Stephany Griffiths-Jones – Chile: Boric’s economic programme

December 21, 2021 

A sobering explanation of the economic policies to be expected from the new Chilean president

PEF Council member Prof. Stephany Griffiths-Jones is a member of Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s group of economic advisors.

Interview conducted by Andy Robinson. Original (in Spanish).

Cross-posted from the PEF website

Gabriel Boric. Photo: Mediabanco Agencia / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0,

Stephany Griffith-Jones, one of the most eloquent promoters of the role of the state and public banks in the equitable development of South American economies, joined a group of advisers to Gabriel Boric, Chile’s presidential candidate, before the start of his second round campaign for the Presidency. The decision to appoint Griffith-Jones – a professor at the University of Sussex and collaborator with Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz at Columbia University in New York – is proof that Boric build on not only ideas from the 2019 protest movement, but also experts close to Concertación and Nueva Mayoría, who led the centre-left governments of Chile’s slow transition from dictatorship.

It is also proof that, at the age of 35, Boric is aware of the importance of working with experienced economists such as Griffith Jones, Born in Prague in 1947, great-niece of Franz Kafka, and whose family emigrated to Chile the following year, we spoke about Boric’s dilemmas in needing to both respond to the demand for change in Chile, and to stabilise the economy.

It seems that Gabriel Boric is facing a problem. He is a candidate for change, a movement that has taken to the streets of Santiago to protest the neo-liberal model. But if he wins, he will come to power in a difficult budget situation that leaves little room for progressive budget policy…

Yes. At the moment the budgetary situation is very difficult. The fiscal deficit is already at 13% of GDP… Piñera went from one extreme to another in his response to the pandemic. He did nothing at first, and a lot of low-income people were in real trouble. This is where the first withdrawals from pension funds were introduced, to help low-income people in great difficulty. [Piñera’s government allowed raids on Chile’s privatised pension funds during covid, turning them into a “piggy-bank”, with about $50bn or 25% of their value withdrawn to date.] But then, in 2021, Piñera went to the other extreme. He gave generous support, perhaps too much, to many, even people who were not so poor. And consumption skyrocketed. Chilean GDP will grow this year between 11% and 12%. The economy is totally overheated.

What should be done?

Boric has committed himself to significantly reducing the budget deficit in one year and respecting the budget already approved by Parliament. It is a sign of his moderation. In the coming years, he wants to raise taxes gradually and increase the collection of existing taxes – higher direct taxes, and lower indirect taxes. Indirect taxes, such as value added tax, account for more than 50% of Chile’s total tax revenue, well above the OECD average. There is also a commitment to combat tax evasion, which in Chile is twice the OECD average, but this requires more tax inspectors.

The problem is more general. Latin America is experiencing a moment of polarization. It is necessary to break a model that was very unpopular, but the economic and economic reality of countries like Brazil or Chile leaves very little space, and both Lula and Boric have moved closer to the centre.

Yes, at first many people thought that Boric would be too radical. But now perhaps the greatest fear is that he can not do enough.

Despite this, he is portrayed as radical in many media …

It’s true. The media talk about far right and far left. We must reject this false dichotomy, because Boric is a Social Democrat. [Right-wing candidate Jose Antonio] Kast is an extremist. In economics, he is quite radical; to reduce taxes when the deficit is 13% of GDP is downright daring. In politics, he is even more extreme. One of his deputies said that women should never have had the right to vote. Unbelievable. Kast proposed restricting the right to abortion, even for women who were raped, and forgiving Pinochet-era torturers.

But Boric is a European-style Social Democrat. I met him first at a conference to discuss the Scandinavian model of government. He has been more on the left, but he is aware of the current budget problems and is very open to discussions with all sides. That said, he is very committed to the need for redistribution.

Given the polarity and rejection of the system, do you think it can be a double-edged sword to enjoy the support of the main political figures from Concertación?

No. That’s very positive for Boric. Leftists will vote for him anyway. The problem is attracting the votes of most of those in the middle. Although the most important thing is to attract young people who demonstrate, but sometimes do not vote. Participation in the first round was very low. In the past, the center and the left always worked when they merged. It can be expected to be the same this time. Boric acknowledged the contribution of the Christian Democrats (PDC) and it was a very good move. He met Ricardo Lagos [centre-left president from 2000 to 2006] and Michelle Bachelet [centre-left President from 2006 to 2010, and from 2014 to 2018]. They were wonderful to him. Much of the center and left have already joined the campaign. And the Christian Democrats support him even though they say they would not enter government with him. It is also true that the fact that Kast is perceived as disastrous made the reunion easier.

It is strange to compare the victory of the left in the Constituent Assembly with the results of November in the parliamentary elections. How did this happen?

Yes, 78% of voters voted [on 25 October 2020] in favour of a new constitution. Voting in the Constituent Assembly [over 15 and 16 May 2021] was a great victory for the left. But then, just a year after the referendum, the same voters voted for a parliament that was divided between left and right. There is therefore a lack of consistency. If Boric wins, he will have problems with Congress, which will likely try to block proposals such as the budget and tax reform.

Will there be more leeway afterwards?

I think so, after the first year. Boric and his supporters are very committed to the ecological transition. Chile is lucky because it has lithium, which is essential for batteries, and copper, which is essential for the enerfy transition. In addition, there is great potential for further development of solar and wind energy. It is necessary to give priority to certain sectors for that transition, supporting their development, and Kast does not understand this. Development banks must be mobilized for the green transition. And financial regulation can be used to incentivize commercial bank loans to companies with low-carbon investments.

Public investment is key. For example, Boric wants to invest heavily in building an extensive rail network. Then there is hydrogen. Hydrogen can be produced sustainably in Chile because there are many ways to generate renewable energy. We can use green hydrogen in mining to have green copper.

Is there not a risk that the energy transition will create demand for metals and lead to more extraction and dependence on the export of raw materials?

The idea would be to move up the value chain. Manufacture batteries, incorporate more technology and knowledge. Scandinavian economies, which in the past were like Chile, dependent on exports of raw materials such as wood, managed to move up the value chain and develop rapidly. So it is necessary, for example, to produced more refined copper, to manufacture higher value-added cables.

Why would the left do it better than the right?

Because public investment and the development bank are essential for the green transition, and then catalysing private investment in this sector is key. Kast doesn’t understand this. He caricatures the state as a dark and negative force, but those are the ideas of the past.

 

Chile: copper-bottomed?

The victory of former student leader and activist Gabriel Boric in Chile’s presidential election is the culmination of a sweeping change of mood and direction among Chilean voters.  In a 56% turnout, the highest since voting was made voluntary, 35-year old Boric took 56% of the vote compared to ultra-right Antonio Kast’s 44%.  

Boric has pledged to stop mining projects that damage the environment, increase taxes on the rich, end private pension schemes and remove student debt. During his victory speech, Boric, who is part of a broad left-wing coalition that includes the Chilean Communist party, said he would oppose mining initiatives that “destroy” the environment. That included the contentious $2.5bn Dominga mining project that was approved this year. 

Earlier this year, elections to Chile’s Constituent Assembly resulted in a majority for the (disparate) left.  The Assembly is supposedly rewriting the Constitution to replace the authoritarian structure of the Pinochet military regime after 40 years.  But Chile’s Congress (parliament) is split down the middle between right and left coalitions.

Chile is the richest country in Latin America as measured by GDP per head.  But its 20m population makes it tiny compared to Mexico or Brazil, which have populations six to ten times larger and GDPs four to five times larger.  Argentina and even Venezuela are much larger in population and GDP.

Nevertheless, Chile’s real GDP growth rate has generally been slightly faster than the rest of Latin America and its governments have thus been relatively stable.  Many mainstream economists and political theorists often use this to claim that Chile is a ‘free market’ capitalist economic success story and consider Chile as the “Switzerland of the Americas”. Chile is a member of the OECD, the rich nations club, and in the (NAFTA-USMCA) trade bloc with Canada, Mexico and the US.

But this apparent success story is only relative in GDP growth compared to other Latin American economies.  Moreover, such gains have mainly gone to the rich in Chile.  Income inequality is among the worst in the OECD, only surpassed by Brazil and South Africa. 

The income share of the bottom decile in Chile is one of the lowest in the world.  Only a few countries, largely from Latin America, have lower income share accruing to the bottom decile of the distribution and this share has deteriorated in relative terms in the last 20 years.  Social spending (as a share of GDP) in Chile appears higher than in Mexico and Peru.  But public services have been reduced, forcing people to use private profit operations.  In particular, pensions are dominated by private sector companies and most Chileans find their savings for retirement are just too meagre to fund a decent standard of living in old age.

This was one of the big issues in the election and led to the widespread protests against pro-capitalist policies in 2019 (before COVID) which has now culminated in Boric’s election.  The IMF found that ‘replacement rates’ (ie pensions relative to average working income) in Chile are very low relative to other OECD economies, and this deficiency is even more pronounced for females than for males.

Amid high and rapidly increasing costs of living alongside limited income growth and low pensions, many households have accumulated considerable amounts of debt.

Taxes on the rich are very low, so that income redistribution is lower than almost all OECD peers and many other poor economies.

Chile’s relative economic success has always been based on its copper and mineral exports.  If copper and mineral prices are high and rising, Chile’s economy does better and conversely – but of course, little of that ‘trickles’ down from the profits of multi-nationals to the average Chilean household.

There have been some Marxist analyses of the Chilean economy that show how the profitability of Chilean capital has been driven by the copper cycle. Diego Polanco in his study for the whole of 20th century noted that “capital accumulation is driven by profitability” and that “the profit rate is a crucial variable for economic growth.”  Polanco found that and collapse of profitability explained the crisis phases in the Chilean capitalist economy.  “While Chile was a surplus labor economy, technical change had favorable contributions to the profit rate. However, once the process of urbanization advanced, Marx-Biased Technical Change took place, having a negative contribution to profitability.”  The neo-liberal period under Pinochet from the 1970s saw a rise in profitability enabling the regime to maintain its control for decades.

In a more recent study, Gonzalo Duran and Michael Stanton found that the rate of exploitation in Chile’s economy rose or fell according to the movement of the copper price. Profitability fell during the 1990s as copper prices stayed low and Marx’s law of profitability operated to lower the rate of profit. “In contrast, during the copper super-cycle period of 2004–2009, profits related to wages went up enormously due to the rise in copper prices, but new capital was still imported at low cost and wages were relatively constant. In other words, profits went up relatively to capital and wages and the ROP rose as a consequence.”

However, with the end of the commodity price boom from 2010 across Latin America, there was relative economic stagnation and a fall in the ROP.

My own measure of Chile’s profitability is based on the Penn World Tables IRR series. It delivers a similar trajectory for the profit rate: a drop in the rate from the mid-1990s; then a recovery in the commodity boom from 2003 to 2010, and then with the collapse of commodity prices from 2010, stagnation and decline in profitability.

The IMF’s own recent measure from 2006 confirms this general trajectory for all Latin American economies after about 2010.

The fall in profitability after 2010 led to slowing growth in GDP, investment, incomes and a further squeezing of public services prior to the COVID slump.  With COVID and the health disaster, there was a collapse in the economy, with the main impact falling on those with the lowest incomes and worst jobs.  The pro-capitalist forces have been forced into retreat politically.

The victory of Boric could open up a new chapter is Chile’s political economy.  Indeed, there are huge opportunities for the Chilean economy to increase investment and diversify the economy.  The IMF finds that even under the previous regimes there has been some development in non-mineral and technology exports.  This must be the way for Chile to go.

So will Boric revive the socialist experiment began by Salvador Allende in the early 1970s?  So far, that seems unlikely, as Boric’s program is moderate by those standards; with no plans to socialise the economy, but merely to try and redistribute the largesse appropriated by capital somewhat more evenly.  The multi-nationals and the forces of the reactionary right-wing in the Chilean business sector, Congress and the media are gearing up for an incessant campaign of attack against the new President.

Michael Roberts is an Economist in the City of London and a prolific blogger

Michigan GOP candidate says public schools are plotting to 'eliminate the white people'

Matthew Chapman

RAW STORY
December 22, 2021

Mellissa Carone (screengrab).

On Wednesday, Michigan Advance reported that Mellissa Carone, a GOP anti-"voter fraud" activist who is running for state legislature in Michigan, espoused white supremacist propaganda to supporters on social media.

"During a Facebook live video Tuesday, Mellissa Carone ... said that public schools and the government are trying to 'eliminate' white people in America," reported Allison Donahue. "'They’re trying to eliminate the white people in America, particularly the white male in America,' Carone said after criticizing public schools for asking students for their pronouns and calling transgender rights 'government control.'"

"These comments are similar to what is said by far-right extremists against critical race theory, which is a graduate-level course examining the systemic effects of white supremacy in America. It is not taught in any of Michigan’s K-12 schools," continued the report. "In the nearly 90-minute video, Carone also criticized the COVID-19 vaccine, statewide shutdowns during the pandemic and defended insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. "

Carone gained national attention after she served as the star witness for Trump ally Rudy Giuliani during a Michigan hearing on election integrity, where she baselessly claimed to have seen Dominion Voting Systems rigging electoral counts and claimed that the Republican state lawmaker questioning her looked like a penis. She has also claimed that the COVID-19 vaccine is a sign of the Biblical apocalypse.

Until recently, Carone was on probation for a "computer crime" after she allegedly harassed her fiancé's ex-wife with sexually explicit videos.

THIRD WORLD USA

Infrastructure bill to aid US tribes with water, plumbing

By GILLIAN FLACCUS, FELICIA FONSECA and BECKY BOHRER

1 of 29

Dan Martinez, emergency manager for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, pauses in the hallway of a storage building filled with donated water on Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021, in Warm Springs, Ore. “The infrastructure bill brought joy to my heart because now it gives me hope — hope that it’s going to be repaired,” said Martinez, the tribes’ emergency manager, who expects to receive federal funds to replace underground pipes and address the 40-year-old treatment plant.

 (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)


WARM SPRINGS, Ore. (AP) — Erland Suppah Jr. doesn’t trust what comes out of his faucet.

Each week, Suppah and his girlfriend haul a half-dozen large jugs of water from a distribution center run by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs to their apartment for everything from drinking to cooking to brushing their teeth for their family of five. It’s the only way they feel safe after countless boil-water notices and weekslong shutoffs on a reservation struggling with bursting pipes, failing pressure valves and a geriatric water treatment plant.

“About the only thing this water is good for is cleaning my floor and flushing down the toilet,” Suppah said of the tap water in the community 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Portland. “That’s it.”

In other, more remote tribal communities across the country, running water and indoor plumbing have never been a reality.

Now, there’s a glimmer of hope in the form of a massive infrastructure bill signed last month that White House officials say represents the largest single infusion of money into Indian Country. It includes $3.5 billion for the federal Indian Health Service, which provides health care to more than 2 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives, plus pots of money through other federal agencies for water projects.

Tribal leaders say the funding, while welcome, won’t make up for decades of neglect from the U.S. government, which has a responsibility to tribes under treaties and other acts to ensure access to clean water. A list of sanitation deficiencies kept by the Indian Health Service has more than 1,500 projects, including wells, septic systems, water storage tanks and pipelines. Some projects would address water contamination from uranium or arsenic.

About 3,300 homes in more than 30 rural Alaska communities lack indoor plumbing, according to a 2020 report. On the Navajo Nation, the largest Native American reservation, about one-third of the 175,000 residents are without running water.

Residents in these places haul water for basic tasks such as washing and cooking, sometimes driving long distances to reach communal water stations. Instead of indoor bathrooms, many use outhouses or lined pails called “honey buckets” that they drag outside to empty. Some shower or do laundry at community sites known as “washeterias,” but the equipment can be unreliable and the fees expensive.

“You look at two billionaires competing to fly into outer space, yet we’re trying to get basic necessities in villages of interior Alaska,” said PJ Simon, a former chairman of an Alaska Native nonprofit corporation called the Tanana Chiefs Conference.

Many more tribal communities have indoor plumbing but woefully inadequate facilities and delivery systems riddled with aging pipes.

The coronavirus pandemic, which disproportionately hit Indian Country, further underscored the stark disparities in access to running water and sewage systems.

In Warm Springs, the water crisis has overlapped with COVID-19.

“During a worldwide pandemic, we’ve had a boil-water notice. How are we supposed to wash our hands? How are we supposed to sanitize our homes to disinfect, to keep our community members safe? How can we do that ... when our water isn’t even clean?” said Dorothea Thurby, who oversees the distribution of free water to tribal members and food boxes to those who are quarantined.

A 2019 report by a pair of nonprofit groups, US Water Alliance and Dig Deep, found Native American homes are 19 times more likely than white households to lack full plumbing. And federal officials note tribal members without indoor toilets or running water are at increased risk of respiratory tract, skin and gastrointestinal infections.

On the Navajo Nation, Eloise Sullivan uses an outhouse and often drives before dawn to beat the crowd at a water-filling station near the Arizona-Utah border to get water for the five people in her household. They use about 850 gallons (3,200 liters) a week, she estimated.

Sullivan, 56, doesn’t mind hauling water, but “for the younger generation, it’s like, ‘Do we have to do that?’”

“It’s kind of like a big issue for them,” she said.

She once asked local officials what it would cost to run a water line from the closest source about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away. She said she was told $25,000 and never pursued it.

Libby Washburn, special assistant to President Joe Biden on Native American affairs, recently told tribes the infrastructure bill included enough money to complete all the projects on the Indian Health Service list. The agency said it’s consulting with tribes and won’t make allocation decisions before that process is over.

Until now, tribes and outside organizations have worked to address needs with their own funding, donations or federal money, including pandemic relief.

“If you live without running water, you understand the importance and the connection you have with it, deep down as a person, as a human being,” said Burrell Jones, who sets up water systems and delivers water around Dilkon, Arizona, with Dig Deep’s Navajo Water Project. “You can’t exist without water.”

Andrew Marks recently moved back to Tanana, a community of about 190 people in Alaska’s interior. He initially relied on a washeteria but found the equipment unreliable. He now has running water and plumbing where he lives but hauls water for family members who don’t.

“I believe if we had more people with water, more people connected to the grid, it would drastically improve their life,” he said.

In Oregon, tribal officials have handed out about 3 million gallons (11 million liters) of water — almost all of it donated — from a decommissioned elementary school on the reservation. A steady stream of residents pick up a combined 600 gallons (2,270 liters) of water a day from the building. Former classrooms overflow with five-gallon (19-liter) containers and cases of bottled water.

“The infrastructure bill brought joy to my heart because now it gives me hope — hope that it’s going to be repaired,” said Dan Martinez, the tribes’ emergency manager, who expects to receive federal funds to replace underground pipes and address the 40-year-old treatment plant.

“If you came to work one day and someone said, ‘Hey, you need to go and find water for a community of 6,000 people.’ ... I mean, where do you start?’”

The money won’t provided immediate relief. Funding to the Indian Health Service is supposed to be distributed over five years. There is no deadline for its use, and projects will take time to complete once started. The money won’t cover operation and maintenance of the systems, a point tribes have criticized.

In Warm Springs, tribal members don’t pay for their water, and proposals to charge for it are deeply unpopular. That provides little incentive for tribal members to conserve water and raises questions about how new infrastructure will be maintained.

“There are some Natives who say — and I believe this myself — ‘How do you sell something you never owned? The Creator has given it to us,’” said Martinez, a tribal member.

Building out infrastructure in remote areas can be onerous, too. Most roads on the Navajo Nation are unpaved and become muddy and deeply rutted after big storms.

In Alaska, winter temperatures can fall well below zero, and construction seasons are short. Having enough people in a small community who are trained on the specifics of a water system so they can maintain it also can be a challenge, said Kaitlin Mattos, an assistant professor at Fort Lewis College in Colorado who worked on a 2020 report on water infrastructure in Alaska.

“Every bit of funding that is allocated is going to help some family, some household, which is wonderful,” she said. “Whether it’s enough to help every single household, I think, remains to be seen.”

____

Fonseca reported from Flagstaff, Arizona. Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska.

Did COVID-19 change life expectancy in America?

A new CDC report tracks homicides, drug overdose deaths and whether those numbers rose or fell amid the pandemic

By Lois M. Collins@Loisco 

DESERT NEWS

 Dec 22, 2021

Medical staff tend to a patient with coronavirus, on a COVID-19 ward inside the Willis-Knighton Medical Center in Shreveport, La., Aug. 18, 2021. 

Gerald Herbert, Associated Press

In 2020, COVID-19 joined what had been a fairly stable list of leading causes of death in the United States, coming in at No. 3 behind heart disease and cancer. The pandemic also contributed heavily to a dip in projected lifespan compared to 2019.

Life expectancy at birth in 2020 was 77 years overall in the United States, down nearly two years from the projection for those born in 2019, according to data released Wednesday by the National Center for Health Statistics in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Females are expected to live 5.7 years longer than males, at 79.9 years vs. 74.2 years. Both those numbers dropped compared to 2019 predictions.

The age-adjusted death rate for the whole population rose from 715.2 per 100,000 in 2019 to 835.4 in 2020. Increases in the age-adjusted death rate for ethnic and racial groups varied from just over 12% for non-Hispanic white females to a nearly 48% jump for Hispanic males.

Overall, age-adjusted death rates rose the most for Hispanics, followed by non-Hispanic Blacks, whose rates were double those of non-Hispanic whites. An age-adjusted death rate weights age-specific rates for each group by the proportion of each group in the population. The new report notes that the age-specific death rate increased in each age group 15 and older between 2019 and 2020.

Unintentional injuries, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, influenza/pneumonia and kidney disease rounded out the top 10 list of leading causes of death in the U.S. in 2020.

Overall, the report said, 3,383,729 resident deaths were recorded in the United States in 2020, up 528,891 compared to 2019.

The 16.8% increase in the age-adjusted death rate for the total population was the biggest single-year increase since the data collection began, and the decrease in life expectancy was the largest single-year decrease in more than 75 years.
COVID-19 toll

As of Dec. 20, 2021, 804,046 deaths had been attributed to COVID-19 on death certificates. In 90% of cases, CDC reported, COVID-19 was listed as the underlying cause of death, while the others listed it as a contributing cause of death. The report said the largest number of COVID-19 deaths reported in a single week came in early January of 2021, when 25,984 deaths were attributed to the pandemic.

COVID-19 changed a trajectory that had been trending toward longer life. A year ago, the final data on 2019 deaths compared to 2018 showed that life expectancy had increased for the second year in a row, “despite an increase in deaths from drug overdoses and an all-time high of over 2.85 million deaths in the U.S.,” that earlier report said

.

Workers wearing personal protective equipment bury bodies in a trench on Hart Island, Thursday, April 9, 2020, in the Bronx borough of New York.

 John Minchillo, Associated Press

Drug overdose and homicide

The CDC said that drug overdose deaths make up more than a third of all accidental deaths in the country and had increased in 2019, after they declined in 2018 for the first time in 28 years.

2020 brought other death-related challenges, as well. In July, the CDC reported that drug overdose deaths were up 30% compared to the previous year. And in October the agency reported that 2020 brought the “largest one-year increase in the U.S. homicide rate.”

Provisional data found that in 2020, the homicide rate in the United States was 7.8 per 100,000, compared to 6.0 the year before — and the highest rate since 1995, “but significantly lower than the early 1980s, which topped 10 homicides per 100,000.”
Infant deaths

The new report said 19,582 children younger than age 1 died in 2020, which was 1,339 fewer than in 2019.

Among infants, the leading causes of death were the same as in 2019: congenital malformations, low birth weight, sudden infant death syndrome, unintentional injuries, maternal complications, cord and placental complications, bacterial sepsis, respiratory distress, diseases of the circulatory system and neonatal hemorrhage.

There was a statistically significant increase in sudden infant death syndrome, from 33.3 to 38.4 per 100,000 live births in 2019 compared to 2020. Low birth weight was the only category where deaths among infants decreased meaningfully, from 91.9 to 86.9 per 100,000.

The CDC has an interactive web dashboard where the leading causes of death are regularly updated.

Analysis: Shadow of collapse, internal conflict over declining US

December 23, 2021 - 8:41 AM News Code : 1211403 Source : Al Waght NewsLink: 

As we approach the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, we — all of us former senior military officials — are increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would put all Americans at severe risk," they wrote.

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): As about two weeks remain to anniversary of Trump supporters' attack on the US Congress,  a large number of political observers and even military commanders express concerns about the deepening gaps in the US and even go further and warn about a danger of collapse and even an internal conflict in the country. Over the past few days, the retired Major General Paul Eaton, retired Brigadier General Steven Anderson, and retired Major General Antonio Taguba in an article published by The Washington Post have warned that the US is broken apart and that it needed to prepare for the worst scenarios after next elections. 

"As we approach the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, we — all of us former senior military officials — are increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would put all Americans at severe risk," they wrote. The fact is that contrary to several-decade media-presented pink picture from the US, the country presently stumbles saving its unity. 

Why are concerns about collapse growing? 

The events of the Capitol on January 6, like any other major event, grabbed, undoubtedly, the focus of American think tanks and researchers. Earlier, "Trumpism" as a type of American neo-Fascism had been a topic of study of political research centers, with all agreeing that the US was divided between Trump proponents and opponents. 

On the eve of the anniversary of the assault, two issues are giving rise to concerns about possible US collapse. First, polls suggest that about half of voters feel it is time for the country to break down. Second, and more important issue, is that the possibility of military coup following 2024 elections is occupying the mind of the political observers. 

This seems even more serious when the evidence shows that many of the participants in Congress storming were veterans or even serving military personnel. From the perspective of a political sociologists, this means that a radical section of American society seeking to seize Congress is in the US military and ready to take up arms if in next elections a confrontation erupts between Trump supporters and opponents. 

Biden did poorly bridging the gaps 

Joe Biden's performance in domestic and foreign policy since taking office on January 20 has accelerated American society's movement to partition and decline. 

During the election campaigns, the Democrats and Biden claimed the American people should vote Biden to restore unity to a divided nation, and constantly warned that if they did not win, the country would fall into disunity and collapse. Now and nearly a year after Biden took office, he has acted in such a way that many hardline Democrats have joined the president's opposition. 

Over the past few months, the vast majority of polls have clearly shown American citizens' dissatisfaction with Biden and the declining popularity of the White House leader. A new poll result, published by PBS / NewsHour / Marist Poll on December 20 showed president's public acceptance is in new records low, with over half of the voters dissatisfied with his performance. 

In that poll, about 55 percent of Americans disapproved of Biden's first year in the White House, with 44 percent of them strongly discontented with his first-year performance. The result shows that Biden's popularity has fallen by 20 percent since he took Biden's place in last January. The poll was conducted between December 11 and 13 among 1,400 adults with a 4-percent margin of error. 

Also, a new poll by Ipsos and ABC News showed that only 28 percent of the Americans are happy with the way Biden is trying to curb inflation and 69 percent others are discontented. These polls have one message to convey: The Americans not only do not see Biden a savior of peace and stability in the country but also find him a divisive factor politically and socially. 

Social gaps of the states 

Just contrary to the image the American political and media circles try to demonstrate from the US, the country has a broad political fault line. The most important and active fault line currently is racism that is taking fascism's color and smell. Today, the Republican Party has virtually become the hotbed of neo-Fascist and white supremacist activity. Trump's assumption of power in 2017 gave a chance of surfacing for the activities of these groups that for years lived on in the bottom layers of the society.  

At present, a large number of the Republicans and white rightists believe that they are at an existential struggle with the blacks and other people of color, as well as those they label "illegal foreigners" who, the radical whites think, want to replace the whites. The more worrisome point is that this racist population, to Trump they are supporters, have a deep belief that Biden's victory was fraudulent and that they do not recognize him as their legitimate president. 

Moreover, the citizens in many states of America have held deep belief in split and birth of independent new countries. For decades, people especially in Alaska, Texas, New Hampshire, New York, and other states have been speaking out about secession but their agenda went nowhere. At present, too, in many states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan there are deep differences, with pro-separation factions thriving.

ECOCIDE

Louisiana firm to pay $475M over longest-running U.S. oil leak

Rebecca Falconer

AXIOS

A Louisiana-based oil company will pay $43 million in civil penalties and damages and $432 million to a clean-up trust fund to resolve liability for a spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

Why it matters: Taylor Energy's former Gulf of Mexico offshore oil production facility is the source of the longest-running oil spill in U.S. history, ongoing since 2004, per a Department of Justice statement.

Nicole LeBoeuf, director of NOAA's National Ocean Service said in a statement the proposed settlement "represents an important down payment to address impacts" of the spill — which began when a Taylor Energy production platform some 10 miles off Louisiana's coast collapsed during Hurricane Ivan.

The resulting oil discharge "continues to this day," the DOJ noted.

Details: Under the settlement agreement that's subject to final court approval, Taylor must dismiss three existing lawsuits it filed against the federal government. But it does not admit any liability.

The big picture: Ivan triggered a mudslide, causing the Taylor production platform to collapse, with 16 of the 25 damaged undersea wells leaking since then, per the New York Times.
Taylor managed to cap the others but said it couldn't do so with the rest because were "buried under so much mud and debris," per the NYT.

U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Will Watson, sector commander in New Orleans, noted in a statement that for the past three years teams had removed more than 800,000 gallons of oil that had been discharging into the Gulf of Mexico.

What they're saying: "Despite being a catalyst for beneficial environmental technological innovation, the damage to our ecosystem caused by this 17-year-old oil spill is unacceptable," said Duane Evans, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

For the record: Taylor "sold its oil and gas assets in 2008 and ceased all drilling and production operations," according to a website statement. It now exists today solely to respond to the spill.

The other side: Taylor couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

The company said in a statement to CBS' "60 Minutes" when the show covered the spill last month that Taylor "has retained and relied upon the world's foremost experts to study and then recommend a plan of action... We continue to advocate for a response driven by science."

What's next: The US District court will decide whether to approve the settlement's proposed consent decree at a date to be scheduled.

Manchin the menace

by Herb Boyd

AMSTERDAMNEWS.COM

December 23, 2021

Earlier this week Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia continued to be the mess of a menace to the Biden administration, particularly the $2 trillion Build Back Better bill. This would not be a grave concern if the senate was not 50-50, thereby making his vote so pivotal.

Manchin’s opposition has long been a problem on climate change, but here lately he has taken a stand against the Child Tax Credit, which expired on Dec. 15, leaving millions of Americans deprived of the $300 monthly allotment. His reluctance, as a Democrat, to go along with the party line has flummoxed his colleagues but it is consistent with his aim to please his donors from the coal, gas, and oil industry—to say nothing of his personal investments on these energy matters.

His opposition to the Child Tax Credit is on the unsubstantiated grounds that the recipients would use the payments to buy drugs, according to sources familiar with his comments. More directly, his rationalization of resistance was based on the nation’s debt and inflation.

“I cannot vote to move forward on this mammoth piece of legislation,” he said in a statement last Sunday. “My Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society in a way that leaves our country even more vulnerable to the threats we face. I cannot take that risk with a staggering debt of more than $29 trillion and inflation taxes that are real and harmful to every hard-working American at the gasoline pumps, grocery stores and utility bills with no end in sight.”

A White House response to his remarks contradicted what he had previously stated. “Senator Manchin promised to continue conversations in the days ahead and to work with us to reach that common ground. If his comments on Fox and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the president and the senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate,” White House Secretary Jen Psaki said.

In private conversations, according to the Huffington Post, Manchin said he believed paid family leave would be exploited by Americans to go hunting during deer season, especially in his home state. This report was countered by his spokesperson who noted that “Senator Manchin has made clear he supports the Child Tax Credit and believes the money should be targeted to those who need it most. He has also expressed support for a paid leave program that has a dedicated, sustainable funding mechanism.”

Meanwhile, on Sunday, President Biden and Sen. Manchin met after Manchin’s appearance on Fox News, in what was described as a cordial meeting.

One thing seems predictable, Manchin will flip flop on issues and find every justification to block Biden’s plans, even if some of his reasonings are absolutely outrageous and reprehensible.

 US delays intelligence center targeting foreign influence

 BY NOMAAN MERCHANT 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

 DECEMBER 22, 2021 

 As Russia was working to subvert U.S. elections and sow discord among Americans, Congress directed the creation of an intelligence center to lead efforts to stop interference by foreign adversaries. But two years later, that center still is not close to opening. Experts and intelligence officials broadly agree the proposed Foreign Malign Influence Center is a good idea. 

The U.S. has lacked a cohesive strategy to fight influence operations, they say, with not enough coordination among national security agencies. Adversaries that tried to interfere in the last two presidential elections continue to bombard Americans with disinformation and conspiracy theories at a time of peril for democracy in the U.S. and around the world. But the intelligence community and Congress remain divided over the center's mission, budget and size, according to current and former officials. 

While separate efforts to counter interference continue, a person identified this year as a potential director has since been assigned elsewhere and the center likely will not open anytime soon. “It really is just giving a gift to Russia and China and others who clearly have their sights set not only on the midterm elections but on ongoing campaigns to destabilize American society,” said David Salvo, deputy director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. 

The nation's top intelligence official had advocated for the center before taking office. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines last year co-chaired a German Marshall Fund task force supporting it. In a statement, spokeswoman Nicole de Haay said the director's office "is focused on creating a center to facilitate and integrate the Intelligence Community’s efforts to address foreign malign influence.” 

But some lawmakers are concerned about further expanding the mission of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ODNI was originally envisioned as a small coordinating body to address the intelligence-sharing failures preceding the Sept. 11 attacks. It has several centers that critics say are well-meaning attempts to solve problems but end up causing unnecessary duplication. 

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner said that while he supports the center, there were “legitimate questions about how large such an organization should be and even about where it would fit" with existing government efforts to fight foreign interference. “We want to be sure that this center enhances those efforts rather than duplicating them or miring them in unnecessary bureaucracy,” the Virginia Democrat said in a statement. “I don’t have any real doubt that we will ultimately stand the center up in the relatively near future, but we need to be sure we get it right.”

 It's unclear who would lead the center. Separately, there is also a vacancy for a new election threats executive after the previous executive, Shelby Pierson, ended her term and returned to another intelligence post. Pierson had been in the spotlight last year after giving lawmakers a closed-door briefing on Russia's efforts to intervene in the 2020 election in favor of President Donald Trump. That angered Trump, who berated the then-director of national intelligence and later replaced him. Trump has promoted falsehoods about elections and pushed Republicans to follow his lead. Experts on democracy have long warned that what the government refers to as “malign influence” is a national security threat. Social media has helped make disinformation a cheap and powerful tactic for adversaries who can push false or altered stories, videos and images, and amplify falsehoods already circulating among Americans to promote their own interests and create chaos. 

 U.S. and other Western authorities have accused Russia of spreading disinformation about the coronavirus and vaccines, stealing data from local and state election servers, and pushing false stories intended to exploit divisions over race and civil rights. Intelligence agencies have found that Russia used influence operations to interfere with the 2016 presidential election in favor of Trump's campaign and conducted operations in Trump's favor in 2020. 

The U.S. assessed China ultimately did not interfere in the 2020 election, but Beijing has been accused of promoting false theories about the COVID-19 pandemic and trying to sway businesses and all levels of government. Iran was accused of sponsoring emails intended to intimidate Democratic-leaning voters into supporting Trump. 

Experts say the new center can warn Americans about interference and produce better information for policymakers. While the FBI, the National Security Agency and several other government agencies have long worked on foreign interference, “we are not organized in a way where we are building a coherent threat picture,” said Jessica Brandt, an expert on foreign interference and disinformation at the Brookings Institution. But there are risks in the intelligence community ramping up its monitoring of what Americans see and read. 

The FBI and NSA have been accused of unlawfully spying on Americans. That history contributes to many Americans' distrust of the intelligence community, as do Trump's attacks on intelligence professionals and what he has derided as the “deep state.” Opponents note the U.S. also has a history of covert interference in other countries and has helped overthrow governments seen as anti-American. 

A column published by the Kremlin-backed RT.com alleged the proposed center “is just official cover for American intelligence interference in domestic politics.” The intelligence community also risks being seen as political or infringing on First Amendment rights if it takes the same untruths spread by Americans and labels them as foreign interference when they're spread by an adversary. The center “is going to have to figure out this enormous challenge to convey threats to American elections, American democracy, at a time when there seem to be two completely different realities,” said Salvo of the German Marshall Fund. 

Congress authorized the center in late 2019 and directed ODNI to create it. Several people who worked in intelligence matters at that time, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe confidential discussions, say they didn't know of any effort by the Trump White House to stop the center. Instead, leaders within ODNI disagreed on how to structure the new center or whether it should be a “virtual center" without an office. According to one of the people, William Evanina, the former chief of ODNI's counterintelligence center, offered to take the malign influence center under his authority, but the office ultimately did not choose that option. Evanina declined to comment. After Biden took office, ODNI presented a plan for a small center with a few dozen staff members to the intelligence and appropriations committees in the House and Senate.

 But even as Congress required the center's creation, key lawmakers from both parties have expressed concerns about the plan. A proposal to fund the center this summer failed and it is unlikely to be completed while the government is operating with temporary funding. The center may now be included if a full spending plan is approved in early 2022. Suzanne Spaulding, an election security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called for the U.S. government to act quickly. “Time is not on our side,” Spaulding said. “Disinformation is a national security threat and should be treated with the urgency that a national security threat engenders.”

 https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/article256810177.html#storylink=cpy

Congressional Panel Launches Investigation Into Promoter Of Deadly Astroworld Concert

Ten people were killed during a massive crowd surge at the concert and attendees were packed so tightly that many could not breathe or move their arms. 

The people killed at the concert died from compression asphyxia.

Juan A. Lozano
12/23/2021 


HOUSTON (AP) — A congressional committee has launched an investigation into the promoter of the Astroworld music festival in Houston, in which 10 people were killed during a massive crowd surge and attendees were packed so tightly that many could not breathe or move their arms.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee sent a letter Wednesday to Live Nation Entertainment Inc.’s president and CEO, Michael Rapino, asking for information about the company’s role in the Nov. 5 festival and concert by rap superstar Travis Scott.

Information the committee requested included details about security, crowd control and mass casualty incident planning; details about any pre-show briefings by Live Nation or is subsidiaries on any safety concerns; and what steps the concert promoter will take to prevent injuries or deaths at future events.

“Recent reports raise serious concerns about whether your company took adequate steps to ensure the safety of the 50,000 concertgoers who attended Astroworld Festival,” the committee said in the letter.

The youngest of the 10 victims was 9-year-old Ezra Blount. The others who died as headliner Travis Scott took to the stage ranged in age from 14 to 27.

ROBERT BUMSTED VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

The committee is requesting that Live Nation provide documentation on the questions by Jan. 7 and that it provide a briefing to committee members by Jan. 12.

Such a briefing would be behind closed doors and not open to the public.

“We are assisting local authorities in their investigation and will of course share information with the Committee as well. Safety is core to live events and Live Nation engages in detailed security planning in coordination with local stakeholders including law enforcement, fire and EMT professionals. We are heartbroken by the events at Astroworld and our deepest sympathies go out to the families and friends of the victims,” Live Nation said in a statement.

The youngest of the 10 victims was 9-year-old Ezra Blount. The others who died as headliner Scott took to the stage ranged in age from 14 to 27.

Some 300 people were injured and treated at the festival site and 25 were taken to hospitals.

Last week, officials announced that the people killed at the concert died from compression asphyxia. A medical expert says the pressure from the crowd surge at the event was so great that it quickly squeezed all the air from the lungs of the victims, causing them to pass out within a minute or so and die because critical organs, such as the heart and brain, were depleted of oxygen.


Nearly 400 lawsuits have been filed over injuries and deaths at the concert, including many against Live Nation and Scott.