Daily News Digest July 30, 2021

Images of the Day:

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation Going Broke!: PBGC Projections: Multiemployer Program Likely Insolvent by the end of 2025; Single-Employer Program Likely to Eliminate Deficit by 2022 Send the Guy Who Hired The Hit Man to Jail!Another Example of Capitalism as a Failed System: World CaAnpilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Thr eat Over 5 Years Ago and Did Nothing!: Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading Racism, War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!

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!

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!

Quotes of the Day:

“A major lesson from Covid-19 is that even colossally decreased transportation and consumption are not nearly enough and that, instead, transformational system changes are required.” “A major lesson from Covid-19 is that even colossally decreased transportation and consumption are not nearly enough and that, instead, transformational system changes are required.”— William Ripple, Oregon State University, Planet’s Vital Signs Are Reaching Dangerous ‘Tipping Points’ Amid Climate Crisis, Scientists Warn

These are rather simple structure tests described by Jane McAlevey’s brilliant organizing guide No Shortcuts. All the trendy hipster gentrifiers in DSA across the continent can protest as much as they like but they cannot ignore this simple fact: Their “largest socialist organization in a century” has absolutely zero methods for holding their member-legislators accountable to basic organization norms or platform requirements. There is zero reciprocity between the mass mobilizations in the grassroots and these elected “socialists,” meaning DSA is as powerless as it was a decade ago. Sunkara is ebullient in all probability because his profit margins have expanded but I have gained little as someone who is desperately in need of universal healthcare. This is an extraordinary squandering of time and resources contributed by young people who should not have had these contributions wasted in such a fashion. First, always on the horizon lies the climate catastrophe. Imagine if, instead of spending the last five years canvassing for Democrats, they had build a cross-country network of viable structures capable of absorbing millions of refugees from wildfires, killer storms, and other calamities into other states and from across the Global South. Rather than helping New York real estate developers ethnically cleanse Brooklyn and Harlem, what if they had seized vacant properties and turned them into emergency shelters? Second, if history is a viable indicator, the 2022 midterms are going to be a catastrophe. Joe Biden has been pushed to the right by Joe Manchin more than DSA has been able to push him to the left. As a result, the austerity-minded right will give way to the success of an emboldened Tea Party 2.0 that could create a real calamity. — Medicare For All, the Squad and the DSA: Who Controls Whom?

Videos of the Day:

Scientists See Light From the Other Side Of A Black Hole For the First Ever Time

United States:

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, who profit from war and the war budget, voted 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. Tax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay!

The Real Total Casualties of War: Was it Just? America and Her Suicidal Combat Veterans Thirty thousand dead from suicide in 20 years among American service-members and veterans. Brown University’s Costs of War Project, utilizing data from the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), calculates that four times as many men and women who have served in the US military since 9/11 have died by suicide than were killed in the post-9/11 wars. The vast majority of those killed by suicide have been veterans, meaning men and women not still in uniform. While the rate of suicide among active-duty service-members is alarmingly high, the rate among veterans is even more so, and, in particular, it appears highest among combat veterans.

United States: Protests Continue Against Voter Suppression Voting rights are under siege in the United States. The right to vote without restriction is an existential citizenship issue for African Americans. Other ethnic national minorities and white progressives agree. However, President Joe Biden’s administration has no action plan to stop it.Following a speech in Philadephia on July 13, where Biden attacked the Republican effort to overturn the will of the voters, he began a national tour to promote an infrastructure deal with Republicans.This was a slap in the face to civil rights and Black Lives Matter (BLM) leaders and other activists on the ground. Immediately, Black women took the lead in organising protests at the Capitol and Supreme Court to demand that the right to vote be protected. They included Black elected officials and leaders of major civil rights groups. By Malik Miah

I Will Take a Knee With Fist Raised, Wherever I Heard the Nation Anthem! Unequal Justive for All!: Drone Whistleblower Get 45 months in Jail, State Rep. Gets ‘Community Service’ for Allowing Mob into State Capital!: Former Oregon GOP Rep. Pleads Guilty to Letting Violent Mob Into State Capitol Former Oregon Republican state Rep. Mike Nearman has pleaded guilty to official misconduct after he let a violent far-right mob into the state Capitol late last year. Nearman must now pay a $2,700 fine, perform 80 hours of community service and is banned from entering the state Capitol grounds for 18 months. The fine is meant to pay for damages done to the building. The Republican was expelled from office in June for allowing the mob into the state Capitol.Environment:

We’re Still in a Health Crisis. It’s Called Fossil Fuels Fossil fuel pollution killed an average of one in five people, causing nearly 9 million deaths in 2018 alone. While the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the globe, fossil fuels continued to burn. Coal plants continued to poison communities—particularly low-income communities and communities of color—with particulate matter, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and mercury, leading to black lung disease and premature deaths. Oil and gas wells—associated with increased leukemia, asthma attacks, heart problems, and health problems for infants—leaked and flared. All told, fossil fuel pollution killed an average of one in five people, causing nearly 9 million deaths in 2018 alone

It’s Not Human Unwillingness — Its Capitalism’s Unwillingnes!: Human Unwillingness to Surmount the Pandemic Means It’s Unlikely We Will Stop Global Warming As I started a week’s vacation Friday evening, I happened upon a film called “Homo Sapiens” (2016) by Austrian filmmaker Nikolaus Geyrhalter that features scenes of abandoned human-built structures around the world in the process of being reclaimed by nature. The effect being that of an eschatological science fiction scenario where our civilization has been destroyed in some catastrophe and no people are left to witness the gradual erasure of all evidence of our presence.

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Policing “Hate” Supposedly Protects People — But It Really Fuels More Violence “Hate frame” here refers to a conceptual path intended to shape public understanding of an issue — in this case, the root cause of violence — and how society should respond to it. The hate frame identifies sources of violence in ahistorical ways, attributing violence to individuals or groups whose beliefs and actions are extreme and abhorrent to “respectable” society. This frame relies on carceral methods — policing, prosecution, punishment and surveillance — to respond to violence. When we attribute violence to “hate,” we are ignoring or minimizing the structural/systemic violence and inequality that produce unjust racial, class and gender hierarchies. The hate frame particularly ignores the fact that violence and inequality are foundational to the criminal legal system. Ironically, this helps to explain the hate frame’s popularity: It changes nothing in ways that might disrupt the social, economic and political status quo. In brief, the hate frame lets us off the hook: We don’t have to do anything but scream for more police, more training and resources for police.Labor:

If your union trustees state that workers’ pensions are guaranteed — They are lying! The Great Myth: Pensions are ‘Guaranteed’: After the 2008 Crisis, the US Government Bailedout Wall Street, But It Did not Bailout the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

What is the outlook for PBGC’s financial deficit?

PBGC is currently in deficit for the Multiemployer Program. Meanwhile, the Single-Employer Program continues to improve.
PBGC’s most recent Projections Report found the Multiemployer Program is likely to run out of money during the fiscal year 2026. There is a considerable risk that it could run out before then.
By law, the Multiemployer and Single-Employer Programs are operated and financed separately. Assets from one program cannot be used to support the other program.

If PBGC’s Multiemployer Program becomes insolvent, the only funds available to support benefits would be the premiums that continue to be paid by remaining multiemployer plans. As a result, our Multiemployer Program would be unable to pay guaranteed benefits at current levels. If this happens, PBGC’s multiemployer premium income will only provide retirees with a small fraction of their benefit.

Economy:

Michael Roberts: There is still some way to go for the US economy to return to pre-pandemic trend growth

Shadow Government Statistics Daily Update (July 28th to 29th,) July FOMC Policies Were Unchanged

June 2021 “Basic M1” Money Supply Surged to a Record 87.8% Gain Versus Its Pre-Pandemic Trough, Up from 81.1% in May;
All Money Supply and Monetary Base Dollar Levels Are at Historic Highs and at Record- or Cycle-High Growth Rates [See the SYSTEMIC RISK Section for FOMC and Money Supply Details]
June New Orders for Durable Goods Gained 0.8% in the Month, With Surging Inflation and Regularly Volatile Commercial Aircraft Orders; Net of Same, Orders Dropped 1.4% (-1.4%) in the Month and Contracted Quarter-to-Quarter
June New-Home Sales Continued in Deepening Collapse, Amidst Continual Downside Revisions; Consecutive Quarterly Declines in Home Sales and Single-Unit Housing Starts Signal Trouble for the GDP
The Still-Unfolding “Recession-Depression” Recovery Remains Well Shy of Its Pre-Recession Peak, as Indicated, for Example, by Payroll Employment (See the ECONOMIC HEADLINES and coverage in the LATEST NUMBERS Section)
COMBINED IMPACT: Reflecting the Surge in Money, June CPI and PPI Inflation Have Exploded, Well in Excess of Consensus Expectations, While Faltering Business Activity Has Begun to Intensify

Fed Continues to ‘Pump the Wall Street Bubble’!

The Fed Announces Plans to Permanently Backstop Wall Street with a Standing Repo Loan Facility of $500 Billion…Starting Tomorrow You really can’t make this stuff up. A G30 Working Group Chaired by Tim Geithner, the former President of the New York Fed, that secretly sluiced $29 trillion to bail out the Wall Street banks from their hubristic collapse in 2008, released a report today calling for a Standing Repo Facility from the Fed that would be “open to a broad range of market participants….” The ink was barely dry on that report when the Fed issued a press release today saying it was doing just that. The Standing Repo Facility (effectively meaning that it is permanent until the Fed says otherwise) will be able to lend out $500 billion in overnight loans each day at below-market interest rates. If the $500 billion runs out, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has the discretion to increase it. The repo operations will be conducted by the Open Market Desk of the New York Fed – which means that the names of the banks getting the loans will never see the light of day, unless a media powerhouse decides to stand up for democracy and transparency and take the Fed to Court.

World:

Education, Health, Science, 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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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!

Big Pharma vs the People I recently visited Morgantown, WV where 2,000 well-paying jobs are on the chopping block with dire implications for local people, public health, and even national security. The factory across the street from the University of West Virginia’s medical campus has produced generic drugs for six decades. Everything from penicillin to the thyroid meds, which I, like millions of other Americans, take every day. If it’s personal for me, it’s even more so for Carla Shultz. She’s worked the night shift for 13 years, and this isn’t how she expected things to go at the largest and last generic drug manufacturer in the United States. Especially after Covid, when we as a nation learned a whole lot about the fragility of global supply chains, the high cost of monopoly medicine, and the dire health state of much of this nation’s people. And yet, closure is exactly what Viatris, a new entity formed when Morgantown’s Mylan pharmaceuticals merged with an offshoot of Pfizer, plans to do at the end of July unless someone steps in.