South Africa migrant attacks spread to Cape Town

[Sapiens]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080523/...ca_violence_dc

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Anti-immigrant violence has spread to South Africa's second largest city, Cape Town, where mobs attacked Somalis and Zimbabweans and looted their homes and shops, police said on Friday.
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At least 42 people have been killed and more than 25,000 driven from their homes in 12 days of attacks by mobs that accuse African migrants of taking jobs and fuelling crime. More than 500 people have been arrested.

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The South African currency fell sharply earlier this week on the back of the violence. The rand was slightly firmer on Friday at 7.6650 to the U.S. dollar.

The violence comes amid power shortages and growing disaffection over Mbeki's pro-business policies. Soaring food and fuel prices helped push tensions between poor South Africans and immigrants to a breaking point. The attacks have also sent a chill through the business community.

This is what happens when the currency's purchasing power ratio to income is dropped below subsistenance level. This is the result of what Lenin meant when he said:

"There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

[WDCRob]

Re: South Africa migrant attacks spread to Cape Town

Nice quote Sapiens.

[Sapiens]

Re: South Africa migrant attacks spread to Cape Town

Rob, here is another one for you, from Keynes:

“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become ‘profiteers,’ who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.”

[Guest]

Re: South Africa migrant attacks spread to Cape Town

Meanwhile, in the US we're considered xenophobes if we don't provide everyone who arrives illegally with free healthcare, food, and other goodies, a drivers license, and look the other way when they're applying for a job.

This is only partly the result of the currency mess in Zimbabwe. I noted Pakistani and other merchants were being attacked as well. It's also the result of an impoverished and perhaps misguided citizenry seeking to effect change when they feel their laws either aren't sufficient or aren't being enforced. Not enforcing laws tends to breed contempt for the law in general. I wonder what is going to happen here when there is no longer any such thing as "jobs Americans won't do" yet Americans can't find any job, emergency rooms are packed with recently unemployed and now uninsured citizens seeking care who have to wait in line with immigrants seeking the same, and the government checks don't buy as much as they used to.

On a related note, I read recently that if the old CPI format had been retained, social security checks would be 70% higher today. Assuming that's actually the case, Ron Paul should have pointed that one out, he might have gotten more traction with the old folks and other payees from the govn't. People will snore through your speech on the constitution, but point out they're taking a hit on that monthly check and that grabs their attention.

There's something like 4 Billion people living in poverty(relative to US standards) in the world. My hunch is mass migration is not the solution. If it is, better start building those 120 floor skyscrapers to house them.

[pescamaaan]

Re: South Africa migrant attacks spread to Cape Town

Rob, here is another one for you, from Keynes:

i read this quote and the flipped to another site i like to read, counterpunch.com:

http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts05232008.html

The US Senate has voted $165 billion to fund Bush’s wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq through next spring.

As the US is broke and deep in debt, every one of the $165 billion dollars will have to be borrowed. American consumers are also broke and deep in debt. Their zero saving rate means every one of the $165 billion dollars will have to be borrowed from foreigners.
The “world’s only superpower” is so broke it can’t even finance its own wars.
Each additional dollar that the irresponsible Bush Regime has to solicit from foreigners puts more downward pressure on the dollar’s value. During the eight wasted and extravagant years of the Bush Regime, the once mighty US dollar has lost about 60% of its value against the euro.

2 Bush administrations, 2 wars and an economy in serious trouble. thank goodness for itulip which has helped to educate and prepare me for what is about to come....