Ohio protests after police fatally shoot black man
Updated / Friday, 25 Dec 2020 
 

People marched in protest over the killing of Andre Maurice Hill

The fatal shooting of a black man by police in Columbus, Ohio - the US city's second such killing this month - sparked a fresh wave of protests on Christmas Eve against racial injustice and police brutality.

Andre Maurice Hill, 47, was in the garage of a house on Monday night when he was shot several times by a police officer who had been called to the scene for a minor incident.

Seconds before the gunfire, bodycam footage shows Mr Hill walking towards the policeman holding a mobile phone in his left hand, while his other hand cannot be seen.

Columbus police chief Thomas Quinlan announced yesterday that he was moving to sack the officer, Adam Coy, on allegations of "critical misconduct".

"We have an officer who violated his oath to comply with the rules and policies of the Columbus Division of Police," Chief Quinlan said in a statement. "This violation cost an innocent man his life."

According to local media reports, Officer Coy had previously received complaints of excessive force.

He and his colleague waited several minutes before approaching Mr Hill, who was still alive, but died later.

Mr Hill, the second African-American killed by police in Columbus in less than three weeks, was not carrying a weapon.

Casey Goodson Jr, 23, was shot several times on 4 December while returning home. His family has said he was holding a sandwich which law enforcement mistook for a gun.

Several dozen protesters gathered yesterday, waving Black Lives Matter signs and calling for justice for people killed in police shootings.





The killings in Columbus come after a summer in which the US was rocked by historic protests against racial injustice and police brutality, sparked by the May killing of African-American man George Floyd.

Mr Floyd, also unarmed, suffocated beneath the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis.

"Once again officers see a black man and conclude that he's criminal and dangerous," said lawyer Ben Crump, who defends several families of police brutality victims including Mr Floyd's, on Wednesday.

He denounced a "tragic succession of officer-involved shootings."

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said he was "outraged" by Mr Hill's death.

He was "known to the residents of the home where his car was parked on the street," he said Wednesday at a press conference, describing him as a "guest... not an intruder."

Mr Ginther said he was "very disturbed" that the two police officers did not give first aid to Mr Hill and called for Officer Coy's "immediate termination."

China launches antitrust probe into Alibaba 

and Ant Group for "picking one from two" strategy
China's competition landscape is changing

By Adrian Potoroaca on December 25, 2020


The big picture: The future looked bright ahead for Alibaba only months ago, with its share price climbing steadily amid the pandemic. However, in a first for China, the State Administration for Market Regulation has started an antitrust investigation into Alibaba and sister company Ant Group, signaling an end to the hands-on approach typically practiced by the Chinese government.

The Chinese government announced it has started an antitrust investigation into Alibaba, the country's largest tech company, which extends to sister company of Ant Group that was recently targeting an IPO at a valuation of $37 billion.

Last month, regulators suspended Ant Group's initial public offering just two days before shares were to begin trading in Shanghai and Hong Kong, in a move that is part of an ongoing crackdown on anticompetitive behavior in the country's booming tech sector.

Shares in Alibaba fell more than 8 percent to their lowest level since July. Even its largest competitors -- JD.com and Meituan -- were affected by the news.



While the full scope of the investigation is not yet clear, China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said it's looking into Alibaba's alleged practice of forcing merchants to sign exclusivity contracts ("picking one from two"), which has generated a lot of complaints and lawsuits over the years. Regulators are meeting with Ant Group in the coming days to discuss the implementation of proper financial supervision and protections for consumers.

Both Alibaba and Ant Group said they would "comply with all regulatory requirements," and reassured investors that there's been no impact on normal day to day operations. However, if the two companies are found to be guilty of monopolistic behavior, they could be fined up to 10 percent of their annual revenue.

State-run local paper People's Daily wrote in an editorial that the investigation "is an important step in strengthening antimonopoly oversight in the internet sphere. [...] This will be beneficial to regulating an orderly sector and promoting the long-term healthy development of platforms."

Last month, the Chinese government revealed the first draft of new antitrust legislation that came as a direct response to Alibaba and Ant Group founder Jack Ma, who made a speech in Shanghai where he criticized the country's e-commerce and banking regulations.

Foreign companies like Google also face antitrust investigations, but SAMR is currently focusing on China's largest 27 e-commerce companies, including Alibaba, JD, Meituan, and Pinduoduo.

Ripple Is Not the Only Crypto Giant Sued by SEC, Here Are Some More

Ripple is not the only company or individual from the crypto industry sued by the SEC in recent years, including blockchain giants; here are some of the others

Cover image via stock.adobe.com

Earlier this week, the US regulator on securities and exchanges, the SEC, officially filed a legal suit against the blockchain behemoth Ripple.

The SEC accused the decocorn of spreading unregistered securities in the form of XRP.

The U.Today editorial team wants to remind readers that, in the span of the last couple of years, including 2020, the regulator has pressed charges against other companies and individuals from the crypto industry, including crypto giants and crypto influencers.
2019: The SEC sues Block.One

On Sept. 30 of last year, the securities regulator published a note saying that the creator of EOS, Block.One, had agreed to settle a fee on SEC charges.

The commission accused Block.One of the same crime as Ripple—raising funds by selling unregistered securities and raising billions of U.S. dollars.

The fine totaled 0.58 percent of that sum raised during an ICO in 2017: $24 million.

In response, Block.One agreed to pay the penalty, without admitting to the accusation or denying it. The company's press release, however, mentioned that the ERC-20 token is no longer in circulation (after EOS migrated onto its own mainnet from Ethereum in mid-2018), and they have nothing to register as a security with the SEC.
2020: The SEC sues John McAfee for shilling ICOs

On Oct. 5, CNBC published an article stating that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged the crypto baron John McAfee with promoting crypto offerings on Twitter over the past few years.

According to data from the SEC, McAfee earned more than $23.1 million for recommending ICOs on his Twitter page.

Those token offerings were "materially false and misleading," CNBC wrote.

At the moment, McAfee is waiting for a court decision in a Spanish prison as to whether he will be extradited to the U.S. or not. He is charged with averting tax payments to the American IRS.

Image via Twitter

The crypto tycoon has been avoiding tax payments for the last few years. At the moment, according to tweets by his wife, Janice McAfee, John is experiencing health issues in prison. However, he has not yet been provided with medical help, despite his wife's constant requests.
Other companies sued by the SEC in 2019, 2020

It has been recently announced that the Kik crypto platform had settled a lawsuit initiated by the SEC in 2019 by paying a $5 million penalty.

The regulator has acknowledged that the platform's native token, KIN, was a non-security asset. A similar "pass" has been granted to Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The Kik team sent a message to Ripple on Twitter, expressing its sympathy with the latest company the SEC has sued.

Image via Twitter

Founder of crypto fund Virgin Capital, Stefan Qin, has also been accused of crypto fraud by the SEC.

ER doctor who spoke out against Trump

 to be removed from Walter Reed

Dr. James Phillips has been removed from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center's work schedule starting in January 2021.

DeMicia Inman
December 10, 2020

According to a new report, Dr. James Phillips will no longer be employed at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center beginning next year.

Read More: CDC officials ‘directed to destroy’ records of potential ‘political interference’ by Trump

CBS News reported Phillips has been removed from the schedule beginning in January 2021, according to sources close to the situation. The news outlet stated the emergency room doctor is chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University and works on a contract basis for Walter Reed.


The doctor publicly criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to exit the facility and ride in a motorcade around the grounds of the facility after his COVID-19 diagnosis. According to CBS, Phillips shared a now-deleted tweet that called the behavior “insanity.”

Image via George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences

“Every single person…in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential “drive-by” just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity,” the tweet said.

Walter Reed officials deny that Dr. Phillip’s exit is in response to the Twitter statement. A spokesperson informed CBS News that the hospital “provides requirements for contract positions. Schedules are determined by the contractor. There was no decision made by anyone at WRNMMC to remove Dr. Phillips from the schedule.”

Lisa Anderson, the assistant director of media relations at George Washington University School of Medicine informed the outlet that Phillips is still on staff at GWU Hospital in downtown Washington D.C.

“While we cannot comment on the scheduling assignments of our providers, we can confirm that he continues to be employed at the GW Medical Faculty Associates,” Anderson said.

As theGrio reported both doctors and non-medical staff at Walter Reed were asked by POTUS to sign an NDA before they could treat him while hospitalized in 2019. Two doctors declined to sign the document so they were not included on Trump’s treatment team.

“Any physician caring for the President is bound by patient-physician confidentiality guaranteed under HIPAA, and I’m not going to comment on internal procedures beyond that,” said White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere, according to the report.

Dr. Phillips appeared on CNN International to share his experience as a frontline worker treating patients with COVID-19.

“This is a unique situation. For me, I’ve been lucky that I’ve had a public health platform through the media to be able to talk and try to educate the general public about how to stay safe,” he remarked. “It does at times feel like screaming into a void when half the people you’re trying to speak to don’t want to listen and think you’re a liar and the president calls you a fraud.”

#ENDFURFARMING

Mink on second B.C. farm test positive for COVID-19

Health officials have detected COVID-19 at a second mink farm in B.C.'s Fraser Valley.

© HENNING BAGGER/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images In this file photo, minks are seen at a farm in Gjol, northern Denmark on October 9, 2020.

In a media Christmas Eve media release, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries said three mink had died at a second farm in the province.

Subsequent testing revealed the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans. No workers have tested positive so far.

The farm has been put under quarantine preventing the movement of animal or materials from the property, the ministry said.

The mink were tested after some animals at the farm experienced diarrhea, the ministry said. Twenty-three of the farm's 1,000 animals have died between Dec. 19 and Dec. 23.

COVID-19: hundreds of mink die at Fraser Valley farm

It remains unclear how the mink contracted the virus. The farm is not being identified.

No worrying COVID-19 mutations at B.C. mink farm, say health officials

Health officials said Wednesday that genetic sequencing has found no worrying mutations in samples of COVID-19 taken at the first B.C. farm to have an outbreak of the virus.

At least 17 workers and their contacts and five mink at the farm, which has not been publicly identified, have tested positive for the virus. Another 200 mink died at the site earlier in December.

Video: Fraser Valley mink farm COVID-19 outbreak raises concern about virus mutation

The B.C. Centre for Disease Control said samples of the virus were examined by both its own Public Health Laboratory, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease Laboratory in Winnipeg.

"One common mutation was detected in both the animals and the farm workers," said the BCCDC.

Read more: Hundreds of mink dead from COVID-19 on Fraser Valley farm in B.C.

"This mutation is not in the spike protein of the coronavirus and has been reported in mink previously. Neither the mutation nor the outbreak present an increased risk to human health at this time."

The tests also revealed that the workers and the mink were infected with an "identical or nearly identical" strain of the virus, which has been circulating in B.C.

The BCCDC said that indicates the virus spread from people to the mink, not the other way around.

The agency said further human testing was underway, and that more samples would also be collected from mink.

Read more: Containing COVID-19 outbreak to single B.C. mink farm essential, say experts

The outbreak at the farm has been contained, the BCCDC said, adding that public health and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries continue to monitor mink farms.

The outbreak was the first in Canada on a mink farm, but followed multiple outbreaks in Europe and the U.S.

Mutation concerns rise over COVID-19 outbreak at B.C. mink farm

In Denmark, scientists discovered that the virus had been contracted by mink, mutated, then spread back to humans -- raising concerns it could affect the efficacy of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The country subsequently culled 17 million of the animals.

Research has since found the Danish mutations were less worrisome than originally thought, but could potentially affect how well antibody therapies work on the virus, according to Dr. Jan Hajek, a UBC infectious disease specialist.

#NODEATHPENALTY

NFL honours Mississippi man freed after 22 years in prison

JACKSON, Miss. — The NFL says it is honouring Curtis Flowers, a Black man from Mississippi who was imprisoned more than 22 years and was freed in late 2019, months after the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the last of his several convictions in a quadruple murder case.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The NFL says players are wearing helmet decals this season “to honour victims of systemic racism, victims of police misconduct and social justice heroes.”

The league said Wednesday on Twitter that Flowers is among those being recognized.

“I am so blessed, humbled, and thankful that the NFL and Roc Nation chose to include me to be honoured in today’s movement for social change and justice," Flowers, who has maintained that he was wrongly convicted, said in a statement in the NFL tweet.

Roc Nation is an an entertainment company founded by Jay-Z. Its philanthropic arm, Team Roc, has been working on social justice issues, including pushing for better living conditions for inmates in Mississippi prisons.

“I am a life-long lover of the NFL and the work this organization does in our society,” Flowers said. "Thanks to my Lord, Jesus Christ, my family, friends, supporters, my dream legal team for this opportunity. I continually think about all of the men and women who are still unjustly incarcerated."

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch said in September that she would not try Flowers a seventh time in the 1996 slayings and a robbery that took place at a furniture store in Winona, Mississippi. He had been in custody since 1997.

Flowers was convicted four times: twice for individual slayings and twice for all four killings. Two other trials involving all four deaths ended in mistrials. Each of Flowers’ convictions was overturned.

In June 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out the conviction and death sentence from Flowers’ sixth trial, which took place in 2010. Justices said prosecutors showed an unconstitutional pattern of excluding Black jurors from Flowers' trials.

The Supreme Court ruling came after American Public Media’s “In the Dark” investigated the case. The podcast recorded jailhouse informant Odell Hallmon in 2017 and 2018 recanting his testimony that Flowers had confessed to him.

The first six trials were prosecuted by the local district attorney. Flowers was still facing the 1997 indictments in December 2019 when a judge agreed to release him on bond. The district attorney handed the case to the attorney general, and her staff spent months reviewing it before deciding not to go forward because of a lack of credible witnesses.

The four people shot to death on July 16, 1996, in Tardy Furniture were store owner Bertha Tardy, 59, and three employees: 45-year-old Carmen Rigby, 42-year-old Robert Golden and 16-year-old Derrick “Bobo” Stewart.

Emily Wagster Pettus, The Associated Press

PACIFIC NORTHWEST FISHING WARS

'Most important Indian' Hank Adams dies

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Hank Adams, one of Indian Country’s most prolific thinkers and strategists, has died at age 77.

Adams was called the "most important Indian” by influential Native American rights advocate and author Vine Deloria Jr., because he was involved with nearly every major event in American Indian history from the 1960s forward.

He was perhaps best known for his work to secure treaty rights, particularly during the Northwest “fish wars” of the 1960s and ’70s.

Henry “Hank” Adams, Assiniboine-Sioux, died Dec. 21 at St. Peter’s Hospital in Olympia, Washington, according to the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

“Hank’s a genius. He knows things we don’t know. He sees things we don’t see,” attorney Susan Hvalsoe Komori said when Adams was awarded the 2006 American Indian Visionary Award by Indian Country Today.

“Adams was always the guy under the radar, working on all kinds of things,” said the late Billy Frank Jr., Nisqually and chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

Adams was born in Wolf Point, Montana. Toward the end of World War II, his family moved to Washington state, where he attended Moclips-Aloha High School near the Quinault Nation. He played football and basketball and served as student body president and editor of the school newspaper and yearbook.

In 1963, Adams joined the National Indian Youth Council, where he began to focus on treaty rights just as the fish wars were beginning and Northwest tribes were calling on the federal government to recognize their treaty-protected fishing rights.

Adams had so many personal connections with people from that era, such as Mel Thom, Clyde Warrior and Willie Hensley. It was while Adams was working with the youth council that he first met Marlon Brando. The actor would be prominent later in the Frank’s Landing protests.

Also through the youth council, Adams began working at Frank’s Landing, on Washington’s Nisqually River, with Billy Frank and others who were striving to advance the treaty right to fish for salmon.

“That turned into a civil rights agenda,” Adams said in an interview. “It had been brutal from 1962 onward, and there were just a few fishermen down there, fighting with their families for their rights.”

To make a point, Adams refused induction into the military because the U.S. was failing to live up to its treaty obligations. (He eventually served for two years in the U.S. Army.)

As Washington state’s fish wars heated up in the 1960s, Adam was often working with Frank and other Northwest leaders on a strategy of civil disobedience through “fish-ins.”

Frank told a story about a 1968 fishing protest in Olympia “where all the police are.” But not everyone was supposed to be arrested. Frank said it was the job of Adams, the “visionary,” to protect them all. But when the arrests were made, “here comes our visionary.”

"I said, ‘What are you doing here? You’re supposed to get us out. You’re the strategist, thinking way out into the future,’” Frank said.

It was from those many trips to jail that eventually treaty-protected fishing rights were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Boldt decision affirmed the tribal right to fish in the usual and accustomed places in common with other citizens.

Adams’ role in the trial, which took place in Tacoma, Washington, was unprecedented. He was a lay-lawyer representing tribal fishing people and the last person to speak at trial. The judge considered Adams the most informed person to explain both the treaty and the people.

As the court case made its way through the process, Adams and Billy Frank found a way to meet with Judge George Boldt in chambers.

“We don’t want to talk to you about the case,” Adams recalled at the 40th anniversary dinner of the Boldt decision. Instead, the pair met with the judge to tell them that Montana Sen. Lee Metcalf was an admirer of the judge, who was also from Montana. They swapped Montana stories. And, the joke was the case could be resolved if it was just Montanans in the room.

The Supreme Court affirmed treaty rights and the Boldt decision in a series of cases in 1975.

Shortly before the 1972 election, a caravan of American Indians travelled from points across the country to Washington to protest broken treaties. After failed negotiations for housing, the protest ended up at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And when the bureaucrats left for the day, the protestors remained.

Adams was also instrumental in resolving the 1972 takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Richard Nixon’s special assistant, Leonard Garment, said Adams’ role was essential. He said the story could have been tragic, with some in the administration calling for a military assault on the building.

Adams was both a public foil and a behind-the-scenes negotiator. The Trail of Broken Treaties submitted a plank of 20 proposals. Adams called the Nixon administration’s response “almost totally devoid of positive comment.”

But privately Adams and Garment worked on a resolution. Adams’ reward for being an intermediary? He was arrested in 1973 and his home searched for “government documents.”

“Plus they took my typewriter, which I’d had since 1968 during our encampment on the Nisqually River,” Adams said.

A federal grand jury refused to indict Adams (along with journalists who had been reporting on the incident), and eventually Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus ordered the material returned. He “directed the FBI to return everything that they’d taken from me and particularly my typewriter,” Adams said with a laugh.

Adams played a similar role during the standoff at 1973 Wounded Knee. He said a government helicopter flew him to White Clay, Nebraska, where he was to meet with the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service.

After that meeting, Adams was set to meet in Denver with Marlon Brando. The Justice Department was supposed to drive Adams back to the airport, but “they ran out of gas within sight of the airport.” Adams laughed. “The federal government doesn’t run out of gas. They didn’t want me to meet with Marlon Brando” and stir up public support for the occupation.

Using social media, Adams was meticulous over the years in his documentation of family histories, often used to help people grieve over the loss of family, or to call out people who lied and claimed Indigenous ancestry. He continued to monitor and press for treaty rights. And for Leonard Peltier’s release from prison.

Adams' family said a funeral is not possible at this time, but it will co-ordinate a memorial in the near future.

___

Information from: Indian Country Today, https://indiancountrytoday.com/

Mark Trahant, The Associated Pres

The Weather Network
Rainfall approaches Arctic Circle in highly unusual weather pattern
VIDEO Duration: 00:58  DEC 24, 2020
Details with meteorologist Tyler Hamilton.

JAXA shows the sub-surface samples it collected from asteroid Ryugu

Shortly after Japan's Hayabusa2 probe returned to Earth, JAXA showed off some of the samples it collected from asteroid Ryugu. Those rocks came from the “A” chamber of the probe’s sample capsule, which means they were collected during the mission’s first touchdown in February 2019. Now, JAXA has released photos showing the contents of the capsule’s “C” chamber, which it opened on December 21st.

In JAXA’s tweet, it said the agency opened both chambers “B” and “C.” The “B” chamber is empty since it wasn’t used for collection, but the “C” chamber was used to collect samples during Hayabusa2’s second touchdown in July 2019. JAXA fired an explosive into the asteroid before the second touchdown to create a crater and be able to gather samples from deeper underground. Scientists are hoping that the subsurface samples can offer more clues about the solar system’s formation and early period, since they hadn’t been exposed to the hash environment of space.© JAXA JAXA

JAXA says the largest particles in chamber “C” were about a centimeter in size. If you take a look at the photos, the agency marked one of the particles as “人工物” or “artificial object.” It has yet to confirm where that object came from, but JAXA believes it could be “aluminum separated from the sampler horn” when it used an explosive on asteroid Ryugu’s surface

Forget fairness: Canceling all student debt makes great economic sense for America - here's why

© Provided by Business Insider Countless Americans are burdened with student loan debt that can hold them back from buying homes or starting businesses. recep-bg/Getty

Paul Constant is a writer at Civic Ventures, a cofounder of the Seattle Review of Books, and a frequent cohost of the "Pitchfork Economics" podcast with Nick Hanauer and David Goldstein.
In this week's episode of Pitchfork Economics, Hanauer and Goldstein spoke with Fenaba Addo, an associate professor at University of Wisconsin Madison whose research focuses on racial disparities and student debt.

Addo says her research has uncovered, like many economic disparities in the US, that black student loan borrowers are disproportionately saddled with higher average loan balances as well more issues with defaults and delinquencies.

She says forgiving the $1.5 trillion in student loan debt would serve as a direct re-investment into the economy, as more graduates would then be able to afford cars and homes and start their own businesses.

The word "fairness" comes up a whole lot when we talk about the incoming Biden Administration's plans to pass some form of student loan forgiveness. Supporters argue that it isn't fair that the current generation has to pay tens of thousands of dollars more for a decent college education than generations before, while wages have stayed largely flat and other expenses have skyrocketed. Some opponents argue that it's not fair to forgive student loans when they have already worked hard to pay back their own loans.

It's easy to get caught up in the morass of fairness arguments.

As sharing animals, humans are hard-wired to be obsessed with the concept of fairness. But ultimately, the student loan forgiveness debate is an economic issue - and it makes great economic sense to cancel student debt.

We'll get back to that in a bit, but first let's consider the size of the problem. In this week's episode of "Pitchfork Economics," Nick Hanauer and David Goldstein spoke with Fenaba Addo, an associate professor at University of Wisconsin Madison whose research focuses on racial disparities and student debt.

Addo points out that "approximately 45 million borrowers" owe more than $1.5 trillion in college loans. And while a few disingenuous pundits would like to claim that figure is largely made up of people spending above their means to attend overpriced elite institutions, the truth is that only six percent of student loan borrowers owe more than $100,000.

"A lot of people with student loan debt actually are concentrated towards the lower end of the student debt distribution - so, below $20,000," Addo said.

Like so many economic disparities in America, Addo's research finds that student loan debt doesn't land evenly along racial lines.

"Black borrowers in particular have higher average loan balances," Addo said. "They tend to accumulate more debt, and then they have higher problems with defaults and delinquencies. So we see a disproportionate number of black borrowers with student loan debt."

So what student loan debt cancellation plans are on the table right now? Addo says several ideas are wrestling for primacy.

"The Biden [administration] is proposing a $10,000 debt cancellation for individuals with student loans that would phase out at an annual income of $125,000," Addo explained, adding that Biden's team is considering only targeting forgiveness for debts incurred for those who attended public universities.

Gallery: 9 Ways Student Debt Is Affecting Every Aspect of Americans’ Lives (GOBankingRates)


She notes that more progressive politicians like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, are proposing the cancellation of "$50,000 across the board" per person - no matter what your income or where you went to school. All the other plans, Addo said, "kind of fall in between those."

So how much of America's roughly $1.5 trillion dollars in student debt does Addo believe should we forgive?

"You know what they say: Go big or go home," Addo said. "I think we need to cancel all of it. We admit that the current system isn't working and has failed many people. As a society we need to fix something. And one of those fixes should be removing this debt."

It should be noted that Addo's proposal isn't that far to the left of the policy that the average American wants. A recent Data for Progress poll found that more than half of all Americans - 51% - support a proposal to forgive $50,000 in debt for any American earning under $125,000 per year. More than two thirds of all respondents approve of a program that forgives $10,000 in debt for every year the borrower works in community or national service. College debt cancellation is broadly popular.

That explains why forgiving student debt makes good political sense. And at the end of this week's episode of "Pitchfork Economics," you can hear a compelling case for why it makes good economic sense.

Podcast listeners called in from all around the country to explain what they'd do if their student debt was cancelled. Bobby from North Carolina would use that extra money to help his young adult daughters, who are struggling to find work in the pandemic, pay their rent. A 40-year-old woman named Amy from Dallas can't afford to go back to school to learn how to do the work she loves because it would endanger any hope she has of scraping together a retirement.

An educator in a wealthy, good-paying public school district who's paying off a master's in teaching called in to say that if his debt was canceled he'd "be able to teach in a school district that needs really effective teachers, but unfortunately does not have the pay structures in place to pay a livable wage."

A listener named James from Los Angeles admitted that now that he's in his 50s and he's paid most of his student loans off, debt cancellation wouldn't affect him that much. But James also identified what would've happened had he not had that debt on his back for so many years: It "would have improved my credit standing and my purchasing ability quite significantly, because I've been underemployed for a very long time."

Student debt forgiveness makes great economic sense because it would function as a direct stimulus investment in the economy.

Unlike the Trump tax cuts, which handed $1.9 trillion to the wealthiest Americans and corporations, that $1.5 trillion of forgiven debt would immediately begin circulating through the economy, helping the nation recover from the coronavirus recession.

Unburdened by decades of debt, people would buy cars and homes. They'd spend money in their communities, creating jobs. Rather than writing checks to simply pay the exorbitant interest on a loan they incurred when they were 18 years old, they'd start businesses and take chances that would create economic opportunities for others.

When Addo says she's in favor of going big, she's not just talking about the cost of forgiving debt - she's thinking about the benefits we would all enjoy from its forgiveness.

Read more on Pitchfork Economics.
Read the original article on Business Insider