The "national debt": who is owed what
The "national debt" and the budget deficit loomed large in the coalition government's first (emergency) budget.
LESLIE MASTERS explains what lies behind the drive to reduce the national debt through huge cuts in public spending.
In May this year, according to the Office of National Statistics, the deficit on the budget was £14.1 billion - down £1.6 billion on May last year.
Net public debt (inclusive of "financial interventions" - bailouts of the banking sector) stood at £903.0 billion - 62.2% of gross domestic product (GDP), compared to £774.0 billion - 55.4% of GDP - at the end of May 2009.
The government has made much of its plans to cut the budget deficit to £20 billion annually by around 2016. This will, of course, involve no reduction in the national debt, since the borrowing required to finance a deficit budget always adds to that debt. Eventually, the government hopes to create a budget surplus - but the amounts involved will pale into insignificance beside the national debt.
Most of this debt is financed by the sale of government bonds and other financial instruments. The primary focus is on Treasury bonds - gilts (from the gold-leaf decorating the margins of the bond certificates).
These bonds have a nominal face value, a published interest rate, and a maturity date. All three of these may vary from one type of bond to another. The interest is paid twice yearly, and the maturation date - often many years in the future (and in some cases, indefinite) - is the date on which the government undertakes to repay the nominal value of the bond.
Cuts on war spending rarely rate a mention
In all the Coalition government's talk about the need for cuts, the spending on war and armaments is rarely mentioned. Billions could be saved if the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were ended and Trident was not replaced. However, war is very big business.
ALEX DAVIDSON argues that vast sums of money spent on war and weapons could be cut.
Global military annual expenditure stood at £1.46 trillion in 2008. This represented a 4% increase in real terms since 2007 and a 45% increase over the ten year period since 1999. So much for the so-called peace dividend which was meant to arise from the end of the Cold War. The United States with its massive spending budget is the principal determinant of the current world trend, and its current expenditure now accounts for 41.5% of the world total. The USA is followed by China (5.8% of world share), Britain (4.5%), France (4.5%) and Russia (4%). The 15 countries with the highest spending account for over 81% of the total. This is shown graphically alongside.
The United States is spending $7 billion per month on the war in Afghanistan and $5.5 billion per month in Iraq. The number of US service members in Afghanistan has risen to 87,000. There are a further 47,000 troops from 44 other countries. There are 94,000 US troops in Iraq.
Cameron and Clegg's pre-arranged pact
Prior to Labour's victory in the 1997 General Election, Tory Prime Minister, John Major, invited his main challenger, the then New Labour leader, Tony Blair, to a TVleaders' election debate. Major was lagging well behind in the polls and after 18 Tory years the mood for change was palpable.
MARTIN S. GIBSON reflects on the issues and outcome of the UK General Election on Thursday 6 May.
Blair's advisors convinced him that a live TV debate could only benefit Major. They reasoned that with New Labour so far ahead in the polls no amount of adversarial TV exposure would put him further ahead. Major's purpose, they said, was to "damage" him and halt Labour's forward march. No leaders' TV election debate took place before that May '97 election, nor in 2001, nor in 2005 when Blair was still in charge: all on the sound principle that when you are ahead, you don't debate on live TV.
As we know, the first ever UK leaders' TV debate took place on 15 April 2010, 18 days before the election, all because David Cameron, against strong advice to do otherwise, endorsed Gordon - I'm so far behind I've got nothing to lose - Brown's approval of a TV debate. Why? Only David Cameron will really know, but the most obvious answers are: that he had already called for a TV debate and to do a u-turn would be damaging; or perhaps he felt he wasn't far enough ahead in the polls. To avoid the much predicted hung parliament, he may have believed he needed to do more, even run the risk of Brown "damaging" him on the television, to establish an unassailable lead.
China and the USA: partners or rivals?
The most recent issue of Foreign Affairs (May/June 2010), the quarterly journal of the US. foreign policy establishment read by all policy makers and policy influentials in Washington D.C., concludes with a lead essay on China.
Dr. PAUL SUTTON reports.
That journal makes the following observation: "the very fact of China's rising economic and military power will exacerbate US - Chinese tensions in the years ahead. To paraphrase Mearsheimer [a leading US academic who several years ago wrote of the inevitability of military conflict between China and the US] the United States, the hegemon of the Western Hemisphere, will try to prevent China from becoming the hegemon of much of the Eastern Hemisphere. This could be the signal drama of the age".
This conclusion is contrary to the expectations both of the Obama Administration when it took office, which in the words of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a visit to Beijing in February 2009, spoke of "opportunities for us to work together unmatched anywhere in the world".
And the views of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former National Security Adviser Zbignew Brzezinski, that China and the US should jointly share with each other the burden of global hegemony, as expressed in the concept of 'bigemony'.
This being loosely defined as the joint exercise of political, economic, cultural and ideological power over others, with or without their consent, ultimately backed by overwhelming military force.
Feast and famine: profiteering from food
For the first time the number of people going hungry in the world has topped 1 billion. This includes the 1.3 million New Yorkers who rely on soup kitchens and food banks, a city where half of families with children have difficulty putting food on the table.
HELEN CHRISTOPHER looks at the global food industry and how Tesco, Asda and Walmart are restructuring their businesses to make even more billions from food.
Across the globe, lack of clean drinking water and access to adequate sanitation kills 5000 children every single day. Alongside this the food industry is becoming bigger, more complex and has more resources at its disposal than ever.
Its objective, however, is not to use this power to address the violation of this most basic of our human rights - the right to life - and the physical and emotional suffering which are a consequence. It is a more profitable enterprise to airfreight foodstuffs from places where people are starving to places where there is plenty (even if not everyone in those countries gets to share this over-abundance).
In a cruel and ironic twist massive resources are devoted to producing processed foods and snacks laced with addictive flavourings, fats, salt and sugars. From a young age now we are trained to expect a constant supply of instantly gratifying non-nutritious stuff. Whilst capitalism ignores the starving it is also feeding the obesity epidemic which threatens the health and life-expectancy of people in the developed world.
This is not new, the origins of industrially produced food can be traced back to the advent of the industrial revolution itself. One of the most powerful exposés of the food industry was Upton Sinclair's novel of 1906, The Jungle, which deals with the lives of immigrant workers in the Chicago stockyards.
Argentina's World Cup squad support the Mothers of the "disappeared"
The banner says that the members of the Argentine football team support the call for the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
They are the mothers of young men and women who "disappeared" during the Dirty War carried out by the Argentine Military Junta between 1976 and 1983.
An estimated 30,000 "disappeared", were killed, because they were socialists, communists, trade unionists, community organisers, students or activists who opposed the military dictatorship. One day a week between 1977 and 2006 the Mothers, now grandmothers, walked around the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires demanding to know what had happened to their children.
They even did this during the dictatorship and for their bravery three of the mothers also "disappeared".
MAURICE PARKER looks at town planning today and the'Garden Cities' legacy of Ebenezer Howard and Raymond Unwin.
Goldman Sachs: Mammon is God
The motto of the United States of America, which appears on dollar bills and in the anthem The Star-Spangled Banner, is "In God We Trust".
ALEX MITCHELL looks at the fraud charge pending against the investment bank.
In his 1954 study of the Great Crash of 1929, the economist J K Galbraith echoed these words with one of his chapter headings: "In Goldman Sachs we trust".
During the 1920s, Goldman Sachs had sold risky investments to the general public - the sort of people we now call 'retail investors'. They are folk hoping to strike it rich by putting money into speculative schemes.
As America emerged from the First World War, its rapid growth meant company values were on the rise prompting people to buy today in order to sell at a higher price tomorrow.
Ever since those Roaring 'Twenties, men and women have periodically been persuaded by the prospect of quick returns to gamble in the stock and foreign exchange markets.
In the Noughties even apparently sensible Japanese housewives bet on the 'carry trade', to turn a profit on the differences between currencies. The urge to profiteer has fuelled an 'anything goes' ethic, summed up by the phrase, from the film Wall Street, 'Greed is Good'.
Sharon Shoesmith and the Baby P case
Following the sad death of Baby P and subsequent publicity surrounding the sacking of Sharon Shoesmith, the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) advice line has been busier than ever.
JANE LINDSAY is a British Association of Social Workers (BASW) Advice and Representation Officer. This article by her was first published in the BASW journal.
Social Workers are saying that they are demoralised, anxious and overloaded. Their jobs have become unmanageable. These are highly committed social workers who care for the children on their caseloads.
The recent vilification of Sharon Shoesmith and the social work profession by the press, general public and politicians has once again demonstrated a society that is blind to the complexities and dangers that social workers face every day.
The 'hidden cruel boyfriend', seemingly evident in the Baby P case, is a feature in most inquiries into child fatalities. Social workers do not have extraordinary powers to detect these unsavoury characters. They do not have lie detectors or 24 hour camera surveillance at their disposal. It can be impossible to protect children from these devious people.
As a profession social workers desperately need a sea change in the media coverage that portrays the challenges faced. If social workers are not supported to do their jobs, there will only be a small trickle of them left to do this harrowing work, and the number of Baby Ps will rise significantly.
A life for freedom in South Africa
"Life! Life is wonderful!" said Denis Goldberg on the 12 June 1964. This was the sentence, instead of death as requested by the prosecutor, passed on Denis and seven of his comrades, most famous of them and accused number 1 in the now famous 'Rivonia' trial, Nelson Mandela.
TONY DYKES reviews Denis Goldberg's autobiography, "The Mission: a life for freedom in South Africa".
Denis thought of calling his book "Life" but in deference to the memory of murdered colleagues has called it The Mission: a life for freedom in South Africa.
This is a personal story in which you feel you are not only being spoken to directly by the author but in part reliving the experience with him. It is a moving and inspiring account of courage, fortitude, commitment and actions based on strong personal and political beliefs.
In talking of his own life and experiences, his actions and reactions to events Denis provides context, insight and comment. He does not avoid the difficulties and pain encountered in the struggle against apartheid.
His parents, active communists, were clearly influential in the development of his beliefs and politics.
Denis studied civil engineering. His belief in racial equality and activities made him an outsider with fellow white students. After a decade of activism Denis was first arrested in 1960 during the State of Emergency following the massacres of Sharpeville and the banning of the ANC and other organisations. He served 4 months preventative detention. His mother was arrested at the same time.
The Grenada 17 are all finally released
On 5 September 2009 the last seven of the Grenada 17 were released after 26 years in prison.
The Grenada 17 were imprisoned after the US invasion of their island in October 1983. For five years 14 of them were under sentence of death. The US aim was to teach the rest of the Caribbean what would happen to those who attempted revolution.
Grenada and the Grenadines, Carriacou and Petit Martinique, lie in the Caribbean Sea, close to the coast of Latin America. They are just 133 square miles in area with a population of about 100,000.
Richard Hart, writing in 'The Grenada Revolution: Setting the record straight' (Caribbean Labour Solidarity and the Socialist History Society, 2005) says this: "Nonetheless, the Grenada Revolution is one of the most remarkable and inspiring events ever to have occurred in the turbulent history of the Caribbean".
Richard Hart, a Jamaican lawyer and historian of the Caribbean, and an activist with experience going back many decades, was the Civil Service Attorney General for the Grenadian revolutionary government in 1983, having gone to Grenada as Legal Adviser the year before. He knew the revolution's leaders and saw events from the inside. By a stroke of good fortune he managed unrecognised to catch a plane out of Grenada after the US invasion.
Darwin and materialist natural science
In February 1959, CLEMENS DUTT, writing in Labour Monthly, argued that Darwin laid the basis for a historical, materialist and modern natural science.
We re-print his article below as the closing contribution to our discussion which began with our tribute to Darwin - Darwin's Magnum Opus: The Origin of Species by SWordfish (Issue No.5 Summer 2009) - on the 200th anniversary of the publication of his great work.
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin (on February 12, 1809) and the centenary of the publication of his great work The Origin of Species (November,1859).
Its irrefutable arguments, based on evidence painstakingly collected during 20 years beforehand and especially his observations during the historic Voyage of the Beagle, completely demolished the old view that the various species of animals and plants are each the result of an independent creation and are fixed and unalterable.
Darwin's work achieved a revolution in outlook that profoundly affected many sciences besides biology. The transformation it wrought in natural history can in many respects be compared with that due to Marx and Engels in human history. His theory of evolution by natural selection provided for the first time a rational materialist explanation of the historical development of higher organisms from lower ones and of the endless diversity of living things, and so laid the basis for modern scientific biology. It is for this reason that Engels ranked the Darwinian theory as one of the three great discoveries (along with the cell and the transformation of energy) that made modern, materialist natural science possible.
READERS' LETTERS to The Socialist Correspondent
TRYING TO DESTROY THE YOUNG SOVIET STATE
Helmut Wagner, Berlin, Germany.
VIETNAM WORKERS' PARTY: "RENEWAL OR DEATH".
Willie Anderson, Melbourne, Australia.
