7 April 2020 — theplanningmotivedotcom
The markets have taken solace from the various fiscal, rather than monetary stimuli, recently introduced, including the $2.2 trillion package by the US Senate. CNBC has observed that: markets have moved sideways over the last 7 sessions. However, as the economic news becomes more disastrous it is likely that this temporary floor will not hold. Already governments, including in the US, are considering additional measures.
5 April 2020 — Origin: Global Research
Do not let yourself be misled by the fear campaign, pointing to a Worldwide coronavirus calamity with repeated “predictions” that hundreds of thousands of people are going to die.
These are boldface lies. Scientific assessments of the health impacts of the COVID-19 have been withheld, they do not make the headlines.
6 April 2020 — Counter Currents
When capitalism screeches to a halt and starts its old business of killing off the adventurous but weakened, the enterprising but foolish, those who initially benefited, shed tears. Losses mount, accountants tally up current and future losses. Huge profits somehow do not matter now, as the diminishing balances bite and impress. As this happens, the corporatocrats start to search. Options usually end up at the same spot they always tend to in the last few centuries: the state treasury, the public purse.
6 April 2020 — Michael Roberts Blog
There are now two billion people across the world living under some form of lockdown as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. That’s a quarter of the world’s population. The world economy has seen nothing like this. Nearly all economic forecasts for global GDP in 2020 are for a contraction of 3-5%, as bad if not worse than in the Great Recession of 2008-9.
31 March 2020 — Open Democracy
“Global yields lowest in 500 years of recorded history. $10 trillion of negative rate bonds. This is a supernova that will explode one day,” tweeted Bill Gross, the ‘bond king’, in 2016.
This day has come closer. Capitalism now faces the deepest crisis in its several centuries of existence. A global slump has begun that is already devastating the lives of hundreds of millions of working people on all continents. The consequences for workers and poor people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America will be even more extreme than for those living in Europe and North America, both with respect to lives lost to coronavirus and to the existential threats to the billions of people already living in extreme poverty. Capitalism, an economic system based on selfishness, greed and dog-eat-dog competition, will more clearly than ever reveal itself to be incompatible with civilisation.
4 April 2020 — The Canary
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has descended into further chaos amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. But its latest move to try and keep itself afloat amid ‘unprecedented times’ is actually utterly twisted.
Continue reading
3 April 2020 — The Most Revolutionary Act
Work Want Work: Labour and Desire at the End of Capitalism
By Mareile Pfannebecker and J.A. Smith
Zed Books (2020)
Book Review
In this book, authors Pfannebecker and Smith summarize the current anti-work movement and literature. In view of rapid displacement of blue and white collar workers by robots and computers, coupled with the offshoring of most manufacturing jobs, there are growing calls for an end to waged work altogether.
3 April 2020– Origin: Climate & Capitalism
Essays by pioneering ecosocialist Joel Kovel argue that radical social change is the only way to prevent ecocatastrophe
Mike Shaughnessy is a member of Green Left, the ecosocialist current in the Green Party of England and Wales.
Quincy Saul, Editor
THE EMERGENCE OF ECOSOCIALISM
Collected Essays by Joel Kovel
2Leaf Press, 2019
reviewed by Mike Shaughnessy
London Green Left Blog
2 April 2020 — Novara Media
by Grace Blakeley @GraceBlakeley
Research this week from a network of accountants suggests that up to one million small businesses – 20% of the UK’s total – will run out of cash before the coronavirus crisis ends.
This prediction provides yet more evidence of what we already knew; this crisis will fundamentally transform the UK’s corporate environment. When it finally ends, there will be fewer firms left, and those that remain will be much more significant, in terms of both size and political power.
2 April 2020 — Source: Off Guardian
On 12 March, British PM Boris Johnson informed the public that families would continue to “lose loved ones before their time” as the coronavirus outbreak worsens. He added:
We’ve all got to be clear, this is the worst public health crisis for a generation.”
In a report, the Imperial College had warned of modelling that suggested over 500,000 would die from the virus in the UK. The lead author of the report, epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, has since revised the estimate downward to a maximum of 20,000 if current ‘lockdown’ measures work. Johnson seems to have based his statement on Ferguson’s original figures.
2 April 2020 — Global Justice Now
As coronavirus gets a foothold in every country, governments in the global south are facing an appalling choice: pay for emergency healthcare, or pay off international debts.
Across Africa, Asia and Latin America, lower-income countries urgently need to scale up their health spending. But they’re due to spend over $25 billion on debt payments in 2020. This is money that could be used now to save lives as this terrible virus continues to spread.
2 Aril 2020 — Jonathan Cook
Things often look the way they do because someone claiming authority tells us they look that way. If that sounds too cynical, pause for a moment and reflect on what seemed most important to you just a year ago, or even a few weeks ago.
