COVID-19 epidemic as the second stage of the crisis of neoliberalism
COVID-19 epidemic is another nail in the coffin of neoliberal globalization.
"Neoliberalism ignores or misvalues the role of healthcare:
it convert it into machine for extracting profits from sufferings "
Profound lack of human decency’ is a immanent feature of neoliberalism, especially the neoliberal elite
(financial oligarchy)
The USA handing of the coronarovirus epidemic is interesting by the stale of its incompetence, because the performance of the
neoliberal state i recent times has been anything but competent. The incompetence is a symptom of a morally-degenerate managerial
class Infected with neoliberal ideas and having no sense of responsibility to anyone other than themselves. The bank bailout in 2008
buried neoliberal ideology (the preachers of the neoliberal agenda suddenly found themselves without an audience) but also
exposed the level of hijacking of the state by financial oligarchy. It is hard to distinguish between incompetence and fraud.
Much that looks incompetent conceals fraud (stock buybacks, Boeing fiasco, etc). And note that Boeing moved its headquarters to
Chicago “to be more like GE”. Well they’ve destroyed the company to be more like the looters and liars and cheats. Along with GE
there are some other notable poster-children of how private enterprise has committed suicide through the wanton bloodletting of its
skilled employees (Boeing being a recent case-in-point).
this same phenomena can be found in universities, colleges where faculties are no longer bolstered by a strong bench of
tenured staff, contract and non-tenured hire-and-fire disposable staff are now the norm. No matter how many “systems” and “quality
functions” they put in place, experience matters
One of the problems is that financialization and securitization of everything revealed during this epidemic is that has
effectively separated the managerial class in both private and public sector from knowledge and experience of actual logistics and
execution. Transferring securities with the push of a button is not the same as getting an industrial plant or phone center built,
trained, and running efficiently. Companies and organizations with a history of doing this well manage to lost that capability in
only a couple of years after financial shark CEO was installed (e.g. IBM, CDC, FEMA, numerous companies taken over by private equity
). They know the price of everything and the value of nothing
The rise of the FIRE sectors as a percentage of GDP has been obvious. the USA economy is over-financialized. All this has done is
with layer after layers of debt and interest payments to the detriment of the real economy. Financialization
creates a positive feedback loop. Every system with positive feedback loop will crash, sooner or later. Neoliberals worked really
hard to remove not just the negative feedback, but any traces of the negative feedback on financial sector.
The idea that “never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence” (Hanlon's
razor - Wikipedia ) is not longer true. The neoliberal America has a lot of corruption. Some obviously stupid actions are
explainable for short term greed motives. That explains much of what we are seeing now.
CDC botched testing program during COVID-19 epidemic became a textbook example of bureaucratic incompetence. They do not do
competence in Washington. You need to start holding people responsible and that's impossible with the new neoliberal aristocracy
(financial oligarchy), which inherited all vices of the old but none of its virtues.
Epidemic control is not something in which a neoliberal society, based on the idea that profit is the king ("Greed is good")
motives and "homo homily lupus est" style of promotion of competition excels. It requires cooperation, which is discouraged under
neoliberalism. See Neoliberal rationality The
neoliberalized healthcare is
clearly rotten for 90% of the population (truthdig)
“I was born in 1936. My father lost his job the day I was born,” recalls the Truthdig editor in chief. “Roosevelt was the hero
in our house. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Why? Because the ruling class in our country, the robber barons, the rich people — and
he was from a rich family — they undermined their own system. They were so consumed with greed and short-term profit and
swindling, the market and everything else that they forgot about stability in society.”
We can add that the US political system after 2008 crash entered prolong crisis and its economy -- "secular stagnation" phase --
neoliberal ideology is dead, but neoliberalism marches on like a zombie. Actually pretty bloodthirsty zombie.
In case of COVD-19 the relevant public health officials may know what needs to be done, but they’re not doing it because of the
reflexive reliance on neoliberal, market-based solutions is also at fault. At least in part,
because state resources are simply not available. It’s also due to the way we the authority for such problems was pushed down from federal
to the state and local level. There are some
things government is uniquely positioned to provide, but neoliberals are not capable of recognizing that simple fact.
The most important thing we learned from SARS was that infectious diseases do not respect borders or government edicts, and
cannot be hidden. It requires international cooperation, transparency and sharing of information to control an epidemic.
We also learned the importance of providing good, balanced, reliable information to the public. In any epidemic, there is the
outbreak of disease and then there is the epidemic of panic. And nowadays, there is also what the WHO
has termed the Infodemic, the explosion of information
about the epidemic. Some of it is good information, but some of it is rumour, myth, speculation and conspiracy theory, and those
things feed the anxiety. It can be hard to sort out which information to believe, so it is important to choose trustworthy
sources. Panic and misinformation make controlling the outbreak more difficult.
Neoliberalism as a social system based on lies and disinformation so this is impossible under neoliberalism. So the fact that
Trump administration is lying about the epidemic is not a bug, it is a feature (BTW Chine is a neoliberal society too; although the
remnants of socialism still are visible; the same is even more true for Russia - it is typical and rather cruel neoliberal
society)
In the USA the neoliberal policies undermined the healthcare system to the extent that dealing with the epidemic like
COVID-19 in privatized healthcare system represent tremendous challenges. Neoliberalism takes privatization of social services
such as government hospitals and health facilities to the extreme. Privatization is the exact opposite of making health
services more affordable and accessible to the public
“The first rule of public health is to gain the trust of the population.” Neoliberalism is doing exactly opposite: population
distrust providers of medical services which often abuse ill patients for profit (surprise ambulance billing, surprise
hospital billing, unnecessary medical procedures like insertion of stents, unnecessary surgeries, etc). The CoVid19 is about to
expose millions without health insurance, more millions with enormous deductibles and co-pays that discourage doctor visits, and
still more millions who can't afford to stay home when they're sick if they want to avoid eviction and homelessness.
Well, hygiene is fine, but that's only a secondary issue, the proverbial lock on the barn door after the horse is stolen. And
clearly, we can have nationalism without having epidemics. The problem is that the current form of Capitalism is built on
looong supply chains to countries with cheap labor and lots of government support. I worked for a large aircraft manufacturer
for many years,whose modus operandi was to avoid outsourcing parts and structures to American companies, and it worked pretty
well for quite a long time for them. But now the weak links in the 'chain' come to the foreground. Rule #1 (and the only
rule!) of Capitalism is 'there is no such thing as too much profit'.
A CEO's corporate life expectancy is about 3 years, so he (usually a 'he') has to plunder fast and make a good severance
deal while they have the chance. Nationalism only deals with national matters.
Meanwhile, the financial and business world could care less about the welfare of any nation, whose citizens exist merely to
contribute to quarterly profits. Any given corporation does not make lightbulbs, cars, air conditioners or any other thing.
The entire enterprise exists to provide huge salaries to a few hundred executives. Nations supposedly exist to provide
security to their citizens, among other services, such as infastructure and public health. They have failed, badly, because of
the corruption of our leadership, which now consists of elevator boys and room service for the Wealthy.
Add to this weakened emergency response capabilities and it looks like another Katrina moment. SNAFU started with CDC botching
the development of virus test kits (and producing 10 time more expensive kits that China and Korea used) and then trying to
hide this by maximum restrictions on "eligible" for testing patients. Typical for all neoliberals Trump preoccupation with the
health of stock market, not so much with the health of the USA people also played some role (Although one positive thing about
Trump's behaviour is that he opposed MSM panic about the virus) The USA could benefit from replication China and South Korea
path to suppressing the virus, but choose not to do so. Moreover Trump administration created fiasco with tests which was
notable, painful and will have negative consequences for the duration of the epidemics in the USA
The Coronavirus Debacle The
American Conservative
The president has been
unwilling to tell the public the truth about the situation because he evidently cares more about the short-term political
implications than he does about protecting the public:
Even as the government’s scientists and leading health experts raised the alarm early and pushed for aggressive action,
they faced resistance and doubt at the White House — especially from the president — about spooking financial markets and
inciting panic.
“It’s going to all work out,” Mr. Trump said as recently as Thursday night. “Everybody has to be calm. It’s going to work
out.”
Justin Fox
comments on the president’s terrible messaging:
The biggest problem, though, is simply the way that the president talks about the disease. His instinct at every turn is to
downplay its danger and significance.
Minimizing the danger and significance of the outbreak ensured that the government’s response was less urgent and focused than
it could have been. It encouraged people to take it less seriously and thus made it more likely that the virus would spread. Then
when the severity of the problem became undeniable, the earlier discredited happy talk makes it easier for people to disbelieve
what the government tells them in the future.
Neoliberalism decimated social protection of workers (sick days, sick leaves, etc) and forces workers to come to the job
even while having symptoms. Part time workers (which are the fastest growing part of the US work force) are generally
treated like slaves in the USA. The vast majority of hourly employees in the hospitality business don’t have health insurance. "Average
working class folks cannot afford to voluntary quarantine themselves. Or to stay home from work for any reason. Even if they have
symptoms. They will continue going to work. They have to, in order to economically survive."
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/09/covid-19-and-the-working-class/
Consider the typical scenario in the US: there are literally tens of millions of workers who have no more than $400 for an
emergency. As many perhaps as half of the work force of 165 million. They live paycheck to paycheck. They can’t afford to miss
any days of work. Millions of them have no paid sick leave. The US is the worst of all advanced economies in terms of providing
paid sick leave. Even union workers with some paid sick leave in their contracts have, at best, only six days on average. If they
stay home sick, they’ll be asked by their employer the reason for doing so in order to collect that paid sick leave. And even
when they don’t have sick leave. Paid leave or not, many will be required to provide a doctor’s slip indicating the nature of the
illness. But doctors are refusing to hold office visits for patients who may have the virus. They can’t do anything about it, so
they don’t want them to come in and possibly contaminate others or themselves. So a worker sick has to go to the hospital
emergency room.
That raises another problem. A trip to the emergency room costs on average at least a $1,000. More if special tests are done.
If the worker has no health insurance (30 million still don’t), that’s an out of pocket cost he/she can’t afford. They know it.
So they don’t go to the hospital emergency room, and they can’t get an appointment at the doctor’s office. Result: they don’t get
tested, refuse to go get tested, and they continue to go to work. The virus spreads.
... ... ...
Then there’s the further complication concerning employment if they do go to the hospital. The hospital will (soon) test them.
If found infected, they will send them home…for voluntary quarantine for 14 days! Now the financial crises really begins. The
hospital will inform their employer. Staying at home for 14 days will result in financial disaster, since the employer has no
obligation to continue to pay them their wages while not at work, unless they have some minimal paid sick leave which, as noted,
the vast majority don’t have. Nor does the employer have any obligation legally to even keep them employed for 14 days (or even
less) if the employer determines they are not likely to return to work after 14 days (or even less). They therefore get fired if
they go to the hospital after it reports to the employer they have the virus. Just another good reason not to go to the hospital.
In other words, here’s all kind of major economic disincentives to keep an illness confidential, to go to work, not go to the
hospital (and can’t go to the doctor). That risks passing on the highly contagion bug to others–which has been happening and will
continue to happen.
McJobs in service sector are in especially bad shape because they already have a third world country conditions imposed on them.
Ask Wal-Mart workers about their sick leaves problems; and Wal-Mart is not the worst retailer in the USA as for the personnel abuse.
This backfire during virus epidemics and makes the USA a third world country as for the prognosis of the severity of this epidemics
in the country.
https://www.bangladeshpost.net/posts/neoliberalism-and-the-coronavirus-25315
capitalism is all about externalizing costs. “Some people” (because corporations are legally people) don’t take responsibility
for their carbon footprint. “Some people” scrape the surface off the earth to get at “their” lithium. Some polluters don’t take
responsibility for the health costs of their effluent.
The shorthand definition of neoliberalism is capitalism on steroids. No longer does capital have to exploit workers in its own
country. It can scour the world for the cheapest, most exploitable labor. No longer does capital have to fret about environmental
regulations in its own country.
Just manufacture those goods someplace where the government says air that you can’t see through, or water that is green from
algae is A-OK. Those goods end up a continent away, but as long as the shipping costs are cheap (burn, baby, burn), it makes more
profit than employing local people for what they think is a livable wage.
... ... ...
In sum, the strategy of wringing every last dollar out of child, prison, and slave labor for the sake of private profit is
nearing the point of diminishing returns. Unleashing a fatal virus from bats into humans is a negative return. By wrecking the
neoliberal-driven global economy, SARC-CoV-2 may just push the world into embodying that final section of the post-climate
catastrophe, post-Ebola, post-rat fever world of David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks. The question is, do you find the final section
pessimistic or optimistic?
Another factor is that the working class families in the USA lack any significant savings to shoulder work disruption. Presence
of homeless on the streets of cities such as San Francisco is another aggravating factor. The vulnerability of the US in the
current political environment comes because the gerantocratic neoliberal regime is concerned only about the prosperity of the top
10% (and especially top`1%) of the population; all other are treated as "deplorables" (Truthdig)
:
Nowhere, though, is the rusty, rickety nature of America’s civic society more recently evident than in the hilariously,
harrowingly inept response to the advent of the COVID-19 virus as a global contagion. Whether it is more or less dangerous and
deadly than the media portrays is quite beside the point.
The abject incapacity of any government, least of all the feds, to offer even simple, sensible guidance, much less mobilize
national resources to examine, investigate and ameliorate the potential threat to human health and well-being is astonishing,
even to a tired old cynic like me.
At present, the most proactive step has been to pressure the Federal Reserve into goosing the stock market — the sort of pagan
expiation of dark spirits that you’d expect in a more primitive world, when a volcano blew or an earthquake hit.
One positive factor in this story is that "God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of
America.."(attributed to Otto von Bismarck) -- epidemics in the USA actively started in March and warm weather usually halts such
epidemics. If this is true, then Northern Europe/Russia/Canada/Northern USA will have at only the extra 1-2 months vulnerability, if
there is a pandemic, as warm weather in those regions often comes as late as May.
Also despite feredal authorities stance, considerable aprt of the population bought masks and were using them in public places.
when the tax rates increase even more, it just encourages automation or DIY (bring your own sheets to avoid paying the cleaning
fee), which just grinds down growth rather than accelerates it.
Notable quotes:
"... Applebee's is now using tablets to allow customers to pay at their tables without summoning a waiter. ..."
Companies see automation and other labor-saving steps as a way to emerge from the health crisis with a permanently smaller
workforce
PHOTO:
JIM THOMPSON/ZUMA PRESS
... ... ...
Economic data show that companies have learned to do more with less over the last 16 months or so. Output nearly
recovered to pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of 2021 -- down just 0.5% from the end of 2019 -- even though U.S.
workers put in 4.3% fewer hours than they did before the health crisis.
... ... ...
Raytheon Technologies
Corp.
RTX
0.08%
,
the biggest U.S. aerospace supplier by sales, laid off 21,000 employees and contractors in 2020 amid a drastic
decline in air travel. Raytheon said in January that efforts to modernize its factories and back-office operations
would boost profit margins and reduce the need to bring back all those jobs. The company said that most if not all
of the 4,500 contract workers who were let go in 2020 wouldn't be called back.
... ... ..
Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. HLT -0.78% said last week that most of its U.S. properties are adopting "a
flexible housekeeping policy," with daily service available upon request. "Full deep cleanings will be conducted
prior to check-in and on every fifth day for extended stays," it said.
Daily housekeeping will still be free for those who request it...
Unite Here, a union that represents hotel workers, published a report in June estimating that the end of daily
room cleaning could result in an industrywide loss of up to 180,000 jobs...
... ... ...
Restaurants have become rapid adopters of technology during the pandemic as two forces -- labor shortages that are
pushing wages higher and a desire to reduce close contact between customers and employees -- raise the return on such
investments.
...
Applebee's is now using tablets to allow customers to pay at their tables without summoning a
waiter.
The hand-held screens provide a hedge against labor inflation, said John Peyton, CEO of Applebee's
parent
Dine
Brands Global
Inc.
... ... ...
The U.S. tax code encourages investments in automation, particularly after the Trump administration's tax cuts,
said Daron Acemoglu, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies the impact of
automation on workers. Firms pay around 25 cents in taxes for every dollar they pay workers, compared with 5 cents
for every dollar spent on machines because companies can write off capital investments, he said.
A lot of employers were given Covid-aid to keep employees employed and paid in 2020. I
assume somebody has addressed that obligation since it wasn't mentioned.
But, what happens to the unskilled workers whose jobs have been eliminated? Do Raytheon
and Hilton just say "have a nice life on the streets"?
No, they will become our collective burdens.
I am all for technology and progress and better QA/QC and general performance. But the
employers that benefit from this should use part of their gains in stock valuation to keep
"our collective burdens" off our collective backs, rather than pay dividends and bonuses
first.
Maybe reinvest in updated training for those laid off.
No great outcome comes free. BUT, as the article implies, the luxury of having already
laid off the unskilled, likely leaves the employer holding all the cards.
And the wheel keeps turning...
Jeffery Allen
Question! Isn't this antithetical (reduction of employees) to the spirit and purpose of
both monetary and fiscal programs, e.g., PPP loans (fiscal), capital markets funding
facilities (monetary) established last year and current year? Employers are to retain
employees. Gee, what a farce. Does anyone really care?
Philip Hilmes
Some of this makes sense and some would happen anyway without the pandemic. I don't need my room
cleaned every day, but sometimes I want it. The wait staff in restaurants is another matter. Losing
wait staff makes for a pretty bad experience. I hate having to order on my phone. I feel like I might
as well be home ordering food through Grubhub or something. It's impersonal, more painful than telling
someone, doesn't allow for you to be checked on if you need anything, doesn't provide information you
don't get from a menu, etc. It really diminishes the value of going out to eat without wait staff.
al snow
OK I been reading all the comments I only have a WSJ access as the rate was a great deal.
Hotel/Motel started making the bed but not changing the sheets every day for many years I am fine as
long as they offer trash take out and towel/paper every day
and do not forget to tip .
clive boulton
Recruiters re-post hard to fill job listings onto multiple job boards. I don't believe the reported
job openings resemble are real. Divide by 3 at least.
Canadian Cents@9 The book Capitalism on a Ventilator is a collection of essays or articles
produced by the Workers World Party, one of the Communist Parties in the US.
Amazon lists the book as currently unavailable (and asks if you want an email if it
becomes more available.)
It is indeed possible this is a surreptitious way of censoring the book, especially if the
unavailability means WWP (which operates the International Action Center) simply hasn't
complied with technical requirements imposed by Amazon.
Such as guaranteeing delivery within a limited number of days. Amazon has, apparently,
tightened up a lot to make it difficult for independents to sell on Amazon.
But it is also possible that the limited budgets and other resources led to limited
numbers of copies which are now sold out. When the new press run is complete, the book
becomes available again.
"... "We are more and more disoriented. There is a little good news, but at the same time there are new dimensions to the virus, and new variations that might turn out to be more dangerous. We now have this fake return to normal. The really frustrating thing is this lack of basic orientation. It's the absence of what [the philosopher and literary critic] Fredric Jameson calls 'cognitive mapping' – having a general idea of the situation, where it is moving and so on. Our desire to function requires some kind of clear coordinates, but we simply, to a large extent, don't know where we are." ..."
"... In his book, Zizek recalls the warnings of scientists after the SARS and Ebola epidemics. Persistently, we were told that the outbreak of a new epidemic was only a matter of time, but instead of preparing for the various scenarios we escaped into apocalypse movies. Zizek enumerates different scenarios of looming catastrophes, most of them consequences of the climate crisis, and calls for tough decisions to be made now. ..."
"... he coronavirus crisis is just a dress rehearsal for future problems that await us in the form of global warming, epidemics and other troubles. I don't think this is necessarily a pessimistic view, it's simply realistic. ..."
"... Now is a great time for politics, because the world in its current form is disappearing. Scientists will just tell us, 'If you want to play it safe, keep this level of quarantine,' or whatever. But we have a political decision to make, and we are offered different options." ..."
"... What if we will need another lockdown, even longer? Or multiple lockdowns? It's a sad prospect, but we should get ready to live in some kind of permanent state of emergency. ..."
"... The coronavirus epidemic is a universal crisis. In the long term, states cannot preserve themselves in a safe bubble while the epidemic rages all around ..."
"... It's tragic, I know, that all kinds of big companies are in deep shit, but are they worth saving? ..."
"... My formula is much more brutal, and darker. The state should simply guarantee that nobody actually starves, and perhaps this even needs to be done on an international scale, because otherwise you will get refugees. ..."
"... "I'm talking about what Naomi Klein calls the 'Screen New Deal.' The big technology companies like Google and Microsoft, which enjoy vast government support, will enable people to maintain Telexistence. You undergo a medical examination via the web, you do your job digitally from your apartment, your apartment becomes your world. I find this vision horrific." ..."
"... "First, it's class distinction at its purest. Maybe half the population, not even that, could live in this secluded way, but others will have to ensure that this digital machinery is functioning properly. Today, apart from the old working class, we have a 'welfare working class,' all those caregivers, educators, social workers, farmers. The dream of this program, the Screen New Deal, is that physically, at least, this class of caregivers disappears, they become as invisible as possible. Interaction with them will be increasingly reduced and be digital." ..."
"... "The irony here is that those who are privileged, those who, in this scenario, will be able to live in this perfect, secluded way, will also be totally controlled digitally. Their morning urine will be examined, and so on with every aspect of their life. Take the new analysis capabilities that can test you and provide results [for the coronavirus] in 10-15 minutes. I can imagine a new form of sexuality in this totally isolated world, in which I flirt with someone virtually, and then we say, 'Okay, let's meet in real life and test each other – if we're both negative, we can do it.'" ..."
"... As Julian Assange wrote, we will get a privately controlled combination of Google and something like the NSA ..."
"... Zizek divides workers during the crisis into those who encounter the virus and its consequences as part of their daily reality – medical staff, welfare-service people, farmers, the food industry – and those who are secluded in their homes, for whom the epidemic remains in the realm of the Lacanian spectral and omnipresent. ..."
Slavoj Zizek's 'Brutal, Dark' Formula for Saving the World
The pandemic is liable to worsen, ecological disasters loom and technological surveillance will terminate democracy.
Salvation will come only by reorganizing human society. A conversation with the radical – and anxious – philosopher
Slavoj Zizek
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Slavoj Zizek.
This is not an easy time for Slavoj Zizek. Quite the opposite, and he's the first to admit it. Reoccurring panic attacks
incapacitate him for hours at a time and, unlike in the past, the nights have stopped providing him with an easy escape.
His sleep is wracked by nightmares of what the future holds for humanity. There are days when he fantasizes about being
infected by the coronavirus. At least, that way all of the uncertainty would come to an end, or so he imagines. Finally, he
would be able to cope with the virus concretely, instead of continuously being haunted by it, as some sort of a spectral
entity.
... ... ...
At age 71, Zizek is currently closeted in his home in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, with his fourth wife, the Slovene
writer and journalist Jela Krecic, who is three decades younger than him. During the past couple of weeks the epidemic
seems to have faded in his country, with only two or three new cases being reported daily. But Zizek, who spoke to Haaretz
via Skype, is in no hurry to breathe a sigh of relief.
We need to abstract from pro-China propaganda here. The critique of the USA handing of the
epidemic is a better part of the article. It is true, that the US neoliberal elite was more
conserved about the health on military-industrial complex then about the health and well-being of
the American people.
Writes Margaret Kimberley (in "Opposing War Propaganda Against China," Jan. 25, 2020):
"Now whenever we see a reference to China in the corporate media we always see the words
communist party attached. This silly redundancy is war propaganda along with every other
smear and slur. We are told that 1 million Uighurs are imprisoned when there is quite
literally no proof of any such thing. China, the country which first experienced the COVID-19
virus, was the first to vanquish it, and has a low death rate of less than 5,000 people to
prove it. We depend here in America on China to produce masks and other protective equipment
but China is declared the villain. The country that within one month of realizing there was a
new communicable disease gave the world the keys to conquering it.
"Instead the country which fails where China succeeds, in providing for the needs of its
people and their health, is an international pariah, with most of the world barring Americans
from travel and turning us into a giant leper colony. Trump speaks of the "kung flu" and the
"Wuhan virus," but it is China which conquered the disease that has killed 130,000 Americans
and forced a quarantine which has caused economic devastation to millions of people here.
"But Americans get nothing but war propaganda. Trump and Joe Biden outdo one another
bragging about who will be tougher to China. This week we saw the U.S. government violate
international law again and close the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas."
Writes Roxana Baspineiro in "Solidarity vs. Sanctions in Times of a Global Pandemic":
"Chinese and Cuban doctors have been providing support in Iran, Italy, Spain and have
offered their services and expertise to the most vulnerable countries in Latin America,
Africa, and Europe. They have developed medicines and medical treatments such as Interferon
Alpha 2B in Cuba, one of the potential medicines to combat the virus, which reduces the
mortality rate of people affected by COVID19. But above all, they have offered their interest
in distributing them to the peoples of the world without any patent or benefit
whatsoever."
Regardless of whether citizens of the US know about Chinese efforts, people in other nations
have noticed, according to Stansfield Smith, who writes:
"From the responses to the coronavirus pandemic, the world has seen the model of public
health efficiency China presented in controlling the problem at home. It has seen China's
world leadership in offering international aid and care. It has seen the abdication of
leadership by the US and even its obstruction in working to find solutions. Now the US still
cannot control the virus, and remains mired in economic crisis, while China is rebounding. In
sum, the pandemic has made the world look at both China and the US in a new light. And it has
dealt a serious blow to the US rulers' two decade long effort to counter the rise of
China."
... ... ...
The final section of the book, "Escalating anti-China campaign," is a diverse collection of
essays on subjects such as: US accusations of Chinese repression of Uyghurs; NATO exercises
that threatened to exacerbate COVID spread even while China was bringing aid to Europe; COVID
in the US armed forces; US military belligerence toward China; the color revolution in Hong
Kong; Vietnam's response to COVID; and a call from Margaret Flowers and the recently deceased
Kevin Zeese to replace the US pivot to Asia with a "Pivot to Peace."
Ajamu Baraka writes:
"The psychopathology of white supremacy blinds U.S. policy- makers to the political,
economic, and geopolitical reality that the U.S. is in irreversible decline as a global
power. The deep structural contradictions of the U.S. economy and state was exposed by the
weak and confused response to COVID-19 and the inability of the state to provide minimum
protections for its citizens and residents.
"But even in decline, the U.S. has a vast military structure that it can use to threaten
and cause massive death and destruction. This makes the U.S. a threat to the planet and
collective humanity because U.S policy-makers appear to be in the grip of a deathwish in
which they are prepared to destroy the world before voluntarily relinquishing power,
especially to a non-European power like China.
"For example, when Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo declared in public that the United
States and its Western European allies must put China in "its proper place," this represents
a white supremacist mindset that inevitably will lead to monumental errors of judgment."
So COVID-19 is, to put it mildly, a teachable moment. Looking around the world right now, we
can see who is learning and who isn't. As "Capitalism on a Ventilator" vividly illustrates,
China is leading the way, and the United States is slipping into obsolescence. Those who hope
to survive the coming travails can see who to follow and who to avoid.
Kollibri terre Sonnenblume is a writer living on the West Coast of the U.S.A. More of
Kollibri's writing and photos can be found at Macska Moksha Press .
If you still believe that America's Sickcare is "the finest in the world" and is endlessly
sustainable, please study these three charts and extend the trendlines.
I've long been making the distinction between healthcare and sickcare : healthcare is the
service provided by frontline operational caregivers (doctors, nurses, aides, technicians,
etc.) and sickcare is the financialized system of Big Hospital Corporations, Big Insurers, Big
Pharma, etc. and their lobbyists that keep the federal money spigots wide open.
This financialized sickcare system is being consumed by the cancer of greedy profiteering
pursued by self-serving insiders. The delivery of healthcare is secondary to maximizing
revenues and profits by any means available .
To believe such a corrupt system is sustainable is magical thinking at its most
destructive.
Covid-19 is revealing this cancerous underbelly. Knowledge of the inner workings of
corporate administration is not evenly distributed, so every participants' experience of the
systemic dysfunction will vary.
Here is one MD's observations of the system's priorities. Others may have different views
but the maxim follow the money is clearly the correct place to start any inquiry of how
America's financialized sickcare functions in the real world.
From what I'm hearing from the front line, a not insignificant number of admissions are of
folks who would not have been admitted in March when there was fear of both the unknown and
systemic failure and, not coincidently, when COVID diagnoses didn't pay as much.
Today, the admission criteria for COVID is so much more flexible than for standard
diagnoses like CHF, and pays so much better than other diagnoses that our 'healthcare' system
is rapidly becoming a 'COVID care' system.
The surge in hospitalizations and subsequent COVID-identified deaths may be driven, in
part, to health systems adapting to new COVID revenue streams.
This would seemingly be good news, after all if it's the hospital administrator's desire
to fill empty beds that's driving admissions rather than infection rates, then systemic
failure can be averted through moderating those admission rates based on system capacity.
If your hospital fills up, just start sending the marginal cases
home--inpatient/outpatient; the outcome for the patient will be pretty much the same and
you've made as much money as your capacity will allow.
Unfortunately, our healthcare 'system' doesn't work like that.
Health systems are in the business of generating revenue, not value. Recent COVID-related
demand destruction has crushed that revenue so they're hungry for more.
Those in health-system operations and those in leadership live in two different worlds.
Leadership will push COVID admissions far beyond any operational limits in their quest for
short term performance. One cannot overstate their mendacity and drive for lucre.
Hospitals are becoming 'COVID factories' with all other admissions (which pay far less)
relegated to second tier status.
Health systems are evolving into an 'all COVID, all the time' format with the emphasis on
testing and (soon) vaccination, at the expense of all else.
Not a few systems of my acquaintance are laying off outpatient medical staff because their
supporting personnel have quit and are not replaced--those resources are being re-directed to
COVID testing and in preparation for mass vaccination.
For the health system in the business of generating revenue, it's an excellent tactic.
They save themselves significant overhead by not paying the clinicians and they make up the
revenue through high-margin COVID services and government bailout payments.
For patients who actually need healthcare, though, this tactic is deadly.
The perversion is end-stage, the health systems pretend to deliver healthcare and the
government pays them to continue the pretense.
There is no long term thinking here, no empathy for the workforce, no thought to the
mission beyond window-dressing--just a relentless, risk-adverse financialization machine.
Think of COVID as a new widget for which the customer will pay 2.5 times the going price
with no quality control, but only for a limited amount of time. Add in talentless,
rent-seeking leadership and all becomes clear.
Of course the real risk is that maxed out hospitals could find themselves in a situation
where admissions suddenly become driven by demand rather than the business model, with a true
non-linear path to failure laying beyond.
The longer daily national hospital occupancy stays above the approximate pre-COVID
capacity of 100k, the more likely you'll see systemic breakdowns--local at first, then
regional.
You won't see it in the press, the healthcare cartels have a pretty good lock on the local
media. Once news starts getting censored on social media, though, then you know it's
happening.
Hold me to that, And call me out in three months if I'm not right.
If you still believe that America's sickcare is "the finest in the world" and is endlessly
sustainable, please study these three charts and extend the trendlines.
The First World is leaving the "sweet spot" of its capitalist development stage, marked by
a relatively inflated petit-bourgeois middle class, and is reentering a proletarianization
phase. Call it the reproletarianization of the First World.
According to Time : "in addressing the causes and consequences of this pandemic –
and its cruelly uneven impact – the elephant in the room is extreme income inequality.
How big is this elephant? A staggering $50 trillion. That is how much the upward redistribution
of income has cost American workers over the past several decades." Economics as a zero sum
game in other words
By Arthur Allen, editor for California Healthline, joined Kaiser Health News in April
2020 after six years at Politico, where he created, edited and wrote for the first health
IT-focused news team. Previously, he was a freelance writer for publications such as The New
York Times, The Washington Post, Smithsonian, Lingua Franca magazine, The New Republic, Slate
and Salon. Earlier in his career, he worked for The Associated Press for 13 years, including
stints as a correspondent based in El Salvador, Mexico and Germany. He is the author of the
books "V
Kaiser Health News. accine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver" (W.W.
Norton, 2007); "Ripe: The Search for the Perfect Tomato" (Counterpoint Press, 2010) and "The
Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl" (W.W. Norton, 2014). Originally published at Kaiser Health
News
Kaiser Health News .
When he started researching a troublesome childhood infection nearly four decades ago,
virologist Dr. Barney Graham , then at
Vanderbilt University, had no inkling his federally funded work might be key to deliverance
from a global pandemic.
Yet nearly all the vaccines advancing toward possible FDA approval this fall or winter are
based on a design developed by Graham and his colleagues, a concept that emerged from a
scientific quest to understand a disastrous 1966 vaccine trial.
Basic research conducted by Graham and others at the National Institutes of Health, Defense
Department and federally funded academic laboratories has been the essential ingredient in the
rapid development of vaccines in response to COVID-19. The government has poured an additional
$10.5 billion into vaccine companies since the pandemic began to accelerate the delivery of
their products.
The Moderna vaccine, whose remarkable effectiveness in a late-stage trial was announced
Monday morning, emerged directly out of a partnership between Moderna and Graham's NIH
laboratory.
Coronavirus vaccines are likely to be worth billions to the drug industry if they prove safe
and effective. As many as 14 billion vaccines would be required to immunize everyone in the
world against COVID-19. If, as many scientists anticipate, vaccine-produced immunity wanes,
billions more doses could be sold as booster shots in years to come. And the technology and
production laboratories seeded with the help of all this federal largesse could give rise to
other profitable vaccines and drugs.
The vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, which are likely to be the first to win FDA
approval, in particular rely heavily on two fundamental discoveries that emerged from federally
funded research: the viral protein designed by Graham and his colleagues, and the concept of
RNA modification, first developed by Drew Weissman and
Katalin Karikó at the University of Pennsylvania. In fact, Moderna's founders in
2010 named the company after this concept: "Modified" + "RNA" = Moderna, according to
co-founder Robert Langer .
"This is the people's vaccine," said corporate critic Peter Maybarduk, director of Public
Citizen's Access to Medicines program. "Federal scientists helped invent it and taxpayers are
funding its development. It should belong to humanity."
Moderna, through spokesperson Ray Jordan, acknowledged its partnership with NIH throughout
the COVID-19 development process and earlier. Pfizer spokesperson Jerica Pitts noted the
company had not received development and manufacturing support from the U.S. government, unlike
Moderna and other companies.
The idea of creating a vaccine with messenger RNA, or mRNA -- the substance that converts
DNA into proteins -- goes back decades. Early efforts to create mRNA vaccines failed, however,
because the raw RNA was destroyed before it could generate the desired response. Our innate
immune systems evolved to kill RNA strands because that's what many viruses are.
Karikó came up with the idea of modifying the elements of RNA to enable it to slip
past the immune system undetected. The modifications she and Weissman developed allowed RNA to
become a promising delivery system for both vaccines and drugs. To be sure, their work was
enhanced by scientists at Moderna, BioNTech and other laboratories over the past decade.
Another key element in the mRNA vaccine is the lipid nanoparticle -- a tiny, ingeniously
designed bit of fat that encloses the RNA in a sort of invisibility cloak, ferrying it safely
through the blood and into cells and then dissolving, thereby allowing the RNA to do its work
of coding a protein that will serve as the vaccine's main active ingredient. The idea of
enclosing drugs or vaccines in lipid nanoparticles arose first in the 1960s and was developed
by Langer and others at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and various academic and
industry laboratories.
Karikó began investigating RNA in 1978 in her native Hungary and wrote her first NIH
grant proposal to use mRNA as a therapeutic in 1989. She and Weissman achieved successes
starting in 2004, but the path to recognition was often discouraging.
"I keep writing and doing experiments, things are getting better and better, but I never get
any money for the work," she recalled in an interview. "The critics said it will never be a
drug. When I did these discoveries, my salary was lower than the technicians working next to
me."
Eventually, the University of Pennsylvania sublicensed the patent to Cellscript, a biotech
company in Wisconsin, much to the dismay of Weissman and Karikó, who had started their
own company to try to commercialize the discovery. Moderna and BioNTech later would each pay
$75 million to Cellscript for the RNA modification patent, Karikó said. Though unhappy
with her treatment at Penn, she remained there until 2013 -- partly because her daughter, Susan
Francia, was making a name for herself on the school's rowing team. Francia would go on to win
two Olympic gold medals in the sport. Karikó is now a senior officer at BioNTech.
In addition to RNA modification and the lipid nanoparticle, the third key contribution to
the mRNA vaccines -- as well as those made by Novavax, Sanofi and Johnson & Johnson -- - is
the bioengineered protein
developed by Graham and his collaborators . It has proved in tests so far to elicit an
immune response that could prevent the virus from causing infections and disease.
The protein design was based on the observation that so-called fusion proteins -- the pieces
of the virus that enable it to invade a cell -- are shape-shifters, presenting different
surfaces to the immune system after the virus fuses with and infects cells. Graham and his
colleagues learned that antibodies against the post-fusion protein are far less effective at
stopping an infection.
The discovery arose in part through Graham's studies of a 54-year-old tragedy -- the failed
1966 trial of an NIH vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. In a clinical trial,
not only did that vaccine fail to protect against the common childhood disease, but most of the
21 children who received it were hospitalized
with acute allergic reactions, and two died .
About a decade ago, Graham, now deputy director of NIH's Vaccine Research Center, took a new
stab at the RSV problem with a postdoctoral fellow, Jason McLellan. After isolating and
obtaining three-dimensional models of the RSV's fusion protein, they worked with Chinese
scientists to identify an appropriate neutralizing antibody against it.
"We were sitting in Xiamen, China, when Jason got the first image up on his laptop, and I
was like, oh my God, it's coming together," Graham recalled. The prefusion antibodies they
discovered were 16 times more potent than the post-fusion form contained in the faulty 1960s
vaccine.
Two 2013 papers the team published in Science earned them a runner-up
prize in the prestigious journal's Breakthrough of the Year award. Their papers, which
showed it was possible to plan and create a vaccine at the microscopic structural level, set
the NIH's Vaccine Research Center on a path toward creating a generalizable, rapid way to
design vaccines against emerging pandemic viruses, Graham said.
In 2016, Graham, McLellan and other scientists, including Andrew Ward at the Scripps
Research Institute, advanced their concept further by publishing the prefusion structure
of a coronavirus that causes the common cold and a patent was filed for its design by NIH,
Scripps and Dartmouth -- where McLellan had set up his own lab. NIH and the University of Texas
-- where McLellan now works -- filed an additional patent this year for a
similar design change in the virus that causes COVID-19.
Graham's NIH lab, meanwhile, had started working with Moderna in 2017 to design a rapid
manufacturing system for vaccines. In January, they were preparing a demonstration project, a
clinical trial to test whether Graham's protein design and Moderna's mRNA platform could be
used to create a vaccine against Nipah, a deadly virus spread by bats in Asia.
Their plans changed rapidly when they learned on Jan. 7 that the epidemic of respiratory
disease in China was being caused by a coronavirus.
"We agreed immediately that the demonstration project would focus on this virus" instead of
Nipah, Graham said. Moderna produced a vaccine within six weeks. The first patient was
vaccinated in an NIH-led clinical study on March 16; early results from Moderna's
30,000-volunteer late-stage trial showed it was nearly 95% effective at preventing
COVID-19.
Although other scientists have advanced proposals for what may be even more potent vaccine antigens ,
Graham is confident that carefully designed vaccines using nucleic acids like RNA reflect the
future of new vaccines. Already, two major drug companies are doing advanced clinical trials
for RSV vaccines based on the designs his lab discovered, he said.
In a larger sense, the pandemic could be the event that paves the way for better, perhaps
cheaper and more plentiful vaccines.
"It's a silver lining, but I think we are definitely pushing forward the way everyone is
thinking about vaccines," said Michael Farzan , chair of the department of
immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research's Florida campus. "Certain techniques that have
been waiting in the wings, under development but never achieving the kind of funding they
needed for major tests, will finally get their chance to shine."
Under a 1980
law, the NIH will obtain no money from the coronavirus vaccine patent. How much money will
eventually go to the discoverers or their institutions isn't clear. Any existing licensing
agreements haven't been publicized; patent disputes among some of the companies will likely
last years. HHS' big contracts with the vaccine companies are not transparent, and Freedom of
Information Act requests have been slow-walked and heavily redacted, said Duke University law
professor Arti Rai.
Some basic scientists involved in the enterprise seem to accept the potentially lopsided
financial rewards.
"Having public-private partnerships is how things get done," Graham said. "During this
crisis, everything is focused on how can we do the best we can as fast as we can for the public
health. All this other stuff is going to have to be figured out later."
"It's not a good look to become extremely wealthy off a pandemic," McLellan said, noting the
big stock sales by
some vaccine company executives after they received hundreds of millions of dollars in
government assistance. Still, "the companies should be able to make some money."
For Graham, the lesson of the coronavirus vaccine response is that a few billion dollars a
year spent on additional basic research could prevent a thousand times as much loss in death,
illness and economic destruction.
"Basic research informs what we do, and planning and preparedness can make such a difference
in how we get ahead of these epidemics," he said.
I appreciate the recent re-look at the nexus of public investment funding private profit
in the pharma space. I'm not old enough to recall how things were done prior to the 1980s
with regards to promising academic discoveries getting commercialized in the United States.
There is also a glaring omission here in that there are mechanisms for the Federal Government
to take control of patents and price fix in an emergency, but it's clear that was never going
to happen and was never whispered in the lead up to operation Warp Speed. Pfizer keeps
pointing out they never took government money, which is a set up for them to set the price at
whatever they want while executives line their pockets.
The second point, that is not a focus of the article, is that these technologies are still
completely unproven. I am optimistic about the early results, though would feel better if
they were published in quality journals and not press releases. We simply don't know anything
about long term affects of dosing with this technology. These articles make it sound like
we're out of the woods and these vaccines are here to stay, but what if there are high
percentages of people that get major side effects? We still have no idea.
I was just thinking about that this morning. I thought about the little boy who cried
wolf. If Don had not tarnished his (??where-with-all??) by not leading. He still be the
Prez.
I applaud you for standing with power of your convictions. Not many have the integrity to
do so. This is meant sincerely.
On the other hand I think Larry has a point. Hopefully his and my concerns will prove to
be unfounded. I believe it is too soon to tell. Your question about the quantification of
risk is a fair question and is difficult for the layman judge.
I share the concerns that have been and are voiced here. Still, there is a class aspect to
it all. It seems as if this war is like every other war; the poors are sent in first. There
are many, perhaps the majority of volunteers, that need the couple of hundred bucks the
pharmas are offering the participants. They are the same people that line up to sell their
blood plasma every week. Big business, that. So, I woke up, looked in the mirror, and told
the old man there to "Suck it up, Buttercup."
And Lambert and others are right when they say our leaders should be first in line to roll
up their sleeves. Just don't forget the many that have already done so.
It was a revelation to me that RNA vaccines had been in the works since the 60s. That
makes me a little more in-favor of them. It is still frightening that this vaccine will be
mandated for all medical personnel before the rest of the population. Also interesting that
RNA gets greased up to slip past the enzymes(?) that destroy errant RNA I'm still trying to
think how that might not be such a good thing. But you are right – it looks like it
works. Extremely well in fact. But a timeline to prove it is safe? I'd say one or two
generations. If this mRNA slips past the mechanisms to protect the cell from foreign RNA then
it could hang around long enough to communicate itself back to the genetic DNA – it's
just that they don't quite know how that process works yet. And that's scary as hell.
(Lamarck's Signature). I'd say maybe we should not give this vaccine to anyone under the age
of 35 until we know more about possible negatives involving inheritance. Instead we should
produce good medicines to treat these infections.
Yes, we need volunteers. And they need to be fully informed. I hope you noticed this
remark in yesterday's Water Cooler. Of course, we don't know that the commentor's claimed
bona fides are factual, but if so, his/her take seems appropriate to me.
The publications and a full accounting of side effects are important for a new technology
like this. Traditional vaccinations are in the billions of doses at this point and quite
safe. For this new technology, it's quite hard to say. The publications might bowl me over
and convince me, but press releases do not.
It should be noted that, so far, we have proof of effectiveness in the form of press
releases that are intended to goose stock prices.
Long story, but the neoliberalization of basic biomedical science is complete. This was
foreseeable upon passage of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. I remember how such science was done
way back then. Scientists did science. Those without the patience and essentially
self-abnegation required for that, went to work at Ciba-Geigy or Burroughs-Welcome or Merck.
The system worked, more or less. At the time I was a very junior lab member, and I told my
labmates that Bayh-Dole meant only that we would pay for most science (at least) twice, the
first time when NIH/NSF/ACS/AHA/March of Dimes funded it and the second time when Big Pharma
"bought" it and charged what a false, not free, market in research and health care would
bear. They just stared at me, with stars in their eyes.
Dolly Parton is a great songwriter and performer but is also a shrewd businesswoman who is
hyper-focused on helping "her people" in the region where she grew up dirt poor. "Coat of
Many Colors" is one of the truly great autobiographical songs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_Many_Colors_(song)
1.So if there were to be no vaccine and the virus had it's way with us, killing 1% of us,
that's what, -- 3 million souls?
2. Alternatively, if there is a vaccine and everyone is vaccinated and that brings an end
to the pandemic, with deaths much curtailed, but 25,000 get Guillian Barre', that's still a
win right?
(Though not if you are one of the 25,000.)
3. Lastly, given their penchant for maximizing clicks and eyeballs,
how do you think the media would handle situations 1 or 2?
Trust in Public Health is easier to knock down than to build back up, especially
vaccines.
As Greg Brown says, "It's a long way up but it's a short way down."
South Dakota will be very informative on this front. It appears to be trying to drag-race
herd immunity through infection before a vaccine shows up. It will probably be the control
group for the statistical study of the relative efficacy on lives saved by a vaccine vs.
letting the disease take its natural course. Beer appears to be the placebo vaccine of choice
in South Dakota.
My reading of this is that even if Pfizer didn't take government money as part of the Warp
Speed initiative, as a mRNA vaccine it still likely builds on the earlier work. I have no
problem with pharma companies making a profit of their later work – they did do the
last critical developments – but nothing for the earlier work isn't right.
We pay for it but they profit from it. Why? Why is there for profit pharma and corporate
medicine to begin with? Why is there competition instead of cooperation in the production of
life saving/extending and other commonly needed goods and services? The provision of
pharmaceuticals and medicine are a free market failure. We are not adequately provided with
what we all must have at prices we all can afford. They've failed not because of the
scientists and medical practitioners who do the real work. They've failed because of the
capitalist parasites that own the corporations that employ the professionals who create the
products and provide the services on the ground.
One thought unsupported by any relevant technical expertise: the delivery mechanism sounds
well suited for bio weaponry given it bypasses your immune reaction to RNA.
The protein design was based on the observation that so-called fusion proteins -- the
pieces of the virus that enable it to invade a cell -- are shape-shifters, presenting
different surfaces to the immune system after the virus fuses with and infects cells. Graham
and his colleagues learned that antibodies against the post-fusion protein are far less
effective at stopping an infection.
Reminds me of this other mysterious shape-shifter: From Wikipedia:
Prions are misfolded proteins with the ability to transmit their misfolded shape onto normal
variants of the same protein. They characterize several fatal and transmissible
neurodegenerative diseases in humans and many other animals. It is not known what causes the
normal protein to misfold, but the abnormal three-dimensional structure is suspected of
conferring infectious properties, collapsing nearby protein molecules into the same shape.
The word prion derives from "proteinaceous infectious particle".
Long-term follow-up of individuals who have received this vaccine versus their placebo
compatriots is essential!
Not likely to be similar. The "shape shifting" of the viral fusion protein means that
different epitopes (i.e., different constellations of 3-D structure that elicit
immune/antibody responses) of the fusion protein, which is embedded in the viral membrane
envelope, are presented pre- and post-fusion. Antibodies against "post-fusion" fusion protein
are unlikely to work because fusion with the host cell is the key phase of infection. But,
and this is a big consideration, rushing into this is foolish, despite the rise in Big Pharma
stock prices.
COVID vaccine revelation sinks like a stone; disappears
In major media, certain stories gain traction. The trumpets keep blaring for a time before
they fade.
Other stories are one-offs. A few of them strike hard. Their implications -- if anyone
stops to think about them -- are powerful. Then nothing.
"Wait, aren't you going to follow up on that? Don't you see what that MEANS?"
Apparently not, because dead silence. "In other news, the governor lost his pet parakeet
for an hour. His chief of staff found it taking a nap in a desk drawer "
One-offs function like teasers. You definitely want to know more, but you never get
more.
Over the years, I've tried to follow up on a few. The reporter or the editor has a set of
standard replies: "We didn't get much feedback." "We covered it." "It's now old news." "There
wasn't anything else to find out."
Oh, but there WAS.
A few weeks ago, I ran a one-off. The analysis and commentary were mine, but the story was
an opinion piece in the New York Times. The Times called it an opinion piece to soften its
blow. I suspected it would disappear, and it did.
Its meaning and implication were too strong. It would be a vast embarrassment for the
White House, the Warp Speed COVID vaccine program, the vaccine manufacturers, the coronavirus
task force, and vaccine researchers.
And embarrassment would be just the beginning of their problem.
So here it is again. The vanished one-off, back in business:
COVID vaccine clinical trials doomed to fail; fatal design flaw; NY Times opinion piece
exposes all three major clinical trials.
Peter Doshi, associate editor of the medical journal BMJ, and Eric Topol, Scripps Research
professor of molecular medicine, have written a devastating NY Times opinion piece about the
ongoing COVID vaccine clinical trials.
They expose the fatal flaw in the large Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Moderna trials.
September 22, the Times: "These Coronavirus Trials Don't Answer the One Question We Need
to Know"
"If you were to approve a coronavirus vaccine, would you approve one that you only knew
protected people only from the most mild form of Covid-19, or one that would prevent its
serious complications?"
"The answer is obvious. You would want to protect against the worst cases."
"But that's not how the companies testing three of the leading coronavirus vaccine
candidates, Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, whose U.S. trial is on hold, are approaching the
problem."
"According to the protocols for their studies, which they released late last week, a
vaccine could meet the companies' benchmark for success if it lowered the risk of mild
Covid-19, but was never shown to reduce moderate or severe forms of the disease, or the risk
of hospitalization, admissions to the intensive care unit or death."
"To say a vaccine works should mean that most people no longer run the risk of getting
seriously sick. That's not what these trials will determine."
This means these clinical trials are dead in the water.
The trials are designed to show effectiveness in preventing mild cases of COVID, which
nobody should care about, because mild cases naturally run their course and cause no harm.
THERE IS NO NEED FOR A VACCINE THAT PREVENTS MILD CASES.
There. That's the NY Times one-off. My piece analyzing it went on much longer, but you get
the main thrust:
The leading vaccine clinical trials are useless, irrelevant, misleading, and
deceptive.
But now, it gets much worse. Because Pfizer has just announced their vaccine is almost
ready. CNBC headline, November 9: "Pfizer, BioNTech say Covid vaccine is more than 90%
effective -- 'great day for science and humanity'"
And not a peep about the NY Times one-off. That's gone, as if it never was.
Trump's coronavirus task force knows the truth. Biden's new task force, waiting in the
wings, knows the truth. But they don't care. They're criminals. They'd sell a car with a gas
tank ready to explode to a customer with cash.
But you care, because you can read and think.
You can raise hell.
Now, in case anyone is interested in knowing WHY the major clinical trials of the COVID
vaccine are designed only to prevent mild cases of COVID, I'll explain.
A vaccine maker assumes that, during the course of the clinical trial, a few of the 30,000
volunteers are going to "catch COVID-19."
They assume this because "the virus is everywhere," as far as they're concerned. So it'll
drop down from the clouds and infect a few of the volunteers.
The magic number is 150. When that number of volunteers "catch COVID," everything stops.
The clinical trial stops.
At this point, the vaccine maker hopes that most of the volunteers who "got infected" are
in the placebo group. They didn't receive the real vaccine; they received the saltwater
placebo shot.
Then the vaccine maker can proudly say, "See? The volunteers who caught COVID-19? Most of
them didn't receive the vaccine. They weren't protected. The volunteers who received the real
vaccine didn't catch COVID. The vaccine protected them."
Actually, the number split the vaccine makers are looking for is 50 and 100. If 50 people
in the vaccine group catch COVID, and 100 in the placebo group catch COVID, the vaccine is
said to be 50% effective. And that's all the vaccine maker needs to win FDA approval for the
vaccine.
But wait. Let's look closer at this idea of "catching COVID." What are they really talking
about? How do they define that? Claiming a volunteer in the clinical trial caught COVID adds
up to what?
Does it add up to a minimal definition of COVID-19 -- a cough, or chills and fever? Or
does it mean a serious case -- severe pneumonia?
Now we come to the hidden factor, the secret, the source of the whole con game.
You see, the vaccine maker starts out with 30,000 HEALTHY volunteers. So, if they waited
for 150 of them to come down with severe pneumonia, a serious case of COVID, how long do you
think that would take? Five years? Ten years?
The vaccine maker can't possibly wait that long.
These 150 COVID cases the vaccine maker is looking for would be mild. Just a cough. Or
chills and fever. That scenario would only take a few months to develop. And face it, chills,
cough, and fever aren't unique to COVID. Anyone can come down with those symptoms.
THEREFORE, THE WHOLE CLINICAL TRIAL IS DESIGNED, UP FRONT, TO FIND 150 CASES OF MILD AND
MEANINGLESS AND SELF-CURING "COVID."
About which, no one cares. No one should care.
But, as we see, Pfizer is trumpeting their clinical trial of the vaccine as a landmark in
human history.
And THAT'S the story of the one-off the NY Times didn't think was worth a second
glance.
Because they're so stupid? No. They're not that stupid.
They're criminals.
And the government wants you to take the experimental COVID vaccine, whose "effectiveness"
was designed to prevent nothing worth losing a night's sleep over.
The only worry are the adverse effects of the vaccine, about which I've written
extensively. These effects include, depending on what's in the vial, a permanent alteration
of your genetic makeup, or an auto-immune cascade, in which the body attacks itself.
"... And, objectively, how is the neoliberal model doing? For starters, there is so much money around that doesn't know what to do with itself, that the price of money (interest rates) has never been lower. Ever. Basic supply and demand. ..."
We really need to accept that we may not know what we think we know. For 40 years, we've all
been bleating the mantras of neoliberalism which were promoted as The Natural Order of Things,
but are in fact just a model, one of many.
And, objectively, how is the neoliberal model doing? For starters, there is so much money
around that doesn't know what to do with itself, that the price of money (interest rates) has
never been lower. Ever. Basic supply and demand.
At the same time, neoliberal governments, citing lack of money, have imposed austerity
measures on the working class, cutting services and support to such an extent that serious
social problems have arisen.
The reason the governments are short of cash is because they have continually reduced the
share of GDP that goes into public coffers.
Blind Freddy can see the resultant inequality is a highly undesirable state of affairs,
generating social unrest and unstable markets. Bizarrely, it is also contrary to the most basic
of economic truisms: give poor people money and they spend it right away, generating a ripple
of economic activity that reverberates through the real economy.
But according to neoliberalism, what we have here is perfectly fine because it accords
with the model. And then the High Priests move in and blow smoke over the whole thing with
incantations of why this must be so, again according to the model, which they themselves drew
up to coordinate the way we do things. And of course, they believe their economic theory is the
Natural Order of Things.
The pandemic has blown the lid off a few of those mantras. It'll take fifty years to
decarbonise? We advanced decades in a few weeks. There is no magic money tree? Yes, there is
and you just used it. Giving poor people money undermines the economy? No, it doesn't –
you've just proved it. Government debt is a drain on the economy? Not if it stimulates
activity. Tax is an expense that needs to be curtailed? No, it's an investment in the economy
for everyone.
There are so many things we think we know and many of them are nonsense. We need to take the
opportunity this disruption presents and design a society for humans, not for corporations.
Yeah .and how many of those deaths were from the complete mismanagement of the sick elderly
ie throwing them back into nursing homes. American facilities for many of our poorer, middle
class elderly are disgusting places of squalor and nosocomial infections. How many were among
elderly that were already on death's door step? This scamdemic has destroyed this country. If
there is one demographic in this country that should burning it to the ground it's young, white
20 something conservative males who are seeing their future destroyed before their eyes. Seeing
Americans walking around with what amounts to respiratory diapers on their face is disgusting,
pathetic and embarrassing. The elderly, who for the most part have overall lived the peak
American dream, are living in hysteria and fear. The boomers in America are confirmed now as
some of the most selfish, self absorbed, and enfranchised generations ever. To blame the covid
deaths on Trump is the most stupid and intellectually dishonest argument in this whole election
narrative. Dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery you want to wear a worthless diaper on your
face fine .don't force tyranny on the rest of us!
Although many details about the Great Reset won't be rolled out until the World
Economic Forum meets in Davos in January 2021, the general principles of the plan are clear:
The world needs massive new government programs and far-reaching policies comparable to those
offered by American socialists such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in their Green New Deal plan.
Or, put another way, we need a form of socialism - a word the World Economic Forum has
deliberately avoided using, all while calling for countless socialist and progressive
plans.
"We need to design policies to align with investment in people and the environment,"
said the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, Sharan Burrow.
"But above all, the longer-term perspective is about rebalancing economies."
Escobar reviews the UNGA's
first day that revealed Trump's desperation a few alluded to above. Psychohistorian will
be pleased to read Pepe's channeling his #1 premise:
" As for the 'rules-based international order,' at best it is a euphemism for
privately-controlled financial capitalism on a global scale ." [My Emphasis]
As I wrote yesterday, every national leader I read backed a Multilateral UN and its
Charter while including various degrees of reproach for the illegalities of the Outlaw US
Empire and its vassals, even the
Emir of Qatar :
"The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has reminded us that we live on the same planet,
and that multilateral cooperation is the only way to address the challenges of epidemics,
climate and the environment in general, and it's also preferable to remember this when
dealing with the issues of poverty, war and peace, and realizing our common goals for
security and stability....
"And during the unjust and unlawful blockade it is going through it also has securely
established its policy founded on respecting the rules and principles of international law
and the United Nations Charter, especially, the principle of respecting the sovereignty of
states and rejecting intervention in their internal affairs.
"And based on our moral and legal responsibilities towards our peoples, we have affirmed,
and we will continue to reaffirm, that unconditional dialogue based on common interests and
respect for the sovereignty of states is the way to solve this crisis which had started with
an illegal blockade, and whose solution starts with lifting this blockade."
If the Saudi blockade is "unjust and unlawful," then all those imposed by the Outlaw US
Empire are also.
Pepe apparently doesn't agree with Lieven's essay and writes:
"Sinophobia is the perfect tool for shifting blame -- for the abysmal response to
Covid-19, the extinction of small businesses and the looming New Great Depression -- to the
Chinese 'existential threat.'
"The whole process has nothing to do with 'moral defeat' [Lieven] and complaints that 'we
risk losing the competition and endangering the world.'
"The world is not 'endangered' because at least vast swathes of the Global South are fully
aware that the much-ballyhooed 'rules-based international order' is nothing but a quite
appealing euphemism for Pax Americana -- or exceptionalism [Neocolonialism].
"What was designed by Washington for post-World War II, the Cold War and the 'unilateral
moment' does not apply anymore."
As the dirty domestic underwear of the Outlaw US Empire becomes more visible to nations,
they are emboldened to stand up for themselves and join the Strategic Partnership's Eurasian
project.
Israel raises an important question about the role on neoliberal MSM is spreading COVID-19
panic.
Notable quotes:
"... Sinaisky claims that they brought the pandemics upon us because of the high debt problem, or by their inability to continue colonial plunder. Alternatively, a notable commenter to his text suggests that it was done because of overproduction of capital. In other words, the bank-lending rate is so close to zero, or even negative, that the whole machinery of capitalism was deluged in a flood of capital, and needed a major war, or indeed a global pandemic, to use it up. ..."
"... Because of this freak combination of forces, Sweden left its health policy in the hands of local professionals and remained free, while its neighbouring countries transferred the responsibility to globalist politicians and embraced quarantine. ..."
"... Thus the liberal Blairite media (beginning with the NY Times and the Guardian) played a key part in the Corona crisis. They were the piper; but who ordered the piper? ..."
...Do the US plutocrats (that is, the American über-wealthy) control all that? I think
they would be amazed to learn that, especially "for generations", bearing in mind that the US
was not a very significant factor before the WWI. In my view, the rich are not that smart. But
the network exists; I have called its obscure controllers The Masters of Discourse .
Sinaisky claims that they brought the pandemics upon us because of the high debt
problem, or by their inability to continue colonial plunder. Alternatively, a notable commenter
to his text suggests that it was done because of overproduction of capital. In other words, the
bank-lending rate is so close to zero, or even negative, that the whole machinery of capitalism
was deluged in a flood of capital, and needed a major war, or indeed a global pandemic, to use
it up.
Finally, Sinaisky claims that "atomization of society, breaking up community solidarity,
eroding all non-monetary connections between people, destroying family relations and weakening
blood ties, is a long-standing plutocratic project. Now, using this fake pandemic, the
plutocrats have gone even further, now they train us to see each other not as friend, not as
brother, not even as a source of profit, but mainly as a source of mortal infection." I wonder
what makes him think that is an object of plutocratic desire? Certainly rich people want to
make money and have more power, agreed. Is it necessary for them to atomise society? Who will
they and their kids socialize with in such a ruined world?
I am not sure that there is a human agency with such goals. A non-human factor is a much
more suitable culprit. In the old days, such a culprit was called Satan, and there were mighty
organisations aka churches that fought Satan. In a charming movie, Luc Besson's Fifth Element,
'Love' defeats 'the Shadow', the personified evil that was about to obliterate Earth. Call it
Satan, call it Shadow, the thing surely has human collaborationists in the mainstream media. I
wrote about it in a piece called The Shadow of Zog . Indeed media
should be sorted out in order to deal with it.
Sweden, this lucky country that avoided lockdown and its consequences, was saved by a rare
media misstep. (This story has never been published though it is known to many Swedes.) Corona
propaganda was carried out by the same liberal Bonnier-owned newspaper, DN (Dagens Nyheter),
that played up Greta Thunberg. (Sinaisky's senses served him right: indeed Covid is a new Greta
multiplied by a factor of 50). The Greta campaign had as its favourite high horse
flygskam , or flight-shaming. Stop taking flights to lower carbon emissions ,
was the idea. Now we have no flights at all, so this movement disappeared after achieving its
goals.
In February 2020, the DN organised a week-long sleeper train culture trip to North Italy for
the Greta-following liberal elite. A berth on this train was priced starting at ten thousand
Euros. The group went up to the Italian Alps and down to the Carnival in Venice and finally
returned home, full to the brim with interesting experiences and coronavirus infections. A few
days after the train returned to Stockholm, the disease broke out at large. Many of the liberal
journalists that travelled on the Corona Express (as the train became known) fell sick, and
their close relatives suffered, too. This incident caused the death of many elderly Jews,
parents or uncles of those liberal journalists. It was a media phenomenon, and the
Jewish media reported that the death rate among Swedish Jews was 14 times higher than
their share of the population (well, it is not as bad as it sounds; only nine very old Jews
died, all over 80).
As the people in authority knew all about the Corona Express, the liberal lobby was too
ashamed to call for quarantine against the disease they has carried to Sweden. (Or they did
call, but in sotto voce.) Furthermore, the DN was their only significant liberal media outlet,
as Bonnier had sold his TV channel to a state-owned company in December 2019, making heaps of
money but losing his ability to influence people.
Because of this freak combination of forces, Sweden left its health policy in the hands
of local professionals and remained free, while its neighbouring countries transferred the
responsibility to globalist politicians and embraced quarantine.
Thus the liberal Blairite media (beginning with the NY Times and the Guardian) played a
key part in the Corona crisis. They were the piper; but who ordered the piper?
Funny how "new normals" are rushing at us .9-11 was the new normal only 19 years ago, and
19 years later going on 20, a new "new normal" is upon us. The next "new normal" will only be
a few years away, 9 at the most Agenda 2030 and all that. By then, AI-enhanced RNA/DNA
altered "new humanity" will be upon us, and anyone not in this new "new normal" will be
outcast, shunned, shamed, and unemployed and if retired will not be able to get their SS and
MC.
"As it stands, there's only one thing we do know: the establishment at the core of the
Hegemon and the drooling orcs of Empire will only adopt a Great Reset if that helps to
postpone a decline accelerated on a fateful morning 19 years ago."
What?
I thought Covid 19 was a tool that the establishment is using to spark a Reset. And that
Agenda 21 is part of a Reset.
So why would the establishment object to a "decline"?
9/11 was just the first operation of the 21st century designed to accelerate the
disintegration of society and economy to achieve Agenda 21 . It was actually a continuation
of the 1975 TLC Project Democracy (sardonically named) that was kicked off by the Carter
administration in 1977 and went into warp speed under Reagan/Bush. Its continued ever since
but is picking up speed with the agreement of Agenda 21 in the 90's and its update Agenda
2030 in 2015. 2020 is the start of the final phase which will accomplish all of the
Sustainable Development Goals of Agenda 2030, which is basically means total control over
every individual and all resources.
Its pretty much been an Open Conspiracy. Those who refused to question 9/11 will double up
on their blue pills to deny the Plandemic and expect a return to normal, dooming their
descendants to a life of serfdom should they be lucky enough to avoid the culling.
The new Normal will make some dystopian films seem like utopia. Watch some old movies and
TV series to remind you of old normal. They wont be available much longer unless you have the
DVD or VHS and a machines to play it. The tapes and discs age so don't last forever. Books
will last longer but those with digital collections will one day fund them disappeared
The beating heart of this matrix is – what else – the Strategic Intelligence
Platform, encompassing, literally, everything: "sustainable development", "global
governance", capital markets, climate change, biodiversity, human rights, gender parity,
LGBTI, systemic racism, international trade and investment, the – wobbly –
future of the travel and tourism industries, food, air pollution, digital identity,
blockchain, 5G, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI).
Since the US is a global has-been with most of its industry gone and living on debt
– it's probably useful for it to claim leadership of a "Strategic Intelligence
Platform". It can bury US problems internationally (same as it did with the dollar reserve)
but in a more comprehensive way than simple Globalization (only economic). If the USA NWO
claims international leadership of everything on all fronts, then they become the arbiters
(in their opinion) of everything everywhere on the grounds of a higher morality.
It actually looks more like the folie de grandeur of a old alcoholic than the
foundation of a new religion – and not something to pay attention to – apart from
the fact that he tends to get violent with anyone who disagrees.
Regarding your 50 questions, the fact that German and Russian intelligent warned the FBI
about an imminent Muslim terrorist attack is not compatible with the idea that there was a
controlled demolition.
Ah yes, the Beast reveals itself as a sensurround global hamster cage with a plethora of
control mechanisms hardwired through emergent software memes in celebration of the planned
future of total abstraction. Abstract reality. The hubris of the plutocratic, oligarchic and
technocratic elites is of a Promethean orgasm of trans humanistic values systematically
gorging itself on their perceived future of an enserfed humanity comprised of those who will
compromise truth, honor, justice, beauty and love–all in the service of mammon.
Not only is human nature to be subsumed to a mechanistic mindset gone ballistic in the
visions of absolute domination, but the ongoing assault on the natural world will be a
by-product of this Re-set. Stated simply, these schemers are playing God and have assembled
the tool-kit, which in their minds, will allow for no compromise, no mistakes. These people
are either spiritually vacuous or are imbued with an evil that totally negates a natural
order which is cosmic and universal in scope. Ultimately their dreams and schemes will
implode like the legendary Tower of Babel. Creation is not about to be undone by those who
have convinced themselves that they can control everything.
Mother Nature is not a mere lump of matter. She is a sentient being who is cosmically
connected and connective. Consider the storms, the blizzards, the fires and the systematic
destruction of our very atmospheres, to say nothing of oceanic life in all its magnificent
manifestations. Mama is not in a good mood and when she has had all she can take ..
" the fact that German and Russian intelligent (sic) warned the FBI about an imminent
Muslim terrorist attack is not compatible with the idea that there was a controlled
demolition."
How so? The US architects of a controlled demolition could have quite easily created fake
"chatter" and fake "intelligence" about an imminent Muslim terrorist attack.
@Intelligent
Dasein be found on Youtube titled "Former NIST Employee Speaks Out On World Trade Centre
Towers Collapse Investigation". It's 31 minutes long, but he says the following at
approximately 18 minutes in:
"Look at the symmetry. These buildings come straight down, or almost straight down.
Asymmetric damage does not lead to symmetric collapse. It's very difficult to get
something to collapse symmetrically because it is the Law of Physics that things tend towards
chaos. Collapsing symmetrically represents order, very strict order.
It is not the nature of physics to gravitate towards order for no reason. It will
gravitate towards chaos. It is very difficult to get a building to collapse
symmetrically."
@PetrOldSack
actor/author, how could he be, our cherished "thinkers" are as few and making up as they go,
seconded by the crude second tier public domain politicians, the corporate mongers, them
being even less prone to visionary skill. This "thing" can go wrong in all kinds of ways, but
real it is, and some derivative globally altered reality is there to stay. Brusquely,
genuinely."
The Atlantic tells us that "Overall, bots are responsible for 52 percent of web traffic"
and I think we're looking at Exhibit A.
an imminent Muslim terrorist attack is not compatible with the idea that there was a
controlled demolition
Q: Why not? In fact, just as the 3 WTC towers were pre-loaded with explosives, so the
alleged hijacker-piloted a/cs and resulting photogenic explosions were pre-planned 'Hollywood
special effects' as critical components. How else to convince the insouciant punters, except
with a well-scripted and executed 'whiz-bang?' Then, see the reports of putative Muslim
hijackers doing dope and/or booze with lap-dancing bar-girls beforehand. You do yourself a
disservice by denying *humongously obvious* controlled demolition. Tip: Try not to be
silly.
To unravel the enigma i wonder if one does not need to go completely eurocentric.
1848 unraveling the empires or at last a planting of the seeds.
1948 the new_world order is established. With its counterpart in the east. Essentially a
ynraveling of 1848 which was a crystallisation of the 30 year was and the peace of westphalia.
Neither established empire being a nation while a very different nationbuiling started in
europe compared to the pre-great war.
2048, no doubt some kind of replacing the new_world order with a new world_order.
One way or anothr to serve europes plutocrats. And with an eye on unraveling the previous 1948
situation. Soviets are gone, so now the disunited states of america has to go and be reduced to
a new balkans.
Perhaps sweeping away europe too this time. Arabobantustan unable to sustain a developed
economy certainly is on the timeline for europe.
Now. Regardless of whether the ghost of Herr Weishaupt is hanging around, the timeline is
awfully useful for anyone like the anglozionist cabal of assorted late 1800s multimillionaires
and their respective business empires cross inheritances into socalled NGOs. The names being
quite well known like rockefeller, carnegie, rhodes etc.
Then again maybe no one really knows what they are doing anymore and there is no plan at
all, just many very confused very badly planned plans. And all that will ensue is chaos and
destruction and no order afterwards worthy of the name. 150 years of pisspoor mismanagement
tends to have such consequences.
@Robert White
billion from its Term Securities Lending Facility. It wasn't until May 31, 2008, when JPMorgan
Chase closed its deal with Bear Stearns. However, the GAO reported that Bear Stearns "was
consistently the largest PDCF borrower until June 2008." The Fed shows that Bear Stearns
continued to receive funds until June 23, 2008.
This article pretty much sums it up as best as I can understand. I had often stated to
people of similar mind to watch for the next major 'move' after 9/11, it will be a dandy
because with possibly a few white knuckle moments, the Masters will have concluded that they
can get away with ANYTHING, internet or no. Truth simply fails to get traction in the minds of
the majority of 'screen zombies' and the majority is all they ever needed.
Now where things might get really scary is if/when they decide to implement the great cull.
From a dispassionate perspective, it is something they simply have to do. In 1950 the world
population was about 2 billion. Now it is about 8 billion. If a population graph was drawn from
say, 50,000 years ago it would be long and flat and then it would shoot up near vertically at
the end.
The problem now of course is that with technology and agricultural machinery of all sorts
the system doesn't even require the population of 1950. I recall one Master being on record as
mentioning 500 million as being ideal. That is somewhat more than a cull.
Some fools say that a war is imminent for that express purpose. Sorry wars (even nuclear,
which would affect the Masters too), won't result in the butcher's bill required. Only a global
pandemic could conceivably attain the goal and like a neutron bomb, leave the infrastructure
intact.
But this Covid is a hoax you say. Probably so, but what about this proverbial 'second wave'
that is repeated like a Hare Krishna mantra everywhere. What if they released a REAL nasty
virus (which we know they have somewhere) that has a proven vaccine for the 1% and then let the
fun begin knowing full well that they would not be fingered for it because a pandemic is
already on the move?
If it doesn't happen this fall then I may be wrong in my speculation. I always hope to be
wrong when dealing with topics of unfathomable evil.
Mama is not in a good mood and when she has had all she can take ..
Or, as some folks like to say, "God is mad". But it's all the same thing. Maybe the schemers
should be forced to read The Fisherman's Wife. However, they probably won't have any little
hovel to go back to.
@skrik neither
eyewitness testimony nor a visual documentation of the boarding process.
19 hijackers myth taken as " fact" by the 9/11 Commission. Any contradictions of this myth
were ignored by this Commission.
•By ignoring the numerous and glaring contradictions regarding the identities of the
alleged hijackers, the 9/11 Commission manifested its intent to maintain the official myth of
19 Muslim terrorists.
•By refusing to allow interviews with personnel who were responsible for passengers
boarding the four aircraft of 9/11, the airlines manifested their intent to conceal evidence
about the circumstances of the aircraft boarding.
When 9/11 occurred my immediate thoughts went back to an January 2001 when Lyndon LaRouche
warned that if John Ashcroft were to become Attorney General that then one could look forward
to a new Reichstag fire type situation occurring within the context of the fact that the world
financial system was finished and that the financial oligarchy was prepared to throw over the
chess board so to speak.
LaRouche was right and because his understanding of history was correct as it is based upon
a method of hypothesis that had already demonstrated the trajectories of economic collapse and
attendant political operations long before, with an understanding of how to get out of the mess
as demonstrated in history, particularly the Renaissance.
Of note here is a recent article of interest, which helps tell why LaRouche is hated!
This is a very interesting, all encompassing article, well done indeed. For a simpler and
perhaps more digestible and more narrowly focused look at the SARS-Cov2 issue specifically,
this is a worthwhile video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQE7S6c-SCk&t=50s
@PetrOldSack
ght in wars or participated in other combat operations in at least 24 countries. The
destruction inflicted by warfare in these countries has been incalculable for civilians and
combatants Between 2010 and 2019, the total number of refugees and IDPs globally has nearly
doubled from 41 million to 79.5 million .
These babies-loving American X-tians and other Samantha Powers and Obamas, have arranged quite
a spectacular mass slaughter of children of all ages to please the "deciders" (Masters of the
Universe).
None of the murderous idiots has been punished, yet Assange the truthteller is in a high-security
prison Belmarsh, handled by the same murderous scum. Kali , says: Next New
Comment September 11, 2020
at 12:24 pm GMT
@Majority of
One eation is not about to be undone by those who have convinced themselves that they can
control everything.
I couldn't agree more with this.
The intelligence of Existance Itself, the very Nature of Being is anathema to to those specs
of dirt who would attempt to determine the will of God.
The same sentience which is manifest in Man is repeated and applified throughout all of
existance. How could it be any other way when everything we experience is fractal? Just as God
may be experience at the centre of our very Being, so the same God is observed within the All of
Everything.
A great look into what is going on, and what is still to come. Yet the sleeping, brain dead,
face diapered, mind controlled masses of the global corporation formerly known as he United
States spend every waking hour saying "hooray for our guy". Never once does it occur to the
sheeple both are puppets, controlled by the international banksters and their minions.
One of these morons has undeniable ties to the Russian mob, while the other has deep ties to
the Chinese Communist Party. If that weren't bad enough, they both swear undying loyalty to
that little shit stain in the Middle East which seems to project more influence on world
politics than the two formerly mentioned giants.
I know it is no accident the printing of this article occurred on the anniversary date of
the last, greatest mind fuck to hit America since Dec. 7th, 1941. I guess the infidels have
been shown a lesson and the world is now safe for a one world government technocratic
Corporatocracy.
So here's to 3/11/2020(my official date for the roll out of the CV hoax), the ushering in of
a new slave system, and the idiocy and gullibility of the global citizenry.
So enjoy your new bosses, as they are going to be far more tyrannical than your old.
@Robjil
ry:'
[I see that the 1st image is not visible, kindly try this link: alleged 'recovered' flight
recorder ]
Q: How soft was that ground, anyway? Does anyone 'believe' that part of the official 9/11
narrative? Haw. Only the 'insouciant punters' were ever hoodwinked by such offensive, lying
rubbish, all faithfully echoed by the 'lame-stream media.' rgds
Condoleeza Rice resisting at Congressional enquiry "N-o-o-o" and then admitting in a faint
there was an "intelligence report" that said said "Ben Laden planning to use airplanes in
terrorist attack" was play acting to confirm what they wanted people to believe. You will
remember that you were taught to prepare in advance "red herrings" and leave deliberate
confusions behind you to cover your trail.
@Robert White
traitors and infiltrated enemies not by any brilliance of the vicious Chinese Communist mass
murderers -- if you like the idea of taking a van ride for expressing your anti-Government
thoughts you'll love the ChiCom "Model" being installed here now on all of us -- Ron Unz would
be one of the first for the van ride if he tried to run a site like this in China by the way --
there is zero disputing this fact. David Rockefeller gave us the CFR, Trilateral Commission
etc. and of course the WHO and:
https://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/the-true-agenda-of-the-who-a-new-world-order-modeled-after-china/
@Alfred Haw.
Or was that suppressed as well, along with the bulk-wreckage [=crime-scene evidence] which was
destroyed by being exported as scrap? Haw again.
Nitty-gritty: There is no need to posit any 'exotics,' from nukes to DEW; standard
explosives [both with OR without thermite/mate; only the 'best' tools = most suitable would
have been deployed]; standard explosives could quite easily do the job, for example det-cord
threaded into the floor-slab conduits can fully explain both the absence of floor in the rubble
plus the billowing pyroclastic white dust-clouds [incidentally, explaining scorched vehicles].
And so it goes. A term for such reasoning = Occam's razor.
To be clear; none more deserving of dignity than the working people of America; they keep the nation running; they are America's
better angels; and, they deserve to be better paid.
Those are lofty words. But what to do when there is not enough cookies for everybody. That's when economic ruptures occur (with
one form being Minsky moments)
In a sense, going back to Joan Robinson, the idea of rupture within the notion of historical time can also be found in Keynes,
although with an important difference. Here the emphasis put on irreversibility implies of course qualitative change, and indeed
the emphasis is put on the changing conditions underlying economic phenomena. Thus, for example, Joan Robinson discusses the notion
of scarcity in relation to historical time:
The question of scarce means with alternative uses becomes self‐ contradictory when it is set in historical time, where
today is an ever-moving break between the irrevocable past and the unknown future. At any moment, certainly, resources are
scarce, but they have hardly any range of alternative uses.
The workers available to be employed are not a supply of "labor", but a number of carpenters or coal miners. The uses of
land depend largely on transport; industrial equipment was created to assist the output of particular products.
To change the use of resources requires investment and training, which alters the resources themselves. As for choice among
investment projects, this involves the whole analysis of the nature of capitalism and of its evolution through time. (Robinson
1977: 8)
Although the emphasis on rupture is introduced, in this historical time, "where today is an ever moving break between the irrevocable
past and the unknown future," the sense of the "break," of rupture, is confined within the problems of capitalist accumulation,
of the problems posed by the right proportions of, following Robinson's example, carpenters and coal miners.
History here does not present alternatives and defines itself clearly and simply as "historical objectivism" in the continuum
of the capitalist relation, as contemplation of "what really was," that is, the "irrevocable [capitalist] past," and speculations
about an "unknown [capitalist] future."
In Keynes, the unknown character of this future is translated in the status of the long run expectations of the investors which,
to emphasize the difficulty of their modeling, in turn depends on their "animal spirits."
In Keynes, rupture as revolutionary, transcendental, rupture exists only in the form of a threat, implicit in the theoretical
apparatus, in the difficulty to endogenize variables, in the reliance on "psychological factors," on investors' animal spirits
which mysteriously respond to hints of this historical rupture, in the recognition of the difficulty to model behavioral functions,
etc.
This threat is recognized through the status of long run expectations of the investors.
In the case of the liquidity trap, in which the infinitely elastic demand for money curve is used to portray a situation of
hoarding that is, of capital's refusal to put people to work the threat is hanging over investors who perceive a gloomy future
without hope for their profit.
The truly unknown future from the capitalists' perspective, the true moment of rupture in their temporal dimension, is recognized
in order to be avoided, to organize the rescue of the capitalist relation of work. For this reason Keynes is not talking about
given functional relations, and is presupposing a moving marginal efficiency of capital schedule (Minsky 1975.
The future is there to puzzle the investors in the present. The aim of economic theory is to inform economic policy to limit
the puzzle within the borders of the capitalist relation of work. Although Keynes' theoretical apparatus is presupposing uncertainty
for the future, this uncertainty is seen with the sense of urgency typical of a world in transition. In the discussion of the
postwar Keynesian orthodoxy, it will be seen how this sense of urgency was lost, and the concept of time in economic theory changed,
although it was far from returning to the "timeless models" of the classical period.
@ 95 another rolling stone that illuminates the US necrotic process...unregulated dumping
of radwaste
tinyurl[dot]com/v3pva55
Evidently they actually spray the stuff on roads and, well, it's puckininsane stupid.
"..thing in this stuff and ingesting it are the worst types of exposure," Stolz continues.
"You are irradiating your tissues from the inside out." The radioactive particles fired off
by radium can be blocked by the skin, but radium readily attaches to dust,..."
(Honestly, I know it's hard to believe, but several immediate neighbors, possibly 1/3 of
the town, actually expect to be levitated to heaven in "rapture". Thus, according to their a
priori assumption, the poisoning is perfectly ok."
Anyway, both the bizarre beliefs and the idiotic actions (including with radwaste) are,
like Trump, a product, a manifestation. We agree.
About Rockefeller - Corbett Report has a very deep examination of that family and their
less well-known policy set.
"... Some of the neoliberal countries may be at the stage of the collusion; some of them may find themselves at the stage of oligarchy; some of them may be at the stage of corruption culture. ..."
"... In Japan, since 1957, there were twenty-one prime ministers of whom 75% were one-year or two-year prime ministers despite the four-year term of prime ministers. The short life span of Japanese prime ministers is essentially due to the short term interest pursued by the corrupted golden triangle composed of big business, bureaucrats and politicians. Unless, Japan uproots the corruption culture, it will be difficult to save the Japanese economy from perpetual stagnation. ..."
"... In the U.S. the big companies are spending a year no less than $2.6 billion lobbying money for the promotion of their interests, while the Congress spends $ 2.9 billion and the Senate, $860 million for their respective annual operation. Some of the big companies deploy as many as 100 lobbyists. ..."
"... It is unbelievable that the amount of lobbying is as much as 70% of the annual budget of the whole legislative of the U.S. ..."
"... Under such lobbying system, each group should deploy lobbyists to promote their interests. The immigrants, the native Indians, the Afro Americans, the alienated white people and other marginal groups cannot afford lobbyists and they are often excluded from fair treatment in the process of making laws and policies ..."
"... In the case of the U.S. its rank increased from 18 in 2016 to 22 in 2019. Thus in three years, the degree of corruption increase by 22.2% ..."
"... The U.S. is the richest country in the world, but it is also a country where income inequality is the most pronounced. I will come back to this issue in the next section. In relation to the corona virus crisis, income inequality means an army of those who are most likely to be infected and who are unable to follow CDC guidelines of testing, self quarantine and social distancing. Finally, the privatization of public health services has made the whole country unprepared for the onslaught of the virus. ..."
"... The experience of Japan shows how this can happen. The economic depression after the bubble burst of 1989, Japan had to endure 30-year deflation. The government of Japan has flooded the country with money to restore the economy, but the money was used for the bail-out of big corporations neglecting the healthy development of the SMEs and impoverishing the ordinary Japanese people. South Korea could have experienced the Japanese-type economic stagnation, if the conservative government ruled the country ten more years. ..."
"... The neoliberal pro-big company policy of Washington has greatly depleted consumer demand and SMEs even before the onslaught of the coronavirus. ..."
"... Fourth, the U.S. economy is shaken up so much that the neoliberal regime will not able to recover the economy. Thus, the survival of neo-liberalism looks uncertain. But, if the coronavirus crisis continues and destroys SMEs and if only the big corporations survive owing to bailout money, neo-liberalism may survive and we may end up with authoritarian governance ruled by the business-politics oligarchy. ..."
For the last forty years, neo-liberalism has dominated economic thinking and the formulation of economic policies Worldwide.
But the corona virus crisis has exposed, in a dramatic way, its internal contradictions, its incapacity to deal with the corona
crisis and its incompetence to restore the real economy ruined by the crisis.
In this article, we will focus on the relationship between Neoliberalism and the Corona Crisis:
Neoliberalism has prevented the governments from controlling effectively the initial outbreak of the corona virus.
Neoliberalism has made the wave of virus propagation higher and wider, especially in the U.S.
Neoliberalism can shake the foundations of the U.S. economy.
Neoliberalism may not survive the corona virus crisis in the U.S.
To save democracy and the global economy, We need a new economic model which supports the future of humanity, which sustains human
livelihood Worldwide.
1. Neoliberalism and the initial Outbreak of the Corona Virus
The most important part of neoliberalism is the relation -often of a corrupt nature- between the government and large corporations.
By corruption, we mean illegal or immoral human activities designed to maximize profit at the expense of people's welfare. In this
relation, the government may not be able to control and govern the large corporations. In fact, in the present context, the corporations
govern and oversee national governments.
Hence, when the corona virus broke out, it was difficult for the government to take immediate actions to control the virus break-out
to save human lives; It was quite possible that the price of stocks and large corporations' profit had the priority.
The theory known as neoliberalism distinguishes itself from the old liberalism prevailing before the Great Depression.
It became widely accepted mainly because of its adoption, in the 1970s and 1980s, by Ronald Reagan , president of the U.S. and
Margaret Thatcher , prime minister of Great Britain as an economic policy agenda applied nationally and internationally.
The justification of neoliberalism is the belief that the best way to ensure economic growth is to encourage "supply activities"
of private sector enterprises.
Now, the proponents of neoliberalism argue that public goods (including health and education) can be produced with greater efficiency
by private companies than by the State. Therefore, "it is better" to let the private enterprises produce public goods.
In other words, the production of public goods should be "privatized". Neoliberals put profit as the best measure of efficiency
and success. And profit can be sustained with government support. In turn, the private companies' policy is that of reducing the
labour costs of production.
Government assistance includes reduction of corporate taxes, subsidies and anti-labour policies such as the prohibition of labour
unionization and the abolition of the minimum wage.
Reduction of labour cost can be obtained by the automation of the production of goods
Under such circumstances, close cooperation between the government and the private corporations is inevitable; even it may be
necessary.
But, such cooperation is bound to lead to government-business collusion in which the business receives legal and illegal government
support in exchange of illicit money such as kick-backs and bribes given to influential politicians and the people close to the power.
As the collusion becomes wider and deeper, an oligarchy is formed; it is composed of corporations, politicians and civil servants.
This oligarchy's raison d'être is to make money even at the expense of the interests of the people.
Now, in order to protect its vested interests, the oligarchy expands its network and creates tight-knit political community which
shares the wealth and privileges obtained.
In this way, the government-business cooperation can be evolved by stage to give birth to the corruption culture.
Some of the neoliberal countries may be at the stage of the collusion; some of them may find themselves at the stage of oligarchy;
some of them may be at the stage of corruption culture.
South Korea
When the progressive government of Moon Jae-in took over power in 2017, South Korea under the 60-year neo-liberal rule by the
conservatives was at the stage of corruption culture.
The progressive government of Moon Jae-in has declared a total war against the corruption culture, but it is a very long way to
go before eliminating corruption.
In South Korea, of six presidents of the conservative government, four presidents were or are in prison for corruption and abuse
of power. This shows how deeply the corruption has penetrated into the fabrics of the Korea society
In Japan, since 1957, there were twenty-one prime ministers of whom 75% were one-year or two-year prime ministers despite the
four-year term of prime ministers. The short life span of Japanese prime ministers is essentially due to the short term interest
pursued by the corrupted golden triangle composed of big business, bureaucrats and politicians. Unless, Japan uproots the corruption
culture, it will be difficult to save the Japanese economy from perpetual stagnation.
Lobbying and "Corruption Culture"
Many of the developed countries in the West are also the victims of corruption culture. In the U.K. the City (London's Wall Street)
is the global center of money laundry.
In the U.S. the big companies are spending a year no less than $2.6 billion lobbying money for the promotion of their interests,
while the Congress spends $ 2.9 billion and the Senate, $860 million for their respective annual operation. Some of the big companies
deploy as many as 100 lobbyists.
It is unbelievable that the amount of lobbying is as much as 70% of the annual budget of the whole legislative of the U.S.
True, in the U.S., lobbying is not illegal, but it may not be morally justified. It is a system where the law makers give privileges
to those who spend more money, which can be considered as bribes
Under such lobbying system, each group should deploy lobbyists to promote their interests. The immigrants, the native Indians,
the Afro Americans, the alienated white people and other marginal groups cannot afford lobbyists and they are often excluded from
fair treatment in the process of making laws and policies
Some of the developed European countries are also very corrupted. The international Transparency Index rank, in 2019, was 23 for
France, 30 for Spain and 51 for Italy.
In the case of the U.S. its rank increased from 18 in 2016 to 22 in 2019. Thus in three years, the degree of corruption increase
by 22.2%
What is alarming is that, in the corruption culture, national policies are liable to be dictated by big businesses.
In South Korea, under the conservative government, it was suspected that the national policies were determined by the Chaebols
(large industrial conglomerates), not by the government.
As matter of fact, during the MERS crisis in 2015, the anti-virus policy was dictated by the Samsung Group. In order to save its
profit, Samsung Hospital in Seoul hid the infected so that the number of non-MERS patients would not decrease.
In Japan, the Abe government made the declaration of public health emergency as late as April 6, 2020 despite the fact that the
infections were detected as early as January, 2020.
This decision was, most likely, dictated by Keiretsu members (grouping of large enterprises) in order to save investments in the
July Olympics. Nobody knows how many Japanese had been infected for more than three months.
Similarly, Trump was well aware of the sure propagation of the virus right form January, but he waited until March 13, 2020 before
he declared the state of effective public health emergency. The obvious reason was the possible fear of free fall of stock price
and the possible loss of big companies' profits.
The interesting question is: "The delayed declaration of public health emergency, was it Trump's decision or that of his corporate
friends?" It doesn't matter whose decision it was, because the government under neoliberal system is controlled the big businesses.
So, as in Japan, Italy, Spain, France and especially, the U.K, Trump lost the golden time to save human lives to keep profit of
enterprises.
God knows how many American lives were sacrificed to save stock price and company profit!
Thus, the neoliberal governments have lost the golden chance to prevent the initial outbreak of the dreadful virus.
2. Neo-liberalism and the Propagation of Corona-Virus
We saw that the initial outbreak of the virus was not properly controlled leading to the loss to golden time of saving human lives,
most likely because of the priority given to business and political interests.
The initial outbreak of the virus was transformed into never-ending propagation and, even now, in many states in the U.S. the
wave of the virus is getting higher and wider.
This tragic reality can be explained by four factors:
people's mistrust in the government,
unbounded competition,
inequitable income distribution,
the absence of public health system.
These four factors (above) are all the legacies of neoliberalism.
The people know well that the corrupted neoliberal government's concern is not the welfare of the people but the interest of a
few powerful and the rich. The inevitable outcome is the loss of people's trust in the unreliable government.
This is demonstrated by Trump's indecision, his efforts of ignoring the warning of the professionals, his fabricates stories and
above all, his perception of who should be given the right to receive life-saving medical care at the hospital.
Under such circumstances, Americans do not trust the government directives and guidelines, allegedly implemented to protect people
from the virus.
The guideline of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) for self quarantine, social distancing and wearing face masks has little
effect. There is another product of neoliberalism which is troublesome. I mean its credo of unbounded competition.
It is true that competition promotes efficiency and better quality of products. However, as competition continues, the number
of winners decreases, while that of losers rises. The economy ends up being ruled by a handful of powerful winners. This leads to
the segregation of losers and leads to the discrimination of people by income level, religion, race and colour of skin.
In the present context, largely as a result of government policy, there is little to no social solidarity; each individual has
to solve his or her own problems. I was sad when I saw on TV a young lady in California saying:
"To be killed by the COVID-19 or starve to death is the same to me. I open my shop to eat!"
This shows how American citizens are left alone to fight the coronavirus. Furthermore, neoliberalism has another unhappy legacy;
it is the widening and deepening income inequality.
The U.S. is the richest country in the world, but it is also a country where income inequality is the most pronounced. I will
come back to this issue in the next section. In relation to the corona virus crisis, income inequality means an army of those who
are most likely to be infected and who are unable to follow CDC guidelines of testing, self quarantine and social distancing. Finally,
the privatization of public health services has made the whole country unprepared for the onslaught of the virus.
In fact, in the U.S. there is no public health system. For three months after the first breakout of the virus, the country lacked
everything needed to fight the virus.
There was shortage of testing kits and PPE (personal protective equipment);
there were not enough rooms to accommodate the infected;
there was shortage of qualified medical staff;
there was lack of face masks.
Thus, neoliberalism has made the U.S not only to lose the golden time to prevent the initial breakout but also it has let the
wave of virus to continue. Nobody knows when it will calm down. As a matter of fact, on July 4, there were 2.9 million infected and
132,000 deaths; this gives a death rate of 4.6%. Given U.S. population of 328 million, we have 402.44 deaths per million inhabitants
which is one of highest among the developed countries. The trouble is that the wave of virus is still going higher and wider. On
July 4, the confirmed cases increased by 50% in two weeks in 12 states and increased 10% to 50% in 22 states.
3. Neo-liberalism and the very Foundation of the U.S. Economy
The message of this section is this. The foundation of the American economy is the purchasing power of the consumers and the job
creation by small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The consumer demand is 70% of the GDP, the SMEs create 66% of jobs. Unfortunately,
because of neoliberalism, the consumers have become very poorer and the SMEs have been neglected in the pro-big-company government
policies. The COVID-19 has destroyed the SMEs and impoverished the consumers. Nobody would deny the contribution of neo-liberalism
to globalization of finance, the creation of the global value chain and, especially the free trade agreement.
All these activities have allowed GDP to grow in developed countries and some of new industrial countries. However, the wealth
created by the growth of GDP has gone to countries already developed, some developing countries and a small number of multinational
enterprises (MNE). The rich produced by GDP growth has led to the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few privileged. What
is more serious is this. If the skewed income distribution in favour of a decreasing number of people continues for long, the GDP
will stop growing and decades-long deflation is quite possible, as it has happened in Japan.
According to the OECD data, in the period, 1975-2011, the GDP share of labour income in OECD countries fell by 13.8% from 65%
to 56%. In the case of the U.S., in the same period, 1970-2014, it fell by 11%. The falling labour-income share is necessarily translated
into unequal household income distribution. There are two popular ways of measuring income distribution: the decile ratio and the
Gini coefficient.
The decile ratio is obtained by dividing the income earned by the top 10% income earners by the income earned by the bottom 10%
income earners . The decile ratio in 2019 was 18.5 in the U.S. as compared to 5.6 in Finland. The decile ratio of the U.S. was the
highest among the developed countries. Thus, in the U.S. the top 10 % has an income 19 times more than the bottom 10%, while, in
Finland, the corresponding ratio is only 6 times. This shows how serious the income gap is in the country of Uncle Sam.
The Gini coefficient varies from zero to 100. As the value of the Gini increases, the income distribution becomes favourable to
the high-income households. Conversely, as the value of the Gini decreases, the income distribution becomes favourable to low-income
households. There are two types of Gini: the gross Gini and the net Gini. The former refers to Gini before taxes and transfer payment,
while the latter refers to Gini after taxes and transfer payment. The difference between the gross and the net Gini shows the government
efforts to improve the equality and fairness of income distribution The gross U.S.- Gini coefficient in 2019 was 48.6, one of the
highest among the developed countries.
Its net Gini was 38.0 so that the difference between the gross and the net Gini was 12.3%. In other words, the U.S. income distribution
improved only by 12.3% by government efforts as against, for example, an improvement of 42.9% in the case of Germany, where the gross
Gini was 49.9 while the net Gini was 28.5 The net Gini of the U.S. was the highest among the developed countries. The implication
is clear. The income distribution in the U.S. was the most unequal. To make the matter worse, the government's effort to improve
the unequal income distribution was the poorest among the developed countries. There are countless signs of unfortunate impacts of
the inequitable income distribution in the country called the U.S. which Koreans used to admire describing it as "mi-gook- 美國미국 –
Beautiful Country". Now, one wonders if it is still a "mi-gook".
The following data indicates the seriousness of poverty in the U.S. (data below prior to the Coronavirus crisis).
In the U.S. the richest 1% of the population has 40% of all household wealth. (2017 data)
More than 20% of the population cannot pay monthly bills.
About 40% do not have savings.
31% of private sector worker do not have medical benefits.
57% of the workers in the service sector have no medical benefits.
These data give us an idea on how so many people have to suffer from poverty in a country where per capita GDP is $65,000 (2019
estimate), the richest country in the world. Most of the Americans work for small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs). In the U.S.,
there are 30 million SMEs. They create 66% of jobs in the private sector. The SMEs are more severely hit than big companies by the
coronavirus.
In fact, 66% of SMEs are adversely affected by the virus against 40% for big firms. As much as 20% of SMEs may be shut down for
good within three months, because of the virus. Under the forty years of neoliberal pro-big corporation policies, available financial
resources and the best human resources have been allocated to big firms at the expense of the development of SMEs.
The most damaging by-product of neoliberalism is no doubt the widening and deepening unequal income distribution for the benefit
of the big corporations and the uprooting of SMEs. This trend means the shrinking domestic demand and the disappearance of jobs for
ordinary people.
The destruction of the domestic market caused by the shrinking consumer demand and the disappearance of SMEs can mean the uprooting
of the very foundation of the economy.
The experience of Japan shows how this can happen. The economic depression after the bubble burst of 1989, Japan had to endure
30-year deflation. The government of Japan has flooded the country with money to restore the economy, but the money was used for
the bail-out of big corporations neglecting the healthy development of the SMEs and impoverishing the ordinary Japanese people. South
Korea could have experienced the Japanese-type economic stagnation, if the conservative government ruled the country ten more years.
The neoliberal pro-big company policy of Washington has greatly depleted consumer demand and SMEs even before the onslaught of
the coronavirus. But, the COVID-19 has given a coup de grâce to consumer demand and SMEs To better understand the issue, let us go
back to the ABC of economics. Looking at the national economy from the demand side, the economy consists of private consumer demand
(C), the private investment demand (I), the government demand (G) and Foreign demand represented by exports of domestic products
(X) minus domestic demand for imported foreign products (M).
GDP=C + I + G + (X-M)
In 2019, the consumer expenditure (C) in the U.S. was 70% of GDP, whereas the government's spending (G) was 17%. The investments
demand (I) was 18%. The net exports demand (X-M) was -5%.
In 2019 the composition of Canadian GDP was: C=57%; I=23 %; G=21 %; X-M=-1%.
Thus, we see that the U.S. economy heavily depends on the private domestic consumption, which represents as much as 70% of GDP
compared to 57% in Canada. The government's contribution to the national demand is 17% as against 21% in Canada. In the U.S. a small
government is a virtue according to neoliberals. In the U.S. the private investments account for only 18% of GDP as compared to as
much as 23% in Canada. In the U.S., off-shoring of manufacturing jobs and the global value chain under neo-liberalism have decreased
the need for business investments at home. It is obvious then that to save the American economy, we have to boost the consumers'
income. But, the consumer income comes mainly from SMEs. We must remember that the SMEs create 66% of all jobs in the U.S. Therefore,
if consumer demand falls and if SMEs do not create jobs, the US economy may have to face the same destiny as the Japanese economy.
This is happening in the U.S. The corona virus crisis is destroying SMEs and taking away the income of the people.
The coronavirus crisis is about to demolish the very foundation of the American economy.
4. Corona Virus Crisis and the Survival of Neoliberalism
The interesting question is this. Will neo-liberalism as economic system survive the corona virus crisis in the U.S.?
There are at least four indications suggesting that it will not survive.
First, to overcome major crisis such as the corona virus invasion, we need strong central government and people-loving leader.
One of the reasons for the successful anti-virus policy in South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore was the strong central government's
role of determining and coordinating the anti-virus policies. As we saw, the gospel of neo-liberalism is the minimization of the
central government's role. Having little role in economic policies, the U.S. federal government has proved itself as the most incompetent
entity to fight the crisis. It is more than possible that the U.S. and all the neoliberal countries will try to get away from the
traditional neoliberal governance in which the government is almost a simple errand boy of big business.
Second, the people's trust in the neoliberal leaders has fallen on the ground. It will be difficult for the neoliberal leaders
to be able to lead the country in the post-corona virus era.
Third, the corona virus crisis has made the people aware of the abuse of power by the big companies; the people now know that
these companies are interested only in making money. So, it may be more difficult for them to exploit the people in the era of post-COVID-19.
Fourth, the U.S. economy is shaken up so much that the neoliberal regime will not able to recover the economy. Thus, the survival
of neo-liberalism looks uncertain. But, if the coronavirus crisis continues and destroys SMEs and if only the big corporations survive
owing to bailout money, neo-liberalism may survive and we may end up with authoritarian governance ruled by the business-politics
oligarchy.
5. Search for a New Economic Regime: Just-Liberalism
One thing which the corona-virus crisis has demonstrated is the fact that the American neo-liberalism has failed as sustainable
regime capable of stopping the virus crisis, restore the economy and save the democracy. Hence, we have to look for a new regime
capable of saving the U.S. economy and democracy. We would call this new regime as "Just-liberalism " mission of which is the sustainable
economic development and, at the same time, the just distribution of the benefits of economic development. Before we get into the
discussion of the main feature of the new regime, there is one thing we should discuss. It is the popular perception of large corporation.
Many believe that they make GDP grow and create jobs. It is also the popular view that the success of these large corporations is
due to the innovative managing skills of their founders or their CEOs. Therefore, they deserve annual salary of millions of dollars.
This is the popular perception of Chaebols in South Korea.
But, a great part of Chaebols income is attributable to the public goods such as national defence, police protection, social infrastructures,
the education system, enormous sacrifice of workers and, especially tax allowances, subsidies and privileges. In other words, a great
part of the Chaebols' income belongs to the society, not the Chaebols. Many believe that the Chaebols create jobs, but, in reality,
they crate less than 10% of jobs in Korea. We may say the same thing about large corporations in the U.S. In other words, much of
the company's income is due to public goods. Hence, the company should equitably share its income with the rest of the society. But
do they?
The high ranking managers get astronomical salaries; some of them are hiding billions of dollars in tax haven islands.
We ask. Are large corporations sharing equitably their income with the society? Are the corporate tax allowances they get too
much? Is the wage they pay too low? Is CEO's income is too high?
It is difficult to answer these questions.
But we should throw away the mysticism surrounding the merits of large corporations; we should closely watch them so that they
do not misuse their power and wealth to dictate national policies for their own benefit at the expense of the welfare of the people.
The new regime, just-liberalism, should have the following eight features.
First, we need a strong government which is autonomous from big businesses; there should be no business-politics collusion; there
should be no self-interest oligarchy of corruption.
Second, it is the time we should reconsider the notion of human right violation. There are several types of human right violation
in developed countries including the U.S. For example, the racial discrimination, the inequality before the law, the violation of
the right of social security and the violation of the right of social service are some cases of violation of human rights defined
by the U.N. The Western media have been criticizing human right violation in "non-democratic countries", but, in the future, they
should pay more attention to human right violation in "democratic countries."
Third, the criterion of successful economy should not be limited to the GDP growth; the equitable distribution of the benefits
of GDP growth should also be a criterion; proper balance between the growth and the distribution of growth fruits should be maintained.
Fourth, market should not be governed by "efficiency" alone; it must be also "equitable". Efficiency may lead to the concentration
of resources and power in the hands of the few at the expense of social benefit; it must be also equitable. As an example, we may
refer to the Chaebols (big Korean industrial conglomerates) which kill the traditional village markets which provide livelihood to
a great number of poor people. The Chaebols may make the market efficient but not equitable. The Korean government has limited Chaebols'
penetration into these markets to make them more equitable.
Fifth, we need a partial direct democracy. The legislative translates people's wish into laws and the executive makes policies
on the basis of laws. But, in reality, the legislative and the executive may pass laws and policies for the benefit of big companies
or specific group of individuals and institutions close to the power. Therefore, it is important to provide a mechanism through which
the people – the real master of the country – should be allowed to intervene all times. In South Korea, if more than 200,000 people
send a request to the Blue house (Korean White House) to intervene in matters judged unfair or unjust, the government must intervene.
Sixth, those goods and services which are essential for every citizen must be nationalized. For example, social infrastructure
such as parks, roads, railways, harbours, supply of electricity should not be privatized. Education including higher education should
be made public goods so that low income people should get higher education as do high income group.
This is the best way to maximize the mass of innovative minds and creative energy to develop the society. Above all, the health
service should be nationalized. It is just unbelievable to see that, in a country where the per capita GDP is $63,000, more than
30 million citizens have no medical insurance, just because it is too expensive. Politicians know quite well that big companies related
to insurance, pharmaceutical products and medical professions are preventing the nationalization of medical service in the U.S. But,
the politicians don't seem to dare go over these vested interests groups and nationalize the public health system. Remember this.
There are countries which are much poorer than the U.S. But, they have accessible universal health care insurance system.
Seventh, the economy should allow the system of multi- generational technologies in which not only high-level technologies but
also mid-level technologies should be promoted in such a way that both high- tech large corporations and middle-tech SMEs can grow.
This is perhaps only way to insure GDP growth and create jobs.
Eighth, in the area of international relations, it is about the time to stop wasteful ideological conflict. The difference among
ideologies is narrowing; the number of countries which have abandoned the U.S. imposed democracy has been rising; the ideological
basis of socialism is weakening. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, 48% of countries are democratic, while 52% are not.
According to Freedom House, in 2005, 83 countries had net gain in democracy, while 52 countries had net loss in democracy.
But in 2019, only 37 countries had net gain while 64 countries had net loss. Between 2005 and 2018, the number of countries which
were not free increased by 26%, while those which were free fell by 44%. On the other hand, it is becoming more and more difficult
to find authentic socialism. For example, Chinese regime has lost its pure socialism long time ago. Thus, the world is becoming non-ideological;
the world is embracing ideology-neutral pragmatism.
To conclude, the corona virus pandemic has given us the opportunity to look at ourselves; it has given us the opportunity to realize
how vulnerable we are in front of the corona virus attack.
Many more pandemics will come and challenge us. We need a world better prepared to fight the coming pandemics. It is high time
that we slow down our greedy pursuit for GDP growth; it is about the time to stop a wasteful international ideological conflict in
support of multibillion dollar interests behind Big Money and the Military industrial complex.
It is therefore timely to find a system where we care for each other and where we share what we have .
***
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Professor Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics and co- director of the Observatoire de l'Asie de l'Est (ODAE) of the Centre
d'Études de l'Intégration et la Mondialisation (CEIM), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He is Research Associate of the Center
of Research on Globalization (CRG).
Growing Social and
Wealth Inequality in America
On Monday, Gilead disclosed its pricing plan for Gilead as it prepares to begin charging for
the drug at the beginning of next month (several international governments have already placed
orders). Given the high demand, thanks in part due to the breathless media coverage despite the
drug's still-questionable study data, Gilead apparently feels justified in charging $3,120 for
a patient getting the shorter, more common, treatment course, and $5,720 for the longer course
for more seriously ill patients. These are the prices for patients with commercial insurance in
the US, according to Gilead's official pricing plan.
As per usual, the price charged to those on government plans will be lower, and hospitals
will also receive a slight discount. Additionally, the US is the only developed country where
Gilead will charge two prices, according to Gilead CEO Daniel O'Day. In much of Europe and
Canada, governments negotiate drug prices directly with drugmakers (in the US, laws dictate
that drug makers must "discount" their drugs for Medicare and Medicaid plans).
But according to O'Day, the drug is priced "far below the value it brings" to the
health-care system.
However, we'd argue that this actually isn't true. Remdesivir was developed by Gilead to
treat Ebola, but the drug was never approved by the FDA for this use, which caused Gilead to
shelve the drug until COVID-19 presented another opportunity. Even before the first study had
finished, the company was already pushing propaganda about the promising nature of the drug.
Meanwhile, the CDC, WHO and other organizations were raising doubts about the effectiveness of
steroid medications.
Months later, the only study on the steroid dexomethasone, a cheap steroid that costs less
than $50 for a 100-dose regimen, has shown that dexomethasone is the only drug so far that has
proven effective at lowering COVID-19 related mortality. Remdesivir, despite the fact that it
has been tested in several high quality trials, has not.
So, why is the American government in partnership with Gilead still pushing this
questionable, and staggeringly expensive, medication on the public?
Ending Emergency Unemployment Insurance Supplements
By DEAN BAKER
The Republicans have been working hard to ensure that the $600 weekly supplement to
unemployment insurance benefits, which was put in place as part of the pandemic rescue
package, is not extended beyond the current July 31 cutoff. They argue that we need
people to return to work.
They do have a point. The supplement is equivalent to pay of $15 an hour for someone
working a 40-hour week, and this is in addition to a regular benefit that is typically
equal to 40 to 50 percent of workers' pay. The supplement translates into an even larger
hourly pay rate for workers putting in shorter workweeks, which was the case for most
laid off workers in the restaurant and retail sectors.
It is hard for employers in traditionally low paying sectors to match these pay rates.
Even those of us who are big proponents of higher minimum wages would not advocate a jump
to more than $20 an hour at a point when businesses are crippled by the pandemic.
However, there is also the point that we don't want workers to have to expose
themselves to the coronavirus. That was the reason for the generous supplement. We wanted
to make sure that workers, who in many cases were legally prevented from working, did not
suffer as a result.
There is an obvious solution here. Suppose we reduce or end the supplement in areas
where the pandemic is under control.
This would not be determined by some Trumpian declaration that the pandemic is over,
but by solid data. The obvious metric would be positive test rates. Suppose that the
supplement was reduced or eliminated in states or counties where the positive test rate
is less than 5 percent. (This may not be the right rate.) This would mean that workers
going back to work would face relatively little risk of contracting the virus. It would
also give states incentive to conduct vigorous testing programs, as well as other control
measures, in order to get their positive rates down.
Our unemployment insurance system is badly broken and it would be desirable to have
more generous benefits, and also to focus more on work sharing, as other countries have
done. We can recognize this point and still agree that an arbitrary supplement to all
benefits is not the right long-term fix even if it was very good policy in the
pandemic.
"... The western response to the Coronavirus spoke loudly: The U.S. and Europe have appeared powerful because they projected the illusion of competence; of being able to act effectively; of being strategic in their actions. On Coronavirus, the U.S. has shown itself incompetent, dysfunctional, and indifferent to human affliction. ..."
The western response to the Coronavirus spoke loudly: The U.S. and Europe have appeared
powerful because they projected the illusion of competence; of being able to act effectively;
of being strategic in their actions. On Coronavirus, the U.S. has shown itself incompetent,
dysfunctional, and indifferent to human affliction.
Trump is fighting an existential war: on the one hand, the coming Election is not merely the
most important in the U.S.' history. It will be existential. No more is Blue/Red a contrived
theatre for the electorate – this is deadly serious.
For an important segment of the population (no longer the majority), to lose in this coming
election would signify their ejection from power and politics, and their substitution by a
culturally different class of Americans, with different cosmopolitan and diversity values. It
is the tipping point – two irreconcilable visions of American life believe that they can
continue only if they own the whole order, and the other side be utterly crushed.
And on the other hand, Trump sees the U.S. fighting a similarly existential war, albeit at a
global plane. He is fighting a hidden 'war' to retain America's present dominance over global
money (the dollar) – the source of its true power. For Americans to lose this parallel
competition to the EU's and China's multilateral values of global co-operation and financial
governance, would imply Americans' (i.e. white Anglo Saxon's) ejection from control over the
global financial system, and (again) their substitution by a quite different vision (i.e. a
Soros-Gates-Pelosi vision), advocating the 'progressive' values of ecological and financial,
global governance.
Again – two irreconcilable visions of the global order, with each party believing that
it must own the whole order to survive.
Hence Trump's full-spectrum disruption of China (and the whole multilateral ideology) to
maintain dollar hegemony. Europe, on one side, exemplifies the shift towards a transnational
regulatory and monetary super-state. And China , on the other,
is not only Europe's willing partner, but the only power capable of sitting atop this globalist
ambition, giving it the (required) financial weight and substance. This constitutes the
existential threat to the U.S.' exceptional control of the global financial system – and
therefore over global political power.
A sovereignty-ist Russia may not be as drawn to this cosmopolitan vision as China, but
really it has little choice. Because, as President Putin repeatedly points out, the dollar
constitutes the toxic problem plaguing the world trading system. And in this, Russia cannot
stand aloof. The dollar is the problem for the Middle East too, with its noxious corollaries of
oil, currency, trade and sanctions wars. The region will not long be able to sit on the fence,
keeping distant from this struggle for the global financial order.
The Middle East, as deference to the U.S. illusion of power wanes, has as little choice as
has Russia: It will be pushed to view the U.S. as its past, and to 'Look East' for its
future.
And Israel will cease to be the pivot around which the Middle East revolves.
Riots are not a political movement and they will dissipate soon. Leaving just strengthened the national-security state. That's
what will happen next.
Notable quotes:
"... If the combination of peaceful protesting, looting and violence witnessed across American cities over the past few days completely caught you off guard, you're likely to come to the worst possible conclusion about what to do next. The knee-jerk response I'm already seeing from many is to crush the dissent by all means necessary, but that's exactly how you give the imperial state and oligarchy more power. Power it will never relinquish. ..."
"... On the one hand, you can't pillage the public so blatantly and consistently for decades while telling them voting will change things and not expect violence once people realize it doesn't. On the other hand, street violence plays perfectly into the hands of those who would take the current moment and use it to advocate for a further loss of civil liberties, more internal militarization, and the emergence of an overt domestic police state that's been itching to fully manifest since 9/11. ..."
It's with an extremely heavy heart that I sit down to write today's post.
Although widespread civil unrest was easy to predict, it doesn't make the situation any less sad and dangerous. We're in the thick
of it now, and how we respond will likely determine the direction of the country for decades to come.
If the combination of peaceful protesting, looting and violence witnessed across American cities over the past few days completely
caught you off guard, you're likely to come to the worst possible conclusion about what to do next. The knee-jerk response I'm already
seeing from many is to crush the dissent by all means necessary, but that's exactly how you give the imperial state and oligarchy
more power. Power it will never relinquish.
What's happening in America right now is what happens in a failed state.
The U.S. is a failed state. Now the imperial national security state is going to flex at home like never before.
I spent the last decade of my life trying to spread the word to avoid this, but here we are.
I don't think people understand the significance of the President declaring "Antifa" a "terrorist organization". The Patriot
Act and provisions of the NDAA of 2012 make this frightening. Because Antifa is informal it puts all protestors in danger--like
declaring them un-citizens.
GOP @SenTomCotton : "If local politicians
will not do their most basic job to protect our citizens, let's see how these anarchists respond when the 101st Airborne is on
the other side of the street." pic.twitter.com/NyojLoOEAT
-- The American Independent (@AmerIndependent)
June 1, 2020
The pressure cooker situation that erupted over the weekend has been building for five decades, but really accelerated over the
past twenty years. After every crisis of the 21st century there's been this "do whatever it takes mentality," which resulted in more
wealth and power for the national security state and oligarchy, and less resources, opportunities and civil liberties for the many.
If anything, it's surprising it took so long to get here, partly a testament to how skilled a salesman for the power structure Obama
was.
Your election was a chance to create real change, but instead you chose to protect bankers while looting the economy on behalf
of oligarchs.
You and Trump aren't much different when it comes to the big structural problems, you were just better at selling oligarchy
and empire. https://t.co/QuSQNApeLY
The covid-19 pandemic, related societal lockdown and another round of in your face economic looting by Congress and the Federal
Reserve merely served as an accelerant, and the only thing missing was some sort of catalyst combined with warmer weather. Now that
the eruption has occurred, I hope cooler heads can prevail on all sides.
On the one hand, you can't pillage the public so blatantly and consistently for decades while telling them voting will change
things and not expect violence once people realize it doesn't. On the other hand, street violence plays perfectly into the hands
of those who would take the current moment and use it to advocate for a further loss of civil liberties, more internal militarization,
and the emergence of an overt domestic police state that's been itching to fully manifest since 9/11.
It's my view we need to take the current moment and admit the unrest is a symptom of a deeply entrenched and corrupt bipartisan
imperial oligarchy that cares only about its own wealth and power. If people of goodwill across the ideological spectrum don't take
a step back and point out who the real looters are, nothing's going to improve and we'll put another bandaid on a systemic cancer
as we continue our longstanding march toward less freedom and more authoritarianism
A pretty silly rant, but some point might worth your attention...
Notable quotes:
"... I don't believe Marxist Social/Communism is the answer, as it has proven to always fail, as it is at complete odds with human nature. It drains creativity and productivity because they aren't rewarded ..."
"... Protests and Maidan open up fabulous opportunities for protest leaders. Chocolate oligarch Poroshenko became president. The little-known leader of the party faction in the parliament, Yatsenyuk, became prime minister. ..."
Meanwhile, what is going to happen to assorted fascisms? Eric Hobsbawm showed us in
Age of Extremes how the key to the fascist right was always mass mobilization: "Fascists
were the revolutionaries of the counter-revolution".
We may be heading further than mere, crude neofascism. Call it Hybrid Neofascism. Their
political stars bow to global market imperatives while switching political competition to the
cultural arena.
That's what true "illiberalism" is all about: the mix between neoliberalism –
unrestricted capital mobility, Central Bank diktats – and political authoritarianism.
Here's where we find Trump, Modi and Bolsonaro.
...Even if neoliberalism was dead, and it's not, the world is still encumbered with its
corpse – to paraphrase Nietzsche a propos of God.
And even as a triple catastrophe – sanitary, social and climatic – is now
unequivocal, the ruling matrix – starring the Masters of the Universe managing the
financial casino – won't stop resisting any drive towards change.
... Realpolitik once again points to a post-Lockdown turbo-capitalist framework, where the
illiberalism of the 1% – with fascistic elements – and naked turbo-financialization
are boosted by reinforced exploitation of an exhausted and now largely unemployed
workforce.
Post-Lockdown turbo-capitalism is once again reasserting itself after four decades of
Thatcherization, or – to be polite – hardcore neoliberalism. Progressive forces
still don't have the ammunition to revert the logic of extremely high profits for the ruling
classes – EU governance included – and for large global corporations as well.
-- ALIEN -- , 2 minutes ago
Allowing the continued uncontrolled exploitation of planetary resources will lead to global
ecosystem collapse, killing most humans.
Cheap Chinese Crap , 10 minutes ago
Good God, it 's like this guy is giving a seminar in technocratic buzzword salad
recognition.
"It takes someone of Marx's caliber to build a full-fledged, 21st century eco-socialist
ideology, and capable of long-term, sustained mobilization. Aux armes, citoyens."
Aux armes, indeed. But not to erect an oligarchy of self-appointed experts to rule us with
an iron hand. I rather prefer the idea of pulling them off their comfy, government-compensated
sinecures and dragging them down into the mud with everyone else.
Anyone who thinks they are better qualified to run your life than you yourself is an enemy
of the Enlightenment. Away with them all.
Leguran , 1 hour ago
Something worthwhile to note is missing among Pepe's carnage....
What has happened is that
every imaginable organized group from doctors to pilots to lawyers, to farmers, to pharma
companies, etc. has carved out a special slice of the economy especially for themselves.
In
Feudal times rivers could not be navigated because cockroach lords would charge fees to use the
rivers. That is exactly the same arrangement today but instead of using force of arms, laws are
used. Our economy is choking on all these impediments.
mtumba , 2 hours ago
I agree that we need a revolution, and that the .01% globalist "elites" have proven to be
not only craven, arrogant and greedy - but also stupid beyond redemption.
But I don't believe Marxist Social/Communism is the answer, as it has proven to always fail, as it is at complete odds
with human nature. It drains creativity and productivity because they aren't rewarded, and it rewards laziness and inertia, because the absolute minimum of effort
results in the barest level needed to survive, which - oddly - is enough for many.
I think it would be great to give actual capitalism a try, with extremely limited govt - a
govt that ONLY provides for the common defense and enforcement of contract laws and protection
against crimes of violence and property theft. NOT crony-capitalism that takes command over the
resources of a nation's klepotcratic govt by the .01% richest and their sycophantic bottom
feeder lawyers, lobbyists, corrupt politicians and other enablers.
Snout the First , 3 hours ago
That was sure a lot of words, needlessly making something simple difficult. Here's what it
all boils down to:
- Who do you want setting prices? The market or a central planner?
- What percent of the economy do you want the government to own or control?
- What percent of your annual income do you want the government to take? Some small amount
to be used for valid purposes, the rest to be pissed away against your better interests?
PKKA , 3 hours ago
Protests and Maidan open up fabulous opportunities for protest leaders. Chocolate oligarch
Poroshenko became president. The little-known leader of the party faction in the parliament,
Yatsenyuk, became prime minister.
You know that on the project of an epic wall between Ukraine
and Russia, Yatsenyuk stole $ 1 billion but did not build a wall. A moron with a certificate
from a psycho hospital Andrei Parubiy became the speaker of parliament. You did not know that
Parubiy had a certificate of moronity from a psycho hospital? Now you know. Boxer Vitali
Klitschko became mayor of Kiev. Vitaly pronounces the words in syllables and wrinkles his
forehead for a long time before expressing a thought. You can even physically hear the creak of
gears as they spin and creak in Klitschko's head. Do you know what rabble passed in the
Ukrainian parliament? Bandits, crooks, nazis, morons, thieves and idiots! So the protests open
up fabulous career opportunities and enrichment!
play_arrow
Phillyguy , 4 hours ago
The American public has a front row seat, watching US economic decline. This process has
been ongoing since the mid 1970's, as corporate profits slumped. In response the ruling elite
enacted a series of Neo-liberal economic policies- multiple tax cuts for the wealthy, attacks
on the poor and labor, job outsourcing, financial de-regulation, lack of spending on public and
private infrastructure and spending $ trillions of taxpayer money on the Pentagon and strategic
debacles in Afghanistan (longest war in US history), Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. In total,
these policies have been a disaster for the average American family.
The ruling elite are well aware of American economic decline, accelerated by the Coronavirus
pandemic. Fascism comes to the fore when capitalism breaks down, and under extreme conditions,
the ruling elite use fascism as an ideological rationale to harness state power- Legislature
and police, to maintain class structure and wealth distribution. Western capitalism is
incapable of reversing its economic decline and as a result, we are seeing fascism reemerging
in the US, EU and Brazil. Donald Trump is the face of American fascism. Michael Parenti
provides an excellent historical analysis of fascism. See: Michael Parenti- Functions of
Fascism (Real History) 1 of 4 Jan 27, 2008; Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0Bc4KJx2Ao
Vigilante , 4 hours ago
How come 'fascist' Trump is being attacked 24/7 by the Deep State though?
They should be on his side if your assertions are correct
Fascism resides mostly on the Left end of the spectrum...and 'Woke' capital is throwing its
lot with the 'progressives' these days
bshirley1968 , 4 hours ago
It's your perception he is being attacked. Dude, wake up.
The best the deep state has to run against Trump is Joe Biden? They are that stupid? They
are that weak? If they are that stupid and weak, how can they be a conceivable, real
threat.
You are being played. You imagine there are good guys that you can trust......and that is
why you are being played.
HomeOfTheHypocrite , 3 hours ago
The ruling class is currently divided between those who are ready to prepare fascism and
those who want to continue on with neoliberalism. Trump represents one faction of the ruling
class. His political opponents in the Deep State represent another. None of them have any
genuine concern for the fate of the American worker. Trump, if judged by his actions and not
his words, is nothing but a charlatan who mouths populist phrases while appointing billionaire
aristocrats to political positions and lavishing investment bankers with trillions of tax
dollars.
CatInTheHat , 2 hours ago
This is the problem with both sides cult followers: the insanity behind the idea that these
elite somehow have their hands tied behind their backs as they ALL move is toward fascism.
The 2 party system is a ONE party right wing fascist one. Trump is merely a figure head.
People listen to what a politician says and NOT what he does behind their backs.
Trump is 1000% Zionazi just like the rest of them
HomeOfTheHypocrite , 2 hours ago
"basically it looks alot like the age old battle between fascism and communism"
Perhaps on the streets, but not within the ruling class. The ruling class, including the
Democrats, are utterly opposed to communism or socialism. Every Democratic congressperson with
maybe one exception stood and applauded Trump's anti-socialist rants during his State of the
Union addresses. Nancy Pelosi: "We're capitalist and that's just the way it is." Elizabeth
Warren (supposedly a radical): "I'm capitalist to my bones."
"Let's say for example these protesters managed to organize well enough to stage a coup
d'etat and take over - what next ?"
There's little chance of that. They are completely disorganized and lack any sort of
political program. But, if you're giving me the task of developing a political program for
them, I'll try to offer some suggestions that could be accomplished without a Pinochet or
Stalin-style bloodletting.
1. Busting up the monopolies and cartels 2. Raising taxes on the rich 3. A government jobs program to combat unemployment 4. A massive curtailment of the military budget 5. A massive curtailment of the policing and prison budget 6. Free government healthcare (without banning private-sector healthcare)
The first three of these political tasks were accomplished in the US in the 1930s without
the need for "black ops, gulags, secret police, and all the rest of it." Major policy changes
have not always required mass repression. But they do require a serious enough political party
to disassociate itself entirely from the ruling class Democrats and Republicans. During the 30s
there was a significant rise in various populist and socialist parties. Much of FDR's policies
and statements were a response to the threat they posed to established power. There is a famous
quote where he talks about having to "throw a few of these [millionaires] to the wolves" in
order to save America from the crackpot ideas of the "communists" and "Huey Longians."
I completely share your concern related to the use of repression to implement social and
economic policies. Neither the fascists nor the communists have a thing to offer a free people
so long as they rely on tyranny to enforce their program. Above all democracy and the natural
rights of individuals must be preserved.
Jedclampetisdead , 5 hours ago
If this country has any chance, we have to execute the Zionist bankers and their minions
new game , 5 hours ago
What is and will be: Corporate Fascism.
I defy anyone to explain other wise.
Go to the World Economic Forum web page and meet your masters.
Billionaires shaping YOUR future with their fortunes from corporations.
Their wealth was had by joint ventures with bought and paid for politicians and lobbyist
crafted legislation to maximize their wealth. This fakdemic absolutely consolidates more
wealth
to fewer corporations by design. Serf and kings/queens. The club personified by immense
wealth disparity.
In a continuing process, the social scoring via digital systems will limit freedoms to state
approved corporate diktats
that clamp like a boot to the neck. **** here, 6 tissue sections and recycled bug **** for
food.
brave new gatsy world right now with the roll out out of 3 pronged vaccine controlling your
brains emotions.
It is all so obvious to anyone with an ability to see two steps into the future. navigate
the future accordingly.
They are in control, the first denial that must be removed to see clearly the next step. sad
but true.
TAC: Looking forward, if you do go back to Washington, what issues would you champion, and
what do you think America in 2021 should really focus on?
Sessions: Well, I have come to understand that the neocon foreign policy, the libertarian
free market ideology, beyond common sense, was not healthy, and resulting in damage to families
and to American citizens . It's our duty as public officials to protect American citizens
from damage from unfair foreign competition and other tactics. That's a big deal. I think our
Republican agenda has got to be more focused on helping American people fight back against
unfair attacks on our businesses, closing our factories, losing our jobs, transporting our
jobs. I'll be an advocate for that.
We have a nation, and the government's job is to protect the nation. President Trump said
it simply: Other nations protect their interests, why aren't we protecting ours? We don't
ever use a tariff? When people cheat you every day, how do you fight back, are you going to
drop bombs on them? Why don't you use tariffs, which Alexander Hamilton and George Washington
did at the very beginning of the republic, that's a perfectly normal response to an adverse
attack on your people. So those are the kind of things that I feel strongly about. I believe in
markets, competition, and international trade, but we can no longer sit quietly while are
savaged by very clever, devious mercantilists who want to advance their interests and weaken
the United States, while we sit there, based on some theory , that we can't impose a
tariff. Give me a break!
Also, we need to reestablish a foreign policy for this time in our country's history, and it
has to be really bipartisan. You remember the Kennan Long Telegram that laid the foundation for
the containment policy against the Soviet Union. It lasted for 40 years with basic bipartisan
support. That's the kind of thing we need to be rethinking today.
We cannot continue, as the president has warned us, getting involved in endless wars all
over the globe, thinking that we can just remake humanity. That's not conservatism.
Conservatism, as Bob Tyrell said, is a cast of mind, it's a thought process, about, 'wait, is
this realistic?
You sure this theory is going to work? Are you trying to put a square peg in a round
hole? It's just not going there. Aren't you getting feedback from reality, don't you adjust to
it?' Our fundamental goals are to make the American people happy, prosperous, and stable.
Family, traditions, culture, those kinds of things have got to be defended. And this
ideological view that we're not a nation, we're an idea, somehow our constitution is supposed
to apply worldwide, is ridiculous.
We have borders, and we have a right to defend those borders, to establish good, healthy
conditions within our country. Not just for the billionaires, wages need to go up for working
people. For example, for 20 years wages for average Americans did not increase. GDP was going
up, that seemed to be all the economists cared about, CEOs were making more and more money, but
the wages for the core American people were not going up. They have, under President Trump,
some, and we need to focus on that.
TAC: In both military and economic terms, how should we begin confronting China?
For starters, we need to take off the rose-colored glasses. This is a communist regime. We
can wish it weren't so, people hoped they would moderate when they got wealthier, but actually
the opposite is occurring. Xi Jinping is using technology to repress his people even more
ruthlessly. And they are not free market people. They are not free market people, they're
communists! They are using our free-market theories -- religion -- against us, to destroy us,
to gain market share, and they've been highly successful.
President Trump and I talked about it on the airplane a number of times during the
campaign, and he understands one thing: China needs our markets more than we need their
products.
We can make those products in the United States, we can make our drugs here, we can buy them
from Mexico, our neighbors like that, we can buy them from the Philippines, South Korea, Japan,
India, Vietnam, places that aren't threats to us strategically, and who will deal honestly with
us.
So we absolutely need to alter that supply chain system that has given China an advantage
over all the other nations of the world, and we can do that in a way that does not harm our
economy significantly.
As
Summit News reports , a video clip shows a black woman and former NAACP chapter president
trying to collect medication for her daughter outside a Target store in St. Paul telling
rioters "these motherf**kers need to go home!"
"Leave this shit alone – "these motherf**kers need to go home!" she shouts, "these
people don't give a damn about George Floyd."
Diane Binns, 70, of St. Paul is angry at the people here. Binns came here to get
medication for her daughter. pic.twitter.com/GA1EJpx4XL
The woman subsequently identified herself as Diane Binns, former president of the NAACP St.
Paul from 2016-2018.
Critically, for the narrative-minded among you, she says she attended the initial protest
against the killing of Floyd but after 30 minutes realized "it was going to be a riot, so I
left."
America is quickly descending into chaos as social unrest could spread to other major cities
this weekend. Wealth inequality in many inner cities is at record levels. More than 40 million
people are unemployed with a crashed economy, and people are already furious about virus
lockdowns. This all suggests a perfect storm of unrest could flare up across the country.
What's of particular interest is back in 2005, the PREP Act was brought into existence.
In essence the PREP Act provides for unlimited funding for drug companies to develop
'counter measures' , should a Notice of Declaration of National Emergency be
declared. Such declaration was made back in March of this year.
Under the PREP Act, drug companies are given COMPLETE IMMUNITY FROM ALL ACCOUNTABILITY,
ALL LIABILITY & ALL LAWSUITS.
By her latest count, there are 119 Covid19 vaccines under development worldwide.
2) CDC and AMA have been in cahoots over the flu and vaccines for years!
Read the start of paragraph 3 and all of 4.
"The probably biggest lesson we will learn from this pandemic is that we must work to change
that selfish mentality."
And this is sadly the biggest challenge of all. After many decades of neoliberal doctrine,
coupled with shunning positive patriotism (e.g. serving for the common good of a nation) as
"semi-fascist", we now reap what has been sowed.
But it must be the focus point of our work. Without it, every other effort regarding reviving
democracy, social security, and even changing the crazy geopolitics of our nations is
futile.
"The "western" cultures allow for more selfishness of the individual. But over the
longer timeframe [neoliberal] cultures that emphasizes personal liberty and ignore the
common good are likely to see their empire fail.
The probably biggest lesson we will learn from this pandemic is that we must work to
change that selfish mentality."
Ah, yes ... the common good ... the Great Leap Forward ... the Brave New World ...
individual rights reported as selfishness ... really?
Perhaps it's better to live with some risk and the admitted limited liberty and individual
rights afforded by a system of limited government (not that our governors are currently
acting in accordance to the laws they have sworn to uphold)?
Or perhaps one would rather have the false security of guaranteed life in a prison?
Btw, "empire failing" would be a great thing ... and individual rights and limited
governance are antithetical to empire.
The easiest way to register your disapproval is with your vote. Will it change things?
Absolutely not.
But I'm only asking for you to send a message. Asking you for more than that would be
presumptuous of me.
The media is quick to tell you that you only have two choices in our
"democracy" - Red Team or Blue Team.
That is a lie. The reality is that you have four choices.
Choice #1) Vote Team Neofeudalism
Do you enjoy being a serf? Then vote for the MSM-endorsed Republican or Democrat. Go Team!
If you think there is any
real difference then you
aren't paying attention .
Choice #2) Don't Vote
The game is rigged, so why participate?
Well, you got the first part right. It's all rigged, but you obviously don't understand the
game if you think you can opt out. We are all trapped in this system, and not voting is a
choice.
Think of it this way. Half of all eligible voters don't vote. Do you think that the political
class is worried about their legitimacy? Not in the slightest. If the voting rate dropped to
just 10% they still wouldn't care.
In fact, a disengaged, apathetic public is a close second preference to Choice #1 for the
ruling elite. Want proof? When is the last time (outside of the Sanders campaign) has any
politician done anything to increase the electorate? Historically the ruling class has always
tried to limit participation.
So the only message that you send by not voting is "I don't care" or "I give up."
Choice #3) Vote for someone you like
A.K.A. Throwing away your vote.
A.K.A. Helping Putin.
A.K.A. Voting for Trump (for people that flunked both math and civics).
The purpose of democracy is to vote for someone that represents your interests. The fact that
this logical, rational act has been demonized by the MSM is proof that the ruling elites don't
approve of this choice.
So if you want to tell the ruling class FU on their choices, this is an easy way to do it.
It's not the best way, but it is a way.
The reason that it's not the best way to send a message is because the Democratic Party truly
doesn't care if it loses to the GOP. The wealthy donors still win.
So as long as only a token number of voters vote for a 3rd party, then the ruling elite still
win. They just don't win in a manner that they would prefer, and that slightly annoys them.
Choice #4) Get Active. Get In Their Faces
The only way to really piss off the ruling elites is to threaten their power.
The Democratic Party establishment and the media will always be against everyone on the
left.
However, that isn't even the most important parts of the establishment, and it's something that
the Left absolutely must fix regardless of whether the strategy is to take over the Democratic
Party or jump to another party.
For starters, let's look at the one place where the Left should dominate - Labor Unions.
No left-wing movement worth a damn fails to have labor behind it. The rank-and-file are
generally economic leftists, but union leadership has often been totally corrupted.
That has to change.
The same goes for civil rights and enviromentalist groups.
Failure to do this will doom any leftist economic movement or party.
However, changing things > sending a message.
Halfway in between changing things and sending a message is primarying incumbents.
The political establishment gets furious when the grassroots challenges them.
You can tell by all the ways that they'll break every rule and violate every value when this
happens.
It's a true FU to the ruling class. It makes them fight over something they thought that they
had already won.
While Bernie's defeat (and abandonment of his own movement) was discouraging, there are
still people fighting the good fight.
For example, Justice Democrats have a 3 - 2 record in 2020 so far.
The DSA has 13 primary
challengers coming up.
This is only a request. You should only do what you are ready to do.
But I think it's not a bad strategy to act in a way most contrary to the wishes of the ruling
class.
The top nine nations with the most coronavirus cases were members of the Western Empire
(former democracies weakened by corporations and oligarchs to promote global trade) or the
Elite reaching an understanding with Authoritarians. "Profit over lives" was the result.
Endless wars, offshoring, corruption, exploitation and despair led to the decreased life
expectancy in the USA and England.
The novel coronavirus pandemic is the direct result of these dysfunctional governments.
Corporations see the epidemic as a profit center for their magical treatment or vaccine.
There is no US national public health system. US hospitals and nursing homes primary purpose
is to make money for stockholders and mangers. It is of no matter that nearly 100,000
Americans have died so far with many more to come. No great wealth will be spent to fight the
pandemic nationally in the USA using the proven public health practices of universal testing,
contact tracing and isolation of the ill.
This is now a bipolar world. The USA and UK are pariah nations quarantined from the
nations that have controlled the virus. The Western Empire has fallen.
The Democrats are just as responsible for the mess as the Republicans. I have yet to
receive my mail-in ballot for the postponed June 2nd Maryland primary. Besides being
incarcerated at home, it looks like I am also disenfranchised. Yet, I am very lucky, once
again, but for how long?
Either a democratic constitutional government retakes control of the USA or a second civil
war between the credentialed and the left-behind is inevitable. The aristocracy always loses
but with wholesale chaos, major loss of life and redistribution of wealth.
This is an extraordinary dangerous time for Homo sapiens due the Pandemic and the
resulting Greatest Depression leading to unrest, scapegoating and confrontation which could
result in the use of nuclear weapons. Plus, climate change looms ahead. How can this possibly
be addressed if the developed world is unable to control a once in a century pandemic; let
alone, evolve a sustainable civilization that can survive on a finite planet.
At the end of his essay today ,
Alastair Crooke asks a series of questions that many of us have already pondered and mostly
written about:
"Have governments given any thought to the implication of the financial crisis spreading
to the middle classes, for whom often their only cushion in life is the inflated value of the
house in which they live, but whose price may collapse? And if not, do they imagine that
their citizens will acquiesce to losing their homes because of Coronavirus? And that the
middle classes will still side with the élites?
"So much hangs on the evolutionary course of the virus. But judging this wrongly, risks
much. People will not so readily handover their homes and cars to the banks this time, as in
they did the wake of great financial crisis of 2008. Why would they? It was not their fault
[It wasn't their fault in 2008 either; it was massive Fraud that was never prosecuted and I'm
getting rather tired of that fact not being aired]. Convulsions ahead? The decay of an era,
and the inevitability of social and political mutation?"
IMO, within the Outlaw US Empire, the issue of state solvency will become paramount thanks
to the massive unanticipated shortfalls in revenue, an issue Hudson talks about in the video
I linked above. IMO, that issue has the power to cleave the states from the Union given the
Union's complete lack of interest in the wellbeing of citizens. It's very much like an
abusive marriage--When does the repeatedly beaten wife finally leave home or attempt to kill
her spouse? Aside from the very meager benefits from Social Security and Medicare, what ties
serve to promote loyalty to Washington, DC over your individual state? If the Union isn't
going to work for the goals articulated in the Constitution's Preamble, then why support it
any longer?
"... EU money intended for underfunded public-benefit research such as preparing for a pandemic has been diverted by the pharmaceutical industry into areas where it can make more money, according to a scathing new report. ..."
"... The target of the criticism is the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a public-private partnership that was equally funded, between 2008 and 2020, by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) lobbying group and the European Commission to the tune of 5.3 billion euros (US$5.8 billion). The money is supposed to go to areas of "unmet medical or social need," ..."
"... "We were outraged to find evidence that the pharmaceutical industry lobby EFPIA not only did not consider funding biopreparedness (ie, being ready for epidemics such as the one caused by the new coronavirus, COVID-19) but opposed it being included in IMI's work when the possibility was raised by the European Commission in 2017, ..."
"... "The research proposed by the EC in the biopreparedness topic was small in scope," ..."
"... "IMI's projects have contributed, directly or indirectly, to better prepare the research community for the current crisis, the Ebola+ programme or the ZAPI project." ..."
"... "belated interventions when an epidemic is already underway," ..."
"... Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! ..."
EU money intended
for underfunded public-benefit research such as preparing for a pandemic has been diverted by
the pharmaceutical industry into areas where it can make more money, according to a scathing
new report. Officials in Brussels wanted to co-fund research that would have ensured the
European Union (EU) was better prepared for a pandemic akin to the one we are experiencing
today. But their partners, the big pharmaceutical companies, rejected the proposal, ensuring
that taxpayer money would go instead into studies with more potential for commercial
application. In short big-pharma lobbyists were allowed to steer billions of euros of public
funds as they saw fit, a damning new report claims.
The target of the criticism is the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a
public-private partnership that was equally funded, between 2008 and 2020, by the European
Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) lobbying group and the
European Commission to the tune of 5.3 billion euros (US$5.8 billion). The money is supposed to
go to areas of "unmet medical or social need," but, in practice, corporate priorities
dominate the decision-making, according to the
non-governmental organization Corporate Observatory Europe (COE).
"We were outraged to find evidence that the pharmaceutical industry lobby EFPIA not only
did not consider funding biopreparedness (ie, being ready for epidemics such as the one caused
by the new coronavirus, COVID-19) but opposed it being included in IMI's work when the
possibility was raised by the European Commission in 2017, " a new COE report
said.
The rejected proposal would have directed money into refining computer simulations and the
analysis of animal testing models, potentially speeding up regulatory approval of vaccines,
according to the Guardian. But a spokeswoman for the IMI called the report
"misleading".
"The research proposed by the EC in the biopreparedness topic was small in scope,"
she said. "IMI's projects have contributed, directly or indirectly, to better prepare the
research community for the current crisis, the Ebola+ programme or the ZAPI project."
ZAPI, or the Zoonotic Anticipation and Preparedness Initiative, was launched in 2015 with a
budget of 20 million euros (US$21.8 million) after the Ebola epidemic a year prior. The COE
report said it exemplifies a pattern of "belated interventions when an epidemic is already
underway," much like this year's emergency funding of coronavirus research.
The think tank questioned whether EU public money was well applied through IMI. Much of it
went into research into cancer, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes – areas that are
potentially profitable and thus are given close attention by private business. But epidemic
preparedness, HIV/AIDS, and poverty-related and neglected tropical diseases have been
overlooked by the initiative, the report said.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
...China's Foreign Minister Yang Yi held a lengthy presser providing
detailed answers to many differing questions. The topic of "Wolf Diplomacy" is in the news
today and was asked about by CNN:
" Cable News Network : We've seen an increasingly heated 'war of words'
between China and the US. Is 'wolf warrior' diplomacy the new norm of China's
diplomacy?
Wang Yi : I respect your right to ask the question, but I'm afraid you're
not framing the question in the right way. One has to have a sense of right and wrong.
Without it, a person cannot be trusted, and a country cannot hold its own in the family of
nations .
... ... ...
"The world is undergoing changes of a kind unseen in a century and full of instability
and turbulence. Confronted by a growing set of global challenges, we hope all countries
will realize that humanity is a community with a shared future. We must render each other
more support and cooperation, and there should be less finger-pointing and confrontation.
We call on all nations to come together and build a better world for all." [My
Emphasis]
"... The coronavirus crisis has thrown the global economy into cardiac arrest, and now you are acutely aware of the very markets that you had previously just assumed would function as normal. The first indication was the precipitous drop in the stock market that took place in late February. Then, as the United States began to enter quarantine, the labor market collapsed and hundreds of millions of people were suddenly out of work. Shortages in a few key commodities -- masks, ventilators, toilet paper -- began to appear. ..."
How will the coronavirus transform the relationship between state and market? A look at oil,
food, and finance.
You pay little attention to the systems of your body --
circulatory, digestive, pulmonary -- unless something goes wrong.
These automatic systems ordinarily go about their business, like unseen clockwork, while you
think about a vexing problem at work, drink your morning cup of coffee, walk up and down
stairs, and head out to your car to begin your morning commute. If you had to focus your
attention on breathing, pushing blood through your veins, and metabolizing food, you'd have no
time or energy to do anything else. The body abhors the micromanaging of the mind.
The same applies to the world's markets. They whir away in the background of your life,
providing loans to your business, coffee beans to your nearby supermarket, labor to build your
house, gas to fill your car. You take all of these markets for granted. All you have to concern
yourself with is earning enough money to gain access to these goods and services. That's what
it means to live in a modern economy. The days of hunting and gathering, of complete
self-sufficiency, are long past.
And then, in a series of sickening shifts, the markets go haywire. As with a heart attack,
you no longer can take the optimal performance of these systems for granted.
The coronavirus crisis has thrown the global economy into cardiac arrest, and now you
are acutely aware of the very markets that you had previously just assumed would function as
normal. The first indication was the precipitous drop in the stock market that took place in
late February. Then, as the United States began to enter quarantine, the labor market collapsed
and hundreds of millions of people were suddenly out of work. Shortages in a few key
commodities -- masks, ventilators, toilet paper -- began to appear.
It is one of the central tenets of laissez-faire capitalism that markets behave like
automatic systems, that an "invisible hand" regulates supply and demand. Market fundamentalists
believe that the less the government interferes with these automatic systems, the better. They
argue, to the contrary, that markets should increasingly take over government functions: a
privatized post office, for instance, or Social Security accounts subjected to the stock
market.
Market fundamentalists are like Christian Scientists. They refuse government intervention
just as the faithful reject medical intervention. Much like God's grace, the invisible hand
operates independent of human plan.
Then something happens, like a pandemic, which tests this faith. States around the world are
now spending trillions of dollars to intervene in the economy: to bail out banks, save
businesses, help out the unemployed. Countries are imposing export controls on key commodities.
As in wartime, governments are directing manufacturers to produce critical goods to fill an
unexpected demand for greater supply.
These are emergency interventions. The market fundamentalist looks forward to the day when
stay-at-home restrictions are lifted, people go back to work, the stock market barrels back
into bull mode, and the invisible hand, with perhaps a few Band-aids across the knuckles,
returns to its job.
But some pandemics fundamentally alter the economy. In such emergencies, people realize that
an economy is constructed and thus can be reconstructed. Are we now at just such a moment in
world history? Will the coronavirus permanently transform the relationship between the state
and the market?
Let's take a look at three key markets -- oil, food, and finance -- to measure the impact of
the pandemic and the prospects for transformation.
Oil
Shutterstock
In 2007, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa
offered to forgo digging for oil beneath the Yasuni national park in exchange for $3.6
billion from the international community. No one took him up on the offer.
When the U.S. price of oil went below zero last week, I immediately thought of Correa's
offer. The mainstream scoffed at the Ecuadorian leader back in 2007. How on earth could you
possibly propose to keep oil under the earth? The world economy runs on fossil fuels. You might
as well ask your kid to keep her Halloween candy uneaten in the back of the cupboard.
Today, however, the world is glutted with oil. The global recession has radically reduced
the need for oil and gas.
In the United States, transportation absorbs
nearly 70 percent of oil consumption. With airplanes grounded, fewer trains and busses in
operation, and highways uncongested, the demand for oil has dropped precipitously. Businesses,
too, are using less energy. It's not just oil. Companies devoted to pumping natural gas out of
shale deposits are filing for bankruptcy as their market value drops precipitously: the price
of a share of fracking giant Whiting Petroleum fell from $150 a couple years ago to 67
cents on March 31.
It's gotten to the point that you almost can't give away the stuff.
After all, if you somehow found yourself with a bunch of barrels of oil, where would you
store it? Oil-storage tanks in the United State are near capacity. "Oil supertankers are
looking like petroleum paparazzi, crowding the Los Angeles shoreline, either as floating
storage or waiting on some kind of turn in sentiment," Brian Sullivan
writes at CNBC . "With prices higher in coming months, for now it pays to sit on oil and
hope to sell it for more money down the pipeline."
Oil-producing nations, after years of boosting their supplies, finally agreed in mid-April
to cut production
by 10 percent -- about 10 million gallons a day. In other words, they are deciding to leave
oil in the ground. Now, however, it doesn't even qualify as a half-measure, since demand has
dropped by 35 percent. The oil producers are awaiting the end of recession, when the
quarantined go back to work, and everyone jumps on their transport of choice to make up for
lost travel. They are awaiting a return to normal.
But the market for fossil fuels is not normal. The notion that the invisible hand will steer
economies in a sustainable direction is hogwash. We are long past the moment when we should
have paid Correa and everyone else to leave the oil and gas in the ground and move toward a
world powered entirely by clean energy. The market treats the environment either as a commodity
like any other or as an "externality" that doesn't factor into the final price of goods and
services. That is so nineteenth century.
Climate change demands an intervention into the energy markets with restrictions on
production, subsidies for clean energies like solar, and government purchases of electric cars.
Returning to "normal" after the pandemic is not a viable option.
Food
Shutterstock
Like the oil exporters, food producers in the United States are restricting production as
well.
In Delaware and Maryland, chicken producers are euthanizing
two million chickens because the processing plants don't have enough workers. Sickness and
death in these facilities, which has caused closures that are disrupting the supply chain, has
prompted Trump to classify
such plants as "critical infrastructure" that needs to remain open. Meanwhile, thousands of
acres of fruits and vegetables
are rotting in the fields in Florida because of the suspension of bulk food sales to
schools, theme parks, and restaurants. The shortage of pickers -- often migrant laborers whose
mobility has been restricted -- is complicating harvests.
Unlike oil, however, the overall demand for food remains high. The grocery business
is
booming . Food banks are
overwhelmed by a surge unlike any in recent decades. The U.S. Department of Agriculture
ordinarily could swoop in and buy up surplus production -- as it did for soybean growers during
the trade war with China -- for use in food banks and other distribution programs. But as with
so many other government agencies in the Trump era, the USDA has been slow
to act , despite repeated pleas from growers and governors.
The pandemic is highlighting all the problems that have long plagued the food supply. First,
there is the mismatch between supply and demand. Around
820 million people globally didn't have enough to eat in 2018, a figure that had been
rising for three years in a row, and contrasts with another rising number: the 672 million
obese people in the world. In the United States, fully 40 percent of food goes to waste every year.
So, obviously the invisible hand does a pretty poor job of achieving market equilibrium.
Second, despite a growing movement to eat locally and seasonally, the food system still eats
up a huge amount of energy. The problem lies not so much with bananas arriving by cargo ship,
which is relatively efficient, but with perishable items delivered by plane . And it's what we eat,
rather than where the products come from, that matters most. "Regardless of whether you compare
the footprint of foods in terms of their weight (e.g. one kilogram of cheese versus one
kilogram of peas); protein content; or calories, the overall conclusion is the same,"
writes
Hannah Ritchie. "Plant-based foods tend to have a lower carbon footprint than meat and dairy.
In many cases a much smaller footprint."
Third, because of economies of scale and abysmal labor practices, food in the industrialized
world is too often grown by agribusiness, processed by transnational corporations, and picked
or handled by workers who don't even make close to a living wage.
Returning to this kind of food system after the pandemic fades would be truly unappetizing.
The livable wage campaign must spread to the countryside, meat substitutes must get an
additional lift through government and institutional purchases, and innovative programs like
the Too Good to Go app in Europe -- which sells extra restaurant and supermarket food at a
discount -- must be brought to the United States to cut down on food waste and get meals to
those in need.
Finance
Shutterstock
The financial crisis of 2008-2009 exposed the fragility and fundamental inequality of the
global financial system. But all along the invisible hand has been pickpocketing poor Peter to
pay prosperous Paul. Bankers, stockbrokers, and financial gurus have constructed a casino-like
system that occasionally doles out a few pennies to the people playing the slots even as it
enriches the house -- the top 1-2 percent -- at every turn.
The most outrageous part of this scheme is that the financial crisis demonstrated just how
bad the financiers were at their own game. Not only did they not go to prison for illegal
activities, they were with a few exceptions not even punished economically for their market
failures. They were either too big, too rich, or too powerful for the government to allow them
to fail.
In The New Yorker , Nick Paumgarten quotes
a prominent investment banker at a bond fund:
"In the financial crisis, we won the war but lost the peace." Instead of investing in
infrastructure, education, and job retraining, we emphasized, via a central-bank policy of
quantitative easing (what some people call printing money), the value of risk assets, like
stocks. "We collectively fell in love with finance," he said.
After the last financial crisis, the wealthy, who are heavily invested in the stock market,
did quite well, while everyone else took a hit.
Explains Colin Schultz in Smithsonian magazine: "While families hovering around the
average net worth lost 36 percent over the past decade -- dropping from $87,992 in 2003 to
$56,335 in 2013 -- people in the top 95th percentile actually gained 14 percent in the same
tumultuous period -- going from $740,700 in 2003 to $834,100 in 2013."
The Trump administration is clearly in love with finance. Even before the pandemic hit,
Trump's tax reform provided the top six U.S. banks with $32
billion in savings . That's more than what the 2008 bank bailout provided (and remember,
banks mostly paid back those earlier loans). The stock market also benefited from
an unprecedented upswing in stock buybacks -- $2 trillion combined in 2018 and 2019 -- that
enriched shareholders at the expense of workers.
The $2 trillion in initial stimulus funds that the U.S. government is providing this time
around has gone to individuals (those Trump-signed checks in the mail), small businesses
(except when it went to big businesses), hospitals, and unemployed workers. There's also money
for farmers, schools, food stamps, and (alas) the Pentagon. Future rounds of stimulus spending
might include infrastructure, more aid to states and localities, and funds for smaller
banks.
There's not much enthusiasm, at least publicly, to bail out Wall Street. Stock buybacks were
explicitly excluded from the stimulus package. Meanwhile, the stock market has begun to climb
out of the basement in the last couple weeks, largely on the strength of the news of all this
new money being pumped into the economy.
But just as the tax bill was a covert giveaway to financial institutions, so have been
several of the administration's pandemic responses. Quantitative easing, by which the Federal
Reserve buys bonds and mortgage-backed securities, has increased the amount of liquidity
available to financial institutions.
In the latest effort, the Fed announced that it will buy $500 billion in corporate bonds,
but without
any of the strings attached to other assistance such as limits on stock buybacks or
executive compensation. The banks are even nickel and diming people by seizing
stimulus check deposits to cover overdrawn accounts.
Out of a total pie of around $6 trillion in potential stimulus spending, banks and major
corporations are well-placed to grab the lion's share.
Writes Nomi Prins at TomDispatch:
In the end, according to the president, that could mean $4.5 trillion in support for
big banks and corporate entities versus something like $1.4 trillion for regular Americans,
small businesses, hospitals, and local and state governments. That 3.5 to 1 ratio signals
that, as in 2008, the Treasury and the Fed are focused on big banks and large corporations,
not everyday Americans.
Invisible hand? Hardly. That's the very visible hand of government tilting the financial
markets even more in favor of the rich. As for the invisible enrichment that goes on beneath
the surface, otherwise known as corruption, the Trump administration has
gutted the oversight mechanisms that could bring those abuses to light.
It's time to end America's love affair with finance. That means, in the short term, higher
taxes on the very rich,
limitations on CEO pay built into all bailouts, and reviving all the reasonable proposals
for reforming the financial sector that were either left out of or didn't get full implemented
in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act passed in the wake of the last
financial crisis.
Post-Pandemic Economics
Shutterstock
The Black Death depopulated Europe, killing as much as 60
percent of the population in the middle of the fourteenth century. Feudalism depended on
lots of peasants working the land to support the one percent of that era. By carrying off so
many of these workers, the Black Death made a major contribution to eroding the foundations of
the dominant economic system of the time.
The coronavirus will not kill anywhere near as many people as the Black Death did. But it
may well contribute to exposing the failures of "free markets" and the scandal of governments
intervening in the economy on behalf of this era's one percent. The pandemic is already, thanks
to huge stimulus packages, undermining the "small government" canard. A state apparatus
deliberately hobbled by the Trump administration -- after earlier "reforms" by both parties --
did a piss-poor job of dealing with this crisis. That doesn't bode well for dealing with the
even larger challenge of climate change.
The short-term fixes described above in the oil, food, and finance sectors are necessary but
insufficient. They shift the balance more toward the government and away from the "free"
market. They're not unlike the New Deal: reforming capitalism to save capitalism. But this
pandemic is pointing to an even more fundamental transformation, to a new definition of
economics.
The tweaking of markets to achieve optimal performance is much like the rejiggering of
earth-centric models of the universe that took place in the Middle Ages. These models became
more and more complex to account for new astronomical discoveries. Then along came Copernicus
with a heliocentric model that accounted for all the new data. It took some time, however, for
the old model to lose favor, despite its obvious failures.
The global economy remains market-centered, even though the evidence has been mounting that
these markets are failing us and the planet. Tweaking this model isn't good enough. We need a
new Copernicus who will provide a new theory that fits our unfolding reality, a new
environment-centered economics that can maximize not profit but the well-being of living
things. John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus.
A lockdown in a lot of places seems to be justified on the basis of the fact that even if you
are middle aged, the chances of hospitalization are still around 5 percent, and in the US
going to the hospital for a week or weeks can leave you bankrupt.
@AP The interesting
& important thing to note is that fatalities are heavily tied to the related factors
of pre-existing conditions and advanced age. For example:
With CQ/AZ/ZN available everywhere, the bulk of the economy could reopen immediately with
or without masks. Given that psychology is important, odds are mask wearing will make the
restart more effective. However, masks provide partial protection at most.
@utu Epidemiology
uses R0 for an initial reproductive rate when a pathogen first invades a naive host
population. Re is the designation for later when immunity begins to exist and, for human
beings in the current pandemic, host behavior changes.
America's billionaires saw their combined net worth soar by $434 billion between March 18
and May 19 while the coronavirus pandemic killed tens of thousands of people and ravaged the
U.S. economy, forcing more than 30 million out of work.
The report shows that the five wealthiest billionaires in the U.S. -- Jeff Bezos of Amazon,
Bill Gates of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway, and
Larry Ellison of Oracle -- saw their collective wealth grow by a total of $75.5 billion between
March 18 and May 19, a 19% jump.
Bezos -- the world's richest man -- saw his wealth jump by nearly $35 billion in the
two-month period. Yet even as Bezos' fortune continues to grow, Amazon
announced last week that it will not extend $2-an-hour hazard pay for warehouse workers
beyond the end of May.
A progressive organization of 23,000 physicians from across the U.S. demanded Thursday that
the American Hospital Association (AHA) divest completely from a dark-money lobbying group that
has spent millions combating Medicare for All and instead devote those financial resources to
the fight against Covid-19 and to better support for patients and healthcare workers.
Dr. Adam Gaffney, president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), said in a
statement that "the Covid-19 pandemic has stretched hospitals' resources to the limit, and the
AHA should not waste precious member hospitals' funds lobbying against universal health
coverage" as a member of the Partnership for America's Health Care Future (PFAHCF).
Because Medicare for All would provide a lifeline to hospitals in underserved areas that
have been hit hard by Covid-19, Gaffney argued, the AHA "cannot claim to represent hospitals
while also opposing a single-payer system that would keep struggling hospitals open." The AHA
represents around 5,000 hospitals and other healthcare providers in the U.S.
As Common Dreams
reported earlier this month, public health officials are accusing the Trump administration
of directing billions of dollars in Covid-19 hospital bailout funds to high-revenue providers
while restricting money to hospitals that serve low-income areas.
Tenet Healthcare, an investor-owned hospital company that has donated hundreds of
thousands to PFAHCF, has received $345 million in Covid-19 bailout funds, Axios
reported last month.
"The AHA should immediately leave the PFAHCF," Gaffney said, "and redirect that money to
supporting patients and frontline healthcare workers."
"As physicians, we can no longer tolerate a health system that puts profits ahead of
patients and public health," Gaffney added. "It's time for health professionals to hold
accountable the organizations that claim to represent us."
Formed in the summer of 2018 by an alliance of pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital
lobbyists with the goal of countering the push for universal healthcare, PFAHCF's anti-Medicare
for All " army "
has grown rapidly since its founding, with the AHA joining the fray in 2019.
As The Interceptreported last
October, the for-profit hospital industry has played an "integral role" in the corporate fight
against single-payer.
Dear Corporate America: maybe
you remember the old Johnny Paycheck tune? Let me refresh your memory: take this job and shove it.
Put yourself in the shoes of a single parent waiting tables in a working-class cafe with
lousy tips, a worker stuck with high rent and a soul-deadening commute
--one of the tens of
millions of America's
working poor
who have seen their wages stagnate and their income
becoming increasingly precarious / uncertain while the cost of living has soared.
Unemployment and the federal
stimulus bonus
of $600 a week are far more than your
regular wages, including tips.
Exactly why do you want to go back to your miserable job and
low pay? Why wouldn't you take time off and enjoy life a little, which is what you've been wanting to
do for years?
Indeed--why not? The pandemic is giving many permission to get what they always wanted.
Consider
these examples:
1. The Federal Reserve has always pined for the power to bail out the top .01% / the New
Nobility the way they deserve, with unlimited money-printing and the Fed being able to buy every
rigged, fraudulent asset spewed by the New Nobility's financial and corporate predators and
parasites.
Yee-haw, the pandemic genie granted your wish: there's no limits on how many trillions you can
shove into the greedy maw of the top .01%, and bail out every single one of their predatory,
exploitive,
legalized looting
bets that went south.
2. Local officials always wanted to commandeer some motels and shove the homeless into them, to
clear the sidewalks and parks and then claim "homeless problem solved." Presto, your wish has been
granted.
3. Central government authorities have always resented all those pesky civil liberties
restraints on their unquenchable desires to control every tiny aspect of life, public and private,
and now--voila, the doors to Petty Authoritarian Heaven have opened. Question our authority? A
tenner
in
the gulag for you, Doubter of All That Is Great and Good.
4. Restaurant owners who on camera always have to say how much they love their customers and
business, never mind the money, who secretly have come to loathe their over-entitled,
self-absorbed, dilettante customers and are sick and tired of the soaring rent, business licenses,
insurance, payroll taxes and costs of ingredients.
You know what, pal? Here's the keys, you can re-open whatever the heck you want, I'm outta here.
I've been secretly wishing I could get out from underneath this crushing burden and get my life
back. Yes, it was exciting way back when, but now it's nothing but an endless grind that wasn't
making money even before the pandemic.
5. Since the financiers, Big Tech mini-gods and stock buyback crowd have looted and pillaged
their way to immense fortunes by lying, cheating, conniving and gaming, why not
follow the
money
just like the predators and parasites at the top of the heap?
Indeed, why not fudge the application for a federal small business loan and use the "free
money"
to
lease that shiny new Rolls Royce
you always desired? Well, haven't the authorities been begging
us to borrow and spend like there's no tomorrow?
6. Dear Corporate America: maybe you remember the old Johnny Paycheck tune? Let me refresh your
memory:
take this job and shove it, I ain't working here no more.
If there's a
will, there's a way, and I'm stepping off the rat race merry-go-round, thank you very much. You can
find some other sucker to do your dirty work and BS work, all for the greater glory and wealth of
your New Nobility shareholders. I'm outta here. So I won't get rich, that dream died a long time
ago. What I'm interested in now is getting my life back.
The pandemic might not follow the Central Casting script of a V-shaped return to debt-serf,
BS-work wonderfulness.
Everyone who was sick and tired of their pre-pandemic life and the
endless exploitation has had time to think things over, and some consequential percentage of them will
welcome "good-bye to all that" and others will decide not to go back, even if that is still an option.
It's called opting out, and it has always characterized the end of imperial pretensions,
pillaging, propaganda and predation. Financial parasites, beware the second-order effects of your
overweening dominance and limitless greed.
President Donald Trump told Republican senators during a private lunch Tuesday that he is willing to let expanded unemployment
benefits expire at the end of July, a decision that would
massively slash the incomes of tens of millions
of people who have lost their jobs due to the Covid-19 crisis.
The Washington Post
reported Tuesday that the president "privately expressed opposition to extending a weekly $600 boost in unemployment insurance
for laid-off workers affected by the coronavirus pandemic, according to three officials familiar with his remarks."
House Democrats passed legislation last week that would extend the beefed-up unemployment benefits through January of 2021 as
experts and government officials -- including Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell --
warn the
U.S. unemployment rate could soon reach 25%. The unemployment insurance boost under the CARES Act is set to expire on July 31, even
as many
people have yet to receive their first check.
"With nearly 1 in 5 Americans out of work, Donald Trump's plan is to cut off the boost to unemployment benefits and shower his
wealthy buddies with more tax cuts," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the architects of the unemployment insurance expansion,
toldHuffPost . "This is the worst economic crisis in 100 years and Donald Trump is doubling down on Herbert Hoover's economic
playbook and pushing workers to risk their health for his political benefit."
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) -- who
declared earlier this month that Congress will only extend the boosted unemployment insurance "over our dead bodies" -- said
after the private lunch that Trump believes the benefits are "hurting the economic recovery." Graham was one of several Republican
senators who
opposed the initial expansion of unemployment benefits as too generous.
An
analysis
released last week by the Hamilton Project, an initiative of the Brookings Institution, found that expanded unemployment benefits
offset "roughly half of lost wages and salaries in April." Unemployment insurance has "been essential to families, and is vital for
keeping the economy from cratering further," the authors of the analysis noted.
Ernie Tedeschi, a former Treasury Department economist,
estimated that "come July 31, if the emergency
UI top-up isn't extended, unemployed workers will effectively get a pay cut of 50-75% overnight."
"It's increasingly looking like there won't be enough labor demand to hire them all back at that point," Tedeschi tweeted.
The latest Labor Department statistics showed that
more than 36 million
people in the U.S. have filed jobless claims since mid-March as mass layoffs continue in the absence of government action to
keep workers on company payrolls. Despite the grim numbers, the Post 's Jeff Stein reported Tuesday that the White House
is "
predicting a swift economic recovery " as it resists additional efforts to provide relief to frontline workers and the unemployed.
On top of rejecting an extension of enhanced unemployment insurance, Trump last month
publicly voiced opposition to another round of direct stimulus payments, instead advocating a cut to the tax that funds Social
Security and Medicare.
Demanding McDonald's prioritize public health and worker safety over profits, hundreds of
employees at the fast food chain
went on strike Wednesday, a day before the company was set to hold its annual shareholders'
meeting.
Instead of distributing dividends to its shareholders, the striking employees are calling
for the company to use its massive profits to pay for safety and financial protections for
workers, scores of whom have contracted Covid-19 in at least 16 states so far.
Employees and strike organizers at the fair wage advocacy group Fight for $15 are demanding
hazard pay during the pandemic of "$15X2," paid sick leave, sufficient protective gear for
workers, and company-wide policy of closing a restaurant for two weeks when an employee becomes
infected, with workers being fully paid.
The strike is taking place at stores in at least 20 cities. Fight for $15 and the SEIU,
which is also supporting the action, say it's the first nationwide coordinated effort targeting
the company since the coronavirus pandemic began in March.
"... In France, confinement has been generally well accepted as necessary, but that does not mean people are content with the government -- on the contrary. Every evening at eight, people go to their windows to cheer for health workers and others doing essential tasks, but the applause is not for President Macron. ..."
"... What we have witnessed is the failure of what used to be one of the very best public health services in the world. It has been degraded by years of cost-cutting. In recent years, the number of hospital beds per capita has declined steadily. Many hospitals have been shut down and those that remain are drastically understaffed. Public hospital facilities have been reduced to a state of perpetual saturation, so that when a new epidemic comes along, on top of all the other usual illnesses, there is simply not the capacity to deal with it all at once. ..."
"... The neoliberal globalization myth fostered the delusion that advanced Western societies could prosper from their superior brains, thanks to ideas and computer startups, while the dirty work of actually making things is left to low-wage countries. One result: a drastic shortage of face masks. The government let a factory that produced masks and other surgical equipment be sold off and shut down. Having outsourced its textile industry, France had no immediate way to produce the masks it needed. ..."
"... In late March, French media reported that a large stock of masks ordered and paid for by the southeastern region of France was virtually hijacked on the tarmac of a Chinese airport by Americans, who tripled the price and had the cargo flown to the United States. There are also reports of Polish and Czech airport authorities intercepting Chinese or Russian shipments of masks intended for hard-hit Italy and keeping them for their own use. ..."
"... The Covid–19 crisis makes it just that much clearer that the European Union is no more than a complex economic arrangement, with neither the sentiment nor the popular leaders that hold together a nation. For a generation, schools, media, politicians have instilled the belief that the "nation" is an obsolete entity. But in a crisis, people find that they are in France, or Germany, or Italy, or Belgium -- but not in "Europe." The European Union is structured to care about trade, investment, competition, debt, economic growth. Public health is merely an economic indicator. For decades, the European Commission has put irresistible pressure on nations to reduce the costs of their public health facilities in order to open competition for contracts to the private sector -- which is international by nature. ..."
"... Scapegoating China may seem the way to try to hold the declining Western world together, even as Europeans' long-standing admiration for America turns to dismay. ..."
"... The countries that have suffered most from the epidemic are among the most indebted of the EU member states, starting with Italy. The economic damage from the lockdown obliges them to borrow further. As their debt increases, so do interest rates charged by commercial banks. They turned to the EU for help, for instance by issuing eurobonds that would share the debt at lower interest rates. This has increased tension between debtor countries in the south and creditor countries in the north, which said nein . Countries in the eurozone cannot borrow from the European Central Bank as the U.S. Treasury borrows from the Fed. And their own national central banks take orders from the ECB, which controls the euro. ..."
"... The great irony is that "a common currency" was conceived by its sponsors as the key to European unity. On the contrary, the euro has a polarizing effect -- with Greece at the bottom and Germany at the top. And Italy sinking. But Italy is much bigger than Greece and won't go quietly. ..."
"... A major paradox is that the left and the Yellow Vests call for economic and social policies that are impossible under EU rules, and yet many on the left shy away from even thinking of leaving the EU. For over a generation, the French left has made an imaginary "social Europe" the center of its utopian ambitions. ..."
"... Russia is a living part of European history and culture. Its exclusion is totally unnatural and artificial. Brzezinski [the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Carter administration's national security adviser] spelled it out in The Great Chessboard : The U.S. maintains world hegemony by keeping the Eurasian landmass divided. ..."
"... But this policy can be seen to be inherited from the British. It was Churchill who proclaimed -- in fact welcomed -- the Iron Curtain that kept continental Europe divided. In retrospect, the Cold War was basically part of the divide-and-rule strategy, since it persists with greater intensity than ever after its ostensible cause -- the Communist threat -- is long gone. ..."
"... The whole Ukrainian operation of 2014 [the U.S.–cultivated coup in Kyiv, February 2014] was lavishly financed and stimulated by the United States in order to create a new conflict with Russia. Joe Biden has been the Deep State's main front man in turning Ukraine into an American satellite, used as a battering ram to weaken Russia and destroy its natural trade and cultural relations with Western Europe. ..."
"... I think France is likelier than Germany to break with the U.S.–imposed Russophobia simply because, thanks to de Gaulle, France is not quite as thoroughly under U.S. occupation. Moreover, friendship with Russia is a traditional French balance against German domination -- which is currently being felt and resented. ..."
"... "Decades of indoctrination in the ideology of "Europe" has instilled the belief that the nation-state is a bad thing of the past. The result is that people raised in the European Union faith tend to regard any suggestion of return to national sovereignty as a fatal step toward fascism. This fear of contagion from "the right" is an obstacle to clear analysis which weakens the left and favors the right, which dares be patriotic." ..."
"... Since WWII the US has itself been occupied by tyrants, using Russophobia to demand power as fake defenders. ..."
"... " French philosophy .By constantly attacking, deconstructing, and denouncing every remnant of human "power" they could spot, the intellectual rebels left the power of "the markets" unimpeded, and did nothing to stand in the way of the expansion of U.S. military power all around the world " ..."
"... From her groundbreaking work on the NATO empire's sickening war on sovereign Serbia, the dead end of identity politics and trans bathroom debates, to her critique of unfettered immigration and open borders, and her dismissal of the absurd Russsiagate baloney, better than anyone else, Johnstone has kept her intellect carefully honed to the real genuine kitchen table bread and butter issues that truly matter. She recognized before most of the world's scholars the perils of rampant inequality and saw the writing on the wall as to where this grotesque economic system is taking us all: down a dystopian slope into penury and police-state heavy-handedness, with millions unable to come up with $500 for an emergency car repair or dental bill. ..."
"... The mask competition and fiasco shows the importance of a country simply making things in their own country, not on the other side of the world, it's not nationalism it's just a better way to logistically deliver reliable products to the citizens. ..."
"... Some hold that they never departed, but mutated tools including CFA zones and "intelligence" relations in furtherance of "changing" to remain qualitatively the same. Just as "The United States of America" is a system of coercive relations not synonymous with the political geographical area designated "The United States of America", the colonialism of former and present "colonial powers" continues to exist, since the "independence" of the colonised was always, and continues to be, framed within linear systems of coercive relations, facilitated by the complicity of "local elites" on the basis of perceived self-interest, and the acquiescence of "local others" for myriad reasons. ..."
"... After reading Circle in the Darkness, I have ordered and am now reading her books on Hillary Clinton (Queen of Chaos) and the Yugoslav wars (Fool's Crusade), which are very worthwhile and important. I would recommend that her many articles over the years, appearing in such publications such as In These Times, Counterpunch and Consortium News, be reprinted and published together as an anthology. Through Circle in the Darkness, we have Diana Johnstone's "Life", but it would be good also to have her "Letters". ..."
"... Mr. de Gaulle like other "leaders" of colonial powers did understand that the moment of overt coercive relations of colonialism had passed and that colonialism to remain qualitatively the same, required covert coercive relations facilitated by the complicity of local "elites" on the basis of perceived self-interest. ..."
In France, confinement has been generally well accepted as necessary, but that does not mean
people are content with the government -- on the contrary. Every evening at eight, people go to
their windows to cheer for health workers and others doing essential tasks, but the applause is
not for President Macron.
Macron and his government are criticized for hesitating too long to confine the population,
for vacillating about the need for masks and tests, or about when or how much to end the
confinement. Their confusion and indecision at least defend them from the wild accusation of
having staged the whole thing in order to lock up the population.
What we have witnessed is the failure of what used to be one of the very best public health
services in the world. It has been degraded by years of cost-cutting. In recent years, the
number of hospital beds per capita has declined steadily. Many hospitals have been shut down
and those that remain are drastically understaffed. Public hospital facilities have been
reduced to a state of perpetual saturation, so that when a new epidemic comes along, on top of
all the other usual illnesses, there is simply not the capacity to deal with it all at
once.
The neoliberal globalization myth fostered the delusion that advanced Western societies
could prosper from their superior brains, thanks to ideas and computer startups, while the
dirty work of actually making things is left to low-wage countries. One result: a drastic
shortage of face masks. The government let a factory that produced masks and other surgical
equipment be sold off and shut down. Having outsourced its textile industry, France had no
immediate way to produce the masks it needed.
Meanwhile, in early April, Vietnam donated hundreds of thousands of antimicrobial face masks
to European countries and is producing them by the million. Employing tests and selective
isolation, Vietnam has fought off the epidemic with only a few hundred cases and no deaths.
You must have thoughts as to the question of Western unity in response to
Covid–19.
In late March, French media reported that a large stock of masks ordered and paid for by the
southeastern region of France was virtually hijacked on the tarmac of a Chinese airport by
Americans, who tripled the price and had the cargo flown to the United States. There are also
reports of Polish and Czech airport authorities intercepting Chinese or Russian shipments of
masks intended for hard-hit Italy and keeping them for their own use.
The absence of European solidarity has been shockingly clear. Better-equipped Germany banned
exports of masks to Italy. In the depth of its crisis, Italy found that the German and Dutch
governments were mainly concerned with making sure Italy pays its debts. Meanwhile, a team of
Chinese experts arrived in Rome to help Italy with its Covid–19 crisis, displaying a
banner reading "We are waves of the same sea, leaves of the same tree, flowers of the same
garden." The European institutions lack such humanistic poetry. Their founding value is not
solidarity but the neoliberal principle of "free unimpeded competition."
How do you think this reflects on the European Union?
The Covid–19 crisis makes it just that much clearer that the European Union is no more
than a complex economic arrangement, with neither the sentiment nor the popular leaders that
hold together a nation. For a generation, schools, media, politicians have instilled the belief
that the "nation" is an obsolete entity. But in a crisis, people find that they are in France,
or Germany, or Italy, or Belgium -- but not in "Europe." The European Union is structured to
care about trade, investment, competition, debt, economic growth. Public health is merely an
economic indicator. For decades, the European Commission has put irresistible pressure on
nations to reduce the costs of their public health facilities in order to open competition for
contracts to the private sector -- which is international by nature.
Globalization has hastened the spread of the pandemic, but it has not strengthened
internationalist solidarity. Initial gratitude for Chinese aid is being brutally opposed by
European Atlanticists. In early May, Mathias Döpfner, CEO of the Springer publishing
giant, bluntly called on Germany to ally with the U.S. -- against China. Scapegoating China may
seem the way to try to hold the declining Western world together, even as Europeans'
long-standing admiration for America turns to dismay.
Meanwhile, relations between EU member states have never been worse. In Italy and to a
greater extent in France, the coronavirus crisis has enforced growing disillusion with the
European Union and an ill-defined desire to restore national sovereignty.
Corollary question: What are the prospects that Europe will produce leaders capable of
seizing that right moment, that assertion of independence? What do you reckon such leaders
would be like?
The EU is likely to be a central issue in the near future, but this issue can be exploited
in very different ways, depending on which leaders get hold of it. The coronavirus crisis has
intensified the centrifugal forces already undermining the European Union. The countries that
have suffered most from the epidemic are among the most indebted of the EU member states,
starting with Italy. The economic damage from the lockdown obliges them to borrow further. As
their debt increases, so do interest rates charged by commercial banks. They turned to the EU
for help, for instance by issuing eurobonds that would share the debt at lower interest rates.
This has increased tension between debtor countries in the south and creditor countries in the
north, which said nein . Countries in the eurozone cannot borrow from the European
Central Bank as the U.S. Treasury borrows from the Fed. And their own national central banks
take orders from the ECB, which controls the euro.
What does the crisis mean for the euro? I confess I've lost faith in this project, given
how disadvantaged it leaves the nations on the Continent's southern rim.
The great irony is that "a common currency" was conceived by its sponsors as the key to
European unity. On the contrary, the euro has a polarizing effect -- with Greece at the bottom
and Germany at the top. And Italy sinking. But Italy is much bigger than Greece and won't go
quietly.
The German constitutional court in Karlsruhe recently issued a long judgment making it clear
who is boss. It recalled and insisted that Germany agreed to the euro only on the grounds that
the main mission of the European Central Bank was to fight inflation, and that it could not
directly finance member states. If these rules were not followed, the Bundesbank, the German
central bank, would be obliged to pull out of the ECB. And since the Bundesbank is the ECB's
main creditor, that is that. There can be no generous financial help to troubled governments
within the eurozone. Period.
Is there a possibility of disintegration here?
The idea of leaving the EU is most developed in France. The Union Populaire
Républicaine, founded in 2007 by former senior functionary François Asselineau,
calls for France to leave the euro, the European Union, and NATO.
The party has been a didactic success, spreading its ideas and attracting around 20,000
active militants without scoring any electoral success. A main argument for leaving the EU is
to escape from the constraints of EU competition rules in order to protect its vital industry,
agriculture, and above all its public services.
A major paradox is that the left and the Yellow Vests call for economic and social policies
that are impossible under EU rules, and yet many on the left shy away from even thinking of
leaving the EU. For over a generation, the French left has made an imaginary "social Europe"
the center of its utopian ambitions.
" Europe" as an idea or an ideal, you mean.
Decades of indoctrination in the ideology of "Europe" has instilled the belief that the
nation-state is a bad thing of the past. The result is that people raised in the European Union
faith tend to regard any suggestion of return to national sovereignty as a fatal step toward
fascism. This fear of contagion from "the right" is an obstacle to clear analysis which weakens
the left and favors the right, which dares be patriotic.
Two and a half months of coronavirus crisis have brought to light a factor that makes any
predictions about future leaders even more problematic. That factor is a widespread distrust
and rejection of all established authority. This makes rational political programs extremely
difficult, because rejection of one authority implies acceptance of another. For instance, the
way to liberate public services and pharmaceuticals from the distortions of the profit motive
is nationalization. If you distrust the power of one as much as the other, there is nowhere to
go.
Such radical distrust can be explained by two main factors -- the inevitable feeling of
helplessness in our technologically advanced world, combined with the deliberate and even
transparent lies on the part of mainstream politicians and media. But it sets the stage for the
emergence of manipulated saviors or opportunistic charlatans every bit as deceptive as the
leaders we already have, or even more so. I hope these irrational tendencies are less
pronounced in France than in some other countries.
I'm eager to talk about Russia. There are signs that relations with Russia are another
source of European dissatisfaction as "junior partners" within the U.S.–led Atlantic
alliance. Macron is outspoken on this point, "junior partners" being his phrase. The Germans --
business people, some senior officials in government -- are quite plainly restive.
Russia is a living part of European history and culture. Its exclusion is totally unnatural
and artificial. Brzezinski [the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Carter administration's national
security adviser] spelled it out in The Great Chessboard : The U.S. maintains world
hegemony by keeping the Eurasian landmass divided.
But this policy can be seen to be inherited
from the British. It was Churchill who proclaimed -- in fact welcomed -- the Iron Curtain that
kept continental Europe divided. In retrospect, the Cold War was basically part of the
divide-and-rule strategy, since it persists with greater intensity than ever after its
ostensible cause -- the Communist threat -- is long gone.
I hadn't put our current circumstance in this context. US-backed, violent coup in Ukraine, 2014.
The whole Ukrainian operation of 2014 [the U.S.–cultivated coup in Kyiv, February
2014] was lavishly financed and stimulated by the United States in order to create a new
conflict with Russia. Joe Biden has been the Deep State's main front man in turning Ukraine
into an American satellite, used as a battering ram to weaken Russia and destroy its natural
trade and cultural relations with Western Europe.
U.S. sanctions are particularly contrary to German business interests, and NATO's aggressive
gestures put Germany on the front lines of an eventual war.
But Germany has been an occupied country -- militarily and politically -- for 75 years, and
I suspect that many German political leaders (usually vetted by Washington) have learned to fit
their projects into U.S. policies. I think that under the cover of Atlantic loyalty, there are
some frustrated imperialists lurking in the German establishment, who think they can use
Washington's Russophobia as an instrument to make a comeback as a world military power.
But I also think that the political debate in Germany is overwhelmingly hypocritical, with
concrete aims veiled by fake issues such as human rights and, of course, devotion to
Israel.
We should remember that the U.S. does not merely use its allies -- its allies, or rather
their leaders, figure they are using the U.S. for some purposes of their own.
What about what the French have been saying since the G–7 session in Biarritz two
years ago, that Europe should forge its own relations with Russia according to Europe's
interests, not America's?
At G7 Summit in Biarritz, France, Aug. 26, 2019. (White House)
I think France is likelier than Germany to break with the U.S.–imposed Russophobia
simply because, thanks to de Gaulle, France is not quite as thoroughly under U.S. occupation.
Moreover, friendship with Russia is a traditional French balance against German domination --
which is currently being felt and resented.
Stepping back for a broader look, do you think Europe's position on the western flank of
the Eurasian landmass will inevitably shape its position with regard not only to Russia but
also China? To put this another way, is Europe destined to become an independent pole of power
in the course of this century, standing between West and East?
At present, what we have standing between West and East is not Europe but Russia, and what
matters is which way Russia leans. Including Russia, Europe might become an independent pole of
power. The U.S. is currently doing everything to prevent this. But there is a school of
strategic thought in Washington which considers this a mistake, because it pushes Russia into
the arms of China. This school is in the ascendant with the campaign to denounce China as
responsible for the pandemic. As mentioned, the Atlanticists in Europe are leaping into the
anti–China propaganda battle. But they are not displaying any particular affection for
Russia, which shows no sign of sacrificing its partnership with China for the unreliable
Europeans.
If Russia were allowed to become a friendly bridge between China and Europe, the U.S. would
be obliged to abandon its pretensions of world hegemony. But we are far from that peaceful
prospect.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International
Herald Tribune , is a columnist, essayist, author and lecturer. His most recent book is
"Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century" (Yale). Follow him on Twitter @thefloutist . His web site is Patrick Lawrence . Support his work via
his Patreon site .
Josep , May 19, 2020 at 02:04
It recalled and insisted that Germany agreed to the euro only on the grounds that the
main mission of the European Central Bank was to fight inflation, and that it could not
directly finance member states.
I once read a comment elsewhere saying that, back in 1989, both Britain (under Margaret
Thatcher) and the US objected to German reunification. Since they could not stop the
reunification, they insisted that Germany accept the incoming euro. A heap of German
university professors jumped up and protested, knowing fully well what the game was: namely
the creation of a banker's empire in Europe controlled by private bankers.
Thorben Sunkimat , May 20, 2020 at 13:45
France and Britain rejected the german reunification. The americans were supportive, even
though they had their demands. Mainly privatisation of german public utilities. After
agreeing to those demands the americans persuaded the british and pressured the french who
agreed to german reunification after germany agreed to the euro.
So why did france want the euro?
The German central bank crashed the European economy after reunification with high interest
rates. This was because of above average growth rates mainly in Eastern Germany. Main
function of the Bundesbank is to keep inflation low, which is more important to them than
anything else. Since Germany's D Mark was the leading currency in Europe the rest of Europe
had to heighten their interest rates too, witch lead to great economic problems within
Europe. Including France.
OlyaPola , May 21, 2020 at 05:30
"namely the creation of a banker's empire in Europe controlled by private bankers."
Resort to binaries (controlled/not controlled) is a practice of self-imposed
blindness. In any interactive system no absolutes exist only analogues of varying assays since
"control" is limited and variable. In respect of what became the German Empire this relationship predated and facilitated the
German Empire through financing the war with Denmark in 1864 courtesy of the arrangements
between Mr. von Bismark and Mr. Bleichroder. The assay of "control of bankers" has varied/increased subsequently but never attained the
absolute.
It is true that finance capital perceived and continues to perceive the European Union as
an opportunity to increase their assay of "control" – the Austrian banks in conjunction
with German bank assigning a level of priority to resurrecting spheres of influence existing
prior to 1918 and until 1945.
One of the joint projects at a level of planning in the early 1990's was development of
the Danube and its hinterland from Regensburg to Cerna Voda/Constanta in Romania but this was
delayed in the hope of curtailment by some when NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 (Serbia not being
the only target – so much for honesty-amongst-theives.)
This project was resurrected in a limited form primarily downstream from Vidin/Calafat
from 2015 onwards given that some states of the former Yugoslavia were not members of the
European Union and some were within spheres of influence of "The United States of
America".
As to France, "Vichy" and Europa also facilitated the resurrection of finance capital and
increase in its assay of control after the 1930's, some of the practices of the 1940's still
being subject to dispute in France.
mkb29 , May 18, 2020 at 16:33
I've always admired Diana Johnstone's clear headed analyses of world/European/U.S./
China/Israel-Palestine/Russia/ interactions and the motivation of its "players". She has
given some credence to what as been known as French rationalism and enlightenment. (Albeit as
an American expat) Think Descartes, Diderot, Sartre , and She loves France in her own
rationalist-humanist way.
Linda J , May 18, 2020 at 13:21
I have admired Ms. Johnstone's work for quite awhile. This enlightening interview spurs me
to get a copy of the book and to contribute to Consortium News.
Others may be interested in the two-part video discovered yesterday featuring Douglas
Valentine's analysis of the CIA's corporate backers and their global choke-hold on
governments and their influencers in every region of the world.
Part 1
see:youtu(dot)be/cP15Ehx1yvI
Part 2
see:youtu(dot)be/IYvvEn_N1sE
worldblee , May 18, 2020 at 12:26
Not many have the long distance perspective on the world, let alone Europe, that Diana
Johnstone has. Great interview!
Drew Hunkins , May 18, 2020 at 11:03
"Decades of indoctrination in the ideology of "Europe" has instilled the belief that the
nation-state is a bad thing of the past. The result is that people raised in the European
Union faith tend to regard any suggestion of return to national sovereignty as a fatal step
toward fascism. This fear of contagion from "the right" is an obstacle to clear analysis
which weakens the left and favors the right, which dares be patriotic."
Bingo! A marvelous point indeed! Quick little example -- Bernard Sanders should have worn an American flag pin on his suit
during the 2020 Dem primary campaign.
chris , May 18, 2020 at 04:46
A very good analysis. As an American who has relocated to Spain several years ago, I am
always disappointed that discussions of European politics always assume that Europe ends at
the Pyrenees. Admittedly, Spanish politics is very complicated and confusing. Forty years of
an unreconstructed dictatorship have left their mark, but the country´s socialist,
communist and anarchic currents never went away. I like to say that the country is very
conservative, but at least the population is aware of what is going on.
Perhaps what Ms.
Johnston says about the French being just worn out, with no stomach for more violent conflict
also applies to the Spanish since their great ideological struggle is more recent. The
American influence during the Transition (which changed little – as the expression
goes: The same dog but with a different collar) was very strong, and remains so. Even so,
there is popular support for foreign and domestic policies independent of American and
neoliberal control, but by and large the political and economic powers are not on board. I do
not think Spain is willing to make a break alone, but would align itself with an European
shift away from American control.
As Ms. Johnston says, Europe currently lacks leaders
willing to take the plunge, but we will see what the coming year brings.
Sam F , May 17, 2020 at 17:45
Thank you Diana, these are valuable insights. Since WWII the US has itself been occupied by tyrants, using Russophobia to demand power
as fake defenders.
1. Waving the flag and praising the lord on mass media, claiming concern with human rights
and "Israel"; while
2. Subverting the Constitution with large scale bribery, surveillance, and genocides, all
business as usual nowadays.
In the US, the form of government has become bribery and marketing lies; it truly knows no
other way.
It may be better that Russia and China keep their distance from the US and maybe even the
EU:
1. The US and EU would have to produce what they consume, eventually empowering workers;
2. Neither the US nor EU are a political or economic model for anyone, and should be
ignored;
3. Neither the US nor EU produces much that Russia and China cannot, by investing more in
cars and soybeans.
It will be best for the EU if it also rejects the US and its "neolib" economic and
political tyranny mechanisms:
1. Alliance with Russia and China will cause substantial gains in stability and economic
strength;
2. Forcing the US to abandon its "pretensions of world hegemony" will soon yield more
peaceful prospects; and
3. Isolating the US will force it to improve its utterly corrupt government and society,
maybe 40 to 60 years hence.
Drew Hunkins , May 17, 2020 at 15:40
" French philosophy .By constantly attacking, deconstructing, and denouncing every remnant
of human "power" they could spot, the intellectual rebels left the power of "the markets"
unimpeded, and did nothing to stand in the way of the expansion of U.S. military power all
around the world "
Brilliant. Exactly right. This was the progenitor to our contemporary I.D. politics which seems to be solely
obsessed with vocabulary, semantics and non-economic cultural issues while rarely having a
critique of corporate capitalism, militarism, massive inequality and Zionism. And it almost
never advocates for robust economic populist proposals like Med4All, U.B.I., debt jubilee,
and the fight for $15.
Drew Hunkins , May 17, 2020 at 15:10
The book is phenomenal. I posted a customer review over on Amazon for this stupendous
work. Below is a copy of my review:
(5 stars) One of the most important intellects pens her magisterial lasting legacy
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2020
Johnstone's been an idol of mine ever since I started reading her in the 1990s. She's
clearly proved her worthiness over the decades by bucking the mainstream trend of apologetics
for corporate capitalism, neoliberalism, globalism and imperialistic militarism her entire
career and this astonishing memoir details it all in what will likely be the finest book of
2020 and perhaps the entire decade.
Her writing style is beyond superb, her grasp of the overarching politico-socio-economic
issues that have rocked the world over the past 60 years is as astute and spot-on as you will
find from any global thinker. She's right up there with Michael Parenti, James Petras, John
Pilger and Noam Chomsky as seminal figures who have documented and brought light to tens of
thousands (millions?) of people across the globe via their writings, interviews and speaking
engagements.
Johnstone has never been one to shy away from controversial topics and issues. Why?
Simple, she has the facts and truth on her side, she always has. Circle in the Darkness
proves all this and more, she marshals the documentation and lays it out as an exquisite gift
for struggling working people around the world.
From her groundbreaking work on the NATO
empire's sickening war on sovereign Serbia, the dead end of identity politics and trans
bathroom debates, to her critique of unfettered immigration and open borders, and her
dismissal of the absurd Russsiagate baloney, better than anyone else, Johnstone has kept her
intellect carefully honed to the real genuine kitchen table bread and butter issues that
truly matter. She recognized before most of the world's scholars the perils of rampant
inequality and saw the writing on the wall as to where this grotesque economic system is
taking us all: down a dystopian slope into penury and police-state heavy-handedness, with
millions unable to come up with $500 for an emergency car repair or dental bill.
Whenever she comes out with a new article or essay I immediately drop everything and
devour it, often reading it twice to let her wisdom really soak in. So too Circle of Darkness
is an extremely well written beautiful work that will scream out to be re-read every few
years by those with a hunger to know exactly what was going on since the Korean War era
through today regarding liberal thought, neocon and neoliberal dominance with its capitalist
global hegemony and the take over of Western governments by the parasitic financial
elite.
There will never be another Diana Johnstone. Circle in the Darkness will stand as her
lasting legacy to all of us.
Bob Van Noy , May 17, 2020 at 14:43
"As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding
it" ~Albert Einstein
Many Thanks CN, Patrick Lawrence, and Joe Lauria. Once again I must commend CN for picking
just the appropriate response to our contemporary dilemma.
The quote above leads Diana Johnstone's new book and succinctly describes both the
universe and our contemporary experience with our digital age. President Kennedy and Charles
de Gaulle of France would agree that colonialism was past and that a new world (geopolitical)
approach would become necessary, but that philosophy would put them against some great local
and world powers. Each of them necessarily had different approaches as to how this might be
accomplished. They were never allowed to present their specific proposals on a world stage.
Let's hope a wiser population will once again "see" this possibility and find a way to
resolve it
Aaron , May 17, 2020 at 14:18
Well over the span of all of those decades, the consistent, inexorable theme seems to be a
trend of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, a small number of individuals,
not really states, gaining wealth and power, so everybody else fights over the crumbs,
blaming this or that party, alliance, event or whatever, but behind it all there are two
flower gardens, indeed the rich are all flowers of their golden garden, and the poor are all
flowers of their garden.
It's like the Europeans and the 99 percent in America have all
fallen for the myth of the American dream, that if we are just allowed more free, unfettered
economic opportunity, it's just up to us to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and become a
billionaire.
The mask competition and fiasco shows the importance of a country simply making
things in their own country, not on the other side of the world, it's not nationalism it's
just a better way to logistically deliver reliable products to the citizens.
AnneR , May 17, 2020 at 13:42
Regarding French colonialism – as I recall the French were especially brutal in
their forced withdrawal from Algeria, both toward Algerians in their homeland and to
Algerians within France itself.
And the French were hardly willing, non-violent colonialists when being fought by the
Vietnamese who wanted to be free of them (quite rightly so).
As for the French in Sub-Saharan Africa – they have yet to truly give up on their
presumed right to have troops within these countries. They did not depart any of their
colonies happily, willingly – like every other colonial power, including the UK.
And, as for WWII – she seems, in her reminiscences, to have mislaid Vichy France,
the Velodrome roundups of French Jews, and so on ..
Ms Johnstone clearly has been looking backwards with rose-tinted specs on when it comes to
France.
Randal Marlin , May 18, 2020 at 13:00
There may be some truth to AnneR's claim that Ms Johnstone has been looking with
rose-tinted specs when it comes to France, but it is highly misleading for her to talk about
"the French" regarding Algeria. I spent 1963-64 in Aix-en-Provence teaching at the Institute
for American Universities and talked with some of the "pieds-noirs," (French born in
Algeria).
After French President Charles de Gaulle decided to relinquish French control over
Algeria, having previously reassured the colonial population that "Je vous ai compris" ("I
have understood you"), there followed death threats to many French colonizers who had to flee
Algeria immediately within 24 hours or get their throats slit – "La valise ou le
cercueil" (the suitcase or the coffin).
In the fall of 1961, I saw Parisian police stations
with machine-gun armed men behind concrete barriers, as an invasion by the colonial French
paratroopers against mainland France was expected. The "Organisation Armée
Secrète," OAS, (Secret Armed Organization) of the colonial powers, threatened at the
time to invade Paris.
As an aside, giving a sense of the anger and passion involved, when the
death of John F.Kennedy in November 1963 was announced in the historic, right-wing
café in Aix, Les Deux Garçons, a huge cheer went up when the media announcer
proclaimed "Le Président est assassinée. Only, that was because they thought de
Gaulle was the president in question. A huge disappointment when they heard it was President
Kennedy. To get a sense of the whole situation regarding France and Algeria I recommend
Alistair Horne's "A Savage War of Peace."
OlyaPola , May 19, 2020 at 11:23
"They did not depart any of their colonies happily"
Some hold that they never departed, but mutated tools including CFA zones and
"intelligence" relations in furtherance of "changing" to remain qualitatively the same. Just as "The United States of America" is a system of coercive relations not synonymous
with the political geographical area designated "The United States of America", the
colonialism of former and present "colonial powers" continues to exist, since the
"independence" of the colonised was always, and continues to be, framed within linear systems
of coercive relations, facilitated by the complicity of "local elites" on the basis of
perceived self-interest, and the acquiescence of "local others" for myriad reasons.
Despite the "best" efforts of the opponents and partly in consequence of the opponents'
complicity, the PRC and the Russian Federation like "The United States of America" are not
synonymous with the political geographical areas designated as "The People's Republic of
China and The Russian Federation", are in lateral process of transcending linear systems of
coercive relations and hence pose existential threats to "The United States of America".
The opponents are not complete fools but the drowning tend to act precipitously including
flailing out whilst drowning; encouraging some to dispense with rose- tinted glasses, despite
such accessories being quite fashionable and fetching.
OlyaPola , May 20, 2020 at 04:32
" .. their colonies "
Perception of and practice of social relations are not wholly synonymous. A construct whose founding myths included liberty, egality and fraternity – property
being discarded at the last moment since it was judged too provocative –
experienced/experiences ideological/perceptual oxymorons in regard to its colonial relations,
which were addressed in part by rendering their "colonies" department of France thereby
facilitating increased perceptual dissonance.
Like many, Randal Marlin draws attention below to the perceptions and practices of the
pied-noir, but omits to address the perceptions and practices of the harkis whom were also
immersed in the proselytised notion of departmental France, and to some degree continue to
be.
This understanding continues to inform the practices and problems of the French state.
Lolita , May 17, 2020 at 12:05
The analysis is very much inspired from "Comprendre l'Empire" by Alain Soral.
Dave , May 17, 2020 at 11:27
Do not fail to read this interview in its entirety. Ms Johnstone analyzes and describes
many issues of national and global importance from the perspective of an USA expat who has
spent most of her career in the pursuit of what may be termed disinterested journalism.
Whether one agrees or disagrees in whole or in part the perspectives she presents,
particularly those which pertain to the demise (hopefully) of the American Empire are worthy
of perusal.
Remember that this is not a polemic; it's a memoir of a lifetime devoted to
reporting and analyzing and discussion of most of the significant issues confronting global
and national politics and their social ramifications. And a big thanks to Patrick Lawrence
and Consortium News for posting the interview.
PEG , May 17, 2020 at 09:11
Diana Johnstone is one of the most intelligent, clear-minded and honest observers of
international politics today, and her book "Circle in the Darkness" – which expands on
the topics and insights touched on in this interview – is certainly among the best and
most compelling books I have ever read, putting the events of the last 75 years into
objective context and focus (normally something which only historians can do, if at all,
generations after the fact).
After reading Circle in the Darkness, I have ordered and am now reading her books on
Hillary Clinton (Queen of Chaos) and the Yugoslav wars (Fool's Crusade), which are very
worthwhile and important. I would recommend that her many articles over the years, appearing
in such publications such as In These Times, Counterpunch and Consortium News, be reprinted
and published together as an anthology. Through Circle in the Darkness, we have Diana
Johnstone's "Life", but it would be good also to have her "Letters".
Interesting comparison between the aspirations of De Gaulle and Putin.
"Having a sense of history, de Gaulle saw that colonialism had been a moment in history
that was past. His policy was to foster friendly relations on equal terms with all parts of
the world, regardless of ideological differences. I think that Putin's concept of a
multipolar world is similar. It is clearly a concept that horrifies the exceptionalists."
Agree with Johnstone.
OlyaPola , May 19, 2020 at 11:55
"Having a sense of history, de Gaulle saw that colonialism had been a moment in history
that was past. "
Mr. de Gaulle like other "leaders" of colonial powers did understand that the moment of
overt coercive relations of colonialism had passed and that colonialism to remain
qualitatively the same, required covert coercive relations facilitated by the complicity of
local "elites" on the basis of perceived self-interest.
The exceptions to such strategies lay within constructs of settler colonialism which were
addressed primarily through warfare – "The United States of America",
Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia, Indonesia, Algeria, Kenya, Rhodesia, Mozambique, Angola refer –
to facilitate such future strategies.
"I think that Putin's concept of a multipolar world is similar."
As outlined elsewhere the concept of a multi-polar world is not synonymous with the
concept of colonialism except for the colonialists who consistently seek to encourage such
conflation through myths of we-are-all-in-this-togetherness.
"... Yes it took parasites, sociopathic oligarchs and a power drunk national security state to bring us to our current state of affairs, but it also took the rest of us. For far too long we as a people have been apathetic, hoodwinked spectators to the life unfolding around us. Voting for "the lesser of two evils" for decade upon decade thinking it might be different this time. Putting up with the economic game that's been put in front of us, despite the fact that it demonstrably and systematically rewards and incentivizes predatory and destructive behavior. As a people, we have been superficial, indifferent and gleefully ignorant of reality. It's time to change all that. ..."
"... I think one reason mass media puts so much emphasis on voting at the national level is the owners of these propaganda channels know voting will change absolutely nothing. The oligarchy and national security state are fully in charge, and they're not going to allow the pesky rabble to get in the way of such a lucrative racket by voting. Getting those who are politically inclined to spend all their time and energy on a rigged and completely corrupt phantom democracy in D.C. is a great way to keep them busy with nonsense. It's also a perfect way to demoralize that portion of the population which understands it's just theater. If you can be convinced that voting at the national level is the only way to change things, you're much more likely to recede into apathy and become intentionally disengaged. This happens to a lot of people, but it's a big mistake. ..."
There's a passage in Teddy Roosevelt's famous 1910 "Citizenship in a Republic" speech I want
to share with you today:
If a man's efficiency is not guided and regulated by a moral sense, then the more
efficient he is the worse he is, the more dangerous to the body politic. Courage, intellect,
all the masterful qualities, serve but to make a man more evil if they are merely used for
that man's own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of others. It speaks ill
for the community if the community worships those qualities and treats their possessors as
heroes regardless of whether the qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It makes no
difference as to the precise way in which this sinister efficiency is shown. It makes no
difference whether such a man's force and ability betray themselves in a career of
money-maker or politician, soldier or orator, journalist or popular leader. If the man works
for evil, then the more successful he is the more he should be despised and condemned by all
upright and far-seeing men. To judge a man merely by success is an abhorrent wrong; and if
the people at large habitually so judge men, if they grow to condone wickedness because the
wicked man triumphs, they show their inability to understand that in the last analysis free
institutions rest upon the character of citizenship, and that by such admiration of evil they
prove themselves unfit for liberty.
The above words strike me as a perfect description of the deep hole we find ourselves in
presently throughout these United States of America. It takes a whole nation to screw things up
as badly as we have, and boy have we ever.
Yes it took parasites, sociopathic oligarchs and a power drunk national security state to
bring us to our current state of affairs, but it also took the rest of us. For far too long we
as a people have been apathetic, hoodwinked spectators to the life unfolding around us. Voting
for "the lesser of two evils" for decade upon decade thinking it might be different this time.
Putting up with the economic game that's been put in front of us, despite the fact that it
demonstrably and systematically rewards and incentivizes predatory and destructive behavior. As
a people, we have been superficial, indifferent and gleefully ignorant of reality. It's time to
change all that.
You can consider today's post a rallying cry to step into the arena. Stepping into the arena
is often portrayed as becoming involved in national politics or some other large platform
action, but I see it differently. If you think the only way to have a real impact is by voting
or running for Congress, you're likely to give up and remain passive. The truth is your entire
life can be repurposed to be an expression of increased kindness, wisdom and strength. It's the
most impactful long-term action most of us can have on this earth, and anyone can do it.
Change yourself before trying to change the world. If enough people did this the world
would change without you even trying.
I think what keeps a lot of people on the sidelines of a conscious life is an inability to
intimately process the above. Many people discount the little things, the countless actions of
daily existence that impact those around you and cumulatively make you who you are.
I think one reason mass media puts so much emphasis on voting at the national level is the
owners of these propaganda channels know voting will change absolutely nothing. The oligarchy
and national security state are fully in charge, and they're not going to allow the pesky
rabble to get in the way of such a lucrative racket by voting. Getting those who are
politically inclined to spend all their time and energy on a rigged and completely corrupt
phantom democracy in D.C. is a great way to keep them busy with nonsense. It's also a perfect
way to demoralize that portion of the population which understands it's just theater. If you
can be convinced that voting at the national level is the only way to change things, you're
much more likely to recede into apathy and become intentionally disengaged. This happens to a
lot of people, but it's a big mistake.
When I look back at my life thus far, it was during my decade on Wall Street when I was the
most ignorant and superficial . So focused on stroking my ego, making a bunch of money and
career advancement, I lost a lot of who I am at my core during that time. I often wonder if
that's the case for a lot of people who achieve conventional success within the current
paradigm. It's fortunate I removed myself from that situation and began thinking more deeply
about who I am and what really matters.
Stepping up and getting into the arena will mean something different for each of us, but the
one word that keeps popping into my head is resilience. There are several clear ways to become
more resilient. There's mental and emotional resiliency, there's financial resiliency and
there's physical resiliency (where and how you live). I see all three as fundamentally
important and functioning best when working together. Resiliency starts at the most basic level
because if you and your family aren't resilient, then you won't be much use to anyone else. If
the people of a community or nation lack resiliency it provides the perfect space for
authoritarianism and evil to manifest and flourish.
Case in point, see the following comments by Alan Dershowitz during a recent interview.
"You have no right not to be vaccinated, you have no right not to wear a mask... If you
refuse to be vaccinated the state has the right to take you to a dr's office & plunge a
needle in your arm." @AlanDersh take on vaccines &
masks is vile & un-American. pic.twitter.com/j2C1Rk3d7h
This is despotism plain and simple, and it's being expressed by a guy who still has
considerable influence despite his many Jeffrey Epstein related controversies. It's going to
take a resilient, courageous and ethical public to stand up to scoundrels like this and just
say NO. No, you will not grab me, drag me off somewhere and inject something into my body
without my consent. We've been passive spectators in the destruction of our society for far too
long. It's time to both say no and to create something better.
When I walked away from New York City and Wall Street ten years ago it was clear what sort
of trajectory the country was on, and it's only gotten worse since. We're now in the crucial
period spanning 2020-2025 that will decide what the next several decades look like. The big
battle for the future is here. Right now. If there's ever been a time in your life to step up,
this is it.
* * *
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@Harold Smith There is an innocuous military term, incapable of maneuver , to
describe an army which is nothing more than a group of people in uniforms. They look like an
army but, when things go bad, they prove incapable of responding in a disciplined, purposive
manner. Arab armies come to mind.
Our government and much of our industry, especially defense and fintec, appear to be
incapable of maneuver. They're justself-seeking individuals with no loyalty to each other,
their clients, citizenry, or their country.
If we don't want to suffer an interim dystopia, we need to start work on a new
constitution because the old one is worn out and we're going over a cliff.
I keep harping on China because they read our Constitution and foundation documents and,
in 1950, drafted a 20th century constitution which is well worth reading. They've convened
every 10 years since then and amended it to keep it current. For them, the constitution is a
living document, not a totem, and they take it very seriously.
But it's not only Moderna's billionaire founder/CEO Stephane Bancel - once compared to a
post-scandal Elizabeth Holmes - who stands to profit from the action: the White House's new
vaccine czar also holds - or rather, held - more than 150,000 options contracts on Moderna
shares worht more than $12 million, and had resisted pressure to divest them despite the
blatant conflict of interest. We were joking yesterday when we speculated that he would
probably be glad to exercise these options at current prices. But just as every joke contains a
nugget of truth, that one turned out to be prophetic, too.
Alastair Crooke's in fine form today bringing Jung, Euripides, the Outlaw US Empire's
Culture Wars, and Zionist Imperialism together to illustrate "Our Civilisational Quagmire"
and the imperative of "Looking Truth in the Eye." But all that's initially hidden as he
begins by intoning:
"First, the bottom line: If you don't solve the biology, the economy won't recover."
A Truth far too many mostly in the West don't seem capable of grasping:
"But the biology is not solved, and the tension of trying to point in opposite directions
simultaneously is igniting a separate, raging political brushfire....
"The pretence that the U.S. and the global economy is about to snap back, as soon as virus
mitigation is lifted; the pretence that Covid-19 is either a fake (just another 'flu); or, is
'over'; the pretence that U.S. and Europe have competent and resilient political and economic
structures – and the pretence that once Covid is over, we will all return to a world,
just as it was?"
I wrote awhile ago that the pandemic provided an opportunity to use an analytical tool
known as the Franklin Reality Model to see the values and beliefs held by differing nations
and their cultures and ideologies as it exposes them so graphically they cannot be hidden by
any amount of spin or propaganda. The revelations provided my empirical basis for judging
Trump's response specifically and the West's generally to be one of complete Moral Failure.
And not just Trump, but Pelosi, Biden and the vast majority of Democrats, too--their shared
Neoliberal ideology's Immoral basis and Parasitic nature being one of the main roots of the
problem.
I suggest you read this
Atlantic article , "We Are Living in a Failed State: The coronavirus didn't break
America. It revealed what was already broken." And either before or during, take a gander at
this Real GDP
graph that still understates the genuine amount of GDP shrinkage since parasitic
financial "gains" are added to GDP instead of subtracted as a cost to the real economy.
Essentially since GHW Bush's recession, the real economy of the Outlaw US Empire's shrunk
about 1.5% annually or @45% overall with the vast majority of economic gains accruing to the
top 10%. That grim reality is the #1 reason why Trump won in 2016, and why he stands a very
good chance of losing in 2020--"It's the economy, stupid."
Re: Karl, did the 'West' (Anglo-Zionist world) buy (or actually promote) the 80's 'Greed is
Good' line, and ignore what Greenspan supposedly learned..."I have found a flaw...I made a
mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others,
were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity
in the firms."
Even the average American might be able to see that 'socialism' (i.e., Social Security, et
al) is better than 'trickle down'... to put it in simple terms. Neo-liberalism appears to be
killing many of us right now. The problem, seems to me, is how to turn the light bulb on for
Amerian non-voters... obviously Bernie would have 'had a heart attack' if he'd gotten the
nomination.
Re: Karl, did the 'West' (Anglo-Zionist world) buy (or actually promote) the 80's 'Greed is
Good' line, and ignore what Greenspan supposedly learned..."I have found a flaw...I made a
mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others,
were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity
in the firms."
Even the average American might be able to see that 'socialism' (i.e., Social Security, et
al) is better than 'trickle down'... to put it in simple terms. Neo-liberalism appears to be
killing many of us right now. The problem, seems to me, is how to turn the light bulb on for
Amerian non-voters... obviously Bernie would have 'had a heart attack' if he'd gotten the
nomination.
Greenspan issued his belated and stupendously weak mea culpa long after the horse left the
corral and had galloped several time around the planet. One vital component was already
deeply emplaced prior to his tenure that allowed those entities to "protect"
themselves--Regulatory Capture. Recall "Banking Crises" began to become regular occurrences
during Reagan/Bush. One of Hudson's great contributions is looking into how
political-economic theory was captured and transformed into just economic theory, which he
castigates as "Junk Economics" in his book of that title. At his website, there're numerous
essays that deal with that topic; out of the several dozen I might link to is
this one from 2011 . Discovering how we were manipulated into the Neoliberal religion
must be understood if we are to get out from under its boot, which is a tall task since
millions must become informed, and the Neoliberals control the media. You asked How. My
answer is for us to become informed such that we can inform others, which is why Hudson's
written an excellent series of books that make it all easy to comprehend and transmit--I
taught introductory college economics and know Hudson's works are vastly superior to the
texts we used. The two pertinent books for debunking Neoliberalism are Killing the
Host and J is for Junk Economics . For the overall historical perspective, his
trilogy that begins with and forgive them their debts will be a must, the second book
he says will be ready for publication by New Years.
Coronavirus has already begun to undermine the legitimacy of the European project in a
greater manner that nationalist movements had hoped to achieve. European finance ministers have
clashed over all EU nations sharing "corona bonds" debt, while France and Germany responded to
Italy's request for ventilators with a refusal accompanied by closing their borders with Italy.
At around the same time, the United States imposed a unilateral ban on commercial flights with
the EU.
China's economic growth strategy and foreign policy aspirations are being frustrated in the
wake of Coronavirus, as developing countries are likely to scrutinize China's Belt Road
Initiative. Among Western policymakers anti-China sentiment is increasing. In the UK, there is
mounting opposition to Huawei building its fifth-generation mobile networks. In late March, the
United States abandoned its long-standing policy of maintaining a status quo vis a vis Taiwan.
President Donald Trump signed into law The Taiwan Allies International Protection and
Enhancement Initiative (TAIPEI) Act, which increases U.S. support for Taiwan and "alters"
engagement with nations that undermine Taiwan's security or prosperity. Beijing responded that
it would respond forcefully if the law was implemented, all the while China increases its
military drills around Taiwan. This is increasingly likely to occur while the United States
increasingly supports Hong Kong's independence movement and demonstrates willingness to
confront China in the South China Seas. Similarly, Washington is likely to be drawn into a
confrontation with North Korea as the collapse of North Korea's health system may threaten Kim
Jong-un's regime leading him to militarily lash out.
The latest phase of globalization spearheaded by the West entailed that service economies
were not responsible for the manufacture of the products they consumed. Instead, they depended
upon outsourcing production of cheap goods in distant shores creating unprecedented levels of
economic prosperity, which at its root was artificial. Liberal democracies did not reach "the
end of history," where conflict was to be consigned to the dustbin of history, but could easily
be unraveled by a virus emanating from a society it was reliant upon that did not share its
norms. In a similar vein, the Roman Empire's apex contained the seeds of its decay as it had
become overstretched and difficult to manage. The historian Edward Gibbon, in his 1776 book
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , notes that Romans had become weak and
responded to the challenges of hyperinflation, civil wars and revolts by outsourcing their
duties to defend their empire in far flung regions to "barbarian" mercenaries such as the
Visigoths. Blowback occurred as these barbarians' increased economic production and their
ability to conduct warfare, which led them, ultimately, to turn against their benefactors and
sack the Roman Empire. Similarly, the West increased the prosperity of faraway nations and
ironically, as a result their military assertiveness by being beholden to extended global
supply chains. This along with the risk of globalization unravelling increases the prospects of
inter-state and great power conflict. All it took was a virus to detonate the fuse that was
shorter than anyone expected.
Barak Seener is the CEO of Strategic Intelligentia and a former Middle East Fellow at the
Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). He is on Twitter at @BarakSeener .
"... The US has spent over $200 billion on antimissile systems, and once they come off the drawing boards, none of them work very well, if at all. ..."
In the very near future, countries are going to have to choose whether they make guns or
vaccines
"There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet plagues and wars take
people equally by surprise."
~ Albert Camus, "The Plague"
Camus' novel of a lethal contagion in the North African city of Oran is filled with
characters all too recognizable today: indifferent or incompetent officials, short sighted and
selfish citizens, and lots of great courage. What not even Camus could imagine, however, is a
society in the midst of a deadly epidemic pouring vast amounts of wealth into instruments of
death.
Welcome to the world of the hypersonic weapons, devices that are not only superfluous, but
which will almost certainly not work. They will, however, cost enormous amounts of money. At a
time when countries across the globe are facing economic chaos, financial deficits, and
unemployment at Great Depression levels, arms manufacturers are set to cash in big.
A Hypersonic Arms Race
Hypersonic weapons are missiles that go five times faster than sound – 3,800 mph
– although some reportedly can reach speeds of Mach 20, 15,000 mph. They come in two
basic varieties. One is powered by a high-speed scramjet. The other, launched from a plane or
missile, glides to its target. The idea behind the weapons is that their speed and
maneuverability will make them virtually invulnerable to anti-missile systems.
Currently there is a hypersonic arms race
going on among China, Russia, and the U.S., and, according to the Pentagon, the Americans are
desperately trying to catch up with its two adversaries.
Truth is the first casualty in an arms race.
In the 1950s, it was the "bomber gap" between the Americans and the Soviets. In the 1960s,
it was the "missile gap" between the two powers. Neither gap existed, but vast amounts of
national treasure were nonetheless poured into long-range aircraft and thousands of
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The enormous expenditures on those weapons, in
turn, heightened tensions between the major powers and on at least three occasions came very
close to touching off a nuclear war.
In the current hypersonic arms race, "hype" is the operational word. "The development of
hypersonic weapons in the United States," says physicist James
Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "has been largely motivated by
technology, not by strategy. In other words, technologists have decided to try and develop
hypersonic weapons because it seems like they should be useful for something, not because there
is a clearly defined mission need for them to fulfill."
They have certainly been "useful" to Lockheed
Martin , the largest arms manufacturer in the world. The company has already received $3.5
billion to develop the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (Arrow) glide missile, and the
scramjet-driven Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (Hacksaw) missile.
The Russians also have several hypersonic missiles, including the Avangard glide vehicle, a
missile said to be capable of Mach 20.
China is developing several hypersonic missiles, including the DF-ZF, supposedly capable of
taking out aircraft carriers.
"No Advantage Whatsoever"
In theory hypersonic missiles are unstoppable. In real life, not so much.
The first problem is basic physics: speed in the atmosphere produces heat. High speed
generates lots of it. ICBMs avoid this problem with a blunt nose cone that deflects the
enormous heat of re-entering the atmosphere as the missile approaches its target. But it only
has to endure heat for a short time because much of its flight is in frictionless low earth
orbit.
Hypersonic missiles, however, stay in the atmosphere their entire flight. That is the whole
idea. An ICBM follows a predictable ballistic curve, much like an inverted U and, in theory,
can be intercepted. A missile traveling as fast as an ICBM but at low altitude, however, is
much more difficult to spot or engage.
But that's when physics shows up and does a Las Vegas: what happens on the drawing board
stays on the drawing board.
Without a heat deflecting nose cone, high-speed missiles are built like big needles, since
they need to decrease the area exposed to the atmosphere. Even so, they are going to run very
hot. And if they try to maneuver, that heat will increase. Since they can't carry a large
payload, they will have to be very accurate – but as a study by the Union of Concerned
Scientists points out, that is "problematic."
According to the Union, an object traveling Mach 5 for a period of time "slowly tears itself
apart during the flight." The heat is so great it creates a "plasma" around the craft that
makes it difficult "to reference GPS or receive outside course correction commands."
If the target is moving, as with an aircraft carrier or a mobile missile, it will be almost
impossible to alter the weapon's flight path to intercept it. And any external radar array
would never survive the heat or else be so small that it would have very limited range. In
short, you can't get from here to there.
Lockheed Martin says the tests are going just fine, but
then Lockheed Martin is the company that builds the F-35, a fifth generation stealth fighter
that simply doesn't work. It does, however, cost $1.5 trillion, the most expensive weapons
system in US history. The company has apparently dropped the scramjet engine because it tears
itself apart, hardly a surprise.
The Russians and Chinese claim success with their hypersonic weapons and have even begun
deploying them. But Pierre Sprey, a Pentagon designer associated with the two very successful
aircraft – the F-16 and the A-10 – told defense analyst Andrew
Cockburn that he is suspicious of the tests.
"I very much doubt those test birds would have reached the advertised range had they
maneuvered unpredictably," he told Cockburn. "More likely they were forced to fly a straight,
predictable path. In which case hypersonics offer no advantage whatsoever over traditional
ballistic missiles."
Guns or Vaccines
While Russia, China, and the US lead the field in the development of hypersonics, Britain,
France, India, and Japan have joined
the race too.
Why is everyone building them?
At least the Russians and the Chinese have a rationale. The Russians fear the US antimissile
system might cancel out their ICBMs, so they want a missile that can maneuver. The Chinese
would like to keep US aircraft carriers away from their shores.
But antimissile systems can be easily fooled by the use of cheap decoys, and the carriers
are vulnerable to much more cost effective conventional weapons. In any case hypersonic
missiles can't do what they are advertised to do.
For the Americans, hypersonics are little more than a very expensive subsidy for the arms
corporations. Making and deploying weapons that don't work is nothing new. The F-35 is a case
in point, but nevertheless, there have been many systems produced over the years that were
deeply flawed.
The US has spent over $200 billion on antimissile systems, and once they come off the
drawing boards, none of them work very well, if at all.
Probably the one that takes the prize is the Mark-28 tactical nuke, nicknamed the "Davy
Crockett," and its M-388 warhead. Because the M-388 was too delicate to be used in
conventional artillery, it was fired from a recoil-less rife with a range of 2.5 miles.
Problem: if the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, the Crockett cooked its three-man
crew. It was only tested once and found to be "totally inaccurate."
So, end of story? Not exactly. A total of 2,100 were produced and deployed, mostly in
Europe.
While the official military budget is $738 billion, if one pulls all US defense related
spending together, the actual cost for taxpayers is $1.25 trillion a year, according to
William
Hartung of the Center for International Policy. Half that amount would go a long way toward
providing not only adequate medical support during the Covid-19 crisis – it would also
pay jobless Americans a salary.
Given that there are more than 31 million Americans now unemployed and the possibility that
numerous small businesses – restaurants in particular – will never reopen, building
and deploying a new generation of weapons is a luxury the US and other countries cannot
afford.
In the very near future, countries are going to have to choose whether they make guns or
vaccines.
"In the worst-case scenario projected for a pandemic, Zylberman predicted that 'sanitary
terror' would be used as an instrument of governance....
"Agamben did square the circle: it's not that citizens across the West have the right to
health safety; now they are juridically forced (italics [Pepe's]) to be healthy. That,
in a nutshell, is what biosecurity is all about.
"So no wonder biosecurity is an ultra-efficient governance paradigm. Citizens had it
administered down their throats with no political debate whatsoever. And the enforcement,
writes Agamben, kills 'any political activity and any social relation as the maximum example
of civic participation.'"
Escobar's topic's been the subject of heated discussion here. How much of "reopening" in
meant to combat the implied totalitarian potential? Perhaps an entire thread ought to be
devoted? That such was a planned additional benefit of the COVID-19 attack seems very
reasonable. Since it was thought of, discussed and had books published about it seems to
indicate it ought to become a central topic at MoA.
On the one side, figures allied to American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's vision for
an anti-Imperial world order lined up behind FDR's champion Harry Dexter White while those
powerful forces committed to maintaining the structures of a bankers' dictatorship (Britain was
always primarily a banker's empire) lined up behind the figure of John Maynard Keynes[
1 ].
John Maynard Keynes was a leading Fabian Society controller and treasurer of the British
Eugenics Association (which served as a model for Hitler's Eugenics protocols before and during
the war). During the Bretton Woods Conference, Keynes pushed hard for the new system to be
premised upon a one world currency controlled entirely by the Bank of England known as the
Bancor. He proposed a global bank called the Clearing Union to be controlled by the Bank of
England which would use the Bancor (exchangeable with national currencies) and serve as unit of
account to measure trade surpluses or deficits under the mathematical mandate of maintaining
"equilibrium" of the system.
Harry Dexter White, on the other hand, fought relentlessly to keep the City of London out of
the drivers' seat of global finance and instead defended the institution of national
sovereignty and sovereign currencies based on long term scientific and technological
growth.
Although White and FDR demanded that US dollars become the reserve currency in the new world
system of fixed exchange rates, it was not done to create a "new American Empire" as most
modern analysts have assumed, but rather was designed to use America's status as the strongest
productive global power to ensure an anti-speculative stability among international currencies
which entirely lacked stability in the wake of WWII.
Their fight for fixed exchange rates and principles of "parity pricing" were designed by FDR
and White strictly around the need to abolish the forms of chaotic flux of the un-regulated
markets which made speculation rampant under British Free Trade and destroyed the capacity to
think and plan for the sort of long term development needed to modernize nation states. Theirs
was not a drive for "mathematical equilibrium" but rather a drive to "end poverty" through REAL
physical economic growth of colonies who would thereby win real economic independence.
As figures like Henry Wallace (FDR's loyal Vice President and 1948 3rd party candidate),
Representative Wendell Wilkie (FDR's republican lieutenant and New Dealer), and Dexter White
all advocated repeatedly, the mechanisms of the World Bank, IMF, and United Nations were meant
to become drivers of an internationalization of the New Deal which transformed America from a
backwater cesspool in 1932 to becoming a modern advanced manufacturing powerhouse 12 years
later. All of these Interntional New Dealers were loud advocates of US-Russia –China
leadership in the post war world which is a forgotten fact of paramount importance.
It is vital to the United States, it is vital to China and
it is vital to Russia that there be peaceful and friendly relations between China and Russia,
China and America and Russia and America. China and Russia Complement and supplement each other
on the continent of Asia and the two together complement and supplement America's position in
the Pacific.
Contradicting the mythos that FDR was a Keynesian, FDR's assistant Francis Perkins
recorded the 1934 interaction between the two men when Roosevelt told her:
"I saw your friend Keynes. He left a whole rigmarole of figures. He must be a
mathematician rather than a political economist."
In response Keynes, who was then trying to coopt the intellectual narrative of the New Deal
stated he had "supposed the President was more literate, economically speaking."
In his 1936 German edition of his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
, Keynes wrote:
For I confess that much of the following book is illustrated and expounded
mainly with reference to the conditions existing in the Anglo Saxon countries. Nevertheless,
the theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much
more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state.
While Keynes represented the "soft imperialism" for the "left" of Britain's intelligentsia,
Churchill represented the hard unapologetic imperialism of the Old, less sophisticated empire
that preferred the heavy fisted use of brute force to subdue the savages. Both however were
unapologetic racists and fascists (Churchill even wrote admiringly of Mussolini's black shirts)
and both represented the most vile practices of British Imperialism.
FDR's Forgotten
Anti-Colonial Vision Revited
FDR's battle with Churchill on the matter of empire is better known than his differences
with Keynes whom he only met on a few occasions. This well documented clash was best
illustrated in his son/assistant Elliot Roosevelt's book As He Saw It (1946) who quoted his
father:
I've tried to make it clear that while we're [Britain's] allies and in it to victory
by their side, they must never get the idea that we're in it just to help them hang on to their
archaic, medieval empire ideas I hope they realize they're not senior partner; that we are not
going to sit by and watch their system stultify the growth of every country in Asia and half
the countries in Europe to boot.
[ ]
The colonial system means war. Exploit the resources of an India, a Burma, a Java; take all
the wealth out of these countries, but never put anything back into them, things like
education, decent standards of living, minimum health requirements – all you're doing is
storing up the kind of trouble that leads to war. All you're doing is negating the value of any
kind of organizational structure for peace before it begins.
Writing from Washington in a hysteria to Churchill, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden said that
Roosevelt "contemplates the dismantling of the British and Dutch empires."
Unfortunately for the world, FDR died on April 12, 1945. A coup within the Democratic
establishment, then replete with Fabians and Rhodes Scholars, had already ensured that Henry
Wallace would lose the 1944 Vice Presidency in favor of Anglophile Wall Street Stooge Harry
Truman.
Truman was quick to reverse all of FDR's intentions, cleansing American intelligence of all
remaining patriots with the shutdown of the OSS and creation of the CIA, the launching of
un-necessary nuclear bombs on Japan and establishment of the Anglo-American special
relationship.
Truman's embrace of Churchill's New World Order destroyed the positive relationship with
Russia and China which FDR, White and Wallace sought and soon America had become Britain's dumb
giant.
The Post 1945 Takeover of the Modern Deep State
FDR warned his son before his death of his understanding of the British takeover of American
foreign policy, but still could not reverse this agenda. His son recounted his father's ominous
insight:
You know, any number of times the men in the State Department have tried to conceal
messages to me, delay them, hold them up somehow, just because some of those career diplomats
over there aren't in accord with what they know I think. They should be working for Winston.
As a matter of fact, a lot of the time, they are [working for Churchill]. Stop to think of
'em: any number of 'em are convinced that the way for America to conduct its foreign policy is
to find out what the British are doing and then copy that!" I was told six years ago, to clean
out that State Department. It's like the British Foreign Office
Before being fired from Truman's cabinet for his advocacy of US-Russia friendship during the
Cold War, Wallace stated:
American fascism" which has come to be known in recent years as
the Deep State [ ] Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon
imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and
writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and
intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes.
In his 1946 Soviet Asia Mission, Wallace said:
Before the blood of our boys is scarcely
dry on the field of battle, these enemies of peace try to lay the foundation for World War III.
These people must not succeed in their foul enterprise. We must offset their poison by
following the policies of Roosevelt in cultivating the friendship of Russia in peace as well as
in war.
Indeed this is exactly what occurred. Dexter White's three year run as head of the
International Monetary Fund was clouded by his constant attacks as being a Soviet stooge which
haunted him until the day he died in 1948 after a grueling inquisition session at the House of
Un-American Activities.
White had previously been supporting the election of his friend Wallace for the presidency
alongside fellow patriots Paul Robeson and Albert Einstein.
Today the world has captured a second chance to revive the FDR's
dream of an anti-colonial world . In the 21st century, this great dream has taken the form
of the New Silk Road, led by Russia and China (and joined by a growing chorus of nations
yearning to exit the invisible cage of colonialism).
If western nations wish to survive the oncoming collapse, then they would do well to heed
Putin's call for a New International system, join the BRI, and reject the Keynesian technocrats
advocating a false "New Bretton Woods" and "Green New
Deal" .
[1] You may be thinking "wait! Wasn't FDR and his New Deal premised on Keynes' theories??"
How could Keynes have represented an opposing force to FDR's system if this is the case? This
paradox only exists in the minds of many people today due to the success of the Fabian
Society's and Round Table Movement's armada of revisionist historians who have consistently
created a lying narrative of history to make it appear to future generations trying to learn
from past mistakes that those figures like FDR who opposed empire were themselves following
imperial principles.
Another example of this sleight of hand can be seen by the sheer number of people who
sincerely think themselves informed and yet believe that America's 1776 revolution was driven
by British Imperial philosophical thought stemming from Adam Smith, Bentham and John Locke.
Since the days of Adam Smith, free market capitalists have held that human beings are
rational actors who pursue economic gain for self-interested motives. But here is Patrick, a
free marketer if there ever was one, talking about a gift-sacrifice economy model in which
people – some people, at least – lay down their lives to keep the economic
engines revved.
Patrick's words reveal an unspoken truth about capitalism. For the system to work smoothly,
there have always been requirements of human sacrifice -- a certain portion of the population
was expected to act not as self-serving homo economicus, but self-sacrificing
homo communis , focused upon what benefits the collective at their own expense. If
these people can't social distance at the workplace, they are expected to show up anyway. If
there isn't enough safety equipment, they are declared essential workers who must put their
lives and that of their families at risk for the greater good.
But for whom and for what is this sacrifice intended? How much dying will be figured into
state budgets and gross domestic product (GDP)? When ranked by GDP, the U.S. is the wealthiest economy
in the world, but is a country's wealth something totally separate from, or even contrary
to, the health and life the majority of its citizens?
Wealth v. "illth"
To help us navigate these questions, it is useful turn to someone who offered potent
challenges to the economic calculus of his day: John Ruskin , the 19 th
-century art critic-turned-political economist. He was one of the most outspoken critics
of capitalism and prevailing economic ideas of the Victorian era , and his work presciently
points to shortcomings that have followed us into the present day.
Ruskin questions the premises on which free market capitalism is based, returning to first
principles: what is wealth? What do we value? How should we understand the relationship between
people, the economy, and the state?
In his view, economies are, above all, social systems whose true end is to benefit the
people, and not, as the Texan politician would have it, the other way around. Anticipating the
behavioral economics of our own day, Ruskin rejected the idea advocated by such economists as
John Stuart Mill that there could be a deductive science of economics based on the assumption
that the human being is "a covetous machine" that when applied to actual situations could take
"the social affections," the non-rational aspects of human behavior, into account. Ruskin
recognized that such a system implicitly removed the marketplace from the constraints of
religion and morality that are supposed to apply to all human behavior. He compared it to an
assumption that humans are essentially a skeleton with flesh, blood and consciousness as
add-ons founding "an ossifiant theory of progress on this negation of a soul."
Ruskin defined wealth quite differently from many of his contemporaries, and ours. For him,
wealth is anything that supports life and health, from the supplies in your storeroom to the
song in your heart: "There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of
joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of
noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his
own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of
his possessions, over the lives of others." ( Unto this Last ).
By that definition, America is looking increasingly impoverished. And it is not a virus
which is stealing our wealth away.
Playing on the root of the word "wealth" from the Old English word "weal," signifying
health, Ruskin proposed that while wealth was anything life-supporting that could be used and
enjoyed, it had a dark counterpart that he called "illth" from the Old Norse word for bad
– the things that make people ill, their lives stunted and despairing, their environment
polluted. Wealth cannot be produced without illth, but great fortunes have been made by
extracting the means of wealth without paying the cost of illth. To take a Ruskinian example, a
factory that pollutes the water it uses, fouls the air and pays its workers below what a
healthy life requires will be more profitable than a business that cleans up after itself and
pays a living wage, but its illth becomes a form of national debt expressed in damage to the
health of others and the environment. Think of something like a toxic Superfund site.
Economists have a term for Ruskin's concept of illth, referring to it as "negative
externalities," even though they are not external to the capitalist economic system, but
intrinsic to it. The most daunting problems of the current age, environmental disaster and
inequality, are fueled by illth.
The Covid-19 crisis has merely amplified trends of rising illth, of despair, sickness, and
alienation, which have been on the rise for decades as globalization, money-driven politics,
decimated workers' rights, and privatization have tipped the economic balance far in favor of
the very few. If we are to judge a country's health not by GDP, which rises
in the face of a massive oil spill , but according to the criteria of the World Happiness Report (WHR), which measures
things like social trust and faith in institutions, America is in bad shape when it comes to
the ratio of wealth to illth. Scandinavian countries top the WHR, while the U.S. ranks a dismal
19 th .
According to the Columbia University study of the
2020 WHR report , the key factors that account for the relative happiness of Scandinavian
countries -- what makes them wealthy in Ruskin's terms -- are precisely those that have been
under pressure or cut back in the U.S. since the rise of neoliberalism: "emancipation from
market dependency in terms of pensions, income maintenance for the ill or disabled, and
unemployment benefits" together with labor market regulation such as a high minimum wage. Of
course, no one likes to pay taxes, but Scandinavian "citizens' satisfaction with public and
common goods such as health care, education, and public transportation that progressive
taxation helps to fund," meets with approval at all income levels.
Pandemics are exacerbated by illth. We can see it in communities of color where the
coronavirus strikes down those whose resources and access to health care have been limited by
discriminatory policies and high contact employment. We can see it in factory farms where
broken supply chains have caused farmers to euthanize livestock and plow under crops while
people across the country go hungry. Airlines got immediate stimulus aid in the U.S., but there
has been no subsidy for the restaurant supply chain that could be diverted for distribution by
food banks and favorably located restaurants thus sustaining at least some of our much-vaunted
small businesses. No one has to fly, but everyone must eat.
We sense illth accumulating in the comments of Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman, who, in her
eagerness to get the casinos back in business, told an astonished Anderson Cooper on CNN that
she would offer up the city's workers as a "
control group " in a reopening experiment. If they weren't able to social distance, Goodman
was unconcerned: "In my opinion, you have to go ahead,"
she said . "Every day you get up, it's a gamble."
Ruskin saw the capitalists of his day as gamblers heedless of the costs they foisted onto
ordinary people: "But they neither know who keeps the bank of the gambling-house, nor what
other games may be played with the same cards, nor what other losses and gains, far away among
the dark streets, are essentially, though invisibly, dependent upon theirs in lighted rooms." (
Unto This Last ).
In other words, not only do capitalists gamble with other peoples' lives; they are oblivious
to the fact that there are other ways to arrange society, to deal the cards differently, more
fairly.
Witness the post-Covid reality imagined by Governor Cuomo. Instead of focusing on what
changes could better support the health and lives of ordinary people, he has
called in Google CEO Eric Schmidt to head a commission to reimagine New York state with
more technology permanently inserted into every dimension of civic life. A better deal for
Silicon Valley, to be sure. But what is in the cards for everyone else? When educational
platforms and health protocols are mapped by gigantic and unaccountable corporations, who gets
lost? Surely the answer is those who can least afford it.
President Trump says that it is time to move on
from the coronavirus and get on with economy. Ruskin would have recognized the deity worshipped
by country's leader, which he called the "Goddess of getting on." Only Ruskin recognized that
she tended to favor "not of everybody's getting on – but only of somebody's getting on,"
-- what he called a "vital, or rather deathful, distinction." For capitalists, getting on
post-Covid means executives working remotely while the rank and file return to the factory
floor without adequate face masks, and large corporations, not public input, determines the
blueprints for our lives.
The issue of worker safety does matter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, but
not because he fears that some will get sick or die, but for a potential "
epidemic of litigation ." In the next pandemic relief legislation, McConnell is looking to
solve the problem of worker safety by shielding corporations from lawsuits rather than
supporting Centers for Disease Control (CDC) mandated regulations that would both promote
safety and sort out what is and is not actionable.
The Visible Hand
Instead of Adam Smith's Invisible Hand, Ruskin advocated a Visible Hand of reasoned
management, a government which could allocate resources effectively and create stores of what
citizens most needed in a crisis. In our day this need not be a literal storehouse but surge
capacity. The Obama administration, for example, contracted with Halyard Health to design a
machine that could turn out 1.5 million N95 masks per day. They were ready to build the machine
in 2018 when the Trump administration
cancelled the program .
In Ruskin's view, the Visible Hand was the guardian of the lives of the citizens, especially
the poor, whose health and lives were their essential property. Ruskin actually defined an
economy as the wise management of labor, applying labor, carefully preserving what it produces,
and wisely distributing those products. A country's wealth is in the people's strength and
health, not their illness and death.
Ruskin's concepts of wealth and illth help us understand the centrality of ethics and
responsibility to economic activity, and how economies are not an assemblage of atomistic human
units but whole systems of people interacting, where the activities of some impact the lives of
all. His work indicates the need for a whole systems approach to a crisis in which what happens
on the beaches of Georgia impacts a nursing home in North Carolina, and visitors to New York
City or New Orleans can carry the infection home. The decisions of one business in a complex
international supply chain can impact the fate of millions.
In unregulated capitalism, Ruskin sussed out what Sigmund Freud might have recognized as the
death drive. Decisions about the economy, he held, must be informed by the essential biologic
basis of life itself: "The real science of political economy, which has yet to be distinguished
from the bastard science, as medicine from witchcraft, and astronomy from astrology, is that
which teaches nations to desire and labour for the things that lead to life; and which teaches
them to scorn and destroy the things that lead to destruction" ( Unto This Last ).
The Covid crisis has exposed contradictions in market and America First ideology. Without
federal aid to state and local governments, essential personnel are being laid off even as we
declare them heroes. Employer based insurance is failing, but few American politicians are
willing to fully embrace single payer insurance. Meat plant workers are declared essential, but
still subject to deportation, as if famed Revolutionary patriot Nathan Hale had said, "I
only regret that you have but one life to give for my country."
Ultimately, the most dangerous pestilence that threatens the country is not a packet of RNA
called Covid-19 but an economic and political system that does not value true wealth, and
promotes the life of the few while condemning the many to literal sickness unto death.
Excellent piece by Parramore. Ruskin is an interesting thinker whose ideas have direct
application to our situation. This was central:
President Trump says that it is time to move on from the coronavirus and get on with
economy. Ruskin would have recognized the deity worshipped by country's leader, which he
called the "Goddess of getting on." Only Ruskin recognized that she tended to favor "not of
everybody's getting on – but only of somebody's getting on," -- what he called a
"vital, or rather deathful, distinction." For capitalists, getting on post-Covid means
executives working remotely while the rank and file return to the factory floor without
adequate face masks, and large corporations, not public input, determines the blueprints
for our lives.
There's one thing I hope the Left learns before too long. Human beings have a religious
impulse. It's not as powerful or as central to our existence as the sexual impulse, but it's
there in all of us, even Richard Dawkins. Like the sexual impulse, the real question is where
will this religious impulse lead us. For the Right, their twisted unChristian conception of
Christianity is a powerful force within their political movement. In fact, it might be said
to be what holds it together and provides the energy for their unfortunate efforts.
Meanwhile, the Left, considering itself too firmly ensconced in modernity to recognize the
reality of the religious impulse despite modern science's identification of it, denies the
existence of this basic and potentially powerful human trait. We saw some of the activists
and organizers in Bernie's campaign employ deep organizing techniques which are basically
spiritual exercises. We know Thomas Berry's calls for a new religion focused on humanity's
relationship to the Earth and its creatures. The Left needs to acknowledge our spiritual
aspects and work to turn our religious impulse away from patriarchalism, misogyny and
homophobia of the Right and toward love for the Earth, our fellow humans and our fellow
creatures. That's where reside the power and persistence necessary to overcome our
religiously misinspired opponents.
There is a gene that creates within the brain a structure that either perceives 'god' (my
view), or generates a sense of spirituality in [sic] reality. The university of Waterloo has
been doing studies on this for at least thirty years. Anything we have evolved has a calorie
cost to maintain, so it must serve purpose in furthering life. There have been many debates
about this gene but no one can argue it's not about spirituality, and/or god, and/or what the
Druids what call magic. To me there's always been, that question, we can go back and have
data to 1/billion of 1/billion to 1/billion⁶⁶⁷(minus) of a second before
the inflation singularity that created this universe. But then, why? As the said in the
'Little Prince', 'it's only with the heart one sees rightly'.
The little prince is right. What we call spirituality is intelligence above what is
necessary our daily existence. Our "daily bread". Our sixth sense is probably more accurate
and reliable than all our rationalizations combined. But it is a thing that can't be
orchestrated by religion or politics. What happens between people in groups when fear is
eliminated is a sudden change toward choices that are the most sensible. As long as the
process isn't interfered with. That's the difficulty. It's like leaving nature alone long
enough for it to recover from human devastation.
What we call spirituality is intelligence above what is necessary our daily
existence.
(although if I was trying to do your comment complete justice, I would have to simply
re-quote the whole thing, it was that good)
Sometimes Susan the other, you're so profound, it almost hurts!
Certainly for me, I've got very little, comparatively, in my life right. I've passed on
opportunities which would made me rich beyond the dreams of avarice. And much else besides.
Mostly because I've overanalysed and rationalised things away. What I've got right has been,
conversely, down to following my intuition. If humanity could unlock that potential within
us, just think what we could do.
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–
A response to Oliver's powerful poem from Thomas Berry:
The continuity between the human and the cosmic was experienced with special sensitivity
in the Chinese world [A] sense of the sacred dimension of the Earth is involved, a type of
awareness less available from our traditional Western religions. This lack of intimacy with
the natural was further extended when Descartes proposed that the living world was best
described as a mechanism, because there was no vital principle integrating, guiding, and
sustaining the activities of what we generally refer to as the living world.
Yet, strangely enough, a new sense of the sacred dimension of the universe and the
planet Earth is becoming available from our more recent scientific endeavors. The
observational sciences, principally through the theories of relativity, quantum physics,
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the sense of a self-organizing universe, and the more
recent chaos theories have taken us beyond a mechanistic understanding of an objective
world. We know there is a subjectivity in all our knowledge and that we ourselves,
precisely as intelligent beings, activate one of the deepest dimensions of the universe.
Once again, we realize that knowledge is less a subject-object relationship than it is a
communion of subjects, .
Thomas Berry, "The Gaia Hypothesis: Its Religious Implications" in The Sacred
Universe
I'm glad you are making this point to acknowledge:
Human beings have a religious impulse.
From my direct experience, Native Americans seem to center their activism in a Spiritual
Context. Prayer for Guidance–for courage–for wisdom–for
compassion–before starting up on anything. imo, it keeps the priorities in focus.
I'm posting in this thread even though I'm not sure it fits. The religious or spiritual
impulse appears to be universal, there doesn't seem any doubt about that. Here's an
interesting article on Big Gods, or moralizing Gods.
Big data analyses suggest that moralizing gods are rather the product than the drivers of
social complexity: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190320141116.htm
-- -- -- -- --
One prominent theory, the big or moralizing gods hypothesis, assumes that religious beliefs
were key. According to this theory people are more likely to cooperate fairly if they believe
in gods who will punish them if they don't. "To our surprise, our data strongly contradict
this hypothesis," says lead author Harvey Whitehouse. "In almost every world region for which
we have data, moralizing gods tended to follow, not precede, increases in social complexity."
Even more so, standardized rituals tended on average to appear hundreds of years before gods
who cared about human morality.
Such rituals create a collective identity and feelings of belonging that act as social
glue, making people to behave more cooperatively. "Our results suggest that collective
identities are more important to facilitate cooperation in societies than religious beliefs,"
says Harvey Whitehouse.
-- -- -- -
I can definitely recommend Ruskin's "Unto This Last". I obtained it(among several others
that had been on my list(from NC) for a while) just before Covid.
short book wonderfully written.
and kicks you in the gut like some new revelation.
turns out that divorcing "Economics" from "Political Economy" was a mistake.
treating the former as if it were a natural science, like Physics or Chemistry let alone Pure
Mathematics is deleterious.
It ignores and neglects all the amorphous and ephemeral things that make this Life worth
living .how can you quantify a sunset or a moonrise or the smell of your newborn's hair or a
first kiss?
the Economists have taken reductive essentialism to absurd extremes .and somehow convinced a
great many of us to go along to our ultimate destruction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHOhD0RT9NU
Marx called this sort of thing Reification .giving something a Quality it doesn't truly
possess. Money as the Holy Cracker in the Temple of Moloch.
or, the morality of a Serpent: I shall Devour.(see: Joseph Campbell:"a serpent is a "motile
alimentary canal")
we're expected to feed ourselves and our children into the flaming bronze maw of their idol(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch )
as if "The Economy" is some thunderstorm or Holy Mountain, instead of a Human Creation.
"There is no such thing as Society" .and "TINA" .and these moronic "protesters" holding signs
that say "Arbiet macht frie" apparently unaware of the provenance of that phrase .after all ,
we stopped really teaching the Humanities like History quite a while ago.
we forget that "They" require our assent and consent to this "sacrifice"(L:"to make holy")
that without that consent, they have nothing not even their precious wealth(which is what,
these days? electrons moving in a database, somewhere?).
now, "They" have as much as admitted that things like the Stock Market are disconnected
from Reality that the Casino doesn't need Main Street and Human Beings to function.
This, after decades of training us to believe just the opposite. Why else put a stock market
ticker at the bottom of every cable news channel as if all that mattered to us'n's?
One of my favorite words is Eudaimonia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia ) but
you only learn about that from the Humanities.
another of my favorite words is Thaumazein "Wonder", or "Awe" also from ancient Greek
Philosophy
we've allowed the most withered souls to define the Good for us
Now, when all their works lie in ruins around us .and their narrow and anti-humanist,
mechanistic absurdity and cruelty are on full display has there ever been a better time to
turn away? To sit and think about what matters?
Withdraw your Consent.
" O happiness! O happiness! Wilt thou perhaps sing, O my soul? Thou liest in the grass.
But this is the secret, solemn hour, when no shepherd playeth his pipe.
Take care! Hot noontide sleepeth on the fields. Do not sing! Hush! The world is perfect.
Do not sing, thou prairie-bird, my soul! Do not even whisper! Lo- hush! The old noontide
sleepeth, it moveth its mouth: doth it not just now drink a drop of happiness --
-- An old brown drop of golden happiness, golden wine? Something whisketh over it, its
happiness laugheth. Thus -- laugheth a God. Hush! --
-- 'For happiness, how little sufficeth for happiness!' Thus spake I once and thought myself
wise. But it was a blasphemy: that have I now learned. Wise fools speak better.
The least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a
breath, a whisk, an eye-glance -- little maketh up the best happiness. Hush!
-- What hath befallen me: Hark! Hath time flown away? Do I not fall? Have I not fallen --
hark! into the well of eternity?
-- What happeneth to me? Hush! It stingeth me -- alas -- to the heart? To the heart! Oh,
break up, break up, my heart, after such happiness, after such a sting!
-- What? Hath not the world just now become perfect? Round and ripe? Oh, for the golden round
ring -- whither doth it fly? Let me run after it! Quick!"
( http://4umi.com/nietzsche/zarathustra/70 )
Hey Amphortas the Hippie!
I enjoy reading your comments and the slices of your life served up to us – you are an
interesting guy and a good antidote to me whenever I am disheartened by the stuff I am
bombarded with by the exceptional Americans foisted upon the world as typical.
Who would believe that I read Thus spake Zarathustra 'cause of your comments? I sent the link
on to my son who is 16 and has been physically separated from us for months caught in this
vortex. We'll see how it is taken compared to Mnm.
Thanks
Aww. Thanks, dude/dudette.
zarathustra is very accessible.
i've noticed that lots of people(like my wife) have been taught somehow that they can't read
stuff like that, so don't even try.
just another crime against us all.
aristotle can be pretty dense as can a lot of the more familiar
philosophers(hegel=ugh–) but Nietszche is pretty easy to get into, due to his style
.although some translations are better than others(I like the translation linked above for
Zarathustra the KJV Tone works for me.)
One shouldn't be intimidated by Marcus Aurelius, Herodotus or Boethius, either.
Isn't it ironic, that ruskin was able to see our issues and spoke to people with such
force as to effect our lives and in a sense is partly responsible for the world we have
today.
When he spoke at oxford in 1870 cecil rhodes was so impressed he supposedly carried a copy of
it with him in the future.
The ideas expressed by ruskin convinced rhodes that he needed to save "good english society"
from "the masses"(the poor english and all the rest of the savages who wouldn't understand
how to be proper."
Rhodes and his cohorts,in the british upper crust and media establishment created "the
british rountable" in 1891. These roundtablers did lots of things..Both through official
channels and by ways of running the largest newspapers who really perfected propaganda,
decades before goebbels. Eventually they formed in 1919, "the royal institute of
international relations" in britian. and "the council on foreign relations" in new york"
Generations of these members have really "made" the world that exists today. Which is why the
"conspiracy theories" exist . when people look at the lists of who
Personally, I think there ought to be study in the relationships these people had with each
other and with history. As with any family, they may be related, but not always on the same
page but still have the power of the family name and the prestige.
The council on foreign relations is the wellspring of "neoliberalism" neo consevatism too ,
for that matter. Their place in history is central. This is the axis of the "anglo-american
establishment"
Hence the folly of an economy based on debt rather than equity: it must continue to run or
risk cascading defaults.
Then why do we have government privileges for private debt creation in the first place?
Because subtle theft is easier and more "efficient" than honest sharing?
Perhaps science is the religion of the PMC. An unquestioning belief in anything
scientists/big pharma/tech wizzards throw on the table, whether it's GMOs, vaccines
containing mercury, thalidomide, social media, driverless cars or trips to Mars.
I use to go to Nevada regularly and mostly via the Donner Pass. Just a roundabout way of
suggesting that some might consider the Donner Party as the right way to have a society. They
almost made it over the pass, missing it by a couple of days, despite taking a
shortcut that was actually a longcut using bad information from a book, IIRC. They were told
repeatedly by those who had gone West before not to do so, but
In Nashville, TN last month, a masked protester at the state capitol carried a sign
"Sacrifice the Weak." I was shocked when a local news show reported on protesters and filmed
this sign along with other signs and protesters, and the reporter did not comment on this
horrible, Nazi-like statement.
Have there been any prominent religious leaders who have given counsel on the sacrificial
nature of a return to work to save the economy. At what point is the risk to human life and
health compensated by an economic return?
Come to think of it, does it not seem odd that with many prominent religious figures, none
of them seem to be willing to speak up on how greed is destroying the world and all of the
wealthy owners of capital that are its promoters? Greed is a major sin in almost every
religion, yet you hardly ever see any religious clergy give sermons on how widespread and
dangerous greed is or publicly admonish Wall Street if they hold themselves up to be the
moral leaders of society.
The fundamental problem we have with all the "very smart people" who think economics is a
science is that I can't write an equation that will convince these masters of the universe
that they shouldn't be @$$holes.
I can't tell anyone that even if it doesn't profit you there's a reason to choose to help
your fellow humans.
I also can't define a relationship that explains why even if you can figure out how to
stay within the letter of the law and exploit a loop hole to make more money but only in way
that hurts other people, you shouldn't do it. Or why you shouldn't write a law or lobby for a
law that exists only so it can be abused.
These guys will never accept the concept of illth because it challenges their concept of
wealth. And so it goes
I dont gamble with my life. The shrewd will take the necessary precautions and keep
themselves concealed as much as possible. The stupid will not take these precautions, likely
get sick and some will perish .
It amazes me that protesters and policymakers are still treating this as an impossible
tradeoff -- a false dichotomy -- between life and money, when it's clear that success lies
with practical solutions, of which there are many, to achieve both. Starting with masks!
I love the idea of billionaires leading the way, demonstrating the efficacy of their
reopening plans through personal example.
An excellent article on the WSWS:
"...In the "brutal economics" of capitalism, the lives lost to the COVID-19 pandemic are
simply the cost of doing business. While trillions of dollars have been spent propping up
financial markets, no serious efforts have been made to contain the pandemic, and whatever
mitigation measures have been put in place, including the closure of businesses, are being
rapidly abandoned.
"The efforts by the ruling class to counterpose workers' lives to livelihoods is an
entirely false choice. Both can be defended with the necessary allocation of social resources
to stop and eradicate COVID-19 and all other communicable diseases. Non-essential workplaces
must remain closed for as long as it takes for these measures to be put in place.
"But containing the pandemic requires an investment in social infrastructure that the
capitalist class is not willing to make. The COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the utter
incompatibility of the capitalist system with the preservation of the most basic social
right: the right to life." https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/16/pers-m16.html
"I also don't know why you would quote a Wapo article, uncritically, in response to fairleft.
Why would I care what they say about anything? They represent power. I consider them no more
reliable on pharma imperialism as they are on military imperialism."
oglalla@102
You answer the question yourself. Nobody is suggesting that anyone read the Washington Post
uncritically. I am surprised that you should accuse b of having done so. The evidence is that
he has read the Post critically-as we all have to do in a culture in which the major source
of news, for everyone, is a media compromised enormously by its allegiances, particularly its
allegiance to capitalism.
Read the Wapo critically and you will be left with a residue of information which can be
cross checked by various means, once you have done that you can evaluate the importance of
its conclusions. It is what we all have to do.
Maybe this story from the Toronto Star will help explain why so many people are dying:
"Three of the largest for-profit nursing home operators in Ontario, which have had
disproportionately high numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths, have together paid out more
than $1.5 billion in dividends to shareholders over the last decade, the Star has found.
"This massive sum does not include $138 million paid in executive compensation and $20
million in stock buybacks (a technique that can boost share prices), according to the
financial reports of the province's three biggest publicly traded long-term-care home
companies, Extendicare, Sienna Senior Living and Chartwell Retirement Residences.
"That's a total of more than $1.7 billion taken out of their businesses."
Beneath all the uninformed, pretentious anecdote swapping about stats and panaceas, the
drivelling over whether or not there is a pandemic or whether Bill Gates, Soros or the KKK
planned and executed it on behalf of haute finance, something very simple is taking
place.
Capitalism, which devours people and turns lives into capital, having made a pandemic disease
of the sort now surrounding us inevitable, is protecting itself. Its major fear is that if
there are too many victims-cf The Black Death- the price of labour may rise to the extent
that it impinges on the rate of profit. It dare not consider the possibility that the working
class will organise itself to put an end to the system, as an alternative to doing what men
have done throughout the history of epidemics- blaming everything on an angry deity or an
elite such as the Illuminati, the Council for Foreign Affairs or bloggers corrupted by
money.
"... What was "normal" for the past two decades was to turn a blind eye to the moral and financial bankruptcy of the American culture, the rot at the heart of its social, political and economic orders. The pandemic has shredded the putrid facade and revealed the rot, much to the dismay of the multitude of minions tasked with sanitizing the rot behind narratives promoting the normalization of predation, fraud and exploitation. ..."
"... As for winner takes all , this legalized looting is presented as a form of economic Darwinism that is nothing but the healthy manifestation of a free market. This is the Devil's handiwork, of course, presenting legalized looting that only benefits the few as the inevitable result of open markets. ..."
"... The greater the outrage of the technocrats and monopolists at being called what they are--evil--the greater the confirmation that the accusation is spot-on. The predators, looters and exploiters must strip away any moral assessment of their actions, as even the smallest shred of moral or karmic justice threatens their empires. And so economics has been reduced to bloodless quantifications of profits, costs and sales and obfuscatory mathematics designed to drain the risk of moral consequences from the parasitic pillage. ..."
Monopolies, quasi-monopolies and cartels are inherently exploitive and thus evil.
What was "normal" for the past two decades was to turn a blind eye to the moral and
financial bankruptcy of the American culture, the rot at the heart of its social, political and
economic orders. The pandemic has shredded the putrid facade and revealed the rot, much to the
dismay of the multitude of minions tasked with sanitizing the rot behind narratives promoting
the normalization of predation, fraud and exploitation.
What's been absolutely verboten is to call legalized pillage and predation what they really
are: evil. We've normalized exploitation and predation by the usual means: denial, legal
justifications, making excuses for the predators and the system that defends predation, and by
erasing the memory of a time when moral bankruptcy, predation and institutionalized fraud were
not yet normalized.
People have always been self-absorbed and greedy, so goes the excuse; or, greed is good
because that's the magic of the invisible hand at work.
By stripping fraud and predation of moral consequence, we've covered the putrid rot with a
thoroughly modern amorality which we can summarize as anything goes and winner takes all.
Monopoly, quasi-monopoly and cartels (i.e. Warren Buffett's entire portfolio) are presented as
the natural order of things rather than an evil construct of predation and exploitation that
benefits the few at the expense of the many.
Nothing outrages the apologists and the lackeys enriching themselves in the dens of thieves
more than accusations of evil, or indeed, anything smacking of moral standards or judgments.
Anything goes not just for individual choices, but for capital's choices as well, and so it's
simply not PC to question the morality of capital's predations.
As for winner takes all , this legalized looting is presented as a form of economic
Darwinism that is nothing but the healthy manifestation of a free market. This is the Devil's
handiwork, of course, presenting legalized looting that only benefits the few as the inevitable
result of open markets.
The greater the outrage of the technocrats and monopolists at being called what they
are--evil--the greater the confirmation that the accusation is spot-on. The predators, looters
and exploiters must strip away any moral assessment of their actions, as even the smallest
shred of moral or karmic justice threatens their empires. And so economics has been reduced to
bloodless quantifications of profits, costs and sales and obfuscatory mathematics designed to
drain the risk of moral consequences from the parasitic pillage.
POMPEO: Look, the best experts so far seem to think it was manmade. I have no reason to
disbelieve that at this point.
RADDATZ: Your -- your Office of the DNI says the consensus, the scientific consensus was
not manmade or genetically modified.
POMPEO: That's right. I -- I -- I agree with that. Yes. I've -- I've seen their analysis.
I've seen the summary that you saw that was released publicly. I have no reason to doubt that
that is accurate at this point.
Most of the West is still shut down but China is opening. Observers know that China is
becoming the world's top economy – the World Bank had already
given it that title in PPP terms in 2013 – and COVID-19 is sure to accelerate the
process by giving it a head start out of the economic slowdown. With cheap energy too .
As the coronavirus and its political combatants hold the world hostage, it is pertinent to
scrutinize the (geo) political and economic context within which the pandemic has emerged. Many
analyses view neoliberalism as the culprit, having given rise to a dismantling and
marketization of public services such as healthcare for which we are now paying the price. The
virus confirms the bankruptcy of neoliberal capitalism, based upon global production networks
of western corporations and Chinese factories, allowing the virus to spread across the globe.
Alas, neoliberalism is in trouble once again, perhaps terminally ill.
That said, the death of neoliberalism has been pronounced before, not least in the wake of
the 2007-08 financial crisis, from which it however quickly resurfaced stronger than before.
Moreover, western neoliberalism has witnessed a significant mutation over the last years, not
least to better accommodate the changing logics of global capitalism.
The coronavirus offers an opening to change the world for the better, not least by undoing
decades of neoliberalization to give vital professions in health care and education the
appreciation they deserve. Unfortunately, as detailed in Naomi Klein's ' The Shock Doctrine ', crises also offer
ample opportunity for the established order to realize ambitions which are inconceivable in
normal times. The global political economy before the outbreak of corona was defined by the
rise of a global billionaire class, tech platforms, and illiberal(izing) nationalist politics,
having jointly propelled a novel wave of (geo) political-economic restructuring which I have
called neo-illiberalism
. What will be the effects of coronavirus on this new status quo?
The New Normal
Alongside the 2008 financial crisis, the votes for Brexit and Trump have often been
described as ruptures to the neoliberal status quo. But as in the wake of 2008, the aftermath
of 2016 also brought about more of the same: more tax cuts for corporations and the rich, more
environmental and financial deregulation, more cuts in public services i.e. more policies of
neoliberal signature. That said, the politics peddling the same neoliberal policies has
substantially changed. Where preceding waves of neoliberalization have been variably executed
by centrist parties, seeing the center right commit itself to progressive politics in exchange
for center-left support for economic neoliberalization, since 2016 a new alliance has emerged
between center and far right, seeing the latter mainstream as center-right parties such as the
US Republicans and UK Conservatives have steadily radicalized themselves, thereby forsaking
their erstwhile commitment to what Tariq Ali has called 'the extreme center' .
Notwithstanding the fact that center-right parties co-produced the neoliberal world order, they
have since come to reinvent themselves as nationalist challengers to the 'globalist' status
quo, which they habitually present as leftist.
Where preceding waves of neoliberalization resulted in the limitation of democratic control
over economic policymaking, the present nationalist wave captained by Donald Trump and his
copycats is defined by efforts of political illiberalization , brazenly seeking to undo
the institutional setup of liberal-democratic checks and balances, seeing legislative and
judicial branches of government subjected to a power-hungry executive. Wider societal
counter-powers are also under attack, from academia and media to NGOs, along with attacks on a
range of constitutional basic and/or fundamental rights constraining the illiberal exercise of
absolute power. While this development heralds
the end of progressive neoliberalism , political illiberalization ultimately still protects
the
encasement of global capitalism , the core aim of the neoliberal project.
The rise of neo-illiberalism might be compared to a virus, whereby western liberal
democracies increasingly come to resemble illiberal democracies and (competitive) authoritarian
regimes elsewhere. Where illiberalizing regimes in Hungary and Poland are infecting the
neoliberal European Union (EU) as a whole, not least because of center-right political
cover offered by the European Peoples Party (EPP), neo-illiberalism constitutes a fundamentally
global phenomenon. For example, Brazil and India have recently embraced political
illiberalization without rejecting neoliberal economics, whereas illiberal China and Russia
have equally tightened their authoritarian rule. Amongst others, what unites these and other
regimes is the mobilization of divisive nationalisms, seeing variegated 'strongmen' adapt state
constitutions to their will, typically bulldozering pluralist political space whilst shielding
the respective neoliberal interfaces between national economy and global capitalism.
Global Capitalism
To grasp the rise of neo-illiberalism we need to go back to the turn of the millennium, a
time in which the various developments culminating in the neo-illiberal synthesis were put in
motion. Next to the terrorist attacks on US soil which ignited the gradual mainstreaming of far-right
narratives , the year 2001 is characterized by the entry of illiberal China into the
neoliberal World Trade Organization (WTO). Meeting in serene Doha following the riots of
Seattle, China's WTO entrance heralded a larger geographical shift captured by the famous
BRIC
acronym (Brazil, Russia, India, China) coined that year by Goldman Sachs economist Jim
O'Neill. O'Neill foresaw stronger economic growth in the non-west, and called upon western
leaders to incorporate leading non-western states into key governance platforms, which was
realized later that decade by elevating the Group of Twenty (G20) as the world's leading forum
on global governance.
Alongside the search for new markets and cheap labor, the 2000s were characterized by the
ascent of the financial offshore world
– a legal realm comprised of tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions where corporations and
the rich stash their cash and property – which became global capitalism's central
operating system by the turn of the millennium. Since then, offshore money from Russia and
elsewhere flooded into cities like London, igniting a spending spree on real estate, football
clubs, media conglomerates, and political influence. Amongst others things, the offshore world
enabled spectacular corporate fraud, such as that which led to the collapse of US energy giant
Enron, whose accounting gimmicks were copy-pasted by western banks, setting the stage for the
financial crisis later that decade.
The final key development traced back to the turn of the millennium is the birth of digital
platforms. Invented by Google as what Susanna Zuboff calls 'an automated architecture
functioning as a one-way mirror', surveillance capitalism has since grown into a worldwide machine dedicated to
behavioral observation, manipulation and modification, steadily enmeshing itself with the core
logics of capital accumulation. Crucially, digitization accelerated the aforementioned trends:
not only has digitization fueled global capital flight into offshore anonymity, it also
augmented the mainstreaming of far-right narratives via YouTube and Facebook algorithms. Much
like the invisible offshore world, the rise of surveillance capitalism largely went unnoticed,
assisted by anti-terrorism legislation like the 2001 Patriot Act enabling far-reaching
surveillance.
Growing up under the radar of the war on terror and financial turmoil, the first decade of
the twenty-first century saw the birth of a fundamentally global, offshore, digitized and
financialized hyper capitalism. Descriptions like shadow banks, phantom investments and dark
money do not do justice to their role as fundamental building blocks of the new world. Amongst
others factors, the offshore world was the ground zero of the financial crisis, where banks
kept their toxic investments. This new world is the 'home' of trillion-dollar tech companies,
who with other (shell) companies form an integrated web of corporate structures whose chief
ultimate owners constitute a global billionaire class of approximately two thousand individuals and families.
As such, this is also the world where neoliberal technocracy is increasingly fused with
oligarchy. Due to the spectacular growth of income and wealth inequality worldwide, oligarchic
enmeshment of the superrich and state power does not only define elites in Russia or the Gulf,
but increasingly defines western states such as the US, where multibillionaire
activists like the Koch brothers have effectively taken over the Republican Party.
Next to the economic recovery, the 2010s were defined by the increasing coalescence of
financial and technology sectors. Within a development model labeled The Wall Street Consensus by political economist Daniela Gabor, an adaption of the
neoliberal Washington Consensus within the framework of the G20, banks and financial
institutions worldwide have come to embrace financial technology (fintech), driven by an
insatiable hunger for personal data as raw materials for financialized surveillance capitalism.
Crucially, where Silicon Valley long enjoyed a global tech monopoly, the 2010s saw the arrival
of Chinese bigtech vying for global dominance. The western financial lobby has voiced its fears
of Chinese platforms like Alibaba and Tencent, which they describe as all American bigtechs
'rolled into one'
operating under tight control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). These fears are not
unfounded: where Facebook encountered many difficulties in building a global cryptocurrency,
the Chinese central bank has developed its own alternative, and the CCP has recently ordered
China's banks and tech platforms to adopt it. In the words of Mark Zuckerberg: the American
state has to play a more active role 'otherwise our financial leadership is not
guaranteed'.
Whilst the rest of the world has steadily bought into Chinese technology, the other BRICs
have embraced (parts of) China's digital strategy. For example, where a small minority of
India's 1.4 billion population had a bank account in 2014, this number has since risen beyond a
billion. That said, these bank accounts are coupled to biometric personal data, and critics
identify this policy as part of Narenda Modi's political agenda to transform India into a Hindu
nationalist surveillance state. Taken together, around the time the coronavirus made the first
news headlines, the New York Times identified three
competing visions on the future of surveillance capitalism: where the Chinese are 'moving
fast and breaking things' without any regard for privacy and citizen rights, and the EU tries
to make a moral point around privacy and consent, with the US caught in the middle.
Nationalist Leninism
Although 'moving fast and breaking things' is a good description for Xi Jinping's China, it
should be remembered that this philosophy has long guided Silicon Valley, where asking for
forgiveness trumps begging for permission. The disruption of established industries, practices
and processes defines platforms like Uber, operating without any regard for the law or basic
decency. With the rise of western neo-illiberalism, moreover, this philosophy has also entered
into government. Brexit, for example, is best understood as a process of continuous disruption
of established political practices and procedures, from shunning press conferences to
unlawfully closing down parliament. As
The Economist noted: 'The Tories' disruptive strategies would not be out of place in
Silicon Valley'.
Where rampant digitization has disrupted a range of established industries since the turn of
the millennium, and set its sights on incumbent finance in the wake of the financial crisis,
the 2010s are marked by tech's infiltration of established politics. Where Facebook and Google
place their own employees in US political campaigns ever since the rise of Barack Obama, an
entire ecosystem of techno-metapolitical players has since grown up around these platforms:
next to dedicated bots and troll farms there now exists a media network dedicated to mainstream
far-right narratives, of which Breitbart News – financed by US billionaire Robert Mercer,
captained by the identitarian demagogue Steve Bannon – is the most prominent. The
adoption of far-right narratives by established media, whether global corporate players like
NewsCorp or national public broadcasters, brought right-wing culture wars into the established
arena of mass-mediated politics.
Other crucial players in this ecosystem are data analytics firms, like Cambridge Analytica
(CA), again featuring Mercer and Bannon, as well as Palantir Technologies owned by US tech
billionaire Peter Thiel. Where CA founder Alexander Nix was schooled at the elitist Eton
College alongside David Cameron and Boris Johnson, Thiel not only enjoys the ear of Trump as
advisor, but also those of Mark Zuckerberg as Facebook board member, where he kept the company
from fact checking political advertisements. Where US journalist Jane Mayer speaks of
'the Fox
News White House' to highlight the close relationship between Trump and the world's second
most powerful media magnate, in the digital age the world's first Twitter presidency might
equally be labeled the Facebook White House to emphasize the ways in which Trump has
become a digitally mass-mediated virus enabled by the world's most powerful media magnate. As
argued by Trump's digital campaign manager: 'without Facebook we wouldn't have won'.
The global rise of neo-illiberalism is covered with the fingerprints of tech firms: where
WhatsApp-mediated memes helped Jair Bolsonaro assume power in Brazil, the Philippines' Rodrigo
Duterte was an early adopter of Facebook's political capabilities. Once in power, moreover,
these 'strongmen' act like disruptive tech CEOs whilst demolishing liberal democracy, and
embrace surveillance tools to anchor their rule: in India, for example, encrypted WhatsApp was
recently found to be hacked, allowing Modi to track his political opponents. But although
Israeli spyware and Russian hackers play an important role in the cross-border spread of
neo-illiberal politics, to fully grasp the political possibilities of the digital age we need
to redirect our gaze to Beijing , where digital technology
is paramount in the exercise of social control.
In combining economic neoliberalization with illiberal political control since the late
1970s, the CCP has been one of the world's neo-illiberal vanguards. Experts describe the
governing ideology of the CCP as a
curious combination of nationalism and Leninism , following China's ideological rejection
of both the French and Russian revolutions, which according to
Wang Hui shaped up after the Cultural Revolution and was settled on Tiananmen Square.
Crucially, the rejection of
'two major emancipation movements – socialism and liberalism' – is exactly what
the western far right is after. In other words, what emerges under neo-illiberalism is a global
ideological convergence. Just consider this: at the height of the so-called European 'refugee
crisis' in 2015, which accelerated the mainstreaming of far-right narratives across the west,
neo-illiberal China also saw the emergence of its own Alt-Right lingo for 'libtards' or
'regressive liberals', with derogatory terms like
baizuo(白左) i.e. 'white left' popping up across the blogosphere.
Since 2016, this cocktail of nationalism and Leninism has put its mark on the west, with
nationalist projects like America First! and Brexit being guided by self-proclaimed
Leninists, like Bannon or Boris Johnson' advisor Dominic Cummings. Enabled by far-right culture
wars informed by another communist – Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci – these
disruptive Leninists have set their eyes on breaking down liberal democracy and the rule of
law. To do so, they pretend to represent 'the will of the people', and relentlessly discredit
the core infrastructure of liberal democracy, framing its key institutions as 'enemies of the
people', 'saboteurs', and 'traitors'. In the words
of Bannon , the identitarian toyboy of the billionaire class: 'Lenin wanted to destroy the
state, and that's my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of
today's establishment'.
Alibamazonia
Where economist Branko Milanovic foresees a
global clash between two ideal type political operating systems in the twenty-first century
– liberal capitalism captained by the US, versus political capitalism championed by China
– in reality the two have already substantially converged. Reduced to its core, where
China and the non-western world opened up economically in the image of the US and the west in
the closing decades of the twentieth century, today you can tentatively argue that the US and
the wider west are politically closing up in the image of China. The new synthesis is
neo-illiberalism, which speaks to what Thomas Piketty views as
'merchant nativism' i.e. the marriage between neoliberalism and identitarian nationalism.
Besides emphasizing a process of reglobalization rather than deglobalization, the rise
of neo-illiberalism also suggests that the center of capitalist gravity has shifted: where
parts of the traditional periphery have steadily assumed characteristics of traditional core
countries, the west has witnessed a reverse process of what the late Immanuel Wallerstein calls
semi-peripheralization. In the words of Martin Wolf : 'as western
economies have become more Latin American in their distribution of incomes, their politics have
also become more Latin American'.
Where historian Neill Ferguson once spoke of 'Chimerica' to emphasize the co-dependent
relationship between the world's two superpowers, today we can identify the contours of what
you might call 'Alibamazonia': a twenty-first century imperial federation of techno-nationalist
states, i.e. a global alliance between nationalist 'strongmen' and digital platforms. The
relationship is symbiotic, as the rollout of digital surveillance requires the rollback of
liberal democracy by design, which in turn strengthens illiberal political rule. In the words
of Susanna Zuboff: 'surveillance capitalism takes an even more expansive turn toward domination
than its neoliberal source code would predict Though still sounding like Hayek, and even Smith,
its antidemocratic collectivist ambitions reveal it as an insatiable child devouring its aging
fathers'. Indeed, digitization and surveillance not only disrupt Smithian competitive markets,
but also Lockean notions of private property, and ultimately threaten to undo all liberal
guarantees of individual freedom.
Besides heralding a territorial shift from west to east, amongst others symbolized by the
United Nations' (UN) recent contract with China's WeChat (Tencent) to streamline its digital
communication, neo-illiberalism also heralds a fundamental reconstitution between national and
global scales, respectively understood as public and private spaces, whereby decades of
neoliberalization transformed the former in the image of the latter, whilst the latter has
witnessed an extraterritorial shift into digital and offshore domains, giving rise to
private capitalist power of vast proportions, eating away at national states and international
state systems. This is the most banal explanation for the western rise of neo-illiberalism:
where decades of neoliberalism effectively put up the west for sale, neo-illiberalism heralds
the moment when neoliberalism's ultimate winners seek to buy up and privatize government
itself:
'neoliberalism's final frontier' .
Pandemic
Although coronavirus might be the final death knell to neoliberalism, it should be
remembered that neoliberalism is a highly mutable ideology – well equipped to utilize its
own failure for its advancement. Put differently, if neoliberalism is dying, we are looking at
a slow-motion demise: where some identified its imminent death after the dotcom crash at the
turn of the millennium, neoliberalism certainly lost its self-explanatory aura after the
financial crisis of 2008. Accordingly, although still carried forward by a centrist consensus,
western neoliberalism became more authoritarian. And where 2016 saw the centrist consensus
collapse, seeing neoliberalism's core economic project carried on by a decisive illiberal
politics, the question is whether today's coronavirus will bring an end to the economic
project. For example, the key pillars of that project, such as global capital mobility and
central bank independence, are still standing. Furthermore, although non-neoliberal policies
might well be enacted to stem the virus, like introducing capital controls, these might be
temporary measures to save the project in the long run.
That said, if coronavirus proves to be the final death knell to neoliberalism, which even
the Financial Times alludes
to, it still might prove a blessing for core features of neo-illiberalism. For example, where
the virus is regarded as an indictment of neoliberal globalization, it nonetheless fuels the
rollback of liberal democracy and rollout of digital surveillance. Indeed, for the world's faux
Leninists and tech billionaires the virus is the ultimate disruptive event to be exploited.
Where the US Republicans have used the pandemic to legislate neoliberal tax breaks and
deregulation, as part of a rescue package that trumps the 2008 financial bailout, we should not
underestimate the extent to which Trump might exploit the pandemic for his own benefit, not
least to escape the prospect of electoral loss and prosecution. Many 'strongmen' are embracing
the virus to anchor their rule, not least Victor Orbán cynically exploiting the virus to
accelerate Hungary's transformation from liberal democracy towards illiberal dictatorship, with
the EU once again looking the other way, thereby confirming its own neo-illiberal
corrosion.
Where many countries have yet to setup mass testing capabilities to track the virus and
create viable paths out of societal lockdowns, a whole range of states have watered down
privacy legislation to digitally track the virus, including left coalition governments like
Spain. In this sense, the virus has led to a reboot of neoliberalism's famous TINA mantra
– there is no alternative – because who cares about far-reaching surveillance when
lives are at stake? As argued by Jamie Bartlett, 'the looming dystopia to fear is a shell
democracy run by smart machines and a new elite of 'progressive' but authoritarian
technocrats'.
Mimicking core features of China's fin-tech-state integration, Apple and Google have joined
forces to allow governments to track the virus, whereas the US government has promised to
rollout a digital dollar and wallet as part of its coronavirus rescue package. Indeed, the
virus is a financial bonanza for tech companies, not least Thiel's Palantir having signed a
contract with the British National Health Service (NHS) to optimize data management. In one of
his first acts to tackle the virus, Dominic Cummings invited all bigtechs to Downing Street. As
noted in Wired magazine: 'for Cummings it's big
tech versus bad virus' . Palantir is currently in talks with governments across Europe.
Across the globe, the virus is spurring the development of digital apps, using locational
data and facial recognition technologies to track population health and whereabouts. In India,
Modi's henchmen are forcing citizens to take hourly selfies to track the virus through their
whereabouts, and non-compliance will result in enforced mass quarantine, where catching the
virus seems all but certain. In so doing, coronavirus threatens to deepen the ugly face of
neo-illiberalism, defined by mass incarceration programs, from Uighurs in China's Xijiang to
refugees indefinitely locked up along the Mediterranean and the US-Mexican border. And whilst
the pandemic has yet to reach the world's favelas and slums, threatening the lives of the most
vulnerable, lax responses to the virus in the developed world characterized by defunded health
care systems are making neoliberalism's implicit social Darwinist inclinations shockingly
explicit.
As the rise of neo-illiberalism signals profound geopolitical and economic shifts, the
pandemic might well be utilized to rewire the world's legacy operating systems. Are we moving
towards a financial reset, which was due in 2008 but was postponed via monetary gymnastics?
Will China liquidate its massive holding of US treasuries? Will the world's superpowers ramp up
the threat of war or will they compromise, or are we already looking at the contours of a new
settlement? Furthermore, with the world economy falling off a cliff, and the worst still to
come, many small-and-medium-sized enterprises are facing bankruptcy, whilst Amazon and a
handful other bigtechs are massively expanding their businesses. What will the post-corona
world look like? Will capitalism survive?
While we anticipate what might be coming, one of the biggest societal disruptions is the
loss of conventional social exchange, of physical closeness and contact, as we are all locked
up in our homes, forcing into digital interfaces, continuously leaking data into the expanding
machine of surveillance capitalism. Although there momentarily is no alternative, we'd better
make sure we seize the moment: the disruptive virus offers an incredible prospect for societal
reprogramming, for better and for worse. Lest we forget that this crisis is not merely
biological – it is deeply political.
Meaty stuff to digest on a Sunday. But very interesting. As to the 'name', I would suggest
crypto-neoliberalism.
One key take for me from the events of the last few months is that its increasingly clear
that when centrist/neoliberals are forced to make a choice between the far nationalistic
right and the populist left or Greens, they will pick the former every time. It's that
simple.
I think its an interesting idea that political movements are being shaped by the
techno-nationalism. Its certainly true that Tencent and Alibaba and Amazon and FB/Google have
a lot in common, and will see their own futures as mutually enmeshed with nationalist right
wing political movements. In China its very hard to see where Tencent ends and the CPP begins
– if Biden wins I think we'll see a similar enmeshing accelerate in the US (Trump being
too slow to realise that he needed those companies as his friends). In a smaller scale, the
same thing is happening in countries like South Korea. Europe is at a crossroads, simply
because it doesn't have those big data companies, so will face the prospect of keeping them
at arms length, or becoming enmeshed in their tentacles, and so becoming a battleground for a
sort of Huawai/Amazon battle.
I wonder if we are seeing a new schism developing between the large nations becoming
variants of techno-nationalisms, with mid sized countries from South Korea to New Zealand to
Norway to Canada and Chile, all trying to stay out of the fray, and perhaps co-operating in a
sort of Hanseatic league of smaller States trying to maintain some degree of
progressiveness.
PK: your last sentence is very interesting. I see those countries you mentioned as not yet
being "cryto-neoliberalist." I would like to think that they would co-operate in order "to
maintain some degree of progressiveness." However, our (Canada's) proximity to the US makes
it highly unlikely to last. Everything is so uncertain what with viruses running amok and
climate change marching onward. Who knows what is next?
There is an optimum size. It's not big and it's not small. It's somewhere in between.
Gotta have something to do with the maximum maintainable human synergy – aka politics.
Evolution seeks a central place to mutate, so for the sake of control, the wizards of our new
crypto-neoliberalism might want to do a massive project to issue citizenship rights to the
entire world. Digitally of course. For one thing, without individual human rights there can
be no local or regional sovereignty. And there will never be a global sovereignty until human
rights are guaranteed – traditionally by democracy but we have seen that it has it's
limits. But because there is a watershed whereby politics (sovereignty) always follows money
it would be smart to look to the actual source of "money" which is people. Whichever way they
are grouped. A smart crypto neoliberal, smarter than Zuckerberg, would first shuffle the
world's nations, then shuffle all their citizens, and then, blindfolded, reach into the mix
and pull out a name. Repeat until all the names are revealed – and each one is randomly
put in a group to be called their "peer group" or stg. like that. And all groups are
organizations of global peers with equal rights. And while that is being chopped up, a global
system of civil/environmental justice can be established gee this is sounding like a big
project maybe we should just stick with nations and give the smaller ones handicaps. This is
making me tired.
Open uncontrollable boarders are a neoliberal goal partly for labor arbitrage, but also to
reduce the power, by reducing its existence, of a nation-state to interfere with the creation
and domination of powerful international organizations like the IMF, or those agreements like
NAFTA. A new kind of economic colonization as ultimately it is being done by
non-nation-states. An economic Westphalia done in reverse.
How about klepto-neoliberalism. In fact I think neoliberalism has accomplished about
everything it can, so it's straight back to medieval times, with climate chaos leaving us as
a failed world, thus we get the dark ages. Unless of course people/citizens decided to take
action. As far as the post, ah, you just can't write like that. If he was a postdoc in my lab
that never would have seen the light of day. I have no idea who the intended audience is,
perhaps economists? The only thing missing was string theory. Historically, I do not believe
that the history of neoliberalism rolled that way. It didn't get better bigger & stronger
after 2008 not based on any risk analysis I've read – everything become deeply
destabilizing. Look kids in this country before the pandemic didn't have enough food now many
don't have any short of begging and handouts. The guy confuses nationalism vs. Nationalist
because he's working his argument backward. Obtuse and sensational at the same time. While
I'm at it, the only problem with democracy is there's not enough of it. Fascism? Where?
China? The EU? Nah.
Besides possessing even amplifying all the off-putting qualities of the term
'Neoliberalism' -- its smeared meanings and usages, its inherent oxymoronity, its ill-coinage
-- the term 'Neo-Illiberalism' is quite unnecessary given that Neoliberalism is anything but
dead. I believe the aftermath of the pandemic shows most uncomfortable promise of a great new
age of Neoliberalism. As currently configured the 'pandemic' policies in the US will result
in obliterating small and medium business, in widespread mortgage foreclosures, in personal
bankruptcies, in evictions and homelessness, and in a permanent loss of jobs with resulting
high levels of unemployment. The ruins will be grabbed up and consolidated by the large
Cartels, banks, and financial corporations.
The rest of this post interweaves dozens of themes and sub-themes without a coherence I
can perceive. The "key development" "the birth of digital platforms" sounds cool -- but what
is a digital platform when you strip away the 'cool'? It is marketing and media outlet. Are
the "behavioral observation, manipulation and modification" really so novel or so much more
effective? Is it more effective than the techniques of the Church practiced through early
education and socially enforced worship? Does it really lead to more sales, or the formation
of opinion any more effectively than radio or public speeches? Are the impacts of the
'digital platform' really as great and effective as Goggle and Facebook claim in their
advertising sales literature?
Mass surveillance was well underway long before the pandemic. I don't believe the pandemic
offers any better excuse for extending mass surveillance than the excuses already used. The
Internet and our phone systems offer ample hidden means to extend mass surveillance that need
no excuses since no one notices them. The post riffs on about "rampant digitization" and
"data analytics firms" as if they were critical tools of Neoliberalism. We live under the
watchful eyes of government panopticons, created to maintain control over the Populace. But
these panopticons are neither necessary for spreading Neoliberalism nor inherently Neoliberal
in their uses. The panopticons are enabled by digitization but they are hardly necessary to
control a population. The Gestapo was adequately served by neighbors, even family members
informing on each other.
Neoliberalism is alive and well and flourishing. Neoliberalism is an ideology created for
the Big Money by a large well-funded thought collective. It is designed to include multiple
layers and contradictions. The "key development" was not the development of digital platforms
-- the "key development" was the sale of Government to Big Money. This purchase enabled the
re-monopolization and consolidation of US Business, the Globalization of production, the
complete enthrallment of Labor, purchase of Education, Science, and the Media -- including
the Internet highways.
" One key take for me from the events of the last few months is that its increasingly
clear that when centrist/neoliberals are forced to make a choice between the far
nationalistic right and the populist left or Greens, they will pick the former every
time"
That has been true since 23 March 1933, when the German center decided it would rather
back the most vile, violent, radical Right rather than compromise with a moderate democratic
Left. That's the day that every single political party in Germany at the national level,
except the Social Democrats and the (banned & illegal, and therefore absent from the
vote) Communists decided it would be a good idea to give The Mustache the power to legislate
by decree.
The Centrists backed Nixon, Reagan, & Shrub, the Trumps of their respective times, all
manifestly unfit to govern.
As far as the name goes, I've got to pipe up from the peanut gallery and say,
'neoliberalism' has never been a good handle. After these many years, the average person is
not familiar with it. It implies 'some kind of liberal' and it implies 'no-harm-no-foul'. At
this point progressives know it means Bad Stuff but nobody else does. We have gone from bad
to worse by labeling 'centrism' as a bogeyman too, while most people find it a harmless
descriptor of reasonable people whose views are neither leftist nor rightist. So it is no
good as a better descriptor than 'neoliberal'.
The enemy, across the whole spectrum, is corruption. Call the DNC brand of it something
which the average person/voter can grasp.
'Illiberalism' is nothing new, but it is a useful term employed as it is here, in
describing the drive toward globalized fascism. Fascism has been described as "the iron hoop
that keeps the capitalist barrel from falling apart," and the steady steps of regimes to
circumscribe resistance today, paves the road towards crushing opposition tomorrow.
That may be one definition, but clearly it doesn't work that way as in operate and to
implement. Hitler and Mussolini didn't have skin heads doing the heave lifting they had all
unions buying into the master plan. And there was a master plan. Japan relied on a national
code of conduct based on the Bushidō Way and a real hatred of the Chinese.
Yup, you can't really argue with the substance of this. But the usual Open Democracy
blindspot is visible for all onlookers to see, even if the author is apparently oblivious to
it (although given the fancy footwork they need to employ to avoid it, you have to wonder if
they aren't all-too-well aware of it, but don't want to risk disclosure and the resultant
amplification).
Which is: somehow or other (and I really aren't sure how the non-authoritarian left ended
up being enmeshed and embroiled with the authoritarian left on this) the left as a whole has
become synonymous with being some sort of Lockdown Taliban. Only the purest, hardline-ist,
longest, unwavering-ist, toughest most lockdown-ey lockdown ev-ah is to be considered.
And it gets worse, folks. Having participated in the politicising of COVID-19 across
national boundaries, demonising dissenting approaches such as Sweden's and turning the rag
bag of current-knowledge and scientific theories into weaponisable collateral to be
factionalised and then acquired by and deployed by the right and the left in an ideological
turf war, the left has collectively painted itself into an ideological corner from which it
has no path to walk back from.
Proffering a policy response that is little more than lockdowns as far as the eye can see
is hardly likely to have voters flocking to political parties which have hitched themselves
to this wagon.
Or, they can try to wriggle their way out of this "There Is No Alternative"
humanity-under-house-arrest position without obviously surrendering to the opposing stand-off
with humanity-as-a-lab-experiment contrarians.
More likely, though, is the left will get bogged down, as it is continuing to do, in a war
of attrition. Yes, the Lockdown Fetish left can wave shrouds at the "gramps will just have to
jolly well take his chances if we are to be free" right. Neither is any better than the
other. Neither is going to make a breakthrough in popular opinion.
Honestly, I've been involved in the left side of politics for ages. Ending up, apparently
in perpetuity, as having set itself up for this sort of can't-win self-imposed rigid
positioning is as depressing as it is familiar.
Sounds like you are saying that the left has become intellectually stale and consumed with
petty quarrels. Hard to disagree and I also think the obsession with, say, insisting that
Sweden is wrong and that the lockdown consensus is right is an example of this. We are in a
whole new situation with the novel coronavirus and therefore experimentation is
necessary without reproach.
Yup, it's just like the border conversation – no solution on offer, just critique
with no dissent allowed. I keep thinking the cognitive dissonance will kick in at some point.
But for now at least the "solution" is just to keep narrowing the scope of acceptable
discourse.
What I find truly hilarious (and sad) is the faith in voting/democracy with the
consternation about voters continuing to vote "incorrectly."
Sorry to be the lone dissent on this, but the lockdown being turned into a "political
weapon:" that is s curious way of looking at the situation. If it is a weapon, who is it
being used against? (And by the left? Where is this left that is using the lockdown to attack
its enemies?) I guess I don't understand that part of it and perhaps I am completely ignorant
of the situation. But it seems to me the lockdown is more the result of public health
decisions, not some attempt to weaponize the situation and get even with anyone's
enemies.
I do think the pandemic response has been politicized though, but it seems to me
politicization is being generated by those who encouraged fascist militias to carry assault
rifles to lockdown protests at state houses, like in Wisconsin and Michigan. The
politicization seems far stronger to me from people like Chris Christie, who want to force
open the economy and claim everyone should just accept mass deaths (which will definitely
include those we can consider our loved ones).
And maybe the pandemic response has also been politicized a little by some economists, who
seem to think that because they know how to read a spreadsheet they can do this public health
thing themselves far better than any old clutch of medical doctors.
The left are using the COVID-19 to bash the right ("you want to end lockdowns and kill
people!") and the right are using COVID-19 to bash the left ("you want to continue the
lockdowns and kill people's livelihoods and freedoms so life isn't worth living!").
The public -- who are the voters, after all -- are merely caught in the crossfire.
In the absence of political credibility and media credibility, public opinion will simply
bypass both estates and make their own minds up. This is a societal lose-lose-lose.
Neither the left nor the right look like they are capable of leading opinion or
providing good governance. The media goes through the motions of ridiculing either the left
or the right but ends up merely looking ridiculous itself.
This is the stuff of failed states.
The ultimate loser in this scenario is always the left. While the right may be deranged,
the left is not only deranged, it's deranged in a internal dissent-riven, factionalist and
screeching banshee sort of a way. The right, which is merely deranged in an
internally-consistent and unified way looks the least-worst by comparison.
This sounds more like bothsiderism. Where is the left "using COVID-19 to bash the right?"
Do you mean some Twitter thing? Because if it is, this is definitely a case of "the right are
doing something bad so therefore the left must be doing something too," i.e. bothsiderism,
which I would consider a mirage.
Like I mentioned above, the right is showcasing fascist militias in state houses, and
their national politicians are calling for everyone to accept mass deaths so the economy can
get back to growth. And what is the left doing, by your description it sounds like they are
just getting behind the non-partisan public health response: the lockdown and social
distancing. I mean, is there really more to it than that? I am trying to consider your
argument carefully, but I'm not seeing the logic of it.
And besides, what do you mean, "the public" is caught in the crossfire? I would consider
myself a leftist, am I not a member of "the public?" And as a member of the public I find the
right is a palpable threat in this situation. A threat to me, my family, and my community.
And as a member of the public I too find the lockdown hard, oppressive, and worrying, but not
such a deadly threat. The lockdown is pretty much the only tool we have (and is not some
scheme concocted by the left), and still simply do not see how this is some weapon being used
to attack the right on any level that actually matters.
So the difference between the left/right "political responses" here: I don't think those
things are equivalent. And whether "the left is the ultimate loser", you haven't made clear
what they should be doing that they aren't already (should they have armed militias
intimidating elected politicians and calling for mass death too?). You seemed to mention they
should be "more open to options," but you didn't actually make a good case that they aren't
(again, is this some twitter thing? Because that is just the kind of mirage this looks like).
I have simply not hear any leftists do anything by accept policies put forward by medical
specialists.
Have a read of those or pick some random websites of your own choosing. Then come back and
try to tell me the left isn't using COVID-19 to ding the right and vice versa.
And yes, it is bothsidesism. Because both sides are being as bad as the other.
Just because you don't like it (and I don't like it either) doesn't unfortunately mean
it's not true.
No, it is an illusion of centrism (and face it: the Twitters is very much a factory of
illusions): following the advice of public health specialists simply isn't partisan
"weaponization". In fact, I would say the politicking involved here, which includes insisting
that listening to medical experts in equivalent to armed fascists marching through state
houses, is particularly egregious. As if centrists agree with those fascists and "mass
deaths" are called for at least that's the only conclusion I can come to after such
"bothersider" mystification. And that is exactly what this is, mystification of what is
really happening. And when that is the case, one can only ask who really wins here? I think
you're right, it isn't "the left," and I would also say it isn't the public alt large
either.
The results of a survey of 23,000 people in 50 states and the District: 93% of Americans
do not think the economy should reopen immediately.
Should we assume 93% of Americans are now considered "Left"? Regardless of how much some
people want to yell at each other on Twitter or the internet in general, this really is about
life and death. For some people, simply leaving their homes can be a death sentence. Maybe
they don't feel suicidal, yet.
Ideology does not conform with sanity or common sense, but some people would have you to
think different; facts also should agree with the approved ideology or else they are wrong.
The authoritarians, left and right, have doing this for a few years now.
I bet some well paid consultants are figuring out how to label the 93% as liberal moochers
or something.
And by the left? Where is this left that is using the lockdown to attack its
enemies?
Yes, can someone please tell me what the hell constitutes the left? It is incredibly
frusturating to read broad critiques of "the left" in a world when everyone from Nancy Pelosi
to George Soros to Bernie Sanders to Tony Blair to Xi Jinping fall under the heading of "the
left"
That is deliberate. The American left is mainly the DSA, the Greens with some other bits.
Bernie Sanders could be considered part of its rightwing. As the left was slowly destroyed
starting with the American Communist Party, then rolling rightward, what was acceptably
leftist or even liberal was gradually constricted. Now Senator Sanders is labeled a
socialist, which is a lie, but he labeled as such to smear his proposals as communism.
Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and G. H W. Bush would all be, or at perceived to be, to
moderate or even leftist . (Pardon me, I might be dying of laughter.)
In American politics, until a few years ago, there was no left since its remnants was
crushed by President Clinton.
The Democratic Party is now at best center-right and getting more so. It is a conservative
party much like the old Republic Party of the 1960s without a spine, more pro-war, more
authoritarian and comfortable using and being part of the police state and much more
corrupt.
The Republican Party is something new for the United States. It has a spine, it's
fanatically pro- wealth, and insane. Otherwise, it is much like the Democratic Party.
The differences in social issues are like the shell of a hermit crab. As soon as the money
is threatened they are discarded with the right soothing lies to quiet the true
believers.
A similar, but I guess less violent, process happened in Europe.
Clive, I beg to differ. Your own guy, at question time asked Borris "How on earth did we
get here?" Well, how did we? The post explains nothing. Your comments are all outcomes /
conclusions but not the mechanics of how it happened. I say with all due respect. Having two
incompetents as leaders is a start but not by far the whole answer.
Yes, if you can successfully pull off the line of attack you're suggesting the left tries
to pull off against the right, then you're definitely on to something.
But if this approach doesn't work (and it isn't -- read it and weep ; I
certainly do) how long do you want the left to keep going with it? Yes, sometimes persistence
pays off and repetition eventually yields results. However, sometimes it doesn't and it is
just flogging a dead horse.
How much longer should I give it? And if public perception is that your line of criticism
is only another variation on coulda-woulda-shoulda and England Derangement Syndrome, when
does what sounds like broken record'ing get to be simply annoying people rather than
converting them?
Put as simply as I can, is it worth my asking if the left seriously wants to govern or
does it just want to whinge?
An impressive description of world-historical developments. But there are some important,
I would say crucial, elements missing in this account. Here are a few of them:
1. What alternative would the author advocate? Is it a return to the "extreme center"?
Though the "center-left" is identified as "co-producers" of this world with the
"center-right," it is the latter, along with the various international representatives of
"Illiberalism" (China, Russia, Bolsonaro, etc.) that get almost all of the criticism. I
gather that the author is not advocating socialism. So what is the preferred model? Or,
worded differently, where is the *resistance* to this next stage of neoliberalism to come
from? The Obama or Clinton wings of the Democratic party? The "adults" on the Council on
Foreign Relations? A more authentic "mixed" economy or Social Democracy? I can't tell –
which keeps me from knowing how to interpret this.
2. Along those lines, completely missing from the framing of this article is the degree to
which the "illiberal" states of China, Russia, Iran, and others are attempting to *resist*
being swallowed up by US-led neoliberal globalization, and that an important part of what is
going on reflects this struggle between the old unipolar hegemon and the rest of the world.
This article collapses important distinctions between the US/West and the non-West in their
historical relation to neoliberal globalization. For most NC readers this is probably obvious
in the case of Russia, at least. Whatever we think of Putin's "authoritarianism," it does
*not* stand in the same relationship to global capitalism as that of Trump.
3. Similarly, while there is a lot here about the dangers of the Surveillance State (and
rightly so), I don't see much about how this might relate to global geopolitical conflict and
the military-industrial-intelligence complex. For example, I don't see anything about the US
military bases that surround China, Russia, Iran, etc., the steady expansion of NATO after
the fall of the Soviet Union, the role of US intelligence in the return of fascism to Brazil,
the destruction of lesser states that had the audacity to resist being absorbed by Western
Neoliberal advance (Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc.). Yeah, Steve Bannon is a right-wing s**t. But
he didn't do any of this -- he is just the political beneficiary.
There are several other missing elements in this story, but I'd settle for a discussion of
these.
You seem to leave out how the virus will change "personal rights". Rights for businesses
to disobey govt orders. In Michigan, it is rising to a collision between the right to disobey
the law in the name of freedom versus govt acting to protect its citizens. So that what we
will have at the end is businesses being able to operate outside the law while individuals
will have their rights stripped.
One example, which has been fought repeatedly in the past, is the right for businesses to
serve who they want. Michigan businesses are saying they don't have to follow rules put in
place due to COVID. Then, citizens are saying they don't have to follow those rules if they
don't want to. So businesses don't have to serve minorities if they don't want to. Doctors
don't have to care for/accept patients that may not be able to afford a premium price &
premium services. Where will it stop?
The virus is a bright light is casting in bold relief the deficiencies of society: the
replacement of minimum wage workers with prisoners, the loss of healthcare for the
unemployed, the forfeiture of education to inadequate broadband, the replacement of humanism
with AI but above all, the absence of true statesmen.
The Koch bro's & their ilk fancy themselves as Libertarian which is, essentially,
plutocratic social Darwinism. Ya know, that "Because markets / Go die" thing.
Now the the tech. billionaires present themselves as benign saviors of humanity. They
propose that a Public Private Partnership for a total surveillance state is the way to go.
(See 'The Intercept' article "New Screen Deal" in yesterday's Links – a must read).
PPP's are an essential "feature" of fascism. It appears to me that this is the direction the
US is headed.
I think much of this discussion will be upended by climate change and the ongoing collapse
of our high-tech, high-manufacturing, high-consumption societies. The surveillance dystopia
in particular, although looking fearsome at the moment, is especially fragile: in order for
mass digital surveillance like that to be possible it is not enough for governments and a
handful of corps to have big computers, rather the surveillance technology must be ubiquitous
and woven into the fabric of everyone's life. That means, inter alia, cranking out hundreds
of millions of smartphones, home appliances and sundry digital gadgets every year,
distributing them, keeping them powered and networked etc etc. Will we retain that capacity?
Highly doubtful IMO, although I won't attempt to predict a timeline.
Sorry to rant, but this post lit my short fuse when it started talking, out of the blue,
about national crypto currencies. That's a total oxymoron. All mixed up with offshoring and
secret capital stashed away on Pirate Island – they tossed in almost a nonsequitir:
national crypto currency. No. It is not crypto. It is digital. Digital currency and Crypto
currency are light years apart. They have nothing in common. Except that certain people are
interested in stripping democracy and nations of their sovereignty to control their money.
With an article like this the death of sovereignty is sneaking in the back door. And money
– its actual value – cannot be separated from sovereignty. Unless there is a
greater sovereignty to include it. And that requires a lot of work because if it is not
accomplished "neoliberalism" will eat up the planet, all its resources, starve anybody who
gets in their way, and jet off to Mars.
And the red herring about financialized surveillance is crypto-speak. Taking away our
privacy and human rights. Right. Well, the underlying reality which we might not notice, is
our national democratic sovereignty. I am not happy with the casual insouciance of this
post.
I have to say that I was rather disappointed (though not totally surprised given the
source) that the role of the Democratic Party establishment in supporting the move to
neo-illiberalism via its dedication to its Wall Street and Big tech clients and total
antipathy to any minor move to the left within the Party. This has served as an enabler to
the Republican right in their move into Neo-fascism and away from any semblance of
participative democracy in this country.
This screed is just a mess. Neo-liberalism has always been a thoroughly authoritarian
doctrine; it's initial laboratory was Pinochet's Chile. And '"liberal democracy" has always
been a contradiction in terms,- (what's the name of Japan's perennial ruling party?)
Electoral systems, if that"s the minimal criterion of "democracy," have been increasingly
hollowed out of what little popular efficacy they once had after 40 years of neo-liberal
ascendancy. CF. Colin Crouch's "post-democracy" or Sheldon Wolin's "inverted
totalitarianism". So the screed just combines nostalgia for nothing, for what never was, with
sub-Foucaultian paranoia, in the name of the vanity of being an academic intellectual.
There's no mention of the global debt load, 320% of global gdp, which had reached its limits
even before Covid-19, and which will collapse in the aftermath of the Covid-19 induced
depression. That would be the real start of any serious analysis, as the coming terrain of
future contention, rather than imagining that the masters of the universe could continue
their predatory reign in the absence of any sustainable basis for it.
The failed nations of USA, UK, Canada and Sweden haven't controlled the Wuhan coronavirus.
They are identified in the center in red. These neo-liberal governments won't spend money to
hire contact tracers, provide universal testing and quarantine the infected in safe secure
facilities. Instead they've come up with herd immunity, freedom and other nonsense to gloss
over the fact that the excess deaths are of absolutely no concern to the ruling
aristocracy.
The cure is to restore democracy. Halt the pandemic. Rebuild sustainable societies,
infrastructure and nations. This will be difficult unless the truth is recognized that the
reigning elite's ideology of profit over anything else is destructive and quite deadly.
Before coronavirus came to dominate the headlines, one of the most important stories of the
year was the signing of an agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban. The deal signed in Doha
on February 29 is a first step toward ending the U.S.'s longest war. After nearly two decades,
thousands of lost lives on all sides, and an estimated $1.5 trillion, the Trump administration
is finally acting on knowledge the U.S. government has long possessed: the war in Afghanistan
is unwinnable.
The parallels between the war in Afghanistan and the Vietnam War are striking. In the
Afghanistan Papers that were acquired by the Washington Post , the senselessness of the
war is laid bare by U.S. government officials. The papers are reminiscent of the Vietnam-era
Pentagon Papers and show that for years, the U.S. government has known that the war in
Afghanistan is a costly and deadly exercise in futility. Afghanistan's terrain, tribal
politics, and culture have long thwarted invaders. This is something that the British and the
Soviets, to the delight of U.S. officials in 1979, learned the hard way.
Yet despite clear lessons from the past and what should have been some institutional memory,
U.S. policymakers pursued financially and strategically ruinous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Estimated expenditures on these two wars and the larger open ended "war on terror" now exceed
$6.5 trillion. Rather than having made the U.S. more secure, these wars, and the unchecked
defense spending that they demand, make the U.S. more vulnerable to a host of internal and
external threats.
America's interventionist policies abroad and the cancerous growth of defense budgets, the
most recent of which is nearly $800 billion, compromise Washington's ability to grapple with
threats like crumbling infrastructure, an educational system that fails to deliver, and true
national preparedness for a crisis like the coronavirus. It is useful to think about what even
a small portion of the $6.5 trillion spent on failed wars could have done had it been spent on
infrastructure, world-class public education, accessible healthcare, and emergency
preparedness. If it had been spent intelligently and strategically, it could have been
transformative.
Instead, the U.S. public, as has so often been the case, continues to allow the
military-industrial complex to exercise undue influence. The companies that make up the vast
military-industrial complex in the U.S. spend millions lobbying Congress. These lobbying
efforts probably have the highest return of any investment on the planet. In exchange for
comparatively paltry campaign donations, members of Congress are persuaded to pass legislation
that yields billions in revenue for these companies.
Those who stand up to the calls for increased defense spending are said to be "soft on
defense" or even called "unpatriotic" by rival politicians and the platoon of retired colonels
and generals who act as paid cheerleaders for defense contractors. In his 1961 Farewell
Address, President Eisenhower presciently warned Americans about the power of the
military-industrial complex. In the often-quoted speech, Eisenhower argued that "we must guard
against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex." Eisenhower went on to say that a failure to guard against this
influence could lead to a "disastrous rise of misplaced power" that could "endanger our
liberties or democratic processes."
Americans have ignored Eisenhower's warning, and we are living with the consequences. The
insidious influence of the military-industrial complex infects both Congress and much of the
U.S. news media. Never was this more apparent than after September 11, when those who
questioned the march to war in Afghanistan and Iraq were demeaned or silenced. Real debate
about how to best respond to the threat posed by al-Qaeda and, more generally, militant
Salafism was quashed. Instead, the U.S. pursued the most expensive and, as time would prove,
counterproductive policies imaginable.
Nearly 20 years on, Afghanistan is slowly reverting to Taliban control. The invasion of Iraq
spawned the Islamic State and turned the country into an Iranian satellite. Neither of these
wars achieved their aims, but they did make hundreds of billions of dollars for defense
contractors. Low-cost and effective ways to combat terrorism are rarely considered. Such
methods do exist and often consist of little more than empowering local communities via very
specific tailored development projects. But such methods do not require hundreds of millions of
dollars' worth of drones and Predator-borne missiles. Thus, they receive little attention and
even less funding.
Now, as the U.S. winds down its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the "war on terror" is
passé. The new threats are the old threats: Russia and China. The pivot away from the
war on terror to renewed preparations for combatting China and Russia will be even more
profitable for the defense industry because this means increased funding for big-ticket legacy
weapons systems. The defense budget just passed by Congress is one of the largest in the
country's history and even funds the creation of a sixth military branch, the Space Force. The
demands for ever more defense spending ignore the fact that the combined defense budgets of
China and Russia equal a little more than a quarter of what the U.S. spends on defense. Nor is
there much discussion of the fact that a war between great powers is as unlikely as it is
unthinkable due to the threat of mutually assured nuclear annihilation.
In the same speech in which he warned Americans about the rise of the influence and power of
the military-industrial complex, Eisenhower argued that the only real check on this would be
"an alert and knowledgeable citizenry." One can only hope now that the U.S., and indeed the
world, face the threat of a global pandemic, that Americans will begin to question soaring
defense budgets and endless wars that contribute little to real security. Real security, as
this pandemic will demonstrate, is dependent on internal resiliency. This kind of resiliency is
built on sound infrastructure, accessible healthcare, a well-educated and healthy populace,
localized supply chains, and responsive and responsible government. The coronavirus pandemic
may finally force a rethink of how the U.S. government spends its citizens' money and how
willing it is to continue funding and fighting counterproductive wars.
Michael Horton is a foreign policy analyst who has written for numerous publications,
including The National Interest , West Point CTC Sentinel, The Economist , and
the Christian Science Monitor .
In less than three decades, a mere blink of the eye in historical terms, the United States
has gone from the world's sole superpower to a massive foundering wreck that is helpless before
the coronavirus and intent on blaming the rest of the world for its own shortcomings. As the
journalist Fintan O'Toole noted recently in the Irish Times:
"Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings
in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger.
But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the U.S. until now: pity."
Quite right. But how and why did this pitiable condition come about? Is it all Donald
Trump's fault as so many now assume? Or did the process begin earlier?
The answer for any serious student of imperial politics is the latter. Indeed, a fascinating
email suggests that the tipping point occurred in early to mid-2014, long before Trump set foot
in the Oval Office.
Sent from U.S. General Wesley Clark to Philip Breedlove, Clark's successor as NATO commander
in Europe, the email is dated Apr. 12, 2014, and concerns events in the Ukraine that had
recently begun spinning out of control. A few weeks earlier, the Obama administration had been
on top of the world thanks to a nationalist insurrection in Kiev that had chased out a mildly
pro-Russian president named Viktor Yanukovych. Champagne glasses were no doubt clinking in
Washington now that the Ukraine was solidly in the western camp. But then everything went awry.
First, Vladimir Putin seized control of the Crimean Peninsula, site of an all-important Russian
naval base at Sevastopol. Then a pro-Russian insurgency took off in Donetsk and Luhansk, two
Russian-speaking provinces in the Ukraine's far east. Suddenly, the country was coming apart at
the seams, and the U.S. didn't know what to do.
It was at that moment that Clark dashed off his note. Already, he informed Breedlove, "Putin
has read U.S. inaction in Georgia and Syria as U.S. 'weakness.'" But now, thanks to the
alarming turn of events in the Ukraine, others were doing the same. As he put it:
"China is watching closely. China will have four aircraft carriers and airspace dominance
in the Western Pacific, within 5 years, if current trends continue. And if we let Ukraine
slide away, it definitely raises the risks of conflict in the Pacific. For, China will ask
would the U.S. then assert itself for Japan, Korea, Taiwan the Philippines the South China
Sea?
...[I]f Russia takes Ukraine, Belarus will join the Eurasian Union, and, presto, the
Soviet Union (in another name) will be back...
...Neither the Baltics nor the Balkans will easily resist the political disruptions
empowered by a resurgent Russia and what good is a NATO 'security guarantee' against internal
subversion?
...And then the U.S. will find a much stronger Russia, a crumbling NATO and [a] major
challenge in the Western Pacific. Far easier to [hold] the line now in Ukraine than elsewhere
later" [emphasis in the original].
The email speaks volumes about the mentality of those in charge. Conceivably, the Obama
administration still had time to turn things around – if, that is, it had shown a bit of
flexibility, a willingness to compromise, and a willingness as well to stand up to the
ultra-nationalists who had led the anti-Yanukovych upsurge and opposed anything smacking of an
even-handed settlement.
But instead it did the opposite. Back in the 1960s, cold warriors had argued that if Vietnam
"fell" to the Communists, then Thailand, Burma, and even India would follow suit. But the
proposition that Clark now advanced was even more extreme, a super-Domino Theory holding that a
minor ethnic uprising in a part of the world that few people in Washington could find on the
map was intolerable because it could cause the entire international structure to unravel. NATO,
U.S. control of the western Pacific, victory over the Soviets – all would be lost because
a few thousand people insisted on speaking their native Russian.
Why such rigidity? The real problem was not so much a confrontation mindset as a phenomenon
that the historian Paul Kennedy had identified in the late 1980s: "imperial overstretch." Like
other empires before it, the U.S. had allowed itself to become so over-extended after
twenty-five years of "unipolarity" that strategists had their hands full keeping an
increasingly rickety structure together. Nerves were on edge, which is why an ethnic uprising
that might have been accommodated at an earlier stage of U.S. imperial development was no
longer tolerable. Because the rebels had run afoul of U.S. imperial priorities, they
constituted a fundamental threat and therefore had to be bulldozed out of the way.
Except for one thing: the structure was so weak that each new bulldoze operation only made
matters worse. Insurgents continued to hold their ground in Donetsk and Luhansk thanks to
Russian backing while the government grew more and more corrupt and unstable back in Kiev. In
the Middle East, the situation was so confused that U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar
were channeling money and arms to ISIS as it rampaged through eastern Syria and northern Iraq
and advanced on Baghdad. Thanks to the turmoil that U.S. policies were unleashing, millions of
desperate refugees would soon make their way to Europe where they would spark a powerful
nativist reaction that continues to this day. U.S. hegemony was turning into a nightmare.
It was no different in an America shaken by Wahhabist terrorism and dismayed by wars in the
Middle East that went nowhere yet never seemed to end. Donald Trump rode a wave of discontent
into the White House by promising to "drain the swamp" and bring the troops home. Conceivably,
he could have done just that once he was in office – if, that is, he had been serious
about downsizing U.S. imperialism and was capable of standing up to the CIA. But the
"intelligence community" struck back by launching a classic destabilization campaign based on
the theme of Russian collusion while Trump's foreign-policy ideas turned out be even more of a
mess than Obama's.
So the collapse intensified, which is why America is now such a helpless giant. A crazy man
is at the helm, yet the best Democrats can do is put up a candidate suffering from the early
stages of senile dementia, who may be a rapist to boot. No one knows how things will play out
from this point on.
But two things are clear. One is that the process d id not start under Trump, and the other
is that it will undoubtedly continue regardless of who wins in November. Once collapse sets in,
it's impossible to stop.
>The capitalists have painted themselves into a corner. There is no way out from this
crisis which does not
> involve the end of fifty years of neo-liberalism (and two centuries of the liberal
Political Economy).
I thought the same in 2008. Did not happen.
> Neo-liberalism, allied to warmongering in the MIC and dominating the political
process through its ownership
> of both its own party and the Opposition's, has so dominated US life that the kind of
reforms that Keynes saw
> as necessary to preserve the system from itself are unthinkable.
That's true but neoliberalism evolved in different direction: Trumpism ("national
neoliberalism") is essentially neoliberalism without neoliberal globalization. Domestically
it looks more and more like a unique "Americanized" flavor of neofascism. The latter
historically proved to be a resilient social system (Spain)
> The current policy of giving money in unlimited quantities to corporations, virtually
without condition,
> and invoicing the working class by pledging future tax revenues to repay the cost of
financing, is unsustainable.
OK. But what is the countervailing force ? There is none. By definition creating a viable
political opposition in a national security state is impossible. Note that the USSR crumbled
only when KGB changed sides. And that Nazi Germany did not crumbed until Soviets took Berlin,
and, despite all the misery of the last year of war, there were fierce fight for Berlin (and
heavy losses for Soviets)
> Neo-liberalism, the ideology of capitalist rule, has had its chance. The crisis that
we are in
> is showing how useless it is, how dangerous a society devoted to the profit of a few,
rather than the welfare
> of the many is. With every new twist and turn it demonstrates its inability to
govern.
Neoliberalism will most probably survive COVID-19 epidemic like it survived the crisis of
2008. You can argue whether quarantine was necessary or not and about the level of
incompetence of Trump administration, but you can't deny that the measures taken by the USA
government somewhat softened the blow and the social system remains intact.
Again, there is no viable countervailing force to MIC and financial oligarchy, and the two
party system is very resilient and essentially guarantee that the internal political
situation will stay this way. Looks like only external shocks or disintegration of the
country under the pressure from far right nationalists can crumble this system.
> What this adds up to- mass unemployment and increasing immiseration with no organised
voice to represent tens
> of millions of desperate workers and their families is the likelihood of a series of
explosions, riots,
> strikes, boycotts and direct actions.
In the USA the family of three can survive when each of the adults earn just $10 per hour
(which means income around $40K a year). Real misery is reserved mostly to single mothers and
unemployed. You can't compare the situation in the USA to the situation in "neoliberalized"
xUSSR countries where it is really about physical survival and large percentage of population
live of ~$2 a day. Do we see riots in those countries ?
> There is nobody to press reforms on the ruling class
@Hibernian That is angument for bailing out just " the payment system/ real economy and
per mark Blyth or John Kay( other people's money book) is like approximately 5% of the
economy ,the test is just incredible leverage and fool Hardy financialization.
Watch one of John Kay's talks on YouTube or mark Blyth talk about 2008.
Glass- steagall was not the sole cause of 2008, but it does need to be reinstated. Also
when the banks were recapitalized on the backs of savers, by cutting interest rates , to
almost nothing, the rational response was to take your money out, they make loans of ten
dollars on deposits of one dollar and barely even pay you for the privilege.
A jubilee is needed , during certain reigns in Egypt and china , Jubilee's / debt
forgiveness would happen as frequently as every 18 months.
Kings basically used to make the agreement , I'll give you a monopoly on banking but in
exchange don't think if the world's goes to hell , don't think you are getting 100 cents on
the dollar. Not running my kingdom for you to be made whole. It's worse nowadays because they
print the money put of thin air and expect to be repaid in full, austerity is a vicious
cycle, every dollar that goes to debt is one less to spend on consumption , so demand has to
go down, and it creates a vicious cycle.
Another thing china gets right is they owe money to themselves, not oligarchs like us, if
they want to they just agree not to pay themselves back.
Michael Hudson's book killing the host is also great.
That is an argument for bailing out just " the payment system/ real economy and per mark
Blyth or John Kay( other people's money book) that is like approximately 5% of the economy
,the rest is just incredible leverage and fool hardy financialization. America has ones and
zeros , and china has gold reserves , a better nuclear arsenal, competent leadership, more
human capital, infrastructure, means of production, antibiotics, rare Earth's, is the
greatest creditor nation I believe as opposed to the greatest debtor nation and approximately
82% of American weapon systems require at least one input from China.( Please don't argue
America has competent leadership , because competent leadership would have never allowed it
to get 10% this bad, the main argument against tariffs, is that they kick off a retaliatory
cycle, except the U.S. didn't retaliate until extremely recently.
Those factories were built initially by Rockefellers , Sam Walton, Kissinger and other
American oligarchs to get away from American labor, you reap what you sow, but globalists
could care less.
You don't have to like China but please realize the extra Herculean task of trying to lift
1.4 billion people out of poverty, and realize it will necessitate some tough decisions,
unlike America where the bottom 90-95% haven't gotten raises adjusted for inflation since
1983( the great decoupling)
And Americans love to cry about the Chinese not having political freedom, well when most
dissent is disingenious like tienneman square which was the CIA ( google tienneman myth, the
journalists admit it) and Hong Kong was the CIA and Soros ( you really think those people
organically waved American flags, stupid?)
who is a front man for the CIA if you didn't know, the uyghurs are Muslims that the US has
been cultivating since the 80s under Reagan and the national endowment for democracy( per
William engdahl) who have been knighted to sabotage one belt one road because the US is mad
at it's Navy getting end run arounded similar to how the British got mad at the Germans pre
world war 1 for building a railroad to Baghdad, so they could get oil without dealing with
the British Navy ( guess mackinder and Brzezinski aren't as smart as they think)
On top of that political freedom is somewhat of a dead weight loss, look at the division it's
caused in the US, I'd rather have clean water.( 3800+ US areas have water at least 2x worse
than Flint/ Google it)
We build more prisons, china just kills all the prisoners and people who love the killing of
unborn children bemoan the killing of actual child molestors.
Also please be aware the one child policy was imposed on china by the Rockefellers just
like they sterilized a third of Puerto Rican women by 1965 , by tying their tubes without
consent and telling them it was reversible.
How many people even know how Britain got Hong kong,? They fought two wars over the right
of court Jews( Sassoon) in Britain to flood china with opium, and when China lost not only
did they have to give up Hong Kong, they had to allow opium to flood their country and had to
pay for every dollar spent by both sides.( I'm pretty sure if I was Chinese, k would hate the
west on that fact alone)
Watch one of John Kay's talks on YouTube or mark Blyth talk about 2008.
Glass- steagall was not the sole cause of 2008, but it does need to be reinstated. Also
when the banks were recapitalized on the backs of savers, by cutting interest rates , to
almost nothing, the rational response was to take your money out, but they make loans of ten
dollars on deposits of one dollar and barely even pay you for the privilege.
A jubilee is needed , during certain reigns in Egypt and china , Jubilee's / debt
forgiveness would happen as frequently as every 18 months on average.
Kings basically used to make the agreement , I'll give you a monopoly on banking but in
exchange don't think if the world's goes to hell , don't think you are getting 100 cents on
the dollar. Not ruining my kingdom for you to be made whole. It's worse nowadays because they
print the money put of thin air and expect to be repaid in full, austerity is a vicious
cycle, every dollar that goes to debt is one less to spend on consumption , so demand has to
go down, and it creates a vicious cycle.
Another thing china gets right is they owe money to themselves, not oligarchs like us, if
they want to they just agree not to pay themselves back.
Michael Hudson's book killing the host is also great.
In France, a team of researchers has found the disease was already spreading there in
late December, one month before the first official cases were confirmed. The revelation
followed a study of 14 stored respiratory samples of patients who were admitted to
intensive care units with influenza-like symptoms in December and January.
The researchers identified a 42-year-old patient, whose last overseas trip had been to
Algeria in August, who developed symptoms after one of his children had a flu-like illness.
The patient, who had pre-existing asthma and Type 2 diabetes, was admitted to the ICU for
antibiotic therapy and discharged after two days.
This is a weak article. Indignation as for excesses of neoliberal social system that exists in the USA is a good thing only if
there is a plan to change the system. Eric Zuesse has none. Also for top 10% the US healthcare is very efficient; it is probably the best on the planet.
OK neoliberalism is bad. But what is the alternative? Return to the New Deal capitalism is impossible as management now
is allied with the capital owners and that destroyed fragile coalition of trade unions and apart of professional management that
existed during the new deal as a countervailing force for political power of the capital. Such coalition could exist if financial
oligarchy is suppressed and if taxes of millionaires income (especially income from stocks) were around 80%. As soon as JFK
lowered the taxed that was a writing on the wall: the New Deal is doomed. Financial oligarchy was suppressed and it did not like
it. So in 20180 they staged coup d'état and the New Deal was over.
The question is: what political coalition can take on financial oligarchy. There is no such coalition yet.
Notable quotes:
"... Americans generally are desperate to go to work even if they might be spreading the coronavirus-19. They need the pay and the insurance coverage in order to be able to buy medical care. If they don't pay for it they won't get it. So: whomever does show up for work might reasonably be especially inclined to fear likely to catch the disease from a co-worker there. This is one of the many reasons why socializing the healthcare function is vastly more efficient than leaving it to market forces . ..."
"... Furthermore, prisons are among the institutions that especially increase the spread of an epidemic such as Covid-19. And the United States has a higher percentage of its residents in prison than does any other country in the world . In fact, almost all of the Americans who are in prison are poor (since 100% of the poor cannot afford a lawyer), and the poorer a person is, the likelier that the individual is to get coronavirus-19. ..."
"... America has 655 per 100,000, or 4.5 prisoners for every 1.0 prisoner in the entire world), America has vastly more production of coronavirus-19 that's generated by its being a police-state than any other country does -- and this isn't even taking into consideration the rotten, overburdened, health-care system, and the billionaire-propagandized public contempt for the poor, that characterize America's culture, and that make those prisons, perhaps, the worst amongst industrialized nations. ..."
"... Furthermore, in America, "Approximately 95 percent of criminal cases are plea-bargained, in part because public defenders are too overwhelmed to take them to trial. 'That means the state never even has to prove you did anything. They hold all the cards.'" So, the Constitutional protections, such as trial-by-jury and all of the other on-paper protections, don't even apply, in reality, to at least 95% of criminal defendants. And, in many U.S. states, convicts -- and even ex -convicts -- aren't allowed to vote. America's billionaires also use many other ways to keep down the percentage of the poor who vote. ..."
"... In addition, prior to the coronavirus challenge, both America and UK have been reducing, instead of increasing, their social protections; and, therefore, they were the only industrialized nations where life-expectancies were declining even before the coronavirus-19 hit. The recognition and concern about this decline started in UK, but has now started to be published even in the U.S. ..."
"... In other words: coronavirus hit UK at a time when the Government was already moving away from socializing and into privatizing health care; and, as a consequence, the death-rates had already started increasing in 2015. Coronavirus kills mainly people who already have bad health; and, so, their population were maximally vulnerable to it at the time when this epidemic struck. ..."
"... Even prior to 2015, the U.S. was wasting around half of its entire public-and-private spending for health care -- it was the most inefficient healthcare system on the planet -- and therefore had significantly lower life-expectancies than all other industrialized countries did. But, now, those remarkably low life-spans are actually getting even lower. ..."
"... This is the reason why America is designed so as to fail the coronavirus-19 challenge. The power of big-money (concentrated wealth) is destroying this country. It controls both Parties and their respective media, so the public don't know (and certainly cannot understand) the types of realities that are being reported (and linked-to) here. ..."
"... The fact [the existence of ] corporate prisons exist is pretty much an open declaration that we're a kleptocracy, run by the uniparty. ..."
"... We give an EQUAL vote to children, imbeciles, hostiles, and those who don't even speak the language ..."
"... Democracy is not about efficiency but to keep a check on those in power. It preventing the concentration of powers. It all about checks and balances to preserve the citizens freedoms. ..."
Virtually all other industrialized countries have social-welfare systems in place, such as
health-insurance covering 100% of the population; and, consequently, the residents there don't
lose their health insurance if they lose their job -- they therefore aren't desperate to show
up for work even when they are sick or can spread an epidemic.
Americans generally are desperate to go to work even if they might be spreading the
coronavirus-19. They need the pay and the insurance coverage in order to be able to buy medical
care. If they don't pay for it they won't get it. So: whomever does show up for work might
reasonably be especially inclined to fear likely to catch the disease from a co-worker there.
This is one of the many reasons why socializing
the healthcare function is vastly more efficient than leaving it to market forces .
On April 23rd, Reuters
reported that, "U.S. workers who refuse to return to their jobs because they are worried
about catching the coronavirus should not count on getting unemployment benefits, state
officials and labor law experts say."
In such states, the unemployment-benefits system is being used as a cudgel so as to force
employees back to work, and therefore to increase the percentage of the population who will
become infected by the coronavirus-19.
Furthermore, prisons are among the institutions that especially increase the spread of an
epidemic such as Covid-19. And the United States has a higher percentage of its residents in
prison than does any other country in the world . In fact, almost all of the Americans who
are in prison are poor (since 100% of the poor cannot afford a lawyer), and the poorer a person
is, the likelier that the individual is to get coronavirus-19.
This is yet another reason why prisons are a prime place for the spread of the disease. And
on April 26th, the New York Times headlined "As Coronavirus Strikes Prisons, Hundreds of Thousands Are
Released: The virus has spread rapidly in overcrowded prisons across the world, leading
governments to release inmates en masse." Since America has more of its population in prison
than any other country does (lots more: whereas
"The world prison population rate, based on United Nations estimates of national population
levels, is 145 per 100,000" , America has 655 per 100,000, or 4.5 prisoners for every 1.0
prisoner in the entire world), America has vastly more production of coronavirus-19 that's
generated by its being a police-state than any other country does -- and this isn't even taking
into consideration the rotten, overburdened, health-care system, and the
billionaire-propagandized public contempt for the poor, that characterize America's culture,
and that make those prisons, perhaps, the worst amongst industrialized nations.
Taken all together (and to list the other details would fill a book), America's systematized
intense discrimination against the poor constitutes virtually an invitation to this country's
having exceptional vulnerability to any epidemic. The fact that America now has 33.3% of
the world's coronavirus-19 cases , though only 4.2% of the world's population, is actually
systemic, and not merely particular to this moment in this country, and in the entire world.
Donald Trump, and the current U.S. Congress, are part of a system of oppression, not really
exceptions to it (such as the billionaires' media pretend -- with Democratic billionaires
blaming "the Republicans," and Republican billionaires blaming "the Democrats"). The way this
Government performs is actually somewhat normal for this country since at least 1980 .
In addition, prior to the coronavirus challenge, both America and UK have been reducing,
instead of increasing, their social protections; and, therefore, they were the only
industrialized nations where life-expectancies were declining even before the coronavirus-19
hit. The recognition and concern about this decline started in UK, but has now started to be
published even in the U.S.
In other words: coronavirus hit UK at a
time when the Government was already moving away from socializing and into privatizing health
care; and, as a consequence, the death-rates had already started increasing in 2015.
Coronavirus kills mainly people who already have bad health; and, so, their population were
maximally vulnerable to it at the time when this epidemic struck.
Political-science studies that are based
upon decades of reliably reported data have established that ever since around 1980, the
United States has been a dictatorship: what the public wants (and even needs ) is basically
ignored, but what the super-rich (the country's actual dictators) simply want becomes reflected
in governmental policies. That's the very definition of a "dictatorship." The U.S. national
Government is responsive to the wants of its billionaires, not to the needs of the public (such
as protecting their health, education, and welfare, even when the billionaires don't want it
to).The findings in one of these studies are summarized well in a six-minute video, here .
Although the billionaires who fund America's liberal Party, the
Democratic Party, oppose the billionaires who fund the Republican Party (the conservative
Party -- the one that's overtly in favor of the existing wealth-inequality), this is purely for
PR purposes. Whenever the issue becomes their own wealth versus improving the wealth and
economic opportunity for the poor, they all go for expanding their own empire (sometimes by
funding a tax-exempt 'charity' that will increase, even more, their personal control over the
total empire -- by using that tax-exemption to leverage the operation, which will be controlled
by themselves instead of by the public tax-funded government). Such 'charities' are mainly
tax-dodges.
This is even proud policy ('fiscal
responsibility', etc.) in the Republican Party. Bailing-out investors is 'necessary', but
bailing out employees and consumers is 'fiscally irresponsible'. For example, on April 27th,
the Democrat David Sirota headlined "Red States Owe Workers More
Than $500 Billion -- The GOP Is Trying to Steal The Money: Trump is boosting a McConnell
plan to help states renege on promised retirement and health benefits to millions of workers
and retirees." And he is correct.
However, his Party is going to be compromising with that
(instead of adamantly refuse to accept it and then go on the political hustings shaming the
Republican President and Congress-members so as to break them on their blatantly scandalous
whoring to the entire billionaire-class, who want their investments to be bailed out before the
public is -- which might turn out to be never). It's a "good cop, bad cop," routine, to protect
the super-rich. It accepts holding the public hostage to what the big political donors want,
instead of focuses against that as being the central political issue of the moment, and of at
least post-1980 America.
They're just
trying to deceive their suckers into voting for Joe Biden, or else not voting at all; and, so,
their ad doesn't even so
much as just mention Biden. It's a Biden ad that makes no mention of Biden. It hides its true
motive. That's typical.
This is the reason why America is designed so as to fail the coronavirus-19 challenge. The
power of big-money (concentrated wealth) is destroying this country. It controls both Parties
and their respective media, so the public don't know (and certainly cannot understand) the
types of realities that are being reported (and linked-to) here.
A "good cop, bad cop" government is, in reality, all bad cop.
(I therefore proposed an Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution in order to rectify some of the reasons behind this structural failure of the
U.S. Government. Perhaps the only alternative to that would be violent revolution, but it would
probably make things even worse, not better.)
desertboy , 23 minutes ago
The fact [the existence of ] corporate prisons exist is pretty much an open declaration that we're a
kleptocracy, run by the uniparty.
Reign in Fact, 28 minutes ago
" The power of big-money (concentrated wealth) is destroying this country... This is
'democracy'-as-political-scam... "
No the scam is democracy itself. We give an EQUAL vote to children, imbeciles, hostiles,
and those who don't even speak the language, while allowing wholesale vote-buying bribery of
public unions.
No such system has ever thrived anywhere in the animal kingdom - equality without merit,
or rule by will of the laziest, weakest and dumbest - no matter how small the "society",
team, family, gang, union, band, corporation, religion or nation.
It can't and won't end well.
youshallnotkill , 15 minutes ago
Democracy is not about efficiency but to keep a check on those in power. It preventing the
concentration of powers. It all about checks and balances to preserve the citizens
freedoms.
The fact that you don't understand these where basics of why we have a republic is
testament to our failed school system.
Deep In Vocal Euphoria , 30 minutes ago
Demoracy...usa was a constitutional republic..........
AVmaster , 30 minutes ago
This hasn't been the american "design" since 23DEC1913......
Dragonlord , 1 minute ago
America's design to disable the freedom of state secession has ruined it. As a result, we
are facing the possibility of another civil war.
W
hen
the virus
came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited
them ruthlessly. Chronic ills -- a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy,
a divided and distracted public -- had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably,
with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity -- to shock
Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category.
The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted
instead like Pakistan or Belarus -- like a country with shoddy infrastructure and
a dysfunctional government
whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.
The administration squandered two irretrievable months to prepare. From the president came
willful blindness, scapegoating, boasts, and lies
. From his mouthpieces, conspiracy theories and
miracle cures. A few senators and corporate executives acted quickly -- not to prevent the coming
disaster, but to profit from it. When a government doctor tried to warn the public of the danger, the
White House took the mic and politicized the message.
Every morning in the endless month of March, Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed
state. With no national plan -- no coherent instructions at all --
families,
schools, and offices were left to decide on their own whether to shut down and take shelter
. When
test kits, masks, gowns, and ventilators were found to be in desperately short supply, governors
pleaded for them from the White House, which stalled, then called on private enterprise, which
couldn't deliver. States and cities were forced into bidding wars that left them prey to price gouging
and corporate profiteering.
Civilians took out their sewing machines
to try to keep ill-equipped hospital workers healthy and
their patients alive. Russia, Taiwan, and the United Nations sent humanitarian aid to the world's
richest power -- a beggar nation in utter chaos.
Donald Trump saw the crisis almost entirely in personal and political terms. Fearing for his
reelection, he declared the coronavirus pandemic a war, and himself a wartime president. But the
leader he brings to mind is Marshal Philippe Pétain, the French general who, in 1940, signed an
armistice with Germany after its rout of French defenses, then formed the pro-Nazi Vichy regime. Like
Pétain, Trump collaborated with the invader and abandoned his country to a prolonged disaster. And,
like France in 1940, America in 2020 has stunned itself with a collapse that's larger and deeper than
one miserable leader. Some future autopsy of the pandemic might be called
Strange Defeat
, after the historian and
Resistance fighter Marc Bloch's
contemporaneous study of the fall of France
. Despite countless examples around the U.S. of
individual courage and sacrifice, the failure is national. And it should force a question that most
Americans have never had to ask: Do we trust our leaders and one another enough to summon a collective
response to a mortal threat? Are we still capable of self-government?
This is the third major crisis of the short 21st century. The first, on September 11, 2001, came when
Americans were still living mentally in the previous century, and the memory of depression, world war,
and cold war remained strong. On that day, people in the rural heartland did not see New York as an
alien stew of immigrants and liberals that deserved its fate, but as a great American city that had
taken a hit for the whole country. Firefighters from Indiana drove 800 miles to help the rescue effort
at Ground Zero. Our civic reflex was to mourn and mobilize together.
Partisan politics and terrible policies, especially the Iraq War, erased the sense of national unity
and fed a bitterness toward the political class that never really faded. The second crisis, in 2008,
intensified it. At the top, the financial crash could almost be considered a success. Congress passed
a bipartisan bailout bill that saved the financial system. Outgoing Bush-administration officials
cooperated with incoming Obama administration officials. The experts at the Federal Reserve and the
Treasury Department used monetary and fiscal policy to prevent a second Great Depression. Leading
bankers were shamed but not prosecuted; most of them kept their fortunes and some their jobs. Before
long they were back in business. A Wall Street trader told me that the financial crisis had been a
"speed bump."
All of the lasting pain was felt in the middle and at the bottom, by Americans who had taken on debt
and lost their jobs, homes, and retirement savings. Many of them never recovered, and young people who
came of age in the Great Recession are doomed to be poorer than their parents. Inequality -- the
fundamental, relentless force in American life since the late 1970s -- grew worse.
This second crisis drove a profound wedge between Americans: between the upper and lower classes,
Republicans and Democrats, metropolitan and rural people, the native-born and immigrants, ordinary
Americans and their leaders. Social bonds had been under growing strain for several decades, and now
they began to tear. The reforms of the Obama years, important as they were -- in health care, financial
regulation, green energy -- had only palliative effects. The long recovery over the past decade enriched
corporations and investors, lulled professionals, and left the working class further behind. The
lasting effect of the slump was to increase polarization and to discredit authority, especially
government's.
Both parties were slow to grasp how much credibility they'd lost. The coming politics was populist.
Its harbinger wasn't Barack Obama but Sarah Palin, the absurdly unready vice-presidential candidate
who scorned expertise and reveled in celebrity. She was Donald Trump's John the Baptist.
[
David
Frum: Americans are paying the price for Trump's failures
]
Trump came to power as the repudiation of the Republican establishment. But the conservative political
class and the new leader soon reached an understanding. Whatever their differences on issues like
trade and immigration, they shared a basic goal: to strip-mine public assets for the benefit of
private interests. Republican politicians and donors who wanted government to do as little as possible
for the common good could live happily with a regime that barely knew how to govern at all, and they
made themselves Trump's footmen.
Like a wanton boy throwing matches in a parched field, Trump began to immolate what was left of
national civic life. He never even pretended to be president of the whole country, but pitted us
against one another along lines of race, sex, religion, citizenship, education, region, and -- every day
of his presidency -- political party. His main tool of governance was to lie. A third of the country
locked itself in a hall of mirrors that it believed to be reality; a third drove itself mad with the
effort to hold on to the idea of knowable truth; and a third gave up even trying.
Trump acquired a federal government crippled by years of right-wing ideological assault,
politicization by both parties, and steady defunding. He set about finishing off the job and
destroying the professional civil service. He drove out some of the most talented and experienced
career officials, left essential positions unfilled, and installed loyalists as commissars over the
cowed survivors, with one purpose: to serve his own interests. His major legislative accomplishment,
one of the largest tax cuts in history, sent hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations and the
rich. The beneficiaries flocked to patronize his resorts and line his reelection pockets. If lying was
his means for using power, corruption was his end.
[
Read:
It pays to be rich during a pandemic
]
This was the American landscape that lay open to the virus: in prosperous cities, a class of globally
connected desk workers dependent on a class of precarious and invisible service workers; in the
countryside, decaying communities in revolt against the modern world; on social media, mutual hatred
and endless vituperation among different camps; in the economy, even with full employment, a large and
growing gap between triumphant capital and beleaguered labor; in Washington, an empty government led
by a con man and his intellectually bankrupt party; around the country, a mood of cynical exhaustion,
with no vision of a shared identity or future.
If the pandemic
really is a kind of war, it's the first to be fought on this soil in a century
and a half. Invasion and occupation expose a society's fault lines, exaggerating what goes unnoticed
or accepted in peacetime, clarifying essential truths, raising the smell of buried rot.
The virus should have united Americans against a common threat. With different leadership, it might
have. Instead, even as it spread from blue to red areas, attitudes broke down along familiar partisan
lines. The virus also should have been a great leveler. You don't have to be in the military or in
debt to be a target -- you just have to be human. But from the start, its effects have been skewed by the
inequality that we've tolerated for so long. When tests for the virus were almost impossible to find,
the wealthy and connected -- the model and reality-TV host Heidi Klum, the entire roster of the Brooklyn
Nets, the president's conservative allies --
were
somehow able to get tested, despite many showing no symptoms
. The smattering of individual results
did nothing to protect public health. Meanwhile, ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in
long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren't actually suffocating.
An internet joke proposed that the only way to find out whether you had the virus was to sneeze in a
rich person's face.
When Trump was asked about this blatant unfairness, he expressed disapproval but added, "
Perhaps
that's been the story of life
." Most Americans hardly register this kind of special privilege in
normal times. But in the first weeks of the pandemic it sparked outrage, as if, during a general
mobilization, the rich had been allowed to buy their way out of military service and hoard gas masks.
As the contagion has spread,
its victims have been likely to be poor, black, and brown people
. The gross inequality of our
health-care system is evident in the sight of refrigerated trucks lined up outside public hospitals.
[
Ibram
X. Kendi: Stop blaming black people for dying of the coronavirus
]
We now have two categories of work: essential and nonessential. Who have the essential workers turned
out to be? Mostly people in low-paying jobs that require their physical presence and put their health
directly at risk: warehouse workers, shelf-stockers, Instacart shoppers, delivery drivers, municipal
employees, hospital staffers, home health aides, long-haul truckers. Doctors and nurses are the
pandemic's combat heroes, but the supermarket cashier with her bottle of sanitizer and the UPS driver
with his latex gloves are the supply and logistics troops who keep the frontline forces intact. In a
smartphone economy that hides whole classes of human beings,
we're learning where our food and goods come from, who keeps us alive
. An order of organic baby
arugula on AmazonFresh is cheap and arrives overnight in part because the people who grow it, sort it,
pack it, and deliver it have to keep working while sick. For most service workers, sick leave turns
out to be an impossible luxury. It's worth asking if we would accept a higher price and slower
delivery so that they could stay home.
The pandemic has also clarified the meaning of nonessential workers. One example is Kelly Loeffler,
the Republican junior senator from Georgia, whose sole qualification for the empty seat that she was
given in January is her immense wealth. Less than three weeks into the job,
after a dire private briefing about the virus, she got even richer from the selling-off of stocks
,
then she accused Democrats of exaggerating the danger and gave her constituents false assurances that
may well have gotten them killed. Loeffler's impulses in public service are those of a dangerous
parasite. A body politic that would place someone like this in high office is well advanced in decay.
The purest embodiment of political nihilism is not Trump himself but his son-in-law and senior
adviser, Jared Kushner. In his short lifetime, Kushner has been fraudulently promoted as both a
meritocrat and a populist. He was born into a moneyed real-estate family the month Ronald Reagan
entered the Oval Office, in 1981 -- a princeling of the second Gilded Age. Despite Jared's mediocre
academic record, he was admitted to Harvard after his father, Charles, pledged a $2.5 million donation
to the university. Father helped son with $10 million in loans for a start in the family business,
then Jared continued his elite education at the law and business schools of NYU, where his father had
contributed $3 million. Jared repaid his father's support with fierce loyalty when Charles was
sentenced to two years in federal prison in 2005 for trying to resolve a family legal quarrel by
entrapping his sister's husband with a prostitute and videotaping the encounter.
[
Adam
Serwer: Trump is inciting a coronavirus culture war to save himself
]
Jared Kushner failed as a skyscraper owner and a newspaper publisher, but he always found someone to
rescue him, and his self-confidence only grew. In
American Oligarchs
, Andrea Bernstein
describes how he adopted the outlook of a risk-taking entrepreneur, a "disruptor" of the new economy.
Under the influence of his mentor Rupert Murdoch, he found ways to fuse his financial, political, and
journalistic pursuits. He made conflicts of interest his business model.
So when his father-in-law became president, Kushner quickly gained power in an administration that
raised amateurism, nepotism, and corruption to governing principles. As long as he busied himself with
Middle East peace, his feckless meddling didn't matter to most Americans. But since he became an
influential adviser to Trump on the coronavirus pandemic, the result has been mass death.
In his first week on the job, in mid-March, Kushner co-authored the worst Oval Office speech in
memory, interrupted the vital work of other officials, may have compromised security protocols,
flirted with conflicts of interest and violations of federal law, and made fatuous promises that
quickly turned to dust. "
The
federal government is not designed to solve all our problems
," he said, explaining how he would
tap his corporate connections to create drive-through testing sites. They never materialized. He was
convinced by corporate leaders that Trump should not use presidential authority to compel industries
to manufacture ventilators -- then Kushner's own attempt to negotiate a deal with General Motors fell
through. With no loss of faith in himself, he blamed shortages of necessary equipment and gear on
incompetent state governors.
To watch this pale, slim-suited dilettante
breeze into the middle of a deadly crisis
, dispensing business-school jargon to cloud the massive
failure of his father-in-law's administration, is to see the collapse of a whole approach to
governing. It turns out that scientific experts and other civil servants are not traitorous members of
a "deep state" --
they're
essential workers
, and marginalizing them in favor of ideologues and sycophants is a threat to the
nation's health. It turns out that "nimble" companies can't prepare for a catastrophe or distribute
lifesaving goods --
only
a competent federal government can do that
. It turns out that everything has a cost, and years of
attacking government, squeezing it dry and draining its morale, inflict a heavy cost that the public
has to pay in lives. All the programs defunded, stockpiles depleted, and plans scrapped meant that we
had become a second-rate nation. Then came the virus and this strange defeat.
[
Read:
Trump's coronavirus message is revisionist history
]
The fight to overcome the pandemic must also be a fight to recover the health of our country, and
build it anew, or the hardship and grief we're now enduring will never be redeemed. Under our current
leadership, nothing will change. If 9/11 and 2008 wore out trust in the old political establishment,
2020 should kill off the idea that anti-politics is our salvation. But putting an end to this regime,
so necessary and deserved, is only the beginning.
We're faced with a choice that the crisis makes inescapably clear. We can stay hunkered down in
self-isolation, fearing and shunning one another, letting our common bond wear away to nothing. Or we
can use this pause in our normal lives to pay attention to the hospital workers holding up cellphones
so their patients can say goodbye to loved ones;
the planeload of medical workers flying from Atlanta to help in New York
; the aerospace workers in
Massachusetts demanding that their factory be converted to ventilator production; the Floridians
standing in long lines because they couldn't get through by phone to the skeletal unemployment office;
the residents of Milwaukee braving endless waits, hail, and contagion to
vote in an election forced on them by partisan justices
. We can learn from these dreadful days
that stupidity and injustice are lethal; that, in a democracy, being a citizen is essential work; that
the alternative to solidarity is death. After we've come out of hiding and taken off our masks, we
should not forget what it was like to be alone.
This article appears in the June 2020 print
edition with the headline "Underlying Conditions."
We want to hear what you think about this article.
Submit a letter
to the editor or write to [email protected].
George Packer
is a staff writer at
The
Atlantic
. He is the author of
Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century
and
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
.
"... the nations CEO's become sort of one big club, and the top of the club is the head parasites pulling the strings on the stock market (outfits like Goldman Sachs). ..."
"... NO ONE wants to cross the head parasites, the corrupt political class turns to them as their economic brain trust, and the propaganda class (MSM) spin narratives that comport to the corrupt political class' interests and the corrupt status quo. ..."
As our guest puts it, the recently passed Trump "Bank and Landlord Relief" bill,
mistakenly named the Coronavirus bill, starts by providing banks with an even larger giveaway
of wealth than they received from Obama in 2008. Helping the banks, financial and real estate
sectors in a so-called free market system is conflated with helping the industrial economy
and general living standards for most Americans. The essence of a parasite is not only to
drain the host's nourishment, but to dull the host's brain so that it does not recognize that
the parasite is there.
One of the ways it does this is to entice most of the biggest companies onto the stock
markets, which in turn subordinates them to the financial sector -- more specifically, the
investment bankers. And then the nations CEO's become sort of one big club, and the top of
the club is the head parasites pulling the strings on the stock market (outfits like Goldman
Sachs).
NO ONE wants to cross the head parasites, the corrupt political class turns to them as
their economic brain trust, and the propaganda class (MSM) spin narratives that comport to the
corrupt political class' interests and the corrupt status quo.
This is why [neo]liberalism and neoconservatism are the two sides of the one political coin
that Americans are allowed to choose. Lean left? You'll get a liberal who mostly uses identity
politics to divide and rule. Lean right? You'll get a neocon who mostly uses foreign affairs to
divide and rule. But increasingly, the two cross-over, hence you'll see liberals harping 24/7
about Russiagate and neocons harping 24/7 about Iran, Islam and now China.
None of this is to say that Russia, China and Iran aren't competitors, because they are. But
the liberal and neocon fanatics turn them into existential, kill or be killed
competitors...
Before the coronavirus caused governments to impose lockdowns, whole economies, markets and
even currencies were already on course to be destroyed by a vicious downturn in bank lending at
a time of contracting trade and record debt. The additional strains from the virus have
intensified the crisis further and quickened the pace of all aspects of monetary
destruction.
The coronavirus has permitted America and other Western nations to adopt a war footing by
restricting personal freedom in the interest of the state. As tensions against China rise and
the global economic crisis escalates, these freedoms will be not be returned, being deemed to
be against national interest.
This is an election year for America and the political system is already ramping up blame
for the virus and her economic misfortunes against China. We are entering dangerous territory
when politics mobilises hate against a supposed enemy by using propaganda tactics which are
designed to stir up xenophobic anger.
How China responds will be crucial. Its leadership can defuse the situation with a few
simple changes to its foreign policy, isolating America from her allies in the process. But
does a highly bureaucratic communist leadership have the imagination to do so?
Introduction
One thing is for sure: the world will be different when it emerges from the coronavirus
crisis. Doubtless, on pain of likely death those over seventy years of age must remain
prisoners in their own homes while the younger generations are tasked with the return to
normality. All this is meant to be under government guidance of course. Over the coming months
governments intend to save swathes of business sectors, such as banking, energy production,
utilities and the rest, first by lending the money to pay the bills, and then by rescuing the
failures, taking them into public ownership in many cases.
That is what the post-coronavirus environment can be expected to look like, if, as
governments hope, the recovery is V-shaped. If not, then greater interventions will be visited
on the population to protect it from itself.
While not necessarily intentioned, there has been and will continue to be a dramatic
transfer of freedom from individuals to the state, which the state is always reluctant to let
go when the crisis passes. The evocation of a war against the virus is to facilitate the
transfer of peoples' freedom to the state, because that is what is required to fight a war. But
when it's over, the bureaucrats' instincts are never to return freedoms.
In the vast majority of cases, win or lose, following a war it is usual for a nation to
retain the measures adopted, dropping none of them. It might be called a transitional economy,
kept in place with all the war-time restrictions until an exit path, inevitably to greater
socialism, can be devised. And for America there is a war still to be fought against China for
global domination, justifying yet more control.
Nanny meets fascist socialism
Welcome to the new post-coronavirus intensified socialism. As individuals we have given the
state enormous power over our lives, which will almost certainly be consolidated. The direction
of travel is clear. Not only can big brother censor us, but it can now track our movements more
effectively than the old KGB. If you leave your home, leave your smartphone behind. Wear a
wide-brimmed hat and change your gait, avoiding the cameras. Your money in the bank, or more
correctly in your about-to-be-nationalised bank's money credited to your account, can only be
disposed of for state-regulated products by means of traceable transactions instead of
old-fashioned cash.
Instead of the soviet, we have the nanny state. Nanny knows best. This is the real world of
the 2020s. It is unnatural and will therefore eventually fail. In previous articles I have
written about one aspect of its failure, and that is the impending collapse of unbacked state
currencies. I have pointed out that central banks, and especially the Fed responsible for the
world's reserve currency, are embarking on an exercise in inflation designed, above all, to
uphold the state by maintaining the values of its debt and therefore all other financial
assets. If they fail, and they will because the task is too great, the currencies will fail as
well, and remarkably quickly. Until then, free markets are a primal threat to the system and
must not prevail.
Doubtless, deep state operatives everywhere believe that the threats from their own people
can be contained. Taking that for granted, they are now moving on to contain threats from other
states that don't conform to the West's democratic model. There is now much more propaganda
coming out of America and the UK about the evil Chinese than the evil Chinese are disseminating
about America and Britain.
The story being managed is of a devious state, somehow stealing our souls by selling us
their technology. Mobile 5G puts China into our homes and controls our internet of everything.
It will allow the Chinese to control us . What is not explained is why it is in China's
interest to abuse its customers in this way. What is not explained is why we, as individuals,
will be better off not having Chinese goods and technology. And when Britain's GCHQ
intelligence and security division took Hua Wei's equipment apart, they couldn't find any
evidence of Chinese state spyware anyway.
The irony in all this is that our democratic model, the nanny state, is cover for the same
internal policies as those deployed by the Chinese, admittedly less vicious; but that is
changing. Rather than communist-socialist, both Chinese communism and Western democracies are,
properly defined, fascist-socialist. With communism, the state owns your cow and tells you what
to do with it. With fascism, you own the cow and the state tells you what to do with it. In
these simplistic, but not inaccurate terms, our governments increasingly follow the fascist
creed adopted by the Chinese Communist Party after Mao's death. Give it time and the intense
Chinese-style suppression of free speech could become the defining feature of nanny's
management style as well.
Here we must note a fundamental truth. Socialists of either extreme do not see free markets
as a rival, because they believe they are useful for progressing socialism towards desired
ends. The true rival to your socialism is someone else's socialism. Newly energised Western
state socialism is to be pitted against Chinese state socialism. The World is about to get more
dangerous.
US is upping the propaganda stakes
Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said China caused an enormous amount of pain
and will pay a price for what they did with the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, President
Trump threatened to seek reparations from China for infecting Americans. This follows a 57-page
memorandum, entitled Main Messages dated April 17, briefing Republican senators, which was
headed by the following bullet points:
China caused this pandemic by covering it up, lying, and hoarding the world's supply of
medical equipment.
China is an adversary that has stolen millions of American jobs, sent fentanyl to the
United States, and they send religious minorities to concentration camps.
My opponent is soft on China, fails to stand up to the Chinese Communist Party, and can't
be trusted to take them on.
I will stand up to China, bring our manufacturing jobs back home, and push for sanctions
on China for its role in spreading this pandemic.
Clearly, the propaganda war being waged by America against China is undergoing a new lease
of life. And it's not just America: anti-Chinese belligerence is being ramped up through other
national intelligence agencies. Even senior MPs in the UK's Conservative Party and "useful
idiots" in the media are now spouting renewed anti-Chinese propaganda.
On one level, American propaganda can be taken as a defense of President Trump, on the
simplistic basis of finding someone else to blame for his administration's increasingly
desperate economic plight. But the danger is that the White House train has left the station in
the direction of policy escalation with no means of stopping. In this election year someone
must be blamed. To improve his ratings and following an established political tradition of
diverting attention from the domestic scene, Trump must blame foreigners and China is the
easiest target. We are rapidly moving in the direction of unintended consequences.
Meanwhile, we have to hope that President Xi does not take the American bait and escalate
tensions from his side. Xi's equanimity has set the pattern so far. He has made mistakes, and
will almost certainly continue to do so, but his Sun Tzu strategy is making it difficult for
the Americans: "If [the enemy] is in superior strength, evade him".
Of one thing we can be reasonably certain, and that is in a new attack the Trump
administration will escalate trade protectionism against China. It is a policy which will
backfire on America. Assuming no change in the American people's savings habits, the budget
deficit leads almost directly to a trade deficit, the twin deficit syndrome. The trade deficit
is not caused by unfair foreign competition, but as a simple matter of national accounting it
is linked to inflationary funding of government spending. The temporary offset with respect to
the inflationary effect on prices is the expansion of foreign production which ends up as
imports at less inflated prices. Meanwhile, the US's budget deficit is now set to grow
substantially from its trillion-dollar baseline and in the light of recent economic
developments it could easily more than double.
If the trade deficit is to be contained, then measures must be introduced to prevent import
substitution. This is in accordance with enhanced nationalism, typified by Trump's Make America
Great Again slogan. Therefore, the likelihood of America extending trade protectionism beyond
China as the economic crisis progresses is greater than it may currently appear.
Without lower prices for imported goods and consumption generally restricted to domestic
production, inevitably prices for everything will rise at a faster pace. Therefore, at a time
when food prices will almost certainly be rising sharply and causing political difficulties for
Trump, price inflation for all aspects of consumer spending will be getting beyond the managed
control of government statisticians.
Domestically, the combination of an escalating budget deficit and rising consumer prices
will lead to higher interest rates and therefore increased US Treasury borrowing costs. The Fed
will then be unable to control financial asset prices, the dollar will slide, and it could turn
out to be electoral suicide. Trump may not realise it but in this election year he is
conflating two opposing objectives: a geopolitical one against China to improve his political
ratings and an economic one which can be expected to destroy them.
In the past, politicians in this position have responded by clamping down even further on
free markets and personal freedom, evoking Hayek's prophecy of the call for stronger leadership
in his The Road to Serfdom . And with respect to foreign policy, imperialistic motivation
intensifies, which we are already seeing.
Meanwhile, we must hope President Xi stays calm in the face of American self-harm.
Powell, Trump, Washington & Wall Street Recklessly Courted Disaster .
Their Desperate Money-Pumping, Spending & Speculation Inflated The Mother Of All
Financial Bubbles ..
Then Wanna Be Medical Dictators, Hysterical Media And Power Hungry Politicians Imposed
Lockdown Nation ..Sending The US Economy Into The Tank And Unemployment Soaring
Like Always, Main Street Has Been Left High & Dry, Ensnared In The Lies, Scams And
Self-Serving Mendacity Of The Washington-Wall Street Axis
... ... ...
Dear Reader,
The coronavirus is now exposing a far more deadly disease: Namely, the poisonous brew of
easy money, cheap debt, sweeping financialization and unbridled speculation that has been
injected into the American economy by the Fed and Washington politicians.
It has turned Wall Street into a dangerous gambling casino while leaving Main Street buried
under mountainous debts, faltering investment in growth and productivity and the hand-to-mouth
economics of spending more than you earn.
It has also left the American economy exceedingly vulnerable to external shocks like the
thundering blow of Lockdown Nation.
That's because 80% of households have no appreciable rainy-day funds and businesses have
hollowed out their balance sheets and artificially extended their supply chains to the four
corners of the earth in order to goose short-run profits and share prices.
However, this unprecedented fragility has become starkly evident after public health
authorities essentially shut down normal commerce and economic function. Workers have been
separated from their workplaces, consumers from the malls, diners from the restaurants,
travelers from the airlines, hotels and resorts -- with many more like and similar disruptions
to the supply-side of the economy.
In turn, these disruptions are causing production and incomes to fall abruptly. Shrunken
household incomes and business cash flows are literally pulling the legs out from under the
edifice of debt and speculation that has been piled atop the American economy.
So both a renewed financial and economic crisis and an abrupt change of course lie dead
ahead. The 30-year party of False Prosperity is over.
Accordingly, even if the Covid-19 hysteria eventually abates and Lockdown Nation is lifted,
the 2020s will be a decade when the chickens come home to roost.
It will be a time when the cans of delay and denial may no longer be kicked down the road to
tomorrow. Today's economic and political fantasies will be crushed by America's accumulated due
bills.
Bubbles will be burst. Speculators will get carried out on their shields. Easy money wealth
will evaporate.
Some 14 percent of US adults would forgo medical care for Covid-19 symptoms because they
couldn't pay for it, a new poll has found – yet oblivious health authorities act as if
the epidemic will be solved by drugs alone. One in seven American adults would avoid seeking
healthcare if they or a family member experienced symptoms of Covid-19, out of concern they
would be unable to afford treatment, according to a
Gallup poll published on Tuesday. Even if they specifically believed themselves to be infected
with the coronavirus, nine percent would forgo care for financial reasons, the poll found.
Their fears are well-founded – the average cost of coronavirus treatment in an intensive
care unit runs over $30,000,
according to a study released earlier this month by insurance industry group America's
Health Insurance Plans. Even for those who avoid the ICU, American healthcare is the most
expensive in the world, and stories of coronavirus patients being whacked with gargantuan
medical bills are a dime a dozen two months into the pandemic.
Making matters worse is the unemployment crisis, as about 55 percent of Americans receive
healthcare through their jobs. Upwards of 30 million have filed for unemployment in the last
five weeks, adding an unprecedented number of families to the ranks of the uninsured –
which were already estimated in December to include 27.5 million people, more than the
population of Australia. Even those lucky enough to have kept their jobs and insurance may face
steep co-pays or other surprise costs.
After a handful of highly-publicized cases in which Americans died of the virus after being
turned away by hospitals for lack of money, President Donald Trump ordered hospitals to pay for
the cost of Covid-19 treatment, and several large insurers promised at the beginning of the
month to waive all co-pays for coronavirus testing for 60 days. However, those coverage pledges
do not include other costs associated with hospitalization, like ambulance transportation;
outpatient treatment; or treatment for non-Covid-19 patients. Individuals seeking treatment
have been tested and received the good news that they don't have the virus – only to be
hit shortly thereafter with the bad news that they're on the hook for thousands of dollars in
costs. Low-income respondents were much more likely to report they would not seek care for
financial reasons. Perhaps more troublingly, respondents with annual income under $40,000 were
almost four times as likely as those with incomes over $100,000 to report that they or a family
member had been turned away from a hospital for reasons related to overcrowding or high patient
volume, the Gallup poll found.
The big question that we should be addressing, and which we lose sight of when playing
statistical trivia with idiots, is the question of capitalism. This crisis is a direct result
of living under capitalism. Every aspect of it from the way it spread like wildfire across
the world, to the fragility of food supply chains (I am surrounded by farmers growing corn
crops to be converted into ethanol!), to the failures to stockpile protective equipment and
ventilators, to the contracting of the business of fighting the virus to for profit
businesses, to the precarious existences lived by millions of people thrown out of work and
reduced to misery by the crisis- every aspect of this complex and massive socio-economic
crisis calls into question the fundamental nature of our class society.
That is what we should be talking about. Unless of course, like I suspect most of the
quibblers, we are so invested in the religion of Thatcherism and the mysteries of class
exploitation and oligarchy that anything is preferable to the dangerous blasphemy of
questioning cannibalism/capitalism.
Yes, the problem lies with Neoliberal Capitalism, which is a hocus-pocus form of Finance
Capitalism whose rise I've been trying to trace along with Hudson to a point between 1865 and
1885. Dr. Hudson's exposed most of it, but its roots lie outside the USA and connect to that
era's Outlaw Empire--the British. It's very easy to say Capitalism's the problem, but people
want specifics and also need to have their generations of indoctrination upended so they're
capable of clear thinking. IMO, Richard Wolff's thin primer Understanding Socialism is
perfect for that job, and he's been in great demand to talk about Capitalism's failure during
the pandemic. Here's a recent
essay he wrote for Raw Story .
But yeah, we need to get the discussion out into the open, into the public
mainstream--somehow.
I will start the discussion the subject of which was suggested by Bevin @ 214:
... For example there is no doubt that old peoples homes-call them what you will- have been
slaughterhouses in the past few weeks. There are all sorts of reasons-all non medical- why
this has happened and we would do well to discuss what they are. And insist that nothing
like it recur in future years ...
I would add that not only are significant COVID-19 outbreak clusters centring around
nursing homes and aged care facilities, they have also centred around passenger cruise ships.
In Australia there is currently a criminal investigation being undertaken into the actions of
Carnival Australia with regard to the decision made by NSW state health authorities to allow
passengers to disembark from the Ruby Princess in Sydney in late March even though the
results of the tests they had taken were not yet known.
We might ask what do aged care places and passenger cruise ships might have in common.
Apart from often being closed systems - residents in aged care places usually don't move
about much and may not have access to fresh air, and passengers on certain levels of a cruise
ship and many of the crew (especially kitchen staff, cleaners, technical people) may also
have limited access to fresh air - what else might favour the circulation of COVID-19 in
those environments? We ought to look at airconditioning systems, water supply systems, and
the conditions of the people working in nursing homes and cruise ships and how their
conditions influence their work and give rise to situations in which they may be transferring
viruses and bacteria from one patient or passenger to the next.
These environments are microcosms of capitalist society in action.
I trust history and events to come will show these things:
1. When the US economy crashed (which is still happening and yet to come with its full
force), it wasn't the "virus" that crashed it. It was the US economy that crashed the US
economy. As noted above, the economy couldn't take a health shock to its workers.
2. The people of the US did not enter into distancing and self-quarantining because they
were obeying the dictates of any of their governments - they were not cowed unto this, at
least not by government. They chose voluntarily to do this as a survival measure, knowing
that the governments were unable or unwilling to help them. And if, moving forward,
governments attempt to keep an unreasonable control over the people - as if they the
governments had actually been in control through this crisis - those unreasonable controls
will be flouted wholesale by the people.
3. As US society feels its way into a "reopening" - still without testing or affordable
treatment - there will be many nuances to explore and figure out. Society will need to learn
what's useful and what's pointless, which costs are important to bear and which are
disastrous beyond reason. At the first stage of the crisis, one universal hammer for one
universal nail was all that the people had. Now they have masks, at least. The people made
those masks, not the governments, and the people made them work. The people will make the
re-opening work, and do the exploration of how to adapt the culture to what works in an age
of bio-danger.
4. As everyone in the US can agree, what a shit-show it's been.
Lol. So now we talk about C to debunk claims. Take a look at the financial interests of
public health agencies like Fauci, FDA, CDC, etc, WHO, Big Pharma, Gates, etc
Do you know hospitals can charge medicare 15% more if they have a covid-19 diagnosis, and
CDC helps out by saying a test is not required?
Also, as for antibody tests indicating the level of Covid-19 exposure/immunity. Thats not
true. Only those who are exposed and can not clear the virus via their innate and cellular
immune cells go on to develop antibodies (it takes 7-10 days from infection/exposure to
antibody protection), and subsequently test seropositive in antibody test. These people are
naturally immune. They don't get sick. Most of those who cant fight it off without antibodies
don't get very sick. In other cases the antibodies worsen their condition since it activates
another complement pathway which increases inflammation and cytokines.
As the Bronx doctor said, many of the deaths are occurring there in people not because of
Covid-19 but because they aren't getting medical care due to suspension of services or fear
of going to hospital. They die at home or in ambulances. Some may die with covid-19 , not
because of it.
That the lock down is working is the same reasoning that I use with my anti-tiger statue on
my verandah. As I have seen no tigers, then the statue is working perfectly and it was
worth the $100,000 I paid for it!
It is estimated that half the world will lose their jobs by the time this lock down is
finished.
Boeing is buried ten metres deep, they just have not realised it yet. Airbus will soon
be filing for bankruptcy. Hertz is going over the abyss as we speak. AirBnb is toast! The
food chains will soon be breaking down as much of the food industry is geared for the fast
food, restaurant, and hotel business.
Lots of tourist places now have 70% unemployment.
The housing market will soon start to collapse as no-one can pay rents and
mortgages.
Then the manufacturing plants that supply the spare parts for the water treatment and
sewerage plants can no longer supply replacements.
The electric grid goes down as their no parts for the turbines, transformers, etc.
How you going now in your house with no food, water, and electricity? Still happy to sit
in the dark, thinking this is all worth it?
And this is covoid-19, wait for covid-20/21/22/23
How long before we say enough, let's approach this another way, for a pandemic which
does not even touch anyone under thirty!
Sweden is trying something different and seem to be no worse, probably better than the
UK approach.
And we haven't paid our recent 'restaurant bill' now owed to the bankers, payable in
about three years, when we are going to be drained of several pints of financial blood!
And in Australia, with about eighty deaths, the panic borders on the insane!
Great comment. My anecdotal observation is that there are excess deaths because people are
afraid to go to the hospital. In New York, deaths at home are much higher than before.
Yes, there are some wild conspiracy theories out there. But the fact that Covid is indeed
worse than the flu is not necessarily an argument that the cure is not worse than the
disease. The new depression is just getting going, as are pending food shortages. As
governments increasingly print money so the jobless can buy things, this will cause inflation
as there will be too much money chasing too few goods (especially food) being produced. This
will necessitate more printing, causing a vicious circle of increasing inflation.
The poor economy will cause many more problems and excess deaths, in ways we don't yet
understand.
@ 13 "Atlanticist" may not have a lot of meaning to most people out there, but that doesn't
mean it isn't a good word to describe the US and Western European power center. The first
time I heard it was from Kees van Der Pijl in his book "The Making of an Atlantic Ruling
Class." And the term Anglo Zionist is a very good description of the US / Western Europe /
Israeli power block. I don't understand your dislike for the Saker, but it doesn't matter to
me. I agree that Atlanticist and globalist are more or less interchangeable. I guess
globalist would include Japan, too. Would you rather use the term Tri-lateralist?
I am from the United States. I agree that my country has been a large purveyor of much
evil in the world. And a lot of it has been directed at its own subjects. There are many good
people in this country who are just trying to get by.
Neoliberalism was waged against the US populace as it was unleashed on the world at large.
It seems like it really began to gather steam when the dollar was taken off the gold
standard. That was the start of the second Cold War according to Kees van Der Pijl, at least
in my understanding of what he has written. I learned that in his book MH 17, Ukraine and the
New Cold War. The powers that be began to outsource US jobs. Then austerity and
privatization.
I don't know why I am commenting. I always regret doing it. Pregret is a word I have
coined for this sense. I know everyone here is a lot smarter than I am, and lately I have
noticed that the commenters have become a lot less civil.
I did feel that your dismissiveness of the term Atlanticist merited a response though. As
well as the hatred by a lot of people toward a the citizens of the US. The powers that be are
treat us like subjects here. There is not much any of can do about the situation in reality.
I'm sure most of you out there are aware we have a huge prison population. Filled with the
descendants of slaves. We did a real genocide against the native people. The majority of
people can't afford health care. I am one of them.
So for what it's worth, that's my take on the sad state of this country. Sorry for all the
hell we have created.
"... In truth is this is a familiar pattern over the past century where the economy is continually salvaged from ruin by the government at the expense of ordinary workers, small businesses and taxpayers. ..."
"... The system typically privatizes profit for an elite while socializing the losses for the mass of people. It has always been a version of "socialism for the rich". ..."
"... As Eric Zuesse commented in an-depth analysis published in our journal this week, the Covid-19 "top-down bailout" in the U.S. will result in even more social inequality and ultimately more dysfunction in the American economy going forward. ..."
"... Ironically, a virus is exposing the pathological system ..."
The Covid-19 pandemic is unleashing obscene bailouts of Western industries and companies, as
well as lifelines for billionaire business magnates.
It is grotesque that millions of workers are being laid off by corporations which are in
turn receiving taxpayer funds. Many of these corporations have stashed trillions of dollars
away in tax havens and have contributed zero to the public treasury. Yet they are being bailed
out due to shutdowns in the economy over the Covid-19 crisis.
Why aren't the banks and corporations being forced by governments to pay for their workers
on sick leave or in lockdown?
It's because the governments are bought and paid-for servants of the top one per cent. Some
political leaders are the embodiment of the one per cent, like Donald Trump and senior members
of the U.S. Congress.
The biggest orgy of funny money is seen in the U.S. where the Trump administration and
Congress have approved the printing of trillions of dollars to prop up corporations and banks.
Meanwhile crumbs are being thrown at millions of workers and their families.
In just five weeks, unemployment has hit a staggering 26.4 million people in the U.S.
– and that's the official figure. The real level is doubtless much higher. It is reported
that the job losses have wiped out all the employment gains made over the past decade since the
last financial crisis in 2008. As with the present crisis, the U.S. government arranged
trillion-dollar bailouts for banks and industries back in 2008-2009. It didn't last long until
the next binge.
In truth is this is a familiar pattern over the past century where the economy is
continually salvaged from ruin by the government at the expense of ordinary workers, small
businesses and taxpayers.
The recurring rescue is proof that the system of private capital and supposed free markets
is a myth.
The system typically privatizes profit for an elite while socializing the losses for the
mass of people. It has always been a version of "socialism for the rich".
In the distant past the salvaging of broken-down capitalism was at least conducted with a
certain degree of democratization and social progress. In the New Deal era of Roosevelt in the
1930s at least government intervention went a long way to restoring workers and their rights,
despite bitter opposition from capitalists. Over recent decades, however, the rescuing of
capitalism has seen an ever-increasing emphasis on plying money and loans to corporations and
investors while ordinary workers are neglected. This process of embezzlement reached new
heights in the 2008 crash. Now under Trump the larceny has become legendary. It should be
underscored though that the corruption has bipartisan endorsement from Republicans and
Democrats. They are really one party beholden to big business.
As Eric Zuesse commented in an-depth
analysis published in our journal this week, the Covid-19 "top-down bailout" in the U.S.
will result in even more social inequality and ultimately more dysfunction in the American
economy going forward.
"The outcome will therefore be economic collapse, and perhaps even revolution," notes
Zuesse.
It is indisputable that capitalism is a failed system both in the U.S. and Europe. The
Covid-19 pandemic and its disastrous social impact of sickness and deaths shows that such an
economy cannot organize societies based on satisfying human needs. Instead, it functions to
continually enrich the already wealthy while creating ever-greater numbers of impoverished and
deprived. This chronic polarization of wealth has been pointed out by many critics of
capitalism, including Karl Marx, and more contemporaneously by progressive economists like
Richard Wolff and Thomas Picketty.
It is fair to describe corporate capitalism (or socialism for the rich) as a pathology which
produces many other pathologies, including deprivation, crime, insecurity, ecological damage,
militarism, imperialism and ultimately war.
Ironically, a virus is exposing the pathological system. And it is, inevitably, forcing a
cure to arise.
It's time to abolish the parasitical system and implement something more civilized,
effective, sustainable and democratic. That is the task of people organized to fight for their
interests. The delusion of bailing out a failed and sick system must be shaken off once and for
all.
Nonetheless, it's been suggested that a number of Silicon Valley elites have already escaped
the US and sought refuge in New Zealand. And unlike the rest of us, the super-rich aren't
hoarding food and fighting each other for toilet paper and hand sanitizer in the supermarket.
They're not posting up poorly constructed, badly edited renditions of 'Imagine', then patting
themselves on the back and saying, "I made a difference today." US businessman Mihai
Dinulescu and his wife are seeing out the pandemic on New Zealand's Waiheke Island, where he
quipped to the press that they planned to go "billionaire hunting." God forbid that they
might actually meet a poor or middle-class person during their attempt to escape the fate
destined for many of their fellow men, women and children.
Apparently, a refugee fleeing a catastrophe who doesn't feel safe enough to avail themselves
of the protection of their own country is acceptable in a Western nation as long as they are
uber-wealthy
If the new coronavirus pandemic has taught us one thing, it is that we need to rethink what
we need to do to keep America safe. That's why Secretary of Defense Mark Esper's recent
tweet calling modernization of U.S. nuclear forces a "top priority ... to protect the
American people and our allies" seemed so tone deaf.
COVID-19 has already
killed more Americans than
died in the
9/11 attacks and the Iraq and Afghan wars combined, with projections of many more to come.
The pandemic underscores the need for a systematic, sustainable, long-term investment in public
health resources,
from protective equipment , to ventilators and hospital beds, to research and planning
resources needed to deal with future outbreaks of disease.
As Kori Schake, the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American
Enterprise Institute, has
noted : "We're going to see enormous downward pressure on defense spending because of other
urgent American national needs like health care." And that's as it should be, given the
relative dangers posed by outbreaks of disease and climate change relative to traditional
military challenges.
... ... ...
ICBMs are dangerous because of the short decision time a president would have to decide
whether to launch them in a crisis to avoid having them wiped out in a perceived first strike
-- a matter of
minutes . This reality greatly increases the prospect of an accidental nuclear war based on
a false warning of attack. This is a completely unnecessary risk given that the other two legs
of the nuclear triad -- ballistic missile submarines and nuclear-armed bombers -- are more than
sufficient to deter a nuclear attack, or to retaliate, should the unlikely scenario of a
nuclear attack on the United States occur.
... ... ...
Eliminating ICBMs and reducing the size of the U.S. arsenal will face strong opposition in
Washington, both from strategists who maintain that the nuclear triad should be sacrosanct, and
from special interests that benefit from excess spending on nuclear weapons. The Senate
ICBM Coalition , composed of senators from states with ICBM bases or substantial ICBM
development and maintenance work, has been particularly effective in fending any changes in
ICBM policy, from reducing the size of the force to merely studying alternatives, whether those
alternatives are implemented or not.
Shimizu Randall Personally I don't see why the Trident subs cannot be refurbished and have
a extended life. I think the Minuteman missiles need to be replace. But I don't understand why
the cost is exorbitant. Terry Auckland
OMG.....what a sensible idea..Other nuclear capable countries will fall into line if this is
adopted....peace could thrive and flourish ...sadly it could never happen..too much money at
state...too many careers truncated...and too many lobbyists and thinktank type's and loyalist
senators to cajole and appease..
A pipe dream I think. ..situation normal will continue to annhilation...
In a country with Gilded Age level of inequality implementing any meaningful social
distancing is next to impossible. Ghettos prevents that and became permanent hotspots.
See discussion of this problem at
IMHO the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the category "younger then 55" in a given
country correlated well with the level of obesity. In other words the virus hits already
deprive and weakened underclass -- the main consumer of junk food.
So what we see in the USA is far from surprising taking into account the level of
neoliberalization of the country and a large permanent uninsured underclass including
contractors and perma-temps.
Existence of nursing homes is another unsolvable problem. Like ships, they also
automatically became hotspots and medical personnel involved became inflected spreading
the infection in the vicinity.
Here is one interesting comment that I found:
The Grim Joker , says: Show Comment April 23, 2020 at 6:52 pm GMT
... ... ...
Yesterday's Action
My bank now has traffic pylons outside the door. They ask the following questions
if you want to enter:
Have you been out of the country? Answer; How am I going to be out of the
country when the airport is closed?
Do you have any symptoms? Answer: If I had I would be at the hospital
Have you associated with anyone who has the symptoms? Answer: If I thought they
did I would ask them to go to the hospital and so would I.
Sir! There is no need to be rude. Answer: Far from it. You are asking questions
parrot fashion. Questions that do not make any sense.
After getting MY money out of THEIR pockets I proceeded to the auto mechanic for
front brakes.
Joker: Am I allowed to come inside ?
70 Year old Mechanic Unmasked: Sure, you are the only customer today. You can
keep me company while I do the work. I cannot afford to lose customers.
NYTmes and Vox both have articles about tha anti-quarantine/pro-virus crowd. Mostly the
protests are being instigated by the usual anti-government oligarchs who are terrorized that
people might actually conclude that government has an important role to play in addressing
problems.
" Among those fighting the orders are FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots, which played
pivotal roles in the beginning of Tea Party protests starting more than a decade ago. Also
involved are a law firm led partly by former Trump White House officials, a network of
state-based conservative policy groups, and an ad hoc coalition of conservative leaders known
as Save Our Country that has advised the White House on strategies for a tiered reopening of
the economy." [found at Gale, not on NYT website!]
In an interview with Theda Skocpol: " For the elite conservative groups sponsoring this
stuff behind the scenes, I think it's driven by a firm belief that if Americans become used
to trusting government and relying on social benefits from government, then that's dangerous
to the victory they think they have almost won in destroying the New Deal and the Great
Society reforms in this country."
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/4/22/21227928/coronavirus-social-distancing-lockdown-trump-tea-party
And, of course, the oligarch-owned media just gobble it up, practically begging for an
apocalypse.
IMO we should just label them the pro-COVID crowd in any discussion of the matter.
"... To be sure, Trump has good reason to hate the intelligence and national security community, which utterly rejected his candidacy and plotted to destroy both his campaign and, even after he was elected, his presidency ..."
"... While it is not unusual for presidents to surround themselves with devoted yes-men, as Trump does with his spectacularly unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner, his administration is nevertheless unusual in its tendency to apply an absolute loyalty litmus test to nearly everyone surrounding the president ..."
"... Most damaging to consumer interests, the rot has also affected the so-called regulatory agencies that are supposed to monitor the potentially illegal activities of corporations and industries to protect the public. As University of Chicago economist George Stigler several times predicted, under both Obama and Trump advocates of ostensibly "regulated" corporations have taken over every U.S. federal regulatory agency . The captured U.S. government regulators now represent the interests of the corporations, not the public. This is more like government by a criminal oligarchy rather than of, by and for The People. ..."
The 24/7 intensified media coverage of the coronavirus story has meant that other news has
either been ignored or relegated to the back pages, never to be seen again. The Middle East has
been on a boil but coverage of the Trump administration's latest
moves against Iran has been so insignificant as to be invisible. Meanwhile closer to home,
the declaration by the ubiquitous Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that current president of
Venezuela Nicolas Maduro is a drug trafficker did generate somewhat of a ripple, as did
dispatch of warships to the Caribbean to intercept the alleged drugs, but that story also
died.
Of more interest perhaps is the tale of the continued purge of government officials,
referred to as "draining the swamp," by President Donald Trump as it could conceivably have
long-term impact on how policy is shaped in Washington. Prior to the virus partial lockdown,
some of the impending shakeup within the
intelligence community (IC) and Pentagon were commented on in the media, but developments
since that time have been less reported, even when several inspectors-general were removed.
To be sure, Trump has good reason to hate the intelligence and national security community,
which utterly rejected his candidacy and plotted to destroy both his campaign and, even after
he was elected, his presidency. Whether one argues that what took place was due to a "Deep
state" or Establishment conspiracy or rather just based on personal ambition by key players,
the reality was that a number of top officials seem to have forgotten the oaths they swore to
the constitution when it came to Donald Trump.
Be that as it may, beyond the musical chairs that have characterized the senior level
appointments in the first three years of the Trump administration, there has been a concerted
effort to remove "disloyal" members of the intelligence community, with disloyal generally
being the label applied to holdovers from the Bush and Obama administrations. The February
appointment of U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard "Ric" Grenell as interim Director of National
Intelligence (DNI), a position that he will hold simultaneously with his ambassadorship, has
been criticized from all sides due to his inexperience, history of bad judgement and
partisanship. The White House is now claiming
that he will be replaced by Texas Congressman John Ratcliffe after the interim appointment
is completed.
Criticism of Grenell for his clearly evident deficiencies misses the point, however, as he
is not in place to do anything constructive. He has already initiated a purge of federal
employees in the White House and national security apparatus considered to be insufficiently
loyal, an effort which has been supported by National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Many career officers have been sent back to their home agencies
while the new appointees are being drawn from the pool of neoconservatives that proliferated in
the George W. Bush administration. Admittedly some prominent neocons like Bill Kristol have
disqualified themselves for service with the new regime due to their vitriolic criticism of
Trump the candidate, but many others have managed to remain politically viable by keeping their
mouths shut during the 2016 campaign. To no one's surprise, many of the new employees being
brought in are being carefully vetted to make sure that they are passionate supporters of
Israel.
While it is not unusual for presidents to surround themselves with devoted yes-men, as Trump
does with his spectacularly unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner, his administration is
nevertheless unusual in its tendency to apply an absolute loyalty litmus test to nearly
everyone surrounding the president, even several layers down into the administration where
employees are frequently apolitical. As the Trump White House has not been renowned for its
adroit policies and forward thinking, the loss of expertise will be hardly noticeable, but
there will certainly be a reduction in challenges to group think while replacing officials in
the law enforcement and inspector general communities will mean that there will be no one in a
high enough position to impede or check presidential misbehavior. Instead, high officials will
be principally tasked with coming up with rationalizations to excuse what the White House
does.
... ... ...
Subsequent to the defenestration of Atkinson, Trump went after another inspector general
Glenn Fine, who was principal deputy IG at the Pentagon and had been charged with heading the
panel of inspectors that would have oversight responsibility to certify the proper
implementation of the $2.2 trillion dollar coronavirus relief package. As has been noted in the
media, there was particular concern regarding the lack of transparency regarding the $500
billion Exchange Stabilizing Fund (ESF) that had been set aside to make loans to corporations
and other large companies while the really urgently needed Small Business Loan allocation has
been failing to work at all except for Israeli
companies that have lined up for the loans. The risk that the ESF would become a slush fund
for companies favored by the White House was real, and several investigative reports observed
that Trump business interests might also directly benefit from the way it was drafted.
Four days after the firing of Atkinson, Fine also was let go to be replaced by the EPA
inspector general Sean O'Donnell, who is considered a Trump loyalist. On the previous day the
tweeter-in-chief came down on yet another IG, the woman responsible for Health and Human
Services Christi Grimm, who had issued a report stating that the her department had found "severe"
shortages of virus testing material at hospitals and "widespread" shortages of personal
protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers. Trump quipped to reporters "Where did he
come from, the inspector general. What's his name?"
On the following day, Trump unleashed the tweet machine, asking "Why didn't the I.G., who
spent 8 years with the Obama Administration (Did she Report on the failed H1N1 Swine Flu
debacle where 17,000 people died?), want to talk to the Admirals, Generals, V.P. & others
in charge, before doing her report. Another Fake Dossier!"
A comment about foxes taking over the hen house would not be amiss and one might also note
that the swamp is far from drained. A concerted effort is clearly underway to purge anyone from
the upper echelons of the U.S. government who in any way contradicts what is coming out of the
White House. Inspectors general who are tasked with looking into malfeasance are receiving the
message that if they want to stay employed, they have to toe the presidential line, even as it
seemingly whimsically changes day by day. And then there is the irony of the heads at major
agencies like Environmental Protection now being committed to not enforcing existing
environmental regulations at all.
Most damaging to consumer interests, the rot has also affected the so-called regulatory
agencies that are supposed to monitor the potentially illegal activities of corporations and
industries to protect the public. As University of Chicago economist George Stigler several
times predicted, under both Obama and Trump advocates of ostensibly "regulated" corporations
have taken over every U.S. federal regulatory agency . The captured U.S. government
regulators now represent the interests of the corporations, not the public. This is more like
government by a criminal oligarchy rather than of, by and for The People.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is [email protected] .
I yield to no one in my contempt for the fraud-failure of God Emperor Bush III but the author
has to be aware that talk of "impeachable" offenses is meaningless in American politics.
There has never been and never will be an impeachment effort that's not primarily
political rather than process-motivated. It's an up-or-down vote based on a partisan
head-counting and opportunism and public dissatisfaction. All the Article-this-and-that is
Magic Paper Talmudry.
Trump is a somewhat rogueish, somewhat rival Don and faction-head in the same criminal
(((Commission))) that's been running America for well over a century. He's Jon Gotti to their
Carlo Gambino, and his gauche nouveaux-elite style offends the sensibilities of the more
snobbish Davoise, but he's just angling for a seat at the table and a cut of the spoils, not
a return of power to the people.
Impeachment would serve no purpose but what we've seen so far with Russiagate, etc..
– a sideshow distraction from the real backroom, long-knife action going down, ala the
"settling scores" montage in Godfather III.
"To be sure, Trump has good reason to hate the intelligence and national security community,
which utterly rejected his candidacy and plotted to destroy both his campaign and, even after
he was elected, his presidency." -- Yes to this. This is OBVIOUS to all but the dullest rubes
or those who are in on it and trying to escape what they tried to do in attempting to over
throw the US Government. The rest?
Once you have this stated– that an actual Coup which was certainly plotted/sprung by
the last occupant of the Presidency along with Clinton, Brennan, Comey, and many other NWO
Globalists throughout the Government (FBI, CIA, DOJ ) and outside of it (the Globalist NWO
MEDIA) the rest is drivel -- they tried to take him out–JFK they used a bullet, here
not yet– so to say he shouldn't put in people he absolutely trusts at this time into
any position he can? Are you kidding or what? You can't be serious– I've actually had
someone try and kill me they were quite serious about it– my reaction after was not
anything like what I see you suggesting or mirrored in your "analysis". This is how the CIA
"counsels" in response to a murderous Coup -- an attempt to overthrow the duly elected
Government?
How do you overreact to a group of the most powerful people in the World getting together
to try to murder you? That's your argument basically– he's over reacting to that? He
shouldn't have "Loyalists". He needs to work with these other people -- the ones who want to
murder him -- keep some of those "non-Loyalists" on board who time after time have plotted
against him in every way possible during the last nearly 4 years?
You seem to be one strange dude from my life's vantage point any way, what a perspective
.Maybe you would actually deal with people of this magnitude trying to destroy you in the way
you state but no sane/fairly intelligent person would -- I can't get past you have that
sentence in there and then follow it with all the rest -- you seem to live in some alternate
reality where when someone tries to murder you the right reaction is to blow it off and work
with them– give them another few shots at you– say what? You learned this from
your years at the CIA– this is how they train/advise things like this should be dealt
with up at Langley? Or is it just wishful thinking on your part that they get another shot at
him?
While it is not unusual for presidents to surround themselves with devoted yes-men, as
Trump does with his spectacularly unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner, his administration
is nevertheless unusual in its tendency to apply an absolute loyalty litmus test to nearly
everyone surrounding the president
True enough. Trump has also injected into Washington his own nest of swamp creatures and
Wall St. bigwigs. However it is also true that Trump has been under unrelenting attack since
the day he announced his candidacy. This is not fair. With the possible exception of Nixon,
I've never seen a more ruthless campaign by political insiders to demean a public figure.
But to whom must Trump show ceaseless and attentive loyalty to?–no matter what?
I can't get too worked up about the firing of the prison guards; I rather enjoy the
charade.
The real problem is that: 'It's the system, stupid!' and no amount of tinkering or puting
the 'right' people in these positions will ever do anything more than just changing the
illusion that something is being done.
It reminds me a little of that late Soviet Union film "Burned by the Sun" about Stalin's
purges of the criminals that had ridden his coat tails to power. Try as the movie makers did,
I could not and would not feel an ounce of sorrow for those (these) scumbags who had wielded
immoral, arbitrary, and disproportionate power over their subjects.
The government has been against the people for my entire lifetime (I'm an old man now). One
of the only glimmers of light in that time, JFK was snuffed out. After all, who did he think
he was, trying to stop the elites from having their war in Vietnam?
He (Trump) should have purged all of the Obama appointees on day one.
The Vindman twins are a perfect example of the Deep State.
While I can understand your loathing of Trump's middle East policies, I do also, what he has
blatantley done vis a vis the Zionist Entity is very little different than what slick Obama
did under the table, outside of the Iran deal.
And to tell you the truth, as much as I loathe Israel the Iran deal was definitely flawed and
should have been more advantageous to America and the West. Iran should have seen the
advantages of totally relinquishing nuclear weapons even with mad Zionists in their
neighborhood. They could have still kept their ballistic missiles, sans nuclear tips.
@Getaclue
The idea that Trump is fighting the Deep State is ludacris this is a charade if the Deep
State didn't want Trump to be President he wouldn't be. Trump is a Deep State minion. No
matter the existential threat to the US the 1% get richer and the 99% get poorer.
He (Trump) should have purged all of the Obama appointees on day one.
That supposes that Trump is not a Deep Stater as was Obama this is a poor supposition.
Iran should have seen the advantages of totally relinquishing nuclear weapons even with
mad Zionists in their neighborhood. They could have still kept their ballistic missiles,
sans nuclear tips.
Ballistic missiles, sans nuclear tips are useless. Did anybody care when North Korea had
ballistic missiles before they had something worthwhile to put on the tip? Hell no.
Trump has had two open coup attempts in three years, and a constant barrage of leaks etc. His
purges are clearly at least three years too late.
Also, to an outsider, it's strange how some right-wing American journalists write in a way
which indicates that they have faith in the due process, checks-and-balances etc afforded by
the American system. I don't understand how any American right-winger could maintain their
faith in the U.S. political system, it seems corrupt approaching the point that it is
beyond-repair.
Trump's MAGA For The People efforts, must take steps to undo the damage done by the
prior criminal admistration.
Here is an detailed explanation of how Barack Hussein intentionally undermined the rule of
law:(1)
Aside from the date the important part of the first page is the motive for sending it.
The DOJ is telling the court in July 2018: based on what they know the FISA application
still contains "sufficient predication for the Court to have found probable cause" to
approve the application. The DOJ is defending the Carter Page FISA application as still
valid.
However, it is within the justification of the application that alarm bells are found.
On page six the letter identifies the primary participants behind the FISA
redactions:
DOJ needed to protect evidence Mueller had already extracted from the fraudulent FISA
authority. That's the motive.
In July 2018 if the DOJ-NSD had admitted the FISA application and all renewals were
fatally flawed Robert Mueller would have needed to withdraw any evidence gathered as a
result of its exploitation. The DOJ in 2018 was protecting Mueller's poisoned fruit.
If the DOJ had been honest with the court, there's a strong possibility some, perhaps
much, of Mueller evidence gathering would have been invalidated and cases were pending. The
solution: mislead the court and claim the predication was still valid.
I am not sure why Giraldi is defending Barack Hussein and Hillary Clinton's behaviour
& staff choices. All rational human beings see the damage that Hillary created at the
State Department.
"What's complicated is that even if what everything we say about the society of surveillance
is scary and true, the state obtains this obedience in the name of its most undisputed
function, which is to protect the population from creeping death.
That's what plenty of serious studies define as 'biolegitimacy'."
And I would add, today, a biolegitimacy boosted by widespread voluntary servitude.
Linh Dinh: "Diogenes, "I am a citizen of the world.""
Nobody knows exactly what he meant by this. He had previously been stripped of his
citizenship in Sinope, so it may have simply been a way a expressing that fact. Also, it's
worth pointing out that he was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, whose conquests up to
323 BC, the year both men died, included all of the known world. According to some, Alexander
once went to meet Diogenes, who was sunning himself on a nearby hill. Diogenes, unimpressed
with the conqueror, asked him to step out of the way, as he was blocking the sun. Departing,
Alexander is reputed to have said that if he hadn't been Alexander, then he would have liked
to have been Diogenes.
Linh Dinh: "The coronavirus crisis is a turning point in this escalating war
between globalists and us dumb hicks."
Not really a turning point, certainly not in the sense of a reversal. And there's no war,
because for a war you need two sides. The dumb hicks may rail against shadowy "globalists",
but are too stupid to realize that they themselves are globalists. The hicks want their cheap
computers, and the thousands of other things manufactured by slave labor in China, and the
globalists are happy to provide them. Yet the same dopes chanting USA! USA! (the forces of
nationalism, at least in America) don't understand that empire has downsides as well as
advantages. The coronavirus pandemic is an example of the cost of empire, the white man's
technological empire that has come to cover the whole world. In that way, it resembles
previous plagues, such as the plague of Justinian in the sixth century, and the Black Death
in the fourteenth, both of which are also thought to have originated in China and infected
the white world by means of global commerce.
Linh Dinh: "It will be a world of ubiquitous surveillance, universal snitching,
curtailed movement, suffocated speech and enforced, increasingly absurd dogmatism, with a
lockdown to be sprung on us at any time, since we already know the drill."
The hicks themselves will beg for it, because they're always for more law and order.
They're born badgelickers and just can't get enough of it. You can hear their excuses
already. "If it saves only one life it will be worth it." "If it prevents another 9/11, it
will be worth it." "If it allows countries and races to coexist in harmony, it will be worth
it." "I'm not doing anything wrong, so I have nothing to hide. Surveill me all you like."
Besides, what remains of privacy anyway? It's been abolished. Technological innovation has
made universal surveillance a fait accompli . The hicks themselves have voluntarily
installed listening devices and spy cameras in their own homes. Every street corner and
shopping mall is equipped with cameras. Drones and satellites oversee everything. Government
supercomputers collate the data; identify threats.
Linh Dinh: "To avoid this fate, we must assert our regional autonomy and resist
each diktat. This will take much clarity, composure and courage. We shouldn't worry about
what foreign hicks are up to, but simply band with neighboring hicks, to defend our
precious hickdom. We must liberate our home turf first."
People will never voluntarily abandon high technology and the empire to which it has given
rise. To do so would cost billions of lives and cause extreme hardship for any survivors. The
technological trap has snapped shut.
The coronavirus pandemic is an example of the cost of empire, the white man's
technological empire that has come to cover the whole world. In that way, it resembles
previous plagues, such as the plague of Justinian in the sixth century, and the Black Death
in the fourteenth, both of which are also thought to have originated in China and infected
the white world by means of global commerce.
We could push that logic a bit father and arrive at: occasional viral outbreaks are the
cost of civilization to begin with, so "lockdowns" are madness. No evolution without
biological exploitation.
Totally agree with your remarks. As rousing as this piece is, it isn't the reality. We
have existed on this arc since fire.
I was in Shenzhen China when the epidemic officially started.
I watched closely when Xi Jinping appeared publicly and assumed leadership
(ie put HIS neck on the line) for the outbreak.
Also reassuring was his declaration of open and factual reporting.
He periodically reappears on the hundreds of state controlled TV channels
calling on delegated officials to meet required standards. Fail in this and you are gone
Most of the official TV/Net information was mostly optimistic, and frequently
nationalistic.
By way of contrast, I was able to access via cellphone the banned western
The Economist, The Guardian. It was like two different worlds.
The western reporting was almost all negative,, ,disparaging, damming with faint praise
or making unsourced statements about draconian authoritarianism in China..
Worse still, Trump had slashed the CDC budget, appointed evangelical Mike Pence as point
man
for the battle against CoVid in the US and indicated at that point
"The markets will determine the cost of CV testing"
So it is worth following the US closely for details of how
Capitalism deals with a communal disease called COVID
WET MARKETS
I did a grid survey of our 50 Block hi-rise by walking around the apartments .
All had shops at the ground level - around 20 per building, and over a third of them were
eateries.
They require a hi-turnover and low-markup for survival . They were in part
supplied by open air markets, where meat is laid out on unrefrigerated wooden blocks
to be cut on demand throughout the day. Yes, the fish are fresh - from swimming
( in distinctly unhygienic water ) into plastic bags within 5 minutes.
Chopping block just given a quick wipe.. Hmm.. I thought this is pandemic country...
This March, as COVID-19's capacity to overwhelm the American
healthcare system was becoming obvious, experts marveled at the scenario unfolding before their
eyes. "We have Third World countries who are better equipped than we are now in Seattle,"
noted one healthcare professional, her words echoed just a few days later by a shocked
doctor in New York who described
"a third-world country type of scenario." Donald Trump could similarly only grasp what was
happening through the same comparison. "I have seen things that I've never seen before," he
said
. "I mean I've seen them, but I've seen them on television and faraway lands, never in my
country."
At the same time, regardless of the fact that "Third World" terminology is outdated and
confusing, Trump's inept handling of the pandemic has itself elicited more than one "banana republic"
analogy, reflecting already well-worn, bipartisan comparisons of Trump to a "
third world dictator " (never mind that dictators and authoritarians have never been
confined solely to lower income countries).
And yet, while such comparisons provoke predictably nativist outrage from the right, what is
absent from any of
these responses to the situation is a sense of reflection or humility about the "Third
World" comparison itself. The doctor in New York who finds himself caught in a "third world"
scenario and the political commentators outraged when Trump behaves "like a third world
dictator" uniformly express themselves in terms of incredulous wonderment. One never hears the
potential second half of this comparison: "I am now experiencing what it is like to live in a
country that resembles the kind of nation upon whom the United States regularly imposes broken
economies and corrupt leaders."
Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or
lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and
political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the
"Third World."
In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70 nations
–
more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases,
listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military
personnel working in approximately 160 countries. This is a globe-spanning military and
security apparatus organized into regional commands
that resemble the "proconsuls of the Roman empire and the governors-general of the
British." In other words, this apparatus is built not for deterrence, but for primacy.
The U.S.'s global primacy emerged from the wreckage of World War II when the United States
stepped into the shoes vacated by European empires. Throughout the Cold War, and in the name of
supporting "free peoples," the sprawling American security apparatus helped ensure that 300
years of imperial resource extraction and wealth distribution – from what was then called
the Third World to the First – remained undisturbed, despite decolonization.
Since then, the United States
has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries,
many of which (e.g. Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile) had elected leaders willing to
nationalize their natural resources and industries. Often these interventions
took the form of covert operations. Less frequently, the United States went to war to
achieve these same ends (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq).
In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more
on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our
nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget
and over half of all
discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the
Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit.
Trump's claim that Obama had
"hollowed out" defense spending was not only grossly untrue, it masked the consistency of the
security budget's metastasizing growth since the Vietnam War, regardless of who sits in the
White House. At $738 billion dollars, Trump's security budget was passed in December with the
overwhelming support of House Democrats.
And yet, from the perspective of public discourse in this country, our globe-spanning,
resource-draining military and security apparatus exists in an entirely parallel universe to
the one most Americans experience on a daily level. Occasionally, we wake up to the idea of
this parallel universe but only when the United States is involved in visible military actions.
The rest of the time, Americans leave thinking about international politics – and the
deaths, for instance, of 2.5 million
Iraqis since 2003 – to the legions of policy analysts and Pentagon employees who
largely accept American military primacy as an "article of faith," as Professor of
International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham Patrick Porter has said
.
Foreign policy is routinely the last issue Americans consider when they vote for presidents
even though the president has more discretionary power over foreign policy than any other area
of American politics. Thus, despite its size, impact, and expense, the world's military hegemon
exists somewhere on the periphery of most Americans' self-understanding, as though, like the
sun, it can't be looked upon directly for fear of blindness.
Why is our avoidance of the U.S.'s weighty impact on the world a problem in the midst of the
coronavirus pandemic? Most obviously, the fact that our massive security budget has gone so
long without being widely questioned means that one of the soundest courses of action for the
U.S. during this crisis remains resolutely out of sight.
The shock of discovering that our healthcare system is so quickly overwhelmed should
automatically trigger broader conversations about spending priorities that entail deep and
sustained cuts in an engorged security budget whose sole purpose is the maintenance of primacy.
And yet, not only has this not happened, $10.5 billion of the coronavirus aid package has been
earmarked for the Pentagon, with $2.4 billion of that
channeled to the "defense industrial base." Of the $500 billion aimed at corporate America,
$17.5 billion is
set aside "for businesses critical to maintaining national security" such as aerospace.
To make matters worse, our blindness to this bloated security complex makes it frighteningly
easy for champions of American primacy to sound the alarm when they even suspect a dip in
funding might be forthcoming. Indeed, before most of us had even glanced at the details of the
coronavirus bill, foreign policy hawks were already
issuing dark prediction s about the impact of still-imaginary cuts in the security budget
on the U.S.'s "ability to strike any target on the planet in response to hostile actions by any
actor" – as if that ability already did not exist many times over.
On a more existential level, a country that is collectively engaged in unseeing its own
global power cannot help but fail to make connections between that power and domestic politics,
particularly when a little of the outside world seeps in. For instance, because most Americans
are unaware of their government's sponsorship of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the Middle
East throughout the Cold War, 9/11 can only ever appear to have come from nowhere, or because
Muslims hate our way of life.
This "how did we get here?" attitude replicates itself at every level of political life
making it profoundly difficult for Americans to see the impact of their nation on the rest of
the world, and the blowback from that impact on the United States itself. Right now, the
outsized influence of American foreign policy is already encouraging the spread of coronavirus
itself as U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran severely hamper that
country's ability to respond to the virus at home and virtually
guarantee its spread throughout the region.
Closer to home, our shock at the healthcare system's inept response to the pandemic masks
the relationship between the U.S.'s imposition
of free-market totalitarianism on countries throughout the
Global South and the impact of free-market totalitarianism on our own welfare state .
Likewise, it is more than karmic comeuppance that the President of the United States now
resembles the self-serving authoritarians the U.S. forced on so many formerly colonized
nations. The modes of militarized policing American security experts exported to those
authoritarian regimes also contributed , on a
policy level, to both the rise of militarized policing in American cities and the rise of mass
incarceration in the 1980s and 90s. Both of these phenomena played a significant role in
radicalizing Trump's white nationalist base and decreasing their tolerance for democracy.
Most importantly, because the U.S. is blind to its power abroad, it cannot help but turn
that blindness on itself. This means that even during a pandemic when America's exceptionalism
– our lack of national healthcare – has profoundly negative consequences on the
population, the idea of looking to the rest of the world for solutions remains unthinkable.
Senator Bernie Sanders' reasonable suggestion that the U.S., like Denmark, should
nationalize its healthcare system is dismissed as the fanciful pipe dream of an aging socialist
rather than an obvious solution to a human problem embraced by nearly every other nation in the
world. The Seattle healthcare professional who expressed shock that even "Third World
countries" are "better equipped" than we are to confront COVID-19 betrays a stunning ignorance
of the diversity of healthcare systems within developing countries. Cuba, for instance,
has responded
to this crisis with an efficiency and humanity that puts the U.S. to shame.
Indeed, the U.S. is only beginning to feel the full impact of COVID-19's explosive
confrontation with our exceptionalism: if the unemployment rate really does reach 32 percent,
as has been predicted,
millions of people will not only lose their jobs but their health insurance as well. In the
middle of a pandemic.
Over 150 years apart, political commentators Edmund Burke and Aimé Césaire
referred to this blindness as the byproduct of imperialism. Both used the exact same language
to describe it; as a "gangrene" that "poisons" the colonizing body politic. From their
different historical perspectives, Burke and Césaire observed how colonization
boomerangs back on colonial society itself, causing irreversible damage to nations that
consider themselves humane and enlightened, drawing them deeper into denial and
self-delusion.
Perhaps right now there is a chance that COVID-19 – an actual, not metaphorical
contagion – can have the opposite effect on the U.S. by opening our eyes to the things
that go unseen. Perhaps the shock of recognizing the U.S. itself is less developed than our
imagined "Third World" might prompt Americans to tear our eyes away from ourselves and look
toward the actual world outside our borders for examples of the kinds of political, economic,
and social solidarity necessary to fight the spread of Coronavirus. And perhaps moving beyond
shock and incredulity to genuine recognition and empathy with people whose economies and
democracies have been decimated by American hegemony might begin the process of reckoning with
the costs of that hegemony, not just in "faraway lands" but at home. In our country.
Posted on April
16, 2020 by Yves Smith Yves here. It would be
better if I were wrong, but I have doubts about this scenario. It appears to assume some
orderliness in the responses to the coronavirus, both in terms of businesses and governments
cooperating. I don't see this as possible in the US. Not only is there an absence of public
spiritedness, government is not trusted. And that's not an uninformed view. The US in incapable
of mounting a New Deal or war mobilization level response. It lacks the operational capacity.
And too many people in power are in it for themselves. Things may be better in a lot of the
rest of the world in terms of social and political cohesiveness, but few countries are as close
to being an autarky as the US (Russia is probably the best candidate), and so the breakdown of
global supply chains is likely to hit them even harder.
Similarly, if concerns that getting Covid-19 confers only short-term immunity (say a year or
less), then investing in tracking who has contacted it for the purpose of deeming individuals
to be safe from a travel/visa standpoint is a waste of effort.
I suspect Grasmsci is the best seer:
The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be
born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.
By Marshall Auerback, a market analyst and commentator and Jan Ritch-Frel, the executive
director of the Independent
Media Institute . Produced by Economy for All , a project
of the Independent Media Institute
The coronavirus pandemic has upended the global economic system, and just as importantly,
cast out 40 years of neoliberal orthodoxy that dominated the industrialized world.
Forget about the " new
world order ." Offshoring and global supply chains are out; regional and local production
is in. Market fundamentalism is passé; regulation is the norm. Public health is now more
valuable than just-in-time supply systems. Stockpiling and industrial capacity suddenly make
more sense, which may have future implications in the recently revived
antitrust debate in the U.S.
Biodata will drive the next phase of social management and surveillance, with near-term
consequences for the way countries handle immigration and customs. Health care and education
will become digitally integrated the way newspapers and television were 10 years ago. Health
care itself will increasingly be seen as a necessary public good, rather than a private right,
until now in the U.S. predicated on age, employment or income levels. Each of these will
produce political tensions within their constituencies and in the society generally as they
adapt to the new normal.
This political sea change doesn't represent a sudden conversion to full-on socialism, but
simply a case of minimizing our future risks of infection by providing full-on universal
coverage. Beyond that, as Professor Michael Sandel has
argued , one has to query the "moral logic" of providing "coronavirus treatment for the
uninsured," while leaving "health coverage in ordinary times to the market" (especially when
our concept of what constitutes "ordinary times" has been upended).
Internationally, there will be many positive and substantial international shifts to address
overdue global public health needs and accords on mitigating climate change. And it is finally
dawning on Western-allied economic planners that the military price tag that made so-called
cheap oil and cheap labor possible is vastly higher than investment in advanced research and
next-generation manufacturing.
This also means that the old North (developed world) versus South (emerging world) division
that long preoccupied scholars and
policymakers in the post–World War II period will become increasingly stark again,
particularly for those emerging economies that have hitherto attracted investment largely on
the grounds of being repositories of low-cost labor. They will now find themselves picking
sides as they seek assistance in an increasingly divided and multipolar world.
The fault lines of the next economic era have already begun to surface, creating friction
with the previous international structure of banking and finance, trade and industry. There is
a force beyond elites and critical industries driving this: The proletariat has literally
become the "precariat."
In the U.S. and Europe, the staggering number of service economy workers are going to be
quickly politicized by the shortfalls: People have seen a collapse in income, and big failures
in education, and health care. Union-busting, pension fleecing, and austerity budgets and new
technologies that concentrate wealth away from labor have created a circumstance where
ownership and profit models must be revisited to sustain stability. The needs are too acute to
be distracted by the lies of Trump, or the inadequate responses in other parts of the
industrialized world. The current crisis will likely prompt geopolitical and economic shifts
and dislocations we haven't seen since World War II.
Death of Chimerica, the Rise of New Production Blocs
One of the biggest casualties of the current order is the breakdown of " Chimerica ,"
the decades-old nexus between the U.S. and Chinese economies, along with other leading
countries' partnerships with Chinese manufacturing. While the geopolitics of blame for the
origins of coronavirus continue to shake out, the process that saw a decrease in exports from
China to the U.S. from
$816 billion in 2018 to $757 billion in 2019 will accelerate and intensify over the next
decade.
While a decoupling is unlikely to lead to armed conflict, a Cold War style of competition
could emerge as a new global fault line. Much as the Cold War did not preclude some degree of
collaboration between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, so too today there may still be
areas of cooperation between Washington and Beijing from climate to public health, advanced
research to weapons proliferation.
Nor does this shift necessarily spell the sudden collapse of Chinese power or influence --
it has a colossal and still-growing domestic market and is on the international leaderboard for
a wide range of advanced indicators. But its status as the world's most desirable offshore
manufacturing hub is a thing of the past, along with the economic stability that steady inflows
of foreign capital brought with it. It does show a susceptibility to domestic stress, with the
Hong Kong protests last year providing a hint of what is in store as the party leadership can't
pivot to new realities that include slower economic growth and declining foreign
investment.
As investment flows turn inward back to industrialized countries, there will likely be
corresponding diminution of the global labor arbitrage emanating from the emerging world. In
general, that's a negative for the global South, but potentially a positive factor for workers
elsewhere, whose wages and living standards have stagnated for decades as they lost jobs to
competing overseas low-cost manufacturing centers (the increase in inequality is
principally a product of 40 years of sustained attacks on unions). The jobs won't be the
same, but to be sure, manufacturing incomes exceed those of the service industry.
As each country adopts a " sauve-qui-peut " mentality, businesses and
investors are drawing the necessary conclusions. Coronavirus has been a wake-up call, as
countries trying to import medical goods from existing global supply chains face a
shortage of air and ocean freight options to ship goods back to home markets. Already, the
Japanese government has announced its plans "to spend over $2 billion to help its country's
firms move production out of China," according to the Spectator
Index . The EU leadership is publicly
indicating a policy of subsidy and state investment in companies to prevent Chinese buyouts or
undercutting prices.
Two billion dollars is small potatoes compared to what is likely to be spent by the U.S. and
other countries going forward. And it can't simply be done via research and development tax
credits. The state can and must drive this redomiciling process in other ways: via local content
requirements (LCRs) , tariffs, quotas and/or government procurement local sourcing
requirements. And with a $750-billion-plus budget, the U.S. military will likely play a role
here, as it
ponders disruptions from overseas supply sources .
Of course, if the U.S. does this, other parts of the world -- China, the EU, Japan -- will
likely do the same, which will accelerate the regionalization trends in trade. This may mean
that some U.S. firms will have to operate in foreign markets through local subsidiaries with
local content preferences and local workforces (that is how it worked in the 1920s -- Ford UK
was a mostly local British company, different from the U.S. Ford Motor Company, but with shared
profits).
An examination of U.S. planning for the post-1945 world reveals the emphasis was on free
trade in raw materials mostly, not finished goods. (The U.S. only adopted one-way "free trade"
with its Asian and European allies later as a Cold War measure to accelerate their development
and keep them in the American orbit.)
Domestically within the U.S., as
Dalia Marin writes , the coming declines in interest rates will accelerate "robot adoption"
by 75.7 percent, with concentration "in the sectors that are most exposed to global value
chains. In Germany, that means autos and transport equipment, electronics, and textiles --
industries that import around 12 percent of their inputs from low-wage countries. Globally, the
industries where the most reshoring activity is taking place are chemicals, metal products, and
electrical products and electronics."
As the coronavirus pandemic is illustrating, a viable industrial ecosystem cannot work
effectively if it is dispersed to too many geographic extremities or there are insufficient
redundancies built into the transportation of goods back into the home market (rail, highway,
etc.). Proximity has become a significant competitive advantage for manufacturers, and a
strategic advantage for governments. But the U.S. government must play an expanded role in the
planning process. The U.S. is still a leader in many high-tech areas, but is suffering the
consequences of a generation-long effort to undermine the government's natural role as an
economic planner.
In the form of the regionalized blocs that are being sketched, in the Americas, Mexico is
likely to be one of the leading recipients of American foreign direct investment (FDI). It
already has a
$17 billion medical device industry and is sure to absorb much more capacity from China.
This has
already started to happen as a result of the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA,
or new NAFTA) . Furthermore, the
Washington Post reports that "[a]s demand soars for medical devices and personal protective
equipment in the fight against the coronavirus, the United States has turned to the phalanx of
factories south of the border that are now the outfitters of many U.S. hospitals." This is in
addition to the
thousands of assembly plants already in place in Mexico since the establishment of NAFTA.
Indeed, if the jobs that had moved to China move to Mexico, Central America, and South America,
this likely addresses many long-standing social tensions in regard to immigration management,
currency imbalances and corresponding black market industries (ironically, it also likely means
the end of Trump's wall, as the industrial ecosystem of the Americas becomes more cohesive and
widespread).
Big Business Is Good Business
But this will also have significant impacts closer to home: Much as Franklin Delano
Roosevelt ultimately prioritized domestic
ramp-ups in wartime production over trust-busting , so too national champions are likely to
feature more prominently today, as domestic scale and balance sheet strength are given
precedence to accommodate the drive to revive employment quickly,
and work collaboratively to halt the spread of the coronavirus . The scale of companies
will not be regarded as a political problem if they can both deliver for consumers and show the
capacity of following political direction for what the public's needs are. Tech companies like
Apple and Google are stepping up to fill the void left by
massive federal government dysfunction . The " break up Big
Tech " voices are nowhere to be heard at the moment.
We still need a more robust form of regulation for these corporate behemoths, but via a
system of regulation that is "function-centric," rather than size-centric. As co-author
Marshall Auerback has written
before , this kind of regulation "restricts the range of corporate activities (e.g.,
structural separation so as to prevent companies like Amazon and Google from owning both the
platform as well as participating as a seller on that platform), or the prices such companies
can charge (as regulators often do for utilities or railways). These considerations would be
'size neutral': they would apply independently of corporate size per se."
Capitalism has always had its plutocrats, but scaling back America's overly financialized
model (by preventing stock buybacks, to cite one example) would represent a useful reform and
prevent a lot of economic waste. Instead of going to enrich executives and shareholders beyond
the dreams of Croesus ,
that measure might help to ensure that the profits of these companies will be directed to the
workers' wages (which also means supporting increased unionization), or plowed back into
investment (e.g., increased robotics).
Biodata, Privacy, and an End to Pandemic Profiteering
And there are fault lines in the business world. The pharmaceutical and medical research
industries face immense pressure from other businesses to end the pandemic so they can get back
to profitability. That means temporarily setting aside profits and pooling intellectual
property to encourage collaborative efforts on the part of biotech and pharmaceutical companies
to find proper treatments for COVID-19, and make them freely available, especially if
governments were to waive antitrust scrutiny in exchange for all of the data Big Pharma
companies collectively hold. As the
Guardian reports , "[t]here is a precedent. Last June, 10 of the world's largest
pharmaceutical companies -- including Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline --
announced they would pool data for an AI-based search for new antibiotics, which are
urgently needed as antibiotic-resistant bacteria have proliferated across the world,
threatening the growth of untreatable disease."
Privacy
advocates are already expressing concerns about a growing and overweening medical
surveillance state. These surveillance concerns lack historical context: From the 19th century
on, serious health problems were met by hardline government policies to reduce them. Policies
ranging from quarantine to vaccine were not always mandatory, but there was an understanding
that personal concessions had to be made to manage a huge population and an advanced society;
the Constitution was not a suicide pact. We can further alleviate those concerns today by
ensuring that the information uncovered does not become a precondition or additional cost of
receiving insurance coverage. In light of coronavirus, cost savings of incorporating biodata
into immigration and customs are a no-brainer for governments, and are certain to cause
friction with individuals who may not want to give blood or saliva to get a visa or work
permit, and agribusiness leaders who know that safety measures cut into profitability. But the
scales have tipped in the other direction.
North Versus South
What about the other countries in the developing world that don't have close geographic
proximity to a home market, or abundant supplies of key commodities required for 21st-century
manufacturing needs, or even a well-developed manufacturing base (in other words, the countries
that have hitherto been large recipients of investment solely on the grounds of cheap labor)?
Many of them have faced immediate pressure with the collapse in global trade, unprecedented
capital flight that is sure to grow as the coronavirus spreads, all the while coping with
COVID-19 with highly inadequate health systems.
In the meantime, the
multi-trillion-dollar market for emerging market debt , both sovereign bonds and commercial
paper, has collapsed. Many of these countries, via their state pension funds and sovereign
wealth funds, have become the ultimate endpoint for many of the newer asset-backed securities
that finally revived years after the 2008 financial crisis. This has become the potential new
stress point in the $52 trillion "
shadow banking " market. The U.S. Federal Reserve has sought to ease the funding stresses
of much of the developing economies by offering central bank swap lines. It has also broadened
prime dealer collateral acceptance rules, and set up commercial paper swap facilities, all of
which have eased short-term funding pressures in these economies that have incurred substantial
dollar liabilities.
As the emerging world central banks then start to lend on those lines to their own banks, it
should start to alleviate the shortage of dollars in the offshore dollar funding markets. We
are starting to see some easing of stresses, notably in
Indonesia -- because it's an exporter of resources more than a cheap labor price
economy.
But whereas in previous emerging markets crises, China was able to buttress these economies
via initiatives such as the " Belt and Road Initiative ,"
Beijing itself is likely to be buffeted by the twin shocks of declining global trade and a
reversal of foreign direct investment, which declined 8.6 percent in the first
two months of this year .
Longer-term, many other countries face comparable challenges to China: Capital controls,
collapsing domestic currencies, and widespread debt defaults are likely to become the norm.
That's already
happened to serial defaulter Argentina again . South Africa has been
downgraded to junk status . Turkey remains vulnerable. The so-called "BRICS" economies --
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- are all sinking like bricks. The problem is
exacerbated by the fact that coronavirus and likely future pandemics will create additional
stresses on developing economies that depend on their labor price advantage in the
international marketplace to survive.
By contrast, countries like South Korea and Taiwan have had a "good crisis." Both have
vibrant manufacturing sectors and created successful multiparty democracies. Foreign investment in South Korea continued to grow in
the first quarter of this year, as it rapidly moved to contain the spread of COVID-19 through
an extensive testing regime (while keeping its economy open). Similarly in Taiwan, by
activating a national emergency response system launched in 2004 (following the SARS virus),
that country has mounted a thoroughly competent coronavirus
intervention of unprecedented effectiveness . The results speak for themselves: as of April
15, in South Korea, a mere 225
deaths , while in Taiwan, an astonishingly low total
of six deaths in a country of 24 million people -- this despite far more exposure to
infected Chinese visitors than Italy, Spain or the U.S.
Of course, the very success of Taiwan's response revives another potential fault line,
namely the tension underlying the "One China" policy. Before COVID-19, it is
noteworthy that the WHO "even refused to publicly report Taiwan's cases of SARS until public
pressure prompted numbers to be published under the label of 'Taiwan, province of China,'"
according to Dr.
Anish Koka . At the very least, Taiwan's divergent approach and success at fighting the
pandemic will bolster its pro-independence factions.
The question of foreign nations upholding Taiwan's sovereignty with regard to China is
increasingly thorny, given Beijing's growing military capacities. This will present an ongoing
diplomatic challenge to Western parties who seek to increase engagement with Taipei without
heightening tensions in the region.
A Recalculation of 'Economic Value'
We have outlined many fault lines likely to be exposed or exacerbated as a consequence of
COVID-19. Happily, there is one fault line likely to be slammed shut: namely, the false
dichotomy that has long existed between economic growth and environmentalism. The Global Assessment from
the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
reports that "land degradation has reduced the productivity of 23 percent of the global land
surface, up to US$577 billion in annual global crops are at risk from pollinator loss and
100-300 million people are at increased risk of floods and hurricanes because of loss of
coastal habitats and protection." Likewise, the study cites the fact that as of 2015, 33
percent of marine fish stocks "were being harvested at unsustainable levels," and notes the
rise of plastic pollution (which "has increased tenfold since 1980 "),
both of which play a key role in degrading ecosystems in a manner that ultimately destroys
economic growth.
Finally, repeated pandemics over the past few decades have shown these are not blips, but
recurrent features of today's world. Hence, there is an increasing public appetite for
regulation to deal with this ongoing problem. Some industries, such as agribusinesses, won't
like this, but the concerns are well-founded. According to
expert Josh Balk , 75 percent of new diseases start in domestic and wild-caught animals,
and 2.2 million people die each year from illnesses transferred from animals. The majority of
these are transferred from poorly regulated factory farm chickens, cows and pigs; still, the "
wet markets" of Asia and Africa, and the trade in potential " transfer species ," such as
pangolins, a major driver of the $19
billion-a-year global trade in illegal wildlife, must also be addressed. Beijing has
suggested it will
ban trade in illegal wildlife and seek tighter regulation of the wet markets . The latter
in particular may be easier said than done, according to Dr. Zhenzhong
Si , a research associate at Canada's University of Waterloo who specializes in Chinese
food security, sustainability, and rural development. Dr. Si
argued that "[b]anning wet markets is not only going to be impossible, but will also be
destructive for urban food security in China as they play such a pivotal role in ensuring urban
residents' access to affordable and healthy food."
To be fair, this isn't the first time that the sacred tenets of the global economic
framework have dealt with a crisis that seemed to usher in a new era. The same thing happened
in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008. But that was largely seen as a financial
crisis, a product of faulty global financial plumbing that nobody truly understood, as opposed
to a widespread social collapse closely approximating the conditions of the Great Depression as
we have today.
Not only has the current lockdown put the entire global economy into deep freeze, but it
also came amidst a backdrop of widespread political and social upheaval, and a faux recovery
whose fruits were largely restricted to the top tier. A collateralized debt obligation is not
intuitively easy to grasp. By contrast, being forced to stay at home, deprived of vital income
and isolated from loved ones, while health care workers perish from overwork and lack of
protective gear, is a different order of magnitude.
Even as we re-integrate, it is hard to envisage a return to the "old normal." Trade patterns
will change. Self-sufficiency and geographic proximity will be prioritized over global
integration. There will be new winners and losers, but it is worth noting that the model of
capitalism we are describing -- one that does not feature obscenely overcompensated CEO pay
co-existing with serf labor and the widespread offshoring of manufacturing -- has existed in
different forms in the U.S. from 1945 into the 1980s, and still exists in parts of Europe
(Germany) and East Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) to this day.
Our everyday lives will be impacted as selective quarantines and some forms of social
distancing become the new normal (much as they were when we dealt with tuberculosis
epidemics). All of this has implications for a multitude of industries: restaurants,
leisure, travel, tourism, sporting events, entertainment, and media, as well as our evolving
definition of "essential" industries. Even our concept of personal privacy will likely have to
be amended, especially in regard to medical matters. Concerns about medical surveillance --
stigma (STDs, alcoholism, mental illness) and denial of insurance -- can be alleviated if
everyone is guaranteed treatment regardless of ability to pay, which will mean greater
government intrusion into the lives of citizens and activities of businesses as the public
sector seeks to socialize costs.
Taken in aggregate, we are about to experience the most profound social, economic and
political changes since World War II.
The desperation with which the oligarchy seeks to preserve the neo-liberal dispensation, and
particularly on 'the left' which, historically, opposed its anti-egalitarianism, may be
explicable in very simple terms:
"A new Institute for Policy Studies Inequality briefing paper, authored by Bob Lord,
reveals that between 1980 and 2018, the taxes paid by America's billionaires, when measured
as a percentage of their wealth, decreased a staggering 79 percent.
"The only appropriate metric by which to measure the tax burden on billionaires, the
briefing paper explains, is the rate of tax they pay on their wealth. Unlike the rest of us,
the living expenses of billionaires do not constrain their accumulation of wealth. Nor do
they rely on their work to generate additional wealth. For billionaires, the accumulation of
wealth is driven forward almost exclusively by the growth of their existing wealth and
constrained almost exclusively by the tax they are required to pay. No matter how the taxes
imposed on billionaires are determined – by income, consumption, property ownership,
transfers by gift or bequest – they function only as a tax on wealth.
"By allowing the tax burden of billionaires, as a percentage of their wealth, to plummet
since 1980, policy makers have caused the nation's wealth to concentrate obscenely at the
very top. In the 12 years between 2006 and 2018, IPS reports, nearly 7 percent of America's
real increase in wealth, measured in 2018 dollars, went to the top 400 billionaires. If the
pattern of the past four decades does not change, an even greater share of the nation's newly
created wealth over the next 12 years will flow to the billionaire class..."
"American collusion with kleptocracy comes at a terrible
cost for the rest of the world. All of the stolen money, all of those evaded tax dollars sunk
into Central Park penthouses and Nevada shell companies, might otherwise fund health care and
infrastructure. (A report from the anti-poverty group One has argued that 3.6 million deaths
each year can be attributed to this sort of resource siphoning.)
Thievery tramples the possibilities of workable markets and credible democracy. It fuels
suspicions that the whole idea of liberal capitalism is a hypocritical sham: While the world is
plundered, self-righteous Americans get rich off their complicity with the crooks.
The Founders were concerned that venality would become standard procedure, and it has. Long
before suspicion mounted about the loyalties of Donald Trump, large swaths of the American
elite -- lawyers, lobbyists, real-estate brokers, politicians in state capitals who enabled the
creation of shell companies -- had already proved themselves to be reliable servants of a
rapacious global plutocracy.
"Richard Palmer was right: The looting elites of the former Soviet Union were far from rogue
profiteers. They augured a kleptocratic habit that would soon become widespread.
One bitter truth about the Russia scandal is that by the time Vladimir Putin attempted to
influence the shape of our country, it was already bending in the direction of his."
There's
a verbal tic particular to a certain kind of response to a certain kind of story about the
thinness and desperation of American society; about the person who died of preventable illness
or the Kickstarter campaign to help another who can't afford cancer treatment even with "good"
insurance; about the plight of the homeless or the lack of resources for the rural poor; about
underpaid teachers spending thousands of dollars of their own money for the most basic
classroom supplies; about train derailments, the ruination of the New York subway system and
the decrepit states of our airports and ports of entry.
"I can't believe in the richest country in the world. "
This is the expression of incredulity and dismay that precedes some story about the
fundamental impoverishment of American life, the fact that the lived, built geography of
existence here is so frequently wanting, that the most basic social amenities are at once
grossly overpriced and terribly underwhelming, that normal people (most especially the poor and
working class) must navigate labyrinths of bureaucracy for the simplest public services, about
our extraordinary social and political paralysis in the face of problems whose solutions seem
to any reasonable person self-evident and relatively straightforward.
It is true that, as measured by GDP, or by the size of the credit and equity markets, or
even just by the gaudy presence of our Googles, Amazons and Apples, the United States is the
greatest machine for the production of money in the modern history of the world.
But this wealth is largely an abstraction, a trick of the broad and largely meaningless
aggregations of numbers that makes up most of what the business pages call "economics." The
American commonwealth is shockingly impoverished. Ask anyone who's compared the nine-plus-hour
train ride from Pittsburgh to New York with the barely two-hour journey from Paris to Bordeaux,
an equidistant journey, or who's watched the orderly, accurate exit polls from a German
election and compared them with the
fizzling, overheating voting machines in Florida .
Now, it is true that bridges collapse in Europe , too, although
this past summer's tragedy was in Italy, whose famously ungovernable corruption may be the
closest continental analogue to our own United States. American liberals and leftists tend to
over-valorize the Western European model, but there is no doubt that the wealthy countries at
the core of the EU have far more successfully mitigated the most extreme social inequalities
and built systems for health and transportation that far outstrip anything in the U.S. Even in
their poor urban suburbs or, say, the disinvested industrial north of France, you will find
nothing like the squalor that we still permit -- that we accept as ordinary --
in the USA . Meanwhile, in our ever-declining adversary-of-convenience, the Moscow subway
runs on time.
The social wealth of a society is better measured by the quality of its common lived
environment than by a consolidated statistical approximation like GDP, or even an attempt at
weighted comparisons like so-called purchasing power parity . There
is a reason why our great American cities, for all of our supposed wealth, often feel and look
so shabby. The money goes elsewhere. Seville, a pretty, modest city of less than a million
people in the south of Spain, built 80 kilometers of bike lanes for $40 million in less than
two years, and eliminated a lot of ugly, on-street parking in the process. Imagine a
commensurate effort in New York City, a far wealthier place on paper. Well, its supposedly
liberal mayor is going to give Amazon $1.5 billion in tax breaks instead.
To be fair, New York City and state, mired in graft and corruption, cannot build a single
mile of subway for less than $2 billion.
Elsewhere, the con artists running America's military-industrial complex are worried that
the hundreds of billions we sink every year into planes that
cannot fly in the rain and
ships that cannot steer have left the United States virtually
unable to win any wars . The United States spends perhaps a trillion dollars every year on
its military and wars.
Poverty -- both individual and social -- is a policy, not an accident, and not some kind of
natural law. These are deliberate choices about the allocation of resources. They are eminently
undoable by modest exercises of political power, although if the state- and city-level
Democratic leaders of New York and northern Virginia are the national mold, then our nominally
left-wing party is utterly, hopelessly beholden to the upward transfer of social wealth to an
extremely narrow cadre of already extremely rich men and women.
I voted last week, an exercise that now feels like mouthing polite prayers at someone else's
church. The line snaked out the door of the tiny, hot basement room and into the cold rain.
There were only three voting machines. One was broken, and one seemed to be working only
intermittently. A young woman with a baby in a stroller was in line in front of me. After we'd
waited for 10 minutes without moving, she looked at me and rolled her eyes. "Can you believe
this is how we do this?" she said. "In 2018."
I smiled. I shrugged. I waved at her cute kid. I did not say, "Yes. I can believe it."
It is a sign of how bad things are when the editorial board of the Financial Times, the
world's leading business newspaper, carries an editorial calling for "radical reforms reversing
the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades." The FT editorial of April 3 has
advocated , among other
things, a more active role for governments in the economy, ways to make labor markets less
insecure, and wealth taxes. The FT's editorial board, increasingly concerned about saving
capitalism from itself, had
written about the need for "state planning" and a "worker-led economy" last year in August.
But the April 3 editorial has garnered much more attention since it comes amidst a massive
crisis.
By now it has become obvious that substantial state intervention in the economy -- frowned
upon by the apostles of neoliberal economics -- is back to the center stage across the
world.
The situation is such that the public sector, long maligned by neoliberal economists and
weakened by governments beholden to neoliberalism, is playing a major role in the fight against
coronavirus. Its role would have been much more effective and wide-ranging if it hadn't been
hit hard by decades of fund cuts and waves of privatization. Nevertheless, with the
ineffectiveness of private production with profit motive as its driving force to handle a
crisis becoming more evident, the public sector, production with state direction, and some
amount of planning are making a major comeback.
Public Health Care
The case of the sectors that are directly concerned with health care provision is the most
conspicuous, with the inadequacies of private health care during a crisis becoming evident to
even right-wing leaders.
We see Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the UK, repeatedly talking about the need to
protect the National Health Service (Britain's publicly funded health care system). He even
said , "there really is such a thing as society," contradicting Margaret Thatcher, his
conservative predecessor who batted for pure individualism in 1987 by saying "There is no such
thing as society."
Britain and many other countries in Western Europe have had relatively robust public health
care systems. In many of these countries, such as Italy , Spain and
the
UK , public health care systems have suffered in recent years because of fund cuts and
privatization of public facilities. Apart from the policy vision of the leaders of these
countries themselves, they also
came under pressure from the technocrats of the European Commission, who repeatedly
demanded spending cuts on health care. Along with the easy-going attitude displayed by many of
the Western governments in the early weeks of the coronavirus outbreak, such weakening of the
public health care systems have made their response to the coronavirus outbreak a more arduous
task. For now, the governments of
Spain and
Ireland have temporarily taken over their private hospitals to deal with the crisis.
The case of the United States, with its private, insurance-based health care system, is far
worse. Not only was a sufficient number of testing kits unavailable in the United States for
months, but the costs of testing and treatment remain prohibitive for a
large section of the population , particularly to the 30 million uninsured and 44 million
underinsured. This means that many people simply wouldn't be able to afford to get tested and
treated, endangering the health and lives of themselves and others.
The difference between the United States on the one hand, and China and South Korea on the
other, comes readily into the picture here. Testing and treatment for coronavirus is
free in China, which was crucial in the country's success in bringing the epidemic under
control. South Korea has done extensive testing , which
was made available for free. Treatment costs were covered by the government
and the insurance companies.
The Importance of the Public Sector, However, Goes Much Further
In times of crises such as the present one, which is comparable to war, the ability of
economies to produce (or at least source) and distribute things becomes critical. Two kinds of
things assume particular importance:
1) Essential things that are necessary for the immediate sustenance of the people.
These include food and medicines, and in turn, the things necessary to produce them. If there
are large gaps in the supply and distribution of these things, there would be a famine. If
the gap is smaller, there would still be many unnecessary deaths. Even leaders who are
otherwise callous about starvation deaths would be concerned about such an eventuality during
a crisis, because social tensions that could rise as a result of this would make it even more
difficult to tide over the crisis, whether it is a war or a pandemic. During the Second World
War, Britain resorted to rationing
to solve this problem. The people of India were
squeezed to finance the Allies' war in South Asia with Japan, and the result was the
Bengal Famine, which took the lives of 3 million people.
2) The kind of things that are necessary to tide over the crisis. During times of
war, armaments would be the most crucial among these. In the case of the coronavirus crisis,
the main things would be items like ventilators, masks, hand sanitizer, gloves and medicines
to treat the symptoms. Large gaps in the supply of these things would be disastrous. In the
case of a war, such gaps could lead to defeat in war. In the case of a lethal pandemic,
people would die in huge numbers, as we see right now. We could say this is an industrial
famine of sorts contributing to the casualties, with countries unable to make ICUs,
ventilators and masks fast enough in adequate quantities, and in many cases, to set up
hospitals and quarantine facilities quickly enough.
It is in this context that leaders of government who ideologically disagree with state
intervention in the economy are seen taking direct action in commandeering private companies to
produce necessary things.
Thus we see Donald Trump, who had initially resisted the pressure to use the Defense
Production Act -- a wartime law -- to mobilize private industry, finally using the law to
direct General Motors to produce ventilators.
The government of Italy directed its only producer of ventilators, Siare Engineering, to
ramp up the production of ventilators for the country, and sent engineers and other staff
members from the Ministry of Defense to help with production. The company canceled all its
orders from abroad to produce for the country.
Countries with a large public sector, robust industrial capacity, and the ability to
effectively intervene in the market would be at a considerable advantage here. That is the case
with
China , which put the state-owned China State Construction Engineering to work to construct
two emergency quarantine hospitals at breath-taking speed. The state ensured the flow of
products such as grain, meat and eggs into the Hubei province while it was under lockdown, and
coordinated the production and distribution of masks and other medical products. Once the
outbreak within the country was under control, it began supplying masks and ICU equipment to
other countries in need.
India, a large country with a poor health care system, does not have enough masks and
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for its health workers. The number of ICU beds and
ventilators available in the country is very low. For a population of 1.34 billion, it
only has 31,900 ICU beds available for COVID-19 patients, according to the country's Health
Ministry officials. To compare, Germany, with 82.8 million people, had 28,000 ICU beds as of
mid-March.
If the number of COVID-19 patients in India surges, hospitals and their critical care
facilities will be overwhelmed. The public sector Bharat Electronics Limited has been
asked to produce
30,000 ventilators to meet the urgent need. Hindustan
Lifecare (another public sector company) and the
Rail Coach Factory under the Indian Railways are going to manufacture ventilators. The
public sector Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), which the government has tried continuously to
weaken
in the recent years, is now producing masks, sanitizer and coveralls for Personal Protective
Equipment (PPE). It has also developed a ventilator prototype and is preparing for
production.
Within India, it is the state of
Kerala that has dealt with the pandemic in the most effective manner. In the Left-ruled
state, which has resisted the policy of privatization pushed by successive central governments,
public sector companies are manufacturing
hand sanitizer and
gloves , and have
raised the production of essential medicines . Kudumbashree, a massive government-backed
organization of women's collectives with 4.5 million members, is
making masks , which the public sector is helping distribute. Mass organizations of
youth and popular science activists are pitching in by making hand sanitizer. Volunteers
supported by a state-led initiative have
developed a respiratory apparatus that could free up ventilators.
It is not as if making masks, sanitizers and gloves requires advanced technology. But
industrial capacity is needed to churn them out in large numbers, or at least large mass
organizations, class organizations or collectives that can mobilize people to manufacture them.
The inability of the United States to even ensure the supply of such items stands out in this
regard. Four decades of neoliberalism seem to have led not only to the undermining of
industrial capacity useful for public purposes, but also to the hollowing out of collective
energies.
Need for Production Capabilities and Societal Control Over Them
In short, the lesson is that in times such as these, a society needs two things.
1) It needs production capabilities. During a time of crisis, if a country doesn't
have the necessary industrial capacity, it will be in trouble even if it has money to buy if
the other countries that do have the production capabilities block the export of the required
goods. This is what is happening right now to so many countries, such as Italy and Serbia. (In
the mad scramble for resources, there have even been reports of countries
offering higher amounts to buy masks ordered by other countries, and of some countries even
seizing shipments for themselves.) Not only is industrial capacity needed, but some excess
capacity is also required in some crucial areas. As the public health expert T. Sundararaman
pointed
out recently, the public health care system needs to have unused capacity, which will allow
it to expand and take on the extra load when there is an emergency. Excess industrial capacity
in China, which is often seen as a problem (including by sympathetic observers
), turned out to be useful, with the country being able to manufacture essential goods to not
just meet its own demands, but also that of other countries.
But relying on market forces doesn't give any guarantee of industrial capacity being built
up. The kind of production capabilities built without planning would be haphazard, and may not
cover the needs of an emergency when it presents itself. India, which adopted a strategy of
substantial economic planning during the first few decades after independence, only to abandon
it in the recent decades, is witnessing this to its peril right now.
2) The society, or the state as the representative of society, needs to be able to
control the production facilities. When a crisis hits a country with production
capabilities in the private sector, the state can invoke emergency powers to bring them under
control. But it would be a painful process, especially in countries where the private corporate
sector is not used to submit to discipline. Given the enormous influence that the corporates
have over the state itself, the state might try to prolong having to invoke such emergency
powers, as was seen in the United States, and that could have disastrous consequences. India
has the worst of all possible worlds -- cronyism is rampant, industrialization has not taken
off (whether it is because of cronyism or in spite of it need not detain us here), and the
public sector has been undermined.
Even when the state is trying to play a more active role, its efforts could be undermined by
private firms acting in their own self-interest of maximizing profits. This was seen in the
United States, where private companies were engaging in price gouging, by selling masks that
are normally sold for 85 cents for $7, leading to the New York state governor to call upon
the federal government to nationalize the acquisition of medical supplies. He said that the
U.S. government should order factories to produce masks, gowns and ventilators; otherwise the
situation would be impossible to manage. The state using private facilities can be costly as
well, as was seen in Britain, where the National Health Service is paying
2.4 million pounds per day as rent to private hospitals for 8,000 beds.
Does calling for more domestic production capabilities that the state can control mean that
every country should be left to fend for itself? Certainly not -- every country cannot produce
everything; smaller countries would find it particularly difficult. International trade would
be needed for countries to procure things that they cannot produce for themselves. But as the
developments of the recent months show, today's trade regime has nothing to do with solidarity,
and it provides no guarantee of countries being able to access goods during an emergency. This
is no accident. Lack of solidarity is embedded in the way capitalism has developed, with the
bulk of the world's wealth concentrated in the hands of a few countries, and within countries,
in the hands of the super-rich. This system has to be overhauled for a regime of solidarity to
emerge. Production and its fruits becoming less concentrated in some regions of the world and
in the hands of a minority would pave the way for power relations to be less unequal, which is
a precondition for real solidarity among people and societies.
Along with socialized health care, an immediate stop to privatization, and a stronger,
expanded public sector should become part of the transitional demands of the left as we search
for an exit from the pandemic crisis.
"No matter how long I live, I don't think I will ever get over how the U.S., with all
its wealth and technological capability and academic prowess, sleepwalked into the disaster
that is unfolding," says Kai Kupferschmidt, a German science writer.
I am continuously amazed at how incompetence is always assumed so as to give elites a
pass.
It seems to me that the Trump Administration delayed a response to the virus so as to
ensure that they could declare an emergency which allowed them to 'play' the virus in a way
that benefited special interests and furthered imperial goals:
"... Authored by Joaquin Flores via The Strategic Culture Foundation, ..."
"... the declining rate of profit necessitated by automation, with the increasingly irrational policies, in all spheres, being pursued to salvage the ultimately unsalvageable. ..."
"... Because the present system is premised on a production-consumption and financial model, the solutions to crises are presented as population reduction and what even appears, at least in the case of Europe, as population replacement. As cliché as this may seem, this also appeared to be the policy of the Third Reich when capitalism faced its last major crises culminating in WWII. ..."
The coronavirus pandemic has shown that the twin processes of globalization and planned
obsolescence are deficient and moribund. Globalization was predicated on a number of
assumptions including the perpetuity of consumerism, and the withering away of national
boundaries as transnational corporations so required.
What we see instead is not a globalization process, but instead a process of rising
multipolarity and a rethinking of consumerism itself.
Normally a total market crash and unemployment crisis would usher in a period of militant
labor activity, strikes, walk-outs and community-labor campaigns. We've
seen some of this already . But the 'medical state of emergency' we are in, has effectively
worked like a 'lock-out' . The elites have effectively
flipped-the-script. Instead of workers now demanding a restoration of wages, hours, and
work-place rights, they are clamoring for any chance to work at all, under any conditions
handed down. Elites can 'afford' to do this because they've been given trillions of dollars to
do so. See how that works?
All our lives we've been misinformed over what a growing economy means, what it looks like,
how we identify it. All our lives we've been lied to about what technical improvement literally
means.
A growing economy in fact means that all goods and services become less expensive. That cuts
against inflation. Rather all prices should be deflating – less money ought to buy the
same (or the same money ought to buy more). Technical innovation means that goods should last
longer, not be planned for obsolescence with shorter lifespans.
Unemployment is good if it parallels price deflation. If both reached a zero-point, the
problems we believe we have would be solved.
In a revealing April 2nd article that featured on the BBC's website, Will coronavirus reverse globalisation?
it is proposed that the pandemic exposes the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of a global
supply-chain and manufacturing system, and that this in combination with the over-arching
US-China trade war would see a general tendency towards 're-shoring' of activities. These are
fair points.
But the article misses the point of the underlying problem facing economics in general:
the declining rate of profit necessitated by automation, with the increasingly irrational
policies, in all spheres, being pursued to salvage the ultimately unsalvageable.
The
Karmic Wheel of Production-Consumption
The shut-downs – which seem unnecessary in the numerous widely esteemed experts in
virology and epidemiology – appear to be aimed at stopping the production-consumption
cycle. When we look at the wanton creation of new 'money', to bailout the banks, we are told
that this will not cause inflation/debasement so long as the velocity of money is kept to a minimum.
In other words – so long as there is not a chain reaction of transactions, and the money
'stays still' – this won't cause inflation. It's a specious claim, but one which
justifies the quarantine/lock-down policy which today destroys thousands of small businesses
every day. In the U.S. alone, unemployment claims
will pass 30 million by mid April .
Likewise, this money appears real, it sits digitally as new liquidity on the computer
screens of tran-Atlantic banks – but it cannot be spent, or it tanks the system with
hyper-inflation. More to the point, the BBC piece erroneously continues to assume the necessity
of the production-consumption cycle, spinning wheat into gold forever.
The elites were not wrong to shut-down the cycle per se. The problem is that they cannot
offer the correct hardware in its place – for it puts an end to the very way that they
make money. It is this, which in turn is a major source for the maintenance of their dopamine
equilibrium and narcissist supply.
This is not an economic problem faced by 'the 1%' (the 0.03%) . It is an existential crisis
facing the meaning of their lives, where satisfaction can only be found in ever greater levels
of wealth and control, real or imagined – chasing that dragon, in search of that
ever-elusive high.
So naturally, their solutions are population reduction and other such quasi-genocidal
neo-Malthusian plans. Destruction of humanity – the number one productive-potential force
– resets the hands of time, back to a period where profit levels were higher. The
algorithmically favored coronavirus Instagram campaign of seeing city centers without people
and declaring these 'beautiful' and 'peaceful' is an example of this misanthropic principle at
play.
That the elites have chosen to shut-down the western economy is telling of an historic point
we have reached. And while we are told that production and consumption will return somewhat
'after quarantine', we also hear from the newly-emerged unelected tsars – Bill Gates et
al – that things will never
return to normal .
What we need to end is the entire theory and practice of globalization itself, including
UN
Agenda 21 and the dangerous role of 'book-talking' philanthropists like Gates and his
grossly unbalanced degree of power over policy formation in the Western sphere.
In place of waning globalization, we are seeing the reality of rising multipolarity and
inter-nationalism. With this, the end of the production-consumption cycle, based upon off-shore
production and international assembly, and at the root of it all: planned obsolescence towards
long-term profitability.
The Problem of Globalization Theory
Without a doubt, globalization theory satisfied aspects of descriptive power. But as time
marched forward, its predictive power weakened. Alternate theories began to emerge –
chief among these, multipolarity theory.
The promotion of globalization theory also raises ethical problems. Like a criminologist
'describing' a crime-wave while being invested in new prison construction, globalization theory
was as much theory as it was a policy forced upon the world by the same institutions behind its
popularization in academia and in policy formation. Therefore we should not be surprised with
the rise of solutions like those of Gates. These involve patentable 'vaccines' by for-profit
firms at the expense of buttressing natural human immunities, or using drugs which other
countries are using with effectiveness.
The truth? Globalization is really just a rebrand of the Washington Consensus
– neo-liberal think-tanks and the presumed eternal dominance of institutions like the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which in turn are thinly disguised
conglomerates of the largest trans-Atlantic banking institutions.
So while globalization was often given a humanist veneer that promised global development,
modernization, the end of 'nation-states' which presumably are the source of war; in reality
globalization was premised on continuing and increasing concentration of capital towards the
19th century zones – New York, London, Berlin, and Paris.
'Internationalism' was once rooted in the existence of nations which in turn are only
possible with the existence of culture and peoples, but was hi-jacked by the trans-Atlanticist
project. Before long, the new-left 'internationalists' became champions of the very same
process of imperialism that their forbearers had vehemently opposed. Call it 'globalization'
and show how it's destroying 'toxic nationalism' and creating 'microfinance solutions for women
and girls' –
trot out Malala – and it was bought; hook, line and sinker.
This was not the new era of 'globalization', but rather the usual suspects going back to the
19th century; a 'feel-good' rebranding of the very same 19th century imperialism as described
in J.A Hobson's seminal work from 1902, Imperialism. Its touted 'inevitability' rested not on
the impossibility of alternate models, but on the authority that flows forth from gunboat
diplomacy. But sea power has given way to land power.
In many ways it aligned with the era of de-colonialization and post-colonialism. New nations
could wave their own flags and make their own laws, so long as the traditionally imperialist
western banking institutions controlled the money supply.
But what is emerging is not Washington Consensus 'globalization', but a multipolar model
based in civilizational sovereignty and difference, building products to last – for their
usefulness and not their repeatable retail potential. This cuts against the claims that global
homogenization in all spheres (moral, cultural, economic, political, etc.) was inevitable, as a
consequence of mercantile specialization.
Therefore, inter-nationalism hyphenated as such, reminds us that nations –
civilizations, sovereignty, and their differences – make us stronger as a human species.
Like against viruses, some have stronger natural immunity than others. If people were
identical, one virus could wipe-out all of humanity.
Likewise, an overly-integrated global economy leads to global melt-down and depression when
one node collapses. Rather than independent pillars that could aid each other, the
interdependence is its greatest weakness.
Multipolarity is Reality
This new reality – multipolarity – involves processes which aspects of
globalization theory also suggest and predict for, so there are some honest reasons why experts
could misdiagnose multipolarity as globalization. Overlooked was that the concentration of
capital nodes in various and globally diverse regions by continent, were not exclusively
trans-Atlantic regions as in the standard globalization model of Alpha ++ or Alpha+ cities.
This capital concentration along continental lines was occurring alongside regional economic
development and rising living standards which tended to promote the efficiency of local
transportation as opposed to ocean-travel in the production process. As regional nodes by
continent had increasingly diversified their own domestic production, a general tendency for
transportation costs to increase as individual per capita usage increased, worked against the
viability of an over-reliance on global transit lines.
But among many problems in globalization theory was that the US would always be the primary
consumer of the world's goods, and with it, the trans-Atlantic financial sector. It was also
contingent on the idea that mercantilist conceptions of specialization (by nation or by region)
would always trump autarkic models and ISI (income substitution industrialization). Again, if
middle-class consumer bases are rising in all the world's inhabited continents as multipolarity
explains and predicts, then a global production regimen rationalized towards a trans-Atlantic
consumer base as globalization theory predicts isn't quite as apt.
Because the present system is premised on a production-consumption and financial model,
the solutions to crises are presented as population reduction and what even appears, at least
in the case of Europe, as population replacement. As cliché as this may seem, this also
appeared to be the policy of the Third Reich when capitalism faced its last major crises
culminating in WWII.
Breaking the Wheel
The shutdown reveals the karmic wheel of production-consumption is in truth already broken.
We have already passed the zenith point of what the old paradigm had to offer, and it has long
since entered into a period of decay, economic and moral destruction.
Like the Christ who brings forth a new covenant or the Buddha who emerges to break the wheel
of karma, the new world to be built on the ruins of modernity is a world that liberates the
productive forces, realizing their full potential, and with it the liberation of man from the
machine of the production-consumption cycle.
Planned obsolescence and consumerism (marketing) are the twin evils that have worked towards
the simultaneous
time-wasting enslavement of 'living to work' , and have built globalization based on global
assembly and global mono-culture.
What is important for people and their quality of life is the time to live life, not be
stuck in the grind. We hear politicians and economists talking about 'everyone having a job',
as if what people want is to be away from their families, friends, passions, or hobbies. What's
more – people cannot invent, innovate, or address the greater questions of life and death
– if their nose is to the grindstone.
Now that we are living under an overt system of control, a 'medical state of emergency' with
a frozen economy, we can see that another world is possible. The truth is that most things
which are produced are intentionally made to break at a specific time, so that a re-purchase is
predictable and profits are guaranteed. This compels global supply chains and justifies
artificially induced crashes aimed at upward redistribution and mass expropriations.
Instead of allowing Bill Gates to tour the world to tout a police-state cum population
reduction scheme right after a global virus pandemic struck, one which many believe
he owns the patent for , we can instead address the issues of multipolarity, civilizational
sovereignty, and ending planned obsolescence and the global supply chain, as well as the
off-shoring it necessitates – which the BBC rightly notes, is in question anyhow.
There's no doubt that the Coronavirus is a serious infection that can lead to severe illness
or death. There's also no doubt that 'virus hysteria' has been used for other purposes. Wall
Street, for example, has used virus-panic to advance its own agenda and get another round of
trillion dollar bailouts. In fact, it took less than a week to get the pushover congress to ram
through a massive $2.2 trillion boondoggle without even one lousy congressman offering a peep
of protest. That's got to be some kind of record.
In 2008, at the peak of the financial crisis, Congress voted "No" to the $700 billion TARP
bill. Some readers might recall how a number of GOP congressmen bravely banded together and
flipped Wall Street "the bird". That didn't happen this time around. Even though the bill is
three times bigger than the TARP ( $2.2 trillion), no one lifted a finger to stop it. Why?
Fear, that's why. Everyone in congress was scared to death that if they didn't rush this
debt-turd through the House pronto, the economy would collapse while tens of thousands of
corpses would be stacking up in cities across the country. Of course the reason they believed
this nonsense was because the goofy infectious disease experts confidently assured everyone
that the body-count would be "in the hundreds of thousands if not millions." Remember that
fiction? The most recent estimate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 total. I don't
need to tell you that the difference between 60,000 and "millions" is a little more than a
rounding-error.
So we've had the wool pulled over our eyes, right? Not as bad as congress, but, all the
same, we've been hoodwinked and we've been fleeced. And the people who have axes to grind have
been very successful in taking advantage of the hysteria and promoting their own agendas. Maybe
you've noticed the reemergence of creepy Bill Gates and the Vaccine Gestapo or NWO Henry
Kissinger warning us that, "the world will never be the same after the coronavirus".
What do these people know that we don't know? Doesn't it all make you a bit suspicious? And
when you see nonstop commercials on TV telling you to "wash your hands"or "keep your distance"
or "stay inside" and, oh yeah, "We're all in this together", doesn't it leave you scratching
your head and wondering who the hell is orchestrating this virus-charade and what do they
really have in mind for us unwashed masses??
At least in the case of Wall Street, we know what they want. They want money and lots of
it.
Have you looked over the $2.2 trillion CARES bill that Trump just signed into law a couple
weeks ago? It's pretty grim reading, so I'll save you the effort. Here's a rough breakdown:
$250 billion will go for the $1,200 checks that most of us will receive in a couple weeks.
And $250 billion will be provided for extended unemployment insurance benefits.
That's $500 billion.
Working people will get $500 billion while Wall Street and Corporate America will get 3
times that amount. ($1.7 trillion) And even that's a mere fraction of the total sum
because– hidden in the small print– is a section that allows the Fed to lever-up
the base-capital by 10-to-1 ($450 billion to $4.5 trillion) which means the Fed can buy as many
"toxic" bonds and garbage assets as it chooses. The Fed is turning itself into a hedge fund in
order to buy the sludge that has accumulated on the balance sheets of corporations and
financial institutions for the last decade. It's another gigantic ripoff that's being cleverly
concealed behind the ridiculous coronavirus hype. It's infuriating.
So here's the question: Do you think Congress knew that working people would only get a
pittance while the bulk of the dough would go to Wall Street?
It's hard to say, but they certainly knew that the economy was cratering and that $500
billion wasn't going to put much of a dent in a $20 trillion economy. In other words, even if
everyone goes out and blows their measly $1,200 checks on Day 1, we're still going to
experience the sharpest economic contraction on record, a second Great Depression.
Maybe they should have talked about that in congress before they voted for this
trillion-dollar turkey? Maybe they should have thought a little more about how the money should
be distributed: Should it go to the people who actually buy things, generate activity and
produce growth, or to the parasite class that blows up the system every decade and drags the
economy down a black hole? That seems like something you might want to know before you pass a
multi-trillion dollar bill that's supposed to fix the economy.
It's also worth noting that the $5.8 trillion is not nearly the total amount that Wall
Street will eventually get. The Fed has already spent $2 trillion via its QE program (to shore
up the dysfunctional repo market) and Fed chair Jay Powell announced on Thursday that another
$2.3 trillion in loans and purchases would be used to buy municipal bonds, corporate bonds and
loans to small businesses. The allocation for small businesses, which falls under the, Main
Street Lending Program, has been widely touted as a sign of how much the Fed really cares about
struggling Mom and Pop businesses that employ the majority of working Americans. But, once
again, it's a sham and a boondoggle. The program is on-track to get $600 billion funding of
which the US Treasury will provide the base-capital of $75 billion. The rest will be levered-up
by 9-to-1 by the Fed, which means it's just more smoke and mirrors.
What readers need to realize is that the Treasury has accepted the credit risk for all of
the loans that default . In other words, the American people are now on the hook for
100% of all of the loans that go south, and there's going to be alot of them because the
banks have no reason to find creditworthy borrowers. They get a 5% cut off-the-top whether the
loans blow up or not. And, that, my friend, is how you incentivize fraud which, as Bernie
Sanders noted, "is Wall Street's business model."
It also helps to explain why Trump has repeatedly rejected congressional oversight of the
various bailout programs. He's smart enough to know a good swindle when he sees one, and this
one is a corker. The government is essentially waving trillions of dollars right under the
noses of the world's most ravenous hyenas expecting them not to act in character. But of course
they will act in character and hundreds of billions of dollars will be siphoned off by scheming
sharpies who figure out how game the system and turn the whole fiasco into another Wall Street
looting operation. You can bet on it.
So, what is the final tally?
Well, according to Trump's chief economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, the first bailout
installment is $6.2 trillion (after the Fed ramps up the Treasury's contribution of $450
billion.). Then there's the $2.3 trillion in additional programs the Fed announced on Thursday.
Finally, the Fed's QE program adds another $2 trillion in bond purchases since September 17,
when the repo market went haywire.
Altogether, the total sum amounts to $10.5 trillion.
You know what they say, "A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking real
money."
Of course, no one on Capitol Hill worries about trivialities like money because, "We're the
United States of America, and our dollar will always be King." But there's a fundamental flaw
to this type of thinking. Yes, the dollar is the world's reserve currency, but that's a
privilege that the US has greatly abused over the years, and it's certainly not going to
survive this latest wacky helicopter drop. No, I am not suggesting the US would ever default on
its debt, that's not going to happen. But, yes, I am suggesting that the US will have to repay
its debts in a currency that has lost a significant amount of its value. You don't have to be
Einstein to figure out that you can't willy-nilly print-up $10 or $20 trillion dollars without
eroding the value of the currency. That's a no-brainer. Central bankers around the world are
now looking at their piles of USDs thinking, "Hmmm, maybe it's time I traded some of these
greenbacks in for a few yen, euros or even Swiss francs?"
So how does this end? Can the Fed continue to write trillion dollar checks on an account
that is already $23 trillion overdrawn? Will Central banks around the world continue to
stockpile dollars when the Fed is printing them up faster than anyone can count? And what about
China? How long before China realizes that US Treasuries are grossly overvalued, that US
equities markets are unreformable, that the dollar is backed by nothing but red ink, and that
Wall Street is the biggest and most corrupt cesspit on earth?
Not long, I'd wager. So, how does this end? It ends in a flash of monetary debasement
preceded by a violent and destabilizing currency crisis. It's plain as the nose on your face.
The Fed knows that when a nation's sovereign debt exceeds 100% of GDP, "there's almost no
mathematical way to service that debt in real terms." Well, the US passed that milestone
way-back in 2019 before this latest drunken spending-spree even began. It's safe to say, we've
now entered the financial Twilight Zone, the Land of No Return. If we add the Fed's bulging
balance sheet to the final estimate, (after all, it's just another shady Enron-type Special
Purpose Vehicle) the national debt will be somewhere north of $33 trillion by year-end,
which means that Uncle Sam will be the greatest credit risk on Planet Earth. Imagine how
jaws will drop on the day that Moodys and Fitch slash the ratings on US Treasuries to Triple B
"junk" status . That should turn a few heads.
So what can we expect in the months to come?
First, the economy is going to slip into a deflationary period as people get back to work
and slowly resume their spending. But once demand picks up and the Fed's liquidity starts to
kick in, the economy will rebound sharply followed by steadily rising prices. That's the red
flag that will signal a weakening dollar. Similar to 1933, when Roosevelt took the U.S. off the
gold standard and printed money like crazy, economic activity picked up but the value of the
dollar dropped by 40%. A similar scenario seems likely here as well. Economist Lyn Alden
Schwartzer summed it up like this in an article at
Seeking Alpha:
"One of the common debates is whether all of this debt, counteracted by a tremendous
monetary expansion by the Federal Reserve in response, will cause a deflationary bust or an
inflationary problem .. Fundamentally, evidence points to a period of deflation due to
this global shutdown and demand destruction shock, likely followed in the coming years by
rising inflation .
In the coming years, the United States will be effectively printing money to fund large
fiscal deficits , while also having a large current account deficit and negative net
international investment position. This is one of the main variables for my view that the
dollar will likely decrease in value relative to a basket of foreign currencies in the coming
years ." ( "Why This Is
Unlike The Great Depression" , Seeking Alpha)
So, after decades of lethal low interest rates, relentless meddling and gross regulatory
malpractice, the Fed has led us to this final, fatal crossroads: Inflate or default. From the
looks of things, the choice has already been made. Wiemar America, here we come!
Mike Davis on the pandemic. It is very very good.
This is a small sample from the interview:
".....MM: Is capitalist globalization biologically sustainable?
"...MD: Only by accepting a permanent triage of humanity and dooming part of the human
race to eventual extinction.
"Economic globalization -- that is to say, the accelerated free movement of finance and
investment within a single world market where labor is relatively immobile and deprived of
traditional bargaining power -- is different from economic interdependence regulated by the
universal protection of the rights of labor and small producers. Instead, we see a world
system of accumulation that is everywhere breaking down traditional boundaries between animal
diseases and humans, increasing the power of drug monopolies, proliferating carcinogenic
waste, subsidizing oligarchy and undermining progressive governments committed to public
health, destroying traditional communities (both industrial and preindustrial) and turning
the oceans into sewers. Market solutions leave in place Dickensian social conditions and
perpetuate the global shame of income-limited access to clean water and sanitation.
"The present crisis does force capital, large and small, to confront the possible
breakdown of its global production chains and the ability to constantly re-source cheaper
supplies of overseas labor. At the same time, it points to important new or expanding markets
for vaccines, sterilization systems, surveillance technology, home grocery delivery and so
on. The combined dangers and opportunities will lead to a partial fix: new products and
procedures that reduce the health risks of constant disease emergence while simultaneously
spurring the further development of surveillance capitalism. But these protections will
almost certainly be limited -- if left up to markets and authoritarian nationalist regimes --
to rich countries and rich classes. They will reinforce walls, not pull them down, and deepen
the divide between two humanities: one with resources to mitigate climate change and new
pandemics and the other without...."
"...Today, quite a number of alternative media commentators are ready to believe in the
absolute power not of God but of Mammon, of the powers of Wall Street and its partners in
politics, the media and the military. In this view, nothing major happens that hasn't been
planned by earthly powers for their own selfish interest.
"Mammon is wrecking the economy so a few oligarchs will own everything. Or else Mammon
created the hoax Coronavirus 19 in order to lock us all up and deprive us of what little is
left of our freedom. Or finally Mammon is using a virus in order to have a pretext to
vaccinate us all with secret substances and turn us all into zombies.
"Is this credible? In one sense, it is. We know that Mammon is unscrupulous, morally
capable of all crimes. But things do happen that Mammon did not plan, such as earthquakes,
floods and plagues. Dislike of our ruling class combined with dislike of being locked up
leads to the equation: They are simply using this (fake) crisis in order to lock us up!
"But what for? To whom is there any advantage in locking down the population? For the
pleasure of telling themselves, "Aha, we've got them where we want them, all stuck at home!"
Is this intended to suppress popular revolt? What popular revolt? Why repress people who
aren't doing anything that needs to be repressed?...
"What is the use of locking up a population – and I think especially of the United
States – that is disunited, disorganized, profoundly confused by generations of
ideological indoctrination telling them that their country is "the best" in every way, and
thus unable to formulate coherent demands on a system that exploits them ruthlessly? Do you
need to lock up your faithful Labrador so he won't bite you?...
"....Mammon is blinded by its own hubris, often stupid, incompetent, dumbed down by
getting away with so much so easily. Take a look at Mike Pompeo or Mike Pence – are
these all-powerful geniuses? No, they are semi-morons who have been able to crawl up a
corrupt system contemptuous of truth, virtue or intelligence – like the rest of the
gangsters in power in a system devoid of any ethical or intellectual standards.
"The power of creatures like that is merely the reflection of the abdication of social
responsibility by whole populations whose disinterest in politics has allowed the scum to
rise to the top.
The lockdown decreed by our Western governments reveals helplessness rather than power.
They did not rush to lock us down. The lockdown is disastrous for the economy which is their
prime concern. They hesitated and did so only when they had to do something and were
ill-equipped to do anything else. They saw that China had done so with good results. But
smart Asian governments did even more, deploying masks, tests and treatments Western
governments did not possess..."
From toilet paper shortages to computer chips, the novel
coronavirus pandemic
has exposed many weak links in the highly globalized supply chains that enable goods to move around the
world.
Now, many companies are taking a long, hard look at their models to see if the status quo still works. If the coronavirus broke the
supply chain, how do you fix it? What should be changed, and what should not be changed?
There are three parts of the supply chain that have been thrown into question: offshoring, just-in-time inventory, and
diversification -- and every company reliant on manufacturing is likely examining these factors.
What the coronavirus won't change: offshoring
From clothing to electronics and much more, things in the United States usually come from really far away, often from China, where
the new coronavirus originated. For many companies, this is often unavoidable, because many goods would be prohibitively expensive
if made in regions where labor costs are high. Offshoring and outsourcing exploded after 1979, when China adopted its Open Door
Policy, allowing foreign companies to access its vast and inexpensive labor market, enabling far cheaper goods than before.
Taiwan-based Foxconn is best known as the assembler of the iPhone, with many factories in China like this one in Shenzhen. But
going forward, companies will have to diversify their supply chains to ensure that they can still function if one country goes
offline. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
"Anything that was labor intensive -- footwear, apparel, assembly of electronics -- moved to China," said
Marshall Fisher
, a
professor of operations, information, and decisions at Wharton. "In 1960, 5% of the world's physical products crossed boundaries.
That's grown to about 50%."
The trade-off from offshoring is lead time. A widget produced in China takes a long time to sail to the West, unless you put it on a
plane, which eats up much of the cost savings. For many companies, that means nailing predictions to make sure they don't make too
much product or too little, which isn't easy.
The key aspect with international trade, during the pandemic, is politics. It can be good and bad for business.
Rob Siegel, a Stanford professor who studies supply chains and has created them for businesses, recalled as a business school
student in the fall 1993 when former Intel (
INTC
) CEO Andy Grove told his class
that there will never be war with China because "you will never invade the country that has the factories that make all your
things."
Unfortunately, when it comes to pandemics, politics don't help. Taiwan, a manufacturing powerhouse, banned mask exports in late
January as the coronavirus surged. (Taiwan later
lifted the ban
and donated many masks to other countries.) Dozens of countries -- including much of Europe, the U.S., and Brazil
-- followed, either banning or restricting exports due to coronavirus.
This, perhaps greater than anything else, has prompted the question: Do you really want to rely on X country during an emergency?
However, this is more of a question for governments than businesses, which are more focused on making money than national security.
For many companies, making stuff abroad is the only viable option, but they do need to continue functioning if something bad
happens. That's why Fisher thinks the question companies will be asking isn't "is our supply chain too long?," but rather "should we
be investing in resilience of the [complex, international] supply chain?"
The 'just-in-time' model cracks
Companies don't just buy stuff from far away, but they have been buying the least amount of stuff possible -- running lean inventory
and only buying when they need to.
That's called the "just-in-time" inventory model, and like predicting months in advance when buying from afar, companies have gotten
really good at creating models that allow them to run extremely efficiently. The downside of this model is it's fragile: If
something goes wrong, companies will be in a bind.
So, when the coronavirus hit, some companies and consumers experienced supply issues.
But what should a company do if they operate under this model?
"Largely speaking [just-in-time] isn't going to be redesigned for a 100-year crisis," said Siegel. "It's almost impossible to plan
for something that happens every 100 years."
This may sound like a gamble, but for many companies, changing the entire model just doesn't make sense. As Yossi Sheffi, director
of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, told Yahoo Finance, there are just too many advantages of "just-in-time" that go
beyond cost. There's more speed and agility, but also more quality.
When an auto production line experiences a problem with a part, for example, you have a pile of parts and swap a new one in. But
with just-in-time, "you stop the line, find out what's wrong, and fix it," Sheffi said. "Low inventory helps people find out what's
wrong."
For some stuff, however, we may see significant changes in inventory management. The pandemic has shown that the critical strategic
reserves of products like ventilators and personal protective equipment are simply not adequate during a global emergency. The U.S.,
unable to import ventilators quickly due to other countries' export laws, resorted to
deputizing General Motors
(
GM
) to make ventilators.
For many, that wasn't quick enough, and shifting the permanent production domestically may not be feasible either in the future. But
what might be more practical is planning for more inventory.
"If you have 100,000 ventilators that you could pull out at a moment's notice, that'd be easier [than it would be] to nationalize GM
via the Defense Protection Act," said Siegel.
Going forward, the government may choose to mandate that certain companies run with more inventory for critical items like
ventilators, just in case, and keep their own warehouses better stocked.
What will change: diversification
For the most part, however, just-in-time inventory is here to stay, and low-cost offshoring isn't going anywhere. But what Yossi,
Siegel, and Fisher agree will change is diversification.
"The first line of defense is to make your components in multiple places," said Fisher. "The idea is at least two companies making
it in two geographic locations."
"I expect companies to have at least a secondary supplier," said Sheffi. "Not 50%, maybe 20-30%."
Rising wages in China have forced some companies to move their manufacturing away from the country, said Fisher, but many companies
are still exposed.
Fisher noted that the 2011 Tsunami in Japan taught many companies, like Apple, the lesson to be more robust in the face of
disruption, but that as the disaster faded into memory, so did the calls to diversify.
"Apple [has] foregone the few millions of costs to make the supply chain more robust and lost $100 billion in market cap," he said.
"The needle has tipped too much to efficiency from robustness."
Since then, the volleys of tariffs and uncertainty during the trade war with China caused companies to realize that relying solely
on that country for manufacturing exposed them to big risks. Many companies, including Apple (
AAPL
),
decided it would be a good idea to get
more baskets to put their eggs in
. Inadvertently, the U.S.-China trade war prepared some companies for the coronavirus pandemic.
But few had made any big moves by the time the coronavirus hit.
This, Fisher said, is a wakeup call.
"What companies will do is map their supply chain, look at everything that goes in," said Fisher. "And those supply chains can be 10
layers deep. Foxconn gets things from other suppliers, which get them from another."
What you get from this is a figure called "revenue at risk," which helps underscore the amount of money that is at stake should one
link break in the chain. By adding other suppliers, that number can be brought down, avoiding a catastrophic stoppage for a
business.
But given that this is somewhat of a 100-year storm -- literally, the last major pandemic was in 1918 -- the question remains: how
many companies will simply roll the dice instead?
--
Ethan Wolff-Mann
is a writer at Yahoo
Finance focusing on consumer issues, personal finance, retail, airlines, and more. Follow him on Twitter
@ewolffmann
.
"... Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the "Third World." ..."
"... In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70 nations – more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases, listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military personnel working in approximately 160 countries. ..."
"... Since then, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries, many of which (e.g. Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile) had elected leaders willing to nationalize their natural resources and industries. Often these interventions took the form of covert operations. Less frequently, the United States went to war to achieve these same ends (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq). ..."
"... In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget and over half of all discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit. ..."
This March, as COVID-19's capacity to overwhelm the American healthcare system was becoming
obvious, experts marveled at the scenario unfolding before their eyes. "We have Third World
countries who are better equipped than we are now in Seattle,"
noted one healthcare professional, her words echoed just a few days later by a shocked
doctor in New York who described
"a third-world country type of scenario." Donald Trump could similarly only grasp what was
happening through the same comparison. "I have seen things that I've never seen before," he
said
. "I mean I've seen them, but I've seen them on television and faraway lands, never in my
country."
At the same time, regardless of the fact that "Third World" terminology is outdated and
confusing, Trump's inept handling of the pandemic has itself elicited more than one "banana republic"
analogy, reflecting already well-worn, bipartisan comparisons of Trump to a "
third world dictator " (never mind that dictators and authoritarians have never been
confined solely to lower income countries).
And yet, while such comparisons provoke predictably nativist outrage from the right, what is
absent from any of
these responses to the situation is a sense of reflection or humility about the "Third
World" comparison itself. The doctor in New York who finds himself caught in a "third world"
scenario and the political commentators outraged when Trump behaves "like a third world
dictator" uniformly express themselves in terms of incredulous wonderment. One never hears the
potential second half of this comparison: "I am now experiencing what it is like to live in a
country that resembles the kind of nation upon whom the United States regularly imposes broken
economies and corrupt leaders."
Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or
lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and
political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the
"Third World."
In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70
nations –
more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases,
listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military
personnel working in approximately 160 countries. This is a globe-spanning military and
security apparatus organized into regional commands
that resemble the "proconsuls of the Roman empire and the governors-general of the
British." In other words, this apparatus is built not for deterrence, but for primacy.
The U.S.'s global primacy emerged from the wreckage of World War II when the United States
stepped into the shoes vacated by European empires. Throughout the Cold War, and in the name of
supporting "free peoples," the sprawling American security apparatus helped ensure that 300
years of imperial resource extraction and wealth distribution – from what was then called
the Third World to the First – remained undisturbed, despite decolonization.
Since then, the United States
has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries,
many of which (e.g. Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile) had elected leaders willing to
nationalize their natural resources and industries. Often these interventions
took the form of covert operations. Less frequently, the United States went to war to
achieve these same ends (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq).
In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more
on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our
nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget
and over half of all
discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the
Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit.
Trump's claim that Obama had
"hollowed out" defense spending was not only grossly untrue, it masked the consistency of the
security budget's metastasizing growth since the Vietnam War, regardless of who sits in the
White House. At $738 billion dollars, Trump's security budget was passed in December with the
overwhelming support of House Democrats.
And yet, from the perspective of public discourse in this country, our globe-spanning,
resource-draining military and security apparatus exists in an entirely parallel universe to
the one most Americans experience on a daily level. Occasionally, we wake up to the idea of
this parallel universe but only when the United States is involved in visible military actions.
The rest of the time, Americans leave thinking about international politics – and the
deaths, for instance, of 2.5 million
Iraqis since 2003 – to the legions of policy analysts and Pentagon employees who
largely accept American military primacy as an "article of faith," as Professor of
International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham Patrick Porter has said
.
Foreign policy is routinely the last issue Americans consider when they vote for presidents
even though the president has more discretionary power over foreign policy than any other area
of American politics. Thus, despite its size, impact, and expense, the world's military hegemon
exists somewhere on the periphery of most Americans' self-understanding, as though, like the
sun, it can't be looked upon directly for fear of blindness.
Why is our avoidance of the U.S.'s weighty impact on the world a problem in the midst of the
coronavirus pandemic? Most obviously, the fact that our massive security budget has gone so
long without being widely questioned means that one of the soundest courses of action for the
U.S. during this crisis remains resolutely out of sight.
The shock of discovering that our healthcare system is so quickly overwhelmed should
automatically trigger broader conversations about spending priorities that entail deep and
sustained cuts in an engorged security budget whose sole purpose is the maintenance of primacy.
And yet, not only has this not happened, $10.5 billion of the coronavirus aid package has been
earmarked for the Pentagon, with $2.4 billion of that
channeled to the "defense industrial base." Of the $500 billion aimed at corporate America,
$17.5 billion is
set aside "for businesses critical to maintaining national security" such as aerospace.
To make matters worse, our blindness to this bloated security complex makes it frighteningly
easy for champions of American primacy to sound the alarm when they even suspect a dip in
funding might be forthcoming. Indeed, before most of us had even glanced at the details of the
coronavirus bill, foreign policy hawks were already
issuing dark prediction s about the impact of still-imaginary cuts in the security budget
on the U.S.'s "ability to strike any target on the planet in response to hostile actions by any
actor" – as if that ability already did not exist many times over.
On a more existential level, a country that is collectively engaged in unseeing its own
global power cannot help but fail to make connections between that power and domestic politics,
particularly when a little of the outside world seeps in. For instance, because most Americans
are unaware of their government's sponsorship of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the Middle
East throughout the Cold War, 9/11 can only ever appear to have come from nowhere, or because
Muslims hate our way of life.
This "how did we get here?" attitude replicates itself at every level of political life
making it profoundly difficult for Americans to see the impact of their nation on the rest of
the world, and the blowback from that impact on the United States itself. Right now, the
outsized influence of American foreign policy is already encouraging the spread of coronavirus
itself as U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran severely hamper that
country's ability to respond to the virus at home and virtually
guarantee its spread throughout the region.
Closer to home, our shock at the healthcare system's inept response to the pandemic masks
the relationship between the U.S.'s imposition
of free-market totalitarianism on countries throughout the
Global South and the impact of free-market totalitarianism on our own welfare state .
Likewise, it is more than karmic comeuppance that the President of the United States now
resembles the self-serving authoritarians the U.S. forced on so many formerly colonized
nations. The modes of militarized policing American security experts exported to those
authoritarian regimes also contributed , on a
policy level, to both the rise of militarized policing in American cities and the rise of mass
incarceration in the 1980s and 90s. Both of these phenomena played a significant role in
radicalizing Trump's white nationalist base and decreasing their tolerance for democracy.
Most importantly, because the U.S. is blind to its power abroad, it cannot help but turn
that blindness on itself. This means that even during a pandemic when America's exceptionalism
– our lack of national healthcare – has profoundly negative consequences on the
population, the idea of looking to the rest of the world for solutions remains unthinkable.
Senator Bernie Sanders' reasonable suggestion that the U.S., like Denmark, should
nationalize its healthcare system is dismissed as the fanciful pipe dream of an aging socialist
rather than an obvious solution to a human problem embraced by nearly every other nation in the
world. The Seattle healthcare professional who expressed shock that even "Third World
countries" are "better equipped" than we are to confront COVID-19 betrays a stunning ignorance
of the diversity of healthcare systems within developing countries. Cuba, for instance,
has responded
to this crisis with an efficiency and humanity that puts the U.S. to shame.
Indeed, the U.S. is only beginning to feel the full impact of COVID-19's explosive
confrontation with our exceptionalism: if the unemployment rate really does reach 32 percent,
as has been predicted,
millions of people will not only lose their jobs but their health insurance as well. In the
middle of a pandemic.
Over 150 years apart, political commentators Edmund Burke and Aimé Césaire
referred to this blindness as the byproduct of imperialism. Both used the exact same language
to describe it; as a "gangrene" that "poisons" the colonizing body politic. From their
different historical perspectives, Burke and Césaire observed how colonization
boomerangs back on colonial society itself, causing irreversible damage to nations that
consider themselves humane and enlightened, drawing them deeper into denial and
self-delusion.
Perhaps right now there is a chance that COVID-19 – an actual, not metaphorical
contagion – can have the opposite effect on the U.S. by opening our eyes to the things
that go unseen. Perhaps the shock of recognizing the U.S. itself is less developed than our
imagined "Third World" might prompt Americans to tear our eyes away from ourselves and look
toward the actual world outside our borders for examples of the kinds of political, economic,
and social solidarity necessary to fight the spread of Coronavirus. And perhaps moving beyond
shock and incredulity to genuine recognition and empathy with people whose economies and
democracies have been decimated by American hegemony might begin the process of reckoning with
the costs of that hegemony, not just in "faraway lands" but at home. In our country.
...The quality and sheer size of the AngloZionist propaganda machine was very successful in
keeping most of the people in the West in total ignorance of these realities. The faster the
Empire was collapsing, the more Obama or Trump peppered their patriotic flag-waving ceremonies
(aka "press conferences") with references to an "indispensable nation" providing "vital
leadership" thanks to its "the best economy in history", the "best military in history" and
even "unbelievable CEOs", "incredible politicians" and even "incredible conversations". The
message was simple: we are the best, better than all the rest and we are invincible.
Then COVID19 happened.
... ... ...
First , the imperial propaganda machine is simply unable to conceal the magnitude of the
disaster, even in countries like the US or the UK. Oh sure, initially doctors and even USN ship
commanders were summarily fired for speaking the truth, but even those cases proved impossible
to conceal and public opinion got even more suspicious of official assurances and statements.
The truth is that most of the entire planet already realized that this is a huge crisis and
that countries like Russia or China responded better than the US. The planet also knows that
the US "health not care" system is broke, corrupt, and mostly dysfunctional and that
Trump's initial optimism was based on nothing. BTW – Trump haters have immediately
instrumentalized the crisis to bash Trump. The sad thing is that while they are no better (and
most definitely not the braindead Uncle Joe), they are right about Trump being completely out
of touch with reality. In the age of the Internet this is a reality which even the US
propaganda machine is unable to conceal from the US public forever.
Second , and that is now quite obvious, it is becoming clear that the capitalist ideology of
free markets, globalism, consumerism, extreme individualism and, above all, greed, is totally
unable to cope with the crisis. Even more offensively to those who still believed in an
ideology based on the assumption that the sum of our greeds will create an optimal society,
countries with stronger collectivist traditions of solidarity (whether "enhanced" by Marxist or
Socialist ideas or not) did much better. China for starters, but also Cuba and even Russia
(which is neither Marxist nor Socialist, but which has very strong collectivist traditions) or
South Korea or Singapore (both non-Marxists with strong collectivist traditions). Even tiny
Venezuela, embattled and under siege by the Empire, managed to do much better than the US or the UK .
Not only did these countries all fare much better than much richer, and putatively much
"freer", countries, they did so while under US sanctions. And, finally, just to add insult to
injury, these supposedly "bad" countries proved much more generous than those incorporated into
the Empire: they sent many tons of vitally needed equipment and hundred of specialized
scientists and even military personnel to help those countries most in need (Italy, Spain,
Serbia, etc.).
... ... ...
Third , then we all saw the ugly sight of various western "democracies" literally stealing
vital medical gear from each other, over and over again. In fact, under a purely capitalistic
logic, this kind of "competition" was both inevitable (true) and even desirable (false): major
Med & Pharma companies all have used this financial windfall to maximize their profits
(which is, after all, what all corporations have to do in a capitalist system: get as much
money as possible for their shareholders).
... ... ...
Fourth , we also witness the raw nastiness of the imperial propaganda machine in articles
about how "Russia sent useless gear to Italy", that "Chinese equipment did not work" or about
how all the countries which responded better and sooner were all lying about the real numbers
(which is utter nonsense, the Chinese have been very open, as have the Russians: the truth is
that in the early phases of a pandemic it is impossible to get real numbers, that can only be
done much later). This is as false as the "Iraqi incubators", "genocidal Serbs" or "Gaddafi's
Viagra" and time will prove it.
Fifth , then there is the issue of poverty. We see the first signs that this pandemic (like
all pandemics) is affecting the poor much harder than the rich. Hardly a surprise For example,
in the US cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit, Miami or New Orleans have a lot of poor
neighborhoods and that people there are getting hit very hard.
... ... ...
Sixth , just like the Empire itself, NATO and the EU are also in free fall, both clueless as
to what to do and in a panic about doing anything proactive. Besides the flag-waving
Idiot-in-Chief, I also took the time to listen to both Macron and Merkel. They are both in a
full-freak-out mode, Macron speaks over and over about a "war" while Merkel declared that the
pandemic is the most serious challenge facing Germany since WWII!
... ... ...
Seven , in the US, the contrast between the Federal government and the state authorities is
quite startling. As much as the Federal government is terminally dysfunctional, state governors
have often had to use a lot of out of the box thinking to get supplies and specialists
I can only wish good luck to trump on this examination of WHO-it is riddled with fraud,
corruption, massive conflicts of interest. The same applies to CDC, which is a revolving door
for Big Pharma.
"... This pandemic we are facing represents the greatest challenge our country has faced in generations. It will take every ounce of energy and focus we have to navigate these troubled waters. We must wisely use our limited resources to support our domestic needs–and end our addiction to fighting unnecessary forever-wars. ..."
"... After all, American lawmakers are owned and operated by the corporate sector, led by the petrochemical industry. ..."
For the better part of the past two decades, the United States has indulgently and
counterproductively wasted
over $6 trillion and thousands of lives on unnecessary wars abroad. The
towering costs imposed on our country by coronavirus now exposes how Washington's skewed
priorities left the nation fragile internally and vulnerable to a crisis. For our own security,
it is time to end these pointless drains on our resources and prioritize strengthening
America.
The most egregious examples of our expensive and unnecessary military deployments abroad are
the combat operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Africa. The Department of Defense will
receive $165 billion in overseas contingency operations funding for Fiscal Year 2020 alone.
These operations will include a total of
over 93,000 troops (including regional support troops). Those are staggering numbers.
They are also wholly unnecessary. There are no security threats to America in Iraq, Syria,
Afghanistan or Africa that in any way justify such expenses. Up until now, these costs have had
virtually no impact on the population at large. With the mounting costs as a result of
coronavirus, however, it is clear we can no longer afford the luxury of burning money on
peripheral military missions.
Even after Congress
passed an unprecedented $2 trillion stimulus package in response to COVID-19, the hit to
our economy will not be quickly repaired.
This stimulus package barely addresses the huge and expanding problem of a health
care system struggling to cope with the exploding costs of providing care for so many
seriously ill people. There are shortages of personal protective
equipment necessary for medical professionals, large-scale
testing remains a challenge, and in some locations finding
enough hospital beds for ICU patients is almost at the breaking point.Despite the clear and
present danger coronavirus poses to millions of our citizens, there are some in Washington who
want to continue pushing the thoroughly discredited "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran,
unnecessarily inflaming tensions with a country that poses a minimal threat to America. This
situation is even worse than the possibility of wasting resources desperately needed at home,
it puts American servicemen and women in Iraq and Syria at almost daily risk of their
lives–and the potential to get us dragged into a new war.
The architects of the maximum pressure campaign against Tehran have long promised that it
would moderate Iran's behavior, that it would compel them to restrain their malevolent
behavior, and that it would increase the chances of crafting a new, better deal. The result has
been precisely and dramatically the opposite.
Despite the crippling sanctions and the devastation caused to their economy, Iran is now
openly ramping up its nuclear development activities, is engaging in risky behavior in the
region, and is presently unwilling even to consider diplomacy until we relieve sanctions. The
more we push, the further from a resolution we get and the higher the chances that a
miscalculation on someone's part inadvertently drags America into a war it neither needs nor
wants.
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been exceedingly expensive, but a conflict with Iran
would be considerably worse and require our country–when it could least afford
it–to divert enormous resources and manpower to fighting a wholly unnecessary conflict
that would likely drag on many years. Such a war–in the current economic
straits–could
plunge our country into a depression .
Flatly stated, Iran is no more than a middling power in the region that is more than
balanced by its neighbors. Our conventional military and nuclear deterrent could overpower any
unprovoked attack Iran may ever consider. There is no justification, therefore, in maintaining
this pointless pressure campaign and risking a war we don't need.
This pandemic we are facing represents the greatest challenge our country has faced in
generations. It will take every ounce of energy and focus we have to navigate these troubled
waters. We must wisely use our limited resources to support our domestic needs–and end
our addiction to fighting unnecessary forever-wars.
Daniel L. Davis is a Senior
Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after
21 years, including four combat deployments. Follow him @DanielLDavis1 .
Is the fact that we are insolvent stopping the Pentagon from requesting increased
military spending? Is the fact that we are broke stopping the neo-cons for war
preparations with Iran and Venezuela? I'm convinced that the only thing that will put an
end to our insane foreign policy is when some other country finally says enough, and
gives us a taste of our own medicine.
...After all, American
lawmakers are owned and operated by the corporate sector, led by the petrochemical
industry.
The "expert" quoted at the top of this essay is quite right: war is an American
addiction. Whether they are regime-changing, or wagging the dog, or going abroad to slay
dragons, Washington will never get this monkey off its back---unless it's forced to go
cold turkey. Only a deep economic depression can do that---and that looks to me as if
it's on the horizon. It will be one that takes the whole of the North Atlantic world with
it.
Well, mammy's basement aren't so bad these days. And what's so cowardly about pulling
out due to Iranian/ PMU pressure? justifying it on the pandemic? You know you're time's
up in Iraq. Any excuse will do.
"The rich are different from us," F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest
Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, "Yes, they have more money."
The exchange, although it never actually took place, sums up a wisdom Fitzgerald had that
eluded Hemingway. The rich are different. The cocoon of wealth and privilege permits the rich
to turn those around them into compliant workers, hangers-on, servants, flatterers and
sycophants. Wealth breeds, as Fitzgerald illustrated in "The Great Gatsby" and his short story
"The Rich Boy," a class of people for whom human beings are disposable commodities. Colleagues,
associates, employees, kitchen staff, servants, gardeners, tutors, personal trainers, even
friends and family, bend to the whims of the wealthy or disappear. Once oligarchs achieve
unchecked economic and political power, as they have in the United States, the citizens too
become disposable.
The public face of the oligarchic class bears little resemblance to the private face. I,
like Fitzgerald, was thrown into the embrace of the upper crust when young. I was shipped off
as a scholarship student at the age of 10 to an exclusive New England boarding school. I had
classmates whose fathers -- fathers they rarely saw -- arrived at the school in their
limousines accompanied by personal photographers (and at times their mistresses), so the press
could be fed images of rich and famous men playing the role of good fathers. I spent time in
the homes of the ultra-rich and powerful, watching my classmates, who were children, callously
order around men and women who worked as their chauffeurs, cooks, nannies and servants. When
the sons and daughters of the rich get into serious trouble there are always lawyers,
publicists and political personages to protect them -- George W. Bush's life is a case study in
the insidious affirmative action for the rich. The rich have a snobbish disdain for the poor --
despite well-publicized acts of philanthropy -- and the middle class. These lower classes are
viewed as uncouth parasites, annoyances that have to be endured, at times placated and always
controlled in the quest to amass more power and money. My hatred of authority, along with my
loathing for the pretensions, heartlessness and sense of entitlement of the rich, comes from
living among the privileged. It was a deeply unpleasant experience. But it exposed me to their
insatiable selfishness and hedonism. I learned, as a boy, who were my enemies.
The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults.
We have been blinded to the depravity of our ruling elite by the relentless propaganda of
public relations firms that work on behalf of corporations and the rich. Compliant politicians,
clueless entertainers and our vapid, corporate-funded popular culture, which holds up the rich
as leaders to emulate and assures us that through diligence and hard work we can join them,
keep us from seeing the truth.
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy," Fitzgerald wrote of the wealthy couple at the
center of Gatsby's life. "They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into
their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let
other people clean up the mess they had made."
Aristotle, Niccolò Machiavelli, Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith and Karl Marx all
began from the premise there is a natural antagonism between the rich and the masses. "Those
who have too much of the goods of fortune, strength, wealth, friends, and the like, are neither
willing nor able to submit to authority," Aristotle wrote in "Politics." "The evil begins at
home; for when they are boys, by reason of the luxury in which they are brought up, they never
learn, even at school, the habit of obedience." Oligarchs, these philosophers knew, are
schooled in the mechanisms of manipulation, subtle and overt repression and exploitation to
protect their wealth and power at our expense. Foremost among their mechanisms of control is
the control of ideas. Ruling elites ensure that the established intellectual class is
subservient to an ideology -- in this case free market capitalism and globalization -- that
justifies their greed. "The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the
dominant material relationships," Marx wrote, "the dominant material relationships grasped as
ideas."
The blanket dissemination of the ideology of free market capitalism through the media and
the purging, especially in academia, of critical voices have permitted our oligarchs to
orchestrate the largest income inequality gap in the industrialized world. The top 1 percent in
the United States own 40 percent of the nation's wealth while the bottom 80 percent own only 7
percent, as Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote in "The Price of Inequality." For every dollar that the
wealthiest 0.1 percent amassed in 1980 they had an additional $3 in yearly income in 2008,
David Cay Johnston explained in
the article "9 Things the Rich Don't Want You to Know About Taxes." The bottom 90 percent,
Johnson said, in the same period added only one cent. Half of the country is now classified as
poor or low-income. The real value of the minimum wage has fallen by $2.77 since 1968.
Oligarchs do not believe in self-sacrifice for the common good. They never have. They never
will. They are the cancer of democracy."We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive
people, but of course we are," Wendell
Berry writes. "Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be
rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all -- by proxies we have given to greedy
corporations and corrupt politicians -- be participating in its destruction? Most of us are
still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for
it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the
rest of us. How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough,
which is the same thing."
The rise of an oligarchic state offers a nation two routes, according to Aristotle. The
impoverished masses either revolt to rectify the imbalance of wealth and power or the oligarchs
establish a brutal tyranny to keep the masses forcibly enslaved. We have chosen the second of
Aristotle's options. The slow advances we made in the early 20th century through unions,
government regulation, the New Deal, the courts, an alternative press and mass movements have
been reversed. The oligarchs are turning us -- as they did in the 19th century steel and
textile factories -- into disposable human beings. They are building the most pervasive
security and surveillance apparatus in human history to keep us submissive.
This imbalance would not have disturbed most of our Founding Fathers. The Founding Fathers,
largely wealthy slaveholders, feared direct democracy. They rigged our political process to
thwart popular rule and protect the property rights of the native aristocracy. The masses were
to be kept at bay. The Electoral College, the original power of the states to appoint senators,
the disenfranchisement of women, Native Americans, African-Americans and men without property
locked most people out of the democratic process at the beginning of the republic. We had to
fight for our voice. Hundreds of workers were killed and thousands were wounded in our labor
wars. The violence dwarfed the labor battles in any other industrialized nation. The democratic
openings we achieved were fought for and paid for with the blood of abolitionists,
African-Americans, suffragists, workers and those in the anti-war and civil rights movements.
Our radical movements, repressed and ruthlessly dismantled in the name of anti-communism, were
the real engines of equality and social justice. The squalor and suffering inflicted on workers
by the oligarchic class in the 19th century is mirrored in the present, now that we have been
stripped of protection. Dissent is once again a criminal act. The Mellons, Rockefellers and
Carnegies at the turn of the last century sought to create a nation of masters and serfs. The
modern corporate incarnation of this 19th century oligarchic elite has created a worldwide
neofeudalism, where workers across the planet toil in misery while corporate oligarchs amass
hundreds of millions in personal wealth.
Class struggle defines most of human history. Marx got this right. The sooner we realize
that we are locked in deadly warfare with our ruling, corporate elite, the sooner we will
realize that these elites must be overthrown. The corporate oligarchs have now seized all
institutional systems of power in the United States. Electoral politics, internal security, the
judiciary, our universities, the arts and finance, along with nearly all forms of
communication, are in corporate hands. Our democracy, with faux debates between two corporate
parties, is meaningless political theater. There is no way within the system to defy the
demands of Wall Street, the fossil fuel industry or war profiteers. The only route left to us,
as Aristotle knew, is revolt.
It is not a new story. The rich, throughout history, have found ways to subjugate and
re-subjugate the masses. And the masses, throughout history, have cyclically awoken to throw
off their chains. The ceaseless fight in human societies between the despotic power of the rich
and the struggle for justice and equality lies at the heart of Fitzgerald's novel, which uses
the story of Gatsby to carry out a fierce indictment of capitalism. Fitzgerald was reading
Oswald Spengler's "The Decline of the West" as he was writing "The Great Gatsby." Spengler
predicted that, as Western democracies calcified and died, a class of "monied thugs" would
replace the traditional political elites. Spengler was right about that.
"There are only two or three human stories," Willa Cather wrote, "and they
go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before."
The seesaw of history has thrust the oligarchs once again into the sky. We sit humiliated
and broken on the ground. It is an old battle. It has been fought over and over in human
history. We never seem to learn. It is time to grab our pitchforks.
For the central attribute is symmetry: the balancing of incentives and disincentives,
people should also penalized if something for which they are responsible goes wrong and hurts
others: he or she who wants a share of the benefits needs to also share some of the
risks.
. . .
And in the absence of the filtering of skin in the game, the mechanisms of evolution fail:
if someone else dies in your stead, the built up of asymmetric risks and misfitness will
cause the system to eventually blow-up.
I read your use of feedback as >reference to external stimuli (the real world).
With Taleb, I'm reading disincentives as penalties, and that lack of penalty/punishment
warps the selection process of evolution. With respect to the post, that has created a lack
of respect for risk by those who make decisions.
It can be taken a step farther, that the selection process has created perverse
incentives. For example, the bailouts from 2008 made the FIRE sector qliphotically
antifragile. In that scenario, risk becomes rewarding.
I want to be careful here about using the word feedback, its ambiguities could be
confusing. Given that, I'm interested in knowing what you mean about ignoring the
disincentives skin-in-the-game creates. Could you please expand on that?
My problem with Taleb's skin in the game is that, as he well knows, it's hard to
distinguish luck (good or bad) and skill. How can we punish for luck though?
Think of a judge, who gets, through his skill, 99 out of 100 cases right. But the 100th
– which, by pure luck, could be really large case – he gets wrong.
Or, even simpler. Technically, if you do one decision a day, and have 99% success rate,
every three months you get somethign wrong (1-0.99^60 = 0.54) more likely than not. Should
you be punished for this? If we yes, then people will start takin decisions where alternate
history is hard to prove, i.e. you create a selection bias towards "do nothing". You can then
be punished for "doing nothing" but most of the time "do nothing" is a safe choice. (it's a
specific case of "go with the crowd")
Also, in decision making, context is extremely important (which is why courts go to super
lenghts to establish it in judical cases). Taleb should know it, and he should also know that
unless context is taken into account _in_full_ then the skin-in-the-game will not be seen as
fair. But the problem is, the context can never be fully established, and rarely w/o the
participation of the major decision maker. Who will have no incentive to participate. Which
will hamper learning from it.
Skin in the game makes sense when you can clearly separate luck and skill, and clearly
establish context. Even one of those is rare occasion, both is extremely so.
That said, you can often establish post fact when someone blew up (this is what the
various enuiries do). And then you'd treat accordingly. But that's not skin-in-the-game,
because again, the enquiry can establish that you acted in good faith, as most people would
act at the time – and so assign no blame. So you may "fail honourably".
Skin in the game does not let you fail honourably – because it's not skin in the
game anymore (because it can let you game the system again, via doing just enough to pass any
future enquiry as "more could have been done, but there's no clear knowing dereliction of
duty).
TLDR; skin-in-the-game is an attempt at simplictic solution to a complex problem. Taleb
should know better.
If only it was as simple as saying that services operated by the state were fine, it's
private capital where the problem lies.
It's not. This is a societal and cultural problem.
There are employer "pushes" towards the deskilling and degrading of levels of operational
competence. One is employers ( both public sector and private sector) do not want to pay for
training and to retain a body of experienced employees because both of these cost money
up-front with a payoff (in the form of competent, knowledgeable staff) that comes only
slowly, later. And a churn of staff is seen as the sign, wrongly, but this is what the MBAs
sell as snake oil, of a dynamic, healthy organization which is bringing in (through a process
which never seems to be adequately explained) new talent.
Plus, of course, most obviously, younger and newer employees are cheaper so your average
headcount cost is lower which is usually a management metric -- often one which is
incentive-ised through reward.
There are also employee "pulls" -- and again, these are not just observed in the private
sector. You see them in medicine, academia and even, most bizarrely, the arts. An example of
these employee-instigated causes of a reduction in capability is that it becomes
in-cultural-ated that if you spend too long in the same place, you're only doing so out of
necessity because you're so useless, no-one else will employ you. So even if don't really
want to move onto a different organization or a different field of work outside your
skillset, you feel you have to, in order to avoid looking "stale", "resistant to change",
"stuck in your comfort zone" or any other of the myriad of thought-crimes which you don't
want, in today's job market, to be seen to having evidence of committing. And also, as
collective union bargaining has gone the way of the dinosaur, more often than not, if you
want a raise you have to threaten to quit to get one. But again, more often than not, your
current employer will call your bluff and let you leave. So you have to have another job
lined up to to go to, if you're not to fall into a trap of flouncing off in a huff but having
no other work to walk straight into. While your current employer might not, if they were
honest, want to lose you, the dynamics of the workplace being what they are, neither side can
then climb down from the ultimatums they've just served.
Yes, there are some notable poster-children of how private enterprise has committed
suicide through the wanton bloodletting of its skilled employees (Boeing being a recent
case-in-point). But even if you cast your gaze in the direction of public employers, this
same phenomena can be found in universities, colleges and K-12 schools (where faculties are
no longer bolstered by a strong bench of tenured staff, contract and non-tenured
hire-and-fire disposable staff are now the norm, I won't even go there on the effect of
charter schools) healthcare (even in the UK's entirely public sector NHS, there is huge
reliance on contract and agency staff which the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted and the
government is trying, belatedly and without any clear indication it can do so in the short
term
to redress this and avoid being price-gouged). Or federal and state
regulators which now simply do not understand the businesses they are supposed to be
regulating and have to buy-in external "expertise" (and merely exacerbate the revolving
door problem).
In summary, I wish it were so simple to merely say "private sector bad, government good".
But the rot has set in from top to bottom across all aspects of how we manage our shared
organizational maturity (or, should I say, now, fix our shared organizational immaturity) and
whether or not it started in the private sector, it has well and truly spread to infect the
public sector, too. This was the unmistakable point of the post, so it bears re-reading it
again with a particular emphasis on understanding why this is the case.
Another angle in your post is the interesting role of "enlightened" capitalists -- the
Krafts, Bill Gates, and soon to be others.
They are trying to fill the chasm in infrastructure, supplies and social cohesion created
by the capitalist state and private capital.
Some of their efforts might pan out and be useful.
But they represent the wrong politics.
The crisis is not just about a virus and the lack of a medical cure; it is systemic: the
social, political and economic order of America is institutionally and culturally unable to
mobilize for virus prevention and suppression.
It literally takes a peoples' war. China wasn't lying.
And the billionaire philanthropists actually don't want us to think and act that way.
Don't praise them. They want us to return to the old normal of grotesque neoliberal
capitalism that made them rich beyond words.
Living in a quiet Boston suburb, I can see this clearly. The poor are still going out to
work, dying, or suffering at home. The rich are off to the Cape, having food deliveries from
uninsured, precarious workers, and have no concept of a collective effort as they continue to
work for themselves from home.
In short, capitalism had built up vulnerabilities to another crash that any number of
possible triggers could unleash. The trigger this time was not the dot.com meltdown of 2000 or
the sub-prime meltdown of 2008/9; it was a virus. And of course, mainstream ideology requires
focusing on the trigger, not the vulnerability. Thus mainstream policies aim to reestablish
pre-virus capitalism. Even if they succeed, that will return us to a capitalist system whose
accumulated vulnerabilities will soon again collapse from yet another trigger.
In the light of the coronavirus pandemic, I focus criticism on capitalism and the
vulnerabilities it has accumulated for several reasons. Viruses are part of nature. They have
attacked human beings -- sometimes dangerously -- in both distant and recent history. In 1918,
the Spanish Flu killed nearly 700,000 in the United States and millions elsewhere. Recent
viruses include SARS, MERS andEbola. What matters to public health is each society's
preparedness: stockpiled tests, masks, ventilators, hospital beds, trained personnel, etc., to
manage dangerous viruses. In the U.S., such objects are produced by private capitalist
enterprises whose goal is profit. It was not profitable to produce and stockpile such products,
that was not and still is not being done.
Nor did the U.S. government produce or stockpile those medical products. Top U.S. government
personnel privilege private capitalism; it is their primary objective to protect and
strengthen. The result is that neither private capitalism nor the U.S. government performed the
most basic duty of any economic system: to protect and maintain public health and safety. U.S.
capitalism's response to the coronavirus pandemic continues to be what it has been since
December 2019: too little, too late. It failed. It is the problem.
The second reason I focus on capitalism is that the responses to today's economic collapse
by Trump, the GOP and most Democrats carefully avoid any criticism of capitalism. They all
debate the virus, China, foreigners, other politicians, but never the system they all serve.
When Trump and others press people to return to churches and jobs -- despite risking their and
others' lives -- they place reviving a collapsed capitalism ahead of public health.
The third reason capitalism gets blame here is that alternative systems -- those not driven
by a profit-first logic -- could manage viruses better. While not profitable to produce and
stockpile everything needed for a viral pandemic, it is efficient. The wealth already lost in
this pandemic far exceeds the cost to have produced and stockpiled the tests and ventilators,
the lack of which is contributing so much to today's disaster. Capitalism often pursues
profit at the expense of more urgent social needs and values. In this, capitalism is grossly
inefficient. This pandemic is now bringing that truth home to people.
A worker-coop based economy -- where workers democratically run enterprises, deciding what,
how and where to produce, and what to do with any profits -- could, and likely would, put
social needs and goals (like proper preparation for pandemics) ahead of profits. Workers are
the majority in all capitalist societies; their interests are those of the majority. Employers
are always a small minority; theirs are the "special interests" of that minority. Capitalism
gives that minority the position, profits and power to determine how the society as a whole
lives or dies. That's why all employees now wonder and worry about how long our jobs, incomes,
homes and bank accounts will last -- if we still have them. A minority (employers) decides all
those questions and excludes the majority (employees) from making those decisions, even though
that majority must live with their results.
Of course, the top priority now is to put public health and safety first. To that end,
employees across the country are now thinking about refusing to obey orders to work in unsafe
job conditions. U.S. capitalism has thus placed a general strike on today's social agenda. A
close second priority is to learn from capitalism's failure in the face of the pandemic. We
must not suffer such a dangerous and unnecessary social breakdown again. Thus system change is
now also moving onto today's social agenda.
Capitalism requires continual growth. That isn't possible on a world of finite resources.
No government operating under a capitalist dogma can solve this inherent predicament.
You can blame the leaders all you like, but they are constrained by the system that can't
see beyond the next quarterly profit projection.
The word "capitalism" is a euphemism for "totally corrupt system".
The totally corrupt system has failed.
For example, were this an honest system, Goldman 666 would have been wiped out in the GFC
and Blankfein would be living in a cardboard box under a freeway overpass instead of bragging
and gloating about doing gawd's work while soaking in his looted billion dollars.
Even if
they aren't exactly certain how the business model works,
Twitter blue checks and the rest of the mainstream media - having been whipped into an
anti-banker fervor by Bernie Sanders and the last glowing embers of Occupy - never pass up an
opportunity to kick private equity in the nuts.
And if there's one industry where private equity has done the most to directly harm American
public, it's health care.
Envision's Colorado headquarters
During the latter part of the Democratic primary campaign, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren primed the pump by extolling the evils of private equity to the public every chance they
got, helping impress the term into the memory banks of legions of twentysomethings how the
industry had contributed to America's health-care crisis, along with a multitude of other
societal ills. Now, with the world in the grip of an unprecedented crisis, the industry is
about to get pilloried once again - but this, much, much bigger than before, we suspect - as
private equity-backed health-care companies, loaded down from their LBO debt binges, are forced
to make cutbacks including slashing pay for doctors and nurses in the middle of a pandemic that
has already killed nearly 9,500 Americans.
And now the KKR-backed Envision Healthcare Corp., one of the biggest medical providers
backed by private equity, is poised to become the poster-child for Wall Street greed as it
informs hundreds of doctors in its employ will not be receiving the bonus checks they had been
expecting in April. Though we suspect this isn't a complete surprise, the cuts will deprive
hundreds of doctors of roughly one-third of their total comp during an already extremely
difficult time for them and their families. The company has promised to repay them at a later
date once their financial situation has improved.
The move risks igniting a blowback that could make KKR one of "the most hated companies in
the world. Just ask Martin Shkreli.
But the reason the company's financial position is so poor in the first place is because
Envision carries more than $7 billion of debt. This debt was amassed during what was, according
to data compiled by
Bloomberg , the third-largest health-care LBO ever.
In a statement, Envision said it's "100% focused" on saving lives during this crisis, even
though its business (ambulatory surgical centers and medical staffing) shrank more than 75% in
two weeks, Bloomberg said. With so many Americans hiding at home and fearful of entering
hospitals and doctor's offices, people are delaying elective and non-emergency care at
unprecedented rates.
"We are on the front lines caring for patients during this unprecedented public health and
economic crisis," the Nashville, Tennessee-based company said. "Envision Healthcare is 100
percent focused on saving lives and sustaining the nation's fragile health-care system. The
safety net we provide for millions of patients must remain fully intact for when we get to
the other side of this national crisis."
Like many companies, Envision completely drew down its two credit lines to provide financial
flexibility in recent weeks (apparently it didn't listen to Larry Kudlow and Mnuchin). The
company spends about $1.5 billion on compensation for physicians quarterly, an insider
reportedly told BBG. The company has about $140 million to $150 million in debt payments due in
the next two weeks, according to Mike Holland of Bloomberg Intelligence, and has $650 million
of cash on its balance sheet. It has warned investors that it might need to raise more
financing if circumstances continue to deteriorate.
The biggest problem for KKR, is that some of the physician groups are planning to sue the
company; litigation could draw unwanted attention to KKR at a time when public anger is
dangerously high.
But as the 'cockroach' theory suggests, Envision isn't alone: The boom in LBOs (part of the
binge on corporate debt that also fueled the surge in buybacks) left many companies, especially
in the health-care space, where many companies were built via a series of costly mergers and
acquisitions.
A comment on Peter Hitchens' article in today's Mail on Sunday (5th April) provided a link
to an interview with Italian nano-pathologist Dr Stefano Montanari. Since he doesn't appear in
OffG among the first twelve or subsequent ten scientists questioning the official Covid-19
narrative I am providing the link here in case anyone is interested. The site itself seems to
have a save white identity bias, but in these strange times, politics makes strange bedfellows.
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2020/04/04/the-coronavirus-and-galileo-an-interview-with-a-italian-nano-pathologist-dr-stefano-montanari/
2 0 Reply Apr 5, 2020 1:38 PM
George Mc ,
Interesting interview. This bit especially:
There is one point we did not touch -- the economic, which is not part of my competence.
We are now blocking the world and, as for Italy, the economy was already at a low point.
What do they do? They freeze all activities but keep the stock exchange open. Stocks reach
a low bottom. What does it mean? The ultra billionaire can easily purchase companies that
are now worth pennies.
When eventually it will be decided that the (coronavirus) farce is ended -- and nothing
will end because this virus will continue undaunted to do what it's doing now (or its
evolving strains will do), the ultra-billionaires will own everything. The rich (a degree
below the billionaires) will have bought, say, 3–4 restaurants and/or 10 stores that
had to close.
In summary, all who were rich will be infinitely richer, But we will also have a
flood-tide of people who will always be poorer. This will be another consequence of this
fake epidemic, perhaps, who knows, created on purpose.
"... John Allen , Nicholas Burns , Laurie Garrett , Richard N. Haass , G. John Ikenberry , Kishore Mahbubani , Shivshankar Menon , Robin Niblett , Joseph S. Nye Jr. , Shannon K. O'Neil , Kori Schake , Stephen M. Walt ..."
No matter how the federal government responded, the United States was never going to escape
COVID-19 entirely. Even Singapore, whose response to the virus seems to be the gold standard
thus far,
has several hundred confirmed cases . Nonetheless, U.S. President Donald Trump's
administration's belated, self-centered, haphazard, and tone-deaf response will end up costing
Americans trillions of dollars and thousands of otherwise preventable deaths. Even if the view
that
the dangers may have been exaggerated due to a lack of accurate data turns out to be
correct, Trump's entire approach to governing and the administration's erratic response
squandered public confidence and made a more measured reaction untenable. Despite his denials,
he is still responsible for where the country is today.
But that's not the only damage the United States will suffer. Far from making "America great
again," this epic policy failure will further tarnish the United States' reputation as a
country that knows how to do things effectively.
For over a century, the United States' outsized influence around the world rested on three
pillars. The first was the its awesome combination of economic and military strength. The
United States had the world's largest and most sophisticated economy, the world's best
universities and research centers, and a territory blessed with bountiful natural resources.
These features eventually enabled the United States to create and maintain military forces that
none of its rivals could match. Taken together, these combined assets gave the United States
the loudest voice on the planet.
The second pillar was support from an array of allies. No country every agreed with
everything Washington wanted to do, and some states opposed almost everything the United States
sought or stood for, but many countries understood that they benefited from U.S. leadership and
were usually willing to go along with it. Although the United States was almost always acting
in its own self-interest, the fact that others had similar interests made it easier to persuade
them to go along.
A third pillar, however, is broad confidence in U.S. competence. When other countries
recognize the United States' strength, support its aims and believe U.S. officials know what
they are doing, they are more likely to follow the United States' lead. If they doubt its
power, its wisdom, or its ability to act effectively, U.S. global influence inevitably erodes.
This reaction is entirely understandable: If the United States' leaders reveal themselves to be
incompetent bunglers, why should foreign powers listen to their advice? Having a reputation for
competence, in short, can be a critical force multiplier.
The glowing reputation that Americans used to enjoy was built up over many decades. It was
partly a reflection of the United States' industrial might and world-class infrastructure: the
network of highways, roads, railways, bridges, skyscrapers, dams, harbors, and airports that
used to dazzle foreign visitors upon their arrival. Victory in World War II, the creation of
the Bretton Woods economic institutions, innovative acts such as the Marshall Plan, and the
successful moon landing all reinforced an image of the United States as a place where people
knew how to set ambitious goals and bring them successfully to fruition.
Even blunders such as the Vietnam War did not fully tarnish the aura of competence that
surrounded the United States. Indeed, the peaceful and victorious end of the Cold War and the
smashing U.S. victory in the 1990-1991 Gulf War exorcized the ghosts of Vietnam and made the
United States' model of liberal democratic capitalism seem like the obvious model for others to
emulate. Add to that a continued stream of technological innovations -- the personal computer,
the smartphone, and all those fancy weapons -- and one can understand why people around the
world still looked upon the United States as a meritocratic, accomplished, and above all,
competent country. Small wonder pundits such as Tom Friedman began to portray the United
States as
the only viable model for an increasingly globalized world , telling aspiring
countries that if they wanted to succeed, they had to don the "Golden Straitjacket" and become
more like the United States.
Over the past 25 years, however, the United States has done a remarkable job of squandering
that invaluable reputation for responsible leadership and basic competence. The list of
transgressions is long: there is former President Bill Clinton's irresponsible dalliance with a
White House intern, former President George W. Bush's administration's failure to heed warnings
of a terrorist attack before 9/11, the Enron and Madoff scandals, the bungled responses to
Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Maria in 2017, the inability to either win or end the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the ill-advised interventions in Libya, Yemen, Syria, and
elsewhere, the Wall Street meltdown of 2008, the Boeing 737 Max debacle, the Republican-led
gridlock in Washington, and so on. Nor should we forget the long-concealed criminal misdeeds of
Harvey Weinstein (and many others) and the sordid tale of the very well-connected Jeffrey
Epstein, whose conveniently timed demise in a New York jail may prevent us from ever knowing
the full extent of his -- and others' -- misconduct.
And all the while the United States told itself it was the greatest country in the world,
with the ablest officials, the best-run businesses, the most sophisticated financial firms, and
the most virtuous leaders. Instead, former Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov's description of life
in the Soviet Union may be a more accurate description of American life than Americans would
like to admit: "[We] stole from ourselves, took and gave bribes, lied in the reports, in
newspapers, from high podiums, wallowed in our lies, hung medals on one another. And all of
this -- from top to bottom and from bottom to top."
Then came COVID-19. Trump's handling of the crisis has been an embarrassing debacle from the
start -- despite
repeated warnings -- but it was also utterly predictable. His long business career has
shown that he was more of a showman than a leader, better at conning people out of money and
evading responsibility than at managing complex business operations. His tawdry personal life
offered equally clear warnings. Since taking office, Trump has perfected the art of the lie,
while gradually purging his administration of people with genuine expertise and relying instead
on B-list hacks, sycophants, and his unqualified son-in-law. When suddenly faced with a
complicated problem requiring grown-up leadership, it was inevitable that Trump would mishandle
it and then deny
responsibility . It is a failure
of character unparalleled in U.S. history, and it could not have come at a worse
time . The amazing thing is that anyone is even remotely surprised.
How did the United States get here? How did it squander its reputation for knowing what it
is doing, and for being able to get the right things done as well or better than anyone else?
I'm not sure, but let me venture a few guesses.
Part of the problem is the hubris that comes from the United States' remarkably favorable
history. It has been by far the luckiest country in the modern world, and Americans started to
assume that success was their birthright instead of something that needed to be earned,
nurtured, and protected. And with that complacency came a willingness to gamble on utterly
untried leadership, despite all of the warning signs described above.
A related problem, I'm inclined to think, has been a broader relaxing of standards and a
refusal to hold people accountable. One can see this at many universities, where grade
inflation is well entrenched, faculty have few incentives to judge poor work harshly, and more
attention is paid to sports teams than to genuine academic achievement. The recent college
recruiting scandal exposed the lengths to which well-heeled parents would go to get their kids
into colleges for which they weren't qualified, but universities have acted similarly when they
reserved slots of alumni children ("legacies") or for the offspring of major donors.
I've focused on higher education because that's the business I know best, but this problem
is hardly confined there. In the contemporary United States, CEOs mismanage a company
such as Boeing
and then depart with multimillion-dollar golden
parachutes . Top officials in the George W. Bush administration and a chorus of outside
cheerleaders deceive themselves and the country into a foolish war in the Middle East, yet
hardly any of them suffer adverse professional or personal consequences. Wall Street firms can
crater the economy through a combination of greed, indifference, and fraud, and no one gets
investigated, let alone prosecuted. Highly decorated generals favor "staying the course" in
distant battles, fail to achieve victory, and then retire to corporate boards and influential
positions as respected pundits. Meanwhile, whistleblowers and dedicated public servants strive
to fulfill their oaths of office, only to be vilified , fired, or worse. When integrity and
dedication go unrewarded and failure carries no penalty, competence is bound to suffer.
To speculate further, I suspect a broader cultural current of selfishness is at work here as
well. Former President John Kennedy was no saint, but he did devote his adult life to public
service and told Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do
for your country." By the time Ronald Reagan became president, however, Americans were being
told that government was the enemy and (to quote the film Wall Street ) that "greed is good." The market was
everything, public service was devalued, and taxes were for suckers. Having spent decades
hollowing out many of their public institutions, Americans suddenly find themselves unprepared
for a real public crisis. The apotheosis of this trend is Trump himself: How could a serious
country possibly choose as its leader a narcissistic, manifestly unqualified self-promoter with
a long track record of failure and deceit?
Am I overstating the case? Perhaps. There are plenty of American firms that still do
terrific and innovative work; there are tens of thousands of scientists and scholars who remain
more committed to searching for truth than to making a fast buck, and there are politicians and
public servants at the local, state, and federal levels who are more interested in doing good
than in getting reelected
or feathering their own nests . There are dedicated teachers and hard-working students at
every level of the U.S. educational system. But the rot is still widespread.
Absent a reversal of this trend, the United States' global influence will continue to
recede. Not because the country has embraced "America First" and deliberately chosen to
disengage, but because people around the world will not take its ideas or advice as seriously
as they once did. They'll listen, perhaps, and they may agree with it from time to time, but
the deference U.S. leaders used to be able to count on will fade. Once COVID-19 is over,
Americans are likely to discover to their chagrin that other voices (
Beijing, anyone?) are receiving more respectful attention. That's not an omen of imminent
disaster, but it will be a different world than the one Americans have been accustomed to
inhabiting. At the margin, the broad contours of world politics and some important aspects of
the world economy will no longer slant so heavily in the United States' favor.
Can this situation be fixed? I don't know. Cultural rot cannot be fixed by legislation,
executive orders, or even jeremiads like this one. One may hope that the present crisis will
remind enough Americans that having competent and reliable people in key leadership positions
really matters, and that holding people more accountable for corruption, cronyism, or sheer
incompetence is essential to effective public policies. Whether you favor a big welfare state
or a small libertarian one, you should above all want it to be competently led and staffed with
knowledgeable and dedicated experts. Whoever the next president is, he needs to staff his
administration with people who have demonstrated qualifications for the jobs they are assigned,
instead of being chosen for their personal loyalty or their talents as sycophants.
Americans will need to rethink a political system that recruits and rewards those who are
most adept at selling themselves to the highest bidder. And there has to be something seriously
wrong with a political system that has devoted many months and spent billions of dollars
preparing for the 2020 election and ends up giving the country a choice between three old white
guys. For that matter, Americans ought to rethink whether spending
a full year electing someone to a four year term makes any sense at all . No other advanced
democracy does it this way. And while we're at it, let's scrap the absurd Electoral College, an
indefensible relic that systematically disempowers voters in most of the country.
Looking forward, the possibility of fundamental political change is the only silver lining I
can see right now. America hasn't faced a crisis like this since the 1930s and 1940s, and it
was in a better position to meet those challenges then than it is today. But a previous
generation of Americans eventually rose to the occasion, and showed themselves and the world
what their country could do. It is upon Americans now to remember that experience, put the past
few decades of hubris, division, and indulgence aside, and prove that their country is still
competent enough to figure out what it needs to do. And then they need to do it.
Putin, like western leaders, often discusses national problems during his appearances. But
afterwards, he'll query responsible ministers about questionable policies, and will make sure
that an effective solution will be put in place. He'll also mention problems during his
speeches, and will then follow the discussion, usually in some detail, with how progress is
being made to fix them.
Western leaders, on the other hand, engage in hand-wringing about how difficult the
problems are, and that we'll have to learn to helplessly adapt ("It's a new economy", "These
jobs aren't coming back."), or fob off their responsibility with dysfunctional suggestions
("Learn to code," as if that were a solution, or impose an economic package on Greece that
will take until 2040 just to find out whether it might be working), or just pride themselves
on realizing there's a problem (like the EU, who considers it an accomplishment to "identify
challenges", and who adopted a policy of wait and see for COVID-19).
There's such a palpable difference between actual leadership and play-acting.
Trump, Sanders and Tulsi all share 3 things: 1) proposals for policies to improve
circumstances that involve making real changes to the status quo 2) strong grassroots based
on disgust with elite policies 3) accusations that they are agents of Putin.
I dunno, if the elites kep attempting to thwart competent domestic leadership, maybe we
should shoot for an amendment that puts Putin directly on the ballot. At least he would know
how to get elected. Then, we cut through the innuendo and make it clear that what voters want
is actual leadership. What have we got to lose?
New York is paying inflated rates as high as 15 times the regular price to get crucial
medical equipment such as masks, as the state struggles to contain the coronavirus,
ProPublica
The state with almost 40 percent of the confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country is paying 20
cents for gloves that typically cost three times less and $7.50 for masks, which is 15 times
the regular price, according to an analysis of payment data by ProPublica.
New York also has paid more than twice the typical cost for infusion pumps. A portable X-ray
machine cost the state $248,841, when it should be between $30,000 and $80,000.
States across the country have complained to the federal government about severe shortages
of equipment. They say they've been forced to compete with other states or countries for
precious materials.
New York Gov. Andrew
Cuomo has compared the situation to "being on eBay with 50 other states" and the Federal
Emergency Management Agency.
New York expects to lose $15 billion in costs and lost revenue from the pandemic.
"We know that New York and other states are in the market at the same time, along with the
rest of the world, bidding on these same items, which is clearly driving the fluctuation in
costs," budget office spokesman Freeman Klopott said in an email to ProPublica.
Could the stalled economy we've inflicted on ourselves in our frantic efforts to battle the
COVID-19 pandemic lead to civil disorder? History suggests that's a real danger.
Around the world, high unemployment and stagnant economic activity tend to lead to social
unrest, including demonstrations, strikes, and other forms of potentially violent disruptions.
That's a huge concern as forecasters expect the U.S. unemployment rate in the months to come to
surpass that seen during the depths of the Great Depression.
"We're putting this initial number at 30 percent; that's a 30 percent unemployment rate"
in the second quarter of this year as a result of the planned economic shutdowns, Federal
Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard
told Bloomberg News on March 22. Gross Domestic Product, he adds, is expected to drop by
50 percent.
Unlike most bouts of economic malaise, this is a self-inflicted wound meant to counter a
serious public health crisis. But, whatever the reasons, it means businesses shuttered and
people without jobs and incomes. That's risky.
"Results from the empirical analysis indicate that economic growth and the unemployment
rate are the two most important determinants of social unrest,"
notes the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a United Nations agency that maintains
a Social Unrest Index in an attempt to predict civil disorder based, in part, on economic
trends. "For example, a one standard deviation increase in unemployment raises social unrest
by 0.39 standard deviations, while a one standard deviation increase in GDP growth reduces
social unrest by 0.19 standard deviations."
Why would economic shutdowns lead to social unrest? Because, contrary to the airy dismissals
of some members of the political class and many ivory-tower types, commerce isn't a grubby
embarrassment to be tolerated and avoided -- it's the life's blood of a society. Jobs and
businesses keep people alive. They represent the activities that meet demand for food,
clothing, shelter -- and that develop and distribute the medicine and medical supplies we need
to battle COVID-19.
President Donald Trump may be overly optimistic when he hopes to have the country, including
areas hard-hit by the virus, " opened up
and just raring to go by Easter ," but he's not wrong to include the economy in his
calculations.
By contrast, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's insistence that "if it's public
health versus the economy, the only choice is public health," sounds fine and noble. But it
reflects an unrealistic and semi-aristocratic disdain for the activities that make fighting the
pandemic possible at all -- and that keep social unrest at bay.
While the ILO has tried to quantify the causes of social unrest, its researchers certainly
aren't the first to make the connection between angry, unemployed people and trouble in the
streets.
At the height of the Great Depression, when U.S. unemployment hit a peak of 24.9 percent , Franklin Delano
Roosevelt's administration saw make-work programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
as a means of getting the jobless -- especially young men -- safely into "quasi-military camps
often far from home in the nation's publicly owned forests and parks," Joseph M. Speakman
wrote for the Fall 2006
issue of Prologue Magazine , a publication of the U.S. National Archives and Records
Administration.
"Bringing an army of the unemployed into 'healthful surroundings,' Roosevelt argued, would
help to eliminate the threats to social stability that enforced idleness had created,"
Speakman added.
In fact, the connection between unemployment, stagnant economies, and social unrest is so
clear that an important indicator for a large underground economy is relative peace prevailing
alongside a chronically high unemployment rate.
If 21 percent of the workforce "were jobless, Spain would not be as peaceful as, barring a
few demonstrations, it has so far been, say economists and business leaders," the Financial
Times noted in 2011. Sure enough,
researchers found that off-the-books businesses and jobs thrived in Spain --
accounting for the equivalent of a quarter of GDP at one point -- keeping people employed and
defusing tensions.
Bullard of the Fed doesn't propose shipping the jobless off to the wilderness -- at least,
not yet -- and he doesn't seem inclined to rely on the black market to keep people fed, warm,
and healthy. Instead, to defuse the impact of the social-distancing shutdowns of normal
economic activity, he calls for lost income to be replaced by unemployment insurance and other
payments that would make displaced workers and business owners whole.
He better be right that government checks -- drawing on money from the thin air and not
generated by an economy that has largely halted, I'll note -- can offset the pain of lost jobs
and businesses, because the first wave of the unemployment he predicts is already here.
"In the week ending March 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims
was 3,283,000, an increase of 3,001,000 from the previous week's revised level," the United
States Department of Labor announced
on Thursday, March 26.
"This marks the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the
seasonally adjusted series."
Those disturbed by such economic collapse include public health professionals who take
COVID-19 very seriously.
"I am deeply concerned that the social, economic and public health consequences of this
near total meltdown of normal life -- schools and businesses closed, gatherings banned --
will be long lasting and calamitous, possibly graver than the direct toll of the virus
itself," wrote
David L. Katz, former director of Yale University's Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center,
in The New York Times last week.
"The stock market will bounce back in time, but many businesses never will. The
unemployment, impoverishment and despair likely to result will be public health scourges of
the first order."
Unemployment, impoverishment, and despair are frightening outcomes in themselves. They're
also a recipe for social unrest that will afflict even those of us who weather both the
pandemic and the accompanying economic storm.
The US government was caught without pants. No supply of masks. Can you imagine that for a country with trillion military budget.
Notable quotes:
"... Take a look around: Unemployment may reach 30%. The poor are starting to protest–actually strike! GM, Amazon, Chicago Teacher's
Union, GE, Instacart ..."
"... As jobs were outsourced to slave labor camps in China and elsewhere, the rich and privileged smiled as their portfolios grew,
as CEO raked in the cash and then buried it in off-shore accounts. ..."
"... When the working class complained about jobs being lost, factories being closed, it was told to get a better education, to
make itself valuable to the bosses. What a joke! ..."
"... The DNC always plays footsie with the rich as does the GOP–equal plunderers. Universal Health Care is just too expensive! Their
all monsters, crafty grifters. ..."
"... The mass media, now firmly serve the DNC and the GOP, studiously ignore this rot. A rotten building will fall. Times up. Game
is Over. ..."
The Covid-19 pandemic is the physical manifestation of a deeper disease plaguing the West: Class Warfare. The veil has been lifted.
Social distancing, a legitimate response to Covid-19, predominately affects the working class.
Fortunately, Covid-19 is an equal opportunity plague: As the rich and powerful congratulated each other, as they moved among the
rightfully adoring crowds oops, I think I caught something! Just hazards of the games they play. Certainly, it was never contracted
on the factory floor.
Suddenly the rich and privileged claim they are in the same boat. Really? Mega-yachts are handy get-aways, as are well-protected
island boltholes.
And who is supposed to do the nasty work, who has little opportunity to run and hide, who must do the the work that makes actual
existence possible? Not the rich.
Who can work from home and not lose his or her job?
Rich and powerful women now have to cut their own nails! Oh, the shame of it. They have to dye their own hair–coif themselves!
What no colorist?
The rich and powerful want the poor to go back to work. Who else will make them money? Who else will save the Stock Market? Meanwhile,
the poor are losing their jobs; they do not have fall-back pensions or able to take advantage of Capital Gains. How will they pay
their rent? Their bills? Their healthcare? Their debts?
Take a look around: Unemployment may reach 30%. The poor are starting to protest–actually strike! GM, Amazon, Chicago Teacher's
Union, GE, Instacart
As jobs were outsourced to slave labor camps in China and elsewhere, the rich and privileged smiled as their portfolios grew,
as CEO raked in the cash and then buried it in off-shore accounts.
When the working class complained about jobs being lost, factories being closed, it was told to get a better education, to
make itself valuable to the bosses. What a joke!
When many tried to get an education, they were faced with absurd college costs, incredible debt, and thanks to those in control
an inability to declare bankruptcy! Thanks, Joe.
And now, ever thoughtful Nancy Pelosi wants to reward the rich and privileged with ta ta!.., a lifting of the Salt Cap.
The DNC always plays footsie with the rich as does the GOP–equal plunderers. Universal Health Care is just too expensive!
Their all monsters, crafty grifters.
Meanwhile, economists sang the praises of Free Trade. The GOP loved it; the DNC loved it. Neo-liberalism: the goose that always
lays the golden eggs.
The mass media, now firmly serve the DNC and the GOP, studiously ignore this rot. A rotten building will fall. Times up. Game
is Over.
likbez , March 31, 2020 9:27 pm
Thank you Stormy,
A very good analysis. A lot of emotions too ;-)
When the working class complained about jobs being lost, factories being closed, it was told to get a better education,
to make itself valuable to the bosses. What a joke!
Neoliberalism is an ideology make on a set of myths. In other words this is a secular religion.
The DNC always plays footsie with the rich as does the GOP–equal plunderers. Universal Health Care is just too expensive!
Their all monsters, crafty grifters.
No question they are. That's by design. The key role of DNC is to squash political forces to the left of Clinton faction, and
to neutralize/coopt politicians which do not support the neoliberal/neocon consensus.
Meanwhile, economists sang the praises of Free Trade. The GOP loved it; the DNC loved it. Neo-liberalism: the goose that
always lays the golden eggs.
Neoliberal revolution which culminated in the election of Reagan (which started under Carter) was a coup d'état by financial
oligarchy. It signified that the New Deal consensus was broken and countervailing forces were weakened enough to ensure the success
of the coup.
One thing with which I respectfully disagree:
The mass media, now firmly serve the DNC and the GOP, studiously ignore this rot. A rotten building will fall. Times up.
Game is Over.
Not sure the game is over. I do not see powerful enough social forces that can oppose financial oligarchy. The anger does built
up, but it is powerless. And their control of the state is absolute (which also means the control of intelligence agencies).
The population is brainwashed and disunited via identity politics.
In modern USA society that means that any attempt to build such a coalition with be squashed by the national security state.
"... Given that the costs of financialization are already borne by the general public, not by the plutocracy, what's the point exactly of destroying the real economy just to open the door to new bail-outs? ..."
The Western populations (especially the American) were already bearing the costs of
financialization in the form of stagnant industrial output, unemployment, decaying
infrastructure, unavailability and/or declining quality of essential services like health
care, rapidly rising cost of living etc. before this and arguably even before the Global
Financial Crisis in 2008. The costs are no more socialized now just because the worthless
assets have been moved to the Federal Reserve's balance sheet.
What the bail-outs after the GFC did accomplish was enabling the financial sector, by
relieving it of the burden of toxic assets, to continue its parasitism on the real economy
through extending new loans to raid companies and to extract wealth from home-owners and
consumers.
Given that the costs of financialization are already borne by the general public, not by
the plutocracy, what's the point exactly of destroying the real economy just to open the door
to new bail-outs? Unlike in 2008, there was, from the perspective of the financial sector, no
need for any bail-outs because the financial system was still operating, up until the
economic crisis that arrived with this pandemic and the resulting shutdowns of the industrial
and service sectors. There is not in reality any debt erased or moved to the general public
(the plutocracy are in fact *not* the ones in debt, they are the ones issuing debt to
industrial companies being hollowed out, to home-owners, students, consumers etc.), but the
pandemic risks the collapse (at the very least the end of its legitimacy) of the entire
current financial system and with it the continuation of the parasitic process of wealth
extraction.
Given that the costs of financialization are already borne by the general public, not
by the plutocracy, what's the point exactly of destroying the real economy just to open the
door to new bail-outs?
'The point' is deflating the bubble, an extraordinary bailout of Boeing and maybe other
corps., and accelerating 'decoupling'. These things would be difficult to accomplish without
a CRISIS! that rises to the level of a 'national emergency'.
US and its system were heading for collapse. Trump and his backers could see that. At the
moment, this is starting to look like the great coronovirus reset. Bailouts coupled to big
changes.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 30 2020 0:30 utc | 100
++++
Precisely. By socialising the debt liability now the problem is shifted from being the
fault of finance to being the fault of the virus.
Guillotine dodged for now, the can is kicked further down the road. More austerity.
Resultant mass unemployment blamed on the virus and not on the behaviour of the parasitic
finance industry.
The continual inflating of asset prices by the Fed was also seen as a desperate ploy to ward
off deflation
++++++
No, the continual inflating of asset prices was in order to milk the rubes for as long as
feasibly possible. But the game was up in late 2019 when word got out that at least one of
the large banks (imo Deutsche Bank) were having trouble meeting their overnight obligations.
JPM said "we ain't helping" so The Fed went into Repo overdrive to shore the sustem up in the
shortterm
The point is, why would they want to (actively intervene to) deflate the bubble? The
transfer of wealth from the real economy is a continuous process. The longer you can keep a
company like Boeing going, the more of its assets (be it savings in pension funds, machinery,
residual goodwill etc.) you can liquidate and pay out to yourself in the form of interest on
loans (that the company owes to you or your friends), stock buybacks or bonuses.
Same thing with mortgages: The longer you can keep the real estate market in a bubble and
the home owners at least treading water, the longer they can pay you exorbitant interest
rates, and the more of their labor and savings you can siphon off.
In the event of a crash like in 2008, or now due to the coronavirus epidemic, bail-outs
are a necessary intervention to stitch up the balance sheets of the banks, private equity
funds etc. so that this parasitic process can be started up again. That doesn't mean that the
crashes are desired - in fact, the exact opposite. It's not through the bail-outs that the
actual wealth transfer happens, but rather between them.
The point is, why would they want to (actively intervene to) deflate the bubble? The
transfer of wealth from the real economy is a continuous process... It's not through the
bail-outs that the actual wealth transfer happens, but rather between them.
The markets are complex systems and they can get stressed. The expansion was well beyond its
sell-by date and required life-support for much of the duration (QE x , tax cuts,
etc.). A soft landing for Wall Street and recession that can be blamed on
coronavirus/China are less risky than letting the markets crash on their own. There will be
no big 'reset' that some have been hoping for (at least not anytime soon).
And a focus on deflating the bubble is misleading. They had multiple ways to game this
CRISIS!. And protecting favored interests (like Boeing) as well as the system itself is one
just icing on the cake.
If allowed to happen, and without the appearance of a significant medical therapy tool
across the USA - the fallout of foreseeable foreclosures will make it a nuclear weapon. Given
bank turnaround timescales this will be just in time for next winter/elections... Faced with
this Trump of all people may be forced to adopt some major socialist principles.
On April 21, 2011, the region of Amazon Web Services covering eastern North America crashed.
The crash brought down the sites of large customers such as Quora, Foursquare, and Reddit. It
took Amazon over a week to bring its system fully back online, and some customer data was lost
permanently.
But one company whose site did not crash was Netflix. It turns out that Netflix had made
themselves "antifragile" by employing software they called "Chaos Monkey," which regularly and
randomly brought down Netflix servers. By continually crashing their own servers, Netflix
learned how to nevertheless keep other portions of their network running. And so when Amazon
US-East crashed, Netflix ran on, unfazed.
This phenomenon is discussed by Nassim Taleb in his book Antifragile : a system that
depends on the absence of change is fragile. The companies that focused on keeping all of their
servers up and running all the time went completely offline when Amazon crashed from under
them. But the company that had exposed itself to lots of little crashes could handle the big
crash. That is because the minor, "undesirable" changes stress the system in a way that can
make it stronger.
The idea of antifragility does not apply only to computer networks. For instance, by trying
to eliminate minor downturns in the economy, central bank policy can make that economy
extremely vulnerable to a major recession. Running only on treadmills or tracks makes the
joints extremely vulnerable when, say, one steps in a pothole in the sidewalk.
What does this have to do with trade policy? For many reasons, such as the recent
coronavirus outbreak, flows of goods are subject to unexpected shocks.
Both a regime of "unfettered" free trade, and its opposite, that of complete autarchy, are
fragile in the face of such shocks. A trade policy aimed not at complete free trade or
protectionism, but at making an economy better at absorbing and adapting to rapid change, is
more sane and salutary than either extreme. Furthermore, we suggest practicing for shocks can
help make an economy antifragile.
Amongst academic economists, the pure free-trade position is more popular. The case for
international trade, absent the artificial interference of government trade policy, is
generally based upon the "principle of comparative advantage," first formulated by the English
economist David Ricardo in the early 19th century. Ricardo pointed out, quite correctly, that
even if, among two potential trading partners looking to trade a pair of goods, one of them is
better at producing both of them, there still exist potential gains from trade -- so long as
one of them is relatively better at producing one of the goods, and the other (as a
consequence of this condition) relatively better at producing the other. For example,
Lebron James may be better than his local house painter at playing basketball, and at
painting houses, given his extreme athleticism and long reach. But he is so much more "better"
at basketball that it can still make sense for him to concentrate on basketball and pay the
painter to paint his house.
And so, per Ricardo, it is among nations: even if, say, Sweden can produce both cars and
wool sweaters more efficiently than Scotland, if Scotland is relatively less bad at
producing sweaters than cars, it still makes sense for Scotland to produce only wool sweaters,
and trade with Sweden for the cars it needs.
When we take comparative advantage to its logical conclusion at the global scale, it
suggests that each agent (say, nation) should focus on one major industry domestically and that
no two agents should specialize in the same industry. To do so would be to sacrifice the
supposed advantage of sourcing from the agent who is best positioned to produce a particular
good, with no gain for anyone.
Good so far, but Ricardo's case contains two critical hidden assumptions: first, that the
prices of the goods in question will remain more or less stable in the global marketplace, and
second that the availability of imported goods from specialized producers will remain
uninterrupted, such that sacrificing local capabilities for cheaper foreign alternatives.
So what happens in Scotland if the Swedes suddenly go crazy for yak hair sweaters (produced
in Tibet) and are no longer interested in Scottish sweaters at all? The price of those sweaters
crashes, and Scotland now finds itself with most of its productive capacity specialized in
making a product that can only be sold at a loss.
Or what transpires if Scotland is no longer able, for whatever reason, to produce sweaters,
but the Swedes need sweaters to keep warm? Swedes were perhaps once able to make their own
sweaters, but have since funneled all their resources into making cars, and have even lost the
knowledge of sweater-making. Now to keep warm, the Swedes have to rapidly build the
infrastructure and workforce needed to make sweaters, and regain the knowledge of how to do so,
as the Scots had not only been their sweater supplier, but the only global sweater
supplier.
So we see that the case for extreme specialization, based on a first-order understanding of
comparative advantage, collapses when faced with a second-order effect of a dramatic change in
relative prices or conditions of supply.
That all may sound very theoretical, but collapses due to over-specialization, prompted by
international agencies advising developing economies based on naive comparative-advantage
analysis, have happened all too often. For instance, a number of African economies, persuaded
to base their entire economy on a single good in which they had a comparative advantage (e.g,
gold, cocoa, oil, or bauxite), saw their economies crash when the price of that commodity fell.
People who had formerly been largely self-sufficient found themselves wage laborers for
multinationals in good times, and dependents on foreign charity during bad times.
While the case for extreme specialization in production collapses merely by letting prices
vary, it gets even worse for the "just specialize in the single thing you do best" folks once
we add in considerations of pandemics, wars, extreme climate change, and other such shocks. We
have just witnessed how relying on China for such a high percentage of our medical supplies and
manufacturing has proven unwise when faced with an epidemic originating in China.
On a smaller scale, the great urban theorist Jane Jacobs stressed the need for economic
diversity in a city if it is to flourish. Detroit's over-reliance on the automobile industry,
and its subsequent collapse when that industry largely deserted it, is a prominent example of
Jacobs' point. And while Detroit is perhaps the most famous example of a city collapsing due to
over-specialization, it is far from
the only one .
All of this suggests that trade policy, at any level, should have, as its primary goal, the
encouragement of diversity in that level's economic activity. To embrace the extremes of "pure
free trade" or "total self-sufficiency" is to become more susceptible to catastrophe from
changing conditions. A region that can produce only a few goods is fragile in the face of an
event, like the coronavirus, that disrupts the flow of outside goods. On the other hand,
turning completely inward, and cutting the region off from the outside, leaves it without
outside help when confronting a local disaster, like an extreme drought.
To be resilient as a social entity, whether a nation, region, city, or family, will have a
diverse mix of internal and external resources it can draw upon for sustenance. Even for an
individual, total specialization and complete autarchy are both bad bets. If your only skill is
repairing Sony Walkmen, you were probably pretty busy in 2000, but by today you likely don't
have much work. Complete individual autarchy isn't ever really even attempted: if you watch
YouTube videos of supposedly "self-reliant" people in the wilderness, you will find them using
axes, radios, saws, solar panels, pots and pans, shirts, shoes, tents, and many more goods
produced by others.
In the technical literature, having such diversity at multiple scales is referred to as
"multiscale variety." In a system that displays multiscale variety, no single scale accounts
for all of the diversity of behavior in the system. The practical importance of this is related
to the fact that shocks themselves come at different scales. Some shocks might be limited to a
town or a region, for instance local weather events, while others can be much more widespread,
such as the coronavirus pandemic we are currently facing.
A system with multiscale variety is able to respond to shocks at the scale at which they
occur: if one region experiences a drought while a neighboring region does not, agricultural
supplementation from the currently abundant region can be leveraged. At a smaller scale, if one
field of potatoes becomes infested with a pest, while the adjacent cows in pasture are spared,
the family who owns the farm will still be able to feed themselves and supply products to the
market.
Understanding this, the question becomes how can trade policy, conceived broadly, promote
the necessary variety and resiliency to mitigate and thrive in the face of the unexpected?
Crucially, we should learn from the tech companies: practice disconnecting, and do it randomly.
In our view there are two important components to the intentional disruption: (1) it is regular
enough to generate "muscle memory" type responses; and (2) it is random enough that responses
are not "overfit" to particular scenarios.
For an individual or family, implementing such a policy might create some hardships, but
there are few institutional barriers to doing so. One week, simply declare, "Let's pretend all
of the grocery stores are empty, and try getting by only on what we can produce in the yard or
have stockpiled in our house!" On another occasion, perhaps, see if you can keep your house
warm for a few days without input from utility companies.
Businesses are also largely free of institutional barriers to practicing disconnecting. A
company can simply say, "We are awfully dependent on supplier X: this week, we are not going to
order from them, and let's see what we can do instead!" A business can also seek out external
alternatives to over-reliance on crucial internal resources: for instance, if your top tech guy
can hold your business hostage, it is a good idea to find an outside consulting firm that could
potentially fill his role.
When we get up to the scale of the nation, things become (at least institutionally)
trickier. If Freedonia suddenly bans the import of goods from Ruritania, even for a week,
Ruritania is likely to regard this as a "trade war," and may very well go to the WTO and seek
relief. However, the point of this reorientation of trade policy is not to promote hostility to
other countries, but to make one's own country more resilient. A possible solution to this
problem is that a national government could periodically, at random times, buy all of the
imports of some good from some other country, and stockpile them. Then the foreign supplier
would have no cause for complaint: its goods are still being purchased! But domestic
manufacturers would have to learn to adjust to a disappearance of the supply of palm oil from
Indonesia, or tin from China, or oil from Norway.
Critics will complain that such government management of trade flows, even with the noble
aim of rendering an economy antifragile, will inevitably be turned to less pure purposes, like
protecting politically powerful industrialists. But so what? It is not as though the pursuit of
free trade hasn't itself yielded perverse outcomes, such as the NAFTA trade agreement that ran
to over one thousand pages. Any good aim is likely to suffer diversion as it passes
through the rough-and-tumble of political reality. Thus, we might as well set our sites on an
ideal policy, even though it won't be perfectly realized.
We must learn to deal with disruptions when success is not critical to survival. The better
we become at responding to unexpected shocks, the lower the cost will be each time we face an
event beyond our control that demands an adaptive response. To wait until adaptation is
necessary makes us fragile when a real crisis appears. We should begin to develop an
antifragile economy today, by causing our own disruptions and learning to overcome them.
Deliberately disrupting our own economy may sound crazy. But then, so did deliberately crashing
one's own servers, until Chaos Monkey proved that it works.
Gene Callahan teaches at the Tandon School of Engineering at New York University. Joe
Norman is a data scientist and researcher at the New England Complex Systems Institute.
Most disruptive force is own demographic change of which govts have known for decades.
Caronovirus challenge is nothing compared to what will happen because US ed system
discriminated against the poor who will be the majority!
What Winston Churchill once said about the Americans is in fact true of all humans: "Americans
always end up doing
the right thing once they have exhausted all other options". That's just as true of the French
(I write from France) since our government stopped stocking a strategic reserve of a billion
breathing-masks in 2013 because "we could buy them in Chine for a lower costs". Now we can't
produce enough masks even for our hospitals.
By Marshall Auerback, a market analyst and commentator. Produced by Economy for All , a project
of the Independent Media Institute
When historians look back on our current government's response to a public health emergency
and resultant economic depression, there won't be many paeans to profiles in courage. It may
seem impressive that Congress has approved legislation
worth $2 trillion to help sustain the American economy, but it's no New Deal. Rather it's a
massive economic slush fund that does its utmost to preserve the old ways of doing things under
the guise of masquerading as a response to a public health emergency. In reality, the relief
provisions are barely adequate.
Had this been another financial crisis like 2008, it is doubtful that America's oligarch
class would be able to secure such huge provision for themselves again. Under the guise of a
public health emergency, though, serial corporate predators are being given dollops from this
massive public trough with no means of engendering the kind of economic reconstruction that is
truly needed right now, or even preventing a sufficiently robust response if this virus comes
back in a second or third wave.
As one might expect in a massive bill (representing around 10 percent of U.S. GDP), there
are some decent scraps in this dog's breakfast, but overall the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and
Economic Security Act represents yet another sad indictment of the American polity, even as it
provides an excellent civics lesson in teaching us where power truly lies. There's $150 billion
allocated to hospitals, many of which are already stretched to capacity, but that's nothing
compared to the trillions directed to corporations with minimal disclosure on how those sums
are to be allocated, or any conditionality attached. In fact, we appear not to have learned
some lessons from 2008, when at least some members of Congress made efforts to scrutinize how
we were spending the money. Pam and Russ Martens's superbly informative digging into the more
than 800-page-long bill
reveals that :
a) The Fed will leverage the bill's $454 million bailout slush fund into $4.5 trillion,
and will hand it out through the New York Fed.
b) To ensure that they don't have to answer embarrassing questions about which of their
cronies got the money, the bill suspends the Freedom of Information Act for the Fed.
Bloomberg
has also confirmed that the NY Fed has outsourced picking the lucky recipients for this
slushy cornucopia to a private contractor, BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager
(Goldman Sachs apparently has done enough of "
God's work " this time). The more things change in Washington, the more they stay the
same.
By contrast, the relief
provisions are barely adequate. They expand unemployment insurance (an additional $600 per
week for up to four months), feature one-time direct payments to Americans of $1,200 per adult
making up to $75,000 a year, and $2,400 to a married couple making up to $150,000, with $500
payments per child. However, the bill neither addresses the chronic inequality that now
characterizes the U.S. economy, nor is there provision for the self-employed or the millions of
independent contractor workers who have no employee benefits.
A better template would have been something along the lines of what was legislated in
Norway, although it is unrealistic to expect a U.S. Senate dominated by hardline Republicans to
acquiesce to something proposed by a Scandinavian social democracy. But
highlighting the contrast, Norwegian journalist Ellen Engelstad writes : "Workers put on
leave will now get full pay for twenty days (an improvement even on the pre-coronavirus
situation), but employers will only cover the first two days, while the rest will be paid by
the state. After that period, a worker on leave will receive 80 percent of their previous
salary, up to [about $29,000] a year, and 62.4 percent of everything they received on top of
that."
So long as we continue to embrace a lockdown strategy, generous relief is key to securing
widespread support for its maintenance. It will become politically impossible to sustain a
government-mandated lockdown where workers are forced to stay at home, absent some income
support to facilitate compliance with that order. So it is good that the government has also
recognized that this relief had to take the form of grants, not loans, because additional
private debt assumption would exacerbate long-term economic distress. The provision of $350
billion in "forgivable loans" to businesses are in reality grants, as these "loans" will be
forgiven if the businesses targeted maintain payroll. That's precisely the kind of
conditionality that should be attached to the relief provisions.
There will undoubtedly be other measures required once the scale of the economic fallout
becomes clearer. But when we get past relief packages and move toward taking the economy out of
its current cryogenically frozen state, the U.S. government must engage in a broader effort of
reconstruction so as to finally make this an economy that works for all. Policy should not
simply be about getting people back into resorts, malls or restaurants, or exhorting mass
consumption as a patriotic duty ( as George W.
Bush suggested after 9/11 ). Rather, we should be focused on ramping up mass-production
essential goods such as food, as well support for the health care systems via expansion of
testing kits, surgical masks, ventilators and palliative care, not only for this crisis, but
also to ensure that the system is not overwhelmed in the event of future pandemics (or a
possible recurrence of this one as we return to work and reintegrate with one another). It also
goes without saying that we should also expend vast sums on research and development to find
treatments and a vaccine, as well as rapid training of new medical workers. Substantial
increases in funding to the National Institutes of Health would be a good place to start.
As for conditionality, a case has been made that a force majeure "Act of God"
is not the time to play a "game of chicken" and impose major conditions for aid ,
especially as it is government policy itself that has precipitated the crisis. On the other
hand, political realities and historic precedent suggest that crisis conditions are the only
time one gets dramatic reforms; otherwise the elites regain their balance and suppress them (as
occurred after 2008). Plus, there are corporate bailout recipients in this bill, such as
Boeing, that were
heading toward a death spiral , even before the epidemic.
Let's also make clear distinctions here: An "Act of God" argument was
invoked in 2008 . That financial crisis was described as a "once in a 50-year event,"
something that couldn't have been planned for or insured against, etc. This was a lie. The
banks were not blameless, and there was causation between the crash and their behavior. But
Wall Street's bad actors weren't punished. There were, however, a lot of blameless victims who
were and are still paying a price. They didn't receive compensation and received pain and
punishment as if they were responsible, when they were in fact collateral damage.
In many respects, this crisis is even worse. We may not have a financial contagion, but we
have a physical contagion that is literally exposing us to
conditions comparable to the 1930s . But unlike the 1930s or, indeed, the 2008 global
financial contagion, policymakers have a twin task with seemingly incompatible goals: stopping
the spread of the virus in many ways exists in tension with the need to arrest the indirect
economic fallout from the pandemic. The longer the economic restrictions apply to eliminate the
health risk, the greater the economic fallout, which is precisely the dilemma President Trump
exposed (in his typically inelegant way), when he signaled
his desire to restart the U.S. economy by mid-April .
Trump's public musings were rightly denounced. His moral calculus is skewed; this president
is transparently consumed by the desire to safeguard his narrow economic interests and the
presidency (along with the fact that he stripped public health
agencies of the staffing, resources, and authority they needed to function ). A serious
president would send teams of epidemiologists to study other countries' success models, and
adopt them. Instead, Trump is literally gambling with the lives of potentially millions of
people as he tries to place this bet on an Easter miracle. Unlike Jesus, those lives lost won't
be resurrected, even if the economy ultimately revives.
Beyond that is the question of how best to assist businesses paralyzed for the sake of
public health. This is perhaps the most politically loaded part of the process when it comes to
assessing how far we go in terms of changing the behavior of our corporate sector versus the
notion of simply compensating businesses for losses sustained by an action deemed to be a
public health emergency.
Oren Cass, executive director of the soon-to-be-launched think tank American Compass , has made the case for compensating
businesses on the basis of
the takings clause of the U.S. Constitution , which states that "private property [shall
not] be taken for public use, without just compensation." Establishing "just compensation" is
often in the eye of the beholder, and Cass suggests that a just principle is compensating
businesses for the fixed costs they would normally incur in the event that they were
able to function as normal operating concerns (as opposed to making estimates of likely
profitability and compensating on that basis). The goal is clearly to avoid providing unfair
windfalls but to keep businesses solvent until they reopen.
On the other hand, one of the principal complaints directed against the bailouts granted
(especially to the banks) in 2008 is that bad corporate actors who were responsible for
creating the crisis were given money with no strings attached. In that regard, the bailouts not
only allowed them to revive profitability quickly (as the status quo ante was restored), but
also actively lobbied against any kind of regulation to prevent a recurrence of the activities
that created the crash in the first place.
The lessons many drew from the experience was that the only time to extract concessions and
induce changes in behavior from bad corporate actors is at a time when they are economically
vulnerable, even if the precipitating cause of that vulnerability was the government-mandated
shutdown of the economy. It is impossible to remake an economy if, for example, corporate
bailouts are used to perpetuate behavior that undermines economic prosperity. While the
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act does introduce some restrictions on buybacks
and limiting stock dividends, it "avoids the more restrictive language that was included in the
House version of the legislation,"
according to Defense News .
Many are trying to distinguish this bailout from 2008 (i.e., this time is a non-economic
shock, something that couldn't have been planned for or insured against; businesses that are
failing right now are doing so through no fault of their own and they're still good/healthy
businesses), because saying "this is just how creative destruction works" is clearly untenable
right now. In reality, the collapse in aggregate demand caused by the 2008 financial crisis
arguably was just as exogenous to the consumer economy. Fatuous distinctions to justify further
corporate predation simply provide another illustration that what we had before the coronavirus
pandemic clearly was not working for most people. The truth is that for decades we've had a
hollowing out of democracy, and a massive expansion of wealth inequality accompanied by
Mussolini-style crony capitalism.
During the Great Depression, legislation was implemented to prevent a recurrence of the
1920s bubble. Roosevelt's New Deal did not legislate to restore the status quo ante but rather
to create a very different sort of economy.
Under the cover of a public health emergency, however, the so-called "new normal" is looking
a lot like the old normal. This bill gives the pigs yet another big feed at the public trough,
and Congress is happily ladling out the goodies. Much like the 1930s, then, the very legitimacy
of liberal capitalist democracy is at stake. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an FDR
ready to lead us in this acute moment of need.
Last week I was unable to apply for unemployment in my state, Hawaii, because I am self
employed. I get kicked out of the application process after the first few qualifying
questions in the online application process. Today, it went straight through. You make
yourself your own ex employer and that's it. I'm assuming this has to do with this federal
package. On a side note I am one of many self employed registered legal tour guide operators
in the state that rely heavily on visitors and all of us are up in arms that somehow this
bill is also going to give money to Uber and Lyft drivers who are not even legal in the
state. Only partially in the county of Oahu.
I did something similar during the GFC.
I have a C Corp in Calif with myself as the only employee.
I applied for UI and received it for about a year.
However, my contribution rate ramped up and my rating declined to F. Still worth it.
Calif also borrowed a lot of money from the Feds last time and had to pay it back.
Employers were assessed a portion each year. Finally repaid after 5 or so years.
Rep Thomas Massey did some math. $2T from congress, and $4T from Feds so far = $68,000 per
family of new Nat'l debt and dollar devaluation. Yet each household is likely to see only
about $3000 of that $68000. Massey may have a point, perhaps there is just a tinge of
maldistribution afoot here. And isn't that always the case in Crisis Capitalism, to never let
a good crisis go to waste? Just maybe they could be doing a better job in the distribution of
this package?
While many things were discussed about Covid and the Covid Recovery plan on Friday, what
struck me was a reference to this stimulus bill that this is our Marshall Plan. While that
sounds good, is it really? And another thing that struck me was how many striking
similarities there are.
The final striking observation was Pelosi et al reminding us, that this is not the last
stimulus bill that will be related to stimulating an economic recovery. In short, what
Pelosi's telling us this is the prefatory Helicopter monies from our new "Helicopter Avenging
Angels." Economist Murray Rothbard told a story about an angel looking down at the woes of
mankind and decided that everyone would feel better if they all had an extra $1000. So, that
is what the angel did, deposited $1000 into everyones bank account one night. Next morning,
everyone woke up to an extra $1000. Those that spent it first on goods benefited most. Those
that waited to spend it, got less bang for their buck bc the cost of goods rose.
So, it is with this stimulus story littered with maldistribution. Velocity of money in an
economy increases most and therefore GDP or gross output if it is in the hands of households
and consumers.
Over the past 12 yrs or so, fiscal and monetary stimulus packages have been referred to as
bazookas. Today, they have mushroomed into "Nukes." And the Nukes, themselves, are
mushrooming.
If Pelosi is right, this will not be the last stimulus bill relating to coronavirus, then
this is not far from what happened with the Marshall Plan. The 1947-48 Marshall Plan was
replaced by the Mutual Security Plan in 19951. The MSP plan was extended from 1951-1961. The
MSP plan gave away about $7.5 billion annually until 1961 when it was replaced by yet another
program – he United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The USAID is
now one of the largest official aid agencies in the world, and accounts for more than half of
all U.S. foreign assistance -- the highest in the world in absolute dollar terms.
In short, the Marshall Plan kept transmuting itself into something new. Until it became a
"perpetual entity."
And it is not so different than the Federal Reserve's QE programs or other so-called
"temporary" facilities that somehow are resurrected, transmuted or whatever. But somehow,
these programs mange to live on like zombies.
Zombie, Zombie, Zombie. They are fighting, With their tanks and their bombs, And their
bombs and their guns.
It's the same old theme since the 1947 Marshall Plan
In your head, in your head, Their still fighting,
With their tanks and their bombs And their bombs and their guns
But I digress.
The question then becomes, how well did the Marshall Plan work to generate economic
growth. According to Marshall Plan's own accounting, the MP only accounted for an increase of
less than ½% of GDP growth a year. That ain't much folks! So be prepared to be
underwhelmed! Very underwhelmed.
And this is precisely why our policymakers will be back with more and more stimulus
..mushrooming their bazookas into Nukes, and Nukes into what? Death Stars next?
The cost of the Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) resulted in
the United States transference of over $12 billion (equivalent to over $128 billion as of
2020)[1] in economic recovery programs to Western European economies after the end of World
War II. During the four years the plan was in effect, the United States donated $17 billion
(equivalent to $202.18 billion in 2019)
Despite the billions of dollars each year thrown at the EU recovery the Marshall Plan
which transmuted into the Mutual Security Plan, these plans have apparently contributed
little to the EU economic recovery.
Over the past 12 years, central banks and gov'ts have thrown trillions of dollars at the
fiscal system, and yet our financial and monetary system still doesn't function properly.
Their solution: throw trillions more at the most recent crisis du jour. TINA baby! Surely
with their Nuclear-sized Stimulus Package, this will solve and repair everything.
But perhaps, under a crisis capitalism, the aim is to ensure a crisis never goes to waste.
So perhaps, the aim of these stimulus programs is never to fix the broken window. Only to
give the appearance the window is being fixed. If you actually fixed the broken window, then
there would be no need to perpetually repeat these stimulus programs that can be so damn
self-serving to those closest to the monies. Then where would Nancy and her Cohorts be?
The Covid Bill our Marshall Plan are fiscal responses to disasters. To this extent, they
both that into the context of French Economist Frederic Bastiat's Parable of the Broken
Window.
"Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas" ("That Which We See and That Which We Do Not See")
to illustrate why destruction, and the money spent to recover from destruction, is not
actually a net benefit to society.The parable seeks to show how opportunity costs, as well as
the law of unintended consequences, affect economic activity in ways that are unseen or
ignored. The belief that destruction is good for the economy is consequently known as the
broken window fallacy or glazier's fallacy. And yet, destruction of the economy can be quite
beneficial to the "first financial responders" to the destruction of the economy.
My apologies Yves, I should have forwarded this to you as a separate post. Feel free to
post if you like
Thanks for the informative comment. I'm not surprised to know that the Marshall Plan
resulted in an increase of less than 1/2 % of GDP growth. I assume that you're referring to
the GDP of Europe.
I contend that the billions doled out via the Marshall Plan helped the FInancial institutions
and later, since we had destroyed all of the manufacturing facilities in Europe, it helped
all large US corporations who had a ready made market in Europe.
What an interesting comment. From my perspective – long time observer of things
never working properly – I think the Covid Crisis is just another example of the
pointless but dedicated pursuit of profits – unless of course there is a "Treasury"
willing to provide any and all shortfall to each and every private profiteer. Then it works
in a very wasteful and illogical manner. It requires also bailing out the hapless consumers
occasionally. Somehow I think we could do better.
I don't see the powers that be as anxious to fix the broken windows. They want the broken
windows to remain broken so they can continue to throw bazookas and nukes through them.
And I wonder,. and I think you too need to wonder why the Marshall Plan became the Mutual
Security Plan after 1951. Presumably, the rapid EU economic recovery no longer necessitated
the Marshall Plan. Facing an existential crisis as such, the Marshall Plan had to morph into
some other purpose, such as "Mutual Security" to keep access to those slush funds alive and
well.
I'd say off the top it is because neoliberal capitalism cannot withstand competition from
democracy – good social democracy. So we morphed into the policeman of the world and
pretended like we were critical to the cause of a failing economic ideology. It has never
worked and it has gradually become nonsense because we are continuously forced to save
society. No matter that we never to a good job of it – we still do it to insure
profits. I'd be more upset about it except for the fact that it is so transparently absurd
and I like to think it proves it own uselessness. What more do we need?
I'm no expert on the Marshall plan but as a European I get the impression it was much
appreciated. From the US' point of view though it had a geopolitical purpose. By getting
Europe on its economic feet again it fended off the threat of Communism and created a
customer for US exports. The Plan's successors are also primarily aimed at maintaining and
extending US hegemony, they are merely dressed up as charity.
I think the primary problem over the past decade is the assumption that the wealthy need
to be returned/maintained to their wealthy to trickle the wealth down. That clearly has not
been working efficiently.
So I am a fan of saving companies that are stable in the absence of major crisis, but
require large-scale management changes, and dramatically scale back executive compensation
for several years. If the executives can find a better job with better pay in an un-bailed
out company, they should take it. If the company would clearly have gone under due to massive
debt-loads, then a pre-package bankruptcy like GM with the government holding equity in the
final company should be the route.
The financial cries are simply creating bigger and bigger TBTF companies that can build up
debt again to fund shareholder buybacks until they get bailed out by the Fed and Treasury.
That cycle needs to stop. The country worked fine when there were many companies competing
with each other.
This coronavirus relief act expands TBTF. It's not just the big banks and other
finance/insurance/real estate corporations anymore. It seems to be about protecting financial
wealth wherever it resides. It's moral hazard writ large. Why behave prudently if the Fed has
your back?
I agree with "saving companies that are stable in the absence of major crisis, but require
large-scale management changes, and dramatically scale back executive compensation for
several years", and "if the company would clearly have gone under due to massive debt-loads,
then a pre-package bankruptcy like GM with the government holding equity in the final company
should be the route."
The government could enact an automatic stabilizer program to cover furloughed worker
wages during economic crises while employers continued to cover fixed costs and worker
benefits such as health insurance. Large corporations could be managed to cover theses things
if required to.
Even better, pass M4A and take employee health insurance off their books.
Why does the Uber/Lyft bailout have to be funded by workers who have put money into
unemployment insurance?
If they want to bail out the gig economy they should have said straight up we are bailing
them out.
The States have to come up with the funding for the unemployed. So you can bet there will
be a shortfall.
Why does the gig economy always takes but never give?
The biggest problem is laid off employees getting thru to the unemployment agencies.Then
they throw millions of Uber/Lyft drivers to clog up the Queue.
I'm wondering what AOC did or didn't do re this package? A lot has been said about
Sanders, but I'm fuzzy on AOC. I can't imagine she liked the thing. Did she have any way of
throwing a stick in in it?
that would "explain" her previous incumbent, a most malignant connected big money DNC
machine pol, "stepping aside" for her. Watch out. Likely future Manchurian afoot. (Like
showbama).
"A vote in which the presiding officer states the question, then asks those in favor and
against to say "Yea" or "Nay," respectively, and announces the result according to his or her
judgment. The names or numbers of senators voting on each side are not recorded."
If this bill was so G*d d**n important and potentially costly for the country it would
seem that courageous politicians would have WANTED their wise and considered yea/nay votes
known to their constituents.
I can see a voice vote for something trivial like a Proclamation of National Highway
Appreciation Day, but not something this consequential.
Preserving the option of telling constituents in the future "I (voice) voted against this
package" is hardly a profile in courage.
"What did the Senate majority fight for?!" Ocasio-Cortez asked. "One of the largest
corporate bailouts with as few strings as possible in American history. Shameful! The greed
of that fight is wrong for crumbs for our families."
Pelosi dallies on instituting remote voting, thereby strengthening her own powers and that
of the House leadership. AOC, like everyone else in the House, had to participate in a "voice
vote".
I simply can not understand where $4T is going to go! As we here know, inanimate objects
do not have agency. I demand to know whose pockets are about to be lined.
Another observation: As each "crisis" becomes more expensive, there appear to be
additional lined pockets.
first and foremost they saved the bond market i think . Powell has already used 4 trillion
for "liquidity" whatever that means I have no working knowledge of economics so I don't begin
to understand what any of it means except that we got family-blogged again.
The flu kills between 12,000 to 30,000 a year in the U S. Every year. In 30 some years of
adulthood, I know 1 person that died of pneumonia in their 60s. When the confinement is over
and people look around and ask around and can't name anybody they personally know who was
affected with anything more than a cold????
I hope this whole thing isn't just hysterics because that would not be a positive sign of
anything.
Knowing our politicians it's probably a lot of hysterics. The DimRats have been fooling
their diehards with Russia! Russia! Russia! Now it's time to use CV to pay back their
corporate supporters while throwing a few crumbs to their loyal followers with the chant
Econmy! Economy! Economy!
What are you talking about? Have you not been reading all the experts' reports on exactly
how dangerous this disease is? Have you not seen the pictures and stories coming from Spain
and Italy with morgues and trucks full of bodies? Have you not read the stories of medical
personnel and hospitals being overwhelmed by this pandemic? How many have to die for this to
matter to you? Sorry to be blunt but you lack of concern is frankly shocking. (P.S. I have a
kid on the front line of this disaster and we are very very worried for him)
I keep hearing, mostly from people I know, how the CV is not much more than a way
over-publicized version of the common cold or flu. I would counter that the common cold or
even the annual flu pandemic does not threaten to entirely overwhelm the health care system
of the countries and regions it infects. See Lombardy and New York, for example. Clearly, in
terms of the seriousness of its symptoms anyway, the CV is pretty far beyond the flu.
When do you think we should have taken these measures to slow the virus? When it hit 1000?
5000? 30,000? Tell me a number that you will be ok with so that we can hit that, then we can
hit the emergency button.
The problem with this virus is that it hits the healthcare system all at once, and they
have to choose who lives and dies Would you like to be chosen to live or die based upon an
algorithm?
I don't think it's hysterics, but "was it planned" is a good question: operation
covfefe.
"They" are not done with it yet, a mass fear op like this is too good to leave without
milking further. THIS will be "THE" anchor event for the NEXT 20+ years of "policy". Mark my
word. The top can not leave this gold.
Could we ask for better proof that neoliberal capitalism not only doesn't work, it's a
catastrophe all by itself. And nobody is saying a word about it. That will come later in
disguised language just as the money is going out now in disguised give-aways.
The population of Italy is (or was) 60.8 million. As of this morning, 9,134 Italians have
died – and the disease hasn't crested yet. The population of the United States is 327.2
million. If our experience is similar to theirs (and with the 'leadership' exhibited by Trump
and the US Congress it looks like it might be worse), we can anticipate 49,155
deaths.
That sure doesn't sound like "just hysterics" to me.
Please spit out the kool-aid. You're ignoring the magnitudes faster pace of this pandemic,
as well as the fact that it falls on top of our regular flu season, not to mention other
medical emergencies. If you have time to spread misleading information, please consider doing
your homework and helping share helpful facts.
hermeneut: Thank you. Naked Capitalism has had an informal policy against agnotology,
which is culturally induced ignorance or doubt.
I see it often on the larger WWW, where facts regularly are gummed to death by the
self-ignorant among us.
The coronavirus is producing death rates that are orders of magnitude above the flu's
death rate estimated at 0.01 percent. Coronavirus is wildly contagious compared to the flu.
Further, we don't know its long-term effects on anyone. People think that children may not be
affected–until we have a spate of lung disease ten years from now.
Upthread, there are a couple of agnotologists discussing how they don't know anyone who
has died of the flu or pneumonia. They must not get out much. Pneumonia is a co-factor in
many deaths, so much so that doctors call it the old man's friend, old person's friend.
Pneumonia means falling asleep and not waking up in the morning.
I was responding to stevens' 49K calculation. Please take issue with his comment. I fully
expect the mortality rate to increase beyond seasonal averages due to additional and more
severe complications.
Ah, someone who wasn't paying attention to their lessons. Unlike flu there is no vaccine
and the population is essentially a virgin host. Some people may be able to slough it off,
but it'll be by happenstance, and they'll still be carriers.
Hence, the progress of the disease will be exponential, less the temporary suppression and
mitigation you can see in countries like China and South Korea. The economic cost of these
measures will eventually be too much, they'll have to ease off, and the disease will take off
again. If you want to track the various countries "score" as this inevitability unfolds, go
to http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/
As to your "calculations", this disease will have its way and will need to run its course.
It will increase exponentially and circle back in successive waves until the available supply
of hosts has been exhausted or developed immunity. In the aggregate, the US will meet its
wave in < a week, but every community will be hit at a different time depending on all
sort so things; Italy has only really taken a significant hits in a few provinces and the fun
for them is yet to come. The infection is just now gaining traction in the rest of Italy due
to effective mitigation and the WAVE of casualties is yet to come, as soon as they raise
their guard.
All this money being spent is just buying time and lining pockets. This is not a two hour
movie, where Brad Pitt has a blaze of insight and cooks up a cure for the zombie apocalypse
in a busy afternoon.
On further reflection (I have a comment on this post that is either in moderation or
disappeared) it seems that the pittance to workers with the right paperwork is to give the
appearance of doing something but ultimately it is to starve people into submission, so that
getting back to making money for the billionaires becomes the only alternative.
It taking off again is what I fear when I imagine what's likely to occur down the road.
Trump is right at least when he points out that eventually we'll all have to return to work.
Otherwise the economy will collapse completely, leaving us in some kind of Mad Max chaos.
Eventually. So, what happens when the voluntary lock-down is lifted, whether that be Easter
or a month or 2 or 3 later? If this thing is not completely eliminated by then will it not
just roar right back and we'll be in the same situation we find ourselves in currently, only
most of us even more precarious, financially? I can't seem to puzzle our current strategy out
in my mind without finding a horribly disastrous outcome at the end.
It seems, then, like fairly severe social distancing is mandated by circumstance way into
the future. If that's the case, then our previous ways of living, I mean a great deal of it,
all or the casual gathering and traveling around we've been accustomed to is dead, whether we
realize it now, or not. What the heck does this mean? What do we do with a good part of our
work-force and many if not most of our small business owners? I ask these questions without
any reasonable or acceptable answers in mind.
We are collectively going to have to take our licks here, painful though it will be,
sooner or later. Countries which have managed to keep things tamped down, for the moment
only, need to use that time to refine their hospital procedures and re-supply to save as many
as they can when the lid has to be taken off. That means having triage protocols in place for
COVID-19, as well as everyone else who comes in the door. Refer to the graphic in appendix B
of the Imperial College forecast for the US. Hospitals are going to be overwhelmed in any of
their scenarios, although every locality will have its encounter at at different time and the
precise circumstances will vary.
The initial UK strategy of angling for "herd immunity' was roundly ridiculed and
sheepishly withdrawn, but it was and is the only logical course. The disease simply doesn't
give a whit about the "But, but, but, but every life is priceless whinning" of those who
cannot face the reality. There is a BIG culling on the way, and all those Red State
denialisms, and sanctimonious bigots at Liberty University are going to get a big dose of
this, along with everyone else. This wave is coming, and all that can really be done is to
delay it, which may reduce the pain in a given locality, depending on their unique
circumstances and if the local authorities do their job right. This will be a battle fought
on a thousand hills (a thousand public health settings), and some will do better or worse
than others, even as the timing of the wave will vary for each: take notes on what is only
now beginning to happen in NYC, and how events unfold over the next month or two there. This
story will not be over by the eleven o'clock news or even next weekend.
Taking it up-front DOES help preserve the economy, allowing for recovery afterwards, and
that's key. Otherwise, we start drifting toward the Mad Max scenario alluded to above. Even
now, how are all the bodies going to be taken care of? Healthcare staff is already dying, and
staffs can be expected to desert as events unfold in NYC and elsewhere. All the support
people who make things work with their marginal salaries are noble, but stupid, if they stick
around those places, which are nothing but huge disease vectors. Then there's the food supply
chain, etc, etc, etc
Anyway we go this movie is not going to end well, and it won't end next week or even next
month. The disease will keep on coming back around until there is nobody left for it grab
hold of: meaning either there is a vaccine or herd immunity (usually thought of as 60-70% of
the population having had its brush with the thing).
As a Californian, "Red State denialisms, and sanctimonious bigots at Liberty University"
is an extremely unfair appellation given that I can see the same here in the Uber-Blue San
Francisco Bay Area.
While the improved efficiencies of the medical services are not quite as deep as in
the Red areas of California and in other states, the bigotry is just as strong. Only the
targets are changed. The deplorables, the poor, conservatives, and, of course, the homeless
tend to be fair game.
An infectious disease like COVID19 doesn't care about anything except reproduction and is
taking advantage of our situation; both political parties have been quite happy hollowing out
our nation-state condemning our nation to needless mass deaths and country's government to
possible collapse in fealty to the wealthy and in increasing the size of their personal bank
accounts.
Here is a
link to a paper just made public by the University of Washington, Institute for Health
Metrics and Evaluation. It's predicting Washington's peak at around April 14th. Also, they
evaluate each state, calculate its peak, and list the its available hospital beds and ICU
beds and note the estimated shortfalls (as well as shortfalls in ventilators) at peak.
Looking at their projections for New York State, one can understand Governor Cuomo's
urgency.
The simulator here has
adjustable parameters for the pandemic and resolution down to county level in many states of
the US. Of course we can expect patient transport between at least counties if not states
until ICUs are saturated. Very sobering to see how long this may play out. Cases and outcomes
are plotted too.
I ran a regression with Governor Cuomo's numbers (for NY State); Between March 3rd to
March 23rd was the confirmed raw data, before extrapolating; a social isolation program was
begun on the March 20th, so the data is pure "natural" "do nothing" dynamics; I fit the curve
to the data, and it showed 100% of NY State population affected by April 12th. The data
showed a slope co-efficient of 1.46 every day (46% increase in new cases every day).
R-squared for the fit: 96% (yes, rather high, which tells me this virus rolls out like
clockwork). However, we learn, even in Wuhan, a hard lockdown took two-three weeks to "begin
to bend the curve". We are in for the herd situation no question. It's been too little too
late by far. (but even one day saved from the 100% terminus is still quite a large
population: we are talking exponential time, not linear.).
When "early" (really drastically "late": being in first weeks of March) estimates from
Fauci, and other talking heads said US would likely see ~70% of population infected, that
translates to ONLY being able to shave ONE DAY off 100% herd exposure given my regression
showing just how contagious this is.
(It's my belief they lied to us, it's not just "droplets" but it is very nicely
aerosolized: breathing and exhaling in the wrong quarters is enought to do it; but thats'
just me, however do note, the Covid briefings at the top were state secret, not open to
journalists. We only get the vaudeville versions of everything, highly politicized to
boot).
The Corona flu [I like Corona because it sounds better -- more like cholera -- as in Love
in the time of Corona] is not the pandemic we need to worry about. That pandemic is still
coming. The Corona flu is bad but it is only a 'test' of our healthcare systems and
government, our knowledge, and our Media -- a live exercise. The U.S. is failing miserably in
all these areas. The CARES package -- I can't think of a more catchy name for this bill and
it really deserves a catchy name -- will do nothing to remedy the failings of our healthcare
systems and government, our knowledge, and our Media but it reveals how unprepared we are for
when the 'real' pandemic arrives.
Wed 25 Mar 2020 14.13 EDT Last modified on Wed 25 Mar 2020 17.50 EDT
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email 'if, as the
scientists predict, the result of loosening the restrictions was an acceleration in infections,
then pretty soon many firms would simply stop functioning, as workers became sick.' Photograph:
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images I s the cure worse than the disease? The Times
claimed today: "If the coronavirus lockdown leads to a fall in GDP of more than 6.4% more
years of life will be lost due to recession than will be gained through beating the virus."
It's hard to know where to start with this nonsense. It's based on a paper currently under
review at a journal entitled Nanotechnology Perceptions, which simply assumes that a fall in
GDP translates mechanically and directly into a fall in life expectancy.
It's this sort of reasoning that appears to be leading President Trump to call
for an early end to restrictions in the US, claiming that far more people would die of
suicide from a "terrible economy" than from the virus.
But the premise is simply wrong. A recession -- a short-term, temporary fall in GDP -- need
not, and indeed normally does not, reduce life expectancy. Indeed, counterintuitively, the
weight of the evidence is that
recessions actually lead to people living longer. Suicides do indeed go up, but other causes of
death, such as road accidents and alcohol-related disease, fall.
So at the most basic level, this argument ignores what the evidence says. But perhaps more
importantly, the idea that the way to minimise the economic damage is to remove the
restrictions before they've done their job -- definitively suppressing the spread of the virus
-- is a terrible one.
Does anyone believe that, whatever the government said, we could get back to "normal", or
something close to it, any time soon? If we were all allowed to return to work, many or most of
us would, quite rationally, choose not to, for fear of catching the virus. And if, as the
scientists predict, the result of loosening the restrictions was an acceleration in infections,
then pretty soon many firms would simply stop functioning, as workers became sick, or had to
stay at home to look after family members.
More broadly, restoring the economy to normal requires, above all, confidence. Amid
continuing uncertainty both about their own finances and the wider economy, households won't
spend and businesses won't invest. And that simply isn't going to happen until the spread of
the diseases has been contained.
So there is no tradeoff here. Health and economic considerations point in
exactly the same direction in the short term. Do whatever it takes -- and whatever it costs --
and do it now, in the interests both of our health and our collective wealth.
But what comes next? It is entirely reasonable to point out that serious damage to the
economy, if it persists over the longer term, will
reduce our welfare and maybe even -- as austerity and its aftermath have done -- life
expectancy. The last 10 days have seen universal credit
claims rise more than five-fold , to half a million, while YouGov data suggests that 2
million people may have lost their job. The recession is already here.
But this need not, and should not, be permanent. The risk here is that we allow the
inevitable fall in GDP that results from shutting down the economy to drive firms out of
business and workers into long-term unemployment. And there is nothing inevitable at all about
this.
After all, many European countries, such as France or Italy, probably, see their GDP fall by
10% or 20% or so in absolute terms every August when workers take their summer holidays. No one
notices -- the numbers are "seasonally adjusted" to take account of holidays, which means it
doesn't show up in the published data -- nor does it do any damage. Workers continue to be
paid, and businesses don't go bust just because they're not making any money. Come September,
everyone gets back to work as normal.
Of course this is very different -- that won't happen automatically with Covid-19. The
impacts are more widespread and long-lasting -- and we don't know how long -- than an enforced
extra holiday. But rapid and appropriate action by government can go a long way. Keeping
workers in jobs and
firms in business needs to be the priority. In the circumstances, the government's made a
good start, although there's
lots more to do .
So what we should be worried about -- both from an economic and a health perspective -- is
not how much GDP falls. It's going to fall by a lot, and that's a good thing. If it didn't --
if people were still going to work despite being told not to -- then the lockdown wouldn't be
working and we'd still see economic consequences further down the line. It's what happens to
GDP in a year or 18 months that matters.
And the long-term consequences? It wasn't the sharp fall in GDP in 2008-9 that reduced, over
the course of the next decade,
life expectancy for the poorest in our society . It was how the government chose to address
the economic fallout of the global financial crisis -- by underfunding and understaffing the
NHS and social care, and by eroding the basic welfare safety net that people depend on when
times are hard. As we are now discovering, these were false economies that left us less, not
more, prepared for this crisis.
Similarly, if we allow Covid-19 to permanently damage our economic and social fabric, it
will be our own fault, not that of the virus. This time we can, and must, do better.
• Jonathan Portes is professor of economics and public policy at King's College London
and a former senior civil servant
Compulsory procurement of half a dozen luxury yachts would go a long way with funding, as
would the uber wealthy PAYING THEIR CORPORATE TAX.
These extreme right-wing leaders in this world are evil. They all claim to be practicing
Christians, unbelievably. Anti-Christ more like. I'm not religious, but blind Freddy would
tell you if Jesus had existed, then these guys are the Romans that killed him. They simply
don't give a shit; swathes of people are expendable.
Didn't a corrupted prime minister get eaten by his people one time? Just sayin'.
We have been weaning people off tobacco for a long time and this virus seems to love
compromised lungs - tragically, young and fit Americans may succumb due to unregulated vaping
products and decriminalised cannabis products - particularly if one survives but with
severely damaged lungs.
I’m sorry but recessions do cause a spike in suicide, mental health issues and stress
related cancer deaths. The most vulnerable in society, on the breadline, will as usual be the
people who struggle the most. To suggest life expectancy goes up in a recession is a fallacy.
The latest US Trump policy (US open for business, do the right thing weaklings and die for
the sake of the nation's financial interests) is basically identical with the original UK
Cummings policy. Over the next few weeks are we going to see this policy re-asserted in the
UK - probably. Why - because the alternative would be to attempt containment of Covis 19 -
which would require a South Korean style program of testing and quarantine. And there is
absolutely indication of any political appetite for doing so in the UK whatsoever.
The risk here is a replay of austerity that we saw after the 2008 financial crisis, with many
people left aside. Economically, this was to rebalance the books after the government
injected cash to support the banks. Socially it was damaging.
If we repeat the same pay back and austerity model (on steroids this time) the social and
political fallout could be horrendous.
But what are the alternatives?
it really does strike me as unfair that their plan was "to do nothing" - I think it
seems to be a bit nuanced than that; and terribly communicated
Yes, the plan was not 'do nothing', it was 'get at risk groups to isolate
themselves and assume that the NHS could deal with the small proportion of low risk groups
needing hospitalisation'. This is essentially what Sweden and NL are doing, with (like us
last week) the addition of social distancing to slow down transmission.
This is a better idea than trying to avoid everyone getting it ('containment'), because as
soon as you lift containment, you still have no immunity so you're basically at day 0 again.
Unless the plan is to be under lockdown forever, the containment approach is a panic, not a
strategy.
If you're going for herd immunity you do need to slow the infections down enough that the
serious cases don't overwhelm your health service. That's what the social distancing and WFH
guidelines are about, and outside the cities and a few visitor spots it was working well last
week.
What made European economies grow in 1948? Confidence, investment, a social security
network, education for all, and building, building, building homes badly needed in destroyed
cities and for the homecoming of millions of veterans and the ensuing baby boom.
The post-war recession feared by economists did not occur. Instead there was a quarter
century of prosperity. Never had there been there so many people, and never before had they
had it so good. Until the arrival of the family butchers. Who sold the family silver and
sacrificed welfare on the altar of m-m-m-monetarism. Said Ssupermac in his maiden speech in
the Lords.
Money quote " There is this sense that experts are untrustworthy, and have agendas that
aren't aligned with the people"
That was always true about neoliberal economists. So it might well be true about mecuacl
bureaucrats like Fauci. Did he disclose his stock holdingd and financial interests? Is he a part
of neoliberal "medical-industrial complex" which wants to rake profits at the expense of people
health?
His email to Hillary suggest that he is medical professional but a politician.
Actually any top medical honcho in Washing is compromised as they did nothing to stop
"balance billing" fraud and too over of ambulance business by private equity sharks.
Notable quotes:
"... There is this sense that experts are untrustworthy, and have agendas that aren't aligned with the people ..."
"... In the email, Dr. Fauci praised Mrs. Clinton for her stamina during the 2013 Benghazi hearings. The American Thinker falsely claimed that the email was evidence that he was part of a secret group who opposed Mr. Trump. ..."
Adding that Dr. Fauci is bearing the brunt of the attacks, Mr. Bergstrom said: " There
is this sense that experts are untrustworthy, and have agendas that aren't aligned with the
people . It's very concerning because the experts in this are being discounted out of
hand."
... ... ...
Anti-Fauci posts spiked, according to Zignal Labs. Much of the increase was prompted by a
March 21 article in The American Thinker, a conservative blog, which published the
seven-year-old email that Dr. Fauci had written to an aide of Mrs. Clinton.
In the email, Dr. Fauci praised Mrs. Clinton for her stamina during the 2013 Benghazi
hearings. The American Thinker falsely claimed that the email was evidence that he was part of
a secret group who opposed Mr. Trump.
... ... ...
In an interview, Mr. Fitton said, "Dr. Fauci is doing a great job." He added that Dr. Fauci
"wrote very political statements to Hillary Clinton that were odd for an appointee of his
nature to send."
...One anti-Fauci tweet last Sunday read: "Dr. Fauci is in love w/ crooked @HillaryClinton.
More reasons not to trust him."
"... The coronavirus emergency has exposed the failures and flaws of the European Union, while underscoring the importance of nation-states. In Europe, we've observed a series of events that have demonstrated the collapse of the supra-national model. First, the borders shut down -- Austria and Slovenia acted unilaterally, without asking approval from Italy's government. The move was also symbolic: Italy was not only isolated, it was abandoned to its own devices. ..."
"... Globalization may have its efficiencies, but an overwhelmed health care system suffers in the absence of internal production of the necessary materials -- life-saving ventilators, infection-preventing hazmat vests, face masks. The global evolution of supply chains exported manufacturing and relied heavily on the cheap imports of essential products from abroad. But with the spread of the coronavirus, many states are now forbidding the export of medical equipment. A good example is Turkey, a country that readily accepts EU funds and that many liberals would like to bring into the Union. Ankara blocked a shipment of 200,000 face masks already purchased by Italy for the hard-hit northern regions of Marche and Emilia Romagna. ..."
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a greater toll on Italy than any other nation. The
Italians are facing their most severe crisis since the Second World War, with Lombardy in the
industrial north particularly hard hit. Yet for all its rhetoric about global citizenship and
solidarity, the European Union has all but abandoned them. That's even though communist China,
arguably globalization's greatest and shrewdest state beneficiary, is ready to fill the void
and help Italy put out the fire its own virus started.
The coronavirus first appeared in Italy on January 31 when two Chinese tourists from the
Hubei province tested positive in Rome, eight days after they'd landed at the Milan airport in
Lombardy. The two were immediately isolated and quarantined in the Roman Spallanzani hospital,
and the situation seemed under control -- until February 21. That day, Italy confirmed 16 new
coronavirus cases, 14 in Lombardy and two in Veneto. A 38-year-old Italian from Codogno near
Milan with acute respiratory symptoms was identified as patient zero. Despite Italy's attempts
to contain the virus by locking down the city of Codogno, coronavirus infections spread.
In just a few days, Italy had the highest number of infections in Europe, with Lombardy as
the pandemic's epicenter. To avoid the spread of infections to the rest of Italy, the
government locked down the entire region of Lombardy and other areas in northern Italy,
effectively quarantining 17 million people. A few days later, as the situation deteriorated,
the whole of Italy was declared an "orange zone" -- all "non-essential" commercial activities
were shut down and the free movement of citizens was limited to grocery and pharmaceutical
shopping and work obligations deemed by the state as of "prime importance."
The economic repercussions of a complete shutdown loomed large. Consequently, Italy asked
the EU for more flexibility on its accounts and requested that emergency measures be deployed
to support Italian citizens and businesses. At the time, the crisis was hardly felt in the
European powerhouses, France or Germany. The EU's response was slow and inefficient, and
Italians started to feel abandoned by European institutions. As the original signer of the
Treaty of Rome, Italy is a founding member of the EU and the third largest economy in the
eurozone.
On March 12, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, marked a
point of no return -- she gave a highly anticipated speech outlining the measures the bank
would introduce to combat the effects of the coronavirus. Lagarde decided not to cut interest
rates, arguing against the policy of "whatever it takes," as had been outlined by former ECB
president Mario Draghi. To Italians, the EU's indifference was a betrayal. The consequences of
her words were immediate -- and disastrous for Italian stocks. Even the pro-EU president of the
Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, released a harsh statement asking the EU to correct its
ways in the "common interest" of Europe.
The EU did change its position on the COVID-19 response, but not until the health care
crisis had spread to France and Germany, making it their problem, too. By then, the damage done
to the Italians' trust in European institutions was already beyond repair. With few viable
options left, Italy's government is now considering the European "Save the State Funds," asking
the EU to implement the €500 billion emergency bailout program from the European Stability
Mechanism designed for EU member states -- a risky move that may saddle Italy with long-term
debt on a scale similar to Greece.
The coronavirus emergency has exposed the failures and flaws of the European Union, while
underscoring the importance of nation-states. In Europe, we've observed a series of events that
have demonstrated the collapse of the supra-national model. First, the borders shut down --
Austria and Slovenia acted unilaterally, without asking approval from Italy's government. The
move was also symbolic: Italy was not only isolated, it was abandoned to its own devices.
Globalization may have its efficiencies, but an overwhelmed health care system suffers in
the absence of internal production of the necessary materials -- life-saving ventilators,
infection-preventing hazmat vests, face masks. The global evolution of supply chains exported
manufacturing and relied heavily on the cheap imports of essential products from abroad. But
with the spread of the coronavirus, many states are now forbidding the export of medical
equipment. A good example is Turkey, a country that readily accepts EU funds and that many
liberals would like to bring into the Union. Ankara blocked a shipment of 200,000 face masks
already purchased by Italy for the hard-hit northern regions of Marche and Emilia Romagna.
The Italians are coming together to fight the pandemic. Many Italian companies have
converted production at home: those working in the textile industry have started producing face
masks. Italy's only manufacturer of respiratory equipment, in the province of Bologna, is not
able to meet the current needs and relieve the national shortage of ventilators. Army
technicians are now helping to increase production capacity.
What has the coronavirus in Italy taught us so far? A great nation is doing what it can to
become self-sufficient as the crisis proves daily that the propaganda of the prophets of
globalization is false. We see that there are strategic sectors, such as health care,
transport, energy, defense, and telecommunications, that have to be considered from the
perspective of national security and not strictly business.
This is a new, unspoken understanding that unites Italy today. We have witnessed a return of
patriotism: flags are hanging from windows and Italians are singing the national anthem. But
there is something else to consider: our freedom. Some politicians, including former prime
minister Matteo Renzi, are proposing to monitor the movements of individuals using their phones
and data from telecommunication companies to police compliance with the lockdown rules and
assess penalties for violations. This smacks of the Big Brother surveillance state. The
collection of metadata for statistical ends, as practiced in Lombardy, should be separated from
the indiscriminate control of individual citizens. Otherwise an Orwellian precedent will be
set. Such an anti-democratic attitude seems to be one of the collateral ideological effects of
what President Trump refers to as a "Chinese virus."
... ... ...
Francesco Giubilei is an entrepreneur, author, and independent journalist based in Rome,
Italy. He is founder and president of the Nazione Futura magazine and
foundation.
john@39
This article might interest you. The author makes the point that neo-liberalism is begging to
be replaced.
"...Crises like these call for an interventionist state to keep the system together, or
for mutual aid and solidarity, especially among people abandoned or targeted by the state. In
some countries, the legitimacy of state administration and planning will grow, in others
political legitimacy will fall precipitously, leading not just to mutual aid networks, but to
attempts to build dual power.
"What economic paradigm – if any – may become dominant isn't clear. The
prestige of Chinese-style state capitalism is growing. Keynesian and Modern Monetary Theory
economists will find jobs in high places, and market socialism-with-nationalisations will
continue to strengthen its position as the dominant economic doctrine on the left.
"However, the economic and ecological unsustainability of growth will raise hard questions
of how to distribute or redistribute the losses in a non-growth world. Fascism and populist
welfare chauvinism will offer the false security of disaster nationalism, national hoarding
and resource wars.
Degrowth's offer of a planned and willed exit from growth will continue to gain followers,
and communist strategies will grow in importance, as the surpluses that can be divided
between contending classes shrink. Ecological breakdown and an absence of growth will pose
questions that are already imposing themselves in the intense isolation of the lockdown: what
are the joys of deceleration, what to do with an abundance of time and interdependence? And,
more forcefully, it will radically narrow the space for social and political compromise.
"Struggle is unavoidable. The question is who will organise it and how."
"... Decades of this modern religion have resulted in an incredibly tragic situation: a disproportionate wealth distribution in the hands of the 0.1%, an over-bloated services/consumer driven economy, increased rates of poverty and despair internationally as well as a dismal loss of vital skills, and productive capacity once enjoyed by advanced industrial nations just four decades ago. Vital infrastructure built up during the 1930s-1960s has been permitted to decay through simple neglect while un-payable debts have reached record highs. ..."
"... Banks in Spain have been nationalized (albeit only "temporarily") to force finance to act in accordance with the needs of society. ..."
"... This renewal of national sovereign powers breaks all of the monetary "laws of the neoliberal order" and with that defiance of globalization, a genuine positive potential for a paradigm shift is visible... ..."
Western society has long been gripped by a deep seeded belief in money. Trillions of dollars
of bank notes tied to ever-growing mountains of un-payable national debts has taken on a life
of its own over the years. As the post-1971 years rolled by, society increasingly lost a sense
that this human invention called "money" was created to serve humanity rather than rule it, and
with that lost sense, money became an idol of worship.
Decades of this modern religion have resulted in an incredibly tragic situation: a
disproportionate wealth distribution in the hands of the 0.1%, an over-bloated
services/consumer driven economy, increased rates of poverty and despair internationally as
well as a dismal loss of vital skills, and productive capacity once enjoyed by advanced
industrial nations just four decades ago. Vital infrastructure built up during the 1930s-1960s
has been permitted to decay through simple neglect while un-payable debts have reached record
highs.
Then like a thief in the night, the illusion was ripped away.
The Confused Response to
the Crisis
This ripping away took the form of an international pandemic which has resulted in western
nations' economies grinding to a halt with a new $2 Trillion government emergency spending bill
unveiled on March 24. The Washington
Post reports that this bill will authorize "hundreds of billions of dollars sent to
Americans in the form of checks as a way to flood the country with money in an effort to blunt
the dramatic pullback of spending that has resulted from the coronavirus outbreak."
Governments across the Trans-Atlantic have also announced national interventions into banks
and private industry in order to force production quotas of vital equipment like ventilators,
masks and other medical necessities to meet the increased demand. Banks in Spain have been
nationalized (albeit only "temporarily") to force finance to act in accordance with the needs
of society. In America, the Defense Authorization Act and broader War Powers Act passed by
President Trump gives the executive broad powers to take over vital industries if needed in
order to mobilize the nation to respond to the crisis.
This renewal of national sovereign powers breaks all of the monetary "laws of the neoliberal
order" and with that defiance of globalization, a genuine positive potential for a paradigm
shift is visible...
... but something vital is still missing.
This "missing something" is clearly demonstrated by the continued obsession with money as
new bailouts of the collapsing speculative banks have now risen to a
$1 trillion/day overnight repo loan to collapsing banks which is added to the $1 Trillion
14 week loans offered every week that will dramatically increase the
$9 trillion already emitted since helicopter money began in earnest in September 2019. With
the mass panic and economic shutdown instigated by COVID-19, markets have lost over 30% of
their value and fears of a new great depression have spread far and wide.
Rather than impose
serious bank regulation like Glass-Steagall to break up the commercial from speculative banks
as was done in 1933, the American government has merely unleashed unlimited money printing.
This bipolar response is akin to trying to stop a raging fire with a combination of water and
gasoline.
We thus find that the greatest crisis facing humanity is not caused by the market crisis, or
even the coronavirus per se, but rather society's profound inability to understand the source
of real from fictitious value.
What is REAL Value? Lincoln and FDR Revisited
"The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of
Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of
these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers
will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public
enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of
the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be
furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master
and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power."
These words were uttered by none other than America's 16th president Abraham Lincoln as he
fought to take federal control of credit vis a vis the "greenbacks" that not only allowed him
to win the war of secession but also construct the greatest infrastructure and
industrialization programs of history driven by the trans continental railway . The dramatic
success of Lincoln's "American System" not only saved the union, but spread successfully across
the world from Japan's Meiji restoration, Russia's trans Siberian rail development, Bismarck's
Zollverein in Germany and Sadi Carnot's France. This powerful spread of what German economist
Friedrich List called "the
American System of Political Economy" nearly annihilated the money-worshipping system of
Adam Smith's Free Trade doctrine from the earth and only failed in this task via a plenitude of
London-directed assassinations, and a couple of imperially-orchestrated wars and revolutions
along the way.
Amidst this dark period, Franklin Roosevelt called for the Democrats to claim the legacy of
Lincoln from the corrupt republican party and faced a
Wall Street-backed coup d'etat , survived a freemasonic assassination
attempt and subverted a
City of London-orchestrated bankers' dictatorship all in his first year in office. During
his March 4, 1933 inaugural address, the president rallied the American people saying:
"I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken
nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures
as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my
constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption."
As I have outlined in my recent paper
How to Crush a Bankers' Dictatorship , FDR took control of credit in a similar manner as
Lincoln by forcing the Federal Reserve to obey a national mandate for the first time since the
private bank was set up in 1913. He did so by imposing his ally Mariner Eccles into the
position of Chairman who understood that money had to create infrastructure and industrial
growth in order to acquire any claim to having actual "value". This was a stark break from the
"hands off/laissez-faire" policy of President Hoover and his JP Morgan-run cabinet. FDR also
emitted Lincoln-styled productive credit through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)
to fuel the New Deal. The RFC issued over $33 billion in low-interest loans by the end of the
war (more than all private banks combined).
Describing his moral philosophy of political economy, FDR stated:
"We seek not merely to make government a mechanical implement, but to give it the vibrant
personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity. We are poor indeed if this
nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the
unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in
the books of human fortitude."
What is missing today
Today's America is confronting an existential crisis similar to that which both Lincoln and
Franklin Roosevelt battled in their time. Just as the proto-deep state of 1865 ran Lincoln's
assassination from Montreal Canada, and took over the White House minutes after FDR's untimely
death in 1945, today's deep state has attempted in vain to overthrow President Trump while
successfully undermining the political viability of other "outsiders" like Bernie Sanders and
Tulsi Gabbard.
The difference is that today's crisis combines elements of all previous crises of 1861-1865,
1929-1933 and 1938-1945: the very real new threat of chaos and civil war within, NATO-led wars
with China and Russia without and economic collapse across the entire trans-Atlantic bubble
economy. The other difference is located in the current presidency's inability to FOCUS with a
clear mind on principled solutions to this multi-faceted crisis while instead finding itself
trapped within contradictory impulses.
While FDR and Lincoln understood that VALUE was located the physically productive forces of
labor which sustained and improved the lives of people and gave the constitution's pre-amble a
real living character, today's American leadership has displayed a far greater ignorance to
this basic fact of life. The vital difference between "need" vs "want" which has been obscured
by decades of free market ideology has resulted in a loss of moral judgment necessary to
properly put out the fires threatening to unleashing civil war, chaos and fascist global
government "solutions" across the Trans Atlantic today.
The new multipolar alliance led by Russia and China have demonstrated what modern day New
Deal policies can do. The Belt and Road Initiative as well as the Strategic Eurasian
Partnership, Polar Silk Road and bold space exploration projects all reflect the type of
principles of win-win cooperation and long term planning that characterized both FDR and
Lincoln earlier. The Health Silk Road announced
earlier this week by President Xi Jinping provides a brilliant maneuver to tackle the COVID-19
pandemic under a non-Malthusian worldview. This Multipolar Alliance exists as a form of a life
raft for anyone wishing to escape the fate of the Titanic and embark on a new epoch of growth
and cooperation.
The question is: Do western powers have the ability to act according to a scientific (and
moral) standard of value by aligning with this multipolar alliance or will they choose to
remain in Orwell's dystopic cage and succumb to a fate which Lincoln, FDR and other great
leaders gave their lives to prevent?
I was a partner in a law firm where I was ultimately responsible for all civil litigation
we handled. I was continually shocked and disgusted by what I saw. It was incredible.
People's lives have absolutely zero value to these monsters at the top, who have gotten where
they are because they are so ruthless and selfish.
We, as a society, carefully select for these psychopathic types in all high-level
competitive endeavors where large sums are hanging in the balance. Their only loyalty is 1.)
to themselves; 2.) to the shareholders/partners, firmly in that order, and they are VERY
highly rewarded for it. That the commoner's well being holds no value to them aside from how
it can be exploited to their businesses' advantage, is a truism revealed and reinforced
daily. The Ford Pinto, Dalkon Shield and other horrifying high profile cases (from the era
when I practiced) come immediately to mind.
Pig Pharma is by no means alone in their utter disregard for the everyday man and woman,
it's just that we intuitively expect people in the medical field to want to heal the sick,
not prolong it. But as the Wall Street analysts remind the heads of Pig Pharma on a daily
basis: curing disease is a bad business model. Prolonging and worsening illness, just short
of death, is optimal. Just ask the lovely Sackler family.
Very sad to learn it's as bad or worse across the pond, but I guess that's to be
expected.
I suspect the worst of it exists in the military environment, where service men and women
are apparently routinely used as guinea pigs, and often completely unknowingly. But at least
they know when they sign up that they are 100% expendable ..
This note presents broad brush
illustrations from a simple accounting model of the impacts of the coronavirus epidemic on macroeconomic
balance, with emphasis on fiscal interventions. The premise is that supporting effective demand is essential
for sustaining economic activity. The covid-19 epidemic created mass unemployment by shutting activity down.
The resulting income loss undoubtedly reduced household consumption which makes up two-thirds of GDP. The
only way to restore consumption is for the government acting as the "borrower of last resort" to raise its
deficit and transfer the proceeds to households. A numerical example presented below suggests that an
increase of ten percentage points in the ratio of government net borrowing (spending on goods and services
plus transfers to households minus tax revenues) to GDP would do the trick.
The stimulus legislation now before Congress does not go far enough. Its size -- $2.2 trillion or ten
percent of GDP – is the right order of magnitude but the breakdown of spending is biased away from
households and toward business,
viz.
, payments that may flow more or less directly to households –
checks in the mail, more unemployment insurance, small business support, state and local government support,
and less than $100 billion to food stamps and disaster relief – come to $1.2 trillion or 5.7% of GDP.
Big business support in the form of loans and a range of other payments amounts to $800 billion or 3.8%
of GDP. No doubt, politics aside, some of this money will be usefully spent, but its contribution to
aggregate demand will be slow and indirect.
Before getting into the details of demand management, a few background observations are needed.
One is that both government and business have substantial debt overhangs. The simulations suggest that an
increase of about $3 trillion in the deficit of the government sector (close to the total built into the
various packages now in place or being enacted) is needed to offset the macro shock that the epidemic
creates. Outstanding Federal debt is $22 trillion. New issues of three trillion may be difficult for markets
to absorb.
Even worse, the corporate sector's outstanding debt is $10 trillion, five times total profits before
depreciation, interest, and taxes. Share buybacks, largely financed by borrowing and ranging in the upper
hundreds of billions per year, have been an important driver of growth of debt. The production side of once
dominant firms – think of General Electric and Boeing – has been hollowed out by financial engineering.
Politics will continue to be influenced by pressures to solve financial problems for firms created by their
past mistakes.
On the real side of the economy, over the last two or three decades the share of employment in sectors
with low real wages, productivity, and profits increased by around twenty percent. The share of profits in
national income grew at around 0.4% per year for five decades, mostly flowing through various channels to
households in the top one percent of the size distribution of income. Households at the bottom of the
distribution became especially vulnerable.
The major impact on economic activity will come from falling consumption of goods and services due to
income losses caused by businesses shutting down. Starting from an initial income level, household saving or
the difference between income and spending will shoot up with further multiplier effects on output. High
profit activities such as real estate rental and leasing, finance, and information will be protected.
Sectors with high employment and low wages and productivity such as retail, accommodation and food, and
other services will be hard hit (education and health will be the main exception). To offset the impacts,
fiscal demand creation by the government will be essential, with the required outlays depending on the size
of the consumption drop and other shocks such as lower private investment and exports.
We begin with details about differences across sectors, and go on to the macroeconomic effects of the
coronavirus epidemic on incomes and output.
Dual Economy
The shifts in the structure of production just mentioned created an American dual economy with prosperity
at the top and near subsistence living at the bottom. Table 1 presents details for sixteen sectors, ordered
from the higher to lower rows by decreasing estimates of payments per hour to labor (including "supplements"
or contributions for pensions and insurance).
Real wages and productivity vary over wide ranges. The same is true of sectoral profits. Real estate
takes the lion's share, followed by manufacturing, finance, business services, and information. Profits are
meager from retail on down the rows, while output and especially employment shares are relatively high. The
three sectors mentioned above -- retail, accommodation and food, and other services – provide around 46
million jobs, more than one-quarter of the 162 million total. Their labor payments amount to $263 billion,
about one percent of GDP of $21 trillion. This number can be contrasted with $600 billion of profits in real
estate. Incomes of low-wage workers do not matter
greatly in the grand macroeconomic scheme of things, but for them even a ten percent income loss would be
devastating.
Table 1: Structure of production in 2016
Wages and output used to
calculate wage rate per hour and productivity per hour are deflated by the GDP deflator (2019=100).
Shares of real output are deflated based on each sector's own industry price index (2009=100).
Macroeconomic Balance
Before turning to the impacts of covid-19, it makes sense to review previous macroeconomic shocks such as
the great recession and the smaller Trump tax reduction of 2018. A simple accounting scheme can be built
around "net borrowing" (NB) levels of four institutional sectors – households (HH), corporate business,
government at all levels, and the rest of the world.
For households and business, NB is equal to gross fixed capital formation plus changes in inventories
("investment") minus saving. For government, it is current spending on goods and services plus investment
minus the excess of tax receipts over fiscal transfers to households. Broadly speaking, foreign NB is the
current account surplus or exports minus imports. It is negative for the USA. In the jargon, investment,
government spending, and exports are demand "injections." HH and business saving, taxes minus fiscal
transfers, and imports are "leakages." Overall macroeconomic balance requires that the sum of NB levels
across sectors should equal zero (subject to a "statistical discrepancy" between estimates of spending and
incomes in the national accounts). Table 2 summarizes data for selected years. The "rates" are calculated
with respect to the relevant year's real GDP.
Table 2: Net borrowing behavior in the USA for selected years (levels in trillions of dollars at prices
of 2019, rates are relative to GDP)
Each year's "multiplier" is the inverse of the sum of the four leakage rates. The multiplier times the
sum of injections equals output.
In a further illustration, Figure 1 shows annual net borrowing rates in the form of a bar chart. High net
borrowing by the government in response to the financial crisis stands out. Even more striking at the far
right of the diagram is the fiscal response to the consumption loss due to the coronavirus as estimated in
Table 3 below.
Figure 1: Annual sectoral net borrowing (in the past and estimated for 2020)
The diagram and table show that business retained earnings usually provide the main source of saving,
with resources also coming from households and negative net borrowing by the rest of the world (positive net
lending to the US economy). The government is the principal net borrower, as underlined by its role in
recent macroeconomic events and especially now.
Recession and the Trump Tax Cut
The 2007-09 recession was precipitated by private sector retrenchment in wake of the financial crisis.
Household consumption was flat, while private investment fell by 30%. Household saving and business retained
earnings went up, meaning that the overall private saving rate rose from 19% to 22%. Output rose between
2007 and 2009. It would have dropped dramatically if the net government tax-minus-transfer rate had been
stable. But in fact it fell from 15% to 6% due to automatic stabilizers and the Obama stimulus package of
around 5% of GDP. The overall impact was that private net borrowing fell by 10.2% of output while government
borrowing went up by 8.6%. Reduction of the external deficit by 1.7% made up the difference.
In sum, the recession was not a disaster because of fiscal realignment. Causality ran from a private
sector shock to automatic and discretionary government responses. It went the other way for the more modest
Trump tax cut. The tax-minus-transfer rate fell from 11.6% to 10.7%, or about $185 billion. Output did go up
by 2.9%, but the increase would have been greater if there had been a strong business investment boom
instead of only a $320 billion increase. Lower business taxes were in large part distributed via dividends
and share buybacks to households at the top of the income ladder with high saving rates.
Both episodes show that changing government net borrowing plays a key role in macroeconomic adjustment.
More government spending on goods and services (unimportant in 2007-09) will also have to help absorb the
covid-19 shock
Coronavirus and Consumption
The biggest immediate impact of the epidemic is loss of economic activity as businesses shut down in a
"supply" shock. Unless they reopen rapidly, both payments to labor and profits will fall. Household
consumption makes up almost 70% of GDP and will drop accordingly.
As an illustration, we can consider a consumption decrease over 2020 of $1.5 trillion from a 2019 level
of $14.6 trillion, or 10% (a high but not unreasonable estimate). That amounts to seven percent of GDP.
Because they have low or negative saving rates, households hit by loss of low-wage jobs at the bottom of the
Table 1 ladder would be major contributors.
For households, saving basically equals income minus spending for consumption, (mostly) residential
investment, and taxes. A decrease in consumption translates into higher saving, or in Table 3 a jump of the
HH saving rate from 0.086 to 0.156. More saving means less demand creation so that output falls from 21.06
to 18.34 trillion dollars.
Table 3: Possible effects of the coronavirus shock
In a quirk of national accounting, HH net borrowing falls from -0.045 to -0.108, or net lending to the
rest of the economy rises to close to 11% of GDP. Presumably the higher "lending" would take the form of
paying off debt. In practice, that will not happen. The proper policy response would be a decrease in the
government's tax-minus-transfer rate from 0.101 to 0.031, taking the form of a $1.5 trillion transfer to
households, which could hold consumption spending and output stable over the year. Government borrowing
would rise by 7% of GDP, or from $1.56 to $3.03 trillion (compare the two rightmost bars of Figure 1). This
hypothetical percentage increase exceeds the actual change between 2007 and 2009 recorded in Table 2.
In other words,
the only way to maintain economic activity is for the government to borrow to
transfer money to households to support consumption.
Ideally, a few hundred billion could be targeted
specifically at the poorly paid quarter of the work force in the sectors in the lower part of Table 1, along
with poor households who don't receive labor income.
There are more potential complications. Table 2 shows that private investment fell by around 30% between
2007 and 2009. Lower capital formation along with stable profits drove up retained earnings so that business
net borrowing fell. Broadly similar shifts could be expected during the epidemic. Exports could decrease as
well. On the other hand, increased government spending on goods and services would raise aggregate demand.
In the rightmost column of Table 3, a plausible outcome would be a visible recession, despite government
borrowing of 17% of GDP, or $3.4 trillion.
Reality check
The initial impact of covid-19 has been to annihilate labor income through the loss of employment. The
challenge is to create demand to offset lost wages and consumer spending. The calculations herein are
illustrative at best, although government net borrowing in Table 3 is close to the total outlay of stimulus
packages approved by Congress. But there are further complications.
` As noted at the outset, more than three trillion dollars of new government debt is a non-trivial
increase over the $22 trillion outstanding. Advocates of Modern Monetary Theory suggest that the Federal
Reserve could absorb the new issues, adding to the 15% of government paper that it already holds. In the USA
such an experiment is yet to be run.
The Fed has offered to intervene massively to buy up corporate debt, which would also run up its balance
sheet. Nevertheless, bailouts for business will remain in political competition with transfers to households
in bottom tiers of the income distribution which really need the money. The Obama stimulus directed less
than half its outlays toward households. There could be better targeting under present circumstances.
Table 1 suggests that profits in some sectors could be taxed to help offset transfers. Real estate,
finance, and information jump to attention.
Timing matters. GDP over one year is the reference frame for Table 3. If, as is likely, job losses and
demand decreases are not offset over a shorter period, the effects on economic activity could be
devastating.
Finally, immediate direct action is needed to overcome supply shortfalls for vast amounts of new medical
and caretaker services, not to mention production of personal protective gear for caregivers.
Support from INET and help from Özlem Ömer are gratefully acknowledged.
One issue I take with this article is that it often classifies money as going to either labor or profits.
There is a third category – suppliers. In my experience payments to suppliers has dried up since the beginning
of the coronavirus shutdown. Whether because AP and AR aren't considered essential functions, because
businesses, even essential businesses, don't have enough cash to pay employees and suppliers, or because they
simply don't want to pay supplier. This is creating a cash crunch for businesses, who are cutting down on
discretionary activities like advertising and even turning away new sales out of fears new customers won't pay.
I have not seen any analysis on the impact of the loss of trade credit.
The importance of trade-credit has been ignored for decades. I had hopes that one positive effect of the
ultra-low interest-rates would have been that large customers would stop paying their suppliers so late. It
hasn't happened, banks love it as they force the small suppliers to go to the bank and borrow money at
high(er) interest-rate and the money lent out by banks would be the low(er) interest-rate provided by the
customer.
There is a risk now that the supply-chains freeze completely due to suppliers not being paid and suppliers
then stopping supply – either voluntaritly or due to going under. It might be necessary to legislate
and enforce
maximum payment terms.
What might possibly be happening is more and better automation of the AP/AR-functions. The current
automation is often so bad that it increases employment instead of what might be the intended reduction of
employment, the next automation (done by skilled professionals, not like now by when it is often done
talkers) might (in my opinion very likely) permanently reduce employment.
We know how the USofA has been over last months now harassing, blackmailing an' threatening
other countries NOT to adopt the chinese HUawei 5G technologies.
Many nations were threatened, UK, Berlin, Brazil etc
Now Germany the first vassal of the Empire, 'primus inter pares' has seemingly prohibited
the exportation of breathers to other countries - who of course need them most.
So what is globalism after all.
A nice idea the rich sell the morons, and tamed nations of the world. But which gets
zeroed as soon as their main interests are menaced.
"... Today supermarkets are playing a ground-zero role in our struggle to adapt to restrictions imposed by COVID-19. And grocery workers are bearing much of the the brunt of our anxiety and frustration, as we [who?] descend on depleted stores. ..."
"They were
careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back
into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let
other people clean up the mess they had made. -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great
Gatsby
In the United States, #COVID-19 began with globalization and globalizers. One thing we can
be of is that grovery workers -- to whom the virus will "trickle down" soon enough -- didn't
create the conditions for it, or introduce it. Let's take a look at the grocery workers before
dollying back to the global. From the Los Angeles Times, "
Column: How coronavirus turned supermarket workers into heroes ":
Today supermarkets are playing a ground-zero role in our struggle to adapt to restrictions
imposed by COVID-19. And grocery workers are bearing much of the the brunt of our anxiety and
frustration, as we [who?] descend on depleted stores.
Without masks or barriers, employees are working long hours, risking infection and
battling exhaustion to do their jobs. They connect us to material essentials, like bread and
toilet paper. But they're also part of the social fabric that holds us together in unsettling
times.
That friendly chat with the guy restocking the egg case this morning might be my only
social interaction on this shelter-at-home day. And I feel better whenever I see my favorite
cashier at her register. There's something reassuring about the familiar in a world where
everything has changed.
Markets are about the only place we're still allowed to gather en masse. And their
employees -- pressed into service in ways they never expected -- are our new first
responders. They're apt to see us at our worst, and they aim to ease our strain.
"They're dealing with a public that's fearful, apprehensive and frustrated, and it gets
hostile," [said John Grant, a former meatpacker who is president of the union that represents
grocery employees in Southern California]. "This wasn't what they signed up for, but they
realize it's their responsibility. They've cursed how vulnerable they are, and yet they keep
going out of their profound dedication to their communities."
Funny thing. The people who "connect us to material essentials" are suddenly more important
than Senators and Represenatives (who can fly home), or all the MBAs in the head office, or the
CEOs. Heaven forfend they collectively decided to withdraw their labor!
"Vulnerable" as the grocery workers are, they didn't bring #COVID19 on themselves or us.
First, I'll look at how globalization made the "material essentials" to deal with #COVID19 so
hard to obtain. Then, I'll look at how globalizers were vectors for the diseases spread.
Globalization
The story of how the United States 1% deindustrialized American by moving our manufacturing
base offshore (mostly to China) is well known and I will not rehearse it here. From the New
York Times, " How the World's Richest
Country Ran Out of a 75-Cent Face Mask ":
The answer to why we're running out of protective gear involves a very American set of
capitalist pathologies -- the rise and inevitable lure of low-cost overseas manufacturing,
and a strategic failure, at the national level and in the health care industry, to consider
seriously the cascading vulnerabilities that flowed from the incentives to reduce costs.
(By "reduce costs," of course, we mean "increase profits.") The shortage of masks has been
the dominant narrative, but we don't make anything . If masks had not been "the long
pole in the tent," as project managers say, something else would have been or will be:
ventilators ,
gloves ,
nasal swabs for testing, extraction
kits and pipettes , reagents
, whatever. The real issue is not a shortage of this or that material essential, but a
forty-year policy of globalization, supported by the ruling class as a whole, that has led to a
shortage of all material essentials (and that's not even taking austerity and the
general gutting of public services into account). I have altered
the famous "flattening the curve" chart (here with "dotted line to show capacity") to show
the effect"
Lack of "material essentials" reduces our capacity ("How many very sick people hospitals can
treat"); it pushes the dotted line down. So we either have to flatten the curve further than we
would otherwise have to do, or we don't, and lose lives. Thank you, globalization! And with
that, let's turn to the globalizers.
Globalizers
By globalizers, I mean the 1% on down, plus the PMC (Professional Manager Class) who own and
manage our globalized system. One effect of globalization has been the vast expansion of air
transport and international travel, so that globalizers can do their jobs. And tha
t's how SARS-COV-2 was brought to the United States :
The man who would become Patient Zero for the new coronavirus outbreak in the U.S.
appeared to do everything right. He arrived Jan. 19 at an urgent-care clinic in a suburb
north of Seattle with a slightly elevated temperature and a cough he'd developed soon after
returning four days earlier from a visit with family in Wuhan, China.
(I'm not blaming any individual; I travel internationally myself, and there are many good
reasons to do it. But international air travel was the vector that brought the virus to the
United States. That is the system. I'm assuming Patient Zero travelled for professional
reasons, since Wuhan is an unlikely tourist destination.)
We can make a highly suggestive correlation between globalizers and COVID-19 if we look at
two simple maps. First, as
is well known , one of the main distinctions between the places that are " optimistic,
diverse, dynamic, moving forward " (i.e., globalizers) and the dull provincials in flyover
is the possession of passports. (A passport is a likely marker for the sort of person who asks
"Why don't they just leave?"; "front-row kids," in Chris Arnade's parlance, as distinguished
from, say, grocery workers, who he calls "back-row" kids.) Here is a map of passport ownership
by state:
The correlation is rather neat, don't you think? It makes sense that the first case was in a
globalist, passport-owning city like Seattle on the West Coast; and it makes sense that the
world capital of globalization, passport-owning New York City, now has a major outbreak.
If one hypothesizes, as I am doing, that COVID-19 will trickle from globalizers downward, we
might ask ourselves how that will happen. One answer, of course, is social interaction between
the globalizers themselves. The New York Times describes " Party
Zero: How a Soirée in Connecticut Became a 'Super Spreader ':"
About 50 guests gathered on March 5 at a home in the stately suburb of Westport, Conn., to
toast the hostess on her 40th birthday and greet old friends, including one visiting from
South Africa. They shared reminiscences, a lavish buffet and, unknown to anyone, the
coronavirus.
Then they scattered.
The Westport soirée -- Party Zero in southwestern Connecticut and beyond -- is a
story of how, in the Gilded Age of money, social connectedness and air travel, a pandemic has
spread at lightning speed. The partygoers -- more than half of whom are now infected -- left
that evening for Johannesburg, New York City and other parts of Connecticut and the United
States, all seeding infections on the way.
Westport, a town of 28,000 on the Long Island Sound, did not have a single known case of
the coronavirus on the day of the party. It had 85 on Monday, up more than 40-fold in 11
days.
It is the globalizers' ability to "scatter," in other words -- both internationally and
domestically -- that made them such effective vectors. The Westport hot-spot was innocent,
since nobody knew enough about COVID-19. Other examples are not innocent at all, where
globalizers infect all those around them by trying to escape the disease. The Hamptons example
is famous. From the New York Post, "
'We should blow up the bridges' -- coronavirus leads to class warfare in Hamptons ":
Every aspect of life, most crucially medical care, is under strain from the sudden influx
of rich Manhattanites panic-fleeing, bringing along their disdain and disregard for the
little people -- and in some cases, knowingly bringing coronavirus.
The Springs resident says her friend, a nurse out here, reported that a wealthy Manhattan
woman who tested positive called tiny Southampton Hospital to say she was on her way and
needed treatment.
The woman was told to stay in Manhattan.
Instead, she allegedly got on public transportation, telling no one of her condition. Then
she showed up at Southampton Hospital, demanding admittance.
"Someone else took a private jet to East Hampton and did not tell anybody 'til he landed,"
the resident says. "That's the most horrendous aspect. The virus is already here, and we
don't have any medical resources."
The frantic effort to find the ski trip participants has highlighted an uncomfortable
fact: It is people wealthy enough to travel outside the country who have brought the
coronavirus back to mostly poor Mexico. Yet if the disease spreads, it is those with the
least who will probably suffer the most.
"The virus is imported by people with the economic capacity to travel," wrote actor Tenoch
Huerta on Twitter. "Those who ask that everything be closed and all economic activity stop,
hurting the people who live day-to-day, why didn't they voluntarily isolate for three weeks
so as not to spread it? Or should only the poor be responsible?"
Idaho has 123 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to the state's coronavirus website.
That includes 37 in Ada County and eight in Canyon County. Blaine County, where Sun Valley is
located, has the most confirmed cases at 52. Idaho's first case was reported 12 days ago, in
Ada County. The number of people tested in the state is now up to 2,188.
(Many of the cases around the state came from travel to Blaine County.)
Finally, Berkshire County, MA:
In my home area of Berkshire County, MA, the superrich from the city who own second
homes have come up en masse, buying up all the food and refusing to quarantine. The latter
means they will overwhelm an already insufficient healthcare system.
Of course, this rough-and-ready, anecdotal analysis is no substitute for formal, scientific
contact tracing. But I don't think, at this point, we will ever be able trace the original
outbreaks. And I didn't see anybody else making this argument, so I thought I'd throw it
against the wall and see if it sticks. All I can say is that when I think of the grocery
workers -- and all the workers -- in the Hamptons, Mexico, Idaho, and Massachusetts having
COVID-19 brought to them, I become very ticked off. For pity's sake, at least can we
practice social distancing by traveling only when it's essential?
The WHO declared a pandemic 50 days later on March 11th.
Rumour in the markets has it WHO held out as long as possible to avoid triggering the
provisions of World Bank Pandemic Bonds, for which investors enjoyed relatively high coupon
rates in the current low interest-rate environment in exchange for running the risk of losing
their principal investment if a pandemic was declared in the window period.
Six million protection masks for Germany disappeared at the Kenya airport. They were valued
at a million dollars. Theft is suspected or that the manufacturer (Belgium) decided to
destroy them. Nothing is accidental in disaster capitalism.
I wonder whether those who seak war at all costs, are now trying to get us fighting for
masks and ventilators....
Seeing the comments at SST on the necessities of NYC major, it seesm to me that the same
people who seeks always confrontation is always ready to start a fight with its nationals for
whatever reason....
In Spain, as I am seeing, even counting with the inability and greed of those at the
helms, it seems to me that a "USSR 1990" effect on dissapearing health care items from the
market to then make them appear at multiple times their price could be happening right
now...
By blockading health care products, most proably the same people who have caused all this,
may seek that public health care collapsing gives a bad impression so as to get them
privatized once the country in depression.
Jen, yes, I am very familiar with the program as I have an acquaintance who helps usher in
very wealthy Chinese into Canada for a hefty fee.
That doesn't change the fact the Chinese are hated everywhere they go. This is very well
documented in the book entitled World on Fire, by a Chinese American author Amy Chua who also
wrote the book Hymn of the Dragon Mother.
She brags about how she pushes her children to achieve more in the second book.
In the first, she explains how her Chinese aunt was murdered by their Filipino servants
because the servants were badly treated. Now, you can tell me if the two have any relation to
each other.
Apart from TCM which the Chinese got from the Indians and developed, the entire Chinese
civilization needs to be scrapped and started over.
The Chinese "scrapped" their civilisation starting in the 1950s. By then it was on its
last legs anyway, after over 100 years of degradation from mass opium addiction brought by
the British, followed by decades of foreign interference and the consequences of that
interference: a messianic cult culminating in the Taiping rebellion in the 1860s and then the
Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the 20th century, among other things.
Amy Chua is just one person whose mother's family came from Fujian province in SE China
and settled in the Philippines, along with several other families from that part of China.
(Former Philippines President Corazon Aquino also had family from Fujian.) People living in
Fujian and Guangdong (the old Canton province) were exposed to more Western / European
influences than other parts of China. Fujian and Guangdong are also the areas where most
overseas Chinese communities living in SE Asia and the West, up to the 1980s, hailed
from.
So if you are talking about people in SE Asia and the West hating Chinese for their
behaviour, exemplified by the behaviour of Amy Chua to her own daughters and of her family to
its Filipino servants, and the behaviour of people in Hong Kong and Singapore with their
status-seeking and selfish materialist values, and their adherence to extreme Protestant
Christian beliefs, bear in mind where they learned their lessons.
@Anon
As for people with jobs supposedly not needing the relief checks, speak for yourself.
Completely out of touch with how much tens of millions of working Americans are living and
struggling, and not just the poor or minimum-wage workers by any means.
Middle-income and upper-middle-income people in many places are struggling with housing
costs and medical costs above all, and their situation generally is not improving in recent
years.
As a factual correction, the proposals on both sides are not for $1,000 per family; they
are for $1,000 or $1,200 or more to each adult, plus $500 for each child, and I'm glad they
are.
This would be a better use of taxpayer money -- or money conjured out of thin air by the
federal reserve -- than most of what the fed gov has been doing. That includes the vast sums
we have spent on unnecessary wars and occupations that are neither defensive nor
retaliatory.
Senator Rand Paul wisely proposed cutting war spending to help pay for the relief package.
We should go much, much farther than he proposed and slash hundreds of billions of dollars in
annual military spending and instead give it directly to US Citizens here at home.
We should also consider placing a permanent floor under Americans, not just a fleeting
relief package that ends when this virus quiets down. Very large cuts to the warfare state
and the welfare-state bureaucracy alike can provide funding for a substantial monthly
universal basic income for all US Citizens age 21 and over -- with less government borrowing
than we have now.
Public ownership of our God-given natural resources could provide another large source of
funding for the UBI -- without any government borrowing at all.
Of course, these ideas are too responsible for either Dems or Republicans to even debate.
Instead, they'll do a sensible and just thing, directly helping Americans rather than big
connected corporations and banks, but they'll recklessly borrow to do so.
There is a middle way and we should be negotiating it.
3/ Isn't chloroquine just a new name for Jesuit's (Peruvian) bark? Or quinine. The tonic
in gin and tonic?
4/ Tom Paine's 1796 pamphlet 'The English System of Finance' and Cobbett's 'Paper against
Gold' are coming into their own. What Disraeli called the Dutch system of finance is what is
collapsing, almost 500 years after it began. That was the contradiction in globalisation, one
that Rosa Luxemburg had pointed out more than a century ago: we have reached the limits of
constant expansion. And not just in environmental terms.
A User
Six months down the track, duopoly voting majority may perhaps be looking to do more than
vote for the duopoly, but that's only a maybe. It will take a lot of hardship to pull them
away from reality tv...meantime, your comment fits in here like another brick in the wall.
Another pissed off human having a winge.
Doing something... seems to me a group with structure, a plan and an endgoal is required
and this got out to the wider public. End goal needs to be something that would be accepted
by the reality tv watching public and step by step plan to get there...
We havn't hit bottom yet, still a long way from it. Any plan will have to match the situation
at the bottom and the way back. But first you gotta get two people to agree on a plan.
We are headed into the unknown. Like the first stages of the collapse of the soviet
union.
Putin when asked about Gorbochov and Yeltsin he just says "everyone knew we had to change
but nobody knew how to go about it."
Here is somewhat different because in the mainstream types, nobody knows we have to
change.
We are likely to go through something akin to the soviet nineties and only then will the
population know we need to change because the old ways failed.
Best to play it by ear until that point. Nothing can be done untill the wider population
realise that all they have known has failed and a different start must be made. I doubt too
many of our countries will have a Putin that can pull us out of the shit. And by a Putin, I
mean somebody that has a vision acceptable to the majority and comes to be trusted by the
majority and also has the nous and ability required.
I got the "flu" in November 2019 and I had the same symptoms as Coronavirus - I thought it
was going to kill me - and while I missed some work - work demanded me back - and so I worked
through some terrible times. Everyone at work was sick with different levels of symptoms. To
this day I have still not 100% recovered - but I am poor and have no health insurance - and,
well, everybody has been exposed for months so it doesn't even matter anymore. No one has
died - but everyone has a low level persistent respiratory illness.
Again: if nCOV was really already in the US in November - where was the surge in
hospitalizations? Regardless of age, ~20% of those who get it, get pneumonia or worse and
need hospital care.
We don't even have that right now despite a huge number of cases. Maybe the US and Germany
are different - we'll see in about 2 weeks.
One thing I think played a role that is not mentioned is Trumps business that he owns. He
owns hotels and casinos which will be devastated. Trump wont rule out government assistance
for himself.
For Trump to shut down the economy and produce an effective containment, he would have had
to do this knowing that his own business would be devastated.
@Anatoly
Karlin There is apparently a large colony (100.000) of Chinese workers in Lombardy, with
direct flights between Lombardy and Wuhan, so this Italian outbreak is not a coincidence.
Many Italians in Northern Italy sold their leather goods and textiles companies to
China. Italy then allowed 100,000 Chinese from Wuhan/Wenzhou to move to Italy to work in
these factories, with direct Wuhan flights. Result: Northern Italy is Europe's hotspot for
Wuhan Coronavirus
UK had a "herd immunity" strategy from the beginning. They made no real effort at
containment. British government allowed their people to become infected, and only
began to change course after public outrage.
@Felix
Keverich The large Chinese population in Italy has been completely ignored by the media,
in fact China itself seems to have been let completely off the hook. The focus is now on how
terrible Britain and the native British people are.
Someone even posted a Tweet above by a Vietnamese person trying to claim that BRITAIN of
all countries is responsible for the outbreak in Vietnam, I mean what kind of ridiculous
logic is that? Vietnam bloody BORDERS China, the origin and epicentre of the Coronavirus
outbreak, and the Vietnamese are trying to say Britain is the cause? It beggars belief.
less globalization outside North America/Europe/Japan/Australia
You are missing the point of globalization: manufacturing in cheap Third World countries
and rewarding the local compradors with a permission to migrate to the West. That's the deal,
that's what globalization is.
With NA-Europe-Japan all you get is tourism and travel. I would be surprised if we can at
this point convince Chinese and the other cheap labor countries to do the work and forgo the
hope of migration. It was a Faustian deal and those as we know end in hell.
@AP
Calm down, man and stop the stupid blaming game. It seems that your Banderite spin also
includes bashing Chinese which, on the second thought, should not be surprising as there is
only one paymaster. Perhaps you should specialize in Ukraine only and leave China to more
competent haters.
Compare Canada and Italy on Chinese residents: Canada has 5 times more Chinese than Italy
but 62 times less infection cases and 539 times less fatalities than Italy (as of March 16).
Furthermore France and UK have more Chinese than Italy.
What about tourists: In Canada 0.75 mil Chinese tourist but in Italy 3.5 mil Chinese
tourists. So it must be the tourists, right?
So compare Japan with Italy on Chinese tourists: 8.4 mil Chinese tourist in Japan vs. 3.5
mil Chinese tourists in Italy. How many cases in Japan?
So what I am trying to convey is that the expression of the epidemic in different
countries is not congruent with the number of Chinese residents or Chinese tourist.
We will never know where the patients zero (yes plural, there are many patients zero)
really came from. For various political reasons we will not be told and what we will be told
we must be skeptical about. I found interesting data about the first infected in British
Columbia that has huge rather affluent Chinese population. There were as many Iranians as
non-Iranians on the list.
In British Columbia cases 1 to 5 were from China though it does not appear they infected
others while cases 6, 7, , 12 and 14, 15, 19 were traced to Iran. Then the case 22 was from
Iran and also case 31. Case 32 was from Italy, case 35 was from Egypt and case 37 was from
Germany. So out of first 37 cases over 50% were people came form Iran, Egypt, Germany and
Italy. My point is that while Canada has huge Chinese population (1.7 mil) and gets 700,000
Chinese visitors per year it does not look like China was the main vector. In BC it is Iran
and Europe.
One should consider a possibility whether virus introduction to Iran and the Middle East
did precede its introduction in China.
Now let's return to Italy. Most Chinese tourists go to Rome, Florence and Venice. These
cities were not affected as much as Lombardy where there is not that many tourists. So we are
told that Chinese workers could carry the virus. So look at Prato (in Tuscany near Florence)
which has the highest density of Chinese population in Italy. Wiki lists 11,882 (6.32%) for
Prato while the highest absolute number is Milan 18,918 (1.43%). The numbers are probably
outdated as most likely they do not include illegal residents.
"In a single day the positive cases of coronavirus in the province of Prato have
tripled: from 7 to 21 . It is the darkest day since the outbreak began. According to
what was announced in the afternoon of today, March 11, by the bulletin of the regional
council "
"Therefore, 314 patients are currently positive in Tuscany. This is the subdivision by
signaling areas: 71 Florence, 32 Pistoia, 21 Prato (total Asl center: 124), 43 Lucca, 40
Massa Carrara, 34 Pisa, 16 Livorno (total North West Asl: 133), 12 Grosseto, 37 Siena , 14
Arezzo (total Asl southeast: 63)."
So clearly the 2nd largest Chinese community in Italy (and first in density) with 21 cases
(out of 12,246 cases in Italy) did not contribute a lot to the corona virus outbreak in
Italy.
@AP
Calm down, man and stop the stupid blaming game. It seems that your Banderite spin also
includes bashing Chinese which, on the second thought, should not be surprising as there is
only one paymaster. Perhaps you should specialize in Ukraine only and leave China to more
competent haters.
Compare Canada and Italy on Chinese residents: Canada has 5 times more Chinese than Italy
but 62 times less infection cases and 539 times less fatalities than Italy (as of March 16).
Furthermore France and UK have more Chinese than Italy.
What about tourists: In Canada 0.75 mil Chinese tourist but in Italy 3.5 mil Chinese
tourists. So it must be the tourists, right?
So compare Japan with Italy on Chinese tourists: 8.4 mil Chinese tourist in Japan vs. 3.5
mil Chinese tourists in Italy. How many cases in Japan?
So what I am trying to convey is that the expression of the epidemic in different
countries is not congruent with the number of Chinese residents or Chinese tourist.
We will never know where the patients zero (yes plural, there are many patients zero)
really came from. For various political reasons we will not be told and what we will be told
we must be skeptical about. I found interesting data about the first infected in British
Columbia that has huge rather affluent Chinese population. There were as many Iranians as
non-Iranians on the list.
In British Columbia cases 1 to 5 were from China though it does not appear they infected
others while cases 6, 7, , 12 and 14, 15, 19 were traced to Iran. Then the case 22 was from
Iran and also case 31. Case 32 was from Italy, case 35 was from Egypt and case 37 was from
Germany. So out of first 37 cases over 50% were people came form Iran, Egypt, Germany and
Italy. My point is that while Canada has huge Chinese population (1.7 mil) and gets 700,000
Chinese visitors per year it does not look like China was the main vector. In BC it is Iran
and Europe.
One should consider a possibility whether virus introduction to Iran and the Middle East
did precede its introduction in China.
Now let's return to Italy. Most Chinese tourists go to Rome, Florence and Venice. These
cities were not affected as much as Lombardy where there is not that many tourists. So we are
told that Chinese workers could carry the virus. So look at Prato (in Tuscany near Florence)
which has the highest density of Chinese population in Italy. Wiki lists 11,882 (6.32%) for
Prato while the highest absolute number is Milan 18,918 (1.43%). The numbers are probably
outdated as most likely they do not include illegal residents.
"In a single day the positive cases of coronavirus in the province of Prato have
tripled: from 7 to 21 . It is the darkest day since the outbreak began. According to
what was announced in the afternoon of today, March 11, by the bulletin of the regional
council "
"Therefore, 314 patients are currently positive in Tuscany. This is the subdivision by
signaling areas: 71 Florence, 32 Pistoia, 21 Prato (total Asl center: 124), 43 Lucca, 40
Massa Carrara, 34 Pisa, 16 Livorno (total North West Asl: 133), 12 Grosseto, 37 Siena , 14
Arezzo (total Asl southeast: 63)."
So clearly the 2nd largest Chinese community in Italy (and first in density) with 21 cases
(out of 12,246 cases in Italy) did not contribute a lot to the corona virus outbreak in
Italy.
If this started in the USA and spread elsewhere the world would have good cause to
condemn the USA and to judge any subsequent efforts by Americans to help others as "the
least they could do."
Chinese shipments of medical goods are actually to the risk of the own population, where
hospitals are still recovering. While in some ways it is a blatant PR play, its quite a
significant cost amd self-risk that goes beyond "the least they could do."
Actual morality reinforces social solidarity, which is why our overlords have been attempting
to destroy it for so long. Social solidarity is the key to overcoming crises in general and
not just the present Covid 19 pandemic.
1) The West was exposed, not only for not being able to handle a pandemic, but also for
having a ponzi scheme economy.
Having its citizens and its companies leveraged up to a point where America can collapse
with any amount of hardship badly exposes America as being exceptionally weak.
2) Decoupling of Asia from America. For the West to try and target the Chinese, there will
be fallout. It's not like white people bother to distinguish Chinese from Korean or Japanese
when they harass Asians they see.
This will have consequences in Asia as Asian countries will just focus on trading with
each other than have to deal with a hostile west.
3) America cannot exist in a multipolar world, it can only exist in a unipolar world that
it controls. So it will not just be a decoupling of China and America, it will be escalation
between America and China till one is left standing.
You can expect to see color revolutions in HK and Taiwan. Meanwhile China will have no
reason to show any restraint in fighting back. China could target the west in Iran,
Venezuela, or even in the US by tormenting color revolutions of it's own.
4) it is easy to say that America will just trade more with Europe, but how does that
work? Drug prices are already too high in America, so now America will pay even higher
prices?
Trading more with Latin America makes more sense to me, but I also don't think Latin
America is up to it.
5) I honestly don't think America will be the same country after the outbreak is over.
Things are already cracking early on, how will Americans pull together 3 months in?
How will America pull together if Trump pulls war time authority?
As stated in my
review of Don DeLillo's White Noise (1985), we live in a decaying society that is in
terror of death, and pathologically so. This pathology is rooted in mistaken beliefs that our
civilization is dying from, or could imminently die from, disease epidemics, climate
catastrophes etc., in the midst of willful and ignorant abdication of a future (via self-hate
and industrialized abortion) in favor of mass immigration, consumerism, and instant
gratification. Just as one has to confront death in order to truly live (or to become
"authentic" in Heidegger's philosophy), our society is in constant flight from death and thus
inevitably collapses into inauthentic decay. COVID-19, while not as lethal as media coverage
would suggest, is a reminder of our mortality and human fragility and will necessarily have a
jarring effect on a Western liberalism that has become increasingly distant from the
confrontation with death.
Life under liberal finance capitalism is largely one of illusion, in which the prospect of
real death is pushed far into the distance, both psychologically and culturally. Postmodern
Western liberal culture is largely one of perpetual adolescence, in which the primary virtues
are acting according to one's individual will, identifying oneself in a hyper-individualistic
manner, and expressing these identities via conspicuous consumption and behavior. We do not
"live towards" Death, with a sense of purpose and a feeling that we are part of a much grander
civilizational trajectory. We do not understand that Death has shaped our historical path, and
that it hangs over us in ways that should direct our actions in the present.
COVID-19, regardless of current confusion over its true mortality rate, is a corrective to
illusions that "progressive" Man has overcome Nature and can shape the world according to the
human image, and without consequences. Certainly throughout my own lifetime, I've grown
accustomed to assertions that life expectancy will continue to increase, and that there will be
an endless supply of innovations and social projects that will make the mechanics of life
easier and more productive.
One increasingly expects that one will live a long life, mostly in very good health. Such a
sense of security can breed all kinds of arrogance and fantasies, including the recent perverse
luxury of the delusion that one can simply decide to be this or that gender. This new virus,
however, presents the possibility, both in itself and its inevitable heirs, that Death is much
closer than we ever thought, and that for all our technological advancement and
self-congratulation, Nature need only tweak one molecule, so small our naked eyes could never
perceive it, and the grave opens before us. The Age of Fantasy is confronted with the ultimate
reality.
How the West responds to this realization will be a further cultural challenge. We have
grown equally accustomed to the idea that we have "advanced" morally as a society, and that we
have overcome some of the more "brutish" aspects of human existence that we perceive in the
past. But in a world of apparently increasing plenty, such notions can be hard to test. It's
always easy for a man with a full stomach to condemn the actions of the starving. The conceit
of the full-bellied West that it has overcome and surpassed itself and its past will now be
tested. I, of course, arise from a political and philosophical tradition that insists there is
no shame in the past. I see little or no place for morality in the struggle for survival. And I
also see the cracks already forming in the Western conceit. This society that is against "hate"
and prides itself on "coming together" is already struggling to stop people rioting
over toilet paper and bottled water. If civil order breaks down, will the proud feminists be
seeking their own resources, or hoping for a strong man to protect them? If the death toll does
rise dramatically, and if curfews and lockdowns are imposed and intensified, I ask: How well
will your beloved multicultural societies respond? If resources become scarce and tensions
rise, who will you trust? These tests are coming.
Economic and Political Fallout
Just days ago, JPMorgan
projected that a recession will hit the US and European economies by July, with US GDP to
shrink by 2% in the first quarter and 3% in the second, and Eurozone GDP to contract by 1.8%
and 3.3% over the same periods. Sudden cessation of economic activity through quarantines,
event cancellations, social distancing, and the almost complete shutdown of the tourist
industry will have both immediate and longer term consequences for national economies and
broader trade patterns. The mass closing of schools will expose pre-existing weaknesses in a
modern system that sees women funneled en masse into the work place while their children are
left in day cares or schools. According to numbers
from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 70 percent of American mothers with children
under 18 work. Through the closing of schools alone, the impact of COVID-19 will almost
certainly have the greatest impact on the role of women in the workplace since World War Two,
with many forced to leave work and return to the home for an as yet undetermined amount of
time. How this will impact the businesses or public entities employing these women remains to
be seen, but it will undoubtedly cause significant difficulties and necessitate some level of
infrastructural change.
The outbreak of COVID-19 is also projected to test Western healthcare provision to the
limit. It's been particularly interesting that the outbreak in Italy effectively broke
the health system in Lombardy, widely regarded as one of the best in the world. Before the
outbreak, it was
remarked that:
The Lombardy healthcare system, characterised by quality and efficiency, is a model of
reference both in Italy and worldwide. With the benefit of private partnerships in fact, it
ensures its citizens and those who live in other regions or abroad have access to prime level
health care with all the advantages of a public system. Lombardy has 56 University
Departments of Medicine, 19 IRCCS (IRCCS means an institution devoted to excellence in
clinical care and research) which represent 42% of the national total, 47 Institutes and 32
Research Centres. As a result, Lombardy and in particular Milan have always attracted the
most renowned physicians in every field of expertise.
It took COVID-19 just four weeks to exhaust every hospital bed in Lombardy, force doctors
out of retirement and medical students to graduate early, and provoke the creation of 500
triage tents outside hospitals nationwide. The different, and ever-politicized, healthcare
systems of the United States and Great Britain are about to experience the most intensive test
in their respective histories.
One of the most outspoken figures from the medical profession on social media in recent days
is Eugene Gu , who has made
a point of attacking the profit-seeking nature of much of the American medical establishment.
Gu has argued that American medicine is essentially a pyramid scheme that profits those at the
top by artificially restricting the number of doctors produced by the system:
The medical school and residency system in the United States is completely broken compared
to other countries. Now that we are in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, we need to
reflect upon an abusive system that hurts patients and seeks to make a few specialists filthy
rich. Even before the coronavirus, we created a huge physician shortage by limiting spots in
medical schools to inflate doctors' salaries the same way De Beers fixes the diamond market.
And we gutted primary care so that specialists like plastic surgeons and dermatologists can
get rich. I took an oath to "first, do no harm." I cannot just stand by and watch as the
corrupt cesspool we call our American medical system fails our patients while a few doctors,
insurance executives, and Big Pharma get filthy rich. Medicine should not be a for-profit
industry.
Whether or not one agrees with Dr Gu's perspective, the coming weeks and months will test
both American for-profit medicine and Britain's nationalized health system, and perhaps leave
long term political legacies for both.
Political consequences will also inevitably result from the approaches of individual leaders
to the crisis. Boris Johnson is risking his political future on a " herd immunity " strategy
that is radically different from the course of action pursued by other leaders. It's been
criticized as involving the sacrifice of the older generation for a slightly prolonged period
of economic normalcy and an entirely assumed future immunity among the young.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, is quickly trying to move on from a
highly dismissive initial response to the outbreak. In both cases, and throughout the West,
moderately "conservative" populism based on the celebration of finance capitalism and token
gestures on borders will be tested to the limit by increasing strains on all aspects of social,
political, and economic life. Trump, in particular, has managed to squeeze a lot of political
mileage out of the performance of the stock market. With stocks tumbling, and the American
healthcare system pushed to the limit, it remains to be seen whether Trump's drive to
make gay sex legal in Africa will be enough to keep his voters happy.
In another return of the Real, of course, COVID-19 is doing more to close borders than any
expression of political populism ever has. It was all well and good that "the world is a
village" when this involved cheap and cheerful vacations, but all it took was a few houses in
the throes of sickness for the rest of the villagers to wish there was somewhere they could
escape to. The global village is in shutdown. All humans might be equally susceptible to this
virus, but national borders, so often scorned until recently, now reveal they might have some
uses after all – just one of them being the invaluable opportunity to seal and control a
limited territory. How people grow accustomed to this renewed emphasis on border control may
leave a lasting political legacy for the West also. In any case, we can only hope it will.
The idea advanced on the last thread [by Vk and here @7 and 39 I think] that governments
should be organized around something different than economics is sound and worthy of
everyone's input, ideas and objections; discussion is needed and welcome.
International human to human discussion should take place. Human experience with nation
state globalism has shown just how vulnerable humanity is to organized and institutionalized
corruption; the actions of the leaders of individual nations have shown the nation state
system cannot be trusted.
The Covid 19 pandemic has reminded us all that we as humans <= have a right to a
government that is of our collective liking, we have learned that governments must serve the
best interest of the most persons, not special interest of a few. Governments which fail to
serve equal right, open access and equal chance to those it governs are prima facia
legitimates. Covid 19 brought the meaning of the principle of self-determination to the
forefront. Everyone's life is challenged by submicroscopic beast. It takes the cooperation of
all of us, to save most of us, and it takes the corruption of a few, to ruin it all, for most
of us.
Human rights come first, long before economics . No economic rationale can support
the delay or justify the cost of failure for those entrusted with the power to act, should
they fail to timely act with diligence on threat that human lives are in danger. Experience
suggest it is not possible to leave the power, function, and direction of government to those
whose responsibility it is to operate it <= something very different is needed.
Covid 19 was a wake up call , that makes real the unfulfilled and failed campaign
promises in a never ending trail of campaigns. Its time for everyone to insist on truth,
truth in media, truth in political campaigns, open book truth from those appointed to
government, and to bring everyone's troops home. Its time for nation states to stop
supporting the private oil and gas bandits, the MSM, or any other special interest, its time
to make a single global currency that bears no interest and that does not require repayment
of principal, its time for governments to stop arming belligerents, their own or those of
anyone else (gun control should be transformed into between governments, weapons control and
the persons of all humans everywhere should be equally armed), its time to stop one nation
instigating or supporting regime change in another, and its time to deny government leaders
from using the governments they lead, to enable private or corrupt profits. Every human has a
right to life, liberty and to pursuit of happiness: <=governments were instituted to
secure to mankind the enjoyment of the privilege of those rights; but it seems mankind has
been lax in making these governments conform to their privilege of existence.
A $0 military budget, and no interest, no repay currency could bring the credit
needed to create multi many places of employment, AWA fix ailing infra structures, improve
access to, even make access globally universal. It could improve the quality of education and
open to everyone<= fair play, access to capital (instead of venture capital expecting
reward of profit, how about advances of capital in search of human progress). which could
enable real progress on earth for mankind.
Its time to eliminate the dependency on, or even the existence of those monopolies
nation states like to create out of thin air by using their power to invent by rule of law,
powers that restrain true competition (license, privatized government ownership, special
authority, patents, copyrights, and the private property ownership).
It time to stop over hyped , Wall Street multi global type greed which only exist
because currency is used as control devise, instead of a facilitator. Nation states should
facilitate humans to interact, in ways transparent to the nation state boundaries (Its
economics, that encourages non sharing attitudes, that cause competitors to seek ways to use
governments to restrain human inter action). Humans should try to replace foreign products
with locally made goods and the foreign goods producers should be encouraged to make goods in
places where the goods have a demand because demand produces jobs and provides opportunity,
globalism organized to produce economic gains, often attempt to steal from locals the
benefits of demand created by the locals. The local province rule should apply: that is if
locals want to make it, multinationals should be denied. The billions saved to the global
economy in unexpended energy consumption (no transport cost), could bring prices of goods and
services to comparative advantage adjusted market price levels. I predict, the poor would
prosper because they would have an opportunity to contribute to our global human society, and
government would be re instituted to encourage and enforce equality for all to those it
governs. Governments should restrain and deny wealth, but they should encourage and
facilitate local competition. At one time people elected their representatives based on
performance in accord to those ideals. Currency that carries no interest and that never needs
to be repaid, challenges economic induced greed and redirects the efforts of mankind to
providing that which is needed.
In 1949 the income tax in USA governed America was layered into tiers (where different tax
rates were applied); the USA taxed those who made big bucks at 90% in its highest tier ..
Seem to recall Briton had something similar [100% of everything over $150,000 pounds of
taxable Income?]. From here => http://www.milefoot.com/math/businessmath/taxes/fit.htm
<=i made a table
year rate@personal taxable income level
1941 81% @$5,000,000
1942-1943 88% @$200,000
1944-1945 94% @$200,000 The tax limited to a 90% effective rate.
1946-1947 91% @$200,000 The tax limited to a 90% effective rate (85.5% >credits).
1948-1951 91% @$400,000 The tax limited to a 77% effective rate in 1948-1949, .
1952-1953 92% @$400,000 The tax was limited to an 88% effective rate.
corporate rate from http://www.milefoot.com/math/businessmath/taxes/fit.htm
I made a small table.
1942- 1945 40% > $50,000
1946- 1949 38% > $50,000
1950 42% > $25,000
1951 50.75% > $25,000
1952- 1963 52% > $25,000
1964 52% > $25,000
1965- 1967 48% > $25,000
1968- 1969 52.8% > $25,000
These numbers suggest a long winded story of useless corruption.
Qantas Airways: the flag carrier of Australia Qantas Airways Limited is the flag carrier
of Australia and its largest airline by fleet size, international flights and international
destinations
The crisis hit and Qantas sends home 20,000 workers or two thirds of its workforce of
30,000. Go home with no pay . The company management is proud of implementing such
measures to save the Australian icon.
Qantas, once a government owned entity, is a civilisational symbol of strength and prestige.
But with such behaviour, shouldn't we ask the question: what are these Strength and Prestige
built upon?
Bernhard when will Chump and his neo-confederates drain the swamp ? "ProPublica reported on
Thursday that republican Senator Burr sold off up to $1.56 million in stock on February 13th,
as he was reassuring the public about coronavirus preparedness. At the time, Burr and the
Intelligence Committee were receiving daily briefings about COVID-19.
Three weeks ago, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee privately
warned dozens of donors about the harrowing impact the coronavirus would have on the United
States, while keeping the general public in the dark.
In a secret recording obtained by NPR, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr is heard giving
attendees of a club luncheon a much different message than most federal government officials,
especially President Trump, were giving the public at the time.
"There's one thing that I can tell you about this," Burr said, "It is much more aggressive
in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history." He added, "It is
probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic."
That pandemic claimed more than 600,000 American lives...
There is a common idea behind all the various theories that attribute the pandemic to
government action, ruling class planning or financial manipulators.
And that is the idea that the ruling class/establishment/tptb,1%-call them what you will-
are all powerful, wise, though evil, and capable of defeating any popular resistance.
The people claiming now that the virus was unloosed to enable an attack on Iran, those who
claim that it was produced as a smokescreen to obscure the collapse of the financial system,
those who see it as a means to steal away our last liberties and to knock a dying democracy
on the head, even those who see it as an out of control experiment , if you look at their
posts in the past, are generally going to be found to be the same people who thought that the
US military could not be defeated, that Syria was bound to fall, that Venezuela and Cuba were
toast. And that Hezbollah and Ansarullah stood no chance against the vast forces arrayed
against them.
The idea is always the same: the Empire is indefatigable, the greedy mediocrities who run
it (many of them public figures whose characters are daily open to examination) have foreseen
all possibilities. Resistance is useless. We are all doomed.
In fact, as people who don't have the leisure to indulge themselves in these gloomy
excuses for inaction and apathy are always demonstrating, the imperial regime is not only
brittle and riven through with corruption but run by talents selected in an anti-meritocratic
way. The reason that Petraeus, for example, rose to the top of the US military machine was
that he was a slimy careerist of the sort we have all come across, and, if we have been doing
our duty, trod on, in our lives: as a General he was clueless, unoriginal and, because he was
immoral and cynical, quite unable to understand how Iraqis would react to his crude terrorist
methods. Unfortunately he was caught out by his lust; had he maintained a respectable image
he would probably, by now, be into his second term as President and making Trump look
competent.
And what is true of the Pentagon is equally true of those running the US economy, Wall St
and the banking system: they are utterly witless. Look around you for the fruits of their
wisdom.
In fact the entire political class of the US, ably assisted by its clownish puppets
elsewhere, has brought the system that they worship to the brink of dissolution. Class rule
teeters on the edge of massive uprisings.
And this is not-I have already taken up too much space and time- because the pandemic was
planned but because despite its predictability, the near certainty that the seven good years
would be followed by plagues and famines, they could not restrain themselves from dismantling
the safety nets-from flood controls to food reserves to healthcare services designed to be
able to expand when needed to deal with emergencies.
(In the Canadian county in which I live the Public Health Unit founded in the aftermath of
the First World War and the 'flu epidemics, was shut down, to save money, last year. Most of
its functions were left to chance and the marketplace to fulfil. And now we have a
pandemic.)
Instead the entire system is riddled with the weaknesses that usurious practises impose:
there are empty hospitals in the Pennines because local health authorities cannot both pay
interest on PPP loans and meet the payrolls of medical staff. So, following the logic of
capitalism-first pay interest- local taxes, designed to maintain public health, are diverted
to the money lenders. And then there is the cost of monopolised drug purchases.
And that is symptomatic of the entire system, in all its aspects: education, including the
work needed to provide scientific and medical personnel, is crippled in the same way, by high
fees, by capital costs swollen by interest payments, by professions designed to hoard rather
than spread knowledge.
The entire system is corrupt and collapsing. And that is why,particularly in the "West"
where mass indoctrination has long been part of the culture, it is necessary to recognise
that it is not going to take much in the way of mass energy to bring the whole thing down.
And to replace it with real democracy.
The virus may not have been created in a laboratory but as a minimum it should be studied to
learn more about its origin and spread. At the present time we only hace circumstantial
evidence but it point in one direction. Certain facts are worth considering:
2)The Wuhan wet-market is not the first source of the coronavirus;
2) SARS-CoV virus was being studied and experimented on at a US Bioweapons lab at Fort
Detrick. In August 2019, it was cited for unsafe conditions that may have led to
contamination of wastewater;
3) The US sent over 300 military personnel to the World Military Games in Wuhan in late
October 2019;
4) Four foreign military participants came down with an unknown respiratory illness during
the games;
5) Genetic studies conducted in Taiwan and Japan indicate that the ancestral form of
SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 coronavirus does not occur in China but is found in the US and
elsewhere.
African swine fever is also spread by man-made means even if it is not in itself man-made.
Criminal elements spread it with
drones The longer it takes to track down the origin even if the Chinese reportedly
monitor everything, the more suspicious it becomes.
The world has changed many times, and it is changing again. All of us will have to
adapt to a new way of living, working, and forging relationships. But as with all change,
there will be some who lose more than most, and they will be the ones who have lost far too
much already. The best we can hope for is that the depth of this crisis will finally force
countries -- the US, in particular -- to fix the yawning social inequities that make large
swaths of their populations so intensely vulnerable.
Fully in agreement with b here. Instead of shovelling money at banksters and corporate
scammers to prop up the collapsing market, the Fed, ECB and other central banks should give
the cash to people who need it and will use it to buy things and stimulate the economy.
This pandemic is demonstrating once again that the global neoliberal economy is a fragile
Potemkin construct that breaks down at the slightest tension. Finance capitalism is a busted
flush, a blatant scam to line the pockets of the 1% at everyone else's expense. And when the
going gets really tough they will sacrifice all of us to save their cowardly avaricious
asses. Governments need to represent the interests of citizens, not central bankers and the
obscenely wealthy. That means putting the well-being of people first, not spending trillions
to "save" the stock market aka "the economy."
As the disease spread around Asia and then the world, however, the news focus gradually
shifted, so that now many are questioning the wisdom of having so unthinkingly globalized
everything and made so many industries -- including the medical industry -- dependent on a
place like the People's Republic of China. "What is it like to shoot oneself in the foot?" is
yet another question that has been bubbling up uncomfortably these past few weeks.
Outsourcing the medical equipment and pharmaceutical supply chain to a hostile communist
dictatorship with perhaps the worst public health record on the planet is the equivalent of the
Army Corps of Engineers' having put the emergency generators for the storm pumps at the
bottoms of the levees, where they would be the first to flood during a hurricane. But
globalists, like government engineers, are incapable of learning from mistakes. In fact, in
their minds, disasters serve perversely to confirm the advisability of their follies. Which
leads normal people to wonder, "What is going on in the globalist's mind?"
What, in other words, is it like to be a globalist? This is a question worth asking, because
the answer will determine very much in the months and years ahead. Unless we can figure out how
the globalist looks at the world, we will continue to be at his mercy, and will continue to
face pandemics and crises that are the precipitate of his ideology. We have got to understand
who these people are who have taken over our every doing, our every coming and going.
Otherwise, we will keep getting done in by them.
... ... ...
Jason Morgan is associate professor at Reitaku University in Kashiwa, Japan.
"But globalists, like government engineers, are incapable of learning from mistakes.
"
Is this supposed to be a serious statement? The piece is clearly written for the
amusement of people for whom he has very little respect otherwise it would not contain so
many nonsensical generalization. I dare he or anyone to provide a definition of a
"globalist" which does not make nonsense of that claim.
Outsourcing the medical equipment and pharmaceutical supply chain to a hostile
communist dictatorship with perhaps the worst public health record on the planet is the
equivalent of the Army Corps of Engineers' having put the emergency generators for the
storm pumps at the bottoms of the levees, where they would be the first to flood during a
hurricane.
I really would like to know what is Professor Morgan's specialty. He should know that
China is not a Communist country. Just because they choose to call themselves that doesn't
mean that a professor anything remotely connected to politics, government or economics
would be fooled. And where one puts a factory to manufacture goods, bears no relationship
whatsoever with how that country deploys those goods among its own population. The piece is
not serious. It is political entertainment. And for those who assume that criticizing the
rigor of a piece is the same as supporting whatever the piece is attacking, I am 100%
against what the writer seems to mean when he refers to "globalism". I personally consider
our monied class who shipped American jobs wherever they could find semi-slave labor to be
literally traitors. So, I have very strong views on "globalism". I just dislike the
disrespect shown by writers who think that they can write any nonsense, once they show that
they hate the same things that their audience hates, all in the search for cheap applause.
Writers should treat their readers like thinking beings, not like an audience at a
bullfight who are expected to howl with applause once you wave the red flag around and shed
enough blood.
That won't do, either, though. China is a place, too! In swoops the World Health
Organization (the aptly acronymed WHO?): it's COVID-19 now.
A much more serious comment would be about how China bullied WHO into expressing far
more confidence in China's published numbers that it had any basis for expressing. How it
lavished praise on China's handling of the outbreak rather than South Korea's excellent
management in their country. But educated people know what WHO is and the excellent work
they do all over the world. Of the millions of lives they have saved all over the world.
And that they are empowered by the governments of the world to name new viruses. That every
decent person in the world knows that country names attached to diseases can generate
persecution of people which is not a good thing, regardless against whom it is directed.
The WHO did not name the virus at the request of China. That is one of its normal
functions.
This piece is nothing short of absurd hate mongering.
Owned by World's Richest Man Jeff Bezos, Whole Foods Wants Workers to Pay for Colleagues'
Sick Leave During Coronavirus Pandemic
Remember when Jeff Bezos, whose company owns Whole Foods, said he was so freakin' rich he
didn't know how to spend his money so, heck, he'd start a space program? https://t.co/PjLe6MpQc8
+ The for-profit health care system in the US is already starting to
crack under the pressure and the virus hasn't even really hit yet
+ Pence promised 8 million tests by the end of the week, but according to Lamar Alexander:
"We are going to work as hard as we can to push this administration to continue to ramp up the
number of tests but the reality is..they do not yet have the tests available and can't give us
a date." South Korea, where the virus appeared about the same time it did in US, is testing
10,000 a day and has been for nearly a month.
+ Your country under neoliberalism: The CDC tested only
77 people this week for coronavirus.
+ Here in Oregon, the state health lab only has the capacity to perform
80 tests a day but that's still more than the CDC did all week.
+ Another sign of the impending crisis (and that ObamaCare was a disaster): The number of
hospital beds in the US has fallen by 5% over the last ten
years .
+ The US (pop. 330 million) has fewer hospital beds than Italy (pop. 60 million) and South
Korea (pop. 51 million). And many of those are unaffordable for most people. Winning!
+ Larry Kudlow, who missed the great recession, "The virus is contained!"
+ On Weds night Sanjay Gupta asked CNN's Don Lemon to read the CDC's coronavirus testing
stats off of his phone.
ZERO tests conducted today by CDC.
A grand total of 8 tests conducted by other public health agencies across the
country.
EIGHT.
+ The Republican Governor for Ohio Mike DeWine confirmed on Thursday that only 1,000 tests
are available to 11.69 million citizens who live in the Buckeye State. He further said that
projections are that more than 100,000 Ohioans will be infected with the coronavirus
+ The projections for NYC are sobering, to say the least
+ Rebecca Nagle: "Look, I fully support banning travel from Europe to prevent the spread of
infectious disease. I just think it's 528 years too late."
+ Matt "Gas Mask" Gaetz, one of the most ridiculous buffoons in a Congress filled with them,
voted against paid sick leave. Now he's taking
it , because he was exposed to COVID-19.
+ The Cuban health care system, whose doctors are even now in China testing interferon-based
drugs against the virus, is going to look better and better to people in the US, as the
COVID-19 does its thing here. Even the Miami Cuban nutcases may be singing Fidel's praises
before this is over .
+ Maybe Jay Inslee (who promised tests would be "free") is a " snake
" after all
Maybe Inslee (who promised tests would be "free") is a "snake" after all
+ The Senate won't take up House coronavirus bill until after its recess. "The Senate will
act when we come back and we have a clearer idea of what extra steps we need to take," Sen.
Lamar Alexander told reporters What if they never come back? One can hope
+ Why the Senate is refusing to act on COVID-19: "A key sticking point in the talks appears
to be GOP demands to include Hyde amendment language in the bill to prevent federal funds from
being used for abortion " Priorities, priorities
+ Joe Biden: "I don't like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far.
I don't think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body." (Biden
said this
in 2006 , not 1976.)
+ The World Health Organization has announced that dogs cannot contract Covid-19. Dogs
previously held in quarantine can now be released. WHO let the dogs out! (The jokes will only
get worse, as the virus spreads.)
+ To wit: Always scrub your hands like you just shook hands with the President
+ Come back, Marianne, your country (if not your lamentable party) needs you!
Uh, maybe we should cancel that order for 100 B-21 Raiders all equipped with nuclear bombs
at the rate of $560M each, and use the money instead to pay for free testing and coronavirus
treatment We need to change our thinking about all this, do it quickly, and speak it
loudly.
"What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this, doctor?"
"I don't know. My my code of morals, perhaps."
"Your code of morals. What code, if I may ask?"
"Comprehension."
+ According to Amazon's rankings, Camus' The Plague is now #7 in the Self-Help &
Psychology Humor category, which is an irony Camus himself probably couldn't have gotten away
with. A viral pandemic is apparently what it takes to get Americans to read French
existentialist literature
+ "Carbon Joe" Biden's entire climate change plan is budgeted at $1.7 trillion. The Fed just
dropped that much
on Wall Street in a single day without any public input
+ And they said we "can't afford" national health care!
Uh, maybe we should cancel that order for 100 B-21 Raiders all equipped with nuclear bombs
at the rate of $560M each, and use the money instead to pay for free testing and coronavirus
treatment We need to change our thinking about all this, do it quickly, and speak it
loudly.
Just to underline the incompetency of neoliberalism, the Jack Ma Foundation has just
donated 500,000 testing kits and 1 million masks to America. One guy on twitter said-
'Many will welcome this. Some will see it as an insult. The real insult is that the
richest country in the world has waged war on science and as a result is finding itself
helpless..'
The real tragedy is this. Iran has been covering up the large number of their Coronavirus
deaths in the past few weeks until satellite images showed mass burial sites outside their
cities. Through gross negligence, the US has also been covering up the infiltration of
Coronavirus in America and trying to cover it all up in the same manner.
So in a few months time, will the Russian and Chinese be releasing images of mass burial
sites on the American mainland that the Trump government will seek to hide?
The EU and USA were notable in their absence. To be fair, the EU has promised assistance,
but the Germans and Lagarde are still stumbling around with the conditions that they want to
attach.
Neoliberal overlords don't give up easily.
I think it's safe to say the new crisis just killed the Schengen Treaty. That ridiculous
document which guaranteed freedom of movement across the European Union finally hit something
it couldn't bully, COVID-19. Regardless of whether you believe the pandemic is real or not, the
reaction to it is real and is having real consequence far beyond the latest print of the Dow
Jones Industrial Average.
The lockdown of Italy isn't a temporary thing. Oh, the suspension of free movement is
temporary, but it portends something far bigger.
It's the beginning of the real political balkanization that's coming to the European Union
over the next few years. Old enmities and prejudices have not been stamped out under the boot
heel of oppressive legislation coming from a bunch of disconnected technocrats in Brussels.
They have only been suppressed.
Because when there are existential threats there's no time or desire to virtue signal about
how we're all one big happy dysfunctional family. 1 minute ago The
thing is most people at Zerohedge have no idea about the reality in Germany and the other
European countries and the psychicological robustness of its people. This crisis is nothing
compared to the catastrophies of the 20th century. In times of challenge one can see who is
strong and effective and acting in solidarity. And this is it what the extended Euroland is
going to show soon. A masterplan for Euroland how to overcome this Corona problems. It takes
time to adopt but things do move already in the right direction. Banning travel is a harsh
measure but the right thing in this situation.
The economy will take a deep dip but there will be no catastrophy. Even when Deutsche Bank
should go down that would impact the situation only in the financial markets. But luckily
Euroland has a worldclass manufacturing and agricultural sector, plus there is the ECB owned by
Eurolands member states.
So there is money, there is food, there is production, there are raw materials as well as
energy available from Russia,.. Europe is world leader in renewable energy and recycling of
waste materials., ..
So nothIng to worry about in principle. Its only one real danger, the Anglo Saxon Jewish
dominated financial sector and the MIC which is still dreaming about world domination. I hope
their dream is shattered soon. 12 minutes ago Thanks Tom..
But we won't comment and why?
Because the cause of the crisis is still not being addressed..
Corona of virus is simply an accelerant to a serious problem..
And that's all we'll say... 43 minutes ago Old enmities and prejudices have not been
stamped out .... This has been said a thousand times across EU social media and
comments in national press in developed member states. Particularly during Brexit. That the EU
was flawed from the start in imagining the ******, pretend EU would ever; by adopting developed
EU rules and regulations, even begin to match up to the Real EU. Pretend EU would only ever
pretend - many nothing more than 1st generation democracies. So the elite in the ****** EU hand
picked who was to lead that ministry or council and then all levels of locally elite society
and their friends and families were greased by jobs in the bloated public sector. Now Germany
is supposed to keep this "Noses in the Trough" nonsense going!
It is mind blowing to realise the damage to the EU the 'Contra os Bretoes' EU retards have
done in victimising the British! The UK - an advanced G7 country with many centuries of history
of sorting out, at great loss to its citizens and economy, European squabbles - long before the
US was encouraged to get involved as well.
UK Remainers need to focus their efforts on the ****** EU crashing (or being crashed) out
and the UK rejoining the EU and helping make the EU work the way it was sold to us British
decades ago. 44 minutes ago
Feudal-Vassalism it is, extended into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism
The situation in Greece has been for about a decade worse off than in Gaza.
As Otto von Bismarck noted "God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the
United States of America."
That's a reason for hope.
But there are multiple reasons for despair (hoarding epidemics has shown how
brainwashed people are with neoliberal rationality)
The neoliberal society with its twisted guiding philosophy of radical individualism
and competition combined with a supremacist "that could never happen here" attitude
quickly falls into panicked chaos when reality kicks in and reveals the society's
underlying vulnerabilities.
Countries with weak social safety nets and an ideological opposition to social
responsibility are extremely vulnerable to systemic breakdown when their societies are
hit with unexpected stress.
That is what we see in the USA. This virus is revealing just how ineffective the
neoliberal Social Darwinism ("every man for himself") ethic (aka "neoliberal
rationality") is and how deeply in denial and out of touch with reality these societies
are. Including first of all neoliberal politicians (aka Washington swamp rats)
Casino capitalism economics is fragile and huge shocks are possible.
Summary: President Trump just announced his support for a full payroll tax holiday for
the remainder of calendar year 2020, which PWBM projects would cost $807 billion.
Households in the bottom 20 percent of incomes -- those households with the highest
willingness to spend their tax savings -- would receive about 2 percent of the total tax
cut, limiting the policy's stimulus potential.
But Penn Wharton's analysis might be based on unrealistically optimistic assumptions
–
see the comments in the replies to this tweet.
Don't forget the employer's half is also waived. Nice subsidy to business while helping
cripple the Social Security funds for ultimate privatization. Doesn't do anything the
unemployed, those laid off or fired as they pay no taxes. Now, if it were retroactive for a
year or two, that'd be different.
It's no different from the Republicans in the US Senate:
Emergency Sick Leave Bill blocked from vote by Senate Republicans--Profit over People yet
again.
Why has Italy not try very hard to scale up hospital bed capacity for the surge of cases
over the last several days? They have deployed a military hospital but it doesn't look like
it's making a big dent. Instead reports are now coming in of abandoning very old people or
those with prior conditions to die largely unattended.
In Wuhan, 16 big barracks were built to treat the seriously sick. Why doesn't Italy
requisition schools, move in equipment from the rest of the country, deploy doctors from
other regions, call other EU member states for help?
Does it have something to do with the difficulty of getting things done even in
emergencies in modern bureaucratic states?
Italy: neo-liberal economic worship, all government bad, all private sector good,
corruption good, banks worshipped as faultless guardians but actually kleptocrats.
China: socialism with a mild capitalist twist, government good, private sector ok,
corruption to be rooted out, banks established and policed for the public good (mostly).
Modern bureacratic states function well when government is respected and well resourced
intellectually and financially. Italy has been gutted by the Thatcherite and US model of deep
coercion and destruction of its socialist roots. Ditto USA and UK and the five eyes cheer
squad. New entries to job markets are propagandised to avoid the state employment.
There are many nations in the world with modern functional bureaucratic states. As you can
see China and perhaps Russia appear to be in that team. Perhaps some of the Scandinavian
states, maybe Portugal. France abandoned its respect for the centrality of State service
provider decades ago and Mitterand appears to have been an effective assassin on behalf of
the neo-liberal economic monsters in France.
I'm sure in your comparison of Italy and China, you forgot to mention the infiltration of
the Mafia (as in the real Mafia of La Cosa Nostra, La Camorra, 'Ndrangheta and maybe some
others I've missed) in Italian national and regional governments, and the horrific levels of
air pollution in the Po Valley region where COVID-19 hotspots like Milan are located.
Perhaps also the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church and their links to the financial
industry in Italy are also a problem.
The epidemic that has so far spread to half of US states, infecting over 1,000 Americans and
killing 31...
At least 10 states have declared emergencies as of Wednesday, and disease experts are
throwing up their hands, urging the administration to take real-life events more seriously.
...Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield agreed that critical regions of the
US are beyond the reach of containment, sliding into the " mitigation " stage, and
blamed the botched rollout of test kits to local health workers.
The availability of
accurate tests for Covid-19 has become a major sore spot, with official reassurances colliding
with uncooperative reality in full view of the public. Secretary of Health and Human Services
Alex Azar insisted on Tuesday that " millions " of tests were available, even as the
CDC urged healthcare providers to save tests for symptomatic patients already hospitalized and
" medically fragile individuals ."
In at least one case
, federal officials warned a Seattle lab against testing flu swab samples for coronavirus in
January, before the epidemic was widely reported, losing critical response time –
mirroring the " crime " the Trump administration has tried to pin on China.
And some have warned that the US' inability to handle an outbreak is more dire than either
side realizes. During a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday, a Republican
congressman from Washington, the first Covid-19 hotspot to flare up in the US, demanded to know
why his constituents were unable to get their test results while his fellow congressmen had no
problem getting tested just days after coming into contact with an infected person at a DC
political conference. A CDC representative admitted " there's not enough equipment. There's
not enough people. There's not enough internal capacity. There's no surge capacity ." To
conserve tests, the CDC has told healthcare providers to " use their judgment " and
consider " epidemiologic factors " before using up a valuable resource.
Existing flaws in the US healthcare system have exacerbated the testing problem. The CDC has
refused to set up standalone testing centers, placing COVID-19 screening out of the reach of
the many Americans who don't have primary-care physicians and rely on walk-in clinics and
emergency rooms for their healthcare. Just 8,500 Americans had been tested as of Monday,
according to the CDC, and federal officials told reporters some 75,000 tests had been sent out
to public health laboratories on top of one million sent to hospitals and other sites. The
real-life infected numbers in the country are thus likely much higher than what is being
reported.
Control measures have varied wildly across local governments and institutions and even
within cities. Over 1,000 schools have closed nationwide, and cities and counties from Santa
Clara, California to Westchester, New York have banned large gatherings. The National
Institutes of Health's Anthony Fauci called on others to follow suit during a congressional
hearing on Wednesday, announcing " we would recommend that there not be large crowds. If
that means not having any people in the audience when the NBA plays, so be it. " Asked if
" the worst " was yet to come, Fauci answered unequivocally: " bottom line, it's
going to get worse. "
Even as new Covid-19 cases in China dwindle to near zero and cases in Italy, Germany, and
other European countries surge, the US has not stepped up screenings of passengers from those
countries at airports accordingly. Instead, the administration has continued to congratulate
itself on " saving lives " by halting flights from China weeks ago.
About testing: who makes testing kits, how reliable they are, what is the cost?
Seems that in USA there is a shortage, and the normal behavior of providers of medicines
and other medical goods is extremely rapacious. For example, Gilead company found a cure for
hepatitis C. In the first year of sales, they got more than 5 billion dollars because of
enormous prices they demanded. In about 2 years almost all urgent cases were cured, which is
fine, and competition emerged.
Unless forced, these companies will provide nothing at cost, only with enormous markup. If
you want to get, say, 10 miilion kits that hypothetically cost 250 dollars to make, they
would charge at least 10 billion. Actually, the price/cost multiples have no limit at all, as
in Gilead case. In the face of that, Administration should use emergency powers to impose
cost controls. Manufactures could be threatened delicately to ramp-up the production if they
are not willing to do it just from civic sense of duty. That would violate the most precious
human rights, i.e. the rights of billionaires. Not the American way.
Posted on March
11, 2020 by Yves Smith Yves here. While this
article has a lot of helpful suggestions, it does not acknowledge that public health is a state
and local, not a Federal matter. The Federal government can intervene only by invoking
emergency authority, which in every case I can recall, has been done only when asked (begged)
by the relevant authorities. Thus I cannot see the Federal government taking the lead with
coronavirus on the medical front, as much as that is desperately needed. Look, for instance, at
how
it was New York State that imposed a containment area around coronavirus hot spot New
Rochelle , and how New York State has started making its own hand sanitizer.
By Marshall Auerback, a market analyst and commentator. Produced by
Economy for All , a project of the Independent Media Institute
The coronavirus will eventually pass, but the same cannot be said for the Panglossian
phenomenon known as "globalization." Stripped of the romantic notion of a global village, the
ugly process we've experienced over the past 40 years has been a case of governmental
institutions being eclipsed by multinational corporations, acting to maximize profit in support
of shareholders. To billions of us, it has resembled a looting process, of our social wealth,
and political meaning. Governments that wanted to stay on top would have to learn to master
soft power to learn to be relevant in a globalized world, mostly acting to smooth transactions
and otherwise stay out of the way.
In a globalized world, nation-states were supposedly becoming relics. To the extent that
they were needed, small national governments were said to equate to good government. This
hollow philosophy's main claims now appear badly exposed, as the supply chains wither, and the
very interconnectedness of our global economy is becoming a vector of contagion. In the words
of author David Goodhart, "We no longer need the help of rats or fleas to spread disease -- we
can do it ourselves thanks to mass international travel and supply chains."
To be sure, there were many warning signs that called into question our hitherto benign
assumptions about globalization: the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 (during which the Asian
tiger economies were decimated by unconstrained speculative capital flows), the vast swaths of
the Rust Belt's industrial heartlands created by outsourcing to China's export juggernaut, the
concomitant rise in economic inequality and decline in quality of life in industrialized
societies and, of course, the 2008 global financial crisis. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz
described many of these pathologies in his book Globalization and Its Discontents, as did
economist Barry Eichengreen, who lamented that "the nation state has fundamentally lost control
of its destiny, surrendering to anonymous global forces." Both noted that globalization was
severing a working social contract between national governments and their citizens that had
previously delivered rising prosperity for all.
Those who would argue that the inexorable march of globalization cannot be reversed should
consider the parallel during the early 20th century. Globalized economic activity and free
trade were dominant before the onset of World War I; in 1914, trade as a proportion of global
GDP stood at 14 percent. Needless to say, two world wars, and the Great Depression (which
brought us the Smoot-Hawley tariffs), reversed this trend. The Cold War sustained
regionalization and bifurcated trading blocs. Its end, and China's accession into the World
Trade Organization (WTO), ushered in a new high-water mark in globalized trade.
But while it is true that viruses do not respect national boundaries, nothing has blown
apart the pretensions of this New World Order as dramatically as the coronavirus, a pandemic
now assuming global import, as international supply chains are severed, and global economic
activity is brought to a screeching halt. We are increasingly seeing the hollow political
content at the core of supranational entities such as the EU, structured more to comfort merged
investor groups than strengthen public health systems.
Speaking of Europe, while the coronavirus started in China, its most long-lasting impact
might be in the EU, as it has dramatically exposed the shortcomings of the latter's
institutional structures. Take Italy as the most vivid illustration: The spread of COVID-19 has
been particularly acute there. Being a user of the euro (as opposed to an issuer of the
currency) the Italian national government risks exposing itself to potential national
bankruptcy (and the vicissitudes of the volatile private capital markets) if it responds with a
robust fiscal response, absent the institutional support of Brussels and the European Central
Bank (which is the sole issuer of the euro). According to MarketWatch, "Italy needs a €500
to €700 billion ($572 billion to $801 billion) precautionary bailout package to help
reassure financial markets that the Italian government and banks can meet their debt payment
obligations as [the] country's economic and financial crisis becomes more fearsome."
The tragic case of Italy (where the entire country is now in full quarantined lockdown)
provides a particularly poignant example of the gaping lacunae at the heart of the eurozone.
There is no supranational fiscal authority, so the Italian government has been largely left to
fend for itself, as it is trying to do now, for example, providing income relief by suspending
payments on mortgages across the entire country. Here is a perfect example of where European
Central Bank support for the Italian banking system would go a long way toward mitigating any
resultant financial contagion. But so far, as Wolfgang Munchau of the Financial Times has
noted, the ECB remains in "monitoring" mode. Indeed, the eurozone as a whole lacks the
institutional mechanisms to mobilize on a massive, coordinated scale, in contrast to the U.S.
and UK, and eurozone finance ministers remain incapable of agreeing on a coordinated policy
response.
Other eurozone countries may no longer be complacent about the threat posed by COVID-19, but
their national governments are more focused on the need to stockpile their own national
resources to protect their populations. Italy remains particularly vulnerable to the ravages of
this virus, as it has an aging population, so if coronavirus runs rampant through the country,
it could potentially crash the nation's entire hospital system, as this account by an Italian
doctor suggests.
EU solidarity, showing cracks on issues ranging from finance to immigration, increasingly
resembles every country for itself.
Defenders of the EU may well retort that health care is designated as a "national
competency" under the Treaty of Maastricht. But how does one expect national competencies to be
carried out competently in an economic grouping devoid of national currencies (the key variable
as far as supporting unconstrained fiscal capacity goes)? Additionally, the evil of decades of
Brussels-imposed austerity has meant there aren't enough hospital beds, materials and staff
anywhere in Europe, let alone Italy. This might well represent the death knell for a European
project based on aspirations for an "ever closer union."
In spite of the manifest incompetence of the Trump administration, the U.S. at least has
institutional mechanisms in place via the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide Americans with clear, credible instructions
devoid of political spin.
As Professor James Galbraith has persuasively argued, the U.S. government has the capacity
to "establish a Health Finance Corporation on the model of the Depression-era Reconstruction
Finance Corporation. Like the RFC, which built munitions factories and hospitals during and
after World War II, the HFC should have broad powers to create public corporations, lend to
private companies (to fund necessary production), and cover other emergency costs. Even more
quickly, the National Guard can be deployed to deal with critical supply issues and to
establish emergency facilities such as field hospitals and quarantine centers." Likewise,
Senator Marco Rubio has "sought to expand what's called the Economic Injury Disaster Loan
program, which allows the Small Business Administration to start lending money directly instead
of just encouraging banks to do so," as Matt Stoller has written.
Parenthetically, this represents a marked break with historic GOP policy, which for the most
part has accepted the embedded assumptions inherent in globalization.
And while traditional monetary policy tools such as interest rate cuts are hardly adequate
to stem a supply shock, Galbraith also points to the ability of the Federal Reserve to offer
emergency financial support to help American companies through the worst of the coronavirus
outbreak, by "buy[ing] up debt issued by hospitals and other health-care providers, as well as
working to stabilize credit markets, as it did in 2008-09." Andrew Bailey of the Bank of
England has made similar recommendations to the UK government.
Even with the measures proposed by Galbraith, Bailey and Rubio, virtually all Western
economies, having largely succumbed to the logic of globalization, are now vulnerable, as
supply chains wither. China, the apex of these offshored manufacturing supply chains, is in
shutdown mode. Likewise South Korea and Italy. Worse, there appears to be a singular lack of
understanding on the part of many multinational companies as to how far these supply chains go:
"Peter Guarraia, who leads the global supply chain practice at Bain & Co, estimated that up
to 60 per cent of executives have no knowledge of the items in their supply chain beyond the
tier one group," reports the Financial Times.
A "tier one" company supplies components directly to the original equipment manufacturer
(OEM) that sets up a global supply chain. But as is now becoming increasingly recognized, there
are secondary-tier companies, which supply components or materials to those tier-one companies.
When goods are widely dispersed geographically (instead of centered in a localized industrial
ecosystem), it is harder for executives to have full knowledge of all of the items in their
respective companies' supply chains, so the deficiencies of the model only become apparent by
the time it is too late to rectify.
In the U.S. specifically, the mass migration of manufacturing has seriously eroded the
domestic capabilities needed to turn inventions into high-end products, damaging America's
ability to retain a lead in many sectors, let alone continue to manufacture products. The
country has evolved from being a nation of industrialists to a nation of financial rentiers.
And now the model has exposed the U.S. to significant risk during a time of national crisis, as
the coronavirus potentially represents.
There is no national redundancy built into current supply networks, with the most
problematic consequences now evident in the pharmaceutical markets. Countries such as China or
India are beginning to restrict core components of important generic drugs to deal with their
own domestic health crisis. This has the potential to create a major crisis, given that the
U.S. "depend[s] on China for 80 percent of the core components to make our generic medicines,"
writes Rosemary Gibson in the American Conservative. She also notes that "generic drugs are 90
percent of the medicines Americans take. Thousands of them, sold at corner drug stores, grocery
store pharmacies, and big box stores, contain ingredients made in China." Constraints on
production, therefore, intensify as more and more of the manufacturing process pertaining to
the drugs themselves is geographically globalized. And in regard specifically to
research-intensive industries, such as pharmaceuticals or biotech, the value of closely
integrating the R&D with manufacturing is extremely high, and the risks of separating them
are enormous.
These are by no means new problems. We've been dealing with supply-side shocks emanating
from hyper-globalization for decades, and the response of Western policymakers has largely been
in the form of fiscal or monetary palliatives that seldom address the underlying structural
challenges raised by these shortages. To the contrary: democratic caveats to globalization have
been characterized as inefficient frictions that hinder consumer choice.
For now, we should start by reducing our supply chain vulnerabilities by building into our
systems more of what engineers call redundancy -- different ways of doing the same things -- so
as to mitigate undue reliance on foreign suppliers for strategically important industries. We
need to mobilize national resources in a manner akin to the way a country does during wartime
or during massive economic dislocation (such as the Great Depression) -- comprehensive
government-led actions (which runs in the face of much of today's prevailing and increasingly
outdated economic and political theology). In other words, the revival of a coherent national
industrial policy.
To save the global economy, paradoxically, we need less of it. Not only does the
private/public sector balance have to shift in favor of the latter, but so too does the
multinational/national matrix in manufacturing. Otherwise, the coronavirus will simply
represent yet another in a chain of catastrophes for global capitalism, rather than an
opportunity to rethink our entire model of economic development.
But but but ."redundancy", which engineers like, is in direct conflict with "efficiency",
which economists revere. Think of how many "smart" appliances we can invent and market if we
don't have to make health-care and manufacturing robust again.
Cheetah paradox. The fastest land animal, but often dies if injured as can't hunt and has
no fat to speak off to take it through lean times.
NC has discussed number of times that you can't have "efficiency" and "reduncancy". Of
course, if your drive is short-term profit, it requires efficiency, and redundancy is just a
cost.
The smarter companies that have built redundancy, will be the predators left once the
injured cheetahs die off.
does my little farm/doomstead count?
multiple redundancies has been a large part of The Goal for a long time.
as for actual businesses, no except maybe for the more esoteric sectors of FIRE .are
"exotic financial instruments" redundant?
"just in time", "warehouse on wheels", as well as globespanning supply lines have worried
me since i learned of them.
"efficiency" as a weapon, that eventually gets turned on oneself.
My favorite tale of redundancy going away was the oxygen system on commercial airliners.
In the past it had 3 or 4 independent redundant systems built in and cost around $20k per
seat, and then the cost cutters came up a single digital oxygen system costing only around
$500 per seat.
Yes: Ford and General Motors. If you cannot buy from one company, there are alternatives. The companies are single
points of failure. The combination of multiple single point of failure provide redundancy and
resilience.
Supporting the Historical US concept of "truce busting" and encouraging competition in all
markets.
Indeed. As an both an engineering (core mobile network infrastructure) and an econ
graduate (PPE and life long interest) this has been an (perhaps, the) issue for me over the
last 30 years. There are many ways in which redundancy and resilience have been degraded. Not
least in terms of people with the combination of deep technical understanding and problem
solving skills.
Baking in fragility in the name of efficiency. Efficiency? Well maybe, but only on a short
enough timeline. And timelines have been getting shorter (to validate 'cost cutting').
I don't like to be a smart-fanny and do appreciate the thinking and expertise that shines
through this fine essay. I learned an enormous amount and feel better prepared to argue the
subject.
But the second half of that last sentence
" the coronavirus will simply represent yet another in a chain of catastrophes for global
capitalism, rather than an opportunity to rethink our entire model of economic
development."
taken by itself, makes everything before it, well redundant. of course it will.
and and and .the "tax planning" departments at majorco international will be crying on
about all their masterful overseas tax siloing now having to come apart by having to actually
re-shore production oh the pearl clutching to come .
I usually like reading Auerback's posts but in this exceptional case I had to stop reading
at about the 10th paragraph or so. It is the case that in the heat of the moment we are not
having good reaction and fear is driving us a little bit mad.
Leaving our personal phantoms
and demons to ride free when we should be carefully thinking on our personal safety and the
fate of the social structures that sustain us is not good idea. For instance, identifying
Italy as the core of the problem is IMO a misrepresentation of facts. A small city in
Northern Italy was, just by chance, the first place in EU where the outbreak started showing
all its virulence and it took us by surprise because we were all in denial.
Not only in the
EU, a few days ago Mr. Strether left a link in his Water-cooler citing American economists
saying that the US would probably not be reached by the epidemics. As an example on how in
denial we have been, take a look at this letter
sent to the editor of eurosurveillance the 21st of January by physicians from Marseille
asking why so much fear about the new disease when they had tested and identified 0 Covid
cases in their hospitals while we should focus on flu or rhinovirus. It is almost certain
they are now regretting having this letter sent.
Though M. Auerback IMO rigthly crtitizices the fragmentation of the institutional and
political framework in the EU, in comparison with the all powerful globalized supply chains,
I cannot agree more, I also think he is missing how the institutional response is being
organised. After the initial denial, the response to the emergency is necessarily reactive
(think of equipments in short supply). In Madrid we are just about 7 days behind of Italy in
epidemics development and I can see the same phenomenon here. We are starting to see that we
could soon be in short supply of treatment equipment in hospitals. Schools and universities
are closed starting today and large gatherings prohibited and yesterday some panic scenes in
supermarkets were seen, just like in Italy. The government has programmed a set of measures
that are going to be implemented as their necessity is seen such as delaying tax or mortgage
payments, and some other help with a focus in small companies and autonomous workers. Both
Italy and Spain will almost certainly give a kick in the ass to austerian stupidity and do
things necessary to try to mitigate the damage and I bet there won't be any EU institution
denying whatever support needed because, ya know, the BCE and other institutions will realise
their survival is at risk if they try to be too orthodox in an emergency situation. So far,
IMO, the biggest mistakes have been made in China from the very beginning of the outbreak to
the brutal quarantines imposed. I think that in the EU, keeping open borders was good
reaction.
We will see how this unfolds in the US. This said, I wish the best for Americans of both
Americas, Asians, Oceanians, Europeans etc. I hope that authorities around the world have
good reaction with this emergency.
Good comment, I agree. I've been offline for a bit, so forgive me if mentioned already,
but early irruption of the virus in Italy is no mere accident. Chinese groups have bought up
Italian luxury brands and then imported thousands of Chinese sweatshop migrants to preserve
the coveted Made In Italy label while keeping costs low. Same arrangements in Spain I think,
but you would likely know better than I.
For so long as people can't be arsed about where their food clothing and shelter really
comes from, there will always be loopholes devised by the unscrupulous. The arbitrage
toothpaste is very hard to put back in the tube.
I greatly enjoy Auerback's (and Hudson's) work although I am no socialist (to my mind,
today's bankster or McKinsey wanker simply becomes tomorrow's third deputy minister for
banana bending – regardless, it's still a small club and most of us ain't in it).
But in order for nations, however defined, to regain self-sufficiency, cartelization of
labor enforced in law is going to have to become a thing again, whether it's via
unionization, craft guilds or certification (credentialism by any other name would smell as
sweet).
One question: Why does Thomas L. Friedman, author of The World is Flat , extolling
the glories of globalization, still have a job paying no doubt tens if not hundreds of
thousands of dollars a year, while many better informed and infinitely more prescient NCers
have trouble putting groceries on the table?
Why does Friedman still have a job after all of his globalization cheer leading and war
mongering?
Answer: Because he writes what his bosses want him to write.
In the upside-down world of USA media, people who give good advice (Chris Hedges and Phil
Donahue on the Iraq War) get fired, while those who give bad advice (Friedman on almost
everything) keep their jobs.
The contempt Friedman has for people may be illustrated by his "Suck on this" comment
directed at innocent Iraqis who he judged needed to see US military power directed against
them.
This is the USA, where harmful media people are brought down by sex-scandals (Charlie
Rose, Chris Matthews) not by the quality of their media work.
I don't get the article's point about a fractured EU response vs a coordinated American
response. CDC has been torched by budget cuts and the nurses association in the USA –
didn't they say few hospitals have any plans in place for an outbreak? Each country is going
to have it's own challenges – good show on Joe Rogan this week and goes into 45% of
Americans are obese – a big risk factor when combating Covid-19.
Also a revelation was
nearly all generic drugs use in America are sourced from India and China.
EU borders have been very fluid for decades, its not an easy thing to shut down for any
reason and yes a lot of the response has been reactionary.
So back to Globalisation – there are risks, this is the price.
Globalisation is not the same as trade. Trade, it's sometimes hard to recall, was originally
"I'll swap you what you want for what I want." So the English exported wool, for example, and
imported silks and spices. Globalisation is an attempt by an insane MBA student to
restructure the world economy to be maximally "efficient" without concern for externalities.
Globalisation is going down for sure, but of course it will take a lot of perfectly
respectable trade with it.
I'm also getting a bit tired of reading that viruses "don't respect national borders." Of
course, if there were groups of independently moving viruses, travelling through Europe on
their little feet, they wouldn't think to contact the authorities when they cross national
borders. But viruses have to be transported by something, usually people, and people (as in
China recently) can be required to respect borders. Already there are signs that Free
Movement in Europe is coming under strain (Slovenia closed its border with Italy yesterday)
and judging by the violent reactions of the "no borders" lobby, they are worried that it may
be one of the many types of collateral political damage.
One other thought: this epidemic may be the first in living memory where the PMC, politicians
and media figures are disproportionately affected. (I can't think of a single case of a
politician who's ever died of flu). The PMC etc. travel a lot more, get out a lot more and
mix a lot more with foreigners. When there's no cure, some of them – CEOs, Ministers,
media pundits, bankers – are going to die. What then? Already, the more contacts you
have, especially with other countries, the worse things will be. Lawyers will find courts
closed, consultants will find organisations less ready to consult them, business junkets and
conferences will be cancelled, holidays postponed and upper middle-class parents will find
that Tarquin and Miranda are unexpectedly at home because the European School in Florence has
been closed. Some things will be very hard to bear.
The changes coming on account of the virus will be substantial, and if we're all sitting
on the sofa, afraid to leave the house for a year, supply chains will be rusty @ best when
Coronavirus finally makes off for parts unknown, or pretty much wrecked.
There are very few among us who can afford to miss work and paychecks, and not only that,
but those crazy preppers for once are 100% correct (why they don't concentrate on food
primarily, is a mystery) in that everything we eat comes from somewhere else typically.
The extraordinary plum of the USD being the worlds' reserve currency looks to be in
trouble too, and in a weakened state of things, might just turn into any other fiat monetary
instrument.
The internet will change as well, with much of the world stuck in place, i'd expect
traffic on here to explode, in that I can't think of a better time waster.
There's also the aspect of the Coronavirus hangover even after it departs, survivors won't
let loose of their newfound way of living so easy.
I will never forget reading the Wikileak where the US state department was strong-arming
an African government on behalf of Shell Oil. It drove home for me the reality that
governments and corporations both serve their wealthy elite masters, and don't even pretend
to serve the people they ostensibly represent.
That made me realize it's always been this way.
I was in high school when NAFTA went through. I remember reading all the dire warnings
from people opposed, and all the glowing thoughts from those in favor. Now, in hindsight, it
has been much worse for everyone except the wealthy. The dire warnings weren't dire
enough.
Coronavirus isn't a black swan. People have been predicting a pandemic would strike a blow
to globalization for a long time. The companies suffering from their short-sightedness FULLY
DESERVE what they're getting. I'm sure hoping the fallout hits the corporate landscape
hard . Let's see some naked capitalism in action.
Your comment reminds me of Smedley Butler's 'War is a Racket' from about 100 years ago. It
was true then and its true now. And I'm talking about government practices in general, not
just war: You could take 'War' out of the title and replace it with anything else the
american government does these days and it would still hold true.
"The companies suffering from their short-sightedness FULLY DESERVE what they're
getting."
They do indeed. That is why they are lobbying the White House for bailout
economic assistance funds. It would be a real stinker if they are bailed out with tax dollars and the average citizen
is forced to pick up their own medical and time-off-the-job tabs.
I should have clarified, I'm an American living in the United States. That said, it bothers
me. The absolute lack of any detectable level of courage or fortitude in the face of
diversity (hard times) is just stunning. Old people die. Everyone dies over time. Viruses
like the flu or SARS, or COVID-19 accelerate that process from time to time. It's just what
viruses do. There is no cure for either death or viruses. If you want the biblical "Ye shall
surely die."
The worst estimates of "excess deaths" in the U.S. is currently 480,000. Let's call it
605,000. 605,000 out of a population of 310 million is a death rate of 0.2%. Point two
percent. If this was a deer heard and the managers were assured that the virus did no other
damage and that the point two percent would be overwhelmingly composed of the aged and infirm
they would consider intentionally introducing the virus to other herds that were too
large.
The panic and cowardice is doing more damage than the disease. The level of fear and panic
and the lack of dignity about a life process that you know or should have known was coming
for as long as you were sentient is just appalling. The whole society is pusillanimous.
There's just no other conclusion. It's outrageous compared to the whole of human history. No
other generation in history panicked so much over so little.
/div>
Paul Bogdanich@111
America society is not organized to deal with crisis on its own soil at a community based
level due to globalization and the warfare economy that you are well aware of.
First, the closing down of schools is a good example as the increase in poverty among the
99% has resulted in schools having to take on providing food to a large segment of children. It
is even worse for the children who are homeless in America while millions of dollars a day go
to overseas wars. In New York City along there are about 110,000 homeless children. America has
no means to deliver such food aid to children except through school attendance! Even worse is
that most of this food is ultraprocessed junk and food like substances as required by the
corporate food industry.
Second, most workers must continue to show up even if sick or they face going bankrupt
and are already deep in debt to the banks. This creates another petri dish for transmission of
the virus which is otherwise going to happen due to a lack of food supplies, except in Mormon
and similar communities.
Third, About half of Americans have one or more serious medical conditions, most of which
are due to either bad diet (hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.)
or drug use (alcohol, tobacco, or hard drugs).
Fourth, Americans are generally sedentary and cocooned indoors leading to vitamin/hormone
D3 deficiencies and toxic organics exposure in home products.
Fifth, we have a sick care system in the US that tries to maximize revenue flow to
medical corporations through excess drug distribution and other symptom treatments (think snake
oil salesmen in the old west). Once again, prevention via better diet is the correct but
unprofitable choice. See books such as "food fix" and "The Hacking of the American Mind" for
further details.
Sixth, oil people who will die generally have deficient immune systems which make them
susceptible to secondary infections and lung inflammation responses. Strategies to improve
immune response are not profitable compared to vaccines and thus lots of old people will
die.
Seventh, as hospitals rapidly fill up with patient with coronavirus secondary infections
anyone with injuries or disease conditions (e,g, gall bladder and appendix infections will have
a much higher chance of dying). As some 97% of prescription drugs are imported from China there
will be dramatic shortages.
Eighth, even with calling out the national guard, there will be a large increase in crime
as America has over million gang members who are generally well organized. Pity those who
cannot defend themselves.
Ninth, collapse of the food and other essential services distribution over several months
will contribute to violence and perhaps starvation, especially among pets and farm
animals.
Tenth, since most political leaders in the US attended the AIPAC and CPAP conferences,
where they were exposed to infected individuals, they will have a much higher infection rate,
especially since they tend to be old and in bad health. The collapse of government decision
makers will lead to local communities having to sink or swim.
You are correct about the lack of courage in Americans. More importantly, response to a
crisis is 80% mental Americans generally are unwilling to give up their comfort and conformity
mindset.
Do not know why anyone would want to serve in the US military. Seems like you now
recognize your mistake.
Paul Bogdanich@111
America society is not organized to deal with crisis on its own soil at a community
based level due to globalization and the warfare economy that you are well aware of.
First, the closing down of schools is a good example as the increase in poverty among
the 99% has resulted in schools having to take on providing food to a large segment of
children. It is even worse for the children who are homeless in America while millions of
dollars a day go to overseas wars. In New York City along there are about 110,000 homeless
children. America has no means to deliver such food aid to children except through school
attendance! Even worse is that most of this food is ultraprocessed junk and food like
substances as required by the corporate food industry.
Second, most workers must continue to show up even if sick or they face going bankrupt
and are already deep in debt to the banks. This creates another petri dish for transmission
of the virus which is otherwise going to happen due to a lack of food supplies, except in
Mormon and similar communities.
Third, About half of Americans have one or more serious medical conditions, most of
which are due to either bad diet (hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure,
etc.) or drug use (alcohol, tobacco, or hard drugs).
Fourth, Americans are generally sedentary and cocooned indoors leading to
vitamin/hormone D3 deficiencies and toxic organics exposure in home products.
Fifth, we have a sick care system in the US that tries to maximize revenue flow to
medical corporations through excess drug distribution and other symptom treatments (think
snake oil salesmen in the old west). Once again, prevention via better diet is the correct
but unprofitable choice. See books such as "food fix" and "The Hacking of the American Mind"
for further details.
Sixth, oil people who will die generally have deficient immune systems which make them
susceptible to secondary infections and lung inflammation responses. Strategies to improve
immune response are not profitable compared to vaccines and thus lots of old people will
die.
Seventh, as hospitals rapidly fill up with patient with coronavirus secondary
infections anyone with injuries or disease conditions (e,g, gall bladder and appendix
infections will have a much higher chance of dying). As some 97% of prescription drugs are
imported from China there will be dramatic shortages.
Eighth, even with calling out the national guard, there will be a large increase in
crime as America has over million gang members who are generally well organized. Pity those
who cannot defend themselves.
Ninth, collapse of the food and other essential services distribution over several
months will contribute to violence and perhaps starvation, especially among pets and farm
animals.
Tenth, since most political leaders in the US attended the AIPAC and CPAP conferences,
where they were exposed to infected individuals, they will have a much higher infection rate,
especially since they tend to be old and in bad health. The collapse of government decision
makers will lead to local communities having to sink or swim.
You are correct about the lack of courage in Americans. More importantly, response to a
crisis is 80% mental Americans generally are unwilling to give up their comfort and
conformity mindset.
Do not know why anyone would want to serve in the US military. Seems like you now
recognize your mistake. /div
Italy's economy will be crushed, but the bankers will still get their money. In fact, it's
another opportunity to impose further 'austerity' on Italy (as neoliberal economics abhors
spending on government services), and to force Italy to take out more loans from Germany and
France.
Another big bonus is that the virus will primarily kill old people, which means that
European governments can pay out less retirement pensions and welfare benefits in the future.
Neoliberal economics is the big winner here.
The epidemic that has so far spread to half of US states, infecting over 1,000 Americans and
killing 31...
At least 10 states have declared emergencies as of Wednesday, and disease experts are
throwing up their hands, urging the administration to take real-life events more seriously.
...Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield agreed that critical regions of the
US are beyond the reach of containment, sliding into the " mitigation " stage, and
blamed the botched rollout of test kits to local health workers.
The availability of
accurate tests for Covid-19 has become a major sore spot, with official reassurances colliding
with uncooperative reality in full view of the public. Secretary of Health and Human Services
Alex Azar insisted on Tuesday that " millions " of tests were available, even as the CDC
urged healthcare providers to save tests for symptomatic patients already hospitalized and "
medically fragile individuals ."
In at least one case
, federal officials warned a Seattle lab against testing flu swab samples for coronavirus in
January, before the epidemic was widely reported, losing critical response time –
mirroring the " crime " the Trump administration has tried to pin on China.
And some have warned that the US' inability to handle an outbreak is more dire than either
side realizes. During a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday, a Republican
congressman from Washington, the first Covid-19 hotspot to flare up in the US, demanded to know
why his constituents were unable to get their test results while his fellow congressmen had no
problem getting tested just days after coming into contact with an infected person at a DC
political conference. A CDC representative admitted " there's not enough equipment. There's
not enough people. There's not enough internal capacity. There's no surge capacity ." To
conserve tests, the CDC has told healthcare providers to " use their judgment " and
consider " epidemiologic factors " before using up a valuable resource.
Existing flaws in the US healthcare system have exacerbated the testing problem. The CDC has
refused to set up standalone testing centers, placing COVID-19 screening out of the reach of
the many Americans who don't have primary-care physicians and rely on walk-in clinics and
emergency rooms for their healthcare. Just 8,500 Americans had been tested as of Monday,
according to the CDC, and federal officials told reporters some 75,000 tests had been sent out
to public health laboratories on top of one million sent to hospitals and other sites. The
real-life infected numbers in the country are thus likely much higher than what is being
reported.
Control measures have varied wildly across local governments and institutions and even
within cities. Over 1,000 schools have closed nationwide, and cities and counties from Santa
Clara, California to Westchester, New York have banned large gatherings. The National
Institutes of Health's Anthony Fauci called on others to follow suit during a congressional
hearing on Wednesday, announcing " we would recommend that there not be large crowds. If
that means not having any people in the audience when the NBA plays, so be it. " Asked if "
the worst " was yet to come, Fauci answered unequivocally: " bottom line, it's going
to get worse. "
Even as new Covid-19 cases in China dwindle to near zero and cases in Italy, Germany, and
other European countries surge, the US has not stepped up screenings of passengers from those
countries at airports accordingly. Instead, the administration has continued to congratulate
itself on " saving lives " by halting flights from China weeks ago.
Two. Low wage workers and people without a paid sick day have to continue to work to
survive. Studies prove people without paid sick days are
more likely to go to work sick than workers who have paid sick leave. And workers without
paid sick days are much more likely to
seek care from emergency rooms than those with paid sick leave.
Three. About 30
million people in the US do not have health insurance, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation . Nearly half say they
cannot
afford it . They are unlikely to seek medical treatment for flu like symptoms or seek
screening because they cannot afford it.
Four. Staying home is not an option for the homeless. There are about 550,000 homeless people in the US,
according to the National Coalition
for the Homeless . Homeless people have rates of diabetes, heart disease, and HIV/AIDS at
rates
three to six times that of the general population, according to the National Alliance to
End Homelessness. Shelters often provide close living arrangements and opportunities to clean
hands and clothes and utensils are minimal for those on the street. Homeless people have
higher rates of
infectious, acute and chronic diseases like tuberculosis.
Mr. Market has finally digested that the world isn't prepared for coronavirus and the US is
particularly poorly set up to cope, thanks to our fragmented public health system and
overpriced, privatized and less than comprehensive health care. That bad situation is made
worse by the CDC being short on resources and hamstrung further by the Trump Administration's
PR imperatives.
At a minimum, the market rout may force the Administration to go into overdrive on real
world responses, but I doubt it has the capacity. For starters, Pence is badly cast as a crisis
manager. But as we'll discuss briefly, the US has such hollowed out capacity on the medical
front that a better response would have needed to start weeks ago to have much hope of blunting
outcomes.
The US' best hope is that hotter weather will slow the infection rate, but that's not coming
soon enough to rescue the Eastern corridor or the West Coast from San Francisco Bay north from
serious propagation till at least mid May (and San Francisco doesn't get all that hot except
when the weather gets freaky).
While the energy sector is now the third smallest in the S&P 500, a change from a
decade ago when the industry made up 11% of the benchmark, tumbling oil prices is yet another
risk for traders to contemplate.
"If WTI falls into the low $30s and stays there, it's going to cause lay-offs in the oil
patch and stresses in the high yield market -- like it did when oil fell dramatically in
2015," said Matt Maley, an equity strategist at Miller Tabak & Co.
Real World Situation Ugly
The US is still in Keystone Kops mode. We don't have remotely enough coronavirus tests being
done. We have no idea when we will have enough test kits ready. No one is even talking about
how to implement a system like the drive by tests in South Korea which is not only efficient
but even more important, greatly reduces risks to patients and doctors versus having to show up
in a waiting room. We have lots of ad hoc measures, like conferences cancelled, businesses
ordering travel bans, some schools halting classes (most
recently Columbia University ).
But too many people are operating on a business as usual basis, including Congress. An
estimated 2/3 of its members attended the AIPAC conference, where two a participants tested
positive for coronavirus (oddly, the press has taken little note). An attendee at CPAC, a large
conference for conservatives, also tested positive for coronavirus, but only
two Congresscritters are self-quaranting .
I myself looked with some amazement at the reorganization of the entire hospital in the
previous week
I still remember my night shift a week ago spent without any rest, waiting for a call from
the microbiology department. I was waiting for the results of a swab taken from the first
suspect case in our hospital
Well, the situation is now nothing short of dramatic The war has literally exploded and
battles are uninterrupted day and night. One after the other, these unfortunate people come
to the emergency room. They have far from the complications of a flu. Let's stop saying it's
a bad flu. In my two years working in Bergamo, I have learned that the people here do not
come to the emergency room for no reason. They did well this time too. They followed all the
recommendations given: a week or ten days at home with a fever without going out to prevent
contagion, but now they can't take it anymore. They don't breathe enough, they need oxygen
.
Now, however, that need for beds in all its drama has arrived. One after another, the
departments that had been emptied are filling up at an impressive rate. The display boards
with the names of the sicks, of different colors depending on the department they belong to,
are now all red and instead of the surgical procedure, there is the diagnosis, which is
always the same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia
I can also assure you that when you see young people who end up intubated in the ICU,
pronated or worse, in ECMO (a machine for the worst cases, which extracts the blood,
re-oxygenates it and returns it to the body, waiting for the lungs to hopefully heal), all
this confidence for your young age goes away And there are no more surgeons, urologists,
orthopedists, we are only doctors who suddenly become part of a single team to face this
tsunami that has overwhelmed us.
The cases multiply, up to a rate of 15-20 hospitalizations a day all for the same reason.
The results of the swabs now come one after the other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly
the emergency room is collapsing. Emergency provisions are issued: help is needed in the
emergency room. A quick meeting to learn how the to use to emergency room EHR and a few
minutes later I'm already downstairs, next to the warriors on the war front. The screen of
the PC with the chief complaint is always the same: fever and respiratory difficulty, fever
and cough, respiratory insufficiency etc Exams, radiology always with the same sentence:
bilateral interstitial pneumonia. All needs to be hospitalized. Some already needs to be
intubated, and goes to the ICU. For others, however, it is late. ICU is full, and when ICUs
are full, more are created. Each ventilator is like gold: those in the operating rooms that
have now suspended their non-urgent activity are used and the OR become a an ICU that did not
exist before. I found it amazing, or at least I can speak for Humanitas Gavazzeni (where I
work), how it was possible to put in place in such a short time a deployment and a
reorganization of resources so finely designed to prepare for a disaster of this magnitude
.Nurses with tears in their eyes because we are unable to save everyone and the vital signs
of several patients at the same time reveal an already marked destiny. There are no more
shifts, schedules.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has another fine piece on the coronavirus outbreak. He flags that
the UK is very poorly situated to handle it, with only 1/6 the ICU beds per capita of South
Korea. As an aside, the US has 10x as many per capital as the UK but read the Bergamo piece
again. The entire hospital has been turned into a coronavirus ward. Lord only knows what
happens to accident victims .are some hospitals in each region being set aside for regular
emergency care?
Data from China suggest a death rate of 15pc for infected cases over the age of 80. It is
8pc for those in their seventies, and 3.6pc in their sixties (or 5.4pc for men). No elected
government in any Western democracy will survive if it lets such carnage unfold .
Unfortunately, the early figures from Italy seem to be tracking Hubei's epidemiology with
a horrible consistency. The death rate for all ages is near 5pc. While there may be large
numbers of undetected infections – distorting ratios – Italy has tested widely,
much more than Germany or France.
For whatever reason, the Italian system seems unable to save them. The death rate is six
times the reported rate in Korea, even adjusting for age structures. Is it because the
Italian strain has mutated into a more lethal form (we don't yet have the sequence data) or
because Europeans are genetically more vulnerable?
Is it because Italy's nitrogen dioxide pollution is the worst in Europe (the UK is bad
too), leading to chronic lung inflammation? Is it the chaotic administration that led to a
catalogue of errors in the hotspot of Codogno? If you think Britain's NHS has been starved of
funds, spare a thought for Italy, Portugal, Spain, or Greece .
The US is about to face its grim reckoning. It has the best health care in the rich world
– and the worst. Pandemics exploit the worst.
Let's tease out AEP's line of thought. The US is sorely wanting in operational capacity
despite being able to provide top flight care for certain types of ailments.
US hospitals are now overwhelmingly run by MBAs. It's difficult to conceive of them being
able to execute the sort of rapid reordering of space and duties described in Bergamo. It's not
simply that the top brass is too removed from the practice of medicine to have the right
reflexes. Unless ordered to do so, they will also be loath to devote enough resources to
tackling the disease. When a crisis hits, they won't be allowed to charge (in their minds) for
coronavirus services. They'll want to preserve as much hospital capacity for "normal" full
ticket services as possible. They might rationalize that by arguing that they don't want to
risk more of their staff's health than necessary.
But even worse, remember that most hospitals no longer control much their staffing. They've
outsourced specialist practices like emergency room doctors .and those have been bought up by
private equity. If you think private equity won't exploit this crisis for their gain, I have a
bridge I'd like to sell you.
One possible silver lining to this probable tragedy is if the US medical system performs as
badly as it appears likely to is that it might finally end the delusion that there's a lot
(aside from individual doctors and nurses) in the current system worth saving. The broad public
needs to make sure that their crisis does not go to waste.
The response is reasonably good considering the size of the bureaucracy they have to move.
... Let us hope both sides put aside the nonsense for a while and get it together.
Unfortunately they don't have a bureaucracy. Since neo-liberal economics and the fifty
plus year assault on the government sector, they have a partisan employment service instead.
Little skill or intelligence, a century of wisdom erased, no capacity to act and totally
ossified in manoeuvrability.
To trust in any meaningful bureaucracy to motivate, let alone move, you would have to look
for a state that values human rights, trusts its citizens and scientists and administrators
and refrains from denigrating public medicine and health services.
Good luck finding that effective and resourced public medicine in the USA right now.
Everyone here talking badly about our national health system while we have one of the
healthiest and oldest population in the world. Nothing it's collapsing here and we are doing
our best, something that I'm not sure can be said about other Nations.
We have many positives because here, in Italy, we test a lot of people and for free. How much
does it cost to be tested in US? Are you sure that a very expensive health care system, like
the one in US, can handle this virus better than our free for all health care system?
In a couple of months you'll get the answer, don't worry.
Good luck to everyone from Italy.
Andrea
"Should big corporations get another bailout then ."
Of course corporations will be made whole again just like in 2008. Yet they will continue
spouting that Medicare for All is an evil socialist program - the very thing that would allow
all people to get taken care of and at least helping contain the spread. The Democrat
leadership in the House is now looking at a $350 billion corporate bailout ( how will they
pay for it) - yet are viciously against Medicare for All and Bernie. A new Yale Study shows
Medicare for All will prevent 68,000 unnecessary deaths and will save $450 billion - each and
every year. And of course Trump also would like to cut health programs and social security.
Trump and Pelosi are both on the same donor team - it is like professional wrestling working
for the wealthiest against the workers.
I am seeing how irresponsible people at certain blogs where they have themselves as
oustanding intelligent people, probably only thinking in ther shares´ value, are
spreading disinfo in the same sense of that twitted by Trump.
Laissez faire will not work. In certain European countries private hospitals are already
deriving their Covid-19 cases to the public system ( of course the government should act asap
on this taking extraordinary measures to force them absorbe their clients or even requsition
their beds for a public health emergency as it is this one ). This only will accelerate the
rate of lack of ICU beds and respirators.
There are already Twitter threads by health personel as the one linked by b, estimating
the exponential grow will easily come of this epidemics.
A Spanish doctor in Madrid was already saying that the time will come where triage will be
needed to prioritice who accedes to the respirators/ICU beds once the health system
overwhelmed...I only hope those irresponsibly denying this is a global pandemic emergency and
spreading disinfo through their media to be the first discarded by triage, as they are only
making things worse, along with guarantor of their tax cut Trump. I bet them there will be a
respirator for Trump, but for them, that is in the air.
In Madrid, after the huge demonstrations of Women´s Day yesterday, new cases have
jumped to the rate of Italy. Today all schools and universities closed in the same city.
Heads shoukd be already rolling.
Then, we are not counting on the possibility that thing here will not go so orderly than
in China. In Italy, to the public health crisis, they add a probably public order one, with
several revolts in jails because of restriction of visits...
Just some hours ago some dozens of inmates of a prison in Foggia were running free in the
streets taking advantage to commit crimes as they go out robbing cars and menacing commercial
activity...
Probably as a result, already the whole Italy closed, there is no more red zones,
prohibited to move throughout the peninsula. 60 million people.
For those irresponsibly claiming from the same blogs that this will cease with the good
weather, people are reporting from Argentina where today there was around a hot summer day,
that there are increasing cases there.
Harvarad University and the WHO have already discarded this epidemics will behave like the
estational flu..
In the hospitality industry in Australia, paid sick leave is available to full-time and
part-time employees. The man employed at the Grand Chancellor Hotel in Hobart (in Tasmania)
was likely employed as a casual. He is known to be a student in his 20s and is currently in
isolation at hospital.
"... Don't come to work sick. You will spread your gross germs around, make everyone else
sick (including customers!) and you'll be pretty useless anyway. Australians recognise that
it's in all our best interests if you STAY THE HECK HOME while you're unwell, and that's
why you've got the option of paid sick leave if you're employed on a full time or part time
basis.
If you're employed on a casual basis, you're entitled to unpaid sick leave. You are
supposed to subsist during your illness on all the lavish savings you've accrued from your
extra four-bucks-fifty-five-an-hour in casual loading. This is clearly problematic, and a
lot of young casuals are forced to attend work sick out of economic necessity ..."
It is likely that many if not most COVID-19 cases in several countries so far have also
been spread by people working in health, hospitality and other related service industries
where most workers are on casual or temporary contracts with either unpaid sick leave or no
sick leave.
"The number of tests is large because the nation has a large number of people suspected to
have caught coronavirus. However, the government is declaring a victory by turning it the
other way around," Hong said on his Facebook.
All the evidence indicates South Korea is just following the capitalist modus operandi of
chasing the rabbit: it is only testing the people who are already showing symptoms. There's
no evidence those containers with fast food tests are working on a significant scale: there
are a lot of factors that make a random individual in South Korea to stop in one of them to
get itself tested; just making them freely available is not enough. Besides, just because an
individual who stopped by the container tested negative, it doesn't mean it won't get
infected after, as it will go back to its daily routine (because capitalism can't stop, it
needs to keep its wheel spinning).
I don't trust the capitalist numbers around the world for one simple fact: they don't have
the means to test everybody and to stop their own economies in order to preserve the
non-infected from being infected in the near future. An illustrative example of this can be
observed in the Czech Republic, which went from just five cases on March 3rd (three on March
1st) to 40 on March 10th - one of the new infected having just arrived from Italy. Those
numbers indicate Czech Republic did absolutely nothing to stop the epidemic, and that they
probably have much more than those 40 - they just haven't tested enough.
"the US is particularly poorly set up to cope, thanks to our fragmented public health
system and overpriced, privatized and less than comprehensive health care. That bad situation
is made worse by the CDC being short on resources and hamstrung further by the Trump
Administration's PR imperatives."
Basically, it is expected that Europe manages the crisis less badly.
It has been interesting watching Dr. John Campbell's growing realisation & some shock
that everything is not well with the US healthcare system & he has received some abuse
but also support from Americans for his growing criticism.
His listing as requested of his 2 degrees & Phd, never mind his long front line
experience & his books I think shut some up for perhaps thinking that he was only a
nurse, but perhaps he shouda gone to NakedCapitalism.
It also feels like a scam: there is no shortage of snake oil sellers who hope stoking such
fears will make people buy more supplies: years' worth of ready-to-eat meals, bunker materials
and a lot more stuff in various shades of camo. (The more camo the more doomsday feels, I
guess!)
The reality is that there is little point "preparing" for the most catastrophic scenarios
some of these people envision. As a species, we live and die by our social world and our
extensive infrastructure -- and there is no predicting what anybody needs in the face of total
catastrophe.
In contrast, the real crisis scenarios we're likely to encounter require cooperation and,
crucially, "flattening the curve" of the crisis exactly so the more vulnerable can fare better,
so that our infrastructure will be less stressed at any one time.
At international arrivals in Atlanta, the overwhelmingly black TSA staff are not taking
temps by infrared or taking any pro active measures. If they are, it was hidden from me. It
seems- obtuse- to constantly harp on the catastrophe that is AA hires- but there it is.
Its the busiest airport in the world, BTW.
A sinister side note; Delta offered me an $83 upgrade for first class when I went in to
delay another trip. It's a $6000 ticket to fly first class. My total would have been a little
over $500. Dangling the carrot as everyone cancels.
One day, Americans will fully understand , with horrible consequences, that not every
single human transaction must revolve around making a few people obscenely rich.
US politicians and media are reporting approximately 500 cases of the virus in the US as
of March 8. The actual number is almost certainly much higher, however. Perhaps as much as
10-fold that number, according to some sources. Why?
There's the problem of reporting only tested cases so far, and there's still a lack of
available tests even to test and to verify all those infected without symptoms.. And even those
showing symptoms may have been determined initially as not infected by the tests, since
reportedly many of the early test kits were defective. Meanwhile, those without symptoms or
pre-symptomatic are not being tested at all.
The Fiction of Voluntary Quarantine
Then there's the policy of voluntary quarantining those who have come into contact with
someone who was tested and found infected. It's not working very well. Those who have come in
contact with carriers of the virus are asked simply to stay home. But do they? There's no way
to know, or even enforce that. The case example why voluntary quarantining doesn't work well is
Italy.
Most of the northern Lombardy region, including the financial center of Milan in that
country, is in 'lock down' right now. But all that means is voluntary quarantining. People are
asked not to leave their town, or the larger region. But is that stopping them traveling around
their town in public places? Or within the larger region? And spreading the virus there?
Apparently not. Reportedly, infection for those tested have risen in just two weeks to more
than 6,000 in Northern Italy. CNBC reports that, in just one day this weekend, that number
increased by 1200! So much for voluntary quarantines. There's no way, no sufficient personnel,
not even accepted procedures, with which to daily check on those (in Italy that means hundreds
of thousands) in voluntary quarantine.
The Real Costs to Workers
Average working class folks cannot afford to voluntary quarantine themselves. Or to stay
home from work for any reason. Even if they have symptoms. They will continue going to work.
They have to, in order to economically survive.
Consider the typical scenario in the US: there are literally tens of millions of workers who
have no more than $400 for an emergency. As many perhaps as half of the work force of 165
million. They live paycheck to paycheck. They can't afford to miss any days of work. Millions
of them have no paid sick leave. The US is the worst of all advanced economies in terms of
providing paid sick leave. Even union workers with some paid sick leave in their contracts
have, at best, only six days on average. If they stay home sick, they'll be asked by their
employer the reason for doing so in order to collect that paid sick leave. And even when they
don't have sick leave. Paid leave or not, many will be required to provide a doctor's slip
indicating the nature of the illness. But doctors are refusing to hold office visits for
patients who may have the virus. They can't do anything about it, so they don't want them to
come in and possibly contaminate others or themselves. So a worker sick has to go to the
hospital emergency room.
That raises another problem. A trip to the emergency room costs on average at least a
$1,000. More if special tests are done. If the worker has no health insurance (30 million still
don't), that's an out of pocket cost he/she can't afford. They know it. So they don't go to the
hospital emergency room, and they can't get an appointment at the doctor's office. Result: they
don't get tested, refuse to go get tested, and they continue to go to work. The virus
spreads.
Even if they have health insurance coverage, the deductible today is usually $500 to $2000.
Most don't have that kind of savings to spend either. Not to mention copays. So even those
insured take a pass on going to the hospital to get tested, even if they have symptoms.
The media doesn't help here either. Reports are typically that those who are young, middle
age, and in reasonable good health and without other complicating conditions don't die. It's
the older folks, retirees with Medicare, or with serious other conditions, that typically die
from the virus. Workers hear this and that supports their decision not to go to the hospital or
get tested as well.
Then there's the further complication concerning employment if they do go to the hospital.
The hospital will (soon) test them. If found infected, they will send them home for voluntary
quarantine for 14 days! Now the financial crises really begins. The hospital will inform their
employer. Staying at home for 14 days will result in financial disaster, since the employer has
no obligation to continue to pay them their wages while not at work, unless they have some
minimal paid sick leave which, as noted, the vast majority don't have. Nor does the employer
have any obligation legally to even keep them employed for 14 days (or even less) if the
employer determines they are not likely to return to work after 14 days (or even less). They
therefore get fired if they go to the hospital after it reports to the employer they have the
virus. Just another good reason not to go to the hospital.
In other words, here's all kind of major economic disincentives to keep an illness
confidential, to go to work, not go to the hospital (and can't go to the doctor). That risks
passing on the highly contagion bug to others–which has been happening and will continue
to happen.
Here's another financial hit for the working class: child care. Schools are beginning to
shut down. Even where no cases are yet confirmed. Stanford University just decided to
discontinue all in class sessions and revert to all online education. But what about K-6 and
pre-school? Or even Jr. high schools? When they shut down, kids must stay at home. But most
working class parents can't afford nannys or baby-sitters. Not everyone works in an occupation
or company where they can 'work from home'. Do they send the young kids to grandma's and
grandpa's, who are more susceptible to the virus? With their kids required to stay home, they
must miss work, and risk even losing their jobs. We're talking about millions of families with
6 to 12 year olds. And who knows how long the schools will remain shut down.
In short, wages lost due to self-quarantining, forced voluntary quarantining after hospital
testing, the cost of hospital emergency room visits (whether insured or not), the unknown cost
of the tests themselves (the government says it will reimburse them but they don't have the
$1,000 or more cash out of pocket in the first place), the cost of paying for nannys or
baby-sitters for young school age children when schools shut down–i.e. all result in a
massive out of pocket expense for most workers that they don't have.
Workers figure all these possibilities of financial disaster pretty quick and know that the
virus will mean a big financial hit if they miss a day's work, or even if they don't. So they
keep working, hoping they'll recover on their own, refusing to get tested because of the
potential loss of work, wages, and income, and crossing their fingers that their kids' school
districts don't shut down.
What this all means for the US economy is obvious. Household consumption was already
weakening at the end of last year. Most of consumption was driven by accelerating stock
valuations, which affect those in the top 10% who own stocks; or by taking on more
credit–credit cards, which affects the middle class and below.
Over $1 trillion in credit card debt is what has been largely driving middle income and
below consumption. Mainstream economists argue that defaults on credit card debt are only 3% or
so, and thus not a problem. But that's a gross average across all 130 million households. When
this data are broken down, middle income and below family credit card debt is around 9%, a very
high number more like 2007 when the last economic recession began.
Then there's auto debt. As of 2018, reportedly 7 million turned in their keys on their auto
loans. As in the case of credit cards, auto debt defaults will rise as well in 2020. Then
there's student debt, over $1.6 Trillion now. Defaults there are much higher than reported as
well, since actual defaults (defined as failure to pay either principal or interest) have been
redefined to something else other than actual default.
Add to all this the likelihood is very high that job layoffs will now begin by April, as the
global supply chain crisis due to virus-related cuts in production and trade. More job loss
means less wage income and thus less household spending and more inability to deal with the
costs of the virus for most working class families.
Let's not also forget the price gouging for certain products that is beginning now to
appear, both online and in stores. That reduces working class real incomes and thus consumption
too. Meanwhile, certain industries are already taking a big hit and layoffs are looming in
travel companies of all kinds (airlines, cruise ships, hotels, entertainment). In places where
the virus effect is already large, a big decline in restaurant, sports and concerts, movies,
etc. has also begun.
The two big economic contagion channels impacting employment thus far are supply chain
production and distribution reductions, and local demand for certain services (travel, retail,
hospitality, etc.).
But a third major channel has just begun to emerge: that's financial asset deflation in
stocks, oil & commodity futures, junk bonds & leveraged loans, and currency
devaluations.
Stocks' price collapse leads to business shelving investment and even cutting back
production. That means more job loss, reduced wage incomes, less spending, and economic
slowdown.
Oil and commodity prices now collapsing also lead to energy industry layoffs. More
importantly, in turn that will lead to energy junk bond market collapse–potentially
spreading to all junk bonds, leveraged loans, and even BBB grade corporate bonds (which are
really redefined junk bonds not investment grade bonds).
In other words, the collapse of supply chains, production-distribution, and industry by
industry demand in the US may become even worse should the financial markets price collapse can
lead to a general credit crunch. And that translates into a general economic real contraction.
That's precisely what happened in 2008, in a similar chain reaction from financial crisis to
real economic crisis.
Workers are aware of all this possibly leading to longer run economic stress. In the short
run, they consider possible wages loss if they reveal or report they have the virus, or get
tested: i.e. lost wage incomes: the cost of immediate medical care; the cost of child care,
etc. Better to tough it through and continue to go to work is a typical, and rational,
response.
This is already going on. Hundreds of thousands with, and without, symptoms are not being
tested; nor will most of them volunteer to be. Except for those on cruise ships who are forced
to be tested (and they're mostly retirees and elderly), few workers can afford to allow
themselves to be. The infection rate is thus already much higher and will continue to rise.
Voluntary quarantining doesn't work much (again just look at Italy, or even Germany, where in
one week cases (tested) rose from 66 to more than 1000). So out of economic necessity and to
avoid personal economic devastation, they continue to work. But that doesn't have to be.
US Policy Response: No Help for Working Class
US policy has been, is, and will continue to be a disaster. Trump's cuts to health and human
services in the past seriously hampered the US initial response. Tests had to be sent to
Atlanta and the CDC for processing. Early test kits often failed. Only now are they getting to
the states–to late to have a positive initial effect on the spread. Those suspected of
exposure to others confirmed infected were simply sent home for 'voluntary quarantine'. Initial
legislation of $8.3 billion just passed by Congress provides for 'reimbursement' for voluntary
testing, with no clarification if that covers the $1,000 hospital visit as well or just the
cost of the actual test!
There could be, however, a government response that financially supports workers and allows
them to be properly tested and treated.
An Alternative Policy Response
Why doesn't the government simply say 'go get tested for free' and the hospital will bill
the government for the costs? Not the worker pay up front with money he/she likely doesn't
have. Why isn't there emergency legislation by Congress or the states to require employers to
provide at least 14 days of paid sick leave, like other countries? And law guaranteeing
employers can't fire a worker sick with the virus for any reason? Or tax credits to working
class families for the full cost of child care–paid to a nanny or to the worker–if
they have to stay home in the event of a school district shutdown?
While business-investor tax cuts will almost certainly be the official government response,
few of the above measures for working class Americans are likely. In America working class
folks always get the short end of the economic stick. Congress and presidents pass trillions of
dollars in tax cut legislation ($15 trillion since 2001 to investors, businesses and the 1%),
but have raised taxes on the working class. Companies with billions of dollars in annual
profits pay nothing in taxes–and actually get a subsidy check from the government to
boot. Just ask Amazon, IBM, many big banks, pharmaceutical companies and more!
It can be expected the virus will have a large negative impact the standard of living and
wages of millions of working class families. They will have to bear the burden of the cost with
little help from their government. Meanwhile, businesses and investors will get bailed out,
'made whole', once again. In the process Consumption spending–the only area holding up
the economy in 2019–will take a big hit. That means recession starting next quarter is
more than a 50-50 likelihood.
In fact, the investment bank, Goldman Sachs, has just forecast that the effect on the US
economy in the coming second quarter of this year will be a collapse of GDP to 0% growth.
Jack Rasmus is author of the recently published book, 'Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and
the Coming Depression', Clarity Press, August 2017. He blogs at
jackrasmus.com and his twitter handle is @drjackrasmus. His website is http://kyklosproductions.com .
"... Trump's narcissism obscures something both far more pernicious and far more permanent than his oft-televised obsession with himself and that's the fact that he's been busily making Milton Friedman's "Supply Side/The Bottom Line Is The Only Line" dream an intractable reality. ..."
"... Since taking office and taking complete control of the news-cycle, Trump has been systematically starving Federal agencies of resources, personnel and attention. He has, through the sycophants and lobbyists he's installed around the Executive Branch, been pushing out career professionals and barely replacing them with also-rans. And he is dismantling every aspect of government he cannot use to reward his corporate clients or punish political apostates. ..."
"... The idea is to cripple the Federal government from within instead of doing the hard legislative work of changing the laws that legally compel government action. As a result, many of the regulations on the books are becoming functionally irrelevant . Some laws are being rewritten by the lobbyists who used to lobby against 'em, but mostly the Executive Branch is being systematically emaciated by the political equivalent of chronic wasting disease. ..."
"... And any coronavirus-related "incompetence" you see being reported is a feature, not a bug, of this Re-Great'd America. And that's because Trump is not an outlier. He is a culmination. ..."
As COVID-19 begins its inevitable "community transmission" phase around the United States, the
purveyors of the conventional wisdom are largely focused on President Trump's (and by
extension,
prayerful Vice President Pence's) incompetence and his self-serving, empathy-free approach
to the coronavirus. And it is true that, as with all things Trump, it seems that all he really
cares about is the stock market and its effect on his reelection bid. But Trump's narcissism
obscures something both far more pernicious and far more permanent than his oft-televised
obsession with himself and that's the fact that he's been busily making Milton Friedman's
"Supply Side/The Bottom Line Is The Only Line" dream an intractable reality.
It was a dream that first took flight when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. The dream was
often made manifest by the neoliberal lurch and deregulatory impulses of President Bill
Clinton. But it is Trump who's come closest to fully realizing the dream of ending responsive
government. It should come as no surprise, though. Trump lifted, among other things ,
his " Make America
Great Again " slogan from the Gipper. He's also taken Reagan's anti-FDR pitch about the
dangers of government (see "The Deep State") and, with the help of a motley crew of Tea
Partiers, Evangelicals and corporate Republicans, transformed it into, as Steve Bannon calls
it, a "
War on the Administrative State ."
Since taking office and taking complete control of the news-cycle, Trump has been
systematically starving Federal agencies of resources, personnel and attention. He has, through
the sycophants
and
lobbyists he's installed around the Executive Branch, been pushing out career professionals
and barely replacing them with also-rans. And he is dismantling every aspect of government
he cannot
use to reward his corporate clients or punish political apostates.
The idea is to cripple the Federal government from within instead of doing the hard
legislative work of changing the laws that legally compel government action. As a result, many
of the regulations on the books are becoming
functionally irrelevant . Some laws are being rewritten by the lobbyists who used to lobby
against 'em, but mostly the Executive Branch is being systematically emaciated by the political
equivalent of chronic wasting disease.
It's an approach first pioneered by Reagan devotee Grover Norquist, who advocated "
starving the beast
" of government down to a manageable size before "drowning it" in a bathtub. It's an idea
currently being implemented with wide-ranging effect by Trump, who, like Reagan before
him , is
accelerating the bankrupting of the already debt-laden treasury with a combo of tax cuts
and massive spending on a world-dwarfing defense industry. Eventually, the theory goes, the
"safety net," a.k.a. "entitlements," and other "common good" spending will collapse under the
weight of the financial limitations generated by profuse borrowing to fund market-distorting
tax cuts and to dole out subsidies and tax gifts to cronies and key corporations. All the
while, the ever-less regulated chemical, oil, defense, agricultural and (most importantly of
all) financial industries will continue to hoard assets through the rinsing and repeating of
the supply side boom-and-bust scheme, a.k.a. the business cycle.
Frankly, this all looks like the endgame of a long plan to undo the demand side economy
created by the New Deal. Along with the seemingly (but not) contradictory spike in Unitary
Executive power (which is about protecting rackets, shielding enforcers from prosecution
and about enforcing political compliance), this is a transformation decades in the making and
Trump is the perfect salesman for this final episode even better than Reagan or Clinton because
his "flood the zone" narcissism is the ultimate, 24/7 distraction for a people addicted to
binge watching, inured to scripted reality shows and motivated by belligerent infotainment.
Reagan was the first actor to hit his marks on a stage set for him by the interlocking
forces of Big Oil, Big Defense and Wall Street. Not coincidentally, this same Venn Diagram of
power has profited mightily from Trump's Presidency. Rather than an actor, though, Trump is the
barking emcee of the final season of the American Dream Gameshow a program that was initially
cancelled in 1980, but somehow kept running in syndication on one of the two crappy channels a
"free" people have been given to chose from. But now, the final credits are closer to rolling
that ever before.
As such, Trump is the omega to Reagan's alpha. And any coronavirus-related "incompetence"
you see being reported is a feature, not a bug, of this Re-Great'd America. And that's because
Trump is not an outlier. He is a culmination.
JP Sottile is a freelance journalist, published historian, radio co-host and documentary
filmmaker (The Warning, 2008). His credits include a stint on the Newshour news desk, C-SPAN,
and as newsmagazine producer for ABC affiliate WJLA in Washington. His weekly show, Inside the
Headlines w/ The Newsvandal, co-hosted by James Moore, airs every Friday on KRUU-FM in Fairfield, Iowa.
It seems this nice;) senator may have corona CNN reporting..
"Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will self-quarantine after CPAC interaction"
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz will self-quarantine in Texas after interacting with an
individual at the Conservative Political Action Conference who tested positive for the
coronavirus.
"The interaction consisted of a brief conversation and a handshake," Cruz said in a
statement. "
Cruz said in a statement he is "not experiencing any symptoms" but "out of an abundance of
caution" he will remain in Texas until a full 14 days passes after the interaction.
"The people who have interacted with me in the 10 days since CPAC should not be concerned
about potential transmission," Cruz said.
"... the American little people of all stripes are feeling frightened and abandoned by the great GDP god of the globalists. Being prepared for something is about all we little people can hope to do. And all the chattering class can do is still call us names. The joy of that. ..."
US Dear Leaders face difficult decisions regarding mass closures of everything. The poor
social infrastructure can't handle major disruptions. Closing schools could maybe cause
more harm than staying open, since many students depend on going to school just to get two
meals. Some places even have special summer programs so kids can eat all year round.
In addition, without public school babysitters many families would be f*cked but good.
There is nobody to look after kids while the parent(s) are struggling to make a living. It
is just as bad if the kids get sick - who will stay home and take care of them?
Closing schools would also devastate school finances since many revenue sources pay
based on number of bums-in-seats. If the bums-in-seats drops to zero...
Hourly workers like bus drivers and custodians and food service workers would be laid
off. Some might qualify for unemployment compensation, many others would not. Lots of
economic devastation among those folks in any case.
The medical consequences may get bad, but for the overall economy already stretched to
the limit, mass closures will be a catastrophe.
... The virus appears to be real. If part of this is a psy-op, would that not also link to
a higher probability that it could be bio-engineered? Released intentionally? Another
9/11-esque? Cover for an Western Economy in collapse? Myriad possibilities.
I'm in Seattle, it's no joke around here. I may have had it myself which I posted about
here recently. Comparing this to people dying from car accidents or "normal" flu every year
is retarded. This will (and already has) have profound impact on local and international
economies- ie peoples lives dumbass.
I've seen enough humans living in tents, cars and streets around here to make my stomach
turn. The impact from this may put many more in dire scenarios that do not even get the
flu. Certainly the potential implications of where this came from and how far it will go
should at least raise eyebrows from anyone with a shred of critical thinking and
compassion.
I heard a Wall Street expert today say on CNBC that, in some US states, if an employer
demands or permits a sick employee to be at work, any other workers who contract the
disease can get worker's comp. The employer is liable.
Apparently there's also an uptick in PC/laptop sales for those working from home.
We dont have a government in the US in the sense of people who manage policy and services
and budgets and laws and such. At this point its pretty much every man woman child for
themselves. We know how those people stuck on cruise ship feel.
And of whom Trump said (reportedly):
"he wanted the passengers to remain on the ship because he doesn't want to see the total US
case numbers 'double' as soon as it docks"
The coming economic fallout from Coronavirus will test the advice I've given people over
the years about where to work within the overall economy: Make certain you're on the
"Needs" side of the economy, not the "Discretionary" side.
As when the shit hits the fan, needs will always be needed while discretionary demand
fades to zero.
Frackers are already using euphemisms to cover their massive Ponzi Scheme failure, while
the entire Just-In-Time Neoliberal business model gets ready to collapse. The massive debt
bomb created by the Fed is close to imploding. The great irony of it all stems from the
revelation that the virus likely originated within the Outlaw US Empire--the parasitic worm
is close to entering the host's brain.
Even if it turns out to be a "nothing burger", the resultant will be that the capitalist
countries affected by the virus will emerge poorer and even more unequal than before.
That's because they are resorting to monetary devices to try to "fight" the virus. These
will only give big business the tools and the narrative to play siege economy (a.k.a.
Disaster Capitalism); they'll hoard what is most needed, wait for small and medium
businesses to go bankrupt and reap the spoils from the ground when the epidemic is
over.
People are panicking because they don't trust the American system of doing governance and
business. Gone are the days of local communities working together, or even having say over
their hospitals that they built. Still wondering why the communities didn't get any money
when said hospitals were sold to some network, but I am digressing here. Sorry. Then it was
not that long ago (Reagan presidency) that drugs, materials, food, and so on were made
here.Our financial overlords said that wasn't efficient, and we need to ship abroad. Now we
just make parasitical managers. I dare anyone to say what tangible gain the managerial
class brings other than college degrees and a insatiable lust for power.
So with a possible bioweapon escaping, or released, the American little people of
all stripes are feeling frightened and abandoned by the great GDP god of the globalists.
Being prepared for something is about all we little people can hope to do. And all the
chattering class can do is still call us names. The joy of that.
It didn't start with Trump. There are plenty of Democrats to blame. Harry Truman gets
the primary "buck stops here" award for allowing the CIA to be created. Trump will never do
this, but he needs to appoint someone apolitical to start investigating our myriad deep
state biolabs. Watch who first comes out with a vaccine.
When the first waves of plague swept medieval Europe, the disease killed both the rich and
the poor indiscriminately. In July 1348, King Edward III of England's 12-year-old daughter
died on her way to Spain to marry King Pedro of Castile. And though he was still mourning,
the king threw a giant tournament at Westminster in the fall, despite instructions from
clergy and doctors that moderation and abstinence were the key to survival. Nearly 672
years later, rich people still want their travel and amusement even amid coronavirus fears,
and in typical fashion, they're doing everything they can to make sure sickness remains the
province of the poor.
bipartisan cuts have been made to public health programs and emergency preparedness
readiness. Opportunities afforded by the experiences with SARS and the Middle East Respiratory
syndrome to develop vaccine programs have gone unheeded, citing costs to produce such vaccines.
This is the nature of for-profit medicine that demands a guarantee on such investments. The
estimates for a vaccine discovery and production can run over a billion dollars.
Compounding this dire situation is the barbaric reality that almost a quarter of workers
have no guaranteed sick leave. This impacts the service industries most harshly which are also
the most exposed to the public because of the nature of their work. In the starkest expression
of utter disdain for the health of Americans, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, a
former drug company executive, told Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat from Illinois, that
no promises could be made to make a vaccine affordable, let alone free for the public. "We
can't control that price because we need the private sector to invest."
According to an Uber driver by the name of Alvaro Balainez, 33 years old, "If one of us gets
sick, we will have no choice but to keep driving. We don't have medical savings, because we're
barely making enough to pay our rent or bills." Despite public health warnings, these workers
will be compelled, by the sheer realities of their non-existent bank accounts, to carry on
working and gamble with their own health and those they will expose.
The Washington Post noted that workers who prepare foods at restaurants and school
cafeterias or nursery and child day-care workers have the nation's lowest rates of paid sick
leave in the private sector, at 58 percent. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) reported that at least one in five food service workers have reported to work despite
having symptoms of diarrhea or vomiting.
President Trump's remarks only cut across the warnings made by health providers and
infectious disease experts about the contagiousness of the disease and higher than expected
fatality it poses when he said, "a lot of people will have this and it's very mild. They'll get
better very rapidly. They don't even see a doctor. They don't even call a doctor. You never
hear about those people. So, you can't put them down in the category of the overall population
in terms of this corona flu- or virus. We have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people
that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work -- some of them go to
work but they get better."
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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by Tyler Durden Sun, 03/15/2020 - 09:20 Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,
1 minute ago The thing is most people at Zerohedge have no idea about the reality in Germany and the other European countries and the psychicological robustness of its people. This crisis is nothing compared to the catastrophies of the 20th century. In times of challenge one can see who is strong and effective and acting in solidarity. And this is it what the extended Euroland is going to show soon. A masterplan for Euroland how to overcome this Corona problems. It takes time to adopt but things do move already in the right direction. Banning travel is a harsh measure but the right thing in this situation.
