But you knew this: Record number standing in unemployment lines

ECONOMIC REPORT
Record number standing in unemployment lines
Initial jobless claims rise 3,000 to 588,000; continuing claims hit 4.78 million
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Unemployment lines stretched to the longest on record, the Labor Department reported Thursday, a sign that the U.S. labor market continues to worsen.
Continuing jobless claims rose by 159,000 in the week ended Jan. 17 to a seasonally adjusted 4.78 million, the most since the government’s records began in 1967. That is the same week that the government surveyed hundreds of thousands of workplaces and households to gather information for the January employment report.
Meanwhile, the number of new claims for state unemployment benefits also increased, up 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 588,000 in the week ended Jan. 24. This put the number just 1,000 below the 26-year high for initial claims set a month ago. Read the full report.
Meanwhile, the four-week average of new claims rose by 24,250 to 542,500. The four-week average draws the attention of economists and investors because it smoothes out distortions caused by bad weather, strikes or the timing of holidays.
“We see no chance of this picture changing in the foreseeable future,” wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for High Frequency Economics. “We expect net job losses of about 3 million through the first half of this year.”
Initial claims represent job destruction, while the level of continuing claims indicates how hard or easy it is for displaced workers to find new employment. The claims data show that businesses are laying off workers at a rapid pace and that finding a replacement job is proving ever harder for those who’ve lost work.
Compared with the same week a year ago, first-time jobless claims are up about 63%, while continuing claims are up 71%. The data come from state unemployment offices’ reports based on actual filings, not a statistical sample.
Anecdotal evidence also points to higher joblessness. Major companies have been announcing layoffs, totaling more than 100,000 just this week alone. Those layoffs will actually take several months to play out.
The insured unemployment rate, representing the proportion of covered workers who are receiving benefits, rose to 3.6%, the highest in 25 years.
In December, 524,000 nonfarm payroll jobs were lost, capping the worst year for U.S. job losses since 1945. The payroll figures for January will be reported on Feb. 6, with economists currently expecting a loss of at least 500,000 for what would be the third consecutive month.
Mike Englund, chief economist for Action Economics, lowered his January payroll estimate to a loss of 550,000. He expects the unemployment rate to rise to 7.5% from 7.2% in December.
Typically, unemployment benefits run out after 26 weeks for those who are eligible. A total of 1.72 million people were collecting benefits under a federal program that extends unemployment benefits for an extra 13 weeks. The stimulus bill winding through Congress would extend that program further.
Benefits are generally available for those who lose their full-time job through no fault of their own. Those who exhaust their unemployment benefits are still counted as unemployed if they are actively looking for work.
In a separate report Thursday, the Commerce Department said orders for durable goods fell 2.6% in December after a downwardly revised 3.7% decline in November. See full story.
In another report, the Commerce Department said sales of new homes plunged nearly 15% in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 331,000, the lowest on record.
Rex Nutting is Washington bureau chief of MarketWatch.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Davos economic summit: “Pity the bankers”

On Monday, 80,000 workers lost their jobs. There isn’t a working class community in the United States – indeed, in the world – that doesn’t feel the sense of risk to jobs, homes and families created by the global economic crisis.  Yesterday saw yet another horrific murder-suicide by a man and woman who killed themselves and their five young children because they were distraught after being fired from their jobs.

So it would be expected that the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland would discuss the crisis.  But reflecting the fact that this is an annual conference that draws the corporate and political bigshots of world capitalism, their take on the crisis is a little bit different from yours and mine.  In his opening remarks to the conference,Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, expressed his deep concern for one group affected by the crisis:

“Those people, and there are many of those here, have the feeling they are standing at a cliff and they may fall over at any moment.”

Was he talking about people who were layed off on Monday?  The long-term unemployed who have given up looking for work?  Those who are losing their homes to foreclosures and evictions?  The growing number of homeless?  Not exactly . . .

Mr. Schwab was expressing his concern for the bankers who caused the financial crisis. He went on to express the view that it was important that this truly world-class group of con artists, swindlers and criminals be welcomed to the table as big business set about finding “solutions” to the economic crisis.

Not surprisingly, no one at the event felt compelled to point out to Mr. Schwab how much more of a cliff-hanger it is to not know if you can feed your family than to not know if you can afford this year’s Jaguar.  Nor does it appear that the conference will take up the question of how to keep people from losing their jobs and their homes.

In the midst of the most severe global economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930’s, there will be many similar conferences of corporate leaders and their cronies happening at the local and national and international level.  All will have one thing on the agenda: How does big business save its skin?

Working class people can take one genuine lesson from this.  The people who caused this crisis, who take our jobs and homes, who keep us from getting healthcare and sending our kids to college and retiring with dignity, are sitting down to figure out what to do next.  And we’re not going to find their answers – mainly throwing more of us under the bus – very much to our liking.  Isn’t it time that we began to meet and discuss our response to the crisis: what working class people need and how to get it?

Here in the Hartford area one opportunity for such a meeting will take place on Saturday, February 7, from 1-4pm at Hartford City Hall.  That’s where people will gather for a Community Meeting for a People’s Bailout.  The afternoon will be a speakout and strategy meeting, looking at the impact of the economic crisis on us, our families and our communities and what we can and must do to fight back to survive.  The goal is to build a grassroots movement putting our needs first, for a change.

Filed under: Community organizing, Economic crisis

One day’s worth of lay-offs: Caterpillar (20,000), Home Depot (“thousands”), Sprint (8,000), Pfizer/Wyeth (19,000), Texas Instruments (3,400), IBM (2,800)

A sure sign of the worsening economy is the daily reports of thousands of new lay-offs of workers by major U.S. employers.  This includes not only companies such as Circuit City, which is in bankruptcy and being liquidated, but also “healthy” companies who are cutting back.  Here’s a few for today, Monday 1/26/09:

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -The large wave of layoffs announced on Monday gave added impetus to President Obama’s call for quick action on his economic stimulus proposals but had little impact on the market, which is anticipating another 500,000 job losses this month. . . .

Economic bellwether Caterpillar Inc. (CAT: 31.92, -3.74, -10.5%) was among those wielding the axe, with the heavy machinery giant saying it would slash 20,000 jobs during the first quarter.

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — In another sign of the worsening economic downturn, Home Depot Inc. said Monday that it is throwing in the sponge on its Expo design and décor business, closing stores and laying off thousands of employees.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Sprint Nextel Corp. on Monday said it will purge 8,000 jobs, or about 15% of its workforce, to reduce costs in the face of a deepening U.S. recession.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Pfizer Inc., the world’s top drugmaker, said Monday it will buy rival Wyeth for $68 billion in the biggest pharmaceutical merger in eight years. . . .

The company also announced a 10% reduction in its workforce and said it would cut its dividend payment in half in order to help pay for the Wyeth acquisition.

The layoffs will be folded into a larger round undertaken by the combined company, which expects to shed more than 19,000 workers — amounting to about 15% of its combined workforce.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Texas Instruments Inc. on Monday reported a huge drop in quarterly profit and unveiled a plan to eliminate 3,400 jobs as the chip giant warned it expects a “prolonged economic weakness.”

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — IBM Corp. has cut over 2,800 jobs in its software and sales departments, according to an organization seeking recognition as a union at the technology giant.

Alliance@IBM, which says it has affiliated with the Communications Workers of America, said in an online posting that IBM (IBM: 91.60, +2.11, +2.4%) has cut 1,419 jobs in its software division, and 1,449 jobs in its sales and distribution division.

An IBM spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a spokesman for Alliance@IBM.

-30-

Filed under: Economic crisis

Fighting the lay-offs: union bucks the corporate trend in Connecticut

Up til now in this recession, the corporations have had it all their own way.  But popular anger over multi-trillion dollar corporate bailouts and the rising tide of lay-offs, cuts in hours and cuts in pay may be beginning to make a change.

The legal system is set up to preserve and protect the interests of big business.  Typically, the law makes little or no provision for interfering in a company’s ability to lay off or move workers or to move its somewhere else.  Add to that the strong inclination of lawmakers and judges to interpret these laws to protect corporations, and efforts to reign them in or hold them accountable are typically an up-hill battle.

Members of CWA Local 1298 rally against AT&T lay-offs

That’s why both unions and big business are looking carefully at a legal power struggle in Connecticut between telephone giant AT&T and the Communication Workers of America. AT&T employs about 6,800 workers in Connecticut.  Many of them are members of CWA Local 1298.  When the company announced recently that it intended to reduce its Connecticut workforce by 460 jobs, union members vowed to put up a fight.

The union, with the support of Connecticut’s attorney general, is calling on the state’s Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC), to bar the lay-offs.  They argue that the agency has the power to do so because the job cuts would harm customer service to AT&T users in Connecticut.

“We’re pushing the DPUC to do their job and to regulate the way they’re supposed to regulate,” said Bill Henderson, local chapter president of the Communications Workers of America. “We’re not asking for anything more than what the law says.”

Corporate mouthpieces for AT&T have already dredged up all manner of legal arguments about why the state does not have the authority to prevent them from cutting jobs.  But the company’s loudest argument – that enforcing Connecticut law to save jobs will scare away other corporations from doing business in Connecticut – may be the one that is increasingly falling on deaf ears.

For years, Connecticut workers have had it drilled into their heads that tax laws, anti-discrimination laws, and worker safety laws had to be carefully kept in check so as to create a “business friendly” environment.  After all, groups like the Connecticut Business and Industry Association whined, if working people don’t roll over for big business, corporations might pick up their marbles and go home.  Now, as we see the unmitigated greed and callous self-interest that these corporations exhibit in the current economic crisis, and as unemployment and poverty rises, the CBIA propaganda line may be starting to wear off.

Connecticut’s unemployment rate recently shot up to 7.1 percent and even the CBIA economists are admitting that double digit unemployment is likely even though the economy has not yet hit bottom.  As job losses take their toll on more and more families and communities, people are starting to think about their own self-interest as workers.  CWA’s creative use of the legal system to prevent the bosses from having it all their own way may be a spark that ignites class consciousness in Connecticut’s workers.

Filed under: Economic crisis, Labor solidarity

Connecticut’s unemployment rises to 7.1%, will get much worse in 2009

Blogger’s note: Near the end of this news story, a CBIA economist discusses the projections that he made last Fall about Connecticut losing as many as 80,000 jobs in this recession and says that there are indications that the job losses will be higher than that.  Back on November 9, 2008, this blog referenced a Courant article discussing those projections.  At the time, the figure of 80,000-90,000 jobs lost in the recession was considered on the high side, with a Connecticut Department of Labor economist predicting half that number.  It is now being described as too low.  As I discussed in November, the 80,000-90,000 projection would mean double digit unemployment in Connecticut.  That the CBIA is now projecting even more jobs lost means that unemployment rates above 10% are now considered a virtual certainty this year.

State’s Jobless Rate Jumps To 7.1 Percent

By JANICE PODSADA | The Hartford Courant
January 24, 2009

The state Department of Labor reported Friday that Connecticut lost a total of 21,300 jobs in November and December, and, underscoring the trend, two employers — Webster Bank and MeadWestvaco — announced hundreds of job cuts on Friday.

The state’s unemployment rate shot up to 7.1 percent in December from 6.6 percent the previous month, approaching the national jobless rate of 7.2 percent, the labor department report said.

The state lost 11,500 jobs in December, including 4,800 jobs in the hard-hit retail sector. On top of that, the state revised its November loss to 9,800 from a previously reported 5,100.

“This is a lot of loss in a short period of time,” said Peter Gioia, who tracks the economy for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association. “Connecticut wasn’t doing that badly until the end of the summer. Now we’re every bit in the soup as the rest of the nation. It’s terrible. There’s nothing good here. It shows the stimulus out of Washington can’t come too soon.”

Reports of job cuts have continued this month, including Friday’s announcements that Webster would cut about 200 jobs, most of them in Connecticut, and that MeadWestvaco, a packaging company, would close its Enfield plant and lay off 134 workers.

In the last three months of 2008, the state lost more than 25,000 jobs, or roughly 85 percent of all the jobs lost in 2008. The three-month estimate is based on November’s revised job figures, the result of the U.S. Department of Labor’s new estimating procedures, said state labor economist John Tirinzonie.

“November’s job losses almost doubled based on the new methodology,” Tirinzonie said.

Overall, Connecticut lost 29,300 jobs last year, or 1.7 percent of the 1,706,500 jobs the state recorded at the end of 2007. Nationally, the job losses totaled 1.9 percent. The state’s job figures are subject to annual revisions in March, which could result in significant revisions up or down.

Job totals are based on a survey of businesses, while the state unemployment rate is based on a separate household survey.

Some employers, such as Tim French, owner of the trucking company Colt Express in Manchester, hope to put both 2008, and that year’s layoffs, behind them.

“Like a typical transportation company, we had problems last year with the fuel prices,” French said. “We laid off five employees and two contractors last July. And then before Christmas, we laid off three tractor-trailer drivers. We just didn’t have any work.”

But this month, the company received a five-year contract from a national retailer, allowing French to hire back six of his employees.

“This contract gives us some breathing room,” French said. “This allows us to stay and fight another day.”

The 29,300 jobs lost in the state in 2008 was the worst total since 1991, when 50,600 jobs were lost.

Nationally, employers not only cut jobs but reduced workers’ hours. The average workweek in the private sector dropped to 33.3 hours in December, the lowest level since 1964.

“Generally speaking, employers cut hours before they actually cut jobs, so workweek hours are usually a leading indicator of employment change, in this case suggesting that job losses will mount in 2009,” said Don Klepper-Smith of DataCore Partners in New Haven. “We were hoping for some good news, but we hit the fourth quarter with a downward momentum. These job losses are going to get worse in the next six months.“

Gioia said he also worries that the downward spiral could pick up speed.

“Remember last fall’s predictions that we’d lose 60,000 to 80,000 jobs during this recession? Very likely it’s going to be the higher number or worse,” Gioia said. “We’re hearing from companies all across the state asking, ‘How do we legally handle a layoff?’ Some of these firms have never had layoffs.”

Filed under: Economic crisis

CT Republican: let’s close children’s facility, save money for “fiscal emergencies”

Yes, you read that correctly.

CROMWELL — – With its budget deficit ballooning, the state should shut down the Riverview psychiatric hospital for children because — at $862,000 per child per year — it is too expensive to operate, the Senate Republican leader said Wednesday.

Sen. John McKinney of Fairfield said the state should send Riverview’s patients to private hospitals in order to save money in tough economic times. The children could be treated at much lower cost at places like Yale-New Haven Hospital, the Institute of Living in Hartford and Natchaug Hospital in Mansfield, he said.

Riverview, operated by unionized state employees for the state Department of Children and Families, is the only state-run children’s psychiatric hospital in New England.

“The state should get out of that business,” McKinney told mayors and first selectmen gathered in a hotel ballroom for a morning conference. “We would save millions of dollars.”

After all, why should the state trouble itself with providing psychiatric treatment for children?  Well, yes, it’s true that this is a facility for children who “who have acute psychiatric disorders that include schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, psychosis and severe depression” and “have already been treated at another acute, in-patient psychiatric hospital and have not shown improvement.”  And a DCF spokesperson has also pointed out that “Riverview is currently the only entity providing this level of service in Connecticut.”

And we are, after all, in a fiscal emergency in which Republicans will call for the slashing of any program they can get their hands on.

If we don’t hack up Riverview Hospital, “McKinney says, there will be only two options left: raising taxes and
raiding the state’s $1.4 billion “rainy day fund” for fiscal
emergencies.”

So let me get this straight.

Riverview Hospital is the only facility of its kind in
Connecticut, providing essential services to children with severe
problems that require a high level of treatment.  These are kids that
nobody in the private mental health establishment wants to deal with
because of the severity of their problems.

But we have to cut this program out because the state is in a fiscal emergency . . . and the only alternative to slashing programs like this would be to use the state’s “rainy day fund” that is set aside for fiscal emergencies.

It is an outrage and an insult to the people of Connecticut that a politician in either party would declare in one breath that essential services must be put on the chopping block because of a fiscal emergency, and in the next declare that the reason for cutting essential services is so we don’t have to spend the money set aside for fiscal emergencies.

The impact of the economic crisis that we are experiencing is falling fastest and hardest on working people and poor people.  If your child had a severe and intractable mental illness and you weren’t rich, you would want Riverview Hospital, with all of its problems, to be there.  Because with the current state of health care, sometimes you just don’t have other choices.

Yes, the economic crisis has created an emergency for the State of Connecticut.  So let’s treat it like an emergency.  When the emergency is a flood, you start packing sandbags and you don’t ask whether you can afford all of the sandbags that you need because the alternative is destruction.  When the emergency is a blizzard you keep the snowplows running all night long to keep highways clear and roads passable and you don’t ask for a special session to decide if you can pay the women and men driving the plows.  You do these things because in an emergency the first priority is the safety and well-being of the people of Connecticut.

So why, in this fiscal emergency, are the politicians greedily eyeballing every state program for cuts when those cuts will endanger the lives and well-being of working people and poor people in this state?

Filed under: Economic crisis

For working people and poor people, setting our own priorities

Only the absurdly hard-core anti-Obama forces will claim that his inauguration yesterday was to blame for the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling below 8,000.  Probably they will be the same loonies who say that Obama is not really a U.S. citizen.  However, the fact that his inauguration was not enough to prevent the accumulation of yet more news of a faltering and falling economy does say something important about the limitations of Obama’s ability to forestall or turn around the economic crisis.

Here in Connecticut the inauguration was the headline but there was also news that Governor Rell has “upgraded” her assessment of the budget deficit from $193 million to $922 million.   The continuing slide of the stock market combined with the rising projections of the budget deficit will only be cannon fodder for Gov. Rell’s calls to make dramatic cuts in the state budget and will similarly be used as an excuse by the Democratic leadership for acquiescing to many of these cuts.

But this is precisely the point at which working class people need to take a step back from the political hype and think about what our interests are in this economic debacle.  Is a balanced state budget such a high priority for us that it is worth seeing deep cuts to state funding for our public school budgets, state college tuition increases of more than 15%, layoffs of state employees to swell the ranks of the unemployed, and the devastation of funding for human services programs?  If the economy is in such a freefall that Connecticut could have double digit unemployment this year, while in our cities that percentage is times two, is it more important to have a balanced budget or for our communities and our families to survive?

Similarly, the politicians seem to be in lock step in saying that they will not call for new taxes – including taxes that could target the wealthy and the corporations for the benefit of poor and working people.  Is that a priority for us, when there are projections that 2009 could see even more home foreclosures than 2008?

If there were ever a time when it is critical for us to set our own agenda, independent of the politicians and the corporations, this is it.  For once we should be viewing the state budget process not as something that the politicians will work out but as something in which we must have a direct and decisive say.  For all the prattle about sacrifices, it’s us, our families and our communities who are being sacrificed.

When the politicians talk about state spending and the deficit, they often offer us the analogy that it’s like a family planning a budget.  We can’t have a deficit, they reason, just like you can’t plan a budget that requires that you spend more than you have.  Of course the simple fact is that in this economic climate most families have to budget more than they have.  Indeed, for all the talk about financial irresponsibility, most of the people in foreclosure weren’t crazy spendthrifts but decent, hard-working people who got in over their heads because of rosy pictures painted by realtors and bankers about how the economy would endlessly go up and up and up, taking the appraised value of their home along with it.

But there’s something else here.   No parent, planning out the family budget, says “Well, I guess junion will just have to live on the street because we can’t afford a house large enough for him.”  Or “Gee, with this budget I don’t see how we can afford to get your broken arm treated, kid.”  In emergencies we make decisions based on what is necessary, even if that requires breaking the rules.  And if anything the new budget projections show just how much of an emergency the economic crisis really is.

In such a crisis, the same as if it were a family crisis or a community crisis such as a flood or a blizzard, we throw the rules out the window and do what needs to be done.

Which leads to this question.  Is it possible that the reason that Governor Rell and the legislature aren’t calling for breaking the rules and treating the economic crisis as an emergency is because it isn’t an emergency for them?  While we stand on the brink and see possible unemployment, foreclosure, eviction, homelessness, and all these other dangers, Governor Rell’s reaction to this situation suggests that she is quite comfortable with balancing the budget on our backs.

The system is broken in a way that it has not been broken before, and if we let the politicians act as if this were less than an emergency, we, our families and our communities will suffer for it.  With the floodwaters rising, let’s silence the prattle about the deficit and talk about what we need to survive, including not only a fully-funded budget that protects our communities, but also whatever new taxes on Connecticut’s wealthy and corporations to pay for that budget.

Filed under: Economic crisis

Market Watch: Bloody start to earnings season batters banks

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) – For investors who might have thought the worst was over after the nation’s big three banks aired their dirty laundry last week, Tuesday provided clear evidence that the horror show continues, as State Street fell more than 30% in the U.S., and banks across the U.K. tumbled as well. [Market Watch]

Filed under: Economic crisis

Unemployment and Connecticut’s growing human deficit

Near the end of 2008, the high tech retail store Circuit City announced that it would go into a “reorganization” under Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  But the plans for reorganization failed to win the support of the company’s creditors and it recently announced that the company would be liquidated under Chapter 7.  Beginning this weekend, some 567 stores employing more than 30,000 workers will hold liquidation sales, wrap up the company’s affairs, and go out of business.

Circuit City certainly isn’t the only retailer that’s going to close its doors this year, and it’s predicted that there will be severe job losses in every part of the economy.  With the exception of unemployment compensation benefits, the hundreds of thousands of workers who are laid off will be left without income.  The vast majority will also be left without affordable health insurance if they ever had any to begin with.  Many older workers who might have considered retiring or who felt that they at least had a cushion to fall back on have seen 401k plans devastated by the falling stock market.

In this environment, talking about the work ethic, working hard at finding work, standing on your own two feet, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, etc. is meaningless.  If the official unemployment rate rises to double digits in Connecticut, as many have predicted, it means that real unemployment – everyone who is able to work and can’t find a job – will be perhaps as much as 15-20%, with the number in urban areas and some poor rural areas at the high end of that scale or above.  No matter how willing people will are to work, there will not be jobs for them.

Anyone who has ever lived in the shadow of unemployment knows that there is more to the story than someone not having a job.  Unemployment affects families directly with the sudden risk of losing a home, not being able to afford medical care, falling behind on bills.  And then there’s the indirect toll that unemployment can bring: depression, alcohol and drug dependence, increased domestic violence, and family breakups.  A short term decision not to send a child to college that affects her or his long-term prospects in life.  Parents separating so that one can move to look for a job while the other stays with the kids.

When the unemployment is long-term and pervasive, the impact also ripples out into the community.  Locally-owned businesses go under because customers don’t have money.  Communities must bear the costs of shelters for more homeless people, healthcare for more uninsured people, more mental health and alcohol and drug treatment programs, more school breakfasts and school lunches for kids whose parents have no money.  Communities must also confront the problem of lower tax revenues, compounding the problem of funding all of these necessities.  And often there will be the increased cost of policing communities in which people are increasingly desperate.

Rising unemployment and all of its attendant problems is the reality that working class communities in Connecticut face in 2009. Unemployment is a painful and dangerous reality for individuals and families even in good economic times.  But Governor Rell and the Connecticut legislature promise to make this reality far more painful and dangerous for us with plans to make deep cuts in state spending – cuts that will contribute to the levels of unemployment and poverty either directly or indirectly.

The most direct impact of the cuts may be in the form of state employee layoffs and cuts in state-funded programs at the municipal and local level that force more layoffs, cuts that will leave even more people unemployed, even more families struggling, and even more communities desperate.

But budget cuts to human services programs, education and health care, though more indirect, will be no less devastating for our communities, as more and more of us grab for the safety net to survive unemployment and economic hard times and find ourselves in free fall instead.

When Governor Rell talks about the state deficit that her budget cuts will limit or cure she is referring to the government’s indebtedness as it spends more than it takes in.  But there is another kind of deficit that is plaguing Connecticut: a deficit of jobs and sources of family income, a deficit of resources to keep families from losing their homes, a deficit of decent schools in many urban and rural areas, a deficit of affordable healthcare and a deficit of places for people to go for help.  Rell’s budget cuts may help the state to solve its money deficit but it adds to the human deficit that threatens severe harm to us, our families and our communities.

Filed under: Economic crisis

BBC: Prominent Jewish MP condemns Israel’s attack on Gaza

MP makes Israeli troops Nazi link

A prominent Jewish MP has compared the actions of Israeli troops with Nazis who forced his family to flee Poland.

Sir Gerald Kaufman, MP for Gorton in Manchester, drew the parallel during a Commons debate on the Gaza conflict.

Some members of the Jewish community – including his fellow MPs – have questioned the comments.

Louise Ellman MP, of the Labour Friends of Israel group, said the “dreadful” war in Gaza was not comparable to German actions in World War II.

Sir Gerald, who was brought up as an orthodox Jew and Zionist, told MPs: “My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town .. a German soldier shot her dead in her bed.

“My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.”

“The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.”

Palestinian deaths in the Gaza Strip have passed 1,000, medical sources in Gaza say, but Israel has continued to resist international calls for a ceasefire.

The Israeli government says the action is necessary to prevent Hamas rocket attacks into southern Israel.

Labour MP Louise Ellman said: “The Nazis were about rounding up and exterminating people because of their origins.

“What we’re witnessing in Gaza is a dreadful war and the Israelis are trying to stop Hamas continuing to launch rockets from Gaza, targeting and killing and murdering Israeli citizens.”

But speaking to the BBC on Friday, Sir Gerald said he was standing by his comments.

“We had an IRA bomb in Manchester which destroyed much of the centre – we didn’t send troops over to Belfast to murder 1,000 Catholics.”

Sir Gerald said he had been a long-term supporter of Israel and has personally known many of its prime pinisters.

But he added: “I am not going to stand by and keep silent when the Israeli troops – with a dreadful government sending them there – kill large numbers of innocent people with no useful result at the end of it all.

Filed under: Fighting oppression, International solidarity