Austerity

Anti-Poverty Quilt Highlights Disparity

November 10, 2013 Helen Armstrong, www.rabble.ca Educate! Austerity, Finance and the Economy, Poverty

People living in poverty unveiled a collective art piece more than 175 feet long on the Ontario Government lawn on October 17 to mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. They urged the Wynne Government to repair the frayed social safety net. More than 500 individuals and groups from across Ontario joined the Stitching Our Own Social Safety Net campaign. They created artistic squares that, stitched together, represent a whole and complete social safety net. They show the need for new affordable housing, higher social assistance rates, a higher minimum wage, improved dental care and lower post-secondary tuition, employment equity, among other important public supports. "The Wynne Government must stop focusing on economic austerity and program cuts. They should instead repair our social safety net and fund social programs to lift people out of poverty and help the economy," said ODSP recipient Veronica Snooks.

Protesters Light ‘Bonfire of Austerity’ Across UK

November 6, 2013 Jacob Chamberlain, www.commondreams.org Resist! Anonymous, Austerity, Energy

The flames burned bright on "Bonfire Night" in London and dozens of other UK cities as protesters gathered once again to protest ongoing austerity measures in the country. Demonstrators in Parliament Square carried signs that read "no cuts," "corporate greed does not make democracy," and "cut war not welfare," as part of an anti-austerity demonstration organized by the People's Assembly Against Austerity. At one point the crowds marched to the middle of Westminster Bridge and lit a "Bonfire of Austerity," burning energy bills in defiance of rising energy costs. "The big six energy companies are effectively holding consumers across the country to ransom," said Owen Jones of the People's Assembly, citing failed action on part of UK lawmakers. "It’s going to drive nine million people into fuel poverty, it’s going to kill elderly people."

The Slowing Global Economy – Prolonged Stagnation Without The Crash

November 5, 2013 Jack Rasmus, www.jackrasmus.com Educate! Austerity, Corporatism, Finance and the Economy, Recession

QEs, massive liquidity injections by central banks, token fiscal stimulus policies followed soon by austerity fiscal stimulus withdrawals represent the recovery policy ‘mix’ for the US since 2008. In similar form, albeit with different emphases, the same monetary and fiscal policies have been adopted by other main capitalist sectors of the global economy. Those economies, from the Eurozone, UK, to Japan and elsewhere are also experiencing a ‘stop-go’ economic recovery trajectory. The outcome has been more or less the same everywhere: a bailing out of the banks, an acceleration of investors income and corporate profits, a shift toward speculative financial investment, growing income inequality, declining relative real investment, inability to generate full time employment and wages, declining real disposable incomes for median family households, stalling consumption, and a sub-par historical, ‘stop-go’ economic recovery.

Expect Food Riots If Food Stamps Are Cut

November 3, 2013 Josh Eidelson, www.salon.com Resist! Austerity, Food and Agriculture

Food stamp recipients face a massive benefit cut set to kick in when stimulus funds expire Friday. The nationwide cut “is equivalent to about 16 meals a month for a family of three,” according to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis using the USDA’s “Thrifty Food Plan.” CBPP called the roughly $5 billion annual cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program “unprecedented” in “depth and breadth.” “If you look across the world, riots always begin typically the same way: when people cannot afford to eat food,” Margarette Purvis, the president and CEO of the Food Bank for New York City, told Salon Monday. Purvis said that the looming cut would mean about 76 million meals “that will no longer be on the plates of the poorest families” in NYC alone – a figure that outstrips the total number of meals distributed each year by the Food Bank for New York City, the largest food bank in the country. “There will be an immediate impact,”

Repubs and Dems Unite For Austerity

October 23, 2013 Shamus Cooke, www.counterpunch.org Resist! Austerity, Corporatism, Finance and the Economy, Medicare, Social Security

In practice, Obama’s neoliberalism is blatant: after bailing out the banks he continues to approve of the printing of thousands of billions of Federal Reserve dollars to give to the wealthy and big banks who are racking in record profits, while the jobs crisis is ignored and public services slashed on a state by state level without hope of a government bailout. Since Obama has been in office, a shocking 95 percent of income gains went to the richest 1%. This is not the blind hand of the free market, but government policy, which can be adjusted to reflect the priorities of working people. Obama dodges responsibility for his neoliberal policies by giving empty speeches about “hope” and whining about the very wealth inequality that he creates via policy. He gives speeches to labor unions about how it’s “unfair” that the rich just happen to be getting richer, while working people continue to suffer. Working people learned long ago to ignore Obama’s “progressive” blather, while the leaders of national unions drink in his words as if gulping from the Holy Grail.

Privatization Benefits 1%, Public Services Benefit Everyone

October 23, 2013 Paul Bucheit, www.thecontributor.com Educate! Austerity, Corporatism, Finance and the Economy, Government

Individual initiative? Our publicly supported communications infrastructure allows the richest 10% of Americans to manipulate their 80 percent share of the stock market. CEOs rely on roads and seaports and airports to ship their products, the FAA and TSA and Coast Guard and Department of Transportation to safeguard them, a nationwide energy grid to power their factories, and communications towers and satellites to conduct online business. Perhaps most important to business, even as it focuses on short-term profits, is the long-term basic research that is largely conducted with government money. As of 2009 universities were still receiving ten times more science & engineering funding from government than from industry.

How To Protest In The Age Of Austerity

October 23, 2013 Richard Seymour, www.theguardian.com Strategize! Austerity, Corporatism, Labor

Aloof from official politics, non-party-aligned and sometimes distant from trade unionism, such movements reflect the growing prominence of issues and forms of profound social conflict that emerge outside the workplace. Capitalism has demonstrated a tendency to politicise ever-growing areas of life, from the environment to the genetic code, and the profusion of "new social movements" since the 1960s reflects this. This is something that filled conservatives with horror, and led to the "crisis of democracy" thesis according to which overactive citizens were overloading governments with demands and causing their breakdown. There was also some standoffishness in parts of the left, at least insofar as these were seen as displacing the central emphasis on class struggle. But the rise of the social movement is something the left should welcome.

Five Things to Know About the Ryan-Murray Budget Conference Committee

October 20, 2013 Sean Sullivan, wwww.washingtonpost.com Educate! Austerity

A big part of the talks will be deciding what to do about the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester. Democrats don’t like them and Republicans like Ryan say there is a better way to cut spending. So how to replace them? Well, that’s where we are going to see disagreements. Look for Republicans to call for replacement cuts in entitlements spending. Democrats might be able to accept such cuts, but under that scenario would probably push for new tax revenue to offset them. Republicans won’t like this idea. This much we know: With a new round of sequester cuts set to kick in early next year, the clock is ticking.

Government Shutdown Ended, Austerity Drive Lives On

October 20, 2013 Jon Queally, www.commondreams.org Educate! Austerity

That the drive to cut spending, Bevins writes, "particularly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—remains constantly in policymakers’ cross-hairs is not a coincidence or the sad result of an analytical error." Instead, "it is instead an ugly but perennial part of American budget politics. Put simply, far too many assert that policy changes that inflict economic distress on low and moderate income households are by definition serious and durable and sustainable, while all other policy changes that result in lower deficits are not these things." And according to Richard Eskow at the Campaign for Americas Future, the end of the government shutdown may have averted an immediate catastrophe, but says that Democrats will now "face powerful inducements in coming months to compromise with the austerity economics crowd by agreeing to a menu of further spending cuts, destructive entitlement “reform,” and tax code tinkering that starves the government of needed revenue while protecting corporations and the wealthy."

Popular Resistance Newsletter – Celebrate Being Part Of An Historic Transformation

October 10, 2013 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Austerity, Energy, Environment, TPP, Wars and Militarism, Worker Rights and Jobs

This week, veterans and their allies in New York City marked the twelfth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan by taking a stand against war and challenging New York’s unusual curfew on the Vietnam War Memorial. This protest was about protecting our rights to Freedom of Speech, Assembly and to petition for a redress of grievances as much as it was about opposing war. Tarak Kauff, one of the organizers of the protest, reports that one interesting outcome was that many police officers thanked the vets for doing what they were doing, showing solidarity with the action and apologizing for having to make arrests. When police understand a protest movement is working to make the world better for them and their families, we are on the right path to success. In Wisconsin, Governor Scott backed down in the face of constant protests and litigation and agreed the people had the right to protest in the Capitol Building without a permit.

Get Ready To Fight ‘Grand Bargain’ To Avoid Shut Down & Default

October 5, 2013 Jon Queally, www.commondreams.org Resist! Austerity, Grand Bargain, Medicare, Social Security, Video

With plenty of evidence of Democrats' propensity to cave to Republican "hostage politics" in recent years, concerned citizens, progressive members of Congress, and advocacy groups were taking no chances on Thursday as they formed a "human-chain" outside the Capitol Building in Washington to declare their opposition to any cuts to vital social programs, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Amid an ongoing shutdown of the federal government, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus held a news conference and after joined hands with members of the Alliance for Retired Americans, Social Security Works and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare in order to protest the idea of a "Grand Bargain" between Democrats and Republicans that has been repeatedly floated over a series of budget battles in recent years.

The Plot Against Pensions

September 29, 2013 Staff, ourfuture.org Educate! Austerity, Pensions, Retirement

This report evaluates both the general state of the national debate over pensions and the specific effects of the partnership between the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Sector Retirement Systems Project and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. Here is a summary of the report’s findings: Finding: Conservative activists are manufacturing the perception of a public pension crisis in order to both slash modest retiree benefits and preserve expensive corporate subsidies and tax breaks. Finding: The amount states and cities spend on corporate subsidies and so-called tax expenditures is far more than the pension shortfalls they face. Finding: The pension “reforms” being pushed by conservative activists would slash retirement income for many pensioners who are not part of the Social Security system. Additionally, the specific reforms they are pushing are often more expensive and risky for taxpayers than existing pension plans.

The Catastrophic Management Of Catastrophe

September 17, 2013 Jerome Roos, www.roarmag.org Educate! Austerity, Chile, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Greece, Spain, Türkiye

The catastrophic management of catastrophe. If there is one line that describes the nature of neoliberal crisis management, that must be it. From Mexico and Latin America in 1982 to the South-East Asian crisis of 1997-’98, and from Turkey and Argentina in the early 2000s to the European debt crisis from 2010 onward — the most catastrophic thing about neoliberal crisis management is not only that it has a penchant to turn already catastrophic financial crises caused by runaway private speculation into an immense source of private gain for the same very financiers responsible for the catastrophe to begin with; but, even more nefariously, that it makes those catastrophes so much more catastrophic than they really need to be for almost everyone else. Notwithstanding all the propaganda and rhetoric about “free markets” promoting democracy and development, the massive bank bailouts of the neoliberal era have invariably shown that those so-called neoliberals in fact care very little even about free markets — let alone about democracy or development.

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