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Russia isn’t the only power doing this. All the nuclear states are. That’s why they have nuclear weapons — to threaten any other state that might think of impinging on their “vital interests”.
So the members of the Royal College of Nursing have rejected their officials’ recommendation to accept the government’s pay offer (by 54% to 46% of the 61% of the members who voted).
The government can’t really complain. They have always said that their offers should be put to a vote, in the expectation of course that they will be accepted. Well, in this case it hasn’t been and now they are faced with a dilemma. If they up their offer this will encourage other workers to vote against what they have been offered, in the expectation of getting more. If they don’t, they will be faced with more strikes. They’ll probably try “divide and rule” tactics since the members of other unions have voted to accept.
The officials of the RCN also face a dilemma. To try to get round the vote or to accept and carry out the wish of their members. So far they have interpreted the vote as a vote to carry on with strikes, taking their orders from the membership (which is as it should be).
It’s a strange but instructive evolution for the RCN, originally set up under royal patronage as a professional body for nurses. Now it is a militant trade union — more militant than the TUC (and Labour Party) affiliated UNISON. It is affiliated to neither. Nurses are wage-workers just like the rest of the working class.
The British Medical Association has undergone a similar evolution. But they have evolved into more of an old-fashioned craft union where you have to had gone through an apprenticeship to join. But “junior” doctors too are wage-workers. Today I passed their pickets outside a nearby hospital. Naturally I tooted and gave them the thumbs up.
Confusing that the Russians call Bakhmut “Artyomovsk”, after a Bolshevik who was active in Kharkov and died in an accident in 1921:
Of course research on AI should not be stopped, not even for six months. Anyway, given capitalism it can’t be and won’t be. And of course, given capitalism, it will be misused but that can’t be stopped as long as capitalism continues.
It’s not clear what those who signed that call have in mind. They say they want a pause to consider these matters:
“Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth?”
“Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones?”
“Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete, and replace us?”
“Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?”And come up with answers in six months !
The questions seem rather loaded as the answer to them all will presumably be “no”.
In any event, the first two could only be dealt with in a socialist world of common ownership and democratic control of the Earth. The third begs the question by assuming this is likely to happen, is even technologically possible. As to the fourth, humanity has already lost control (in fact never had it); market forces control what happens and that, too, can only be ended by socialism.
So Elon Musk and the BBC have got into an argument as to whether the BBC is “government funded” or not. Everybody knows that the BBC is a state-owned broadcaster yet the BBC is quibbling that technically it is not government funded. Of course the “licence fee” is a tax imposed by the government on owning a television set.
Further proof that the Labour Party is just a band of place-hunters is provided by their latest dirty tricks campaign in which they play the “pedophile card” against Sunak. Of course Sunak is just as opposed to sex offenders as they are but Labour are clearly out to garner as many votes as they can in whatever way they can, in this case from Tories rather than Liberals.
It can’t be said that this is a new low because they have been here before when their previous Deputy Leader, Tom Watson, played a major role in spreading the lie about a pedophile ring in high places that was later exposed as such and the originator jailed. Watson himself got off scot-free ; in fact he got elevated to the House of Frauds as Baron Watson.
Apparently their next dirty trick is going to be to accuse Sunak of favouring gun crime and then of being soft on rapists. Most people won’t believe that but the Starmer and his cynical spin-doctors calculate Labour might pick up enough Tory votes to win a marginal seat or two.
Politically bankrupt, morally bankrupt, but unfortunately not financially bankrupt.
The IMF has drawn attention to another set of financial intermediaries — the shadow banking system.
Like banks they obtain or borrow money and then lend it out. The only difference is that, unlike banks, they are not allowed to take deposits from individuals or companies.
But nobody claims that they can conjure money out of thin air to lend, even if some of the ways they obtain money are pretty dodgy. Hence the IMF’s concern.
But if they can’t, why can banks? The currency cranks’ claim is full of holes. This is just another one.
Here’s one for a new edition of The Good Soldier Schweik:
“Ukrainian pilot whose plane crashed in Russia facing charges
The charge is based on Article 322.1 of the Russian Criminal Code (crossing the Russian border without valid documents for entry or exit)
MOSCOW, April 7. /TASS/. A Ukrainian pilot who was detained after his plane crashed in Russia’s Bryansk Region has been charged with illegally crossing the border, an official at the Bryansk Regional Court told TASS on Friday.”Well, well. The Tartan reformists have been corrupt too. That ought to mean the end of their completely irrelevant and divisive campaign for a separate Scottish capitalist state. It looks like Scottish workers are going to avoid being led up that particular garden path.
This from that link is useful:
“Government statistics suggest that few outside the top percentage of earners derive a significant income from investments.”
Deriving a significant income from investments could be a definition of a capitalist. But of course they should not be classified as “earners” as income from investment is an “unearned income” as one you don’t have to do any work to get. It’s a property not a work income.
Latest news (and joke): Britain has joined the Trans Pacific Partnership:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/03/31/business/uk-joins-cptpp-trade-agreement-intl-hnk/index.html
I suppose the mad Brexiteer idea is to get a trade agreement with an area as far away as possible from the EU, British capitalism’s nearest and biggest market. No wonder most of the British capitalist class are pissed off with Brexit.
Britain only has one colony left in the area — Pitcairn island (population 47) where the descendants of the mutiny on the Bounty live.
Not sure Brexiteers will be too pleased with what this involves in terms of “sovereignty”:
“The TPP also gives global corporations an international tribunal of private attorneys, outside any nation’s legal system, who can order compensation for any “unjust expropriation” of foreign assets. The tribunal can order compensation for any lost profits found to result from a nation’s regulations.”
I don’t think even the European Court of Justice could order that. In any event, joining the TPP means that the UK has signed up to the Brexiteers’ nightmare of being subject the jurisdiction of an outside legal body.
Interesting. tell us more about the BDS when you’ve time.
Incidentally, you are not suggesting that that wasn’t the real, legal name of our candidate, are you? Why would we waste our time inventing a silly name? We leave that sort of thing to Screaming Lord Sutch.
Anyway, a seemingly suspicious contrived set of prenames such as Alexander Boris de Pfeffel doesn’t seem to have put people off.
Of course, as far as we are concerned the name of our candidates is not important – electoral law compels us to propose a named person not a political proposition. And we can’t do anything about that, except urge people not to vote for us on the basis of the person or their name but only if they want socialism as a society based on the common ownership of land and industry, with production directly for use not profit, and distribution in accordance with the principle of “ from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.
As we have always put it, it’s the case not the face, the claim not the name.
Some people think — apparently — that the wages-prices-profits system is the best way of producing and distributing the things people need to live.
Under it, people have to have money to buy what they need. Most people get this by doing paid work or getting some hand-out from the government (a tiny minority get enough to live well on as unearned income such as profits and dividends). Wages are intended to keep the person in working order; hand-outs to ensure that they don’t fall below some arbitrary poverty line.
But look what happens when the cost of living suddenly rises dramatically, as described by Professor Engin Kara of Cardiff University in this weekend’s i paper:
“In times of cost of living crisis, households can reduce luxury spending but not the demand for basic necessities. In fact, such a crisis would switch spending towards basic necessities and increase demand for such goods even more. Strong demand enables producers to pass the increase in costs to consumers.”
So, the effect of a sudden rise in the cost of living is to increase yet further the price of basic necessities. So not only are people forced economically to buy crappier stuff but they have to pay the same price as the less crappy stuff they bought before.
If a bank’s business model was to create money out of thin air and then lend it at interest, this being their income, then banks would be a more profitable line of business than other capitalist businesses. Only they are not. They don’t make more profits per capital invested than do other capitalist enterprises.
In fact, in some respects they are more risky since, by borrowing short-term and lending long-term, they are open to being put in financial difficulty if too many of those they have borrowed money from (their depositors) withdraw it at the same time.
This is why one investor, writing in the Financial Times (25 March), headed his article “Why I will never invest in bank shares”. Other investors, however, are not so timid, treating banks as just another profit-seeking business.
Incidentally, in his article, the author (Terry Smith), gives a breakdown of the assets and liabilities of the NatWest Group. It shows deposits of £470,759 million and loans of only £373,479 million. If banks really could create from thin air money to lend, you’d expect it to be the other way round — loans to be more than deposits. But they’re not.
Currency cranks richly deserve their name.
