The Five Most Dangerous Viral Conspiracy Theories

 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-infodemic-2020-conspiracy-theories_n_5fecfd8bc5b6e7974fd1bde0

'This Is Warp Speed?' At Current Pace, US Will Take 10 Years to Adequately Vaccinate the Public Against Covid-19, Analysis Warns

'This Is Warp Speed?' At Current Pace, US Will Take 10 Years to Adequately Vaccinate the Public Against Covid-19, Analysis Warns

Neoliberalism Defined

 Dollars and Sense. 

Neoliberalism defined. 

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2020/1120macewan.html

 

Has Neoliberalism Underfunded Schools?

BY ARTHUR MACEWAN | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020. DOLLARS AND SENSE. 

Dear Dr. Dollar:

Covid-19 has created severe problems for schools, kids, their parents, and the schools’ teachers and staff. But weren’t these problems already there and worsened by the long-term underfunding of the schools? —Anonymous, via email 

Let me begin to answer your question by presenting you with an apparent contradiction. On the one hand, it is widely perceived that our public schools are underfunded. Moreover, it is easy to lay the problems of underfunding at the doorstep of neoliberalism, with its emphasis on reducing government support for public services and on privatization. On the other hand, expenditures on pre-K–12 public schools in the United States have risen substantially over recent decades. I’ll come back to those rising expenditures shortly. It is useful, however, to first place the widespread concerns about underfunding in context.

Neoliberalism

A central part of that context is the importance of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism became a dominant ideological force affecting economic policy in the 1980s. Earlier, in the post-World War II era, economic policy in the United States was by no means anti-business. But alongside private businesses operating for profit and an acceptance of the idea that markets should be the major determinants of economic activity, policy was also based on the view that government should play a substantial role by providing the foundation for private activity. Coming out of the Great Depression and World War II, government maintained a framework for unionization and a minimum wage, created various worker protections, expanded Social Security, and established Medicare and Medicaid—to say nothing of civil rights legislation that had economic impacts. Also, of course, Keynesian ideas were dominant, which prescribed a major role for fiscal policy—government spending and taxation—as a means of taming, if not eliminating, recessions and inflation.

Neoliberalism, embraced by conservatives in both parties, touted reliance on the “free market” as the path to progress. According to this doctrine, government should remove itself as much as possible from economic activity, relying on private firms motivated by profit to handle economic and social affairs (think prisons and hospitals). The government could spend money on social programs, including education, but, according to this outlook, it should be private firms that do the job—educating children for example. Furthermore, the argument goes, private firms would be more efficient than government programs, allowing government spending to be reduced. So, in the ideology of neoliberalism, less government spending and privatization went together. Leaving aside the question of whether there is really such a thing as the “free market” (but see sidebar, “The Free Market?”), the term “neoliberalism” is confusing because it is an ideology associated with political conservatives, not political liberals. In the 19th century, the era when classical liberalism emerged, the term “liberalism” developed in association with those who favored a reduction in government control of the economy. And it is from that economic use of the term that neoliberalism emerged in the modern era.

 

 

10 Things You Should Know About Socialism | Yes! Magazine

10 Things You Should Know About Socialism | Yes! Magazine: What do we mean when we talk about “socialism”? Here are ten things about its theory, practice, and potential that you need to know.

Austerity Politics: Bernie Sanders

Late last night, Congress passed a $908 billion COVID relief bill that will extend unemployment benefits through the early spring, provide support for small businesses, schools, health care, nutrition, rental assistance, childcare, broadband, and the Postal Service, as well as funding to help distribute vaccines.

This legislation also includes, importantly, a $600 direct payment for every working class American earning less than $75,000 a year or $150,000 for a couple — plus $600 for each child. Let me be clear: this provision was not in the bill just two weeks ago. And, given the enormous economic desperation that so many working families are now experiencing, it is nowhere near enough as to what is needed. But, given the strong opposition of the Republican leadership in Congress and a number of Democrats, it’s no stretch to say that it would not have happened at all without our efforts, the hard work of progressive members in the U.S. House and grassroots progressives throughout the country. Republican Senator Josh Hawley also played an important role.

But let me state the obvious. The total funding in this bill was not even close to good enough, and my fear is that by reaching this agreement we are setting a bad precedent and setting the stage for a return to austerity politics now that Joe Biden is set to take office. 

Remember, way back in May, the House passed a $3.4 trillion HEROES Act, which was a very serious effort to address the enormous health and economic crises facing our country. Two months later, the House passed another version of that bill for $2.2 trillion.

That same month, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed a $1.1 trillion piece of legislation that included a $1,200 direct payment for every working class American. 

Months later, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, negotiating on behalf of President Donald Trump, proposed a COVID relief plan with Speaker Pelosi for $1.8 trillion that also included a $1,200 direct payment. 

And yet, after months of bi-partisan negotiations by the so-called Gang of 8, we ended up with a bill of just $908 billion that includes $560 billion in unused money from the previously passed CARES Act — a worse deal than was previously proposed by Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump.

So we went from $3.4 trillion, to $2.2 trillion, to $1.8 trillion from Trump and $1.1 trillion from Mitch McConnell to just $348 billion in new money — roughly 10 percent of what Democrats thought was originally needed and half of what Trump and McConnell offered in direct payments. 

This is not good negotiating. This is a collapse.

It is also no coincidence that as it became clear Joe Biden would become the next president of the United States, we started to hear a lot of talk from my Senate colleagues in the Republican Party about their old friend the deficit.

We couldn’t afford $1,200 for every working class American and $500 for their children because of the deficit.

We couldn’t afford to support state and local governments struggling during the middle of this health and economic crisis because of the deficit.

We couldn’t afford more meaningful and robust unemployment benefits for those who lost their jobs during the middle of this pandemic because of the deficit.

Yet, this is the same Republican Party so concerned about the deficit that they passed a $1.9 trillion tax bill benefiting some of the richest people and largest corporations in this country.

This is the same Republican Party so concerned about the deficit that they, just last week, pushed through the largest defense spending bill in the history of this country, a total of $740 billion. This is more money than the next 10 nations combined spend in their defense budgets. 

This is the same Republican Party so concerned about the deficit that they spent trillions of dollars on war over the past two decades. 

This is the same Republican Party so concerned about the deficit that it gives hundreds of billions of dollars in giveaways to oil, gas and coal companies that exacerbate the climate crisis. 

This is the same Republican Party so concerned about the deficit that it provides huge amounts of corporate welfare to companies like Walmart that pay their workers starvation wages and provide them meager benefits that must be supplemented by taxpayer-supported programs.

And during any of these debates, do you recall any of my Republican colleagues asking how these proposals were going to be paid for? I don’t. So forgive me for thinking their sudden display of concern for the deficit seems a bit insincere. More to the point: it’s total hypocrisy!

And our concern at this moment is that no matter what happens in Georgia next month, and which party controls the Senate, we cannot allow this type of inadequate negotiation again on major legislation. Yes. The deficit is important, but it is not the most important thing. At this unprecedented moment in American history, with a growing gap between the very rich and everyone else, and when many millions of Americans are suffering, Democrats in Congress must stand up for the working families of our country. No more caving in.

Today, half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, one out of four workers are either unemployed or making less than $20,000 a year, more than 90 million Americans are uninsured or under-insured, tens of millions of people face eviction, and hunger in America is exploding. Tragically, there is more economic desperation in our country today than at any point since the Great Depression.

We have a responsibility to the struggling families of our country.

And let's be honest: if we allow Republicans to set the parameters of the debate going forward, like they did in this current COVID relief bill, the next two to four years are going to be a disaster.

Want to expand health care? Where’s the money going to come from?

Want to rebuild our infrastructure? Where’s the money going to come from?

Want a Green New Deal, or even support for Joe Biden’s more modest climate proposal? Where’s the money going to come from?

So the fundamental political question of our time is: are we going to allow Mitch McConnell, the Republican Party and corporate America to return us to austerity politics, or are we going to build a dynamic economy that works for everyone?

My fear is that this COVID relief bill sets a very dangerous precedent for when Joe Biden takes office next month. And we cannot allow that to happen.

Going forward, Democrats must have an aggressive agenda that speaks to the needs of the working class in this country, income and wealth inequality, health care, climate change, education, racial justice, immigration reform and so many other vitally important issues. And in that struggle, we all have a role to play. So please, make your voice heard in the weeks and months ahead. Call your members of Congress, post your thoughts on social media, encourage progressives in your community to run for office, and volunteer and contribute to those who will fight for a government that will work for all of us, and not just the 1 percent and wealthy campaign contributors in this country.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

---

 

What Austerity Will Cost Us

 

First Response    David Dayen. American Prospect

After a weekend full of impasses and breakthroughs, today a COVID relief bill will pass, nearly nine months after the last one, nearly five months after the boosted unemployment from the last one expired, a little over eight months after the first people got government checks to deal with the economic pain. The final sticking point, on the extent of cancellation of Fed lending programs, was handled over the weekend. The relief package is paired with an omnibus spending bill that includes a fix on surprise billing (our coverage, with the addition that Medicare and Medicaid rates have been thrown out of the assessment of the median network rate, making this friendlier to private equity-backed providers), an energy bill, a water bill (our coverage), a 25-years-in-the-making fix that restores Medicaid for Marshall Islands natives living in the U.S., $1.4 billion in border wall money, the entire tax extenders bill (which yields annual chuckles about tax breaks for Puerto Rican rum and thoroughbred horses), loan forgiveness for HBCUs, technical corrections to the trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, and an intelligence authorization bill. Obviously, this was the last train leaving the station this Congress. But with federal spending now set until September 2021, there’s no obvious must-pass moment for the next nine months, and with tight margins in Congress making this a "starter home," with additional relief down the road, will be very difficult. That makes the scope of the bill rather important.

Read all of our Unsanitized reports here Click to Support The American Prospect

There’s nothing objectionable in this bill. (OK, one thing, which I’ll explain later.) It takes as its framework something I suggested on November 12: "Slice the money cannon into money for the people." This was kind of an accounting gimmick, as the money cannon didn’t technically have a CBO score (it’s complicated). But that’s what helped sell Republicans, the idea that they weren’t spending much "new" money because they were canceling out the corporate credit facilities. Whatever myth they told themselves, it got this deal done. (That and the threat of losing their Senate majority in the Georgia runoffs. The nation thanks David Perdue for coming 0.3 percent short of a simple majority in November!) So roughly $430 billion in corporate trickle-down money was converted into $600 means-tested checks for adults and children; mixed-status families will get the money and the checks could roll out as soon as next week. It was converted into 11 weeks of extended unemployment programs for gig workers and freelancers, as well as extended benefits, and a $300/week increase for all UI programs. Those two pieces have a value of $286 billion, less than the money cannon reserve. Add $25 billion in rental assistance, $20 billion for businesses in low-income communities, $14 billion to maintain mass transit systems, $13 billion for expanded nutrition assistance, $10 billion to sustain child care facilities, and $7 billion for broadband assistance for mostly poor families, and you’re still not there. There’s another $525 billion in the bill besides all that, mostly for another round of PPP for small business (with bigger grants for restaurants), another $15 billion airline bailout, $82 billion for schools, $69 billion for hospitals, vaccines, testing and tracing (will elaborate later), and a ridiculous meals deduction to satisfy Trump. So again: nothing objectionable. OK, here’s the one thing: the PPP tax "double dip." PPP grants are already tax-free, but small business owners want to be able to deduct expenses like payroll, as they would normally do, that was paid out with those tax-free grants. Progressives call this a "double dip" while a bipartisan group of lawmakers, pushed by affected industries, wanted this badly. Steve Mnuchin sided with the progressives, actually, but Republicans complained on a call yesterday and he reversed himself. What’s odd is that no Democrats come up in the conversation at all. This deductibility issue, while not scored, could be worth up to $200 billion to the affected businesses. Did Democrats ask for something in exchange for business relief? Looks like they didn’t.

We Depend on Your Donations

The only issue with this bill is, simply, it’s not enough. An artificial cap placed on the total cost limited the spending: the checks and the unemployment boost is half of its equivalent in the CARES Act. About 13.5 million adult dependents are ineligible for checks—this includes people with disabilities—for no articulable reason. Five weeks were slashed from the unemployment extension. State and local government aid doesn’t exist (there are individual grants for things state and local government provides, but it doesn’t amount to very much). Hazard pay and lots of other provisions were excised from Democratic wish lists for the sake of fiscal probity. This popular tweet about America spending twice as much as its industrialized counterparts is really about the paucity of our safety net; other countries do this stuff automatically. How "not enough" is it? That entirely depends on the vaccine rollout. The unemployment provisions start to fade in mid-March and are gone by April. The one-time check is one time. PPP grants cover two and a half months of salary (three and a half for restaurants). Are we going to be back to normal by April? Incoming surgeon general Vivek Murthy told Meet the Pressyesterday that widespread distribution may not come until "early fall." That would be the biggest failing of this bill. Negotiators did increase funds for vaccine procurement (up to $20 billion) and distribution (around $9 billion). They also extended the deadline for states to use CARES Act funds for COVID-related costs, which could go to vaccines. But far greater amounts would have to be expended to really shift the timeline of immunization. Put it this way: in the first week of the Pfizer vaccine, 556,000 Americans got a dose. Joe Biden’s vision is for twice as many to get doses per day in his first 100 days. And if you say that 150 million people have to be immunized to reach herd immunity, and each need two shots (at least of the vaccines approved now), that gets you to herd immunity in … about 300 days. Nearly a year. Now, there are now two vaccines approved for use, and maybe more coming. This will accelerate, and it’s the most significant logistical project in history, not one that will begin perfectly smoothly. But any expenditures that accelerate takeup will immediately pay off for the economy. That should have been the biggest item in this bill, not a $29 billion afterthought. In fact, eight months ago we should have been spending significantly to build and retool factories, hire logistical personnel, etc. Right now we can spend to re-orient vaccine production for non-approved makers to produce this vaccine. We did Operation Warp Speed for vaccine development and not distribution. If things work out and we start rolling out the vaccine widely in spring, this will have been a successful effort, for which we can thank Republican fears about Georgia. There will still be the nettlesome problem of state and local austerity to take care of, and a whole bunch of economic disruption. But the longer vaccine distribution takes, the worse this ends up looking.

To Control the Virus- Spend Big !

 To control the virus, Biden needs to spend big.  Stimulus.

 

https://inthesetimes.com/article/biden-stimulus-covid-debt-green-new-deal

 

Max Sawicky. 

Democratic Socialists Win Election Campaigns

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/the-number-of-democratic-socialists-in-the-house-will-soon-double-but-the-movement-scored-its-biggest-victories-down-ballot

Peter Dreier 

Trump's Stop the Steal Campaign

 Trump's Stop the Steal campaign has a dangerous past- Nazi Germany 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/opinion/trump-conspiracy-germany-1918.html

...

The startling aspect about the Dolchstosslegende is this: It did not grow weaker after 1918 but stronger. In the face of humiliation and unable or unwilling to cope with the truth, many Germans embarked on a disastrous self-delusion: The nation had been betrayed, but its honor and greatness could never be lost. And those without a sense of national duty and righteousness — the left and even the elected government of the new republic — could never be legitimate custodians of the country.

In this way, the myth was not just the sharp wedge that drove the Weimar Republic apart. It was also at the heart of Nazi propaganda, and instrumental in justifying violence against opponents. The key to Hitler’s success was that, by 1933, a considerable part of the German electorate had put the ideas embodied in the myth — honor, greatness, national pride — above democracy.

California lags behind in available hospital beds

 By Thomas Fuller and Manny Fernandez

·       Dec. 1, 2020NYT>

SAN FRANCISCO — For all its size and economic might, California has long had few hospital beds relative to its population, a shortfall that state officials now say may prove catastrophic.

California is experiencing its largest surge in coronavirus cases with an average of nearly 15,000 new cases a day, an increase of 50 percent from the previous record over the summer.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/01/us/california-hospital-bed-shortage.html