San José, CA – U.S. stocks got a reality check on Monday, February 24, with the Dow falling more than 1000 points, or 3.5%. The NASDAQ index, with a heavy representation of technology company stocks, fell a bit more, while the broadest measure of the stock market, the S&P 500 fell a bit less.

Almost all the news blamed the spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19). While China’s firm measures, including locking down virtually the entire province of Hubei, appear to be taking effect as the number of infections seem to be leveling off. Hubei has a population of some 70 million and is where the epicenter of the virus is in the city of Wuhan.

While the U.S. corporate media have focused on criticizing China’s efforts to contain the coronavirus and its socialist system, capitalist countries, despite having clear warning, are seeing soaring cases. In south Korea (Republic of Korea), where there were only 28 reported infections on February 11, there are (at latest count) 833 confirmed cases. Italy has also seen a large increase in numbers. A week ago, Italy reported only three infections, and at latest count there are over 200.

The spread of the virus in South Korea, which is a major exporter of intermediate goods (manufactured goods that are used to make final products, such as parts for cell phones), and in northern Italy, which is near to the other largest EU economies of Germany and France, has increased fears of major economic disruption across the capitalist world.

But the fact of the matter is that across the capitalist world, major economies were already facing a sharp slowdown or even a contraction before the coronavirus hit. Hardest hit was Japan, which in the October to December 2019 quarter, saw a big drop, which if extended for a year, would come to 6%, more than the entire U.S. fall in the 2007-2009 recession. Major economies in Europe also saw a sharp slowdown (but not a contraction). The entire eurozone grew only 0.1% from October to December, which was less than one-half of one percent at an annual rate. The German economy didn’t grow at all, while the economies of France and Italy actually shrank.

Even in the United States more signs of economic weaknesses have showed up. A measure of economic activity in the services sector fell into contraction territory on Friday, with the Markit Purchasing Managers Index slowed to 49.4 (any measure below 50 shows a contraction). But up until Monday, U.S. stock largely shrugged off signs of economic weakness and powered to record highs.

#SanJoséCA #WallStreet #US #PeoplesStruggles #economy #stockMarket #DonaldTrump

San José, CA – On Friday, December 21, stock prices fell again, capping the worst week on Wall Street in ten years. Typically, stock prices go up in December, in what many call a “Santa Claus rally.” But not this year. The NASDAQ stock index, which includes many big technology companies, fell 3%, to end 22% below its August high, putting it in bear market territory for only the second time in the last 20 years. The NASDAQ joined the Russell 2000, a stock index of smaller corporations, which went into bear territory earlier in the week. The headline Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) of 30 large companies, and the broader S&P 500 of 500 major corporations also declined to levels just short of a bear market.

With the holiday mood spoiled for many investors, the search for the Grinch who spoiled the ten-year party on Wall Street heated up. For President Trump, the Grinch was Jerome Powell, chair of Federal Reserve Bank (or Fed), the U.S. central bank. On Wednesday, December 19, the Fed Open Market Committee (FOMC), which sets interest rates, raised the target for short-term interest rates by a quarter of one percent (0.25%). At the same time, he said that the Fed would continue to allow its almost $4 trillion holdings of U.S. government and mortgage-backed bonds to shrink as the bonds mature and are paid off. This puts upward pressure on long-term interest rates.

But this is actually the ninth time that the Fed has raised interest rates over the last three years, and none of the increases spooked the stock market. The target range for short-term interest rates is now 2.25 to 2.5%, which is still low by any historical standards. In the last two periods where the Fed was raising interest rates, they peaked at 6.5% and 5.25%, more than twice today’s level. The Fed is only allowing about $30 billion in bonds to mature each month, or less than 1% of their total stash. In contrast, the federal government budget deficit means that the government is selling more than $70 billion in new bonds each month to pay for last year’s corporate tax cuts, among others.

For the Democrats, the Grinch is Trump himself. Some of the blame for Friday’s drop in the stock market was the impending partial shutdown of the federal government, caused by Trump’s demand for $5 billion for his border wall. Trump’s trade tariffs have also taken some of the blame. While they have increased profits for a few companies such as steel producers in the United States, they have increased costs for many more as the tariffs have mainly fallen on so-called ‘intermediate goods’ that U.S. businesses use to make goods here. Other businesses have suffered from the retaliatory tariffs that other countries have slapped on U.S. goods to fight back against the Trump tariffs.

But this is actually the third partial federal government this year, and the first two didn’t cause the stock market to slump. Trump’s tariffs have also been building for a while, starting in early 2017, almost two years ago. So as much as I dislike President Trump and his policies, especially on immigration, it is not fair to use him as a scapegoat for everything bad that happens.

The big problem is that there are more and more signs that the economy is weakening, and another recession is looming. In a recent survey, half of all CFOs (Chief Financial Officers) thought that a recession would start next year. In contrast to stock advisors, whose job it is to sell stocks, the corporate CEO’s, who are often chief of public relations and who job is to increase the price of their company’s stock, which is not going to happen if they go around predicting a recession. Recessions are a regular feature of capitalism. On average, a recession happens about every five years, and the last recession ended a bit more than nine years ago.

Not convinced? Check out my next article…

Masao Suzuki is Professor of Economics at Skyline College

#SanJoséCA #WallStreet #PeoplesStruggles

San José, CA – On Monday, November 26, General Motors announced that it was cutting 15,000 jobs. Their plans include closing five auto and auto parts plants in the United States and Canada. Wall Street liked the news, and GM’s stock rose almost 5%, three times as much as the broader stock market. But for thousands of GM workers, the holidays suddenly became much bleaker.

General Motors is not losing money as it was ten years ago, when it was bailed out by the U.S. government. The GM bailout cost U.S. taxpayers about $9 billion. In the last quarter (July to September), GM’s North American operations made more than $2.8 billion, 37% more than a year ago. But these profits are not enough, and the job cuts will save GM billions of dollars in the future.

GM said that the reason was slow car sales for three brands that is phasing out: Cruze, Volt and Impala. Fiat-Chrysler, Ford, and now General Motors are all phasing out their production of cars to focus on more profitable SUVs and pick-up trucks. The so-called Detroit “Big Three” are leaving the car market to imports and to foreign auto-makers that have set up plants in the United States.

These automotive job cuts are another sign of a slowing economy. The housing market is struggling with higher interest rates. Falling oil prices point towards fewer jobs and less investment in the growing production of U.S. oil. Economic growth is slowing in much of the world, with the economies of Germany and Japan actually shrinking in the July to September quarter. Last but not least, recent jitters in the U.S. stock market a showing growing doubts about the future of the economy.

#SanJoséCA #CapitalismAndEconomy #Layoffs #WallStreet #PeoplesStruggles #GeneralMotors

All roads lead to Wall Street. Both predatory lending and closings of public schools are due to Wall Street’s plunder of every human need in order to seize money for its profits.

Both predatory lending and school closings are particularly aimed at communities of people of color. Essex County, New Jersey, in which the cities of Newark and Irvington are located, has the highest foreclosure rate of any county in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut region. Irvington and Newark are among the hardest hit in Essex. Both have high concentrations of Black and Latino people. Also, more than 20 Newark schools have been closed in the last three years. All but one are in areas that serve African American neighborhoods.

Also, combined struggles on more than one front strengthen every area of the people’s struggle for economic justice. The battles for a real national health care system for all, a good quality public school education for all, full employment in good-paying jobs, and others, are closely linked.

For several years there has been a huge uproar in Newark against school closings. Thousands have turned out at public meetings to oppose the actions of the dictatorial Trenton-imposed administration.

Annette Alston of the Newark Teachers’ Association said students find themselves suddenly forced to attend charter schools far from where they live. There is a new teachers’ evaluation rubric that is either not understood by administrators or abused by them. Teachers are forced out of their jobs and careers for no good reason. A recent study found charter schools in Newark outperform public schools. However, the study did not take into account that charter schools select students from households with high parental involvement; they expel others they do not want, and so forth. It is only being done to save money on public schools. Years ago women were attacked for being witches, she said. Now teachers, who are mostly women, are being attacked. It also appears that a large proportion of affected teachers are black.

Kathleen Witcher of the Irvington NAACP, and a retired educator, gave an evaluation of charter schools based on her family’s experience. Her children went through Newark public schools and went to colleges like Stanford, Rutgers, and USC; one has a PhD. She has grandnieces in charter schools. Her monitoring turned up things she called horrendous. Students are not taught mathematics from axioms but from ditto sheets – just plug in the numbers and keep going. A grandniece won a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school but couldn’t write essays because they had not been taught in charter school. Meanwhile the state of New Jersey is being allowed to shortchange public schools.

Sharon Smith of Parents Unified for Local School Education (PULSE) quoted Dr. Martin Luther King who spoke of people who sleep through a revolution. She said we are in a revolution now and must find new responses. Public schools are destroyed by the lack of resources while charter schools get all the latest equipment, for instance. On Jan. 9, people from 18 cities concerned with a “new mode of education that is destroying our children” went to Washington to meet with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

There is no sustainable, positive change coming from charter schools. It all stems from Wall Street demands for profits. The group filed a Title 6 complaint (civil rights violation) against school closings. The group won a federally-supported grass roots tour of affected school districts and a federal hearing on school closings. Also, six schools in Newark named for closing remain open.

Still there is no new investment in affected school districts, with wholesale firing of teachers. Potentially 185,000 students are in danger of having their schools closed. PULSE is planning a “Journey for Justice” to keep schools open.

The evening was a definite step toward building a broad front of unity in the people's struggle for economic justice. The linkage of issues went a long way toward showing the problem is capitalism itself.

#IrvingtonNJ #PoorPeoplesMovements #WallStreet #EducationRights #Capitalism #PublicSchools #CoalitionToSaveOurHomes #HomeForeclosures

• People who have already lost their homes would supposedly be compensated $3.75 billion. It might sound like a lot but it is peanuts. If the banks really had to pay up for predatory lending, about $1 trillion in homeowner compensation would be a good start.

• In return for this puny cost-of-doing-business expense, the government will end efforts to hold lenders responsible for paperwork abuses like improper accounting of payments and excessive fees.

• The money would go to reduce payments for people who could then stay in their homes. That is, banks will reduce a few mortgages and avoid foreclosure losses. It is a write-off of money the banks would lose anyway. This way the banks get to keep something. The ‘settlement’ is only the latest bank bailout in disguise.

• The ‘settlement’ will end a review of 4 million mortgages ordered in 2011 by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a division of the Treasury Department. The banks paid the expenses of the review, which meant they could do things their own way. Now the review is ending because the banks say it is too expensive.

The lesson, as so many times before, is that distressed homeowners must join together to find their own solutions. They must end their personal isolation. The Coalition to Save Our Homes, the People’s Organization for Progress, and many other community and labor organizations have worked with distressed homeowners. We have marched and protested at bank locations, exposing the real culprits in the mortgage bubble. We demand a hearing for homeowners by the New Jersey Attorney General. We demand a federal criminal investigation of Wall Street's wrongdoing in the mortgage bubble.

Last year many people banded together and stopped a foreclosure eviction in Orange of Susie Johnson, forcing mighty JP Morgan Chase to admit it held no financial interest in her home. We recently brought a strong turnout to a New Jersey Appeals Court hearing of a case that highlights everything that is wrong with the judicial process in foreclosure.

United struggle is the right path for distressed homeowners to follow, not dependence on treacherous government programs. The power of the people is not just a fine-sounding ideal. It is a real force in the world, the only one the vast majority of the people can depend on.

#NewarkNJ #WallStreet #HousingStruggles #bankBailout #CoalitionToSaveOurHomes #HomeForeclosures

Newark, NJ – A protest against predatory lending took place here, Sept. 15, at the Broad Street branch of Wells Fargo Bank. It was the joint effort of the People’s Organization for Progress (POP) and the Coalition to Save Our Homes (C2SOH).

Demands included immediate mortgage reduction, an end to foreclosure by banks that do not own the mortgage, and a five-year moratorium on foreclosures. The overall demand was to end Wall Street’s lawless reign of financial terror and make banks obey the law.

Many speakers, including distressed homeowners, took turns on the bullhorn to denounce predatory lending. The Newark area is hard hit by the depression. There are many issues. Foreclosure and homelessness are epidemic. Community violence claims lives every few days. The public schools are being closed and privatized in the areas where black people live. Mayor Cory Booker, a ‘rising star’ of the Democratic Party, is trying to sell off and privatize the city water system against intense community resistance.

Many protesters spoke on the bullhorn. Housing is a human right! There should be no poverty at all in the United States. Everyone should have a nice place to live. No one should ever have to worry about where their next meal is coming from. The problem is that capital’s need for profit eats up every human need.The government must take action against predatory lenders.

Protesters mingled with passersby throughout the event. A couple of people took POP and C2SOH literature and passed it out. Several distressed homeowners were given self-help information and were told about C2SOH. People raised their hands in solidarity. It became clear that everybody hates Wall Street, homeowner or not.

A key demand that was voiced at the protest is that special prosecutors be appointed at federal and state levels to investigate civil and criminal wrongdoing by financial corporations. There has been vast financial misconduct, much of it criminal, as well as predatory lending. The economy is in depression. Financial chaos is everywhere. Yet no one has been investigated, no one has been prosecuted and no one has gone to jail for all the harm that has been done. Regulators do nothing, Congress does nothing.

It is time to appoint special prosecutors to get the job done. It is important to clear up what happened to those millions of ‘missing’ mortgage promissory notes. We do not believe the usual excuses about ‘slicing and dicing’ in financial trading. The banks are hiding something. Let prosecutors investigate and find out. Let the chips fall where they may. As protesters chanted, the banks are “Not too big to fail, not too big to jail.”

#NewarkNJ #WallStreet #HousingStruggles #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress #CoalitionToSaveOurHomes #HomeForeclosures

San Francisco, CA – While millions of retired Americans are struggling to make ends meet and millions more working people who have been laid off don’t know how or if they can ever afford to retire, laid-off corporate executives are living in another world. Take General Electric Vice-Chairman John Krenicki, who is 50 years old and retiring at the end of 2012 because of GE’s restructuring plans. GE will be paying him $89,000 a month for the next ten years (about a million dollars a year, or $10 million total), after which he can receive GE’s executive pension. In addition, Krenicki is getting stock options and stock valued at almost $15 million, and a bonus of almost $3 million, for a total golden parachute worth almost $28 million. In exchange, Krenicki promised GE that he wouldn’t work for a competitor for three years.

While the right wing demonizes mothers and children who are struggling to make ends meet on $150 per month per person (the average benefit for Temporary Aid to Needy Family or TANF, widely known as welfare), corporate executives are literally being paid millions not to work.

But of course Krenicki is not even the worst offender. Take a look at Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Romney has released one year of tax returns which show that he has $100 million in an IRA (Individual Retirement Account). Now, how he was able to amass $100 million when the yearly limit is $5000 and Romney is 65 years old, we don’t know. We do know that three-quarters of working age adults don’t have an IRA at all and that the typical person with an IRA has only $25,000 in the account, or 1/40 of 1% of what Mitt Romney has.

In addition to his IRA, Romney has another $100 million (or more) in personal wealth and perhaps another $100 million in trust for his children. While his own retirement is more than secure (we would call it lavish), Romney is proposing to cut Social Security, either by limiting inflation protection, by raising the retirement age even more (it is already going up from age 65 to 67), or by replacing Social Security with individual investment accounts. Romney opposes raising the cap on Social Security taxes, which right now doesn’t tax any wages or salary above $110,100, and all investment income is not taxed either!

If you have had enough of the likes of John Krenicki and Mitt Romney getting more while the rest of us get less, join the protest at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida August 27-30. For more information, go to marchonthernc.com.

#SanFranciscoCA #WallStreet #welfare #Capitalism #corporateProfits #RNC2012

San Francisco, CA – While millions of retired Americans are struggling to make ends meet and millions more working people who have been laid off don’t know how or if they can ever afford to retire, laid-off corporate executives are living in another world. Take General Electric Vice-Chairman John Krenicki, who is 50 years old and retiring at the end of 2012 because of GE’s restructuring plans. GE will be paying him $89,000 a month for the next ten years (about a million dollars a year, or $10 million total), after which he can receive GE’s executive pension. In addition, Krenicki is getting stock options and stock valued at almost $15 million, and a bonus of almost $3 million, for a total golden parachute worth almost $28 million. In exchange, Krenicki promised GE that he wouldn’t work for a competitor for three years.

While the right wing demonizes mothers and children who are struggling to make ends meet on $150 per month per person (the average benefit for Temporary Aid to Needy Family or TANF, widely known as welfare), corporate executives are literally being paid millions not to work.

But of course Krenicki is not even the worst offender. Take a look at Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Romney has released one year of tax returns which show that he has $100 million in an IRA (Individual Retirement Account). Now, how he was able to amass $100 million when the yearly limit is $5000 and Romney is 65 years old, we don’t know. We do know that three-quarters of working age adults don’t have an IRA at all and that the typical person with an IRA has only $25,000 in the account, or 1/40 of 1% of what Mitt Romney has.

In addition to his IRA, Romney has another $100 million (or more) in personal wealth and perhaps another $100 million in trust for his children. While his own retirement is more than secure (we would call it lavish), Romney is proposing to cut Social Security, either by limiting inflation protection, by raising the retirement age even more (it is already going up from age 65 to 67), or by replacing Social Security with individual investment accounts. Romney opposes raising the cap on Social Security taxes, which right now doesn’t tax any wages or salary above $110,100, and all investment income is not taxed either!

If you have had enough of the likes of John Krenicki and Mitt Romney getting more while the rest of us get less, join the protest at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida August 27-30. For more information, go to marchonthernc.com.

#CapitalismAndEconomy #WallStreet #welfare #corporateProfits

Irvington, NJ – A march and rally against foreclosures was held here on July 21. It was sponsored by the Coalition to Save Our Homes and the People’s Organization for Progress (POP). The event tied the suffering of homeowners directly to the predation of Wall Street. The demands were: end robo-signing; reduce mortgage principals to current value; prosecute banksters; make banks obey the rule of law.

Speakers denounced the banks for causing the mortgage crisis. Sharon Hand of POP and Carol Gay of the Solidarity Singers condemned lenders for issuing mortgages that they knew homeowners could not repay. They said the banks’ actions were violations of human rights. The affected homeowners must take action to prevent foreclosure, including demands on public officials to meet their responsibilities to citizens.

Another speaker said all issues of people’s economic justice trace directly to Wall Street. The main way the financial sector makes money now is by fraud, theft, embezzlement and gambling. JPMorgan Chase dropped $7 billion at the tables of the Wall Street big casino and nearly triggered another 2008-style financial collapse. Meanwhile young people in the cities are killing each other in the streets because they don’t have jobs and are desperate. They need to stop fighting each other and fight their real enemies.

Susan Newton of POP, who has worked as a mortgage underwriter, gave practical advice. She said if you need credit, always talk to several lenders. Remember the banks are not interested in your needs; instead they are looking out for ways to make money from you.

The Solidarity Singers performed several songs during the program, including Tom Bias’s anthem, Foreclosure Song. Bias also related how the banks had worked him and his family over in their struggle to avoid foreclosure.

The Black Orchid Drummers performed at the end of the rally. The gathering headed off to march through Irvington’s business district. The town authorities had denied a permit to march in the street, first on one pretext, then on another. We marched on the sidewalks anyway and it worked to our advantage. Passersby raised fists, shook hands and called out in agreement, and took informational fliers. Some defied the permit denial and marched in the street.

The protest proceeded to the local branch of Wells Fargo to “pay a visit.” The marchers chanted “You can’t rob the bank, but the bank can rob you!” and “Banksters: Not too big to fail, not too big to jail!” The Black Orchid Drummers played throughout the march, pulling people out of shops and stores. The community was with us.

Marchers headed back down to Civic Square and heard from POP Chairmen Lawrence Hamm. He said that the way banks raised mortgage payments amounts to stealing. Monthly payments are increased by thousands of dollars per month and homeowners simply cannot pay that much. He emphasized that Black people lost more personal wealth in the mortgage collapse than at any time since the Civil War. Bankers never think about the suffering they cause because the problems never affect them that way. He congratulated all the participants for holding a great event, and said we will continue to build a powerful movement against foreclosure.

To conclude the day, it was said that we will continue the local struggle and the focus on distressed homeowners. The longer term strategy is to look closely into the millions of ‘missing’ mortgage promissory notes that give rise to the robo-signing abuses. There was massive financial wrongdoing by the banks in the issuance of mortgage based securities. When we know what happened to all those notes we will know will where the bodies are buried in the mortgage mess. Then we will be able to lay the struggle of the homeowner right at the doorstep of Wall Street.

#IrvingtonNJ #WallStreet #Foreclosures #HousingStruggles #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress #CoalitionToSaveOurHome

Director Chris Nolan calls it a “revolutionary epic.” I’d call it a counter-revolutionary blockbuster.

First, let’s get the obvious out of the way: The Dark Knight Rises is an outstanding film visually, and it’s scintillating to watch on the big screen. Christopher Nolan did not disappoint in delivering an action-packed superhero tour-de-force like the previous two Batman films. He tied the first two installments together to complete a complex and compelling story. And most impressive of all, in my opinion, series-newcomer Anne Hathaway’s role as Catwoman is one of the best performances of the year.

But when I left The Dark Knight Rises at nearly 3:00 a.m. on its opening night, my opinion of the film was decidedly more mixed than my reaction to The Dark Knight four years ago. Sure, after you cut through Heath Ledger’s incredible performance and the mind-blowing special effects, The Dark Knight was an insidious defense of the Bush administration’s war on terror, interestingly timed right before the 2008 election. However, I didn’t pick up on Nolan’s profoundly reactionary worldview when I saw that second Batman film in the summer between high school and college. This time around – after four years of activism, witnessing the rise of both the Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party movements and seeing the widespread disappointment with President Obama – I couldn’t think of much else.

In The Dark Knight [2008], Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), part-time CEO and full-time vigilante, faces off against a villain so one-dimensional and disturbing he could have starred on a Dateline NBC crime special. Heath Ledger’s brilliant performance as the Joker overshadowed how closely his character mirrored the classic image of terrorists painted by the Bush administration for eight years (“Some men just want to watch the world burn”), with no discernible reasons or motivations for their actions. To protect us from the Joker, Batman takes it on himself to begin torturing prisoners, wiretapping civilians’ cell phones, and lying to the people of Gotham, all ‘for their protection.’ When Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhardt), the tough-on-crime district attorney, becomes a madman and starts offing citizens, Batman subdues him and colludes with Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) to take the fall for Dent’s crimes. We are told in the first scene of Nolan’s new film that this lie allowed Gotham to pass the Harvey Dent Act, which reduced crime by simultaneously reducing civil liberties. Sounds like a fair trade, right Mr. Bush?

The Dark Knight Rises starts eight years later. Wayne is older, partially crippled and reclusive, having retired from the outside world after the death of his childhood love, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) in the last movie. Bane (Tom Hardy), a muscular insurrectionist clad in a bulletproof vest and a breathing mask lifted from the Predator movies, shows up in Gotham to bring down the city with a nuclear bomb. By the time Bane gets around to breaking Batman’s back and explaining his master plan – trick the people of Gotham into revolution and then exterminate them – one has to think, “Wait, what?”

It didn’t surprise me that Nolan created a film about class warfare, especially given the times we live in. What surprised me was the side he decided to take. The Dark Knight Rises is a film extolling the virtues of the 1% that tries to explain why working people can’t run society and why a fascist police state is actually a good idea.

In The Dark Knight Rises, the rich have it just as bad as, if not worse, than the rest of us. They lose their entire corporate fortunes – inherited, in the case of Bruce Wayne, or stolen from an unnamed West African country in the case of corporate rival Daggert – to terrorist raids on the stock exchange. They have their homes burglarized by the 99%, first by maids and later by angry anonymous mobs. They lose their cleaning staff and butlers, forcing them to (gasp!) open the front door themselves. The power company even turns off their electricity. Forget flying billionaires dressed as bats; this is the most unrealistic part of the movie.

In an early scene featuring Bane taking the entire Gotham Stock Exchange hostage, a CEO stands nervously outside pressuring the police to breach the door and secure the premises. “It’s not just my money,” he complains. “It’s everyone’s money!” A skeptical police officer tells him he keeps his money under a mattress at home, to which the CEO replies – and I paraphrase – If we don’t stop them, your money under that mattress will be worth a lot less.

Here’s a film so blissfully out of touch with the lives of working Americans that it actually tries to make the argument that poor people should be concerned about the fortunes of Wall Street bankers. Nowhere in this film – or any of Nolan’s films, for that matter – is there any attempt to look at the social roots of crime. What about Wayne Enterprises’ bad investment decisions that cost workers their jobs or pensions? Zilch. How about the jobs lost from corporate outsourcing to neo-colonies in West Africa, explicitly referenced by one CEO in the film? Eh, whatever. What about the steady decline of wages that corporations like Bruce Wayne’s have encouraged for the past three decades? Forget about it! Frankly, Nolan should have directed Romney’s campaign commercials. The former governor certainly has the budget for it in the wake of Citizens United!

The Dark Knight Rises is Hollywood’s rebuke of the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the growing discontent with the market system increasingly felt by working Americans. In Nolan’s universe, there’s no difference between protest and terrorism. Ironically, in a world of Obama’s ‘kill list’ and the National Defense Authorization Act, this may be the most realistic aspect of his film.

The masses have no will of their own in Nolan’s series. They are an object to either be manipulated by Bane or saved by Batman. Outlandish scenes of the impoverished masses of Gotham vandalizing mansions and beating up rich people for seemingly no reason reflects the Burkean worldview that informed the founding fathers, the corporate leaders of today and indeed Nolan himself. In the film, the people hold haphazard ‘sentencing tribunals’ with no due process for the wealthy, resulting in sentences of ‘exile’ or ‘death by exile.’ It’s the German Peasant Revolt. It’s the Paris Commune. It’s Occupy Wall Street. It’s every popular movement in history that has ever challenged the will of the ruling class.

Much has been said about the coincidence between the villain’s name, Bane, and the financial management company owned and operated by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Bain Capital. In truth, The Dark Knight Rises more closely reflects Romney’s worldview than that of progressives. In a pivotal scene, Bane confesses to an injured Bruce Wayne that he only intends to ‘inspire hope’ to placate the people while he prepares to exterminate them all. By the time Bane cynically talks about ‘hope’ for the third time, I began wondering if Nolan was giving us a window into the worldview of the world’s most obnoxious, Kool-Aid-drinking, Tea Party scrub – a foreign, charismatic leader promises change to the people while secretly conspiring to destroy them all from within. Bane is a terrorist, not a revolutionary, but Nolan never seems to distinguish between the two.

The film couldn’t be any clearer with its worldview. The main villain is a charismatic atheisto-jihadist from a former Soviet Republic. His army of ‘terrorists’ are cement-layers, linemen, bridge operators, service employees; in other words, working-class people. His reserve troops are freed prison inmates, many who undoubtedly were only serving sentences because of the Big Brother-provisions of the Harvey Dent Act. His shock troops are the unwashed masses of Gotham, who are too busy engaging in wanton acts of anarchic violence and vandalism to realize that they were duped by Bane. By the time la revolucion starts up in the film’s third act, it’s impossible to distinguish between Bane’s League of Shadows cadre, the prisoners they freed from Gotham’s prison and ordinary working people in Gotham caught up in the uprising.

On the other hand, we have a slate of heroes straight out of a Glenn Beck novel: an eccentric billionaire recluse who becomes a vigilante to save the wayward people of Gotham from themselves; a police commissioner who lies to the people to preserve ‘order’; a petty cat-burglar who only becomes a hero by renouncing class warfare and hooking up with the lead male; and an incorruptible rookie cop whose Boy Scout-demeanor would make Captain America blush. Bane may have a mob army, but Batman has an army of cops, who march into battle to put down the malevolent…people of Gotham?

In the same year of Trayvon Martin’s shooting by a self-appointed vigilante, the ensuing police cover-up and countless instances of police brutality taking place every day, The Dark Knight Rises’ glorification of police militarism seems bizarre, if not sinister. Similarly, Nolan’s final Batman film and its condemnation of mass political action comes amidst mass uprisings across the Arab world, Europe, Latin America, Africa and even the United States. Maybe Nolan had an agenda, or maybe he didn’t. The point is that a film as anticipated and publicized as The Dark Knight Rises pushes a very particular world view at odds with working Americans and oppressed people.

The message of The Dark Knight Rises is clear: Today’s discontent underclasses are tomorrow’s insurgent army, and all it takes is one charismatic leader to dupe the masses into suicide and destruction. The people need to be ruled by a powerful class of benevolent one-percenters. Lying and violating constitutional rights to ‘clean up the streets’ is generally justifiable. And above all else, never let the people take power.

Even as an activist, you can enjoy The Dark Knight Rises as a film. I certainly did. It’s important, though, that any and every activist combats the worldview and message put forward by Nolan, which itself reflects the larger trend of criminalizing dissent and protest in this country. All too often, protesters are portrayed in the media as parasites, criminals, degenerates, or terrorists for raising serious concerns about inequalities and injustices in our society.

I left the film last night satisfied as a movie-goer and more riled up than ever to fight the criminalization of protest and dissent in this country. Nolan’s film made me remember the words of a famous revolutionary: “It is right to rebel.”

Indeed it is.

#UnitedStates #WallStreet #Movies #Batman #counterrevolution #propaganda

The U.S. economy is showing signs of stagnation – that is, slow economic growth combined with ongoing high unemployment – ever since the financial crisis and deep recession in 2008-2009. When economic stagnation first showed up in Europe in the 1980s, mainstream U.S. economists blamed the European social democratic policies of high taxation and extensive social welfare programs like universal health care. Then economic stagnation spread to Japan in the 1990s and again mainstream U.S. economists blamed the Japanese government policy of supporting certain industries.

Now the third center of world capitalism, the United States, has joined Europe and Japan. With unemployment still more than 8% almost three years after the official end of the recession, it would take about six more years at the current rate of job growth just to gain back the jobs lost during the last downturn. The U.S. economy has followed a much more free-market approach of deregulation of industry, cuts in social welfare programs and attacks on unions since the 1980s. But Wall Street bankers, freed from regulations dating back the Great Depression, let their greed run amuck, leading to a boom and then bust in the housing markets that ultimately led the biggest financial crisis in the United States since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In a capitalist economy production of goods and services is done to make a profit. This drive for profits leads businesses to pay their workers less than the value of what the workers’ labor creates, which is what Karl Marx referred to as exploitation. This can be seen today in the United States as the purchasing power of wages has been flat while the value of what an average worker produces has been rising. This has led to record corporate profits, while more and more working people are living paycheck to paycheck and sinking into poverty.

At the same time, competition among businesses leads them to reinvest most of these profits into expanding their businesses and introducing new technology. This is what Marx called the accumulation of capital, which leads to the ability to produce more and more goods and services. But this ability to produce more comes into conflict with the fact that exploitation limits the ability of workers (who make up 90% of the population in the United States) to buy the goods and services that they have produced. The result is crisis of overproduction, or what are called recessions today.

During a recession, goods and services go unsold – not because they are not needed or desired, but because they cannot be sold at a profit. The most glaring example today is in the housing market, where there are a record number of homes standing empty at the same time as there are record numbers of homeless (counting not just those on the street, but including people living in cars and staying at friends and relatives).

This can explain the regular pattern of alternating periods of economic growth and recession, or what is called the business cycle. Here in the United States there have been 33 such cycles over the last 200 years.

For more than a hundred years, huge corporations have developed in more and more types of businesses, so that a small handful, or even just one, giant corporation can dominate an entire industry. What Marx called the concentration and centralization of capital can be seen in the recent takeover of more and more types of retail businesses such as office supply, bookstores and hardware stores by two or three companies.

These giant corporations can cut back on production to limit overproduction, but then end up with overcapacity, or the ability to produce more than they can produce and sell on the market for a profit. This overcapacity can be seen in many industries: car makers can produce more cars than can be sold, steel producers can produce more steel than there is a market for, etc.

With the ability to produce more than what can be sold, corporations are sitting on literally trillions of dollars of profits that are not being spent to expand business. This is what leads to stagnation: the lack of reinvestment of profits means slower economic growth and fewer jobs, i.e. the economic stagnation that we see today.

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats offer a real solution to the economic woes for working people. The Republicans want to increase corporate profits by increasing the exploitation of workers using the methods of cutting pensions, smashing unions, limiting health care benefits and cutting unemployment insurance and other social safety net programs. In addition the Republicans would cut taxes and regulation on business to make them even more profitable. But this would only increase the contradiction between the limited purchasing power of workers and the ability of corporations to produce more, leading to another crisis of overproduction.

The Democrats would prefer to use the government to increase corporate profits through subsidies and loans for selective industries with new technology (like electric batteries and solar panels) or the health insurance industry (with the health care reform law). While the Democrats talk about helping out working people with cuts in payroll taxes and extending unemployment insurance, their support for balancing the budget will lead to more austerity: higher taxes and cuts to social programs, including the two biggest, Medicare and Social Security.

Only a socialist economy, where production is aimed at peoples’ needs, not for profit, can overcome the cycle of boom and bust and the economic stagnation that we face today. A socialist economy, with government and collective ownership of the means of production (and not just the extensive social welfare programs as seen in Europe), cannot be won at the ballot box, since both major parties are in favor of the 1% that benefits from capitalism. Only mass struggle can bring about the fundamental economic change that will benefit working people.

#UnitedStates #WallStreet #Socialism #crisisOfCapitalism #recession #Capitalism #republicanParty #democratParty

Minneapolis, MN – With the theme of “People before profits” and inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York, a similar occupation will start on Friday, Oct. 7 at 9:00 a.m. in Minneapolis. The Minneapolis occupation will be at Government Plaza (300 South 6th Street, downtown Minneapolis). The Occupy MN movement has already renamed it “People’s Plaza.” This is one of many ongoing occupations that have sprung up around the country since the Wall Street occupation began on Sept. 17.

Brad Sigal, an activist with MIRAc and the Minnesota Coalition for a People’s Bailout is supporting the OccupyMN movement. He said, “OccupyMN’s message of ‘people before profits’ is on target. People can see that the big corporations and the rich really have all the power in this country, while working and poor people are ignored by the government. We’ve faced years of unending economic crisis, budget cuts, unemployment, foreclosures, growing debt and endless wars. Now is the time to join together, stand up and say enough is enough. People should come join and support the occupation.”

Kim DeFranco, a member of the Welfare Rights Committee, is also supporting OccupyMN. She said, “Year after year the politicians at the capitol cut welfare and attack any program that benefits the poor. The politicians just do what the banks and the rich tell them to do. We’re coming together with others in OccupyMN to stop that. We demand that the rich pay for the economic crisis, not the rest of us.”

For more information and updates on OccupyMN, check occupymn.org

#MinneapolisMN #CapitalismAndEconomy #EconomicCrisis #WallStreet #OccupyWallStreet #OccupyMN

On June 19th the *Washington Post* published “With Executive Pay, Rich Pull Away from Rest of America” by Peter Whoriskey. This very informative article connected the rise in corporate executive’s pay with the growing economic inequality in the United States, using the example of a large U.S. dairy company combined with recent research by economists on high incomes. At the same time the article only offered very vague explanations for *why* the rich are winning out at the expense of almost everyone else.

Based on a recent study of tax returns, the top one-tenth of one percent (0.1%), or 152,000 income earners, now make over 10% of all income, the highest level since the 1920s. While income for this group has gone up more than four times (385%) between 1970 and 2008, the income of the bottom 90% of the population has actually *fallen* 1% (both figures take inflation into account). The economists’ study was also able to point out *who* these rich are: 60% are corporate executives, managers and highly paid financial professionals.

The article offered the explanation of supporters of growing executive pay, who say that today’s corporations are much larger and more complex – in other words, the CEOs deserve their massive paychecks. The only other view that the article offered was that “social norms” have changed.

While it is no doubt true that a culture of greed has been spread by Wall Street and the corporate media, there are very clear political and economic changes that are behind the increase in economic inequality. The two most important, in my opinion, has been the growing movement of capital from the midwest and northeast to first the south and southwest in the United States, and then to Third World countries, all in search of lower wages and less regulation. The second is the decline in union membership and the even larger drop in mass strikes by workers.

Starting in the 1970s, there was a movement of businesses from the more unionized, higher wage midwest and northeast, to the largely non-union, low-wage areas of the U.S. south and southwest. This so-called Sunbelt Strategy can be seen in the shift in auto production from the midwest to the south.

By the 1980s, under the guise of ‘free trade,’ U.S. corporations more and more shifted their production to Third World countries where wages were even lower than the U.S. south or southwest. This so-called ‘globalization’ continues to this day, as big U.S. companies have shed about 4 million jobs in the United States but created more than 3 million in other countries over the last ten years. For example, General Electric (which by the way paid no taxes on their almost $15 billion of corporate profits last year), cut almost 16% of their workers in the United States will expand their workforce in other countries by 1.3%.

The result has been lower wages for workers in the United States, as the jobs are created in low-wage areas or industries and higher paid jobs are lost. But even workers whose companies stay put see the wages stagnate under pressure from the growing number of unemployed and the companies’ threats to shut down and move their jobs.

This first trend, capital mobility (and running over the worker, so to speak), is closely related to the second trend of de-unionization. Companies are continuing to move to less or non-union areas, as seen in the struggle of unionized Boeing workers in the state of Washington to block the company’s shift of work to non-union South Carolina.

At the same time the turn to the right in national politics with the Reagan administration had a clear anti-union policy. President Reagan’s breaking of the airport flight controller’s union, PATCO, in 1981, ushered in an era of declining union membership and mass strikes. As union membership fell from about 25% in 1979 to less than half that (11.9%) in 2010, workers lost their bargaining power and wages and benefits have suffered.

Today the last bastion of union membership is among public sector workers, where more than 36% are union members, as compared to less than 7% for private sector workers. Now these unions and the benefits that they have won, especially retirement security, are under attack by the right-wing in Wisconsin and other states. Instead of going after the fat-cat CEOs and Wall Street tycoons, the corporate dominated media, led by the notorious Fox media conglomerate, is attacking this last large group of unionized workers.

A capitalist economy leads to economic inequality, especially between the 90% of us who have to work for others (the working class), and the top 1%, who own most of the wealth and who hire us and lower and lower wages to increase their profits (the capitalists). This can only come to and end with the replacement of the current capitalist economy with a socialist economy, where people’s needs, not profit, drive the economy.

But the struggle here and now to defend public sector workers in Wisconsin and other states, and to block the free trade proposals for South Korea and Colombia that will further undermine the strength of labor in the United States are important for the well-being of all workers.

#UnitedStates #EconomicCrisis #WallStreet #Capitalism

The bailout bill created a $700 billion ‘Troubled Asset Relief Program’ or TARP to buy bad loans from banks. This was supposed to free up banks to lend more to homeowners and small businesses in need of credit. Backers of the bailout said that only half would be spent and the other half would have to be approved by Congress, saying that this would guarantee accountability. To pass the bill, the Bush administration and leading Democrats in House promised that there would be Congressional oversight of the bailout.

What a bunch of crap.

After the passage of bailout bill, the Bush administration did not buy any bad loans but instead began to put the money directly into banks. This was done with no requirements for what the banks were to do with the money. At the same time, the bailout out bill allowed the Federal Reserve to start paying interest on deposits that banks have at the Fed. What happened is that ‘excess reserves,’ or cash that banks have parked at the Fed, soared from less than $2 billion in August to more than $800 billion by the end of December. So instead of making more loans available, the bank bailout actually made it more profitable for banks not to lend.

The Congressional Oversight Panel issued a report on the TARP Jan. 9, reporting that the bank bailout had done nothing to reduce foreclosures. In 2008 more than 2 million homes went into foreclosure, almost twice as many as the year before. The Bush administration’s Hope Now program to help homeowners facing foreclosure, which was not a part of the bank bailout, only received 347 applications and has not processed a single one.

On Jan. 12, President Bush asked for the other $350 billion of TARP funds at the request of the incoming Obama administration. On Wednesday, Jan. 21, the House of Representatives voted 270-155 against giving $350 billion more to banks. But unlike last September, when the House voted down the first bank bailout bill, there were no headlines, no drop in the stock market – in fact almost no news coverage at all. Why? Because Wall Street knew that they were going get the money despite opposition in the House.

What Congress and the corporate-controlled media did not tell the people was that in order to block the second half of the money, the House, the Senate and the president would have to oppose the bill. Once it was clear that President Obama supported the bill and it was passed by a 52-42 vote in the Senate, then the opposition of the House had no effect.

Why are both the Republicans and the Democrats pushing for more bailout money now? For one, Bank of America is in trouble. Bank of America is one of the largest banks in the world, whose empire includes mortgage lender Countrywide and investment bank Merrill Lynch. Countrywide was a leader in issuing subprime mortgages, while Merrill Lynch was turning these mortgages into bonds; they were at the core of the financial crisis that exploded last year. Bank of America has consistently opposed giving homebuyers facing foreclosure relief through bankruptcy courts and has paid out billions of dollars in dividends to its shareholders and billions more in bonuses. Bank of America already received $25 billion from the U.S. government last year, and right after the Senate vote, received another $20 billion from the government. In addition, the government guaranteed $118 billion dollars of loans that Bank of America made.

Last November the American people voted for change. But when we see the same old policies of bailing out the big banks that helped create the economic crisis, we have a right to be mad at the Democrats and the Republicans who are putting Wall Street first. The chairman of the Federal Reserve has said that giving more money to the banks is “unavoidable.” We say it is unacceptable. We demand a clear accounting of what happened to the billions doled out banks! We demand a moratorium on foreclosures and for homeowners to be able to work out their mortgages in bankruptcy courts! No more bailouts of the banks that created this financial crisis!

#UnitedStates #Commentary #EconomicCrisis #Bailout #WallStreet #Editorials