alanjjohnstone
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
It is one more study that indicates that on the whole, the scientific consensus has been rather conservative in its projections.
It is not only the technical research being re-assessed but, more importantly, there is, imho, an optimism that the governments of the world will take action to avert “the worse case scenarios” and make those less likely to transpire.
The ice melting is already at earlier worse case scenario
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/27/global-ice-sheets-melting-at-worst-case-rates-uk-scientists
With the sea level rises, precautions are not a priority.
The rise in the sea level is likely to be faster and greater than previously thought, according to researchers.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the sea level was unlikely to rise beyond 1.1 metre (3.6ft) by 2100.
But climate researchers from the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute believe levels could rise as much as 1.35 metres by 2100.
“It’s not great news that we believe the former predictions are too low,” said the climate change scientist Aslak Grinsted, a co-author and an associate professor at the Niels Bohr Institute.
ALB, capitalism has taken a number of forms. Even in Marx’s time, it transformed from individual private owners to joint-stock companies. We ourselves qualify one form of capitalism – state-capitalism, as different from pure laissez-faire.
And i think we can detect a qualitive difference.
Would any member prefer to live under a capitalism that fails to provide any social protection like free healthcare and free basic education, all provided by the taxes on the employers. Libertarian capitalism would be a regression in social evolution, wouldn’t it?
I think there is a benefit in distinguishing structural varieties of capitalism from superficial appearances. Corporate capitalism versus crony capitalism.
Debs writes a lot about the trusts of his time, a development from cut-throat rivalries between businesses and makes the point that because of the centralisation and coordination of trusts, socialists will not abolish trusts but turn them towards satisfying social needs. A fair point when we understand the vast logistic cooperative nature of all the separate divisions of a transnational enterprise, particularly the food industry who control production and distribution from a foreign field to the fork, but sadly on the basis of pricing and profits.
As for what some call “peoples capitalism”, speculative punts on the stock-market, i consider it the same as when we did old-fashioned football pools and all those “scientific” perms, guesses made to look like method.
Our blog post for any who wish to use it on their social media
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-myanmar-military-takeover.html
“The military was already in power – even the ruling NLD was covering up their [alleged genocide] in the ICJ [international court of justice],” said Thinzar Shunlei Yi, a human rights activist based in Yangon. The facade of democracy in Myanmar had now crumbled, she said. “It’s not real, it’s not genuine, we’re not going anywhere with this framework.”
I can’t see any serious military threat so was the military coup a business board-room decision? I can’t tell.
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-myanmar-armys-business-network.html
A survey of the media reveals that the common interpretation is that the military in Myanmar has seized power.
We said they never lost it in the first place.
The fact is that the military of Burma (these days also called Myanmar) have not yielded political power to the will of the people.
And our blog on the recent election
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-other-election.html
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2020/10/myanmars-gerrymandered-election.html
Now the small investor and social media move on to silver
I have a vague recall of some character many years back who tried to buy up all the silver he could so to control supply and the price.
Nations are debating what part of the population should priority of the coronavirus vaccine be given to the vulnerable elderly or for the essential workers.
Here is an article that stripped down to its essence is suggesting euthanasia of the aged but done with dignity.
https://countercurrents.org/2021/01/population-problem-today/
“…today it is irrational prolonging of death which is increasing longevity, at the cost of quality of life and benefitting only the medico industrial complex. We suggest replacing expensive and irrational geriatric care with rational palliative care where old people live in comfort with reduced suffering and die peacefully at home with their family…”
“…today old age is not healthy people naturally growing old. You may still see some such people, particularly those who used a bicycle all their life. Today by and large old people are from relatively affluent families. Majority of them are not in good health but are kept alive because of modern health care system. These old people and their families suffer a lot in terms of agonies, harassment of frequent hospitalisation and drain of money. The doctors have forgotten the wisdom of their seniors, like, ‘Any medical intervention is advised only if it improves the quality of life’. Today, saving life at any cost is the mantra. It would be alright if the patients were young but in the case of senior citizens the mantra should be reducing suffering…”
Factory farming dogs for experiments.
Dog Factory Farms in the United States? Consumers Can End It.
65,000 dogs are used in animal testing each year in the United States. Marshall BioResources is one of the largest breeders of dogs for experimentation in the United States, with 23,000 dogs, as well as cats, ferrets and other animals.
Japanese lawmakers are debating whether companies should offer staff a three-day weekend, hoping that more relaxed workers will be less at risk of “karoshi,” or death by overwork.
“I would say that rather than being a possibility at companies, it should be a necessity,” Teruo Sakurada, a professor of business at Osaka’s Hannan University, told DW. “These changes mean that Japan has to be far more efficient in the future, and we need to find ways to improve both working conditions for people and the amount of leisure time that they can enjoy”
https://www.dw.com/en/japan-mulls-four-day-working-week-amid-covid-pandemic/a-56384335
In recent decades, Japan has shifted from an economy that is based on manufacturing to one that is more reliant on the service sector and financial services. That trend will continue as the nation’s population continues to contract from 126.5 million at present to possibly as few as 83 million by the end of the century.
Not sure what you are getting at. Is this a general retail price drop? Or a farmers’ price fall?
The subsidised food prices for the poor is likely to rise.
The Food Corporation of India (FCI),the main grain procurement agency, buys rice and wheat from farmers at guaranteed prices and resells them at a fraction of market rates to 67% of India’s 1.38 billion people. The government pays the difference between FCI’s procurement prices and sales prices by allocating funds for the food subsidy in its annual budget.
FCI’s expenses have risen sharply as the guaranteed prices at which is buys common rice has climbed by 73% and wheat by 64%, while the prices at which FCI sells rice and wheat have remained unchanged.
The government said the food subsidy bill is becoming “unmanageably large”, and added there was a need to hike the prices of grains sold via the government’s public distribution system to reduce the food subsidy bill. With the rest of India’s economy demanding concessions in the coming budget…some sector has to be cut
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and members suffer the same “accidental” Facebook bans.
Are they trying to design the nuclear development talks with Iran to fail?
Macron says that any new negotiations should now include Saudi Arabia.
Why not go all the way and invite Israel, too.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/30/iran-rejects-new-talks-or-parties-in-nuclear-deal
And it is indeed an education.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhism_in_India
Less than 2% of the population – i had no idea of the existence of the Nanakpathi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanakpanthi
We haven’t yet touched on any nationalist undertones of creating an independent Khalistan but we saw how the protesters immediately distanced themselves from the flying of a Sikh separatist flag at the Red Fort and emphasised the secularism of the protests.
The Punjab is called “the bread basket of India” but most of the land is owned by the small farmers. Even in the diaspora, the connections with the farms “back home” remain and we have witnessed some rallies of support in the UK and other countries such as Canada.
Are all farmers and land-owners capitalist? Does that mean that all self-employed and sub-contractors in Britain are part of the capitalist class?
Perhaps many identify with the principle of capitalist private-property
I recall the fuel strike as one example of lorry-owning operators doing the dirty work of the corporations and farmers blocking terminals with tractors.
Perhaps another analogy is the yellow-jacket gilets jaunes protests in France where the causes and participants were a confused mixture.
Or what about the uber gig economy? California voting for continued casualisation of Uber drivers, a case of cutting ones own throat.
But circumstances arise that highlights fundamental conflicting interests between the capitalist class and its subordinate and subjugated subservient suppliers. Perhaps the farmers will learn who their real friends are – the wide cross-section of India’s population who are supporting them now and who now have learned that they too have much to lose if the laws are put into practice.
