Daily News Digest October 30, 2023
Images of the Day:
Latuff: Gaza Being Attacked by Land, Air… And Media!
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!
Qu0te of te Day:
Videos of the Day:
Podcast: The Chris Hedges Report Show with Jeff Sharlet on his book “Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War” Jeff Sharlet has spent two decades covering the intersection of extreme Christian nationalism and the far-right. In his new book, Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, he gives us snapshots of a country rapidly devolving into a Christian fascism state. He captures the rage, the despair, the dislocation, the alienation, the aesthetic of violence and the magical thinking that are the foundations of all fascist movements, one that have coallesed around the Trump-led Republican Party. The bizarre conspiracy theories and buffoonish quality of many who lead and embrace this movement, such as Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, make the use American fascists easy to ridicule and dismiss. But Sharlet implores us to take them seriously as an existential threat to what is left of our anemic democracy. Going me to discuss his new book is Jeff Sharlet.
Palestinian Genocid:
Israeli State Terrorism Over the Years 10/27/ The mainstream media have fully documented terrorism by Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and other groups against Israeli civilians that reached its most horrific and sadistic level in the massacre of October 7th. The media typically define terrorism as any act of violence against civilians in support of an ideology, which certainly describes Hamas’ terrorism. But there is another definition of terrorism that refers to acts of violence against civilians in order to intimidate and/or defeat their political leaders. On the basis of that definition, Israel has been terrorizing Palestinian communities over the past 75 years. This, of course, does not explain—let alone excuse—the horrors that Hamas inflicted on Israelis several weeks ago, but attention must be given to the impact of terrorist acts by both sides on the politics and policies of Israelis, Palestinians, and Arab countries. Just as the horrors of the Holocaust in the 1930s and 1940s have contributed to Israeli brutality toward the Palestinians, the terrorism of the Nakba in 1948 has contributed to Arab hostility toward Israel. This is the “chain of hate” that the legendary historian Arnold Toynbee wrote about in the 1950s. The Nakba, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, is not well known to some and denied by too many others, but the forced displacement and dispossession of Palestinians from their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israel war is certainly well known to Arabs.
The Palestinians Play David to Israel’s Goliath Media critic Robin Andersen breaks down why Israel is never condemned for its crimes and why Palestinian voices are so hard to breakthrough in the mainstream media. “There’s no room for complexity in the American media when it comes to Israel and Palestine,” said Robin Andersen, the award-winning author and professor emerita of communication and media studies at Fordham University, to host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast. In the almost three weeks since the October 7th attacks in Israel, the coverage around the war in the Middle East is as alert as ever, except only for one side, Andersen and Scheer discuss. The real and fabricated stories of Israeli devastation plastered mainstream outlets during the onset of the war, but since then, the bombing campaign on Gaza has yet to receive equal attention. For Palestinians, “the only explanation is that these people are terrorists and they’re evil and they’re animals. When you set that up and you mix it in with Israeli officials saying ‘we’re going to turn them into rubble,’ and then you’ve got President Biden saying [Israel] can do whatever they want to defend themselves, that is a setup for the worst kind of violence as far as the world is watching,” Andersen said.
The Fate of the Children of Gaza under Israeli Bombardment Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Of the 2.2 million people living in the Gaza Strip, about half of them are minors. This datum is why the rightwing Israeli talking point that Palestinians in Gaza as a whole are responsible for backing Hamas is outrageous. Hamas was elected in 2006 when most people in Gaza now either were minors or hadn’t been born. The top Hamas leadership admits that it planned out its October 7 atrocities as a small committee that did not consult the people of Gaza or anyone else. The children of Gaza are among the most prominent victims of the Israeli bombing campaign, which has recklessly endangered Palestinian noncombatants by targeting apartment buildings, schools and hospitals. Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, said on Thursday that those Palestinian children who survive the bombardment could yet die of hunger. Before the current conflict, 500 aid trucks entered Gaza daily, but this flow has been cut to a trickle by the tightening Israeli blockade.
The History of Israel-Palestine to 1993. Trotsky warned in 1940 that the attempt to solve the ‘Jewish problem’ in Europe through the dispossession of the Palestinians would be a “bloody trap”. These words ring true to this very day. But the real history of Israel-Palestine has been buried under mountains of falsification. In this article, Francesco Merli explains the shady dealings and machinations of the imperialist nations that paved the way for the partitioning of historic Palestine. This episode in history attests to the short-sightedness of the ruling class, who opened up a Pandora’s box of violence and degradation that has plagued the land ever since. The article traces this history from the origins of Zionism, through the creation of Israel, the Six Day War, the first Intifada, up to the betrayal of the Oslo Accords in 1993. Over the past one-hundred years, the Middle East has been the chessboard for many decisive games between the imperialist powers. The reason for the relevance of the region, considered of relatively secondary importance until the end of the 19th century, is well known: beneath the lands of the Middle East lie the planet’s main oil reserves. Palestine, for a number of geo-political and historical reasons, has increasingly become the focus of Middle Eastern tensions.
Ireland, a Leader on Human Rights, Backs UNGA Call For Gaza Humanitarian Ceasefire Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The situation in the besieged Palestinian Gaza Strip grew even more dire on Friday, as Israel bombed internet and telecommunications facilities, plunging the occupied territory into an information black hole, as Israeli military incursions began. All day Friday the Israeli Air Force subjected the desperately poor, densely populated cities of Gaza to intensive bombardment, recklessly endangering civilian noncombatants. The International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization, and other aid agencies ominously announced that they have lost contact with their employees inside Gaza. Also on Friday, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a Jordanian resolution sponsored by 22 Arab countries calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. 120 countries out of 193 voted for the resolution, as 45 abstained and only 14 voted against, including the United States, Israel, and some tiny Pacific islands that the US bribes to vote with Washington.
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!
About Ice Sheets Today Together, the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets contain more than 99 percent of freshwater ice on Earth. If they both completely melted, they would raise sea level by an estimated 67.4 meters (223 feet). Long-term satellite data indicate that through most of the twentieth century, the ice sheets made very little contribution to sea level, and were nearly in balance in annual snowfall gain and ice or meltwater loss. However, the stability of the ice sheets has changed considerably in the twenty-first century. Ice Sheets Today offers the latest satellite data and scientific analyses on surface melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet in the Northern Hemisphere and Antarctic Ice Sheet in the Southern Hemisphere. Surface melt on each ice sheet results from a combination of daily weather conditions and the amount of solar energy absorbed by its snow and ice. Air temperatures, pressures, and winds drive weather conditions. The quality of snow, its grain size and color, also influence melt. Soot, wildfire ash, and other surface dust darken the snow’s surface and increase solar energy absorption. The extent and duration of this surface melting is an indicator of changing climate and other conditions. It is a major component of the waning of Earth’s ice sheets.
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
Why are People Hungry? According to Feeding America, 72% of the households served by its affiliated food banks live at or below 100% of the federal poverty line and have a median annual household income of $9,175. In short, they don’t have enough money to consistently put food on the table. While unemployment is certainly a significant factor, 54% of the households Feeding America serves had at least 1 person employed in the past year.In fact, most Americans are working harder than ever, but are still struggling to make ends meet. Income inequality has, by almost any measure, increased exponentially over the past 40+ years. Since 1980, most of the growth in wages has been concentrated among top earners, while wages for the average worker have stagnated. More people than ever are enrolling in college to try and secure their future, but the ballooning cost of higher education means that most students will take on a sizeable amount of debt. The median student loan debt now stands at $37,575, more than doubling since 2007. In fact, most Americans are working harder than ever, but are still struggling to make ends meet. Income inequality has, by almost any measure, increased exponentially over the past 40+ years. Since 1980, most of the growth in wages has been concentrated among top earners, while wages for the average worker have stagnated. More people than ever are enrolling in college to try and secure their future, but the ballooning cost of higher education means that most students will take on a sizeable amount of debt. The median student loan debt now stands at $37,575, more than doubling since 2007.
Oil Money Investments, Norway Points to a Near Future where Petroleum is Worthless Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Biden dministration has concluded that the horrific Hamas attacks on Israel of October 7 and after aimed at derailing the normalization negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. But why should this issue be so pressing as to cause a war? Saudi Arabia is the world’s swing petroleum exporter. The US and Russia produce as much or more petroleum daily as Saudi Arabia. But they consume most of it domestically. Saudi Arabia exports most of its petroleum, because it has a relatively small population. Saudi oil riches make it an ideal investor in Israeli startups, not to mention that Israeli oil supplies are undependable and it sure would be nice to be able to make deals for Saudi petroleum. Saudi Arabia’s lack of diplomatic relations with Israel stand in the way of all the money to be made by the two countries. The normalization process, however, promised to sideline the 5 million stateless Palestinians under Israeli occupation. There was a danger that Israelis would benefit from Saudi oil money far more than the Palestinians. Not to mention that Israel has Gaza under an economic blockade that makes it one of the poorer places in the world — so the Israelis would get rich off Arab capital while continuing to keep 70% of Palestinian youths in Gaza unemployed.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Labor:
Pauperization of the Working Class:
From Polycrisis Again Real Wages Have Stagnated Nobel (Riksbank) prize winner in economics (2015), Angus Deaton has a new book out called Economics in America: an immigrant economist explores the land of inequality. In it, he attacks the failure of neoclassical economics to address in any way the issues of poverty and inequality. Mainstream economists in the US deliberately ignore rising levels of inequality and the horrendous impact of poverty, claiming that this is not the business of economics. And yet “real wages have stagnated since 1980 while productivity has more than doubled and the rich cream off the profits. The top 10% of US families now own 76% of wealth. The bottom 50% own just 1%.” A class system now operates and “the war on poverty has become a war on the poor”. 
Michael Roberts Facebook Blog: In America today: Morgan Stanley at one end and this at the other. More than 44.2 million Americans lived in households that struggled with hunger in 2022, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report — an increase of 10.3 million over the previous yeaRe: Hpusehold Food Security in the United States in 2022
Economy:
World:
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
Military Contractor Stocks Have Skyrocketed Since Israel War Started
Genocide is American as Apple Pie! President Biden’s Stance Towards Palestinians, is the Same as the Stance, of the United States Settler States Towards Native Americas, the Largest Holocaust in World History!: Native American Genocide
The American Indian Holocaust, known as the “500 year war” and the “World’s Longest Holocaust In The History Of Humankind And Loss Of Human Lives.” Genocide and Denying It: Why We Are Not Taught that the Natives of the United States and Canada were Exterminated!
- Death Toll: 95,000,000 to 114,000,000
- American Holocaust: D. Stannard (Oxford Press, 1992) – “over 100 million killed” “[Christopher] Columbus personally murdered half a million Natives”
- “Hitler’s concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America’s extermination – by starvation and uneven combat – of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity.” — P. 202, “Adolph Hitler” by John Toland
- Native Americans have the highest mortality rate of any U.S. minority because of U.S. action and policy. The biggest killers though were smallpox, measles, influenza, whooping cough, diphtheria, typhus, bubonic plague, cholera, and scarlet fever. All imported by the Europeans colonists.
The American Indian Holocaust, known as the “500 year war” and the “World’s Longest Holocaust In The History Of Humankind And Loss Of Human Lives.” Genocide and Denying It: Why We Are Not Taught that the Natives of the United States and Canada were Exterminated!
- Death Toll: 95,000,000 to 114,000,000
- American Holocaust: D. Stannard (Oxford Press, 1992) – “over 100 million killed” “[Christopher] Columbus personally murdered half a million Natives”
- “Hitler’s concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America’s extermination – by starvation and uneven combat – of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity.” — P. 202, “Adolph Hitler” by John Toland
- Native Americans have the highest mortality rate of any U.S. minority because of U.S. action and policy. The biggest killers though were smallpox, measles, influenza, whooping cough, diphtheria, typhus, bubonic plague, cholera, and scarlet fever. All imported by the Europeans colonists.
The Logic og Racism: In the final analysis, racism is evil because its ultimate logic is genocide. Hitler was a sick and tragic man who carried racism to its logical conclusion. And he ended up leading a nation to the point of killing about 6 million Jews. This is the tragedy of racism because its ultimate logic is genocide. — Martin Luther King
https://rolandsheppard.com/?page_id=879
Mass Rallies in UK, Demanding Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza – VIDEO
As Gaza War Enters ‘Second Stage,’ Hundreds of Thousands March for Cease-Fire
London! Half a Million People on the Streets Today For Palestine Demanding a #Ceasefirenow
Netanyahu Declares a Holy War of Annihilation on Civilians of Gaza, Citing the Bible In his speech on Saturday, October 27, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made reference to the Bible’s instructions about the Amalekites, a favorite trope of his when he has argued that Israel is under existential threat and must respond with lethal and devastating force. He has talked about Iran this way, as well. According to the Bible, the Amalekites were a southern Canaanite tribe that attempted to block the Israelites from coming out of Sinai into the land of Canaan. The incident to which Netanyahu referred occurs in 1 Samuel 15. In the eleventh century BCE, Saul has become Israel’s first king, and there is a good deal of tension over this rise of monarchy. It is clear that the Jewish priests and prophets were critics of the new institution.
https://www.juancole.com/2023/10/netanyahu-annihilation-civilians.html
US Media Is Still Avoiding the Word Genocide — It’s Past Time to Start Using It What constitutes genocide is clearly defined, and it is what we are witnessing in Palestine. The images that have emerged from Gaza over the last several weeks are not ones we can easily forget: a once vibrant city reduced to rubble by Israeli occupation forces. A Ministry of Health press conference held in the aftermath of a massacre, where the bodies of murdered Palestinians are piled up around the podium. Young children, visibly in shock, covered in the blood of their families and debris from their homes that no longer exist. Parents, hysterical with grief, holding their dead and dying babies.
Reports Expose US Billionaires and Corporate Profiteers Enabling Israel’s War on Gaza “As the Biden administration attempts to deny the death toll of Israel’s campaign of mass murder in Gaza and sell genocide as a stimulus for the U.S. economy, these are the death merchants profiting from the war machine.”
UN General Assembly Passes Resolution Calling for ‘Humanitarian Truce’ in Gaza The resolution—which was adopted as Israel ramped up its assault—also demands that all parties fully comply with international law, “particularly in regard to the protection of civilians and civilian objects.” While Israel intensified its war on Hamas that has devastated the Gaza Strip, the United Nations General Assembly on Friday approved a resolution that “calls for an immediate, durable, and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities.” Israel launched what some scholars are calling a genocidal assault—backed by billions of dollars in U.S. military support—after a Hamas-led attack that killed over 1,400 Israelis and Palestinian militants took around 200 hostages. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israeli forces have killed over 7,300 Palestinians, including more than 3,000 children, and wounded about 19,000 others.
‘Massacres Will Be Done in Total Darkness’: Huge Israeli Assault Amid Blackout in Gaza “The intense bombing in the last hour caused the destruction of all remaining international routes linking Gaza to the outside world,” said a Palestinian telecommunications company.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-blackout
Under Gaza Communications Blackout, Palestinians May Face Largest Massacres Yet Israel cut Gazans off from each other and the world as it executed ground incursions and its largest aerial assault yet. People reportedly lost all access to internet and communication services across the Gaza Strip on Friday night as Israel announced an expansion of its ground attack and launched what observers described as the largest aerial assault since its latest bombing campaign began nearly three weeks ago.
How Islamophobia and Anti-Palestinian Racism are Manufactured through Disinformation Repetition is how lies gain traction. The more exposure to specific ideas and tropes that may be false claims, the more likely it is that this misinformation becomes understood as real. A plethora of fake news circulates on the internet and social media. Unlike misinformation, which refers to false or inaccurate information, disinformation campaigns deliberately spread propaganda to create fear and suspicion. Disinformation industries, and the brokers who exchange in this false currency, have an immense capability to circulate propaganda and conspiracy theories to a greater public, outside of their own echo chambers. Producing Social Fictions— Through media outlets and co-ordinated networks, Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian tropes and conspiracies are circulated. Eventually, they become regarded as social facts, especially in times of war, conflict and heightened political tensions.
International Pressure Is the Only Way to Halt Israel’s Devastation of Gaza Tariq Kenney-Shawa of Al-Shabaka warns Palestinians are being deemed “subhuman” by Israel and the U.S.
100,000 Join London March Against Strikes on Gaza Government’s failure to back ceasefire resolution adds to tensions among demonstrators
Let’s Stop Being Surprised at what Capitalism Has Wrought This would be a good time to stop being surprised by shit going crazy and coming apart. What did we expect? This is capitalism-imperialism, folks, a virulent and exterminist oppression system that crushes humanity and livable ecology. We get rid of that system and replace it with revolutionary socialism or the madness and calamity we are experiencing will only deepen and expand. An ocean disturbance goes from tropical storm to Category 5 Hurricane off the western coast of Mexico in one day? Of course it does. The tempest hit a patch of insanely warm Pacific water heated by the climate change produced by capitalism’s addiction to the reckless eco-exterminist mass extraction and burning of fossil fuels. One extreme weather event after another – including shockingly powerful and rapidly formed hurricanes and cyclones – now results from the capitalist climate catastrophe.
Republicrates Unanimously Vote Against Fyeedom of Assembly: The Senate Condemns Student Groups ss Backlash to Pro-Palestinian Speech Grows “Do we risk losing our careers over an ephemeral social post that doesn’t save a single life in Palestine?” On friday, the U.S. Senate passed a unanimous resolution condemning what it called “anti-Israel, pro-Hamas student groups” across the country following a day of walkouts. Hundreds of students, led by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, walked out of classes at Columbia University, Princeton University, New York University, and dozens of other colleges in what they described as a demand for a ceasefire in Gaza and end to U.S. military support to Israel. The Senate resolution condemned student groups for ostensibly supporting Hamas as part of a broader government and corporate pushback on protests over the war.As the conflict intensifies, disputes are spilling over from campuses and government into many workplaces as well. Recent weeks have seen pressure by government officials against student activist groups, the creation of public blacklists in multiple industries, and a wave of politically motivated firings over people’s publicly stated views on the conflict.
New EPA Rule Weakens Protections for Wetlands After Supreme Court Ruling
How the US Supreme Court and an Idaho Couple Upended Wetlands Protection Experts fear half of the 290m wetland acres have lost federal protection and could be at risk from developers Often dismissed as dismal wet bogs and rampantly cleared since European arrival in the US, the underappreciated importance of wetlands has been placed into sharp relief by a supreme court ruling that has plunged many of these ecosystems into new peril. The extent of wetlands, areas covered or saturated by water that encompass marshes, swamps and carbon-rich peatlands, has shrunk by 40% over the past 300 years as the US drained and filled them in for housing, highways, parking lots, golf courses and other uses. Globally, wetlands are disappearing three times faster than forests are.
US Economy Expanding?
Shadow Government Statistics
· Continuing 53-Year High in Systemic Liquidity, Excessive U.S. Money Creation and Unconstrained Federal Deficit Spending All Continue to Fuel U.S. Inflation
· Not an Inflation Threat: The Fed’s Hypothetical “Overheating Economy,” Which Is Being Fought by Raising Interest Rates to Kill Business Activity Indeed, the Rate Hikes Are Killing Many Businesses, but Not Inflation
· Third-Quarter 2023 Real GDP Came in Above Consensus Forecasts, at 4.9% Annualized, 2.9% Year-to-Year, Holding Minimally Shy of the Respective Atlanta Fed Estimates of 5.4% and 3.1%
· ShadowStats Alternate Real GDP Showed 0.5% Year-to-Year Annual Growth, Having Contracted by 0.1% (-0.1%) in Second-Quarter 2023 Third-Quarter 2023
· Real New Orders for Durable Goods Contracted Year-to-Year For the Fourth Straight Quarter,
· Ex-Highly Volatile Commercial Aircraft The Usually Heavily Revised and Statistically Not Meaningful
· New Home Sales Showed Some Tentative Gains in September 2023
Food and Housing Costs Still Shoot Through the Roof The cost of living is high in the U.S., as monopolies gouge consumers at every turn. With a loaf of whole wheat bread at six dollars and gas prices still elevated and only going up, any trip to the store or the pump is painful. But that’s nothing compared to keeping a roof over your head. Even in the best of circumstances, say a retiree whose mortgage is paid off, things get worse, as property taxes and homeowners’ insurance skyrocket. Meanwhile, the American carbon-polluting dream of car ownership becomes ever more costly, as insurers hike rates dramatically, the cost of a new set of tires exceeds $600, and the average price for a new vehicle is $48,000. But just forget about buying a home. With interest rates on a 30-year mortgage close to eight percent, who can afford that? Besides, a typical home price of nearly $500,000 lies far beyond the reach of most Americans, while rents zoom up again. The average cost of a one-bedroom apartment a year ago was $1770, a 39 percent increase over the previous year, this year it’s over $2000, and rents only keep shooting up, up, up. No wonder so many people live in tents. That’s the real estate of the American future.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/10/27/food-and-housing-costs-still-shoot-through-the-roof/