Booming Crisis And Bullish Profit

Capital is pocketing bullish profit in a period of booming crisis! Among others, a number of auto makers announce this fact of capitalist economy. Financiers are also no exception. The system’s tale of crises is evident in the Global Risk 2012 report. Davos-deliberations also divulge the crisis-reality. Bankers’ political wrangling in countries, advanced or backward, is another manifestation of the unstable situation. These are obviously only parts of the whole story full of contradictions.

Ford, the famous US carmaker, reports a billow in profits in 2011. Jubilant Ford reports a net income of $20.2bn for last year, up from $6.5bn in 2010. In the last three months of the year, profits leapt to $13.6bn from only $190m in the previous year.

General Motors’ sales increased 7.6% in 2011. It was more than 9 million vehicles. With this achievement GM reclaims its position as the world’s biggest vehicle maker. But, Volkswagen contradicted. Volkswagen claimed the position. In 2011, Volkswagen sales ran to 8.1 million vehicles.

Hyundai Motors, South Korea’s biggest carmaker, attained a 38% rise in profits for the fourth quarter. Its net income rose to $1.8bn in the three months to December. For the whole of 2011, Hyundai’s net profit climbed 35%.

Natural disasters with its blind force came as obstacles to sales to some vehicle makers while others gained from the calamities. China was a nice market for them. Ford, GM and Hyundai made record sales for 2011 in China. Overcapacity was the biggest problem in Europe. Ford claimed: A number of countries shield own vehicle makers. (BBC, Analysis, Jan. 27, 2012) Competition is there. The market there doesn’t appear free. It’s a regular precarious tale of profit-makers.

There is another tale. It’s the tale of ordinary persons, the wretched, the people.

Unemployment figures are almost universal now, and ground for optimism is difficult to find out. Mainstream doesn’t feel shy in admitting hard unemployment-reality. In the poor, under-developed part of the globe, unemployment-reality has virtually turned into a tolerable-reality to commoners. The issue fuels angers of only those having aspiration for changing status quo. Elites don’t consider the fact threatening their existence. Unemployment in all advanced capitalist economies is much talked now-a-days.

In Spain, unemployment number very recently crossed 5 million. In the last quarter of 2011, 350,000 persons lost jobs there. The rate now stands at 22.8%. The scenario will darken more. Still, the stubborn Spanish government is moving forward with spending cuts. Basic services including health care, education and social services are being axed. Almost 1.5m Spanish households have no wage earner as well as about 3.5 million persons seek charity over the past four-and-a-half years. The country with capitalist economy is not a single case. The only new fact is the latest figure on unemployment. From one corner of the world to the other, unemployment dominates labor market.

Jon Henley traveled through Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece to hear the human stories. (“Portuguese are ‘working more for less money’”, The Guardian, Oct. 14, 2011) Following are a few of the voices Henley heard:

In Portugal, Claudia Barros tells: “Individuals filing for bankruptcy or having no money to purchase food are becoming more and more common in Portugal. […P]eople struggle to get a degree and then end up working 35 hours a week for €600 (£525) in supermarkets [….] I make €760 a month, work in the public sector, and am not happy about this at all. There are those who make €5,000 a month and will not be affected by this tax. Is it fair? [P]ublic transport fares were increased in January, and again by 15% in September, with another 15% increase expected to happen next January. Electricity was also increased last month, and the tax on food went from 19% to 23%.” Sergio Abreau says: “One point of the [austerity] agenda means no Christmas and summer bonuses for public sector workers who earn more than €1,000 a month in 2012, which means a cut from 14 to 12 pay cheques per year. I’m a communication designer […] I’m almost 29 […] My generation is simply postponing its future. The result will be that in 10-15 years there will be a sudden decrease of the population. The younger generation will have gone abroad and the country will be left with old people.” Tiago Mota Saraiva, a Portuguese architect, narrates: “[W]ages have started to decrease, public investment in the productive fabric almost stopped and a huge process of emigration of the most qualified workers started [.…P]eople that have a job are working more for less money. Another is a feeling of distrust on politicians and politics […] This year, Portugal will be paying €7bn interest rates to banks and sovereign debt speculators […] That amount is the same that Portugal will pay for all public officials. It’s unaffordable. […I]nterventions by the IMF are always meant to save speculators’ investments.” From Spain, Alex Watkins, a British journalist working for the Costa Blanca News, describes: “[E]xpat families handing over their keys to the bank and simply going home – mostly because available work for them has dried up […] A generation of young Spaniards dropped out of school to take jobs in construction during the property boom before the bottom fell out of the market, and they have now been left unemployed and unqualified. Then there’s the regional government school building programmes which have been delayed for years, leaving pupils in overcrowded Portacabins which leak in the rain. One near me was built on reclaimed land in a ravine and actually moves when the rain is heavy.” (ibid.)

A few headlines from the newspaper also resound the same reality: “The hunger line starts here”, “Europe’s debt crisis: Tweets from the breadline”, “Portugal’s market has died. Banks aren’t lending. Everything is blocked”, “Portugal’s debt crisis: ‘Younger people can’t live within their means”. (ibid.)

The same newspaper carried a few comments from readers: “I have already seen shops closing in the town [….A]s a pensioner on fixed income, it is becoming more challenging to cope with ever rising prices of necessities.” “Why are the ‘middle’ classes going to have to foot the bill and pay for everything while the rich won’t even notice the difference? The rich need to pay more tax and stop being protected by their friends in government. They avoid everything with their offshore accounts and rub it in our faces when they drive around […]” “Wake up Portugal! Do not look up to or aspire to be like these people! These people will step over you in the street if they ever got out of their cars.” (ibid.)

These tales of profit and poverty produce relevant questions: Are the vehicle makers’ surging sales and profit, and unemployment in countries contradictory facts standing opposed to each other? Or, are they related, mutually dependent? Have not markets, car market and labor market, free in appearance but shackled by capital’s choice, determined these? Were not the markets free and democratic for capital? Had not everyone, from pauper to prince, right and opportunity to enter the markets, either to buy a car or to sale labor? Or, were there some other facts under the apparent appearance? Do these questions help expose the free market-reality?

Facts of enormous profit may astonish common citizens. But powerful profit holders don’t get bewildered with the trend as they know the old golden formula for profit: appropriate. It is not only the industrial workers who are appropriated. The act of appropriation goes at social level. Profit only comes from variable capital, that part of capital expended on labor power. In these monopolists’ days, they are making monopoly superprofits. Scores of the “game” come to light: billions of dollars as profit.

As millions of persons pass unemployed days, as violence of poverty dominates billions of persons, the game turns cutthroat. ILO reports, etc. expose a significant part of the reality.

The unemployed join reserve army of labor, and capital’s bargaining power strengthens as the unemployed put downward pressure on wage level. This reality exposes, on the one hand, capital’s bargaining power, and on the other hand, capital’s incapacity to employ labor. Stymieing capital cannot reconcile the two. It is the system’s inefficiency that leads to wastage and misery creating logic to change it. Capital creates an opportunity to threaten labor with a huge reserve army of labor while the power of reserve army of labor touches realm of politics; acceptability of capital’s political power is questioned; with dented confidence capital’s political power feels threatened. Capital is incapable to resolve this problem other than using violent force of dominance, and at times, making concessions.

The present period of crises, financial, economic, environmental, political, are depicting a disconsolate picture of the dominating system. “The general picture among G-20 economies is one of slowing growth, swooning financial markets, and declining consumer and business confidence. [A]dvanced economies’ policy options are being hemmed in by economic and political circumstances. Fiscal policy is constrained by crushing debt burdens and monetary policy is reaching its limits, with further unconventional monetary easing likely to yield a low ratio of reward to risk. Advanced economy central banks have already expanded their balance sheets massively in ways that carry many economic and political risks. The world economy is entering a difficult and dangerous phase, where there are no easy or costless policy solutions but policy paralysis also carries enormous risks of unraveling the feeble recovery.” (Commentary based on the September 2011 update of the Brookings Institution-Financial Times Tracking Indices for the Global Economic Recovery interactive map, Sept. 19, 2011)

A micro case makes a twist in this blue reality. A November, 2011 news story said: More than $5,000 was spent to save a dog. The costs include initial visit to vet: $125, X-rays: $285, sonogram: $420, surgery: $1,182.

How much a poor consumes? What about an entire poor family? An AP news story from Henderson, Nevada, US, on March 3, 2011 presents a particle of the poor’s reality, almost universal:

“Tera Burbank pulls a frayed robe tighter across her body as she leans into the refrigerator, her eyes canvassing the modest offerings for something to pack in her daughter’s lunch box. Burbank stuffs carrot sticks, peanut butter and apple sauce into a backpack and cajoles her son and youngest daughter out the front door and down the street toward the nearby elementary school. The meager lunch box offerings are just one of many painful struggles that the mother of three encounters every day while living under the weight of long-term unemployment and threats of foreclosure, hunger and loss. Burbank and her husband, John Clark, epitomize the dreadful economic situation these days in Nevada, where a mighty construction boom has given way to a historic recession and a record 14.9 percent unemployment in Las Vegas.”

It’s one of many similar stories from a rich, advanced capitalist country. The poor’s-reality in Asia, Africa and Latin America is much difficult to accept for any human being. Those are beyond tolerance, below acceptance.

But property and profit have their own logic. They mould world as they feel and need. Cats and dogs own plenty of property in this world shaped with the power of capital’s logic. Each of these pets also own interesting, pathetic, dramatic, etc. story.

ABC News, Daily Telegraph and other media outlets reported in 2011: Maria Assunta, an Italian property tycoon, left $13 million fortune to Tommaso, her beloved 4-year-old kitty, before she died in a day in 2011. It was an act ab imo pectore, from the bottom of the heart. The fortunate feline’s fortune includes cash, properties in Rome, Milan and Calabria. Tommaso stands third on the list of wealthy pets, behind Kalu the chimp owning $80 million transferred by his life-loving owner, and dog Gunther IV, a German shepherd. Gunther IV inherited $372 million from his father Gunther III. The senior Gunther was the beloved companion of an eccentric German countess. Leona Helmsley, a real estate magnate, left $12 million to Trouble, Leona’s little dog. Leona’s descendents contested and Trouble’s pot was reduced to $2 million.

There are “doya”, dog yoga, classes in a corner on this fabulous earth. The doya aims to help dogs find their “inner” peace and maintain a close relationship with dog lovers. Reuters reported this news with a lovely photograph from Hong Kong on August 20, 2011.

Within this cranky reality profit continues its journey to its doomed destination as it fails to resolve its contradictions embedded in it. The contradictions manifest in its disunity, acts of violence and treachery, in its act of imposition of unilateral design – profit at all costs, even in time of crisis – on a diverse nature and society.

Capital's Globe Wide Risks

Under the darkening shadow of capital's crisis hundreds of world capital bosses are meeting in Davos, a snow covered Swiss mountain village. On the eve of this annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), capital's salvation-searching convention, the Global Risk 2012 report “reveals a constellation of fiscal, demographic and societal risks signalling a dystopian future”, George Soros apprehends possibilities of riots and violence in the center of the center of the world capitalist system, and forecasters apprehend a lost decade for the UK . While about 1.1 billion people worldwide were either unemployed or living in poverty, as the ILO's latest Global Employment Trends report claims, capitalism is being questioned by its proponents. Prof Klaus Schwab, the founder of the WEF, said: “Capitalism in its current form no longer fits the world around us.” ( “ Davos 2012: Has capitalism got a future?”, BBC , Jan. 24, 2012 ) All these developments and pronouncements unerringly show capital's inherent incapacity in resolving its own crises that are disproportionate to its capacity.

The Global Risk 2012, insight report ( GR ) identified five risks: economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological. Based on a survey of corporate leaders the most frequently chosen Centres of Gravity, the risks of greatest systemic importance, in today's world are: chronic fiscal imbalances, GHG emissions, global governance failure, unsustainable population growth, and critical systems failure.

“Analysis of the 2012 Global Risk Map”, the GR said, “reveals four risks as playing significant roles in connecting the Centres of Gravity to each other. These four Critical Connectors […] are: severe income disparity; major systemic financial failure; unforeseen negative consequences of regulation; extreme volatility in energy and agriculture prices.” “The signs already exist that the world is becoming more fragmented, inconsistent and mistrustful; the question is the extent to which these developments could lead to a global dystopia”, said the report.

Global governance failure, the GR mentioned, is the most interconnected of the 50 global risks having a direct connection with 75% of the risks covered in the report. The GR said: “[D]ominant issues of concern emerged from the Arab Spring, the ‘Occupy' movements worldwide and recent similar incidents of civil discontent: the growing frustration among citizens with the political and economic establishment [….] In developed economies, such as those of Western Europe, North America and Japan, the social contract that has in recent decades been taken for granted is in danger of being destroyed.”

Almost-similarly, the Edelman Trust Barometer , a global survey, suggests there has been a sharp decline in public trust, not only in business, but in governments around the world also.

Experts, the GR said, anticipate that high unemployment rates will increasingly co-exist with employers' unmet demands for skilled labor.

There are, the GR said, important factors of concern with unknown consequences that are emerging. It admits combination of chronic labor market imbalances, chronic fiscal imbalances and severe income disparity amplified by extreme demographic pressures that could lead to “the emergence of a new type of critical fragile states – formerly wealthy countries that descend into a spiral of decay as they become increasingly unable to meet their social and fiscal obligations.”

Young and old of the world, the report said, could face an income gap and a skills gap so wide that threaten social and political stability. “In the absence of viable alternatives, this could precipitate a downward spiral of the global economy […]”, said the report.

Significant questions for stakeholders were raised by the GR : (1) How can countries collaborate more effectively to correct chronic labor imbalances? (2) What will “social contracts” be like in 2022? (3) What steps can be taken to reduce income disparity? (4) How can fostering entrepreneurship prevent the seeds of dystopia from taking root? (5) How can leaders break the pattern of crises? (6) How can appropriate regulations be developed so that firms will undertake effective safeguards? (7) How can businesses and governments prevent a rapid breakdown in trust following the emergence of a new widespread risk? (8) How can business, government and civil society work together to improve resilience against unforeseen risks?

At the same time another warning came from the IMF: The world's economy is “deeply into the danger zone” because of risks from the euro zone. The escalating euro zone debt crisis could derail the global economic recovery, the international lending agency said in its latest World Economic Outlook report. The IMF hacked its 2012 global growth forecast warning the outlook had devolved in most regions. With the same tone, the IMF chief warned: The global economy could fall into an economic spiral reminiscent of the 1930s unless action was taken on the euro zone crisis. She has called on Europe to construct a wall against financial contagion. Echoing the warning, the IMF chief economist said: “The world could be plunged into another recession.”

The euro zone is set for a “mild recession” in 2012, the IMF predicts. Italy and Spain could be the first cases. Growth estimates have been reduced for the main euro zone countries including Germany , the euro zone powerhouse, and France . Central and eastern Europe and Asia could also be hit by the euro zone crisis. A sharp slowdown in the pace of growth in emerging and developing countries has been predicted by the IMF. It reduced Asia 's growth outlook for 2012.

The IMF cut its projection for Japan , and said: the US and other advanced economies would likely not escape unharmed if Europe 's crisis widened further. Moreover, the advanced economies “have homegrown challenges [...] including overcoming political obstacles”, the lending agency said. The EU economic affairs commissioner is also apprehending a “moderate recession” across Europe in the first half of this year.

News from the UK is not good. There are increasing concerns that the credit crunch will ultimately result in a “Lost Decade” for the UK . Many fear the UK is already experiencing the early stages of a lost decade. (“Could Britain Be Facing A ‘Lost Decade'?”, Sky News , Jan. 22, 2012 )

The UK government debt, as BBC reported, has risen to a record £1 trillion. The current net debt total is 64.2% of the UK GDP, and number of its unemployed citizens rose to 2.69 million. The unemployment rate rose to 8.4%, the highest since January 1996. The number of persons claiming Jobseeker's Allowance in December rose by 1,200 to 1.6 million. The number of young persons looking for work reached a record height: 1.043m. Citing the Office for National Statistics BBC informed these figures on Jan. 18, 2012 .

The world unemployment reality is also discouraging. The ILO report said: The number of “discouraged workers”, persons stopped looking for work because they think they are unlikely to find a job, is 29 million. With this number of discouraged workers, the global unemployment rate jumps to 6.9% from 6%, and the number reaches to about 225 million persons worldwide, the report said. “Judging by the present course, there is little hope for a substantial improvement in their near-term employment prospects”, said the ILO's Employment Trends report. The outlook for the world labor market has worsened from last year, the ILO said.

This capitalist reality does not make George Soros, one of the most cunning investors in the world, hopeful. According to two US media outlets including Newsweek , Soros perceives: “The euro must survive because the alternative — a breakup — would cause a meltdown that Europe , the world, can't afford.” “At times like these, survival is the most important thing,” he said. Soros doesn't just mean it's time to protect assets. Rather, he signals: it's time to stave off disaster. The world, Soros feels, faces one of the most dangerous periods of modern history — a period of “evil.” A strange pronouncement indeed; as in Reaganspeak, “evil empire”, the Soviet Union , is no more on the world map. It is capitalism only that now dominates the globe. Soros has more perceptions: Europe is confronting a descent into chaos and conflict. In the US , he apprehends riots leading to a brutal clampdown and dramatic curtailment of civil liberties. The global economic system could even collapse altogether as Soros predicts. “The situation is about as serious and difficult as I've experienced in my career,” Soros tells Newsweek . “We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.” (“George Soros on the Coming U.S. Class War”, Jan. 23, 2012 )

The almost self-explanatory facts cited above and conveyed by mainstream media tell some truths, bitter for it: (1) crises-ridden condition of the world capitalism; (2) the way the system has generated its crises, one after another, one gravitating the other, one influencing another; (3) width, globe-wide, and magnitude of the crises; (4) the system's worshippers' confused intellectual condition; (5) its extent of power that cannot control itself; (6) its need for a huge reserve army of labor to keep labor press down to dust, to bargain favorably, and at the same time, it cannot escape the possibility of facing force of labor pent up in reserve labor; (7) its ulterior motive: preparing ground for an onslaught on labor. While capital continues waging its class war against the working people it raises hue and cry as if it is being targeted. The only salvation path capital can find is: create havoc in social reality, in mass-mindset, burden down masses with the pressure of hardship and hunger, name of which is “austerity”. Not only is the system's economy facing danger. Its governing system, capital's dictatorship, is losing credibility and coming under question. The mainstream admits this, one of the primary condition for a retreat. A significant admission, indeed!

A Ruling Class Alliance In An Agitating Egypt: One Year After Mubarak’s Ouster

Class collaboration between the Egyptian military junta and their neo-political allies, the Muslim Brotherhood, now confront the people standing for democracy. One year ago, the matrix of collusion was not evident to many. One year ago, the actors on the Egyptian political stage had different robes.

Mass protests for 18 days in the most populous Arab country brought Mubarak’s three decades of autocratic rule to its end on Feb. 11, 2011. To many, it was part of a spring sweeping the Arab jaahaan. But in countries of the region, it turned a cold, reactionary winter.

With a new ruling class alliance and deployed extra soldiers and tanks by the generals Egypt now is fomenting with protests. On the opposite, there are plans for waves of strikes aimed at forcing out the generals from power. The generals’ council, the protesting forces claim, stands opposite to democracy, social justice and individual freedoms. The planned strikes show confronting position of liberal and leftist social forces and the alliance of the generals, Islamist politicians and religious leaders. The strike planners say: The “people must show duty to the nation and spare its tattered economy fresh damage.” On the contrary, the religious authorities have called on to scrap the planned strike. The first strike planned from Saturday, Mubarak’s overthrow anniversary, would close universities and factories, cancel trains and stop public services. A statement by 39 youth groups said: “The strike is just a beginning to carry the revolutionary battle forward, to link political and democratic demands with social and economic ones.” The Muslim Brotherhood has refused to back the strike. Mahmoud Hussein, general secretary of the MB, said in a statement: “This call is very dangerous […]”

“I appeal to you”, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb, Grand Imam of Egypt’s highest Islamic authority Al-Azhar, said in a message, “not to disrupt work even for one hour.” “Civil disobedience”, Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III said in a statement, “is not accepted by religion and the state does not accept it and there are many verses in the Holy Book that talk of following the ruler.”

Protest and violence regularly overshadow Egypt. Last December experienced protests as military police assaulted demonstrators challenging military rule, and in turn, protesters hurled Molotov cocktails at the parliament building. There was violence around ballot-counting that compelled hundreds of judges monitoring the parliamentary elections to announce threat to quit over.

The parliament is acting as subordinate to generals, employees on the payroll of people. The legislature now holds a promissory note given by the generals to turn over power to the people, the generals’ employer, by the end of June 2012, after the ratification of a new constitution and the election of a president. There are basic and burning problems in today’s Egypt.

The hulking problems

Dire economic reality with springing up frustrations over poverty overwhelms every aspect of life in the country. Inflation climbed to 9% in November, a 2% rise over the previous month. Food and beverages prices jumped further. With spiraling prices of staples the rising living cost comes as an increasing number of people are struggling to find work. Foreign exchange reserves have fallen down to around $18 billion in January from $36 billion. There is a drop in state income. The tourism industry, one of main sources of revenue generating about 10% of GDP, has taken a downturn with revenue for the year stood at $8.8 billion. In 2010, it was $12.5 billion. Standard and Poor’s has downgraded the country’s creditworthiness to B+, four levels below investment grade. This will increase borrowing costs. (Oxford Business Group, “Egypt: Facing economic challenges”, Jan. 30, 2012)

A stagnating economic growth under the shadow of a financial crisis and virtually dried up foreign investment have coupled with an annoying 12% official unemployment rate. The youth unemployment rate is at least double that official figure. Heavily pressurized exchange rate for the currency and mounting debts has increased the worrying load. A further devaluation will increase food prices stimulating already smoldering grievances. The legion of jobless and underemployed reinvigorates legitimate grievances that can renew social unrest. The government has announced plans to cut down about $4 billion from the deficit of more than $30 billion. Energy subsidy is being cut as negotiations with the IMF over the terms of a $3.2 billion loan have been reopened.

The great divide – the rich-poor – is there. Intact is the illogical distribution system that feeds and fattens only the rich, who are also powerful. The new masters at the helms will not address these problems. Their class interest can’t allow them to move into that territory.

The volte-face

The Muslim Brotherhood, the ruling class alliance component, after denouncing Western colonialism for decades, now supports free markets, an inefficient, undemocratic tool in efficient hands of capital to hook people. The political actor also feels the urgency of subsidy reform, and is befriending the IMF. Now, the MB is also having an understanding with the Empire, its old arch enemy. Political alignments for unhindered raging of neo-liberal compact are thus being ensured. Wealth distribution question is being ignored.

The standard bearers of “democracy” and the generals have united in a compromise on a legal system no more Islamic than the earlier one. The compromise is assuring for major internal and external stakeholders in Egypt. The MB and the military negotiated, and the MB is finding out ways to help the generals to exit with immunity.

In November, the MB was assuring public that they would challenge the military over its right to continue appointing the prime minister and the cabinet until a constitution is ratified and a president is elected. Weeks later, the great giver of assurance said it would leave the military-appointed government until June. A number of MB leaders said the constitution should be drafted on the military’s preferred timetable, before the election of a president. Till then, the generals will retain control of the government. “We will cooperate with everyone, the people, the Parliament, the cabinet and military council”, Essam el-Erian, a MB leader, said. He said the group was putting off a confrontation with military rulers, and hoped that the US would continue to support the country financially. With the biggest share in the parliament, it is giving confusing and contradictory signals there.

At the same time, MB is standing opposed to the people demanding ouster of the generals, who have no mandate. The MB prevented hundreds of protesters from reaching parliament on Jan. 31. The protesters were demanding the end to military rule. An AFP news report quoted an MB member: “We are standing here as a human shield, because if the protesters go any further, they will clash with the police.” The report quoted an anti military protester: “The Muslim Brotherhood youth are blocking all roads to the parliament, preventing the anti-military protesters... They are […] standing […] like militias.” The march to parliament was called to press the newly-elected parliament to implement the goals of the popular upsurge.

Protesters accuse the Islamists colluding with the generals: “Badie, you are selling the revolution!” they chanted, in reference to Mohammed Badie, the Islamist movement’s supreme guide. On the first anniversary of the anti-Mubarak upheaval, political activists accused the Muslim Brotherhood of a deep compromise with the generals. Their slogans said: “You sold out the revolution.” It is a deal with common interest.

While the protesters were calling on the generals to quit immediately the MB tried to keep the anniversary demonstration upbeat, US press reports said. After getting surrounded by protesters in a Cairo demonstration the MB “speakers attempted to join the crowd by leading chants of ‘the people want the fall of the regime’ and ‘down with military rule’. But the protesters appeared unconvinced. The speakers retreated [.…T]he crowd […] began chanting, ‘Get off! Get off!’ to Brotherhood officials on the stage. Another sound system […] in the square boomed: ‘No Brotherhood, no officers! Down, down with military rule!’”

The military

Now, a year after the popular upheaval, Egypt is still under martial law. The 19 generals leading back-to-past staggering continue cracking down on pro-democracy activists. Thousands of democracy activists are being sent before military tribunals and jailed. A brutal crackdown left at least 40 demonstrators dead on the eve of the first round of parliamentary elections.

The parliament remains subordinate to the generals. Jimmy Carter holds not much hope. After discussions with the generls including Field Marshal Tantawi, Carter doubted the general shaaheebs would fully submit to the elected authority the rulers with batons had promised to install. Armed with all encompassing police power they deploy draconian measures to silence critics, ban strikes, and are accused of human rights abuses. The generals find foreign interference behind demonstrations for democracy.

The US-dependent generals, part of the ruling elites, wore a mask on their face. The smiling sober mask created a non-political assumption: they would help install a democratic government. Political novices kept their belief: it is a secular shield against Islamists. Islamists rightly banked on it to secure their dominance. Basing on class allegiance it ultimately secures the Empire’s interests in home and in the region as $1.3 billion flows in annually in military aid to Cairo from Washington. And, the elites’ alliance depends on the Empire’s world system.

The Empire

Reversing its position the US has forged closer ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. A complex geo-strategic equation for the Empire!

The US financing of NGOs to promote its agenda is an old tale. But it took a new turn with the generals’ tactical move. In late 2011, an investigation into foreign financing of a number of NGOs, and police raids into offices of four NGOs including the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute that promotes US agenda made the scene tricky. US citizens including Sam Lahood, local director of the IRI and son of US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood were banned from leaving Egypt. The NDI and IRI activists took refuge in the US embassy. The situation enraged a number of Congress members and the US State Department. But actually the general’s stroke against the NGOs was aimed at Egyptian people, not the Empire. To cast away confusion, Egyptian officials went to the US, and met military officials and congress members there.

Not a defeat

After appeasement and compromises by the same class elements, to some, last year’s Egyptian uprising appears a defeat. But in a broader socio-historical perspective, it’s not a defeat, rather, part of a longer process. Despite prospects of temporary failure, initiatives of resistance and rejuvenation are getting organized.

The Egypt Revolutionaries' Alliance demands Tantawi, the de facto ruler, and El-Ganzouri, the interim prime minister, to step down. The political alliance and students are planning to start civil disobedience against military rule on February 11, the one-year anniversary of autocrat Mubarak’s ouster.

The ERA, umbrella of over 50 political groups, workers and students, has made seven demands. The principal demand is the immediate handover of power from the generals to a civilian administration in the People's Assembly, the lower house of the parliament. Other demands include: Immediate dismantling of the incumbent interim government, and appointment of a national salvation government, whose members to be selected by the People's Assembly; immediate holding of presidential elections; forming an investigation committee to investigate all crimes and massacres committed by the ruling authorities; establishing “revolutionary tribunals” to try all former regime figures found guilty of involvement in crimes committed after the January uprising; immediate dismissal of the prosecutor general; and purge and overhaul of the Ministry of Interior. In a statement, the ERA asserted that civil disobedience “has become a valid means for expressing […] demand for the handover of power to a civilian administration in light of the recent deterioration of domestic circumstances. […The generals have] failed to live up to its promises and Egypt continues to suffer a chronic security vacuum.”

There are other acts of protests by broader populace in Egypt that signify journey for democracy by the undaunted Egyptian people, which may be long, painstaking and complex with possibilities of set backs as there is weakness in grassroots organization. But ultimately it will move as the dominating class alliance is failing and will fail to fulfill people’s demands that go against the interests of the ruling class alliance.

A German Satire On A Greek Stage

Germany is staging a satire in burning Greece. While school children there go unfed and homeless increases in number bankers punish the exhausted Republic by imposing harsh, humiliating conditions to take last cents away from the bankrupt capitalist state in Europe.

“Socialist” Koutsoukos, the Greek deputy labor minister resigning in protest to the EC, ECB and IMF dictated package, accused the troika of “shameless extortion” in its policies towards Athens while Karatzaferis, the extreme right leader and coalition partner, spoke of national humiliation and Greece “under the German boot”. Samaras, the New Democracy leader, said “Today we are in danger of losing our freedom and independence.” With the power of trampling sovereignty bank capital unites “socialists” and far-right in humiliation, subservience and anguish. A satire with a German lead role it seems.

As riot police clashed with protesters on Athens streets five ministers resigned in protest at the scale of the spending cuts and police ringed the parliament building to secure it from citizens’ wrath. Finance minister Venizelos said an unruly default would take the country to the brink of civil war and the country would be bought under colonial terms. He was scared of “total dissolution of the economic, social and institutional web of the country.” This led prime minister Papademos and former prime minister socialist Papandreou to sell out their right and left hearts! The price is a new support package, a haircut of debt, and a population’s plight.

But the rescue cash is not at sight. Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, demands more. Days back, Merkel, the German Chancellor, turned impatient with her Greek debtors. It is time, she said during a joint press conference with Sarkozy, the French president, for Athens to accept the tough austerity measures being demanded as a condition for a second bailout package. Should Greece reject the demands, she almost threatened, insolvency and an exit from the euro zone could come quickly. Sarkozy lent his tough voice: “They have no choice.” The bank bosses told bluntly: No new bailout unless there are further budget cuts, on top of the already promised austerity measures. Otherwise, Greece will go bankrupt. The Greek government agreed.

On the austerity program, EU demands signed, irreversible, binding pledge from the three coalition partners, regardless of winner in the next election. The austerity-pledge includes chopping out 150,000 public sector jobs, cutting down the minimum wage by 22%, and reducing pensions. It is, in summary, people are to pay, pay for plunder and wrong doings of elites, pay for inefficiency and accounting corruption of dominating interests.

With an emerging underclass, the Orthodox Church feeding 250,000 people a day, 20.9% unemployment, 48% youth unemployment, all Greek families hit by joblessness, 20,000 shelter less citizens, more than 10,000 on Athens pavements, park benches, in metro stations and shopping arcades, doorways and cars, 25% “new homeless” – evicted from home, 27.7% of Greek citizens staying on the brink of poverty and social exclusion, and hard-hit middle class having no savings an acute social crisis is brewing up. Among social groups, Crete Gazette reports, pensioners suffer most from low income and high cost of living while 33% of poor are over 65. Almost 60% of Greeks are afraid of falling into the poverty trap in the next few years. According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority the country’s manufacturing output contracted by 15.5% in December from a year earlier and industrial output fell 11.3%.

Press reports say “[e]ducated professionals, too shamefaced to want to speak, now stand in line with immigrants from developing countries waiting for food handouts from the town hall.” Citing relevant source McClatchy said: In the relief organization Doctors of the World’s Perama clinic more than 80 patients seek help three days a week. To cope with demand, the DW plans to operate the clinic seven days a week. The number in the clinic has quadrupled in the past two years. Eight in 10 patients now are Greeks, four times what it had been. The Greek chapter chief of the DW told McClatchy “The state doesn’t know who’s poor or who’s vulnerable. People used to be able to get money and find a doctor. Now everything is breaking down.” Citing a teacher BBC said: “In schools we didn’t have books up to the middle of the school year and not only that - we have children that do not really care about the lessons, because of all the problems at home.” The narratives, it seems, are from Third World or from any failed state. Helena Smith in a report in The Guardian describes a desperate, unhappy father, life in mess, deep in debt, owing money to butcher, baker and grocer “took the decision to put in an official request for three of his boys and one daughter to be taken into care.” “The crisis had killed us. I am ashamed to say, but it had got to the point where I couldn’t even afford the two euros needed to buy bread,” the father said. The local Deputy Mayor and director of social works said: “Requests for support have shot up. Last year, we sent food to 400 families [..] This year, 1,200 asked for help and they weren’t […] low-income people. Many had good jobs until this year when their shops and businesses closed, but to be asked to take children away was something new.” The deputy mayor visited the poor father’s home and “saw the situation […] the third-world conditions, the poverty and filth, [that they] couldn’t believe […]” Charities, doctors and unions suggest this is not a single case. […] “People are going hungry, families are breaking up, instances are mounting of mothers and fathers no longer being able to bring up their own kids,” said […] general secretary of the civil servants’ union ADEDY. “Until now, there has been a conspiracy of silence around the tragic effects of the austerity measures the IMF and EU are asking us to take.” From cases of newborn babies wrapped in swaddling and dumped on the doorsteps of clinics, to children being offloaded on charities and put in foster care, the nation’s struggle to pay off its debts is assuming dramatic proportions […] (“Poverty in Greece forcing parents to give up their children”)

Archbishop Ieronymos, the country’s spiritual leader, in a letter to the prime minister, a rare public intervention, said: “Homelessness and even hunger […] have reached nightmare proportions. The medicine we are taking has proved fatal for the nation.”

The situation is breeding protest, even from part of the ruling machine. A Bloomberg report said: The Greek Police union called for arrest warrants to be issued for EU, ECB and IMF officials negotiating austerity measures. In an open letter to the troika the police union said: “[W]e warn you that you cannot make us fight against our brothers. […W]e will issue arrest warrants for […] legal violations [including] blackmail, covert abolition or erosion of democracy and national sovereignty.” Mighty bank capital demolishes all barriers and unites all including priest, police and people. Athens braced a 48-hour strike fringed with violent protest, petrol bombs. It’s not only an economic crisis. It’s also a social and political crisis, a crisis in democracy a republic practiced with its dominating class mooring. The dominating interest is now passing over its burden of failure on the people.

In response to these human sufferings the dominating interests now have two memorandum agreements made between the Greek government and the troika, or imposed on the Greek people in a finance-democratic way: The 51-page Greece — Memorandum of Understanding on Specific Economic Policy Conditionality, Feb. 9, 2012, and the 31-page Greece — Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies, Feb. 9, 2012. Still there will be fresh conditions from financers that Greek people and their elected representatives have to meet before the bail-out is endorsed. Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister and head of the euro group, did not find “all necessary elements on the table to take decisions […] In short: no disbursement before implementation.” The ECB, as Mario Draghi, the bank’s boss, feels, would not step in to ease Greece’s burdens through a tricky debt swap with private creditors. The Greek republic now has to negotiate a debt relief agreement with private creditors worth 100 bn euro if it is to receive the EU-IMF aid package. If not, Greece could default as early as next month, when 14.5 bn euro in Greek government bonds turn due. The financers are demanding greater sacrifices from Greece, ultimately the people.

The Greek government has urged the ECB to forego profits on its Greek bond holdings. The bank’s governing council discussed the issue. But the ECB sustaining any loss has been ruled out. Profits on Greek bonds would have to pass on to governments when they are realized. The financial bosses are concerned with the issues of “tensions in euro area debt markets and their potential spillover to the euro area real economy.” It is their problem.

In fifth straight year of recession in Greece, a Reuters report said: Protesters compared Greece’s plight to its seven years under military dictatorship. Then, the fact comes to light: money is not less mighty than military, and domination is not only made with weapons; there are mighty arms of money and market to dominate and stomp down democracy, even money’s system of governance.

Death Of Dinesh Das, A Third Or Fourth World Journalist

Again there is another death on a Dhaka street. The latest victim is Dinesh Das, a Third or Fourth World journalist. And, it is almost the same tale of a Third or Fourth World city, its traffic management system, and of a part of a society with its indifference, brutality and callousness.

The accident-account is the same old story: an indifferent bigger vehicle’s wheels crushed a smaller one, the smaller vehicle rider was the unfortunate guy, a wrong time and a wrong place for the lone rider, brutal high speed and hapless slow speed, and an ill-managed traffic system in an illogical city. What’s the output of the irrational equation? Last journey of a life.

The story turns unbearable as one gathers information from press: the journalist was without job, without money, without the capacity to enroll his small daughter in school, was failing to pay monthly house rent. The brutal facts are bared before a citizenry: a brutal system – you have to work and work, you have to run and run in a nasty rat race simply for keeping your nose afloat, you have to pass each and every day throughout your life of uncertainty, you have to be faithful to the system, you have to serve the system, and there will be brutal wheels waiting and running for you to crush, to send your spouse to the same circle without any escape route. And, then, all after this “kind” arrangement of the system, you, a journalist, you a teacher, you all have to be diligent to work, be faithful to duty designed by meager salary, be incorrupt, and be the mirror of honesty. And, your knowledge will allow you to be aware of the intricacies of plundering tricks, but your knowledge of alertness will tell you not to tell the tricky plundering truths. Nice punishment sticks are in the wings if you deviate, if you fail to serve faithfully, if you turn rude, if you nourish audacity deep in your bosom. What happens if you turn a renegade to the system? You will be punished, punished with uncertainty, unemployment, grinding poverty, will be pressed to the dust.

In the case of Dinesh, arguments and counter-arguments can be devised and thrown around. To some, he was rude, unscrupulous, disobedient. Thread bare analysis of his character will provide arguments for his character assassination. To many, he was a kind-hearted, honest professional, uncompromising, faithful to humanity, profession and family, a person keeping head high. Different perspectives provide comparative arguments. An individual is a product of the individual’s time and space, a product of social reality. This piece is neither to denounce Dinesh nor to eulogize the dead. Friends and colleagues of Dinesh will carry on the task. Whatever he was, that does not allow anyone to take away his life, does not permit anyone to push his family to den of uncertain days.

This piece is simply to once again tell the vulnerability of life in this city. How fragile life is in this city! How many journalists, students, poor pedestrians have paid with their lives in this city dominated by wheels? A few days back, Nikhil Bhadra encountered a brute fact in this indifferent city. The journalist lost his leg in the city street. Rest of his life? Who knows?

What happens to the families of these victims? Does the society that tries its best to expand informal sector have devised any arrangement for the victims and their families other than begging mercy and help? An inglorious path for mere survival! The social division of labor ensures smooth revolving of wheels of the society, ensures pressed life every day, presents gloomy days throughout life for millions. It ensures this guy shall be a peddler, that fellow will be a journalist, that person will be a policeman, this man shall be a teacher, that woman will be a nurse. Then it demands dutifulness and honesty of millions. Dinesh was only one of those faceless millions. Nikhil is another. Other journalist pressed under wheels months back was another. No social security, no established medical facilities for these victims! Yes, there are mercy and benevolence.

But, doesn’t the society manage bigger affairs and events with bigger money? Doesn’t the society organize bigger arrangements? Yes, there are all those but social security of Dinesh, a jobless journalist who had to rely on the last savings of his wife, only Taka one hundred and fifty or about two dollars diligently saved over months in an earthen pot, in the last day of his life.

Does the society lack that money resource that can ensure social security of journalists, of other working people? The level of surplus labor produced in the society and appropriated and robbed are evident in private celebrations, luxuries, vehicles in the capital city and villas now coming up around. Does logic tell that all after all these huge surplus labor produced working people have to languish in uncertain life, a crushed journalist’s wife has to face uncertain future waiting for mercy and benevolence? Should there be lack of resource to organize a safer traffic management system in the capital city and all over the country? And, for how long shall this state of business move on? Journalists, somebody identifies them as kalam saineek, soldiers of truth armed with pen, now aggrieved and tormented with the painful death of Dinesh Das shall search answers to the questions, the questions of livable, safer city, of a safer traffic management system, social security, and of a decent, dignified life for all journalists, for all working people.