Trump/Musk rampage could leave up to 1 million workers jobless, major investment firm warns

Jacob Crosse

Elon Musk holds up a chainsaw he received from Argentina's President Javier Milei, right, as they arrive to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Maryland. [AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana]

President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s purge of the federal workforce—intended to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, mass deportations and war—could leave up to 1 million people jobless in the coming weeks, according to a recent report from a major investment firm.

On February 22, Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Sløk, in a report titled Downside Risks Intensifying, wrote that the “consensus expects total DOGE-related job cuts to be 300,000.” He noted that unemployment claims were already rising in Washington, D.C., and stated that any further layoffs “will push jobless claims higher over the coming weeks.”

Citing a 2020 Brookings Institution report, Sløk observed “that for every federal employee, there are two contractors. As a result, layoffs could potentially be closer to 1 million.”

On Thursday, Federal Judge William Alsup temporarily blocked some of the mass firings, ruling that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) exceeded its authority by ordering agencies such as the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to fire workers.

Earlier this month, OPM issued a memo instructing federal agencies to “separate probationary employees that you have not identified as mission-critical no later than the end of the day Monday, 2/17.”

To make the job and spending cuts permanent and bypass legal challenges like Alsup’s ruling, Politico reported Thursday, Trump and top Republicans are considering “codifying DOGE actions” into the upcoming spending bill. The current proposal includes $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and other healthcare programs over 10 years.

In order to pressure Democrats into voting for the bill, Politico reported, Republicans would include alleged “egregious” examples of spending largess discovered by DOGE and “dare” Democrats to vote against it. Despite constant claims of “waste, fraud and abuse” being discovered by Musk and his DOGE cronies, no one has been charged with fraud.

Without a spending bill or continuing resolution by March 14, the federal government will shut down. On Thursday, Trump posted on social media that Congress was working to “pass a clean, temporary government funding Bill (‘CR’). Let’s get it done!”

With a shutdown looming, the Washington Post reported Wednesday that additional federal layoffs are imminent, with some departments facing cuts of up to 90 percent. Two Social Security Administration workers said agency leadership has been instructed to cut staff “by half.”

An internal Department of Labor memorandum viewed by the Post calls for slashing the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program from 50 offices and nearly 500 workers to just four offices and 50 people.

Wired reported on February 25 that Musk’s Department of Government Deficiency (DOGE) is updating software previously developed by the Department of Defense to cull federal workers. Sources told Wired that the software, called AutoRIF, or “Automated Reduction in Force,” has been accessed by DOGE operatives, who “appear to be editing its code,” according to “screenshots of internal databases” provided by sources.

During his first full cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Trump said he spoke with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Secretary Lee Zeldin, “and [Zeldin] thinks he’s going to be cutting 65 percent or so of the people from environmental, and we’re going to speed up the process too.” The White House later attempted to walk back the statement, claiming that Trump was committed to “eliminating 65 percent of the EPA’s wasteful spending.”

Of course, for the financial oligarchy, “wasteful spending” is anything that benefits the lives, health and safety of the working class at the expense of Wall Street profits. A currently employed lawyer with the EPA told reporters for the World Socialist Web Site:

The folks with the most experience at the EPA are currently leaving (many during this exact pay period), and the first wave of probationary firings has already left the agency understaffed.

We are unable to continue past the projects we have entered on currently; to cull any more would leave us categorically unable to finish the tasks currently set. When they attack grants, people here suffer today; when they attack USAID, people abroad die today; when they attack Medicaid, people die tomorrow; when they attack EPA, children die decades from now.

He concluded that “the loss is incalculable and the message is clear: They would kill you for a red cent, and they will pay no price unless working people actually take a stand on every one of these issues.”

In devastating cuts that climate scientists and meteorologists warn will lead to deaths, hundreds of workers—including new-hires and recently promoted staff—were fired at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is part of the Department of Commerce, on Thursday. The Guardian reported that roughly 10 percent of the agency’s workforce was classified as “probationary” and subject to layoffs.

In a thread on X, Dr. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, called the firings of “new-hires and recently promoted senior staff… profoundly alarming.” He noted that those dismissed appeared to include “meteorologists, data scientists responsible for maintaining weather predictive models, and technicians responsible for maintaining the nation’s weather instrumentation network (among many others).”

Swain emphasized that the National Weather Service (NWS) “saves countless lives by issuing high-quality weather forecasts and extreme weather warnings.” He added:

Despite widespread discussion to the contrary, the fact of the matter is that the private sector, as it presently exists, simply cannot quickly spin up to fill any void left by substantial dismantling of NOAA and/or the NWS.

“In fact,” Swain wrote, “though this is not widely known, most or all private weather companies in the US (including the forecasts you see on TV or your favorite app) are built directly atop the backbone of taxpayer-funded instrumentation, data, predictive modeling, and forecasts provided by NOAA.”

He concluded that the large staffing reductions underway, with more cuts on the horizon, will result in “people who die in extreme weather events and related disasters who would not have otherwise.”

Trump tariffs against Mexico and Canada to go ahead

Nick Beams

US President Trump has announced that 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, America’s two major trading partners, will go ahead next week after being delayed for a month.

President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) [AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson]

He also announced that the 10 percent tariff imposed on Chinese goods would be lifted by an additional 10 percent. “It’s 10 plus 10,” Trump said in a statement from the Oval Office yesterday.

The tariffs on Mexico and Canada were initially threatened shortly after Trump’s inauguration on January 20 but were delayed after the Canadian and Mexican governments agreed to take action over the flow of the drug fentanyl into the US.

In a post on his Truth Social platform yesterday, Trump said: “The proposed tariffs scheduled to go into effect on March fourth will, indeed, go into effect as scheduled.”

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said Mexico and Canada had not done enough to halt the flow of fentanyl for them to win another reprieve.

Trump also said that his plan for sweeping so-called “reciprocal” tariffs will go ahead after the delivery of a report from his officials on April 2.

The term “reciprocal” tariffs is something of a misnomer. It goes far beyond the imposition of tariffs equivalent to those imposed on US goods, but sets out retaliation for measures including taxes, regulations, and other internal policies of a country that are considered to adversely impact American corporations.

Earlier this week, at the first meeting of his cabinet, Trump repeated his threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on imports from the European Union, saying the bloc “was formed to screw the United States.”

The branding of the EU as an economic enemy is an indication of the total disintegration of all the arrangements—economic and political—set in place after World War II to stabilize world capitalism following the disasters of the first half of the 20th century.

The formation of the EU was the outcome of plans initiated by the US under the Marshall Plan for the post-war reconstruction of the European economy.

Trump said a decision had been made on the EU tariffs and “we’ll be announcing it very soon. It’ll be 25 percent generally speaking and that will be on cars and all other things.”

The imposition of tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods—assuming it goes ahead—threatens chaos in large sections of US industry because the manufacture of industrial goods, particularly cars and trucks, often involves the passage of components several times across the border.

Wall Street fell again on the announcement that the Mexico and Canada tariffs were to go ahead. The tech-heavy NASDAQ index dropped by 2.8 percent and the S&P fell by 1.6 percent, taking it into negative territory for the year.

Following the latest Trump announcements, the focus will turn to the retaliatory response under conditions where, as the Financial Times commented, the latest salvo in aggressive trade policy increases “the danger of a wider trade war that risks inflicting significant damage on the global economy.”

The response of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum at a news conference following the Trump announcement was to hold out the prospect for a deal.

Referring to Trump’s comments, she said: “As you know, he has his way of communicating, but as usual, we have a cool head and optimism that we can reach an agreement.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government would respond to any “unjustified tariffs” with a “strong and immediate answer.” Canada is set to immediately impose tariffs on $30 billion worth of imports coming from the US.

Whether by accident or design, the March 4 date for the further 10 percent hike in the tariff on Chinese goods comes on the eve of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, the rubber-stamp parliament which will meet to hear the measures proposed by the Xi Jinping regime to deal with the slowdown in the Chinese economy and the economic war measures of the US.

At this stage, the response appears to be fairly muted, with the Chinese embassy in Washington simply issuing repeats of what it has said before.

It said there were “no winners” in a trade war and the unilateral tariffs “imposed by the US will not solve its own problems, nor will it benefit the two sides of the world.”

But while it has avoided making bellicose statements and presented itself as the upholder of the international trading order, Beijing has been developing retaliatory measures, including export controls on rare earths and critical minerals imported by the US.

It has been reported that over the past month, China has been seeking to ascertain whether the tariff measures against it are aimed at trying to secure a narrow trade deal or a more comprehensive agreement.

Chinese government officials are said to have informally conveyed that Beijing is prepared to buy more US goods and that companies are willing to invest in the US. But Xi has yet to give his imprimatur to any offers.

There is a view in Beijing and in economic circles more broadly that Trump’s tariff measures may not be as effective as he had considered because, after years of tariff hikes, starting under the first Trump administration, Chinese companies have become adept at rerouting their exports to the US via third countries. However, this situation contains within it the possibility of further escalation of tariffs against a range of other countries to counter it.

A further expression of the breakdown of the global order was manifested in Cape Town yesterday when a three-day meeting of G20 finance ministers concluded without being able to issue a joint communique because of differences on trade, climate change financing, and US tariffs. Several countries, including the US, China, India, Japan, and Mexico effectively opted out from the meeting and replaced their senior representatives with deputies.

The G20, which had been set up in response to the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98, was elevated in 2009, in the wake of the global financial crisis, to be the world’s major economic council.

It was accompanied by hand-on-heart declarations by world leaders at the time that never again would there be a resort to the disastrous tariff measures of the 1930s. Just a decade and a half on, those declarations, like the G20 itself, which was hailed as a new foundation for stabilizing world capitalism, have turned to dust.

US House adopts budget plan to spearhead social counterrevolution

Patrick Martin

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters after a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans to find agreement on a spending bill, at the Capitol in Washington. [AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite]

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday night took the first step in the Trump administration’s plans for devastating cuts in social spending, particularly on healthcare, adopting an initial budget plan by a 217-215 vote. The measure begins the so-called reconciliation process, in which Congress passes a single annual budget and tax bill that cannot be filibustered in the Senate.

With only a three-vote majority in the House and a 53-47 majority in the Senate, reconciliation is the preferred mechanism for the Trump White House to enact its core program unilaterally, without negotiating with the Democrats. The final bill is expected to incorporate far more than just budgetary items, providing a vehicle for major changes in policies ranging from immigration to the environment.

The House bill did not include such provisions, which will be worked out in future talks with Senate Republicans and the White House. But the budgetary provisions alone demonstrate the colossal social counterrevolution that the second Trump administration is seeking to carry out.

The bill provides the initial framework for House committees that will actually draft the provisions of the reconciliation legislation. This includes increased spending of up to $300 billion for the military and immigration and border enforcement and up to $2 trillion in spending cuts for all other government functions, primarily healthcare, education, food stamps, transportation and the environment.

The legislation would provide up to $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years, a figure already rejected by some Senate Republicans because it falls short of the full 10-year cost of extending the tax cuts for the wealthy that was enacted in 2017, during Trump’s first term. Many of these tax cuts expire this year, and both corporations and billionaires are clamoring for their bonanza to be made permanent.

The House bill is a further demonstration of the utter indifference to legal and constitutional constraints on the part of the Trump White House and the Republican Party as a whole. A reconciliation bill is required to be deficit-neutral. The requirement is “met” by assuming that extension of the tax cuts, combined with the scrapping of business regulations, will unleash massive economic growth that will raise tax revenues by $2.6 trillion. When that fails to materialize, the resulting deficit blowout will prompt demands for even more cuts in social spending.

Amid nonstop lying by Trump and his aides, who claim that there will be no benefit cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the House bill instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, Medicare and other health programs, to cut at least $880 billion in spending over a 10-year period.

An analysis of the underlying budget figures by the New York Times pointed out that all other government programs under the jurisdiction of this committee, beyond Medicaid and Medicare, account for only $200 billion combined. This means that the vast bulk of the cuts must come out of healthcare programs, the largest of which, in terms of people served, is Medicaid, which provides healthcare coverage for the poorest sections of the working class, as well as disability payments and nursing home care for millions of elderly people. All told, the joint state and federal program provides benefits for 72 million people, more than 20 percent of the US population.

Among the measures being considered to implement the cuts are imposing work requirements, allowing more frequent eligibility checks on beneficiaries (likely to disqualify millions of eligible recipients because they fail to meet paperwork requirements), and capping the federal contribution to the program, while leaving the actual benefit cuts to be made by the states, which administer the joint program.

The biggest single cut would involve effectively rescinding a major portion of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) by cutting off the subsidies to the 41 states that have expanded Medicaid coverage to 20 million Americans with incomes slightly above the poverty line. These states would either have to eliminate the Medicaid expansion, cutting off health insurance, or make offsetting cuts in other state programs, such as public education. The Times estimated this would save the federal government as much as $560 billion.

Another major social regression would be carried out by the House Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over the food stamp program. This committee is instructed to cut $230 billion over the next 10 years, and there is little likelihood that this will come out of support payments for giant agribusiness interests.

House Republican leaders issued a statement celebrating their action as “delivering on President Trump’s full America First agenda—not just parts of it,” after which Trump held his first full cabinet meeting Wednesday at the White House. Trump gave the spotlight to billionaire Elon Musk, whom he has designated as his chief budget-cutter. He asked the assembled cabinet members to give their assessment of Musk’s efforts, and they responded with a predictable ovation.

Trump gave his backing to Musk’s provocative email messages to the entire federal workforce demanding that every worker provide a five-point summary of their job accomplishments from last week, or be fired. One million workers, nearly half the workforce, have not responded to Musk’s messages, and Trump said that all of them should be considered at risk.

Also on Wednesday, Trump issued an executive order requiring every federal agency and department to develop plans for mass layoffs, called “reductions in force” (RIFs), by March 13. This would extend the jobs bloodbath beyond the probationary and temporary employees who have already been laid off en masse, and include more senior workers who have civil service protection and supposedly cannot be fired arbitrarily. Trump mentioned the order at the cabinet meeting, praising Lee Zeldin, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, for preparing plans to eliminate 65 percent of the EPA’s work force.

The March 13 deadline is significant, because on March 14 the current continuing resolution (CR), which authorizes spending by federal agencies, is set to expire. The CR was adopted in December after Congress failed to pass a budget for the current fiscal year, which began October 1, 2024. Unless a budget is adopted or a new continuing resolution is passed, a partial shutdown of the federal government would begin March 14.

This could well be the occasion for the layoff of hundreds of thousands of workers, not just as a temporary measure, as during previous shutdowns, but permanently. Even those workers ultimately called back to their jobs would likely lose pay for the period of the furlough, meaning countless evictions, foreclosures and other hardships.

In the face of these impending calamities, the Democratic Party and the trade unions that supposedly represent these workers are engaged in nothing more than impotent hand-wringing. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, while acknowledging that the budget bill would mean “the largest Medicaid cut in American history,” proposed no action to stop it.

His position remains, as it has been since Trump took office with his tiny majorities in the House and Senate, “What leverage do we have?” It goes without saying that when the positions are reversed, Republican minorities have engaged in full-scale war against Democratic administrations and blocked their proposed actions. But that only demonstrates the difference between the two parties of corporate America, one pretending to defend working people and the other brazenly doing the bidding of the super-rich—in this case, with the richest man in the world wielding the chainsaw.

UK special forces rejected 2,000 Afghan asylum claims to conceal war crimes

Harvey Thompson

British special forces used a veto to reject over 2,000 asylum claims from Afghan elite units, whom they fought alongside during the US-led occupation of Afghanistan.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed that UK special forces officers blocked every single application from former Afghan commandos referred to them for sponsorship under a resettlement scheme put in place after the Taliban came to power. This followed the ignominious withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan after two decades of occupation in August 2021.

British soldiers storm a building in Afghanistan, 2007 [Photo by Defence Imagery / Flickr / CC BY-NC 4.0]

The former Afghan commandos were referred to as the “Triples”, due to their unit designations as CF 333 and ATF 444. The units were established, trained, and paid for by UK Special Forces (UKSF) to support the main special forces units—the SAS (Special Air Services) and the SBS (Special Boat Services) on operations in Afghanistan.

Under the rule of the Taliban some are already feared beaten, tortured or killed in reprisals for collaboration with foreign imperialist forces, while many more are believed to be in hiding.

The MoD had always previously denied any suggestion that there was a blanket policy to reject members of the Triples. However, the BBC confirmed that it had “not been able to find any evidence that UK Special Forces (UKSF) supported any resettlement applications.”

The mass rejection of the resettlement applications coincides with the convening of the Independent Inquiry relating to Afghanistan in London, which is investigating allegations that UK special forces had committed war crimes on operations in Afghanistan where the Triples were present.

The inquiry has the power to compel witnesses to appear who are in the UK, but not non-UK nationals who are overseas. If resettled, former members of the Triples could be compelled by the inquiry to provide evidence that could be highly damaging for the special forces and other armed forces of the UK.

In January, a trove of testimony was released from the ongoing inquiry revealing war crimes, the deletion of evidence relating to these crimes and their whitewashing through internal inquiries. It also showed how dramatically relations had deteriorated and repeatedly broken down between Afghan forces and UK special forces following some of the bloodiest fighting of the occupation.

Inquiry testimony detailed one meeting held in February 2011, following a growing rift between the SAS and the Afghan special forces over alleged war crimes committed by UK special forces. This episode almost ended in an armed clash and Afghan special forces temporarily withdrew their support.

Afghan units—who would often suffer blowback for the conduct of UK and other foreign forces, not being separated by garrison walls from the general population—have said that they were treated “like dogs” by their imperial masters.

It was first revealed last year by the BBC’s Panorama documentary series that UK Special Forces command had been given veto power over the resettlement applications of Afghan commandos and exercised it to deny them asylum in Britain.

The MoD initially denied the existence of the special forces’ veto, until denial became untenable. After first suggesting that the BBC’s reporting had been inaccurate, the then Conservative government Defence Minister Andrew Murrison was later forced to inform Parliament that they had misled parliament in their denials.

The confirmation of 2,022 specific rejected asylum applications emerged in court hearings this month, during a legal challenge brought by a former member of the Triples.

According to a February 17 BBC News, “Lawyers for the MoD applied for a restriction order which temporarily prevented the BBC from reporting on the relevant parts of the proceedings, before withdrawing their application last week under challenge.”

Documents since disclosed in court revealed that during the time the MoD was denying the existence of the veto, it already knew that every blocking decision made by UK special forces was potentially unsound and would have to be independently reviewed.

Mike Martin MP, a Liberal Democrat member of the Defence Select-Committee and former British Army officer who served in Afghanistan, told the BBC last week, “There is the appearance that UK Special Forces blocked the Afghan special forces applications because they were witnesses to the alleged UK war crimes currently being investigated in the Afghan inquiry. If the MoD is unable to offer any explanation, then the matter should be included in the inquiry.”

Johnny Mercer, the former Conservative MP who served alongside the SBS in Afghanistan, was last year threatened with imprisonment if he didn’t reveal what his sources told him about alleged war crimes by UK special forces in Afghanistan. He said after testifying to the ongoing inquiry that it was “very clear to me that there is a pool of evidence that exists within the Afghan [special forces] community that are now in the United Kingdom that should contribute to this Inquiry.”

According to the BBC, the MoD began a review last year of all 2,022 resettlement applications referred to and rejected by UK special forces. All apparently contained what MoD caseworkers regarded as “credible” evidence of service with the Triples units.

A government announcement at the outset stated that the review would take 12 weeks, but more than a year later it has yet to be completed.

An anonymous former Triples officer said, “Although decisions have been overturned, it’s too late for some people. The delays have caused a lot of problems. People have been captured by the Taliban or lost their lives.” The officer said the Afghan commandos worked alongside UK special forces “like brothers” and felt “betrayed” by the widespread rejections.

The MoD is facing a legal challenge to aspects of the review being brought by a former senior member of the Triples who is now in the UK, on behalf of commandos still in Afghanistan. It includes challenging the decision not to inform applicants whether their case is actually being reviewed or not.

Dan Carey, a partner at the law firm Deighton Pierce Glynn, said, “Our client’s focus is on his soldiers left behind in Afghanistan, some of whom have been killed while they wait for these heavily delayed protection decisions.

“As things stand they have a right to request a reassessment of a decision they haven’t even been told about. And there are others who think they are part of the Triples Review when the secret criteria would tell them that their cases aren’t even being looked at.”

Lawyers also criticised the level of disclosure in the case by the MoD. No documentation has yet been handed over from within UK Special Forces or government records about the process that led to the blocked applications.

Last week, sacked Foreign Office whistleblower Josie Stewart won a case for unfair dismissal over her disclosures to the media about the UK’s role in the evacuation from Afghanistan. Stewart was sacked by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in 2022 after being apparently accidentally identified as a confidential source by a BBC journalist.

Stewart’s lawyers said the case was “without precedent” and “raised numerous important issues about civil servants’ rights to whistleblower protection under existing law.”

The tribunal found there was a “clear public interest” in the evacuation and whether it was being carried out effectively and fairly, as the lives of individuals who had assisted NATO forces in Afghanistan were “potentially at stake.”

It also considered that it was “reasonable” for Stewart to go to the BBC’s flagship Newsnight programme when allegations had already been put into the public domain by former FCDO employee Raphael Marshall and “government ministers were publicly disputing them.”

In a statement upon receiving the judgment, Stewart said, “By calling this out, I lost my career. The outcome of this case doesn’t change any of this, but it has achieved what I set out to achieve: it has established that civil servants have the right not to stay silent when systemic failures put lives at risk, as happened during the Afghan evacuation.”

COVID excess deaths “saved” $300 billion in Social Security payments

Benjamin Mateus

The devastation of the US public health system over the past month, since the inauguration of Donald Trump, may seem at first to be chaotic or even accidental, as groups of workers have been fired, then in some cases hastily rehired when it emerges that they were conducting vital work, as in monitoring H5N1 bird flu outbreaks.

Much of the damage comes as a consequence of Trump appointing an array of quacks and enemies of public health to fill the top positions in the Department of Health and Human Services, including anti-vaccine demagogue Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the agency, television doctor Mehmet Oz to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and COVID-19 denialist Jay Bhattacharya to head the National Institutes of Health.

A study recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a leading corporate-backed think tank, suggests a more sinister, even malevolent motive. In deliberately wrecking the public health system, the Trump administration is counting on the ensuing rise in death rates to reduce the overall expenses of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds, thereby freeing up money for Trump’s priorities of military spending and tax cuts for the wealthy.

The NBER study estimates the effect of US COVID-19 excess mortality on Social Security outlays. There were 1,755,354 excess deaths in the US during the deadliest phase of the COVID pandemic between March 28, 2020, and January 21, 2023, for Americans 25 years old and older, according to the NBER working paper utilizing CDC data. While COVID directly was responsible for more than 1 million people in this time frame, a staggering 700,000 more Americans died of supposedly non-COVID deaths above what was expected. The death rate stood at 76 per 10,000 people. 

(The WSWS has been informed that the NBER is reviewing the excess deaths estimate, after issuing the study in preprint, and may revise it, but the overall conclusion about the link between COVID deaths and reduced payout of Social Security benefits stands).

Excess deaths by quarter, cause of death, and age group (under and over 65 years), based on weekly CDC data. [Photo: National Bureau of Economic Research]

The data shows the horrific impact on retirees. Three-quarters of the excess deaths, or more than 1.2 million, were among those receiving disability benefits and OASDI (Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance; the official name of the Social Security Insurance program) at the time of their death. On average they were 79.2 years of age and lost nine years of life due to the pandemic.

According to this study, the members of this group would have collected on average $184,000 in retirement benefits. Their deaths had a net positive effect on the OASDI fund, “because of a reduction in future retirement benefits” to the tune of $287 billion that will not need to be paid out.

The analysis also found that close to 600,000 were employed at the time of their death. In this category, the study estimated that had they lived, they would have worked an average of 10 more years and could expect to earn another 14.4 years in retirement benefits. Without the pandemic, this group would have paid $89,000 in OASDI taxes and received around $203,000 in retirement benefits. On average they lost 23.7 years of life. 

The COVID pandemic left a legacy of grief and destruction with 313,000 additional Social Security beneficiaries—243,000 surviving children under 18 and 70,000 surviving spouses who have children under 16. The study estimates that “on average, surviving children and spouses will receive 8.4 years and 7.5 years of benefits, with lifetime benefit amounts of $121,000 and $58,000.” 

These additional benefit payments to survivors come to $82 billion, partially offsetting the amount “saved” by the Trust fund from not paying benefits to those who died, leaving a net gain of $205 billion. However, since many surviving spouses and children do not claim their benefits, a further adjustment estimated at $32 billion in the savings by the Trust fund raised this amount to around $237 billion. 

These calculations demonstrate in cold economic terms what has been a major aspect of the “let it rip” approach to the COVID pandemic from the beginning. Those over 65 have accounted for the vast majority of those needlessly killed under a deliberate policy of social murder. The financial oligarchs regard the retired, who do not contribute to surplus value and profit, as a drain on their wealth, and the NBER study provides a numerical estimate of the “benefit” of COVID deaths for the finances of the capitalist system.

One should recall the notorious 2014 article, “Why I hope to die at 75,” written by Ezekiel Emanuel, where he claimed society would be better off if the elderly simply just died “swiftly and promptly.” The oncologist brother of Rahm Emanuel, former White House chief of staff and mayor of Chicago, Ezekiel Emanuel held office as Chief of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center and was named by President-elect Joe Biden as a member of his COVID-19 advisory board. In a 2019 interview, he directly stated that older Americans were no longer useful members of society and questioned “whether our consumption is worth our contribution.”

As the World Socialist Web Site noted in a December 2022 perspective on the disproportionate elderly victims of the pandemic, “The implementation of a policy that accepts and even promotes mass death among a physically vulnerable section of the population has no modern precedent in a country claiming to be democratic. The dismantling of serious and systematic public health measures to stop the spread of COVID is viewed by powerful sections of the ruling class as an effective means of reducing the societal ‘burden’ of caring for large numbers of elderly people.”

Consideration of the NBER study leads us back to the chaos at HHS. The vacancies being created in the federal institutions of public health will be filled by droves of vaccination and public health contrarians with the mindset of completely dismantling decades of scientific gains that have been made over the last two centuries. 

The long-term implications are profound. The stifling of the next generation of scientists and public health leaders means that the pipeline for innovation will dry up. As universities pause hiring and research labs face funding gaps, the US risks a slow-motion exodus of talent—a development that could permanently weaken the country’s capacity for biomedical research. In a time when new health threats are emerging globally, the weakening of domestic public health infrastructure not only compromises the lives of Americans, but endangers billions of people across the world.

In little more than a month after being sworn in as president of the United States, Donald Trump’s wrecking operation on the entire public health structure has provoked shock and dismay. The critical work by academics and scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on illnesses like cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s has been severely disrupted. The scouring of websites at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is more than just censorship of an extreme nature. It will prevent public health experts from performing essential actions to protect the well-being of the population. 

Furthermore, parallel to the data purge, the drastic personnel cuts—nearly 5,200 employees at the CDC and about 1,200 at the NIH—only work to further undermine the entire health apparatus. Meanwhile, within days of Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation as head of HHS, it is clear he intends to remove personnel who are not aligned with his anti-vaccine and anti-public health vision. 

Senior officials from the Food and Drug Administration, NIH and CDC have resigned rather than work under the new regime. Employees describe a climate of fear and uncertainty, with many questioning whether the department’s deep institutional knowledge and scientific expertise will survive this radical restructuring.

In particular, Kennedy is eyeing a shakeup of committees responsible for vaccine recommendations. The postponement of the upcoming Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) where review of evidence on several vaccines and recommendations was to be had speaks volumes about these intents. President Dr. Tina Tan of the Infectious Diseases Society of America said in a statement, “Postponing a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices delays vital discussions and needed decisions on a variety of vaccines by trusted and well-vetted experts. ACIP relies on a well-established, transparent and evidence-based process for evaluating the optimal use of vaccines that plays a critical role in strengthening public health.”

Meanwhile, COVID remains at sustained levels across the country (668,000 daily infections) since before January, with approximately 1,000 deaths per week. One of the worst flu outbreaks since the 2009-2010 season has put more than a quarter million people into hospitals and killed over 11,000 people thus far. At the same time, one of the worst measles outbreaks seen in 30 years is taking place in Texas, predominately among children and teenagers. And, finally, there is the very real threat posed by the potential for bird flu to become a pandemic among human beings as well.

Gold price continues to reach record highs

Nick Beams

While it has not been immediately reflected in turbulence in financial markets, at least not yet, the escalation of US President Trump’s economic war against the rest of the world as he seeks to maintain the dominance of US imperialism is having an impact.

The Trump MAGA agenda has already sent a wrecking ball through the geo-political post-war order. This is exemplified in the remarks of the incoming German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, that it was necessary to pursue “independence” from the US because the American government was “largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”

Gold bars on display at anexhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. November 8, 2006 [AP Photo/Seth Wenig]

While the impact on the financial system is not so apparent, it is clear that beneath the surface, tensions and contradictions are building up. One of the clearest expressions is the escalation in the price of gold.

Since the beginning of 2024 it has increased by 44 percent, with an 11 percent increase this year. The gold price is now just below $3,000, a record high, with predictions that it could soon go to $3,500 or even higher.

Among the reasons cited for the increase is the uncertainty created by the sweeping tariffs being threatened against friend and foe alike by the Trump regime. As James Steel, precious metal analyst at the global bank HSBC, told the Financial Times: “When trade contracts, gold takes off. The more tariffs that go on, the more this is going to disrupt world trade, and the better it will be for gold.”

The drive for gold has led to scenes previously not previously imagined. Traders have been physically shifting gold out of London, the main trading hub for the precious metal, into New York. The rush has resulted in a weeks-long queue to get gold out of London vaults, upending the commitment by the London Bullion Market Association to make deliveries within two or three days.

Such has been the movement that the Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, had to offer the reassurance earlier this month that there was “still plenty of gold.”

In testimony to the UK Treasury Committee, he spoke about the gold exodus from London. “Please, this is not a big thing really. Gold doesn’t play the role it used to play. So if we had been having this discussion 100 years ago we’d have been in some very different world because we were on the gold standard.”

Such reassurances, however, do not address the question of why under the current system of fiat currencies, there has been a turn to gold in the recent period and why has it been led by a number of central banks. Fiat currencies prevailed after President Nixon cut the link between the US dollar and gold on August 15, 1971.

In a report on gold demand issued earlier this month, the World Gold Council, the main industry body, said gold demand in 2024 had hit a new record of $382 billion, including $111 billion just in the last quarter of the year.

The report said central bank demand and emerging market demand was the biggest driver of the increase, with purchases exceeding 1,000 metric tons of gold for the third year in a row.

“Geopolitical and economic uncertainty remains high in 2025 and it seems as likely as ever that central banks will once again turn to gold as a stable strategic asset,” the report said.

China and Poland have been among the major buyers and their demand is expected to continue.

While the Trump trade warfare is adding to economic and financial uncertainty, the rising demand for gold did not start with his election win and tariff blitz.

One of the key factors was the Biden administration’s freezing of $300 billion of the assets of the Russian central bank at start of the Ukraine war. Coupled with the exclusion of Russia from the international payments system, enforced because of the role of the US dollar as the global currency, this sent a shock through the global financial system.

Governments and their central banks were suddenly confronted with the reality that dollar supremacy meant that they too could be subject to similar sanctions if they crossed the path of the US.

In response to the events of 2022, initiatives have been undertaken, particularly by the BRICS group of countries—comprising initially Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and since joined by a number of others—to try and devise an alternate payments system for trade and investments.

These measures have only been small scale so far, but they have attracted the ire of Trump and brought significant threats.

At the end of last month, Trump repeated the warning, he made in November.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said: “We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency, nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar, or they will face 100 percent tariffs.”

Any country that tried to replace the dollars should say “hello to tariffs, and goodbye to America.”

The maintenance of dollar supremacy is an existential question for US imperialism. It is the role of the US dollar as the global fiat currency that enables it to run up huge budget deficits in a way not possible for any other country.

Its significance was underscored by Trump during the election campaign when he said that losing dollar supremacy would by the equivalent of losing a war.

At the same time, the gyrations of the Trump regime are fueling global uncertainty. On the one hand it is asserted that the high value of the dollar is one of the key factors in the trade deficits of the US and is undermining the US industrial base via cheaper imports. On the other hand Trump insists that dollar supremacy must be maintained, implying a stronger dollar, with tariffs pushing up its value in global currency markets.

The conflicting consequences of these policies, which the Financial Times characterised as “bizarrely contradictory,” are replicated with regard to crypto currencies. Trump has said he wants to make US the crypto capital of the world. Yet one of the stated aims of the crypto proponents is the development of a system operating outside the fiat currency system.

There are many immediate factors contributing to the gold price rise, including tariffs, interest rate rises, inflation, concerns over the stability of US government debt, now at $36 trillion and rising, as well as greater geo-political uncertainty, including the threat of world war.

But these proximate causes have the character of an initial expression of a deeper process rooted in the very nature of the capitalist monetary and financial system.

Bourgeois economists, along with many who consider themselves to be Marxists, have dismissed Marx’s analysis of the commodity (gold) basis of the monetary system as belonging essentially to the 19th century. The final blow to its validity, they say, came when the system of fiat currencies was established after President Nixon removed the gold backing from the US dollar on August 15, 1971.

In putting forward these claims, they never explain why central banks continue to hold gold and why they have been acquiring it in recent times.

The fundamental difference between gold and all fiat currencies, including the US dollar, is that gold is a commodity produced by human labour and does embody real value.

Marx never claimed that a system of fiat currencies and the system of credit erected upon it could not drive out gold and replace it even for a considerable period of time, as has occurred since 1971.

In fact, he maintained that this was an inevitable tendency of capitalist development.

Credit, he wrote, being a social form of wealth, “displaces money [that is gold] and usurps its position. It is confidence in the social character of production that makes the money form of products appear as something merely evanescent and ideal, as a mere notion.” (Marx, Capital Volume 3, Penguin, 707-708)

Capitalist production, he continued, “constantly strives to overcome this metallic barrier, which is both a material and an imaginary barrier to wealth and its movement, while time and again breaking its head on it.”

It is not possible to ascertain exactly how the contradictions in the fiat currency system will develop, but the rise in the price of gold amid concerns about the stability of the US dollar, the fiat currency in chief, are indications that the time when the capitalist financial system once again breaks its head may well be approaching.

Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro indicted for fascist coup attempt

Tomas Castanheira

Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro and commanders of the Armed Forces, Adm. Almir Garnier Santos, Army Gen. Paulo Sergio Nogueira and Air Brig. Lt. Carlos de Almeida Baptista Junior. [Photo: Marcos Corrês/PR]

On Tuesday, the office of Brazil’s Attorney General (PGR) indicted former President Jair Bolsonaro and 33 others for the attempt to stage a coup d’état and violently abolish the democratic rule of law in a plot that led to the January 8, 2023 fascist uprising in Brasilia.

Once the indictment is accepted by the Federal Supreme Court (STF), which is expected to happen within the next few weeks, the accused will become defendants in a criminal case, facing sentences of up to 30 years in prison.

The indictment against Bolsonaro and his accomplices is based on the vast body of evidence gathered from the Federal Police’s (PF) almost 900-page report, published in November of last year.

The evidence paints a sinister portrait of the military-fascist cabal that headed the Brazilian state under the Bolsonaro government, whose deep roots in the Armed Forces cannot be hidden. Among those accused by the PGR are 23 military personnel, including seven generals and former commanders of the Armed Forces.

The PGR concluded that this group is responsible for systematically leading a “conspiratorial plot armed and executed against the democratic institutions.”

The conspiracy to establish a dictatorship in Brazil began well before the 2022 elections, as the report points out. Its initial focus was on abolishing the division of powers, establishing absolute powers for the Executive and attempting to discredit Brazil’s electoral system.

A substantial part of the evidence uncovered by the PF came from the plea bargain of Col. Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s aide-de-camp, who was responsible for coordinating the coup actions between the Planalto presidential palace and the military.

Cid clarified that, after Bolsonaro’s defeat in the 2022 elections, the former president and his allies launched a systematic plan to overthrow the elections, establish a state of exception that would place power in the hands of the military and prepare the legal bases for the establishment of a dictatorship.

These plans—described in detail in documents seized from the accused—included the assassination of the president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party (PT), his vice presidential running mate, Geraldo Alckmin, and Minister Alexandre de Moraes, then president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).

A document titled “Green and Yellow Dagger,” written by Gen. Mario Fernandes, one of the coup’s main conspirators, raised different possibilities for carrying out the assassinations, including through the use of firearms, explosives or poison. The document was presented and approved by Bolsonaro’s vice presidential candidate, Gen. Walter Braga Netto, on November 12, 2022.

On December 15, an attempt to carry out the plan to assassinate Moraes was launched and aborted. The operation was conducted by members of the army’s special forces, the so-called “Black Kids,” and directly financed by Braga Netto.

This and other violent episodes—including a wave of attacks on public buildings and vehicles in Brasilia on December 12, during the event to make Lula’s victory official—and the demonstrations by Bolsonaro supporters in front of the barracks had the declared aim of serving as “trigger events” prompting the decree of a state of exception that would transfer power to the military.

While those actions did not provide the necessary “trigger events for the action of the Security Forces,” mentioned by General Fernandes in a message to the commander of the Army, Gen. Marco Antônio Freire Gomes, the attack on the headquarters of the Three Branches of Government on January 8, 2023 fit perfectly within these objectives.

While organizing these violent actions, Bolsonaro and his co-conspirators acted systematically to pressure the vacillating elements in the Armed Forces command to join the coup, including by inciting an uprising among lower ranking officers.

In the period between Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat in October and the end of December, the former president and his defense minister, Gen. Paulo Sergio Nogueira de Oliveira, held multiple meetings with the commanders of the Armed Forces in which they discussed their coup plans in detail. This was confirmed by the Army and Air Force commanders themselves to the Federal Police.

Bolsonaro also met privately with Gen. Theophilo de Oliveira, commander of the Army’s most critical division, the Land Operations Command (COTER), who made its troops available to carry out the coup.

Between Bolsonaro’s meetings with the commanders, the Armed Forces published a false report on their counting of the ballots, fabricating the conclusion that the electoral process was subject to fraud. Two days later, on November 11, the commanders issued a joint statement promoting the fascist demonstrations demanding a military coup as “popular demonstrations.” Threatening authorities who interfered with those demonstrations, the note claimed the “unrestricted and unwavering commitment [of the Armed Forces] to the Brazilian people” and its historic role as a “moderating” power.

Although the PGR complaint identifies these two episodes, which involve the entire military command, as central parts of the coup plan, responsibility for them is attributed exclusively to former President Bolsonaro. The only military commander accused is Navy Adm. Almir Garnier, who insisted until the last moment on carrying out the coup.

“It should be noted,” the prosecutor misleadingly concludes, “that the Army itself was a victim of the conspiracy.”

Bolsonaro’s trial and the political crisis in Brazil

According to the press, Justice Alexandre de Moraes and the First Panel of the STF are now working to ensure that the trial of Bolsonaro and his co-conspirators is conducted swiftly, so that it can be concluded before the start of the 2026 election year.

The Workers Party (PT), for its part, is acting with the express aim of preserving the “technical” character of the trial of the fascist conspirators and avoiding its “politicization.”

These hopes are both unrealistic and reactionary. The crimes before the court are of an absolutely political and historical nature. The attempt to conclude this process, which has been going on for two years in secrecy, bureaucratically and behind the backs of the population, is an expression of the immense fragility of Brazilian democracy.

The PT’s pusillanimous attitude towards the coup trial, which directly targeted its government and its main leaders, is consistent with its actions throughout the process.

In the critical period between the election results and the January 8 uprising in Brasilia, while Bolsonaro and his military-fascist gang were staging provocations and plotting to overturn election, the PT sought to appease and negotiate with the forces involved in the coup plot and to convince the Brazilian population that the political crisis was resolved.

The president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann, emphatically opposed confrontations that emerged spontaneously from workers against the fascists blocking roads. Hoffmann warned the working class that “the president of Brazil at this moment is Jair Messias Bolsonaro. ... He must resolve this.”

Over the last two years, Lula and the PT have sought to strengthen their relations with the military by channeling increasing resources to the Armed Forces, promoting a right-wing nationalist ideology and acting to rehabilitate the military’s public image. This has included a crucial effort by the Lula government to erase the memory of the 1964-85 military dictatorship and its historic crimes, which are continued in the recent coup plot.

The undeniable return of the military-fascist presence in Brazilian politics is a demonstration of how none of the fundamental issues that led to the CIA-sponsored coup in 1964 and the subsequent two decades of dictatorship have been resolved.

The civilian regime consolidated by the 1988 Constitution preserved the pillars of the bourgeoisie’s violent domination unshaken and ready for a new authoritarian turn. The murderous military commanders were never punished and continued to educate new generations of officers based on their rabid anti-communist ideology and the cult of the “1964 Revolution.”

Jair Bolsonaro is the most authentic product of these conditions. A young officer in the transition period of the regime, he developed a parliamentary career as a strident defender of the dictatorship’s most brutal crimes and a public spokesman for the fascist ideology that for decades was restricted to the barracks.

Bolsonaro’s rise to the presidency of Brazil in 2018 was no accident. It marked a decisive return of the military to the center of the country’s politics, driven by the explosive sharpening of social contradictions, which could no longer be contained by the established instruments for suppressing the class struggle, the main one being the PT and its affiliated unions.

While the PT and the pseudo-left, who are completely detached from and hostile to the interests of the working class, are shaping their political strategy around the need to preserve the rotten institutions of the bourgeois capitalist state, the fascists are aggressively preparing for a new offensive to take power.

In response to the legal siege, the fascist forces linked to Bolsonaro are mobilizing their supporters to take to the streets and revive the banners that they raised in their first coup attempt. They have called national demonstrations for March 16, reaffirming that the 2022 elections were rigged and that they face political persecution from an authoritarian and illegitimate “leftist” regime.

The Brazilian fascists feel significantly emboldened by the return of Donald Trump to the White House. The coup plot in Brazil was in the most fundamental sense a political continuation of the coup attempt orchestrated by Trump on January 6, 2021. Bolsonaro and his allies closely coordinated their actions with Trump’s fascist political circle and modeled their actions on the political strategy of the US coup and its lessons.

The former president’s son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who was in Washington in January 2021 to study the lessons of Trump’s fascist coup, is back in the United States, where the next steps of the Brazilian fascists are being decided. Last week, Eduardo posted on X the accusation that former US President Joe Biden financed a fraudulent Brazilian electoral process in 2022 with USAID money. This fabrication was immediately endorsed by Elon Musk.

An even more significant political statement was made by Trump himself. He responded to the charges against Bolsonaro and his fascist cabal by issuing a lawsuit against Judge Alexandre de Moraes through the Trump Media & Technology Group alongside the fascist social network Rumble. The lawsuit alleges that Moraes is violating the First Amendment by demanding the suspension of accounts of Bolsonaro supporters residing in the US.

The accusation by Bolsonaro’s supporters that the Biden administration financed Lula’s victory by means of electoral fraud is a complete lie. On the other hand, there are multiple reports that US state officials held a series of discussions with Brazilian military leaders to dissuade them from participating in a Bolsonaro coup. Those talks were not motivated by any kind of international “left-wing” agenda of the Biden administration but on the understanding that a coup d’état in the largest country in South America would provoke a destabilization detrimental to the interests of US imperialism in the region.

The return of a second Trump administration marks a sharp turn in US foreign policy, with the prioritization of confrontation with China as a main axis. This includes the aggressive pursuit of US imperialist domination of Latin America and repelling the ever greater dominance of Chinese economic influence in the region.

The political relations of Trump-Musk and Bolsonaro are directly linked to the pursuit of these goals. Bolsonaro recently told the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo that, if he were to win the 2026 election—which he is legally barred from running—he would withdraw Brazil from the BRICS and allow the installation of an American military base on the country’s triple border as part of a “bold military agreement” with the US.

In a revealing speech at the CPAC conference on Thursday, Eduardo Bolsonaro argued that his father is being judicially persecuted because he is “the only candidate capable of defeating the left in the 2026 election” and “if he is kept out of the race, Brazil will fall completely under China’s influence.” He added: “With over 200 million people, the largest economy in Latin America and the land mass nearly the size of the United States, its geopolitical and economic importance is undeniable.”