Finance and the Economy

Ten Inequality Victories In 2024

December 19, 2024 Sarah Anderson, Inequality.org. Educate! Albertsons, Amazon, Finance and the Economy, Health Care, Krogers, Labor Movement, Paid Sick Leave, Taxes, Turbotax, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted overwhelmingly in April to join the United Auto Workers, a landmark win for labor organizing in the South. The region has suffered deeply because of its low-road, anti-union economic model. Seven out of ten states with the highest levels of poverty are in the South, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Another UAW election, at a Mercedes-Benz facility in Vance, Alabama, where management was more aggressively anti-union, went the other way in May. But the union has vowed to continue organizing in the region.

How To Escape The Federal Debt Trap

December 9, 2024 Ellen Brown, Scheer Post. Create! Debt, Finance and the Economy, Inflation, Money

The U.S. national debt just passed $36 trillion, only four months after it passed $35 trillion and up $2 trillion for the year. Third quarter data is not yet available, but interest payments as a percent of tax receipts rose to 37.8% in the third quarter of 2024, the highest since 1996. That means interest is eating up over one-third of our tax revenues. Total interest for the fiscal year hit $1.16 trillion, topping one trillion for the first time ever. That breaks down to $3 billion per day. For comparative purposes, an estimated $11 billion, or less than four days’ federal interest, would pay the median rent for all the homeless people in America for a year.

Pentagon Fails Seventh Straight Audit

November 19, 2024 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. Educate! Audit, Finance and the Economy, Military Budget, Pentagon

The Pentagon announced late last week that it failed its seventh consecutive audit as the sprawling, profiteering-ridden department wasn't able to fully account for its trillions of dollars in assets. As with its past failures to achieve a clean audit, the U.S. Defense Department attempted to cast the 2024 results in a positive light, with the Pentagon's chief financial officer declaring in a statement that "momentum is on our side." The Pentagon is the largest U.S. federal agency and is responsible for roughly half of the government's annual discretionary spending, with its yearly budget approaching $1 trillion despite long-standing concerns about the department's inability to account for vast sums of money approved by lawmakers and presidents from both major parties.

Historical Block Conference Proposals To Help Economic Transformation

November 17, 2024 María Eugenia Rodríguez, Orinoco Tribune. Create! Finance and the Economy, Participatory Democracy, Socialism, Transformation, Venezuela

The vice president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, reported that the proposals coming out of the Great Congress of the Bolivarian Historical Block will help in the construction of the economic transformation program that Venezuela requires. During her speech at the opening ceremony of the Congress, Thursday, November 15, at the Convention Center in Simón Bolívar Park in La Carlota, Caracas, the Venezuelan vice president also highlighted the over 100 proposals that had been submitted. “I welcome these more than 100 proposals that have been raised … because they will help us to build the economic transformation program that Venezuela needs, in order to become a powerful country,” she said.

The End Of The US Empire And The Denial Of The US

November 16, 2024 Richard Wolff, Scheer Post. Resistance Report BRICS, China, Finance and the Economy, Ukraine, US Empire

I mean to tell you all that if you ask me to tell you what is the biggest reality we now have to face, it’s the end of the American empire, what we inherited from the British because they had the last Empire before this one is now over, and there is zero chance it’s coming back. It ought to have been a central issue in the presidential election we just had. Instead, the two candidates and their parties worked overtime to practice denial. No such a thing. The war in Ukraine, just to take one of countless examples, will show you how costly this denial is.

Implications Of A Second Trump Term For Working Class And Oppressed

November 15, 2024 Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Class Struggle, Donald Trump, Elections, Finance and the Economy, Racism, Worker Rights and Jobs

In the immediate aftermath of the media calling the elections in favor of the Trump-Vance ticket, African Americans in various states across the U.S. received text messages ordering them to report to plantations to resume the slave labor which was the bulwark of colonial and antebellum periods of North American history. This particular attempt at intimidation was chosen for obvious reasons. In the U.S., it would take a Civil War between 1861 and 1865 to destroy the structural basis for African enslavement. Later at the conclusion of 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified nearly three years after the Emancipation Proclamation issued by then-President Abraham Lincoln.

A Review Of Key 2024 Ballot Measures

November 11, 2024 Emma Cohn and Jennifer Sherer, Economic Policy Institute. Educate! 2024 US Presidential elections, Ballot Initiative, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Education, Finance and the Economy, Health Care, Reproductive Rights, Worker Rights and Jobs

In this year’s election, voters given the opportunity to weigh in directly on questions of economic justice showed policy preferences far more progressive than those reflected in many national and state election outcomes. Across the country, voters seized opportunities to approve state or local ballot measures increasing the minimum wage, expanding paid leave, strengthening workers’ rights to unionize, preserving public education, and protecting access to abortion. These ballot measure outcomes reflect a clear ongoing trend of strong voter support for policies that prioritize worker, racial, and gender justice—and illustrate how state and local governments can continue to play important roles in enacting such policies.

Why Donald Trump Won The US Election

November 8, 2024 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report 2024 US Presidential elections, Blackstone, Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Finance and the Economy, Hunger, Inflation, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Poverty

Donald Trump won the 2024 US presidential election in a landslide. Unlike in 2016, where Trump won the electoral college but lost the popular vote, this time he got 4 million more votes than his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. Why was Harris defeated so thoroughly? In short, because the billionaire-funded neoliberal Democrats failed to provide an economic alternative to the billionaire-funded Republicans’ pseudo “populism”. Polls consistently showed that the economy was the number one issue in the 2024 race. Concern about the state of the economy was at the highest level since the North Atlantic financial crisis of 2007-09.

Mapped: How Big Industries Hope To Sway The UN Biodiversity Talks

October 30, 2024 Hazel Healy and Rachel Sherrington, DeSmog. Educate! Activism, Big Ag, Big Pharma, Biodiversity, Colombia, COP16, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Food and Agriculture, Pesticides, Social Justice, United Nations (UN)

Under thundery tropical skies, and amid ever more dire warnings on the precarious state of the world’s ecosystems, the United Nations Biodiversity Conference is unfolding in Colombia. This year’s summit, known as COP16, follows on from the last biodiversity conference held in Montréal in 2022, when negotiators struck an historic deal – the equivalent of the Paris Agreement on climate change – to “halt and reverse” nature loss. Now, government representatives from nearly 200 countries, along with scientists, Indigenous groups, and environmental activists, are gathered in the southern city of Cali to negotiate how to put this plan into action: protect earth’s habitats and the people who depend on them.

Working People Place Cost Of Living As Top Concern In US Elections

October 29, 2024 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Educate! 2024 US Presidential elections, Cost of living, Donald Trump, Finance and the Economy, Housing, Inflation, Kamala Harris, Poverty, Price Gouging, United States

Just eight days remain until the people of the US head to the polls to decide their next president. The economy and inflation continues to be the top issue for voters by far, with eight in ten registered voters saying the economy will be very important to their vote according to the Pew Research Center. According to Gallup, the economy is the most important out of 22 issues voters were polled on, including “terrorism and national security”, immigration, education, healthcare, and crime. If one were to read exclusively the mainstream media, one would get the impression that all is well with the economy, that inflation is falling, and the job market is doing just fine.

It’s Up To Us To Demand A Jubilee To Wipe The Debts Of The Masses

October 28, 2024 Braxton Brewington, Truthout. Strategize! Debt, Finance and the Economy, Jubilee, Student Loans

Ahead of another fraught election cycle, 40 million Americans could see their “October surprise” approaching well in advance: a massive student loan bill. When the Biden-Harris administration resumed student debt payments in October 2023 after a nearly four-year pause, they implemented a one-year grace period. This “on ramp” would spare debtors of the harsh consequences of a missed or late payment — such as falling into default, hits to one’s credit, Social Security and wage garnishment or capitalized interest. A year later, those punitive measures have resumed, plunging debtors back into the throes of the student debt crisis.

The Left Wins Presidential Election In Sri Lanka

September 23, 2024 Atul Chandra and Vijay Prashad, People's Dispatch. Educate! Austerity, Elections, Finance and the Economy, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Marxism, Sri Lanka

On September 22, 2024, the Sri Lankan election authority announced that Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) alliance won the presidential election. Dissanayake, who has been the leader of the left-wing JVP since 2014, defeated thirty-seven other candidates, including the incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe of the United National Party (UNP) and his closest challenger Sajith Premadasa of the Samagi Jana Balawegava. The traditional parties that dominated Sri Lankan politics – such as the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and the UNP – are now on the backfoot, although they dominate the Sri Lankan parliament (the SLPP has 105 out of 225 seats, while the UNP has 3 seats).

Low-Wage Corporations Fleece Their Workers To Massively Inflate CEO Pay

September 18, 2024 Sarah Anderson, In These Times. Educate! CEO Pay, Class Struggle, Finance and the Economy, Wages, Worker Rights and Jobs

Most people believe in fair pay for honest work. So why aren’t low-wage workers better paid? After 30 years of research, I can tell you that it’s not because employers don’t have the cash — it’s because profitable corporations spend that money on their stock prices and CEOs instead. Lowe’s, for example, spent $43 billion buying back its own stock over the past five years. With that sum, the chain could have given each of its 285,000 employees a $30,000 bonus every year. Instead, half of Lowe’s workers make less than $33,000. Meanwhile, CEO Marvin Ellison raked in $18 million in 2023. The company also plowed nearly five times as much cash into buybacks as it invested in long-term capital expenditures like store improvements and technology upgrades over the past five years.

How Liberal Elites Fail To Understand Economic Anxiety

September 13, 2024 Taki Manolakos, Portside. Educate! Class Struggle, Debt, Economic insecurity, Finance and the Economy, Liberal class, Worker Rights and Jobs

There is an ideological tendency among some liberal economists today that wants us to believe that Bidenomics has been the best thing since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. A key advocate of this belief is economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. On September 7th, 2023, Krugman published an article titled “I’m OK, But Things Are Terrible” in which he claimed there is a disconnect between actual economic conditions and perceptions about the economy: “[t]he strange thing is that these bad ratings are persisting even as the economy, by any normal measure, has been doing extremely well.” Krugman and others who are fans of Bidenomics find it odd that when workers are asked about “the economy” their views are generally negative.

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