#How To Prevent a Debt Default | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

theculturedmarxist · 2 months ago

Text

How the Neocons Subverted Russia’s Financial Stabilization in the Early 1990s

by Jeffrey Sachs

In 1989 I served as an advisor to the first post-communist government of Poland, and helped to devise a strategy of financial stabilization and economic transformation. My recommendations in 1989 called for large-scale Western financial support for Poland’s economy in order to prevent a runaway inflation, enable a convertible Polish currency at a stable exchange rate, and an opening of trade and investment with the countries of the European Community (now the European Union). These recommendations were heeded by the US Government, the G7, and the International Monetary Fund.

Based on my advice, a $1 billion Zloty stabilization fund was established that served as the backing of Poland’s newly convertible currency. Poland was granted a standstill on debt servicing on the Soviet-era debt, and then a partial cancellation of that debt. Poland was granted significant development assistance in the form of grants and loans by the official international community.

Poland’s subsequent economic and social performance speaks for itself. Despite Poland’s economy having experienced a decade of collapse in the 1980s, Poland began a period of rapid economic growth in the early 1990s. The currency remained stable and inflation low. In 1990, Poland’s GDP per capita (measured in purchasing-power terms) was 33% of neighboring Germany. By 2024, it had reached 68% of Germany’s GDP per capita, following decades of rapid economic growth.

On the basis of Poland’s economic success, I was contacted in 1990 by Mr. Grigory Yavlinsky, economic advisor to President Mikhail Gorbachev, to offer similar advice to the Soviet Union, and in particular to help mobilize financial support for the economic stabilization and transformation of the Soviet Union. One outcome of that work was a 1991 project undertaken at the Harvard Kennedy School with Professors Graham Allison, Stanley Fisher, and Robert Blackwill. We jointly proposed a “Grand Bargain” to the US, G7, and Soviet Union, in which we advocated large-scale financial support by the US and G7 countries for Gorbachev’s ongoing economic and political reforms. The report was published as Window of Opportunity: The Grand Bargain for Democracy in the Soviet Union (1 October 1991).

The proposal for large-scale Western support for the Soviet Union was flatly rejected by the Cold Warriors in the White House. Gorbachev came to the G7 Summit in London in July 1991 asking for financial assistance, but left empty-handed. Upon his return to Moscow, he was abducted in the coup attempt of August 1991. At that point, Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Federation, assumed effective leadership of the crisis-ridden Soviet Union. By December, under the weight of decisions by Russia and other Soviet republics, the Soviet Union was dissolved with the emergence of 15 newly independent nations.

In September 1991, I was contacted by Yegor Gaidar, economic advisor to Yeltsin, and soon to be acting Prime Minister of newly independent Russian Federation as of December 1991. He requested that I come to Moscow to discuss the economic crisis and ways to stabilize the Russian economy. At that stage, Russia was on the verge of hyperinflation, financial default to the West, the collapse of international trade with the other republics and with the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe, and intense shortages of food in Russian cities resulting from the collapse of food deliveries from the farmlands and the pervasive black marketing of foodstuffs and other essential commodities.

I recommended that Russia reiterate the call for large-scale Western financial assistance, including an immediate standstill on debt servicing, longer-term debt relief, a currency stabilization fund for the ruble (as for the Zloty in Poland), large-scale grants of dollars and European currencies to support urgently needed food and medical imports and other essential commodity flows, and immediate financing by the IMF, World Bank, and other institutions to protect Russia’s social services (healthcare, education, and others).

In November 1991, Gaidar met with the G7 Deputies (the deputy finance ministers of the G7 countries) and requested a standstill on debt servicing. This request was flatly denied. To the contrary, Gaidar was told that unless Russia continued to service every last dollar as it came due, emergency food aid on the high seas heading to Russia would be immediately turned around and sent back to the home ports. I met with an ashen-faced Gaidar immediately after the G7 Deputies meeting.

In December 1991, I met with Yeltsin in the Kremlin to brief him on Russia’s financial crisis and on my continued hope and advocacy for emergency Western assistance, especially as Russia was now emerging as an independent, democratic nation after the end of the Soviet Union. He requested that I serve as an advisor to his economic team, with a focus on attempting to mobilize the needed large-scale financial support. I accepted that challenge and the advisory position on a strictly unpaid basis.

Upon returning from Moscow, I went to Washington to reiterate my call for a debt standstill, a currency stabilization fund, and emergency financial support. In my meeting with Mr. Richard Erb, Deputy Managing Director of the IMF in charge of overall relations with Russia, I learned that the US did not support this kind of financial package. I once again pleaded the economic and financial case, and was determined to change US policy. It had been my experience in other advisory contexts that it might require several months to sway Washington on its policy approach.

Indeed, during 1991-94 I would advocate non-stop but without success for large-scale Western support for Russia’s crisis-ridden economy, and support for the other 14 newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. I made these appeals in countless speeches, meetings, conferences, op-eds, and academic articles. Mine was a lonely voice in the US in calling for such support. I had learned from economic history — most importantly the crucial writings of John Maynard Keynes (especially Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1919) — and from my own advisory experiences in Latin America and Eastern Europe, that external financial support for Russia could well be the make or break of Russia’s urgently needed stabilization effort.

It is worth quoting at length here from my article in the Washington Post in November 1991 to present the gist of my argument at the time:

This is the third time in this century in which the West must address the vanquished. When the German and Hapsburg Empires collapsed after World War I, the result was financial chaos and social dislocation. Keynes predicted in 1919 that this utter collapse in Germany and Austria, combined with a lack of vision from the victors, would conspire to produce a furious backlash towards military dictatorship in Central Europe. Even as brilliant a finance minister as Joseph Schumpeter in Austria could not stanch the torrent towards hyperinflation and hyper-nationalism, and the United States descended into the isolationism of the 1920s under the "leadership" of Warren G. Harding and Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge. After World War II, the victors were smarter. Harry Truman called for U.S. financial support to Germany and Japan, as well as the rest of Western Europe. The sums involved in the Marshall Plan, equal to a few percent of the recipient countries' GNPs, was not enough to actually rebuild Europe. It was, though, a political lifeline to the visionary builders of democratic capitalism in postwar Europe. Now the Cold War and the collapse of communism have left Russia as prostrate, frightened and unstable as was Germany after World War I and World War II. Inside Russia, Western aid would have the galvanizing psychological and political effect that the Marshall Plan had for Western Europe. Russia's psyche has been tormented by 1,000 years of brutal invasions, stretching from Genghis Khan to Napoleon and Hitler. Churchill judged that the Marshall Plan was history's "most unsordid act," and his view was shared by millions of Europeans for whom the aid was the first glimpse of hope in a collapsed world. In a collapsed Soviet Union, we have a remarkable opportunity to raise the hopes of the Russian people through an act of international understanding. The West can now inspire the Russian people with another unsordid act.

This advice went unheeded, but that did not deter me from continuing my advocacy. In early 1992, I was invited to make the case on the PBS news show The McNeil-Lehrer Report. I was on air with acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. After the show, he asked me to ride with him from the PBS studio in Arlington, Virginia back to Washington, D.C. Our conversation was the following. “Jeffrey, please let me explain to you that your request for large-scale aid is not going to happen. Even assuming that I agree with your arguments — and Poland’s finance minister [Leszek Balcerowicz] made the same points to me just last week — it’s not going to happen. Do you want to know why? Do you know what this year is?” “1992,” I answered. “Do you know that this means?” “An election year?” I replied. “Yes, this is an election year. It’s not going to happen.”

Russia’s economic crisis worsened rapidly in 1992. Gaidar lifted price controls at the start of 1992, not as some purported miracle cure but because the Soviet-era official fixed prices were irrelevant under the pressures of the black markets, the repressed inflation (that is, rapid inflation in the black-market prices and therefore the rising the gap with the official prices), the complete breakdown of the Soviet-era planning mechanism, and the massive corruption engendered by the few goods still being exchanged at the official prices far below the black-market prices.

Russia urgently needed a stabilization plan of the kind that Poland had undertaken, but such a plan was out of reach financially (because of the lack of external support) and politically (because the lack of external support also meant the lack of any internal consensus on what to do). The crisis was compounded by the collapse of trade among the newly independent post-Soviet nations and the collapse of trade between the former Soviet Union and its former satellite nations in Central and Eastern Europe, which were now receiving Western aid and were reorienting trade towards Western Europe and away from the former Soviet Union.

During 1992 I continued without any success to try to mobilize the large-scale Western financing that I believed to be ever-more urgent. I pinned my hopes on the newly elected Presidency of Bill Clinton. These hopes too were quickly dashed. Clinton’s key advisor on Russia, Johns Hopkins Professor Michael Mandelbaum, told me privately in November 1992 that the incoming Clinton team had rejected the concept of large-scale assistance for Russia. Mandelbaum soon announced publicly that he would not serve in the new administration. I met with Clinton’s new Russia advisor, Strobe Talbott, but discovered that he was largely unaware of the pressing economic realities. He asked me to send him some materials about hyperinflations, which I duly did.

At the end of 1992, after one year of trying to help Russia, I told Gaidar that I would step aside as my recommendations were not heeded in Washington or the European capitals. Yet around Christmas Day I received a phone call from Russia’s incoming financing minister, Mr. Boris Fyodorov. He asked me to meet him in Washington in the very first days of 1993. We met at the World Bank. Fyodorov, a gentleman and highly intelligent expert who tragically died young a few years later, implored me to remain as an advisor to him during 1993. I agreed to do so, and spent one more year attempting to help Russia implement a stabilization plan. I resigned in December 1993, and publicly announced my departure as advisor in the first days of 1994.

My continued advocacy in Washington once again fell on deaf ears in the first year of the Clinton Administration, and my own forebodings became greater. I repeatedly invoked the warnings of history in my public speaking and writing, as in this piece in the New Republic in January 1994, soon after I had stepped aside from the advisory role.

Above all, Clinton should not console himself with the thought that nothing too serious can happen in Russia. Many Western policymakers have confidently predicted that if the reformers leave now, they will be back in a year, after the Communists once again prove themselves unable to govern. This might happen, but chances are it will not. History has probably given the Clinton administration one chance for bringing Russia back from the brink; and it reveals an alarmingly simple pattern. The moderate Girondists did not follow Robespierre back into power. With rampant inflation, social disarray and falling living standards, revolutionary France opted for Napoleon instead. In revolutionary Russia, Aleksandr Kerensky did not return to power after Lenin's policies and civil war had led to hyperinflation. The disarray of the early 1920s opened the way for Stalin's rise to power. Nor was Bruning'sgovernment given another chance in Germany once Hitler came to power in 1933.

It is worth clarifying that my advisory role in Russia was limited to macroeconomic stabilization and international financing. I was not involved in Russia’s privatization program which took shape during 1993-4, nor in the various measures and programs (such as the notorious “shares-for-loans” scheme in 1996) that gave rise to the new Russian oligarchs. On the contrary, I opposed the various kinds of measures that Russia was undertaking, believing them to be rife with unfairness and corruption. I said as much in both the public and in private to Clinton officials, but they were not listening to me on that account either. Colleagues of mine at Harvard were involved in the privatization work, but they assiduously kept me far away from their work. Two were later charged by the US government with insider dealing in activities in Russia which I had absolutely no foreknowledge or involvement of any kind. My only role in that matter was to dismiss them from the Harvard Institute for International Development for violating the internal HIID rules against conflicts of interest in countries that HIID advised.

The failure of the West to provide large-scale and timely financial support to Russia and the other newly independent nations of the former Soviet Union definitely exacerbated the serious economic and financial crisis that faced those countries in the early 1990s. Inflation remained very high for several years. Trade and hence economic recovery were seriously impeded. Corruption flourished under the policies of parceling out valuable state assets to private hands.

All of these dislocations gravely weakened the public trust in the new governments of the region and the West. This collapse in social trust brought to my mind at the time the adage of Keynes in 1919, following the disaster Versailles settlement and the hyperinflations that followed: “There is no subtler, no surer means of over- turning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and it does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

During the tumultuous decade of the 1990s, Russia’s social services fell into decline. When this decline was coupled with the greatly increased stresses on society, the result was a sharp rise in Russia’s alcohol-related deaths. Whereas in Poland, the economic reforms were accompanied by a rise in life expectancy and public health, the very opposite occurred in crisis-riven Russia.

Even with all of these economic debacles, and with Russia’s default in 1998, the grave economic crisis and lack of Western support were not the definitive breaking points of US-Russian relations. In 1999, when Vladimir Putin became Prime Minister and in 2000 when he became President, Putin sought friendly and mutually supportive international relations between Russia and the West. Many European leaders, for example, Italy’s Romano Prodi, have spoken extensively about Putin’s goodwill and positive intentions towards strong Russia-EU relations in the first years of his presidency.

It was in military affairs rather than in economics that the Russian – Western relations ended up falling apart in the 2000s. As with finance, the West was militarily dominant in the 1990s, and certainly had the means to promote strong and positive relations with Russia. Yet the US was far more interested in Russia’s subservience to NATO that it was in stable relations with Russia.

At the time of German reunification, both the US and Germany repeatedly promised Gorbachev and then Yeltsin that the West would not take advantage of German reunification and the end of the Warsaw Pact by expanding the NATO military alliance eastward. Both Gorbachev and Yeltsin reiterated the importance of this US-NATO pledge. Yet within just a few years, Clinton completely reneged on the Western commitment, and began the process of NATO enlargement. Leading US diplomats, led by the great statesman-scholar George Kennan, warned at the time that the NATO enlargement would lead to disaster: “The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.” So, it has proved.

Here is not the place to revisit all of the foreign policy disasters that have resulted from US arrogance towards Russia, but it suffices here to mention a brief and partial chronology of key events. In 1999, NATO bombed Belgrade for 78 days with the goal of breaking Serbia apart and giving rise to an independent Kosovo, now home to a major NATO base in the Balkans. In 2002, the US unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty over Russia’s strenuous objections. In 2003, the US and NATO allies repudiated the UN Security Council by going to war in Iraq on false pretenses. In 2004, the US continued with NATO enlargement, this time to the Baltic States and countries in the Black Sea region (Bulgaria and Romania) and the Balkans. In 2008, over Russia’s urgent and strenuous objections, the US pledged to expand NATO to Georgia and Ukraine.

In 2011, the US tasked the CIA to overthrow Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Russia. In 2011, NATO bombed Libya in order to overthrow Moammar Qaddafi. In 2014, the US conspired with Ukrainian nationalist forces to overthrow Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych. In 2015, the US began to place Aegis anti-ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe(Romania), a short distance from Russia. In 2016-2020, the US supported Ukraine in undermining the Minsk II agreement, despite its unanimous backing by the UN Security Council. In 2021, the new Biden Administration refused to negotiate with Russia over the question of NATO enlargement to Ukraine. In April 2022, the US called on Ukraine to withdraw from peace negotiations with Russia.

Looking back on the events around 1991-93, and to the events that followed, it is clear that the US was determined to say no to Russia’s aspirations for peaceful and mutually respectful integration of Russia and the West. The end of the Soviet period and the beginning of the Yeltsin Presidency occasioned the rise of the neoconservatives (neocons) to power in the United States. The neocons did not and do not want a mutually respectful relationship with Russia. They sought and until today seek a unipolar world led by a hegemonic US, in which Russia and other nations will be subservient.

In this US-led world order, the neocons envisioned that the US and the US alone will determine the utilization of the dollar-based banking system, the placement of overseas US military bases, the extent of NATO membership, and the deployment of US missile systems, without any veto or say by other countries, certainly including Russia. That arrogant foreign policy has led to several wars and to a widening rupture of relations between the US-led bloc of nations and the rest of the world. As an advisor to Russia during two years, late-1991 to late-93, I experienced first-hand the early days of neoconservatism applied to Russia, though it would take many years of events afterwards to recognize the full extent of the new and dangerous turn in US foreign policy that began in the early 1990s.

#AES #soviet union #eastern bloc #cold war #us imperialism #russia #nato #bill clinton #ukraine #history #jeffrey sachs

14 notes · View notes

bklynmadman · 5 days ago

Text

I grew up with Men like this.....PART III

Well, I've noticed I picked up some followers. Thanks to all you 3 people. I love you!

That being said, I'm honored to have readers. It's always nice. I just hope you like my stuff. I tend to write stuff that's somewhat depressing, but I'll try to be a bit more lighthearted despite the circumstances. I do want to stress that this current situation is terrible shit, and this was meant more of a diagnosis than a warning, but it wound up being both.

This is also for you people who thought it was a good idea to vote Donald. To you, I say, You don't realize how fucked you are yet.

Anyway, I hope you read on, and prepare yourselves.

ECONOMY

Let it be known that Donald J. Trump, for all of his time spent in the private sector has ZERO KNOWLEDGE of the Economy or how it works. He has ZERO knowledge of how world markets work, nor does he care to know.

He is also a business failure. How he got the image of being "good at business" is beyond me. It probably has to do with the "Wealth Worshipping" we do in this country. (HAS TO STOP)

He is still very much that spoiled child who likes to torture others simply for the attention, and LOVES more than anything else, having power over people to be able to do so. It's not so much about being in charge for Donald, it's the attention that goes with it. He loves being adored, and wants to be recognized for his lack of business acumen as if he is "Mr. Wall Street". Donald, like other white rich dudes, likes the role of gatekeeper. That's why he says when you ask him something directly "I may do it. I may. We'll soon see." He doesn't know much but he does not how much being publicly indecisive hurts other people's lives, as to whether or not he'll enact a policy that directly threatens a group of people's way of life. He LOVES the fact that he's being talked about right now around the world, doesn't matter if it's good or bad, he's in it for the attention folks and to be gatekeeper to our freedoms well, that is one surefire way to get attention.

Back to his failure of business, I would go into all of his business failures, but I don't have enough room. I will mention them briefly. (Trump Steaks, Trump Airlines, Trump University, Trump Water, Trump Board Game, The Trump Taj Mahal and Casino, Trump Tower Casino, and Trump Marina and Casino of Atlantic City.)

SIDENOTE: HOW THE FUCK DO YOU LOSE MONEY OWNING THREE CASINOS???? Not many can except for the Donny Rapist Man!

He was once quoted in his first term as president (Yuck!) when asked how he will manage the National Debt, he said "“People said I want to go and buy debt and default on debt, and I mean, these people are crazy. This is the United States government. First of all, you never have to default because you print the money, I hate to tell you, OK?” That alone should share the shit out of you for he truly believes if you print more money, you'll manage the debt. A basic understanding of economics would prevent him thinking this way, but then again, Donny fucktard doesn't do thinking!

Anyway, He has promised to apply tariffs across the board on all foreign goods coming into the United States. He promised a universal Tariff on all foreign goods, and a 60% tariff on all Chinese goods. He's proposing this for he wants to get the other nations "in line" that he feels abuse the US market. So he thinks the tariffs will do that. Only, once again, a basic understanding of economics would show that the cost of Tariffs are always passed onto the consumer. That means, All Clothes, Items, Goods, Foods, imported here from other countries will be getting a lot more expensive for everyone. (REMEMBER AMERICA MAGAMORONS, you voted for this. I'll be closing on you in a minute.) If there are any doubters that are reading this, check your current shirt. Let me know where it was made. I'll put odds it was made either in China, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, or even Vietnam. That's just clothes imported into this country. Let me ask you this? You think GAP INC, or HANES, or a majority of Clothing Companies are going to pay that 60% tariff just because Trump said so?

A LITTLE MATH/BUSINESS LESSON (You can skip this if you aren't interested)

On one pallet, (meaning one shipment of t-shirts) you can fit about 2,160 t-shirts total. In one container, you can fit about 20-22 pallets (which depend on the goods and how they're packed but let's just say this for arguments sake.) That means in one 40 foot container, you can have up to 45,360 T-Shirts. (My memory as a former wine importer is getting jogged as I write this. I stopped doing that business officially in 2016 so I'm sure prices have changed and I know prices are different on clothes.)

Before that pallet gets to America, the cost per shirt is about 50 cents. So the total cost of the entire container before the shirts get here would be $22,680. Once it arrives in customs, that's when customs charges begin. Two charges are levied on containers containing "Textiles" which is the category the T-shirts fall under. Those charges are MPF (Merchandise Processing Fee) and Import Duty The MPF is calculated as a percentage of the shipment's value, with a minimum and maximum amount. For informal entries (under $2,500), the MPF is a flat fee of $2–$9. For formal entries (over $2,500), the MPF ranges from $30.66–$595.35. So, since the cost of goods (Keep this in mind, these are cheap t-shirts found at WalMart) in that one container is $22,680, the total MPF would be the max, at $595.35. For Duty, which only applies when goods imported are valued above $800. (which this would be) that means a 5.63% tariff would apply, adding $1,276.88 to the cost.

Here is a lesson in Business, as these fees are added on to import your goods, those are costs that you tack onto the product when you sell it, because you have to lay it out to get it into the country, so you MUST make it back or your company will lose money. (Something else the Orange Fuckwad doesn't understand.) So, those incurred costs before it leaves customs would tack on a total of 3 cents to each T-Shirt, making the total cost of each shirt before it gets to your warehouse or store 53 cents. The cost of the truck that will pick up your container, depending on where your warehouse or store is located will vary, but let's go on a average, which would be anywhere from $500-$3000. It varies on distance. For this argument, let's go with $1800. That would add a total of 4 cents to each t-shirt. Now, each t-shirt landed cost is 57 cents. Stores charge anywhere from 30-40% to make a profit. They charge that because usually 100-400% mark up covers your rent (if you have any), bills (Electric, Gas, Water), Employees, Taxes (Payroll, Income, Federal, State, and City Taxes) So, the total cost that is known to the owner of the store is $2.28. They usually mark it up to maybe $5-$8.00 per shirt, and will do deals like buy 2, get one free or buy 4 and get one more. The profit on one shirt sold would be $4.43 per shirt. Remember, the landed cost is 57 cents.

The Trump tariff would charge an extra 60% to your container if it came from china. So, take 45,360 t-shirts in a container, which is valued at $22,680. Tacking on the usual costs

22,680 + $595.35 + 1,276.88 + 1,800 = 26,532.23 x (.60) = 15,919.34

(Total Cost before Customs) (MPF) (DUTY) (Shipping) + (Trump Tariff)

Take that number and add it to the total cost (26,532.23) = 42,451.46 total cost per container now.

Divide that cost by the amount of t-shirts in the container = 0.94 cents per shirt landed. A total added .37 cents onto each shirt.

This may seem like small potatoes but when you're selling t-shirts in bulk, you are not about to lose .37 cents per shirt. That would dip into your profits, and if you have backers or board members, that .37 cents will eat into your profit margins should it not be tacked onto the cost of the product. Backers and Board Members of a corporation don't do charity, and they will want to see that cost reflected into the sales.

Now, I know what many will say (if you got this far, bravo) BIG DEAL! It's small cents. In business, small change adds up A LOT! And this is just bargain Walmart T-shirts. Never mind graphic t-shirts, or designer t-shirts, or other clothes. And apply that to all GOODS.

This will be hurting Americans, not helping them. Donny Moron doesn't understand it, nor does he want too.

BACK TO TARIFFS

Economists have predicted that Trump's Tariffs will cost the average American family an extra $1700 per year for goods. To those MAGA morons who screamed and voted for "Lower Grocery Bills" will see those prices jump slightly higher now. Companies have already began to announce higher prices in retaliation to Trumps' Tariffs. Effectively erasing the work that President Biden has done to lower the effect of inflation. But Donny won't stop there. Oh No! What he's about to do tax wise is what got him donations from Billionaires like Elon Asshole Musk and Miriam Alderson (Widow of Casino Magnate Sheldon Alderson)

TAX CUTS (A BIT, NOT A LOT)

I went over this in some of my previous posts, and if you want to learn more about Tax Cuts and how they work, you can look back in my previous posts from 2015 and see what they are.

Trump is going to give Tax Cuts to the Wealthy and Corporations. He's going to say he's giving Tax Cuts to everyone. But the devil will be in the details. The IRS collects about $2.56 Trillion Dollars in Federal Income Tax alone per year. This money funds government services, and investments. Trump is proposing to lower the Corporate Tax from 21% to 15%, and proposes that those households who make over $400,000 will get a tax cut of about $60,000 roughly a 15% tax cut. So, if you make 1M per year, you'll receive a tax cut of $150,000. on $3M it's $450,000. On 1 Billion Dollars, it's 150M tax cut. A tax cut for those who don't know, are taxes you don't have to pay on your earned income. This is before deductions and Tax Loopholes that the super rich and Corporations have been doing for years. Just to recap, the following corporations paid ZERO in Federal Income Taxes.

Amazon

Google

Coca-Cola

Facebook

Nike

Tesla

and many more. In fact, if they report losses, they take advantage of a Tax Deduction in which they don't have to pay on those, lessening their tax burden.

It will be the time of record profits for Billionaires and Big Corporations, and meanwhile the rest of us will see tax cuts like $500-$1000 that we wouldn't have to pay. The super poor will see none of these benefits, and New Yorkers know that $500 doesn't do much in a month or offer much breathing room. Meanwhile, fat cats like Elon Musk, who's net income is 1.4 Billion last year will see a 210M tax cut. The rest of us will have to pay our taxes however.

That's what this is mostly about. It's about Money, and the Rich, Like Don the fuckwad and his cronies, feel that they should have more control over their tax money and where it goes.

This will add onto the national debt, and the government will not be able to sustain itself for each tax cut given, that's less money going into the government. Less for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other government services.

So, enjoy your tax cuts middle class, the wealthy will be enjoying theirs. And they'll sell it through their usual promise of "Trickle Down" Economics, which is been proven to not work a BILLION TIMES OVER.

Also, don't tell me that bullshit either of Rich People need those tax cuts to create jobs. They dont. Never have. Trump presided over the WORST PERIOD OF JOB CREATION in this country since the Great Depression in the 1930's. THE WORST. So, don't tell me these tax cuts are going to automatically start working and start creating jobs. They haven't since they've been getting them under Trump's first term. And Where did all that money go? Stock Buybacks. Made themselves richer, while at the same time putting it out there that no one wants to work anymore.

UNIONS

The other thing Donny is going to do, of which I will NEVER FORGIVE THE TEAMSTERS UNION.

He's going to attempt to destroy Unions, and get rid of Overtime Pay.

Unions are the only check against large corporations and big businesses. Unions offer Medical Insurance to it's members, and also collective bargain with employers for wages.

The Orange Rapist has said during a live conversation with Elon Dumbfuck Musk on Twitter (I will not call it what he wants me to call it. Fuck him and his money) has praised Elon for firing Tesla workers who voted to Unionize. He has expressed that workers conspiring to unionize should be fired. He also said in that same convo, that he "hated paying workers overtime." and that "He'd never pay it."

What to expect from this conman during a second term...

Trump changed the rules about who qualifies for overtime pay, making more than 8 million workers ineligible and costing them over $1 billion per year in lost wages during his first term as president.

You Trumptards think that in the past 4 years of dodging court dates and indictments, he suddenly found a heart??? If you think that, you are gravely mistaken.

He will repeat his actions with regards to labor again, only this time, go to more extremes to make it stick.

He has talked about replacing overtime, and giving workers Comp Time, which cheats workers over Overtime laws embedded in our Constitution. 1 BILLION in overtime pay in 2019 to be exact.

Hey TEAMSTERS, no more overtime pay for you. He thinks you're not entitled to it. And apparently, so did many of your members. Enjoy that shit when it's enacted under a GOP controlled House and a GOP controlled Senate. Scabs will be taking your jobs if you refuse, and you know what? Shame on you, because your membership wanted to support Donald.

Trump will also do the following.

Trump will continue to PACK the courts with anti-labor judges who have made the entire public sector “right to work for less” in an attempt to financially weaken unions by increasing the number of freeloaders.

Trump will stack the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union appointees who side with employers in contract disputes and support companies who delay and stall union elections, misclassify workers to take away their freedom to join a union, and silence workers.

Trump will make it easier for employers to fire or penalize workers who speak up for better pay and working conditions or exercise the right to strike.

Trump promised to veto the PRO Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, historic legislation that will reverse decades of legislation meant to crush private sector unions and shift power away from CEOs to workers.

I can't wait when the Teamsters start complaining about "scabs" being allowed to work due to Trump's push of "Right To Work" policy, which effectively emboldens Scabs or picket line crossers to work for companies for less pay than the union would allow them too. Some of these idiots think that wont happen. To that I say....Just wait.

The next time I hear of Teamsters Picketing, they can go fuck themselves as far as I'm concerned for failing to come out to support Kamala Harris, a president that would've protected their Union and advanced Pro-Union Policies. I hope the Teamster Union breaks, and I say that as a UFT member knowing full well that Trump and his merry band of assholes will try to dismantle my Union too. (They already are trying too with Charter Schools. If Governor Hochul had any balls, she'd pull funding from Charter Schools to embolden UFT and pro-union policies. But this is about the Spoiled Boy-King, not NY governor Hochul.)

ABORTION/ IMMIGRATION

On this, Trump will demonstrate his extreme cruelty for he gives neither a fuck for Immigrants (Even though his family was once an immigrant from Germany) nor women (see the 32 Civil Court Cases when 32 different women across this country accuse Donny of Rape and Sexual Assault.) He won this election on getting others to hate Immigrants.

It's a big pet peeve of mine whenever a fellow American Italian hates on the "Hispanics and Mexicans coming over the border." To which I remind them how their family came here, and the adversity that they faced. This convo usually ends with "Well, my family pulled through" but what they don't seem to understand is We're supposed to make things better, not worse for the next guy. It's also what some of my fellow pisans consider retribution. "Well, I came here legally. They can too." Well, they can't. Imagine how desperate they must be to come over illegally. It's not to skirt laws or get away with something.

The thing about Immigrants that many don't understand is the following.

Illegal Immigrants make up for a good portion of our workforce. About 8.3M Illegal Immigrants are currently in the United States Workforce. They are hired by their bosses, who know full well they aren't here legally, and take advantage of that by paying them much lower than they would have to pay an American worker.

Check out the Kitchens of the Restaurants that you frequent. Who is making your food back there?

Also, who is building your houses? Take a good look at the majority of those building private housing. Let me know what you find.

Another thing about Ilegal Immigrants is that they don't mostly Bring Crime, Drugs, and are Rapists. (I always found it funny that a Rapist calling a group of other people Rapists especially when he's a known rapist and pedophile. When Jeffrey Epstein is your best friend...) Ilegal Immigrants make our economy go round!

The Food Industry, the Construction Industry are very very dependent on Illegal Immigrant labor.

Illegal Immigrants are less likely to commit a crime for fear of being deported. So they're mostly law abiding citizens.

Illegal Immigrants pay MORE taxes that Amazon, and Coca-Cola combined. (Yes, they file and pay while freeloaders like Elon and Donny pay nothing.)

Illegal Immigrants make up about 12% of sales for Telecommunication companies (i.e. Cellphone purchases.)

They rent apartments, spend for food, open bank accounts, and California was trying to pass a law that would've made it easier for them to obtain a mortgage regardless of Immigration status.

When he does send ICE and Immigration agents to do a mass deportation, he will be adversely affecting these industries. That is on the way, and I've read one economist suggest that the "mass deportation" that he has promised his fans and fellow racists will total 315 Billion Dollars. Will Donny want to pay that? Sure, why not? The money isn't his, and he'll be dead soon enough so why should he have to worry? Thats a problem for us to figure out later when he's gone.

That's another thing Richers do that Donald likes to do. He loves to spend money when it's not his to spend. Donald is a notorious cheap skate, and has stiffed many people who have done work for him in his hotels and casinos. However, that will go away now that Donald has the United States Purse strings. The next time I hear a Republican preach about Fiscal Conservatism, it will be very hard for me not to deck them in the mouth.

Again, Donny loves being Gatekeeper. He adores it. It doesn't matter if it's cruel, or if he is doing the wrong thing. He is directly responsible for separating 6000 kids from their parents at the border. 6000. And he put them in cages and didn't even bother giving them blankets. He gave them what amounted to aluminum foil for a bedsheet. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???? WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE???? Every single parent should've been outraged with that regardless of political spectrum.

Also any real Christian should've had an issue with that, and those who don't are not real Christians nor do they deserve to be called one. They deserve to be called what they truly are, CRUEL HYPOCRITES WHO WORSHIP SATAN'S COCK.

I had a convo I had with a Trump sympathizer about this once, and the other person had the balls to say "Well, they shouldn't have been there." Talk about the most Victim Blaming Bullshit I've ever heard. As if they brought about that cruel treatment upon themselves when they got caught on the border.

WARS IN GAZA AND UKRAINE

Trump gives a fuck about one thing and one thing only. He's cited it many times in his first presidency, and it's his biggest motivator.

His image.

Trump is such a textbook classic narcissist that his main drive is simply to protect and project his image. He wants to be that "Suave, Smart, Debonair, Wealthy, Strongman who is beloved by all, and everyone fawns over him and his every word while his enemies retreat in cowardice." Trump's self image, like much of anything he says, is not rooted in reality.

He's a wimp, and like all bullies, once someone stands up to them, they run and hide and tell the teacher on you. Trump would run and hide from anyone formidable and run and tell fox news how "unfairly mistreated" he was.

Keep in mind, Donald is still a Russian Asset. The reason he jocks guys like Putin is because he wants it like that. He wants to make American into the Dictator Image. Absolute Power. Absolute Fascism. We know Donald can't read, but he has probably watched a Hitler Speech or two, and realized how Hitler came to power. His path to power is very similar to Hitlers, in fact almost mirror image.

He couldn't care less about what happens in Israel. He couldn't care less about what happens in the Ukraine. He will do what he is told, which the super wealthy are tired of giving aid and money to these two countries.

Also, Putin will tell his bitch to bend over and let him have Ukraine. Trump will do so. He will claim "He made a great deal" but the deal made will be something along the lines of the following.

1.) No Admission to NATO for Ukraine.

2.) Russia will get to keep most, if not all of their occupied territory.

3.) Ukraine will have to enter a trade agreement with Russia over the oil pipeline and they'll maybe do some share. 10 years Russia will have it and then turn it over to Ukrainian control.

Ukraine will do all of this under Trump duress, or Trump will withhold any and all aid to Ukraine, of which that will stop immediately once Trump takes office. So the good news is, The war will end. The bad news is, the war will benefit Russia grately, and Russia will have an open way to take Europe if it feels like it.

Trump will say "Look how great I did. And Look, I ended the war." But in the real world, Trump will only have given Putin what he asked for, which is the part of Ukraine with the resources as a part of Russia. Also, there will be no NATO presence in Ukraine forever, or at least while Trump is president.

As for GAZA...

Many Gen Z people were upset, and rightfully so, over the mass genocide in GAZA by the Israeli government. If they were upset of Former President Biden's lack of action, then they're really going to hate how Trump handles this situation.

I'm sorry to say, but the Palestinian people's numbers will be greatly REDUCED once Trump is in power, and he will not only continue to do nothing diplomatically. He will also side openly with Netanyahu, and praise his actions. He'll even get a bigger contrat, and sell more bombs, guns, and ammunition there. He'll say "What a great deal for America" but what he means is "What a great deal for Smith& Wesson" "Raytheon", and L3Harris Technologies." because last I checked, the American people in general don't own stock in any of those companies, only a select few do. (Trump is one of them by the way. He owns some stock in Raytheon. Conflict of Interest much? Sure, but we wont be able to talk about that for much longer.)

CONCLUSION

So, this is where this series ends. There will not be a 4th installment. I've pretty much said all I needed/wanted to say. I know many are upset over this tyrant returning to the White House.

There has got to be some hope at the end of this fucked man and his deranged policies. It's almost comical how he's in a "Race for the Worst". To predict what can happen, just picture a worst case scenario for each situation, and that is the baseline that Trump is so thirsty to beat. He will also fuck the environment as well, and turn the planet back on Global Warming, why? In the name of money.

So, fellow trumpers, I hope you enjoy the world while it lasts. I hope there isn't another deadly pandemic waiting in the wings, because Donald will handle that one just as well as he handled the 1st one. The one where he got over 1.8M American's killed, and suggested as a cure to inject bleach into your veins. He was also the guy to Poo Poo Masks, and put doubt into the vaccine, despite himself getting it.

But whatever, RFK will be in charge of our health from now on. You know, because he's qualified and believes in Science. But that's talking way too much.

Brace yourselves everyone. Enjoy this last holiday season of peace. We are in for a reckoning.

(So much for a weekly post. I just blogged 3 times in 4 days. But man, does it feel good to write again.)

#trump #make america great again #conservative #donald trump #liberal #lgbtqia #lgbtq community #lgbt pride #jesus christ #christianity #christian faith #god #jesus #faith

8 notes · View notes

probablyasocialecologist · 1 year ago

Text

Global South countries are currently experiencing a debt crisis wherein governments like that of Sri Lanka are unable to service the debts they hold that are denominated in a foreign currency. Such debts began to balloon across the Global South in the aftermath of the oil crises of the 1970s. Following the Volcker Shock—and the accompanying steep rise in interest rates for dollar-denominated debts—countries that held those bonds found themselves in a situation similar to that of today. At that time, Global North governments, acting through the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), agreed to a series of bailouts conditional on Structural Adjustments Programs (SAPs). SAPs allowed these institutions to intervene directly in the fiscal policy of indebted countries and to implement neoliberal reforms which reduced public spending and opened up economies to transnational corporations. The explicit goal of SAPs was to kickstart growth, as the only means for indebted countries to pay back their loans and to lift communities out of poverty—the implicit goal being the creation of societies mirroring those of their former colonisers. Yet the last forty years have yielded the opposite result: an explosion of inequality both within and between countries and debts at their highest level this century. To understand this trend, we need to recognise that loans to the Global South were never about achieving prosperity; instead, the intention was to reassert neo-colonial control over the decolonising world. Decolonisation reduced the Global North’s access to the cheap labour, energy and raw materials that colonialism had ensured for centuries. Debt relationships between the former colonisers and colonised recreated the conditions for the plunder of the Global South. It turned poor countries into captive markets for companies based in the Global North and created a race to the bottom in environmental and labour standards meant to attract foreign investors. Under this arrangement, indebted countries need to grow their economies to service their debts. Growth relies on exports priced at disadvantageous rates that create ecologically unequal exchange between the Global South and Global North. Economies centred on the export of low-value-added commodities prevent the Global South from achieving full decolonisation. Fortunately, scholars of Modern Monetary Theory have shown that it is not necessary to prioritize growth for the sake of growth before investing in what countries actually need. Instead, what matters is a country’s productive capacity determined by social and ecological boundaries, and here the Global South is far richer than the Global North. To invest in necessary programmes like a Job Guarantee and Universal Public Services, however, countries must first free themselves of colonial currencies and end the cycles of debt that trap them in poverty. Given that stopping ecologically unequal exchange is a cornerstone of degrowth, the need for debt restructuring is clear. The only question is how to achieve this revolutionary reform.

#degrowth #debt #ecologically unequal exchange #global south #colonialism

91 notes · View notes

robertreich · 2 years ago

Video

youtube

How to Stop Republicans From Tanking the Economy Over the Debt Ceiling

Republicans are threatening to destroy the economy if President Biden doesn’t give into their demands. But the Fourteenth Amendment gives him the power to stop them.

Republicans are taking advantage of the “debt ceiling” to try to force deep, painful cuts to programs Americans rely on. If Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, America might have to default on its bills, destroying the credit of the United States and wiping out millions of jobs.

Remember, raising the debt ceiling isn’t about taking on new debt. It’s about whether America will pay its current debts.

This is a key reason why raising the debt ceiling should not be negotiable.

Ironically, Republicans had no problem raising it three times under Trump, even as they enacted major tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy that caused the nation’s debt to soar.

But now, Kevin McCarthy and his band of MAGA radicals say they’ll only raise it in exchange for drastic cuts to health care, education, veterans’ benefits, and more.

My advice to President Biden: Ignore them. Mr. President, your oath to uphold the Constitution takes precedence. And as the supreme law of the land, the Constitution has greater weight than the law on the debt ceiling.

Section Four of the Fourteenth Amendment states that, “The validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned.”

A debt ceiling that prevents the government from honoring its existing financial commitments clearly violates the Constitution.

So, if Republicans threaten the full faith and credit of the United States, you are constitutionally obligated to ignore the debt ceiling, and must continue to pay the nation’s bills.

Should they wish, let the radical Republicans take you to court.

Even the conservatives on the Supreme Court will likely support you. No “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution could read that document differently,

The Constitution makes it clear that Congress’s power to borrow money does not include the power to default on such borrowings.

If Republicans are going to play this game, Mr. President, you need to play hard ball.

#youtube #Debt ceiling #economy #Republican Party #politics #video #videos

147 notes · View notes

eretzyisrael · 6 months ago

Text

by Judith Miller

Last fall, Egypt was on the brink of economic collapse. A decade of debt-fueled spending on a pharaonic-scale had emptied its Central Bank coffers. By February, Cairo’s public debt was 89% of its gross domestic product. External debt had soared to 46% of GDP. The pound, its currency, was one of the world’s worst performing. Unable to import supplies and repatriate profits, foreign companies were leaving, or threatening to leave Egypt in droves. Annual inflation was over 35%, and double that for some food staples. Egypt seemed on the verge of a sovereign default—its first ever.

Then came Oct. 7.

Officials, businessmen, and financial analysts say that however horrific the war has been for Israelis and for Palestinians in Gaza, Oct. 7 has helped save Egypt from economic ruin and growing political unrest. To be sure, Egypt is paying heavily for the ongoing Israel-Hamas war on its border. Its three main sources of revenue—hard currency from the Suez Canal, tourism, and remittances from Egyptian workers abroad—have plummeted by between 30% and 40%. But without Hamas’ horrific massacre, which killed 1,200 people and took another 240 hostage, and Israel’s much criticized retaliation in Gaza, Egypt would probably not have gotten the international financial lifeline that has rescued it yet again from economic ruin, just in time.

“Just after the attack, the government began strategizing, successfully it’s turned out, about how to use the crisis to secure a bailout,” said Ahmed Aboudouh, an Egyptian expert at Chatham House, a London-based think tank. “Oct. 7 helped save Egypt’s economy, at least temporarily.”

Last February, the Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company (ADQ), Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, unveiled plans to develop a city by the sea on part of the 65-square-mile peninsula of Ras el-Hekma, one of the few undeveloped areas on the Mediterranean coast, part of a sale worth $35 billion in investment and debt relief, the largest foreign direct investment deal in Egyptian history. Egypt will retain a 35% stake in the project. Since Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the chairman of ADQ, is Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan’s brother and the UAE’s national security adviser, the Ras el-Hekma purchase was far more than a financial transaction. It was part of an Egyptian bailout.

Egyptians bristle at the loss of their nation’s diplomatic clout. By reviving its regional profile, Oct. 7 has bestowed another gift on Egypt.

Then in March, Cairo secured a critical $8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, with strong American support. The IMF infusion, in turn, opened other foreign faucets. The European Union promptly agreed to provide another $8 billion in grants and loans, ostensibly to help Egypt’s economy, but in reality, to assure Egypt’s help in preventing Arab and African migrants from reaching European shores. In total, the IMF, Europe, and the Gulf have now poured well over $50 billion of foreign currency into Egypt’s cash-strapped coffers. “The U.S., Europe, and the Gulf clearly agreed that the Sissi government could not be permitted to fail,” said Steven Cook, an expert on Egypt at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. “Geopolitics has taken over.”

Only months before, the IMF had not completed the review of Egypt’s loan agreement approved in December 2022, thereby withholding a tranche of the $3 billion rescue package, as the government had failed to deliver on agreed benchmarks. While the fund attributed its about-face in March to the increasing damage being done to Egypt’s economy by the Israel-Hamas war—or what it euphemistically called a “more challenging external environment”—absent American pressure on the fund and on Egypt to agree belatedly to financial reforms it had previously rejected, the IMF loan and even the Ras el-Hekma deal would not have gone through. Since Washington is the fund’s largest shareholder with a 16.5% stake, it holds sway over its key lending decisions.

The Biden administration, too, was obviously unwilling to risk the economic collapse and political destabilization of the Arab Middle East’s largest country and the first Arab state to make peace with neighboring Israel in the midst of one of the region’s deadliest wars in modern history and with other conflicts around it still raging—especially since Egyptian mediation with Hamas was crucial to White House policy. “Egypt has proven, yet again,” said Aboudouh, “that it is, as its elite believes, too big to fail.”

#egypt #october 7 #hamas #gaza #too big to fail #imf #international monetary fund #cairo

7 notes · View notes

power-chords · 1 year ago

Text

Heat rewatch #324 (shockingly I have not actually seen it this many times) and going OHHH yes well of course this film is about Fathers and Daughters in such an anxiogenic, spectral way that I barely wanted to acknowledge it at first, and it was only when the novel came out that this element became unignorable and targeted at me personally. (JESSICA Matzoukas, oh my god.) I was thinking about how the photographs on the wall in the Gustafson home were taken by Jessie Mann; that the initials on the stolen truck are of his four daughters (RAJA). He casually points this out in the director's commentary and you're like Oh, OK!!! This is so baked into the structure of the film that even Mann, who is diligently tightlipped about his own neuroses, is like, "Just FYI I am going to ensure this whole thing is haunted from the ground up :)"

The concept I find myself circling around in trying to make sense of it is Derrida's reading of Kierkegaard and the Akedah. Or like a hybrid of that + the Oresteia. One of the many fascinating things about Lt. Hanna as a character is his CONSTANT, frankly obsessive awareness of the precarities specific to teenage girlhood. Obviously part of this inevitably stems from his line of work. But the way he compartmentalizes it with respect to his own personal role as a stepfather...... it's almost as if he fears contamination, even if only subconsciously. Men are dangerous to girls; by extension, he is dangerous to girls, particularly since he has this Will Graham-esque empathic approach to criminal investigation. (My own conjecture: I think those creepy blink-and-you'll-miss-them doll parts that are hanging above the dining room table in the Gustafson house are Mann riffing on the aesthetic dread of Hans Bellmer.) By severing himself from the domestic sphere in this crucial emotional way, he is, like most Mann protagonists, Doing Risk Management. In this case it's more of a psychological, symbolic exercise than the practical kind McCauley concerns himself with, where the consequences of interpersonal attachment are more direct, tangible, and perilous. But the irony of course is that this "protective" disengagement is a significant catalyst for Lauren's suicide attempt, and it's his attention she is soliciting, his facsimile of the home (hotel room) that she invades. "She chose you."

Curiously, Hanna occupies "Fatherhood" almost exclusively in this abstracted, civic dimension and even his subjective experience of obligation (I.E., of guilt!) stems more from duty than blood instinct. (Peripherally related but significant is that Hanna apparently first tried to BECOME A LAWYER before realizing he was too fucked up from Vietnam to do anything except relive the brutal destructive thrill of Senseless Carnage Over and Over Again, Forever. So he became a cop. LOL.) One of Mann's favorite literary tropes that he transposes onto his cinematic storytelling is reproductive failure and everything that this metaphorically represents. Vincent Hanna cannot become a biological father and the novel frames this as a curse he mistakenly displaces on some mysterious anomaly that is nevertheless conveniently localized within the woman. (It is the wife who miscarries and at no point does he ever wonder about matters of, say, virility. LOL again.) He is desperate to prevent the destruction and dissolution of other families because he cannot abide the damage wrought upon Women and Girls — note the phrasing when he threatens McCauley at the diner, "if it's between you and some poor bastard whose wife you're going to turn into a widow" — but the Derridean trade-off is that he sacrifices his own. By pursuing the responsibility to one he necessarily denies that which he owes to the others; to heed the call to justice by a grieving mother and her dead daughter — both strangers to him — he defaults on the debts incurred by the marriage contract. MICHAEL, why would you do this to me.

#don't call me daughterrrrrr not fit to #the picture kept will REMIIIEEIIIND me #(he is a confirmed pearl jam fan just so you know. just like my own father! help.)#michael mann #notes for the michael mannzine #heat 1995

29 notes · View notes

mediumsizetex · 1 year ago

Text

Imagine Chamberlain giving his “Peace For Our Time” speech in June of 1940.

That’s the level of Cluelessness and Bad At Messaging currently being embodied by the Democrat Party calling for negotiations as Republicans threaten to wreck the US economy and cause a global financial catastrophe by defaulting on the federal government’s debt. If the debt limit is not either raised or eliminated, Social Security and Medicare payments are going to start drying up sooner rather than later, which means life is going to get real bad real quick for the elderly and disabled Americans who rely on those monthly checks to survive, and guess how old and decrepit most of the Republican voting base are. If Democrat leadership had more than one brain cell to pass around at a time, they would have been airing ads on every televised baseball and football and basketball game for the last month pointing out that Republicans have been attacking Social Security and Medicare for decades and those will be the first federal programs on the chopping block if they’re allowed to run us out of money. “Do you rely on Social Security to get by? Do your parents, or grandparents? The current Republican Party hostage-taking strategy of refusing to raise the federal debt ceiling will have an immediate and severe effect on those payments beginning June 1st. Write or call your representatives to demand that they follow the Constitution by preventing a default on federal debt, and let them know that affecting your ability to survive the Summer will affect their ability to survive re-election.” But no, this has never occurred to The Party Of Making Concerned Faces And Whining Noises Instead Of Governing. Neo-nazis are gearing up to destroy this country, and the only response from the Neo-Chamberlainists is to devote their full efforts to finding a way to compromise and negotiate and capitulate that will work this time.

[ID: An image of the Earth, centered on Africa; slightly more than half of the surface has been reduced to molten rock and jets of lava. Top text reads “DEMOCRATS BE LIKE” and bottom text reads “‘WE ARE MONITORING THE SITUATION’“. End ID]

#politics #every Republican is a traitor #every Republican is a nazi #no pony #SFW

9 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 2 years ago

Text

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday notified Congress that the U.S. will reach its statutory debt limit next Thursday.

After that, the Treasury Department will begin “taking certain extraordinary measures to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations,” Yellen wrote in a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

While Treasury, “is not currently able” to estimate how long those emergency actions will allow the U.S. to pay for government obligations, “It is unlikely that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted before early June,” she wrote.

“I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States,” Yellen wrote.

Friday’s notification from Yellen effectively starts a clock counting down how long the federal government can continue to make interest payments on its debt.

The so-call called extraordinary measures available to the Treasury secretary can free up billions of dollars that have been technically committed to other purposes, but not spent yet.

This can extend the clock for weeks or months while Congress hashes out a bill to raise the borrowing limit.

A senior White House official told CNBC that the White House plans to try to cut a deal with Congress to raise the federal debt ceiling after the mid-April deadline for income tax return filings. The official said the White House will not have enough details to negotiate a deal until it sees the level of income tax receipts.

But the debate over raising the debt ceiling is expected to be particularly fraught this year in light of the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

McCarthy has made little secret of the fact that Republicans intend to demand massive spending cuts to the federal budget in exchange for approving an increase in the debt ceiling.

16 notes · View notes

penguicorns-are-cool · 1 year ago

Text

It looks like on June 1st the US is going to default on the debt which is going to crash the global economy.

Not enough people are talking about how scary this is and that's probably because economics is confusing but I'm going to explain it really quick.

So the US debt is actually essential to the global economy (I know weird right debt is supposed to be bad). The debt is basically because we take a lot of loans and go into 800 billion dollars of trade deficits every year (when we import way more than we export, ideally import and export would be equal value but when the import is more than the export we have to pay the difference) this is fine because the US has paid off all of its loans and deficits in time the debt is just all the loans that we haven't finished paying off. A lot of countries and companies give loans to the US or a lot of people buy bonds because the interest is profitable and those countries and companies depend on the fact that the US generally pays its loans, that's why we have a AAA rating which is kind of like having the highest credit score. To prevent us from having to default on all these loans since the amount of loans and value of the loans are only rising, we just keep raising the debt ceiling and it's been working out.

Now that's all fine so why don't we just raise the debt ceiling again? well, that's because stupid fucking Mcarthy (he's that guy who was elected as speaker back when the congress had to shut down for like half a week for that election) well the reason he won is because he promised to pay off the debt, WE CAN'T JUST FUCKING PAY OFF THE DEBT. look the US has a lot of money but not that much money. But now he's in a bit of a tricky spot because he won very narrowly because a few people liked that he would pay off the debt, so if he raises the debt ceiling, he loses their support and they might just vote him out. So instead of just raising the debt ceiling, congress has been talking about plans to default which means we say we haven't paid the debt in time and we're going to pay it all at once right now which means that we have to cut a ton of welfare programs for example: Veteran's Aide, school, nutrition assistance (funding for food for pregnant people and young children), air safety towers, rail safety inspections, workforce development services, gov funding college scholarships, student debt relief, mental health support for students, support for students with disabilities, food stamps, access to healthcare, and a bunch more stuff.

Now why you non-Americans should care. the US, for better or for worse, is the center of the global economy. the US dollar makes up over half the money used in foreign trade, a lot of countries and companies do loan money to the US because it is seen as very safe to be part of the debt, and there are tons of people who invest in the US and US companies. If the US defaults it would first of all hurt all those countries that are part of the debt because those countries would not be paid back immediately and would not be able to profit from US loans anymore since the US would not be seen as trustworthy enough for that, it would crash the US economy which means the value of the US dollar would go haywire hurting anyone who uses US dollars in foreign trade, and it would hurt anyone invested in anything American.

So yeah this is really fucking scary and it looks like they're going to go through with the default so it does look like we're going to be in a recession in about 6 days especially since the global economy is already really fucked up right now and all that.

#default #important #economy #recession #scary #global economy #debt #debt limit #debt default #american politics #us politics #US

4 notes · View notes

classicquid · 1 year ago

Text

Short Term Loans UK Direct Lender - Needed Money in a Pickle

Do you require sufficient financial support without application rejection? Your quest is over since short term loans UK direct lender are the most popular and well-known among borrowers who need cash assistance but don't want to give the lender a credit card or debit card document. What’s an additional advantageous aspect of the stated loan! You can get the money without fear because you don't have to put up any kind of collateral in exchange for the short term loans direct lenders.

With the help of short term loans UK direct lender, you can easily get cash assistance in the range of £100 to £1000 for a brief repayment period of 14 to 30 days. This loan is only available for use in short-term financial emergencies because it must be repaid in full by the following payday. Therefore, it is advisable that you utilize the money for these other financial necessities, such as car repairs, child's tuition or school fees, paying off credit card debt, vacation costs, having a little birthday party for pals on their birthdays, and so on.

Poor or bad credit elements, such as defaults, arrears, foreclosure, late payments, missing payments, CCJs, IVA, skipped payments, or insolvency, are regarded as equal to fair credit holders and do not prevent them from receiving money through short term loans UK. But keep in mind that you need to pay back the money by the deadline.

You must be a permanent resident of the UK who is at least 18 years old, employed there, and receiving a wage of at least £500 per month into your bank account. After that, you can fill out a brief online application form on the lender's website to request a short term loans direct lenders by providing the requested information. On the same day as your application, the lender will send your funds into your bank account after reviewing your completed information.

How to Obtain Short Term Loans UK Quickly and Cheaply

Applying via us for short term loans UK couldn't be any easier. You're already halfway to acquiring the money you need if you're a new customer and know how much and how long you want to borrow. Simply click Request Funds and enter these facts into our easy-to-use application form, and we will provide you with an agreement in principle. We move quickly, so you'll be able to tell nearly immediately if we can assist with the terms you've requested.

One of our personal Customer Care Managers will handle your application once you have this. Instead of depending exclusively on automatic responses during this time, we think it's critical to have a human component involved. This won't drag down the procedure because we'll be able to properly match you with one of our fast, short term cash loans thanks to our attention to detail. Your Customer Care Manager will call you to check if more information is needed to support your loan application, and the call should just take a few minutes. In many cases, the Credit Reference Agencies we partner with will already have the data they want.

#Short Term Loans UK #Short Term Loans UK Direct Lender #Short Term Cash

3 notes · View notes

happyfork · 1 year ago

Text

Information on the debt ceiling bill is hard to find, but from what I understand the current proposal will

Take money away from the IRS (making it harder to collect taxes and therefore decrease federal revenue).

Increase work requirements for SNAP and TANF benefits (more specifically, it will raise the age limit for work requirements for SNAP, but exclude a few groups including homeless people and kids who aged out of foster care. For TANF it will across the board raise work requirements though. overall bad, with some good).

Make it easier for projects with environmental impacts to be approved (think pipelines).

Stop student loan repayment pauses by the end of August.

I don't see any real benefit to the proposal except it stops the default, which would prevent all federal programs from being able to pay.

It's passed the house but it's going to the senate now in case you want to let your legislators know how you think!

3 notes · View notes

jack-bytez-genuine-corner · 6 months ago

Text

youtube

So like, without getting into the deep issues with the medical system in the US, Canada, UK and EU, furry artists set very clear expectations and will also perform what you ask with some advice while doing a commission, where as many doctors are trained in a counter productive way in systems that prioritize syphoning money out of the patient and abiding by terrible insurance rules that either prevents them from giving accurate and swift care or leads to massive case logs that lead to delay of care and increases the chances for inaccurate care.

For instance doctors are more likely to give pregnant Black women worse care than white women as Black people are more likely to be located in an area where the medical staff are stretched thin due to a massive patient backlog while simultaneously being underserved as that area is also more likely to be lower income, not counting the issues surrounding private and public insurance, while white women likely have private insurance and can afford to go to a private care facility that has far less of a case load in exchange for more cash. Doctors are also more likely to misdiagnose or ignore foundational issues with say fat people and women, which means issues that could be treated and symptoms alleviated are ignored because it is simply easier to tell them to go loose weight vs actually look at their slipped disk.

Across the western world there's a serious issue with the medical system. Newbies are sent off to resident and be massively underpaid and overworked as part of their education which can harden bad practices, which leads to high dropout including issues with the standard university drop outs. Doctors and nurses have lots of oversight which sometimes makes no sense, like anti abortion fights here in the US are fights that are preventing lives from being saved as that drug or this procedure might theoretically be killing a fetus that might theoretically survive birth only to die a handful of minutes later while the mom is just forced to die as well. The other side of that coin is how much power insurance companies have over doctor decisions, which means drugs that could improve symptoms massively are locked behind expensive private insurance as public insurance won't cover it due to parents, or the similar case of pharmaceutical companies being given free range over their prices with no oversight, similar to how insurance companies don't have to offer their patients any care at all which leads to situations where vulnerable populations ala seniors are paying a ton of cash for an insurance plan that won't cover a bandaid. Hospitals, for their part, can charge patients whatever they want for any service and force their financial team, the patient, and the patient's insurance to duke it out over whether giving the act of a nurse giving a patient a pill that costs 50 cents is an act worth 50 dollars or not. All this in turn leads to patients hating their doctors, both for things in the doctor's control and out of their control, which forments a directly hostile environment.

How do we fix this? Force hospitals to always staff an appropriate amount of staff so that way skeleton crew structures are no longer the default. Publicly back hospitals and their staff financially so everyone has access to competent care. Major oversight overhauls on pharmaceutical companies and private insurance companies while boosting public insurance and killing off the idea of out of network care. Pay actual attention to how doctors are "Made" and reform as needed, such as how they should care for women and minority communities that consistently suffer worse health outcomes above say white people or thin people. I would, in particular, look into reforming residences which tend to burn out more doctors than it should, alongside the debt of the schooling which naturally funnels doctors into a handful of extremely well paying positions before they retire early rather than enabling them to go where they are needed which tends to be less well paying rural and low income communities. Doctors, like so many other professions are ultimately suffering due to the short term - infinite profit every term board room mindset, where it's all about keeping the line going up over the system being stable and good health outcomes being the goal. This is what leads to hospitals which serve thousands of people dying out as it isn't making the line go up and therefore closing it down and skeleton staffing it are far better options. Healthcare for a lot of countries, right now, isn't based on helping the public but making the graph in the boardroom go up, which leads to exactly what we see here: Doctors getting hate, warranted and not.

*my head turns red and steam comes outta my ears like a steam whistle**

#Youtube

18K notes · View notes

thorgoodlaw · 8 days ago

Text

The Importance of Experienced Garnishment Attorneys for Your Case

Introduction

Understanding Wage Garnishment

Before diving into why experienced attorneys are essential for your case, it’s important to understand what wage garnishment entails. Wage garnishment is a legal procedure where a portion of your wages is withheld by your employer to pay off a debt. Typically, this happens when you fail to pay a court judgment, such as child support, student loans, taxes, or credit card debt. The garnishment continues until the debt is satisfied or you take action to stop it. Wage garnishment typically occurs as a result of certain types of unpaid debts. These may include:

Court Judgments: If a creditor sues you and wins in court, they may obtain a judgment that allows them to garnish your wages.

Child Support: If you are behind on child support payments, the court can order a garnishment to ensure you are contributing toward the financial support of your child.

Student Loans: Federal or private lenders can initiate wage garnishment if you default on student loan payments.

Taxes: The IRS or state tax authorities can garnish your wages to collect unpaid taxes, including back taxes or penalties.

Credit Card Debt: If you fail to pay credit card bills and a creditor wins a lawsuit, they can seek a wage garnishment as a way to collect the debt.

If you find yourself facing wage garnishment, the best thing you can do is consult with a wage garnishment lawyer who can guide you through the process and help protect your rights.

Why You Need an Experienced Wage Garnishment Lawyer

Wage garnishment can have severe financial implications, and its effects can be long-lasting. Many people struggle with understanding their rights, the garnishment process, and the legal options available to stop or reduce the garnishment. This is where an experienced wage garnishment attorney becomes invaluable.

Expertise in Handling Garnishment Cases

An experienced wage garnishment lawyer has extensive knowledge of both state and federal laws regarding garnishments. Wage garnishment attorneys know the ins and outs of the process, including the types of debts that can lead to garnishment, the maximum amounts that can be garnished, and the legal exemptions that may apply to your situation. An experienced garnishment lawyer can also help you explore alternative options, such as negotiating with creditors to lower the amount of the garnishment or filing for bankruptcy if necessary.

Knowledge of Legal Rights and Protections

Protection from Creditor Abuse

Unfortunately, some creditors may attempt to abuse the wage garnishment process by not following the proper procedures or by attempting to garnish more than what the law permits. A wage garnishment lawyer is essential to protect you from such actions. They can intervene on your behalf to prevent illegal garnishment practices and may even help you recover any improperly garnished wages. An experienced wage garnishment lawyer can step in to protect you from creditor abuses by:

Ensuring Legal Compliance: A garnishment lawyer will closely review your case to ensure that your creditor is following all applicable laws and regulations regarding wage garnishment. For example, under federal law, only a certain percentage of your disposable income can be garnished. If a creditor is attempting to garnish more than allowed by law, your attorney can intervene to stop the overreach.

Stopping Unlawful Garnishments: Some creditors may bypass required court procedures, such as failing to properly notify you of the garnishment or not getting a court order before starting the garnishment process. A wage garnishment attorney can help you challenge these actions and stop unlawful garnishments. If the proper procedures were not followed, your attorney can file motions to dismiss the garnishment or to stop it from proceeding.

Preventing Excessive Garnishment: Federal and state laws place limits on how much of your income can be garnished. Typically, creditors can only garnish up to 25% of your disposable earnings or the amount that exceeds a certain threshold based on the federal minimum wage. Unfortunately, some creditors may try to garnish more than this legal limit. A garnishment lawyer will help ensure that the garnishment does not exceed what is legally allowed, and they can take legal action to reduce the garnishment amount if it’s too high.

Recovering Improperly Garnished Wages: If creditors have garnished more than they legally should have, or if garnishment was initiated without proper legal grounds, your wage garnishment attorney can help you recover the improperly garnished wages. Your lawyer will file the necessary legal motions to get back the funds that were wrongfully taken from your paycheck. This could involve seeking a court order to return the excess garnished amount.

How a Wage Garnishment Attorney Can Help You

A wage garnishment attorney can assist you in multiple ways during the garnishment process. They can offer guidance, represent you in court, and help you take action to reduce or eliminate the garnishment. Here are some ways in which an attorney can make a difference:

Negotiating a Settlement or Payment Plan

In many cases, garnishment can be avoided or reduced by negotiating a settlement or payment plan with your creditors. An experienced wage garnishment defense attorney can help facilitate these negotiations, ensuring that the agreement is fair and sustainable for you. If the garnishment is related to unsecured debt, such as credit card debt, your garnishment attorney may be able to reduce the amount owed or even eliminate some of the debt entirely.

Filing a Claim for Exemptions

Contesting the Garnishment in Court

If you believe the garnishment is unfair or incorrect, an attorney can help you contest the garnishment in court. For example, if you were not properly notified about the garnishment or if the amount being garnished exceeds legal limits, your attorney can help you file a motion to stop or reduce the garnishment. Skilled garnishment attorneys will know the legal steps to take and how to navigate the courtroom effectively. Here are some ways your attorney can help you contest an unfair garnishment:

Proper Notification and Legal Process

Failure to Notify: One of the most common legal issues is improper notification. If you were not formally notified about the garnishment or given the opportunity to contest it before it was enacted, you may have grounds for a legal challenge.

Lack of Due Process: Garnishment proceedings must follow strict legal processes. If these processes were not properly adhered to, such as the creditor failing to provide proof of the debt or not following the correct court procedure, an attorney can help you dispute the garnishment on procedural grounds.

Garnishment Exceeds Legal Limits

Excessive Garnishment: Federal law provides clear guidelines on how much of your wages can be garnished. Typically, the maximum amount is 25% of your disposable income, or the amount by which your weekly wages exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage, whichever is less. If the garnishment exceeds these limits, your attorney can help you challenge the garnishment for being unlawful.

Exempt Income: Certain types of income, like Social Security benefits or disability payments, are exempt from garnishment. If part of your income is exempt and the garnishment is affecting it, an attorney can file a claim to stop the garnishment on that portion of your income.

How to Find the Right Garnishment Lawyer Near Me

When searching for a garnishment lawyer, you’ll want to make sure you find someone with the experience and knowledge to handle your case effectively. Here’s how you can find a wage garnishment lawyer near me:

Research Local Attorneys

Start by researching wage garnishment lawyers near me through online directories, reviews, or recommendations. Local attorneys who specialize in wage garnishment cases will have a better understanding of your state’s specific laws and can offer personalized assistance. Additionally, garnishment attorneys near me may be more accessible for face-to-face consultations.

Look for Specialized Experience

Ensure that the attorney you choose has specialized experience in wage garnishment defense. You want a wage garnishment attorney who has worked with clients in similar situations and who understands the intricacies of garnishment laws. Experienced garnishment lawyers will have a track record of success in representing clients in cases involving garnishment.

Schedule Consultations

Check for Client Reviews

Check online reviews or ask the lawyer for client testimonials to understand the experiences of previous clients. Client reviews can provide valuable insights into the attorney’s communication, professionalism, and success rate.

The Benefits of Hiring a Garnishment Lawyer

Hiring a garnishment attorney can significantly improve your chances of obtaining a favorable outcome in your case. Here are some key benefits of working with a garnishment lawyer:

Expert Legal Advice: An experienced attorney can provide you with expert advice on how to approach your case and which actions to take.

Reduced Stress: Dealing with wage garnishment can be stressful, but a qualified lawyer will handle the legal complexities and allow you to focus on other aspects of your life.

Improved Financial Outcomes: With the right attorney, you may be able to reduce the amount garnished or stop it altogether, improving your overall financial situation.

Protection of Your Rights: A wage garnishment defense attorney ensures that your rights are not violated, and that the garnishment process is fair and legal.

Conclusion

Wage garnishment can be overwhelming and confusing, but with the help of an experienced garnishment lawyer, you don’t have to face it alone. Whether you’re searching for a wage garnishment attorney near me or need a garnishment attorney near me to defend your case, the right lawyer can make all the difference in the outcome of your case. By providing expert legal advice, negotiating with creditors, and advocating for your rights, an experienced lawyer for garnishment is an essential ally in overcoming wage garnishment and restoring your financial stability.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is wage garnishment?

Wage garnishment is a legal process in which a portion of your wages is withheld by your employer to pay off a debt. It typically occurs when a court order is issued due to unpaid debts, such as child support, taxes, or credit card bills. The garnishment continues until the debt is fully paid or you take legal action to stop it.

2. How can a wage garnishment lawyer help me?

A wage garnishment lawyer can help by providing legal guidance, ensuring that your rights are protected during the garnishment process. They can negotiate with creditors, challenge the garnishment if it’s improper, or explore alternative solutions like a payment plan. If necessary, they can also help you file exemptions to reduce the amount being garnished or stop it entirely.

3. Can a wage garnishment lawyer near me help me reduce the amount of my garnishment?

Yes, a wage garnishment attorney near me can help you reduce the garnishment amount. They can review your case and determine if the garnishment is excessive or if you qualify for exemptions. They may also be able to negotiate with creditors to lower the garnished amount or establish a more manageable repayment plan.

4. What is the difference between a garnishment attorney and a wage garnishment lawyer?

In essence, both terms refer to the same type of professional — an attorney who specializes in dealing with wage garnishments. Wage garnishment attorneys or garnishment lawyers have experience handling cases related to wage withholding and can help clients navigate the legal process, challenge garnishments, and protect their income.

5. How can I find a good garnishment lawyer near me?

To find a qualified garnishment lawyer near me, start by researching local attorneys who specialize in wage garnishment cases. Look for reviews, testimonials, and consult with a few potential lawyers to find one with experience handling cases similar to yours. Schedule consultations to discuss your case and assess their approach to representation.

0 notes