Africa/Global: Tobacco Industry Targets Africa Markets

AfricaFocus Bulletin October 9, 2017 (171009) (Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note “British American Tobacco (BAT) and other multinational tobacco firms have threatened governments in at least eight countries in Africa demanding they axe or dilute the kind of protections that have saved millions of lives in the west, a Guardian investigation has found. … The giant tobacco firms hope to boost their markets in Africa, which has a fast-growing young and increasingly prosperous population.” – The Guardian Tobacco is the iconic case of the conflict of public health and industry power. With its growth in the 20th century supercharged by advertising, it lost ground to a a broad public health campaign in the last decade of the twentieth century, particularly in the United States. It resisted that campaign with a powerful campaign to dispute scientific data on the health consequences of smoking. Worldwide, the World Health Organization has led an effect to counter tobacco use, based on the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, adopted in 2003, to which 181 countries are parties (http://www.who.int/fctc/cop/about/en/). But implementation is inconsistent, and the industry is particularly targeting new younger consumers in countries without strong measures to curb the use of tobacco. According to the WHO, “Tobacco use is the leading single preventable cause of death worldwide, killing over 7 million people each year.” In Africa, the WHO-linked Center for Tobacco Control in Africa, based in Kampala, Uganda at the Makerere University School of Public Health, has taken the lead ( http://ctc-africa.org/index.php/company/about-us). But the industry is fighing back, as documented in the lead article excerpted in this issue of AfricaFocus Bulletin. That excerpt is accompanied by a short press release from WHO on their annual tobacco control report, and an open letter in the British Medical Journal Tobacco Control Blog, denouncing the new smokescreen organization launched by Philip Morris International (misleadingly titled “Foundation for a Smoke-free World”, see http://tinyurl.com/yb6or524 for more details). Another rising threat to health in Africa, parallel to that posed by tobacco, is the rapid expansion of fast food consumption, fueled both by multinational corporations and local rivals. See two recent articles: “Obesity Was Rising as Ghana Embraced Fast Food. Then Came KFC,” New York Times, October 2, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/ydhqz46r “Fast food is fueling an obesity epidemic in Africa,” Quartz Africa, October 4, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/y9eqhjec For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on health, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-health.php For those wishing to explore these topics in greater depth, AfricaFocus has also compiled this short list of relevant books. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. 2010 http://amzn.to/2xrLbLx “Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway have demonstrated what many of us have long suspected: that the “debate’ over the climate crisis–and many other environmental issues–was manufactured by the same people who brought you “safe’ cigarettes. Anyone concerned about the state of democracy in America should read this book.” – Former Vice President Al GoreDavid Kessler, A Question of Intent: A Great American Battle with a Deadly Industry. 2002. http://amzn.to/2xsaRMC Carrick Mollenkamp et al., The People Vs. Big Tobacco: How the States Took on the Cigarette Giants. 1998. http://amzn.to/2z70Ul7 Mark Wolfson, The Fight Against Big Tobacco: The Movement, The State and the Public’s Health. 2001. http://amzn.to/2xrbQb8 Books on the public health campaign against the tobacco companies in the 1990s. The short lesson is that the victories came from a convergence of actions by health advocates, public officials, and industry insiders who exposed lies by the companies.++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Threats, bullying, lawsuits: tobacco industry’s dirty war for the African market

by Sarah Boseley in Nairobi

The Guardian, July 12, 2017 https://www.theguardian.com – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/yc83jmeh

British American Tobacco (BAT) and other multinational tobacco firms have threatened governments in at least eight countries in Africa demanding they axe or dilute the kind of protections that have saved millions of lives in the west, a Guardian investigation has found.

BAT, one of the world’s leading cigarette manufacturers, is fighting through the courts to try to block the Kenyan and Ugandan governments’ attempts to bring in regulations to limit the harm caused by smoking. The giant tobacco firms hope to boost their markets in Africa, which has a fast-growing young and increasingly prosperous population.

In one undisclosed court document in Kenya, seen by the Guardian, BAT’s lawyers demand the country’s high court “quash in its entirety” a package of anti-smoking regulations and rails against what it calls a “capricious” tax plan. The case is now before the supreme court after BAT Kenya lost in the high court and the appeal court. A ruling is expected as early as next month.

BAT in Uganda asserts in another document that the government’s Tobacco Control Act is “inconsistent with and in contravention of the constitution”.

The Guardian has also seen letters, including three by BAT, sent to the governments of Uganda, Namibia, Togo, Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso revealing the intimidatory tactics that tobacco companies are using, accusing governments of breaching their own laws and international trade agreements and warning of damage to the economy.

BAT denies it is opposed to all tobacco regulation, but says it reserves the right to ask the courts to intervene where it believes regulations may not comply with the law.

Later this month, BAT is expected to become the world’s biggest listed tobacco firm as it completes its acquisition of the large US tobacco company Reynolds in a $49bn deal, and there are fears over the extent to which big tobacco can financially outmuscle health ministries in poorer nations. A vote on the deal by shareholders of both firms is due to take place next Wednesday, simultaneously in London at BAT and North Carolina at Reynolds.

Professor Peter Odhiambo, a former heart surgeon who is head of the government’s Tobacco Control Board in Kenya, told the Guardian: “BAT has done as much as they can to block us.”

Experts say Africa and southern Asia are urgent new battlegrounds in the global fight against smoking because of demographics and rising prosperity. Despite declining smoking and more controls in some richer countries, it still kills more than seven million people globally every year, according to the WHO, and there are fears the tactics of big tobacco will effectively succeed in “exporting the death and harm” to poorer nations.

There are an estimated 77 million smokers in Africa and those numbers are predicted to rise by nearly 40% from 2010 levels by 2030, which is the largest projected such increase in the world.

Cigarette ad targeting African women. Image      from article in Cincinnati Inquirer, March 4, 2003.    

In Kenya, BAT has succeeded in delaying regulations to restrict the promotion and sale of cigarettes for 15 years, fighting through every level of the legal system. In February it launched a case in the supreme court that has already halted the imposition of tobacco controls until probably after the country’s general election in August, which are being contested by parliamentarians who have been linked to payments by the multinational company.

In Uganda, BAT launched legal action against the government in November, arguing that the Tobacco Control Act, which became law in 2015, contravenes the constitution. It is fighting restrictions that are now commonplace in richer countries, including the expansion of health warnings on packets and point-of-sale displays, arguing that they unfairly restrict its trade.

The court actions are brought by BAT’s local affiliates, BAT Kenya and BAT Uganda, but approved at Globe House, the London headquarters of the multinational, which receives most of the profits from the African trade. In its 2016 annual report, BAT outlined the “risk” that “unreasonable litigation” would be brought in to control tobacco around the world. Its response was an “engagement and litigation strategy coordinated and aligned across the Group”.

‘Focus on emerging markets’

At its annual meeting in March, chairman Richard Burrows toasted a “vintage year” for BAT, as profits rose 4% to £5.2bn after investors took their cut – their dividend had increased by 10%. When asked about the legal actions in Africa, he said tobacco was an industry that “should be regulated … but we want to see that regulation is serving the correct interests of the health mission and human mission which should lie behind it”.

So, “from time to time it’s necessary for us to take legal action to challenge new regulation” which he said was led by “the local board”.

BAT says it is “simply not true that we oppose all tobacco regulation, particularly in developing countries”. Tobacco should be appropriately regulated as a product that has risks to health, it said, but “where there are different interpretations of whether regulations comply with the law, we think it is entirely reasonable to ask the courts to assist in resolving it”. It was opposed to only a handful of the issues in Kenya’s regulations, not the entirety, it said in a statement.

Although most countries in Africa have signed the World Health Organisation (WHO) treaty on tobacco control, none has yet fully implemented the smoking restrictions it endorses.

The WHO predicts that by 2025, smoking rates will go up in 17 of the 30 Africa-region countries from their 2010 level. In some countries a massive hike is expected – in Congo-Brazzaville, from 13.9% to nearly half the population (47.1%) and in Cameroon from 13.7% to 42.7%. In Sierra Leone it will be 41.2% (74% among men) and in Lesotho 36.9%.

In contrast, research showed last year that just 16.9% of adults smoke in the UK; and last month new figures showed UK heart disease deaths had fallen 20% since that country’s indoor smoking ban.

“The tobacco industry is now turning its focus toward emerging markets in sub-Saharan Africa, seeking to exploit the continent’s patchwork tobacco control regulations and limited resources to combat industry marketing advances,” said Dr Emmanuela Gakidou and colleagues at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle, publishing an analysis of smoking prevalence around the world in the Lancet in April.

Africa’s growing numbers of children and young people, and its increasing wealth, represent a huge future market for the tobacco industry. The companies deny targeting children and cannot sell packs smaller than 10, but a new study carried out in Nairobi by the Johns Hopkins school of public health in the US and the Kenya-based Consumer Information Network found vendors selling cigarettes along the routes children take to walk to primary schools.

Stalls sell single Dunhill, Embassy, Safari and other BAT cigarette sticks, costing around 4p (5 cents) each, alongside sweets, biscuits and fizzy drinks. The vendors split the packets of 20 manufactured by BAT. “They are targeting children,” said Samuel Ochieng, chief executive of the Consumer Information Network. “They mix cigarettes with candies and sell along the school paths.”

BAT said that its products were for adult smokers only and that it would much prefer that stalls sold whole packets rather than single sticks, “given our investment in the brands and the fact there are clear health warnings on the packs.

“Across the world, we have very strict rules regarding not selling our products to retailers located near schools. BAT Kenya provides support to many of these independent vendors, including providing stalls painted in non-corporate colours, and providing youth smoking prevention and health warnings messages. We also educate vendors to ensure they do not sell tobacco products near schools.”

Links with politicians

The Kenya case, expected to be heard after the elections on 8 August, is seen as critical for the continent. If the government loses, other countries will have less appetite for the long and expensive fight against the wealthy tobacco industry.

BAT has around 70% of the Kenyan market; its Kenyan competitor, Mastermind, has joined in the legal action against the government.

…

Tih Ntiabang, regional coordinator for Africa of the Framework Convention Alliance – NGOs that support the WHO treaty – said the tobacco companies had become bolder. “In the past it used to be invisible interference, but today it is so shameful that it is so visible and they are openly opposing public health treaties like the case in Kenya at the moment … Today they boldly go to court to oppose public health policy. Every single government is highly interested in economic growth. They [the tobacco companies] know they have this economic power. The budget of tobacco companies like BAT could be as much as the whole budget of the Africa region.

“Our health systems are not really well organised. Our policy makers can’t see clearly what are the health costs of inaction on tobacco control because our health system is not very good. It puts the tobacco industry at an advantage on public health.”

The sale across the whole of Africa of single cigarette sticks was a serious problem because it enabled children to buy them. “They are extremely affordable. Young teenagers are able to purchase a cigarette. You don’t need £1 for a pack of 20,” he said.

BAT has a reputation in Africa as an employer offering steady and well-paid jobs, said Ntiabang, based in Cameroon. “When I was about 10, I was always dreaming I could work for BAT. They have always painted themselves as a responsible company – a dream company to work for. All the staff are well-off. The young people think ‘I want to work for BAT’. They promote a lot of events and make their name appear to young people. We grow up dreaming we can be one of them.”

[see more, including several country case studies in full article at http://tinyurl.com/yc83jmeh]

WHO report finds dramatic increase in life-saving tobacco control policies in last decade

4.7 billion people – 63% of world’s population – are covered by polices such as strong graphic warnings, smoke-free public places, and other measures

http://www.who.int/ – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/ycfbr6x8

News Release, World Health Organization

19 July 2017 | Geneva | New York – The latest WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic published today finds that more countries have implemented tobacco control policies, ranging from graphic pack warnings and advertising bans to no smoking areas. About 4.7 billion people – 63% of the world’s population – are covered by at least one comprehensive tobacco control measure, which has quadrupled since 2007 when only 1 billion people and 15% of the world’s population were covered. Strategies to implement such policies have saved millions of people from early death.

However, the tobacco industry continues to hamper government efforts to fully implement life- and cost-saving interventions, according to the new WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2017.

“Governments around the world must waste no time in incorporating all the provisions of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control into their national tobacco control programmes and policies,” says Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO DirectorGeneral. “They must also clamp down on the illicit tobacco trade, which is exacerbating the global tobacco epidemic and its related health and socioeconomic consequences.”

Dr Tedros adds: “Working together, countries can prevent millions of people from dying each year from preventable tobacco-related illness, and save billions of dollars a year in avoidable health care expenditures and productivity losses.”

Today, 4.7 billion people are protected by at least one “best practice” tobacco control measure from the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), 3.6 billion more people than in 2007, according to the report. This progress has been possible because governments have intensified action to implement key measures of the WHO FCTC.

Strategies to support implementation of tobacco demand reduction measures in the WHO FCTC, like the “MPOWER” measures, have saved millions of people from early death, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars in the past decade. MPOWER was established in 2008 to promote government action on six tobacco control strategies in-line with the WHO FCTC to:

• Monitor tobacco use and prevention policies.
• Protect people from tobacco smoke.
• Offer help to quit tobacco use.
• Warn people about the dangers of tobacco.
• Enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.
• Raise taxes on tobacco.

“One in 10 deaths around the world is caused by tobacco, but we can change that through MPOWER tobacco control measures, which have proven highly effective,” says Michael R. Bloomberg, WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies. “The progress that’s been made worldwide – and documented throughout this report – shows that it is possible for countries to turn the tide. Bloomberg Philanthropies looks forward to working with Director-General Dr Tedros and continuing our work with WHO.”

The new report, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, focuses on monitoring tobacco use and prevention policies. It finds that one third of countries have comprehensive systems to monitor tobacco use. While this is up from one quarter of countries monitoring tobacco use at recommended levels in 2007, governments still need to do more to prioritize or finance this area of work.

Even countries with limited resources can monitor tobacco use and implement prevention policies. By generating data on youth and adults, countries can, in turn, promote health, save healthcare costs and generate revenues for government services, the report finds. It adds that systematic monitoring of tobacco industry interference in government policymaking protects public health by shedding light on tobacco industry tactics. These include exaggerating the economic importance of the tobacco industry, discrediting proven science, and using litigation to intimidate governments.

“Countries can better protect their citizens, including children, from the tobacco industry and its products when they use tobacco monitoring systems,” says Dr Douglas Bettcher, Director of WHO’s Department for the Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs).

“Tobacco industry interference in government policy-making represents a deadly barrier to advancing health and development in many countries,” says Dr Bettcher. “But by monitoring and blocking such activities, we can save lives and sow the seeds for a sustainable future for all.”

…

Note for Editors:

Tobacco use is the leading single preventable cause of death worldwide, killing over 7 million people each year. Its economic costs are also enormous, totaling more than US$ 1.4 trillion in health care costs and lost productivity.

The WHO Report on the global tobacco epidemic will be launched on 19 July 2017 on the side-lines of the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York.

Controlling tobacco use is a key part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Agenda includes targets to strengthen national implementation of the WHO FCTC and a one third reduction in premature deaths from NCDs, including heart and lung diseases, cancer and diabetes. Tobacco use is a leading common risk factor for NCDs, which kill 40 million people each year, equivalent to 70% of all deaths globally, including 15 million people aged between 30 and 69 years. Over 80% of these “premature” deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.

…

A “Frank Statement” for the 21st Century?

British Medical Journal Tobacco Control Blog, 19 Sep, 2017

http://blogs.bmj.com/tc – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/ya429sh9

Ruth E. Malone, Simon Chapman, Prakash C. Gupta, Rima Nakkash, Tih Ntiabang, Eduardo Bianco, Yussuf Saloojee, Prakit Vathesatogkit, Laurent Huber, Chris Bostic, Pascal Diethelm, Cynthia Callard, Neil Collishaw, Anna B. Gilmore

The surprise announcement by the former head of the World Health Organization’s Tobacco Free Initiative, Derek Yach, that he would head a newly-established organization called the “Foundation for a Smoke-free World” to “accelerate the end of smoking” was met with gut-punched disappointment by those who have worked for decades to achieve that goal. Unmoved by a soft-focus video featuring Yach looking pensively off into the distance from a high-level balcony while smokers at ground level stubbed out Marlboros and discussed how hard it was to quit, leading tobacco control organizations were shocked to hear that the new organization was funded with a $1 billion, twelve-year commitment from tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI). PMI, which has been working for decades to rebrand itself as a “socially responsible” company while continuing to promote sales of its top-branded Marlboro cigarettes and oppose policies that would genuinely reduce their use, clearly believes this investment will further its “harm reduction” agenda, led by its new heat-not-burn product, IQOS. But don’t worry, the Foundation assures everyone that “PMI and the tobacco industry are precluded from having any influence over how the Foundation spends its funds or focuses its activities.”

Except that is what a broad range of industry front groups, sometimes headed by respected and even well-intentioned leaders, have been saying since the “Frank Statement” of 1954. The long and sordid history of the industry’s funding of “research,” a major part of the mission of this new foundation, is replete with exactly this sort of blithe reassurance, as Yach himself pointed out in an earlier time. In reality, nothing has changed. The “research” really isn’t the point anyway. The mere fact of having landed Yach is a major public relations coup for PMI that will be used to do more of what the industry always does: create doubt, contribute further to existing disputes within the global tobacco control movement, shore up its own competitive position, and go on pushing its cigarettes as long as it possibly can.

In the video, Yach invites “everyone” to join the “movement” this new organization is starting – implicitly dismissing the past 40 years of tobacco control activism and advocacy and 60 years of tobacco industry lies and duplicity. Leaders of active existing civil society coalitions like the Framework Convention Alliance and the Noncommunicable Disease Alliance were blindsided. Contrary to the video’s claim, there is no shortage of “fresh thinking” in the already-vibrant, already-existing global movement to end the tobacco epidemic. There are many great “endgame”- furthering ideas now being actively debated, studied, and tried out: the primary obstacle to implementing them is the tobacco industry.

PMI hasn’t stopped opposing the policies that would reduce tobacco use, has it? No: recently leaked documents show that PMI continues to actively oppose any policy that could genuinely reduce tobacco use. Countries around the world identify the tobacco industry as the single biggest barrier to progress in implementing such tobacco control policies. This “new” initiative is just more of the same lipstick on the industry pig, but in a way it’s far worse this time: by using a formerly high profile WHO leader as a spokesperson, PMI can also accelerate its longstanding ambition to splinter the tobacco control movement.

It’s also not true, as the video suggests, that tobacco control efforts have “plateaued.” Cigarette consumption is declining and since 2003, more than 180 countries have become parties to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), committing themselves to implement effective policy measures and building public support for ending the epidemic. PMI knows this, hence its ongoing, covert and overt efforts to stymie the FCTC. For example, at the last Conference of the Parties, the meetings where implementation of the treaty is discussed, tobacco farmers organized by PMI demonstrated outside the venue and PMI representatives met secretly with delegates to the meeting.

The company hasn’t announced it is going to stop promoting cigarettes to kids in Africa and Asia, has it? No: in fact, it’s developing “stronger” products for some markets, and continuing to aggressively promote Marlboro cigarettes to the young through campaigns like “Be Marlboro”. Despite decades of developing and then abandoning so-called “reduced harm” products, cigarettes remain PMI’s biggest moneymaker, dwarfing anything else. Only the profoundly naïve will believe that PMI is not solely promoting its self-interest in supporting this new “foundation”.

In fact, the announcement came the day after a huge win for tobacco control: the exclusion of tobacco companies (as well as makers of cluster bombs and some other unsavory actors) from membership in the United Nations Global Compact, due to their incompatibility with responsible business principles. Tobacco control leaders across the globe are convincing governments to protect health policymaking from tobacco industry influence, in line with Article 5.3 of the FCTC. PMI’s response is a new industry sponsored entity, eager to work with governments. From its inception, this organization will constitute a challenge for Article 5.3 implementation.

The timing of the announcement was interesting in another way: just the day before, a new global health initiative led by former US Centers for Disease Control head Tom Frieden was announced, with $225 million in funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. While this initiative does not focus solely on tobacco, these funders know how much tobacco contributes to disease and death worldwide. They are also funders who have unequivocally taken positions supporting the strong policy measures that work.

What is required to end smoking isn’t helping the world’s leading cigarette manufacturer in its ongoing image makeover while it continues to try to derail the significant public health progress made to date. What is required is leaders who have the humility to work with the movement and policymakers with the backbones of steel needed to stand up to the industry to enact and implement strong tobacco control measures, including high taxes, smokefree laws, effective media campaigns to denormalize both smoking and tobacco companies, and marketing, packaging and retailing regulations to make these deadly products less ubiquitous. The global movement public health activists built over decades of toiling in the trenches must stand together and not allow PMI to buy more time by executing a 21st century version of the “Frank Statement.”

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http://www.nola.com/family/index.ssf/2017/09/families_cant_afford_diapers.html

Updated on September 25, 2017 at 2:57 PM Posted on September 25, 2017 at 1:32 PM

Single-payer health care – its time has come: Mark Dimondstein

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congress is back from its summer recess and the problems with our nation’s health care system haven’t gone away. How to fix health care is once again being hotly debated. Recently, President Donald Trump warned Republican senators that they must do something or be confronted with the dangers of “single-payer” health care. But, single-payer shouldn’t be the boogeyman — its time has come.

As a postal worker and now president of the American Postal Workers Union, I’ve had many occasions to meet with Canadian postal workers. The lives and dreams of postal workers just across Lake Erie are similar to workers in Northeast Ohio and other parts of the United States. One huge difference stands out – Canadian health care. Canadians never worry about being denied access to medical care. Unlike in the United States, no one is forced to choose between food and medicine. A major illness won’t drive them to bankruptcy or out of their homes.

Canada’s single-payer health care system is similar to Medicare but in Canada every man, woman and child has cradle-to-grave coverage for their doctor, hospital and nursing care – with full choice of physicians. The government also negotiates affordable drug costs with pharmaceutical companies.

2009: The ins and outs of Canada’s health system

Imagine how much less stressful our lives would be without co-pays, deductibles, billing for services, lifetime limits or huge insurance premiums. According to University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Gerald Friedman, 95 percent of U.S. households would save money under a single-payer plan.

It is striking that the Canadian success is rarely discussed in the current health care debate. The leadership of both major political parties treat health care as a privilege rather than a human right. The profits of the medical industrial complex sadly take center stage over the people’s interests.

Most of the Democratic Party leadership is wedded to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). While some measures of the ACA should be preserved, such as coverage for the 153 million Americans with pre-existing conditions, the law has failed. It is not affordable. It contains no public option, does nothing to lower pharmaceutical prices, is a boon to the insurance companies and still leaves tens of millions uninsured and millions more with inferior insurance plans.

The failed legislation promoted by the Republican leadership is far worse. The GOP plans would gut Medicaid (used by one in five Americans and two-thirds of nursing home patients). Their plans would drive 22 million people from health insurance rolls, according to the Congressional Budget Office; incentivize employers to eliminate health coverage; limit coverage for pre-existing conditions; and drastically raise medical costs for seniors – all while giving billions in tax breaks to the wealthiest.

Most workers our union represents have employer-based health insurance. Every year we are paying more and receiving fewer benefits. A postal employee typically pays $6,000 a year for their share of family plan premiums – plus co-pays, deductibles and co-insurance.  A “Canadian style” system would offer financial relief, even to those currently insured.

Donald Trump was right back in 2000 when he said: “We must have universal health care. Just imagine the improved quality of life for our society as a whole….The Canadian-style, single-payer system… helps Canadians live longer and healthier than Americans…. There are fewer medical lawsuits, less loss of labor to sickness, and lower costs to companies paying for the medical care of their employees.”

According to the most recent figures, the United States spends 17.8Â percent of GDP on health care — more per capita than any other country. More than 25 percent of health care expenses are administrative – money diverted to needless insurance industry overhead and profits. (Twice that of Canada.)  U.S. citizens average $9,000 a year in health-related costs.

Yet, health outcomes are dismal. The United States ranks 34th in life expectancy. (Canada ranks 13.) A 2017 study by the Commonwealth Fund, found that the United States ranks last of the 11 most “developed” countries in health care quality, access, results and efficiency.

The ACA should be replaced with a better system. The recent debate between bad (“Obamacare”) and worse (“Trumpcare”) fails to meet the health care needs of the 99 percent. Let’s learn from our neighbor and demand single-payer universal health coverage – “Medicare for All!”

It is a proven, simple, cost-effective, and just way to heal what ails us.

Mark Dimondstein is president of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union and a vice president of the AFL-CIO.

http://tinyurl.com/yanzznro

Issued by:

Kay Tillow, Coordinator

All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551

Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayer.org
https://www.facebook.com/unionsforsinglepayer

HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a
greatly improved Medicare to everyone residing in the U. S. Patients will
choose their own physicians and hospitals.

HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including
prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and
preventive care, emergency services, dental (including oral surgery,
periodontics, endodontics), mental health, home health, physical therapy,
rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care and correction,
hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable medical
equipment, palliative care, podiatric care, and long term care.

HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of
billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the
private health insurance industry.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 633 union organizations including 154 Central
Labor Councils/Area Labor Federations and 44 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT,
OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX,
IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NJ, NY, NV, MA,
RI, NH, ID).

The list of union endorsers.
The sample endorsement resolution.

09/25/2017

AfricaFocus Bulletin September 25, 2017 (170925) (Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note A new report from the Association for Women in Development (AWID), authored by Dr. Attiya Waris in Nairobi, makes a powerful case that women lose disproportionately from illicit financial flows, which reduce the tax base and deprive states of the resources to invest in critical public goods, and that addressing this issue is key to efforts to combat gender inequality. The point should not be surprising, but too often the impact of tax evasion and tax avoidance is cloaked in jargon that makes it less visible than cases such as overt discrimination against women in employment and wages. In contrast, this report stands out for its clarity. AfricaFocus strongly recommends the full version, which is available on-line at http://tinyurl.com/ych3zce3 This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains selected excerpts, as well as a short set of background notes prepared by AfricaFocus on the context of related debates in the United States. Two other examples highlighting the impact of illicit financial flows through tax avoidance by multinational companies are reports by Action Aid (2010) on SAB Miller in Ghana (http://tinyurl.com/ych3zce3) and on Associated British Foods (2013) in Zambia http://www.africafocus.org/docs13/tax1302.php). ActionAid also has a short (3.5 minute) animated video highlighting the impact of this in the Zambia case (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijtOErKjPMg). [Whether or not you have time to read the reports, you can watch and share this video!] For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on tax injustice, illicit financial flows, and related issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php ++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

 

Illicit Financial Flows: Why We Should Claim These Resources for Gender, Economic and Social Justice

by Dr Attiya Waris

Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID)

July 28, 2017

http://www.awid.org – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/ych3zce3

Editor’s note: The conceptual distinction between a narrow and wider definition of illicit financial flows is often confusing. This paper begins with a very clear short explanation and justification for using the wider definition. For an earlier slightly longer discussion, prepared by AfricaFocus Bulletin in November 2015, see “Defining Illicit Financial Flows” http://tinyurl.com/yamhlajc

 

Concept and Scale of Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs)

The concept of illicit financial flows (IFFs) is characterised by a lack of a unique consensual definition. Cobham, for example, explains the difference between a narrow and wider definition as follows:

“There are two main definitions of illicit financial flows (IFF). One equates ‘illicit’ with ‘illegal’, so that IFFs are movements of money or capital from one country to another that are illegally earned, transferred, and/or utilized. This would include individual and corporate tax evasion but not avoidance (which is legal), and other criminal activity like bribery or the trafficking of drugs or people.

The other relies on the dictionary definition of ‘illicit’ as ‘forbidden by law, rules or custom’ – encompassing the illegal but also including the socially unpalatable, such as the multinational corporate tax avoidance”.

Editor’s note: This Venn diagram shows the overlap between illegal and illegimate financial flows. Almost all illegal flows are also illegitimate, with exceptions such as family remittances which may bypass legal foreign currency laws.

For the purpose of this brief, we will use the broader definition that encompasses tax evasion, particularly by multinational corporations (MNCs). This is because the strong corporate lobby has largely shaped the very design of tax laws around the world. Exercising their economic and political influence on countries, they can define what type of tax avoidance is considered legal or illegal in different countries according to their profit interests.

Illicit financial flows can be broken down into three main types:

1. Proceeds from corrupt dealings: For example, bribes by corporations to secure public contracts/permits or false declaration of corporate profits in order to evade tax payment, especially by extractive industries such as mining and oil exploration.
2. Proceeds from criminal activities: A system of bank secrecy is necessary to conceal the origins of illegally obtained money (e.g. from human trafficking or sale of illegal arms), typically by means of transfers involving foreign banks or legitimate businesses – a process known as “money laundering”.
3. Proceeds from commercial tax abuse: tax abuse includes both tax evasion and tax avoidance by corporations and wealthy elites by using, for example, anonymous shell companies in secrecy jurisdictions 4 that hide who the beneficial owners really are and/or obscure information from tax authorities. Another form of commercial tax abuse by MNC’s is to over quote imports or under quote exports, to hide the real value of products, and therefore profits – a process known as “trade mispricing”.

The exact amount of money being transferred through these systems is hard to calculate, because IFFs can only be traced through the international banking system. This does not account for money that simply moves from one place to another, within or across to states, without the aid of the banking system, for example, cash in exchange for political favors or ivory in exchange for small arms. While estimating just how much money is lost through IFFs can be a difficult task due to the inherent secrecy involved in their movement, there is consensus that they represent a tremendous problem.

The Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC) released an infographic (http://tinyurl.com/yde4gqsa) summarizing the different existing estimates. For example, using data of trade misinvoicing, the Global Financial Integrity estimates, that as much as 7.8 trillion was lost by developing and emerging countries to IFFs from 2004 to 2013, and that this loss is getting bigger.

The landmark report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa (also known as the Mbeki report) estimates Africa to be losing more than $50 billion annually in IFFs. This reality is having severe consequences to the development of the continent. “Their economies do not benefit from the multiplier effects of the domestic use of such resources, whether for consumption or investment. Such lost opportunities impact negatively on growth and ultimately on job creation in Africa”, 6 states the report.

To illustrate the effects on development, the same report cites a study (O’Hare and others 2013) on the potential impact of IFFs on under- five child and infant mortality in the region. “Without IFFs, the Central African Republic would have been able to reach the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 on child mortality in 45 years compared with the 218 years at current rates of progress. Other striking examples are Mauritania, 19 years rather than 198 years; Swaziland, 27 years rather than 155 years; and the Republic of Congo, 10 years rather than 120 years. Perhaps most striking is the finding that if IFFs had been arrested by the turn of the century, Africa would reach MDG 4 by 2016” . The sheer amount shows that these ‘lost’ resources could have assisted states nationally and regionally to achieve the unmet Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Moving forward, this could play a crucial role in financing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and mobilizing the maximum available resources to ensure the realization of human rights and social justice.

Efforts to quantify the gendered impact and implications of IFFs across the African continent are needed more than ever. The African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) in partnership with Trust Africa, set out an important path in 2016 to strategically discuss with other organizations, how to effectively address this problem and propose political solutions supported by global processes to curb IFFs.

The Disproportionate Impact of IFFs on Gender Justice

Gender impacts of IFFs tend to be understood and studied at the national and even local level, with scarce literature that focuses on the global impact of IFFs as an obstacle to the realization of women’s rights and gender justice.

We take a look at some specific impacts here:

Impact on delivery of social services

An inadequate tax collection system has a direct impact on a country’s budget deficit. The result has commonly been a reduction in key areas such as education, health care, cares facilities, which has a direct impact on women and women-headed households that are more vulnerable to national budget constraints.

Despite external constraints, decisions on budget spending at the national level are highly political and gendered. The decision to choose between privileging certain areas like militarization and propaganda over social spending on people’s needs in the areas mentioned above, is part of maintaining the status quo of power by local and global elites. The lower the investment in education, the easier to control a population kept on survival mode.

The feminisation of poverty is a persistent phenomenon in which women are overrepresented amongst the most poor, with low-paid and poor-quality jobs. Because of unequal gendered power relations and entrenched cultural stereotypes that define women and girls identities and social roles, they predominantly do unpaid care work across the world. This situation has an impact on the advancement of women and girls’ human rights It perpetuates their impoverishment, acting as an obstacle to women and girls participation in the paid economy, political life and bodily and sexual autonomy. For these reasons, women tend to be more dependent on public social services, which have the capacity to shift the unpaid care burden that falls disproportionately on their shoulders. Failure to mobilize public resources therefore robs women and children of the much-needed public services, which reflects a lack of recognition of the role of the care economy in subsidizing the entire economy.

Unemployment and under investment in the economy

When monies are illicitly transferred out of developing countries, the loss of public resources impacts negatively the economic development of a country and ultimately job creation. Similarly, when profits are illicitly transferred out of developing countries, reinvestment and the concomitant economic expansion to create local jobs are not taking place in these countries.

Lack of public investment has consequently led to lack of employment creation and greater unemployment, hitting women particularly hard. According to 2016 ILO figures, in many regions in the world, in comparison to men, women are more likely to become and remain unemployed. They have fewer chances to participate in the labour force and – when they do – often have to accept lower quality jobs. Women are typically the first to lose their jobs and/or accept shorter hours and bad working conditions to keep jobs.

Regressive fiscal policies

IFFs often trigger regressive tax policies – countries facing budget deficit tend to cover that through increased consumption taxes rather than taxing the wealthy. Neoliberal assumptions that taxing the wealthy would result in the withdrawal of private investment in a given economy have permeated so deeply in economic policy decision-making, that putting profit over people has become an unquestionable reality worldwide, even as it remains fundamentally a political decision. Increasing consumption taxes is in many cases the less costly of options for governments (both economically and politically). After all, media corporations will not attack them as they would if they tax the wealthy and also because, unfortunately, in most cases there is not enough of a ‘counter-power’ / people power to stop them.

A great way to get middle and even working class people to support governments that will not invest in social welfare, is the argument that the impoverished don’t pay taxes and live off benefits that formalized workers sustain with their contributions. The invisibility of consumer taxes, and of who pays them the most in proportion to their income, is an effective tool for preserving the status quo. Countries that refuse to put into place mechanisms to efficiently tax those with greater wealth and income (both individuals and corporations) typically resort to indirect tax mechanisms – such as high rates of value added tax (VAT) – that collect taxes from consumer goods or services rather than from individuals or companies. These have a particularly negative effect on informal workers and people living in poverty – the majority of whom are women – as they spend a large part of their income on taxes for the essential goods and services they consume to sustain livelihoods, perpetuating the cycle of poverty and aid dependence.

Marta Luttgrodt, 48, sells SABMiller beer from her stall     in the shadow of the company’s Accra Brewery, Ghana.     Photograph: Jane Hahn/Jane Hahn/ActionAid    

A poignant example is the SAB Miller case in Ghana where Marta, who sells beer at her small stall in Accra, Ghana outside the SAB Miller factory, was paying more tax than the factory right next to her informal stand. This situation does little to encourage informal workers to register as formal workers, as this would further increase their tax burden. As a result, this perpetuates a situation in which informal workers are ineligible to receive social services like health and pension benefits; yet corporations and large businesses with huge profits are not pushed to contribute to building and sustaining the infrastructure for these same basic services.

Principles of Equality and non-discrimination

Tax policies can play a crucial role in reducing inequality and redistributing resources in order to level the playing field as much as possible.

The failure to prevent corruption and the fact that tax amnesties continue to be granted to large corporations, fuel the desire among common taxpayers to be part of those that outwit the state and its tax administration.

Equitable and progressive tax policies, based on human rights, have the potential to reduce inequalities and redistribute resources to achieve development goals and end impoverishment. Yet the wealthy few access legal and financial advice and services to better exploit tax loopholes, or open undeclared foreign bank accounts in low-tax jurisdictions.

Reliance on debt and development cooperation

Hidden wealth also increases inequality between developed and developing countries. For instance the African Tax Administration Forum estimates that up to one-third of Africa’s wealth is being held abroad. This wealth and its associated income are beyond the reach of African tax authorities. It deprives countries of resources that could be used to mitigate inequality, and further enrich donor countries, where it is stored. This income could address the over-dependence on overseas development assistance (ODA), and shift the balance of power between donor and recipient countries; and enable self-determined development priorities and outcomes, rather than those imposed by ODA conditionality, including trade conditions.

Threat to Women’s Peace and security

Lost resources through IFFs often cannot be used legitimately and end up fuelling criminal activity, including illegal arms trade, human trafficking – of which 49% of victims are women and 21% are girls 24 – and other activities undermining peace and human rights.

The data is patchy given the illegal nature of IFFs, but evidence gathered by many including Cobham, the Tax Justice Network and the report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows out of Africa, noted that “IFF thrive on conflict and insecurity and also exacerbate both, undermining the financial and political prospects for effective states to deliver and support development progress.”

Considering the well-documented impact that war and conflict has on women and girls, the issue of IFFs is of outmost importance to tackle the financial enablers behind conflict and militarization.

Resourcing for women’s rights and gender justice

One of the biggest challenges facing the implementation of long agreed commitments on human rights, women’s rights and gender equality and related goals, like those contained in Agenda 2030, is ensuring that resources are sufficiently allocated.

States have an obligation to mobilize the maximum available resources for the realization of human rights. Progressive taxation plays a key role in mobilizing public resources and is a key tool for addressing economic inequality, including gender inequality. The hidden resources of illicit financial flows must be unlocked and returned to bolster domestic resourcing of development goals and gender equality.

Editor’s note: The following notes were prepared by AfricaFocus Bulletin as background for the visit of a delegation to the United States by representatives of African trade unions & civil society organizations, organized by the Solidarity Center and ITUC-Africa on September 20-30, 2017. The delegation, which is visiting Washington, DC and the San Francisco Bay Area, is meeting with activists and policymakers to exchange views on strategies to combat inequality, tax injustice, and illicit financial flows. The delegation includes Joel Odigie, Coordinator Human and Trade Union Rights, African Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa); Claudine Barigye, of the East African Trade Union Confederation; Luckystar Miyandazi, Policy Officer African Institutions Program, European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) and former Africa Coordinator for Africa for ActionAid’s tax justice program; and Gyekye Tanoh, head of the Political Economy Unit at Third World Network Africa.

 

The United States and the International Debate on Illicit Financial Flows

In Africa, the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows (https://www.uneca.org/iff) and the Stop the Bleeding Campaign to End Illicit Financial Flows from Africa (http://stopthebleedingafrica.org/) have put this term and this issue on the agenda for African governments and civil society organizations around the continent.

In contrast, the term is not very familiar even among policy analysts in the United States, but the issues of tax justice, tax evasion, and tax avoidance are central to debate in both political circles and among social justice organizations. The focus is primarily on the domestic issue of how the rich do not pay their fair share. There is also an understanding that this has an international dimension, but there is little awareness of how the United States itself contributes to illicit financial flows. The challenge is to make these connections. This background note provides several resources useful for doing so.

Financial Secrecy Index, Tax Justice Network http://www.financialsecrecyindex.com/

The Financial Secrecy Index ranks jurisdictions according to their secrecy and the scale of their offshore financial activities. A politically neutral ranking, it is a tool for understanding global financial secrecy, tax havens or secrecy jurisdictions, and illicit financial flows or capital flight.

An estimated $21 to $32 trillion of private financial wealth is located, untaxed or lightly taxed, in secrecy jurisdictions around the world. Secrecy jurisdictions Рa term we often use as an alternative to the more widely used term tax havens Рuse secrecy to attract illicit and illegitimate or abusive financial flows. Illicit cross-border financial flows have been estimated at $1-1.6 trillion per year: dwarfing the US$135 billion or so in global foreign aid. Since the 1970s African countries alone have lost over $1 trillion in capital flight, while combined external debts are less than $200 billion. So Africa is a major net creditor to the world Рbut its assets are in the hands of a wealthy ̩lite, protected by offshore secrecy; while the debts are shouldered by broad African populations.

Top 15 countries: 1. Switzerland, 2. Hong Kong, 3. USA, 4. Singapore, 5. Cayman Islands, 6. Luxembourg, 7. Lebanon, 8. Germany, 9. Bahrain, 10. United Arab Emirates (Dubai), 11. Macao, 12. Japan, 13. Panama, 14. Marshall Islands, 15. United Kingdom

Fact Sheet on Offshore Corporate Loopholes, Americans for Tax Fairness https://americansfortaxfairness.org/ – direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/y7kmqs8x

“Many U.S. corporations use offshore tax havens and other accounting gimmicks to avoid paying as much as $90 billion a year in federal income taxes. A large loophole at the heart of U.S. tax law enables corporations to avoid paying taxes on foreign profits until they are brought home. Known as “deferral,” it provides a huge incentive to keep profits offshore as long as possible.

Deferral gives corporations enormous incentives to use accounting tricks to make it appear that profits earned here were generated in a tax haven. Profits are funneled through subsidiaries, often shell companies with few employees and little real business activity. Effectively, firms launder U.S. profits to avoid paying U.S. Taxes.”

Background notes on tax justice and illicit financial flows in U.S. political context

Prepared by AfricaFocus Bulletin for Solidarity Center Mini-Symposium, September 28, 2017 Africa & the U.S.: Illicit Financial Flows, Tax Justice, and Economic Inequality

The “tax reform” debate

“The big battle throughout the fall will be taxes. The Republicans are trying to decide whether to go for massive tax cuts–particularly for corporations, which are awash in cash, and the rich–or massive tax cuts plus an overhaul of the tax system that will permanently favor the wealthy and the corporations (and probably hurt the middle class).” – Brooklyn College political scientist Corey Robin, Facebook post, September 2, 2017 https://www.facebook.com/corey.robin1/posts/1488929127839470

“It’s a Myth That Corporate Tax Cuts Mean More Jobs,” by Sarah Anderson The New York Times, August 30, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/y8fqapyq

“The arithmetic for us is simple,” AT&T’s chief executive, Randall Stephenson, said on CNBC in May. If Congress were to cut the 35 percent tax on corporate profits to 20 percent, he declared, “I know exactly what AT&T would do — we’d invest more” in the United States. Every $1 billion in tax savings would create 7,000 well-paying jobs, Mr. Stephenson went on to say. The correlation between lower corporate taxes and more jobs, he assured viewers, runs “very, very tight.”

As Congress prepares to take up tax legislation this fall, including an effort to reduce the corporate tax rate, this bold jobs claim merits examination. Notably, it comes from the chief executive of a company that’s already paying comparatively little in federal taxes.

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, AT&T enjoyed an effective tax rate of just 8 percent between 2008 and 2015, despite recording a profit in the United States each year, by exploiting tax breaks and loopholes. (The company argues that it pays significant taxes, at a rate close to 34 percent in recent years, but that includes deferred taxes and state and local levies.) Despite the enormous savings AT&T has realized, the company has been downsizing. Although it hires thousands of people a year, the company, by our analysis at the Institute for Policy Studies, reduced its total work force by nearly 80,000 jobs between 2008 and 2016, accounting for acquisitions and spinoffs each involving more than 2,000 workers.

Institute for Policy Studies report: “Corporate Tax Cuts Boost CEO Pay, Not Jobs” http://www.ips-dc.org – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/y7fdkovy 3-minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIdOkaeqe2E

House Speaker Paul Ryan is proposing to cut the statutory federal corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent. President Trump wants to slash the rate even further, to just 15 percent. Their core argument? Lowering the tax burden will lead to more and better jobs.

To investigate this claim, this report is the first to analyze the job creation records of the 92 publicly held U.S. corporations that reported a U.S. profit every year from 2008 through 2015 and paid less than 20 percent of these earnings in federal income tax. Did these reduced tax rates actually lead to greater employment within the 92 firms? The data we have compiled give a definitive — and sobering — answer.

The money-laundering debate and the Trump investigation

Dan Froomkin, “Trump’s World of Luxury Real Estate is Fueled by Money-Laundering” American Constitution Society Blog, August 31, 2017

Brief excerpt. Full article at: http://tinyurl.com/y93w93f8

The ultra-high-end real estate business, where Donald Trump made a lot of his money, is the easiest place for oligarchs and others to launder large amounts of illicit cash. And because several of the lawyers on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian connections with the Trump presidential campaign are specialists in money-laundering and other financial crimes, some observers are speculating that he may be looking into Trump’s past business dealings to see if any of those connections are relevant to the matter at hand.

The fact that money-launderers flock to luxury real estate is nothing new, and isn’t much of a mystery either. It’s the direct result of a major loophole in U.S. government rules that require banks to report cash deposits over $10,000 — but allow property owners to accept $10 million in cash for a condo without divulging who gave it to them.

…

For fraudsters, drug cartels, oligarchs and corrupt foreign government officials looking for a way to launder huge sums of illicit cash — and park it somewhere safe — high-end real estate is the investment of choice. “You can put a lot of money in one place at one time, without raising any eyebrows,” says Heather Lowe, legal counsel for the dirty-money watchdog group Global Financial Integrity. The Treasury Department explains it this way: “The real estate market can be an attractive vehicle for laundering illicit gains because of the manner in which it appreciates in value, ‘cleans’ large sums of money in a single transaction, and shields ill-gotten gains from market instability and exchange-rate fluctuations.”

A New York Times series in 2015 found that more than half of the $8 billion spent each year on New York residences that cost more than $5 million comes from shell corporations that mask the real owners’ identities, one possible sign of moneylaundering.

Global Witness, “Undercover in New York,” January 2016 https://www.globalwitness.org/shadyinc/

“We went undercover and approached 13 New York law firms. We deliberately posed as someone designed to raise red flags for money laundering. We said we were advising an African minister who had accumulated millions of dollars, and we wanted to buy a Gulfstream Jet, a brownstone and a yacht. We said we needed to get the money into the U.S. without detection.

To be clear, the meetings with the lawyers were all preliminary. None of the law firms took our investigator on as a client, and no money was moved. Nonetheless, the results were shocking; all but one of the the lawyers had suggestions on how to move the funds. To see what some of them said, watch [this 3-minute video]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8pgI60GrvU

Current Congressional Legislation related to Illicit Financial Flows and Tax Justice

Corporate Transparency Act of 2017 A bill to amend title 31, United States Code, to ensure that persons who form corporations or limited liability companies in the United States disclose the beneficial owners of those corporations or limited liability companies, in order to prevent wrongdoers from exploiting United States corporations and limited liability companies for criminal gain, to assist law enforcement in detecting, preventing, and punishing terrorism, money laundering, and other misconduct involving United States corporations and limited liability companies, and for other purposes.

1. 1717: Sponsor Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), 1 cosponsor, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s1717 H.R. 3089: Sponsor Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), 10 cosponsors (5R, 5D) https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr3089

Related background on beneficial ownership https://thefactcoalition.org/issues/incorporation-transparency

Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act A bill to end offshore corporate tax avoidance, and for other purposes.

Summary: This bill authorizes the Department of the Treasury to impose restrictions on foreign jurisdictions or financial institutions to counter money laundering and efforts to significantly impede U.S. tax enforcement. It amends the Internal Revenue Code to expand reporting requirements for certain foreign investments and accounts held by U.S. persons, and amends the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to: (1) require corporations to disclose certain financial information on a country-by-country basis, and (2) impose penalties for failing to disclose offshore holdings.

1. 841: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), no cosponsors https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s851 H.R. 1932: Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), 59 cosponsors, all Democrats https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr1932

Related background on country-by-country reporting https://thefactcoalition.org/resources/country-by-country-reporting

Inclusive Prosperity Act of 2017 A bill to impose a tax on certain trading transactions to invest in our families and communities, improve our infrastructure and our environment, strengthen our financial security, expand opportunity and reduce market volatility.

1. 805: Sen. Bernard Sanders (D-VT), no cosponsors https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s805 H.R. 144: Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), 23 cosponsors, all Democrats https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr1144

Related background on financial transaction (“Robin Hood”) taxes http://www.robinhoodtax.org/how/everything-you-need-to-know

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Report on the Negro Question:

Speech to the 4th Congress of the Comintern, Nov. 1922.

by Claude McKay

Published in International Press Correspondence, v. 3 (Jan. 5, 1923), pp. 16-17.

Comrade McKay: Comrades, I feel that I

would rather face a lynching stake in civilized

America than try to make a speech before the most

intellectual and critical audience in the world. I

belong to a race of creators but my public speaking

has been so bad that I have been told by my

own people that I should never try to make

speeches, but stick to writing, and laughing. However,

when I heard the Negro question was going

to be brought up on the floor

of the Congress, I felt it

would be an eternal shame if

I did not say something on

behalf of the members of my

race. Especially would I be a

disgrace to the American

Negroes because, since I

published a notorious poem

in 1919 [“If We Must Die”],

I have been pushed forward

as one of the spokesmen of

Negro radicalism in America

to the detriment of my poetical

temperament. I feel

that my race is honored by this invitation to one

of its members to speak at this Fourth Congress of

the Third International. My race on this occasion

is honored, not because it is different from the

white race and the yellow race, but [because it] is

especially a race of toilers, hewers of wood and

drawers of water, that belongs to the most oppressed,

exploited, and suppressed section of the

working class of the world. The Third International

stands for the emancipation of all the workers of

the world, regardless of race or color, and this stand

of the Third International is not merely on paper

like the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution

of the United States of America. It is a real

thing.

The Negro race in the economic life of the

world today occupies a very peculiar position. In

every country where the Whites and Blacks must

work together the capitalists have set the one

against the other. It would seem at the present day

that the international bourgeoisie would use the

Negro race as their trump card in their fight against

the world revolution. Great Britain has her Negro

regiments in the colonies and she has demonstrated

what she can do with her Negro soldiers by the

use that she made of them during the late War.

The revolution in England is very far away be-

cause of the highly organized exploitation of the

subject peoples of the British Empire. In Europe,

we find that France had a Negro army of over

300,000 and that to carry out their policy of imperial

domination in Europe the French are going

to use their Negro minions.

In America we have the same situation. The

Northern bourgeoisie knows how well the Negro

soldiers fought for their own emancipation, although

illiterate and untrained, during the Civil

War. They also remember how well the Negro soldiers

fought in the Spanish-American War under

Theodore Roosevelt. They know that in the last

war over 400,000 Negroes who were mobilized

gave a very good account of themselves, and that,

besides fighting for the capitalists, they also put

up a very good fight for themselves on returning

to America when they fought the white mobs in

Chicago, St. Louis and Washington.

But more than the fact that the American

capitalists are using Negro soldiers in their fight

against the interests of labor is the fact that the

American capitalists are setting out to mobilize the

entire black race of America for the purpose of

fighting organized labor. The situation in America

today is terrible and fraught with grave dangers. It

is much uglier and more terrible than was the condition

of the peasants and Jews of Russia under

the Tsar. It is so ugly and terrible that very few

people in America are willing to face it. The reformist

bourgeoisie have been carrying on the

battle against discrimination and racial prejudice

in America. The Socialists and Communists have

fought very shy of it because there is a great element

of prejudice among the Socialists and Communists

of America. They are not willing to face

the Negro question. In associating with the comrades

of America I have found demonstrations of

prejudice on the various occasions when the White

and Black comrades had to get together: and this

is the greatest difficulty that the Communists of

America have got to overcome-the fact that they

first have got to emancipate themselves from the

ideas they entertain towards the Negroes before

they can be able to reach the Negroes with any

kind of radical propaganda. However, regarding

the Negroes themselves, I feel that as the subject

races of other nations have come to Moscow to

learn how to fight against their exploiters, the

Negroes will also come to Moscow. In 1918 when

the Third International published its Manifesto

and included the part referring to the exploited

colonies, there were several groups of Negro radicals

in America that sent this propaganda out

among their people. When in 1920 the American

government started to investigate and to suppress

radical propaganda among the Negroes, the small

radical groups in America retaliated by publishing

the fact that the Socialists stood for the emancipation

of the Negroes, and that reformist America

could do nothing for them. Then, I think, for the

first time in American history, the American Negroes

found that Karl Marx had been interested in

their emancipation and had fought valiantly for

it. I shall just read this extract that was taken from

Karl Marx’s writing at the time of the Civil War:

When an oligarchy of 300,000 slave holders for

the first time in the annals of the world, dared to

inscribe “Slavery” on the banner of armed revolt, on

the very spot where hardly a century ago, the idea of

one great democratic republic had first sprung up,

whence the first declaration of the Rights of Man was

issued, and the first impulse given to the European

revolution of the eighteenth- century, when on that

spot the counter-revolution cynically proclaimed

property in man to be “the cornerstone of the new

edifice” — then the working class of Europe

understood at once that the slaveholders’ rebellion

was to sound the tocsin for a general holy war of

property against labor, and that (its) hopes of the

future, even its past conquests were at stake in that

tremendous conflict on the other side of the Atlantic.

Karl Marx who drafted the above resolution

is generally known as the father of Scientific Socialism

and also of the epoch-making volume

popularly known as the socialist bible, Capital.

During the Civil War he was correspondent of the

New York Tribune. In the company of Richard

McKay: Speech to the 4th Congress of the Communist International 3

Published by 1000 Flowers Publishing, Corvallis, OR, 2005. • Free reproduction permitted.

http://www.marxists.org/subject/usa/eam/index.html

Transcribed by William Maxwell for the Modern American Poetry website.

PDF version published here by permission.

For further information on Claude McKay and his role, see Dr. Maxwell’s book,

New Negro, Old Left: African-American Writing and Communism between the Wars.

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).

Cobden, Charles Bradlaugh, the atheist, and John

Bright, he toured England making speeches and

so roused up the sentiment of the workers of that

country against the Confederacy that Lord

Palmerston, [the] Prime Minister, who was about

to recognize the South, had to desist.

As Marx fought against chattel slavery in

1861, so are present-day socialists, his intellectual

descendants, fighting wage slavery.

If the Workers Party in America were really a

Workers Party that included Negroes it would, for

instance, in the South, have to be illegal, and I

would inform the American Comrades that there

is a branch of the Workers Party in the South, in

Richmond, Virginia, that is illegal — illegal because

it includes colored members. There we have

a very small group of white and colored comrades

working together, and the fact that they have laws

in Virginia and most of the Southern states discriminating

against whites and blacks assembling

together means that the Workers Party in the South

must be illegal. To get round these laws of Virginia,

the comrades have to meet separately, according

to color, and about once a month they

assemble behind closed doors.

This is just an indication of the work that

will have to be done in the South. The work among

the Negroes of the South will have to be carried

on by some legal propaganda organized in the

North, because we find at the present time in

America that the situation in the Southern States

(where nine million out of ten million of the Negro

population live), is that even the liberal bourgeoisie

and the petty bourgeoisie among the Negroes

cannot get their own papers of a reformist

propaganda type into the South on account of the

laws that there discriminate against them. The fact

is that it is really only in the Southern States that

there is any real suppression of opinion. No suppression

of opinion exists in the Northern states

in the way it exists in the S outh. In the Northern

states special laws are made for special occasionsas

those against Communists and Socialists during

the War — but in the South we find laws that

have existed for fifty years, under which the Negroes

cannot meet to talk about their grievances.

The white people who are interested in their cause

cannot go and speak to them. If we send white

comrades into the South they are generally ordered

out by the Southern oligarchy and if they do not

leave they are generally whipped, tarred and feathered;

and if we send black comrades into the South

they generally won’t be able to get out again —

they will be lynched and burned at the stake.

I hope that as a symbol that the Negroes of

the world will not be used by the international

bourgeoisie in the final conflicts against the World

Revolution, that as a challenge to the international

bourgeoisie, who have an understanding of the

Negro question, we shall soon see a few Negro

soldiers in the finest, bravest, and cleanest fighting

forces in the world — the Red Army and Navy

of Russia — fighting not only for their own emancipation,

but also for the emancipation of all the

working class of the whole world