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The following report was delivered at the Socialist Equality Party (US) 2021 summer school, held August 1 through August 6, by Johannes Stern, the deputy editor of the German-language edition of the World Socialist Web Site and a leading member of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party) in Germany.

Over the last year, the initial propaganda of the European governments that they had responded more responsibly to the pandemic than the US governmentfirst under Trump and now under Bidenhas been exposed as a murderous fraud. As in the US, the European population faces a ruling class that puts profits before lives and effectively pursues a policy of social murder.

There are officially over 1.1 million dead on the continent. This includes more than 150,000 in Britain, more than 160,000 in Russia, about 130,000 in Italy, 110,000 in France, 92,000 in Germany, 82,000 in Spain, 75,000 in Poland and 53,000 in Ukraine. Such numbers are unprecedented outside times of war. And as in the US and India, the real numbers are certainly much higher. And they continue to rise.

As we hold this school, a deadly fourth wave of the pandemic is developing, exacerbated by the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. In the UK, Spain and France, 20,000 to 30,000 new infections are reported every day. In Germany, the numbers are rising rapidly and, as a result of the governments reckless reopening policy, it is only a matter of a few weeks before daily infection figures reach new records.

Earlier this week, Chancellery chief Helge Braun of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) even warned of 100,000 new daily infections in Germany in September. Incidence rates of over 800 infected with COVID-19 per 100,000 inhabitants are unfortunately not unrealistic, she said.

What such an incidence rate means is clear: the complete overload of the health system and a renewed wave of mass death. A recent study published by the RKI calculated that intensive care capacities would be overwhelmed at an incidence rate of 400. Already in the second and third waves of the pandemic, the health care system was at its limit, and tens of thousands of people succumbed to the virus in Germany alone.

As in the first waves of the pandemic, the mass suffering is a direct result of the aggressive opening policies pursued by the European ruling class. Governments of all stripes are pursuing a deliberate policy of herd immunity, putting profits before lives.

In order not to jeopardize the orgy of enrichment on the stock exchanges, governments across Europe insist that there must be no more lockdowns and that one must live with the virusor, rather, die with the virus. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson summed up the ruling classs policy in his infamous statement, No more f***ing lockdowns, let the bodies pile high in their thousands!

With this the governing parties in Europewhether conservative, social democratic or pseudo-leftare in essence implementing the program of the extreme right, which has long called for an end to all pandemic containment measures. In Germany, just a few weeks ago, the CDU leader and likely next chancellor, Armin Laschet, openly declared his solidarity with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in a diatribe against new lockdown measures.

The WSWS has described the pandemic as a trigger event that enormously accelerates the already advanced economic, social and political crisis of the capitalist world system. This is especially visible in Europe. The ruling class has used the pandemic to further advance its policies of social austerity and rearmament, which it had already steadily intensified after the 2008-09 financial crisis.

As in the US, trillions were handed over to banks and large corporations last March. As a result, the fortunes of the super-rich have continued to explode in the year of the pandemic. According to this years Forbes list, Europes billionaires have grown richer by a total of $1 trillion over the past year. These 628 people now have a total wealth of over three trillion dollars, an increase of around 50 percent in just one year.

These gigantic sums are now to be squeezed out of the working class again. Hence the aggressive back to work and back to school policies supported by all capitalist parties and organized in close cooperation with the trade unions.

The herd immunity policy and social attacks go hand in hand with calls for a more aggressive imperialist policy. Like the US government, the European powers are taking advantage of the crisis to intensify their rearmament policy. All the central European powers have massively increased their defence budgets in the year of the pandemic. Germany is leading the way. Next year, for example, the defence budget is set to rise by another five percent, to well over 50 billion.

We have written about the aggressive NATO manoeuvres in the Black Sea, which heighten the danger of a direct military confrontation with the nuclear power Russia. And the European powers are also becoming increasingly aggressive toward China, despite close economic ties.

In a fit of megalomania, Berlin sent a frigate towards the Indo-Pacificon the pretext of securing freedom of navigation there. Aggressive anti-Chinese comments in the press bring back dark memories of Kaiser Wilhelms infamous Hun speech almost 121 years ago to the day.

We have discussed in detail the January 6 coup and the danger of fascism in the US in this school. In Europe, too, the turn of the ruling class toward dictatorship and fascism is well advanced and has been further exacerbated by the pandemic.

I have already mentioned that fact the ruling class in Germany is adopting the program of the far-right AfD. In France and Spain, there are far advanced coup plots in the army. The Macron government in France and the PSOE-Podemos government in Spain are downplaying the danger and are themselves responding to the far-right threat with a sharp shift to the right.

Their stance expresses the same class interests that we have analysed with respect to the Democrats in the United States. The nominally democratic parties in Europe reject any serious struggle against the far-right danger because they defend the interests of finance capital and, above all, fear the growing militancy and resistance of the working class. To suppress the class struggle, they themselves increasingly adopt the program of the extreme right.

At the same time, the pandemic has aggravated the deep crisis of the European Union and the tensions between the imperialist powers on the continent.

While the European powers in general agree on issues of social cuts, militarism, and war, they have been utterly unable to organize a common approach to contain the pandemic. When the virus spread dramatically last spring, for example, the German and French governments imposed export bans on medical protective equipment. Since then, tensions have continued to grow, especially between France and Germany. In mid-July, French neo-fascist and possible next president Marine Le Pen threatened to break the alliance with Germany and develop a close military cooperation with Britain and the United States.

The spectre of catastrophe returns. Germany and France have fought three bloody wars against each other in the last 150 years. Now the escalating economic, social and political crisis is reviving all the unresolved problems of European capitalism in the 20th century.

The entire history and development of the European Union confirms the Marxist analysis summarized by Leon Trotsky in 1917: A halfway complete and consistent economic union of Europe coming from the top by means of an agreement of the capitalist governments is sheer utopia.

And further: The economic union of Europe, which offers colossal advantages to producer and consumer alike, and in general to the whole cultural development, becomes the revolutionary task of the European proletariat in its fight against imperialist protectionism and its instrumentmilitarism.

This is the perspective that the Trotskyist movement has defended against Social Democracy and Stalinism, and which now takes on immediate significance. Among workers and youth, resistance is developing across Europe.

First, there was a wave of spontaneous strikes in key auto, manufacturing and food factories in Italy and across Europe that forced European governments to implement the initial lockdowns last spring. Then in the fall of 2020, there were renewed strikes and protests against the opening policy, including school strikes in Greece, France and Germany.

Now strikes and protests are developing across the continent against attacks on workers jobs and wages. As in the US, corporations, with the help of the unions, are using the COVID-19 pandemic to push through historic attacks on wages and working conditions.

These are only some examples we have been covering extensively on the WSWS: the struggle of the Banbury300 at JDE in Britain, the strikes and protests of the Gorillas delivery workers in Berlin, the struggle of the WISAG airport workers in Frankfurt and the spontaneous strikes of electricity workers in Turkey.

In all these struggles, we have not only commented on events, but intervened as active participants in the class struggle. We fought to organize workers independently of the unions and clarified central questions of political orientation and perspective. On this basis, we have been able to set up rank-and-file committees among teachers and students and make similar developments in other workplaces and industries.

We are in a situation where our partys intervention is becoming the most decisive factor in determining how political developments play out.

The example of our intervention among Volvo workers in the Belgian city of Ghent is worth considering again. Our intervention there and the support we won for the strike of the Volvo workers in Dublin, Virginia directly strengthened the struggle of the rank-and-file there. At the same time, the strike in Dublin, which we told Volvo workers in Ghent about, spurred their fight against the 40-hour week. Just one day after our first intervention, there was a spontaneous walkout at Volvo Cars in Ghent.

We cannot underestimate the influence we have. Similar to the response of the WSWS to the 1619 Project, we have understood that the rewriting of history in Germanythe trivialization of Nazi crimes by far-right professors such as Jorg Baberowskihas far-reaching consequences. We have not only noted this, but we have mobilized a powerful intellectual and political offensive against it, which has found such a great response because it articulates the enormous opposition among workers and youth to fascism and war.

There is one other more recent experience that I want to share with you. We are currently in the midst of a federal election campaign. We decided to intervene strongly after the recent flood disaster, in which more than 200 people died because they were not warned and no safety measures were organized. Like the pandemic, this disaster is again exposing the criminality of the ruling class and the bankruptcy of capitalism. Our latest video report, with interviews of those affected, was viewed over 200,000 times within only five days. This underscores the impact we have when we respond aggressively to political events.

In his report to the summer school two years ago, Comrade North explained, The attack on our German section by the Verfassungsschutz is a clear political statement that the ruling elite recognizes that the program and ideas of our movement have the potential to gain a mass following in the working class.

He added: This acknowledgment of the political stature of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei is, in one sense, a compliment. But it is also a threat, and it must be taken seriously... To meet the demands of this global development of the class struggle it is necessary for the cadre of the International Committee to draw upon the entire theoretical and political capital of our world party.

This is the orientation of this school and the basis on which we must now continue to develop the work of the SEP and the entire International Committee of the Fourth International.

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The pandemic exposes the bankruptcy of European capitalism - WSWS

The Coronavirus situation in the European Union and Schengen Area countries may not be as bad as it was last winter. However, travelling to a large share of these countries remains risky, and only travel to five EU countries is considered safe.

Updating the maps published in support of the Council Recommendation on a coordinated approach to the restriction of free movement within the block amid COVID-19, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has revealed that the only countries that remain green in the maps are Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania (except for Bucharest).

Countries coloured green in the maps are those which have less than 50 cases detected and a test positivity rate under four per cent during the previous 14 days, or a notification rate less than 74 and less than one per cent test positivity rate within the same period.

Travel to these countries is safe, and travellers reaching other EU countries from these five should not be subject to any entry restrictions upon arrival.

Countries in the orange category, on the other side, are those in which the 14-day notification rate is under 50, and the test positivity rate is four per cent or more, as well as countries in which the two weeks notification rate is 50 or above, or it is less than 75 when test positivity rate is one per cent or more.

According to the updated maps of August 26, the following countries and territories are coloured in orange:

Countries in red, on the other hand, are those which have a case notification rate that ranges between 75 to 200 when the test positivity rate of four per cent or more, as well as those with a case notification rate over 200 but less than 500. Those over 500 are categorized as dark red.

>> EU Health Agency Says Its Less Safe to Travel to Germany & Sweden Now

The Member States are advised to impose travel restrictions as pre-departure tests and quarantine requirements for persons travelling from areas in red and, in particular, the dark red category.

This should also apply to essential travellers provided that this does not have a disproportionate impact on the exercise of their function or need. Transport workers, however, should in principle be exempted from testing and quarantine/self-isolation requirements, the EU Commission advises.

Currently, according to ECDC, it is risky to travel to the following countries, which are coloured completely in red: Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Lichtenstein and Bulgaria.

Whereas the following are coloured as partly red: France, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands. Countries with only one red region are Norway and Finland.

The riskiest regions for travellers are currently those coloured in dark red, which are as follows:

Read the rest here:
End of Summer 2021: Which EU Countries Are Safe & Which Are Very Risky to Travel to According to ECDC - SchengenVisaInfo.com -...

OTTAWA, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Canada's ruling Liberal Party said on Wednesday that if re-elected it would raise corporate taxes on the most profitable banks and insurers to help pay for the cost of the COVID-19 recovery.

The Liberals said they would hike the rate to 18% from 15% on all earnings over C$1 billion ($793 million) and vowed to establish a special dividend, so that those same institutions contribute more. The measures are expected to generate C$2.5 billion per year over four years, starting in 2022/23.

Polls show the Liberals, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have a slender lead over their Conservative rivals ahead of the Sept. 20 election.

"Given that our banks have posted extraordinarily large profits, have continued to be incredibly successful, including through a pandemic ... we're going to ask them to do a little bit more," Trudeau told a campaign event in British Columbia on the same day that two banks reported big profits.

British Columbia is an influential province, accounting for 42 of the 338 seats in the House of Commons. Polls indicate the Liberals face a fight there from the opposition New Democrats, who also appeal to center-left voters.

The Canadian Bankers Association criticized the news, saying that "singling out specific economic sectors for special taxation is a proven detriment to economic growth".

The Canadian banks index (.GSPTXBA) slipped just 0.6% after the announcement, compared with little change in the Toronto stock benchmark (.GSPTSE), but still ended the day up 0.5% from Tuesday's close.

Maria Khoury, senior vice president for North American financial institutions' credit ratings at DBRS Morningstar, said

the muted reaction in part reflected skepticism over campaign promises and the broad expectation that some tax increases were inevitable following the flood of government support.

Large banks include Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) (RY.TO), Toronto Dominion Bank (TD.TO), Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) (BNS.TO), Bank of Montreal (BMO) (BMO.TO) and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

RBC beat analysts' expectations for third-quarter profit on Wednesday after Scotiabank and BMO did the same on Tuesday. read more

Large insurers include Manulife Financial (MFC.TO), Sun Life Financial (SLF.TO), Intact Financial (IFC.TO) and Great-West Lifeco.

($1=1.2617 Canadian dollars)

Additional reporting by Julie Gordon in Ottawa;Editing by Sandra Maler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The rest is here:
Canada's ruling Liberals vow higher taxes on big bank profits to help fund COVID-19 recovery - Reuters

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'Not for one moment do I believe that (Trudeau) has shifted away from Big Oil, in particular, the oilsands,' says SAF Group's Dan Tsubouchi

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CALGARY Liberal leader Justin Trudeaus move to put the Big Six banks in his crosshairs instead of Big Oil, his previous favourite target, is causing some transitory relief in the Calgary oilpatch, but also some anxiety that energy as well as additional sectors may be targeted as the federal election campaign continues.

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Trudeau on Wednesday announced plans to slap large financial institutions, including banks and insurers, with an additional three-per-cent tax on profits of more than $1 billion.

But Dan Tsubouchi, principal and chief market strategist at Calgary-based investment firm SAF Group, said he expects oil and gas executives will suffer additional hits from Liberal rhetoric during the current campaign.

Not for one moment do I believe that he has shifted away from Big Oil, in particular, the oilsands, he said in an email, adding that oil and gas producers have also posted large profits this year and could be in line for the same tax proposed for the banks.

Others in Alberta also believe that the Liberal campaigns focus may shift back to either the energy sector, or to a different sector of the economy, which could put a chill on investment confidence and competitiveness just as the broader economy is trying to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

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We are an ongoing project, which is the nation of Canada, were struggling for competitiveness globally and the last thing we should be doing is fighting amongst ourselves, whether it be regions or sectors, said Adam Legge, chief executive of the Business Council of Alberta. Other countries will see that and just fly right by us.

Legge said the temptation to win votes by campaigning against corporate boogeymen in any sector detracts from a more fulsome conversation about policy.

The optimal way to go is to really address the fundamental underlying issues. If its CO2 emissions, then talk about CO2 emissions rather than one sector, he said. If its outsized profits, then talk about competition as opposed to just the banking sector.

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So far, the banks response to Trudeaus election promise has been tepid and mostly channelled through their industry lobby group.

The proposed tax increase would reduce income that would otherwise benefit the majority of Canadians who are bank shareholders, either directly through share ownership or indirectly through pension and mutual funds, including the Canada Pension Plan, the Canadian Bankers Association said in a statement.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce chief executive Victor Dodig, on a Thursday earnings call, said, Banks have always been in the crosshairs.

But executives in the energy sector dont believe the banking sector has always been in the crosshairs, noting that Trudeaus last two campaigns singled out oil and gas as his target.

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During the 2019 election campaign, Trudeau caught the attention of English-speaking oil executives in Alberta when he said that he would stand up to Big Oil during the French language television debate.

The 2015 election campaign forced oil and gas executives and workers to deal with a storm of issues, including the merits of oil pipelines such as Energy East and the integrity of the pipeline regulator, said Glen Schmidt, the retired chief executive of oilsands producer Laricina Energy Ltd., which has since been acquired by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.

In 2015, we certainly saw a change in investment flow, Schmidt said, adding that hes worried that campaigning against specific sectors of the economy damages the countrys reputation for attracting foreign direct investment.

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The outcome is that many companies no longer exist, he said. Theres less employment and less income to all governments.

Tsubouchi said the Liberals may propose new policies targeting the oil and gas industry in an effort to boost flagging polling numbers, which show the Conservative Party closing the gap.

I suspect sooner rather than later, as they need to stop the bleeding, he said. Dont forget, Prime Minister Trudeaus kickoff speech said, We think more ambition on climate change is needed now.'

Others dont expect climate change will play the same major role in the 2021 election as it did in the 2015 and 2019 elections.

Its a change in tone from the Liberals to just focus on the Big Banks, said Duane Bratt, political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, adding that he believes the change is in response to housing affordability becoming a major issue.

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Energy and climate is not as big an issue in this campaign as it was in 2019, he said, pointing out that the other big issues in this campaign are COVID-19, health care and Afghanistan.

Bratt said the Big Six banks, like Big Oil, are an easy target during and attacking both industries was a favourite campaign tactic of late NDP leader Jack Layton, something Trudeau has now emulated.

Whos going to come out and defend big banks? All sorts of companies lost money during COVID, but the banks were not one of them, he said, adding that he expects bankers and finance professionals will try to avoid the spotlight until the election wraps up on Sept. 20.

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However, Trudeaus pledge to slap an additional tax on massive bank profits comes at the end of earnings season for the Big Six, all of which, except for National Bank of Canada, posted net income well in excess of $1 billion in their most recent quarter. National Bank earned $839 million.

CIBC on Thursday reported a quarterly profit of $1.7 billion, while Royal Bank of Canada, the countrys largest bank, on Wednesday announced a record quarterly profit of $4.3 billion.

But National Bank analyst Gabriel Dechaine said the banks will not delay further reports or investor presentations in an effort to avoid attracting more political attention.

I dont think theyre going to make any antagonistic remarks in the public sphere, he said. At most, I think they would provide some argument against a move to increase their taxes and I think the arguments around that would revolve around what they did to support Canadians during the financial crisis by deferring mortgage payments or reducing interest rates on certain products.

With a file from Bloomberg

Email: gmorgan@nationalpost.com | Twitter: geoffreymorgan

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Liberals shift target to Big Banks from Big Oil, but there's little relief in oilpatch - Financial Post

On Tuesday, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau unveiled a multi-billion-dollar housing strategy to help Canadians buy a home at a time when the market is sky high. The plan includes measures to curb the practice of "flipping" homes, the banning of so-called "blind bidding" and a promise to double the first-time homebuyers tax credit.

Part of the plan isto introduce a government-funded rent-to-own program to help renters get on the path to home ownership. The party is promising$1 billion in loans and grants to develop rent-to-own projects with partners from the private, not-for-profit and co-op sectors.

If that sounds familiar to Torontonians that's because it is.

In 2018, former mayoral candidate Jennifer Keesmaat proposed a similar program for the city.

While some are praising the proposalas a positive initiative that helps renters who are struggling with a down payment, others say it caters to a niche group of constituents, and that housing supply is what all parties need to focus on to make cities like Toronto more affordable.

"I was actually really pleased when I heard the [Liberals'] announcement," said Keesmaat, a former businesswoman and chief planner for the City of Toronto.

"Because I think what we're beginning to see in this campaign is housing solutions that actually respond to the magnitude of the challenge that we're faced with."

Themagnitude of the challenge Keesmaat is speaking about is enormous.The average price for all home types combined in the Greater Toronto Area as of last monthis$1,062,256up 12.6 per cent compared to July 2020, according to the latest report from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board.

At the centre of Keesmaat's 2018 campaign for mayor of Toronto was a municipally run rent-to-own program that involvedthe city dedicating a certain number of new units. The proposal would have allowedrenters to apply to pay monthly instalments that would go toward their down payment onthe property at a price set at the start of the agreement.

The funds to support the program would have been generated by a proposed tax on luxury homes.

"Part of why this policy matters is because it's about recognizing that we all have different housing needs and we also have different housing needs at different stages of our lives. And we need lots of options within that entire housing spectrum " said Keesmat.

Keesmat is now the founder of Markee developments which designs, builds, and runs affordable rental housing and says she would welcome the opportunity to work with the federal governmenton a rent-to-own program.But she acknowledges that planalone won't help address the affordability crisis.

"It means nothing if it isn't tied to a really profound supply initiative that's about driving housing supply."

Other experts agree with Keesmaat that housingsupplyis what all federal parties should be focusing on when it comes to addressingaffordability.

"Given that we have a housing crisis across Canada, we need to think millions of new homes at affordable prices. That would make a dent in bringing housing prices in line with people's incomes," said Murtaza Haider,professor of real estate management and data science at Toronto's Ryerson University.

While Haider says ideaslike rent-to-own programs do open up the market for a small group of people, he believes governments need to think bigger.

"It's much better to have some relief than not. But we have to take much bolder, much bigger, much larger programs to be able to have housing prices and rents much in step with people's incomes."

Others question whether that $1 billion would be better spent on measures to help lower-income individuals or families who can't evenget accessto affordable rental housing.

"It's really rental housing that's the big problem. That's where the government should focus its effort," said Frank Clayton, senior research fellow at the Centrefor Urban Research and Land Development at Ryerson University.

Clayton said he worries initiativeslike a federally run rent-to-own program might increase demand, which would drive up real estate prices if there's no parallel effort to build more housing.

"The focus should be on supply, not demand, because demand will just aggravate what's already happening. And that makes things worse."

The plan laid out by the Liberal Party of Canada doesn't spell out whether the loans and grants under the proposed program would go to the landlord or to the tenant, or whether the majority of the $1 billion pledged would go to big cities like Toronto or Vancouver where housing prices have continued to soar.

It also doesn't say how it would work with municipalities who are responsible for the approval of development projects to ensure rent-to-own projects would actually be built, or how it would encouragecurrent landlords to take part in it.

In response to questions fromCBC Toronto, the Liberal Party of Canada said: "There are a variety of existing rent-to-own models and the financial structure of each can vary, as will federal support."

The party added that it is"confident that by partnering with municipalities and providing substantial federal funding, we will be able to incentivize the building of new rent-to-own units across the country."

So far, the Liberals are the only party formally pledging a rent-to-own program, but when it comes to supply they'repledging to "build, preserve or repair 1.4 million homes in the next four years" by giving cities tools to speed up construction. The party isalso promising to create a $4-billion pool of cash that cities could tap if they help to create "middle-class homes."

The NDP is pledging to create at least 500,000 units of affordable housing in the next 10years, while the Conservatives are pledging to build one million homes over three years, andconvert at least 15 per cent of federal government property into housing among other measures.

The Greens are calling for an expansion of the government's Rapid housing Initiative which creates new affordable housing for vulnerable populations and to build and acquire a minimum of 300,000 units of affordable housing.

See more here:
Liberals say they'll bring in a rent-to-own program. But what will it do for Toronto's housing crisis? - CBC.ca