The Fiat systems are closing the trap. The New World Order arrives.
On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:01:13 -0700 (PDT), Dave <dwickford@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
>On 29 Mar, 17:06, warcryst...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>> Sending this message out on Wednesday may well have led to a near 6%
>> fall in the share price of Citigroup, the world's biggest bank!
>> Oppenheimer & Co analyst Meredith Whitney, who predicted more losses
>> in the credit crunch and precipitated that fall, may well have read
>> the message. Or perhaps other investors read it, and the fall that was
>> attributed to her statement was partly caused by myself...
>>
>> An edited version has appeared in the letters page of today's Herald
>> (one of the two Scottish broadsheet
newspapers:http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/letters/display.var.2156088.0.foo...
>> - you can comment on it there).
>>
>> On the 25th of February, the World Food Programme (WFP), the United
>> Nations agency responsible for distributing aid from donations by
>> governments around the world, announced a $500 million budget
>> shortfall due to soaring fuel and particularly food prices. The prices
>> of the staple food items distributed by the WFP had risen by an
>> average of 40% since June last year.
>>
>> Since making that announcement, the WFP re****ted that food prices had
>> risen by another 20% in three weeks. The WFP had changed to buying
>> food locally to cut costs, so this massive further acceleration of
>> food inflation is particularly severe in the "third world" and
>> probably reflects panic buying and the hoarding of food by those
>> worried about rising prices and/or shortages in the shops. The only
>> thing preventing food prices rising even more rapidly than they are
>> already is poor people around the world consuming less because they
>> cannot afford the higher prices or because of shortages.
>>
>> The WFP only distributes aid to around 70 million people and obviously
>> a huge number of people now require aid who previously didn't, to
>> avoid starving to death. Meanwhile, the WFP is warning that if it does
>> not receive more government funding by the 1st of May, it might cut
>> "the rations for those who rely on the world to stand by them during
>> times of abject need".
>>
>> Food prices have risen sharply in the West too, albeit to a lesser
>> extent due to the huge profit margins in the supply chain (by 17% in
>> the last year for "a basket of staple food items" according to an
>> article by Emma Lunn in the Business & Money section of the 23rd of
>> March Scotland on Sunday newspaper). A Tory re****t has estimated that
>> butter has risen 37%, a dozen eggs 34% and bread 28% in the nine
>> months since Gordon Brown became prime minister.
>>
>> The demand for food is massively outstripping supply, mainly due to a
>> lot of land being used for biofuels (to supposedly reduce global
>> warming) and people in some countries (such as China) consuming more
>> meat and dairy products, both of which require much more farmland (by
>> a factor of eight for meat) than that required for vegan diets.
>> Additionally, there is a problem with a fungus destroying wheat, and
>> floods and droughts are affecting harvests.
>>
>> There have already been demonstrations and riots in many countries as
>> a result of the food crisis. The challenge for political activists
>> such as myself is to channel the anger of ordinary people in a
>> positive direction, and to provide practical solutions. Abandoning
>> biofuels may help a lot, but many will have to switch to wholly or
>> mainly vegetarian/vegan diets, either voluntarily (which would
>> probably only happen in a socialist society) or through compulsion by
>> a form of rationing.
>>
>> I called for a worldwide general strike in the run-up to the 2005 G8
>> summit in Gleneagles , Scotland , when the Make Poverty History
>> campaign and Live 8 concerts made "third world" poverty a big issue.
>> There is massive scope for coordinated strike action in many countries
>> of the world this year, because food and fuel price increases are
>> hitting ordinary (particularly working class) people in the West too.
>>
>> Additionally, income tax has doubled for some low-paid people in the
>> UK (with the abolition of the 10% rate in Alistair Darling's first
>> Budget, hardly mentioned in the media), and mortgage interest rates
>> (for homes declining in value) are rising.
>>
>> The New Labour government is attempting to get public sector workers
>> to accept three-year pay deals at no more than 2.5% per year, not just
>> because inflation is already much higher than officially recognised
>> but because inflation is massively rising in these turbulent economic
>> times.
>>
>> We cannot wait until the time of the next G8 summit (in Toyako ,
>> Japan , from the 7th to the 9th of July); the crisis is getting
>> exponentially worse and is unsolvable without overthrowing capitalism.
>> I have written two very im****tant songs mentioning the food crisis;
>> recordings of both will soon be recorded by my new band Red Day: "Feed
>> The World" (which may become a charity single) and "Global Warming
>> Bluff". In the meantime, you can read the lyrics atwww.red-day.net.
>>
>> The food crisis impacts the other major crisis of capitalism - the
>> credit crunch. The problem to date has largely been of "subprime"
>> mortgages (particularly but not just those in the USA), with flexible
>> interest rates that massively increase after starting low, sold to
>> people with poor credit records. However, some commentators have
>> recognised that the collapse of the big US bank Bear Stearns shows
>> that there is a crisis with other mortgages (called "prime") as well!
>>
>> A BBC TV programme on the credit crunch pointed out that people got
>> caught out with subprime mortgages largely because mortgages are
>> usually a fixed rate for their entire term, unlike in the UK where all
>> mortgages have flexible interest rates that can be changed by banks
>> and building societies. With (real) inflation going through the roof,
>> many more financial institutions are bound to go to the wall.
>>
>> Rather than just a slowdown, recession or slump, we are heading
>> towards a massive possibly terminal crisis of unethical capitalism
>> like in 1914. On that occasion, stock markets around the world were
>> closed for several months to avoid a complete meltdown.
>>
>> There will need to be a complete reorganisation of the world economic
>> system to resolve the situation. Maybe there could be a more ethical
>> form of capitalism, in which I would argue that rich people must pay
>> their fair share of tax and there must be a fair electoral system as
>> well as there being ethical approaches to farming, the environment,
>> animals and poor people via fair trade. Maybe banks and building
>> societies would return to concentrating on savings and loans.
>>
>> I would argue however that there should be genuine democratic
>> socialist societies, in particular countries if not throughout the
>> world. What happens will largely depend on what ordinary people
>> striving to change society do, as well as the effects of politicians,
>> stock market investors and big businesspeople. Economists can't model
>> the free will of individuals, so their relatively optimistic economic
>> forecasts are largely speculative and will be proven false by events.
>>
>> --
>> Steve Wallis (Glasgow, Scotland)
>> For im****tant/urgent communications, please email:
>> warcryst...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>>
Blogs:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog,http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
>>
>> My socialist website:http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk
>> My socialist musical poetry:http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/poetry.htm
>> (and at my MySpace and Multiply pages)
>> My pages at MySpace:http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteve,
Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=731729407and
Multiply:http://socialiststeve.multiply.com
>>
>> Founder, Good Intentions Network: http//www.goodintentionsnetwork.org
>>
>> Funder, Ethical Capitalism Network:http://www.ethicalcapitalism.org
>> Founder, Foundation for PR-based Socialism:http://www.PRsocialism.org
>> Founder, Revolutionary Platform
Network:http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net
>>
>> My socialist band, Red Day:http://www.red-day.net
>> Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist
>> revolution will never happen?":http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net
>>
>> For discussion of the credit crunch, go
tohttp://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=156
>
>Seems like you're fi****ng. Most socialists seem to live very
>comfortably. Real poor people are too busy working to worry about
>politics, so hopefully employers will pay them just enough to keep
>them sustained for work to stop them rioting.
The more I know, the more I know - I don't know.
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