Markets and US economy increasingly dependent on AI boom

Nick Beams

Last week Wall Street feverishly anticipated the quarterly revenue and profit results from Nvidia, the chipmaker at the center of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Would the results exceed expectations and quell the growing fears that the AI boom is a bubble which may soon burst with major consequences?

Visitors listen to the introduction of NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 AI server during the Hon Hai Tech Day (HHTD 25) at the Nangang Exhibition Center in Taipei, Taiwan, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. [AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying]

They were published after Wall Street had closed on Wednesday and were above forecasts with a 62 percent increase in revenues to $57 billion in the three months to the end of October and forecasts of even more to come in the current quarter—$65 billion, some $3 billion more than expectations.

When trading opened on Thursday Nvidia’s shares jumped by 5 percent with the tech-heavy NASDAQ index and the S&P 500 recording significant rises. But it was a different story by the end of the day. Nvidia’s share price was down 3.2 percent and the gains in the rest of the market had turned into losses.

The S&P 500 rose by 1.4 percent in the morning only to end the day 1.6 percent lower in its biggest intraday reversal since the turbulence set off by President Trump’s announcement on “reciprocal tariffs” at the beginning of April. Wall Street then bounced back yesterday on expectations that the Federal Reserve will make a rate cut at its meeting next month.

The volatility in the market is the expression of concerns about the viability of AI as a series of unanswered questions continue to mount.

These include: whether the massive amounts of electricity needed to power AI centers will be available; will the companies setting them up generate enough revenue for a sufficient rate of return on the billions, even trillions invested; how viable are the circular deals through which Nvidia in particular has invested in companies which then use the money provided to buy its chips; and whether the current models for AI development will be superseded, turning the data centers now under construction into so-called “stranded assets.”

Apart from the gyrations on the stock market—the shares of Meta are down by 21 percent since it reported earnings at the end of October with Microsoft down by 13 percent—there is the issue of the broader economy.

Noting that the AI boom is driving the economy, a report in the New York Times posed the question: “What happens if it falters?”

“The US economy in 2025 is split in two: Everything tied to artificial intelligence is booming. Just about everything else is not,” the article said.

There is a boom in areas where massive data centers, the size of theme parks, are being constructed but in the rest of the economy it is different.

“Unemployment has been rising, hiring has slowed and industries including manufacturing and home building are cutting jobs. Consumer sentiment has slumped amid high prices. The public sector has been weighed down by budget cuts and federal layoffs. Tariffs and the uncertainty surrounding them have been a drag on international trade and led to slower investment by many companies.”

According to the article, by one measure investment in computer equipment and software accounted for more than 90 percent of the growth in GDP in the first half of the year.

It cited comments by Anirban Basu, the chief economist at a building trades group, who noted that data center construction was “the only real driver of nonresidential construction spending growth in America.”

While the construction of these centers creates a boom in the limited areas in which they are established, that will be short-lived because once they become operational they will employ at most only a few hundred people.

“Some places have gotten confused by a lot of messaging from the hyperscalers that this is the beginning of a regional technology,” Mark Muro, an economist at the Brookings Institution told the Times.

He said the data centers “become just massive buildings with a couple of hundred jobs, which aren’t terrible, but aren’t really going to move the dial.”

The AI stock market boom and the concerns that it could bust were featured in a lecture delivered by Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook last week. Cook, who has responsibility for financial stability, began by reminding her audience of the effects of a financial crisis, recalling that in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, unemployment in her home state of Michigan rose to 14 percent with the national jobless rate hitting 10 percent.

As with all Fed officials, Cook began with assurances that the financial system was “resilient.” The same thing was said prior to the 2008 crash as well, and no central bank official is ever going to say that the conditions for a crisis are developing lest that acts as a trigger to set it off.

But in the course of her remarks, she did point to a number of potential sources of major turbulence.

She said the Fed had assessed that asset valuations “on the whole were elevated relative to historical benchmarks in a number of markets, including equity markets, corporate bond markets, leveraged loan markets, and housing markets.”

The areas named cover a significant slab of the financial system. She said her “impressions” were that there was an “increased likelihood of outsized asset price declines,” before adding the almost obligatory reassurance because of the system’s “overall resilience” there were not the weaknesses that played out in the 2008 crisis.

But asset valuations were not the only source of potential instability to which she pointed.

The growth of private credit, which according to Fed estimates has doubled in size over the last five years, was another area of “potential vulnerability.”

“The increasing complexity and interconnections with leveraged financial entities create more channels through which unexpected losses in private credit could spread to the broader financial system.”

The increased involvement of hedge funds in the Treasury market, the basis of the US and global financial system and which played a significant role in the market freeze amid the “dash for cash” at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, was also “another vulnerability” Cook said she was following.

Hedge fund holdings of Treasury cash securities had increased from 4.6 percent of the total in the first quarter of 2021 to 10.3 percent in the first quarter of this year.

“This represents significant growth in the scale of liquidations that could result if hedge funds were to sharply reduce their Treasury positions because of changing market conditions,” she said, as was witnessed in 2020.

The overall situation confronting the US economy is that far from entering a new “golden age” as proclaimed by Trump, it contains any number of triggers that could set in motion a major crisis.

China-Japan tensions continue to worsen

Peter Symonds

Barely a month in office, Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has triggered a diplomatic row with Beijing over her remarks in parliament on November 7 suggesting that Japan would automatically be involved in any military conflict between China and Taiwan. Far from subsiding, the battle of words has escalated over the past fortnight with mounting economic repercussions.

Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi attends a plenary session of the G20 leaders' summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. [AP Photo/Misper Apawu,Pool]

While the US and Western media have been at pains to downplay her provocative remarks, Takaichi, who assumed office on October 21, was well aware that what she said would inflame relations with China. In response to a question, she declared that, if Beijing were to impose a military blockade on Taiwan, it would constitute “a survival-threatening situation” for Japan. She hinted that Japan could provide military support to Taiwan or the US in the event of conflict with China.

The phrase has a precise legal meaning within “collective self-defence” legislation passed in 2015 by the government of Shinzo Abe allowing Japanese military deployment overseas in “a survival-threatening situation.” No previous post-World War II Japanese government, even that of the militarist Abe, has publicly indicated that Tokyo would go to war with Beijing over Taiwan.

Taiwan is potentially the most dangerous flashpoint in Asia. The Trump administration, following on from Biden, has deliberately stoked tensions with China by undermining the One China policy, which de facto recognises Beijing as the legitimate ruler of all China including Taiwan. The US, while still formally adhering to One China, has ramped up diplomatic, economic and military relations with Taipei, which Beijing regards as a renegade province and has threatened military action if it ever declared formal independence.

Takaichi, a protégé of Abe, is pursuing a similar policy. Just a week after being installed, she met with Trump aboard the USS George Washington aircraft carrier at the Yokosuka naval base and pledged under the banner of “peace and stability” to further remilitarise Japan. Peace, she declared “cannot be preserved by words alone,” but requires “unwavering determination and action.”

Just days later at the APEC summit in South Korea, Takaichi met with Chinese President Xi Jinping who said that relations between their countries should “not be defined by problems,” explicitly mentioning Taiwan. The following day, however, she met with the Taiwanese representative at the summit, provoking a protest from Beijing.

Following Takaichi’s remarks on November 7, relations between the two countries quickly deteriorated. The Chinese foreign ministry criticised her for “seriously damaging bilateral ties” by conducting “blatant interference in China’s internal affairs.” Beijing took steps to underline the centrality of Taiwan and the One China policy to its strategic interests. China reportedly cancelled a trilateral meeting of culture ministers with Japan and South Korea due to take place this month.

China has also threatened to ban Japanese seafood imports and warned Chinese tourists and students that Japan could be too dangerous to visit. In the first 10 months of the year, China accounted for 23 percent of foreign tourists to Japan—the largest share of any country. The Japanese tourist industry has now been hit by thousands of cancellations.

Of far more concern to Japanese industry is the potential for China to limit or ban altogether exports of rare earths to Japan. In 2010, China imposed such a ban which lasted for two months after tensions flared over a maritime clash between a Chinese trawler and the Japanese coast guard near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea in which the Chinese captain was arrested. China has a virtual global monopoly over the production of rare earths.

Last Thursday the US bought into the dispute. While the White House has yet to make any statement, the US ambassador to Tokyo, George Glass, condemned what he claimed was “Chinese economic coercion” and let Takaichi know “we have her back.”

The row between the two countries flared again at the G20 summit in Johannesburg last weekend attended by both Takaichi and Chinese Premier Li Qiang. No meeting took place between the two.

Having provoked the confrontation with China, Takaichi postured as the wounded party, declaring that her government had been “consistent” in building a “constructive and stable relationship” and was “open to various forms of dialogue.” She is adamant, however, that she will not accede to Beijing’s demands that she retract her remarks, saying it was “essential that Japan clearly articulates the positions it needs to assert.”

On Sunday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi became the highest-ranking official to speak publicly on the issue so far, declaring: “It is shocking for a sitting Japanese leader to openly send a wrong signal of attempting to intervene militarily in the Taiwan question.” He warned that China had to “resolutely hit back,” not only to defend “its sovereignty and territorial integrity” but also “the hard-won postwar achievements secured with blood and sacrifice.”

China is acutely sensitive to Japan’s remilitarisation as a result of the brutal war waged by Japanese imperialism to conquer and subordinate first Manchuria then all China in the 1930s which then merged with World War II in the Pacific. Memories of the atrocities carried out by the Japanese army are deeply embedded. Anti-Japanese chauvinism, however, is exploited by the Chinese Communist Party for its own ends, particularly as a means of diverting rising social tensions at home.

Takaichi belongs to the far-right wing of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party that is notorious for its denials of Japanese atrocities in China such as the Nanking Massacre in 1937. She has been a regular visitor to the Yasukuni Shrine, a potent symbol of Japanese militarism, that enshrines the war dead, including 14 Class A war criminals. In coming to office, she forged a coalition with the extreme right-wing Nippon Ishin no Kai.

Takaichi is rapidly putting words into actions as she accelerates Japan’s remilitarisation, bringing forward plans to double its military spending. Tokyo plans to continue acquiring long-range missiles and is considering the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. It is also preparing to scrap restrictions on the export of lethal weaponry.

The ruling LDP is also planning to “review” Japan’s three longstanding anti-nuclear principles of not possessing, producing or permitting the introduction of nuclear arms into the country. According to Japanese media reports, the government is seriously discussing allowing the US to station nuclear weapons on Japanese soil. While China has criticised such a move, the Takaichi government also knows that the introduction of US nuclear weapons would provoke widespread domestic opposition, given the criminal US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Even as tensions continued to rise with China, Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi last weekend toured Japan’s southwestern islands that are immediately adjacent to Taiwan and China. He visited the military base on Yonaguni Island, which is just 110 kilometres from Taiwan, and confirmed the placement of surface-to-air missiles on the outpost. The missile deployment is one aspect of Japan’s military build-up in the islands in preparation for involvement in a US-led war against China. Koizumi’s visit to the base at this time is another calculated provocation that can only further undermine relations with China.

Political crisis sharpens in the Philippines

John Malvar

A political crisis in the Philippines over revelations of immense corruption has thrown the political elite into turmoil. Fueled by explosive social unrest, the crisis is moving towards a possible military coup, as no faction of the Philippine elite seems to have the capacity to contain the growing instability.

Philippines' President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. speaks at 88th anniversary of the Armed Forces of the Philippines at Camp Aguinaldo military headquarters on Dec. 21, 2023. [AP Photo/Aaron Favila]

Typhoons have repeatedly hammered the country this rainy season, tearing apart poorly maintained infrastructure. Hundreds have died and hundreds of thousands have lost power, shelter, and access to water.

The price of oil has gone up by more than 33 percent since the beginning of the year, driving up transit costs and price of basic necessaries. Since the beginning of October, the price of oil has gone up seven times. Gasoline rose from P44 per liter at the beginning of October to P58 per liter by 10 November.

Rice prices are rising. Government regulated rice, sold at twenty pesos per kilo, is only available to a select group and is not available to the majority of the poor. The market price for locally grown rice is from P38 to P45 a kilo, more than twice what is deemed affordable. Rice is the most essential staple in the Philippine diet and its price has long been a bellwether of social anger.

The corruption charges and political instability rest atop this explosive social crisis. The elite are all pointing fingers at each other, hoping to use corruption charges to deflect mass outrage at the crisis of capitalism onto their political opponents. It is a mad scramble atop a rumbling volcano.

Corruption scandals are a routine part of elite politics in the Philippines. They are a well-established mechanism for venting social frustration, restabilizing elite rule, and promoting renewed illusions that mass poverty, the product of capitalism, can be remedied with “good governance.” These regular blood-lettings have been a part of every presidential administration for the past three decades. On one occasion, they culminated in the ouster of the president, Joseph Estrada, in a constitutional coup backed by the military.

The current crisis is the sharpest since the removal of Estrada. The political instability fueled by social unrest has been immensely sharpened by geopolitics. The Philippine elite is torn apart by speculation over the fickle uncertainties of the Trump administration and its tariffs, and above all by Washington’s advanced preparations for war with China.

The Philippine elite is divided into two warring factions: that of the president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr; and that of the vice president, Sara Duterte, daughter of the former president Rodrigo Duterte.

Over the past three years, Marcos has fully integrated the Philippines into the march of US imperialism toward war with China. US forces, based in the country, now oversee confrontations between the Philippine military and Chinese Coast Guard in the South China Sea. US medium range missiles based in the Philippines target Beijing. The Philippine military speaks openly of going to war with China over Taiwan.

Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr, head of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, told the press earlier in the month that if war broke out with China, the Philippines would need to fight on its own for at least a month before they could expect assistance from the United States. Washington, he stated, is “expecting us to fight the war ourselves during the first part of the conflict… We will be the ones to go to war first.”

It is impossible for anyone familiar with the history of the Philippines to read such lines and not recall how the Philippines was left by Washington to fight on its own against Japan. US imperialism is provoking a war that it expects others to fight.

The Duterte faction expresses a growing sentiment in sections of the elite that the country’s future economic growth requires improved relations with China. This in turn requires that Manila distance itself from Washington’s open aggression.

Over the past year the political warfare in the elite has sharpened drastically. Former president Duterte was arrested by Interpol and brought to the Hague on charges of crimes against humanity for the mass murder committed under his administration’s so-called ‘war on drugs.’ Vice President Duterte was impeached but her allies in the Senate oversaw the dismissal of charges against her. Marcos suffered a significant setback in the midterm elections and overhauled his administration, firing every cabinet member.

Toward the middle of the year, the exposure of massive corruption involving flood control projects, revealing that leading politicians had pocketed billions through the creation of so-called ghost projects, coincided with a particularly deadly typhoon season and rising prices. Social unrest came explosively close to the surface. The Senate president and the House speaker were both ousted. Neither faction of the elite was secure; all were the targets of anger.

At the center of the most recent accusations of corruption is former chair of the House Appropriations Committee Elizalde Co, now in exile outside the country, his whereabouts unknown. Co was accused of manipulating the 2025 budget to insert billions of pesos in non-existent infrastructure projects for which he received kickbacks, including through a construction company which he owns.

Over the past two weeks, Co has taken to releasing video statements on his Facebook page, accusing President Marcos of ordering the insertion of over 100 billion pesos into the 2025 national budget. In some of their details, the charges bear a remarkable resemblance to those raised against Estrada a quarter century ago: bagmen dropping off billions in cash at mansions in the exclusive Forbes Park. Even some of the names—politician Chavit Singson in particular—are the same.

Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson, a far-right figure associated with the police and military who shares Marcos orientation to Washington, heads an investigation into the corruption allegations. A majority bloc of parties in the legislature have announced their support for the beleaguered president, but it is not stemming the tide of outrage.

The Marcos administration is again bleeding cabinet members. His executive secretary, Lucas Bersamin, and budget secretary, Amenah Pangandaman, were both removed last week. Their forced resignations and replacement occurred so rapidly that both Bersamin, and his replacement, former finance secretary Ralph Recto, learned of the transition from the press. Three undersecretaries resigned, facing charges of money laundering. One of these, Roberto Bernardo, confessed to the charges and is trying to become a state witness against the Marcos administration.

Last week, the Christian church, Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), which wields tremendous influence in Philippine politics, able to swing a multi-million voting bloc, staged a demonstration in Manila against corruption to which an estimated 600,000 people attended. It was a show of force, designed to increase the political clout of the church’s leaders, but it contained a mass sentiment that the church leaders did not fully control. Senator Imee Marcos, sister of the president, is in the camp of the Dutertes, and spoke at the rally, telling assembled crowd that her brother was addicted to illegal drugs.

At the same time, a shady new organization of retired military and police leaders calling itself the United People’s Initiative (UPI), staged protests calling on Marcos to step down. Protests from such forces indicate that coup plots are afoot in some sections of the military brass and junior officers, but how extensive and advanced such preparations are is unclear.

As more than a half a million people protested and as a cabal of ex-military leaders called for the ouster of the government. BAYAN, the umbrella organization of political groups that adhere to the Stalinist line of the Communist Party of the Philippines, issued a remarkable statement calling for the removal of both Marcos and Duterte from office, to be replaced by a “civilian-led transition council.”

BAYAN is directing its entire apparatus of organizations—unions, student groups, church affiliations—to back the creation of what amounts to an unelected junta to rule the Philippines. The phrase “civilian-led” implies the backing of the military. Looking to stabilize the desperate position of capitalism in the Philippines, BAYAN is claiming that corruption, and not capitalism, is the fundamental social ill plaguing Philippine society. They are calling for a military coup and putting forward a slogan that is effectively an appeal for dictatorship.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines issued a statement on their Facebook page declaring their intent to “uphold the constitution.” The fact that such a declaration was deemed necessary is an indication of the degree of crisis.

On the instructions of the Marcos administration, the military launched an investigation into allegations of a destabilization plot against the president involving a conspiracy of generals and retired generals with Vice President Sara Duterte and the Duterte family. Navy spokesperson Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad told the press on November 19 that China might be behind these plots, “interfering” in the corruption scandals and “dividing” Filipinos.

“We are looking at all possible avenues and areas to ensure that domestic concerns will remain domestic, and will not be influenced by foreign funding… Let us not forget,” he said, “we have a neighbor that wants Filipinos to fight among themselves and for the Philippines to be divided.”

The explosive crisis of Philippine politics is a product of social unrest and immense human misery, fueled by the crises ridden capitalist economy, and not the alleged interference of an outside power.

What is more, the main political power outside the Philippines actively intervening in its affairs, plotting ousters and stabilizing political allies, is not China, but the United States, the former colonial ruler of the country. For over a century, Washington has intervened in Manila’s affairs, selecting presidents, rigging elections, propping up a dictator, and aiding military coups.

New protests are scheduled for this weekend around the November 30 celebration of Bonifacio Day, a holiday with a long tradition of political demonstrations. BAYAN, the pseudo-left Akbayan, and the leadership of the Catholic church, have all announced that they intend to lead demonstrations.

On the instructions of Marcos, the police are preparing to deploy over 15,000 officers to control the protests.

Trump administration threatens further cuts to food benefits

Hong Jian

In an appearance on Fox News last week, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said a benefit of the longest shutdown in US history was that it provided Republicans an opportunity to “completely deconstruct” the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP is the largest federal anti-hunger program in the United States, used by some 42 million people, including 16 million children.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins speaks alongside Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (Republican-Louisiana) at a news conference to talk about SNAP food aid benefits at the Capitol in Washington D.C. on Friday, October 31, 2025. [AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite]

During the shutdown, the Trump administration halted funding for SNAP for the first time in the program’s history. Even though the shutdown has ended, there are still many states that have not issued payments due to technical or budget issues related to funding. The Food Research & Action Center found that while many states were going to begin issuing payments starting on November 14, others, such as Illinois, did not resume until November 20. Other states, such as Florida, have not issued full payments, only noting that benefits will be “reduced in accordance with federal guidelines.”

Though benefit payments have started to resume, millions will soon find themselves permanently removed from SNAP eligibility because of a tightening of requirements. In July, Congress passed new funding provisions for the program, which would cut about $186 billion in federal funding, while at the same time adding new work requirement stipulations and record keeping aimed at pushing otherwise eligible people off the program.

In line with this objective, Secretary Rollins opined during the shutdown that she would require all SNAP recipients to reapply in an attempt to whittle even more people from SNAP. However, due to a backlash, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) has temporarily shelved that proposal.

According to the most recent statistics from 2023, 47.4 million Americans lived in food-insecure households, which is defined by the US Department of Health as a “household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.” This number is an increase of over 30 million since 2020, when there were 13.8 million households that were food-insecure.

There are no recent statistics because of the shutdown of the federal government, as well as the fact that the USDA has stopped issuing yearly Household Food Security Reports. However, according to the Purdue University Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability (CFDAS), their 3-month moving average of the number of Americans suffering from food insecurity was 13.7 percent in September, a number significantly higher than that of previous periods. This indicates that the explosive growth in food insecurity since the onset of the pandemic is on the rise again after dropping throughout 2024.

According to CFDAS, this rise in food insecurity is the result of high food prices, which have remained persistently higher than pre-pandemic levels.

In addition to rising hunger, corporations are laying off more workers while hiring at lower rates. The September employment report, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which was ostensibly held back for seven weeks by the government shutdown, continues to show little to no job growth, rising unemployment rates, slowing wage rises and significant job losses in key productive sectors, such as manufacturing, warehousing and logistics.

Last month, US-based employers reported 153,074 job cuts, a rise of 175 percent from October 2024. There have been over 1 million layoffs so far this year, the most since the pandemic year of 2020 and a 65 percent increase over last year. The layoffs are across industries as major companies use advances in artificial intelligence to eliminate entire professions. Amazon, UPS and Paramount Global have announced plans to lay off at least 50,000 jobs before the end of the year.

As workers and their families find it increasingly impossible to survive, the rapacious, opulent, luxurious lifestyles of the modern day capitalist aristocracy proceeds uninterrupted at the other pole of society. The technology sector, which is also one of the leaders in the job bloodbath, has seen a year over year increase in its net profit margin of 27.7 percent and an increase of 2.6 percent over the previous year’s increase. Only four firms, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet, account for more than $15 trillion in global market value.

Overall, US corporate profits increased by 4 percent year over year in the second quarter of 2025. So far in 2025, the growth of wealth by global billionaires has increased by $1.9 trillion, bringing the total wealth of the world’s billionaires to an obscene $16.1 trillion, a figure larger than the Gross Domestic Product of every nation save the US and China.

It is not just food insecurity which is on the rise amongst US workers. Homelessness reached an all-time high in January 2024 with over 771,000 people without a roof over their heads on a single night that month. This was an 18 percent increase over the previous year and the highest number since records began being kept. The number includes an increase in every demographic group, with adults over 55 and children seeing a significant escalation in their numbers.

The explosion of homelessness within the American working class is a direct result of the current restructuring of US industry, which is seeing a jobs bloodbath in every industry, coupled with an exorbitant increase in rents since the pandemic.

As of 2023, 22.6 million renter households (which is almost 50 percent of the total) were cost-burdened, which is defined as paying more than 30 percent of their income towards rent. According to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS), 22.6 million is an all-time high. While the “percentage of middle-income renters (earning $30,000–$44,999) with cost burdens increased by 1.9 percentage points in just one year, reaching 70% in 2023.”

While it has not released statistics for 2024 or 2025, the JCHS has stated that the data that they have acquired demonstrate that the numbers are increasing or stabilizing rather than decreasing.

The jump in cost-burdened renters is only set to rise more given that the latest numbers on the housing market showing a sharp rise of 6 percent in foreclosure starts (the initiation of the process) for October, with completed foreclosures up 32 percent over last year.

And while the housing market is increasingly out of reach for ordinary workers due to high interest rates, not so for the wealthy, where a large majority of houses are purchased in cash, negating the need for high interest mortgage rates. While the market for working class is contracting and foreclosures are increasing, the market for the rich continues to see strong demand and increasing prices.

There are two Americas: One is made up of the overwhelming majority of the population, which has seen its standard of living continually decline over the course of decades, and the other is made up of a tiny minority that wallows in isolated luxury that increases on a daily basis.

During the shutdown, members of the military and the police state apparatus, along with the capitalist politicians, continued to collect a paycheck. Meanwhile, 1.4 million other government workers, including air traffic controllers, were either forced to work without pay or were furloughed for the duration, causing misery and hardship.