As I write, financial markets in Wall
Street, New York, the City of London and all over are in turmoil.  In just 24 hours, two out of the four largest
investment banks in the US have disappeared. 
Lehman Brothers, around for 158 years, has declared bankruptcy and
25,000 employees around the globe have lost their jobs. 

Merrill Lynch, the world’s largest
investment bank, has been taken over by the largest high street bank in
America, the Bank of America.  Bank
America was virtually ordered by the US financial authorities to take over
Merrill Lynch, paying $50bn.  Otherwise,
that bank too would have gone bust, putting thousands more out of work.  Even worse for capitalism, it would have
meant that both Lehman and Merrill Lynch would have defaulted on their contracts
and obligations and thus brought down many other banks (15 were rumoured to be
in trouble). 

The £145
million profit declared by the Go-Ahead Group is a direct drain on fare-payers’
and taxpayers’ cash that should be invested in the bus and rail industries. The group’s profit was funded by nearly £200
million in subsidy for its three rail franchises over 2007/08,
inflation-busting fares hikes and untold amounts of public money finding their
way into the group’s bus operations from local authorities.

The nearly £2 billion gap between Tube Lines’ £7.2 billion
costs estimate and the maximum £5.5 billion the PPP arbiter says it should get
raises fears for planned Tube upgrades.
The Tube Lines
estimate is a massive £3.1 billion higher – £2.5 billion taking inflation into
account – than that of London Underground, which called for the arbiter’s early
guidance.

Urgent
action to stem a ‘tidal wave’ of violence was today demanded by transport union
RMT as it launched a campaign to establish an industry-wide code of protection
for workers in the rail, bus and ferry sectors. 

Cross-company
zero-tolerance campaigns, an end to unnecessary lone-working, more uniformed
staff and better legal protection for transport workers are at the heart of the
campaign launched by the union today. 

After
surveying its own front-line members, RMT says that official assault figures
represent only the tip of the iceberg, that police fail to attend as many as 40
per cent of reported incidents, and that more than a third of incidents go
unreported. 

The Financial Times has hailed the
effective takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the US government as “what
could become the world’s biggest ever financial bail-out.” Treasury secretary
Henry Paulson has promised he will pump in ‘unlimited liquidity.’ Don’t you
wish the government would grant you unlimited liquidity? When it comes to the
food and fuel bills of the poor and the working class, the British and American
governments find that the cupboard is bare. But now it’s not bare. Predictably
markets all over the world have breathed a sigh of relief. Fannie and Freddie
have effectively been nationalised – and big business thoroughly approves!

TUC Congress will get underway with a bang this year – with
one of the early motions calling for “a series of one-day general strikes until
such time as the Government removes the restrictive anti-trade union
legislation from the statute”. Yes, really.