Daily Headline – 12/05/13

Conservative Lord Young: exploit cheap labour

The prime minister’s adviser on enterprise Lord Young has told the cabinet that the economic downturn is an excellent time for new businesses to boost profits and grow because labour is cheap.

Instead of trying to improve conditions for workers the ruling coalition is focusing on the positive side to recession, cheap labour and as we all know, cheap labour is good for business and good for profits.

If ever there was a clear sign of the governments callous attitude towards the working class and their lust for profits over people here it is.
Only business owners should be voting for the coalition, anyone else is voting against their own interests.

Conservative = Scum

Daily Headline – 22/04/13

Capitalism and health, a recipe for disaster

There have been many examples over the years and known facts about the operations of pharmaceutical companies so for those who are aware the latest news about Glaxo will come as no surprise at all.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) the pharmaceutical giant is in trouble with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) over paying rival companies to delay the release of new medicines.

Of course the OFT is focusing on its job which is to ensure fair competition which of course is one issue (and one that free market capitalism is not able to resolve, government regulations are vital to ensure, under a capitalism system that competition can thrive).

The second issue and one that too often gets ignored is that businesses like these are deliberately withholding life saving medicines in order to maximise the profitability and lifespan of their old medicines.

How is this travesty of justice not made illegal? How are business allowed to have control of something of such vital importance? If capitalism cannot work in the interests of the people then it shouldn’t be operating at all!

In the short term, bring the pharmaceutical companies under public control, in the long term, abolish capitalism.

For more on the details of this story click here.

Daily Headline – 17/04/13

Corporations to continue stifling free speech

The House of Lords amendment to the UK’s ‘defamation bill’ has been removed by the Conservatives in the House of Commons.

The bill would have prevented large companies ranging from McDonald’s to Tesco from suing their critics unless they could prove financial losses.

The Tories (Conservatives) won the vote 298 to 230 showing that it is not just Thatcher that was divisive but rather that it is being a Conservative that is divisive.

The Tories will always put big business before the people.

Daily Headline – 08/04/13

Is China lined up for economic collapse?

As the developed world is still suffering from the 2007 global economic crisis with austerity the weapon of choice by the ruling elite around the world is China, who though has not been immune to the global effects as demand for Chinese manufacturing declined slightly as belts were tightened, lining itself up for the same?

Chinese banks have long been ‘cooking the books’ and it’s getting worse, credit for loans is available to those with bad credit on an unprecedented scale in China. Just the same as was in the US that kicked off the global recession.

The problem is not just how much risk there is in the Chinese banking sector but ‘risky loans’ being shifted to the lightly regulated ‘shadow banking’ institutions – mainly trust companies, brokerages and insurance companies.

According to Reuters:
Trust assets increased 55 percent in 2012 to 7.5 trillion yuan ($1.21 trillion), according to the China Trustee Association, while funds entrusted to brokerages by banks soared more than fivefold to 1.61 trillion yuan.

Capitalism doesn’t work, western capitalism or Chinese capitalism, it doesn’t matter. Banking, finance and ‘the markets’ are always a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Daily Headline – 05/04/13

HBOS bank execs ran company to collapse

A report entitled ‘An Accident Waiting to Happen’ HBOS (Halifax & Bank of Scotland) bosses have been found to be incompetent and guilty of colossal mismanagement that led to the near collapse of the company that was rescued by Lloyds in 2008/2009.

The report went on to say that even had there not been a global economic crisis the company would have still collapsed such was the ineptitude of the three executives running the company.

HBOS is/was the largest lender of UK mortgages.

The government expects the working class to be responsible but what about the ruling elite?! Where is their punishment and condemnation? Jeopardising people’s savings and homes with absolutely no regard to them at all. Disgraceful.

For more details click here.

Daily Headline – 23/03/13

UK outlook ‘negative’

Credit rating agency Fitch has changed the UK’s outlook to negative, setting up a future downgrade.

The Conservatives came to power on the grounds of reducing public debt…

“Fitch said Britain’s lack of growth and growing debt mountain meant there was a “heightened probability of a downgrade in the near term”.”

Failed again tories!

Instead the Conservative/Liberal coalition has blindly followed ideologically driven policies that have no possibility of working out for the country.

Not that they care of course! Their policies are aimed, as they always have been, at making the rich wealthier and the poor poorer.

“Chris Leslie, Labour’s shadow Treasury minister, said: “This is yet another blow to a downgraded chancellor who made keeping the confidence of the credit rating agencies the number one test of his economic policy. What really matters are the economic realities which Fitch are responding to including, as their statement says, ‘the persistently weak performance of UK growth’.””

Indeed Chris but don’t forget it was your party that got us into this mess!

If you are going to go down the party politics route then the top four parties (Con, Lab, Lib, UKIP) can be instantly dismissed.
Though real change is not with party politics, it’s with the people, it’s with dissent.

Daily Headline – 19/03/13

Banks, the corporate world can’t be trusted

Hongkong and Shanghai Bullshit Corporation

More evidence has come to light over HSBC’s money laundering and tax evasion facility.

As early as 2003 it has been known to authorities that, to put it politely, HSBC has been lax on anti-money laundering practices. Failure by the banking giant to do anything about it led to regulations being tightened in 2003 and then again in 2010.

Still HSBC continued ignoring the law and clearly having no ethics or morality.

In 2012 HSBC set up offshore accounts for drug-dealers and other criminals. Also in 2012 HSBC was fined $1.9 billion USD for ignoring US money laundering laws.

Now in 2013 HSBC comes under fresh accusations from Argentina stating that they are using fake receipts to facilitate money laundering and tax evasion to the sum of £50m

HSBC said that it would cooperate with the investigation, adding that the allegations were “of great concern”
Yeah, a great concern that you got caught again!

EU fines Microsoft (again) for continued anti-competition

By Leon J Williams

The European Union (EU) has ordered Microsoft to pay £484m for failing to allow consumers a choice in web browsers.

Back in 2004 Microsoft was fined £381m for the same reason after which Microsoft did start to offer consumers a choice but this web browser option screen was dropped following a Windows 7 update in February 2011.

Microsoft said that this was due to a technical error but the European Commission dismissed this and is no doubt using this opportunity to make an example of Microsoft so that no other company thinks that it can get away with not implementing fair anti-monopoly regulations.
This move can only be seen as a good thing, shoring up EU funds and and allowing other, smaller businesses an opportunity to thrive.

Myth
Supporters of Capitalism say that it creates competition and they criticise Socialism for stifling competition but alas closer to the truth is that Capitalism destroys competition by creating monopolies, companies buy other companies and put their products first.
It is regulation that stops this, it is government intervention.

Web Browsers
Towards the end of last year we wrote about web browsers here.

We recommend either Opera or Firefox

Daily Headline – 05/03/13

Insurance, legal fraud

Complaints against insurance companies in the UK are dramatically on the rise.
The UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service said that they have received 2.5 times the amount of complaints relating to mis-sold loan insurance.

For example:
A double glazing company sells you double glazing (what are the odds!), you pay some money towards this and the rest you pay in instalments. The company does not offer this service. However they have two companies who will provide this service, one is a mainstream, high street bank and the other is a more obscure and lesser know bank (with a much higher interest rate).
The company has to check you have a good enough credit rating to be eligible, they come back and say that the mainstream bank said no but the other guys said yes so you can get your nice new double glazing.
When you question them, they say they don’t know why and then with true sales pitch they pressure you into signing up.

Banks have allegedly already set aside around £14 billion to compensate customers who were wrongly sold this payment protection insurance (PPI).
If this has happened to you, you may be able to claim you money back and get the rest of the payments cancelled.

Barbaric civilisation

By Anton

We live in a world where such a thing as vital as water is sold as a commodity, where housing which is fundamental to survival is sold and rented, where basic foods which are needed to survive our sold. These things are basic human needs, and should be freely available to all, but no. One is required to sell their labour hourly and daily to survive, we have to sell ourselves to be able to buy a loaf of bread. But these company owners, they work too, don’t they? No, they do not. They live a life of luxury off our labour, more than we can ever dream of. These people contribute nothing to society, yet take of those who do.

All exploited have realised that they are being exploited. The capitalists can not keep up their illusion for long. We have seen their economy, full of contradictions, is built upon quicksand, and is quickly sinking. Recessions are a result of these contradictions inherent in capitalist society, it is a flawed system, thus recessions and depressions will continue to happen. Each time the petit bourgeoisie lose capital, which is accumulate in larger and larger quantities by the bourgeoisie. We have the scraps that the bourgeoisie do not want. Even to live, even to quench our thirst we have to sell ourselves. It is nothing more than barbarianism, when we have to work day in, day out to survive whilst we have scum at the top of society, no better than parasites, about as much use as a virus is to the human body.