Average weekly wages for workers went up 3.8% over the last year. Subtracting inflation, the “real” or purchasing power of wages went up 0.8% over the last year according to another report of the Department of labor on Real Wages.

But the CPI does not include two important payments made by consumers. The first is interest payments, which have mainly gone up because of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, which raises interest rates to try to slow the economy and lower inflation. Mortgage interest rates are near 7% and are the highest in more than 20 years. Credit cards now charge more than 20% in interest on unpaid balances, which is the highest level in more than 30 years.

Adding back higher interest costs, for both consumer loans (student loans, credit cards and auto loans mainly) as well as mortgages, would increase the inflation rate by about 0.7% over the course of the year. This is not much, but enough to offset out the 0.8% gain in real wages.

The second omission is that the CPI does not include insurance costs for homeowners. The CPI estimates the equivalent rent for a house, but this does not include rapidly rising home insurance costs. These costs would add about 0.8% to inflation over the last year, mean that purchasing power for the average household in the United States has actually gone down by about 0.7%. This is only an average, so many would be much worse off, while some would be better off. No wonder surveys show so many people are sour on the economy.

#SanJoseCA #inflation #economy #capitalism

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 day was convened by the “No To APEC Coalition,” which had 160 endorsing organizations. The counter-summit was the first action leading up to a week of activity against APEC.

APEC is an inter-governmental forum for 21 member economies in the Pacific Rim that promotes free trade throughout the Asia-Pacific region. While the rhetoric that APEC pushes seem to benefit the member economies, the No to APEC Coalition states that it’s a forum for corporations and institutions to push so-called “free trade” to exploit their workers and put the benefits of corporations over the rights of nations and peoples.

The day began at 9 a.m. with opening remarks that reviewed what APEC and IPEF (Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity) were, and why it’s important to mobilize against them.

The keynote speaker was Brandon Lee, who came out to a standing ovation and chants of “Justice for Brandon Lee!” Lee is an indigenous rights activist who in 2019 was shot in four places by the 54th Infantry Battalion of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, rendering him paralyzed. Lee continues to organize for human rights and is a member of the San Francisco Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines.

During his keynote speech, he spoke about how he became an organizer, and the current fight against Chevron. He also joined the chorus to mobilize against APEC and IPEF, “I will continue to fight as long as I breathe. My story is one of many. There are 1000 people here today, diverse and multi-generational, each with their own journey, all united against APEC. And we will not go gently into the night. We will rage!”

After Lee’s speech there was a plenary with speakers from different movements, including organizers from Palestine, Starbucks Workers United, Myanmar, and others.

The afternoon saw two sets of dozens of workshops for people to choose from.

The evening ended with a call to action for November 12 and the march against APEC. It closed out with agitating speeches, that fired people up!

#SanFranciscoCA #NoToAPEC #APEC #Capitalism #Economy #ILPS

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.

APEC is a forum in which governments and big corporations collude and contend with each other to exploit the workers and oppressed peoples of the Asia-Pacific region. It is a part of the imperialist strategy of neoliberalism, which seeks to deregulate trade, privatize services, increase the exploitation of the oppressed nations, and advance the agenda of big corporations.

APEC exists for the same reasons as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), and the United States-Mexico-Canda Agreement (USMCA, known informally as “NAFTA 2.0”): to maximize profits at the expense of working and oppressed peoples.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization stands for a world free of capitalist domination. Institutions like APEC are notorious for meddling in the internal affairs of nations, offering economic ties or “development” loans on the condition of doing away with labor regulations, privatizing public services, or getting rid of tariffs. The U.S. has the most influence within APEC, and its chairperson is Joe Biden. In addition, the U.S. has launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), which excludes People’s China, and seeks to limit Beijing’s growing influence.

Wherever the big corporations and their political representatives gather to plot and scheme how to better exploit the workers and oppressed peoples of the world, the people's movements should be in the streets to denounce and expose them. Let’s make them feel our strength in San Francisco November 11 and 12.

No to APEC!

#FRSO #Statement #APEC #Capitalism #Economy

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?

Masao Suzuki: Because of the slowdown in Silicon Valley, many SVB’s depositors began to pull more and more of their deposit money out because revenue and new capital was not coming in fast enough. To meet their depositors’ demand for their money, SVB had to sell many U.S. government bonds that they had bought with their depositors’ money.

Buying U.S. government bonds is widely seen as safe, as there was almost no risk that the U.S. government would default on this debt. It would seem that this was a very good way to balance against the risk of loans that SVB made to technology startups.

One the failures of the bank and its leadership was that they did not take into account the interest rate risks of the bonds that the bank owned. This risk to owning bonds is that if interest rates go up, the price of the bonds go down, since they pay a fixed interest payment, or coupon. With the Federal Reserve raising interest rates to slow the economy to fight inflation, the market price of these U.S. government bonds began to fall. This wouldn’t matter if SVB was able to hold the bonds until they matured, and the U.S. government paid off their full face value.

The bonds that Silicon Valley Bank had to sell to pay off their depositors were sold at lower prices, causing billions of dollars of losses. When SVB made plans to raise more capital to offset these losses by selling stock, depositors panicked, and California regulators shut down the bank on Friday morning, March 10.

Fight Back!: Were there other reasons that contributed to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank?

Suzuki: One other important reason was rolling back the regulation of bigger banks. Following the 2008 financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank law was passed, increasing regulation of larger banks with at least $50 billion in assets, among other things. But in 2018 Dodd-Frank was weakened under the Trump administration, to raise the limit for greater regulation to $250 billion.

Silicon Valley Bank grew quickly to more than $50 billion in assets in 2017. Facing increasing regulation, the CEO of SVB, along with other banks, lobbied to weaken Dodd Frank, and those reforms passed into law in 2018. By 2023, just before it failed, SVB had grown to more than $200 billion in assets, and yet still had lighter regulation like much smaller banks.

Fight Back!: Was that the only other factor?

Suzuki: A third factor is that depositors pulled their money out at a much faster rate than in the past. The last time a bigger bank failed, Washington Mutual in 2008, it took a week for depositors to pull out 10% of its deposits. This gave regulators time to find a buyer – J.P. Morgan Chase – and allowed them to shut the bank over a weekend.

With Silicon Valley Bank, depositors tried to withdraw an amount equal to 25% of total deposits in one day, Thursday, March 9. This was because more than 90% of SVB’s deposits were large, with more than the $250,000 in deposits that are insured. Facing possible large losses, depositors tried to pull tens of billions of dollars. Electronic banking made this even faster.

Fight Back!: Will the deposits of working people be at risk?

Suzuki: Bank deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or FDIC. The banks pay insurance premiums to the FDIC that provide the money to cover deposits at failed banks. I doubt many readers of Fight Back! have more than $250,000 in a checking or savings account at a single bank. But if you do, it would be safest to move your money to separate banks so you have no more than the insured limit at any single bank.

Because the failure of Silicon Valley Bank was quickly followed by the failure of Signature Bank in New York, the FDIC said that it would cover all the deposits of the failed banks, in an effort to stop the banking crisis spreading any further. The Federal Reserve also created a special program to lend to banks and twisted the arms of some big banks to lend up to $30 billion to First Republic Bank. First Republic, based in San Francisco, was just slightly smaller than Silicon Valley Bank, and also had a large number of uninsured deposits, like SVB.

While the Biden administration and others continue to stress that the banking system is “fundamentally sound,” the fact the government continues to provide aid to other banks says otherwise.

#SanJoseCA #Capitalism #economy #economics

On Monday morning, March 13, President Biden announced that all the depositors will get their money, including uninsured depositors with more than $250,000 in the bank. Most of these are Silicon Valley technology start-ups and include a few larger businesses such as the streaming technology company Roku.

This stands in contrast to the mainly African American depositors at Freedom National Bank, which failed in 1990. Under pressure from the public, the federal government paid uninsured depositors, many of which were large non-profits serving the Black community, but only 50 cents on the dollar.

At the founding of the United States, African American slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person. Since then, the systematic national oppression of African Americans, that is, the unequal treatment on the basis of nationality, has maintained a gigantic wealth gap between white Americans and African Americans.

African Americans have lower income, higher unemployment, and lower rates of home ownership. In the words of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr, “Of the good things in life he has approximately one-half those of whites; of the bad he has twice those of whites.” (Where Do We Go From Here, Chaos or Community, 1967). But the wealth gap is a chasm, with white American households having a median wealth of $187,300 in 2019, while African American households owning only $14,100. Thus on average, white American households have more than 13 times the wealth of Black Americans.

While the average African American household has only 7.5% of the wealth of white American households, the number of Black-owned banks is even smaller. There are only about 26 of these banks, plus another 19 Black-controlled credit unions in the entire United States. This means only about one-half of one percent of all banks are owned by Black Americans, along with a slightly smaller percentage (0.4%) of credit unions.

Black-owned banks are not only restricted by national oppression and the huge wealth gap, but also by monopoly capitalism where huge banks buy, take over, or feast on the failures of smaller banks. Many of the former depositors at Silicon Valley Banks, as well as depositors of other smaller banks, are heading towards the big four monopolistic banks that have more than half the deposits in the country. These big banks – Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo – are widely known as “too big to fail.”

#SanJoseCA #Bailout #Capitalism #Banks

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.

Part of the bounce in unemployment insurance benefits was because of the temporary end to the federal PUA and PEUC at the end of 2020 as Republicans in the Senate dragged their feet on passing more badly needed aid. The other is the renewed weakness in the economy, as seen in the 140,000 jobs lost in December, the first job loss since April.

This weakness in the economy at the end of the year could also be seen in the first report on the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, for the fourth quarter, or last three months of the year, which was also released January 28 by the Bureau of Economic Analysis or BEA, which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. In the October to December period of 2020, the U.S. economy grew by 1%, which was less than what economists expected.

This meant that the U.S. economy shrank by 3.5% in 2020, the worst showing since 1946 when the economy fell with the end of World War II. While most sectors of the economy grew, although at a much slower pace than in the third quarter or July to September period, state and local government spending fell for the third quarter in the row, the only sector not have a rebound in the second half of the year.

The economic damage of the recession and the pandemic was actually worse in almost all other major capitalist economies, with the United Kingdom the worst with an estimated 8.5% drop in their GDP in 2020. The only exception was South Korea, whose better control of the COVID-19 pandemic and large economic ties with China reduced their economy’s fall to only 1%.

In contrast, the Chinese economy actually grew 2.3%, despite being the first country with a major COVID-19 outbreak. China’s socialist system and its “zero tolerance” policy toward the virus allowed it to suppress the pandemic and have an economy rebound. Socialist Vietnam, which was able to prevent the virus from getting a foothold, did even better, with a 2.9% rate of growth in 2020.

#SanJoséCA #Capitalism #economy #EconomicReport

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.

The number of people actually collecting benefits also rose by 200,000 for the week ending January 2, despite more and more people being timed out of the regular state unemployment insurance programs which only pay out for six months. This was the first increase since November.

The number of new claims for the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, for self-employed and gig workers jumped by 75%, also for the week ending January 9. However much of this increase was because the PUA, along with the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, or PEUC, for workers who have been timed out of regular state unemployment benefits, was allowed to lapse at the end of the year because of opposition to aid in the Republican Senate. Jobless workers who would have applied during the previous week had to wait until the programs restarted.

The increase in unemployment insurance claims was broad based, with 36 states reporting increases. This weakness in the economy follows earlier reports that 140,000 net jobs were lost in December, and that online job postings fell towards the end of December. The report on retail sales for December fell again, for the third monthly drop in a row. In addition, the data on retail sales for November was revised down to a larger fall.

While unemployment insurance claims have fallen, the rate of absenteeism because of illness or family illness or lack of childcare has not. About 1.9 million workers were reported absent in December, almost the same as the 2.0 million in April during the first surge in the pandemic.

No wonder as the COVID-19 pandemic continues at record levels, with hundreds of thousands of new infections each day and daily deaths spiking to over 4000. The much hoped for rapid rollout of the vaccine has been a mess, with the latest news that the Trump administration held up plans for vaccine distribution for two months in September and October, paving the way for the chaos seen today. The lies continue from the Trump administration up to the very end, as the so-called “second dose vaccine reserves” that were to be distributed turned out to be non-existent – they had already been given out.

#SanJoséCA #Unemployment #Capitalism #economy

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.

If you are like me, then you have searched online through Google for “stimulus check,” “delay” or anything else that can explain the holdup of much needed financial relief.

This second round of stimulus checks is a complete insult to the millions of workers who pay way too much in taxes and yet are constantly disregarded and disrespected by the ruling class.

Just last week, in a stunning position, Donald Trump urged Congress to give Americans $2000 in stimulus relief per eligible American. Yet, Mitch Connell and even 41 Democrats voted against the enlargement of stimulus checks.

Over 300,000 Americans have died from coronavirus and it has affected the entire country – oppressed nationality workers, and disabled people are bearing the brunt of this epidemic.

Despite this fact, that we are currently in one of the most desperate economic situations in our recent lifetimes, us workers are not getting any sort of support. Politicians instead give millions of dollars in tax breaks and stimulus packages to big businesses and support the continuous exploitation of workers without a national mandate for hazard pay.

If you are like me, then you are pissed.

As I checked my bank account for the 20th time, and tried everything possible to log on to the IRS “Get My Payment” tool I consulted the brain hive that is called the internet.

My Facebook feed is full of people waiting for their $600 stimulus checks.

There is one answer to the delay regarding our checks.

Third-party tax preparers.

According to NBC News, those of us who filed taxes last year with H&R Block and TurboTax will have a significant delay to the delivery of our stimulus check. With an estimate of four weeks. We will have to wait for a check or a debit card to receive our stimulus checks along with the our tax refunds.

Apparently, if a person who filed last year’s taxes chose the option to pay H&R Block and TurboTax through their refund, then the aforementioned companies will create a temporary account to receive their cut of the tax refunds.

This isn’t even the first time that this happened. If you look online you will see this occurred back in April 2020.

It was a known glitch that occurred over seven months ago. According to the same NBC same article I referenced earlier, a TurboTax rep said, “the [IRS] is the sole party with the ability to determine eligibility and distribute stimulus payments.” H&R Block is allegedly rerouting payments to its customers directly and made a comment that the glitch will be fixed today.

Millions of Americans are unemployed due to coronavirus, and the economic situation does not seem to get any better. The IRS is passing blame to tax preparers such as TurboTax and H&R Block, and these multimillion-dollar tax preparer companies pass the blame to the IRS.

Meanwhile millions of Americans are suffering. The economic situation is so dire that delaying payments by four weeks is the difference between life and death to some Americans who are struggling to pay for rent, utilities, food and rising health costs.

It does not have to be this way. We, the workers of this country, have created all that is produced through our labor and it is our right to decide how this country is run. Yet multi-millionaire politicians and the monopoly capitalists give us crumbs while they take from us with shovels.

#UnitedStates #PeoplesStruggles #Capitalism #OpEd #economy #Trump #StimulusCheck #HRBlock #TurboTax #Stimmy

The official unemployment rate in the same report did fall from 6.9% in October to 6.7% in November. But this was entirely because of more people giving up or being unable to look for work. The same report showed that there were 326,000 fewer people out of work and looking for work than in October, but this number is less than 400,000 who left the labor force. Thus, the household survey showed 74,000 fewer people working in November than in October.

The day before, on Thursday, December 2, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that new claims for regular state unemployment benefits coming in at 712,000. This is still greater than the record high set before the recession at 695,000 way back in October 1982, and more than three times as high as the pre-recession levels near 200,000. Adding in the weekly new claims for the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA for the self-employed and gig workers, about 1 million people sought government aid in the recession in the latest week.

The total number of people receiving government unemployment benefits across all programs for the week ending November 14 was nearly 20.2 million. For the last seven months, there has never been fewer than 20 million people getting aid, which is more than 12% of the those who are working, or are not working and are looking for work. While new claims have been flattening out at a high level, there was a continued rise in the number of people claiming long-term benefits after their first six months of regular state unemployment benefits run out. The number of people receiving the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation or PEUC and the State Extended Benefits programs rose by almost 140,000 in the latest week reported ending November 14.

More bad news on the economy came earlier in the week, with the report on October income and spending. Personal income sank 0.7% as compared to September. This was mainly due to less government unemployment aid, showing that many people who lost their jobs in April are losing their benefits, as opposed to getting jobs. Personal spending rose, but at less the half the rate of growth as September.

The trade deficit grew again in October after a small drop in September. The October trade deficit was $63.123 billion, more than 70% larger than the trade deficit in February of 2020, when the recession began. In a typical recession the U.S. trade deficit shrinks. For example, from 2008 to 2009 the trade deficit fell by almost 50% from $695 billion to $380 billion.

Weighing on the economy is the surging pandemic, with more than 217,000 new infections a day, a new record high. On December 3, more than 2800 Americans died of COVID-19, another new all-time high, greater previous record of more than 2700 daily deaths set in April. A record of more than 100,000 people are now hospitalized with the coronavirus, straining hospitals across the country. While many field hospitals are being built, the problem is lack of staff, especially those who are trained.

Across the country, state and local governments are imposing more restrictions on businesses in a last-ditch effort to slow the spread. But in Washington, D.C. the White House is planning more holiday parties. Trump’s efforts to deny the pandemic, his egging on dangerous practices, from not wearing a mask to holding large events, has contributed to the world’s greatest death toll for COVID-19, with almost 280,000 Americans dying from the coronavirus. At the same time the Republican leadership of the Senate continue to play hardball, holding up billions of dollars of aid desperately needed by the people. Almost two-thirds of all people collecting unemployment benefits, or more than 13 million people, face a financial cliff in a month. On December 26 the federal PUA and the federal PEUC will stop paying benefits.

The Trump administration is now cooperating to a degree with President-elect Biden in a transition. But they seem to be going out of the way to hurt the economy before the Trump administration ends. Last week, Trump’s Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin ordered the Federal Reserve to return billions of dollars to the Treasury. This money guarantees against any losses from three Federal Reserve lending programs. The Fed’s lending to large corporations, medium size businesses, and state and local governments backed by the Economic Stabilization fund will now have to wind down just as the economy turns down again and pandemic relief programs are coming to an end. So, even though economy has only recovered about half the jobs lost early on, this move objectively limits the Fed's ability to lend.

State and local governments also face hundreds of billions of dollars in budget deficits. They are estimated at $80 billion through June 2021, another $200 billion by June 2022, and another $300 billion by June 2023. State and local government spending is the only major type of spending that did not rebound after plunge in the first half of the year, and looks to be getting worse. These will lead to even more cuts and job losses, especially in public schools and colleges. Many states are considering cuts to Medicaid benefits for low-income households, putting even more people at risk of losing their health insurance after millions have already lost their jobs and employer-provided health insurance.

In addition, the moratorium on evictions and the forbearance of home mortgages are also running out with the new year. According to a survey earlier in November, there are almost 30 million tenants behind on their rent, which could lead to millions of evictions in 2021. Millions of renters are taking a last ditch stand by paying their rent with credit cards, and millions more own back rent and are at risk of eviction in 2021.

#SanJoséCA #Capitalism #economy #Trump #pandemic #EconomicReport #JobLoss

The official unemployment rate in the same report did fall from 6.9% in October to 6.7% in November. But this was entirely because of more people giving up or being unable to look for work. The same report showed that there were 326,000 fewer people out of work and looking for work than in October, but this number is less than 400,000 who left the labor force. Thus, the household survey showed 74,000 fewer people working in November than in October.

The day before, on Thursday, December 2, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that new claims for regular state unemployment benefits coming in at 712,000. This is still greater than the record high set before the recession at 695,000 way back in October 1982, and more than three times as high as the pre-recession levels near 200,000. Adding in the weekly new claims for the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA for the self-employed and gig workers, about 1 million people sought government aid in the recession in the latest week.

The total number of people receiving government unemployment benefits across all programs for the week ending November 14 was nearly 20.2 million. For the last seven months, there has never been fewer than 20 million people getting aid, which is more than 12% of the those who are working, or are not working and are looking for work. While new claims have been flattening out at a high level, there was a continued rise in the number of people claiming long-term benefits after their first six months of regular state unemployment benefits run out. The number of people receiving the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation or PEUC and the State Extended Benefits programs rose by almost 140,000 in the latest week reported ending November 14.

More bad news on the economy came earlier in the week, with the report on October income and spending. Personal income sank 0.7% as compared to September. This was mainly due to less government unemployment aid, showing that many people who lost their jobs in April are losing their benefits, as opposed to getting jobs. Personal spending rose, but at less the half the rate of growth as September.

The trade deficit grew again in October after a small drop in September. The October trade deficit was $63.123 billion, more than 70% larger than the trade deficit in February of 2020, when the recession began. In a typical recession the U.S. trade deficit shrinks. For example, from 2008 to 2009 the trade deficit fell by almost 50% from $695 billion to $380 billion.

Weighing on the economy is the surging pandemic, with more than 217,000 new infections a day, a new record high. On December 3, more than 2800 Americans died of COVID-19, another new all-time high, greater previous record of more than 2700 daily deaths set in April. A record of more than 100,000 people are now hospitalized with the coronavirus, straining hospitals across the country. While many field hospitals are being built, the problem is lack of staff, especially those who are trained.

Across the country, state and local governments are imposing more restrictions on businesses in a last-ditch effort to slow the spread. But in Washington, D.C. the White House is planning more holiday parties. Trump’s efforts to deny the pandemic, his egging on dangerous practices, from not wearing a mask to holding large events, has contributed to the world’s greatest death toll for COVID-19, with almost 280,000 Americans dying from the coronavirus. At the same time the Republican leadership of the Senate continue to play hardball, holding up billions of dollars of aid desperately needed by the people. Almost two-thirds of all people collecting unemployment benefits, or more than 13 million people, face a financial cliff in a month. On December 26 the federal PUA and the federal PEUC will stop paying benefits.

The Trump administration is now cooperating to a degree with President-elect Biden in a transition. But they seem to be going out of the way to hurt the economy before the Trump administration ends. Last week, Trump’s Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin ordered the Federal Reserve to return billions of dollars to the Treasury. This money guarantees against any losses from three Federal Reserve lending programs. The Fed’s lending to large corporations, medium size businesses, and state and local governments backed by the Economic Stabilization fund will now have to wind down just as the economy turns down again and pandemic relief programs are coming to an end. So, even though economy has only recovered about half the jobs lost early on, this move objectively limits the Fed's ability to lend.

State and local governments also face hundreds of billions of dollars in budget deficits. They are estimated at $80 billion through June 2021, another $200 billion by June 2022, and another $300 billion by June 2023. State and local government spending is the only major type of spending that did not rebound after plunge in the first half of the year, and looks to be getting worse. These will lead to even more cuts and job losses, especially in public schools and colleges. Many states are considering cuts to Medicaid benefits for low-income households, putting even more people at risk of losing their health insurance after millions have already lost their jobs and employer-provided health insurance.

In addition, the moratorium on evictions and the forbearance of home mortgages are also running out with the new year. According to a survey earlier in November, there are almost 30 million tenants behind on their rent, which could lead to millions of evictions in 2021. Millions of renters are taking a last ditch stand by paying their rent with credit cards, and millions more own back rent and are at risk of eviction in 2021.

#SanJoséCA #Capitalism #economy #Trump #pandemic #EconomicReport #JobLoss

Freedom Road Socialist Organization stands with working people on the West Coast who are threatened by the massive wildfires that have taken scores of lives. Dozens more are missing and feared dead and thousands of homes were destroyed. We encourage FRSO members in California, Oregon and Washington to assist in whatever way possible in efforts that ensure the safety of your neighbors and contribute to pro-people recovery efforts. It is important to combat the fear mongering around the fires that is happening in the service of a cynical right-wing political agenda.

There is nothing natural about the disaster that is engulfing the West Coast, it is the product of climate change, which in turn has been created by capitalism. A decade of hotter and drier summers, lower levels of winter precipitation and rapid spring melt outs has created fuel for the fires. Large, extremely hot fires are in turn reshaping the ecosystems that they ravage. In some areas even jack pine seeds, which normally thrive on fire, are being killed by the intensity of the infernos. In some places, what was once a forest is being replaced by grassland. That means that the trees that are so necessary to clean carbon dioxide from the air will not be coming back, leaving more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to fuel warming.

Big business, in particular the fossil fuel industry, have economic interest in blunting measures that would slow or roll back climate change. Capitalism rewards a greedy few and encourages short-term thinking in order to maximize profits today. The result is a world that is growing hotter, has more extreme weather events, and is posing an existential threat to life as we know it and possibly even to humanity.

In the White House, the main political representative of monopoly capitalism is steadfast in his opposition to science, and blabbers about “raking the forest.” That kind of ridiculous commentary and denial of science is not funny when whole towns are being burned to the ground.

Every progressive person should support government assistance to help the people of the West Coast battle this disaster and rebuild their lives. The wealthy that run this country have plenty of money; they can be taxed and made to pay for this crisis.

Our movements need to insist that the government needs to get serious about addressing climate change. Trump has no intention of doing that and that is one of the many reasons he needs to go. That said, we will need to stay in the streets no matter who is elected to force a serious battle against climate change.

Capitalism is a failed system. It is destroying our planet for the profits of a few. There is no hope to stop climate change in the context of the chaotic market-driven forces of capitalism. The sooner the powerful and privileged are overthrown, and socialism – a system where everything is done to improve people’s lives – replaces it, the better it will be.

#WestCoast #Editorials #PeoplesStruggles #Capitalism #EnvironmentalJustice #Washington #California #Oregon #WildFires

San José, CA – For the second week in a row, new applications for state unemployment insurance or UI did not drop by much, despite economists’ expectations. New claims for the week ending June 20 were 1.48 million, down only 28,000 from last week’s initial estimate. New applications for the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, fell by 42,000 to 728,000 last week. Together the PUA and state unemployment insurance applications topped 2.2 million, only slightly lower than the 2.27 million total for the week before.

Continuing claims for state unemployment insurance, PUA, the Federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation for the week ending June 6 totaled 30.6 million people, up by 1.3 million from the week before. Both the new applications number and the total continuing claims show little change as the economy crisis gets worse in the face of rising infections.

Another sign of mixed signals on the economy came from the housing market. On Monday, June 22, the National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales fell by 9.7% in May from the April number. Existing home sales were at a 13-year high just in February and have fallen since. The next day, the Census Bureau reported that new home sales rose by 16.6% from April to May. But with existing home sales outnumbering new home sales by almost six to one, overall home sales fell.

The day before, on Wednesday, June 24, the total U.S. count for daily infections hit a new high of almost 37,000 new cases in one day. Twenty-nine states have had growing numbers of infections while in only 12 are infections falling. While the earlier peak in infections was centered in New York City and the Northeast, today the virus is burning across the U.S. Sunbelt in southern and western states. One of the hardest hit cities, Houston, has seen its intensive care unit beds fill to capacity with COVID-19 patient is just days away from being swamped as was New York City two months ago.

Across the country there are more and more reports of businesses closing down again as the virus spreads. Other businesses are seeing a drop in sales and/or are scaling back their openings. In the Houston area, Apple has closed eleven of its stores, in addition to others closed down last week in other southern states. In recent days nutritional supplement retailer GNC as well as the parent company for Chuck-E-Cheese both filed for bankruptcy, paving the way for more business closings and layoffs. Troubled retailer Macy’s also announced the layoff of almost 4000 management and support staff and Walt Disney delayed the planned opening of its original Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

The pandemic is also threatening plans for college and professional sports to restart their games. More and more players and staff are found to be infected. Teams that planned to move to Sunbelt states, which had fewer cases two months ago, now find themselves in virus hotspots. While professional sports across Europe and Asia are restarting – albeit without fans in the stadiums – the failure to control the pandemic as other countries have done means Americans may have to learn to like foreign sports or continue the stale diet of past games.

In the meantime, the Trump administration continues to double down on denial. Larry Kudlow, director of Trump’s National Economic Council, said again that he expects a “V-shaped” recovery despite the signs the crisis is continuing. Trump again said that the virus is going to fade away and continued to refuse to wear a mask, while making his racist comments. This sets the stage for Republicans to refuse to extend the additional unemployment insurance benefits of $600 a week that has kept many households afloat. These benefits will all end in only four or five weeks, depending on the state, near the end of July.

#SanJoseCA #Capitalism #economy #Covid19 #CARESACT

Fear over the COVID-19 epidemic growing in the United States and its economic impact hit U.S. stocks hard as well as stocks around the world. Asian stock markets opened lower, with Japanese stocks down 6.8%. The rout continued in Europe, with the German stock market down almost 8%, and then on to the United States.

Investors fled to the safety of U.S. government bonds. As bond prices rose on the spike in buying, interest rates on the ten-year U.S. Treasury Bond fell to another record low of just one-half of one percent. These record low interest rates show that many on Wall Street are expecting a recession, if not years of economic stagnation.

Another factor pulling the stock market down was the price war that erupted between Saudi Arabia and Russia over the weekend. The Saudis were trying to get Russia to join OPEC in cutting production and boosting prices. The Russians refused and the Saudis promised to increase production. This drove oil prices down 25% in one day, to a low of just over $30 a barrel. This in turn put pressure on U.S. corporate bonds, as U.S. oil drillers have been big borrowers and some of them may default (not pay in full) their debt. This credit market uncertainty led the U.S. Federal Reserve to increase injections of cash into the overnight loan market to $150 billion on Monday.

With more than 700 known COVID-19 infections in the United States, more and more industries are getting hit. Travel-related industries are suffering from cancellations with the hardest hit being cruise lines, airlines, hotels and restaurants.

There are also growing fears that the United States will soon look like Italy, which now has over 9000 infections and is the second largest outbreak after China. Just ten days ago Italy had about the same number of infections as the United States does today. Both the United States and Italy have capitalist economies and both countries responded to the COVID-19 outbreak in the same way: by restricting travel from China. However, both the U.S. and Italy gained a false sense of security, thinking that travel restrictions would keep out the virus, and failed to prepare for an outbreak. In comparison, socialist China has reduced new infections to under 50 for the last two days in a row and is now starting to revive their economy.

#SanJoséCA #Capitalism #stockMarket #COVID19

But much of the growth was made up of one-time events, and inside the report there were continuing signs of economic weakness. The biggest contributor to growth was a large drop in imports. During the second half of 2018 many companies pushed forward their imports out of a fear of an escalating trade war with China. But with Trump calling off his original pledge to raise tariffs on Chinese goods even more and ongoing trade talks continuing, these companies cut back on imports. This drop in imports boosted the GDP report as imports are subtracted from the final number and is unlikely to continue in the future.

The second biggest factor was a large jump in spending by state and local governments on capital projects such as buildings, roads and bridges. This increase is unlikely to be sustained as these projects take a long time to complete and there would have to be an ever-increasing number of projects started to keep this rising. So this was probably another one-time factor.

The third biggest factor was a large jump in inventories. As GDP counts production, if goods are made but sit unsold on store shelves, it counts as economic growth. This is a potential sign of economic weakness if consumers are not buying all of what businesses produce, and could lead to production and job cuts in the future.

Not counting the impact of changes in trade, government spending, and inventories, total private sales grew at a 1.3% rate, only half that of the last three months of 2018. Based on this, most economists expect economic growth to slow for the rest of the year.

Trump and the Republicans in Congress claimed that their 2017 corporate tax cut would lead businesses to increase spending on new plant and equipment, creating more jobs. Business investment did increase at a strong rate in the first six months of 2018, but since then it has slowed. This part of GDP grew at only half the rate of previous quarter (October to December of 2018), a sign of a slowdown.

Another sign of economic weakness was the continuing fall in the construction of new homes, apartment buildings and other residences. This part of GDP has fallen for five quarters back-to-back, and together with business investment, dragged down ‘fixed investment’ to less than two-tenths of one percent, barely above zero. Weakness in business investment or housing construction is what can pull the economy into a recession if their fall is big enough and lasts long enough to pull the rest of the economy down with them.

#SanJoséCA #PeoplesStruggles #Capitalism #economy #China #Trump

San José, CA – On Sept. 17, President Trump announced that tariffs of 10% will be slapped on $200 billion of Chinese goods starting Sept. 24. These tariffs will rise to 25% at the beginning of 2019. Trump also said that he would put tariffs on another $267 billion dollars of imports from China if China responds to his tariffs. Along with the tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports already in place, this would mean steep tariffs on virtually all of the $500 billion in goods that the United States buys from China.

China has all along replied to Trump’s tariffs with tit-for-tat tariffs, while calling for negotiations. While it cannot match the United States, as it imports much less than the United States in terms of tariffs, U.S. businesses do have much more extensive business in China that could be restricted. China’s currency has also been falling in value, offsetting part of the price increases that Trump’s tariffs would bring.

The main goal of the Trump administration is to slow or stop China’s modernization drive, which seeks to put China on an equal footing with Western nations and Japan in terms of high technology. This goal of blocking China has wide backing among the big capitalists and both their political parties (the Republicans and the Democrats), even though many disagree with his tactic of a unilateral trade war. This goal, along with Trump’s desire to restore basic manufacturing in the United States at the expense of China, would leave China in the position like many former colonial countries of having an economy based on low-wage labor such as textiles and exporting raw materials.

China’s socialist modernization, along with opening up to world trade, has led to one of the greatest reductions in poverty in world history. China is currently trying to make sure that it is not caught in what is called the “middle-income trap,” where poorer countries make some economic progress but are not able to close the gap with high incomes in the United States, Western Europe and Japan. The Trump administration’s desire to roll back China’s economic progress will never be accepted by China’s government or people.

Many of Trump’s advisors and Wall Street pundits argue that China’s economy is hurting because its stock market is in bear market territory, down over 20% this year, while the U.S. stock market is near record highs. But they don’t understand the basic difference between the two economies. In the United States, with its capitalist economy, the stock market is seen as a key barometer of corporate profits, which drive the U.S. economy. The Chinese stock market plays a secondary role in what is still a largely socialist economy dominated by state-owned banks and businesses.

Ultimately, the impact of price increases for imported consumer goods will fall most heavily on poor and low-income working-class Americans. At the same time the trade war could push Chinese businesses to put even more effort in developing their own higher-technology goods, the very thing that Trump is claiming to oppose.

#SanJoséCA #International #PeoplesStruggles #China #Capitalism #economy #TrumpChina

New York, NY – On June 5, fashion designer Kate Spade died via suicide. Three days later, chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain also committed suicide. Along with his TV show, Bourdain was a supporter of Palestine and the #MeToo movement, as well as openly criticizing Henry Kissinger for his foreign policy.

Both cases resulted in a widespread, mainstream discussion about suicide and mental health, but the solution typically suggested is for individual people to seek help via suicide hotlines, going to therapy, and reaching out to friends and loved ones for help. While all of these may help someone in need at that moment, it doesn’t address the larger issues at hand. Here are just some of the ways in which the U.S.’s monopoly capitalist system affects workers here, as well as how inflicts mental harm upon its victims around the world.

Economic basis

Band-aid solutions to mental illness only help remedy the symptom, but do not address the system that is at the root of the problem. Capitalism creates conditions for mental illness and suicide to manifest. From a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, people earning less than $34,000 are 50% more likely to commit suicide, and unemployed people are 72 more likely to commit suicide than employed people. According to the Center for Disease Control, suicide rates are higher in rural areas, where Native Americans and Alaska Natives have the highest rates.

At the same time that capitalism reinforces mental illness, it also limits the accessibility to mental healthcare in the U.S. Over 6.3 million adults with mental illness are uninsured, and even those who are insured still face high costs, such as copays, treatment not covered by insurance, and providers who do not take insurance.

Treating the symptom, not the cause

The ability of working class and poor people to access adequate mental healthcare is limited by a lack of time outside of working hours, as well as an economic inability to afford treatment, even with health insurance. For those that do decide to seek treatment, the costs of such are high and the treatment is insufficient in the long term.

There is a motive for psychiatrists to prescribe medication instead of providing psychotherapy. According to Dr. Daniel Carlat of Tufts University, a psychiatrist can make two to four times more money by prescribing medication than providing therapy. While psychiatric medication can be a necessary aspect of mental health treatment, it is used in a system that prioritizes profit over people while forgoing longer-term treatment that addresses the individual’s particular conditions.

U.S. Imperialism’s effect on mental health

Along with conditions in the U.S. contributing to suicide, U.S. imperialism also is a major factor in mental illness and suicide. In May 2018, a Honduran man named Marco Antonio Munoz killed himself in a Texas jail cell after being separated from his family, who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. Palestine, which is occupied by Israel with financial backing of the U.S., leads in the Middle East and North Africa region in depression and anxiety disorders, including in children.

Mental health under socialism

Where can we look to in order to find an alternative system to the U.S. healthcare system? Cuba is one example of how socialism can provide solutions to those suffering with mental illness.

According to Sandra Soca Lozano from the University of Havana, psychologists are incorporated into all aspects of healthcare, and psychologists and physicians work closely together. A psychologist will assess medical patients for contributing mental factors, and physicians will evaluate psychiatric patients to look for contributing physical conditions. Since no private organizations offer health services in Cuba, everyone has access to public care.

Due to the restrictions set on Cuba from the embargo, preventative care is emphasized for mental healthcare. This includes all Cubans having annual mental health screenings as part of their primary care (including home visits if unable to go to the office), the ability to access psychologists and physicians in their neighborhoods, and creating their own technology and techniques for detection of mental illness.

A more widespread discussion about mental health and suicide is a positive step, but discussion alone will not solve the problem. In order to fix the broken mental healthcare system, we must fight to overthrow capitalism and ensure that under socialism, everyone will have adequate access to mental healthcare and treatment.

#NewYorkNY #Socialism #Opinion #PeoplesStruggles #WorkersAndGlobalization #healthCare #Capitalism #mentalHealth

The article also noted, “‘Democracy’ being advocated by the imperialist reactionaries is not for the toiling masses, and it is fake democracy for a handful of the exploiting classes.”

“The multi-party system is also deceptive. Various parties are said to take the reins of government by turns in capitalist countries, but those parties are all the bourgeois political ones representing the interests of business tycoons which have different names,” states the article.

The article concluded, “Capitalism is neither a prosperous democratic society nor everlasting one. It is a corrupt society rushing headlong into its doom.”

#WashingtonDC #DistrictOfColumbiaDC #Korea #Capitalism #DPRK #NorthKorea #Elections

Editor’s note: Fight Back! will be running a number of articles to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx.

Karl Marx made enduring contributions to the science of economics. He built upon the work of classical English political economics represented by Adam Smith and David Ricardo. The thought of Smith and Ricardo lives on in mainstream economics and government policies of deregulation and free trade pushed by big business. However the economics of Marx has informed the labor movement and the fight to end the exploitation, giant for-profit corporations, and economic crisis that bear down on the vast majority of working people who struggle to make do from paycheck to paycheck. Marx’s economics still provide insight into the workings of our capitalist economy down to today.

First and foremost, Marx built upon the labor theory of value developed by classical political economy. The labor theory of value sees commodities, or goods and services produced for sale on markets, as having value based on the amount of socially necessary labor time needed to produce them. Marx added to this with his theory of surplus value, which explains that what workers sell to their bosses is not their labor, but their labor power, or ability to work. The value of labor power, seen as wages in the labor market, is based on the socially necessary labor time needed to produce and reproduce workers, or the cost of the goods and services that the workers and their families need to survive.

What is unique about labor power is that its use in production creates more value than it costs. The difference between value of the goods and services created by labor, and wages (the value of labor power) is surplus value. This surplus value goes to the employer, and is the source of profits. This is Marx’s theory of exploitation that can explain the economic hardships of millions of workers who are living paycheck to paycheck while a handful of billionaires who own the giant corporations get rich.

For example, Amazon made almost $2 billion in profit just in the last three months of 2017, while the typical Amazon worker only made $28,446 last year, and half of its workers made less than that. Companies that use a lot of part-time workers can pay even less; the median pay for a worker at Yum brands (which includes KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell) was only $9111. And companies that offshore their work can pay the least, with toy company Mattel paying their typical worker $6271 a year.

According to Marx’s collaborator, Frederick Engels:

“Ever since political economy put forward the proposition that labor is the source of all wealth and of all value, the question has become inevitable: How is this, then, to be reconciled with the fact that the wage-worker does not receive the whole sum of value created by his labor but has to surrender a part of it to the capitalist? Both the bourgeois economists and the socialists exerted themselves to give a scientifically valid answer to this question, but in vain, until at last Marx came forward with the solution. This solution is as follows: The present day capitalist mode of production presupposes the existence of two social classes -on the one hand, that of the capitalists, who are in possession of the means of production and subsistence, and, on the other hand, that of the proletarians, who, being excluded from this possession, have only a single commodity for sale, their labor power, and who therefore have to sell this labor power of theirs in order to obtain possession of means of subsistence. The value of a commodity is, however, determined by the socially necessary quantity of labor embodied in its production, and, therefore, also in its reproduction; the value of the labor power of an average human being during a day, month or year is determined, therefore, by the quantity of labor embodied in the quantity of means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of this labor power during a day, month or year.”

Engels continued:

“Thus the worker in the service of the capitalist not only reproduces the value of his labour power, for which he receives pay, but over and above that he also produces a surplus value which, appropriated in the first place by the capitalist, is in its further course divided according to definite economic laws among the whole capitalist class and forms the basic stock from which arise ground rent, profit, accumulation of capital, in short, all the wealth consumed or accumulated by the non-labouring classes.”

(Quotes from Frederick Engels, On Marx)

Marx also built upon classical political economy’s theories of competition. Adam Smith argued that competition among small businesses would make them provide what consumers wanted at low prices – the so-called “invisible hand.” Since competitive markets would be self-regulating, then there is no need for government regulation, leading to the economic policy of laissez-faire, which is the basis for deregulation of industry and free trade policies today. But the reality is that small businesses have been by and large replaced by giant corporations, which can cut costs, raise prices, and even cheat and manipulate their customers, as seen in the ongoing string of scandalous acts of financial and technology giants such as Wells Fargo bank and Facebook.

Marx recognized that a more fundamental role of competition was to force capitalists who exploit their workers to reinvest their profits into expanding their businesses. This accumulation of capital, as Marx called it, is behind the rapid economic growth under capitalism as comparative to previous economic systems, where hundreds of years could pass with little change in the ways people produce the goods and services they needed to live. But under capitalism the production process is constantly changing.

Hand in hand with the accumulation of capital came the constant development of new technologies: from the water and wind power of medieval times to first steam and then electric power, the development of electronic communications starting with the telegraph, then the telephone and radio, and now of course now the internet. The mechanization of agriculture, the application (and misuse) of science to boost food production – all of these driven by fight for ever larger profits.

The accumulation of capital is also behind the rise of giant corporations. This began in basic industry and transport such as iron and steel, oil, and railroads in the latter 1800s and led to the rise of their robber baron owners like Rockefeller and Carnegie. Today this has grown to include retail, restaurants, and the new information technology corporate giants of the internet. Much of the stock market is driven by the so-called FANG stocks of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google (now Alphabet) and a new group of today’s robber barons are centered around Silicon Valley.

Last, but not least, Marx was also the first major economist to develop a theory of the business cycle to explain the periodic ups and downs of a capitalist economy. Marx argued that workers are being exploited, that is, they are not paid for the full value that their labor adds to the production of goods and services, which limits their ability to purchase. At the same time, capitalist businesses take the profits from exploitation and reinvest them in expanding production, new techniques that lower the costs of production, and innovating new products, all of which expands their ability to produce. The contradiction, or conflict between restricting consumption while expanding production leads to periodic crisis of overproduction, or what modern economics calls a recession or depression.

This process can be held back by the capitalists lending more and more to their workers, which helps to keep their spending on the rise, but leading to workers going deeper and deeper into debt. At the same time, profits from exploitation can be diverted away from increasing production to lend to workers and to all forms of financial speculation. But this process just shifts the fundamental conflict into the financial realm, ultimately leading to unsustainable build-up in lending and debt and resulting in a financial crisis. We saw this in greatest financial crisis in U.S. history, in September of 2008, and the economic depression that followed.

Lenin summed these processes of accumulation of capital and economic crisis as:

“The doctrine of surplus-value is the corner-stone of Marx's economic theory.

Capital, created by the labour of the worker, crushes the worker, ruining small proprietors and creating an army of unemployed. In industry, the victory of large-scale production is immediately apparent, but the same phenomenon is also to be observed in agriculture, where the superiority of large-scale capitalist agriculture is enhanced, the use of machinery increases and the peasant economy, trapped by money-capital, declines and falls into ruin under the burden of its backward technique. The decline of small-scale production assumes different forms in agriculture, but the decline itself is an indisputable fact.

By destroying small-scale production, capital leads to an increase in productivity of labour and to the creation of a monopoly position for the associations of big capitalists. Production itself becomes more and more social — hundreds of thousands and millions of workers become bound together in a regular economic organism — but the product of this collective labour is appropriated by a handful of capitalists. Anarchy of production, crises, the furious chase after markets and the insecurity of existence of the mass of the population are intensified.” (Lenin, The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism)

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the corporate media has tried to bury Marxism as “dead.” But the economics of Marx (and his other ideas) continues. Marx’s main work on the economy, Capital, published in 1867, continues to be the most highly cited among books published before 1850. The reality of today’s world: the rising gap between the ultra-rich and everyone else, the growing debt and lack of opportunities for more and more young people, the massive financial crisis in 2008, the growing economic influence of socialist China; all point to a renewed interest in Marx’s critique of a capitalist economy.

While much of this is showing up in the rise of social-democracy in the U.S. – such as the Bernie Sanders campaign and the explosion in membership for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) – these are by and large non- (or in part anti-) Marxist trends of socialism. Activists for social change (including Sanders supporters and those in and around the DSA) need to, now more than ever, seriously study the work of Karl Marx. These include Marx’s view of the capitalist economy, on historical materialism (a scientific view of history and social change), and his views on the fight by oppressed nations and nationalities for liberation, including the U.S. Civil War.

But the development of Marxism did not end with Karl Marx or his life-long collaborator, Frederich Engels. While they laid down the foundations for both a scientific view of the economy, history and social change, and the role of nations and national minorities, as well as other issues, others have continued to develop their work. In particular the contributions of V.I. Lenin in the field of economics is often ignored. Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, analyzes the modern capitalist economy characterized by giant multinational corporations and a huge financial sector.

#UnitedStates #Capitalism #Socialism #KarlMarx

Houston, TX – During the last elections, Hillary Clinton, who used a sort of bourgeois ‘feminism’ to sell reactionary ideas to the public. Since then, there have been a number of films, such as Wonder Woman, that use images of powerful women to promote a pro-war capitalist agenda. Atomic Blonde is the latest of this genre, which stars Charlize Theron as a kind of female James Bond, who fights communist leaders in the German Democratic Republic, aka East Germany to help the British Intelligence and the CIA stage their famous 1989 coup d’état.

The film is set in 1989 in Berlin right before the counter-revolutionary coup against the socialist government of East Germany. The film reproduces a common theme of Cold War anti-communist propaganda, which makes communists look like impersonal monsters, while portraying the imperialists as heroic. Each communist in the film is portrayed as violent, monstrous and lacking in subjectivity, while the hero of the film, British intelligence agent Lorraine Broughton, is portrayed as clever and intelligent. The plot of the film is extremely simplistic, and is centered around her mission to retrieve a list, the details of which are never revealed. The film mobilizes some very aesthetically pleasant imagery and music to deaden our senses to anti-communist ideas that this film is promoting.

Throughout the film, we see agent Lorraine murdering communists, who are depicted as dangerous and beast-like. The film creates a one dimensional good guy/bad guy framework, where the imperialists are the good guys who help save Germany from communists, who are depicted as the bad people.

Atomic Blonde is full of stereotypes about socialism, and particularly East Germany. Although West and East Germany are geographically in the same climate, the West is always depicted as full of light and having a nice climate, while East Germany is depicted as dark and depressing. They don't show the homeless people in West Germany who died during cold winters as a result of capitalism, nor the well-fed people in East Germany who had free healthcare and universal education. Instead, the film depicts the socialist German Democratic Republic as a kind of hell, while depicting West Germany as 'free' and 'democratic.' We don't learn about the heroic anti-fascists in East Germany, and the post-socialist persecution of them. In short, there is no context that would allow the spectator to make a critical analysis of socialism in the German Democratic Republic, which was not a perfect society but most certainly not the type of hell depicted in Atomic Blonde.

The film is interlaced with bourgeois newsreels from that period, which show anti-communist protesters in both West and East Germany, with the commentators celebrating their 'resistance.' In Atomic Blonde, the British Intelligence agent Lorraine Broughton helps counter-revolutionaries to overthrow the socialist government of the German Democratic Republic. Having not grown up in that period, I was amazed at how similar this is with our current times, in which the capitalist-controlled media continually shows right-wing protesters in Venezuela who are trying to bring down the democratically elected government of Nicolas Madura.

The worst part about Atomic Blonde is that the film portrays a powerful, independent woman, but all her independence and power is bound up with her job as an agent of British intelligence. She is a female James Bond who can fight, but all the people she fights and kills are communists, who were working to create a society with women's liberation on its agenda. Indeed, the German Democratic Republic was a society where women held important positions in the government, and there was a strong climate in East Germany of fighting against sexism. Atomic Blonde is a film about a woman who does the job of the capitalists to fight against a society that made significant gains for women.

#HoustonTX #PeoplesStruggles #Movies #Capitalism #feminism

These tricks were thought to put off the debt limit crunch until the fall, but a drop in tax payments by the wealthy has brought the deadline forward. Ironically, it is Trump and the Republicans in Congress who are proposing big tax cuts for the rich that are leading the rich to hold off paying their taxes.

While Mnuchin has called for a ‘clean’ increase in the debt limit – that is one without attached conditions such as cutting funding for Planned Parenthood – Trump himself has not taken a clear position. Trump’s head of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, who is a former member of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, has refused to commit to a clean increase that could attract Democratic support.

The House Freedom Caucus and other republicans in congress have used the debt limit in the past to try to force spending cuts on social programs. They repeated this position this year, hoping to blackmail the government into spending cuts to avoid a default on debt payments.

As a congressman, Mulvaney even suggested that it would not be that bad if the U.S. did not raise the debt limit and defaulted on some of his debt payments. Trump himself, who has declared bankruptcy for his businesses many times, also suggested during his campaign for president that default would not be that bad and that he could negotiate lower payments from government bond owners.

On June 2, Mulvaney said that the government would faces “difficulties” if the debt limit were not increased but swore that there would be no default on debt payments. Unfortunately, this could only be done if the government put off paying its other obligations, of which Social Security and Medicare are among the biggest.

In response, Democrat and House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi did not commit to a clean increase, pointing out that increasing the debt limit could enable the Republicans to give huge tax cuts for the rich that would increase the deficit. In fact, the federal government debt has historically had three causes: First, shrunken tax revenues and increased safety-net spending because of a financial crisis, for example, after the depressions in 1929-1933 and then again from 2008-2009; second, increases in military spending and expensive wars in the 1980s under Reagan, and then again in the 2000s under President George W. Bush; and third, the big tax cuts for the rich in the 1980s and 2000s.

While many in Congress, including both Republicans and Democrats, have talked about cutting Social Security and Medicare to help reign in the federal debt, in fact Medicare has paid for itself and Social Security has run up almost $3 trillion in surplus over the last 30 years. The biggest danger to working people is not that the federal government would default on its debt and cause financial chaos throughout the capitalist world, but that a ‘bipartisan’ plan would trade off raising the debt limit (which Wall Street wants), with cutting Social Security and/or Medicare (which Wall Street also wants).

#SanJoséCA #US #PeoplesStruggles #Capitalism #UnitedStates #Socialism #Republicans #DonaldTrump #Default