United States: 'Post-racial' reality
"According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in November 2009 unemployment for whites was 9.3%, but 15.6% for Blacks … Long-term unemployment … is twice as high for African Americans.
"Black men working at full-time jobs make $622 per week, which is 74.5% of the $835 median for white men.
"The unemployment rate among men with college degrees in 2009 is 4.4% for whites, and 8.4% for Blacks. For those with high school diplomas, unemployment is 10% for white men, and 15.9% for Black men. For those with less than a high school degree, it is 13.9% for white and 24.2% for Black men.
"The BLS statistics among women are similar — 4% for white women with a college degree compared to 6.9% for Black women. For those with a high-school diploma, 7.4% for white women, compared to 11.4% for Black women; and 13% for white women with less than a high-school degree compared to 18.3% for Black women."
— January Against the Current article by US socialist and union activist Malik Miah. You can read the full article at
United States: Being Black an interview disadvantage
"A front page story in The New York Times entitled,'In Job Hunt, even a college degree can't close racist gap' (December 1, 2009), notes that many Blacks are altering their names to sound more "white" to get interviews.
"A study published in the American Economic Review reports that applicants with Black-sounding names received 50% fewer callbacks than those with white-sounding names."
— Against the Current.
United States: Ensuring tax-payers money ends up in right hands
"It was Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, then head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who insisted that the nationalized insurance company AIG pay its debts at 100 cents on dollar — which meant that tens of billions in U.S. taxpayer money flowed through AIG into the coffers of big U.S. and European banks.
"AIG paid $12.9 billion of taxpayer money to Goldman Sachs — and now, Goldman is set to pay out around $22 billion in bonuses …
"So far, the U.S. government has loaned or guaranteed up to $13 trillion to financial institutions and other businesses — a figure nearly the size of the entire annual economic output of the U.S."
— January 19 US Socialistworker.com article, "Laughing all the way to the bank".
Britain: Ensuring tax-payers money ends up in the right hands
"[In November, 2009] it was revealed that the Bank of England had advanced £61.6 billion of our money to two banks, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and HBOS, last autumn.
"Bank governor Mervyn King explained to a committee of MPs that it had been necessary to send out a convoy of dumper-trucks filled with £50 notes to refill the coffers of the two busted banks so as to 'prevent a loss of confidence spreading through the financial system as a whole'."
— November 26 Belfast Telegraph article by Eamonn McCann.
After bail-out, profits soar
"Profit at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. nearly doubled to US$8.4 billion during the first nine months of 2009 from the previous year's level, and analysts expect its full year profits to top US$10 billion.
"Goldman set aside US$16.71 billion from January through September for compensation, which includes salaries, bonuses and associated costs such as benefits and payroll taxes. That puts it on pace to meet the record US$20.2 billion in compensation costs it had for all of 2007."
— January 21 eTaiwannews.com article.