Layoffs expand in US manufacturing and retail amid deepening economic slowdown

Kevin Reed

Layoffs are mounting in economic sectors beyond the technology industry in the United States amid the Federal Reserve’s policy of deliberately slowing the economy by hiking interest rates in order to increase unemployment and undercut workers’ wage demands.

Key industries impacted include manufacturing and retail. Dow Chemical, the chemicals, plastics and consumer products manufacturing giant based in Midland, Michigan, announced a workforce reduction of 2,000 employees on Thursday.

During an earnings call with analysts, Dow CEO Jim Fitterling said the layoffs were necessary because of a 32.5 percent drop in corporate earnings in 2022. He said the sharp decline in profits was the result of deteriorating economic conditions in the second half of the year.

The Dow layoffs are part of a global cost-reduction program unveiled in October to save $1 billion in 2023. These cutbacks include factory closures in Europe that have yet to be announced.

Also on Thursday, the toy and board games company Hasbro Inc. announced organizational changes that include the elimination of 15 percent of its workforce, or approximately 1,000 jobs. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks said in a statement that the job cuts were necessary to achieve $250-$300 million in cost savings over the next three years.

Federal Reserve Building on Constitution Avenue in Washington [Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file]

CEO Cocks also said the fourth quarter of 2022 “represented a challenging moment” for the $8 billion corporation. Like many publicly traded corporations on Wall Street, Hasbro’s stock value fell by nearly one-half in 2022. With the financial elite demanding cost-cutting and layoffs to restore profitability, Cocks said the corporation is “on track to drive significant cost savings across the business and improve our overall competitiveness.”

Media reports on Friday said the computer chip manufacturer IntelCorp. was planning to double the number of layoffs planned at its headquarters in Santa Clara, California, to a total of 378.

In the retail sector, Saks OFF 5th, the discount retailer owned by Hudson Bay, laid off an unspecified number of workers on Tuesday, while Saks.com is laying off about 100 workers, or 3.5 percent of its workforce.

Stitch Fix, the provider of personalized apparel, shoes and accessories, laid off 20 percent of its salaried workers and closed a distribution center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Wayfair, the ecommerce provider of furniture and home goods, announced it would lay off 1,750 people, or 10 percent of its employees.

The giant software corporation SAP, based in Germany, said it would eliminate 3,000 jobs, or 2.5 percent of its workforce, after profits fell dramatically in 2022. In a meeting with reporters on Thursday, financial officer Luka Mucic said the layoffs would be spread across the geographic footprint of the company.

Mucic said the purpose of the layoffs was to “further focus on strategic growth areas.” The net profit of SAP fell 47 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, related, in part, to the company’s withdrawal from Russia and Belarus after the beginning of the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

Other mass layoffs are anticipated at Disney, which is expected to announce a corporate restructuring plan in early February. On Thursday, Deadline wrote of the return of Robert Iger as Disney CEO that “speculation about a pending corporate restructuring is intensifying—and with it, rumors about the layoffs that are likely to follow.”

The US Commerce Department released its gross domestic product (GDP) report on Thursday, showing that the economy grew by 2.9 percent on an annualized basis in the fourth quarter of 2022. This number was down from the third quarter growth rate of 3.2 percent.

Michael Gapen, economist for Bank of America, told the New York Times, “The economy continued to motor on. There’s more momentum in the economy at year-end than we thought, and a lot of that is from households.”

However, the Commerce Department also reported on Friday that consumer spending fell in December from the prior month by a seasonally adjusted rate of 0.2 percent.

The consumer spending report showed households cut back spending on goods, while prices fell for gasoline and other energy products. On the other hand, consumers increased spending on services, where prices climbed.

Explaining the decline, Efraim Benmelech, a professor of finance at Northwestern University, told the Wall Street Journal, “The actions of the Fed are leading to lower consumption.” Benmelech added that rising interest rates are making home mortgages more expensive, leading to less spending on home appliances, paint and other home improvement goods.

Responding to these developments, Wall Street rallied again on Friday, with the NASDAQ up 11 percent, the S&P 500 up 6 percent and the Dow up by 2.5 percent so far this year. The next meeting of the Federal Reserve is scheduled for January 31-February 1 and is expected to result in a further rise in interest rates of 0.25 to 0.50 percent.

In a speech on January 19, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard stressed that the central bank is not backing off. She said, “Inflation remains high, and policy is going to need to remain sufficiently restrictive for some time to make sure it gets down to 2 percent for a sustained basis.”

In other words, the financial elite insists that the policy of engineering a sharp slowdown and increasing attacks on the jobs and living standards of the working class must continue.

Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program 2023

Application Deadline: 25th February 2023

Eligible Countries: Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Finland, Greece, India, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Philippines, Senegal, Singapore, Taiwan, Uganda, United Kingdom (NOTE: Subject to change.)

To Be Taken At (Country): USA

Type: Training

Eligibility: 

• Full-time primary and secondary educators, including classroom teachers, guidance counselors, curriculum specialists, library media specialists, and special education coordinators, administrators, and others who spend at least half of their time interacting with students
• Applicants from the following participating countries listed above
• Applicants should have:
• Five years of full-time teaching experience or experience working with primary- or secondary-level students in another capacity
• Proven track record of professional development activities and leadership
• Citizen of a participating Fulbright DAI country
• Other requirements as indicated on the application

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• Educator training: Fulbright Distinguished Teachers take part in an intensive five-month professional development program at a US university. The curriculum includes academic coursework, leadership training, and instructional technology seminars.
• Inquiry projects: Each participant will complete an individual or group project relevant to their education practice. Past projects covered topics such as current methodologies for teaching math, science, music, visual arts, performing arts, and English as a second language; working with special needs students; promoting civic engagement or service learning; environmental education; school management and leadership; and others that meet a critical need in the candidate’s home country.
• Field experience: Fulbright Distinguished Teachers are actively engaged with US schools. They are given opportunities to observe, co-teach, and share their expertise, building collaborative, lasting connections with teachers and students.
• Best practice exchange: Fulbright Distinguished Teachers study and observe international best practices in education. They also share professional expertise with educators and students in the United States.
• Civic and cultural activities: Fulbright Distinguished Teachers participate in US cultural activities such as performances, sporting events, visits to US homes, board of education meetings, and trips to notable historical sites.

Duration of Program: A semester in 2023

How to Apply: APPLY NOW

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

US Government Fulbright Teaching Excellence and Achievement (TEA) Program 2023/2024

Application Deadline: Each country sets its own application deadlines. Please inquire from the US Embassy or Fulbright commission in your country or territory for deadline information.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: See list of countries below.

To be taken at (country): USA

About the Award: The Fulbright Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program (Fulbright TEA) brings international teachers to the United States for a six-week program that offers academic seminars for professional development at a host university. Participants observe classrooms and share their expertise with teachers and students at the host university and at local secondary schools.

Type: Short courses/Training

Eligibility: Details for this program may vary by country. In general, applicants must meet the following criteria:

• Current secondary school-level,* full-time teacher in an institution serving primarily a local population;
• A bachelor’s degree or equivalent;
• Five or more years of classroom experience as a teacher of English, English as a foreign language (EFL), mathematics, science, or social studies, including special education teachers in those subject areas;
• Proficient in written and spoken English with a TOEFL score of 450 on the paper-based TOEFL or an equivalent English-language examination;**
• Demonstrated commitment to continue teaching after completion of the program; and
• A complete application.

*Secondary-level teachers include both middle and high school teachers working with students between approximately 12 and 18 years of age. Teachers responsible for teaching additional grade levels must teach middle school or high school students more than 50% of their work time in order to be eligible for the program.

**A limited number of participants with TOEFL scores between 425 and 450, or equivalent, will be accepted for the program in a special cohort that will include additional English-language training as part of the professional development program.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program is fully funded pending availability of funds.

Duration of Scholarship: 6 weeks

Eligible Countries: Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt,  El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malawi, Mali, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, West Bank/Gaza, Zambia, Zimbabwe. 

How to Apply: APPLY NOW

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Leakey Foundation Baldwin Fellowship 2023

Application Deadline: There are two different deadlines depending on whether you have previously received a Baldwin Fellowship:

• February 15th – Deadline for new applicants
• March 1st – Deadline for returning applicants

Scholarship Name: The Franklin Mosher Baldwin Fellowship

Offered annually? Yes

Accepted Subject Areas: Human origins, including paleoanthropology, primate behavior, and studies of modern hunter-gatherer groups

About the Award: The Franklin Mosher Baldwin Fellowship program for developing countries is based on a realistic assessment of needs and priorities. Many developing nations possess extraordinary resources in the field of prehistory. The stewardship and careful use of these assets is a task of international importance. By enabling bright young scholars to obtain graduate education, the Leakey Foundation is helping to equip these individuals to assume a leadership role in the future of paleoanthropology.

Offered Since: 1978. More than 70 Baldwin Fellowships have been awarded.

Type: This award is for a program of approved, advanced special training or studies leading towards an MA or PhD.

Selection Criteria: Candidates must be prepared to demonstrate:

• Affiliation and/or employment with an institution in their home country.
• Provisional acceptance (or evidence of application) to the host institution.
• Financial assistance from the host institution.
• Intention to return and work in the home country upon completion of training.

Eligibility: Human origins scholars from developing nations seeking advanced degrees (M.A./M.S. or Ph.D.) are eligible for Baldwin Fellowships.

If you are thinking of applying for a Baldwin Fellowship ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I enrolled in a M.A., M.S., Ph.D. or equivalent program related to the study of human origins or evolution?
• Have I been accepted or have a provisional acceptance to a host institution?
• Do I have financial assistance from the host institution?
• Do I intend to return and work in my home country upon completion of training?

If your answer is “Yes” to all of the above questions, you will likely be eligible to receive a Baldwin Fellowship.

If you are concerned as to whether your research topic is eligible, contact the Foundation at least a month ahead of the application deadline.

Number of Scholarship: Several

Scholarship Worth: Awards are limited to two years. The maximum award is limited to $15,000 per year.

Duration of Scholarship: This award is limited to a program of two years.

Eligible Countries: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Republic of Congo and other developing countries

How can I Apply? Please review the general instructions available here on how to apply.

Sponsors: The Leakey Foundation

Important Notes: If you are wondering whether your research topic is eligible, contact the Foundation at least a month before the application deadline. Email grants (at) leakeyfoundation.org

Risky Business: Japan Steps Out

Mel Gurtov

Background to a Changing Strategic Perspective 

Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida Fumio has just visited Washington, drawing attention to how Japan is remaking its national security policy. He’s winning applause from Washington and hearing anguish in Beijing. Here’s the background:

Ever since the American occupation of Japan after World War II, that country’s national security has been framed under the US umbrella. Japan’s pacifist constitution, the size and budget of its armed forces, and its security strategy were all shaped in accordance with American preferences.

The 1960 mutual defense treaty specifies US defense of Japan from attack, the right of the US to base forces in Japan, and US consultation with Japan on how American forces there will be used. Japan kept its military spending at about one percent of GNP, and officially called its military Self-Defense Forces.

Ever since the Korean War, when Japan provided logistical and supply assistance to US forces, questions have arisen about the extent of Japanese support of the US in a crisis situation that might involve war with North Korea or a direct Chinese threat to Taiwan. Washington was always pressing Japan to “do more” in the name of collective security.

Tokyo accepted that “collective security” allowed for a stronger commitment to the alliance, but typically restricted its action abroad to UN peacekeeping missions. Japan hesitated to do more so as not to become a target in a war, most likely with China.

Despite constitutional limits, Japan has one of the world’s most technologically advanced armed forces (around 261,000 troops, fifth in global ranking) and one of the world’s highest military budgets (around $54 billion, which ranks ninth). Under Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, Kishida’s predecessor, constitutional strictures were stretched to allow for Japanese military involvement abroad—not frontline combat, but in supportive roles, such as in Afghanistan.

Abe had also hoped to revise Article 9 of the constitution, under which Japan renounces war as an instrument of its foreign policy. He sought to revise the article to specifically allow Japan to deploy its military in combat overseas. But Abe did not succeed, though constitutional revision has always had US support.

New Threat Perceptions

Prime Minister Kishida, a former defense minister, seems to be taking advantage of Japan’s increasing vulnerability to North Korean missiles and an assertive Chinese military, especially near Taiwan, to push for all the things Abe dreamed about. The latest Japanese national security strategy paper makes the chief target clear: China, which the strategy paper says is “the greatest strategic challenge that Japan has ever faced.”

The paper calls for a doubling of Japan’s military budget over the next five years and a so-called counter-strike capability, all geared to an upgraded regional threat assessment. In practice, the new strategic perspective would allow Japan to target North Korean or Chinese bases if attacked.

In light of North Korea’s record-setting missile tests in the past year, with some missiles landing in waters near Japan, and its new doctrine of preemptive nuclear attack, Japan’s strategic change is more than theoretical.

The war in Ukraine has also shaped the new Japanese strategic perspective. The Japanese, says Michael Green, a Japan expert at the Brookings Institution, would have been taken aback had the US not stepped up in support of Ukraine.

Now, it’s Japan’s turn to step up: “Japan is choosing, not being forced by America, but is choosing to reinforce the international order that America helped to create after [World War II].”

Two other important upgrades in Japan’s security partnerships have resulted.

First, Japan has announced that, for the first time, it will have a “Reciprocal Access Agreement” with a European country, Great Britain, that will permit both to station troops on each other’s soil and carry out extensive military exercises together. Japan already has the same arrangement with Australia.

Second is improved US-Japan military coordination. As summarized by one writer: “the United States and Japan are both updating their command-and-control arrangements. Tokyo has announced that it will create a permanent joint headquarters in Japan to command the Japanese Self-Defense Forces during a crisis.”

In addition, at least one and probably more US Marine regiments will have upgraded capabilities for rapid regional deployment, a further indication that deterring China is the centerpiece of US-Japan security cooperation. No wonder Biden told Kishida: “I don’t think there’s ever been a time when we’ve been closer to Japan.”

Tokyo is now sending a message to Pyongyang and Beijing. The North Koreans’ plan for another nuclear test, or a missile launch that would carry over Japanese territory, could in theory prompt a retaliation of some sort.

That possibility might help deter the North Koreans. Beijing needs to be aware of the extent to which its military modernization, particularly in air and sea power, and its air maneuvers near Taiwan, are prompting public support in Japan for a new defense outlook focused on the China threat. (The public, however, hasn’t yet been told about tax hikes to pay for the new policy.)

Japan’s hyping of the China threat might strengthen any voices in Xi Jinping’s inner circle calling for caution on attacking Taiwan, though it will also revitalize Chinese charges of “the revival of Japanese militarism.”

Cold War Alignments

There at two important upshots of Japan’s latest national strategic thinking. It coincides with a strategic trend in Asia-Pacific toward anti-China multilateralism. Several of China’s neighbors—Japan, South Korea, Philippines, India, Vietnam, and Australia—are either US security treaty partners, members of US-backed security groups (AUKUS and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), or countries that have granted access to US ships and planes.

It’s a Cold War-style lineup that China, beset with internal problems, finds threatening and is likely to respond militarily. The other and opposite implication is that neither Japan nor any of the other countries aligned with the US can be counted on to suggest or construct peaceful, stabilizing steps that will lead away from a confrontation with China.

We’re headed back toward an “either you’re for us or against us” alignment in Asia, with no middle ground—an uncomfortable strategic position that many countries in Southeast Asia have experienced before, and rebelled against. Does anyone really think Japan’s new security profile is more likely to deter rather than incite armed conflict?

UK schools sinking under teacher retention crisis and billions in funding cuts

Tom Pearce

The UK’s education trade unions have just completed a round of strike ballots on pay but at the heart of workers discontent is a perfect storm of staffing shortages that has been building for years.

“A period of unprecedented turmoil” in teacher vacancies is unfolding according to the TeachVac job website report. shows that 107,063 roles were advertised in 2022. This is substantially more than pre-pandemic numbers. “2022 has been a period of unprecedented turnover in the labour market for teachers and especially for classroom teacher vacancies in the secondary sector”, it reported.

A reception class teacher, left, leads the class at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Monday, May 24, 2021. [AP Photo/Alastair Grant]

During the period between January 1 and the end of July 2021, TeachVac recorded just over 29,000 vacancies across the secondary sector. During the same period in 2022, the recorded number was in excess of 56,000. The period between January and the end of July each year represents the period of time when the majority of teaching posts for September are advertised and filled.

The report notes that vacancies for this academic year will be “especially challenging to fill” and “those schools faced with vacancies for January 2023, especially unforeseen vacancies occurring late in the year, will be extremely lucky to find a suitably qualified teacher to fill their vacancy.”

Special schools and alternative provision (AP) are in a particularly bad position having nearly three times more teaching posts filled with temporary workers.

The impact of real terms cuts in pay, the excessive workload of educators, is exacerbated by the lack of recruitment and high levels of stress and anxiety across the sector.

Compounding the crisis, figures for teacher recruitment at the end of 2022 from the Department of Education (DfE) show a serious decline in trainee teachers. The DfE missed its own targets for teacher recruitment in 2022, with overall numbers in training down by 20 percent to 29,000, compared with 36,000 trainees recruited last year. In secondary schools recruitment and retention is at crisis point, with only 59 percent of the Conservative government’s target being reached. Recruitment against targets across all phases was the lowest this year since at least 2015.

An unprecedented 13 out of 17 secondary subject areas missed their targets, with the biggest gaps in science and technology. (STEM) A measly 444 physics teachers signed up for training, which equates to one for every eight state secondary schools in England. In computing, 348 graduates entered training, 30 percent of the government’s target of 1,145.

The government missed its target for recruitment of new secondary school teachers by 41 percent this year. The secondary target has not been met since 2012/13, except in 2020/21.

There are also dire shortages in primary teachers with 93 percent of the postgraduate initial teacher training target achieved in primary (compared to 131 percent in 2021/22). Of a targeted 11,655 new postgraduate primary trainees, 10,868 were recruited. Significantly, this is the first time since 2019 the primary target has been missed.

The impact has even been highlighted by the education inspectorate, Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills) whose annual report found that “workforce and resourcing challenges” had forced nurseries to close because they could not retain staff. The crisis had led to larger class sizes in schools and colleges, as well as disruption to activities such as drama and sport, mental health interventions and support for special needs children.

There is little hope that schools can attract the numbers needed to reverse the decline in educators. Many schools are paying out a vast proportion of their budgets on supply teachers to cover gaps in their staffing. Schools Week reported that “maintained schools spent a combined £622 million on supply cover in 2021-22, up more than a third year-on-year.”

The teacher retention crisis is intensifying as the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think-tank reports that inflation and a decade of real-terms cuts were “putting severe strain” on education budgets. Head teachers are having to stretch their budgets, with some cutting services and roles within their schools and this has piled more pressure on teachers who are being asked to take on extra work.

DfE statistics show that nearly a third of teachers who qualified in the last decade have since left the profession. Out of just under 270,000 teachers who qualified in England between 2011 and 2020, more than 81,000 have since left the profession, or 30 percent of staff.

A DfE spokesperson said, “We understand that teacher recruitment is challenging, which is why we have taken action to raise the profile of this important and prestigious profession.”

If this was the case then why is there a recruitment crisis? Prestigious infers that teachers would be respected, honoured, well-paid, with a manageable workload, none of which teachers are feeling across the country. This is why a record numbers of teachers are leaving the profession and educators have voted overwhelmingly to strike in order to fight the degradation of education.

With the Conservatives driving down the pay, terms and conditions of educators, the Labour opposition’s pathetic response is a call to remove private schools' charitable status so VAT sales tax can be taken to raise approximately £1.7 billion a year. This pittance would do nothing to arrest the crisis.

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson commented on the teacher shortage that “this dangerous exodus of new teaching recruits could result in even greater teacher vacancies in years to come and ultimately to lower standards in our schools. That is why we will end tax breaks for private schools and use the money to recruit 6,500 new teachers as part of our national excellence programme.”

6,500 new teachers! A drop in the ocean compared to what is needed! Teachers can be under no illusions that their dire situation will change under a Labour government. Labour’s statements are entire in line with Starmer’s pledge to the ruling elite that never again will Labour get the “its big government chequebook out”.

The state school sector requires tens of billions in extra funding to bring it up to a level anywhere fit for the 21st century. The IFS noted at the start of last year that current government spending for education was set to be 3 percent lower in real-terms by 2024. This amounts to a £2 billion shortfall, enough money to pay for the equivalent of around 38,000 teachers. The previous year the IFS reported that “School spending per pupil in England fell by 9% in real terms between 2009–10 and 2019–20, the largest cut in over 40 years.” This says nothing of the funding required to repair many dilapidated schools. The government’s own figures suggest £11.4 billionis needed to get school buildings to an adequate standard including for safety.

The teaching unions have overseen this decline and are only now organising strike action—on the issue of pay only—after months of delay because they fear the mounting anger from educators will explode out of their control.

Labour and the unions bear major responsibility for the teacher number crisis. During the height of the pandemic, the unions opposed any action to defend their members. Stuffed into unsafe and already overcrowded classrooms, many teachers died and others suffered illness, including debilitating Long COVID. According to official figures 570 educators died in Britain. In January 2022—six months after the government declared the pandemic over—one in 12 teachers was absent from England's schools during the first week of term (8.6 percent of teachers and school leaders were absent, and 4.9 percent were absent because of COVID.

As the pandemic ripped through the population, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer infamously proclaimed that educators must go back to unsafe schools. Schools must stay open he said, “no ifs, no buts, no equivocation”.

Despite all propaganda claiming the opposite, the pandemic is not over. Far from it with over 1,200 people dying from COVID in the last 14 days in the UK.

Educators everywhere face an untenable crisis: low wages, long hours, short-staffing and impossible job pressures; and the ongoing spread of COVID and other disease. three years of pandemic-related illness, debilitation and death.

Israeli military kill 10, wound 20 Palestinians in deadliest raid on Jenin in years

Jean Shaoul

Israel’s military, police and security agency, the Shin Bet, carried out a mass slaughter of Palestinians in the refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin Thursday, killing nine people, including an elderly woman. At least 20 were wounded, four of whom are in a critical condition. Another died in clashes that continued Thursday evening. It was by far the deadliest such raid in years.

The Israeli army blocked Palestinian emergency services from reaching the scene, adding to the horror. Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaileh said that Israeli forces had also “stormed Jenin Government Hospital and intentionally fired tear gas canisters at the paediatric department in the hospital,” causing children to choke. Hospital videos showed women carrying children out of hospital rooms and into the corridor.

Mourners carry the bodies of eight Palestinians, some draped in the flag of the Islamic Jihad militant group, during a joint funeral in the West Bank city of Jenin, January 26, 2023. Israeli forces killed at least nine Palestinians, including a 60-year-old woman, and wounded several others during a raid in the flashpoint area of the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said, in one of the deadliest days of fighting in years. [AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed]

As well as 60-year-old Magda Obaid, the Palestinian Health Ministry said the dead included 24-year-old Saeb Essam Mahmoud Azriqi, 26-year-old Izzidin Yassin Salahat, Abdullah Marwan al-Ghoul and Moatassem Abu al-Hassan. Their funerals took place the same day, amid a general strike.

According to al-Kaileh, the situation in the camp, home to 10,000 people crammed into less than one square kilometre, is “dire.” The city is a social tinderbox following the COVID-19 pandemic that has devastated the livelihoods of its inhabitants, the settlers’ violent activities and harassment, constant raids and mass arrests by Israeli security forces since last March and the failure of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to provide any protection. Kamal Abu al-Rubsaid, Jenin’s deputy governor, told AFP that residents were living in a “real state of war” and that “The Israeli army is destroying everything and shooting at everything that moves.”

The massacre followed the near nightly search and arrest raids in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied illegally, along with East Jerusalem which it annexed, Gaza and Syria’s Golan Heights, since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. In 2022, Israeli military raids led to more than 2,500 arrests and left 271 Palestinians dead, mostly in the West Bank.

This latest slaughter brings to 30 the number killed since the beginning of this year, more than one a day. It came a day after a 20-year-old Palestinian from the Jenin refugee camp was shot dead after allegedly attempting to stab an Israeli soldier near the Kedumim settlement in the northern West Bank.

A senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) official denied there had been any change of policy since the new far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had taken office. The new government includes fascistic and openly racist forces determined to drive out the 100,000 Palestinians living in Area C, which accounts for 60 percent of the West Bank and is home to most of the Israeli settlements.

Anticipating a response from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza, the IDF spokesperson said it was “prepared for any scenario and there is no doubt that this may affect the southern arena as well,” a reference to Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) of President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement condemning the slaughter as “a massacre from the Israeli occupation government, in the shadow of international silence” and announced the PA was halting security coordination with Israel. The PA’s Foreign Ministry made a futile appeal to the “international community” and the United States to “intervene immediately” against the “Israeli killing machine.”

The Netanyahu government can only proceed with its agenda of territorial expansionism, Jewish Supremacy and the mass repression of the Palestinians because Washington and the major European powers lend it tacit support. They all have the same to-do list: wars of conquest abroad and class war at home, backed up by ever increasing authoritarianism in defence of their own financial oligarchs.

The Biden administration has stressed that its support for Israel will remain unconditional. in a statement issued Thursday announcing a visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The statement said that he “will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, and other senior leaders to discuss the enduring US support for Israel’s security, particularly against threats from Iran.”

Biden’s administration did nothing to stop or sanction Israel for its apartheid policy, as documented by New York-based Human Rights Watch in April 2021; its bombing of Gaza in May 2021 that killed more than 250 Palestinians; the death of 80-year old American citizen Omar Muhammad Asaad after he was dragged out of his car by the police, beaten and left to die in the road in January 2022; the near daily raids on towns and cities in the West Bank; the deliberate murder of Al-Jazeera’s Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May 2022; Israel’s announcement the same month of its plan to build 4,000 settlement homes in the West Bank; or its killing of at least 271 Palestinians in 2022.

The US has approved $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system and published a report minimising Israel’s responsibility for Abu Akleh’s murder. Last week, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan travelled to Israel to discuss plans for ramping up the war drive against Iran, amid preparations for the largest ever joint military exercise—put together with unprecedented speed in just two months—designed to send a warning to Iran and underscore the Biden administration’s commitment to Israel, just weeks after Netanyahu’s government, stacked with fascists, took power.

Blinken’s trip begins in Egypt, where he will meet President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to “advance the US-Egypt strategic partnership and promote peace and security in the region,” the statement said.

The US-brokered Abraham Accords, which have seen the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain—as directed by Saudi Arabia—Sudan and Morocco open full diplomatic and commercial relations with Israel, have led to a drastic fall in the funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) by Arab donors. In 2018, Arab countries provided 25 percent of the agency's budget, but this fell to just 3 percent in 2021 and 4 percent last year.

Last year, UNRWA, which provides essential public services to nearly six million Palestinians registered in the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, and Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, raised less than $1.2 billion of the $1.6 billion it had appealed for, ending with a deficit greater than $70 million for the fourth year in a row.

Israel’s massacre of Palestinians in Jenin comes amid moves to transfer the civilian authorities in the West Bank under the Civil Administration to the newly appointed Minister of Finance—the fascistic Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich—a move that will require amendments to two of Israel’s Basic Laws.

The Civil Administration, an agency currently within the Ministry of Defence, is responsible for planning and construction in Area C of the West Bank. Smotrich will have de facto control of settlement expansion, including the settler outposts currently illegal under Israeli law. The transfer of the Civil Administration to the Ministry of Finance will amount to the de facto annexation of Area C as the settlements will henceforth come under civilian not military rule.

Along with National Security Minister and Jewish Power leader Itamar Ben-Gvir’s provocations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, aimed at securing Jewish prayers at the site, this is guaranteed to inflame tensions and precipitate an all-out war with the Palestinians, with Ramadan and Passover set to coincide in April.

Palestinian workers can no more trust their rapacious, bourgeois national leaders, secular or religious, to defend them against these fascistic forces than Israeli workers can trust their “anyone but Netanyahu” leaders to lead a struggle against his far right government’s assumption of dictatorial powers.

Debt ceiling “clash” will lead to major cuts in social spending

Patrick Martin

The Biden administration and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives have begun a series of political maneuvers and backroom discussions on raising the federal debt ceiling, which now stands at $31.4 trillion. Federal authority to borrow has run out, and the Treasury will exhaust short-term financial manipulations to avert a default on debt by early June, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

A public debate has ensued in Washington and in the corporate media, with House Republicans demanding that any resolution to raise the debt ceiling be accompanied by severe cuts in domestic social spending, reportedly in the neighborhood of $130 billion, about 8 percent of current levels. The White House and congressional Democrats, who control the Senate, are demanding a “clean” bill to raise the debt ceiling, one that does not include any cuts or other extraneous provisions.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the discussion in the Republican Party has gone well beyond the immediate cuts that are likely to accompany a bipartisan deal to raise or suspend the debt ceiling:

In recent days, a group of GOP lawmakers has called for the creation of special panels that might recommend changes to Social Security and Medicare, which face genuine solvency issues that could result in benefit cuts within the next decade. Others in the party have resurfaced more detailed plans to cut costs, including by raising the Social Security retirement age to 70, targeting younger Americans who have yet to obtain federal benefits.

“We have no choice but to make hard decisions,” said Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), the leader of the Republican Study Committee, a bloc of more than 160 conservative lawmakers that endorsed raising the retirement age and other changes last year. “Everybody has to look at everything.”

These comments reveal the direction of ruling class policy as a whole. Hern is not an outlier but a top ally of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. In the mechanism of capitalist politics, the fascist Freedom Caucus, which blocked McCarthy’s election as Speaker for 15 ballots, pushes the Republican House majority further to the right, as signaled by the concessions extracted, particularly on debt and spending. The House majority in turn pushes the Biden administration further to the right, expressed in McCarthy’s demand for direct negotiations with the White House over the debt ceiling. Biden has already made his first concession, agreeing to meet with McCarthy before the February 7 State of the Union speech.

In all of the public commentary on the debt ceiling, neither of the two capitalist parties nor the media deal with the more fundamental questions: Where did the national debt come from, and who is to pay for it? That is because they seek to conceal the basic class issues in the fiscal crisis. It is true that American capitalism faces bankruptcy. But why should working people, who did not cause the crisis and are not responsible for it, be made to pay the price through the evisceration of social benefits?

The debt crisis is real enough, as the accompanying graph demonstrates. Total US government debt was $5.6 trillion in 2001, when George W. Bush entered the White House. Eight years later, after a massive tax cut for the wealthy and the launching of major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the national debt was $11.7 trillion, more than double, an increase of $6.1 trillion.

The rise in the US national debt, from 2001 to 2022 [Photo: Treasury Department]

The national debt increased another $8 trillion under the Obama administration, from $11.7 trillion to $19.8 trillion. Major extraordinary outlays included the bailout of the US financial system and the auto industry in 2009, after the Wall Street collapse, the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the new wars in Libya and by proxy in Syria. There was also the continuing cost of the Bush tax cuts, most of which were retained as part of a bipartisan deal between Obama and the Republican-controlled Congress.

The Trump administration racked up as much debt in four years as Obama had in eight years, largely due to further tax cuts for the wealthy in 2017, as well as a continuing gusher of new spending for the Pentagon to prepare for future wars with Russia and China. A huge round of corporate bailouts during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic brought the total new debt to $8.3 trillion.

In the first two years of the Biden administration, the national debt has risen by a further $3 trillion, mainly through the continuing COVID-19 bailouts and other spending to prevent economic collapse, now supplemented by a rapid rise in military spending, focused on the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

Proposals to reduce the deficit by raising taxes on the superrich have gone nowhere in Congress. As Biden promised an audience of wealthy backers before the 2020 election, they would not suffer with a Democrat in the White House, despite his populist rhetoric. “No one’s standard of living will change. Nothing would fundamentally change,” he said.

To sum up: The US national debt has risen from $5.6 trillion to $31.4 trillion since 2001. Of this massive $25.8 trillion increase, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the overall “war on terror” account for $8.3 trillion, according to the “cost of war” study by Brown University. The tax cuts by Bush and Trump, largely retained under Obama and Biden, cost at least $5.3 trillion. The bailouts of Wall Street in 2008-2009 and 2020 cost an estimated $8 trillion more.

How is any of this the responsibility of the working class? The American people were not consulted on the wars, which were launched without even a formal declaration. They were not consulted on the two massive financial bailouts, pushed through Congress as “emergency” measures in only a few days’ time. They were not consulted on the tax cuts, which were presented as benefiting all Americans, although 90 percent of the financial windfall, or even more, went to the top 1 percent.

While the Democrats and Republicans focus on Social Security, Medicare and other “entitlement” programs—so-called because their recipients are entitled by law to receive the benefits—these are not the cause of the nearly six-fold increase in the national debt over the last two decades. On the contrary, as this graph shows, the assets held by the Social Security Trust Fund have increased steadily over a 30-year period, only turning down slightly in the last two. These assets remain close to $3 trillion.

Assets held by the Social Security Trust Fund, 1987-2022 [Photo: Treasury Department]

The incessant calls for “reform” of Social Security stem from the desire of the financial vultures on Wall Street to get their hands on this pile of cash and turn it into a source of profit. George W. Bush tried to do this in 2005 but faced such a political firestorm, accompanied by rising opposition to the war in Iraq, that he had to abandon the effort. In the present crisis there are renewed efforts to loot the Trust Fund and place 66 million retired Americans at the mercy of the financial markets.

Even more endangered is the younger generation of the working class. This is the real meaning of the language now used by Republican leaders in the House, like Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who claims that his party wants Social Security “strengthened for seniors who paid into it.” That means non-seniors, and particularly young people, should not expect benefits and will not get them.

Right-wing Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin use similar wording. He called for the establishment of a special committee of the House and Senate to review options for “strengthening” Social Security, while ruling out cuts in current benefit levels. So future benefit levels for future retirees are on the table, as well as the retirement age, now 67 but likely to be pushed higher, and changes in how the program calculates the amount of cost-of-living rises.

Neither party will discuss a solution to the financial crisis that makes the capitalist financial oligarchy, not working people, bear the burden. This is a cost they are eminently able to bear. A report by Oxfam published earlier this month, on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which brought together billionaires and leading capitalist politicians from throughout the world, gave a glimpse of the enormous accumulation of wealth by the superrich.

In what it called an “explosion of inequality,” Oxfam reported that since 2020, the richest 1 percent have captured almost two-thirds of all new wealth—nearly twice as much money as the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population. Billionaire fortunes are increasing by $2.7 billion a day, even as inflation outpaces the wages of at least 1.7 billion workers. The pandemic, while a catastrophe for working people, the main victims of infection, death and economic collapse, has been a bonanza for the rich.