Defence giant Babcock International to cut 1,000 jobs in the UK and overseas

Around 1,000 jobs are being axed at Babcock International as the defence giant revealed mammoth writedowns of £1.7 billion and plans to sell off a raft of its businesses

By Emma Munbodh

Deputy Money Editor
 13 APR 2021

(Image: Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Defence giant Babcock International has said it expects to cut 1,000 jobs in the UK and overseas in an overhaul of the business as it revealed write-downs of around £1.7 billion.

The group - which is the Ministry of Defence's second largest contractor - said about 850 of the job cuts would be made across its UK operations, with the remainder overseas.

It came as Babcock said a turnaround plan would see it simplify the business and raise at least £400 million from the sale of assets over the next year.

In an update on the group-wide review launched in January, Babcock laid bare its balance sheet woes as it booked £1.7 billion in impairments and charges.

It added that group profits are also likely to be around £30 million lower each year, though it said this is smaller than first feared.

Chief executive David Lockwood, who took the helm last year, said he hopes that for workers affected by the review, the group will be able to find a "place where people can flourish" through the sale of assets to new owners.

He added: "People will see this as a watershed moment when the new company starts to emerge."

Babcock employs around 30,000 staff worldwide.

The firm, founded in 1891, supplies the Royal Navy and is a key plank of Britain’s defence capabilities.

It has been battling to rebuild its image for several years over rows over its handling of government funding.

Last year, former adviser Dominic Cummings last year accused the company of “ripping off taxpayers” over its Government contracts.

MOE'S COUNTRY

 

THERE ARE NO MOUNTAINS 

IN SASKATCHEWAN 

FLATTER THAN A PANCAKE

IT'S ALL PRAIRIE

THE ROCKIES ARE IN ALBERTA

IN SASKATCHEWAN

THE SO CALLED CYPRUS MOUNTAINS

ARE ANYTHING BUT, THEY ARE HILLS

AS FOR THE REST SEE MY

REBEL YELL, RIEL AND THE WEST

Egypt Seizes Suez Ship ‘Ever Given’
Pending $900 Million Compensation

(Bloomberg) --April `3/2021

Egypt seized a giant container vessel that closed off the Suez Canal last month as it sought compensation of over $900 million for the blockage.

A court in the city of Ismailia granted the request regarding the Ever Given vessel at the behest of the Suez Canal Authority, state-run Ahram Gate reported on its website. It did not say who the SCA wants compensation from.

The ship’s insurer for third-party losses, the U.K. P&I Club, said in a statement that it received a claim for $916 million, the size of which is “largely unsupported.” It said it was disappointed that the vessel was arrested on Tuesday.

Egypt’s move underscores the legal complications following the container vessel’s grounding on March 23, which closed the canal for almost a week and roiled shipping markets. Logjams are expected to continue in the coming weeks at major ports such as Singapore and Rotterdam because of disruptions to schedules, according to supply-chain data provider project44.

Read more: The Suez Crisis Is Over. Now Time to Add Up the Damages

The SCA has said compensation is needed to cover losses of transit fees, damage to the waterway during the dredging and salvage efforts, and the cost of equipment and labor. It has calculated that it missed out on about $15 million of transit fees each day.

The U.K. P&I Club said the claim included a $300 million salvage bonus and another $300 million for loss of reputation, but not the professional salvor’s claim for its services. It said a generous offer was made to settle the claim and that negotiations will continue.

Read more: Egypt Still Discussing Ever Given Rescue Compensation

Calls to the SCA weren’t answered.

A spokesman for the Ever Given’s owner, Japan-based Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., declined to comment on compensation while discussions with the SCA are underway. The company said the crew is still on board the ship, which is now in the Great Bitter Lake, about halfway along the canal.

The charterer, Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corp., said in an email it hadn’t received any information from the ship’s owner about a court order.

Ancient "Monkeydactyl" dinosaur bears the oldest known opposed thumbs

By Nick Lavars
April 12, 2021


Artist's impression of Monkeydactyl, or Kunpengopterus antipollicatus
Chuang Zhao

It's a common view that opposable thumbs are a key feature that distinguishes us from most other species, but a flying reptile that clambered through the trees 160 million years ago isn't one of them, according to analysis of a newly discovered species from the Jurassic era. Scientists have found that a small-bodied pterosaur dubbed "Monkeydactyl" is the oldest known example of a creature with opposed thumbs, which was seemingly an adaption for a life in the trees.

The Monkeydactyl, or as it's more formally known, Kunpengopterus antipollicatus, fossil was unearthed in the Tiaojishan Formation of Liaoning, China, and was imaged through micro-CT scans so an international team of researchers could better understand its structure.

This revealed an estimated wingspan of 85 cm (33.5 in) and, strikingly, the presence of opposed thumbs on either hand. This feature had never been seen before in pterosaurs, which are not known to have lived in the trees. It is also the earliest record of opposed thumbs in Earth's history.

"The fingers of ‘Monkeydactyl’ are tiny and partly embedded in the slab," says Fion Waisum Ma, co-author of the study and PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham. “Thanks to micro-CT scanning, we could see through the rocks, create digital models and tell how the opposed thumb articulates with the other finger bones. This is an interesting discovery. It provides the earliest evidence of a true opposed thumb, and it is from a pterosaur – which wasn’t known for having an opposed thumb."

The micro-CT scans enabled the scientists to study the Monkeydactyl's forelimb morphology and musculature, alongside other pterosaurs from the same ecosystem, which indicated that the hand could have been used for grasping. The scientists believe this to be a case of "niche-partitioning" among these pterosaurs, with the Monkeydactyl developing its thumbs to better navigate the trees and separate itself from other creatures in the area.

“Tiaojishan palaeoforest is home to many organisms, including three genera of darwinopteran pterosaurs," says Xuanyu Zhou from China University of Geosciences, who led the study. "Our results show that K. antipollicatus has occupied a different niche from Darwinopterus and Wukongopterus, which has likely minimized competition among these pterosaurs.”

 I AGREE WITH SINN FEIN 

Sinn Fein councillor James McKeown slammed for 'disgusting' mocking of Prince Philip's death - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

 

NHS in Critical Condition

Posted on April 13, 2021 by Chris Pak

Blog by Pam Kleinot

Former journalist and psychotherapist, and producer of ‘Under the Knife’ (Directed by Susan Steinberg, UK 2019).

I was inspired to produce ‘Under the Knife’ by my father, a doctor who worked at the largest state hospital in Southern Africa. He always told me how wonderful the NHS was. It is one of the greatest institutions that humanity has ever created. When it began in 1948, it was revolutionary in providing free health care for everyone and became the gold standard for the world.

I grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, where access to healthcare was not equal. I was a medical journalist and witnessed how serious inequalities affected black people under the apartheid regime in every aspect of their lives. I came to live in the UK 35 years ago and worked as a sub-editor on the Guardian. During this time, I trained as a psychotherapist and group analyst. I worked in the NHS for more than 10 years and felt immensely proud and privileged to be part of it. However, I became unsettled by what was happening; I witnessed several cuts, closures, and the endless re-organisations. I experienced the surveillance and targets for staff and not knowing what was going to happen next with austerity and significant underfunding.

After leaving the NHS, ‘Under the Knife’ began as a simple idea which I started researching tirelessly. I became increasingly aware of the NHS being covertly privatised. I then asked Susan Steinberg, an Emmy award-winning film director, to join me, and together with a small team we made a 90-minute documentary that paints a chilling picture of how the NHS was being systematically dismantled and undermined. I felt so passionate about the subject matter that I used my own money and took out a loan to make the film.

Understaffed and fragmented the NHS was on its knees. Despite warnings from a pandemic drill in 2016 and the rapidly emerging, alarming facts from the COVID situation in Wuhan, Italy, and Spain in 2019, the UK government did not undertake any serious plans to manage the pandemic. The result of such inefficiency has been needless deaths; there were more than 126,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the UK in a year to 18 March 2021 (https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths, accessed 20th March 2021).

The marketisation of the NHS, which began with Margaret Thatcher, has continued for more than 30 years with the advancing wave of Neoliberal thought that led to the crippling private financial initiative and other forms of privatisation.

Reflecting on the history of the NHS foundation in 1948, the film looks at the socio-economic issues where many people died back then because they could not afford health care. The Covid pandemic has highlighted how the virus is affecting a disproportionate amount of Black Ethnic minorities including those from NHS frontline staff.

The lies and deception of successive governments dates from Thatcher promising in 1982 that “The NHS is safe in our hands”. Former Tory MP Michael Portillo admitted the Tories lied in their 2010 election manifesto because they did not believe they would win if they told the electorate their NHS plans because people are so wedded to the NHS – it’s like a national religion.

‘Under The Knife’ looks in depth at the 2012 Health and Social Care Act which signalled the end of a truly NHS and opened the floodgates to privatisation. It was chilling to learn that 200 MPS and Peers with vested interests in private health care voted for the bill. As Lord Owen said governments woo people, he did it himself, with a peerage here and a knighthood there. He said the government was slowly, surreptitiously preparing the UK for an American type health system which has bankrupted so many and as we have seen failed the people again in this pandemic. Former PM John Major said the NHS is about as safe with Boris Johnson and Michael Gove as a pet hamster in the presence of a hungry python.

The Covid pandemic has highlighted that in the face of a life-threatening public health emergency, only a functional NHS is equipped to survive it. Health is not a luxury; it is a right and we need to get rid of the business model with its wastage of bureaucracy.

A major obstacle for the film makers was the reluctance of some Tory MPs and health ministers to be interviewed. However we managed to interview more than 60 people focusing on frontline doctors, nurses and patients. We also hear from public figures such as Gina Miller, the businesswoman and Brexit campaigner. She talks about her 30-year-old daughter, who has the mental age of six because she was starved of oxygen during birth because of a shortage of midwives.  As the doctor and broadcaster Dr Phil Hammond puts it, responding to the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s claim that a “jumbo jet-load” of patients die unnecessarily each week”: “The NHS takes off with unsafe staffing levels, a hole in the fuselage and half a wing missing every day.”

The film ends on an optimistic note, illustrating how communities, health care professionals and campaigners have fought to save hospitals through the courts, in council chambers and on the streets.

 

To view the film, follow this link,
https://vimeo.com/360526465
Password: Undertheknife1!

Email for correspondence: pamkleinot@hotmail.com

Tories accused of corruption and NHS privatisation by former chief scientist


Exclusive: Boris Johnson’s ‘chumocracy’ is using Covid crisis to sell off health service by stealth, says Sir David King

Boris Johnson’s use of public money during the coronavirus pandemic ‘really smells of corruption’, Sir David King said. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images


Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent
Tue 13 Apr 2021 

Boris Johnson’s government has been accused of corruption, privatising the NHS by stealth, operating a “chumocracy” and mishandling the pandemic and climate crisis, by Sir David King, a former government chief scientist.

“I am extremely worried about the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, about the processes by which public money has been distributed to private sector companies without due process,” he told the Guardian in an interview. “It really smells of corruption.”

King contrasted the success of the vaccination programme, carried out by the NHS, with the failure of the government’s test-and-trace operation, which has been contracted out to private companies.

“The operation to roll out vaccination has been extremely successful, it was driven through entirely by our truly national health service and GP service – just amazing,” he said. “Yet we have persisted with this money for test and trace, given without competition, without due process … I am really worried about democratic processes being ignored.”

He said: “This is a so-called chumocracy, that has been a phrase used, and that is what it looks like I’m afraid: it is a chumocracy.”

Sir David King was chief scientific adviser under Tony Blair and worked for Boris Johnson when he was foreign secretary. Photograph: Dan Atkin/Alamy Stock Photo

Last May, King set up an independent alternative to the government’s Sage committee, which advises on the pandemic. The intention was for the unpaid members of Independent Sage to offer public advice without political influence, after it was revealed that Johnson’s then adviser Dominic Cummings had sat in on some Sage meetings.

King, a former professor of chemistry at Cambridge University, has a long history of working with governments of all stripes. He was appointed chief scientific adviser under Tony Blair in 2000, serving until 2008, and under the Tory-Lib Dem coalition was appointed chair of the Future Cities Catapult, launched in 2013. He also worked under Johnson as foreign secretary during Theresa May’s premiership.

King said: “He was my boss – he wrote me a handwritten letter to congratulate me on my climate success.”

King rejected the argument that the government had to act quickly to counter the pandemic and had been forced to ignore normal processes in doing so. “People say it’s a crisis – I say the government is using a crisis to privatise sections of the healthcare system in a way that is completely wrong,” he said. “A fraction of this money going to public services would have been far better results.”

He accused the government of acting deliberately to carry out ideological aims of privatising the NHS. “It is slipping this through in the name of a pandemic – effectively, to privatise the NHS by stealth,” he said. “I’m quite sure this has not been an accident, I’m quite sure this has been the plan, there has been clarity in this process. The audacity has been amazing.”

King, who has made the climate crisis one of his key areas of focus, is also concerned about the police and crime bill, which would give police the powers to shut down protests regarded as a nuisance.

He said: “It’s extremely worrying, as we pride ourselves in Britain on having developed a true democracy. Any democracy needs to give voice to dissent. There’s a real danger that we’re going down a pathway that leads away from democracy.”

King recently signed a letter calling on the supreme court to reconsider its pursuit of Tim Crosland, a campaigner against the third runway at Heathrow, for contempt of court. “I think he is being set up as an example to others,” said King. “It shows [the government’s] churlish attitude towards people campaigning.”

Greta Thunberg 'The Absurdity of the Situation': Greta Thunberg Compares Climate Threat to Laughing-Tears Emoji



'The Absurdity of the Situation': Greta Thunberg Compares Climate Threat to Laughing-Tears Emoji

© CC BY-SA 4.0 / Anders Hellberg / Greta Thunberg
ENVIRONMENT
13.04.2021
by Igor Kuznetsov

FROM SPUTNIK THE RUSSIAN NEWS SERVICE OPPOSED TO GRETA HENCE THE UNDERAGE PHOTO FROM YEARS BACK, GRETA IS 18 NOW

Speaking ahead of the launch of the BBC series “Greta Thunberg: A Year To Change The World”, the Swedish activist turned climate icon self-deprecatingly said she only “writes and gives speeches and travels around”, suggesting that “anyone else could have done the same thing”.

When asked which emoji best described the threat of climate change, Swedish teenage climate activist and campaigner Greta Thunberg ventured it was a laughing face with tears in the eyes.

“You need to be able to laugh sometimes. The climate crisis is actually hilarious, if you think of it. It’s just the absurdity of the situation,” she told The Times. “If you’re doing everything you can, then you just need to take a step back and say, OK, there’s nothing more I can do, so then you just have to laugh.”

Thunberg, who last year returned to school to study social science after spending much of 2019 on the move campaigning to promote her cause – which featured publicity stunts such as crossing the Atlantic aboard a “zero-emissions” yacht and rubbing elbows with celebrities – said she drew hope from the fact that the science about climate change was becoming clearer, even though the world still failed to act sufficiently on the problem.

“Of course, I don’t have all the solutions. No one has. But when we ask that question, we need to think about: solutions to what? Solutions to the climate crisis, or solutions that allow us to go on like today? Because right now, we are looking for solutions that allow us to go on like today.”

Furthermore, Thunberg accused politicians of profiting in popularity by using her, regardless of whether they support her cause, like Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or oppose it, like former US President Donald Trump. Regardless of whether they criticise her or praise her, they are exploiting her, Thunberg maintained.

“Whether it is by applauding me or taking selfies with me, or whether it is by calling me things, or criticising me. I mean, both these teams are using me for different purposes and in different ways, but they are still using me to gain popularity,” Thunberg said.

At the same time Thunberg addressed the decision of the University of Winchester to erect a $33,000 bronze statue of her by calling it “very strange”. Previously, the local students union called the statue a “vanity project” and lamented the money which, they argued, could be better spent.

​18-year-old Thunberg spoke to journalists ahead of the launch of the BBC series “Greta Thunberg: A Year To Change The World”, in which she visits places most dramatically affected by climate change, and meets climate scientists and fellow activists calling demanding more strenuous environmental action.

On a self-deprecating note, she ventured that she has “done nothing” compared to Sir David Attenborough.

“I’ve only done this together with the millions of others in the Fridays for Future movement, so it’s not something that I have accomplished, really. All I’ve done is to write and give speeches and to travel around, and it feels like anyone else could have done the same thing. It’s not that I’m unique in this sense,” Thunberg suggested.

Greta Thunberg shot to fame as a 15-year-old through her solitary protests opposite the Swedish parliament, which later mushroomed into a worldwide movement, making her an icon of the contemporary climate movement. Basking in undivided media attention ever since and lavished with prizes and accolades, Thunberg remains a highly divisive figure seen as a daring and dogged fighter by her fans and a manipulated stooge and a puppet by her critics.

Upper-class traitor Chuck Collins on how "wealth hoarding" will create more Trumps'

Chuck Collins walked away from a family fortune — and he's here to tell us how the super-rich dominate society

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA

SALON
APRIL 13, 2021 

)

Businessman with Coin Bank (Getty Images)

Rich people may live on the same planet as the rest of us, but they exist in their own very special world.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed millions of people and caused economic, social, and political crises around the world. During this time of tumult, the world's richest people have seen their income and wealth grow immensely. For example, the world's billionaires have increased their collective wealth by a trillion dollars, at least a 50 percent expansion compared to the previous year.

In the United States, the language of "essential workers" is summoned to describe how the working poor are exploited by huge corporations like Amazon and Walmart. The billionaires who own or control such corporations are becoming even wealthier while preventing their employees from earning a living wage or organizing to defend their rights, health and safety.

Propaganda economy-speak about the alleged "K-shaped recovery" also masks the true extent of poverty and human misery that has been caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the Trump regime's negligent, if not criminal, response.

Of course, while many millions of people have been imperiled by the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. and around the world, the very rich received early access to vaccines and lifesaving experimental treatments.

Money has been enshrined as a form of free speech in American politics. This has translated into enormous power and influence over the machinery of democracy. The predictable outcome is the peoples' democratic will is smothered, if not wholly ignored by elected officials; what political scientists describe as "plutocratic populism" is doing the work of American neofascism and autocracy.

Gangster capitalists are escalating their exploitation of the rainforests, jungles, and other crucial habitats and wilderness areas. This only increases the likelihood that other pandemic-scale diseases such as COVID-19 will spread from animals to humans.

How have the plutocrats responded to these crises and others? Instead of displaying social responsibility, many of the world's richest individuals and families are building bunkers, buying fortified islands or even making ultimate plans to abandon the planet.

What is it like to be a member of that social class? Chuck Collins knows. He was born into the Oscar Mayer meat and cold cuts family fortune. At age 26, he was compelled by conscience to give away his inheritance in an act of solidarity with the poor and broader community. Living his principles of human solidarity and social change work, Collins is now director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Collins is also the author of several books, including "Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good" and "Is Inequality in America Irreversible?" His new book is "The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Spend Millions to Hide Trillions."
:
In this conversation, Collins explains how wealth hoarding negatively impacts American society, and how the very rich use the "wealth defense industry" to hide their assets in order to avoid paying taxes — and to remain above the law in other ways as well. Donald Trump is a prime example of that corrupt and dangerous plutocratic class.

He also discusses the unspoken cultural rules of the wealthy and the antisocial values and beliefs which guide their lives. At the end of this conversation, Collins debunks right-wing talking points about "the death tax" and "makers and takers" that are used to propagandize far too many "working-class" Americans into voting against their own economic self-interest.

During America's ongoing pandemic and this age of death, the rich have become even more powerful and wealthy while "essential workers" are being sacrificed. Unions have been further undermined and income is stagnant, if not declining, for the average American. There is mass unemployment and human misery. Given your life and decision to walk away from an inherited fortune, how do you make sense of this moment?

In a way, the pandemic was the great reveal of what happens when you allow a society to pull apart economically, socially, racially and politically. The fact that billionaires have seen their wealth increase and so many other people have lost so much — their lives, livelihoods, their savings, and their health. In my opinion, we should be making a big pivot and a transition in American society because of these lessons learned. There is a broader recognition that we need to do things to lift up the most vulnerable, pay a living wage, and have proper health care. More people are also realizing how top heavy the country's wealth concentration is.

Because I have an intimate front row seat to the world of wealth, I also see things cracking at that level. There are many wealthy people who do not want our society to keep going down this path. They know it is not going to end well.

What do we do with hope? Is hope a dangerous thing in America today?

I am friends with a labor organizer named Ernesto Cortes. He used to say, "You need to cultivate your cold anger." There is hot anger at the deep and entrenched systemic inequality and systemic racism. We can take that anger and lash out or we can take the steely cold anger and steer it into transformational activities. Let's get organized. Let's get people to run for office. Right now, there is a big fight over this question: Should a small, rich minority rule over America, who want to block the social and political changes that so many people want for this country? I think the pressure is going to keep building for a political realignment.

The concept of the "moneyed classes" is a very important one. I prefer it to the "one percent" or "plutocrats," which is vague and imprecise language. What does the concept and language of the "moneyed classes" allow us to communicate to the public at large?

We are drifting toward an oligarchy or what we could also describe as a "hereditary aristocracy of wealth". We could also describe that group as consisting of "wealth dynasties." In 20 years, the sons and daughters of today's billionaires will be calling the shots, running the economy, dominating politics, blocking change that everyone else wants and even using their philanthropy as an extension of their power and influence.

America is going to be moved even more away from a democratic self-governing society and toward raw rule by money. I do not believe this is in anyone's long-term interests. I have been trying to explain to wealthy people how ecological crises impact everybody. The super-rich need to reinvest back into society in order to solve some of the problems that impact and hurt them too. It is in their self-interest.
Advertisement:

How is the world you are describing any different from America right now?

It is a matter of degree. The inequality will be even more entrenched than it is today. It will be harder to dig out of the rut if you will. We'll have many more Donald Trumps running for office. The social safety net will be even more dismantled. There will be more political and social polarization. America may even be controlled by autocratic, totalitarian institutions. If these trends continue here in the United States, the country could look more like Brazil, a country with a very weak state, a powerful plutocratic governing class, a very small and precarious middle class and lots of desperate people. That is the dystopian outcome that could await America in 20 years.

What is life like for the rich, especially the extremely wealthy?

These people live in their own distinct realities. I grew up in middle "Richistan." I'm not from "Billionaireville." I'm not from old dynastic wealth. But I know enough about the rich to know that the higher up you get, the more unplugged you are from the day-to-day struggles of most people. In that way, wealth and privilege are a type of disconnection drug.
Advertisement:

Some members of the very rich might be politically engaged through their philanthropy and attempts to solve social problems. Some of these people might be liberal or even radical in terms of their politics. But as a group they are far removed from people, the majority of Americans, who experience true economic vulnerability and a feeling of being the precariat.

In discussing the rich we also need to make a distinction between those who are "merely" rich and those who are the very rich. I draw that line at $30 million. At $30 million and up, we see an oligarch class that have more money than they need to meet their needs. Now members of the group are focusing on achieving more social and political power. They are focusing on using their wealth to rig the rules of society to get more wealth. It is these oligarchs who the United States should be focusing tax reforms on. They are hoarding and hiding wealth through a whole "wealth defense" industry. They are also politically engaged and rigging the system to accomplish that goal.

What does their culture teach its members? What are the unstated rules?

One rule is that capital preservation is the norm — that you want wealth to continually grow. Do not touch the principal. Do not touch the assets. If you have to ask how much something is, you can't afford it. Look like you belong everywhere.

There are other rules and cultural norms as well. Be wary of everybody. People are after your money. Be careful who you marry, because they might want to take your money. There is much distrust among this class that keeps them from having meaningful connections with other people.

Among the rich there is also a very deep mythology of deservedness. Even if you are born on third base and you inherit wealth, you repeat that line from Donald Trump: "Well, I'm from a good family. My family's virtuous. My family worked hard, even though I just happened to have picked wealthy parents. There's something virtuous about me too!" That myth of deservedness, whether it's a first-generation wealth builder, entrepreneur or old wealth, is how social inequality is justified. The implication becomes "I deserve all the wealth that I have because I am virtuous and work hard." The corollary of that logic is that those people who are not wealthy deserve to be just where they are.

My response to that culture was to ask myself, "How come I have all this money? I didn't work to get it." To me that was wrong and an example of how the system is broken. All these other people are working incredibly hard, and they experience so much risk and insecurity in their lives. Something is broken here. I know I am not alone in those feelings.

What did the choice to walk away from your inheritance cost you? By this I do not mean money, but the cost in other ways to your life.

To be honest, it did not cost me much. I have so many other types of privilege and advantage. That is the nature of multigenerational advantage. Multigenerational disadvantage is the flipside of that. The privilege and advantage include such things as being fourth-generation property owners, financial literacy, access to education and the like. I also had a debt-free college education. I'm white, I'm male. I don't have to worry about economically supporting my parents in their older years. That is a huge advantage.

What is Donald Trump an example of, in this context?

Donald Trump is an example of a second-generation wealth dynasty. He was born into a privileged circumstance, but he remade his identity. Trump pretends that he is a first-generation entrepreneur. Trump is also a crypto-eugenicist. He talks about his genes all the time. He does not speak in terms of societal opportunities or advantages, but rather in terms of some form of genetic superiority. He is not alone: There are many other rich people who think of the world in the same terms. Donald Trump received $400 million from his father. That is a great head start in life. I would like to do an experiment and give that $400 million to another hundred people and see what they do with their lives.

I see Trump as an example of a class of wealthy white people who live largely consequence-free lives.

That is an apt description. Actually, one of the things that the wealth defense industry does is to take a rich person's wealth and put it in asset protection trusts. With these trusts, for example, if a rich person drives through a red light and kills somebody, they are not going to be held financially responsible for their actions. Another scenario: What if a rich person steals money from people and then parks it in an offshore trust or some other type of account or asset? There is a law professor at the University of Richmond named Allison Tait who describes this as "high-wealth exceptionalism." The rich believe that they live by a separate set of rules. You believe you get to have a separate set of rules. And in fact, the wealthy truly do have a separate set of rules than the rest of us in America.

What does that sense of immunity from consequence do to their emotions, morals and values? That core level of what it means to be a human being?

It leads to a breakdown in empathy and a breakdown in individual responsibility for your actions. Privilege is a disconnection drug. It separates people from one another, and it also separates them from the impact of their actions or inaction.

How does the wealth defense industry work?

The wealth defense industry has many tools at its disposal. These are individual wealthy people who help other wealthy people who are worth $30 million or more. There is also a parallel industry and set of personalities who help global corporations to hide their wealth and income.

But in terms of wealthy individuals, let's consider someone who lives in another country, some mineral-rich country in the Southern Hemisphere. You've been siphoning wealth off, through bribery or through deals selling off minerals. Perhaps you are a government official. You want to get that money out of the home country because someday there will be people who want that money back.

So what do you do? You move it into an offshore tax haven. You open up a bank account. You may also create a shell company that does not have your name on it. Eventually you bring that money or company to the United States, where you can purchase a luxury condominium in somewhere like downtown Chicago or New York.

There are other ways to launder the money through the system. You can take that money to South Dakota and create a dynasty trust, where the money can just sit in an account that you control but will never be subject to accountability or taxation.

A wealthy person in the United States can also create a Delaware shell company. There are a variety of complicated loopholes that the rich use. The complication is intentional because complexity is the bread and butter of the dynasty defense industry. At the simplest level, what is being done is to create a labyrinth of ownership structures to pretend that the billion dollars that you have is no longer in your name. When the tax collector comes, you just hold up your hands and say, "It's not my money!"

How do you explain to the average American how the wealth defense industry impacts their lives?

One, it is tax avoidance, which translates into the narrative from the government and elected officials that there is no money, we have to cut services, we can't afford low-cost student loans or mortgage subsidies. We can't alleviate poverty because supposedly there isn't any money. The impact on the average American is also manifest in how the wealth defense industry empowers and enables kleptocrats. It makes social inequality worse. The wealth defense industry and wealth hoarding also enables anti-democratic concentrations of wealth and power.

How do we rebut the right-wing narrative that there are "makers" and "takers" in society and that these discussions of social inequality and economic injustice are just "class warfare" or a politics of resentment?

It's a diabolical framing of the world, one that ignores how we are all interdependent. Even rich people are dependent on the public investments and property law protections in American society. None of these rich people do it alone. They exist in a society that makes it possible.

And what of the "working-class" Republicans and Trump supporters in "middle America" who are obsessed about the "death tax" and class warfare? That right-wing propaganda has been very effective these last few decades.

We have lived through 40 years of intensified class war, where the wealthy have rigged the rules to funnel more income and wealth to the top of the economic pyramid. People who work for wages are being punished. Such an outcome is what happens when you tip the economy to the benefit of wealth against work and against wages.

In terms of the wealth tax, if you have less than $12 million, you are never going to pay this estate tax. It's not a tax on success. It's a tax that slows the creation of these democracy-distorting wealth dynasties. The wealth tax is a good tax.

The rich have funded campaigns to make people think, "Oh, you're going to have to pay the death tax. And that farmer over there is going to have to pay the death tax." It's just helpful to say, "Hey Joe on the barstool there, do you have more than $23 million, you and your spouse? Well, why are you bellyaching about that? Why are you defending the plutocrats who are picking your pocket?"

If rich people were taxed in the same way as regular people — bus drivers, schoolteachers, nurses and the like — what would American society look like?

On a fundamental level, America would be a much better place to live in. There would be so much less stress and fear and division. We would not have people afraid that a job loss or divorce or illness would lead them to destitution and having to live in a car. In the '50s, '60s and '70s, it seemed as if American society was moving towards more egalitarianism. But then the country took a huge wrong turn in the late '70s and '80s. It does not have to be that way.

CHAUNCEY DEVEGA

Chauncey DeVega is a politics staff writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com. He also hosts a weekly podcast, The Chauncey DeVega Show. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook.

Japan To Dump Wastewater From

Wrecked Fukushima Nuclear Plant Into Pacific Ocean


April 13, 2021
ANTHONY KUHNTwitterFacebook

NPR

People in Tokyo protest a decision to start releasing into the ocean massive amounts of treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant. The plant was damaged in a 2011 earthquake and tsunami.Eugene Hoshiko/AP

Japan's government announced a decision to begin dumping more than a million tons of treated but still radioactive wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean in two years.

The plant was severely damaged in a 2011 magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami that left about 20,000 people in northeast Japan dead or missing.

Despite Tokyo's assurances that discharging wastewater will not pose a threat to people or the environment, the decision was roundly criticized by the local fishing community, environmental groups and Japan's neighbors. Within hours of the announcement, protesters rallied outside government offices in Tokyo and Fukushima.

THE PICTURE SHOW
Remembering Fukushima: 10 Years After The Devastation

"On the premise of strict compliance with regulatory standards that have been established, we select oceanic release," Japan's government said in a statement after Cabinet ministers finalized the decision. The water will be further treated and diluted, and the release will begin in two years, and take decades to complete.

The damaged Fukushima plant will take at least decades to decommission. A swath of land around the plant remains uninhabitable, thousands of residents remain displaced, and the wastewater issue is another example of the 2011 disaster's complex, long-term effects.

Since the quake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, water used to cool the nuclear reactors and contaminated groundwater have been stored in massive tanks at the plants.

The plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), says that by around next summer it will run out of space to build new tanks to hold the accumulated 1.25 million tons of wastewater. Critics argue that the government could acquire more land to build storage tanks.

Last year, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said Japan's plan to release the water — or alternatively, to let it evaporate into the air — was technically feasible, "routinely used by operating nuclear power plants worldwide," and soundly based on safety and environmental impact assessments.

TEPCO says the wastewater has been treated to remove most of the radioactivity. However, tritium — a radioactive hydrogen isotope — remains.

But environmental groups remain skeptical of the government's and TEPCO's claims. "This process of decision-making is quite undemocratic," says Ayumi Fukakusa, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth Japan, a Tokyo-based nongovernmental organization.

"The government and TEPCO said that without consent from the fishing communities, they won't discharge the contaminated water," she notes. "That promise was completely broken."

She adds that a series of hearings intended to canvass residents' opinions on the Fukushima water issue involved almost all men, thereby excluding women's viewpoints.


Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga met last week with Hiroshi Kishi, the president of JF Zengyoren, a nationwide federation of fishing cooperatives, and asked for their understanding about the government's decision, but Kishi said the group's stance remains unchanged.

Another problem, Fukakusa adds, is that "TEPCO and the government said the water just contains tritium, which cannot be separated from water. But it turned out that the water contains more radioactive materials. But they didn't disclose that information before."

"That kind of attitude is not honest to people," she says. "They are making distrust by themselves."

The nonprofit Health Physics Society says tritium is considered to be hazardous to health only in large amounts and "may very slightly increase the probability that a person will develop cancer during his or her lifetime," although humans are naturally exposed to many other forms of radiation.

But Friends of the Earth Japan says the water in the storage tanks contains unknown quantities of radioactive contaminants besides tritium. Local media report that in February, shipments of black rockfish were halted after one sample caught near Fukushima contained cesium far in excess of acceptable levels.

Fish catches are at 17.5% of pre-quake levels, and many fishermen have been subsisting on handouts from TEPCO. They argue that the government's decision to dump the wastewater will make it impossible to sell their catch and will devastate their industry.

China expressed grave concern at the decision to dump wastewater, which the Foreign Ministry called "extremely irresponsible" and damaging to neighboring countries' interests.

In Seoul, South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-moon summoned Japan's ambassador to Seoul to protest the decision, expressing "deep regret over the potential threat to our citizens' health and environment."

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price commented in a statement that Japan "appears to have adopted an approach in accordance with globally accepted nuclear safety standards."

TEPCO again apologized for the nuclear accident in a statement Tuesday, saying it would work to restore trust in the company, "ascertain the root causes of these incidents and strengthen countermeasures throughout the entire organization."