Daily News Digest September 14, 2022
Images of the Day:
Driven by Mortgages, U.S. Household Debt Hits New High U.S. household debt climbed to a record high of $15.0 trillion in the second quarter of 2021, as mortgage debt climbed to $10.4 billion amid a refinancing boom. According to the New York Fed’s latest Household Debt and Credit Report, mortgage debt increased by a whopping $282 billion between April and June.
Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Has Been Aware of the Comming Catastrophe of Global Warming 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 very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
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:
Of all the politicians in Congress, Biden has always been the most pro-bank and pro-financial sector, largely because he comes from Delaware, which is the corporate headquarters for most companies in the United States, including the credit card companies. Also, Biden has been the most hostile toward students. He recently characterized students who are going to college, saying, who needs a college degree? A lot of them just get in the humanities, and we really don’t need them. So he has a kind of a visceral contempt for students. And it was Biden who made sure that in the bankruptcy law that was reformed, I think, over a decade ago, that student debt could not be wiped out from bankruptcy. So of all the politicians, Biden has been the most hostile, personally hostile, as well as just serving the banking interests in opposing the interests of students. And this is what really sets American social policy and economic policy more against other countries than any other polchael Hudson, A Short History of Inflation in Modern Timese.
Videos of the Day:
Economist Michael Hudson on Debt Relief, Inflation, Ukraine Disaster Capitalism, Petrodollar Crisis
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. Rax the 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.” ― Louis Brandeis
The 1%’s Courts: Fossil Fuel Giants Have Targeted 150+ Activists With ‘Judicial Harassment’: Report “People must be able to add their voice, without fear of retaliation, to the public debates that will determine the future direction of our country and our planet.” In a first-of-its-kind analysis, the nonprofit legal organization EarthRights International on Monday published research showing how the fossil fuel industry has targeted more than 150 climate campaigners and community leaders in recent years with lawsuits aimed at silencing protests, as well as other forms of “judicial harassment.” The group identified 152 cases in which fossil fuel companies used judicial intimidation tactics to stop critics from organizing against oil, gas, and coal extraction, including 93 strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP) and 49 “abusive subpoenas” directed at individuals and groups.
It Is Time to Throw the Monarchies of the World Into the Dustbin of History The royals are oligarchs. They are guardians of their class. The fawning adulation of Queen Elizabeth in the United States, which fought a revolution to get rid of the monarchy, and in Great Britain, is in direct proportion to the fear gripping a discredited, incompetent and corrupt global ruling elite. The global oligarchs are not sure the next generation of royal sock puppets – mediocrities that include a pedophile prince and his brother, a cranky and eccentric king who accepted suitcases and bags stuffed with $3.2 million in cash from the former prime minister of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, and who has millions stashed in offshore accounts – are up to the job. Let’s hope they are right
US Democracy Nothing But s Fig Leaf More than one week after the end of the “Summit for Democracy”, US politicians continue talking about it as if it was a magnificent costume. Absurd. Their democracy was founded 200 years ago on the bones of indigenous and African people.
The Supreme Court Won’t Save Us — It Was Founded to Defend White Supremacy The Constitution, which expressly calls for the Supreme Court’s existence, was drafted using blackness as the counterpoint to the framers’ core democratic values. In fact, the Constitution was written by slaveowners and was intended to be, inwords of the fhistorian David Waldstreicher, “deliberately ambiguous — but operationally proslavery.” Indeed, several of the Constitution’s clauses were written with the intent to strengthen the institution of slavery, such as the clause granting Congress the power to marshal “the Militia” to “execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” This clause made it possible to subdue, by any means necessary, the insurrections the framers and slaveholders feared the most, which were rebellions led by Black enslaved people. Furthermore, the constitutional guarantee to private property, made possible through the genocide of Indigenous tribes and theft of their lands, sought to promote the economic prosperity and spatial freedom of whites. The court protected the business of slavery for over three generations.
The Weapons Industry as a Taxpayer Scam Military contractors and arms manufacturers cash in as Congress adds billions to the Pentagon budget each year. Congress has spoken when it comes to next year’s Pentagon budget and the results, if they weren’t so in line with past practices, should astonish us all. The House of Representatives voted to add $37 billion and the Senate $45 billion to the administration’s already humongous request for “national defense,” a staggering figure that includes both the Pentagon budget and work on nuclear weapons at the Department of Energy.
The US Must Ends Its Complicity in Illicit Financial Flows Out of Africa Currently, there are no consequences for the U.S.-based companies involved in the illicit looting of African nations’ wealth. If you caught the breaking news story about Russians flying gold out of Sudan, straight from the mines, you were likely shocked by the blatant theft. The truth is that for years, every year, nearly $90 billion of African resources are lost to the Global North in Illicit Financial Flows, or IFFs. It isn’t just the Russians—U.S.-based corporations and others throughout the Global North are also complicit in this theft.
Environment: Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
Release the Dirty Permitting Bill Draft Now If Congress establishes a permitting system that disempowers communities and weakens environmental protections, the clean energy industry build out will come at the expense of the most vulnerable in our society. . . . Whether you call it the Permitting Reform Bill, the Polluter Loophole Bill, or just “Schumer’s Deal with Manchin,” there is legislation in works that threatens to change bedrock environmental laws in ways that would curtail or even remove the ability of communities across America to influence whether or not they’ll have mining or fossil fuel projects built near their homes.
How Economic Inequality Drives Climate Change The heat. Never been hotter in our lifetimes. This past spring the mercury nearly hit 124 in the Pakistani city of Jacobabad, “just below,” notes science writer David Wallace-Wells, “the conventional estimate for the threshold of human survival.” This summer’s U.S. daily high temperatures are continuing our torrid global pace. America’s media have been teeming over recent weeks with stats on heat horrors. In Phoenix, “a sprawling urban heat island,” daily highs have averaged well over 100 all summer long. The National Weather Service in interior Northern California last month warned that record high temperatures had placed the “the entire population” at risk.
‘Hidden Killer’: Experts Urge Action After Study Shows How Air Pollution Causes Lung Cancer “If you want to address human health, you have to address climate health first,” said Charles Swanton, who led the research team. “The same particles in the air that derive from the combustion of fossil fuels, exacerbating climate change, are directly impacting human health.” Experts emphasized the importance of more ambitiously addressing air pollution from fossil fuels after the presentation of a new breakthrough on lung cancer in Paris on Saturday.
Civil Rights/ Black Liberarion:
Corporate Involvement in Jackson’s Infrastructure Set Stage for Its Water Crisis We look at how corporate involvement in Jackson, Mississippi’s infrastructure helped set the stage for its water crisis, as tens of thousands of residents of the majority-Black city remain under a boil water advisory. The main water treatment plant was damaged after a flood in late August, and while water pressure has been restored to most homes, viral videos show undrinkable brown liquid coming out of many taps. Mississippi’s Governor Tate Reeves has said “privatization is on the table” for the state capital. This could lead to a repeat of problems stemming from a $90 million contract Jackson signed in 2010 with the German multinational conglomerate Siemens to overhaul the city’s water infrastructure and install new water meters meant to raise extra revenue and help the city reinvest in the system. “This contract ended up being a disaster,” says Judd Legum, who wrote about the Siemens deal for his independent political newsletter Popular Information. “There was essentially a lost decade where the system deteriorated further and there were really no substantial investments made, and that’s part of the reason why we see what’s going on today.”
Labor:
15,000 Minnesota Nurses Launch Historic Strike to Put ‘Patients Before Profits’ “We feel like this is the only thing we can do,” said one nurse. “Hospitals tell us it’s our fault, but we’ve been actively involved and getting nowhere.” About 15,000 nurses in Minnesota walked off the job on Monday for a historic three-day strike after months of failed contract negotiations during the Covid-19 pandemic. Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) last month voted overwhelmingly in support of what the union says is the “largest private sector nurses strike in U.S. history.” Nurses with MNA argue that hospital executives who make millions of dollars per year “refuse solutions to short-staffing, retention, and better patient care.”
Economy:
Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers 
Producer Price Index
Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar
Shadow Government Statistics Alternate Inflation ChartsThe 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.
Trump Administration Prosecutor Charges in New Book that Justice Department Was Corrupted by Trump and Attorney General William Barr Two new nonfiction books are being released today. Bestselling author and anthropologist Sarah Kendzior’s book, They Knew, describes Donald Trump as a “transnational career criminal.” The book from the former top federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York under the Trump Justice Department, Geoffrey Berman, a Republican, reinforces Kendzior’s thesis with the revelation that Trump’s Justice
World:
Britain: Death of the Queen – From One Era to Another As the country’s longest-reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II represented a bygone age of stability. Her passing marks the beginning of a new era of crisis; another crumbling pillar of the British establishment, heralding revolutionary upheavals — From Stability to Turmoil — The departure of Queen Elizabeth II, our longest-reigning monarch, in many ways represents the end of an era. But what a gaggle she has left behind.
The War on Terror is Terrorizing the World!: The War on Terror’s Detention and Torture Practices Have Not Gone Away The so-called “war on terror,” initiated by the U.S. and its global allies in response to the 9/11 attacks in 2001, did not so much change the rules of warfare as throw them out of the window. In the aftermath of 9/11 and the ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war was virtually abandoned when the U.S. and its allies detained hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, mainly civilians. The use of torture and indefinite arbitrary detention became defining features of the war on terror.
African People Bear the Weight of US’s Deadly “War on Terror” on the Continent The post-9/11 creation of “AFRICOM” expanded the U.S.’s military footprint, spreading instability and violence. AFRICOM has not created the “safety and stability” invoked by U.S. leaders, but it has expanded the U.S. military’s footprint. During the Obama administration, AFRICOM quickly expanded its reach and influence on the continent through military-to-military trainings, joint counterterrorism operations, foreign aid, and other surreptitious methods that created dependence on AFRICOM for the defense needs of African states. Despite the fact that the U.S. is not at war with any African country, there are 46 U.S. military bases and outposts spanning the continent, with the greatest concentration in the Horn of Africa. Camp Lemonnier, the U.S. base in Djibouti, a small East African nation with a poverty rate of 79 percent, serves as the current home to AFRICOM in the Horn. In 2014 the U.S. government secured a 20-year lease for $63,000,000 a year.
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 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