Report on German poverty refutes propaganda of social recovery

Stefan Steele

Almost one in six people, some 15.4 percent of the German population, were registered poor in terms of income in 2014. This is the conclusion of the poverty report of the Paritätischen Gesamtverbands charity published for the first time in 2016. The report’s co-authors included the organization Pro Asyl, which contributed its expertise regarding poverty among refugees. All the data refers to the period 2005-2014.

The 15.4 percent in poverty corresponds to about 12.5 million people in Germany who “live in households where the [net] income is less than 60 percent of the median income of all households.” Those particularly affected are the unemployed, with a poverty rate of 58 percent; single parents, with 42 percent living below the poverty line; 19 percent of children, who continue to be among the poorest, and pensioners, who, at 15.6 percent, are above the average poverty rate for the first time.

Compared to the previous year, the poverty rate decreased in 2014 by 0.1 percent. The poverty rate decreased statistically in nine of Germany’s 13 states, most notably in Mecklenburg Pomerania (-2.3 percent), Berlin (-1.4) and Bremen (-0.5). Nevertheless, these states continue to head the list of those with the highest poverty rates. In comparison to southern states, the differences continue to be immense.

The slight decrease in the poverty rate, despite these better numbers from some states, can be explained by the fact that both Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia, where more than 30 million people live, have recorded an increase in poverty. In Bavaria, which remains one of the states with the highest living standards, the poverty rate increased from 11.3 to 11.5 percent, while in North Rhine-Westphalia it increased to 17.5—a 0.4 percent rise.

The Paritätische Gesamtverband also explicitly noted that “relevant groups are left out” because only people “with their own household” are included in the statistics. This means that an estimated 335,000 homeless and about 764,000 living in care homes, of which around half are dependent on welfare support, are not included in the statistics.

In addition, there are “the more than 200,000 disabled people in inpatient facilities”, about 185,000 living in student accommodation and of course the many refugees who persevere in so-called reception centers under inhumane conditions and make do with a minimum of funds, cynically referred to as pocket money.

Excluding refugees, a total of one and a half million people, or about 1.8 percent of the German population, are not included in the data used to calculate the poverty rate. This alone suggests that the minimum reduction in the overall poverty rate reported can in no way be regarded as an endpoint, let alone as a U-turn, in the almost continuously increasing poverty rate among broad social layers since 2006.

This impression is corroborated by the fact that the already very small change in poverty levels stands in flagrant contradiction to the growth of German economic output, which stands at 1.6 percent. It underscores again how wide the social divide has grown and how few have benefited from Germany’s enormous economic wealth. The editors of the poverty report also emphasize that “economic growth does not ‘automatically’ lead to a redistribution of the additional produced resources, thereby preventing poverty. Quite the opposite, this increasing wealth can lead to a further widening of the income gap and even greater relative poverty.”

It is also significant that the situation of those most affected by poverty changed little, if not worsened, between 2005 and 2014. A group where this is manifested with shocking clarity is that of pensioners: “The poverty rate among pensioners today lies 46 percent higher than in 2005.”

This is illustrated by a contribution by Joachim Rock titled, “Poverty in old age and disability”, using the example of 75-year-old Joseph H., who had worked until he was 71 years old and now has a pension of €416, and must thus rely on welfare. While the number of pensioners in receipt of welfare support was 257,734 in 2003, in 2014 the number is 512,262. This represents an increase of 99 percent, but it is already clear “that the number of people affected by poverty in old age will increase significantly in the coming years.”

This disturbing trend is by no means due to demographic changes or lack of economic success, but the result of a systematic policy of cutting pensions and social benefits. For example, the introduction of the so-called “sustainability and Riester factors” in 2003 and 2005 means “pension increases lag 4.4 percent behind wage increases. By 2029, it will be a further 8 percent. For an average earner with 45 years of contributions this would correspond to a loss of €2,939 a year.”

The largest group of people experiencing poverty remains the unemployed.” Those who are or remain unemployed in this country are not protected from poverty—but on the contrary, are particularly hard hit by poverty”, writes expert Tina Hoffmann in the section “unemployment and poverty”. The worst affected are those who must rely on “benefits from the basic provision for jobseekers,” better known as Hartz IV, where the poverty rate is 84 percent.

In a European comparison, Germany leads the “statistics in a negative sense”. Even the most fundamental essentials of food, clothing and housing are not securely covered by the current Hartz-IV rate of €404 a month: “40 percent of Hartz IV recipients cannot [also] afford payment-liable medical treatments such as dentures or glasses.”

Receipt of Hartz IV benefits also often impacts on social living standards, because recipients “have to restrict their social activities—from the lack of communication possibilities in the absence of the Internet and a computer, to the impossibility of going to a movie or visiting a restaurant”.

This social isolation, exacerbated by the frequent breaking off of relations with former colleagues, is also reflected in the mental health of many Hartz IV recipients and increasingly reinforces a withdrawal from social life. “However, it would be wrong to draw a picture of apathy and total withdrawal. Empirical evidence shows, according to the poverty report, “that in particular the unemployed in East Germany increasingly get involved in voluntary service.”

The overall picture that arises from this report clearly contradicts that propagated by many politicians and the bourgeois media of social improvement through higher employment. This only points ultimately to the fact that even for those in employment it is increasingly difficult to achieve a certain standard of living, because poverty has not diminished at all. While even many mainstream media must now acknowledge the widening gulf between rich and poor, the grave figures contained in the poverty report were usually dismissed in short, superficial articles.

In an editorial in Spiegel Online, under the headline “Social Association: The dangerous blues from bitterly poor Germany”, Guido Kleinhubbert goes so far as to say that the picture drawn by the poverty report would drive “those parts of the population already unsettled by the refugee crisis” into the hands of the [far right] “AfD politicians, NPD scatterbrains and Pegida-brawlers”. It is therefore “irresponsible to create the impression that for many people in Germany it is getting worse.”

This hypocritical standpoint, which simply refuses to state the facts about the standard of living of a large part of the population, reflects the growing fears of the ruling class of a radicalization of the working class. In the face of an increasing social divide, only the working class has an interest in combatting and replacing inequality with a genuinely fair, socialist economic system.

US employment report: Payrolls rise, wages fall

Barry Grey

President Barack Obama seized on the February employment report, released Friday morning by the Labor Department, to tout the supposed “success” of his economic policies and paint a picture of a thriving US economy. The report, which showed a larger-than-predicted growth in private nonfarm payrolls of 242,000 jobs, confirmed that the US economy was “the envy of the world,” Obama told reporters at a White House appearance.

“The fact of the matter is that the plans that we have put in place to grow the economy have worked,” he boasted.” He derided “an alternative reality out there from some of the political folks that America is down in the dumps.” He countered, “America is pretty darn great right now.”

He did not attempt to explain why the “alternative reality,” which his labor secretary, Thomas Perez, attributed to “fear-mongers and fact-deniers,” is believed by tens of millions of Americans, whose anger over economic injustice is dramatically reflected in the current election campaign.

One does not have to look too closely at the Labor Department’s report, however, to get an idea of what is fueling the social indignation of working people in the eighth and final year of the Obama administration. Behind the top-line number for new jobs and the quasi-fictional official unemployment rate of only 4.9 percent, ongoing trends with disastrous consequences for the working class are evident. They account for two other important indices in the report: a decline in average earnings from the previous month of 3 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $25.35, bringing the increase for the year down to just 2.2 percent, and a fall in the average private-sector workweek of 0.2 hours to 34.4 hours, a two-year low.

These two figures arise from the fact that the vast bulk of new jobs created in February were low-wage and a huge percentage were part-time. The low-paying service sector—retail, bars and restaurants, health care—accounted for 245,000 jobs. The reality of recession in basic production was reflected in a 16,000 decline in manufacturing and the loss of another 19,000 mining jobs, bringing to 171,000 the total decline in mining since September 2014. The only better-paying industrial sector that saw an increase was construction, which recorded a gain of 19,000.

Another figure highlights the hollow and socially regressive character of Obama’s so-called “recovery.” The financial cable network CNBC pointed out that according to the Labor Department’s household survey, which is the basis for the unemployment rate figure (the figure on payroll growth is derived from a separate survey of business establishments), full-time jobs increased in February by only 65,000, while part-time positions increased by 489,000. This means that a mere 11.7 percent of new jobs in February were full-time!

These statistics point to the fact that the American ruling class, through its instrument, the Obama administration, has utilized the financial crash of 2008, for which it was responsible, to fundamentally reorganize the US economy, transforming it into a low-wage system. The millions of decent-paying jobs that were destroyed have been largely replaced by poverty-wage, part-time and temporary jobs.

The median household income has fallen sharply. Pensions and health benefits have been gutted, schools closed by the thousands, teachers and other public workers laid off by the millions. At the other end, the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury have pumped trillions of dollars into the financial markets, driving up the stock market and bringing the concentration of wealth at the very top to unprecedented levels. This is what Obama lauds as “success.”

Meanwhile, millions of Americans remain mired in long-term unemployment. The number of long-term unemployed, defined as without work for 27 weeks or more, was essentially unchanged at 2.2 million in February. This number has not shifted significantly since last June. The long-term jobless accounted last month for 27.7 percent of the unemployed, a far higher percentage than in any previous period categorized as an economic recovery.

A broader measure of unemployment that includes people working part-time but wanting full-time work and those too discouraged to seek employment registered 9.7 percent last month, nearly double the official jobless rate. There are, in addition, millions of people who have dropped out of the labor market and are not even counted in government employment reports.

While the employment-to-population ratio edged up to 59.8 percent and the labor force participation rate rose slightly to 62.9 percent, both measures remain extraordinarily low by historical standards.

The impact of soaring social inequality and falling living standards for broad sections of the population is reflected in a growing crisis in the retail sector. This week, sporting goods chain The Sports Authority filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced it was closing at least 140 of its 463 stores and laying off 3,400 of its 13,000 employees. This follows recent announcements by Walmart, Sears/Kmart and Macy’s of hundreds of store closures and thousands of layoffs.

TVA pension cuts: A new stage in the assault on American workers

Niles Williamson

The announcement this week of cuts to the pensions of the employees of the federally-owned Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) marks a new stage in the drive by the ruling class, overseen by the Obama administration, to take back all of the social gains won by the working class over the course of a century of struggle.

The TVA, the largest public utility company in the US, employs 10,000 people and provides electricity and other services to 9 million residents in an 80,000 square mile area covering significant portions of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

As was noted in Friday’s New York Times, the TVA cuts will breach the “firewall” that up to now has protected federal employee pensions, marking the first time that the federal government makes significant moves against defined benefit obligations. The underfunding of the pension plan by an estimated $6 billion is being used to justify the cuts.

The Tennessee Valley Authority Retirement System (TVARS) board approved a plan on Thursday that would shift workers hired since 2006 from a defined-benefit plan to a defined-contribution 401(k) investment plan. Those hired since 1996 with more than 10 years on the job would see their pensions split between the current plan and the 401(k). This scheme, which still has to be approved by the overall board of directors of the TVA, is slated to take effect in October.

While the plan maintains defined benefit pensions for current retirees, a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) on benefits will be capped at 6 percent. For current employees and retirees under 50, the COLA will not kick in until they turn 65.

The plan approved by TVARS is a slight modification of a proposal put forward by the CEO of the utility, William D. Johnson, to cut $700 million from pension obligations over 20 years. The cuts would not impact a special executive retirement plan that supplements the pensions of those who sit on the TVA’s executive board, including the multi-millionaire Johnson.

Johnson, the former CEO of Progress Energy, received total compensation of $6.4 million in 2015, making him the highest paid federal employee. Expressing his contempt for TVA workers, Johnson told the New York Times that cutting his own pay would not make a dent in the pension system’s liabilities and that maintaining executive pensions was necessary to “attract talent.”

The attack on the pensions of TVA employees is a warning that no section of the working class is exempt from the social counterrevolution being carried out in the interests of the financial aristocracy. The TVA is seen as low-hanging fruit in the public sector since it is exempt from federal regulations that guarantee pension benefits and penalize companies for underfunding pension plans.

The imposition of cuts there will set a precedent for overriding pension guarantees for other federal employees, just as the Detroit bankruptcy, backed by the Obama administration, became the model for gutting public-sector pensions in other cities and states across the country, as well as for attacks in the private sector.

Over the past 35 years, the percentage of workers receiving pensions has been vastly reduced. The share of private-sector workers with a pension has fallen to less than 3 percent from close to 30 percent in 1980. Millions have been pushed into 401(k) investment plans, which funnel retirement funds into the hands Wall Street speculators.

The announcement of the assault on the TVA pension fund follows the Obama administration’s recent gutting of benefits for hundreds of thousands of retired truck drivers, package handlers and other workers covered by the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund.

In a country where 400 billionaires control more wealth than the bottom half of the population and the top 1 percent captures more than 21 percent of all income, it has become a mantra that there is “no money” for pensions, health care or any other social program. Yet hundreds of billions of dollars continue to be paid out in executive compensation.

Millions of workers had their retirement savings wiped out as result of the collapse of the stock market in 2008 and most have never recovered. On average, workers between the ages of 56 and 61 saw their retirement savings fall by 23 percent between 2007 and 2013. Millions more, without any retirement benefits or savings, are entirely dependent on meager Social Security payments.

The assault by the Obama administration on the TVA has a symbolic significance, underscoring the utter hostility of the Democratic Party today to the social reforms carried out decades ago by Democratic Party administrations. The utility was created by the federal government in 1933, marking a high point in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal public works program aimed at heading off a socialist revolution in the depths of the Great Depression.

Modeled to a certain extent on the central planning employed by the workers state in the Soviet Union, the TVA brought electricity and modern farming techniques to a section of the country that had remained mired in poverty and backwardness.

The attack on TVA pensions is the spearhead of a broader attack directed ultimately at the dismantling of the utility as a government-owned entity and its carve-up among corporations looking for new sources of profit. This is but the latest indication of the mortal crisis of American capitalism, which poses the necessity for a mass political and revolutionary response by the working class.

Iranian Regime’s Torture, Abuse Of Political Prisoners Continues

Rahim Hamid

Despite Iran’s continuing imprisonment of large numbers of political activists, dissidents and journalists, Ali Asghar Jahangir, the regime’s prisons chief, claims that there are no political prisoners in the country. In an interview with the Iranian News Agency [IRNA] published on March 2, 2016 Jahangir said, “In our country, we don’t have political prisoners according to the international definition of the term,” adding “We have a very few ‘security prisoners’ – those individuals who have endangered national security – although the number of these prisoners is minimal.”

So how did the regime magically make the countless political prisoners in its jails disappear? By the simple means of failing to define any ‘political’ offences within its legal system. Instead, detained dissidents, journalists, artists, campaigners and activists face charges such as ‘endangering national security’ or ‘enmity to God’, with brutal torture being a standard means of coercing confessions, and death sentences for these ‘crimes’ being routine.

Under Iranian law, defining these prisoners as a ‘threat to national security’ enables the authorities to keep them in ‘pretrial detention’ for months for questioning without granting them access to lawyers or the right to see family members or have any contact with the outside world. The subsequent show trials take place in ‘revolutionary courts’ whose proceedings fail to meet the most basic standards of a fair trial under international law.

In the same interview, Jahangir told IRNA that all prisoners are granted access to a lawyer, social worker and physician, as well as having the right to make phone calls and access to a library and to take advantage of the country’s education system during their imprisonment in accordance with the Iranian penal system. The availability of these rights will surely be welcome news to the tens of thousands of political prisoners who have been consistently denied them to date.

In response to a question from IRNA about reported hunger strikes by many prisoners over their lack of access to any legal counsel, Jahangir, who is also the adviser to the head of the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic, flatly denied the reports: “[Reports of] lack of access to a lawyer are not true in any way; this is a standard right in all prisons and for all prisoners,” he asserted, adding, “Those who are on hunger strike often misuse such strategies simply to get into media and create a name for themselves.”

Despite the regime official’s assertions, countless political prisoners remain incarcerated in jails across Iran, including infamous prisons such as Karoon and Sepidar – both in the Ahwaz region – and the notorious Rajah Shahr Central Prison and GhezelHesar Prison in Karaj, a city to the west of Tehran.

One example among many of the regime’s standard disregard for international law is the deplorable treatment meted out to Ahwazi Arab prisoners detained for campaigning for human rights and for converting to Sunni Islam. Like countless other dissidents in Iran, particularly among minorities, Ahwazi Arabs are routinely detained for months and even years without charge before being tried at show trials.

Former Ahwazi detainees, both male and female, describe being subjected to torture during interrogations by regime personnel, whose methods include physical assault, hanging prisoners upside down, beating them on the soles of their feet, electrocution, rape or threats of sexual assault. The subsequently coerced confessions are the norm, with the Iranian regime’s notoriously weak and corrupt judiciary simply ignoring this wrongdoing.

The horrendous abuse suffered by Ahwazi political prisoner, Majed Al-Boghobeish is, unfortunately quite typical: imprisoned for eight years on charges of ‘endangering national security’ for the alleged ‘crime’ of converting from Shiite to Sunni Islam, was rushed to the Khomeini Hospital in Ahwaz City on January 31 this year for emergency treatment due to suffering life-threatening injuries inflicted by sustained savage torture by staff at the Karoon Prison and throughout the period of his detention. In just one of the incidents, warders who claimed to have witnessed him praying in the Sunni manner broke both his arms as a punishment. According to sources in Al-Ahwaz, Al-Boghobeish was subjected to psychological as well as physical torture by the prison staff, with both being standard, if unofficial, regime policy.

The Ahwazi rights groups have appealed to the United Nations and its constituent bodies and to all international organisations concerned with human rights to put pressure on the Iranian government to fulfil its legal obligations under international law in order to help to bring an end to the systemic and increasing brutal persecution and human rights abuses of Ahwazi activists and all other political prisoners in Iran’s prisons.

Saudi Prince: We Support Israel In Palestinian War

Shubhda Chaudhary

Saudi Prince and entrepreneur, al-Waleed bin Talal made a startling statement to Kuwaiti Al Qabas daily stating that ‘Saudi Arabia must reconsider its regional commitments and devise a new strategy to combat Iran’s increasing influence in Gulf States by forging a Defense pact with Tel Aviv.’ It would deter any possible Iranian moves in the light of unfolding developments in the Syria and Moscow’s military intervention.

He openly stated that ‘I will side with the Jewish nation and its democratic aspirations in case of outbreak of a Palestinian Intifada( uprising) and i shall exert all my influence to break any ominous Arab initiatives set to condemn Tel Aviv , because I deem the Arab-Israeli entente and future friendship necessary to impede the Iranian dangerous encroachment.’

With the emergence of neo-liberalism and complex interdependence, Saudi Arabia and Israel have had built tacit alliances but they have not been openly embraced. Though, this has now turned into a geopolitical strategic acrimony between Iran and Saudi Arabia. As we are witnessing a regional cold war in West Asia, the media attention has anyway shifted from the Palestinian issue, in spite of the fact that they are currently undergoing a ‘leaderless Intifada.’ But it’s astonishing that Saudi Arabia, the powerful giant for Wahabbi ideology is thinking of deterring its stand in the Palestinian cause.

The manner in which, one after another, Arab states have abandoned the Palestinian cause has now become a convention. But such an unreasonable statement by Saudi Prince reveals the emerging hidden contours of power.

He further mentioned ‘Iran seeks to buttress its presence in the Mediterranean by supporting Assad regime in Syria, added Prince al-Waleed, but to the chagrin of Riyadh and its sister Gulf sheikhdoms, Putin’s Russia has become a real co-belligerent force in Syrian 4-year-old civil war by attacking CIA-trained Islamist rebels. Here surfaces the paramount importance of Saudi-Israeli nexus to frustrate Russia-Iran-Hezbollah axis.’ The quote validates that Russia is bombing CIA trained Islamist rebels which has always been controversial and often called a conspiracy theory. At the same time, it also highlights the insecurity of Saudi Arabia against the emergence of Russia-Iran and Hezbollah axis within the Syrian paradigm.

Prince al-Waleed bin Talal had previously been in news also for supporting the annexation of Bahrain during the Arab Uprising at Pearl Square in Manama, which witnessed complete media blackout though there was massive man-slaughter. The entire idea of uprisings for democracy is so antithetical to the entire monarchial set-up of Saudi Arabia that it has also played a pivotal role in fuelling the sectarian war in West Asia.

Nevertheless, the Palestinian Ambassador to India stated that Prince al-Waleed had later stated that he had made no such statements and they do not hold true. It’s quite unbelievable that any news agency can have the leverage t fabricate such strong views on its own behalf and hence, on meticulous scrutiny, it might have an iota of truth.

Nobel-Prize-Winning Economist Condemns Obama's ‘Trade' Deals

Eric Zuesse

The Nobel-Prize-winning former chief economist of the World Bank, and Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the U.S. President, Joseph Stiglitz, went to England to warn the British public, and Parliament, that “no democracy” can support U.S. President Barack Obama's proposed trade-deals, because all of these have a feature built into them, called Investor State Dispute Resolution, or ISDS, which will establish a supra-national authority that gives international corporations the power to sue any signatory nation that introduces new or increased economic regulations regarding product-safety, the environment, workers' rights, or anything else that the corporation alleges lowers the corporation's profits; and because these cases will be tried not in courts that are subject to the given nation's constitution and laws, but instead by private three-person panels of mainly corporate lawyers, and their rulings will not be subject to being appealed within the given nation's court system — the panel's decison will be final. There will be no democratic accountability at all, regarding regulations and laws that are designed to protect the public: environmental, product-safety, and workers' rights. The existing regulations will be, in effect, locked in stone, or else decreased — never increased, no matter how much the latest scientific findings might indicate they ought to be. That's because the international corporations' panels will have powers above and beyond any signatory nation's constitution and laws. ISDS gives international corporations the right to sue taxpayers; it does not give any government the right to sue an international corporation (and that also means no right to sue such a corporation for having filed a frivolous lawsuit against the taxpayers). It's a new profit-center for international corporations, in which those profits are coming from the taxpayers of nations that lose these lawsuits — and these cases will explode in volume if Obama's deals get passed.

Stiglitz was speaking specifically about the TTIP, which is Obama's proposed trade-deal with Europe, and he based his analysis upon the published proposed TPP, which is its companion trade-deal for virtually all nations that are in or on the Pacific. (Wikileaked texts indicate that the TTIP is basically similar to TPP.)

In the article by Huffington Post that reports on Stiglitze's comments was this, from Stiglitz:

"There's nothing to stop you, in TTIP, from passing regulations. You can keep the regulations. You would just have to keep writing a cheque to [cigarette firm] Phillip Morris every year for the profits they lost from what they would have been if they had been able to kill people in the way they had in the past," he said. "Every year you would have to write them another billion dollar cheque.” ...

He said it would mean "any government that passes a regulation that has an adverse effect on the profits of a company can be sued" by that company.

Stiglitz said the lawyers who drafted TPP designed it to be so strict that if governments passed regulations "trying to prevent polonium in baby cereal" companies would sue. "This is not a joke," he added.

Previously, on the basis of a legal analysis of Obama's trade-deals, a leading legal expert at the United Nations, explained why (as my headline summarized it) "UN Lawyer Calls TTP & TTIP ‘a dystopian future in which corporations and not democratically elected governments call the shots'.” That lawyer was saying essentially the same thing as Stiglitz, but from a legal not an economic standpoint.

For information specifically about the motivation behind Obama's trade-deals, see this.

Obama's proposed ‘trade' deals have not yet been passed into law in the United States. Here are the positions of leading U.S. Presidential candidates regarding whether they will favor or oppose them if they become the next U.S. President on 20 January 2017:

Hillary Clinton supports and was actively involved in producing Obama's proposed trade-deals, but they became too unpopular among Democratic primary voters and so during her Democratic Party primary campaign for the White House she reversed her previous verbal position on the matter, just as she did in 2008 when she condemned her husband's more-limited model, the NAFTA, after her having actually helped him to win approval for it in the U.S. Senate.

Bernie Sanders has condemned and voted against Obama's trade-deals consistently. His actions have matched his words.

Donald Trump also condemns Obama's proposed trade-deals, but his opposition, like Hillary's, is merely verbal while he's running for President, and though he (unlike Clinton) has no active record of having helped to produce these deals, he (like Clinton) does have a record of switching his positions in order to win votes. He's not like Sanders; he can't be trusted (or, at least, not intelligently  trusted).

More details about these deals, and their origins, can be found here, which provides the deeper historical context, going all the way back to the U.S. Constitution. 

Specifically regarding the corporate panels that will, in a sense, become an international-corporate world government if these deals become law, the details of that can be found here.

Essentially, what both Stiglitz and the UN's lawyer are saying is that, if these deals become law, then workers' rights laws, and product-safety laws, and environmental laws, won't be able to be increased — not even, for example, in order to meet the verbal commitments that were recently made at the Paris conference on climate change. (Those ‘commitments' to reduce global-warming gases would automatically become not merely unenforceable — which they already are — but they would become outright impossible to fulfill, because any effort to put them into place would produce crippling corporate-lawsuit-imposed fines against taxpayers.)

When Stiglitz said, “This is not a joke,” he was saying, essentially, the same thing as the UN lawyer did: “We don't want a dystopian future in which corporations and not democratically elected governments call the shots. We don't want an international order akin to post-democracy or post-law.” He was saying: Don't assume that the future won't be an international-corporate dictatorship, because that now is actually quite likely. If both of these agreements become law, then even the publics in non-member nations will almost certainly become crushed, because they'll be essentially boycotted by international corporations: both employment and consumption will collapse there. The interntional corporations would still come out way ahead, no matter how impoverished those people might become.

President Obama has specifically targeted the BRICS nations for that type of crushing treatment. He says this within a moralistic context in which he also says “the United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.” He said that on 28 May 2014, when he told graduating cadets at West Point this too: 

“Russia's aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China's economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors.  From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us.”

None of the five BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — is included in either of these two ‘trade'-pacts: Obama was telling America's future military leaders that those are enemy nations, which those future U.S. military officers might be fighting against in their careers, and he was placing that prospect into a broader economic  (not merely military) context. Obama's ‘trade' deals are about lots more than merely  ‘trade.'

It's widely expected that at least the TPP, if not also the TTIP, will become passed into law in the United States at some time between the November 8th U.S. Presidential election and the start of the new Presidency on 20 January 2017.

Both of these ‘trade' deals are being rammed through Congress in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution's Treaty Clause. Apparently, the U.S. Constitution no longer rules in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court has never considered the matter (even though it would entail overthrowing a large portion of the U.S. Constitution if it becomes passed into law and sticks). However, if Obama's ‘trade' deals become passed into law, and remain, then what Stiglitz said, “This is not a joke,” will also mean that no intelligent and decent person will want to have children, unless that person wants them to live in a downward-spiralling dictatorship — which is what that would mean (and which would hardly qualify as being ‘decent').

The vote that the American people will be making on November 8th could thus turn out to be the most important vote in the entire history of the world: the stakes are so large — for the entire world. And that's no joke, either. If these proposed deals are not already too late to stop, this could well be the last chance. And to say that isn't ‘apocalyptic,' either: there's nothing at all of ‘Scripture' referred-to here. There's nothing that's at all ‘supernatural' about this. It's pure reality: very hard, very cold, and very real (and very profitable for the international billionaires whose agents have been pushing for this ever since at least 1954).

Pakistan: Kamal’s Dramatic Return and the Fate of MQM-A

Rana Banerji

On 03 March 2016, the former Mayor of Karachi, Mustafa Kamal, held a press conference to announce the formation of a new insofar unnamed political party. His castigation of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Altaf's (MQM-A) leader Altaf Hussain as a drunkard and an agent of India's Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) during the event seems like yet another sinister and calculated effort by Pakistan’s all powerful military establishment to further fragment and decimate the party’s hold over Karachi. Kamal was accompanied at the press conference by another former MQM-A heavyweight, former Deputy Convenor Anees Qaimkhani, who had left the country because of several criminal cases against him. The police/rangers took no steps to arrest him at the event.

Kamal and MQM-A

Rising from humble origins as a telephone operator in MQM supremo Altaf Hussain’s 90, Azizabad headquarters, Kamal completed his undergraduate studies from Malaysia and Wales. From 2003-05, he was the Information Technology Minister in the Sindh provincial government wherein the MQM was in alliance with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). In 2005, he became the mayor of Karachi, serving a difficult five-year stint during which he is credited to have provided a reasonably efficient, people-friendly and `not so corrupt’ local government there. In particular, he is reported to have contributed to better traffic management, designing the Jehangir Kothari flyover-cum-underpass.

During this period, Kamal maintained cordial relations with the then President of Pakistan, Gen Pervez Musharraf, despite having an uneasy relationship with Sindh Governor, Ishratul Abad - the MQM-A’s most durable, pro-establishment politician.

He was seen as the new face of the educated, upwardly mobile, tech-savvy Mohajir youth. However, as he gained acclaim, his parent party MQM-A was riveted by rifts in the wake of the Azim Tariq and Imran Farooq murders. In 2012, Kamal was 'kicked upstairs' as Member, Senate, a post which he suddenly deserted in August 2013 and left the country - ostensibly for personal reasons (wife’s illness cited). It was rumoured then that Kamal had received death threats from the MQM-A’s hit squad goons and had to flee to save his life. Although he initially left for the US, he surfaced first in Tanzania and then joined Pakistan’s influential estate dealer, Malik Riaz’s outfit in Dubai.

Evolving DynamicsThough Kamal strenuously denied connections with `the establishment’ during his press conference, his sudden re-surfacing at this juncture suggests the Pakistan army and the Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI) would have extended assurances to ensure his personal security in Karachi for the present. It also seems in sync with orchestrated moves by the Pakistan Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif and ISI Director General Rizwan Akhtar to bring about en masse defections from the MQM-A. In the recent past, there have been rumours also of Gen (retd) Musharraf’s persisting ambition to re-emerge in a political role, with a possible chunk of Mohajir support. Despite best efforts, this has not happened. The Farooq Sattar-led leadership of the MQM in Karachi has remained steadfastly loyal to Altaf Hussain despite the recent court verdict and crackdown against any direct media coverage of the 'Quaid-e-Qiwan’s' long-distance speeches from UK.

In the December 2015 local body elections in Karachi, the MQM-A won 136 seats in six districts, comfortably besting the PPP that won 32 seats, and defeating the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI)-Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) alliance that won 13 seats. Senior MQM-A leader Waseem Akhtar is now poised to become the mayor of Karachi.

MQM-A's ResponseOn 03 March 2016, Farooq Sattar responded with the MQM-A's own long-drawn press conference, labouriously denying Kamal’s charges, including those against Hussain’s alleged misdemeanours and dictatorial style. He claimed the attempts to tar the party with 'connections to R&AW' were 'old hat', which the party had survived several times in the past. The real test was approbation by the people, which the MQM-A had obtained during last year’s by-elections for NA 246 Karachi and now again, in the local body polls. He condemned this `new effort’ to sustain the `MQM minus one’ formula and asserted that it would fail again.

Nusrat Nadeem, Hussain's remaining trusted party lieutenant in London (Tariq Mir and Mohammad Anwar lost Altaf's confidence after squealing nineteen to the dozen before the Scotland Yard during their money fraud and Imran Farooq murder investigations), also urged the Pakistani establishment to talk directly to the party leadership instead of resorting to such nefarious tactics.

Barrister Saif Ali Khan, Gen (retd) Musharraf’s lawyer defending him in the myriad court cases against him also discounted rumours of support to Kamal, and affirmed his continuing loyalty to the MQM-A.

ProspectsBoth Kamal and Qaimkhani have support within the MQM-A. Their subsequent shenanigans would be watched with interest. The Farooq Sattar press conference was surrounded by several glum faces. A prominent leader, Faisal Sabzwari was absent. Though a major setback, it can, by no means, be said with certainty that the establishment would succeed in its objective of de-fanging the MQM-A by this manoeuvre just yet.

Tibetan Parliamentary Elections in Exile: Glitches and Prospects

Apa Lhamo


The preliminary round of the direct election to elect the 'Sikyong' (prime minister) and 'Chithue' (members) of the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile was held on 18 October 2015. The final round is scheduled for 20 March 2016. How much has the concept of democracy evolved among Tibetans in exile? How has the ongoing election year progressed so far? What are the prospects for the final round?

Democracy in Tibet: A PrimerAlthough conceived inside Tibet, the idea of democratic governance among Tibetans was essentially implemented in exile in India. The 13th Dalai Lama had tried to initiate numerous democratic reforms in Tibet, but his efforts were mitigated by conservative sections of the society at the time. In 1950, the incumbent Dalai Lama too, after assuming the spiritual and political leadership of Tibet, introduced a number of progressive changes, and inculcated ideas of direct democracy via his Reform Committee. However, the Committee and its introduction of democracy were soon thwarted with the 1959 Chinese invasion and occupation of Tibet that subsequently resulted in the Dalai Lama's exile. Therefore, while there was an indigenous progression towards democracy in Tibet, direct involvement in democratic governance was first experienced by Tibetans in exile.

The Tibetan example of top-down introduction of democracy is unlike most conventional examples, wherein people had to demand and struggle to achieve it. This unique democracy was born in exile in India with the 1963 formalisation of the 'Draft Constitution for the Future Tibet', and the subsequent adoption of the 'Charter of the Tibetans in Exile' in 1991. Although unique, this nascent democratic movement does share characteristics similar to those of other fledgling democratic movements.

The Election Commission: Progress and ProblemsThe Central Election Commission (CEC) of Tibetans in exile made set rules for the candidates; their campaign procedures; and set limits on campaign expenditures in accordance with the Charter of the Tibetans-in-Exile. Many lauded the CEC's efforts towards managing the Tibetan Diaspora that is scattered world over, during in the preliminary election. However, the Commission incurred criticism for its incompetence on certain matters, its authoritarian nature, and its questionable enforcement of election rules. Some critics even alleged that the Commission deliberately manipulated election rules to give advantage to two candidates.

The CEC was severely criticised for its failure to respond when institutions affiliated to the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) banned a Sikyong candidate from campaigning for the polls. The Commission garnered even more criticism for issuing a circular on 20 October 2015 - a day after the preliminary round  - on the eligibility rules. The circular stated that for a third candidate to qualify to contest in the final round, the difference of votes between the second and third candidate must be at least 20 per cent.

As many analysts noted, the number of candidates to be shortlisted for the final should be decided in a more reasonable timeframe. There were five candidates vying for the post, of which only two could make it to the final. Critics claim that the new rule was a deliberate attempt by the CEC - which is allegedly at the beck and call of those in the CTA - to keep a certain candidate from competing, due to his strong position of total independence from the Chinese government.

In the 2011 election, five candidates were allowed to campaign for the finals, and all happened to support the Tibetan Government-in-Exile's position, i.e. middle-way. The CEC's questionable actions, coupled with its incompetence, are of concern, particularly to the wider Tibetan Diaspora. A group of 27 "long-time Tibet Supporters" too published an open letter to the CTA, expressing their worries and disappointment.

Participation in ElectionsTibetans world over enthusiastically engaged in rigorous debates and discussions on Sikyong candidates. These intense debates and discussions, in almost every household to social gatherings to both online and offline platforms, indicate progression in the nascent Tibetan democracy.

The scale of participation in the 2015 preliminary elections, both in numbers and intensity, demonstrates an impressive rise when compared with the 2011 election. Also impressive is the youthful demographics and natures of competition between the candidates.

What Next?Although their positions and agendas are somewhat divergent, incumbent Sikyong Dr. Lobsang Sangay, and Speaker of the CTA, Penpa Tsering - both advocates of the middle-way approach - are the only two finalists for the 20 March election. The discussions, debates and the election itself would have been more energised, interesting, and democratic, had the CEC not twisted the rules at the last minute and had allowed the third candidate, Lukar Jam Atsock - a former political prisoner and a Rangzen (independence) advocate vis-a-vis China - to campaign in the finals.

Although Atsock had garnered considerable support for his radical views, his intellectual depth, and his political savvy, he faced opposition from many for his stand and his alleged criticism of the Dalai Lama's position of political compromise with China towards resolving the issue of Tibet. Regardless, the results of the preliminary polls suggest that incumbent Sikyong Sangay is likely to retain his post for another term; but his competitor, Tsering, is not far behind.

Australia: Job cuts threaten Sydney water safety

Richard Phillips

The Sydney Catchment Authority (SCA), which oversees the dams, water catchments and the overall health of water supplied to Australia’s largest city, has axed five out of six of its senior scientists’ jobs.

Those to lose their positions include the director of science, two scientists specialising in microbiology and catchment management, and the principal scientist for physical chemicals. Another senior scientific testing position has been downgraded to an advisory role.

Academics and water management experts have denounced the cuts, which wipe out decades of water monitoring expertise. They have warned that the decision could lead to a serious degradation of water supplies to Sydney’s 4.5 million residents.

Last year the New South Wales (NSW) state government merged the SCA with the State Water Corporation, which is responsible for rural and regional water in NSW, to form WaterNSW. The new agency has eliminated over 80 jobs, including those of the five senior scientists, as well as project management personnel, administrative workers, senior economists and engineers, during the past six months.

None of the unions or professional organisations covering these workers—the Australian Professionals, the Australian Services Union or the Community Public Sector Union—has issued a statement opposing this job destruction or warned of its implications.

University of NSW Associate Professor Stuart Khan, a water contamination expert, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the job destruction was “the worst thing to happen [to water management] in decades … It will take one more emergency … to remind us what a stupid mistake this is.”

The newspaper reported that four scientists from WaterNSW’s Penrith facility, in Sydney’s western suburbs, decided to take redundancy packages after being told that their responsibilities would be “significantly diminished” and their annual salaries cut by up to $50,000.

The SCA was established in 1999 by the state Labor government after dangerous chlorine resistant pathogens—Giardia and Cryptosporidium—were discovered in the Warragamba Dam, Sydney’s main water supply.

The SCA’s task was to monitor water quality in the catchment and deal with possible biological and chemical contaminants, including those from the agricultural and coal mining industries that may degrade water supplies. The Sydney catchment area has 21 dams and covers more than 16,000 square kilometres of land in the south and west of the metropolitan area, including several large towns.

Water NSW management last week declared that the job cuts were part of “structural changes” at the agency, designed to “achieve greater efficiency.” NSW Water Minister Niall Blair insisted there would be “no deterioration” in Sydney’s water quality or water safety monitoring in the state.

Blair’s assurances are worthless. The job destruction is a cost-cutting measure to make the water industry a more attractive proposition for privatisation. Finance industry corporations and others seeking to profit from any sell off of the industry regard senior scientists and others involved in the evaluation of water catchment areas as an impost on potential profits.

Over the past two decades consecutive governments throughout Australia have sold off or corporatised various state-owned assets—electricity, gas, airlines, public transport, insurance and other key industries. The privatisation agenda was set in train by the Hawke and Keating federal Labor governments from 1983 to 1996 and carried forward by federal and state governments—Labor and Liberal-National Coalition alike—backed by the trade unions.

While the water industry is one of the last remaining state-owned and run essential services, it is being systematically undermined in line with growing demands from the finance industry in Australia and internationally.

State governments have increasingly contracted out maintenance and other key aspects of the water industry, including large capital works—dams, desalination plants and other facilities—to the private sector. Between 2010 and 2013, Sydney Water, the state-owned agency that delivers Sydney’s water, slashed 450 jobs, including by outsourcing 135 maintenance positions at six Sydney locations.

In December 2013, the federal government’s Infrastructure Australia released a paper identifying 10 Australian water assets that could be privatised at an estimated enterprise value of $37.5 billion. It recommended Sydney Water be sold off. Other calls have been made for the privatisation of the Queensland Bulk Water Supply Authority, the Water Corporation of Western Australia and South Australia’ SA Water.

Former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Graeme Samuel last year called for all Australian governments to consider privatising water assets.

“There is no logical reason why governments need to own the maintenance companies that maintain the supply of water to customers,” Samuel told the Australian Financial Review. “They don’t need to own the companies that install the pipes, they don’t need to own the pipes, they don’t need to own the dams, they can all be owned by the private sector …”

Encouraged by the unions, which have rubberstamped outsourcing and other privatisation measures, NSW Liberal Premier Mike Baird’s government announced plans in 2015 to sell off another $20 billion in public assets.

Late last year, the NSW government moved to privatise the last remaining state-owned electricity assets and passed legislation ending Sydney Water’s monopoly.

The NSW government is currently investigating private involvement in the state’s 28 wastewater facilities and last year the state-owned Hunter Water Authority, north of Sydney, outsourced the maintenance and operation of its 25 treatment plants to the multinational company Veolia.

The elimination of water scientists’ jobs is another step toward privatisation of this essential service and will be followed by further job cuts.

                                                  * * *

The World Socialist Web Site spoke this week to one senior scientist whose job was axed. Concerned about any future victimisation, the scientist wished to remain anonymous. He began by explaining the impact of the SCA’s merger into WaterNSW.

“We hoped that the SCA’s science component would not just be preserved but expanded. We wanted the lessons learnt from the Sydney water crisis of 1998, not just about monitoring Giardia and Cryptosporidium and that sort of thing, but our scientific understanding of the catchment, modelling, downstream river movements and other important processes to be applied across the state. Instead of that we were told that it was necessary to improve efficiency and they cut work on catchment, environment and science.

“This is really wrong, not just because I lost my job, but because the skill levels have declined and this is going to have an impact on the community. It may not happen straight away but as soon as there is a drought, major bushfires or something else, it will open up the catchment to all sorts of issues and create another water crisis.

“In the past there was a multiple barrier approach to water safety: catchment, river, reservoir and treatment. This has been mostly reduced to the water treatment barrier. The science component has been heavily cut—from a 15-member science program group to a 6-member group—which means we don’t have the knowledge base, and important development projects will not be carried out.”

Asked about the NSW Water Minister Blair’s reassurances that there would be no degradation of water quality or frontline services, the scientist said: “Of course he says that, but if there are serious problems in the catchment areas caused by mining, coal seam gases, bacteria or even a big bushfire—there’ll be nobody to deal with it.

“We were overworked, in some cases doing the work of three people, but we kept things under control. Now there are none. If something happens in ten months, who will be responsible? No one. The water minister and other politicians who have destroyed people’s lives will probably be gone and whoever is left will say, ‘Oh dear, mistakes have been made and we have to change this.’

“In this industry there has to be a proactive approach. It’s about high capacity knowledge development and preparation for the safety of the entire community. The disappearance of five scientists is not going to produce an immediate collapse, but it’s like a building. If you remove five pillars from the building it will stand until there is heavy wind or a flood and then it will collapse.

“Water quality advisors are needed, not just for day-to-day operations but to look at trends. Previously we were dealing with the Sydney catchment area. Those that are left have to deal with the whole state. More toxins and other things are being disposed into the catchment areas and they will not be properly monitored.

“At the end of the day, SCA had a $120 million operating budget. The scientists they cut probably cost about $1 million per year and the catchment people might take it up to about $3 million, which is probably less than 2 percent of the budget.

“I’m not interested in scare-mongering or exaggerating, and I’m not opposed to change, but we’ve gone back by about 20 years and I’m worried and disturbed about it. The people still there will work very hard but standards will drop and this is going to produce a problem sooner or later and people need to be warned about it.”

UK immigration policy inflicts more damage on National Health Service

Sascha Woods

The UK Conservative government’s immigration policies are exerting mounting pressure on the already stretched resources of the National Health Service (NHS).

Set up to be an “Independent, non-statutory, non-time limited, non-departmental public body that advises the government on migration issues,” the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) is anything but independent. Last year, Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives asked the MAC to look into ways of restricting the most popular route of workers into the UK—the Tier 2 (skilled workers) visa.

Many nurses from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) would fall into this category. Since 2011, the Tier 2 visa system has an annual cap of only 20,700 visas that can be issued. The rich can come and go as they please under the Tier 2 visa system, as anyone earning over £150,000 is exempt from the cap.

Nursing was placed onto the shortage occupation list for Tier 2 visa entry in November 2015 by the MAC, which is supposed to fast-track visa applications. However, the Royal College of Nursing recently released figures showing that 2,341 nurses were refused the right to work in the UK last year alone. This exposed the fact that placing nursing on the shortage occupation list has been nothing but a cynical gesture.

Any worker hoping to gain employment in the UK with a Tier 2 visa must already have a job and be sponsored by his or her employer, who pays a fee. In the case of the NHS, it supplied workers with a job offer (nursing) and sponsorship and had actively recruited from the shortage occupation list. But, at the last hurdle, many nurses had their visa application denied.

NHS hospitals were relying on these nurses to take up the strain caused by a chronic lack of staffing. An example is the high-profile Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, which was placed into special measures in 2015 by the QCC (Quality Care Commission), due to concerns over “serious staff shortages.” Addenbrookes had over half of the visas it applied for denied (66 of 123).

Between April and November 2015, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS was hit with the highest number of refusals—300 out of 300 applications.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals and North Cumbria University Hospitals both had around 240 refusals. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn had more than half its requests refused, with 157 applications made and 82 denied. Central Manchester University Hospitals had 195 applications and 75 refusals. Bedford Hospital applied for 150 visas and had 45 refused, and Luton and Dunstable Hospital had 31 applications and 15 visas refused.

These numbers stack up as a stark reminder of the cuts that have ravaged the NHS. In total, the NHS has lost out on the hiring of more than 1,000 desperately needed trained nurses due to this immigration policy.

What is posed is not a short-term staffing crisis, however, as a six-year employment limit is placed upon applicants of the Tier 2 visa, before they have to leave the UK. The final blow comes in the form of the £35,000 minimum pay packet that a worker must be in receipt of if he or she is to obtain a visa. No ordinary nurse can hope to be paid this wage under the regime of austerity, where nurses’ pay has fallen by 14 percent in real terms since 2010.

Cameron was unabashed in spouting nationalist rhetoric to justify restricting visas in June 2015 when he said, “As part of our one-nation approach, pushed forward by my Immigration Taskforce, we have asked the Migration Advisory Committee to advise on what more can be done to reduce levels of work migration from outside the EU.” [emphasis added]

Seven thousand fewer nurses came to the UK in 2014-2015 compared with 2003-2004, according to Christie & Co, a consultancy.

Cameron is bowing to the most right-wing elements of his party, seeking to gain favour with supporters of the anti-European Union UK Independence Party. The crisis created in a vastly overstretched NHS benefits the propagandists of the ruling elite who routinely denounce the UK’s public health care system as “outmoded” and “inefficient,” to argue for a privately run health care system.

Another important factor in the government’s policy of refusing visas to overseas nurses was revealed in a Guardian report in January. It detailed how many hospital trusts were being told to cut staffing levels in a bid to save millions of pounds, even though ministers had been giving advice just three years earlier to increase them after the Mid-Staffs care scandal. The King’s Fund estimates that in order to save £1 million, a health care trust would have to sack 25 nurses.

Michael Hodges, director at Christie & Co., described the shortage of nurses as a “homegrown problem. … Essentially we are suffering poor workplace planning as a result of austerity measures in recent years.”

According to research published in the Sunday Mirror last October, up to 35,000 doctors and nurses—4 percent of the total workforce—could be made redundant to cut costs, based on the current expected NHS deficit.

Monitor, which regulates Foundation Trust Hospitals that are semi-independent of NHS control, found that most of their hospitals have been identified as “financially challenged.” Between April and June of last year, an overall deficit of £930 million was reported across England’s 241 NHS hospital trusts, with three out of four trusts in the red.

In an attempt to quash criticism, a spokesperson for the Department of Health said, “We want more home-grown staff in the NHS and our recent changes to student funding will create up to 10,000 more nursing, midwifery and allied health professional training places by 2020.”

This is an outright lie. The government is stripping away bursaries from nurses and turning them into student loans. With the spiraling costs of tuition fees and loan repayments, this will only serve to deprive students from a working class background from entering the medical profession without first amassing huge amounts of debt.

The decision to deny working visas to overseas nurses must be opposed by all workers. Cutting staffing levels to demonstrate the government is “tough on immigration” and is driving down wage costs is incompatible with any conception of public health care. Restricting skilled workers’ rights to work where there is an urgent demand for their skills demonstrates the callous attitude of the ruling elite towards those who are employed in and use the NHS.

The total dismantling of the NHS is under way, with many hospitals stacking up huge debts with no way of making further savings other than to cut staffing levels to dangerous levels.