Andrew Yang promised he would do something unprecedented at tonight’s Democratic debate and he delivered: the former entrepreneur and long shot presidential candidate made a roughly libertarian pitch to voters.
During his opening remarks, Yang told debate watchers that they too could win a $1,000 a month “Freedom Dividend”—the candidate’s catchy name for his signature universal basic income (UBI) proposal—by visiting his campaign website and entering their name, email, and zip code.
It’s an inventive but self-interested ploy to harvest more campaign contacts. The most curious thing about Yang’s electoral sweepstakes is the way he pitched it.
“When you donate money to a presidential campaign, what happens? The politician spends the money on TV ads and consultants and you hope it works out,” said Yang. “It’s time to trust ourselves more than our politicians.”
Andrew Yang announces his campaign will give $1,000 a month for an entire year to ten American families pic.twitter.com/E7yRb5j0SH
“We have to see ourselves as owners and shareholders of this democracy rather than inputs into a giant machine,” said Yang.
The praise of individual voters’ wisdom over that of politicians or government bureaucrats was refreshing. It’s something one could only expect from the single candidate in the Democratic primary who gave a shout-out to libertarians on the debate stage.
Indeed, Yang’s UBI proposal is a cousin of welfare reform proposals advanced by libertarian-leaning figures like Milton Friedman and Charles Murray.
It’s true that the fiscal math Yang employs to justify his UBI doesn’t quite work out; it still relies on coercive taxation and redistribution that many libertarians find unpalatable.
It’s nevertheless nice to hear at least one candidate argue that individuals, not large bureaucracies, can make the best decisions about how to live their lives and spend their money.
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Dominance is not a word that the Pentagon and the White House like to hear when it’s not preceded by “U.S.” Right now, amid a trade war with Beijing, it is a word that officials want to hear even less when it’s preceded by “Chinese”. Yet in one strategic area, there is a true Chinese dominance that has many people worried.
Rare earths are a group of 17 chemical elements crucial for a variety of products, from magnets to batteries, including EV batteries—a nascent battlefield for various battery technologies. China is home to 85 percent of the world’s rare earths production capacity, and unlike other countries, it has spend decades developing the most efficient technologies not just for extracting them but for processing these seventeen metals as well.
The United States, on the other hand, imports most of the rare earths it needs—with 75 percent of these imports coming from China—and there is a fear if China decides to use its rare earths monopoly as a weapon in the trade war, the damage could be significant.
There is a sound reason for this fear, because there is precedent of China weaponizing its rare earths production and processing capacity.
Eight years ago, a trade dispute with Japan irritated Beijing enough to embargo rare earths exports to Japan. The frantic stockpiling sent prices sky-high.
Luckily, China is not the only place that has rare earths.
In fact, there is at least one untapped deposit of these elements in the United States itself, and now two companies are preparing to tap it. USA Rare Earth and Texas Mineral Resources Corp. recently joined forces to develop the Round Top deposit in Texas, which, according to the companies, has abundant reserves of 15 of the 17 rare earths along with other minerals deemed critical for U.S. national security. What’s more, developing these reserves would be cheap enough to make it competitive.
The joint venture of the two companies envisages capex of $350 million initially and estimates the payback period on this capex at just 1.4 years. Annual production is seen at over 2,000 tons with the economic life of the mine estimated at 20 years, to mine 14 percent of the existing resource estimate. Since expectations are that there will be more extractable resources, the mine’s potential life could span 140 years. Startup is scheduled for 30 months from now.
Meanwhile in Australia, the federal government recently selected 15 rare earths mining projects that it will support as part of a joint effort with the United States to stand up to the Chinese dominance. Together, these would require funding of US$3.9 billion (A$5.7 billion), The Financial Times reported recently.
“The critical minerals sector is vital for defence, with many of our advanced capabilities depending on them. That means it is essential we have a secure source of supply, especially given the current geopolitical headwinds,” Australia’s defense minister, Linda Reynolds, said as quoted by the FT recently.
Rare earths are vital for developed economies not just because of their defence industry applications, but because they are in every electronic device. Recycling is not an option because they are used in minute amounts, which makes extracting them for reuse too expensive for the time being. Beginning local production makes the best sense, even if it comes with a delay.
Growing Number Of States Adopting ‘Red Flag’ Gun Seizure Laws In Wake Of Mass Shootings
A growing number of states are now allowing family members and law enforcement officials to confiscate an individual’s guns via so-called red flag laws in the wake of several recent mass shootings, according to Roll Call‘s Jacob Fischler.
In Ohio, for example, Republican governor Mike DeWine has been hard at work pushing such gun control proposals following an August 4th mass shooting in Dayton which left 10 people dead and 27 injured.
DeWine’s 17-point proposal — of which the red flag and background check plans are only two — includes increasing penalties for gun violations, increased funding for behavioral health services and school safety programs, all measures that could win over conservatives.
DeWine has involved gun advocates, whom he calls “our Second Amendment friends,” in the process. There’s little indication many will back the package. –Roll Call
“No one said this is going to be particularly easy,” said DeWine in an interview with Fischler, who notes that DeWine’s predecessor, John Kasich, was unable to accomplish given a state legislature in which the GOP holds a supermajority in both chambers.
“How do you protect the Second Amendment, but at the same time protect the public?” he added.
Since the February 14, 2018 mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida, the number of states with red flag laws has grown from five to twelve, plus the District of Columbia. Overall, 18 states now have them.
In other states, similar efforts have been thwarted by pro-gun interests.
“It’s certainly encouraging that Gov. DeWine has endorsed policies, that there [are Republicans] signed on to co-sponsor the background checks law,” said William Rosen, managing director of state policy and government affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety, the advocacy group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “These are still going to be big fights.”
According to Rosen, the current background check system has been effective – stopping over 3 million sales, however he believes it could be improved.
Gun rights activists consider red flag proposals, a version of which is the centerpiece to DeWine’s 17-point plan, problematic for several reasons, including the potential for misuse. A disgruntled family member could report a non-threatening gun owner in an effort to harass, they say, and they argue the policies lack due process provisions to ensure rights are protected. –Roll Call
“Our organization 100 percent opposes red flag laws because of the due process problem,” said Buckeye Firearms Association executive director Dean Rieck – whose group gave DeWine an “A” rating on gun rights in 2018.
Other proposals, such as expanding background checks, have also been thrwarted by pro-gun groups who argue that they impede one’s Second Amendment rights without improving safety in a meaningful way due to the fact that many gun crimes are committed by people who should have had guns anyway. The gunman in a West Texas rampage that left seven dead last month failed was able to obtain his AR-style rifle through a private sale after having failed a background check due to a “mental health issue.”
Most Americans are in favor of enhanced gun control policies according to an APM Research Lab / Guns & America / Call To Mind poll cited by Roll Call, which found that 70% of respondents favored red flag laws which would allow police to initiate a removal order. When family members are added to those who can make that determination, the percentage of those in favor rose.
The 2018 Parkland shooting, where a gunman with a history of displaying warning signs killed 14 high schoolers and three staff members, was something of a turning point for red flag laws. Then-Gov. Rick Scott and his fellow Republican leaders enacted such a law afterward.
“Sometimes it takes a tragedy … to loosen the gun lobby’s grip,” Rosen said.
In addition to Scott, Republican governors signed four of the 11 other red flag laws that have passed since Parkland, a fact gun control advocates promote to show their cause is bipartisan.
But other than Florida, those cases all involved traditionally blue states — Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and Vermont — where Democrats controlled the legislatures and moderate GOP governors were running for reelection. –Roll Call
That said, there has been pushback from some on the right. New Hampshire Republican Governor Chris Sununu, for example, has vetoed bills which would expand background checks and introduce a red flag law, while Winsconsin and North Carolina lawmakers have outright ignored or rejected calls from their Democratic constituents to take up similar measures.
“I certainly don’t see a tidal wave of change,” said Peggy Lehner, a Republican state senator from Dayton, Ohio, who supports red flag laws and expanded background checks.
Meanwhile, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been walking a tightrope in a very pro-gun state in the wake of last month’s racially motivated shooting that claimed 22 lives in El Paso.
Abbott, a Republican, comfortably won election in 2014 and reelection last year running as a friend to pro-gun interests.
At the National Rifle Association’s Institute of Legislative Affairs leadership forum in 2018, Abbott told the group that “the answer to gun violence … is to strengthen Second Amendment rights for law-abiding citizens.”
But he followed that with a line that guns should be taken “out of the hands of those mentally unfit to have” them. More recently, he listed improving enforcement of existing laws on background checks and emergency protective orders that take guns away from people convicted of domestic assault. –Roll Call
Abbott has formed a roundtable comprising elected Republicans and Democrats, along with police and advocates on both sides of the debate. The group’s initial meeting ran for four hours over its scheduled two, which resulted in “several strategies that were put on the table that we will continue to talk about,” according to Abbott.
That said, not everyone is happy with the results.
“You wouldn’t call it action-oriented,” said Ed Scruggs, chairman of the board of Texas Gun Sense, a group that pushes for stronger gun regulations. “I wouldn’t say it was a politically bold step. But it was a step to take, and I would say the talks were serious.”
DeWine, on the other hand, believes that red flag laws are the way to go since they would require a court hearing and a court order before a gun can be seized. Twelve days later, prosecutors would be required to show “clear and convincing” evidence that the guin owner poses a threat in order to keep their guns from them.
Dean Rick, of the Buckeye Firearms Association disagrees. “The problem with the way all red flag laws to date have been structured is property is seized first and then the legal process happens afterward,” he said, adding “This is the sort of thing that can be abused.”
Leave it to the progressives (i.e., liberals or leftists) to point out, indirectly, that conservatives and Republicans are as devoted to socialism as leftists are. The point is well made in an article by Tim Butterworth, a former Democratic Party legislator in New Hampshire.
The title of the article pretty much says it all: “’Socialism’ Made America Great.” That’s, of course, the standard mindset of liberals/progressives/ Democrats. But it’s also the standard mindset of conservatives/Republicans! The difference is that the left admits it, proudly, while the right denies it.
Butterworth uses several examples to buttress his point. The big example he uses is the Interstate Highway System, which, he correctly points out, was one gigantic socialist public-works project — the biggest in the history of the world. He points out that it cost $500 billion in today’s dollars, with 90 percent coming from the federal government and 10 percent coming from the states.
Butterworth, of course, has it wrong about socialism making America great, but at least he has a grip on reality. He understands that the Interstate Highway system was a giant socialist project, and he’s proud of that fact. He is also happy to be called a socialist for supporting it.
Conservatives and Republicans, on the other hand, live their lives denying reality about themselves. They favor the Interstate Highway System as much as progressives and Democrats do, but they have convinced themselves that it actually is part and parcel of America’s “free enterprise” system. Notwithstanding their support of this gigantic socialist project, right-wingers continue to hew to their old 1950s mantra “free enterprise, private property, and limited government.”
The socialism of Social Security
Butterworth also points to Social Security, which he calls “our government insurance.” It too is a socialist program. Hey, they don’t call it Social Security for nothing. It originated among German socialists in the late 1800s and later became a core element in Hitler’s National Socialist system.
Contrary to what Butterworth writes, Social Security is not an “insurance” program. Embodying the Marxian principle of “from each according to his ability to each according to his need,” Social Security plunders and loots young people and gives their money to seniors. Both the left and the right say this reflects how good and caring Americans are. In actuality, it reflects nothing of the sort. Coercion and good and caring are opposite concepts.
Butterworth also points to Medicare, Medicaid, and other forms of what he calls “socialist, government-funded health care.” Once again, he gets it. He has a grip on reality. He understands that all of this is socialism. Conservatives, on the other hand, are just as committed to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other socialist programs as liberals, but they just can’t bring themselves to embrace this reality about themselves. They steadfastly continue to maintain that they are “capitalists” and continue to decry leftists as “socialists.” Conservatives are the classic example of living what can be called “the life of the lie.”
Butterworth also points to another socialist project, one that has long been ardently supported by both conservatives and liberals — the Tennessee Valley Authority, a government-owned and -operated electricity enterprise.
What is unseen about socialism
In exclaiming the virtues of all this socialism, Butterworth makes a classic mistake, one that was pointed out in the 1800s by the French libertarian Frederic Bastiat, who wrote many essays opposing socialism in France. Bastiat observes that while socialists point to a socialist project to show people how beneficial it is, they ignore all the things that would have come into existence if people had been free to spend their money the way they wanted.
Consider those $500 billion that were spent on the Interstate Highway System. All that money was extracted from American taxpayers. They would have spent their money on things that were important to them, such as clothing, housing, transportation, food, education, vacations, or whatever, or they would have saved the money for retirement or something else. Think of all the businesses and all the jobs that failed to come into existence because people were prevented from spending that $500 billion on the things they wanted.
Butterworth also fails to note all of the businesses and people who were financially destroyed because of the Interstate Highway System. Those were the people who were running restaurants, motels, and other businesses that catered to people who were traveling through towns on the state highways that people were using before the Interstate Highway System. They got destroyed the day the Interstate Highway System opened up. Neither leftists nor conservatives cared one iota about their suffering.
Then there were the thousands of people whose neighborhoods were destroyed through the construction of the Interstate Highway System. Even though they were paid off through eminent domain, many of them were never able to recapture the feel of the neighborhood life from which they had been forcibly evicted to make room for the socialist highway system. Neither leftists nor conservatives cared one iota about their suffering.
And look at what the Interstate Highway System did to America’s transportation system. Butterworth himself acknowledges that “rail and mass transit were marginalized.” In fact, the Interstate Highway System totally skewed America’s transportation system in an adverse way. After all, what is it that leftists lament so highly? Isn’t it air pollution? Well, guess what all those cars did that the Interstate Highway System helped bring into existence. They brought pollution, the very thing that the left now laments. Isn’t that what those catalytic converters are for? If it hadn’t been for the Interstate Highway System, America’s transportation system would have developed in a much more balanced way, one that would have involved a balance of trains, automobiles, planes, busses, and other forms of transportation.
Look at what Social Security, Medicare, and other socialist programs have done to the American people. They have created a mindset of hopelessness, dependency, and despair among seniors, most of whom are convinced that not only do they have the right to other people’s money, but also that they would die in the streets if it weren’t for this socialist “safety net.” Gone are the attitudes of can-do, self-reliance, and voluntary charity that characterized our American ancestors, who lived without these socialist programs for more than 100 years. Today, American seniors cannot imagine life without their socialist dole. That’s what socialism does to people. It’s like a narcotic. Once you get on it, you don’t want to get off it.
Socialism–the great destroyer
Look around us. Every single socialist program is in crisis or chaos. Social Security. Health care. Immigration controls. The Federal Reserve. Education. The military-industrial complex. Federal spending and debt. All of them a complete mess. That’s what socialism always produces — crises, chaos, and messes.
Butterworth has it all wrong. Socialism hasn’t made America great. It has destroyed our freedom, our self-reliance, our faith in voluntary charity, and our economic well-being. There is no better time to ditch our socialist system than now, before it makes things even worse than they already are.
Facebook Suspends Netanyahu Page Function For Hate Speech
As Benjamin Netanyahu fights for his political survival, seeking a record 5th term as prime minister during the upcoming Sept. 17 elections, he and his Likud party have suffered a huge public embarrassment while attempting to out-hawk their political rivals.
In an unprecedented move Facebook said Thursday it suspended a key function of Netanyahu’s official Facebook page due to “a violation of the company’s hate speech policy.” The sanction will be in effect for 24 hours, according to a company statement.
The offending campaign message urged voters to avoid bringing into power a government composed of—
“Arabs who want to destroy us all — women, children and men.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Image source: Shutterstock
The page is considered a crucial part of his election campaign, given it has over 2.4 million followers and is his team’s prime social media outreach tool.
The xenophobic post identifying “Arabs” as seeking to “destroy” all Israelis resulted in an immediate uproar and backlash among opposition politicians and supporters.
The message also said Netanyahu’s opponents in the center-right Blue and White Party will “allow a nuclearized Iran that will annihilate us” if they win the crucial election.
Facebook ultimately agreed a chatbot operated by the official account of the Israeli prime minister had produced hate speech. The Hebrew language post appeared, ironically enough, on September 11.
“After careful review of the Likud campaign’s bot activities, we found a violation of our hate speech policy,” the company said in a statement. “We also found that the bot was misusing the platform by contacting people outside the time period allowed. As a result, we temporarily suspended the bot for 24 hours. Should there be any additional violations, we will continue to take appropriate action.”
The prime minister was quick to distance himself from it, saying on a local radio broadcast interview that a staffer wrote it and that his team has deleted it.
Screenshot of the offending Hebrew language message in question:
Netanyahu has aggressively sought to appeal to the far-right and nationalist voters by presenting himself as a hardliner on the Jewish state’s security, which includes him days ago announcing a deeply controversial plan to annex large parts of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, if re-elected.
The Facebook page sanction immediately unleashed an avalanche of mockery and commentary on social media, where many pointed out the incident highlights Israel’s ‘apartheid policies’ based on race and ethno-religious identity.
Tonight’s debate on Walt Disney’s ABC channel is shaping up as yet another shameless charade. The pretense is that we are to select who the Democratic presidential candidate will be. But most Americans, as the Irish say, vote with their backsides, belonging to the informal but dominant party of non-voters who choose not to be sucked into legitimizing the bad choices put before them.
The debate is being presented as a reality entertainment show. The audience is invited to rate the candidates who seem most likely to implement the policy they want – but not including the economy.
Most Americans are now living from paycheck to paycheck and cannot come up with even $400 in an emergency. They are afraid to go on strike or even to complain about their job, because they are afraid of getting fired – and of losing their corporate health care, knowing that getting sick may wipe them out.
These problems will not appear on Walt Disney.
Voters basically want what Bernie Sanders is promising: a basic right to Single Payer health care and a retirement income. That means protection against the Republican-Democratic threats to cut back Social Security to balance the budget in the face of tax cuts for the richest One Percent and rising Cold War military spending. This means a government strong enough to take on the vested financial and corporate interests and prosecute Wall Street’s financial crime and corporate monopoly power. When neoliberals shout, “But that’s socialism,” Americans finally are beginning to say, “Then give us socialism.” It beats being ground down into debt peonage.
But here’s the trick that the TV debates sweep under the rug: It is not the voters who are empowered to choose the Democratic Party’s candidate. That privilege belongs legally to the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Since stacking the political deck in 2016 to serve up Hillary Clinton as nominee, it has put in place rules that will enable its Donor Class members, superdelegates and other lobbyists for the One Percent to repeat the trickery once again in 2020.
I hope that the candidate who is clearly the voters’ choice, Bernie Sanders, may end up as the party’s nominee. If he is, I’m sure he’ll beat Donald Trump handily, as he would have done four years ago.
But I fear that the DNC’s Donor Class will push Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or even Pete Buttigieg down the throats of voters. Just as when they backed Hillary the last time around, they hope that their anointed neoliberal will be viewed as the lesser evil for a program little different from that of the Republicans.
So Thursday’s reality TV run-off is about “who’s the least evil?” An honest reality show’s questions would focus on “What are you against?” That would attract a real audience, because people are much clearer about what they’re against: the vested interests, Wall Street, the drug companies and other monopolies, the banks, landlords, corporate raiders and private-equity asset strippers. But none of this is to be permitted on the magic island of authorized candidates (not including Tulsi Gabbard, who was purged from further debates for having dared to mention the unmentionable).
Donald Trump as the DNC’s nominee
The problem facing the Democratic National Committee today remains the same as in 2016: How to block even a moderately left-wing social democrat by picking a candidate guaranteed to lose to Trump, so as to continue the policies that serve banks, the financial markets and military spending for Cold War 2.0.
DNC donors favor Joe Biden, long-time senator from the credit-card and corporate-shell state of Delaware, and opportunistic California prosecutor Kamala Harris, with a hopey-changey grab bag alternative in smooth-talking small-town Rorschach blot candidate Pete Buttigieg. These easy victims are presented as “electable” in full knowledge that they will fail against Trump.
Trump meanwhile has done most everything the Democratic Donor Class wants: He has cut taxes on the wealthy, cut social spending for the population at large, backed Quantitative Easing to inflate the stock and bond markets, and pursued Cold War 2.0. Best of all, his abrasive style has enabled Democrats to blame the Republicans for the giveaway to the rich, as if they would have followed a different policy.
The Democratic Party’s role is to protect Republicans from attack from the left, steadily following the Republican march rightward. Claiming that this is at least in the direction of being “centrist,” the Democrats present themselves as the lesser evil (which is still evil, of course), simply as pragmatic in not letting hopes for “the perfect” (meaning moderate social democracy) block the spirit of compromise with what is attainable, “getting things done” by cooperating across the aisle and winning Republican support. That is what Joe Biden promises.
The effect has been to make America into a one-party state. Republicans act as the most blatant lobbyists for the Donor Class. But people can vote for a representative of the One Percentand the military-industrial complex in either the Republican or Democratic column. That is why most Americans owe allegiance to no party.
The Democratic National Committee worries that voters may disturb this alliance by nominating a left-wing reform candidate. The DNC easily solved this problem in 2016: When Bernie Sanders intruded into its apace, it the threw the election. It scheduled the party’s early defining primaries in Republican states whose voters leaned right, and packed the nominating convention with Donor Class super-delegates.
After the dust settled, having given many party members political asthma, the DNC pretended that it was all an unfortunate political error. But of course it was not a mistake at all. The DNC preferred to lose with Hillary than win with Bernie, whom springtime polls showed would be the easy winner over Trump. Potential voters who didn’t buy into the program either stayed home or voted green.
Starve out the DNC
Now is the time to start thinking about what to do if and when the DNC presents voters with neoliberal Hillary 2.0, preferring to lose with Biden or his clones than to win with Bernie.
I think the only effective response will be to boycott the Democratic Party – not only its presidential candidates, but its Blue Dog candidates and incumbents.
The legal kerfuffle raised by Sanders supporters in the aftermath made the switcheroo official. The courts affirmed that the Democratic Party’s candidate for president is legally chosen by the DNC alone, and may or may not be the candidate elected by voters in the primaries. To cap matters, the superdelegates serve as a safety valve against any candidate unwilling to go whole-hog neoliberal. A legal tangle of state and national U.S. election laws effectively blocks third parties from meaningful representation in Congress. Registered Independents such as Sanders are constrained to caucus with and serve on committees of one of the two parties.
That makes it difficult for any third party to play more than the role of a spoiler in elections. When the Democratic Party runs its right-wing Blue Dog candidates, a third-party protest will throw the Senate or Congressional election to the Republican – until the DNC finally just walks away.
It would not help much to take over the Democratic Party as long as its rules cede control to Wall Street donors. For the party to be reconstituted, the coterie that has imposed Rubinomics, Hillary’s neocon military empire, and is threatening to balance the budget by cutting Social Security needs to be isolated.
The most obvious start is to run real progressive candidates against incumbents, like AOC in Queens. If the DNC bans consultants from working with them, they should be attacked in the primary and then either stay home or vote for a third party in the fall election to defeat the incumbent rather than participate in the fake choices of just which neoliberal may be the least worst.
Democrat leaders will denounce the Third Party, claiming that voters would have supported Democratic otherwise, much as they blamed Ralph Nader in 2000. The reality is that voters refused to support the right-wing neocon Joe Lieberman (how appropriate that he became Obama’s Senate mentor) and his neoliberal Democratic Leadership Council front-man Gore, who would have given George W. Bush a run for awfulness.
The only way to make the Democrat Party democratic is to clean house, to boycott its Blue Dog candidates even though this throws elections to the Republicans until the DNC is emptied out. Only at that point can its rules be replaced with ones committing the party to follow the choice of voters and the majority non-Democratic (even non-voting) bloc instead of big donors and super-delegates.
This tactic may lead to Republican sweeps in the next few elections. That is the price that the Democrats have forced to be paid for their neoliberal intransigence that has made Donald Trump theirpresident as much as that of Republican voters.
There is no such thing as centrist stability in a polarizing economy
There is no “middle class” policy in an indebted economy polarizing at an accelerating pace as financial rentierslord it over an indebted majority. That is why wage earners have lost their identity with the Democratic Party’s loyalty to Wall Street. Although Democratic politicians presents themselves as the only alternative to Republican corporate lobbyists, the DNC is a smoke-filled room of donors, packaged in identity politics – every identity except that of indebted wage earners. It is merely a diversion to focus on personalities and to claim that economic reform is “divisive” because it may offend centrist voters such as the Democrats’ dream of attracting suburban Republican women.
Joe Biden’s promise of a moderate centrist policy is like Warren Harding’s slogan of a “return to normalcy” a century ago, in 1920. But a “return” would mean rolling back the enormous post-1980 increase in debt, the privatizations, deregulation and other neoliberal nightmares. Today’s U.S. economy – like that of Europe – has no middle ground. Attempts at a “moderate” party are merely a euphemism for backing the financial and real estate sector, the oil industry and the military-industrial complex.
If America had a parliamentary system reflecting voters’ preferences for parties, the Democratic Party would share the fate of German and other European Social Democrats that have embraced neoliberal economics and would poll about 5 percent of the vote, just barely being represented in a truly democratic congress. Voters are rejecting neoliberalism everywhere, but the DNC and foreign formerly left-wing party bureaucracies are holding onto it. They have become zombie party hacks.
Sanders rightly blames Wall Street and the One Percent for the economy’s financial mess. Warren strikes a resonant chord in seeing the need to alleviate the debt burden saying in effect, “It’s the debt, stupid.” But she also seems prepared to go along opportunistically with the rest of the Democratic Party’s platform.[1]Even so, the DNC seems quite willing to throw the election to Trump as its major funders and super-delegates back Biden, Harris and Buttigieg.
When Bernie says he will take on Wall Street, people believe him. When Elizabeth Warren says that, voters worry about just how far she may compromise. When Biden or Harris say that, most voters realize that they are simply grabbing slogans that play well in focus groups, selling their personalities without policy content.
Most potential voters have no party in the United States, but are forced into a choice between Republican and Democratic neoliberals. The polls euphemize most voters as “undecideds,” as if they have not decided to avoid both parties and try to scrape by as best they can with the bad choices put before them: Republican corporate lobbyists, or Democratic Wall Street lobbyists, both parties supporting military spending and representing the One Percent who form their donor base.
Most Democratic voters have decided not to back Biden or Harris. They realize their interests were betrayed first by Clintonomics and its deregulation of Wall Street and stripping away of social spending, and then by Obama protecting his Wall Street donors from “the mob with pitchforks,” namely, those who voted for his empty promise of hope and change. That is how the DNC views its constituency – to be manipulated and its attention diverted onto the Fantasy Island episode aired on Thursday on ABC.
Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Supercharged By Supreme Court Ruling And ‘Art Of The Deal’ With Mexico
President Trump’s immigration policies – most which have been virtually neutered by liberal activist judges – are finally starting to gain traction thanks to a Wednesday ruling by the Supreme Court, and several months of action on the part of the Mexican government, according to AFP.
As we noted on Monday, US immigration authorities have arrested 60% fewer people since May – when 130,000 were apprehended. And while hot weather contributed to the precipitous drop, the Mexican government has taken serious action to stop the northward flow of migrants seeking asylum in the United States.
“The government of Mexico has taken meaningful and unprecedented steps to help curb the flow of illegal immigration to our border,” said Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan in a Monday press briefing.
And as Politico notes, “The decline in border traffic — if sustained — could amount to a major victory for Trump as he heads into the 2020 election,” adding “Perhaps more important, the experimental measures taken by his administration could reshape immigration enforcement for years to come.”
The far-reaching policies sparked an avalanche of court challenges, complaints from human rights organizations and derision from opposition Democrats ahead of next year’s elections.
Undeterred, Trump has hammered away, making construction of a US-Mexican border wall one of his presidency’s centerpieces — and a key part of his 2020 reelection platform. –AFP
And while Trump and his administration have made meaningful progress with Mexico, the latest boost came with Wednesday’s ruling by the Supreme Court, which overruled a California judge – allowing US Customs and Border Protection agents to immediately begin denying migrants asylum at the southern border if they haven’t first applied for safe haven in a “third country.”
Dissenting from Wednesday’s decision were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.
The ruling — which has temporary effect while challenges play out in lower courts — shuts out large numbers of people fleeing violence and poverty in Central America.They will now have to apply for asylum in Mexico, rather than head directly to the United States.
Trump’s opponents, as well as dissenting Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, say the change upends decades of tradition in which the US, itself founded by waves of often poor immigrants, has welcomed refugees.
But Trump, who argues that economic migrants abuse the system with fraudulent asylum claims, went on Twitter to herald the “BIG United States Supreme Court WIN for the Border on Asylum!”
“The Southern Border is becoming very strong despite the obstruction by Democrats,” he tweeted. –AFP
….The Southern Border is becoming very strong despite the obstruction by Democrats not agreeing to do anything on Loopholes or Asylum!
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court also backed Trump’s efforts to shift billions in Pentagon funds to pay for the refurbishment or new construction of southern border wall sections, allowing the president to avoid a debate amongst a divided Congress. This comes during the same week as the Pentagon announced that the 5,500 troops currently deployed to the southern border would be extended for the coming year.
AP also notes that while Trump may have exaggerated the level of wall building going on, “there’s no question that momentum is gradually shifting his way.”
“The Wall is going up very fast despite total Obstruction by Democrats in Congress, and elsewhere!,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday.
The Wall is going up very fast despite total Obstruction by Democrats in Congress, and elsewhere! pic.twitter.com/2nFIEFppho
That said, while Mexico has cooperated with the Trump administration, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard slammed the Supreme Court’s Wednesday decision, saying that the flood of new asylum cases which will hit Mexico are going to be “unprecedented,” adding “Of course we disagree.”
Then again, Mexico is still playing ball.
On Monday, Mark Morgan, head of the US border patrol service, welcomed “unprecedented support” from Mexico, which he said has deployed 10,000 troops on its own southern border with Central America and 15,000 on the US border. –AFP
And that, folks, is how an amateur billionaire politician conducts the Art of the Deal (going right into the 2020 election, we might add).
China’s latest welcome to foreigners smells of desperation.
Global funds no longer need quotas to buy Chinese stocks and bonds, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said in a statement Tuesday. That removes a hurdle to foreign investment that’s been in place for almost two decades, since the nation first allowed access to its capital markets.
Scrapping the quota is less a confident liberalization by a maturing economy and financial system than an overt admission that the country needs money. China has been edging dangerously close to twin deficits in its fiscal and current accounts. It needs as much foreign capital as it can get — even in the form of hot portfolio flows — to keep control over the balance of payments and avoid a further buildup of debt.
This thirst for overseas funds explains why China has been opening its financial services industry, allowing global investment banks to take majority control of their local brokerage joint ventures after years of resistance. The question now is whether foreigners will take the bait.
Michael Pettis on FDI Quota Scrapping
Pettis Questions Current Account Thesis
A good piece by @Aidan_Yao_AXAIM, who might be right that Chinese current account surpluses are a thing of the past, but as @Brad_Setser and I discussed recently, this depends on how optimistic you are that Beijing gets debt under control… https://t.co/MzcgY63j4C via @scmpnews
…Debt either funds investment or increases consumption (i.e. reduces savings), so that if Beijing is able successfully to control the growth in debt, the gap between savings and investment will rise and, by definition, so will the surplus. In theory it is possible for…
…consumption to rise without debt, but it requires substantial wealth transfers to households, something Beijing has found difficult in the past and cannot do quickly. It’s not easy to predict, but I think the surplus is more likely to rise than fall in the next 2-3 years.
Facebook Knows When You’re Boffing Thanks To App Used By Millions Of Women
Popular period tracking apps are sending extremely personal information to Facebook regarding women’s health and their sexual practices, according to UK-based advocacy group Privacy International.
Their findings, shared with BuzzFeed News, reveal that “period-tracking apps including MIA Fem and Maya sent women’s use of contraception, the timings of their monthly periods, symptoms like swelling and cramps, and more, directly to Facebook.”
Notably, Maya – owned by India-based Plackal Tech, has over 5 million downloads, while MIA Fem: Ovulation Calculator owned by Cyprus-based Mobapp Development Ltd. claims to have over 2 million users worldwide.
The apps share information via Facebook’s Software Development Kit (SDK), which helps developers collect user data and incorporate various features so that Facebook can better target users with ads. When personal information is entered into the apps, it Privacy International says it may be sent to Facebook via the SDK.
Asked about the report, Facebook told BuzzFeed News it had gotten in touch with the apps Privacy International identified to discuss possible violations of its terms of service, including sending prohibited types of sensitive information.
Maya informs Facebook whenever you open the app and starts sharing some data with Facebook even before the user agrees to the app’s privacy policy, Privacy International found.
“When Maya asks you to enter how you feel and offers suggestions of symptoms you might have — suggestions like blood pressure, swelling or acne — one would hope this data would be treated with extra care,” the report said. “But no, that information is shared with Facebook.”
The app also shares data users enter abouttheir use of contraception, the analysis found, as well as their moods. It also asks users to enter information about when they’ve had sex and what kind of contraception they used, and also includes a diarylike section for users to write their own notes. That information is also shared with Facebook. –BuzzFeed
Of note, advertisers are keenly interested in people’s moods in order to strategically target them with advertisements when they’re more likely to buy things. Women who are pregnant, or who want to become pregnant, are more likely to change their shopping habits, ofr example.
MIA Fem threatens to sue
While in the process of preparing this story, BuzzFeed reviewed an email from MIA Fem to Privacy International. When contacted by BuzzFeed for comment, they threatened to sue the watchdog!
After being subsequently contacted by BuzzFeed News, MIA Fem first asked for a copy of a draft of this article and details about which parts of its response would be quoted. It later threatened legal action against Privacy International and sent another email to BuzzFeed News, saying, “we hereby urge you to erase all the material erroneously obtained without prevarication and delays. We shall be waiting on your confirmation of the erasure.” –BuzzFeed
MIA Fem then warned BuzzFeednot to quote anything from their email to Privacy International, telling the news outlet via email: “As BuzzFeed has not been the intended recipient of the email, it should have never been shared with BuzzFeed and you as its representative.”
“Considering that the unauthorized disclosure has already happened, we hereby urge you to erase all the material erroneously obtained without prevarication and delays. We shall be waiting on your confirmation of the erasure.”
The owners of Maya, meanwhile, told BuzzFeed that it doesn’t share any personally identifiable data with Facebook, saying in an email to Privacy International and BuzzFeed: “The Ad SDK [Facebook’s software development kit] helps us earn revenue by displaying ads that our users can opt out of by subscribing to Maya’s premium subscription.”
“All data accessed by Maya are also essential to the proper functioning of the product. Predicting information pertaining to menstrual cycles is complex and dependent on thousands of variables,” continues the statement. “Location information, the significance of which is highlighted in the report, helps us triangulate regional variations in cycle lengths and thus help improve accuracy of our prediction over time.”
MIA Fem asks users about all kinds of habits ranging from smoking to coffee consumption and tampon use. This data isn’t immediately shared with Facebook, Privacy International’s analysis found, but it enables MIA Fem to suggest articles to app users. Those articles — which are tailored to a user’s selected interests — are shared with Facebook. It also shared “reminders” within the app to take birth control medication with Facebook.
The apps’ behavior raises questions about how much users can knowingly consent to such private information being shared with outside companies like Facebook — especially when apps have lengthy terms of service that few users bother to read. –BuzzFeed
A Facebook spokesperson said that they require developers be upfront with users about what information is shared with the social media giant, and that apps must have a “lawful basis” for transmitting such data.
“We have systems in place to detect and delete certain types of data such as Social Security Numbers, passwords, and other personal data, such as email or phone number,” said the spokesperson, adding “We have begun looking at ways to improve our system and products to detect and filter out more types of potentially sensitive data.”
Georgetown Law Intellectual Property Rights clinic staff attorney Lindsey Barrett said “This is the kind of practice that highlights how consent isn’t a sufficient guardrail against privacy violations,” adding “No one reads privacy policies because they encounter too many of them for that to be reasonable, and even if they did, the policies are poorly written or won’t tell them what they need to know.”
“It can be embarrassing or foster low-self esteem to be barraged with targeted ads for acne medication, but how is facebook letting advertisers target people based on what information those apps glean on their contraception?” said Barrett. “Who else is Facebook sharing that information with? There’s a dignity issue but there’s also a discrimination issue, all of which come into pl” y when we’re talking about why individual privacy rights are important.”
The article begins with the story of Heather Waldron, who required emergency surgery in 2017. She believed she had insurance at the time – it wasn’t until after her hospitalization that she learned a computer error involving the HealthCare.gov website caused a lapse in her coverage.
The UVA health system slapped Waldron with a lawsuit and a lien on her home to recoup the $164,000 in charges, leading to serious financial hardship for her family:
She is now on food stamps and talking to bankruptcy lawyers. A bank began foreclosure proceedings in August on the Blacksburg house she shared with her family. The home will be sold to pay off the mortgage.
She expects UVA to take whatever is left.
The $164,000 billed to Heather Waldron for intestinal surgery was more than twice what a commercial insurer would have paid for her care, according to benefits firm WellRithms, which analyzed bills for Kaiser Health News using cost reports UVA files with the government. Charges on her bill included $2,000 for a $20 feeding tube. (source)
Waldron is not alone. There are many stories similar to hers – and some are much worse.
The UVA Health System aggressively pursued patients for medical bills for years.
The Kaiser Health News (KHN) analysis found that during a six-year period ending in June 2018, “the UVA health system and its doctors filed 36,000 lawsuits against patients seeking a total of more than $106 million, seizing wages and bank accounts, putting liens on property and homes and forcing families into bankruptcy.”
People who have received treatment in the UVA system are facing a particularly formidable opponent. “UVA stands out for the scope of its collection efforts and how persistently it seeks payment, pursuing poor as well as middle-class patients for almost all they’re worth,” the KHN report explains. Court records, documents, and interviews with hospital officials and dozens of patients revealed that UVA has sued people for as much as $1 million and as little as $13.91.
The system has garnished thousands of paychecks, seized $22 million over six years in state tax refunds owed to people with outstanding bills, sued about 100 patients every year who were their own system’s employees, filed thousands of property liens, and hit some patients with legal fees and interest that added up to more than the original bill. UVA has the most restrictive eligibility guidelines for financial assistance of any hospital system in Virginia. “Savings of only $4,000 in a retirement account can disqualify a family from aid, even if its income is barely above the poverty level,” KHN reports.
UVA Health System spokesman Eric Swensen told KHN that UVA gave $322 million in financial assistance and charity care in fiscal 2018. But legal and finance experts said that’s not a reliable estimate:
The $322 million “merely indicates the amount they would have charged arbitrarily” before negotiated insurer discounts, said Ge Bai, an accounting and health policy associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.
The figure is “based on customary reporting standards used by hospitals across the U.S.,” Swensen said.
Insurers would have paid UVA only $88 million for that care, according to an accounting of unpaid bills presented in September 2018 to the UVA Health board. Even that unpaid figure did not come out of UVA’s purse since federal and state governments provided “funding earmarked to cover indigent care” for almost all of it — $83.7 million, according to Bai.
The real, “unfunded” cost of UVA indigent care: $4.3 million, or 1.3% of what it claims, according to the document.
“That’s nothing,” given how much money UVA makes, Bai said. “Nonprofit hospitals advance their charitable mission primarily through providing indigent care.” (source)
Perhaps the most surprising detail about the UVA Health System is that it is not a for-profit system and does not have shareholders making demands. It is funded with taxpayer and state money (also taxpayer money, of course):
Like other nonprofit hospitals, it pays no federal, state or local taxes on the presumption it offers charity care and other community benefits worth at least as much as those breaks. Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurologist, oversees its board.
UVA Medical Center, the flagship of UVA Health System, earned $554 million in profit over the six years ending in June 2018 and holds stocks, bonds and other investments worth $1 billion, according to financial statements. CEO Sutton-Wallace earns a salary of $750,000, with bonus incentives that could push her annual pay close to $1 million, according to a copy of her employment contract, obtained under public information law. (source)
NPR recently reported on collection practices at Mary Washington, another Virginia hospital. According to their report, Mary Washington sues so many patients that the court reserves a morning every month for its cases.
Since KHN and NPR exposed the collection practices at the two Virginia hospitals, both have stated they are going to change their ways.
“Gov. Ralph Northam and the president of the University of Virginia committed to changing UVA Health System’s collections practices a day after Kaiser Health News detailed its aggressive and widespread pursuit of former patients for unpaid medical bills,” KHN reported.
NPR added an Editor’s note to its June 25 article about Mary Washington that states:
The day after this story published, Mary Washington Healthcare announced it will suspend its practice of suing patients for unpaid bills, stating: “We are committed to a complete re-evaluation of our entire payment process to ensure that all patients know they have access to care.” When asked what they will do about any patient whose wages are currently being garnished, Eric Fletcher, Mary Washington’s senior vice president, said in a statement to NPR: “We are happy to try to work with that patient and the courts and their employer to try to eliminate the garnishment.” (source)
According to a study published in the American Medical Association’s journal, JAMAin June, an estimated 20% of US consumers had medical debt in collections in 2014. Medical debt has been increasing with direct patient billing, rising insurance deductibles, and more out-of-network care being delivered, even at in-network facilities.
For the JAMA study, researchers looked at Virginia court records from 2017 and found that in the state, 36% of hospitals sued patients and garnished their wages in 2017. They identified 20,054 warrant-in-debt lawsuits and 9232 garnishment cases. Garnishments were MORE common in non-profit hospitals (71%).
“If you’re a nonprofit hospital and you have this mission to serve your community, [lawsuits] should really be an absolute last resort,” says Jenifer Bosco, staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, told NPR:
Bosco explains that IRS rules require nonprofit hospitals to have financial assistance programs and prohibit them from taking “extraordinary collection actions” on unpaid medical bills without first attempting to determine patients’ eligibility for financial assistance.
Nonprofit hospitals, Bosco says, “have to provide some sort of financial help for lower-income people, but the federal rules don’t say how much help, and they don’t say how poor you have to be to qualify [or] if you have to be insured or uninsured.” (source)
“Hospitals were built — mostly by churches — to be a safe haven for people regardless of one’s race, creed or ability to pay. Hospitals have a nonprofit status — most of them — for a reason. They’re supposed to be community institutions,” Dr. Martin Makary, one of the JAMA study’s authors and a surgeon and researcher at Johns Hopkins Medicine, told NPR.
Unpaid hospital bills are a leading cause of personal debt and bankruptcy in the US.
According to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health earlier this year, 66.5 percent of all bankruptcies in the US are tied to medical issues, either because of high costs for care or time out of work. An estimated 530,000 families turn to bankruptcy each year because of medical issues and bills, the researchers found.
Prior to the ACA’s implementation in 2014, 65.5 percent of debtors reported medical reasons for filing bankruptcy. After the Act was implemented, 67.5 percent cited medical expenses as their reason. In 2007, an estimated 62.1 percent cited medical bills as contributors to their bankruptcy, and 40.3% cited income loss due to illness.
Other studies have found that at least 25 percent and as many as 50 percent of bankruptcies include significant medical debt, according to a recent report from The Balance.
One study found that the insured were a bit more likely to declare bankruptcy (3 percent) than the uninsured (1 percent), The Balance reports:
Most probably thought their insurance protected them from medical costs. They weren’t prepared to pay for unexpected deductible and coinsurance costs. Almost a third weren’t aware that a particular hospital or service wasn’t part of their plan. One-in-four found that the insurance denied their claims.
How did those with insurance wind up with so many bills? After high deductibles, co-insurance payments, and annual/lifetime limits, the insurance ran out. Other companies denied claims or just canceled the insurance. (source)
According to GoFundMe CEO Rob Solomon, one-third of the donations made through the site help people pay for medical care. Roughly 250,000 campaigns for assistance with medical bills and healthcare costs are set up on the crowdfunding site annually, raising total contributions of $650 million per year.
Millions of Americans are struggling to pay healthcare-related costs.
Even Americans who have insurance coverage are struggling to afford medical bills. As the research shows, health insurance won’t completely protect you. Many people have been bankrupted by high deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses. This is why you should try to have at least the amount of your deductible in savings.
Rising healthcare costs have serious implications for many Americans. According to a recent report from The Balance, many people cannot afford groceries, rent, and clothing due to medical costs. Many have burned through their savings, and others have taken on extra work to pay medical bills. Some cut back on or skip prescription medications and follow-up care, and many rack up credit card debt and use loans to pay for healthcare expenses.
Here are some more troubling facts from The Balance report:
In 2015, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that there were 1 million adults who declared medical bankruptcy. That is more than those going bankrupt for unpaid credit card debt or mortgage defaults. A 2013 Nerdwallet study found that almost 30 percent maxed out their credit cards, while 8 percent were forced into bankruptcy because the illness cost them their jobs.
Even more disturbing was that 78 percent of them had health insurance that failed to cover all their bills. Sixty percent were let down by private insurance, not Medicare or Medicaid. Ten million of them will incur medical costs they can’t pay off each year, thanks to high-deductible plans.
How did those with insurance wind up with so many bills? Before the ACA, many were sunk by annual and lifetime limits. Others were stuck when insurance companies denied claims or just canceled the policy once they got sick.
But even after Obamacare, many weren’t prepared for high deductibles and co-insurance payments. In 2017, 31 percent of the insured found it difficult to afford copays. That’s up from 24 percent in 2015, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study. Similarly, 43 percent found deductibles too high, compared to 34 percent in 2015. (source)
What are the causes of rising health care costs?
A recent report from The Balance answered this question. Here are some shocking statistics from that report:
In 2017, U.S. health care costs were $3.5 trillion. That makes health care one of the country’s largest industries. It equals 17.9 percent of gross domestic product. In comparison, health care cost $27.2 billion in 1960, just 5 percent of GDP. That translates to an annual health care cost of $10,739 per person in 2017 versus just $146 per person in 1960. Health care costs have risen faster than the average annual income. (source)
There are two causes of this massive increase – government policy and lifestyle changes, the report goes on to explain:
First, the United States relies on company-sponsored private health insurance. The government created programs like Medicare and Medicaid to help those without insurance. These programs spurred demand for health care services. That gave providers the ability to raise prices. A Princeton University study found that Americans use the same amount of health care as residents of other nations. They just pay more for them. For example, U.S. hospital prices are 60 percent higher than those in Europe. Government efforts to reform health care and cut costs raised them instead.
Second, chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and heart disease, have increased. They are responsible for 85 percent of health care costs. Almost half of all Americans have at least one of them. They are expensive and difficult to treat. As a result, the sickest 5 percent of the population consume 50 percent of total health care costs. The healthiest 50 percent only consume 3 percent of the nation’s health care costs. Most of these patients are Medicare patients. The U.S. medical profession does a heroic job of saving lives. But it comes at a cost. Medicare spending for patients in the last year of life is six times greater than the average. Care for these patients costs one-fourth of the Medicare budget. In their last six months of life, these patients go to the doctor’s office 29 times on average. In their last month of life, half go to the emergency room. One-third wind up in the intensive care unit. One fifth undergo surgery. (source)
The best way to avoid medical debt is by taking care of yourself.
Accidents are often not preventable, and neither are some health conditions.
But many of the health issues that lead to massive medical debt are preventable, including obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.
A 2014 study published in The Lancet revealed that
…chronic diseases are the main causes of poor health, disability, and death, and account for most of health-care expenditures. The chronic disease burden in the USA largely results from a short list of risk factors—including tobacco use, poor diet and physical inactivity (both strongly associated with obesity), excessive alcohol consumption, uncontrolled high blood pressure, and hyperlipidaemia—that can be effectively addressed for individuals and populations. (source)
If you’d like to improve your health (and hopefully reduce your risk of accruing medical debt), here are some resources that may help.
