Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Now Leads the World In Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World! And Now the Total Caronavirs Deaths in the United States are Over 20% of the Total Death in the Entire World!
During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity, 2.Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3. The Iron Heel! Always Remember: That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing, the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. — The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!
Democracy?:As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%, Only the 1% Voted For Austerity! The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.! Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!
The consumer represents two-thirds of spending in the United States, meaning that GDP growth is going to be dramatically impacted by the fiscal policies of Congress. Spriggs said that “Consumption in many products has fallen below 50 percent of normal 2019 consumption. Consumption of new light trucks and domestic new automobiles are off more than 30 percent. Only food bought for home consumption has kept up with 2019 levels.” While the Federal Reserve has been showering Wall Street with trillions of dollars in below-market rate loans since September 17 of last year, the American worker and struggling American homeowner have once again been kicked to the curb, just as in the financial crisis of 2008. We have to wonder if the CARES Act fiscal stimulus was simply just another way to “foam the runways” for the banks so they don’t have to deal with too many foreclosures hitting them at one time. That was the plan in the last financial crisis. (See How Treasury Secretary Geithner Foamed the Runways With Children’s Shattered Lives.)— Warnings Grow: “We Are in a Massive Economic Downturn”
The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Reublicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War! Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.
Banks Stand to Make $18 Billion in PPP Processing Fees From Cares Act Banks will Make out with $18 billion in fees for processing small business Paycheck Protection Program relief loans during the pandemic, according to calculations by Amanda Fischer, policy director at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a progressive economic think tank.That’s money taken directly out of the overall $640 billion pot of funding Congress allocated to the program it created as part of the CARES Act. “If we did it through a public institution, there would be [more than] $140 billion left,” Fischer noted, as opposed to the $130 billion still up for grabs. The Washington Center for Equitable Growth is releasing an analysis of the government response to the pandemic as soon as this week. By Bryce CovertDeregulation’s Deadly Consequences: Report Details How Trump’s Assault on Government Exacerbated Pandemic “These rollbacks have put all of us—especially low-income communities, Black people and people of color, and essential workers—at higher risk of contracting and dying from Covid-19.” By Jake Johnson
Amazon soil sits in the foreground at the Bom Futuro open air tin mine, one of the largest tin mines in the world, in a deforested section of the Amazon on June 27, 2017 in Bom Futuro, Brazil. (Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Environment:
False Promises: The ‘Green Revolution In Africa’ Is Failing On Its Own Terms Fourteen years ago, the Bill and Melinda Gates and Rockefeller foundations launched the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) with the goal of bringing Africa its own Green Revolution in agricultural productivity. Armed with high-yield commercial seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, AGRA eventually set the goal to double productivity and incomes by 2020 for 30 million small-scale farming households while reducing food insecurity by half in 20 countries. According to a new report from a broad-based civil society alliance, based partly on my new background paper, AGRA is “failing on its own terms.” There has been no productivity surge. Many climate-resilient, nutritious crops have been displaced by the expansion in supported crops such as maize. Even where maize production has increased, incomes and food security have scarcely improved for AGRA’s supposed beneficiaries, small-scale farming households. The number of undernourished in AGRA’s 13 focus countries has increased 30% during the organization’s well-funded Green Revolution campaign. “The results of the study are devastating for AGRA and the prophets of the Green Revolution,” says Jan Urhahn, agricultural expert at the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, which funded the research and on July 10 published False Promises: The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). by Timothy WiseNuclear Alert: Landfills Are No Place for Nuke Waste! Fact: nuclear power is too expensive and simply cannot compete against renewables. The Nuclear Industry’s solution? Cut corners to skimp on costs! And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is actively supporting this rushed attempt to pinch pennies. Less Emergency Planning? Sure, no problem! Fewer inspections? Why, of course! Cheap nuclear waste canisters? You got it! Dump nuclear waste in the local landfill? SAY WHAT? By The Fairewinds Crew
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
There is no democracy in the United States! — Just democracy for the 1%! When the order in the United States is economic and social inequality. The slogan ‘Law and Order’ means the maintenance of that order— Rich 1% First and the poorest of the 99% last!. Real democracy means that we all share the wealth equally! —Roland Sheppard
Labor:
Economy:
Shadow Government Statistics Alternate Inflation Charts The CPI chart on the home page reflects our estimate of inflation for today as if it were calculated the same way it was in 1990. The CPI on the Alternate Data Series tab here reflects the CPI as if it were calculated using the methodologies in place in 1980. In general terms, methodological shifts in government reporting have depressed reported inflation, moving the concept of the CPI away from being a measure of the cost of living needed to maintain a constant standard of living.
Warnings Grow: “We Are in a Massive Economic Downturn” Yesterday, Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard gave a speech via webcast to the National Association for Business Economics. She warned, effectively, that the rosy spin coming out of the Trump administration needed to be weighed against the reality on the ground. Brainard raised the caution that credit downgrades on bonds and corporate defaults are occurring at “a faster pace than in the initial months of the Global Financial Crisis.” Brainard explained as follows: “In downside scenarios, there could be some persistent damage to the productive capacity of the economy from the loss of valuable employment relationships, depressed investment, and the destruction of intangible business capital. A wave of insolvencies is possible. As the Federal Reserve Board’s May Financial Stability Report highlighted, the nonfinancial business sector started the year with historically elevated levels of debt. Already this year, we have seen about $800 billion in downgrades of investment-grade debt and $55 billion in corporate defaults—a faster pace than in the initial months of the Global Financial Crisis. Several measures of default probabilities are somewhat elevated. It remains vitally important to make our emergency credit facilities as broadly accessible as we can in order to avoid the costly insolvencies of otherwise viable employers and the associated hardship from permanent layoffs.” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Mexico: Ayotzinapa – as “historical truth” collapses, we insist it was the state! The battered “historical truth” about the disappearance of the student teachers from Ayotzinapa, an account constructed by the Enrique Peña Nieto government based on torture and grotesque distortions, has completely fallen apart. On 7 July, the Attorney General’s Office confirmed the identification of Christian Alfonso Rodríguez Telumbre, one of the 43 student teachers. His remains were not found in the Cocula dump, or in the San Juan River, but in a place 800 meters from where Peña’s version of the “truth” was built. By Adrian AlvaradoHealth, Science, Education, and Welfare:
The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who ‘governn’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People Vote on Healthcare
Teachers and Students Are Not Yours to Sacrifice When governors began prematurely reopening their states, I was angry. I was angry because I knew it was dangerous and would cost people their lives, but I was also angry because I could see it for what it was: a literal death sentence for public schools. Ask any teacher, and they will tell you they are eager to get back into a classroom with students. Fully virtual school is not what any of us want. We will have to completely reshape our lessons and how we teach, not to mention the daunting task of building relationships with students over a screen. At the same time, many of us also know that going back to school isn’t even an option right now. Far too often, teachers’ voices are conspicuously absent from important discussions on education. The discussion around reopening schools is no different. We have heard from elected officials, pediatricians, journalists, and so on. One thing they all have in common? They aren’t teachers, and their knowledge of how schools actually operate is practically non-existent. Their opinions are ill-informed at best and dangerous at worst. My goal here, instead, is to provide a teacher’s perspective on the arguments for reopening and to push us to do better by our students and our communities. For once, please listen to us. By Molly Tansey
Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, Under the Banner Headline: “There Is No Peace”
Deregulation’s Deadly Consequences: Report Details How Trump’s Assault on Government Exacerbated Pandemic “These rollbacks have put all of us—especially low-income communities, Black people and people of color, and essential workers—at higher risk of contracting and dying from Covid-19.” By Jake Johnson
Nuclear Alert: Landfills Are No Place for Nuke Waste! Fact: nuclear power is too expensive and simply cannot compete against renewables. The Nuclear Industry’s solution? Cut corners to skimp on costs! And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is actively supporting this rushed attempt to pinch pennies. Less Emergency Planning? Sure, no problem! Fewer inspections? Why, of course! Cheap nuclear waste canisters? You got it! Dump nuclear waste in the local landfill? SAY WHAT? By The Fairewinds Crew
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
