Finance and the Economy

National Eviction Ban Ends July 31 – What To Do If You’re At Risk

More than $45 billion in rental assistance has been allocated by Congress in the last two major stimulus packages, and you could receive up to 18 months of help, including a mix of payments for back and future rent. To be eligible for the funding, at least one member of your household has to qualify for unemployment benefits or attest in writing that they’ve lost income or incurred significant expenses due to the pandemic. You’ll also need to demonstrate a risk of homelessness, which may include a past-due rent or utility notice. In addition, your income level for 2020 can’t exceed 80% of your area’s median income, though states have been directed to prioritize applicants who fall at 50% or lower, as well as those who’ve been out of work for 90 days or longer.

Why Shouldn’t The People Own The Banks?

July 28, 2021 Michelle Chen, The Nation. Create! Banks, Finance and the Economy, Public Banks

Even as the pandemic devastated New York City, megabanks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America continued to do a roaring trade. And now those financial behemoths are set to manage the funds that New York City and other municipalities will be deploying for the recovery. But financial justice advocates want to see the City move its money from the Wall Street titans to a public bank, owned and operated by the people. A municipally chartered public bank would enable the city government to place its deposits into an institution that is not beholden to a commercial banking sector notorious for fueling the Great Recession, saddling working-class communities of color with toxic debt, and imposing predatory and discriminatory lending on the most vulnerable households.

What We Can Learn From Iceland’s Four-Day Work Week

July 27, 2021 Adam D.K. King, Passage. Strategize! Finance and the Economy, Health Care, Iceland, Worker Rights and Jobs

Between 2015 and 2019, the government of Iceland and the Reykjavik City Council undertook an employment experiment, allowing a sample of workers access to a shorter work week without any loss of pay. The results are now in, and over the past week or so the study’s findings have garnered significant media attention. Many are declaring the Icelandic pilot “an overwhelming success,” reporting that workers experienced greater work-life balance, reduced stress and more free time with family. The Icelandic study fits in with a series of similar trials studying working time reductions undertaken by large companies, municipal governments and other public sector workplaces. These various studies — along with policy advocacy from groups such as the United Kingdom-based think tank Autonomy, which compiled data and released a report for the Icelandic pilot — indicate a renewed interest in lessening the social burden of paid employment.

Global Call On Banks To Stop Financing Fossil Fuels

July 26, 2021 Fossil Banks No Thanks!. Resist! climate crisis, Energy, Finance and the Economy, Fossil Fuel

To stop the world descending into full climate chaos, the continued burning of fossil fuels must be brought to an end as soon as possible. Even burning all coal, oil, and gas reserves already in production will push global temperature rise far beyond 1.5°C and likely beyond 2°C, the stated goal of the Paris Climate Agreement. This leaves no space for further exploration or extraction, yet many fossil fuel companies plan to vastly expand their operations, posing a true existential threat to people and planet.

Families Wait Years For Housing Vouchers Due To Inadequate Funding

July 26, 2021 Sonya Acosta And Erik Gartland, CBPP. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Housing, HUD, Poverty

Due to limited program funding, families struggling to afford housing that manage to get off the waiting list for a Housing Choice Voucher must typically wait for years before receiving a voucher, CBPP analysis of Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) data shows. Among the 50 largest housing agencies, only two have average wait times of under a year for families that have made it off of the waiting list; the longest have average wait times of up to eight years.

Workers Are Being Crushed By Unemployment Benefit Shutoffs

July 25, 2021 Julia Rock and Andrew Perez, Jacobin. Educate! Democrats, Finance and the Economy, Unemployment, Worker Rights and Jobs

The war on jobless aid began on May 4, when Montana governor Greg Gianforte (R) announced that the state would cut off federal unemployment benefits at the end of June. “Montana is open for business again, but I hear from too many employers throughout our state who can’t find workers,” Gianforte said in a statement announcing the end to the benefits. “Nearly every sector in our economy faces a labor shortage.” The governor’s announcement catalyzed a movement among GOP governors across the country, who similarly declared their authority to prevent their residents from receiving benefits under the various federal COVID-related unemployment programs established by Congress last year. “This labor shortage is being created in large part by the supplemental unemployment payments that the federal government provides claimants on top of their state unemployment benefits,” South Carolina governor Henry McMaster (R) wrote to the state’s labor department.

People Working for Minimum Wage Can’t Afford Rent In The US

July 23, 2021 Sarah Ruiz-Grossman, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Housing, Wage, Worker Rights and Jobs

Taking into account local minimum wage rates, the average minimum-wage worker would have to put in nearly 97 hours per week (more than two full-time jobs) to afford a modest two-bedroom rental, or 79 hours per week (nearly two full-time jobs) to afford a one-bedroom apartment.

Why Many In Colombia Embark On New Strike

July 20, 2021 Adriaan Alsema, Columbia Reports. Resist! Colombia, Congress, Finance and the Economy, National Strike

Social organizations called new strikes for Tuesday, Colombia’s Independence Day, to demand that Congress passes legislation on economic policy, peace and human rights. The latest strike was called by the National Strike Committee more than 80 days after it’s initial April 28 strike sparked protests throughout Colombia that have continued in the cities. The initial protests successfully sunk a controversial tax reform, but failed to force the far-right government of President Ivan Duque to negotiate demands on economic policies in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The National Strike Committee has given up on the increasingly tyrannical government and is now trying to pressure Congress, which begins a new legislative year on Tuesday,

Six Months Of The Biden Administration

July 20, 2021 Patrick Martin, WSWS.org. Educate! Biden administration, Finance and the Economy, Pandemic, Trump

Six months ago, Joseph Biden was inaugurated president of the United States, under conditions of unprecedented crisis of US capitalism and the entire social and political order. His predecessor, Donald Trump, did not attend the ceremony, signaling his refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election. Only two weeks before, on January 6, Trump’s supporters had stormed the Capitol and temporarily halted the congressional certification of state electoral votes. The aim of the attempted coup was to stop the transfer of power and establish a personalist dictatorship. In the words of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, it was Trump’s “Reichstag moment.” When Biden took office, 400,000 people were dead from the COVID-19 pandemic, while millions were unemployed.

The Drug Companies Are Killing People

July 19, 2021 Center For Economic and Policy Research. Educate! COVID-19, Finance and the Economy, Patents, Vaccines

After the Biden administration indicated its support for this limited waiver, many other rich countries signed on as well. Germany, under longtime chancellor Angela Merkel, has been largely left alone to carry water for the pharmaceutical industry in opposing the vaccine waiver. I had the chance to confront the industry arguments directly last week in a web panel sponsored by the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (link included when it becomes available). It’s always educational to see these arguments up close and real people actually making them. The first line of defense is that the waiver of patent rights by itself does not lead to any increase in vaccine production. This is of course true. Vaccines have to be manufactured, eliminating patent rights is not the same thing as manufacturing vaccines.

Identifying The Policy Levers Generating Wage Suppression And Inequality

July 19, 2021 Lawrence Mishel and Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Inequality, Wages, Worker Rights

Inequalities abound in the U.S. economy, and a central driver in recent decades is the widening gap between the hourly compensation of a typical (median) worker and productivity—the income generated per hour of work. This growing divergence has been driven by two other widening gaps, that between the compensation received by the vast majority of workers and those at the top, and that between labor’s share of income and capital’s. This paper presents evidence that the divorce between the growth of median compensation and productivity, the inequality of compensation, and the erosion of labor’s share of income has been generated primarily through intentional policy decisions designed to suppress typical workers’ wage growth, the failure to improve and update existing policies, and the failure to thwart new corporate practices and structures aimed at wage suppression.

When Communities Reject The Throwaway Economy

July 15, 2021 Mauro Anastasio, European Environmental Bureau. Create! Community organizing, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Zero waste

Here's how a growing number of communities across Europe are speeding up the shift to more resilient economies and supply chains. Rethinking the way we create, use, and dispose of our everyday products. The world’s resources are limited, but we are living as if they weren’t. Our current economic system is based on extracting raw materials from the Earth, creating products with a built-in life span and throwing them away to then buy new ones. The good news is that more and more communities are fighting back, creating responsible business models to reduce Europe’s dependency on mining. This is the story of Maakfabriek, a Belgian creative lab and community of upcyclers extracting precious resources from urban waste and giving products a second life.

How The Billionaires Rule

July 12, 2021 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Worker Rights and Jobs

President Calvin Coolidge said, “The business of America is business.” The expression is memorable because it always rang true. But nearly 100 years later an old trite saying has taken on an ever more terrifying meaning. The ruling class wield their power more blatantly than ever. There is little effort to conceal their determination to rule over the people and to control the politicians who are now little more than their personal minions. When the people get a little help, as happened with additional stimulus funds for the unemployed, politicians across the country took up arms for the ruling class and turned down free money just to stay in the good graces of their bosses. Currently 25 states out of 50 have rejected additional help for the unemployed. The money came from the federal government and didn’t impact state budgets, but politicians know who calls the shots.

G20 Pushes Ahead On Global Tax Deal

July 12, 2021 Nick Beams, World Socialist Web Site. Educate! Finance and the Economy, G20, Taxes

The finance chiefs of the G20, representing the world’s largest economies, have signed off on a deal crafted with the aim of preventing multinational companies shifting profits to low-tax havens. Under the agreement, there will be a global minimum tax of 15 percent on corporations. New rules will be developed so that large corporations, including tech giants such as Amazon and Google, will pay taxes in the countries where they obtain revenue, even if they have no physical presence there. The deal was endorsed at the meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers held in Venice over the weekend. Whether it is enacted remains to be seen. There are still several lower-tax countries that have refused to sign, including European Union members, Ireland and Hungary.

Hijacking The Recovery Through Hydrogen

July 9, 2021 Fossil Free Politics. Educate! COVID-19, Energy, European Union (EU), Finance and the Economy

EU Covid-19 recovery funds are supposed to drive the ‘green transition’ and move us beyond fossil fuels – but industry lobbying at both national and EU level has ensured oil and gas firms and utilities remain some of the biggest beneficiaries in Italy, the Spanish State, Portugal and France. The European Commission has said it wanted to avoid giving billions in bailouts to the fossil fuel industry. Despite sending mixed signals, to its credit, in these four cases it has tried to exclude direct financing for fossil fuel projects, including controversial carbon capture and storage (CCS). However, the hugely outsized role for hydrogen and renewable gases in national recovery plans has thrown a lifeline to the fossil fuel firms involved, as well as their main product: fossil gas.

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