‘A recent electoral commission report revealed a tiny left wing [sic] group has amassed £2.6m in wealth. So how did the Socialist Party of Great Britain end up with an investment fund?’

See the short Times Radio report here.

Quelle surprise! Living standards are on track to be worse than they were in 2019. Come the general election in 2024 and political parties will be laying all the blame on the Tory government. Promises will be flying like confetti to persuade workers that, rather like those pictorial depictions in Jehovah Witnesses literature, paradise awaits. And all you have to do is vote for Lab/Lib/ Con! It is a con of course. Whoever gains power will use it for the benefit of the minority exploiting class.

‘UK workers’ living standards will flatline next year, leaving them on track to be 4% worse off heading into the next election than they were in 2019, according to a leading think-tank.

The Resolution Foundation, which focuses its research on low- to middle-income households, said in a report that “never in living memory have families got so much poorer over the course of a parliament”.

Higher mortgage rates, steep tax rises and a stagnant economy meant UK workers were on track before an expected election in 2024 to suffer the worst fall in incomes over a five-year period since the 1950s, it said.

Adam Corlett, the organisation’s principal economist, said stable incomes next year will be a relief for many households, but “the bad news is that the living standards outlook is still dire, with overall stagnation and further income falls on the way for less well-off households”.

In a separate study, economic stagnation next year will be compounded by slowing exports to Europe and the rest of the world following a decline in global trade and unique barriers caused by Brexit red tape.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said in its quarterly economic forecast that the UK had avoided a recession this year but with “a number of economic indicators now flashing red” the next two years would bring “consistently low growth”.

Analysts at the Resolution Foundation said the incomes of typical working-age households were on course to be 4% lower in 2024-25 than they were in 2019-20 – considerably worse than the 1% income fall recorded between 2005-06 and 2010-11.

The report looked at comparable UK data going back to the middle of the 20th century.

While some important elements of economic data was improving, with inflation having fallen from a peak of 11.1% last year to 6.8% in July and the Bank of England likely to halt its interest rate raising cycle within a few months, it said higher mortgage and rental costs, a rise in tax bills and restricted government finances would limit the recovery.

Inflation-adjusted gross pay is expected to rise by 2.9% on average over the course of the parliament (2019-20 to 2024-25), but frozen tax thresholds mean that for the typical employee, post-tax pay will rise by just 0.6% in real terms over this period, it said…

The number of people living in absolute poverty – calculated as below 60% of the 2010-11 median income, adjusted for inflation – was projected to rise by 300,000 next year, reaching 12 million in 2024-25.

The BCC said a modest upgrade to the forecast growth rate of the UK economy this year was overshadowed by steep falls in business investment and weakening exports, limiting growth to between 1% and zero over the following two years’,

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/06/uk-workers-will-be-worse-off-in-2024-than-in-2019-thinktank-warns

 The world first met Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock on this day in history, Sept. 8, 1966, with the premiere of the television series “Star Trek.”

Boo yoo! Who’d have thunk it? Capitalism is unfair! French poultry farmers are clucking annoyed because Ukrainian chickens are flooding the market at half the cost.

Quelle horreur! The largest Ukrainian poultry ‘manufacturer’ is making profits from this blatant undercutting of EU chicken commodity suppliers.

One hesitates to imagine the conditions in which Ukrainian chickens are factory farmed but it’s hard, given the cost of living crisis across the capitalist world at present to blame consumers for preferring to buy cheaper food when it’s available.

One can only speculate whether Ukrainian workers involved in this industry are being more exploited than EU workers but it certainly sounds like someone needs a lesson in Marxian economics.

Note that ‘the European Commission imposed “temporary preventive measures” on Ukrainian imports to ease the impact of plummeting prices in neighbouring EU countries’. Cheaper food? Forget it! More important to Got to protect capitalists profits.

France’s poultry farmers are suffering losses due to “unfair competition” with Ukrainian producers, chairman of the Association of Chicken Meat Suppliers Anvol, Jean-Michel Schaeffer, told Le Figaro on Wednesday.

He complained that the influx of cheap Ukrainian pIn May, the European Commission imposed “temporary preventive measures” on Ukrainian imports to ease the impact of plummeting prices in neighbouring EU countries’.oultry is hitting local producers, which is typically a family business in France and many other EU countries.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian exporters belong to a different “category.” The profit from chicken sales goes not to the “Ukrainian people,” but to the country’s largest poultry manufacturer, MHP, Schaeffer emphasized, and urged the European Commission to protect domestic producers.

“Before this unfortunate conflict [in Ukraine], we were importing about 10,000 tons of poultry per month, and now we are importing 20,000 or more tons per month. It’s really a shock,” he said.

He said that the arrival of the giant Ukrainian supplier immediately destabilized the EU’s single market. Producers from the war-torn country are benefiting from low costs due to the absence of trade barriers and the lack of EU production standards in Ukraine.

One kilogram of chicken meat from French producers costs about €4.80 (a bit over $5), while one kilogram of Ukrainian poultry costs €2.40, which represents “unfair competition,” according to Schaeffer.

Farmers across the bloc are also suffering from the unprecedented surge in Ukrainian produce “be it the Germans, the Dutch, the Poles – everyone is in the same situation, when this flow of Ukrainian chickens destabilizes the entire market,” he said.

Last year, the EU lifted tariffs and quotas for exports of Ukrainian agricultural products to help Kiev financially. However, EU nations have faced domestic protests as farmers have struggled to compete with cheaper imports.

Poland was the first to ban imports of Ukrainian produce, followed by Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia.

In May, the European Commission imposed “temporary preventive measures” on Ukrainian imports to ease the impact of plummeting prices in neighbouring EU countries’.

The EU ban on Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed, and sunflower seed to Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Bulgaria is set to end on September 15′.

‘Birmingham, the largest metropolitan area in the UK outside of London, has effectively declared itself bankrupt as its city council shut down all non-essential spending after being hit with a potential $956 million equal pay settlement bill.

In a statement on Tuesday declaring itself as being in financial distress, Birmingham City Council said it will “tighten the spend controls already in place” and appoint an external administrator to oversee short-term fiscal planning.

“In June, the council announced it had a potential liability relating to equal pay claims in the region of £650m to £760m ($816m to $956m), with an ongoing liability that is accruing at a rate of £5m to £14m ($6.3m to $17.5m) per month,” the statement said.

It added that the council “does not have the resources” to pay the outstanding sum but is “committed to dealing with the financial situation.” The body also said that all new spending is to be ceased, except support to vulnerable people and various statutory services.

The settlement bill stems from a 2012 Supreme Court ruling in favour of predominantly female Birmingham City Council employees who complained that bonus scheme payments had been mainly issued to staff in roles primarily occupied by men.

On Tuesday, deputy council leader Sharon Thompson said that the Labour-run organization is facing “long-standing issues, including the council’s historic equal pay liability concerns.” She added that the council “had £1 billion ($1.25bn) of funding taken away by successive Conservative governments.”

A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak responded that “clearly it’s for locally elected councils to manage their own budgets.” Sunak’s office added that Downing Street had “expressed concern about their governance arrangements and has requested assurances from the leader of the council about the best use of taxpayers’ money.”

The budget cuts could affect services that the council is not bound by law to maintain, including libraries and cultural projects and the maintenance of roads and parks. The dire financial situation could also impact the 2026 European Athletics Championships, which are due to take place at Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium’.

 Friday 8 September 19.30

 Value

A nail or a nuclear reactor.

Each is a product of human labour,

Raw materials transformed by neighbour

And neighbour into something rather more

Useful than ore and unharnessed energy.

Both are products of all the work required

In their making. Workers only being hired

For rather less than whatever may be

The value they create, the difference,

When the total value is divided,

Is taken by those who have provided

The means whereby work works its immense

Power to create. Though those means come through

Workers previously creating their value.

D. A.

It is reported that, ‘Inflation in Türkiye spiked to 58.9% in annual terms in August, its fastest pace this year, from around 48% in July, according to data released on Monday by the Turkish Statistical Institute.

The month-on-month increase was 9.1%, mostly driven by rising energy and food costs. Transport costs jumped 16.6% month-on-month, while food and non-alcoholic beverage prices rose by 8.5% from July and 72.9% from last year. The core index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices and is seen as a bellwether for future inflation developments, posted an annual gain of 64.9%.

Analysts attribute the spike in inflation to the steep fall in the lira exchange rate and recent tax increases. The Turkish currency has lost about 30% of its value so far this year.

After years of interest rate cuts, which helped trigger a currency crisis in late 2021 and sent inflation to a 24-year peak of 85.51% last October, the Turkish central bank turned back toward more traditional economic policies earlier this year. It has so far hiked the key rate three times to the current 25%, although experts say that more tightening is in order, despite the slight gains in the lira since the latest rate increase in August.

“The recent lira appreciation is unlikely to trigger price discounts, in our view, but it may contribute to a slower pace of price gains through the rest of the year. We maintain our call for a year-end inflation rate of 57%, but recognize risks have emerged on both sides,” economist Selva Bahar Baziki told Bloomberg, commenting on the situation.

Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek has warned that the battle against inflation may be a long one.

“We are absolutely determined to fight inflation. We know that the fight against inflation will take some time. We are in the transition period. We will do whatever is necessary – monetary tightening, credit policy and income policies – to bring inflation under control and then lower it,” Simsek wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) account after the data release.’

In August, ‘The Turkish central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 7.5 percentage points on Thursday to 25%, in a bid to curb spiraling inflation.

The hike was significantly higher than the increase to 20% that many economists had expected.

The regulator opted for a major increase in a sign of a turn to more “rational” economic policies after years of rate-cutting, which has been blamed for fuelling inflation and the cost-of-living crisis in Türkiye.

Thursday’s hike is further evidence that policymakers in Ankara are following through on their pledge to return to a more conventional approach to monetary policy. The lira rallied strongly in the wake of the move.

The governor of the Turkish central bank, Hafize Gaye Erkan, who was appointed in June, has nearly tripled benchmark interest rates from 8.5% since being appointed.

The regulator does not rule out further tightening in the coming months until the inflation situation in Türkiye improves. Price growth jumped from 38% in June to almost 48% in July.

The surging inflation has driven the central bank to sharply revise upwards its year-end inflation forecast from 22.3% to 58%.’

‘TEHRAN – A review of the data released by the Statistical Centre of Iran(SCI) shows that Tehran province with 42.1 percent recorded the lowest inflation rate in the twelve-month period that ended on August22, which marks the end of the fifth Iranian calendar month Mordad.

The highest 12-month inflation rate is related to Yazd province with 57.2 percent, based on the SCI’s statistics.

The SCI has put the country’s average inflation rate in the twelve-month period that ended on August 22 at 46.7 percent, falling 0.8 percent from the figure for the twelve-month ended to the fourth month.

The centre put the country’s point-to-point inflation rate at 39.8 percent in the fifth month, which means families have paid an average of 39.8 percent more for purchasing the same package of commodities and services in that month, compared to the same month in the preceding year.

The point-to-point inflation rate dropped 0.4 percent in the fifth month from the previous month.

The Statistical Centre of Iran has put the average inflation rate in the twelve-month period that ended on March 20, 2023, which marks the end of the past Iranian calendar year 1401, at 45.8 percent.

The centre had put the inflation rate in the twelve-month period that ended on March 20, 2022 (the end of the Iranian calendar year 1400) at 40.2 percent and that of the Iranian calendar year 1399 at 36.4 percent.

In mid-July, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in an economic outlook report said inflation in Iran which was reported to be 49 percent in 2022 is expected to fall to 42 percent in 2023 and then to 30 percent in 2024.’

Tehran Times

 ‘Miss Marx… a biopic directed by Susanna Nicchiarelli (Nico, 1988) starring Romola Garay as Eleanor Marx, the youngest daughter of Karl Marx, a socialist and women’s rights activist.’

This film is likely by now to be available on some streaming services.   Before or after viewing, you may wish to hear a recent Socialist Party talk on Eleanor Marx.

‘Work with us. Do not believe those who tell you any political party, or any “reformers” or any special legislation, can do away with crimes that are only the result of our whole system of society to-day. If you would do away with these crimes, you must do away with their cause. Help us. Help us to save not only yourselves, men and women; not only your little children. Help us also to save the very criminals, who now “drain your sweat and drink your blood.” Come to us. Join hands with us; and hand in hand, heart to heart with us, labour in this great cause. Never forget that when once the people will there is no gainsaying them. Once you rise “in unvanquishable number,” you are many, they — your enemies — “are few” ‘ (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, The Pall Mall Gazette, August 1885).