Recession

How The Super Rich Are Cheating The United States

May 5, 2020 Paul Bucheit, Nation of Change. Educate! Billionaires, COVID-19, Recession, Universal Basic Income, wealth inequality

Media outlets keep telling us that we’re all together in this pandemic. But we’re not. The super-rich have separated themselves from the rest of us, with concierge medicine, private travel accommodations, isolated but well-stocked resort homes, and a variety of other advantages that allow them to look beyond the hardships endured by average Americans. A few billionaires have contributed to the fight against Covid-19. But Luke Hildyard, Executive Director of the High Pay Centre, says, “Very generous individual grants can obscure the fact that on the whole, wealthy people’s charitable giving is pretty minimal.” In the most flagrant example of disregard for the rest of us, one company has installed private ‘doomsday’ bunkers in New Zealand with “luxury bathrooms, game rooms, shooting ranges, gyms, theaters and surgical beds.”

Cancel The Rents Activists Say Housing Is A Human Right

May 4, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Housing, Human Rights, Pandemic, Recession

There is a growing movement of people refusing to pay their rent whether they are not able to or whether they can but they are acting in solidarity with those who can't. In this recession, tens of millions of people have lost their jobs. Support from the government is not reaching everyone who needs it. Thirty percent of people could not pay their rent in April. This is occurring in an environment where property owners are large corporations that seek profit even when it means people losing their homes during a pandemic. We speak with DC activist and co-host of By Any Means Necessary about the Cancel the Rent campaign, which calls on local government to put a moratorium on rent until the pandemic is over. Their long term goal seeks to transform the way housing is structured in the United States so it is treated as a basic human right.

Armed Right-Wing Protesters Are Extending The Economic Lockdown, Demonstrating White Privilege

May 4, 2020 By John Pavlovitz, Stuff That Needs To Be Said Educate! COVID-19, Economic shutdown, Physical distancing, Recession

As a white man watching the Michigan protests of Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders, all I could think was: Black people don’t get to do this Muslims don’t get to do this. Latinos don’t get to do this. People who don’t look like this don’t get to do this. They don’t get to swarm American capitol buildings in tactical gear with high-powered weapons, screaming in close proximity to police officers.They don’t get to dress up like Call of Duty cosplayers and attempt to physically intimidate politicians into bending to their wills. They don’t get to get to stop traffic in city streets decked out like they work at the Death Star and brazenly wield semi-automatic rifles. They don’t get to terrorize decent people and walk away. Only white people get to do this.

The Myth Of V-Shape Economic Recovery

May 3, 2020 Jack Rasmus. Educate! COVID-19, Depression, Recession, Wall Street

The spin is in! Trump administration economic ‘message bearers’, Steve Mnuchin, US Treasury Secretary, and Kevin Hasset, senior economic adviser to Trump, this past Sunday on the Washington TV talking heads circuit launched a coordinated effort to calm the growing public concern that the current economic contraction may be as bad (or worse) than the great depression of the 1930s. Various big bank research departments predicting a GDP contraction in the first quarter (January-March 2020) anywhere from -4% to -7.5%, and for the current second quarter, a further contraction from -30% to -40%: Morgan Stanley investment bank says 30%. The bond market investment behemoth, PIMCO, estimates a 30% fall in GDP. Even Congress’s Budget Office recently estimate the contraction in GDP could be as high as -40% in the 2nd quarter.

Update: Number Of Unemployed Now Over 30 Million

May 3, 2020 Economic Policy Institute. Educate! COVID-19, Pandemic, Recession, Unemployment

The number of workers applying for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits has risen to never-before-seen levels as a result of the coronavirus shock. In the last six weeks, nearly 28 million workers have applied for unemployment compensation. That is more than one in six workers, and over five times the worst period of the Great Recession. I should note that the Department of Labor (DOL) reports that 30.3 million workers applied for UI during the last six weeks on a “seasonally adjusted” basis, compared with 27.9 million on an unadjusted basis. Seasonal adjustments are typically helpful—they are used to even out seasonal changes in claims that have nothing to do with the underlying strength or weakness of the labor market, providing a clearer picture of underlying trends.

Boston May Day 2020 Car Rally

May 2, 2020 Yoav Elinevsky, Popular Resistance. Resist! COVID-19, Massachusetts, May Day, Recession, Sanctions

The Massachusetts Peace Action, MAPA, organized a car rally in Boston today to support national and international solidarity as the COVID-19 pandemic rages around the globe. More than 50 cars participated in the rally. The impact of the Corona-19 pandemic has been overwhelming in our country. It has been especially devastating for the poor and for Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. At the same time, wealthy elites value their profits more than people's lives. Now is the time to imagine and act together for reorganizing society around the needs of all the people, especially of the poor and working people. We invite you to join us and magnify the potential impact of this message by distributing it and acting similarly locally and globally. Join us in support of the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres call to waive “the sanctions imposed on countries to ensure access to food, essential health supplies, and COVID-19 medical support.

May Day General Strike, A Strong Beginning To An Ongoing Campaign

May 1, 2020 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance Resist! COVID-19, General Strike, May Day, Recession, Workers Rights and Jobs

On May Day, the first day of an ongoing day of General Strike, there were actions all over the country supporting workers at Amazon, Walmart, Target, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Fedex, Shipt and Instacart calling protective gear and hazard payfor essential workers. There were also demands for systemic changes like national improved Medicare for all, a universal basic income and a green new deal (see the graphics of the demands of the General Strike below). The strike required creativity on the part of participants because of the coronavirus pandemic and the physical distancing and stay at home orders but people found ways to get their messages out using a variety of tactics. There will be a General Strike national day of action on the first of every month so we need to learn from each other's creativity and find new ways to protest.

The Fifth Coronavirus Relief Package We Need

April 29, 2020 Howie Hawkins, Nation of Change. Create! Bailout, Congress, COVID-19, Recession

The coronavirus depression is fast becoming as deep as the Great Depression. The federal government’s response has been too little, too late. While sickness and death spread, while unemployment and small business failures soar, while health care and essential workers lack personal protective equipment (PPE), Congress is in recess until May 4. The childlike dummy, Donald Trump, spouts bad advice daily in his televised briefings. Thursday he said we could beat the coronavirus by injecting disinfectants or somehow shining ultraviolet radiation inside our bodies. Meanwhile, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, is MIA. Is he sitting on a park bench somewhere feeding bread crumbs to pigeons? Since the lockdown started five weeks ago, 26 million people have applied for unemployment insurance.

US Coronavirus ‘Bailout’ Scam Is $6 Trillion Giveaway To Wall Street

April 29, 2020 Michael Hudson, Moderate Rebels. Resistance Report CARES Act, COVID-19, Recession, wealth inequality

Just think of when, in the debates with Bernie, Sanders during the spring, you had Biden, and Klobuchar keep saying, ‘What we’re paying for Medicare-for-All will be $1 trillion over 10 years.’ Well here the Fed can create $1.5 trillion in one week just to buy stocks. Why is it okay for the Fed to create $1.5 trillion to buy stocks to prevent rich people from losing on their stocks, when it’s not okay to print only $1 trillion to pay for free Medicare for the entire population? This is crazy! The idea that only the rich should be allowed to print money for themselves, but the government should not be allowed to print money for any public purpose, any social purpose — not for medicine, not for schools, not for personal budgets, not for full employment — but only to give to the 1 percent. People hesitate to think that.

The Struggle Against Neoliberalism Intensifies: Saving Our Postal Service And Workers

April 27, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast COVID-19, Food and Agriculture, Meatless May, Postal Service, Recession, Workers

The wave of worker, student, and renter strikes is growing into a campaign for a general strike that begins on May 1 and continues at the first of each month from there. The government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic collapse, a purely neoliberal money grab, has revealed that the only way we are going to survive and maintain social programs is by fighting for them. We speak with Mark Dimondstein, the president of the American Postal Workers Union, about Congress' failure to provide necessary funding for the US Postal Service as revenue has fallen by 50%. The USPS faces the real possibility of going bankrupt and the administration is openly saying it will let it fail in order to privatize it. We also speak with Joe Henry, political director of the League of United Latin American Citizens in Iowa, about the Meatless May campaign for meatpackers and against factory farming.

Earth Day To May Day Protests Begin In DC With ‘Essential, Not Expendable’ Protest

April 27, 2020 The ShutDownDC Alliance, PopularResistance Resist! climate crisis, COVID-19, Earth Day, May Day, Recession, Workers

Three moving protests involving 135 people celebrated essential workers as well as to condemned employers and legislators for avoidable illnesses and deaths. They carried banners that read, “Essential, Not Expendable, and “Free Them All.” The three caravans – two consisting of cars and one of people on bicycles – visited grocery stores, hospitals, and government agencies, before coming together in Anacostia in SE DC, where they were joined by a live go-go band. The actions were organized by activists with Black Lives Matter DC, 1199SEIU, and ShutDownDC. The Essential, Not Expendable protest is part of the 10-day Earth Day To May Day action organized by the ShutDownDC alliance, which started on April 22, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

Corona Capitalism In Honduras

April 27, 2020 By Karen Spring and Judy Ancel, Labor Notes. Resist! Corporatism, Honduras, Pandemic, Recession

Residents of Choloma, an industrial town in northern Honduras, blocked the main highway connecting the city of San Pedro Sula to the Port of Cortes on April 10. Choloma and nearby towns are the center of sweatshop production for U.S. brands in factories called maquilas. They are also the epicenter of COVID-19 in Honduras. The workers blocking the road that morning burned tires, put up barricades, and demanded the government give them the food they had been promised. A worker demonstrating in Choluteca in southern Honduras told the Honduran media outlet UNE-TV, “They told us they’d be here at seven this morning with food, but no one came. We’re hungry. There are 70 villages waiting for food.” Since mid-March hundreds of thousands of workers in these towns have been laid off as clothing manufacturers Hanes, Gildan, and Fruit of the Loom and auto parts maker Empire Electronics, among others, announced two- to four-month shutdowns.

US Banks Make A Quick $10 Billion Processing Government Loans

April 27, 2020 Julian Kossoff, Business Insider. Educate! Big Banks, Government, Recession, Small Business

Banks have earned a quick $10 billion processing US government loans to small businesses affected by the coronavirus crisis, according to a new report. The $350 billion rescue program aims to funnel cash to small businesses distressed by the economic blows of the COVID-19 crisis. In two weeks, banks including JP Morgan, Bank of America, and PNC Bank vetted thousands of applications for federal loans of up to $10 million. Transaction charges start at 5% for loans under $350,000, reducing to 1% for loans between $2 and $10 million, according to NPR. The loans are guaranteed by the government, and the guidelines issued by the Treasury Department indicate that they require less vetting than regular loans. There is no risk to the banks which are merely the middlemen.

Nationwide Car Protest Demands ‘Cancel The Rent’

April 26, 2020 Dan Koob, CBS Local. Resist! Car Protest, Pandemic, Recession, Rent Strike

Philadelphia - The Philadelphia Museum of Art was a scene of a protest on Saturday as demonstrators say they can’t afford to pay rent because of the coronavirus pandemic. They’re demanding that the payments are canceled. Protesters say they can’t work and just don’t have the money to pay rent, but landlords are naturally pushing back, saying not so fast. May 1 is less than a week away and with any calendar turn, come bills. “If we can’t work, we can’t pay and that the dignity of our people is of the utmost concern,” Lia Ferrante, with the Party of Socialism and Liberation, said. Renters and landlords alike are worried about the new month.

The Engine Room Of Feminist Work Amid A Global Pandemic

April 26, 2020 Rochelle Jones, Interpress Service. Organize! Creative Economy, Feminism, Pandemic, Recession

There have been webinars (so.many.webinars), twitter threads, illustrations, press releases and policy recommendations, and online house parties. Analysis pieces cover everything from the gendered impacts of COVID-19 to how to work remotely to the role of neoliberal capitalism. Most strikingly, feminists have mobilized on a massive scale to generate our own autonomous resources for daily acts of solidarity and survival and to respond politically, collectively, and powerfully to this moment. Many of these actions are coming from within communities and movements in some of the hardest hit and less privileged places, and especially amongst Black, LBTQI+, disability, migrant, land & labour movements. Some of the responses are localised, while others are global.

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