The U.S. has 3.85 times as high a percentage of its population killed from the covid-19 virus as does the entire world. Whereas America has had 2,158 covid-19 deaths per million population, the world has had 617 covid-19 deaths per million population. Thus far, there have been 719,615 such U.S. deaths, and 4,481,499 global deaths. America, with 4.21% of the world’s population, accounts for 16% of all covid-19 deaths. Of course, if it were an average country, it would account for 4.21%. That’s how bad America’s performance has actually been.

On 15 September 2020, Pew headlined their global poll “U.S. Image Plummets Internationally as Most Say Country Has Handled Coronavirus Badly”.

On 22 April 2020, I had headlined “Why Post-Coronavirus America Will Have Massive Poverty”, and explained that the U.S. Government, in the policies that it was putting into place, was concerned about both the public and its billionaires, but was far more concerned to bail out the billionaires than to protect the public; and, so, the billionaires would boom, their stock markets would benefit enormously by the going-out-of-business of the owners of smaller firms, even while millions of Americans would lose their jobs and increasingly the homeless population would grow. I explained why the extremely poor public-health system in the United States would increasingly become overburdened and that people would increasingly die, for reasons such as — because of the relative lack of U.S. protections of the public — workers would be increasingly desperate to stay at work even when they know that they might get the covid disease themselves and/or spread it to their co-workers and to people they serve at restaurants, etc.: they would stay employed where they are for as long as possible. This would produce in America exceptionally high ratios of the U.S. population becoming infected with the virus and transmitting it to others.

So, it has all happened, though more slowly than I had expected it to happen.

In 2000, America’s ratio of government debt to GDP was 70%. In 2016, it was 120%. In 2000, America’s ratio of federal government debt to GDP was 55%, and that became 105% in 2016. After 2016, there wasn’t much change in those ratios, but no figures have yet been released after 2019 — in other words, during the covid crisis. However, the federal Government has released to the public that, “In FY 2020 the federal deficit was $3,129 billion. But the gross federal debt increased by $4,230 billion”; and, “This year, FY 2021, the federal government in its latest budget has estimated that the deficit will be $3,669 billion.” A chart there also shows that the federal deficit in 2019 was $1,000 billion ($1T), but that in 2020, that exploded upward to a little over $3,000 billion ($3T). All of this explosion added to the federal debt. Most of the additional money to the nation’s debt became added to the wealth of billionaires and centi-millionaires; the rest of it went to everybody else. One of the extreme realities about the American Government is that it protects the richest — billionaires and centi-millionaires — against risks, more than it protects the public (overwhelmingly their workers) against risks; and, in this way, the richest in this country (the investors) are shielded against risks far more than the citizenry-at-large are. Workers here get the worst: the highest risks, and no controlling ownership of any major corporation. The richest get controlling ownerships in major corporations, plus the lowest risks of anyone.

(Incidentally: federal debt in 2019 — the latest year reported by the U.S. Government — was $22,669 billion or $22.67T. So, in 2020, it became $4,230 billion higher, or $26.87T, an annual increase-rate of 18.5%. The federal Government has already calculated these facts, but still hasn’t yet released them to the public.)

These facts are typical with oligarchies — countries that are controlled by their billionaires, or “aristocrats.” Most countries are like this, but the fact that America, with 4.21% of the world’s population, has 16% of the world’s covid-19 deaths, shows that America is more like this than most countries are. A few countries are even worse than America.

In such countries, lots of people are more desperate, in the covid era, than they were before, but, also, many of the few people who aren’t, nonetheless don’t much mind high risk, because in a culture that rewards owning businesses more than it rewards working for businesses, risk-taking is respected, and actual work is less valued. Thus, in America, the poor are despised, no matter how hard they work. This, too, is common in oligarchies. That’s why their goverment protects them from risks. The rich have inculcated into the public a respect for the rich, and a contempt for the poor.

America is a typical oligarchy, except that it’s bigger than most.

And, so, this is my cultural and economic explanation of why America, with 4.21% of World’s Population, Has 16% of Covid-19 Deaths.

Right now, here are the 20 countries that have the world’s highest percentages of their population thus far killed by covid 19:

1. Peru
2. Bosnia and Herzegovina
3. North Macedonia
4. Hungary
5. Montenegro
6. Bulgaria
7. Gibraltar
8. Czechia
9. Brazil
10. San Marino
11. Argentina
12. Colombia
13. Slovakia
14. Georgia
15. Paraguay
16. French Polynesia
17. Belgium
18. Slovenia
19. Italy
20. USA

All of that information is at the same site which also documents that America, with 4.21% of the world’s population, has 16% of the world’s covid-19 deaths. (This site also documents that whereas China’s covid-19 death-rate per million inhabitants, thus far, has been 3, and that the same figure in the United States is 2,158 — it’s 719 times higher. Peru has the world’s worst performance, 5,945, which is 198 times higher than China’s.)

How many of those 20 countries are authentic democracies? Is any of them, really? If the public respect “entrepreneurs” more than they respect “workers,” then what is the actual likelihood that the nation will actually be a democracy? Aren’t they really bowing down to their aristocracy? They’ve evidently been successfully indoctrinated, by the aristocracy. And, they’re now dying, as a result of this — they are dying because of their culture’s accepting (instead of condemning) this aristocratic indoctrination.

223 countries are listed, but some of them have fewer than 10,000 residents. None of the worst 20 countries are that small. In fact, the best-performing of all countries of over 5,000,000 population is the world’s most populous country, China, which has a “zero-tolerance” policy on covid-19, and a rigorous scientific system in place to carry out that policy. So, China is at the exact opposite end from the 20 nations that are listed above. Perhaps, over the long term, this might turn out to have been China’s biggest advantage as an international economic competitor. But, instead of the U.S. Government’s praising and emulating China, the U.S. Government is now trying to dictate to China, and — unless China obeys — to overthrow its Government, and to grab control, over Taiwan, and also over China’s coastal waters. America operates a global empire, but its billionaires are never satisfied, and are determined for it to encompass every nation. The billionaires control their Government; the American public do not.

The United States cannot afford to maintain a war economy. Such a hyper-militarized economy is inciting dangerous tensions between nuclear powers, as well as eroding the very material foundations of American society.

Food hunger in the United States has reached shocking levels with new figures showing that some 60 million Americans are in need of charitable hand-outs. That’s almost 20 percent of the total population.

Rising food poverty in the U.S. has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic as millions of workers are laid off. At the other extreme, a handful of billionaires have never had it so good with their aggregate wealth estimated to have increased by nearly $2 trillion during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the national debt continues to soar, having surpassed $28 trillion, which is far more than the entire economic output of the United States. Over the past century, it is calculated that the U.S. federal debt has gone from 16 percent of GDP in 1929 at the time of the Wall Street Crash and Great Depression to the current level of 130 percent.

This week as Congress cobbled together a “continuing resolution” to fend off a government shutdown, the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the nation is in danger of a “catastrophic default” on its burgeoning debt. This would be the first time ever for the U.S. to default on its debts with far-reaching repercussions for its domestic economy as well as the global economy.

In short, the U.S. is living way beyond its means and has been doing so for decades. The once economic powerhouse of the world is no longer the virile specimen it was. The United States is more like a washed-up, out-of-shape former prizefighter who spends his days slumped on a high stool ordering drink after drink – and all the tab without any means of paying.

While Americans remain bitterly divided over bipartisan politics, surveys show, however, that there is much common ground between Republican and Democratic voters on the need for massive infrastructure investment. There is also a common consensus that it would be appropriate to raise taxes on the super-wealthy in order to fund a badly needed national revamp.

It is commonly recognized that the United States has chronically neglected its human and physical infrastructure. Currently, the Biden administration is trying to get a combined $4.5 trillion infrastructure spending bill through Congress. The bill may not pass because of objections from Republican lawmakers as well as some Democrats. But the vast sum of investment involved is a measure of the historic deterioration and disrepair in U.S. society. For example, it is estimated that 45,000 bridges are in poor condition need an overhaul.

There is no doubt that the economic dire straits facing the U.S. economy have been caused by excessive militarism over many decades. Since 2001, the so-called “wars on terrorism” including in Afghanistan and Iraq have added an estimated $8 trillion to the national debt – nearly 30 percent.

When the Cold War with the Soviet Union ended 30 years ago, there was much talk among policymakers of an anticipated “peace dividend”. That proved to be illusory. Why? Three decades on, the United States continues to allocate record budgets for military spending – currently about $750 billion a year. That’s more than that of the next 10 biggest military spending nations combined. It’s more than 10 times what Russia allocates to its military. The U.S. is spending more dollars on the military than it was during the height of the Cold War. Yet, the Cold War was supposed to have ended.

It is significant and telling that Washington has in recent years strenuously endeavored to provoke tensions with Russia and China to the point where, lamentably, a new Cold War is now emerging. The U.S. rationale for adversarial relations is based on dubious claims made by Washington. Russia and China are accused of alleged election interference, undermining Western democracy, threatening regional security, and so on. This rationale is then used to justify the inordinate militarism of the U..S economy and its own threatening conduct towards Russia and China. The Biden administration is sending more warships to the South China Sea and increasing the supply of lethal weapons to a rabidly anti-Russian regime in Ukraine compared with the predecessor Trump White House.

The adversarial attitude of Washington is contradicted by the reality of Moscow and Beijing repeatedly calling for multilateralism and cooperation. Such cooperation is feasible and productive as demonstrated by successful negotiations in Geneva this week between the U.S. and Russia on extending nuclear arms control. Those negotiations have followed on from the summit between Presidents Biden and Putin in June.

Now, why can’t such mutual talks and participation not be implemented comprehensively by the U.S., Russia and China, as well as other powers, on other issues of global security?

The bottom line is the United States cannot afford to maintain a war economy. Such a hyper-militarized economy is inciting dangerous tensions between nuclear powers, as well as eroding the very material foundations of American society. It is neither desirable nor sustainable.

The question is how will the U.S. overcome its dystopian and dysfunctional economy? Arguably, the governing apparatus in Washington is part of the problem, not the solution. The political gridlock from futile and petty culture war infighting, the vice-like grip of lobbyists for the military-industrial complex, and the bipartisan contamination of Cold War bigotry towards Russia and China are some of the reasons that evince the un-reformable nature of America’s ruling class.

Alas, the United States has the potential of being one of the world’s foremost developed nations. But the potential will only be unlocked when it starts to pursue peaceful relations with the rest of the world rather than conflict and war. That new political paradigm depends on a mass mobilization of U.S. citizens demanding their democratic rights for a dignified and decent society where millions of people going hungry amid obscene billionaire wealth are seen for the abomination that it is.

Covid caused a very odd thing: the working poor got a raise.

Via stimulus checks, federally-funded jumps in unemployment payments, and looser state-based unemployment qualifications (specifically including gig workers and independent contractors who weren’t before eligible for regular unemployment benefits) they all of a sudden had money that may still not have been much but which was closer to enough. People were not forced to work lousy jobs for lousy wages to enrich lousy people already wealthy enough to own spaceships.

Then another odd thing. As people were allowed to return to work, many didn’t. They were making more not working, math simple enough that in 25 states the federal supplement to unemployment was dropped so that unemployment again paid less than minimum wage. State governments forced people at economic gunpoint to accept souless jobs. Meanwhile, in 21 states, the minimum wage is unchanged from ten years ago.

There were briefly two completely different systems in America until the federal money ended in September, one which provided available funds and one which withheld them to force Americans into low-paying jobs. Forcing people to work for less money than what feeds them is akin to slavery but economists may have a more modern term today.

Some misty years ago jobs that used to put minimum wage spending money into the hands of teenagers became a primary income source for adults. The sleight of hand was that it was impossible to actually earn a living that way, with the federal minimum wage at $7.25. Keeping Americans in a state of semi-poverty (the “working poor”) became a business model.

In 2011 as a forcibly-retired older man I worked a number of minimum wage jobs, sweeping and stocking and silently accepting your abuse. I can assure you the famous “Karens” of 2021 demanding to speak to the manager were already well-established then in the wild. I was the victim of their economically entitled wrath nearly daily, with my Caucasianess no shield.

I rolled those experiences under our apartheid of dollars into a book called The Ghosts of Tom Joad nobody read because Bernie had not yet told us it was okay to feel bad for the working white poor. Now, ten years later with our dual layered under-economy, it was time for me to take another look.

In Hawaii where I live, restaurants and small businesses complained about a labor shortage even as the state, with the nation’s strictest lockdown, had the nation’s highest unemployment rate at 22 percent. Almost all of my applications were ghosted, meaning I never heard anything back. For the ones where I did learn more, here’s what I found.

You need a hard shell against any notions of equality. One of the most expensive restaurants in town, where tabs run hundreds of dollars, offered $12 a hour for hosts to maintain their high standards for service and politeness while also maintaining the guest restrooms throughout the evening. Working there would not have been much different than looking out my window, where I can see a park that became a homeless encampment with a small harbor in the distance filled with superyachts the size of WWII destroyers.

No one cares too much about equal opportunity. I was told tourists expect to see a “local boy” in a role, not a white guy. I fielded lots of probably illegal questions related to my age, as well as a large scoop of techno-aggressions about things like whether I had a smartphone. Some ads openly asked for a woman server, or an attractive female assistant. One offered a job called “Beach Babe.”

Another ad said “We are looking for reliable, friendly, and customer service oriented hostesses to provide entertainment on our Adult Fun Boat . Individuals must be allowed of Fun (sic) and open minded nature. Compensation is commensurate of services provided.” Good to see, as in most third world nations, sex work is still an option. Your employer is also your pimp, just like OnlyFans!

Some jobs were borderline criminal. One, selling timeshares, had a hyper-complex commission system such that I could actual close a sale and make no money. It was hard to tell if I’d be an employee, or just another mark. A doggy day care claimed I would get tips and so would be paid sub-minimum.

Another required my first hour’s wages daily for parking. A customer service job required me to first buy a logoed T-shirt for $15 and a $20 battery-powered old-timey lantern to fit their theming. Having to pay to work was a new thing since 2011. I felt like I was thirsty and all that was offered was a spit cup from the dentist.

One place said if I was a full-time student I would be paid only 85 percent of the minimum wage. A job at a tourist shooting range wanted two Asian languages, had eight hour shifts with no scheduled break, and required me to pick up lead. Another offer was minimum wage, but only half paid monthly. The other half was withheld for three months pending a manager’s decision it was deserved as a “bonus.” Unclear how much of this was legal, but what are you going to do, call 911?

While I was asked to prove my vaccination status, not a single employer asked me to prove any claimed skills. The most common question if sometimes the only question was can you work Saturdays? And why not; the only real qualification was that I could do the job cheaper than a robot (three in 10 small businesses automated job tasks during the pandemic.)

Some of the least attractive places to work were small owner-run restaurants. The expectation was that for low wages I would work like the entrepreneur himself, putting in the sweat equity. One owner complained about employees who whined over not being paid when closing ran late. He wanted me to subsidize his business with my free labor.

To him hard work represented unlimited potential, without realizing he structured my job to specifically not include any chance for a raise. There was no reason to do a good job today, and less to be better tomorrow. You can’t work “harder” because your salary is capped. The goal was to work just enough not to get fired. The reward was not having to apply for a new job at the burger hut across the street.

There were also some nice people seeking to hire, polite, with a whattya ya gonna do attitude. But the difference between the overseer who beat his charges with pleasure and the one who was just doing his job is slight.

What Covid exposed is a terrible thing. The minimum wage allows employers of the under-economy to conspire to pay the same wage. If they fixed prices this way it would be illegal. Employers seem to have taken the bit, understanding how little choice workers have and seem determined to make their job offering more terrible than the other guy’s. They certainly showed no interest in how employees might affect their bottom line, attitude spilling over to customers. The sign on the door says “I’ll only pay for cheap labor, so deal with it, consumers. What choice do you have anyway?”

It is hard to put into words how worthless you feel in this process. Your potential employer seems to hold you in contempt, if not see you as simply a john to be ripped off under the guise of hiring you. They understand and expect to be allowed to exploit labor, backed by the government holding down wages. Half the states embraced this a step further, cutting off supplements to assist in impoverishing their own citizens. That’s why the government controls the minimum wage, to force you back in now that the Covid fat times are over.

“Minimum wage” has become maximum wage for a whole layer of our society. Businesses have little pressure to raise salaries because they hold all the aces – the government has their back with designated wages to ensure they don’t have to get into bidding wars for talent, and the labor market is rigged so that a large number of Americans have no choice but to take these jobs.

Want to know what happens next? The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) which takes into account all government aid, fell to 9.1 percent in 2020, the lowest it has been since record keeping of the SPM began. Without taking government pandemic aid, now history, into account, poverty would have risen 11.4 percent.

Imagine the fun when you visit our paradise here in Hawaii knowing the person serving at your all-you-can-eat luau is hungry. And don’t forget to tip your waitress, she needs it.

wemeantwell.com

Can you imagine what it would be like to not have a home? For many Americans, this is not something that they need to imagine because it is a daily reality. Nobody knows for sure how many homeless individuals there are in this country, but recent estimates range from “fewer than 600,000 to more than 1.5 million people”, and everyone agrees that the number has been growing. Even as the wealthy engage in wild bidding wars over the most desirable properties, more impoverished Americans are being forced into the streets with each passing day. There has always been homelessness in America, but here in 2021 it is rapidly becoming a crisis of epic proportions.

Ironically, the state with the worst problem is also the wealthiest state in the nation. At least 160,000 homeless people currently live in California, although many believe that official figure is way too low. The number of homeless in the state had been rising for years, and then the pandemic came along…

Tent-lined streets with belongings scattered everywhere. Infected wounds with bugs living inside. A man who hasn’t showered in over a decade. An 80-year-old woman who can’t feed herself. People who ride the metro rail lines because the trains are a safer place to sleep.

California’s homeless problem has been out of control for decades. Then came COVID-19.

In many California cities, tent cities have seemingly popped up everywhere these days. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the number of tent encampments in San Francisco alone has grown by 70 percent during the pandemic…

Tent encampments are typical sights under freeways and in areas such as skid row – a pocket of downtown Los Angeles known for its vast homeless population – but the pandemic, shutdowns and quarantines caused them to spread across the city. Encampments popped up in parking lots, neighborhood parks and outside schools, not only in Los Angeles but other parts of the state.

In San Francisco alone, tent encampments grew by 70% and became more visible across the city, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

San Francisco is one of the wealthiest cities in the entire world.

If this is happening now, how bad will things get when the U.S. economy really starts to fall apart?

The homelessness crisis continues to grow rapidly on the east coast as well. In New York City, many have become concerned about the “growing presence” of the homeless in Times Square…

An influx of homeless people into Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood after an emergency move by New York City to ease crowding in shelters has been a fact of pandemic life for the neighborhood since last spring.

Many of the newcomers, living in nearby hotel rooms contracted by the city, have been largely inconspicuous. But others with mental health and drug problems have become a growing presence in Hell’s Kitchen and adjacent Times Square.

Now that the pandemic is fading, many New Yorkers are quite eager to have the homeless removed from Times Square because the tourists are starting to return.

Needless to say, seeing hordes of homeless people laying in the streets is not good for business, and the increase in homelessness has also helped to fuel a dramatic rise in violent crime in the Times Square area…

The police precinct that includes Times Square and many of the hotels has seen a 183 percent spike in felony assaults and 173 percent spike in robberies so far this year compared to 2020, according to NYPD data.

As you can probably imagine, homelessness has been growing in the middle of the country too.

In Dallas, a large homeless camp was recently removed by authorities after local residents loudly complained…

The city of Dallas has removed a homeless camp after nearby residents complained it was putting their health and safety in jeopardy.

While some who called the camp home say they have no place to go, neighbors are grateful the city is finally responding. The sprawling homeless encampment was covered by a canopy of trees and located behind houses along Tres Logos Lane in northeast Dallas.

Nobody wants a homeless camp in their neighborhood, but where are those homeless people supposed to go?

They have to sleep somewhere.

But for now, residents of that particular neighborhood are just thrilled that those homeless people are no longer their problem. In fact, one local resident told the press that she is so happy that they are gone that she has “chills”…

“I am so excited, I am so happy, I have chills,” said resident Maria Sanchez. “It’s not just the homelessness that we’re talking about, its other individuals that are, you know, doing other illicit activities sketchy activities.”

So what happens if Maria Sanchez loses her current job and starts getting behind on her rent or mortgage payments?

Ultimately, the vast majority of Americans are just a few months away from being homeless themselves.

In fact, now that a nationwide eviction moratorium is ending, we are being told that millions more Americans could soon be forced out into the streets…

MILLIONS of renters face eviction as a nationwide ban is set to end in two weeks.

It comes as 5.7million Americans – nearly 14% of all renters nationwide – had fallen behind on their rent in April.

The study by the National Equity Atlas revealed that tenants owed nearly $20 billion in rent, with low-income people among those worst affected.

So as bad as things are now, they could soon get a whole lot worse.

Can you imagine what that would look like?

Sleeping on the streets is extremely dangerous, and vast numbers of homeless people end up dying.  According to USA Today, more than 1,300 homeless people died in Los Angeles County alone in 2020…

The crisis in California has left a trail of death.

Some come from drug overdoses, violence or untreated illnesses that compound over time. Others come from suicide. These people die under freeways, along sidewalks and in alleys, hospitals and vehicles. More than 1,300 died last year in Los Angeles County alone. An additional 1,200 died the year before that.

During the pandemic, the federal government has borrowed and spent trillions and trillions of dollars, and the Federal Reserve has pumped trillions and trillions of dollars into the financial system, and yet the suffering of those at the bottom of the economic food chain has gotten much, much worse.

Something is very wrong with that picture.

No matter what our leaders do, the homelessness crisis in this country just seems to keep escalating. Vast numbers of our fellow citizens will be sleeping on the streets tonight, and many more will soon be joining them.

endoftheamericandream.com

Nike’s latest shoes, like too many labor-friendly Republicans, are only a performance.

By Michael Warren DAVIS

Nike recently announced that they’re bringing out a line of “Exeter Edition” sneakers to commemorate their old plant in Exeter, New Hampshire. According to our local paper, my fellow Granite Staters are quite pleased. After all, Nike was born in Exeter.

Well, sort of.  The company’s founders, Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman, opened Blue Ribbon Sports in Oregon in the 1960s. They sold Japanese sneakers out of the trunk of Knight’s car. Then, in 1974, they decided to get into the manufacturing game. They established their first plant in Exeter and renamed the company Nike, after the Greek goddess of victory. The rest is history.

The good people of New Hampshire are touched that Nike is “going back to its roots” (that inevitable phrase). And far be it from me to rain on their parade. But I won’t be buying a pair.

Nike shut down the Exeter factory in 1983. They’d quickly become one of the largest employers in town and devastated the local economy when they moved out. Phil Knight announced the decision was made “to balance production capability with sales and to reduce product costs.” In other words, they wanted to maximize profits by paying their workers less.

Of course, it didn’t end there. “Nike will consolidate all domestic footwear production into its Saco-Sanford, Maine, facilities,” Knight went on to explain. Yep: The Maine plants also closed two years later.

Because American workers are entitled to a safe workplace, a minimum wage, and other such luxuries, Nike shifted its manufacturing base to more employer-friendly countries like communist China. Thus began Nike’s transition to one of the most infamous employers of sweatshop labor since the Victorian Age.

So, it’s nice that the company is getting back to its roots. But there’s also something insulting about Nike selling out their American workers and then bringing out a new, foreign-made shoe to “commemorate” the communities they destroyed. “Honor the thousands of New England towns we plunged into chronic poverty by buying this ugly sneaker! Look—it’s green, like the Merrimac River, where we dumped chemicals for decades before giving your grandpa’s job to some Vietnamese wage-slave!”

Of course, Nike’s not the only offender. Less than 100 years ago, Haverhill, Massachusetts, was called the “Queen Slipper City” because it produced 10 percent of the shoes worn by the American people. My own ancestors worked in those shoe mills. It was such an important manufacturing center that Hitler put Haverhill on his short-list of American towns to blitz once the Third Reich conquered Europe.

After the war, however, those mill owners realized they could make shoes much more cheaply by moving their factories to the Far East. They achieved what Hitler never could—they devastated Haverhill.  Today, it’s in the top third of the most dangerous cities in America. In downtown Haverhill, the poverty rate is over 30 percent. Nearby in Lawrence and Lowell (also former mill towns) it’s over 50 percent. That’s not to mention Exeter, Nashua, and Manchester in New Hampshire, where my family now lives.

Nike’s executive chairman Mark Parker, who resigned early last year, joined the company in Exeter in the late ’70s. His salary peaked at $47.6 million in 2016 but, due to falling sales, he was forced to take a pay cut. In 2017, Mr. Parker received a measly $13.9 million. Still, the company appears to be doing pretty well. With net income in excess of $2 billion, maybe Nike could honor the towns they screwed over by opening up a few new plants here. Just a thought.

Bear this in mind the next time some “populist” Republican takes a swing at “East Coast elites.” Most of us aren’t Ivy League doyens who wear Nantucket reds as we sail around the Cape. Take a stroll through Haverhill, Massachusetts, or Manchester, New Hampshire. They’re suffering, no less than Detroit or Cleveland. Why do these populist Republicans—these would-be champions of the American worker—never talk about the New England Rust Belt?

I’d like nothing more than for the Republicans to become a blue-collar party, but I also wouldn’t be the first to point out that they are doing a horrible job of standing up for workers’ interests. They summarily rejected Mitt Romney’s child tax credit, saying that “an essential part of being pro-family is being pro-work.” All right, fine. But they also refuse to support unionization at Amazon, the second-largest employer in the United States by a country mile. Where are those well-paying jobs supposed to come from, guys?

Still, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. At least for a while. Men like Sens. Rubio and Hawley are making up the language of populism as they go along. They’re still much more fluent in Reaganism: Giving government money to struggling families is welfare, period; jobs are good, but unions are bad; while poor folks from Michigan who vote for Gretchen Whitmer are simply ignorant of their own interests, poor folks from Massachusetts who vote for Elizabeth Warren are entitled socialist elites. Why? Because Michigan is in the Midwest and Massachusetts is on the East Coast. Of course! What more is there to say?

I’m all for quoting Leo XIII.  I’d love for the GOP to embrace a “both pro-family, pro-work” line. Let’s do it! But start by recognizing that Nike’s sins run deeper than hiring some woke quarterback to model their crappy sneakers. Let’s agree that Amazon has a deeper obligation to workers, and that two-day shipping doesn’t justify Amazon depriving their employees of basic labor rights. And let’s stop pretending that everyone who lives north of Raleigh is a doctrinaire Marxist who wants AOC to make it illegal for cows to pass gas.

Shut up about “East Coast elites.” It’s just as insulting and narrow-minded as those Dems who lecture West Virginia coal miners about their “white privilege.” Govern for the good of the whole country. That’s your job.

And, please, shut up about your multiracial working-class coalition. You can’t tweet it into existence. You have to build it. Go talk to folks who live in Detroit and Cleveland. Meet the people of Nashua and Haverhill. Ask them what they need from their elected officials. I wouldn’t be surprised if “cancel culture” doesn’t come up at first pass.

If those folks are unemployed or underemployed, ask them why. Is it because the only businesses in their neighborhood are Cumberland Farms and Little Caesars? Have there been no decent jobs since the mills closed a hundred years ago? Then fight to bring manufacturing back to those middle-sized towns, as Donald Trump promised to do in 2016. (Gosh, those were the days…) Raise tariffs on companies that outsource jobs.  Offer tax breaks to those who come back.

Then, ask those families what they need to tide them over while you find them work. Would a Romney-style tax credit help them put food on the table? Then forget all the crap by Mises and Hayek you read for your Republican Study Committee meetings. Middle Americans are hurting because corporations like Nike stole their jobs and sent them overseas.

Remember: People don’t exist to serve markets. Markets exist to serve people. Sure, the mom with five kids and no husband might’ve made some bad choices in her life, but she’s not the villain here. If the best you can give her is a lecture on chastity, she’s going to keep voting Democrat. Republicans have been gung-ho about the disenfranchisement of the American worker since Dick Nixon wrapped Chairman Mao in his sweaty embrace. Here’s a tip for the GOP if they want to win blue-collar votes: Whatever you’ve been doing up till now, do the opposite.

theamericanconservative.com

While COVID-19 imposed a terrible toll in death and economic destruction in 2020, another epidemic devastates American communities both financially and personally—violence.

Preliminary statistics show murders rose by 35 percent across 60 of the nation’s largest cities. Nationwide FBI data through September show a 21 percent jump in homicide and 8.3 percent increase in aggravated assaults, including those by gun. Aggravated assaults and shootings climbed by roughly 10 percent over the summer and fall of 2020.

Such violence exacts a heavy toll or “murder tax” on the lives and livelihoods of the most vulnerable communities.

While the spring lockdowns saw a slight lull in violence, the carnage picked up in the aftermath of late May and early June unrest and subsequent police pullback. The epicenters of anti-police protests and riots experienced a dramatic rise in violence. Homicides increased significantly in Seattle (up 75 percent), Minneapolis (up 72 percent), and Louisville (up 92 percent). Portland saw its murder toll go up by 52 percent. Chicago’s homicides jumped by 56 percent to 769 in 2020 while shootings went up 52 percent and carjackings doubled.

Extending these figures nationally, 2020 counted at least 4,000 more murder victims than 2019—exceeding 20,000 homicides for the first time in 25 years. That violence is measured both in victims’ lives and in the unseen but very real economic cost to every American, especially the poor.

Recent academic studies have placed the combined tangible and intangible costs of all crime at between $690 billion and $3.4 trillion a year. Even a $1 trillion price tag would match Florida’s economic output.

According to researchers Kathryn McCollister and Michael French of the University of Miami, and Hai Fang of the University of Colorado, the total economic cost of a murder (adjusted for inflation) is more than $11 million. Critically, murders and aggravated assaults together represent the lion’s share (over 70 percent) of the cost of all crime. That would put 2020’s murder tax at $220 billion—$45 billion more than 2019. Similarly, aggravated assaults, including shootings, will tally at least another $120 billion in social costs.

The social cost of homicide includes robbing families of breadwinners, burdening law enforcement, courts, and corrections systems, and depriving communities and citizens of peace of mind and opportunity. This staggering “murder tax” is borne largely but those who can least afford to pay, America’s urban poor.

The financial advice site MoneyGeek.com broke down the per resident costs in 2019 (before the spike) and found huge disparities across jurisdictions with over 100,000 residents.

All crimes (both property and violent) levied a “crime tax” of $8,179 on Baltimore residents in 2019 while similarly sized cities like Milwaukee, D.C., and Albuquerque paid less than half that—around $3,500. Meanwhile, residents of equally populous Tucson paid 20 cents for every dollar crime cost Baltimoreans in 2019.

Baltimore’s cumulative crime tax bill ($4.9 billion) is 40 percent more than the city’s budget ($3.5 billion), while Charm City’s violence alone costs residents more than the city takes in in revenue annually.

Some researchers conclude that “standing down” law enforcement or de-policing, often at the behest of political leaders, allowed criminals to step into the void. Last year in New York City, as homicides increased by 45 percent with shootings up 97 percent, arrests fell by more than 50 percent compared to 2019. A similar trend of police demoralization has correlated with dramatic spikes in Minneapolis, Seattle, and Portland.

But residents of impoverished and often dangerous urban areas overwhelmingly want more (53 percent) or the same (41 percent) police presence in their communities, not less, according to a poll conducted by Gallup for the Center for Advancing Opportunity.

Yet, we know that more and effective policing not only reduces violence, such a reduction pays economic dividends. As communities get safer, residents are less risk averse and economic activity increases as development and investment grow.

One study even suggests that the return-on-investment in effective crime reduction strategies is a budget-saver, as expensive drains on public resources decline as economic activity increases tax revenues. Another estimate suggests every $1 spent on policing yields $1.63 in reduced victim costs.

On the other hand, the crime tax costs jobs, reduces property values, deters investment, and undermines trust in public institutions, and, destroying opportunity, dashes hope for those who need it most.

Crime may not pay but it certainly costs, a lot. Economically struggling Americans need relief, so let’s start by cutting the most regressive tax of all—violence.

theamericanconservative.com

That table starts in 1989, so doesn’t show the prior figures, but other studies place the start of the post-WWII increase in America’s wealth-concentration at around the year 1981. Prior to that, it had been pretty unchanged, for decades. Maybe Ronald Reagan was largely responsible for the change, but none of the subsequent U.S. Presidents did anything to reverse his “Greed is good!” policies.

Here is from Reagan’s interview, in the libertarian Reason magazine, on 1 July 1975, headlining “Inside Ronald Reagan”:

REASON: Are there any particular books or authors or economists that have been influential in terms of your intellectual development?

REAGAN: Oh, it would be hard for me to pinpoint anything in that category. I’m an inveterate reader. Bastiat and von Mises, and Hayek and Hazlitt – I’m one for the classical economists.

They had been the formulators of the “Greed is good!” philosophy, now called libertarianism (which in continental Europe is instead called “neoliberalism”). Prior to President Reagan, no U.S. President had been a libertarian. But the losing Presidential candidate in 1964, Republican Barry Goldwater, had been a libertarian. So, the “Greed is good!” philosophy had been respectable in the Republican Party for at least 16 years before a libertarian became elected President in 1980. Then, after Reagan, America has been in the Reagan Era, ever since. The Democratic Party merely adds hypocrisy to it, by condemning libertarianism. That stance (libertarianism while condemning libertarianism) is nowadays called “liberalism.” Such ideological hypocrisy has become a secular religion, which is believed especially by many religious people in America — “Let God do it!” (Otherwise called: adherence to natural law.) Among some, it is called “Prosperity Theology”. Since it effectively inducts the super-rich into a new type of sainthood, America’s billionaires — especially Republican ones — would never object to it. After all: it’s just another form of libertarianism, which already deifies the rich and despises the poor.

As-of 2014, the top 0.1% of Americans owned almost as much wealth as the bottom 90% did. The top 0.1% owned more than the entire bottom 80% did. Furthermore, America’s billionaires now have an absolute veto-power against any candidate in both Parties’ Presidential primaries, such as Bernie Sanders, whom no billionaire wants to become President. Only candidates who are backed by at least a few billionaires has any realistic chance at all. A candidate whom no billionaire backs is not possible to win the nomination of either of the major Parties. Unfortunately, enough Americans are manipulable enough to be deceived by the ceaseless propaganda that’s funded by the super-rich. Any candidate who opposes the super-rich has virtually no chance to win any election to the federal Government. Many federal officials — and almost every Republican one — even overtly champion the super-rich and at least implicitly denigrate labor and deify capital “the entrepreneur”), but such a situation would be impossible in any nation which has an informed and sane electorate, because it entails the vast majority of voters voting against themselves. People don’t do that unless they are deceived (such as to think “I am an entrepreneur” because they own, maybe, a hamburger stand, or receive some rental income). (Anybody who isn’t backed by at least venture capitalists is no “entrepreneur” that federal politicians are likely to care about.)

This is the reason why, today, 36% of America’s private wealth is owned by top-one-percenters, whereas in 1990 only 5% was. “Greed is good!” makes that okay.

A bigger and bigger percentage of U.S. private wealth is going into the stock markets, because more and more of it is sheer excess that’s beyond the ability of its owners to spend for their own consumption. Furthermore, because the Covid-19 crisis hits workers the hardest, and the stock markets have been booming in 2020, the percentage of America’s private wealth that’s owned by the richest 1% is getting a special boost this year. David Sirota’s investigative news blog The Daily Poster headlined on December 30th “10 Stats That Will Blow Your Mind” and the top four were:

1. The total cost of $2,000 checks ($465 billion) is less than half the amount that American billionaires have made during the pandemic ($1 trillion). The total cost of the checks is less than the amount that just 16 American billionaires increased their net worth by during the pandemic ($471 billion).
2. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk gained more wealth during the pandemic ($158 billion) than Congress just authorized for additional unemployment benefits for millions of Americans ($120 billion).
3. Jeff Bezos’s personal wealth increased more every second of 2020 ($2,800) than Congress is considering giving Americans who are facing eviction, starvation and bankruptcy ($2,000).
4. Congressional lawmakers are being paid $3,300 of government money every week to come up with ways to block $2,000 checks to millions of Americans.

During this period of more and more of the country being owned by the richest 1%, more and more of the Government is also being controlled by the richest 1%, because money brings power (such as the ability to hire and fire employees and other agents), and especially it brings the power to hire lobbyists, and to do favors for the members of Congress, and to hire everyone who retires from government-service, including not only former elected officials, but also former career civil servants. The revolving door between service to the Government, and service to the people who fund election-campaigns (the richest 1%), spins ever-faster, as the richest 1% own more and more of the country. If they will own 100% of the private wealth, they will also control the Government 100%, and therefore effectively own 100% of the government wealth, too. What would the U.S. Constitution say about that? It would be an absolute dictatorship by the richest 1%. But what would the U.S. Constitution say about that?

The turning-point was actually in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous Buckley v. Valeo decision (but with Justice Byron White dissenting in part), which said that there can be no limits placed on an individual’s total political donations, because that money is “speech” and the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment prohibits any laws against “speech” — such as against lying, or against any other form of expression, no matter how harmful (and what could possibly be more harmful that allowing the government itself to be bought?) — the Court ruled that if more money means more control over the Government, then that’s okay, but Justice Byron White, in his lone and grandstanding objection said that “Congress and this Court’s cases have recognized this as a mortal danger against which effective preventive and curative steps must be taken.” (He basically wanted to punt the entire issue back to the legislators, who were now legally hamstrung against dealing with it, because of the unanimous decision, which ‘Justice’ White himself was joining in to sign onto.) That unanimous equation of “money” with “speech” was the beginning of the end of America’s till-then-limited democracy, and it marked the beginning of today’s American aristocracy — America’s aristocracy of wealth. But were America’s Founders in favor of creating an aristocracy? Wasn’t their overriding objective to prevent any such thing from taking over here? Who hired these ‘Justices’? Were they actually traitors?

If it started on any date, that’s the date: 30 January 1976.

We’ve all seen the stats on America’s extreme inequality. Over 20 percent of our nation’s income flows to the top 1 percent. The top 1 percent’s share of our country’s wealth is approaching 40 percent. Our top 0.1 percent hold roughly the same share of our wealth as our bottom 90 percent.

All eye-popping numbers to be sure. But don’t be fooled. These numbers understate our problem. And not by just a little.

Let’s consider, for a moment, what our income and wealth numbers are really telling us. Statistics on how we share our wealth right now tell us where things stand, but not how we ended up where we stand — or where we’re heading. Stats on how we share our income don’t tell us anything about how we’re sharing in wealth’s accumulation.

Take, for instance, the value of the Jeff Bezos Amazon fortune. If this value doubles, the increase doesn’t register anywhere as “income” for Bezos until he sells his Amazon stock. And the resulting income numbers don’t reflect what living expenses and taxes consume.

So our conventional measures of income and wealth don’t tell the whole story. We need to know more about how our society is sharing the real wealth we create, more about what remains from the fruits of our collective efforts after we take into account all the costs involved and after adjusting for inflation and population growth.

Through that lens, we see a rather gruesome picture.

Of America’s inflation- and population-adjusted increase in wealth between 2006 and 2018, over 87 percent went to the top 10 percent. Over 60 percent went to the top 1 percent. The top .01 percent, a baseball-park-sized group of just 32,669 Americans, grabbed over 23 percent of the country’s increase in wealth.

And nearly 10 percent of that increase went to the 400 wealthiest Americans.

The 290 million or so unlucky souls who make up the so-called bottom 90 percent, meanwhile, saw just 13 percent of the nation’s wealth gains between 2006 and 2018, not much over half of what went to the top .01 percent. Our bottom 50 percent actually lost wealth over that 2006-2018 period.

Some may call this level of inequality extreme. Obscene would be more appropriate.

I calculated these wealth-gain shares from data compiled by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, two leading economists now at the University of California-Berkeley. Other data sets — the Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances, for one — let us calculate much the same basic story.

In 2018, according to the Saez and Zucman figures, U.S. household wealth stood at $88.662 trillion, up from $68.310 trillion in 2006, with both figures in 2018 dollars.

Between 2006 and 2018, our U.S. population increased by 9.5 percent, to 326.69 million. To create a true, apples-to-apples comparison, I increased the Saez-Zucman 2006 household wealth figure to $74.791 trillion. That total amounts to the household wealth a country of 326.69 million people would need to have to be equivalent, on a per-person basis, to the nation of 298.38 million people we had in 2006. That 2006 nation held $68.310 million in household wealth.

The inflation- and population-adjusted increase in America’s wealth between 2006 and 2018 turns out to bring us from $74.791 trillion to $88.662 trillion, a difference of $13.871 trillion.

My next step: applying the Saez and Zucman wealth-share percentages to this inflation- and population-adjusted increase in America’s wealth.

The end-result of all this number crunching: Of that $13.871-trillion increase in inflation- and population-adjusted household wealth, $12.078 trillion went to the nation’s wealthiest 10 percent, leaving just $1.793 trillion to the bottom 90 percent.

Within that $12.078 trillion for the top 10 percent, $8.537 trillion went to the top 1 percent, $5.519 trillion to the top 0.1 percent, and $3.201 trillion to the top 0.01 percent. And the 400 wealthiest Americans? They pulled down $1.314 trillion of the increase.

Unfortunately, this obscene inequality appears likely to get worse. As the 2006-to-2018 period ended — and after our top 1 percent had already grabbed an appallingly outsized portion of the wealth created during those dozen years — the Trump tax act enacted at the end of 2017 went into effect, a giant giveaway to the top 1 percent.

This is insanity.

Tax the rich.

Now.

counterpunch.org