumer of bottled water. Noyola adds: “Even if they stop production, they are still selling their products while people are suffering and infections are spreading [from people drinking water from the pipas].”

The water crisis has sparked protests and violence along class lines, as wealthier areas are given higher water quotas than poorer areas, and still have tap water for up to 12 hours a day. On 16 July, residents of two impoverished Monterrey suburbs learned that a portion of the remaining water from a nearby reservoir would be diverted to the city. In response, they blocked a highway with a barricade of cars, tyres, rocks and tree branches, stalling traffic for two days. Then they burned the water pipes.

“I won’t be surprised if people get together and start hijacking the pipas,” Noyola says.

‘It’s plunder’: Mexico desperate for water while drinks companies use billions of litres | Global development | The Guardian

The American labor movement is experiencing a resurgence, with an increase in the popularity of unions and of workers organizing.

An August 2021 poll conducted by Gallup found support for labor unions at their highest point in the US since 1965, with 68% support in the US. Labor unions were the only institution for whom Americans’ approval did not decline over the past year, in a June poll on confidence for 16 major US institutions.

During the first three-quarters of the fiscal year, the National Labor Relations reported an increase of union election petitions by 58%, up to 1,892 from 1,197.

But the corporate pushback in America has been fierce, and has come amid allegations of union-busting, and brutal campaigns to try and discourage workers from organizing.

US sees union boom despite big companies’ aggressive opposition | US unions | The Guardian

The American labor movement is experiencing a resurgence, with an increase in the popularity of unions and of workers organizing.

An August 2021 poll conducted by Gallup found support for labor unions at their highest point in the US since 1965, with 68% support in the US. Labor unions were the only institution for whom Americans’ approval did not decline over the past year, in a June poll on confidence for 16 major US institutions.

During the first three-quarters of the fiscal year, the National Labor Relations reported an increase of union election petitions by 58%, up to 1,892 from 1,197.

But the corporate pushback in America has been fierce, and has come amid allegations of union-busting, and brutal campaigns to try and discourage workers from organizing.

US sees union boom despite big companies’ aggressive opposition | US unions | The Guardian

 Gaza’s Hamas rulers have imposed a slew of new taxes even though  Gaza’s 2.3 million people are suffering not only from a 15-year Israeli-Egyptian blockade, but also from a new jump in prices caused by global supply-chain issues and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. With tens of thousands of civil servants to support, as well as its heavy spending on its military wing, it is no surprise that Hamas is seeking new sources of revenue. The government offers few services in exchange, and most aid and relief projects are covered by the international community. The funds help Hamas operate a government and powerful armed wing.

 New taxes have been placed on imported clothes and office supplies just ahead of the new school year, sparking limited but rare protests in the impoverished coastal strip. The list also includes a tax of about $3 on pair of jeans, and $230 on a ton of plastic folders used to store papers. Demand for these items increases ahead of the school year.

 Planned taxes on items like packaged nuts, with an import tariff of 2,000 shekels (nearly $600) per ton. In the past, nuts were imported tax free. The tariff on a ton of toilet paper rose from $90 to $580. 

It is the latest steps are part of a series of taxes targeting a wide array of sectors, from street vendors selling hot drinks to restaurants, home building and cars.

Earlier this month, about two dozen members of the clothes merchants’ union expressed their frustration in public. They stood inside the building housing their union in Gaza City and held new pairs of jeans, with the price tags still on them, in the air for about half an hour. Two days later, the merchants gathered outside the offices of Hamas lawmakers. Police prevented the media from filming and ordered the protest to stop after allowing representatives of the union inside to talk to the lawmakers.

Seeking new funds, Hamas raises taxes in impoverished Gaza | AP News

 Yields of key crops in Europe will be sharply down this year owing to heatwaves and droughts, exacerbating the impacts of the Ukraine war on food prices.

Maize, sunflower and soya bean yields are forecast by the EU to drop by about 8% to 9% due to hot weather across the continent. Supplies of cooking oil and maize were already under pressure, as Ukraine is a major producer and its exports have been blocked by Russia.

Large parts of Europe have been afflicted by drought and hot weather in recent weeks, including Spain, southern France, central and northern Italy, central Germany, northern Romania and eastern Hungary. Cereal yields are down about 2% overall, compared with the five-year average.  Drought and heat stress in many regions coincided with the flowering stage for key crops, and water reservoirs in many places are at levels too low to meet the demand for irrigation.

Falls in Europe’s crop yields due to heatwaves could worsen price rises | Farming | The Guardian