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US: $1.6 Billion For Propaganda, Nothing For Infrastructure

August 8, 2025 Grumpy Chinese Guy, Orinoco Tribune. , , ,
The United States has approved $1.6 billion to counter what it calls China’s “malign influence” abroad. The funding goes to foreign media outlets, NGOs, influencers, and think tanks that align with Washington’s preferred messaging. This is not defense spending. It is not humanitarian aid. It is a global messaging campaign, funded by taxpayers. The U.S. says it cannot afford healthcare, housing, or student debt relief. But it finds $1.6 billion to run media campaigns in Vietnam, Nigeria, and Colombia. This is not sustainable. It is not defensible. If the government can find this money for foreign propaganda, it can find the money for clean water in Flint, or housing in Los Angeles. It chooses not to.

Why We Need A Solidarity Economy Now

July 10, 2025 Rick Wilson, Waging Nonviolence. , , ,
As people across the United States face massive cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other vital programs, many are asking: What happens when the systems we rely on fail us? And what happens when our communities are torn apart by toxic inequality, political fragmentation and declining social trust? The solution may lie in something that humans have been doing throughout our existence: taking care of each other, often without realizing it. Today that’s what some of us call the “solidarity economy.” I first heard the term in late 2008, and I wasn’t impressed. I believe the term I used might have been something like “boutique-y.”

Anti-Worker Policies, Capitalism, And Privatization Keep South Poor

June 23, 2025 Nina Mast, Economic Policy Institute. , , , ,
The central function of government should be to protect people from harm, exploitation, and abuse. Yet on this core task, many Southern state governments have performed abhorrently—largely by design. EPI’s Rooted in Racism and Economic Exploitation series1 has shown how for most of the past two centuries, Southern state governments have embraced an economic development strategy—the Southern economic development model—designed to undermine job quality and suppress worker power, particularly for Black and brown workers. The model aims to maintain a pool of exploitable, available labor, and preserve the racial and economic hierarchies established during slavery.

Ongoing Influence Of Slavery And Jim Crow In The South

April 6, 2025 Chandra Childers, Portside. , , ,
The Southern economic development model leaves many workers and families across the region struggling to provide for themselves and their families. They have less access to adequate nutrition, safe and stable housing, and fewer other sources of support to nurture the growth and development of their children. Many children and families in persistently high-poverty areas across the South will not have access to opportunities outside their neglected communities, further reducing the likelihood that their children will achieve economic prosperity.

Washington’s Attempts To Bully China Will Only Backfire

January 16, 2025 Mike Whitney, The Unz Review. , , , ,
China is rapidly overtaking the United States in a number of areas that threaten to undermine America’s position in the world. Naturally, US leaders and their billionaire backers are concerned about this and have taken steps to remedy the situation. Regrettably, none of these steps include an honest appraisal of the western economic model that allows the ‘privileged few’ to skim-off too much of their company’s profits leaving insufficient capital to reinvest in productive activity, critical infrastructure or societal improvement. Chinese policymakers have taken a different approach to this issue and the results speak for themselves.

Trump’s Christmas Message Is One Of Chaos, Turbulence And Retaliation

December 26, 2024 Colonel (Ret) Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. , , , , , , ,
Letting no holiday opportunity go without stirring up chaos, turbulence and retaliation, by mid-morning on Christmas Day, President-elect Trump posted a series of insensitive, brazen and mean spirited “Merry Christmas” messages on his Truth Social platform. These posts for both national and international issues were followed, predictably, by over two dozen re-posts of articles or other social media posts forecasting his political agenda on topics including troubled Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth and his designation of Greenland and the Panama Canal as U.S. national security necessities, tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and reinstatement of the federal death penalty that Biden had suspended.

US Food Insecurity Rate Rose To 13.5% In 2023

September 10, 2024 Michael Long and Lara Gonçalves, Counter Punch. , , ,
The official U.S. food insecurity rate rose to 13.5% in 2023 from 12.8% in 2022, according to data the U.S. Department of Agriculture released on Sept. 4, 2024. That means more than 1 in 8 Americans – about 47 million people – couldn’t get enough food for themselves or their families at least some of the time. This is a significant increase from a recent low of 10.2% in 2021. Food insecurity grew in the two years that followed due to a sharp decline in government benefits, including money for groceries from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the program that pays for students to get lunch and breakfast for free at school.

Report Lauds Effects Of Guaranteed Income For Struggling Families

February 6, 2024 Chris Walker, Truthout. , , , ,
A guaranteed income program in Boston, Massachusetts, which began in the summer of 2021, resulted in numerous positive outcomes for recipients, highlights a recently published study by the groups that organized the program. Camp Harbor View and UpTogether, the organizations that dispersed the payments, privately funded the program from a group of 107 donors. Around $750,000 was raised in total, which was given out to 50 families around the Boston area. The families who were chosen to receive funds didn’t already qualify for social safety net benefits, as the program was designed to help those who were “too rich to be poor and too poor to be rich.”

Imagine A Central Income Distribution Institution

November 23, 2023 Matt Bruenig, People's Policy Project. , , ,
Many years ago, I learned that the Faroe Islands has a peculiar process for compensating workers. There, employers pay each worker’s entire paycheck to the tax authority, which removes any taxes owed and then remits the remainder to each worker’s linked bank account. As part of this process, the tax authority also rolls in any welfare payments an individual is owed when making its periodic payments. Beyond these practical advantages, the idea of a central income distribution institution (CIDI) — i.e. a government entity that all income payments are routed through, even factor income payments like wages, dividends, and interest — is useful for thinking through certain intractable philosophical, accounting, and conceptual debates that frequently pop up in the economic policy discourse.

‘Work Requirements’ Or Real Jobs?

July 10, 2023 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. , , ,
When I heard the debt-ceiling deal would target people in their fifties for new work requirements to get food stamps, I thought about my brother. As a young man in the Navy, he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes—that’s the one where your body attacks your pancreas, and you need insulin to stay alive. At the time, treatment options were limited, and the Navy discharged him. But thanks to the V.A. and medical advances, he was OK. He’s a talented mechanic, had steady work, and raised two wonderful kids. In his fifties, though, the toll of the disease meant a lot of sick days. Too many for his employers.

Did The Debt Ceiling Deal Really Save The US From Bankruptcy?

June 20, 2023 Radhika Desai and Michael Roberts, Geopolitical Economy. , , , ,
So as far as the debt ceiling is concerned, there has been a pattern which has become a classic of sorts, with just days to go before the day that the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US would run out of cash to meet its obligations, President Biden and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy reached a bipartisan deal which is going to permit the government to keep borrowing in return for certain cuts in spending, social spending in particular, that the Republicans insisted on. The catastrophic disaster predicted by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in the weeks leading up to the negotiations and the deadline was again narrowly averted.

England To Trial A Basic Income For The First Time

June 11, 2023 Curtis Daly, The Canary. , , ,
England is about to pilot a basic income scheme for the first time. Thirty people will receive £1600 a month for two years. The trial, which will take place in central Jarrow and East Finchley, seeks to find out what effects this will have on the lives of the participants. Will Stronge, director of research from thinktank Autonomy, said: All the evidence shows that it would directly alleviate poverty and boost millions of people’s wellbeing: the potential benefits are just too large to ignore. Indeed, this seems like an interesting and positive scheme to tackle the hardship millions of people face in this country. However, unsurprisingly, debates within the corporate media have included baseless criticism and personal attacks.

Debt Ceiling Agreement Improved, But Harmful Provisions Remain

May 29, 2023 Sharon Parrott, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. , , ,
While the debt ceiling agreement announced last night is a significant improvement over the radical House bill, it is not the deal the country deserves. There are a number of troubling elements, including the provision that will put at risk food assistance for very low-income older adults. This policy will increase hunger and poverty among that group, runs contrary to our nation’s values, and should be rejected. The nation must pay its bills — but that shouldn’t mean enacting legislation that leaves people who already struggle to afford the basics worse off. We should never have been in this situation. We are here only because House Republicans twisted the rules of democracy.

More Older Workers Are Trapped In Crummy Jobs, Unable To Retire

April 30, 2023 Teresa Ghilarducci and Christopher D. Cook, Economic Policy Institute. , , ,
Over the past two decades, older workers have become an increasingly significant share of the labor force. In the economic recovery after the Great Recession of 2008–2009, four in 10 Americans ages 55 or older were in the labor force—the highest participation rate in half a century. As of 2020, these older workers made up 23.6% of the total U.S. workforce, the highest portion on record. Why are so many older Americans unable to retire and so many working into old age to survive? For many, the answer isn’t “because they want to.” Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 50% of low-income older households ages 55–64 were financially fragile—up dramatically from the 35% at risk in 1992.

To Fight Inequality, Tax The Patriarchy And Invest In Care

April 18, 2023 Rebekah Entralgo, Inequality.org. , , ,
While millions of households across the United States are scrambling to file — or extend — their taxes by the April 19th deadline, members of our billionaire class are doing a great deal more smiling than scrambling. Why? Because the U.S. tax code is built to reward wealth over work and serves big corporate interests over working families. Trillions of dollars goes untaxed each year, deftly squirreled away by tax professionals hired by the nation’s wealthy and powerful or left untouched because the federal government doesn’t tax wealth as it does income. Over one recent five-year period, a bombshell ProPublica investigation from 2022 revealed, the 25 richest Americans paid a true tax rate of roughly 3.4 percent.
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