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	<title>World Socialist Party (US)</title>
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	<copyright>Copyright &#xA9; World Socialist Party (US) 2010 </copyright>
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		<title>World Socialist Party (US)</title>
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	<itunes:author>World Socialist Party (US)</itunes:author>
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		<itunes:name>World Socialist Party (US)</itunes:name>
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		<item>
		<title>Old Fraud, New Face</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2012/04/old-fraud-new-face/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2012/04/old-fraud-new-face/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 21 Apr 2012 02:03:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>FN Brill</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[USA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2558</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Many people imagine that a country run on the lines of the American republic is a democratic state, that the institutions of America are democratic institutions, that the spirit of such a state is the democratic spirit, and that the philosophy of such a state – the “Rights of Man” is the democratic philosophy. All of which ideas are wrong. The common meaning of the term “democracy”, a form of society in which supreme power is lodged in the hands of the people – is correct enough as far as it goes, and is sufficient in all that it implies. But it implies something very different from the American republic and its institutions. On November 6, Americans will go to the polls to decide who gets to be blamed for all the country’s problems for the next four years. Politicians supply demons. They supply a singular address for evil upon which you can blame everything. Where the economy is a mess, where people’s mortgages are underwater, it is much easier to find one single person or group of people to blame for all their problems than it is to analyze the extremely complex subject of, for instance, mortgage-backed Wall Street [...]


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		<item>
		<title>Titanic: 100 Years On</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2012/04/titanic-100-years-on/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2012/04/titanic-100-years-on/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Apr 2012 02:17:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Commentary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[History]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2562</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This April will witness the 100th anniversary of the sinking of theRMS Titanic. Many words will be written in the capitalist media about the disaster, but what of the class aspects of the tragedy and has anything really changed in the last century? The Titanic came into being purely for the speedy conveyance of the rich and wealthy classes between Britain and the US. Opulence and luxury were the watchwords of her design and construction, rather than safety. Designed around class division and reflecting the extremes of wealth and poverty in Edwardian Britain, the vessel featured Turkish baths, gymnasiums, electric lifts, ballrooms, dining rooms, a swimming pool and a library for the first class passengers – all designed to attract the wealthiest clients and secure the biggest returns for the investors in White Star Lines. The now famous story of the Titanic&#8217;s maiden voyage and her striking an iceberg off Newfoundland is too familiar to need repeating.  Also familiar is the often quoted lack of adequate lifeboat provision, although according to the maritime laws at the time, Titanic surprisingly carried more than she was legally required to. What is more interesting from a socialist&#8217;s perspective is how the class divide, evident in the [...]


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		<item>
		<title>Crisis Over? Not For The Unions!</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2012/04/crisis-over-not-for-the-unions/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2012/04/crisis-over-not-for-the-unions/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Apr 2012 06:31:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2555</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When European Central Bank president Mario Draghi recently told German tabloid Bild &#8221;The worst is over,&#8221; he was talking about government budgets and European banks’ balance sheets. It is a completely different story for workers through-out Europe who are finding their trade union rights undermined, their wages squeezed, their retirement age raised and their pensions cut while the employers are granted more and increasing power. 27 European Union members are implementing austerity measures to the tune of about 450 billion euros. Such austerity measures have been portrayed as a necessary part of bringing national debts under control and making European businesses competitive, but they go beyond what is needed to overcome the debt crisis, the unions say. It’s a reversal from the late 1940s when European nations emerging from six years of war laid the foundations of the continent’s social model of the Welfare State by introducing mechanisms to ensure poorer members of society weren’t left behind as they rebuilt their economies. France brought in state pensions in 1946, the U.K. set up its free-to-use National Health Service in 1948 and West Germany guaranteed unions a third of the seats on company boards in 1952. ECB&#8217;s Mario Draghi in a Feb. 23 interview with [...]


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		<item>
		<title>The New &#8220;Socialist&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2012/03/the-new-socialist/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2012/03/the-new-socialist/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 29 Mar 2012 04:33:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Carribean]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2552</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The recent visit of the Pope to Cuba has again focussed upon the island and the economic and political changes it is under-going. Ahead of his visit, Pope Benedict had suggested Cuba&#8217;s &#8220;Marxist&#8221; structure &#8221;no longer corresponds to reality&#8221; and called for the adoption of a &#8221;new model&#8221;. Pope Benedict XVI has urged Cubans to build an &#8221;open and renewed society&#8221;. His prayers at the island&#8217;s holiest site included a plea for &#8221;those deprived of freedom.&#8221; but Cuba is not Poland, where the catholic church was an important influence upon the opposition to the state-capitalist regime. Although around 60% of Cubans are baptised as Catholics, only 5% are practising. Santería, an Afro-Cuban religion, has more adherents. Under Raúl Castro, Cuba has begun the journey from state-capitalism towards a more free-market capitalism. What Fidel Castro and Che Guevara called “socialism” did not correspond to Marx’s “first phase of communist society” that many erroneously associate with the term since it was based on the state, not the common, ownership and control of the means of production, the majority remaining propertyless and having to sell their working skills to live. As the state was controlled by the leaders of a minority vanguard party, these leaders became in effect the employers [...]


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		<title>Water Wars</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2012/03/water-wars/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2012/03/water-wars/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 25 Mar 2012 02:57:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>FN Brill</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2547</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Water has always been an issue in the American west. For 90 years, Nevada and six other south-western states have shared the waters of the once-mighty Colorado river, according to an established formula. It became clear, however, that the allocations of water decided in 1922 were overly optimistic about the projected rivers flows of the Colorado. Nevada, which for years has been drawing more water from its Lake Mead reservoir than has been flowing in, could be at serious risk of going dry in 20 years. Las Vegas needed a Plan B. &#8221;When you have got a community of 2 million people and it is 90% reliant on the Colorado river you have to have a contingency plan,&#8221; Pat Mulroy, the manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority said. Las Vegas, where the population had been doubling every decade until the most recent recession, planners had an idea. They want to tap into groundwater and pump up to 300bn litres of water a year out of valleys in eastern Nevada and transport it 300 miles south to the thirsty metropolis of casinos and golf courses. Opponents of the pipeline say draining the desert of groundwater would destroy the livelihoods of the cattle [...]


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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Evangelical Riches</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2012/03/evangelical-riches/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2012/03/evangelical-riches/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 24 Mar 2012 02:54:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2543</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Proverbs 10:22 says, &#8221;The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, without painful toil for it.&#8221; The world&#8217;s largest Christian TV channel, the California-based Trinity Broadcasting Network, has become embroiled in a multimillion-dollar financial scandal after members of the family that founded it alleged widespread embezzlement. The claims – by Brittany Koper, whose grandfather Paul Crouch founded TBN, and by Joseph McVeigh, another family member – describe exorbitant spending on mansions in California, Tennessee and Florida, private jets and even a $100,000 mobile home to house the dogs of Crouch&#8217;s flamboyant wife. The network&#8217;s lawyer said the Crouches travel by private jet because they have had &#8220;scores of death threats, more than the president of the United States&#8221;. The network, which claims to broadcast in every continent and has 18,000 affiliates, was set up by Crouch in the 1970s and preaches a &#8220;prosperity gospel&#8221; which promises material rewards to those who give generously. Two years ago it declared a net worth of more than $800m, although in recent years it has faced increasing financial problems. According to the lawsuit, reported in US newspapers, Paul Crouch Sr obtained a $50m luxury jet for his personal use through a &#8220;sham loan&#8221;, while church funds [...]


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		<item>
		<title>Concierge Medicine</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2012/03/concierge-medicine/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2012/03/concierge-medicine/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:13:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2518</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Money may not buy happiness, but it can pay for you to avoid the hassle of a doctors or hospital waiting room. Well-off executives and their families increasingly are paying tens of thousands of dollars a year for high-end medical services. &#8221;Wealthy people want to have a little exclusivity and want better service than they can get at their normal health-care facility, and they&#8217;re willing to pay for it,&#8221; said Rick Flynn, principal and head of the Family Office Group with Rothstein Kass, a Roseland, New Jersey-based accounting and consulting firm. Concierge medicine, a doctor on a retainer, in other words, the ability to have access to their physicians anywhere, anytime is on the rise in America. 64 percent of all doctors believe that concierge medicine has the best chance of financial success today. In addition to concierge medicine, the wealthy have a variety of plush options to choose from when it comes to their health care. Some hospitals are competing for wealthy clients by offering perks like butlers, fancy beds, beautiful views, and fine food. Some of New York-Presbyterian&#8217;s luxury hospital rooms can cost patients $1,000 to $1,500 per day. Guardian 24/7 is a company that installs emergency rooms in homes, [...]


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		<title>Income vs Productivity</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2012/03/income-vs-productivity/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2012/03/income-vs-productivity/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 17 Mar 2012 21:37:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Friend of WSP</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Theory]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2524</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The top graph is taken from &#8220;Left Business Observer&#8221; .  Real income is adjusted for inflation.  So, the working class, or 95% of the population, the part who actually produce the wealth of the USA have had their wages/income flattened since 1967 whereas the top 5%, the bourgeoisie or capitalist class have seen their real incomes increase quite a bit. The second graph shows the real productivity increases of the working class over the years since the 1940s.  Note how productive of wealth you and your fellow workers are and how you&#8217;re becoming ever more productive as a class. Aside from our rulers&#8217; increasing income, a lot of the wealth we produce goes into expenditures for capital equipment and a major chunk is devoted to military killing efficiency too. ;p  Atom bombs and funny little armoured vehicles which get blown up by roadside bombs, night vision goggles and so on&#8230;.. As a friend of mine quipped, &#8220;With the rising ratio of constant capital [machines, supplies] over variable capital [wages], expressed as &#8216;C/V,&#8217; more wealth must be transformed into constant capital to keep up with competition (i.e. make workers more productive of wealth thus, cheapening the commodities representing that wealth on the [...]


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		<title>From the Horses…</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2012/03/from-the-horses/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2012/03/from-the-horses/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:29:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SOCIALISM OR YOUR MONEY BACK</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Commentary]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2515</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Greg Smith resigned as executive director of Goldman Sach&#8217;s European, the Middle East and Africa equity derivatives business, declaring his employer &#8220;morally bankrupt&#8221;. &#8220;&#8230;if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence&#8230;persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit&#8230; get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated, and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman&#8230;not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them&#8230;It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,”&#8230;the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, &#8216;How much money did we make off the client? &#8221; Smith unfortunately for all his experience and insider knowledge has failed to come to the realisation that his description of [...]


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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>What&#8217;s Being Rich?</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2012/03/whats-being-rich/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2012/03/whats-being-rich/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Mar 2012 22:21:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Class]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[USA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2513</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Fiscal Times published an article arguing that a family with an income of $250,000 per year is not really rich. When taxes, housing costs, college costs for children and so on are accounted for, even those with an income five times the median family income are just barely getting by, it said. Later the Fiscal Times reported that a study recently found that a middle class family needs at least $150,000 of income just to cover the basics. Subsequently, The New York Times published an article sympathizing with the plight of those making only $250,000. They are certainly not poor, but neither are they rich in any meaningful sense of the term, it said. Gallup Poll asked people how much money they would need to consider themselves rich. The answers were surprisingly varied. Some 18 percent of people would need less than $60,000 per year of income; 12 percent said between $60,000 and $99,999; 23 percent said between $100,000 and $150,000; 18 percent said between $150,001 and $299,999; 11 percent said $1 million; and 4 percent said more than $1 million. The median income, the exact middle of the distribution of responses, was $150,000. Women, the elderly, non-college graduates, [...]


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