San José, CA – On Thursday, July 11, the Department of Labor released the most popular measure of consumer prices, showing inflation continues to decline. The overall Consumer Price Index or CPI actually declined by 0.1% in June as compared to May. The year-over-year rise, from June 2023 to June 2024 was 3%. This was the lowest inflation rate in more than three years.

San Francisco, CA – On November 11, close to 900 people gathered at San Francisco State University for a counter-summit against the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit later that week.

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum will be meeting in San Francisco and progressives need to be there on Saturday, November 11 and Sunday, November 12.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization opposes APEC as a tool of imperialist exploitation, and stands in solidarity with those planning to protest this meeting, such as the People's Counter-Summit being organized by the No to APEC Coalition.

Interview with Professor of Economics Masao Suzuki

In 2023, there have been many announcements of layoffs by technology firms. This is a result of what the media calls post-COVID normalization. But this “normalization” has also shown that many technology companies that boomed during the pandemic were in fact overproducing and building new capacity too quickly, forcing them now to scale back. In the past ten days this slowdown in the technology industry spilled over into the banking system, triggered by the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, based in Santa Clara, California. Soon after the failure of SVB on Friday, March 10, regulators shut Signature Bank in New York. First Republic bank, headquartered in San Francisco, had to borrow $30 billion from other banks, under the direction of the Federal Reserve. The crisis even spilled overseas, as the troubled Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse was forced to sell itself to the even larger Swiss bank UBS. Fight Back! News sat down with Professor Suzuki to ask him about this crisis. Fight Back!: How is the failure of Silicon Valley Bank related the crisis unfolding in the technology industry?

San José, CA – After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, headquartered in the city of Santa Clara, just north of San José, the local news was full of interviews with technology entrepreneurs talking about the “importance to the community” to have all of the uninsured depositors get their money back. With the closing of Signature Bank in New York, which had large numbers of crypto-investment related depositors, over the weekend, federal regulators tried and failed to find buyers for the two banks. This made these two banks the biggest ever – with about $200 and $100 billion in deposits, respectively – to have to shut down.

Gross Domestic Product weaker than expected

San José, CA – The broadest measure of unemployment insurance, which includes the regular state unemployment insurance or UI, the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA, the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation or PEUC, as well as the state Extended Benefits or EB rose in the first week of January by 2.3 million people to a total of 18.3 million people. While down from its peak in April, it is still nine times as high as it was a year ago before the recession began, according to the weekly report by the U.S. Department of Labor released on Thursday, January 28.

Retail sales fall for third month in row

San José, CA – The U.S. economy showed more signs of weakness as the COVID-19 pandemic rages and Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” vaccine rollout crashes and burns amid finger-pointing, lies and incompetence. New claims for regular state unemployment rose by more than 20% in the week ending January 9, the biggest gain since the dark days of March when the economy hit a brick wall.

Tallahassee, FL – If you are like me, you have probably checked your bank account dozens of times throughout the day waiting for the recent round of $600 stimulus checks.

San José, CA – On Friday, December 4, the U.S. Department of Labor released its report on the jobs market in November. Their monthly survey of businesses reported a gain of only 245,000 new jobs, about half of what economists expected and less than half of October’s job gain of 600,000 jobs. For the first time since the beginning of the recession, job losses have spread from the government, which lost almost 100,000 jobs, to retail, which lost almost 35,000 jobs. Job growth in other areas slowed from October, with the exception of transportation and warehousing, showing the continuing growth of online shopping. November’s gain barely put a small dent in the almost 10 million jobs still missing from the plunge in March and April.

San José, CA – On Friday, December 4, the U.S. Department of Labor released its report on the jobs market in November. Their monthly survey of businesses reported a gain of only 245,000 new jobs, about half of what economists expected and less than half of October’s job gain of 600,000 jobs. For the first time since the beginning of the recession, job losses have spread from the government, which lost almost 100,000 jobs, to retail, which lost almost 35,000 jobs. Job growth in other areas slowed from October, with the exception of transportation and warehousing, showing the continuing growth of online shopping. November’s gain barely put a small dent in the almost 10 million jobs still missing from the plunge in March and April.