Private Equity Is Destroying US Health Care

From driving medical facilities out of business to charging predatory interest rates on patient billing schemes, F. Douglas Stephenson outlines how private equity is stealthily destroying Americans’ healthcare.

Healthcare, Not Wealthcare! rally in Philadelphia, June 22, 2017. 

(Joe Piete, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

LONG READ

By F. Douglas Stephenson
Common Dreams
December 1, 2022

Private equity has succeeded in depicting itself as part of the productive economy of health care services even as it is increasingly being recognized as being parasitic.

The essence of this toxic parasitism is not only to drain the host’s nourishment, but also to dull the host’s brain so that it often does not even recognize that the parasite is there. This is the illusion that health care services in the United States suffer under today.

Parasitic private equity is consuming U.S. health care from the inside out, weakening its structure and strength and enriching investors at the expense of patient care and patients.

Incremental health reforms have failed. It’s time to move past political barriers to achieve consensus on real reform, says J.E. McDonough, professor of practice at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

Private equity firms are financial termites devouring the woodwork and foundations of the U.S. health care system, as Laura Katz Olson documents in her new book, Ethically Challenged: Private Equity Storms US Health Care:


“PE firms are gobbling up physician and dental practices; homecare and hospital agencies; mental health, substance abuse, eating disorder, and autism services; urgent care facilities; and emergency medical transportation.”

Private equity has become a growing and diversified part of the American health care economy. Demonstrated results of private equity ownership include higher patient mortality, higher patient costs, fewer jobs, poorer quality and closed facilities.

What is Private Equity?

A private equity fund is a large unregulated pool of money run by financiers who use that money to invest in and/or buy companies and restructure them. They seek to recoup gains through dividend pay-outs or later sales of the companies to strategic acquirers or back to the public markets through initial public offerings.

But that doesn’t capture the scale of the model. There are also private equity-like businesses that scour the landscape for companies, buy them, and then use extractive techniques such as price gouging or legalized forms of complex fraud to generate cash by moving debt and assets like real estate among shell companies. PE funds also lend money and act as brokers, and are morphing into investment bank-like institutions. Some of them are public companies.

[Related: When Wall Street Came to My Mobile Home Park]

While the movement is couched in the language of business, using terms like strategy, business models, returns on equity, innovation, and so forth, and proponents refer to it as an industry, private equity is not business.

On a deeper level, private equity is the ultimate example of the collapse of the enlightenment concept of what ownership means. Ownership used to mean dominion over a resource, and responsibility for caretaking that resource.

[Related: The Consequences of Moving from Industrial to Financial Capitalism]

PE is a political movement with the goal of extending deep managerial controls from a small group of financiers over the producers in the economy. Private equity transforms corporations from institutions that house people and capital for the purpose of production into extractive institutions designed solely to shift cash to owners and leave the rest behind as trash.

Like much of our political economy, the ideas behind it were developed in the 1970s and the actual implementation was operationalized during the Reagan era.

Journalist Matt Stoller describes the essential business plan of private equity:

“Financial engineers… raise large amounts of money and borrow even more to buy firms and loot them. These kinds of private equity barons aren’t healthcare specialists who help finance useful health products and services, they do cookie-cutter deals targeting firms/practices/hospitals they believe have market power to raise prices, who can lay off workers or sell assets, and/or have some sort of legal loophole advantage.

Often, they will destroy the underlying business. The giants of the industry, from Blackstone to Apollo to Bain, are the children of 1980s junk bond king and fraudster Michael Milken. They are essentially super-sized mobsters.”

The classic description of this looting-for-profit practice process is presented by economists George Akerloff and Paul Romer:

“Firms have an incentive to go broke for profit at society’s expense (to loot) instead of to go for broke (to gamble on success). Bankruptcy for profit will occur if poor accounting, lax regulation, or low penalties for abuse give owners an incentive to pay themselves more than their firms are worth and then default on their debt obligations.” The fact that paper gains from stock prices can be wiped out when financial storms occur makes financial capitalism less resilient than the industrial base of tangible capital investment.”

January 2011 press conference about the merger of Dutch private-equity company Alpinvest with the Carlyle Group. (Rembrandt17, CC BY 1.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Harvard’s McDonough notes that in the past 45 years the U.S. economy has become heavily financialized more rapidly and decisively than in our peer nations:

“Just as General Electric’s Jack Welch transformed (ruined) his company from a goods manufacturer to a financial services company, so have financial flood waters now penetrated every corner of American health care. Private equity is winning, and any health care organization is a potential takeover target. Patients and patient visits become commodities and data points to be exploited for high profits by private equity’s “financial intermediaries who view healthcare organizations as vehicles for extracting wealth.”

Don McCanne, M.D., Physicians for a Nation Health Program (PNHP), says private equity firms are moving into health care by clustering specific specialties into new corporate entities.

“These equity firms may profess to infuse quality and efficiency into the systems they create, but their true objective is not altruism. Their interest is found in their label: equity, the more ($$) the better.”

McCanne describes private equity’s modus operandi:

1) acquire a relatively large platform practice in a given specialty
2) then acquire smaller practices in the same geographic area and merge them into the platform practice
3) use debt to finance the acquisitions and assign that debt to the acquired practices,
4) find ways to increase net revenue from the agglomerated practices
5) sell the agglomerated practices within three-to-five years for considerably more than the price paid by the private equity company.

Conveniently, Dr. McCanne notes, the debt is left with the practices they purchased and the equity investors walk away with the money. How does this benefit the patients? How does this benefit the health care professionals? We know how it benefits the equity firm investors, but does anyone seriously contend that this is what health care should be about? But that’s what it has become.

Consider the consequences.

Noble Health, a private equity-backed Kansas City startup launched in 2019, acquired Audrain and Callaway Community Hospitals in rural Missouri in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. This March, all hospital services ceased with the furlough of 181 employees.

Notes Kaiser Health News, “…venture capital and private equity firm Nueterra Capital launched Noble in December 2019 with executives who had never run a hospital, including Donald R. Peterson, a co-founder who prior to joining Noble had been accused of Medicare fraud.”

The fate of St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged in Richmond, Virginia, was told in The New Yorker. A New Jersey private equity firm called the Portopiccolo Group bought the home, “reduced stuff, cut amenities and set the stage for a deadly outbreak of COVID-19” that included a doubling in patient deaths.

The numbers of stories of private equity-generated health system harm grows rapidly. And if the health part of the business goes bust, as occurred in 2019 at Philadelphia’s now closed Hahnemann Hospital, the underlying real estate still offers rich rewards.


Philadelphia’s now defunct Hahnemann University Hospital in 2010. (Scott McLeod, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

Patients at North Carolina-based Atrium Health get what looks like an enticing pitch when they go to the nonprofit hospital system’s website: a payment plan from lender AccessOne. The plans offer “easy ways to make monthly payments” on medical bills, the website says. You don’t need good credit to get a loan. Everyone is approved. Nothing is reported to credit agencies. Very high interest rates are standard however.

In Minnesota, Allina Health encourages its patients to sign up for an account with MedCredit Financial Services to “consolidate your health expenses.” Very high interest.

In Southern California, Chino Valley Medical Center, part of the Prime Healthcare chain, touts “promotional financing options with the CareCredit credit card to help you get the care you need, when you need it.” As usual, very high interest rates.

As Americans are overwhelmed with medical bills, patient financing is now a multibillion-dollar business, with private equity and big banks lined up to cash in when patients and their families can’t pay for care. By one estimate from research firm IBISWorld, profit margins top 29 percent in the patient financing industry, seven times what is considered a solid hospital margin.

Mental Health Services

Headquarters of private equity company Bain Capital in Boston’s John Hancock building. (RhythmicQuietude, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

The Private Equity Newsletter reports that psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical social workers once ran their own practices. Now the local therapist office could be controlled by a buyout king.

Venture capitalists and private-equity firms are pouring billions of dollars into mental-health businesses, including psychology offices, psychiatric facilities, telehealth platforms for online therapy, new drugs, meditation apps and other digital tools.

Nine mental-health startups have reached private valuations exceeding $1 billion last year, including Cerebral Inc. and BetterUp Inc.

Demand for these services is rising as more people deal with grief, anxiety and loneliness amid lockdowns and the rising death toll of the Covid-19 pandemic, making the sector ripe for investment, according to bankers, consultants and investors.

They say the sector has become more attractive because health plans and insurers are paying higher rates than in the past for mental-health care, and virtual platforms have made it easier for clinicians to provide remote care.

“Since Covid, the need has gone through the roof,” said Kevin Taggart, managing partner at Mertz Taggart, a mergers-and-acquisitions firm focused on the behavioral-health sector. “Every mental-health company we are working for is busy. A lot of them have wait lists.”

In the first year of the pandemic, prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by 25 percent, the World Health Organization said in March. About one-third of Americans are reporting symptoms of anxiety or depression, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The number of behavioral-health acquisitions jumped more than 35 percent to 153 in 2021 versus the previous year, and of those, 123 involved private-equity firms, according to Mertz Taggart. In the first quarter of this year, there were 41 acquisitions, of which 30 involved PE firms.

The push into mental health carries risks. A rush of private-equity firms could send prices for practices higher, reducing potential profits. A risk for patients and clinicians is that new owners could focus on profits rather than outcomes, perhaps by pressuring clinicians to see more patients than they can handle. If care becomes less personal and private, patient care might also suffer.

Online mental-health company Cerebral and other telehealth startups have begun to face scrutiny over their prescribing practices. The Wall Street Journal has reported that some of Cerebral’s nurse practitioners said they felt pressure to prescribe stimulants. Last week, Cerebral said it would pause prescribing controlled substances such as Adderall to treat ADHD in new patients. Last year, Cerebral logged a $4.8 billion valuation.

Investors poured $5.5 billion into mental-health technology startups globally last year, up 139 percent from 2020, according to a report by CB Insights, an analytics firm. Of that, $4.5 billion was spent on U.S. firms. They range from platforms like SonderMind that match people with clinicians to meditation apps like Calm.

How Bad Has It Gotten?

Private equity-owned healthcare companies have also seen the following issues:

Reduced staffing, or filling beds without adequate staffing ratios

Over-reliance on unlicensed staff to reduce labor costs

Failure to provide adequate training

Pressure on providers to provide unnecessary and potentially costly services

Violation of regulations required for participants in Medicare and Medicaid such as anti-kickback provisions, creating litigation risk

Dentistry

A Small Smiles Dental Centers clinic in Houston, 2012.

(Hourick, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Kaiser Health News (KHC) reports that private-equity business tactics have been linked to scandalously bad care at some dental clinics that treated children from low-income families.

In early 2008, a Washington, D.C., television station aired a shocking report about a local branch of the dental chain Small Smiles that included video of screaming children strapped to straightjacket-like “papoose boards” before being anesthetized to undergo needless operations like baby root canals.

Five years later, a U.S. Senate report cited the TV exposé in voicing alarm at the “corporate practice of dentistry in the Medicaid program.” The Senate report stressed that most dentists turned away kids enrolled in Medicaid because of low payments and posed the question: How could private equity make money providing that care when others could not? The answer is “volume,” according to the Kaiser report.

Small Smiles settled several whistleblower cases in 2010 by paying the government $24 million. At the time, it was providing “business management and administrative services” to 69 clinics nationwide, according to the Justice Department. It later declared bankruptcy.

According to the 2018 lawsuit filed by his parents, Zion Gastelum was hooked up to an oxygen tank after questionable root canals and crowns “that was empty or not operating properly” and put under the watch of poorly trained staffers who didn’t recognize the blunder until it was too late.

Zion never regained consciousness and died four days later at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, the suit states. The cause of death was “undetermined,” according to the Maricopa County medical examiner’s office.

An Arizona state dental board investigation later concluded that the toddler’s care fell below standards, according to the suit. Less than a month after Zion’s death in December 2017, the dental management company Benevis LLC and its affiliated Kool Smiles clinics agreed to pay the Justice Department $24 million to settle False Claims Act lawsuits.

The government alleged that the chain performed “medically unnecessary” dental services, including baby root canals, from January 2009 through December 2011.

In their lawsuit, Zion’s parents blamed his death on corporate billing policies that enforced “production quotas for invasive procedures such as root canals and crowns” and threatened to fire or discipline dental staff “for generating less than a set dollar amount per patient.”

Kool Smiles billed Medicaid $2,604 for Zion’s care, according to the suit. FFL Partners did not respond to requests for comment. In court filings, it denied liability, arguing it did not provide “any medical services that harmed the patient.”

Olson, author of Ethically Challenged: Private Equity Storms U.S. Health Care, concludes, private equity does not belong in medicine at all and should it be banned.


“We really need to prohibit, I think, the corporate practice of medicine, period. If you look at the private equity playbook, its only goal is to make outsized profits – they can’t make ordinary profits. If they make ordinary, respectable profits, their investors will go somewhere else because of the risk.

Private equity doesn’t care whether the product is Roto-Rooter or hospice. That’s one of the major differences between PE and a regular company, which may care about the community, the reputation of the company, and the quality of the product. They want to keep their customers. They care about the future.

But private equity doesn’t work like that. Because private equity often aims to sell a company after four or five months, they don’t care about the future. They don’t care about the product at all. Private equity is antithetical to our health care system.

So yes, we need to ban private equity from health care. But given that it’s not going to happen, I would say that we need to prohibit the corporate practice of medicine — anybody can make a case for that.

You can eliminate their tax advantages.

You can limit the debt imposed on companies, especially in the health sector. You could easily control consolidation and monopolies in the health sector.

You could use specific anti-trust laws. I would definitely forbid investment by retail customers such as their 401(k)s.”

Also forbidden should be non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements, which make it so difficult to obtain information. I had a hard time interviewing people for this article. When people did talk, they were extraordinarily careful.

“Stealth branding” should also be banned — where the PE firm buys a chain, like a dental chain, but gives each office its own name, like Marilyn’s Happy Dental Care. It’s very deceptive.

PE players and firms don’t tend to be household names. They’ve really managed to fly under the radar. Here are some names that came up frequently in the research; names to look out for:

Bain Capital, the PE company that Mitt Romney still profits from, is one.

The Carlyle Group has been involved in recruiting high-ranking people from the government — one of its co-founders, David Rubenstein, served as deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy during the Carter administration. George H.W. Bush became a senior member of its Asia advisory, and so on.

July 2019: David Rubenstein, a founder of the private equity group KKR, in a discussion with U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in Washington, D.C. (State Department, Michael Gross)

KKR, of course, is one of the biggest. They control a lot in health care.

Dr. Olson concludes with concerns that can affect all communities.

“As PE gets more and more money — with these pension funds, and especially if they get their hands into the 401(k)s — they’re just going to keep buying up anything and everything. And it’s not just health care. More and more of these firms are appearing and getting into more and more industries.

As young people, or even older people involved in the well-established financial firms, realize how much money is involved, they just start a PE firm. Look at Jared Kushner [Affinity Partners]. It’s a very worrisome situation.”

Douglas Stephenson, LCSW, is a retired psychotherapist and former instructor of social work in the University of Florida Department of Psychiatry. He is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program.

This article is from Common Dreams.

COP15
China to Run UN Biodiversity Conference

This is the first time that Beijing has presided over a major intergovernmental meeting on the environment and wildlife ecologist Vanessa Hull is eager to see the country step into a global leadership role.

Four Père David’s deer (Elaphurus davidianus), also known as milu deer, 

on a wetland near the Dafeng Milu National Nature Reserve in Jiangsu

 Province, China. (He Jinghua/VCG via Getty Images)

By Vanessa Hull
University of Florida

November 30, 2022

As the world parses what was achieved at the U.N. climate change conference in Egypt, negotiators are convening in Montreal to set goals for curbing Earth’s other crisis: loss of living species.

Starting on Dec. 7, 196 nations that have ratified the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity will hold their 15th Conference of the Parties, or COP15. The convention, which was adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, is designed to promote sustainable development by protecting biodiversity — the variety of life on Earth, from genes up to entire ecosystems.

Today, experts widely agree that biodiversity is at risk. Because of human activities – especially overhunting, overfishing and altering land — species are disappearing from the planet at 50-to-100 times the historic rate. The United Nations calls this decline a “nature crisis.”

This meeting was originally scheduled to take place in Kunming, China, in 2020 but was rescheduled because of the Covid-19 pandemic, with some negotiations held online. China will lead the deliberations in Montreal and will set the agenda and tone.

This is the first time that Beijing has presided over a major intergovernmental meeting on the environment. As a wildlife ecologist, I am eager to see China step into a global leadership role.
Biodiversity matters, because having more ecosystems, species and genes makes nature more resilient and able to weather stresses like diseases and climate change.

Biodiversity in China

If you ask people where on Earth the greatest concentrations of wild species are found, many will assume it’s in rainforests or tropical coral reefs. In fact, China also is rich in nature. It is home to nearly 38,000 higher plant species – essentially, trees, shrubs and ferns; more than 8,100 species of vertebrate animals; over 1,400 bird species; and 20 percent of the world’s fish species.

Many of China’s wild species are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. China contains parts of four of the world’s global biodiversity hot spots – places that have large numbers of endemic species and also are seriously at risk.

Indo-Burma, the Mountains of Southwest China, Eastern Himalaya and the Mountains of Central Asia are home to species such as the giant panda, Asiatic black bear, the endangered Sichuan partridge, Xizang alpine toad, Sichuan lancehead and golden pheasant.

Giant panda in southwest China. (Vanessa Hull, CC BY-ND)

China’s Conservation Record

Western media coverage of environmental issues in China often focuses on the nation’s severe urban air pollution and its role as the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter. But China has a vision for protecting nature, and it has made progress since the last global biodiversity conference in 2018.

In that year, Chinese leaders coined the term “ecological civilization” and wrote it into the nation’s constitution. This signaled a recognition that development should consider environmental impacts as well as economic goals.

At that point, China had already created over 2,750 protected areas, covering nearly 15 percent of its total land area. Protected areas are places where there is dedicated funding and management in place to conserve ecosystems, while also allowing for some human activities in designated zones within them.

In 2021 President Xi Jinping announced that China was formally augmenting this system with a network of five national parks covering 88,000 square miles (227,000 square kilometers) — the largest such system in the world.

China also has the fastest-expanding forest area in the world. From 2013 to 2017 alone, China reforested 825 million acres (334 million hectares) of bare or cultivated land — an area four times as large as the entire U.S. national forest system.

At least 10 of China’s notable endangered species are on the path to recovery, including the giant panda, Asian crested ibis and Elliot’s pheasant.

More to Do

Still, China has major areas for improvement. It has underperformed on four of the original Aichi Targets – goals that members of the Convention on Biodiversity adopted for 2011-2020 – including promoting sustainable fisheries, preventing extinctions, controlling invasive alien species and protecting vulnerable ecosystems.

For example, nearly 50 percent of amphibians in China are threatened. Notable species have been declared extinct, including the Chinese dugong, the Chinese paddlefish and Yangtze sturgeon, and the white-handed gibbon.

The Covid-19 pandemic spotlighted China’s central role in legal and illegal wildlife trade, which threatens many endangered mammals, fish, reptiles and birds. In response, China updated its Wildlife Protection Law, originally enacted in 1989.

On Feb. 24, 2020, the law was expanded to impose a near-total ban on trading wildlife for use as food. Now, however, the ban is being revised in ways that could weaken it, such as easing restrictions on captive breeding.

Around 90 percent of China’s grasslands are degraded, as are 53 percent of its coastal wetlands. China has lost 80 percent of its coral reefs and 73 percent of its mangroves since 1950. These challenges highlight the need for aggressive action to protect the nation’s remaining biodiversity strongholds.



The Three Gorges Dam on China’s Yangtze River, visible at lower right, was built to supply electricity and help control flooding. It altered habitats for thousands of plants, animals and fish, including endangered species. (NASA Earth Observatory)

Goals for COP15

The central goal of the Montreal conference is adopting a post-2020 global biodiversity framework. This road map expands on frameworks put forth in past meetings, including the 2010 Aichi Targets.

As the U.N. has reported, nations failed to meet any of the Aichi Targets by 2020, although six goals were partially achieved.

The proposed new framework includes 22 targets to meet by 2030 and four key long-term goals to meet by 2050. They include conserving ecosystems; enhancing the variety of benefits that nature provides to people; ensuring fairness in the sharing of genetic resources, such as digital DNA sequencing data; and solidifying funding commitments.

Many people will be watching to see whether China can successfully lead the negotiations and promote collaboration and consensus. One central challenge is how to pay for the ambitious efforts that the new framework lays out.

Environmental advocates are urging wealthy countries to provide up to $60 billion annually to help lower-income nations pay for conservation projects and curb illegal wildlife trafficking.

China moved in this direction in 2021 when it launched the Kunming Biodiversity Fund and contributed $230 million to it. Pledges from other countries currently total some $5.2 billion per year, mainly from France, the United Kingdom, Japan and the European Union.

China is likely to face questions about its Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project that is building railways, pipelines and highways across more than 60 countries. Critics say it is causing deforestation, flooding and other harmful environmental impacts — including in global biodiversity hot spots like Southeast Asia’s Coral Triangle, which contains one of the world’s most important reef systems.

China has pledged to “green” the Belt and Road Initiative going forward, and in 2021, Xi announced a ban on financing new coal power plants overseas, which so far has led to cancellation of 26 plants. This is a start, but China has more to do in addressing Belt and Road’s global impacts.

As home to 18 percent of Earth’s population and the producer of 18.4 percent of global GDP, China has a key role to play in protecting nature. I hope to see it provide bold leadership in Montreal and in the years ahead.

Vanessa Hull is assistant professor of wildlife ecology and conservation at the University of Florida.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

COP15
‘Orangutans’ Means ‘People of the Forest’

November 30, 2022

In the pause between the U.N. climate summit that just ended in Egypt and the start of the U.N. conference on biodiversity in Canada, Vijay Prashad reflects on the scale and speed of deforestation and animal extinctions.

Chéri Samba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, “Reorganisation,” 2002.

By Vijay Prashad
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

The dust has settled at the resorts in Sharm el-Shaikh, Egypt, after delegates of countries and corporations left the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The only advance made in the final agreement was for the creation of a “loss and damage fund” for “vulnerable countries.” Despite being hailed as a breakthrough, the deal is little more than the financing of the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage agreed upon at the COP25 in 2019.

It also remains to be seen whether this new financing will in fact be realised. Under previous agreements, such as the Green Climate Fund established at the COP15 in 2009, developed countries promised to provide developing countries $100 billion per year in financing by 2020, but have failed to meet their stated goals.

At the conclusion of COP27, the United Nations expressed “serious concern” that those past pledges have “not yet been met.” More importantly, the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan notes that a “global transformation to a low-carbon economy is expected to require investment of at least $4–6 trillion a year” – a commitment that is nowhere in sight.

The International Energy Agency said that, in 2022, annual global clean energy investment will remain below $1.5 trillion. This is “record clean energy spending,” they announced, and yet, it is far below the amounts that are required for a necessary transition.

“A fund for loss and damage is essential,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres at the conclusion of this year’s summit, “but it’s not an answer if the climate crisis washes a small island state off the map — or turns an entire African country to desert. The world still needs a giant leap on climate ambition. … The voices of those on the frontlines of the climate crisis must be heard.”

One of those voices is that of the orangutan, the great ape of the Bornean and Sumatran forests that the Malays call the “people of the forest”’ (in Malay, orang means “person” and hutan means “forest”).

According to the International Union for Conversation of Nature’s Red List, the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutans have experienced sharp population declines and are now categorised as critically endangered — the phase preceding extinction in the wild.

There are fewer than 800 Tapanuli orangutans in existence, with the overall population of orangutans falling by almost half in the last century. They are given no voice in our climate debates.

Max Ernst, Germany, “The Gray Forest,” 1927.

In 2019, the United Nations released a shocking report that showed the near extinction of 1 million of the world’s 8 million animal and plant species, including the loss of 40 percent of amphibian species and a third of all marine mammals.

As part of its findings on biodiversity and ecosystems, the authors wrote that “species that are large, grow slowly, are habitat specialists or are carnivores — such as great apes, tropical hardwood trees, sharks, and big cats — are disappearing from many areas.” The situation is bleak, they warned, “unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of drivers of biodiversity loss.”

What is driving this biodiversity loss? The report includes a long list in which one word comes up over and over again: deforestation. In a landmark publication, “The State of the World’s Forests 2020,” the U.N. Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) noted that an astounding 420 million hectares of forest cover had been lost since 1990, although the rate of deforestation has declined from 16 million hectares per year in the 1990s to a mere 10 million hectares per year between 2015 and 2020.

Forests cover about a third of the global land area, over 4 billion hectares. Half of the forests are relatively intact, while others — notably the rainforests — are in danger of being destroyed.

Brazil’s President-Elect Lula da Silva, center top row, with Indigenous leaders (top from left) Célia Xakriabá, Sônia Guajajara, Joênia Wapichana and Marina Silva, (bottom from left) Txai Suruí and Narubia Werreria, at an event at the COP27 summit in Egypt in November. (Ricardo Stuckert)

Just weeks after his re-election, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who will take office as the 39th president of Brazil in January 2023, returned to the global stage at COP27.

He arrived along with a number of leaders from Brazil’s indigenous community, including federal deputy for the state of Roraima, Joênia Wapichana, and three newly elected members of Congress: Célia Xakriabá (federal deputy for the state of Minas Gerais), Sônia Guajajara (to head a new Ministry of the Indigenous People) and Marina Silva (Lula’s former environment minister who is likely to resume the position).

At the summit, Lula affirmed Brazil’s agreement with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia to set up an “OPEC of the rainforests,” made last year at COP26 in Glasgow.

More than half of the world’s rainforests are in these three countries, which are rich with resources that have been mined to profit multinational firms at great cost to the environment but have failed to advance the social development goals of their own citizens.

“It is important for these three countries to strengthen their strategic alliance in order to increase their influence in climate change negotiations at the global level,” said Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. (Indonesia has sought to create several cartels, including one with Canada for an OPEC-like body of nickel producers.)

The scale and speed at which the global rainforest is being pillaged is alarming. In 2021, the world lost 11.1 million hectares of rainforest cover, roughly the size of the island of Cuba.

Brazil, under Jair Bolsonaro, witnessed the greatest devastation of any country last year, with 1.5 million hectares lost. These old forests, dense with vegetation and animals, are now gone. “We are going to wage a very strong fight against illegal deforestation,” Lula said at COP27.

Miguel Penha, Brazil, “Mata Verde” or “Green Jungle,” 2017.

Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia are not alone. The Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership, chaired by Ghana and the United States and made up of 53 countries, has made bold pledges to end deforestation.

Ahead of COP27, Colombia’s minister of environment and sustainable development, Susana Muhamad, announced the creation of an Amazon Bloc made up of the nine countries that share the region’s rainforest (Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela and French-occupied Guiana).

Norway, meanwhile, has said that after Lula takes office it will resume providing funds to Brazil for rainforest protection, which had been suspended during Bolsonaro’s presidency.

The Brazil-Democratic Republic of Congo-Indonesia approach is designed in the framework of mitigation, adaptation and investment, not through the empty conversation of the COP.

Indonesia’s deputy minister for environment and forestry management, Nani Hendriati, explained how the country would promote ecotourism in the mangrove forests through a “blue carbon” approach to ensure that tourism does not tear up the mangroves, seeking to halt the longstanding and rampant deforestation in the country (for example, 40 percent of Indonesia’s vast mangrove system was destroyed between 1980 and 2005 alone).

New initiatives in the country, for instance, promote crab farming in the mangroves rather than allowing their destruction. In this spirit, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo took world leaders to plant mangrove seeds in the Taman Hutan Raya Ngurah Rai Forest Park during the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia, which took place after COP27.

Nyoman Masriadi, Indonesia,“Juling” or “Cross-Eyed,” 2005.

Such photo opportunities are important if they genuinely seek to shine a light on the problem of deforestation. However, no such light was shone on the multinational mining companies who have destroyed tropical rainforests around the world.

A recent study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America examined the impact of industrial mining on deforestation in tropical regions.

Looking at a selection of 26 countries, the researchers found that industrial mining in Indonesia accounted for a staggering 58.2 percent of the total deforestation in these countries between 2000 to 2019.

However, in a concerning move, Indonesia’s government passed a new mining law in 2020 that allows permits for mining to be extended with little or no environmental regulation.

“When the mining concessions increase,” said Pius Ginting of the NGO Action for Ecology and Emancipation of the People (AEER), “it drives deforestation and results in a loss of biodiversity and fragments the habitat [of animals and people].”

Indonesia revoked about 2,000 mining permits this year, but this revocation is mostly due to the regularisation of the permit system, not greater regulation for environmental protection.

Pressure from people’s movements in Indonesia as well as from the catastrophic impact of the climate and environmental disasters have put the government on notice about its proximity to and intimacy with multinational mining companies.

Made Bayak, Indonesia, “reCLAIM-ing our dreams and the future,” 2014.

Meanwhile, the question of the orangutan remains unanswered. An academic review of the $1 billion spent on orangutan conservation from 2000 to 2019 found that “habitat protection, patrolling and public outreach had the greatest return on investment for maintaining orangutan populations.”

However, these funds have not accomplished much. The key issue of ending deforestation – including halting the expansion of palm oil, pulpwood, and logging plantations in Borneo and Sumatra – is off the table.

How much attention will be paid to these matters at the upcoming Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which is to be held in Montreal (Canada) from Dec. 7–19? Will anyone listen to the voice of the orangutans?

In October, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, told a town hall of civil society organisations in Washington, D.C., that the IMF “is indeed supporting biodiversity. For instance, we have economists that are able to measure the monetary value of an elephant and the value of a whale.”

Georgieva’s comments echo an observation made by Karl Marx in volume one of Capital (1867):

“In England, women are still occasionally used instead of horses for hauling canal boats, because the labour required to produce horses and machines is an accurately known quantity, while that required to maintain the women of the surplus-population is below all calculation.”

What is the monetary value of an orangutan, let alone the survival of the planet? The ruling class might be able to calculate those values, but it is clear that they are unwilling to foot the bill to save the planet.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and, with Noam Chomsky, The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of US Power.

This article is from Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

Corporate Democrats ‘Passing the Torch’

December 2, 2022

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, but Norman Solomon says that affiliation for the man tapped Wednesday to take over as leader of House Democrats should not be taken at face value.

U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries in 2020. (Brookings Institution, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

By Norman Solomon
Common Dreams


Images of passing the torch can be stirring.

President John Kennedy reached heights of inaugural oratory when he declared that “the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.”

Three decades later, when Bill Clinton won the presidency, a Newsweek headline proclaimed “THE TORCH PASSES.” The article underneath glorified “a film clip that made its way into a widely seen campaign ad: a beaming, 16-year-old Bill Clinton on a sun-drenched White House lawn, shaking the hand of his and his generation’s idol, John F. Kennedy.”

Weeks later, when Time magazine named Clinton “Man of the Year,” its cover story carried the headline “THE TORCH IS PASSED.”

The Clinton presidency went on to carry the torch for corporate-friendly measures. The NAFTA trade pact destroyed many well-paying union jobs; “welfare reform” harmed poor women and their families; a landmark crime law fueled mass incarceration; Wall Street deregulation led to the financial meltdown of 2007-2008.

Now, the top of the Democratic Party is passing torches on Capitol Hill. When Nancy Pelosi announced two weeks ago that she will no longer lead House Democrats, she said: “The hour has come for a new generation to lead.” But in what direction?


President Joe Biden with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, center, and Vice President Kamala Harris after the president delivered his State of the Union address to Congress on March 1. (White House, Adam Schultz)

Pelosi quickly endorsed Rep. Hakeem Jeffries to replace her as leader. NBC News offered the common media frame: “Pelosi made history as the first female speaker of the House, while Jeffries, the current Democratic Caucus chairman, would become the first Black leader of a congressional caucus and highest-ranking Black lawmaker on Capitol Hill.” On Wednesday, House Democrats selected him.

Problematic Record

You can count on much of the mass media to shower the 52-year-old Jeffries with accolades, largely supplied by fellow Democrats. But, overall, a closer look reveals a problematic record.

Early on, before becoming a New York state legislator, Jeffries worked for years as a corporate lawyer. In Congress — while he has taken a few progressive positions like cosponsoring Medicare for All and voting to cut 10 percent of the military budget — his emphasis has been in sync with the party establishment.

“I’m a Black progressive Democrat concerned with addressing racial and social and economic injustice with the fierce urgency of now,” Jeffries told The Atlantic in August 2021. But during the same interview, Jeffries added: “There will never be a moment where I bend the knee to hard-left democratic socialism.” (Ironically, Jeffries was echoing the “fierce urgency of now” phrase from Martin Luther King Jr., who was a democratic socialist.)

Jeffries likes to jab leftward. In 2016, he called Bernie Sanders a “gun-loving socialist with zero foreign-policy experience.” A 2018 profile in The Economist—titled “High Hopes for Hakeem Jeffries” – concluded that he “is nearly as moderate as a safe-seat Democrat gets.” The article pointed out: “Though he supports the principle of universal healthcare coverage, he speaks of ‘the importance of market forces and getting things done in a responsible fashion.’ Quoting Ronald Reagan approvingly, he suggests this means promoting a flourishing private sector outside the ‘legitimate functions’ of government.”


Bernie Sanders at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, January 2016. (Gage Skidmore via Flickr)

Congressman Jeffries takes umbrage at negative press portrayals to such an extent that his office tries to quash critical assessments. When I wrote in a HuffPost piece in January 2019 that “Jeffries has been more attentive to serving corporate power than the interests of voters in his Brooklyn district,” the response was swift and angry.

Jeffries’s communications director and senior advisor at the time, Michael Hardaway, fired off emails to HuffPost, claiming that my characterization was “factually inaccurate and easily disproven.” Despite the escalating fulminations, the HuffPost editor explained that he saw “no reason to correct or update the piece.”

Jeffries has not been a sponsor of the Green New Deal (which Pelosi famously denigrated in 2019: “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?”). He also has not cosponsored the Green New Deal for Cities Act.


Banner at San Francisco Youth Climate Strike, March 2019. (Intothewoods7, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

During the latest election cycle, Jeffries joined forces with one of the most corporate and vitriolic anti-progressive Democrats in the House, Josh Gottheimer, to form Team Blue PAC. Its priority – to protect the party’s incumbents against Squad-like primary challengers – was summed up last winter in a Rolling Stone headline over an article about Jeffries’s initiative: “Top House Democrat Unveils Plan to Beat Back Progressive Rebellion.”

Last year, The American Prospect reported, Jeffries was conspicuously absent from efforts to support public housing in his home city. “When all [other] New York City House Democrats sent a letter to Pelosi urging her to protect all $80 billion for public housing in the BBB [Build Back Better bill], Jeffries was the only member not to sign that missive, especially surprising given that New York Dems are known to act as a bloc.”

Jeffries is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the magazine noted, but that affiliation should not be taken at face value: “Jeffries is a mute member of the CPC, the largest caucus in the party, but has recently chosen to ally himself with its more conservative factions. And while the party’s moderate wing has moved left on everything from foreign policy to social welfare, Jeffries has not moved with it.”

In fact, Hakeem Jeffries is thoroughly corporate, As The Intercept reported four years ago, after he won a close race against Rep. Barbara Lee to become chair of the House Democratic Caucus, “Jeffries is heavily backed by big money and corporate PACs. Less than 2 percent of his fundraising comes from small donors, who contribute less than $200, according to Federal Election Commission records.”


Rep. Barbara Lee speaking against U.S. war with Iran, January 2020. (Twitter)

While in his fourth term, “Jeffries was the leading congressional recipient of hedge fund money in 2020,” The American Prospect reported last year:

“He banked $1.1 million from the financial sector, real estate interests, and insurance industry in the 2019–2020 cycle. Everyone from JPMorgan Chase to Goldman Sachs to Blackstone contributed. Zimmer Partners, a hedge fund, is one of Jeffries’s top donors in 2021. From the outset, he has governed with those interests at heart. While Democrats were reconsidering their coziness with Wall Street, he broke ranks to vote with the financial services world, including on a high-profile measure literally written by Citigroup lobbyists in 2013 that killed the Dodd-Frank ‘swaps push-out’ rule, allowing banks to engage in risky trades backed by a potential taxpayer-funded bailout.”

Thirty years younger than the outgoing speaker, Jeffries is a fitting symbol of media eagerness to herald generational change for Democrats in Congress. But investigative journalist Alexander Sammon has provided an apt sum-up:


“Barely in his fifties, Jeffries is young numerically, but aligned with an older mode of Democratic politics, and has repeatedly distanced himself from the younger crop of Democrats that is almost categorically more progressive (and more popular). He’s made a reputation for himself as the party’s future by becoming a foremost representative of its past.”

When a torch passes, we might be glad to “meet the new boss.” But we should discard illusions. That way, hopefully, we don’t get fooled again.

Norman Solomon is co-founder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death“ (2006) and “Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State” (2007).

This article is from Common Dreams.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

California Reparations Panel Estimates $569 Billion Is Owed To Black Residents

California Gov. Gavin Newsom State of the State 2021 speech at Dodger Stadium.

 (Photo: Governor Newsom Official Facebook Page)

‘This Task Force is playing with fire and they know it’

By Evan Symon, 

December 2, 2022 

The California Reparations Task Force gave their first estimation on possible reparations for African-Americans in California on Thursday, coming to an estimated figure of $569 billion of reparations based on past housing discrimination practices in California.

The Task Force was first put together in late 2020 following Gov. Gavin Newsom signing AB 3121 to establish it. They are currently looking for what possible reparations, monetary or otherwise, to recommend to give to African-Americans living in California for past discriminatory practices and slavery, despite the latter not occurring in California following statehood in 1850. While initially encompassing all people of African descent, the group of those qualified to receive reparations was significantly narrowed in March when the task force voted to limit the possible reparations only to those who are an African American descendant of an enslaved person or free Black person living in the US prior to the end of the 19th century.

In June the Task Force’s first report came out, giving a recommendation of reparations, likely in the form of home buying assistance, free college tuition, and business grants. However, one of the many criticisms against the report was that not estimated monetary figure was attached, with many worried about how high it could be. On Thursday, first estimates on possible reparations were released.

According to the Task Force, qualified black residents, who make up slightly less than 7% of the state’s population, would be eligible to receive $223,200 each, or roughly $569 billion in total. The figure comes from the “housing wealth gap,” or discrimination policies in place between 1933 and 1977 that cost black residents an estimate $5,074 per year. If the figures stay the same in the final report and are approved, the reparations given out would be the most the country has seen since the 1860’s.

“We are looking at reparations on a scale that is the largest since Reconstruction,” noted UC Berkeley Professor and Task Force member Jovan Scott Lewis on Thursday.
$569 billion in possible reparations

Despite the release of an estimated figure on Thursday, reparations are still far from a done deal and remain unlikely to pass in California. The Task Force is due to release the final report, complete with final recommended figures, in June 2023. This would also include how payments would be given out, with housing grants, college tuition, and direct cash payments, amongst other types, being considered. Following that, the California Legislature would then decide on what, if anything, they could do.

Such action would likely come in the form of a bill, which would need approval from both houses and the Governor.. Even if it makes it past those, the bill would then likely have to contend with lawsuits and ballot measures that could weaken, or outright dismiss, any reparations at all.

“This Task Force is playing with fire and they know it,” explained legal adviser Richard Weaver to the Globe on Thursday. “I mean, $569 billion. Somehow, if that is passed through and the Governor signs it, there will be dozens of lawsuits filed before the ink is even dry. There will be groups ready to go with petitions. I can tell you right now, as the Task Force has been gathering evidence for reparations, many groups out there have been gathering evidence against it either totally, or just against any direct cash payments.”

“We’ve been wanting possible estimates on this for awhile, but no one really expected the Task Force to have the gall to say this amount. Both sides, for and against, were just kind of stunned with the estimated amount. It’s that ridiculous.”

The Task Force is due to give their final reparations recommendations by June of 2023, with the Task Force then dissolving in December 2023. A bill hoping to extend the Task Force into 2024 was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom earlier this year.

Evan Symon is the Senior Editor for the California Globe. Prior to the Globe, he reported for the Pasadena Independent, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and was head of the Personal Experiences section at Cracked. He can be reached at evan@californiaglobe.com

IT WAS BRITISH SLAVERS, THEY SHOULD PAY TOO

'America is a racist country': 

Who's Who of

Newsom's nine-person 'radical' reparations board that believes capitalism to be racist and wants to pay EVERY African American slave descendant $223k

The nine-person group is still in discussions over a further 12 issues that could see African Americans given more compensation

 
In the past eight months the taskforce has spent time traveling the West Coast to learn about the effect of the policies on everyone

 
2024 Presidential hopeful Gavin Newsom signed off the legislation in 2020 for the largest reparation effort in recent history

 
Members of the panel are calling for the federal government to take on their concerns – a move that could cost billions to fulfill

FULL FAUX OUTRAGE FROM A TORY BRIT TABLOID

By EMMA JAMES FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 2 December 2022 

Members of California Governor Gavin Newsom's reparation committee have slammed America as a 'racist country' while others have hit out against 'white superiority.'

Kamilah Moore - the chair of the group - which was created after 2024 hopeful Newsom signed legislation in 2020, has said she plans to be as 'radical as possible' when it comes to her role.

The nine-person group believes that black Americans should receive the money for 'enduring the economic effects' of racism and slavery – after initially making the suggestions in California.

They are now urging the federal government to pay every African American in the US at least $223,000 for 'housing discrimination' - while continuing to probe other areas for compensation.


A taskforce set up by California Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging the federal government to pay every African American in the US at least $223k for 'housing discrimination' - while continuing to probe other areas for compensation

California is the first state to require agencies to present a separate demographic category for descendants of enslaved people.

On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the taskforce has spent months traveling across the West coast to learn about the effect of the policies.

In a March 2022 report, those eligible for the reparations would have to be descendants of enslaved African Americans or of a 'free black person living in the United States prior to the end of the 19th century.

They argue that the money is for housing discrimination practices utilized from 1933 to 1977 – and have 12 more categories to consider.

Members of the panel are calling for the federal government to take on their concerns – a move that could cost billions to fulfill.

DailyMail.com has a closer look at those making the decisions on Newsom's committee, which is chaired by a former entertainment lawyer from Los Angeles.

Kamilah Moore, Chair


Chair of the group, which was created after 2024 hopeful Newsom signed legislation in 2020, Kamilah Moore has said she plans to be as 'radical as possible' when it comes to her role

Entertainment lawyer Kamilah Moore turned her hand to the taskforce when it was first launched after previously working in Los Angeles.

The 30-year-old previously studied at the University of Amsterdam, where she took a series of courses on international criminal law and wrote a thesis on global reparatory justice for the transatlantic slave trade, the institution of slavery, and their legacies.

While she 'probably' wouldn't recommend that the 'police be abolished' in California, Moore added: 'That doesn't mean that I'm not going to try to invite an expert to come and provide testimony.'

Moore was appointed to the Reparations Task Force by Speaker of the Assembly Anthony Rendon.

During her time studying human rights and international law she traveled to Papua New Guinea and helped them with there reparation from a Canadian-owned gold mining corporation.

Dr Amos C Brown, Vice Chair


Dr Brown worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr and has previously said his great-great-grandfather was born enslaved

Civil rights leader Dr Amos Brown studied under Martin Luther King Jr, and was arrested during a sit-in in 1961 to protest segregation in the south.

He told the San Francisco Chronicle that 'America is a racist country' and he knows that, as well as explaining his great-great-grandfather was born enslaved in 1821.

It is unclear if the recommendations by the group will be introduced nationally, but if so it could mean that Dr Brown may be one of the recipients of the $223k the group recommended.

Dr Brown also added that you need the 'right kind of police', and that 'the police need to understand that to wear that badge is not license for you to beat up on human beings.'

Reginald Jones-Sawyer


Reginal Jones-Sawyer compared slavery in the past to the prison system in America currently, claiming that it 'might just be another form of slavery'

Assemblymember Reginald Jones-Sawyer represents the 59th Assembly District, including the communities of Huntington Park, Florence-Firestone, Walnut Park, South Los Angeles, and Exposition Park.

He was appointed to the Reparations Task Force by Speaker of the Assembly Anthony Rendon.

Discussing the repartition group, he told ABC: 'Today we don't treat African Americans as slaves, but when you look at the prison system, you go, 'Oh, I now can connect the dots that the prison industrial system might just be another form of slavery'.'

Jones-Sawyer was inspired to stand up for civil rights after his uncle became one of the first groups of black students who integrated into an all-white high school in Arkansas.

Dr Jovan Scott Lewis


Jovan Scott Lewis is calling for a 'robust' plan with 'plenty' of options and previously branded capitalism as racist

Dr Jovan Scott Lewis is an Economic Anthropologist and Geographer who researches reparations, the political economy of inequality and race in the United States and the Caribbean.

He is an Associate Professor and the Chair of the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 2015.

Lewis earned Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Science degrees in Anthropology from the London School of Economics and was appointed to the Reparations Task Force by Governor Gavin Newsom.

Speaking to the New York Times, Lewis said of the groups: 'We are looking at reparations on a scale that is the largest since Reconstruction. That is why we must put forward a robust plan, with plenty of options.

In a paper discussing racial capitalism in the post-emancipation Caribbean, Lewis also claimed that the 'structural definition of Caribbean identity can be understood as one defined by racial capitalism's instrument of labor' – essentially branding capitalism as racist.

Senator Steven Bradford


California State Senator Steven Bradford, representing Senate District 35, is concerned that the asks of the team might be a 'bridge too far' even for his Democrat colleagues

Senator Steven Bradford, representing the 35th District, and has signed 43 bills signed into law, and he is currently the chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee, as well as the Chair of the California Legislative black Caucus

Bradford is also outspoken on Criminal Justice Reform, Diversity and Inclusion, empowering underserved communities and bringing equity to the Cannabis industry.

He explained that he felt concerned after some of his colleagues, and fellow Democrats, feels that reparations may be a 'bridge too far'.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times he said: 'I've often said, if you can inherit generational wealth, you can inherit generational debt and the state of California, as well as the United States, owes a debt to African Americans who are descendants of slavery and helped build this country.'

Sn Bradford was appointed as a member of the Reparation Task Force by President pro Tempore of the Senate Toni Atkins.

 
Dr Cheryl Grills



Dr. Cheryl Grills, a professor of psychology at Loyola Marymount University for 34 years was appointed to the Reparations Task Force by Governor Gavin Newsom

Dr. Cheryl Grills, a professor of psychology at Loyola Marymount University for 34 years was appointed to the Reparations Task Force by Governor Gavin Newsom.

Speaking to ABC she said: ‘These are very difficult and trying times for people of African ancestry in this country, and in fact, in the world.

‘We black folks have been essentially dealing with centuries of racial oppression. Our souls, our bodies, our minds are under duress. We are in a broken social system in society.

‘So, essentially what we're dealing with is a situation that is not righteous, it's not just.

‘It has no empathy or compassion for the humanity of black people, and in the midst of yet another assault, a remi

Dr Lisa Holder


Lisa Holder periodically teaches the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Clinic at UCLA Law School and serves as a legislative consultant on institutional bias elimination

Dr Holder has been Dubbed a ‘Super Lawyer’ by Los Angeles Magazine for four years running, and is a nationally recognised and award winning trial attorney.

She periodically teaches the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Clinic at UCLA Law School and serves as a legislative consultant on institutional bias elimination.

Holder told the LA Times: ‘Hearing from real black people who are catching hell day to day is what is most important and that is one of the reasons why we are pushing for a community engagement process.’

After obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree at Wesleyan University, Holder graduated from New York University School of Law as a distinguished Root-Tilden Scholar.

Monica Montgomery Steppe


Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Spelman College and a Juris Doctor from California Western School of Law.

Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe represents the Fourth Council District in the City of San Diego and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Spelman College and a Juris Doctor from California Western School of Law.

Speaking about her appointment last year, she said: ‘This is an important first step to dismantle systemic racism and the barriers that African Americans have faced in this country since its beginning, and I look forward to the work of the task force.’

Steppe was appointed to the Reparations Task Force by President pro Tempore of the Senate Toni Atkins.

Donald K Tamaki


Tamaki is the co-founder of StopRepeatingHistory.Org, a campaign focused on drawing parallels between the round-up of Japanese Americans during World War II

Lawyer Donald Tamaki is known for his historic work serving on the pro bono legal team that reopened the landmark Supreme Court case of Korematsu v. the United States.

He helped to overturn Fred Korematsu’s conviction for refusing incarceration during the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and providing a key legal foundation in the decades-long Japanese American Redress Movement.

Tamaki is the co-founder of StopRepeatingHistory.Org, a campaign focused on drawing parallels between the round-up of Japanese Americans during World War II and the targeting of minority groups based on race or religion.

He was appointed to the Reparations Task Force by Governor Gavin Newsom.

Taiwan holds all the chips in US–China tech showdown

3 December 2022

Authors: Bo-jiun Jing, Institute for Security and Development Policy, Flavia Lucenti, University of Bologna, Giulia Sciorati, University of Trento, Wei Luo, University of St Andrews and Jie Yang, University of Cambridge

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in August 2022 touched on the island’s sovereignty — a controversial, historical ‘red line’ in China’s foreign relations. The visit resurfaced numerous unresolved issues between the United States and China with modern-day technological competition at its centre.

Both China and the United States have directly involved the island’s semiconductor industry in this latest ‘Taiwan crisis’. China retaliated by imposing tariffs on sand exports to Taiwan to restrict a core chip production component and send a political message to President Tsai Ing-wen’s administration.

August 2022 also saw Washington adopt the controversial ‘CHIPS Act’ to boost domestic semiconductor production, though its full implications are yet to determined. The US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security sought to tighten restrictions in October on China’s import of semiconductors.

Despite these trade disruptions, future escalation remains unlikely as China relies heavily on Taiwan’s chips. Beijing needs this technology to gain a competitive edge over the United States in the global technology competition. China also needs this industry to support its economic growth and shift into higher-value production to ensure the legitimacy of President Xi Jinping’s third term.

China’s trade flow data for 2021 shows that the country’s semiconductor imports amounted to more than US$430 billion in 2021 — 36 per cent of which came from Taiwan. China relies on the world’s largest foundry — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) — to provide cutting-edge semiconductors for its consumer electronics industry.

In 2022, TSMC’s global market share will grow from 53 per cent to 56 per cent by revenue. The company holds more than 60 per cent of the world’s manufacturing capacity for the most advanced semiconductors. Given TSMC’s dominance, China has little incentive to restrict chip trade with Taiwan and risk damaging its economy.

On the contrary, TSMC is less reliant on China. Though the foundry’s exposure to China rose to 20 per cent between 2018 and 2020, this figure plunged to 10 per cent in 2021. During the same year, 65 per cent of its revenue came from North America.

China’s decline in TSMC’s portfolio can be mainly attributed to former US president Donald Trump’s 2020 ‘Huawei ban’. The policy banned TSMC from supplying Huawei with chips developed using US technology, driving the Taiwanese chip giant to shift its capacity elsewhere.

China is aware of the risks of relying on foreign chips and promoted the ‘Made in China 2025’ strategy in 2015 as a response. The project highlights semiconductors as one of ten high-tech priority sectors, aiming to increase China’s chip self-reliance from below 10 per cent to 70 per cent by 2025. The target was later increased to 75 per cent by 2030 as the self-sufficiency rate only reached 16 per cent in 2020.

Beijing’s objective is to become a dominant technology power by 2049 — the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Beijing is set to pour well over US$150 billion into its domestic semiconductor industry by 2030, providing subsidies and incentives for building semiconductor factories and developing research and development units.

Despite these efforts, China’s semiconductor sector still lags behind its competitors by a decade or two. While China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) developed a ground-breaking 7nm process in October 2020, TSMC continues to have the upper hand with 3nm chips.

Poorly defined and implemented strategic plans, corruption, human capital deficit and export controls hamper China’s chip industry growth. The country will remain reliant on Taiwan’s supplies while developing its domestic industry. So Beijing may not restrict the flow of semiconductors from Taipei in the short run to avoid hurting its national economy or intensifying its competition with the United States.

Restricting semiconductor imports will exert pressure on the economy on which the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) legitimacy still hangs. The collapse of crucial domestic semiconductor companies in 2022 already reveals some weaknesses in the slowing China economy.

The new US challenge over Taiwan and its impacts on semiconductors will make it harder for Beijing to maintain growth. China has also emerged weaker from the recent confrontation with the United States. While in Taiwan, Pelosi met with Chinese dissidents, an action seen as a gesture of disrespect in Beijing.

The semiconductors competition shows how national and international factors are highly intertwined in China’s policy considerations. Establishing China as a global power and an ever-growing economic powerhouse has ensured the CCP’s legitimacy for decades. As the party looks for ways to maintain growth, semiconductors are crucial in ensuring advanced technology and political stability.

Though Beijing will not take any drastic measures to constrain Taipei’s semiconductors in the short term, this overreliance is becoming a concern in China’s escalating competition with the United States. China is contemplating new and more sophisticated contingency plans in the long run. The ‘Made in China 2025’ and the 14th Five-Year Plan launched in early 2022 suggested a nationwide mobilisation of resources to improve semiconductor innovation, research and development, and education.

During its 20th Party Congress, the CCP leadership reiterated the importance of supporting scientific research and industrial technology to strengthen the country’s centrality in the international arena. China has also put forth innovative methods for financing innovation and incentives for attracting global talent.

Yet China’s technological disadvantages may make it more open to international cooperation in semiconductors. In this sense, the battle for semiconductor supremacy is unlikely to change China’s policies on the United States or Taiwan.

The authors are members of the 2022 cohort of the Chatham House-Korea Foundation Next Generation Policy Expert Network.

Bo-jiun Jing is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Security and Development Policy and PhD Candidate at King’s College London.

Flavia Lucenti is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the University of Bologna.

Giulia Sciorati is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Trento and Associate Researcher at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies.

Wei Luo is a PhD Candidate at University of St Andrews.

Jie Yang is a PhD Candidate University of Cambridge.