Sri Lankan government increases VAT and other taxes in a new round of social attacks

Saman Gunadasa

On Tuesday, the Sri Lankan government sharply increased a range of taxes, driving up the cost of hundreds of items. These hikes will worsen existing inflation rates and push many more people into starvation. The already unbearable cost of essential food items has forced many workers and the poor to reduce the quality and quantity of basic foods, skipping at least one meal a day.

Ranil Wickremesinghe [Source: United National Party Facebook]

The cabinet-approved proposals presented by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is also the finance minister, increases the Value Added Tax (VAT), income taxes and imposes surcharges on certain goods.

The prime minister’s office estimates that these increases will add 300 billion rupees ($US836 million) annually to the dried-up state coffers. Half of the amount is expected to come from the increase in VAT.

The new measures include:

* An immediate increase in VAT to 12 percent, up from 8 percent, and applicable to almost all products and services. The current VAT annual turnover threshold will be reduced from 300 billion rupees to 120 million rupees in October 2022, drastically hitting small businesses.

* The current levy on telecom services was immediately increased from 11.25 percent to 15 percent, driving up the cost of all telecommunications.

* The imposition of a 5 percent withholding tax on interest payments from savings, including pensioners’ deposits. Pensioners over 60 years of age are exempted, but only up to 1.5 million rupees of their savings.

* The current 3 million rupees annual income threshold for Personal Income Tax relief will be slashed to just 1.8 million rupees, which means that tens of thousands more workers will have to pay tax.

* An increase in the corporate income tax rate from 24 percent to 30 percent, in line with other countries in South Asia, along with a 1 percent rise in the concessionary corporate tax applicable to some sectors, from 14 to 15 percent.

* Massive tax increases or surcharges were also imposed via a separate gazette on several imported items, including food, by branding them unessential. These include an 850 percent tax on butter, 250 percent on cheese, and 100 percent on other dairy products, 200 percent on chocolates and 100 percent on fruit juices, alcohol and tobacco. The cost of imported fruits, such as apple, oranges and dates, will be two or three times higher than current prices.

A 75 percent surcharge was also imposed on cosmetics and 25 to 50 percent on footwear and other imported goods, while basic electrical appliances, such as mobile phones, rice cookers and refrigerators, are now subjected to a 100 percent tax.

Justifying the harsh new measures, Wickremesinghe blamed President Rajapakse’s previous government, headed by former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse for reducing VAT, personal income and corporate taxes and increasing tax holidays. These reductions, he said, led to annual revenue losses of between 600 and 800 billion to the state coffers.

After being elected in November 2019, President Rajapakse’s government announced some limited populist measures while granting huge tax concessions to big business. Rajapakse claimed these measures would “revive” the economy by attracting foreign investments.

The Sri Lankan economy, however, was battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, suffering a collapse of tourist income, and sharp falls in remittances and export earnings. The economic crisis worsened early this year with the US-led NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, resulting in spiraling oil prices, food shortages and supply chain disruptions. On May 18, Sri Lanka defaulted on a $78 million interest payment for sovereign bonds, becoming the first country to do so in two decades.

Wickremesinge’s brutal attempts to cut Sri Lanka’s fiscal deficit via higher taxes and other measures are in line with International Monetary Fund (IMF) dictates. The Daily FT, the voice of Sri Lanka’s business elite, praised Wickremesinghe’s higher taxes, declaring, “It’s payback time even though you are poorer.”

The new measures were announced on the same day as Sri Lanka’s latest official inflation rates were released. The annualised inflation rate for May climbed to 39 percent, up from 28 percent the previous month, and food inflation jumped to 57 percent from 45 percent in April.

As Bloomberg and other international business media outlets have noted, Wickremesinghe’s austerity measures were imposed in preparation for the next round of negotiations with the IMF early this month for a $3 billion bailout loan.

Next Tuesday, Wickremesinghe is expected to announce a 695-billion rupee “revenue collection” package with more austerity measures to follow. Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera has declared that electricity tariffs will triple in the coming period. The cabinet is also expected to increase water tariffs.

The IMF is demanding drastic downsizing and privatisation of the state sector, as well as the slashing of social programs, including more cuts to public education and health. The cabinet is currently discussing how to reduce Sri Lanka’s 1.7 million public employees by half or more.

On Thursday, Wickremesinghe met with the Joint Chambers leadership, who represent Sri Lankan’s major business lobbies. According to a statement issued by his office, Wickremesinghe said the government was planning to claw back $5 billion to repay foreign debts and another $1 billion to bolster the country’s reserves.

Even more vicious social attacks are being prepared against the Sri Lankan masses. Some indication of these measures were revealed by a World Bank spokesperson in comments published on the Voice of America website last Wednesday.

“The human development impact of the unfolding economic crisis [in Sri Lanka] is severe. The crisis has disrupted economic activities and households’ capacity to afford basic necessities, including adequate nutrition… A worse-case scenario contraction in economic activity in 2022 and 2023 would translate into an increase of over 11 percentage points… with the resulting poverty rate close to 22 percent in 2023,” he said.

Earlier this year, Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe declared that the Sri Lankan economy in 2022 “will contract at a higher rate than in any other year in history.”

The pro-imperialist Rajapakse and Wickremesinghe regime is dragging the working class and the poor further into poverty and starvation. The opposition parties, such as the Samagi Jana Balawegaya, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the Tamil National Alliance, who support the IMF “reform” program, are continuing their empty criticisms of the government in order to hoodwink the angry masses.

The protests which erupted in early April and involved workers, youth and the poor calling for the resignation of President Rajapakse and his government, made clear that the masses will not tolerate the worsening social catastrophe. One day general strikes on April 28 and May 6 powerfully demonstrated the depth of working-class hostility and its social strength.

This movement, however, was politically blocked by the trade unions, backed by pseudo left groups, which directed it towards the official opposition parties and their calls for an interim parliamentary regime.

TED Fellows Program 2023

Application Deadline: 30th June 2022 at 11:59pm UTC.

About the Award: Every year the TED Fellows program selects a new group of extraordinary, multidisciplinary individuals by open application. We look for innovators on the rise in their respective fields who are doing bold, original work.

Since launching the TED Fellows program, we’ve gotten to know and support some of the brightest, most ambitious thinkers, change-makers and culture-shakers from nearly every discipline and corner of the world.

Whether it’s discovering new galaxies, leading social movements or making waves in environmental conservation, with the support of TED, Fellows are dedicated to making the world a better place through their innovative work. And you could be one of them.

Apply to be a TED Fellow now through June 30, 2022 — that’s coming up soon, so don’t procrastinate!! We do not accept late submissions!

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility:

• An idea worth spreading!
• A completed online application consisting of general biographical information, short paragraphs on your work and three references. (It’s fun, and it’ll make you think…)
• You must be at least 18 years old to apply.
• You must be fluent in English.
• You must be excited to participate in a collaborative, interdisciplinary global community.
• You must be available for in-person conference

Eligible Countries: International

To be Taken at (Country): Vancouver, Canada

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: TED will cover the costs of transportation to and from the TED conference, any visa you may need, accommodations and food while at the conference and conference registration.

• You become part of a diverse, collaborative and global community of more than 500 emerging and established experts.
• You receive professional development through virtual workshops and webinars.
• You gain valuable feedback from TED’s expert coaches on how to hone, express and communicate your work and your ideas.
• You will give a TED Talk (at a virtual or live event, depending on the state of the global pandemic).
• You’ll receive career coaching and mentorship from our team of professional coaches.
• You’ll get public relations guidance and media training.
• You’ll participate in virtual programming for TED Fellows.
• You will have the opportunity to participate in and contribute to a thriving and connected global community.

Duration of Award: April 7-15, 2022.

How to Apply: The TED Fellows program is currently accepting applications for the TED2023 Fellowship. Apply now. Applications for the 2023 TED Fellowship will close on June 30, 2022 at 11:59 p.m. UTC.

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Ten Domestic Injustices Worsened by War

Sam Carliner & Olivia DiNucci

Photo by Alexandra Charitan.

In recent years, the US has seen great numbers of people and mass movements take to the streets to challenge the status quo. While domestic outrage grows, resistance to the US war machine remains limited, even as President Biden is looking to pass a military budget of $813 billion. This bloated budget proposal comes as inflation makes basic products unaffordable and funds for the ongoing pandemic are gutted.

The militaristic and imperialist foreign policy of the United States has negative consequences for every aspect of life in the US and abroad. As long as we’re investing so much in the military, not only will we not have the money to invest in better things, but we are also exacerbating countless problems on a global level. In order to create the world we want and need, US social movements must take up the struggle against militarism. Here are just ten ways that injustices in the United States are fueled by the war machine.

1. Police violence is armed by the Pentagon. Since 1996 the 1033 program has been providing excess military equipment to police departments throughout the United States. A 2014 report by the American Civil Liberties Union titled “War Comes Home” found that “militarized police act aggressively and violently, target Black and Brown communities, and kill Americans at an alarming tempo.” This violence was shown explicitly when city police departments as well as federal police and the National Guard were deployed to tear-gas, blugden, and kettle anti-racist protesters in 2020. Within the last year, we saw abortion rights, activists in Los Angeles and water protectors in the Indigenous-led struggle to stop Line 3 been subjected to similar militarized police suppression.

2. The War on Terror has fueled the criminalization of immigrants. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a massive surveillance database which it uses to track immigrants and immigrant rights activists. ICE is a direct product of the War on Terror which eroded basic privacy rights and established some of the United States’s most draconian anti-immigrant policies which the Biden administration is maintaining. The War on Terror also ramped up the longstanding militarization of the United States/Mexico border and raids on immigrant communities.

3. U.S. warmongering fuels hate. Last year anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States jumped 339 percent. It is no coincidence that this spike happened as the United States was pushing a foreign policy of militarily containing China. Similar spikes in anti-Asian violence throughout the United States were prevalent when the United States was at war with Japan and waging a military invasion of Vietnam. During the height of the War on Terror similar racist violence and systemic racism were directed at Arab and South Asian communities.

4. The U.S. military furthers settler colonial occupation of Indigenous lands. From mining uranium and testing nuclear weapons on Navajo Land to poisoning and harassing Indigenous communities throughout the Pacific like in Hawaiʻi and Okinawa, the U.S. military maintains colonial violence against Indigenous peoples. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to support apartheid, occupation, and ethnic cleansing in Palestine, giving Israel nearly $4 billion in aid just last year.

5. The U.S. military is the world’s largest institutional polluter in the world. The U.S. military is the world’s largest oil consumer and causes more greenhouse gas emissions than 140 countries. Along with fossil fuel use, the U.S. military has harmed the environment by dumping toxic chemicals which poison communities throughout the United States. Yet, at COP26 militaries were exempt. We’ve publicly spent $21 trillion since 2001 on the Pentagon and yet $4.5 trillion could fully decarbonize the U.S. electric grid.

6. The military upholds patriarchy. The recruitment and training methods of the military are based on stereotypes that strength corresponds to manhood and physical dominance. The harm and misogyny of these stereotypes can be seen most clearly in the rampant sexual assault of women within the military and toward local women where the military is based abroad, as well as suicide rates of men in the military whose suppression of their emotions results in untreated depression.

7. U.S. imperialism suppresses LGBTQ+ communities. Because the main purpose of the military is to impose U.S. economic interests by force, the military maintains the interests of some of the worst anti-LGBTQ+ regimes so long as they are U.S. allies. For example, the U.S military has acted in support of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two violently anti-LGBTQ+ regimes.

8. Student debt is a predatory trap used for military recruitment. The U.S. Army has outright bragged that it has been able to use the student debt crisis as a way to meet its recruitment goals. This predatory recruitment practice which many characterize as a “poverty draft,” means that Black, Brown, and poor white communities are disproportionately more likely to enlist.

9. When warfare is a priority, healthcare is not. Just like promises of debt cancellation, the military uses promises of healthcare to recruit vulnerable communities. Along with depriving people in the U.S. of healthcare to make military service more appealing, U.S. imperialism deprives the world of healthcare by suppressing medical innovation if it comes from countries that don’t align with U.S. imperialism, like Cuba and China.

10. The military budget must go towards reparations for Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. Along with maintaining white supremacy and systems of oppression, the U.S. military continues to further bloat its budget every year, taking away wealth that could go towards reparations programs for racial equity. The United States owes reparations to countless communities including payment to Black communities for loss of generational wealth tied to slavery, Land Back to Indigenous communities, and repayment to economies destroyed by U.S. wars such as Afghanistan. The military’s constant hunger for more money is an obstacle to putting money towards reparations programs.

As movements grow and struggles unite, it is essential that injustices which the United States perpetuates via military aggression are not left out of the conversation. Intersectionality allows activists to understand not only how systems of oppression are intertwined, but also how they are bolstered by unchecked state violence.

Mexico Got Rid of the DEA’s Most Elite Unit, Now It Should Get Rid of the DEA

Laura Carlsen

The news that the Mexican government had shut down operations of the elite DEA team in the country – the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) – provoked an avalanche of articles in the press, most of them defending the DEA in order to criticize the president. Hardly any of them spoke about the disastrous history of the Unit, much less about the perverse history and actions of the DEA in Mexico –and in all of Latin America. The agency has left a bloody trail of failures, incompliance with regulations, complicities and corruption in its mission to export the war on drugs as an instrument of social control and U.S. hegemony.

Goodbye to the SIU

Despite the fact that the decision to expel the Unit was made and executed more than a year ago, neither of the two governments announced the measure publicly and it was not until April of this year that the Reuters news agency published an article confirming, through anonymous sources, the Mexican government’s decision. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed and justified the news in his morning press conference April 21, saying, “We maintain cooperation between national agencies in charge of security, but they must respect our sovereignty, and before they came in and out of the country at will, and they made the rules, they did what they wanted, they even fabricated crimes. So, we’re putting the situation in order.”

The reference to the fabrication of crimes was clearly to the case of the arrest in the U.S. of General Salvador Cienfuegos, former Secretary of Defense, on charges of drug trafficking. The General was extradited to Mexico at the request of the president and exonerated within a few weeks. That the measure could have been in part a retaliation for Cienfuegos’s arrest based on a DEA investigation, without notifying the Mexican government, does not detract from the credibility of the serious charges against the DEA unit.

AMLO added an incontrovertible fact: “It was shown that this group was infiltrated by crime, including one of its bosses being tried in the U.S.” Let’s examine this fact. The president specifically refers to Iván Reyes Arzate, former head of the Special Investigative Unit from 2008-2016, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic cocaine and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the US in February. In a case linked to the accusations against the former Secretary of Public Security, Genaro García Luna, who is currently awaiting trial in the US, the court found that the highest-level anti-drug agent, who had been investigated, vetted and trained by the US government, was working for the Beltrán Leyva cartel.

Reports in the U.S. portray these cases through the racist lens that they are proof that ‘Mexicans are corrupt and untrustworthy’, without asking how it is possible that the DEA’s elite Unit, which enjoyed a close working and daily relationship with the U.S. intelligence, was colluding with the cartels under their noses. Now enters the New York district court—the court that put together the case against Arzate, García Luna and other former high-level Mexican officials with alleged ties to organized crime—as if it were the final work on justice, but without any investigation or charges against the DEA that, as the president rightly says, managed the SIU, making major decisions regarding its strategies and actions.

What is the SIU?

The US Congress authorized the creation of the Special Investigation Units (SIU) in 1997, all in Latin America (Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico and Peru), with the mission of identifying and training anti-drug agents in the ‘host countries’ to carry out its strategy of cutting off the supply routes of prohibited substances to the US market.

The first thing to understand then is that the DEA and its units abroad are legally mandated exclusively to work in cooperative relationships toward US law enforcement goals. The investigations carried out abroad “are to support the domestic operations of the DEA and develop investigative cases against the most important drug trafficking organizations in the illicit drug market in the United States,” says the Department of Justice.

There is no formal interest or mandate to improve security in the host country, nor to dismantle networks or processes of violence and crime that are primarily domestic. There’s an inherent tension between the national priorities of the US government and the government in the country in which it operates. Enforcement of US law in national territory should not be the priority of a sovereign government outside the US. So the imposition–by agreement, manipulation or whatever reason–of this type of foreign operations in its territory is not only a problem of violation of sovereignty, it is an arrangement between two asymmetrical powers that undermines the possibility of the host country to establish and carry out its own security policy appropriate to its priorities. This conflict and its results have been evident in the last decades of expansion of the DEA in Mexico.

The second big problem is the model of intervention. The DEA applies a model called “the kingpin strategy” of killing or arresting the big bosses as a way to dismantle the cartel, selecting the cartels where it concentrates its efforts and thus empowering others. Carlos Pérez Ricart, a CIDE investigator and author of a forthcoming book on the DEA in Mexico, said in an interview in Hecho en América:

“In general, the Sensitive Investigation Units have been the spearhead, the mechanism from which the DEA has managed to transfer its Kingpin Strategy policy to Mexico, its strategy of reaching capos in particular, which all the literature on organized crime and specialist security has not ceased to qualify as nefarious and opposed to national interests.” He points out that the strategy has not reduced the flow of prohibited drugs to the United States and the fragmentation of the cartels that results from its application of this strategy has led to violence and “has stimulated widespread violations of human rights in Mexico.”

The U.S. reporter Keegan Hamilton published an article with the title “The DEA’s Elite Police Unit in Mexico was Actually Dirty as Hell”, pointing to not only the proven corruption among its leaders, but also inside information from active and retired agents. “I think in the specific context of SIU as well, that reflects a deeply broken system that has spiraled out of control for many years,” he said in an interview with the Americas Program.

The DEA in Mexico: What is it good for?

The experts’ analysis and our own research at the Americas Program come together on one fundamental point—the problem goes beyond the SIUs. The DEA’s mode of operation involves a dangerous game of playing one cartel against another, of protecting certain members as informants and arresting others as pieces of the strategy, when in reality the protected witness is often just as violent and guilty as the target. It leads to deadly information leaks and revenge cycles, complicity that corrupts, and “successes” in the arrest or murder of targets that lead to an increase in violence against society.

If the expulsion of the SIU causes tensions in this form of cooperation with the DEA, it is to be celebrated. Many years ago, both countries should have stopped along the way to assess the disastrous results of this model. Now that the official line is that the Mérida Initiative– the broad framework of binational cooperation in security matters since 2007– has ended, the challenge is to apply that in practice and not leave it as a mere political declaration.

This implies ending the war on drugs and the kingpin strategy and starting to put human, demilitarized and sustainable human security first. There are obvious inertias and hidden interests in the binational relationship that prevent this urgent goal from becoming a reality.

Biden enforces largest Medicare premium hike in history while funneling more profits to private insurers

Kate Randall

In a move that received minimal media attention, last week the Biden administration reaffirmed its decision to enact the largest Medicare premium hike in the program’s 57-year history. The president is also endorsing a plan to funnel more money to private insurance companies and escalating plans to privatize the government insurance program for seniors and those with disabilities. Medicare enrolled 62.7 million people in 2021.

President Joe Biden on March 18, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

The White House announced May 27 that Medicare recipients will not see their premiums lowered this year. This is despite the fact that a rate hike confirmed last November was due in large part to projected costs for a drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease that have now been lowered.

In November 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced an approximately 14.5 percent increase to premiums for Medicare Part B, which covers doctor visits and some preventive care and outpatient services. The standard monthly premium rose from $148.50 in 2021 to $170.10 this year.

The hike came largely as a result of uncertainty over whether Medicare would cover the costs of Aduhelm, an exorbitantly expensive drug to treat Alzheimer’s. Under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, the controversial drug was approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June 2021, despite disputes over whether it is effective in treating the debilitating disease.

Biogen, the maker of Aduhelm, originally priced the drug at $56,000 a year. After a considerable outcry from patient advocates and others, Biogen announced that the drug would cost $28,200 effective January 1, 2022, when the Medicare premium hikes kicked in. In April, Medicare instituted strict rules regarding who could receive Aduhelm, restricting its use mainly to clinical trials.

On May 27, the Biden administration said that despite the halving of Aduhelm’s cost, and also its restriction to a small patient pool, it would not be lowering the monthly premiums deducted from seniors’ Social Security benefits. The administration justified this move on the basis of “legal and operational hurdles.”

In a report to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, CMS wrote that “a mid-year administrative redetermination [of Medicare premiums] would be prohibitively complex and highly risky, requiring significant resources and unproven technical solutions from the varied entities which manage premium collection and payment.” In practical terms, this means that Medicare enrollees will not be receiving either a refund on the premium increases already collected this year, nor will premiums be adjusted for the balance of 2022.

CMS claims that 2023 premiums will be adjusted to reflect the lowering of the price of Aduhelm and the reduction in the drug’s usage. There is no guarantee, however, that such an adjustment will take place, as other price hikes demanded by the pharmaceutical industry or other segments of the for-profit health care system are highly likely. And the government has seldom rebated money that it has already collected from the population.

CMS also makes the fantastic claim that seniors are unlikely to feel the impact of the premium hike due to a 5.9 percent cost-of-living adjustment in their Social Security benefits that began in January 2022. This small increase has already been more than eaten up by rapidly rising inflation hitting food, housing, transportation and other basic necessities. The impact on seniors is particularly dire, with more than 7 million living in poverty and 7.3 million food-insecure, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).

The news that 2022 premium hikes will not be refunded or scaled back comes as Biden officials are moving forward with an 8.5 percent increase in payments made to private insurers operating Medicare Advantage plans in 2023.

Under Medicare Advantage, also known as Medicare Part C, beneficiaries pay their monthly premiums to the federal government but receive coverage from a private insurer for inpatient hospital and outpatient services, typically including prescription drug coverage as well. The establishment of these plans marked a major step in the dismantling of Medicare as a government program. Companies operating these plans are incentivized to limit the amount of medical care received by their enrollees in order to boost profits.

Dr. Susan Rogers, president of Physicians for a National Healthcare Program, told The Lever, “Medicare Advantage insurers such as United Healthcare, Anthem, and CVS/Aetna are celebrating record profits in the tens of billions of dollars.” She added, “Their business plan is simple: inflate their Medicare payments by making seniors look sicker than they are, and then pocket more of those Medicare dollars by ruthlessly denying seniors’ care.”

Enrollment in Medicare Advantage—signed into law in 1997 by Bill Clinton—has more than doubled over the past decade. In 2021, more than 26 million people were enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, or about 42 percent of the total Medicare population. Private plans have cost Medicare $146 billion since 2008.

In addition to hiking Medicare premiums and funneling more money to Medicare Advantage insurers, Biden has expanded Medicare privatization. The Direct Contracting Entity (DCE) program was launched in April 2019 by the CMS, during the Trump administration, under the auspices the CMS Innovation Center, known as CMMI.

Similar to Medicare Advantage, the DCE program allows intermediary companies to offer unique benefits, such as gym memberships. DCE operators range from private insurers to publicly traded companies to private equity firms. As for-profit entities they are also incentivized to limit patient care, particularly for the critically ill. 

While Medicare patients choose to sign up for Advantage plans, patients can be enrolled in DCE health plans without their informed consent. Remarkably, seniors for instance may be “auto-aligned” to a DCE if any primary care physician they have visited in the past two years is affiliated with that DCE. Seniors are being swindled by these plans via methods more unscrupulous than scammers trying to obtain Social Security numbers over the phone.

Notably, CMMI was created under the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law in 2010 by Barack Obama. CMMI’s aim was to develop new payment models in Medicare and Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor, without going through the formal legislative process that requires public comment.

The DCE program is now being expanded by the Biden administration under a new name—ACO REACH, or Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health. Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s office told The Lever that 350,000 seniors were assigned to DCE plans as of January 2022, none of whom signed up voluntarily.

In the US health care system, access to and the affordability of medical care is subordinated to the profits of the private insurers, pharmaceuticals and giant hospital chains. Democratic and Republican politicians alike are concerned with upholding the interests of this market-driven system, not by the needs of patients and health care workers. One need only follow the money to see who benefits.

Business Insider reports that Biden received roughly $47 million from health care industry executives during his 2020 presidential campaign. The leadership of DCE contractor Clover Health donated $500,000 to the main super PAC for Senate Democrats in 2020, while Chamath Palihapitiya, the company’s financier, donated $750,000 to the same super PAC, according to the Open Secrets web site. 

Elon Musk orders office staff to return to on-site work or face termination

Shannon Jones

On Wednesday Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, issued an ultimatum to office workers at the electric car manufacturing company Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX to return to the office or be fired.

Writing in his typically crude and arrogant manner, Musk declared, “Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,” in an email titled “To be super clear.”  It continued, “Moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo office. If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.”

In a post on Twitter, Musk said of those who objected to in-office work, “They should pretend to work somewhere else.” Earlier the Tesla founder and CEO had written to executive staff requiring that they be in “a main Tesla office, not a remote branch office unrelated to the job duties.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk (Wikipedia photo)

Tesla has about 100,000 full-time employees worldwide, with production plants in the US, Germany and China and stores and service centers in about a dozen countries in Europe, Asia and North America. SpaceX employs about 12,000.

In his recent tweets Musk did not say anything about the enforcement of COVID-19 safety measures for those staff forced to resume in-person work.

The ultimatum comes as COVID-19 case numbers in California, the site of Tesla’s giant Fremont EV assembly plant, are once again on the rise, as they are nationally. Musk has consistently downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic, telling SpaceX employees in March 2020 they had a greater chance of dying in a car crash than of COVID-19. In April 2020 he denounced COVID-19 restrictions as “fascist” in a profanity-laced rant during a conference call to discuss the company’s profit report.

In May 2020 Musk defied a public health order from Alameda County, California, to reopen the Fremont Assembly plant. Tesla fired several workers for protesting the unsafe return to work, and county officials soon capitulated to the multi-billionaire, dropping any enforcement proceedings. Hundreds of plant workers were later infected with COVID-19, and an unknown number died.

Literally coining profit out of death, Musk and other billionaires saw their fortunes reach unprecedented new heights during the pandemic. Musk added $121 billion to his net worth in 2021 alone. He is currently the world’s richest man with around $250 billion in net worth, about 10 times his wealth before the pandemic.

The Tesla founder and CEO is emblematic of the parasitism of the financial aristocracy, “the rebirth of the lumpenproletariat on the heights of bourgeois society,” in the words of Karl Marx. While Tesla still produces less than 1 million vehicles a year, its stock valuation exceeds that of Toyota, General, Motors, Stellantis and all other major car companies combined, based almost solely on speculation by stock market investors.

Musk’s ultimatum to Tesla and SpaceX workers led to conjectures that he would apply a similar policy to Twitter employees following the completion of his takeover of the social media company. Many Twitter employees are currently allowed to work from home on a permanent basis, as are workers at Facebook and many other tech companies.

Most auto companies permit remote work for at least some office and tech workers. Return-to-office policies vary from company to company, with most facing significant worker resistance. On top of the danger of COVID-19, in-person work means a further erosion of workers’ income given soaring fuel and transportation costs. Some have predicted that Tesla could lose 10 to 20 percent of its current office workforce due to Musk’s ultimatum.

In recent weeks Musk had contrasted US workers unfavorably with workers in China, tweeting that while Chinese workers were “burning the 3 a.m. oil,” American workers, and by implication those at Tesla, were “trying to avoid going to work at all.”

Tesla had kept operations in Shanghai going during the recent COVID-19 lockdowns by essentially locking workers inside the factories, while imposing 12-hour, 6-day schedules. Until recently many workers at Tesla in China had been literally sleeping on the floor inside the production facilities.

Musk did not say anything about China’s Zero COVID policy, which has saved millions of lives during the pandemic.

Musk’s demand for the end of at-home work is in line with the policies of the Biden administration, backed to the hilt by the corporatist trade unions, to declare the pandemic over and force the full reopening of the economy, including schools, factories and other workplaces. This homicidal “living with the virus” policy ensures a continuing toll of mass death and chronic sickness from Long COVID.

In March of this year Musk, an opponent of unionization, tauntingly invited the United Auto Workers to try to organize Tesla factories in the US. Despite the miserable pay and working conditions for the workers, the billionaire was well aware of the deep distrust felt by workers toward the UAW and all the official trade unions, which have enforced cuts in real pay and participated in the employer cover-up of COVID-19 infections and death.

For its part the UAW has essentially offered Tesla a sweetheart contract in exchange for the right to extract union dues from workers’ paychecks.

In Germany, where Tesla recently open its Gigafactory in Berlin, the IG Metall trade union made a toothless promise to “support” any employee who opposes Musk’s demand to return to work. IG Metall has helped enforce the homicidal return-to-work policy of Germany and capitalist governments across Europe, which has led to more than 1 million unnecessary deaths, while the union helps auto companies enforce layoffs and plant closures.

The return-to office demand follows reports in March that Musk himself had contracted COVID-19 for the second time. He has promoted vaccine skepticism, but later reported that he and family members had been vaccinated.

All workers, whether they are office workers or production workers, “essential” or otherwise, deserve to be protected from COVID-19. This means rejection of the deadly and unscientific policy of “living with COVID” and fighting for a policy of global elimination and eradication. The recent success of China’s Zero COVID policy in halting the spread of Omicron demonstrates this is entirely possible and would save countless millions of lives.

While Musk’s pronouncements produce nervous embarrassment in some quarters of the ruling class, it is only because he articulates bluntly the rapaciousness of the ruling class, which through its single-minded pursuit of profit at the expense of social interests is leading mankind from disaster to even greater disaster.

COVID-19 cases compound economic crisis in North Korea

Ben McGrath

North Korea is currently facing a surge of COVID-19 cases amid a worsening economic crisis. The situation is compounded by the impoverished country’s isolation from the rest of the world, a result of both US-led sanctions as well as Pyongyang’s own self-imposed border closing for most of the pandemic. The spate of missile tests in recent months, including the launching of three ballistic missiles on May 25, must be seen within this context.

An employee of Songyo Knitwear Factory in Songyo district disinfects the work floor in Pyongyang, North Korea, Wednesday, May 18, 2022, after the country's leader Kim Jong Un said Tuesday his party would treat the country's coronavirus outbreak under the state emergency. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)

Pyongyang publicly admitted to COVID-19 cases within North Korea for the first time on May 12, though it is believed there have been other outbreaks. The government declared a “major national emergency,” which included lockdowns in every city, in an attempt to curb virus transmission.

Daily infections reached as high as 392,920 on May 15, with these classified as “fever cases,” since North Korea reportedly lacks adequate testing capabilities. This is an indication that many more cases may be unidentified, suggesting an even larger health crisis. On June 1, Pyongyang reported 93,180 daily cases. Officially, more than 3.74 million have been identified as likely cases since the end of April. Only 70 deaths have so far been reported.

China has pledged to assist North Korea with the outbreak, citing “a fine tradition of mutual assistance” between the two, according to Beijing’s Foreign Ministry. On May 16, North Korea flew three cargo planes to China and back, a South Korean government source told CNN, though it is unknown what they carried. Radio Free Asia (RFA), a mouthpiece for US imperialism, reported on May 26 that North Korea had only recently begun its mass inoculation program with vaccines from China, though they are supposedly only available for soldiers involved in construction projects in the capital.

On May 29, Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “made a positive evaluation of the pandemic situation being controlled and improved across the country” at a politburo meeting of the ruling Workers Party of Korea.

Pyongyang, therefore, appears to be lifting COVID control measures, possibly in response to the economic crisis. Reports also suggest that in many cases workers were kept on the job despite lockdowns. Hong Min of the South Korean government-affiliated Korea Institute of National Unification stated, “According to North Korean broadcasting, production activities were carried out on a daily basis with exceptions, despite quarantine and containment measures.”

For most of the pandemic, North Korea has maintained self-imposed border closures with other countries, which primarily means closing its border with China. While some shipments of Chinese relief aid started to enter the country last year, they were forced to sit in quarantine for months. Pyongyang also opened its border with China for freight trains in January, however, it was closed again on May 1.

Even before the latest COVID-19 outbreak and the border closure, North Korea faced a deteriorating economy. The brief re-opening of trade, coupled with several ballistic missile tests this year, suggests Pyongyang is attempting to secure an easing of the crippling US-led sanctions that have been in place for years. North Korea has repeatedly utilized nuclear and missiles tests as its only bargaining chip with Washington, short of complete capitulation.

In 2020, North Korea’s economy declined sharply by 4.5 percent, which continued in 2021 and this year. During the brief period the North Korea-China border reopened, trade grew by 40.7 times in January and February over the previous year, according to the Chinese General Administration of Customs. This mostly included foodstuffs as well as construction, agricultural, and pharmaceutical goods. However, trade only recovered to approximately 50 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

North Korea is also facing food shortages. Pyongyang’s trade with China reportedly dropped by 80 percent in 2020 and by another two-thirds through the first nine months of 2021. The US Central Intelligence Agency claims that the North faces a shortage of 860,000 tonnes of food necessary to prevent widespread malnutrition.

This, of course, has not prevented Washington from attempting to enforce even stricter sanctions on North Korea following the latest missile tests on May 25, which is believed to have included an intercontinental ballistic missile and two short-range ballistic missiles.

On May 26, China and Russia, the two main targets of US imperialism, vetoed a US-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution to intensify sanctions on North Korea. Neither has vetoed a resolution since 2006.

China’s UN ambassador Zhang Jun argued that additional sanctions would only worsen the situation in North Korea and lead to increased testing. He accused the US of causing the current situation by the “flip flop of its policies.” These sentiments were echoed by Russia’s ambassador Vasily Nebenzya.

During the Trump administration, the US president threatened at the UN to “totally destroy” North Korea, only to turn around and enter negotiations with vague promises of economic assistance that ultimately led nowhere. Under Biden, Washington has offered nothing of substance to Pyongyang while at the same time expressing support for South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s “audacious” economic plan to revive North Korea’s economy.

The proposed sanctions included a ban on exports of tobacco products to North Korea, an extension of the ban on ballistic missile testing to include cruise missiles or any method of potentially delivering a nuclear weapon, cutting crude oil exports to the North from four million barrels to three million annually, and reducing refined petroleum exports from 500,000 barrels to 375,000. It would also have banned all North Korean exports of “mineral fuels, mineral oils, and products of their distillation.”

Despite this, the US has offered pandemic assistance to North Korea, though Pyongyang has not responded, understandably wary of US intentions. Last July, Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry criticized US offers of “humanitarian assistance,” stating it was meant “to legitimize their pressure on sovereign states and achieve their sinister political scheme.”

Pyongyang has also seen the fates of past targets of US imperialism who have tried to make deals with Washington, including Iraq and Libya, both of which were destroyed and their leaders killed. In a book on Kim Jong-un’s decade in power published Tuesday in Pyongyang, the North stated, “The invasion tactic of the US is to force [a country] to surrender its self-defensive capabilities. The US has relentlessly laid out sugarcoated words, saying that it will help the country to prosper if it gives up its military buildup and takes a different path.”

Given this history, Pyongyang undoubtedly feels there is no reason to trust the Biden administration today without significant assurances for North Korea’s security.

Benefits for Ukrainian refugees cut, as social crisis in Ukraine deepens

Andrea Peters

Poland will cut Ukrainian refugees off an essential welfare benefit on July 1, the government announced on Wednesday. As of the start of next month, those fleeing the war will no longer receive 40 zloty a day, about $9.40 at current exchange rates, toward the cost of food and housing. Exceptions are being made only for families with many children, pregnant women and invalids. Major cities, such as Warsaw and Cracow, just recently ended free municipal transport and train fares for Ukraine’s displaced, of which there are millions in the country.

A representative from Poland’s right-wing, nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS), which holds the presidency and has a majority in the parliament, told the press that the goal “is to stimulate Ukrainians to work.” In other words, they can either stay and serve as a cheap labor force or leave the country, having lost access to money they need to survive.

Beyond even the fact that many do not have permanent housing, Ukrainian refugees face language, age and family-status barriers in finding work. The majority of them are women, children and the elderly. Most of those in the latter two categories cannot take on jobs, either because of their youth—48 percent are under 18—or the physical limitations of age.

Predominantly female-headed households with young kids face an impossible situation, as schooling is not available for children under three, many Ukrainian students are taking classes online through their home institutions, and summer vacation is about to begin. Support services—temporary shelter, translation services, food banks, childcare, logistical help—overwhelmingly staffed by volunteers are also drying up, as ordinary Polish people do not have the personal resources to sustain the volume of giving needed.

Poland has yet to receive a promised $154.5 million aid package from the EU to support refugees, despite various Polish provinces having already shelled out tens of millions of dollars to make the 40 zloty daily payments. Just recently and only after significant pressure, the country was granted the right to tap unused funds in Europe’s multi-billion-euro COVID-19 relief program.

The Czech Republic, to which 348,000 Ukrainians have fled, is contemplating making a move similar to that of Poland. It may cut off Ukrainian refugees who do not find a job after 180 days from social benefits, including medical care.

In Bulgaria, thousands of displaced people are now being ejected from hotels along the country’s Black Sea coast in time for the tourist season. Refugees report a chaotic process of removal and say they have been given basically no information as to what awaits them at “buffer centers” set up near the Burgas airport, to which they are being offered transfer.

One nurse who fled eastern Ukraine with her 13-year-old daughter told RFE/RL, “We have no official information. Absolutely none.” A volunteer group issued a statement on Facebook explaining, for instance, that instructions for refugees as to what to do when their hotel stays ended were published in Bulgarian, which they cannot read. They volunteers described the Bulgarian government’s actions as a “complete lack of communication with refugees from the moment they cross the border [and a] complete lack of understanding of needs.”

Bulgaria’s Deputy Prime Minister Kalina Konstantinova, however, complaining about the fact that buses sent to seaside hotels to transport refugees to “buffer centers” were not full, told the press, “Protection is a right, not an obligation. Therefore, I will not allow any more empty buses or empty cars to leave. The development of the situation from that moment on is in the hands of the Ukrainian community in Bulgaria.' However, Bulgarian officials have acknowledged that the state only has space for about 33,000 people at its various facilities, although there are 63,000 Ukrainian refugees in the country.

Media coverage of the crisis has largely portrayed the problem as one of ungrateful visitors not wishing to have to leave their luxury vacation spots.

Spanish officials are receiving large numbers of complaints from Ukrainians of ridicule and poor treatment. Just 6.5 percent of the 47,000 refugees in Spain have found work, primarily seasonal agricultural jobs tied to the orange harvest. In addition to the fact that the country has a 13.5 percent unemployment rate, making jobs scarce, the newly-arrived Ukrainians face a language barrier. According to news reports, through social media, Russian speakers living in Spain are helping Ukrainians—many of whom are of Russian or mixed Russian-Ukrainian ancestry or simply dual-language speakers—navigate everyday life and find work.

Switzerland is preparing to cancel the special refugee status of Ukrainians who return home for more than 15 days over the course of three months or were in another country for more than two. If, for instance, a mother needs to go to Ukraine or elsewhere to reunite with children or family but cannot stay because it is dangerous, there is no work, or she has no home, she risks losing her right to return to Switzerland for safe harbor. As there are more than 3.6 million Ukrainian refugees spread out across Europe and elsewhere, all of them caught in a chaotic world of scrambling for housing, jobs, schools and visas, the ability to travel for periods of time without penalty is essential for families.

In Britain, thousands of Ukrainians with a temporary status are stuck in an endlessly long visa process and many who have been granted visas are unable to get to the UK. Currently, about 500 Ukrainian children who have host families waiting for them in Britain cannot go there because they cannot get through the paperwork. The charity Safe Passage says the kids are now “alone in Ukraine and neighbouring countries.”

The problems are mounting even among those who make it to the UK, with many ending up homeless, reports the BBC. The governments “Homes for Ukraine” program continues to have problems. According to another news outlet, residents of East Yorkshire who opened up their homes to refugees and were supposed to receive a £350 stipend “haven’t seen a penny.” “As much as £400,000 from the money promised for host families and people escaping the war still hasn't materialized.”

Inside Ukraine, where 7.8 million people are internally displaced, social catastrophe is in the making. The country’s GDP is projected to fall by 45 percent this year, according to the ministry of finance. Already 5 million jobs, about one third of the nation’s total, have been wiped out.

But as the US and NATO allies pour ever-more lethal weapons into the country, the International Labor Organization is warning, “Should the military escalation continue, over 43 percent of jobs—about seven million—could be lost.” If the conflict goes on for just another six months, the United Nations Development Report says that 90 percent of the Ukrainian population could fall into poverty or be surviving just on the edge of it.

The International Organization for Migration just released a report showing massive numbers of Ukrainians are in dire straits. According to the agency, among internally displaced people, 77 percent need direct financial assistance, 27 percent need clothes and shoes, 27 percent need health care and medicine, 25 percent need food (a rising number), 22 percent need hygiene items, and 28 percent need transportation.

Even among those who have not fled somewhere inside the country’s borders, the level of need is high. Fifty-seven percent of Ukrainians still living in their homes are short of money, 24 percent cannot get the health care and medicines they require, and 14 percent do not have enough food. Among both groups, 30 percent of families with children under 5 years of age report they are having problems feeding their kids due to a lack of formula and baby food. That number increased by three percentage points from a month ago. Nearly 20 percent of the Ukrainian population reports being in want of psychological and mental health support.

At the end of April, Disability Rights International issued a report showing that the situation facing institutionalized disabled children in Ukraine is disastrous. According to Euractiv, “They found children living in overcrowded, closely packed rooms filled with strong smells of urine and faeces and encountered children with untreated severe medical conditions like Hydrocephalus, which leads to fatalities in 80% of cases. They also met children that were physically underdeveloped due to enforced inactivity, and showing signs of emotional abuse and neglect.”

On June 1, the head of the Chernivtsi regional military administration in Ukraine was found guilty of “manipulation with humanitarian aid.” He was using ambulances donated from Italy for “commercial purposes.”

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The social consequences of the NATO/Ukraine-Russia war are intensifying and will continue to do so, as Washington and the EU keep escalating the conflict, creating the conditions for the transformation of the regional proxy war into a full-blown world conflict. Tens of billions of military aid and ever-more lethal weaponry is being sent to Ukraine, laying the groundwork for strikes on Russian territory. Moscow’s criminal, reckless, blind-alley invasion has given the US and NATO what they wanted. The working class is paying the price.