alanjjohnstone
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Quote:There is also the issue of Weekly Worker hosting guest writers to portray openness but never agreeing to SPGB guest articles.
Has anyone actually submitted any and if so on what topic? If refused, what was the content of the refusal?
Quote:Could do but isn't he just a one-man band?According to wiki it has WW 20,000 online visitors and 500 hard copy in print. Matt talks of the USP and i think WW's is that it is its good gossip content on the Left. We aren't out to convince one letter writer but the readers of the letter page
Quote:As individual members and as a party we have to decide the most productive use of our time and resources. Most workers are not interested in a debate between The Judean People's Front and the Peoples Front of Judea.You may be right Vin, but most workers don't read WW. Its audience is those who already call themselves socialist. We may be hitting our heads against a brick wall trying to convince them they hold mistake views but does it mean we cease confronting the Left directly.If so, (and i am not saying we should or not,) then we are drawn to the conclusion we should examine our entire approach, including the terminology we use and our focus.But regards the time and resources required, a letter to WW is minimum and would not distract from other Party activity. No postage stamp is needed.My reason for not responding is stated in the other post… As for other topics in WW, we just published a book and a letter critiquing an article or letter on the Russian Revolution could contain a reference to that book – a bit of free advertising
JDW, that is the point…for anyone outside looking in, Adam, myself and Robbo (okay, yourself in the past) seem to be the SPGB.Perhaps the weakness of WW is that correspondence is from the "usual suspects" as you say but it does give us an opportunity for our case to be heard. This week, Steve Freeman reiterates the self-determination of nations mantra.
Quote:The class struggle between the Spanish ruling bourgeoisie and Catalan petty bourgeois nationalism – the kingdom versus the republic – is vital for the development of the revolutionary democratic working class.He then goes on to shoot himself in the foot
Quote:The Iraqi Kurds won their referendum and are backed up by the armed Peshmerga.The Iraqi tanks out-gunned the Peshmerga and they fled Kirkut. Even worse, he makes an analogy with the Easter UprisingSurely, someone else within the Party can answer him?
France's Macron rushes to Saudi Arabia for urgent talks.Makes me wonder if there is also any link in those "corruption" arrests. Is it to stifle internal disquiet about Lebanon?
Regardless of its pedigree, Jacobin is reaching an audience and it is getting reported by the msm."….The first run of tickets to “Capitalism: A Debate” sold out in a day. So the organizers, a pair of magazines with clear ideological affiliations, socialist Jacobin and libertarian Reason, found a larger venue: Cooper Union’s 960-capacity Great Hall. The event sold out once again, this time in eight hours.The debate pitted two socialist stalwarts, Jacobin founder Bhaskar Sunkara and New York University professor Vivek Chibber, against the defenders of capitalism, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason’s editor in chief, and Nick Gillespie, the editor in chief of Reason.com and Reason TV.Chibber argued that the problem with capitalism is the power it has over workers. With the weakening of U.S. labor unions, “we have a complete despotism of the employers,” he said, leading to stagnant wages. When Mangu-Ward countered that Americans aren’t coerced on the job, the crowd erupted in laughter. “Every morning you wake up and you have a decision about whether or not you’re going to go to work,” she insisted, and the audience laughed again.Sunkara summed up his argument for socialism as a society that helped people tackle the necessities of life—food, housing, education, health care, childcare. “Wherever we end up, it won’t be a utopia,” he said. “It will still be a place where you might get your heart broken,” or feel lonely, or get indigestion.The arguments stayed mostly abstract. Sunkara and Chibber insisted their idea of democratic socialism shouldn’t be confused with the communist dictatorships that killed millions of people in the 20th century. Mangu-Ward and Gillespie likewise insisted on defending a capitalist ideal, not the current, corrupt reality. “Neither Nick nor I are fans of big business,” she said. “We’re not fans of crony capitalism.”…."https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-06/get-rid-of-capitalism-millennials-are-ready-to-talk-about-it
A reply to Zoe Williams on the Forbes websitehttps://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2017/10/31/how-bank-lending-really-creates-money-and-why-the-magic-money-tree-is-not-cost-free/#21c3f7263073
Quote:A central bank can create money without limit, though doing so risks inflation. Commercial banks simply can’t do this.Your and ALB'S comments are much appreciated.But only two responses to my provocative postsIt does seem like this forum as a discussion list is becoming redundant when my heretical messages doesn't attract interest.Our case is not about tax reform to make it more equitable for the wealthy but to expose the misery and the hardships caused by the capitalist class when our slave owners choose to ration our bread and water to fill their pockets, something they have always done periodically and that the State is the organ that differing capitalists squabble over control for to advance their particular vested interests.
Indeed, i tried to bring that exact point out in my posts that capitalism is not a homogeneous class but have internal conflicts where we, the slave class, often suffer the consequences of the in-fighting. What i am trying to emphasise is that our case can be seen as too general. To pay for the tax cuts to the wealthy and to allow corporations to benefit from the export of their profits rather than pay tax, we workers are being made to pay the price. In the UK what is the Universal Credit purpose but to lessen the tax burden of the wealthy and make ourselves bear more upon our shoulders and that re-imbursement via the class struggle is not to be expected in the near future.In the US, Trump's tax reforms means middle-income earners will carry the cost of the cut in corporation taxBoth in the UK and the US social services have been reduced to permit the giveaway tax programmes. In both countries, wages are no compensating for the loss of benefits. Maybe it is time to cross the line and criticise the tax cuts for the rich for what they are…gifts to the rich paid for by the working class.
‘John Lewis says it could be put out of business if foreign multinationals such as Amazon are allowed to continue paying tiny amounts of tax in Britain.’ John Lewis’s managing director, Andy Street, had told Sky News: ‘If you actually improve your business by investing, what that means is you have got less money to invest if you’re giving 27 per cent of your profits to the Exchequer than … if you’re domiciled in a tax haven and you’ve got much more. So they will out-invest and ultimately out-trade us …’The Socialist Standard article is nearly 4 years old and Amazon are still getting away with avoiding the same sort of rate others pay. Indeed, it seems that Street might be right, even if it hasn't got to the point where John Lewis goes bust but it losing profits, …but Amazon is certainly expanding its market and its range of it such as buying WholeFoods. Just how politically strong can national-competitors be to the trans-nationals?The government is supposed to be the executive committee to act in the interests of the collective capitalist class. But what if they are unable to do so, either because they are complicit or incompetent or incapable. (I'm sure various countries exhibit one or other of those flaws)The counter-balance to the higher burden of taxation on the workers, that of higher pay, is not appearing to manifest itself with stagnating wages. The time lag seems to be indefinite with only faint signs of it ending, due to government policies and weakness of the unions. I posted this comment on our blogAMY GOODMAN:…I want to talk about the language used now around the tax bill. We use language like “tax cuts,” “tax relief.” But is there another way to describe, to refer to the one-and-a-half trillion dollars in austerity? YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Class war. It’s an out-and-out class war waged against the poorest, the weakest, the disenfranchised—the very same people that Donald Trump appealed to in order to get elected. And added to it elsewhere WARREN BUFFET: There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.
"Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World"By William Mitchell and Thomas Fazi. A review in http://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/actually-the-magic-money-tree-does-exist-according-to-modern-monetary-theory-a8021501.html
Quote:MMT essentially proposes that money is created ex nihilo or out of nothing. Whether it is private banks, central banks or governments, money is an abstract concept of ones and zeros. Thus, when your bank lends you a mortgage, it essentially creates money by typing it up on a computer. Similarly, the government has the power to create “fiat money” – that is money established by government regulation or law as opposed to currencies with intrinsic value, such as gold… Remarkably, the elemental question – where does money come from? – does not have a settled answer amongst economists, experts and policy makers. Organisations such as Positive Money have already embarked on the process of demystifying money creation. I am reminded of the chapter “The Great Money Trick” in Robert Tressell’s The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists in which loaves of bread are used to illustrate how the concept of money and surplus value (profit) guarantees perpetual penury for the working class and concentration of wealth for the ruling class…. if QE could be used for the banking system, then why not use it to build new homes or create climate jobs? As long as sufficient value was created then the nemesis of hyper-inflation could be avoided…It therefore appears that Theresa May’s oft-repeated refrain attacking Corbyn on the grounds that there is no such thing as a magic money tree is not exactly true. …But the article amazingly concludes with this definition. "public and democratic oversight of finance and money is becoming a central pillar of progressive postcapitalism alongside public control of public services, a green economy, full automation and the four-day week."
I understand that it is not the workers who are the "tax-payers" and it is in fact the capitalist class. So this tax evasion could be seen as none of our concern being one section of the capitalist class cheating another.However, if large corporations decline to pay their due to the State, this reduces governments income and affects their spending ability. It's more apparent in the developing world where trans-national mining and extractive industries can starve the host country of funds required for its infrastructure and public services.This also applies to developed countries, as well. An example of the influence of off-shoring is that Ireland's GDP spiked 26% (250 billion euros) in 2015 simply by a change in tax regulations. So, if the other capitalists refuse to make up the gap in state-revenue, and it seems as if there is a cartel of powerful businesses with systematic tax evasion practices that the State is either unwilling or unable to control, preferring to make up the short-fall in its tax income by cutting spending…by imposing austerity upon ourselves. So isn't this part of the class war ?..To expose tax dodgers (and remember we are talking of corporate giants, not window-cleaners) and demand that the government rather than impose benefits cuts or curtail infrastructure investment – make the capitalists pay to maintain the up-keep of their wage slaves.To explain that nation-states are unable to even keep its minimum promises because the capitalist class is global. (i already raised the question elsewhere whether the capitalist class requires the nation-state to continue…and i still wonder about that.)The risk to ourselves is we get dragged into the mire of Leftist demands, but surely we have to explain better that our analysis is more nuanced than simply saying workers don't pay tax and that tax is none of our concern. If the capitalist class is permitted to escape their tax obligations, do we simply leave the capitalist who now bears an increasing burden to have the political clout to end the evasion – when it is doubtful that can even with EU directives etc they can end tax havens and the mobility of capital. Just to put the cat amongst the pigeons
I find such distinctions based upon the view of a homogeneous capitalist system, that it cannot be different in time and places but fundamentally the same.Does WW2 capitalism in America with a government-directed economy deserve to be described as a different system?China was never identical in social evolution to Russia even if there were similarities, just as the Russian Revolution cannot be described as the mirror of the French Revolution despite being alike in my regards.We make generalisations of the realities and leave the specifics to the academics to squabble over in their PhDs
Our blog has more than once posted figures on Tax Havens.The latest cites Gabriel Zucman who estimates 7.9 trillion euros ($9.1 trillion) are sitting in offshore tax havens.Another cites the fact America's most profitable corporations in 2016 had $2.6 trillion deposited overseas in over 9,000 subsidiaries in various locations. Apple, which "holds at least $246 billion offshore, a sum greater than any other company's offshore cash pile," would owe $76.7 billion in U.S. taxes if this profit was not overseas;Citigroup, which stashes $47 billion overseas, would owe $13.1 billion in U.S taxes; andNike, which holds $12.2 billion offshore, would owe $4.1 billion in U.S. taxes https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2017/10/cheating-system-it-is-system.htmlEuropean high-net worth individuals with a total wealth of more than $14.7 trillion are holding close to 24 percent of their portfolios in cash, the most since 2013, according to analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-10/rich-europeans-with-14-7-trillion-may-spur-euro-credit-inflowsA bit dated – 2013 – cash liquidity Microsoft topped the list of American tech companies with the biggest overseas cash hoards, according to Bloomberg Rankings. Microsoft had $76.4 billion in foreign profits in its books last year, all of which untaxed by the U.S. IBM came in a distant second with $44.4 billion, and Apple with $40.4 billion. Intel reported cash and investments of $17.4 billion at the end of the latest quarter.Cisco reported it has an incredible $50.6 billion in cash, up more than $3 billion from the previous quarter.In India, it is a similar story. Coal India was sitting on a cash- pile of Rs 62,236 crore as of March 31. Reliance Industries had Rs 50,456 crore kitty. BHEL was possibly the richest capital goods firm in terms of cash holdings with reserves of Rs 6,734 crore . NTPC (Rs 18,091 crore) and NHPC (Rs 7,795 crore) in the power industry and Tata Steel (Rs 9,859 crore) and SAIL (Rs 6,662 crore) in the steel sector. [1 crore = 10 million rupees = US$153,000]https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/09/profits-boom.htmlAgain from 2013https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/02/is-it-spend-spend-spend-again.html Apple has accumulated $137 billion pile of cash. In the last quarter alone it added including $23 billion to its cash flow from operations. Early last year, Apple's cash balance had built to a point beyond what they needed to run their business, so they announced a plan to return $45 billion to shareholders over three years. As of this week Apple has executed $10 billion of that plan.
Quote:According to the Federal Reserve, as of the third quarter of 2012 nonfinancial corporations in the United States held $1.7 trillion of liquid assets – cash and securities that could easily be converted to cash. Nonfinancial corporations historically held liquid assets of 25 to 30 percent of their short-term liabilities. But this percentage began rising in 2001 and now tends to be in the 45 to 50 percent range. In the third quarter of 2012, it was 44.9 percent. Juan Sánchez and Emircan Yurdagul of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis looked at the ratio of cash to assets at all publicly held nonfinancial, non-utility corporations. They found that, historically, such corporations held cash equal to about 6 percent of their assets, but that began rising in 1995 and is now more than 12 percent. Bank deposits hit records in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Finland. Capitalists are putting their money in banks even as interest rates are at their record lows and it has enabled banks to bulk up on their own deposits by paying out such low rates.What else can you do but hoard, if profit prospects by investing isn't promising. Too much investment leads to too much capacity, output or inventory, which only floods the market collapsing prices, compromising returns and profits further. However, the situation could change. Companies are beginning to put some of their cash stockpiles to work. “A huge amount of liquidity has been sitting in cash or negative yield bonds out of fear,” says one private equity executive. “As that recedes, a wall of money is flowing into financial assets. Liberty Global, the US cable group declared that it would buy Virgin Media for $23.3bn, for instance. The surplus of cash that drove so many huge, flawed deals at the height of the boom may be back. Bain & Co, the consultancy, forecasts a “superabundance of capital” between now and 2020. It estimates that the world’s financial assets will outbalance its gross domestic product by 10 to one – it will have $900tn of financial assets compared with $90tn of GDP by 2020. The result will be “a world that is structurally awash in capital” chasing few opportunities. “Capital superabundance will increase the frequency, intensity, size and longevity of asset bubbles. The propensity for bubbles to form will be magnified as yield-hungry investors race to pour capital into assets that show the potential to generate superior returns,” the report concludes. Investors are not risking money on venture capital entrepreneurs but choosing well-known enterprises on a firm footing and using their earnings to gain better returns than cash or government bonds.A year later we blogged "Financial engineering to avoid paying taxes is another boost to profits, and thus a competitive advantage. Other corporations, under the rigors of competition and the ceaseless necessity of expansion and pressure to increase profits, are compelled to copy these innovations. However much we might wish to morally condemn such behavior, the personality of corporate executives is irrelevant. Expand or die is the remorseless logic of capitalism, and the executive who doesn’t do everything possible to maximize profits will soon be replaced by someone who will."
Quote:Many of the profits kept ‘offshore’ are actually housed in U.S. banks or invested in American assets, but registered in the name of foreign subsidiaries. A Senate investigation of 27 large multinationals with substantial amounts of cash supposedly ‘trapped’ offshore found that more than half of the offshore funds were invested in U.S. banks, bonds, and other assets. The Wall Street Journal revealed that many corporations, including Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc., “keep more than three-quarters of the cash owned by their foreign subsidiaries at U.S. banks, held in U.S. dollars or parked in U.S. government and corporate securities.” Under federal tax law, those funds are “offshore” and thus exempt from taxation. Apple holds more money offshore than any other company — $111.3 billion. It would owe $36.4 billion in U.S. taxes if these profits were they not offshore for tax purposes.https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2014/06/fiddling-tax-while-world-burns.html
AMY GOODMAN: …We use language like “tax cuts,” “tax relief.” But is there another way to describe, to refer to the one-and-a-half trillion dollars in austerity?YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Class war. It’s an out-and-out class war waged against the poorest, the weakest, the disenfranchised—the very same people that Donald Trump appealed to in order to get elected.Warren Buffet: There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.
