“It staggers the imagination that in September 2022 the workers who keep the trains running did not have even one sick day to care for themselves.”
Railway Workers Fight Shows Need for Paid Sick and Family Leave, Says Economist
Related:
Live updates: Railroad workers livid over deal brokered by Biden and unions to prevent strike
Congress intends to intervene to prevent a national rail strike and unilaterally impose a concessions contract, Steny Hoyer, the second highest ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, told Bloomberg News on Monday.
Millionaires’ Congress threatens to intervene against potential US railroad strike
Video via Anarchistara
Everyone pays the cost as the rich keep spending
Meanwhile, the Biden White House is doing what it can to buffer inflationary pain for working people. It has been releasing strategic petroleum reserves in a partly successful effort to lower prices at the pump, extending pandemic-era caps on some student loan payments and pushing for antitrust action in areas where corporate concentration (which has grown hand in hand with financialisation) may be responsible for some inflationary pressure.
But more changes are needed. The success of corporate lobbyists in overturning efforts to roll back carried interest loopholes are shameful. Student debt forgiveness — no matter how generous it is — will not change the fact that the cost of four years of private university in the US (an elastic cost that can be bid up indefinitely by the global rich) is nearly double the median family income. Housing markets continue to cry out for major reform.
I suspect it will take a younger generation to push through these sorts of systemic changes. They simply don’t have as much asset wealth to protect.
Federal regulators and the White House have been scrambling to prevent poor service and a possible strike from jamming up a vital but often overlooked network.
A US Freight Rail Crisis Threatens More Supply Chain Chaos
Nancy Pelosi criticised for including son in Taiwan delegation
Borqs’ filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission from June 2021 show that Paul Jnr. acquired 700,000 shares of Broqs Technologies as part of an “employee benefit plan”. But his name does not appear among the company’s 10 major shareholders in an SEC filing submitted on May 2, 2022.
In order to force high-tech companies to decouple from the People’s Republic of China and reverse U.S. decline, U.S. imperialism needs a political/military crisis with China
Amidst Uproar Over Nancy Pelosi’s Visit to Taiwan, Media Ignores Aggressive U.S. Maritime Action in South China Seas
The House speaker’s trip came after Congress passed a bill that includes $52 billion to subsidize domestic chip manufacturing
Pelosi Meets With Taiwan’s Top Chip Industry Leaders
Previously:
Senate Passes $280 Billion Industrial Policy Bill Meant to Counter China
Hopefully, the TSMC-Arizona deal doesn’t go the way of Foxconn-Wisconsin!
The latest US GDP figures for second quarter of 2022 renewed the debate about whether the US economy was in a recession or not. Real GDP contracted in the second quarter of this year by a 0.9% annualised rate (or by 0.2% quarter over quarter). That meant the US economy had contracted for two successive quarters, and so ‘technically’ (by that definition) was in a recession. Real GDP is now up only 1.6% from Q2 2021. And business investment is slowing, up only 3.5% from this time last year, the slowest rate since the end of the COVID slump in 2020.
Calling a recession and blaming it on interest rates
Senate Passes $280 Billion Industrial Policy Bill Meant to Counter China
The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 passed in a vote of 63-33, with 17 Republicans voting in favor. The over 1,000-page legislation includes $52.7 billion for direct funding for the construction and expansion of semiconductor manufacturing and $24 billion for tax incentives and other purposes.
The bill will authorize roughly $200 billion in science and technology research funding that will be spread across several government agencies over the next five years. The largest recipient of the research funds will be the National Science Foundation, which will receive $81 billion.
Related:
Third, the CHIPS Act actually has provisions designed specifically to restrict investments in China. These so-called “guardrails” require that companies taking federal dollars for American projects must also agree not to invest in state-of-the-art technology in China—not just with the federal dollars, with any dollars. Good-faith critics have raised fair concerns that these guardrails should be broader, tougher, and firmer. But any guardrails at all represent unprecedented restrictions on what U.S. companies can do in the People’s Republic. It’s one thing to say an ideal bill would hurt China even more; it’s quite another to try and claim that less-than-perfect restrictions count as “help.”
Pelosi’s Husband Dumped Up to $5M of Tech Stock Right Before Senate Passed CHIPS
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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