Very rich get even richer
The pandemic has been good if you’re rich. 51,000 more people are now included among the ‘ultra-wealthy’ – assets of more than $30 million.
But it’s becoming a problem for places like Monaco, where 70% of the population are dollar millionaires. The reigning monarch is running out of space, so is planning to spend £1.5 billion to reclaim land from the sea.
NHS vulture profit surge
Private company Serco – which runs swathes of the NHS – has had a surge in profits. Serco made £216 million profit in the last year, a 21% jump.
Serco was boosted by grabbing Covid-related contracts. £623 million of its income came from public money, funded by taxpayers in Britain. The NHS should be renationalised, with Serco’s contracts brought back in-house.
Serco can only make vast profit by taking money out of the NHS and public services. For example, Serco workers at Barts Hospital Trust in east London have already taken two weeks of strike action against poor pay and conditions. The workers want proper NHS contracts and a pay rise to £15 an hour. Its obvious Serco can afford to pay up.
Climate change – time running out
The window to stop climate change scenarios, where one billion people are at risk from flooding, is “rapidly closing”, according to a UN report by 270 scientists.
Capitalism prioritises the private profit of a tiny number of rich individuals. It is incapable of rapidly switching from fossil fuels to renewables, let alone without destroying working-class living standards.
Working-class people already face higher energy bills, worsened by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The energy giants should be nationalised, and democratically run by the working class.
