Soapbox for the 99%: the grandest larceny ever – public funds handed over to bolster profit

June 18th, 2013 by PCU »

99-3

 

John Tyrrell writes:

Schools, hospitals, even prisons contribute to the likes of the Chief Executives of G4S, and ATOS who thrive at the expense of the peoples’ misery. They take over key services providing poorly trained, low paid staff.

Is austerity necessary? Yes it is if you have the view that the key to a successful economy is maximising profit and rewarding the few who happen to be in the right place and the right time.

This is the dominant version espoused by politicians, the elite who court them and a press ever more tightly reigned in to serve their purpose.

Many more are seeing through the great lie and, as the power of the state is abused, resistance will intensify – as we have seen across Europe in Spain, Greece and now Turkey.

 

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Posted in Corporate political nexus, Democracy undermined, Economy, Government, Lobbying, Vested interests

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Without curbing corporate power the G8 have no chance of combating tax avoidance

June 15th, 2013 by PCU »
Prem Sikka is one of the academics from around the world attending the Belfast G8 Pre-Summit conference organised by the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queen’s University Belfast and the G8 Research Group at the University of Toronto.
G8 venue

G8 venue

 

A day earlier he had written: “Corporate power is so deeply embedded in neoliberalism that politicians have failed to consider its corrosive effect. I will be highlighting that in my talk”.

The “capture” of the state by economic elites
Professor Sikka

Professor Sikka

In his Conversation article, “Without curbing corporate power the G8 have no chance of combating tax avoidance”, he reflects that one of the recurring themes in social sciences is the “capture” of the state by economic elites. This enables them to advance their economic interests, shape public policies and choices. He adds:

“This is nowhere more relevant than in debates about tax avoidance, a key item on the agenda for next week’s meeting of G8 nations in Ireland . . . one thing it won’t discuss is the colonisation of the state by economic elites, a key reason for the continuing failure to tackle organised tax avoidance.

“In recent months, multinational corporations, such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, eBay, Apple, Vodafone, HSBC and Amazon have been hitting the headlines for their tax avoidance and other anti-social practices.

“The Big Four accountancy firms – PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, Deloitte and Ernst & young – have been grilled by the UK parliamentary committees for devising and marketing tax avoidance schemes, many of which have been declared to be illegal by the courts. Yet the same economic interests play a key role in devising and enforcing UK tax laws”.

He gives two examples of damaging legislation

First a new piece of tax legislation known as the Patent Box which came into operation with effect from 1st April, drafted by a working party consisting entirely of representatives of major corporations, including GlaxoSmithKline, Rolls-Royce and Shell.

The controlled foreign companies (CFC) is another piece of legislation crafted by corporate interests. The working parties crafting the legislation included representatives from Diageo, Tesco, Vodafone, Shell, Rio Tinto, GlaxoSmithKline, Kraft, Cable and Wireless, HSBC, Prudential and Avia. All have a vital economic interest in securing compliant tax laws. There was no representation from any civil society organisation, trade unions or critics.

The combined effect of the CFC and the Patent Box legislation could reduce corporate tax bills by about £5 billion a year, at a time when ordinary people are facing massive hardships.

From 1st July 2013, a General Anti-Abuse Rule (GAAR) will come into effect. This requires HMRC to apply a ‘double reasonableness’ test. Sikka asks: “Who will decide whether the state of affairs is reasonable? The procedure is that HMRC will have to put its request to a panel of so-called independent experts . . .  most likely to consist of directors of companies and accountancy firms . . . A recent advertisement invites unpaid individuals to sit on the GAAR panel. Inevitably they will come from corporations who can continue to pay them whilst on secondment to HMRC . . .Thus the tax avoidance industry and companies implicated in tax avoidance will be in a position to shackle HMRC”.

In common with many others the UK state is too close to corporate interests

No fight against tax avoidance is ever going to be effective until there is some distance between big business and the tax authorities, but in common with many others the UK state is too close to corporate interests.

Curbing corporate power and realigning political institutions to the needs and concerns of ordinary people should be on the agenda of G8, but regrettably it will not be and tax avoidance is likely to remain rampant.

Prem Sikka is Professor of Accounting, Essex Business School at University of Essex – see the university website for an account of his message.

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Posted in Advisors and consultants, Banking and finance, Civil servants, Conflict of interest, Corporate political nexus, Democracy undermined, Economy, Finance, Government, Lobbying, Parliamentary failure, Political action, Vested interests

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Food: important as a global trading commodity – or essential to a country’s food security and sovereignty?

June 13th, 2013 by PCU »

 

Beleaguered food producers in Britain – underpaid to boost supermarket profits, beset by threats to commandeer land for projects such as HS2 and hydraulic fracturing, urged to merge into factory farm units, use GM animal feed and seeds and export so as to import cheap food produced by dubious methods – will have a fellow-feeling for hitherto more cherished farmers in Japan.

 

Bundling harvested rice

Bundling harvested rice

Prime Minister Abe earlier pledged to protect Japan’s “beautiful” rice fields and “safe, delicious food”, but despite this, he has joined negotiations for the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership. Today an adviser to Abe’s 2006 government urges Japan to lower its tariff barriers on agricultural products  - and so force other countries to lower their tariffs on Japanese manufactured goods.

In March, after several thousand farmers had protested in Tokyo, Hitoshi Kondo, who works for Japan Agriculture (JA), the well-organised and effective national network of farm co-operatives, explained the concerns of food producers on Japan’s typically tiny farms:

“If products from the US or Australia enter the market, there’s no way we can compete. Farmers will go out of business and the environment will be ruined. We don’t want to be sacrificed for the sake of cars and electronics.”

Abe’s former adviser, Takatoshi Ito, points out that Japanese farmers are among the most protected in the world, with half of average incomes coming from subsidies and price supports compared with one-fifth in the EU and one-10th in the US.

Japan Agriculture warns that if Japan joins the TPP, “we may no longer be able to eat the safe, secure domestic food that has nourished our lives” and the agriculture ministry has said that if trade barriers are lifted Japan’s agricultural output could shrink by half.

Mr Abe is said to be about to issue a prime minister’s directive to change the law so that non-agricultural corporations are allowed to own agricultural land. At present, only small-scale farmers can do so. Japan’s general trading companies, such as Mitsubishi and Mitsui, would probably seize the opportunity to produce, distribute and export agricultural products under one roof.

Larger-scale farmers need not lose out on either jobs or income . . .

Ito adds that those who have only small plots of land with a high cost of production . . . can be compensated for their land, which could then be absorbed into much larger and more productive units with lower costs.

So there’s the plan in both countries and many others in the grip of greed: wealthy landowners, processors, exporters, transporters and speculators have everything to gain. Small and medium producers, who do the actual work, and people who want wholesome food, lose.

 

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Posted in Advisors and consultants, Agriculture, Conflict of interest, Corporate political nexus, Democracy undermined, Economy, Finance, GM, Government, Health, Lobbying, Planning, Political action, Vested interests

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Riding to the rescue of GM companies: MPs Willetts, Paterson and Freeman

June 11th, 2013 by PCU »

cavalry ride to the rescueThough Monsanto has announced its intention of  withdrawing from the EU, David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, said to have been heavily lobbied by GM campaigners and scientists funded by the GM industry, continues to promote GM, insisting that biotech crops could feed the world – though more safely produced crops are already doing so.

He, MP George Freeman (APPG chair) and the environment secretary, Owen Paterson, are pushing for EU controls on new GM crops and food to be relaxed.  There will be rich ‘pickings’ – ‘food engineering’ is the UK’s largest manufacturing sector. It now has an annual turnover of nearly £80 billion. It employs around 400,000 people across more than 7,000 businesses and creates 8,500 new products every year.

Key players are a few influential international food processing giants who control a wide range of well-known food brands.

Is Mr Willetts  driven by finance, hubris – or both?

From 1982 he was in charge of Treasury monetary policy and appears to think along lines pleasing to the financial world – noting the donations from Rothschilds, JP Morgan and large insurance companies in his entry in the register of members’ interests.

The advent of GM cultivation in Britain, involving patented GM seeds and expensive chemicals, would undoubtedly lead to a large increase in profits for companies such as Monsanto, Bayer CropScience, BASF and Syngenta, currently feeling discouraged by EU controls and the bans imposed by Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg and Poland on the cultivation of Monsanto GM maize, MON 810.

‘Agri-Science’ is one of the ‘eight great technologies’ in which Mr Willetts believes Britain could ‘lead the world’.

Right-hand man MP George Freeman is a ‘vocal advocate’ of GM crops. Mr Freeman, who was Director of Early Stage Ventures at Merlin Biosciences, then CEO of Amedis Pharmaceuticals MP and, later, founder/chairman of 4D Biomedical Ltd, before entering parliament, now chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture, funded by a grouping of industry organisations established in 1998 to support the introduction of GM crops in the UK.

In July 2011 the Prime Minister and the Science Minister David Willetts appointed Freeman ‘the entrepreneurs’ man in Westminster’, as Government Life Science Advisor . . .

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Advisors and consultants, Agriculture, Corporate political nexus, DEFRA minister Owen Paterson, Democracy undermined, Environment, GM, Government, Health, Lobbying, Planning, Revolving door, Vested interests

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