Struggling to choke off the revenue that enables Russia to finance its invasion of Ukraine, and hoping to shield consumers at home from the warâs economic pain, leaders of the Group of 7 nations on Monday moved close to embracing an aggressive but untried plan to manipulate the price of oil, the largest commodity market in the world.
The plan â which would allow Russia to keep selling oil to the world but would sharply limit the price â is an acknowledgment that the embargoes the United States and allies swiftly imposed on Moscowâs lucrative energy exports have not dented Russian oil revenues. And they have driven up gasoline and other fuel prices, prompting consumer backlash in the United States and Europe. (...)
The effort to put a price cap on Russia oil is the brainchild of Janet L. Yellen, President Bidenâs Treasury secretary. The details are likely weeks or more away from being finalized, requiring intense negotiations by G7 finance ministers, private companies and leaders of countries in Latin America, Africa and elsewhere that buy Russian oil.
And there is no guarantee that the plan will come together quickly, or at all, or that it will succeed as the G7 leaders hope.
There is also a potential political downside in Europe and possibly the United States: To succeed, the plan will need to give China, India and other countries that have not joined the G7 in opposing Russiaâs invasion of Ukraine the ability to buy oil at a much lower price than America or much of Europe can.
But earlier this year, talks of lifting those sanctions and engaging more with Venezuela about oil were criticized by lawmakers.
Tennessee Rep. Mark Green (R) said âit would be outrageous to even consider buying oil from Iran or Venezuela.â
âItâs past time for us to take advantage of Americaâs abundant natural resources and become energy independentâand itâs time to cut off tyranny and totalitarianism at the knees around the globe,â Green added.
Officials said at the time in March that they had not made any decisions about importing oil from Venezuela or Saudi Arabia to fill voids of foreign oil imports.
May 18 (Reuters) - The war in Ukraine and drought fuelled by climate change has sent global prices for grains, cooking oils, fuel and fertilizer soaring.
Rising prices for basic food staples is fuelling protests from Indonesia to Iran.
European wheat prices have jumped 74% and benchmark palm oil futures went up 24% since January.
The trend is growing and is alarming policymakers, with United Nations agencies warning that the price hikes will worsen an existing food crisis in Africa and could cause "catastrophic" child malnutrition.
Following are protests in alphabetical order that have erupted over food prices over the past few months.
ARGENTINA: Thousands of farmers protested in Buenos Aires on April 23 against President Alberto Fernandez, whose policies to contain food prices to curb rampant inflation have been criticized by the agricultural sector. CHILE: Thousands of students marched through the Chilean capital Santiago on March 25 demanding higher food stipends.
CYPRUS: Cypriot farmers dumped tonnes of milk and lit bales of hay outside the presidential palace in the capital Nicosia on May 18, in protest at high prices and production issues.
GREECE: Thousands of Greek workers protested in Athens in May Day rallies against surge in energy and food prices. Greece's annual consumer inflation accelerated to 8.9% in March, hitting its highest level in 27 years.
INDONESIA: Indonesian farmers protested in Jakarta on May 17 against rising cost of palm oil export ban. Smallholder farmers' group APKASINDO estimates at least 25% of palm oil mills have stopped buying palm fruit from independent farmers since the ban started, sending the price of palm fruit 70% below a floor price set by regional authorities.
IRAN: Price protests turn political in Iran as rallies spread. The protests began in early May sparked by the government's subsidy cut decision that caused price hikes in Iran by as much as 300% for a variety of flour-based staples. The government also raised prices of some basic goods such as cooking oil and dairy products.
KENYA: Activists held a demonstration on May 17 in Nairobi, asking the government to lower costs of living, especially on food prices.
LEBANON: Lebanese truck and bus drivers and others blocked roads in January to protest against soaring prices. The protesters accuse politicians of failure to address an ongoing economic crisis since 2019.
PERU: Peru deployed army on highways in April in response to road blockades spurred by anger over rising food and fuel prices. Peru is facing its highest inflation rate in a quarter century.
SRI LANKA: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared a state of emergency earlier in May, following a day of anti-government strikes and protests over a worsening economic crisis. Sri Lanka's economic crisis, unparalleled since its independence in 1948, has come from the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising oil prices and populist tax cuts by the Rajapaksas.
SUDAN: In March, a protester was shot and killed in the Sudanese city of Madani, medics said, as demonstrators marched across the country to protest a military coup that has been followed by a steep economic downturn. Sudan's currency has lost more than a third of its value since the military coup in October last year, rapidly driving up prices for fuel, food and other goods.
TUNISIA: Tunisia said on May 11 it will raise the prices of some foods including milk, eggs and poultry, following protests by farmers against a jump in animal feed barley prices.
What has happened to P&O workers is exactly how deregulated Britain is meant to operate. With British regulations abolished or inoperative and EU regulations void, predatory international capitalists are free to treat workers like property, to be picked up or disposed of at whim, with no consideration at all other than the profit of the company.
Politicians have reacted to the public disgust at the summary sacking of 800 people (disguised as redundancy even though they are to be replaced by cheaper labour), by expressions of disgust, but with no proposals at all to do anything about the particular or the general situation. Nobody has contradicted the statement in the Commons by junior Tory transport minister Robert Courts that âP & Oâs finances are a matter for them aloneâ.
Government ministers, most notably Kwasi Kwarteng, have noted that P&Oâs actions are probably illegal, but nobody in government seems to feel the slightest urge to intervene to stop a major company deliberately acting illegally and on a major scale. P&O appears to have calculated that the paltry fines and three month extra salary compensation payouts that may result from illegality are outweighed by the savings it will make. Government fury seems to be confined to the vicious way the redundancies were announced.
DP World treats its British workforce with no more consideration than it treats its Pakistani and Bengali labourers in Dubai, and that fact appears to have rattled Tory ministers. But Tory condemnation has been entirely for the way the redundancies were handled, not for the fact of fire and rehire. The leaked fact we now know, that the government was indeed aware of the redundancies before the P&O staff, rather puts the fake indignation in perspective. That makes it even more unlikely that Johnson did not discuss it in when in Dubai the day before.
But this is all precisely how the system is meant to work. DP World are a major player in the governments Freeports initiative. These are zones where companies, with a hub physically in the Freeport zone and satellites virtually âinâ the zone, will be even more exempt from regulation than they will be in the rest of the UK. Plans are already in place to build hostels in the Freeports and bring in workers from Colombia and other sources at £1.40 an hour â exactly the kind of system that operates in the Gulf states.
Employment legislation of course is not the only regulation the Tories are seeking to obliterate. Employment, environmental, child safety, food safety, building standards, there are numerous standards the UK is now ready to revoke or water down as part of the âbenefits of Brexitâ. The Freeports will be the cutting edge, but across the UK the Tories are planning to allow capitalists to use their muscle with minimal protection for the employee, consumer or taxpayer.
P&O is a sign of the times. That we have no political party in Westminster calling for the nationalisation of P&O reflects the collapse of political diversity in the neo-con UK. The Labour Party has returned to Blairâs policy of acquiescing in all the Tory anti-trade union legislation from Thatcher on. Starmer has come up with an empty slogan about a ânew deal for workersâ rightsâ in response to the P&O debacle. His great new idea appears to be a right to flexible working, which is a very good thing for middle-class mums and I am all for it, but not of much practical help to a ferry worker. To be fair there are some Corbyn remnants in Labour industrial policy, but give Starmer time and there will not be.
There is no salvation to be had from the elite and their stranglehold on the political system and the mainstream media. We have to go back to the basics and build again the notion of horizontal solidarity in society. Liberal philanthropy did once assist the development of a more equal society in the UK, which reached its zenith in the 1970âs, but working class self-organisation, particularly through the union movement, was always essential to societal advance.
We now live in a society where liberal philanthropy is reserved for emoting about distant conflicts or channeled into identity, rather than class, politics. We live in a society where inequality in wealth distribution is returning to nineteenth century levels, but many of those left behind consider themselves too genteel to identify with working people and do anything about it.
I do strongly urge everybody to find out today what union you are eligible to join, and to join it. The paradox is that the unions themselves are so desperate to fit in with the new normal that I myself am excluded from joining a union as a dangerous radical. I have yet again applied to join the NUJ. Their current excuse for keeping me out is that people subscribe to my site and I am therefore not paid per article. This seems to be a rule that Michelle Stanistreet has invented unique to me â John Sweeney, Jonathan Cook, Paul Mason and many others run a subscription model. I remain however determined to join and urge you to join a union too.
The government genuinely is angry about P&O, but not because of what it is doing. Simply the startlingly abrupt way that it has acted has brought a harsh spotlight on the deregulation of the UK and what it entails. British Gas did effectively the same thing more smoothly and with far less publicity.
Jacob Rees Mogg is now tasked with pursuing with gusto a bonfire of rights and protections across the whole sphere of government. If you are a billionaire, great times are coming. If you are anybody else at all, welcome to the world your ancestors struggled out of from the 1830âs on.
A 185-year-old British company is paying its new Indian crew peanuts.
After suspending services and firing 800 British workers on March 17, ferry company P&O has been replacing them with cheap labor. On March 20, the UKâs Rail, Maritime, and Transport union (RMT) said two P&O ships on the Liverpool-Dublin route had been crewed with Filipinos being paid a meager $3.47 per hour. It warned that the companyâs future replacement staff âwill be paid poverty wages.â
The next day, the RMT said P&O ferry crews at Dover had been replaced by Indian seafarers being paid even more dismal wagesâ$2.38 per hour. The unionâs general secretary Mick Lynch called this a âshocking exploitationâ of these workers, as well as âanother gut-wrenching betrayalâ of the sacked UK crew. P&O told BBC News the figure was inaccurate, but did not comment on how much agencies pay workers on ferries.
âThese ships of shame must not be allowed to sail. The government has to step in now and take control before itâs too late,â Lynch said. There is fury in the UK over P&Oâs substantial pandemic assistance: the company received £10 million in emergency aid, and the government and union supported the furloughing of some 2,500 employees. Now, it is relying on foreign workers at rock bottom wages.
How can P&O get away with paying low wages?
While ethically dubious, what P&O is doing is not entirely illegal. Itâs just exploiting loopholes in global shipping.
For one, some of the ferries owned by the London-based company, which has been owned by Dubai royalty for more than 16 years now, are registered in Cyprus. Theyâre not bound by UKâs minimum wage laws, which stipulate hourly pay of at least £8.91 for workers aged over 23.
Secondly, ships in UK waters operate under treaties where UK law does not always apply. Specifically, ferry services operating between the UK and mainland Europe (including the Republic of Ireland) are considered âto be under innocent passage, and are not affected by UK minimum wage legislation,â the UK government notes.
Indian seafarersâ wages
Typically, an early-career seafarer in India earns about 300,000 rupees ($3,900) annually. Assuming an eight-hour day with one weekly holiday, thatâs well under $2 an hour. Abroad, too, they are shortchanged. For instance, where an Asian deck cadet on an oil product tanker is paid around $400 per month, a US deck cadet is fetches $950 for the same job. That $400 also boils down to around $2 with normal working hours. And these figures are even lower when you consider that Asian crews tend to work longer hours.
That doesnât absolve P&O of allegedly taking advantage of Indiansâ desperationâbut itâs not the first company to do so, and it likely wonât be the last.
PUBLISHED: 05:33 EDT, 21 March 2022 | UPDATED: 21:16 EDT, 21 March 2022
P&O Ferries £1.82-an-hour foreign agency workers from India, the Phillipines and war-hit Ukraine have been pictured being transported to the scandal-hit operators ships in Dover.
The workers have been brought in to replace 800 sacked staff - with some of the temps living in tents to save cash.
Labour MP Karl Turner said they were expected to work mammoth 12-hour shifts for eight weeks at a time.
Constantinos Syropoulos and Yoto Yotov, trade economists and two of the researchers behind the database, suggested that one factor driving the popularity of sanctions could be a resistance to engaging in military conflict. The United States, for example, has long used sanctions as a foreign policy tool. But it has accelerated their use in the last 20 years, just as support waned for the costly and unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United States is responsible for the most sanctions cases, accounting for 42 percent of those in place since 1950, according to Drexelâs data. Next is the European Union, with 12 percent, and the United Nations, 7 percent.
Axios has a story - pointing out that "the US now has more self-storage facilities than McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger Kings, Starbucks and Walmarts combined.
But the article uses bad science to draw a righteous conclusion: how full are those units? 100%? 20%? Heck, one of my goals is to build and own a self storage complex. Easy money: a big piece of land in an unpopulated area, with minimal construction and infrastructure and maintenance.
But will it fill?
Location, location, location.
Build it as close as possible to apartment buildings, trailer parks and freeway exits. You will have customers.
And figure out the minimum occupancy rate to take care of the monthly nut.
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No, not scientific, but another symptom of the overstuffing US consumer
The story said over 50,000 storage facilities, with 11% of US renting a unit...no discussion of vacancy rate.
Here some data if interested https://www.sparefoot.com/self...
Axios has a story - pointing out that "the US now has more self-storage facilities than McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger Kings, Starbucks and Walmarts combined.
The point of the story is that, to put it simply, people are buying too much stuff.
"We're overstuffed," Axios writes. "And all that stuff often brings a lot more stress than joy ⦠Never in history have so many things been affordable for so many. Never in history has it been easier to swipe a card or click a button, and wait for the Amazon truck to arrive. And never in history have Americans had bigger houses, or storage sheds, to keep it all."
Anthony Graesch, an anthropologist at Connecticut College who studies why we have so much stuff, tells Axios: "I see the proliferation of self-storage in the United States as the materialization of excessive, unchecked and unsustainable levels of consumption." It is also, he says, a reflection of the fact that many people have "difficulty ⦠easily severing relationships with many of our possessions."
Of course with inflation at 8%, and the Ukraine war likely to keep it there for months...people will have to cut back on their trinkets.
I'm curious (and no, I didn't read the fine article), are they counting individual units that are rented to the end user? or are they counting a public storage location that has 500 individual storage cells? Not that it matters much, we do have way too much stuff. I'm trying hard to shift into the mode of "use things, love people", and meter all my connections on that basis. It helps, but I still find myself keeping stuff because I might use it someday.
Axios has a story - pointing out that "the US now has more self-storage facilities than McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger Kings, Starbucks and Walmarts combined.
The point of the story is that, to put it simply, people are buying too much stuff.
"We're overstuffed," Axios writes. "And all that stuff often brings a lot more stress than joy ⦠Never in history have so many things been affordable for so many. Never in history has it been easier to swipe a card or click a button, and wait for the Amazon truck to arrive. And never in history have Americans had bigger houses, or storage sheds, to keep it all."
Anthony Graesch, an anthropologist at Connecticut College who studies why we have so much stuff, tells Axios: "I see the proliferation of self-storage in the United States as the materialization of excessive, unchecked and unsustainable levels of consumption." It is also, he says, a reflection of the fact that many people have "difficulty ⦠easily severing relationships with many of our possessions."
Of course with inflation at 8%, and the Ukraine war likely to keep it there for months...people will have to cut back on their trinkets.
Barry Diller strongly denied allegations on Wednesday that he, his stepson and longtime pal and fellow mogul David Geffen engaged in insider trading in their purchases of Activision Blizzard call options.
The trades are under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a report.
Diller, Geffen and Dillerâs stepson, Alex von Furstenberg, together made large bets on Activision stock just days before the video game maker said it had agreed to be bought by Microsoft in a $68.7 billion deal, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Just a general couple of questions, 1) do you work? 2) are you physically attached to your computer?
Barry Diller strongly denied allegations on Wednesday that he, his stepson and longtime pal and fellow mogul David Geffen engaged in insider trading in their purchases of Activision Blizzard call options.
The trades are under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a report.
Diller, Geffen and Dillerâs stepson, Alex von Furstenberg, together made large bets on Activision stock just days before the video game maker said it had agreed to be bought by Microsoft in a $68.7 billion deal, The Wall Street Journal reported.
