Daily News Digest February 2, 2022
Humanity Will Not be Covid Free, Until the Vaccines are Free For the Whole World
Image of the Day:
Disaster (Vulture) Capitalism: Big Pharma’s Covid-19 Profiteers
Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Ws Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 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!
Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, there have been perpetual wars for perpetual peace, this Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, Under the Banner Headline: “There Is No Peace”, is Still True for Today’s 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! For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel! Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!
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:
Govnment Robber Barons — We are Governed by Crooks!: While lawmakers who violate the STOCK Act face a fine, the penalty is usually small — $200 is the standard amount — or waived by House or Senate ethics officials. Ethics watchdogs and even some members of Congress have called for stricter penalties or even a ban on federal lawmakers from trading individual stocks, although neither has come to pass. — 54 Members of Congress Have Violated a Law Designed to Stop Insider Trading and Prevent Conflicts-Of-Interest
Despite widespread concerns about polarization, the most significant problem has long been the overlap between the two parties, both of which have embraced rather than just accepted a neoliberalism that has weakened collective institutions and the values that sustained them. One result of these shared interests is that, in moments of crisis, elites have closed ranks, accepting even catastrophic failures of leadership as part of the political process. A state that aspires to be democratic in substance rather than just in name cannot accept this kind of impunity. As Nichols recognizes, change is hard to imagine when the “courts are packed with partisan judicial activists who protect their benefactors in the legislative and executive branches,” but his book makes a forceful case for the political as well as moral importance of ensuring that the guilty men and women of the pandemic face judgment. — Culpable Leadership in “Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers”
Videos of the Day:
Ukrainians Doubt a Russian Invasion Is Imminent as U.S. Peace Groups Urge Biden to Halt Escalation
Germany Refuses to Send Arms to Ukraine Despite Pressure from U.S. & NATO
An Arkansas Jail Tested Ivermectin ‘Treatment’ On Detainees Without Their Consent
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 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. Tax the Rich! — They Can Afford to Pay!
Amid Push for Ban, Lawmakers Traded $355 Million of Stock in 2021 “Members of Congress should be focused on their constituents—not advancing their own stock portfolios,” said Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan.cb As the coronavirus pandemic continued to roil the U.S. economy and take lives in 2021, congressional lawmakers and their family members went on a stock buying and selling spree, trading an estimated $355 million worth of shares in Facebook, Apple, and other prominent corporations.
Both GOP and Democratic Party Want Us to Surrender to COVID for Capitalismn Both parties have used different emotional and cultural appeals to justify their support for the same disastrous policy. In the nearly two years of this pandemic, we have endured not only illness, loss and social isolation, but also the mentally exhausting calculations of how to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe under constantly changing variants, infection rates and vaccine protections.
Theranos Verdict: In the U.S., It Is Fine to Lie to Consumers but Not to Investors The verdict on Theranos founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes, who was tried for fraud in a U.S. court, was guilty. Theranos was a company set up by Holmes and her former partner Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani and had promised to revolutionize blood testing. Their advanced biotech equipment—they claimed—would provide results for a whole battery of tests with just a few drops of blood. In its heyday, Theranos was worth more than $9 billion, and Elizabeth Holmes was looked at as “the next Steve Jobs.” She was also the face that launched $724 million in stock sales to private equity firms and venture capitalists. Holmes figured in Time’s 2015 list of the 100 most influential people of the year and was feted by Wall Street as the “world’s youngest self-made female billionaire.”
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!
Believe It Or Not, A Town In CNY is Using the Sun For All of Its Electric Needs Sunshine in Central New York isn’t always easy to come by, especially during the winter months thanks to the shorter days and more extensive cloud cover. So, one may think, how could investing or purchasing solar panels be cost effective during the winter season. Ed Michalenko, DeWitt Town Supervisor, explains how even with the climate we have in CNY using solar energy is paying dividends for the town of DeWitt since they started using the over 7,000 solar panel farm on September 24th, 2020. “It generates 2.6 megawatts of electricity and that covers all of the town of DeWitt’s electric needs and that includes all of our buildings, our streetlights, our facilities such as sewer and water pumps. The town is completely free of fossil fuels for its electric needs.”
North Carolina Fertilizer Plant Fire Forces Thousands to Evacuate The facility has on-site an estimated 500 tons of ammonium nitrate, several times the amount that was at a Texas plant when a 2013 explosion killed 15 people. Thousands of residents who live within a one-mile radius of a fertilizer plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina were ordered to immediately evacuate after a fire broke out at the facility Monday night.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Labor:
Pssible Break up Union Oficials/Boss Partnership?: Mexico Auto Workers Are Set for Landmark Union Vote at General Motors Plant Workers at a massive General Motors plant in central Mexico will vote in a landmark election this week to decide which union will represent the plant’s 6,500 workers. A victory by the independent union there would be a big step toward breaking the stranglehold of the employer-friendly unions that have long dominated Mexico’s labor scene. Employees at the factory in Silao, Guanajuato, voted last August to invalidate the contract bargained by a corrupt local of the Confederation of Mexican Labor (CTM), ending the CTM’s right to represent the workers there. Four unions are now competing to represent them. Two have ties to the CTM; activists suspect a third union, about which little is known, was created to sow confusion. The fourth, SINTTIA (the National Auto Workers Union), is an independent union that grew out of the campaign to remove the previous corrupt union, and the campaign to reinstate a group of workers who were fired after refusing overtime in solidarity with striking U.S. GM workers in 2019.
Economy:
According to the economic propaganda of Milton Freidman and mainstream economists, the Yankee economy is booming. But this “boom” is based on slurring over the differences between profits made on war (military capitalism) as opposed to an economy that produces real goods and services. It also lumps together profits made on fictitious capital and profits made on industrial capital. Since China invests far more in infrastructure than in war or fictitious capital, it is way ahead in the real economy. Michael Hudson and Michael Roberts elaborate in these presentations.— How Far Behind is Yankeedom From China? A Political Economy Analysis
A Wall Street Veteran Speaks Out – Bubbles & the Planet Some time ago Jeremy Grantham (83), a renowned value investor who runs the $65 billion asset fund GMO, called the stock market a “super bubble.” (Source: Erik Schatzker, Jeremy Grantham Has an Even Scarier Prediction Than His Crash Call, Bloomberg, January 26, 2022) Nowadays, a lot of the air has come out of hot stocks of the covid era, losing 30%-40%-50%, or more, in only a couple of months, e.g. Netflix falling from $700 down to $390/share within 3 weeks. That’s a lot of hot air wheezing out quickly. As Joe Granville, market technician 1923-2013, famously said: They (investors) are “bag-holders.” The title of the Bloomberg Grantham article refers to more than overvalued stocks, wherein he claims a Goldilocks period over “the past 25 years is ending, and the world needs to prepare for a future of inflation, slower growth, and labor shortages,” as stated in the Bloomberg Front Row interview.
New Questions Emerge: Is the New York Fed Working for the American People or the Wall Street Banks that Own It? Adding to a very long laundry list of questions about exactly whom the New York Fed serves, is the help-wanted ad that was posted four days ago. The ad is for a Financial Planning & Analysis Expert to work at the New York Fed’s headquarters in lower Manhattan. One part of the job description is this: “modelling of potential investment opportunities.” The New York Fed is supposed to be implementing monetary policy on behalf of the United States as mandated by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). As far as public FOMC records indicate, the New York Fed has not been assigned the job of seeking out “potential investment opportunities.” So for whom is it seeking out these investment opportunities? Is it looking for profit-making investments for the Wall Street megabanks who own it and whose CEOs rotate on and off its Board of Directors? Had the New York Fed not become so cozy with these megabank executives, one would not have to be asking that question.
World:
Portugal: Socialists On Their Own Portugal’s ruling socialists under prime minister, António Costa, achieved a surprising victory in parliamentary elections on Sunday. The Socialists gained an outright majority in the new parliament over all other parties and will be able to rule without a coalition. The previous so-called gerigonca (contraption) coalition broke down last October when the leftist parties (Communists and Left Bloc) left the coalition over what they saw as an austerity budget being proposed by the Socialists.
North Korea, Perpetual Victim of the US Military-Industrial Complex North Korea’s demands for an agreement to eliminate their nuclear weapons are to end the truce and sign a peace treaty, finally ending the Korean War after nearly 70 years, stop the war games on its borders, and lift the punishing sanctions that are so destructive to the health and wellbeing of its people.
Education, Health, 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 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!