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Podcaster and professor Scott Galloway went off during an appearance with MSNBCs Stephanie Ruhle on Tuesday.

He explained that we call workers like grocery store employees, Amazon warehouse workers and others essential employees, we dont actually treat them as all that essential.

Well, then lets walk through this, said Ruhle. Take Amazon. Take Walmart. Last year it was Bernie Sanders who went to the Walmart annual meeting arguing that someone from the labor force should have a seat on the board. He didnt get laughed out of the building but certainly didnt get any traction, and now here we are. Those are two of the only companies out there whose stock is up this year, and to people who dont benefit are those people in the stores stocking the shelves.

Galloway explained that in an economy there are three groups who get a piece of the pie: shareholders, workers and consumers. In the United States, weve decided that consumers and shareholders are the more important groups. As the GDP has grown, wages havent. As stock prices go up, wages continue to mostly stay flat.

In Germany, its mandated at least 40 percent of the board has to consist of workers, Galloway said. So, effectively workers have almost no say at the table, and as a result, they have their compensation just doesnt reflect the term essential. also, Id argue, were going to face some ugly truths here. Every night at 7:00 were leaning outside our balconies and applauding and honoring our health care workers, and we should because theyre saving lives. But we dont go outside our windows and honor the people working in grocery stores or the transit workers, 41 of whom have died in New York state, making sure we have basic infrastructure.

He went on to say if this is merely a continued war on the poor because healthcare workers are educated where the others are not.

We think of them in a different light as those who havent had as much opportunity as us, havent been as blessed but are just as important, he explained. Show me someone at home who is basking in purell. Ill show you someone who isnt essential. Show me someone essential outside of health care and Ill show you someone who has no dignity in work, no health care protection and is forced to go work and put themselves in the way of danger because, quite frankly, they havent made any money the last 40 years.

Last week it was revealed that many private equity investors are forcing additional costs onto patients, known as surprise billing. Ruhle explained that those private equity giants always take big risks and get huge profits. Now, however, theyre hitting a downside to business but the government is stepping in.

Right now, the government is stepping in and curbing that downside, she said. Were having capitalism on the way up. and self-imposed socialism on the way down.

Galloway agreed, calling it rugged individualism and the Hunger Games on the way up and a kind of Hallmark channel-like socialism on the way down. He said that people need to decide if were capitalist or not. Businesses benefit during the upswing but when things turn bad, like the 2007-2008 financial crisis, that they are allowed to fail as a result of their risks.

But if were going to be socialists, and a lot of people say thats a better alternative. Five of the 7 happiest nations have socialism. You want your universal Pre-K and universal health but lets not have capitalism on the way up and then when we hit a crisis we have the worst type of socialism, we have cronyism, Galloway continued. And thats the people with the most representative of Washington, the most economic power, decide all of a sudden that were in this together. And as soon as the markets start going back up then everybody talks about capitalism and individualism.

He then unleashed on the companies seeing huge stock increases during the coronavirus crisis, noting that they have the biggest lobbyists in Washington.

Watch his explainer below:

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Professor unleashes on corporations who want capitalism when things are good and socialism when its bad - Raw Story

At least that's what ChineseForeign Minister Wang Yi believes. Hewants the world to buy the fictionthat the communist regime is the perfect answer to fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

He said,Chinas signature strength, efficiency and speed in this fight has been widely acclaimed. Andthe institutional advantage of Chinas governance is for all to see. [Emphasis added.]

It's "thesystem and culture of socialism" that does China proud, he crowed.

In other words, it's him against us. Autocracy versus self government. Socialism versus the free market. As Wang would have it, acentralized government run by a dictator is better than mere people deciding what's best for the people.

With the despot "Comrade Xi Jinping at its core," Wang indicated, communist China can moreeasily order 1.4 billion people around at his whim and fancy than a democracy, with all its competing interests and voices, to fight the pandemic.

Playing out in the background of this pandemicis anexistential challenge to Western Democracies and their governing principles of liberty, equality and the sanctity of the individual. Wang has thrown down the cudgel.

If you can stand to read almost 2,000 words of this masturbatory rubbish go to:"Resolutely Defeating the COVID-19 Outbreak and Promoting the Building of a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind," by Yang Yi. It'll make you vomit or laugh, at least those of us who don't see all paths inevitably leading toShangri-la. (If it's too much for you, I've selected a few paragraphs for you at the end of this post.)

In fairness, Wang published this chest-thumping early last month, before it became apparent to all that China not just botched its handling of the pandemic, but gifted it to the world.

It originated in China and spread from China. The communist regime hid the dangers fromits own people. The doctor who tried to warn China and got punished for it died a martyr. Can you really trust any of the "data" ginned up by the secretive autocracy? It was China that first proclaimed that there is, "...no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission and no health care worker infections have been reported."

Yet from within America, we still hear voices, such asDemocratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy's,exonerating China, and even pointing to China of some kind ofexemplar of how to handle coronavirus. Readers of the Chicago Tribune were treated to an op-ed that announced: "While US plays blame game, China shows leadership."It'sembarrassing to see them abase themselves.

Socialism continues to provide evidence that it's unworkable junk. Communist leaders like comrades Xi andWang will defy reality by continuing to insist that they are oh-so-smart that they alone can engineer an adequate response to thepandemic. Toadies will instinctively repeat the lie.

Western democracies and their love of liberty have endured now for centuries, led by the United States, against the onslaught of tyrannies of the left and right. It will continue to do so.

********

Here's Wang's blah, blah, blah, delivered straight:

China has set a high standard for improving global public health governance. This outbreak is a major test for China's governance system and capacity, and for the global governance system and capacity. China's signature strength, efficiency and speed in this fight has been widely acclaimed, and the institutional advantage of China's governance is for all to see. Under the unified command, coordination and direction of the Party Central Committee, an inter-agency task force was set up immediately after the outbreak; first-level public health emergency response was activated in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities; and tens of thousands of medical workers and massive amounts of medical supplies and daily necessities were rapidly delivered to Hubei from across the country. These are vivid examples of the institutional strength of socialism with Chinese characteristics in pooling resources for major undertakings.

The international community shares the view that the speed, intensity and scope of China's epidemic response is rarely seen in the world, that the leadership, response, mobilization and implementation capabilities China has demonstrated are exemplary for the rest of the world, and that China has gathered valuable experience for the international community in handling emergencies caused by infectious diseases and advancing global public health governance.

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China's totalitarian socialism is superior to democracy in the pandemic fight - ChicagoNow

17 April 2020

US President Donald Trump announced Thursday a set of guidelines for states to end social distancing measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, setting the stage for businesses to reopen throughout the country.

The new guidelines will fuel the coronavirus pandemic and lead to a sharp increase in deaths. In an indication of the mad rush to resume production, Boeing announced that it will begin aircraft production and send 27,000 workers back as early as Monday.

These moves come as the US continues to post record deaths, and the United States still does not have enough tests to contain the disease. More than 2,000 deaths were reported yesterday, and more than 8,000 over the past three days.

There is still widespread community transmission, meaning that once social distancing measures are ended a second wave of cases and deaths will follow. The real fatality rate, moreover, far exceeds official statistics. Yesterday, reports began to emerge of mass casualties, of at least 29 and possibly as many as 60, at one nursing home facility in Queens, New York.

Workplaces have been a major center of transmission for the pandemic, with dozens of cases and multiple deaths linked to individual workplaces. More than 540 cases of coronavirus have been recorded at one meatpacking plant in South Dakota.

Trumps plan is not grounded in any real scientific analysis of the pandemic. It is not conceived from the standpoint of public health, but to ensure that major corporations are allowed to get back to the business of squeezing profits out of workers as quickly as possible.

Now that Wall Street and major corporations have exploited the COVID-19 crisis to receive a massive bailout from the Treasury and Federal Reserve even larger than that following the 2008 financial crisis, the ruling class is determined to send workers back into Americas factories, no matter the death toll.

Trumps back-to-work campaign aims to normalize death on a massive scale, in which outbreaks of COVID-19 are seen as the cost of doing business. With government restrictions ended, employees who refuse to work under unsafe conditions will face the threat of being fired and becoming ineligible for unemployment insurance. As far as the ruling class is concerned, if workers die, they will simply be replaced.

The plan urges states to reopen businesses if they can demonstrate a downward trajectory of cases over a fourteen-day period. This proposal has no relation to the statements and assessments of epidemiologists and health experts, and it contradicts the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Public health experts have repeatedly warned that reopening businesses too soon could cause major new outbreaks. Lifting physical distancing measures too early can result in the disease returning if you dont have the public health measures to deal with the virus, warned WHO epidemiologist Maria D. Van Kerkhove.

Wall Street, recognizing the significance of the proposal for boosting corporate profits, surged in response to the news, with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures up by 820 points late on Thursday.

The plan is the result of a campaign by the Trump administration and the media to downplay the severity of the disease. To this end, the media has simply ignored the fact that the United States posted a record 2,600 deaths on Wednesday, and that the number of deaths has soared from 4,000 at the beginning of this month to over 34,000.

Over the past two days, the media has highlighted a handful of protests, organized by extreme right-wing forces, demanding a return to work. The ruling class is attempting to manufacture a narrative that the population is demanding an end to social distancing measures in order to justify a return to work.

There is no plan for re-opening. Just re-opening, said Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves. No national scale-up of testing capacity, contact tracing, isolation, PPE, economic support for ordinary Americans. It flies in the face of public health and economic advice. Its destructive, deadly.

There are no metrics of any kind in the guidelines, said science journalist Laurie Garrett. The plan does have recommendations for testing and tracing, but no measurable benchmarks for it, just left up to the discretion/perception of individual governors.

The United States now has three times more cases than any other country in the world. In New York, an epicenter of the crisis, 1.1 percent of the population has tested positive for the virus. Nationally, the COVID-19 test positivity rate is 20 percent, indicating that tests have been conducted mainly among those already showing symptoms, and that far more people need tests than are able to get tested.

By contrast, South Korea has only 2 percent of tests reporting positive, an order of magnitude less than the United States. Canada, Germany and Denmark have rates between 6 and 8 percent.

Hospitals in the United States are filled to capacity, and funeral homes and morgues have no room to put the bodies.

During his press conference Thursday, Trump praised his governments response to the disease because, just a few months into the outbreak, the United States has had fewer deaths than scenarios predicted by epidemiologists over the course of several years.

Our strategy to slow the spread has saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Models predicted between 1.5 million and 2.2 million US deaths, he said. And between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths with mitigation. Its looking like we will come far under even these lowest numbers.

Because aggressive social distancing measures carried out throughout the country have led to a stabilization of the rate of new cases, Trump falsely argues that it is now appropriate to reopen businesses. In fact, social distancing measures like business and school closures are effective only to the extent that they create the conditions for sufficient testing, quarantine, and contact tracing.

Trump is cynically exploiting the widespread social dislocation caused by the pandemic to pressure workers to return to work. Under conditions in which millions of workers have received neither unemployment payments nor emergency stimulus measures, workers are left to choose between returning to work under unsafe conditions or being unable to feed their families.

But the claim that humanity must choose between letting workers die and subjecting them to economic destitution is false. This dichotomy assumes the prerogatives of the capitalist system, in which the state gives trillions to the corporations but wont ensure a livable income for workers.

The first priority in this pandemic must be saving human lives. This is only possible through a massive expansion of public health care spending to fund an enormous ramp-up of testing, quarantine, and contact tracing. Social distancing measures must remain in place until this capacity is created.

The demand by corporations and the White House for a premature return to work will spark widespread opposition within the working class. Workers must demand safe working conditions and the continued closure of non-essential businesses.

The struggle for the defense of workers health, safety and economic security is inseparable from the fight to end the capitalist system that is ultimately responsible for the pandemic, and to replace it with socialism.

Bryan Dyne and Andre Damon

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See the original post:
Trump administration's back to work drive will fuel pandemic - World Socialist Web Site

Sorry Bernie, but socialism would never win in America. Why? Because 65% of Americans dont want to be equal; they want to be rich.

Hey, why do you think communist Russia and China adopted capitalism? Socialism didnt work in those countries. Their citizens compared their country to the U.S. and saw the U.S. as superior. (They all had seen our movies, our glossy magazines. Our Republicans think that Soviet Union was defeated by Reagans defense budget. But it was probably the TV show Dallas.) So Russia and China adopted capitalism.

But America isnt a capitalistic nation. Because in capitalistic America, only one in a thousand is a capitalist. (Definition: A person who makes 51% of their income from interest, dividends or royalties, not labor.) We are a laboring country.

Most Americans are three paychecks away from starvation. They know the rich are getting richer, but who wants to rock the boat? At least they have a job. They know what happened in the Great Depression that started in 1929.

So the Democrat or Republican who can guarantee that 51% of Americans can easily become capitalists will win the election. (Im betting on the donkey because hes less into greed and the ego.)

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Letter to the editor: America is about capitalism and not socialism - Summit Daily News

Whenever anyone proposes a policy that would benefit ordinary Americans, we are met with the repetitive chorus of How are we going to pay for it?

Medicare for All? Green New Deal? Universal housing? Universal childcare and preschool? Universal food? Tuition-free higher education? Student and medical debt cancellation? A jobs Guarantee? A living wage? Paid parental leave? Paid sick leave? Expanded Social Security? Universal Basic Income? High-speed rail? Free public transportation? National free wi-fi?

How are we going to pay for it? It is often asserted more as an aggressive statement to shut down the idea, than as a genuine question seeking information, even though many of these policies have been enacted elsewhere. The question seems to be a fear-based, greed-based ideological hammer.

During the economic downturn and expected global recession coming with the COVID-19 pandemic, the US government and Federal Reserve Bank are considering, or already implementing: slashing interest rates; lower tax rates; tax deferrals; bank, airline, cruise, and other corporate bailouts; huge loans; equity stakes; dramatically increased financial liquidity; direct payments to Americans; forcing companies to produce certain items under the Defense Production Act; tapping the Strategic National Stockpile; activating the National Guard; a 60-day pause on foreclosures and evictions; prohibiting substantial price hikes; free testing for the coronavirus; and so on. Trillions of dollars will be spent. We also see federal, state, and local governments ordering the shutting down of travel, many businesses, schools, parks, and most other non-essential activities and events to slow the spread of COVID-19, while rolling back regulations on corporations.

Interestingly, no one is defending, let alone praising, the so-called free market, no one is championing libertarian laissez-faire ideas, no one is demanding small government, no one is attacking public health and social welfare programs, and, to be sure, no one is asking how we will pay for it. Instead, massive government involvement and intervention in the economy is steamrolling ahead at a remarkably quick pace and, seemingly, everyone wants a piece of the action.

American ideology regarding the free market, being self-made, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and individualism has largely been mythology and hypocrisy. Crises tend to make that abundantly clear. And, for what it is worth, Horatio Alger, the original rags-to-riches success story, was fictional.

Even without a crisis, the question How are we going to pay for it? is typically unasked when it comes to the bloated military budget and the military-industrial complex, American imperialist wars, the drone program, the CIA, NSA, ICE, prisons and detention centers, both public and private, and other aspects of the coercive apparatus of the state. We also do not ask How are we going to pay for it? when it comes to the billions of corporate welfare dollars and other forms of wealthfare the US regularly doles out to the affluent. Likewise when the Republicans cut taxes on the wealthy, when Trump runs trillion dollar budget deficits, or when the Republicans balloon our national debt to over $23 trillion or about $70,000 in debt foreachAmerican.

It has never been about whether the US could afford a progressive program; it has always been about whether the elite wanted to or were forced to fund it. It is an issue of political will, apparently, not economic means.

And these are just the financial costs. How do we pay for what has been lost, what has been squandered, what has been ruined beyond repair, who and what has gone extinct that we will never recover? How do we pay for the unnecessary suffering, the shortened and lost lives, the productivity and creativity squandered, the shattered dreams, the tears shed? How do we pay for what could have been, but never was nor will be?

If there is one thing history teaches us, Naomi Klein, author ofThe Shock Doctrinereminds us, its that moments of shock are profoundly volatile. We either lose a whole lot of ground, get fleeced by elites, and pay the price for decades, or we win progressive victories that seemed impossible just a few weeks earlier. Which path will we choose now?

In the meantime, socialism for the rich remains normalized, while socialism for the majority remains demonized. But heres the thing: we will either have democratic socialism or we will continue to socialize suffering. If we do not choose wisely, we will surely pay for it.

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We will either have democratic socialism or we will continue to socialize suffering - AlterNet