Inequality thrives

Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat has a good thing going.

Corbat pocketed $24 million last year and $24 million the year before. This year, Citibank, the world’s largest credit card issuer, has an even better thing going. Citi is paying just 0.35 percent interest on corona-crisis loans from the Federal Reserve and charging customers as much as 27.4 percent in credit-card interest. That spread is generating oodles of dollars that Corbat would like to pass on to Citi shareholders like himself. But the Federal Reserve wants Citi and other big banks to sit on their cash as a guard against a financial system crash, and last month announced mild limits on the dividends banks can shell out.

Corbat remains unimpressed by Fed worries about financial fragility. Notes the Citi CEO: “From our perspective, our dividend is sound, and we plan on continuing to pay it.” Corbat’s solicitude for the well-being of his shareholders doesn’t seem to extend to his customers. This past spring, Citi accounted for four times more credit-card complaints to federal regulators than any other major bank.  (inequality.org, June 2020).

My comment:  What do you expect?  The priority is making money, with attendant privileges.   Customers are a background irritant, to be impatiently attended to  between being wined and dined by politicians and lounging on the yacht.

Fertility rate: ‘jaw-dropping’ global crash in children being born”

Falling fertility rates mean that nearly every country could have shrinking populations by the end of the century. 23 nations – including Spain and Japan – are expected to see their populations halve by 2100.  Countries will also age dramatically, with as many people turning 80 as there are being born.

The fertility rate – the average number of children a woman gives birth to – is falling. If the number falls below approximately 2.1, then the size of the population starts to fall. While in 1950, women were having an average of 4.7 children in their lifetime, the global fertility rate nearly halved to 2.4 in 2017. A study in The Lancet projects that it will fall below 1.7 by 2100.   As a result, the researchers expect the number of people on the planet to peak at 9.7 billion around 2064, before falling  to 8.8 billion by the end of the century.

Why is this happening?   It has nothing to do with sperm counts or the usual things that come to mind when discussing fertility.   Instead it is being driven by more women in education and work, as well as greater access to contraception, leading to women choosing to have fewer children.

Japan’s population is projected to fall from a peak of 128 million in 2017 to less than 53 million by the end of the century.  Italy is expected to see an equally dramatic population crash from 61 million to 28 million over the same timeframe.  These are two of 23 countries – including Spain, Portugal, Thailand and South Korea – expected to see their population more than halve.

China, currently the most populous nation in the world, is expected to peak at 1.4 billion in four years time before nearly halving to 732 million by 2100! The UK is predicted to peak at 75 million in 2063, and fall to 71 million. 

This is a global issue, with 183 out of 195 countries having a fertility rate below the replacement level.  It is great for the environment, with lower carbon emissions and less deforestation.  The problem is that there will be more old people than young people,  a shift from young to old.  The number of under-fives will fall from 681 million in 2017 to 401 million in 2100, but over 80-year-olds will soar from 141 million in 2017 to 866 million in 2100.

Who pays tax in a massively aged world? Who pays for healthcare for the elderly? Who looks after the elderly? Will people still be able to retire from work?  (By James Gallagher, Health and science correspondent, BBC;  researcher Prof Christopher Murray, and The Lancet, 15 July 2020)

My comment: There are too many people in the world, and too many semi-educated and poorly brought-up people at that.  However, the comment about taxation and who is going to look after the oldies is a killer, I agree. Life is going to get increasingly tough.  But maybe a greatly reduced population is the price we have to pay for the survival of the human race at all.  We can’t go on grossly abusing the planet indefinitely.

Apparently a true story

This  is apparently the actual dialogue, from the WordPerfect customer support Helpline,  transcribed from a recording monitoring the customer care department. Needless to say the Help Desk employee was fired; however, he/she is currently suing the WordPerfect organization for ‘Termination without Cause’.

Operator:         ‘Ridge Hall, computer assistance; may I help you?’
Caller:              ‘Yes, well, I’m having trouble with WordPerfect ‘
Operator:         ‘What sort of trouble?’
Caller:              ‘Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away.’
Operator:         ‘Went away?’
Caller:              ‘They disappeared’
Operator:         ‘Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?’
Caller:              ‘Nothing.’
Operator:         ‘Nothing??’
Caller:              ‘It’s blank; it won’t accept anything when I type.’
Operator:         ‘Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?’
Caller:              ‘How do I tell?’
Operator:        ‘Can you see the ‘C: prompt’ on the screen?’
Caller:              ‘What’s a sea-prompt?’
Operator:         ‘Never mind, can you move your cursor around the screen?’
Caller:              ‘There isn’t any cursor; I told you, it won’t accept anything I type.’
Operator:         ‘Does your monitor have a power indicator?’
Caller:              ‘What’s a monitor?’
Operator:         ‘It’s the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. 
                          Does it have a little light that tells you when it’s on?’
Caller:              ‘I don’t know.’
Operator:        ‘Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where 
                         the power cord goes into it. Can you see that??’
Caller:             ‘Yes, I think so.’
Operator:       ‘Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it’s 
                         plugged into the wall..
Caller:             ‘Yes, it is.’
Operator:        ‘When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that 
                         there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one? ‘
Caller:              ‘No.’
Operator:         ‘Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and 
                         find the other cable.’
Caller:              ‘Okay, here it is.’
Operator:          ‘Follow it for me, and tell me if it’s plugged securely into 
                          the back of your computer..’
Caller:               ‘I can’t reach.’
Operator:          ‘OK. Well, can you see if it is?’
Caller:               ‘No…’
Operator:          ‘Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?’
Caller:               ‘Well, it’s not because I don’t have the right angle — it’s because it’s dark.’
Operator:          ‘Dark?’
Caller:               ‘Yes – the office light is off, and the only light I have is 
                          coming in from the window.’
Operator:          ‘Well, turn on the office light then.’
Caller:               ‘I can’t..’
Operator:          ‘No? Why not?’
Caller:              ‘Because there’s a power failure.’
Operator:         ‘A power …. A power failure? Aha. Okay, we’ve got it   
                         licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and   
                         packing stuff that your computer came in?’
Caller:              ‘Well, yes, I keep them in the closet..’
Operator:         ‘Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you            

                          got it.  Then take it back to the store you bought it from.’
Caller:              ‘Really? Is it that bad?’
Operator:        ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’
Caller:              ‘Well, all right then, I suppose.  What do I tell them?’
Operator:         ‘Tell them you’re too damned stupid to own a computer!’

A little matter of gross hypocrisy

Bet you didn’t know!  The Anti Defamation League (ADL), a self-proclaimed Jewish civil rights group, is the largest non-governmental trainer of police in this country, facilitating an exchange of the worst practices between U.S. police, ICE and FBI, and the Israeli police and military.  This is kept rather quiet, for obvious reasons.

The US government gives billions to fund Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian land.  Arms companies “field test” their weapons and technology on occupied Palestinians.  Meanwhile, organisation that claim to speak for Jewish community defend the state of Israel while currently paying hypocritical lip service to Black lives.

It has to be said that U.S. police exchanges with Israeli forces are not responsible for the centuries of deadly violence American police have dealt to Black people on our own streets in the US. The militarized tactics and technologies acquired through police exchange programs go directly to executing the unchanged mission of the American police, established long before the founding of the state of Israel.

But  the ADL “solidarity” with Black lives in the U.S. means nothing if they maintain their partnerships with the U.S. police and help export the tactics used by the Israeli military to oppress Palestinians.

My comment: This is part and parcel of the overall militarization of US police forces, a militarisation that one would think should be unconstitutional.  There is no rationale for overwhelming force on the streets of America, except in the messed up minds of White supremacists and ethics-free politicians who will stop at nothing to scare up the votes. But, in addition, to export weapons and technology to overawe, bully  and kill defenseless Arabs,  is a scandal.  It is also anti- Epicurean.

Now is the moment for the ADL to stop organizing police exchanges!  

The shame Americans should feel: corona virus and the big donations

Why is the US corona virus situation such a disgraceful mess?

All politicians in America depend on big donors for their elections. That is a given. But some governors, (mainly in the South) are more than ever in the pockets of the super-rich in a country of obscene disparities of wealth. Having donated handsomely, the billionaires want urgent pay back. Massive tax breaks are not enough for these people.  In the case of the virus they wanted, and got, the re-opening of closed-down economies, nearly all of them far, far too early and sloppily, egged on by the President and fear that their re- election could be iffy if businesses remained closed.

So I hope the governors and other state and federal politicians are pleased with themselves.  In return for the reopening of the economic spigots they have full hospital beds and alarming numbers of infections and deaths.  Has it occurred to them that this is tantamount to man and woman-slaughter?  What do their deeply religious and holy supporters think.  Apparently, they don’t care either.

I get to read news from all over the world. Countries which are nowhere in the wealth scale dealt with covid19 better than this. We are suffering because of greed, and we should hang our heads in shame.  It has been an incompetent mess, but I can guarantee that none of the people responsible will ever be accountable.  If you are not sick of this you haven’t been paying attention!

This is not about politics; it is about Epicureanism and humanism, and basic care for the health and welfare of one’s fellow citizens.  Why is this so hard to understand?