Biden’s technology war against China

Peter Symonds

The Biden administration is engaged in an all-out economic war against China, aimed not only at curbing trade but above all at blocking China’s ability to make advances in key hi-tech areas and compete with the US.

President Joe Biden speaks outside Independence Hall, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022, in Philadelphia. [AP Photo/Evan Vucci]

Last month Biden took the unprecedented step of banning the sale of the most advanced semi-conductors to China, as well as the equipment needed to make them. US citizens are also prohibited from working for Chinese computer chipmakers.

While the US has imposed the bans in the name of “national defence,” semi-conductors are essential not just for military applications but for virtually every aspect of modern society, from electronic products and transport to the design and production of all manner of goods.

The dependence of China, the world’s largest manufacturer, on semi-conductors is highlighted by fact that it spends more on imported computer chips than it does on oil and gas. In 2021, China imported a record $414 billion worth of computer chips, or more than 16 percent of the value of its total imports.

While the US bans do not apply to the sale of all semi-conductors to China, the embargos apply to the latest generations of computer chips that are crucial to technological areas, such as artificial intelligence, supercomputing and automation. Washington is deliberately seeking to undermine China’s ambitious “Made in China 2025” plans to rapidly become a global leader in a range of hi-tech industries, including artificial intelligence, 5G wireless and quantum computing.

Biden’s escalating economic war against Beijing is integral to US preparations for military conflict with China. Even as the US and its NATO allies recklessly wage war against Russia in Ukraine, the recently released US National Security Strategy identifies China as “the only competitor with both the intent and, increasingly, the capability to reshape the international order.”

The dangers of Biden’s semi-conductor ban on China have been all but hidden from the working class in the US and internationally. However, in economic and strategic circles, the immense implications are clearly understood. An October 19 Financial Times article by Edward Luce, entitled “Containing China is Biden’s explicit goal,” sounded the following alarm: “Imagine that a superpower declared war on a great power and nobody noticed. Joe Biden this month launched a full-blown economic war on China—all but committing the US to stopping its rise—and for the most part, Americans did not react.

“To be sure, there is Russia’s war on Ukraine and inflation at home to preoccupy attention. But history is likely to record Biden’s move as the moment when US-China rivalry came out of the closet.”

Moreover, last week, a top Biden administration official indicated that the US was preparing new bans on China in key hi-tech areas. Speaking at the Center for a New American Security, Alan Estevez, the under-secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security, was asked if the US would ban China from accessing quantum information science, biotechnology, artificial intelligence software or advanced algorithms. Estevez admitted that this was already being actively discussed. “Will we end up doing something in those areas? If I was a betting person, I would put down money on that,” he said.

The repercussions of Biden’s actions not only for China, but for American corporations and the global economy, are yet to emerge. However, just as the US-NATO war against Russia severely disrupted global supply chains and is a major factor in rapidly rising inflation, the US semi-conductor ban on China is likely to be disruptive, in fact even more so.

According to CNN, the Dutch semi-conductor equipment supplier ASM International (ASMI) said last week that it expected the US bans to hit more than 40 percent of its sales to China. China accounted for 16 percent of its total equipment sales in the first nine months of the year.

The US-based Lam Research, which also sells semi-conductor equipment and services, predicted that it could lose between $2 billion and $2.5 billion in annual revenue in 2023 as a result of the US export bans.

Semi-conductor design and manufacture is integral to globalised production and is itself a deeply integrated global industry. The vast bulk of chip design and chip making equipment production takes place in the US and three East Asian countries—Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. But the actual manufacture of semi-conductors takes place overwhelmingly in East Asia.

When it comes to the most advanced chips, ASMI is the sole maker of the necessary equipment and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) produces 91 percent of the world’s supplies, with Samsung and Intel running poor seconds.

The dominant role of TSMC in global chip manufacture underscores the recklessness of the mounting US confrontation with China. While accusing China of preparing to invade Taiwan, the Biden administration is deliberately provoking Beijing by boosting ties with Taipei and undermining the One China policy, under which the US de facto recognises Beijing as the legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan.

At the same time as goading China into taking military action, Washington is arming Taiwan to the teeth to transform the island into a quagmire for the Chinese military.

The Biden administration is acutely aware that any war over Taiwan would have a calamitous impact on global semi-conductor supply chains. It is pressuring TSMC to move substantial sections of its manufacturing to the US. While the TSMC has begun to build a plant in Arizona, it has refused to relocate its main manufacturing facilities and is in the process of constructing a huge new factory in Taiwan.

In a clear sign that the US is preparing for war with China, the Biden administration is pushing to create a national chip making capacity through legislation known as the “CHIPS and Science Act” that would allocate $280 billion over five years to the American semi-conductor industry and scientific research.

The funds needed to build a self-sufficient US industry are likely to be far larger. A report last year by the Semiconductor Industry Association and Boston Consulting Group, entitled “Strengthening the global semiconductor supply chain in an uncertain era,” pointed out that all countries depend on an integrated global supply chain and that semi-conductors are the world’s fourth-most-traded product after crude oil, refined oil and cars.

The report estimated the upfront cost of constructing “self-sufficient” local supply chains in the US at between $350 and $420 billion, just to meet 2019 demand, followed by large ongoing costs. As cited in a Financial Times article ,” Edlyn Levine, chief science officer at America’s Frontier Fund, declared it was “a fantasy” to think that the US could completely decouple from TSMC. “The idea… is technically not feasible,” he said.

Yet as it prepares for war with China, the US is being driven to outlay vast sums to attempt to establish national industries vital for the military, and to heap new economic burdens on the working class. Already at war with one nuclear-armed power, US imperialism, in a desperate bid to shore up its global domination, is recklessly pursuing a strategy of diplomatic, economic and military confrontation with nuclear-armed China that could lead to a catastrophic global conflict.

Luce concluded his Financial Times article cited above by declaring: “Will Biden’s gamble work? I’m not relishing the prospect of finding out. For better or worse, the world has just changed with a whimper not a bang. Let us hope it stays that way.”

Record numbers of Canadians used food banks this year, report shows

E.P. Milligan

A record number of Canadians had to make use of food banks this year as real wages stagnate and inflation soars. In its annual report, Food Banks Canada found there were nearly 1.5 million visits to food banks in March alone, 15 percent more than the same month in 2021 and 35 percent more than in March 2019, one year prior to the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in Canada.

Volunteers pack boxes of food outside of a food bank [AP Photo/Ashley Landis]

The Food Banks Canada report compiled data from more than 4,750 food banks and community organizations. It identified key factors behind the sharp increase in food bank visits: rising food and housing costs, high inflation and low social assistance rates.

Emerging from the mass carnage of the COVID-19 pandemic as it ends its third year wealthier than ever, the Canadian ruling class has demanded that workers continue to fuel record profits through savage cuts to real wages and social programs, the ramping up of production quotas, and the price gouging of basic necessities. The Liberal Trudeau government is playing a leading role in fueling the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, spending more than $600 million CAD on military equipment and assistance, while thousands of Canadians go hungry every day.

The recently published figures on food bank usage underscore just how devastating the consequences of this process have been for the vast majority of society, many of whom have been living on the edge since the pandemic began. 

Numbers point to an overall 35 percent increase in food bank users in just two years, roughly half of whom are on some type of social assistance. Shockingly, one in seven food bank users was employed—a further reflection of stagnating wages in the face of rampant inflation.

The current social crisis has been particularly hard on working class families, with children comprising 33 percent, a third, of food bank users across the country. A growing number of students and senior citizens, who often live on fixed incomes, have also been forced to rely on food banks as a result of economic hardship, including rising tuition costs and dwindling social assistance.

A Canada-wide survey of 1,001 respondents published Monday by the Canadian Hub for Applied and Social Research at the University of Saskatchewan showed that nearly 20 percent were reducing meal portions or even skipping meals entirely in order to save money. Most respondents said they were using coupons or hunting for sales to adapt to the spike in food prices.

Over half of respondents claimed they had started making meal plans to ensure they could afford their grocery bills. Over 30 percent said they were eating less healthy food to keep up with rising costs. Nearly 5 percent admitted to stealing food out of necessity, and another 5 percent had used a food bank or community fridge.

The survey noted that grocery store prices increased this year at the fastest rate since August 1981, just over 41 years ago. The majority of respondents—just over 79 percent—considered wage increases to be the most effective way of meeting the rising cost of living.

The 12th edition of Canada’s Food Price Report also paints a stark picture of the daily financial struggles facing millions of workers, noting the “lingering challenges posed by COVID-19 as an unprecedented global crisis.”

The report shows the scale of the accelerating rate of food cost. While overall prices of foodstuffs in Canada rose between 3-5 percent last year, they are set to rise 5-7 percent by the end of this year. Its executive summary noted that a family of four would pay $106 CAD (Canadian dollars) more out of pocket than last year as a result of rising food prices.

The average grocery bill has risen some 70 percent between 2000 and 2022. While median income rose just over 6.5 percent between 2015 and 2019, food expenditure shot up by 16.3 percent over the same period. Within overall food expenditure, food retail (i.e., grocery store) prices had risen 19 percent just prior to the outbreak of the pandemic.

Jane, a student and young mother who wished to keep her real name anonymous, spoke to the World Socialist Web Site about her experience. Jane recently moved to St. John’s, Newfoundland, with her husband and daughter to study in a Master’s program at Memorial University. Already hit with moving-related expenses and the added financial strain of having no income while she and her husband looked for work, skyrocketing food prices forced her to seek aid from the local food bank.

“The food bank here sucks,” she began. “The staff were nice, but the experience really stuck it in. They give a three-day supply to last a month [an individual can only use the food bank once every four weeks] and I had to wait outside in the rain.

“The food bank has more demand than supply,” she continued. “The more people that need it, the less supplies they will have. When I went, there was no fruit, meat or vegetables.” Most of the food bank supply consists of old canned or jarred goods, and even bread is scarce.

Jane grew up in a working class area and has dealt with food insecurity in the past but noted that things have become much harder today. “Things have always been bad because we grew up in the lower class,” she said. “My husband and I both grew up with food insecurity, so we are good at navigating it. The cost of food and everything else makes it harder to navigate. We couldn’t afford food in September, and it was getting to the point that neither of us were eating because we wanted to make sure the kid still had food. We ran out of staples like flour and sugar. I was living off broth and homemade bread until we ran out of flour, then it was just broth. My husband was eating less than once a day.”

Jane’s husband found work as a private security guard, but getting steady hours proved difficult. “He had a job, but they stopped giving him hours,” she said. “I found a job quickly, but it takes time to catch up on bills and re-stock up on food. We moved here in July so [we] didn’t have anything stored, and our savings was gone. Once the money started coming in, we both needed to pay for gas to go to work so it took a few more weeks before we were ‘secure.’ The cost of food makes it very, very hard.” Jane added that her family depends on the lunch program at her daughter’s school to ensure she gets three square meals a day.

Food banks across the country have been put under enormous strain due to the growing demand driven by the rising cost of living. The food bank at Memorial University’s St. John’s campus is a particularly tragic example of the institutions’ inability to keep up with the needs in the community. The centre was forced to temporarily close last week, citing surging demand that overwhelmed its resources. “The demand over the past few months has just been more than we could have possibly predicted,” Matt Pike, the food bank’s volunteer coordinator, told CBC News. 

He explained that the food bank served around 150 clients in August. While under “normal” conditions, food bank usage typically increased by 50 percent in September as students return to class, Pike noted that client numbers actually doubled to 300 during this period. By October, the food bank was serving more than 360 clients before it was forced to close. “We were on track to doing closer to 500 clients this October had we not had to shut down,” he said.

Pike noted that in addition to students, the food bank has increasingly been used by university staff and even some professors. “The cost of living is tough for everybody,” he said. “It’s not just the students.” The St. John’s food bank hopes to reopen November 3, though whether it will have enough resources by then to do so remains unclear.

German government plans hospital “reforms”: A recipe for more cuts

Markus Salzmann

Almost three years of the coronavirus pandemic and a current inflation rate of more than 10 percent have pushed many hospitals and health care workers to their limit. This year, hospitals can only claim price increases of about 2.3 percent, which covers about one-fifth of the actual inflation rate. It is therefore not surprising that two in five hospitals consider insolvency a possibility.

Summer 2021: Nursing staff at Vivantes and Charité hospitals in Berlin fight for better working conditions. The banner reads, “Broken bones, heart attacks, diagnose tumours? Just clap with us!!!” [Photo: WSWS]

A study by management consultants Roland Berger found that almost 70 percent of hospitals expect to run a deficit this year. Among the public/state-funded hospitals, the figure is 90 percent; 96 percent expect the economic situation to worsen in the next five years.

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (Social Democrat, SPD) and the “traffic light” coalition, which includes the Liberal Democrats (FDP) and Greens, have announced a “hospital reform.” But instead of supporting hospitals in need and relieving the ailing health care system, it is the first step towards implementing long-cherished plans for nationwide hospital closures and radical cuts in public health care.

The situation is dire. According to a recent survey by the German Hospital Institute, 96 percent of hospitals can no longer meet their costs from current revenues. For example, a medium-sized hospital will now pay over €6 million more for electricity and gas next year than last year. Extrapolated to all hospitals, this results in a shortfall of €4 billion for energy costs alone.

Added to this are the burdens caused by the pandemic. In the summer, the so-called Coronavirus Aid provided for hospitals expired. At the same time, the government’s unscrupulous policy of allowing the virus to run wild has led to hospitals being hopelessly overloaded, even before the peak of the autumn/winter wave. In the coming weeks, the situation will further worsen.

Before the pandemic, the staffing situation in hospitals was already catastrophic. In the last two and a half years, hundreds of nurses have quit or reduced their hours because workloads are unbearable. Now, there are enormous staff shortages due to COVID infections. Almost 80 percent of hospitals expect to have to postpone or cancel planned operations and treatments this autumn due to staff shortages.

According to the government’s plans, there is to be marginal financial aid for paediatrics and obstetrics. Paediatric clinics are to receive as yet unspecified additional funding, in addition to the flat-rate per case funding, to compensate for possible revenue shortfalls. However, these will be linked to target requirements. For example, at least 80 percent of the revenue volume of 2019 must be met, otherwise there is a risk of deductions.

Every hospital that has a paediatric department and a perinatal centre is to receive €1.5 million. But this sum is no more than the proverbial drop in the ocean since these areas have been systematically cut since the introduction of DRGs (diagnosis-related group funding). Paediatric medicine, in particular, has been cut back in favour of other areas that promise higher profits. Today, in some regions of Germany, there is a real lack of care in these areas.

At the centre of Lauterbach’s plans, however, is the reduction of inpatient treatments. To this end, as many as possible should be conducted as day treatments and so be billed in this way. Lauterbach argues that this will relieve nursing staff because many night services will then not have to be staffed. “We do a lot of inpatient care that could actually be done on an outpatient basis or without patients staying overnight. This is an ancient structure that we now want to overcome,” he told broadcaster ZDF.

Lauterbach has never advocated for better working conditions in hospitals, neither as a long-standing member of the supervisory board of the private Rhön hospitals, nor as a health affairs politician. In view of about 30,000 unfilled positions in nursing, the elimination of some night services would not make much difference.

Rather, overcoming the “ancient structures” is directed at closing hospitals across the board and cutting services, and thus staff, in those that remain. In this way, Lauterbach is continuing the policy he himself played a major role in shaping in 2003/2004 with the introduction of Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs).

Since then, hospitals have been under enormous economic pressure. With the DRGs, hospitals are reimbursed for the average cost of treatment, regardless of the actual expenditure. To be profitable or cost-neutral, they must treat as many patients as possible with as few staff as possible.

Only if a patient is discharged from hospital as soon as possible does the hospital make a profit. If, however, the patient must stay in hospital longer than the flat-rate per case payment covers, because the treatment is more complex, this is usually not reimbursed by the health insurance funds and the hospital is left bearing the costs.

As a result of the flat-rate per case model, there are “bloody discharges”; to meet predefined hospitalisation times, patients who are not actually ready are sent home.

With the “reform” now planned, this system is to be tightened up even more. Treatments that should be carried out on an in-patient basis are to be carried out increasingly as out-patient treatment. In addition, so-called hybrid DRGs are being planned. This means that outpatient therapies can also be carried out by doctors in private practice. Above all, small hospitals and primary care hospitals with overall and emergency care, but without specialty focuses, would lose revenue. The intended closures would thus be preordained.

Boris Augurzky of the Essen-based Leibniz Institute for Economic Research (RWI), who also sits on the expert committee of the Ministry of Health, welcomed the plans. He assumes that 20 percent of today’s hospital cases could be treated on an outpatient basis. This gives an idea of the scope of the plans.

Augurzky had already called for the nationwide closure of hospitals during the first wave of the pandemic in spring 2020. Under conditions of the complete overloading of intensive care units, he coldly remarked that it was a pity more hospitals were not being closed. Later, he demanded the federal government further reduce hospital costs, a “phase of austerity” was coming, Augurzky said.

For years, Lauterbach and Augurzky have been calling for the implementation of the proposals of the Bertelsmann Foundation, which had called for more than half of Germany’s hospitals to be closed in 2019. At the beginning of September, the Münch Foundation think tank, of which Augurzky is chairman, published a study promoting a comprehensive “transformation” of general hospitals into outpatient facilities.

The consequences of such a “transformation” are clear. Even more than before, economic pressure and profit maximisation will determine treatment at the expense of patient care. Inpatient stays with comprehensive medical and nursing care would become the exception for most of the population.

Lauterbach and the “traffic light” coalition want to use the drastic situation, which they themselves have created by their profits-before-lives policy with their planned “reforms,” to further cut public health care.

Pentagon confirms deployment of active-duty military personnel in Ukraine

Andre Damon

US Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder acknowledged during an official briefing yesterday that active-duty US military personnel are not only deployed inside of Ukraine, but are operating far away from the US embassy in Kiev.

The day before, an unnamed US Department of Defense official said at a background briefing that “U.S. personnel” had “resumed on-site inspections to assess weapon stocks” in Ukraine.

Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder Holds A Briefing

Reporting on this announcement, NBC News noted that “these inspectors in Ukraine appear to be some of the first members of the U.S. military to re-enter the Eastern European country since the start of the war, outside of military guards posted at the U.S. Embassy...”

During Tuesday’s on-camera briefing, Travis Tritten of military.com asked, “The military has personnel inside of Ukraine, who are doing weapons inspections now. I’m wondering what the rules of engagement for those personnel are if they are fired on by the Russians or they are targeted by the Russians.”

Ryder replied, “We do have small teams that are comprised of embassy personnel that are conducting some inspections of security assistance delivery at a variety of locations.”

“My understanding is that they would be well far away from any type of frontline actions, we are relying on the Ukrainians to do that, we are relying on other partners to do that…. They’re not going to be operating on the front lines.”

He continued, “We’ve been very clear there are no combat forces in Ukraine, no US forces conducting combat operations in Ukraine, these are personnel that are assigned to conduct security cooperation and assistance as part of the defense attaché office.”

To this, Tritten replied, “But this would be different because they would be working outside the embassy. I would just ask if people should read this as an escalation.”

Ryder claimed that the US action was not escalatory, and simply refused to answer Tritten’s question about what the US would do if any active-duty US troops were killed. 

Especially over the past weeks, Russia has expanded its targeting of logistics sites throughout Ukraine, with weapons depots being a major target. What will be the consequence if these US troops, serving as liaisons for the coordination of logistics and weapons shipments, are targeted, including inadvertently, by Russia?

The fact that the massive funneling of arms into Ukraine by the US and NATO powers now requires the deployment of military personnel in Ukraine explodes the fiction that the US is not directly involved in the conflict, and is also revealing about the forces with which the US is allied.

To date, the United States has sent more than $50 billion in military and economic assistance to Ukraine. Having financed and supplied the war, the US wants to make sure it has direct control over where the weapons have ended up and how they are being used. This is part of the conflict within the American political establishment in advance of the midterm elections.

The US military and State Department are also concerned that advanced weapons may end up in the hands of elements within Ukraine that may use them in a way that Washington has not approved beforehand.

The Pentagon’s statements followed the release of a report by the State Department on its plans to “Counter Illicit Diversion of Certain Advanced Conventional Weapons in Eastern Europe.”

The report referred to “a variety of criminal and non-state actors [who] may attempt to acquire weapons from sources in Ukraine during or following the conflict, as occurred after the Balkan Wars in the 1990s.”

“Criminal” actors, however, are embedded in the Ukrainian military, particularly in the form of the fascistic Azov Batallion, which is playing a frontline role in the war against Russia and whose leaders have been brought to Washington and feted by Congressmen, Democrat and Republican alike.

The open secret is that the actual US force presence in Ukraine is far greater even than that admitted by the Pentagon on Tuesday.

In October, veteran journalist James Risen reported that the Biden administration had authorized the clandestine deployment of US Special Forces in Ukraine. “Clandestine American operations inside Ukraine are now far more extensive than they were early in the war,” wrote Risen.

Secret U.S. operations inside Ukraine are being conducted under a presidential covert action finding, current and former officials said. The finding indicates that the president has quietly notified certain congressional leaders about the administration’s decision to conduct a broad program of clandestine operations inside the country. One former special forces officer said that Biden amended a preexisting finding, originally approved during the Obama administration, that was designed to counter malign foreign influence activities.

In July, the New York Times reported that dozens of US ex-military personnel are operating on the ground in Ukraine and that retired senior US officers are directing portions of the Ukrainian war effort from within the country.

US forces are intimately involved in all aspects of Ukrainian military operations, having helped provide intelligence for the strike that sunk the Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet, in April, and for Ukrainian strikes that have killed Russian generals.

The announcement comes amidst a major escalation of the war over the past month. Following military setbacks in both Northern and Southern Ukraine, Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands of reservists, annexed four regions of Ukraine, and threatened the use of nuclear weapons to defend them.

A series of major provocative actions targeting Russia have massively increased tensions, including the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, for which Russia has blamed the UK, as well as the assassination of Russian far-right ideologue Daria Dugina and the bombing of the Kerch Bridge, which the New York Times reported were carried out by Ukrainian forces.

Over the weekend, Ukraine carried out an attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the Times reported, which prompted Russia to withdraw from its grain agreement with Ukraine, threatening to escalate the global food crisis.

Under these conditions, forces within the US, including admiral James Stavridis, have renewed calls for more direct US intervention, including in the form of the dispatch of warships to the Black Sea.

Suspension bridge collapse in Indian state of Gujarat claims over 140 lives

Martina Inessa & Yuan Darwin

At least 141 people, including dozens of children, are dead, with scores more injured, after a 143-year-old pedestrian cable-suspension bridge straddling the Machchhu River in Morbi city in the western Indian state of Gujarat collapsed last Sunday evening, around 6:30 pm.

Rescue operations by the army, navy and national disaster rescue personnel were still ongoing Tuesday, with many people reported missing. As a result, the death toll is almost certain to rise significantly.

Search and rescue work is going on as a cable suspension bridge collapsed in Morbi town of western state Gujarat, India, Monday, October 31, 2022. The century-old cable suspension bridge collapsed into the river sending hundreds plunging in the water. [AP Photo/Ajit Solanki]

The bridge was prematurely thrown open to the public on October 26, the Gujarati new year day, after being closed for repairs and renovations for several months. The decision to reopen the bridge was taken by the private company that was given charge of bridge operation and maintenance at the insistence of the Gujarat state government earlier this year. The horrific incident has caused widespread shock not just in Gujarat, but throughout the country.

Both municipal and Gujarat state authorities are complicit in this entirely preventable tragedy. The Oreva watch company, which claimed to have carried out extensive repairs and renovation on the bridge, failed to even seek, let alone obtain, the requisite fitness certificate from the municipal authorities before opening the bridge. Yet neither the municipal nor the state government stepped in to prevent the reopening from going ahead, despite the fact that the bridge was known to have suffered severe damage in a 2001 earthquake.

The bridge collapse is a major embarrassment for the national Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, led by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Gujarat is the home state of both Modi, who served as chief minister from 2002 to 2014, and his chief henchman Amit Shah, who is India’s Home Minister. Shah is known as the main implementor of the BJP’s virulent Hindu-communalist campaign, including threatening to push migrants from Bangladesh into the sea and enacting the anti-Muslim Citizenship Amendment Act.

Gujarat is set to hold state assembly (parliament) elections in December. The bridge collapse is therefore a serious political problem for the BJP, which has ruled the state for the past 27 years and overseen sweeping business deregulation and privatization. The Modi-led BJP national government has made privatization of all public assets, including bridges, roads, enterprises and railways, a central feature of its domestic policy ever since it came to head the national government in 2014. Opposition to Modi and the BJP is growing due to its disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in more than 5 million deaths and India’s pandemic of poverty, hunger and mass joblessness, which has been further exacerbated in recent months by sharply rising food and fuel prices.

Modi was on a three-day visit to Gujarat and the neighboring state of Rajasthan when the tragedy occurred. He inaugurated an aircraft manufacturing facility and participated in “National Unity Day” celebrations on the birth anniversary of Vallabhbhai Patel, a right-wing Congress Party leader from Gujarat and India’s first home minister. It was Modi’s second visit to the state since October 10, as he seeks to strengthen the BJP’s re-election effort.

The state BJP government has announced a measly compensation of Rs. 400,000 to the kin of each deceased person, whereas the Modi-led national government announced half that amount. Taken together, this amounts to total compensation of  just $7,300 for those who lost relatives. People who were injured will receive a derisory Rs. 50,000 from the state and national government.

Around 500 people were standing on the bridge when it collapsed, despite it having a maximum capacity of 125 persons. The overcrowding occurred because the Oreva watch company had sold an excessive number of tickets and allowed hundreds of people to get on the bridge, a major tourist attraction, especially during the festive new year season. The bridge started swaying dangerously and then snapped, plunging the victims into the river, many on top of each other. Most of the dead were women and children or elderly people. Out of the dead, 78 were elderly and 56 were children, according to official figures.

A Morbi resident, Ranjanbhai Patel, commented to the media, 'As most of the people had fallen into the river, we were not able to save them.”

Another young man was quoted by the BBC as saying, 'My sister and I fell in the water. I survived but my sister is still missing. I went to the government hospital, searched everywhere, but my sister is nowhere to be found.” Weeping, he said he has been looking for her since Sunday evening.

More casualties are expected as the rescue mission continues. 177 people have been rescued so far.  Dozens of people were critically injured. TV footage showed people holding the cables and remains of the bridge as emergency teams tried to reach them. Some attempted to climb up the wrecked bridge while others swam to safety.

Officials confirmed that the bridge collapsed because it could not bear the weight of so many people. Sandeep Singh, the chief municipal officer of Morbi, stated to the press, “Historically, only 20 to 25 people used to go in a batch on the bridge and that has always been there.”

While the police were quick to arrest the nine people responsible for operating the bridge, it is the top officials of the city and the BJP state government who bear chief responsibility. Up until March 2022, the upkeep of the bridge was under the jurisdiction of the municipality. However, the municipality handed over its maintenance and operation through a public tender to the Oreva watch company, which has no experience in operating bridges, let alone supervising bridge repair.

Lower-level municipal officials were reluctant to grant the contract for the bridge’s operation and maintenance to a watch company. But the municipal authorities were reportedly compelled to do so after receiving a nudge from the BJP state government. This is because the multi-millionaire owner of Oreva is a big supporter of the BJP and is politically well-connected.

The Gujarat government claims to have appointed a five-member committee to probe the bridge collapse. However, it is all but certain that the real culprits including ministers in the BJP government will be shielded while obfuscating the totally corrupt nexus between BJP politicians and industrialists.

The tragic events of the weekend are just the latest in a long series of failures of basic infrastructure. Many of India’s bridges and roads are in woeful shape and tens and even hundreds of thousands of people perish every year from flooding, bridge collapses and landslides.

While visiting Morbi, Modi expressed his condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in the bridge collapse. “Rarely in my life, would I have experienced such pain,” he claimed. He called for a “meticulous” investigation.

India’s Supreme Court is scheduled to hold hearings on November 14 in response to a public interest litigation filed on behalf of the victims. Filed by an advocate, it charges the government authorities with negligence and utter failure to protect the public.

Bolsonaro breaks silence after defeat in Brazilian election, hailing fascist protests against “injustice of the electoral process”

Tomas Castanheira

On Tuesday afternoon, Brazil’s fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro made his first statement since his defeat in the presidential election, which was announced on Sunday night.

In his brief speech, Bolsonaro thanked the “58 million Brazilians who voted for me,” while failing to acknowledge the victory of his challenger, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party (PT), who won 60 million votes.

Bolsonaro speaking at the presidential palace on Tuesday (Photo: Fabio Rodrigues-Pozzebom/ Agência Brasil) [Photo: Fabio Rodrigues-Pozzebom/ Agência Brasil ]

Instead, he praised his fascist supporters who have erected more than 300 blockades on roads across Brazil, rejecting the election’s results and calling for an intervention by the armed forces to prevent Lula from taking office.

Bolsonaro stated that “The current popular movements are the result of indignation and a feeling of injustice of how the electoral process was carried out.”

At the same time, the president sought to dissociate himself from the violent actions he is encouraging, stating that “our methods cannot be those of the left... such as invasion of properties, destruction of patrimony, and curtailment of the right to come and go.” This is yet another of the maneuvers that have mirrored Donald Trump’s conduct during his attempt to overthrow the 2020 US election, which Bolsonaro has adopted as his main political model.

In the 45 hours before his pronouncement, while his supporters were creating havoc throughout the country, Bolsonaro met with his closest political allies, his military ministers, and representatives of the armed forces, including Defense Minister Paulo Sergio Nogueira and Air Force Commander Carlos Baptista Junior.

In these meetings, the fascistic president and his accomplices worked out the dubious content of his first post-election speech, as well as the next steps of their ongoing conspiracy to subvert democracy in Brazil.

As part of this plan, Ciro Nogueira, the president’s chief of staff, was chosen to speak publicly after Bolsonaro about a process of transition to Lula’s new government. The nominee to lead the transition team on behalf of Lula is his vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, whose long-time right-wing political ties will allow a better accommodation of the PT to the reactionary forces brought to state power by Bolsonaro.

However, despite the political accommodations by the PT, the actions of Bolsonaro and his allies over the last three days signal that the next two months leading to the presidential inauguration will be a period of intensifying political crisis.

On Sunday’s election day, the Federal Highway Police (PRF) promoted under Bolsonaro’s command extensive roadblocks to make it difficult for voters to get to the polls, especially in states where Lula had a majority. One of the clear objectives of the operation was to make his competitors feel aggrieved and generate a deadlock over the validity of the elections.

In the following days, the PRF openly allowed Bolsonaro’s pro-coup demonstrators to mount their own roadblocks. Videos recorded in Santa Catarina, a state that is home to important sections of the bourgeoisie aligned to the fascistic president, showed PRF officers virtually integrated into the pro-coup blockades.

In one of the videos, an officer declares, “The only order we have is to be here with you.” In another, speaking into a microphone, a commander declares to the protesters that “at no time… we will arrive to irritate or to confront any of you, who are our bosses.”

In the midst of the growing protests, the representatives of the bourgeois institutions revealed all their political impotence to confront the threats posed by Bolsonaro, by turning to the president himself to curb the crisis provoked by him.

According to Folha de São Paulo, the ministers of the judiciary assessed that “the demonstrations [had] escalated so much that a statement from the president was essential to try to contain the movements of his supporters in the streets.”

In contrast to the complicity of the police and the state with this pro-coup movement, a spontaneous episode revealed that the only social force truly capable of defending democracy is the working class. Faced with the blockade of the Rio-Santos highway, workers from the BrasFELS shipyard in Angra dos Reis got off the bus in which they were returning home from work, confronted Bolsonaro’s fascist supporters and cleared the road.

The mobilization of the working class against the authoritarian threats promoted by Bolsonaro and the military would necessarily bring with it social demands that would drive a powerful movement against capitalism. For this reason, the PT, which represents rotten Brazilian capitalism, is absolutely opposed to directing any appeal to workers.

Condemning calls for a confrontation with Bolsonaro supporters made by the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST), linked to the pseudo-left PSOL (Socialism and Liberty Party) and to the PT itself , the president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffman, declared, “We don’t agree with that because this is a responsibility of the state.”

Big oil, food giants, restaurant chains reap windfall profits as US real wages plunge

Barry Grey

With one week remaining before the US midterm elections, President Joe Biden has taken to denouncing the oil monopolies for “war profiteering” and price-gouging. On Monday, he took time out from traveling around the country to boost the faltering campaigns of Democratic House and Senate members and candidates for state offices to attack the record profits reported last week by oil and gas companies as “outrageous” and threaten the imposition of an excess profit tax.

“It’s time for these companies to stop war profiteering, meet their responsibilities to this country, give the American people a break and still do very well,” he told reporters at the White House.

It is all too obvious that Biden’s bluster against corporate profit-gouging is prompted by polls showing that soaring prices for basic necessities is the biggest concern driving voters in elections that may very well shift control of one or both chambers of Congress, as well as much of the country’s electoral machinery, to Trump’s fascistic Republicans.

Nobody knows better than Biden that there is no possibility of getting an excess profits tax through Congress, even should it remain under Democratic control.

Share of corporate-sector income received by workers over recent business cycles, 1979-2022. [Photo: Economic Policy Institute]

The oil magnates responded contemptuously to Biden’s threat. Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, stated, “Rather than taking credit for price declines and shifting blame for price increases, the Biden administration should get serious about addressing the supply-and-demand imbalance that has caused higher gas prices and created long-term energy challenges.”

In other words, it should lift the minimal restraints on the fossil fuel industry and give it an even freer rein to pollute and profit from the impact of the US-NATO war against Russia.

Last Friday, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the largest US oil companies, reported record or near-record profits for the July-September quarter of 2022. Exxon’s profit of nearly $20 billion was a record for any quarter and 10 percent higher than the previous record, set the quarter before. Chevron’s profit of $11.2 billion was slightly less than the previous quarter’s record amount.

On Thursday, the two biggest European producers, Shell and TotalEnergies, reported that their profits had more than doubled from the third quarter of 2021.

The five biggest oil companies took in more than $50 billion in profits in the second quarter of this year, and the International Energy Agency reported that the net income of the world’s oil and gas producers will double this year from last to a record $4 trillion. “Today’s high fossil fuel prices have generated an unprecedented windfall for producers,” the agency stated.

Rather than using some of their windfall profits to reduce prices or increase production, the oil giants have raised dividends and carried out massive stock buybacks to enrich their big investors. On Friday, Exxon Mobil raised its stock dividend, citing its commitment to “return excess cash” to shareholders.

Biden has released some 165 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and prices at the pump have receded in recent weeks from their previous highs, but they remain more than 13 percent higher than at the end of 2021.

The energy industry is not alone in taking advantage of the inflationary spiral, rooted in decades of central bank handouts to Wall Street and exacerbated by supply chain disruptions triggered by US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, to reap windfall profits.

A person shops at a grocery store in Glenview, Ill., Monday, July 4, 2022. [AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh]

The New York Times on Monday reported that major food companies and restaurant chains have driven up their profits by charging the public far more than what was needed to cover their increased costs.

The article noted that over the past year, the price of food eaten at home has increased 13 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Basic staples have risen far more than the 8.2 percent year-over-year increase in the Consumer Price Index.

Cereals and bakery goods are up 16.2 percent. Dairy products have shot up by 15.9 percent.

A dozen eggs that could have been purchased for $1.83 in 2021 now cost $2.17.

Meanwhile, the profits of major food companies have risen even faster than the prices they charge. Last month, PepsiCo, whose prices for drinks and chips were up 17 percent from year-earlier levels, reported that its third-quarter profit grew by more than 20 percent. Coca-Cola reported a profit increase of 14 percent from the previous year.

Many restaurant chains are likewise reaping super-profits on the basis of inflated prices. The Times article focused on Chipotle Mexican Grill, which reported that its prices by the end of 2022 would be nearly 15 percent higher than a year earlier. It reported a nearly 28 percent increase in its profits in the latest quarter as compared to the same quarter last year.

The newspaper quoted Kyle Herrig, president of advocacy group Accountable.Us as saying, “The [earnings] calls tell us corporations have used inflation, the pandemic and supply chain challenges as an excuse to exaggerate their own costs and then nickel and dime consumers.”

Housing costs are likewise soaring, further eroding workers’ purchasing power. According to the latest report on inflation, issued last month by the BLS, the cost of renting a primary residence rose this year by 7.2 percent through September, more than double the usual annual increase of around 3 percent.

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has topped 7 percent, due mainly to the rapid increase in interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve to slow down economic growth and drive up unemployment—a central component of the ruling class war against workers’ wage struggles. This is the highest mortgage rate since the Great Recession of 2008.

With the national median asking price for a home at $435,050—itself prohibitive for most workers—mortgage payments today are nearly $1,000 a month higher than in August of 2021.

Biden’s feigned outrage over corporate price- and profit-gouging cannot conceal the fact that his administration is working relentlessly with the trade union apparatuses to impose the full inflationary impact of the war in Ukraine, for which the White House and Congress have already allotted over $50 billion, on the working class. With the support of both big business parties, Biden has joined with the rail and West Coast dock workers’ union leaderships to block 22,000 longshoremen and 120,000 railroaders, who have voted overwhelmingly to strike and rejected pro-company contracts, to exercise their right to strike.

The result has been a devastating decline in the real earnings of US workers.

Dallas Federal Reserve chart shows most US workers have negative wage growth. [Photo: Dallas Federal Reserve Bank]

Last month, the BLS reported that real hourly and weekly earnings for all employees decreased 0.1 percent from August to September, seasonally adjusted. Year over year, real hourly earnings fell 3 percent, while real weekly earnings declined even more, 3.9 percent, due to a decrease in the average workweek.

According to a study released in October by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the decline in real wages for US workers is even more severe. The authors of the study wrote:

We find that a majority of employed workers’ real (inflation-adjusted) wages have failed to keep up with inflation in the past year. For these workers, the median decline in real wages is a little more than 8.5 percent. Taken together, these outcomes appear to be the most severe faced by employed workers over the past 25 years…

While the past 25 years have witnessed episodes that show either a greater incidence or larger magnitude of real wage declines, the current time period is unparalleled in terms of the challenge employed workers face.