Patrick's Notebook

by Eric Zuesse

America isn’t the only country which is so corrupt as to stand at or near the top of the global coronavirus-infection rankings, but, as the June 2020 issue of The Atlantic headlines, “We Are Living in a Failed State: The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.” Why did this happen?

Virtually all other industrialized countries have social-welfare systems in place, such as health-insurance covering 100% of the population; and, consequently, the residents there don’t lose their health insurance if they lose their job — they therefore aren’t desperate to show up for work even when they are sick or can spread an epidemic. Americans generally are desperate to go to work even if they might be spreading the coronavirus-19. They need the pay and the insurance coverage in order to be able to buy medical care. If they don’t pay for it they won’t get it. So: whomever does show up for work might reasonably be especially inclined to fear likely to catch the disease from a co-worker there. This is one of the many reasons why socializing the healthcare function is vastly more efficient than leaving it to market forces.

On April 23rd, Reuters reported that, “U.S. workers who refuse to return to their jobs because they are worried about catching the coronavirus should not count on getting unemployment benefits, state officials and labor law experts say.” In such states, the unemployment-benefits system is being used as a cudgel so as to force employees back to work, and therefore to increase the percentage of the population who will become infected by the coronavirus-19. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Jon Schwarz

Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a 2013 book by French economist Thomas Piketty. It focuses on wealth and income inequality in Europe and the United States since the 18th century. The book has been adapted into a feature documentary film, directed by New Zealand filmmaker Justin Pemberton.

“THE WAY the elite stays in power, and passes on their privilege to the next generation, is by shaping the way that we think.”

You may have heard this from a million rose emoji Twitter accounts. But it sounds different coming from Gillian Tett at the beginning of a new documentary, “Capital in the 21st Century,” just released online. Tett is the chair of the U.S. editorial board of the Financial Times, the salmon-colored international business newspaper read by Deutsche Bank vice presidents from London to Dubai to Singapore. (Every month FT publishes a magazine called “How to Spend It.”)

“Capital in the 21st Century” is based on the bestselling 2013 book by Thomas Piketty, a French economist. The film, directed by Justin Pemberton, undermines that core power of the world’s elites — shaping how we think — in a particularly wise, sneaky way.

There are many other documentaries about the same subject as “Capital in the 21st Century” — i.e., the rise of the 0.1 percent and the fall of everyone else. They’re mostly a barrage of graphs and numbers that make you feel like you drank three Heinekens at lunch and want to take a nap. “Capital” doesn’t do this. Instead it just tells a story, the centurieslong story of capitalism. » Read the rest of this entry «

By Paul Street

Ohio National Guardsmen in gas masks and with rifles as they prepare to advance up Blanket Hill, through clouds of teargas, to drive back Kent State University students during an antiwar demonstration on the university’s campus, Kent, Ohio, May 4, 1970

“My God, they’re killing us”: On May 4, 1970, heavily armed National Guard soldiers used live ammunition to slaughter unarmed students on an American university campus who were protesting against the US invasion of Cambodia.

Just after noon that day, 28 National Guard troops fired 67 rounds from their M-1 rifles into a crowd of antiwar protesters at Ohio’s Kent State University. The volley lasted at least 13 seconds. By one reporter’s eyewitness account, it lasted a minute or more.

When it was over, four students lay dying: Jeffrey Miller, Allison Krause, William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer. Nine were wounded, with one suffering lifelong paralysis.

Most of the victims had been marching against President Richard Nixon’s criminal invasion of Cambodia, announced on national television four nights before. Some had just been passing by or observing from a distance.

In subsequent commissions and trials, the guardsmen testified they had to fire because they “feared for their lives.” The claim was absurd: the heavily-armed troops faced no threat remotely sufficient to justify their use of deadly force.

Thirteen years ago, Alan Canfora, one of the injured students, released an enhanced audio recording of the incident. Right before the gunfire, he says, a commander’s voice in the background can be heard ordering “Right here! Get set! Point! Fire!” » Read the rest of this entry «

by John Vibes

These attacks come at a time when the United Nations is calling for a global ceasefire because of the pandemic

While normal life is on hold for many people around the world, the war machine is showing no signs of slowing down. In Somalia, where most Americans don’t even realize that military operations are taking place, U.S.-led airstrikes have hit an all-time high in the country since the start of the year.

AFRICOM, the U.S. military branch in charge of operations in Africa, has formally admitted to 39 airstrikes in Somalia this year, which is the most intense streak of bombings that the region has seen since the US military began its attacks on the region over ten years ago.

Despite his campaign promises to scale back undeclared wars, airstrikes in Somalia have significantly increased under the leadership of Donald Trump. Barack Obama, who greatly expanded on the Bush “war on terror” oversaw 36 airstrikes between 2009 and 2017. Last year alone there were record 63 airstrikes in the country, and the U.S. military is set to surpass that number very quickly this year.

It is not just airstrikes in Somalia either, there are hundreds of U.S. troops stationed in the country, carrying out attacks from the five American military bases that are operational in the country. According to a report from the Intercept last week, the U.S. military plans to expand the number of bases that they have in the region. » Read the rest of this entry «

By Dr. Scott W. Atlas

People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections

The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, and Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts. Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function.

Five key facts are being ignored by those calling for continuing the near-total lockdown.

Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19.

The recent Stanford University antibody study now estimates that the fatality rate if infected is likely 0.1 to 0.2 percent, a risk far lower than previous World Health Organization estimates that were 20 to 30 times higher and that motivated isolation policies.

In New York City, an epicenter of the pandemic with more than one-third of all U.S. deaths, the rate of death for people 18 to 45 years old is 0.01 percent, or 10 per 100,000 in the population. On the other hand, people aged 75 and over have a death rate 80 times that. For people under 18 years old, the rate of death is zero per 100,000. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Jeffrey A. Tucker

The contrast between 1968 and 2020 couldn’t be more striking. They were smart. We are idiots. Or at least our governments are.

In my lifetime, there was another deadly flu epidemic in the United States. The flu spread from Hong Kong to the United States, arriving December 1968 and peaking a year later. It ultimately killed 100,000 people in the U.S., mostly over the age of 65, and one million worldwide.

Lifespan in the US in those days was 70 whereas it is 78 today. Population was 200 million as compared with 328 million today. If it would be possible to extrapolate the death data based on population and demographics, we might be looking at a quarter million deaths today from this virus. So in terms of lethality, it was as deadly and scary as COVID-19 if not more so, though we shall have to wait to see.

“In 1968,” says Nathaniel L. Moir in National Interest, “the H3N2 pandemic killed more individuals in the U.S. than the combined total number of American fatalities during both the Vietnam and Korean Wars.”

And this happened in the lifetimes of every American over 52 years of age.

I was 5 years old and have no memory of this at all. My mother vaguely remembers being careful and washing surfaces, and encouraging her mom and dad to be careful. Otherwise, it’s mostly forgotten today. Why is that? » Read the rest of this entry «

By Joseph Y. Calhoun III

We don’t need a new capitalism. We need the old one.

Everyone, or at least all the right-thinking people, believes that capitalism needs to be reformed. Elizabeth Warren calls her version Accountable Capitalism. Marco Rubio dusted off an 1891 speech by Pope Leo to advocate what he calls Common Good Capitalism. Both are attempts to correct what these lawyers see as flaws in the current incarnation of economic organization that is sneeringly referred to as Shareholder Capitalism. Milton Friedman apparently infected several generations of capitalists with an insatiable greed by informing them that they should run their companies for the sole benefit of owners. You know, the people who actually provide the capital that gives capitalism its name.

Warren’s new version of capitalism is one where putting capital at risk entitles you to nothing more than the right to have someone else tell you how to deploy it. Elizabeth Warren will be in charge of your capital structure and workers will sit on your board of directors where they can make sure they get their fair share of what you’ve risked. Your existence will depend on your ability to satisfy all your “stakeholders” rather than just your customers. And you’ll need a federal charter to operate your company if you achieve a level of success the government deems worthy of their oversight.

Mr. Rubio also wants to help American workers, by determining for American companies when their rights must be abrogated in favor of what’s “good for America”. That includes ensuring you don’t make your products in countries Rubio and Donald Trump can demonize as stealing American jobs in an election year. He also wants to rein in what he calls “financialization” which has caused, among other things, excessive stock buybacks, a decline in marriage, childbirth and life expectancy as well as, apparently, the opioid epidemic, increased suicides and “other deaths of despair”. Who knew bankers had such power? » Read the rest of this entry «