NYC Opens $500 Million Decoy Subway Station To Catch Turnstile Jumpers

https://www.theonion.com/nyc-opens-500-million-decoy-subway-station-to-catch-tu-1839644052?utm







NEW YORK—In a new effort by the MTA and law enforcement to crack down on fare evasion, New York City reportedly opened a $500 million decoy subway station this week to catch turnstile jumpers.




“This sprawling, state-of-the-art station will have all the sights and sounds of a regular terminal, including turnstiles that will not accept MetroCards regardless of their available balance, increasing the likelihood of attempts to avoid payment,” said MTA project manager Greg Langdon, adding that the act of fare evasion would cause the floor to open up, sending the commuter down a chute connected to a windowless underground holding cell.




“From the outside, there will be signage indicating that the very realistic station serves every train in the system. Upon entry, the station’s 500 security cameras will automatically capture high-definition photographs and videos of travellers and send them directly to the nearest precinct to be referenced against arrest records. A mix of plainclothes police and SWAT officers will also be on hand to help detain and interrogate anyone trying to ride for free. We hope to completely eliminate fare dodgers by adding decoy stations throughout the city.”




At press time, Langdon added that to cover costs for this pilot program, the MTA would be closing 472 stations.

The Grenfell Election

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfv-SHDos4w&feature=em-lbcastemail

Stacey Walker Endorses Bernie Sanders for President

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q08BllS_CDQ&feature=em-uploademail

The world is getting wetter, yet water may become less available for North America and Eurasia

Plants will demand more water in the future making less water available for people

November 4, 2019

Dartmouth College

With climate change, plants of the future will consume more water than in the present day, leading to less water available for people living in North America and Eurasia, according to a new study. The research suggests a drier future despite anticipated precipitation increases for places like the United States and Europe, populous regions already facing water stresses.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191104112828.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm

With climate change, plants of the future will consume more water than in the present day, leading to less water available for people living in North America and Eurasia, according to a Dartmouth-led study in Nature Geoscience. The research suggests a drier future despite anticipated precipitation increases for places like the United States and Europe, populous regions already facing water stresses.

The study challenges an expectation in climate science that plants will make the world wetter in the future. Scientists have long thought that as carbon dioxide concentrations increase in the atmosphere, plants will reduce their water consumption, leaving more freshwater available in our soils and streams. This is because as more carbon dioxide accumulates in our atmosphere plants can photosynthesize the same amount while partly closing the pores (stomata) on their leaves. Closed stomata means less plant water loss to the atmosphere, increasing water in the land. The new findings reveal that this story of plants making the land wetter is limited to the tropics and the extremely high latitudes, where freshwater availability is already high and competing demands on it are low. For much of the mid-latitudes, the study finds, projected plant responses to climate change will not make the land wetter but drier, which has massive implications for millions of people.

"Approximately 60 percent of the global water flux from the land to the atmosphere goes through plants, called transpiration. Plants are like the atmosphere's straw, dominating how water flows from the land to the atmosphere. So vegetation is a massive determinant of what water is left on land for people," explained lead author Justin S. Mankin, an assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth and adjunct research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. "The question we're asking here is, how do the combined effects of carbon dioxide and warming change the size of that straw?"

Using climate models, the study examines how freshwater availability may be affected by projected changes in the way precipitation is divided among plants, rivers and soils. For the study, the research team used a novel accounting of this precipitation partitioning, developed earlier by Mankin and colleagues to calculate the future runoff loss to future vegetation in a warmer, carbon dioxide-enriched climate.

The new study's findings revealed how the interaction of three key effects of climate change's impacts on plants will reduce regional freshwater availability. First, as carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, plants require less water to photosynthesize, wetting the land. Yet, second, as the planet warms, growing seasons become longer and warmer: plants have more time to grow and consume water, drying the land. Finally, as carbon dioxide concentrations increase, plants are likely to grow more, as photosynthesis becomes amplified. For some regions, these latter two impacts, extended growing seasons and amplified photosynthesis, will outpace the closing stomata, meaning more vegetation will consume more water for a longer amount of time, drying the land. As a result, for much of the mid-latitudes, plants will leave less water in soils and streams, even if there is additional rainfall and vegetation is more efficient with its water usage. The result also underscores the importance of improving how climate models represent ecosystems and their response to climate change.

The world relies on freshwater for human consumption, agriculture, hydropower, and industry. Yet, for many places, there's a fundamental disconnect between when precipitation falls and when people use this water, as is the case with California, which gets more than half of its precipitation in the winter, but peak demands are in the summer. "Throughout the world, we engineer solutions to move water from point A to point B to overcome this spatiotemporal disconnect between water supply and its demand. Allocating water is politically contentious, capital-intensive and requires really long-term planning, all of which affects some of the most vulnerable populations. Our research shows that we can't expect plants to be a universal panacea for future water availability. So, being able to assess clearly where and why we should anticipate water availability changes to occur in the future is crucial to ensuring that we can be prepared," added Mankin.

Researchers from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Richard Seager, Jason E. Smerdon, Benjamin I. Cook, who is also affiliated with NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and A. Park Williams, contributed to this study.

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Story Source:

Materials provided by Dartmouth College. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

Justin S. Mankin, Richard Seager, Jason E. Smerdon, Benjamin I. Cook & A. Park Williams. Mid-latitude freshwater availability reduced by projected vegetation responses to climate change. Nature Geoscience, 2019 DOI: 10.1038/s41561-019-0480-x

Economic Update: The Human Agenda [Trailer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3rxbTET_Lc&feature=em-uploademail

Elizabeth Warren unveils her “Medicare for All” electoral gimmick

By Kate Randall
5 November 2019

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/05/medi-n05.html

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren released details of her “Medicare for All” plan on Friday. The senator from Massachusetts has been pressed by her rivals for the Democratic Party nomination to show how her plan would be financed without increasing taxes on the middle class. Warren posted a lengthy explanation on her campaign website, headlined “Ending the Stranglehold of Health Care Costs on American Families.”

The plan is her version of the Medicare for All Act, which she co-sponsored with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The act would gradually do away with private insurance and end employer-sponsored coverage. It would make the federal government the sole insurer, creating what is called a “single payer” system.

Warren bases her plan’s cost estimate on an analysis by the Urban Institute, which calculated that a plan similar to Medicare for All would cost $59 trillion over a decade and require $34 trillion in new federal spending. She says total costs could be held to $52 trillion and that $20.5 trillion in new funding would be necessary after other savings are taken into account.

Warren’s plan has nothing in common with socialism. It would not provide high-quality, universal health care. The government would take on the role of insurer, but it would not do away with private health care providers or the giant pharmaceutical industry. It would not build or run new and upgraded facilities.

Medicare itself is a poorly funded program that provides substandard care to seniors, who must purchase supplemental coverage to subsidize office visits, prescriptions and other basic medical needs. Medicare for All could be expected to be of even poorer quality.

Building on provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) implemented under the Obama administration, Warren’s plan would seek to cut costs and ration care for the vast majority of Americans. While the ACA, commonly known as Obamacare, forced individuals to obtain insurance from a private insurer or pay a penalty, the insurer would now be the government, which, at the behest of the ruling establishment and its political representatives, would be under pressure to slash costs on the backs of the working families Warren claims to champion.

Warren’s Medicare for All would be financed through a combination of tax increases and “savings” obtained by means of cutbacks to health care provision.

The cost estimate for Warren’s plan was carried out by Don Berwick, a former director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under Obama, and Simon Johnson, the former chief economist at the World Bank. Berwick was an advocate for the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which was envisioned as a body to cut Medicare costs and ration care under the ACA.

In the course of a decade, Warren’s Medicare for All would achieve savings on the following basis:

• Private insurers currently consume about 12.2 percent for “administrative costs” and profits. Warren assumes this would fall to 2.3 percent, saving $1.8 trillion.

• Warren proposes cutting payment rates for brand-name drugs by 70 percent, saving $1.5 trillion.

• All physicians would be paid at current Medicare rates, and hospitals would be paid at 110 percent of that rate, saving an estimated $600 billion.

• ACA-era payment “reforms” would be implemented across the single-payer system, moving away from fee-for-service. This would save an estimated $2 trillion.

• $1.1 trillion could be saved by holding health spending growth to 3.9 percent over the next decade.

Additional funding would be generated by raising taxes, including:

• A financial transactions tax of 0.1 percent of the value of every stock, bond or derivatives transaction, raising $800 billion.

• A 35 percent minimum tax on foreign earnings, bringing in $2.9 trillion.

• A 6 percent wealth tax on assets over $1 billion, generating $1 trillion.

• Taxing capital gains for the top 1 percent at the same rate as normal income, and doing so annually, would raise $2 trillion.

Another major source of revenue would result from private employers paying to the government the $9 trillion they would have spent on private health insurance for their employees.

There are many other convoluted details, but it is the proposals to raise taxes on the wealthy that have generated outrage on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms. The ruling elite is hostile to any infringement, however minimal, on its ability to accumulate wealth at the expense of the working class. It will not willingly relinquish any portion of its wealth. Nor will private insurance companies voluntarily close up shop, or the pharmaceutical companies accept a cut in their profits.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal, after bemoaning Warren’s plan to “raise the corporate tax rate back to 35 percent from 2 percent and extend it to income earned worldwide with no deferrals for foreign taxes,” claims that the scheme “doubles down on her plans to soak the rich, assuming there are any left after her other tax proposals.”

Similarly, the New York Times notes in an article on Warren’s gains in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination, “From corporate boardrooms to breakfast meetings, investor conferences to charity galas, Ms. Warren’s rise in the Democratic primary rolls is rattling bankers, investors and their affluent clients, who see in the Massachusetts senator a formidable opponent who could damage not only their industry but their way of life ” [emphasis added].

Warren’s Medicare for All plan and railing against the corporate elite have also generated opposition from her fellow candidates and other Democratic Party figures. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Bloomberg Friday, “I’m not a big fan of Medicare for All,” adding, “It’s expensive.” She said, “There is a comfort level that some people have with their current private insurance.”

Pelosi is well aware that the private insurance industry is reviled by the majority of the American population, and that medical bills are a leading cause of personal bankruptcy. Skyrocketing premiums, deductibles and co-pays are causing people to forgo medical care, posing grave risks to health and premature death. It is this growing opposition in the working class to social inequality and the bloated profits of the rich that strikes fear in the hearts of Pelosi, Warren’s fellow candidates, and Warren herself.

Elizabeth Warren and her various plans to supposedly cut taxes, improve health care, and tackle student debt do not pose a challenge to the ruling elite. She is a highly conscious and self-declared advocate of the capitalist market economy—“a capitalist to the bone,” as she told one interviewer—and an opponent of socialism.

She is a solid member of the top 1 percent, with an adjusted gross combined income with her Harvard Law School professor husband of $846,394. She espouses economic nationalism and embraces the national security doctrine outlined by the Pentagon, in which great power competition with China and Russia has displaced terrorism as the principal concern of US imperialism.

Warren’s claim that she will impose tax increases to improve health care for ordinary Americans is a fraud. She and her fellow Democrats are well aware that her Medicare for All plan has no chance of being passed by either big business party or signed into law by any president.

Her hope is that such proposals will appeal to working class voters and hoodwink them into believing that she and the Democratic Party represent a genuine alternative to the Trump administration’s policies.

The reality is that a genuinely progressive and democratic overhaul of the health care system in America requires a revolutionary socialist policy, which expropriates the private health care industry—the insurers, drug companies and giant health care chains—along with the banks and the parasitic financial industry, and places health care under the control of a democratically elected workers government as a social right. Anything short of a revolutionary solution is an empty promise and deception.

Britain: the Corbyn surge begins – we can win!

http://www.marxist.com/britain-the-corbyn-surge-begins-we-can-win.htm

This general election is going to mark a fundamental turning-point in Britain. It will have colossal ramifications internationally.

The political ground has begun to shift as a result of Corbyn taking Labour’s election campaign out into the country, raising the class issues and attacking capitalism.

A recent YouGov survey for The Sunday Times found that Labour gained six points within a matter of days into the campaign, slashing the Tory lead. The Liberal Democrats slipped three points, demonstrating the sharp polarisation that is taking place. And this is just the beginning.

It is clear that people are beginning to see the election contest as one between Boris Johnson, the Eton-educated multi-millionaire, and Jeremy Corbyn, who stands for a radical left-wing programme.

The people vs the billionaires

Labour has hit the ground running, correctly denouncing Johnson’s hidden plans to hand the NHS over to the clutches of American pharmaceutical corporations.

Corbyn has highlighted the staggering wealth of the super rich, with the top 10 percent of people owning 44 percent of the wealth. The giant corporations are getting away with murder, with the likes of Amazon paying only £220m tax on £10.9bn profits last year.

At Labour’s campaign launch meeting, Corbyn attacked the billionaires and promised that a Labour government would go after the wealthy elite who exploit a “rigged system” to amass their fortunes.

This has a big impact. Britain has around 150 billionaires – 0.0002 percent of the population – who flaunt their wealth and ill-gotten gains. Meanwhile, 14 million people live in poverty.

These billionaires have amassed their wealth and power by waging a relentless class war against working people.

We have the example of Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s third-richest man, who is worth £18bn as head of Ineos – the petrochemicals group that employs 17,000 people. He has slashed the wages of his workforce, cut holidays, and driven down conditions to boost his profits.

Or take Mike Ashley, the owner of the Sports Direct empire, which employs almost 30,000 people. Ashley’s employees are subjected to Victorian conditions in his warehouses, all to boost his obscene wealth.

Even if they didn’t spend a penny of their wages, it would take the average British worker more than 40,000 years to become a billionaire. This period is equivalent to the entire existence of Homo sapiens in Britain.

Boris Johnson has tried to frame this election as “Parliament vs People”. But Labour has correctly responded by posing it as a contest of the “people vs the billionaire elite”.

The spectre of Blairism

A sneering Tony Blair recently lamented the demise of the “middle ground”, arguing for “tactical voting” (i.e. not voting Labour). He shows his true Tory colours when he says “Parliament would be worse without the Conservative independents”.

Blair goes on to say that Labour’s attack on poor old “dodgy landlords”, “billionaires” and a “corrupt system” is “textbook populism”. This snake in the grass then continues, saying that: “It is no more acceptable in the mouth of someone who calls themselves leftwing than in the mouth of Donald Trump’s right.”

This is rich coming from the mouth of a multi-millionaire, warmonger, and poodle of US imperialism.

It is only with radical policies – aimed against what Blair cynically describes as the “pantomime villains of capitalism” – that Labour can win the election.

Tory campaign stalls

Ironically, this has been made easier by the decision of Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party to fight all the seats in this election. This will take more votes away from the Tories than Labour, handing victory to Labour in many seats. In fact, Labour estimates that it could gain an extra 40 seats as a result. This has provoked panic in the Johnson camp.

With the Brexit Party entering the fray, the road to Number 10 is narrowing by the hour for Boris Johnson. Furthermore, after ten years of Tory austerity, people are very wary of voting Conservative, despite Johnson’s bluff and bluster.

This will certainly cut across Tory hopes of winning Labour seats in the North, Midlands and Wales. No matter how much they promise to increase spending, it all sounds rather hollow after years of Tory cuts.

Tory strategists can see that their tactic of running a “parliament versus people” campaign has already largely flopped. “Getting Brexit done” is also wearing thin as a slogan.

For these reasons, Johnson could end up having the most short-lived tenure of Downing Street in history.

Preparing for power

We can envisage a repeat of the 2017 election. At this point two years ago, Labour was 24 points behind the Tories. But by polling day Labour had gained 30 seats, almost gaining the keys to Number 10.

Labour is starting from a much better position this time round. Hundreds of thousands of people – particularly young people – have registered to vote. Corbyn is likely once again to overwhelmingly win the youth vote.

Given all this, Corbyn could easily be propelled into power. Even if Labour does not win an outright majority, it could still be the biggest party in Parliament. The SNP, who are likely to take a big majority of seats in Scotland, would support a Labour government from the outside. And Swinson, who hates Corbyn, will nevertheless have great difficulty in supporting a Johnson Tory government. Corbyn would therefore still become prime minister.

Of course, Labour could gain enough seats to not have to rely on the support of other parties. That would be the best option. Whatever the outcome, Labour must not enter into any coalitions or pacts. Instead, it should stand by its promises, challenging the other parties to vote against the radical and popular demands on offer.

We can’t take things for granted. There are weeks to go before the polls close. The political situation is very volatile. We must still mobilise and fight for every vote.

Big business sabotage

A Corbyn Labour government will be faced by many obstacles – including from the Fifth Column of Blairites in the Parliamentary Labour Party. These Tories in disguise will attempt to sabotage all attempts to carry out radical policies.

In the words of Tony Blair: “There is a core of good Labour MPs who will not be whipped into supporting policy they do not believe in.” They will act as the reliable representatives of big business. When the time comes, they will stab Corbyn in the back.

The bosses and bankers will also attempt to undermine the government in every way they can. They not only fear Corbyn, but also the millions of workers behind him, desperate for real change. They fear that a Labour government will be pushed even further than it intends. And they are right.

“I want you to know,” stated John McDonnell to Labour conference last year, “that the greater the mess we inherit, the more radical we have to be.”

Well, Britain has been ravaged by a decade of capitalist crisis and Tory austerity. No amount of tinkering is going to turn this around. Only a bold programme of socialist policies can offer a way out of this great mess.

For a socialist Labour government!

Furthermore, the whole world economy – including Britain – is facing a new slump. Mervyn King, the former head of the Bank of England, when addressing a recent meeting of the IMF, stated that we are “sleepwalking with our eyes closed into another crisis”.

King warned that we are facing a new “financial Armageddon”. And he should know – after all, he was at the helm when the bankers “sleepwalked” into the 2008 crash.

Such a catastrophe can only be solved by clear socialist measures. Labour will need to take control of the economy out of the hands of the billionaires. This means taking over the commanding heights of the economy, the banks, finance houses, the land, and giant monopolies, all under workers’ control and management.

A Corbyn government will have to mobilise the working class in response to the sabotage of big business, in order to carry through the socialist transformation of society. That is the only answer to the crisis of capitalism.

Only in this way can Labour carry through its programme and radically transform the lives of the majority in Britain. This is what we must fight for.