Alternative Visions

Jack reviews today’s just released jobs numbers confirming his prior

prediction jobs growth would slow in wake of US GDP slowdown last

quarter. Plus an overview of US economy and a prediction of recession in

early 2017. In the second half of the show, a review of latest

developments in global economy--with commentary on how the IMF

outmaneuvered the Syriza government in Greece again, the likelihood of

UK ‘Brexit’ from the EU, $10 trillion in negative interest rates and

more than $10 trillion in global non-performing bank loans, the recent

G7 meeting in Japan and prime minister Abe’s warning of another ‘Lehman

event’ on the horizon, the European Central Bank’s recent decision to

now buy corporation bonds, like Japan, China’s rotating financial asset

bubbles, eventual currency devaluation, capital flight, corporate

bankruptcies, and out of control private sector debt acceleration. (see

jackrasmus.com blog for  recent articles, ‘Is US Economy Heading for Another Recession?’ and ‘How the IMF outmaneuvered Syriza—Again’)

Jack Rasmus interviews Alan Benjamin, eyewitness to

developing events in France, where workers and students are protesting

and striking against government attempts to impose by edict changes in

France’s labor code that will allow corporations to fire and lay off

workers more easily, undermine unions and collective bargaining, and

privatize broad sectors of the French economy. Traveling to France on

numerous occasions in recent months, and just returning from a week ago,

Benjamin describes the growing opposition in France to the so-called

‘labor market reforms’ imposed by Presidential edict by the Hollande

government there. Growing one day, rolling strikes, and spreading

student-worker protests across the country are resulting in growing

government violence against the protestors. Discussions are intensifying

within France’s labor union federations to consider a general strike to

get the government to back off of its proposed labor ‘reforms’.  A

recent country-wide poll in France shows 78% opposed to the reforms, as

the government declares it will not back down.  Jack explains how ‘labor

market reform’ in France and Europe today is a reflection of similar

changes in jobs occurring globally—including shift to part time, temp,

contract work, offshoring and relocation of full time employment to

emerging markets, shift to low pay/no benefits service work, and

emerging trends like ‘gig’ economy, no pay internships, and

privatization of social benefits.

Alan

Benjamin is a delegate of the San Francisco Labor Council and member of

the OPEIU, who works in Europe and the US.  He is also a member of the

US ‘Labor Fightback Network’ of unionists in the US. More information on

events in France is available at www.laborfightbacknetwork.org and at www.socialistorganizer.org.

Jack Rasmus welcomes CWA Local 1400 president and union bargaining

committee member, Don Trementozzi, to report the facts about the current

Verizon strike, now in its fifth week, by 40,000 CWA union members,

from New England to Virginia. Don explains the main issue, and union

demand ,to save 20,000 union call center workers’ jobs that Verizon

wants to offshore from the US to the Philippines and elsewhere, where

the company pays workers only $1.78/hr., despite having made $18.6

billion in profits last year. Violence by replacement-scab workers hired

by the company in the US and in the Philippines are described by

Trementozzi. Jack notes the recent Pew Study showing incomes of middle

class US workers now falling in 203 of 226 regions in the US, and how

the ‘triple onslaught’ by companies—job offshoring, creating tens of

millions of part time-temp-contract low pay jobs, and now the ‘gig’

economy—has been devastating US jobs and middle class incomes, that have

been declining the past six years as companies like Verizon have been

distributing $5 trillion in dividends and stock buybacks to their

wealthy investors since 2010.  Trementozzi describes the growing support

for the strikers throughout the northeast and internationally, in this

historic strike to save jobs and call a halt to the ‘triple onslaught’

destroying US middle class incomes.

Guest: Don Trementozzi is

president of CWA local 1400 in New England and a member of the union’s

regional bargaining committee.  For more information about the strike

and negotiations go to www.cwa.org or to www.cwalocal1400.org websites.

Jack comments on today’s US job creation numbers for April, which show a

significant decline in new jobs created, to 160,000, compared to

previous months. Some problems with how jobs are calculated are

explained, including how new business creations, missing labor force,

and the US labor department surveys often fail to account for jobs

accurately or timely changes.  Recent wage gains articles in the

mainstream press are then challenged as well. Jack explains the

differences in wages as a share of national income, total compensation,

average hourly earnings, and average hourly wages all have their limits

as indications of how American workers are actually doing in terms of

take home pay after inflation.  Economic Policy Institute studies show

median worker real earnings in the US have been declining every year

since 2010. Gains in wages have been skewed to the top 10%, pulling up

‘averages’ which are not an accurate indicator of wage income declines

for the US working class.  The show concludes with a review of global

economic developments, including growing splits among economic elites in

Europe and in Japan, as their economies continue to languish despite QE

and negative rates. And how China continues to struggle with bringing

its shadow banks and speculators under control.

Dr. Jack Rasmus dissects the latest report on US economic growth for

first quarter 2016, showing a mere 0.5% annual GDP growth rate.  The

collapse confirms his prediction of early January 2016, and confirms the

US economy remains on a ‘stop-go’ trajectory, having again slipped into

a ‘stall speed’ that raises risks of US sliding into recession. Rasmus

explains the longer term trends behind the 0.5%, and why the US 0.5%

annual growth rate, when compared to the previous quarter, is an even

lower 0.1% GDP or less. Averaging over 8+ years, the US economy has

grown only 10.1%, or barely 1%, or even less per year after adjustments.

Jack explains how the US and other countries have been redefining GDP

to help the appearance of growth—including China, India and Europe as

well as US.  The more fundamental trends behind 1st quarter

US GDP are then reviewed--including business investment, industrial

production, exports, consumption, and prices, all of which suggest the

US economy nearing the brink of another recession. Why the US economy

keeps ‘relapsing’ periodically since 2009 is discussed, as well as the

likely impact of the 1st quarter US slowdown on other global economies and markets. (For more information, listeners should read Jack’s recent Telesur media article on US GDP posted on the PRN network website—‘Is the US Economy Heading for Recession?’)

Jack comments on the recent Wikileaks revelations of secret IMF plans to

impose still more austerity on Greece before this summer. Jack revisits

his predictions of last summer 2015 that the Greek debt crisis would

reappear in 2016 along with the UK exit from the EU and renewed talk of a

Greece exit as well—both of which now appear on the agenda. The Troika’s

origins of the Greek Debt and why a new kind of financial imperialism is

now emerging. Fractures between segments of Europe’s financial-economic

elites continue to grow. Jack discusses what’s wrong with US job and

GDP numbers, and why China GDP stats are about half of the official GDP

rates. Why US central bank, FED, policy of no interest rate hike

benefits US multinational companies at the expense of tens of millions

of US households and small businesses. Jack concludes with explaining

why global oil prices will again fall, China’s mini-stimulus will again

fade, and why Japan and Europe will slip further into QE and NIRP

(negative interest rates) in coming months.

Jack Rasmus discusses the strike of 36,000 communication workers that

began this week at Verizon Communications and how it reflects the

radical destruction by corporations of decent jobs in the US that has

been occurring since the 1990s. Jack calculates 52 million of the total

157 million jobs in the US labor force today are some form of

‘contingent’ or so-called ‘alternative work’ arrangements, paying

substandard wages and few if any benefits. The Verizon strike represents

worker-union efforts to stop corporate conversion of full time regular

jobs to ‘contingent,’ outsourced, contract work. Jack discusses a recent

Princeton Univ. study that shows temp and independent contract jobs

have risen by 9.4 million just since 2005—i.e. more than the total

increase in new jobs (9.1m) over the same period. Full time contingent

jobs now total 23.6m, according to the Princeton study. Add to that 26 m

more in part time contingent employment, plus another 8.2m unemployed

and more than 60 million US workers now earn less than full time wages

and virtually no benefits. And more if the ‘Uberization’ of work

underway is considered.  Median earnings for the 50m barely exceed $30k a

year. Jack explains this is at the core of the growing working class

discontent in the US that is fueling both the Trump and the Sanders

candidacies. Jack speculates on the possibility of a 4-way race for the

presidency in this year’s elections. The show concludes with a review of

the global economy, including the IMF’s recent lowered forecast,

China’s recent GDP stats, and Jack revisiting his prior forecast the US

economy would again stagnant and approach zero GDP growth for the first

quarter 2016 in stats out in a couple of weeks.

Jack discusses this past week’s revelations out of Panama of the massive

tax sheltering, avoidance and fraud by the US and global economic

elites. The economic tax ‘wikileaks’ revelations show global politicians

deeply implicated, including Iceland, UK, Argentina prime ministers.

Jack refers listeners back to his 2006 ‘War at Home’ book and the ‘Great

American Tax Shift’ and writings ever since on this topic, available at

his blog, jackrasmus.com and website, www.kyklosproductions.com/articles/html.

Where the US, Euro, Russian, China 1% hide their money in 27 global

‘jurisdictions’, estimated conservatively at $11 trillion today. Phone

Congress ‘repatriation’ tax proposals of 2005 and 2016 are explained,

recent inversion deals, and how and why US corporations hold more than

$2T offshore today. In the second half of the show, Jack reviews growing

events in Europe, with French workers and students staging massive

protests against ‘labor law reforms’, Dutch voters rejecting inclusion

of Ukraine into the EU, why odds favor a UK (Brexit) from the Eurozone

this June, why a Greek ‘Grexit’ may follow as the IMF threatens to

renege on last August’s Greek bailout, and new evidence of a Germany

economic slowdown. (For further analysis of Europe, see except of Jack’s

chapter 6, ‘Europe’s Chronic Stagnation’, from his 2016 book, ‘Systemic

Fragility in the Global Economy’, posted on his kyklosproductions

website above).

Jack Rasmus welcomes Pablo Vivanco, political commentator in Quito,

Ecuador to provide a latest update on the right wing economic and

political forces in ascendance in South America, focusing on the latest

developments in Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela. As the economic crisis

deepens throughout the region due to forces beyond the control of

progressive governments in the region—i.e. falling oil and commodity

prices, collapsing currencies, capital flight, slowing global

economy—right wing forces (with assistance of US government and elite)

have launched in the past year an intense attack throughout South

America to reverse the tide of progressive governments that came to

power since 2000. Vivanco describes the strategies and tactics, economic

and political, currently being employed by the nascent Right Wing

Offensive, including efforts to depose recently duly elected governments

in Venezuela and Brazil and the launching of intense austerity

measures, shutting down of independent media, mass layoffs, while

rewarding of global bankers and investors by the new right wing

government of billionaire, Mauricio Macri, in Argentina.  New popular

movements of resistance are described by Vivanco, as are efforts of the

new right wing forces and governments to stifle independent journalists

and media outlets throughout the region.Pablo Vivanco is

currently Director of the English Division of Telesur Media in Latin

America, a consortium of progressive Latin American countries. A former

radio host of ‘Voces Latinas’, he is a long time activist in movements

for progressive change in Latin America, living and working in Quito.

For timely reports in English on daily Latin American political events,

go to: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/index.html

Dr. Jack Rasmus explains how his version of a Financial Transaction Tax

on stocks, bonds, derivatives, and currencies could raise far more than

sufficient revenues to pay for a single payer-national health care

program and still leave hundreds of billions to expand social security

Medicare and other programs.  In the second half of the show, Rasmus

shows how a single payer system would save $1.2 trillion a year out of

the current health care cost of $3 trillion today. Based on a tax study

done in Europe in 2013, Rasmus shows a US financial tax of 5% on stocks

bond trades, a 1% tax on derivatives sold in the US, and 1% on

non-government US currency sales raises $3.89 trillion a year, or about

twice the revenues needed for a comparative single payer system.  Rasmus

then reviews and debunks the debates by neoliberal economists like Paul

Krugman, and Clinton’s ‘gang of four’ economists, who have been

attacking Sanders’ proposals for a financial tax and single payer health

care. In the first half of the show, reviewing recent events in the

global economy Rasmus addresses the fallout from the European Central

Bank’s recent decision to expand its quantitative easing and negative

interest rate programs and why they will fail; the growing default risk

in the US energy junk bond markets; the preliminary agreements by

Russia, Saudi Arabia and others to freeze oil prices; China’s continuing

desperate moves to deal with the massive bad corporate debt problem;

French retreats on introducing labor market reforms in response to mass

demonstrations: the doubling in average prescription drug prices in the

US: and why millennials (age 25-34) in the US now earn take home pay

today in 2016 less than they did in 1984.