After Covid: Will the Recession Become a Depression?

David Rosen

In April 2020, Jamie Dimond, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, noted in the company’s 2019 annual report: “As a nation, we were clearly not equipped for this global pandemic, and the consequences have been devastating.” Like a Wall Street preacher, he added, “But it is forcing us to work together, and it is improving civility and reminding us that we all live on one planet.”

In June, the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private forecasting group, reported that the “peak in quarterly economic activity occurred in 2019-Q4.” It noted:

The peak marks the end of the expansion that began in June 2009 and the beginning of a recession. The expansion lasted 128 months, the longest in the history of U.S. business cycles dating back to 1854. The previous record was held by the business expansion that lasted for 120 months from March 1991 to March 2001.

It then warned that a recession had begun in February 2020, just around the time the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic struck – and a month before Diamond warned about the “pandemic.” It reported:

A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, normally visible in production, employment, and other indicators. A recession begins when the economy reaches a peak of economic activity and ends when the economy reaches its trough. Between trough and peak, the economy is in an expansion.

Because a recession is a broad contraction of the economy, not confined to one sector, the committee emphasizes economy-wide indicators of economic activity. The committee believes that domestic production and employment are the primary conceptual measures of economic activity.

The unstated question at the heart of Diamond lamentation was whether his reference to a “pandemic” applied only to the virus or to the deeper economic and social crisis beginning to grip the country?

Grasping for straws, Pres. Trump tweeted on June 8^th: “Big day for Stock Market. Smart money, and the World, know that we are heading in the right direction. Jobs are coming back FAST. Next year will be our greatest ever.”

For Trump, ignorance is bliss whether confronting a virus or a stumbling economy.

***

On October 6^th, Jerome Powell, Chair, Federal Reserve, offered a very pessimistic assessment of the status of the economy in a presentation, Recent Economic Developments and the Challenges Ahead. He noted:

… a prolonged slowing in the pace of improvement over time could trigger typical recessionary dynamics, as weakness feeds on weakness. A long period of unnecessarily slow progress could continue to exacerbate existing disparities in our economy. That would be tragic, especially in light of our country’s progress on these issues in the years leading up to the pandemic.

He went on, despairing:

… Too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses. Over time, household insolvencies and business bankruptcies would rise, harming the productive capacity of the economy, and holding back wage growth.

Drilling another nail in the proverbial economic coffin, Pres. Trump initially pulled the plug on the on-again/off-again negotiations between Sec. of the Treasure Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over a new economic aid package to respond to the coronavirus. Pelosi had initially proposed a $3 trillion bailout plan but then reduced it to $1 trillion hoping to push through a compromise by the November 3^rd election.

Trump tweeted:

We made a very generous offer of $1.6 Trillion Dollars and, as usual, she is not negotiating in good faith. I am rejecting their …

.. request, and looking to the future of our Country. I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business. …

The outcome of the failure to even provide band-aide relief for the growing numbers of Americans suffering from the combined pandemic and recession would be a long, cold winter.

In the face of Powell’s report and mounting criticism, including from Republicans, Trump executed a backflip and tweeting the following:

If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy?

Sadly, even if the political dance is resolved and a follow-up recovery plan is implemented, the long-term economic consequences of Covid-19 pandemic cannot be fully anticipated. A recent study by two Harvard economists paint a grim picture of total costs of the pandemic. “The total cost is estimated at more than $16 trillion, or approximately 90% of the annual gross domestic product of the US,” David Cutler and Lawrence Summers wrote. “Approximately half of this amount is the lost income from the COVID-19–induced recession; the remainder is the economic effects of shorter and less healthy life.”

And so, the ping-pong of American politics plays on.

***

Six months earlier, on April 27, 2020, Trump stood near a sign that read “Opening up America again” and announced his plan to reopen the nation’s economy in the face of the mounting coronavirus epidemic. “Every day it gets better,” he proclaimed. “We are continuing to rapidly expand our capacity and confident that we have enough testing to begin reopening and the reopening process. We want to get our country open. And the testing is not going to be a problem at all. In fact it’s going to be one of the great assets that we have.”

At the time Trump made his proclamation, the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 was near 1 million and about 55,000 people had died. Now, in mid-October, confirmed coronavirus cases are at 8.1 million and 219,000 people have died. Efforts promoted by both the Trump administration and nearly all the states to “open up” the economy have proven not only less than successful economically but disastrous in terms of the pandemic’s spreading.

Nevertheless, the White House, along with thinktanks, news organizations and state governments, have joined a growing chorus offering analyses and plans to illuminate post-pandemic possibilities. The White House’s March 2020 Executive Order, “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic: Response and Recovery Through Federal-State-Local-Tribal Partnership,” laid out its arms-length strategy: “Response and recovery efforts are locally executed, state managed, and federally supported.”

Reuters warned, “A month into efforts to broadly reopen the U.S. economy there is little clarity either on the pace and durability of the recovery ….” Scholars at the Brookings Institute laid out a half-dozen scenarios dubbed “the shape of the recovery: Z-shaped, V-shaped, U-shaped, W-shaped, L-shaped, and even the Nike Swoosh.” However, the authors warned, “So, there will likely be no quick recovery. A key question is whether damage to the economy’s capacity to produce goods and services will be long lasting.”

The management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, cautioned: “Recovery from a deep crisis can be uneven, and history suggests that leaders may want to pace their policies over several years.” It poses a series of revealing questions:

Will your city be known for its unparalleled business environment for small and medium-size businesses looking to digitize and expand? Can your state become a top tourist destination? Or will workers in your locality be so successfully reskilled that it will lead the way toward inclusive growth?

It concluded, “The answer to these questions will determine the shape of the ‘next normal.’”

What if the various speculations as to the possible Covid-19 recovery lead to something other than a next normal? What if recovery portends a deeper, sadder possibility?

***

The unasked question is scary if simple: What if, after the coronavirus pandemic is contained, the economy takes much longer to recover, and social stagnation drags on? What if the recovery is a not a stepping-stone forward to a promising “next normal” but a step backward? What if America’s great ideological glue – the belief in opportunity – is frozen into a postmodern system of social relations with ever-decreasing economic mobility, one of deepening inequality?

The modern system of social inequality was forged during the Gilded Age of the late-19^th century. In 1897, the richest 4,000 families in the U.S. — who representing less than 1 percent of the population — had about as much wealth as the other 11.6 million families all together. In comparison, by November 2017, the top 1 percent held 38.6 percent of the nation’s wealth. Today, deepening inequality is recasting the lives of ordinary Americans fostering what historian David Huyssen identifies as the “Second Gilded Age.”

In a telling study published in the Review of Political Economy, “The Financial Crisis of 1929 Reexamined: The Role of Soaring Inequality,” Jon D. Wisman argued that “the Great Depression can be understood as the result of wage stagnation and exploding inequality during the 1920s.”

Wisman identified three factors that contributed to the Depression’s duration. First, consumption declined leading to “a fall in household saving, and increased household indebtedness.” Second, “greater inequality” led to “reduced household saving, greater household debt, and possibly longer work hours.” And, third, “as the rich took larger shares of income and wealth, they gained relatively more command over everything, including ideology.”

Symptoms of an economic and social crisis are mounting. As of August, the unemployment rate was at 8.4 percent, while far less than the 14.7 percent in April when Covid-19 first took its toll, it is double the 4.4 percent in February. Homeless is increasing; HUD reports that as of January 2019 the national homeless level reached 567,715 people and some project that, by January 2021, could increase by 40-45 percent possibly reaching 800,000 due sustained unemployment and the coming wave of evictions.

These factors are compounded by the burden of debt; the Federal Reserve of New York estimates that total household debt for the first quarter of 2020 hit $14.3 trillion, up from $12.7 trillion in the third quarter of 2008. Personal debt includes (i) household mortgages and (ii) non-housing debt (e.g., student debt, auto loans, credit cards). Deepening despair is leading alcohol abuse, drug overdoses and increases suicides. Sadly, the lifespan of the average American is declining, and the death rate is increasing.

In a 2016 publication, “What We Know About Economic Inequality and Social Mobility in the United States,” the Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) identifies some of the profound changes that, over the last half-century, have eroded notions of the American Dream. It concludes on a very pessimistic note:

The rise in economic inequality over the past four decades calls into question the notion that anyone, regardless of the status of their parents, can achieve the American Dream. Recent studies imply that America is a less mobile society than in the past and confirm that the U.S. has less social mobility than comparable industrialized nations.

What if ever-deepening economic inequality comes to define the New Gilded Age?

This possibility is anticipated by Harvard’s Raj Chetty, of the Opportunities Insights group, who recently wrote, “our research shows that children’s chances of earning more than their parents have been declining. 90% of children born in 1940 grew up to earn more than their parents.” He concludes, “Today, only half of all children earn more than their parents did.”

No one knows when Covid-19 will finally be contained. One consensus suggests that a proven vaccine will likely be available and dispensed in the U.S. by the end of 2021. Moody’s Sophia Koropeckyj estimates that 5 million people will struggle to find work even after the virus has been controlled and that the recovery from the current recession, the “new normal,” won’t happen until 2023 or 2024.

More ominous, a greater economically structured and unequal system – a postmodern caste system — may come to define the next new normal. No matter whether Trump or Biden is elected the next president, a far deeper crisis may await the nation. As is becoming increasingly evident, only a truly popular and democratic social restructuring of the economy and the political order can address the structural crisis the nation faces.

Ensuring Mental Health For All

Moin Qazi

Among the many challenges India faces, the most underappreciated is the ongoing mental health crisis. Mental illness is actually India’s ticking bomb. An estimated 56 million Indians suffer from depression, and 38 million from anxiety disorders. For those who suffer from mental illness, life can seem like a terrible prison from which there is no hope of escape; they are left forlorn and abandoned, stigmatized, shunned and misunderstood.

The intensity of mental disorders is particularly worrying in adolescents. Half of all mental illness starts by the age of 14, but most cases go undetected and untreated. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds in India.

India has 197.3 million people who live with a diagnosable mental disorder, today. 45 million have depression and roughly the same number live with anxiety. About 10 million people live with severe mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorders and schizophrenia.

The pathetic state of mental healthcare in the country coupled with the government’s apathy is a cause of great concern. A plausible reason is the sheer scale of the problem. Hence, nobody wants to discuss the elephant in the room. However, the nation cannot afford to ignore the stark reality.

There are only 43 mental hospitals in the country, and most of them are in disarray. Six states, mainly in the northern and eastern regions with a combined population of 56 million people, do not have a single mental hospital. Most government-run mental hospitals lack essential infrastructure, treatment facilities and have a sickening ambience. Visiting private clinics and sustaining the treatment, which is usually a long drawn-out affair, is an expensive proposition for most families.

Most government-run hospitals do not have psychiatric drugs, and visiting a private counselor and sustaining the treatment—usually a long drawn out affair—is an expensive proposition for most families. The ignorance and the callous attitude of the government towards psychiatric ailments, coupled with social stigma, dissuade most from seeking help. These factors are compounded by the existing treatment services. India has 0.3 psychiatrists and two mental health workers for every 100,000 individuals.

With resources tight an effective method for successfully tackling mental illness is a major expansion of online psychiatric resources such as virtual clinics and web-based psychotherapies. The economic consequences of poor mental health are quite significant. The cognitive symptoms of depression like difficulties in concentrating, making decisions and remembering cause significant impairment in work function and productivity.

The fact is that poor mental health is just as bad as or maybe even worse than any kind of physical injury. Left untreated, it can lead to debilitating, life-altering conditions. Medical science has progressed enough to be able to cure, or at least control, most mental-health problems with a combination of drugs, therapy and community support. Individuals can lead fulfilling and productive lives while performing day-to-day activities such as going to school, raising a family and pursuing a career.

People living with a mental illness face many impediments to their recovery and restoration to full functioning. Social determinants such as poverty, gender and education interplay with the deep-rooted stigma associated to any form of mental ill health.   The lack of recognition of mental ill health propels families to seek support from a range of stakeholders before they reach professional care. Many valuable years of intervention time are lost in the process.

Although mental illness is experienced by a significant portion of the population, it is still seen as a taboo. Depression is so deeply stigmatised that people adopt enforced silence and social isolation. In villages, there are dreadful recorded cases of patients being locked up in homes during the day, being tied to trees or even being flogged to exorcise evil spirits. Stories of extreme barbarity abound in tribal cultures. In some societies, family honour is so paramount that the notion of seeking psychiatric help more regularly is anathema. Recognition and acknowledgement, rather than denial and ignorance, are the need of the hour.

Many a time, mental health problems are either looked down upon or trivialised. These man-made barriers deprive people of their dignity. We need to shift the paradigm of how we view and address mental illness at a systemic level. Tragically, support networks for the mentally ill as well as their caregivers are woefully inadequate. There is an urgent need for an ambience of empathy, awareness and acceptance of these people so that prejudices dissipate and patients are able to overcome the stigma and shame.

To make dignity in mental health a reality, it requires every member of society to work and take action together. In an effort to curb mental illness and create a congenial environment to address the mental well-being of the public, the Government of India repealed the archaic Mental Health Act 1987 passed the Mental HealthcareAct, 2016. Along with the promise to provide an international standard of care, the bill seeks to address the underlying social stigma and taboo attached to mental diseases.

India’s Mental Healthcare Act is a piece of very progressive legislation, and is the equivalent of a bill of rights for people with mental disorders. Fundamentally, the Act treats mental disorders on the same plane as physical health problems thus stripping them of all stigmatizations. Mental health issues get the same priority as physical disorders. Conceptually, the Act transforms the focus of mental health legislations from supposedly protecting society and families by relegating people with mental disorders to the status of second-class citizens, to emphasizing the provision of affordable and quality care, financed by the government, through the primary care system.

Modern medicine is a quest to understand pathogenesis, the biological cause of an illness. Once pathogenesis—the word comes from the Greek pathos (suffering) and genesis (origin)—has been established, accurate diagnoses can be made, and targeted therapies developed. But what can medicine do when pathogenesis remains elusive? That’s a question that has bedeviled the field of psychiatry for so long.  Although our understanding of the brain is more sophisticated than ever before, psychiatry remains an empirical discipline, its practitioners are dependent on their (and their colleagues’) experience to figure out what will be an effective therapy for puzzling human behaviors.

Although psychiatry has yet to find the pathogenesis of most mental illness, it offers medical treatment on the basis of case histories recorded and documented by practitioners form their own professional experiences. The psychiatry protocols of diagnosis and treatment have been   extensively refined and have made life for mentally distressed people more tolerable and bearable. Many people have been helped, and the stigma both of severe mental illness and of fleeting depressive episodes has been vastly reduced.

The search for pathogenesis in psychiatry still continues. Genetic analysis may one day provide insight into the causes of schizophrenia, although it would likely take years for therapies to be developed. A positive hope comes from collaboration and convergence that is taking place in the mental health ecosphere. This is guided by genuine empathy in the society for the plight of the mentally afflicted. Academics, psychoanalysts, psychologists, practitioners and potential patients have greater understanding than ever about the range of treatments available.

It is time psychiatry becomes more modest about its potential and trains its attention on the severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, that are currently treated largely in prisons and asylums .The biology of mental illness continues to be  a mystery, but practitioners don’t want to admit it. Psychiatrists will have to pair their skills with people from social sciences and even the humanities. We need to explore avenues other than medication to create humane and effective long-term asylum treatment.

Mental healthcare initiatives are presently focused on a narrow biomedical approach that tends to ignore socio-cultural contexts. Community mental health services can offer a mix of clinical, psychological and social services to people with severe, moderate and mild mental illnesses. Also, counselling can make a profound difference and build resilience to cope with despair. Providing psycho-education to the patients’ families can also help. Unfortunately, in recent decades, academic psychologists have largely forsaken psychoanalysis and made themselves over as biologists. There is a need for strengthening the cadre of behavioural health therapists.

We need mental health practices that respect the dignity and agency of the distressed. Prevention must begin with people being made aware of the early warning signs and symptoms of mental illness. Parents and teachers can help build life skills of children and adolescents to help them cope with everyday challenges at home and at school. Psychosocial support can be provided in schools and other community settings.

Training for health workers to enable them to detect and manage mental health disorders can be put in place, improved or expanded. Such programmes should also cover peers, parents and teachers so that they know how to support their friends, children and students in overcoming mental stress and neurotic problems. There is a need for more open discussion and dialogue on this subject with the general public, and not just experts. This can help create a more inclusive environment for people with mental illness. There is also a need to effect more change on ground through infusion of fresh funds and investments which, currently, stands at 0.05 per cent of the total Budget allocated to health, annually.

With simple yet effective steps, we can turn the situation around and build a more accommodating environment for those struggling with mental distress and expand access to mental health and psychosocial services.

Prospect of right-wing violence and police repression hangs over US election

Eric London

With one week remaining until the US election on November 3, additional details are emerging of right-wing plans for election day violence and police preparations for repressing protests on election night.

In a motion filed yesterday in the federal case against six of the 14 fascists who plotted to kidnap and kill Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, prosecutors highlighted the timing of the plot: “On multiple occasions,” the plotters stated to one another “that the group’s deadline for executing the plot was the November 3, 2020 national election.”

The motion asks for a delay in the case so that prosecution can “determine whether additional federal charges are appropriate” because investigators found “explosive device components” which indicate a wider plot. “Because of the imminent nature of the threat, law enforcement was obliged to arrest the subjects before this evidence could be processed,” the motion reads.

Over the weekend, Jackson County Judge Michael Klaeren reduced bail for conspirator Peter Musico from $10 million to $100,000, equivalent to a relatively minor felony. Klaeren, who was appointed to his position by then-Governor Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, called the original bond “grossly excessive” and rejected a request by the prosecution to confine Musico to his home, saying this would make it difficult for Musico to go to work. Musico, a founding member of the Wolverine Watchmen, gave a thumbs up and thanked the judge.

A right-wing protester carries his rifle at the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan in an April 30 demonstration against Whitmer [Credit: AP Photo/Paul Sancya]

Last Friday, reports surfaced that a similar plot, led by an individual active within the Ohio Republican Party, was underway against that state’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine. But despite credible reports that Renea Turner planned to kidnap DeWine from his Cedarville home and place him on trial to kill or “exile” him, police have not filed charges. A report from WHIO notes, “[S]tate troopers told News Center 7 they opened an investigation, but declined to comment further.”

On Monday afternoon, Turner was allowed to hold a press conference at the state capitol building where she denied plans to kill DeWine but claimed that 85 percent of Ohioans “want him [DeWine] removed,” adding, “let’s say 5 percent of that 85 percent are skilled marksmen.”

Across the country, police departments are also preparing for election day.

In Michigan, statewide organizations representing police and sheriffs continue to refuse to abide by state elected officials’ order barring weapons at polling places—a clear nod to militia groups in the state.

In New Hampshire, officials announced they would not attempt to keep voters from bringing weapons to the polls. Further anecdotes indicate the police are becoming more brazen about their support for Trump in the days before the election, encouraged by the president’s own statements.

A police officer in New York City used his patrol car’s megaphone to broadcast pro-Trump messages to Flatbush residents this weekend. In Florida, a uniformed officer arrived at a polling station last week with a mask that said “Trump.” Eleven people were arrested in New York City Sunday when Trump supporters and protestors began fighting. Police guarded the pro-Trump demonstration and manhandled several anti-Trump protestors.

Beginning Monday, the New York Police Department deployed thousands of cops to patrol over 1,200 polling locations, with the chief explaining that the force is “at the ready” for the prospect of protests. In Washington D.C., police have purchased over $100,000 in additional tear gas canisters. Buzzfeed News reported that Police Chief Peter Newsham “told local lawmakers that in law enforcement circles, ‘it is widely believed there will be civil unrest after the November election regardless of who wins.’”

King County, Washington will also deploy guards at ballot boxes. The chief of police in Chicago referenced election demonstrations in the context of anti-police protests in the city earlier this summer. He said: "We have operations in place to ensure that they don’t destroy property, that they don’t cause further violence and that they are held accountable.”

In New Jersey, 250 members of the state National Guard will process ballots at the county level, though they will do so in civilian clothes. Several dozen guard soldiers will help with “cybersecurity” in North Carolina, while the Washington Post reported that states like Kentucky, Nebraska and Wisconsin are also considering deploying the Guard on election day.

These deployments show that a substantial police and National Guard presence will be on the ground on election night, when the likelihood of large anti-Trump demonstrations is high.

In four battleground states, mail-in ballots cannot be counted before election day. These states are also the linchpin of Trump’s strategy to proclaim “fraud” and challenge results: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa. In these states, large majorities of mail-in ballots come from Democrats, meaning Trump is likely to jump to an early lead on election night as ballots from election-day voters, who are expected to be mostly Republicans, are counted first. On Monday, the US Supreme Court rejected an effort by Democrats to begin counting mail-in ballots in advance of election day. 

This lead will erode in the days following the election, giving Trump the opportunity to baselessly claim the election is being stolen from him. Trump may claim victory if early counts show him leading in these states, provoking mass demonstrations and counter-mobilizations by fascist groups that support the president.

Police and national security officials are “gaming” plans to crush demonstrations against Trump. In a report published by the right-wing Claremont Institute and Texas Public Policy Foundation, a network of high-level former national security officials and police leaders write, “There is an increased chance of urban unrest, especially in jurisdictions where local and state officials are reluctant to maintain order.”

The report “games” the prospect of large-scale social mobilizations and predicts a massive police crackdown.

The report says that in the early morning hours of November 4, the day after the election, police will conduct widespread raids on the homes of left-wing opponents of Trump, suggesting there will be “over one thousand arrest warrants issued using federal and state statutes from RICO to disorderly conduct with coordinated pre-dawn warrant executions nationwide. The decision to obtain arrest warrants even for the barest minimum of probable cause on the lowest of charges is meant to remove the players from the picture, at least temporarily.”

The report predicts that police departments will rebel against Democratic elected officials in cities like Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles and New York as police suppress protests, and that officers assigned to guard Democratic mayors will call in sick, abandoning their posts.

The report also references the likelihood of police mobilizing fascist vigilantes: “Riot control efforts continue throughout the country. There are rumors that several sheriffs in conservative counties throughout the country are hinting that they may deputize regular citizens into posses should the lawlessness come to their counties. Social media is ablaze with volunteers from Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and Oath Keepers and other Posse Comitatus groups to form posses.”

This is the scenario for which the extreme right is preparing. As Trump moves forward with his right-wing strategy and threatens violence against sitting governors in his stump speeches, the Democratic Party responds with meaningless appeals for “calm.” Its greatest fear is that opposition to Trump and his attempt to steal the election will develop into a mass movement outside its control.

The MAS victory in Bolivia and bourgeois nationalism’s betrayals in Latin America

Tomas Castanheira

Last Friday, Bolivia’s Supreme Electoral Court officially declared the first round victory of Luis Arce of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) in the presidential elections held on October 18. Arce will take office on November 8, one year after former MAS president Evo Morales was overthrown in a US-backed military coup.

The coup regime led by self-proclaimed President Jeanine Áñez had already recognized Arce’s sweeping victory, even though before the elections she declared that a win for MAS would mean “the return of the dictatorship,” and had mobilized military forces to prepare for a possible new electoral coup.

The ultra-right presidential candidate, Luis Fernando Camacho, who maintained for a few days that he would not take the same “cowardly” attitude as Áñez, ended up recognizing Arce as president on Friday. The Santa Cruz Civic Committee, a fascistic organization connected to Camacho, saw itself isolated in its denunciation of a supposed electoral fraud. In turn, the Civic Committee dissociated itself from the call for a 48-hour strike for the annulment of the elections, which was weakly carried out only by the “shock group” Crucenista Youth Union (UJC).

MAS president-elect Luis Arce (r) with running mate David Choquehuanca (Credit: Facebook)

The return of the MAS to power in Bolivia is being celebrated by its Latin American counterparts, the demoralized bourgeois nationalist parties that led the so-called “Pink Tide” governments of the 2000s, as a political turning point in the region.

In Brazil, statements of this character were issued by several leaders of the Workers Party (PT), which governed the region’s largest country from 2002 to 2016, when President Dilma Rousseff was overthrown through an impeachment based on trumped-up charges.

The PT’s iconic figure, former president Luis Inácio “Lula” da Silva, declared on Twitter: “May Bolivia return to the path of development with inclusion and sovereignty.” His successor, Rousseff, wrote in Spanish: “May this victory inspire the peoples of our continent who suffer under neoliberal and authoritarian regimes.”

The national president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann, witnessed the Bolivian electoral process as an international observer and concluded that “there were no relevant incidents,” despite reporting a massive presence of the Armed Forces in the streets, which she justified as “a bit of a tradition here.”

In Venezuela and Cuba, countries with which the Áñez regime cut off official relations, the MAS victory was celebrated by the heirs of Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro. Chavista President Nicolás Maduro exclaimed: “Great Victory! The Bolivian people, united and conscious, defeated the coup d’état that was carried out against our brother Evo.” Arce has already declared that he will immediately reestablish relations with both countries.

The Peronist Alberto Fernandez, president of Argentina, where Evo Morales has been in exile since December, declared that the victory of the MAS “is good news for those of us who defend democracy in Latin America.” Morales said that Fernandez “offered to personally take me to Bolivia,” a return that he is said to be scheduling with Arce for as early as next weekend.

The former president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, sentenced to eight years in prison for corruption, and Fernando Lugo, president of Paraguay overthrown by a coup in 2012, also celebrated the victory. Lugo declared: “This enormous triumph is a beacon of example and hope for all of our America!”

However, what these political forces seek to characterize as the return of democracy, of policies to reduce social inequality and even a new era of economic prosperity, contrasts with the real situation of extreme instability in the country.

Áñez will hand over to the MAS the presidency of a country riven by class struggle. The rebellious protests that have shaken Bolivia over the past few months, and even the overwhelming vote for the MAS against the right-wing candidates who supported the coup, have expressed the hatred of the workers and peasants for the repressive and illegitimate regime.

But the fundamental reasons for these social conflicts lie in the repudiation by the Bolivian masses of the conditions of deepening misery, which, contrary to what the MAS and its supporters affirm, were not resolved by the “economic miracle” under the Morales government. The final period of his presidency was confronted by growing social struggles and strikes by the working class, whose demands were denied by the government, and were answered with state repression.

The program of the new MAS administration will be centered on the promotion of “pacification throughout the country” and the construction of a “national unity government,” in the words of President-elect Luis Arce himself. That is, it will work for the suppression of class struggle and conciliation with the fascist sections of the Bolivian bourgeoisie that overthrew Morales in the first place.

In a long interview broadcast on Saturday by Piedra Papel y Tinta, Arce clearly expressed the reactionary content of his capitalist policies. With a nationalist rhetoric of “reactivating the economy” based on “import substitution,” he defended the attacks promoted by the bourgeois governments against the working class throughout the world.

Asked if, in the face of challenges like “the pandemic, the crisis, the relationship with Brazil,” he considered implementing economic “shock measures,” Arce answered: “No, the correct measures.” The “correct measures” defended by Arce chillingly resemble the brutal policies promoted by Brazil’s fascist President Jair Bolsonaro against the working class of this neighboring country.

Quoting a World Bank report on the pandemic, Arce said: “Bolivia is the country that has most strictly followed a quarantine and everything else. In other countries there was a balance. The health issue is important, but there was also flexibility with the economic issue, so that the fall would not be so hard.”

Arce attacked the government of Áñez, not for imposing violent starvation policies against the Bolivian masses, but for having “prioritized health over economy.” “On the other hand,” he said, “other countries, like Peru and even Brazil ... were more flexible from an economic point of view, so that the impact would not be so strong on the economy. And they were successful.”

The criminal governments of Brazil and Peru, chosen as models by Arce, succeeded exclusively in obtaining the most devastating results of the pandemic.

Peru is the country with the highest per capita COVID-19 death rate in the world. Brazil, with almost 160,000 victims of the disease, has the second highest death toll on the planet. The working classes of both countries are suffering from an extreme increase in unemployment and a drastic lowering of living conditions.

As advocates of the interests of the Bolivian capitalist class, the MAS is incapable of promoting progressive politics. Last year’s military coup was a political reaction of this social class to the profound contradictions that undermine its rule over society, driven by the global crisis of capitalism and the growth of imperialist pressures on the Latin American region.

These crisis conditions have only intensified over the past year, marked by the impact of the global pandemic. These developments will necessarily produce new and greater explosions of the class struggle, which will be desperately fought by the new MAS government, while the fascistic forces prepare for new dictatorial assaults.

The fundamental problems of the Latin American working masses—state violence, misery, and imperialist oppression—cannot be addressed by supporting any party of the national bourgeoisie, no matter how “left” its pretensions. The working class must relentlessly fight these bourgeois nationalist forces and all their apologists among the pseudo-left.

Expressing the social interests of the upper-middle class, which seeks the stability of capitalist rule, the Morenoites of the so-called Trotskyist Fraction (FT-CI) argued, like countless other groups of the same character, that the MAS victory in Bolivia represents a “setback for Bolsonaro and the continental right,” in the words of their Argentine parliamentary leader Nicolás Del Caño.

A featured article on their website, La Izquierda Diario , celebrating the “defeat of the coup plotters in Bolivia” stated: “This defeat of the continental right could be extended if, as everything indicates, Trump loses the elections on November 3.”

They follow their support for the MAS in Bolivia to the logical conclusion that the interests of the Latin American working class are bound up with a victory by Joe Biden in next week’s US elections, replacing one capitalist party with another at the helm of US imperialism.

Never mind that Biden as a senator was one of the architects of Plan Colombia, the police-military operation that claimed the lives of thousands of Colombians and displaced hundreds of thousands. Nor that he was vice president in an administration that orchestrated a coup, very much like the one in Bolivia, a decade earlier in Honduras, with the overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya. This same Democratic administration introduced the punishing sanctions regime against Venezuela and earned for its head, Barack Obama, the title “deporter in chief.”

That the Morenoites are effectively supporting the election of such a veteran imperialist politician as a means of defeating “the continental right” makes it clear that they have nothing whatsoever to do with the struggle for socialism.

Hunger and social misery soar in Washington D.C. during the pandemic

Nick Barrickman & Dominic Gustavo

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cut a path of sickness through the population, numerous studies and investigations have revealed the growth of a far more pervasive and silent killer stalking the United States: hunger.

According to a report published last month by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), the number of people in the US experiencing a persistent lack of food sometimes or often climbed above 29 million people in July. This number represents nearly 11 percent of the US population. This is a near quadrupling of the number of such people in 2018, when 8 million adults were in this category.

The report states that in 38 states and the District of Columbia, 1 in 10 adults with child dependants find themselves without enough food to feed themselves and their family on a regular basis.

“Food need is being driven by unemployment, particularly in service industries, e.g., Uber drivers, childcare workers, hospitality industry, including hotels and restaurants, home health care and school services,” a representative of the Falls Church Community Services Council in Northern Virginia told the World Socialist Web Site in an email. “Our recent clients now include people who were managing before the pandemic, but now can no longer afford rent, utilities and food.”

People wait in line at a food pantry. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

Falls Church, located in the near-suburbs of Washington D.C., is an independent jurisdiction inside Fairfax County. In 2011, it was named the wealthiest county in the United States, with a median income of $113,000 per household, its wealth largely attributable to the number of federal contractors stationed nearby. The city’s largest employer is its school system.

Last month, a report in the local ABC News affiliate WJLA noted that the Capital Area Food Bank, a supplier to over 450 charity organizations and groups in the area, found a nearly 300 percent surge in demand for its services. When contacted, Amanda Rogers, Communications Director for the Fairfax County Neighborhood and Community Services office, reported a surge of “residents who have never called or had a case open with CSP [Coordinated Services Planning] before.” This was nearly four times more than the average monthly new caller rate in fiscal year 2019.

While the need is dire, the pandemic has restricted the ability of local charities to respond. According to the WJLA report, out of nearly 150 food banks in the D.C. area that partner with the Capital Area Food Bank, “only 45 are operational.”

The Falls Church Community Services Council reported “a lack of volunteers willing to risk illness while making sure people get food.” This is especially noticeable as “the core of many food pantries’ volunteer bases are in the most vulnerable age group” for COVID-19. In addition to this, “Many stores [in spring] had placed limits on purchases of food as well as paper goods and cleaning supplies which some pantries provide.”

In other words, a complete breakdown has occurred throughout charitable networks, affecting everything from personnel to supplies.

“Location is another factor,” NPR reports, in addition to resource scarcity. A report last month using data from the US Department of Agriculture found, “People who live in food deserts are often more likely to experience food insecurity because food is harder to obtain where they live.” The report notes that 19 million Americans live in regions classified as food deserts, where supermarkets stocking fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products and other healthy foods are nonexistent.

This has affected every demographic in the US population. According to the US Department of Agriculture, while African American and Hispanic families are more than twice as likely to be food insecure, the report notes that rural areas of the United States are more likely to become food deserts due to the spread out population as well as the lack of economic opportunity.

The stark growth of social misery is a searing indictment of both the Democratic and Republican parties. Both parties sought to shore up big business and Wall Street interests through the passage of the multitrillion-dollar CARES Act as the pandemic swept across the United States in early spring. The enacted bill was a giveaway to the financial elite, who have seen their wealth and holdings skyrocket during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the minor benefits awarded the working population became memories months ago.

It is significant that the primary recipients of the aid are teachers and home health care workers, i.e., those who are being placed on the front lines by callous officials determined to reopen public schools and businesses in the pursuit of profits. In Northern Virginia, Fairfax County, the region’s largest school system, is beginning this week sending groups of schoolchildren to in-person classes. The purposeful impoverishment of teachers and other education workers has been instrumental in forcing them back to work in unsafe conditions.

A team of reporters from the World Socialist Web Site visited So Others Might Eat (SOME), a non-profit organization in Washington D.C., located a little over a mile from the White House and National Mall. We spoke with Terrelyn, a retiree who had been accessing SOME for nearly two years. “I usually visit this place at the end of the month, or on Wednesdays to get groceries,” she said. “That way, the only thing I have to worry about is buying meat.”

Terrelyn confirmed that need for food aid during the pandemic was dire. “If you come out here around 7 a.m. in the morning, it looks like a block party” due to the number of people lined up to receive free breakfast. “You can still see construction workers cleaning up the mess from the number of people [who line up to receive free meals]. A lot of people have become homeless during the pandemic because of foreclosures,” she said.

According to the Public Broadcasting Service, “Roughly 21 million people were already struggling to scrape rent together before the pandemic hit. Now, with unemployment at record highs, only a temporary government moratorium on evictions keeps many from losing their homes.” A study by Princeton University’s Eviction Lab found in a study of over 2,600 women with children that those who had been evicted were more likely to develop physical and mental health issues within a year’s time. The children also suffered in their schooling.

Terrelyn explained that she had yet to receive any stimulus money during the pandemic because she lacked internet access and could not establish that she was no one’s dependent. “It doesn’t matter who is elected [in the November 3 presidential election],” she said, “there won’t be any stimulus for us.”

Belarus opposition declares general strike against Lukashenko government

Clara Weiss

The stand-off between the pro-EU, pro-NATO opposition and the regime of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus has entered a new phase with a general strike that was declared by the opposition on Monday. On Sunday, more than 100,000 protesters had demanded again that Lukashenko, who claims to have won the August 9 presidential elections, step down. They were met by riot police who threw stun grenades into the crowds and arrested at least 500 people.

That same night, Lukashenko ignored an “ultimatum” to leave office issued by opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who claims to have won the presidential election and has been living in exile in Lithuania since August. The opposition claims that tens of thousands of workers and students joined its call for a general strike on Monday. However, it seems that walk-outs and demonstrations were centered among college and high school students.

In the capital Minsk, a large crowd of college students gathered in front of the Belarusian State University (BGU), chasing security forces away and blocking streets in the city center. Communication workers, as well as medical workers from six different hospitals in the city, reportedly joined the protest. On social media, pictures circulated, showing protests and walk-outs by college and high school students from across the country. Many coffee shops, restaurants, and libraries reportedly also closed. In Minsk and other cities, pensioners joined large demonstrations against Lukashenko.

Rally against Lukashenko in Minsk on October 25, (Credit: Homoatrox)

The NEXTA Telegram channel claimed that many railway workers also joined the strike, leading to substantial delays of trains on Monday. NEXTA, which has become the main opposition channel, is run by a young Belarusian blogger from a foundation in Warsaw that is funded by the far-right Polish government of the Law and Justice Party (PiS).

NEXTA also reported that at Grodno Azot, a chemical fertilizer plant in the west of the country, 200 workers demonstrated on Monday morning to show support for the strike. At least 50 of them were arrested. On Tuesday, the opposition called for an “economic boycott” of the regime, including through a boycott of companies that are run by figures around Lukashenko, the general reduction of purchases and the refusal to pay utilities for two months.

The strike wave in August and early September in Belarus brought the country’s economy to the “brink of collapse,” according to an analysis by the German business daily Handelsblatt, costing billions of dollars. The Belarusian GDP was less than $60 billion in 2019. The strike committees that were formed then have since been disbanded or collapsed, according to media reports.

So far, it does not seem that the strikes have assumed as large a dimension as in August. However, the Lukashenko regime clearly fears the spread of strikes in the working class and the movement among the youth, and is preparing for a violent crackdown against the protests. Speaking to his cabinet ministers on Tuesday, Lukashenko warned of a “radicalization” that was under way and stated that the government was confronted with a “terrorist war” from “criminal organized gangs.”

He insisted that the demonstrators had “crossed a red line” and instructed his cabinet: “Don’t try to convince anyone—not the workers, not the students, not the teachers, not the doctors, not the public sector workers. … Those who illegally joined unsanctioned protests have forfeited their right to be students. Send them into the army or onto the streets, but they must be removed from the colleges. The same goes for the teachers, there are just a few of them, but those who behave in a disgusting way in the colleges [must be fired]. I repeat: don’t try to ask or convince anyone, this is useless. … I’m appealing again to the parents of children in schools and colleges: take your children off the streets, otherwise it will be painful.”

The Russian government has refused to comment on the situation and insists that it does not give Lukashenko any advice as to how to deal with the protests and strikes. However, it was reported that on October 22, the head of Russian foreign intelligence, Sergey Naryshkin, visited Lukashenko’s palace.

There is evidently enormous concern about the strikes and the fact that Lukashenko, after 11 weeks of protests, has been unable to shut down the movement. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted on Monday, “Of course, we are following the situation. It is extremely important for us that the factories in Belarus are operating in a reliable and timely manner.”

The online newspaper Gazeta.Ru published an analysis evaluating the potential fallout from large-scale strikes in Belarus for the Russian economy. About 45 percent of all Belarusian exports go to Russia. Russia is especially reliant on Belarusian manufacturing of tractors and parts for the Russian defense industry, and also imports a substantial amount of milk produce from Belarus. The greatest fear in Moscow, Gazeta.Ru said, is that strikes could impact the operation of the Druzhba oil pipeline, which is delivering Russian oil through Belarus to the European Union (EU). Russia’s economy has already been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and its GDP is expected to shrink by 9 percent this year.

Even more than the economic impact of the strikes in Belarus, however, the Russian oligarchy fears that they will spread to workers in Russia. Social and political anger over both the mass impoverishment of the population and the policy of “herd immunity” with regard to the coronavirus is running high in the Russian working class.

Workers in Belarus, Russia and across the region are indeed facing the same economic, political and social problems, as a result of decades of Stalinism and the restoration of capitalism by the Stalinist bureaucracy. However, any struggle for social and political progress requires the independent intervention of the working class on the basis of a socialist and international program.

Such a struggle is impossible without a conscious, political break with the right-wing opposition of Tikhanovskaya, which is heavily nationalistic, anti-communist and backed by the imperialist powers. Despite its limited appeals to widespread social and economic discontent, the opposition is deeply hostile to the working class. It speaks for sections of the ruling and upper middle class in Belarus that seek to advance their own social interests by integrating the country more closely into the EU and NATO.

Earlier in October, Tikhanovskaya met with French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Heiko Maas. There is little question that, at this point, all major steps by the opposition are discussed with Berlin and Paris. The opposition is also receiving funding and is in close discussions with the governments in Poland as well as the Baltic states, all of which are ferociously anti-Russian and nationalistic.

German imperialism, in particular, regards the crisis of the Lukashenko regime as an opportunity to bolster its own influence in the region and undermine Russia. Under conditions of growing inter-imperialist tensions with the US and an international economic breakdown, Berlin has recently significantly stepped up its intervention in the former Soviet bloc. In this regard, Berlin’s aggressive intervention in the highly dubious case of anti-Putin oppositionist Alexei Navalny, and its backing of the Tikhanovskaya opposition in Belarus are of a piece.

German companies already have a substantial foothold in the region, which has been turned into a cheap labor platform for German imperialism after the restoration of capitalism in 1989–1991. In terms of geo-strategy and war preparations against Russia, Belarus is also of enormous significance. After Ukraine, where Berlin and Washington backed a far-right coup in 2014, Belarus is the last country on Russia’s western borders that is not directly aligned with NATO. While Lukashenko has been seeking to balance between NATO and Russia in recent years, the installment of an openly pro-Western regime in Minsk would signify a major geo-strategic blow to Moscow. Germany, as well as the US, also seeks to roll back the influence of China, which has become one of the main investors in the Belarusian economy under Lukashenko.

Gig workers hired to evict people from their homes as millions struggle to pay rent

Dominic Gustavo

A startup company by the name of Civvl is seeking to recruit temporary “gig” workers to assist landlords in evicting tenants who have been unable to pay rent in the midst of the economic depression triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Civvl is owned by OnQall, a developer that provides a platform for a number of other app-based services. However, Civvl is markedly different from the other apps, some of which are used for house-cleaning and mowing lawns.

The startup, described by VICE News as “Uber, but for evicting people,” has posted ads across the US looking for gig workers to join eviction crews to assist in what the company’s website calls “debris removal.” In other words, it is hiring people to clear out the possessions of evicted people.

Like opportunistic vultures, the company’s owners seek to take advantage of an economic crisis in which millions are unemployed and cut off from federal assistance. Desperate workers—in many cases struggling to pay rent themselves—are now to be utilized by the startup to evict other struggling people for the purpose of turning a profit.

The startup’s own website declares it to be the “FASTEST GROWING MONEY MAKING GIG DUE TO COVID-19.” The website assures its clients that “Civvl gets them out!” amid photos showing furniture and other possessions being hauled out into the streets with police standing by.

Civvl (Image Credit: company website)

As Civvl’s Craigslist ads explain, “Unemployment is at a record high and many cannot or simply are not paying rent and mortgages.” It continues: “We are being contracted by frustrated property owners and banks to secure foreclosed residential properties. ... There is plenty of work due to the dismal economy.”

Amid a stream of bad press, the company adjusted the language on its website to indicate that it does not, in fact, carry out the evictions. However, this appears to be contradicted by the fact that among the positions listed is that of “process server,” a person who would be contracted with serving court documents and posting eviction notices on properties. Other services include that of “eviction standby.”

As for the legality of the evictions, the company makes clear in its terms of service that it is merely carrying out the dirty work of the landlord, who assumes all legal responsibility.

Many have expressed outrage over such blatant profiteering from the growing misery of masses of people. VICE News spoke with Helena Duncan, a Chicago housing activist and paralegal. “It’s f*cked up that there will be struggling working-class people who will be drawn to gigs like furniture-hauling or process-serving for a company like Civvl, evicting fellow working-class people from their homes so they themselves can make rent,” she said. Others expressed their indignation on Twitter with one user tweeting: “These people are just evil.”

The absurdity and criminality of this state of affairs will not be lost on workers. A CNN report on evictions from September 2 featured the eviction of an elderly Houston woman who could no longer afford to pay her rent. As the landlord’s mover hauled out her possessions, he lamented, “Maybe today it’s her, tomorrow it’s me.”

The CDC has imposed a moratorium on evictions effective through December 31, 2020. However, this hasn’t stopped landlords from resorting to illegal methods to evict their tenants, including utility shutoffs and intimidation tactics.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) moratorium has been subject to different interpretations among varying state and local governments, leaving many low-income and vulnerable tenants at risk for eviction and homelessness.

Avery Kreemer, the founder of Ohio Eviction Watch, recently spoke to the WSWS on the eviction crisis in the state. He explained: “Each county and each court will interpret the moratorium differently,” said Kreemer. “One of our reporters lives up in Akron, and someone from the Legal Aid Society told her about a woman who lives on the county line. The court she lives under decided she was not covered under the CDC order, but if she had lived two miles to the west she would have been protected under that court.”

Despite the CDC moratorium, many renters are unaware of the protections available to them, and landlords take advantage of this ignorance to carry out illegal evictions. In some states, tenants must fill out a declaration in order to remain exempt from eviction. In other states, such as Maryland, tenants may be required to provide documentation to assert that they qualify for exemption.

Phillip DeVon, an eviction prevention specialist at the Chicago-based Metropolitan Tenants Organization (MTO) told VICE, “One thing we know just from experience, especially with housing: just because something is technically legal, doesn’t by any stretch mean that it’s right, ethically speaking.” Regarding Civvl, DeVon said, “With this particular company, it sounds like they’re doing what landlords often do, which is prey upon a lack of knowledge and information about people’s rights.” He added, “It’s very dishonest. … It’s like, ‘Oh, don’t call us a hitman. We don’t pull the trigger! We just connect you with someone who’s willing to.’”

The eviction crisis in the US, as part of the broader social catastrophe brought about by the pandemic depression, is rapidly assuming monstrous dimensions. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), which is tracking growing rates of unemployment, hunger and general hardship, some 11.8 million adult renters—or nearly 1 in 6—were unable to pay their rent last month.

The CBPP acknowledges this to be a significant undercount since younger, less educated, and Black and Hispanic renters—demographics that are statistically more likely to be struggling to pay rent—were less likely to respond to the survey. The advisory firm Stout Risius Ross conducted an analysis that concluded that as many as 34 million people may be at risk for eviction.

Unemployment, which is closely tied to difficulties paying rent, is still at record highs. The CBPP, having analyzed the Census Bureau population survey, concluded that some 31 million people were unemployed, or lived with an unemployed family member. Among them are 7 million children. The CBPP further acknowledges this to be an undercount, since it doesn’t include workers who have been furloughed, workers who have given up on looking for a job, and people who are caring for sick relatives and/or their children because of closed schools. If the family members of these workers are counted, some 54 million people—1 in 6 in the country—live in households with a disenfranchised worker.

The owners of Civvl clearly anticipate the avalanche of evictions that is coming. Its website states frankly, “Moratorium ends Dec 31, 2020,” and urges landlords to “Secure your booking and act fast.”

While the company is rightly receiving widespread condemnation, it would be mistaken to characterize this phenomenon as an anomaly. The entire capitalist system is predicated on violence and exploitation.

The appearance of a startup such as Civvl is merely the odious expression of an old maxim, made infamous by Democrat Rahm Emanuel, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” The opportunism of Civvl is reflected on the grand scale by pharmaceutical companies such as Regeneron, which is set to make a fortune from its Covid-19 treatment. Even though the project was federally funded—to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars—the treatment will likely be unaffordable for a great majority of the population, even as the company’s executives—already the highest paid in the industry—are due to receive billions of dollars.

In an economic system that subordinates everything, even human life, to the accumulation of wealth, it is perfectly logical to take advantage of a situation in which millions of human beings may be expelled from their homes. A bourgeois political economist would undoubtedly praise the entrepreneurial spirit displayed by Civvl’s owners, as well as the genius of their business model: utilizing unemployed poor people to remove other poor people from their residences.

The despicable attempts by this startup to prey upon the misery afflicting millions of working people is mirrored by the machinations of a ruthless financial oligarchy that has taken advantage of the pandemic crisis to engineer a multitrillion-dollar bailout to itself. The ecstatic booming of the stock markets and the exorbitant increase in the wealth of the richest 1 percent are to be contrasted with the growth of severe poverty and misery among the masses of the working class.

This is not an aberration, it is the inevitable result of capitalism, and it is how the system is designed to function. As the decay of American capitalism accelerates, it will be reflected in increasingly degenerate displays of greed and opportunism by the ruling class.