Tag Archives: China

MASSIVELY INCREASE PUBLIC HOUSING! SOCIALISTIC CHINA IS DOING THAT SO LET’S FIGHT FOR THE SAME HERE!

One of China’s many new public housing complexes. Last year China started construction of over ten million new public housing dwellings.

MASSIVELY INCREASE PUBLIC HOUSING!
SOCIALISTIC CHINA IS DOING THAT
SO LET’S FIGHT FOR THE SAME HERE!

5 June 2012 – More and more of Australia’s poor are skipping meals because they can’t afford to pay for the food. In an annual survey by the Salvation Army of those who have sought its help, more than half the respondents admitted to skipping meals in order to pay for other necessities (ABC News Website, 16 May.) Other startling findings were that a third of those surveyed could not afford heating and a third could not afford medicine prescribed by their doctor.

Charities are reporting that an increasing number of people are seeking their help. Low-income people are being crippled by punishing rents and utility charges. And job slashing by business bosses are hitting working class people hard. The official spin about the supposedly low unemployment rate masks the reality that about 600,000 people are officially unemployed in this country. However, perhaps an even greater number of people are not recorded in official unemployment figures only because long-term lack of success in finding a job has discouraged them from looking for work or because they are a single parent unable to find affordable childcare. Meanwhile, one and a half million people are not able to get as many hours of work as they want to. They are not counted in the deceitful, official unemployment figures as those figures will not classify a person as unemployed if they obtain as little as one hour of work in a week. The drive of the business owners to maximize profits is forcing more and more workers into tenuous, low-wage casual jobs. That is why charities are reporting that an increasing proportion of those seeking help are not unemployed people but the working poor. These are typically people with young children who just can’t get enough hours in part-time jobs to get by or can’t make ends meet on the paltry minimum wage. Continue reading MASSIVELY INCREASE PUBLIC HOUSING! SOCIALISTIC CHINA IS DOING THAT SO LET’S FIGHT FOR THE SAME HERE!

What Attitude Should Marxists Take to Proposals for Chinese Investment in Australia?

Part of a massive oil refinery complex in Kwinana, Western Australia. The refinery is owned by a foreign corporation.  Chinese owned? Wrong! The refinery is owned by British-based BP. Latest available figures show that Britain’s total stock of foreign investment in Australia is more than 25 times that from Mainland China.
Part of a massive oil refinery complex in Kwinana, Western Australia. The refinery is owned by a foreign corporation. Chinese owned? Wrong! The refinery is owned by British-based BP. Latest available figures show that Britain’s total stock of foreign investment in Australia is more than 25 times that from Mainland China.

What Attitude Should Marxists Take to Proposals for Chinese Investment in Australia?

Takeovers, mergers and acquisitions of minority stakes are all normal parts of the corporate scene in capitalist Australia. Except, that is, when the companies investing happen to be state-owned enterprises from the Peoples Republic of China – in which case all hell breaks out. Proposals by PRC state firms to invest in Australian companies have caused a furore. Right-wing politicians, media commentators and some sections of the corporate elite have rabidly opposed such moves. As a result some major PRC investment plans have been stymied. Continue reading What Attitude Should Marxists Take to Proposals for Chinese Investment in Australia?