Stock markets fall on fears of Greek exit from euro zone

Robert Stevens

Financial markets fell in Greece and internationally Monday, in response to Greek prime minister and Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras’s speech to parliament the previous evening.

Presenting a series of limited reforms, including a gradual increase in the minimum wage and restoration of pension rights, Tsipras said his government would not seek an extension of the “troika” (European Commission, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund) austerity programme, due to expire on February 28.

Athens’ stance that it will not extend the troika’s cuts, but will instead reverse some of the austerity policies imposed by previous governments, sent stock markets in Greece plunging. Within minutes, the Athens market was down 4.15 percent, while Greece’s main banks fell by 8 percent overall. By noon, the banks had fallen by 25 percent in three days.

The yield (interest rate) on two-year Greek bonds rose to 20 percent, forcing up the cost of government borrowing. The Wall Street Journal noted this was a sign that investors are worried that Greece could default on its debt. New data from the Greek Court of Auditors revealed the nation’s foreign debt amounts to €324 billion, exceeding 180 percent of GDP.

The fall in Greek stocks had a knock-on effect on markets throughout Europe, with Germany’s DAX down 1.7 percent, Spain’s IBEX 35 down 2.2 percent and Italy’s FTSE MIB down 2.0 percent. Wall Street fell by 70 points on opening.

On Monday evening, rating agency Moody’s, which on Friday put Greece’s sovereign debt rating on review for a possible downgrade, cut the credit rating of five major Greek banks.

The British government convened its emergency COBRA committee. The meeting was attended by Prime Minister David Cameron and representatives from the Treasury, the Bank of England, the Foreign Office and the Business Department. Cameron’s spokesman said, “We need to be prepared to deal with uncertainties in financial markets. It is something we want to be vigilant about...clearly there are global economic inter-dependencies and London is a major financial centre.”

On Wednesday, a “euro group” meeting of euro zone finance ministers will discuss the Greek crisis. The Syriza-Independent Greeks coalition government is to present its debt restructuring proposals to the meeting. Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis signaled that he is seeking a deal with EU governments, stating, “At Eurogroup, I will not be a yes man, but I will say ‘yes’ to proposals that make sense.”

A finance ministry official said Athens will request a bridge loan from the euro group, including the return of €1.9 billion in profit made by the European Central Bank and other central banks on Greek bonds.

Syriza is not opposed in principle to the troika’s demand that Greece implement “structural reforms” slashing workers’ living standards.Kathemerini stated: “Behind the public rhetoric, the Greek government has shifted to a more cooperative tone in recent conversations with the troika, according to an official representing the creditors.”

Varoufakis told parliament that the government would implement around 70 percent of the current troika-agreed programme. Reports emerged Monday afternoon that Varoufakis would propose an “intermediate” bridging agreement until September 1 and, according to the Guardian, may table “10 new reforms to cover the parts of the bailout programme which it is now rejecting.”

Syriza’s central preoccupation is the defence of Greek and European capitalism. Varoufakis told the Guardian, “[A]llowing it [the euro] to fragment would be catastrophic…it is the moral duty of the critics of the euro zone to fix it, to make sure it doesn’t collapse, because if it does, the cost will be immense not just for the Greeks but the Brits, everyone.”

After a week in which European Union (EU) leaders from London to Romeinsisted the Syriza government repay Greece’s debts, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said Monday: “Greece shouldn’t assume that the overall mood in Europe has changed to the point that the euro zone would endorse Mr. Tsipras’s entire government agenda without limitations.”

Greece could be forced to default on its debt in a matter of weeks, if agreement cannot be found at a February 16 euro group meeting. EU finance ministers have declared this the deadline for Greece to agree on an extension of the EU’s austerity programme. Kathemerini reported Monday, “Without concessions, the government may run out of money before the end of March, forcing Tsipras either to cave in to European demands or abandon the single currency.”

Financial Times columnist Wolfgang Münchau, a staunch advocate of Syriza’s debt restructuring programme, warned, “It was an utterly disastrous week of economic diplomacy. All that separates us from Grexit are a few more weeks like that one.”

While pointing to the dangers of Greece leaving the euro, he noted that that pressure from hostile European leaders, led by Germany and the markets, could force Syriza to climb down even further on its anti-austerity rhetoric: “Watch out for euphemisms in which programmes become contracts, the troika turns into a consultant, and austerity becomes growth-friendly consolidation.”

Germany, with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble leading the calls, is ever more vocal in insisting that Greece continue to strictly impose previously agreed austerity. On Monday, Schäuble said , “ Without a programme, things will be tough for Greece.”

Other European powers consider looser credit and rescheduling of Greek debt repayments as the best tactic to force austerity on Greece and ensure the money they have loaned to Greece is paid back. At Monday’s G20 meeting, French finance minister Michel Sapin said, “We need financing, otherwise Greece would be subjected to market panic.”

Whereas the EU “cannot just say ‘we’ll fund, we’ll fund,’ ” he cautioned, “It’s not possible for the Greek government to hear ‘we’re going to continue as if nothing has happened,’ even if it’s not for long.”

Washington is also concerned about the consequences of Greece being forced from the euro zone, particularly under conditions where it is seeking to ensure it remains part of the NATO alliance, as both Russia and China try to cement closer political and economic ties to Athens.

The Financial Times reported Monday, “The Obama administration is pushing euro zone leaders to compromise more with Athens as fears grow that a protracted stand-off could damage the global economy.”

Citing “mounting concern in Brussels and Washington about the hard-line stand taken by some euro zone governments, particularly Germany,” the article cites an unnamed senior US official who said, “I don’t think our attitude has changed but what’s changed is that suddenly the situation in Greece is looking more problematic.... We believe that any fragmentation would have a severe spillover effect.”

The Obama administration is despatching the Treasury department’s top Europe official, Daleep Singh, to Athens. The Financial Times noted that US “officials said they were pushing euro zone officials to put aside any consideration of Greek exit from the euro and help find ways for Athens to spur growth.”

In a veiled call for further austerity, he added, “They [Greece] need to hold on to the gains from the reforms they’ve already made and they need to press forward with the kind of structural changes that a lot of people believe are needed to make Greece more competitive.”

Obama refuses to rule out arming Kiev following talks with Merkel

Patrick Martin & Barry Grey

At a joint White House press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday, President Barack Obama made clear he was considering authorizing the dispatch of advanced weapons to the US- and NATO-backed regime in Kiev, to be used against pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine.

Obama indicated that he would wait to see the results of talks set for Wednesday in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, between Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, French President François Hollande and Merkel before making a decision on sending US arms to Kiev. The talks are aimed at brokering a new cease-fire agreement between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists following the collapse of an agreement reached last September.

At the press conference following talks with Merkel, Obama said: “If, in fact, diplomacy fails, what I’ve asked my team to do is to look at all options. What other means can we put in place to change Mr. Putin’s calculus? And the possibility of lethal defensive weapons is one of those options being examined.”

Obama then added, “I want to emphasize that a decision has not yet been made.”

The US president left open the sending of weapons such as antitank missiles and armored vehicles to the Kiev regime, which has lost territory in the east of the country to rebel forces in recent weeks, despite warnings from prominent officials and some newspapers internationally that doing so could dramatically escalate the conflict and trigger a military conflict between NATO and Russia, with the possibility of a nuclear Third World War.

Merkel and the leaders of Britain and France have made clear in recent days that they oppose a US move to directly arm Kiev. Instead, they call for tougher economic sanctions combined with increased NATO military forces in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe to compel Moscow to accept the transformation of Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, into a staging ground for US and European imperialist moves to reduce Russia to a semicolonial status.

In her remarks, Merkel indicated her opposition to the dispatch of American weapons to Ukraine, saying, “I don’t see a military solution to this conflict.” But she stressed that Europe and the US were united in backing the Ukrainian regime, which came to power last February in a US- and German-backed coup led by fascist militias, and forcing Russia to end its support for pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk, Luhansk and other Russian-speaking regions.

“On certain issues we may not always agree,” she said, suggesting that Germany would continue to back the US-led offensive against Russia even if Washington decided to arm the Kiev government.

Obama, for his part, seemed to echo Merkel, saying there “may be some areas where there are tactical differences” while the US and Europe remained united in basic strategy and goals.

US military and civilian officials, including some within the Obama administration, are pushing for a decision to begin sending heavy arms to Kiev. At the Munich Security Conference last Saturday, US Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, NATO’s military commander, said sending weapons to help Ukrainian forces crush the separatists should not be ruled out.

At a Senate confirmation hearing last week, Obama’s choice to become the next defense secretary, Ashton Carter, said he would be inclined to back Ukraine with American arms.

Ukrainian President Poroshenko triggered the latest crisis in eastern Ukraine by ordering an offensive by Ukrainian military forces, including some battalions of neofascist “volunteers.” It is inconceivable that he would have done so without Washington’s approval.

The Russian-backed forces routed the invaders around the Donetsk airport and have pressed a counterattack, taking control of an additional 500 square kilometers of territory and threatening the town of Debaltseve, which sits on the main road between Luhansk and Donetsk. As many as 3,000 Ukrainian troops are trapped in the town and could be forced to surrender.

Washington, NATO, the European Union and the media have portrayed the fighting in eastern Ukraine as a Russian invasion, although the vast majority of combatants are drawn from the Donbass region, where most people are Russian speakers and the government in Kiev is widely hated.

Obama repeated the claims of “Russian aggression” at the onset of his joint press conference with Merkel, saying that “Russian forces continue to operate” in Ukraine, “training separatists and helping to coordinate attacks.”

Last week’s sudden trip by Hollande and Merkel to Kiev and Moscow, setting the stage for Wednesday’s summit in Minsk, appeared to be driven by concern that a US decision to provide billions in weapons to Ukraine was imminent and could escalate the crisis enormously.

A top official of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe told journalists at the Munich conference that he feared weapons deliveries would turn the crisis into an “existential conflict for Russia against NATO.”

Similar concerns were expressed in the American media, albeit by a small minority in the US national security establishment. The New York Timespublished an op-ed Monday by Professor John Mearsheimer under the headline “Don’t Arm Ukraine,” which asked rhetorically whether the United States would accept Canada or Mexico joining a hostile military alliance.

Even the rabid anti-Russian publicist Anne Applebaum, a Washington Postcolumnist, expressed concern about “a new World War” emerging from the Ukraine crisis, although she offered the lesser evil of “a new Cold War” in which NATO would “build a Berlin Wall around Donetsk in the form of a demilitarized zone and treat the rest of Ukraine like West Germany.”

White House urges USW to strangle oil workers’ strike

Jerry White & E.P Bannon

Workers at two of the largest oil refineries in the Midwest United States are scheduled to join the weeklong oil workers strike on Saturday at midnight. More than 1,000 workers at BP Whiting Refinery, near Hammond, Indiana, and another 600 at a Toledo, Ohio refinery owned jointly by BP and Husky, will join the walkout by 3,800 workers at nine of the 65 refineries across the US organized by the United Steelworkers (USW).
Among rank-and-file workers there is support for an all out national strike by the 30,000 workers covered by the national labor agreement. The USW has sought to contain this opposition but the oil companies have not given union officials anything they could sell to their members as a concession. On Thursday, union officials rejected the sixth proposal from Royal Dutch Shell, which is the lead bargainer for BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron and other oil giants, and talks on a new three-year agreement have been suspended until next week.
Like workers throughout the rest of the economy, oil workers are seeking to recoup lost wages, lower out-of-pocket health care costs, shorten their hours of labor and improve working conditions. The oil conglomerates, which have spent billions on dividends and stock buybacks to enrich their investors and corporate executives, have pointed to the fall in crude oil prices to oppose any improvement in workers’ living standards and expand the use of lower-paid, part-time and temporary workers. Earlier this month, BP froze pay for all non-union employees company-wide.
BP management responded provocatively to the strike notice, saying, “We are committed to ensuring a safe and orderly transition as USW employees choose to strike and trained replacement workers take their place,” Scott Dean, a spokesman for BP, said by e-mail Friday. “BP has trained replacement workers comprised primarily of current and former BP employees to safely and compliantly operate the refinery for the duration of this strike.”
The Whiting refinery, BP’s largest, produces gasoline for much of the Midwest, as well as aviation fuel, kerosene, propane and more than eight percent of the country’s asphalt. The Toledo facility processes 160,000 barrels of oil daily, including from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada.

BP’s Whiting, Indiana refinery

On Thursday the Obama White House weighed in calling for a quick end to the strike. In a statement, the president’s deputy press secretary Frank Benenati wrote, “We are monitoring the situation and urge labor and management to resolve their differences using the time-tested process of collective bargaining.”
To this point, the partial strike has had limited economic impact, with about 13 percent of the nation’s refining capacity affected with the two BP refineries added. The Obama administration, however, is concerned that the USW could lose control and the struggle could inspire other sections of workers into action against decades of falling living standards.
In recent months, various think tanks have warned of the danger of a “wages push” by American workers who have suffered the longest period of wage stagnation since the Great Depression even as corporate profits and the stock market have soared. (See: “The Coming Fight Over Wages in the US”).
Despite Obama’s rhetoric about “inclusive prosperity” and “middle class economics,” the administration’s economic policy has been based on an unrelenting campaign to drive down wages and shift health care costs from corporations to the backs of workers.
And like his Republican predecessor, Obama is no less a stooge of Big Oil. This was shown in his kid gloves treatment of BP after the Gulf oil spill and the decision by the US Justice Department last year to drop charges against Tesoro whose criminal disregard for the safety led to the explosion which killed seven Tesoro workers in Anacortes, Washington, in 2010.
What does the White House mean about using the “time-tested process of collective bargaining” to resolve the issues in the strike?
The president is well aware that the trade unions are committed, just as much as the oil companies, to boost the profits and competitiveness of American capitalism at the expense of the working class. He is concerned that the intransigence of the oil giants and any effort to impose their demands without the assistance of the unions could provoke an explosive response by workers.
Since taking office, the Obama administration has relied on the unions to suppress the opposition of the working class to the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to top in American history. This includes the help of the United Auto Workers in cutting labor costs in the auto industry by nearly 35 percent. This is why Obama appointed USW President Leo Gerard to his Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) Steering Committee where he works with corporate executives from Dow Chemical, Alcoa, Caterpillar and other Fortune 500 companies to slash labor costs in the name of boosting their “international competitiveness.”
Meanwhile Gerard & Co. spread the poison of economic nationalism, claiming that the loss of jobs and declining living standards in America are caused by “currency manipulation” by Japan and China, not the capitalist profit system. This only serves to divide and weaken workers in the face of the attack by global corporations like BP, Shell and Exxon Mobil, while lining up American workers for another war.
The USW presents Obama as “pro-worker” and invited Democratic congressmen Gene Green and Al Green to lead the singing of “We Shall Overcome” at Friday’s rally at Shell’s Houston headquarters. But if oil workers were to break the restraints of the USW and shut down the oil industry, Obama and the Democrats would prove to be their enemies no less than the Republicans. In the event of such a struggle, these erstwhile “friends of labor” would use anti-strike laws, mobilize the police and National Guard to escort scabs through the picket lines and arrest strikers in the name of defending “national security.”
In the face of this anti-working class gang-up, the USW is trying to silence strikers and “control the message” by claiming that the strike is over safety not wages. For workers it is not an “either/or” issue. Workers have the right to improved living standards and a safe job! The claim that multi-billion corporations cannot afford both is a fraud.
Oil workers must break out of the straitjacket being imposed by the USW, spread the strike throughout the entire industry and fight for the mobilization of the widest sections of the working class in a common struggle to defend jobs and living standards. To do this, rank-and-file strike committees, made up of the most class-conscious and militant workers, should be organized, independently of the USW and both big business parties.

Haiti: Martelly to rule by decree

John Marion

Haiti’s parliament stopped sitting on January 12, when the terms of all 99 deputies in the lower house and 10 of the country’s senators expired. The remaining 10 senators are scheduled to serve another two years but cannot meet without a quorum consisting of half the members of each house. The Senate is supposed to have 30 members, the terms of which 10 expired two years ago without elections to replace them.
Under Haiti’s 1987 Constitution, deputies serve four-year terms, the duration of a parliament, and senators serve six-year terms on a staggered schedule.
There have been no parliamentary elections in the country since 2010. The current crisis was brought about by the refusal of President Michel Martelly and the Senate to agree on a law for administering elections. While blaming the crisis on a group of six opposition senators, Martelly is the clear beneficiary and the US government has come down on his side.
With backing from the US and UN, Martelly is now able to rule by decree until at least the fall, when the next presidential election is due. Having been forced—by a commission chaired by the head of Haiti’s National Chamber of Commerce and Industry—to fire Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe in December, Martelly waited until after parliament’s dissolution to install a new government.
Martelly’s new Prime Minister Evans Paul is a career politician who has moved dramatically to the right since he managed Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s presidential campaign in 1990. In January 2014, Paul appeared alongside Martelly, Jean-Claude Duvalier, and former coup leader General Prosper Avril at a ceremony commemorating the 210th anniversary of Haiti’s revolution against French colonialism.
After being sworn in as prime minister, Paul met dutifully with US Ambassador Pamela White and the US State Department’s Special Coordinator Thomas Adams. White had visited parliament on January 11 with the Canadian Ambassador and a UN official in an attempt to convince the deputies and senators to extend the end dates of their own terms. The diplomats were concerned about maintaining a pretense of democracy in the face of growing street protests. Several senators are reported to have skipped the last session out of spite.
Meanwhile, the social conditions for the masses in Haiti continue to deteriorate. A strike by public transportation workers over the price of gas and diesel fuel received widespread public support on Monday, shutting down commerce and schools in Port-au-Prince. The government, which buys petroleum from Venezuela at a steep discount through the PetroCaribe treaty, nonetheless sets the price of gasoline at more than $4 per gallon. The strike was sold out by the unions after only one day.
The US openly backs Martelly, a former musical performer linked to the old Duvalierist dictatorship. In a January 16 phone call to Martelly, US Vice President Joe Biden also took the position that parliament is to blame for the electoral impasse and praised the president’s attempts at “compromise.” He went on to implicitly approve a Martelly dictatorship, stating “the United States remains Haiti’s committed friend and partner … as President Martelly’s administration works to build a more prosperous and secure future for the Haitian people.”
On Tuesday, Le Nouvelliste published an interview with an unnamed businessman involved in forcing Lamothe out of office. After telling the paper that the government should not print more money to cover its debts, this power behind the throne noted that US $250 million will be needed just to keep the government afloat until the next scheduled elections. Such money is likely to come from foreign governments, and he who pays the piper calls the tune.
For his part, Evans Paul warned the CEP (Provisional Electoral Council) not to spend too much on democracy. Martelly appointed the latest version of the CEP—there have been five during his presidency—after parliament’s dissolution, in violation of Haiti’s 1987 constitution. Promising “good elections at a better cost,” Paul stated: “we cannot always make elections and see that it is others who pay for us.”
Such thrift will not apply in protecting the interests of imperialist nations and Haiti’s bourgeoisie. MINUSTAH, the UN occupation force that has been in place since 2004 and which introduced cholera to the country, has a budget of US $500.1 million for the year ending June 30, 2015.
Representatives of the 15 member states of the United Nations Security Council visited Port-au-Prince and Cap Haitien this weekend. While making noises about the need for elections, they also concerned themselves with reviewing Martelly’s national police force (PNH). The UN has been insisting that Haiti create a national police as a condition for withdrawing any of the more than 7,000 uniformed MINUSTAH personnel still in the country. The army, which historically had carried out this policing function, was disbanded by Aristide in 1995.
Reacting to the possibility of a MINUSTAH draw-down, the new Minister of Justice Pierre Richard Casimir said, “I reiterate to the UN Security Council our request to not reduce the Minustah forces during the electoral process. On the contrary, it is necessary to reinforce the UN contingent in Haiti; indeed, electoral periods are sometimes marked by tensions and troubles.”
Martelly’s own ascension to the presidency in 2010-2011 was anything but democratic. Voter turnout in the first round of elections was less than 23 percent, in part because of the devastation wrought by the earthquake but also because Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas was excluded on a technicality.
In November 2010, Jude Célestin, the candidate of the Inite party of then-president René Préval, placed second ahead of Martelly in the first round. This result qualified Célestin for the runoff election against frontrunner Mirlande Manigat, but there were immediate accusations of fraud. After the intervention of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Organization of American States, Célestin withdrew.
A post-election statistical analysis carried out by the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that if all disputed ballots were excluded, the participation rate was only 20.1 percent of eligible voters. Martelly received support from only 4.5 percent of eligible voters in the first round.
An “Expert Verification Mission” from the Organization of American States, of which nearly all members were from the US, Canada, and France, advocated giving Martelly second place in the first vote. In a January 2011 debate at the UN Security Council, then-US Ambassador Susan Rice “threatened Haiti with a possible cut-off of aid if the government did not accept the Mission’s recommendations,” according to CEPR. Préval was also threatened with exile if he didn’t comply.
The CEPR’s statistical analysis found that the OAS completely excluded 1,053 disputed tally sheets. These were from areas “that were more pro-Célestin than the general electorate.” The OAS admitted to CEPR that these should have been included, and also that it had not done any statistical inference from the sheets it did count.
Voter participation was only 23 percent in the second round, which occurred four months later. Martelly beat Manigat in that election by at least 20 percent, in part because of support from a public relations firm with ties to John McCain. The firm, Ostos and Sola, also had a hand in the election of Mexico’s Felipe Calderon in 2006. In the second round, Martelly’s campaign spent about US $6 million on electronic messaging in a country where more than half of the population lives on less than $2 per day.

Official enthusiasm over January jobs report belied by economic reality

Nick Barrickman

The US Labor Department released its monthly jobs report Friday, showing that US businesses added 257,000 positions for the month of January. The unemployment rate increased slightly, from 5.6 to 5.7 percent, while the labor force participation rate rose to 62.9 percent. The Labor Department said the increase in the unemployment rate was due to unemployed workers returning to the job market.
The Obama Administration hailed the figures, proclaiming in a statement that, “with today’s strong employment report, we have now seen eleven straight months of job gains above 200,000—the first time that has happened in nearly two decades.”
Media commentators cited the figures as proof that US workers were experiencing the effects of an economic recovery. “The January jobs report isn't just a single piece of good news. It marks a sea change in the labor market in which the middle class and working class are finally starting to get ahead,” wrote Bloomberg economic editor Peter Coy.
The ecstatic response to the jobs report came despite the announcement this week of some of the worst mass layoffs and store closings in recent memory. On Wednesday, Office supply retailer Staples announced plans to buy its rival Office Depot, which would result in the closure of up to a thousand stores and tens of thousands of layoffs.
On Thursday, electronics retailer RadioShack filed for bankruptcy, saying it plans to close up to 3,500 stores, meaning tens of thousands of additional layoffs.
Also this week, the e-commerce giant eBay announced plans to let go of 2,400 workers this quarter due to “weak holiday sales.” Mass layoffs have been announced within the last month by American Express, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, DreamWorks Animation, and clothing retailers J.C. Penney and Macy’s.
In January, all major groups of workers saw either increasing or stagnant unemployment rates. Teenagers saw the highest amount of joblessness, increasing to 18.8 percent.
Job growth in January was dominated by the mostly low-paying retail sector, accounting for 46,000 positions – the largest amount from any industry. Construction firms and manufacturers added 39,000 and 22,000 jobs, respectively, and hotels, restaurants and other service sector areas added 37,100 positions.
The number of officially jobless US workers remained at roughly 9 million. The long term jobless, those out of work for 27 months or more, made up 2.8 million of the total amount, or over 31 percent. The report notes that over the past year, this group has seen only a slight decrease in its ranks.
Underemployed workers, or those working part-time for economic reasons, were counted at nearly 6.8 million. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the US economy still has more than 5.8 million “missing workers” who have given up on looking for work. If these workers were to be included in official counts, the unemployment rate would stand at roughly 9 percent today.
Wage growth in the US has remained virtually stagnant. January’s 12 cent wage increase, bringing average US wages to $24.75 an hour, represents an increase of less than 0.5 percent. A report released last September by the US Federal Reserve noted that average US household income dropped by 12 percent from 2007 to 2013, a decline of nearly $6,400 a year for the typical American household. According to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, 47 percent of Americans have incomes below 200 percent of the official poverty level, characterizing half of the country as either poor or near-poor.
The economic “recovery” long touted by the US political establishment has seen an expansion of low-paying jobs as higher-paying ones have been eliminated. A 2014 report by the National Employment Law Project notes that while US businesses have added 1.85 million low-wage jobs over the past six years, they have eliminated 1.83 million medium-wage and high-wage jobs.
This week, Jim Clifton, head of the Gallup polling agency, penned a scathing denunciation of the claims that the US unemployment rate is back to “normal” levels.
“There’s no other way to say this,” he wrote. “The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.”
“Gallup defines a good job as 30+ hours per week for an organization that provides a regular paycheck. Right now, the U.S. is delivering at a staggeringly low rate of 44%, which is the number of full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18 years and older. We need that to be 50% and a bare minimum of 10 million new, good jobs to replenish America’s middle class.”
He added, “I hear all the time that “unemployment is greatly reduced, but the people aren’t feeling it. When the media, talking heads, the White House and Wall Street start reporting the truth—the percent of Americans in good jobs; jobs that are full time and real—then we will quit wondering why Americans aren’t ‘feeling’ something that doesn’t remotely reflect the reality in their lives.”

National Security Strategy document affirms US drive for world domination

Patrick Martin

The Obama administration issued its National Security Strategy document Friday, ostensibly laying out the principles on which its foreign policy will be based for the final two years that Obama occupies the White House.
The document was presented by National Security Adviser Susan Rice at the Brookings Institution on Friday afternoon, no doubt aimed at focusing attention on US threats against Russia over Ukraine. The Obama administration is currently considering providing direct arms to the US-backed regime in Kiev, a move that could lead very quickly to a direct war with Russia, a nuclear-armed power.
Rice was introduced by the think tank’s president, Strobe Talbott, one of eight representatives of the US foreign policy establishment who issued an appeal earlier this week for the Obama administration to provide billions in arms for the right-wing regime in Ukraine established by last year’s fascist-led coup.
Echoing the document itself, Rice denounced “Russian aggression” in Ukraine, declaring its operations in the east of the country “a heinous and deadly affront to longstanding international law and norms.” She praised efforts “to impose steep political and economic costs on Russia,” adding that the US “will continue to turn up the pressure unless Russia decisively reverses course.”
In keeping with the style of the president, the document itself is full of bureaucratic mush that may put the unwary to sleep, anaesthetizing the reader to the deeper meaning of its insistence that the United States must remain the unchallenged global power. The New York Times counted more than 100 uses of the words “lead,” “leader” and “leadership” in the 29-page text.
The language of the report is deliberately evasive and misleading. Its 16,000 words do not include “drone” or “bomb.” There is one reference to “mass killing,” describing the actions of groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. “Deaths” are referred to three times, all caused by disease or poor nutrition, not US military operations.
These are not defects of composition or drafting, but intrinsic to the process of creating a document whose content is the product of protracted negotiations between the White House National Security Council, Pentagon, CIA and State Department. In other words, it is a lie from beginning to end, the collective product of rival groups of mass murderers and their lawyers and press spokesmen, who have labored to make the global strategy of American imperialism sound like the mission statement of a charity.
The document’s introduction lists eight “top strategic risks to our interests.” Four of them are traditional security issues—attacks on the US homeland, on US citizens or allies, weapons of mass destruction, and the collapse of failing states—but defined so generally that they could apply to any country in the world.
The other four strategic risks are worth quoting: “global economic crisis or widespread economic slowdown”; “severe global infectious disease outbreaks”; “climate change”; and “major energy market disruptions.” This has considerable significance: the US government now regards virtually any form of economic, social or environmental disruption as a strategic security issue potentially justifying American military intervention.
The introduction also includes a call for Congress to end limits on military spending that have been part of “sequestration,” a shift that has also been included in Obama’s recently proposed budget.
The introduction concludes by stating the principal shift in the orientation of US foreign policy from Bush to Obama (without referring to the previous administration): “This strategy eschews orienting our entire foreign policy around a single threat or region. It establishes instead a diversified and balanced set of priorities appropriate for the world’s leading global power with interests in every part of an increasingly interconnected world.”
In other words, instead of the Bush administration’s obsessive focus on the Middle East, under Obama the entire world is the field of action for American bullying, up to and including military action. There is no country that the US does not consider part of its “backyard.”
Another area of attention was what the document describes as operations in “shared spaces”—cyber, air, oceans and outer space—which belong to no nation-state, but where US imperialism claims the right both to make rules and enforce them.
Two of the major sections of the document, titled “Prosperity” and “Values,” are particularly cynical, coming from the country that gave the world the 2008 financial crash, and the buildup of police-state methods, from torture to mass surveillance, over nearly two decades. Again the omissions are revealing: the document makes no reference to the National Security Agency and its program of global surveillance, gathering up the telecommunications and Internet traffic of the entire world’s population.
The document makes no reference to such spying, but the introductory section briefly rubber-stamps the operations of the vast US machinery of spying and surveillance: “All our tools are made more effective by the skill of our intelligence professionals and the quality of intelligence they collect, analyze, and produce.”
There are the usual claims about America being the great advocate of freedom and democracy around the world, before the document goes on to declare an exception to this rule: “Where our strategic interests require us to engage governments that do not share all our values, we will continue to speak out clearly for human rights and human dignity in our public and private diplomacy.”
These lines were a backhanded reference to the fact that the Obama administration is a principal prop of the Egyptian military junta (“we will maintain strategic cooperation with Egypt to enable it to respond to shared security threats”) and the monarchy in Saudi Arabia.
The name of the latter country does not appear in the document, but Saudi Arabia has been at the center of recent revelations documenting its extensive funding for Al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalist organizations, at the behest of US imperialism. Nor does the word “Gaza” appear, where Israeli forces armed and equipped by the United States killed more than 2,000 people last summer, at least 500 of them children.

Europe on the brink of war

Alex Lantier

Reports that Washington is considering arming the Western-backed regime in Kiev with weapons to attack pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have placed the risk of world war at the center of political life in Europe.
Earlier this week, French President François Hollande warned of the risk of “total war” before jetting off to Moscow for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin. These comments were echoed Friday by former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt.
“Unfortunately, war with Russia is conceivable,” Bildt told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview at the Munich Security Conference. “We are definitely living through one of the more dangerous historical phases,” Bildt said, “especially if you view the situation from a European perspective. There is fighting to the east, there is fighting to the south. The flames are coming very close to us. What makes the situation so explosive is that there is also great uncertainty about global power relations.”
World capitalism faces a crisis as profound as those that twice in the last century—in 1914 and 1939—plunged humanity into world war. Tens of millions were massacred in the course of these imperialist wars, which would pale in comparison to the devastation caused by a Third World War waged by nuclear-armed powers.
The risk of a nuclear catastrophe has emerged largely behind the back of the world’s population and amid silence from a complicit media. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung did not ask Bildt the obvious question: If the Swedish government can now conceive of war with nuclear-armed Russia, is it taking into account, as it formulates its policy, the risk that nuclear missiles will explode in Stockholm? Does it believe that it is worth risking the annihilation of Sweden to defend the far-right regime in Kiev? How many millions of lives are the imperialist powers prepared to sacrifice to the cold calculus of geo-political ambition?
While NATO governments have pointed to the historical character of the crisis they confront, none of them has any idea how to resolve it. Instead, they are pouring fuel on the fire. The imperialist powers are preparing to dispatch tens of thousands of NATO rapid reaction troops to Eastern European countries that border Russia while they send warships to the Black Sea.
Even as Merkel and Hollande met for peace talks in Moscow, ostensibly driven by concern over the implications of US weapons deliveries to Kiev, German Defense Minister Ursula Von der Leyen boasted of Germany’s participation in the rapid reaction forces that are aimed at Russia.
“Germany is not only a framework nation and key enabler of the new NATO spearhead force,” she declared, “but we are also helping to set up the Multinational Corps Northeast as well as the bases that NATO is establishing in its eastern and southern member states.” She praised “the untiring commitment of the [German] federal government to strengthen the role of the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] and ensure that the EU adopts a common position with regard to Russia.”
As a possible alternative to US proposals to arm Ukraine directly, voices in Europe are pressing for more economic sanctions, including cutting Russia off from the SWIFT international transaction system—an economic blow that could itself be seen as an act of war.
In the meantime, the European media work relentlessly to pollute public opinion, denouncing the Kremlin as the aggressor and blaming it for the crisis over Ukraine.
Le Monde published an editorial Friday warning that “history is teetering between a localized if deadly conflict and a larger and more worrisome conflict… one of those chain reactions Europe knows all too well.” The newspaper proceeded to place blame for the crisis squarely on Putin. It wrote: “Essentially, everything depends on one man: Vladimir Putin. Does the Russian president think he has punished Kiev enough for trying to ally with the European Union? Does he want to dial tensions down, or keep stoking war?”
Le Monde’s fairy tale involving a one-man chain reaction is part of a demonization of Russia that is based on absurd lies. Driving the war danger are the reckless actions of the imperialist powers, spurred on by their hegemonic ambitions and the intractable crisis of the capitalist system.
Washington and the European powers have been shaken by the global economic crisis, by their fading weight in the global economy, and by rising opposition to austerity within the working class. Terrified by what Bildt calls “uncertainty about global power relations,” they have sought to solidify their geo-political position by seizing Ukraine—by means of a putsch spearheaded by fascist paramilitary forces—and dealing a devastating blow to its neighbor, Russia, with the aim of transforming that country into a semi-colony.
Last year, Washington and Berlin led the NATO powers in backing a coup in Kiev headed by forces such as the fascist Right Sector militia. Having toppled pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, they installed a right-wing regime that imposed brutal austerity measures on the working class and sought to drown opposition in pro-Russian regions of eastern Ukraine in blood.
The NATO powers seized upon armed resistance to the Kiev regime in eastern Ukraine, such as in Crimea and the Donbass, to justify a military build-up in Eastern Europe. They have supported the Kiev regime’s war in the Donbass that has killed over 5,000 people and forced millions to flee their homes. Now that the Kremlin has signaled that it will intervene militarily to halt a broader offensive against the Donbass, the NATO powers are indicating that they are prepared to respond with total war.
To the war frenzy of the imperialist powers, the international working class must counterpose the strategy of world socialist revolution.
The threat of war has become a constant feature of political life. Recent years have seen a series of war scares—in September 2013, when the United States and France nearly attacked Syria; in 2014, when threats were issued against Russia following the still-unsolved downing of flight MH17 over Ukraine; and now, over the war in eastern Ukraine. Absent a mass intervention by the working class in struggle against imperialism, one or another of these crises will trigger an uncontrollable war threatening the survival of humanity.
As the International Committee of the Fourth International wrote last year in its statement, “Socialism and the Fight Against Imperialist War:”
“The collision of imperialist and national state interests expresses the impossibility, under capitalism, of organizing a globally-integrated economy on a rational foundation and thus ensuring the harmonious development of the productive forces. However, the same contradictions driving imperialism to the brink provide the objective impulse for social revolution. The globalization of production has led to a massive growth of the working class. Only this social force, which owes no allegiance to any nation, is capable of putting an end to the profit system, which is the root cause of war.”

40 MISTAKES MEN MAKE WHILE HAVING SEX WITH WOMEN.....

1) NOT KISSING FIRST.

Avoiding her lips and diving straight for the erogenous zones makes her feel like you're paying by the hour and trying to get your money's worth by cutting out nonessentials. A proper passionate kiss is the ultimate form of foreplay.

2) BLOWING TOO HARD IN HER EAR.

Admit it, some kid at school told you girls love this. Well, there's a difference between being erotic and blowing as if you're trying to extinguish the candles on your 50th birthday cake. That hurts.

3) NOT SHAVING.

You often forget you have a porcupine strapped to your chin which your rake repeatedly across your partner's face and thighs. When she turns her head from side to side, it's not passion, it's avoidance.

4) SQUEEZING HER BREAST.

Most men act like a housewife testing a melon for ripeness when they get their hand on a pair. Stroke, caress, and smooth them.

5) BITING HER NIPPLES.

Why do men fasten onto a woman's nipples, then clamp down like they're trying to deflate her body via her breasts? Nipples are highly sensitive. They can't stand up to chewing. Lick and suck them gently. Flicking your tongue across them is good. Pretending they're a doggie toy isn't.

6) TWIDDLING HER NIPPLES.

Stop doing that thing where you twiddle the nipples between finger and thumb like you're trying to find a radio station in a hilly area. Focus on the whole breasts, not just the exclamation points.

7) IGNORING THE OTHER PARTS OF HER BODY.

A woman is not a highway with just three turnoffs: Breastville East and West, and the Midtown Tunnel. There are vast areas of her body which you've ignored far too often as you go bombing straight into downtown Vagina. So start paying them some attention.

8) GETTING THE HAND TRAPPED.

Poor manual dexterity in the underskirt region can result in tangled fingers and underpants. If you're going to be that aggressive, just ask her to take the damn things off.

9) LEAVING HER A LITTLE PRESENT.

Condom disposal is the man's responsibility. You wore it, you store it.

10) ATTACKING THE CLITORIS.

Direct pressure is very unpleasant, so gently rotate your fingers alongside of the clitoris.

11) STOPPING FOR A BREAK.

Women, unlike men, don't pick up where they left off. If you stop, they plummet back to square one very fast. If you can tell she's not there, keep going at all costs, numb jaw or not.

12) UNDRESSING HER AWKWARDLY.

Women hate looking stupid, but stupid she will look when naked at the waist with a sweater stuck over her head. Unwrap her like an elegant present, not a kid's toy.

13) GIVING HER A WEDGIE DURING FOREPLAY.

Stroking her gently through her panties can be very sexy. Pulling the material up between her thighs and yanking it back and forth is not.

14) BEING OBSESSED WITH THE VAGINA.

Although most men can find the clitoris without maps, they still believe that the vagina is where it's all at. No sooner is your hand down there than you're trying to stuff stolen banknotes up a chimney. This is okay in principle, but if you're not careful, it can hurt so don't get carried away. It's best to pay more attention to her clitoris and the exterior other than vagina at first, then gently slip a finger inside her and see if she likes it.

15) MASSAGING TOO ROUGHLY.

You're attempting to give her a sensual, relaxing massage to get her in the mood. Hands and fingertips are okay; elbows and knees are not.

16) UNDRESSING PREMATURELY.

Don't force the issue by stripping before she's at least made some move toward getting your stuff off, even if it's just undoing a couple of buttons.

17) TAKING YOUR PANTS OFF FIRST.

A man in socks and underpants is a at his worst. Lose the socks first.

18) GOING TOO FAST.

When you get to the penis-in-vagina situation, the worst thing you can do is pump away like an industrial power tool - she'll soon feel like an assembly-line worker made obsolete by your technology. Build up

slowly, with clean, straight, regular thrusts.

19) GOING TOO HARD.

If you bash your great triangular hip bones into her thigh or stomach, the pain is equal to two weeks of horseback riding concentrated into a few seconds.

20) COMING TOO SOON.

Every man's fear. With reason. If you shoot before you see the whites of her eyes, make sure you have a backup plan to ensure her pleasure too.

21) NOT COMING SOON ENOUGH.

It may appear to you that humping for an hour without climaxing is the mark of a sex god, but to her it's more likely the mark of a numb vagina. At least buy some intriguing wall hangings, so she has something to hold her interest while you're playing Marathon Man.

22) ASKING IF SHE HAS COME.

You really ought to be able to tell. Most women make noise. But if you really don't know, don't ask.

23) PERFORMING ORAL SEX TOO GENTLY.

Don’t acts like a giant cat at a saucer of milk. Get your whole mouth down there, and concentrate on gently rotating or flicking your tongue on her clitoris.

24) NUDGING HER HEAD DOWN.

Men persist in doing this until she's eyeball-to-penis, hoping that it will lead very swiftly to mouth-to-penis. All women hate this. It’s about three steps from being dragged to a cave by their hair. If you want her to use her mouth, use yours; try talking seductively to her.

25) NOT WARNING HER BEFORE YOU CLIMAX.

Sperm tastes like sea water mixed with egg white. Not everybody likes it when she's performing oral sex, warn her before you come so she can do what's necessary.

26) MOVING AROUND DURING FELLATIO.

Don't thrust. She'll do all the moving during fellatio. You just lie there. And don't grab her head.

27) TAKING ETIQUETTE ADVICE FROM PORN MOVIES.

In X-rated movies, women seem to love it when men ejaculate over them. In real life, it just means more laundry to do.

28) MAKING HER RIDE ON TOP FOR AGES.

Asking her to be on top is fine. Lying there grunting while she does all the hard work is not. Caress her gently, so that she doesn't feel quite so much like the captain of a schooner. And let her have a rest.

29) ATTEMPTING ANAL SEX AND PRETENDING IT WAS AN ACCIDENT.

This is how men earn a reputatio n for not being able to follow directions. If you want to put it there, ask her first. And don't think that being drunk is an excuse.

30) TAKING PICTURES.

When a man says, "Can I take a photo of you?" she'll hear the words "__to show my buddies." At least let her have custody of them.

31) NOT BEING IMAGINATIVE ENOUGH.

Imagination is anything from drawing patterns on her back to pouring honey on her and licking it off. Fruit, vegetables, ice and feathers are all handy props; hot candle wax and permanent dye are a no no.

32) SLAPPING YOUR STOMACH AGAINST HERS.

There is no less erotic noise. It's as sexy as a belching contest.

33) ARRANGING HER IN STUPID POSES.

If she wants to do advanced yoga in bed, fine, but unless she's a Romanian gymnast, don't get too ambitious. Ask yourself if you want a sexual partner with snapped hamstrings.

34) LOOKING FOR HER PROSTATE.

Read this carefully: Anal stimulation feels good for men because they have a prostate. Women don't.

35) GIVING LOVE BITES.

It is highly erotic to exert some gentle suction on the sides of the neck, if you do it carefully. No woman wants to have to wear turtlenecks and jaunty scarves for weeks on end.

36) BARKING INSTRUCTIONS.

Don't shout encouragement like a coach with a megaphone. It's not a big turn-on.

37) TALKING DIRTY.

It makes you sound like a lonely magazine editor calling a 1-900 line. If she likes nasty talk, she'll let you know

38) NOT CARING WHETHER SHE COMES.

You have to finish the job. Keep on trying until you get it right, and she might even do the same for you.

39) SQUASHING HER.

Men generally weigh more than women, so if you lie on her a bit too heavily, she will turn blue.

40) THANKING HER.

Never thank a woman for having sex with you. Your bedroom is not a soup kitchen.