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      These companies are as complicit as the far right in threatening US democracy | Robert Reich

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      Boeing, GM, FedEx: these are as complicit as the far right in threatening US democracyRobert ReichCorporations are underwriting the thuggery of Trump and his allies – all because they want to pay as little tax as possible In 2016, when clashes with taxi drivers broke out in 2016 in Paris, Uber’s then-chief executive Travis Kalanick texted fellow executives that “violence guarantees success” in what was a key market for the company.Uber leveraged the violence against its drivers to win sympathy from regulators and the public, as it also did in South Africa where Uber drivers were burned when their cars were set on fire. (This look inside Uber’s internal deliberations came from records Uber lobbyist Mark MacGann turned over to the Guardian.)John Bolton says he ‘helped plan coups d’etat’ in other countriesRead moreI’ve been thinking about Uber’s capitalist thuggery in light of the corporations underwriting Trump’s thuggery, which includes violent groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who led the attack on the US Capitol.Tuesday’s hearing of the January 6 committee added more grim details, such as numerous connections between these violent groups and Trump confidants Roger Stone, Michael Flynn.Trump’s thuggery continues. A phone message received by White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson just before she testified before the January 6 committee warned that someone “let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal. And you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.”If this sounds like a gangster threat, that’s the point.During Hutchinson’s earlier depositions before the committee, her legal counsel was paid for by Trump’s “Save America Pac” (the Pac paid the legal expenses of other panel witnesses, too.) When she realized “she couldn’t call her attorney to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got more information’” because the attorney “was there to insulate the big guy”, according to a friend, she secured free counsel who would not inhibit her. Now, after testifying in public, Hutchinson is in hiding.Meanwhile, the “big guy” continues to stir up his mob with lies about stolen elections and secret plots – fueling a new wave of threats against committee members.Several have increased their personal security. Committee chair Bennie Thompson, co-chair Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have security details; other members have requested them.Kinzinger, one of the panel’s two Republican members alongside Cheney, says he’s received “constant” death threats. “There is violence in the future, I’m going to tell you,” Kinzinger told ABC. “And until we get a grip on telling people the truth, we can’t expect any differently.”Kinzinger has announced he will not be seeking re-election. Cheney has paused participating in public events in part because of safety concerns.Does any of this remind you of Hitler’s Brown Shirts or Mussolini’s Blackshirts?At the least, it should raise questions about the wealthy individuals and corporations that continue to bankroll this thuggery – among them, billionaires Peter Thiel, Rebecca Mercer, Charles Koch, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, ex-casino mogul Steve Wynn, and shipping magnate Richard Uihlein.Funding is also coming from Boeing, Koch Industries, Home Depot, FedEx, General Dynamics, Toyota, AT&T, Valero Energy, Lockheed Martin, UPS, Raytheon, Marathon Petroleum, GM and FedEx.In April alone, the most recent month for which data is available, Fortune 500 companies and trade organizations gave more than $1.4m to members of Congress who voted not to certify the election results. AT&T led the pack, giving $95,000 to election objectors.Toyota is even funding Trump ally Andrew Biggs, a fervent devotee of the big lie who refuses to comply with a congressional subpoena to testify before the committee. Six congressmen who have refused to testify have raked in more than $826,000 from corporate donors since the assault on the Capitol.Why are these wealthy individuals and corporations doing this? Presumably because they want to pay as little in taxes as possible and believe Trump and his Republicans will deliver even more tax cuts than they did before.But how is this capitalist thuggery in pursuit of profits different from Uber’s thuggery? And is it more excusable than the political thuggery it’s enabling?To state the question in historical terms, how different is their behavior from the wealthy European industrialists who quietly backed the fascists in the 1920s and 1930s?These billionaire and corporate funders are as complicit as are the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in threatening American democracy.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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      Pound rises against dollar after Boris Johnson quits

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      The pound rose against the dollar after Boris Johnson announced he is to be replaced as prime minister. Sterling gained more than 0.4 per cent to $1.2 as traders priced in the prospect of an end to months of chaos under Mr Johnson’s leadership. He will remain in place while the Conservative Party selects a new leader.As markets reacted to the news, sterling regained some of the ground it lost this week but remains more than 10 per cent down against the US currency.The pound hit a two-year low against the dollar on Tuesday amid growing fears for the future of Britain’s economy.The dollar has strengthened in response to a series of large interest rate increases by the US Federal Reserve.RecommendedA weak pound is serving to push up prices for goods that the UK imports, such as energy, food and manufactured products.Consumer price inflation hit 9.1 per cent in May and is expected to surge to 11 per cent later this year, meaning households face big falls in living standards as wages fail to keep up with the rising cost of essential goods.While new leadership of the country promises to bring some measure of political stability, the new prime minister will still face a long list of economic problems. Consumer confidence has hit its lowest level on record according to a long-running survey by Growth from Knowledge (GfK), while car sales fell to their lowest level for any June since 1996. The construction industry is also slowing down, new industry figures show.The Bank of England said on Tuesday that the prospects for the UK economy had “deteriorated materially” since Russia invaded Ukraine. More

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      Environmentalists condemn Biden administration’s offshore drilling plan

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      Environmentalists condemn Biden administration’s offshore drilling planPolicy would ban new ocean drilling but allow up to 11 lease sales in Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s south coast Joe Biden’s administration on Friday unveiled a five-year offshore oil and gas drilling development plan that blocks all new drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans within US territorial waters while allowing some lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s south coast.The plan, which has not been finalized, could allow up to 11 lease sales but gives the interior department the right to make none. It comes two days after the US supreme court curbed the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to respond to the climate crisis.Environmental groups criticized the plan, and some expressed concern that the administration was backing away from the president’s “no more drilling” pledge during a March 2020 one-on-one debate with Bernie Sanders.Biden at the time said, “No more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling, including offshore – no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill – period.”Environmental groups also argued that new leasing would impede the Biden administration’s goal to cut carbon emissions by at least 50% by 2030 in an effort to keep global heating under the threshold of 1.5C (2.7F).“President Biden campaigned on climate leadership, but he seems poised to let us down at the worst possible moment,” said Brady Bradshaw, senior oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The reckless approval of yet more offshore drilling would mean more oil spills, more dead wildlife and more polluted communities. We need a five-year plan with no new leases.”Wenonah Hauter of Food & Water Watch said: “President Biden has called the climate crisis the existential threat of our time, but the administration continues to pursue policies that will only make it worse.”On Friday, the interior secretary, Deb Haaland, said she and the president “had made clear our commitment to transition to a clean energy economy”. The department’s proposal, she said, was “an opportunity for the American people to consider and provide input on the future of offshore oil and gas leasing”.California passes first sweeping US law to reduce single-use plasticRead moreThe proposal to sell off 11 leases must go through a series of reviews and a period of public comment that is likely to be contentious. Most of the new leases would be offered in parts of the western and central Gulf of Mexico, far from where legislators have outlawed new drilling near Florida.The executive director of Healthy Gulf, Cyn Sarthou, said the organization was troubled by the apparent change of policy.“Now is not the time to continue business as usual,” Sarthou said. “The continuing threat posed by climate change requires the nation to focus on a transition to renewable energy.”Nearly 95% of US offshore oil production and 71% of offshore natural gas production occurs in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. About 15% of oil production comes from offshore drilling.The proposed leases come after sales in two regions of the Gulf were abandoned because of legal challenges.Advocates for the oil industry welcomed the new proposal, including the Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.“Our allies across the free world are in desperate need of American oil and gas,” Manchin said in a statement. “I am disappointed to see that ‘zero’ lease sales is even an option on the table.”One of the proposed new leases could be granted in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, an area that is already highly vulnerable to the effects of climate breakdown. “This decision is incredibly disappointing in the face of ongoing climate impacts that are already being deeply felt by our community around Alaska,” said the advocacy director at Cook Inletkeeper, Liz Mering.Mering added: “Alaskans have worked to ensure that Lower Cook Inlet remains this incredible place for our fisheries and tourism industry, which support a thriving local economy. Thirty-three years after the horrific Exxon Valdez disaster, Alaskans still remember and recognize the risk of more oil fouling our waters, killing our fish and hurting Alaskans.”The proposal came a day after the administration held its first auction of onshore lease sales, drawing bids of $22m from energy companies seeking drilling rights on about 110 square miles of public land across Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.After the sale, the Western Environmental Law Center attorney Melissa Hornbein said: “Overwhelming scientific evidence shows us that burning fossil fuels from existing leases on federal lands is incompatible with a livable climate.”TopicsBiden administrationJoe BidenOilGasUS politicsCommoditiesClimate crisisnewsReuse this content More

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      Why is the US about to give away $52bn to corporations like Intel? | Robert Reich

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      Why is the US about to give away $52bn to corporations like Intel? Robert ReichThe Chips Act would provide an enormous subsidy to chipmakers for making their chips in the US. This is extortion Congress will soon put final touches on the Chips Act, which will provide more than $52bn to companies that design and make semiconductor chips.The subsidy is demanded by the biggest chipmakers as a condition for making more chips in America.It’s pure extortion.Fed chief vows to keep raising rates until ‘compelling evidence’ of falling inflationRead moreThe world’s biggest chipmaker (in terms of sales) is already an American corporation – Intel, based in Santa Clara, California.Intel hardly needs the money. Its revenue rose to $79bn last year. Its chief executive, Pat Gelsinger, got a total compensation package of $179m (which was 1,711 times larger than the average Intel employee).Intel designs, assembles, and tests its chips in China, Israel, Ireland, Malaysia, Costa Rica, and Vietnam, as well as in the US.The problem for the US is Intel is not helping America cope with its current shortage of chips by giving preference to producers in the United States. And it’s not keeping America on the cutting edge of new chip technologies.Obviously, Intel would like some of the $52bn Congress is about to throw at the semiconductor chip industry. But why exactly should Intel get the money?Among the other likely beneficiaries of the Chips Act will be GlobalFoundries, which currently makes chips in New York and Vermont – but in many other places around the world as well.GlobalFoundries isn’t even an American corporation. It’s a wholly owned subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Co.,the sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates.The nation where a chipmaker (or any other high-tech global corporation) is headquartered has less and less to do with where it designs and makes things.Which explains why every industry that can possibly be considered “critical” is now lobbying governments for subsidies, tax cuts, and regulatory exemptions, in return for designing and making stuff in that country.It’s a giant global shakedown.India, Japan and South Korea have all recently passed tax credits, subsidies and other incentives amounting to tens of billions of dollars for the semiconductor industry. The European Union is finalizing its own chips act with $30bn to $50bn in subsidies.Even China has extended tax and tariff exemptions and other measures aimed at upgrading chip design and production there.“Other countries around the globe … are making major investment in innovation and chip production,” says Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer. “If we don’t act quickly, we could lose tens of thousands of good-paying jobs to Europe.”But who is “we,” senator?John Neuffer, the chief executive of the Semiconductor Industry Association (the Washington lobbying arm of the semiconductor industry) warns that chipmaking facilities are often 25 to 50% cheaper to build in foreign countries than in the United States.Why is that? As he admits, it’s largely because of the incentives foreign countries have offered.As capital becomes ever more global and footloose, it’s easy for global corporations to play nations off against each other. As the then-chief executive of US-based ExxonMobil unabashedly stated: “I’m not a US company and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the US”People, by contrast, are rooted within nations, which gives them far less bargaining power.This asymmetry helps explain why Congress is ready to hand over $52bn to a highly profitable global industry but can’t come up with even $22.5bn the Biden administration says is necessary to cope with the ongoing public health crisis of Covid.If they are publicly owned, corporations must be loyal to their shareholders by maximizing the value of their shares. But over 40% of the shareholder value of American-based companies is owned by non-Americans.Besides, there’s no reason to suppose a company’s American owners will be happy to sacrifice investment returns for the good of the nation.The real question is what conditions the United States (or any other nation that subsidizes chipmakers) should place on receipt of such subsidies.It can’t be enough that chipmakers agree to produce more chips in the nation that’s subsidizing them, because chipmakers sell their chips to the highest bidders around the world regardless of where the chips are produced.If the US is going to subsidize them, it should demand chipmakers give highest priority to their American-based customers that use the chips in products made in the United States, by American workers.And Congress should demand they produce the highest value-added chipmaking in the US – design, design engineering, and high precision manufacturing – so Americans gain that technological expertise.What happens if every nation subsidizing chipmakers demands these for itself?Chipmakers will then have to choose. The extortion will then end.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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      Biden’s proposed federal tax cut on gas could cost dearly in the future

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      Biden’s proposed federal tax cut on gas could cost dearly in the futureExperts warn cutting the 18 cents will take a toll on highway upkeep and cause prices to rise further when the holiday ends America’s hard-pressed drivers may be about to receive a holiday. On Wednesday Joe Biden called on Congress to suspend the federal tax on gas and diesel until September as the country struggles with soaraway costs at the pump. But experts warned the tax holiday is unlikely to have a major impact on prices and will probably further harm the US’s already battered roads and bridges. If the tax cut even gets passed.Biden’s ‘cursed presidency’: gas prices are latest headache as midterms loomRead moreBlaming Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the surge in gas prices Biden proposed cutting the 18-cents-a-gallon federal taxes on fuel until September and called on states to cut their gas taxes too. “Together, these actions could help drop the price at the pump by up to $1 a gallon or more. It doesn’t reduce all the pain, but it will be a big help,” said Biden.The tax cut’s first obstacle may be its last. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, called the plan an “ineffective stunt” and other critics in his own party may join Republicans in blocking any cut.But with prices still soaring and midterm elections looming the administration is increasingly looking for ways to spare the public from prices at the pump, currently averaging at just under $5 a gallon.The non-partisan Tax Foundation called the plan a “uniquely ill-suited policy for addressing rising prices”. Pointing out that the money from the tax is the primary funding source for highway construction and its suspension could cost $10bn in funding.“Anything that could help the price at the pump is good, but it’ll come at a significant cost to the federal government that supposedly uses that money for the highway fund to maintain highways,” said Mark Finley, fellow in energy and global oil at the center for energy studies at Rice University.US energy economists also warn that dropping taxes on gasoline – a similar program has been suggested in the UK and other countries – does not address the fundamental issues of high demand.In a February report, the committee for a responsible federal budget found a federal gas tax holiday could “further increase demand for gasoline and other goods and services at a time when the economy has little capacity to absorb it”.“Gas prices are high because supply and demand are tight in the US and around the world both for oil and refined products. The prices are a signal that producers should produce more and consumers should consume less. You don’t fix the problem and you may exacerbate it, if you try to hide those signals,” said Finley.Moreover, prices may surge when the tax is lifted, according to a study released from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Earlier this year, Maryland introduced a month-long gas tax holiday. The study found that prices rose when it expired and the tax may have cost the state $100m.Other states have tried similar measures. New York suspended its 16-cents-a-gallon tax this month for the rest of the year. Others, including Georgia, Florida and Connecticut, are cutting the tax but for shorter periods. California may send $400 to every registered vehicle owner.The debate over energy prices threatens to become one of the most contentious of the election season. This week, Exxon Mobil said global oil markets may remain tight for another three to five years, largely because of a lack of investment since the pandemic began. Biden has responded to rising prices at the pump – and a decline in his approval rating – by lobbying Opec+ countries, which include Russia, to accelerate production increases.Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia next month to ask the kingdom to turn on the spigots. But studies indicate that the Saudis are themselves at the limits of current capacity. The venture comes with a political cost, undercutting the administration’s commitment to renewable energy and an election pledge to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state after the murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Other measures that the administration has undertaken to reduce energy costs, including releasing millions of barrels of crude oil from the strategic petroleum reserve and greater ethanol blending, have not turned the tide on rising prices. According to Ed Hirs at the University of Houston’s department of economics, Biden’s actions, including a stern letter to refiners to produce more gasoline and diesel, will not keep the average price at the pump from reaching $6 by September.The debate over energy has in a sense been misframed, said Hirs. “We don’t see lines at the pump, there is no shortage of oil, all we see is a higher price and that’s in essence because Opec wants a higher price,” Hirs says.The message to the US consumer is equally blunt. After 2008, when oil hit $147 a barrel, US automakers had to accept government bailouts as the consumers jumped away from gas-guzzling SUVs and pick-up trucks.“If the war in Ukraine continues we could easily see the same thing by this time next year,” Hirs predicted. “We have to think of this in a different way. A lot of folks in the west think we’re entitled to gasoline and diesel, in the same way we’re entitled to iPhones. But we haven’t operated the economy like that.”Put plainly, there’s little the administration can do. “We’ve reached a point where supplies of gasoline, diesel and crude oil are below our five-year averages, so it appears we’ve been exporting as much as we can,” said Hirs. “As long as the conflict, really between the US and Russia, persists, the EU nations will be additional buyers. So the fellow in London looking to fill his car, and the woman in France, are competing with someone on I-95.”TopicsOilUS politicsBiden administrationanalysisReuse this content More

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      The Crypto Crash: all Ponzi schemes topple eventually

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      The Crypto Crash: all Ponzi schemes topple eventually Robert ReichWe’re back to the wild west finances of the 1920s as the crypto industry pours huge money into political campaigns One week ago, as cryptocurrency prices plummeted, Celsius Network – an experimental cryptocurrency bank with more than one million customers that has emerged as a leader in the murky world of decentralized finance, or DeFi – announced it was freezing withdrawals “due to extreme market conditions.”Earlier this past week, Bitcoin dropped 15 percent over 24 hours to its lowest value since December 2020. Last month, TerraUSD, a stablecoin – a system that was supposed to perform a lot like a conventional bank account but was backed only by a cryptocurrency called Luna – collapsed, losing 97 percent of its value in just 24 hours, apparently destroying some investors’ life savings.Eighty-nine years ago, Franklin D Roosevelt signed into law the Banking Act of 1933 – also known as the Glass-Steagall Act. It separated commercial banking from investment banking – Main Street from Wall Street – to protect people who entrusted their savings to commercial banks from having their money gambled away.Glass-Steagall’s larger purpose was to put an end to the giant Ponzi scheme that had overtaken the American economy in the 1920s and led to the Great Crash of 1929.Americans had been getting rich by speculating on shares of stock and various sorts of exotica (roughly analogous to crypto). These risky assets’ values rose solely because a growing number of investors put money into them.But at some point, Ponzi schemes topple of their own weight. When the toppling occurred in 1929, it plunged the nation and the world into a Great Depression. The Glass-Steagall Act was a means of restoring stability.But by the 1980s, America forgot the financial trauma of 1929. As the stock market soared, speculators noticed they could make lots more money if they could gamble with other people’s money – as speculators did in the 1920s. They pushed Congress to deregulate Wall Street, arguing that the United States financial sector would otherwise lose its competitive standing relative to other financial centers around the world.Finally, in 1999, Bill Clinton and Congress agreed to ditch what remained of Glass-Steagall.As a result, the American economy once again became a betting parlor. Inevitably, Wall Street suffered another near-death experience from excessive gambling. Its Ponzi schemes began toppling in 2008, just as they had in 1929.The difference was this time the US government bailed out the biggest banks and financial institutions. The wreckage was contained. Still, millions of Americans lost their jobs, their savings, and their homes (and not a single banking executive went to jail).Which brings us to the crypto crash.The current chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, has described cryptocurrency investments as “rife with fraud, scams, and abuse.” In the murky world of crypto DeFi, it’s hard to know who provides money for loans, where the money flows, or how easy it is to trigger currency meltdowns.There are no standards for risk management or capital reserves. There are no transparency requirements. Investors often don’t know how their money is being handled. Deposits are not insured. We’re back to the wild west finances of the 1920s.Before the crypto crash, the value of cryptocurrencies had kept rising by attracting an ever-growing number of investors and some big Wall Street money, along with celebrity endorsements. But, again, all Ponzi schemes topple eventually. And it looks like crypto is now toppling.Why isn’t this market regulated? Mainly because of intensive lobbying by the crypto industry, whose kingpins want the Ponzi scheme to continue.Trillion-dollar crypto collapse sparks flurry of US lawsuits – who’s to blame?Read moreThe industry is pouring huge money into political campaigns.And it has hired scores of former government officials and regulators to lobby on its behalf – including three former chairs of the Securities and Exchange Commission, three former chairs of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, three former US senators, one former White House chief of staff, and the former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers advises crypto investment firm Digital Currency Group Inc. and sits on the board of Block Inc., a financial-technology firm that is investing in cryptocurrency-payments systems.If we should have learned anything from the crashes of 1929 and 2008, it’s that regulation of financial markets is essential. Otherwise, they turn into Ponzi schemes that eventually leave small investors with nothing and destabilize the entire economy.It’s time for the Biden administration and Congress to regulate crypto.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsCryptocurrenciesOpinionE-commerceInternetUS politicsBiden administrationcommentReuse this content More

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      Federal Reserve announces biggest interest rate hike since 1994

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      Federal Reserve announces biggest interest rate hike since 1994Fed confirms 0.75 percentage-point increase as Americans across country hit hard by rising prices and shortages of key items With soaring inflation and the shadow of recession hanging over the United States, the Federal Reserve announced a 0.75 percentage-point increase in interest rates on Wednesday – the largest hike since 1994.Until this week the Fed had been expected to announce a smaller increase. At a press conference, the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, said the central bank decided that a larger hike was needed after recent economic news, including last week’s announcement that inflation had risen to a 40-year high.He made clear that a similarly outsized rate rise should be expected at its next meeting in July unless price rises softened. “We at the Fed understand the hardship inflation is causing,” he said. “Inflation can’t go down until it flattens out. That’s what we’re looking to see.”The hike will increase the Fed’s benchmark federal-funds rate to a range between 1.5% and 1.75% and officials said they expected rates to rise to at least 3% this year.Powell acknowledged that the Fed’s attempt to cool spending is likely to lead to job losses. The Fed expects unemployment to rise to 4.1% from the current rate of 3.6% as it attempts to bring inflation back down to its target rate of 2%.“We never seek to put people out of work,” Powell said. But, he added: “You really cannot have the kind of labor market we want without price stability.”The rate rise came after more bad news on inflation late last week sent US stock markets into a tailspin, presenting the Fed and the Biden administration with an escalating crisis amid fears that runaway inflation has now spread through the economy.Over a third of US population urged to stay indoors amid record-breaking heatRead moreThe Fed cut rates to near zero at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, as the US and global economies effectively shut down. It increased rates for the first time since 2018 in March this year, but the increase did nothing to tamp down rising prices.Powell initially described rising prices as “transitory”, but has changed his view and says the Fed intends to aggressively increase rates in order to bring prices back under control. There are already signs that consumers are cutting back in the face of rising inflation. Retail spending fell for the first time this year in May, the commerce department said on Wednesday. Home sales have fallen for three consecutive months and consumer confidence hit a record low between May and June.Last week the labor department announced consumer prices were 8.6% higher in May than they were a year ago. The increase was broad-based, with food and fuel prices rising alongside rent, airfares and car prices.Across the country, consumers are being confronted by rising prices and shortages. Nationally, gas now costs an average of $5 per gallon, close to $2 higher than a year ago. In California, a gallon of gas now costs more than $6, up from just over $4 a year ago.Supply chain disruptions and other issues have led to shortages of basic necessities including tampons and baby formula.On Wednesday, Joe Biden summoned top oil executives to the White House to discuss ways they can “work with my administration to bring forward concrete, near-term solutions that address the crisis”.Biden’s handling of the inflation issue has battered his poll numbers. With crucial midterm elections, and control of Congress, coming up in November, Biden’s approval rating is 33%, according to Quinnipiac University’s national poll, equal to the lowest rating for his administration.Many parts of the economy remain strong and the Fed is aiming for a “soft landing” – hoping it can tame inflation by raising rates without sharply increasing the unemployment rate – but Powell acknowledged some risks, including the war in Ukraine, were beyond the influence of the Fed.Nearly 70% of the academic economists polled by the Financial Times and the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business now believe the US economy will tip into a recession next year.TopicsFederal ReserveUS interest ratesUS economyInflationUS politicsBiden administrationEconomicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Palantir, the all-seeing US data company keen to get into NHS health systems | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Palantir, the all-seeing US tech company, could soon have the data of millions of NHS patients. My response? Yikes!Arwa MahdawiYou might never have heard of tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s CIA-backed analytics company. But it could know all about you if it wins a contract to manage NHS data Peter Thiel has a terrible case of RBF – reclusive billionaire face. I’m not being deliberately mean-spirited, just stating the indisputable fact that the tech entrepreneur, a co-founder of PayPal, doesn’t exactly give off feel-good vibes. There is a reason why pretty much every mention of Thiel tends to be peppered with adjectives such as “secretive”, “distant” and “haughty”. He has cultivated an air of malevolent mystique. It’s all too easy to imagine him sitting in a futuristic panopticon, torturing kittens and plotting how to overthrow democracy.It’s all too easy to imagine that scenario because (apart from the torturing kittens part, obviously), that is basically how the 54-year-old billionaire already spends his days. Thiel was famously one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors in 2016; this year, he is one of the biggest individual donors to Republican politics. While it is hardly unusual for a billionaire to throw money at conservative politicians, Thiel is notable for expressing disdain for democracy, and funding far-right candidates who have peddled Trump’s dangerous lie that the election was stolen from him. As the New York Times warned in a recent profile: “Thiel’s wealth could accelerate the shift of views once considered fringe to the mainstream – while making him a new power broker on the right.”When he isn’t pumping money into far-right politicians, Thiel is busy accelerating the surveillance state. In 2004, the internet entrepreneur founded a data-analytics company called Palantir Technologies (after the “seeing stones” used in The Lord of the Rings), which has been backed by the venture capital arm of the CIA. What dark magic Palantir does with data is a bit of a mystery but it has its fingers in a lot of pies: it has worked with F1 racing, sold technology to the military, partnered with Space Force and developed predictive policing systems. And while no one is entirely sure about the extent of everything Palantir does, the general consensus seems to be that it has access to a huge amount of data. As one Bloomberg headline put it: “Palantir knows everything about you.”Soon it might know even more. The Financial Times recently reported that Palantir is “gearing up” to become the underlying data operating system for the NHS. In recent months it has poached two top executives from the NHS, including the former head of artificial intelligence, and it is angling to get a five-year, £360m contract to manage the personal health data of millions of patients. There are worries that the company will then entrench itself further into the health system. “Once Palantir is in, how are you going to remove them?” one source with knowledge of the matter told the FT.How worried should we be about all this? Well, according to one school of thought, consternation about the potential partnership is misplaced. There is a line of argument that it is just a dull IT deal that people are getting worked up over because they don’t like the fact that Thiel gave a bunch of money to Trump. And to be fair, even if you think Thiel is a creepy dude with creepy beliefs, it is important to note that he is not the only guy in charge of Palantir: the company was co-founded in 2003 by Alex Karp, who is still the CEO; he voted for Hillary Clinton and has described himself as a progressive (although, considering his affinity for the military, he certainly has a different view of progress than I do).My school of thought, meanwhile, is best summarised as: yikes. Anyone who has had any experience of the abysmal US healthcare system should be leery of private American companies worming their way into the NHS. Particularly when the current UK government would privatise its own grandmother if the price was right. I don’t know exactly what Palantir wants with the NHS but I do know it’s worth keeping an eye on it. It’s certainly keeping an eye on you.
      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.comTopicsTechnologyOpinionArtificial intelligence (AI)NHSUS politicsHealthcommentReuse this content More