Another 9,000 job cuts were announced last week: 2,000 each at Barclays and Corus, 1,200 at Nissan, over 1,000 at GKN, plus hundreds in several large companies, from clothing to food processing. And this is not the end of it! As a recent survey shows, one company in four is planning to cut at least 10% of its workforce in the coming months.
Is this of any concern to the government, though? Not in the least! Brown is far too busy indulging bankers with tens of billions of pounds from our public funds to even take notice. Even Barclays will benefit from this bounty, despite having already cut 6,000 jobs since last July and planning to cut more!
But this is precisely what this dysfunctional system is about. Yet another episode of mad profiteering, in which the capitalists' profits were paid out of our sweat, has come to an abrupt end - in tears. And now, it is us, workers, who are expected to clear the rubble, by sacrificing our jobs, our homes and our families. Meanwhile, it is the capitalists who cry poverty and get their politicians to fill their coffers with our money!
The bonus story - a smokescreen
But, of course, this is the function of the capitalists' state - to shield the tiny layer of ultra-rich from the inbuilt chaos of the profit system, at the expense of the working class majority.
Brown knew very well that, after his first two "bailouts" of the banking system, the working class was not going to take kindly to a third one, involving another hundred billion pounds or so being lavished on the City's bingo players. This is why he and his ministers have made so much noise lately to demonstrate their determination to "read the riot act to the fat cats" by depriving them of their annual bonuses.
But this is merely farcical posturing. In fact, what Brown says today on the subject is word for word what he already said last October at the time of his second "bailout" - what he said, but never did in practice. But then, who can believe that a government which chooses to hand over the management of the banks it owns to the very same bankers who caused the present crisis, would ever dare to clamp down seriously on their greed?
In fact, Paul Myners, Brown's new secretary in charge of financial services let the cat out of the bag in an interview to the Times. Having fulminated at the banks' "over-rewarded executives who have no sense of the broader society around them", he hammered out an "ultimatum": these characters should "decide for themselves whether they pay back their bonuses or lose their [promised] knighthoods."
Is this another of the old "cash for honours" scandals? No, but it certainly is pathetic posturing, which must be causing roars of laughter in the City. As if the profit sharks would give up their golden pay for the fool's gold of a title?
Against the sharks' offensive
Paul Myners, who is himself a "Lord" and used to be chairman of big companies like Marks & Spencer and Land Securities, not to mention various speculative funds, certainly knows his peers better than that! The fact that Brown chose this Myners to "lay down the law" to the City sharks says it all. Why would one of the sharks go against the interests of his own peers? The truth, of course, is that he does not. His tough words against City executives are, like Brown's, just hot air.
Because the City high-flyers can do without their bonuses and still get the cash in other, more discreet ways. So, large companies pay for their directors' pension contributions of up to 60% of their salary - a large part of which is not even taxable! Many directors can choose to retire after only 20 years on a full pension worth 75% of their fat salary! Take the bonus away, the odds are that pension pots will get even fatter, without Brown uttering a peep!
The truth is that the capitalist class has taken to the offensive on two fronts. On the one hand they loot public funds, with the help of their politicians, allegedly to "save the economy". On the other hand they attack us, workers head on, by cutting jobs left, right and centre, and using the crisis as a pretext to screw more work out of us.
This leaves the working class with no option but to respond to the capitalists' class war with our own counter-attack - let us make them sweat at least as much as we did, and let us reclaim the mountains of profits they have accumulated from our labour.