The Covid-19 pandemic exposes deep flaws in America’s broken healthcare system
By Margaret Flowers | RT | April 26, 2020
The coronavirus crisis is demonstrating why it’s time we replaced a system that exists purely for profits with one that puts public health first.
When it comes to the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths, the United States is off the charts compared to other countries. Although the USA comprises five percent of the global population, 32 percent of Covid-19 cases and 25 percent of deaths worldwide are there. By contrast, China, where the novel coronavirus originated, has one-tenth of the number of cases and deaths, despite having a population that is four times larger.
A disaster scenario is playing out across the United States, particularly in New York City where scores of refrigerator trucks have been brought in to hold the dead, hundreds of people are dying in their homes without medical attention every day, mass graves are being used to store bodies while mortuaries are overwhelmed, and health professionals lack basic personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, and dialysis machines.
Dr Mike Pappas, a doctor there, has described the difficulties he and other health professionals are facing. The shortage of PPE means doctors and nurses are reusing masks and gowns and are sometimes working without them. They are wearing trash bags over their bodies to protect themselves and their patients from becoming infected. In an interview, Dr Pappas spoke about the stress of not having enough staff, having to clear hallways and the cafeteria to make bed space, and the reluctance of hospital administrators to buy more ventilators.
As people in America struggle to wrap their heads around the twin crises of the rampant pandemic and collapsing economy, it is easy to blame the Trump administration for its failures to take rapid and effective action to contain the spread of infection and provide financial support. In reality, the roots of the crises precede Trump. The US would have fared poorly during a pandemic under any president.
It’s the system, stupid
The current disaster exists in large part because the US healthcare system is the opposite of what is needed. It is fragmented, discriminatory and designed for corporate profits, not the wellbeing of the public. Even before the pandemic, the United States had the highest number of preventable deaths compared to other wealthy nations and a declining life expectancy.
Nearly every facet of the system, which is twice as expensive as other developed countries, is designed to extract profit whether it is the hundreds of private health insurers that compete for the healthiest enrollees while avoiding those with health conditions, or the pharmaceutical corporations that charge whatever the market will bear. Even hospitals are shutting down essential departments such as obstetrics and pediatrics to make space for more lucrative areas like cardiology and orthopedics.
Two-thirds of US bankruptcies are caused by medical bills
There are now more than 30 million people without health insurance. In the past five weeks, as more than 26 million people filed for unemployment benefits for the first time, five million of them lost their health insurance. The number of uninsured is expected to rise by more than 13 million by June. On top of that, tens of millions of people with health insurance can’t afford care because of the thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs they must pay before their insurance benefits begin.
Even if a person has health insurance, there may not be anywhere to go for care. Over the past 45 years, as the US population grew by over 100 million, the number of hospital beds shrunk by about 600,000. Hospitals closed in rural areas because they could not bring in enough revenue to keep their doors open. Another 453 rural hospitals are teetering on the edge of closure out of the 1,844 that remain. In cities, hospitals that served poor communities for over 100 years are being shuttered to make way for luxury housing or retail space in gentrifying areas.
Another flaw that has been exposed by Covid-19 is the supply chain for goods and equipment. In February and early March, when patients went to hospitals with symptoms of the virus, there were few to no tests for diagnosis because the US chose to create its own tests rather than purchasing them from the World Health Organization. There have been severe shortages of protective gear. States have been fighting with each other to get basic kits as suppliers raise prices by as much as 1,000 percent.
This situation has made the call for a national improved Medicare for All healthcare system grow louder. If the US already had Medicare for All, many of the problems being experienced would not exist. Under the Medicare for All system, as defined by the congressional bill in the House of Representatives, every person in the US would be covered from birth to death without requiring payment before care is given.
This would alleviate the real fear Americans experience of financial ruin. For example, in March a nurse sought care and testing for Covid-19 symptoms and subsequently received a bill for $35,000 even though she was never admitted to the hospital. Two thirds of personal bankruptcies in America are because of medical bills.
Put people before profits
There’s a more fundamental case for a more socialized approach: it works better. A look at healthcare systems around the world that have performed well during the pandemic finds universal coverage, central planning, and the principle of health over profit are essential features. Even countries that are suffering from economic sanctions are doing a better job of containing the spread of infection than the United States.
Under a national improved Medicare for All, hospitals would not be closing their doors or shutting down departments that don’t generate high revenues in favor of more lucrative ones. Every hospital and health facility would receive a budget to cover operating costs and capital expenses. The days of investment companies buying up hospitals, running them into bankruptcy and leaving them stranded would be over.
Another key feature would be that the federal government would purchase pharmaceuticals and medical supplies in bulk to lower the cost and ensure states have what they need. Bidding wars and price gouging would cease to exist.
The US is an outlier in this pandemic in terms of the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths, and an expert predicts the next winter will be even worse as the flu season begins. But the US has been an outlier for a long time for spending the most on healthcare and still having poor health outcomes. Around the world, the countries that have handled the pandemic well, such as China, South Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, share common features of their healthcare systems: central planning, universal coverage and a focus on public health.
Whether America finally adopts a similar system depends on what people do to demand it, but there certainly has not been a more opportune time to make that demand.
Margaret Flowers is co-director of Popular Resistance and is an adviser to the board of Physicians for a National Health Program. Follower her @MFlowers8
Airlines are in freefall amid Covid-19 pandemic, but why should taxpayers foot the bill?
RT | April 25, 2020
Airlines are turning to governments for rescue money – but bailing out the massive capitalist ventures makes about as much sense as leaving the middle row empty to avoid the virus.
With the world in a tailspin from Covid-19, airlines are in for a bumpy ride – and some of them are inevitably going to crash and burn. Everything may be up in the air but one thing is for certain: flying will never be the same again.
Air travel will be a much different beast when this lockdown nightmare is over. Some airlines and EU states now want to introduce in-flight social distancing with the middle seats left vacant, as part of a set of new rules to be announced next month. There’s also talk about airlines cancelling or reducing their in-flight food and beverages service to reduce interaction.
There will no doubt be some other regulations, such as compulsory facemasks, tedious longer queues when boarding, and temperature taking – which is almost pointless because some Covid-19 carriers will be asymptomatic.
But the middle seat rule is an “idiotic” proposal, as Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary quite rightly pointed out the other day.
It doesn’t make any sense when we’re all supposed to keep two meters apart, but the distance between seats is only 50cm wide on an average Ryanair plane. Sure, some scientists claim you can catch the virus once you’ve spent 15 minutes in its presence – which, if actually true, would mean it wouldn’t matter if you were sitting beside someone or three rows back.
Its only true effect here is a psychological one, to artificially restore confidence to get bums back on seats. I’m not a fan of the unpopular Irishman – who comes across like the Grinch who stole Christmas at the best of times – but O’Leary made a very valid point when he told the Financial Times: “Either the government pays for the middle seat or we won’t fly.”
The last time I checked, Ryanair was in the business of making money and not burning it, which is exactly what would happen if they’re forced to fly at only 66 percent capacity. Airlines need this like a hole in the head, especially since they’re already grappling with the daunting prospects of less routes and less frequency, which will hike up prices as well.
Some financial experts estimate ticket prices could increase by 50 percent – but I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up being even higher. One thing is certain: the days of cheap flash ticket sales are well and truly over for the foreseeable future.
There would be absolutely no appetite to bailout Ryanair if the airline that people love to hate found itself in troubled waters. Yet there’s a strong desire amongst some British commentators to rescue Virgin Atlantic, which can only be put down to blind patriotism for what would’ve been perceived as a Rule Britannia success story – up until now.
One of the first airlines to slump into administration this week was Virgin Australia and it looks like Virgin Atlantic could be next in line to wave goodbye.
Some airlines have already been bailed out in the US and EU, which is the most foolish move since the banks were rescued in the noughties. These capitalists’ enterprises should live and die by their own sword, which is why I’ve absolutely no sympathy for Richard Branson who sounds out-of-touch to me.
Considering he’s a tax exile, Branson insulted the British people when he went cap in hand – or rather with deeds-to-island in hand – to ask the UK government to bail out “his” airline (Delta owns 49 percent) to the tune of £565mn. The billionaire had some brass neck offering up Necker Island as the collateral as it’s reportedly “only” worth £80mn. But there’s definitely a nice little profit there, considering he purchased it for a low six figures in 1979.
Virgin Atlantic doesn’t appear to have very much in terms of assets, as far as I’m aware, which would make it a risky gamble for the British government if it went belly-up. Branson says his main goal is to save jobs, but in such turbulent times, Boris Johnson would get more of a return on the money by investing it elsewhere to create jobs in more sustainable industries. Surely anything is bound to be less risky than the airline business at the moment.
If Branson is genuinely concerned about saving jobs, as he claims, then his best – and certainly more honourable option – is to offer to sell his interest in Virgin Atlantic to the British government. At this point, it would make more sense to nationalise it.
It speaks volumes that Delta – despite receiving $5.4 billion from the Trump administration already and seeking an additional $4.6 billion loan from US taxpayers – is refusing to invest another dime in Branson’s baby. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater!
The money Branson needs is a drop in the ocean compared to the $10 billion Delta is looking to get its grubby hands on, which makes you wonder if the American airline is either confident Boris Johnson will offer Branson a parachute, or has perhaps already accepted Virgin Atlantic will end up dead in the water sooner or later.
As we face what’s going to be the worst recession since the Great Depression, Transatlantic travel is going to be increasingly more of a luxury than ever before, and business trips will be curtailed, probably more frequently replaced with Zoom, which could eventually kill off Virgin Atlantic in the long run anyway – just like how video killed the radio star.
It’s going to be a hard landing for those airlines lucky enough to survive this crisis, but there’s little or no benefit in any government bailing out any of those that crash and burn now because the market will have significantly shrunk after the pandemic.
Jason O’Toole has worked as a senior feature writer for the Irish Daily Mail, a columnist with the Irish Sunday Mirror and senior editor of Hot Press magazine. He is also the author of several best-selling books.
The bipartisan “small business” swindle: Billions for banks and corporations, pennies for workers and shopkeepers
By Barry Grey | WSWS | April 23, 2020
Scores of multi-million- and billion-dollar corporations are receiving free handouts from the government under the “small business” relief fund grotesquely misnamed the “Paycheck Protection Program” (PPP). The program was launched last month as part of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, with $349 billion in taxpayer funds.
Billed as a lifeline to small businesses and their employees, the program has been exposed as a cynical fraud. Multiple reports have emerged showing that it is first and foremost a cash cow for large businesses and the Wall Street banks. It is yet another example of how the corporate-financial elite is exploiting the coronavirus catastrophe to further enrich itself at the expense of society and at the cost of human lives.
The CARES Act was passed with the unanimous support of the Democrats in the Senate—including the votes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—and by voice vote in the House, with no effort by so-called “progressives” such as Democratic Socialists of America members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib to stall, let alone defeat, its passage.
While big restaurant chains and other firms whose stock is traded on Wall Street gobbled up large portions of the “small business” relief money, and the major Wall Street banks pocketed $10 billion in loan fees, family-owned restaurants, barber shops, beauty salons, retail stores and other small firms were pushed to the back of the line or denied relief outright.
The program ran out of funds last Thursday, less than two weeks after it was launched, leaving hundreds of thousands of small businesses high and dry and their millions of laid-off employees facing destitution. Now the Trump administration and Congress are rushing to inject an additional $310 billion into the PPP.
On Wednesday, the Senate passed by unanimous consent a new $484 billion bailout bill, whose central component is the renewal of the PPP. At the urging of the Democrats, looking to provide a “progressive” fig leaf to the pro-corporate measure, and with the agreement of Trump, the bill tacked on a totally inadequate $75 billion for hospitals and a derisory $25 billion for COVID-19 testing.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has announced that the Democratic-controlled chamber will vote on the new bill on Thursday. On Tuesday, she hailed the passage of the bill in the Senate, declaring that the Republicans “have seen the light—and we had a great victory for the American people.”
Among the businesses that have received low-interest PPP loans, which are to be forgiven if the firms use 75 percent of the money to keep their workers employed for eight weeks, are:
- The Ruth’s Chris steakhouse chain, with some 5,000 employees at over 100 locations in 2019 and $468 million in revenues. It received two PPP loans totaling $20 million. The total compensation for CEO Cheryl J. Henry was $6,105,629 in 2018. The stock price of the chain’s parent company, Ruth’s Hospitality Group, has risen by 112 percent over the past month.
- The Potbelly Sandwich Shop chain, with around 6,000 employees at 474 locations in 2019 and revenues of $410 million. The company received a PPP loan for $10 million. Total compensation for CEO Alan Johnson in 2018 was $1,668,251. Potbelly stock has risen 70 percent over the past month.
- The Shake Shack restaurant chain, with some 6,000 workers at 254 locations in the US and internationally and $595 million in revenues in 2019. It received $10 million in PPP loans. Total compensation for CEO Randy Garutti in 2018 was $3,805,410. Shake Shack stock has risen 40 percent over the past month. On Sunday, Shake Shack announced it was returning its PPP loan.
- The J. Alexander’s restaurant chain, with 2,700 employees at 46 locations in 2019 and $304 million in revenues in 2016, received $15.1 million in PPP loans. Total compensation for CEO Mark Parkey was $591,000 in 2019. J. Alexander’s stock has risen by 2 percent over the past month.
Other large firms that received PPP loans include:
- The Ohio-based biotech company Athersys, which raised almost $60 million in a stock offering on Monday. Its shares have nearly doubled in 2020.
- Indiana-based coal operator Hallador Energy, which received $10 million after it laid off 60 workers in March.
- Data storage company Quantum took $10 million.
- Nicola Motor, backed by giant hedge funds and asset management firms and valued at $4 billion, received a loan of $4 million.
According to a Financial Times article published on Tuesday, 83 publicly traded companies received a combined $330 million in loans from the PPP program, an average of $4 million each. The combined stock value of these firms at the end of 2019 was $12 billion.
Other published figures show how the program is skewed to big companies. More than 25 percent of the $349 billion in loans went to fewer than two percent of the firms that got relief. And more than one out of every four dollars in the fund went toward big loans of $2 million and above.
Meanwhile, just eight percent of small businesses that have applied for aid under the CARES Act have received money.
JPMorgan Chase, the largest US bank, processed many of the biggest loans and cashed in the most on the program. Only six percent of its smaller customers got PPP loans, 18,000 out of the 300,000 that applied. But nearly all of the 5,500 larger companies that applied for PPP loans, customers of the bank’s commercial banking business, received them.
A class action lawsuit filed Sunday in federal court in Los Angeles alleges that four banks—Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and US Bancorp—rushed loans to the biggest businesses to maximize their earnings. The suit alleges that the banks prioritized larger loans to bigger firms instead of processing applications in the order in which they arrived in order to generate bigger processing fees.
Sections of corporate media, prominent Democrats and even Trump are feigning shock and dismay over the funneling of “small business” loans to big corporations and the banks. On Tuesday, Trump, for fairly obvious political reasons, singled out Harvard University, which received bailout money under a different part of the CARES Act, and demanded that it return its loan.
These statements are utterly fraudulent. One is reminded of Captain Renault’s shock at discovering that gambling was taking place at Rick’s Casino in the film Casablanca.
As the media and both parties were well aware, restaurant and hotel chains, hedge funds and other corporate interests carried out intensive lobbying of their political servants in Congress prior to the passage of the CARES Act. One result was the insertion of a loophole allowing restaurant and hotel chains to evade the much trumpeted provision restricting the PPP loans to businesses with fewer than 500 employees. The bill that was passed on a fully bipartisan basis allows restaurant and hotel chains to receive loans so long as none of their individual units has more than 500 workers.
There is nothing in the measure renewing the PPP passed by the Senate on Wednesday that addresses this free pass for the chains.
Moreover, the law is written so as to facilitate self-dealing and corruption. There is not even a requirement that the federal Small Business Administration (SBA), which oversees the PPP, disclose to the public or to Congress the recipients of the loans.
Even if more small businesses eventually receive money from the program, the jobs of millions of workers will not be preserved, since the loans are designed to cover payroll for only eight weeks. The public health crisis and the economic disaster will last far longer. With no serious aid to the 22 million who have already lost their jobs and the millions more who will follow in the coming days and weeks, thousands of restaurants and other small businesses will go bankrupt and permanently shut their doors.
The response of the ruling classes in the US and around the world to the coronavirus outbreak has demonstrated the utter failure of the capitalist system. In every country, countless thousands of lives are being sacrificed to the insatiable drive of a tiny financial aristocracy for personal wealth, whatever the cost in death and human suffering.
The ruling classes are focused on devising ways to profit off of the pandemic. The absurdly named “Paycheck Protection Program”—an example of Orwellian Newspeak—is a case in point.
But the oligarchs, like the ancien regimes of old, are digging their own graves. Mass anger and opposition is growing by leaps and bounds. Strikes and protests by workers are taking place on virtually every continent. It is this international movement, made conscious of its revolutionary aims and tasks, that offers the way out for humanity from the nightmare of pandemics, poverty and war.
Eastern Europe beats West in Covid-19 fight, but West can’t acknowledge it because of Cold War SUPERIORITY complex
By Neil Clark | RT | April 23, 2020
By any objective assessment, governments in the eastern half of Europe have dealt with the Covid-19 outbreak better than many in the west. Yet, because of deep-seated attitudes of superiority, few are giving credit where it’s due.
Europe is divided again, but this time not by a wall.
Compare the Covid-19 deaths worldwide per one million population, as of April 22, by country.
Top of the list is Belgium with 525.12 deaths per million. Then comes Spain (445.49), Italy (407.87), France (310.45), the UK (261.37), the Netherlands (227.26), Switzerland (173.54), Sweden (173.33), and then Ireland (150.41). Spot anything? They’re all western European countries.
You have to scroll down quite a way before you get to countries in central or eastern Europe.
Romania has had 25.57 deaths per million. Hungary, 23.03; Czechia, 18.92; Serbia, 17.9; Croatia, 11.74; Poland, 10.6; Bulgaria, 7.02; Belarus, 5.8; Latvia, 4.67; Ukraine, 3.61; Russia, 3.16; Albania, 2.87; and Slovakia, 2.57 (amounting to just 14 deaths).
How can we explain this new division of Europe? Well, it’s clear that geography has played its part. The main vector for the spread of Covid-19 has been population movements and, in particular, international air travel. More people visit western Europe than the east. There’s more coming and going. Covid-19 can be seen accurately as a virus of turbo-globalization, and western European countries are more turbo-globalised than those to the east. They also tend to be more densely populated, with some very large cities, which the virus likes, as it allows it to spread quicker.
But while eastern Europe has a number of ‘natural’ advantages, this doesn’t, I think, tell the whole story. Governments in eastern Europe have generally shown more common sense than most of their western counterparts. They quickly did the most obvious thing that you need to do when a virus has got its walking boots and rucksack on: they closed borders.
On March 12, Czechia declared a state of emergency and barred travelers from 15 countries hit by the novel coronavirus, including Iran, Italy, China and the UK. It then went into a ‘lockdown.’ On the same day Slovakia closed its borders to non-residents and imposed a mandatory quarantine for anyone returning from abroad.
Poland closed its borders on March 15 and Hungary followed suit one day later. Russia’s far east border with China had already been closed since the end of January.
Compare the decisiveness with which eastern European countries pulled up their drawbridges, with the hesitation in the west. On March 12, French President Emmanuel Macron declared “this virus has no passport”. As I wrote at the time, liberal ideology and virtue signaling were being put before public health.
The virus might not have a passport, but the people carrying it in from China, and then from Italy, most certainly did! By March 17 there were signs that western European states were going to do what their eastern neighbors had already done. “The less we travel, the more we contain the virus,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. You don’t say!
At least western continental Europe did take some action on borders, albeit a week or so too late. Britain, by contrast, while imposing a ‘lockdown’ on domestic citizens, has continued to allow into the country unchecked flights from all over the world, including from New York, Iran and China.
It’s not just shutting borders and imposing strict quarantine measures that eastern European countries did right.
Generally, they’ve been quicker to act than their western counterparts. The culture of government undoubtedly plays a part.
I lived in Hungary for several years in the 1990s and was impressed by what I call the ‘administrative class.’ The people who work for the government, the civil servants, the old communist ’bureaucracy’, if you like, were very competent. They got the job done, with a minimum of fuss. In so many ways because of this efficient administration and a very high level of general and technical education, eastern European countries are actually better-run than many in the west, particularly Britain, where incompetence seems to lead to great rewards. Countries where there was a ‘five-year-plan’ political culture not surprisingly are better at planning than those where there wasn’t. Or, as the old saying has it, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Another legacy of the much-maligned socialist era might also have played a big part in minimizing the impact of Covid-19 in eastern Europe. As RT reported earlier in the month, ‘striking’ evidence has emerged showing that the BCG tuberculosis vaccine might be protective against Covid-19.
Vaccinating their populations against TB was enthusiastically taken up by the socialist-bloc countries in the 1950s and remains mandatory in many, even though communism is gone. In Russia for instance, it is still given to children from three to five days old. By contrast, the USA and Italy never had a universal BCG programme, and, while Spain doesn’t have one either, its neighbour Portugal still does, and has had only 74.11 Covid-19-related deaths per million, compared to neighboring Spain’s 455.49.
The BCG programme may yet prove to be at least among the reasons why the old state of East Germany has a lower Covid-19 death toll than the western part of the country.
Germany is the only western European country that had a ‘socialist’ half – and it’s that socialist half which has helped bring its per-capita death rate down.
The failure to properly credit eastern Europe for its low Covid-related death rates reeks of bad sportsmanship.
Let me give you one example. On Monday evening I tweeted how Hungary had less than 220 deaths from Covid-19, compared to the UK’s 16,000. By any objective assessment, Hungary had done better than the UK.
“I guess that settles it” @JusticeTyrwhit tweeted. “Orban is actually ok then and we were wrong to oppose fascism all along….?”
For a certain type of superior westerner, eastern Europe’s governments can never do any good. If you say they have handled something well, you are ‘dog whistling’ your support for ‘fascism’ or ‘communism.’
Draconian Covid-19 lockdowns in the west of Europe are ‘sensible’ and police overreach is played down, draconian Covid-19 lockdowns in the east are displayed as signs of proof that these countries are run by ‘dictators’ and have a ‘long authoritarian tradition.’
It’s time that those with the Cold War mindset of ‘Order of The Coif‘ stopped patronizing the east and showed a little more humility. For, when it comes to dealing with Covid-19, governments in ‘backward’ eastern Europe have generally served their populations better than those in ‘advanced’ western ones.
A long lockdown will be catastrophic for developed nations – but a ‘biblical’ disaster for the developing world
A family who work as migrant workers walk along a road to return to their villages in New Delhi, India © REUTERS / Danish Siddiqui
By Rob Lyons | RT | April 23, 2020
The looming deep and probably long-lasting global recession caused by the shutting down of our economies will hurt us all – but it will be much, much worse for those already living on the brink of starvation.
A report by the UN World Food Program (WFP), published earlier this week, paints a depressing view of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The report suggests the number of people facing severe food shortages – on the brink of starvation – could double over the next 12 months, from 130 million to 265 million. The head of the WFP, David Beasley, has described the possible famines as ‘biblical.’ Those debating lockdowns in the West should bear in mind the world’s poor before demanding that restrictions should stay in place.
The WFP’s chief economist, Dr Arif Husain, told the media: “Covid-19 is potentially catastrophic for millions who are already hanging by a thread. It is a hammer blow for millions more who can only eat if they earn a wage. Lockdowns and global economic recession have already decimated their nest eggs. It only takes one more shock – like Covid-19 – to push them over the edge. We must collectively act now to mitigate the impact of this global catastrophe.”
We need to take some of the WFP’s claims with a little skepticism. Those who specialize in a particular area will always believe that the problems there are the most important (though food is clearly the most basic necessity). And there is always a degree of special pleading with such institutional reports, with officials trying to promote worst-case scenarios in order to grab as big a slice of budgets as possible.
Nonetheless, there is clearly a very big problem here. The disease itself will cause substantial loss of life and may make a lot of productive people sick, at a time when livelihoods are already on a knife edge. However, we also need to realize just how devastating widespread lockdowns can be, too.
At least a third of the world’s population is currently living under lockdown, including 1.3 billion people in India alone. Despite years of impressive, if possibly overstated, economic growth, almost a quarter of Indians still live on less than $2 per day. The situation will be much worse in countries that have not enjoyed India’s rapid development.
Governments in the developing world have been copying policies in much richer countries. But do they necessarily make sense? In the developed West, the major concern is that a sharp peak in cases will overwhelm intensive healthcare services, leading to unnecessary deaths. However, many poorer countries have very few ventilators and experienced doctors and nurses relative to their populations. So what are the benefits of lockdowns that will drive many millions more into abject poverty?
In the crowded megacities of the developing world – like Mumbai, Cairo, Lagos – social distancing is impractical. Basic handwashing with soap is widely unavailable. From a health point of view, the policies make little sense. Worst, it is estimated that over two billion people work in the “informal” economy – they are off the radar in terms of government action like tax cuts, welfare benefits and other government interventions. As Husain points out bluntly: for many people, if they don’t work, they don’t eat.
It’s not just the lockdowns in the developing world itself that are important. The economies of developing countries depend, in part, on trade with richer nations. If that is disrupted, poverty levels will rise. For example, the UK clothing retailer Primark has almost no online presence. So the closure of its stores across Europe has left tens of thousands of Europeans out of work – but it has also hit those working for manufacturers in poorer countries. The company has promised to support suppliers for the time being, but a long shutdown would leave an enormous number of poorer workers around the world out of work.
More broadly, a UK consultancy, the Center for Economic and Business Research, has estimated that British households could face an average loss of income of £515 ($635) per month over the course of this year. A substantial slice of that spending would have been used to buy goods from developing countries. That loss of spending will undoubtedly exacerbate the recessions in poorer countries.
This aspect of the economic impacts of the coronavirus lockdowns seems to have largely been missed. It is understandable that in the initial reaction to the pandemic, the focus is on dealing with the issue at a domestic level. But now we have a degree of breathing space and infection rates appear to be down, we must now consider all the impacts of continuing the lockdowns, not just on the health and wealth of people in the rich world, but in the poorer part of the world, too.
Yet those, like me, who are calling for restrictions to be loosened sooner rather than later are routinely denounced as being more interested in money than saving lives. At the forefront of this demand has been President Trump. Yet even this week, the UK Guardian newspaper could publish an article titled ‘Consoler-in-chief? Lacking empathy, Trump weighs the economic costs, not the human ones‘.
Whatever Trump’s motivations – and he may well be more concerned with American jobs than Bangladeshi ones – the point remains that it will be the most vulnerable around the world who will suffer if economies are shut down for much longer. With Trump in the White House and a Conservative government in the UK, many left-leaning voices in the Anglo-American media seem to have taken a perverse and politicized approach to defending lockdowns, claiming that they are putting people before profits, when it is actually the poor that suffer the most when the economy stalls.
Western governments need to think beyond their own borders about the impacts of this pandemic. While no one is arguing for an abrupt return to normality, every effort must be made to reduce the impacts of social distancing as soon as possible and get all the world’s economies going again.
Rob Lyons is a UK journalist specialising in science, environmental and health issues. He is the author of ‘Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder’.
Lebanon legalises cannabis cultivation
![A farmer is seen in a green of cannabis plants in a field overlooking a lake in Yammouneh in West of Baalbek, Lebanon on 13 August 2018. [Mohamed Azakir/ Reuters]](https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/cannabis-lebanon.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=85&strip=all&ssl=1)
Cannabis plants in a field overlooking a lake in Yammouneh in West of Baalbek, Lebanon on 13 August 2018. [Mohamed Azakir/ Reuters]
MEMO | April 22, 2020
Lebanon has become the first Arab country to legalise cannabis cultivation for medicinal and industrial purposes, after the country’s parliament approved the law yesterday.
The new legislation, first endorsed by parliamentary committees in March, aims to regulate cultivation by Lebanon’s cannabis farmers, considered illegal under current laws but which has been grown illicitly for decades in the country’s eastern Bekaa Valley.
Last month, Lebanese police reported intercepting 25 tonnes of hashish travelling through the port of Beirut to an African country. Officials said the cargo was part of the largest drug smuggling operation in Lebanese history.
Now, however, though export of hashish for recreational use remains illegal, Lebanon is set to establish a new above-board industry producing medicinal cannabis products, including Cannabidiol (CBD oil). The harvest could also be used to make industrial commodities, such as fibres for textiles.
As Lebanon’s economy teeters on the brink of collapse, the creation of a new industry, and manufacture of products for export, could provide much needed economic stimulus.
Alain Aoun, a senior MP in the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) founded by current President Michel Aoun, told Reuters that parliament’s decision was “really driven by economic motives, nothing else”.
Adding: “We have moral and social reservations but today there is the need to help the economy by any means… we don’t want to speculate on numbers… but let’s say it is worth a try.”
The move was initially recommended as a method of revitalising Lebanon’s debt-ridden economy by US consultancy firm McKinsey in 2018. A study by the company estimated legalisation of Lebanon’s cannabis industry could be worth as much as $4 billion.
Under the new legislation, an official authority, which will fall under the jurisdiction of the presidency of the Cabinet, will oversee the enforcement of the law. The authority will issue permits for the cultivation, transport, production, store, trade and distribution of cannabis. Only permit holders will be able to work under the new law.
The proposed regulation of the industry, however, has drawn criticism, with many concerned the system leaves room for corruption since the source of funding for the authority will not come from the government budget, but from permit fees, which could create a conflict of interest.
Other concerns, raised by those opposed to the bill, include fears the new legislation should include a change to punishments for recreational cannabis users, as such use remains illegal under Lebanese law. Activists have in the past recommended rehabilitation programmes in lieu of punishment.
Developed West is managing Covid-19 worse than poorer countries – French virologist
Didier Raoult © AFP / Gerard Julien
RT | April 22, 2020
The world’s experience with Covid-19 has exposed the fact that wealthy nations are not necessarily more prepared than poorer ones to deal with a pandemic and they are often too slow to act, French biologist Didier Raoult said.
In a video posted on YouTube, Raoult noted that many of the countries with the highest coronavirus mortality rates are “wealthy countries.” This reveals “a disconnect between wealth and the ability to respond to situations of this kind.”
The difference could lie in how rich and poor countries have chosen to deal with the virus, Raoult believes.
“The rich and developed countries have had less significant results than the poor countries, which chose to treat [Covid-19] like pneumonia with common drugs and which cost nothing,” he said.
Raoult has been at the center of an international debate over the use of the hydroxychloroquine anti-malaria drug which he promoted as a possible treatment for the coronavirus, citing his own small study and some positive experiences with the drug in China.
Faced with a pandemic, the choice is whether to begin treating patients with existing drugs or conduct studies to find new ones.
“If we start doing research which ends when there’s no disease anymore, we can’t fight it,” he said.
“We decided to treat the disease and you got some extremely violent reactions because of this decision,” he said, referring to backlash from other doctors, officials and media.
While Raoult has adamantly defended his approach, there is still no solid evidence that hydroxychloroquine actually works against the coronavirus.
The most recent study was conducted on sick veterans in the US. In that study of 368 patients, which is not yet peer-reviewed, about 28 percent of the Covid-19 sufferers treated with hydroxychloroquine died of the infection, while only 11 percent of those receiving routine care died.
On Twitter, Raoult slammed the US study as “fraudulent” and “fake news.” He said that the patients treated with hydroxychloroquine were already in critical condition.
‘Eco-fascism’ Troubles Climate Alarmists
By Robert Bradley Jr. | MasterResource | April 14, 2020
“We’re the virus.’ How eco-fascism hurts climate action,” rang the title of a ClimateWire piece by Jennifer Hijazi of April 8, 2020.
Her article begins:
Sharp declines in emissions from the coronavirus pandemic are a vivid illustration of the challenge of addressing climate change, rather than a silver lining, according to experts.
As the health crisis drags on, there’s a growing effort to recast the downward trajectory of carbon dioxide as a warning about the depth of action that’s needed to slow global temperature increases. It comes as extreme reactions to the pandemic, like grounded airplanes and empty streets, have been widely interpreted as a beneficial side effect that’s resulted in less pollution.
And ends:
A parade of stories emerged in the early days of the pandemic pointing to the virus’s seemingly positive impact on the environment — some of which were fake.
Celebrating the environmental benefits of the pandemic’s response comes dangerously close to rooting for a virus that could kill 1 million people or more, some experts caution.
Others say it resembles eco-fascism.
She then describes eco-fascism, which surely includes Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren; Al Gore in Earth in the Balance; and scary-eyed Bill McKibben (and a lot of others, including Thomas Friedman, and Paul Krugman, on their angry days). [1]
Eco-fascism is a totalitarian ideology that advocates for authoritarian governance for the greater environmental good. Some who ascribe to the philosophy sometimes say that human population control — often in the most marginalized communities — is needed to preserve the planet.
Climate activist group Extinction Rebellion had to disavow fake flyers bearing its logo that read, “Corona is the cure humans are the disease.” One tweet that gained attention on social media said: “Earth is recovering. We’re the virus.”
Falling emissions are often wed to difficult times. Dale Jamieson, professor of environmental studies at New York University, noted that periods of suffering, like the Great Recession of 2008, usually result in temporary pollution dips.
“But of course, it’s not anywhere along the lines of the solution path,” he said, referring to climate change.
Extreme narratives that celebrate the environmental benefits of the pandemic can damage efforts to address rising temperatures, even if they’re not prevalent. That’s especially true if it creates the impression that environmentalists are seen as “anti-people,” Klopp said.
“It is important for people to speak out at this moment, but they should not be framing this as the pandemic is our [climate] policy response,” she said. “They should be framing this as the pandemic is teaching us why our policy responses as a planet are inadequate.”
The Progressive Left is at war with itself. Instead of incrementally getting to where they want to go in a period of general prosperity, the Pandemic has offered up a destination that deep ecologists have celebrated. It is, rightfully, a PR disaster for climate alarmism.
—————–
[1] Jeff Sparrow, author of the book Fascists Among Us (2019), also described the environmental civil war: “It’s not difficult to imagine ‘eco-authoritarianism’ or what Naomi Klein calls ‘climate barbarism’: a politics centred on the state making “our way of life” sustainable as the environment disintegrates. Future governments committed to this project will be able to draw upon the vast array of coercive powers they’ve acquired over the past decades: draconian anti-protest laws; secret trials and imprisonment; the deployment of the army to quell civil disturbances; and so on.”
Intelligence agencies fail to protect us from pandemic
CSIS and CSE headquarters
By Yves Engler · April 16, 2020
With millions forced out of work and many more stuck at home, Canadians need to ask tough questions of organizations receiving billions of dollars to protect them from foreign threats. The country’s intelligence/security sector has done little to respond to the ongoing social and economic calamity. Even worse, their thinking and practices are an obstacle to what’s required to overcome a global pandemic.
A recent Canadian Press article highlights the failure of intelligence agencies to warn of the COVID-19 outbreak. They largely ignore health-related threats despite receiving huge sums of federal money.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s (CSIS) has more than 3,000 employees and a $500 million budget, which is nearly equal to that of the lead agency dealing with the pandemic. The Public Health Agency of Canada’s (PHAC) budget is $675 million and it has 2,200 employees. For its part, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) employs 2,500 and receives over $600 million annually. In 2011 Department of National Defence run CSE moved into a new $1.2 billion, 110,000 square metre, seven-building, complex connected to CSIS’ main compound.
CSE is but one component of DND’s intelligence juggernaut. Not counting CSE, the Canadian Forces has greater intelligence gathering capacities than any organization in the country. While their budget and size are not public information, the government’s 2017 Defence Policy review notes that “CFINTCOM [Canadian Forces Intelligence Command] is the only entity within the Government of Canada that employs the full spectrum of intelligence collection capabilities while providing multi-source analysis.” The Defence Policy Paper called for adding 300 military intelligence positions and expanding CFINTCOM’s scope.
CFINTCOM has a medical intelligence (MEDINT) cell to track how global health trends and contagions impact military operations. Apparently, they reported on the coronavirus outbreak in January but it’s unclear who received that information.
The $2 billion spent on CSIS/CSE/CFINTCOM annually — let alone the more than $30 billion devoted to DND/Veterans Affairs — could have purchased a lot of personal protective equipment for health care workers. It could have paid for many ventilators and it could also have been used to raise the abysmally low wages of many who work in long-term care and nursing homes.
But, it’s not only that CSIS/CSE/CFINTCOM resources could be better used. Their ideology and structures are an obstacle to avoiding/overcoming a global pandemic. Two weeks ago, CSE put out a statement warning Canadian coronavirus researchers to beware of malign international forces seeking to steal their research. A Canadian Centre for Cyber Security statement noted, “these actors may attempt to gain intelligence on COVID-19 response efforts and potential political responses to the crisis or to steal ongoing key research toward a vaccine or other medical remedies.” But, wouldn’t it, in fact, be great if our ‘enemies’ in Russia, China, Iran, or anywhere else employed Canadian research to develop a cure or vaccine for COVID-19? Who, except extreme right-wing ideologues could believe a vaccine or cure should be patented and profited from?
It won’t be easy to shift their orientation to include pandemics. In a recent commentary, prominent intelligence agency insider Wesley Wark notes, “our security and intelligence agencies have never seen health emergency reporting as part of their core mandate, despite a plan laid down in the National Security Policy announced after SARS that unfortunately went nowhere.” For a time after the 2003 SARS outbreak the CSIS-based Integrated Threat Assessment Centre reported regularly on pandemic dangers, but the unit was soon collapsed into the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre. For the intelligence agencies “terrorism” is appealing because it justifies militarism and a ‘security’ state. Health emergencies, on the other hand, justify better work conditions for long-term care providers.
The CSIS/CSE/CFINTCOM definition of ‘security’ is heavily shaped by corporate Canada, state power projection and ties to the US Empire. In criticizing Canadian intelligence agencies’ failure to warn/protect us from the pandemic, Wark highlights the dangerously narrow outlook of the intelligence community. He suggests CSIS/CSE/CFINTCOM could have helped prevent the calamity by gathering better intelligence on China. But, if Beijing hid early information on COVID-19, it’s at least partly because China is locked in a destructive geopolitical competition with the US empire, which was instigated by Washington and its allies (from 1949 to 1970 Canada refused to recognize China and in 1950 sent 27,000 troops to Korea largely to check Chinese nationalism). In recent months CSIS/CSE/CFINTCOM have sought to identify China as a threat.
Wark’s thinking must be rejected. Avoiding and overcoming global pandemics requires a free exchange of health information. It also requires international solidarity.
After the COVID-19 crisis dies down, progressives should renew their push to devote intelligence agencies’ resources towards initiatives that protect ordinary Canadians’ security, rather than the interests of the rich and powerful.
Taxes Paid By Billionaires Decreased 79 Percent Since 1980, as Percentage of Their Wealth
By Bob Lord – Chuck Collins | CounterPunch | April 16, 2020
Conventional economic wisdom says a time of crisis is not the moment to enact tax increases. But, as Eric Toder at the Tax Policy Center recently pointed out: “[Tax experts] can begin to think of the time after the pandemic passes and how government should respond to massive increases in the public debt, and the new tax increases that Congress will need to enact to fund them.”
Initial tax increases should hold harmless working- and middle-class families who will be the most economically vulnerable coming out the pandemic. The first several trillion in new revenue should come from America’s wealthiest households, those who have seen their taxes slashed over past decades.
At the top of the list of new tax increases should be a wealth tax on our billionaire class.
A new Institute for Policy Studies Inequality briefing paper, authored by Bob Lord, reveals that between 1980 and 2018, the taxes paid by America’s billionaires, when measured as a percentage of their wealth, decreased a staggering 79 percent.
The only appropriate metric by which to measure the tax burden on billionaires, the briefing paper explains, is the rate of tax they pay on their wealth. Unlike the rest of us, the living expenses of billionaires do not constrain their accumulation of wealth. Nor do they rely on their work to generate additional wealth. For billionaires, the accumulation of wealth is driven forward almost exclusively by the growth of their existing wealth and constrained almost exclusively by the tax they are required to pay. No matter how the taxes imposed on billionaires are determined – by income, consumption, property ownership, transfers by gift or bequest – they function only as a tax on wealth.
By allowing the tax burden of billionaires, as a percentage of their wealth, to plummet since 1980, policy makers have caused the nation’s wealth to concentrate obscenely at the very top. In the 12 years between 2006 and 2018, IPS reports, nearly 7 percent of America’s real increase in wealth, measured in 2018 dollars, went to the top 400 billionaires. If the pattern of the past four decades does not change, an even greater share of the nation’s newly created wealth over the next 12 years will flow to the billionaire class.
As we emerge from this pandemic with trillions of additional debt on the nation’s balance sheet, substantial tax increases are inevitable. Early out of the box should be a 10 percent surtax on the incomes of the top 0.1 percent of households, including on capital income. We should also strengthen the estate tax to limit the intergenerational transfers of wealth of billionaires. But central to the program should be a tax that limits the further accumulation – that is, hoarding – of wealth by the billionaire class. That, the IPS report concluded, requires a wealth tax:
Only an annual wealth tax — a direct tax on billionaire wealth — can reliably limit the Billionaire Class rate of wealth accumulation to a level no greater than wealth accumulation for the population at large. Other forms of taxation have valid purposes. But to rein in the Billionaire Class we need something more. And rein in we must.
Cutting military spending to fund human security is ‘The Least’ world leaders can do after pandemic – Gorbachev
RT | April 16, 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic shows that governments that think of security in mostly military terms are simply wasting money, Mikhail Gorbachev has said. Defence spending must be cut globally to fund things that humanity actually needs.
The former Soviet leader called on the world to move away from hard power in international affairs. He remains especially worried about the kind of military brinkmanship that lately has almost led to a shooting war in the Middle East.
“What we urgently need now is a rethinking of the entire concept of security,” he wrote, in an op-ed published by TIME magazine. “Even after the end of the Cold War, it has been envisioned mostly in military terms. Over the past few years, all we’ve been hearing is talk about weapons, missiles and airstrikes.”
The Covid-19 outbreak has highlighted once again that the threats humanity faces today are global in nature and can only be addressed by nations collectively. The resources currently spent on arms need to go into preparation for such crises, Gorbachev said.
“All efforts will fail if governments continue to waste money by fueling the arms race.”
“The overriding goal must be human security: providing food, water and a clean environment, and caring for people’s health,” he said.
The first thing that nations should do after the coronavirus is dealt-with is to make a commitment to a massive demilitarization.
“I call upon [world leaders] to cut military spending by 10 percent to 15 percent. This is the least they should do now, as a first step toward a new consciousness, a new civilization.”
Gorbachev, the former leader of the USSR who is credited with de-escalating the Cold War against the US and with negotiating a dramatic reduction in the nuclear arsenals of the two powers, shared his opinions and aspirations as the global number of Covid-19 cases surpassed the two-million benchmark. The pandemic has led to over 130,000 deaths and is projected to plunge the world economy into a recession of a magnitude unseen since the 1920s.
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A low-fat, high-carb diet has been the largest public health experiment in history. It’s past time for a rethink.
By Malcolm Kendrick | RT | November 25, 2020
New research suggests that four billion people globally will be overweight in 2050. This trend can be traced back to the ‘low-fat, high-carb’ guidelines first issued in the 70s, and should prompt a major U-turn on dietary advice.
A recent report from the Potsdam Institute predicts that by 2050 there will be four billion overweight people in the world, with one-and-a-half billion of them obese. This is not entirely surprising. The world has been getting fatter for years, and things do not seem to be slowing down.
Why is this happening? … continue
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