Daily News Digest April 28, 2023
Capitalism is Now a Worldwide Threat to Humanity! It is on the Fast Track to Global Warming and/or Nuclear War Catastrophes!
Images of the Day:
Global Ocean Temperatures Reaching Record Highs
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!
Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capitalism 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:
Carbon Credits Scam Gives Polluters The Right To Pollute (1999): Washington is buzzing. Old-style environmental protection–in which people expected government to protect their clean air and clean water–is out. A new “third wave” of environmentalism is coming into vogue. This “third wave” relies less on confrontation between polluters and their victims and more on cooperation between polluters and the big environmental groups. The key concept of the “third wave” is market-based incentives for polluters to clean up, rather than demands by government to clean up. What are market-based incentives? The only working example of a market-based incentive that we know of is the trading of “emission reduction credits,” also known as buying and selling “pollution rights.” This concept was invented by lawyer Fred Krupp and economist Dan Dudeck, both with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in the late 1980s. [1] EDF’s “pollution rights” scheme was written into the Clean Air Act of 1990. (“Pollution rights” is our phrase for what EDF calls “emission reduction credits.”) The idea is basically simple: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets a nationwide “cap” on the total amount of a pollutant, such as sulfur dioxide, that can be released. Then EPA gives out “pollution rights” in the form of permits to companies that are emitting sulfur dioxide. The amount of each permit is based on a company’s past history of pollution; the biggest polluters are given the biggest “pollution rights.” The polluters do not pay for these permits; they are handed out free by the government. If a polluter manages to reduce his or her pollution below the amount allowed by the permit, then a portion of his or her “pollution right” is unused and can be sold for money to another polluter. By allowing companies to “bank” the permitted pollution they are NOT pumping into the atmosphere and sell it to other companies that are unable to meet emissions standards, the government hopes to lower toxic emissions nationwide without driving undercapitalized electric utilities out of business. In practice, the concept is so popular among polluters that the Chicago Board of Trade now conducts a brisk business in “pollution rights,” buying and selling the right to pollute. Companies that need to comply with their “pollution-right” permit can either install control equipment to comply, or they can buy someone else’s “pollution right” and continue polluting, whichever is cheaper. According to economists like Dan Dudeck, the result is the “least cost” way of keeping total pollution at or below the “cap” level.
In addition, no one should be surprised when individuals behave as the state does. The U.S. claims the right to intervene, to coup, to invade, or to engage proxies anywhere in the world in order to further its pernicious interests. In the last 20 years alone, the U.S. has killed thousands of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and in Ukraine as a result of military action. Police in this country kill an average of 3 people every single day. It shouldn’t be a surprise when individuals behave just like the designated killers who wear uniforms. Also, the slave patrol mentality never ended. Centuries of slavery, and decades of the Jim Crow apartheid system gave white people a right to deputize themselves. Many of them believe in a right to act as if they are law enforcement officers. Their behavior may range from rudeness, to assault, to actual murder, usually committed with impunity. The glorification of a history of racist conquest leads to the ethos of American exceptionalism and a dog eat dog mentality. The sickness filters down to everyone, and the lack of social cohesion, class consciousness, or even human empathy creates people who believe they can and should shoot someone who violates a property boundary. Racism is the only consistent form of solidarity for white people, and a hyper individualistic nation which glorifies theft and all forms of violence, will inevitably allow anyone to be attacked if circumstances permit. The prevalence of white supremacist ideology explains so much about this country. It is not strange that such a place would not provide for the most basic needs of its citizens or that millions of people would feel an affinity for their class enemies or fight against their own interests. They do so because they see whiteness as their primary interest and coalesce regarding their desire to subjugate Black people in any number of ways. The result is violence and societal and political dysfunction. Of course, Black people bear the brunt of these beliefs and are the most victimized. . . . Everyone is collateral damage not just in fatal shootings but in the plethora of ways in which the quality of life in the U.S. is worse than in other nations. There will be more wrong house shootings and mass shootings until the elephant in the room is acknowledged. — Why Americans Are Shot at the “Wrong House”
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
Debt and the Collapse of Antiquity – Michael Hudson
Matt Taibbi Calls Out ‘Censorship-Industrial Complex’ In Latest Twitter Files
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 Republicrats 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! Both Parties Support U.S. Capitalism’s Wars! (The Only War the Democrats Opposed was the Civil War!)
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 D. Brandeis Quotes
The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. MLK, Beyond Vietnam .
The Pentagon’s Revolving Door Keeps Spinning
Warren Report Reveals Vast Pentagon-to-Defense Contractor Lobbying Pipeline In 2021, there were at least 672 former government officials working for top defense contractors like Lockheed Martin. Hundreds of former government officials, including former Pentagon officials, have been funneled through the infamous public-to-private revolving door to take their insider government knowledge to lobby for top defense contractors, a new report from the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) reveals. According to the report released Wednesday, as of 2021, there were at least 672 former officials who were working for the top 20 defense contractors, with the vast majority — 91 percent — in positions lobbying the very government they formerly worked for. Officials who weren’t lobbyists were in top positions as board members or senior executives. The officials include former members of Congress, senior staffers and military officers.
The Hypocrisy of Anti-abortionists There are lots of kids who live in poverty in the US. The poverty rate for children cited below from US Census figures is lower than prior to the pandemic because of pandemic policies, such as rent subsidies, child tax credits, and food assistance. But, in the wealthiest country in the world, 16.9% of children live in poverty. That is 16.9% of the 37.9 million people living in poverty in 2021, even with the pandemic assistance programs.
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
‘Devastating’ Melt ff Greenland, Antarctic Ice Sheets Found The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are now losing more than three times as much ice a year as they were 30 years ago, according to a new comprehensive international study. Using 50 different satellite estimates, researchers found that Greenland’s melt has gone into hyperdrive in the last few years. Greenland’s average annual melt from 2017 to 2020 was 20% more a year than at the beginning of the decade and more than seven times higher than its annual shrinkage in the early 1990s. The new figures “are pretty disastrous really,” said study co-author Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute. “We’re losing more and more ice from Greenland.”
As EU Parliament Weighs Methane Rules, Green Groups Warn of US ‘Certified Gas’ Scheme “Our research shows that gas producers and LNG exporters cannot be trusted to clean up their methane emissions,” said Oil Change International’s research co-director. On the heels of a “damning exposé” of U.S. companies’ so-called “certified gas” programs, a pair of green groups this week told members of the European Parliament that “it is crucial to strengthen the measures to regulate methane emissions from fossil fuel imports.” Earthworks and Oil Change International (OCI) sent a two-page summary of the report they released last week, Certified Disaster: How Project Canary & Gas Certification Are Misleading Gas Markets & Governments, with their letter to MEPs, who are discussing rules to reduce methane emissions in the energy sector.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist: Why Americans Are Shot at the “Wrong House” People in the U.S. venerate its violent history, support violence committed by the state, and remain very racist, yet express shock when individuals kill and maim. In recent days there have been widely reported stories about individuals in the United States who were shot because they were in the “wrong” location. The most prominent case was that of Ralph Yarl in Kansas City, Missouri. Yarl is a Black 16-year old who went to the wrong address to pick up his younger siblings. He was shot by an 84-year old white man, Andrew Lester, who said he was “scared to death” upon seeing a Black person ringing his doorbell. Yarl is recovering from his wounds but others were not so lucky. A young white woman named Kaylin Gillis suffered a fatal gunshot wound when she and her friends pulled into the “wrong” road in upstate New York. A similar event occurred in Texas where two teenage cheerleaders were shot and wounded after mistakenly approaching the wrong car, and a Black couple in Florida delivering groceries were shot at as they went about their work. The corporate media will often decide to give a topic greater attention than they ordinarily do, so it isn’t clear how often incidents of this kind take place. However, it is clear that people in this country shoot and often kill one another for little or no reason. So far this year, 5,728 people have died from gun violence. The police have already killed 320 people and are on track to reach the 1,000
Labor:
Economy:
Shadow Government Statistics Daily Update: April 25th to April 26th
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MONEY SUPPLY — INFLATION ALERT: Still-surging Systemic flight to liquidity promises continuing, higher inflation, with March 2023 “Basic M1” (Currency plus Checking) jumping to a new 53-year high of 35.0% of the aggregate Money Supply M2. “Basic M1” is driving the inflation, and remains up at an increasing 120.5% of the February 2020 pre-Pandemic levels, up by 4.8% year-to-year on top of the Pandemic bloating.
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In contrast, the broader, liquidity constrained aggregate M2 still is up at a waning 34.7% against its pre-Pandemic level, but down year-to-year by a deepening 4.1% (-4.1%).
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Headline details and graphs are posted on the ALTERNATE DATA TAB (see the above “Links” ribbon, with major coverage pending in the Subscriber-only e-mails).
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Keep in mind that those plots after February 2021 show change against the pre-Pandemic activity of February 2020, not year-to-year change. Full details and expanded text and graphs, reflecting both year-to-year and versus pre-Pandemic levels, follow overnight in the Subscriber-only e-mails.
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Related text will be updated here tomorrow in the Federal Reserve section.
Sharp Sell-Off in First Republic Shares Causes Alarm in Washington Government officials and regulators scramble to come up with plan to stabilise ailing lender Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Shares of First Republic continued to fall on Wednesday as regulators in Washington and financiers on Wall Street scrambled to come up with a plan to stabilise the ailing bank. The California-based lender’s stock price, which is down by more than 93 per cent this year, fell by a further 14 per cent in premarket trading on Wednesday. The shares closed 49.4 per cent lower on Tuesday, a day after First Republic revealed its customers had withdrawn $100bn of deposits during last month’s turmoil.
Banks that Put Up $30 Billion to “Rescue” First Republic May Have Been Trying to Rescue their Own Exposure to $247 Trillion in Derivatives Ever since 11 banks on March 16 donned the garb of heroic fire fighters, rushing to extinguish an inferno at a competitor bank before it spread further, we have been asking ourselves the question – why just this group of 11 banks. We’re talking about the action on March 16 when 11 banks chipped in a total of $30 billion and bizarrely placed those funds as uninsured deposits into First Republic Bank – which was in full scale unraveling mode because of bond losses and – wait for it – too many uninsured deposits. Four banks contributed two-thirds of the total deposits with JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo ponying up $5 billion each. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs deposited $2.5 billion each; while BNY Mellon, State Street, PNC Bank, Truist and U.S. Bank each deposited $1 billion, together making up the other one-third of the $30 billion.
World:
France: “Appeasement” or Revolution? During his televised speech on 17 April, French President Emmanuel Macron tried to move on from the uproar surrounding the recent pension reform by promising the Earth to all those who, since 19 January, have mobilised in the streets and have been on strike against this bill. Few people pay attention to the promises and other “solemn” commitments of the head of state anymore. However, this speech also contained thinly veiled threats against workers and youth. These must be taken very seriously.
The Decline of French imperialism in Africa In his inaugural speech as President of France in 2017, Emmanuel Macron said that he wanted to “convince our compatriots that France’s power is not declining, but that we are on the threshold of an extraordinary renaissance”. Since then, the decline of French imperialism has accelerated, both economically, geopolitically and militarily. This is particularly the case in Africa. For a long period following the ‘wave of independence’ in 1960, Paris had maintained significant economic influence in its former colonies. Today, this is a distant memory for the French imperialists. In June 2021, for instance, the French ambassador to Cameroon, Christophe Guilhou, stated that “the market share of French companies in Cameroon has dropped from 40 percent in the 1990s to 10 percent today”. The reason: competition from China, which “since the 2000s… has been dominating practically all the infrastructure contracts in Cameroon.”
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 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