THE Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has said the danger for the UK from the economic crisis, particularly the crisis in the Eurozone, has increased.
However the minutes of the MPC show that the committee still decided that this was not the time to take measures to inflate the crisis-ridden capitalist economy.
In other words, British capitalism is walking on a very high wire tightrope with a high wind blowing, where the best policy is to do nothing.
In fact, the MPC and the Prime Minister admit that their policy of harsh austerity to produce a debt reduction is not working, with inflation and unemployment rising rapidly, while the debt burden shows a tendency to grow.
The November minutes of the MPC say: ‘While the worst risks had not so far crystallised, the threat of their doing so had increased, exacerbating the already severe strains in bank funding markets and financial markets more generally.’
The minutes noted that the economy was likely to come to a complete standstill.
British capitalism is expecting the worst to happen. Its only policy is to make the working class pay for its crisis.
The growth of the youth unemployment figures to over one million gives an indication of the horrors that are on the way for workers, youth the unemployed and the elderly.
Another glimpse of the future comes with the threats of the coalition, that if workers dare to strike for longer than 15 minutes over the pensions cuts on November 30th, new laws against trade unions will be rushed in to make legal strikes impossible.
And yesterday, ex-social democrat Vince Cable outlined further measures in an address to the employers. Workers rights are to be ripped to shreds.
Workers who work for small businesses will lose their right to claim unfair dismissal and firms with 10 or fewer employees will be able to sack staff without risk of a tribunal. Cable said he wanted the bosses to be able to get rid of workers ‘simpler and quicker’ than is possible currently.
He also wants to legalise the bullying and harassment of workers with employers having the right to have ‘protected conversations’, with workers about alleged ‘poor performance’ without this being used as evidence in a tribunal.
Acas, with its goal of reaching settlements, is to be the substitute for tribunals, while workers will have to be in their job for two years, instead of the current one year, before they can seek access to a tribunal.
Meanwhile a young army of the unemployed is being assembled to be cheap labourers.
it is a fact that the elderly are already being left to die in their own homes, with privatised care in the community companies treating them inhumanely, while pocketing the state’s money.
The home care review by the Equality and Human Rights Commission yesterday highlighted cases of physical abuse, theft, neglect and disregard for privacy and dignity, and found that basic care for the elderly in their own homes in England is so bad it breaches human rights.
The review states that on many occasions support for tasks such as washing and dressing was ‘dehumanising’ and left people ‘stripped of self-worth’.
There are currently nearly 500,000 people who are getting council-funded support in their own homes. This is to become the main way for ‘caring’ for the elderly.
The above is just a glimpse of what the bosses have got in store for the working class, the middle class, the pensioners and the youth as the crisis worsens – it is to be privation from the cradle to the grave, for all except the tiny minority of the ruling class.
There is only one way out of this developing horror story of the crisis of capitalism. It is to get rid of the capitalist system with a socialist revolution, that will put an end to capitalism and bring in socialism, based on the development of a planned economy based on the satisfaction of people’s needs.
