Daily News Digest August 1, 2022

Daily News Digest Archives

Global Warming is Here! (Now)! Capitalism, in its death agony, by its very nature, is incapable to address the problem! It runs on fossil fuel energy. It cannot survive without it!

Images of the Day:

Capitalism to the World! Burn Baby Burn!Poverty on the Rise

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed  System: World Capilalism Has Been Aware of the Comming Catastrophe of Global  for Over 5 Decades 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:

First, I can say with 100% certainty that, when conversations do turn political, they all respond with reflexive nods of recognition when I say: “The overriding problem in America today is that all of the resources go to the handful at the top, and the rest of us are left to fight for the scraps.”     Second, they all appreciate former President Jimmy Carter’s 2015 admonition that the United States is not a democracy, but, rather, an “oligarchy with unlimited political bribery” – in other words, a government of, by and for the wealthy elites, a.k.a. a kleptocracy.     Carter wasn’t the first to state the obvious. In September 2014, the BBC report US is an oligarchy, not a democracy focused on a Cambridge University Press article that reached the same conclusion.     “Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence,” researchers from Princeton and Northwestern concluded. — It’s the Coruption, Stupid!

Videos of the Day:

“Our Lives Depend on Passing Climate Policy”: Meet Congressional Staffer Arrested in Senate Protest

“Hellholes”: Heat Waves Worsen Conditions in Prisons with No Air Conditioning, Understaffing

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 th poor and gives to the Rich. Taxthe Rich!  — They Can Afford to Pay!

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both— Supreme Court Judge Louis D. Brandeis

Pauperizaion of the United States: Price Gouging at the Pump Results in 235% Profit Jump for Big Oil: Analysis “Make no mistake; these profits mark a large transfer of wealth from working- and middle-class people to wealthy oil executives and shareholders,” said Jordan Schreiber of Accountable.US.  As fossil fuel giants this week reported record profits for the second quarter, an analysis out Friday highlighted how eight oil companies have raked in nearly $52 billion over the past three months “while Americans continue to struggle at the pump.”    The review by the watchdog group Accountable.US revealed that from April through June, Chevron, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Hess Corp, Phillips 66, Shell, and TechnipFMC “saw their profits skyrocket from the same time period last year, with income shooting up 235%.”

Robber Barons of the World: The West Can’t Stop Pillaging Other Countries’ Bank Accounts With the explanation that it had to punish Russia for its war in Ukraine, the west stole over $300 billion of Moscow’s money. With the explanation that 9-11 families deserved compensation, the U.S. stole $7 billion from Afghanistan (oh no, it had nothing to do with revenge for losing the war, how could you even think such a thing?) With the explanation that, well, it just didn’t like Venezuela, the U.K., or rather the Bank of England, stole roughly $2 billion of that country’s gold.     See a pattern? Leave your nation’s money in a western bank, and it might not be yours for very long, especially if you in any way bother western politicos, like having an economic system they disapprove of, or sending them packing when they invade your country, or telling NATO where to get off when it threatens to absorb a neighboring nation and plant missiles there. In this last instance, it would have been far better had Moscow waged economic war on NATO countries, instead of an actual war on Kiev. But as it happened, Ukraine got clobbered militarily and dreadfully, and the west launched an economic blitzkrieg on Moscow, accidentally firing all its financial missiles at itself. 

American Diplomacy as a Tragic Drama  As in a Greek tragedy whose protagonist brings about precisely the fate that he has sought to avoid, the US/NATO confrontation with Russia in Ukraine is achieving just the opposite of America’s aim of preventing China, Russia and their allies from acting independently of U.S. control over their trade and investment policy.      Naming China as America’s main long-term adversary, the Biden Administration’s plan was to split Russia away from China and then cripple China’s own military and economic viability.     But the effect of American diplomacy has been to drive Russia and China together, joining with Iran, India and other allies. For the first time since the Bandung Conference of Non-Aligned Nations in 1955, a critical mass is able to be mutually self-sufficient to start the process of achieving independence from Dollar Diplomacy.     Confronted with China’s industrial prosperity based on self-financed public investment in socialized markets, U.S. officials acknowledge that resolving this fight will take a number of decades to play out.        Arming a proxy Ukrainian regime is merely an opening move in turning Cold War 2 (and potentially/or indeed World War III) into a fight to divide the world into allies and enemies with regard to whether governments or the financial sector will plan the world economy and society. What is euphemized as U.S.-style democracy is a financial oligarchy privatizing basic infrastructure, health and education. The alternative is what President Biden calls autocracy, a hostile label for governments strong enough to block a global rent-seeking oligarchy from taking control. China is deemed autocratic for providing basic needs at subsidized prices instead of charging whatever the market can bear.      Making its mixed economy lower-cost is called “market manipulation,” as if that is a bad thing that was not done by the United States, Germany and every other industrial nation during their economic takeoff in the 19^th and early 20^th century.

Environment: Ecocide or Ecosocialism!:

Climate Catastrophe vs. Super Profits: The Real Worries of the Ruling Class Across the world, temperatures and sea levels are rising. But the capitalists and their representatives remain nonchalant – more concerned about protecting their profits than the planet. To stop climate change, we need revolutionary change. The devastating effects of global warming are being felt by billions of people all around the world. Meanwhile, capitalist fat cats are openly downplaying the risk of entire cities being buried beneath the rising oceans as a trifling inconvenience.      Like Emperor Nero before them, the rulers of this destructive system are fiddling – this time – as Rome drowns.     While countless people are at risk of flooding from rising sea levels in the near future, billions are already feeling the effects of drought. Due to rising temperatures and extreme heat, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) estimates that more than 2.3 billion people are right now facing water stress.      Among these, almost 160 million children are exposed to severe and prolonged droughts. Capitalism, and its reckless exploitation of the planet in the name of profit, is denying people the most basic necessities of life, and transforming whole swathes of the earth into deserts.

A Big Fracking Problem:  This ironic cartoon depicts a fracking truck and a man representing the fracking industry pumping the ground a euphemised and nice sounding name of “Secret Sauce”. In cold reality, the fracking fluid being pumped in contains over 300 deadly, environmentally degrading, and carcinogenic chemicals causing the surrounding environment  become dead and barren. The cartoon makes fun of the fracking business successfully keeping it’s fracking formula’s in the dark whilst using chemicals deadly enough to surrounding citizens before the “secret sauce” formula is found out and protested. This cartoon demonstrates the need for both transparency, regulations, and political action.

 ExxonMobil Is Counting on Trump-Chosen Judge to Undermine Right to Sue Polluters Anew ruling on Environment Texas v. ExxonMobil is expected this August. In its second appeal, ExxonMobil is asking the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to restrict the rights citizens have to sue polluters in federal court. One presiding judge, Trump-appointed Federalist Society member Andrew Oldham, agrees.     The largest American oil company has already lost the 12-year-old Clean Air Act citizen lawsuit twice. In 2010, Environment Texas and Sierra Club sued ExxonMobil on behalf of residents of Baytown, Texas, who suffered respiratory and other illnesses as a result of toxic emissions from the company’s Baytown plant, its largest in the world.     In 2017, U.S. District Judge David Hittner ordered the company to pay a $20 million penalty to the U.S. Treasury, the biggest citizen’s suit penalty to date. After the Fifth Circuit overturned that ruling on Exxon’s first appeal, Hittner knocked the penalty down to $14.25 million. Now, ExxonMobil is arguing that Baytown residents have no legal standing to bring the lawsuit to federal court.

Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

Labor: 

Leaked Bank of America Memo: “We Hope” Conditions For American Workers Will Get Worse The financial behemoth privately fears that regular people have too much leverage. A Bank of America executive stated that “we hope” working Americans will lose leverage in the labor market in a recent private memo obtained by The Intercept. Making predictions for clients about the U.S. economy over the next several years, the memo also noted that changes in the percentage of Americans seeking jobs “should help push up the unemployment rate.”  The memo, a “Mid-year review” from June 17, was written by Ethan Harris, the head of global economics research for the corporation’s investment banking arm, Bank of America Securities. Its specific aspiration: “By the end of next year, we hope the ratio of job openings to unemployed is down to the more normal highs of the last business cycle.”

Economy:

Calling a Recession and Blaming It on Interest RatesThe latest US GDP figures for second quarter of 2022 renewed the debate about whether the US economy was in a recession or not.  Real GDP contracted in the second quarter of this year by a 0.9% annualised rate (or by 0.2% quarter over quarter). That meant the US economy had contracted for two successive quarters, and so ‘technically’ (by that definition) was in a recession.  Real GDP is now up only 1.6% from Q2 2021.  And business investment is slowing, up only 3.5% from this time last year, the slowest rate since the end of the COVID slump in 2020. 

Shadow Government Statistics Daily Update – July 29th to August 1st [Posted July 29th, 11:45 a.m. ET]. Inflation-adjusted, real Second-Quarter 2022 GDP showed a second consecutive quarterly contraction, in line with the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow Model and consistent with a “New Recession” call. Induced by the FOMC, a new Recession is in play, despite the official obfuscation already underway. On the June 2022 Money Supply front, again, there was no noticeable slackening in headline money growth that would suggest any pending Inflation relief.

Shadow Government Statistics Flash Commentary, Issue No. 1460b All PagesUnfolding Numbers Show a Much Weaker Economy than Previously Advertised  June 20, 2021

• Fundamentals Could Not Be Stronger for Gold and Silver, nor Weaker for the U.S. Dollar and Stocks, Despite Fed or Market Nonsense to the Contrary
• There Is No V-Shaped Recovery Battered, Non-Recovered May 2021 Payrolls and Unemployment Confirmed a Still-Ravaged Economy on Par With the Great Depression
• Severely Negative Annual Revisions to Industrial Production Mean the Economy Was in Recession Well Before the Pandemic Hit Business-Cycle Conditions Are Collapsing Rapidly, Amidst an Extreme Acceleration in Inflation
• 2021 Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) Could Spike to a 40-Year High, Based on Potential Third-Quarter 2021 CPI-W
• Bureau of Labor Statistics Reveals It Cannot Measure the CPI Properly, At Present FOMC Has Trouble Forecasting Inflation One Quarter Ahead, Let Alone Two Years Ahead Despite Talk of “Tightening” in 2022 or 2023,
• FOMC Is “Easing” Anew in Its Latest Actions

Shadow Government Statistics Money Supply Charts The Fed ceased publishing M-3, its broadest money supply measure, in March 2006. The SGS M-3 Continuation estimates current M-3 based on ongoing Fed reporting of M-3’s largest components (M-2, institutional money funds and partial large time deposits) and proprietary modeling of the balance. See the Money Supply Special Report for full definitions. In February 2021, the Fed redefined its narrowest M-1 Money Supply measure back to May 2020, to incorporate the bulk of Non M-1 M-2, with headline M-1 now covering 93% of total M-2, instead of the prior 28%.  In order to preserve the information reflected in the most liquid measures of M-1, ShadowStats uses the Basic M-1 Money Supply in its charts and Table here.  The original Money Supply measure, Basic M-1 is defined as Currency plus Demand Deposits (checking accounts).

 Wall Street Megabanks’ Multi-Billion Dollar Blunders Suggest Money Controls as Good as George Bailey’s Uncle Billy What do you get when you mix federally-insured banks with Wall Street trading casinos? You get the potential for catastrophic risks for the U.S. taxpayer and astronomical riches for the CEOs of the banks and the hedge fund titans they serve. Why is this Faustian bargain tolerated by Washington lawmakers – especially after the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression in 2008? Because the Wall Street fat cats throw a lot of money into the political campaigns of members of Congress, ensuring that no matter how many times these Frankenbanks make outrageous blunders involving billions of dollars, Congress will conduct a superficial investigation and move on. Below we examine outrageous money blunders by Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley – all of which have the earmarks of the brand of money incompetence as George Bailey’s Uncle Billy in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. Absent-minded Uncle Billy is sent to make a large bank deposit for Bailey’s bank and mistakenly hands the deposit over in a newspaper to the villainous Mr. Potter, bringing the bank to the edge of collapse.    Against that backdrop, consider the news from Reuters on Monday. Barclays, which owns a federally-insured bank in the U.S., Barclays Bank Delaware, made the mistake of issuing $17.6 billion of securities – in error. According to Reuters, Barclays had made an SEC filing to sell a maximum of $20.8 billion “of complex structured and exchange-traded notes,” but then overshot that amount by “about 75%.” How exactly do the investment bankers involved in the deal, the underwriters’ counsel, and the bank’s compliance officers not notice that you overshot your target by $17.6 billion?

World:

The World in 2022: The Gathering Storm The following article is based on a speech delivered by marxist.com editor, Alan Woods, at the recent, hugely successful, International Marxist University. The world situation is characterised by war, chaos and crisis at all levels, leading some to draw the most pessimistic conclusions. In reality, an old order is dying and a new one is struggling to be born. We see that with the revolutionary eruptions in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. What is missing is a clear, revolutionary leadership to lead the working class to victory and to the overthrow of this decaying capitalist system.     When we come to analyse the present situation, it first appears to be a complicated web of contradictory processes. Superficially, the main tendencies are moving in the very opposite of a revolutionary direction.     Impressionistic minds will draw the most pessimistic conclusions. But that would be a fundamental mistake. In analysing events, we must not base ourselves on appearances, but penetrate deeper to understand the underlying processes.     The strategists of Capital are incapable of understanding the real processes taking place in society because they are hopeless empirics who only see the surface of events.

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!