Poor People's Campaign - Sunday

 

A Memo to Democrats

A Memo to Democrats: We will win this election if we convince voters we care about their economic well-being.

Social Security is Being Looted by Private Insurance

 The New York Times just reported:¹

Private health insurance corporations are reaching into the Medicare trust fund and helping themselves to boatloads of our cash―and trying to bankrupt Medicare in the process!

When seniors retire, they have a choice between traditional Medicare, which guarantees health care, or insurance-run Medicare Advantage plans, which tempt seniors with lowered premiums and dental coverage, then turn around and deny necessary health coverage in pursuit of profit!

The Three Biggest GOP Lies of the Midterms,

 The 3 biggest GOP lies of the midterms (in addition to the Big Lie) Robert Reich,

 

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-3-biggest-gop-lies-of-the-midterms#details

Uncomfortable Truths That Could Yet Defeat Fascism

 Saving Democracy: Pro democracy forces.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/opinion/midterm-democracy-crisis.html

 

By Anand Giridharadas

Mr. Giridharadas is the author, most recently, of “The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy.”

Polls swing this way and that way, but the larger story they tell is unmistakable. With the midterm elections, Americans are being offered a clear choice between continued and expanded liberal democracy, on the one hand, and fascism, on the other. And it’s more or less a dead heat.

It is time to speak an uncomfortable truth: The pro-democracy side is at risk not just because of potential electoral rigging, voter suppression and other forms of unfair play by the right, as real as those things are. In America (as in various other countries), the pro-democracy cause — a coalition of progressives, liberals, moderates, even decent Republicans who still believe in free elections and facts — is struggling to win the battle for hearts and minds.

The pro-democracy side can still very much prevail. But it needs to go beyond its present modus operandi, a mix of fatalism and despair and living in perpetual reaction to the right and policy wonkiness and praying for indictments. It needs to build a new and improved movement — feisty, galvanizing, magnanimous, rooted and expansionary — that can outcompete the fascists and seize the age.

I believe pro-democracy forces can do this because I spent the past few years reporting on people full of hope who show a way forward, organizers who refuse to give in to fatalism about their country or its citizens. These organizers are doing yeoman’s work changing minds and expanding support for true multiracial democracy, and they recognize what more of their allies on the left must: The fascists are doing as well as they are because they understand people as they are and cater to deep unmet needs, and any pro-democracy movement worth its salt needs to match them at that — but for good

Continue reading the main story

 their own circles and sometimes in public, these organizers warn that the right is outcompeting small-d democrats in its psychological insight into voters and their anxieties, its messaging, its knack for narrative, its instinct to make its cause not just a policy program but also a home offering meaning, comfort and belonging. They worry, meanwhile, that their own allies can be hamstrung by a naïve and high-minded view of human nature, a bias for the wonky over the guttural, a self-sabotaging coolness toward those who don’t perfectly understand, a quaint belief in going high against opponents who keep stooping to new lows and a lack of fight and a lack of talent at seizing the mic and telling the kinds of galvanizing stories that bend nations’ arcs.

The organizers I’ve been following believe they have a playbook for a pro-democracy movement that can go beyond merely resisting to winning. It involves more than just serving up sound public policy and warning that the other side is dangerous; it also means creating an approachable, edifying, transcendent movement to dazzle and pull people in. For many on the left, embracing the organizers’ playbook will require leaving behind old habits and learning new ones. What is at stake, of course, is everything.

Command Attention

Cheers for Social Security’s Cost-of-Living Adjustment

Cheers for Social Security’s Cost-of-Living Adjustment: It will compensate seniors for the bout of inflation. Workers deserve as much.

One Union's View of the 2022 Midterms

 Defending Workers’ Interests in a Rigged System

Statement of the UE General Executive Board The situation working people find ourselves in as we approach the midterm elections — a cost-of-living crisis, broken labor law, and 

assaults on our rights and liberties — requires decisive action 

from our government. However, we are prevented from exercising democratic control over our society and economy by a corrupt two-party system that is fueled by corporate cash, 

and enabled by divisions among working people and increasing cynicism about democracy itself.

read more.

www.ueunion.org

Poor People's Campaign. Saturday Sacramento

 

Join Sacramento rally for National Day of Action Saturday Oct. 15, 10am (gather), 11am (march) Crocker Park: 211 O St., Sacramento CA 95814 Sacramento is the California site for the PPC National Day of Action, when we’ll bring our demands to Main Streets all across the nation. This is a key component of our midterm election campaign to mobilize poor and low-income people and low-wage workers to the polls. Voting rights are on the ballot. Living wages are on the ballot. Reproductive justice is on the ballot. Healthcare is on the ballot. Our climate is on the ballot. On October 15, we'll make them hear us coast to coast! (Photo above by David Solnit.) Let us know if you can be with us for this historic march. We also need volunteers to help organize. Contact us if you can come or lend a hand. Brother Carter: kcwethepeople@gmail.com Steven Payán 530payan@gmail.com

5 Myths About Inflation

5 Inflation Myths. Every week we see prices rising—at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and at clothing stores. Across the country, families are having to cut back spending as the value of their dollars shrink.   The reasons for escalating inflation are hotly debated, but some theories gaining traction have not been grounded in the data. EPI research sets the record straight on the causes of inflation—and how policymakers can best restrain it. Below, we debunk 5 top inflation myths.

Myth #1: Workers’ wage growth is driving inflation. Nominal wage growth—while faster relative to the recent past—has lagged far behind inflation, meaning that labor costs have been dampening, not amplifying, inflationary pressures all along.   Myth #2: Corporate profits are not contributing to inflation. In fact, fatter corporate profit margins have driven over half of the increase in prices in the nonfinancial corporate sector between the second quarter of 2020 and the end of 2021. This is not normal. From 1979 to 2019, profits only contributed about 11% to price growth. Ignoring the role of profits makes inflation analyses a lot weaker.    Myth #3: Federal relief and recovery measures overheated the economy and fed inflation. Evidence from the past 40 years suggests strongly that profit margins should shrink and the share of corporate income going to labor compensation should rise as unemployment falls and the economy heats up. But the exact opposite pattern has happened so far in the recovery—casting much doubt on inflation expectations rooted simply in claims of macroeconomic overheating. In short, the labor market is strong, but it’s not overheating.

Myth #4: Removing import tariffs would be a major tool to fight inflation. Tariffs were put in place far before early 2021 when inflation began rising, and eliminating tariffs could not significantly restrain it. Further, removing tariffs would not be costless. Tariff removal could result in job losses, plant closures, cancellations of planned investments, and further destabilization of the domestic manufacturing base, which would increase domestic dependence on unstable import supply chains.   Myth #5: Investments in child and elder care would accelerate inflation. In fact, investments in child and elder care could help restrain inflationary pressures. By subsidizing families’ use of child and elder care, such investments could boost future labor supply by allowing parents or elder’s care-givers to look for paid employment while remaining confident their family members are receiving care. Duane, EPI research corrects false narratives that result in anti-worker policies. Please help us spread the word by sharing this blog post with your networks and, if you are able, please consider making a gift to support EPI’s important work. Thank you for your support and for helping EPI by sharing our research and resources with your network. We appreciate everything you do for our collective movement.  EPI Staff

 

See also;  Robert Reich 

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/bezoss-inflation-idiocy

  

Is the Fed Breaking Too Hard ? Paul Krugman

 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/opinion/columnists/federal-reserve-inflation.html?