More Americans are falling behind on their mortgages and car loans than at any point in the past decade, even as Wall Street celebrates econ
More Americans are falling behind on their mortgages and car loans than at any point in the past decade, even as Wall Street celebrates economic growth and an artificial-intelligence stock boom. This is what capitalist expansion looks like from below: wealth piles up for owners while debt tightens its grip on workers.
New data released Tuesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show that the share of borrowers who fell at least 30 days behind on mortgage payments in the second quarter was the highest recorded since 2015. The share of borrowers who became seriously delinquent on car loans, (at least 90 days late,) was the highest in any quarter since 2010.
The government’s new limit on branded school uniform is a small retreat from an unfair system, but it won’t make uniforms affordable for man
From September, schools will be allowed to require a maximum of three items carrying a school logo, such as a blazer, jumper or sportswear. Secondary schools can also require a branded tie. Government data suggests around 23 percent of secondary schools will have to change their uniform lists.
Ministers claim the change could save some families “up to £50 per child”. That’s little comfort to parents already paying hundreds of pounds to send their children to school in the approved clothing.
The British state has assigned just 20 officials to climate adaptation inside the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. That’s
The British state has assigned just 20 officials to climate adaptation inside the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. That’s 20 out of 6,613 staff — only 0.3 percent of the department responsible for protecting the environment and maintaining food security.
...
The climate change adaptation committee has warned that the government is far behind in preparing for the new climate created by global heating. Summer heatwaves are becoming more severe, while heavier winter rainfall makes flooding more likely. Britain faces the combined threat of drought and flood.
Thames Water paid its finance chief Steve Buck a £1 million signing-on fee in July while the company was drowning in roughly £20 billion of
Thames Water paid its finance chief Steve Buck a £1 million signing-on fee in July while the company was drowning in roughly £20 billion of debt and warning that it could run out of cash by the end of the year.
Buck joined in April 2025. The payment was delayed while Thames Water took legal advice over its contractual obligations, but the money eventually came from emergency funding supplied by the company’s lenders. Even the cash keeping this failed private monopoly alive is being used to reward its senior managers.
...
This is the familiar language of the capitalist managerial class. Ordinary workers are constantly told that financial difficulties require wage restraint, job cuts and greater “efficiency”. Senior executives, by contrast, apparently need seven-figure incentives before they can be expected to turn up.
[Thames Water chairman Sir Adrian Montague] called Buck’s payment a “necessary incentive”. Thames Water boss Chris Weston used the same argument after his own annual pay rose by 14 percent to £1.63 million. Other directors received bonuses totalling £4.1 million.
Beneath the manufactured culture wars and other artificial divides, millions of working people share the same basic concern: they can’t affo
Beneath the manufactured culture wars and other artificial divides, millions of working people share the same basic concern: they can’t afford a decent life.
A survey of more than 30,000 adults conducted by the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility and the WK Kellogg Foundation found that 60 percent [of US citizens] wanted greater financial security within the next three to five years. They weren’t demanding yachts or luxury estates. They wanted housing, food, healthcare and enough money left over to enjoy life.
“A better life for me and my family would look like being able to buy a home, and being able to afford all the basic necessities, rent, utilities, car, food, healthcare – as well as being able to have enough left over to save for the future for retirement and vacations,” said a 35-year-old respondent from Dearborn Heights, Michigan.
Under capitalism, even this modest vision is placed beyond the reach of millions. Forty percent of respondents described themselves as either financially vulnerable or struggling to meet basic needs. Nine out of ten named groceries and food as their leading cost-of-living concern, followed by housing, transportation and healthcare.
Millions of adults and children in England face longer waits for mental health care as NHS trusts prepare another round of service closures
A March survey by the NHS Alliance found that 68 percent of responding mental health trusts expected to reduce or close services during 2026-27. More than half, 57 percent, anticipated cutting clinical staff, while 59 percent expected to freeze vacant posts.
The threatened services include child and adolescent mental health care, talking therapies, addiction support, crisis treatment and community programmes. Services aimed at low-income and ethnic minority communities are also in danger.
These aren’t harmless “efficiency savings”. They mean exhausted workers carrying larger caseloads, patients deteriorating while they wait and families being left to manage serious illness without proper support. Care that should be provided collectively is pushed back into the home, where the burden falls heavily on working-class women
....
The working class produces society’s wealth, yet the services it needs are always treated as burdens. Money can be found to protect banks, subsidise corporations and landlords, and maintain the military power required to defend Britain’s imperial interests. When working people need counsellors, addiction workers, psychiatric nurses or safe crisis care, however, the ruling class suddenly discovers the virtues of restraint.
Capitalism doesn’t cause every mental health condition, but it creates and intensifies many of the pressures that make people ill. Low wages, insecure work, unemployment, racism, debt, overcrowded housing and the constant fear of poverty grind people down. The same system then rations the care they need to recover.
An irreplaceable collection of 318 fossils has left Britain after publicly funded museums said they couldn’t afford it. The sale was legal.
An irreplaceable collection of 318 fossils has left Britain after publicly funded museums said they couldn’t afford it. The sale was legal. That’s precisely the problem.
One of the most important collections of Jurassic fossils ever assembled in Britain has been sold to the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi after museums in London and Wales said they lacked the money to buy it.
The collection contains 318 specimens from the Lower Lias rocks of Lyme Regis, Charmouth and other parts of south-west England. It includes ichthyosaurs, fish and crustaceans, with some specimens potentially belonging to previously unknown species.
These fossils survived in rock for roughly 200m years. Capitalism needed only a few decades of museum cuts and market speculation to put them beyond the reach of the British public.
