Headlines

1 in 5 mammal species on 'red list'

Many other species also endangered, while up to 70% of plants could be wiped out, say conservationists

Cash squeeze threatens
free nursery places

there are now warnings that not only will the state-run nurseries lose out but state funding could end up subsidising the profits of some privately run nurseries.


Bank sell-off may cost further £40bn

Alistair Darling will need to pour up to £40bn of taxpayers' money into the banking system if he is to fulfil a pledge to carve out three new banking players on the high street in the next four years.

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1 in 5 mammals at threat whilst we are arguing over our own nurseries. 75% of plant life under threat?

"Free" nursery places? There's no such thing. Just like there's no "free" defence industry.

And wasn't it the argument in favour of private banks, and markets and all that, that they generated wealth? And yet substantial fractions of the anuual GDP is being borrowed to bail out the supposed engine of finance-capitalism. Along with financing the unemployment that goes along with all this, public debt is skyrocketing. The issue, then, is, who is going to pay for all this? That's the choice - and it's a class issue.

In the UK the Tories have already targeted welfare claimants. The poorest are going to be made to pay. Again. Because they were the ones whom gained the most out of the last 20 years' bubbles, right? And they're the ones responsible for macro-economic policy, right? They're the ones the Bank of England considers when it sets interest rates, right? So, of course they should be the ones to pay. They already have so much to give, anyway, right?

"Tax them til the pips squeak" doesn't even get there. The whole thing doesn't make sense. Children starve to death across much of the world. Others are fat and wealthy beyond measure. There is no lack of work to do, yet people are "unemployed". Doesn't make sense. "Efficiency gains" are generally bad news.....a real indictment of capitalism. (Though capitalism's barbarism does doubtless force a certain efficiency - like slavery would.)

Stalin and Hitler's workcamps seem to prove that despotism is less successful than even the least enlightened sort of libreral capitalism. Starving, dehumanised people simply cannot work very hard.

If certain conditions prevail, one could perhaps imagine the outcome. That's a fundamental part of science?

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