US police on track to kill over 1,100 people in 2022

Jacob Crosse

According to two separate databases maintained by the Washington Post and Mapping Police Violence, US police have killed over 600 people so far this year.

As of July 16, 2022, Mapping Police Violence has confirmed that 633 people in the United States have been killed by police, 10 more people killed compared to the same time last year. According to the database, there have been only eight days in 2022 where police did not kill someone.

The Washington Post has tracked 614 police killings as of July 26, 2022. Both the Post and the Mapping Police Violence figures represent an average of just over three people killed by police every day in the United States, a number that has remained steady through Democratic and Republican administrations alike under Obama, Trump and now Biden. This is despite years of protests and demands by millions of workers and youth for an end to police violence.

Capitalist politicians routinely hail the police as heroes, “defenders of democracy,” and the epitome of impartial justice. These lies are told to the American people in order to obfuscate the class role of the police and the vital function they play in capitalist society.

The police are not given billions of dollars and lethal military-style weaponry every year by bourgeois politicians to defend the interests of everyone; the police are the front-line soldiers of capital, they exist to defend private property and enforce social inequality—nothing else.

New York City, New York

Raymond Chaluisant, 18, was playing with a water pellet gun when he was murdered by off-duty New York City corrections officer Dion Middleton, 45, after midnight on Thursday, July 21. In a statement to the Washington Post, a New York Police Department spokesperson said that Chaluisant was found unconscious and unresponsive with a gunshot wound to his face around 1:35 a.m. A clearly plastic, orange and gray, “Orbeez” water pellet gun was recovered at the scene.

Raymond Chaluisant

After shooting the 18-year-old in the face, Middleton clocked into work without reporting his crime to anyone. In the exception that proves the rule, Middleton was arrested at work last Thursday and charged with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon. While Middleton has not been fired, the NYC Corrections Department did suspend him without pay.

Speaking to the Post, the police said that there was no evidence Chaluisant ever fired his water gun at Middleton. In an interview with the New York Daily News, Chaluisant’s older sister, Jiraida Esquilin, 29, said that her little brother was trying to stay cool on a hot summer night by joining his friends in a water gun fight.

“They were just having fun,” she told the Daily News. “It’s a new Nerf gun that shoots water. The whole neighborhood was having a water gun fight. It was 90 degrees.”

“I can’t believe a corrections officer killed my brother,” Esquilin said. “Everything nowadays is a rage thing.”

Los Angeles, California

Witnesses say 39-year-old Jermaine Petit, an ex-Air Force emergency medical technician, was shot in the back multiple times as he was fleeing from Los Angeles police officers on July 18. Video footage taken by local residents shows police handcuffing Petit after shooting him and leaving him on the pavement.

Petit was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive after undergoing major surgery.

In statements given by police following the shooting, they claimed that Petit had a weapon, implying that it was a pistol of some kind, and thereby justifying the shooting. However, the cops have been forced to admit that Petit was only “armed” with a “black metal latch actuator” which was recovered by police at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and South Bronson Avenue at the time of the shooting.

Deshonay Howard told the Los Angeles Times that she was parked in front of her house when she saw police trailing Petit as he was walking near a bus stop. “We all heard him say, ‘I don’t have anything,’ and he started to run.” She told the Times that she saw police shoot him in the back three times.

A GoFundMe has been started by Ashlyn Petit, the daughter of Jermaine. She wrote that “LAPD shot him even though he was UNARMED. He’s currently in the hospital in critical condition.”

Chicago, Illinois

Security camera footage has confirmed that an unarmed 13-year-old African American boy had his hands up when Chicago police officer Noah Ball shot him on May 18 this year. The boy survived the gunshot wound but is now paralyzed from the waist down.

Police have claimed they were pursuing the teen because he was a passenger in a suspected stolen vehicle. The boy has not been charged with any crimes.

A witness told CNN-affiliate WLS that police clearly shot him while his hands were up. “His (the boy’s) hands were up and I seen the cop run up to that boy and just start shooting that boy did not have no gun or nothing.”

Ball, who has yet to be arrested, claimed through his attorney that he thought a cell phone the boy had was a gun. While the security footage shows the boys hands were up when he was shot, Ball did not activate his body camera until 40 seconds after shooting the young person.

Lawyers for the family of the young paralyzed child said he can no longer walk, “... he can’t get up, he can’t go to the bathroom, he can’t get his own food ... his life is changed forever.”

Cincinnati, Ohio

Rose Valentino, a Cincinnati police officer for the last 14 years, has been relegated to desk duty after admitting to using a racial slur while on duty following an internal investigation. The investigation uncovered body camera footage of Valentino expressing her hatred for “niggers” while she was driving in a police car outside a local high school.

On a rainy April 5 afternoon, body camera footage shows Valentino driving her vehicle towards the police station which is located next to Western Hills University High School. As Valentino is pulling into the police parking compound, several cars are seen on the side of the road waiting to pick up students.

While the footage does not appear to show any vehicles blocking her path into the compound, she nevertheless turns on her lights and sirens, activating the body camera in the process.

“You’ve got to move. Fucking ridiculous. Fucking assholes,” Valentino says as she is driving. As Valentino continues to get more agitated, local ABC station 9 WCPO reported that a “black teen” gestured at the cop, allegedly giving her the middle finger, which sent Valentino into a rage.

“I fucking hate them. Oh, I fucking hate them so much. Fucking God. I hate this fucking world. Fucking hate it.” As the cop waits for the police security fence to open up to the cop parking lot, she continues her tirade. “Fucking niggers. I fucking hate them.”

WCPO reported that Valentino has received positive employee evaluations from her superiors who have noted her “positive attitude” and “great work.” The report noted that Valentino “trains officers who recently graduated the academy.”

While Valentino has received high marks from her bosses, and was granted a pivotal role training new graduates, WCPO found that she has been “reprimanded multiple times for not turning on her bodycam,” and that April’s incident was not the first time Valentino expressed racism.

In November 2018 Valentino was one of three cops involved in an incident that resulted in the city paying out a $151,000 settlement after Valentino pulled out her gun and aimed it at two unarmed black men. Neither of the men were committing a crime; one of the men, a real estate agent, was showing a property to the other man, a prospective renter.

Company collapses continue in Australia’s “construction industry bloodbath”

Terry Cook

The crisis engulfing Australia’s construction sector has deepened over the past six weeks. A plethora of building companies have been placed into administration and liquidation, owing millions of dollars to owners of unfinished homes, subcontractors, suppliers and workers in entitlements.

This month, Victorian-based building firm Snowdon Developments was ordered by the Supreme Court to go into liquidation on the grounds of insolvency, owing just under $18 million to 250 creditors.

The Snowdon collapse follows similar failures throughout June, including prominent home builders such as Victorian-based Waterford Homes, which went into liquidation with debts so far amounting to $600,000.

House under construction in Manly, Queensland [Photo by Orderinchaos via Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0]

Specialist small home builder Affordable Modular Homes collapsed under a mountain of debt, owing $121,000 to creditors, while Statement Builders failed, owing $200,000 in taxes. Other home builders that went to the wall last month included Langford Jones Homes, Pivotal Homes, Solido Builders, Wulfrun Construction and Westernport Constructions.

These failures are part of what media commentary terms “a construction sector bloodbath.” More than 16 building companies had already collapsed since the closing months of 2021. They include well-known names in home building, such as Hotondo Homes, Dyldam Developments, BA Murphy, Home Innovation, ABG Group, New Sensation Homes, Pindan and ABD Group.

This year also saw the collapse of major companies, such as Probuild and Condev, that had projects underway or on the books worth billions of dollars. The fate of Australia’s largest home builder Metricon, which had around 4,000 homes under construction last month, remains uncertain despite a $30 million cash injection into the company by its shareholders and promises of government support.

It is widely acknowledged across the industry that these failures are only the tip of the iceberg. Industry market researcher IBISWorld recently projected that the number of firms operating in the home building industry would fall by 9 percent in 2022-23, contracting for the first time in a decade “by thousands.”

Last month, co-founder of the Association of Professional Builders (APB), Russ Stephens, told news.com.au that around 50 percent of building companies in Australia “are currently experiencing negative equity.” A company is considered to have negative equity if it owes more than it has in assets, with more than one creditor. “Once a company experiences negative equity, it’s a slippery slope to becoming insolvent,” Stephens said.

Last October, based on extensive research, APB had warned that “it was clear that the increasing price of construction materials, supply chain delays and COVID-related labour shortages were impacting the profitability of every single building company in Australia.”

Referencing the spiraling costs of building materials, CoreLogic, a provider of property data and analytics, has said home builders are unlikely to experience a reprieve anytime soon. “The short- and medium-term outlook for the construction industry still looked bleak,” it stated.

Banks could become embroiled in the meltdown. In May, National Australia Bank chief executive Ross McEwan said construction was the “most worrying” industry in its portfolio.

This crisis has been exacerbated by the necessary two-month lockdown of Shanghai to bring the recent outbreak of COVID-19 under control. More than a quarter of goods imported into Australia come from China, including around 60 percent of its building industry materials.

ANU supply chain management expert David Leaney told the media in May that construction “has certainly got some of the biggest delays,” saying “the lead time to get timber frames if you’re building a house is 46 weeks.”

The “let it rip” COVID policies adopted since late last year by all Australian governments, Liberal-National and Labor alike, continue to cause repeated waves of mass infection, illness and death. This has resulted in labour shortages in vital areas of the supply chain, such as the docks, trucking and freight haulage.

It is difficult to put a precise number on jobs lost in the construction industry because most companies directly employ only small numbers of workers. The bulk of their work is carried out by labour hire companies, employing casuals, subcontractors and independent trades-persons. Many of these are owed thousands of dollars and will find it difficult, if not impossible, to survive.

Many more jobs will be impacted in downstream industries, such as building industry suppliers and home appliance and home décor companies whose operations rely heavily on new home construction.

From the outset of the pandemic, the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) and other industry trade unions collaborated with the employers to demand that the sector be exempted from lockdowns and other public health measures, thereby forcing workers to stay on the job, resulting in widespread COVID infections.

Now with building companies collapsing in quick succession, destroying the livelihoods of countless workers, the CFMMEU is maintaining a virtual silence, seeking to prevent the eruption of struggles by construction workers to defend jobs and livelihoods.

This is a logical extension of the role played by the unions for decades, enforcing the decimation of working conditions and the huge increase in casual, labour-hire and sham contracting arrangements throughout the construction industry, claiming this was necessary to ensure competitiveness and to preserve jobs into the future.

Construction workers need to draw a balance sheet of these bitter experiences. They cannot leave matters in the hands of the unions, which are tied by a thousand threads to the corporations and governments.

China’s real estate crisis deepens amid homebuyer boycott movement

Nick Beams

The crisis in China’s property market, exemplified by the default of Evergrande, the country’s most indebted real estate developer last November, is spreading. It is threatening a significant fall in economic growth under conditions where the government is battling to deal with the effects of the COVID pandemic.

Residential buildings developed by Evergrande in Yuanyang. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Over the past few weeks, a home-buyer boycott movement has developed in which purchasers are refusing to continue payments for apartments they have purchased but which are still under construction.

In the past, the pre-delivery sales agreements have been a mainstay for property development as real estate companies have received money for projects not yet completed, enabling them to finance the next one.

The movement is extending with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reporting that hundreds of smaller companies involved in property development are threatening to halt loan payments because they are not receiving payments from the major developers.

The ABC cited a joint statement signed by a group of suppliers to Evergrande in Hubei province saying they are “broke” and will stop paying loans. Addressed to banks and provincial authorities, the statement said: “Evergrande should be held responsible for any consequence that follows because of the chain reaction of the supply-chain crisis.”

While the home-buyer boycott movement is so far relatively small in relation to the total market—the Financial Times reported earlier this month that some 300 projects were involved—its growth has sparked concern at top levels of the government.

The FT reported on Monday that China’s State Council last week passed a plan to establish a real estate fund worth up to 300 billion renminbi ($44.4 billion) to support at least a dozen property development companies.

Initially the China Construction Bank and China’s central bank will inject 80 billion renminbi into the fund, and then possibly to 300 billion renminbi, to revive stalled construction projects.

The amounts of money involved are not small. According to a report published by Bloomberg on Monday: “Construction halts may affect 4.7 trillion yuan worth of homes in China, and up to 1.4 trillion yuan, or about 1.3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, may be needed to complete them.” [The yuan is another name for the renminbi.]

The Bloomberg report noted that while halted real estate projects were not unheard of “the depth of the current turmoil is unprecedented.”

The move by the State Council came a week after the city of Zhengzhou set up a property developer development fund, backed by the financial arms of the local government authority, in response to the growing home-buyer boycott movement.

The extent of the crisis was revealed in a report earlier this month in the FT that developers in some parts of China had agreed to accept garlic, as well as watermelons, barley, and wheat as down payments from farmers on new apartments.

One real estate agent in Zhengzhou, the capital of the Henan province, said that, despite home prices falling to record lows, market activity was depressed.

The Henan province was also the scene of protests on July 10 when hundreds of people protested after deposits totalling 40 billion renminbi had been frozen by four rural banks. The protests were defused when Chinese banking regulator, Liu Rong, promised that protestors who had lost money due to fraud would be reimbursed.

The issue attracted the attention of the representatives of global capital and finance. According to analysts at the US bank Citi, whose remarks were reported in the FT: “We are not worried about the rural banks in Henan per se. However, the situation could worsen if the public were to start worrying about other banks, especially some of the larger financial institutions.”

The real estate crisis is having major financial effects, especially in the higher yield or junk bond market. A report by Bloomberg earlier this month said that the housing woes were hitting every corner of the real estate industry “with distress signs once again flashing in debt markets.”

Pessimism, it said, had become so entrenched that a property firm that had been the subject of a state rescue in May suffered major losses in the dollar bond market.

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Daniel Fan said: “Investors are concerned that it’s just a matter of time for liquidity stress to spread to larger, healthier developers. If the offshore refinancing channel remains shut, the continued repaying of debt with their own cash is not a sustainable strategy and will eventually hurt cash flow.”

Meanwhile the situation at Evergrande goes from bad to worse. The company announced last Friday that its CEO Xia Haijun had been forced to resign as the result of an investigation into how 13.4 billion renminbi of deposits ($2 billion) were used as security for third parties to obtain bank loans, some of which the borrowers failed to repay.

Evergrande is due to announce a restructuring plan by the end of the month. It has around $300 billion worth of liabilities, of which around $20 billion are in dollar-denominated bonds. At this stage creditors have no idea as to how, or even if, they will be repaid. The nature of the restructuring agreement will be critical for the maintenance of confidence in financial markets more broadly.

It has been estimated that real estate firms that have issued high-yield debt need to repay a total of $3.7 billion in offshore bonds and $6.1 billion worth of domestic debt between July and September.

The turmoil in the real estate sector and associated financial markets is exacerbating the mounting problems in the economy as a whole. Annualised growth in the June quarter was only 0.4 percent, meaning that China barely escaped an outright contraction.

Growth estimates for the full year have been revised down. A number of economists expect that the economy will contract in the current quarter and growth for the year will be well below the government’s target of 5.5 percent, which was itself the lowest for 30 years.

Analysts at the Japanese financial firm Nomura have repeated the widely held view that “some fundamentals” may be worse than official data claim. It noted that the road freight index, a key gauge of economic activity, is down 20 percent over the past year and new home sales have dropped by a third.

There has been a significant rise in the number of unemployed young people, with the jobless rate for those aged between 18 and 24 rising to a record high of 18.4 percent. At least 10 million university students are coming on to the jobs market in the next few weeks.

The growing economic crisis will have political ramifications. The Xi Jinping regime, which represents the Chinese financial oligarchy, has sought to base itself on sections of the middle class that have been able to make gains from the full-scale restoration and development of capitalism initiated at the end of the 1980s.

But growing numbers of this social layer, which collectively has an estimated 70 percent of its wealth tied up in housing, are being hit, under conditions of a marked slowdown in economic growth and the contraction of job opportunities.

In the past, the response of the regime would have been to initiate economic and financial stimulus packages. But this road is being increasingly closed off under conditions of rising and increasingly unstable debt and the tightening of interest rates globally by the major central banks.

Pelosi’s Taiwan visit is a reckless provocation

Andre Damon

Behind the backs of the American public, the US military is preparing a provocation against China aimed at instigating a conflict that could lead to a full-scale world war between the world’s two largest economies.

This provocation comes in the form of a planned trip to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the third-ranking figure in the US government.

Despite US President Joe Biden’s publicly stated concerns about the provocative nature of the trip, New York Times journalist David Sanger, an unofficial spokesman for the US military/intelligence apparatus, reported Tuesday that “US officials said the planning for Ms. Pelosi’s trip was moving ahead.”

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (center) poses with US Air Force airmen at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar on Oct. 21, 2019.

By all indications, sometime next month the octogenarian will strap herself into a C-130 cargo plane, possibly accompanied by an escort of F-35 fighters and supported by US aircraft carriers, and tempt fate by landing on Taiwan, amid warnings by Chinese military officers that they will “stop” her from entering the country.

This level of recklessness is a testament to the deep crisis and disorientation of the US political establishment, which is desperately lashing out in all directions in the face of an intractable social, economic and political crisis.

The dispatch of Pelosi, the highest-ranking US official to visit the island in a quarter century, is aimed at further undermining the one-China policy, which has been systematically dismantled by the Trump and Biden administrations, which have encouraged Taiwanese separatism as they have stuffed the island to the gills with weapons. Now, provocatively, Washington is acknowledging publicly a rising number of US military personnel on Taiwan.

In October 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported that US troops are stationed on Taiwan, and in December, the US doubled the number of troops stationed on the island. In March of that year, Nikkei reported that the United States was in discussions to station offensive missiles that would have violated the INF treaty on Taiwan.

On May 5, 2022, the US State Department removed wording on its official website stating that “the United States does not support Taiwan independence” and “acknowledging the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.”

The Biden administration has approved four massive arms sales to Taiwan so far, and a fifth, coming in at $108 million, is slated for imminent congressional approval.

Just as the United States has for years built up the Ukrainian military as a bastion against Russia with the aim of provoking the current disastrous war, the United States is transforming the island into an offensive launch platform for war with China, seeking to provoke China into military action against Taiwan.

These plans, years in the making, now threaten to break out into a shooting war. Both the United States and China have explicitly stated that they would go to war against each other over Taiwan.  Asked in May whether the United States would use force to defend Taiwan, Biden replied, “Yes… That’s the commitment we made.”

Chinese officials have also made clear that they will go to war over Taiwan. Last month, Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe told US officials at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, “If anyone dares to secede Taiwan from China, we will not hesitate to fight, and we will fight at all costs.”

In public and in private, Chinese officials have stated that they are considering a military response to Pelosi’s trip, including intercepting her flight or sending Chinese aircraft to overfly the Taiwanese mainland.

The US military, for its part, is making preparations to deploy aircraft carriers and scramble fighter aircraft to support the operation.

Facing an unprecedented economic, social and political crisis at home, dominant sections of the US political establishment are seeking to massively escalate the global war that has erupted in Ukraine with the opening of a Pacific front.

Indeed, in a statement to the New York Times, Senator Chris Coons, a key Biden ally in the Senate, declared, “we may be heading to an earlier confrontation... than we thought.”

Taiwan, an island less than 100 miles across, is one of the most important economic chokepoints in the entire world.

The island is home to 92 percent of the world’s advanced semiconductor manufacturing. Every product made by Apple, including the iPhone, iPad and Macintosh computers, as well as graphics, artificial intelligence and computer vision processors from Nvidia and countless other hi-tech products rely on semiconductors produced in Taiwan.

The US auto industry, with its increasing focus on electric vehicles and driver-assistance technology, is heavily reliant on semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan.

A military conflict over the island, even one that does not immediately trigger full-scale, high-intensity war between the US and China, would result in the disruption of semiconductor supplies and would trigger an economic crisis rivaling those of 2008 and 2020.

In an article published before the revelation of Pelosi’s planned Taiwan trip, the Financial Times (FT) warned that major corporations are putting the odds of war over Taiwan at one in five. Pelosi’s trip, and the fact that it is proceeding despite serious concerns raised by the White House, will inevitably drive this figure higher.

In an interview with the FT, an executive at a US technology firm warned, “Apply what we have seen in Russia to China and you have Armageddon for the Chinese economy and for the global economy.”

The US military provocation around Pelosi’s trip is driven by powerful and reactionary forces within the US state. Despite the stated opposition to the trip by President Joe Biden and statements to the press by his national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, America’s foremost political generals have demanded the trip go ahead. Among these are:

• Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO supreme allied commander Europe, who declared, “We cannot allow China to decide whether or not senior US officials visit the island of Taiwan.”
• Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who told CNN, “I think if the speaker wants to go, she should go.”
• Former army officer, CIA director and secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who tweeted: “Nancy, I’ll go with you… See you there!”

Pelosi’s trip has been met with applause by the fascistic right in America:

• At the Trump-backed America First Policy Institute meeting in Washington, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich declared, “I commend Nancy,” to thunderous applause.
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared, “If she doesn’t go now, she’s handing China… a victory.”
• Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who penned the essay “Send in the Troops” urging the establishment of a military/police dictatorship in response to US protests against police violence in 2020, condemned Biden’s concerns over the trip, declaring, “This pathetic self-deterrence is a mistake, and it will invite more aggression.”

Newsweek commented that “A Nancy Pelosi Taiwan Visit Would be a Trump China Foreign Policy Triumph.”

The escalation of the US conflict with China would further empower far-right forces in the United States. Trump’s xenophobic anti-China demagogy, centered around the claim that COVID-19 is the “China virus,” was a central component of his foreign policy, most fundamental tenets of which have been intensified and continued by Biden.

The US plans for war against China must be opposed. As horrific as the US-provoked war in Ukraine has been, a war over Taiwan, a central chokepoint of the global economy, would have vastly greater human and economic consequences.

US Fed meets amid fears of global recession and financial turbulence

Nick Beams

The US Federal Reserve’s monetary policy setting committee starts a two-day meeting today at which it is expected to announce a further 0.75 percentage point (75 basis points) increase in interest rates despite growing concerns that the US economy could soon enter a recession if it is not already in one.

Consumer sentiment is at a record low and yesterday the biggest US retailer, Walmart, issued a statement that higher prices for food and fuel were causing consumers to pull back spending in other areas. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) characterised the announcement as “an ominous sign for the US economy that has relied on resilient household spending power through inflation.”

The Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington, DC [Photo by Rdsmith4 / CC BY 4.0]

While Fed officials appear to have pulled back from a full percentage point increase, the further increase in the Fed rate to be announced tomorrow afternoon will add to the pressure on central banks around the world to also lift their rates in order to protect their currencies and mitigate the transmission of inflation via higher import prices.

The US interest rate hikes, which began in March, are being driven by the rise in inflation which hit an annual rate of 9.1 percent in June and the determination of the Fed, acting as the enforcer of the interests of the corporations and finance capital, to ensure that a wages movement of the working class in response to the price hikes is crushed by slowing the economy.

While there are some indications that commodity price increases which sparked the inflationary spiral are falling, there are warnings that the inflationary surge is spreading throughout the economy.

Former Fed vice chair Donald Kohn told Bloomberg that “inflation is entrenched and spreading.”

This view was echoed by Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon as part of the survey conducted by the WSJ on the outlook of business chiefs.

“We see inflation as deeply entrenched in the economy,” he said. “In my dialogue with CEOs operating big global businesses, they tell me that they continue to see persistent inflation in their supply chains. Our economists, meanwhile, say there are signs that inflation will move lower in the second half of the year. The answer is uncertain.”

That uncertainty has led to significant swings on Wall Street with the market moving up one day in the belief that the Fed may pull back its monetary tightening in the face of recession threats only to move down the next.

But there are growing calls that the Fed must not carry out a “stop-go” policy and continue with the rate hikes even under conditions of recession.

Former US treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers, who has said an unemployment rate of 10 percent for a year is needed to halt inflation, told Bloomberg Television his instinct was “you’d not see rates cuts as soon as people think.”

“The Fed has to be careful. If you look at the history of the 60’s and 70’s, there were moments when monetary policy eased a bit and things didn’t tend to work out so well,” he said.

All central banks are now engaged in monetary policy tightening as 50 basis point increases become the norm, with some increases even higher as took place earlier this month when the Canadian central bank lifted its rate by 100 basis points, the biggest by any G7 economy since 1998.

According to the Financial Times (FT), in the three months to June, 62 policy rate increases of at least 50 basis points were made by 55 central banks, with another 17 increases of 50 basis points or more so far this month.

The underlying motivation for the rate hikes, which in and of themselves will do nothing to bring down prices, was outlined by Jennifer McKeown, head of global economics at Capital Economics, in comments to the FT.

Central banks, she said, had to move quickly to get rates out of “stimulative” territory, “particularly in an environment where wage growth and inflation expectations are rising and there is a risk that inaction would allow wage-price spirals to develop.”

In other words, rates must be lifted rapidly to crush the growing international wages struggles of the working class under conditions where living standards are being cut daily.

Last week, the European Central Bank (ECB) joined the 50-basis points club when it abandoned its previous “forward guidance” of a 25-basis point increase and indicated further rises would come.

The larger than expected rise was the result of a deal between the so-called hawks on the ECB’s governing council who had been pressing for it. In return they signed off on the so-called Transition Protection Instrument under which the ECB will buy up the bonds of the more indebted countries, particularly Italy, if the interest rates on government debt sharply diverge from those of Germany.

The “anti-fragmentation” policy is aimed at trying to prevent a recurrence of the crisis that developed in 2012 when the continued existence of the euro was threatened.

Speaking in support of the new measures, which will not have a limit decided in advance, ECB president Christine Lagarde, said the central bank was “capable of going big.” She said the ECB would rather not use the new program “but if we have to use it, we will not hesitate.”

On the same day as the new policy was announced, the Italian government, headed by former ECB president Mario Draghi, collapsed, increasing the danger of fragmentation amid fears that elections, scheduled for September, may not produce a stable government, let alone one capable of carrying out the kind of austerity measures being demanded to ensure financial support.

Added to the prospect of continuing financial and economic turbulence there is the issue of gas supplies to Germany from Russia. While Russia resumed supplies of gas via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline last week after its closure for maintenance, supplies were only running at 40 percent, casting doubt over whether sufficient reserves can be accumulated for the winter months.

Yesterday, the situation worsened when the Russian gas producer, Gazprom, announced that exports through the pipeline would be cut to 20 percent because of problems in the return of a turbine undergoing repairs in Canada because of the sanctions regime imposed on Russia.

At the same time, the Ifo Institute, a major economic research organisation, warned: “Germany is on the threshold of recession.”

Summing up the problems confronting the ECB, Krishna Guha, head of policy and central bank strategy at the US investment bank Evercore told the FT that “the combination of a brewing giant stagflationary shock from weaponised Russian natural gas and a political crisis in Italy” was about as close to a “perfect storm as can be imagined.”

As Wall Street continues to gyrate, major investors have cut their allocations to equities to the lowest level since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, according to an article in the FT last week, reporting on a survey conducted by the Bank of America.

Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at the bank said investors had reached a “dire level” of pessimism over concerns that the tightening of monetary policy could lead to a broad slowdown in the global economy.

The Biden administration’s new policy: Everyone will get COVID

Benjamin Mateus

At yesterday’s White House COVID-19 press briefing, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declared, “As we have said, almost everyone is going to get COVID and because of the hard work we have done since day one turning around the disjointed COVID response we had inherited, we have the tools to ensure that people can go about their daily life and work.”

Biden’s spokewoman then added, “The president is fully vaccinated, twice boosted, and taking Paxlovid. His current health speaks to how Americans should avail themselves to boosters and treatments.”

This is a remarkable admission in that it explicitly states that the Biden administration has washed its hands of any attempt to stem a pandemic that has already killed a million people in America and 20 million around the world. “Everyone is going to get COVID” should be read as a statement of intent. It confirms that a policy of mass infection, mass death and mass murder is the agenda of the US president and the ruling class for which he speaks.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, left, speaks during a briefing with White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha, right, at the White House in Washington, Monday, July 25, 2022. [AP Photo/Susan Walsh]

Hospitalizations and deaths continue to climb as BA.5’s dominance grows. Nearly 450 people are dying every day from COVID-19. This translates to 164,000 a year, five times the average killed by influenza and a toll that would have been considered inconceivable before the beginning of the pandemic. And this does not take into account the predictions by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of another massive surge of infections this fall and winter.

Beyond the immediate death toll, one in five of those who are infected and survive will experience Long COVID, and a third of these can suffer from debilitating disease. Yet, with $1.3 billion given to the NIH (National Institutes of Health) to study the Post-Acute COVID Syndrome (the formal title of Long COVID), there is not a single therapeutic trial up and running. The press secretary was not asked about this and would have had nothing to say.

Meanwhile, study after study has documented that even mild COVID-19 infections can accelerate the aging process in adults and children. Allowing everyone to get infected means a generation of children and teenagers who will be deliberately crippled even before they have ventured into the world on their own.  

Hospitals across the country are facing drastic and unprecedented staffing shortages, which are further compounding worker burnout. Infections and reinfections are causing health care workers to fall sick and forcing them to choose between staying home to care for themselves or coming in to work and infecting their patients. Many hospitals are considering eliminating routine COVID-19 testing to cut wait times in overcrowded emergency rooms.

Federal funding for addressing staff shortages is being exhausted. An article published in Politico yesterday reported, “As of July 22, hospitals in nearly 40 states reported critical staffing shortages, while hospitals in all 50 states said they expected to within a week.”

Nancy Foster, vice president for quality and patient safety policy at the American Hospital Association, told Politico, “There is growing concern that this money has run out. It’s not really getting sufficient attention. While we have previously experienced staffing shortages, we’re keenly aware of the staffing shortages at virtually every kind of position within the hospital right now. If we have a large influx of COVID patients, it will be [a] much more challenging surge to meet those demands that ever before.” How will everyone catching COVID-19 avail themselves of therapeutics and treatments when the entire health care system is on the verge of collapse?

The Biden administration is keenly aware of the crisis in health care but chooses to ignore the implications. Over the past 10 days, there has been a deliberate shift by the Biden administration to force the population to accept the consequences of living and dying with COVID-19.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), announced in an interview with Politico last week that he would retire before the end of Biden’s first term.

Asked if he was staying in his role at age 81 out of a sense of obligation, Fauci replied, “We’re in a pattern now. If somebody says, ‘You’ll leave when we don’t have COVID anymore,’ then I will be 105. I think we’re going to be living with this.”

This was an astonishing statement, implying that the COVID-19 pandemic would continue to plague the world for another quarter century. There have already been three Omicron waves since December, ultimately producing the highly contagious BA.5 subvariant. What does a scenario of 25 years of global pandemic mean for the human race?

Clearly his statement was not a slip of the tongue. Such interviews are rehearsed and prepared in advance by the administration, and the occasion was used as a test of the public response to the declaration that COVID-19 was here to stay.

When news of Biden’s positive COVID-19 test broke on Thursday, the media response amounted to a celebration of the health care available to the US president, including Paxlovid, a drug which is out of reach for many working class victims of SARS-CoV-2. Biden’s recent world travels, with multiple maskless photo ops, were more than just careless. The president and his staff allowed nature to take its course and dropped all mitigation measures for him. In short, they allowed him to get infected.

Given his age and understanding the airborne nature of the disease, his staff and medical doctors would have demanded protecting him from contracting a virus that has killed millions and pushed life expectancy down by more than two years. Additionally, the risk of Long COVID and the impact it has on nearly every organ system despite vaccination status would have ensured his well-being was guarded carefully. He takes blood thinners and cholesterol-lowering medications which place him in a high-risk category.

The Wall Street Journal wrote on the occasion, “The President’s infection demonstrates how hard it is to avoid the new highly transmissible COVID variants. The White House has gone to great lengths to protect Mr. Biden, but there’s only so much staff can do if the President is going to do his job.”

The sub-headline of the editorial read, “His infection shows that everyone will get the virus eventually.” This was echoed nearly word for word by Ms. Jean-Pierre three days later.

The other major aspect of official COVID-19 policy was spelled out by the White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha. In a press briefing Friday on Biden’s condition, he said, “This virus is going to be with us forever.”

Biden ran for president on the promise that he would carry out the measures necessary to bring an end to the pandemic. Now his administration has officially adopted the policy that everyone will get COVID-19 and the virus will be with us forever. While the Trump administration advocated “herd immunity,” claiming everyone would become immune if the virus was allowed free rein, Biden drops any pretense of a strategy: SARS-CoV-2 has conquered, and his administration has surrendered.

This policy is not unique to the American ruling class. In every country, with the significant exception of China, the financial aristocracy has decided that nothing should be done to fight COVID-19. The elderly, the sick and immunocompromised, working people and their children will pay the price, while those in the most privileged positions, like Biden and the billionaires he serves, will have unlimited resources to survive the deadly pandemic.

The American people have not “learned to live with COVID;” they have been coerced into it. They have been lied to, as they elected a president who claimed to “follow the science” but has actually followed the money. The measures necessary to fight the pandemic are in complete conflict with the profit interests of the financial elite, so public health will be sacrificed to private wealth.

Beginning Investigator Grant for Catalytic Research (BIG CAT) 2023

Application Deadline:

Letter of Intent Deadline: 7th September 2022 5:00 PM (UTC)

Application Deadline: 13th December 2022 5:00 PM (UTC)

Tell Me About Beginning Investigator Grant for Catalytic Research (BIG CAT):

Cancer is becoming a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Africa. The International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates that cancer deaths in Africa will double by 2040. This trend poses major challenges for public health activities in Africa. Among the many needs, there is a need to generate local evidence and knowledge upon which appropriate clinical, public health, and policy guidelines can be built. Historically, the pool of cancer researchers in Africa has been limited, in part because early-career funding mechanisms to help launch junior investigators into research careers are very limited. In order to address the growing cancer health crisis, a pipeline of talented and creative early-career African investigators must be fostered to generate knowledge that can be used to address cancer needs in Africa and beyond. Furthermore, the development of academic and research pursuits in Africa will provide opportunities to advance the continent’s need for biomedical, economic, academic, and social development on a variety of levels. The  Beginning Investigator Grant for Catalytic Research (BIG Cat) represents a joint effort to address this need by promoting and supporting early-career investigators in Africa to establish a successful career path in cancer research, thereby increasing and sustaining a cadre of talented cancer researchers in Africa.

BIG Cat is a premier initiative by the African Organization for Research and Training in Cancer (AORTIC) to build capacity for cancer research in Africa. The  goal of BIG Cat program is to aid the next generation of African cancer researchers to base their careers in their home countries and institutions, and to contribute to the overall expansion of capacity for research and training in Africa by generating evidence that will guide practice and policy. BIG Cat was initiated in 2010 by the US National Cancer Institute Center for Global Health (NCI/CGH), and it is now a collaborative effort of AORTIC, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and NCI/CGH, with funding support from Partners including academic, industrial and scientific organizations.

The research proposed for funding may be in any area of cancer research, including basic research, clinical research, population-based research and translational research across the cancer care continuum (prevention, early detection, diagnosis, treatment , supportive and palliative care, and survivorship). These grants are intended to catalyze subsequent application for funding from other funding sources, not to support longer term research. Each grant will provide US$55,000 over two years for expenses related to the research project, which may include salary and benefits of the grant recipient and any collaborator, postdoctoral or clinical research fellows, graduate students (including tuition costs), and/or research assistants, research/laboratory supplies, equipment, publication charges for manuscripts that pertain directly to the funded project, and other research expenses. Indirect costs is limited to no more than 10% of the total grant amount. Up to US$10,000 may be allocated from the grant to support travel applicable to the research project and relevant scientific meetings, including mandatory attendance at the 2023 AACR Annual Meeting and biennial AORTIC conference. The grants are not intended for principal investigators outside of Africa, although collaborative research projects are encouraged. All funds provided must be spent in Africa with the exception of limited support for travel to international scientific meetings and conferences.

Which Fields are Eligible?

Research projects may be in any area of cancer research, including basic research, clinical research, population-based research and translational research across the cancer care continuum (prevention, early detection, diagnosis, treatment and survivorship). Applicants are encouraged to be innovative in their research proposals and demonstrate local relevance of their proposed research.

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Grants

Who can apply for Beginning Investigator Grant for Catalytic Research (BIG CAT)?

At the start of the grant term on July 1, 2022, the Principal investigator (PI) must:

• Be a beginning investigator, defined as a clinician or scientist who received his or her highest degree of study within the past ten years. An earned academic (or research) doctorate [such as a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)], or medical degree [such as a Doctor of Medicine (MD),Doctor of Osteopathy (DO) or Bachelor of Medicine Bachelor of Surgery (MB ChB, MB BS, BM MCh, etc.)] which is considered the highest degree of study in most African countries. When an investigator has received multiple terminal degrees, the calculation will be based on the date of award of the most recent degree.
• Be a current member with AORTIC. Note: AORTIC membership is also mandatory at LOI stage.
• Reside in and be conducting research in Africa with particular relevance to the African cancer burden on the continent. Proof of residency is required.
• Have legal residency status in Africa.
• Not have received a BIG CAT award in prior years.

AACR is obligated to comply with U.S. laws and regulations regarding research and related transactions in countries subject to US Government enforcement of economic and trade sanctions for particular foreign policy and national security reasons.  If your proposed project involves US Government sanctioned countries subject to restrictions, please contact the AACR’s Scientific Review and Grants Administration (the AACR’s SRGA) at grants@aacr.org.

Which Countries are Eligible?

Applicants must have legal residency status in Africa. A list of eligible countries can be found in the Competitive Letter of Intent Program Guidelines and Application Instructions. Proof of residency is required.

How Many Scholarships will be Given?

Not specified

What is the Benefit of Beginning Investigator Grant for Catalytic Research (BIG CAT)?

$55,000 USD

How Long will the Program Last?

2 Years

How to Apply for Beginning Investigator Grant for Catalytic Research (BIG CAT):

Competitive Letter of Intent Program Guidelines and Application Instructions are available for download here.

• The BIG Cat program requires applicants to complete an online Letter of Intent submission by 5:00 p.m. UTC (1:00 p.m. Eastern Time) on September 7, 2022, using the ProposalCentral website at https://proposalcentral.com/.

Visit Award Webpage for Details