Life under Capitalism

How to solve industrial disputes, the Chinese way

Activism, Life under Capitalism
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When workers at the Tonghua Steel plant heard of the takeover of their company by the Jianlong Group, they didn’t sit around moping but did something about it:

The crowd piled into the second-floor conference room. Chen Guojen told the workers that if they wanted to say something, they should do it properly instead of this way. The workers replied “Jianlong, get out of Tonghua Steel!” and “Get lost quickly! Tonghua’s business has nothing to do with you Jianlong people!” Someone threw water bottles at Chen Guojun and someone else even took off their work boots and threw them at him. Someone picked up a chair to throw at Chen but missed.

Seeing what was happening, Chen Guojun sternly demanded the workers to return to their work posts “or else you are all fired!” When the workers heard him say that, they got angrier. They dragged Chen Guojun into the corridor where they punched and kicked him. This first beating was not very serious as Chen Guojun was able to get away and hide.

Almost every burglary-proof door on the second floor of the Old Coking building was smashed. There was a big hole in the wall and broken glass all over the floor. When people realized that Chen Guojun had disappeared, they searched the rooms one by one. So Chen Guojun was eventually found. But Chen insisted on maintaining his tough attitude. “He said, ‘If I so much have one breath left in me, I will make sure that all of you are fired tomorrow!'” The reaction was an even more severe beating. Eyewitnesses said that Chen Guojun was beaten at least three times. On the last occasion, he was sent tumbling down from the second floor to the first floor by a kick.

“He laid on the ground, breathing heavily. He could not speak anymore.” The time was 16:30 or so. The remaining blast furnace number 7 had also shut down and ceased production. The Tonghua Steel and Iron Factory was totally idled.

Jamie has the background to this incident. Prog Gold does not necessarily condone the beating to death of tyrannical bosses.

The biggest lie of this recession

Crisis? What Crisis?, Economy, Life under Capitalism
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Is the idea being pushed in respectable newspapers that since Goldman Sachs has posted an unexpected (by whom) second quarter profit of no less than 2.7 billion euros, the economy is on the mend again. Let Matt Taibbi explain why this is wrong:

Last year, when Hank Paulson told us all that the planet would explode if we didn’t fork over a gazillion dollars to Wall Street immediately, the entire rationale not only for TARP but for the whole galaxy of lesser-known state crutches and safety nets quietly ushered in later on was that Wall Street, once rescued, would pump money back into the economy, create jobs, and initiate a widespread recovery. This, we were told, was the reason we needed to pilfer massive amounts of middle-class tax revenue and hand it over to the same guys who had just blown up the financial world. We’d save their asses, they’d save ours. That was the deal.

It turned out not to happen that way. We constructed this massive bailout infrastructure, and instead of pumping that free money back into the economy, the banks instead simply hoarded it and ate it on the spot, converting it into bonuses. So what does this Goldman profit number mean? This is the final evidence that the bailouts were a political decision to use the power of the state to redirect society’s resources upward, on a grand scale. It was a selective rescue of a small group of chortling jerks who must be laughing all the way to the Hamptons every weekend about how they fleeced all of us at the very moment the game should have been up for all of them.

The only reason Goldman Sachs or any other big bank is now “profitable” again is because of the huge pots of free money our governments handed out to them as a reward for fucking up the economy — as if you went to Vegas, gambled away your house and the government got you a new one to play away at the blackjack table.

Back in January the entire financial sector was bankrupt, barely kept alive by those massive government cash injections, yet six months later everything’s back to normal again, a bank like Goldman Sachs can be billions in profit and this is evidence the economy is turning around? Pull the other one. that 2,7 billion is loot, evidence for the greatest wealth transfer ever, as millions of tax payers are fleeced to make a few multibillionaires even richer.

Selling Pooh Sticks With Style

Culture, Life under Capitalism
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At first I was like all, WTF? when I saw this ad for the Comfort Wipe post-defecation self-cleaning device at Consumerist. But on further viewing I find this commercial a masterpiece of allusion and understatement.

Look how they cleverly suggested their target markets with their cast, there. Subtle. Bravo ad agency!

The pooh stick concept itself I’m not so impressed with. There’s seriously a market for this thing?

Sunday Morning Salaciousness

Capitalism, Crisis? What Crisis?, Europe, Life under Capitalism, Sexuality
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“Jardines infinitos, lagos artificiales, órganos sexuales al aire, juegos lésbicos, efectos especiales, pizza y helado gratis… .”

Oh my. Somehow it sounds much more wicked in Spanish.

Take a look at the the teenage boy’s fantasy that is the life of some world leaders, via El Pais’ gallery of censored images of Silvio Berlusconi and an unidentified E. European statesman cavorting with half-naked young ‘models’ interviewing potential researchers at Berlusconi’s villa.

Perhaps it was a very hot day and the PM (because, as we all know, he is so very kind to young people) suggested the interviewees make themselves a little cooler.

Perhaps one of the interview panel, explaining the process to one of the candidates as she prepared for her coming ordeal on a handy chaise longue, became a little excited at the prospect of putting such an obviously qualified candidate through her paces.

It’s an explanation. Isn’t it?