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Subject: Crisis-ridden US capitalism driven towards war
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 03:37:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: rab <rogeralanblackwell at yahoo.co.uk>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky

The News Line: Editorial

Friday, 27 March 2009

Crisis-ridden US capitalism driven towards war

US capitalism really has got its back to the wall, and has somewhat
lost its balance, when its Treasury Secretary, Geithner, says that he
is ‘quite open’ to a Chinese suggestion for the development of a
global reserve currency to replace the US dollar.

It is the Chinese government’s purchasing of US debt that has kept the
USA from state bankruptcy.

A fortnight ago the Chinese Prime Minister confessed that he was
‘worried’ about the future of the US and had asked for reassurances
that it would act ‘responsibly’.

If the Chinese Stalinists end their backing for US Treasury bonds, US
capitalism will be sunk, and this is what the objective crisis is
forcing the Chinese to seriously consider.

Making the US capitalists and Chinese Stalinists even more nervous is
the latest economic news out of the US.

The fourth quarter of 2008 showed a 6.3 per cent decline in the Gross
Domestic Product, making for the worst quarter figures for 26 years.

The Labour Department added to the gloom with its report that first-
time claims for unemployment benefits rose by 8,000 to 652,000 in
February, while continuing claims jumped by 122,000 to a record 5.56
million.

At the same time Corporate profits before taxes fell by a record $250
billion or 16.5 per cent at a quarterly rate. It was the largest
percentage decline in profits since 1953.

Domestic profits of financial corporations dropped $178 billion, while
domestic profits of non-financial companies dropped by $89 billion.

The government’s estimates of profits from current operations do not
include the writing down of toxic assets.

For all of 2008, profits fell 10.1 per cent, the most since 1970,
while business investment dropped by 21.7 per cent in the fourth
quarter, with investment in equipment and software falling by 28.1 per
cent.

Exports fell 23.6 per cent in the fourth quarter, the most since 1971,
with export of goods falling by 32 per cent, and imports falling by
17.5 per cent.

This desperate crisis of American capitalism is at the centre of the
world crisis.

Its leaders are becoming more and more convinced that he only way out
of it is through imperialist wars to reorder the planet.

This is why there is now a sharp growth of tensions with China, with
the US Pentagon suggesting that China’s military power is altering the
balance of power in Asia, in a way that cannot be tolerated.

A Chinese spokesman called this Pentagon view ‘a gross distortion of
the facts’, and urged an end to ‘Cold War thinking’.

However, in its annual report to Congress, the Pentagon said China was
developing ‘disruptive’ technologies for nuclear, space and cyber
warfare.

At the same time the US ruling class is railing at Iran. On the one
hand Obama is offering Iran a ‘fresh start’ while on the other hand US
land, air and naval forces around Iran are at a level not seen since
the US attack on Iraq.

Iran is being told: collaborate with the US or face a massive military
strike.

Faced with this threat Iran has agreed to attend the US-convened
conference on Afghanistan, at the Hague, where expanding military
action from Afghanistan into Pakistan will be discussed.

However subordinating Iran to the US will mean condemning it to
backwardness, a road that the Iranian bourgeoisie will be loth to
take.

Faced with crisis-ridden imperialism, which is now being driven into
new wars as its economic and political crisis deepens, the working
class and the poor of the world have only one option: that is to
organise the victory of the world socialist revolution, to replace
capitalism and imperialism with socialism.

http://www.wrp.org.uk/news/4097

http://www.revolutionarybooks.co.uk/index.htm

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