HOW MANY OF THESE RETAILERS WERE DESTROYED
BY BIDEN CRONY JEFF BEZOS?!?
BIDENOMICS TRICKLE UP ECONOMICS
Tens of millions of working people confront the daily reality of a struggle to maintain their standard of living in the face of corporate profit gouging, job cutting and relentless inflation. There is a growing wave of strikes, largely in rebellion against the oppressive weight of the trade unions, which seek to suppress the class struggle.
20 Retailers Are Melting Down Right In Front Of Our Eyes
MILLIONS WILL BE WIPED-OUT, AMAZON PLUNGE, ECONOMIC
ILLUSION, RESCUE PROGRAMS WILL SAVE THE DAY?
IS AMAZON MORE DESTRUCTIVE THAN WALMART???
Tens of millions of working people confront the daily reality of a struggle to maintain their standard of living in the face of corporate profit gouging, job cutting and relentless inflation. There is a growing wave of strikes, largely in rebellion against the oppressive weight of the trade unions, which seek to suppress the class struggle.
15 Facts That Show Amazon Is Destroying America
AREN'T THE POOR PEOPLE WHO WORK AT WALMART A KIND OF SLAVE CLASS?
THE WALTON FAMILY ARE CHINA'S BIGGEST IMPORTERS OF CHINESE CRAP!
Chinese Exports to U.S. from Uyghur Slave Region Nearly Triple Year-on-Year
Chinese customs data reviewed by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Tuesday showed exports from the Xinjiang region to the United States nearly tripled year-on-year in September 2022, despite tougher scrutiny for forced labor imposed by the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA).
The UFLPA, which was passed in December 2021 and went into effect in June 2022, effectively assumes all products from Xinjiang are tainted with slavery from the oppressed Uyghur Muslims and challenges importers to prove otherwise.
The Chinese government, which denounces all accounts of its abuse of the Uyghurs as “vicious lies” no matter how well-documented they are, was infuriated by the UFLPA and predicted it would cause massive disruptions to supply chains for goods such as cotton and solar panels. Textile companies in particular said it would be difficult to prove cotton sourced to Xinjiang was not tainted by slave labor.
That script began flipping in September, as Chinese state media boasted of record exports from the Uyghur region despite the UFLPA, while Republican lawmakers demanded to know what methods U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) was using to screen imports from Xinjiang. Congress was especially concerned about high-demand minerals with notoriously opaque supply chains.
The SCMP reported on Tuesday that exports fell by more than half in September after a summer surge, due to the slowing Chinese economy and weakening overseas demand – but at $21.05 million in value, they were still double the totals from June, when the UFLPA went into effect, and nearly three times the export volume from September 2021:
According to Chinese customs data, the top individual product Xinjiang exported to the US last month was 8 million pairs of synthetic socks worth US$1.56 million, followed by Christmas products valued at US$1.51 million.
Machinery and mechanical equipment remained the top category of products from Xinjiang shipped to the US last month, accounting for 28.9 per cent, according to calculations by the Post based on trade data.
That was followed by apparel and clothing, accounting for 11.6 per cent and worth US$2.4 million, compared with over US$9 million in August. Both have been flagged by US officials as high-risk sectors subject to the most scrutiny under the Uygur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
These soaring totals, revealed a few weeks later than usual because China delayed economic reporting during the Communist Party National Congress, came despite CBP claims that it has halted 491 shipments worth $158.6 million due to suspicion the goods were tainted by forced labor.
The SCMP noted CBP is also running behind on its quarterly data release for reasons unknown and did not offer details about the shipments it ostensibly blocked under the UFLPA.
“There are going to be some rough spots along the way, but I think we’ve been off to a remarkably good start,” CBP commissioner Chris Magnus told Bloomberg News last week.
“We’re seeing good examples of compliance so far. When you start to have some success stories, business starts to become more comfortable that there’s a way to work with this act and [with] the issue of forced labor in general,” he said.
“Ultimately this comes down to, the American public wants this,” Magnus said. “The consciousness has, by and large, been raised about this issue. People want to buy products that they can feel confident are not made with forced labor.”
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) undersecretary Robert Silvers, who chairs an interagency forced labor task force, told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in late September that DHS regards the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act as one of the most important trade laws on the books.
“When it comes to corporate compliance programs, boards of directors need to be focused on this, CEOs need to be focused on this, compliance teams certainly need to be laser focused on this,” he said.
“We are committing a lot of resources to this,” he said. “At present, this is a high commitment area, a high priority area. We do need more resources and our department looks forward to working with Congress to ensure appropriate resourcing for forced labor enforcement. But we are strongly enforcing this new law right now, with significant resources committed to it.”
Magnus and Silvers’ comments seem incongruous with the enormous surge in Xinjiang exports reported by the SCMP, especially since import companies have said the new law is very difficult for them to comply with, particularly for cotton and polysilicates.
The World Uyghur Congress (WUC), an international coalition of exiled Uyghur activists, filed suit against the British government on Tuesday for not doing enough to prevent the importation of cotton tainted with “slave labor.”
The WUC noted that 85 percent of China’s cotton is sourced to Xinjiang, and “putting internment camp detainees to work in factories is a Xinjiang-wide policy,” so a much larger volume of exports from the region should be subjected to tight scrutiny.
The British government responded that it has limited authority to investigate imports unless there is a clear connection between “alleged criminality” and a “specific product.”
Meanwhile, the European Union is considering a law similar to the UFLPA that would ban imports “for which forced labor has been used at any stage of their production, manufacture, harvest and extraction.”
Is Wal-Mart Good for America? (full documentary) | FRONTLINE
Report: Walmart, GM Lobby U.S. to Hide Import Data that Could Reveal Slave, Child Labor (MORE BOTTOM)
FUK THEM AND THE BILLIONAIRE WALTON FAMILY!
THERE WAS A TIME WHEN WALMART USED ILLEGALS TO CLEAN THEIR STORES. THEY LOCKED THEM IN AT NIGHT. ANYTHING TO AVOID PAYING LIVING WAGES.
ALL 'CHEAP' LABOR IS HEAVILY SUBSIDIZED BY MIDDLE AMERICA!
15 Reasons Why Walmart Is The Worst Company In America
VIDEO
20 Signs Of The Staggering Decline Of The American Middle Class Family
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHc3TS2JFzU
We just got more evidence that the middle class is being systematically destroyed in America. At this point, millions of people out there have already grown accustomed to barely scraping by from month to month. But that is not what being “middle class” is supposed to be about. Middle-class families should be able to make more money than they have to spend on everyday necessities because is only by doing so that they can build long-term wealth. Unfortunately, income growth has not kept up with the pace of the rising cost of living, and millions of households have taken massive amounts of debt. At the same time, the labor market doesn't offer good-paying jobs that support middle-class life, and the lack of these positions has been contributing to the decline of this income group all across the country. In the early 1970s, the middle class accounted for around 60 percent of the population, but now middle-income households are rapidly becoming a minority in the United States. And as economic conditions continue to deteriorate, millions of hard-working families all over America are being stretched financially like never before. “In America, the middle class can no longer afford retirement. Middle-class Americans face sharp economic inequality, with ownership of financial assets highly concentrated among the wealthy,” explained Tyler Bond, NIRS research manager. “Now that we have a retirement system largely built around the individual ownership of financial assets in 401(k) accounts, middle-class Americans are struggling to accumulate sufficient financial assets during their working years. This means the retirement outlook for many in the middle class is bleak at best.” Since the onset of the health crisis, the U.S. economy has been decaying at an alarming pace. Over the past two years, the middle class has gotten smaller and smaller in this country, and now it seems that another economic downturn is upon us once again. So many families are already living on the edge right now. Recent surveys have exposed that well over 50% of the population is living paycheck to paycheck and that most Americans don't have emergency savings or a financial cushion to fall back on. When you are living on the edge, there is always a danger that you could fall over. Since 2020, we have never seen so many middle-class Americans falling straight into poverty. In other words, unless dramatic changes happen in America, the middle class is going to be absolutely eviscerated in the next decade. We must wake up now. The middle class is dying right before our eyes, and if we want to save it, we must take action now. Today, we compiled a series of new numbers that expose the rapid downfall of the U.S. middle-class.
It's Too Late To Stop This Now, Get Your House In Order
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u7173SPBF8
15 Signs That The Social Decay In America Is Worse Than It Has Ever Been Before
The social fabric of the United States is rapidly deteriorating. Right now, virtually any measure of social welfare is showing us that social decay in America is accelerating at a very shocking pace. Our main institutions are either being dismantled or falling apart. At the same time, civil disorder continues to trigger unprecedented chaos in several parts of our country. Millions of Americans don't have access to proper housing, food, and education, and the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' has never been wider. The lack of proper education to help Americans thrive and accomplish financial stability is another sign of societal breakdown. Most colleges and universities are failing in one of their most basic missions: to equip students with the tools they need for a career. Millions of students graduate each year totally ill-prepared to earn a living and pay off the debt they’ve accumulated getting their degrees — at least 40% of those who start college don’t finish within six years. Despite these problems, colleges continue to raise tuition and to pay for these ever-increasing costs, students are borrowing more money and taking on more and more debt. And with federal loans accounting for much of the $1.5 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, and more than a million people defaulting on their loans, taxpayers are picking up much of the tab for this broken system while our younger generations remain utterly unprepared for the challenges of adult life. In the world’s wealthiest country, more and more people are living on the streets. Homelessness is a significant indicator of social decay. There are 750,000 Americans who are homeless on any given night, with one in five of them considered chronically homeless. Around 70% of the homeless are individuals, and families with children make up for the remaining 30%. Living without proper access to housing puts many people in very a vulnerable position, oftentimes, their lives are at risk. An examination of 20 US urban areas found that around 13,000 homeless people are victimized by disease, extreme weather, and substance abuse every year. The number of victims shot up by 77% in the five years ending in 2020. Today, the average life expectancy of a homeless person in America is just 50 years. There will be no future for us if we stay on this highly self-destructive path. The choices that we make individually and collectively as a nation are critical for the health of our society. Throughout all human history, great empires have fallen because societies have consistently made the wrong choices. So if we want to prevent the downfall of America, we must start making better choices. But if we are going to change direction, we better start doing it now because time is running out, and it won’t be too long before it is gone completely. Today, we decided to expose some worrying facts about the social breakdown happening all around us.
VIDEOS:
Why New York’s Billionaires’ Row Is Half Empty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wehsz38P74g&t=1439s
15 Signs That America Is In Much Worse Trouble Than We All Thought
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bafVveN1qlc
Today, we brought you some numbers that may be hard to digest. Even though most of us know by now that America is in trouble, many people out there don't have any idea of how deep in trouble we really are. Offense rates are shooting up tremendously right now. As the cost of basic necessities escalates, more people are stealing to feed themselves today than in any other period in the past decade. Gas theft rates are skyrocketing, as prices rise above the $5-dollar-mark. Since January, the number of carjackings has gone up by over 300% in some cities. Officers say that it's not just a few gallons being siphoned from vehicles. Now, thieves are pumping thousands of dollars' worth of fuel from gas stations and selling it for a profit. CNN reported that, in Orlando, Florida, authorities are looking for two people who they say stole more than 1,000 gallons of fuel from a gas station. In Las Vegas, Nevada, highly modified vehicles are being used to steal tens of thousands of gallons from local gas stations. And in Greenville, South Carolina, several arrests for gas thefts have been made since January. Last week, in North Carolina last week, almost 400 gallons of gas were stolen by thieves who were able to bypass the payment system. The list goes on and on, and given that gas prices are expected to continue to rise, we’re going to see many more similar cases happening until the end of the year.
Meanwhile, on dividedness, the U.S. ranks No. 1. A Pew Research Center Survey of 20 developed nations found that Americans were the most likely to say their society was split along partisan, racial, and ethnic lines. The U.S. also reported more religious division than almost any other country surveyed. The truth is that our country is rapidly falling apart. Since the 1970s, economic inequality in the U.S. has skyrocketed, leaving many Americans living paycheck to paycheck while the nation’s top earners hoard all the gains from economic growth. It's actually been 11 years since the last federal minimum wage hike, the longest span the baseline wage has gone without an increase since it began in 1938. Since the last federal minimum wage hike — to $7.25 an hour, starting July 24, 2009 — the cost of living has shot up by 20%, while the price of essentials such as housing and health care have increased even faster. The average rent back in 2009 was about $1,132, adjusted for inflation. On top of all that, the U.S. manufacturing sector is facing a historic slowdown right now, which is quite alarming given that about 12% of the nation’s total output comes from manufacturing. And the supply chain disruptions we’ve seen so far are just a hint of the chaos we are going to witness this year. As we enter peak shipping season, shipping information company Frieghtos estimates that by August the price to ship one 40-ft container from China to the US East Coast will shoot up to more than $20,000, almost twice as high as shipping rates were in January, and a 500% increase from 2019 levels. Our living standards are decaying and, at this point, we all can see our quality of life evaporating right before our eyes. That's why we compiled some sobering statistics that reveal that the crises we're facing are far more severe than most of us imagine. For more info, find us on: https://www.epiceconomist.com/ And visit: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/
Prepare for the EVICTION WAVE about to hit US Housing Market (13 MILLION NOW IN DEFAULT)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-XhzvHUgB0
Why New York’s Billionaires’ Row Is Half Empty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wehsz38P74g&t=1439s
Report: Walmart, GM Lobby U.S. to Hide Import Data that Could Reveal Slave, Child Labor
The Associated Press (AP) reported Tuesday that a coalition of major U.S. companies, including Walmart and General Motors, is quietly lobbying the government to make certain import data confidential — a change that would make it much more difficult for journalists and human rights activists to link imported goods to abusive labor practices abroad, including forced labor in China’s Xinjiang province and child labor in Africa.
Human rights lawyer Martina Vandenberg called the closed-door proposals “outrageous” and said American corporations should be “ashamed that their answer to this abuse is to end transparency.”
“Curtailing access to this information will make it harder for the public to monitor a shipping industry that already functions largely in the shadows,” agreed University of British Columbia professor Peter Klein, a prominent analyst of global supply chains.
In essence, the corporate executives who make up the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee proposed “modernizing” import/export procedures in a variety of ways, one of which would make “data collected from vessel manifests confidential.”
This would frustrate the current practice of journalists using shipping manifests to determine where goods manufactured or harvested with abusive labor practices were sent, a key tactic in pressuring U.S. companies to stop allowing forced labor into their supply chains.
As the AP pointed out, this seems directly contrary to CBP’s commitment to “boost visibility into global supply chains, support ethical sourcing practices and level the playing field for domestic U.S. manufacturers.” Corporate public relations departments have also been assuring American consumers they wish to cleanse their supply chains of forced labor and child labor.
The advisory committee suggested making customs data confidential would protect American businesses from data theft, which has become “more commonplace, severe, and consequential.”
The AP noted the committee also proposed rules that would require CBP to give advance notice to importers when it suspects they have purchased goods produced through abusive labor practices, a seemingly reasonable request that could imperil whistleblowers because abusive suppliers could be tipped off about complaints and investigations.
Labor activists complain tracking down and prosecuting abuse is already extremely difficult. Some seemingly clear-cut, high-profile lawsuits have been dismissed by judges because the evidence was not airtight enough. On the other hand, importers complain that lawsuits are fantastically expensive and can take years to resolve.
The U.S. Department of Labor in late September announced new initiatives to crack down on forced and child labor, including new reports identifying some of the most problematic regions of the world.
Both U.S. and international analysts believe abusive labor practices have grown more widespread over the past few years. The latest edition of the Labor Department’s list of goods tainted with child or forced labor added 32 more items to a roster that already included 158 products from 77 countries.
One of the top headlines in the struggle against labor abuses was the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which took effect in June 2022. The UFLPA effectively assumes all products from China’s Xinjiang province, which the indigenous population call East Turkistan, are tainted by labor coerced from the Uyghur Muslims and other oppressed minorities, challenging importers to prove otherwise.
Xinjiang is by no means the only area of concern in the world. Another is the alleged use of child labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to mine cobalt, a mineral in high demand for use in rechargeable batteries. Many of the estimated 40,000 children employed in DRC cobalt mining are reportedly digging with their bare hands.
Another industry of great concern is acai berry harvesting in Brazil. Acai berries, which have become one of the most popular “superfoods” for their pleasing taste and antioxidant qualities, grow near the top of South American palm trees that can exceed 60 feet in height. Adults are too heavy to reach the fragile tops of these trees, so children are tasked with climbing their trunks and using saw blades to cut the berries loose.
This practice is every bit as dangerous as it sounds, especially since venomous snakes and insects infest the dense forests, along with quite a few venomous people. Poor local families are willing to risk their children for low wages in an almost completely unregulated industry to obtain the berries, even though the injury rate for tree-climbers is horrific, and repeatedly climbing the trees can actually stunt a child’s growth.
Numerous complaints have been filed against Zimbabwe’s gold mining industry for using child labor, and many of the mines are owned by Chinese companies that have been accused of severely abusing local employees. Independent or “artisanal” gold mining, which sees desperately poor families sending young children to pan for gold along river banks, is illegal in Zimbabwe, but the practice is so widespread that the authorities cannot control it.
Less than two years after January 6 coup, why are the Republicans surging?
Less than two years after Trump and the bulk of the Republican Party attempted a fascistic coup to overturn the elections and establish a presidential dictatorship, the Republicans are running neck and neck with the Democrats in the US midterm elections.
According to the endless barrage of polls, it is increasingly likely that the Republican Party will win control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate as well. They may also take control of state governments previously held by Democrats.
That this is even possible, after the violent assault on the Capitol and Congress on January 6, 2021, by a mob of Trump supporters, is a massive indictment of Biden and the Democrats.
Working people are trapped within a political system that does not allow them any way to express their interests. A majority of Republican candidates have embraced the bogus “stolen election” claims of Donald Trump, defeated and thrown out of office in 2020 by near-landslide margins. Poorly attended campaign rallies addressed by Trump now incorporate the fascistic and anti-Semitic language of the delusional QAnon movement and the white supremacist “Great Replacement” theory (that immigration across the US-Mexico border is part of a Jewish conspiracy to “replace” whites with black and brown people from Asia, Africa and Latin America).
Meanwhile Democratic leaders cracked down this week on an extremely timid suggestion by 30 members of Congress, who had urged the administration to move towards negotiations with Russia rather than pursue a strategy of essentially endless war over Ukraine that could escalate into the use of nuclear weapons. Within 24 hours, the Progressive Caucus had withdrawn the letter to the White House and issued a call for further escalation.
It was Biden who opposed any effort to hold the Republican Party responsible for Trump’s attempt to overthrow the government and remain in power as a president-dictator. Far from meting out any punishment to the senators and representatives who openly encouraged the violent attack, Biden declared that the country needed a “strong Republican Party.” He pursued a political strategy of seeking bipartisan agreement with “my Republican friends,” above all, on foreign policy issues, as the US goaded Putin into invading Ukraine and then seized on the invasion for a US-NATO military intervention.
After January 6, 2021, the Department of Justice (DOJ), under Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland, has proceeded at a snail’s pace in its investigation of the attempted coup. The only charges brought against the high-level coup plotters—as opposed to their violent foot soldiers—has been a single charge of contempt of Congress for Trump adviser Steve Bannon. Trump himself, the coup plotter-in-chief, was only subpoenaed by the House committee investigating January 6 last week. He has never been questioned by the DOJ.
Biden has limited his personal involvement in response to the attempted coup to a single speech in September, in which he declared that American democracy faced its greatest threat since the Civil War—and then dropped the subject entirely.
In a commentary published Tuesday on CNN.com, Biden reiterated what is in effect his “closing argument” in the election campaign, with no mention of January 6 or of the takeover of the Republican Party by fascists and anti-Semites. The gulf between the privileged capitalist elite and the working class was stark, as Biden hailed the “enormous progress” made under his administration in building a better and fairer economy.
He blamed inflation on the pandemic and “Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine,” without referring to the actual driving force of the global financial crisis, the outlay of trillions of dollars, euros, pounds and other currencies to bail out the banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions, allowing them to escape the crisis in March 2020 triggered by the onset of COVID-19. Since then, the billionaires have seen their wealth multiply, while working class families face runaway inflation and now a looming recession.
Biden sought to portray a handful of minor gestures, such as allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices and a cap on insulin payments for seniors, as major reforms, in an effort to disguise the dropping of virtually all significant measures on education, health care, police violence, voting rights and an extended and expanded child tax credit—mainly because of opposition within his own party.
In the midterm elections, the Democrats have given the Republicans a gift by their full-throated support for war and the fact that they are proposing nothing to address the social and economic crisis confronting the vast majority of the population. This is combined with the endless obsession of the Democrats with issues of race and gender, aimed at appealing to and mobilizing a section of the upper-middle class that is ferociously pro-war and anti-working class.
If the Republican Party wins the midterm elections or control of the House or Senate, it is not an indication of mass popular support either for its right-wing pro-corporate program or for the fascists and racists who increasingly dominate it.
As the WSWS wrote in response to Biden’s speech in September, “In America’s entrenched two-party system, sections of workers and the middle class back the Republican Party not out of conviction but by default. To the extent that Trump has a base, it is because the Democrats have nothing to offer, and the Republicans are expert at manipulating real grievances and discontent.”
Whichever party wins, American imperialism will press ahead with its program of war abroad and social counterrevolution at home. And this under conditions where the post-election period is likely to be dominated by a new and massive surge in the COVID-19 pandemic, as new variants, some already detected and identified, display both greater infection and greater ability to evade the limited immunity produced by vaccinations.
There is an alternative to this political nightmare of war and reaction, but it will not come from either of the two corporate-controlled parties. The vast majority of the American population, the working class, is entirely unrepresented in the electoral system.
Tens of millions of working people confront the daily reality of a struggle to maintain their standard of living in the face of corporate profit gouging, job cutting and relentless inflation. There is a growing wave of strikes, largely in rebellion against the oppressive weight of the trade unions, which seek to suppress the class struggle.
These struggles require independent forms of organization and an independent political axis. The Socialist Equality Party is fighting for the establishment of rank-and-file committees in workplaces and neighborhoods, to take forward the class struggle and break the stranglehold of the union officialdom.
It is not an accident that the only political campaign that is raising the central issues facing working people, including the danger of war and dictatorship, is not taking place in any of the contests on the ballot November 8. It is the campaign by socialist Will Lehman in the United Auto Workers presidential election, where voting has already begun and continues into mid-November.
The entry of the American working class into independent political struggle, on the basis of a revolutionary socialist program, is the way forward to defend jobs, living standards and democratic rights and stop the drive to World War III.
