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COVID-19 epidemic as the second stage of the crisis of neoliberalism

COVID-19 epidemic is another nail in the coffin of neoliberal globalization.
"Neoliberalism ignores or misvalues the role of healthcare:
 it convert it into machine for extracting profits from sufferings "

Profound lack of human decency’ is a immanent feature of neoliberalism, especially the neoliberal elite (financial oligarchy)
News COVID-19 Epidemic Recommended Links  COVID-19 prevention measures The threat of "Coronavirus recession" COVID-19 hoarding epidemics SARS-CoV-2 origins and a "bioengineered virus" hypothesis
COVID-19 fearmongering COVID-19 epidemic as the second stage of the crisis of neoliberalism  COVID-19 epidemic handing in the USA Absurdity of bureaucracies Federal bureaucracy blunders in handling COVID-19 epidemic in the USA Diamond Princess epidemics of COVID-19 Medical workers problems
Trump's impulsivity and incompetence Groupthink Manufactured consent Media as a weapon of mass deception Nation under attack meme Trumpcare scam The Real War on Reality
 Stability is destabilizing: The idea of Minsky moment Nineteen Eighty-Four Casino Capitalism The importance of controlling the narrative Propaganda Quotes Humor Etc

Introduction

The USA handing of the coronarovirus epidemic is interesting by the stale of its incompetence, because the performance of the neoliberal state i recent times has been anything but competent. The incompetence is a symptom of a morally-degenerate managerial class Infected with neoliberal ideas and having no sense of responsibility to anyone other than themselves. The bank bailout in 2008 buried neoliberal ideology (the preachers of the neoliberal agenda suddenly found themselves without an audience)  but also exposed the level of hijacking of the state by financial oligarchy.  It is hard to distinguish between incompetence and fraud.  Much that looks incompetent conceals fraud (stock buybacks, Boeing fiasco, etc). And note that Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago “to be more like GE”. Well they’ve destroyed the company to be more like the looters and liars and cheats. Along with GE there are some other notable poster-children of how private enterprise has committed suicide through the wanton bloodletting of its skilled employees (Boeing being a recent case-in-point).

this same phenomena can be found in universities, colleges  where faculties are no longer bolstered by a strong bench of tenured staff, contract and non-tenured hire-and-fire disposable staff are now the norm. No matter how many “systems” and “quality functions” they put in place, experience matters

One of the problems is that financialization and securitization of everything revealed during this epidemic is that has effectively separated the managerial class in both private and public sector from knowledge and experience of actual logistics and execution. Transferring securities with the push of a button is not the same as getting an industrial plant or phone center built, trained, and running efficiently. Companies and organizations with a history of doing this well manage to lost that capability in only a couple of years after financial shark CEO was installed (e.g. IBM, CDC, FEMA, numerous companies taken over by private equity ).  They know the price of everything and the value of nothing

The rise of the FIRE sectors as a percentage of GDP has been obvious. the USA economy is over-financialized. All this has done is with layer after layers of  debt and interest payments  to the detriment of the real economy.  Financialization creates a positive feedback loop. Every system with positive feedback loop will crash, sooner or later. Neoliberals worked really hard to remove not just the negative feedback,  but any traces of the negative feedback on financial sector.

The idea that “never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence” (Hanlon's razor - Wikipedia ) is not longer true. The neoliberal America has a lot of corruption. Some obviously stupid actions are explainable for short term greed motives. That explains much of what we are seeing now.

CDC botched testing program during COVID-19 epidemic became a textbook example of bureaucratic incompetence.  They do not do competence in Washington. You need to start holding people responsible and that's impossible with the new neoliberal aristocracy (financial oligarchy), which inherited all vices of the old but none of its virtues.

Epidemic control is not something in which a neoliberal society excels

Epidemic control is not something in which a neoliberal society, based on the idea that profit is the king ("Greed is good")  motives and "homo homily lupus est" style of promotion of competition excels. It requires cooperation, which is discouraged under neoliberalism. See Neoliberal rationality  The neoliberalized healthcare is clearly rotten for 90% of the population  (truthdig)

“I was born in 1936. My father lost his job the day I was born,” recalls the Truthdig editor in chief. “Roosevelt was the hero in our house. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Why? Because the ruling class in our country, the robber barons, the rich people — and he was from a rich family — they undermined their own system. They were so consumed with greed and short-term profit and swindling, the market and everything else that they forgot about stability in society.”

We can add that the US political system after 2008 crash entered prolong crisis and its economy -- "secular stagnation" phase -- neoliberal ideology is dead, but neoliberalism marches on like a zombie. Actually pretty bloodthirsty zombie.

In case of COVD-19 the relevant public health officials may know what needs to be done, but they’re not doing it because of the reflexive reliance on neoliberal, market-based solutions is also at fault. At least in part, because state resources are simply not available. It’s also due to the way we the authority for such problems was pushed down from federal to the state and local level.  There are some things government is uniquely positioned to provide, but neoliberals are not capable of recognizing that simple fact.

As Dr. Sarah Borwein stated in her Exclusive Interview on COVID-19 with SARS Veteran  published on MedLink:

The most important thing we learned from SARS was that infectious diseases do not respect borders or government edicts, and cannot be hidden. It requires international cooperation, transparency and sharing of information to control an epidemic.

We also learned the importance of providing good, balanced, reliable information to the public. In any epidemic, there is the outbreak of disease and then there is the epidemic of panic. And nowadays, there is also what the WHO has termed the Infodemic, the explosion of information about the epidemic. Some of it is good information, but some of it is rumour, myth, speculation and conspiracy theory, and those things feed the anxiety. It can be hard to sort out which information to believe, so it is important to choose trustworthy sources. Panic and misinformation make controlling the outbreak more difficult.

Neoliberalism as a social system based on lies and disinformation so this is impossible under neoliberalism. So the fact that Trump administration is lying about the epidemic is not a bug, it is a feature (BTW Chine is a neoliberal society too; although the remnants of socialism still are visible; the same is even more true for  Russia - it is typical and rather cruel neoliberal society)

In the USA  the neoliberal policies undermined the healthcare system  to the extent that dealing with the epidemic like COVID-19 in privatized healthcare system represent tremendous challenges.  Neoliberalism takes privatization of social services such as government hospitals and health facilities to the extreme.  Privatization is the exact opposite of making health services more affordable and accessible to the public

“The first rule of public health is to gain the trust of the population.” Neoliberalism is doing exactly opposite: population distrust providers of medical services which often abuse ill patients for profit (surprise ambulance billing,  surprise hospital billing, unnecessary medical procedures like insertion of stents, unnecessary surgeries, etc). The CoVid19 is about to expose millions without health insurance, more millions with enormous deductibles and co-pays that discourage doctor visits, and still more millions who can't afford to stay home when they're sick if they want to avoid eviction and homelessness.  

TE Lawrence countykerry a month ago
Well, hygiene is fine, but that's only a secondary issue, the proverbial lock on the barn door after the horse is stolen. And clearly, we can have nationalism without having epidemics. The problem is that the current form of Capitalism is built on looong supply chains to countries with cheap labor and lots of government support. I worked for a large aircraft manufacturer for many years,whose modus operandi was to avoid outsourcing parts and structures to American companies, and it worked pretty well for quite a long time for them. But now the weak links in the 'chain' come to the foreground. Rule #1 (and the only rule!) of Capitalism is 'there is no such thing as too much profit'.

A CEO's corporate life expectancy is about 3 years, so he (usually a 'he') has to plunder fast and make a good severance deal while they have the chance. Nationalism only deals with national matters.

Meanwhile, the financial and business world could care less about the welfare of any nation, whose citizens exist merely to contribute to quarterly profits. Any given corporation does not make lightbulbs, cars, air conditioners or any other thing. The entire enterprise exists to provide huge salaries to a few hundred executives. Nations supposedly exist to provide security to their citizens, among other services, such as infastructure and public health. They have failed, badly, because of the corruption of our leadership, which now consists of elevator boys and room service for the Wealthy.

Add to this weakened emergency response capabilities and it looks like another Katrina moment. SNAFU started with CDC botching the development of virus test kits (and producing 10 time more expensive kits that China and Korea used)  and then trying to hide this by maximum restrictions on "eligible" for testing patients.  Typical for all neoliberals Trump preoccupation with the health of stock market, not so much with the health of the USA people also played some role (Although one positive thing about Trump's behaviour is that he opposed MSM panic  about the virus) The USA could benefit from replication China and South Korea path to suppressing the virus, but choose not to do so. Moreover  Trump administration created fiasco with tests which was notable, painful and will have negative consequences for the duration of the epidemics in the USA The Coronavirus Debacle The American Conservative

The president has been unwilling to tell the public the truth about the situation because he evidently cares more about the short-term political implications than he does about protecting the public:

Even as the government’s scientists and leading health experts raised the alarm early and pushed for aggressive action, they faced resistance and doubt at the White House — especially from the president — about spooking financial markets and inciting panic.

“It’s going to all work out,” Mr. Trump said as recently as Thursday night. “Everybody has to be calm. It’s going to work out.”

Justin Fox comments on the president’s terrible messaging:

The biggest problem, though, is simply the way that the president talks about the disease. His instinct at every turn is to downplay its danger and significance.

Minimizing the danger and significance of the outbreak ensured that the government’s response was less urgent and focused than it could have been. It encouraged people to take it less seriously and thus made it more likely that the virus would spread. Then when the severity of the problem became undeniable, the earlier discredited happy talk makes it easier for people to disbelieve what the government tells them in the future.

Neoliberalism  decimated social protection of workers (sick days, sick leaves, etc) and forces workers to come to the job even while having symptoms.  Part time workers (which are the fastest growing part of the US work force)  are generally treated like slaves in the USA. The vast majority of hourly employees in the hospitality business don’t have health insurance. "Average working class folks cannot afford to voluntary quarantine themselves. Or to stay home from work for any reason. Even if they have symptoms. They will continue going to work. They have to, in order to economically survive." https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/09/covid-19-and-the-working-class/

Consider the typical scenario in the US: there are literally tens of millions of workers who have no more than $400 for an emergency. As many perhaps as half of the work force of 165 million. They live paycheck to paycheck. They can’t afford to miss any days of work. Millions of them have no paid sick leave. The US is the worst of all advanced economies in terms of providing paid sick leave. Even union workers with some paid sick leave in their contracts have, at best, only six days on average. If they stay home sick, they’ll be asked by their employer the reason for doing so in order to collect that paid sick leave. And even when they don’t have sick leave. Paid leave or not, many will be required to provide a doctor’s slip indicating the nature of the illness. But doctors are refusing to hold office visits for patients who may have the virus. They can’t do anything about it, so they don’t want them to come in and possibly contaminate others or themselves. So a worker sick has to go to the hospital emergency room.

That raises another problem. A trip to the emergency room costs on average at least a $1,000. More if special tests are done. If the worker has no health insurance (30 million still don’t), that’s an out of pocket cost he/she can’t afford. They know it. So they don’t go to the hospital emergency room, and they can’t get an appointment at the doctor’s office. Result: they don’t get tested, refuse to go get tested, and they continue to go to work. The virus spreads.

... ... ...

Then there’s the further complication concerning employment if they do go to the hospital. The hospital will (soon) test them. If found infected, they will send them home…for voluntary quarantine for 14 days! Now the financial crises really begins. The hospital will inform their employer. Staying at home for 14 days will result in financial disaster, since the employer has no obligation to continue to pay them their wages while not at work, unless they have some minimal paid sick leave which, as noted, the vast majority don’t have. Nor does the employer have any obligation legally to even keep them employed for 14 days (or even less) if the employer determines they are not likely to return to work after 14 days (or even less). They therefore get fired if they go to the hospital after it reports to the employer they have the virus. Just another good reason not to go to the hospital.

In other words, here’s all kind of major economic disincentives to keep an illness confidential, to go to work, not go to the hospital (and can’t go to the doctor). That risks passing on the highly contagion bug to others–which has been happening and will continue to happen.

McJobs in service sector are in especially bad shape because they already have a third world country conditions imposed on them.  Ask Wal-Mart workers about their sick leaves problems; and Wal-Mart is not the worst retailer in the USA as for the personnel abuse.  This backfire during virus epidemics and makes the USA a third world country as for the prognosis of the severity of this epidemics in the country.  https://www.bangladeshpost.net/posts/neoliberalism-and-the-coronavirus-25315

capitalism is all about externalizing costs. “Some people” (because corporations are legally people) don’t take responsibility for their carbon footprint. “Some people” scrape the surface off the earth to get at “their” lithium. Some polluters don’t take responsibility for the health costs of their effluent.

The shorthand definition of neoliberalism is capitalism on steroids. No longer does capital have to exploit workers in its own country. It can scour the world for the cheapest, most exploitable labor. No longer does capital have to fret about environmental regulations in its own country.

Just manufacture those goods someplace where the government says air that you can’t see through, or water that is green from algae is A-OK. Those goods end up a continent away, but as long as the shipping costs are cheap (burn, baby, burn), it makes more profit than employing local people for what they think is a livable wage.

... ... ...

In sum, the strategy of wringing every last dollar out of child, prison, and slave labor for the sake of private profit is nearing the point of diminishing returns. Unleashing a fatal virus from bats into humans is a negative return. By wrecking the neoliberal-driven global economy, SARC-CoV-2 may just push the world into embodying that final section of the post-climate catastrophe, post-Ebola, post-rat fever world of David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks. The question is, do you find the final section pessimistic or optimistic?

Another factor is that the working class families in the USA lack any significant savings to shoulder work disruption. Presence of homeless on the streets of cities such as San Francisco is another aggravating factor.  The vulnerability of the US in the current political environment comes because the gerantocratic neoliberal regime is concerned only about the prosperity of the top 10% (and especially top`1%) of the population; all other are treated as "deplorables" (Truthdig) :

Nowhere, though, is the rusty, rickety nature of America’s civic society more recently evident than in the hilariously, harrowingly inept response to the advent of the COVID-19 virus as a global contagion. Whether it is more or less dangerous and deadly than the media portrays is quite beside the point.

The abject incapacity of any government, least of all the feds, to offer even simple, sensible guidance, much less mobilize national resources to examine, investigate and ameliorate the potential threat to human health and well-being is astonishing, even to a tired old cynic like me.

At present, the most proactive step has been to pressure the Federal Reserve into goosing the stock market — the sort of pagan expiation of dark spirits that you’d expect in a more primitive world, when a volcano blew or an earthquake hit.

Some compensating factors

One positive factor in this story is that "God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.."(attributed to Otto von Bismarck) -- epidemics in the USA actively started in March and warm weather usually halts such epidemics. If this is true, then Northern Europe/Russia/Canada/Northern USA will have at only the extra 1-2 months vulnerability, if there is a pandemic, as warm weather in those regions often comes as late as May.

Also despite feredal authorities stance, considerable aprt of the population bought masks and were using them in public places.


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NEWS CONTENTS

Old News ;-)

[Jul 15, 2021] Many Jobs Lost During the Coronavirus Pandemic Just Aren't Coming Back by Lauren Weber

when the tax rates increase even more, it just encourages automation or DIY (bring your own sheets to avoid paying the cleaning fee), which just grinds down growth rather than accelerates it.
Notable quotes:
"... Applebee's is now using tablets to allow customers to pay at their tables without summoning a waiter. ..."
Jul 15, 2021 | www.wsj.com
Companies see automation and other labor-saving steps as a way to emerge from the health crisis with a permanently smaller workforce
PHOTO: JIM THOMPSON/ZUMA PRESS

... ... ...

Economic data show that companies have learned to do more with less over the last 16 months or so. Output nearly recovered to pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of 2021 -- down just 0.5% from the end of 2019 -- even though U.S. workers put in 4.3% fewer hours than they did before the health crisis.

... ... ...

Raytheon Technologies Corp. RTX 0.08% , the biggest U.S. aerospace supplier by sales, laid off 21,000 employees and contractors in 2020 amid a drastic decline in air travel. Raytheon said in January that efforts to modernize its factories and back-office operations would boost profit margins and reduce the need to bring back all those jobs. The company said that most if not all of the 4,500 contract workers who were let go in 2020 wouldn't be called back.

... ... ..

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. HLT -0.78% said last week that most of its U.S. properties are adopting "a flexible housekeeping policy," with daily service available upon request. "Full deep cleanings will be conducted prior to check-in and on every fifth day for extended stays," it said.

Daily housekeeping will still be free for those who request it... Unite Here, a union that represents hotel workers, published a report in June estimating that the end of daily room cleaning could result in an industrywide loss of up to 180,000 jobs...

... ... ...

Restaurants have become rapid adopters of technology during the pandemic as two forces -- labor shortages that are pushing wages higher and a desire to reduce close contact between customers and employees -- raise the return on such investments. ... Applebee's is now using tablets to allow customers to pay at their tables without summoning a waiter. The hand-held screens provide a hedge against labor inflation, said John Peyton, CEO of Applebee's parent Dine Brands Global Inc.

... ... ...

The U.S. tax code encourages investments in automation, particularly after the Trump administration's tax cuts, said Daron Acemoglu, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies the impact of automation on workers. Firms pay around 25 cents in taxes for every dollar they pay workers, compared with 5 cents for every dollar spent on machines because companies can write off capital investments, he said.

... ... ...

-- Heather Haddon contributed to this article. D


DANIEL WEBER

A lot of employers were given Covid-aid to keep employees employed and paid in 2020. I assume somebody has addressed that obligation since it wasn't mentioned.

But, what happens to the unskilled workers whose jobs have been eliminated? Do Raytheon and Hilton just say "have a nice life on the streets"?

No, they will become our collective burdens.

I am all for technology and progress and better QA/QC and general performance. But the employers that benefit from this should use part of their gains in stock valuation to keep "our collective burdens" off our collective backs, rather than pay dividends and bonuses first.

Maybe reinvest in updated training for those laid off.

No great outcome comes free. BUT, as the article implies, the luxury of having already laid off the unskilled, likely leaves the employer holding all the cards.

And the wheel keeps turning...

Jeffery Allen
Question! Isn't this antithetical (reduction of employees) to the spirit and purpose of both monetary and fiscal programs, e.g., PPP loans (fiscal), capital markets funding facilities (monetary) established last year and current year? Employers are to retain employees. Gee, what a farce. Does anyone really care?
Philip Hilmes
Some of this makes sense and some would happen anyway without the pandemic. I don't need my room cleaned every day, but sometimes I want it. The wait staff in restaurants is another matter. Losing wait staff makes for a pretty bad experience. I hate having to order on my phone. I feel like I might as well be home ordering food through Grubhub or something. It's impersonal, more painful than telling someone, doesn't allow for you to be checked on if you need anything, doesn't provide information you don't get from a menu, etc. It really diminishes the value of going out to eat without wait staff.
al snow
OK I been reading all the comments I only have a WSJ access as the rate was a great deal.
Hotel/Motel started making the bed but not changing the sheets every day for many years I am fine as long as they offer trash take out and towel/paper every day
and do not forget to tip .
clive boulton
Recruiters re-post hard to fill job listings onto multiple job boards. I don't believe the reported job openings resemble are real. Divide by 3 at least.

[May 11, 2021] Neoliberalism taken to the limit

May 11, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

ay_arrow

Make_Mine_A_Double 6 hours ago (Edited)

But China can do our bio-chemical warfare research cheaper than we can - it only makes sense to use the theory of 'comparative advantage'.

I think outsourcing our bio-chemical weapons program to our existential enemy is really brilliant and saves the taxpayers money...

replaceme 6 hours ago

Did the NIH give that work special oversight, eg no oversight? Yes, yes they did...

[Feb 28, 2021] Neoliberalism on ventilator

Feb 28, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Canadian Cents , Feb 28 2021 17:21 utc | 9

Danny Haiphong on "Capitalism on a Ventilator" , a book that has apparently been banned by Amazon:
Capitalism on a Ventilator: A new book analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. and China

" The COVID-19 pandemic has placed China and the United States on the opposite ends of human progress."

steven t johnson , Feb 28 2021 18:03 utc | 17

Canadian Cents@9 The book Capitalism on a Ventilator is a collection of essays or articles produced by the Workers World Party, one of the Communist Parties in the US.

Amazon lists the book as currently unavailable (and asks if you want an email if it becomes more available.)

It is indeed possible this is a surreptitious way of censoring the book, especially if the unavailability means WWP (which operates the International Action Center) simply hasn't complied with technical requirements imposed by Amazon.

Such as guaranteeing delivery within a limited number of days. Amazon has, apparently, tightened up a lot to make it difficult for independents to sell on Amazon.

But it is also possible that the limited budgets and other resources led to limited numbers of copies which are now sold out. When the new press run is complete, the book becomes available again.

[Dec 30, 2020] Slavoj Zizek's 'brutal, dark' formula for saving the world

Notable quotes:
"... "We are more and more disoriented. There is a little good news, but at the same time there are new dimensions to the virus, and new variations that might turn out to be more dangerous. We now have this fake return to normal. The really frustrating thing is this lack of basic orientation. It's the absence of what [the philosopher and literary critic] Fredric Jameson calls 'cognitive mapping' – having a general idea of the situation, where it is moving and so on. Our desire to function requires some kind of clear coordinates, but we simply, to a large extent, don't know where we are." ..."
"... In his book, Zizek recalls the warnings of scientists after the SARS and Ebola epidemics. Persistently, we were told that the outbreak of a new epidemic was only a matter of time, but instead of preparing for the various scenarios we escaped into apocalypse movies. Zizek enumerates different scenarios of looming catastrophes, most of them consequences of the climate crisis, and calls for tough decisions to be made now. ..."
"... he coronavirus crisis is just a dress rehearsal for future problems that await us in the form of global warming, epidemics and other troubles. I don't think this is necessarily a pessimistic view, it's simply realistic. ..."
"... Now is a great time for politics, because the world in its current form is disappearing. Scientists will just tell us, 'If you want to play it safe, keep this level of quarantine,' or whatever. But we have a political decision to make, and we are offered different options." ..."
"... What if we will need another lockdown, even longer? Or multiple lockdowns? It's a sad prospect, but we should get ready to live in some kind of permanent state of emergency. ..."
"... The coronavirus epidemic is a universal crisis. In the long term, states cannot preserve themselves in a safe bubble while the epidemic rages all around ..."
"... It's tragic, I know, that all kinds of big companies are in deep shit, but are they worth saving? ..."
"... My formula is much more brutal, and darker. The state should simply guarantee that nobody actually starves, and perhaps this even needs to be done on an international scale, because otherwise you will get refugees. ..."
"... "I'm talking about what Naomi Klein calls the 'Screen New Deal.' The big technology companies like Google and Microsoft, which enjoy vast government support, will enable people to maintain Telexistence. You undergo a medical examination via the web, you do your job digitally from your apartment, your apartment becomes your world. I find this vision horrific." ..."
"... "First, it's class distinction at its purest. Maybe half the population, not even that, could live in this secluded way, but others will have to ensure that this digital machinery is functioning properly. Today, apart from the old working class, we have a 'welfare working class,' all those caregivers, educators, social workers, farmers. The dream of this program, the Screen New Deal, is that physically, at least, this class of caregivers disappears, they become as invisible as possible. Interaction with them will be increasingly reduced and be digital." ..."
"... "The irony here is that those who are privileged, those who, in this scenario, will be able to live in this perfect, secluded way, will also be totally controlled digitally. Their morning urine will be examined, and so on with every aspect of their life. Take the new analysis capabilities that can test you and provide results [for the coronavirus] in 10-15 minutes. I can imagine a new form of sexuality in this totally isolated world, in which I flirt with someone virtually, and then we say, 'Okay, let's meet in real life and test each other – if we're both negative, we can do it.'" ..."
"... As Julian Assange wrote, we will get a privately controlled combination of Google and something like the NSA ..."
"... Zizek divides workers during the crisis into those who encounter the virus and its consequences as part of their daily reality – medical staff, welfare-service people, farmers, the food industry – and those who are secluded in their homes, for whom the epidemic remains in the realm of the Lacanian spectral and omnipresent. ..."
Jun 04, 2020 | www.haaretz.com

Slavoj Zizek's 'Brutal, Dark' Formula for Saving the World

The pandemic is liable to worsen, ecological disasters loom and technological surveillance will terminate democracy. Salvation will come only by reorganizing human society. A conversation with the radical – and anxious – philosopher Slavoj Zizek Share in Facebook Share in Twitter Send in e-mail Send in e-mail Go to comments Print article Zen Read

Open gallery view Slavoj Zizek.

This is not an easy time for Slavoj Zizek. Quite the opposite, and he's the first to admit it. Reoccurring panic attacks incapacitate him for hours at a time and, unlike in the past, the nights have stopped providing him with an easy escape. His sleep is wracked by nightmares of what the future holds for humanity. There are days when he fantasizes about being infected by the coronavirus. At least, that way all of the uncertainty would come to an end, or so he imagines. Finally, he would be able to cope with the virus concretely, instead of continuously being haunted by it, as some sort of a spectral entity.

... ... ...

At age 71, Zizek is currently closeted in his home in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, with his fourth wife, the Slovene writer and journalist Jela Krecic, who is three decades younger than him. During the past couple of weeks the epidemic seems to have faded in his country, with only two or three new cases being reported daily. But Zizek, who spoke to Haaretz via Skype, is in no hurry to breathe a sigh of relief.

[Dec 21, 2020] Capitalism on ventilator and COVID-19 as a teachable moment

This is a review of the book Capitalism on a Ventilator- The Impact of COVID-19 in China & the U.S.- Hin, Lee Siu, Flounders, Sara, Martinez, Carlos, Moor
We need to abstract from pro-China propaganda here. The critique of the USA handing of the epidemic is a better part of the article. It is true, that the US neoliberal elite was more conserved about the health on military-industrial complex then about the health and well-being of the American people.
Dec 18, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

... ... ...

Writes Margaret Kimberley (in "Opposing War Propaganda Against China," Jan. 25, 2020):

"Now whenever we see a reference to China in the corporate media we always see the words communist party attached. This silly redundancy is war propaganda along with every other smear and slur. We are told that 1 million Uighurs are imprisoned when there is quite literally no proof of any such thing. China, the country which first experienced the COVID-19 virus, was the first to vanquish it, and has a low death rate of less than 5,000 people to prove it. We depend here in America on China to produce masks and other protective equipment but China is declared the villain. The country that within one month of realizing there was a new communicable disease gave the world the keys to conquering it.

"Instead the country which fails where China succeeds, in providing for the needs of its people and their health, is an international pariah, with most of the world barring Americans from travel and turning us into a giant leper colony. Trump speaks of the "kung flu" and the "Wuhan virus," but it is China which conquered the disease that has killed 130,000 Americans and forced a quarantine which has caused economic devastation to millions of people here.

"But Americans get nothing but war propaganda. Trump and Joe Biden outdo one another bragging about who will be tougher to China. This week we saw the U.S. government violate international law again and close the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas."

Writes Roxana Baspineiro in "Solidarity vs. Sanctions in Times of a Global Pandemic":

"Chinese and Cuban doctors have been providing support in Iran, Italy, Spain and have offered their services and expertise to the most vulnerable countries in Latin America, Africa, and Europe. They have developed medicines and medical treatments such as Interferon Alpha 2B in Cuba, one of the potential medicines to combat the virus, which reduces the mortality rate of people affected by COVID19. But above all, they have offered their interest in distributing them to the peoples of the world without any patent or benefit whatsoever."

Regardless of whether citizens of the US know about Chinese efforts, people in other nations have noticed, according to Stansfield Smith, who writes:

"From the responses to the coronavirus pandemic, the world has seen the model of public health efficiency China presented in controlling the problem at home. It has seen China's world leadership in offering international aid and care. It has seen the abdication of leadership by the US and even its obstruction in working to find solutions. Now the US still cannot control the virus, and remains mired in economic crisis, while China is rebounding. In sum, the pandemic has made the world look at both China and the US in a new light. And it has dealt a serious blow to the US rulers' two decade long effort to counter the rise of China."

... ... ...

The final section of the book, "Escalating anti-China campaign," is a diverse collection of essays on subjects such as: US accusations of Chinese repression of Uyghurs; NATO exercises that threatened to exacerbate COVID spread even while China was bringing aid to Europe; COVID in the US armed forces; US military belligerence toward China; the color revolution in Hong Kong; Vietnam's response to COVID; and a call from Margaret Flowers and the recently deceased Kevin Zeese to replace the US pivot to Asia with a "Pivot to Peace."

Ajamu Baraka writes:

"The psychopathology of white supremacy blinds U.S. policy- makers to the political, economic, and geopolitical reality that the U.S. is in irreversible decline as a global power. The deep structural contradictions of the U.S. economy and state was exposed by the weak and confused response to COVID-19 and the inability of the state to provide minimum protections for its citizens and residents.

"But even in decline, the U.S. has a vast military structure that it can use to threaten and cause massive death and destruction. This makes the U.S. a threat to the planet and collective humanity because U.S policy-makers appear to be in the grip of a deathwish in which they are prepared to destroy the world before voluntarily relinquishing power, especially to a non-European power like China.

"For example, when Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo declared in public that the United States and its Western European allies must put China in "its proper place," this represents a white supremacist mindset that inevitably will lead to monumental errors of judgment."

So COVID-19 is, to put it mildly, a teachable moment. Looking around the world right now, we can see who is learning and who isn't. As "Capitalism on a Ventilator" vividly illustrates, China is leading the way, and the United States is slipping into obsolescence. Those who hope to survive the coming travails can see who to follow and who to avoid.

Kollibri terre Sonnenblume is a writer living on the West Coast of the U.S.A. More of Kollibri's writing and photos can be found at Macska Moksha Press .

[Dec 06, 2020] COVID Is Exposing The Cancerous Underbelly Of US Healthcare -

Dec 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com


COVID Is Exposing The Cancerous Underbelly Of US Healthcare
by Tyler Durden Sat, 12/05/2020 - 12:20 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

If you still believe that America's Sickcare is "the finest in the world" and is endlessly sustainable, please study these three charts and extend the trendlines.

I've long been making the distinction between healthcare and sickcare : healthcare is the service provided by frontline operational caregivers (doctors, nurses, aides, technicians, etc.) and sickcare is the financialized system of Big Hospital Corporations, Big Insurers, Big Pharma, etc. and their lobbyists that keep the federal money spigots wide open.

This financialized sickcare system is being consumed by the cancer of greedy profiteering pursued by self-serving insiders. The delivery of healthcare is secondary to maximizing revenues and profits by any means available .

To believe such a corrupt system is sustainable is magical thinking at its most destructive.

Covid-19 is revealing this cancerous underbelly. Knowledge of the inner workings of corporate administration is not evenly distributed, so every participants' experience of the systemic dysfunction will vary.

Here is one MD's observations of the system's priorities. Others may have different views but the maxim follow the money is clearly the correct place to start any inquiry of how America's financialized sickcare functions in the real world.

From what I'm hearing from the front line, a not insignificant number of admissions are of folks who would not have been admitted in March when there was fear of both the unknown and systemic failure and, not coincidently, when COVID diagnoses didn't pay as much.

Today, the admission criteria for COVID is so much more flexible than for standard diagnoses like CHF, and pays so much better than other diagnoses that our 'healthcare' system is rapidly becoming a 'COVID care' system.

The surge in hospitalizations and subsequent COVID-identified deaths may be driven, in part, to health systems adapting to new COVID revenue streams.

This would seemingly be good news, after all if it's the hospital administrator's desire to fill empty beds that's driving admissions rather than infection rates, then systemic failure can be averted through moderating those admission rates based on system capacity.

If your hospital fills up, just start sending the marginal cases home--inpatient/outpatient; the outcome for the patient will be pretty much the same and you've made as much money as your capacity will allow.

Unfortunately, our healthcare 'system' doesn't work like that.

Health systems are in the business of generating revenue, not value. Recent COVID-related demand destruction has crushed that revenue so they're hungry for more.

Those in health-system operations and those in leadership live in two different worlds. Leadership will push COVID admissions far beyond any operational limits in their quest for short term performance. One cannot overstate their mendacity and drive for lucre.

Hospitals are becoming 'COVID factories' with all other admissions (which pay far less) relegated to second tier status.

Health systems are evolving into an 'all COVID, all the time' format with the emphasis on testing and (soon) vaccination, at the expense of all else.

Not a few systems of my acquaintance are laying off outpatient medical staff because their supporting personnel have quit and are not replaced--those resources are being re-directed to COVID testing and in preparation for mass vaccination.

For the health system in the business of generating revenue, it's an excellent tactic. They save themselves significant overhead by not paying the clinicians and they make up the revenue through high-margin COVID services and government bailout payments.

For patients who actually need healthcare, though, this tactic is deadly.

The perversion is end-stage, the health systems pretend to deliver healthcare and the government pays them to continue the pretense.

There is no long term thinking here, no empathy for the workforce, no thought to the mission beyond window-dressing--just a relentless, risk-adverse financialization machine.

Think of COVID as a new widget for which the customer will pay 2.5 times the going price with no quality control, but only for a limited amount of time. Add in talentless, rent-seeking leadership and all becomes clear.

Of course the real risk is that maxed out hospitals could find themselves in a situation where admissions suddenly become driven by demand rather than the business model, with a true non-linear path to failure laying beyond.

The longer daily national hospital occupancy stays above the approximate pre-COVID capacity of 100k, the more likely you'll see systemic breakdowns--local at first, then regional.

You won't see it in the press, the healthcare cartels have a pretty good lock on the local media. Once news starts getting censored on social media, though, then you know it's happening.

Hold me to that, And call me out in three months if I'm not right.

If you still believe that America's sickcare is "the finest in the world" and is endlessly sustainable, please study these three charts and extend the trendlines.

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[Nov 28, 2020] Post-2008 First World capitalism: the zombification and then definitive death of the petite-bourgeoisie:

Nov 28, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Nov 27 2020 13:27 utc | 107

Pushed by Pandemic, Amazon Goes on a Hiring Spree Without Equal

The First World is leaving the "sweet spot" of its capitalist development stage, marked by a relatively inflated petit-bourgeois middle class, and is reentering a proletarianization phase. Call it the reproletarianization of the First World.

Looks like Marx was right all along.

[Nov 25, 2020] Blaming It On the Billionaire - The American Conservative

Nov 25, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

According to Time : "in addressing the causes and consequences of this pandemic – and its cruelly uneven impact – the elephant in the room is extreme income inequality. How big is this elephant? A staggering $50 trillion. That is how much the upward redistribution of income has cost American workers over the past several decades." Economics as a zero sum game in other words

[Nov 22, 2020] Government-Funded Scientists Laid the Groundwork for Billion-Dollar Vaccines -

Nov 22, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

By Arthur Allen, editor for California Healthline, joined Kaiser Health News in April 2020 after six years at Politico, where he created, edited and wrote for the first health IT-focused news team. Previously, he was a freelance writer for publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Smithsonian, Lingua Franca magazine, The New Republic, Slate and Salon. Earlier in his career, he worked for The Associated Press for 13 years, including stints as a correspondent based in El Salvador, Mexico and Germany. He is the author of the books "V Kaiser Health News. accine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver" (W.W. Norton, 2007); "Ripe: The Search for the Perfect Tomato" (Counterpoint Press, 2010) and "The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl" (W.W. Norton, 2014). Originally published at Kaiser Health News Kaiser Health News .

When he started researching a troublesome childhood infection nearly four decades ago, virologist Dr. Barney Graham , then at Vanderbilt University, had no inkling his federally funded work might be key to deliverance from a global pandemic.

Yet nearly all the vaccines advancing toward possible FDA approval this fall or winter are based on a design developed by Graham and his colleagues, a concept that emerged from a scientific quest to understand a disastrous 1966 vaccine trial.

Basic research conducted by Graham and others at the National Institutes of Health, Defense Department and federally funded academic laboratories has been the essential ingredient in the rapid development of vaccines in response to COVID-19. The government has poured an additional $10.5 billion into vaccine companies since the pandemic began to accelerate the delivery of their products.

The Moderna vaccine, whose remarkable effectiveness in a late-stage trial was announced Monday morning, emerged directly out of a partnership between Moderna and Graham's NIH laboratory.

Coronavirus vaccines are likely to be worth billions to the drug industry if they prove safe and effective. As many as 14 billion vaccines would be required to immunize everyone in the world against COVID-19. If, as many scientists anticipate, vaccine-produced immunity wanes, billions more doses could be sold as booster shots in years to come. And the technology and production laboratories seeded with the help of all this federal largesse could give rise to other profitable vaccines and drugs.

The vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, which are likely to be the first to win FDA approval, in particular rely heavily on two fundamental discoveries that emerged from federally funded research: the viral protein designed by Graham and his colleagues, and the concept of RNA modification, first developed by Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó at the University of Pennsylvania. In fact, Moderna's founders in 2010 named the company after this concept: "Modified" + "RNA" = Moderna, according to co-founder Robert Langer .

"This is the people's vaccine," said corporate critic Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Access to Medicines program. "Federal scientists helped invent it and taxpayers are funding its development. It should belong to humanity."

Moderna, through spokesperson Ray Jordan, acknowledged its partnership with NIH throughout the COVID-19 development process and earlier. Pfizer spokesperson Jerica Pitts noted the company had not received development and manufacturing support from the U.S. government, unlike Moderna and other companies.

The idea of creating a vaccine with messenger RNA, or mRNA -- the substance that converts DNA into proteins -- goes back decades. Early efforts to create mRNA vaccines failed, however, because the raw RNA was destroyed before it could generate the desired response. Our innate immune systems evolved to kill RNA strands because that's what many viruses are.

Karikó came up with the idea of modifying the elements of RNA to enable it to slip past the immune system undetected. The modifications she and Weissman developed allowed RNA to become a promising delivery system for both vaccines and drugs. To be sure, their work was enhanced by scientists at Moderna, BioNTech and other laboratories over the past decade.

Another key element in the mRNA vaccine is the lipid nanoparticle -- a tiny, ingeniously designed bit of fat that encloses the RNA in a sort of invisibility cloak, ferrying it safely through the blood and into cells and then dissolving, thereby allowing the RNA to do its work of coding a protein that will serve as the vaccine's main active ingredient. The idea of enclosing drugs or vaccines in lipid nanoparticles arose first in the 1960s and was developed by Langer and others at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and various academic and industry laboratories.

Karikó began investigating RNA in 1978 in her native Hungary and wrote her first NIH grant proposal to use mRNA as a therapeutic in 1989. She and Weissman achieved successes starting in 2004, but the path to recognition was often discouraging.

"I keep writing and doing experiments, things are getting better and better, but I never get any money for the work," she recalled in an interview. "The critics said it will never be a drug. When I did these discoveries, my salary was lower than the technicians working next to me."

Eventually, the University of Pennsylvania sublicensed the patent to Cellscript, a biotech company in Wisconsin, much to the dismay of Weissman and Karikó, who had started their own company to try to commercialize the discovery. Moderna and BioNTech later would each pay $75 million to Cellscript for the RNA modification patent, Karikó said. Though unhappy with her treatment at Penn, she remained there until 2013 -- partly because her daughter, Susan Francia, was making a name for herself on the school's rowing team. Francia would go on to win two Olympic gold medals in the sport. Karikó is now a senior officer at BioNTech.

In addition to RNA modification and the lipid nanoparticle, the third key contribution to the mRNA vaccines -- as well as those made by Novavax, Sanofi and Johnson & Johnson -- - is the bioengineered protein developed by Graham and his collaborators . It has proved in tests so far to elicit an immune response that could prevent the virus from causing infections and disease.

The protein design was based on the observation that so-called fusion proteins -- the pieces of the virus that enable it to invade a cell -- are shape-shifters, presenting different surfaces to the immune system after the virus fuses with and infects cells. Graham and his colleagues learned that antibodies against the post-fusion protein are far less effective at stopping an infection.

The discovery arose in part through Graham's studies of a 54-year-old tragedy -- the failed 1966 trial of an NIH vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. In a clinical trial, not only did that vaccine fail to protect against the common childhood disease, but most of the 21 children who received it were hospitalized with acute allergic reactions, and two died .

About a decade ago, Graham, now deputy director of NIH's Vaccine Research Center, took a new stab at the RSV problem with a postdoctoral fellow, Jason McLellan. After isolating and obtaining three-dimensional models of the RSV's fusion protein, they worked with Chinese scientists to identify an appropriate neutralizing antibody against it.

"We were sitting in Xiamen, China, when Jason got the first image up on his laptop, and I was like, oh my God, it's coming together," Graham recalled. The prefusion antibodies they discovered were 16 times more potent than the post-fusion form contained in the faulty 1960s vaccine.

Two 2013 papers the team published in Science earned them a runner-up prize in the prestigious journal's Breakthrough of the Year award. Their papers, which showed it was possible to plan and create a vaccine at the microscopic structural level, set the NIH's Vaccine Research Center on a path toward creating a generalizable, rapid way to design vaccines against emerging pandemic viruses, Graham said.

In 2016, Graham, McLellan and other scientists, including Andrew Ward at the Scripps Research Institute, advanced their concept further by publishing the prefusion structure of a coronavirus that causes the common cold and a patent was filed for its design by NIH, Scripps and Dartmouth -- where McLellan had set up his own lab. NIH and the University of Texas -- where McLellan now works -- filed an additional patent this year for a similar design change in the virus that causes COVID-19.

Graham's NIH lab, meanwhile, had started working with Moderna in 2017 to design a rapid manufacturing system for vaccines. In January, they were preparing a demonstration project, a clinical trial to test whether Graham's protein design and Moderna's mRNA platform could be used to create a vaccine against Nipah, a deadly virus spread by bats in Asia.

Their plans changed rapidly when they learned on Jan. 7 that the epidemic of respiratory disease in China was being caused by a coronavirus.

"We agreed immediately that the demonstration project would focus on this virus" instead of Nipah, Graham said. Moderna produced a vaccine within six weeks. The first patient was vaccinated in an NIH-led clinical study on March 16; early results from Moderna's 30,000-volunteer late-stage trial showed it was nearly 95% effective at preventing COVID-19.

Although other scientists have advanced proposals for what may be even more potent vaccine antigens , Graham is confident that carefully designed vaccines using nucleic acids like RNA reflect the future of new vaccines. Already, two major drug companies are doing advanced clinical trials for RSV vaccines based on the designs his lab discovered, he said.

In a larger sense, the pandemic could be the event that paves the way for better, perhaps cheaper and more plentiful vaccines.

"It's a silver lining, but I think we are definitely pushing forward the way everyone is thinking about vaccines," said Michael Farzan , chair of the department of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research's Florida campus. "Certain techniques that have been waiting in the wings, under development but never achieving the kind of funding they needed for major tests, will finally get their chance to shine."

Under a 1980 law, the NIH will obtain no money from the coronavirus vaccine patent. How much money will eventually go to the discoverers or their institutions isn't clear. Any existing licensing agreements haven't been publicized; patent disputes among some of the companies will likely last years. HHS' big contracts with the vaccine companies are not transparent, and Freedom of Information Act requests have been slow-walked and heavily redacted, said Duke University law professor Arti Rai.

Some basic scientists involved in the enterprise seem to accept the potentially lopsided financial rewards.

"Having public-private partnerships is how things get done," Graham said. "During this crisis, everything is focused on how can we do the best we can as fast as we can for the public health. All this other stuff is going to have to be figured out later."

"It's not a good look to become extremely wealthy off a pandemic," McLellan said, noting the big stock sales by some vaccine company executives after they received hundreds of millions of dollars in government assistance. Still, "the companies should be able to make some money."

For Graham, the lesson of the coronavirus vaccine response is that a few billion dollars a year spent on additional basic research could prevent a thousand times as much loss in death, illness and economic destruction.

"Basic research informs what we do, and planning and preparedness can make such a difference in how we get ahead of these epidemics," he said.


Larry , November 18, 2020 at 7:21 am

I appreciate the recent re-look at the nexus of public investment funding private profit in the pharma space. I'm not old enough to recall how things were done prior to the 1980s with regards to promising academic discoveries getting commercialized in the United States. There is also a glaring omission here in that there are mechanisms for the Federal Government to take control of patents and price fix in an emergency, but it's clear that was never going to happen and was never whispered in the lead up to operation Warp Speed. Pfizer keeps pointing out they never took government money, which is a set up for them to set the price at whatever they want while executives line their pockets.

The second point, that is not a focus of the article, is that these technologies are still completely unproven. I am optimistic about the early results, though would feel better if they were published in quality journals and not press releases. We simply don't know anything about long term affects of dosing with this technology. These articles make it sound like we're out of the woods and these vaccines are here to stay, but what if there are high percentages of people that get major side effects? We still have no idea.

Code Name D , November 18, 2020 at 7:53 am

But Joe Biden is now president. So of course the vaccines will work.

John Hacker , November 18, 2020 at 10:51 am

I was just thinking about that this morning. I thought about the little boy who cried wolf. If Don had not tarnished his (??where-with-all??) by not leading. He still be the Prez.

WobblyTelomeres , November 18, 2020 at 7:54 am

So, Larry, what would it take to convince you? A million volunteers? A billion? 2 years? 5 years?

trhys , November 18, 2020 at 8:01 am

So, Wobbly, can I safely assume that you and your family have already volunteered for one of the trials?

WobblyTelomeres , November 18, 2020 at 8:31 am

As I have stated here, yes.

trhys , November 18, 2020 at 8:45 am

I applaud you for standing with power of your convictions. Not many have the integrity to do so. This is meant sincerely.

On the other hand I think Larry has a point. Hopefully his and my concerns will prove to be unfounded. I believe it is too soon to tell. Your question about the quantification of risk is a fair question and is difficult for the layman judge.

WobblyTelomeres , November 18, 2020 at 9:36 am

I share the concerns that have been and are voiced here. Still, there is a class aspect to it all. It seems as if this war is like every other war; the poors are sent in first. There are many, perhaps the majority of volunteers, that need the couple of hundred bucks the pharmas are offering the participants. They are the same people that line up to sell their blood plasma every week. Big business, that. So, I woke up, looked in the mirror, and told the old man there to "Suck it up, Buttercup."

And Lambert and others are right when they say our leaders should be first in line to roll up their sleeves. Just don't forget the many that have already done so.

Susan the other , November 18, 2020 at 11:21 am

It was a revelation to me that RNA vaccines had been in the works since the 60s. That makes me a little more in-favor of them. It is still frightening that this vaccine will be mandated for all medical personnel before the rest of the population. Also interesting that RNA gets greased up to slip past the enzymes(?) that destroy errant RNA I'm still trying to think how that might not be such a good thing. But you are right – it looks like it works. Extremely well in fact. But a timeline to prove it is safe? I'd say one or two generations. If this mRNA slips past the mechanisms to protect the cell from foreign RNA then it could hang around long enough to communicate itself back to the genetic DNA – it's just that they don't quite know how that process works yet. And that's scary as hell. (Lamarck's Signature). I'd say maybe we should not give this vaccine to anyone under the age of 35 until we know more about possible negatives involving inheritance. Instead we should produce good medicines to treat these infections.

John Hacker , November 18, 2020 at 10:58 am

Don't we have laws for price gouging in a crisis? As for untested. Check the thread for data started compiling 1966.

BillC , November 18, 2020 at 10:54 am

Yes, we need volunteers. And they need to be fully informed. I hope you noticed this remark in yesterday's Water Cooler. Of course, we don't know that the commentor's claimed bona fides are factual, but if so, his/her take seems appropriate to me.

WobblyTelomeres , November 18, 2020 at 11:55 am

I did, and I take them at their word as to background. Valid concerns, well expressed.

Larry , November 18, 2020 at 11:58 am

The publications and a full accounting of side effects are important for a new technology like this. Traditional vaccinations are in the billions of doses at this point and quite safe. For this new technology, it's quite hard to say. The publications might bowl me over and convince me, but press releases do not.

Wes , November 18, 2020 at 3:57 pm

The Moderna study (n=45) was published in NEJM. Haven't read beyond the abstract or looked for the Pfizer study yet.

href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2022483″>

KLG , November 18, 2020 at 7:48 am

It should be noted that, so far, we have proof of effectiveness in the form of press releases that are intended to goose stock prices.

Long story, but the neoliberalization of basic biomedical science is complete. This was foreseeable upon passage of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. I remember how such science was done way back then. Scientists did science. Those without the patience and essentially self-abnegation required for that, went to work at Ciba-Geigy or Burroughs-Welcome or Merck. The system worked, more or less. At the time I was a very junior lab member, and I told my labmates that Bayh-Dole meant only that we would pay for most science (at least) twice, the first time when NIH/NSF/ACS/AHA/March of Dimes funded it and the second time when Big Pharma "bought" it and charged what a false, not free, market in research and health care would bear. They just stared at me, with stars in their eyes.

Polar Donkey , November 18, 2020 at 9:18 am

Dolly Parton invested $1 m illion in the Moderna vaccine. I can't wait till Tennessee takes down all these Nathan Bedford Forrest statues and replaces them with Dolly Parton.

rd , November 18, 2020 at 12:44 pm

Dolly Parton is a great songwriter and performer but is also a shrewd businesswoman who is hyper-focused on helping "her people" in the region where she grew up dirt poor. "Coat of Many Colors" is one of the truly great autobiographical songs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_Many_Colors_(song)

Appreciation for Dolly shows up in many interesting corners in the region. Several years ago, a newly discovered lichen in southern Appalachia was named in her honor. I never heard a comment from her on this, but she probably thought it was great. https://www.nybg.org/blogs/science-talk/2015/05/honoring-a-musical-legend-of-the-southern-appalachians/

Replacing a Nathan Bedford Forest statue with her would be a great move.

Serfs Up! , November 18, 2020 at 10:38 am

1.So if there were to be no vaccine and the virus had it's way with us, killing 1% of us, that's what, -- 3 million souls?

2. Alternatively, if there is a vaccine and everyone is vaccinated and that brings an end to the pandemic, with deaths much curtailed, but 25,000 get Guillian Barre', that's still a win right?
(Though not if you are one of the 25,000.)

3. Lastly, given their penchant for maximizing clicks and eyeballs,
how do you think the media would handle situations 1 or 2?

Trust in Public Health is easier to knock down than to build back up, especially vaccines.

As Greg Brown says, "It's a long way up but it's a short way down."

Ford Prefect , November 18, 2020 at 12:48 pm

South Dakota will be very informative on this front. It appears to be trying to drag-race herd immunity through infection before a vaccine shows up. It will probably be the control group for the statistical study of the relative efficacy on lives saved by a vaccine vs. letting the disease take its natural course. Beer appears to be the placebo vaccine of choice in South Dakota.

BrianM , November 18, 2020 at 1:25 pm

My reading of this is that even if Pfizer didn't take government money as part of the Warp Speed initiative, as a mRNA vaccine it still likely builds on the earlier work. I have no problem with pharma companies making a profit of their later work – they did do the last critical developments – but nothing for the earlier work isn't right.

AGKaiser , November 18, 2020 at 1:25 pm

We pay for it but they profit from it. Why? Why is there for profit pharma and corporate medicine to begin with? Why is there competition instead of cooperation in the production of life saving/extending and other commonly needed goods and services? The provision of pharmaceuticals and medicine are a free market failure. We are not adequately provided with what we all must have at prices we all can afford. They've failed not because of the scientists and medical practitioners who do the real work. They've failed because of the capitalist parasites that own the corporations that employ the professionals who create the products and provide the services on the ground.

Socal Rhino , November 18, 2020 at 2:07 pm

One thought unsupported by any relevant technical expertise: the delivery mechanism sounds well suited for bio weaponry given it bypasses your immune reaction to RNA.

Kris Alman , November 18, 2020 at 3:57 pm

The protein design was based on the observation that so-called fusion proteins -- the pieces of the virus that enable it to invade a cell -- are shape-shifters, presenting different surfaces to the immune system after the virus fuses with and infects cells. Graham and his colleagues learned that antibodies against the post-fusion protein are far less effective at stopping an infection.

Reminds me of this other mysterious shape-shifter: From Wikipedia:
Prions are misfolded proteins with the ability to transmit their misfolded shape onto normal variants of the same protein. They characterize several fatal and transmissible neurodegenerative diseases in humans and many other animals. It is not known what causes the normal protein to misfold, but the abnormal three-dimensional structure is suspected of conferring infectious properties, collapsing nearby protein molecules into the same shape. The word prion derives from "proteinaceous infectious particle".

Long-term follow-up of individuals who have received this vaccine versus their placebo compatriots is essential!

KLG , November 18, 2020 at 5:37 pm

Not likely to be similar. The "shape shifting" of the viral fusion protein means that different epitopes (i.e., different constellations of 3-D structure that elicit immune/antibody responses) of the fusion protein, which is embedded in the viral membrane envelope, are presented pre- and post-fusion. Antibodies against "post-fusion" fusion protein are unlikely to work because fusion with the host cell is the key phase of infection. But, and this is a big consideration, rushing into this is foolish, despite the rise in Big Pharma stock prices.

Fumettibrutti , November 19, 2020 at 3:40 am

COVID vaccine revelation sinks like a stone; disappears

In major media, certain stories gain traction. The trumpets keep blaring for a time before they fade.

Other stories are one-offs. A few of them strike hard. Their implications -- if anyone stops to think about them -- are powerful. Then nothing.

"Wait, aren't you going to follow up on that? Don't you see what that MEANS?"

Apparently not, because dead silence. "In other news, the governor lost his pet parakeet for an hour. His chief of staff found it taking a nap in a desk drawer "

One-offs function like teasers. You definitely want to know more, but you never get more.

Over the years, I've tried to follow up on a few. The reporter or the editor has a set of standard replies: "We didn't get much feedback." "We covered it." "It's now old news." "There wasn't anything else to find out."

Oh, but there WAS.

A few weeks ago, I ran a one-off. The analysis and commentary were mine, but the story was an opinion piece in the New York Times. The Times called it an opinion piece to soften its blow. I suspected it would disappear, and it did.

Its meaning and implication were too strong. It would be a vast embarrassment for the White House, the Warp Speed COVID vaccine program, the vaccine manufacturers, the coronavirus task force, and vaccine researchers.

And embarrassment would be just the beginning of their problem.

So here it is again. The vanished one-off, back in business:

COVID vaccine clinical trials doomed to fail; fatal design flaw; NY Times opinion piece exposes all three major clinical trials.

Peter Doshi, associate editor of the medical journal BMJ, and Eric Topol, Scripps Research professor of molecular medicine, have written a devastating NY Times opinion piece about the ongoing COVID vaccine clinical trials.

They expose the fatal flaw in the large Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Moderna trials.

September 22, the Times: "These Coronavirus Trials Don't Answer the One Question We Need to Know"

"If you were to approve a coronavirus vaccine, would you approve one that you only knew protected people only from the most mild form of Covid-19, or one that would prevent its serious complications?"

"The answer is obvious. You would want to protect against the worst cases."

"But that's not how the companies testing three of the leading coronavirus vaccine candidates, Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, whose U.S. trial is on hold, are approaching the problem."

"According to the protocols for their studies, which they released late last week, a vaccine could meet the companies' benchmark for success if it lowered the risk of mild Covid-19, but was never shown to reduce moderate or severe forms of the disease, or the risk of hospitalization, admissions to the intensive care unit or death."

"To say a vaccine works should mean that most people no longer run the risk of getting seriously sick. That's not what these trials will determine."

This means these clinical trials are dead in the water.

The trials are designed to show effectiveness in preventing mild cases of COVID, which nobody should care about, because mild cases naturally run their course and cause no harm. THERE IS NO NEED FOR A VACCINE THAT PREVENTS MILD CASES.

There. That's the NY Times one-off. My piece analyzing it went on much longer, but you get the main thrust:

The leading vaccine clinical trials are useless, irrelevant, misleading, and deceptive.

But now, it gets much worse. Because Pfizer has just announced their vaccine is almost ready. CNBC headline, November 9: "Pfizer, BioNTech say Covid vaccine is more than 90% effective -- 'great day for science and humanity'"

And not a peep about the NY Times one-off. That's gone, as if it never was.

Trump's coronavirus task force knows the truth. Biden's new task force, waiting in the wings, knows the truth. But they don't care. They're criminals. They'd sell a car with a gas tank ready to explode to a customer with cash.

But you care, because you can read and think.

You can raise hell.

Now, in case anyone is interested in knowing WHY the major clinical trials of the COVID vaccine are designed only to prevent mild cases of COVID, I'll explain.

A vaccine maker assumes that, during the course of the clinical trial, a few of the 30,000 volunteers are going to "catch COVID-19."

They assume this because "the virus is everywhere," as far as they're concerned. So it'll drop down from the clouds and infect a few of the volunteers.

The magic number is 150. When that number of volunteers "catch COVID," everything stops. The clinical trial stops.

At this point, the vaccine maker hopes that most of the volunteers who "got infected" are in the placebo group. They didn't receive the real vaccine; they received the saltwater placebo shot.

Then the vaccine maker can proudly say, "See? The volunteers who caught COVID-19? Most of them didn't receive the vaccine. They weren't protected. The volunteers who received the real vaccine didn't catch COVID. The vaccine protected them."

Actually, the number split the vaccine makers are looking for is 50 and 100. If 50 people in the vaccine group catch COVID, and 100 in the placebo group catch COVID, the vaccine is said to be 50% effective. And that's all the vaccine maker needs to win FDA approval for the vaccine.

But wait. Let's look closer at this idea of "catching COVID." What are they really talking about? How do they define that? Claiming a volunteer in the clinical trial caught COVID adds up to what?

Does it add up to a minimal definition of COVID-19 -- a cough, or chills and fever? Or does it mean a serious case -- severe pneumonia?

Now we come to the hidden factor, the secret, the source of the whole con game.

You see, the vaccine maker starts out with 30,000 HEALTHY volunteers. So, if they waited for 150 of them to come down with severe pneumonia, a serious case of COVID, how long do you think that would take? Five years? Ten years?

The vaccine maker can't possibly wait that long.

These 150 COVID cases the vaccine maker is looking for would be mild. Just a cough. Or chills and fever. That scenario would only take a few months to develop. And face it, chills, cough, and fever aren't unique to COVID. Anyone can come down with those symptoms.

THEREFORE, THE WHOLE CLINICAL TRIAL IS DESIGNED, UP FRONT, TO FIND 150 CASES OF MILD AND MEANINGLESS AND SELF-CURING "COVID."

About which, no one cares. No one should care.

But, as we see, Pfizer is trumpeting their clinical trial of the vaccine as a landmark in human history.

And THAT'S the story of the one-off the NY Times didn't think was worth a second glance.

Because they're so stupid? No. They're not that stupid.

They're criminals.

And the government wants you to take the experimental COVID vaccine, whose "effectiveness" was designed to prevent nothing worth losing a night's sleep over.

The only worry are the adverse effects of the vaccine, about which I've written extensively. These effects include, depending on what's in the vial, a permanent alteration of your genetic makeup, or an auto-immune cascade, in which the body attacks itself.

by Jon Rappoport

November 11, 2020

Lambert Strether , November 19, 2020 at 8:45 am

Hoo boy.

[Nov 18, 2020] For 40 years, we've all been bleating the mantras of neoliberalism which were promoted as The Natural Order of Things, but are in fact just a model, one of many. And which failed in 2008

Notable quotes:
"... And, objectively, how is the neoliberal model doing? For starters, there is so much money around that doesn't know what to do with itself, that the price of money (interest rates) has never been lower. Ever. Basic supply and demand. ..."
Nov 16, 2020 | off-guardian.org

XXX, Nov 16, 2020 8:28 AM Reply to Jacques

We really need to accept that we may not know what we think we know. For 40 years, we've all been bleating the mantras of neoliberalism which were promoted as The Natural Order of Things, but are in fact just a model, one of many.

And, objectively, how is the neoliberal model doing? For starters, there is so much money around that doesn't know what to do with itself, that the price of money (interest rates) has never been lower. Ever. Basic supply and demand.

At the same time, neoliberal governments, citing lack of money, have imposed austerity measures on the working class, cutting services and support to such an extent that serious social problems have arisen.

The reason the governments are short of cash is because they have continually reduced the share of GDP that goes into public coffers.

Blind Freddy can see the resultant inequality is a highly undesirable state of affairs, generating social unrest and unstable markets. Bizarrely, it is also contrary to the most basic of economic truisms: give poor people money and they spend it right away, generating a ripple of economic activity that reverberates through the real economy.

But according to neoliberalism, what we have here is perfectly fine because it accords with the model. And then the High Priests move in and blow smoke over the whole thing with incantations of why this must be so, again according to the model, which they themselves drew up to coordinate the way we do things. And of course, they believe their economic theory is the Natural Order of Things.

The pandemic has blown the lid off a few of those mantras. It'll take fifty years to decarbonise? We advanced decades in a few weeks. There is no magic money tree? Yes, there is and you just used it. Giving poor people money undermines the economy? No, it doesn't – you've just proved it. Government debt is a drain on the economy? Not if it stimulates activity. Tax is an expense that needs to be curtailed? No, it's an investment in the economy for everyone.

There are so many things we think we know and many of them are nonsense. We need to take the opportunity this disruption presents and design a society for humans, not for corporations.

Jacques , Nov 16, 2020 9:13 AM Reply to Andrew Thompson

Sure. Now, all we have to do is to figure out how to put that into practice. The making of society for humans, not for m-effers.

[Oct 25, 2020] American facilities for many of our poorer, middle class elderly are disgusting places of squalor and nosocomial infections

Oct 25, 2020 | www.unz.com

ConqueringFools says: October 24, 2020 at 4:28 pm GMT 200 Words ↑ @Anon

Yeah .and how many of those deaths were from the complete mismanagement of the sick elderly ie throwing them back into nursing homes. American facilities for many of our poorer, middle class elderly are disgusting places of squalor and nosocomial infections. How many were among elderly that were already on death's door step? This scamdemic has destroyed this country. If there is one demographic in this country that should burning it to the ground it's young, white 20 something conservative males who are seeing their future destroyed before their eyes. Seeing Americans walking around with what amounts to respiratory diapers on their face is disgusting, pathetic and embarrassing. The elderly, who for the most part have overall lived the peak American dream, are living in hysteria and fear. The boomers in America are confirmed now as some of the most selfish, self absorbed, and enfranchised generations ever. To blame the covid deaths on Trump is the most stupid and intellectually dishonest argument in this whole election narrative. Dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery you want to wear a worthless diaper on your face fine .don't force tyranny on the rest of us!

[Oct 24, 2020] Great COVID-19 reset

Oct 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Down South , Oct 22 2020 20:29 utc | 21

@2 @16

Although many details about the Great Reset won't be rolled out until the World Economic Forum meets in Davos in January 2021, the general principles of the plan are clear: The world needs massive new government programs and far-reaching policies comparable to those offered by American socialists such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in their Green New Deal plan.

Or, put another way, we need a form of socialism - a word the World Economic Forum has deliberately avoided using, all while calling for countless socialist and progressive plans.

"We need to design policies to align with investment in people and the environment," said the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, Sharan Burrow. "But above all, the longer-term perspective is about rebalancing economies."

One of the main themes of the June meeting was that the coronavirus pandemic has created an important "opportunity" for many of the World Economic Forum's members to enact their radical transformation of capitalism, which they acknowledged would likely not have been made possible without the pandemic.
https://www.google.co.za/amp/s/thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/504499-introducing-the-great-reset-world-leaders-radical-plan-to%3famp

[Sep 26, 2020] As for the 'rules-based international order,' at best it is a euphemism for privately-controlled financial capitalism on a global scale

Sep 26, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Sep 23 2020 15:56 utc | 84

Escobar reviews the UNGA's first day that revealed Trump's desperation a few alluded to above. Psychohistorian will be pleased to read Pepe's channeling his #1 premise:

" As for the 'rules-based international order,' at best it is a euphemism for privately-controlled financial capitalism on a global scale ." [My Emphasis]

As I wrote yesterday, every national leader I read backed a Multilateral UN and its Charter while including various degrees of reproach for the illegalities of the Outlaw US Empire and its vassals, even the Emir of Qatar :

"The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has reminded us that we live on the same planet, and that multilateral cooperation is the only way to address the challenges of epidemics, climate and the environment in general, and it's also preferable to remember this when dealing with the issues of poverty, war and peace, and realizing our common goals for security and stability....

"And during the unjust and unlawful blockade it is going through it also has securely established its policy founded on respecting the rules and principles of international law and the United Nations Charter, especially, the principle of respecting the sovereignty of states and rejecting intervention in their internal affairs.

"And based on our moral and legal responsibilities towards our peoples, we have affirmed, and we will continue to reaffirm, that unconditional dialogue based on common interests and respect for the sovereignty of states is the way to solve this crisis which had started with an illegal blockade, and whose solution starts with lifting this blockade."

If the Saudi blockade is "unjust and unlawful," then all those imposed by the Outlaw US Empire are also.

Pepe apparently doesn't agree with Lieven's essay and writes:

"Sinophobia is the perfect tool for shifting blame -- for the abysmal response to Covid-19, the extinction of small businesses and the looming New Great Depression -- to the Chinese 'existential threat.'

"The whole process has nothing to do with 'moral defeat' [Lieven] and complaints that 'we risk losing the competition and endangering the world.'

"The world is not 'endangered' because at least vast swathes of the Global South are fully aware that the much-ballyhooed 'rules-based international order' is nothing but a quite appealing euphemism for Pax Americana -- or exceptionalism [Neocolonialism].

"What was designed by Washington for post-World War II, the Cold War and the 'unilateral moment' does not apply anymore."

As the dirty domestic underwear of the Outlaw US Empire becomes more visible to nations, they are emboldened to stand up for themselves and join the Strategic Partnership's Eurasian project.

[Sep 18, 2020] The New Year Gift, by Israel Shamir

Israel raises an important question about the role on neoliberal MSM is spreading COVID-19 panic.
Notable quotes:
"... Sinaisky claims that they brought the pandemics upon us because of the high debt problem, or by their inability to continue colonial plunder. Alternatively, a notable commenter to his text suggests that it was done because of overproduction of capital. In other words, the bank-lending rate is so close to zero, or even negative, that the whole machinery of capitalism was deluged in a flood of capital, and needed a major war, or indeed a global pandemic, to use it up. ..."
"... Because of this freak combination of forces, Sweden left its health policy in the hands of local professionals and remained free, while its neighbouring countries transferred the responsibility to globalist politicians and embraced quarantine. ..."
"... Thus the liberal Blairite media (beginning with the NY Times and the Guardian) played a key part in the Corona crisis. They were the piper; but who ordered the piper? ..."
Sep 18, 2020 | www.unz.com

...Do the US plutocrats (that is, the American über-wealthy) control all that? I think they would be amazed to learn that, especially "for generations", bearing in mind that the US was not a very significant factor before the WWI. In my view, the rich are not that smart. But the network exists; I have called its obscure controllers The Masters of Discourse .

Sinaisky claims that they brought the pandemics upon us because of the high debt problem, or by their inability to continue colonial plunder. Alternatively, a notable commenter to his text suggests that it was done because of overproduction of capital. In other words, the bank-lending rate is so close to zero, or even negative, that the whole machinery of capitalism was deluged in a flood of capital, and needed a major war, or indeed a global pandemic, to use it up.

Finally, Sinaisky claims that "atomization of society, breaking up community solidarity, eroding all non-monetary connections between people, destroying family relations and weakening blood ties, is a long-standing plutocratic project. Now, using this fake pandemic, the plutocrats have gone even further, now they train us to see each other not as friend, not as brother, not even as a source of profit, but mainly as a source of mortal infection." I wonder what makes him think that is an object of plutocratic desire? Certainly rich people want to make money and have more power, agreed. Is it necessary for them to atomise society? Who will they and their kids socialize with in such a ruined world?

I am not sure that there is a human agency with such goals. A non-human factor is a much more suitable culprit. In the old days, such a culprit was called Satan, and there were mighty organisations aka churches that fought Satan. In a charming movie, Luc Besson's Fifth Element, 'Love' defeats 'the Shadow', the personified evil that was about to obliterate Earth. Call it Satan, call it Shadow, the thing surely has human collaborationists in the mainstream media. I wrote about it in a piece called The Shadow of Zog . Indeed media should be sorted out in order to deal with it.

Sweden, this lucky country that avoided lockdown and its consequences, was saved by a rare media misstep. (This story has never been published though it is known to many Swedes.) Corona propaganda was carried out by the same liberal Bonnier-owned newspaper, DN (Dagens Nyheter), that played up Greta Thunberg. (Sinaisky's senses served him right: indeed Covid is a new Greta multiplied by a factor of 50). The Greta campaign had as its favourite high horse flygskam , or flight-shaming. Stop taking flights to lower carbon emissions , was the idea. Now we have no flights at all, so this movement disappeared after achieving its goals.

In February 2020, the DN organised a week-long sleeper train culture trip to North Italy for the Greta-following liberal elite. A berth on this train was priced starting at ten thousand Euros. The group went up to the Italian Alps and down to the Carnival in Venice and finally returned home, full to the brim with interesting experiences and coronavirus infections. A few days after the train returned to Stockholm, the disease broke out at large. Many of the liberal journalists that travelled on the Corona Express (as the train became known) fell sick, and their close relatives suffered, too. This incident caused the death of many elderly Jews, parents or uncles of those liberal journalists. It was a media phenomenon, and the Jewish media reported that the death rate among Swedish Jews was 14 times higher than their share of the population (well, it is not as bad as it sounds; only nine very old Jews died, all over 80).

As the people in authority knew all about the Corona Express, the liberal lobby was too ashamed to call for quarantine against the disease they has carried to Sweden. (Or they did call, but in sotto voce.) Furthermore, the DN was their only significant liberal media outlet, as Bonnier had sold his TV channel to a state-owned company in December 2019, making heaps of money but losing his ability to influence people.

Because of this freak combination of forces, Sweden left its health policy in the hands of local professionals and remained free, while its neighbouring countries transferred the responsibility to globalist politicians and embraced quarantine.

Thus the liberal Blairite media (beginning with the NY Times and the Guardian) played a key part in the Corona crisis. They were the piper; but who ordered the piper?

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]

[Sep 11, 2020] Funny how "new normals" are rushing at us .9-11 was the new normal only 19 years ago, and 19 years later going on 20, a new "new normal" is upon us.

Sep 11, 2020 | www.unz.com

Priss Factor , says: Website Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 4:09 am GMT

911 Truth for Grown ups

https://www.youtube.com/embed/7B7Tn2T5VDk?feature=oembed

omegabooks , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 4:44 am GMT

Funny how "new normals" are rushing at us .9-11 was the new normal only 19 years ago, and 19 years later going on 20, a new "new normal" is upon us. The next "new normal" will only be a few years away, 9 at the most Agenda 2030 and all that. By then, AI-enhanced RNA/DNA altered "new humanity" will be upon us, and anyone not in this new "new normal" will be outcast, shunned, shamed, and unemployed and if retired will not be able to get their SS and MC.

I don't care, screw the Great Reset!

Ralph B. Seymour , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 4:50 am GMT

"As it stands, there's only one thing we do know: the establishment at the core of the Hegemon and the drooling orcs of Empire will only adopt a Great Reset if that helps to postpone a decline accelerated on a fateful morning 19 years ago."

What?

I thought Covid 19 was a tool that the establishment is using to spark a Reset. And that Agenda 21 is part of a Reset.

So why would the establishment object to a "decline"?

Pft , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 5:12 am GMT

9/11 was just the first operation of the 21st century designed to accelerate the disintegration of society and economy to achieve Agenda 21 . It was actually a continuation of the 1975 TLC Project Democracy (sardonically named) that was kicked off by the Carter administration in 1977 and went into warp speed under Reagan/Bush. Its continued ever since but is picking up speed with the agreement of Agenda 21 in the 90's and its update Agenda 2030 in 2015. 2020 is the start of the final phase which will accomplish all of the Sustainable Development Goals of Agenda 2030, which is basically means total control over every individual and all resources.

Its pretty much been an Open Conspiracy. Those who refused to question 9/11 will double up on their blue pills to deny the Plandemic and expect a return to normal, dooming their descendants to a life of serfdom should they be lucky enough to avoid the culling.

The new Normal will make some dystopian films seem like utopia. Watch some old movies and TV series to remind you of old normal. They wont be available much longer unless you have the DVD or VHS and a machines to play it. The tapes and discs age so don't last forever. Books will last longer but those with digital collections will one day fund them disappeared

Miro23 , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 5:26 am GMT

The beating heart of this matrix is – what else – the Strategic Intelligence Platform, encompassing, literally, everything: "sustainable development", "global governance", capital markets, climate change, biodiversity, human rights, gender parity, LGBTI, systemic racism, international trade and investment, the – wobbly – future of the travel and tourism industries, food, air pollution, digital identity, blockchain, 5G, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI).

Since the US is a global has-been with most of its industry gone and living on debt – it's probably useful for it to claim leadership of a "Strategic Intelligence Platform". It can bury US problems internationally (same as it did with the dollar reserve) but in a more comprehensive way than simple Globalization (only economic). If the USA NWO claims international leadership of everything on all fronts, then they become the arbiters (in their opinion) of everything everywhere on the grounds of a higher morality.

It actually looks more like the folie de grandeur of a old alcoholic than the foundation of a new religion – and not something to pay attention to – apart from the fact that he tends to get violent with anyone who disagrees.

Intelligent Dasein , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 5:41 am GMT

Regarding your 50 questions, the fact that German and Russian intelligent warned the FBI about an imminent Muslim terrorist attack is not compatible with the idea that there was a controlled demolition.

Majority of One , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 5:46 am GMT

Ah yes, the Beast reveals itself as a sensurround global hamster cage with a plethora of control mechanisms hardwired through emergent software memes in celebration of the planned future of total abstraction. Abstract reality. The hubris of the plutocratic, oligarchic and technocratic elites is of a Promethean orgasm of trans humanistic values systematically gorging itself on their perceived future of an enserfed humanity comprised of those who will compromise truth, honor, justice, beauty and love–all in the service of mammon.

Not only is human nature to be subsumed to a mechanistic mindset gone ballistic in the visions of absolute domination, but the ongoing assault on the natural world will be a by-product of this Re-set. Stated simply, these schemers are playing God and have assembled the tool-kit, which in their minds, will allow for no compromise, no mistakes. These people are either spiritually vacuous or are imbued with an evil that totally negates a natural order which is cosmic and universal in scope. Ultimately their dreams and schemes will implode like the legendary Tower of Babel. Creation is not about to be undone by those who have convinced themselves that they can control everything.

Mother Nature is not a mere lump of matter. She is a sentient being who is cosmically connected and connective. Consider the storms, the blizzards, the fires and the systematic destruction of our very atmospheres, to say nothing of oceanic life in all its magnificent manifestations. Mama is not in a good mood and when she has had all she can take ..

R.C. , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 5:59 am GMT

"Strategic Intelligence Platform" should be renamed something like "s Strategic Intelligence Millennial Platform" (SIMP)
R.C.

TheTrumanShow , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 7:37 am GMT
@Intelligent Dasein

" the fact that German and Russian intelligent (sic) warned the FBI about an imminent Muslim terrorist attack is not compatible with the idea that there was a controlled demolition."

How so? The US architects of a controlled demolition could have quite easily created fake "chatter" and fake "intelligence" about an imminent Muslim terrorist attack.

Thomasina , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 8:15 am GMT
@Intelligent Dasein be found on Youtube titled "Former NIST Employee Speaks Out On World Trade Centre Towers Collapse Investigation". It's 31 minutes long, but he says the following at approximately 18 minutes in:

"Look at the symmetry. These buildings come straight down, or almost straight down.

Asymmetric damage does not lead to symmetric collapse. It's very difficult to get something to collapse symmetrically because it is the Law of Physics that things tend towards chaos. Collapsing symmetrically represents order, very strict order.

It is not the nature of physics to gravitate towards order for no reason. It will gravitate towards chaos. It is very difficult to get a building to collapse symmetrically."

dimples , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 8:25 am GMT

I can't make any sense out of this article. It reads like a lot of stock sentences jumbled together by a computer program.

Nancy Pelosi's Latina Maid , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 8:35 am GMT
@PetrOldSack actor/author, how could he be, our cherished "thinkers" are as few and making up as they go, seconded by the crude second tier public domain politicians, the corporate mongers, them being even less prone to visionary skill. This "thing" can go wrong in all kinds of ways, but real it is, and some derivative globally altered reality is there to stay. Brusquely, genuinely."


The Atlantic
tells us that "Overall, bots are responsible for 52 percent of web traffic" and I think we're looking at Exhibit A.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/01/bots-bots-bots/515043/

skrik , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 8:48 am GMT
@Intelligent Dasein

an imminent Muslim terrorist attack is not compatible with the idea that there was a controlled demolition

Q: Why not? In fact, just as the 3 WTC towers were pre-loaded with explosives, so the alleged hijacker-piloted a/cs and resulting photogenic explosions were pre-planned 'Hollywood special effects' as critical components. How else to convince the insouciant punters, except with a well-scripted and executed 'whiz-bang?' Then, see the reports of putative Muslim hijackers doing dope and/or booze with lap-dancing bar-girls beforehand. You do yourself a disservice by denying *humongously obvious* controlled demolition. Tip: Try not to be silly.

EL PMIS , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 8:52 am GMT

To unravel the enigma i wonder if one does not need to go completely eurocentric.
1848 unraveling the empires or at last a planting of the seeds.

1948 the new_world order is established. With its counterpart in the east. Essentially a ynraveling of 1848 which was a crystallisation of the 30 year was and the peace of westphalia. Neither established empire being a nation while a very different nationbuiling started in europe compared to the pre-great war.

2048, no doubt some kind of replacing the new_world order with a new world_order.
One way or anothr to serve europes plutocrats. And with an eye on unraveling the previous 1948 situation. Soviets are gone, so now the disunited states of america has to go and be reduced to a new balkans.
Perhaps sweeping away europe too this time. Arabobantustan unable to sustain a developed economy certainly is on the timeline for europe.

Now. Regardless of whether the ghost of Herr Weishaupt is hanging around, the timeline is awfully useful for anyone like the anglozionist cabal of assorted late 1800s multimillionaires and their respective business empires cross inheritances into socalled NGOs. The names being quite well known like rockefeller, carnegie, rhodes etc.

Then again maybe no one really knows what they are doing anymore and there is no plan at all, just many very confused very badly planned plans. And all that will ensue is chaos and destruction and no order afterwards worthy of the name. 150 years of pisspoor mismanagement tends to have such consequences.

Alfred , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 9:34 am GMT
@Robert White billion from its Term Securities Lending Facility. It wasn't until May 31, 2008, when JPMorgan Chase closed its deal with Bear Stearns. However, the GAO reported that Bear Stearns "was consistently the largest PDCF borrower until June 2008." The Fed shows that Bear Stearns continued to receive funds until June 23, 2008.

Did the Fed Begin Secret Bailouts in 2007 Before Anyone Knew of the Pending Crisis? | Armstrong Economics

gotmituns , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 9:49 am GMT

9/11 – inside job – implosion.

Timur The Lame , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 10:05 am GMT

This article pretty much sums it up as best as I can understand. I had often stated to people of similar mind to watch for the next major 'move' after 9/11, it will be a dandy because with possibly a few white knuckle moments, the Masters will have concluded that they can get away with ANYTHING, internet or no. Truth simply fails to get traction in the minds of the majority of 'screen zombies' and the majority is all they ever needed.

Now where things might get really scary is if/when they decide to implement the great cull. From a dispassionate perspective, it is something they simply have to do. In 1950 the world population was about 2 billion. Now it is about 8 billion. If a population graph was drawn from say, 50,000 years ago it would be long and flat and then it would shoot up near vertically at the end.

The problem now of course is that with technology and agricultural machinery of all sorts the system doesn't even require the population of 1950. I recall one Master being on record as mentioning 500 million as being ideal. That is somewhat more than a cull.

Some fools say that a war is imminent for that express purpose. Sorry wars (even nuclear, which would affect the Masters too), won't result in the butcher's bill required. Only a global pandemic could conceivably attain the goal and like a neutron bomb, leave the infrastructure intact.

But this Covid is a hoax you say. Probably so, but what about this proverbial 'second wave' that is repeated like a Hare Krishna mantra everywhere. What if they released a REAL nasty virus (which we know they have somewhere) that has a proven vaccine for the 1% and then let the fun begin knowing full well that they would not be fingered for it because a pandemic is already on the move?

If it doesn't happen this fall then I may be wrong in my speculation. I always hope to be wrong when dealing with topics of unfathomable evil.

Cheers-

Liza , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 10:18 am GMT
@Majority of One

Mama is not in a good mood and when she has had all she can take ..

Or, as some folks like to say, "God is mad". But it's all the same thing. Maybe the schemers should be forced to read The Fisherman's Wife. However, they probably won't have any little hovel to go back to.

Robjil , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 10:51 am GMT
@skrik neither eyewitness testimony nor a visual documentation of the boarding process.

19 hijackers myth taken as " fact" by the 9/11 Commission. Any contradictions of this myth were ignored by this Commission.

•By ignoring the numerous and glaring contradictions regarding the identities of the alleged hijackers, the 9/11 Commission manifested its intent to maintain the official myth of 19 Muslim terrorists.

•By refusing to allow interviews with personnel who were responsible for passengers boarding the four aircraft of 9/11, the airlines manifested their intent to conceal evidence about the circumstances of the aircraft boarding.

Svevlad , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 11:30 am GMT

Sooo

Torch the power plants, you say?

Abdul Alhazred , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 11:38 am GMT

When 9/11 occurred my immediate thoughts went back to an January 2001 when Lyndon LaRouche warned that if John Ashcroft were to become Attorney General that then one could look forward to a new Reichstag fire type situation occurring within the context of the fact that the world financial system was finished and that the financial oligarchy was prepared to throw over the chess board so to speak.

LaRouche was right and because his understanding of history was correct as it is based upon a method of hypothesis that had already demonstrated the trajectories of economic collapse and attendant political operations long before, with an understanding of how to get out of the mess as demonstrated in history, particularly the Renaissance.

Of note here is a recent article of interest, which helps tell why LaRouche is hated!

https://larouchepac.com/20200908/antifa-back-future-1967-68-counterintelligence-primer-further-investigation-and-action

Hank Rearden678 , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 11:58 am GMT

This is a very interesting, all encompassing article, well done indeed. For a simpler and perhaps more digestible and more narrowly focused look at the SARS-Cov2 issue specifically, this is a worthwhile video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQE7S6c-SCk&t=50s

Alfred , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 12:16 pm GMT
@gotmituns

9/11 – inside job – implosion.

Lots of micro nukes. Plenty of distractions from alleged "conspiracy theorists" in the pay of you know who.

The nanothermite theory was a psyop from the beginning to hide the nuclear event at the towers.

Startling: The Story of the 9/11 Breath-though that Solved it all and debunked the 'truthers' forever

annamaria , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 12:21 pm GMT
@PetrOldSack ght in wars or participated in other combat operations in at least 24 countries. The destruction inflicted by warfare in these countries has been incalculable for civilians and combatants Between 2010 and 2019, the total number of refugees and IDPs globally has nearly doubled from 41 million to 79.5 million .

These babies-loving American X-tians and other Samantha Powers and Obamas, have arranged quite a spectacular mass slaughter of children of all ages to please the "deciders" (Masters of the Universe).
None of the murderous idiots has been punished, yet Assange the truthteller is in a high-security prison Belmarsh, handled by the same murderous scum. Kali , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 12:24 pm GMT

@PetrOldSack

My annotations are incomplete, but a mere "what comes to mind".

I would be interested to read them complete.
I appreciate your comment.

Thanks.

With love,
Kali.

Kali , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 12:53 pm GMT
@Majority of One eation is not about to be undone by those who have convinced themselves that they can control everything.

I couldn't agree more with this.

The intelligence of Existance Itself, the very Nature of Being is anathema to to those specs of dirt who would attempt to determine the will of God.

The same sentience which is manifest in Man is repeated and applified throughout all of existance. How could it be any other way when everything we experience is fractal? Just as God may be experience at the centre of our very Being, so the same God is observed within the All of Everything.

Thank you for your comment.

With love,
Kali. Johnny Walker Read , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 12:55 pm GMT

A great look into what is going on, and what is still to come. Yet the sleeping, brain dead, face diapered, mind controlled masses of the global corporation formerly known as he United States spend every waking hour saying "hooray for our guy". Never once does it occur to the sheeple both are puppets, controlled by the international banksters and their minions.

One of these morons has undeniable ties to the Russian mob, while the other has deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party. If that weren't bad enough, they both swear undying loyalty to that little shit stain in the Middle East which seems to project more influence on world politics than the two formerly mentioned giants.

I know it is no accident the printing of this article occurred on the anniversary date of the last, greatest mind fuck to hit America since Dec. 7th, 1941. I guess the infidels have been shown a lesson and the world is now safe for a one world government technocratic Corporatocracy.

So here's to 3/11/2020(my official date for the roll out of the CV hoax), the ushering in of a new slave system, and the idiocy and gullibility of the global citizenry.

So enjoy your new bosses, as they are going to be far more tyrannical than your old.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Un5oEdfrm_A?feature=oembed

skrik , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 1:01 pm GMT
@Robjil ry:'
[I see that the 1st image is not visible, kindly try this link:
alleged 'recovered' flight recorder ]
Q: How soft was that ground, anyway? Does anyone 'believe' that part of the official 9/11 narrative? Haw. Only the 'insouciant punters' were ever hoodwinked by such offensive, lying rubbish, all faithfully echoed by the 'lame-stream media.' rgds
ploni almoni , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 1:04 pm GMT
@Intelligent Dasein

Condoleeza Rice resisting at Congressional enquiry "N-o-o-o" and then admitting in a faint there was an "intelligence report" that said said "Ben Laden planning to use airplanes in terrorist attack" was play acting to confirm what they wanted people to believe. You will remember that you were taught to prepare in advance "red herrings" and leave deliberate confusions behind you to cover your trail.

Johnny Walker Read , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 1:18 pm GMT
@Majority of One

Here's hoping you're right, but I must say I have my doubts.

Getaclue , says: Next New Comment September 11, 2020 at 1:29 pm GMT
@Robert White traitors and infiltrated enemies not by any brilliance of the vicious Chinese Communist mass murderers -- if you like the idea of taking a van ride for expressing your anti-Government thoughts you'll love the ChiCom "Model" being installed here now on all of us -- Ron Unz would be one of the first for the van ride if he tried to run a site like this in China by the way -- there is zero disputing this fact. David Rockefeller gave us the CFR, Trilateral Commission etc. and of course the WHO and: https://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/the-true-agenda-of-the-who-a-new-world-order-modeled-after-china/
skrik , says: September 11, 2020 at 1:45 pm GMT
@Alfred Haw. Or was that suppressed as well, along with the bulk-wreckage [=crime-scene evidence] which was destroyed by being exported as scrap? Haw again.

Nitty-gritty: There is no need to posit any 'exotics,' from nukes to DEW; standard explosives [both with OR without thermite/mate; only the 'best' tools = most suitable would have been deployed]; standard explosives could quite easily do the job, for example det-cord threaded into the floor-slab conduits can fully explain both the absence of floor in the rubble plus the billowing pyroclastic white dust-clouds [incidentally, explaining scorched vehicles]. And so it goes. A term for such reasoning = Occam's razor.

[Aug 24, 2020] I think its economy, stupid! in 2020 and it will decide the elections

Aug 24, 2020 | angrybearblog.com
Likbez, August 24, 2020 10:58 pm

I think "its' economy, stupid!" in 2020.

To be clear; none more deserving of dignity than the working people of America; they keep the nation running; they are America's better angels; and, they deserve to be better paid.

Those are lofty words. But what to do when there is not enough cookies for everybody. That's when economic ruptures occur (with one form being Minsky moments)

IMHO we need another Keynes now. Here is a quote from Keynesianism, Social Conflict and Political Economy, By Massimo De Angelis

In a sense, going back to Joan Robinson, the idea of rupture within the notion of historical time can also be found in Keynes, although with an important difference. Here the emphasis put on irreversibility implies of course qualitative change, and indeed the emphasis is put on the changing conditions underlying economic phenomena. Thus, for example, Joan Robinson discusses the notion of scarcity in relation to historical time:

The question of scarce means with alternative uses becomes self‐ contradictory when it is set in historical time, where today is an ever-moving break between the irrevocable past and the unknown future. At any moment, certainly, resources are scarce, but they have hardly any range of alternative uses.

The workers available to be employed are not a supply of "labor", but a number of carpenters or coal miners. The uses of land depend largely on transport; industrial equipment was created to assist the output of particular products.

To change the use of resources requires investment and training, which alters the resources themselves. As for choice among investment projects, this involves the whole analysis of the nature of capitalism and of its evolution through time. (Robinson 1977: 8)

Although the emphasis on rupture is introduced, in this historical time, "where today is an ever moving break between the irrevocable past and the unknown future," the sense of the "break," of rupture, is confined within the problems of capitalist accumulation, of the problems posed by the right proportions of, following Robinson's example, carpenters and coal miners.

History here does not present alternatives and defines itself clearly and simply as "historical objectivism" in the continuum of the capitalist relation, as contemplation of "what really was," that is, the "irrevocable [capitalist] past," and speculations about an "unknown [capitalist] future."

In Keynes, the unknown character of this future is translated in the status of the long run expectations of the investors which, to emphasize the difficulty of their modeling, in turn depends on their "animal spirits."

In Keynes, rupture as revolutionary, transcendental, rupture exists only in the form of a threat, implicit in the theoretical apparatus, in the difficulty to endogenize variables, in the reliance on "psychological factors," on investors' animal spirits which mysteriously respond to hints of this historical rupture, in the recognition of the difficulty to model behavioral functions, etc.

This threat is recognized through the status of long run expectations of the investors.

In the case of the liquidity trap, in which the infinitely elastic demand for money curve is used to portray a situation of hoarding that is, of capital's refusal to put people to work the threat is hanging over investors who perceive a gloomy future without hope for their profit.

The truly unknown future from the capitalists' perspective, the true moment of rupture in their temporal dimension, is recognized in order to be avoided, to organize the rescue of the capitalist relation of work. For this reason Keynes is not talking about given functional relations, and is presupposing a moving marginal efficiency of capital schedule (Minsky 1975.

The future is there to puzzle the investors in the present. The aim of economic theory is to inform economic policy to limit the puzzle within the borders of the capitalist relation of work. Although Keynes' theoretical apparatus is presupposing uncertainty for the future, this uncertainty is seen with the sense of urgency typical of a world in transition. In the discussion of the postwar Keynesian orthodoxy, it will be seen how this sense of urgency was lost, and the concept of time in economic theory changed, although it was far from returning to the "timeless models" of the classical period.

[Aug 24, 2020] Another rolling stone that illuminates the US necrotic process...unregulated dumping of radwaste onthe roads

Aug 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Walter , Aug 24 2020 14:11 utc | 99

@ 95 another rolling stone that illuminates the US necrotic process...unregulated dumping of radwaste

tinyurl[dot]com/v3pva55

Evidently they actually spray the stuff on roads and, well, it's puckininsane stupid.

"..thing in this stuff and ingesting it are the worst types of exposure," Stolz continues. "You are irradiating your tissues from the inside out." The radioactive particles fired off by radium can be blocked by the skin, but radium readily attaches to dust,..."

(Honestly, I know it's hard to believe, but several immediate neighbors, possibly 1/3 of the town, actually expect to be levitated to heaven in "rapture". Thus, according to their a priori assumption, the poisoning is perfectly ok."

Anyway, both the bizarre beliefs and the idiotic actions (including with radwaste) are, like Trump, a product, a manifestation. We agree.

About Rockefeller - Corbett Report has a very deep examination of that family and their less well-known policy set.

[Aug 19, 2020] How Covid-19 Signals the End of the American Era - Rolling Stone

Aug 19, 2020 | www.rollingstone.com

The Unraveling of America

Anthropologist Wade Davis on how COVID-19 signals the end of the American era

By WADE DAVIS
,

[Jul 30, 2020] What Will Happen to Neoliberalism after the COVID-19 Crisis -- Will It Survive by Prof. Joseph H. Chung

Notable quotes:
"... Some of the neoliberal countries may be at the stage of the collusion; some of them may find themselves at the stage of oligarchy; some of them may be at the stage of corruption culture. ..."
"... In Japan, since 1957, there were twenty-one prime ministers of whom 75% were one-year or two-year prime ministers despite the four-year term of prime ministers. The short life span of Japanese prime ministers is essentially due to the short term interest pursued by the corrupted golden triangle composed of big business, bureaucrats and politicians. Unless, Japan uproots the corruption culture, it will be difficult to save the Japanese economy from perpetual stagnation. ..."
"... In the U.S. the big companies are spending a year no less than $2.6 billion lobbying money for the promotion of their interests, while the Congress spends $ 2.9 billion and the Senate, $860 million for their respective annual operation. Some of the big companies deploy as many as 100 lobbyists. ..."
"... It is unbelievable that the amount of lobbying is as much as 70% of the annual budget of the whole legislative of the U.S. ..."
"... Under such lobbying system, each group should deploy lobbyists to promote their interests. The immigrants, the native Indians, the Afro Americans, the alienated white people and other marginal groups cannot afford lobbyists and they are often excluded from fair treatment in the process of making laws and policies ..."
"... In the case of the U.S. its rank increased from 18 in 2016 to 22 in 2019. Thus in three years, the degree of corruption increase by 22.2% ..."
"... The U.S. is the richest country in the world, but it is also a country where income inequality is the most pronounced. I will come back to this issue in the next section. In relation to the corona virus crisis, income inequality means an army of those who are most likely to be infected and who are unable to follow CDC guidelines of testing, self quarantine and social distancing. Finally, the privatization of public health services has made the whole country unprepared for the onslaught of the virus. ..."
"... The experience of Japan shows how this can happen. The economic depression after the bubble burst of 1989, Japan had to endure 30-year deflation. The government of Japan has flooded the country with money to restore the economy, but the money was used for the bail-out of big corporations neglecting the healthy development of the SMEs and impoverishing the ordinary Japanese people. South Korea could have experienced the Japanese-type economic stagnation, if the conservative government ruled the country ten more years. ..."
"... The neoliberal pro-big company policy of Washington has greatly depleted consumer demand and SMEs even before the onslaught of the coronavirus. ..."
"... Fourth, the U.S. economy is shaken up so much that the neoliberal regime will not able to recover the economy. Thus, the survival of neo-liberalism looks uncertain. But, if the coronavirus crisis continues and destroys SMEs and if only the big corporations survive owing to bailout money, neo-liberalism may survive and we may end up with authoritarian governance ruled by the business-politics oligarchy. ..."
Jul 27, 2020 | www.globalresearch.ca

For the last forty years, neo-liberalism has dominated economic thinking and the formulation of economic policies Worldwide.

But the corona virus crisis has exposed, in a dramatic way, its internal contradictions, its incapacity to deal with the corona crisis and its incompetence to restore the real economy ruined by the crisis.

In this article, we will focus on the relationship between Neoliberalism and the Corona Crisis:

To save democracy and the global economy, We need a new economic model which supports the future of humanity, which sustains human livelihood Worldwide.

1. Neoliberalism and the initial Outbreak of the Corona Virus

The most important part of neoliberalism is the relation -often of a corrupt nature- between the government and large corporations. By corruption, we mean illegal or immoral human activities designed to maximize profit at the expense of people's welfare. In this relation, the government may not be able to control and govern the large corporations. In fact, in the present context, the corporations govern and oversee national governments.

Hence, when the corona virus broke out, it was difficult for the government to take immediate actions to control the virus break-out to save human lives; It was quite possible that the price of stocks and large corporations' profit had the priority.

The theory known as neoliberalism distinguishes itself from the old liberalism prevailing before the Great Depression.

It became widely accepted mainly because of its adoption, in the 1970s and 1980s, by Ronald Reagan , president of the U.S. and Margaret Thatcher , prime minister of Great Britain as an economic policy agenda applied nationally and internationally.

The justification of neoliberalism is the belief that the best way to ensure economic growth is to encourage "supply activities" of private sector enterprises.

Now, the proponents of neoliberalism argue that public goods (including health and education) can be produced with greater efficiency by private companies than by the State. Therefore, "it is better" to let the private enterprises produce public goods.

In other words, the production of public goods should be "privatized". Neoliberals put profit as the best measure of efficiency and success. And profit can be sustained with government support. In turn, the private companies' policy is that of reducing the labour costs of production.

Government assistance includes reduction of corporate taxes, subsidies and anti-labour policies such as the prohibition of labour unionization and the abolition of the minimum wage.

Reduction of labour cost can be obtained by the automation of the production of goods

Under such circumstances, close cooperation between the government and the private corporations is inevitable; even it may be necessary.

But, such cooperation is bound to lead to government-business collusion in which the business receives legal and illegal government support in exchange of illicit money such as kick-backs and bribes given to influential politicians and the people close to the power.

As the collusion becomes wider and deeper, an oligarchy is formed; it is composed of corporations, politicians and civil servants. This oligarchy's raison d'être is to make money even at the expense of the interests of the people.

Now, in order to protect its vested interests, the oligarchy expands its network and creates tight-knit political community which shares the wealth and privileges obtained.

In this way, the government-business cooperation can be evolved by stage to give birth to the corruption culture.

Some of the neoliberal countries may be at the stage of the collusion; some of them may find themselves at the stage of oligarchy; some of them may be at the stage of corruption culture.

South Korea

When the progressive government of Moon Jae-in took over power in 2017, South Korea under the 60-year neo-liberal rule by the conservatives was at the stage of corruption culture.

The progressive government of Moon Jae-in has declared a total war against the corruption culture, but it is a very long way to go before eliminating corruption.

In South Korea, of six presidents of the conservative government, four presidents were or are in prison for corruption and abuse of power. This shows how deeply the corruption has penetrated into the fabrics of the Korea society

In Japan, since 1957, there were twenty-one prime ministers of whom 75% were one-year or two-year prime ministers despite the four-year term of prime ministers. The short life span of Japanese prime ministers is essentially due to the short term interest pursued by the corrupted golden triangle composed of big business, bureaucrats and politicians. Unless, Japan uproots the corruption culture, it will be difficult to save the Japanese economy from perpetual stagnation.

Lobbying and "Corruption Culture"

Many of the developed countries in the West are also the victims of corruption culture. In the U.K. the City (London's Wall Street) is the global center of money laundry.

In the U.S. the big companies are spending a year no less than $2.6 billion lobbying money for the promotion of their interests, while the Congress spends $ 2.9 billion and the Senate, $860 million for their respective annual operation. Some of the big companies deploy as many as 100 lobbyists.

It is unbelievable that the amount of lobbying is as much as 70% of the annual budget of the whole legislative of the U.S.

True, in the U.S., lobbying is not illegal, but it may not be morally justified. It is a system where the law makers give privileges to those who spend more money, which can be considered as bribes

Under such lobbying system, each group should deploy lobbyists to promote their interests. The immigrants, the native Indians, the Afro Americans, the alienated white people and other marginal groups cannot afford lobbyists and they are often excluded from fair treatment in the process of making laws and policies

Some of the developed European countries are also very corrupted. The international Transparency Index rank, in 2019, was 23 for France, 30 for Spain and 51 for Italy.

In the case of the U.S. its rank increased from 18 in 2016 to 22 in 2019. Thus in three years, the degree of corruption increase by 22.2%

What is alarming is that, in the corruption culture, national policies are liable to be dictated by big businesses.

In South Korea, under the conservative government, it was suspected that the national policies were determined by the Chaebols (large industrial conglomerates), not by the government.

As matter of fact, during the MERS crisis in 2015, the anti-virus policy was dictated by the Samsung Group. In order to save its profit, Samsung Hospital in Seoul hid the infected so that the number of non-MERS patients would not decrease.

In Japan, the Abe government made the declaration of public health emergency as late as April 6, 2020 despite the fact that the infections were detected as early as January, 2020.

This decision was, most likely, dictated by Keiretsu members (grouping of large enterprises) in order to save investments in the July Olympics. Nobody knows how many Japanese had been infected for more than three months.

Similarly, Trump was well aware of the sure propagation of the virus right form January, but he waited until March 13, 2020 before he declared the state of effective public health emergency. The obvious reason was the possible fear of free fall of stock price and the possible loss of big companies' profits.

The interesting question is: "The delayed declaration of public health emergency, was it Trump's decision or that of his corporate friends?" It doesn't matter whose decision it was, because the government under neoliberal system is controlled the big businesses.

So, as in Japan, Italy, Spain, France and especially, the U.K, Trump lost the golden time to save human lives to keep profit of enterprises.

God knows how many American lives were sacrificed to save stock price and company profit!

Thus, the neoliberal governments have lost the golden chance to prevent the initial outbreak of the dreadful virus.

2. Neo-liberalism and the Propagation of Corona-Virus

We saw that the initial outbreak of the virus was not properly controlled leading to the loss to golden time of saving human lives, most likely because of the priority given to business and political interests.

The initial outbreak of the virus was transformed into never-ending propagation and, even now, in many states in the U.S. the wave of the virus is getting higher and wider.

This tragic reality can be explained by four factors:

  1. people's mistrust in the government,
  2. unbounded competition,
  3. inequitable income distribution,
  4. the absence of public health system.

These four factors (above) are all the legacies of neoliberalism.

The people know well that the corrupted neoliberal government's concern is not the welfare of the people but the interest of a few powerful and the rich. The inevitable outcome is the loss of people's trust in the unreliable government.

This is demonstrated by Trump's indecision, his efforts of ignoring the warning of the professionals, his fabricates stories and above all, his perception of who should be given the right to receive life-saving medical care at the hospital.

Under such circumstances, Americans do not trust the government directives and guidelines, allegedly implemented to protect people from the virus.

The guideline of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) for self quarantine, social distancing and wearing face masks has little effect. There is another product of neoliberalism which is troublesome. I mean its credo of unbounded competition.

It is true that competition promotes efficiency and better quality of products. However, as competition continues, the number of winners decreases, while that of losers rises. The economy ends up being ruled by a handful of powerful winners. This leads to the segregation of losers and leads to the discrimination of people by income level, religion, race and colour of skin.

In the present context, largely as a result of government policy, there is little to no social solidarity; each individual has to solve his or her own problems. I was sad when I saw on TV a young lady in California saying:

"To be killed by the COVID-19 or starve to death is the same to me. I open my shop to eat!"

This shows how American citizens are left alone to fight the coronavirus. Furthermore, neoliberalism has another unhappy legacy; it is the widening and deepening income inequality.

The U.S. is the richest country in the world, but it is also a country where income inequality is the most pronounced. I will come back to this issue in the next section. In relation to the corona virus crisis, income inequality means an army of those who are most likely to be infected and who are unable to follow CDC guidelines of testing, self quarantine and social distancing. Finally, the privatization of public health services has made the whole country unprepared for the onslaught of the virus.

In fact, in the U.S. there is no public health system. For three months after the first breakout of the virus, the country lacked everything needed to fight the virus.

Thus, neoliberalism has made the U.S not only to lose the golden time to prevent the initial breakout but also it has let the wave of virus to continue. Nobody knows when it will calm down. As a matter of fact, on July 4, there were 2.9 million infected and 132,000 deaths; this gives a death rate of 4.6%. Given U.S. population of 328 million, we have 402.44 deaths per million inhabitants which is one of highest among the developed countries. The trouble is that the wave of virus is still going higher and wider. On July 4, the confirmed cases increased by 50% in two weeks in 12 states and increased 10% to 50% in 22 states.

3. Neo-liberalism and the very Foundation of the U.S. Economy

The message of this section is this. The foundation of the American economy is the purchasing power of the consumers and the job creation by small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The consumer demand is 70% of the GDP, the SMEs create 66% of jobs. Unfortunately, because of neoliberalism, the consumers have become very poorer and the SMEs have been neglected in the pro-big-company government policies. The COVID-19 has destroyed the SMEs and impoverished the consumers. Nobody would deny the contribution of neo-liberalism to globalization of finance, the creation of the global value chain and, especially the free trade agreement.

All these activities have allowed GDP to grow in developed countries and some of new industrial countries. However, the wealth created by the growth of GDP has gone to countries already developed, some developing countries and a small number of multinational enterprises (MNE). The rich produced by GDP growth has led to the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few privileged. What is more serious is this. If the skewed income distribution in favour of a decreasing number of people continues for long, the GDP will stop growing and decades-long deflation is quite possible, as it has happened in Japan.

According to the OECD data, in the period, 1975-2011, the GDP share of labour income in OECD countries fell by 13.8% from 65% to 56%. In the case of the U.S., in the same period, 1970-2014, it fell by 11%. The falling labour-income share is necessarily translated into unequal household income distribution. There are two popular ways of measuring income distribution: the decile ratio and the Gini coefficient.

The decile ratio is obtained by dividing the income earned by the top 10% income earners by the income earned by the bottom 10% income earners . The decile ratio in 2019 was 18.5 in the U.S. as compared to 5.6 in Finland. The decile ratio of the U.S. was the highest among the developed countries. Thus, in the U.S. the top 10 % has an income 19 times more than the bottom 10%, while, in Finland, the corresponding ratio is only 6 times. This shows how serious the income gap is in the country of Uncle Sam.

The Gini coefficient varies from zero to 100. As the value of the Gini increases, the income distribution becomes favourable to the high-income households. Conversely, as the value of the Gini decreases, the income distribution becomes favourable to low-income households. There are two types of Gini: the gross Gini and the net Gini. The former refers to Gini before taxes and transfer payment, while the latter refers to Gini after taxes and transfer payment. The difference between the gross and the net Gini shows the government efforts to improve the equality and fairness of income distribution The gross U.S.- Gini coefficient in 2019 was 48.6, one of the highest among the developed countries.

Its net Gini was 38.0 so that the difference between the gross and the net Gini was 12.3%. In other words, the U.S. income distribution improved only by 12.3% by government efforts as against, for example, an improvement of 42.9% in the case of Germany, where the gross Gini was 49.9 while the net Gini was 28.5 The net Gini of the U.S. was the highest among the developed countries. The implication is clear. The income distribution in the U.S. was the most unequal. To make the matter worse, the government's effort to improve the unequal income distribution was the poorest among the developed countries. There are countless signs of unfortunate impacts of the inequitable income distribution in the country called the U.S. which Koreans used to admire describing it as "mi-gook- 美國미국 – Beautiful Country". Now, one wonders if it is still a "mi-gook".

The following data indicates the seriousness of poverty in the U.S. (data below prior to the Coronavirus crisis).

These data give us an idea on how so many people have to suffer from poverty in a country where per capita GDP is $65,000 (2019 estimate), the richest country in the world. Most of the Americans work for small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs). In the U.S., there are 30 million SMEs. They create 66% of jobs in the private sector. The SMEs are more severely hit than big companies by the coronavirus.

In fact, 66% of SMEs are adversely affected by the virus against 40% for big firms. As much as 20% of SMEs may be shut down for good within three months, because of the virus. Under the forty years of neoliberal pro-big corporation policies, available financial resources and the best human resources have been allocated to big firms at the expense of the development of SMEs.

The most damaging by-product of neoliberalism is no doubt the widening and deepening unequal income distribution for the benefit of the big corporations and the uprooting of SMEs. This trend means the shrinking domestic demand and the disappearance of jobs for ordinary people.

The destruction of the domestic market caused by the shrinking consumer demand and the disappearance of SMEs can mean the uprooting of the very foundation of the economy.

The experience of Japan shows how this can happen. The economic depression after the bubble burst of 1989, Japan had to endure 30-year deflation. The government of Japan has flooded the country with money to restore the economy, but the money was used for the bail-out of big corporations neglecting the healthy development of the SMEs and impoverishing the ordinary Japanese people. South Korea could have experienced the Japanese-type economic stagnation, if the conservative government ruled the country ten more years.

The neoliberal pro-big company policy of Washington has greatly depleted consumer demand and SMEs even before the onslaught of the coronavirus. But, the COVID-19 has given a coup de grâce to consumer demand and SMEs To better understand the issue, let us go back to the ABC of economics. Looking at the national economy from the demand side, the economy consists of private consumer demand (C), the private investment demand (I), the government demand (G) and Foreign demand represented by exports of domestic products (X) minus domestic demand for imported foreign products (M).

GDP=C + I + G + (X-M)

In 2019, the consumer expenditure (C) in the U.S. was 70% of GDP, whereas the government's spending (G) was 17%. The investments demand (I) was 18%. The net exports demand (X-M) was -5%.

In 2019 the composition of Canadian GDP was: C=57%; I=23 %; G=21 %; X-M=-1%.

Thus, we see that the U.S. economy heavily depends on the private domestic consumption, which represents as much as 70% of GDP compared to 57% in Canada. The government's contribution to the national demand is 17% as against 21% in Canada. In the U.S. a small government is a virtue according to neoliberals. In the U.S. the private investments account for only 18% of GDP as compared to as much as 23% in Canada. In the U.S., off-shoring of manufacturing jobs and the global value chain under neo-liberalism have decreased the need for business investments at home. It is obvious then that to save the American economy, we have to boost the consumers' income. But, the consumer income comes mainly from SMEs. We must remember that the SMEs create 66% of all jobs in the U.S. Therefore, if consumer demand falls and if SMEs do not create jobs, the US economy may have to face the same destiny as the Japanese economy. This is happening in the U.S. The corona virus crisis is destroying SMEs and taking away the income of the people.

The coronavirus crisis is about to demolish the very foundation of the American economy.

4. Corona Virus Crisis and the Survival of Neoliberalism

The interesting question is this. Will neo-liberalism as economic system survive the corona virus crisis in the U.S.?

There are at least four indications suggesting that it will not survive.

  1. First, to overcome major crisis such as the corona virus invasion, we need strong central government and people-loving leader. One of the reasons for the successful anti-virus policy in South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore was the strong central government's role of determining and coordinating the anti-virus policies. As we saw, the gospel of neo-liberalism is the minimization of the central government's role. Having little role in economic policies, the U.S. federal government has proved itself as the most incompetent entity to fight the crisis. It is more than possible that the U.S. and all the neoliberal countries will try to get away from the traditional neoliberal governance in which the government is almost a simple errand boy of big business.
  2. Second, the people's trust in the neoliberal leaders has fallen on the ground. It will be difficult for the neoliberal leaders to be able to lead the country in the post-corona virus era.
  3. Third, the corona virus crisis has made the people aware of the abuse of power by the big companies; the people now know that these companies are interested only in making money. So, it may be more difficult for them to exploit the people in the era of post-COVID-19.
  4. Fourth, the U.S. economy is shaken up so much that the neoliberal regime will not able to recover the economy. Thus, the survival of neo-liberalism looks uncertain. But, if the coronavirus crisis continues and destroys SMEs and if only the big corporations survive owing to bailout money, neo-liberalism may survive and we may end up with authoritarian governance ruled by the business-politics oligarchy.

5. Search for a New Economic Regime: Just-Liberalism

One thing which the corona-virus crisis has demonstrated is the fact that the American neo-liberalism has failed as sustainable regime capable of stopping the virus crisis, restore the economy and save the democracy. Hence, we have to look for a new regime capable of saving the U.S. economy and democracy. We would call this new regime as "Just-liberalism " mission of which is the sustainable economic development and, at the same time, the just distribution of the benefits of economic development. Before we get into the discussion of the main feature of the new regime, there is one thing we should discuss. It is the popular perception of large corporation. Many believe that they make GDP grow and create jobs. It is also the popular view that the success of these large corporations is due to the innovative managing skills of their founders or their CEOs. Therefore, they deserve annual salary of millions of dollars. This is the popular perception of Chaebols in South Korea.

But, a great part of Chaebols income is attributable to the public goods such as national defence, police protection, social infrastructures, the education system, enormous sacrifice of workers and, especially tax allowances, subsidies and privileges. In other words, a great part of the Chaebols' income belongs to the society, not the Chaebols. Many believe that the Chaebols create jobs, but, in reality, they crate less than 10% of jobs in Korea. We may say the same thing about large corporations in the U.S. In other words, much of the company's income is due to public goods. Hence, the company should equitably share its income with the rest of the society. But do they?

The high ranking managers get astronomical salaries; some of them are hiding billions of dollars in tax haven islands.

We ask. Are large corporations sharing equitably their income with the society? Are the corporate tax allowances they get too much? Is the wage they pay too low? Is CEO's income is too high?

It is difficult to answer these questions.

But we should throw away the mysticism surrounding the merits of large corporations; we should closely watch them so that they do not misuse their power and wealth to dictate national policies for their own benefit at the expense of the welfare of the people. The new regime, just-liberalism, should have the following eight features.

First, we need a strong government which is autonomous from big businesses; there should be no business-politics collusion; there should be no self-interest oligarchy of corruption.

Second, it is the time we should reconsider the notion of human right violation. There are several types of human right violation in developed countries including the U.S. For example, the racial discrimination, the inequality before the law, the violation of the right of social security and the violation of the right of social service are some cases of violation of human rights defined by the U.N. The Western media have been criticizing human right violation in "non-democratic countries", but, in the future, they should pay more attention to human right violation in "democratic countries."

Third, the criterion of successful economy should not be limited to the GDP growth; the equitable distribution of the benefits of GDP growth should also be a criterion; proper balance between the growth and the distribution of growth fruits should be maintained.

Fourth, market should not be governed by "efficiency" alone; it must be also "equitable". Efficiency may lead to the concentration of resources and power in the hands of the few at the expense of social benefit; it must be also equitable. As an example, we may refer to the Chaebols (big Korean industrial conglomerates) which kill the traditional village markets which provide livelihood to a great number of poor people. The Chaebols may make the market efficient but not equitable. The Korean government has limited Chaebols' penetration into these markets to make them more equitable.

Fifth, we need a partial direct democracy. The legislative translates people's wish into laws and the executive makes policies on the basis of laws. But, in reality, the legislative and the executive may pass laws and policies for the benefit of big companies or specific group of individuals and institutions close to the power. Therefore, it is important to provide a mechanism through which the people – the real master of the country – should be allowed to intervene all times. In South Korea, if more than 200,000 people send a request to the Blue house (Korean White House) to intervene in matters judged unfair or unjust, the government must intervene.

Sixth, those goods and services which are essential for every citizen must be nationalized. For example, social infrastructure such as parks, roads, railways, harbours, supply of electricity should not be privatized. Education including higher education should be made public goods so that low income people should get higher education as do high income group.

This is the best way to maximize the mass of innovative minds and creative energy to develop the society. Above all, the health service should be nationalized. It is just unbelievable to see that, in a country where the per capita GDP is $63,000, more than 30 million citizens have no medical insurance, just because it is too expensive. Politicians know quite well that big companies related to insurance, pharmaceutical products and medical professions are preventing the nationalization of medical service in the U.S. But, the politicians don't seem to dare go over these vested interests groups and nationalize the public health system. Remember this. There are countries which are much poorer than the U.S. But, they have accessible universal health care insurance system.

Seventh, the economy should allow the system of multi- generational technologies in which not only high-level technologies but also mid-level technologies should be promoted in such a way that both high- tech large corporations and middle-tech SMEs can grow. This is perhaps only way to insure GDP growth and create jobs.

Eighth, in the area of international relations, it is about the time to stop wasteful ideological conflict. The difference among ideologies is narrowing; the number of countries which have abandoned the U.S. imposed democracy has been rising; the ideological basis of socialism is weakening. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, 48% of countries are democratic, while 52% are not. According to Freedom House, in 2005, 83 countries had net gain in democracy, while 52 countries had net loss in democracy.

But in 2019, only 37 countries had net gain while 64 countries had net loss. Between 2005 and 2018, the number of countries which were not free increased by 26%, while those which were free fell by 44%. On the other hand, it is becoming more and more difficult to find authentic socialism. For example, Chinese regime has lost its pure socialism long time ago. Thus, the world is becoming non-ideological; the world is embracing ideology-neutral pragmatism.

To conclude, the corona virus pandemic has given us the opportunity to look at ourselves; it has given us the opportunity to realize how vulnerable we are in front of the corona virus attack.

Many more pandemics will come and challenge us. We need a world better prepared to fight the coming pandemics. It is high time that we slow down our greedy pursuit for GDP growth; it is about the time to stop a wasteful international ideological conflict in support of multibillion dollar interests behind Big Money and the Military industrial complex.

It is therefore timely to find a system where we care for each other and where we share what we have .

***

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Professor Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics and co- director of the Observatoire de l'Asie de l'Est (ODAE) of the Centre d'Études de l'Intégration et la Mondialisation (CEIM), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He is Research Associate of the Center of Research on Globalization (CRG). Growing Social and Wealth Inequality in America

[Jun 29, 2020] Gilead Will Charge More Than $3,000 For A Course Of COVID-19 Drug Remdesivir

Highly recommended!
Corrupt Fauci, stupid customers. IT the same neoliberal story of profiteering as a virtue all over again.
The government bought by Big Pharma, and Big Pharma out or control with questionable drugs and methods are two side of the same coin
Jun 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

On Monday, Gilead disclosed its pricing plan for Gilead as it prepares to begin charging for the drug at the beginning of next month (several international governments have already placed orders). Given the high demand, thanks in part due to the breathless media coverage despite the drug's still-questionable study data, Gilead apparently feels justified in charging $3,120 for a patient getting the shorter, more common, treatment course, and $5,720 for the longer course for more seriously ill patients. These are the prices for patients with commercial insurance in the US, according to Gilead's official pricing plan.

As per usual, the price charged to those on government plans will be lower, and hospitals will also receive a slight discount. Additionally, the US is the only developed country where Gilead will charge two prices, according to Gilead CEO Daniel O'Day. In much of Europe and Canada, governments negotiate drug prices directly with drugmakers (in the US, laws dictate that drug makers must "discount" their drugs for Medicare and Medicaid plans).

But according to O'Day, the drug is priced "far below the value it brings" to the health-care system.

However, we'd argue that this actually isn't true. Remdesivir was developed by Gilead to treat Ebola, but the drug was never approved by the FDA for this use, which caused Gilead to shelve the drug until COVID-19 presented another opportunity. Even before the first study had finished, the company was already pushing propaganda about the promising nature of the drug. Meanwhile, the CDC, WHO and other organizations were raising doubts about the effectiveness of steroid medications.

Months later, the only study on the steroid dexomethasone, a cheap steroid that costs less than $50 for a 100-dose regimen, has shown that dexomethasone is the only drug so far that has proven effective at lowering COVID-19 related mortality. Remdesivir, despite the fact that it has been tested in several high quality trials, has not.

So, why is the American government in partnership with Gilead still pushing this questionable, and staggeringly expensive, medication on the public?

[Jun 15, 2020] Ending Emergency Unemployment Insurance Supplements

Jun 15, 2020 | angrybearblog.com
  1. anne , June 14, 2020 4:47 pm

    https://cepr.net/ending-emergency-unemployment-insurance-supplements/

    June 10, 2020

    Ending Emergency Unemployment Insurance Supplements
    By DEAN BAKER

    The Republicans have been working hard to ensure that the $600 weekly supplement to unemployment insurance benefits, which was put in place as part of the pandemic rescue package, is not extended beyond the current July 31 cutoff. They argue that we need people to return to work.

    They do have a point. The supplement is equivalent to pay of $15 an hour for someone working a 40-hour week, and this is in addition to a regular benefit that is typically equal to 40 to 50 percent of workers' pay. The supplement translates into an even larger hourly pay rate for workers putting in shorter workweeks, which was the case for most laid off workers in the restaurant and retail sectors.

    It is hard for employers in traditionally low paying sectors to match these pay rates. Even those of us who are big proponents of higher minimum wages would not advocate a jump to more than $20 an hour at a point when businesses are crippled by the pandemic.

    However, there is also the point that we don't want workers to have to expose themselves to the coronavirus. That was the reason for the generous supplement. We wanted to make sure that workers, who in many cases were legally prevented from working, did not suffer as a result.

    There is an obvious solution here. Suppose we reduce or end the supplement in areas where the pandemic is under control.

    This would not be determined by some Trumpian declaration that the pandemic is over, but by solid data. The obvious metric would be positive test rates. Suppose that the supplement was reduced or eliminated in states or counties where the positive test rate is less than 5 percent. (This may not be the right rate.) This would mean that workers going back to work would face relatively little risk of contracting the virus. It would also give states incentive to conduct vigorous testing programs, as well as other control measures, in order to get their positive rates down.

    Our unemployment insurance system is badly broken and it would be desirable to have more generous benefits, and also to focus more on work sharing, as other countries have done. We can recognize this point and still agree that an arbitrary supplement to all benefits is not the right long-term fix even if it was very good policy in the pandemic.

[Jun 02, 2020] During Coronavirus epidemic, the US has shown itself incompetent and dysfunctional. That threatens the USA status a world hegemon and as the center of neoliberal empire

Notable quotes:
"... The western response to the Coronavirus spoke loudly: The U.S. and Europe have appeared powerful because they projected the illusion of competence; of being able to act effectively; of being strategic in their actions. On Coronavirus, the U.S. has shown itself incompetent, dysfunctional, and indifferent to human affliction. ..."
Jun 02, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org

The western response to the Coronavirus spoke loudly: The U.S. and Europe have appeared powerful because they projected the illusion of competence; of being able to act effectively; of being strategic in their actions. On Coronavirus, the U.S. has shown itself incompetent, dysfunctional, and indifferent to human affliction.

Trump is fighting an existential war: on the one hand, the coming Election is not merely the most important in the U.S.' history. It will be existential. No more is Blue/Red a contrived theatre for the electorate – this is deadly serious.

For an important segment of the population (no longer the majority), to lose in this coming election would signify their ejection from power and politics, and their substitution by a culturally different class of Americans, with different cosmopolitan and diversity values. It is the tipping point – two irreconcilable visions of American life believe that they can continue only if they own the whole order, and the other side be utterly crushed.

And on the other hand, Trump sees the U.S. fighting a similarly existential war, albeit at a global plane. He is fighting a hidden 'war' to retain America's present dominance over global money (the dollar) – the source of its true power. For Americans to lose this parallel competition to the EU's and China's multilateral values of global co-operation and financial governance, would imply Americans' (i.e. white Anglo Saxon's) ejection from control over the global financial system, and (again) their substitution by a quite different vision (i.e. a Soros-Gates-Pelosi vision), advocating the 'progressive' values of ecological and financial, global governance.

Again – two irreconcilable visions of the global order, with each party believing that it must own the whole order to survive.

Hence Trump's full-spectrum disruption of China (and the whole multilateral ideology) to maintain dollar hegemony. Europe, on one side, exemplifies the shift towards a transnational regulatory and monetary super-state. And China , on the other, is not only Europe's willing partner, but the only power capable of sitting atop this globalist ambition, giving it the (required) financial weight and substance. This constitutes the existential threat to the U.S.' exceptional control of the global financial system – and therefore over global political power.

A sovereignty-ist Russia may not be as drawn to this cosmopolitan vision as China, but really it has little choice. Because, as President Putin repeatedly points out, the dollar constitutes the toxic problem plaguing the world trading system. And in this, Russia cannot stand aloof. The dollar is the problem for the Middle East too, with its noxious corollaries of oil, currency, trade and sanctions wars. The region will not long be able to sit on the fence, keeping distant from this struggle for the global financial order.

The Middle East, as deference to the U.S. illusion of power wanes, has as little choice as has Russia: It will be pushed to view the U.S. as its past, and to 'Look East' for its future.

And Israel will cease to be the pivot around which the Middle East revolves.

[Jun 02, 2020] We re In The Thick Of It Now – What Happens Next

Riots are not a political movement and they will dissipate soon. Leaving just strengthened the national-security state. That's what will happen next.
Notable quotes:
"... If the combination of peaceful protesting, looting and violence witnessed across American cities over the past few days completely caught you off guard, you're likely to come to the worst possible conclusion about what to do next. The knee-jerk response I'm already seeing from many is to crush the dissent by all means necessary, but that's exactly how you give the imperial state and oligarchy more power. Power it will never relinquish. ..."
"... On the one hand, you can't pillage the public so blatantly and consistently for decades while telling them voting will change things and not expect violence once people realize it doesn't. On the other hand, street violence plays perfectly into the hands of those who would take the current moment and use it to advocate for a further loss of civil liberties, more internal militarization, and the emergence of an overt domestic police state that's been itching to fully manifest since 9/11. ..."
Jun 02, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

It's with an extremely heavy heart that I sit down to write today's post.

Although widespread civil unrest was easy to predict, it doesn't make the situation any less sad and dangerous. We're in the thick of it now, and how we respond will likely determine the direction of the country for decades to come.

If the combination of peaceful protesting, looting and violence witnessed across American cities over the past few days completely caught you off guard, you're likely to come to the worst possible conclusion about what to do next. The knee-jerk response I'm already seeing from many is to crush the dissent by all means necessary, but that's exactly how you give the imperial state and oligarchy more power. Power it will never relinquish.

What's happening in America right now is what happens in a failed state.

The U.S. is a failed state. Now the imperial national security state is going to flex at home like never before.

I spent the last decade of my life trying to spread the word to avoid this, but here we are.

-- Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) May 31, 2020

I don't think people understand the significance of the President declaring "Antifa" a "terrorist organization". The Patriot Act and provisions of the NDAA of 2012 make this frightening. Because Antifa is informal it puts all protestors in danger--like declaring them un-citizens.

-- Bret Weinstein (@BretWeinstein) June 1, 2020

GOP @SenTomCotton : "If local politicians will not do their most basic job to protect our citizens, let's see how these anarchists respond when the 101st Airborne is on the other side of the street." pic.twitter.com/NyojLoOEAT

-- The American Independent (@AmerIndependent) June 1, 2020

The pressure cooker situation that erupted over the weekend has been building for five decades, but really accelerated over the past twenty years. After every crisis of the 21st century there's been this "do whatever it takes mentality," which resulted in more wealth and power for the national security state and oligarchy, and less resources, opportunities and civil liberties for the many. If anything, it's surprising it took so long to get here, partly a testament to how skilled a salesman for the power structure Obama was.

Your election was a chance to create real change, but instead you chose to protect bankers while looting the economy on behalf of oligarchs.

You and Trump aren't much different when it comes to the big structural problems, you were just better at selling oligarchy and empire. https://t.co/QuSQNApeLY

-- Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) June 1, 2020

The covid-19 pandemic, related societal lockdown and another round of in your face economic looting by Congress and the Federal Reserve merely served as an accelerant, and the only thing missing was some sort of catalyst combined with warmer weather. Now that the eruption has occurred, I hope cooler heads can prevail on all sides.

On the one hand, you can't pillage the public so blatantly and consistently for decades while telling them voting will change things and not expect violence once people realize it doesn't. On the other hand, street violence plays perfectly into the hands of those who would take the current moment and use it to advocate for a further loss of civil liberties, more internal militarization, and the emergence of an overt domestic police state that's been itching to fully manifest since 9/11.

It's my view we need to take the current moment and admit the unrest is a symptom of a deeply entrenched and corrupt bipartisan imperial oligarchy that cares only about its own wealth and power. If people of goodwill across the ideological spectrum don't take a step back and point out who the real looters are, nothing's going to improve and we'll put another bandaid on a systemic cancer as we continue our longstanding march toward less freedom and more authoritarianism

... ... ...

[May 31, 2020] Our Grim Future by Pepe Escobar

A pretty silly rant, but some point might worth your attention...
Notable quotes:
"... I don't believe Marxist Social/Communism is the answer, as it has proven to always fail, as it is at complete odds with human nature. It drains creativity and productivity because they aren't rewarded ..."
"... Protests and Maidan open up fabulous opportunities for protest leaders. Chocolate oligarch Poroshenko became president. The little-known leader of the party faction in the parliament, Yatsenyuk, became prime minister. ..."
May 31, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Meanwhile, what is going to happen to assorted fascisms? Eric Hobsbawm showed us in Age of Extremes how the key to the fascist right was always mass mobilization: "Fascists were the revolutionaries of the counter-revolution".

We may be heading further than mere, crude neofascism. Call it Hybrid Neofascism. Their political stars bow to global market imperatives while switching political competition to the cultural arena.

That's what true "illiberalism" is all about: the mix between neoliberalism – unrestricted capital mobility, Central Bank diktats – and political authoritarianism. Here's where we find Trump, Modi and Bolsonaro.

...Even if neoliberalism was dead, and it's not, the world is still encumbered with its corpse – to paraphrase Nietzsche a propos of God.

And even as a triple catastrophe – sanitary, social and climatic – is now unequivocal, the ruling matrix – starring the Masters of the Universe managing the financial casino – won't stop resisting any drive towards change.

... Realpolitik once again points to a post-Lockdown turbo-capitalist framework, where the illiberalism of the 1% – with fascistic elements – and naked turbo-financialization are boosted by reinforced exploitation of an exhausted and now largely unemployed workforce.

Post-Lockdown turbo-capitalism is once again reasserting itself after four decades of Thatcherization, or – to be polite – hardcore neoliberalism. Progressive forces still don't have the ammunition to revert the logic of extremely high profits for the ruling classes – EU governance included – and for large global corporations as well.


-- ALIEN -- , 2 minutes ago

Allowing the continued uncontrolled exploitation of planetary resources will lead to global ecosystem collapse, killing most humans.

Cheap Chinese Crap , 10 minutes ago

Good God, it 's like this guy is giving a seminar in technocratic buzzword salad recognition.

"It takes someone of Marx's caliber to build a full-fledged, 21st century eco-socialist ideology, and capable of long-term, sustained mobilization. Aux armes, citoyens."

Aux armes, indeed. But not to erect an oligarchy of self-appointed experts to rule us with an iron hand. I rather prefer the idea of pulling them off their comfy, government-compensated sinecures and dragging them down into the mud with everyone else.

Anyone who thinks they are better qualified to run your life than you yourself is an enemy of the Enlightenment. Away with them all.

Leguran , 1 hour ago

Something worthwhile to note is missing among Pepe's carnage....

What has happened is that every imaginable organized group from doctors to pilots to lawyers, to farmers, to pharma companies, etc. has carved out a special slice of the economy especially for themselves.

In Feudal times rivers could not be navigated because cockroach lords would charge fees to use the rivers. That is exactly the same arrangement today but instead of using force of arms, laws are used. Our economy is choking on all these impediments.

mtumba , 2 hours ago

I agree that we need a revolution, and that the .01% globalist "elites" have proven to be not only craven, arrogant and greedy - but also stupid beyond redemption.

But I don't believe Marxist Social/Communism is the answer, as it has proven to always fail, as it is at complete odds with human nature. It drains creativity and productivity because they aren't rewarded, and it rewards laziness and inertia, because the absolute minimum of effort results in the barest level needed to survive, which - oddly - is enough for many.

I think it would be great to give actual capitalism a try, with extremely limited govt - a govt that ONLY provides for the common defense and enforcement of contract laws and protection against crimes of violence and property theft. NOT crony-capitalism that takes command over the resources of a nation's klepotcratic govt by the .01% richest and their sycophantic bottom feeder lawyers, lobbyists, corrupt politicians and other enablers.

Snout the First , 3 hours ago

That was sure a lot of words, needlessly making something simple difficult. Here's what it all boils down to:

  • - Who do you want setting prices? The market or a central planner?
  • - What percent of the economy do you want the government to own or control?
  • - What percent of your annual income do you want the government to take? Some small amount to be used for valid purposes, the rest to be pissed away against your better interests?
PKKA , 3 hours ago

Protests and Maidan open up fabulous opportunities for protest leaders. Chocolate oligarch Poroshenko became president. The little-known leader of the party faction in the parliament, Yatsenyuk, became prime minister.

You know that on the project of an epic wall between Ukraine and Russia, Yatsenyuk stole $ 1 billion but did not build a wall. A moron with a certificate from a psycho hospital Andrei Parubiy became the speaker of parliament. You did not know that Parubiy had a certificate of moronity from a psycho hospital? Now you know. Boxer Vitali Klitschko became mayor of Kiev. Vitaly pronounces the words in syllables and wrinkles his forehead for a long time before expressing a thought. You can even physically hear the creak of gears as they spin and creak in Klitschko's head. Do you know what rabble passed in the Ukrainian parliament? Bandits, crooks, nazis, morons, thieves and idiots! So the protests open up fabulous career opportunities and enrichment!

play_arrow
Phillyguy , 4 hours ago

The American public has a front row seat, watching US economic decline. This process has been ongoing since the mid 1970's, as corporate profits slumped. In response the ruling elite enacted a series of Neo-liberal economic policies- multiple tax cuts for the wealthy, attacks on the poor and labor, job outsourcing, financial de-regulation, lack of spending on public and private infrastructure and spending $ trillions of taxpayer money on the Pentagon and strategic debacles in Afghanistan (longest war in US history), Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. In total, these policies have been a disaster for the average American family.

The ruling elite are well aware of American economic decline, accelerated by the Coronavirus pandemic. Fascism comes to the fore when capitalism breaks down, and under extreme conditions, the ruling elite use fascism as an ideological rationale to harness state power- Legislature and police, to maintain class structure and wealth distribution. Western capitalism is incapable of reversing its economic decline and as a result, we are seeing fascism reemerging in the US, EU and Brazil. Donald Trump is the face of American fascism. Michael Parenti provides an excellent historical analysis of fascism. See: Michael Parenti- Functions of Fascism (Real History) 1 of 4 Jan 27, 2008; Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0Bc4KJx2Ao

Vigilante , 4 hours ago

How come 'fascist' Trump is being attacked 24/7 by the Deep State though?

They should be on his side if your assertions are correct

Fascism resides mostly on the Left end of the spectrum...and 'Woke' capital is throwing its lot with the 'progressives' these days

bshirley1968 , 4 hours ago

It's your perception he is being attacked. Dude, wake up.

The best the deep state has to run against Trump is Joe Biden? They are that stupid? They are that weak? If they are that stupid and weak, how can they be a conceivable, real threat.

You are being played. You imagine there are good guys that you can trust......and that is why you are being played.

HomeOfTheHypocrite , 3 hours ago

The ruling class is currently divided between those who are ready to prepare fascism and those who want to continue on with neoliberalism. Trump represents one faction of the ruling class. His political opponents in the Deep State represent another. None of them have any genuine concern for the fate of the American worker. Trump, if judged by his actions and not his words, is nothing but a charlatan who mouths populist phrases while appointing billionaire aristocrats to political positions and lavishing investment bankers with trillions of tax dollars.

CatInTheHat , 2 hours ago

This is the problem with both sides cult followers: the insanity behind the idea that these elite somehow have their hands tied behind their backs as they ALL move is toward fascism.

The 2 party system is a ONE party right wing fascist one. Trump is merely a figure head. People listen to what a politician says and NOT what he does behind their backs.

Trump is 1000% Zionazi just like the rest of them

HomeOfTheHypocrite , 2 hours ago

"basically it looks alot like the age old battle between fascism and communism"

Perhaps on the streets, but not within the ruling class. The ruling class, including the Democrats, are utterly opposed to communism or socialism. Every Democratic congressperson with maybe one exception stood and applauded Trump's anti-socialist rants during his State of the Union addresses. Nancy Pelosi: "We're capitalist and that's just the way it is." Elizabeth Warren (supposedly a radical): "I'm capitalist to my bones."

"Let's say for example these protesters managed to organize well enough to stage a coup d'etat and take over - what next ?"

There's little chance of that. They are completely disorganized and lack any sort of political program. But, if you're giving me the task of developing a political program for them, I'll try to offer some suggestions that could be accomplished without a Pinochet or Stalin-style bloodletting.

1. Busting up the monopolies and cartels
2. Raising taxes on the rich
3. A government jobs program to combat unemployment
4. A massive curtailment of the military budget
5. A massive curtailment of the policing and prison budget
6. Free government healthcare (without banning private-sector healthcare)

The first three of these political tasks were accomplished in the US in the 1930s without the need for "black ops, gulags, secret police, and all the rest of it." Major policy changes have not always required mass repression. But they do require a serious enough political party to disassociate itself entirely from the ruling class Democrats and Republicans. During the 30s there was a significant rise in various populist and socialist parties. Much of FDR's policies and statements were a response to the threat they posed to established power. There is a famous quote where he talks about having to "throw a few of these [millionaires] to the wolves" in order to save America from the crackpot ideas of the "communists" and "Huey Longians."

I completely share your concern related to the use of repression to implement social and economic policies. Neither the fascists nor the communists have a thing to offer a free people so long as they rely on tyranny to enforce their program. Above all democracy and the natural rights of individuals must be preserved.

Jedclampetisdead , 5 hours ago

If this country has any chance, we have to execute the Zionist bankers and their minions

new game , 5 hours ago

What is and will be: Corporate Fascism.

I defy anyone to explain other wise.

Go to the World Economic Forum web page and meet your masters.

Billionaires shaping YOUR future with their fortunes from corporations.

Their wealth was had by joint ventures with bought and paid for politicians and lobbyist

crafted legislation to maximize their wealth. This fakdemic absolutely consolidates more wealth

to fewer corporations by design. Serf and kings/queens. The club personified by immense wealth disparity.

In a continuing process, the social scoring via digital systems will limit freedoms to state approved corporate diktats

that clamp like a boot to the neck. **** here, 6 tissue sections and recycled bug **** for food.

brave new gatsy world right now with the roll out out of 3 pronged vaccine controlling your brains emotions.

It is all so obvious to anyone with an ability to see two steps into the future. navigate the future accordingly.

They are in control, the first denial that must be removed to see clearly the next step. sad but true.

simple **** maynard...

[May 29, 2020] Interview Jeff Sessions on Trump, Tuberville, and Free Trade 'Religion'

May 29, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

TAC: Looking forward, if you do go back to Washington, what issues would you champion, and what do you think America in 2021 should really focus on?

Sessions: Well, I have come to understand that the neocon foreign policy, the libertarian free market ideology, beyond common sense, was not healthy, and resulting in damage to families and to American citizens . It's our duty as public officials to protect American citizens from damage from unfair foreign competition and other tactics. That's a big deal. I think our Republican agenda has got to be more focused on helping American people fight back against unfair attacks on our businesses, closing our factories, losing our jobs, transporting our jobs. I'll be an advocate for that.

We have a nation, and the government's job is to protect the nation. President Trump said it simply: Other nations protect their interests, why aren't we protecting ours? We don't ever use a tariff? When people cheat you every day, how do you fight back, are you going to drop bombs on them? Why don't you use tariffs, which Alexander Hamilton and George Washington did at the very beginning of the republic, that's a perfectly normal response to an adverse attack on your people. So those are the kind of things that I feel strongly about. I believe in markets, competition, and international trade, but we can no longer sit quietly while are savaged by very clever, devious mercantilists who want to advance their interests and weaken the United States, while we sit there, based on some theory , that we can't impose a tariff. Give me a break!

Also, we need to reestablish a foreign policy for this time in our country's history, and it has to be really bipartisan. You remember the Kennan Long Telegram that laid the foundation for the containment policy against the Soviet Union. It lasted for 40 years with basic bipartisan support. That's the kind of thing we need to be rethinking today.

We cannot continue, as the president has warned us, getting involved in endless wars all over the globe, thinking that we can just remake humanity. That's not conservatism. Conservatism, as Bob Tyrell said, is a cast of mind, it's a thought process, about, 'wait, is this realistic?

You sure this theory is going to work? Are you trying to put a square peg in a round hole? It's just not going there. Aren't you getting feedback from reality, don't you adjust to it?' Our fundamental goals are to make the American people happy, prosperous, and stable. Family, traditions, culture, those kinds of things have got to be defended. And this ideological view that we're not a nation, we're an idea, somehow our constitution is supposed to apply worldwide, is ridiculous.

We have borders, and we have a right to defend those borders, to establish good, healthy conditions within our country. Not just for the billionaires, wages need to go up for working people. For example, for 20 years wages for average Americans did not increase. GDP was going up, that seemed to be all the economists cared about, CEOs were making more and more money, but the wages for the core American people were not going up. They have, under President Trump, some, and we need to focus on that.

TAC: In both military and economic terms, how should we begin confronting China?

For starters, we need to take off the rose-colored glasses. This is a communist regime. We can wish it weren't so, people hoped they would moderate when they got wealthier, but actually the opposite is occurring. Xi Jinping is using technology to repress his people even more ruthlessly. And they are not free market people. They are not free market people, they're communists! They are using our free-market theories -- religion -- against us, to destroy us, to gain market share, and they've been highly successful.

President Trump and I talked about it on the airplane a number of times during the campaign, and he understands one thing: China needs our markets more than we need their products.

We can make those products in the United States, we can make our drugs here, we can buy them from Mexico, our neighbors like that, we can buy them from the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, India, Vietnam, places that aren't threats to us strategically, and who will deal honestly with us.

So we absolutely need to alter that supply chain system that has given China an advantage over all the other nations of the world, and we can do that in a way that does not harm our economy significantly.

[May 29, 2020] They Motherfkers Need To Go Home! - Locals Rage At Rioters As Minneapolis Burns

May 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

As Summit News reports , a video clip shows a black woman and former NAACP chapter president trying to collect medication for her daughter outside a Target store in St. Paul telling rioters "these motherf**kers need to go home!"

"Leave this shit alone – "these motherf**kers need to go home!" she shouts, "these people don't give a damn about George Floyd."

Diane Binns, 70, of St. Paul is angry at the people here. Binns came here to get medication for her daughter. pic.twitter.com/GA1EJpx4XL

-- Ricardo Lopez (@rljourno) May 28, 2020

The woman subsequently identified herself as Diane Binns, former president of the NAACP St. Paul from 2016-2018.

Critically, for the narrative-minded among you, she says she attended the initial protest against the killing of Floyd but after 30 minutes realized "it was going to be a riot, so I left."

America is quickly descending into chaos as social unrest could spread to other major cities this weekend. Wealth inequality in many inner cities is at record levels. More than 40 million people are unemployed with a crashed economy, and people are already furious about virus lockdowns. This all suggests a perfect storm of unrest could flare up across the country.

We warned of the possibility of this in late March, " West Faces "Social Bomb" As Pandemic Sparks Unrest Among Poorest . "

[May 29, 2020] vaxxter.com

May 29, 2020 | vaxxter.com

What's of particular interest is back in 2005, the PREP Act was brought into existence.
In essence the PREP Act provides for unlimited funding for drug companies to develop 'counter measures' , should a Notice of Declaration of National Emergency be declared. Such declaration was made back in March of this year.

Under the PREP Act, drug companies are given COMPLETE IMMUNITY FROM ALL ACCOUNTABILITY, ALL LIABILITY & ALL LAWSUITS.

By her latest count, there are 119 Covid19 vaccines under development worldwide.

2) CDC and AMA have been in cahoots over the flu and vaccines for years!
Read the start of paragraph 3 and all of 4.

https://aspe.hhs.gov/cdc-%E2%80%94-influenza-deaths-request-correction-rfc

[May 29, 2020] The probably biggest lesson we will learn from this pandemic is that we must work to change that selfish neoliberal mentality

May 29, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

DontBelieveEitherPr. , May 28 2020 18:48 utc | 3

"The probably biggest lesson we will learn from this pandemic is that we must work to change that selfish mentality."

And this is sadly the biggest challenge of all. After many decades of neoliberal doctrine, coupled with shunning positive patriotism (e.g. serving for the common good of a nation) as "semi-fascist", we now reap what has been sowed.
But it must be the focus point of our work. Without it, every other effort regarding reviving democracy, social security, and even changing the crazy geopolitics of our nations is futile.

Caliman , May 28 2020 19:47 utc | 9

"The "western" cultures allow for more selfishness of the individual. But over the longer timeframe [neoliberal] cultures that emphasizes personal liberty and ignore the common good are likely to see their empire fail.

The probably biggest lesson we will learn from this pandemic is that we must work to change that selfish mentality."

Ah, yes ... the common good ... the Great Leap Forward ... the Brave New World ... individual rights reported as selfishness ... really?

Perhaps it's better to live with some risk and the admitted limited liberty and individual rights afforded by a system of limited government (not that our governors are currently acting in accordance to the laws they have sworn to uphold)?

Or perhaps one would rather have the false security of guaranteed life in a prison?

Btw, "empire failing" would be a great thing ... and individual rights and limited governance are antithetical to empire.

[May 28, 2020] A small request after COVID-19 epidemic: Please tell the ruling class to 'go fck themselves'

Voting it still is a way to raise the middle finger to the organized crime ring that currently serves the oligarchs
May 28, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

The easiest way to register your disapproval is with your vote. Will it change things? Absolutely not.
But I'm only asking for you to send a message. Asking you for more than that would be presumptuous of me.

The media is quick to tell you that you only have two choices in our "democracy" - Red Team or Blue Team.
That is a lie. The reality is that you have four choices.

Choice #1) Vote Team Neofeudalism
Do you enjoy being a serf? Then vote for the MSM-endorsed Republican or Democrat. Go Team!
If you think there is any real difference then you aren't paying attention .

Choice #2) Don't Vote
The game is rigged, so why participate?
Well, you got the first part right. It's all rigged, but you obviously don't understand the game if you think you can opt out. We are all trapped in this system, and not voting is a choice.
Think of it this way. Half of all eligible voters don't vote. Do you think that the political class is worried about their legitimacy? Not in the slightest. If the voting rate dropped to just 10% they still wouldn't care.
In fact, a disengaged, apathetic public is a close second preference to Choice #1 for the ruling elite. Want proof? When is the last time (outside of the Sanders campaign) has any politician done anything to increase the electorate? Historically the ruling class has always tried to limit participation.
So the only message that you send by not voting is "I don't care" or "I give up."

Choice #3) Vote for someone you like
A.K.A. Throwing away your vote.
A.K.A. Helping Putin.
A.K.A. Voting for Trump (for people that flunked both math and civics).
The purpose of democracy is to vote for someone that represents your interests. The fact that this logical, rational act has been demonized by the MSM is proof that the ruling elites don't approve of this choice.
So if you want to tell the ruling class FU on their choices, this is an easy way to do it.
It's not the best way, but it is a way.
The reason that it's not the best way to send a message is because the Democratic Party truly doesn't care if it loses to the GOP. The wealthy donors still win.
So as long as only a token number of voters vote for a 3rd party, then the ruling elite still win. They just don't win in a manner that they would prefer, and that slightly annoys them.

Choice #4) Get Active. Get In Their Faces
The only way to really piss off the ruling elites is to threaten their power.
The Democratic Party establishment and the media will always be against everyone on the left.
However, that isn't even the most important parts of the establishment, and it's something that the Left absolutely must fix regardless of whether the strategy is to take over the Democratic Party or jump to another party.

For starters, let's look at the one place where the Left should dominate - Labor Unions.
No left-wing movement worth a damn fails to have labor behind it. The rank-and-file are generally economic leftists, but union leadership has often been totally corrupted.
That has to change.
The same goes for civil rights and enviromentalist groups.
Failure to do this will doom any leftist economic movement or party.

However, changing things > sending a message.

Halfway in between changing things and sending a message is primarying incumbents.
The political establishment gets furious when the grassroots challenges them.
You can tell by all the ways that they'll break every rule and violate every value when this happens.
It's a true FU to the ruling class. It makes them fight over something they thought that they had already won.

While Bernie's defeat (and abandonment of his own movement) was discouraging, there are still people fighting the good fight.
For example, Justice Democrats have a 3 - 2 record in 2020 so far.
The DSA has 13 primary challengers coming up.

This is only a request. You should only do what you are ready to do.
But I think it's not a bad strategy to act in a way most contrary to the wishes of the ruling class.

[May 26, 2020] The severity of coronavirus epidemic in the USA is indirectly connected with neoliberal decimation of healthcare and social safety net

May 26, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

VietnamVet , May 25 2020 23:36 utc | 23

The top nine nations with the most coronavirus cases were members of the Western Empire (former democracies weakened by corporations and oligarchs to promote global trade) or the Elite reaching an understanding with Authoritarians. "Profit over lives" was the result. Endless wars, offshoring, corruption, exploitation and despair led to the decreased life expectancy in the USA and England.

The novel coronavirus pandemic is the direct result of these dysfunctional governments. Corporations see the epidemic as a profit center for their magical treatment or vaccine. There is no US national public health system. US hospitals and nursing homes primary purpose is to make money for stockholders and mangers. It is of no matter that nearly 100,000 Americans have died so far with many more to come. No great wealth will be spent to fight the pandemic nationally in the USA using the proven public health practices of universal testing, contact tracing and isolation of the ill.

This is now a bipolar world. The USA and UK are pariah nations quarantined from the nations that have controlled the virus. The Western Empire has fallen.

The Democrats are just as responsible for the mess as the Republicans. I have yet to receive my mail-in ballot for the postponed June 2nd Maryland primary. Besides being incarcerated at home, it looks like I am also disenfranchised. Yet, I am very lucky, once again, but for how long?

Either a democratic constitutional government retakes control of the USA or a second civil war between the credentialed and the left-behind is inevitable. The aristocracy always loses but with wholesale chaos, major loss of life and redistribution of wealth.

This is an extraordinary dangerous time for Homo sapiens due the Pandemic and the resulting Greatest Depression leading to unrest, scapegoating and confrontation which could result in the use of nuclear weapons. Plus, climate change looms ahead. How can this possibly be addressed if the developed world is unable to control a once in a century pandemic; let alone, evolve a sustainable civilization that can survive on a finite planet.

Jackrabbit , May 26 2020 0:31 utc | 26

Big Pharma colluding with Government. Just as some of us have been warning of.

The sense that we are being f*cked with is papable:

  • The virus is only a mild illness (trust us).
  • Masks are not needed (trust us).
  • Stay at home if you're sick (trust us).
  • We're doing tons of testing (trust us).
  • Don't use unproven medicines/treatments (trust us).
  • We'll have a vaccine (trust us).
  • The economy will come roaring back (trust us).
  • Trillions of dollar of loans to wall street and big companies was necessary (trust us).
  • China is to blame (trust us).
  • We're in this together (trust us).

That's what we get when we let asshats run rampant (no accountability whatsoever). Only genuine Movements for Democratic reform will change anything.

!!

[May 26, 2020] Have governments given any thought to the implication of the financial crisis spreading to the middle classes, for whom often their only cushion in life is the inflated value of the house in which they live, but whose price may collapse?

May 26, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , May 25 2020 19:24 utc | 104

At the end of his essay today , Alastair Crooke asks a series of questions that many of us have already pondered and mostly written about:

"Have governments given any thought to the implication of the financial crisis spreading to the middle classes, for whom often their only cushion in life is the inflated value of the house in which they live, but whose price may collapse? And if not, do they imagine that their citizens will acquiesce to losing their homes because of Coronavirus? And that the middle classes will still side with the élites?

"So much hangs on the evolutionary course of the virus. But judging this wrongly, risks much. People will not so readily handover their homes and cars to the banks this time, as in they did the wake of great financial crisis of 2008. Why would they? It was not their fault [It wasn't their fault in 2008 either; it was massive Fraud that was never prosecuted and I'm getting rather tired of that fact not being aired]. Convulsions ahead? The decay of an era, and the inevitability of social and political mutation?"

IMO, within the Outlaw US Empire, the issue of state solvency will become paramount thanks to the massive unanticipated shortfalls in revenue, an issue Hudson talks about in the video I linked above. IMO, that issue has the power to cleave the states from the Union given the Union's complete lack of interest in the wellbeing of citizens. It's very much like an abusive marriage--When does the repeatedly beaten wife finally leave home or attempt to kill her spouse? Aside from the very meager benefits from Social Security and Medicare, what ties serve to promote loyalty to Washington, DC over your individual state? If the Union isn't going to work for the goals articulated in the Constitution's Preamble, then why support it any longer?

[May 25, 2020] BIG PHARMA steered public money away from pandemic research and into PROFIT-MAKING projects for years watchdog -- RT World New

Notable quotes:
"... EU money intended for underfunded public-benefit research such as preparing for a pandemic has been diverted by the pharmaceutical industry into areas where it can make more money, according to a scathing new report. ..."
"... The target of the criticism is the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a public-private partnership that was equally funded, between 2008 and 2020, by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) lobbying group and the European Commission to the tune of 5.3 billion euros (US$5.8 billion). The money is supposed to go to areas of "unmet medical or social need," ..."
"... "We were outraged to find evidence that the pharmaceutical industry lobby EFPIA not only did not consider funding biopreparedness (ie, being ready for epidemics such as the one caused by the new coronavirus, COVID-19) but opposed it being included in IMI's work when the possibility was raised by the European Commission in 2017, ..."
"... "The research proposed by the EC in the biopreparedness topic was small in scope," ..."
"... "IMI's projects have contributed, directly or indirectly, to better prepare the research community for the current crisis, the Ebola+ programme or the ZAPI project." ..."
"... "belated interventions when an epidemic is already underway," ..."
"... Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! ..."
May 25, 2020 | www.rt.com
EU money intended for underfunded public-benefit research such as preparing for a pandemic has been diverted by the pharmaceutical industry into areas where it can make more money, according to a scathing new report. Officials in Brussels wanted to co-fund research that would have ensured the European Union (EU) was better prepared for a pandemic akin to the one we are experiencing today. But their partners, the big pharmaceutical companies, rejected the proposal, ensuring that taxpayer money would go instead into studies with more potential for commercial application. In short big-pharma lobbyists were allowed to steer billions of euros of public funds as they saw fit, a damning new report claims.

The target of the criticism is the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a public-private partnership that was equally funded, between 2008 and 2020, by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) lobbying group and the European Commission to the tune of 5.3 billion euros (US$5.8 billion). The money is supposed to go to areas of "unmet medical or social need," but, in practice, corporate priorities dominate the decision-making, according to the non-governmental organization Corporate Observatory Europe (COE).

"We were outraged to find evidence that the pharmaceutical industry lobby EFPIA not only did not consider funding biopreparedness (ie, being ready for epidemics such as the one caused by the new coronavirus, COVID-19) but opposed it being included in IMI's work when the possibility was raised by the European Commission in 2017, " a new COE report said.

Also on rt.com Head of EU's top science body quits after Covid-19 response plans get bogged down by Brussels bureaucracy

The rejected proposal would have directed money into refining computer simulations and the analysis of animal testing models, potentially speeding up regulatory approval of vaccines, according to the Guardian. But a spokeswoman for the IMI called the report "misleading".

"The research proposed by the EC in the biopreparedness topic was small in scope," she said. "IMI's projects have contributed, directly or indirectly, to better prepare the research community for the current crisis, the Ebola+ programme or the ZAPI project."

ZAPI, or the Zoonotic Anticipation and Preparedness Initiative, was launched in 2015 with a budget of 20 million euros (US$21.8 million) after the Ebola epidemic a year prior. The COE report said it exemplifies a pattern of "belated interventions when an epidemic is already underway," much like this year's emergency funding of coronavirus research.

Also on rt.com Hotly-touted Oxford coronavirus VACCINE trial has only 50 percent chance of success, project leader warns

The think tank questioned whether EU public money was well applied through IMI. Much of it went into research into cancer, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes – areas that are potentially profitable and thus are given close attention by private business. But epidemic preparedness, HIV/AIDS, and poverty-related and neglected tropical diseases have been overlooked by the initiative, the report said.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

[May 24, 2020] The world is entering the period of instability and turbulence

May 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , May 24 2020 20:52 utc | 29

...China's Foreign Minister Yang Yi held a lengthy presser providing detailed answers to many differing questions. The topic of "Wolf Diplomacy" is in the news today and was asked about by CNN:

" Cable News Network : We've seen an increasingly heated 'war of words' between China and the US. Is 'wolf warrior' diplomacy the new norm of China's diplomacy?

Wang Yi : I respect your right to ask the question, but I'm afraid you're not framing the question in the right way. One has to have a sense of right and wrong. Without it, a person cannot be trusted, and a country cannot hold its own in the family of nations .

... ... ...

"The world is undergoing changes of a kind unseen in a century and full of instability and turbulence. Confronted by a growing set of global challenges, we hope all countries will realize that humanity is a community with a shared future. We must render each other more support and cooperation, and there should be less finger-pointing and confrontation. We call on all nations to come together and build a better world for all." [My Emphasis]

... ... ...

[May 24, 2020] The Black Death Killed Feudalism. What Does COVID-19 Mean for Capitalism - FPIF by John Feffer

Notable quotes:
"... The coronavirus crisis has thrown the global economy into cardiac arrest, and now you are acutely aware of the very markets that you had previously just assumed would function as normal. The first indication was the precipitous drop in the stock market that took place in late February. Then, as the United States began to enter quarantine, the labor market collapsed and hundreds of millions of people were suddenly out of work. Shortages in a few key commodities -- masks, ventilators, toilet paper -- began to appear. ..."
Apr 29, 2020 | fpif.org

How will the coronavirus transform the relationship between state and market? A look at oil, food, and finance.


You pay little attention to the systems of your body -- circulatory, digestive, pulmonary -- unless something goes wrong.

These automatic systems ordinarily go about their business, like unseen clockwork, while you think about a vexing problem at work, drink your morning cup of coffee, walk up and down stairs, and head out to your car to begin your morning commute. If you had to focus your attention on breathing, pushing blood through your veins, and metabolizing food, you'd have no time or energy to do anything else. The body abhors the micromanaging of the mind.

The same applies to the world's markets. They whir away in the background of your life, providing loans to your business, coffee beans to your nearby supermarket, labor to build your house, gas to fill your car. You take all of these markets for granted. All you have to concern yourself with is earning enough money to gain access to these goods and services. That's what it means to live in a modern economy. The days of hunting and gathering, of complete self-sufficiency, are long past.

And then, in a series of sickening shifts, the markets go haywire. As with a heart attack, you no longer can take the optimal performance of these systems for granted.

The coronavirus crisis has thrown the global economy into cardiac arrest, and now you are acutely aware of the very markets that you had previously just assumed would function as normal. The first indication was the precipitous drop in the stock market that took place in late February. Then, as the United States began to enter quarantine, the labor market collapsed and hundreds of millions of people were suddenly out of work. Shortages in a few key commodities -- masks, ventilators, toilet paper -- began to appear.

It is one of the central tenets of laissez-faire capitalism that markets behave like automatic systems, that an "invisible hand" regulates supply and demand. Market fundamentalists believe that the less the government interferes with these automatic systems, the better. They argue, to the contrary, that markets should increasingly take over government functions: a privatized post office, for instance, or Social Security accounts subjected to the stock market.

Market fundamentalists are like Christian Scientists. They refuse government intervention just as the faithful reject medical intervention. Much like God's grace, the invisible hand operates independent of human plan.

Then something happens, like a pandemic, which tests this faith. States around the world are now spending trillions of dollars to intervene in the economy: to bail out banks, save businesses, help out the unemployed. Countries are imposing export controls on key commodities. As in wartime, governments are directing manufacturers to produce critical goods to fill an unexpected demand for greater supply.

These are emergency interventions. The market fundamentalist looks forward to the day when stay-at-home restrictions are lifted, people go back to work, the stock market barrels back into bull mode, and the invisible hand, with perhaps a few Band-aids across the knuckles, returns to its job.

But some pandemics fundamentally alter the economy. In such emergencies, people realize that an economy is constructed and thus can be reconstructed. Are we now at just such a moment in world history? Will the coronavirus permanently transform the relationship between the state and the market?

Let's take a look at three key markets -- oil, food, and finance -- to measure the impact of the pandemic and the prospects for transformation.

Oil

Shutterstock

In 2007, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa offered to forgo digging for oil beneath the Yasuni national park in exchange for $3.6 billion from the international community. No one took him up on the offer.

When the U.S. price of oil went below zero last week, I immediately thought of Correa's offer. The mainstream scoffed at the Ecuadorian leader back in 2007. How on earth could you possibly propose to keep oil under the earth? The world economy runs on fossil fuels. You might as well ask your kid to keep her Halloween candy uneaten in the back of the cupboard.

Today, however, the world is glutted with oil. The global recession has radically reduced the need for oil and gas.

In the United States, transportation absorbs nearly 70 percent of oil consumption. With airplanes grounded, fewer trains and busses in operation, and highways uncongested, the demand for oil has dropped precipitously. Businesses, too, are using less energy. It's not just oil. Companies devoted to pumping natural gas out of shale deposits are filing for bankruptcy as their market value drops precipitously: the price of a share of fracking giant Whiting Petroleum fell from $150 a couple years ago to 67 cents on March 31.

It's gotten to the point that you almost can't give away the stuff.

After all, if you somehow found yourself with a bunch of barrels of oil, where would you store it? Oil-storage tanks in the United State are near capacity. "Oil supertankers are looking like petroleum paparazzi, crowding the Los Angeles shoreline, either as floating storage or waiting on some kind of turn in sentiment," Brian Sullivan writes at CNBC . "With prices higher in coming months, for now it pays to sit on oil and hope to sell it for more money down the pipeline."

Oil-producing nations, after years of boosting their supplies, finally agreed in mid-April to cut production by 10 percent -- about 10 million gallons a day. In other words, they are deciding to leave oil in the ground. Now, however, it doesn't even qualify as a half-measure, since demand has dropped by 35 percent. The oil producers are awaiting the end of recession, when the quarantined go back to work, and everyone jumps on their transport of choice to make up for lost travel. They are awaiting a return to normal.

But the market for fossil fuels is not normal. The notion that the invisible hand will steer economies in a sustainable direction is hogwash. We are long past the moment when we should have paid Correa and everyone else to leave the oil and gas in the ground and move toward a world powered entirely by clean energy. The market treats the environment either as a commodity like any other or as an "externality" that doesn't factor into the final price of goods and services. That is so nineteenth century.

Climate change demands an intervention into the energy markets with restrictions on production, subsidies for clean energies like solar, and government purchases of electric cars. Returning to "normal" after the pandemic is not a viable option.

Food

Shutterstock

Like the oil exporters, food producers in the United States are restricting production as well.

In Delaware and Maryland, chicken producers are euthanizing two million chickens because the processing plants don't have enough workers. Sickness and death in these facilities, which has caused closures that are disrupting the supply chain, has prompted Trump to classify such plants as "critical infrastructure" that needs to remain open. Meanwhile, thousands of acres of fruits and vegetables are rotting in the fields in Florida because of the suspension of bulk food sales to schools, theme parks, and restaurants. The shortage of pickers -- often migrant laborers whose mobility has been restricted -- is complicating harvests.

Unlike oil, however, the overall demand for food remains high. The grocery business is booming . Food banks are overwhelmed by a surge unlike any in recent decades. The U.S. Department of Agriculture ordinarily could swoop in and buy up surplus production -- as it did for soybean growers during the trade war with China -- for use in food banks and other distribution programs. But as with so many other government agencies in the Trump era, the USDA has been slow to act , despite repeated pleas from growers and governors.

The pandemic is highlighting all the problems that have long plagued the food supply. First, there is the mismatch between supply and demand. Around 820 million people globally didn't have enough to eat in 2018, a figure that had been rising for three years in a row, and contrasts with another rising number: the 672 million obese people in the world. In the United States, fully 40 percent of food goes to waste every year. So, obviously the invisible hand does a pretty poor job of achieving market equilibrium.

Second, despite a growing movement to eat locally and seasonally, the food system still eats up a huge amount of energy. The problem lies not so much with bananas arriving by cargo ship, which is relatively efficient, but with perishable items delivered by plane . And it's what we eat, rather than where the products come from, that matters most. "Regardless of whether you compare the footprint of foods in terms of their weight (e.g. one kilogram of cheese versus one kilogram of peas); protein content; or calories, the overall conclusion is the same," writes Hannah Ritchie. "Plant-based foods tend to have a lower carbon footprint than meat and dairy. In many cases a much smaller footprint."

Third, because of economies of scale and abysmal labor practices, food in the industrialized world is too often grown by agribusiness, processed by transnational corporations, and picked or handled by workers who don't even make close to a living wage.

Returning to this kind of food system after the pandemic fades would be truly unappetizing. The livable wage campaign must spread to the countryside, meat substitutes must get an additional lift through government and institutional purchases, and innovative programs like the Too Good to Go app in Europe -- which sells extra restaurant and supermarket food at a discount -- must be brought to the United States to cut down on food waste and get meals to those in need.

Finance global-financial-crisis-capitalism-globalization-finance

Shutterstock

The financial crisis of 2008-2009 exposed the fragility and fundamental inequality of the global financial system. But all along the invisible hand has been pickpocketing poor Peter to pay prosperous Paul. Bankers, stockbrokers, and financial gurus have constructed a casino-like system that occasionally doles out a few pennies to the people playing the slots even as it enriches the house -- the top 1-2 percent -- at every turn.

The most outrageous part of this scheme is that the financial crisis demonstrated just how bad the financiers were at their own game. Not only did they not go to prison for illegal activities, they were with a few exceptions not even punished economically for their market failures. They were either too big, too rich, or too powerful for the government to allow them to fail.

In The New Yorker , Nick Paumgarten quotes a prominent investment banker at a bond fund:

"In the financial crisis, we won the war but lost the peace." Instead of investing in infrastructure, education, and job retraining, we emphasized, via a central-bank policy of quantitative easing (what some people call printing money), the value of risk assets, like stocks. "We collectively fell in love with finance," he said.

After the last financial crisis, the wealthy, who are heavily invested in the stock market, did quite well, while everyone else took a hit. Explains Colin Schultz in Smithsonian magazine: "While families hovering around the average net worth lost 36 percent over the past decade -- dropping from $87,992 in 2003 to $56,335 in 2013 -- people in the top 95th percentile actually gained 14 percent in the same tumultuous period -- going from $740,700 in 2003 to $834,100 in 2013."

The Trump administration is clearly in love with finance. Even before the pandemic hit, Trump's tax reform provided the top six U.S. banks with $32 billion in savings . That's more than what the 2008 bank bailout provided (and remember, banks mostly paid back those earlier loans). The stock market also benefited from an unprecedented upswing in stock buybacks -- $2 trillion combined in 2018 and 2019 -- that enriched shareholders at the expense of workers.

The $2 trillion in initial stimulus funds that the U.S. government is providing this time around has gone to individuals (those Trump-signed checks in the mail), small businesses (except when it went to big businesses), hospitals, and unemployed workers. There's also money for farmers, schools, food stamps, and (alas) the Pentagon. Future rounds of stimulus spending might include infrastructure, more aid to states and localities, and funds for smaller banks.

There's not much enthusiasm, at least publicly, to bail out Wall Street. Stock buybacks were explicitly excluded from the stimulus package. Meanwhile, the stock market has begun to climb out of the basement in the last couple weeks, largely on the strength of the news of all this new money being pumped into the economy.

But just as the tax bill was a covert giveaway to financial institutions, so have been several of the administration's pandemic responses. Quantitative easing, by which the Federal Reserve buys bonds and mortgage-backed securities, has increased the amount of liquidity available to financial institutions.

In the latest effort, the Fed announced that it will buy $500 billion in corporate bonds, but without any of the strings attached to other assistance such as limits on stock buybacks or executive compensation. The banks are even nickel and diming people by seizing stimulus check deposits to cover overdrawn accounts.

Out of a total pie of around $6 trillion in potential stimulus spending, banks and major corporations are well-placed to grab the lion's share. Writes Nomi Prins at TomDispatch:

In the end, according to the president, that could mean $4.5 trillion in support for big banks and corporate entities versus something like $1.4 trillion for regular Americans, small businesses, hospitals, and local and state governments. That 3.5 to 1 ratio signals that, as in 2008, the Treasury and the Fed are focused on big banks and large corporations, not everyday Americans.

Invisible hand? Hardly. That's the very visible hand of government tilting the financial markets even more in favor of the rich. As for the invisible enrichment that goes on beneath the surface, otherwise known as corruption, the Trump administration has gutted the oversight mechanisms that could bring those abuses to light.

It's time to end America's love affair with finance. That means, in the short term, higher taxes on the very rich, limitations on CEO pay built into all bailouts, and reviving all the reasonable proposals for reforming the financial sector that were either left out of or didn't get full implemented in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act passed in the wake of the last financial crisis.

Post-Pandemic Economics

Shutterstock

The Black Death depopulated Europe, killing as much as 60 percent of the population in the middle of the fourteenth century. Feudalism depended on lots of peasants working the land to support the one percent of that era. By carrying off so many of these workers, the Black Death made a major contribution to eroding the foundations of the dominant economic system of the time.

The coronavirus will not kill anywhere near as many people as the Black Death did. But it may well contribute to exposing the failures of "free markets" and the scandal of governments intervening in the economy on behalf of this era's one percent. The pandemic is already, thanks to huge stimulus packages, undermining the "small government" canard. A state apparatus deliberately hobbled by the Trump administration -- after earlier "reforms" by both parties -- did a piss-poor job of dealing with this crisis. That doesn't bode well for dealing with the even larger challenge of climate change.

The short-term fixes described above in the oil, food, and finance sectors are necessary but insufficient. They shift the balance more toward the government and away from the "free" market. They're not unlike the New Deal: reforming capitalism to save capitalism. But this pandemic is pointing to an even more fundamental transformation, to a new definition of economics.

The tweaking of markets to achieve optimal performance is much like the rejiggering of earth-centric models of the universe that took place in the Middle Ages. These models became more and more complex to account for new astronomical discoveries. Then along came Copernicus with a heliocentric model that accounted for all the new data. It took some time, however, for the old model to lose favor, despite its obvious failures.

The global economy remains market-centered, even though the evidence has been mounting that these markets are failing us and the planet. Tweaking this model isn't good enough. We need a new Copernicus who will provide a new theory that fits our unfolding reality, a new environment-centered economics that can maximize not profit but the well-being of living things. John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus.

[May 24, 2020] A lockdown in rgw USA seems to be justified on the basis of the fact that even if you are middle aged, the chances of hospitalization are still around 5 percent, and in the US going to the hospital for a several weeks can leave you bankrupt.

May 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

128 , says: Show Comment May 21, 2020 at 12:53 pm GMT

A lockdown in a lot of places seems to be justified on the basis of the fact that even if you are middle aged, the chances of hospitalization are still around 5 percent, and in the US going to the hospital for a week or weeks can leave you bankrupt.
A123 , says: Show Comment May 21, 2020 at 1:36 pm GMT
@AP The interesting & important thing to note is that fatalities are heavily tied to the related factors of pre-existing conditions and advanced age. For example:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107913/number-of-coronavirus-deaths-in-sweden-by-age-groups/

With CQ/AZ/ZN available everywhere, the bulk of the economy could reopen immediately with or without masks. Given that psychology is important, odds are mask wearing will make the restart more effective. However, masks provide partial protection at most.

PEACE

Bert , says: Show Comment May 21, 2020 at 5:34 pm GMT
@utu Epidemiology uses R0 for an initial reproductive rate when a pathogen first invades a naive host population. Re is the designation for later when immunity begins to exist and, for human beings in the current pandemic, host behavior changes.

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/when-will-it-be-over-an-introduction-to-viral-reproduction-numbers-r0-and-re/

[May 23, 2020] Underscoring 'Grotesque Nature of Unequal Sacrifice,' Richest Americans Have Added $434 Billion in Wealth Since Pandemic Hit

May 23, 2020 | www.commondreams.org

America's billionaires saw their combined net worth soar by $434 billion between March 18 and May 19 while the coronavirus pandemic killed tens of thousands of people and ravaged the U.S. economy, forcing more than 30 million out of work.

That's according to a new analysis released Thursday by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) titled " Tale of Two Crises: Billionaires Gain as Workers Feel Pandemic Pain ."

The report shows that the five wealthiest billionaires in the U.S. -- Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway, and Larry Ellison of Oracle -- saw their collective wealth grow by a total of $75.5 billion between March 18 and May 19, a 19% jump.

Bezos -- the world's richest man -- saw his wealth jump by nearly $35 billion in the two-month period. Yet even as Bezos' fortune continues to grow, Amazon announced last week that it will not extend $2-an-hour hazard pay for warehouse workers beyond the end of May.

[May 22, 2020] Battle Covid-19, Not Medicare for All: Doctors Demand Hospital Industry Stop Funding Dark Money Lobby Group

May 22, 2020 | www.commondreams.org

A progressive organization of 23,000 physicians from across the U.S. demanded Thursday that the American Hospital Association (AHA) divest completely from a dark-money lobbying group that has spent millions combating Medicare for All and instead devote those financial resources to the fight against Covid-19 and to better support for patients and healthcare workers.

Dr. Adam Gaffney, president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), said in a statement that "the Covid-19 pandemic has stretched hospitals' resources to the limit, and the AHA should not waste precious member hospitals' funds lobbying against universal health coverage" as a member of the Partnership for America's Health Care Future (PFAHCF).

Because Medicare for All would provide a lifeline to hospitals in underserved areas that have been hit hard by Covid-19, Gaffney argued, the AHA "cannot claim to represent hospitals while also opposing a single-payer system that would keep struggling hospitals open." The AHA represents around 5,000 hospitals and other healthcare providers in the U.S.

As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, public health officials are accusing the Trump administration of directing billions of dollars in Covid-19 hospital bailout funds to high-revenue providers while restricting money to hospitals that serve low-income areas.

Tenet Healthcare, an investor-owned hospital company that has donated hundreds of thousands to PFAHCF, has received $345 million in Covid-19 bailout funds, Axios reported last month.

"The AHA should immediately leave the PFAHCF," Gaffney said, "and redirect that money to supporting patients and frontline healthcare workers."

"As physicians, we can no longer tolerate a health system that puts profits ahead of patients and public health," Gaffney added. "It's time for health professionals to hold accountable the organizations that claim to represent us."

Formed in the summer of 2018 by an alliance of pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital lobbyists with the goal of countering the push for universal healthcare, PFAHCF's anti-Medicare for All " army " has grown rapidly since its founding, with the AHA joining the fray in 2019.

As The Intercept reported last October, the for-profit hospital industry has played an "integral role" in the corporate fight against single-payer.

[May 22, 2020] Dear Corporate America Take Your Job Shove It by Charles Hugh Smith

May 22, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Dear Corporate America: maybe you remember the old Johnny Paycheck tune? Let me refresh your memory: take this job and shove it.

Put yourself in the shoes of a single parent waiting tables in a working-class cafe with lousy tips, a worker stuck with high rent and a soul-deadening commute --one of the tens of millions of America's working poor who have seen their wages stagnate and their income becoming increasingly precarious / uncertain while the cost of living has soared.

Unemployment and the federal stimulus bonus of $600 a week are far more than your regular wages, including tips. Exactly why do you want to go back to your miserable job and low pay? Why wouldn't you take time off and enjoy life a little, which is what you've been wanting to do for years?

Indeed--why not? The pandemic is giving many permission to get what they always wanted. Consider these examples:

1. The Federal Reserve has always pined for the power to bail out the top .01% / the New Nobility the way they deserve, with unlimited money-printing and the Fed being able to buy every rigged, fraudulent asset spewed by the New Nobility's financial and corporate predators and parasites.

Yee-haw, the pandemic genie granted your wish: there's no limits on how many trillions you can shove into the greedy maw of the top .01%, and bail out every single one of their predatory, exploitive, legalized looting bets that went south.

2. Local officials always wanted to commandeer some motels and shove the homeless into them, to clear the sidewalks and parks and then claim "homeless problem solved." Presto, your wish has been granted.

3. Central government authorities have always resented all those pesky civil liberties restraints on their unquenchable desires to control every tiny aspect of life, public and private, and now--voila, the doors to Petty Authoritarian Heaven have opened. Question our authority? A tenner in the gulag for you, Doubter of All That Is Great and Good.

4. Restaurant owners who on camera always have to say how much they love their customers and business, never mind the money, who secretly have come to loathe their over-entitled, self-absorbed, dilettante customers and are sick and tired of the soaring rent, business licenses, insurance, payroll taxes and costs of ingredients.

You know what, pal? Here's the keys, you can re-open whatever the heck you want, I'm outta here. I've been secretly wishing I could get out from underneath this crushing burden and get my life back. Yes, it was exciting way back when, but now it's nothing but an endless grind that wasn't making money even before the pandemic.

5. Since the financiers, Big Tech mini-gods and stock buyback crowd have looted and pillaged their way to immense fortunes by lying, cheating, conniving and gaming, why not follow the money just like the predators and parasites at the top of the heap?

Indeed, why not fudge the application for a federal small business loan and use the "free money" to lease that shiny new Rolls Royce you always desired? Well, haven't the authorities been begging us to borrow and spend like there's no tomorrow?

6. Dear Corporate America: maybe you remember the old Johnny Paycheck tune? Let me refresh your memory: take this job and shove it, I ain't working here no more. If there's a will, there's a way, and I'm stepping off the rat race merry-go-round, thank you very much. You can find some other sucker to do your dirty work and BS work, all for the greater glory and wealth of your New Nobility shareholders. I'm outta here. So I won't get rich, that dream died a long time ago. What I'm interested in now is getting my life back.

The pandemic might not follow the Central Casting script of a V-shaped return to debt-serf, BS-work wonderfulness. Everyone who was sick and tired of their pre-pandemic life and the endless exploitation has had time to think things over, and some consequential percentage of them will welcome "good-bye to all that" and others will decide not to go back, even if that is still an option.

It's called opting out, and it has always characterized the end of imperial pretensions, pillaging, propaganda and predation. Financial parasites, beware the second-order effects of your overweening dominance and limitless greed.

My recent books:

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[May 22, 2020] With 36 Million Newly Out of Work, Trump Says He s Willing to Let Boosted Unemployment Benefits Expire

Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
May 22, 2020 | www.commondreams.org

President Donald Trump told Republican senators during a private lunch Tuesday that he is willing to let expanded unemployment benefits expire at the end of July, a decision that would massively slash the incomes of tens of millions of people who have lost their jobs due to the Covid-19 crisis.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the president "privately expressed opposition to extending a weekly $600 boost in unemployment insurance for laid-off workers affected by the coronavirus pandemic, according to three officials familiar with his remarks."

House Democrats passed legislation last week that would extend the beefed-up unemployment benefits through January of 2021 as experts and government officials -- including Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell -- warn the U.S. unemployment rate could soon reach 25%. The unemployment insurance boost under the CARES Act is set to expire on July 31, even as many people have yet to receive their first check.

"With nearly 1 in 5 Americans out of work, Donald Trump's plan is to cut off the boost to unemployment benefits and shower his wealthy buddies with more tax cuts," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the architects of the unemployment insurance expansion, told HuffPost . "This is the worst economic crisis in 100 years and Donald Trump is doubling down on Herbert Hoover's economic playbook and pushing workers to risk their health for his political benefit."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) -- who declared earlier this month that Congress will only extend the boosted unemployment insurance "over our dead bodies" -- said after the private lunch that Trump believes the benefits are "hurting the economic recovery." Graham was one of several Republican senators who opposed the initial expansion of unemployment benefits as too generous.

An analysis released last week by the Hamilton Project, an initiative of the Brookings Institution, found that expanded unemployment benefits offset "roughly half of lost wages and salaries in April." Unemployment insurance has "been essential to families, and is vital for keeping the economy from cratering further," the authors of the analysis noted.

Ernie Tedeschi, a former Treasury Department economist, estimated that "come July 31, if the emergency UI top-up isn't extended, unemployed workers will effectively get a pay cut of 50-75% overnight."

"It's increasingly looking like there won't be enough labor demand to hire them all back at that point," Tedeschi tweeted.

The latest Labor Department statistics showed that more than 36 million people in the U.S. have filed jobless claims since mid-March as mass layoffs continue in the absence of government action to keep workers on company payrolls. Despite the grim numbers, the Post 's Jeff Stein reported Tuesday that the White House is " predicting a swift economic recovery " as it resists additional efforts to provide relief to frontline workers and the unemployed.

On top of rejecting an extension of enhanced unemployment insurance, Trump last month publicly voiced opposition to another round of direct stimulus payments, instead advocating a cut to the tax that funds Social Security and Medicare.

[May 22, 2020] McDonald's Workers Strike Across US to Demand Better Protections From Covid-19

May 22, 2020 | www.commondreams.org

Demanding McDonald's prioritize public health and worker safety over profits, hundreds of employees at the fast food chain went on strike Wednesday, a day before the company was set to hold its annual shareholders' meeting.

Instead of distributing dividends to its shareholders, the striking employees are calling for the company to use its massive profits to pay for safety and financial protections for workers, scores of whom have contracted Covid-19 in at least 16 states so far.

Employees and strike organizers at the fair wage advocacy group Fight for $15 are demanding hazard pay during the pandemic of "$15X2," paid sick leave, sufficient protective gear for workers, and company-wide policy of closing a restaurant for two weeks when an employee becomes infected, with workers being fully paid.

The strike is taking place at stores in at least 20 cities. Fight for $15 and the SEIU, which is also supporting the action, say it's the first nationwide coordinated effort targeting the company since the coronavirus pandemic began in March.

[May 21, 2020] The neoliberal globalization myth fostered the delusion of labour in which Western societies could prosper from the ideas and computer startups, while the dirty work of actually making things is left to low-wage countries. One result: a drastic shortage of face masks

Notable quotes:
"... In France, confinement has been generally well accepted as necessary, but that does not mean people are content with the government -- on the contrary. Every evening at eight, people go to their windows to cheer for health workers and others doing essential tasks, but the applause is not for President Macron. ..."
"... What we have witnessed is the failure of what used to be one of the very best public health services in the world. It has been degraded by years of cost-cutting. In recent years, the number of hospital beds per capita has declined steadily. Many hospitals have been shut down and those that remain are drastically understaffed. Public hospital facilities have been reduced to a state of perpetual saturation, so that when a new epidemic comes along, on top of all the other usual illnesses, there is simply not the capacity to deal with it all at once. ..."
"... The neoliberal globalization myth fostered the delusion that advanced Western societies could prosper from their superior brains, thanks to ideas and computer startups, while the dirty work of actually making things is left to low-wage countries. One result: a drastic shortage of face masks. The government let a factory that produced masks and other surgical equipment be sold off and shut down. Having outsourced its textile industry, France had no immediate way to produce the masks it needed. ..."
"... In late March, French media reported that a large stock of masks ordered and paid for by the southeastern region of France was virtually hijacked on the tarmac of a Chinese airport by Americans, who tripled the price and had the cargo flown to the United States. There are also reports of Polish and Czech airport authorities intercepting Chinese or Russian shipments of masks intended for hard-hit Italy and keeping them for their own use. ..."
"... The Covid–19 crisis makes it just that much clearer that the European Union is no more than a complex economic arrangement, with neither the sentiment nor the popular leaders that hold together a nation. For a generation, schools, media, politicians have instilled the belief that the "nation" is an obsolete entity. But in a crisis, people find that they are in France, or Germany, or Italy, or Belgium -- but not in "Europe." The European Union is structured to care about trade, investment, competition, debt, economic growth. Public health is merely an economic indicator. For decades, the European Commission has put irresistible pressure on nations to reduce the costs of their public health facilities in order to open competition for contracts to the private sector -- which is international by nature. ..."
"... Scapegoating China may seem the way to try to hold the declining Western world together, even as Europeans' long-standing admiration for America turns to dismay. ..."
"... The countries that have suffered most from the epidemic are among the most indebted of the EU member states, starting with Italy. The economic damage from the lockdown obliges them to borrow further. As their debt increases, so do interest rates charged by commercial banks. They turned to the EU for help, for instance by issuing eurobonds that would share the debt at lower interest rates. This has increased tension between debtor countries in the south and creditor countries in the north, which said nein . Countries in the eurozone cannot borrow from the European Central Bank as the U.S. Treasury borrows from the Fed. And their own national central banks take orders from the ECB, which controls the euro. ..."
"... The great irony is that "a common currency" was conceived by its sponsors as the key to European unity. On the contrary, the euro has a polarizing effect -- with Greece at the bottom and Germany at the top. And Italy sinking. But Italy is much bigger than Greece and won't go quietly. ..."
"... A major paradox is that the left and the Yellow Vests call for economic and social policies that are impossible under EU rules, and yet many on the left shy away from even thinking of leaving the EU. For over a generation, the French left has made an imaginary "social Europe" the center of its utopian ambitions. ..."
"... Russia is a living part of European history and culture. Its exclusion is totally unnatural and artificial. Brzezinski [the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Carter administration's national security adviser] spelled it out in The Great Chessboard : The U.S. maintains world hegemony by keeping the Eurasian landmass divided. ..."
"... But this policy can be seen to be inherited from the British. It was Churchill who proclaimed -- in fact welcomed -- the Iron Curtain that kept continental Europe divided. In retrospect, the Cold War was basically part of the divide-and-rule strategy, since it persists with greater intensity than ever after its ostensible cause -- the Communist threat -- is long gone. ..."
"... The whole Ukrainian operation of 2014 [the U.S.–cultivated coup in Kyiv, February 2014] was lavishly financed and stimulated by the United States in order to create a new conflict with Russia. Joe Biden has been the Deep State's main front man in turning Ukraine into an American satellite, used as a battering ram to weaken Russia and destroy its natural trade and cultural relations with Western Europe. ..."
"... I think France is likelier than Germany to break with the U.S.–imposed Russophobia simply because, thanks to de Gaulle, France is not quite as thoroughly under U.S. occupation. Moreover, friendship with Russia is a traditional French balance against German domination -- which is currently being felt and resented. ..."
"... "Decades of indoctrination in the ideology of "Europe" has instilled the belief that the nation-state is a bad thing of the past. The result is that people raised in the European Union faith tend to regard any suggestion of return to national sovereignty as a fatal step toward fascism. This fear of contagion from "the right" is an obstacle to clear analysis which weakens the left and favors the right, which dares be patriotic." ..."
"... Since WWII the US has itself been occupied by tyrants, using Russophobia to demand power as fake defenders. ..."
"... " French philosophy .By constantly attacking, deconstructing, and denouncing every remnant of human "power" they could spot, the intellectual rebels left the power of "the markets" unimpeded, and did nothing to stand in the way of the expansion of U.S. military power all around the world " ..."
"... From her groundbreaking work on the NATO empire's sickening war on sovereign Serbia, the dead end of identity politics and trans bathroom debates, to her critique of unfettered immigration and open borders, and her dismissal of the absurd Russsiagate baloney, better than anyone else, Johnstone has kept her intellect carefully honed to the real genuine kitchen table bread and butter issues that truly matter. She recognized before most of the world's scholars the perils of rampant inequality and saw the writing on the wall as to where this grotesque economic system is taking us all: down a dystopian slope into penury and police-state heavy-handedness, with millions unable to come up with $500 for an emergency car repair or dental bill. ..."
"... The mask competition and fiasco shows the importance of a country simply making things in their own country, not on the other side of the world, it's not nationalism it's just a better way to logistically deliver reliable products to the citizens. ..."
"... Some hold that they never departed, but mutated tools including CFA zones and "intelligence" relations in furtherance of "changing" to remain qualitatively the same. Just as "The United States of America" is a system of coercive relations not synonymous with the political geographical area designated "The United States of America", the colonialism of former and present "colonial powers" continues to exist, since the "independence" of the colonised was always, and continues to be, framed within linear systems of coercive relations, facilitated by the complicity of "local elites" on the basis of perceived self-interest, and the acquiescence of "local others" for myriad reasons. ..."
"... After reading Circle in the Darkness, I have ordered and am now reading her books on Hillary Clinton (Queen of Chaos) and the Yugoslav wars (Fool's Crusade), which are very worthwhile and important. I would recommend that her many articles over the years, appearing in such publications such as In These Times, Counterpunch and Consortium News, be reprinted and published together as an anthology. Through Circle in the Darkness, we have Diana Johnstone's "Life", but it would be good also to have her "Letters". ..."
"... Mr. de Gaulle like other "leaders" of colonial powers did understand that the moment of overt coercive relations of colonialism had passed and that colonialism to remain qualitatively the same, required covert coercive relations facilitated by the complicity of local "elites" on the basis of perceived self-interest. ..."
May 21, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

In France, confinement has been generally well accepted as necessary, but that does not mean people are content with the government -- on the contrary. Every evening at eight, people go to their windows to cheer for health workers and others doing essential tasks, but the applause is not for President Macron.

Macron and his government are criticized for hesitating too long to confine the population, for vacillating about the need for masks and tests, or about when or how much to end the confinement. Their confusion and indecision at least defend them from the wild accusation of having staged the whole thing in order to lock up the population.

What we have witnessed is the failure of what used to be one of the very best public health services in the world. It has been degraded by years of cost-cutting. In recent years, the number of hospital beds per capita has declined steadily. Many hospitals have been shut down and those that remain are drastically understaffed. Public hospital facilities have been reduced to a state of perpetual saturation, so that when a new epidemic comes along, on top of all the other usual illnesses, there is simply not the capacity to deal with it all at once.

The neoliberal globalization myth fostered the delusion that advanced Western societies could prosper from their superior brains, thanks to ideas and computer startups, while the dirty work of actually making things is left to low-wage countries. One result: a drastic shortage of face masks. The government let a factory that produced masks and other surgical equipment be sold off and shut down. Having outsourced its textile industry, France had no immediate way to produce the masks it needed.

Meanwhile, in early April, Vietnam donated hundreds of thousands of antimicrobial face masks to European countries and is producing them by the million. Employing tests and selective isolation, Vietnam has fought off the epidemic with only a few hundred cases and no deaths.

You must have thoughts as to the question of Western unity in response to Covid–19.

In late March, French media reported that a large stock of masks ordered and paid for by the southeastern region of France was virtually hijacked on the tarmac of a Chinese airport by Americans, who tripled the price and had the cargo flown to the United States. There are also reports of Polish and Czech airport authorities intercepting Chinese or Russian shipments of masks intended for hard-hit Italy and keeping them for their own use.

The absence of European solidarity has been shockingly clear. Better-equipped Germany banned exports of masks to Italy. In the depth of its crisis, Italy found that the German and Dutch governments were mainly concerned with making sure Italy pays its debts. Meanwhile, a team of Chinese experts arrived in Rome to help Italy with its Covid–19 crisis, displaying a banner reading "We are waves of the same sea, leaves of the same tree, flowers of the same garden." The European institutions lack such humanistic poetry. Their founding value is not solidarity but the neoliberal principle of "free unimpeded competition."

How do you think this reflects on the European Union?

The Covid–19 crisis makes it just that much clearer that the European Union is no more than a complex economic arrangement, with neither the sentiment nor the popular leaders that hold together a nation. For a generation, schools, media, politicians have instilled the belief that the "nation" is an obsolete entity. But in a crisis, people find that they are in France, or Germany, or Italy, or Belgium -- but not in "Europe." The European Union is structured to care about trade, investment, competition, debt, economic growth. Public health is merely an economic indicator. For decades, the European Commission has put irresistible pressure on nations to reduce the costs of their public health facilities in order to open competition for contracts to the private sector -- which is international by nature.

Globalization has hastened the spread of the pandemic, but it has not strengthened internationalist solidarity. Initial gratitude for Chinese aid is being brutally opposed by European Atlanticists. In early May, Mathias Döpfner, CEO of the Springer publishing giant, bluntly called on Germany to ally with the U.S. -- against China. Scapegoating China may seem the way to try to hold the declining Western world together, even as Europeans' long-standing admiration for America turns to dismay.

Meanwhile, relations between EU member states have never been worse. In Italy and to a greater extent in France, the coronavirus crisis has enforced growing disillusion with the European Union and an ill-defined desire to restore national sovereignty.

Corollary question: What are the prospects that Europe will produce leaders capable of seizing that right moment, that assertion of independence? What do you reckon such leaders would be like?

The EU is likely to be a central issue in the near future, but this issue can be exploited in very different ways, depending on which leaders get hold of it. The coronavirus crisis has intensified the centrifugal forces already undermining the European Union. The countries that have suffered most from the epidemic are among the most indebted of the EU member states, starting with Italy. The economic damage from the lockdown obliges them to borrow further. As their debt increases, so do interest rates charged by commercial banks. They turned to the EU for help, for instance by issuing eurobonds that would share the debt at lower interest rates. This has increased tension between debtor countries in the south and creditor countries in the north, which said nein . Countries in the eurozone cannot borrow from the European Central Bank as the U.S. Treasury borrows from the Fed. And their own national central banks take orders from the ECB, which controls the euro.

What does the crisis mean for the euro? I confess I've lost faith in this project, given how disadvantaged it leaves the nations on the Continent's southern rim.

The great irony is that "a common currency" was conceived by its sponsors as the key to European unity. On the contrary, the euro has a polarizing effect -- with Greece at the bottom and Germany at the top. And Italy sinking. But Italy is much bigger than Greece and won't go quietly.

The German constitutional court in Karlsruhe recently issued a long judgment making it clear who is boss. It recalled and insisted that Germany agreed to the euro only on the grounds that the main mission of the European Central Bank was to fight inflation, and that it could not directly finance member states. If these rules were not followed, the Bundesbank, the German central bank, would be obliged to pull out of the ECB. And since the Bundesbank is the ECB's main creditor, that is that. There can be no generous financial help to troubled governments within the eurozone. Period.

Is there a possibility of disintegration here?

The idea of leaving the EU is most developed in France. The Union Populaire Républicaine, founded in 2007 by former senior functionary François Asselineau, calls for France to leave the euro, the European Union, and NATO.

The party has been a didactic success, spreading its ideas and attracting around 20,000 active militants without scoring any electoral success. A main argument for leaving the EU is to escape from the constraints of EU competition rules in order to protect its vital industry, agriculture, and above all its public services.

A major paradox is that the left and the Yellow Vests call for economic and social policies that are impossible under EU rules, and yet many on the left shy away from even thinking of leaving the EU. For over a generation, the French left has made an imaginary "social Europe" the center of its utopian ambitions.

" Europe" as an idea or an ideal, you mean.

Decades of indoctrination in the ideology of "Europe" has instilled the belief that the nation-state is a bad thing of the past. The result is that people raised in the European Union faith tend to regard any suggestion of return to national sovereignty as a fatal step toward fascism. This fear of contagion from "the right" is an obstacle to clear analysis which weakens the left and favors the right, which dares be patriotic.

Two and a half months of coronavirus crisis have brought to light a factor that makes any predictions about future leaders even more problematic. That factor is a widespread distrust and rejection of all established authority. This makes rational political programs extremely difficult, because rejection of one authority implies acceptance of another. For instance, the way to liberate public services and pharmaceuticals from the distortions of the profit motive is nationalization. If you distrust the power of one as much as the other, there is nowhere to go.

Such radical distrust can be explained by two main factors -- the inevitable feeling of helplessness in our technologically advanced world, combined with the deliberate and even transparent lies on the part of mainstream politicians and media. But it sets the stage for the emergence of manipulated saviors or opportunistic charlatans every bit as deceptive as the leaders we already have, or even more so. I hope these irrational tendencies are less pronounced in France than in some other countries.

I'm eager to talk about Russia. There are signs that relations with Russia are another source of European dissatisfaction as "junior partners" within the U.S.–led Atlantic alliance. Macron is outspoken on this point, "junior partners" being his phrase. The Germans -- business people, some senior officials in government -- are quite plainly restive.

Russia is a living part of European history and culture. Its exclusion is totally unnatural and artificial. Brzezinski [the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Carter administration's national security adviser] spelled it out in The Great Chessboard : The U.S. maintains world hegemony by keeping the Eurasian landmass divided.

But this policy can be seen to be inherited from the British. It was Churchill who proclaimed -- in fact welcomed -- the Iron Curtain that kept continental Europe divided. In retrospect, the Cold War was basically part of the divide-and-rule strategy, since it persists with greater intensity than ever after its ostensible cause -- the Communist threat -- is long gone.

I hadn't put our current circumstance in this context. US-backed, violent coup in Ukraine, 2014.

The whole Ukrainian operation of 2014 [the U.S.–cultivated coup in Kyiv, February 2014] was lavishly financed and stimulated by the United States in order to create a new conflict with Russia. Joe Biden has been the Deep State's main front man in turning Ukraine into an American satellite, used as a battering ram to weaken Russia and destroy its natural trade and cultural relations with Western Europe.

U.S. sanctions are particularly contrary to German business interests, and NATO's aggressive gestures put Germany on the front lines of an eventual war.

But Germany has been an occupied country -- militarily and politically -- for 75 years, and I suspect that many German political leaders (usually vetted by Washington) have learned to fit their projects into U.S. policies. I think that under the cover of Atlantic loyalty, there are some frustrated imperialists lurking in the German establishment, who think they can use Washington's Russophobia as an instrument to make a comeback as a world military power.

But I also think that the political debate in Germany is overwhelmingly hypocritical, with concrete aims veiled by fake issues such as human rights and, of course, devotion to Israel.

We should remember that the U.S. does not merely use its allies -- its allies, or rather their leaders, figure they are using the U.S. for some purposes of their own.

What about what the French have been saying since the G–7 session in Biarritz two years ago, that Europe should forge its own relations with Russia according to Europe's interests, not America's?

At G7 Summit in Biarritz, France, Aug. 26, 2019. (White House)

I think France is likelier than Germany to break with the U.S.–imposed Russophobia simply because, thanks to de Gaulle, France is not quite as thoroughly under U.S. occupation. Moreover, friendship with Russia is a traditional French balance against German domination -- which is currently being felt and resented.

Stepping back for a broader look, do you think Europe's position on the western flank of the Eurasian landmass will inevitably shape its position with regard not only to Russia but also China? To put this another way, is Europe destined to become an independent pole of power in the course of this century, standing between West and East?

At present, what we have standing between West and East is not Europe but Russia, and what matters is which way Russia leans. Including Russia, Europe might become an independent pole of power. The U.S. is currently doing everything to prevent this. But there is a school of strategic thought in Washington which considers this a mistake, because it pushes Russia into the arms of China. This school is in the ascendant with the campaign to denounce China as responsible for the pandemic. As mentioned, the Atlanticists in Europe are leaping into the anti–China propaganda battle. But they are not displaying any particular affection for Russia, which shows no sign of sacrificing its partnership with China for the unreliable Europeans.

If Russia were allowed to become a friendly bridge between China and Europe, the U.S. would be obliged to abandon its pretensions of world hegemony. But we are far from that peaceful prospect.

Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune , is a columnist, essayist, author and lecturer. His most recent book is "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century" (Yale). Follow him on Twitter @thefloutist . His web site is Patrick Lawrence . Support his work via his Patreon site .


Josep , May 19, 2020 at 02:04

It recalled and insisted that Germany agreed to the euro only on the grounds that the main mission of the European Central Bank was to fight inflation, and that it could not directly finance member states.

I once read a comment elsewhere saying that, back in 1989, both Britain (under Margaret Thatcher) and the US objected to German reunification. Since they could not stop the reunification, they insisted that Germany accept the incoming euro. A heap of German university professors jumped up and protested, knowing fully well what the game was: namely the creation of a banker's empire in Europe controlled by private bankers.

Thorben Sunkimat , May 20, 2020 at 13:45

France and Britain rejected the german reunification. The americans were supportive, even though they had their demands. Mainly privatisation of german public utilities. After agreeing to those demands the americans persuaded the british and pressured the french who agreed to german reunification after germany agreed to the euro.

So why did france want the euro?

The German central bank crashed the European economy after reunification with high interest rates. This was because of above average growth rates mainly in Eastern Germany. Main function of the Bundesbank is to keep inflation low, which is more important to them than anything else. Since Germany's D Mark was the leading currency in Europe the rest of Europe had to heighten their interest rates too, witch lead to great economic problems within Europe. Including France.

OlyaPola , May 21, 2020 at 05:30

"namely the creation of a banker's empire in Europe controlled by private bankers."

Resort to binaries (controlled/not controlled) is a practice of self-imposed blindness. In any interactive system no absolutes exist only analogues of varying assays since "control" is limited and variable. In respect of what became the German Empire this relationship predated and facilitated the German Empire through financing the war with Denmark in 1864 courtesy of the arrangements between Mr. von Bismark and Mr. Bleichroder. The assay of "control of bankers" has varied/increased subsequently but never attained the absolute.

It is true that finance capital perceived and continues to perceive the European Union as an opportunity to increase their assay of "control" – the Austrian banks in conjunction with German bank assigning a level of priority to resurrecting spheres of influence existing prior to 1918 and until 1945.

One of the joint projects at a level of planning in the early 1990's was development of the Danube and its hinterland from Regensburg to Cerna Voda/Constanta in Romania but this was delayed in the hope of curtailment by some when NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 (Serbia not being the only target – so much for honesty-amongst-theives.)

This project was resurrected in a limited form primarily downstream from Vidin/Calafat from 2015 onwards given that some states of the former Yugoslavia were not members of the European Union and some were within spheres of influence of "The United States of America".

As to France, "Vichy" and Europa also facilitated the resurrection of finance capital and increase in its assay of control after the 1930's, some of the practices of the 1940's still being subject to dispute in France.

mkb29 , May 18, 2020 at 16:33

I've always admired Diana Johnstone's clear headed analyses of world/European/U.S./ China/Israel-Palestine/Russia/ interactions and the motivation of its "players". She has given some credence to what as been known as French rationalism and enlightenment. (Albeit as an American expat) Think Descartes, Diderot, Sartre , and She loves France in her own rationalist-humanist way.

Linda J , May 18, 2020 at 13:21

I have admired Ms. Johnstone's work for quite awhile. This enlightening interview spurs me to get a copy of the book and to contribute to Consortium News.

Others may be interested in the two-part video discovered yesterday featuring Douglas Valentine's analysis of the CIA's corporate backers and their global choke-hold on governments and their influencers in every region of the world.

Part 1
see:youtu(dot)be/cP15Ehx1yvI

Part 2
see:youtu(dot)be/IYvvEn_N1sE

worldblee , May 18, 2020 at 12:26

Not many have the long distance perspective on the world, let alone Europe, that Diana Johnstone has. Great interview!

Drew Hunkins , May 18, 2020 at 11:03

"Decades of indoctrination in the ideology of "Europe" has instilled the belief that the nation-state is a bad thing of the past. The result is that people raised in the European Union faith tend to regard any suggestion of return to national sovereignty as a fatal step toward fascism. This fear of contagion from "the right" is an obstacle to clear analysis which weakens the left and favors the right, which dares be patriotic."

Bingo! A marvelous point indeed! Quick little example -- Bernard Sanders should have worn an American flag pin on his suit during the 2020 Dem primary campaign.

chris , May 18, 2020 at 04:46

A very good analysis. As an American who has relocated to Spain several years ago, I am always disappointed that discussions of European politics always assume that Europe ends at the Pyrenees. Admittedly, Spanish politics is very complicated and confusing. Forty years of an unreconstructed dictatorship have left their mark, but the country´s socialist, communist and anarchic currents never went away. I like to say that the country is very conservative, but at least the population is aware of what is going on.

Perhaps what Ms. Johnston says about the French being just worn out, with no stomach for more violent conflict also applies to the Spanish since their great ideological struggle is more recent. The American influence during the Transition (which changed little – as the expression goes: The same dog but with a different collar) was very strong, and remains so. Even so, there is popular support for foreign and domestic policies independent of American and neoliberal control, but by and large the political and economic powers are not on board. I do not think Spain is willing to make a break alone, but would align itself with an European shift away from American control.

As Ms. Johnston says, Europe currently lacks leaders willing to take the plunge, but we will see what the coming year brings.

Sam F , May 17, 2020 at 17:45

Thank you Diana, these are valuable insights. Since WWII the US has itself been occupied by tyrants, using Russophobia to demand power as fake defenders.

1. Waving the flag and praising the lord on mass media, claiming concern with human rights and "Israel"; while
2. Subverting the Constitution with large scale bribery, surveillance, and genocides, all business as usual nowadays.
In the US, the form of government has become bribery and marketing lies; it truly knows no other way.

It may be better that Russia and China keep their distance from the US and maybe even the EU:
1. The US and EU would have to produce what they consume, eventually empowering workers;
2. Neither the US nor EU are a political or economic model for anyone, and should be ignored;
3. Neither the US nor EU produces much that Russia and China cannot, by investing more in cars and soybeans.

It will be best for the EU if it also rejects the US and its "neolib" economic and political tyranny mechanisms:
1. Alliance with Russia and China will cause substantial gains in stability and economic strength;
2. Forcing the US to abandon its "pretensions of world hegemony" will soon yield more peaceful prospects; and
3. Isolating the US will force it to improve its utterly corrupt government and society, maybe 40 to 60 years hence.

Drew Hunkins , May 17, 2020 at 15:40

" French philosophy .By constantly attacking, deconstructing, and denouncing every remnant of human "power" they could spot, the intellectual rebels left the power of "the markets" unimpeded, and did nothing to stand in the way of the expansion of U.S. military power all around the world "

Brilliant. Exactly right. This was the progenitor to our contemporary I.D. politics which seems to be solely obsessed with vocabulary, semantics and non-economic cultural issues while rarely having a critique of corporate capitalism, militarism, massive inequality and Zionism. And it almost never advocates for robust economic populist proposals like Med4All, U.B.I., debt jubilee, and the fight for $15.

Drew Hunkins , May 17, 2020 at 15:10

The book is phenomenal. I posted a customer review over on Amazon for this stupendous work. Below is a copy of my review:

(5 stars) One of the most important intellects pens her magisterial lasting legacy
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2020

Johnstone's been an idol of mine ever since I started reading her in the 1990s. She's clearly proved her worthiness over the decades by bucking the mainstream trend of apologetics for corporate capitalism, neoliberalism, globalism and imperialistic militarism her entire career and this astonishing memoir details it all in what will likely be the finest book of 2020 and perhaps the entire decade.

Her writing style is beyond superb, her grasp of the overarching politico-socio-economic issues that have rocked the world over the past 60 years is as astute and spot-on as you will find from any global thinker. She's right up there with Michael Parenti, James Petras, John Pilger and Noam Chomsky as seminal figures who have documented and brought light to tens of thousands (millions?) of people across the globe via their writings, interviews and speaking engagements.

Johnstone has never been one to shy away from controversial topics and issues. Why? Simple, she has the facts and truth on her side, she always has. Circle in the Darkness proves all this and more, she marshals the documentation and lays it out as an exquisite gift for struggling working people around the world.

From her groundbreaking work on the NATO empire's sickening war on sovereign Serbia, the dead end of identity politics and trans bathroom debates, to her critique of unfettered immigration and open borders, and her dismissal of the absurd Russsiagate baloney, better than anyone else, Johnstone has kept her intellect carefully honed to the real genuine kitchen table bread and butter issues that truly matter. She recognized before most of the world's scholars the perils of rampant inequality and saw the writing on the wall as to where this grotesque economic system is taking us all: down a dystopian slope into penury and police-state heavy-handedness, with millions unable to come up with $500 for an emergency car repair or dental bill.

Whenever she comes out with a new article or essay I immediately drop everything and devour it, often reading it twice to let her wisdom really soak in. So too Circle of Darkness is an extremely well written beautiful work that will scream out to be re-read every few years by those with a hunger to know exactly what was going on since the Korean War era through today regarding liberal thought, neocon and neoliberal dominance with its capitalist global hegemony and the take over of Western governments by the parasitic financial elite.

There will never be another Diana Johnstone. Circle in the Darkness will stand as her lasting legacy to all of us.

Bob Van Noy , May 17, 2020 at 14:43

"As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it" ~Albert Einstein

Many Thanks CN, Patrick Lawrence, and Joe Lauria. Once again I must commend CN for picking just the appropriate response to our contemporary dilemma.

The quote above leads Diana Johnstone's new book and succinctly describes both the universe and our contemporary experience with our digital age. President Kennedy and Charles de Gaulle of France would agree that colonialism was past and that a new world (geopolitical) approach would become necessary, but that philosophy would put them against some great local and world powers. Each of them necessarily had different approaches as to how this might be accomplished. They were never allowed to present their specific proposals on a world stage. Let's hope a wiser population will once again "see" this possibility and find a way to resolve it

Aaron , May 17, 2020 at 14:18

Well over the span of all of those decades, the consistent, inexorable theme seems to be a trend of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, a small number of individuals, not really states, gaining wealth and power, so everybody else fights over the crumbs, blaming this or that party, alliance, event or whatever, but behind it all there are two flower gardens, indeed the rich are all flowers of their golden garden, and the poor are all flowers of their garden.

It's like the Europeans and the 99 percent in America have all fallen for the myth of the American dream, that if we are just allowed more free, unfettered economic opportunity, it's just up to us to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and become a billionaire.

The mask competition and fiasco shows the importance of a country simply making things in their own country, not on the other side of the world, it's not nationalism it's just a better way to logistically deliver reliable products to the citizens.

AnneR , May 17, 2020 at 13:42

Regarding French colonialism – as I recall the French were especially brutal in their forced withdrawal from Algeria, both toward Algerians in their homeland and to Algerians within France itself.

And the French were hardly willing, non-violent colonialists when being fought by the Vietnamese who wanted to be free of them (quite rightly so).

As for the French in Sub-Saharan Africa – they have yet to truly give up on their presumed right to have troops within these countries. They did not depart any of their colonies happily, willingly – like every other colonial power, including the UK.

And, as for WWII – she seems, in her reminiscences, to have mislaid Vichy France, the Velodrome roundups of French Jews, and so on ..

Ms Johnstone clearly has been looking backwards with rose-tinted specs on when it comes to France.

Randal Marlin , May 18, 2020 at 13:00

There may be some truth to AnneR's claim that Ms Johnstone has been looking with rose-tinted specs when it comes to France, but it is highly misleading for her to talk about "the French" regarding Algeria. I spent 1963-64 in Aix-en-Provence teaching at the Institute for American Universities and talked with some of the "pieds-noirs," (French born in Algeria).

After French President Charles de Gaulle decided to relinquish French control over Algeria, having previously reassured the colonial population that "Je vous ai compris" ("I have understood you"), there followed death threats to many French colonizers who had to flee Algeria immediately within 24 hours or get their throats slit – "La valise ou le cercueil" (the suitcase or the coffin).

In the fall of 1961, I saw Parisian police stations with machine-gun armed men behind concrete barriers, as an invasion by the colonial French paratroopers against mainland France was expected. The "Organisation Armée Secrète," OAS, (Secret Armed Organization) of the colonial powers, threatened at the time to invade Paris.

As an aside, giving a sense of the anger and passion involved, when the death of John F.Kennedy in November 1963 was announced in the historic, right-wing café in Aix, Les Deux Garçons, a huge cheer went up when the media announcer proclaimed "Le Président est assassinée. Only, that was because they thought de Gaulle was the president in question. A huge disappointment when they heard it was President Kennedy. To get a sense of the whole situation regarding France and Algeria I recommend Alistair Horne's "A Savage War of Peace."

OlyaPola , May 19, 2020 at 11:23

"They did not depart any of their colonies happily"

Some hold that they never departed, but mutated tools including CFA zones and "intelligence" relations in furtherance of "changing" to remain qualitatively the same. Just as "The United States of America" is a system of coercive relations not synonymous with the political geographical area designated "The United States of America", the colonialism of former and present "colonial powers" continues to exist, since the "independence" of the colonised was always, and continues to be, framed within linear systems of coercive relations, facilitated by the complicity of "local elites" on the basis of perceived self-interest, and the acquiescence of "local others" for myriad reasons.

Despite the "best" efforts of the opponents and partly in consequence of the opponents' complicity, the PRC and the Russian Federation like "The United States of America" are not synonymous with the political geographical areas designated as "The People's Republic of China and The Russian Federation", are in lateral process of transcending linear systems of coercive relations and hence pose existential threats to "The United States of America".

The opponents are not complete fools but the drowning tend to act precipitously including flailing out whilst drowning; encouraging some to dispense with rose- tinted glasses, despite such accessories being quite fashionable and fetching.

OlyaPola , May 20, 2020 at 04:32

" .. their colonies "

Perception of and practice of social relations are not wholly synonymous. A construct whose founding myths included liberty, egality and fraternity – property being discarded at the last moment since it was judged too provocative – experienced/experiences ideological/perceptual oxymorons in regard to its colonial relations, which were addressed in part by rendering their "colonies" department of France thereby facilitating increased perceptual dissonance.

Like many, Randal Marlin draws attention below to the perceptions and practices of the pied-noir, but omits to address the perceptions and practices of the harkis whom were also immersed in the proselytised notion of departmental France, and to some degree continue to be.

This understanding continues to inform the practices and problems of the French state.

Lolita , May 17, 2020 at 12:05

The analysis is very much inspired from "Comprendre l'Empire" by Alain Soral.

Dave , May 17, 2020 at 11:27

Do not fail to read this interview in its entirety. Ms Johnstone analyzes and describes many issues of national and global importance from the perspective of an USA expat who has spent most of her career in the pursuit of what may be termed disinterested journalism. Whether one agrees or disagrees in whole or in part the perspectives she presents, particularly those which pertain to the demise (hopefully) of the American Empire are worthy of perusal.

Remember that this is not a polemic; it's a memoir of a lifetime devoted to reporting and analyzing and discussion of most of the significant issues confronting global and national politics and their social ramifications. And a big thanks to Patrick Lawrence and Consortium News for posting the interview.

PEG , May 17, 2020 at 09:11

Diana Johnstone is one of the most intelligent, clear-minded and honest observers of international politics today, and her book "Circle in the Darkness" – which expands on the topics and insights touched on in this interview – is certainly among the best and most compelling books I have ever read, putting the events of the last 75 years into objective context and focus (normally something which only historians can do, if at all, generations after the fact).

After reading Circle in the Darkness, I have ordered and am now reading her books on Hillary Clinton (Queen of Chaos) and the Yugoslav wars (Fool's Crusade), which are very worthwhile and important. I would recommend that her many articles over the years, appearing in such publications such as In These Times, Counterpunch and Consortium News, be reprinted and published together as an anthology. Through Circle in the Darkness, we have Diana Johnstone's "Life", but it would be good also to have her "Letters".

Herman , May 17, 2020 at 09:00

Interesting comparison between the aspirations of De Gaulle and Putin.

"Having a sense of history, de Gaulle saw that colonialism had been a moment in history that was past. His policy was to foster friendly relations on equal terms with all parts of the world, regardless of ideological differences. I think that Putin's concept of a multipolar world is similar. It is clearly a concept that horrifies the exceptionalists."

Agree with Johnstone.

OlyaPola , May 19, 2020 at 11:55

"Having a sense of history, de Gaulle saw that colonialism had been a moment in history that was past. "

Mr. de Gaulle like other "leaders" of colonial powers did understand that the moment of overt coercive relations of colonialism had passed and that colonialism to remain qualitatively the same, required covert coercive relations facilitated by the complicity of local "elites" on the basis of perceived self-interest.

The exceptions to such strategies lay within constructs of settler colonialism which were addressed primarily through warfare – "The United States of America", Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia, Indonesia, Algeria, Kenya, Rhodesia, Mozambique, Angola refer – to facilitate such future strategies.

"I think that Putin's concept of a multipolar world is similar."

As outlined elsewhere the concept of a multi-polar world is not synonymous with the concept of colonialism except for the colonialists who consistently seek to encourage such conflation through myths of we-are-all-in-this-togetherness.

[May 20, 2020] This Is Despotism, Plain Simple - Of Power-Drunk Politicians Sociopathic Oligarchs

Notable quotes:
"... Yes it took parasites, sociopathic oligarchs and a power drunk national security state to bring us to our current state of affairs, but it also took the rest of us. For far too long we as a people have been apathetic, hoodwinked spectators to the life unfolding around us. Voting for "the lesser of two evils" for decade upon decade thinking it might be different this time. Putting up with the economic game that's been put in front of us, despite the fact that it demonstrably and systematically rewards and incentivizes predatory and destructive behavior. As a people, we have been superficial, indifferent and gleefully ignorant of reality. It's time to change all that. ..."
"... I think one reason mass media puts so much emphasis on voting at the national level is the owners of these propaganda channels know voting will change absolutely nothing. The oligarchy and national security state are fully in charge, and they're not going to allow the pesky rabble to get in the way of such a lucrative racket by voting. Getting those who are politically inclined to spend all their time and energy on a rigged and completely corrupt phantom democracy in D.C. is a great way to keep them busy with nonsense. It's also a perfect way to demoralize that portion of the population which understands it's just theater. If you can be convinced that voting at the national level is the only way to change things, you're much more likely to recede into apathy and become intentionally disengaged. This happens to a lot of people, but it's a big mistake. ..."
May 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog, It's Time To Step Into The Arena

There's a passage in Teddy Roosevelt's famous 1910 "Citizenship in a Republic" speech I want to share with you today:

If a man's efficiency is not guided and regulated by a moral sense, then the more efficient he is the worse he is, the more dangerous to the body politic. Courage, intellect, all the masterful qualities, serve but to make a man more evil if they are merely used for that man's own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of others. It speaks ill for the community if the community worships those qualities and treats their possessors as heroes regardless of whether the qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It makes no difference as to the precise way in which this sinister efficiency is shown. It makes no difference whether such a man's force and ability betray themselves in a career of money-maker or politician, soldier or orator, journalist or popular leader. If the man works for evil, then the more successful he is the more he should be despised and condemned by all upright and far-seeing men. To judge a man merely by success is an abhorrent wrong; and if the people at large habitually so judge men, if they grow to condone wickedness because the wicked man triumphs, they show their inability to understand that in the last analysis free institutions rest upon the character of citizenship, and that by such admiration of evil they prove themselves unfit for liberty.

The above words strike me as a perfect description of the deep hole we find ourselves in presently throughout these United States of America. It takes a whole nation to screw things up as badly as we have, and boy have we ever.

Yes it took parasites, sociopathic oligarchs and a power drunk national security state to bring us to our current state of affairs, but it also took the rest of us. For far too long we as a people have been apathetic, hoodwinked spectators to the life unfolding around us. Voting for "the lesser of two evils" for decade upon decade thinking it might be different this time. Putting up with the economic game that's been put in front of us, despite the fact that it demonstrably and systematically rewards and incentivizes predatory and destructive behavior. As a people, we have been superficial, indifferent and gleefully ignorant of reality. It's time to change all that.

You can consider today's post a rallying cry to step into the arena. Stepping into the arena is often portrayed as becoming involved in national politics or some other large platform action, but I see it differently. If you think the only way to have a real impact is by voting or running for Congress, you're likely to give up and remain passive. The truth is your entire life can be repurposed to be an expression of increased kindness, wisdom and strength. It's the most impactful long-term action most of us can have on this earth, and anyone can do it.

Change yourself before trying to change the world. If enough people did this the world would change without you even trying.

-- Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) May 15, 2020

I think what keeps a lot of people on the sidelines of a conscious life is an inability to intimately process the above. Many people discount the little things, the countless actions of daily existence that impact those around you and cumulatively make you who you are.

I think one reason mass media puts so much emphasis on voting at the national level is the owners of these propaganda channels know voting will change absolutely nothing. The oligarchy and national security state are fully in charge, and they're not going to allow the pesky rabble to get in the way of such a lucrative racket by voting. Getting those who are politically inclined to spend all their time and energy on a rigged and completely corrupt phantom democracy in D.C. is a great way to keep them busy with nonsense. It's also a perfect way to demoralize that portion of the population which understands it's just theater. If you can be convinced that voting at the national level is the only way to change things, you're much more likely to recede into apathy and become intentionally disengaged. This happens to a lot of people, but it's a big mistake.

When I look back at my life thus far, it was during my decade on Wall Street when I was the most ignorant and superficial . So focused on stroking my ego, making a bunch of money and career advancement, I lost a lot of who I am at my core during that time. I often wonder if that's the case for a lot of people who achieve conventional success within the current paradigm. It's fortunate I removed myself from that situation and began thinking more deeply about who I am and what really matters.

Stepping up and getting into the arena will mean something different for each of us, but the one word that keeps popping into my head is resilience. There are several clear ways to become more resilient. There's mental and emotional resiliency, there's financial resiliency and there's physical resiliency (where and how you live). I see all three as fundamentally important and functioning best when working together. Resiliency starts at the most basic level because if you and your family aren't resilient, then you won't be much use to anyone else. If the people of a community or nation lack resiliency it provides the perfect space for authoritarianism and evil to manifest and flourish.

Case in point, see the following comments by Alan Dershowitz during a recent interview.

"You have no right not to be vaccinated, you have no right not to wear a mask... If you refuse to be vaccinated the state has the right to take you to a dr's office & plunge a needle in your arm." @AlanDersh take on vaccines & masks is vile & un-American. pic.twitter.com/j2C1Rk3d7h

-- Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) May 18, 2020

This is despotism plain and simple, and it's being expressed by a guy who still has considerable influence despite his many Jeffrey Epstein related controversies. It's going to take a resilient, courageous and ethical public to stand up to scoundrels like this and just say NO. No, you will not grab me, drag me off somewhere and inject something into my body without my consent. We've been passive spectators in the destruction of our society for far too long. It's time to both say no and to create something better.

When I walked away from New York City and Wall Street ten years ago it was clear what sort of trajectory the country was on, and it's only gotten worse since. We're now in the crucial period spanning 2020-2025 that will decide what the next several decades look like. The big battle for the future is here. Right now. If there's ever been a time in your life to step up, this is it.

* * *

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[May 20, 2020] Our government and much of our industry, especially defense and fintec, appear to be incapable of maneuver. They're justself-seeking individuals with no loyalty to each other, their clients, citizenry, or their country.

May 20, 2020 | www.unz.com

Godfree Roberts , says: Show Comment May 8, 2020 at 12:43 am GMT

@Harold Smith There is an innocuous military term, incapable of maneuver , to describe an army which is nothing more than a group of people in uniforms. They look like an army but, when things go bad, they prove incapable of responding in a disciplined, purposive manner. Arab armies come to mind.

Our government and much of our industry, especially defense and fintec, appear to be incapable of maneuver. They're justself-seeking individuals with no loyalty to each other, their clients, citizenry, or their country.

If we don't want to suffer an interim dystopia, we need to start work on a new constitution because the old one is worn out and we're going over a cliff.

I keep harping on China because they read our Constitution and foundation documents and, in 1950, drafted a 20th century constitution which is well worth reading. They've convened every 10 years since then and amended it to keep it current. For them, the constitution is a living document, not a totem, and they take it very seriously.

[May 19, 2020] White House Vaccine Czar Sells $12 Million Slug Of Moderna Options For Massive Profit

May 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Last night, as dozens of biotech companies rushed to issue stock following the massive spike in Moderna shares on some extremely preliminary trial results inspired the biggest short-squeeze in US equities since the beginning of May, we warned that Moderna shareholders might be in for a bruising "bait-and-switch" as reports about insider share sales emerged, and Moderna, along with dozens of other biotech companies the company, seized on the demand to issue more shares.

But it's not only Moderna's billionaire founder/CEO Stephane Bancel - once compared to a post-scandal Elizabeth Holmes - who stands to profit from the action: the White House's new vaccine czar also holds - or rather, held - more than 150,000 options contracts on Moderna shares worht more than $12 million, and had resisted pressure to divest them despite the blatant conflict of interest. We were joking yesterday when we speculated that he would probably be glad to exercise these options at current prices. But just as every joke contains a nugget of truth, that one turned out to be prophetic, too.

[May 19, 2020] The pretence that US and Europe have competent and resilient neoliberal political and economic structures is fake

May 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , May 18 2020 17:14 utc | 36

Alastair Crooke's in fine form today bringing Jung, Euripides, the Outlaw US Empire's Culture Wars, and Zionist Imperialism together to illustrate "Our Civilisational Quagmire" and the imperative of "Looking Truth in the Eye." But all that's initially hidden as he begins by intoning:

"First, the bottom line: If you don't solve the biology, the economy won't recover."

A Truth far too many mostly in the West don't seem capable of grasping:

"But the biology is not solved, and the tension of trying to point in opposite directions simultaneously is igniting a separate, raging political brushfire....

"The pretence that the U.S. and the global economy is about to snap back, as soon as virus mitigation is lifted; the pretence that Covid-19 is either a fake (just another 'flu); or, is 'over'; the pretence that U.S. and Europe have competent and resilient political and economic structures – and the pretence that once Covid is over, we will all return to a world, just as it was?"

I wrote awhile ago that the pandemic provided an opportunity to use an analytical tool known as the Franklin Reality Model to see the values and beliefs held by differing nations and their cultures and ideologies as it exposes them so graphically they cannot be hidden by any amount of spin or propaganda. The revelations provided my empirical basis for judging Trump's response specifically and the West's generally to be one of complete Moral Failure. And not just Trump, but Pelosi, Biden and the vast majority of Democrats, too--their shared Neoliberal ideology's Immoral basis and Parasitic nature being one of the main roots of the problem.


karlof1 , May 18 2020 17:29 utc | 39

Thomas Briggs @35--

I suggest you read this Atlantic article , "We Are Living in a Failed State: The coronavirus didn't break America. It revealed what was already broken." And either before or during, take a gander at this Real GDP graph that still understates the genuine amount of GDP shrinkage since parasitic financial "gains" are added to GDP instead of subtracted as a cost to the real economy. Essentially since GHW Bush's recession, the real economy of the Outlaw US Empire's shrunk about 1.5% annually or @45% overall with the vast majority of economic gains accruing to the top 10%. That grim reality is the #1 reason why Trump won in 2016, and why he stands a very good chance of losing in 2020--"It's the economy, stupid."

Nancy E. Sutton , May 18 2020 17:42 utc | 40
Re: Karl, did the 'West' (Anglo-Zionist world) buy (or actually promote) the 80's 'Greed is Good' line, and ignore what Greenspan supposedly learned..."I have found a flaw...I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."

Even the average American might be able to see that 'socialism' (i.e., Social Security, et al) is better than 'trickle down'... to put it in simple terms. Neo-liberalism appears to be killing many of us right now. The problem, seems to me, is how to turn the light bulb on for Amerian non-voters... obviously Bernie would have 'had a heart attack' if he'd gotten the nomination.

[May 19, 2020] Will coronavirus fasten the end of "shareholde vlue" mantra?

May 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Nancy E. Sutton , May 18 2020 17:42 utc | 40

Re: Karl, did the 'West' (Anglo-Zionist world) buy (or actually promote) the 80's 'Greed is Good' line, and ignore what Greenspan supposedly learned..."I have found a flaw...I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."

Even the average American might be able to see that 'socialism' (i.e., Social Security, et al) is better than 'trickle down'... to put it in simple terms. Neo-liberalism appears to be killing many of us right now. The problem, seems to me, is how to turn the light bulb on for Amerian non-voters... obviously Bernie would have 'had a heart attack' if he'd gotten the nomination.

karlof1 , May 18 2020 18:38 utc | 54

Nancy E. Sutton @40--

Greenspan issued his belated and stupendously weak mea culpa long after the horse left the corral and had galloped several time around the planet. One vital component was already deeply emplaced prior to his tenure that allowed those entities to "protect" themselves--Regulatory Capture. Recall "Banking Crises" began to become regular occurrences during Reagan/Bush. One of Hudson's great contributions is looking into how political-economic theory was captured and transformed into just economic theory, which he castigates as "Junk Economics" in his book of that title. At his website, there're numerous essays that deal with that topic; out of the several dozen I might link to is this one from 2011 . Discovering how we were manipulated into the Neoliberal religion must be understood if we are to get out from under its boot, which is a tall task since millions must become informed, and the Neoliberals control the media. You asked How. My answer is for us to become informed such that we can inform others, which is why Hudson's written an excellent series of books that make it all easy to comprehend and transmit--I taught introductory college economics and know Hudson's works are vastly superior to the texts we used. The two pertinent books for debunking Neoliberalism are Killing the Host and J is for Junk Economics . For the overall historical perspective, his trilogy that begins with and forgive them their debts will be a must, the second book he says will be ready for publication by New Years.

[May 17, 2020] The World is Round Shifting Supply Chains and a Fragmented World Order

May 17, 2020 | nationalinterest.org

... ... ...

Coronavirus has already begun to undermine the legitimacy of the European project in a greater manner that nationalist movements had hoped to achieve. European finance ministers have clashed over all EU nations sharing "corona bonds" debt, while France and Germany responded to Italy's request for ventilators with a refusal accompanied by closing their borders with Italy. At around the same time, the United States imposed a unilateral ban on commercial flights with the EU.

China's economic growth strategy and foreign policy aspirations are being frustrated in the wake of Coronavirus, as developing countries are likely to scrutinize China's Belt Road Initiative. Among Western policymakers anti-China sentiment is increasing. In the UK, there is mounting opposition to Huawei building its fifth-generation mobile networks. In late March, the United States abandoned its long-standing policy of maintaining a status quo vis a vis Taiwan. President Donald Trump signed into law The Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative (TAIPEI) Act, which increases U.S. support for Taiwan and "alters" engagement with nations that undermine Taiwan's security or prosperity. Beijing responded that it would respond forcefully if the law was implemented, all the while China increases its military drills around Taiwan. This is increasingly likely to occur while the United States increasingly supports Hong Kong's independence movement and demonstrates willingness to confront China in the South China Seas. Similarly, Washington is likely to be drawn into a confrontation with North Korea as the collapse of North Korea's health system may threaten Kim Jong-un's regime leading him to militarily lash out.

The latest phase of globalization spearheaded by the West entailed that service economies were not responsible for the manufacture of the products they consumed. Instead, they depended upon outsourcing production of cheap goods in distant shores creating unprecedented levels of economic prosperity, which at its root was artificial. Liberal democracies did not reach "the end of history," where conflict was to be consigned to the dustbin of history, but could easily be unraveled by a virus emanating from a society it was reliant upon that did not share its norms. In a similar vein, the Roman Empire's apex contained the seeds of its decay as it had become overstretched and difficult to manage. The historian Edward Gibbon, in his 1776 book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , notes that Romans had become weak and responded to the challenges of hyperinflation, civil wars and revolts by outsourcing their duties to defend their empire in far flung regions to "barbarian" mercenaries such as the Visigoths. Blowback occurred as these barbarians' increased economic production and their ability to conduct warfare, which led them, ultimately, to turn against their benefactors and sack the Roman Empire. Similarly, the West increased the prosperity of faraway nations and ironically, as a result their military assertiveness by being beholden to extended global supply chains. This along with the risk of globalization unravelling increases the prospects of inter-state and great power conflict. All it took was a virus to detonate the fuse that was shorter than anyone expected.

Barak Seener is the CEO of Strategic Intelligentia and a former Middle East Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). He is on Twitter at  @BarakSeener .

[May 16, 2020] In a Pandemic, Military Spending Is an Extravagant Waste by Conn Hallinan

Notable quotes:
"... The US has spent over $200 billion on antimissile systems, and once they come off the drawing boards, none of them work very well, if at all. ..."
May 16, 2020 | original.antiwar.com

In the very near future, countries are going to have to choose whether they make guns or vaccines

"There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet plagues and wars take people equally by surprise."
~ Albert Camus, "The Plague"

Camus' novel of a lethal contagion in the North African city of Oran is filled with characters all too recognizable today: indifferent or incompetent officials, short sighted and selfish citizens, and lots of great courage. What not even Camus could imagine, however, is a society in the midst of a deadly epidemic pouring vast amounts of wealth into instruments of death.

Welcome to the world of the hypersonic weapons, devices that are not only superfluous, but which will almost certainly not work. They will, however, cost enormous amounts of money. At a time when countries across the globe are facing economic chaos, financial deficits, and unemployment at Great Depression levels, arms manufacturers are set to cash in big.

A Hypersonic Arms Race

Hypersonic weapons are missiles that go five times faster than sound – 3,800 mph – although some reportedly can reach speeds of Mach 20, 15,000 mph. They come in two basic varieties. One is powered by a high-speed scramjet. The other, launched from a plane or missile, glides to its target. The idea behind the weapons is that their speed and maneuverability will make them virtually invulnerable to anti-missile systems.

Currently there is a hypersonic arms race going on among China, Russia, and the U.S., and, according to the Pentagon, the Americans are desperately trying to catch up with its two adversaries.

Truth is the first casualty in an arms race.

In the 1950s, it was the "bomber gap" between the Americans and the Soviets. In the 1960s, it was the "missile gap" between the two powers. Neither gap existed, but vast amounts of national treasure were nonetheless poured into long-range aircraft and thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The enormous expenditures on those weapons, in turn, heightened tensions between the major powers and on at least three occasions came very close to touching off a nuclear war.

In the current hypersonic arms race, "hype" is the operational word. "The development of hypersonic weapons in the United States," says physicist James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "has been largely motivated by technology, not by strategy. In other words, technologists have decided to try and develop hypersonic weapons because it seems like they should be useful for something, not because there is a clearly defined mission need for them to fulfill."

They have certainly been "useful" to Lockheed Martin , the largest arms manufacturer in the world. The company has already received $3.5 billion to develop the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (Arrow) glide missile, and the scramjet-driven Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (Hacksaw) missile.

The Russians also have several hypersonic missiles, including the Avangard glide vehicle, a missile said to be capable of Mach 20. China is developing several hypersonic missiles, including the DF-ZF, supposedly capable of taking out aircraft carriers.

"No Advantage Whatsoever"

In theory hypersonic missiles are unstoppable. In real life, not so much.

The first problem is basic physics: speed in the atmosphere produces heat. High speed generates lots of it. ICBMs avoid this problem with a blunt nose cone that deflects the enormous heat of re-entering the atmosphere as the missile approaches its target. But it only has to endure heat for a short time because much of its flight is in frictionless low earth orbit.

Hypersonic missiles, however, stay in the atmosphere their entire flight. That is the whole idea. An ICBM follows a predictable ballistic curve, much like an inverted U and, in theory, can be intercepted. A missile traveling as fast as an ICBM but at low altitude, however, is much more difficult to spot or engage.

But that's when physics shows up and does a Las Vegas: what happens on the drawing board stays on the drawing board.

Without a heat deflecting nose cone, high-speed missiles are built like big needles, since they need to decrease the area exposed to the atmosphere. Even so, they are going to run very hot. And if they try to maneuver, that heat will increase. Since they can't carry a large payload, they will have to be very accurate – but as a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists points out, that is "problematic."

According to the Union, an object traveling Mach 5 for a period of time "slowly tears itself apart during the flight." The heat is so great it creates a "plasma" around the craft that makes it difficult "to reference GPS or receive outside course correction commands."

If the target is moving, as with an aircraft carrier or a mobile missile, it will be almost impossible to alter the weapon's flight path to intercept it. And any external radar array would never survive the heat or else be so small that it would have very limited range. In short, you can't get from here to there.

Lockheed Martin says the tests are going just fine, but then Lockheed Martin is the company that builds the F-35, a fifth generation stealth fighter that simply doesn't work. It does, however, cost $1.5 trillion, the most expensive weapons system in US history. The company has apparently dropped the scramjet engine because it tears itself apart, hardly a surprise.

The Russians and Chinese claim success with their hypersonic weapons and have even begun deploying them. But Pierre Sprey, a Pentagon designer associated with the two very successful aircraft – the F-16 and the A-10 – told defense analyst Andrew Cockburn that he is suspicious of the tests.

"I very much doubt those test birds would have reached the advertised range had they maneuvered unpredictably," he told Cockburn. "More likely they were forced to fly a straight, predictable path. In which case hypersonics offer no advantage whatsoever over traditional ballistic missiles."

Guns or Vaccines

While Russia, China, and the US lead the field in the development of hypersonics, Britain, France, India, and Japan have joined the race too.

Why is everyone building them?

At least the Russians and the Chinese have a rationale. The Russians fear the US antimissile system might cancel out their ICBMs, so they want a missile that can maneuver. The Chinese would like to keep US aircraft carriers away from their shores.

But antimissile systems can be easily fooled by the use of cheap decoys, and the carriers are vulnerable to much more cost effective conventional weapons. In any case hypersonic missiles can't do what they are advertised to do.

For the Americans, hypersonics are little more than a very expensive subsidy for the arms corporations. Making and deploying weapons that don't work is nothing new. The F-35 is a case in point, but nevertheless, there have been many systems produced over the years that were deeply flawed.

The US has spent over $200 billion on antimissile systems, and once they come off the drawing boards, none of them work very well, if at all.

Probably the one that takes the prize is the Mark-28 tactical nuke, nicknamed the "Davy Crockett," and its M-388 warhead. Because the M-388 was too delicate to be used in conventional artillery, it was fired from a recoil-less rife with a range of 2.5 miles. Problem: if the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, the Crockett cooked its three-man crew. It was only tested once and found to be "totally inaccurate."

So, end of story? Not exactly. A total of 2,100 were produced and deployed, mostly in Europe.

While the official military budget is $738 billion, if one pulls all US defense related spending together, the actual cost for taxpayers is $1.25 trillion a year, according to William Hartung of the Center for International Policy. Half that amount would go a long way toward providing not only adequate medical support during the Covid-19 crisis – it would also pay jobless Americans a salary.

Given that there are more than 31 million Americans now unemployed and the possibility that numerous small businesses – restaurants in particular – will never reopen, building and deploying a new generation of weapons is a luxury the US and other countries cannot afford.

In the very near future, countries are going to have to choose whether they make guns or vaccines.

Foreign Policy In Focus columnist Conn Hallinan can be read at www.dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and www.middleempireseries.wordpress.com .

[May 16, 2020] The next step from neoliberalisn can be neofeudalism

May 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , May 15 2020 19:04 utc | 9

And just in time, we have this essay, "How Biosecurity Is Enabling Digital Neo-Feudalism" by Pepe Escobar. Seven years ago, this prediction was made:

"In the worst-case scenario projected for a pandemic, Zylberman predicted that 'sanitary terror' would be used as an instrument of governance....

"Agamben did square the circle: it's not that citizens across the West have the right to health safety; now they are juridically forced (italics [Pepe's]) to be healthy. That, in a nutshell, is what biosecurity is all about.

"So no wonder biosecurity is an ultra-efficient governance paradigm. Citizens had it administered down their throats with no political debate whatsoever. And the enforcement, writes Agamben, kills 'any political activity and any social relation as the maximum example of civic participation.'"

Escobar's topic's been the subject of heated discussion here. How much of "reopening" in meant to combat the implied totalitarian potential? Perhaps an entire thread ought to be devoted? That such was a planned additional benefit of the COVID-19 attack seems very reasonable. Since it was thought of, discussed and had books published about it seems to indicate it ought to become a central topic at MoA.

[May 16, 2020] Putin's Call For A New System and the 1944 Battle Of Bretton Woods

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Our Job in the Pacific ..."
"... "supposed the President was more literate, economically speaking." ..."
"... General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money ..."
"... "contemplates the dismantling of the British and Dutch empires." ..."
May 16, 2020 | off-guardian.org

On the one side, figures allied to American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's vision for an anti-Imperial world order lined up behind FDR's champion Harry Dexter White while those powerful forces committed to maintaining the structures of a bankers' dictatorship (Britain was always primarily a banker's empire) lined up behind the figure of John Maynard Keynes[ 1 ].

John Maynard Keynes was a leading Fabian Society controller and treasurer of the British Eugenics Association (which served as a model for Hitler's Eugenics protocols before and during the war). During the Bretton Woods Conference, Keynes pushed hard for the new system to be premised upon a one world currency controlled entirely by the Bank of England known as the Bancor. He proposed a global bank called the Clearing Union to be controlled by the Bank of England which would use the Bancor (exchangeable with national currencies) and serve as unit of account to measure trade surpluses or deficits under the mathematical mandate of maintaining "equilibrium" of the system.

Harry Dexter White, on the other hand, fought relentlessly to keep the City of London out of the drivers' seat of global finance and instead defended the institution of national sovereignty and sovereign currencies based on long term scientific and technological growth.

Although White and FDR demanded that US dollars become the reserve currency in the new world system of fixed exchange rates, it was not done to create a "new American Empire" as most modern analysts have assumed, but rather was designed to use America's status as the strongest productive global power to ensure an anti-speculative stability among international currencies which entirely lacked stability in the wake of WWII.

Their fight for fixed exchange rates and principles of "parity pricing" were designed by FDR and White strictly around the need to abolish the forms of chaotic flux of the un-regulated markets which made speculation rampant under British Free Trade and destroyed the capacity to think and plan for the sort of long term development needed to modernize nation states. Theirs was not a drive for "mathematical equilibrium" but rather a drive to "end poverty" through REAL physical economic growth of colonies who would thereby win real economic independence.

As figures like Henry Wallace (FDR's loyal Vice President and 1948 3rd party candidate), Representative Wendell Wilkie (FDR's republican lieutenant and New Dealer), and Dexter White all advocated repeatedly, the mechanisms of the World Bank, IMF, and United Nations were meant to become drivers of an internationalization of the New Deal which transformed America from a backwater cesspool in 1932 to becoming a modern advanced manufacturing powerhouse 12 years later. All of these Interntional New Dealers were loud advocates of US-Russia –China leadership in the post war world which is a forgotten fact of paramount importance.

In his 1944 book Our Job in the Pacific , Wallace said:

It is vital to the United States, it is vital to China and it is vital to Russia that there be peaceful and friendly relations between China and Russia, China and America and Russia and America. China and Russia Complement and supplement each other on the continent of Asia and the two together complement and supplement America's position in the Pacific.

Contradicting the mythos that FDR was a Keynesian, FDR's assistant Francis Perkins recorded the 1934 interaction between the two men when Roosevelt told her:

"I saw your friend Keynes. He left a whole rigmarole of figures. He must be a mathematician rather than a political economist."

In response Keynes, who was then trying to coopt the intellectual narrative of the New Deal stated he had "supposed the President was more literate, economically speaking."

In his 1936 German edition of his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money , Keynes wrote:

For I confess that much of the following book is illustrated and expounded mainly with reference to the conditions existing in the Anglo Saxon countries. Nevertheless, the theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state.

While Keynes represented the "soft imperialism" for the "left" of Britain's intelligentsia, Churchill represented the hard unapologetic imperialism of the Old, less sophisticated empire that preferred the heavy fisted use of brute force to subdue the savages. Both however were unapologetic racists and fascists (Churchill even wrote admiringly of Mussolini's black shirts) and both represented the most vile practices of British Imperialism.

FDR's Forgotten Anti-Colonial Vision Revited

FDR's battle with Churchill on the matter of empire is better known than his differences with Keynes whom he only met on a few occasions. This well documented clash was best illustrated in his son/assistant Elliot Roosevelt's book As He Saw It (1946) who quoted his father:

I've tried to make it clear that while we're [Britain's] allies and in it to victory by their side, they must never get the idea that we're in it just to help them hang on to their archaic, medieval empire ideas I hope they realize they're not senior partner; that we are not going to sit by and watch their system stultify the growth of every country in Asia and half the countries in Europe to boot.

[ ]

The colonial system means war. Exploit the resources of an India, a Burma, a Java; take all the wealth out of these countries, but never put anything back into them, things like education, decent standards of living, minimum health requirements – all you're doing is storing up the kind of trouble that leads to war. All you're doing is negating the value of any kind of organizational structure for peace before it begins.

Writing from Washington in a hysteria to Churchill, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden said that Roosevelt "contemplates the dismantling of the British and Dutch empires."

Unfortunately for the world, FDR died on April 12, 1945. A coup within the Democratic establishment, then replete with Fabians and Rhodes Scholars, had already ensured that Henry Wallace would lose the 1944 Vice Presidency in favor of Anglophile Wall Street Stooge Harry Truman.

Truman was quick to reverse all of FDR's intentions, cleansing American intelligence of all remaining patriots with the shutdown of the OSS and creation of the CIA, the launching of un-necessary nuclear bombs on Japan and establishment of the Anglo-American special relationship.

Truman's embrace of Churchill's New World Order destroyed the positive relationship with Russia and China which FDR, White and Wallace sought and soon America had become Britain's dumb giant.

The Post 1945 Takeover of the Modern Deep State

FDR warned his son before his death of his understanding of the British takeover of American foreign policy, but still could not reverse this agenda. His son recounted his father's ominous insight:

You know, any number of times the men in the State Department have tried to conceal messages to me, delay them, hold them up somehow, just because some of those career diplomats over there aren't in accord with what they know I think. They should be working for Winston.

As a matter of fact, a lot of the time, they are [working for Churchill]. Stop to think of 'em: any number of 'em are convinced that the way for America to conduct its foreign policy is to find out what the British are doing and then copy that!" I was told six years ago, to clean out that State Department. It's like the British Foreign Office

Before being fired from Truman's cabinet for his advocacy of US-Russia friendship during the Cold War, Wallace stated:

American fascism" which has come to be known in recent years as the Deep State [ ] Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes.

In his 1946 Soviet Asia Mission, Wallace said:

Before the blood of our boys is scarcely dry on the field of battle, these enemies of peace try to lay the foundation for World War III. These people must not succeed in their foul enterprise. We must offset their poison by following the policies of Roosevelt in cultivating the friendship of Russia in peace as well as in war.

Indeed this is exactly what occurred. Dexter White's three year run as head of the International Monetary Fund was clouded by his constant attacks as being a Soviet stooge which haunted him until the day he died in 1948 after a grueling inquisition session at the House of Un-American Activities.

White had previously been supporting the election of his friend Wallace for the presidency alongside fellow patriots Paul Robeson and Albert Einstein.

Today the world has captured a second chance to revive the FDR's dream of an anti-colonial world . In the 21st century, this great dream has taken the form of the New Silk Road, led by Russia and China (and joined by a growing chorus of nations yearning to exit the invisible cage of colonialism).

If western nations wish to survive the oncoming collapse, then they would do well to heed Putin's call for a New International system, join the BRI, and reject the Keynesian technocrats advocating a false "New Bretton Woods" and "Green New Deal" .

Originally published on The Saker

[1] You may be thinking "wait! Wasn't FDR and his New Deal premised on Keynes' theories??" How could Keynes have represented an opposing force to FDR's system if this is the case? This paradox only exists in the minds of many people today due to the success of the Fabian Society's and Round Table Movement's armada of revisionist historians who have consistently created a lying narrative of history to make it appear to future generations trying to learn from past mistakes that those figures like FDR who opposed empire were themselves following imperial principles.

Another example of this sleight of hand can be seen by the sheer number of people who sincerely think themselves informed and yet believe that America's 1776 revolution was driven by British Imperial philosophical thought stemming from Adam Smith, Bentham and John Locke.

Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk , regular author with Strategic Culture, the Duran and Fort Russ and has authored 3 volumes of 'Untold History of Canada' book series. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation and can be reached at [email protected]

[May 16, 2020] America's Chilling Experiment in Human Sacrifice

Neoliberalism is a dangerous, evil secular religion.
May 16, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Since the days of Adam Smith, free market capitalists have held that human beings are rational actors who pursue economic gain for self-interested motives. But here is Patrick, a free marketer if there ever was one, talking about a gift-sacrifice economy model in which people – some people, at least – lay down their lives to keep the economic engines revved.

Patrick's words reveal an unspoken truth about capitalism. For the system to work smoothly, there have always been requirements of human sacrifice -- a certain portion of the population was expected to act not as self-serving homo economicus, but self-sacrificing homo communis , focused upon what benefits the collective at their own expense. If these people can't social distance at the workplace, they are expected to show up anyway. If there isn't enough safety equipment, they are declared essential workers who must put their lives and that of their families at risk for the greater good.

But for whom and for what is this sacrifice intended? How much dying will be figured into state budgets and gross domestic product (GDP)? When ranked by GDP, the U.S. is the wealthiest economy in the world, but is a country's wealth something totally separate from, or even contrary to, the health and life the majority of its citizens?

Wealth v. "illth"

To help us navigate these questions, it is useful turn to someone who offered potent challenges to the economic calculus of his day: John Ruskin , the 19 th -century art critic-turned-political economist. He was one of the most outspoken critics of capitalism and prevailing economic ideas of the Victorian era , and his work presciently points to shortcomings that have followed us into the present day.

Ruskin questions the premises on which free market capitalism is based, returning to first principles: what is wealth? What do we value? How should we understand the relationship between people, the economy, and the state?

In his view, economies are, above all, social systems whose true end is to benefit the people, and not, as the Texan politician would have it, the other way around. Anticipating the behavioral economics of our own day, Ruskin rejected the idea advocated by such economists as John Stuart Mill that there could be a deductive science of economics based on the assumption that the human being is "a covetous machine" that when applied to actual situations could take "the social affections," the non-rational aspects of human behavior, into account. Ruskin recognized that such a system implicitly removed the marketplace from the constraints of religion and morality that are supposed to apply to all human behavior. He compared it to an assumption that humans are essentially a skeleton with flesh, blood and consciousness as add-ons founding "an ossifiant theory of progress on this negation of a soul."

Ruskin defined wealth quite differently from many of his contemporaries, and ours. For him, wealth is anything that supports life and health, from the supplies in your storeroom to the song in your heart: "There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others." ( Unto this Last ).

By that definition, America is looking increasingly impoverished. And it is not a virus which is stealing our wealth away.

Playing on the root of the word "wealth" from the Old English word "weal," signifying health, Ruskin proposed that while wealth was anything life-supporting that could be used and enjoyed, it had a dark counterpart that he called "illth" from the Old Norse word for bad – the things that make people ill, their lives stunted and despairing, their environment polluted. Wealth cannot be produced without illth, but great fortunes have been made by extracting the means of wealth without paying the cost of illth. To take a Ruskinian example, a factory that pollutes the water it uses, fouls the air and pays its workers below what a healthy life requires will be more profitable than a business that cleans up after itself and pays a living wage, but its illth becomes a form of national debt expressed in damage to the health of others and the environment. Think of something like a toxic Superfund site.

Economists have a term for Ruskin's concept of illth, referring to it as "negative externalities," even though they are not external to the capitalist economic system, but intrinsic to it. The most daunting problems of the current age, environmental disaster and inequality, are fueled by illth.

The Covid-19 crisis has merely amplified trends of rising illth, of despair, sickness, and alienation, which have been on the rise for decades as globalization, money-driven politics, decimated workers' rights, and privatization have tipped the economic balance far in favor of the very few. If we are to judge a country's health not by GDP, which rises in the face of a massive oil spill , but according to the criteria of the World Happiness Report (WHR), which measures things like social trust and faith in institutions, America is in bad shape when it comes to the ratio of wealth to illth. Scandinavian countries top the WHR, while the U.S. ranks a dismal 19 th .

According to the Columbia University study of the 2020 WHR report , the key factors that account for the relative happiness of Scandinavian countries -- what makes them wealthy in Ruskin's terms -- are precisely those that have been under pressure or cut back in the U.S. since the rise of neoliberalism: "emancipation from market dependency in terms of pensions, income maintenance for the ill or disabled, and unemployment benefits" together with labor market regulation such as a high minimum wage. Of course, no one likes to pay taxes, but Scandinavian "citizens' satisfaction with public and common goods such as health care, education, and public transportation that progressive taxation helps to fund," meets with approval at all income levels.

Pandemics are exacerbated by illth. We can see it in communities of color where the coronavirus strikes down those whose resources and access to health care have been limited by discriminatory policies and high contact employment. We can see it in factory farms where broken supply chains have caused farmers to euthanize livestock and plow under crops while people across the country go hungry. Airlines got immediate stimulus aid in the U.S., but there has been no subsidy for the restaurant supply chain that could be diverted for distribution by food banks and favorably located restaurants thus sustaining at least some of our much-vaunted small businesses. No one has to fly, but everyone must eat.

We sense illth accumulating in the comments of Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman, who, in her eagerness to get the casinos back in business, told an astonished Anderson Cooper on CNN that she would offer up the city's workers as a " control group " in a reopening experiment. If they weren't able to social distance, Goodman was unconcerned: "In my opinion, you have to go ahead," she said . "Every day you get up, it's a gamble."

Ruskin saw the capitalists of his day as gamblers heedless of the costs they foisted onto ordinary people: "But they neither know who keeps the bank of the gambling-house, nor what other games may be played with the same cards, nor what other losses and gains, far away among the dark streets, are essentially, though invisibly, dependent upon theirs in lighted rooms." ( Unto This Last ).

In other words, not only do capitalists gamble with other peoples' lives; they are oblivious to the fact that there are other ways to arrange society, to deal the cards differently, more fairly.

Witness the post-Covid reality imagined by Governor Cuomo. Instead of focusing on what changes could better support the health and lives of ordinary people, he has called in Google CEO Eric Schmidt to head a commission to reimagine New York state with more technology permanently inserted into every dimension of civic life. A better deal for Silicon Valley, to be sure. But what is in the cards for everyone else? When educational platforms and health protocols are mapped by gigantic and unaccountable corporations, who gets lost? Surely the answer is those who can least afford it.

President Trump says that it is time to move on from the coronavirus and get on with economy. Ruskin would have recognized the deity worshipped by country's leader, which he called the "Goddess of getting on." Only Ruskin recognized that she tended to favor "not of everybody's getting on – but only of somebody's getting on," -- what he called a "vital, or rather deathful, distinction." For capitalists, getting on post-Covid means executives working remotely while the rank and file return to the factory floor without adequate face masks, and large corporations, not public input, determines the blueprints for our lives.

The issue of worker safety does matter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, but not because he fears that some will get sick or die, but for a potential " epidemic of litigation ." In the next pandemic relief legislation, McConnell is looking to solve the problem of worker safety by shielding corporations from lawsuits rather than supporting Centers for Disease Control (CDC) mandated regulations that would both promote safety and sort out what is and is not actionable.

The Visible Hand

Instead of Adam Smith's Invisible Hand, Ruskin advocated a Visible Hand of reasoned management, a government which could allocate resources effectively and create stores of what citizens most needed in a crisis. In our day this need not be a literal storehouse but surge capacity. The Obama administration, for example, contracted with Halyard Health to design a machine that could turn out 1.5 million N95 masks per day. They were ready to build the machine in 2018 when the Trump administration cancelled the program .

In Ruskin's view, the Visible Hand was the guardian of the lives of the citizens, especially the poor, whose health and lives were their essential property. Ruskin actually defined an economy as the wise management of labor, applying labor, carefully preserving what it produces, and wisely distributing those products. A country's wealth is in the people's strength and health, not their illness and death.

Ruskin's concepts of wealth and illth help us understand the centrality of ethics and responsibility to economic activity, and how economies are not an assemblage of atomistic human units but whole systems of people interacting, where the activities of some impact the lives of all. His work indicates the need for a whole systems approach to a crisis in which what happens on the beaches of Georgia impacts a nursing home in North Carolina, and visitors to New York City or New Orleans can carry the infection home. The decisions of one business in a complex international supply chain can impact the fate of millions.

In unregulated capitalism, Ruskin sussed out what Sigmund Freud might have recognized as the death drive. Decisions about the economy, he held, must be informed by the essential biologic basis of life itself: "The real science of political economy, which has yet to be distinguished from the bastard science, as medicine from witchcraft, and astronomy from astrology, is that which teaches nations to desire and labour for the things that lead to life; and which teaches them to scorn and destroy the things that lead to destruction" ( Unto This Last ).

The Covid crisis has exposed contradictions in market and America First ideology. Without federal aid to state and local governments, essential personnel are being laid off even as we declare them heroes. Employer based insurance is failing, but few American politicians are willing to fully embrace single payer insurance. Meat plant workers are declared essential, but still subject to deportation, as if famed Revolutionary patriot Nathan Hale had said, "I only regret that you have but one life to give for my country."

Ultimately, the most dangerous pestilence that threatens the country is not a packet of RNA called Covid-19 but an economic and political system that does not value true wealth, and promotes the life of the few while condemning the many to literal sickness unto death.


Henry Moon Pie , May 15, 2020 at 5:38 am

Excellent piece by Parramore. Ruskin is an interesting thinker whose ideas have direct application to our situation. This was central:

President Trump says that it is time to move on from the coronavirus and get on with economy. Ruskin would have recognized the deity worshipped by country's leader, which he called the "Goddess of getting on." Only Ruskin recognized that she tended to favor "not of everybody's getting on – but only of somebody's getting on," -- what he called a "vital, or rather deathful, distinction." For capitalists, getting on post-Covid means executives working remotely while the rank and file return to the factory floor without adequate face masks, and large corporations, not public input, determines the blueprints for our lives.

There's one thing I hope the Left learns before too long. Human beings have a religious impulse. It's not as powerful or as central to our existence as the sexual impulse, but it's there in all of us, even Richard Dawkins. Like the sexual impulse, the real question is where will this religious impulse lead us. For the Right, their twisted unChristian conception of Christianity is a powerful force within their political movement. In fact, it might be said to be what holds it together and provides the energy for their unfortunate efforts.

Meanwhile, the Left, considering itself too firmly ensconced in modernity to recognize the reality of the religious impulse despite modern science's identification of it, denies the existence of this basic and potentially powerful human trait. We saw some of the activists and organizers in Bernie's campaign employ deep organizing techniques which are basically spiritual exercises. We know Thomas Berry's calls for a new religion focused on humanity's relationship to the Earth and its creatures. The Left needs to acknowledge our spiritual aspects and work to turn our religious impulse away from patriarchalism, misogyny and homophobia of the Right and toward love for the Earth, our fellow humans and our fellow creatures. That's where reside the power and persistence necessary to overcome our religiously misinspired opponents.

Bsoder , May 15, 2020 at 9:34 am

There is a gene that creates within the brain a structure that either perceives 'god' (my view), or generates a sense of spirituality in [sic] reality. The university of Waterloo has been doing studies on this for at least thirty years. Anything we have evolved has a calorie cost to maintain, so it must serve purpose in furthering life. There have been many debates about this gene but no one can argue it's not about spirituality, and/or god, and/or what the Druids what call magic. To me there's always been, that question, we can go back and have data to 1/billion of 1/billion to 1/billion⁶⁶⁷(minus) of a second before the inflation singularity that created this universe. But then, why? As the said in the 'Little Prince', 'it's only with the heart one sees rightly'.

Susan the other , May 15, 2020 at 10:07 am

The little prince is right. What we call spirituality is intelligence above what is necessary our daily existence. Our "daily bread". Our sixth sense is probably more accurate and reliable than all our rationalizations combined. But it is a thing that can't be orchestrated by religion or politics. What happens between people in groups when fear is eliminated is a sudden change toward choices that are the most sensible. As long as the process isn't interfered with. That's the difficulty. It's like leaving nature alone long enough for it to recover from human devastation.

Clive , May 15, 2020 at 10:28 am

What we call spirituality is intelligence above what is necessary our daily existence.

(although if I was trying to do your comment complete justice, I would have to simply re-quote the whole thing, it was that good)

Sometimes Susan the other, you're so profound, it almost hurts!

Certainly for me, I've got very little, comparatively, in my life right. I've passed on opportunities which would made me rich beyond the dreams of avarice. And much else besides. Mostly because I've overanalysed and rationalised things away. What I've got right has been, conversely, down to following my intuition. If humanity could unlock that potential within us, just think what we could do.

Susan the other , May 15, 2020 at 1:21 pm

If I'm profound Clive it's because I look to you and a handful of other VSP for inspiration.

RBHoughton , May 15, 2020 at 8:48 pm

That's what makes NC unique – the sense of honor and respect amongst supporters.

SAKMAN , May 15, 2020 at 10:29 am

If we are talking about VMAT2 here, then its also been implicated in opiod dependence. . . just another example of god I guess? To some for sure.

Susan the other , May 15, 2020 at 9:58 am

Neo-transcendentalism please.

ChiGal in Carolina , May 15, 2020 at 10:41 am

The Sun
mary oliver

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

Henry Moon Pie , May 15, 2020 at 11:01 am

A response to Oliver's powerful poem from Thomas Berry:

The continuity between the human and the cosmic was experienced with special sensitivity in the Chinese world [A] sense of the sacred dimension of the Earth is involved, a type of awareness less available from our traditional Western religions. This lack of intimacy with the natural was further extended when Descartes proposed that the living world was best described as a mechanism, because there was no vital principle integrating, guiding, and sustaining the activities of what we generally refer to as the living world.

Yet, strangely enough, a new sense of the sacred dimension of the universe and the planet Earth is becoming available from our more recent scientific endeavors. The observational sciences, principally through the theories of relativity, quantum physics, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the sense of a self-organizing universe, and the more recent chaos theories have taken us beyond a mechanistic understanding of an objective world. We know there is a subjectivity in all our knowledge and that we ourselves, precisely as intelligent beings, activate one of the deepest dimensions of the universe. Once again, we realize that knowledge is less a subject-object relationship than it is a communion of subjects, .

Thomas Berry, "The Gaia Hypothesis: Its Religious Implications" in The Sacred Universe

Susan the other , May 15, 2020 at 1:26 pm

I'm reading Rovelli's The Order of Time right now and every few pages I just stop, my jaw drops and I get lost in the realization.

Rod , May 15, 2020 at 9:59 am

I'm glad you are making this point to acknowledge:

Human beings have a religious impulse.

From my direct experience, Native Americans seem to center their activism in a Spiritual Context. Prayer for Guidance–for courage–for wisdom–for compassion–before starting up on anything. imo, it keeps the priorities in focus.

Petter , May 15, 2020 at 3:12 pm

I'm posting in this thread even though I'm not sure it fits. The religious or spiritual impulse appears to be universal, there doesn't seem any doubt about that. Here's an interesting article on Big Gods, or moralizing Gods.
Big data analyses suggest that moralizing gods are rather the product than the drivers of social complexity:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190320141116.htm
-- -- -- -- --
One prominent theory, the big or moralizing gods hypothesis, assumes that religious beliefs were key. According to this theory people are more likely to cooperate fairly if they believe in gods who will punish them if they don't. "To our surprise, our data strongly contradict this hypothesis," says lead author Harvey Whitehouse. "In almost every world region for which we have data, moralizing gods tended to follow, not precede, increases in social complexity." Even more so, standardized rituals tended on average to appear hundreds of years before gods who cared about human morality.

Such rituals create a collective identity and feelings of belonging that act as social glue, making people to behave more cooperatively. "Our results suggest that collective identities are more important to facilitate cooperation in societies than religious beliefs," says Harvey Whitehouse.
-- -- -- -

Amfortas the hippie , May 15, 2020 at 6:14 am

I can definitely recommend Ruskin's "Unto This Last". I obtained it(among several others that had been on my list(from NC) for a while) just before Covid.
short book wonderfully written.
and kicks you in the gut like some new revelation.
turns out that divorcing "Economics" from "Political Economy" was a mistake.
treating the former as if it were a natural science, like Physics or Chemistry let alone Pure Mathematics is deleterious.
It ignores and neglects all the amorphous and ephemeral things that make this Life worth living .how can you quantify a sunset or a moonrise or the smell of your newborn's hair or a first kiss?
the Economists have taken reductive essentialism to absurd extremes .and somehow convinced a great many of us to go along to our ultimate destruction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHOhD0RT9NU

Marx called this sort of thing Reification .giving something a Quality it doesn't truly possess. Money as the Holy Cracker in the Temple of Moloch.
or, the morality of a Serpent: I shall Devour.(see: Joseph Campbell:"a serpent is a "motile alimentary canal")
we're expected to feed ourselves and our children into the flaming bronze maw of their idol( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch )
as if "The Economy" is some thunderstorm or Holy Mountain, instead of a Human Creation.
"There is no such thing as Society" .and "TINA" .and these moronic "protesters" holding signs that say "Arbiet macht frie" apparently unaware of the provenance of that phrase .after all , we stopped really teaching the Humanities like History quite a while ago.
we forget that "They" require our assent and consent to this "sacrifice"(L:"to make holy") that without that consent, they have nothing not even their precious wealth(which is what, these days? electrons moving in a database, somewhere?).

now, "They" have as much as admitted that things like the Stock Market are disconnected from Reality that the Casino doesn't need Main Street and Human Beings to function.
This, after decades of training us to believe just the opposite. Why else put a stock market ticker at the bottom of every cable news channel as if all that mattered to us'n's?
One of my favorite words is Eudaimonia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia ) but you only learn about that from the Humanities.
another of my favorite words is Thaumazein "Wonder", or "Awe" also from ancient Greek Philosophy
we've allowed the most withered souls to define the Good for us
Now, when all their works lie in ruins around us .and their narrow and anti-humanist, mechanistic absurdity and cruelty are on full display has there ever been a better time to turn away? To sit and think about what matters?
Withdraw your Consent.

" O happiness! O happiness! Wilt thou perhaps sing, O my soul? Thou liest in the grass. But this is the secret, solemn hour, when no shepherd playeth his pipe.
Take care! Hot noontide sleepeth on the fields. Do not sing! Hush! The world is perfect.
Do not sing, thou prairie-bird, my soul! Do not even whisper! Lo- hush! The old noontide sleepeth, it moveth its mouth: doth it not just now drink a drop of happiness --
-- An old brown drop of golden happiness, golden wine? Something whisketh over it, its happiness laugheth. Thus -- laugheth a God. Hush! --
-- 'For happiness, how little sufficeth for happiness!' Thus spake I once and thought myself wise. But it was a blasphemy: that have I now learned. Wise fools speak better.
The least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a whisk, an eye-glance -- little maketh up the best happiness. Hush!
-- What hath befallen me: Hark! Hath time flown away? Do I not fall? Have I not fallen -- hark! into the well of eternity?
-- What happeneth to me? Hush! It stingeth me -- alas -- to the heart? To the heart! Oh, break up, break up, my heart, after such happiness, after such a sting!
-- What? Hath not the world just now become perfect? Round and ripe? Oh, for the golden round ring -- whither doth it fly? Let me run after it! Quick!"
( http://4umi.com/nietzsche/zarathustra/70 )

Bsoder , May 15, 2020 at 9:43 am

Good day it you sir, you are in rare and most excellent form, Amfortas. Amen.

McKillop , May 15, 2020 at 3:00 pm

Hey Amphortas the Hippie!
I enjoy reading your comments and the slices of your life served up to us – you are an interesting guy and a good antidote to me whenever I am disheartened by the stuff I am bombarded with by the exceptional Americans foisted upon the world as typical.
Who would believe that I read Thus spake Zarathustra 'cause of your comments? I sent the link on to my son who is 16 and has been physically separated from us for months caught in this vortex. We'll see how it is taken compared to Mnm.
Thanks

Amfortas the hippie , May 15, 2020 at 3:21 pm

Aww. Thanks, dude/dudette.
zarathustra is very accessible.
i've noticed that lots of people(like my wife) have been taught somehow that they can't read stuff like that, so don't even try.
just another crime against us all.
aristotle can be pretty dense as can a lot of the more familiar philosophers(hegel=ugh–) but Nietszche is pretty easy to get into, due to his style .although some translations are better than others(I like the translation linked above for Zarathustra the KJV Tone works for me.)
One shouldn't be intimidated by Marcus Aurelius, Herodotus or Boethius, either.

rob , May 15, 2020 at 7:42 am

Isn't it ironic, that ruskin was able to see our issues and spoke to people with such force as to effect our lives and in a sense is partly responsible for the world we have today.
When he spoke at oxford in 1870 cecil rhodes was so impressed he supposedly carried a copy of it with him in the future.
The ideas expressed by ruskin convinced rhodes that he needed to save "good english society" from "the masses"(the poor english and all the rest of the savages who wouldn't understand how to be proper."
Rhodes and his cohorts,in the british upper crust and media establishment created "the british rountable" in 1891. These roundtablers did lots of things..Both through official channels and by ways of running the largest newspapers who really perfected propaganda, decades before goebbels. Eventually they formed in 1919, "the royal institute of international relations" in britian. and "the council on foreign relations" in new york"
Generations of these members have really "made" the world that exists today. Which is why the "conspiracy theories" exist . when people look at the lists of who
Personally, I think there ought to be study in the relationships these people had with each other and with history. As with any family, they may be related, but not always on the same page but still have the power of the family name and the prestige.
The council on foreign relations is the wellspring of "neoliberalism" neo consevatism too , for that matter. Their place in history is central. This is the axis of the "anglo-american establishment"

rob , May 15, 2020 at 9:02 am

oops, that is "royal institute of international affairs" or as people refer to it "chatham house"

Off The Street , May 15, 2020 at 9:21 am

Upon first reading the headline about America's Chilling Experiment in Human Sacrifice , I wondered: Which one?

Now back to Ruskin.

shinola , May 15, 2020 at 10:02 am

Dan Patrick's attitude is a prime example of a principle that regular NC readers may have seen a time or two:

Because Markets / Go Die

anon2 , May 15, 2020 at 11:26 am

Hence the folly of an economy based on debt rather than equity: it must continue to run or risk cascading defaults.

Then why do we have government privileges for private debt creation in the first place? Because subtle theft is easier and more "efficient" than honest sharing?

Alex Cox , May 15, 2020 at 12:15 pm

Perhaps science is the religion of the PMC. An unquestioning belief in anything scientists/big pharma/tech wizzards throw on the table, whether it's GMOs, vaccines containing mercury, thalidomide, social media, driverless cars or trips to Mars.

JBird4049 , May 15, 2020 at 2:14 pm

I use to go to Nevada regularly and mostly via the Donner Pass. Just a roundabout way of suggesting that some might consider the Donner Party as the right way to have a society. They almost made it over the pass, missing it by a couple of days, despite taking a shortcut that was actually a longcut using bad information from a book, IIRC. They were told repeatedly by those who had gone West before not to do so, but

They remind me of today's times.

Dwight , May 15, 2020 at 2:32 pm

In Nashville, TN last month, a masked protester at the state capitol carried a sign "Sacrifice the Weak." I was shocked when a local news show reported on protesters and filmed this sign along with other signs and protesters, and the reporter did not comment on this horrible, Nazi-like statement.

p fitzsimon , May 15, 2020 at 4:32 pm

Have there been any prominent religious leaders who have given counsel on the sacrificial nature of a return to work to save the economy. At what point is the risk to human life and health compensated by an economic return?

Hepativore , May 15, 2020 at 11:00 pm

Come to think of it, does it not seem odd that with many prominent religious figures, none of them seem to be willing to speak up on how greed is destroying the world and all of the wealthy owners of capital that are its promoters? Greed is a major sin in almost every religion, yet you hardly ever see any religious clergy give sermons on how widespread and dangerous greed is or publicly admonish Wall Street if they hold themselves up to be the moral leaders of society.

Henry Moon Pie , May 15, 2020 at 7:20 pm

The great way is low and plain,
but people like shortcuts over the mountains.

From Ursula K. Le Guin's translation of the Tao te Ching #53

It's an old problem.

Chris , May 15, 2020 at 10:01 pm

The fundamental problem we have with all the "very smart people" who think economics is a science is that I can't write an equation that will convince these masters of the universe that they shouldn't be @$$holes.

I can't tell anyone that even if it doesn't profit you there's a reason to choose to help your fellow humans.

I also can't define a relationship that explains why even if you can figure out how to stay within the letter of the law and exploit a loop hole to make more money but only in way that hurts other people, you shouldn't do it. Or why you shouldn't write a law or lobby for a law that exists only so it can be abused.

These guys will never accept the concept of illth because it challenges their concept of wealth. And so it goes

eg , May 16, 2020 at 4:59 am

One of the best educated persons I know shared this with me: the most valuable thing is a hierarchy of values.

rob , May 16, 2020 at 8:15 am

I thought it was a trust fund in a tax haven.
Silly me.

DHG , May 16, 2020 at 4:25 pm

I dont gamble with my life. The shrewd will take the necessary precautions and keep themselves concealed as much as possible. The stupid will not take these precautions, likely get sick and some will perish .

Karen , May 16, 2020 at 5:46 pm

It amazes me that protesters and policymakers are still treating this as an impossible tradeoff -- a false dichotomy -- between life and money, when it's clear that success lies with practical solutions, of which there are many, to achieve both. Starting with masks!

I love the idea of billionaires leading the way, demonstrating the efficacy of their reopening plans through personal example.

[May 16, 2020] In the "brutal economics" of capitalism, the lives lost to the COVID-19 pandemic are simply the cost of doing business. While trillions of dollars have been spent propping up financial markets, no serious efforts have been made to contain the pandemic

May 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , May 16 2020 15:31 utc | 104

An excellent article on the WSWS:
"...In the "brutal economics" of capitalism, the lives lost to the COVID-19 pandemic are simply the cost of doing business. While trillions of dollars have been spent propping up financial markets, no serious efforts have been made to contain the pandemic, and whatever mitigation measures have been put in place, including the closure of businesses, are being rapidly abandoned.

"The efforts by the ruling class to counterpose workers' lives to livelihoods is an entirely false choice. Both can be defended with the necessary allocation of social resources to stop and eradicate COVID-19 and all other communicable diseases. Non-essential workplaces must remain closed for as long as it takes for these measures to be put in place.

"But containing the pandemic requires an investment in social infrastructure that the capitalist class is not willing to make. The COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the utter incompatibility of the capitalist system with the preservation of the most basic social right: the right to life."
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/16/pers-m16.html


"I also don't know why you would quote a Wapo article, uncritically, in response to fairleft. Why would I care what they say about anything? They represent power. I consider them no more reliable on pharma imperialism as they are on military imperialism."
oglalla@102
You answer the question yourself. Nobody is suggesting that anyone read the Washington Post uncritically. I am surprised that you should accuse b of having done so. The evidence is that he has read the Post critically-as we all have to do in a culture in which the major source of news, for everyone, is a media compromised enormously by its allegiances, particularly its allegiance to capitalism.
Read the Wapo critically and you will be left with a residue of information which can be cross checked by various means, once you have done that you can evaluate the importance of its conclusions. It is what we all have to do.

[May 16, 2020] "Three of the largest for-profit nursing home operators in Ontario, which have had disproportionately high numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths, have together paid out more than $1.5 billion in dividends to shareholders over the last decade, the Star has found.

May 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , May 16 2020 13:39 utc | 87

Maybe this story from the Toronto Star will help explain why so many people are dying:

"Three of the largest for-profit nursing home operators in Ontario, which have had disproportionately high numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths, have together paid out more than $1.5 billion in dividends to shareholders over the last decade, the Star has found.

"This massive sum does not include $138 million paid in executive compensation and $20 million in stock buybacks (a technique that can boost share prices), according to the financial reports of the province's three biggest publicly traded long-term-care home companies, Extendicare, Sienna Senior Living and Chartwell Retirement Residences.

"That's a total of more than $1.7 billion taken out of their businesses."

Beneath all the uninformed, pretentious anecdote swapping about stats and panaceas, the drivelling over whether or not there is a pandemic or whether Bill Gates, Soros or the KKK planned and executed it on behalf of haute finance, something very simple is taking place.
Capitalism, which devours people and turns lives into capital, having made a pandemic disease of the sort now surrounding us inevitable, is protecting itself. Its major fear is that if there are too many victims-cf The Black Death- the price of labour may rise to the extent that it impinges on the rate of profit. It dare not consider the possibility that the working class will organise itself to put an end to the system, as an alternative to doing what men have done throughout the history of epidemics- blaming everything on an angry deity or an elite such as the Illuminati, the Council for Foreign Affairs or bloggers corrupted by money.

[May 13, 2020] What The Pandemic Revealed A Morally Bankrupt [Neoliberal] Culture by Charles Hugh Smith

Notable quotes:
"... What was "normal" for the past two decades was to turn a blind eye to the moral and financial bankruptcy of the American culture, the rot at the heart of its social, political and economic orders. The pandemic has shredded the putrid facade and revealed the rot, much to the dismay of the multitude of minions tasked with sanitizing the rot behind narratives promoting the normalization of predation, fraud and exploitation. ..."
"... As for winner takes all , this legalized looting is presented as a form of economic Darwinism that is nothing but the healthy manifestation of a free market. This is the Devil's handiwork, of course, presenting legalized looting that only benefits the few as the inevitable result of open markets. ..."
"... The greater the outrage of the technocrats and monopolists at being called what they are--evil--the greater the confirmation that the accusation is spot-on. The predators, looters and exploiters must strip away any moral assessment of their actions, as even the smallest shred of moral or karmic justice threatens their empires. And so economics has been reduced to bloodless quantifications of profits, costs and sales and obfuscatory mathematics designed to drain the risk of moral consequences from the parasitic pillage. ..."
May 13, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Monopolies, quasi-monopolies and cartels are inherently exploitive and thus evil.

What was "normal" for the past two decades was to turn a blind eye to the moral and financial bankruptcy of the American culture, the rot at the heart of its social, political and economic orders. The pandemic has shredded the putrid facade and revealed the rot, much to the dismay of the multitude of minions tasked with sanitizing the rot behind narratives promoting the normalization of predation, fraud and exploitation.

What's been absolutely verboten is to call legalized pillage and predation what they really are: evil. We've normalized exploitation and predation by the usual means: denial, legal justifications, making excuses for the predators and the system that defends predation, and by erasing the memory of a time when moral bankruptcy, predation and institutionalized fraud were not yet normalized.

People have always been self-absorbed and greedy, so goes the excuse; or, greed is good because that's the magic of the invisible hand at work.

By stripping fraud and predation of moral consequence, we've covered the putrid rot with a thoroughly modern amorality which we can summarize as anything goes and winner takes all. Monopoly, quasi-monopoly and cartels (i.e. Warren Buffett's entire portfolio) are presented as the natural order of things rather than an evil construct of predation and exploitation that benefits the few at the expense of the many.

Nothing outrages the apologists and the lackeys enriching themselves in the dens of thieves more than accusations of evil, or indeed, anything smacking of moral standards or judgments. Anything goes not just for individual choices, but for capital's choices as well, and so it's simply not PC to question the morality of capital's predations.

As for winner takes all , this legalized looting is presented as a form of economic Darwinism that is nothing but the healthy manifestation of a free market. This is the Devil's handiwork, of course, presenting legalized looting that only benefits the few as the inevitable result of open markets.

The greater the outrage of the technocrats and monopolists at being called what they are--evil--the greater the confirmation that the accusation is spot-on. The predators, looters and exploiters must strip away any moral assessment of their actions, as even the smallest shred of moral or karmic justice threatens their empires. And so economics has been reduced to bloodless quantifications of profits, costs and sales and obfuscatory mathematics designed to drain the risk of moral consequences from the parasitic pillage.

... ... ...

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[May 11, 2020] COVID-Contagion by Patrick Armstrong

May 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden Sun, 05/10/2020 - 22:00 Authored by Patrick Armstrong via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Washington deflects its failure by blaming China. But here too it's lost its competence: here's U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo asserting at the same time that it's manmade and that it isn't :

POMPEO: Look, the best experts so far seem to think it was manmade. I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point.

RADDATZ: Your -- your Office of the DNI says the consensus, the scientific consensus was not manmade or genetically modified.

POMPEO: That's right. I -- I -- I agree with that. Yes. I've -- I've seen their analysis. I've seen the summary that you saw that was released publicly. I have no reason to doubt that that is accurate at this point.

To say nothing of Fauci's money in the Wuhan lab . China may not even be the point of origin: France has just discovered a case from December and there may be a U.S. case from November . The breathlessly reported Five-Eyes assessment blaming China is fast collapsing: " mostly based on news reports and contained no material from intelligence gathering " says one of the Eyes. Washington may lash its minions into a coffle, but the rest of the world will scorn it as a pitiful attempt to distract. There will be increased rejection of the West's assumption of competence and veracity. And, in the West itself, more will doubt the words of "experts" (especially those from Imperial College and its professors ), "authorities and "trusted media sources".

Most of the West is still shut down but China is opening. Observers know that China is becoming the world's top economy – the World Bank had already given it that title in PPP terms in 2013 – and COVID-19 is sure to accelerate the process by giving it a head start out of the economic slowdown. With cheap energy too .

" Soft power " is a useful term that describes the appeal of a given culture to others. For many years this was a potent arrow in the America quiver – I often think of the character played by Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday as the exemplar: open, honest, honourable and modern, but content to be an example and never to take advantage of her. Propaganda, to be sure, but effective propaganda. COVID-19 shows something else: in the simplest terms China has given assistance to many countries and the " U.S. accused of 'modern piracy' after diversion of masks meant for Europe ". Piffle like "T he United States and President Trump are leading the global effort to combat this pandemic " or " America remains the world's leading light of humanitarian goodness " just make it more obvious. From the EU we get word salads: reaffirms/recognises/supports/recalls . And only three months ago the " West is winning ". It has be-clowned itself.

Of the downstream effects of the COVID-19 black swan, we can see at least three:

  1. great and possibly fatal damage to the assumption of American and Western competence;
  2. a widening of the economic gap with China;
  3. a further change in the world soft power balance.

The "blame China" diversion (not forgetting the rest of the current Enemy Package – Russia and Iran ) is childish and will earn disgust.

None of these changes is to the benefit of the Imperium Americanum.

[May 11, 2020] Neoliberalism Is Over. Welcome to the Era of Neo-Illiberalism!

May 11, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Neoliberalism Is Over. Welcome to the Era of Neo-Illiberalism! Posted on May 10, 2020 by Lambert Strether Lambert here: This is an interesting, broad-gauge piece. I don't know about "Neo-Illiberalism" as a neologism; it's not euphonious. Just spitballing here, but perhaps "geo-fascism" or "globo-fascism" might do better. Perhaps debt + the platforms (both global, by the way) provide a functional replacement for the beatdowns of the " mass-based party of committed nationalist militants ." Scholars and students of fascism please comment!

By Reijer Hendrikse, a postdoctoral researcher based at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. Originally published at Open Democracy .

Crisis Redux

As the coronavirus and its political combatants hold the world hostage, it is pertinent to scrutinize the (geo) political and economic context within which the pandemic has emerged. Many analyses view neoliberalism as the culprit, having given rise to a dismantling and marketization of public services such as healthcare for which we are now paying the price. The virus confirms the bankruptcy of neoliberal capitalism, based upon global production networks of western corporations and Chinese factories, allowing the virus to spread across the globe. Alas, neoliberalism is in trouble once again, perhaps terminally ill.

That said, the death of neoliberalism has been pronounced before, not least in the wake of the 2007-08 financial crisis, from which it however quickly resurfaced stronger than before. Moreover, western neoliberalism has witnessed a significant mutation over the last years, not least to better accommodate the changing logics of global capitalism.

The coronavirus offers an opening to change the world for the better, not least by undoing decades of neoliberalization to give vital professions in health care and education the appreciation they deserve. Unfortunately, as detailed in Naomi Klein's ' The Shock Doctrine ', crises also offer ample opportunity for the established order to realize ambitions which are inconceivable in normal times. The global political economy before the outbreak of corona was defined by the rise of a global billionaire class, tech platforms, and illiberal(izing) nationalist politics, having jointly propelled a novel wave of (geo) political-economic restructuring which I have called neo-illiberalism . What will be the effects of coronavirus on this new status quo?

The New Normal

Alongside the 2008 financial crisis, the votes for Brexit and Trump have often been described as ruptures to the neoliberal status quo. But as in the wake of 2008, the aftermath of 2016 also brought about more of the same: more tax cuts for corporations and the rich, more environmental and financial deregulation, more cuts in public services i.e. more policies of neoliberal signature. That said, the politics peddling the same neoliberal policies has substantially changed. Where preceding waves of neoliberalization have been variably executed by centrist parties, seeing the center right commit itself to progressive politics in exchange for center-left support for economic neoliberalization, since 2016 a new alliance has emerged between center and far right, seeing the latter mainstream as center-right parties such as the US Republicans and UK Conservatives have steadily radicalized themselves, thereby forsaking their erstwhile commitment to what Tariq Ali has called 'the extreme center' . Notwithstanding the fact that center-right parties co-produced the neoliberal world order, they have since come to reinvent themselves as nationalist challengers to the 'globalist' status quo, which they habitually present as leftist.

Where preceding waves of neoliberalization resulted in the limitation of democratic control over economic policymaking, the present nationalist wave captained by Donald Trump and his copycats is defined by efforts of political illiberalization , brazenly seeking to undo the institutional setup of liberal-democratic checks and balances, seeing legislative and judicial branches of government subjected to a power-hungry executive. Wider societal counter-powers are also under attack, from academia and media to NGOs, along with attacks on a range of constitutional basic and/or fundamental rights constraining the illiberal exercise of absolute power. While this development heralds the end of progressive neoliberalism , political illiberalization ultimately still protects the encasement of global capitalism , the core aim of the neoliberal project.

The rise of neo-illiberalism might be compared to a virus, whereby western liberal democracies increasingly come to resemble illiberal democracies and (competitive) authoritarian regimes elsewhere. Where illiberalizing regimes in Hungary and Poland are infecting the neoliberal European Union (EU) as a whole, not least because of center-right political cover offered by the European Peoples Party (EPP), neo-illiberalism constitutes a fundamentally global phenomenon. For example, Brazil and India have recently embraced political illiberalization without rejecting neoliberal economics, whereas illiberal China and Russia have equally tightened their authoritarian rule. Amongst others, what unites these and other regimes is the mobilization of divisive nationalisms, seeing variegated 'strongmen' adapt state constitutions to their will, typically bulldozering pluralist political space whilst shielding the respective neoliberal interfaces between national economy and global capitalism.

Global Capitalism

To grasp the rise of neo-illiberalism we need to go back to the turn of the millennium, a time in which the various developments culminating in the neo-illiberal synthesis were put in motion. Next to the terrorist attacks on US soil which ignited the gradual mainstreaming of far-right narratives , the year 2001 is characterized by the entry of illiberal China into the neoliberal World Trade Organization (WTO). Meeting in serene Doha following the riots of Seattle, China's WTO entrance heralded a larger geographical shift captured by the famous BRIC acronym (Brazil, Russia, India, China) coined that year by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill. O'Neill foresaw stronger economic growth in the non-west, and called upon western leaders to incorporate leading non-western states into key governance platforms, which was realized later that decade by elevating the Group of Twenty (G20) as the world's leading forum on global governance.

Alongside the search for new markets and cheap labor, the 2000s were characterized by the ascent of the financial offshore world – a legal realm comprised of tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions where corporations and the rich stash their cash and property – which became global capitalism's central operating system by the turn of the millennium. Since then, offshore money from Russia and elsewhere flooded into cities like London, igniting a spending spree on real estate, football clubs, media conglomerates, and political influence. Amongst others things, the offshore world enabled spectacular corporate fraud, such as that which led to the collapse of US energy giant Enron, whose accounting gimmicks were copy-pasted by western banks, setting the stage for the financial crisis later that decade.

The final key development traced back to the turn of the millennium is the birth of digital platforms. Invented by Google as what Susanna Zuboff calls 'an automated architecture functioning as a one-way mirror', surveillance capitalism has since grown into a worldwide machine dedicated to behavioral observation, manipulation and modification, steadily enmeshing itself with the core logics of capital accumulation. Crucially, digitization accelerated the aforementioned trends: not only has digitization fueled global capital flight into offshore anonymity, it also augmented the mainstreaming of far-right narratives via YouTube and Facebook algorithms. Much like the invisible offshore world, the rise of surveillance capitalism largely went unnoticed, assisted by anti-terrorism legislation like the 2001 Patriot Act enabling far-reaching surveillance.

Growing up under the radar of the war on terror and financial turmoil, the first decade of the twenty-first century saw the birth of a fundamentally global, offshore, digitized and financialized hyper capitalism. Descriptions like shadow banks, phantom investments and dark money do not do justice to their role as fundamental building blocks of the new world. Amongst others factors, the offshore world was the ground zero of the financial crisis, where banks kept their toxic investments. This new world is the 'home' of trillion-dollar tech companies, who with other (shell) companies form an integrated web of corporate structures whose chief ultimate owners constitute a global billionaire class of approximately two thousand individuals and families. As such, this is also the world where neoliberal technocracy is increasingly fused with oligarchy. Due to the spectacular growth of income and wealth inequality worldwide, oligarchic enmeshment of the superrich and state power does not only define elites in Russia or the Gulf, but increasingly defines western states such as the US, where multibillionaire activists like the Koch brothers have effectively taken over the Republican Party.

Next to the economic recovery, the 2010s were defined by the increasing coalescence of financial and technology sectors. Within a development model labeled The Wall Street Consensus by political economist Daniela Gabor, an adaption of the neoliberal Washington Consensus within the framework of the G20, banks and financial institutions worldwide have come to embrace financial technology (fintech), driven by an insatiable hunger for personal data as raw materials for financialized surveillance capitalism. Crucially, where Silicon Valley long enjoyed a global tech monopoly, the 2010s saw the arrival of Chinese bigtech vying for global dominance. The western financial lobby has voiced its fears of Chinese platforms like Alibaba and Tencent, which they describe as all American bigtechs 'rolled into one' operating under tight control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). These fears are not unfounded: where Facebook encountered many difficulties in building a global cryptocurrency, the Chinese central bank has developed its own alternative, and the CCP has recently ordered China's banks and tech platforms to adopt it. In the words of Mark Zuckerberg: the American state has to play a more active role 'otherwise our financial leadership is not guaranteed'.

Whilst the rest of the world has steadily bought into Chinese technology, the other BRICs have embraced (parts of) China's digital strategy. For example, where a small minority of India's 1.4 billion population had a bank account in 2014, this number has since risen beyond a billion. That said, these bank accounts are coupled to biometric personal data, and critics identify this policy as part of Narenda Modi's political agenda to transform India into a Hindu nationalist surveillance state. Taken together, around the time the coronavirus made the first news headlines, the New York Times identified three competing visions on the future of surveillance capitalism: where the Chinese are 'moving fast and breaking things' without any regard for privacy and citizen rights, and the EU tries to make a moral point around privacy and consent, with the US caught in the middle.

Nationalist Leninism

Although 'moving fast and breaking things' is a good description for Xi Jinping's China, it should be remembered that this philosophy has long guided Silicon Valley, where asking for forgiveness trumps begging for permission. The disruption of established industries, practices and processes defines platforms like Uber, operating without any regard for the law or basic decency. With the rise of western neo-illiberalism, moreover, this philosophy has also entered into government. Brexit, for example, is best understood as a process of continuous disruption of established political practices and procedures, from shunning press conferences to unlawfully closing down parliament. As The Economist noted: 'The Tories' disruptive strategies would not be out of place in Silicon Valley'.

Where rampant digitization has disrupted a range of established industries since the turn of the millennium, and set its sights on incumbent finance in the wake of the financial crisis, the 2010s are marked by tech's infiltration of established politics. Where Facebook and Google place their own employees in US political campaigns ever since the rise of Barack Obama, an entire ecosystem of techno-metapolitical players has since grown up around these platforms: next to dedicated bots and troll farms there now exists a media network dedicated to mainstream far-right narratives, of which Breitbart News – financed by US billionaire Robert Mercer, captained by the identitarian demagogue Steve Bannon – is the most prominent. The adoption of far-right narratives by established media, whether global corporate players like NewsCorp or national public broadcasters, brought right-wing culture wars into the established arena of mass-mediated politics.

Other crucial players in this ecosystem are data analytics firms, like Cambridge Analytica (CA), again featuring Mercer and Bannon, as well as Palantir Technologies owned by US tech billionaire Peter Thiel. Where CA founder Alexander Nix was schooled at the elitist Eton College alongside David Cameron and Boris Johnson, Thiel not only enjoys the ear of Trump as advisor, but also those of Mark Zuckerberg as Facebook board member, where he kept the company from fact checking political advertisements. Where US journalist Jane Mayer speaks of 'the Fox News White House' to highlight the close relationship between Trump and the world's second most powerful media magnate, in the digital age the world's first Twitter presidency might equally be labeled the Facebook White House to emphasize the ways in which Trump has become a digitally mass-mediated virus enabled by the world's most powerful media magnate. As argued by Trump's digital campaign manager: 'without Facebook we wouldn't have won'.

The global rise of neo-illiberalism is covered with the fingerprints of tech firms: where WhatsApp-mediated memes helped Jair Bolsonaro assume power in Brazil, the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte was an early adopter of Facebook's political capabilities. Once in power, moreover, these 'strongmen' act like disruptive tech CEOs whilst demolishing liberal democracy, and embrace surveillance tools to anchor their rule: in India, for example, encrypted WhatsApp was recently found to be hacked, allowing Modi to track his political opponents. But although Israeli spyware and Russian hackers play an important role in the cross-border spread of neo-illiberal politics, to fully grasp the political possibilities of the digital age we need to redirect our gaze to Beijing , where digital technology is paramount in the exercise of social control.

In combining economic neoliberalization with illiberal political control since the late 1970s, the CCP has been one of the world's neo-illiberal vanguards. Experts describe the governing ideology of the CCP as a curious combination of nationalism and Leninism , following China's ideological rejection of both the French and Russian revolutions, which according to Wang Hui shaped up after the Cultural Revolution and was settled on Tiananmen Square. Crucially, the rejection of 'two major emancipation movements – socialism and liberalism' – is exactly what the western far right is after. In other words, what emerges under neo-illiberalism is a global ideological convergence. Just consider this: at the height of the so-called European 'refugee crisis' in 2015, which accelerated the mainstreaming of far-right narratives across the west, neo-illiberal China also saw the emergence of its own Alt-Right lingo for 'libtards' or 'regressive liberals', with derogatory terms like baizuo (白左) i.e. 'white left' popping up across the blogosphere.

Since 2016, this cocktail of nationalism and Leninism has put its mark on the west, with nationalist projects like America First! and Brexit being guided by self-proclaimed Leninists, like Bannon or Boris Johnson' advisor Dominic Cummings. Enabled by far-right culture wars informed by another communist – Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci – these disruptive Leninists have set their eyes on breaking down liberal democracy and the rule of law. To do so, they pretend to represent 'the will of the people', and relentlessly discredit the core infrastructure of liberal democracy, framing its key institutions as 'enemies of the people', 'saboteurs', and 'traitors'. In the words of Bannon , the identitarian toyboy of the billionaire class: 'Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that's my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today's establishment'.

Alibamazonia

Where economist Branko Milanovic foresees a global clash between two ideal type political operating systems in the twenty-first century – liberal capitalism captained by the US, versus political capitalism championed by China – in reality the two have already substantially converged. Reduced to its core, where China and the non-western world opened up economically in the image of the US and the west in the closing decades of the twentieth century, today you can tentatively argue that the US and the wider west are politically closing up in the image of China. The new synthesis is neo-illiberalism, which speaks to what Thomas Piketty views as 'merchant nativism' i.e. the marriage between neoliberalism and identitarian nationalism. Besides emphasizing a process of reglobalization rather than deglobalization, the rise of neo-illiberalism also suggests that the center of capitalist gravity has shifted: where parts of the traditional periphery have steadily assumed characteristics of traditional core countries, the west has witnessed a reverse process of what the late Immanuel Wallerstein calls semi-peripheralization. In the words of Martin Wolf : 'as western economies have become more Latin American in their distribution of incomes, their politics have also become more Latin American'.

Where historian Neill Ferguson once spoke of 'Chimerica' to emphasize the co-dependent relationship between the world's two superpowers, today we can identify the contours of what you might call 'Alibamazonia': a twenty-first century imperial federation of techno-nationalist states, i.e. a global alliance between nationalist 'strongmen' and digital platforms. The relationship is symbiotic, as the rollout of digital surveillance requires the rollback of liberal democracy by design, which in turn strengthens illiberal political rule. In the words of Susanna Zuboff: 'surveillance capitalism takes an even more expansive turn toward domination than its neoliberal source code would predict Though still sounding like Hayek, and even Smith, its antidemocratic collectivist ambitions reveal it as an insatiable child devouring its aging fathers'. Indeed, digitization and surveillance not only disrupt Smithian competitive markets, but also Lockean notions of private property, and ultimately threaten to undo all liberal guarantees of individual freedom.

Besides heralding a territorial shift from west to east, amongst others symbolized by the United Nations' (UN) recent contract with China's WeChat (Tencent) to streamline its digital communication, neo-illiberalism also heralds a fundamental reconstitution between national and global scales, respectively understood as public and private spaces, whereby decades of neoliberalization transformed the former in the image of the latter, whilst the latter has witnessed an extraterritorial shift into digital and offshore domains, giving rise to private capitalist power of vast proportions, eating away at national states and international state systems. This is the most banal explanation for the western rise of neo-illiberalism: where decades of neoliberalism effectively put up the west for sale, neo-illiberalism heralds the moment when neoliberalism's ultimate winners seek to buy up and privatize government itself: 'neoliberalism's final frontier' .

Pandemic

Although coronavirus might be the final death knell to neoliberalism, it should be remembered that neoliberalism is a highly mutable ideology – well equipped to utilize its own failure for its advancement. Put differently, if neoliberalism is dying, we are looking at a slow-motion demise: where some identified its imminent death after the dotcom crash at the turn of the millennium, neoliberalism certainly lost its self-explanatory aura after the financial crisis of 2008. Accordingly, although still carried forward by a centrist consensus, western neoliberalism became more authoritarian. And where 2016 saw the centrist consensus collapse, seeing neoliberalism's core economic project carried on by a decisive illiberal politics, the question is whether today's coronavirus will bring an end to the economic project. For example, the key pillars of that project, such as global capital mobility and central bank independence, are still standing. Furthermore, although non-neoliberal policies might well be enacted to stem the virus, like introducing capital controls, these might be temporary measures to save the project in the long run.

That said, if coronavirus proves to be the final death knell to neoliberalism, which even the Financial Times alludes to, it still might prove a blessing for core features of neo-illiberalism. For example, where the virus is regarded as an indictment of neoliberal globalization, it nonetheless fuels the rollback of liberal democracy and rollout of digital surveillance. Indeed, for the world's faux Leninists and tech billionaires the virus is the ultimate disruptive event to be exploited. Where the US Republicans have used the pandemic to legislate neoliberal tax breaks and deregulation, as part of a rescue package that trumps the 2008 financial bailout, we should not underestimate the extent to which Trump might exploit the pandemic for his own benefit, not least to escape the prospect of electoral loss and prosecution. Many 'strongmen' are embracing the virus to anchor their rule, not least Victor Orbán cynically exploiting the virus to accelerate Hungary's transformation from liberal democracy towards illiberal dictatorship, with the EU once again looking the other way, thereby confirming its own neo-illiberal corrosion.

Where many countries have yet to setup mass testing capabilities to track the virus and create viable paths out of societal lockdowns, a whole range of states have watered down privacy legislation to digitally track the virus, including left coalition governments like Spain. In this sense, the virus has led to a reboot of neoliberalism's famous TINA mantra – there is no alternative – because who cares about far-reaching surveillance when lives are at stake? As argued by Jamie Bartlett, 'the looming dystopia to fear is a shell democracy run by smart machines and a new elite of 'progressive' but authoritarian technocrats'.

Mimicking core features of China's fin-tech-state integration, Apple and Google have joined forces to allow governments to track the virus, whereas the US government has promised to rollout a digital dollar and wallet as part of its coronavirus rescue package. Indeed, the virus is a financial bonanza for tech companies, not least Thiel's Palantir having signed a contract with the British National Health Service (NHS) to optimize data management. In one of his first acts to tackle the virus, Dominic Cummings invited all bigtechs to Downing Street. As noted in Wired magazine: 'for Cummings it's big tech versus bad virus' . Palantir is currently in talks with governments across Europe.

Across the globe, the virus is spurring the development of digital apps, using locational data and facial recognition technologies to track population health and whereabouts. In India, Modi's henchmen are forcing citizens to take hourly selfies to track the virus through their whereabouts, and non-compliance will result in enforced mass quarantine, where catching the virus seems all but certain. In so doing, coronavirus threatens to deepen the ugly face of neo-illiberalism, defined by mass incarceration programs, from Uighurs in China's Xijiang to refugees indefinitely locked up along the Mediterranean and the US-Mexican border. And whilst the pandemic has yet to reach the world's favelas and slums, threatening the lives of the most vulnerable, lax responses to the virus in the developed world characterized by defunded health care systems are making neoliberalism's implicit social Darwinist inclinations shockingly explicit.

As the rise of neo-illiberalism signals profound geopolitical and economic shifts, the pandemic might well be utilized to rewire the world's legacy operating systems. Are we moving towards a financial reset, which was due in 2008 but was postponed via monetary gymnastics? Will China liquidate its massive holding of US treasuries? Will the world's superpowers ramp up the threat of war or will they compromise, or are we already looking at the contours of a new settlement? Furthermore, with the world economy falling off a cliff, and the worst still to come, many small-and-medium-sized enterprises are facing bankruptcy, whilst Amazon and a handful other bigtechs are massively expanding their businesses. What will the post-corona world look like? Will capitalism survive?

While we anticipate what might be coming, one of the biggest societal disruptions is the loss of conventional social exchange, of physical closeness and contact, as we are all locked up in our homes, forcing into digital interfaces, continuously leaking data into the expanding machine of surveillance capitalism. Although there momentarily is no alternative, we'd better make sure we seize the moment: the disruptive virus offers an incredible prospect for societal reprogramming, for better and for worse. Lest we forget that this crisis is not merely biological – it is deeply political.


PlutoniumKun , May 10, 2020 at 8:29 am

Meaty stuff to digest on a Sunday. But very interesting. As to the 'name', I would suggest crypto-neoliberalism.

One key take for me from the events of the last few months is that its increasingly clear that when centrist/neoliberals are forced to make a choice between the far nationalistic right and the populist left or Greens, they will pick the former every time. It's that simple.

I think its an interesting idea that political movements are being shaped by the techno-nationalism. Its certainly true that Tencent and Alibaba and Amazon and FB/Google have a lot in common, and will see their own futures as mutually enmeshed with nationalist right wing political movements. In China its very hard to see where Tencent ends and the CPP begins – if Biden wins I think we'll see a similar enmeshing accelerate in the US (Trump being too slow to realise that he needed those companies as his friends). In a smaller scale, the same thing is happening in countries like South Korea. Europe is at a crossroads, simply because it doesn't have those big data companies, so will face the prospect of keeping them at arms length, or becoming enmeshed in their tentacles, and so becoming a battleground for a sort of Huawai/Amazon battle.

I wonder if we are seeing a new schism developing between the large nations becoming variants of techno-nationalisms, with mid sized countries from South Korea to New Zealand to Norway to Canada and Chile, all trying to stay out of the fray, and perhaps co-operating in a sort of Hanseatic league of smaller States trying to maintain some degree of progressiveness.

JEHR , May 10, 2020 at 9:56 am

PK: your last sentence is very interesting. I see those countries you mentioned as not yet being "cryto-neoliberalist." I would like to think that they would co-operate in order "to maintain some degree of progressiveness." However, our (Canada's) proximity to the US makes it highly unlikely to last. Everything is so uncertain what with viruses running amok and climate change marching onward. Who knows what is next?

Susan the other , May 10, 2020 at 2:22 pm

There is an optimum size. It's not big and it's not small. It's somewhere in between. Gotta have something to do with the maximum maintainable human synergy – aka politics. Evolution seeks a central place to mutate, so for the sake of control, the wizards of our new crypto-neoliberalism might want to do a massive project to issue citizenship rights to the entire world. Digitally of course. For one thing, without individual human rights there can be no local or regional sovereignty. And there will never be a global sovereignty until human rights are guaranteed – traditionally by democracy but we have seen that it has it's limits. But because there is a watershed whereby politics (sovereignty) always follows money it would be smart to look to the actual source of "money" which is people. Whichever way they are grouped. A smart crypto neoliberal, smarter than Zuckerberg, would first shuffle the world's nations, then shuffle all their citizens, and then, blindfolded, reach into the mix and pull out a name. Repeat until all the names are revealed – and each one is randomly put in a group to be called their "peer group" or stg. like that. And all groups are organizations of global peers with equal rights. And while that is being chopped up, a global system of civil/environmental justice can be established gee this is sounding like a big project maybe we should just stick with nations and give the smaller ones handicaps. This is making me tired.

JBird4049 , May 10, 2020 at 10:35 pm

Open uncontrollable boarders are a neoliberal goal partly for labor arbitrage, but also to reduce the power, by reducing its existence, of a nation-state to interfere with the creation and domination of powerful international organizations like the IMF, or those agreements like NAFTA. A new kind of economic colonization as ultimately it is being done by non-nation-states. An economic Westphalia done in reverse.

Bsoder , May 10, 2020 at 2:03 pm

How about klepto-neoliberalism. In fact I think neoliberalism has accomplished about everything it can, so it's straight back to medieval times, with climate chaos leaving us as a failed world, thus we get the dark ages. Unless of course people/citizens decided to take action. As far as the post, ah, you just can't write like that. If he was a postdoc in my lab that never would have seen the light of day. I have no idea who the intended audience is, perhaps economists? The only thing missing was string theory. Historically, I do not believe that the history of neoliberalism rolled that way. It didn't get better bigger & stronger after 2008 not based on any risk analysis I've read – everything become deeply destabilizing. Look kids in this country before the pandemic didn't have enough food now many don't have any short of begging and handouts. The guy confuses nationalism vs. Nationalist because he's working his argument backward. Obtuse and sensational at the same time. While I'm at it, the only problem with democracy is there's not enough of it. Fascism? Where? China? The EU? Nah.

Susan the other , May 10, 2020 at 2:31 pm

Yes to all of the above.

Jeremy Grimm , May 10, 2020 at 4:15 pm

Besides possessing even amplifying all the off-putting qualities of the term 'Neoliberalism' -- its smeared meanings and usages, its inherent oxymoronity, its ill-coinage -- the term 'Neo-Illiberalism' is quite unnecessary given that Neoliberalism is anything but dead. I believe the aftermath of the pandemic shows most uncomfortable promise of a great new age of Neoliberalism. As currently configured the 'pandemic' policies in the US will result in obliterating small and medium business, in widespread mortgage foreclosures, in personal bankruptcies, in evictions and homelessness, and in a permanent loss of jobs with resulting high levels of unemployment. The ruins will be grabbed up and consolidated by the large Cartels, banks, and financial corporations.

The rest of this post interweaves dozens of themes and sub-themes without a coherence I can perceive. The "key development" "the birth of digital platforms" sounds cool -- but what is a digital platform when you strip away the 'cool'? It is marketing and media outlet. Are the "behavioral observation, manipulation and modification" really so novel or so much more effective? Is it more effective than the techniques of the Church practiced through early education and socially enforced worship? Does it really lead to more sales, or the formation of opinion any more effectively than radio or public speeches? Are the impacts of the 'digital platform' really as great and effective as Goggle and Facebook claim in their advertising sales literature?

Mass surveillance was well underway long before the pandemic. I don't believe the pandemic offers any better excuse for extending mass surveillance than the excuses already used. The Internet and our phone systems offer ample hidden means to extend mass surveillance that need no excuses since no one notices them. The post riffs on about "rampant digitization" and "data analytics firms" as if they were critical tools of Neoliberalism. We live under the watchful eyes of government panopticons, created to maintain control over the Populace. But these panopticons are neither necessary for spreading Neoliberalism nor inherently Neoliberal in their uses. The panopticons are enabled by digitization but they are hardly necessary to control a population. The Gestapo was adequately served by neighbors, even family members informing on each other.

Neoliberalism is alive and well and flourishing. Neoliberalism is an ideology created for the Big Money by a large well-funded thought collective. It is designed to include multiple layers and contradictions. The "key development" was not the development of digital platforms -- the "key development" was the sale of Government to Big Money. This purchase enabled the re-monopolization and consolidation of US Business, the Globalization of production, the complete enthrallment of Labor, purchase of Education, Science, and the Media -- including the Internet highways.

rkka , May 10, 2020 at 9:32 pm

" One key take for me from the events of the last few months is that its increasingly clear that when centrist/neoliberals are forced to make a choice between the far nationalistic right and the populist left or Greens, they will pick the former every time"

That has been true since 23 March 1933, when the German center decided it would rather back the most vile, violent, radical Right rather than compromise with a moderate democratic Left. That's the day that every single political party in Germany at the national level, except the Social Democrats and the (banned & illegal, and therefore absent from the vote) Communists decided it would be a good idea to give The Mustache the power to legislate by decree.

The Centrists backed Nixon, Reagan, & Shrub, the Trumps of their respective times, all manifestly unfit to govern.

And that's how we got where we are.

tracy , May 10, 2020 at 8:47 am

As far as the name goes, I've got to pipe up from the peanut gallery and say, 'neoliberalism' has never been a good handle. After these many years, the average person is not familiar with it. It implies 'some kind of liberal' and it implies 'no-harm-no-foul'. At this point progressives know it means Bad Stuff but nobody else does. We have gone from bad to worse by labeling 'centrism' as a bogeyman too, while most people find it a harmless descriptor of reasonable people whose views are neither leftist nor rightist. So it is no good as a better descriptor than 'neoliberal'.

The enemy, across the whole spectrum, is corruption. Call the DNC brand of it something which the average person/voter can grasp.

Daniel Raphael , May 10, 2020 at 9:39 am

'Illiberalism' is nothing new, but it is a useful term employed as it is here, in describing the drive toward globalized fascism. Fascism has been described as "the iron hoop that keeps the capitalist barrel from falling apart," and the steady steps of regimes to circumscribe resistance today, paves the road towards crushing opposition tomorrow.

Bsoder , May 10, 2020 at 2:11 pm

That may be one definition, but clearly it doesn't work that way as in operate and to implement. Hitler and Mussolini didn't have skin heads doing the heave lifting they had all unions buying into the master plan. And there was a master plan. Japan relied on a national code of conduct based on the Bushidō Way and a real hatred of the Chinese.

Clive , May 10, 2020 at 9:44 am

Yup, you can't really argue with the substance of this. But the usual Open Democracy blindspot is visible for all onlookers to see, even if the author is apparently oblivious to it (although given the fancy footwork they need to employ to avoid it, you have to wonder if they aren't all-too-well aware of it, but don't want to risk disclosure and the resultant amplification).

Which is: somehow or other (and I really aren't sure how the non-authoritarian left ended up being enmeshed and embroiled with the authoritarian left on this) the left as a whole has become synonymous with being some sort of Lockdown Taliban. Only the purest, hardline-ist, longest, unwavering-ist, toughest most lockdown-ey lockdown ev-ah is to be considered.

And it gets worse, folks. Having participated in the politicising of COVID-19 across national boundaries, demonising dissenting approaches such as Sweden's and turning the rag bag of current-knowledge and scientific theories into weaponisable collateral to be factionalised and then acquired by and deployed by the right and the left in an ideological turf war, the left has collectively painted itself into an ideological corner from which it has no path to walk back from.

Proffering a policy response that is little more than lockdowns as far as the eye can see is hardly likely to have voters flocking to political parties which have hitched themselves to this wagon.

Or, they can try to wriggle their way out of this "There Is No Alternative" humanity-under-house-arrest position without obviously surrendering to the opposing stand-off with humanity-as-a-lab-experiment contrarians.

More likely, though, is the left will get bogged down, as it is continuing to do, in a war of attrition. Yes, the Lockdown Fetish left can wave shrouds at the "gramps will just have to jolly well take his chances if we are to be free" right. Neither is any better than the other. Neither is going to make a breakthrough in popular opinion.

Honestly, I've been involved in the left side of politics for ages. Ending up, apparently in perpetuity, as having set itself up for this sort of can't-win self-imposed rigid positioning is as depressing as it is familiar.

Carolinian , May 10, 2020 at 10:45 am

Sounds like you are saying that the left has become intellectually stale and consumed with petty quarrels. Hard to disagree and I also think the obsession with, say, insisting that Sweden is wrong and that the lockdown consensus is right is an example of this. We are in a whole new situation with the novel coronavirus and therefore experimentation is necessary without reproach.

Left in Wisconsin , May 10, 2020 at 12:39 pm

Yup, it's just like the border conversation – no solution on offer, just critique with no dissent allowed. I keep thinking the cognitive dissonance will kick in at some point. But for now at least the "solution" is just to keep narrowing the scope of acceptable discourse.

What I find truly hilarious (and sad) is the faith in voting/democracy with the consternation about voters continuing to vote "incorrectly."

m sam , May 10, 2020 at 1:31 pm

Sorry to be the lone dissent on this, but the lockdown being turned into a "political weapon:" that is s curious way of looking at the situation. If it is a weapon, who is it being used against? (And by the left? Where is this left that is using the lockdown to attack its enemies?) I guess I don't understand that part of it and perhaps I am completely ignorant of the situation. But it seems to me the lockdown is more the result of public health decisions, not some attempt to weaponize the situation and get even with anyone's enemies.

I do think the pandemic response has been politicized though, but it seems to me politicization is being generated by those who encouraged fascist militias to carry assault rifles to lockdown protests at state houses, like in Wisconsin and Michigan. The politicization seems far stronger to me from people like Chris Christie, who want to force open the economy and claim everyone should just accept mass deaths (which will definitely include those we can consider our loved ones).

And maybe the pandemic response has also been politicized a little by some economists, who seem to think that because they know how to read a spreadsheet they can do this public health thing themselves far better than any old clutch of medical doctors.

Clive , May 10, 2020 at 2:44 pm

The left are using the COVID-19 to bash the right ("you want to end lockdowns and kill people!") and the right are using COVID-19 to bash the left ("you want to continue the lockdowns and kill people's livelihoods and freedoms so life isn't worth living!").

The public -- who are the voters, after all -- are merely caught in the crossfire.

In the absence of political credibility and media credibility, public opinion will simply bypass both estates and make their own minds up. This is a societal lose-lose-lose. Neither the left nor the right look like they are capable of leading opinion or providing good governance. The media goes through the motions of ridiculing either the left or the right but ends up merely looking ridiculous itself.

This is the stuff of failed states.

The ultimate loser in this scenario is always the left. While the right may be deranged, the left is not only deranged, it's deranged in a internal dissent-riven, factionalist and screeching banshee sort of a way. The right, which is merely deranged in an internally-consistent and unified way looks the least-worst by comparison.

m sam , May 10, 2020 at 3:15 pm

This sounds more like bothsiderism. Where is the left "using COVID-19 to bash the right?" Do you mean some Twitter thing? Because if it is, this is definitely a case of "the right are doing something bad so therefore the left must be doing something too," i.e. bothsiderism, which I would consider a mirage.

Like I mentioned above, the right is showcasing fascist militias in state houses, and their national politicians are calling for everyone to accept mass deaths so the economy can get back to growth. And what is the left doing, by your description it sounds like they are just getting behind the non-partisan public health response: the lockdown and social distancing. I mean, is there really more to it than that? I am trying to consider your argument carefully, but I'm not seeing the logic of it.

And besides, what do you mean, "the public" is caught in the crossfire? I would consider myself a leftist, am I not a member of "the public?" And as a member of the public I find the right is a palpable threat in this situation. A threat to me, my family, and my community. And as a member of the public I too find the lockdown hard, oppressive, and worrying, but not such a deadly threat. The lockdown is pretty much the only tool we have (and is not some scheme concocted by the left), and still simply do not see how this is some weapon being used to attack the right on any level that actually matters.

So the difference between the left/right "political responses" here: I don't think those things are equivalent. And whether "the left is the ultimate loser", you haven't made clear what they should be doing that they aren't already (should they have armed militias intimidating elected politicians and calling for mass death too?). You seemed to mention they should be "more open to options," but you didn't actually make a good case that they aren't (again, is this some twitter thing? Because that is just the kind of mirage this looks like). I have simply not hear any leftists do anything by accept policies put forward by medical specialists.

Clive , May 10, 2020 at 3:30 pm

Yes it is a Twitter thing. Or a comments section on websites thing . That's where politics happens these days.

Have a read of those or pick some random websites of your own choosing. Then come back and try to tell me the left isn't using COVID-19 to ding the right and vice versa.

And yes, it is bothsidesism. Because both sides are being as bad as the other.

Just because you don't like it (and I don't like it either) doesn't unfortunately mean it's not true.

m sam , May 10, 2020 at 5:44 pm

No, it is an illusion of centrism (and face it: the Twitters is very much a factory of illusions): following the advice of public health specialists simply isn't partisan "weaponization". In fact, I would say the politicking involved here, which includes insisting that listening to medical experts in equivalent to armed fascists marching through state houses, is particularly egregious. As if centrists agree with those fascists and "mass deaths" are called for at least that's the only conclusion I can come to after such "bothersider" mystification. And that is exactly what this is, mystification of what is really happening. And when that is the case, one can only ask who really wins here? I think you're right, it isn't "the left," and I would also say it isn't the public alt large either.

Waking Up , May 10, 2020 at 5:03 pm

As mentioned in the following article at Naked Capitalism:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/05/the-false-dawn-of-ending-coronavirus-lockdowns.html

The results of a survey of 23,000 people in 50 states and the District: 93% of Americans do not think the economy should reopen immediately.

Should we assume 93% of Americans are now considered "Left"? Regardless of how much some people want to yell at each other on Twitter or the internet in general, this really is about life and death. For some people, simply leaving their homes can be a death sentence. Maybe they don't feel suicidal, yet.

JBird4049 , May 10, 2020 at 10:47 pm

Ideology does not conform with sanity or common sense, but some people would have you to think different; facts also should agree with the approved ideology or else they are wrong. The authoritarians, left and right, have doing this for a few years now.

I bet some well paid consultants are figuring out how to label the 93% as liberal moochers or something.

Ultrapope , May 10, 2020 at 2:50 pm

And by the left? Where is this left that is using the lockdown to attack its enemies?

Yes, can someone please tell me what the hell constitutes the left? It is incredibly frusturating to read broad critiques of "the left" in a world when everyone from Nancy Pelosi to George Soros to Bernie Sanders to Tony Blair to Xi Jinping fall under the heading of "the left"

JB4049 , May 10, 2020 at 11:23 pm

That is deliberate. The American left is mainly the DSA, the Greens with some other bits. Bernie Sanders could be considered part of its rightwing. As the left was slowly destroyed starting with the American Communist Party, then rolling rightward, what was acceptably leftist or even liberal was gradually constricted. Now Senator Sanders is labeled a socialist, which is a lie, but he labeled as such to smear his proposals as communism.

Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and G. H W. Bush would all be, or at perceived to be, to moderate or even leftist . (Pardon me, I might be dying of laughter.)

In American politics, until a few years ago, there was no left since its remnants was crushed by President Clinton.

The Democratic Party is now at best center-right and getting more so. It is a conservative party much like the old Republic Party of the 1960s without a spine, more pro-war, more authoritarian and comfortable using and being part of the police state and much more corrupt.

The Republican Party is something new for the United States. It has a spine, it's fanatically pro- wealth, and insane. Otherwise, it is much like the Democratic Party.

The differences in social issues are like the shell of a hermit crab. As soon as the money is threatened they are discarded with the right soothing lies to quiet the true believers.

A similar, but I guess less violent, process happened in Europe.

Bsoder , May 10, 2020 at 2:22 pm

Clive, I beg to differ. Your own guy, at question time asked Borris "How on earth did we get here?" Well, how did we? The post explains nothing. Your comments are all outcomes / conclusions but not the mechanics of how it happened. I say with all due respect. Having two incompetents as leaders is a start but not by far the whole answer.

Clive , May 10, 2020 at 2:57 pm

Yes, if you can successfully pull off the line of attack you're suggesting the left tries to pull off against the right, then you're definitely on to something.

But if this approach doesn't work (and it isn't -- read it and weep ; I certainly do) how long do you want the left to keep going with it? Yes, sometimes persistence pays off and repetition eventually yields results. However, sometimes it doesn't and it is just flogging a dead horse.

How much longer should I give it? And if public perception is that your line of criticism is only another variation on coulda-woulda-shoulda and England Derangement Syndrome, when does what sounds like broken record'ing get to be simply annoying people rather than converting them?

Put as simply as I can, is it worth my asking if the left seriously wants to govern or does it just want to whinge?

pjay , May 10, 2020 at 9:58 am

An impressive description of world-historical developments. But there are some important, I would say crucial, elements missing in this account. Here are a few of them:

1. What alternative would the author advocate? Is it a return to the "extreme center"? Though the "center-left" is identified as "co-producers" of this world with the "center-right," it is the latter, along with the various international representatives of "Illiberalism" (China, Russia, Bolsonaro, etc.) that get almost all of the criticism. I gather that the author is not advocating socialism. So what is the preferred model? Or, worded differently, where is the *resistance* to this next stage of neoliberalism to come from? The Obama or Clinton wings of the Democratic party? The "adults" on the Council on Foreign Relations? A more authentic "mixed" economy or Social Democracy? I can't tell – which keeps me from knowing how to interpret this.

2. Along those lines, completely missing from the framing of this article is the degree to which the "illiberal" states of China, Russia, Iran, and others are attempting to *resist* being swallowed up by US-led neoliberal globalization, and that an important part of what is going on reflects this struggle between the old unipolar hegemon and the rest of the world. This article collapses important distinctions between the US/West and the non-West in their historical relation to neoliberal globalization. For most NC readers this is probably obvious in the case of Russia, at least. Whatever we think of Putin's "authoritarianism," it does *not* stand in the same relationship to global capitalism as that of Trump.

3. Similarly, while there is a lot here about the dangers of the Surveillance State (and rightly so), I don't see much about how this might relate to global geopolitical conflict and the military-industrial-intelligence complex. For example, I don't see anything about the US military bases that surround China, Russia, Iran, etc., the steady expansion of NATO after the fall of the Soviet Union, the role of US intelligence in the return of fascism to Brazil, the destruction of lesser states that had the audacity to resist being absorbed by Western Neoliberal advance (Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc.). Yeah, Steve Bannon is a right-wing s**t. But he didn't do any of this -- he is just the political beneficiary.

There are several other missing elements in this story, but I'd settle for a discussion of these.

Dwight , May 10, 2020 at 10:05 am

Thank you for an interesting read. Shoshana Zuboff's name is written "Suzanna" two times.

a different chris , May 10, 2020 at 10:11 am

The King is dead. Long live the King!

Ep3 , May 10, 2020 at 10:29 am

You seem to leave out how the virus will change "personal rights". Rights for businesses to disobey govt orders. In Michigan, it is rising to a collision between the right to disobey the law in the name of freedom versus govt acting to protect its citizens. So that what we will have at the end is businesses being able to operate outside the law while individuals will have their rights stripped.
One example, which has been fought repeatedly in the past, is the right for businesses to serve who they want. Michigan businesses are saying they don't have to follow rules put in place due to COVID. Then, citizens are saying they don't have to follow those rules if they don't want to. So businesses don't have to serve minorities if they don't want to. Doctors don't have to care for/accept patients that may not be able to afford a premium price & premium services. Where will it stop?

JEHR , May 10, 2020 at 11:14 am

During a pandemic the rules for staying alive and staying healthy are not put into law or made legal–that is the difference.

Bsoder , May 10, 2020 at 2:27 pm

They have been made legal alright. By decree and proclamation. End? People are angry and it goes way beyond Covid-19. It's never going to end.

stefan , May 10, 2020 at 10:35 am

The virus is a bright light is casting in bold relief the deficiencies of society: the replacement of minimum wage workers with prisoners, the loss of healthcare for the unemployed, the forfeiture of education to inadequate broadband, the replacement of humanism with AI but above all, the absence of true statesmen.

Rod , May 10, 2020 at 2:22 pm

but above all, the absence of true statesmen.

imo, there is no lack of solutions available, only your statement.

Bsoder , May 10, 2020 at 2:30 pm

Not without the will and consent of the governed. But I mean that in a positive way. Protect the people.

shinola , May 10, 2020 at 12:34 pm

The Koch bro's & their ilk fancy themselves as Libertarian which is, essentially, plutocratic social Darwinism. Ya know, that "Because markets / Go die" thing.

Now the the tech. billionaires present themselves as benign saviors of humanity. They propose that a Public Private Partnership for a total surveillance state is the way to go. (See 'The Intercept' article "New Screen Deal" in yesterday's Links – a must read). PPP's are an essential "feature" of fascism. It appears to me that this is the direction the US is headed.

(Neo-illiberalism is kinda awkward sounding)

Olivier , May 10, 2020 at 1:13 pm

I think much of this discussion will be upended by climate change and the ongoing collapse of our high-tech, high-manufacturing, high-consumption societies. The surveillance dystopia in particular, although looking fearsome at the moment, is especially fragile: in order for mass digital surveillance like that to be possible it is not enough for governments and a handful of corps to have big computers, rather the surveillance technology must be ubiquitous and woven into the fabric of everyone's life. That means, inter alia, cranking out hundreds of millions of smartphones, home appliances and sundry digital gadgets every year, distributing them, keeping them powered and networked etc etc. Will we retain that capacity? Highly doubtful IMO, although I won't attempt to predict a timeline.

Jonathan Holland Becnel , May 10, 2020 at 2:15 pm

Yay Private Companies ruling the world!!! Woohoooo

not.

Susan the other , May 10, 2020 at 2:45 pm

Sorry to rant, but this post lit my short fuse when it started talking, out of the blue, about national crypto currencies. That's a total oxymoron. All mixed up with offshoring and secret capital stashed away on Pirate Island – they tossed in almost a nonsequitir: national crypto currency. No. It is not crypto. It is digital. Digital currency and Crypto currency are light years apart. They have nothing in common. Except that certain people are interested in stripping democracy and nations of their sovereignty to control their money. With an article like this the death of sovereignty is sneaking in the back door. And money – its actual value – cannot be separated from sovereignty. Unless there is a greater sovereignty to include it. And that requires a lot of work because if it is not accomplished "neoliberalism" will eat up the planet, all its resources, starve anybody who gets in their way, and jet off to Mars.

And the red herring about financialized surveillance is crypto-speak. Taking away our privacy and human rights. Right. Well, the underlying reality which we might not notice, is our national democratic sovereignty. I am not happy with the casual insouciance of this post.

John Hemington , May 10, 2020 at 3:04 pm

I have to say that I was rather disappointed (though not totally surprised given the source) that the role of the Democratic Party establishment in supporting the move to neo-illiberalism via its dedication to its Wall Street and Big tech clients and total antipathy to any minor move to the left within the Party. This has served as an enabler to the Republican right in their move into Neo-fascism and away from any semblance of participative democracy in this country.

john halasz , May 10, 2020 at 4:35 pm

This screed is just a mess. Neo-liberalism has always been a thoroughly authoritarian doctrine; it's initial laboratory was Pinochet's Chile. And '"liberal democracy" has always been a contradiction in terms,- (what's the name of Japan's perennial ruling party?) Electoral systems, if that"s the minimal criterion of "democracy," have been increasingly hollowed out of what little popular efficacy they once had after 40 years of neo-liberal ascendancy. CF. Colin Crouch's "post-democracy" or Sheldon Wolin's "inverted totalitarianism". So the screed just combines nostalgia for nothing, for what never was, with sub-Foucaultian paranoia, in the name of the vanity of being an academic intellectual. There's no mention of the global debt load, 320% of global gdp, which had reached its limits even before Covid-19, and which will collapse in the aftermath of the Covid-19 induced depression. That would be the real start of any serious analysis, as the coming terrain of future contention, rather than imagining that the masters of the universe could continue their predatory reign in the absence of any sustainable basis for it.

VietnamVet , May 10, 2020 at 7:33 pm

This post suffers from both their and our cognitive dissonance and corporate propaganda. But this graph posted at Automatic Earth is clear:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXnFaoeXkAIN2oC?format=jpg&name=medium

The failed nations of USA, UK, Canada and Sweden haven't controlled the Wuhan coronavirus. They are identified in the center in red. These neo-liberal governments won't spend money to hire contact tracers, provide universal testing and quarantine the infected in safe secure facilities. Instead they've come up with herd immunity, freedom and other nonsense to gloss over the fact that the excess deaths are of absolutely no concern to the ruling aristocracy.

The cure is to restore democracy. Halt the pandemic. Rebuild sustainable societies, infrastructure and nations. This will be difficult unless the truth is recognized that the reigning elite's ideology of profit over anything else is destructive and quite deadly.

[May 11, 2020] Welcome to the Military-Industrial Pandemic

May 11, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Before coronavirus came to dominate the headlines, one of the most important stories of the year was the signing of an agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban. The deal signed in Doha on February 29 is a first step toward ending the U.S.'s longest war. After nearly two decades, thousands of lost lives on all sides, and an estimated $1.5 trillion, the Trump administration is finally acting on knowledge the U.S. government has long possessed: the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable.

The parallels between the war in Afghanistan and the Vietnam War are striking. In the Afghanistan Papers that were acquired by the Washington Post , the senselessness of the war is laid bare by U.S. government officials. The papers are reminiscent of the Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers and show that for years, the U.S. government has known that the war in Afghanistan is a costly and deadly exercise in futility. Afghanistan's terrain, tribal politics, and culture have long thwarted invaders. This is something that the British and the Soviets, to the delight of U.S. officials in 1979, learned the hard way.

Yet despite clear lessons from the past and what should have been some institutional memory, U.S. policymakers pursued financially and strategically ruinous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Estimated expenditures on these two wars and the larger open ended "war on terror" now exceed $6.5 trillion. Rather than having made the U.S. more secure, these wars, and the unchecked defense spending that they demand, make the U.S. more vulnerable to a host of internal and external threats.

America's interventionist policies abroad and the cancerous growth of defense budgets, the most recent of which is nearly $800 billion, compromise Washington's ability to grapple with threats like crumbling infrastructure, an educational system that fails to deliver, and true national preparedness for a crisis like the coronavirus. It is useful to think about what even a small portion of the $6.5 trillion spent on failed wars could have done had it been spent on infrastructure, world-class public education, accessible healthcare, and emergency preparedness. If it had been spent intelligently and strategically, it could have been transformative.

Instead, the U.S. public, as has so often been the case, continues to allow the military-industrial complex to exercise undue influence. The companies that make up the vast military-industrial complex in the U.S. spend millions lobbying Congress. These lobbying efforts probably have the highest return of any investment on the planet. In exchange for comparatively paltry campaign donations, members of Congress are persuaded to pass legislation that yields billions in revenue for these companies.

Those who stand up to the calls for increased defense spending are said to be "soft on defense" or even called "unpatriotic" by rival politicians and the platoon of retired colonels and generals who act as paid cheerleaders for defense contractors. In his 1961 Farewell Address, President Eisenhower presciently warned Americans about the power of the military-industrial complex. In the often-quoted speech, Eisenhower argued that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex." Eisenhower went on to say that a failure to guard against this influence could lead to a "disastrous rise of misplaced power" that could "endanger our liberties or democratic processes."

Americans have ignored Eisenhower's warning, and we are living with the consequences. The insidious influence of the military-industrial complex infects both Congress and much of the U.S. news media. Never was this more apparent than after September 11, when those who questioned the march to war in Afghanistan and Iraq were demeaned or silenced. Real debate about how to best respond to the threat posed by al-Qaeda and, more generally, militant Salafism was quashed. Instead, the U.S. pursued the most expensive and, as time would prove, counterproductive policies imaginable.

Nearly 20 years on, Afghanistan is slowly reverting to Taliban control. The invasion of Iraq spawned the Islamic State and turned the country into an Iranian satellite. Neither of these wars achieved their aims, but they did make hundreds of billions of dollars for defense contractors. Low-cost and effective ways to combat terrorism are rarely considered. Such methods do exist and often consist of little more than empowering local communities via very specific tailored development projects. But such methods do not require hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of drones and Predator-borne missiles. Thus, they receive little attention and even less funding.

Now, as the U.S. winds down its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the "war on terror" is passé. The new threats are the old threats: Russia and China. The pivot away from the war on terror to renewed preparations for combatting China and Russia will be even more profitable for the defense industry because this means increased funding for big-ticket legacy weapons systems. The defense budget just passed by Congress is one of the largest in the country's history and even funds the creation of a sixth military branch, the Space Force. The demands for ever more defense spending ignore the fact that the combined defense budgets of China and Russia equal a little more than a quarter of what the U.S. spends on defense. Nor is there much discussion of the fact that a war between great powers is as unlikely as it is unthinkable due to the threat of mutually assured nuclear annihilation.

In the same speech in which he warned Americans about the rise of the influence and power of the military-industrial complex, Eisenhower argued that the only real check on this would be "an alert and knowledgeable citizenry." One can only hope now that the U.S., and indeed the world, face the threat of a global pandemic, that Americans will begin to question soaring defense budgets and endless wars that contribute little to real security. Real security, as this pandemic will demonstrate, is dependent on internal resiliency. This kind of resiliency is built on sound infrastructure, accessible healthcare, a well-educated and healthy populace, localized supply chains, and responsive and responsible government. The coronavirus pandemic may finally force a rethink of how the U.S. government spends its citizens' money and how willing it is to continue funding and fighting counterproductive wars.

Michael Horton is a foreign policy analyst who has written for numerous publications, including The National Interest , West Point CTC Sentinel, The Economist , and the Christian Science Monitor .

[May 10, 2020] 'Murica From Overstretch To Collapse by Daniel Lazare

May 09, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Daniel Lazare via Off-Guardian.org,

In less than three decades, a mere blink of the eye in historical terms, the United States has gone from the world's sole superpower to a massive foundering wreck that is helpless before the coronavirus and intent on blaming the rest of the world for its own shortcomings. As the journalist Fintan O'Toole noted recently in the Irish Times:

"Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the U.S. until now: pity."

Quite right. But how and why did this pitiable condition come about? Is it all Donald Trump's fault as so many now assume? Or did the process begin earlier?

The answer for any serious student of imperial politics is the latter. Indeed, a fascinating email suggests that the tipping point occurred in early to mid-2014, long before Trump set foot in the Oval Office.

Sent from U.S. General Wesley Clark to Philip Breedlove, Clark's successor as NATO commander in Europe, the email is dated Apr. 12, 2014, and concerns events in the Ukraine that had recently begun spinning out of control. A few weeks earlier, the Obama administration had been on top of the world thanks to a nationalist insurrection in Kiev that had chased out a mildly pro-Russian president named Viktor Yanukovych. Champagne glasses were no doubt clinking in Washington now that the Ukraine was solidly in the western camp. But then everything went awry. First, Vladimir Putin seized control of the Crimean Peninsula, site of an all-important Russian naval base at Sevastopol. Then a pro-Russian insurgency took off in Donetsk and Luhansk, two Russian-speaking provinces in the Ukraine's far east. Suddenly, the country was coming apart at the seams, and the U.S. didn't know what to do.

It was at that moment that Clark dashed off his note. Already, he informed Breedlove, "Putin has read U.S. inaction in Georgia and Syria as U.S. 'weakness.'" But now, thanks to the alarming turn of events in the Ukraine, others were doing the same. As he put it:

"China is watching closely. China will have four aircraft carriers and airspace dominance in the Western Pacific, within 5 years, if current trends continue. And if we let Ukraine slide away, it definitely raises the risks of conflict in the Pacific. For, China will ask would the U.S. then assert itself for Japan, Korea, Taiwan the Philippines the South China Sea?

...[I]f Russia takes Ukraine, Belarus will join the Eurasian Union, and, presto, the Soviet Union (in another name) will be back...

...Neither the Baltics nor the Balkans will easily resist the political disruptions empowered by a resurgent Russia and what good is a NATO 'security guarantee' against internal subversion?

...And then the U.S. will find a much stronger Russia, a crumbling NATO and [a] major challenge in the Western Pacific. Far easier to [hold] the line now in Ukraine than elsewhere later" [emphasis in the original].

The email speaks volumes about the mentality of those in charge. Conceivably, the Obama administration still had time to turn things around – if, that is, it had shown a bit of flexibility, a willingness to compromise, and a willingness as well to stand up to the ultra-nationalists who had led the anti-Yanukovych upsurge and opposed anything smacking of an even-handed settlement.

But instead it did the opposite. Back in the 1960s, cold warriors had argued that if Vietnam "fell" to the Communists, then Thailand, Burma, and even India would follow suit. But the proposition that Clark now advanced was even more extreme, a super-Domino Theory holding that a minor ethnic uprising in a part of the world that few people in Washington could find on the map was intolerable because it could cause the entire international structure to unravel. NATO, U.S. control of the western Pacific, victory over the Soviets – all would be lost because a few thousand people insisted on speaking their native Russian.

Why such rigidity? The real problem was not so much a confrontation mindset as a phenomenon that the historian Paul Kennedy had identified in the late 1980s: "imperial overstretch." Like other empires before it, the U.S. had allowed itself to become so over-extended after twenty-five years of "unipolarity" that strategists had their hands full keeping an increasingly rickety structure together. Nerves were on edge, which is why an ethnic uprising that might have been accommodated at an earlier stage of U.S. imperial development was no longer tolerable. Because the rebels had run afoul of U.S. imperial priorities, they constituted a fundamental threat and therefore had to be bulldozed out of the way.

Except for one thing: the structure was so weak that each new bulldoze operation only made matters worse. Insurgents continued to hold their ground in Donetsk and Luhansk thanks to Russian backing while the government grew more and more corrupt and unstable back in Kiev. In the Middle East, the situation was so confused that U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar were channeling money and arms to ISIS as it rampaged through eastern Syria and northern Iraq and advanced on Baghdad. Thanks to the turmoil that U.S. policies were unleashing, millions of desperate refugees would soon make their way to Europe where they would spark a powerful nativist reaction that continues to this day. U.S. hegemony was turning into a nightmare.

It was no different in an America shaken by Wahhabist terrorism and dismayed by wars in the Middle East that went nowhere yet never seemed to end. Donald Trump rode a wave of discontent into the White House by promising to "drain the swamp" and bring the troops home. Conceivably, he could have done just that once he was in office – if, that is, he had been serious about downsizing U.S. imperialism and was capable of standing up to the CIA. But the "intelligence community" struck back by launching a classic destabilization campaign based on the theme of Russian collusion while Trump's foreign-policy ideas turned out be even more of a mess than Obama's.

So the collapse intensified, which is why America is now such a helpless giant. A crazy man is at the helm, yet the best Democrats can do is put up a candidate suffering from the early stages of senile dementia, who may be a rapist to boot. No one knows how things will play out from this point on.

But two things are clear. One is that the process d id not start under Trump, and the other is that it will undoubtedly continue regardless of who wins in November. Once collapse sets in, it's impossible to stop.

[May 10, 2020] Neoliberalims with probably survive COVI-19 with minor modifications

Highly recommended!
May 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

likbez , May 10 2020 3:51 utc | 50

@bevin | May 9 2020 21:17 utc | 28

>The capitalists have painted themselves into a corner. There is no way out from this crisis which does not
> involve the end of fifty years of neo-liberalism (and two centuries of the liberal Political Economy).

I thought the same in 2008. Did not happen.

> Neo-liberalism, allied to warmongering in the MIC and dominating the political process through its ownership
> of both its own party and the Opposition's, has so dominated US life that the kind of reforms that Keynes saw
> as necessary to preserve the system from itself are unthinkable.

That's true but neoliberalism evolved in different direction: Trumpism ("national neoliberalism") is essentially neoliberalism without neoliberal globalization. Domestically it looks more and more like a unique "Americanized" flavor of neofascism. The latter historically proved to be a resilient social system (Spain)

> The current policy of giving money in unlimited quantities to corporations, virtually without condition,
> and invoicing the working class by pledging future tax revenues to repay the cost of financing, is unsustainable.

OK. But what is the countervailing force ? There is none. By definition creating a viable political opposition in a national security state is impossible. Note that the USSR crumbled only when KGB changed sides. And that Nazi Germany did not crumbed until Soviets took Berlin, and, despite all the misery of the last year of war, there were fierce fight for Berlin (and heavy losses for Soviets)

> Neo-liberalism, the ideology of capitalist rule, has had its chance. The crisis that we are in
> is showing how useless it is, how dangerous a society devoted to the profit of a few, rather than the welfare
> of the many is. With every new twist and turn it demonstrates its inability to govern.

Neoliberalism will most probably survive COVID-19 epidemic like it survived the crisis of 2008. You can argue whether quarantine was necessary or not and about the level of incompetence of Trump administration, but you can't deny that the measures taken by the USA government somewhat softened the blow and the social system remains intact.

Again, there is no viable countervailing force to MIC and financial oligarchy, and the two party system is very resilient and essentially guarantee that the internal political situation will stay this way. Looks like only external shocks or disintegration of the country under the pressure from far right nationalists can crumble this system.

> What this adds up to- mass unemployment and increasing immiseration with no organised voice to represent tens
> of millions of desperate workers and their families is the likelihood of a series of explosions, riots,
> strikes, boycotts and direct actions.

In the USA the family of three can survive when each of the adults earn just $10 per hour (which means income around $40K a year). Real misery is reserved mostly to single mothers and unemployed. You can't compare the situation in the USA to the situation in "neoliberalized" xUSSR countries where it is really about physical survival and large percentage of population live of ~$2 a day. Do we see riots in those countries ?

> There is nobody to press reforms on the ruling class

Now you are on something.

[May 07, 2020] Michael Hudson's book killing the host is great in explaing that current economic situation in the USA

The key idea is the financial industry is by-and-large a parasitic industry.
May 07, 2020 | www.unz.com

Anon [417] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment May 6, 2020 at 11:15 am GMT

@Hibernian That is angument for bailing out just " the payment system/ real economy and per mark Blyth or John Kay( other people's money book) is like approximately 5% of the economy ,the test is just incredible leverage and fool Hardy financialization.

Watch one of John Kay's talks on YouTube or mark Blyth talk about 2008.

Glass- steagall was not the sole cause of 2008, but it does need to be reinstated. Also when the banks were recapitalized on the backs of savers, by cutting interest rates , to almost nothing, the rational response was to take your money out, they make loans of ten dollars on deposits of one dollar and barely even pay you for the privilege.

A jubilee is needed , during certain reigns in Egypt and china , Jubilee's / debt forgiveness would happen as frequently as every 18 months.

Kings basically used to make the agreement , I'll give you a monopoly on banking but in exchange don't think if the world's goes to hell , don't think you are getting 100 cents on the dollar. Not running my kingdom for you to be made whole. It's worse nowadays because they print the money put of thin air and expect to be repaid in full, austerity is a vicious cycle, every dollar that goes to debt is one less to spend on consumption , so demand has to go down, and it creates a vicious cycle.
Another thing china gets right is they owe money to themselves, not oligarchs like us, if they want to they just agree not to pay themselves back.

Michael Hudson's book killing the host is also great.

https://newworldeconomics.com/category/how-banks-work/

Anon [417] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment May 6, 2020 at 11:53 am GMT
That is an argument for bailing out just " the payment system/ real economy and per mark Blyth or John Kay( other people's money book) that is like approximately 5% of the economy ,the rest is just incredible leverage and fool hardy financialization. America has ones and zeros , and china has gold reserves , a better nuclear arsenal, competent leadership, more human capital, infrastructure, means of production, antibiotics, rare Earth's, is the greatest creditor nation I believe as opposed to the greatest debtor nation and approximately 82% of American weapon systems require at least one input from China.( Please don't argue America has competent leadership , because competent leadership would have never allowed it to get 10% this bad, the main argument against tariffs, is that they kick off a retaliatory cycle, except the U.S. didn't retaliate until extremely recently.

Those factories were built initially by Rockefellers , Sam Walton, Kissinger and other American oligarchs to get away from American labor, you reap what you sow, but globalists could care less.

You don't have to like China but please realize the extra Herculean task of trying to lift 1.4 billion people out of poverty, and realize it will necessitate some tough decisions, unlike America where the bottom 90-95% haven't gotten raises adjusted for inflation since 1983( the great decoupling)
And Americans love to cry about the Chinese not having political freedom, well when most dissent is disingenious like tienneman square which was the CIA ( google tienneman myth, the journalists admit it) and Hong Kong was the CIA and Soros ( you really think those people organically waved American flags, stupid?)
who is a front man for the CIA if you didn't know, the uyghurs are Muslims that the US has been cultivating since the 80s under Reagan and the national endowment for democracy( per William engdahl) who have been knighted to sabotage one belt one road because the US is mad at it's Navy getting end run arounded similar to how the British got mad at the Germans pre world war 1 for building a railroad to Baghdad, so they could get oil without dealing with the British Navy ( guess mackinder and Brzezinski aren't as smart as they think)
On top of that political freedom is somewhat of a dead weight loss, look at the division it's caused in the US, I'd rather have clean water.( 3800+ US areas have water at least 2x worse than Flint/ Google it)
We build more prisons, china just kills all the prisoners and people who love the killing of unborn children bemoan the killing of actual child molestors.

Also please be aware the one child policy was imposed on china by the Rockefellers just like they sterilized a third of Puerto Rican women by 1965 , by tying their tubes without consent and telling them it was reversible.

How many people even know how Britain got Hong kong,? They fought two wars over the right of court Jews( Sassoon) in Britain to flood china with opium, and when China lost not only did they have to give up Hong Kong, they had to allow opium to flood their country and had to pay for every dollar spent by both sides.( I'm pretty sure if I was Chinese, k would hate the west on that fact alone)

Watch one of John Kay's talks on YouTube or mark Blyth talk about 2008.

Glass- steagall was not the sole cause of 2008, but it does need to be reinstated. Also when the banks were recapitalized on the backs of savers, by cutting interest rates , to almost nothing, the rational response was to take your money out, but they make loans of ten dollars on deposits of one dollar and barely even pay you for the privilege.

A jubilee is needed , during certain reigns in Egypt and china , Jubilee's / debt forgiveness would happen as frequently as every 18 months on average.

Kings basically used to make the agreement , I'll give you a monopoly on banking but in exchange don't think if the world's goes to hell , don't think you are getting 100 cents on the dollar. Not ruining my kingdom for you to be made whole. It's worse nowadays because they print the money put of thin air and expect to be repaid in full, austerity is a vicious cycle, every dollar that goes to debt is one less to spend on consumption , so demand has to go down, and it creates a vicious cycle.
Another thing china gets right is they owe money to themselves, not oligarchs like us, if they want to they just agree not to pay themselves back.

Michael Hudson's book killing the host is also great.

https://newworldeconomics.com/category/how-banks-work/

Godfree Roberts , says: Show Comment May 6, 2020 at 11:54 am GMT

In France, a team of researchers has found the disease was already spreading there in late December, one month before the first official cases were confirmed. The revelation followed a study of 14 stored respiratory samples of patients who were admitted to intensive care units with influenza-like symptoms in December and January.

The researchers identified a 42-year-old patient, whose last overseas trip had been to Algeria in August, who developed symptoms after one of his children had a flu-like illness. The patient, who had pre-existing asthma and Type 2 diabetes, was admitted to the ICU for antibiotic therapy and discharged after two days.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3083081/britains-coronavirus-cases-came-mainly-europe-not-china

Wuhan detected it in late December, too. But was that the earliest French case, or will further testing–perhaps some postmortems–reveal earlier cases?

[May 07, 2020] America's Design Causes It To Fail The COVID-19 Challenge by Eric Zuesse

This is a weak article. Indignation as for excesses of neoliberal social system that exists in the USA is a good thing only if there is a plan to change the system. Eric Zuesse has none. Also for top 10% the US healthcare is very efficient; it is probably the best on the planet.
OK neoliberalism is bad. But what is the alternative? Return to the New Deal capitalism is impossible as management now is allied with the capital owners and that destroyed fragile coalition of trade unions and apart of professional management that existed during the new deal as a countervailing force for political power of the capital. Such coalition could exist if financial oligarchy is suppressed and if taxes of millionaires income (especially income from stocks) were around 80%. As soon as JFK lowered the taxed that was a writing on the wall: the New Deal is doomed. Financial oligarchy was suppressed and it did not like it. So in 20180 they staged coup d'état and the New Deal was over.
The question is: what political coalition can take on financial oligarchy. There is no such coalition yet.
Notable quotes:
"... Americans generally are desperate to go to work even if they might be spreading the coronavirus-19. They need the pay and the insurance coverage in order to be able to buy medical care. If they don't pay for it they won't get it. So: whomever does show up for work might reasonably be especially inclined to fear likely to catch the disease from a co-worker there. This is one of the many reasons why socializing the healthcare function is vastly more efficient than leaving it to market forces . ..."
"... Furthermore, prisons are among the institutions that especially increase the spread of an epidemic such as Covid-19. And the United States has a higher percentage of its residents in prison than does any other country in the world . In fact, almost all of the Americans who are in prison are poor (since 100% of the poor cannot afford a lawyer), and the poorer a person is, the likelier that the individual is to get coronavirus-19. ..."
"... America has 655 per 100,000, or 4.5 prisoners for every 1.0 prisoner in the entire world), America has vastly more production of coronavirus-19 that's generated by its being a police-state than any other country does -- and this isn't even taking into consideration the rotten, overburdened, health-care system, and the billionaire-propagandized public contempt for the poor, that characterize America's culture, and that make those prisons, perhaps, the worst amongst industrialized nations. ..."
"... Furthermore, in America, "Approximately 95 percent of criminal cases are plea-bargained, in part because public defenders are too overwhelmed to take them to trial. 'That means the state never even has to prove you did anything. They hold all the cards.'" So, the Constitutional protections, such as trial-by-jury and all of the other on-paper protections, don't even apply, in reality, to at least 95% of criminal defendants. And, in many U.S. states, convicts -- and even ex -convicts -- aren't allowed to vote. America's billionaires also use many other ways to keep down the percentage of the poor who vote. ..."
"... In addition, prior to the coronavirus challenge, both America and UK have been reducing, instead of increasing, their social protections; and, therefore, they were the only industrialized nations where life-expectancies were declining even before the coronavirus-19 hit. The recognition and concern about this decline started in UK, but has now started to be published even in the U.S. ..."
"... In other words: coronavirus hit UK at a time when the Government was already moving away from socializing and into privatizing health care; and, as a consequence, the death-rates had already started increasing in 2015. Coronavirus kills mainly people who already have bad health; and, so, their population were maximally vulnerable to it at the time when this epidemic struck. ..."
"... Even prior to 2015, the U.S. was wasting around half of its entire public-and-private spending for health care -- it was the most inefficient healthcare system on the planet -- and therefore had significantly lower life-expectancies than all other industrialized countries did. But, now, those remarkably low life-spans are actually getting even lower. ..."
"... This is the reason why America is designed so as to fail the coronavirus-19 challenge. The power of big-money (concentrated wealth) is destroying this country. It controls both Parties and their respective media, so the public don't know (and certainly cannot understand) the types of realities that are being reported (and linked-to) here. ..."
"... The fact [the existence of ] corporate prisons exist is pretty much an open declaration that we're a kleptocracy, run by the uniparty. ..."
"... We give an EQUAL vote to children, imbeciles, hostiles, and those who don't even speak the language ..."
"... Democracy is not about efficiency but to keep a check on those in power. It preventing the concentration of powers. It all about checks and balances to preserve the citizens freedoms. ..."
May 06, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

America isn't the only country which is so corrupt as to stand at or near the top of the global coronavirus-infection rankings , but, as the June 2020 issue of The Atlantic headlines, "We Are Living in a Failed State: The coronavirus didn't break America. It revealed what was already broken." Why did this happen?

Virtually all other industrialized countries have social-welfare systems in place, such as health-insurance covering 100% of the population; and, consequently, the residents there don't lose their health insurance if they lose their job -- they therefore aren't desperate to show up for work even when they are sick or can spread an epidemic.

Americans generally are desperate to go to work even if they might be spreading the coronavirus-19. They need the pay and the insurance coverage in order to be able to buy medical care. If they don't pay for it they won't get it. So: whomever does show up for work might reasonably be especially inclined to fear likely to catch the disease from a co-worker there. This is one of the many reasons why socializing the healthcare function is vastly more efficient than leaving it to market forces .

On April 23rd, Reuters reported that, "U.S. workers who refuse to return to their jobs because they are worried about catching the coronavirus should not count on getting unemployment benefits, state officials and labor law experts say."

In such states, the unemployment-benefits system is being used as a cudgel so as to force employees back to work, and therefore to increase the percentage of the population who will become infected by the coronavirus-19.

Furthermore, prisons are among the institutions that especially increase the spread of an epidemic such as Covid-19. And the United States has a higher percentage of its residents in prison than does any other country in the world . In fact, almost all of the Americans who are in prison are poor (since 100% of the poor cannot afford a lawyer), and the poorer a person is, the likelier that the individual is to get coronavirus-19.

This is yet another reason why prisons are a prime place for the spread of the disease. And on April 26th, the New York Times headlined "As Coronavirus Strikes Prisons, Hundreds of Thousands Are Released: The virus has spread rapidly in overcrowded prisons across the world, leading governments to release inmates en masse." Since America has more of its population in prison than any other country does (lots more: whereas "The world prison population rate, based on United Nations estimates of national population levels, is 145 per 100,000" , America has 655 per 100,000, or 4.5 prisoners for every 1.0 prisoner in the entire world), America has vastly more production of coronavirus-19 that's generated by its being a police-state than any other country does -- and this isn't even taking into consideration the rotten, overburdened, health-care system, and the billionaire-propagandized public contempt for the poor, that characterize America's culture, and that make those prisons, perhaps, the worst amongst industrialized nations.

Furthermore, in America, "Approximately 95 percent of criminal cases are plea-bargained, in part because public defenders are too overwhelmed to take them to trial. 'That means the state never even has to prove you did anything. They hold all the cards.'" So, the Constitutional protections, such as trial-by-jury and all of the other on-paper protections, don't even apply, in reality, to at least 95% of criminal defendants. And, in many U.S. states, convicts -- and even ex -convicts -- aren't allowed to vote. America's billionaires also use many other ways to keep down the percentage of the poor who vote.

Taken all together (and to list the other details would fill a book), America's systematized intense discrimination against the poor constitutes virtually an invitation to this country's having exceptional vulnerability to any epidemic. The fact that America now has 33.3% of the world's coronavirus-19 cases , though only 4.2% of the world's population, is actually systemic, and not merely particular to this moment in this country, and in the entire world. Donald Trump, and the current U.S. Congress, are part of a system of oppression, not really exceptions to it (such as the billionaires' media pretend -- with Democratic billionaires blaming "the Republicans," and Republican billionaires blaming "the Democrats"). The way this Government performs is actually somewhat normal for this country since at least 1980 .

In addition, prior to the coronavirus challenge, both America and UK have been reducing, instead of increasing, their social protections; and, therefore, they were the only industrialized nations where life-expectancies were declining even before the coronavirus-19 hit. The recognition and concern about this decline started in UK, but has now started to be published even in the U.S.

British healthcare scholar Danny Dorling headlined at his "Political Insight" blog on 16 July 2016, "Austerity, Rapidly Worsening Public Health across the UK" and reported that "the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS) released its latest annual mortality figures – on schedule. An unprecedented rise in mortality was reported which was revealed to have risen across all the countries of the UK." Then, on 8 July 2018, London's Daily Express bannered "Britain is the ONLY European country with a declining life expectancy – inquiry launched" . Then, on 8 March 2019, the blog of the British Medical Journal headlined "The deepening health crisis in the UK requires society wide, political intervention" and reported that UK's life-expectancy had been plunging since 2014. The BMJ then issued an article on 27 March 2020, "Things Fall Apart: the British Health Crisis 2010–2020" .

In other words: coronavirus hit UK at a time when the Government was already moving away from socializing and into privatizing health care; and, as a consequence, the death-rates had already started increasing in 2015. Coronavirus kills mainly people who already have bad health; and, so, their population were maximally vulnerable to it at the time when this epidemic struck.

Meanwhile, the same shortening of life-spans was also occurring in the U.S. On 29 November 2018, London's Daily Mail bannered "American life expectancy DROPS as suicides and drug overdoses soar and progress against heart disease grinds to a halt, CDC data reveal" . A year later, the JAMA Network headlined on 26 November 2019, "Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in the United States, 1959-2017" and reported that "Between 1959 and 2016, US life expectancy increased from 69.9 years to 78.9 years but declined for 3 consecutive years after 2014." So: both UK and U.S. life-spans peaked in 2014. Unlike virtually all other nations, these two were declining in health.

Even prior to 2015, the U.S. was wasting around half of its entire public-and-private spending for health care -- it was the most inefficient healthcare system on the planet -- and therefore had significantly lower life-expectancies than all other industrialized countries did. But, now, those remarkably low life-spans are actually getting even lower.

Political-science studies that are based upon decades of reliably reported data have established that ever since around 1980, the United States has been a dictatorship: what the public wants (and even needs ) is basically ignored, but what the super-rich (the country's actual dictators) simply want becomes reflected in governmental policies. That's the very definition of a "dictatorship." The U.S. national Government is responsive to the wants of its billionaires, not to the needs of the public (such as protecting their health, education, and welfare, even when the billionaires don't want it to).The findings in one of these studies are summarized well in a six-minute video, here .

Although the billionaires who fund America's liberal Party, the Democratic Party, oppose the billionaires who fund the Republican Party (the conservative Party -- the one that's overtly in favor of the existing wealth-inequality), this is purely for PR purposes. Whenever the issue becomes their own wealth versus improving the wealth and economic opportunity for the poor, they all go for expanding their own empire (sometimes by funding a tax-exempt 'charity' that will increase, even more, their personal control over the total empire -- by using that tax-exemption to leverage the operation, which will be controlled by themselves instead of by the public tax-funded government). Such 'charities' are mainly tax-dodges.

However, in all countries, the people who are the most vulnerable to epidemics are the poor. This also means that the infection-rates and spreading of the disease are the highest amongst the poorest. And, in this epidemic, the interests of the super-rich are opposite to the interests of everybody else . And, since the U.S. Government has, for decades now, been serving predominantly the super-rich, instead of the public , the people who are the most at risk are also the most ignored.

This is even proud policy ('fiscal responsibility', etc.) in the Republican Party. Bailing-out investors is 'necessary', but bailing out employees and consumers is 'fiscally irresponsible'. For example, on April 27th, the Democrat David Sirota headlined "Red States Owe Workers More Than $500 Billion -- The GOP Is Trying to Steal The Money: Trump is boosting a McConnell plan to help states renege on promised retirement and health benefits to millions of workers and retirees." And he is correct.

However, his Party is going to be compromising with that (instead of adamantly refuse to accept it and then go on the political hustings shaming the Republican President and Congress-members so as to break them on their blatantly scandalous whoring to the entire billionaire-class, who want their investments to be bailed out before the public is -- which might turn out to be never). It's a "good cop, bad cop," routine, to protect the super-rich. It accepts holding the public hostage to what the big political donors want, instead of focuses against that as being the central political issue of the moment, and of at least post-1980 America.

This is 'democracy'-as-political-scam. For example: some of the Democratic billionaires, who fund anti-Trump ads, pretend to be Republicans , in order to be able to peel off some of Trump's Republican voters, and so are blaming Trump alone for America's catastrophically bad performance in the coronavirus-crisis .

They're just trying to deceive their suckers into voting for Joe Biden, or else not voting at all; and, so, their ad doesn't even so much as just mention Biden. It's a Biden ad that makes no mention of Biden. It hides its true motive. That's typical.

This is the reason why America is designed so as to fail the coronavirus-19 challenge. The power of big-money (concentrated wealth) is destroying this country. It controls both Parties and their respective media, so the public don't know (and certainly cannot understand) the types of realities that are being reported (and linked-to) here.

It's also the reason why Joe Biden's "plan" for dealing with the coronavirus epidemic is just as bad a joke on the voters as Trump's is. This is a failing country, which is failing in a bipartisan (both Republican and Democratic Party) way.

A "good cop, bad cop" government is, in reality, all bad cop.

(I therefore proposed an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in order to rectify some of the reasons behind this structural failure of the U.S. Government. Perhaps the only alternative to that would be violent revolution, but it would probably make things even worse, not better.)


desertboy , 23 minutes ago

The fact [the existence of ] corporate prisons exist is pretty much an open declaration that we're a kleptocracy, run by the uniparty.

Reign in Fact, 28 minutes ago

" The power of big-money (concentrated wealth) is destroying this country... This is 'democracy'-as-political-scam... "

No the scam is democracy itself. We give an EQUAL vote to children, imbeciles, hostiles, and those who don't even speak the language, while allowing wholesale vote-buying bribery of public unions.

No such system has ever thrived anywhere in the animal kingdom - equality without merit, or rule by will of the laziest, weakest and dumbest - no matter how small the "society", team, family, gang, union, band, corporation, religion or nation.

It can't and won't end well.

youshallnotkill , 15 minutes ago

Democracy is not about efficiency but to keep a check on those in power. It preventing the concentration of powers. It all about checks and balances to preserve the citizens freedoms.

The fact that you don't understand these where basics of why we have a republic is testament to our failed school system.

Deep In Vocal Euphoria , 30 minutes ago

Demoracy...usa was a constitutional republic..........

AVmaster , 30 minutes ago

This hasn't been the american "design" since 23DEC1913......

Dragonlord , 1 minute ago

America's design to disable the freedom of state secession has ruined it. As a result, we are facing the possibility of another civil war.

[May 06, 2020] The Coronavirus Revealed America's Failures by George Packer

May 06, 2020 | archive.fo

W hen the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills -- a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public -- had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity -- to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category. The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus -- like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering. The administration squandered two irretrievable months to prepare. From the president came willful blindness, scapegoating, boasts, and lies . From his mouthpieces, conspiracy theories and miracle cures. A few senators and corporate executives acted quickly -- not to prevent the coming disaster, but to profit from it. When a government doctor tried to warn the public of the danger, the White House took the mic and politicized the message. Every morning in the endless month of March, Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state. With no national plan -- no coherent instructions at all -- families, schools, and offices were left to decide on their own whether to shut down and take shelter . When test kits, masks, gowns, and ventilators were found to be in desperately short supply, governors pleaded for them from the White House, which stalled, then called on private enterprise, which couldn't deliver. States and cities were forced into bidding wars that left them prey to price gouging and corporate profiteering. Civilians took out their sewing machines to try to keep ill-equipped hospital workers healthy and their patients alive. Russia, Taiwan, and the United Nations sent humanitarian aid to the world's richest power -- a beggar nation in utter chaos.
Donald Trump saw the crisis almost entirely in personal and political terms. Fearing for his reelection, he declared the coronavirus pandemic a war, and himself a wartime president. But the leader he brings to mind is Marshal Philippe Pétain, the French general who, in 1940, signed an armistice with Germany after its rout of French defenses, then formed the pro-Nazi Vichy regime. Like Pétain, Trump collaborated with the invader and abandoned his country to a prolonged disaster. And, like France in 1940, America in 2020 has stunned itself with a collapse that's larger and deeper than one miserable leader. Some future autopsy of the pandemic might be called Strange Defeat , after the historian and Resistance fighter Marc Bloch's contemporaneous study of the fall of France . Despite countless examples around the U.S. of individual courage and sacrifice, the failure is national. And it should force a question that most Americans have never had to ask: Do we trust our leaders and one another enough to summon a collective response to a mortal threat? Are we still capable of self-government? This is the third major crisis of the short 21st century. The first, on September 11, 2001, came when Americans were still living mentally in the previous century, and the memory of depression, world war, and cold war remained strong. On that day, people in the rural heartland did not see New York as an alien stew of immigrants and liberals that deserved its fate, but as a great American city that had taken a hit for the whole country. Firefighters from Indiana drove 800 miles to help the rescue effort at Ground Zero. Our civic reflex was to mourn and mobilize together. Partisan politics and terrible policies, especially the Iraq War, erased the sense of national unity and fed a bitterness toward the political class that never really faded. The second crisis, in 2008, intensified it. At the top, the financial crash could almost be considered a success. Congress passed a bipartisan bailout bill that saved the financial system. Outgoing Bush-administration officials cooperated with incoming Obama administration officials. The experts at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department used monetary and fiscal policy to prevent a second Great Depression. Leading bankers were shamed but not prosecuted; most of them kept their fortunes and some their jobs. Before long they were back in business. A Wall Street trader told me that the financial crisis had been a "speed bump." All of the lasting pain was felt in the middle and at the bottom, by Americans who had taken on debt and lost their jobs, homes, and retirement savings. Many of them never recovered, and young people who came of age in the Great Recession are doomed to be poorer than their parents. Inequality -- the fundamental, relentless force in American life since the late 1970s -- grew worse. This second crisis drove a profound wedge between Americans: between the upper and lower classes, Republicans and Democrats, metropolitan and rural people, the native-born and immigrants, ordinary Americans and their leaders. Social bonds had been under growing strain for several decades, and now they began to tear. The reforms of the Obama years, important as they were -- in health care, financial regulation, green energy -- had only palliative effects. The long recovery over the past decade enriched corporations and investors, lulled professionals, and left the working class further behind. The lasting effect of the slump was to increase polarization and to discredit authority, especially government's. Both parties were slow to grasp how much credibility they'd lost. The coming politics was populist. Its harbinger wasn't Barack Obama but Sarah Palin, the absurdly unready vice-presidential candidate who scorned expertise and reveled in celebrity. She was Donald Trump's John the Baptist. [ David Frum: Americans are paying the price for Trump's failures ] Trump came to power as the repudiation of the Republican establishment. But the conservative political class and the new leader soon reached an understanding. Whatever their differences on issues like trade and immigration, they shared a basic goal: to strip-mine public assets for the benefit of private interests. Republican politicians and donors who wanted government to do as little as possible for the common good could live happily with a regime that barely knew how to govern at all, and they made themselves Trump's footmen. Like a wanton boy throwing matches in a parched field, Trump began to immolate what was left of national civic life. He never even pretended to be president of the whole country, but pitted us against one another along lines of race, sex, religion, citizenship, education, region, and -- every day of his presidency -- political party. His main tool of governance was to lie. A third of the country locked itself in a hall of mirrors that it believed to be reality; a third drove itself mad with the effort to hold on to the idea of knowable truth; and a third gave up even trying. Trump acquired a federal government crippled by years of right-wing ideological assault, politicization by both parties, and steady defunding. He set about finishing off the job and destroying the professional civil service. He drove out some of the most talented and experienced career officials, left essential positions unfilled, and installed loyalists as commissars over the cowed survivors, with one purpose: to serve his own interests. His major legislative accomplishment, one of the largest tax cuts in history, sent hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations and the rich. The beneficiaries flocked to patronize his resorts and line his reelection pockets. If lying was his means for using power, corruption was his end. [ Read: It pays to be rich during a pandemic ] This was the American landscape that lay open to the virus: in prosperous cities, a class of globally connected desk workers dependent on a class of precarious and invisible service workers; in the countryside, decaying communities in revolt against the modern world; on social media, mutual hatred and endless vituperation among different camps; in the economy, even with full employment, a large and growing gap between triumphant capital and beleaguered labor; in Washington, an empty government led by a con man and his intellectually bankrupt party; around the country, a mood of cynical exhaustion, with no vision of a shared identity or future. If the pandemic really is a kind of war, it's the first to be fought on this soil in a century and a half. Invasion and occupation expose a society's fault lines, exaggerating what goes unnoticed or accepted in peacetime, clarifying essential truths, raising the smell of buried rot. The virus should have united Americans against a common threat. With different leadership, it might have. Instead, even as it spread from blue to red areas, attitudes broke down along familiar partisan lines. The virus also should have been a great leveler. You don't have to be in the military or in debt to be a target -- you just have to be human. But from the start, its effects have been skewed by the inequality that we've tolerated for so long. When tests for the virus were almost impossible to find, the wealthy and connected -- the model and reality-TV host Heidi Klum, the entire roster of the Brooklyn Nets, the president's conservative allies -- were somehow able to get tested, despite many showing no symptoms . The smattering of individual results did nothing to protect public health. Meanwhile, ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren't actually suffocating. An internet joke proposed that the only way to find out whether you had the virus was to sneeze in a rich person's face. When Trump was asked about this blatant unfairness, he expressed disapproval but added, " Perhaps that's been the story of life ." Most Americans hardly register this kind of special privilege in normal times. But in the first weeks of the pandemic it sparked outrage, as if, during a general mobilization, the rich had been allowed to buy their way out of military service and hoard gas masks. As the contagion has spread, its victims have been likely to be poor, black, and brown people . The gross inequality of our health-care system is evident in the sight of refrigerated trucks lined up outside public hospitals. [ Ibram X. Kendi: Stop blaming black people for dying of the coronavirus ] We now have two categories of work: essential and nonessential. Who have the essential workers turned out to be? Mostly people in low-paying jobs that require their physical presence and put their health directly at risk: warehouse workers, shelf-stockers, Instacart shoppers, delivery drivers, municipal employees, hospital staffers, home health aides, long-haul truckers. Doctors and nurses are the pandemic's combat heroes, but the supermarket cashier with her bottle of sanitizer and the UPS driver with his latex gloves are the supply and logistics troops who keep the frontline forces intact. In a smartphone economy that hides whole classes of human beings, we're learning where our food and goods come from, who keeps us alive . An order of organic baby arugula on AmazonFresh is cheap and arrives overnight in part because the people who grow it, sort it, pack it, and deliver it have to keep working while sick. For most service workers, sick leave turns out to be an impossible luxury. It's worth asking if we would accept a higher price and slower delivery so that they could stay home. The pandemic has also clarified the meaning of nonessential workers. One example is Kelly Loeffler, the Republican junior senator from Georgia, whose sole qualification for the empty seat that she was given in January is her immense wealth. Less than three weeks into the job, after a dire private briefing about the virus, she got even richer from the selling-off of stocks , then she accused Democrats of exaggerating the danger and gave her constituents false assurances that may well have gotten them killed. Loeffler's impulses in public service are those of a dangerous parasite. A body politic that would place someone like this in high office is well advanced in decay. The purest embodiment of political nihilism is not Trump himself but his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner. In his short lifetime, Kushner has been fraudulently promoted as both a meritocrat and a populist. He was born into a moneyed real-estate family the month Ronald Reagan entered the Oval Office, in 1981 -- a princeling of the second Gilded Age. Despite Jared's mediocre academic record, he was admitted to Harvard after his father, Charles, pledged a $2.5 million donation to the university. Father helped son with $10 million in loans for a start in the family business, then Jared continued his elite education at the law and business schools of NYU, where his father had contributed $3 million. Jared repaid his father's support with fierce loyalty when Charles was sentenced to two years in federal prison in 2005 for trying to resolve a family legal quarrel by entrapping his sister's husband with a prostitute and videotaping the encounter. [ Adam Serwer: Trump is inciting a coronavirus culture war to save himself ] Jared Kushner failed as a skyscraper owner and a newspaper publisher, but he always found someone to rescue him, and his self-confidence only grew. In American Oligarchs , Andrea Bernstein describes how he adopted the outlook of a risk-taking entrepreneur, a "disruptor" of the new economy. Under the influence of his mentor Rupert Murdoch, he found ways to fuse his financial, political, and journalistic pursuits. He made conflicts of interest his business model. So when his father-in-law became president, Kushner quickly gained power in an administration that raised amateurism, nepotism, and corruption to governing principles. As long as he busied himself with Middle East peace, his feckless meddling didn't matter to most Americans. But since he became an influential adviser to Trump on the coronavirus pandemic, the result has been mass death. In his first week on the job, in mid-March, Kushner co-authored the worst Oval Office speech in memory, interrupted the vital work of other officials, may have compromised security protocols, flirted with conflicts of interest and violations of federal law, and made fatuous promises that quickly turned to dust. " The federal government is not designed to solve all our problems ," he said, explaining how he would tap his corporate connections to create drive-through testing sites. They never materialized. He was convinced by corporate leaders that Trump should not use presidential authority to compel industries to manufacture ventilators -- then Kushner's own attempt to negotiate a deal with General Motors fell through. With no loss of faith in himself, he blamed shortages of necessary equipment and gear on incompetent state governors. To watch this pale, slim-suited dilettante breeze into the middle of a deadly crisis , dispensing business-school jargon to cloud the massive failure of his father-in-law's administration, is to see the collapse of a whole approach to governing. It turns out that scientific experts and other civil servants are not traitorous members of a "deep state" -- they're essential workers , and marginalizing them in favor of ideologues and sycophants is a threat to the nation's health. It turns out that "nimble" companies can't prepare for a catastrophe or distribute lifesaving goods -- only a competent federal government can do that . It turns out that everything has a cost, and years of attacking government, squeezing it dry and draining its morale, inflict a heavy cost that the public has to pay in lives. All the programs defunded, stockpiles depleted, and plans scrapped meant that we had become a second-rate nation. Then came the virus and this strange defeat. [ Read: Trump's coronavirus message is revisionist history ] The fight to overcome the pandemic must also be a fight to recover the health of our country, and build it anew, or the hardship and grief we're now enduring will never be redeemed. Under our current leadership, nothing will change. If 9/11 and 2008 wore out trust in the old political establishment, 2020 should kill off the idea that anti-politics is our salvation. But putting an end to this regime, so necessary and deserved, is only the beginning. We're faced with a choice that the crisis makes inescapably clear. We can stay hunkered down in self-isolation, fearing and shunning one another, letting our common bond wear away to nothing. Or we can use this pause in our normal lives to pay attention to the hospital workers holding up cellphones so their patients can say goodbye to loved ones; the planeload of medical workers flying from Atlanta to help in New York ; the aerospace workers in Massachusetts demanding that their factory be converted to ventilator production; the Floridians standing in long lines because they couldn't get through by phone to the skeletal unemployment office; the residents of Milwaukee braving endless waits, hail, and contagion to vote in an election forced on them by partisan justices . We can learn from these dreadful days that stupidity and injustice are lethal; that, in a democracy, being a citizen is essential work; that the alternative to solidarity is death. After we've come out of hiding and taken off our masks, we should not forget what it was like to be alone.
This article appears in the June 2020 print edition with the headline "Underlying Conditions." We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected].
George Packer is a staff writer at The Atlantic . He is the author of Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century and The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America .

[May 04, 2020] Neoliberalism and neoconservatism are the two sides of the one political coin that Americans are allowed to choose

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... the nations CEO's become sort of one big club, and the top of the club is the head parasites pulling the strings on the stock market (outfits like Goldman Sachs). ..."
"... NO ONE wants to cross the head parasites, the corrupt political class turns to them as their economic brain trust, and the propaganda class (MSM) spin narratives that comport to the corrupt political class' interests and the corrupt status quo. ..."
May 04, 2020 | www.unz.com

Chris Moore says: Website Show Comment April 30, 2020 at 7:38 pm GMT 400 Words

As our guest puts it, the recently passed Trump "Bank and Landlord Relief" bill, mistakenly named the Coronavirus bill, starts by providing banks with an even larger giveaway of wealth than they received from Obama in 2008. Helping the banks, financial and real estate sectors in a so-called free market system is conflated with helping the industrial economy and general living standards for most Americans. The essence of a parasite is not only to drain the host's nourishment, but to dull the host's brain so that it does not recognize that the parasite is there.

One of the ways it does this is to entice most of the biggest companies onto the stock markets, which in turn subordinates them to the financial sector -- more specifically, the investment bankers. And then the nations CEO's become sort of one big club, and the top of the club is the head parasites pulling the strings on the stock market (outfits like Goldman Sachs).

NO ONE wants to cross the head parasites, the corrupt political class turns to them as their economic brain trust, and the propaganda class (MSM) spin narratives that comport to the corrupt political class' interests and the corrupt status quo.

This is why [neo]liberalism and neoconservatism are the two sides of the one political coin that Americans are allowed to choose. Lean left? You'll get a liberal who mostly uses identity politics to divide and rule. Lean right? You'll get a neocon who mostly uses foreign affairs to divide and rule. But increasingly, the two cross-over, hence you'll see liberals harping 24/7 about Russiagate and neocons harping 24/7 about Iran, Islam and now China.

None of this is to say that Russia, China and Iran aren't competitors, because they are. But the liberal and neocon fanatics turn them into existential, kill or be killed competitors...

... ... ...

[May 03, 2020] Geopolitics Post-COVID-19

May 03, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Before the coronavirus caused governments to impose lockdowns, whole economies, markets and even currencies were already on course to be destroyed by a vicious downturn in bank lending at a time of contracting trade and record debt. The additional strains from the virus have intensified the crisis further and quickened the pace of all aspects of monetary destruction.

The coronavirus has permitted America and other Western nations to adopt a war footing by restricting personal freedom in the interest of the state. As tensions against China rise and the global economic crisis escalates, these freedoms will be not be returned, being deemed to be against national interest.

This is an election year for America and the political system is already ramping up blame for the virus and her economic misfortunes against China. We are entering dangerous territory when politics mobilises hate against a supposed enemy by using propaganda tactics which are designed to stir up xenophobic anger.

How China responds will be crucial. Its leadership can defuse the situation with a few simple changes to its foreign policy, isolating America from her allies in the process. But does a highly bureaucratic communist leadership have the imagination to do so? Introduction

One thing is for sure: the world will be different when it emerges from the coronavirus crisis. Doubtless, on pain of likely death those over seventy years of age must remain prisoners in their own homes while the younger generations are tasked with the return to normality. All this is meant to be under government guidance of course. Over the coming months governments intend to save swathes of business sectors, such as banking, energy production, utilities and the rest, first by lending the money to pay the bills, and then by rescuing the failures, taking them into public ownership in many cases.

That is what the post-coronavirus environment can be expected to look like, if, as governments hope, the recovery is V-shaped. If not, then greater interventions will be visited on the population to protect it from itself.

While not necessarily intentioned, there has been and will continue to be a dramatic transfer of freedom from individuals to the state, which the state is always reluctant to let go when the crisis passes. The evocation of a war against the virus is to facilitate the transfer of peoples' freedom to the state, because that is what is required to fight a war. But when it's over, the bureaucrats' instincts are never to return freedoms.

In the vast majority of cases, win or lose, following a war it is usual for a nation to retain the measures adopted, dropping none of them. It might be called a transitional economy, kept in place with all the war-time restrictions until an exit path, inevitably to greater socialism, can be devised. And for America there is a war still to be fought against China for global domination, justifying yet more control.

Nanny meets fascist socialism

Welcome to the new post-coronavirus intensified socialism. As individuals we have given the state enormous power over our lives, which will almost certainly be consolidated. The direction of travel is clear. Not only can big brother censor us, but it can now track our movements more effectively than the old KGB. If you leave your home, leave your smartphone behind. Wear a wide-brimmed hat and change your gait, avoiding the cameras. Your money in the bank, or more correctly in your about-to-be-nationalised bank's money credited to your account, can only be disposed of for state-regulated products by means of traceable transactions instead of old-fashioned cash.

Instead of the soviet, we have the nanny state. Nanny knows best. This is the real world of the 2020s. It is unnatural and will therefore eventually fail. In previous articles I have written about one aspect of its failure, and that is the impending collapse of unbacked state currencies. I have pointed out that central banks, and especially the Fed responsible for the world's reserve currency, are embarking on an exercise in inflation designed, above all, to uphold the state by maintaining the values of its debt and therefore all other financial assets. If they fail, and they will because the task is too great, the currencies will fail as well, and remarkably quickly. Until then, free markets are a primal threat to the system and must not prevail.

Doubtless, deep state operatives everywhere believe that the threats from their own people can be contained. Taking that for granted, they are now moving on to contain threats from other states that don't conform to the West's democratic model. There is now much more propaganda coming out of America and the UK about the evil Chinese than the evil Chinese are disseminating about America and Britain.

The story being managed is of a devious state, somehow stealing our souls by selling us their technology. Mobile 5G puts China into our homes and controls our internet of everything. It will allow the Chinese to control us . What is not explained is why it is in China's interest to abuse its customers in this way. What is not explained is why we, as individuals, will be better off not having Chinese goods and technology. And when Britain's GCHQ intelligence and security division took Hua Wei's equipment apart, they couldn't find any evidence of Chinese state spyware anyway.

The irony in all this is that our democratic model, the nanny state, is cover for the same internal policies as those deployed by the Chinese, admittedly less vicious; but that is changing. Rather than communist-socialist, both Chinese communism and Western democracies are, properly defined, fascist-socialist. With communism, the state owns your cow and tells you what to do with it. With fascism, you own the cow and the state tells you what to do with it. In these simplistic, but not inaccurate terms, our governments increasingly follow the fascist creed adopted by the Chinese Communist Party after Mao's death. Give it time and the intense Chinese-style suppression of free speech could become the defining feature of nanny's management style as well.

Here we must note a fundamental truth. Socialists of either extreme do not see free markets as a rival, because they believe they are useful for progressing socialism towards desired ends. The true rival to your socialism is someone else's socialism. Newly energised Western state socialism is to be pitted against Chinese state socialism. The World is about to get more dangerous.

US is upping the propaganda stakes

Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said China caused an enormous amount of pain and will pay a price for what they did with the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, President Trump threatened to seek reparations from China for infecting Americans. This follows a 57-page memorandum, entitled Main Messages dated April 17, briefing Republican senators, which was headed by the following bullet points:

Clearly, the propaganda war being waged by America against China is undergoing a new lease of life. And it's not just America: anti-Chinese belligerence is being ramped up through other national intelligence agencies. Even senior MPs in the UK's Conservative Party and "useful idiots" in the media are now spouting renewed anti-Chinese propaganda.

On one level, American propaganda can be taken as a defense of President Trump, on the simplistic basis of finding someone else to blame for his administration's increasingly desperate economic plight. But the danger is that the White House train has left the station in the direction of policy escalation with no means of stopping. In this election year someone must be blamed. To improve his ratings and following an established political tradition of diverting attention from the domestic scene, Trump must blame foreigners and China is the easiest target. We are rapidly moving in the direction of unintended consequences.

Meanwhile, we have to hope that President Xi does not take the American bait and escalate tensions from his side. Xi's equanimity has set the pattern so far. He has made mistakes, and will almost certainly continue to do so, but his Sun Tzu strategy is making it difficult for the Americans: "If [the enemy] is in superior strength, evade him".

Of one thing we can be reasonably certain, and that is in a new attack the Trump administration will escalate trade protectionism against China. It is a policy which will backfire on America. Assuming no change in the American people's savings habits, the budget deficit leads almost directly to a trade deficit, the twin deficit syndrome. The trade deficit is not caused by unfair foreign competition, but as a simple matter of national accounting it is linked to inflationary funding of government spending. The temporary offset with respect to the inflationary effect on prices is the expansion of foreign production which ends up as imports at less inflated prices. Meanwhile, the US's budget deficit is now set to grow substantially from its trillion-dollar baseline and in the light of recent economic developments it could easily more than double.

If the trade deficit is to be contained, then measures must be introduced to prevent import substitution. This is in accordance with enhanced nationalism, typified by Trump's Make America Great Again slogan. Therefore, the likelihood of America extending trade protectionism beyond China as the economic crisis progresses is greater than it may currently appear.

Without lower prices for imported goods and consumption generally restricted to domestic production, inevitably prices for everything will rise at a faster pace. Therefore, at a time when food prices will almost certainly be rising sharply and causing political difficulties for Trump, price inflation for all aspects of consumer spending will be getting beyond the managed control of government statisticians.

Domestically, the combination of an escalating budget deficit and rising consumer prices will lead to higher interest rates and therefore increased US Treasury borrowing costs. The Fed will then be unable to control financial asset prices, the dollar will slide, and it could turn out to be electoral suicide. Trump may not realise it but in this election year he is conflating two opposing objectives: a geopolitical one against China to improve his political ratings and an economic one which can be expected to destroy them.

In the past, politicians in this position have responded by clamping down even further on free markets and personal freedom, evoking Hayek's prophecy of the call for stronger leadership in his The Road to Serfdom . And with respect to foreign policy, imperialistic motivation intensifies, which we are already seeing.

Meanwhile, we must hope President Xi stays calm in the face of American self-harm.

[May 03, 2020] Covid-19 Was Just The Pin That Shattered The Fantasy Fueled By Soaring Debts, Rampant Asset Inflation Windfalls To The Wealthy by David Stockman

May 03, 2020 | www.davidstockmanscontracorner.com

... ... ...

Dear Reader,

The coronavirus is now exposing a far more deadly disease: Namely, the poisonous brew of easy money, cheap debt, sweeping financialization and unbridled speculation that has been injected into the American economy by the Fed and Washington politicians.

It has turned Wall Street into a dangerous gambling casino while leaving Main Street buried under mountainous debts, faltering investment in growth and productivity and the hand-to-mouth economics of spending more than you earn.

It has also left the American economy exceedingly vulnerable to external shocks like the thundering blow of Lockdown Nation.

That's because 80% of households have no appreciable rainy-day funds and businesses have hollowed out their balance sheets and artificially extended their supply chains to the four corners of the earth in order to goose short-run profits and share prices.

However, this unprecedented fragility has become starkly evident after public health authorities essentially shut down normal commerce and economic function. Workers have been separated from their workplaces, consumers from the malls, diners from the restaurants, travelers from the airlines, hotels and resorts -- with many more like and similar disruptions to the supply-side of the economy.

In turn, these disruptions are causing production and incomes to fall abruptly. Shrunken household incomes and business cash flows are literally pulling the legs out from under the edifice of debt and speculation that has been piled atop the American economy.

So both a renewed financial and economic crisis and an abrupt change of course lie dead ahead. The 30-year party of False Prosperity is over.

Accordingly, even if the Covid-19 hysteria eventually abates and Lockdown Nation is lifted, the 2020s will be a decade when the chickens come home to roost.

It will be a time when the cans of delay and denial may no longer be kicked down the road to tomorrow. Today's economic and political fantasies will be crushed by America's accumulated due bills.

Bubbles will be burst. Speculators will get carried out on their shields. Easy money wealth will evaporate.

[May 01, 2020] ONE IN SEVEN Americans would avoid Covid-19 treatment for fear of cost, even as pricey new pill shows promise against virus

May 01, 2020 | www.rt.com

Some 14 percent of US adults would forgo medical care for Covid-19 symptoms because they couldn't pay for it, a new poll has found – yet oblivious health authorities act as if the epidemic will be solved by drugs alone. One in seven American adults would avoid seeking healthcare if they or a family member experienced symptoms of Covid-19, out of concern they would be unable to afford treatment, according to a Gallup poll published on Tuesday. Even if they specifically believed themselves to be infected with the coronavirus, nine percent would forgo care for financial reasons, the poll found. Their fears are well-founded – the average cost of coronavirus treatment in an intensive care unit runs over $30,000, according to a study released earlier this month by insurance industry group America's Health Insurance Plans. Even for those who avoid the ICU, American healthcare is the most expensive in the world, and stories of coronavirus patients being whacked with gargantuan medical bills are a dime a dozen two months into the pandemic.

Making matters worse is the unemployment crisis, as about 55 percent of Americans receive healthcare through their jobs. Upwards of 30 million have filed for unemployment in the last five weeks, adding an unprecedented number of families to the ranks of the uninsured – which were already estimated in December to include 27.5 million people, more than the population of Australia. Even those lucky enough to have kept their jobs and insurance may face steep co-pays or other surprise costs.

After a handful of highly-publicized cases in which Americans died of the virus after being turned away by hospitals for lack of money, President Donald Trump ordered hospitals to pay for the cost of Covid-19 treatment, and several large insurers promised at the beginning of the month to waive all co-pays for coronavirus testing for 60 days. However, those coverage pledges do not include other costs associated with hospitalization, like ambulance transportation; outpatient treatment; or treatment for non-Covid-19 patients. Individuals seeking treatment have been tested and received the good news that they don't have the virus – only to be hit shortly thereafter with the bad news that they're on the hook for thousands of dollars in costs. Low-income respondents were much more likely to report they would not seek care for financial reasons. Perhaps more troublingly, respondents with annual income under $40,000 were almost four times as likely as those with incomes over $100,000 to report that they or a family member had been turned away from a hospital for reasons related to overcrowding or high patient volume, the Gallup poll found.

[May 01, 2020] The big question that we should be addressing, and which we lose sight of when playing statistical trivia with idiots, is the question of neoliberalism

May 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , Apr 30 2020 23:13 utc | 214

The big question that we should be addressing, and which we lose sight of when playing statistical trivia with idiots, is the question of capitalism. This crisis is a direct result of living under capitalism. Every aspect of it from the way it spread like wildfire across the world, to the fragility of food supply chains (I am surrounded by farmers growing corn crops to be converted into ethanol!), to the failures to stockpile protective equipment and ventilators, to the contracting of the business of fighting the virus to for profit businesses, to the precarious existences lived by millions of people thrown out of work and reduced to misery by the crisis- every aspect of this complex and massive socio-economic crisis calls into question the fundamental nature of our class society.

That is what we should be talking about. Unless of course, like I suspect most of the quibblers, we are so invested in the religion of Thatcherism and the mysteries of class exploitation and oligarchy that anything is preferable to the dangerous blasphemy of questioning cannibalism/capitalism.


karlof1 , Apr 30 2020 23:53 utc | 218

bevin @214--

Yes, the problem lies with Neoliberal Capitalism, which is a hocus-pocus form of Finance Capitalism whose rise I've been trying to trace along with Hudson to a point between 1865 and 1885. Dr. Hudson's exposed most of it, but its roots lie outside the USA and connect to that era's Outlaw Empire--the British. It's very easy to say Capitalism's the problem, but people want specifics and also need to have their generations of indoctrination upended so they're capable of clear thinking. IMO, Richard Wolff's thin primer Understanding Socialism is perfect for that job, and he's been in great demand to talk about Capitalism's failure during the pandemic. Here's a recent essay he wrote for Raw Story .

But yeah, we need to get the discussion out into the open, into the public mainstream--somehow.

Jen , May 1 2020 0:06 utc | 219
I will start the discussion the subject of which was suggested by Bevin @ 214:
... For example there is no doubt that old peoples homes-call them what you will- have been slaughterhouses in the past few weeks. There are all sorts of reasons-all non medical- why this has happened and we would do well to discuss what they are. And insist that nothing like it recur in future years ...

I would add that not only are significant COVID-19 outbreak clusters centring around nursing homes and aged care facilities, they have also centred around passenger cruise ships. In Australia there is currently a criminal investigation being undertaken into the actions of Carnival Australia with regard to the decision made by NSW state health authorities to allow passengers to disembark from the Ruby Princess in Sydney in late March even though the results of the tests they had taken were not yet known.

We might ask what do aged care places and passenger cruise ships might have in common. Apart from often being closed systems - residents in aged care places usually don't move about much and may not have access to fresh air, and passengers on certain levels of a cruise ship and many of the crew (especially kitchen staff, cleaners, technical people) may also have limited access to fresh air - what else might favour the circulation of COVID-19 in those environments? We ought to look at airconditioning systems, water supply systems, and the conditions of the people working in nursing homes and cruise ships and how their conditions influence their work and give rise to situations in which they may be transferring viruses and bacteria from one patient or passenger to the next.

These environments are microcosms of capitalist society in action.

[May 01, 2020] Hospitals are reimbursed based on diagnosis of MDs:

May 01, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

xxx LolitaExpressPizzaGate, 4/28/2020, 12:11:34 AM (Edited)

Hospitals are reimbursed based on diagnosis of MDs:

- Typical pneumonia - $5,000
- COVID19 + pneumonia $13,000
- COVID19 + ventilator - $39,000

Do you know why the numbers are inflated? This is a complete FRAUD...with death rate = a common flu BECAUSE it is a FLU...

[Apr 30, 2020] Society will need to learn what's useful and what's pointless, which costs are important to bear and which are disastrous beyond reason

Apr 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Grieved , Apr 30 2020 4:02 utc | 106

I trust history and events to come will show these things:

1. When the US economy crashed (which is still happening and yet to come with its full force), it wasn't the "virus" that crashed it. It was the US economy that crashed the US economy. As noted above, the economy couldn't take a health shock to its workers.

2. The people of the US did not enter into distancing and self-quarantining because they were obeying the dictates of any of their governments - they were not cowed unto this, at least not by government. They chose voluntarily to do this as a survival measure, knowing that the governments were unable or unwilling to help them. And if, moving forward, governments attempt to keep an unreasonable control over the people - as if they the governments had actually been in control through this crisis - those unreasonable controls will be flouted wholesale by the people.

3. As US society feels its way into a "reopening" - still without testing or affordable treatment - there will be many nuances to explore and figure out. Society will need to learn what's useful and what's pointless, which costs are important to bear and which are disastrous beyond reason. At the first stage of the crisis, one universal hammer for one universal nail was all that the people had. Now they have masks, at least. The people made those masks, not the governments, and the people made them work. The people will make the re-opening work, and do the exploration of how to adapt the culture to what works in an age of bio-danger.

4. As everyone in the US can agree, what a shit-show it's been.

[Apr 30, 2020] Perverse incentives: the financial interests and COVID-19

Apr 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Pft , Apr 30 2020 2:24 utc | 95

Lol. So now we talk about C to debunk claims. Take a look at the financial interests of public health agencies like Fauci, FDA, CDC, etc, WHO, Big Pharma, Gates, etc

Do you know hospitals can charge medicare 15% more if they have a covid-19 diagnosis, and CDC helps out by saying a test is not required?

Also, as for antibody tests indicating the level of Covid-19 exposure/immunity. Thats not true. Only those who are exposed and can not clear the virus via their innate and cellular immune cells go on to develop antibodies (it takes 7-10 days from infection/exposure to antibody protection), and subsequently test seropositive in antibody test. These people are naturally immune. They don't get sick. Most of those who cant fight it off without antibodies don't get very sick. In other cases the antibodies worsen their condition since it activates another complement pathway which increases inflammation and cytokines.

As the Bronx doctor said, many of the deaths are occurring there in people not because of Covid-19 but because they aren't getting medical care due to suspension of services or fear of going to hospital. They die at home or in ambulances. Some may die with covid-19 , not because of it.

[Apr 30, 2020] Covid-19 epidemic will produce large social changes

Apr 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ric G , Apr 29 2020 16:53 utc | 3

That the lock down is working is the same reasoning that I use with my anti-tiger statue on my verandah. As I have seen no tigers, then the statue is working perfectly and it was worth the $100,000 I paid for it!

It is estimated that half the world will lose their jobs by the time this lock down is finished.

Boeing is buried ten metres deep, they just have not realised it yet. Airbus will soon be filing for bankruptcy. Hertz is going over the abyss as we speak. AirBnb is toast! The food chains will soon be breaking down as much of the food industry is geared for the fast food, restaurant, and hotel business.

Lots of tourist places now have 70% unemployment.

The housing market will soon start to collapse as no-one can pay rents and mortgages.

Then the manufacturing plants that supply the spare parts for the water treatment and sewerage plants can no longer supply replacements.

The electric grid goes down as their no parts for the turbines, transformers, etc.

How you going now in your house with no food, water, and electricity? Still happy to sit in the dark, thinking this is all worth it?

And this is covoid-19, wait for covid-20/21/22/23

How long before we say enough, let's approach this another way, for a pandemic which does not even touch anyone under thirty!

Sweden is trying something different and seem to be no worse, probably better than the UK approach.

Meanwhile some are making out like bandits!

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/americas-super-rich-see-their-wealth-rise-282-billion-three-weeks-pandemic

And we haven't paid our recent 'restaurant bill' now owed to the bankers, payable in about three years, when we are going to be drained of several pints of financial blood!

And in Australia, with about eighty deaths, the panic borders on the insane!

[Apr 30, 2020] Excess deaths because people are afraid to go to the hospital

Apr 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

red1chief , Apr 29 2020 19:21 utc | 29

Allen @#1:

Great comment. My anecdotal observation is that there are excess deaths because people are afraid to go to the hospital. In New York, deaths at home are much higher than before.

Yes, there are some wild conspiracy theories out there. But the fact that Covid is indeed worse than the flu is not necessarily an argument that the cure is not worse than the disease. The new depression is just getting going, as are pending food shortages. As governments increasingly print money so the jobless can buy things, this will cause inflation as there will be too much money chasing too few goods (especially food) being produced. This will necessitate more printing, causing a vicious circle of increasing inflation.

The poor economy will cause many more problems and excess deaths, in ways we don't yet understand.

[Apr 27, 2020] Neoliberalism was waged against the US populace as it was unleashed on the world at large

Apr 27, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

lex talionis , Apr 24 2020 18:51 utc | 28

@ 13 "Atlanticist" may not have a lot of meaning to most people out there, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good word to describe the US and Western European power center. The first time I heard it was from Kees van Der Pijl in his book "The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class." And the term Anglo Zionist is a very good description of the US / Western Europe / Israeli power block. I don't understand your dislike for the Saker, but it doesn't matter to me. I agree that Atlanticist and globalist are more or less interchangeable. I guess globalist would include Japan, too. Would you rather use the term Tri-lateralist?

I am from the United States. I agree that my country has been a large purveyor of much evil in the world. And a lot of it has been directed at its own subjects. There are many good people in this country who are just trying to get by.

Neoliberalism was waged against the US populace as it was unleashed on the world at large. It seems like it really began to gather steam when the dollar was taken off the gold standard. That was the start of the second Cold War according to Kees van Der Pijl, at least in my understanding of what he has written. I learned that in his book MH 17, Ukraine and the New Cold War. The powers that be began to outsource US jobs. Then austerity and privatization.

I don't know why I am commenting. I always regret doing it. Pregret is a word I have coined for this sense. I know everyone here is a lot smarter than I am, and lately I have noticed that the commenters have become a lot less civil.

I did feel that your dismissiveness of the term Atlanticist merited a response though. As well as the hatred by a lot of people toward a the citizens of the US. The powers that be are treat us like subjects here. There is not much any of can do about the situation in reality. I'm sure most of you out there are aware we have a huge prison population. Filled with the descendants of slaves. We did a real genocide against the native people. The majority of people can't afford health care. I am one of them.

So for what it's worth, that's my take on the sad state of this country. Sorry for all the hell we have created.

[Apr 27, 2020] Neoliberalism is on Life Support due to coronavirus

Notable quotes:
"... In truth is this is a familiar pattern over the past century where the economy is continually salvaged from ruin by the government at the expense of ordinary workers, small businesses and taxpayers. ..."
"... The system typically privatizes profit for an elite while socializing the losses for the mass of people. It has always been a version of "socialism for the rich". ..."
"... As Eric Zuesse commented in an-depth analysis published in our journal this week, the Covid-19 "top-down bailout" in the U.S. will result in even more social inequality and ultimately more dysfunction in the American economy going forward. ..."
"... Ironically, a virus is exposing the pathological system ..."
Apr 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The Covid-19 pandemic is unleashing obscene bailouts of Western industries and companies, as well as lifelines for billionaire business magnates.

It is grotesque that millions of workers are being laid off by corporations which are in turn receiving taxpayer funds. Many of these corporations have stashed trillions of dollars away in tax havens and have contributed zero to the public treasury. Yet they are being bailed out due to shutdowns in the economy over the Covid-19 crisis.

Why aren't the banks and corporations being forced by governments to pay for their workers on sick leave or in lockdown?

It's because the governments are bought and paid-for servants of the top one per cent. Some political leaders are the embodiment of the one per cent, like Donald Trump and senior members of the U.S. Congress.

The biggest orgy of funny money is seen in the U.S. where the Trump administration and Congress have approved the printing of trillions of dollars to prop up corporations and banks. Meanwhile crumbs are being thrown at millions of workers and their families.

In just five weeks, unemployment has hit a staggering 26.4 million people in the U.S. – and that's the official figure. The real level is doubtless much higher. It is reported that the job losses have wiped out all the employment gains made over the past decade since the last financial crisis in 2008. As with the present crisis, the U.S. government arranged trillion-dollar bailouts for banks and industries back in 2008-2009. It didn't last long until the next binge.

In truth is this is a familiar pattern over the past century where the economy is continually salvaged from ruin by the government at the expense of ordinary workers, small businesses and taxpayers.

The recurring rescue is proof that the system of private capital and supposed free markets is a myth.

The system typically privatizes profit for an elite while socializing the losses for the mass of people. It has always been a version of "socialism for the rich".

In the distant past the salvaging of broken-down capitalism was at least conducted with a certain degree of democratization and social progress. In the New Deal era of Roosevelt in the 1930s at least government intervention went a long way to restoring workers and their rights, despite bitter opposition from capitalists. Over recent decades, however, the rescuing of capitalism has seen an ever-increasing emphasis on plying money and loans to corporations and investors while ordinary workers are neglected. This process of embezzlement reached new heights in the 2008 crash. Now under Trump the larceny has become legendary. It should be underscored though that the corruption has bipartisan endorsement from Republicans and Democrats. They are really one party beholden to big business.

As Eric Zuesse commented in an-depth analysis published in our journal this week, the Covid-19 "top-down bailout" in the U.S. will result in even more social inequality and ultimately more dysfunction in the American economy going forward.

"The outcome will therefore be economic collapse, and perhaps even revolution," notes Zuesse.

It is indisputable that capitalism is a failed system both in the U.S. and Europe. The Covid-19 pandemic and its disastrous social impact of sickness and deaths shows that such an economy cannot organize societies based on satisfying human needs. Instead, it functions to continually enrich the already wealthy while creating ever-greater numbers of impoverished and deprived. This chronic polarization of wealth has been pointed out by many critics of capitalism, including Karl Marx, and more contemporaneously by progressive economists like Richard Wolff and Thomas Picketty.

It is fair to describe corporate capitalism (or socialism for the rich) as a pathology which produces many other pathologies, including deprivation, crime, insecurity, ecological damage, militarism, imperialism and ultimately war.

Ironically, a virus is exposing the pathological system. And it is, inevitably, forcing a cure to arise.

It's time to abolish the parasitical system and implement something more civilized, effective, sustainable and democratic. That is the task of people organized to fight for their interests. The delusion of bailing out a failed and sick system must be shaken off once and for all.

[Apr 25, 2020] The end of the American dream Amid Covid-19 crisis, US super-rich flee to BUNKERS in New Zealand

Apr 25, 2020 | www.rt.com

Nonetheless, it's been suggested that a number of Silicon Valley elites have already escaped the US and sought refuge in New Zealand. And unlike the rest of us, the super-rich aren't hoarding food and fighting each other for toilet paper and hand sanitizer in the supermarket. They're not posting up poorly constructed, badly edited renditions of 'Imagine', then patting themselves on the back and saying, "I made a difference today." US businessman Mihai Dinulescu and his wife are seeing out the pandemic on New Zealand's Waiheke Island, where he quipped to the press that they planned to go "billionaire hunting." God forbid that they might actually meet a poor or middle-class person during their attempt to escape the fate destined for many of their fellow men, women and children.

Apparently, a refugee fleeing a catastrophe who doesn't feel safe enough to avail themselves of the protection of their own country is acceptable in a Western nation as long as they are uber-wealthy

[Apr 25, 2020] Now isn't the time to push for nuclear modernization

Apr 25, 2020 | www.defensenews.com

If the new coronavirus pandemic has taught us one thing, it is that we need to rethink what we need to do to keep America safe. That's why Secretary of Defense Mark Esper's recent tweet calling modernization of U.S. nuclear forces a "top priority ... to protect the American people and our allies" seemed so tone deaf.

COVID-19 has already killed more Americans than died in the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq and Afghan wars combined, with projections of many more to come. The pandemic underscores the need for a systematic, sustainable, long-term investment in public health resources, from protective equipment , to ventilators and hospital beds, to research and planning resources needed to deal with future outbreaks of disease.

As Kori Schake, the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, has noted : "We're going to see enormous downward pressure on defense spending because of other urgent American national needs like health care." And that's as it should be, given the relative dangers posed by outbreaks of disease and climate change relative to traditional military challenges.

... ... ...

ICBMs are dangerous because of the short decision time a president would have to decide whether to launch them in a crisis to avoid having them wiped out in a perceived first strike -- a matter of minutes . This reality greatly increases the prospect of an accidental nuclear war based on a false warning of attack. This is a completely unnecessary risk given that the other two legs of the nuclear triad -- ballistic missile submarines and nuclear-armed bombers -- are more than sufficient to deter a nuclear attack, or to retaliate, should the unlikely scenario of a nuclear attack on the United States occur.

... ... ...

Eliminating ICBMs and reducing the size of the U.S. arsenal will face strong opposition in Washington, both from strategists who maintain that the nuclear triad should be sacrosanct, and from special interests that benefit from excess spending on nuclear weapons. The Senate ICBM Coalition , composed of senators from states with ICBM bases or substantial ICBM development and maintenance work, has been particularly effective in fending any changes in ICBM policy, from reducing the size of the force to merely studying alternatives, whether those alternatives are implemented or not. Shimizu Randall Personally I don't see why the Trident subs cannot be refurbished and have a extended life. I think the Minuteman missiles need to be replace. But I don't understand why the cost is exorbitant. Terry Auckland OMG.....what a sensible idea..Other nuclear capable countries will fall into line if this is adopted....peace could thrive and flourish ...sadly it could never happen..too much money at state...too many careers truncated...and too many lobbyists and thinktank type's and loyalist senators to cajole and appease..

A pipe dream I think. ..situation normal will continue to annhilation...

[Apr 24, 2020] Real options and social distancing

Apr 24, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

likbez , April 24, 2020 2:07 pm

In a country with Gilded Age level of inequality implementing any meaningful social distancing is next to impossible. Ghettos prevents that and became permanent hotspots. See discussion of this problem at

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/04/23/covid-19-how-to-destroy-america-from-the-top-down/

IMHO the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the category "younger then 55" in a given country correlated well with the level of obesity. In other words the virus hits already deprive and weakened underclass -- the main consumer of junk food.

So what we see in the USA is far from surprising taking into account the level of neoliberalization of the country and a large permanent uninsured underclass including contractors and perma-temps.

Existence of nursing homes is another unsolvable problem. Like ships, they also automatically became hotspots and medical personnel involved became inflected spreading the infection in the vicinity.

Here is one interesting comment that I found:

The Grim Joker , says: Show Comment April 23, 2020 at 6:52 pm GMT

... ... ...

Yesterday's Action

My bank now has traffic pylons outside the door. They ask the following questions if you want to enter:

  • Have you been out of the country? Answer; How am I going to be out of the country when the airport is closed?
  • Do you have any symptoms? Answer: If I had I would be at the hospital
  • Have you associated with anyone who has the symptoms? Answer: If I thought they did I would ask them to go to the hospital and so would I.
  • Sir! There is no need to be rude. Answer: Far from it. You are asking questions parrot fashion. Questions that do not make any sense.

After getting MY money out of THEIR pockets I proceeded to the auto mechanic for front brakes.

Joker: Am I allowed to come inside ?

70 Year old Mechanic Unmasked: Sure, you are the only customer today. You can keep me company while I do the work. I cannot afford to lose customers.

[Apr 23, 2020] It looks like neoliberals firs bury the New Deal and the coronavirus buried them too

Apr 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

JohnH , Apr 22 2020 18:47 utc | 21

NYTmes and Vox both have articles about tha anti-quarantine/pro-virus crowd. Mostly the protests are being instigated by the usual anti-government oligarchs who are terrorized that people might actually conclude that government has an important role to play in addressing problems.

" Among those fighting the orders are FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots, which played pivotal roles in the beginning of Tea Party protests starting more than a decade ago. Also involved are a law firm led partly by former Trump White House officials, a network of state-based conservative policy groups, and an ad hoc coalition of conservative leaders known as Save Our Country that has advised the White House on strategies for a tiered reopening of the economy." [found at Gale, not on NYT website!]

In an interview with Theda Skocpol: " For the elite conservative groups sponsoring this stuff behind the scenes, I think it's driven by a firm belief that if Americans become used to trusting government and relying on social benefits from government, then that's dangerous to the victory they think they have almost won in destroying the New Deal and the Great Society reforms in this country." https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/4/22/21227928/coronavirus-social-distancing-lockdown-trump-tea-party

And, of course, the oligarch-owned media just gobble it up, practically begging for an apocalypse.

IMO we should just label them the pro-COVID crowd in any discussion of the matter.

[Apr 21, 2020] A Government Against the People by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... To be sure, Trump has good reason to hate the intelligence and national security community, which utterly rejected his candidacy and plotted to destroy both his campaign and, even after he was elected, his presidency ..."
"... While it is not unusual for presidents to surround themselves with devoted yes-men, as Trump does with his spectacularly unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner, his administration is nevertheless unusual in its tendency to apply an absolute loyalty litmus test to nearly everyone surrounding the president ..."
"... Most damaging to consumer interests, the rot has also affected the so-called regulatory agencies that are supposed to monitor the potentially illegal activities of corporations and industries to protect the public. As University of Chicago economist George Stigler several times predicted, under both Obama and Trump advocates of ostensibly "regulated" corporations have taken over every U.S. federal regulatory agency . The captured U.S. government regulators now represent the interests of the corporations, not the public. This is more like government by a criminal oligarchy rather than of, by and for The People. ..."
Apr 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

The 24/7 intensified media coverage of the coronavirus story has meant that other news has either been ignored or relegated to the back pages, never to be seen again. The Middle East has been on a boil but coverage of the Trump administration's latest moves against Iran has been so insignificant as to be invisible. Meanwhile closer to home, the declaration by the ubiquitous Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that current president of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro is a drug trafficker did generate somewhat of a ripple, as did dispatch of warships to the Caribbean to intercept the alleged drugs, but that story also died.

Of more interest perhaps is the tale of the continued purge of government officials, referred to as "draining the swamp," by President Donald Trump as it could conceivably have long-term impact on how policy is shaped in Washington. Prior to the virus partial lockdown, some of the impending shakeup within the intelligence community (IC) and Pentagon were commented on in the media, but developments since that time have been less reported, even when several inspectors-general were removed.

To be sure, Trump has good reason to hate the intelligence and national security community, which utterly rejected his candidacy and plotted to destroy both his campaign and, even after he was elected, his presidency. Whether one argues that what took place was due to a "Deep state" or Establishment conspiracy or rather just based on personal ambition by key players, the reality was that a number of top officials seem to have forgotten the oaths they swore to the constitution when it came to Donald Trump.

Be that as it may, beyond the musical chairs that have characterized the senior level appointments in the first three years of the Trump administration, there has been a concerted effort to remove "disloyal" members of the intelligence community, with disloyal generally being the label applied to holdovers from the Bush and Obama administrations. The February appointment of U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard "Ric" Grenell as interim Director of National Intelligence (DNI), a position that he will hold simultaneously with his ambassadorship, has been criticized from all sides due to his inexperience, history of bad judgement and partisanship. The White House is now claiming that he will be replaced by Texas Congressman John Ratcliffe after the interim appointment is completed.

Criticism of Grenell for his clearly evident deficiencies misses the point, however, as he is not in place to do anything constructive. He has already initiated a purge of federal employees in the White House and national security apparatus considered to be insufficiently loyal, an effort which has been supported by National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Many career officers have been sent back to their home agencies while the new appointees are being drawn from the pool of neoconservatives that proliferated in the George W. Bush administration. Admittedly some prominent neocons like Bill Kristol have disqualified themselves for service with the new regime due to their vitriolic criticism of Trump the candidate, but many others have managed to remain politically viable by keeping their mouths shut during the 2016 campaign. To no one's surprise, many of the new employees being brought in are being carefully vetted to make sure that they are passionate supporters of Israel.

While it is not unusual for presidents to surround themselves with devoted yes-men, as Trump does with his spectacularly unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner, his administration is nevertheless unusual in its tendency to apply an absolute loyalty litmus test to nearly everyone surrounding the president, even several layers down into the administration where employees are frequently apolitical. As the Trump White House has not been renowned for its adroit policies and forward thinking, the loss of expertise will be hardly noticeable, but there will certainly be a reduction in challenges to group think while replacing officials in the law enforcement and inspector general communities will mean that there will be no one in a high enough position to impede or check presidential misbehavior. Instead, high officials will be principally tasked with coming up with rationalizations to excuse what the White House does.

... ... ...

Subsequent to the defenestration of Atkinson, Trump went after another inspector general Glenn Fine, who was principal deputy IG at the Pentagon and had been charged with heading the panel of inspectors that would have oversight responsibility to certify the proper implementation of the $2.2 trillion dollar coronavirus relief package. As has been noted in the media, there was particular concern regarding the lack of transparency regarding the $500 billion Exchange Stabilizing Fund (ESF) that had been set aside to make loans to corporations and other large companies while the really urgently needed Small Business Loan allocation has been failing to work at all except for Israeli companies that have lined up for the loans. The risk that the ESF would become a slush fund for companies favored by the White House was real, and several investigative reports observed that Trump business interests might also directly benefit from the way it was drafted.

Four days after the firing of Atkinson, Fine also was let go to be replaced by the EPA inspector general Sean O'Donnell, who is considered a Trump loyalist. On the previous day the tweeter-in-chief came down on yet another IG, the woman responsible for Health and Human Services Christi Grimm, who had issued a report stating that the her department had found "severe" shortages of virus testing material at hospitals and "widespread" shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers. Trump quipped to reporters "Where did he come from, the inspector general. What's his name?"

On the following day, Trump unleashed the tweet machine, asking "Why didn't the I.G., who spent 8 years with the Obama Administration (Did she Report on the failed H1N1 Swine Flu debacle where 17,000 people died?), want to talk to the Admirals, Generals, V.P. & others in charge, before doing her report. Another Fake Dossier!"

A comment about foxes taking over the hen house would not be amiss and one might also note that the swamp is far from drained. A concerted effort is clearly underway to purge anyone from the upper echelons of the U.S. government who in any way contradicts what is coming out of the White House. Inspectors general who are tasked with looking into malfeasance are receiving the message that if they want to stay employed, they have to toe the presidential line, even as it seemingly whimsically changes day by day. And then there is the irony of the heads at major agencies like Environmental Protection now being committed to not enforcing existing environmental regulations at all.

Most damaging to consumer interests, the rot has also affected the so-called regulatory agencies that are supposed to monitor the potentially illegal activities of corporations and industries to protect the public. As University of Chicago economist George Stigler several times predicted, under both Obama and Trump advocates of ostensibly "regulated" corporations have taken over every U.S. federal regulatory agency . The captured U.S. government regulators now represent the interests of the corporations, not the public. This is more like government by a criminal oligarchy rather than of, by and for The People.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


Exile , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:28 am GMT

I yield to no one in my contempt for the fraud-failure of God Emperor Bush III but the author has to be aware that talk of "impeachable" offenses is meaningless in American politics.

There has never been and never will be an impeachment effort that's not primarily political rather than process-motivated. It's an up-or-down vote based on a partisan head-counting and opportunism and public dissatisfaction. All the Article-this-and-that is Magic Paper Talmudry.

Trump is a somewhat rogueish, somewhat rival Don and faction-head in the same criminal (((Commission))) that's been running America for well over a century. He's Jon Gotti to their Carlo Gambino, and his gauche nouveaux-elite style offends the sensibilities of the more snobbish Davoise, but he's just angling for a seat at the table and a cut of the spoils, not a return of power to the people.

Impeachment would serve no purpose but what we've seen so far with Russiagate, etc.. – a sideshow distraction from the real backroom, long-knife action going down, ala the "settling scores" montage in Godfather III.

Getaclue , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:48 am GMT
"To be sure, Trump has good reason to hate the intelligence and national security community, which utterly rejected his candidacy and plotted to destroy both his campaign and, even after he was elected, his presidency." -- Yes to this. This is OBVIOUS to all but the dullest rubes or those who are in on it and trying to escape what they tried to do in attempting to over throw the US Government. The rest?

Once you have this stated– that an actual Coup which was certainly plotted/sprung by the last occupant of the Presidency along with Clinton, Brennan, Comey, and many other NWO Globalists throughout the Government (FBI, CIA, DOJ ) and outside of it (the Globalist NWO MEDIA) the rest is drivel -- they tried to take him out–JFK they used a bullet, here not yet– so to say he shouldn't put in people he absolutely trusts at this time into any position he can? Are you kidding or what? You can't be serious– I've actually had someone try and kill me they were quite serious about it– my reaction after was not anything like what I see you suggesting or mirrored in your "analysis". This is how the CIA "counsels" in response to a murderous Coup -- an attempt to overthrow the duly elected Government?

How do you overreact to a group of the most powerful people in the World getting together to try to murder you? That's your argument basically– he's over reacting to that? He shouldn't have "Loyalists". He needs to work with these other people -- the ones who want to murder him -- keep some of those "non-Loyalists" on board who time after time have plotted against him in every way possible during the last nearly 4 years?

You seem to be one strange dude from my life's vantage point any way, what a perspective .Maybe you would actually deal with people of this magnitude trying to destroy you in the way you state but no sane/fairly intelligent person would -- I can't get past you have that sentence in there and then follow it with all the rest -- you seem to live in some alternate reality where when someone tries to murder you the right reaction is to blow it off and work with them– give them another few shots at you– say what? You learned this from your years at the CIA– this is how they train/advise things like this should be dealt with up at Langley? Or is it just wishful thinking on your part that they get another shot at him?

mark green , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:33 am GMT

While it is not unusual for presidents to surround themselves with devoted yes-men, as Trump does with his spectacularly unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner, his administration is nevertheless unusual in its tendency to apply an absolute loyalty litmus test to nearly everyone surrounding the president

True enough. Trump has also injected into Washington his own nest of swamp creatures and Wall St. bigwigs. However it is also true that Trump has been under unrelenting attack since the day he announced his candidacy. This is not fair. With the possible exception of Nixon, I've never seen a more ruthless campaign by political insiders to demean a public figure.

But to whom must Trump show ceaseless and attentive loyalty to?–no matter what?

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-days-remembrance-victims-holocaust-2020/

chris , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:51 am GMT
@onebornfree Absolutely!

I can't get too worked up about the firing of the prison guards; I rather enjoy the charade.

The real problem is that: 'It's the system, stupid!' and no amount of tinkering or puting the 'right' people in these positions will ever do anything more than just changing the illusion that something is being done.

It reminds me a little of that late Soviet Union film "Burned by the Sun" about Stalin's purges of the criminals that had ridden his coat tails to power. Try as the movie makers did, I could not and would not feel an ounce of sorrow for those (these) scumbags who had wielded immoral, arbitrary, and disproportionate power over their subjects.

gotmituns , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:17 am GMT
The government has been against the people for my entire lifetime (I'm an old man now). One of the only glimmers of light in that time, JFK was snuffed out. After all, who did he think he was, trying to stop the elites from having their war in Vietnam?
Z-man , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:24 am GMT
He (Trump) should have purged all of the Obama appointees on day one.
The Vindman twins are a perfect example of the Deep State.
While I can understand your loathing of Trump's middle East policies, I do also, what he has blatantley done vis a vis the Zionist Entity is very little different than what slick Obama did under the table, outside of the Iran deal.
And to tell you the truth, as much as I loathe Israel the Iran deal was definitely flawed and should have been more advantageous to America and the West. Iran should have seen the advantages of totally relinquishing nuclear weapons even with mad Zionists in their neighborhood. They could have still kept their ballistic missiles, sans nuclear tips.
Realist , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:31 am GMT
@Getaclue The idea that Trump is fighting the Deep State is ludacris this is a charade if the Deep State didn't want Trump to be President he wouldn't be. Trump is a Deep State minion. No matter the existential threat to the US the 1% get richer and the 99% get poorer.
Realist , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:40 am GMT
@Z-man

He (Trump) should have purged all of the Obama appointees on day one.

That supposes that Trump is not a Deep Stater as was Obama this is a poor supposition.

Iran should have seen the advantages of totally relinquishing nuclear weapons even with mad Zionists in their neighborhood. They could have still kept their ballistic missiles, sans nuclear tips.

Ballistic missiles, sans nuclear tips are useless. Did anybody care when North Korea had ballistic missiles before they had something worthwhile to put on the tip? Hell no.

fatmanscoop , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:29 pm GMT
Trump has had two open coup attempts in three years, and a constant barrage of leaks etc. His purges are clearly at least three years too late.

Also, to an outsider, it's strange how some right-wing American journalists write in a way which indicates that they have faith in the due process, checks-and-balances etc afforded by the American system. I don't understand how any American right-winger could maintain their faith in the U.S. political system, it seems corrupt approaching the point that it is beyond-repair.

A123 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:51 pm GMT
Barack Hussein was Against The People

Trump's MAGA For The People efforts, must take steps to undo the damage done by the prior criminal admistration.

Here is an detailed explanation of how Barack Hussein intentionally undermined the rule of law:(1)

Aside from the date the important part of the first page is the motive for sending it. The DOJ is telling the court in July 2018: based on what they know the FISA application still contains "sufficient predication for the Court to have found probable cause" to approve the application. The DOJ is defending the Carter Page FISA application as still valid.

However, it is within the justification of the application that alarm bells are found. On page six the letter identifies the primary participants behind the FISA redactions:

DOJ needed to protect evidence Mueller had already extracted from the fraudulent FISA authority. That's the motive.

In July 2018 if the DOJ-NSD had admitted the FISA application and all renewals were fatally flawed Robert Mueller would have needed to withdraw any evidence gathered as a result of its exploitation. The DOJ in 2018 was protecting Mueller's poisoned fruit.

If the DOJ had been honest with the court, there's a strong possibility some, perhaps much, of Mueller evidence gathering would have been invalidated and cases were pending. The solution: mislead the court and claim the predication was still valid.

I am not sure why Giraldi is defending Barack Hussein and Hillary Clinton's behaviour & staff choices. All rational human beings see the damage that Hillary created at the State Department.

PEACE
_______

(1) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/04/17/declassified-doj-letter-to-fisa-court-highlights-severe-institutional-corruption-doj-blames-fbi-for-spygate/

[Apr 20, 2020] The state is always capable of obtaining an absolutely unprecedented obedience from the population

Boucheron's conclusion is that the state is always capable of obtaining an absolutely unprecedented resignation and obedience from the population.
Apr 20, 2020 | asiatimes.com

"What's complicated is that even if what everything we say about the society of surveillance is scary and true, the state obtains this obedience in the name of its most undisputed function, which is to protect the population from creeping death.

That's what plenty of serious studies define as 'biolegitimacy'."

And I would add, today, a biolegitimacy boosted by widespread voluntary servitude.

[Apr 19, 2020] The shadow of previous pagues over neoliberal world and chances for the USA of abandoning of the neoliberal empire they built since 1980

Apr 19, 2020 | www.unz.com

Dr. Robert Morgan , says: Show Comment April 19, 2020 at 2:21 am GMT

Linh Dinh: "Diogenes, "I am a citizen of the world.""

Nobody knows exactly what he meant by this. He had previously been stripped of his citizenship in Sinope, so it may have simply been a way a expressing that fact. Also, it's worth pointing out that he was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, whose conquests up to 323 BC, the year both men died, included all of the known world. According to some, Alexander once went to meet Diogenes, who was sunning himself on a nearby hill. Diogenes, unimpressed with the conqueror, asked him to step out of the way, as he was blocking the sun. Departing, Alexander is reputed to have said that if he hadn't been Alexander, then he would have liked to have been Diogenes.

Linh Dinh: "The coronavirus crisis is a turning point in this escalating war between globalists and us dumb hicks."

Not really a turning point, certainly not in the sense of a reversal. And there's no war, because for a war you need two sides. The dumb hicks may rail against shadowy "globalists", but are too stupid to realize that they themselves are globalists. The hicks want their cheap computers, and the thousands of other things manufactured by slave labor in China, and the globalists are happy to provide them. Yet the same dopes chanting USA! USA! (the forces of nationalism, at least in America) don't understand that empire has downsides as well as advantages. The coronavirus pandemic is an example of the cost of empire, the white man's technological empire that has come to cover the whole world. In that way, it resembles previous plagues, such as the plague of Justinian in the sixth century, and the Black Death in the fourteenth, both of which are also thought to have originated in China and infected the white world by means of global commerce.

Linh Dinh: "It will be a world of ubiquitous surveillance, universal snitching, curtailed movement, suffocated speech and enforced, increasingly absurd dogmatism, with a lockdown to be sprung on us at any time, since we already know the drill."

The hicks themselves will beg for it, because they're always for more law and order. They're born badgelickers and just can't get enough of it. You can hear their excuses already. "If it saves only one life it will be worth it." "If it prevents another 9/11, it will be worth it." "If it allows countries and races to coexist in harmony, it will be worth it." "I'm not doing anything wrong, so I have nothing to hide. Surveill me all you like." Besides, what remains of privacy anyway? It's been abolished. Technological innovation has made universal surveillance a fait accompli . The hicks themselves have voluntarily installed listening devices and spy cameras in their own homes. Every street corner and shopping mall is equipped with cameras. Drones and satellites oversee everything. Government supercomputers collate the data; identify threats.

Linh Dinh: "To avoid this fate, we must assert our regional autonomy and resist each diktat. This will take much clarity, composure and courage. We shouldn't worry about what foreign hicks are up to, but simply band with neighboring hicks, to defend our precious hickdom. We must liberate our home turf first."

People will never voluntarily abandon high technology and the empire to which it has given rise. To do so would cost billions of lives and cause extreme hardship for any survivors. The technological trap has snapped shut.

Marshall Lentini , says: Show Comment April 19, 2020 at 5:40 am GMT
@Dr. Robert Morgan

The coronavirus pandemic is an example of the cost of empire, the white man's technological empire that has come to cover the whole world. In that way, it resembles previous plagues, such as the plague of Justinian in the sixth century, and the Black Death in the fourteenth, both of which are also thought to have originated in China and infected the white world by means of global commerce.

We could push that logic a bit father and arrive at: occasional viral outbreaks are the cost of civilization to begin with, so "lockdowns" are madness. No evolution without biological exploitation.

Totally agree with your remarks. As rousing as this piece is, it isn't the reality. We have existed on this arc since fire.

[Apr 19, 2020] US neoliberalism vs China neoliberalism

Apr 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

David KNZ , Apr 18 2020 21:56 utc | 71

I was in Shenzhen China when the epidemic officially started.

I watched closely when Xi Jinping appeared publicly and assumed leadership
(ie put HIS neck on the line) for the outbreak.
Also reassuring was his declaration of open and factual reporting.
He periodically reappears on the hundreds of state controlled TV channels
calling on delegated officials to meet required standards. Fail in this and you are gone

Most of the official TV/Net information was mostly optimistic, and frequently nationalistic.

By way of contrast, I was able to access via cellphone the banned western
The Economist, The Guardian. It was like two different worlds.
The western reporting was almost all negative,, ,disparaging, damming with faint praise
or making unsourced statements about draconian authoritarianism in China..

Worse still, Trump had slashed the CDC budget, appointed evangelical Mike Pence as point man
for the battle against CoVid in the US and indicated at that point
"The markets will determine the cost of CV testing"

So it is worth following the US closely for details of how
Capitalism deals with a communal disease called COVID

WET MARKETS
I did a grid survey of our 50 Block hi-rise by walking around the apartments .
All had shops at the ground level - around 20 per building, and over a third of them were eateries.
They require a hi-turnover and low-markup for survival . They were in part
supplied by open air markets, where meat is laid out on unrefrigerated wooden blocks
to be cut on demand throughout the day. Yes, the fish are fresh - from swimming
( in distinctly unhygienic water ) into plastic bags within 5 minutes.
Chopping block just given a quick wipe.. Hmm.. I thought this is pandemic country...

[Apr 18, 2020] 'Never in my country': COVID-19 and American exceptionalism by Jeanne Morefield

Apr 07, 2020 | responsiblestatecraft.org
This March, as COVID-19's capacity to overwhelm the American healthcare system was becoming obvious, experts marveled at the scenario unfolding before their eyes. "We have Third World countries who are better equipped than we are now in Seattle," noted one healthcare professional, her words echoed just a few days later by a shocked doctor in New York who described "a third-world country type of scenario." Donald Trump could similarly only grasp what was happening through the same comparison. "I have seen things that I've never seen before," he said . "I mean I've seen them, but I've seen them on television and faraway lands, never in my country."

At the same time, regardless of the fact that "Third World" terminology is outdated and confusing, Trump's inept handling of the pandemic has itself elicited more than one "banana republic" analogy, reflecting already well-worn, bipartisan comparisons of Trump to a " third world dictator " (never mind that dictators and authoritarians have never been confined solely to lower income countries).

And yet, while such comparisons provoke predictably nativist outrage from the right, what is absent from any of these responses to the situation is a sense of reflection or humility about the "Third World" comparison itself. The doctor in New York who finds himself caught in a "third world" scenario and the political commentators outraged when Trump behaves "like a third world dictator" uniformly express themselves in terms of incredulous wonderment. One never hears the potential second half of this comparison: "I am now experiencing what it is like to live in a country that resembles the kind of nation upon whom the United States regularly imposes broken economies and corrupt leaders."

Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the "Third World."

In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70 nations – more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases, listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military personnel working in approximately 160 countries. This is a globe-spanning military and security apparatus organized into regional commands that resemble the "proconsuls of the Roman empire and the governors-general of the British." In other words, this apparatus is built not for deterrence, but for primacy.

The U.S.'s global primacy emerged from the wreckage of World War II when the United States stepped into the shoes vacated by European empires. Throughout the Cold War, and in the name of supporting "free peoples," the sprawling American security apparatus helped ensure that 300 years of imperial resource extraction and wealth distribution – from what was then called the Third World to the First – remained undisturbed, despite decolonization.

Since then, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries, many of which (e.g. Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile) had elected leaders willing to nationalize their natural resources and industries. Often these interventions took the form of covert operations. Less frequently, the United States went to war to achieve these same ends (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq).

In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget and over half of all discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit.

Trump's claim that Obama had "hollowed out" defense spending was not only grossly untrue, it masked the consistency of the security budget's metastasizing growth since the Vietnam War, regardless of who sits in the White House. At $738 billion dollars, Trump's security budget was passed in December with the overwhelming support of House Democrats.

And yet, from the perspective of public discourse in this country, our globe-spanning, resource-draining military and security apparatus exists in an entirely parallel universe to the one most Americans experience on a daily level. Occasionally, we wake up to the idea of this parallel universe but only when the United States is involved in visible military actions. The rest of the time, Americans leave thinking about international politics – and the deaths, for instance, of 2.5 million Iraqis since 2003 – to the legions of policy analysts and Pentagon employees who largely accept American military primacy as an "article of faith," as Professor of International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham Patrick Porter has said .

Foreign policy is routinely the last issue Americans consider when they vote for presidents even though the president has more discretionary power over foreign policy than any other area of American politics. Thus, despite its size, impact, and expense, the world's military hegemon exists somewhere on the periphery of most Americans' self-understanding, as though, like the sun, it can't be looked upon directly for fear of blindness.

Why is our avoidance of the U.S.'s weighty impact on the world a problem in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic? Most obviously, the fact that our massive security budget has gone so long without being widely questioned means that one of the soundest courses of action for the U.S. during this crisis remains resolutely out of sight.

The shock of discovering that our healthcare system is so quickly overwhelmed should automatically trigger broader conversations about spending priorities that entail deep and sustained cuts in an engorged security budget whose sole purpose is the maintenance of primacy. And yet, not only has this not happened, $10.5 billion of the coronavirus aid package has been earmarked for the Pentagon, with $2.4 billion of that channeled to the "defense industrial base." Of the $500 billion aimed at corporate America, $17.5 billion is set aside "for businesses critical to maintaining national security" such as aerospace.

To make matters worse, our blindness to this bloated security complex makes it frighteningly easy for champions of American primacy to sound the alarm when they even suspect a dip in funding might be forthcoming. Indeed, before most of us had even glanced at the details of the coronavirus bill, foreign policy hawks were already issuing dark prediction s about the impact of still-imaginary cuts in the security budget on the U.S.'s "ability to strike any target on the planet in response to hostile actions by any actor" – as if that ability already did not exist many times over.

On a more existential level, a country that is collectively engaged in unseeing its own global power cannot help but fail to make connections between that power and domestic politics, particularly when a little of the outside world seeps in. For instance, because most Americans are unaware of their government's sponsorship of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the Middle East throughout the Cold War, 9/11 can only ever appear to have come from nowhere, or because Muslims hate our way of life.

This "how did we get here?" attitude replicates itself at every level of political life making it profoundly difficult for Americans to see the impact of their nation on the rest of the world, and the blowback from that impact on the United States itself. Right now, the outsized influence of American foreign policy is already encouraging the spread of coronavirus itself as U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran severely hamper that country's ability to respond to the virus at home and virtually guarantee its spread throughout the region.

Closer to home, our shock at the healthcare system's inept response to the pandemic masks the relationship between the U.S.'s imposition of free-market totalitarianism on countries throughout the Global South and the impact of free-market totalitarianism on our own welfare state .

Likewise, it is more than karmic comeuppance that the President of the United States now resembles the self-serving authoritarians the U.S. forced on so many formerly colonized nations. The modes of militarized policing American security experts exported to those authoritarian regimes also contributed , on a policy level, to both the rise of militarized policing in American cities and the rise of mass incarceration in the 1980s and 90s. Both of these phenomena played a significant role in radicalizing Trump's white nationalist base and decreasing their tolerance for democracy.

Most importantly, because the U.S. is blind to its power abroad, it cannot help but turn that blindness on itself. This means that even during a pandemic when America's exceptionalism – our lack of national healthcare – has profoundly negative consequences on the population, the idea of looking to the rest of the world for solutions remains unthinkable.

Senator Bernie Sanders' reasonable suggestion that the U.S., like Denmark, should nationalize its healthcare system is dismissed as the fanciful pipe dream of an aging socialist rather than an obvious solution to a human problem embraced by nearly every other nation in the world. The Seattle healthcare professional who expressed shock that even "Third World countries" are "better equipped" than we are to confront COVID-19 betrays a stunning ignorance of the diversity of healthcare systems within developing countries. Cuba, for instance, has responded to this crisis with an efficiency and humanity that puts the U.S. to shame.

Indeed, the U.S. is only beginning to feel the full impact of COVID-19's explosive confrontation with our exceptionalism: if the unemployment rate really does reach 32 percent, as has been predicted, millions of people will not only lose their jobs but their health insurance as well. In the middle of a pandemic.

Over 150 years apart, political commentators Edmund Burke and Aimé Césaire referred to this blindness as the byproduct of imperialism. Both used the exact same language to describe it; as a "gangrene" that "poisons" the colonizing body politic. From their different historical perspectives, Burke and Césaire observed how colonization boomerangs back on colonial society itself, causing irreversible damage to nations that consider themselves humane and enlightened, drawing them deeper into denial and self-delusion.

Perhaps right now there is a chance that COVID-19 – an actual, not metaphorical contagion – can have the opposite effect on the U.S. by opening our eyes to the things that go unseen. Perhaps the shock of recognizing the U.S. itself is less developed than our imagined "Third World" might prompt Americans to tear our eyes away from ourselves and look toward the actual world outside our borders for examples of the kinds of political, economic, and social solidarity necessary to fight the spread of Coronavirus. And perhaps moving beyond shock and incredulity to genuine recognition and empathy with people whose economies and democracies have been decimated by American hegemony might begin the process of reckoning with the costs of that hegemony, not just in "faraway lands" but at home. In our country.

[Apr 17, 2020] The New Fault Lines in a Post-Globalized World

Apr 17, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Posted on April 16, 2020 by Yves Smith Yves here. It would be better if I were wrong, but I have doubts about this scenario. It appears to assume some orderliness in the responses to the coronavirus, both in terms of businesses and governments cooperating. I don't see this as possible in the US. Not only is there an absence of public spiritedness, government is not trusted. And that's not an uninformed view. The US in incapable of mounting a New Deal or war mobilization level response. It lacks the operational capacity. And too many people in power are in it for themselves. Things may be better in a lot of the rest of the world in terms of social and political cohesiveness, but few countries are as close to being an autarky as the US (Russia is probably the best candidate), and so the breakdown of global supply chains is likely to hit them even harder.

Similarly, if concerns that getting Covid-19 confers only short-term immunity (say a year or less), then investing in tracking who has contacted it for the purpose of deeming individuals to be safe from a travel/visa standpoint is a waste of effort.

I suspect Grasmsci is the best seer:

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.

By Marshall Auerback, a market analyst and commentator and Jan Ritch-Frel, the executive director of the Independent Media Institute . Produced by Economy for All , a project of the Independent Media Institute

The coronavirus pandemic has upended the global economic system, and just as importantly, cast out 40 years of neoliberal orthodoxy that dominated the industrialized world.

Forget about the " new world order ." Offshoring and global supply chains are out; regional and local production is in. Market fundamentalism is passé; regulation is the norm. Public health is now more valuable than just-in-time supply systems. Stockpiling and industrial capacity suddenly make more sense, which may have future implications in the recently revived antitrust debate in the U.S.

Biodata will drive the next phase of social management and surveillance, with near-term consequences for the way countries handle immigration and customs. Health care and education will become digitally integrated the way newspapers and television were 10 years ago. Health care itself will increasingly be seen as a necessary public good, rather than a private right, until now in the U.S. predicated on age, employment or income levels. Each of these will produce political tensions within their constituencies and in the society generally as they adapt to the new normal.

This political sea change doesn't represent a sudden conversion to full-on socialism, but simply a case of minimizing our future risks of infection by providing full-on universal coverage. Beyond that, as Professor Michael Sandel has argued , one has to query the "moral logic" of providing "coronavirus treatment for the uninsured," while leaving "health coverage in ordinary times to the market" (especially when our concept of what constitutes "ordinary times" has been upended).

Internationally, there will be many positive and substantial international shifts to address overdue global public health needs and accords on mitigating climate change. And it is finally dawning on Western-allied economic planners that the military price tag that made so-called cheap oil and cheap labor possible is vastly higher than investment in advanced research and next-generation manufacturing.

This also means that the old North (developed world) versus South (emerging world) division that long preoccupied scholars and policymakers in the post–World War II period will become increasingly stark again, particularly for those emerging economies that have hitherto attracted investment largely on the grounds of being repositories of low-cost labor. They will now find themselves picking sides as they seek assistance in an increasingly divided and multipolar world.

The fault lines of the next economic era have already begun to surface, creating friction with the previous international structure of banking and finance, trade and industry. There is a force beyond elites and critical industries driving this: The proletariat has literally become the "precariat."

In the U.S. and Europe, the staggering number of service economy workers are going to be quickly politicized by the shortfalls: People have seen a collapse in income, and big failures in education, and health care. Union-busting, pension fleecing, and austerity budgets and new technologies that concentrate wealth away from labor have created a circumstance where ownership and profit models must be revisited to sustain stability. The needs are too acute to be distracted by the lies of Trump, or the inadequate responses in other parts of the industrialized world. The current crisis will likely prompt geopolitical and economic shifts and dislocations we haven't seen since World War II.

Death of Chimerica, the Rise of New Production Blocs

One of the biggest casualties of the current order is the breakdown of " Chimerica ," the decades-old nexus between the U.S. and Chinese economies, along with other leading countries' partnerships with Chinese manufacturing. While the geopolitics of blame for the origins of coronavirus continue to shake out, the process that saw a decrease in exports from China to the U.S. from $816 billion in 2018 to $757 billion in 2019 will accelerate and intensify over the next decade.

While a decoupling is unlikely to lead to armed conflict, a Cold War style of competition could emerge as a new global fault line. Much as the Cold War did not preclude some degree of collaboration between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, so too today there may still be areas of cooperation between Washington and Beijing from climate to public health, advanced research to weapons proliferation.

Nor does this shift necessarily spell the sudden collapse of Chinese power or influence -- it has a colossal and still-growing domestic market and is on the international leaderboard for a wide range of advanced indicators. But its status as the world's most desirable offshore manufacturing hub is a thing of the past, along with the economic stability that steady inflows of foreign capital brought with it. It does show a susceptibility to domestic stress, with the Hong Kong protests last year providing a hint of what is in store as the party leadership can't pivot to new realities that include slower economic growth and declining foreign investment.

As investment flows turn inward back to industrialized countries, there will likely be corresponding diminution of the global labor arbitrage emanating from the emerging world. In general, that's a negative for the global South, but potentially a positive factor for workers elsewhere, whose wages and living standards have stagnated for decades as they lost jobs to competing overseas low-cost manufacturing centers (the increase in inequality is principally a product of 40 years of sustained attacks on unions). The jobs won't be the same, but to be sure, manufacturing incomes exceed those of the service industry.

As each country adopts a " sauve-qui-peut " mentality, businesses and investors are drawing the necessary conclusions. Coronavirus has been a wake-up call, as countries trying to import medical goods from existing global supply chains face a shortage of air and ocean freight options to ship goods back to home markets. Already, the Japanese government has announced its plans "to spend over $2 billion to help its country's firms move production out of China," according to the Spectator Index . The EU leadership is publicly indicating a policy of subsidy and state investment in companies to prevent Chinese buyouts or undercutting prices.

Two billion dollars is small potatoes compared to what is likely to be spent by the U.S. and other countries going forward. And it can't simply be done via research and development tax credits. The state can and must drive this redomiciling process in other ways: via local content requirements (LCRs) , tariffs, quotas and/or government procurement local sourcing requirements. And with a $750-billion-plus budget, the U.S. military will likely play a role here, as it ponders disruptions from overseas supply sources .

Of course, if the U.S. does this, other parts of the world -- China, the EU, Japan -- will likely do the same, which will accelerate the regionalization trends in trade. This may mean that some U.S. firms will have to operate in foreign markets through local subsidiaries with local content preferences and local workforces (that is how it worked in the 1920s -- Ford UK was a mostly local British company, different from the U.S. Ford Motor Company, but with shared profits).

An examination of U.S. planning for the post-1945 world reveals the emphasis was on free trade in raw materials mostly, not finished goods. (The U.S. only adopted one-way "free trade" with its Asian and European allies later as a Cold War measure to accelerate their development and keep them in the American orbit.)

Domestically within the U.S., as Dalia Marin writes , the coming declines in interest rates will accelerate "robot adoption" by 75.7 percent, with concentration "in the sectors that are most exposed to global value chains. In Germany, that means autos and transport equipment, electronics, and textiles -- industries that import around 12 percent of their inputs from low-wage countries. Globally, the industries where the most reshoring activity is taking place are chemicals, metal products, and electrical products and electronics."

As the coronavirus pandemic is illustrating, a viable industrial ecosystem cannot work effectively if it is dispersed to too many geographic extremities or there are insufficient redundancies built into the transportation of goods back into the home market (rail, highway, etc.). Proximity has become a significant competitive advantage for manufacturers, and a strategic advantage for governments. But the U.S. government must play an expanded role in the planning process. The U.S. is still a leader in many high-tech areas, but is suffering the consequences of a generation-long effort to undermine the government's natural role as an economic planner.

In the form of the regionalized blocs that are being sketched, in the Americas, Mexico is likely to be one of the leading recipients of American foreign direct investment (FDI). It already has a $17 billion medical device industry and is sure to absorb much more capacity from China. This has already started to happen as a result of the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA, or new NAFTA) . Furthermore, the Washington Post reports that "[a]s demand soars for medical devices and personal protective equipment in the fight against the coronavirus, the United States has turned to the phalanx of factories south of the border that are now the outfitters of many U.S. hospitals." This is in addition to the thousands of assembly plants already in place in Mexico since the establishment of NAFTA. Indeed, if the jobs that had moved to China move to Mexico, Central America, and South America, this likely addresses many long-standing social tensions in regard to immigration management, currency imbalances and corresponding black market industries (ironically, it also likely means the end of Trump's wall, as the industrial ecosystem of the Americas becomes more cohesive and widespread).

Big Business Is Good Business

But this will also have significant impacts closer to home: Much as Franklin Delano Roosevelt ultimately prioritized domestic ramp-ups in wartime production over trust-busting , so too national champions are likely to feature more prominently today, as domestic scale and balance sheet strength are given precedence to accommodate the drive to revive employment quickly, and work collaboratively to halt the spread of the coronavirus . The scale of companies will not be regarded as a political problem if they can both deliver for consumers and show the capacity of following political direction for what the public's needs are. Tech companies like Apple and Google are stepping up to fill the void left by massive federal government dysfunction . The " break up Big Tech " voices are nowhere to be heard at the moment.

We still need a more robust form of regulation for these corporate behemoths, but via a system of regulation that is "function-centric," rather than size-centric. As co-author Marshall Auerback has written before , this kind of regulation "restricts the range of corporate activities (e.g., structural separation so as to prevent companies like Amazon and Google from owning both the platform as well as participating as a seller on that platform), or the prices such companies can charge (as regulators often do for utilities or railways). These considerations would be 'size neutral': they would apply independently of corporate size per se."

Capitalism has always had its plutocrats, but scaling back America's overly financialized model (by preventing stock buybacks, to cite one example) would represent a useful reform and prevent a lot of economic waste. Instead of going to enrich executives and shareholders beyond the dreams of Croesus , that measure might help to ensure that the profits of these companies will be directed to the workers' wages (which also means supporting increased unionization), or plowed back into investment (e.g., increased robotics).

Biodata, Privacy, and an End to Pandemic Profiteering

And there are fault lines in the business world. The pharmaceutical and medical research industries face immense pressure from other businesses to end the pandemic so they can get back to profitability. That means temporarily setting aside profits and pooling intellectual property to encourage collaborative efforts on the part of biotech and pharmaceutical companies to find proper treatments for COVID-19, and make them freely available, especially if governments were to waive antitrust scrutiny in exchange for all of the data Big Pharma companies collectively hold. As the Guardian reports , "[t]here is a precedent. Last June, 10 of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies -- including Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline -- announced they would pool data for an AI-based search for new antibiotics, which are urgently needed as antibiotic-resistant bacteria have proliferated across the world, threatening the growth of untreatable disease."

Privacy advocates are already expressing concerns about a growing and overweening medical surveillance state. These surveillance concerns lack historical context: From the 19th century on, serious health problems were met by hardline government policies to reduce them. Policies ranging from quarantine to vaccine were not always mandatory, but there was an understanding that personal concessions had to be made to manage a huge population and an advanced society; the Constitution was not a suicide pact. We can further alleviate those concerns today by ensuring that the information uncovered does not become a precondition or additional cost of receiving insurance coverage. In light of coronavirus, cost savings of incorporating biodata into immigration and customs are a no-brainer for governments, and are certain to cause friction with individuals who may not want to give blood or saliva to get a visa or work permit, and agribusiness leaders who know that safety measures cut into profitability. But the scales have tipped in the other direction.

North Versus South

What about the other countries in the developing world that don't have close geographic proximity to a home market, or abundant supplies of key commodities required for 21st-century manufacturing needs, or even a well-developed manufacturing base (in other words, the countries that have hitherto been large recipients of investment solely on the grounds of cheap labor)? Many of them have faced immediate pressure with the collapse in global trade, unprecedented capital flight that is sure to grow as the coronavirus spreads, all the while coping with COVID-19 with highly inadequate health systems.

In the meantime, the multi-trillion-dollar market for emerging market debt , both sovereign bonds and commercial paper, has collapsed. Many of these countries, via their state pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, have become the ultimate endpoint for many of the newer asset-backed securities that finally revived years after the 2008 financial crisis. This has become the potential new stress point in the $52 trillion " shadow banking " market. The U.S. Federal Reserve has sought to ease the funding stresses of much of the developing economies by offering central bank swap lines. It has also broadened prime dealer collateral acceptance rules, and set up commercial paper swap facilities, all of which have eased short-term funding pressures in these economies that have incurred substantial dollar liabilities.

As the emerging world central banks then start to lend on those lines to their own banks, it should start to alleviate the shortage of dollars in the offshore dollar funding markets. We are starting to see some easing of stresses, notably in Indonesia -- because it's an exporter of resources more than a cheap labor price economy.

But whereas in previous emerging markets crises, China was able to buttress these economies via initiatives such as the " Belt and Road Initiative ," Beijing itself is likely to be buffeted by the twin shocks of declining global trade and a reversal of foreign direct investment, which declined 8.6 percent in the first two months of this year .

Longer-term, many other countries face comparable challenges to China: Capital controls, collapsing domestic currencies, and widespread debt defaults are likely to become the norm. That's already happened to serial defaulter Argentina again . South Africa has been downgraded to junk status . Turkey remains vulnerable. The so-called "BRICS" economies -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- are all sinking like bricks. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that coronavirus and likely future pandemics will create additional stresses on developing economies that depend on their labor price advantage in the international marketplace to survive.

By contrast, countries like South Korea and Taiwan have had a "good crisis." Both have vibrant manufacturing sectors and created successful multiparty democracies. Foreign investment in South Korea continued to grow in the first quarter of this year, as it rapidly moved to contain the spread of COVID-19 through an extensive testing regime (while keeping its economy open). Similarly in Taiwan, by activating a national emergency response system launched in 2004 (following the SARS virus), that country has mounted a thoroughly competent coronavirus intervention of unprecedented effectiveness . The results speak for themselves: as of April 15, in South Korea, a mere 225 deaths , while in Taiwan, an astonishingly low total of six deaths in a country of 24 million people -- this despite far more exposure to infected Chinese visitors than Italy, Spain or the U.S.

Of course, the very success of Taiwan's response revives another potential fault line, namely the tension underlying the "One China" policy. Before COVID-19, it is noteworthy that the WHO "even refused to publicly report Taiwan's cases of SARS until public pressure prompted numbers to be published under the label of 'Taiwan, province of China,'" according to Dr. Anish Koka . At the very least, Taiwan's divergent approach and success at fighting the pandemic will bolster its pro-independence factions.

The question of foreign nations upholding Taiwan's sovereignty with regard to China is increasingly thorny, given Beijing's growing military capacities. This will present an ongoing diplomatic challenge to Western parties who seek to increase engagement with Taipei without heightening tensions in the region.

A Recalculation of 'Economic Value'

We have outlined many fault lines likely to be exposed or exacerbated as a consequence of COVID-19. Happily, there is one fault line likely to be slammed shut: namely, the false dichotomy that has long existed between economic growth and environmentalism. The Global Assessment from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services reports that "land degradation has reduced the productivity of 23 percent of the global land surface, up to US$577 billion in annual global crops are at risk from pollinator loss and 100-300 million people are at increased risk of floods and hurricanes because of loss of coastal habitats and protection." Likewise, the study cites the fact that as of 2015, 33 percent of marine fish stocks "were being harvested at unsustainable levels," and notes the rise of plastic pollution (which "has increased tenfold since 1980 "), both of which play a key role in degrading ecosystems in a manner that ultimately destroys economic growth.

Finally, repeated pandemics over the past few decades have shown these are not blips, but recurrent features of today's world. Hence, there is an increasing public appetite for regulation to deal with this ongoing problem. Some industries, such as agribusinesses, won't like this, but the concerns are well-founded. According to expert Josh Balk , 75 percent of new diseases start in domestic and wild-caught animals, and 2.2 million people die each year from illnesses transferred from animals. The majority of these are transferred from poorly regulated factory farm chickens, cows and pigs; still, the " wet markets" of Asia and Africa, and the trade in potential " transfer species ," such as pangolins, a major driver of the $19 billion-a-year global trade in illegal wildlife, must also be addressed. Beijing has suggested it will ban trade in illegal wildlife and seek tighter regulation of the wet markets . The latter in particular may be easier said than done, according to Dr. Zhenzhong Si , a research associate at Canada's University of Waterloo who specializes in Chinese food security, sustainability, and rural development. Dr. Si argued that "[b]anning wet markets is not only going to be impossible, but will also be destructive for urban food security in China as they play such a pivotal role in ensuring urban residents' access to affordable and healthy food."

To be fair, this isn't the first time that the sacred tenets of the global economic framework have dealt with a crisis that seemed to usher in a new era. The same thing happened in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008. But that was largely seen as a financial crisis, a product of faulty global financial plumbing that nobody truly understood, as opposed to a widespread social collapse closely approximating the conditions of the Great Depression as we have today.

Not only has the current lockdown put the entire global economy into deep freeze, but it also came amidst a backdrop of widespread political and social upheaval, and a faux recovery whose fruits were largely restricted to the top tier. A collateralized debt obligation is not intuitively easy to grasp. By contrast, being forced to stay at home, deprived of vital income and isolated from loved ones, while health care workers perish from overwork and lack of protective gear, is a different order of magnitude.

Even as we re-integrate, it is hard to envisage a return to the "old normal." Trade patterns will change. Self-sufficiency and geographic proximity will be prioritized over global integration. There will be new winners and losers, but it is worth noting that the model of capitalism we are describing -- one that does not feature obscenely overcompensated CEO pay co-existing with serf labor and the widespread offshoring of manufacturing -- has existed in different forms in the U.S. from 1945 into the 1980s, and still exists in parts of Europe (Germany) and East Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) to this day.

Our everyday lives will be impacted as selective quarantines and some forms of social distancing become the new normal (much as they were when we dealt with tuberculosis epidemics). All of this has implications for a multitude of industries: restaurants, leisure, travel, tourism, sporting events, entertainment, and media, as well as our evolving definition of "essential" industries. Even our concept of personal privacy will likely have to be amended, especially in regard to medical matters. Concerns about medical surveillance -- stigma (STDs, alcoholism, mental illness) and denial of insurance -- can be alleviated if everyone is guaranteed treatment regardless of ability to pay, which will mean greater government intrusion into the lives of citizens and activities of businesses as the public sector seeks to socialize costs.

Taken in aggregate, we are about to experience the most profound social, economic and political changes since World War II.

[Apr 17, 2020] The desperation with which the oligarchy seeks to preserve the neo-liberal dispensation, and particularly on 'the left' which, historically, opposed its anti-egalitarianism, may be explicable in very simple terms: between 1980 and 2018, the taxes paid by America's billionaires, when measured as a percentage of their wealth, decreased a staggering 79 percent.

Apr 17, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , Apr 16 2020 13:36 utc | 142

The desperation with which the oligarchy seeks to preserve the neo-liberal dispensation, and particularly on 'the left' which, historically, opposed its anti-egalitarianism, may be explicable in very simple terms:

"A new Institute for Policy Studies Inequality briefing paper, authored by Bob Lord, reveals that between 1980 and 2018, the taxes paid by America's billionaires, when measured as a percentage of their wealth, decreased a staggering 79 percent.

"The only appropriate metric by which to measure the tax burden on billionaires, the briefing paper explains, is the rate of tax they pay on their wealth. Unlike the rest of us, the living expenses of billionaires do not constrain their accumulation of wealth. Nor do they rely on their work to generate additional wealth. For billionaires, the accumulation of wealth is driven forward almost exclusively by the growth of their existing wealth and constrained almost exclusively by the tax they are required to pay. No matter how the taxes imposed on billionaires are determined – by income, consumption, property ownership, transfers by gift or bequest – they function only as a tax on wealth.

"By allowing the tax burden of billionaires, as a percentage of their wealth, to plummet since 1980, policy makers have caused the nation's wealth to concentrate obscenely at the very top. In the 12 years between 2006 and 2018, IPS reports, nearly 7 percent of America's real increase in wealth, measured in 2018 dollars, went to the top 400 billionaires. If the pattern of the past four decades does not change, an even greater share of the nation's newly created wealth over the next 12 years will flow to the billionaire class..."

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/16/taxes-paid-by-billionaires-decreased-79-percent-since-1980-as-percentage-of-their-wealth/

[Apr 15, 2020] American collusion with kleptocracy comes at a terrible cost for the rest of the world

Apr 15, 2020 | www.theatlantic.com

exquirentibus veritatem 4 hours ago

"American collusion with kleptocracy comes at a terrible cost for the rest of the world. All of the stolen money, all of those evaded tax dollars sunk into Central Park penthouses and Nevada shell companies, might otherwise fund health care and infrastructure. (A report from the anti-poverty group One has argued that 3.6 million deaths each year can be attributed to this sort of resource siphoning.)

Thievery tramples the possibilities of workable markets and credible democracy. It fuels suspicions that the whole idea of liberal capitalism is a hypocritical sham: While the world is plundered, self-righteous Americans get rich off their complicity with the crooks.

The Founders were concerned that venality would become standard procedure, and it has. Long before suspicion mounted about the loyalties of Donald Trump, large swaths of the American elite -- lawyers, lobbyists, real-estate brokers, politicians in state capitals who enabled the creation of shell companies -- had already proved themselves to be reliable servants of a rapacious global plutocracy.

"Richard Palmer was right: The looting elites of the former Soviet Union were far from rogue profiteers. They augured a kleptocratic habit that would soon become widespread.

One bitter truth about the Russia scandal is that by the time Vladimir Putin attempted to influence the shape of our country, it was already bending in the direction of his."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-kleptocracy-came-to-america/580471/

[Apr 15, 2020] The Egregious Lie Americans Tell Themselves by Jacob Bacharach

Nov 15, 2018 | www.truthdig.com
There's a verbal tic particular to a certain kind of response to a certain kind of story about the thinness and desperation of American society; about the person who died of preventable illness or the Kickstarter campaign to help another who can't afford cancer treatment even with "good" insurance; about the plight of the homeless or the lack of resources for the rural poor; about underpaid teachers spending thousands of dollars of their own money for the most basic classroom supplies; about train derailments, the ruination of the New York subway system and the decrepit states of our airports and ports of entry.

"I can't believe in the richest country in the world. "

This is the expression of incredulity and dismay that precedes some story about the fundamental impoverishment of American life, the fact that the lived, built geography of existence here is so frequently wanting, that the most basic social amenities are at once grossly overpriced and terribly underwhelming, that normal people (most especially the poor and working class) must navigate labyrinths of bureaucracy for the simplest public services, about our extraordinary social and political paralysis in the face of problems whose solutions seem to any reasonable person self-evident and relatively straightforward.

It is true that, as measured by GDP, or by the size of the credit and equity markets, or even just by the gaudy presence of our Googles, Amazons and Apples, the United States is the greatest machine for the production of money in the modern history of the world.

But this wealth is largely an abstraction, a trick of the broad and largely meaningless aggregations of numbers that makes up most of what the business pages call "economics." The American commonwealth is shockingly impoverished. Ask anyone who's compared the nine-plus-hour train ride from Pittsburgh to New York with the barely two-hour journey from Paris to Bordeaux, an equidistant journey, or who's watched the orderly, accurate exit polls from a German election and compared them with the fizzling, overheating voting machines in Florida .

Now, it is true that bridges collapse in Europe , too, although this past summer's tragedy was in Italy, whose famously ungovernable corruption may be the closest continental analogue to our own United States. American liberals and leftists tend to over-valorize the Western European model, but there is no doubt that the wealthy countries at the core of the EU have far more successfully mitigated the most extreme social inequalities and built systems for health and transportation that far outstrip anything in the U.S. Even in their poor urban suburbs or, say, the disinvested industrial north of France, you will find nothing like the squalor that we still permit -- that we accept as ordinary -- in the USA . Meanwhile, in our ever-declining adversary-of-convenience, the Moscow subway runs on time.

The social wealth of a society is better measured by the quality of its common lived environment than by a consolidated statistical approximation like GDP, or even an attempt at weighted comparisons like so-called purchasing power parity . There is a reason why our great American cities, for all of our supposed wealth, often feel and look so shabby. The money goes elsewhere. Seville, a pretty, modest city of less than a million people in the south of Spain, built 80 kilometers of bike lanes for $40 million in less than two years, and eliminated a lot of ugly, on-street parking in the process. Imagine a commensurate effort in New York City, a far wealthier place on paper. Well, its supposedly liberal mayor is going to give Amazon $1.5 billion in tax breaks instead.

To be fair, New York City and state, mired in graft and corruption, cannot build a single mile of subway for less than $2 billion.

Elsewhere, the con artists running America's military-industrial complex are worried that the hundreds of billions we sink every year into planes that cannot fly in the rain and ships that cannot steer have left the United States virtually unable to win any wars . The United States spends perhaps a trillion dollars every year on its military and wars.

Poverty -- both individual and social -- is a policy, not an accident, and not some kind of natural law. These are deliberate choices about the allocation of resources. They are eminently undoable by modest exercises of political power, although if the state- and city-level Democratic leaders of New York and northern Virginia are the national mold, then our nominally left-wing party is utterly, hopelessly beholden to the upward transfer of social wealth to an extremely narrow cadre of already extremely rich men and women.

I voted last week, an exercise that now feels like mouthing polite prayers at someone else's church. The line snaked out the door of the tiny, hot basement room and into the cold rain. There were only three voting machines. One was broken, and one seemed to be working only intermittently. A young woman with a baby in a stroller was in line in front of me. After we'd waited for 10 minutes without moving, she looked at me and rolled her eyes. "Can you believe this is how we do this?" she said. "In 2018."

I smiled. I shrugged. I waved at her cute kid. I did not say, "Yes. I can believe it."

[Apr 15, 2020] Why It's Going to be Much Harder for Neoliberals to Prevent Government Spending by Subin Dennis

Apr 14, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

It is a sign of how bad things are when the editorial board of the Financial Times, the world's leading business newspaper, carries an editorial calling for "radical reforms reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades." The FT editorial of April 3 has advocated , among other things, a more active role for governments in the economy, ways to make labor markets less insecure, and wealth taxes. The FT's editorial board, increasingly concerned about saving capitalism from itself, had written about the need for "state planning" and a "worker-led economy" last year in August. But the April 3 editorial has garnered much more attention since it comes amidst a massive crisis.

By now it has become obvious that substantial state intervention in the economy -- frowned upon by the apostles of neoliberal economics -- is back to the center stage across the world.

The situation is such that the public sector, long maligned by neoliberal economists and weakened by governments beholden to neoliberalism, is playing a major role in the fight against coronavirus. Its role would have been much more effective and wide-ranging if it hadn't been hit hard by decades of fund cuts and waves of privatization. Nevertheless, with the ineffectiveness of private production with profit motive as its driving force to handle a crisis becoming more evident, the public sector, production with state direction, and some amount of planning are making a major comeback.

Public Health Care

The case of the sectors that are directly concerned with health care provision is the most conspicuous, with the inadequacies of private health care during a crisis becoming evident to even right-wing leaders.

We see Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the UK, repeatedly talking about the need to protect the National Health Service (Britain's publicly funded health care system). He even said , "there really is such a thing as society," contradicting Margaret Thatcher, his conservative predecessor who batted for pure individualism in 1987 by saying "There is no such thing as society."

Britain and many other countries in Western Europe have had relatively robust public health care systems. In many of these countries, such as Italy , Spain and the UK , public health care systems have suffered in recent years because of fund cuts and privatization of public facilities. Apart from the policy vision of the leaders of these countries themselves, they also came under pressure from the technocrats of the European Commission, who repeatedly demanded spending cuts on health care. Along with the easy-going attitude displayed by many of the Western governments in the early weeks of the coronavirus outbreak, such weakening of the public health care systems have made their response to the coronavirus outbreak a more arduous task. For now, the governments of Spain and Ireland have temporarily taken over their private hospitals to deal with the crisis.

The case of the United States, with its private, insurance-based health care system, is far worse. Not only was a sufficient number of testing kits unavailable in the United States for months, but the costs of testing and treatment remain prohibitive for a large section of the population , particularly to the 30 million uninsured and 44 million underinsured. This means that many people simply wouldn't be able to afford to get tested and treated, endangering the health and lives of themselves and others.

The difference between the United States on the one hand, and China and South Korea on the other, comes readily into the picture here. Testing and treatment for coronavirus is free in China, which was crucial in the country's success in bringing the epidemic under control. South Korea has done extensive testing , which was made available for free. Treatment costs were covered by the government and the insurance companies.

The Importance of the Public Sector, However, Goes Much Further

In times of crises such as the present one, which is comparable to war, the ability of economies to produce (or at least source) and distribute things becomes critical. Two kinds of things assume particular importance:

1) Essential things that are necessary for the immediate sustenance of the people. These include food and medicines, and in turn, the things necessary to produce them. If there are large gaps in the supply and distribution of these things, there would be a famine. If the gap is smaller, there would still be many unnecessary deaths. Even leaders who are otherwise callous about starvation deaths would be concerned about such an eventuality during a crisis, because social tensions that could rise as a result of this would make it even more difficult to tide over the crisis, whether it is a war or a pandemic. During the Second World War, Britain resorted to rationing to solve this problem. The people of India were squeezed to finance the Allies' war in South Asia with Japan, and the result was the Bengal Famine, which took the lives of 3 million people.

2) The kind of things that are necessary to tide over the crisis. During times of war, armaments would be the most crucial among these. In the case of the coronavirus crisis, the main things would be items like ventilators, masks, hand sanitizer, gloves and medicines to treat the symptoms. Large gaps in the supply of these things would be disastrous. In the case of a war, such gaps could lead to defeat in war. In the case of a lethal pandemic, people would die in huge numbers, as we see right now. We could say this is an industrial famine of sorts contributing to the casualties, with countries unable to make ICUs, ventilators and masks fast enough in adequate quantities, and in many cases, to set up hospitals and quarantine facilities quickly enough.

It is in this context that leaders of government who ideologically disagree with state intervention in the economy are seen taking direct action in commandeering private companies to produce necessary things.

Thus we see Donald Trump, who had initially resisted the pressure to use the Defense Production Act -- a wartime law -- to mobilize private industry, finally using the law to direct General Motors to produce ventilators.

The government of Italy directed its only producer of ventilators, Siare Engineering, to ramp up the production of ventilators for the country, and sent engineers and other staff members from the Ministry of Defense to help with production. The company canceled all its orders from abroad to produce for the country.

Countries with a large public sector, robust industrial capacity, and the ability to effectively intervene in the market would be at a considerable advantage here. That is the case with China , which put the state-owned China State Construction Engineering to work to construct two emergency quarantine hospitals at breath-taking speed. The state ensured the flow of products such as grain, meat and eggs into the Hubei province while it was under lockdown, and coordinated the production and distribution of masks and other medical products. Once the outbreak within the country was under control, it began supplying masks and ICU equipment to other countries in need.

India, a large country with a poor health care system, does not have enough masks and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for its health workers. The number of ICU beds and ventilators available in the country is very low. For a population of 1.34 billion, it only has 31,900 ICU beds available for COVID-19 patients, according to the country's Health Ministry officials. To compare, Germany, with 82.8 million people, had 28,000 ICU beds as of mid-March.

If the number of COVID-19 patients in India surges, hospitals and their critical care facilities will be overwhelmed. The public sector Bharat Electronics Limited has been asked to produce 30,000 ventilators to meet the urgent need. Hindustan Lifecare (another public sector company) and the Rail Coach Factory under the Indian Railways are going to manufacture ventilators. The public sector Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), which the government has tried continuously to weaken in the recent years, is now producing masks, sanitizer and coveralls for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). It has also developed a ventilator prototype and is preparing for production.

Within India, it is the state of Kerala that has dealt with the pandemic in the most effective manner. In the Left-ruled state, which has resisted the policy of privatization pushed by successive central governments, public sector companies are manufacturing hand sanitizer and gloves , and have raised the production of essential medicines . Kudumbashree, a massive government-backed organization of women's collectives with 4.5 million members, is making masks , which the public sector is helping distribute. Mass organizations of youth and popular science activists are pitching in by making hand sanitizer. Volunteers supported by a state-led initiative have developed a respiratory apparatus that could free up ventilators.

It is not as if making masks, sanitizers and gloves requires advanced technology. But industrial capacity is needed to churn them out in large numbers, or at least large mass organizations, class organizations or collectives that can mobilize people to manufacture them. The inability of the United States to even ensure the supply of such items stands out in this regard. Four decades of neoliberalism seem to have led not only to the undermining of industrial capacity useful for public purposes, but also to the hollowing out of collective energies.

Need for Production Capabilities and Societal Control Over Them

In short, the lesson is that in times such as these, a society needs two things.

1) It needs production capabilities. During a time of crisis, if a country doesn't have the necessary industrial capacity, it will be in trouble even if it has money to buy if the other countries that do have the production capabilities block the export of the required goods. This is what is happening right now to so many countries, such as Italy and Serbia. (In the mad scramble for resources, there have even been reports of countries offering higher amounts to buy masks ordered by other countries, and of some countries even seizing shipments for themselves.) Not only is industrial capacity needed, but some excess capacity is also required in some crucial areas. As the public health expert T. Sundararaman pointed out recently, the public health care system needs to have unused capacity, which will allow it to expand and take on the extra load when there is an emergency. Excess industrial capacity in China, which is often seen as a problem (including by sympathetic observers ), turned out to be useful, with the country being able to manufacture essential goods to not just meet its own demands, but also that of other countries.

But relying on market forces doesn't give any guarantee of industrial capacity being built up. The kind of production capabilities built without planning would be haphazard, and may not cover the needs of an emergency when it presents itself. India, which adopted a strategy of substantial economic planning during the first few decades after independence, only to abandon it in the recent decades, is witnessing this to its peril right now.

2) The society, or the state as the representative of society, needs to be able to control the production facilities. When a crisis hits a country with production capabilities in the private sector, the state can invoke emergency powers to bring them under control. But it would be a painful process, especially in countries where the private corporate sector is not used to submit to discipline. Given the enormous influence that the corporates have over the state itself, the state might try to prolong having to invoke such emergency powers, as was seen in the United States, and that could have disastrous consequences. India has the worst of all possible worlds -- cronyism is rampant, industrialization has not taken off (whether it is because of cronyism or in spite of it need not detain us here), and the public sector has been undermined.

Even when the state is trying to play a more active role, its efforts could be undermined by private firms acting in their own self-interest of maximizing profits. This was seen in the United States, where private companies were engaging in price gouging, by selling masks that are normally sold for 85 cents for $7, leading to the New York state governor to call upon the federal government to nationalize the acquisition of medical supplies. He said that the U.S. government should order factories to produce masks, gowns and ventilators; otherwise the situation would be impossible to manage. The state using private facilities can be costly as well, as was seen in Britain, where the National Health Service is paying 2.4 million pounds per day as rent to private hospitals for 8,000 beds.

Does calling for more domestic production capabilities that the state can control mean that every country should be left to fend for itself? Certainly not -- every country cannot produce everything; smaller countries would find it particularly difficult. International trade would be needed for countries to procure things that they cannot produce for themselves. But as the developments of the recent months show, today's trade regime has nothing to do with solidarity, and it provides no guarantee of countries being able to access goods during an emergency. This is no accident. Lack of solidarity is embedded in the way capitalism has developed, with the bulk of the world's wealth concentrated in the hands of a few countries, and within countries, in the hands of the super-rich. This system has to be overhauled for a regime of solidarity to emerge. Production and its fruits becoming less concentrated in some regions of the world and in the hands of a minority would pave the way for power relations to be less unequal, which is a precondition for real solidarity among people and societies.

Along with socialized health care, an immediate stop to privatization, and a stronger, expanded public sector should become part of the transitional demands of the left as we search for an exit from the pandemic crisis.

Subin Dennis is an economist and a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research . He was the Delhi State vice president of the Students' Federation of India.

This article was produced by Globetrotter , a project of the Independent Media Institute.

[Apr 13, 2020] It seems to me that the Trump Administration delayed a response to the virus so as to ensure that they could declare an emergency which allowed them to 'play' the virus in a way that benefited special interests and furthered imperial goal

Apr 13, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Apr 12 2020 16:09 utc | 3

"No matter how long I live, I don't think I will ever get over how the U.S., with all its wealth and technological capability and academic prowess, sleepwalked into the disaster that is unfolding," says Kai Kupferschmidt, a German science writer.

I am continuously amazed at how incompetence is always assumed so as to give elites a pass.

It seems to me that the Trump Administration delayed a response to the virus so as to ensure that they could declare an emergency which allowed them to 'play' the virus in a way that benefited special interests and furthered imperial goals:

  • soft-landing for Wall Street;
  • bail-out favored corporations;
  • increase Big Pharma profits;
  • blame China.

Why are people not more skeptical?

<> <> <> <> <>

See my at jackrabbit.blog

!!

[Apr 13, 2020] COVID-19 Shutdown The End Of Globalization And Planned Obsolescence Enter Multipolarity by Joaquin Flores

Notable quotes:
"... Authored by Joaquin Flores via The Strategic Culture Foundation, ..."
"... the declining rate of profit necessitated by automation, with the increasingly irrational policies, in all spheres, being pursued to salvage the ultimately unsalvageable. ..."
"... Because the present system is premised on a production-consumption and financial model, the solutions to crises are presented as population reduction and what even appears, at least in the case of Europe, as population replacement. As cliché as this may seem, this also appeared to be the policy of the Third Reich when capitalism faced its last major crises culminating in WWII. ..."
Apr 12, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Joaquin Flores via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The coronavirus pandemic has shown that the twin processes of globalization and planned obsolescence are deficient and moribund. Globalization was predicated on a number of assumptions including the perpetuity of consumerism, and the withering away of national boundaries as transnational corporations so required.

What we see instead is not a globalization process, but instead a process of rising multipolarity and a rethinking of consumerism itself.

Normally a total market crash and unemployment crisis would usher in a period of militant labor activity, strikes, walk-outs and community-labor campaigns. We've seen some of this already . But the 'medical state of emergency' we are in, has effectively worked like a 'lock-out' . The elites have effectively flipped-the-script. Instead of workers now demanding a restoration of wages, hours, and work-place rights, they are clamoring for any chance to work at all, under any conditions handed down. Elites can 'afford' to do this because they've been given trillions of dollars to do so. See how that works?

All our lives we've been misinformed over what a growing economy means, what it looks like, how we identify it. All our lives we've been lied to about what technical improvement literally means.

A growing economy in fact means that all goods and services become less expensive. That cuts against inflation. Rather all prices should be deflating – less money ought to buy the same (or the same money ought to buy more). Technical innovation means that goods should last longer, not be planned for obsolescence with shorter lifespans.

Unemployment is good if it parallels price deflation. If both reached a zero-point, the problems we believe we have would be solved.

In a revealing April 2nd article that featured on the BBC's website, Will coronavirus reverse globalisation? it is proposed that the pandemic exposes the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of a global supply-chain and manufacturing system, and that this in combination with the over-arching US-China trade war would see a general tendency towards 're-shoring' of activities. These are fair points.

But the article misses the point of the underlying problem facing economics in general: the declining rate of profit necessitated by automation, with the increasingly irrational policies, in all spheres, being pursued to salvage the ultimately unsalvageable.

The Karmic Wheel of Production-Consumption

The shut-downs – which seem unnecessary in the numerous widely esteemed experts in virology and epidemiology – appear to be aimed at stopping the production-consumption cycle. When we look at the wanton creation of new 'money', to bailout the banks, we are told that this will not cause inflation/debasement so long as the velocity of money is kept to a minimum. In other words – so long as there is not a chain reaction of transactions, and the money 'stays still' – this won't cause inflation. It's a specious claim, but one which justifies the quarantine/lock-down policy which today destroys thousands of small businesses every day. In the U.S. alone, unemployment claims will pass 30 million by mid April .

Likewise, this money appears real, it sits digitally as new liquidity on the computer screens of tran-Atlantic banks – but it cannot be spent, or it tanks the system with hyper-inflation. More to the point, the BBC piece erroneously continues to assume the necessity of the production-consumption cycle, spinning wheat into gold forever.

The elites were not wrong to shut-down the cycle per se. The problem is that they cannot offer the correct hardware in its place – for it puts an end to the very way that they make money. It is this, which in turn is a major source for the maintenance of their dopamine equilibrium and narcissist supply.

This is not an economic problem faced by 'the 1%' (the 0.03%) . It is an existential crisis facing the meaning of their lives, where satisfaction can only be found in ever greater levels of wealth and control, real or imagined – chasing that dragon, in search of that ever-elusive high.

So naturally, their solutions are population reduction and other such quasi-genocidal neo-Malthusian plans. Destruction of humanity – the number one productive-potential force – resets the hands of time, back to a period where profit levels were higher. The algorithmically favored coronavirus Instagram campaign of seeing city centers without people and declaring these 'beautiful' and 'peaceful' is an example of this misanthropic principle at play.

That the elites have chosen to shut-down the western economy is telling of an historic point we have reached. And while we are told that production and consumption will return somewhat 'after quarantine', we also hear from the newly-emerged unelected tsars – Bill Gates et al – that things will never return to normal .

What we need to end is the entire theory and practice of globalization itself, including UN Agenda 21 and the dangerous role of 'book-talking' philanthropists like Gates and his grossly unbalanced degree of power over policy formation in the Western sphere.

In place of waning globalization, we are seeing the reality of rising multipolarity and inter-nationalism. With this, the end of the production-consumption cycle, based upon off-shore production and international assembly, and at the root of it all: planned obsolescence towards long-term profitability.

The Problem of Globalization Theory

Without a doubt, globalization theory satisfied aspects of descriptive power. But as time marched forward, its predictive power weakened. Alternate theories began to emerge – chief among these, multipolarity theory.

The promotion of globalization theory also raises ethical problems. Like a criminologist 'describing' a crime-wave while being invested in new prison construction, globalization theory was as much theory as it was a policy forced upon the world by the same institutions behind its popularization in academia and in policy formation. Therefore we should not be surprised with the rise of solutions like those of Gates. These involve patentable 'vaccines' by for-profit firms at the expense of buttressing natural human immunities, or using drugs which other countries are using with effectiveness.

The truth? Globalization is really just a rebrand of the Washington Consensus – neo-liberal think-tanks and the presumed eternal dominance of institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which in turn are thinly disguised conglomerates of the largest trans-Atlantic banking institutions.

So while globalization was often given a humanist veneer that promised global development, modernization, the end of 'nation-states' which presumably are the source of war; in reality globalization was premised on continuing and increasing concentration of capital towards the 19th century zones – New York, London, Berlin, and Paris.

'Internationalism' was once rooted in the existence of nations which in turn are only possible with the existence of culture and peoples, but was hi-jacked by the trans-Atlanticist project. Before long, the new-left 'internationalists' became champions of the very same process of imperialism that their forbearers had vehemently opposed. Call it 'globalization' and show how it's destroying 'toxic nationalism' and creating 'microfinance solutions for women and girls' – trot out Malala – and it was bought; hook, line and sinker.

This was not the new era of 'globalization', but rather the usual suspects going back to the 19th century; a 'feel-good' rebranding of the very same 19th century imperialism as described in J.A Hobson's seminal work from 1902, Imperialism. Its touted 'inevitability' rested not on the impossibility of alternate models, but on the authority that flows forth from gunboat diplomacy. But sea power has given way to land power.

In many ways it aligned with the era of de-colonialization and post-colonialism. New nations could wave their own flags and make their own laws, so long as the traditionally imperialist western banking institutions controlled the money supply.

But what is emerging is not Washington Consensus 'globalization', but a multipolar model based in civilizational sovereignty and difference, building products to last – for their usefulness and not their repeatable retail potential. This cuts against the claims that global homogenization in all spheres (moral, cultural, economic, political, etc.) was inevitable, as a consequence of mercantile specialization.

Therefore, inter-nationalism hyphenated as such, reminds us that nations – civilizations, sovereignty, and their differences – make us stronger as a human species. Like against viruses, some have stronger natural immunity than others. If people were identical, one virus could wipe-out all of humanity.

Likewise, an overly-integrated global economy leads to global melt-down and depression when one node collapses. Rather than independent pillars that could aid each other, the interdependence is its greatest weakness.

Multipolarity is Reality

This new reality – multipolarity – involves processes which aspects of globalization theory also suggest and predict for, so there are some honest reasons why experts could misdiagnose multipolarity as globalization. Overlooked was that the concentration of capital nodes in various and globally diverse regions by continent, were not exclusively trans-Atlantic regions as in the standard globalization model of Alpha ++ or Alpha+ cities. This capital concentration along continental lines was occurring alongside regional economic development and rising living standards which tended to promote the efficiency of local transportation as opposed to ocean-travel in the production process. As regional nodes by continent had increasingly diversified their own domestic production, a general tendency for transportation costs to increase as individual per capita usage increased, worked against the viability of an over-reliance on global transit lines.

But among many problems in globalization theory was that the US would always be the primary consumer of the world's goods, and with it, the trans-Atlantic financial sector. It was also contingent on the idea that mercantilist conceptions of specialization (by nation or by region) would always trump autarkic models and ISI (income substitution industrialization). Again, if middle-class consumer bases are rising in all the world's inhabited continents as multipolarity explains and predicts, then a global production regimen rationalized towards a trans-Atlantic consumer base as globalization theory predicts isn't quite as apt.

Because the present system is premised on a production-consumption and financial model, the solutions to crises are presented as population reduction and what even appears, at least in the case of Europe, as population replacement. As cliché as this may seem, this also appeared to be the policy of the Third Reich when capitalism faced its last major crises culminating in WWII.

Breaking the Wheel

The shutdown reveals the karmic wheel of production-consumption is in truth already broken. We have already passed the zenith point of what the old paradigm had to offer, and it has long since entered into a period of decay, economic and moral destruction.

Like the Christ who brings forth a new covenant or the Buddha who emerges to break the wheel of karma, the new world to be built on the ruins of modernity is a world that liberates the productive forces, realizing their full potential, and with it the liberation of man from the machine of the production-consumption cycle.

Planned obsolescence and consumerism (marketing) are the twin evils that have worked towards the simultaneous time-wasting enslavement of 'living to work' , and have built globalization based on global assembly and global mono-culture.

What is important for people and their quality of life is the time to live life, not be stuck in the grind. We hear politicians and economists talking about 'everyone having a job', as if what people want is to be away from their families, friends, passions, or hobbies. What's more – people cannot invent, innovate, or address the greater questions of life and death – if their nose is to the grindstone.

Now that we are living under an overt system of control, a 'medical state of emergency' with a frozen economy, we can see that another world is possible. The truth is that most things which are produced are intentionally made to break at a specific time, so that a re-purchase is predictable and profits are guaranteed. This compels global supply chains and justifies artificially induced crashes aimed at upward redistribution and mass expropriations.

Instead of allowing Bill Gates to tour the world to tout a police-state cum population reduction scheme right after a global virus pandemic struck, one which many believe he owns the patent for , we can instead address the issues of multipolarity, civilizational sovereignty, and ending planned obsolescence and the global supply chain, as well as the off-shoring it necessitates – which the BBC rightly notes, is in question anyhow.

[Apr 12, 2020] Weimar America, here we come! Virus Hysteria adds $10 trillion to the National Debt by Mike Whitney

Apr 12, 2020 | www.unz.com

There's no doubt that the Coronavirus is a serious infection that can lead to severe illness or death. There's also no doubt that 'virus hysteria' has been used for other purposes. Wall Street, for example, has used virus-panic to advance its own agenda and get another round of trillion dollar bailouts. In fact, it took less than a week to get the pushover congress to ram through a massive $2.2 trillion boondoggle without even one lousy congressman offering a peep of protest. That's got to be some kind of record.

In 2008, at the peak of the financial crisis, Congress voted "No" to the $700 billion TARP bill. Some readers might recall how a number of GOP congressmen bravely banded together and flipped Wall Street "the bird". That didn't happen this time around. Even though the bill is three times bigger than the TARP ( $2.2 trillion), no one lifted a finger to stop it. Why?

Fear, that's why. Everyone in congress was scared to death that if they didn't rush this debt-turd through the House pronto, the economy would collapse while tens of thousands of corpses would be stacking up in cities across the country. Of course the reason they believed this nonsense was because the goofy infectious disease experts confidently assured everyone that the body-count would be "in the hundreds of thousands if not millions." Remember that fiction? The most recent estimate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 total. I don't need to tell you that the difference between 60,000 and "millions" is a little more than a rounding-error.

So we've had the wool pulled over our eyes, right? Not as bad as congress, but, all the same, we've been hoodwinked and we've been fleeced. And the people who have axes to grind have been very successful in taking advantage of the hysteria and promoting their own agendas. Maybe you've noticed the reemergence of creepy Bill Gates and the Vaccine Gestapo or NWO Henry Kissinger warning us that, "the world will never be the same after the coronavirus".

What do these people know that we don't know? Doesn't it all make you a bit suspicious? And when you see nonstop commercials on TV telling you to "wash your hands"or "keep your distance" or "stay inside" and, oh yeah, "We're all in this together", doesn't it leave you scratching your head and wondering who the hell is orchestrating this virus-charade and what do they really have in mind for us unwashed masses??

At least in the case of Wall Street, we know what they want. They want money and lots of it.

Have you looked over the $2.2 trillion CARES bill that Trump just signed into law a couple weeks ago? It's pretty grim reading, so I'll save you the effort. Here's a rough breakdown:

$250 billion will go for the $1,200 checks that most of us will receive in a couple weeks. And $250 billion will be provided for extended unemployment insurance benefits.

That's $500 billion.

Working people will get $500 billion while Wall Street and Corporate America will get 3 times that amount. ($1.7 trillion) And even that's a mere fraction of the total sum because– hidden in the small print– is a section that allows the Fed to lever-up the base-capital by 10-to-1 ($450 billion to $4.5 trillion) which means the Fed can buy as many "toxic" bonds and garbage assets as it chooses. The Fed is turning itself into a hedge fund in order to buy the sludge that has accumulated on the balance sheets of corporations and financial institutions for the last decade. It's another gigantic ripoff that's being cleverly concealed behind the ridiculous coronavirus hype. It's infuriating.

So here's the question: Do you think Congress knew that working people would only get a pittance while the bulk of the dough would go to Wall Street?

It's hard to say, but they certainly knew that the economy was cratering and that $500 billion wasn't going to put much of a dent in a $20 trillion economy. In other words, even if everyone goes out and blows their measly $1,200 checks on Day 1, we're still going to experience the sharpest economic contraction on record, a second Great Depression.

Maybe they should have talked about that in congress before they voted for this trillion-dollar turkey? Maybe they should have thought a little more about how the money should be distributed: Should it go to the people who actually buy things, generate activity and produce growth, or to the parasite class that blows up the system every decade and drags the economy down a black hole? That seems like something you might want to know before you pass a multi-trillion dollar bill that's supposed to fix the economy.

It's also worth noting that the $5.8 trillion is not nearly the total amount that Wall Street will eventually get. The Fed has already spent $2 trillion via its QE program (to shore up the dysfunctional repo market) and Fed chair Jay Powell announced on Thursday that another $2.3 trillion in loans and purchases would be used to buy municipal bonds, corporate bonds and loans to small businesses. The allocation for small businesses, which falls under the, Main Street Lending Program, has been widely touted as a sign of how much the Fed really cares about struggling Mom and Pop businesses that employ the majority of working Americans. But, once again, it's a sham and a boondoggle. The program is on-track to get $600 billion funding of which the US Treasury will provide the base-capital of $75 billion. The rest will be levered-up by 9-to-1 by the Fed, which means it's just more smoke and mirrors.

What readers need to realize is that the Treasury has accepted the credit risk for all of the loans that default . In other words, the American people are now on the hook for 100% of all of the loans that go south, and there's going to be alot of them because the banks have no reason to find creditworthy borrowers. They get a 5% cut off-the-top whether the loans blow up or not. And, that, my friend, is how you incentivize fraud which, as Bernie Sanders noted, "is Wall Street's business model."

It also helps to explain why Trump has repeatedly rejected congressional oversight of the various bailout programs. He's smart enough to know a good swindle when he sees one, and this one is a corker. The government is essentially waving trillions of dollars right under the noses of the world's most ravenous hyenas expecting them not to act in character. But of course they will act in character and hundreds of billions of dollars will be siphoned off by scheming sharpies who figure out how game the system and turn the whole fiasco into another Wall Street looting operation. You can bet on it.

So, what is the final tally?

Well, according to Trump's chief economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, the first bailout installment is $6.2 trillion (after the Fed ramps up the Treasury's contribution of $450 billion.). Then there's the $2.3 trillion in additional programs the Fed announced on Thursday. Finally, the Fed's QE program adds another $2 trillion in bond purchases since September 17, when the repo market went haywire.

Altogether, the total sum amounts to $10.5 trillion.

You know what they say, "A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking real money."

Of course, no one on Capitol Hill worries about trivialities like money because, "We're the United States of America, and our dollar will always be King." But there's a fundamental flaw to this type of thinking. Yes, the dollar is the world's reserve currency, but that's a privilege that the US has greatly abused over the years, and it's certainly not going to survive this latest wacky helicopter drop. No, I am not suggesting the US would ever default on its debt, that's not going to happen. But, yes, I am suggesting that the US will have to repay its debts in a currency that has lost a significant amount of its value. You don't have to be Einstein to figure out that you can't willy-nilly print-up $10 or $20 trillion dollars without eroding the value of the currency. That's a no-brainer. Central bankers around the world are now looking at their piles of USDs thinking, "Hmmm, maybe it's time I traded some of these greenbacks in for a few yen, euros or even Swiss francs?"

So how does this end? Can the Fed continue to write trillion dollar checks on an account that is already $23 trillion overdrawn? Will Central banks around the world continue to stockpile dollars when the Fed is printing them up faster than anyone can count? And what about China? How long before China realizes that US Treasuries are grossly overvalued, that US equities markets are unreformable, that the dollar is backed by nothing but red ink, and that Wall Street is the biggest and most corrupt cesspit on earth?

Not long, I'd wager. So, how does this end? It ends in a flash of monetary debasement preceded by a violent and destabilizing currency crisis. It's plain as the nose on your face. The Fed knows that when a nation's sovereign debt exceeds 100% of GDP, "there's almost no mathematical way to service that debt in real terms." Well, the US passed that milestone way-back in 2019 before this latest drunken spending-spree even began. It's safe to say, we've now entered the financial Twilight Zone, the Land of No Return. If we add the Fed's bulging balance sheet to the final estimate, (after all, it's just another shady Enron-type Special Purpose Vehicle) the national debt will be somewhere north of $33 trillion by year-end, which means that Uncle Sam will be the greatest credit risk on Planet Earth. Imagine how jaws will drop on the day that Moodys and Fitch slash the ratings on US Treasuries to Triple B "junk" status . That should turn a few heads.

So what can we expect in the months to come?

First, the economy is going to slip into a deflationary period as people get back to work and slowly resume their spending. But once demand picks up and the Fed's liquidity starts to kick in, the economy will rebound sharply followed by steadily rising prices. That's the red flag that will signal a weakening dollar. Similar to 1933, when Roosevelt took the U.S. off the gold standard and printed money like crazy, economic activity picked up but the value of the dollar dropped by 40%. A similar scenario seems likely here as well. Economist Lyn Alden Schwartzer summed it up like this in an article at

Seeking Alpha:

"One of the common debates is whether all of this debt, counteracted by a tremendous monetary expansion by the Federal Reserve in response, will cause a deflationary bust or an inflationary problem .. Fundamentally, evidence points to a period of deflation due to this global shutdown and demand destruction shock, likely followed in the coming years by rising inflation .

In the coming years, the United States will be effectively printing money to fund large fiscal deficits , while also having a large current account deficit and negative net international investment position. This is one of the main variables for my view that the dollar will likely decrease in value relative to a basket of foreign currencies in the coming years ." ( "Why This Is Unlike The Great Depression" , Seeking Alpha)

So, after decades of lethal low interest rates, relentless meddling and gross regulatory malpractice, the Fed has led us to this final, fatal crossroads: Inflate or default. From the looks of things, the choice has already been made. Wiemar America, here we come!

[Apr 12, 2020] Mike Davis on the pandemic and economic globalization. It is very very good.

Apr 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , Apr 12 2020 13:26 utc | 9

Mike Davis on the pandemic. It is very very good.
This is a small sample from the interview:
".....MM: Is capitalist globalization biologically sustainable?

"...MD: Only by accepting a permanent triage of humanity and dooming part of the human race to eventual extinction.

"Economic globalization -- that is to say, the accelerated free movement of finance and investment within a single world market where labor is relatively immobile and deprived of traditional bargaining power -- is different from economic interdependence regulated by the universal protection of the rights of labor and small producers. Instead, we see a world system of accumulation that is everywhere breaking down traditional boundaries between animal diseases and humans, increasing the power of drug monopolies, proliferating carcinogenic waste, subsidizing oligarchy and undermining progressive governments committed to public health, destroying traditional communities (both industrial and preindustrial) and turning the oceans into sewers. Market solutions leave in place Dickensian social conditions and perpetuate the global shame of income-limited access to clean water and sanitation.

"The present crisis does force capital, large and small, to confront the possible breakdown of its global production chains and the ability to constantly re-source cheaper supplies of overseas labor. At the same time, it points to important new or expanding markets for vaccines, sterilization systems, surveillance technology, home grocery delivery and so on. The combined dangers and opportunities will lead to a partial fix: new products and procedures that reduce the health risks of constant disease emergence while simultaneously spurring the further development of surveillance capitalism. But these protections will almost certainly be limited -- if left up to markets and authoritarian nationalist regimes -- to rich countries and rich classes. They will reinforce walls, not pull them down, and deepen the divide between two humanities: one with resources to mitigate climate change and new pandemics and the other without...."

https://madamasr.com/en/2020/03/30/feature/politics/mike-davis-on-pandemics-super-capitalism-and-the-struggles-of-tomorrow/?fbclid=IwAR1IpLGS0IfrxvTNSr8G0CdouC0VsMTYk-M6kvhljN_Zu7vkDFFyuC5rUIs

[Apr 11, 2020] The country that glorifies profit at any cost and ruthless unethical competition will fare bad in case of any virus epidemic. That includes "Typhoid Mary" cases of selfish anti-social behaviour

Highly recommended!
Ideologically COVID-19 is another nail in the coffin of neoliberalism.
Apr 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
bevin , Apr 10 2020 23:06 utc | 92
Diane Johnstone gets it right:

"...Today, quite a number of alternative media commentators are ready to believe in the absolute power not of God but of Mammon, of the powers of Wall Street and its partners in politics, the media and the military. In this view, nothing major happens that hasn't been planned by earthly powers for their own selfish interest.

"Mammon is wrecking the economy so a few oligarchs will own everything. Or else Mammon created the hoax Coronavirus 19 in order to lock us all up and deprive us of what little is left of our freedom. Or finally Mammon is using a virus in order to have a pretext to vaccinate us all with secret substances and turn us all into zombies.

"Is this credible? In one sense, it is. We know that Mammon is unscrupulous, morally capable of all crimes. But things do happen that Mammon did not plan, such as earthquakes, floods and plagues. Dislike of our ruling class combined with dislike of being locked up leads to the equation: They are simply using this (fake) crisis in order to lock us up!

"But what for? To whom is there any advantage in locking down the population? For the pleasure of telling themselves, "Aha, we've got them where we want them, all stuck at home!" Is this intended to suppress popular revolt? What popular revolt? Why repress people who aren't doing anything that needs to be repressed?...

"What is the use of locking up a population – and I think especially of the United States – that is disunited, disorganized, profoundly confused by generations of ideological indoctrination telling them that their country is "the best" in every way, and thus unable to formulate coherent demands on a system that exploits them ruthlessly? Do you need to lock up your faithful Labrador so he won't bite you?...

"....Mammon is blinded by its own hubris, often stupid, incompetent, dumbed down by getting away with so much so easily. Take a look at Mike Pompeo or Mike Pence – are these all-powerful geniuses? No, they are semi-morons who have been able to crawl up a corrupt system contemptuous of truth, virtue or intelligence – like the rest of the gangsters in power in a system devoid of any ethical or intellectual standards.

"The power of creatures like that is merely the reflection of the abdication of social responsibility by whole populations whose disinterest in politics has allowed the scum to rise to the top.

The lockdown decreed by our Western governments reveals helplessness rather than power. They did not rush to lock us down. The lockdown is disastrous for the economy which is their prime concern. They hesitated and did so only when they had to do something and were ill-equipped to do anything else. They saw that China had done so with good results. But smart Asian governments did even more, deploying masks, tests and treatments Western governments did not possess..."

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/04/10/covid-19-coronavirus-and-civilization/

[Apr 11, 2020] Coronavirus exposed fragility of offshored supply chains

Apr 11, 2020 | finance.yahoo.com

From toilet paper shortages to computer chips, the novel coronavirus pandemic has exposed many weak links in the highly globalized supply chains that enable goods to move around the world.

Now, many companies are taking a long, hard look at their models to see if the status quo still works. If the coronavirus broke the supply chain, how do you fix it? What should be changed, and what should not be changed?

There are three parts of the supply chain that have been thrown into question: offshoring, just-in-time inventory, and diversification -- and every company reliant on manufacturing is likely examining these factors.

What the coronavirus won't change: offshoring

From clothing to electronics and much more, things in the United States usually come from really far away, often from China, where the new coronavirus originated. For many companies, this is often unavoidable, because many goods would be prohibitively expensive if made in regions where labor costs are high. Offshoring and outsourcing exploded after 1979, when China adopted its Open Door Policy, allowing foreign companies to access its vast and inexpensive labor market, enabling far cheaper goods than before.

Taiwan-based Foxconn is best known as the assembler of the iPhone, with many factories in China like this one in Shenzhen. But going forward, companies will have to diversify their supply chains to ensure that they can still function if one country goes offline. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

"Anything that was labor intensive -- footwear, apparel, assembly of electronics -- moved to China," said Marshall Fisher , a professor of operations, information, and decisions at Wharton. "In 1960, 5% of the world's physical products crossed boundaries. That's grown to about 50%."

The trade-off from offshoring is lead time. A widget produced in China takes a long time to sail to the West, unless you put it on a plane, which eats up much of the cost savings. For many companies, that means nailing predictions to make sure they don't make too much product or too little, which isn't easy.

The key aspect with international trade, during the pandemic, is politics. It can be good and bad for business.

Rob Siegel, a Stanford professor who studies supply chains and has created them for businesses, recalled as a business school student in the fall 1993 when former Intel ( INTC ) CEO Andy Grove told his class that there will never be war with China because "you will never invade the country that has the factories that make all your things."

Unfortunately, when it comes to pandemics, politics don't help. Taiwan, a manufacturing powerhouse, banned mask exports in late January as the coronavirus surged. (Taiwan later lifted the ban and donated many masks to other countries.) Dozens of countries -- including much of Europe, the U.S., and Brazil -- followed, either banning or restricting exports due to coronavirus.

This, perhaps greater than anything else, has prompted the question: Do you really want to rely on X country during an emergency?

However, this is more of a question for governments than businesses, which are more focused on making money than national security.

For many companies, making stuff abroad is the only viable option, but they do need to continue functioning if something bad happens. That's why Fisher thinks the question companies will be asking isn't "is our supply chain too long?," but rather "should we be investing in resilience of the [complex, international] supply chain?"

The 'just-in-time' model cracks

Companies don't just buy stuff from far away, but they have been buying the least amount of stuff possible -- running lean inventory and only buying when they need to.

That's called the "just-in-time" inventory model, and like predicting months in advance when buying from afar, companies have gotten really good at creating models that allow them to run extremely efficiently. The downside of this model is it's fragile: If something goes wrong, companies will be in a bind.

So, when the coronavirus hit, some companies and consumers experienced supply issues.

But what should a company do if they operate under this model?

"Largely speaking [just-in-time] isn't going to be redesigned for a 100-year crisis," said Siegel. "It's almost impossible to plan for something that happens every 100 years."

This may sound like a gamble, but for many companies, changing the entire model just doesn't make sense. As Yossi Sheffi, director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, told Yahoo Finance, there are just too many advantages of "just-in-time" that go beyond cost. There's more speed and agility, but also more quality.

When an auto production line experiences a problem with a part, for example, you have a pile of parts and swap a new one in. But with just-in-time, "you stop the line, find out what's wrong, and fix it," Sheffi said. "Low inventory helps people find out what's wrong."

For some stuff, however, we may see significant changes in inventory management. The pandemic has shown that the critical strategic reserves of products like ventilators and personal protective equipment are simply not adequate during a global emergency. The U.S., unable to import ventilators quickly due to other countries' export laws, resorted to deputizing General Motors ( GM ) to make ventilators.

For many, that wasn't quick enough, and shifting the permanent production domestically may not be feasible either in the future. But what might be more practical is planning for more inventory.

"If you have 100,000 ventilators that you could pull out at a moment's notice, that'd be easier [than it would be] to nationalize GM via the Defense Protection Act," said Siegel.

Going forward, the government may choose to mandate that certain companies run with more inventory for critical items like ventilators, just in case, and keep their own warehouses better stocked.

What will change: diversification

For the most part, however, just-in-time inventory is here to stay, and low-cost offshoring isn't going anywhere. But what Yossi, Siegel, and Fisher agree will change is diversification.

"The first line of defense is to make your components in multiple places," said Fisher. "The idea is at least two companies making it in two geographic locations."

"I expect companies to have at least a secondary supplier," said Sheffi. "Not 50%, maybe 20-30%."

Rising wages in China have forced some companies to move their manufacturing away from the country, said Fisher, but many companies are still exposed.

Fisher noted that the 2011 Tsunami in Japan taught many companies, like Apple, the lesson to be more robust in the face of disruption, but that as the disaster faded into memory, so did the calls to diversify.

"Apple [has] foregone the few millions of costs to make the supply chain more robust and lost $100 billion in market cap," he said. "The needle has tipped too much to efficiency from robustness."

Since then, the volleys of tariffs and uncertainty during the trade war with China caused companies to realize that relying solely on that country for manufacturing exposed them to big risks. Many companies, including Apple ( AAPL ), decided it would be a good idea to get more baskets to put their eggs in . Inadvertently, the U.S.-China trade war prepared some companies for the coronavirus pandemic. But few had made any big moves by the time the coronavirus hit.

This, Fisher said, is a wakeup call.

"What companies will do is map their supply chain, look at everything that goes in," said Fisher. "And those supply chains can be 10 layers deep. Foxconn gets things from other suppliers, which get them from another."

What you get from this is a figure called "revenue at risk," which helps underscore the amount of money that is at stake should one link break in the chain. By adding other suppliers, that number can be brought down, avoiding a catastrophic stoppage for a business.

But given that this is somewhat of a 100-year storm -- literally, the last major pandemic was in 1918 -- the question remains: how many companies will simply roll the dice instead?

--

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, personal finance, retail, airlines, and more. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann .

[Apr 11, 2020] 'Never in my country': COVID-19 and American exceptionalism by Jeanne Morefield

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the "Third World." ..."
"... In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70 nations – more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases, listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military personnel working in approximately 160 countries. ..."
"... Since then, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries, many of which (e.g. Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile) had elected leaders willing to nationalize their natural resources and industries. Often these interventions took the form of covert operations. Less frequently, the United States went to war to achieve these same ends (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq). ..."
"... In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget and over half of all discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit. ..."
Apr 07, 2020 | responsiblestatecraft.org

This March, as COVID-19's capacity to overwhelm the American healthcare system was becoming obvious, experts marveled at the scenario unfolding before their eyes. "We have Third World countries who are better equipped than we are now in Seattle," noted one healthcare professional, her words echoed just a few days later by a shocked doctor in New York who described "a third-world country type of scenario." Donald Trump could similarly only grasp what was happening through the same comparison. "I have seen things that I've never seen before," he said . "I mean I've seen them, but I've seen them on television and faraway lands, never in my country."

At the same time, regardless of the fact that "Third World" terminology is outdated and confusing, Trump's inept handling of the pandemic has itself elicited more than one "banana republic" analogy, reflecting already well-worn, bipartisan comparisons of Trump to a " third world dictator " (never mind that dictators and authoritarians have never been confined solely to lower income countries).

And yet, while such comparisons provoke predictably nativist outrage from the right, what is absent from any of these responses to the situation is a sense of reflection or humility about the "Third World" comparison itself. The doctor in New York who finds himself caught in a "third world" scenario and the political commentators outraged when Trump behaves "like a third world dictator" uniformly express themselves in terms of incredulous wonderment. One never hears the potential second half of this comparison: "I am now experiencing what it is like to live in a country that resembles the kind of nation upon whom the United States regularly imposes broken economies and corrupt leaders."

Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the "Third World."

In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70 nations – more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases, listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military personnel working in approximately 160 countries. This is a globe-spanning military and security apparatus organized into regional commands that resemble the "proconsuls of the Roman empire and the governors-general of the British." In other words, this apparatus is built not for deterrence, but for primacy.

The U.S.'s global primacy emerged from the wreckage of World War II when the United States stepped into the shoes vacated by European empires. Throughout the Cold War, and in the name of supporting "free peoples," the sprawling American security apparatus helped ensure that 300 years of imperial resource extraction and wealth distribution – from what was then called the Third World to the First – remained undisturbed, despite decolonization.

Since then, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries, many of which (e.g. Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile) had elected leaders willing to nationalize their natural resources and industries. Often these interventions took the form of covert operations. Less frequently, the United States went to war to achieve these same ends (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq).

In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget and over half of all discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit.

Trump's claim that Obama had "hollowed out" defense spending was not only grossly untrue, it masked the consistency of the security budget's metastasizing growth since the Vietnam War, regardless of who sits in the White House. At $738 billion dollars, Trump's security budget was passed in December with the overwhelming support of House Democrats.

And yet, from the perspective of public discourse in this country, our globe-spanning, resource-draining military and security apparatus exists in an entirely parallel universe to the one most Americans experience on a daily level. Occasionally, we wake up to the idea of this parallel universe but only when the United States is involved in visible military actions. The rest of the time, Americans leave thinking about international politics – and the deaths, for instance, of 2.5 million Iraqis since 2003 – to the legions of policy analysts and Pentagon employees who largely accept American military primacy as an "article of faith," as Professor of International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham Patrick Porter has said .

Foreign policy is routinely the last issue Americans consider when they vote for presidents even though the president has more discretionary power over foreign policy than any other area of American politics. Thus, despite its size, impact, and expense, the world's military hegemon exists somewhere on the periphery of most Americans' self-understanding, as though, like the sun, it can't be looked upon directly for fear of blindness.

Why is our avoidance of the U.S.'s weighty impact on the world a problem in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic? Most obviously, the fact that our massive security budget has gone so long without being widely questioned means that one of the soundest courses of action for the U.S. during this crisis remains resolutely out of sight.

The shock of discovering that our healthcare system is so quickly overwhelmed should automatically trigger broader conversations about spending priorities that entail deep and sustained cuts in an engorged security budget whose sole purpose is the maintenance of primacy. And yet, not only has this not happened, $10.5 billion of the coronavirus aid package has been earmarked for the Pentagon, with $2.4 billion of that channeled to the "defense industrial base." Of the $500 billion aimed at corporate America, $17.5 billion is set aside "for businesses critical to maintaining national security" such as aerospace.

To make matters worse, our blindness to this bloated security complex makes it frighteningly easy for champions of American primacy to sound the alarm when they even suspect a dip in funding might be forthcoming. Indeed, before most of us had even glanced at the details of the coronavirus bill, foreign policy hawks were already issuing dark prediction s about the impact of still-imaginary cuts in the security budget on the U.S.'s "ability to strike any target on the planet in response to hostile actions by any actor" – as if that ability already did not exist many times over.

On a more existential level, a country that is collectively engaged in unseeing its own global power cannot help but fail to make connections between that power and domestic politics, particularly when a little of the outside world seeps in. For instance, because most Americans are unaware of their government's sponsorship of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the Middle East throughout the Cold War, 9/11 can only ever appear to have come from nowhere, or because Muslims hate our way of life.

This "how did we get here?" attitude replicates itself at every level of political life making it profoundly difficult for Americans to see the impact of their nation on the rest of the world, and the blowback from that impact on the United States itself. Right now, the outsized influence of American foreign policy is already encouraging the spread of coronavirus itself as U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran severely hamper that country's ability to respond to the virus at home and virtually guarantee its spread throughout the region.

Closer to home, our shock at the healthcare system's inept response to the pandemic masks the relationship between the U.S.'s imposition of free-market totalitarianism on countries throughout the Global South and the impact of free-market totalitarianism on our own welfare state .

Likewise, it is more than karmic comeuppance that the President of the United States now resembles the self-serving authoritarians the U.S. forced on so many formerly colonized nations. The modes of militarized policing American security experts exported to those authoritarian regimes also contributed , on a policy level, to both the rise of militarized policing in American cities and the rise of mass incarceration in the 1980s and 90s. Both of these phenomena played a significant role in radicalizing Trump's white nationalist base and decreasing their tolerance for democracy.

Most importantly, because the U.S. is blind to its power abroad, it cannot help but turn that blindness on itself. This means that even during a pandemic when America's exceptionalism – our lack of national healthcare – has profoundly negative consequences on the population, the idea of looking to the rest of the world for solutions remains unthinkable.

Senator Bernie Sanders' reasonable suggestion that the U.S., like Denmark, should nationalize its healthcare system is dismissed as the fanciful pipe dream of an aging socialist rather than an obvious solution to a human problem embraced by nearly every other nation in the world. The Seattle healthcare professional who expressed shock that even "Third World countries" are "better equipped" than we are to confront COVID-19 betrays a stunning ignorance of the diversity of healthcare systems within developing countries. Cuba, for instance, has responded to this crisis with an efficiency and humanity that puts the U.S. to shame.

Indeed, the U.S. is only beginning to feel the full impact of COVID-19's explosive confrontation with our exceptionalism: if the unemployment rate really does reach 32 percent, as has been predicted, millions of people will not only lose their jobs but their health insurance as well. In the middle of a pandemic.

Over 150 years apart, political commentators Edmund Burke and Aimé Césaire referred to this blindness as the byproduct of imperialism. Both used the exact same language to describe it; as a "gangrene" that "poisons" the colonizing body politic. From their different historical perspectives, Burke and Césaire observed how colonization boomerangs back on colonial society itself, causing irreversible damage to nations that consider themselves humane and enlightened, drawing them deeper into denial and self-delusion.

Perhaps right now there is a chance that COVID-19 – an actual, not metaphorical contagion – can have the opposite effect on the U.S. by opening our eyes to the things that go unseen. Perhaps the shock of recognizing the U.S. itself is less developed than our imagined "Third World" might prompt Americans to tear our eyes away from ourselves and look toward the actual world outside our borders for examples of the kinds of political, economic, and social solidarity necessary to fight the spread of Coronavirus. And perhaps moving beyond shock and incredulity to genuine recognition and empathy with people whose economies and democracies have been decimated by American hegemony might begin the process of reckoning with the costs of that hegemony, not just in "faraway lands" but at home. In our country.

[Apr 10, 2020] NWO, globalism and US leadership RIP by The Saker

Apr 10, 2020 | www.unz.com

...The quality and sheer size of the AngloZionist propaganda machine was very successful in keeping most of the people in the West in total ignorance of these realities. The faster the Empire was collapsing, the more Obama or Trump peppered their patriotic flag-waving ceremonies (aka "press conferences") with references to an "indispensable nation" providing "vital leadership" thanks to its "the best economy in history", the "best military in history" and even "unbelievable CEOs", "incredible politicians" and even "incredible conversations". The message was simple: we are the best, better than all the rest and we are invincible.

Then COVID19 happened.

... ... ...

First , the imperial propaganda machine is simply unable to conceal the magnitude of the disaster, even in countries like the US or the UK. Oh sure, initially doctors and even USN ship commanders were summarily fired for speaking the truth, but even those cases proved impossible to conceal and public opinion got even more suspicious of official assurances and statements. The truth is that most of the entire planet already realized that this is a huge crisis and that countries like Russia or China responded better than the US. The planet also knows that the US "health not care" system is broke, corrupt, and mostly dysfunctional and that Trump's initial optimism was based on nothing. BTW – Trump haters have immediately instrumentalized the crisis to bash Trump. The sad thing is that while they are no better (and most definitely not the braindead Uncle Joe), they are right about Trump being completely out of touch with reality. In the age of the Internet this is a reality which even the US propaganda machine is unable to conceal from the US public forever.

Second , and that is now quite obvious, it is becoming clear that the capitalist ideology of free markets, globalism, consumerism, extreme individualism and, above all, greed, is totally unable to cope with the crisis. Even more offensively to those who still believed in an ideology based on the assumption that the sum of our greeds will create an optimal society, countries with stronger collectivist traditions of solidarity (whether "enhanced" by Marxist or Socialist ideas or not) did much better. China for starters, but also Cuba and even Russia (which is neither Marxist nor Socialist, but which has very strong collectivist traditions) or South Korea or Singapore (both non-Marxists with strong collectivist traditions). Even tiny Venezuela, embattled and under siege by the Empire, managed to do much better than the US or the UK . Not only did these countries all fare much better than much richer, and putatively much "freer", countries, they did so while under US sanctions. And, finally, just to add insult to injury, these supposedly "bad" countries proved much more generous than those incorporated into the Empire: they sent many tons of vitally needed equipment and hundred of specialized scientists and even military personnel to help those countries most in need (Italy, Spain, Serbia, etc.).

... ... ...

Third , then we all saw the ugly sight of various western "democracies" literally stealing vital medical gear from each other, over and over again. In fact, under a purely capitalistic logic, this kind of "competition" was both inevitable (true) and even desirable (false): major Med & Pharma companies all have used this financial windfall to maximize their profits (which is, after all, what all corporations have to do in a capitalist system: get as much money as possible for their shareholders).

... ... ...

Fourth , we also witness the raw nastiness of the imperial propaganda machine in articles about how "Russia sent useless gear to Italy", that "Chinese equipment did not work" or about how all the countries which responded better and sooner were all lying about the real numbers (which is utter nonsense, the Chinese have been very open, as have the Russians: the truth is that in the early phases of a pandemic it is impossible to get real numbers, that can only be done much later). This is as false as the "Iraqi incubators", "genocidal Serbs" or "Gaddafi's Viagra" and time will prove it.

Fifth , then there is the issue of poverty. We see the first signs that this pandemic (like all pandemics) is affecting the poor much harder than the rich. Hardly a surprise For example, in the US cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit, Miami or New Orleans have a lot of poor neighborhoods and that people there are getting hit very hard.

... ... ...

Sixth , just like the Empire itself, NATO and the EU are also in free fall, both clueless as to what to do and in a panic about doing anything proactive. Besides the flag-waving Idiot-in-Chief, I also took the time to listen to both Macron and Merkel. They are both in a full-freak-out mode, Macron speaks over and over about a "war" while Merkel declared that the pandemic is the most serious challenge facing Germany since WWII!

... ... ...

Seven , in the US, the contrast between the Federal government and the state authorities is quite startling. As much as the Federal government is terminally dysfunctional, state governors have often had to use a lot of out of the box thinking to get supplies and specialists

Anon [189] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 8, 2020 at 2:43 am GMT

Solid article!

I can only wish good luck to trump on this examination of WHO-it is riddled with fraud, corruption, massive conflicts of interest. The same applies to CDC, which is a revolving door for Big Pharma.

[Apr 09, 2020] Coronavirus Means No More Money for Forever Wars by Daniel L. Davis

Notable quotes:
"... This pandemic we are facing represents the greatest challenge our country has faced in generations. It will take every ounce of energy and focus we have to navigate these troubled waters. We must wisely use our limited resources to support our domestic needs–and end our addiction to fighting unnecessary forever-wars. ..."
"... After all, American lawmakers are owned and operated by the corporate sector, led by the petrochemical industry. ..."
Apr 07, 2020 | nationalinterest.org

For the better part of the past two decades, the United States has indulgently and counterproductively wasted over $6 trillion and thousands of lives on unnecessary wars abroad. The towering costs imposed on our country by coronavirus now exposes how Washington's skewed priorities left the nation fragile internally and vulnerable to a crisis. For our own security, it is time to end these pointless drains on our resources and prioritize strengthening America.

The most egregious examples of our expensive and unnecessary military deployments abroad are the combat operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Africa. The Department of Defense will receive $165 billion in overseas contingency operations funding for Fiscal Year 2020 alone. These operations will include a total of over 93,000 troops (including regional support troops). Those are staggering numbers.

They are also wholly unnecessary. There are no security threats to America in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan or Africa that in any way justify such expenses. Up until now, these costs have had virtually no impact on the population at large. With the mounting costs as a result of coronavirus, however, it is clear we can no longer afford the luxury of burning money on peripheral military missions.

Even after Congress passed an unprecedented $2 trillion stimulus package in response to COVID-19, the hit to our economy will not be quickly repaired.

This stimulus package barely addresses the huge and expanding problem of a health care system struggling to cope with the exploding costs of providing care for so many seriously ill people. There are shortages of personal protective equipment necessary for medical professionals, large-scale testing remains a challenge, and in some locations finding enough hospital beds for ICU patients is almost at the breaking point.Despite the clear and present danger coronavirus poses to millions of our citizens, there are some in Washington who want to continue pushing the thoroughly discredited "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran, unnecessarily inflaming tensions with a country that poses a minimal threat to America. This situation is even worse than the possibility of wasting resources desperately needed at home, it puts American servicemen and women in Iraq and Syria at almost daily risk of their lives–and the potential to get us dragged into a new war.

The architects of the maximum pressure campaign against Tehran have long promised that it would moderate Iran's behavior, that it would compel them to restrain their malevolent behavior, and that it would increase the chances of crafting a new, better deal. The result has been precisely and dramatically the opposite.

Despite the crippling sanctions and the devastation caused to their economy, Iran is now openly ramping up its nuclear development activities, is engaging in risky behavior in the region, and is presently unwilling even to consider diplomacy until we relieve sanctions. The more we push, the further from a resolution we get and the higher the chances that a miscalculation on someone's part inadvertently drags America into a war it neither needs nor wants.

The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been exceedingly expensive, but a conflict with Iran would be considerably worse and require our country–when it could least afford it–to divert enormous resources and manpower to fighting a wholly unnecessary conflict that would likely drag on many years. Such a war–in the current economic straits–could plunge our country into a depression .

Flatly stated, Iran is no more than a middling power in the region that is more than balanced by its neighbors. Our conventional military and nuclear deterrent could overpower any unprovoked attack Iran may ever consider. There is no justification, therefore, in maintaining this pointless pressure campaign and risking a war we don't need.

This pandemic we are facing represents the greatest challenge our country has faced in generations. It will take every ounce of energy and focus we have to navigate these troubled waters. We must wisely use our limited resources to support our domestic needs–and end our addiction to fighting unnecessary forever-wars.

Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after 21 years, including four combat deployments. Follow him @DanielLDavis1 .


Carroll Price an hour ago • edited ,

The sole purpose behind the Forever Wars is creating the prophesied Greater Isreal by destroying it's competitors and rivals in the region.

Dario Seventi 2 hours ago ,

Is the fact that we are insolvent stopping the Pentagon from requesting increased military spending? Is the fact that we are broke stopping the neo-cons for war preparations with Iran and Venezuela? I'm convinced that the only thing that will put an end to our insane foreign policy is when some other country finally says enough, and gives us a taste of our own medicine.

deliaruhe 18 hours ago ,

...After all, American lawmakers are owned and operated by the corporate sector, led by the petrochemical industry.

The "expert" quoted at the top of this essay is quite right: war is an American addiction. Whether they are regime-changing, or wagging the dog, or going abroad to slay dragons, Washington will never get this monkey off its back---unless it's forced to go cold turkey. Only a deep economic depression can do that---and that looks to me as if it's on the horizon. It will be one that takes the whole of the North Atlantic world with it.

Ahson rightiswrong rightiswrong 17 hours ago ,

Well, mammy's basement aren't so bad these days. And what's so cowardly about pulling out due to Iranian/ PMU pressure? justifying it on the pandemic? You know you're time's up in Iraq. Any excuse will do.

[Apr 08, 2020] The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults: The blanket dissemination of the ideology of free market capitalism through the media and the purging, especially in academia, of critical voices have permitted our oligarchs to orchestrate the largest income inequality gap in the industrialized world

Apr 08, 2020 | www.truthdig.com

"The rich are different from us," F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, "Yes, they have more money."

The exchange, although it never actually took place, sums up a wisdom Fitzgerald had that eluded Hemingway. The rich are different. The cocoon of wealth and privilege permits the rich to turn those around them into compliant workers, hangers-on, servants, flatterers and sycophants. Wealth breeds, as Fitzgerald illustrated in "The Great Gatsby" and his short story "The Rich Boy," a class of people for whom human beings are disposable commodities. Colleagues, associates, employees, kitchen staff, servants, gardeners, tutors, personal trainers, even friends and family, bend to the whims of the wealthy or disappear. Once oligarchs achieve unchecked economic and political power, as they have in the United States, the citizens too become disposable.

The public face of the oligarchic class bears little resemblance to the private face. I, like Fitzgerald, was thrown into the embrace of the upper crust when young. I was shipped off as a scholarship student at the age of 10 to an exclusive New England boarding school. I had classmates whose fathers -- fathers they rarely saw -- arrived at the school in their limousines accompanied by personal photographers (and at times their mistresses), so the press could be fed images of rich and famous men playing the role of good fathers. I spent time in the homes of the ultra-rich and powerful, watching my classmates, who were children, callously order around men and women who worked as their chauffeurs, cooks, nannies and servants. When the sons and daughters of the rich get into serious trouble there are always lawyers, publicists and political personages to protect them -- George W. Bush's life is a case study in the insidious affirmative action for the rich. The rich have a snobbish disdain for the poor -- despite well-publicized acts of philanthropy -- and the middle class. These lower classes are viewed as uncouth parasites, annoyances that have to be endured, at times placated and always controlled in the quest to amass more power and money. My hatred of authority, along with my loathing for the pretensions, heartlessness and sense of entitlement of the rich, comes from living among the privileged. It was a deeply unpleasant experience. But it exposed me to their insatiable selfishness and hedonism. I learned, as a boy, who were my enemies.

The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults. We have been blinded to the depravity of our ruling elite by the relentless propaganda of public relations firms that work on behalf of corporations and the rich. Compliant politicians, clueless entertainers and our vapid, corporate-funded popular culture, which holds up the rich as leaders to emulate and assures us that through diligence and hard work we can join them, keep us from seeing the truth.

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy," Fitzgerald wrote of the wealthy couple at the center of Gatsby's life. "They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

Aristotle, Niccolò Machiavelli, Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith and Karl Marx all began from the premise there is a natural antagonism between the rich and the masses. "Those who have too much of the goods of fortune, strength, wealth, friends, and the like, are neither willing nor able to submit to authority," Aristotle wrote in "Politics." "The evil begins at home; for when they are boys, by reason of the luxury in which they are brought up, they never learn, even at school, the habit of obedience." Oligarchs, these philosophers knew, are schooled in the mechanisms of manipulation, subtle and overt repression and exploitation to protect their wealth and power at our expense. Foremost among their mechanisms of control is the control of ideas. Ruling elites ensure that the established intellectual class is subservient to an ideology -- in this case free market capitalism and globalization -- that justifies their greed. "The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships," Marx wrote, "the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas."

The blanket dissemination of the ideology of free market capitalism through the media and the purging, especially in academia, of critical voices have permitted our oligarchs to orchestrate the largest income inequality gap in the industrialized world. The top 1 percent in the United States own 40 percent of the nation's wealth while the bottom 80 percent own only 7 percent, as Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote in "The Price of Inequality." For every dollar that the wealthiest 0.1 percent amassed in 1980 they had an additional $3 in yearly income in 2008, David Cay Johnston explained in the article "9 Things the Rich Don't Want You to Know About Taxes." The bottom 90 percent, Johnson said, in the same period added only one cent. Half of the country is now classified as poor or low-income. The real value of the minimum wage has fallen by $2.77 since 1968. Oligarchs do not believe in self-sacrifice for the common good. They never have. They never will. They are the cancer of democracy."We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are," Wendell Berry writes. "Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all -- by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians -- be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us. How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing."

The rise of an oligarchic state offers a nation two routes, according to Aristotle. The impoverished masses either revolt to rectify the imbalance of wealth and power or the oligarchs establish a brutal tyranny to keep the masses forcibly enslaved. We have chosen the second of Aristotle's options. The slow advances we made in the early 20th century through unions, government regulation, the New Deal, the courts, an alternative press and mass movements have been reversed. The oligarchs are turning us -- as they did in the 19th century steel and textile factories -- into disposable human beings. They are building the most pervasive security and surveillance apparatus in human history to keep us submissive.

This imbalance would not have disturbed most of our Founding Fathers. The Founding Fathers, largely wealthy slaveholders, feared direct democracy. They rigged our political process to thwart popular rule and protect the property rights of the native aristocracy. The masses were to be kept at bay. The Electoral College, the original power of the states to appoint senators, the disenfranchisement of women, Native Americans, African-Americans and men without property locked most people out of the democratic process at the beginning of the republic. We had to fight for our voice. Hundreds of workers were killed and thousands were wounded in our labor wars. The violence dwarfed the labor battles in any other industrialized nation. The democratic openings we achieved were fought for and paid for with the blood of abolitionists, African-Americans, suffragists, workers and those in the anti-war and civil rights movements. Our radical movements, repressed and ruthlessly dismantled in the name of anti-communism, were the real engines of equality and social justice. The squalor and suffering inflicted on workers by the oligarchic class in the 19th century is mirrored in the present, now that we have been stripped of protection. Dissent is once again a criminal act. The Mellons, Rockefellers and Carnegies at the turn of the last century sought to create a nation of masters and serfs. The modern corporate incarnation of this 19th century oligarchic elite has created a worldwide neofeudalism, where workers across the planet toil in misery while corporate oligarchs amass hundreds of millions in personal wealth.

Class struggle defines most of human history. Marx got this right. The sooner we realize that we are locked in deadly warfare with our ruling, corporate elite, the sooner we will realize that these elites must be overthrown. The corporate oligarchs have now seized all institutional systems of power in the United States. Electoral politics, internal security, the judiciary, our universities, the arts and finance, along with nearly all forms of communication, are in corporate hands. Our democracy, with faux debates between two corporate parties, is meaningless political theater. There is no way within the system to defy the demands of Wall Street, the fossil fuel industry or war profiteers. The only route left to us, as Aristotle knew, is revolt.

It is not a new story. The rich, throughout history, have found ways to subjugate and re-subjugate the masses. And the masses, throughout history, have cyclically awoken to throw off their chains. The ceaseless fight in human societies between the despotic power of the rich and the struggle for justice and equality lies at the heart of Fitzgerald's novel, which uses the story of Gatsby to carry out a fierce indictment of capitalism. Fitzgerald was reading Oswald Spengler's "The Decline of the West" as he was writing "The Great Gatsby." Spengler predicted that, as Western democracies calcified and died, a class of "monied thugs" would replace the traditional political elites. Spengler was right about that.

"There are only two or three human stories," Willa Cather wrote, "and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before."

The seesaw of history has thrust the oligarchs once again into the sky. We sit humiliated and broken on the ground. It is an old battle. It has been fought over and over in human history. We never seem to learn. It is time to grab our pitchforks.

[Apr 06, 2020] For the central attribute is symmetry: the balancing of incentives and disincentives, people should also penalized if something for which they are responsible goes wrong and hurts others: he or she who wants a share of the benefits needs to also share some of the risks.

Apr 06, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Steve H. , April 6, 2020 at 8:22 am

Taleb Nassim on Skin in the Game:

For the central attribute is symmetry: the balancing of incentives and disincentives, people should also penalized if something for which they are responsible goes wrong and hurts others: he or she who wants a share of the benefits needs to also share some of the risks.

. . .

And in the absence of the filtering of skin in the game, the mechanisms of evolution fail: if someone else dies in your stead, the built up of asymmetric risks and misfitness will cause the system to eventually blow-up.

[medium.com/incerto/what-do-i-mean-by-skin-in-the-game-my-own-version-cc858dc73260]

vlade , April 6, 2020 at 8:38 am

Taleb's skin in the game ignores the disincentives the skin-in-the-game creates, which are often fat-tailed.

Feedback is not the same as skin-in-the-game.

Steve H. , April 6, 2020 at 9:30 am

I read your use of feedback as >reference to external stimuli (the real world).

With Taleb, I'm reading disincentives as penalties, and that lack of penalty/punishment warps the selection process of evolution. With respect to the post, that has created a lack of respect for risk by those who make decisions.

It can be taken a step farther, that the selection process has created perverse incentives. For example, the bailouts from 2008 made the FIRE sector qliphotically antifragile. In that scenario, risk becomes rewarding.

I want to be careful here about using the word feedback, its ambiguities could be confusing. Given that, I'm interested in knowing what you mean about ignoring the disincentives skin-in-the-game creates. Could you please expand on that?

vlade , April 6, 2020 at 10:07 am

Feedback as reference to external stimuli is ok.

My problem with Taleb's skin in the game is that, as he well knows, it's hard to distinguish luck (good or bad) and skill. How can we punish for luck though?

Think of a judge, who gets, through his skill, 99 out of 100 cases right. But the 100th – which, by pure luck, could be really large case – he gets wrong.

Or, even simpler. Technically, if you do one decision a day, and have 99% success rate, every three months you get somethign wrong (1-0.99^60 = 0.54) more likely than not. Should you be punished for this? If we yes, then people will start takin decisions where alternate history is hard to prove, i.e. you create a selection bias towards "do nothing". You can then be punished for "doing nothing" but most of the time "do nothing" is a safe choice. (it's a specific case of "go with the crowd")

Also, in decision making, context is extremely important (which is why courts go to super lenghts to establish it in judical cases). Taleb should know it, and he should also know that unless context is taken into account _in_full_ then the skin-in-the-game will not be seen as fair. But the problem is, the context can never be fully established, and rarely w/o the participation of the major decision maker. Who will have no incentive to participate. Which will hamper learning from it.

Skin in the game makes sense when you can clearly separate luck and skill, and clearly establish context. Even one of those is rare occasion, both is extremely so.

That said, you can often establish post fact when someone blew up (this is what the various enuiries do). And then you'd treat accordingly. But that's not skin-in-the-game, because again, the enquiry can establish that you acted in good faith, as most people would act at the time – and so assign no blame. So you may "fail honourably".

Skin in the game does not let you fail honourably – because it's not skin in the game anymore (because it can let you game the system again, via doing just enough to pass any future enquiry as "more could have been done, but there's no clear knowing dereliction of duty).

TLDR; skin-in-the-game is an attempt at simplictic solution to a complex problem. Taleb should know better.

Steve H. , April 6, 2020 at 10:58 am

Thanks, vlade. I shall ponder this.

[Apr 06, 2020] I wish it were so simple to merely say "private sector bad, government good". But the rot has set in from top to bottom across all aspects of how we manage our society and whether or not it started in the private sector, it has well and truly spread to infect the public sector, too.

Apr 06, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Clive , April 6, 2020 at 11:02 am

If only it was as simple as saying that services operated by the state were fine, it's private capital where the problem lies.

It's not. This is a societal and cultural problem.

There are employer "pushes" towards the deskilling and degrading of levels of operational competence. One is employers ( both public sector and private sector) do not want to pay for training and to retain a body of experienced employees because both of these cost money up-front with a payoff (in the form of competent, knowledgeable staff) that comes only slowly, later. And a churn of staff is seen as the sign, wrongly, but this is what the MBAs sell as snake oil, of a dynamic, healthy organization which is bringing in (through a process which never seems to be adequately explained) new talent.

Plus, of course, most obviously, younger and newer employees are cheaper so your average headcount cost is lower which is usually a management metric -- often one which is incentive-ised through reward.

There are also employee "pulls" -- and again, these are not just observed in the private sector. You see them in medicine, academia and even, most bizarrely, the arts. An example of these employee-instigated causes of a reduction in capability is that it becomes in-cultural-ated that if you spend too long in the same place, you're only doing so out of necessity because you're so useless, no-one else will employ you. So even if don't really want to move onto a different organization or a different field of work outside your skillset, you feel you have to, in order to avoid looking "stale", "resistant to change", "stuck in your comfort zone" or any other of the myriad of thought-crimes which you don't want, in today's job market, to be seen to having evidence of committing. And also, as collective union bargaining has gone the way of the dinosaur, more often than not, if you want a raise you have to threaten to quit to get one. But again, more often than not, your current employer will call your bluff and let you leave. So you have to have another job lined up to to go to, if you're not to fall into a trap of flouncing off in a huff but having no other work to walk straight into. While your current employer might not, if they were honest, want to lose you, the dynamics of the workplace being what they are, neither side can then climb down from the ultimatums they've just served.

Yes, there are some notable poster-children of how private enterprise has committed suicide through the wanton bloodletting of its skilled employees (Boeing being a recent case-in-point). But even if you cast your gaze in the direction of public employers, this same phenomena can be found in universities, colleges and K-12 schools (where faculties are no longer bolstered by a strong bench of tenured staff, contract and non-tenured hire-and-fire disposable staff are now the norm, I won't even go there on the effect of charter schools) healthcare (even in the UK's entirely public sector NHS, there is huge reliance on contract and agency staff which the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted and the government is trying, belatedly and without any clear indication it can do so in the short term to redress this and avoid being price-gouged). Or federal and state regulators which now simply do not understand the businesses they are supposed to be regulating and have to buy-in external "expertise" (and merely exacerbate the revolving door problem).

In summary, I wish it were so simple to merely say "private sector bad, government good". But the rot has set in from top to bottom across all aspects of how we manage our shared organizational maturity (or, should I say, now, fix our shared organizational immaturity) and whether or not it started in the private sector, it has well and truly spread to infect the public sector, too. This was the unmistakable point of the post, so it bears re-reading it again with a particular emphasis on understanding why this is the case.

[Apr 06, 2020] More about Bill Gates and hs efforts

Apr 06, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Prof K , Apr 5 2020 14:55 utc | 1

Another angle in your post is the interesting role of "enlightened" capitalists -- the Krafts, Bill Gates, and soon to be others.

They are trying to fill the chasm in infrastructure, supplies and social cohesion created by the capitalist state and private capital.

Some of their efforts might pan out and be useful.

But they represent the wrong politics.

The crisis is not just about a virus and the lack of a medical cure; it is systemic: the social, political and economic order of America is institutionally and culturally unable to mobilize for virus prevention and suppression.

It literally takes a peoples' war. China wasn't lying.

And the billionaire philanthropists actually don't want us to think and act that way. Don't praise them. They want us to return to the old normal of grotesque neoliberal capitalism that made them rich beyond words.

Living in a quiet Boston suburb, I can see this clearly. The poor are still going out to work, dying, or suffering at home. The rich are off to the Cape, having food deliveries from uninsured, precarious workers, and have no concept of a collective effort as they continue to work for themselves from home.

There is no peak coming soon any time soon.

[Apr 05, 2020] John Maynard Keynes quote Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady...

As we see that during coronavirus epidemic Keynes some saying are more true then ever.
Apr 05, 2020 | www.azquotes.com

Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill done.

[Apr 05, 2020] Under neoliberalism the goverment failed to perform the most basic duty of any economic system: to protect and maintain public health and safety. U.S. capitalism's response to the coronavirus was too little, too late

Apr 05, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

In short, capitalism had built up vulnerabilities to another crash that any number of possible triggers could unleash. The trigger this time was not the dot.com meltdown of 2000 or the sub-prime meltdown of 2008/9; it was a virus. And of course, mainstream ideology requires focusing on the trigger, not the vulnerability. Thus mainstream policies aim to reestablish pre-virus capitalism. Even if they succeed, that will return us to a capitalist system whose accumulated vulnerabilities will soon again collapse from yet another trigger.

​In the light of the coronavirus pandemic, I focus criticism on capitalism and the vulnerabilities it has accumulated for several reasons. Viruses are part of nature. They have attacked human beings -- sometimes dangerously -- in both distant and recent history. In 1918, the Spanish Flu killed nearly 700,000 in the United States and millions elsewhere. Recent viruses include SARS, MERS andEbola. What matters to public health is each society's preparedness: stockpiled tests, masks, ventilators, hospital beds, trained personnel, etc., to manage dangerous viruses. In the U.S., such objects are produced by private capitalist enterprises whose goal is profit. It was not profitable to produce and stockpile such products, that was not and still is not being done.

Nor did the U.S. government produce or stockpile those medical products. Top U.S. government personnel privilege private capitalism; it is their primary objective to protect and strengthen. The result is that neither private capitalism nor the U.S. government performed the most basic duty of any economic system: to protect and maintain public health and safety. U.S. capitalism's response to the coronavirus pandemic continues to be what it has been since December 2019: too little, too late. It failed. It is the problem.

The second reason I focus on capitalism is that the responses to today's economic collapse by Trump, the GOP and most Democrats carefully avoid any criticism of capitalism. They all debate the virus, China, foreigners, other politicians, but never the system they all serve. When Trump and others press people to return to churches and jobs -- despite risking their and others' lives -- they place reviving a collapsed capitalism ahead of public health.

The third reason capitalism gets blame here is that alternative systems -- those not driven by a profit-first logic -- could manage viruses better. While not profitable to produce and stockpile everything needed for a viral pandemic, it is efficient. The wealth already lost in this pandemic far exceeds the cost to have produced and stockpiled the tests and ventilators, the lack of which is contributing so much to today's disaster. Capitalism often pursues profit at the expense of more urgent social needs and values. In this, capitalism is grossly inefficient. This pandemic is now bringing that truth home to people.

A worker-coop based economy -- where workers democratically run enterprises, deciding what, how and where to produce, and what to do with any profits -- could, and likely would, put social needs and goals (like proper preparation for pandemics) ahead of profits. Workers are the majority in all capitalist societies; their interests are those of the majority. Employers are always a small minority; theirs are the "special interests" of that minority. Capitalism gives that minority the position, profits and power to determine how the society as a whole lives or dies. That's why all employees now wonder and worry about how long our jobs, incomes, homes and bank accounts will last -- if we still have them. A minority (employers) decides all those questions and excludes the majority (employees) from making those decisions, even though that majority must live with their results.

Of course, the top priority now is to put public health and safety first. To that end, employees across the country are now thinking about refusing to obey orders to work in unsafe job conditions. U.S. capitalism has thus placed a general strike on today's social agenda. A close second priority is to learn from capitalism's failure in the face of the pandemic. We must not suffer such a dangerous and unnecessary social breakdown again. Thus system change is now also moving onto today's social agenda.


Mark , April 5, 2020 at 5:28 am

Don't blame capitalism. Blame the mistakes of our govenments and "leaders". Blaming 'capitalism' is misses the real failings of our governments.

Isotope_C14 , April 5, 2020 at 5:57 am

Capitalism requires continual growth. That isn't possible on a world of finite resources. No government operating under a capitalist dogma can solve this inherent predicament.

You can blame the leaders all you like, but they are constrained by the system that can't see beyond the next quarterly profit projection.

Jane , April 5, 2020 at 6:23 am

The "real" failing of government is that they value capitalism over public good forgetting that if there is no public there is no capitalism.

cnchal , April 5, 2020 at 7:01 am

The word "capitalism" is a euphemism for "totally corrupt system".

The totally corrupt system has failed.

For example, were this an honest system, Goldman 666 would have been wiped out in the GFC and Blankfein would be living in a cardboard box under a freeway overpass instead of bragging and gloating about doing gawd's work while soaking in his looted billion dollars.

[Apr 05, 2020] If there's one industry where private equity has done the most to directly harm American public, it's health care

Apr 05, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

This KKR-Backed Healthcare Firm Just Slashed Doctors' Pay In The Middle Of An Unprecedented Pandemic

Even if they aren't exactly certain how the business model works, Twitter blue checks and the rest of the mainstream media - having been whipped into an anti-banker fervor by Bernie Sanders and the last glowing embers of Occupy - never pass up an opportunity to kick private equity in the nuts.

And if there's one industry where private equity has done the most to directly harm American public, it's health care.

Envision's Colorado headquarters

During the latter part of the Democratic primary campaign, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren primed the pump by extolling the evils of private equity to the public every chance they got, helping impress the term into the memory banks of legions of twentysomethings how the industry had contributed to America's health-care crisis, along with a multitude of other societal ills. Now, with the world in the grip of an unprecedented crisis, the industry is about to get pilloried once again - but this, much, much bigger than before, we suspect - as private equity-backed health-care companies, loaded down from their LBO debt binges, are forced to make cutbacks including slashing pay for doctors and nurses in the middle of a pandemic that has already killed nearly 9,500 Americans.

And now the KKR-backed Envision Healthcare Corp., one of the biggest medical providers backed by private equity, is poised to become the poster-child for Wall Street greed as it informs hundreds of doctors in its employ will not be receiving the bonus checks they had been expecting in April. Though we suspect this isn't a complete surprise, the cuts will deprive hundreds of doctors of roughly one-third of their total comp during an already extremely difficult time for them and their families. The company has promised to repay them at a later date once their financial situation has improved.

The move risks igniting a blowback that could make KKR one of "the most hated companies in the world. Just ask Martin Shkreli.

But the reason the company's financial position is so poor in the first place is because Envision carries more than $7 billion of debt. This debt was amassed during what was, according to data compiled by Bloomberg , the third-largest health-care LBO ever.

In a statement, Envision said it's "100% focused" on saving lives during this crisis, even though its business (ambulatory surgical centers and medical staffing) shrank more than 75% in two weeks, Bloomberg said. With so many Americans hiding at home and fearful of entering hospitals and doctor's offices, people are delaying elective and non-emergency care at unprecedented rates.

"We are on the front lines caring for patients during this unprecedented public health and economic crisis," the Nashville, Tennessee-based company said. "Envision Healthcare is 100 percent focused on saving lives and sustaining the nation's fragile health-care system. The safety net we provide for millions of patients must remain fully intact for when we get to the other side of this national crisis."

Like many companies, Envision completely drew down its two credit lines to provide financial flexibility in recent weeks (apparently it didn't listen to Larry Kudlow and Mnuchin). The company spends about $1.5 billion on compensation for physicians quarterly, an insider reportedly told BBG. The company has about $140 million to $150 million in debt payments due in the next two weeks, according to Mike Holland of Bloomberg Intelligence, and has $650 million of cash on its balance sheet. It has warned investors that it might need to raise more financing if circumstances continue to deteriorate.

The biggest problem for KKR, is that some of the physician groups are planning to sue the company; litigation could draw unwanted attention to KKR at a time when public anger is dangerously high.

But as the 'cockroach' theory suggests, Envision isn't alone: The boom in LBOs (part of the binge on corporate debt that also fueled the surge in buybacks) left many companies, especially in the health-care space, where many companies were built via a series of costly mergers and acquisitions.

[Apr 05, 2020] Did Bill Gates Just Reveal the Reason Behind the Lock-Downs

Apr 05, 2020 | off-guardian.org

Jane In summary, all who were rich will be infinitely richer, But we will also have a flood-tide of people who will always be poorer. This will be another consequence of this fake epidemic, perhaps, who knows, created on purpose.

A comment on Peter Hitchens' article in today's Mail on Sunday (5th April) provided a link to an interview with Italian nano-pathologist Dr Stefano Montanari. Since he doesn't appear in OffG among the first twelve or subsequent ten scientists questioning the official Covid-19 narrative I am providing the link here in case anyone is interested. The site itself seems to have a save white identity bias, but in these strange times, politics makes strange bedfellows. https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2020/04/04/the-coronavirus-and-galileo-an-interview-with-a-italian-nano-pathologist-dr-stefano-montanari/ 2 0 Reply Apr 5, 2020 1:38 PM

George Mc ,

Interesting interview. This bit especially:

There is one point we did not touch -- the economic, which is not part of my competence. We are now blocking the world and, as for Italy, the economy was already at a low point. What do they do? They freeze all activities but keep the stock exchange open. Stocks reach a low bottom. What does it mean? The ultra billionaire can easily purchase companies that are now worth pennies.

When eventually it will be decided that the (coronavirus) farce is ended -- and nothing will end because this virus will continue undaunted to do what it's doing now (or its evolving strains will do), the ultra-billionaires will own everything. The rich (a degree below the billionaires) will have bought, say, 3–4 restaurants and/or 10 stores that had to close.

In summary, all who were rich will be infinitely richer, But we will also have a flood-tide of people who will always be poorer. This will be another consequence of this fake epidemic, perhaps, who knows, created on purpose.

[Apr 05, 2020] The Death of American Competence by Stephen M. Walt

Notable quotes:
"... John Allen , Nicholas Burns , Laurie Garrett , Richard N. Haass , G. John Ikenberry , Kishore Mahbubani , Shivshankar Menon , Robin Niblett , Joseph S. Nye Jr. , Shannon K. O'Neil , Kori Schake , Stephen M. Walt ..."
Mar 23, 2020 | foreignpolicy.com

No matter how the federal government responded, the United States was never going to escape COVID-19 entirely. Even Singapore, whose response to the virus seems to be the gold standard thus far, has several hundred confirmed cases . Nonetheless, U.S. President Donald Trump's administration's belated, self-centered, haphazard, and tone-deaf response will end up costing Americans trillions of dollars and thousands of otherwise preventable deaths. Even if the view that the dangers may have been exaggerated due to a lack of accurate data turns out to be correct, Trump's entire approach to governing and the administration's erratic response squandered public confidence and made a more measured reaction untenable. Despite his denials, he is still responsible for where the country is today.

But that's not the only damage the United States will suffer. Far from making "America great again," this epic policy failure will further tarnish the United States' reputation as a country that knows how to do things effectively.

For over a century, the United States' outsized influence around the world rested on three pillars. The first was the its awesome combination of economic and military strength. The United States had the world's largest and most sophisticated economy, the world's best universities and research centers, and a territory blessed with bountiful natural resources. These features eventually enabled the United States to create and maintain military forces that none of its rivals could match. Taken together, these combined assets gave the United States the loudest voice on the planet.

The second pillar was support from an array of allies. No country every agreed with everything Washington wanted to do, and some states opposed almost everything the United States sought or stood for, but many countries understood that they benefited from U.S. leadership and were usually willing to go along with it. Although the United States was almost always acting in its own self-interest, the fact that others had similar interests made it easier to persuade them to go along.

[ Mapping the Coronavirus Outbreak: Get daily updates on the pandemic and learn how it's affecting countries around the world.]

A third pillar, however, is broad confidence in U.S. competence. When other countries recognize the United States' strength, support its aims and believe U.S. officials know what they are doing, they are more likely to follow the United States' lead. If they doubt its power, its wisdom, or its ability to act effectively, U.S. global influence inevitably erodes. This reaction is entirely understandable: If the United States' leaders reveal themselves to be incompetent bunglers, why should foreign powers listen to their advice? Having a reputation for competence, in short, can be a critical force multiplier.

The glowing reputation that Americans used to enjoy was built up over many decades. It was partly a reflection of the United States' industrial might and world-class infrastructure: the network of highways, roads, railways, bridges, skyscrapers, dams, harbors, and airports that used to dazzle foreign visitors upon their arrival. Victory in World War II, the creation of the Bretton Woods economic institutions, innovative acts such as the Marshall Plan, and the successful moon landing all reinforced an image of the United States as a place where people knew how to set ambitious goals and bring them successfully to fruition.

Even blunders such as the Vietnam War did not fully tarnish the aura of competence that surrounded the United States. Indeed, the peaceful and victorious end of the Cold War and the smashing U.S. victory in the 1990-1991 Gulf War exorcized the ghosts of Vietnam and made the United States' model of liberal democratic capitalism seem like the obvious model for others to emulate. Add to that a continued stream of technological innovations -- the personal computer, the smartphone, and all those fancy weapons -- and one can understand why people around the world still looked upon the United States as a meritocratic, accomplished, and above all, competent country. Small wonder pundits such as Tom Friedman began to portray the United States as the only viable model for an increasingly globalized world , telling aspiring countries that if they wanted to succeed, they had to don the "Golden Straitjacket" and become more like the United States.

Over the past 25 years, however, the United States has done a remarkable job of squandering that invaluable reputation for responsible leadership and basic competence. The list of transgressions is long: there is former President Bill Clinton's irresponsible dalliance with a White House intern, former President George W. Bush's administration's failure to heed warnings of a terrorist attack before 9/11, the Enron and Madoff scandals, the bungled responses to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Maria in 2017, the inability to either win or end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the ill-advised interventions in Libya, Yemen, Syria, and elsewhere, the Wall Street meltdown of 2008, the Boeing 737 Max debacle, the Republican-led gridlock in Washington, and so on. Nor should we forget the long-concealed criminal misdeeds of Harvey Weinstein (and many others) and the sordid tale of the very well-connected Jeffrey Epstein, whose conveniently timed demise in a New York jail may prevent us from ever knowing the full extent of his -- and others' -- misconduct.

Read More

How the World Will Look After the Coronavirus Pandemic

The pandemic will change the world forever. We asked 12 leading global thinkers for their predictions.

Analysis | John Allen , Nicholas Burns , Laurie Garrett , Richard N. Haass , G. John Ikenberry , Kishore Mahbubani , Shivshankar Menon , Robin Niblett , Joseph S. Nye Jr. , Shannon K. O'Neil , Kori Schake , Stephen M. Walt

And all the while the United States told itself it was the greatest country in the world, with the ablest officials, the best-run businesses, the most sophisticated financial firms, and the most virtuous leaders. Instead, former Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov's description of life in the Soviet Union may be a more accurate description of American life than Americans would like to admit: "[We] stole from ourselves, took and gave bribes, lied in the reports, in newspapers, from high podiums, wallowed in our lies, hung medals on one another. And all of this -- from top to bottom and from bottom to top."

Then came COVID-19. Trump's handling of the crisis has been an embarrassing debacle from the start -- despite repeated warnings -- but it was also utterly predictable. His long business career has shown that he was more of a showman than a leader, better at conning people out of money and evading responsibility than at managing complex business operations. His tawdry personal life offered equally clear warnings. Since taking office, Trump has perfected the art of the lie, while gradually purging his administration of people with genuine expertise and relying instead on B-list hacks, sycophants, and his unqualified son-in-law. When suddenly faced with a complicated problem requiring grown-up leadership, it was inevitable that Trump would mishandle it and then deny responsibility . It is a failure of character unparalleled in U.S. history, and it could not have come at a worse time . The amazing thing is that anyone is even remotely surprised.

How did the United States get here? How did it squander its reputation for knowing what it is doing, and for being able to get the right things done as well or better than anyone else? I'm not sure, but let me venture a few guesses.

Part of the problem is the hubris that comes from the United States' remarkably favorable history. It has been by far the luckiest country in the modern world, and Americans started to assume that success was their birthright instead of something that needed to be earned, nurtured, and protected. And with that complacency came a willingness to gamble on utterly untried leadership, despite all of the warning signs described above.

A related problem, I'm inclined to think, has been a broader relaxing of standards and a refusal to hold people accountable. One can see this at many universities, where grade inflation is well entrenched, faculty have few incentives to judge poor work harshly, and more attention is paid to sports teams than to genuine academic achievement. The recent college recruiting scandal exposed the lengths to which well-heeled parents would go to get their kids into colleges for which they weren't qualified, but universities have acted similarly when they reserved slots of alumni children ("legacies") or for the offspring of major donors.

I've focused on higher education because that's the business I know best, but this problem is hardly confined there. In the contemporary United States, CEOs mismanage a company such as Boeing and then depart with multimillion-dollar golden parachutes . Top officials in the George W. Bush administration and a chorus of outside cheerleaders deceive themselves and the country into a foolish war in the Middle East, yet hardly any of them suffer adverse professional or personal consequences. Wall Street firms can crater the economy through a combination of greed, indifference, and fraud, and no one gets investigated, let alone prosecuted. Highly decorated generals favor "staying the course" in distant battles, fail to achieve victory, and then retire to corporate boards and influential positions as respected pundits. Meanwhile, whistleblowers and dedicated public servants strive to fulfill their oaths of office, only to be vilified , fired, or worse. When integrity and dedication go unrewarded and failure carries no penalty, competence is bound to suffer.

To speculate further, I suspect a broader cultural current of selfishness is at work here as well. Former President John Kennedy was no saint, but he did devote his adult life to public service and told Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." By the time Ronald Reagan became president, however, Americans were being told that government was the enemy and (to quote the film Wall Street ) that "greed is good." The market was everything, public service was devalued, and taxes were for suckers. Having spent decades hollowing out many of their public institutions, Americans suddenly find themselves unprepared for a real public crisis. The apotheosis of this trend is Trump himself: How could a serious country possibly choose as its leader a narcissistic, manifestly unqualified self-promoter with a long track record of failure and deceit?

Am I overstating the case? Perhaps. There are plenty of American firms that still do terrific and innovative work; there are tens of thousands of scientists and scholars who remain more committed to searching for truth than to making a fast buck, and there are politicians and public servants at the local, state, and federal levels who are more interested in doing good than in getting reelected or feathering their own nests . There are dedicated teachers and hard-working students at every level of the U.S. educational system. But the rot is still widespread.

Absent a reversal of this trend, the United States' global influence will continue to recede. Not because the country has embraced "America First" and deliberately chosen to disengage, but because people around the world will not take its ideas or advice as seriously as they once did. They'll listen, perhaps, and they may agree with it from time to time, but the deference U.S. leaders used to be able to count on will fade. Once COVID-19 is over, Americans are likely to discover to their chagrin that other voices ( Beijing, anyone?) are receiving more respectful attention. That's not an omen of imminent disaster, but it will be a different world than the one Americans have been accustomed to inhabiting. At the margin, the broad contours of world politics and some important aspects of the world economy will no longer slant so heavily in the United States' favor.

Can this situation be fixed? I don't know. Cultural rot cannot be fixed by legislation, executive orders, or even jeremiads like this one. One may hope that the present crisis will remind enough Americans that having competent and reliable people in key leadership positions really matters, and that holding people more accountable for corruption, cronyism, or sheer incompetence is essential to effective public policies. Whether you favor a big welfare state or a small libertarian one, you should above all want it to be competently led and staffed with knowledgeable and dedicated experts. Whoever the next president is, he needs to staff his administration with people who have demonstrated qualifications for the jobs they are assigned, instead of being chosen for their personal loyalty or their talents as sycophants.

Americans will need to rethink a political system that recruits and rewards those who are most adept at selling themselves to the highest bidder. And there has to be something seriously wrong with a political system that has devoted many months and spent billions of dollars preparing for the 2020 election and ends up giving the country a choice between three old white guys. For that matter, Americans ought to rethink whether spending a full year electing someone to a four year term makes any sense at all . No other advanced democracy does it this way. And while we're at it, let's scrap the absurd Electoral College, an indefensible relic that systematically disempowers voters in most of the country.

Looking forward, the possibility of fundamental political change is the only silver lining I can see right now. America hasn't faced a crisis like this since the 1930s and 1940s, and it was in a better position to meet those challenges then than it is today. But a previous generation of Americans eventually rose to the occasion, and showed themselves and the world what their country could do. It is upon Americans now to remember that experience, put the past few decades of hubris, division, and indulgence aside, and prove that their country is still competent enough to figure out what it needs to do. And then they need to do it.

[Apr 04, 2020] The real problem may eventually be can we prevent the deaths and destruction caused by the corporate neoliberal virus.

Apr 04, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Blue Dotterel , Apr 3 2020 19:26 utc | 15

The real problem may eventually be can we prevent the deaths and destruction caused by the corporate neoliberal virus.

We can deal with Covid 19.

[Apr 02, 2020] Putin says 'the rich must pay' for the corona-virus by Mike Whitney

Apr 02, 2020 | www.unz.com

cassandra , says: Show Comment March 28, 2020 at 9:03 pm GMT

Putin, like western leaders, often discusses national problems during his appearances. But afterwards, he'll query responsible ministers about questionable policies, and will make sure that an effective solution will be put in place. He'll also mention problems during his speeches, and will then follow the discussion, usually in some detail, with how progress is being made to fix them.

Western leaders, on the other hand, engage in hand-wringing about how difficult the problems are, and that we'll have to learn to helplessly adapt ("It's a new economy", "These jobs aren't coming back."), or fob off their responsibility with dysfunctional suggestions ("Learn to code," as if that were a solution, or impose an economic package on Greece that will take until 2040 just to find out whether it might be working), or just pride themselves on realizing there's a problem (like the EU, who considers it an accomplishment to "identify challenges", and who adopted a policy of wait and see for COVID-19).

There's such a palpable difference between actual leadership and play-acting.

Trump, Sanders and Tulsi all share 3 things: 1) proposals for policies to improve circumstances that involve making real changes to the status quo 2) strong grassroots based on disgust with elite policies 3) accusations that they are agents of Putin.

I dunno, if the elites kep attempting to thwart competent domestic leadership, maybe we should shoot for an amendment that puts Putin directly on the ballot. At least he would know how to get elected. Then, we cut through the innuendo and make it clear that what voters want is actual leadership. What have we got to lose?

[Apr 02, 2020] NY paying 15 times going rate to get crucial medical equipment report TheHill

Apr 02, 2020 | thehill.com

New York is paying inflated rates as high as 15 times the regular price to get crucial medical equipment such as masks, as the state struggles to contain the coronavirus, ProPublica

reported Thursday.

The state with almost 40 percent of the confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country is paying 20 cents for gloves that typically cost three times less and $7.50 for masks, which is 15 times the regular price, according to an analysis of payment data by ProPublica.

New York also has paid more than twice the typical cost for infusion pumps. A portable X-ray machine cost the state $248,841, when it should be between $30,000 and $80,000.

States across the country have complained to the federal government about severe shortages of equipment. They say they've been forced to compete with other states or countries for precious materials.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has compared the situation to "being on eBay with 50 other states" and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

New York expects to lose $15 billion in costs and lost revenue from the pandemic.

"We know that New York and other states are in the market at the same time, along with the rest of the world, bidding on these same items, which is clearly driving the fluctuation in costs," budget office spokesman Freeman Klopott said in an email to ProPublica.

[Apr 01, 2020] Pandemic-Related Unemployment And Shutdowns Are A Recipe For Social Unrest

Mar 31, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by J.D.Tuccille via Reason.com,

Could the stalled economy we've inflicted on ourselves in our frantic efforts to battle the COVID-19 pandemic lead to civil disorder? History suggests that's a real danger.

Around the world, high unemployment and stagnant economic activity tend to lead to social unrest, including demonstrations, strikes, and other forms of potentially violent disruptions. That's a huge concern as forecasters expect the U.S. unemployment rate in the months to come to surpass that seen during the depths of the Great Depression.

"We're putting this initial number at 30 percent; that's a 30 percent unemployment rate" in the second quarter of this year as a result of the planned economic shutdowns, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard told Bloomberg News on March 22. Gross Domestic Product, he adds, is expected to drop by 50 percent.

Unlike most bouts of economic malaise, this is a self-inflicted wound meant to counter a serious public health crisis. But, whatever the reasons, it means businesses shuttered and people without jobs and incomes. That's risky.

"Results from the empirical analysis indicate that economic growth and the unemployment rate are the two most important determinants of social unrest," notes the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a United Nations agency that maintains a Social Unrest Index in an attempt to predict civil disorder based, in part, on economic trends. "For example, a one standard deviation increase in unemployment raises social unrest by 0.39 standard deviations, while a one standard deviation increase in GDP growth reduces social unrest by 0.19 standard deviations."

Why would economic shutdowns lead to social unrest? Because, contrary to the airy dismissals of some members of the political class and many ivory-tower types, commerce isn't a grubby embarrassment to be tolerated and avoided -- it's the life's blood of a society. Jobs and businesses keep people alive. They represent the activities that meet demand for food, clothing, shelter -- and that develop and distribute the medicine and medical supplies we need to battle COVID-19.

President Donald Trump may be overly optimistic when he hopes to have the country, including areas hard-hit by the virus, " opened up and just raring to go by Easter ," but he's not wrong to include the economy in his calculations.

By contrast, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's insistence that "if it's public health versus the economy, the only choice is public health," sounds fine and noble. But it reflects an unrealistic and semi-aristocratic disdain for the activities that make fighting the pandemic possible at all -- and that keep social unrest at bay.

While the ILO has tried to quantify the causes of social unrest, its researchers certainly aren't the first to make the connection between angry, unemployed people and trouble in the streets.

At the height of the Great Depression, when U.S. unemployment hit a peak of 24.9 percent , Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration saw make-work programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as a means of getting the jobless -- especially young men -- safely into "quasi-military camps often far from home in the nation's publicly owned forests and parks," Joseph M. Speakman wrote for the Fall 2006 issue of Prologue Magazine , a publication of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

"Bringing an army of the unemployed into 'healthful surroundings,' Roosevelt argued, would help to eliminate the threats to social stability that enforced idleness had created," Speakman added.

The program mostly worked -- at least , it confined revolts to the camps themselves , where they were suppressed by Army officers. Those same officers commanded the men when they were drafted and dispatched to even more remote destinations with the coming of World War II.

In fact, the connection between unemployment, stagnant economies, and social unrest is so clear that an important indicator for a large underground economy is relative peace prevailing alongside a chronically high unemployment rate.

If 21 percent of the workforce "were jobless, Spain would not be as peaceful as, barring a few demonstrations, it has so far been, say economists and business leaders," the Financial Times noted in 2011. Sure enough, researchers found that off-the-books businesses and jobs thrived in Spain -- accounting for the equivalent of a quarter of GDP at one point -- keeping people employed and defusing tensions.

Bullard of the Fed doesn't propose shipping the jobless off to the wilderness -- at least, not yet -- and he doesn't seem inclined to rely on the black market to keep people fed, warm, and healthy. Instead, to defuse the impact of the social-distancing shutdowns of normal economic activity, he calls for lost income to be replaced by unemployment insurance and other payments that would make displaced workers and business owners whole.

He better be right that government checks -- drawing on money from the thin air and not generated by an economy that has largely halted, I'll note -- can offset the pain of lost jobs and businesses, because the first wave of the unemployment he predicts is already here.

"In the week ending March 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 3,283,000, an increase of 3,001,000 from the previous week's revised level," the United States Department of Labor announced on Thursday, March 26.

"This marks the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the seasonally adjusted series."

Those disturbed by such economic collapse include public health professionals who take COVID-19 very seriously.

"I am deeply concerned that the social, economic and public health consequences of this near total meltdown of normal life -- schools and businesses closed, gatherings banned -- will be long lasting and calamitous, possibly graver than the direct toll of the virus itself," wrote David L. Katz, former director of Yale University's Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, in The New York Times last week.

"The stock market will bounce back in time, but many businesses never will. The unemployment, impoverishment and despair likely to result will be public health scourges of the first order."

Unemployment, impoverishment, and despair are frightening outcomes in themselves. They're also a recipe for social unrest that will afflict even those of us who weather both the pandemic and the accompanying economic storm.

[Mar 31, 2020] The Covid-19 pandemic is the physical manifestation of a deeper disease plaguing the West: Class Warfare

The US government was caught without pants. No supply of masks. Can you imagine that for a country with trillion military budget.
Notable quotes:
"... Take a look around: Unemployment may reach 30%. The poor are starting to protest–actually strike! GM, Amazon, Chicago Teacher's Union, GE, Instacart ..."
"... As jobs were outsourced to slave labor camps in China and elsewhere, the rich and privileged smiled as their portfolios grew, as CEO raked in the cash and then buried it in off-shore accounts. ..."
"... When the working class complained about jobs being lost, factories being closed, it was told to get a better education, to make itself valuable to the bosses. What a joke! ..."
"... The DNC always plays footsie with the rich as does the GOP–equal plunderers. Universal Health Care is just too expensive! Their all monsters, crafty grifters. ..."
"... The mass media, now firmly serve the DNC and the GOP, studiously ignore this rot. A rotten building will fall. Times up. Game is Over. ..."
Mar 31, 2020 | angrybearblog.com
The Covid-19 pandemic is the physical manifestation of a deeper disease plaguing the West: Class Warfare. The veil has been lifted. Social distancing, a legitimate response to Covid-19, predominately affects the working class.

Fortunately, Covid-19 is an equal opportunity plague: As the rich and powerful congratulated each other, as they moved among the rightfully adoring crowds oops, I think I caught something! Just hazards of the games they play. Certainly, it was never contracted on the factory floor.

Suddenly the rich and privileged claim they are in the same boat. Really? Mega-yachts are handy get-aways, as are well-protected island boltholes.

And who is supposed to do the nasty work, who has little opportunity to run and hide, who must do the the work that makes actual existence possible? Not the rich.

Who can work from home and not lose his or her job?

Rich and powerful women now have to cut their own nails! Oh, the shame of it. They have to dye their own hair–coif themselves! What no colorist?

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics-news/friends-cant-get-nails-done-coronavirus-fox-news-973716/

The rich and powerful want the poor to go back to work. Who else will make them money? Who else will save the Stock Market? Meanwhile, the poor are losing their jobs; they do not have fall-back pensions or able to take advantage of Capital Gains. How will they pay their rent? Their bills? Their healthcare? Their debts?

Take a look around: Unemployment may reach 30%. The poor are starting to protest–actually strike! GM, Amazon, Chicago Teacher's Union, GE, Instacart

As jobs were outsourced to slave labor camps in China and elsewhere, the rich and privileged smiled as their portfolios grew, as CEO raked in the cash and then buried it in off-shore accounts.

When the working class complained about jobs being lost, factories being closed, it was told to get a better education, to make itself valuable to the bosses. What a joke!

When many tried to get an education, they were faced with absurd college costs, incredible debt, and thanks to those in control an inability to declare bankruptcy! Thanks, Joe.

And now, ever thoughtful Nancy Pelosi wants to reward the rich and privileged with ta ta!.., a lifting of the Salt Cap.

The DNC always plays footsie with the rich as does the GOP–equal plunderers. Universal Health Care is just too expensive! Their all monsters, crafty grifters.

Meanwhile, economists sang the praises of Free Trade. The GOP loved it; the DNC loved it. Neo-liberalism: the goose that always lays the golden eggs.

The mass media, now firmly serve the DNC and the GOP, studiously ignore this rot. A rotten building will fall. Times up. Game is Over.

likbez , March 31, 2020 9:27 pm

Thank you Stormy,

A very good analysis. A lot of emotions too ;-)

When the working class complained about jobs being lost, factories being closed, it was told to get a better education, to make itself valuable to the bosses. What a joke!

Neoliberalism is an ideology make on a set of myths. In other words this is a secular religion.

The DNC always plays footsie with the rich as does the GOP–equal plunderers. Universal Health Care is just too expensive! Their all monsters, crafty grifters.

No question they are. That's by design. The key role of DNC is to squash political forces to the left of Clinton faction, and to neutralize/coopt politicians which do not support the neoliberal/neocon consensus.

Meanwhile, economists sang the praises of Free Trade. The GOP loved it; the DNC loved it. Neo-liberalism: the goose that always lays the golden eggs.

Neoliberal revolution which culminated in the election of Reagan (which started under Carter) was a coup d'état by financial oligarchy. It signified that the New Deal consensus was broken and countervailing forces were weakened enough to ensure the success of the coup.

One thing with which I respectfully disagree:

The mass media, now firmly serve the DNC and the GOP, studiously ignore this rot. A rotten building will fall. Times up. Game is Over.

Not sure the game is over. I do not see powerful enough social forces that can oppose financial oligarchy. The anger does built up, but it is powerless. And their control of the state is absolute (which also means the control of intelligence agencies).

The population is brainwashed and disunited via identity politics.

In modern USA society that means that any attempt to build such a coalition with be squashed by the national security state.

[Mar 30, 2020] Now the costs of financialization will become apparent

Notable quotes:
"... Given that the costs of financialization are already borne by the general public, not by the plutocracy, what's the point exactly of destroying the real economy just to open the door to new bail-outs? ..."
Mar 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Eric , Mar 30 2020 0:32 utc | 102

Realist @90

The Western populations (especially the American) were already bearing the costs of financialization in the form of stagnant industrial output, unemployment, decaying infrastructure, unavailability and/or declining quality of essential services like health care, rapidly rising cost of living etc. before this and arguably even before the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. The costs are no more socialized now just because the worthless assets have been moved to the Federal Reserve's balance sheet.

What the bail-outs after the GFC did accomplish was enabling the financial sector, by relieving it of the burden of toxic assets, to continue its parasitism on the real economy through extending new loans to raid companies and to extract wealth from home-owners and consumers.

Given that the costs of financialization are already borne by the general public, not by the plutocracy, what's the point exactly of destroying the real economy just to open the door to new bail-outs? Unlike in 2008, there was, from the perspective of the financial sector, no need for any bail-outs because the financial system was still operating, up until the economic crisis that arrived with this pandemic and the resulting shutdowns of the industrial and service sectors. There is not in reality any debt erased or moved to the general public (the plutocracy are in fact *not* the ones in debt, they are the ones issuing debt to industrial companies being hollowed out, to home-owners, students, consumers etc.), but the pandemic risks the collapse (at the very least the end of its legitimacy) of the entire current financial system and with it the continuation of the parasitic process of wealth extraction.


Jackrabbit , Mar 30 2020 0:41 utc | 109

Eric @102:
Given that the costs of financialization are already borne by the general public, not by the plutocracy, what's the point exactly of destroying the real economy just to open the door to new bail-outs?

'The point' is deflating the bubble, an extraordinary bailout of Boeing and maybe other corps., and accelerating 'decoupling'. These things would be difficult to accomplish without a CRISIS! that rises to the level of a 'national emergency'.

Also see my comment @104.

!!

Realist , Mar 30 2020 0:49 utc | 111
US and its system were heading for collapse. Trump and his backers could see that. At the moment, this is starting to look like the great coronovirus reset. Bailouts coupled to big changes.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 30 2020 0:30 utc | 100


++++

Precisely. By socialising the debt liability now the problem is shifted from being the fault of finance to being the fault of the virus.

Guillotine dodged for now, the can is kicked further down the road. More austerity. Resultant mass unemployment blamed on the virus and not on the behaviour of the parasitic finance industry.

Bonuses pocketed.

Realist , Mar 30 2020 0:58 utc | 116
The continual inflating of asset prices by the Fed was also seen as a desperate ploy to ward off deflation


++++++

No, the continual inflating of asset prices was in order to milk the rubes for as long as feasibly possible. But the game was up in late 2019 when word got out that at least one of the large banks (imo Deutsche Bank) were having trouble meeting their overnight obligations. JPM said "we ain't helping" so The Fed went into Repo overdrive to shore the sustem up in the shortterm

Eric , Mar 30 2020 0:58 utc | 117
@ 109 Jackrabbit

The point is, why would they want to (actively intervene to) deflate the bubble? The transfer of wealth from the real economy is a continuous process. The longer you can keep a company like Boeing going, the more of its assets (be it savings in pension funds, machinery, residual goodwill etc.) you can liquidate and pay out to yourself in the form of interest on loans (that the company owes to you or your friends), stock buybacks or bonuses.

Same thing with mortgages: The longer you can keep the real estate market in a bubble and the home owners at least treading water, the longer they can pay you exorbitant interest rates, and the more of their labor and savings you can siphon off.

In the event of a crash like in 2008, or now due to the coronavirus epidemic, bail-outs are a necessary intervention to stitch up the balance sheets of the banks, private equity funds etc. so that this parasitic process can be started up again. That doesn't mean that the crashes are desired - in fact, the exact opposite. It's not through the bail-outs that the actual wealth transfer happens, but rather between them.

Jackrabbit , Mar 30 2020 2:10 utc | 126
Eric @117:
The point is, why would they want to (actively intervene to) deflate the bubble? The transfer of wealth from the real economy is a continuous process... It's not through the bail-outs that the actual wealth transfer happens, but rather between them.

The markets are complex systems and they can get stressed. The expansion was well beyond its sell-by date and required life-support for much of the duration (QE x , tax cuts, etc.). A soft landing for Wall Street and recession that can be blamed on coronavirus/China are less risky than letting the markets crash on their own. There will be no big 'reset' that some have been hoping for (at least not anytime soon).

And a focus on deflating the bubble is misleading. They had multiple ways to game this CRISIS!. And protecting favored interests (like Boeing) as well as the system itself is one just icing on the cake.

... ... ...

[Mar 30, 2020] Total Cost of Her COVID-19 Treatment: $34,927.43

Mar 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

dennis , Mar 29 2020 17:12 utc | 14

Likklemore | Mar 29 2020 15:27 utc | 6

US prescient healthcare (for billionaires), this is the bomb that will detonate over the next month:

Total Cost of Her COVID-19 Treatment: $34,927.43
https://time.com/5806312/coronavirus-treatment-cost/

If allowed to happen, and without the appearance of a significant medical therapy tool across the USA - the fallout of foreseeable foreclosures will make it a nuclear weapon. Given bank turnaround timescales this will be just in time for next winter/elections... Faced with this Trump of all people may be forced to adopt some major socialist principles.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2020/what-are-state-officials-doing-make-private-health-insurance-work-better-consumers-during

[Mar 29, 2020] Why Didn't We Test Our Trade's 'Antifragility' Before COVID-19 by Gene Callahan and Joe Norman

Highly recommended!
Mar 28, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

On April 21, 2011, the region of Amazon Web Services covering eastern North America crashed. The crash brought down the sites of large customers such as Quora, Foursquare, and Reddit. It took Amazon over a week to bring its system fully back online, and some customer data was lost permanently.

But one company whose site did not crash was Netflix. It turns out that Netflix had made themselves "antifragile" by employing software they called "Chaos Monkey," which regularly and randomly brought down Netflix servers. By continually crashing their own servers, Netflix learned how to nevertheless keep other portions of their network running. And so when Amazon US-East crashed, Netflix ran on, unfazed.

This phenomenon is discussed by Nassim Taleb in his book Antifragile : a system that depends on the absence of change is fragile. The companies that focused on keeping all of their servers up and running all the time went completely offline when Amazon crashed from under them. But the company that had exposed itself to lots of little crashes could handle the big crash. That is because the minor, "undesirable" changes stress the system in a way that can make it stronger.

The idea of antifragility does not apply only to computer networks. For instance, by trying to eliminate minor downturns in the economy, central bank policy can make that economy extremely vulnerable to a major recession. Running only on treadmills or tracks makes the joints extremely vulnerable when, say, one steps in a pothole in the sidewalk.

What does this have to do with trade policy? For many reasons, such as the recent coronavirus outbreak, flows of goods are subject to unexpected shocks.

Both a regime of "unfettered" free trade, and its opposite, that of complete autarchy, are fragile in the face of such shocks. A trade policy aimed not at complete free trade or protectionism, but at making an economy better at absorbing and adapting to rapid change, is more sane and salutary than either extreme. Furthermore, we suggest practicing for shocks can help make an economy antifragile.

Amongst academic economists, the pure free-trade position is more popular. The case for international trade, absent the artificial interference of government trade policy, is generally based upon the "principle of comparative advantage," first formulated by the English economist David Ricardo in the early 19th century. Ricardo pointed out, quite correctly, that even if, among two potential trading partners looking to trade a pair of goods, one of them is better at producing both of them, there still exist potential gains from trade -- so long as one of them is relatively better at producing one of the goods, and the other (as a consequence of this condition) relatively better at producing the other. For example, Lebron James may be better than his local house painter at playing basketball, and at painting houses, given his extreme athleticism and long reach. But he is so much more "better" at basketball that it can still make sense for him to concentrate on basketball and pay the painter to paint his house.

And so, per Ricardo, it is among nations: even if, say, Sweden can produce both cars and wool sweaters more efficiently than Scotland, if Scotland is relatively less bad at producing sweaters than cars, it still makes sense for Scotland to produce only wool sweaters, and trade with Sweden for the cars it needs.

When we take comparative advantage to its logical conclusion at the global scale, it suggests that each agent (say, nation) should focus on one major industry domestically and that no two agents should specialize in the same industry. To do so would be to sacrifice the supposed advantage of sourcing from the agent who is best positioned to produce a particular good, with no gain for anyone.

Good so far, but Ricardo's case contains two critical hidden assumptions: first, that the prices of the goods in question will remain more or less stable in the global marketplace, and second that the availability of imported goods from specialized producers will remain uninterrupted, such that sacrificing local capabilities for cheaper foreign alternatives.

So what happens in Scotland if the Swedes suddenly go crazy for yak hair sweaters (produced in Tibet) and are no longer interested in Scottish sweaters at all? The price of those sweaters crashes, and Scotland now finds itself with most of its productive capacity specialized in making a product that can only be sold at a loss.

Or what transpires if Scotland is no longer able, for whatever reason, to produce sweaters, but the Swedes need sweaters to keep warm? Swedes were perhaps once able to make their own sweaters, but have since funneled all their resources into making cars, and have even lost the knowledge of sweater-making. Now to keep warm, the Swedes have to rapidly build the infrastructure and workforce needed to make sweaters, and regain the knowledge of how to do so, as the Scots had not only been their sweater supplier, but the only global sweater supplier.

So we see that the case for extreme specialization, based on a first-order understanding of comparative advantage, collapses when faced with a second-order effect of a dramatic change in relative prices or conditions of supply.

That all may sound very theoretical, but collapses due to over-specialization, prompted by international agencies advising developing economies based on naive comparative-advantage analysis, have happened all too often. For instance, a number of African economies, persuaded to base their entire economy on a single good in which they had a comparative advantage (e.g, gold, cocoa, oil, or bauxite), saw their economies crash when the price of that commodity fell. People who had formerly been largely self-sufficient found themselves wage laborers for multinationals in good times, and dependents on foreign charity during bad times.

While the case for extreme specialization in production collapses merely by letting prices vary, it gets even worse for the "just specialize in the single thing you do best" folks once we add in considerations of pandemics, wars, extreme climate change, and other such shocks. We have just witnessed how relying on China for such a high percentage of our medical supplies and manufacturing has proven unwise when faced with an epidemic originating in China.

On a smaller scale, the great urban theorist Jane Jacobs stressed the need for economic diversity in a city if it is to flourish. Detroit's over-reliance on the automobile industry, and its subsequent collapse when that industry largely deserted it, is a prominent example of Jacobs' point. And while Detroit is perhaps the most famous example of a city collapsing due to over-specialization, it is far from the only one .

All of this suggests that trade policy, at any level, should have, as its primary goal, the encouragement of diversity in that level's economic activity. To embrace the extremes of "pure free trade" or "total self-sufficiency" is to become more susceptible to catastrophe from changing conditions. A region that can produce only a few goods is fragile in the face of an event, like the coronavirus, that disrupts the flow of outside goods. On the other hand, turning completely inward, and cutting the region off from the outside, leaves it without outside help when confronting a local disaster, like an extreme drought.

To be resilient as a social entity, whether a nation, region, city, or family, will have a diverse mix of internal and external resources it can draw upon for sustenance. Even for an individual, total specialization and complete autarchy are both bad bets. If your only skill is repairing Sony Walkmen, you were probably pretty busy in 2000, but by today you likely don't have much work. Complete individual autarchy isn't ever really even attempted: if you watch YouTube videos of supposedly "self-reliant" people in the wilderness, you will find them using axes, radios, saws, solar panels, pots and pans, shirts, shoes, tents, and many more goods produced by others.

In the technical literature, having such diversity at multiple scales is referred to as "multiscale variety." In a system that displays multiscale variety, no single scale accounts for all of the diversity of behavior in the system. The practical importance of this is related to the fact that shocks themselves come at different scales. Some shocks might be limited to a town or a region, for instance local weather events, while others can be much more widespread, such as the coronavirus pandemic we are currently facing.

A system with multiscale variety is able to respond to shocks at the scale at which they occur: if one region experiences a drought while a neighboring region does not, agricultural supplementation from the currently abundant region can be leveraged. At a smaller scale, if one field of potatoes becomes infested with a pest, while the adjacent cows in pasture are spared, the family who owns the farm will still be able to feed themselves and supply products to the market.

Understanding this, the question becomes how can trade policy, conceived broadly, promote the necessary variety and resiliency to mitigate and thrive in the face of the unexpected? Crucially, we should learn from the tech companies: practice disconnecting, and do it randomly. In our view there are two important components to the intentional disruption: (1) it is regular enough to generate "muscle memory" type responses; and (2) it is random enough that responses are not "overfit" to particular scenarios.

For an individual or family, implementing such a policy might create some hardships, but there are few institutional barriers to doing so. One week, simply declare, "Let's pretend all of the grocery stores are empty, and try getting by only on what we can produce in the yard or have stockpiled in our house!" On another occasion, perhaps, see if you can keep your house warm for a few days without input from utility companies.

Businesses are also largely free of institutional barriers to practicing disconnecting. A company can simply say, "We are awfully dependent on supplier X: this week, we are not going to order from them, and let's see what we can do instead!" A business can also seek out external alternatives to over-reliance on crucial internal resources: for instance, if your top tech guy can hold your business hostage, it is a good idea to find an outside consulting firm that could potentially fill his role.

When we get up to the scale of the nation, things become (at least institutionally) trickier. If Freedonia suddenly bans the import of goods from Ruritania, even for a week, Ruritania is likely to regard this as a "trade war," and may very well go to the WTO and seek relief. However, the point of this reorientation of trade policy is not to promote hostility to other countries, but to make one's own country more resilient. A possible solution to this problem is that a national government could periodically, at random times, buy all of the imports of some good from some other country, and stockpile them. Then the foreign supplier would have no cause for complaint: its goods are still being purchased! But domestic manufacturers would have to learn to adjust to a disappearance of the supply of palm oil from Indonesia, or tin from China, or oil from Norway.

Critics will complain that such government management of trade flows, even with the noble aim of rendering an economy antifragile, will inevitably be turned to less pure purposes, like protecting politically powerful industrialists. But so what? It is not as though the pursuit of free trade hasn't itself yielded perverse outcomes, such as the NAFTA trade agreement that ran to over one thousand pages. Any good aim is likely to suffer diversion as it passes through the rough-and-tumble of political reality. Thus, we might as well set our sites on an ideal policy, even though it won't be perfectly realized.

We must learn to deal with disruptions when success is not critical to survival. The better we become at responding to unexpected shocks, the lower the cost will be each time we face an event beyond our control that demands an adaptive response. To wait until adaptation is necessary makes us fragile when a real crisis appears. We should begin to develop an antifragile economy today, by causing our own disruptions and learning to overcome them. Deliberately disrupting our own economy may sound crazy. But then, so did deliberately crashing one's own servers, until Chaos Monkey proved that it works.

Gene Callahan teaches at the Tandon School of Engineering at New York University. Joe Norman is a data scientist and researcher at the New England Complex Systems Institute.

My Gana 20 hours ago
Most disruptive force is own demographic change of which govts have known for decades. Caronovirus challenge is nothing compared to what will happen because US ed system discriminated against the poor who will be the majority!
PierrePaul 12 hours ago
What Winston Churchill once said about the Americans is in fact true of all humans: "Americans always end up doing
the right thing once they have exhausted all other options". That's just as true of the French (I write from France) since our government stopped stocking a strategic reserve of a billion breathing-masks in 2013 because "we could buy them in Chine for a lower costs". Now we can't produce enough masks even for our hospitals.

[Mar 29, 2020] The Coronavirus Stimulus Bill Is a $2 Trillion Slush Fund for Washington Cronies by Marshall Auerback

Mar 29, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

By Marshall Auerback, a market analyst and commentator. Produced by Economy for All , a project of the Independent Media Institute

When historians look back on our current government's response to a public health emergency and resultant economic depression, there won't be many paeans to profiles in courage. It may seem impressive that Congress has approved legislation worth $2 trillion to help sustain the American economy, but it's no New Deal. Rather it's a massive economic slush fund that does its utmost to preserve the old ways of doing things under the guise of masquerading as a response to a public health emergency. In reality, the relief provisions are barely adequate.

Had this been another financial crisis like 2008, it is doubtful that America's oligarch class would be able to secure such huge provision for themselves again. Under the guise of a public health emergency, though, serial corporate predators are being given dollops from this massive public trough with no means of engendering the kind of economic reconstruction that is truly needed right now, or even preventing a sufficiently robust response if this virus comes back in a second or third wave.

As one might expect in a massive bill (representing around 10 percent of U.S. GDP), there are some decent scraps in this dog's breakfast, but overall the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act represents yet another sad indictment of the American polity, even as it provides an excellent civics lesson in teaching us where power truly lies. There's $150 billion allocated to hospitals, many of which are already stretched to capacity, but that's nothing compared to the trillions directed to corporations with minimal disclosure on how those sums are to be allocated, or any conditionality attached. In fact, we appear not to have learned some lessons from 2008, when at least some members of Congress made efforts to scrutinize how we were spending the money. Pam and Russ Martens's superbly informative digging into the more than 800-page-long bill reveals that :

a) The Fed will leverage the bill's $454 million bailout slush fund into $4.5 trillion, and will hand it out through the New York Fed.

b) To ensure that they don't have to answer embarrassing questions about which of their cronies got the money, the bill suspends the Freedom of Information Act for the Fed.

Bloomberg has also confirmed that the NY Fed has outsourced picking the lucky recipients for this slushy cornucopia to a private contractor, BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager (Goldman Sachs apparently has done enough of " God's work " this time). The more things change in Washington, the more they stay the same.

By contrast, the relief provisions are barely adequate. They expand unemployment insurance (an additional $600 per week for up to four months), feature one-time direct payments to Americans of $1,200 per adult making up to $75,000 a year, and $2,400 to a married couple making up to $150,000, with $500 payments per child. However, the bill neither addresses the chronic inequality that now characterizes the U.S. economy, nor is there provision for the self-employed or the millions of independent contractor workers who have no employee benefits.

A better template would have been something along the lines of what was legislated in Norway, although it is unrealistic to expect a U.S. Senate dominated by hardline Republicans to acquiesce to something proposed by a Scandinavian social democracy. But highlighting the contrast, Norwegian journalist Ellen Engelstad writes : "Workers put on leave will now get full pay for twenty days (an improvement even on the pre-coronavirus situation), but employers will only cover the first two days, while the rest will be paid by the state. After that period, a worker on leave will receive 80 percent of their previous salary, up to [about $29,000] a year, and 62.4 percent of everything they received on top of that."

So long as we continue to embrace a lockdown strategy, generous relief is key to securing widespread support for its maintenance. It will become politically impossible to sustain a government-mandated lockdown where workers are forced to stay at home, absent some income support to facilitate compliance with that order. So it is good that the government has also recognized that this relief had to take the form of grants, not loans, because additional private debt assumption would exacerbate long-term economic distress. The provision of $350 billion in "forgivable loans" to businesses are in reality grants, as these "loans" will be forgiven if the businesses targeted maintain payroll. That's precisely the kind of conditionality that should be attached to the relief provisions.

There will undoubtedly be other measures required once the scale of the economic fallout becomes clearer. But when we get past relief packages and move toward taking the economy out of its current cryogenically frozen state, the U.S. government must engage in a broader effort of reconstruction so as to finally make this an economy that works for all. Policy should not simply be about getting people back into resorts, malls or restaurants, or exhorting mass consumption as a patriotic duty ( as George W. Bush suggested after 9/11 ). Rather, we should be focused on ramping up mass-production essential goods such as food, as well support for the health care systems via expansion of testing kits, surgical masks, ventilators and palliative care, not only for this crisis, but also to ensure that the system is not overwhelmed in the event of future pandemics (or a possible recurrence of this one as we return to work and reintegrate with one another). It also goes without saying that we should also expend vast sums on research and development to find treatments and a vaccine, as well as rapid training of new medical workers. Substantial increases in funding to the National Institutes of Health would be a good place to start.

As for conditionality, a case has been made that a force majeure "Act of God" is not the time to play a "game of chicken" and impose major conditions for aid , especially as it is government policy itself that has precipitated the crisis. On the other hand, political realities and historic precedent suggest that crisis conditions are the only time one gets dramatic reforms; otherwise the elites regain their balance and suppress them (as occurred after 2008). Plus, there are corporate bailout recipients in this bill, such as Boeing, that were heading toward a death spiral , even before the epidemic.

Let's also make clear distinctions here: An "Act of God" argument was invoked in 2008 . That financial crisis was described as a "once in a 50-year event," something that couldn't have been planned for or insured against, etc. This was a lie. The banks were not blameless, and there was causation between the crash and their behavior. But Wall Street's bad actors weren't punished. There were, however, a lot of blameless victims who were and are still paying a price. They didn't receive compensation and received pain and punishment as if they were responsible, when they were in fact collateral damage.

In many respects, this crisis is even worse. We may not have a financial contagion, but we have a physical contagion that is literally exposing us to conditions comparable to the 1930s . But unlike the 1930s or, indeed, the 2008 global financial contagion, policymakers have a twin task with seemingly incompatible goals: stopping the spread of the virus in many ways exists in tension with the need to arrest the indirect economic fallout from the pandemic. The longer the economic restrictions apply to eliminate the health risk, the greater the economic fallout, which is precisely the dilemma President Trump exposed (in his typically inelegant way), when he signaled his desire to restart the U.S. economy by mid-April .

Trump's public musings were rightly denounced. His moral calculus is skewed; this president is transparently consumed by the desire to safeguard his narrow economic interests and the presidency (along with the fact that he stripped public health agencies of the staffing, resources, and authority they needed to function ). A serious president would send teams of epidemiologists to study other countries' success models, and adopt them. Instead, Trump is literally gambling with the lives of potentially millions of people as he tries to place this bet on an Easter miracle. Unlike Jesus, those lives lost won't be resurrected, even if the economy ultimately revives.

Beyond that is the question of how best to assist businesses paralyzed for the sake of public health. This is perhaps the most politically loaded part of the process when it comes to assessing how far we go in terms of changing the behavior of our corporate sector versus the notion of simply compensating businesses for losses sustained by an action deemed to be a public health emergency.

Oren Cass, executive director of the soon-to-be-launched think tank American Compass , has made the case for compensating businesses on the basis of the takings clause of the U.S. Constitution , which states that "private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation." Establishing "just compensation" is often in the eye of the beholder, and Cass suggests that a just principle is compensating businesses for the fixed costs they would normally incur in the event that they were able to function as normal operating concerns (as opposed to making estimates of likely profitability and compensating on that basis). The goal is clearly to avoid providing unfair windfalls but to keep businesses solvent until they reopen.

On the other hand, one of the principal complaints directed against the bailouts granted (especially to the banks) in 2008 is that bad corporate actors who were responsible for creating the crisis were given money with no strings attached. In that regard, the bailouts not only allowed them to revive profitability quickly (as the status quo ante was restored), but also actively lobbied against any kind of regulation to prevent a recurrence of the activities that created the crash in the first place.

The lessons many drew from the experience was that the only time to extract concessions and induce changes in behavior from bad corporate actors is at a time when they are economically vulnerable, even if the precipitating cause of that vulnerability was the government-mandated shutdown of the economy. It is impossible to remake an economy if, for example, corporate bailouts are used to perpetuate behavior that undermines economic prosperity. While the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act does introduce some restrictions on buybacks and limiting stock dividends, it "avoids the more restrictive language that was included in the House version of the legislation," according to Defense News .

Many are trying to distinguish this bailout from 2008 (i.e., this time is a non-economic shock, something that couldn't have been planned for or insured against; businesses that are failing right now are doing so through no fault of their own and they're still good/healthy businesses), because saying "this is just how creative destruction works" is clearly untenable right now. In reality, the collapse in aggregate demand caused by the 2008 financial crisis arguably was just as exogenous to the consumer economy. Fatuous distinctions to justify further corporate predation simply provide another illustration that what we had before the coronavirus pandemic clearly was not working for most people. The truth is that for decades we've had a hollowing out of democracy, and a massive expansion of wealth inequality accompanied by Mussolini-style crony capitalism.

During the Great Depression, legislation was implemented to prevent a recurrence of the 1920s bubble. Roosevelt's New Deal did not legislate to restore the status quo ante but rather to create a very different sort of economy.

Under the cover of a public health emergency, however, the so-called "new normal" is looking a lot like the old normal. This bill gives the pigs yet another big feed at the public trough, and Congress is happily ladling out the goodies. Much like the 1930s, then, the very legitimacy of liberal capitalist democracy is at stake. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an FDR ready to lead us in this acute moment of need.


Nicholas Crowley , March 28, 2020 at 6:25 am

Aloha,

Last week I was unable to apply for unemployment in my state, Hawaii, because I am self employed. I get kicked out of the application process after the first few qualifying questions in the online application process. Today, it went straight through. You make yourself your own ex employer and that's it. I'm assuming this has to do with this federal package. On a side note I am one of many self employed registered legal tour guide operators in the state that rely heavily on visitors and all of us are up in arms that somehow this bill is also going to give money to Uber and Lyft drivers who are not even legal in the state. Only partially in the county of Oahu.

Michael , March 28, 2020 at 9:54 am

I did something similar during the GFC.
I have a C Corp in Calif with myself as the only employee.
I applied for UI and received it for about a year.
However, my contribution rate ramped up and my rating declined to F. Still worth it.

Calif also borrowed a lot of money from the Feds last time and had to pay it back.
Employers were assessed a portion each year. Finally repaid after 5 or so years.

john bougearel , March 28, 2020 at 7:22 am

Rep Thomas Massey did some math. $2T from congress, and $4T from Feds so far = $68,000 per family of new Nat'l debt and dollar devaluation. Yet each household is likely to see only about $3000 of that $68000. Massey may have a point, perhaps there is just a tinge of maldistribution afoot here. And isn't that always the case in Crisis Capitalism, to never let a good crisis go to waste? Just maybe they could be doing a better job in the distribution of this package?

While many things were discussed about Covid and the Covid Recovery plan on Friday, what struck me was a reference to this stimulus bill that this is our Marshall Plan. While that sounds good, is it really? And another thing that struck me was how many striking similarities there are.

The final striking observation was Pelosi et al reminding us, that this is not the last stimulus bill that will be related to stimulating an economic recovery. In short, what Pelosi's telling us this is the prefatory Helicopter monies from our new "Helicopter Avenging Angels." Economist Murray Rothbard told a story about an angel looking down at the woes of mankind and decided that everyone would feel better if they all had an extra $1000. So, that is what the angel did, deposited $1000 into everyones bank account one night. Next morning, everyone woke up to an extra $1000. Those that spent it first on goods benefited most. Those that waited to spend it, got less bang for their buck bc the cost of goods rose.

So, it is with this stimulus story littered with maldistribution. Velocity of money in an economy increases most and therefore GDP or gross output if it is in the hands of households and consumers.

Over the past 12 yrs or so, fiscal and monetary stimulus packages have been referred to as bazookas. Today, they have mushroomed into "Nukes." And the Nukes, themselves, are mushrooming.

If Pelosi is right, this will not be the last stimulus bill relating to coronavirus, then this is not far from what happened with the Marshall Plan. The 1947-48 Marshall Plan was replaced by the Mutual Security Plan in 19951. The MSP plan was extended from 1951-1961. The MSP plan gave away about $7.5 billion annually until 1961 when it was replaced by yet another program – he United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The USAID is now one of the largest official aid agencies in the world, and accounts for more than half of all U.S. foreign assistance -- the highest in the world in absolute dollar terms.

In short, the Marshall Plan kept transmuting itself into something new. Until it became a "perpetual entity."
And it is not so different than the Federal Reserve's QE programs or other so-called "temporary" facilities that somehow are resurrected, transmuted or whatever. But somehow, these programs mange to live on like zombies.

Zombie, Zombie, Zombie. They are fighting, With their tanks and their bombs, And their bombs and their guns.

It's the same old theme since the 1947 Marshall Plan
In your head, in your head, Their still fighting,
With their tanks and their bombs And their bombs and their guns

But I digress.

The question then becomes, how well did the Marshall Plan work to generate economic growth. According to Marshall Plan's own accounting, the MP only accounted for an increase of less than ½% of GDP growth a year. That ain't much folks! So be prepared to be underwhelmed! Very underwhelmed.

And this is precisely why our policymakers will be back with more and more stimulus ..mushrooming their bazookas into Nukes, and Nukes into what? Death Stars next?

The cost of the Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) resulted in the United States transference of over $12 billion (equivalent to over $128 billion as of 2020)[1] in economic recovery programs to Western European economies after the end of World War II. During the four years the plan was in effect, the United States donated $17 billion (equivalent to $202.18 billion in 2019)

Despite the billions of dollars each year thrown at the EU recovery the Marshall Plan which transmuted into the Mutual Security Plan, these plans have apparently contributed little to the EU economic recovery.

Over the past 12 years, central banks and gov'ts have thrown trillions of dollars at the fiscal system, and yet our financial and monetary system still doesn't function properly. Their solution: throw trillions more at the most recent crisis du jour. TINA baby! Surely with their Nuclear-sized Stimulus Package, this will solve and repair everything.

But perhaps, under a crisis capitalism, the aim is to ensure a crisis never goes to waste. So perhaps, the aim of these stimulus programs is never to fix the broken window. Only to give the appearance the window is being fixed. If you actually fixed the broken window, then there would be no need to perpetually repeat these stimulus programs that can be so damn self-serving to those closest to the monies. Then where would Nancy and her Cohorts be?

The Covid Bill our Marshall Plan are fiscal responses to disasters. To this extent, they both that into the context of French Economist Frederic Bastiat's Parable of the Broken Window.

"Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas" ("That Which We See and That Which We Do Not See") to illustrate why destruction, and the money spent to recover from destruction, is not actually a net benefit to society.The parable seeks to show how opportunity costs, as well as the law of unintended consequences, affect economic activity in ways that are unseen or ignored. The belief that destruction is good for the economy is consequently known as the broken window fallacy or glazier's fallacy. And yet, destruction of the economy can be quite beneficial to the "first financial responders" to the destruction of the economy.

My apologies Yves, I should have forwarded this to you as a separate post. Feel free to post if you like

Oh , March 28, 2020 at 10:37 am

Thanks for the informative comment. I'm not surprised to know that the Marshall Plan resulted in an increase of less than 1/2 % of GDP growth. I assume that you're referring to the GDP of Europe.
I contend that the billions doled out via the Marshall Plan helped the FInancial institutions and later, since we had destroyed all of the manufacturing facilities in Europe, it helped all large US corporations who had a ready made market in Europe.

Susan the other , March 28, 2020 at 10:59 am

What an interesting comment. From my perspective – long time observer of things never working properly – I think the Covid Crisis is just another example of the pointless but dedicated pursuit of profits – unless of course there is a "Treasury" willing to provide any and all shortfall to each and every private profiteer. Then it works in a very wasteful and illogical manner. It requires also bailing out the hapless consumers occasionally. Somehow I think we could do better.

john bougearel , March 28, 2020 at 11:51 am

Susan,

I don't see the powers that be as anxious to fix the broken windows. They want the broken windows to remain broken so they can continue to throw bazookas and nukes through them.

And I wonder,. and I think you too need to wonder why the Marshall Plan became the Mutual Security Plan after 1951. Presumably, the rapid EU economic recovery no longer necessitated the Marshall Plan. Facing an existential crisis as such, the Marshall Plan had to morph into some other purpose, such as "Mutual Security" to keep access to those slush funds alive and well.

Susan the other , March 28, 2020 at 3:20 pm

I'd say off the top it is because neoliberal capitalism cannot withstand competition from democracy – good social democracy. So we morphed into the policeman of the world and pretended like we were critical to the cause of a failing economic ideology. It has never worked and it has gradually become nonsense because we are continuously forced to save society. No matter that we never to a good job of it – we still do it to insure profits. I'd be more upset about it except for the fact that it is so transparently absurd and I like to think it proves it own uselessness. What more do we need?

Grebo , March 28, 2020 at 8:24 pm

I'm no expert on the Marshall plan but as a European I get the impression it was much appreciated. From the US' point of view though it had a geopolitical purpose. By getting Europe on its economic feet again it fended off the threat of Communism and created a customer for US exports. The Plan's successors are also primarily aimed at maintaining and extending US hegemony, they are merely dressed up as charity.

rd , March 28, 2020 at 1:56 pm

I think the primary problem over the past decade is the assumption that the wealthy need to be returned/maintained to their wealthy to trickle the wealth down. That clearly has not been working efficiently.

So I am a fan of saving companies that are stable in the absence of major crisis, but require large-scale management changes, and dramatically scale back executive compensation for several years. If the executives can find a better job with better pay in an un-bailed out company, they should take it. If the company would clearly have gone under due to massive debt-loads, then a pre-package bankruptcy like GM with the government holding equity in the final company should be the route.

The financial cries are simply creating bigger and bigger TBTF companies that can build up debt again to fund shareholder buybacks until they get bailed out by the Fed and Treasury. That cycle needs to stop. The country worked fine when there were many companies competing with each other.

michael99 , March 28, 2020 at 3:48 pm

This coronavirus relief act expands TBTF. It's not just the big banks and other finance/insurance/real estate corporations anymore. It seems to be about protecting financial wealth wherever it resides. It's moral hazard writ large. Why behave prudently if the Fed has your back?

I agree with "saving companies that are stable in the absence of major crisis, but require large-scale management changes, and dramatically scale back executive compensation for several years", and "if the company would clearly have gone under due to massive debt-loads, then a pre-package bankruptcy like GM with the government holding equity in the final company should be the route."

The government could enact an automatic stabilizer program to cover furloughed worker wages during economic crises while employers continued to cover fixed costs and worker benefits such as health insurance. Large corporations could be managed to cover theses things if required to.
Even better, pass M4A and take employee health insurance off their books.

Charles D Myers , March 28, 2020 at 7:50 am

Why does the Uber/Lyft bailout have to be funded by workers who have put money into unemployment insurance?

If they want to bail out the gig economy they should have said straight up we are bailing them out.

The States have to come up with the funding for the unemployed. So you can bet there will be a shortfall.

Why does the gig economy always takes but never give?

The biggest problem is laid off employees getting thru to the unemployment agencies.Then they throw millions of Uber/Lyft drivers to clog up the Queue.

Brooklin Bridge , March 28, 2020 at 8:18 am

I'm wondering what AOC did or didn't do re this package? A lot has been said about Sanders, but I'm fuzzy on AOC. I can't imagine she liked the thing. Did she have any way of throwing a stick in in it?

Troglin , March 28, 2020 at 8:41 am

AOC is an actor -- an Obama for the new generation.

Oh , March 28, 2020 at 10:39 am

Will she be eligible for the Best Actress Award?

Kiers , March 28, 2020 at 6:26 pm

that would "explain" her previous incumbent, a most malignant connected big money DNC machine pol, "stepping aside" for her. Watch out. Likely future Manchurian afoot. (Like showbama).

flora , March 28, 2020 at 10:00 am

Pelosi ordered a voice vote, not a recorded vote. There's no way to know how any Rep. voted. They can say they voted yea or nay, but there's no proof.

Brooklin Bridge , March 28, 2020 at 5:18 pm

Thanks, not surprised.

John Wright , March 28, 2020 at 7:27 pm

Here is a definition of a voice vote:

"A vote in which the presiding officer states the question, then asks those in favor and against to say "Yea" or "Nay," respectively, and announces the result according to his or her judgment. The names or numbers of senators voting on each side are not recorded."

If this bill was so G*d d**n important and potentially costly for the country it would seem that courageous politicians would have WANTED their wise and considered yea/nay votes known to their constituents.

I can see a voice vote for something trivial like a Proclamation of National Highway Appreciation Day, but not something this consequential.

Preserving the option of telling constituents in the future "I (voice) voted against this package" is hardly a profile in courage.

hermeneut , March 28, 2020 at 11:47 am

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/489863-ocasio-cortez-blasts-22t-coronavirus-stimulus-package-as-shameful-on-house

"What did the Senate majority fight for?!" Ocasio-Cortez asked. "One of the largest corporate bailouts with as few strings as possible in American history. Shameful! The greed of that fight is wrong for crumbs for our families."

Pelosi dallies on instituting remote voting, thereby strengthening her own powers and that of the House leadership. AOC, like everyone else in the House, had to participate in a "voice vote".

Bobby Gladd , March 28, 2020 at 8:42 am

" The Mnuchin Opaque Autonomy Act of 2020 ."

There. Fixed the title.

human , March 28, 2020 at 9:00 am

I simply can not understand where $4T is going to go! As we here know, inanimate objects do not have agency. I demand to know whose pockets are about to be lined.

Another observation: As each "crisis" becomes more expensive, there appear to be additional lined pockets.

urblintz , March 28, 2020 at 10:40 am

first and foremost they saved the bond market i think . Powell has already used 4 trillion for "liquidity" whatever that means I have no working knowledge of economics so I don't begin to understand what any of it means except that we got family-blogged again.

JR , March 28, 2020 at 9:21 am

You know, there is common ground amongst and between the AOCs and Massies of the world. It is time to build those bridges.

Edr , March 28, 2020 at 10:04 am

The flu kills between 12,000 to 30,000 a year in the U S. Every year. In 30 some years of adulthood, I know 1 person that died of pneumonia in their 60s. When the confinement is over and people look around and ask around and can't name anybody they personally know who was affected with anything more than a cold????

I hope this whole thing isn't just hysterics because that would not be a positive sign of anything.

Oh , March 28, 2020 at 10:50 am

Knowing our politicians it's probably a lot of hysterics. The DimRats have been fooling their diehards with Russia! Russia! Russia! Now it's time to use CV to pay back their corporate supporters while throwing a few crumbs to their loyal followers with the chant Econmy! Economy! Economy!

Bob , March 28, 2020 at 1:17 pm

What are you talking about? Have you not been reading all the experts' reports on exactly how dangerous this disease is? Have you not seen the pictures and stories coming from Spain and Italy with morgues and trucks full of bodies? Have you not read the stories of medical personnel and hospitals being overwhelmed by this pandemic? How many have to die for this to matter to you? Sorry to be blunt but you lack of concern is frankly shocking. (P.S. I have a kid on the front line of this disaster and we are very very worried for him)

jonboinAR , March 28, 2020 at 2:11 pm

I keep hearing, mostly from people I know, how the CV is not much more than a way over-publicized version of the common cold or flu. I would counter that the common cold or even the annual flu pandemic does not threaten to entirely overwhelm the health care system of the countries and regions it infects. See Lombardy and New York, for example. Clearly, in terms of the seriousness of its symptoms anyway, the CV is pretty far beyond the flu.

Kurtismayfield , March 28, 2020 at 3:18 pm

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-coronavirus-andrew-cuomo-728-deaths-covid-19/?intcid=CNI-00-10aaa3a

It's up to 700+ deaths in NY.

When do you think we should have taken these measures to slow the virus? When it hit 1000? 5000? 30,000? Tell me a number that you will be ok with so that we can hit that, then we can hit the emergency button.

The problem with this virus is that it hits the healthcare system all at once, and they have to choose who lives and dies Would you like to be chosen to live or die based upon an algorithm?

Kiers , March 28, 2020 at 6:29 pm

I don't think it's hysterics, but "was it planned" is a good question: operation covfefe.
"They" are not done with it yet, a mass fear op like this is too good to leave without milking further. THIS will be "THE" anchor event for the NEXT 20+ years of "policy". Mark my word. The top can not leave this gold.

John , March 28, 2020 at 10:11 am

About that Republican $500 billion corporate bailout slush fund the Dems said they won oversight on:

Trump Axed Congressionally-Mandated Pandemic Recovery Oversight with Stimulus Bill Signing Statement

In a signing statement, the president undermined a key safeguard Democrats had insisted upon as a condition of approving $500 billion in corporate relief in the $2 trillion law.

Susan the other , March 28, 2020 at 11:09 am

Could we ask for better proof that neoliberal capitalism not only doesn't work, it's a catastrophe all by itself. And nobody is saying a word about it. That will come later in disguised language just as the money is going out now in disguised give-aways.

tegnost , March 28, 2020 at 11:48 am

And nobody is saying a word about it
Rule #1. Don't mess with a dog that's not barking

There will be a price to pay for this, and I don't think the robot dogs will be up to the fight

steven , March 28, 2020 at 10:54 am

The population of Italy is (or was) 60.8 million. As of this morning, 9,134 Italians have died – and the disease hasn't crested yet. The population of the United States is 327.2 million. If our experience is similar to theirs (and with the 'leadership' exhibited by Trump and the US Congress it looks like it might be worse), we can anticipate ‭49,155 deaths.

That sure doesn't sound like "just hysterics" to me.

human , March 28, 2020 at 11:07 am

https://www.statnews.com/2018/09/26/cdc-us-flu-deaths-winter/

A normal and expected season then.

hermeneut , March 28, 2020 at 12:03 pm

https://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/100000007052136/coronavirus-elmhurst-hospital-queens.html?smid=tw-share

Please spit out the kool-aid. You're ignoring the magnitudes faster pace of this pandemic, as well as the fact that it falls on top of our regular flu season, not to mention other medical emergencies. If you have time to spread misleading information, please consider doing your homework and helping share helpful facts.

DJG , March 28, 2020 at 12:30 pm

hermeneut: Thank you. Naked Capitalism has had an informal policy against agnotology, which is culturally induced ignorance or doubt.

I see it often on the larger WWW, where facts regularly are gummed to death by the self-ignorant among us.

The coronavirus is producing death rates that are orders of magnitude above the flu's death rate estimated at 0.01 percent. Coronavirus is wildly contagious compared to the flu. Further, we don't know its long-term effects on anyone. People think that children may not be affected–until we have a spate of lung disease ten years from now.

Upthread, there are a couple of agnotologists discussing how they don't know anyone who has died of the flu or pneumonia. They must not get out much. Pneumonia is a co-factor in many deaths, so much so that doctors call it the old man's friend, old person's friend. Pneumonia means falling asleep and not waking up in the morning.

human , March 28, 2020 at 1:12 pm

I was responding to stevens' 49K calculation. Please take issue with his comment. I fully expect the mortality rate to increase beyond seasonal averages due to additional and more severe complications.

Cuibono , March 28, 2020 at 2:48 pm

what was misleading there? Trying to understand this the number of flu deaths wasnt that high or ?

neplusultra , March 28, 2020 at 12:14 pm

Yep, China enacted unprecedented lockdown measures just for fun. Good call buddy

Travis Bickle , March 28, 2020 at 12:17 pm

Ah, someone who wasn't paying attention to their lessons. Unlike flu there is no vaccine and the population is essentially a virgin host. Some people may be able to slough it off, but it'll be by happenstance, and they'll still be carriers.

Hence, the progress of the disease will be exponential, less the temporary suppression and mitigation you can see in countries like China and South Korea. The economic cost of these measures will eventually be too much, they'll have to ease off, and the disease will take off again. If you want to track the various countries "score" as this inevitability unfolds, go to http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/

As to your "calculations", this disease will have its way and will need to run its course. It will increase exponentially and circle back in successive waves until the available supply of hosts has been exhausted or developed immunity. In the aggregate, the US will meet its wave in < a week, but every community will be hit at a different time depending on all sort so things; Italy has only really taken a significant hits in a few provinces and the fun for them is yet to come. The infection is just now gaining traction in the rest of Italy due to effective mitigation and the WAVE of casualties is yet to come, as soon as they raise their guard.

All this money being spent is just buying time and lining pockets. This is not a two hour movie, where Brad Pitt has a blaze of insight and cooks up a cure for the zombie apocalypse in a busy afternoon.

steven , March 28, 2020 at 1:06 pm

This is ever so cool! Thank you! track the various countries "score" as this inevitability unfolds

cnchal , March 28, 2020 at 1:57 pm

> . . . The economic cost of these measures will eventually be too much, they'll have to ease off, and the disease will take off again.

I agree and a link from the links page illustrates that.

China Shuts Down All Cinemas, Again Hollywood Reporter

On further reflection (I have a comment on this post that is either in moderation or disappeared) it seems that the pittance to workers with the right paperwork is to give the appearance of doing something but ultimately it is to starve people into submission, so that getting back to making money for the billionaires becomes the only alternative.

jonboinAR , March 28, 2020 at 2:30 pm

It taking off again is what I fear when I imagine what's likely to occur down the road. Trump is right at least when he points out that eventually we'll all have to return to work. Otherwise the economy will collapse completely, leaving us in some kind of Mad Max chaos. Eventually. So, what happens when the voluntary lock-down is lifted, whether that be Easter or a month or 2 or 3 later? If this thing is not completely eliminated by then will it not just roar right back and we'll be in the same situation we find ourselves in currently, only most of us even more precarious, financially? I can't seem to puzzle our current strategy out in my mind without finding a horribly disastrous outcome at the end.

It seems, then, like fairly severe social distancing is mandated by circumstance way into the future. If that's the case, then our previous ways of living, I mean a great deal of it, all or the casual gathering and traveling around we've been accustomed to is dead, whether we realize it now, or not. What the heck does this mean? What do we do with a good part of our work-force and many if not most of our small business owners? I ask these questions without any reasonable or acceptable answers in mind.

Travis Bickle , March 28, 2020 at 3:47 pm

..Here's the deal:

We are collectively going to have to take our licks here, painful though it will be, sooner or later. Countries which have managed to keep things tamped down, for the moment only, need to use that time to refine their hospital procedures and re-supply to save as many as they can when the lid has to be taken off. That means having triage protocols in place for COVID-19, as well as everyone else who comes in the door. Refer to the graphic in appendix B of the Imperial College forecast for the US. Hospitals are going to be overwhelmed in any of their scenarios, although every locality will have its encounter at at different time and the precise circumstances will vary.

The initial UK strategy of angling for "herd immunity' was roundly ridiculed and sheepishly withdrawn, but it was and is the only logical course. The disease simply doesn't give a whit about the "But, but, but, but every life is priceless whinning" of those who cannot face the reality. There is a BIG culling on the way, and all those Red State denialisms, and sanctimonious bigots at Liberty University are going to get a big dose of this, along with everyone else. This wave is coming, and all that can really be done is to delay it, which may reduce the pain in a given locality, depending on their unique circumstances and if the local authorities do their job right. This will be a battle fought on a thousand hills (a thousand public health settings), and some will do better or worse than others, even as the timing of the wave will vary for each: take notes on what is only now beginning to happen in NYC, and how events unfold over the next month or two there. This story will not be over by the eleven o'clock news or even next weekend.

Taking it up-front DOES help preserve the economy, allowing for recovery afterwards, and that's key. Otherwise, we start drifting toward the Mad Max scenario alluded to above. Even now, how are all the bodies going to be taken care of? Healthcare staff is already dying, and staffs can be expected to desert as events unfold in NYC and elsewhere. All the support people who make things work with their marginal salaries are noble, but stupid, if they stick around those places, which are nothing but huge disease vectors. Then there's the food supply chain, etc, etc, etc

Anyway we go this movie is not going to end well, and it won't end next week or even next month. The disease will keep on coming back around until there is nobody left for it grab hold of: meaning either there is a vaccine or herd immunity (usually thought of as 60-70% of the population having had its brush with the thing).

JBird4049 , March 28, 2020 at 7:41 pm

As a Californian, "Red State denialisms, and sanctimonious bigots at Liberty University" is an extremely unfair appellation given that I can see the same here in the Uber-Blue San Francisco Bay Area.

While the improved efficiencies of the medical services are not quite as deep as in the Red areas of California and in other states, the bigotry is just as strong. Only the targets are changed. The deplorables, the poor, conservatives, and, of course, the homeless tend to be fair game.

An infectious disease like COVID19 doesn't care about anything except reproduction and is taking advantage of our situation; both political parties have been quite happy hollowing out our nation-state condemning our nation to needless mass deaths and country's government to possible collapse in fealty to the wealthy and in increasing the size of their personal bank accounts.

Eclair , March 28, 2020 at 3:21 pm

Here is a link to a paper just made public by the University of Washington, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. It's predicting Washington's peak at around April 14th. Also, they evaluate each state, calculate its peak, and list the its available hospital beds and ICU beds and note the estimated shortfalls (as well as shortfalls in ventilators) at peak.

Looking at their projections for New York State, one can understand Governor Cuomo's urgency.

Travis Bickle , March 28, 2020 at 4:03 pm

For some reason your link didn't work, I found it with a quick google search and it really is quite worthwhile:

https://globalhealth.washington.edu/news/2020/03/26/new-covid-19-forecasts-us-hospitals-could-be-overwhelmed-second-week-april-ihme

All the credible studies I've reviewed in their own way have supported the essential thesis of the Imperial College curve, and this is no exception.

gc54 , March 28, 2020 at 5:06 pm

The simulator here has adjustable parameters for the pandemic and resolution down to county level in many states of the US. Of course we can expect patient transport between at least counties if not states until ICUs are saturated. Very sobering to see how long this may play out. Cases and outcomes are plotted too.

Kiers , March 28, 2020 at 6:42 pm

I ran a regression with Governor Cuomo's numbers (for NY State); Between March 3rd to March 23rd was the confirmed raw data, before extrapolating; a social isolation program was begun on the March 20th, so the data is pure "natural" "do nothing" dynamics; I fit the curve to the data, and it showed 100% of NY State population affected by April 12th. The data showed a slope co-efficient of 1.46 every day (46% increase in new cases every day). R-squared for the fit: 96% (yes, rather high, which tells me this virus rolls out like clockwork). However, we learn, even in Wuhan, a hard lockdown took two-three weeks to "begin to bend the curve". We are in for the herd situation no question. It's been too little too late by far. (but even one day saved from the 100% terminus is still quite a large population: we are talking exponential time, not linear.).

When "early" (really drastically "late": being in first weeks of March) estimates from Fauci, and other talking heads said US would likely see ~70% of population infected, that translates to ONLY being able to shave ONE DAY off 100% herd exposure given my regression showing just how contagious this is.

(It's my belief they lied to us, it's not just "droplets" but it is very nicely aerosolized: breathing and exhaling in the wrong quarters is enought to do it; but thats' just me, however do note, the Covid briefings at the top were state secret, not open to journalists. We only get the vaudeville versions of everything, highly politicized to boot).

Jeremy Grimm , March 28, 2020 at 1:50 pm

The Corona flu [I like Corona because it sounds better -- more like cholera -- as in Love in the time of Corona] is not the pandemic we need to worry about. That pandemic is still coming. The Corona flu is bad but it is only a 'test' of our healthcare systems and government, our knowledge, and our Media -- a live exercise. The U.S. is failing miserably in all these areas. The CARES package -- I can't think of a more catchy name for this bill and it really deserves a catchy name -- will do nothing to remedy the failings of our healthcare systems and government, our knowledge, and our Media but it reveals how unprepared we are for when the 'real' pandemic arrives.

[Mar 29, 2020] Don't believe the myth that we must sacrifice lives to save the economy by Jonathan Porte

Mar 25, 2020 | www.theguardian.com

Jonathan Portes Governments must do whatever it takes -- and whatever it costs -- in the interests of our health and our collective wealth

• Jonathan Portes is a former senior civil servant

Coronavirus -- latest updates

See all our coronavirus coverage

Wed 25 Mar 2020 14.13 EDT Last modified on Wed 25 Mar 2020 17.50 EDT Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email 'if, as the scientists predict, the result of loosening the restrictions was an acceleration in infections, then pretty soon many firms would simply stop functioning, as workers became sick.' Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images I s the cure worse than the disease? The Times claimed today: "If the coronavirus lockdown leads to a fall in GDP of more than 6.4% more years of life will be lost due to recession than will be gained through beating the virus." It's hard to know where to start with this nonsense. It's based on a paper currently under review at a journal entitled Nanotechnology Perceptions, which simply assumes that a fall in GDP translates mechanically and directly into a fall in life expectancy.

It's this sort of reasoning that appears to be leading President Trump to call for an early end to restrictions in the US, claiming that far more people would die of suicide from a "terrible economy" than from the virus.

But the premise is simply wrong. A recession -- a short-term, temporary fall in GDP -- need not, and indeed normally does not, reduce life expectancy. Indeed, counterintuitively, the weight of the evidence is that recessions actually lead to people living longer. Suicides do indeed go up, but other causes of death, such as road accidents and alcohol-related disease, fall.

So at the most basic level, this argument ignores what the evidence says. But perhaps more importantly, the idea that the way to minimise the economic damage is to remove the restrictions before they've done their job -- definitively suppressing the spread of the virus -- is a terrible one.

Does anyone believe that, whatever the government said, we could get back to "normal", or something close to it, any time soon? If we were all allowed to return to work, many or most of us would, quite rationally, choose not to, for fear of catching the virus. And if, as the scientists predict, the result of loosening the restrictions was an acceleration in infections, then pretty soon many firms would simply stop functioning, as workers became sick, or had to stay at home to look after family members.

More broadly, restoring the economy to normal requires, above all, confidence. Amid continuing uncertainty both about their own finances and the wider economy, households won't spend and businesses won't invest. And that simply isn't going to happen until the spread of the diseases has been contained.

So there is no tradeoff here. Health and economic considerations point in exactly the same direction in the short term. Do whatever it takes -- and whatever it costs -- and do it now, in the interests both of our health and our collective wealth.

But what comes next? It is entirely reasonable to point out that serious damage to the economy, if it persists over the longer term, will reduce our welfare and maybe even -- as austerity and its aftermath have done -- life expectancy. The last 10 days have seen universal credit claims rise more than five-fold , to half a million, while YouGov data suggests that 2 million people may have lost their job. The recession is already here.

But this need not, and should not, be permanent. The risk here is that we allow the inevitable fall in GDP that results from shutting down the economy to drive firms out of business and workers into long-term unemployment. And there is nothing inevitable at all about this.

After all, many European countries, such as France or Italy, probably, see their GDP fall by 10% or 20% or so in absolute terms every August when workers take their summer holidays. No one notices -- the numbers are "seasonally adjusted" to take account of holidays, which means it doesn't show up in the published data -- nor does it do any damage. Workers continue to be paid, and businesses don't go bust just because they're not making any money. Come September, everyone gets back to work as normal.

Of course this is very different -- that won't happen automatically with Covid-19. The impacts are more widespread and long-lasting -- and we don't know how long -- than an enforced extra holiday. But rapid and appropriate action by government can go a long way. Keeping workers in jobs and firms in business needs to be the priority. In the circumstances, the government's made a good start, although there's lots more to do .

So what we should be worried about -- both from an economic and a health perspective -- is not how much GDP falls. It's going to fall by a lot, and that's a good thing. If it didn't -- if people were still going to work despite being told not to -- then the lockdown wouldn't be working and we'd still see economic consequences further down the line. It's what happens to GDP in a year or 18 months that matters.

And the long-term consequences? It wasn't the sharp fall in GDP in 2008-9 that reduced, over the course of the next decade, life expectancy for the poorest in our society . It was how the government chose to address the economic fallout of the global financial crisis -- by underfunding and understaffing the NHS and social care, and by eroding the basic welfare safety net that people depend on when times are hard. As we are now discovering, these were false economies that left us less, not more, prepared for this crisis.

Similarly, if we allow Covid-19 to permanently damage our economic and social fabric, it will be our own fault, not that of the virus. This time we can, and must, do better.

• Jonathan Portes is professor of economics and public policy at King's College London and a former senior civil servant


WhereAreYourMorals , 25 Mar 2020 17:48

Compulsory procurement of half a dozen luxury yachts would go a long way with funding, as would the uber wealthy PAYING THEIR CORPORATE TAX.

These extreme right-wing leaders in this world are evil. They all claim to be practicing Christians, unbelievably. Anti-Christ more like. I'm not religious, but blind Freddy would tell you if Jesus had existed, then these guys are the Romans that killed him. They simply don't give a shit; swathes of people are expendable.

Didn't a corrupted prime minister get eaten by his people one time? Just sayin'.

kent_rules -> FMIIII , 25 Mar 2020 17:48
We have been weaning people off tobacco for a long time and this virus seems to love compromised lungs - tragically, young and fit Americans may succumb due to unregulated vaping products and decriminalised cannabis products - particularly if one survives but with severely damaged lungs.
chainedtomydesk , 25 Mar 2020 17:48
I’m sorry but recessions do cause a spike in suicide, mental health issues and stress related cancer deaths. The most vulnerable in society, on the breadline, will as usual be the people who struggle the most. To suggest life expectancy goes up in a recession is a fallacy.
Elias_Artifex , 25 Mar 2020 17:47
The latest US Trump policy (US open for business, do the right thing weaklings and die for the sake of the nation's financial interests) is basically identical with the original UK Cummings policy. Over the next few weeks are we going to see this policy re-asserted in the UK - probably. Why - because the alternative would be to attempt containment of Covis 19 - which would require a South Korean style program of testing and quarantine. And there is absolutely indication of any political appetite for doing so in the UK whatsoever.
Hornplayer , 25 Mar 2020 17:41
The risk here is a replay of austerity that we saw after the 2008 financial crisis, with many people left aside. Economically, this was to rebalance the books after the government injected cash to support the banks. Socially it was damaging.
If we repeat the same pay back and austerity model (on steroids this time) the social and political fallout could be horrendous.
But what are the alternatives?
FFC800 -> AJVC1991 , 25 Mar 2020 17:40

it really does strike me as unfair that their plan was "to do nothing" - I think it seems to be a bit nuanced than that; and terribly communicated

Yes, the plan was not 'do nothing', it was 'get at risk groups to isolate themselves and assume that the NHS could deal with the small proportion of low risk groups needing hospitalisation'. This is essentially what Sweden and NL are doing, with (like us last week) the addition of social distancing to slow down transmission.

This is a better idea than trying to avoid everyone getting it ('containment'), because as soon as you lift containment, you still have no immunity so you're basically at day 0 again. Unless the plan is to be under lockdown forever, the containment approach is a panic, not a strategy.

If you're going for herd immunity you do need to slow the infections down enough that the serious cases don't overwhelm your health service. That's what the social distancing and WFH guidelines are about, and outside the cities and a few visitor spots it was working well last week.

Continentalcyclist , 25 Mar 2020 17:38
Spot on.

What made European economies grow in 1948? Confidence, investment, a social security network, education for all, and building, building, building homes badly needed in destroyed cities and for the homecoming of millions of veterans and the ensuing baby boom.

The post-war recession feared by economists did not occur. Instead there was a quarter century of prosperity. Never had there been there so many people, and never before had they had it so good. Until the arrival of the family butchers. Who sold the family silver and sacrificed welfare on the altar of m-m-m-monetarism. Said Ssupermac in his maiden speech in the Lords.

[Mar 29, 2020] Medical Expert Who Corrects Trump Is Now a Target of the Far Right

Money quote " There is this sense that experts are untrustworthy, and have agendas that aren't aligned with the people"
That was always true about neoliberal economists. So it might well be true about mecuacl bureaucrats like Fauci. Did he disclose his stock holdingd and financial interests? Is he a part of neoliberal "medical-industrial complex" which wants to rake profits at the expense of people health?
His email to Hillary suggest that he is medical professional but a politician.
Actually any top medical honcho in Washing is compromised as they did nothing to stop "balance billing" fraud and too over of ambulance business by private equity sharks.
Notable quotes:
"... There is this sense that experts are untrustworthy, and have agendas that aren't aligned with the people ..."
"... In the email, Dr. Fauci praised Mrs. Clinton for her stamina during the 2013 Benghazi hearings. The American Thinker falsely claimed that the email was evidence that he was part of a secret group who opposed Mr. Trump. ..."
Mar 29, 2020 | www.nytimes.com

Adding that Dr. Fauci is bearing the brunt of the attacks, Mr. Bergstrom said: " There is this sense that experts are untrustworthy, and have agendas that aren't aligned with the people . It's very concerning because the experts in this are being discounted out of hand."

... ... ...

Anti-Fauci posts spiked, according to Zignal Labs. Much of the increase was prompted by a March 21 article in The American Thinker, a conservative blog, which published the seven-year-old email that Dr. Fauci had written to an aide of Mrs. Clinton.

In the email, Dr. Fauci praised Mrs. Clinton for her stamina during the 2013 Benghazi hearings. The American Thinker falsely claimed that the email was evidence that he was part of a secret group who opposed Mr. Trump.

... ... ...

In an interview, Mr. Fitton said, "Dr. Fauci is doing a great job." He added that Dr. Fauci "wrote very political statements to Hillary Clinton that were odd for an appointee of his nature to send."

...One anti-Fauci tweet last Sunday read: "Dr. Fauci is in love w/ crooked @HillaryClinton. More reasons not to trust him."

[Mar 29, 2020] The EU's Betrayal of Italy May Be Its Undoing by Francesco Giubile

Notable quotes:
"... The coronavirus emergency has exposed the failures and flaws of the European Union, while underscoring the importance of nation-states. In Europe, we've observed a series of events that have demonstrated the collapse of the supra-national model. First, the borders shut down -- Austria and Slovenia acted unilaterally, without asking approval from Italy's government. The move was also symbolic: Italy was not only isolated, it was abandoned to its own devices. ..."
"... Globalization may have its efficiencies, but an overwhelmed health care system suffers in the absence of internal production of the necessary materials -- life-saving ventilators, infection-preventing hazmat vests, face masks. The global evolution of supply chains exported manufacturing and relied heavily on the cheap imports of essential products from abroad. But with the spread of the coronavirus, many states are now forbidding the export of medical equipment. A good example is Turkey, a country that readily accepts EU funds and that many liberals would like to bring into the Union. Ankara blocked a shipment of 200,000 face masks already purchased by Italy for the hard-hit northern regions of Marche and Emilia Romagna. ..."
Mar 28, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a greater toll on Italy than any other nation. The Italians are facing their most severe crisis since the Second World War, with Lombardy in the industrial north particularly hard hit. Yet for all its rhetoric about global citizenship and solidarity, the European Union has all but abandoned them. That's even though communist China, arguably globalization's greatest and shrewdest state beneficiary, is ready to fill the void and help Italy put out the fire its own virus started.

The coronavirus first appeared in Italy on January 31 when two Chinese tourists from the Hubei province tested positive in Rome, eight days after they'd landed at the Milan airport in Lombardy. The two were immediately isolated and quarantined in the Roman Spallanzani hospital, and the situation seemed under control -- until February 21. That day, Italy confirmed 16 new coronavirus cases, 14 in Lombardy and two in Veneto. A 38-year-old Italian from Codogno near Milan with acute respiratory symptoms was identified as patient zero. Despite Italy's attempts to contain the virus by locking down the city of Codogno, coronavirus infections spread.

In just a few days, Italy had the highest number of infections in Europe, with Lombardy as the pandemic's epicenter. To avoid the spread of infections to the rest of Italy, the government locked down the entire region of Lombardy and other areas in northern Italy, effectively quarantining 17 million people. A few days later, as the situation deteriorated, the whole of Italy was declared an "orange zone" -- all "non-essential" commercial activities were shut down and the free movement of citizens was limited to grocery and pharmaceutical shopping and work obligations deemed by the state as of "prime importance."

The economic repercussions of a complete shutdown loomed large. Consequently, Italy asked the EU for more flexibility on its accounts and requested that emergency measures be deployed to support Italian citizens and businesses. At the time, the crisis was hardly felt in the European powerhouses, France or Germany. The EU's response was slow and inefficient, and Italians started to feel abandoned by European institutions. As the original signer of the Treaty of Rome, Italy is a founding member of the EU and the third largest economy in the eurozone.

On March 12, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, marked a point of no return -- she gave a highly anticipated speech outlining the measures the bank would introduce to combat the effects of the coronavirus. Lagarde decided not to cut interest rates, arguing against the policy of "whatever it takes," as had been outlined by former ECB president Mario Draghi. To Italians, the EU's indifference was a betrayal. The consequences of her words were immediate -- and disastrous for Italian stocks. Even the pro-EU president of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, released a harsh statement asking the EU to correct its ways in the "common interest" of Europe.

The EU did change its position on the COVID-19 response, but not until the health care crisis had spread to France and Germany, making it their problem, too. By then, the damage done to the Italians' trust in European institutions was already beyond repair. With few viable options left, Italy's government is now considering the European "Save the State Funds," asking the EU to implement the €500 billion emergency bailout program from the European Stability Mechanism designed for EU member states -- a risky move that may saddle Italy with long-term debt on a scale similar to Greece.

The coronavirus emergency has exposed the failures and flaws of the European Union, while underscoring the importance of nation-states. In Europe, we've observed a series of events that have demonstrated the collapse of the supra-national model. First, the borders shut down -- Austria and Slovenia acted unilaterally, without asking approval from Italy's government. The move was also symbolic: Italy was not only isolated, it was abandoned to its own devices.

Globalization may have its efficiencies, but an overwhelmed health care system suffers in the absence of internal production of the necessary materials -- life-saving ventilators, infection-preventing hazmat vests, face masks. The global evolution of supply chains exported manufacturing and relied heavily on the cheap imports of essential products from abroad. But with the spread of the coronavirus, many states are now forbidding the export of medical equipment. A good example is Turkey, a country that readily accepts EU funds and that many liberals would like to bring into the Union. Ankara blocked a shipment of 200,000 face masks already purchased by Italy for the hard-hit northern regions of Marche and Emilia Romagna.

The Italians are coming together to fight the pandemic. Many Italian companies have converted production at home: those working in the textile industry have started producing face masks. Italy's only manufacturer of respiratory equipment, in the province of Bologna, is not able to meet the current needs and relieve the national shortage of ventilators. Army technicians are now helping to increase production capacity.

What has the coronavirus in Italy taught us so far? A great nation is doing what it can to become self-sufficient as the crisis proves daily that the propaganda of the prophets of globalization is false. We see that there are strategic sectors, such as health care, transport, energy, defense, and telecommunications, that have to be considered from the perspective of national security and not strictly business.

This is a new, unspoken understanding that unites Italy today. We have witnessed a return of patriotism: flags are hanging from windows and Italians are singing the national anthem. But there is something else to consider: our freedom. Some politicians, including former prime minister Matteo Renzi, are proposing to monitor the movements of individuals using their phones and data from telecommunication companies to police compliance with the lockdown rules and assess penalties for violations. This smacks of the Big Brother surveillance state. The collection of metadata for statistical ends, as practiced in Lombardy, should be separated from the indiscriminate control of individual citizens. Otherwise an Orwellian precedent will be set. Such an anti-democratic attitude seems to be one of the collateral ideological effects of what President Trump refers to as a "Chinese virus."

... ... ...

Francesco Giubilei is an entrepreneur, author, and independent journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is founder and president of the Nazione Futura magazine and foundation.

[Mar 28, 2020] With CODEK-19 epidemic revealing all the flaws of neoliberal globalization it looks like neo-liberalism is begging to be replaced

Mar 28, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , Mar 27 2020 22:33 utc | 58

john@39
This article might interest you. The author makes the point that neo-liberalism is begging to be replaced.

"...Crises like these call for an interventionist state to keep the system together, or for mutual aid and solidarity, especially among people abandoned or targeted by the state. In some countries, the legitimacy of state administration and planning will grow, in others political legitimacy will fall precipitously, leading not just to mutual aid networks, but to attempts to build dual power.

"What economic paradigm – if any – may become dominant isn't clear. The prestige of Chinese-style state capitalism is growing. Keynesian and Modern Monetary Theory economists will find jobs in high places, and market socialism-with-nationalisations will continue to strengthen its position as the dominant economic doctrine on the left.

"However, the economic and ecological unsustainability of growth will raise hard questions of how to distribute or redistribute the losses in a non-growth world. Fascism and populist welfare chauvinism will offer the false security of disaster nationalism, national hoarding and resource wars.

Degrowth's offer of a planned and willed exit from growth will continue to gain followers, and communist strategies will grow in importance, as the surpluses that can be divided between contending classes shrink. Ecological breakdown and an absence of growth will pose questions that are already imposing themselves in the intense isolation of the lockdown: what are the joys of deceleration, what to do with an abundance of time and interdependence? And, more forcefully, it will radically narrow the space for social and political compromise.

"Struggle is unavoidable. The question is who will organise it and how."

https://novaramedia.com/2020/03/26/pandemic-insolvency-why-this-economic-crisis-will-be-different/

At the same site there is another piece on the way ion which the crisis has changed the NHS in the UK overnight.

https://novaramedia.com/2020/03/27/coronavirus-has-destroyed-the-nhs-internal-market-overnight-proving-that-it-never-worked/

[Mar 28, 2020] COVID-19 Is Forcing The World To Re-Think The Idea Of Monetary Value by Matthew Ehret

Notable quotes:
"... Decades of this modern religion have resulted in an incredibly tragic situation: a disproportionate wealth distribution in the hands of the 0.1%, an over-bloated services/consumer driven economy, increased rates of poverty and despair internationally as well as a dismal loss of vital skills, and productive capacity once enjoyed by advanced industrial nations just four decades ago. Vital infrastructure built up during the 1930s-1960s has been permitted to decay through simple neglect while un-payable debts have reached record highs. ..."
"... Banks in Spain have been nationalized (albeit only "temporarily") to force finance to act in accordance with the needs of society. ..."
"... This renewal of national sovereign powers breaks all of the monetary "laws of the neoliberal order" and with that defiance of globalization, a genuine positive potential for a paradigm shift is visible... ..."
Mar 28, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Western society has long been gripped by a deep seeded belief in money. Trillions of dollars of bank notes tied to ever-growing mountains of un-payable national debts has taken on a life of its own over the years. As the post-1971 years rolled by, society increasingly lost a sense that this human invention called "money" was created to serve humanity rather than rule it, and with that lost sense, money became an idol of worship.

Decades of this modern religion have resulted in an incredibly tragic situation: a disproportionate wealth distribution in the hands of the 0.1%, an over-bloated services/consumer driven economy, increased rates of poverty and despair internationally as well as a dismal loss of vital skills, and productive capacity once enjoyed by advanced industrial nations just four decades ago. Vital infrastructure built up during the 1930s-1960s has been permitted to decay through simple neglect while un-payable debts have reached record highs.

Then like a thief in the night, the illusion was ripped away.

The Confused Response to the Crisis

This ripping away took the form of an international pandemic which has resulted in western nations' economies grinding to a halt with a new $2 Trillion government emergency spending bill unveiled on March 24. The Washington Post reports that this bill will authorize "hundreds of billions of dollars sent to Americans in the form of checks as a way to flood the country with money in an effort to blunt the dramatic pullback of spending that has resulted from the coronavirus outbreak."

Governments across the Trans-Atlantic have also announced national interventions into banks and private industry in order to force production quotas of vital equipment like ventilators, masks and other medical necessities to meet the increased demand. Banks in Spain have been nationalized (albeit only "temporarily") to force finance to act in accordance with the needs of society. In America, the Defense Authorization Act and broader War Powers Act passed by President Trump gives the executive broad powers to take over vital industries if needed in order to mobilize the nation to respond to the crisis.

This renewal of national sovereign powers breaks all of the monetary "laws of the neoliberal order" and with that defiance of globalization, a genuine positive potential for a paradigm shift is visible...

... but something vital is still missing.

This "missing something" is clearly demonstrated by the continued obsession with money as new bailouts of the collapsing speculative banks have now risen to a $1 trillion/day overnight repo loan to collapsing banks which is added to the $1 Trillion 14 week loans offered every week that will dramatically increase the $9 trillion already emitted since helicopter money began in earnest in September 2019. With the mass panic and economic shutdown instigated by COVID-19, markets have lost over 30% of their value and fears of a new great depression have spread far and wide.

Rather than impose serious bank regulation like Glass-Steagall to break up the commercial from speculative banks as was done in 1933, the American government has merely unleashed unlimited money printing. This bipolar response is akin to trying to stop a raging fire with a combination of water and gasoline.

We thus find that the greatest crisis facing humanity is not caused by the market crisis, or even the coronavirus per se, but rather society's profound inability to understand the source of real from fictitious value.

What is REAL Value? Lincoln and FDR Revisited

"The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power."

These words were uttered by none other than America's 16th president Abraham Lincoln as he fought to take federal control of credit vis a vis the "greenbacks" that not only allowed him to win the war of secession but also construct the greatest infrastructure and industrialization programs of history driven by the trans continental railway . The dramatic success of Lincoln's "American System" not only saved the union, but spread successfully across the world from Japan's Meiji restoration, Russia's trans Siberian rail development, Bismarck's Zollverein in Germany and Sadi Carnot's France. This powerful spread of what German economist Friedrich List called "the American System of Political Economy" nearly annihilated the money-worshipping system of Adam Smith's Free Trade doctrine from the earth and only failed in this task via a plenitude of London-directed assassinations, and a couple of imperially-orchestrated wars and revolutions along the way.

The world spun out of control between the murder of the "last Lincoln republican" William Mckinley in 1901 and the orchestrated meltdown of the U.S. economy known as the great depression of 1929.

Amidst this dark period, Franklin Roosevelt called for the Democrats to claim the legacy of Lincoln from the corrupt republican party and faced a Wall Street-backed coup d'etat , survived a freemasonic assassination attempt and subverted a City of London-orchestrated bankers' dictatorship all in his first year in office. During his March 4, 1933 inaugural address, the president rallied the American people saying:

"I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption."

As I have outlined in my recent paper How to Crush a Bankers' Dictatorship , FDR took control of credit in a similar manner as Lincoln by forcing the Federal Reserve to obey a national mandate for the first time since the private bank was set up in 1913. He did so by imposing his ally Mariner Eccles into the position of Chairman who understood that money had to create infrastructure and industrial growth in order to acquire any claim to having actual "value". This was a stark break from the "hands off/laissez-faire" policy of President Hoover and his JP Morgan-run cabinet. FDR also emitted Lincoln-styled productive credit through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) to fuel the New Deal. The RFC issued over $33 billion in low-interest loans by the end of the war (more than all private banks combined).

Describing his moral philosophy of political economy, FDR stated:

"We seek not merely to make government a mechanical implement, but to give it the vibrant personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity. We are poor indeed if this nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude."

What is missing today

Today's America is confronting an existential crisis similar to that which both Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt battled in their time. Just as the proto-deep state of 1865 ran Lincoln's assassination from Montreal Canada, and took over the White House minutes after FDR's untimely death in 1945, today's deep state has attempted in vain to overthrow President Trump while successfully undermining the political viability of other "outsiders" like Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard.

The difference is that today's crisis combines elements of all previous crises of 1861-1865, 1929-1933 and 1938-1945: the very real new threat of chaos and civil war within, NATO-led wars with China and Russia without and economic collapse across the entire trans-Atlantic bubble economy. The other difference is located in the current presidency's inability to FOCUS with a clear mind on principled solutions to this multi-faceted crisis while instead finding itself trapped within contradictory impulses.

While FDR and Lincoln understood that VALUE was located the physically productive forces of labor which sustained and improved the lives of people and gave the constitution's pre-amble a real living character, today's American leadership has displayed a far greater ignorance to this basic fact of life. The vital difference between "need" vs "want" which has been obscured by decades of free market ideology has resulted in a loss of moral judgment necessary to properly put out the fires threatening to unleashing civil war, chaos and fascist global government "solutions" across the Trans Atlantic today.

The new multipolar alliance led by Russia and China have demonstrated what modern day New Deal policies can do. The Belt and Road Initiative as well as the Strategic Eurasian Partnership, Polar Silk Road and bold space exploration projects all reflect the type of principles of win-win cooperation and long term planning that characterized both FDR and Lincoln earlier. The Health Silk Road announced earlier this week by President Xi Jinping provides a brilliant maneuver to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic under a non-Malthusian worldview. This Multipolar Alliance exists as a form of a life raft for anyone wishing to escape the fate of the Titanic and embark on a new epoch of growth and cooperation.

The question is: Do western powers have the ability to act according to a scientific (and moral) standard of value by aligning with this multipolar alliance or will they choose to remain in Orwell's dystopic cage and succumb to a fate which Lincoln, FDR and other great leaders gave their lives to prevent?

[Mar 28, 2020] People's lives have absolutely zero value to these monsters at the top, who have gotten where they are because they are so ruthless and selfish.

Mar 28, 2020 | www.unz.com

Mustapha Mond , says: Show Comment March 27, 2020 at 2:49 pm GMT

@tomo Hi tomo!

Yes, I would believe it.

I was a partner in a law firm where I was ultimately responsible for all civil litigation we handled. I was continually shocked and disgusted by what I saw. It was incredible. People's lives have absolutely zero value to these monsters at the top, who have gotten where they are because they are so ruthless and selfish.

We, as a society, carefully select for these psychopathic types in all high-level competitive endeavors where large sums are hanging in the balance. Their only loyalty is 1.) to themselves; 2.) to the shareholders/partners, firmly in that order, and they are VERY highly rewarded for it. That the commoner's well being holds no value to them aside from how it can be exploited to their businesses' advantage, is a truism revealed and reinforced daily. The Ford Pinto, Dalkon Shield and other horrifying high profile cases (from the era when I practiced) come immediately to mind.

Pig Pharma is by no means alone in their utter disregard for the everyday man and woman, it's just that we intuitively expect people in the medical field to want to heal the sick, not prolong it. But as the Wall Street analysts remind the heads of Pig Pharma on a daily basis: curing disease is a bad business model. Prolonging and worsening illness, just short of death, is optimal. Just ask the lovely Sackler family.

Very sad to learn it's as bad or worse across the pond, but I guess that's to be expected.

I suspect the worst of it exists in the military environment, where service men and women are apparently routinely used as guinea pigs, and often completely unknowingly. But at least they know when they sign up that they are 100% expendable ..

[Mar 28, 2020] Covid-19 Hits the Dual Economy Incomes Destroyed at the Bottom, Profits Supported at the Top

Mar 28, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

By Lance Taylor, Arnhold Professor of International Cooperation and Development, New School for Social Research. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website

This note presents broad brush illustrations from a simple accounting model of the impacts of the coronavirus epidemic on macroeconomic balance, with emphasis on fiscal interventions. The premise is that supporting effective demand is essential for sustaining economic activity. The covid-19 epidemic created mass unemployment by shutting activity down. The resulting income loss undoubtedly reduced household consumption which makes up two-thirds of GDP. The only way to restore consumption is for the government acting as the "borrower of last resort" to raise its deficit and transfer the proceeds to households. A numerical example presented below suggests that an increase of ten percentage points in the ratio of government net borrowing (spending on goods and services plus transfers to households minus tax revenues) to GDP would do the trick.

The stimulus legislation now before Congress does not go far enough. Its size -- $2.2 trillion or ten percent of GDP – is the right order of magnitude but the breakdown of spending is biased away from households and toward business, viz. , payments that may flow more or less directly to households – checks in the mail, more unemployment insurance, small business support, state and local government support, and less than $100 billion to food stamps and disaster relief – come to $1.2 trillion or 5.7% of GDP.

Big business support in the form of loans and a range of other payments amounts to $800 billion or 3.8% of GDP. No doubt, politics aside, some of this money will be usefully spent, but its contribution to aggregate demand will be slow and indirect.

Before getting into the details of demand management, a few background observations are needed.

One is that both government and business have substantial debt overhangs. The simulations suggest that an increase of about $3 trillion in the deficit of the government sector (close to the total built into the various packages now in place or being enacted) is needed to offset the macro shock that the epidemic creates. Outstanding Federal debt is $22 trillion. New issues of three trillion may be difficult for markets to absorb.

Even worse, the corporate sector's outstanding debt is $10 trillion, five times total profits before depreciation, interest, and taxes. Share buybacks, largely financed by borrowing and ranging in the upper hundreds of billions per year, have been an important driver of growth of debt. The production side of once dominant firms – think of General Electric and Boeing – has been hollowed out by financial engineering. Politics will continue to be influenced by pressures to solve financial problems for firms created by their past mistakes.

On the real side of the economy, over the last two or three decades the share of employment in sectors with low real wages, productivity, and profits increased by around twenty percent. The share of profits in national income grew at around 0.4% per year for five decades, mostly flowing through various channels to households in the top one percent of the size distribution of income. Households at the bottom of the distribution became especially vulnerable.

The major impact on economic activity will come from falling consumption of goods and services due to income losses caused by businesses shutting down. Starting from an initial income level, household saving or the difference between income and spending will shoot up with further multiplier effects on output. High profit activities such as real estate rental and leasing, finance, and information will be protected. Sectors with high employment and low wages and productivity such as retail, accommodation and food, and other services will be hard hit (education and health will be the main exception). To offset the impacts, fiscal demand creation by the government will be essential, with the required outlays depending on the size of the consumption drop and other shocks such as lower private investment and exports.

We begin with details about differences across sectors, and go on to the macroeconomic effects of the coronavirus epidemic on incomes and output.

Dual Economy

The shifts in the structure of production just mentioned created an American dual economy with prosperity at the top and near subsistence living at the bottom. Table 1 presents details for sixteen sectors, ordered from the higher to lower rows by decreasing estimates of payments per hour to labor (including "supplements" or contributions for pensions and insurance).

Real wages and productivity vary over wide ranges. The same is true of sectoral profits. Real estate takes the lion's share, followed by manufacturing, finance, business services, and information. Profits are meager from retail on down the rows, while output and especially employment shares are relatively high. The three sectors mentioned above -- retail, accommodation and food, and other services – provide around 46 million jobs, more than one-quarter of the 162 million total. Their labor payments amount to $263 billion, about one percent of GDP of $21 trillion. This number can be contrasted with $600 billion of profits in real estate. Incomes of low-wage workers do not matter

greatly in the grand macroeconomic scheme of things, but for them even a ten percent income loss would be devastating.

Table 1: Structure of production in 2016 Wages and output used to calculate wage rate per hour and productivity per hour are deflated by the GDP deflator (2019=100). Shares of real output are deflated based on each sector's own industry price index (2009=100).

Macroeconomic Balance

Before turning to the impacts of covid-19, it makes sense to review previous macroeconomic shocks such as the great recession and the smaller Trump tax reduction of 2018. A simple accounting scheme can be built around "net borrowing" (NB) levels of four institutional sectors – households (HH), corporate business, government at all levels, and the rest of the world.

For households and business, NB is equal to gross fixed capital formation plus changes in inventories ("investment") minus saving. For government, it is current spending on goods and services plus investment minus the excess of tax receipts over fiscal transfers to households. Broadly speaking, foreign NB is the current account surplus or exports minus imports. It is negative for the USA. In the jargon, investment, government spending, and exports are demand "injections." HH and business saving, taxes minus fiscal transfers, and imports are "leakages." Overall macroeconomic balance requires that the sum of NB levels across sectors should equal zero (subject to a "statistical discrepancy" between estimates of spending and incomes in the national accounts). Table 2 summarizes data for selected years. The "rates" are calculated with respect to the relevant year's real GDP.

Table 2: Net borrowing behavior in the USA for selected years (levels in trillions of dollars at prices of 2019, rates are relative to GDP)

Each year's "multiplier" is the inverse of the sum of the four leakage rates. The multiplier times the sum of injections equals output.

In a further illustration, Figure 1 shows annual net borrowing rates in the form of a bar chart. High net borrowing by the government in response to the financial crisis stands out. Even more striking at the far right of the diagram is the fiscal response to the consumption loss due to the coronavirus as estimated in Table 3 below.

Figure 1: Annual sectoral net borrowing (in the past and estimated for 2020)

The diagram and table show that business retained earnings usually provide the main source of saving, with resources also coming from households and negative net borrowing by the rest of the world (positive net lending to the US economy). The government is the principal net borrower, as underlined by its role in recent macroeconomic events and especially now.

Recession and the Trump Tax Cut

The 2007-09 recession was precipitated by private sector retrenchment in wake of the financial crisis. Household consumption was flat, while private investment fell by 30%. Household saving and business retained earnings went up, meaning that the overall private saving rate rose from 19% to 22%. Output rose between 2007 and 2009. It would have dropped dramatically if the net government tax-minus-transfer rate had been stable. But in fact it fell from 15% to 6% due to automatic stabilizers and the Obama stimulus package of around 5% of GDP. The overall impact was that private net borrowing fell by 10.2% of output while government borrowing went up by 8.6%. Reduction of the external deficit by 1.7% made up the difference.

In sum, the recession was not a disaster because of fiscal realignment. Causality ran from a private sector shock to automatic and discretionary government responses. It went the other way for the more modest Trump tax cut. The tax-minus-transfer rate fell from 11.6% to 10.7%, or about $185 billion. Output did go up by 2.9%, but the increase would have been greater if there had been a strong business investment boom instead of only a $320 billion increase. Lower business taxes were in large part distributed via dividends and share buybacks to households at the top of the income ladder with high saving rates.

Both episodes show that changing government net borrowing plays a key role in macroeconomic adjustment. More government spending on goods and services (unimportant in 2007-09) will also have to help absorb the covid-19 shock

Coronavirus and Consumption

The biggest immediate impact of the epidemic is loss of economic activity as businesses shut down in a "supply" shock. Unless they reopen rapidly, both payments to labor and profits will fall. Household consumption makes up almost 70% of GDP and will drop accordingly.

As an illustration, we can consider a consumption decrease over 2020 of $1.5 trillion from a 2019 level of $14.6 trillion, or 10% (a high but not unreasonable estimate). That amounts to seven percent of GDP. Because they have low or negative saving rates, households hit by loss of low-wage jobs at the bottom of the Table 1 ladder would be major contributors.

For households, saving basically equals income minus spending for consumption, (mostly) residential investment, and taxes. A decrease in consumption translates into higher saving, or in Table 3 a jump of the HH saving rate from 0.086 to 0.156. More saving means less demand creation so that output falls from 21.06 to 18.34 trillion dollars.

Table 3: Possible effects of the coronavirus shock

In a quirk of national accounting, HH net borrowing falls from -0.045 to -0.108, or net lending to the rest of the economy rises to close to 11% of GDP. Presumably the higher "lending" would take the form of paying off debt. In practice, that will not happen. The proper policy response would be a decrease in the government's tax-minus-transfer rate from 0.101 to 0.031, taking the form of a $1.5 trillion transfer to households, which could hold consumption spending and output stable over the year. Government borrowing would rise by 7% of GDP, or from $1.56 to $3.03 trillion (compare the two rightmost bars of Figure 1). This hypothetical percentage increase exceeds the actual change between 2007 and 2009 recorded in Table 2.

In other words, the only way to maintain economic activity is for the government to borrow to transfer money to households to support consumption. Ideally, a few hundred billion could be targeted specifically at the poorly paid quarter of the work force in the sectors in the lower part of Table 1, along with poor households who don't receive labor income.

There are more potential complications. Table 2 shows that private investment fell by around 30% between 2007 and 2009. Lower capital formation along with stable profits drove up retained earnings so that business net borrowing fell. Broadly similar shifts could be expected during the epidemic. Exports could decrease as well. On the other hand, increased government spending on goods and services would raise aggregate demand. In the rightmost column of Table 3, a plausible outcome would be a visible recession, despite government borrowing of 17% of GDP, or $3.4 trillion.

Reality check

The initial impact of covid-19 has been to annihilate labor income through the loss of employment. The challenge is to create demand to offset lost wages and consumer spending. The calculations herein are illustrative at best, although government net borrowing in Table 3 is close to the total outlay of stimulus packages approved by Congress. But there are further complications.

` As noted at the outset, more than three trillion dollars of new government debt is a non-trivial increase over the $22 trillion outstanding. Advocates of Modern Monetary Theory suggest that the Federal Reserve could absorb the new issues, adding to the 15% of government paper that it already holds. In the USA such an experiment is yet to be run.

The Fed has offered to intervene massively to buy up corporate debt, which would also run up its balance sheet. Nevertheless, bailouts for business will remain in political competition with transfers to households in bottom tiers of the income distribution which really need the money. The Obama stimulus directed less than half its outlays toward households. There could be better targeting under present circumstances.

Table 1 suggests that profits in some sectors could be taxed to help offset transfers. Real estate, finance, and information jump to attention.

Timing matters. GDP over one year is the reference frame for Table 3. If, as is likely, job losses and demand decreases are not offset over a shorter period, the effects on economic activity could be devastating.

Finally, immediate direct action is needed to overcome supply shortfalls for vast amounts of new medical and caretaker services, not to mention production of personal protective gear for caregivers.

Support from INET and help from Özlem Ömer are gratefully acknowledged.


Another Scott , March 27, 2020 at 7:13 am

One issue I take with this article is that it often classifies money as going to either labor or profits. There is a third category – suppliers. In my experience payments to suppliers has dried up since the beginning of the coronavirus shutdown. Whether because AP and AR aren't considered essential functions, because businesses, even essential businesses, don't have enough cash to pay employees and suppliers, or because they simply don't want to pay supplier. This is creating a cash crunch for businesses, who are cutting down on discretionary activities like advertising and even turning away new sales out of fears new customers won't pay. I have not seen any analysis on the impact of the loss of trade credit.

Jesper , March 27, 2020 at 8:38 am

The importance of trade-credit has been ignored for decades. I had hopes that one positive effect of the ultra-low interest-rates would have been that large customers would stop paying their suppliers so late. It hasn't happened, banks love it as they force the small suppliers to go to the bank and borrow money at high(er) interest-rate and the money lent out by banks would be the low(er) interest-rate provided by the customer.
There is a risk now that the supply-chains freeze completely due to suppliers not being paid and suppliers then stopping supply – either voluntaritly or due to going under. It might be necessary to legislate and enforce maximum payment terms.
What might possibly be happening is more and better automation of the AP/AR-functions. The current automation is often so bad that it increases employment instead of what might be the intended reduction of employment, the next automation (done by skilled professionals, not like now by when it is often done talkers) might (in my opinion very likely) permanently reduce employment.

Grayce , March 27, 2020 at 11:49 am

Aren't suppliers also the likeliest creditors to lose out in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy? Time to write to legislators for nuance in the regs.

notabanktoadie , March 27, 2020 at 2:36 pm

AP? AR?

Now maybe I'm blind but I see no definition of those abbreviations.

Have a little mercy on laymen, please?

Jesper , March 27, 2020 at 2:51 pm

AP=Accounts Payable
AR=Accounts Receivable (most senior executives might not know they have AR, they believe they only have cash-collectors .)

notabanktoadie , March 27, 2020 at 3:25 pm

Thanks, those definitions also just occurred to me on my walk to the grocery store.

It's amazing how the mind works – if I'll just give it time.

But more accurately, in my considered opinion and experience, is this:

Lamentations 3:25-26

Vag , March 27, 2020 at 3:08 pm

accounts payable, accounts receivable

notabanktoadie , March 27, 2020 at 3:27 pm

Thanks to you also; no businessman I, except as a paper boy in High School.

jackiebass , March 27, 2020 at 8:25 am

This has been the M.O. forever and will continue to be the M.O. Te rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

[Mar 27, 2020] How coronavirus epidemics crushed neoliberal globalism: Now Germany one of the citadels of neoliberals in Europe prohibited export of ventilators to other countries

Mar 27, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

augusto , Mar 26 2020 20:46 utc | 41

We know how the USofA has been over last months now harassing, blackmailing an' threatening other countries NOT to adopt the chinese HUawei 5G technologies.
Many nations were threatened, UK, Berlin, Brazil etc

Now Germany the first vassal of the Empire, 'primus inter pares' has seemingly prohibited the exportation of breathers to other countries - who of course need them most.

So what is globalism after all.

A nice idea the rich sell the morons, and tamed nations of the world. But which gets zeroed as soon as their main interests are menaced.

[Mar 26, 2020] COVID-19 and Class in the United States by Lambert Strether

Notable quotes:
"... Today supermarkets are playing a ground-zero role in our struggle to adapt to restrictions imposed by COVID-19. And grocery workers are bearing much of the the brunt of our anxiety and frustration, as we [who?] descend on depleted stores. ..."
Mar 26, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

In the United States, #COVID-19 began with globalization and globalizers. One thing we can be of is that grovery workers -- to whom the virus will "trickle down" soon enough -- didn't create the conditions for it, or introduce it. Let's take a look at the grocery workers before dollying back to the global. From the Los Angeles Times, " Column: How coronavirus turned supermarket workers into heroes ":

Today supermarkets are playing a ground-zero role in our struggle to adapt to restrictions imposed by COVID-19. And grocery workers are bearing much of the the brunt of our anxiety and frustration, as we [who?] descend on depleted stores.

Without masks or barriers, employees are working long hours, risking infection and battling exhaustion to do their jobs. They connect us to material essentials, like bread and toilet paper. But they're also part of the social fabric that holds us together in unsettling times.

That friendly chat with the guy restocking the egg case this morning might be my only social interaction on this shelter-at-home day. And I feel better whenever I see my favorite cashier at her register. There's something reassuring about the familiar in a world where everything has changed.

Markets are about the only place we're still allowed to gather en masse. And their employees -- pressed into service in ways they never expected -- are our new first responders. They're apt to see us at our worst, and they aim to ease our strain.

"They're dealing with a public that's fearful, apprehensive and frustrated, and it gets hostile," [said John Grant, a former meatpacker who is president of the union that represents grocery employees in Southern California]. "This wasn't what they signed up for, but they realize it's their responsibility. They've cursed how vulnerable they are, and yet they keep going out of their profound dedication to their communities."

Funny thing. The people who "connect us to material essentials" are suddenly more important than Senators and Represenatives (who can fly home), or all the MBAs in the head office, or the CEOs. Heaven forfend they collectively decided to withdraw their labor!

"Vulnerable" as the grocery workers are, they didn't bring #COVID19 on themselves or us. First, I'll look at how globalization made the "material essentials" to deal with #COVID19 so hard to obtain. Then, I'll look at how globalizers were vectors for the diseases spread.

Globalization

The story of how the United States 1% deindustrialized American by moving our manufacturing base offshore (mostly to China) is well known and I will not rehearse it here. From the New York Times, " How the World's Richest Country Ran Out of a 75-Cent Face Mask ":

The answer to why we're running out of protective gear involves a very American set of capitalist pathologies -- the rise and inevitable lure of low-cost overseas manufacturing, and a strategic failure, at the national level and in the health care industry, to consider seriously the cascading vulnerabilities that flowed from the incentives to reduce costs.

(By "reduce costs," of course, we mean "increase profits.") The shortage of masks has been the dominant narrative, but we don't make anything . If masks had not been "the long pole in the tent," as project managers say, something else would have been or will be: ventilators , gloves , nasal swabs for testing, extraction kits and pipettes , reagents , whatever. The real issue is not a shortage of this or that material essential, but a forty-year policy of globalization, supported by the ruling class as a whole, that has led to a shortage of all material essentials (and that's not even taking austerity and the general gutting of public services into account). I have altered the famous "flattening the curve" chart (here with "dotted line to show capacity") to show the effect"

Lack of "material essentials" reduces our capacity ("How many very sick people hospitals can treat"); it pushes the dotted line down. So we either have to flatten the curve further than we would otherwise have to do, or we don't, and lose lives. Thank you, globalization! And with that, let's turn to the globalizers.

Globalizers

By globalizers, I mean the 1% on down, plus the PMC (Professional Manager Class) who own and manage our globalized system. One effect of globalization has been the vast expansion of air transport and international travel, so that globalizers can do their jobs. And tha t's how SARS-COV-2 was brought to the United States :

The man who would become Patient Zero for the new coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. appeared to do everything right. He arrived Jan. 19 at an urgent-care clinic in a suburb north of Seattle with a slightly elevated temperature and a cough he'd developed soon after returning four days earlier from a visit with family in Wuhan, China.

(I'm not blaming any individual; I travel internationally myself, and there are many good reasons to do it. But international air travel was the vector that brought the virus to the United States. That is the system. I'm assuming Patient Zero travelled for professional reasons, since Wuhan is an unlikely tourist destination.)

We can make a highly suggestive correlation between globalizers and COVID-19 if we look at two simple maps. First, as is well known , one of the main distinctions between the places that are " optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward " (i.e., globalizers) and the dull provincials in flyover is the possession of passports. (A passport is a likely marker for the sort of person who asks "Why don't they just leave?"; "front-row kids," in Chris Arnade's parlance, as distinguished from, say, grocery workers, who he calls "back-row" kids.) Here is a map of passport ownership by state:

http://maps.unomaha.edu/Map_Sites/US_Passport_Map.htm

And here is a map of COVID-19 outbreaks:

The correlation is rather neat, don't you think? It makes sense that the first case was in a globalist, passport-owning city like Seattle on the West Coast; and it makes sense that the world capital of globalization, passport-owning New York City, now has a major outbreak.

Oh, and the ability to travel by air correlates to income (a proxy for class):

If one hypothesizes, as I am doing, that COVID-19 will trickle from globalizers downward, we might ask ourselves how that will happen. One answer, of course, is social interaction between the globalizers themselves. The New York Times describes " Party Zero: How a Soirée in Connecticut Became a 'Super Spreader ':"

About 50 guests gathered on March 5 at a home in the stately suburb of Westport, Conn., to toast the hostess on her 40th birthday and greet old friends, including one visiting from South Africa. They shared reminiscences, a lavish buffet and, unknown to anyone, the coronavirus.

Then they scattered.

The Westport soirée -- Party Zero in southwestern Connecticut and beyond -- is a story of how, in the Gilded Age of money, social connectedness and air travel, a pandemic has spread at lightning speed. The partygoers -- more than half of whom are now infected -- left that evening for Johannesburg, New York City and other parts of Connecticut and the United States, all seeding infections on the way.

Westport, a town of 28,000 on the Long Island Sound, did not have a single known case of the coronavirus on the day of the party. It had 85 on Monday, up more than 40-fold in 11 days.

It is the globalizers' ability to "scatter," in other words -- both internationally and domestically -- that made them such effective vectors. The Westport hot-spot was innocent, since nobody knew enough about COVID-19. Other examples are not innocent at all, where globalizers infect all those around them by trying to escape the disease. The Hamptons example is famous. From the New York Post, " 'We should blow up the bridges' -- coronavirus leads to class warfare in Hamptons ":

Every aspect of life, most crucially medical care, is under strain from the sudden influx of rich Manhattanites panic-fleeing, bringing along their disdain and disregard for the little people -- and in some cases, knowingly bringing coronavirus.

The Springs resident says her friend, a nurse out here, reported that a wealthy Manhattan woman who tested positive called tiny Southampton Hospital to say she was on her way and needed treatment.

The woman was told to stay in Manhattan.

Instead, she allegedly got on public transportation, telling no one of her condition. Then she showed up at Southampton Hospital, demanding admittance.

"Someone else took a private jet to East Hampton and did not tell anybody 'til he landed," the resident says. "That's the most horrendous aspect. The virus is already here, and we don't have any medical resources."

Everybody loves a "rich people behaving badly" story, but here's a second one. From the Los Angeles Times, " Some of Mexico's wealthiest residents went to Colorado to ski. They brought home coronavirus ":

The frantic effort to find the ski trip participants has highlighted an uncomfortable fact: It is people wealthy enough to travel outside the country who have brought the coronavirus back to mostly poor Mexico. Yet if the disease spreads, it is those with the least who will probably suffer the most.

"The virus is imported by people with the economic capacity to travel," wrote actor Tenoch Huerta on Twitter. "Those who ask that everything be closed and all economic activity stop, hurting the people who live day-to-day, why didn't they voluntarily isolate for three weeks so as not to spread it? Or should only the poor be responsible?"

The same dynamic can be inferred in Blaine Country, Idaho, home of ski resort Sun Valley :

Idaho has 123 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to the state's coronavirus website. That includes 37 in Ada County and eight in Canyon County. Blaine County, where Sun Valley is located, has the most confirmed cases at 52. Idaho's first case was reported 12 days ago, in Ada County. The number of people tested in the state is now up to 2,188.

(Many of the cases around the state came from travel to Blaine County.)

Finally, Berkshire County, MA:

In my home area of Berkshire County, MA, the superrich from the city who own second homes have come up en masse, buying up all the food and refusing to quarantine. The latter means they will overwhelm an already insufficient healthcare system.

-- Eoin Higgins (@EoinHiggins_) March 25, 2020

Conclusion

Of course, this rough-and-ready, anecdotal analysis is no substitute for formal, scientific contact tracing. But I don't think, at this point, we will ever be able trace the original outbreaks. And I didn't see anybody else making this argument, so I thought I'd throw it against the wall and see if it sticks. All I can say is that when I think of the grocery workers -- and all the workers -- in the Hamptons, Mexico, Idaho, and Massachusetts having COVID-19 brought to them, I become very ticked off. For pity's sake, at least can we practice social distancing by traveling only when it's essential?

[Mar 25, 2020] Rumour in the markets has it WHO held out as long as possible to avoid triggering the provisions of World Bank Pandemic Bonds

This is clearly corruption...
Mar 25, 2020 | www.unz.com

The Alarmist , says: Show Comment March 25, 2020 at 10:42 am GMT

@Oddly Enough

The WHO declared a pandemic 50 days later on March 11th.

Rumour in the markets has it WHO held out as long as possible to avoid triggering the provisions of World Bank Pandemic Bonds, for which investors enjoyed relatively high coupon rates in the current low interest-rate environment in exchange for running the risk of losing their principal investment if a pandemic was declared in the window period.

[Mar 25, 2020] By blockading health care products, most proably the same people who have caused all this, may seek that public health care collapsing gives a bad impression so as to get them privatized once the country in depression.

Mar 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

H.Schmatz , Mar 24 2020 23:57 utc | 112

WTF?
Six million protection masks for Germany disappeared at the Kenya airport. They were valued at a million dollars. Theft is suspected or that the manufacturer (Belgium) decided to destroy them. Nothing is accidental in disaster capitalism.

https://twitter.com/berlinConfid/status/1242413373830115329

I wonder whether those who seak war at all costs, are now trying to get us fighting for masks and ventilators....

Seeing the comments at SST on the necessities of NYC major, it seesm to me that the same people who seeks always confrontation is always ready to start a fight with its nationals for whatever reason....

In Spain, as I am seeing, even counting with the inability and greed of those at the helms, it seems to me that a "USSR 1990" effect on dissapearing health care items from the market to then make them appear at multiple times their price could be happening right now...

By blockading health care products, most proably the same people who have caused all this, may seek that public health care collapsing gives a bad impression so as to get them privatized once the country in depression.

[Mar 25, 2020] So if you are talking about people in SE Asia and the West hating Chinese for their behaviour, exemplified by the behaviour of Amy Chua to her own daughters and of her family to its Filipino servants, and the behaviour of people in Hong Kong and Singapore with their status-seeking and selfish materialist values, and their adherence to extreme Protestant Christian beliefs, bear in mind where they learned their lessons.

Mar 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Moa , Mar 25 2020 0:43 utc | 120

Jen, yes, I am very familiar with the program as I have an acquaintance who helps usher in very wealthy Chinese into Canada for a hefty fee.

That doesn't change the fact the Chinese are hated everywhere they go. This is very well documented in the book entitled World on Fire, by a Chinese American author Amy Chua who also wrote the book Hymn of the Dragon Mother.

She brags about how she pushes her children to achieve more in the second book.

In the first, she explains how her Chinese aunt was murdered by their Filipino servants because the servants were badly treated. Now, you can tell me if the two have any relation to each other.

Apart from TCM which the Chinese got from the Indians and developed, the entire Chinese civilization needs to be scrapped and started over.

Jen , Mar 25 2020 1:27 utc | 122

Moa @ 120:

The Chinese "scrapped" their civilisation starting in the 1950s. By then it was on its last legs anyway, after over 100 years of degradation from mass opium addiction brought by the British, followed by decades of foreign interference and the consequences of that interference: a messianic cult culminating in the Taiping rebellion in the 1860s and then the Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the 20th century, among other things.

Amy Chua is just one person whose mother's family came from Fujian province in SE China and settled in the Philippines, along with several other families from that part of China. (Former Philippines President Corazon Aquino also had family from Fujian.) People living in Fujian and Guangdong (the old Canton province) were exposed to more Western / European influences than other parts of China. Fujian and Guangdong are also the areas where most overseas Chinese communities living in SE Asia and the West, up to the 1980s, hailed from.

So if you are talking about people in SE Asia and the West hating Chinese for their behaviour, exemplified by the behaviour of Amy Chua to her own daughters and of her family to its Filipino servants, and the behaviour of people in Hong Kong and Singapore with their status-seeking and selfish materialist values, and their adherence to extreme Protestant Christian beliefs, bear in mind where they learned their lessons.

I speak as one of those you damn.

[Mar 25, 2020] Senator Rand Paul wisely proposed cutting war spending to help pay for the relief package. We should go much, much farther than he proposed and slash hundreds of billions of dollars in annual military spending and instead give it directly to US Citizens here at home.

Mar 25, 2020 | www.unz.com

RadicalCenter , says: Show Comment March 24, 2020 at 4:22 am GMT

@Anon As for people with jobs supposedly not needing the relief checks, speak for yourself. Completely out of touch with how much tens of millions of working Americans are living and struggling, and not just the poor or minimum-wage workers by any means.

Middle-income and upper-middle-income people in many places are struggling with housing costs and medical costs above all, and their situation generally is not improving in recent years.

As a factual correction, the proposals on both sides are not for $1,000 per family; they are for $1,000 or $1,200 or more to each adult, plus $500 for each child, and I'm glad they are.

This would be a better use of taxpayer money -- or money conjured out of thin air by the federal reserve -- than most of what the fed gov has been doing. That includes the vast sums we have spent on unnecessary wars and occupations that are neither defensive nor retaliatory.

Senator Rand Paul wisely proposed cutting war spending to help pay for the relief package. We should go much, much farther than he proposed and slash hundreds of billions of dollars in annual military spending and instead give it directly to US Citizens here at home.

We should also consider placing a permanent floor under Americans, not just a fleeting relief package that ends when this virus quiets down. Very large cuts to the warfare state and the welfare-state bureaucracy alike can provide funding for a substantial monthly universal basic income for all US Citizens age 21 and over -- with less government borrowing than we have now.

Public ownership of our God-given natural resources could provide another large source of funding for the UBI -- without any government borrowing at all.

Of course, these ideas are too responsible for either Dems or Republicans to even debate. Instead, they'll do a sensible and just thing, directly helping Americans rather than big connected corporations and banks, but they'll recklessly borrow to do so.

There is a middle way and we should be negotiating it.

[Mar 25, 2020] When one of Reagan's top bureaucrats is calling for writing down the debt and nationalisation, it is obvious that neo-liberalism is dying

Mar 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , Mar 24 2020 19:20 utc | 38

1/ @35 And you can include Ontario in that farewell too.

2/ When one of Reagan's top bureaucrats is calling for writing down the debt and nationalisation, it is obvious that neo-liberalism is dying.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/54068.htm

3/ Isn't chloroquine just a new name for Jesuit's (Peruvian) bark? Or quinine. The tonic in gin and tonic?

4/ Tom Paine's 1796 pamphlet 'The English System of Finance' and Cobbett's 'Paper against Gold' are coming into their own. What Disraeli called the Dutch system of finance is what is collapsing, almost 500 years after it began. That was the contradiction in globalisation, one that Rosa Luxemburg had pointed out more than a century ago: we have reached the limits of constant expansion. And not just in environmental terms.

[Mar 24, 2020] We are headed into the unknown. Like the first stages of the collapse of the soviet union.

Mar 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Peter , Mar 24 2020 10:59 utc | 212

A User
Six months down the track, duopoly voting majority may perhaps be looking to do more than vote for the duopoly, but that's only a maybe. It will take a lot of hardship to pull them away from reality tv...meantime, your comment fits in here like another brick in the wall. Another pissed off human having a winge.

Doing something... seems to me a group with structure, a plan and an endgoal is required and this got out to the wider public. End goal needs to be something that would be accepted by the reality tv watching public and step by step plan to get there...
We havn't hit bottom yet, still a long way from it. Any plan will have to match the situation at the bottom and the way back. But first you gotta get two people to agree on a plan.

We are headed into the unknown. Like the first stages of the collapse of the soviet union.

Putin when asked about Gorbochov and Yeltsin he just says "everyone knew we had to change but nobody knew how to go about it."
Here is somewhat different because in the mainstream types, nobody knows we have to change.
We are likely to go through something akin to the soviet nineties and only then will the population know we need to change because the old ways failed.
Best to play it by ear until that point. Nothing can be done untill the wider population realise that all they have known has failed and a different start must be made. I doubt too many of our countries will have a Putin that can pull us out of the shit. And by a Putin, I mean somebody that has a vision acceptable to the majority and comes to be trusted by the majority and also has the nous and ability required.


[Mar 24, 2020] I got the "flu" in November 2019 and I had the same symptoms as Coronavirus - I thought it was going to kill me

Mar 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Tim E. , Mar 23 2020 23:52 utc | 111

@68 - antares

I got the "flu" in November 2019 and I had the same symptoms as Coronavirus - I thought it was going to kill me - and while I missed some work - work demanded me back - and so I worked through some terrible times. Everyone at work was sick with different levels of symptoms. To this day I have still not 100% recovered - but I am poor and have no health insurance - and, well, everybody has been exposed for months so it doesn't even matter anymore. No one has died - but everyone has a low level persistent respiratory illness.


c1ue , Mar 24 2020 0:24 utc | 114

Again: if nCOV was really already in the US in November - where was the surge in hospitalizations? Regardless of age, ~20% of those who get it, get pneumonia or worse and need hospital care.

We don't even have that right now despite a huge number of cases. Maybe the US and Germany are different - we'll see in about 2 weeks.

Tim E. , Mar 24 2020 0:29 utc | 117
Again: if nCOV was really already in the US in November - where was the surge in hospitalizations?

Because most in US can't afford Hospitals or even have health insurance.

[Mar 24, 2020] Trump owns hotels and casinos which will be devastated. that might explain his position on the virus and initial downplaying of the danger

Mar 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

Tor597 , says: Show Comment March 22, 2020 at 3:30 pm GMT

Actually, Trump was downplaying Corona Virus as late as March 9th.

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1237027356314869761

One thing I think played a role that is not mentioned is Trumps business that he owns. He owns hotels and casinos which will be devastated. Trump wont rule out government assistance for himself.

For Trump to shut down the economy and produce an effective containment, he would have had to do this knowing that his own business would be devastated.

https://mol.im/a/8138335

[Mar 24, 2020] Many Italians in Northern Italy sold their leather goods and textiles companies to China. Italy then allowed 100,000 Chinese from Wuhan/Wenzhou to move to Italy to work in these factories, with direct Wuhan flights. Result: Northern Italy is Europe's hotspot for Wuhan Coronavirus

Mar 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

Felix Keverich , says: Show Comment March 22, 2020 at 4:37 pm GMT

@Anatoly Karlin There is apparently a large colony (100.000) of Chinese workers in Lombardy, with direct flights between Lombardy and Wuhan, so this Italian outbreak is not a coincidence.

Many Italians in Northern Italy sold their leather goods and textiles companies to China. Italy then allowed 100,000 Chinese from Wuhan/Wenzhou to move to Italy to work in these factories, with direct Wuhan flights. Result: Northern Italy is Europe's hotspot for Wuhan Coronavirus

-- George Papadopoulos (@GeorgePapa19) March 18, 2020

UK had a "herd immunity" strategy from the beginning. They made no real effort at containment. British government allowed their people to become infected, and only began to change course after public outrage.

Europe Europa , says: Show Comment March 22, 2020 at 4:48 pm GMT
@Felix Keverich The large Chinese population in Italy has been completely ignored by the media, in fact China itself seems to have been let completely off the hook. The focus is now on how terrible Britain and the native British people are.

Someone even posted a Tweet above by a Vietnamese person trying to claim that BRITAIN of all countries is responsible for the outbreak in Vietnam, I mean what kind of ridiculous logic is that? Vietnam bloody BORDERS China, the origin and epicentre of the Coronavirus outbreak, and the Vietnamese are trying to say Britain is the cause? It beggars belief.

[Mar 24, 2020] Manufacturing in cheap Third World countries and rewarding the local compradors with a permission to migrate to the West as contributing factor to the coronavirus epidemic

Mar 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

Beckow , says: Show Comment March 22, 2020 at 6:56 pm GMT

@AP

less globalization outside North America/Europe/Japan/Australia

You are missing the point of globalization: manufacturing in cheap Third World countries and rewarding the local compradors with a permission to migrate to the West. That's the deal, that's what globalization is.

With NA-Europe-Japan all you get is tourism and travel. I would be surprised if we can at this point convince Chinese and the other cheap labor countries to do the work and forgo the hope of migration. It was a Faustian deal and those as we know end in hell.

utu , says: Show Comment March 22, 2020 at 7:01 pm GMT
@AP Calm down, man and stop the stupid blaming game. It seems that your Banderite spin also includes bashing Chinese which, on the second thought, should not be surprising as there is only one paymaster. Perhaps you should specialize in Ukraine only and leave China to more competent haters.

Compare Canada and Italy on Chinese residents: Canada has 5 times more Chinese than Italy but 62 times less infection cases and 539 times less fatalities than Italy (as of March 16). Furthermore France and UK have more Chinese than Italy.

What about tourists: In Canada 0.75 mil Chinese tourist but in Italy 3.5 mil Chinese tourists. So it must be the tourists, right?

So compare Japan with Italy on Chinese tourists: 8.4 mil Chinese tourist in Japan vs. 3.5 mil Chinese tourists in Italy. How many cases in Japan?

So what I am trying to convey is that the expression of the epidemic in different countries is not congruent with the number of Chinese residents or Chinese tourist.

We will never know where the patients zero (yes plural, there are many patients zero) really came from. For various political reasons we will not be told and what we will be told we must be skeptical about. I found interesting data about the first infected in British Columbia that has huge rather affluent Chinese population. There were as many Iranians as non-Iranians on the list.

In British Columbia cases 1 to 5 were from China though it does not appear they infected others while cases 6, 7, , 12 and 14, 15, 19 were traced to Iran. Then the case 22 was from Iran and also case 31. Case 32 was from Italy, case 35 was from Egypt and case 37 was from Germany. So out of first 37 cases over 50% were people came form Iran, Egypt, Germany and Italy. My point is that while Canada has huge Chinese population (1.7 mil) and gets 700,000 Chinese visitors per year it does not look like China was the main vector. In BC it is Iran and Europe.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/covid-19-coronavirus-canadian-cases

One should consider a possibility whether virus introduction to Iran and the Middle East did precede its introduction in China.

Now let's return to Italy. Most Chinese tourists go to Rome, Florence and Venice. These cities were not affected as much as Lombardy where there is not that many tourists. So we are told that Chinese workers could carry the virus. So look at Prato (in Tuscany near Florence) which has the highest density of Chinese population in Italy. Wiki lists 11,882 (6.32%) for Prato while the highest absolute number is Milan 18,918 (1.43%). The numbers are probably outdated as most likely they do not include illegal residents.

On March 11 Italy had 12,246 cases.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

So I checked what Prato had on March 11:

https://iltirreno.gelocal.it/prato/cronaca/2020/03/11/news/coronavirus-casi-triplicati-a-prato-e-il-giorno-piu-nero-1.38580402
Coronavirus, casi triplicati a Prato: è il giorno più nero

"In a single day the positive cases of coronavirus in the province of Prato have tripled: from 7 to 21 . It is the darkest day since the outbreak began. According to what was announced in the afternoon of today, March 11, by the bulletin of the regional council "

"Therefore, 314 patients are currently positive in Tuscany. This is the subdivision by signaling areas: 71 Florence, 32 Pistoia, 21 Prato (total Asl center: 124), 43 Lucca, 40 Massa Carrara, 34 Pisa, 16 Livorno (total North West Asl: 133), 12 Grosseto, 37 Siena , 14 Arezzo (total Asl southeast: 63)."

So clearly the 2nd largest Chinese community in Italy (and first in density) with 21 cases (out of 12,246 cases in Italy) did not contribute a lot to the corona virus outbreak in Italy.

utu , says: Show Comment March 22, 2020 at 7:01 pm GMT
@AP Calm down, man and stop the stupid blaming game. It seems that your Banderite spin also includes bashing Chinese which, on the second thought, should not be surprising as there is only one paymaster. Perhaps you should specialize in Ukraine only and leave China to more competent haters.

Compare Canada and Italy on Chinese residents: Canada has 5 times more Chinese than Italy but 62 times less infection cases and 539 times less fatalities than Italy (as of March 16). Furthermore France and UK have more Chinese than Italy.

What about tourists: In Canada 0.75 mil Chinese tourist but in Italy 3.5 mil Chinese tourists. So it must be the tourists, right?

So compare Japan with Italy on Chinese tourists: 8.4 mil Chinese tourist in Japan vs. 3.5 mil Chinese tourists in Italy. How many cases in Japan?

So what I am trying to convey is that the expression of the epidemic in different countries is not congruent with the number of Chinese residents or Chinese tourist.

We will never know where the patients zero (yes plural, there are many patients zero) really came from. For various political reasons we will not be told and what we will be told we must be skeptical about. I found interesting data about the first infected in British Columbia that has huge rather affluent Chinese population. There were as many Iranians as non-Iranians on the list.

In British Columbia cases 1 to 5 were from China though it does not appear they infected others while cases 6, 7, , 12 and 14, 15, 19 were traced to Iran. Then the case 22 was from Iran and also case 31. Case 32 was from Italy, case 35 was from Egypt and case 37 was from Germany. So out of first 37 cases over 50% were people came form Iran, Egypt, Germany and Italy. My point is that while Canada has huge Chinese population (1.7 mil) and gets 700,000 Chinese visitors per year it does not look like China was the main vector. In BC it is Iran and Europe.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/covid-19-coronavirus-canadian-cases

One should consider a possibility whether virus introduction to Iran and the Middle East did precede its introduction in China.

Now let's return to Italy. Most Chinese tourists go to Rome, Florence and Venice. These cities were not affected as much as Lombardy where there is not that many tourists. So we are told that Chinese workers could carry the virus. So look at Prato (in Tuscany near Florence) which has the highest density of Chinese population in Italy. Wiki lists 11,882 (6.32%) for Prato while the highest absolute number is Milan 18,918 (1.43%). The numbers are probably outdated as most likely they do not include illegal residents.

On March 11 Italy had 12,246 cases.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

So I checked what Prato had on March 11:

https://iltirreno.gelocal.it/prato/cronaca/2020/03/11/news/coronavirus-casi-triplicati-a-prato-e-il-giorno-piu-nero-1.38580402
Coronavirus, casi triplicati a Prato: è il giorno più nero

"In a single day the positive cases of coronavirus in the province of Prato have tripled: from 7 to 21 . It is the darkest day since the outbreak began. According to what was announced in the afternoon of today, March 11, by the bulletin of the regional council "

"Therefore, 314 patients are currently positive in Tuscany. This is the subdivision by signaling areas: 71 Florence, 32 Pistoia, 21 Prato (total Asl center: 124), 43 Lucca, 40 Massa Carrara, 34 Pisa, 16 Livorno (total North West Asl: 133), 12 Grosseto, 37 Siena , 14 Arezzo (total Asl southeast: 63)."

So clearly the 2nd largest Chinese community in Italy (and first in density) with 21 cases (out of 12,246 cases in Italy) did not contribute a lot to the corona virus outbreak in Italy.

Daniel Chieh , says: Show Comment March 22, 2020 at 7:10 pm GMT
@AP

If this started in the USA and spread elsewhere the world would have good cause to condemn the USA and to judge any subsequent efforts by Americans to help others as "the least they could do."

Chinese shipments of medical goods are actually to the risk of the own population, where hospitals are still recovering. While in some ways it is a blatant PR play, its quite a significant cost amd self-risk that goes beyond "the least they could do."

[Mar 24, 2020] Actual morality reinforces social solidarity, which is why our neoliberal overlords have been attempting to destroy it for so long.

Mar 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

Dutch Boy , says: Show Comment March 23, 2020 at 3:59 pm GMT

Actual morality reinforces social solidarity, which is why our overlords have been attempting to destroy it for so long. Social solidarity is the key to overcoming crises in general and not just the present Covid 19 pandemic.

[Mar 23, 2020] The West was exposed, not only for not being able to handle a pandemic, but also for having a ponzi scheme economy.

Mar 23, 2020 | www.unz.com

Tor597 , says: Show Comment March 23, 2020 at 5:34 am GMT

Other things of note:

1) The West was exposed, not only for not being able to handle a pandemic, but also for having a ponzi scheme economy.

Having its citizens and its companies leveraged up to a point where America can collapse with any amount of hardship badly exposes America as being exceptionally weak.

2) Decoupling of Asia from America. For the West to try and target the Chinese, there will be fallout. It's not like white people bother to distinguish Chinese from Korean or Japanese when they harass Asians they see.

This will have consequences in Asia as Asian countries will just focus on trading with each other than have to deal with a hostile west.

3) America cannot exist in a multipolar world, it can only exist in a unipolar world that it controls. So it will not just be a decoupling of China and America, it will be escalation between America and China till one is left standing.

You can expect to see color revolutions in HK and Taiwan. Meanwhile China will have no reason to show any restraint in fighting back. China could target the west in Iran, Venezuela, or even in the US by tormenting color revolutions of it's own.

4) it is easy to say that America will just trade more with Europe, but how does that work? Drug prices are already too high in America, so now America will pay even higher prices?

Trading more with Latin America makes more sense to me, but I also don't think Latin America is up to it.

5) I honestly don't think America will be the same country after the outbreak is over. Things are already cracking early on, how will Americans pull together 3 months in?

How will America pull together if Trump pulls war time authority?

[Mar 23, 2020] Life and Death under Liberalism by Andrew Joyce

Mar 23, 2020 | www.unz.com

As stated in my review of Don DeLillo's White Noise (1985), we live in a decaying society that is in terror of death, and pathologically so. This pathology is rooted in mistaken beliefs that our civilization is dying from, or could imminently die from, disease epidemics, climate catastrophes etc., in the midst of willful and ignorant abdication of a future (via self-hate and industrialized abortion) in favor of mass immigration, consumerism, and instant gratification. Just as one has to confront death in order to truly live (or to become "authentic" in Heidegger's philosophy), our society is in constant flight from death and thus inevitably collapses into inauthentic decay. COVID-19, while not as lethal as media coverage would suggest, is a reminder of our mortality and human fragility and will necessarily have a jarring effect on a Western liberalism that has become increasingly distant from the confrontation with death.

Life under liberal finance capitalism is largely one of illusion, in which the prospect of real death is pushed far into the distance, both psychologically and culturally. Postmodern Western liberal culture is largely one of perpetual adolescence, in which the primary virtues are acting according to one's individual will, identifying oneself in a hyper-individualistic manner, and expressing these identities via conspicuous consumption and behavior. We do not "live towards" Death, with a sense of purpose and a feeling that we are part of a much grander civilizational trajectory. We do not understand that Death has shaped our historical path, and that it hangs over us in ways that should direct our actions in the present.

COVID-19, regardless of current confusion over its true mortality rate, is a corrective to illusions that "progressive" Man has overcome Nature and can shape the world according to the human image, and without consequences. Certainly throughout my own lifetime, I've grown accustomed to assertions that life expectancy will continue to increase, and that there will be an endless supply of innovations and social projects that will make the mechanics of life easier and more productive.

One increasingly expects that one will live a long life, mostly in very good health. Such a sense of security can breed all kinds of arrogance and fantasies, including the recent perverse luxury of the delusion that one can simply decide to be this or that gender. This new virus, however, presents the possibility, both in itself and its inevitable heirs, that Death is much closer than we ever thought, and that for all our technological advancement and self-congratulation, Nature need only tweak one molecule, so small our naked eyes could never perceive it, and the grave opens before us. The Age of Fantasy is confronted with the ultimate reality.

How the West responds to this realization will be a further cultural challenge. We have grown equally accustomed to the idea that we have "advanced" morally as a society, and that we have overcome some of the more "brutish" aspects of human existence that we perceive in the past. But in a world of apparently increasing plenty, such notions can be hard to test. It's always easy for a man with a full stomach to condemn the actions of the starving. The conceit of the full-bellied West that it has overcome and surpassed itself and its past will now be tested. I, of course, arise from a political and philosophical tradition that insists there is no shame in the past. I see little or no place for morality in the struggle for survival. And I also see the cracks already forming in the Western conceit. This society that is against "hate" and prides itself on "coming together" is already struggling to stop people rioting over toilet paper and bottled water. If civil order breaks down, will the proud feminists be seeking their own resources, or hoping for a strong man to protect them? If the death toll does rise dramatically, and if curfews and lockdowns are imposed and intensified, I ask: How well will your beloved multicultural societies respond? If resources become scarce and tensions rise, who will you trust? These tests are coming.

Economic and Political Fallout

Just days ago, JPMorgan projected that a recession will hit the US and European economies by July, with US GDP to shrink by 2% in the first quarter and 3% in the second, and Eurozone GDP to contract by 1.8% and 3.3% over the same periods. Sudden cessation of economic activity through quarantines, event cancellations, social distancing, and the almost complete shutdown of the tourist industry will have both immediate and longer term consequences for national economies and broader trade patterns. The mass closing of schools will expose pre-existing weaknesses in a modern system that sees women funneled en masse into the work place while their children are left in day cares or schools. According to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 70 percent of American mothers with children under 18 work. Through the closing of schools alone, the impact of COVID-19 will almost certainly have the greatest impact on the role of women in the workplace since World War Two, with many forced to leave work and return to the home for an as yet undetermined amount of time. How this will impact the businesses or public entities employing these women remains to be seen, but it will undoubtedly cause significant difficulties and necessitate some level of infrastructural change.

The outbreak of COVID-19 is also projected to test Western healthcare provision to the limit. It's been particularly interesting that the outbreak in Italy effectively broke the health system in Lombardy, widely regarded as one of the best in the world. Before the outbreak, it was remarked that:

The Lombardy healthcare system, characterised by quality and efficiency, is a model of reference both in Italy and worldwide. With the benefit of private partnerships in fact, it ensures its citizens and those who live in other regions or abroad have access to prime level health care with all the advantages of a public system. Lombardy has 56 University Departments of Medicine, 19 IRCCS (IRCCS means an institution devoted to excellence in clinical care and research) which represent 42% of the national total, 47 Institutes and 32 Research Centres. As a result, Lombardy and in particular Milan have always attracted the most renowned physicians in every field of expertise.

It took COVID-19 just four weeks to exhaust every hospital bed in Lombardy, force doctors out of retirement and medical students to graduate early, and provoke the creation of 500 triage tents outside hospitals nationwide. The different, and ever-politicized, healthcare systems of the United States and Great Britain are about to experience the most intensive test in their respective histories.

One of the most outspoken figures from the medical profession on social media in recent days is Eugene Gu , who has made a point of attacking the profit-seeking nature of much of the American medical establishment. Gu has argued that American medicine is essentially a pyramid scheme that profits those at the top by artificially restricting the number of doctors produced by the system:

The medical school and residency system in the United States is completely broken compared to other countries. Now that we are in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, we need to reflect upon an abusive system that hurts patients and seeks to make a few specialists filthy rich. Even before the coronavirus, we created a huge physician shortage by limiting spots in medical schools to inflate doctors' salaries the same way De Beers fixes the diamond market. And we gutted primary care so that specialists like plastic surgeons and dermatologists can get rich. I took an oath to "first, do no harm." I cannot just stand by and watch as the corrupt cesspool we call our American medical system fails our patients while a few doctors, insurance executives, and Big Pharma get filthy rich. Medicine should not be a for-profit industry.

Whether or not one agrees with Dr Gu's perspective, the coming weeks and months will test both American for-profit medicine and Britain's nationalized health system, and perhaps leave long term political legacies for both.

Political consequences will also inevitably result from the approaches of individual leaders to the crisis. Boris Johnson is risking his political future on a " herd immunity " strategy that is radically different from the course of action pursued by other leaders. It's been criticized as involving the sacrifice of the older generation for a slightly prolonged period of economic normalcy and an entirely assumed future immunity among the young.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, is quickly trying to move on from a highly dismissive initial response to the outbreak. In both cases, and throughout the West, moderately "conservative" populism based on the celebration of finance capitalism and token gestures on borders will be tested to the limit by increasing strains on all aspects of social, political, and economic life. Trump, in particular, has managed to squeeze a lot of political mileage out of the performance of the stock market. With stocks tumbling, and the American healthcare system pushed to the limit, it remains to be seen whether Trump's drive to make gay sex legal in Africa will be enough to keep his voters happy.

In another return of the Real, of course, COVID-19 is doing more to close borders than any expression of political populism ever has. It was all well and good that "the world is a village" when this involved cheap and cheerful vacations, but all it took was a few houses in the throes of sickness for the rest of the villagers to wish there was somewhere they could escape to. The global village is in shutdown. All humans might be equally susceptible to this virus, but national borders, so often scorned until recently, now reveal they might have some uses after all – just one of them being the invaluable opportunity to seal and control a limited territory. How people grow accustomed to this renewed emphasis on border control may leave a lasting political legacy for the West also. In any case, we can only hope it will.

[Mar 23, 2020] Looks like the virus further damage neoliberalism

Mar 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

snake , Mar 22 2020 19:39 utc | 60

The idea advanced on the last thread [by Vk and here @7 and 39 I think] that governments should be organized around something different than economics is sound and worthy of everyone's input, ideas and objections; discussion is needed and welcome.

International human to human discussion should take place. Human experience with nation state globalism has shown just how vulnerable humanity is to organized and institutionalized corruption; the actions of the leaders of individual nations have shown the nation state system cannot be trusted.

The Covid 19 pandemic has reminded us all that we as humans <= have a right to a government that is of our collective liking, we have learned that governments must serve the best interest of the most persons, not special interest of a few. Governments which fail to serve equal right, open access and equal chance to those it governs are prima facia legitimates. Covid 19 brought the meaning of the principle of self-determination to the forefront. Everyone's life is challenged by submicroscopic beast. It takes the cooperation of all of us, to save most of us, and it takes the corruption of a few, to ruin it all, for most of us.

Human rights come first, long before economics . No economic rationale can support the delay or justify the cost of failure for those entrusted with the power to act, should they fail to timely act with diligence on threat that human lives are in danger. Experience suggest it is not possible to leave the power, function, and direction of government to those whose responsibility it is to operate it <= something very different is needed.

Covid 19 was a wake up call , that makes real the unfulfilled and failed campaign promises in a never ending trail of campaigns. Its time for everyone to insist on truth, truth in media, truth in political campaigns, open book truth from those appointed to government, and to bring everyone's troops home. Its time for nation states to stop supporting the private oil and gas bandits, the MSM, or any other special interest, its time to make a single global currency that bears no interest and that does not require repayment of principal, its time for governments to stop arming belligerents, their own or those of anyone else (gun control should be transformed into between governments, weapons control and the persons of all humans everywhere should be equally armed), its time to stop one nation instigating or supporting regime change in another, and its time to deny government leaders from using the governments they lead, to enable private or corrupt profits. Every human has a right to life, liberty and to pursuit of happiness: <=governments were instituted to secure to mankind the enjoyment of the privilege of those rights; but it seems mankind has been lax in making these governments conform to their privilege of existence.

A $0 military budget, and no interest, no repay currency could bring the credit needed to create multi many places of employment, AWA fix ailing infra structures, improve access to, even make access globally universal. It could improve the quality of education and open to everyone<= fair play, access to capital (instead of venture capital expecting reward of profit, how about advances of capital in search of human progress). which could enable real progress on earth for mankind.

Its time to eliminate the dependency on, or even the existence of those monopolies nation states like to create out of thin air by using their power to invent by rule of law, powers that restrain true competition (license, privatized government ownership, special authority, patents, copyrights, and the private property ownership).

It time to stop over hyped , Wall Street multi global type greed which only exist because currency is used as control devise, instead of a facilitator. Nation states should facilitate humans to interact, in ways transparent to the nation state boundaries (Its economics, that encourages non sharing attitudes, that cause competitors to seek ways to use governments to restrain human inter action). Humans should try to replace foreign products with locally made goods and the foreign goods producers should be encouraged to make goods in places where the goods have a demand because demand produces jobs and provides opportunity, globalism organized to produce economic gains, often attempt to steal from locals the benefits of demand created by the locals. The local province rule should apply: that is if locals want to make it, multinationals should be denied. The billions saved to the global economy in unexpended energy consumption (no transport cost), could bring prices of goods and services to comparative advantage adjusted market price levels. I predict, the poor would prosper because they would have an opportunity to contribute to our global human society, and government would be re instituted to encourage and enforce equality for all to those it governs. Governments should restrain and deny wealth, but they should encourage and facilitate local competition. At one time people elected their representatives based on performance in accord to those ideals. Currency that carries no interest and that never needs to be repaid, challenges economic induced greed and redirects the efforts of mankind to providing that which is needed.

In 1949 the income tax in USA governed America was layered into tiers (where different tax rates were applied); the USA taxed those who made big bucks at 90% in its highest tier .. Seem to recall Briton had something similar [100% of everything over $150,000 pounds of taxable Income?]. From here => http://www.milefoot.com/math/businessmath/taxes/fit.htm <=i made a table
year rate@personal taxable income level
1941 81% @$5,000,000
1942-1943 88% @$200,000
1944-1945 94% @$200,000 The tax limited to a 90% effective rate.
1946-1947 91% @$200,000 The tax limited to a 90% effective rate (85.5% >credits).
1948-1951 91% @$400,000 The tax limited to a 77% effective rate in 1948-1949, .
1952-1953 92% @$400,000 The tax was limited to an 88% effective rate.

corporate rate from http://www.milefoot.com/math/businessmath/taxes/fit.htm I made a small table.
1942- 1945 40% > $50,000
1946- 1949 38% > $50,000
1950 42% > $25,000
1951 50.75% > $25,000
1952- 1963 52% > $25,000
1964 52% > $25,000
1965- 1967 48% > $25,000
1968- 1969 52.8% > $25,000

These numbers suggest a long winded story of useless corruption.

[Mar 21, 2020] How neoliberalism treats workers in case of calamity

Mar 21, 2020 | off-guardian.org

Serf

Qantas Airways: the flag carrier of Australia Qantas Airways Limited is the flag carrier of Australia and its largest airline by fleet size, international flights and international destinations

The crisis hit and Qantas sends home 20,000 workers or two thirds of its workforce of 30,000. Go home with no pay . The company management is proud of implementing such measures to save the Australian icon.

Qantas, once a government owned entity, is a civilisational symbol of strength and prestige. But with such behaviour, shouldn't we ask the question: what are these Strength and Prestige built upon?

[Mar 20, 2020] ProPublica reported on Thursday that republican Senator Burr sold off up to $1.56 million in stock on February 13th, as he was reassuring the public about coronavirus preparedness.

Mar 20, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Augustin L , Mar 19 2020 23:39 utc | 231

Bernhard when will Chump and his neo-confederates drain the swamp ? "ProPublica reported on Thursday that republican Senator Burr sold off up to $1.56 million in stock on February 13th, as he was reassuring the public about coronavirus preparedness. At the time, Burr and the Intelligence Committee were receiving daily briefings about COVID-19.

Three weeks ago, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee privately warned dozens of donors about the harrowing impact the coronavirus would have on the United States, while keeping the general public in the dark.

In a secret recording obtained by NPR, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr is heard giving attendees of a club luncheon a much different message than most federal government officials, especially President Trump, were giving the public at the time.

"There's one thing that I can tell you about this," Burr said, "It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history." He added, "It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic."

That pandemic claimed more than 600,000 American lives...

Burr warned the business leaders about effects on travel 13 days before the State Department released info on restrictions and 15 days before the Trump administration banned European travelers." https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/secret-recording-intelligence-chairman-warning-donors-about-coronavirus-weeks-ago-969767/?fbclid=IwAR3FdNapk5KbzhnftTNZy-PH7GGhIM-mk_0zDH2Uwj40mEXFa-nIM4B0oNM

[Mar 19, 2020] The neoliberal imperial regime is not only brittle and riven through with corruption but run by talents selected in an anti-meritocratic way

Mar 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

bevin , Mar 19 2020 16:47 utc | 69

There is a common idea behind all the various theories that attribute the pandemic to government action, ruling class planning or financial manipulators.

And that is the idea that the ruling class/establishment/tptb,1%-call them what you will- are all powerful, wise, though evil, and capable of defeating any popular resistance.

The people claiming now that the virus was unloosed to enable an attack on Iran, those who claim that it was produced as a smokescreen to obscure the collapse of the financial system, those who see it as a means to steal away our last liberties and to knock a dying democracy on the head, even those who see it as an out of control experiment , if you look at their posts in the past, are generally going to be found to be the same people who thought that the US military could not be defeated, that Syria was bound to fall, that Venezuela and Cuba were toast. And that Hezbollah and Ansarullah stood no chance against the vast forces arrayed against them.

The idea is always the same: the Empire is indefatigable, the greedy mediocrities who run it (many of them public figures whose characters are daily open to examination) have foreseen all possibilities. Resistance is useless. We are all doomed.

In fact, as people who don't have the leisure to indulge themselves in these gloomy excuses for inaction and apathy are always demonstrating, the imperial regime is not only brittle and riven through with corruption but run by talents selected in an anti-meritocratic way. The reason that Petraeus, for example, rose to the top of the US military machine was that he was a slimy careerist of the sort we have all come across, and, if we have been doing our duty, trod on, in our lives: as a General he was clueless, unoriginal and, because he was immoral and cynical, quite unable to understand how Iraqis would react to his crude terrorist methods. Unfortunately he was caught out by his lust; had he maintained a respectable image he would probably, by now, be into his second term as President and making Trump look competent.

And what is true of the Pentagon is equally true of those running the US economy, Wall St and the banking system: they are utterly witless. Look around you for the fruits of their wisdom.

In fact the entire political class of the US, ably assisted by its clownish puppets elsewhere, has brought the system that they worship to the brink of dissolution. Class rule teeters on the edge of massive uprisings.

And this is not-I have already taken up too much space and time- because the pandemic was planned but because despite its predictability, the near certainty that the seven good years would be followed by plagues and famines, they could not restrain themselves from dismantling the safety nets-from flood controls to food reserves to healthcare services designed to be able to expand when needed to deal with emergencies.
(In the Canadian county in which I live the Public Health Unit founded in the aftermath of the First World War and the 'flu epidemics, was shut down, to save money, last year. Most of its functions were left to chance and the marketplace to fulfil. And now we have a pandemic.)
Instead the entire system is riddled with the weaknesses that usurious practises impose: there are empty hospitals in the Pennines because local health authorities cannot both pay interest on PPP loans and meet the payrolls of medical staff. So, following the logic of capitalism-first pay interest- local taxes, designed to maintain public health, are diverted to the money lenders. And then there is the cost of monopolised drug purchases.

And that is symptomatic of the entire system, in all its aspects: education, including the work needed to provide scientific and medical personnel, is crippled in the same way, by high fees, by capital costs swollen by interest payments, by professions designed to hoard rather than spread knowledge.

The entire system is corrupt and collapsing. And that is why,particularly in the "West" where mass indoctrination has long been part of the culture, it is necessary to recognise that it is not going to take much in the way of mass energy to bring the whole thing down. And to replace it with real democracy.


Rob20 , Mar 19 2020 16:55 utc | 72

The virus may not have been created in a laboratory but as a minimum it should be studied to learn more about its origin and spread. At the present time we only hace circumstantial evidence but it point in one direction. Certain facts are worth considering:

2)The Wuhan wet-market is not the first source of the coronavirus;

2) SARS-CoV virus was being studied and experimented on at a US Bioweapons lab at Fort Detrick. In August 2019, it was cited for unsafe conditions that may have led to contamination of wastewater;

3) The US sent over 300 military personnel to the World Military Games in Wuhan in late October 2019;

4) Four foreign military participants came down with an unknown respiratory illness during the games;

5) Genetic studies conducted in Taiwan and Japan indicate that the ancestral form of SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 coronavirus does not occur in China but is found in the US and elsewhere.

Jonathan W , Mar 19 2020 17:28 utc | 90
African swine fever is also spread by man-made means even if it is not in itself man-made. Criminal elements spread it with drones The longer it takes to track down the origin even if the Chinese reportedly monitor everything, the more suspicious it becomes.

[Mar 19, 2020] The best we can hope for is that the depth of this crisis will finally force countries -- the US, in particular -- to fix the yawning social inequities that make large swaths of their populations so intensely vulnerable.

Mar 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

jpm , Mar 19 2020 16:35 utc | 61

Thanks, contributors, for all the (mostly) good well-thought-out information and views on this blog during this unprecedented time of world-wide crisis. Another valuable source I've found is MIT's Technology Review such as their latest article: We're not going back to normal:
Social distancing is here to stay for much more than a few weeks. It will upend our way of life, in some ways forever.
As might be expected from the source, a lot of solid technical information but also some pertinent political commentary. The way this piece ends:

The world has changed many times, and it is changing again. All of us will have to adapt to a new way of living, working, and forging relationships. But as with all change, there will be some who lose more than most, and they will be the ones who have lost far too much already. The best we can hope for is that the depth of this crisis will finally force countries -- the US, in particular -- to fix the yawning social inequities that make large swaths of their populations so intensely vulnerable.

[Mar 17, 2020] This pandemic is demonstrating once again that the global neoliberal economy is a fragile Potemkin construct that breaks down at the slightest tension

Mar 17, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Daniel , Mar 17 2020 0:59 utc | 106

Fully in agreement with b here. Instead of shovelling money at banksters and corporate scammers to prop up the collapsing market, the Fed, ECB and other central banks should give the cash to people who need it and will use it to buy things and stimulate the economy.

This pandemic is demonstrating once again that the global neoliberal economy is a fragile Potemkin construct that breaks down at the slightest tension. Finance capitalism is a busted flush, a blatant scam to line the pockets of the 1% at everyone else's expense. And when the going gets really tough they will sacrifice all of us to save their cowardly avaricious asses. Governments need to represent the interests of citizens, not central bankers and the obscenely wealthy. That means putting the well-being of people first, not spending trillions to "save" the stock market aka "the economy."

[Mar 16, 2020] Conswqunces of outsourcing the medical equipment and pharmaceutical supply chain to a different country are acutly felt during pandemic by Jason Morgan

Mar 16, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
| ... ... ...

As the disease spread around Asia and then the world, however, the news focus gradually shifted, so that now many are questioning the wisdom of having so unthinkingly globalized everything and made so many industries -- including the medical industry -- dependent on a place like the People's Republic of China. "What is it like to shoot oneself in the foot?" is yet another question that has been bubbling up uncomfortably these past few weeks.

Outsourcing the medical equipment and pharmaceutical supply chain to a hostile communist dictatorship with perhaps the worst public health record on the planet is the equivalent of the Army Corps of Engineers' having put the emergency generators for the storm pumps at the bottoms of the levees, where they would be the first to flood during a hurricane. But globalists, like government engineers, are incapable of learning from mistakes. In fact, in their minds, disasters serve perversely to confirm the advisability of their follies. Which leads normal people to wonder, "What is going on in the globalist's mind?"

What, in other words, is it like to be a globalist? This is a question worth asking, because the answer will determine very much in the months and years ahead. Unless we can figure out how the globalist looks at the world, we will continue to be at his mercy, and will continue to face pandemics and crises that are the precipitate of his ideology. We have got to understand who these people are who have taken over our every doing, our every coming and going. Otherwise, we will keep getting done in by them.

... ... ...

Jason Morgan is associate professor at Reitaku University in Kashiwa, Japan.

Putin Apologist an hour ago • edited

China: 1.4 billion with 3,099 deaths over a period of months

Italy: 80 million and 1,809 deaths over a period of weeks

Yet China has the "worst public health record on the planet"? Really?

Amicus Brevis 30 minutes ago • edited
"But globalists, like government engineers, are incapable of learning from mistakes. "

Is this supposed to be a serious statement? The piece is clearly written for the amusement of people for whom he has very little respect otherwise it would not contain so many nonsensical generalization. I dare he or anyone to provide a definition of a "globalist" which does not make nonsense of that claim.

Outsourcing the medical equipment and pharmaceutical supply chain to a hostile communist dictatorship with perhaps the worst public health record on the planet is the equivalent of the Army Corps of Engineers' having put the emergency generators for the storm pumps at the bottoms of the levees, where they would be the first to flood during a hurricane.

I really would like to know what is Professor Morgan's specialty. He should know that China is not a Communist country. Just because they choose to call themselves that doesn't mean that a professor anything remotely connected to politics, government or economics would be fooled. And where one puts a factory to manufacture goods, bears no relationship whatsoever with how that country deploys those goods among its own population. The piece is not serious. It is political entertainment. And for those who assume that criticizing the rigor of a piece is the same as supporting whatever the piece is attacking, I am 100% against what the writer seems to mean when he refers to "globalism". I personally consider our monied class who shipped American jobs wherever they could find semi-slave labor to be literally traitors. So, I have very strong views on "globalism". I just dislike the disrespect shown by writers who think that they can write any nonsense, once they show that they hate the same things that their audience hates, all in the search for cheap applause. Writers should treat their readers like thinking beings, not like an audience at a bullfight who are expected to howl with applause once you wave the red flag around and shed enough blood.

That won't do, either, though. China is a place, too! In swoops the World Health Organization (the aptly acronymed WHO?): it's COVID-19 now.

A much more serious comment would be about how China bullied WHO into expressing far more confidence in China's published numbers that it had any basis for expressing. How it lavished praise on China's handling of the outbreak rather than South Korea's excellent management in their country. But educated people know what WHO is and the excellent work they do all over the world. Of the millions of lives they have saved all over the world. And that they are empowered by the governments of the world to name new viruses. That every decent person in the world knows that country names attached to diseases can generate persecution of people which is not a good thing, regardless against whom it is directed. The WHO did not name the virus at the request of China. That is one of its normal functions.

This piece is nothing short of absurd hate mongering.

[Mar 16, 2020] 'Grotesque Level of Greed'

Mar 16, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Owned by World's Richest Man Jeff Bezos, Whole Foods Wants Workers to Pay for Colleagues' Sick Leave During Coronavirus Pandemic

Remember when Jeff Bezos, whose company owns Whole Foods, said he was so freakin' rich he didn't know how to spend his money so, heck, he'd start a space program? https://t.co/PjLe6MpQc8

-- Alex Kotch (@alexkotch) March 13, 2020

[Mar 15, 2020] Your country under neoliberalism: The CDC tested only 77 people this week for coronavirus.

Mar 15, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

According to Amazon's rankings, Camus' The Plague is now #7 in the Self-Help & Psychology Humor category, which is an irony Camus himself probably couldn't have gotten away with

+ The for-profit health care system in the US is already starting to crack under the pressure and the virus hasn't even really hit yet

+ Pence promised 8 million tests by the end of the week, but according to Lamar Alexander: "We are going to work as hard as we can to push this administration to continue to ramp up the number of tests but the reality is..they do not yet have the tests available and can't give us a date." South Korea, where the virus appeared about the same time it did in US, is testing 10,000 a day and has been for nearly a month.

+ Your country under neoliberalism: The CDC tested only 77 people this week for coronavirus.

+ Here in Oregon, the state health lab only has the capacity to perform 80 tests a day but that's still more than the CDC did all week.

+ Another sign of the impending crisis (and that ObamaCare was a disaster): The number of hospital beds in the US has fallen by 5% over the last ten years .

+ The US (pop. 330 million) has fewer hospital beds than Italy (pop. 60 million) and South Korea (pop. 51 million). And many of those are unaffordable for most people. Winning!

+ Larry Kudlow, who missed the great recession, "The virus is contained!"

+ On Weds night Sanjay Gupta asked CNN's Don Lemon to read the CDC's coronavirus testing stats off of his phone.

ZERO tests conducted today by CDC.

A grand total of 8 tests conducted by other public health agencies across the country.

EIGHT.

+ The Republican Governor for Ohio Mike DeWine confirmed on Thursday that only 1,000 tests are available to 11.69 million citizens who live in the Buckeye State. He further said that projections are that more than 100,000 Ohioans will be infected with the coronavirus

+ The projections for NYC are sobering, to say the least

(1/11) The #NYC Region is in trouble. Our #COVID19 case load is growing so quickly that we risk running out of hospital beds in UNDER TWO WEEKS. To avoid a crisis at our hospitals, we need to act now. 1,200 hospital beds are not enough. @BilldeBlasio @NYCSpeakerCoJo @NYGovCuomo pic.twitter.com/QLpWr6bIWQ

-- Michael Donnelly (@donnellymjd) March 12, 2020

+ Rebecca Nagle: "Look, I fully support banning travel from Europe to prevent the spread of infectious disease. I just think it's 528 years too late."

+ Matt "Gas Mask" Gaetz, one of the most ridiculous buffoons in a Congress filled with them, voted against paid sick leave. Now he's taking it , because he was exposed to COVID-19.

+ The Cuban health care system, whose doctors are even now in China testing interferon-based drugs against the virus, is going to look better and better to people in the US, as the COVID-19 does its thing here. Even the Miami Cuban nutcases may be singing Fidel's praises before this is over .

+ Maybe Jay Inslee (who promised tests would be "free") is a " snake " after all

Maybe Inslee (who promised tests would be "free") is a "snake" after all

Posted by Jeffrey St Clair on Thursday, March 12, 2020

+ The Senate won't take up House coronavirus bill until after its recess. "The Senate will act when we come back and we have a clearer idea of what extra steps we need to take," Sen. Lamar Alexander told reporters What if they never come back? One can hope

+ Why the Senate is refusing to act on COVID-19: "A key sticking point in the talks appears to be GOP demands to include Hyde amendment language in the bill to prevent federal funds from being used for abortion " Priorities, priorities

+ Joe Biden: "I don't like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don't think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body." (Biden said this in 2006 , not 1976.)

+ The World Health Organization has announced that dogs cannot contract Covid-19. Dogs previously held in quarantine can now be released. WHO let the dogs out! (The jokes will only get worse, as the virus spreads.)

+ To wit: Always scrub your hands like you just shook hands with the President

+ Come back, Marianne, your country (if not your lamentable party) needs you!

Uh, maybe we should cancel that order for 100 B-21 Raiders all equipped with nuclear bombs at the rate of $560M each, and use the money instead to pay for free testing and coronavirus treatment We need to change our thinking about all this, do it quickly, and speak it loudly.

-- Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) March 12, 2020

+ From The Plague:

"What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this, doctor?"

"I don't know. My my code of morals, perhaps."

"Your code of morals. What code, if I may ask?"

"Comprehension."

+ According to Amazon's rankings, Camus' The Plague is now #7 in the Self-Help & Psychology Humor category, which is an irony Camus himself probably couldn't have gotten away with. A viral pandemic is apparently what it takes to get Americans to read French existentialist literature

+ "Carbon Joe" Biden's entire climate change plan is budgeted at $1.7 trillion. The Fed just dropped that much on Wall Street in a single day without any public input

+ And they said we "can't afford" national health care!

[Mar 15, 2020] Priorities of the top one percent are not priorities of the bottom ninety-nice percent

Mar 15, 2020 | twitter.com

Uh, maybe we should cancel that order for 100 B-21 Raiders all equipped with nuclear bombs at the rate of $560M each, and use the money instead to pay for free testing and coronavirus treatment We need to change our thinking about all this, do it quickly, and speak it loudly.

-- Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) March 12, 2020

[Mar 15, 2020] The Jack Ma Foundation has just donated 500,000 testing kits and 1 million masks to America. The Chinese have also sent aid to Italy.

Mar 15, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

The Rev Kev , March 14, 2020 at 6:53 am

Just to underline the incompetency of neoliberalism, the Jack Ma Foundation has just donated 500,000 testing kits and 1 million masks to America. One guy on twitter said-

'Many will welcome this. Some will see it as an insult. The real insult is that the richest country in the world has waged war on science and as a result is finding itself helpless..'

The real tragedy is this. Iran has been covering up the large number of their Coronavirus deaths in the past few weeks until satellite images showed mass burial sites outside their cities. Through gross negligence, the US has also been covering up the infiltration of Coronavirus in America and trying to cover it all up in the same manner.

So in a few months time, will the Russian and Chinese be releasing images of mass burial sites on the American mainland that the Trump government will seek to hide?

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/483102-china-jackma-coronavirus-aid-us/

BillS , March 14, 2020 at 7:25 am

The Chinese have also sent aid to Italy.

The EU and USA were notable in their absence. To be fair, the EU has promised assistance, but the Germans and Lagarde are still stumbling around with the conditions that they want to attach.

Neoliberal overlords don't give up easily.

[Mar 15, 2020] The Real Crisis Of neoliberalism Starts Now In Europe

Mar 15, 2020 | tomluongo.me

Profile picture for user Tyler Durden by Tyler Durden Sun, 03/15/2020 - 09:20 Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,

I think it's safe to say the new crisis just killed the Schengen Treaty. That ridiculous document which guaranteed freedom of movement across the European Union finally hit something it couldn't bully, COVID-19. Regardless of whether you believe the pandemic is real or not, the reaction to it is real and is having real consequence far beyond the latest print of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The lockdown of Italy isn't a temporary thing. Oh, the suspension of free movement is temporary, but it portends something far bigger.

It's the beginning of the real political balkanization that's coming to the European Union over the next few years. Old enmities and prejudices have not been stamped out under the boot heel of oppressive legislation coming from a bunch of disconnected technocrats in Brussels.

They have only been suppressed.

Because when there are existential threats there's no time or desire to virtue signal about how we're all one big happy dysfunctional family. 1 minute ago The thing is most people at Zerohedge have no idea about the reality in Germany and the other European countries and the psychicological robustness of its people. This crisis is nothing compared to the catastrophies of the 20th century. In times of challenge one can see who is strong and effective and acting in solidarity. And this is it what the extended Euroland is going to show soon. A masterplan for Euroland how to overcome this Corona problems. It takes time to adopt but things do move already in the right direction. Banning travel is a harsh measure but the right thing in this situation.

The economy will take a deep dip but there will be no catastrophy. Even when Deutsche Bank should go down that would impact the situation only in the financial markets. But luckily Euroland has a worldclass manufacturing and agricultural sector, plus there is the ECB owned by Eurolands member states.

So there is money, there is food, there is production, there are raw materials as well as energy available from Russia,.. Europe is world leader in renewable energy and recycling of waste materials., ..

So nothIng to worry about in principle. Its only one real danger, the Anglo Saxon Jewish dominated financial sector and the MIC which is still dreaming about world domination. I hope their dream is shattered soon. 12 minutes ago Thanks Tom..

But we won't comment and why?

Because the cause of the crisis is still not being addressed..

Corona of virus is simply an accelerant to a serious problem..

And that's all we'll say... 43 minutes ago Old enmities and prejudices have not been stamped out .... This has been said a thousand times across EU social media and comments in national press in developed member states. Particularly during Brexit. That the EU was flawed from the start in imagining the ******, pretend EU would ever; by adopting developed EU rules and regulations, even begin to match up to the Real EU. Pretend EU would only ever pretend - many nothing more than 1st generation democracies. So the elite in the ****** EU hand picked who was to lead that ministry or council and then all levels of locally elite society and their friends and families were greased by jobs in the bloated public sector. Now Germany is supposed to keep this "Noses in the Trough" nonsense going!

It is mind blowing to realise the damage to the EU the 'Contra os Bretoes' EU retards have done in victimising the British! The UK - an advanced G7 country with many centuries of history of sorting out, at great loss to its citizens and economy, European squabbles - long before the US was encouraged to get involved as well.

UK Remainers need to focus their efforts on the ****** EU crashing (or being crashed) out and the UK rejoining the EU and helping make the EU work the way it was sold to us British decades ago. 44 minutes ago Feudal-Vassalism it is, extended into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism
The situation in Greece has been for about a decade worse off than in Gaza.

[Mar 15, 2020] Coronavirus update reason for alarm; (small) reason for hope

Mar 15, 2020 | angrybearblog.com
  1. likbez , March 15, 2020 11:57 am

    As Otto von Bismarck noted "God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America."

    That's a reason for hope.

    But there are multiple reasons for despair (hoarding epidemics has shown how brainwashed people are with neoliberal rationality)

    The neoliberal society with its twisted guiding philosophy of radical individualism and competition combined with a supremacist "that could never happen here" attitude quickly falls into panicked chaos when reality kicks in and reveals the society's underlying vulnerabilities.

    Countries with weak social safety nets and an ideological opposition to social responsibility are extremely vulnerable to systemic breakdown when their societies are hit with unexpected stress.

    That is what we see in the USA. This virus is revealing just how ineffective the neoliberal Social Darwinism ("every man for himself") ethic (aka "neoliberal rationality") is and how deeply in denial and out of touch with reality these societies are. Including first of all neoliberal politicians (aka Washington swamp rats)

    Casino capitalism economics is fragile and huge shocks are possible.

[Mar 13, 2020] Is the whole ideo of Trump tax holiday is to speed up the privatization of SS and Medicare. Look! The deficit's growing bigger.

Mar 13, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

allan , March 12, 2020 at 2:11 pm

President Trump's Payroll Tax Holiday: Budgetary, Distributional, and Economic Effects [Penn Wharton]

Summary: President Trump just announced his support for a full payroll tax holiday for the remainder of calendar year 2020, which PWBM projects would cost $807 billion. Households in the bottom 20 percent of incomes -- those households with the highest willingness to spend their tax savings -- would receive about 2 percent of the total tax cut, limiting the policy's stimulus potential.

But Penn Wharton's analysis might be based on unrealistically optimistic assumptions –
see the comments in the replies to this tweet.

Billy , March 12, 2020 at 3:39 pm

Don't forget the employer's half is also waived. Nice subsidy to business while helping cripple the Social Security funds for ultimate privatization. Doesn't do anything the unemployed, those laid off or fired as they pay no taxes. Now, if it were retroactive for a year or two, that'd be different.

Oh , March 12, 2020 at 4:34 pm

The whole idea is to speed up the privatization of SS and Medicare. Look! The deficit's growing bigger.

[Mar 12, 2020] Emergency Sick Leave Bill blocked from vote by Senate Republicans--Profit over People yet again.

Mar 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Mar 11 2020 21:37 utc | 101

It's no different from the Republicans in the US Senate: Emergency Sick Leave Bill blocked from vote by Senate Republicans--Profit over People yet again.

[Mar 12, 2020] Neoliberalism in action in Italy: neo-liberal economic worship, all government bad, all private sector good, corruption good, banks worshipped as faultless guardians but actually kleptocrats.

Mar 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

uncle tungsten , Mar 11 2020 3:26 utc | 72

coronawhy #48
Why has Italy not try very hard to scale up hospital bed capacity for the surge of cases over the last several days? They have deployed a military hospital but it doesn't look like it's making a big dent. Instead reports are now coming in of abandoning very old people or those with prior conditions to die largely unattended.

In Wuhan, 16 big barracks were built to treat the seriously sick. Why doesn't Italy requisition schools, move in equipment from the rest of the country, deploy doctors from other regions, call other EU member states for help?

Does it have something to do with the difficulty of getting things done even in emergencies in modern bureaucratic states?

Italy: neo-liberal economic worship, all government bad, all private sector good, corruption good, banks worshipped as faultless guardians but actually kleptocrats.

China: socialism with a mild capitalist twist, government good, private sector ok, corruption to be rooted out, banks established and policed for the public good (mostly).

Modern bureacratic states function well when government is respected and well resourced intellectually and financially. Italy has been gutted by the Thatcherite and US model of deep coercion and destruction of its socialist roots. Ditto USA and UK and the five eyes cheer squad. New entries to job markets are propagandised to avoid the state employment.

There are many nations in the world with modern functional bureaucratic states. As you can see China and perhaps Russia appear to be in that team. Perhaps some of the Scandinavian states, maybe Portugal. France abandoned its respect for the centrality of State service provider decades ago and Mitterand appears to have been an effective assassin on behalf of the neo-liberal economic monsters in France.

Jen , Mar 11 2020 3:48 utc | 73

Uncle Tungsten @ 71:

I'm sure in your comparison of Italy and China, you forgot to mention the infiltration of the Mafia (as in the real Mafia of La Cosa Nostra, La Camorra, 'Ndrangheta and maybe some others I've missed) in Italian national and regional governments, and the horrific levels of air pollution in the Po Valley region where COVID-19 hotspots like Milan are located.

Perhaps also the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church and their links to the financial industry in Italy are also a problem.

[Mar 12, 2020] COVID-19 puts neoliberalism on its knee

Mar 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Mar 11 2020 14:25 utc | 100

COVID-19 puts neoliberalism on its knees:

Germany abandons "zero deficit" policy

[Mar 12, 2020] Experts warn flaws in US neoliberalized health system doom its readiness

Notable quotes:
"... medically fragile individuals ..."
"... there's not enough equipment. There's not enough people. There's not enough internal capacity. There's no surge capacity ..."
"... use their judgment ..."
"... epidemiologic factors ..."
"... we would recommend that there not be large crowds. If that means not having any people in the audience when the NBA plays, so be it. ..."
"... bottom line, it's going to get worse. ..."
Mar 12, 2020 | www.rt.com

The epidemic that has so far spread to half of US states, infecting over 1,000 Americans and killing 31...

At least 10 states have declared emergencies as of Wednesday, and disease experts are throwing up their hands, urging the administration to take real-life events more seriously.

...Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield agreed that critical regions of the US are beyond the reach of containment, sliding into the " mitigation " stage, and blamed the botched rollout of test kits to local health workers.

The availability of accurate tests for Covid-19 has become a major sore spot, with official reassurances colliding with uncooperative reality in full view of the public. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar insisted on Tuesday that " millions " of tests were available, even as the CDC urged healthcare providers to save tests for symptomatic patients already hospitalized and " medically fragile individuals ."

In at least one case , federal officials warned a Seattle lab against testing flu swab samples for coronavirus in January, before the epidemic was widely reported, losing critical response time – mirroring the " crime " the Trump administration has tried to pin on China.

And some have warned that the US' inability to handle an outbreak is more dire than either side realizes. During a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday, a Republican congressman from Washington, the first Covid-19 hotspot to flare up in the US, demanded to know why his constituents were unable to get their test results while his fellow congressmen had no problem getting tested just days after coming into contact with an infected person at a DC political conference. A CDC representative admitted " there's not enough equipment. There's not enough people. There's not enough internal capacity. There's no surge capacity ." To conserve tests, the CDC has told healthcare providers to " use their judgment " and consider " epidemiologic factors " before using up a valuable resource.

Existing flaws in the US healthcare system have exacerbated the testing problem. The CDC has refused to set up standalone testing centers, placing COVID-19 screening out of the reach of the many Americans who don't have primary-care physicians and rely on walk-in clinics and emergency rooms for their healthcare. Just 8,500 Americans had been tested as of Monday, according to the CDC, and federal officials told reporters some 75,000 tests had been sent out to public health laboratories on top of one million sent to hospitals and other sites. The real-life infected numbers in the country are thus likely much higher than what is being reported.

Control measures have varied wildly across local governments and institutions and even within cities. Over 1,000 schools have closed nationwide, and cities and counties from Santa Clara, California to Westchester, New York have banned large gatherings. The National Institutes of Health's Anthony Fauci called on others to follow suit during a congressional hearing on Wednesday, announcing " we would recommend that there not be large crowds. If that means not having any people in the audience when the NBA plays, so be it. " Asked if " the worst " was yet to come, Fauci answered unequivocally: " bottom line, it's going to get worse. "

Even as new Covid-19 cases in China dwindle to near zero and cases in Italy, Germany, and other European countries surge, the US has not stepped up screenings of passengers from those countries at airports accordingly. Instead, the administration has continued to congratulate itself on " saving lives " by halting flights from China weeks ago.

See also: Watching the Hawks: The military-industrial complex vs healthcare & common sense

[Mar 12, 2020] In there a shortage of some medicine or test kits in the USA, and the normal behavior of providers of medicines and other medical goods is extremely rapacious

Mar 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Piotr Berman , Mar 11 2020 17:48 utc | 24

About testing: who makes testing kits, how reliable they are, what is the cost?

Seems that in USA there is a shortage, and the normal behavior of providers of medicines and other medical goods is extremely rapacious. For example, Gilead company found a cure for hepatitis C. In the first year of sales, they got more than 5 billion dollars because of enormous prices they demanded. In about 2 years almost all urgent cases were cured, which is fine, and competition emerged.

Unless forced, these companies will provide nothing at cost, only with enormous markup. If you want to get, say, 10 miilion kits that hypothetically cost 250 dollars to make, they would charge at least 10 billion. Actually, the price/cost multiples have no limit at all, as in Gilead case. In the face of that, Administration should use emergency powers to impose cost controls. Manufactures could be threatened delicately to ramp-up the production if they are not willing to do it just from civic sense of duty. That would violate the most precious human rights, i.e. the rights of billionaires. Not the American way.

[Mar 11, 2020] Coronavirus Reveals the Cracks in Globalization

Notable quotes:
"... "The companies suffering from their short-sightedness FULLY DESERVE what they're getting." ..."
Mar 11, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Posted on March 11, 2020 by Yves Smith Yves here. While this article has a lot of helpful suggestions, it does not acknowledge that public health is a state and local, not a Federal matter. The Federal government can intervene only by invoking emergency authority, which in every case I can recall, has been done only when asked (begged) by the relevant authorities. Thus I cannot see the Federal government taking the lead with coronavirus on the medical front, as much as that is desperately needed. Look, for instance, at how it was New York State that imposed a containment area around coronavirus hot spot New Rochelle , and how New York State has started making its own hand sanitizer.

By Marshall Auerback, a market analyst and commentator. Produced by Economy for All , a project of the Independent Media Institute

The coronavirus will eventually pass, but the same cannot be said for the Panglossian phenomenon known as "globalization." Stripped of the romantic notion of a global village, the ugly process we've experienced over the past 40 years has been a case of governmental institutions being eclipsed by multinational corporations, acting to maximize profit in support of shareholders. To billions of us, it has resembled a looting process, of our social wealth, and political meaning. Governments that wanted to stay on top would have to learn to master soft power to learn to be relevant in a globalized world, mostly acting to smooth transactions and otherwise stay out of the way.

In a globalized world, nation-states were supposedly becoming relics. To the extent that they were needed, small national governments were said to equate to good government. This hollow philosophy's main claims now appear badly exposed, as the supply chains wither, and the very interconnectedness of our global economy is becoming a vector of contagion. In the words of author David Goodhart, "We no longer need the help of rats or fleas to spread disease -- we can do it ourselves thanks to mass international travel and supply chains."

To be sure, there were many warning signs that called into question our hitherto benign assumptions about globalization: the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 (during which the Asian tiger economies were decimated by unconstrained speculative capital flows), the vast swaths of the Rust Belt's industrial heartlands created by outsourcing to China's export juggernaut, the concomitant rise in economic inequality and decline in quality of life in industrialized societies and, of course, the 2008 global financial crisis. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz described many of these pathologies in his book Globalization and Its Discontents, as did economist Barry Eichengreen, who lamented that "the nation state has fundamentally lost control of its destiny, surrendering to anonymous global forces." Both noted that globalization was severing a working social contract between national governments and their citizens that had previously delivered rising prosperity for all.

Those who would argue that the inexorable march of globalization cannot be reversed should consider the parallel during the early 20th century. Globalized economic activity and free trade were dominant before the onset of World War I; in 1914, trade as a proportion of global GDP stood at 14 percent. Needless to say, two world wars, and the Great Depression (which brought us the Smoot-Hawley tariffs), reversed this trend. The Cold War sustained regionalization and bifurcated trading blocs. Its end, and China's accession into the World Trade Organization (WTO), ushered in a new high-water mark in globalized trade.

But while it is true that viruses do not respect national boundaries, nothing has blown apart the pretensions of this New World Order as dramatically as the coronavirus, a pandemic now assuming global import, as international supply chains are severed, and global economic activity is brought to a screeching halt. We are increasingly seeing the hollow political content at the core of supranational entities such as the EU, structured more to comfort merged investor groups than strengthen public health systems.

Speaking of Europe, while the coronavirus started in China, its most long-lasting impact might be in the EU, as it has dramatically exposed the shortcomings of the latter's institutional structures. Take Italy as the most vivid illustration: The spread of COVID-19 has been particularly acute there. Being a user of the euro (as opposed to an issuer of the currency) the Italian national government risks exposing itself to potential national bankruptcy (and the vicissitudes of the volatile private capital markets) if it responds with a robust fiscal response, absent the institutional support of Brussels and the European Central Bank (which is the sole issuer of the euro). According to MarketWatch, "Italy needs a €500 to €700 billion ($572 billion to $801 billion) precautionary bailout package to help reassure financial markets that the Italian government and banks can meet their debt payment obligations as [the] country's economic and financial crisis becomes more fearsome."

The tragic case of Italy (where the entire country is now in full quarantined lockdown) provides a particularly poignant example of the gaping lacunae at the heart of the eurozone. There is no supranational fiscal authority, so the Italian government has been largely left to fend for itself, as it is trying to do now, for example, providing income relief by suspending payments on mortgages across the entire country. Here is a perfect example of where European Central Bank support for the Italian banking system would go a long way toward mitigating any resultant financial contagion. But so far, as Wolfgang Munchau of the Financial Times has noted, the ECB remains in "monitoring" mode. Indeed, the eurozone as a whole lacks the institutional mechanisms to mobilize on a massive, coordinated scale, in contrast to the U.S. and UK, and eurozone finance ministers remain incapable of agreeing on a coordinated policy response.

Other eurozone countries may no longer be complacent about the threat posed by COVID-19, but their national governments are more focused on the need to stockpile their own national resources to protect their populations. Italy remains particularly vulnerable to the ravages of this virus, as it has an aging population, so if coronavirus runs rampant through the country, it could potentially crash the nation's entire hospital system, as this account by an Italian doctor suggests.

EU solidarity, showing cracks on issues ranging from finance to immigration, increasingly resembles every country for itself.

Defenders of the EU may well retort that health care is designated as a "national competency" under the Treaty of Maastricht. But how does one expect national competencies to be carried out competently in an economic grouping devoid of national currencies (the key variable as far as supporting unconstrained fiscal capacity goes)? Additionally, the evil of decades of Brussels-imposed austerity has meant there aren't enough hospital beds, materials and staff anywhere in Europe, let alone Italy. This might well represent the death knell for a European project based on aspirations for an "ever closer union."

In spite of the manifest incompetence of the Trump administration, the U.S. at least has institutional mechanisms in place via the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide Americans with clear, credible instructions devoid of political spin.

As Professor James Galbraith has persuasively argued, the U.S. government has the capacity to "establish a Health Finance Corporation on the model of the Depression-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Like the RFC, which built munitions factories and hospitals during and after World War II, the HFC should have broad powers to create public corporations, lend to private companies (to fund necessary production), and cover other emergency costs. Even more quickly, the National Guard can be deployed to deal with critical supply issues and to establish emergency facilities such as field hospitals and quarantine centers." Likewise, Senator Marco Rubio has "sought to expand what's called the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, which allows the Small Business Administration to start lending money directly instead of just encouraging banks to do so," as Matt Stoller has written.

Parenthetically, this represents a marked break with historic GOP policy, which for the most part has accepted the embedded assumptions inherent in globalization.

And while traditional monetary policy tools such as interest rate cuts are hardly adequate to stem a supply shock, Galbraith also points to the ability of the Federal Reserve to offer emergency financial support to help American companies through the worst of the coronavirus outbreak, by "buy[ing] up debt issued by hospitals and other health-care providers, as well as working to stabilize credit markets, as it did in 2008-09." Andrew Bailey of the Bank of England has made similar recommendations to the UK government.

Even with the measures proposed by Galbraith, Bailey and Rubio, virtually all Western economies, having largely succumbed to the logic of globalization, are now vulnerable, as supply chains wither. China, the apex of these offshored manufacturing supply chains, is in shutdown mode. Likewise South Korea and Italy. Worse, there appears to be a singular lack of understanding on the part of many multinational companies as to how far these supply chains go: "Peter Guarraia, who leads the global supply chain practice at Bain & Co, estimated that up to 60 per cent of executives have no knowledge of the items in their supply chain beyond the tier one group," reports the Financial Times.

A "tier one" company supplies components directly to the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) that sets up a global supply chain. But as is now becoming increasingly recognized, there are secondary-tier companies, which supply components or materials to those tier-one companies. When goods are widely dispersed geographically (instead of centered in a localized industrial ecosystem), it is harder for executives to have full knowledge of all of the items in their respective companies' supply chains, so the deficiencies of the model only become apparent by the time it is too late to rectify.

In the U.S. specifically, the mass migration of manufacturing has seriously eroded the domestic capabilities needed to turn inventions into high-end products, damaging America's ability to retain a lead in many sectors, let alone continue to manufacture products. The country has evolved from being a nation of industrialists to a nation of financial rentiers. And now the model has exposed the U.S. to significant risk during a time of national crisis, as the coronavirus potentially represents.

There is no national redundancy built into current supply networks, with the most problematic consequences now evident in the pharmaceutical markets. Countries such as China or India are beginning to restrict core components of important generic drugs to deal with their own domestic health crisis. This has the potential to create a major crisis, given that the U.S. "depend[s] on China for 80 percent of the core components to make our generic medicines," writes Rosemary Gibson in the American Conservative. She also notes that "generic drugs are 90 percent of the medicines Americans take. Thousands of them, sold at corner drug stores, grocery store pharmacies, and big box stores, contain ingredients made in China." Constraints on production, therefore, intensify as more and more of the manufacturing process pertaining to the drugs themselves is geographically globalized. And in regard specifically to research-intensive industries, such as pharmaceuticals or biotech, the value of closely integrating the R&D with manufacturing is extremely high, and the risks of separating them are enormous.

These are by no means new problems. We've been dealing with supply-side shocks emanating from hyper-globalization for decades, and the response of Western policymakers has largely been in the form of fiscal or monetary palliatives that seldom address the underlying structural challenges raised by these shortages. To the contrary: democratic caveats to globalization have been characterized as inefficient frictions that hinder consumer choice.

For now, we should start by reducing our supply chain vulnerabilities by building into our systems more of what engineers call redundancy -- different ways of doing the same things -- so as to mitigate undue reliance on foreign suppliers for strategically important industries. We need to mobilize national resources in a manner akin to the way a country does during wartime or during massive economic dislocation (such as the Great Depression) -- comprehensive government-led actions (which runs in the face of much of today's prevailing and increasingly outdated economic and political theology). In other words, the revival of a coherent national industrial policy.

To save the global economy, paradoxically, we need less of it. Not only does the private/public sector balance have to shift in favor of the latter, but so too does the multinational/national matrix in manufacturing. Otherwise, the coronavirus will simply represent yet another in a chain of catastrophes for global capitalism, rather than an opportunity to rethink our entire model of economic development.


Harry Shearer , March 11, 2020 at 3:12 am

But but but ."redundancy", which engineers like, is in direct conflict with "efficiency", which economists revere. Think of how many "smart" appliances we can invent and market if we don't have to make health-care and manufacturing robust again.

vlade , March 11, 2020 at 5:27 am

Cheetah paradox. The fastest land animal, but often dies if injured as can't hunt and has no fat to speak off to take it through lean times.

NC has discussed number of times that you can't have "efficiency" and "reduncancy". Of course, if your drive is short-term profit, it requires efficiency, and redundancy is just a cost.

The smarter companies that have built redundancy, will be the predators left once the injured cheetahs die off.

jaratec , March 11, 2020 at 6:07 am

Out of curiosity, can you name some companies that have built redundancy?

Amfortas the hippie , March 11, 2020 at 8:25 am

does my little farm/doomstead count?
multiple redundancies has been a large part of The Goal for a long time.

as for actual businesses, no except maybe for the more esoteric sectors of FIRE .are "exotic financial instruments" redundant?

"just in time", "warehouse on wheels", as well as globespanning supply lines have worried me since i learned of them.
"efficiency" as a weapon, that eventually gets turned on oneself.

Wukchumni , March 11, 2020 at 8:34 am

My favorite tale of redundancy going away was the oxygen system on commercial airliners. In the past it had 3 or 4 independent redundant systems built in and cost around $20k per seat, and then the cost cutters came up a single digital oxygen system costing only around $500 per seat.

Synoia , March 11, 2020 at 1:07 pm

Yes: Ford and General Motors. If you cannot buy from one company, there are alternatives. The companies are single points of failure. The combination of multiple single point of failure provide redundancy and resilience.

Supporting the Historical US concept of "truce busting" and encouraging competition in all markets.

flora , March 11, 2020 at 3:19 pm

old joke:
Libertarian market CEOs used to be called financial tigers. What are they called now? Ans.: financial cheet'ahs.
ba dum tsssh

-- –

Thanks for this post.

Paul O , March 11, 2020 at 5:30 am

Indeed. As an both an engineering (core mobile network infrastructure) and an econ graduate (PPE and life long interest) this has been an (perhaps, the) issue for me over the last 30 years. There are many ways in which redundancy and resilience have been degraded. Not least in terms of people with the combination of deep technical understanding and problem solving skills.

Baking in fragility in the name of efficiency. Efficiency? Well maybe, but only on a short enough timeline. And timelines have been getting shorter (to validate 'cost cutting').

urblintz , March 11, 2020 at 4:18 am

I don't like to be a smart-fanny and do appreciate the thinking and expertise that shines through this fine essay. I learned an enormous amount and feel better prepared to argue the subject.

But the second half of that last sentence

" the coronavirus will simply represent yet another in a chain of catastrophes for global capitalism, rather than an opportunity to rethink our entire model of economic development."

taken by itself, makes everything before it, well redundant. of course it will.

alex morfesis , March 11, 2020 at 4:18 am

and and and .the "tax planning" departments at majorco international will be crying on about all their masterful overseas tax siloing now having to come apart by having to actually re-shore production oh the pearl clutching to come .

Lambert Strether , March 11, 2020 at 4:50 am

> To billions of us, it has resembled a looting process, of our social wealth, and political meaning

What do you mean, "resembled"?

Ignacio , March 11, 2020 at 5:37 am

I usually like reading Auerback's posts but in this exceptional case I had to stop reading at about the 10th paragraph or so. It is the case that in the heat of the moment we are not having good reaction and fear is driving us a little bit mad.

Leaving our personal phantoms and demons to ride free when we should be carefully thinking on our personal safety and the fate of the social structures that sustain us is not good idea. For instance, identifying Italy as the core of the problem is IMO a misrepresentation of facts. A small city in Northern Italy was, just by chance, the first place in EU where the outbreak started showing all its virulence and it took us by surprise because we were all in denial.

Not only in the EU, a few days ago Mr. Strether left a link in his Water-cooler citing American economists saying that the US would probably not be reached by the epidemics. As an example on how in denial we have been, take a look at this letter sent to the editor of eurosurveillance the 21st of January by physicians from Marseille asking why so much fear about the new disease when they had tested and identified 0 Covid cases in their hospitals while we should focus on flu or rhinovirus. It is almost certain they are now regretting having this letter sent.

Though M. Auerback IMO rigthly crtitizices the fragmentation of the institutional and political framework in the EU, in comparison with the all powerful globalized supply chains, I cannot agree more, I also think he is missing how the institutional response is being organised. After the initial denial, the response to the emergency is necessarily reactive (think of equipments in short supply). In Madrid we are just about 7 days behind of Italy in epidemics development and I can see the same phenomenon here. We are starting to see that we could soon be in short supply of treatment equipment in hospitals. Schools and universities are closed starting today and large gatherings prohibited and yesterday some panic scenes in supermarkets were seen, just like in Italy. The government has programmed a set of measures that are going to be implemented as their necessity is seen such as delaying tax or mortgage payments, and some other help with a focus in small companies and autonomous workers. Both Italy and Spain will almost certainly give a kick in the ass to austerian stupidity and do things necessary to try to mitigate the damage and I bet there won't be any EU institution denying whatever support needed because, ya know, the BCE and other institutions will realise their survival is at risk if they try to be too orthodox in an emergency situation. So far, IMO, the biggest mistakes have been made in China from the very beginning of the outbreak to the brutal quarantines imposed. I think that in the EU, keeping open borders was good reaction.

We will see how this unfolds in the US. This said, I wish the best for Americans of both Americas, Asians, Oceanians, Europeans etc. I hope that authorities around the world have good reaction with this emergency.

ObjectiveFunction , March 11, 2020 at 7:46 am

Good comment, I agree. I've been offline for a bit, so forgive me if mentioned already, but early irruption of the virus in Italy is no mere accident. Chinese groups have bought up Italian luxury brands and then imported thousands of Chinese sweatshop migrants to preserve the coveted Made In Italy label while keeping costs low. Same arrangements in Spain I think, but you would likely know better than I.

For so long as people can't be arsed about where their food clothing and shelter really comes from, there will always be loopholes devised by the unscrupulous. The arbitrage toothpaste is very hard to put back in the tube.

I greatly enjoy Auerback's (and Hudson's) work although I am no socialist (to my mind, today's bankster or McKinsey wanker simply becomes tomorrow's third deputy minister for banana bending – regardless, it's still a small club and most of us ain't in it).

But in order for nations, however defined, to regain self-sufficiency, cartelization of labor enforced in law is going to have to become a thing again, whether it's via unionization, craft guilds or certification (credentialism by any other name would smell as sweet).

Hayek's Heelbiter , March 11, 2020 at 6:41 am

One question: Why does Thomas L. Friedman, author of The World is Flat , extolling the glories of globalization, still have a job paying no doubt tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, while many better informed and infinitely more prescient NCers have trouble putting groceries on the table?

Curious minds wonder.

John Wright , March 11, 2020 at 11:29 am

I realize your comment was rhetorical.

But..

Why does Friedman still have a job after all of his globalization cheer leading and war mongering?

Answer: Because he writes what his bosses want him to write.

In the upside-down world of USA media, people who give good advice (Chris Hedges and Phil Donahue on the Iraq War) get fired, while those who give bad advice (Friedman on almost everything) keep their jobs.

The contempt Friedman has for people may be illustrated by his "Suck on this" comment directed at innocent Iraqis who he judged needed to see US military power directed against them.

This is the USA, where harmful media people are brought down by sex-scandals (Charlie Rose, Chris Matthews) not by the quality of their media work.

Synoia , March 11, 2020 at 1:14 pm

Does this make me look fat?
Yes your majesty.
Off with his head!!

It is a human problem. Not just a US behavior. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The CEO of a large company is no different from the Baron in a Feudal Barony. The President of the United States is an Elected Monarch.

Mike , March 11, 2020 at 8:58 am

I don't get the article's point about a fractured EU response vs a coordinated American response. CDC has been torched by budget cuts and the nurses association in the USA – didn't they say few hospitals have any plans in place for an outbreak? Each country is going to have it's own challenges – good show on Joe Rogan this week and goes into 45% of Americans are obese – a big risk factor when combating Covid-19.

Also a revelation was nearly all generic drugs use in America are sourced from India and China. EU borders have been very fluid for decades, its not an easy thing to shut down for any reason and yes a lot of the response has been reactionary. So back to Globalisation – there are risks, this is the price.

David , March 11, 2020 at 9:02 am

Some good points, but a couple of quibbles.

Globalisation is not the same as trade. Trade, it's sometimes hard to recall, was originally "I'll swap you what you want for what I want." So the English exported wool, for example, and imported silks and spices. Globalisation is an attempt by an insane MBA student to restructure the world economy to be maximally "efficient" without concern for externalities. Globalisation is going down for sure, but of course it will take a lot of perfectly respectable trade with it.

I'm also getting a bit tired of reading that viruses "don't respect national borders." Of course, if there were groups of independently moving viruses, travelling through Europe on their little feet, they wouldn't think to contact the authorities when they cross national borders. But viruses have to be transported by something, usually people, and people (as in China recently) can be required to respect borders. Already there are signs that Free Movement in Europe is coming under strain (Slovenia closed its border with Italy yesterday) and judging by the violent reactions of the "no borders" lobby, they are worried that it may be one of the many types of collateral political damage.

One other thought: this epidemic may be the first in living memory where the PMC, politicians and media figures are disproportionately affected. (I can't think of a single case of a politician who's ever died of flu). The PMC etc. travel a lot more, get out a lot more and mix a lot more with foreigners. When there's no cure, some of them – CEOs, Ministers, media pundits, bankers – are going to die. What then? Already, the more contacts you have, especially with other countries, the worse things will be. Lawyers will find courts closed, consultants will find organisations less ready to consult them, business junkets and conferences will be cancelled, holidays postponed and upper middle-class parents will find that Tarquin and Miranda are unexpectedly at home because the European School in Florence has been closed. Some things will be very hard to bear.

Wukchumni , March 11, 2020 at 9:44 am

The changes coming on account of the virus will be substantial, and if we're all sitting on the sofa, afraid to leave the house for a year, supply chains will be rusty @ best when Coronavirus finally makes off for parts unknown, or pretty much wrecked.

There are very few among us who can afford to miss work and paychecks, and not only that, but those crazy preppers for once are 100% correct (why they don't concentrate on food primarily, is a mystery) in that everything we eat comes from somewhere else typically.

The extraordinary plum of the USD being the worlds' reserve currency looks to be in trouble too, and in a weakened state of things, might just turn into any other fiat monetary instrument.

The internet will change as well, with much of the world stuck in place, i'd expect traffic on here to explode, in that I can't think of a better time waster.

There's also the aspect of the Coronavirus hangover even after it departs, survivors won't let loose of their newfound way of living so easy.

periol , March 11, 2020 at 12:03 pm

I will never forget reading the Wikileak where the US state department was strong-arming an African government on behalf of Shell Oil. It drove home for me the reality that governments and corporations both serve their wealthy elite masters, and don't even pretend to serve the people they ostensibly represent.

That made me realize it's always been this way.

I was in high school when NAFTA went through. I remember reading all the dire warnings from people opposed, and all the glowing thoughts from those in favor. Now, in hindsight, it has been much worse for everyone except the wealthy. The dire warnings weren't dire enough.

Coronavirus isn't a black swan. People have been predicting a pandemic would strike a blow to globalization for a long time. The companies suffering from their short-sightedness FULLY DESERVE what they're getting. I'm sure hoping the fallout hits the corporate landscape hard . Let's see some naked capitalism in action.

Massinissa , March 11, 2020 at 8:39 pm

Your comment reminds me of Smedley Butler's 'War is a Racket' from about 100 years ago. It was true then and its true now. And I'm talking about government practices in general, not just war: You could take 'War' out of the title and replace it with anything else the american government does these days and it would still hold true.

Stratos , March 11, 2020 at 1:31 pm

"The companies suffering from their short-sightedness FULLY DESERVE what they're getting."

They do indeed. That is why they are lobbying the White House for bailout economic assistance funds. It would be a real stinker if they are bailed out with tax dollars and the average citizen is forced to pick up their own medical and time-off-the-job tabs.

[Mar 11, 2020] Fatalism, neolibralism and the USA society

Mar 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Paul Bogdanich , Mar 11 2020 21:09 utc | 83

I should have clarified, I'm an American living in the United States. That said, it bothers me. The absolute lack of any detectable level of courage or fortitude in the face of diversity (hard times) is just stunning. Old people die. Everyone dies over time. Viruses like the flu or SARS, or COVID-19 accelerate that process from time to time. It's just what viruses do. There is no cure for either death or viruses. If you want the biblical "Ye shall surely die."

The worst estimates of "excess deaths" in the U.S. is currently 480,000. Let's call it 605,000. 605,000 out of a population of 310 million is a death rate of 0.2%. Point two percent. If this was a deer heard and the managers were assured that the virus did no other damage and that the point two percent would be overwhelmingly composed of the aged and infirm they would consider intentionally introducing the virus to other herds that were too large.

The panic and cowardice is doing more damage than the disease. The level of fear and panic and the lack of dignity about a life process that you know or should have known was coming for as long as you were sentient is just appalling. The whole society is pusillanimous. There's just no other conclusion. It's outrageous compared to the whole of human history. No other generation in history panicked so much over so little.

/div>

Paul Bogdanich@111

America society is not organized to deal with crisis on its own soil at a community based level due to globalization and the warfare economy that you are well aware of.

First, the closing down of schools is a good example as the increase in poverty among the 99% has resulted in schools having to take on providing food to a large segment of children. It is even worse for the children who are homeless in America while millions of dollars a day go to overseas wars. In New York City along there are about 110,000 homeless children. America has no means to deliver such food aid to children except through school attendance! Even worse is that most of this food is ultraprocessed junk and food like substances as required by the corporate food industry.

Second, most workers must continue to show up even if sick or they face going bankrupt and are already deep in debt to the banks. This creates another petri dish for transmission of the virus which is otherwise going to happen due to a lack of food supplies, except in Mormon and similar communities.

Third, About half of Americans have one or more serious medical conditions, most of which are due to either bad diet (hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.) or drug use (alcohol, tobacco, or hard drugs).

Fourth, Americans are generally sedentary and cocooned indoors leading to vitamin/hormone D3 deficiencies and toxic organics exposure in home products.

Fifth, we have a sick care system in the US that tries to maximize revenue flow to medical corporations through excess drug distribution and other symptom treatments (think snake oil salesmen in the old west). Once again, prevention via better diet is the correct but unprofitable choice. See books such as "food fix" and "The Hacking of the American Mind" for further details.

Sixth, oil people who will die generally have deficient immune systems which make them susceptible to secondary infections and lung inflammation responses. Strategies to improve immune response are not profitable compared to vaccines and thus lots of old people will die.

Seventh, as hospitals rapidly fill up with patient with coronavirus secondary infections anyone with injuries or disease conditions (e,g, gall bladder and appendix infections will have a much higher chance of dying). As some 97% of prescription drugs are imported from China there will be dramatic shortages.

Eighth, even with calling out the national guard, there will be a large increase in crime as America has over million gang members who are generally well organized. Pity those who cannot defend themselves.

Ninth, collapse of the food and other essential services distribution over several months will contribute to violence and perhaps starvation, especially among pets and farm animals.

Tenth, since most political leaders in the US attended the AIPAC and CPAP conferences, where they were exposed to infected individuals, they will have a much higher infection rate, especially since they tend to be old and in bad health. The collapse of government decision makers will lead to local communities having to sink or swim.

You are correct about the lack of courage in Americans. More importantly, response to a crisis is 80% mental Americans generally are unwilling to give up their comfort and conformity mindset.

Do not know why anyone would want to serve in the US military. Seems like you now recognize your mistake.

Paul Bogdanich@111

America society is not organized to deal with crisis on its own soil at a community based level due to globalization and the warfare economy that you are well aware of.

First, the closing down of schools is a good example as the increase in poverty among the 99% has resulted in schools having to take on providing food to a large segment of children. It is even worse for the children who are homeless in America while millions of dollars a day go to overseas wars. In New York City along there are about 110,000 homeless children. America has no means to deliver such food aid to children except through school attendance! Even worse is that most of this food is ultraprocessed junk and food like substances as required by the corporate food industry.

Second, most workers must continue to show up even if sick or they face going bankrupt and are already deep in debt to the banks. This creates another petri dish for transmission of the virus which is otherwise going to happen due to a lack of food supplies, except in Mormon and similar communities.

Third, About half of Americans have one or more serious medical conditions, most of which are due to either bad diet (hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.) or drug use (alcohol, tobacco, or hard drugs).

Fourth, Americans are generally sedentary and cocooned indoors leading to vitamin/hormone D3 deficiencies and toxic organics exposure in home products.

Fifth, we have a sick care system in the US that tries to maximize revenue flow to medical corporations through excess drug distribution and other symptom treatments (think snake oil salesmen in the old west). Once again, prevention via better diet is the correct but unprofitable choice. See books such as "food fix" and "The Hacking of the American Mind" for further details.

Sixth, oil people who will die generally have deficient immune systems which make them susceptible to secondary infections and lung inflammation responses. Strategies to improve immune response are not profitable compared to vaccines and thus lots of old people will die.

Seventh, as hospitals rapidly fill up with patient with coronavirus secondary infections anyone with injuries or disease conditions (e,g, gall bladder and appendix infections will have a much higher chance of dying). As some 97% of prescription drugs are imported from China there will be dramatic shortages.

Eighth, even with calling out the national guard, there will be a large increase in crime as America has over million gang members who are generally well organized. Pity those who cannot defend themselves.

Ninth, collapse of the food and other essential services distribution over several months will contribute to violence and perhaps starvation, especially among pets and farm animals.

Tenth, since most political leaders in the US attended the AIPAC and CPAP conferences, where they were exposed to infected individuals, they will have a much higher infection rate, especially since they tend to be old and in bad health. The collapse of government decision makers will lead to local communities having to sink or swim.

You are correct about the lack of courage in Americans. More importantly, response to a crisis is 80% mental Americans generally are unwilling to give up their comfort and conformity mindset.

Do not know why anyone would want to serve in the US military. Seems like you now recognize your mistake. /div

[Mar 11, 2020] Another big bonus is that the virus will primarily kill old people, which means that European governments can pay out less retirement pensions and welfare benefits in the future. Neoliberal economics is the big winner here.

Mar 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

occupatio , Mar 11 2020 23:01 utc | 132

Italy's economy will be crushed, but the bankers will still get their money. In fact, it's another opportunity to impose further 'austerity' on Italy (as neoliberal economics abhors spending on government services), and to force Italy to take out more loans from Germany and France.

Another big bonus is that the virus will primarily kill old people, which means that European governments can pay out less retirement pensions and welfare benefits in the future. Neoliberal economics is the big winner here.

[Mar 11, 2020] Experts warn flaws in US neoliberalized health system doom its readiness

Mar 11, 2020 | www.rt.com

The epidemic that has so far spread to half of US states, infecting over 1,000 Americans and killing 31...

At least 10 states have declared emergencies as of Wednesday, and disease experts are throwing up their hands, urging the administration to take real-life events more seriously.

...Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield agreed that critical regions of the US are beyond the reach of containment, sliding into the " mitigation " stage, and blamed the botched rollout of test kits to local health workers.

The availability of accurate tests for Covid-19 has become a major sore spot, with official reassurances colliding with uncooperative reality in full view of the public. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar insisted on Tuesday that " millions " of tests were available, even as the CDC urged healthcare providers to save tests for symptomatic patients already hospitalized and " medically fragile individuals ."

In at least one case , federal officials warned a Seattle lab against testing flu swab samples for coronavirus in January, before the epidemic was widely reported, losing critical response time – mirroring the " crime " the Trump administration has tried to pin on China.

And some have warned that the US' inability to handle an outbreak is more dire than either side realizes. During a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday, a Republican congressman from Washington, the first Covid-19 hotspot to flare up in the US, demanded to know why his constituents were unable to get their test results while his fellow congressmen had no problem getting tested just days after coming into contact with an infected person at a DC political conference. A CDC representative admitted " there's not enough equipment. There's not enough people. There's not enough internal capacity. There's no surge capacity ." To conserve tests, the CDC has told healthcare providers to " use their judgment " and consider " epidemiologic factors " before using up a valuable resource.

Existing flaws in the US healthcare system have exacerbated the testing problem. The CDC has refused to set up standalone testing centers, placing COVID-19 screening out of the reach of the many Americans who don't have primary-care physicians and rely on walk-in clinics and emergency rooms for their healthcare. Just 8,500 Americans had been tested as of Monday, according to the CDC, and federal officials told reporters some 75,000 tests had been sent out to public health laboratories on top of one million sent to hospitals and other sites. The real-life infected numbers in the country are thus likely much higher than what is being reported.

Control measures have varied wildly across local governments and institutions and even within cities. Over 1,000 schools have closed nationwide, and cities and counties from Santa Clara, California to Westchester, New York have banned large gatherings. The National Institutes of Health's Anthony Fauci called on others to follow suit during a congressional hearing on Wednesday, announcing " we would recommend that there not be large crowds. If that means not having any people in the audience when the NBA plays, so be it. " Asked if " the worst " was yet to come, Fauci answered unequivocally: " bottom line, it's going to get worse. "

Even as new Covid-19 cases in China dwindle to near zero and cases in Italy, Germany, and other European countries surge, the US has not stepped up screenings of passengers from those countries at airports accordingly. Instead, the administration has continued to congratulate itself on " saving lives " by halting flights from China weeks ago.

[Mar 11, 2020] COVID-19 puts neoliberalism on its knee

Mar 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Mar 11 2020 14:25 utc | 100

COVID-19 puts neoliberalism on its knees:

Germany abandons "zero deficit" policy

[Mar 11, 2020] Six Quick Points About Coronavirus and Poverty in the US by Bill Quigley

Mar 11, 2020 | dissidentvoice.org

... ... ...

One. Thirty-four million workers do not have a single day of paid sick leave. Even though most of the developed world gives its workers paid sick leave there is no federal law requiring it for workers. Thirty seven percent of private industry workers do not have paid sick leave including nearly half of the lowest paid quarter of workers. That means 34 million working people have no paid sick leave at all. As with all inequality, this group of people is disproportionately women and people of color. More than half of Latinx workers, approximately 15 million workers , are unable to earn a single sick day. Nearly 40 percent of African American workers, more than 7 million people , are in jobs where they cannot earn a single paid sick day.

Two. Low wage workers and people without a paid sick day have to continue to work to survive. Studies prove people without paid sick days are more likely to go to work sick than workers who have paid sick leave. And workers without paid sick days are much more likely to seek care from emergency rooms than those with paid sick leave.

Three. About 30 million people in the US do not have health insurance, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation . Nearly half say they cannot afford it . They are unlikely to seek medical treatment for flu like symptoms or seek screening because they cannot afford it.

Four. Staying home is not an option for the homeless. There are about 550,000 homeless people in the US, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless . Homeless people have rates of diabetes, heart disease, and HIV/AIDS at rates three to six times that of the general population, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Shelters often provide close living arrangements and opportunities to clean hands and clothes and utensils are minimal for those on the street. Homeless people have higher rates of infectious, acute and chronic diseases like tuberculosis.

[Mar 10, 2020] Mr. Market Loses It Over Coronavirus Risk Oil Tanks, S P Futures Trades Halted on Limit Down Overnight, Gold Jumps naked cap

Mar 10, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Mr. Market has finally digested that the world isn't prepared for coronavirus and the US is particularly poorly set up to cope, thanks to our fragmented public health system and overpriced, privatized and less than comprehensive health care. That bad situation is made worse by the CDC being short on resources and hamstrung further by the Trump Administration's PR imperatives.

At a minimum, the market rout may force the Administration to go into overdrive on real world responses, but I doubt it has the capacity. For starters, Pence is badly cast as a crisis manager. But as we'll discuss briefly, the US has such hollowed out capacity on the medical front that a better response would have needed to start weeks ago to have much hope of blunting outcomes.

The US' best hope is that hotter weather will slow the infection rate, but that's not coming soon enough to rescue the Eastern corridor or the West Coast from San Francisco Bay north from serious propagation till at least mid May (and San Francisco doesn't get all that hot except when the weather gets freaky).

... ... ...

A Bloomberg story described how the prospect of low oil prices weighs directly on stocks

While the energy sector is now the third smallest in the S&P 500, a change from a decade ago when the industry made up 11% of the benchmark, tumbling oil prices is yet another risk for traders to contemplate.

"If WTI falls into the low $30s and stays there, it's going to cause lay-offs in the oil patch and stresses in the high yield market -- like it did when oil fell dramatically in 2015," said Matt Maley, an equity strategist at Miller Tabak & Co.

Real World Situation Ugly

The US is still in Keystone Kops mode. We don't have remotely enough coronavirus tests being done. We have no idea when we will have enough test kits ready. No one is even talking about how to implement a system like the drive by tests in South Korea which is not only efficient but even more important, greatly reduces risks to patients and doctors versus having to show up in a waiting room. We have lots of ad hoc measures, like conferences cancelled, businesses ordering travel bans, some schools halting classes (most recently Columbia University ).

But too many people are operating on a business as usual basis, including Congress. An estimated 2/3 of its members attended the AIPAC conference, where two a participants tested positive for coronavirus (oddly, the press has taken little note). An attendee at CPAC, a large conference for conservatives, also tested positive for coronavirus, but only two Congresscritters are self-quaranting .

Readers Monty and Leroy R posted a link to an account from a surgeon in Bergamo on how a hospital in one of the badly-hit areas is holding up . I strongly urge reading it in full (Leroy also linked to the original in Italian ). Key sections:

I myself looked with some amazement at the reorganization of the entire hospital in the previous week
I still remember my night shift a week ago spent without any rest, waiting for a call from the microbiology department. I was waiting for the results of a swab taken from the first suspect case in our hospital

Well, the situation is now nothing short of dramatic The war has literally exploded and battles are uninterrupted day and night. One after the other, these unfortunate people come to the emergency room. They have far from the complications of a flu. Let's stop saying it's a bad flu. In my two years working in Bergamo, I have learned that the people here do not come to the emergency room for no reason. They did well this time too. They followed all the recommendations given: a week or ten days at home with a fever without going out to prevent contagion, but now they can't take it anymore. They don't breathe enough, they need oxygen .

Now, however, that need for beds in all its drama has arrived. One after another, the departments that had been emptied are filling up at an impressive rate. The display boards with the names of the sicks, of different colors depending on the department they belong to, are now all red and instead of the surgical procedure, there is the diagnosis, which is always the same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia

I can also assure you that when you see young people who end up intubated in the ICU, pronated or worse, in ECMO (a machine for the worst cases, which extracts the blood, re-oxygenates it and returns it to the body, waiting for the lungs to hopefully heal), all this confidence for your young age goes away And there are no more surgeons, urologists, orthopedists, we are only doctors who suddenly become part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us.

The cases multiply, up to a rate of 15-20 hospitalizations a day all for the same reason. The results of the swabs now come one after the other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly the emergency room is collapsing. Emergency provisions are issued: help is needed in the emergency room. A quick meeting to learn how the to use to emergency room EHR and a few minutes later I'm already downstairs, next to the warriors on the war front. The screen of the PC with the chief complaint is always the same: fever and respiratory difficulty, fever and cough, respiratory insufficiency etc Exams, radiology always with the same sentence: bilateral interstitial pneumonia. All needs to be hospitalized. Some already needs to be intubated, and goes to the ICU. For others, however, it is late. ICU is full, and when ICUs are full, more are created. Each ventilator is like gold: those in the operating rooms that have now suspended their non-urgent activity are used and the OR become a an ICU that did not exist before. I found it amazing, or at least I can speak for Humanitas Gavazzeni (where I work), how it was possible to put in place in such a short time a deployment and a reorganization of resources so finely designed to prepare for a disaster of this magnitude .Nurses with tears in their eyes because we are unable to save everyone and the vital signs of several patients at the same time reveal an already marked destiny. There are no more shifts, schedules.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has another fine piece on the coronavirus outbreak. He flags that the UK is very poorly situated to handle it, with only 1/6 the ICU beds per capita of South Korea. As an aside, the US has 10x as many per capital as the UK but read the Bergamo piece again. The entire hospital has been turned into a coronavirus ward. Lord only knows what happens to accident victims .are some hospitals in each region being set aside for regular emergency care?

Here is AEP's take on Italy and the implications :

Data from China suggest a death rate of 15pc for infected cases over the age of 80. It is 8pc for those in their seventies, and 3.6pc in their sixties (or 5.4pc for men). No elected government in any Western democracy will survive if it lets such carnage unfold .

Unfortunately, the early figures from Italy seem to be tracking Hubei's epidemiology with a horrible consistency. The death rate for all ages is near 5pc. While there may be large numbers of undetected infections – distorting ratios – Italy has tested widely, much more than Germany or France.

For whatever reason, the Italian system seems unable to save them. The death rate is six times the reported rate in Korea, even adjusting for age structures. Is it because the Italian strain has mutated into a more lethal form (we don't yet have the sequence data) or because Europeans are genetically more vulnerable?

Is it because Italy's nitrogen dioxide pollution is the worst in Europe (the UK is bad too), leading to chronic lung inflammation? Is it the chaotic administration that led to a catalogue of errors in the hotspot of Codogno? If you think Britain's NHS has been starved of funds, spare a thought for Italy, Portugal, Spain, or Greece .

The US is about to face its grim reckoning. It has the best health care in the rich world – and the worst. Pandemics exploit the worst.

Let's tease out AEP's line of thought. The US is sorely wanting in operational capacity despite being able to provide top flight care for certain types of ailments.

US hospitals are now overwhelmingly run by MBAs. It's difficult to conceive of them being able to execute the sort of rapid reordering of space and duties described in Bergamo. It's not simply that the top brass is too removed from the practice of medicine to have the right reflexes. Unless ordered to do so, they will also be loath to devote enough resources to tackling the disease. When a crisis hits, they won't be allowed to charge (in their minds) for coronavirus services. They'll want to preserve as much hospital capacity for "normal" full ticket services as possible. They might rationalize that by arguing that they don't want to risk more of their staff's health than necessary.

But even worse, remember that most hospitals no longer control much their staffing. They've outsourced specialist practices like emergency room doctors .and those have been bought up by private equity. If you think private equity won't exploit this crisis for their gain, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

One possible silver lining to this probable tragedy is if the US medical system performs as badly as it appears likely to is that it might finally end the delusion that there's a lot (aside from individual doctors and nurses) in the current system worth saving. The broad public needs to make sure that their crisis does not go to waste.

[Mar 10, 2020] Since advent of neo-liberal economics and the fifty plus year assault on the government sector, they have a partisan employment service instead of classic bureaucracy

Mar 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

uncle tungsten , Mar 10 2020 6:41 utc | 111

dltravers #103
The response is reasonably good considering the size of the bureaucracy they have to move. ... Let us hope both sides put aside the nonsense for a while and get it together.

Unfortunately they don't have a bureaucracy. Since neo-liberal economics and the fifty plus year assault on the government sector, they have a partisan employment service instead. Little skill or intelligence, a century of wisdom erased, no capacity to act and totally ossified in manoeuvrability.

To trust in any meaningful bureaucracy to motivate, let alone move, you would have to look for a state that values human rights, trusts its citizens and scientists and administrators and refrains from denigrating public medicine and health services.

Good luck finding that effective and resourced public medicine in the USA right now.

... ... ...

[Mar 10, 2020] Italian healthcare system vs the USa healthcare

Mar 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Andrea , Mar 9 2020 22:27 utc | 69

Everyone here talking badly about our national health system while we have one of the healthiest and oldest population in the world. Nothing it's collapsing here and we are doing our best, something that I'm not sure can be said about other Nations.
We have many positives because here, in Italy, we test a lot of people and for free. How much does it cost to be tested in US? Are you sure that a very expensive health care system, like the one in US, can handle this virus better than our free for all health care system?
In a couple of months you'll get the answer, don't worry.
Good luck to everyone from Italy.
Andrea

[Mar 10, 2020] Should big corporations get another bailout then

Mar 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

SteveR , Mar 9 2020 20:16 utc | 39

Likklemore@32

"Should big corporations get another bailout then ."

Of course corporations will be made whole again just like in 2008. Yet they will continue spouting that Medicare for All is an evil socialist program - the very thing that would allow all people to get taken care of and at least helping contain the spread. The Democrat leadership in the House is now looking at a $350 billion corporate bailout ( how will they pay for it) - yet are viciously against Medicare for All and Bernie. A new Yale Study shows Medicare for All will prevent 68,000 unnecessary deaths and will save $450 billion - each and every year. And of course Trump also would like to cut health programs and social security. Trump and Pelosi are both on the same donor team - it is like professional wrestling working for the wealthiest against the workers.

[Mar 10, 2020] In certain European countries private hospitals are already deriving their Covid-19 cases to the public system

Mar 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

H.Schmatz , Mar 9 2020 22:11 utc | 61

I am seeing how irresponsible people at certain blogs where they have themselves as oustanding intelligent people, probably only thinking in ther shares´ value, are spreading disinfo in the same sense of that twitted by Trump.

Laissez faire will not work. In certain European countries private hospitals are already deriving their Covid-19 cases to the public system ( of course the government should act asap on this taking extraordinary measures to force them absorbe their clients or even requsition their beds for a public health emergency as it is this one ). This only will accelerate the rate of lack of ICU beds and respirators.

There are already Twitter threads by health personel as the one linked by b, estimating the exponential grow will easily come of this epidemics.
A Spanish doctor in Madrid was already saying that the time will come where triage will be needed to prioritice who accedes to the respirators/ICU beds once the health system overwhelmed...I only hope those irresponsibly denying this is a global pandemic emergency and spreading disinfo through their media to be the first discarded by triage, as they are only making things worse, along with guarantor of their tax cut Trump. I bet them there will be a respirator for Trump, but for them, that is in the air.

In Madrid, after the huge demonstrations of Women´s Day yesterday, new cases have jumped to the rate of Italy. Today all schools and universities closed in the same city. Heads shoukd be already rolling.

Then, we are not counting on the possibility that thing here will not go so orderly than in China. In Italy, to the public health crisis, they add a probably public order one, with several revolts in jails because of restriction of visits...
Just some hours ago some dozens of inmates of a prison in Foggia were running free in the streets taking advantage to commit crimes as they go out robbing cars and menacing commercial activity...

https://twitter.com/Matteo_LT/status/1236982039439646720

Probably as a result, already the whole Italy closed, there is no more red zones, prohibited to move throughout the peninsula. 60 million people.

For those irresponsibly claiming from the same blogs that this will cease with the good weather, people are reporting from Argentina where today there was around a hot summer day, that there are increasing cases there.

Harvarad University and the WHO have already discarded this epidemics will behave like the estational flu..

Coronavirus 'highly sensitive' to high temperatures, but don't bank on summer killing it off, studies say


[Mar 10, 2020] Virus spread and umpaid sick leave

Mar 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jen , Mar 9 2020 22:16 utc | 63

Dear B,

In the hospitality industry in Australia, paid sick leave is available to full-time and part-time employees. The man employed at the Grand Chancellor Hotel in Hobart (in Tasmania) was likely employed as a casual. He is known to be a student in his 20s and is currently in isolation at hospital.

From FYA.org.au: If You're Young and Work In Hospitality, You Need To Read This.

"... Don't come to work sick. You will spread your gross germs around, make everyone else sick (including customers!) and you'll be pretty useless anyway. Australians recognise that it's in all our best interests if you STAY THE HECK HOME while you're unwell, and that's why you've got the option of paid sick leave if you're employed on a full time or part time basis.

If you're employed on a casual basis, you're entitled to unpaid sick leave. You are supposed to subsist during your illness on all the lavish savings you've accrued from your extra four-bucks-fifty-five-an-hour in casual loading. This is clearly problematic, and a lot of young casuals are forced to attend work sick out of economic necessity ..."

It is likely that many if not most COVID-19 cases in several countries so far have also been spread by people working in health, hospitality and other related service industries where most workers are on casual or temporary contracts with either unpaid sick leave or no sick leave.

[Mar 10, 2020] Japan to punish reselling of masks for profit with year in prison, 1 million fine -- or both

Mar 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Mar 10 2020 11:41 utc | 122

Japan to punish reselling of masks for profit with year in prison, ¥1 million fine -- or both

I thought these "totalitarian" measures were only possible in China...

Shizuoka politician apologizes for making ¥8.8 million selling pricey virus masks

I thought this kind of local level corruption and cronyism only happened in the "degenerated" ranks of the CCP...

--//--

More circumstancial evidence the South Koran government is cooking the numbers:

Government's 'self-praise' in virus fight taking flak

"The number of tests is large because the nation has a large number of people suspected to have caught coronavirus. However, the government is declaring a victory by turning it the other way around," Hong said on his Facebook.

All the evidence indicates South Korea is just following the capitalist modus operandi of chasing the rabbit: it is only testing the people who are already showing symptoms. There's no evidence those containers with fast food tests are working on a significant scale: there are a lot of factors that make a random individual in South Korea to stop in one of them to get itself tested; just making them freely available is not enough. Besides, just because an individual who stopped by the container tested negative, it doesn't mean it won't get infected after, as it will go back to its daily routine (because capitalism can't stop, it needs to keep its wheel spinning).

I don't trust the capitalist numbers around the world for one simple fact: they don't have the means to test everybody and to stop their own economies in order to preserve the non-infected from being infected in the near future. An illustrative example of this can be observed in the Czech Republic, which went from just five cases on March 3rd (three on March 1st) to 40 on March 10th - one of the new infected having just arrived from Italy. Those numbers indicate Czech Republic did absolutely nothing to stop the epidemic, and that they probably have much more than those 40 - they just haven't tested enough.

[Mar 10, 2020] The USA is particularly poorly set up to cope with COVID-19 epidemics, thanks to our fragmented public health system and overpriced, privatized and less than comprehensive health care. That bad situation is made worse by the CDC being short on resources and hamstrung further by the Trump Administration's PR imperatives

Mar 10, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

New Wafer Army , March 9, 2020 at 5:29 am

The glue appears at the start of the article:

"the US is particularly poorly set up to cope, thanks to our fragmented public health system and overpriced, privatized and less than comprehensive health care. That bad situation is made worse by the CDC being short on resources and hamstrung further by the Trump Administration's PR imperatives."

Basically, it is expected that Europe manages the crisis less badly.

Eustache de Saint Pierre , March 9, 2020 at 12:18 pm

It has been interesting watching Dr. John Campbell's growing realisation & some shock that everything is not well with the US healthcare system & he has received some abuse but also support from Americans for his growing criticism.

His listing as requested of his 2 degrees & Phd, never mind his long front line experience & his books I think shut some up for perhaps thinking that he was only a nurse, but perhaps he shouda gone to NakedCapitalism.

[Mar 09, 2020] Cooperation, not hoarding is the key in overcoming any epidemics

Mar 09, 2020 | blogs.scientificamerican.com

It also feels like a scam: there is no shortage of snake oil sellers who hope stoking such fears will make people buy more supplies: years' worth of ready-to-eat meals, bunker materials and a lot more stuff in various shades of camo. (The more camo the more doomsday feels, I guess!)

The reality is that there is little point "preparing" for the most catastrophic scenarios some of these people envision. As a species, we live and die by our social world and our extensive infrastructure -- and there is no predicting what anybody needs in the face of total catastrophe.

In contrast, the real crisis scenarios we're likely to encounter require cooperation and, crucially, "flattening the curve" of the crisis exactly so the more vulnerable can fare better, so that our infrastructure will be less stressed at any one time.

[Mar 09, 2020] One day, Americans will fully understand , with horrible consequences, that not every single human transaction must revolve around making a few people obscenely rich

Mar 09, 2020 | www.unz.com

TKK , says: Show Comment March 9, 2020 at 5:06 pm GMT

@Commentator Mike In America, you are on your own.

At international arrivals in Atlanta, the overwhelmingly black TSA staff are not taking temps by infrared or taking any pro active measures. If they are, it was hidden from me. It seems- obtuse- to constantly harp on the catastrophe that is AA hires- but there it is.

Its the busiest airport in the world, BTW.

A sinister side note; Delta offered me an $83 upgrade for first class when I went in to delay another trip. It's a $6000 ticket to fly first class. My total would have been a little over $500. Dangling the carrot as everyone cancels.

One day, Americans will fully understand , with horrible consequences, that not every single human transaction must revolve around making a few people obscenely rich.

[Mar 09, 2020] COVID-19 and the Working Class by Jack Rasmus

Highly recommended!
Mar 09, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

US politicians and media are reporting approximately 500 cases of the virus in the US as of March 8. The actual number is almost certainly much higher, however. Perhaps as much as 10-fold that number, according to some sources. Why?

There's the problem of reporting only tested cases so far, and there's still a lack of available tests even to test and to verify all those infected without symptoms.. And even those showing symptoms may have been determined initially as not infected by the tests, since reportedly many of the early test kits were defective. Meanwhile, those without symptoms or pre-symptomatic are not being tested at all.

The Fiction of Voluntary Quarantine

Then there's the policy of voluntary quarantining those who have come into contact with someone who was tested and found infected. It's not working very well. Those who have come in contact with carriers of the virus are asked simply to stay home. But do they? There's no way to know, or even enforce that. The case example why voluntary quarantining doesn't work well is Italy.

Most of the northern Lombardy region, including the financial center of Milan in that country, is in 'lock down' right now. But all that means is voluntary quarantining. People are asked not to leave their town, or the larger region. But is that stopping them traveling around their town in public places? Or within the larger region? And spreading the virus there? Apparently not. Reportedly, infection for those tested have risen in just two weeks to more than 6,000 in Northern Italy. CNBC reports that, in just one day this weekend, that number increased by 1200! So much for voluntary quarantines. There's no way, no sufficient personnel, not even accepted procedures, with which to daily check on those (in Italy that means hundreds of thousands) in voluntary quarantine.

The Real Costs to Workers

Average working class folks cannot afford to voluntary quarantine themselves. Or to stay home from work for any reason. Even if they have symptoms. They will continue going to work. They have to, in order to economically survive.

Consider the typical scenario in the US: there are literally tens of millions of workers who have no more than $400 for an emergency. As many perhaps as half of the work force of 165 million. They live paycheck to paycheck. They can't afford to miss any days of work. Millions of them have no paid sick leave. The US is the worst of all advanced economies in terms of providing paid sick leave. Even union workers with some paid sick leave in their contracts have, at best, only six days on average. If they stay home sick, they'll be asked by their employer the reason for doing so in order to collect that paid sick leave. And even when they don't have sick leave. Paid leave or not, many will be required to provide a doctor's slip indicating the nature of the illness. But doctors are refusing to hold office visits for patients who may have the virus. They can't do anything about it, so they don't want them to come in and possibly contaminate others or themselves. So a worker sick has to go to the hospital emergency room.

That raises another problem. A trip to the emergency room costs on average at least a $1,000. More if special tests are done. If the worker has no health insurance (30 million still don't), that's an out of pocket cost he/she can't afford. They know it. So they don't go to the hospital emergency room, and they can't get an appointment at the doctor's office. Result: they don't get tested, refuse to go get tested, and they continue to go to work. The virus spreads.

Even if they have health insurance coverage, the deductible today is usually $500 to $2000. Most don't have that kind of savings to spend either. Not to mention copays. So even those insured take a pass on going to the hospital to get tested, even if they have symptoms.

The media doesn't help here either. Reports are typically that those who are young, middle age, and in reasonable good health and without other complicating conditions don't die. It's the older folks, retirees with Medicare, or with serious other conditions, that typically die from the virus. Workers hear this and that supports their decision not to go to the hospital or get tested as well.

Then there's the further complication concerning employment if they do go to the hospital. The hospital will (soon) test them. If found infected, they will send them home for voluntary quarantine for 14 days! Now the financial crises really begins. The hospital will inform their employer. Staying at home for 14 days will result in financial disaster, since the employer has no obligation to continue to pay them their wages while not at work, unless they have some minimal paid sick leave which, as noted, the vast majority don't have. Nor does the employer have any obligation legally to even keep them employed for 14 days (or even less) if the employer determines they are not likely to return to work after 14 days (or even less). They therefore get fired if they go to the hospital after it reports to the employer they have the virus. Just another good reason not to go to the hospital.

In other words, here's all kind of major economic disincentives to keep an illness confidential, to go to work, not go to the hospital (and can't go to the doctor). That risks passing on the highly contagion bug to others–which has been happening and will continue to happen.

Here's another financial hit for the working class: child care. Schools are beginning to shut down. Even where no cases are yet confirmed. Stanford University just decided to discontinue all in class sessions and revert to all online education. But what about K-6 and pre-school? Or even Jr. high schools? When they shut down, kids must stay at home. But most working class parents can't afford nannys or baby-sitters. Not everyone works in an occupation or company where they can 'work from home'. Do they send the young kids to grandma's and grandpa's, who are more susceptible to the virus? With their kids required to stay home, they must miss work, and risk even losing their jobs. We're talking about millions of families with 6 to 12 year olds. And who knows how long the schools will remain shut down.

In short, wages lost due to self-quarantining, forced voluntary quarantining after hospital testing, the cost of hospital emergency room visits (whether insured or not), the unknown cost of the tests themselves (the government says it will reimburse them but they don't have the $1,000 or more cash out of pocket in the first place), the cost of paying for nannys or baby-sitters for young school age children when schools shut down–i.e. all result in a massive out of pocket expense for most workers that they don't have.

Workers figure all these possibilities of financial disaster pretty quick and know that the virus will mean a big financial hit if they miss a day's work, or even if they don't. So they keep working, hoping they'll recover on their own, refusing to get tested because of the potential loss of work, wages, and income, and crossing their fingers that their kids' school districts don't shut down.

Economic Contagion Channels: Supply Chains, Demand, Asset Deflation, Defaults & Credit Crunch

What this all means for the US economy is obvious. Household consumption was already weakening at the end of last year. Most of consumption was driven by accelerating stock valuations, which affect those in the top 10% who own stocks; or by taking on more credit–credit cards, which affects the middle class and below.

Over $1 trillion in credit card debt is what has been largely driving middle income and below consumption. Mainstream economists argue that defaults on credit card debt are only 3% or so, and thus not a problem. But that's a gross average across all 130 million households. When this data are broken down, middle income and below family credit card debt is around 9%, a very high number more like 2007 when the last economic recession began.

Then there's auto debt. As of 2018, reportedly 7 million turned in their keys on their auto loans. As in the case of credit cards, auto debt defaults will rise as well in 2020. Then there's student debt, over $1.6 Trillion now. Defaults there are much higher than reported as well, since actual defaults (defined as failure to pay either principal or interest) have been redefined to something else other than actual default.

Add to all this the likelihood is very high that job layoffs will now begin by April, as the global supply chain crisis due to virus-related cuts in production and trade. More job loss means less wage income and thus less household spending and more inability to deal with the costs of the virus for most working class families.

Let's not also forget the price gouging for certain products that is beginning now to appear, both online and in stores. That reduces working class real incomes and thus consumption too. Meanwhile, certain industries are already taking a big hit and layoffs are looming in travel companies of all kinds (airlines, cruise ships, hotels, entertainment). In places where the virus effect is already large, a big decline in restaurant, sports and concerts, movies, etc. has also begun.

The two big economic contagion channels impacting employment thus far are supply chain production and distribution reductions, and local demand for certain services (travel, retail, hospitality, etc.).

But a third major channel has just begun to emerge: that's financial asset deflation in stocks, oil & commodity futures, junk bonds & leveraged loans, and currency devaluations.

Stocks' price collapse leads to business shelving investment and even cutting back production. That means more job loss, reduced wage incomes, less spending, and economic slowdown.

Oil and commodity prices now collapsing also lead to energy industry layoffs. More importantly, in turn that will lead to energy junk bond market collapse–potentially spreading to all junk bonds, leveraged loans, and even BBB grade corporate bonds (which are really redefined junk bonds not investment grade bonds).

In other words, the collapse of supply chains, production-distribution, and industry by industry demand in the US may become even worse should the financial markets price collapse can lead to a general credit crunch. And that translates into a general economic real contraction. That's precisely what happened in 2008, in a similar chain reaction from financial crisis to real economic crisis.

Workers are aware of all this possibly leading to longer run economic stress. In the short run, they consider possible wages loss if they reveal or report they have the virus, or get tested: i.e. lost wage incomes: the cost of immediate medical care; the cost of child care, etc. Better to tough it through and continue to go to work is a typical, and rational, response.

This is already going on. Hundreds of thousands with, and without, symptoms are not being tested; nor will most of them volunteer to be. Except for those on cruise ships who are forced to be tested (and they're mostly retirees and elderly), few workers can afford to allow themselves to be. The infection rate is thus already much higher and will continue to rise. Voluntary quarantining doesn't work much (again just look at Italy, or even Germany, where in one week cases (tested) rose from 66 to more than 1000). So out of economic necessity and to avoid personal economic devastation, they continue to work. But that doesn't have to be.

US Policy Response: No Help for Working Class

US policy has been, is, and will continue to be a disaster. Trump's cuts to health and human services in the past seriously hampered the US initial response. Tests had to be sent to Atlanta and the CDC for processing. Early test kits often failed. Only now are they getting to the states–to late to have a positive initial effect on the spread. Those suspected of exposure to others confirmed infected were simply sent home for 'voluntary quarantine'. Initial legislation of $8.3 billion just passed by Congress provides for 'reimbursement' for voluntary testing, with no clarification if that covers the $1,000 hospital visit as well or just the cost of the actual test!

There could be, however, a government response that financially supports workers and allows them to be properly tested and treated.

An Alternative Policy Response

Why doesn't the government simply say 'go get tested for free' and the hospital will bill the government for the costs? Not the worker pay up front with money he/she likely doesn't have. Why isn't there emergency legislation by Congress or the states to require employers to provide at least 14 days of paid sick leave, like other countries? And law guaranteeing employers can't fire a worker sick with the virus for any reason? Or tax credits to working class families for the full cost of child care–paid to a nanny or to the worker–if they have to stay home in the event of a school district shutdown?

While business-investor tax cuts will almost certainly be the official government response, few of the above measures for working class Americans are likely. In America working class folks always get the short end of the economic stick. Congress and presidents pass trillions of dollars in tax cut legislation ($15 trillion since 2001 to investors, businesses and the 1%), but have raised taxes on the working class. Companies with billions of dollars in annual profits pay nothing in taxes–and actually get a subsidy check from the government to boot. Just ask Amazon, IBM, many big banks, pharmaceutical companies and more!

It can be expected the virus will have a large negative impact the standard of living and wages of millions of working class families. They will have to bear the burden of the cost with little help from their government. Meanwhile, businesses and investors will get bailed out, 'made whole', once again. In the process Consumption spending–the only area holding up the economy in 2019–will take a big hit. That means recession starting next quarter is more than a 50-50 likelihood.

In fact, the investment bank, Goldman Sachs, has just forecast that the effect on the US economy in the coming second quarter of this year will be a collapse of GDP to 0% growth.

Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Jack Rasmus

Jack Rasmus is author of the recently published book, 'Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression', Clarity Press, August 2017. He blogs at jackrasmus.com and his twitter handle is @drjackrasmus. His website is http://kyklosproductions.com .

[Mar 09, 2020] COVID-19 Reveals Trump's Planned Obsolescence by JP Sottile

Notable quotes:
"... Trump's narcissism obscures something both far more pernicious and far more permanent than his oft-televised obsession with himself and that's the fact that he's been busily making Milton Friedman's "Supply Side/The Bottom Line Is The Only Line" dream an intractable reality. ..."
"... Since taking office and taking complete control of the news-cycle, Trump has been systematically starving Federal agencies of resources, personnel and attention. He has, through the sycophants and lobbyists he's installed around the Executive Branch, been pushing out career professionals and barely replacing them with also-rans. And he is dismantling every aspect of government he cannot use to reward his corporate clients or punish political apostates. ..."
"... The idea is to cripple the Federal government from within instead of doing the hard legislative work of changing the laws that legally compel government action. As a result, many of the regulations on the books are becoming functionally irrelevant . Some laws are being rewritten by the lobbyists who used to lobby against 'em, but mostly the Executive Branch is being systematically emaciated by the political equivalent of chronic wasting disease. ..."
"... And any coronavirus-related "incompetence" you see being reported is a feature, not a bug, of this Re-Great'd America. And that's because Trump is not an outlier. He is a culmination. ..."
Mar 09, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

As COVID-19 begins its inevitable "community transmission" phase around the United States, the purveyors of the conventional wisdom are largely focused on President Trump's (and by extension, prayerful Vice President Pence's) incompetence and his self-serving, empathy-free approach to the coronavirus. And it is true that, as with all things Trump, it seems that all he really cares about is the stock market and its effect on his reelection bid. But Trump's narcissism obscures something both far more pernicious and far more permanent than his oft-televised obsession with himself and that's the fact that he's been busily making Milton Friedman's "Supply Side/The Bottom Line Is The Only Line" dream an intractable reality.

It was a dream that first took flight when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. The dream was often made manifest by the neoliberal lurch and deregulatory impulses of President Bill Clinton. But it is Trump who's come closest to fully realizing the dream of ending responsive government. It should come as no surprise, though. Trump lifted, among other things , his " Make America Great Again " slogan from the Gipper. He's also taken Reagan's anti-FDR pitch about the dangers of government (see "The Deep State") and, with the help of a motley crew of Tea Partiers, Evangelicals and corporate Republicans, transformed it into, as Steve Bannon calls it, a " War on the Administrative State ."

Since taking office and taking complete control of the news-cycle, Trump has been systematically starving Federal agencies of resources, personnel and attention. He has, through the sycophants and lobbyists he's installed around the Executive Branch, been pushing out career professionals and barely replacing them with also-rans. And he is dismantling every aspect of government he cannot use to reward his corporate clients or punish political apostates.

The idea is to cripple the Federal government from within instead of doing the hard legislative work of changing the laws that legally compel government action. As a result, many of the regulations on the books are becoming functionally irrelevant . Some laws are being rewritten by the lobbyists who used to lobby against 'em, but mostly the Executive Branch is being systematically emaciated by the political equivalent of chronic wasting disease.

It's an approach first pioneered by Reagan devotee Grover Norquist, who advocated " starving the beast " of government down to a manageable size before "drowning it" in a bathtub. It's an idea currently being implemented with wide-ranging effect by Trump, who, like Reagan before him , is accelerating the bankrupting of the already debt-laden treasury with a combo of tax cuts and massive spending on a world-dwarfing defense industry. Eventually, the theory goes, the "safety net," a.k.a. "entitlements," and other "common good" spending will collapse under the weight of the financial limitations generated by profuse borrowing to fund market-distorting tax cuts and to dole out subsidies and tax gifts to cronies and key corporations. All the while, the ever-less regulated chemical, oil, defense, agricultural and (most importantly of all) financial industries will continue to hoard assets through the rinsing and repeating of the supply side boom-and-bust scheme, a.k.a. the business cycle.

Frankly, this all looks like the endgame of a long plan to undo the demand side economy created by the New Deal. Along with the seemingly (but not) contradictory spike in Unitary Executive power (which is about protecting rackets, shielding enforcers from prosecution and about enforcing political compliance), this is a transformation decades in the making and Trump is the perfect salesman for this final episode even better than Reagan or Clinton because his "flood the zone" narcissism is the ultimate, 24/7 distraction for a people addicted to binge watching, inured to scripted reality shows and motivated by belligerent infotainment.

Reagan was the first actor to hit his marks on a stage set for him by the interlocking forces of Big Oil, Big Defense and Wall Street. Not coincidentally, this same Venn Diagram of power has profited mightily from Trump's Presidency. Rather than an actor, though, Trump is the barking emcee of the final season of the American Dream Gameshow a program that was initially cancelled in 1980, but somehow kept running in syndication on one of the two crappy channels a "free" people have been given to chose from. But now, the final credits are closer to rolling that ever before.

As such, Trump is the omega to Reagan's alpha. And any coronavirus-related "incompetence" you see being reported is a feature, not a bug, of this Re-Great'd America. And that's because Trump is not an outlier. He is a culmination.

This article first appeared NewVandal .

JP Sottile is a freelance journalist, published historian, radio co-host and documentary filmmaker (The Warning, 2008). His credits include a stint on the Newshour news desk, C-SPAN, and as newsmagazine producer for ABC affiliate WJLA in Washington. His weekly show, Inside the Headlines w/ The Newsvandal, co-hosted by James Moore, airs every Friday on KRUU-FM in Fairfield, Iowa.

He blogs under the pseudonym “the Newsvandal“.

[Mar 09, 2020] Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will self-quarantine after CPAC interaction

Mar 09, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

ARN , Mar 9 2020 1:14 utc | 47

It seems this nice;) senator may have corona CNN reporting..

"Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will self-quarantine after CPAC interaction"

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz will self-quarantine in Texas after interacting with an individual at the Conservative Political Action Conference who tested positive for the coronavirus.

"The interaction consisted of a brief conversation and a handshake," Cruz said in a statement. "

Cruz said in a statement he is "not experiencing any symptoms" but "out of an abundance of caution" he will remain in Texas until a full 14 days passes after the interaction.

"The people who have interacted with me in the 10 days since CPAC should not be concerned about potential transmission," Cruz said.

[Mar 08, 2020] Neoliberalism shows its ugly face during the COVID-19 epidemic

Notable quotes:
"... the American little people of all stripes are feeling frightened and abandoned by the great GDP god of the globalists. Being prepared for something is about all we little people can hope to do. And all the chattering class can do is still call us names. The joy of that. ..."
Mar 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Trailer Trash , Mar 6 2020 22:48 utc | 41

US Dear Leaders face difficult decisions regarding mass closures of everything. The poor social infrastructure can't handle major disruptions. Closing schools could maybe cause more harm than staying open, since many students depend on going to school just to get two meals. Some places even have special summer programs so kids can eat all year round.

In addition, without public school babysitters many families would be f*cked but good. There is nobody to look after kids while the parent(s) are struggling to make a living. It is just as bad if the kids get sick - who will stay home and take care of them?

Closing schools would also devastate school finances since many revenue sources pay based on number of bums-in-seats. If the bums-in-seats drops to zero...

Hourly workers like bus drivers and custodians and food service workers would be laid off. Some might qualify for unemployment compensation, many others would not. Lots of economic devastation among those folks in any case.

The medical consequences may get bad, but for the overall economy already stretched to the limit, mass closures will be a catastrophe.


CitizenX , Mar 6 2020 22:55 utc | 44

... The virus appears to be real. If part of this is a psy-op, would that not also link to a higher probability that it could be bio-engineered? Released intentionally? Another 9/11-esque? Cover for an Western Economy in collapse? Myriad possibilities.

I'm in Seattle, it's no joke around here. I may have had it myself which I posted about here recently. Comparing this to people dying from car accidents or "normal" flu every year is retarded. This will (and already has) have profound impact on local and international economies- ie peoples lives dumbass.

I've seen enough humans living in tents, cars and streets around here to make my stomach turn. The impact from this may put many more in dire scenarios that do not even get the flu. Certainly the potential implications of where this came from and how far it will go should at least raise eyebrows from anyone with a shred of critical thinking and compassion.

daffyDuct , Mar 6 2020 23:16 utc | 47
I heard a Wall Street expert today say on CNBC that, in some US states, if an employer demands or permits a sick employee to be at work, any other workers who contract the disease can get worker's comp. The employer is liable.

Apparently there's also an uptick in PC/laptop sales for those working from home.

jared , Mar 7 2020 0:09 utc | 55
We dont have a government in the US in the sense of people who manage policy and services and budgets and laws and such. At this point its pretty much every man woman child for themselves. We know how those people stuck on cruise ship feel.

And of whom Trump said (reportedly):
"he wanted the passengers to remain on the ship because he doesn't want to see the total US case numbers 'double' as soon as it docks"

karlof1 , Mar 7 2020 1:20 utc | 71
The coming economic fallout from Coronavirus will test the advice I've given people over the years about where to work within the overall economy: Make certain you're on the "Needs" side of the economy, not the "Discretionary" side.

As when the shit hits the fan, needs will always be needed while discretionary demand fades to zero.

Frackers are already using euphemisms to cover their massive Ponzi Scheme failure, while the entire Just-In-Time Neoliberal business model gets ready to collapse. The massive debt bomb created by the Fed is close to imploding. The great irony of it all stems from the revelation that the virus likely originated within the Outlaw US Empire--the parasitic worm is close to entering the host's brain.

vk , Mar 7 2020 3:06 utc | 84
@ Posted by: Grieved | Mar 7 2020 2:18 utc | 77

Even if it turns out to be a "nothing burger", the resultant will be that the capitalist countries affected by the virus will emerge poorer and even more unequal than before. That's because they are resorting to monetary devices to try to "fight" the virus. These will only give big business the tools and the narrative to play siege economy (a.k.a. Disaster Capitalism); they'll hoard what is most needed, wait for small and medium businesses to go bankrupt and reap the spoils from the ground when the epidemic is over.

Some people in Wall Street are even celebrating the COVID-19, since it is basically just killing the elder . That's because, if the elder die sooner than later, it would be a boon to the pension funds, who are betting against (shorting) their clients' life expectancy.

Old and Grumpy , Mar 7 2020 14:25 utc | 130
People are panicking because they don't trust the American system of doing governance and business. Gone are the days of local communities working together, or even having say over their hospitals that they built. Still wondering why the communities didn't get any money when said hospitals were sold to some network, but I am digressing here. Sorry. Then it was not that long ago (Reagan presidency) that drugs, materials, food, and so on were made here.Our financial overlords said that wasn't efficient, and we need to ship abroad. Now we just make parasitical managers. I dare anyone to say what tangible gain the managerial class brings other than college degrees and a insatiable lust for power.

So with a possible bioweapon escaping, or released, the American little people of all stripes are feeling frightened and abandoned by the great GDP god of the globalists. Being prepared for something is about all we little people can hope to do. And all the chattering class can do is still call us names. The joy of that.

It didn't start with Trump. There are plenty of Democrats to blame. Harry Truman gets the primary "buck stops here" award for allowing the CIA to be created. Trump will never do this, but he needs to appoint someone apolitical to start investigating our myriad deep state biolabs. Watch who first comes out with a vaccine.

[Mar 08, 2020] Rich usually misbehave during the epidemic

Mar 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

vk , Mar 7 2020 14:40 utc | 131

A weekend reading for your amusement:

Rich People Have Always Been Assholes During Plagues

When the first waves of plague swept medieval Europe, the disease killed both the rich and the poor indiscriminately. In July 1348, King Edward III of England's 12-year-old daughter died on her way to Spain to marry King Pedro of Castile. And though he was still mourning, the king threw a giant tournament at Westminster in the fall, despite instructions from clergy and doctors that moderation and abstinence were the key to survival. Nearly 672 years later, rich people still want their travel and amusement even amid coronavirus fears, and in typical fashion, they're doing everything they can to make sure sickness remains the province of the poor.

--//--

[Mar 08, 2020] The working class and the rich Class distinctions exposed by response to Covid-19 pandemic

Mar 08, 2020 | www.wsws.org

bipartisan cuts have been made to public health programs and emergency preparedness readiness. Opportunities afforded by the experiences with SARS and the Middle East Respiratory syndrome to develop vaccine programs have gone unheeded, citing costs to produce such vaccines. This is the nature of for-profit medicine that demands a guarantee on such investments. The estimates for a vaccine discovery and production can run over a billion dollars.

Compounding this dire situation is the barbaric reality that almost a quarter of workers have no guaranteed sick leave. This impacts the service industries most harshly which are also the most exposed to the public because of the nature of their work. In the starkest expression of utter disdain for the health of Americans, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, a former drug company executive, told Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat from Illinois, that no promises could be made to make a vaccine affordable, let alone free for the public. "We can't control that price because we need the private sector to invest."

According to an Uber driver by the name of Alvaro Balainez, 33 years old, "If one of us gets sick, we will have no choice but to keep driving. We don't have medical savings, because we're barely making enough to pay our rent or bills." Despite public health warnings, these workers will be compelled, by the sheer realities of their non-existent bank accounts, to carry on working and gamble with their own health and those they will expose.

The Washington Post noted that workers who prepare foods at restaurants and school cafeterias or nursery and child day-care workers have the nation's lowest rates of paid sick leave in the private sector, at 58 percent. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that at least one in five food service workers have reported to work despite having symptoms of diarrhea or vomiting.

President Trump's remarks only cut across the warnings made by health providers and infectious disease experts about the contagiousness of the disease and higher than expected fatality it poses when he said, "a lot of people will have this and it's very mild. They'll get better very rapidly. They don't even see a doctor. They don't even call a doctor. You never hear about those people. So, you can't put them down in the category of the overall population in terms of this corona flu- or virus. We have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work -- some of them go to work but they get better."

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