Daily News Digest October 5, 2023
Images of the Day:
With Federal Cuts Needed, Farm Bill Loaded With Pork
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!
Editorial: Risk Free Profits — Capitalism’s Governments Subsidizes Big Pharma, and Global Warming! (By Subsidizing Big Oil, and Factory Farms!)
The facts and quote. listed below, demonstrate the priorities of capitalism. They take money from fromthe publc trough to make more and more profits at the expense of the public’s right health, education. welfare and a livable environment!
Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America
- Lazonick and Mazzucato (2013) have examined what they term the “Risk Reward Nexus” of innovation and the mechanisms that lead to asymmetrical sharing of risk and reward between the public and private sector. They illustrate this asymmetry with the observation that the “blockbuster biotech drugs that generated huge returns for both big pharma and biopharma companies reflect control over patent rights to the ‘low-hanging fruit’ that became available to these companies in the 1980s as a result of decades of NIH funding.” Our work highlights both the scale of the “risk” being taken by the public sector as an early investor (Mazzucato, 2011, 2017) in pharmaceutical innovation and the complexity inherent in ensuring that this investment is properly rewarded. It also demonstrates the need for innovative policies that ensure the public sector investments in science are efficiently translated into public value, not only in the form of new products, job creation, and economic growth, but most importantly public health. — Government as the First Investor in Biopharmaceutical Innovation: Evidence From New Drug Approvals 2010–2019
- Fossil Fuel Subsidies Surged to Record $7 Trillion Scaling back subsidies would reduce air pollution, generate revenue, and make a major contribution to slowing climate change Fossil-fuel subsidies surged to a record $7 trillion last year as governments supported consumers and businesses during the global spike in energy prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the economic recovery from the pandemic. As the world struggles to restrict global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and parts of Asia, Europe and the United States swelter in extreme heat, subsidies for oil, coal and natural gas are costing the equivalent of 7.1 percent of global gross domestic product. That’s more than governments spend annually on education (4.3 percent of global income) and about two thirds of what they spend on healthcare (10.9 percent).
- Government as the First Investor in Biopharmaceutical Innovation: Evidence From New Drug Approvals 2010–2019 Amid debates over costs—and profits—from a coronavirus vaccine, a new study shows that taxpayers have been footing the bill for every new drug approved between 2010 and 2019 The discovery and development of new medicines classically involves a linear process of basic biomedical research to uncover potential targets for drug action, followed by applied, or translational, research to identify candidate products and establish their effectiveness and safety. This Working Paper describes the public sector contribution to that process by tracing funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) related to published research on each of the 356 new drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 2010-2019 as well as research on their 219 biological targets. Specifically, we describe the timelines of clinical development for these products and proxy measures of their importance, including designations as first-in- class or expedited approvals. We model the maturation of basic research on the biological targets to determine the imitation and established points of this research and demonstrate that none of these products were approved before this enabling research passed the established This body of essential research comprised 2 million publications, of which 424 thousand were supported by 515 thousand Funding Years of NIH Project support totaling $195 billion. Research on the 356 drugs comprised 244 thousand publications, of which 39 thousand were supported by 64 thousand Funding Years of NIH Project support totaling $36 billion. Overall, NIH funding contributed to research associated with every new drug approved from 2010-2019, totaling $230 billion. This funding supported investigator-initiated Research Projects, Cooperative Agreements for government-led research on topics of particular importance, as well as Research Program Projects and Centers and training to support the research infrastructure. This NIH funding also produced 22 thousand patents, which provided marketing exclusivity for 27 (8.6%) of the drugs approved 2010-2019. These data demonstrate the essential role of public sector-funded basic research in drug discovery and development, as well as the scale and character of this funding. It also demonstrates the limited mechanisms available for recognizing the value created by these early investments and ensuring appropriate public returns. This analysis demonstrates the importance of sustained public investment in basic biomedical science as well as the need for policy innovations that fully realize the value of public sector investments in pharmaceutical innovation that ensure that these investments yield meaningful improvements in health.
· Reforming Animal Agriculture Subsidies: A Guide for Advocates The global meat and seafood market is an empire worth $867 billion USD worldwide in 2021. This market is dominated by megacorporations like Tyson and JBS which receive billions of dollars in direct subsidies–cash grants, loans, purchases, or other types of financial aid–from their governments. Worldwide, governments provide approximately $540 billion USD annually in direct subsidies to agriculture, with most of these payments going to “Big Ag” (i.e., industrial animal agriculture controlled by a few large corporations, akin to “Big Oil”). The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (2021, p. vii) found that “over two-thirds of this support is considered price-distorting and largely harmful to the environment.” The global meat and seafood market is an empire worth $867 billion USD worldwide in 2021. This market is dominated by Megacorporations like Tyson and JBS which receive billions of dollars in direct subsidies–cash grants, loans, purchases, or other types of financial aid–from their governments. Worldwide, governments provide approximately $540 billion USD annually in direct subsidies to agriculture, with most of these payments going to “Big Ag” (i.e., industrial animal agriculture controlled by a few large corporations, akin to “Big Oil”). The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (2021, p. vii) found that “over two-thirds of this support is considered price-distorting and largely harmful to the environment.”
Videos of the Day:
Black Agenda Radio September 29, 2023
International Month of Action Against AFRICOM
Abortion Services Under Attack After 47 Years of the Hyde Amendment
Environment:
One of Many Ways to Begin to End Global Warming: Expose ‘Greenwashing’ — Tax the Polluters 100%!
After World War II Rosa Luxenburg Coined the Slogan: ‘S0cialism or Barbaism’! Now the Slogan Should Be: ‘Ecosocialism or Ecocide’!
After World War II Rosa Luxenburg Coined the Slogan: ‘S0cialism or Barbaism’! Now the Slogan is Ecoscialism or Ecocide!
As a Part of Fleet Weeks Throughout the Nation, The Blue Angeles are the Main Attraction Releasing over 200,000 Pounds of CO2. for Each Show! : Letter to the Editor: Time yo Recognize Blue Angels’ Negative Impact The intensifying climate crisis means it’s time to limit military carbon emissions to those needed for our nation’s defense. As we all know, New York City and surrounding areas received over 10 inches of rain from Hurricane Ida on Sept. 1, and the flooding led to many lost lives. The experts pointed out that unless we reduce our carbon emissions, we will experience more supersized hurricanes and other environment aberrations in future years. Just three days later, government officials arranged for the Blue Angels to come to Maine so we could watch their maneuvers. What they failed to say is that every time the Blue Angels hold a show, they generate over 200,000 pounds of CO2. That, of course, significantly increases global warming, right when we are being told we should reduce it. What are these people in Washington thinking? The United States military is one of the biggest polluters on the planet, ranking higher than about 140 countries in terms of its carbon emissions, researchers at Durham and Lancaster universities in England have found. Putting on an air show for no reason other than our entertainment makes no sense at all.
The Blue Angels Fly Over the Golden Gate Bridge
Pope Francis Urges Climate Action as World Nears ‘Breaking Point’ “The necessary transition towards clean energy sources such as wind and solar energy, and the abandonment of fossil fuels, is not progressing at the necessary speed,” he said. In his second major address on the climate crisis, Pope Francis called for urgent global action ahead of the COP28 United Nations climate conference.
Horrifyingly Hot September Makes Frankenstein’s Monster of Climate Crisis Months You basically had a second July instead of a September. It’s scary The data from scientific institutions around the world is pouring in here in the beginning of October, regarding September, 2023, and the consensus is that it was freakishly hot, unprecedentedly torrid, off-the-charts sweltering. It was the Frankenstein’s monster of months. Much of the extra heat came from human-caused climate change, from our spewing the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to the tune of 40 billion tons a year, by burning coal, fossil gas and gasoline. In addition, this is an El Nino year, when the tides in the South Pacific work in such a way as to heat the world up. And, there seem to have been an unusual number of high pressure systems, affecting Japan, German, the US southwest, and Mexico. These may be being caused by a weakened and wobbly jet stream, a result of human-caused climate change.
At least 20 California Public University Board Members Linked to Fossil Fuels Universities may have divested from fossil fuels – but board members still have industry ties, new analysis finds At least 20 board members at California public universities have direct ties to the fossil fuel industry, a new analysis has found, sparking criticism from climate advocates on and off campus. Of the state’s 32 public universities, board members at one-third of them either work or have worked for oil and gas companies, as do two board members at the California State University’s foundation.
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 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
Dianne Feinstein: National Security State Diva Dianne Feinstein: National Security State Diva The tributes have been laudatory in their endorsed, burnished sexism – womanhood heralded as a bulwark for the National Security State (NSS). They do show, on some level, that she could play and scrap on the imperial board along with her male colleagues in ways equally apologetic, shallow and vulgar. As a member of the George W. Bush administration, former national security advisor and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice ceremonially saluted Feinstein as one who would “always be remembered as an extraordinary human being in American political history”. Republ-icans such as Ted Cruz flattered and gushed with totemic, boyish reverence at this “trailblazer for women”. The CIA Director, William Burns, praised her role as “the first woman to chair the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.” It all made sense: the senator was a paid-up member of the NSS with a ring seat, lounge points and frequent flyer miles in the game of empire. Voting for war came naturally, be it the bombing of Serbia in 1999 or supporting the October 2002 Iraq war resolution, the latter endorsed despite Feinstein’s briefing by former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter that no evidence had been found suggesting that Iraq continued to possess weapons of mass destruction. According to Ritter, he met the senator along with a half-dozen staffers and aides in a conference room in the Capitol building only to face the following: “Your position is causing us some difficulty,” she grumbled. “You are making the US look bad in the eyes of the world.” When confronted by Ritter about whether she had seen “unequivocal proof that Iraq retained WMD,” the senator admitted: “I have seen no such intelligence.” The agenda had been set, the dish pre-cooked for an invasion deserving the condemnation of being a crime against peace.
Next Stop for Most Retired US 4-Star Military Officers? Arms Industry C-Suites “The revolving door is a problem because it creates the appearance—and in some cases the reality—of conflicts of interest in the making of defense policy and in the shaping of the size and composition of the Pentagon budget.”
Black Liberation/Civile Rights:
Labor:
Largest Healthcare Strike in US History Begins as Kaiser Workers Revolt Stock buybacks have become the main goal in life for corporate executives and activist stock sellers. And this sickness is spreading. “We have folks getting injured on the job because they’re trying to do too much and see too many people and work too quickly,” said one union leader, demanding better staffing levels. “It’s not a sustainable situation. Tens of thousands of healthcare workers across the United States began a three-day strike against Kaiser Permanente on Wednesday to protest the nonprofit hospital giant’s alleged unfair labor practices, bad-faith bargaining, inadequate wages, and chronic staff shortages that employees say are harming them and patients.
The Inside Story of How Wall Street Fleeced GM Autoworkers and Taxpayers The institution casting a broad shadow over the UAW strike against the Big Three automakers is Wall Street. GM workers and those of us who have longed for the production of high-quality and affordable electric cars to combat global warming could not have invented a more damning story than the reality of how the financiers fleeced us. The story starts back in 2008, when the auto industry was going bankrupt due to the financial crisis that Wall Street’s reckless gambling had caused. Six million workers lost their jobs in six months through no fault of their own. Motor vehicle sales fell by nearly 40 percent and as bankruptcies loomed, another three million more auto industry jobs were at risk. The federal government intervened with a massive bailout, eventually loaning the companies more than $81 billion. To reorganize the industry, the government wanted more financial expertise. So where did it turn? To Wall Street! The financial
Economy:
World:
Health. Welfare, and Education:
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