Economy

Global Capitalism & Climate Change By Hans Baer AltaMira Press, 2012 The science says it is now far beyond sensible doubt that we can’t keep dumping greenhouse gases into the sky without terrible results. These range from more extreme floods, droughts and storms, to the disappearance of the Arctic ice cap, dramatic cuts in food yields and the drying out of the Amazon rainforest. Despite this knowledge, the problem is being made worse. US oil production is booming again. World gas production is surging. World coal production is reaching new highs.

The stock market has surged past its former high recorded in October 2007, before the financial crash and Great Recession. “With the Dow Jones Industrial average [at] a record high,” writes a columnist in a front page article in the New York Times, “the split between American workers and the companies that employ them is widening and could worsen in the next few months as federal budget cuts take hold”. “That gulf helps explain why stock markets are thriving even as the economy is barely growing and unemployment remains stubbornly high.

The central European nation of Slovenia is being shaken by the first huge uprising since it became an independent country in 1991. The protests are directed against all political elites, austerity measures, and the capitalist system as a whole.

Overdress: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion By Elizabeth Cline Penguin, 2012, 244 pages $37.95 (hb) Every year, Americans buy 20 billion garments, mostly from mass market clothes-makers such as Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, Nike, Wal-Mart and Target. They then throw away 13 million tons of it says a reformed clothing-addict, Elizabeth Cline, in Overdressed. Charity shops can’t soak up the excess with less than 20% of thrift-shop clothing donations sold on. Most of the rest goes to landfill.

Whenever there is a protest in Portugal you are almost certain to hear the haunting song “Grandola, Vila Morena” (“Grandola, sunburnt town”), with its line “who most rules within you, O city, is the people”. On March 2, at huge protests across Portugal, “Grandola, Vila Morena” was sung by more voices than ever before.

Prison officers across Western Australia took strike action in an effort to force the state Liberal government to make similar promises to advance wages and working conditions as it did on February 25 to WA nurses. The WA Prison Officer Union (WAPOU) is demanding a 14% wage rise over three years and measures to alleviate the chronic overcrowding and understaffing in WA prisons.

The Forbes Billionaires list released last month included almost two dozen Australians in its ranks. Among them was mining boss Gina Rinehart, who has now become the richest person in Australia with a fortune of $17 billion. This placed her 36th in the world, but her net wealth was still double that of her nearest fellow Australian billionaire, chief executive of commodities firm Glencore, Ivan Glasenberg. Also on the list were finance elites, gaming kingpins and several other mining corporation owners.

DARWIN — Coca-Cola has forced the Northern Territory government to scrap its 10c deposit recycling scheme. The scheme was introduced in January last year, but Coca-Cola, Schweppes Australia and Lion Pty Ltd took the NT government to the federal court. The federal court ruled on March 4 in favour of the beverage companies, which challenged the recycling scheme on the basis that it was “costly and ineffective” and added 10 cents to the retail price. Coca-Cola said "Australian families do not deserve to be slugged with yet another cost of living increase”.

In a raw emotional outpouring, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans walk along side the coffin of President Hugo Chavez. Leaders and people across Latin America have joined the mourning.

Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) expresses its deepest condolences to the people of Venezuela, Latin America and all who supported the Bolivarian Revolution, for the loss of our great Comrade Hugo Chavez. Comrade Chavez had gained the most votes in the history of Venezuela when he elected for the fourth consecutive presidential term. Unfortunately, now the unfinished revolutionary process has to go on without the physical present of comrade Chavez.

Hugo Chavez has died — undefeated. Yes, undefeated. Chavez, no matter how many times the corporate media and the cheerleaders of the status quo call him a dictator, was elected repeatedly with overwhelming majorities. No matter how many times this slur is moronically or mendaciously repeated, people know the truth. No less than Jimmy Carter certified Venezuela's elections as amongst the most fair and transparent his organization has ever observed. And the voter turnouts that elected Chavez were usually far, far higher than those in the U.S.

The Australian Socialist Alliance released this statement on March 6. * * * The Socialist Alliance in Australia expresses its deepest sympathies with the people and government of Venezuela on the death of Companero Hugo Chavez Frias on March 5. His passing is a huge loss for all peoples, across Latin America and the globe, struggling for a world free of inequality, exploitation and oppression.