Millions more people will die from Covid-19 in the coming year, and most will be unvaccinated. The vaccines that could save millions of lives are not reaching the poor majority of the world’s population. The contrast is stark: the current share of people fully vaccinated in high, upper-middle income, lower-middle income and low income countries is 69%, 68%, 30% and 3.5% respectively.

The UK, Canada, Germany and other EU states have supported a deliberate policy to withhold vaccines from the poorest countries in the world, and defended an immoral and unethical economic system which places big pharma patents ahead of millions of lives. 

Anthony Costello, a professor of global health at University College London and former director of the WHO’s maternal, child, and adolescent health program, wrote in The Guardian that wealthy countries’ hoarding of doses and refusal share vaccine technology could constitute “crimes against humanity” and that international lawyers should consider pursuing charges.

 The official statistics of global Covid deaths (5.2 million) greatly underestimate the real figures, which may already be more than 20 million deaths. In India, for example, analyses suggest that the real death rates are 10 times higher than the official figure of 400,000. Meanwhile, another study has found that more than 1.5 million children have been orphaned by the pandemic.

Patent-protected vaccines are sold at great profit to wealthy countries by a few pharmaceutical companies. The global vaccine price ranges from $2 (for AstraZeneca) to $37 per dose, with mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna the most expensive. Between January 2020 and December 2021 the market capitalisations of Moderna rose from $6.9bn to $134bn; Pfizer from $206bn to $314bn; and BioNTech from $6.6bn to $84bn.

What can the world do when massive financial interests are placed before the survival of millions of men, women and children? 

 One is a patent waiver. A year ago India, South Africa, Kenya and Eswatini among others called for one, so that emerging economy companies were not under threat of future litigation. The USA and France eventually supported them. But Germany, Canada, Japan, South Korea and the UK blocked this move to protect big pharma. Bill Gates, a major donor to Covax, also defended patent rights. After months of wrangling, the WTO has failed to broker an agreement.

The richest countries are vaccine hoarders. Try them in international court | Anthony Costello | The Guardian

 Millions of Americans are working into their senior years because they can’t afford not to have a job.

Over the next decade, the number of workers ages 75 and older is expected to increase in the US by 96.5%, with their labor force participation rate projected to rise from 8.9% in 2020 to 11.7% by 2030, a rate that has steadily increased from 4.7% in 1996.

By 2040, the US population of adults ages 65 and older is expected to increase to 80.8 million from 54.1 million in 2019.

The number of workers who retired during the pandemic was about 2 million more than expected. 50.3% of US adults ages 55 and older said they were out of the labor force due to retirement in the third quarter of 2021, compared to 48.1% in the third quarter of 2019. Though in recent months, the unretirement rate of US workers has gradually increased toward pre-pandemic levels.

As the ageing US population grows, participation in retirement plans has declined since 2000.

 Nearly half of all families in the US have no retirement savings at all and inequality among Americans based on retirement savings is greater than income inequality. 

Over 15 million adults ages 65 and older are economically insecure, with incomes below 200% of the federal poverty line, with Black, Hispanic and women ages 65 and older more likely to live in poverty.

With the average estimated social security retirement benefit in 2021 at $1,543 a month, even with a 5.9% cost of living adjusted increase for 2022, millions of Americans who rely on social security benefits are forced to continue working past retirement age in order to make ends meet.

As the US population ages, with millions of Americans having no retirement savings, the number of older Americans with student debt, either for themselves or for children, is on the rise.

Nearly 9 million Americans ages 50 and older still have student debt, and the amount owed by this demographic is growing faster than any other age group. 

In 2015, 40,000 Americans had their social security retirement benefits garnished for student loans.

‘At 75, I still have to work’: millions of Americans can’t afford to retire | US retirement | The Guardian

 The poorest half of the population have had their incomes squeezed by £110 since 2019.

 The 2021 Winter issue of the Socialist Party of Canada’s journal, Imagine, is now out. 

You can access the electronic version by following this link.

Of particular interest is the article by Comrade L. Gambone of Vancouver Island (pp. 3–5), who argues that nowadays the Indigenous and Ecological movements, by ‘directly challenging capital over questions of ownership and control,’ wage ‘a much higher stage of class struggle’ than the business unions, which have agreed to stick to matters like wages and working conditions.

On page 9 there is also a poem, originally published in 1909 in The Western Clarion, by Wilfrid Gribble, a member of the Socialist Party of Canada who crossed the border to Detroit and in 1916 helped to found the Workers’ Socialist Party of the United States (forerunner of today’s World Socialist Party of the United States).

 In the last issue of the World Socialist, we explained Clause Two of the World Socialist Movement’s Declaration of Principles, which is regarding the class struggle — the conflict between both of capitalism’s economic classes. In this issue, we’ll expound on Clause Three, which says:

 Economic Policy Institute (EPI) distinguished fellow Lawrence Mishel—the group’s former president—and research assistant Jori Kandra looked at the Social Security Administration’s newly available wage data for 1979 to 2020.

The pair found that while the annual wages of the bottom 90% of American workers grew just 28.2% during that period, wages of the top 1.0% and 0.1% “skyrocketed” by 179.3% and 389.1%, respectively.

They noted that “the other segments of the top 10% also had faster-than-average wage growth since 1979, up 53.9% and 83.1%, but nowhere near as fast as the wage growth at the top.”

“This continuous growth of wage inequality undercuts wage growth for the bottom 90%,” Mishel and Kandra wrote, “and reaffirms the need to place generating robust wage growth for the vast majority and rebuilding worker power at the center of economic policymaking.”

“This disparity in wage growth reflects a sharp long-term rise in the share of total wages earned by those at the very top: The top 1.0% earned 13.8% of all wages in 2020, up from 7.3% in 1979,” according to the pair.

“That marks the second-highest share of earnings for the top 1.0% since the earliest year, 1937, when data became available (matching the tech bubble share of 13.8% in 2000 and below the share of 14.1% in 2007),” they continued. “The share of wages for the bottom 90% fell from 69.8% in 1979 to just 60.2% in 2020.”

 EPI pointed to “the erosion of collective bargaining,” and called on federal lawmakers to enact the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, passed by the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives in March.

The sweeping pro-union bill would boost collective bargaining rights, increase access to union elections, and introduce penalties for companies that exploit their workers—but it faces an uphill battle in the evenly split U.S. Senate unless Democrats decide to kill the filibuster.

EPI also noted that CEO pay has soared 1,322% during the past four decades, citing a report from Mishel and Kandra published in August, based on data back to 1978.

“Exorbitant CEO pay is a major contributor to rising inequality that we could safely do away with,” they wrote at the time, adding that chief executives “are getting more because of their power to set pay and because so much of their pay (more than 80%) is stock-related, not because they are increasing their productivity or possess specific, high-demand skills.”

“This escalation of CEO compensation, and of executive compensation more generally, has fueled the growth of top 1.0% and top 0.1% incomes, leaving less of the fruits of economic growth for ordinary workers and widening the gap between very high earners and the bottom 90%,” they said. “The economy would suffer no harm if CEOs were paid less (or were taxed more).”

 According to figures revealed in the latest edition of Boat International’s Global Order Book, more than 1,200 superyachts are slated to be built – a rise of 25% on last year.

“The market’s never been busier,” said Will Christie, a superyacht broker. “And I’ve been in the industry 20 years…Everybody just wants freedom, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals can afford it.” 

“Whether it’s this or private jets or trips to space, they’re just sticking two fingers up at the rest of society,” said Peter Newell, a professor of international relations at Sussex University. “It’s decadent. They’re not comfortable with the constraints that come with accepting collective responsibility for the fate of the planet.”

The economic anthropologist Richard Wilk, a distinguished professor at Indiana University in the US, said: “Of course, if you add every superyacht together, it’s just a blip on total greenhouse gas production. But it is symbolic – and the global impact of the 2,000-odd billionaires on the planet are very significant. So it’s part of a pattern of overconsumption by the upper crust.”

In research with his colleague Beatriz Barros, he found that the average billionaire had a carbon footprint thousands of times that of the average person. The global average footprint of CO2 emitted per person is just under five tonnes, while they estimated that Roman Abramovich – the top polluter according to their list – was responsible for about 33,859 tonnes of carbon emitted in 2018. More than two-thirds of that was the product of his yacht, the 162.5-metre Eclipse.

Sailing away: superyacht industry booms during Covid pandemic | Coronavirus | The Guardian

 The death toll from powerful tornadoes that devastated towns in Kentucky is likely to pass a hundred. 20 devastating tornadoes tore through multiple states and killed dozens of people. Affected states included Illinois, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee. Among the buildings struck was an Amazon facility in Edwardsville, Illinois. Local officials said that at least six people died from the collapse.

The corporate giant, Amazon, was accused of putting corporate profits above worker safety following the tornado-caused partial collapse of a St. Louis-area warehouse that left at least six people dead.

“Time and time again Amazon puts its bottom line above the lives of its employees,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), in a statement. “Requiring workers to work through such a major tornado warning event as this was inexcusable.”

In his statement, Appelbaum called the event “another outrageous example of the company putting profits over the health and safety of their workers, and we cannot stand for this.”

“Amazon cannot continue to be let off the hook for putting hardworking people’s lives at risk,” he said, vowing that his union would “not back down until Amazon is held accountable for these and so many more dangerous labor practices.”

 According to the National Socioeconomic Characterization Survey, 10.8 percent of Chileans currently live in poverty, which means more than two million people, although social organizations say the real proportion is much higher.

Chile, with a population of 19 million people, is considered one of the most unequal countries in the world, as reflected by the fact that the 10 percent of households with the highest incomes earn 251.3 times more than the 10 percent with the lowest income.

As Chile’s hotly contested election approaches, it is reported that camps made up of thousands of tents and shacks have mushroomed in Chile due to the failure of housing policies and official subsidies for the sector, aggravated by the rise in poverty, the covid-19 pandemic and a rise in immigrants, such as those from Venezuela. Hundreds of homeless tents now line the main avenues of Santiago de Chile

 Senda 23 is one of the five camps that bring together 300 families who occupied public land in Cerro 18, in the municipality of Lo Barnechea, on the east side of Santiago. They have been building shacks with wood and other materials within their reach, which they are gradually trying to improve.

The threat of eviction ceased at the start of the covid pandemic, but the shadow still hangs.

“This used to be a garbage dump and now it is clean and there are houses,” said Salas. “Mine gets a little wet inside when it rains because it is made of wood and because of the strong wind. But I have drinking water, electricity and sewerage thanks to my mother-in-law who lives further up. The neighboring family has neither water nor sewage. They are a couple with three children and one of them, Colomba, was born a week ago.” She explains that her neighbors “use the bathroom at their brother’s place who lives nearby.

In the last two years, the number of families living in 969 of these camps with almost no access to water, energy and sanitation services has increased to 81,643, a survey by the Fundación Techo Chile found.

In Chile, the term “campamentos” or camps has also come to refer to slums or shantytowns known traditionally as “callampas”, such as the one where Salas lives, which are built on occupied land and consist of houses made of light materials, although the neighborhoods are sometimes later improved and upgraded, but still lack basic services. These slums are mainly in Santiago and Valparaíso, 120 kilometers north of the capital, in central Chile. But they are also found in the northern cities of Arica and Parinacota and the southern city of Araucanía.

Celia “Charito” Durán lives in the Mesana camp on Mariposas hill in the port city of Valparaíso, along with 165 other families, and counting. The municipality delivers 3,000 liters of water per week to each house, using tanker trucks.

Durán said, however, that the priority is access “because if there is no road, we are cut off from everything: firefighters, water, ambulances.”

In Mesana there is no sewage system, only “cesspools, septic toilets and pipes through which people dump everything into the creek,” she said

They are home to 57,384 children under the age of 14 and some 25,000 immigrants, mostly Colombians, Venezuelans and Haitians.

 Fundación Techo Chile’s executive director, Sebastián Bowen, explained,  “The 81,000 families living in camps are the most visible part of the problem, but the housing deficit, covering all the families who do not have access to decent housing, exceeds 600,000.” 

Benito Baranda, founder of the Fundación Techo, an organization that now operates in several Latin American countries, believes that the housing policy failed because it focuses on “market-based eradication, forming housing ghettos on land where people continue to live in a segregated manner.”

This policy is also based on a structure of subsidies “born during the dictatorship and which has remained in place because housing is not a right recognized in the constitution,” 

The decision of where people are going to live was handed over to the market. Not only the construction of housing. And the land began to run out and the available and cheap places were in the ghettos,” he explained.

Baranda criticized the policy of “eradication”, “which created ghettos and generated much greater harm for people,” referring to the forced expulsions of slumdwellers and their relocation to social housing built on the outskirts of the cities, a policy initiated during the Pinochet dictatorship and which crystallized social segregation in the capital.

According to Baranda, “in the last four governments there has been the least construction of housing for the poorest families.”

Isabel Serra, an academic at the Diego Portales University Faculty of Architecture, criticized the subsidy policy because these “are transferred to the private sector and what they do is drive up housing prices… and most of them are not used because they are not in line with the price of land and housing.”

“A highly financialized private market has made housing a tool for economic speculation…investors have decided to put their funds into the real estate market,” she said.

Homeless Camps, a Reflection of Growing Inequality in Chile | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)

 The Committee on Oversight and Reform obtained more than 1.5 million pages of internal company documents, held five hearings, and released eight interim staff reports.

The panel’s chair by Rep. Carolyn Maloney noted in a letter at the beginning of the report. “The investigation has provided a rare glimpse into the decision-making of many of the world’s most profitable drug companies.”

Specifically, as a committee statement detailed, the probe revealed:

Drug companies aggressively raise prices to meet revenue targets, and executive compensation structures create incentives to raise prices;Drug companies target the U.S. market for higher prices and use the Medicare program to boost revenue;Drug companies use strategies to suppress competition and maintain monopoly pricing;Drug companies use patient assistance programs as a public relations tool to boost sales; andResearch and manufacturing costs do not justify price increases.