Economy

The announced income tax cuts in reality are being taken back by increased tax rates for some of the poorest households while the richest income earners would benefit the most.

The annual conference of the bosses' organisation the CBI is usually marked by a series of complaints about wages (too high), regulation (too much) and taxes (too unavoidable) – just like a trade union conference but in reverse. This year's conference is no exception.

Several months ago
there was a report in some British papers of an unusual speech by the Governor
of the Bank of England, Mervyn King. The speech gives a glimpse of a discussion
that must have recently taken place amongst the British capitalists, and which
the Gate Gourmet dispute is a direct consequence of. It is about the use of
cheap immigrant labour to drive down wages and worsen working conditions.

House price increases are slowing down in Britain. In June in London
prices actually fell. This is the beginning of the end of the house
price bubble and it will be very painful for many families who have
borrowed on the basis of the increased equity in their property. It
will have a knock-on effect on the whole economy as spending is already
slowing.

Marxists are often accused of having a class bias, of having an irrational prejudice against the capitalist class. We must admit, that yes we don’t particularly appreciate the fact that while millions go hungry in the underdeveloped countries a handful of super-rich billionaires actually decide on the fate of the world. While workers in the advanced countries are struggling to make ends meet, to pay the rent or the mortgage, to pay the bills, to feed their children, the super rich squander huge amounts on totally unnecessary luxuries. But don’t these rich company directors also play a useful role in […]

On Wednesday March 6, President Bush imposed tariffs as high as 30% on most steel imports coming to the US from Asia and Europe. This will hit European steel makers hard, especially in Britain where there is a slump already in the steel industry. In periods of capitalist economic downturn, national interests predominate over international. Bush is supposedly a supporter of the "free market". But the Wall Street Journal called the tariff "perhaps the most dramatically protectionist step of any president in decades." By Michael Roberts. (March 7, 2002)

We are also publishing two articles from the British Marxist magazine Socialist Appeal about the desperate plight of the steel industry in Britain and its workers. Steel industry correspondent Miles Todd explains that industrial action is the only way to prevent massive job losses.