US President Donald Trump’s botched handling of the COVID-19 crisis has left the US looking like a “third world” country and on course for a second Great Depression, one of the world’s leading economists said.
In a withering attack on the president, Joseph Stiglitz said millions of people were turning to food banks, turning up for work due to a lack of sick pay and dying because of health inequalities.
“The numbers turning to food banks are just enormous and beyond the capacity of them to supply. It is like a third world country. The public social safety net is not working,” the Nobel prize-winning economist said.
Stiglitz, a long-term critic of Trump, said that 14 percent of the population was dependent on food stamps and predicted the social infrastructure could not cope with an unemployment rate that could hit 30 percent in the coming months.
“We have a safety net that is inadequate. The inequality in the US is so large. This disease has targeted those with the poorest health. In the advanced world, the US is one of the countries with the poorest health overall and the greatest health inequality,” he said.
Stiglitz said Republicans had opposed proposals to give those affected by COVID-19 10 days’ sick leave, meaning many employees were going to work even while infected.
“The Republicans said no, because they said it would set a bad precedent. It is literally unbelievable,” Stiglitz said.
“The safety net is not adequate and is propagating the disease. There is very weak unemployment insurance and people don’t think they can rely on it,” he said.
During an interview with the Guardian to mark the paperback publication of his book People, Power, and Profits, Stiglitz was asked whether the US might be heading for a second Great Depression.
“Yes is the answer in short,” he said. “If you leave it to Donald Trump and [US Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell, we will have a Great Depression. If we had the right policy structure in place we could avoid it easily.”
Stiglitz said that as a result of Trump’s mismanagement, the White House office responsible for pandemics had been closed, funding for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been cut, and the US had gone into the crisis without enough testing kits, masks and protective gear.
Encouraged by Trump, some parts of the US were determined to reopen in a way that would facilitate the transmission of the disease and lead to a fresh outbreak, he added.
“In those circumstances it won’t be the government enforcing the lockdown, it will be fear. The concern is that people are not going to be spending on anything other than food and that’s the definition of a Great Depression,” he said.
“We were unprepared but, even given the degree of unpreparedness, Trump’s decision to make this about politics rather than about science has meant we have responded far more poorly,” he said.
Stiglitz said that if Trump were defeated in the presidential contest in November and the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress there was a chance of the US moving in a more progressive direction, but he warned Republicans would fight dirty to cling on to power.
“There is voter suppression and gerrymandering. The Republican party knows it’s a minority party and there is a no-holds-barred struggle going on to make sure a minority party rules America,” he said.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS