France Facing A Catastrophic Nuclear Energy Crisis

express.co.uk  |  French President Emmanuel Macron is said to be in a "panic" as the issues with France's ageing nuclear reactors have laid bare the flaws in the country's energy plans, an expert has told Express.co.uk. Sixteen out France's 56 nuclear reactors are currently offline due to corrosion and maintenance issues, sending its normal power output levels plummeting in recent months. Prior to these problems, France's nuclear fleet generated 70 percent of the country's electricity. 

According to Dr Paul Dorfman, a nuclear expert from the University of Sussex, France's "chickens are coming home to roost" as the decision to rely so heavily on nuclear is appearing to backfire, with further delays to repairs also announced this week. 

He said: "France was nuclear power excellence, post-war all buffed up with power - it said it was going to be the top dogs. So it had a vast quantity of nuclear reactors dotted all around France. But what is happening now is that its chickens are coming home to roost. 

"EDF (owned by the French state) is 43billion euros in debt, it faces a 100billion euro bill for mandatory safety upgrades, and a significant number of its reactors continue to be offline due to ageing corrosion problems. It also faces a huge decommissioning and waste management bill that is uncosted - they are just beginning to say 'oh my god'. 

"Around a quarter of their reactors are still offline at winter when they really need it. They are even importing power from Germany after being a net exporter. France is panicking about what to do about renewables and insulation."

But all this could be of concern for Britain, which does rely on some French imports that are sent across the Channel via interconnectors. National Grid has previously warned that if the UK fails to shore up enough energy imports from Europe this winter, it may have to roll out organised blackouts in the "deepest, darkest" nights of the coldest months of the year. 

However, while France's nuclear power issues have sparked concern, Dr Dorfman said the UK is luckier than France in that it is one of the leading players in offshore wind, which could provide a vital lifeline this winter. 

He said: "The UK has seriously thought about renewables in the last few years, without any question. But there have been problems with onshore wind and legislation issues. There also problems with the legislation for solar, but offshore wind has helped enormously. But the UK hasn't really considered about the lowest hanging through which is energy efficiency and insulation."

When asked whether the UK is lucky that it has not copied the French model, Dr Dorfman responded: "We are hugely lucky. France is in a catastrophic situation in terms of the vast debt that it owes in nuclear and the existential waste and decommissioning problem that it is facing...The UK is certainly in a better position in terms of offshore windpower, but it needs to get its act together in terms of allowing much greater onshore wind and much greater solar...and all the things that make up a balanced energy portfolio.

 

 

Western MSM Not Covering Massive Genets Jaune Cost Of Living Protests In France

why aren’t US media covering massive protests in France over inflation and cost of living? pic.twitter.com/CWO3z0ntPt

— dilan (@dilanpcook) January 8, 2023

OPEC+ - Led By Russia - Smacks The Taste Out Of Brandon's Mouth

cnbc  |  A group of some of the world’s most powerful oil producers on Wednesday agreed to impose deep output cuts, seeking to spur a recovery in crude prices despite calls from the U.S. to pump more to help the global economy.

OPEC and non-OPEC allies, a group often referred to as OPEC+, decided at their first face-to-face gathering in Vienna since 2020 to reduce production by 2 million barrels per day from November.

Energy market participants had expected OPEC+, which includes Saudi Arabia and Russia, to impose output cuts of somewhere between 500,000 barrels and 2 million barrels.

The move represents a major reversal in production policy for the alliance, which slashed output by a record 10 million barrels per day in early 2020 when demand plummeted due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The oil cartel has since gradually unwound those record cuts, albeit with several OPEC+ countries struggling to fulfill their quotas.

Oil prices have fallen to roughly $80 a barrel from more than $120 in early June amid growing fears about the prospect of a global economic recession.

The production cut for November is an attempt to reverse this slide, despite repeated pressure from U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration for the group to pump more to lower fuel prices ahead of midterm elections next month.

White House ‘disappointed’

The White House said in a statement that Biden was “disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”

It said that Biden had directed the Department of Energy to release another 10 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve next month.

“In light of today’s action, the Biden Administration will also consult with Congress on additional tools and authorities to reduce OPEC’s control over energy prices,” the White House said.

The statement added that the OPEC+ announcement served as “a reminder of why it is so critical that the United States reduce its reliance on foreign sources of fossil fuels.”

To be sure, the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, is the chief driver of the climate emergency.

 

 

Do You Imagine That A Rebellion Of The Belly Would Support (Or Even Spare) Trump?

trysterotapes  |  Bacon begins with this highly relevant, relatable point: “when discords, and quarrels, and factions are carried openly and audaciously, it is a sign the reverence of government is lost.”3 This briefly touches on a point made over at John Ganz’s Unpopular Front, namely the liberal fear of “going too far,” trepidation around the optics of “looking political” that has become associated with Barack Obama on Russia and Comey on “her emails.” If we follow Bacon’s logic here, then the liberal tolerance for these kinds of abuses carries its own dangers, not only of demoralization (when we witness powerful people committing the worst kinds of crimes openly, especially in contrast with the Reality Winners of the world), but of a loss of respect or “reverence of government.” There’s no question that we live in the kind of world that Bacon describes: various forms of revolt are at least discussed openly, and until recently with very little fear of reprisal at least on the MAGA right. And yet, conditions are not ripe for widespread revolt, for the material reasons that Bacon discusses next:

Concerning the materials of seditions. It is a thing well to be considered; for the surest way to prevent seditions (if the times do bear it) is to take away the matter of them. For if there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell, whence the spark shall come, that shall set it on fire. The matter of seditions is of two kinds: much poverty, and much discontentment.4

No question: the current conjuncture positively requires Baconian “discontentment,” and as I have argued elsewhere, the widespread, systemic sense of disillusionment with the neoliberal experiment happened first on the “nationalist” MAGA right. But what Bacon says next clinches the point I want to make 

(I)f this poverty and broken estate in the better sort, be joined with a want and necessity in the mean people, the danger is imminent and great. For the rebellions of the belly are the worst.5

Translated into contemporary language, Bacon here is making the (Machiavellian) point that if leaders of state are concerned with sedition and revolt, they need to watch out for interclass alliances between those “in the better sort” and those whose lives are ruined by scarcity and precarity, the truly marginal and damned. In the end, in other words, we always come back to the politics of thumos, belly-politics, the visceral, gut-level reaction to material deprivation as a primal “danger” to sovereign control over territory and order.6 Bacon’s point that “(r)ebellions of the belly are the worst” is a warning to those in power, but it should also remind us that the MAGA phenomenon remains one of relatively comfortable, white, middle-class men and women. MAGA is an ideology which breaks from neoliberal globalism, in order to prioritize the values of a heartland petit bourgeoisie.

 

Houston Eviction Courts Back To Pre-Pandemic Levels

houstonpublicmedia |  The state rent relief program is out of money. The national eviction moratorium ended months ago. Pandemic unemployment benefits in Texas expired over the summer. While the pandemic isn’t over, most of the state’s court safety regulations have ended or are set to expire soon.

That means more eviction filings and, in some areas, crowded courtrooms that make it near impossible to stay safely distant indoors: So far this month, more than 4,600 eviction cases have been filed in Harris County as the omicron variant led to climbing case counts and hospitalizations.

During the week of Jan. 10, more than 2,033 cases were filed in Harris County, compared to 693 cases filed during the same period last year, according to Jeff Reichman, principal at the consulting firm January Advisors.

“That’s almost three times as many cases filed this January as there were last January,” Reichman said. “We’re really on trend with pre-pandemic numbers.”

In 2020, 2,180 cases were filed during the same time period.

Earlier this month, during the week of Jan. 10, more than 2,033 cases were filed in Harris County compared to 693 cases filed last year, Reichman said. During the same week of 2020, 2,180 cases were filed.

The increase in eviction cases is hitting some courts more than others: Just as some neighborhoods have far more evictions, certain courts take on far more cases.

Last Tuesday, Harris County Judge Lincoln Goodwin’s court scheduled 275 evictions to be heard on the same day — half of them at 9 a.m. and the other half at 1 p.m.

Every seat in the courtroom was taken. A line stretched down the hallway and into the parking lot. The judge and court staff weren’t wearing masks.

Eric Kwartler, an attorney with South Texas College of Law, said he feels at risk of getting COVID-19 when he’s there representing renters.

“Do I feel safe? No. I never do,” Kwartler said. “I never feel safe when I go into an environment like that.”

The court has cut back on virtual hearings, Kwartler added, only allowing virtual hearings for those who submit proof of a positive COVID test.

“I had a client cough on me at one point and then tell the court that his wife was at home with COVID,” Kwartler said.

You Ever Wonder Why Ole'Cornpop Won't Be Cancelling Any Student Loan Debt?

theanalysis |  The Federal Reserve’s job is to make sure that the economy is run for the banking system and for the bond holders, rather than having the banking system and bond markets run for the economy. So we’re living in an upside down economy where everything is being run in order to sustain the bond holders and the banks. And the problem with this is that the mortgage debts, the student loan debts, the personal debts, the car loan debts, they’re growing at an exponentially high rate, while the economy is not growing at a high rate. All of the economy’s growth since 2008 has been only for the top five percent of the population. For 95 percent of the population since 2008, the GDP has actually shrunk. And so you’re having a very sharp polarization right now. So I think if you’re talking about the debt issue, the question is, do you want to sustain this polarization between creditors at the top and the indebted 95 percent or do you want to restore the kind of equality that people think usually is the hallmark of democracy, at least of economic democracy? And the choice by the government is we’re going to sustain the polarization. No matter what, the creditors won’t lose a penny. The debtors will lose.

Paul Jay
OK, so why do you think Biden, and not just Biden, but that section of finance that they represent, why don’t they want to forgive student debt?

Michael Hudson
I think partly it’s what you said. It’s the whole idea that if you admit that you should write down debts when the effect is to help the economy grow and you write down debts that impair economic growth, then people would put economic growth over the welfare of creditors. And that’s revolution. That’s not what our economy is all about. We put creditors first, not the economy. And the very thought of putting the welfare of the people first over the creditors in general, well that’s totalitarianism. That’s a dictatorship. We can’t possibly have that. So it’s the greed of the creditors and the fact that the creditors are able to control politics and who gets nominated, et cetera, enables them to prevent anything that might shock the assumption that the sanctity of property is really the sanctity of creditors to evict property owners if they can’t pay. It’s really the sanctity of debt. And if you talk about the sanctity of debt, it’s the sanctity of the exponential growth of debt, even when it’s beyond the ability to pay, even when it pushes the economy into a chronic depression. And in fact, what we’re suffering now is debt deflation. And the debt deflation at the bottom, students are experiencing, the unemployed are experiencing, cities and states are experiencing it. The transportation systems are running at deficits. All of these deficits are the savings and the gains and the wealth of the one percent or five percent or whatever you want to call the banking and creditor class.

Paul Jay
And of course, the irony of banking as a public utility and the finance sector’s opposition to that is they can’t exist without government subsidy and bailouts and all the rest. And actually, it kind of is a public utility, except for the people that owe the banks.

Michael Hudson
It’s an unregulated public utility, because, again, as Bill Black has explained, there’s been regulatory capture. The problem in the United States is the creation of the Federal Reserve by banks. The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 to move to make banking a private enterprise, not a public utility. And very explicitly to shift the center of money creation and credit and credit rules away from Washington, towards Wall Street and Philadelphia and Boston, and to decentralize it, to get the government out of the credit and debt system and let the creditors run wild over the economy. That was what they said the result was. They even removed the secretary of the Treasury from membership on the Federal Reserve Board at that time. This was a new class war. And it wasn’t the kind of class war that Marx warned about. It was a class war of finance against the rest of the economy. It was a resurgence of the rentier economy, except the rentiers in the 20th century and the 21st century are the creditors and the bankers and the financial institutions, not the landlords.

 

Austerity Is About Preserving The Power Of The Few To Compel The Many

project-syndicate |   Even if everyone agreed that printing another trillion dollars to finance a basic income for the poor would boost neither inflation nor interest rates, the rich and powerful would still oppose it. After all, their most important interest is not to conserve economic potential, but to preserve the power of the few to compel the many.

ATHENS – Back in the 1830s, Thomas Peel decided to migrate from England to Swan River in Western Australia. A man of means, Peel took along, besides his family, “300 persons of the working class, men, women, and children,” as well as “means of subsistence and production to the amount of £50,000.” But soon after arrival, Peel’s plans were in ruins.

The cause was not disease, disaster, or bad soil. Peel’s labor force abandoned him, got themselves plots of land in the surrounding wilderness, and went into “business” for themselves. Although Peel had brought labor, money, and physical capital with him, the workers’ access to alternatives meant that he could not bring capitalism.

Karl Marx recounted Peel’s story in Capital, Volume I to make the point that “capital is not a thing, but a social relation between persons.” The parable remains useful today in illuminating not only the difference between money and capital, but also why austerity, despite its illogicality, keeps coming back.

For now, austerity is out of fashion. With governments spending like there’s no tomorrow – or, rather, to ensure that there is a tomorrow – fiscal spending cuts to rein in public debt do not rank high among political priorities. 

US President Joe Biden’s unexpectedly large – and popular – stimulus and investment program has pushed austerity further down the agenda. But, like mass tourism and large wedding parties, austerity is lingering in the shadows, ready for a comeback, egged on by ubiquitous chatter about impending hyperinflation and crippling bond yields unless governments re-embrace it.

There is little doubt that austerity is based on faulty thinking, leading to self-defeating policy. The fallacy lies in the failure to recognize that, unlike a person, family, or company, government cannot bank on its income being independent of its spending. If you and I choose to save money that we could have spent on new shoes, we will keep that money. But this way of saving is not open to the government. If it cuts spending during periods of low or falling private spending, then the sum of private and government spending will decline faster. This sum is national income. So, for governments pursuing austerity, spending cuts mean lower national income and fewer taxes. Unlike a household or a business, if the government cuts its spending during tough times, it is cutting its revenues, too.

Texas Is Experiencing A Self-Inflicted $Trillion Dollar FAIL

slate |   Of all the continental states, Texas alone has its own power grid. (The rest of the continental U.S. is covered by two other grids.) The reason for this is very Texan: The utilities wanted to avoid the oversight from the federal government that comes with interstate business. So Texas developed a massive market governed by the rules of supply and demand that led to low prices for consumers.

But according to Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, there’s no incentive for Texas power generators to jump in at a moment’s notice, thanks to the way the market is structured. The average wholesale price of electricity for the past decade or so has been lower than what it costs to provide that electricity. He notes that the high-cost generators know they have to be ready to go in the summer, but after that, they “button up and go fishing,” and it can be difficult to bring them back online quickly. For some companies, providing that reserve power in offseason times, such as February, could prove very rewarding if an unusual spike happens. But it’s a high-risk venture, and larger companies are motivated to avoid sinking so much into the cost of producing supply without a reliable demand. So Texas doesn’t have a lot of reserve power.

Julie Cohn, a historian with affiliations at the Baker Institute at Rice University and at the Center for Public History at the University of Houston, added that in Texas there is no law or regulatory entity requiring a power system to have a certain amount of backup in case of a sudden spike in demand, as is the case elsewhere. It’s possible that, because of its isolation, the Texas grid was unable to pull power from the surrounding regions. But as Gürcan Gülen, an independent energy consultant and a former researcher at UT Austin, noted, the surrounding regions were dealing with their own blackouts, so it’s unlikely that would have helped much.

At least one expert has argued that Texas had little reserve power on hand simply because it had little need to worry, given its abundant natural gas resources. But natural gas, which powers a large percentage of Texas electricity plants, was a major culprit in this week’s blackouts. Multiple technological elements in the extraction and distribution of natural gas failed in the extreme temperatures, knocking out about half of its normal output. This would have been a huge problem even if natural gas’s role in the state’s power generation wasn’t taken into account: Texans rely heavily on natural gas for heat and fuel during the winter, and when demand skyrocketed as temperatures plunged, the utilities were forced to prioritize individual houses and hospitals over the power plants. And even then, some of those power plants that received the natural gas were forced to halt operations due to the cold.

The cold was punishing for other power sources as well: At least one nuclear power plant partially shut down in the cold, and some coal generators failed in the frigid temperatures.

 

The Elites Used Greece - Post 2008 - As A Model Of Just How Far They Can Push

thebellows  |  On January 19, 2020, Washington state reported the first US case of coronavirus. By the end of March, 245 million Americans were under stay-at-home restrictions to “flatten the curve.” Mainstream news terrorized the public with exponential graphs, threats of a medical supply shortage, and displays of hygiene theater. Appeals to science were weaponized to enforce conformity, and the media portrayed anti-lockdown protesters as backwards, astroturfed white nationalists bent on endangering the public. 

Today millions of Americans have fallen into poverty or are on the verge of destitution. Stimulus money has largely been used as a handout to corporations, and over 160,000 small businesses have closed. In March and April 30 million Americans filed for unemployment. Now temporary job losses are becoming permanent. 12 million unemployed people may see their benefits lapse even if Congress passes a new aid deal. Homelessness is spiking, 11.4 million households owe $70 billion in back rent and fees, and 40 million people are at risk of eviction. In some states, food bank lines stretch for miles, and 1 in 4 children are expected to experience food insecurity. 

Meanwhile, Walmart and Target reported record sales. Amazon tripled its profits and Jeff Bezos made $70 billion. Billionaires have collectively made over $1 trillion since March. Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft now make up 20% of the stock market’s total worth. The tech industry has achieved an unparalleled level of wealth and dominance. Data, which has been more valuable than oil since 2017, is expected to expand its economic footprint.

Unemployment, hunger, institutional breakdown, and the destruction of social bonds are not symptoms of a virus. They are the indirect violence of class warfare. The pandemic is a convenient scapegoat for the largest upward wealth transfer in modern human history. Under the pretext of a public health policy, elites have successfully waged a counterrevolution that will result in the erosion of working conditions and quality of life for generations to come. 

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Death, disease, and pandemics have always been part of human life and they always will be. 2.8 million Americans die every year and 56 million people die worldwide. Each year 1.3 million people die of tuberculosis, 445,000 die of malaria, and 290,000-650,000 die of influenza. In 1968 1-4 million people died in the H2N3 influenza pandemic, during which businesses and schools stayed open and large events were held. 

Indefinite closures have never before been used as a disease control method on a global scale. These experimental restrictions were shaped by the discredited Imperial College Model which predicted 2.2 million US deaths. Many epidemiologists and doctors questioned these doomsday projections and pointed out that there was not sufficient data to justify lockdowns. The virus has a low mortality rate, especially for people under 65, and 94% of US covid deaths have occurred with comorbidities. Most statistical analysis does not show lockdown measures to be an effective strategy for reducing mortality.

In March unprecedented policies were rationalized through shocking stories and videos from northern Italy. The region’s crowded ICUs were presented as a warning for the rest of Europe and the US. Unknown to many was the fact that Lombardy had been severely impacted by ongoing privatization efforts and a shrinking hospital system regularly overwhelmed by influenza. This omission by mainstream media played a key role in developing the mythology that economic shutdown could magically eradicate a virus. In reality lockdowns have accelerated a cycle of austerity and created a self-fulfilling prophecy of perpetual crisis.

 

Both Political Parties Ignore The Needs Of The American Precariat

newsclick |  In sharp contrast, Trump may have appeared indifferent to the gravity of the coronavirus, but his persistent calls to reopen the economy addressed the precarity issue, as they appealed to many workers whose livelihoods were being destroyed by the pandemically induced government restrictions placed on economic activity.

Public health care authorities understandably directed their policy responses toward pandemic mitigation, and the Democrats largely embraced their recommendations. But they remained insensitive to the anxieties of tens of millions of Americans, whose jobs were being destroyed for good, whose household debts—rent, mortgage, and utility arrears, as well as interest on education and car loans—were rising inexorably, even allowing for the temporary expedient of stimulus checks from the government until this past August.

Yet the inability of Congress to secure extensions on relief packages did not appear to unduly penalise Republicans, if one is to judge from the congressional results. Equally significantly, it didn’t help the Democrats either. This suggests that lingering fears about COVID-19 are being matched by economic anxiety from the many millions of American workers who are coming to realise that their jobs are simply not essential.

The struggle for the precariat vote will define the transformation of both parties in the next four years, and that’s an excellent thing, as it will force both parties to offer competing policies that begin to address their concerns. Until this group’s longstanding economic grievances—jobs, health, safety, pollution, the public purpose, and above all, relative stability and employment security over long periods of time—are addressed, the United States will remain a profoundly divided and divisive country at war with itself.

In Crisis Opportunity: IMF Pandemic Loans Begin Privatization Of The Developing World

mintpressnews  |  The enormous economic dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity to fundamentally alter the structure of society, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if using the crisis to implement near-permanent austerity measures across the world.

76 of the 91 loans it has negotiated with 81 nations since the beginning of the worldwide pandemic in March have come attached with demands that countries adopt measures such as deep cuts to public services and pensions — measures that will undoubtedly entail privatization, wage freezes or cuts, or the firing of public sector workers like doctors, nurses, teachers and firefighters.

The principal cheerleader for neoliberal austerity measures across the globe for decades, the IMF has recently (quietly) begun admitting that these policies have not worked and generally make problems like poverty, uneven development, and inequality even worse. Furthermore, they have also failed even to bring the promised economic growth that was meant to counteract these negative effects. In 2016, it described its own policies as “oversold” and earlier summed up its experiments in Latin America as “all pain, no gain.” Thus, its own reports explicitly state its policies do not work.

“The IMF has sounded the alarm about a massive spike in inequality in the wake of the pandemic. Yet it is steering countries to pay for pandemic spending by making austerity cuts that will fuel poverty and inequality,” Chema Vera, Interim Executive Director of Oxfam International, said today.

These measures could leave millions of people without access to healthcare or income support while they search for work, and could thwart any hope of sustainable recovery. In taking this approach, the IMF is doing an injustice to its own research. Its head needs to start speaking to its hands.”

Oxfam has identified at least 14 countries that it expects will imminently freeze or cut public sector wages and jobs. Tunisia, for example, has only 13 doctors per 10,000 people. Any cuts to its already scant healthcare system would cripple it in its fight against the coronavirus. “If people can’t afford testing and care for COVID-19 and other health needs, the virus will continue to spread unchecked and more people will die. Out-of-pocket healthcare expenses were a tragedy before the pandemic, and now they are a death sentence,” Vera added.

Subrealists Were Awfully Quiet About That CDC Aerosol Retraction - SMDH...,

nakedcapitalism |  Basically, WHO and the CDC people have been droplet proponents for a long time, and, since science proceeds by conflict — which is why “Trust the science!” doesn’t work when applied uncritically — they need to be persuaded, or, if worst comes to worst, defenestrated in the usual way: One funeral at a time, as Max Planck said. To be fair to the medical profession, they have proceeded with far greater dispatch than physicists!

So, one explanation for the new CDC guidance being pulled is that, institutionally, the old guard won.

Politically, you know the already congealing narrative. Here is the classiest, least hysterical example of it.

As we have explained at length, “the science” is not always a matter of “facts” but of the paradigms we use to give an account of facts. WHO, for example, does not regard aerosols as the primary transmission path for Covid as a fact at all. Zeke’s embarrassing Neera on this, and he should do better.

Second, I have checked CBS, The Hill, NPR, Politico, WaPo, a second article in WaPo, and the Wall Street Journal. None of them suggest the guidance was “squelched” for “political considerations.” The New York Times says explicitly that it wasn’t:

Experts with knowledge of the incident said on Monday that the latest reversal appeared to be a genuine mistake in the agency’s scientific review process, rather than the result of political meddling. Officials said the agency would soon publish revised guidance.

Of course, one never knows when the blow may fall; anonymous sources could contradict the Times tomorrow. Nevertheless, Occam’s Razor would suggest than when we have an institutional account, we don’t need to invent a political one.

Third, and ironically, if there was, anybody doing the squelching — in today’s impoverished analytical environment — would be able to say “I did trust the science! I checked with WHO!!”

So that is the state of play on the CDC’s aerosol guidance as of today. Let’s see what they come up with!

Police Work For The Ruling Elite - PERIOD!

WSWS |  It is now just over three weeks since the Memorial Day murder of George Floyd set off mass protests throughout the United States and around the world. The political representatives of the ruling class have responded with, on the one hand, brute force and threats of military repression, and, on the other hand, pledges of “reform” and “accountability.”

Yesterday, Trump signed an executive order that would embed more social workers and mental health professionals with the police, create a national database to track officers fired or convicted for using excessive force, and ban chokeholds, with the exception, as the president explained, of “when an officer’s life is at risk.”

Trump announced his executive order in an address before police officers filled with calls for “law and order” and denunciations of protesters. Trump’s caveat on chokeholds leaves the window wide open for the continued use of the deadly practice, since police officers routinely claim that they fear for their lives when they grievously wound or kill someone.

The Democrats have offered up their own slate of cosmetic changes largely mirroring Trump’s, including banning chokeholds and creating a national database of abusive officers, while also explicitly rejecting the demand, popular among protestors, to “defund” the police. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democrats' presumptive presidential nominee, has called for $300 million in additional federal funding to shore up police departments across the country, while Senator Bernie Sanders has said that cops need to be paid higher salaries.

Such measures will amount to less than nothing. They might as well propose to change the color of police uniforms. Inevitably, “reforms” from these representatives of the ruling class will end up strengthening the police as an oppressive apparatus of the state.

The promise of police reform has repeatedly been offered up by the ruling class as a supposed solution to excessive violence. In the aftermath of the urban rebellions of the 1960s, the Democrats claimed that more black police officers on the beat, more black police chiefs overseeing forces and more black mayors would solve the problem.

Half a century later, African Americans account for more than 13 percent of police officers, an overrepresentation compared to the population as a whole. Black police chiefs head departments across the country, and cities large and small have elected black mayors. In the last decade, the introduction of police vehicle dash cams and body cameras has been offered up as yet another panacea.

And yet the killing and abuse continue, and indeed have escalated.

What is absent from all of the media commentary on police violence, let alone the statements from bourgeois politicians, is any examination of what the police are and their relationship to capitalist society.

Common Citizens vs. Elites In Control Of Governments

alt-market |  Certain assumptions are almost always present in war, and the biggest assumption made by people is that the fight is between two governments and two nations. This is usually not the case. In fact, the real fight is the governments and the elites that control them versus the common citizens of both nations. This fact is backed by considerable evidence collected by researchers like Antony Sutton. His book 'Wall Street And The Bolshevik Revolution' as well as his book 'Wall Street And The Rise Of Hitler' outline a clear and provable conspiracy by global elites to fund both sides of any given conflict and then benefit through further globalization when the ashes settle.

I have been warning for many years about this same dynamic being created between the US and the East, specifically Russia and China. In my articles on what I call the “false East/West paradigm”, I give ample evidence that the very same money elites which control Washington also greatly influence nations like China through a shared ideology.

Yes, that's right, the elites of China and the elites of the US are on the same team and have the same goals. There is no war, at least not at the top of the pyramid. Their stated goals include the creation of a one world digital currency system controlled by the International Monetary Fund and a 24/7 surveillance society in which every person on the planet is tracked through biometrics and through the blockchain. Without the tracking, participation is denied. In other words, you submit or you starve.

The pandemic, or the war on the “invisible enemy” as Trump calls it, is an excellent cover event for these goals. China has already launched its own tracking apps and immunity passports using cell phones and QR codes. These same measures are being pushed forward here in the US by elites like Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The revelation that China's Wuhan Lab received millions of dollars in funding from the US government for work on SARS-like viruses, greenlit by none other than Dr. Fauci in 2015, is but one of many instances in a long trail of aid and support that came from the West and the UN to China, from weapons development to economic support to viral research.

Did the US help create a monster? If we did, it was a monster that the elites absolutely wanted and have a specific use for.

I have long believed that China would be the primary villain used as a catalyst to trigger the “economic reset” that the globalists desire, but the roles of the US and China will remain ambiguous and amoral as this conflict drags on. For many in the US, China is seen as an economic pirate and now the cause of the coronavirus pandemic. As I noted in last week's article, this is in some ways true but not the whole truth. Without the aid (or the blind eye) of Western governments and the World Health Organization, the spread of the pandemic would not have been possible.

Now, the other big distraction, the trade war, is about to return to mainstream discussion, and in the trade war we see the forever war unfold.

To be clear, the trade war never ended. I have said that the Phase 1 deal was a farce of epic proportions and that it was designed to fail as China would never be able to fulfill the promises they made to increase US export purchases. Well, we'll never know now as the coronavirus has become the prevailing excuse to nix the trade deal and accelerate trade tensions. Of course, in this case Trump plays the monster as he initiates renewed trade attacks on China in the middle of a global crisis; at least, that is what the mainstream media is saying.

That Lemony Fresh Stash Of "Finger Lickin Good" Wipes Is Now STRAIGHT MONEY!!!

fox5ny |  One police department in Oregon posted a reminder on their Facebook page, asking the public to not call for an emergency if they run out of toilet paper due to the coronavirus outbreak.

 "It’s hard to believe that we even have to post this," police in Newport, Oregon wrote. "Do not call 9-1-1 just because you ran out of toilet paper. You will survive without our assistance."

The post then pointed out the different methods used throughout history before suggesting other items that could be used in lieu of "your favorite soft, ultra plush two-ply citrus scented tissue."

Among their suggestions: grocery store receipts, newspaper, cloth rags, magazine pages, cotton balls and even leaves.

"Be resourceful. Be patient. There is a TP shortage. This too shall pass. Just don’t call 9-1-1. We cannot bring you toilet paper," the post concluded.

Admit You Don't Like Poor People...,

medium |  In the sociological literature on poverty, there are ample studies and papers about the ways that being poor impacts the brain. Stress, malnutrition, and exposure to the kinds of environmental contaminants that often accompany lower-income neighborhoods (Flint’s lack of clean water or the poor air quality in schools around highways) can have serious neurological impacts on people living on the economic margins.

Less studied, however, is the impact that poverty—seeing it, knowing about it, thinking about it—has on the brains of people who are not poor.

This is also an important area of study, though, particularly as cities and states attempt to maneuver unprecedented wealth inequality and homelessness. Perceptions of poverty (and, as a result, perceptions of scarcity) have substantial impacts on the way we collectively think, act, vote, and legislate.

And often, we don’t bother to examine them.

This is clear in community meetings about new affordable housing or homeless shelters, wherein self-proclaimed “concerned” neighbors begin every testimony with something along the lines of “I care about the homeless! I really do! But…” and then follow their opener with something that expresses an unfounded bias about people living in poverty.

“…I’m worried about increases in crime.”

“…why do we have to pay for their housing?”

“…they’ll just trash it!”

“…how will I explain them to my children?”

These sentiments — which assume that homeless individuals are criminals, that they’re freeloaders, that their very existence is somehow damaging to children — are not based in research, nor do they account for the complexity of socioeconomic status. They are, instead, based on a reaction to poverty and scarcity that is intimately linked to our own survival mechanisms.

Just as humans grapple with implicit biases with regard to race, gender, size, and a host of other differences, it’s clear from the research that does exist, as well as the anecdotal evidence playing out in communities around the country right now, that witnessing poverty and perceiving scarcity creates biases in people who are not poor.

But again, like racial- and gender-based discrimination, cognitive reactions aren’t an excuse for acting on those biases.

PROMESA Bishes: Obama Imposed Austerity on Puerto Rico...,

nakedcapitalism |  With that said, here’s a handy dashboard from the Puerto Rican goverment that shows the status of various systems on the island. In this post, I’m going to focus on the two systems that are in the worst shape: Power, at 5% coverage of the island, and water, where coverage differs by region: Metro, 57%; Norte, 29%; Oeste, 20%; Sur, 67%; and Este, 50%. But first, I’m going to look at one factor that differentiates the “natural” disaster of Maria in Puerto Rico from others on the mainland; then I’ll show how that factor affects the power system, and then cascades to affect the water supply. 

That one factor is, of course, finance. One difference between New Orleans (Katrina), Florida (Irma), and Texas (Harvey) on the one hand, and Puerto Rico (Maria), on the other, is that only Puerto Rico is under an austerity regime, imposed during the Obama administration. José A. Laguarta Ramírez described this regime (PROMESA) at Naked Capitalism in 2016:

The U.S. House of Representatives approved PROMESA on the evening of June 9, following a strong endorsement by President Barack Obama. The bill, which would also impose an unelected and unaccountable federal oversight board and allow court-supervised restructuring of part of the island’s $73 billion debt, now awaits consideration by the Senate…. Puerto Rico is not the only place, under the global regime of austerity capitalism to face predatory creditors and the imposition of unelected rulers —as illustrated by cases like Argentina, Greece, and post-industrial U.S. cities such as Flint, Mich.— but its century-old colonial status has made it particularly vulnerable and defenseless.

The House vote followed a concerted, carefully timed media push by the Democratic establishment, on the premise that “despite its flaws” PROMESA represents a bipartisan compromise that is, in Obama’s words, “far superior to the status quo.”

PROMESA’s oversight board, which will be staffed by San Juan and Washington insiders with the bondholders’ best interests at heart, is sure to continue to impose draconian austerity measures that have already slashed much-needed social services.

Of course! Austerity! Why did nobody think of this before? Mark Weisbrot in the New York Times:

This board, to which President Barack Obama appointed four Democrats and four Republicans, has now approved an austerity regimen that, if things go according to plan, envisions a second lost decade — in other words, no economic growth from 2005 through 2024. But the plan [reminscent of the austerity imposed on Greece] doesn’t take into account the impact of such austerity, which would add more years of decline. And there’s more: All the budget tightening over the second decade, including cuts to health care and education, would pay only about $7.9 billion of Puerto Rico’s $73 billion debt.
That means that creditors’ lawsuits, which have already been filed, could inflict additional damage and worsen the quarter-century of economic stagnation that is now in the cards. Hedge funds hold much of Puerto Rico’s debt, and since May their claims have been under consideration in a bankruptcy-like proceeding — also under the Promesa act — that does not look any more promising than the oversight board’s plan.

(One of Trump’s earlier tweets — September 25 — read: “Texas & Florida are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep trouble.” So it’s pleasing to see that the Democrats’ tender concern for the hedgies and vulture funds is shared across the political spectrum.)

Now let’s look at the effect of this thoroughly bipartisan austerity on the Puerto Rican power system.

Rep. Adrian Smith Should Have Gone Old Testament and Answered NO!

WaPo  |  Perhaps the most upsetting headline I saw, though, was generated not by Trump but by a 10-year veteran of the House Republican majority. In an astonishing interview Saturday on NPR, this lawmaker repeatedly demurred when asked whether Americans are entitled to the most basic human need.

NPR’s Scott Simon, a genial interviewer, asked Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), a member of the Ways and Means Committee and an influential figure on agriculture policy, about Trump’s proposal to make vast cuts to food stamps. Smith posited that the program could be cut in ways that “do not harm the most vulnerable.”

“Well, let me ask you this bluntly: Is every American entitled to eat?” Simon queried.

Smith was stumped. “Well, they — nutrition, obviously, we know is very important. And I would hope that we can look to — ”

Simon interrupted: “Well, not just important, it’s essential for life. Is every American entitled to eat?”

Smith agreed that nutrition “is essential” but continued to ignore the question about whether Americans are entitled to eat.

Simon tried a third time: “So is every American entitled to eat, and is food stamps something that ought to be that ultimate guarantor?”

Once again, the lawmaker demurred: “I think that we know that, given the necessity of nutrition, there could be a number of ways that we could address that.”

There was more, but it all came down to this: In the United States, in 2017, a powerful member of Congress refuses to grant that Americans should be able to count on eating food. 

.45's Proposed Federal Contraction

chicagotribune |  The federal government is projected to spend $4.091 trillion next year, with roughly two-thirds of that going mostly toward Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, poverty assistance and interest payments on the government debt. This spending is expected to be left untouched in the budget proposal next week.

What Trump will propose changing is the rest of the budget, known as discretionary spending, which is authorized each year by Congress. Slightly more than half of this remaining money goes to the military, and the rest is spread across agencies that operate things like education, diplomacy, housing, transportation and law enforcement.

Among Trump's expected proposals are an increase in military spending of $54 billion, more money to start building a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico, and the creation of new initiatives that expand access to charter schools and other educational programs.

To offset that new money, Trump will propose steep cuts across numerous other agencies. Although final numbers remain in flux, his advisers have considered cutting the Department of Housing and Urban Development's budget by $6 billion, or 14 percent, according to a preliminary budget document obtained by The Washington Post. That is a change that Trulia chief economist Ralph McLaughlin said could "put nearly 8 million Americans in both inner-city and suburban communities at risk of losing their public housing and nearly 4 million at risk of losing their rental subsidy."

Preliminary budget documents have also shown that Trump advisers have also looked at cutting the Environmental Protect Agency's staff by about 20 percent and tightening the Commerce Department's budget by about 18 percent, which would impact climate change research and weather satellite programs, among other things.

Trump and his advisers have said that they believe the federal workforce is too big, and that the federal government spends - and wastes - too much money. They have said that Washington - the federal workers and contractors, among others - has benefited from government largesse while many other Americans have suffered. Federal spending, they have argued, crowds the private sector and piles regulations and bureaucracy onto companies.

Global Beta Test: Mexico

NYTimes |   Mr. Peña Nieto’s efforts have been handicapped, analysts say, by a seeming disconnect from the public mood.

The government looked unprepared for the violent responses to the price increases, which took effect on New Year’s Day, when most officials were on vacation. Mr. Peña Nieto himself was in the middle of a golfing trip. And as bloody unrest swept across the country, the president kept silent, finally making a public statement on the issue on Wednesday.

Even then, his comments were buried in a news conference focused on cabinet changes that included the return of Luis Videgaray, a close confidant who resigned under pressure as finance minister in September after championing an unpopular visit by Mr. Trump to Mexico.

The administration’s detached response to the upheaval contributed to the impression of a president out of touch with the population, analysts said, and gave a sense of a leadership that is adrift, blindsided by events.

The gas price increases of about 20 percent are part of a broad overhaul that ends the state’s monopoly over the energy industry. The government has long controlled and subsidized gasoline prices, but by the end of the year it will allow gas prices to fluctuate according to the market, a move intended to attract foreign investment to compete with the state oil company, Pemex.

The government has argued that ending fuel subsidies will help the country avoid spending cuts to social programs, and that the subsidies have disproportionately benefited wealthier Mexicans who own cars. But many fear that higher gasoline prices will increase costs for food and public transportation, hitting the pocketbooks of even the poorest Mexicans.

Though Mexico’s opposition parties are now condemning the price increase, most of them voted for it as part of the budget approved in October. But Mexico imports more than half of its gasoline from the United States, and Mr. Trump’s election sent the peso to a historic low, raising the price of imported gasoline in pesos greater than anybody expected.

Analysts said the government could have forestalled the fallout by designing measures that would have softened the blow for poorer Mexicans, or by creating subsidies for truck drivers or owners of older vehicles.

“They didn’t think about it,” said Vidal Romero, a political analyst at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. “There is no compensation for citizens.”