1. US capital, after 30 years of pounding down the living standards of workers at home and abroad; after driving Latin America into the lost decade of the 1980s, and leading it into the advanced export deprivation of the 1990s; after ruining village, small scale agriculture; after IMF/WB austerity program after austerity program dismantling mine and factory; after a one dozen, two dozen years of NAFTA, the Plaza Accords, the Washington Consensus; after decades of “special zones,” “entrepreneur enclaves,” “development areas,” turning borders and entire countries into maquilladoras, sweatshops, and massage parlors, finally found itself face to face in its home territory with the labor it had imported as the result of the capital it had exported.

The corporate hijack of water is on and if the current trend continues, India’s water sources will be in private hands before long.

2001: THE old man shuffled his feet, acutely embarrassed. No matter which part of India you’re in, the first thing you do is offer your guests a glass of water. And this was one part of Nallamada in Andhra Pradesh blessed with that element. Things had changed, though. “Please don’t drink it,” he said, finally. “See how it is?” he asked, showing us a tumbler. Tiny blobs of thingummy floated atop a liquid more brown than transparent. But then he brightened up. “Will you have Coca-Cola instead? That, this village has.” And so it did. As in the Aamir Khan ad. The smaller bottle for Rs. 5.

Slaves got the animal parts that their masters thought were unfit for whitefolks to eat. Pig intestines, it turned out, became an African American delicacy: chitlin’s. They also got the jobs unfit for white folks. Even after slavery ended, they have gotten jobs only after whites have had the first pickin’s. Unfortunately, there is no way of making something good out of underemployment.

A demonstration of up to 10,000 dockers in Strasbourg, France on January 16 culminated in a violent clash with the police. The port workers were marching on the European Parliament to protest against the Port Package II bill that will deregulate ports in the European Union and lead to a severe attack on jobs, working conditions and living standards.

Millions of Americans saw their living conditions drastically decline in 2005. For the US working class, four years of a supposed economic recovery celebrated by Wall Street have translated into rising expenses, stagnating real wages and record debt.

In what amounts to a massive misappropriation of social wealth, Wall Street’s major investment banks and trading firms are handing out $21.5 billion in year-end bonuses for 2005.

Almost 15 years ago, in “The Work of Nations,” I described a three-tiered work force found in most advanced economies…

Referring to world population growth, 3 years before World War II broke out, Ranji Palme Dutt (in “World Politics in 1936”, published as a Left Book Club edition by Victor Gollancz) wrote:

“The expansion of world production, even within the capitalist fetters and omitting the Soviet Union from the totals, has far exceeded the growth of world population….