Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday put out a report, titled Tax Dodgers: How Billionaire Corporations Avoid Paying Taxes and How to Fix It,  that shows how 70 of the richest corporations in the U.S. “have rigged the tax code in their favor, employing armies of lobbyists and accountants to write and abuse the rules so they can avoid paying their fair share of taxes.”

FedEx paid $483 million in taxes last year—a 7.2% tax rate

DISH $0 in tax but instead collected a $223 million tax refund from the federal government despite raking in $2.6 billion in profits in 2020.

Amazon paid $2.8 billion in federal and foreign income taxes in 2020, its effective tax rate was just 11.5% on global profits totalling $24.3 billion, while the company handed out $118 million in executive bonuses.

Elizabeth Warren Releases Blueprint to End ‘Free Ride’ for Tax-Dodging US Billionaires (commondreams.org)

COP which stands for ‘Conference of the Parties’ intended to bring together almost every country for global climate summits. Others suggest that COP  really refers to the “Conference of Polluters” and “Conference of Profiteers.

COP1 was held in Berlin in 1995 in Berlin in recognition that issues related to the climate could not be addressed by an individual county and that it required an international response. 

Now, a quarter-century later, carbon dioxide emissions are 14 billion tons higher and the giant oil companies – e.g., Shell, BP, Chevron and Exxon — have made profits totalling nearly $2 trillion.

 A 2017 study from Carbon Majors Report revealed that only 100 companies were responsible for 71 percent of worldwide industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.

At Glasgow’s COP26 over 100 fossil fuel companies were represented with 30 trade associations and membership organizations. 

At least 503 (some estimates said 600-plus) fossil fuel lobbyists attended. 

 In addition, 27 official country delegations were registered fossil fuel lobbyists, including from Shell, Gazprom and BP.

Capitalism turns everything – everything! – into a commodity.  In the same process that it turns human work into labor power, of enabling people to sell themselves as they would sell any other object, capitalism turns nature into yet another commodity.

One can only wonder how many more COPs we will have to suffer through until the corporations executives, government bureaucrats and their lobbyists and lackies give up short-term profit for long-term viability … if not for themselves but their children and grandchildren. 

Without addressing the capitalism’s core value of the commodity – one reproduced for centuries and in every current transaction – the global environmental crisis will not be addressed let alone solved.

Taken from here 

COP26: Capitalism = Death – CounterPunch.org

 Millions of people in poorer countries, where the risk of drug-resistant infections is highest, are still missing out on key antibiotics. 5.7 million people, mainly in low- and middle-income countries, die from treatable infectious diseases, owing to a lack of access to antibiotics.

 Access to Medicine Foundation, an Amsterdam-based non-profit group, shows that only 54 of 166 medicines and vaccines assessed are covered by an access strategy to make them available to low- and middle-income countries.

Jayasree Iyer, the foundation’s executive director, said: “Those facing the highest risk of infection and the highest rates of drug resistance have the hardest time getting the antibiotics they need.”

Poorer nations still lack access to world’s key antibiotics | Pharmaceuticals industry | The Guardian

 Moderna, Pfizer, and BioNTech—the makers of the two most successful coronavirus vaccines—are raking in a combined $65,000 in profits every minute as they refuse to share their manufacturing recipes with developing countries, where billions of people still lack access to lifesaving shots.

According to a new People’s Vaccine Alliance analysis of recent earnings reports, the three pharmaceutical giants have made a total of $34 billion in profits this year, which amounts to roughly $1,083 per second, $64,961 per minute, or $3.9 million per hour.

“It is obscene that just a few companies are making millions of dollars in profit every single hour while just two percent of people in low-income countries have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus,” said Maaza Seyoum of the People’s Vaccine Alliance Africa. “Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna have used their monopolies to prioritize the most profitable contracts with the richest governments, leaving low-income countries out in the cold.”

Moderna has delivered just 0.2% of its total vaccine supply to low-income countries.

Pfizer and its Germany-based partner BioNTech haven’t done much better than their competitor, sending less than 1% of their supply to poor nations while profiting hugely from sales to rich countries.

“Contrary to what Pfizer’s CEO says, the real nonsense is claiming the experience and expertise to develop and manufacture lifesaving medicines and vaccines does not exist in developing countries,” Anna Marriott, health policy manager at Oxfam International, said in a statement Tuesday. “This is just a false excuse that pharmaceutical companies are hiding behind to protect their astronomical profits.”

“It is also a complete failure of government to allow these companies to maintain monopoly control and artificially constrain supply in the midst of a pandemic while so many people in the world are yet to be vaccinated,” she added.

 Moderna on Tuesday announced a deal that will allow the European Union and European Economic Area countries to donate coronavirus vaccine doses that they purchased from the company to COVAX, the World Health Organization-backed vaccination initiative.

The agreement was met with derision from vaccine equity campaigners. “Goodness, how generous,” responded Nick Dearden, director of the U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now. “Most people will simply be astounded that you were stopping them from doing this in the first place.”

“Why don’t you, instead, share your publicly funded vaccine recipe with the WHO?” he added. “That might actually help.”

In a letter to Moderna’s billionaire CEO Stéphane Bancel on Tuesday, a coalition of nearly 90 civil society organizations wrote that “we are in no doubt that most Covid-19 deaths in low-income countries are now avoidable deaths: lives that could be saved were effective vaccines, none more than Moderna’s, widely available to their populations.”

The groups called on Moderna to transfer its vaccine technology to qualified manufacturers through the WHO to ramp up global vaccine production and to commit to selling its shot to low-income countries at a not-for-profit price.

‘Obscene’: Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna Are Raking in $3.9 Million in Profits Per Hour (commondreams.org)

 Regardless of all the hype that with labour shortages it is a workers market right now, the average pay deal across the UK is worth just 2%, despite a rise in prices that pushed the retail prices index (RPI) – a widely used measure of inflation in pay bargaining – to 6% this month.

Inflation is causing a sharp decline in disposable incomes across much of the workforce, a survey of employers also found they were expecting to increase pay by only 2.5% over the next year.

Average pay deal in Britain worth just 2%, data shows | Business | The Guardian

 Tens of thousands of England’s poorest pensioners face paying the same for their old age care as wealthier people after the government published details of the new cap on home and care costs.

The move will save the government hundreds of millions of pounds but leave many poorer homeowners exposed to “catastrophic costs” including the need to sell their homes to cover long-term care, analysts said.

“The proposed amendments to the Care Act mean reforms will no longer protect those with lower wealth from catastrophic costs,” said Charles Tallack at the Health Foundation thinktank. “The changes seem motivated by the desire to save money but do so by taking protection away from poorer homeowners.”

A pensioner with a £90,000 home in Burnley who qualifies for council help could pay the same for their care out of their own pocket as someone with property worth £250,000 or more in Surrey who is too wealthy for means-tested assistance. Care bills could still eat into almost all of their assets, forcing the sale of the house.

Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, said: “if you own a £1m house in the home counties, over 90% of your assets are protected. If you’ve got a terrace house in Hartlepool worth £70,000 you can lose almost everything.” He added: “I’m really not sure the government’s thought this through…”

Analysts said the move could save the government hundreds of millions of pounds from the estimated £3bn cost of the cap, but the savings were being taken from people with low to moderate wealth not richer people.

“These changes will mean that the people who need the most protection from catastrophically high care costs – those with low to moderate levels of wealth – will get less protection than wealthier people,” said Sally Warren, director of policy at the King’s Fund thinktank. “They may well wonder why the prime minister’s promise that no one need sell their house to pay for care will benefit wealthier people but doesn’t seem to apply to them. The government was brave in raising taxes to fund the long-overdue reform of social care but, having taken two steps forward, has now taken one step back.”

At any one time, tens of thousands of people receiving care have such limited assets that they get means-tested help and so will be affected directly by the proposals. Hundreds of thousands of people who may never need social care will nevertheless be worried about being caught by the new system if they eventually require help. It effectively means some people with lesser assets don’t benefit from the cap at all.

Social care cap could expose poorer homeowners to ‘catastrophic’ costs | Social care | The Guardian

 November 20th

11 – 4pm

​The Casa, 

29 Hope Street,

Liverpool L1 9BQ

See http://merseysidemarxistbookfair.uk/

The Party will have a stall at this event stocking a wide range of Party literature

 Oligarch Elon Musk suggested that he and other billionaires are powerless to help the tens of millions of people across the globe who are suffering from hunger—and dared experts to prove him wrong. 

David Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Program did just that, providing a detailed proposal for how Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and other billionaires could prevent 42 million people from starving with a tiny fraction of their vast wealth.

Home secretary, Priti Patel told the House of Lords justice and home affairs committee last month: “All the data and evidence has shown this – that in the last 12 months alone, 70% of the individuals who have come to our country illegally via small boats are single men, who are effectively economic migrants. They are not genuine asylum seekers. These are the ones who are elbowing out the women and children, who are at risk and fleeing persecution.”

Yet data from her own department has concluded that 61% of migrants who travel by boat are likely to be allowed to stay after claiming asylum.

Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “The analysis contradicts the government’s narrative that people coming across the Channel are not refugees. The reality is that people who come to the UK by taking terrifying journeys in small boats across the Channel do so because they are desperately seeking safety having fled persecution, terror and oppression.”

The Refugee Council analysed Channel crossings and asylum outcomes between January 2020 and June 2021. The charity found that 91% of people who travelled by boat across the Channel came from 10 countries where human rights abuses and persecution were common. These were Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Vietnam, Kuwait, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Yemen.

According to the Home Office, 98% of people coming across the Channel apply for asylum. The report sets out the likely outcome of their asylum claims based on what is known as the grant rate. It finds that the majority of people crossing the Channel are likely to be recognised as being in need of protection at the initial decision stage.

For the top 10 countries of origin arriving by small boat, 61% of initial decisions made in the 18 months to June 2021 would have resulted in refugee protection being granted, the report states. This compares with 52% of decisions made for all nationalities in the same period.

The report shows that for Syrians, 88% are granted refugee status; for Eritreans the rate is 84%; for Sudanese and those from Yemen, 70%; for Iranians, 67%; for Vietnamese, 65%; for people from Kuwait Bidoun, 61%; and for Afghans, 56%.

If an asylum claim is refused by the Home Office at the initial decision stage, the applicant has a right of appeal to an independent tribunal. The report shows 59% of appeals are likely be allowed for the top 10 countries of origin, compared with 46% for appeals allowed for all countries. For example, 59% of appeals by Iranians are likely to be successful, as are 69% of Sudanese appeals and 73% of appeals by Syrians.

Most people who risk Channel boat crossings are refugees – report | Immigration and asylum | The Guardian

 In a 2021 study: Still Not Getting Energy Prices Right: A Global and Country Update of Fossil Fuel Subsidies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports that globally, fossil fuel subsidies were 5.9 trillion US dollars in 2020 or about 6.8 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). 

And that such subsidies are expected to rise to 7.4 percent of GDP in 2025, increasing the figure to nearly seven trillion dollars by 2025.

Commenting on this fact, António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, said that “… promises ring hollow when the fossil fuels industry still receives trillions in subsidies, as measured by the IMF. Or when countries are still building coal plants…”

Andrea Meza, Minister of Environment and Energy for Costa Rica remarked: “Every dollar that we invest in fossil fuel projects is one less dollar for renewables and for the conservation of nature…” 

Politicians Subsidise Fossil Fuel with Six Trillion Dollars in Just One Year | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)