This post was originally published on Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera.
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European Council says 14 individuals and entities subject to asset freeze and travel ban.
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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says move would help ease cost of living for households.
This post was originally published on Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera.
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Deal with Kairos Power comes as tech giants are scouring the globe for electricity sources to power data centres.
This post was originally published on Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera.
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Malaysian stocks are having a moment in the sun amid robust economic growth and influx in investment by US tech giants.
This post was originally published on Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera.
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Low-income countries still poorer than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, report finds.
This post was originally published on Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera.
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Americans lost more than $5 billion dollars in crypto currency scams last year alone, as scammers become develop more sophisticated ways to take advantage of consumers. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
The post Crypto Scammers Have Stolen Billions From American Consumers appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.
This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.
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Grocery giant Kroger admitted recently that they have raised the prices on some of their groceries well above the rate of inflation. And that move paid off for the company as they just announced that they’ve made over a billion dollars in profits this year. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a […]
The post Kroger Reports Massive Profits While Exposing Their Price Gouging appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.
This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.
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This election season, there’s understandably been intense focus on ballot questions that will affect reproductive rights, but there’s been less discussion of the fact that multiple states will also be voting on whether to raise their minimum wage and grant workers paid sick time. Twenty-six states have an initiated constitutional amendment process, which allows citizens to place legislation…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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Workers reportedly arrested in Zhengzhou for equivalent of breach of trust.
This post was originally published on Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera.
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Jakarta is proposing 200 percent tariffs on Chinese goods, citing the United States' policies as an inspiration.
This post was originally published on Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera.
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America’s Lawyer E118: Grocery giant Kroger just posted a massive profit of more than $400 million dollars for the second quarter of this year, and that money was made by gouging consumers with price increases. Tobacco companies have come up with a clever scheme to avoid federal regulations and push their deadly products to even […]
The post Big Tobacco Tests Synthetic Nicotine On Vaping Guinea Pigs appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.
This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.
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Janine Jackson interviewed writer/researcher Derek Seidman about insurance and climate for the October 4, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: As we watch images of devastation from Hurricane Helene, it’s hard not to hold—alongside sadness at the obvious loss—anger at the knowledge that things didn’t have to be this way. Steps could have been, still could be taken, to mitigate the impact of climate change, and making weather events more extreme, and steps could be taken that help people recover from the disastrous effects of the choices made.
As our guest explains, another key player in the slow-motion trainwreck that is US climate policy—along with fossil fuel companies and the politicians that abet them—is the insurance industry, whose role is not often talked about.
Washington Post (9/3/24)
Derek Seidman is a writer, researcher and historian. He contributes regularly to Truthout and to LittleSis. He joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Derek Seidman.
Derek Seidman: Hey, thank you. Great to be here.
JJ: In your super helpful piece for Truthout, you cite a Washington Post story from last September. Here’s the headline and subhead:
Home Insurers Cut Natural Disasters From Policies as Climate Risks Grow:
Some of the largest US insurance companies say extreme weather has led them to end certain coverages, exclude natural disaster protections and raise premiums.
I think that drops us right into the heart of the problem you outline in that piece. What’s going on, and why do you call it the insurance industry’s “self-induced crisis”?
DS: Thank you. Well, certainly there is a growing crisis. The insurance industry is pulling back from certain markets and regions and states, because the costs of insuring homes and other properties are becoming too expensive to remain profitable, with the rise of extreme weather. And so we’ve seen a lot of coverage in the past few months over this growing crisis in the insurance industry.
Derek Seidman: “The insurance industry itself is a main actor in driving the rise of extreme weather, through its very close relationship to the fossil fuel industry.”
But one of the critical things that’s left out of this is that the insurance industry itself is a main actor in driving the rise of extreme weather, through its very close relationship to the fossil fuel industry. And in this narrative in the corporate media, the insurance industry on the one hand and extreme weather on the other hand, are often treated like they’re completely separate things, and they’re just sort of coming together, and this “crisis” is being created, and it’s a real problem that the connections aren’t being made there.
So I guess a couple things that should be said, first, are that the insurance industry is the fossil fuel industry, and its operations could not exist without the insurance industry.
We can look at that relationship in two ways. So first, of course, is through insurance. The insurance giants, AIG, Liberty Mutual and so on and so on, they collectively rake in billions of dollars every year in insuring fossil fuel industry infrastructure, whether that’s pipelines or offshore oil rigs or liquified natural gas export terminals. This fossil fuel infrastructure and its continued expansion, this simply could not exist without underwriting by the insurance industry. It would not get its permit approvals, it would just not be able to operate, it couldn’t attract investors and so on. So that’s one way.
Another way is that, and this is something a lot of people might not be aware of, but the insurance industry is an enormous investor in the fossil fuel industry. Basically, one of the ways the insurance industry makes money is it takes the premiums, and it pools a chunk of it and invests those. So it’s a major investor. And the insurance industry, across the board, has tens of billions of dollars invested in the fossil fuel industry.
And this is actually stuff that anybody can go and look up, because some of it’s public. So, for example, the insurance giant AIG, because it’s a big investor, it has to disclose its investments with the SEC. And earlier this year, AIG disclosed that, for example, it had $117 million invested in ExxonMobil, $83 million invested in Chevron, $46 million in Conoco Phillips, and so on and so on.
Jacobin (2/7/22)
So, on the one hand, you have this hypocritical cycle where the insurance industry is saying to ordinary homeowners, who are quite desperate, we need to jack up the price on your premiums, or we need to pull away altogether, we can’t insure you anymore—while, on the other hand, it’s driving and enabling and profiting from the very operations, fossil fuel operations, that are causing this extreme weather in the first place, that the insurance industry is then using to justify pulling back from insuring just regular homeowners.
JJ: This is a structural problem, clearly, that you’re pointing to, and you don’t want to be too conspiratorial about it. But these folks do literally have dinner with one another, these insurance executives and the fossil fuel companies. And then I want to add, you complicate it even further by talking about knock-on effects, that include making homes uninsurable. When that happens, well, then, that contributes to this thing where banks and hedge funds buy up homes. So it’s part of an even bigger cycle that folks probably have heard about.
DS: Yeah, absolutely. This whole scenario, it’s horrible, because it impacts homeowners and renters. If you talk to landlords, they say that the rising costs of insurance are their biggest expense, and they are, in part, taking that out on tenants by raising rents, right?
But it also really threatens this global financial stability. I mean, with the rise of extreme weather, and homes becoming more expensive to insure, or even uninsurable, home values can really collapse. And when they collapse, aside from the horrific human drama of all that, banks are reacquiring foreclosed homes that, in turn, are unsellable because of extreme weather, and they can’t be insured.
The big picture of all this is that it leads to banks acquiring a growing amount of risky properties, and it can create a lot of financial instability. And we saw what happened after 2008, as you mentioned, with private equity coming in and scooping up homes. And so, yeah, it creates a lot of systemic financial instability, opens the door for financial predators like private equity and hedge funds to come in.
JJ: And it seems to require an encompassing response, a response that acknowledges the various moving pieces of this. I wonder, finally, is there responsive law or policy, either on the table now or just maybe in our imagination, that would address these concerns?
DS: There are organizers that are definitely starting to do something about it, and there are some members of Congress that are also starting to do something about it.
For this story, I interviewed some really fantastic groups. One of them is Insure Our Future, and this is sort of a broader campaign that is working with different groups around the country, and really demanding that insurers stop insuring new fossil fuel build-out, that they phase out their insurance coverage for existing fossil fuels, for all the reasons that we’ve been talking about today.
At the state level, there’s groups that are doing really important and interesting things. So one of the groups that I interviewed was called Connecticut Citizen Action Group, and they’ve been working hard, in coalition with other groups in Connecticut, to introduce and pass a state bill that would create a climate fund to support residents that are impacted by extreme weather. (Connecticut has seen its fair share of extreme weather.) And this fund would be financed by taxing insurance policies in the state that are connected to fossil fuel projects. So it’s also a disincentive to invest in fossil fuels.
In New York, a coalition of groups and lawmakers just introduced something called the Insure Our Communities bill. And this would ban insurers from underwriting new fossil fuel projects, and it would set up new protections for homeowners that are facing extreme weather disasters.
I spoke to organizers in Freeport, Texas, with a group called Better Brazoria, and these are people that are on the Gulf Coast, really on the front lines. And Better Brazoria is just one of a number of frontline groups along the Gulf Coast that are organizing around the insurance industry, and they’re trying to meet with insurance giants, and say to them, “Look, what you’re doing is, we’re losing our homeowner insurance while you’re insuring these risky LNG plants that are getting hit by hurricanes, and fires are starting,” and trying to make the case to them that this is just not even good business for them.
And then, more recently, you’ve seen Bernie Sanders and others start to hold the insurance industry’s feet to the fire a little more, opening up investigations into their connection to the fossil fuel industry, and how this is creating financial instability.
Truthout (9/27/24)
So I think this is becoming more and more of an issue that people are seeing is a real problem for the financial system, and it’s something that we should absolutely think about when we think about the climate crisis, and the broader infrastructure that’s enabling the fossil fuel industry to exist, and continue its polluting operations that are causing the climate crisis and extreme weather. So I think we’re going to see only more of this going forward.
JJ: All right, then, we’ll end it there for now.
We’ve been speaking with Derek Seidman. You can find his article, “As Florida Floods, Insurance Industry Reaps What It Sowed Backing Fossil Fuels,” on Truthout.org. Thank you so much, Derek Seidman, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
DS: Thank you.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
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As support from Western governments continues to prop up Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, people of conscience continue to mobilize at the grassroots to pressure their political leaders to change course. On Friday, Sept. 27, students, NGO staff, and workers from over 200 unions across Spain waged a 24-hour general strike to demand the Spanish government cut ties with Israel and end all forms of military aid. The Real News reports from the streets of Madrid.
Producer, Videographer, Editor: María Artigas
Assistant Producer: Sato Díaz
Translation, Narrator: Pedro Rubio
Transcript
Protesters: Resistance! Resistance! Long live the Palestinian people’s fight!
Reporter: Tens of thousands of people across Spain took to the streets to protest the ongoing genocide in Palestine. The CGT and Solidaridad Obrera unions called a general strike, backed by hundreds of associations and organizations. The MATS union (Health Workers Assembly Movement) joined the protests with a gathering at the 12 de Octubre Hospital in Madrid, demanding an end to the genocide and the military, commercial, and diplomatic relations between the Spanish government and Israel.
Edurne Prado: From the union we have called for this rally because we are seeing a live genocide of the Palestinian people. Now also to the Lebanese people. And we, as health workers, cannot forget not only the thousands of families and children who have died, but also that we have colleagues there risking their lives day by day, without any resources and working out of pure vocation and saving people’s lives. And for us it is also important today to call names, to denounce the complicity of all European governments, of our own government, which claims to be progressive but then does not break commercial or diplomatic relations with the state of Israel. And for us today is also a day to denounce.
Reporter: Pickets, marches, and various protests were held throughout the morning. Around 150 towns and cities across the country organized actions in support of the general strike, with notable mobilizations in cities like Barcelona, Granada, Valencia, Zaragoza, and Seville.
In Madrid, hundreds of participants gathered at the doors of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand action from the Spanish government.
Protesters: Boycott, boycott, boycott Israel! Military budgets for schools and hospitals! Break, break, break with Israel!
José Luis Carretero: We called for a general strike and a day of protest because we understand that, in the first place, public services must be defended. In the face of the fact that public money is being used to sustain wars, to sustain a situation of growing warlike confrontation in Europe and the Mediterranean as a whole. And we also raise it in defense of human rights, of children’s rights in Palestine, in Gaza, in Lebanon, especially in Palestine. We raise it because, at the end of the day, we workers have the right to state that our interests are not only limited to wage increases or working conditions, vacations, and leaves, but also in the defense of fundamental rights and what was traditionally known as workers’ internationalism. And in that sense we also defend the right of workers to express their solidarity with all subjugated peoples. We ask the Spanish government to do everything possible to stop this genocide. We understand the severance of relations with the state of Israel, the severance of diplomatic relations with the state of Israel and also the denunciation of the international trade treaty that it has with the European Union, with the state of Israel, we understand that it is absolutely necessary, and also to do everything possible to comply with international arrest warrants that are already on the table by the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice against those responsible for this genocide.
Protesters: It is not a war, it is genocide! No more complicity! Israel murders, Europe sponsors!
Carmen Arnaiz: We are here mainly because Palestinian workers sent a call many months ago to all European workers asking us what we were going to do about the genocide that was taking place in their land. So, based on that call, from our organization we initially decided that the biggest response we could give as a union is to call a general strike. But obviously it had to be with other comrades, because otherwise it would not have made sense for us to call a strike. In the end, 218 organizations have adhered to the call. And what we intended with this day of general strike and struggle, because they are organizing rallies, marches, as well as picket lines and other things, is to denounce that the Spanish government is spending enormous amounts of money on arms, much more than on social services, much more than on education, health, aid for dependency, fair pensions, regularization of so many comrades who are in an irregular situation, migrants, and yet it is redirecting all that money to the arms business, to the sale of arms — and, on top of that, with a genocidal state that, according to all international legislation, we should have broken off all diplomatic relations of all kinds with it. The embassy is still open here, arms are still being sold, despite the fact that they say it is not true and they have recognized the state of Palestine. But it has been an act of posturing, because at the moment of truth they continue negotiating with Israel, they continue supporting all that barbarity that is there with our taxes. They are making us accomplices of a genocide. So, as civil society, as many people around the world outraged by this, we have organized ourselves to try to raise our voices and demand, of course, that the genocide ends and for all and that, in the meantime, as a means of pressure, immediately cut off all relations with any government that is committing genocide against a people.
Protesters: From the river to the sea, Palestine shall overcome!
Reporter: Universities also responded to the strike call. After the sit-ins in May, students and professors organized again for this day of action. Under the slogan “We will no longer study to the sound of bombs,” the Complutense Professors’ Network and the students from the Madrid sit-in took to the streets to condemn the genocide in Gaza. The day featured roundtable discussions, campus walkouts, rallies, and protests.
Rub: We have come out to argue against the responsibility of the Spanish government for continuing to send economic and military support to the genocidal state of Israel, and also to denounce the complicity of our university, which continues to maintain relations with Israeli universities. It continues to keep companies that finance Israel’s genocide on the social councils and university boards of directors. Following the internationalist wake that the encampments were having and also picking up the fighting spirit of the students who were already going out to fight directly against governments as in the case of Sri Lanka, we decided to have an encampment also in Madrid, which denounced the complicity of our universities and, again, Spanish imperialism and how our government participates in it. And I think it is important to reemphasize all the struggle against the repression that took place in our encampment, but above all in the United States and in France and in Germany, where the repression was terrible, people were arrested, they tried to charge them as terrorists.
And I think it is very important that we recover that spirit of struggle in the student movement and in the Spanish workers’ movement.Eva Aladro: The University cannot stand still in the face of a genocide of the size we are witnessing, which we are also seeing spreading to other countries and which continues with the same line of massacring civilian populations under the excuse of wanting to put an end to terrorism, as more terrorist acts are carried out by Israel. We professors started mobilizations together with the students, and our idea is to continue in the same line, because we believe that both the academics and the students, as well as the whole youth community in our country, which is mobilized, are the social conscience. And they are the ones who really have to make an effort in some way to awaken society, so that they refuse to accept a situation such as we are living, of hundreds of dead human beings, children, women, etc. every week. Unfortunately, the only way to stop the war is to make the war unprofitable. So there are three things to achieve this that are the key. The first is to disinvest in the companies, businesses, and universities that are contributing to a massacre like the one in Gaza. There is another option, which is also to block all the activities that have to do with and whose interest is based on that massacre. And another very important thing is to mobilize society and public sensibility not to accept products, etc. from communities or countries that are carrying out genocide. There is a very important legislative initiative that we, the professors of all the public universities of Madrid, are carrying out, which is a letter that we have sent to the high commissioners of both the European Parliament and the Committee on Research and Innovation, asking them to respect their own Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation Agreement, which states that no treaties or agreements or principles of cooperation can be established with countries that are violating democratic rights and democratic principles.
Therefore, the European Union has very specific legislation that must prevent any treaty of friendship and cooperation, with a country that is committing genocide. So we, the professors, have received a response letter in which they tell us that they are going to try to convene a meeting with Israel, but we want to force that, really, if the Euro-Mediterranean agreement itself is not complied with, we are going to take it to the European courts. And from there we will continue, because we believe that this is one of the initiatives that we believe must be developed, because it is at the legislative and court level where perhaps we will achieve the respect for international legality that we do not achieve at the political level or at the level of institutions.
Protesters: Gaza, hang on, Madrid rises up!
Reporter: Thousands attended the afternoon mass march through the heart of the capital, from Atocha Station to Callao Square. The organizing unions put the number of participants in the afternoon marches nationwide at more than 150,000 people. And more than 200 trade union and social organizations supported the strike call.
Deva Mar Escobedo: I came here today with my colleagues from trans in fight quite excited about the strike. I was following the picket lines and the marches in other cities. I think they can be the most powerful things of today and of this new political course, that we can do more pressure, get a real change of positions in the government and stop this genocide. Because I think it is very important as citizens that we come to all protests, all mobilizations that we can, because, after all, we are witnessing a genocide live. I believe we have a duty as individuals to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
This post was originally published on The Real News Network.
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This story originally appeared in Truthout on Oct. 8, 2024. It is shared here with permission.
As Hurricane Milton barrels toward Florida, residents are bracing for their second catastrophic storm in less than two weeks. Since September 26, when Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend as a Category 4, communities across the Southeast have been grappling with the aftermath of that storm’s destruction. Among those hardest hit — and most overlooked — are farmworkers in southern Georgia.
The Georgia Department of Agriculture estimates that the storm has caused billions of dollars in damage to the state’s agriculture industry, affecting more than 100 farmers. Absent from many of these headlines, however, is Helene’s impact on the predominantly Latinx farmworker community, many of whom are undocumented or migrant workers with temporary visas. Ever since Hurricane Helene tore across Georgia, destroying pecan farms, poultry houses, cotton fields, and more, thousands of farmworkers have nowhere to turn as they grapple with decimated homes and lost livelihoods.
“I’ve been seeing pretty much every struggle that farmworkers experience in their daily lives, but magnified times 100,” said Alma Salazar Young, the UFW Foundation’s Georgia state director. “Everybody in South Georgia is struggling, especially in those really hard hit areas, but farmworkers are still an afterthought. Nobody has thought about going the extra mile to take care of them.”
Georgia is one of the top states employing migrant farmworkers through the federal H-2A program, which offers temporary visas for agricultural work. Before Hurricane Helene, living conditions for farmworkers in Georgia were already notoriously poor. The H-2A program requires employers to provide housing for their migrant workers that complies with the standards for temporary labor camps set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. These standards, a legal expert noted, are already the bare minimum and have not been updated in decades. Still, they are often not met by employers; federal investigations have cited Georgia farms for mold and water damage, dangerous exposed wiring, and more.
Undocumented workers, meanwhile, rent their homes, usually single-wide trailers. Desperate for affordable housing, these workers also tend to be pushed into substandard conditions, including mobile homes riddled with holes in the siding and drywall, roof and faucet leaks, lightbulbs dangling from wires, pest infestations and front doors lacking locks, secured only by a rope. And that was before the storm. When Hurricane Helene hit, these shoddy structures stood little chance against 90 mile per hour gusts.
The roughly 35,000 H-2A workers in Georgia, as well as an untold number of undocumented immigrants, are not eligible for disaster relief from FEMA.
“Conditions for the workers were already terrible to begin with, but now, many of them don’t realize that they’re homeless,” said Young, who has been traveling to the various farmworker communities in South Georgia that have been impacted by Hurricane Helene. She has seen trailers with their roofs blown off, littered with debris and the floors caving in, while families still attempt to seek shelter in whatever remains.
The roughly 35,000 H-2A workers in Georgia, as well as an untold number of undocumented immigrants, are not eligible for disaster relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), nor do they qualify for food stamps or unemployment assistance.
The financial burden is exacerbated by the fact that many farmworkers already lived in extreme poverty before the hurricane. Minimum wage for H-2A workers in the state is $14.68, while undocumented workers often earn less — usually 10 to 12 dollars an hour, according to Young. If workers are paid by the piece — a basket of blueberries or a busload of watermelons, for instance — that hourly rate can be even more meager. Now, with fields and farms destroyed, it’s unclear when, if at all, workers will be able to return to earning a living.
Many agents that companies hire to recruit H-2A workers charge those workers illegal fees which the workers often pay by taking out crushing loans. If they’re unable to work, these workers will be unable to pay back that debt, on top of struggling to support themselves and their families. Visas for H-2A workers are also tied to one specific employer; if that employer no longer has work for them, they must return to their home countries, primarily Mexico, or risk being in violation of the law.
In the absence of government aid, local churches and groups like the Red Cross or Salvation Army are the only sources of relief for many of Georgia’s farmworkers. But these resources don’t come without barriers.
“Even before the storm hit, we were getting information on the storm, on shelters, and I would have to translate it before I could text it to our farmworker leaders, because it was not being provided in Spanish,” said Young. Sometimes information would be posted to Facebook groups that most farmworkers might not be familiar with, “so even if they do find out, they don’t find out about any type of assistance until it’s gone.”
I’m just so disheartened by how little everybody in general cares about farmworkers, because during the pandemic, they risked their lives to bring food to everybody.
Additionally, police officers and National Guard members have often been present at aid distribution sites, which dissuades undocumented workers from accessing those resources. In May, aiming to crack down on undocumented immigrants, Georgia passed House Bill 1105, which requires local law enforcement agencies to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if an arrested individual cannot provide documentation. Even though the Red Cross and other groups don’t ask for a name or ID, Young said that farmworkers are still afraid to show up: “They’re not going to risk getting deported over trying to get some food.”
In addition to food and water, farmworkers’ most requested items right now are diapers and baby formula. “They’re just trying to make it day by day,” Young said. “They haven’t had a chance to think about the future, while they’re trying to just figure out what they’re going to eat today.”
Immigrants form the bedrock of the country’s food supply, making up an estimated 73 percent of agriculture workers in the United States. Young joined the UFW Foundation after working as the director of Valdosta State University’s College Assistance Migrant Program, during which she witnessed firsthand what farmworkers sacrificed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to put food on tables around the country.
“I’m just so disheartened by how little everybody in general cares about farmworkers, because during the pandemic, they risked their lives to bring food to everybody. Not just in several states, but all over the country,” Young said. “Now that they’re in need, we forgot about them.”
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Yemen's rebel group has launched some 130 attacks in the crucial waterway since the start of the war in Gaza.
This post was originally published on Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera.
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As the climate crisis intensifies, billions of poor and working people around the world are suffering from lack of regular (or any) access to clean water, but the dawn of “AI” is about to make the problem much worse. In their recent report for Context, “Forget jobs—AI is coming for your water,” Diana Baptista and Fintan McDonnell write, “Artificial intelligence lives on power and water, fed to it in vast quantities by data centres around the world. And those centres are increasingly located in the global south.” In Colón, a municipality in Central Mexico that is home to Microsoft’s first hyperscale data center campus in the country, working people are already bearing the environmental costs of man-made climate change, and they will be the ones to bear the costs of AI and Big Tech. “The town of 67,000 is suffering extreme drought. Its two dams have nearly dried up, farmers are struggling with dead crops, and families are relying on trucked and bottled water to fulfill their daily needs.”
In the latest installment of our ongoing series, Sacrificed, Max speaks with Diana Baptista, a data journalist at the Thomson Reuters Foundation based in Mexico City, about Mexico’s ongoing water crisis and about the human and environmental costs of AI and cloud computing.
Additional links/info below…
- Diana’s Context author page and X page
- Fintan McDonnell & Diana Baptista, Context, “Forget jobs. AI is coming for your water (Video Report)”
- Fintan McDonnell & Diana Baptista, Context, “Thirsty data centres spring up in water-poor Mexican town (Text Report)”
- David Berreby, Yale Environment 360, “As use of A.I. soars, so does the energy and water it requires”
- Tamara Pearson, The Real News Network, “Indigenous Mexicans risk their lives to defend the environment from organized crime and ‘insatiable, predatory’ transnational corporations”
- Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “In Brazil, the climate crisis is already turning working people into climate refugees”
- Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “East Palestine residents have been left behind—and they’re running out of water”
Permanent links below…
- Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
- Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
- In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
- The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music…
Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme SongStudio Production: Max Alvarez
Post-Production: Jules Taylor
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Diana Baptista:
Hello, I’m Diana Baptista. I’m a data journalist for the Thomson Reuters Foundation context, and I’m based in Mexico City.
Maximillian Alvarez:
All right, welcome everyone to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast network. If you’re hungry for more worker and labor focus shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out all the other great shows in our network and please support the work that we’re doing here at Working People because we can’t keep going without you. Share our episodes with your coworkers, your friends and family members. Leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and reach out to us if you have recommendations for working folks you’d like us to talk to or subjects you’d like us to investigate and please support the work we do at The Real News Network by going to therealnews.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world.
My name is Maximillian Alvarez and today we’ve got another critical installment of our ongoing sacrificed series where we are speaking with people, working and living in industrial government run and climate sacrifice zones around the US and beyond where we investigate the root causes and the connections between sacrifice communities and where we talk seriously about what we can do about it. In the description of a recent video report titled, Forget Jobs. AI is Coming for Your Water, Diana Baptista and Fenton McDonald write: “Artificial intelligence lives on power and water fed to it in vast quantities by data centers around the world, and these centers are increasingly located in the global south.” One estimate from the University of California, Riverside says AI’s total water demand by 2027 could be more than half the total annual water withdrawal of the United Kingdom, but all we really have are estimates.
Big tech firms have been secretive about the amount of public water used by individual data centers, and up to half of all data centers don’t even measure how much water they use. According to one survey, a municipality of Mexico City and Central Mexico is home to Microsoft’s first hyperscale data center campus in the country. The town of 67,000 is suffering extreme drought. Its two dams have nearly dried up. Farmers are struggling with dead crops, and families are relying on trucked and bottled water to fulfill their daily needs. Mexico leveraging its proximity to the US is hoping to convince big tech to nearshore their facilities. Here, the state of Quero is offering favorable land loans, cheap electricity in a pool of local talent. Similar stories are playing out around the world. In Uruguay, Google admitted that a planned data center in Montevideo would require 7.6 million liters of drinking water per day.
While the country was suffering a historic three year drought in the United States, a bill has been introduced in the Senate to compel big tech to reveal the environmental impacts of AI after reports of conflict over water between farmers and big tech in the desert of Arizona. So that’s what we’re going to be discussing today, and I could not be more honored to have Diana Baptista on the show with us. Diana is, as you heard, a data journalist at the Thomason Reuters Foundation. She’s based in Mexico City, and you can find a link to the vital video report that she produced with Fenton McDonald for context, a media platform created by the Thomason Reuters Foundation in the show notes for this episode. And if you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you watch the report and follow all the important work that Diana and her colleagues are doing over at context, but we’re going to have a conversation here that hopefully will encourage you to go watch the report if you haven’t already, because you really, really should.
And Diana, thank you so much for joining me today, and thank you so much for doing this important work. I was really excited to learn about it, although I was horrified to learn what you found in reporting this stuff. And so I want to dig into all of this, but I guess before we really dig into the meat of this particular story, I wanted to ask if we could start with a sort of zoomed out context here for the water crisis that is going on in Mexico and has been going on for some time. I mean, I remember as a grad student in Mexico City, like everybody else, I was getting my water and those big jugs people in our buildings were getting them delivered twice a week or you’d walk to the corner shop and carry back these heavy, expensive bottles of purified water while the stuff coming out of your taps was not fit to drink. So for folks who are listening to this who maybe don’t know about how bad the water crisis in Mexico is, I was wondering if you could just sort of give us some context there. How bad is it?
Diana Baptista:
First of all, thank you, Maximilian. It’s such a pleasure to be in this podcast. Thank you so much for the invitation. So yeah, let’s talk about Mexico. So we have drinking water. We have taps in 99% of the country. However, this is not drinking water. We don’t put a glass of water and drink from it. It all comes from bottles and the water we collect to drink afterwards. And this is because of several issues with infrastructure that have been going on for decades now. And one of the main issues we’re having right now in Mexico is drought. We have had several rain seasons that have been irregular. Our dams are not filling up, and this is all around the country except the southern part of the country, but most of it is just drying up. And the truth is that we’ve come completely dependent to water bottle companies and all these big soda companies.
So what we are drinking as a population, everything comes from plastic and everything comes from soda. It’s a very sad reality that we have been facing for decades now here in Mexico. And because of the drought. For example, in Mexico City this year, we were very close of reaching day zero, which is the day that the dams have been completely empty and there is no more left for consumption. This has happened in other parts of the world like South Africa. They’ve overcome it and we really didn’t have any plan to overcome it. There were several plans of infrastructure and stuff, but the only way we survived that was thanks to the rain, it rained finally. It has been raining quite intensely, and it was just luck. We got lucky this rain season and it has been raining otherwise, perhaps we would’ve reached day zero for Mexico City, and that means around 20 million people without access to water.
So very serious stuff. And we focused on our investigation on a place that is north of Mexico City. It’s around three hours away. That is called Quero. And for many years this has been a semi deserter and it has been struggling with tremendous drought. This means that at least for three years, rain seasons have been irregular. Dams are almost completely empty. If you go there, everything is yellow, everything feels dry. And the sun with the heat waves, we have been getting, it has been horrible up there. And while people are dependent more than ever on water bottle companies at the moment, so one of the main issues we have in Mexico as well is unequal water distribution. So this means that this big and bottled water companies are located in these places with extreme drought and most of the water is being allocated to them. So our public water, our public resources are going to these companies so they can sell water to us in the form of plastic. And activists for many years now have been fighting this around the country because this is for soda, for bottled water and for beer and a lot of beer that’s getting exported to the United States, for example. So activists have been very angry for many years denouncing that this water inequality is just very hard on the population.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I want to circle back to that in the end when we sort of connect this story in Mexico that you’ve reported on to the other stories that we’ve been reporting on in this sacrificed series and kind of how what you’re describing is really the future that lies in store for so many of us. And that future is already here for towns like East Palestine, Ohio, where people are still living off of bottled water. So I want to end up there, but let’s kind of stay in Colon for a minute and talk about what it was like for you to really start digging into this story and what you were learning about Microsoft’s plans for this massive campus in Cologne, a municipality that’s already experiencing extreme drought.
Diana Baptista:
Of course. So this was all burned. This all came from the fact that Thom from the Thomson Reuters Foundation, we had been investigating the expansion of data centers in the global south. And we had been reading that a lot of them were coming to Mexico, and suddenly Microsoft made this big announcement saying, we have invested billions in the state of Carrero and we’re opening up this hyperscale cloud region, which we’re not very sure yet what it means, but it came with billions of dollars of investment and it was a huge announcement. It even reached the president. The president was very happy about this investment. So we looked at Rero and wondered, oh, we know data center stick water. We know there’s not enough data on how much water they take, but there have been a lot of battles around the global south when these data centers come to town.
And we were very interested in the fact that from Carrero, we heard nothing but silence. We weren’t hearing the activists, we weren’t hearing the protests. So we wondered, is nobody looking at Carrero? What’s happening there? So we decided to make the trip up there to Cologne. The colon is this very large municipality. So you have a lot of in cologne, you have car manufacturers and you have agriculture and you have chickens and meat and protein industry. And then you have these very small towns hidden in the mountains that are the ones who small farmers and people living off tourism actually live. And they’re among the most vulnerable population in our country. So we went up there and Quero has always had a problem because of all the water that goes to the industry, you have these huge industrial parks among these yellowed hills where everything you see is dry and a lot of water is being taken by the industry.
And it’s such a stark contrast from where you’d expect big industry to grow. And then we went to this little towns in the municipality of cologne. There must be around 50 minutes away from where all the industrial parks with the data centers are located. And over there we saw people really struggling. We went to a community that is called Lare, and this is an indigenous community. Most people are very small farmers. They have very small restaurants that has no electricity, they have no tap water there. They bring their own water and water jugs, and they live of tourism from every weekend. People would go from Mexico City or from Carrero capital to that little town and just spend a couple days next to the dam in the water, eat and go back home. So that’s what the people live off. But when we went there, the dams were almost completely empty. There was nobody there. We went there on Father’s Day, which is supposed to be one of the most active days, and there was a lot of music. There were people, but after a couple of hours, everybody left and the businesses were all empty. So we saw people had nobody to sell their fish to or their produce. Nobody was doing water sports, they weren’t eating at the restaurants. It just felt very lonely. Where this town’s life is around water. When there’s no water, everything just dies around it.
Maximillian Alvarez:
As the water protectors have famously burned onto our memories, water is life and without water, there’s no life. And that’s really the direction that we’re heading in. I mean, how more basically can we put it here? And I want to kind of drill down on this point because I know as you guys say in the report, and as I mentioned in the introduction, it’s actually hard to determine how much water these data centers and big tech in general are using. But we know that that usage has spiked since the introduction of AI products like Chat, GPT. And there’s an article by Yale’s E 360 that I’ll include in the show notes for this episode that reads, according to a recent study by Ren, Google’s data centers used 20% more water in 2022 than they did in 2021. And Microsoft’s water use rose by 34% in the same period. Google data centers host its Barred chatbot and other generative ais. Microsoft Servers host chat GPT as well as its bigger siblings, GPT-3 and GPT-4. All three are produced by open AI in which Microsoft is a large investor. So Diana, could you just flesh this out a little more for folks, how the introduction of so-called AI has played into this story and how much water usage we’re really talking about here?
Diana Baptista:
I mean, this has been quite an adventure to try to figure out how much water is being used. So when we first heard that data centers were coming to Queretaro and we’re talking about the three big companies, so we had announcements by Microsoft, Google, and Amazon for billions of dollars coming to this little town without water. So the first thing we did was ask. We asked the companies, can you tell us how much water, how many data center units you have first in the state and how many you’re planning to build and how much water they will take? Microsoft kept telling us they had no spokesperson that could give us information. Amazon gave us some explanation that the tech they’re going to use is very new, doesn’t take water, but they wouldn’t go into detail because of industrial secrecy and all that. And Google just said they’re bringing down the water usage.
So we didn’t get answers. From there, we decided to ask the government, the local government who has been doing a major push to bring these data centers to town. So we have Governor Mauricio Kuri from the first day he was appointed as governor, he traveled to Washington DC to meet with Amazon people to try to convince them to bring their data centers to Carrero. So from day one, it has been a priority of the local government to bring them. And when I spoke to the Secretary of Sustainable Development, Marco Elte, who is one of the main figures bringing the data centers to town, he said he didn’t have the figures because he’s not the water commission, so he doesn’t allocate the water. But he also gave me some very weird numbers saying that the data centers in Quero take the same amount of water as a hotel room with 55 rooms or the same as a restaurant in 30 days.
But he wouldn’t say where these estimations came from. Very weird estimations to begin with, which meant he must have known how many gallons, at least one unit is taken. But then he said he didn’t know. So we felt we kept being played around. There was such huge capacity in the public and in the private sector, we asked the National Water Commission, and they only told us that they haven’t allocated any new concessions to any new companies in Carrera. But one thing about Mexico that is one of the roots of our water crisis is that at some point in our history, the National Water Commission gave away a lot of concessions to a lot of private people and a lot of private companies. And the way our law works is that they can sell that concession. So Maximilian, you may have owned an entire aquifer, for example, and you decide to sell it to Microsoft and you don’t have to ask anybody about this, you just tell the water commission.
You did that and that’s it. So people who owned these concessions have been selling to the industry in a way that then the public has no say in it. You have no voice in it because it’s a private thing between particulars and then the public is left without water and you don’t even know who sold it to whom. So it’s been, I don’t know, it’s very bureaucratic, but also a lot of opacity on how these concessions are being sold. And the National Water Commission told us that that’s how Microsoft got one of its commissions. It got sold to them by somebody who already owned one, which is very grave, right? Because then it allows for absolutely zero accountability. So once we had this information, we tried to figure out on our own how much water these data centers were taken. We went to public databases for the National Water Commission, and we couldn’t find anything because this information is no longer public once it belongs to a private company or you don’t know who is selling to whom.
So we were left in the dark. Companies refuse to tell this information. Local government said they didn’t have the information, which we found was ridiculous. And then you have local activists that for many, many years have been fighting for equal distribution of water in Quero, but they were also left in the dark. There are very small group to begin with who have been asking in the last month, in recent months have been asking the secretary like, Hey, can you tell us how much water these data centers are going to take? And he always says that, don’t worry about this. These data centers do not take a lot of water. They cannot come to Carrera because there’s no water to begin with, so we cannot give them more water. They’re super efficient data centers, but then we’re already left in the dark about how this technology operates, this super, supposedly super efficient new data centers that do not require water.
We don’t know how they work. We have no way to prove that they are actually water efficient, that they require zero water. We just have to take everything at face value, everything that the local government and the companies tell you. And activists actually found out from context about the concession bought by Microsoft. So it has been very difficult to figure this out. And when Finon reached out to some international experts that have been doing this estimations of how much water this data centers take around the world, they told us the same thing. There’s no data on data centers. They have to rely on certain estimations and certain methodologies they have developed by themselves, but there is nothing certain. And it has been very frustrating trying to figure it out and trying to do the estimations by yourselves when nobody is cooperating, nobody’s giving you any numbers to start up from. So it makes a journalist job very difficult. But we also see it makes the activist jobs very difficult because then we have no certainty and no possibility for accountability.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I think that’s really beautifully and powerfully put. And again, I want to encourage everyone listening to this to go watch the report itself because Diana and Fenton dig into this a lot more there. And Diana, I just wanted to ask just to make sure that folks are keeping up with us. You guys talk a bit about what the hell they’re using the water for, but can you just give us the basics there? Why do these data centers need so much water and why does AI demand so much water?
Diana Baptista:
Of course, it comes down to cooling. These data centers get very, very hot from all the computing, from all the computing processing it requires. It gets very hot inside a data center unit. So they can use two things, either electricity or water to cool off a data center. So you will hear information sometimes from a company saying that they have become super water efficient and they do not require fresh drinking water, which is the kind of water they need. They don’t need recycled water. They need fresh drinking water to cool down their huge computers, so using electricity. But the experts we have spoken to have also estimated how much water a country needs to power. Its electricity that powers the data centers. So no process for a data center is water free to begin with. Everything requires water. So of course they may come to Reta and say, all we’re going to need is electricity, but in the end, the power plants are also running on water.
So Queretaro needs water to run these power plants to run data centers. So in the end, everything needs water. So that becomes kind of tricky to understand. What does AI have to do with this? First of all, most of the data centers that are coming to Mexico are for the cloud for storing our images and our memes, our thousand on red emails and everything like this. The secretary, when I spoke to him, he said this was the industry of the future that everything we would need as humans would be cloud storage. And that quero would be so much stronger by become a data center valley because the world wouldn’t need our services. Which tells us a lot about balancing the creation of jobs with the depletion of our natural resources and ai. Yes, as these AI systems grow, these companies are also looking to the global south to locate their data centers.
And experts told us this is for different reasons. First of all, because local governments are giving them incentives. So water is cheap, electricity is cheap. In Creta, we found out they’re even giving some of them free land. We found a contract that the Congress approved this huge land to be giving to cloud HQ for a data center. There’s a pool of local talent that as we know in the global south, you pay less than you would in the north. And then you have all these local governments that are not asking questions. So we were very skeptical when the secretary told us he wouldn’t know how much water would be allocated to the data centers because we imagine when they traveled to Washington DC to talk to these companies, they must have discussed this, it must have come up. How much water are you going to use? What are your estimates? What is the technology you’re using? So I don’t want to think they’re not even discussing this or they’re not even thinking about these questions. They’re just telling them, come and bring your money. So these are the two technologies that are using these data centers, AI and cloud storage.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I mean, I have so many thoughts and questions about this, but I know how busy you are and I can’t keep you for two hours. But I mean it’s so wild to think that it was less than a hundred years ago in 1938 when La Ena nationalized famously the oil industry in Mexico, thus really representing a sort of different governmental mentality and how Mexico was approaching its collective ownership over its own resources. And we’ve had a long kind of windy up and down sort of road from there to here. The government doesn’t even know, is not tracking all this water that’s being promised to these private companies from Silicon Valley. And the sales that are being made are sort of passing through private hands in a way that just sort of really shows you, I think the trajectory of the past century in a state like Mexico and what the kind of privatization, neoliberal and all those big historical forces, what they translate to 80, 90 years later in everything that you and I are talking about here.
But you and I will have to have a follow-up discussion, breaking all that down because there’s a whole lot to dig into there that we don’t have time to now. But I wanted to kind of bring it back to the working people living and working in this area because normally whether it’s the Quila, Dores on the border or these other sort of incentives that states and local governments give to industries to try to bring them them to Mexico, big promises like, oh, it’s going to mean jobs. It’s going to mean economic prosperity for the people here and the people here can provide their labor and expertise in cheaper quantities than you could get north of the border. All that stuff. I wanted to ask, is that even a thing? It feels like, and you guys touch on this in your reporting, the average working person A doesn’t even know that this is happening, let alone how it’s going to impact them, and B, they’re sure shit not going to benefit from it. So could you talk a bit about that, what this all looks like or doesn’t look like through the eyes of local working people in colon. Colon?
Diana Baptista:
One thing, colon is going to be a victim of its own success because you had this deserted area that suddenly it’s becoming the data center valley and you had all these other industries. So you’re attracting a lot of people that are not even from colon. So we’re talking people with master’s or PhD degrees, highly educated people that are not living in small towns of fishermen and people relying on tourism. They’re living in the cities, so they’re bringing these data centers and they’re not even promising that many jobs to begin with. The secretary recognized like 2000 direct jobs, which is very little, to be honest, for such a huge 20 billion investment, 2000 jobs are not a lot. He was mainly excited about indirect jobs and suppliers and stuff like that. So you’re attracting all these people from the cities. So it’s three hours away from Mexico City.
You have these highly educated people traveling from Mexico City or from Queretaro Capital a couple of hours into colon for these data centers and then traveling back. So these are not people from colon to begin with because colon is a series of small towns of fishermen and small farmers and restauranters people with limited educational background, the most vulnerable inner country, the ones that are always left behind because you have to travel, I don’t know, five hours by car to reach LASA community. And you only go there to see the dam and take a little ride on a boat and then travel back to Mexico City. So these are abandoned people to begin with. So we were very interested to see what they thought about this. And I mean, it was funny because you ask them, do you know what an AI is to begin with? Do you know what the cloud is? And for example, 70-year-old Mr. Gu Hernandez who has this blackberry patch of land, he would be like, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know what AI is.
And what’s interesting is he was very knowledgeable about water inequality. He was very angry telling me he hates that industry comes and that he does not have enough water for his blackberries and that he has to see them die. Meanwhile, he can see these big industries coming to town. So he is aware of what’s happening. He’s just not aware of what AI is. He doesn’t have a phone, he has no idea about cloud storage or anything like that. So it felt like things were happening around him that he was completely unaware of, but also that he was feeling the effect of, so he knew there is new tech, he knew they were coming to town and they would take a lot of water. And the only way he could relate to that was because his blackberries were dying and because it hadn’t rained in two years.
And he showed me how the heat waves burned to them and they were all yellowed and they couldn’t grow because there wasn’t enough water for his crops. We went to this small restaurant next to the dam that received all the stories from year to year. And again, the same story. These are very old people who have no idea about technology, but that will tell you about how water inequality is affecting them and how they find it unfair that the priority is given to the industry instead of them and that they have to have water once a week. So for example, we spoke to this woman who owns a small restaurant next to a dam. The restaurant has no electricity, it has no tap water, so she has to bring everything from her house. So she gets water in her house every eight days. She fills all these water jugs and she carries them on her back all the way to her restaurant. And that’s how she kind of survives the entire week in her restaurant. And yeah, she will tell you she has no idea what AI is, but she knows that she’s struggling and that her business will not survive because there is drought and she doesn’t know the drought is related to the industry. She doesn’t know if these companies are taking the water from her. She does know that new industry coming means she will get less water because of water inequality. That’s a stamp that we have in Mexico because that is how the country operates.
Maximillian Alvarez:
This sadly and morbidly kind of is where your path and mind connected, right on the kind of journalistic quests that we are on to investigate these stories that over here through our podcast we’ve been investigating by talking to working folks, living in sacrifice zones, which is exactly what you were just doing and describing, right? I mean, we may not call it that, but that is what is happening, where the lives and livelihood and the conditions for life itself are being sacrificed at the altar of corporate greed and corporate profits and technological progress that is defined by big tech companies and their supporters in government. And those things become the priorities for government policy. They become the priorities in terms of where our collective resources are being allocated, like water that we all need to live. But that’s where it really does feel to be just intimately connected to what we’ve been investigating here, talking to folks living 20 minutes from where I’m sitting in South Baltimore, black and brown and white working class communities that have been poisoned for generations by rail cars that are blowing coal dust everywhere, trash incinerator, medical incinerator that are just burning up all this stuff and spewing it into the air.
The folks living in east Palestinian, Ohio where that train derailed two years ago or almost two years ago, and they were exposed to all those chemicals and they didn’t know what was on those trains either. They didn’t know the sort of inner workings of the rail industry, but they sure as shit paid the price for all of that when one of those bomb trains derailed in their own backyard. And so I guess I wanted to just sort of take everything that we’ve been discussing here and sort of bring Mexico and places like colon Colon into this discussion of sacrifice zones and what it means to have our societies sacrificing whole communities for the sake of private corporations and serving their needs above ours and what that looks like, right? I mentioned earlier that I wanted us to end up here because when we were talking about the fact that people living in Mexico, everyone gets their water through bottles and these water bottling companies have such a stranglehold on this vital natural resource.
And I think you see something in Mexico that still seems very foreign to a lot of people here in the us, but it’s becoming increasingly less foreign, which is like, what does it look like when I can no longer trust the water coming out of my tap and I have to live on bottled water? If you’ve never done that, trust me when I say it’s a real pain in the ass, it’s a real sort of dystopian reality that folks in East Palestine have talked to us about on this very show. And that’s not something to strive for, but it feels like a reality that we’re just accepting both in areas of the global south that have been experiencing this for years, but also the global working class population. This just feels like the direction that we’re all heading in. So I guess I just wanted to sort of ask, doing this research and this reporting on these data centers, and I guess what do you think this necessarily adds to what our listeners here are hearing when we’re talking to sacrifice communities here in the United States?
Because it’s really important that folks see that it’s not just happening here. In fact, it’s been happening in the global south for a long time and what’s been happening there is coming back home or it’s been happening at home in the global south sides of our population, the poor, black, brown indigenous communities that have been living under these circumstances as well. So I just kind of wanted to give you sort of a last word there, what this has all taught you about that and how the kind of sacrifice zone question, what that looks like when we look at it through the lens of Mexico and stories like the one that you’ve been reporting on.
Diana Baptista:
Thank you. That’s a great question. I mean, the first thing that comes to my mind is balance. So this government is making a push to bring Nearshoring to push for Nearshoring in Mexico. They want to tech companies to come to the country because we need more jobs because we have all this pool of highly educated people who need a job and we need all these communities outside of Mexico City to grow. We need more investment. We need to grow economically as a country, but at what cost is that cost, the natural resources, the dwindling natural resources of the country? And where’s the accountability? I mean, for me, the most frustrating part was this opacity from government and companies because maybe it could be the data centers will not take one ounce of water. That could be the truth. But if it’s so, why won’t they tell us?
Why won’t they respond to requests of information? Why will they not give interviews when they’re being requested? Why activists had no idea that there had been a purchase from Microsoft, from somebody who already had a concession. They were in the dark about this. And it’s very frustrating for us to be kept in the dark because then maybe the local government does have good intentions and maybe companies will do some good in the country, but we cannot know that for sure because they’re running on opacity. And that is incredibly frustrating because it also tells us that there’s a lack of regulation in the country for this kind of tech to grow. So we know AI systems will need more data centers, we’ll need more computing power, and they are looking at the global south, especially Latin America for this. But when they come to our countries, why do they come with so much secretiveness?
Why won’t they release the information? Why won’t they be open about their data? So we’ve been told this is because of industry secrecy and stuff, but that’s not enough. That’s not enough for a population who’s already running out of water. There has to be a better effort from companies government to let us know what is being done with our resources. So for me, that was the main lesson that it’s going to be very hard for these tech companies to progress in the global south if they do it with opacity and they do it without releasing the data. We saw it in your way, for example, in Montevideo activists pushed until they got the information and then they refused the data center by Google. And Google has had to change its plans in Montevideo. We saw it in Chile as well with this wonderful story by Rust World.
And we’re seeing it in several parts. Brazil is one of the main markets for data centers in Latin America, for example, where we saw this data, and this has been very frustrating. This has been my main frustration while conducting this investigation. And the second part of it is that we didn’t see that the arrival of new technology to Quero was going to mean any change for the most vulnerable workers in the country. So yes, maybe we attract more highly educated people to this data centers, but in the end, the small farmers and the fishermen and the lady who has no electricity and cooks once in a while for a tourist or two that come into town, they will be just as vulnerable as before. Their income will not change, their opportunities will not change. And all they’re seeing is their environment changing against ’em, which is very sad because one would hope that the arrival of this new companies and all this investment would mean change for the better, for the country’s most vulnerable. But we have not seen that happen yet. So it does leaves us wondering again, where’s the balance? Where’s the balance between economic growth and equality and the protection of our environment? We were very sad to see that there was no data, no answers, and no real change for people who are most vulnerable.
Maximillian Alvarez:
All right, gang, that’s going to wrap things up for us this week. I want to thank our amazing guest, Diana Baptista for talking with me today. And I want to thank her for all the important work that she is doing. Be sure to follow Diana’s work and follow the link in the show notes to watch Diana’s video report. Forget Jobs AI is Coming for Your Water, which she and Fenton McDonald produced for context, a media platform created by the Thomason Reuters Foundation. And you can read the full text report as well, which we’ve also linked in the show notes for this episode. And as always, I want to thank you all for listening, and I want to thank you for caring. We’ll see you all back here next week for another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait that long, then go subscribe to our Patreon and check out the awesome bonus episodes that we’ve published there for our patrons over the years and go explore all the great work that we’re doing at The Real News Network where we do grassroots journalism, lifting up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle.
Sign up for the Real News newsletter so you never miss a story. And help us do more work like this by going to the real news.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. It really makes a difference. I’m Maximillian Alvarez. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever.
This post was originally published on The Real News Network.
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Strike by 45,000 dock workers threatens to stoke inflation just five weeks out from US presidential election.
This post was originally published on Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera.
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Read RFA coverage of this story in Cantonese.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party has called on Hong Kong’s leader to mobilize the city’s wealthiest families into kick-starting economic growth, although signs that any are answering the call have been thin on the ground.
Xia Baolong, who heads the ruling party’s Hong Kong and Macao Work Office, “expressed the hope that all sectors of Hong Kong society, especially the business community and entrepreneurs, will unite as one and seize the opportunity to strive for economic development,” the city’s Chief Executive John Lee told reporters following a Sept. 20 meeting with Xia, as he attended an investment cooperation conference in Beijing.
Hong Kong’s business community should “transform their love for their country and for Hong Kong into concrete and practical action, and work together to promote Hong Kong’s … prosperity,” Xia told Lee during the meeting.
Xia’s call to action echoes recent policy moves from Beijing to find a role for the private sector in boosting flagging economic growth, under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s concept of “public-private partnerships,” which analysts have warned could be a disguised asset grab by the government.
It also comes after Xi wrote to the descendants of the “Ningbo Gang” – wealthy Hong Kong families with roots in the eastern port city of Ningbo – in July, calling on them to “contribute to the dream of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” state media reported.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee (L) meets with Yin Li (R), secretary of the Communist Party of China Beijing Municipal Committee, in Beijing, China , Sept. 20, 2024. (info.gov.hk) 
They included Anna Pao, eldest daughter of the late shipping magnate Sir Pao Yue-kong, and Ronald Chao, eldest son of the late industrialist Chao Kuang-piu, families whose business operations formed the backbone of much of Hong Kong’s growth under British colonial rule.
Lee said the private sector in Hong Kong “are not bystanders, but participants, contributors and beneficiaries” of the city’s economic rewards.
‘Serve the country’
But commentators said there hasn’t exactly been a big rush to respond to Beijing’s call for investments on the part of Hong Kong’s entrepreneurs.
The city’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, has instead been stepping up his investments in the United Kingdom, with his CK Infrastructure Holdings acquiring a wind farm portfolio in from Aviva Investors for £350 million (US$450 million) in August, renewable power generator UU Solar for £90.8 million (US$122 million) in May, and natural gas distributor Phoenix Energy in April.
Exiled Hong Kong businessman Elmer Yuen, whose family hails from Ningbo, said Beijing has repeatedly called on Hong Kong’s tycoons to “serve the country.”
But he said there is unlikely to be much response, given that few business families from Ningbo and Shanghai trust the Chinese Communist Party.
“You can lump all of us together, us Shanghainese, most of whom are from Ningbo, and say that we have absolutely zero trust in the Chinese Communist Party,” Yuen said.
“Maybe a small number of people will invest, but the rest already know who they’re dealing with.”
Kevin Yeung, Hong Kong’s secretary for culture, sports and tourism, gives a speech at a ceremony in Dujiangyan, southwest China’s Sichuan province, to see off two giant pandas, An An and Ke Ke, headed to Honk Kong, Sept. 25, 2024. (info.gov.hk)
According to Xia Ming, professor of political science at the City University of New York, Lee is being tasked by Beijing to step up integration with neighboring Guangdong province and Macau, and provide a much-needed shot in the arm for the sluggish Chinese economy.
“Policy in today’s Hong Kong is clearly about how to perfectly integrate Hong Kong into what Xi Jinping calls the China rejuvenation strategy, which is basically about controlling the economy,” Xia told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “[Lee’s aim] is to more perfectly integrate Hong Kong into China’s accelerated regression.”
Xia said the overall aim is to integrate Hong Kong into the mainland Chinese economy and “ultimately sell Hong Kong off to Beijing and to Xi Jinping.”
“The goal of Xi Jinping’s reforms is not that mainland China will become more like Hong Kong, but that Hong Kong will become more like Yan’an,” he said in a reference to the revolutionary wartime base of Mao Zedong’s communists.
Stimulus measures
The call for investments came as Chinese leaders announced a slew of stimulus measures to boost demand for real estate, including lower mortgage rates, fewer restrictions on buyers and tax cuts as part of “a new model” for real estate development.
On Tuesday, China’s central bank, top securities regulator and financial regulator announced a raft of monetary stimulus, property market support and capital market strengthening measures to boost “high-quality economic development,” state news agency Xinhua reported.
The top economic meeting, attended by Xi, also called on officials to “foster a favorable environment for the development of the non-public sector,” with efforts made to boost consumption among low- and middle-income groups.
The pair of giant pandas gifted by the Chinese government to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China arrive safely in Hong Kong, Sept. 25, 2024. (info.gov.hk)
China has also extended a helping hand to Hong Kong in the form of pandas, with a ceremony at the Hong Kong International Airport on Thursday to welcome An An and Ke Ke, described by Lee as “just entering adulthood and full of energy” and likely to be a successful draw for tourists.
The giant pandas will live in a newly refurbished suite at the Ocean Park theme park complete with climbing frames and more plants.
“Citizens will join in welcoming the two giant pandas to Hong Kong, and the whole city is looking forward to it,” Lee told reporters on Tuesday, adding that images of the pandas will be added to the Oct. 1 National Day drone and light show over Victoria Harbour.
Hong Kong is expecting an influx of up to 1.2 million mainland Chinese tourists to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Lee said.
“We hope that everyone can celebrate the 75th anniversary of National Day together, and also bring in many business activities to increase business and tourism revenues,” he said.
Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Ng Chi Ping for RFA Cantonese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Like many cop watchers, Carolina Ft. Worth has an in-depth understanding of the dynamics of her local city. So when she noticed Fort Worth police seemed to be targeting the vehicles of bar workers late at night, she set out to investigate. According to Carolina, many of the tow companies in the city are operated by retired police officers, raising questions about the possibility of a racket being run from within the police department. As she was filming police towing cars in the downtown area, an officer familiar to Carolina confronted her and began to arrest her. The ensuing police-initiated altercation left Carolina bleeding and unconscious on the ground with a dislocated shoulder and elbow. Carolina Ft. Worth joins Police Accountability Report to discuss her harrowing ordeal, and how police across the country are engaged in similar kinds of suspicious behavior driven by municipal and even potentially illegal private economic incentives.
Studio Production: Stephen Janis
Post-Production: Adam Coley
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham, and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. As we always make clear, this show has a single purpose, holding the politically powerful institution of policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops, instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible.
And today we’ll achieve that goal by showing you this video of an officer throwing a well-known cop watcher to the ground and causing severe physical injuries for simply filming them. An example of police reacting violently for being watched, raising questions about just how dangerous it can be to hold police accountable.
But before we get started, I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct, please email it to us privately at par@therealnews.com or reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter @tayasbaltimore and we might be able to investigate for you. And please like, share, and comment on our videos it can help get the word out and it can even help our guests.
And of course, you know I read your comments and appreciate them. You see those little hearts I give out down there, and I’ve even started doing a comment of the week to show you how much I appreciate your thoughts and to show off what a great community we have.
And we do have a Patreon called Accountability Report, so if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated.
All right, we’ve gotten that out of the way. Now, as we have documented rigorously on this show, filming cops is not easy or without risk. For one thing, they have the power to retaliate with an arrest, but also they have the threat of using violence to subdue those who dare to turn the camera in their direction. And that’s exactly what happened in the video I’m showing you now.
It depicts a Texas cop watcher, Carolina in Fort Worth, as she tries to film police for what she believed were unwarranted parking tickets. But how police responded and the severe consequences for her is what we address today in detail.
Now, just to note, this story has received a lot of attention within the Cop Watcher community, but today we are going to break it down with new footage and an interview with the victim of the arrest herself, Carolina in Fort Worth. And believe me, she has a lot to say. But first, let’s review what happened.
The story starts in June of this year in Fort Worth, Texas. There, Carolina was filming police in a parking lot. She believed cops were running a bit of a scam, writing unwarranted tickets, and in the process, unjustly saddling, hardworking bartenders and waitstaff from a nearby entertainment district with excessive fines and towing of their cars.
Bear in mind, this was 3:30 in the morning when she initially started filming. Let’s watch.
Carolina In Fortworth:
They’re saying, “Okay, we’re going to tow this, we’re going to tow that. Let’s see, what are we going to do?” I bet it’s a cop car that’s broken. That’s hilarious if it is. Predator tow truck drivers, they’re the worst. They’re towing a bunch of cars off. They’re trying to build the entertainment district up, right? This is a great way to do it. This is great for community relations and it’s a great idea for community relations to start towing people’s cars. I think that’s a wonderful idea.
Taya Graham:
Now, at this point, it is undeniable that Carolina in Fort Worth is doing nothing wrong. She isn’t interfering with police, simply filming them and for good reason. As you can see, police, were having cars towed from the parking lot right in the heart of one of Fort Worth’s most vibrant gathering spots.
But soon things get tense when police decide they don’t want their towing dragnet scrutinized, take a look.
Carolina In Fortworth:
That’s great for community policing. They’re trying to build up the entertainment center, but now you’re going to tow everybody’s shit. That’s a private parking lot. How the hell are you going to tow off a private parking lot? Are you allowed to tow off a private parking lot? Are you allowed to tow off a private parking lot? Oh, you’re going to ignore me. Okay. Do you see any towing will be strictly enforced signs? I don’t see any.
So there’s no signs that say towing will be enforced. What does this say? This is validated parking. It says, “Please register upon parking. Validated parking. Please register upon parking. Business is [inaudible 00:04:16], validated parking for Folk Street Warehouses.
Ways to validate. You can scan the QR code or text pay. Failure to pay or extend time may result in boots.” Okay, so how do they know if they paid or not? How do you know if they paid or not ladies? Hey ladies. Hey ladies. Hey ladies. Hey, Krueger.
Taya Graham:
Now, shortly after she begins questioning the ticket-writing officers, another cop shows up on the scene, a member of the Fort Worth Police Department that she was more than familiar with, and it doesn’t take him long to confront her. Take a listen.
Officer Krueger:
[inaudible 00:04:48] sounds [inaudible 00:04:49].
Carolina In Fortworth:
No, I’m not going to the floor. There’s no investigation. There’s no nothing.
Officer Krueger:
You can go to the other side of the street or you’re going to get arrested. I’m not warning you again.
Carolina In Fortworth:
What are you talking about?
Officer Krueger:
Go to the other side of the street right now.
Carolina In Fortworth:
Why? Wait, tell me why first.
Taya Graham:
She asked a simple question that we hear quite often on this show, but is rarely answered, why? Why do you, Officer Krueger, believe you have the right to arrest me? What law empowers you to put me in handcuffs?
Krueger doesn’t answer, but not being able to articulate a reason also doesn’t stop him from deploying the powers of the state in a highly questionable manner.
Officer Krueger:
You’re under arrest. Turn around please.
Carolina In Fortworth:
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, okay.
Officer Krueger:
Stop resisting. Stop resisting.
Taya Graham:
Stop resisting. Seriously, how many times on this show have we heard that phrase, cops who say, “Stop resisting,” when the victim clearly isn’t. However, this time we have several other camera angles to in fact, check on Officer Krueger’s camera performance.
First, let’s watch the officer’s body worn camera and you be the judge. If she was resisting.
Officer Krueger:
Hey Carolina, we’re busy. Go to the other side of the street.
Carolina In Fortworth:
There’s nothing to report. There’s no investigation, there’s no nothing.
Officer Krueger:
You can go to the other side of the street or you’re going to get arrested. I’m not warning you again.
Carolina In Fortworth:
What are you talking about?
Officer Krueger:
Go to the other side of street right now.
Carolina In Fortworth:
Why? Wait, tell me why first.
Speaker 4:
We’re doing an-
Officer Krueger:
You’re under arrest, turn around, put your hands-
Carolina In Fortworth:
No, no, no, no, no.
Officer Krueger:
Stop resisting.
Speaker 4:
She’s bleeding.
Officer Krueger:
[inaudible 00:06:34]
Taya Graham:
Okay. How exactly can you resist if you are lying on the ground bleeding? I mean, seriously. Resistance cannot occur when you are unconscious. That is simply an indisputable fact. You can’t resist if you’re lying on the ground in a pool of your own blood.
But just to be sure, let’s watch the footage from an entirely different angle, courtesy of the CCTV video released by the Fort Worth Police Department.
Officer Krueger:
Hey Carolina, we’re busy. Go to the other side of the street. You can go-
Carolina In Fortworth:
You did this before, there’s no investigation, there’s no nothing.
Officer Krueger:
You can go to the other side of the street or you’re going to get arrested. I’m not warning you again.
Carolina In Fortworth:
What are you talking about?
Officer Krueger:
Go to the other side of the street right now.
Carolina In Fortworth:
Why? Wait, tell me why first.
Speaker 4:
We’re doing an-
Officer Krueger:
You’re under arrest. Turn around, put your hands behind your back.
Speaker 4:
Okay.
Officer Krueger:
Stop resisting.
Speaker 4:
She’s bleeding.
Officer Krueger:
[inaudible 00:07:34] in ambulance.
Taya Graham:
Again, it’s hard to understand why the officer chose to be so aggressive. Yes, she was following the officers with a camera, which can be annoying, but that comes with the territory of having a badge and a gun. And yes, Carolina in Fort Worth is a stickler for accountability as you will learn later.
But why he decided that a cell phone camera justifies near deadly force is simply hard to understand.
Let’s just listen to his reaction after Carolina in Fort Worth is literally snoring. Snoring because she was literally knocked out.
Speaker 4:
She’s bleeding.
Officer Krueger:
[inaudible 00:08:17], I need a supervisor and an ambulance.
Taya Graham:
Being knocked unconscious was just one of several severe injuries, Carolina in Fort Worth endured. She also suffered a dislocated elbow and shoulder along with bruising and abrasions on her face, which I am showing you on the screen right now.
She also suffered damage to her orbital ridge and needed stitches to repair the damage around her eyes and lips. But of course, none of the aforementioned injuries include the trauma of being taken to the ground for nothing.
Now, the incident actually attracted local media attention and was widely decried as excessive. But when she and fellow cop watcher, Manuel Mata, confronted Officer Kruger just a few days later, he was not receptive to their complaints.
Take a look.
Carolina In Fortworth:
When’s the last time you falsified the police report?
Officer Krueger:
I have never falsified a police report.
Carolina In Fortworth:
You know what jaywalking is? Jaywalking occurs between two lights. There wasn’t two lights in here.
Officer Krueger:
Are you referring to jaywalking as a concept or jaywalking as a statue?
Carolina In Fortworth:
As a statute.
Officer Krueger:
You’re stupid. There’s only one. This was in the concept.
Carolina In Fortworth:
Oh, no, no. Jaywalking is not a real thing.
Manuel Mata:
Remember, I told y’all to give me a ticket. What’d you say? You’re going to jail for jaywalking. And then how do I end up with [inaudible 00:09:40]? Because y’all plain lie, right? It’s all on your cameras. And didn’t you just say it’s not a third degree felony to turn it off or mute it, right? Yeah, that’s how I like my servants, closed mouthed.
Taya Graham:
But there’s so much more going on behind the scenes than the questionable arrest you just watched, and that includes some intriguing background on the officer and his contentious relations with Carolina Rodriguez.
And for more on that, we will be talking to her later. But first, I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis, who’s been looking into and examining the evidence. Stephen, thank you so much for joining us.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So Stephen, what did the Fort Worth police charge her with?
Stephen Janis:
Well, I’ll tell you, it’s really amazing. It’s resistance, interfering, evading arrest, and false report all from what you see on video. It’s kind of hard to believe that they would use these charges, but it seems to me that it’s actually kind of purposeful because they’re trying to make her look as bad as possible because a video makes them look bad.
So those are the charges. They’re kind of shocking. We reached out to the police department. They said, “We don’t have media credentials.” We need to present them before they will answer our questions about whether they’re going forward with these charges.
Taya Graham:
Okay, wow. Interfering, but resisting and evading arrest? That really does seem like a stretch. You reached out to prosecutors about the case. What are they saying?
Stephen Janis:
Well, first of Taya, the prosecutors have not gotten back to us. But secondly, you’re right. It does seem really weird to charge you with things like that when she’s actually unconscious on the ground.
I don’t see how you evade an arrest when you’re lying on the ground snoring. I don’t see how you resist an arrest when you’re incapacitated.
So really, I think these charges are very questionable and hopefully prosecutors will back off on this, but we haven’t heard yet. When we do. We’ll say something in the chat.
Taya Graham:
Now this officer has had problems before. Can you talk about that and the concerns that it raises?
Stephen Janis:
Well, as Carolina in Fort Worth herself will tell us in the interview later, he has been noted for being very aggressive with the community.
Now, we reached out to Fort Worth Police Department and asked them specifically what they’re going to do about this officer. And they have not gotten back to us, but I think it raises concerns to see how quickly he turned to force.
He could have talked to her, he could have engaged her, but he didn’t. And I think that’s problematic. I think that might be emblematic of some of the he has as a police officer, Taya.
Taya Graham:
Now to get her take on what happened and how her relationship with Fort Worth police presages much of what happens and what she thinks about cop watching and why she will continue to fight for transparency and accountability.
I’m joined by Carolina in Fort Worth, our cop Watcher. Carolina, thank you for joining me.
Carolina In Fortworth:
You’re welcome. I’m glad to be here. Glad you asked me.
Taya Graham:
So please help us understand what we see in this video. First, we see you approach officers asking them questions about their car impounding practices. You’re a cop watcher. What were you investigating that night?
Carolina In Fortworth:
It was about three o’clock in the morning after the bars are already closed and most of the teenagers and everybody are gone. And I just noticed a bunch of activity going on at the end of the street.
So I walked down there to see what was going on, and I’m really into community policing, just like the chief says he’s in the community policing, but I noticed that there’s a row cars that were parked on a private parking area, but you had to pay for the parking spot. And so I was trying to figure out what was going on, but nobody would really tell me. And you have to really look at the clues to kind of guess because they won’t tell you what’s going on.
So I was trying to just put guesses together. So I heard this one lady say, “Well, I paid $31 to park here and you’re not taking my car.”
And I saw a man walk up, a cop walk up to her and go, “No, no, no, no, we’re not taking yours. You’re leaving in yours, right?” So I assumed that they were going to take that whole row of cars because there’s a tow truck there already.
Now the tow truck driver, I have a good reporter to tow truck drivers, but this one I’ve had bad karma with before. And so I said, so I asked him what’s going on? And he didn’t tell me. He totally walked by me like I wasn’t there. He totally ignored me. Didn’t even say, “I can’t tell you,” or, “You know I can’t tell you,” or anything like that. He just totally ignored me and he walked right on by me to go to his tow truck.
So I just assumed that they were going to tow that whole row of cars. And I thought, well, that’s not very good community policing because why don’t they just put a note on the car and say, “Hey, we’re going to tow you next time you’re here.” It was a private parking area. It was 3:30 in the morning. Those people that were in those cars were probably too drunk to drive and drove home with somebody else or maybe working at a restaurant somewhere and still haven’t finished their job yet.
So I think it’s pretty dirty that they’re pulling these cars out without any kind of type of warning. It’s not community policing. Who’s the crime hurting that they’re parked like that on a private parking area?
Taya Graham:
So the officers didn’t seem interested in responding to your questions, but it suddenly became violent. Can you help me understand what happened?
Carolina In Fortworth:
I’m still asking myself that to this very day because what happened was is after the tow truck driver walked by me and ignored me, I noticed two female cops walking by me. And I’ve talked to those two ladies before, but they were just strolling. They didn’t look like they were busy doing anything. They were just strolling, really just strolling along like you’d see two ladies at the mall doing, just strolling.
So I started to ask them what was going on and they ignored me. They totally ignored me. So I tried to get their attention and I said, “Fire, fire, fire, fire,” and they still ignored me and they kept on walking. So I thought, okay, I let them walk up to where they were and I said, “Well, I’m going to go find out what’s going on.” So I started to walk up towards them, right? And then I saw Krueger jump out of the vehicle.
Well, first I talked to the girls. I was like, “Girls, do they have to pay? How do you know they haven’t paid that you’re towing them off like that?” And they were starting to answer me and then Krueger jumped out of the car and said, “Hey Carolina, I need you to go across the street. I’m not going to tell you again.” He said it to me one time.
I said, “But there’s nothing going on. What do you mean I have to go across the street?” I was questioning his unlawful order to go across the street. I figured it was an unlawful order because I didn’t see anything going on. The girls were strolling. I saw two officers in the street, they were talking to each other like on a break. I didn’t see anything going on at all.
And so he walked toward me and he said that, “I’m going to arrest you if you don’t go across the street.” I said, “Okay, okay, okay, but just tell me first what’s going on?” And that’s when he attacked me.
I didn’t know where it came from. I have no idea what I did to cause him to do that. I asked him, just tell me what’s going on first. What’s wrong with asking? He only asked me one time to move, right? And I just wanted to know what was going on because that’s what I’m trying to portray to the people. But he never said anything. He just grabbed my wrist and then I mean, threw me down on the ground. And that’s the last thing I remember from there.
Taya Graham:
So for all of us who were watching the live stream, it was horrifying and quite obvious you’d been knocked unconscious. What were your injuries and were you medically treated?
Carolina In Fortworth:
Well, like I said, I don’t remember anything that happened after I hit the ground. Nothing. I don’t remember the ride to the… If I rode in an ambulance or if I rode in somebody’s car. I don’t know if they carried me. I have no idea. But I woke up in a hospital bed with my arm. My good arm chained to the size of the bed. I was like, “What the heck is going on here?”
In the meantime, I’m going in and out of consciousness. So I passed back out again after I saw my arm was attached. And then I felt them shaking me and they woke me up and they said they were giving me something in my IV. I didn’t even know I had an IV and they were starting to just put my arm back into the socket. My arm had been out of the socket the whole time, didn’t even know it.
I just couldn’t believe it. And then I couldn’t see because both my eyes were swelled shut. So I didn’t know why my eyes were swelled shut and I just didn’t know what was going on. There was no mirror there. All I know is that I was chained to the bed. Nobody was answering any questions to me. And there was a female cop sitting at the foot of my bed. And that’s the only thing I remember from there, because I went back later and found out that I only was there from four to nine, not enough time to treat my injuries and monitor me at all.
The doctors there at the emergency room told me that this whole eye socket right here is broken. It’s still broken and if I touch it, I can feel little pieces of bone moving, right? I can feel the little pieces of bone moving.
I still have the black eye on this side and on this side. And I had a, my lip was split open and so they weren’t going to do anything about it. And I asked him to sew me up. Can you please sew me up, doctor? And he goes, “Are you sure you want me to sew you up?” He goes, “I think we need to wait for one of the orthopedic people to come.” I’m like, “No, just sew me up.” So he sewed me up.
So it looks like I have collagen on this side because it’s a big old bump right there. So I have to have that fixed. But the bad thing is I can touch my bone right here and I can feel it moving. Every once in a while my eye will go blurry. And then I have ringing in my ears constantly now, constantly. So I’m going to have to get all that taken care of.
Taya Graham:
So after you were briefly given medical, you were taken to jail, right?
Carolina In Fortworth:
Okay. This is amazing. So when I went to the first… Here in Fort Worth, you go to the city jail first and then they transfer you to the county jail and you have to go and a tunnel underneath like a rat, underneath the street.
So recently we’ve had overcrowding at the jail, and so they’ve been holding the people at the city jail for longer than they can handle. So usually you’re only at the city jail for about 12 hours while they just check you in. But they’ve been holding people there for three days.
So when I got to the city jail, they all knew who I was. They already knew who I was. And they said, “Well, she’s in really bad shape. We don’t want to take her because we don’t have any medical stuff over here. We don’t have any way to give her meds. We don’t have any way if she goes into a seizure, we don’t have anything for her. So we don’t want her.” And they made me stay there.
And I remember crawling on the floor from the front door to where I got checked in over to the cell, my regular cell that we always go to over there. So I crawled on the floor over there and they just let me do it. And she goes, “I don’t know what to tell you, but we’re having to make you stay here three days.” But next thing I know, I passed out on the floor. They put me in a wheelchair and they wheeled me into the tunnel.
And they were going to use one of my old mug shots, but one of the jailers said, “No, you need to take a picture of her now. You don’t need to use one of her old mug shots.” I remember that. I told him, I said, “Yeah, you can use my old mug shot. That’s fine.” I didn’t realize that that would be an important piece of evidence, that mug shot. That mug shot was really important. And I’m glad that that woman, whoever it was, insisted that I take that mug shot picture.
Taya Graham:
So what exactly were you charged with and how were you treated and how long were you kept incarcerated?
Carolina In Fortworth:
My first charge is interference with public duties. Okay, we have a clause that says, “Speech can be used as a defense to interference.” It really has to be physical. I really have to come in between whatever they’re doing or working on. I didn’t see myself do that.
If I walked into their crime scene, it’s because they didn’t have it marked, right? But I didn’t see a body with a cover on it. I didn’t see anybody taking notes. I didn’t see anybody measuring anything. I didn’t see anybody taking pictures of anything. I saw tow trucks towing off a vehicle. So I don’t know how I interfered with that just by asking what’s going on.
My next charge was false reporting. False reporting, because when the girls were ignoring me, I said, “Fire, fire.” That’s what you’re supposed to do when you want someone to take your attention. You say fire, but it was not in a crowded theater and they totally ignored me and didn’t take the report. So I got charged for that.
Then I got charged for resisting, which I suppose was resisting after I was knocked out because that’s when he started saying, “Quit resisting.”
All right. And then also evading. So that means running away, running away from them. So I don’t know how I can interfere and run away at the same time. That doesn’t make any sense. And also if you look at his body cam footage, my arms are behind my back, I put my arm behind my back to be arrested. I didn’t resist whatsoever.
Supposedly he grabbed both my arms and threw me on the ground. That’s what happened. So I don’t know what I did to be handled that way. I have no idea what I did. I didn’t know that asking a question would cause you to be thrown on the ground and knocked unconscious.
Taya Graham:
Did you have to pay bail? And are there any conditions around your release?
Carolina In Fortworth:
Well, there was no really conditions except for I had Harvey and Manuel and a lot of other people, they helped me get out of jail. They helped get that 10% to get me out, and I have to report there every week. And I’m surprised that they’re still going pressing forward with these charges. I’m really surprised because I don’t know how they can justify any one of them, any one of them at all.
But I have to report there every week to the bonds people and that’s about it. So it was $4,000. They had to get 10% of that. So each bond was a thousand dollars.
Taya Graham:
Now the officer who slammed you onto the ground, his name is Officer Kruger and he has a bit of a history with cop watchers. Can you share with me a little background about him?
For example, I believe he pulled a gun on Manuel Mata, who’s been of course a guest on PAR before.
Carolina In Fortworth:
Well, see, I knew Officer Kruger before this happened, only because he was the same officer that arrested Manuel Mata at gunpoint for walking across that very street that he told me to walk across. Manuel and I do a lot of cop watching down there, and what we do is we go on separate sides of the street and we walk together simultaneously down the street and we keep an eye on each other to see, to watch each other.
I had turned around just briefly to get my equipment ready to go, and when I turned around, he was gone. He totally disappeared. I was like, what in the world? I’m looking for him across where we were he was supposed to be. He didn’t see him. Then all of a sudden I get a phone call. It’s Manuel Mata said he’s in jail, that they had arrested him when I had my back turned.
So he was arrested at gunpoint for jaywalking. Well, you can’t bring somebody to jail for jaywalking because the punishment is not jail time. You can only take somebody into jail if the punishment is jail time.
So they added a charge onto his little arrest there and they added evading. So he walked across the street, was held at gunpoint, made to lay down on the ground, but he was evading too. That didn’t make any sense. That’s why that charge got dismissed for him.
Come to find out is that we found out when Manuel Mata got arrested that this man had been fired from the Irving Police Department for hurting two women in two different occasions, pulling one out of a car, and that was one of them, within 28 seconds of arrival. And the other one was jumping a woman who had turned to go back to her house, and he jumped her, and both of them were hurt. I don’t know if they’ve had any lawsuits or anything like that, but he sued the city of Irving because he was fired and he got his job back. But it had stipulations and the stipulations were psychiatric help, meetings with the psychiatric thing, drug testing, all sorts of little stipulations he had to do for a whole year if he came back. And I guess he didn’t want to do the stipulations because he was hired at the Fort Worth Police Department right after that.
Taya Graham:
Now you’ve recently won a lawsuit against another Texas Police department. What can you tell me about that suit?
Carolina In Fortworth:
So I was just sitting on the bench filming them and a man came out from behind from where he was supposed to be watching stuff go through the X-ray machine, and he took a camera and he put it like two inches away from my face and started daring me to hit him.
My lawyer took that and we won a small lawsuit. The man was already retired and everything, but it was very small, pretty insignificant, but at least it sent a message saying that they can’t do that to us anymore. They just can’t do that to us just because we’re filming something.
I was sitting on the bench. I wasn’t instigating. I wasn’t interfering. I was sitting on a bench just filming that new equipment that we had and that was it.
So they feel like… I think they talk among each other that we’re instigators, that were bad guys, that we just try to make trouble. We’re just trying to get views and all that sort of thing. But most of us are really trying to find, we’re doing investigative journalism work and they don’t seem to understand that. They don’t watch our videos either. They just judge us by hearsay.
Taya Graham:
Now, something that really amazed me is that you went out cop watching and live-streaming practically the day after you were released. Why are you so dedicated to cop watching and why are you willing to risk jail and even injury to do this work?
Carolina In Fortworth:
I went right out the next day because the reason why we do this is to make sure that people don’t get hurt. We were watching their rights. We’re making sure that they don’t get violated, and we actually have saved a lot of people with our cameras, and I was not going to let them think that they had taken me down or put me out.
I want them to know that I’m going to be doing this until my very last breath. I don’t care. And I mean, of course I was sore. I had my arm in a sling and I have the ringing in my ears, but I’m still going to do it. I’m still going to make as much time as possible to do it because we’re out there protecting the citizens is what we’re doing, and trying to teach them their rights and bring awareness to the rest of the country or the rest of the world that it’s not fair what they do to us. It’s not fair.
I mean, I was lucky. I mean, I had a camera. How many times have they done this to people that don’t have cameras? How many times have they hurt people that actually die? Three people a day are killed by police every day, and we don’t want one of them to be here in Fort Worth, and that’s why we’re out with our cameras every single day.
Taya Graham:
You told me you like to protect the underdog. What inspires you to cop watch?
Carolina In Fortworth:
I guess because what happens is that these cops are allowed to lie to the people. And I hate that we’re brought up as little kids to trust the police that listen to what they say because their heroes, they’re out there protecting you and making sure that nobody gets hurt. But in the meantime, what we’re finding out is that they break the rules to get people, they break the rules to get people.
In other words, would they stop a vehicle and they take everybody’s driver’s license or everybody’s ID to check them, all for warrants, to see if they can catch anybody that has a warrant out maybe instead of just taking the drivers. And I feel like if we have to play by the rules, they should play by the rules, and I don’t think they should be able to lie to us.
Taya Graham:
Okay. Now, the treatment of Carolina in Fort Worth prompts quite a few reactions from me. None of them I would add are particularly charitable to the institution of law enforcement.
For one thing, I still can’t really reconcile the officer’s behavior with Carolina’s simple act of filming. I mean, if there’s any example of the excessive use of law enforcement in our country against transparency, this one really takes the cake.
But there is something else going on here that I think is perhaps revealing about how policing in general has become misguided to say the least. It’s an idea that actually sheds light on the imperative that informs what the officers were actually doing that evening that’s been overlooked, if not ignored, but deserves further examination.
So let me put this simply. The officers in question weren’t investigating a murder, tracking down a burglar, or otherwise pursuing the laudable goal of public safety.
They weren’t helping a cat out of a tree or helping a distraught family search for a missing loved one. No, that’s not what was happening.
Instead, they were writing parking tickets at 3:30 in the morning, no less. That’s right. The officers who were uncomfortable under the gaze of the cop watchers cell phone were exacting fees and fines from the hardworking people who I assume really can’t afford it. They were even towing the vehicles of the entertainment district workers who were more than likely finishing a night-long shift in a bar or a restaurant.
Now, I want you to think about that, what it means and why it matters. I mean, we spent billions in this country on law enforcement. We train and equip cops to work for roughly 18,000 police departments spanning small towns to big cities across the country. And the idea, at least in theory, is that this investment will somehow translate into better public safety.
But how? And I asked this question seriously, how does writing parking tickets achieve that goal? How does towing cars in the middle of the night advance the off-sighted imperative to protect and serve?
Well, clearly it doesn’t, and that’s sort of the point, right? I mean, time and time again on this show, we encounter examples of overreach by the law enforcement industrial complex that seems more designed to simply punish than to protect. A clear lack of consideration for the people that ultimately pay for it. Something that I think speaks to the broader issues about why the uniquely American process of enforcing the law seems predicated on a philosophy that’s far removed from the idea of a collective common good.
What do I mean? Well consider this article in the Washington Post. It recounts how a group of former police officers participated in a mind-boggling crime that sounds like it’s lifted straight from a Hollywood script, not just troubling but profoundly disturbing.
The officers included two former members of the LA County Sheriff’s Department, which we’ve covered often on the show for some pretty questionable arrests.
Now, these officers were working at the behest of a Chinese national who wanted to extract money from his former business partner. The person who hired what were described as mercenaries was not named in the indictment. She allegedly had a dispute with the man whose home was raided and she wanted to collect the money she felt was her due.
The officers showed up with expired badges and forced their way into the victim’s home. The cops then proceeded to pressure him to sign paperwork to turn over roughly $37 million. They tore his shirt, threw him against the wall, and threatened to deport him. All of this while his two youngest sons cowered in fear, unsure of what would happen next.
At one point an officer said he was in fact not law enforcement, suggesting that the man was facing an immediate threat to his life.
All of this prompted him to sign over a $37 million stock under the threat of a bunch of cops who actually weren’t even cops.
But I think the broader point of this story about bizarre police behavior goes beyond a faux raid and a bit of boneheaded extortion, a tale of policing for profits that isn’t just isolated to a group of former cops turned bill collectors.
No, I think this is in fact a symbol or what drives bad policing and our historic economic inequality and the reason that Carolina was confronting a bevy of police in a nondescript parking lot at three A.M. in the morning. All of this really is not about morality or crime or law and order. It is though about a particular type of cruelty that underlies the fragile system of democracy in which we all hope to flourish.
It is put simply a regime of enforcement, not tethered to any idea of bolstering or building a community, but rather exacerbating the inequality that greases the wheels of penalties for the people who aren’t part of the fabulously wealthy.
I mean, you can’t maintain the historic concentration of wealth without some type of system that extracts and enforces the inequitable reality that we all share.
I think we can see this imperative at work in the story I just recounted and the near deadly encounter with Carolina not just the aggressive behavior alone, but the deeper systemic failures that drive police to do things that really make no sense.
I mean, let’s face it, parking tickets are supposed to encourage the most productive use of space, not impose usury fines on unwitting people. They aren’t supposed to be deployed like a weapon to burden the working class with fines and tow truck fees and costs that can drown a person who’s barely getting by.
Meanwhile, the fact that a bunch of retired cops thought they could turn into a crew of paramilitary bill collectors shows the same inherent disregard for the rights of the people that often put law enforcement at odds with the people they purport to serve.
But what really strikes me about both stories is that each, in its own way, tells a story about us, about how we are not respected and how we often suffer in silence while the government uses the police we fund to make our lives miserable.
Now, this is not to suggest that a parking ticket is the end of the world or that a $300 tow will necessarily destroy a person’s life. And this is not to say that an errant mob squad that illegally raided a man’s home got away with it. In fact, the only reason we know about it is because they’re actually being prosecuted.
But what this does tell us is that government power must be kept in check, and by extension, the government’s ability to employ, deploy, and empower people with guns and badges. Now, I know I make this point often, but the work to hold police accountable is vital, not just because cops are inherently bad or they’re always doing something wrong.
I would say just the opposite. They behave better when we watch them just like anyone else would. But what’s really important is to understand the fluidity of power or rather who it really serves, how it concentrates at the top and flows down until it envelops the working people of this country in a deluge of fines, fees, and petty arrests. How it leads to a country where a just release report noted that America spends more on healthcare than any other wealthy country, and yet we have the worst outcomes in terms of life expectancy and wellness to other comparable nations.
That’s why we have to comprehend the true nature of the punishment regime that makes all of these incongruous realities possible, how it accumulates power in institutions that are supposed to serve and then swallows whole the communal benefits and turns into over-policing and an invasive attempt to shape our lives in ways that are often punitive and destructive.
The broader point is that inequitable power is not reluctant or discreet. It doesn’t watch over us to be constructive or helpful. Ultimately, it is intended to prescribe a reality where we don’t matter, our rights don’t matter, and our pursuits of happiness don’t matter. Where cop watchers are just a nuisance. The working class is ripe for exploitation, and every single one of us is diminished by a system predicated on denying our humanity.
That’s why we need cop watchers, activists, journalists, YouTubers, and perhaps even a show that reports on all of them.
That’s why we need to be vigilant, demanding and skeptical, and that’s why we need the community that you are all a part of, the people that refuse to be ignored or forgotten.
I want to thank Carolina in Fort Worth for speaking with us, sharing her experience and being willing to get back on the streets and filming police. Thank you, Carolina. And of course, I have to thank Intrepid reporter Stephen Janis for his writing, research and editing on this piece. Thank you, Stephen.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
And I have to thank mods of the show, Noli D and Lacey, our further support. Thank you and a very special thanks to our accountability report, Patreons. We appreciate you and I look forward to thanking each and every single one of you personally in our next livestream, especially Patreon Associate producers, John ER, David K, Louie P, and Lucille Garcia and super friends, Shane B, Kenneth K, Pineapple Girl, matter of Rights, and Chris R.
And I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate.
Reach out to us. You can email us tips privately at par@therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct. You can also message us at Police Accountability Report on Facebook or Instagram or at Eyes on Police on Twitter. And of course, you can always message me directly at Taya’s Baltimore on Twitter and Facebook. And please like and comment. You know I read your comments and appreciate them. And we do have a Patreon link pinned in the comments below for accountability reports. So if you feel inspired to donate, please do. Anything you can spare is truly appreciated. My name is Taya Graham and I’m your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please be safe out there.
This post was originally published on The Real News Network.
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The former CEO of Alameda Research served as a key prosecution witness against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
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China's central bank says measures will lower borrowing costs and inject more liquidity into market.
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Both presidential candidates have unveiled costly proposals that would greatly add to the ballooning national debt.
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Debates over whether Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s economic proposals constitute Communist price controls or merely technocratic consumer protections are obscuring a more insidious thread within corporate media. In coverage of Harris’s anti-price-gouging proposal, it’s taken for granted that price inflation, especially in the grocery sector, is an organic and unavoidable result of market forces, and thus any sort of intervention is misguided at best, and economy-wrecking at worst.
In this rare instance where a presidential hopeful has a policy that is both economically sound and popular, corporate media have fixated on Harris’s proposal as supposedly misguided. To dismiss any deeper discussion of economic phenomena like elevated price levels, and legislation that may correct them, media rely on an appeal to “basic economics.” If the reader were only willing to crack open an Econ 101 textbook, it would apparently be plain to see that the inflation consumers experienced during the pandemic can be explained by abstract and divinely influenced factors, and thus a policy response is simply inappropriate.
Comrade Kamala?
When bad faith critics call Harris “Communist,” maybe don’t misrepresent her policies as “price controls”? (Washington Post, 8/15/24)
For all the hubbub about Harris’s proposal, the actual implications of anti-price-gouging legislation are fairly unglamorous. Far from price controls, law professor Zephyr Teachout (Washington Monthly, 9/9/24) noted that anti-price-gouging laws
allow price increases, so long as it is due to increased costs, but forbid profit increases so that companies can’t take advantage of the fear, anxiety, confusion and panic that attends emergencies.
Teachout situated this legislation alongside rules against price-fixing, predatory pricing and fraud, laws which allow an effective market economy to proliferate. As such, states as politically divergent as Louisiana and New York have anti-price-gouging legislation on the books, not just for declared states of emergency, but for market “abnormalities.”
But none of that matters when the media can run with Donald Trump’s accusation of “SOVIET-style price controls.” Plenty of unscrupulous outlets have had no problem framing a consumer protection measure as the first step down the road to socialist economic ruin (Washington Times, 8/16/24; Washington Examiner, 8/20/24; New York Post, 8/25/24; Fox Business, 9/3/24). Even a Washington Post piece (8/19/24) by columnist (and former G.W. Bush speechwriter) Marc Thiessen described Harris’s so-called “price controls” as “doubling down on socialism.”
What’s perhaps more concerning is centrist or purportedly liberal opinion pages’ acceptance of Harris’s proposal as outright price controls. Catherine Rampell, writing in the Washington Post (8/15/24), claimed anti-price-gouging legislation is “a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food…. At best, this would lead to shortages, black markets and hoarding.” Rampell didn’t go as far as to call Harris a Communist outright, but coyly concluded: “If your opponent claims you’re a ‘Communist,’ maybe don’t start with an economic agenda that can (accurately) be labeled as federal price controls.”
Donald Boudreaux and Richard McKenzie mounted a similar attack in the Wall Street Journal (8/22/24), ripping Harris for proposing “national price controls” and thus subscribing to a “fantasy economic theory.” Opinion writers in the Atlantic (8/16/24), the New York Times (8/19/24), LA Times (8/20/24), USA Today (8/21/24), the Hill (8/23/24) and Forbes (9/3/24) all uncritically regurgitated the idea that Harris’s proposal amounts to price controls. By accepting this simplistic and inaccurate framing, these political taste-makers are fueling the right-wing idea that Harris represents a vanguard of Communism.
To explicitly or implicitly accept that Harris’s proposal amounts to price controls, or even socialism, is inaccurate and dangerous. Additionally, many of the breathless crusades against Harris made use of various cliches to encourage the reader to not think deeper about how prices work, or what policy solutions might exist to benefit the consumer.
Just supply and demand
“According to the Econ 101 model of prices and supply, when a product is in shortage, its price goes up to bring quantity demanded in line with quantity supplied.” This is the wisdom offered by Josh Barro in the Atlantic (8/16/24), who added that “in a robustly competitive market, those profit margins get forced down as supply expands. Price controls inhibit that process and are a bad idea.” He chose not to elaborate beyond the 101 level.
The Wall Street Journal (8/20/24) sought the guidance of Harvard economist Greg Mankiw, who is indeed the author of the most widely used economics textbook in US colleges. He conceded that price intervention could be warranted in markets with monopolistic conditions. However, the Journal gently explained to readers, “the food business isn’t a monopoly—most people, but not all, have the option of going to another store if one store raises its prices too much.” Mankiw elaborated: “Our assumption is that firms are always greedy and it is the forces of competition that keeps prices close to cost.”
Rampell’s opinion piece in the Washington Post (8/15/24) claimed that, under Harris’s proposal, “supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels. Far-off Washington bureaucrats would.” Rampell apparently believes (or wants readers to believe) that grocery prices are currently set by nothing more than supply and demand.
The problem is that the grocery and food processing industries are not competitive markets. A 2021 investigation by the Guardian (7/14/21) and Food and Water Watch showed the extent to which food production in the United States is controlled by a limited group of corporations:
A handful of powerful companies control the majority market share of almost 80% of dozens of grocery items bought regularly by ordinary Americans…. A few powerful transnational companies dominate every link of the food supply chain: from seeds and fertilizers to slaughterhouses and supermarkets to cereals and beers.
While there is no strict definition for an oligopolistic market, this level of market concentration enables firms to set prices as they wish. Reporting by Time (1/14/22) listed Pepsi, Kroger, Kellogg’s and Tyson as examples of food production companies who boasted on the record about their ability to increase prices beyond higher costs during the pandemic.
Noncompetitive market conditions are also present farther down the supply chain. Nationally, the grocery industry is not quite as concentrated as food production (the pending Kroger/Albertsons merger notwithstanding). However, unlike a food retailer, consumers have little geographical or logistical flexibility to shop around for prices.
The Herfindahl Hirschman Index is a measure of market concentration; markets with an HHI over 1,800 are “highly concentrated.”
The USDA Economic Research Service has found that between 1990 and 2019, retail food industry concentration has increased, and the industry is at a level of “high concentration” in most counties. Consumers in rural and small non-metro counties are most vulnerable to noncompetitive market conditions.
The Federal Trade Commission pointed the finger at large grocers in a 2024 report. According to the FTC, grocery retailers’ revenue increases outstripped costs during the pandemic, resulting in increased profits, which “casts doubt on assertions that rising prices at the grocery store are simply moving in lockstep with retailers’ own rising costs.” The report also accused “some larger retailers and wholesalers” of using their market position to gain better terms with suppliers, causing smaller competitors to suffer.
Unchecked capitalism is good, actually
If one still wishes to critique Harris’s proposal, taking into account that the food processing and retail industries are not necessarily competitive, the next best argument is that free-market fundamentalism is good, and Harris is a villain for getting in the way of it.
Former Wall Street Journal reporter (and mutual fund director) Roger Lowenstein took this tack in a New York Times guest essay (8/27/24). He claimed Harris’s anti-price-gouging proposal and Donald Trump’s newly proposed tariff amount to “equal violence to free-market principles.” (The only violence under capitalism that seems to concern Lowenstein, apparently, is that done toward free enterprise.)
Lowenstein critiqued Harris for threatening to crack down on innocent, opportunistic business owners he likened to Henry Ford (an antisemite and a union-buster), Steve Jobs (a price-fixing antitrust-violator, according to the Times—5/2/14) and Warren Buffett (an alleged monopolist)–intending such comparisons as compliments, not criticisms. Harris and Trump, he wrote, are acting
as if production derived from central commands rather than from thousands of businesses and millions of individuals acting to earn a living and maximize profits.
If this policy proposal is truly tantamount to state socialism, in the eyes of Lowenstein, perhaps he lives his life constantly lamenting the speed limits, safety regulations and agricultural subsidies that surround him. Either that, or he is jumping at the opportunity to pontificate on free market utopia, complete with oligarchs and an absent government, with little regard to the actual policy he purports to critique.
A problem you shouldn’t solve
Roger Lowenstein (NYT, 8/27/24) informed unenlightened readers that high food prices are “a problem that no longer exists.”
Depending on which articles you choose to read, inflation is alternately a key political problem for the Harris campaign, or a nonconcern. “Perhaps Ms. Harris’s biggest political vulnerability is the run-up in prices that occurred during the Biden administration,” reported the New York Times (9/10/24). The Washington Post editorial board (8/16/24) also acknowledged that Biden-era inflation is “a real political issue for Ms. Harris.”
Pieces from both of these publications have also claimed the opposite: Inflation is already down, and thus Harris has no reason to announce anti-inflation measures. Lowenstein (New York Times, 8/27/24) claimed that the problem of high food prices “no longer exists,” and Rampell (Washington Post, 8/15/24) gloated that the battle against inflation has “already been won,” because price levels have increased only 1% in the last year. The very same Post editorial (8/16/24) that acknowledged inflation as a liability for Harris chided her for her anti-price-gouging proposal, claiming “many stores are currently slashing prices.”
It is true that the inflation rate for groceries has declined. However, this does not mean that Harris’s proposals are now useless. This critique misses two key points.
First, there are certain to be supply shocks, and resultant increases in the price level, in the future. COVID-19 was an unprecedented crisis in its breadth; it affected large swathes of the economy simultaneously. However, supply shocks happen in specific industries all the time, and as climate change heats up, there is no telling what widespread crises could envelop the global economy. As such, there is no reason not to create anti-price-gouging powers so that Harris may be ready to address the next crisis as it happens.
Second, the price level of food has stayed high, even as producer profit margins have increased. As Teachout (Washington Monthly, 9/9/24) explained, anti-price-gouging legislation is tailored specifically to limit these excess profits, not higher prices. While food prices will inevitably react to higher inflation rates, the issue Harris seeks to address is the bad-faith corporations who take advantage of a crisis to reap profits.
Between January 2019 and July 2024, food prices for consumers increased by 29%. Meanwhile, profits for the American food processing industry have more than doubled, from a 5% net profit margin in 2019 to 12% in early 2024. Concerning retailers, the FTC found that
consumers are still facing the negative impact of the pandemic’s price hikes, as the Commission’s report finds that some in the grocery retail industry seem to have used rising costs as an opportunity to further raise prices to increase their profits, which remain elevated today.
In other words, Harris’s proposal would certainly apply in today’s economy. While the price level has steadied for consumers, it has declined for grocers. This is price gouging, and this is what Harris seeks to end.
Gimmicks and pandering
Once the media simultaneously conceded that inflation is over, and continued to claim inflation is a political problem, a new angle was needed to find Harris’s motivation for proposing such a controversial policy. What was settled on was an appeal to the uneducated electorate.
Barro’s headline in the Atlantic (8/16/24) read “Harris’s Plan Is Economically Dumb But Politically Smart.” He claimed that the anti-price-gouging plan “likely won’t appeal to many people who actually know about economics,” but will appeal to the voters, who “in their infinite wisdom” presumably know nothing about the economic realities governing their lives.
The Washington Post editorial board (8/16/24) wrote that Harris, “instead of delivering a substantial plan…squandered the moment on populist gimmicks.” Steven Kamin, writing in the Hill (8/23/24), rued “what this pandering says about the chances of a serious discussion of difficult issues with the American voter.”
Denouncing Harris’s policies as pandering to the uneducated median voter, media are able to acknowledge the political salience of inflation while still ridiculing Harris for trying to fix it. By using loaded terms like “populist,” pundits can dismiss the policy without looking at its merits, never mind the fact that the proposal has the support of experts. As Paul Krugman (New York Times, 8/19/24) pointed out in relation to Harris’s proposal, “just because something is popular doesn’t mean that it’s a bad idea.”
If a publication wishes to put the kibosh on a political idea, it is much easier to dismiss it out of hand than to legitimately grapple with the people and ideas that may defend it. One of the easiest ways to do this is to assume the role of the adult in the room, and belittle a popular and beneficial policy as nothing more than red meat for the non–Ivy League masses.
Inflation and economic policy are complicated. Media coverage isn’t helping.
Perhaps the second easiest way to dismiss a popular policy is to simply obfuscate the policy and the relevant issues. The economics behind Kamala Harris’s proposed agenda are “complicated,” we are told by the New York Times (8/15/24). This story certainly did its best to continue complicating the economic facts behind the proposal. Times reporters Jim Tankersley and Jeanna Smialek wrote that
the Harris campaign announcement on Wednesday cited meat industry consolidation as a driver of excessive grocery prices, but officials did not respond on Thursday to questions about the evidence Ms. Harris would cite or how her proposal would work.
Has the meatpacking industry become more consolidated, contributing to “excessive grocery prices”? The New York Times (8/15/24) couldn’t be bothered to do basic reporting like checking the USDA website—which, in addition to showing clear consolidation, also noted that evidence suggests there have been “increased profits for meatpackers” since 2016.
Generally, when the word “but” is used, the following clause will refute or contradict the prior. However, the Times chose not to engage with Harris’s concrete example and instead moved on to critiquing the vagueness of her campaign proposal. The Times did the reader a disservice by not mentioning that the meat industry has in fact been consolidating, to the detriment of competitive market conditions and thus to the consumer’s wallet. Four beef processing companies in the United States control 85% of the market, and they have been accused of price-fixing and engaging in monopsonistic practices (Counter, 1/5/22). However to the Times, the more salient detail is the lack of immediate specificity of a campaign promise.
Another way to obfuscate the facts of an issue is to only look at one side of the story. A talking point espoused by commentators like Rampell is that the grocery industry is operating at such thin margins that any decrease in prices would bankrupt them (Washington Post, 8/15/24). Rampell wrote:
Profit margins for supermarkets are notoriously thin. Despite Harris’s (and [Elizabeth] Warren’s) accusations about “excessive corporate profits,” those margins remained relatively meager even when prices surged. The grocery industry’s net profit margins peaked at 3% in 2020, falling to 1.6% last year.
This critique is predicated on Harris’s policies constituting price controls. Because Harris is proposing anti-price-gouging legislation, the policy would only take effect when corporations profiteer under the cover of rising inflation. If they are truly so unprofitable, they have nothing to fear from this legislation.
The other problem with this point is that it’s not really true. The numbers Rampell relied on come from a study by the Food Marketing Institute (which prefers to be called “FMI, the Food Industry Association”), a trade group for grocery retailers. The FTC, in contrast, found that
food and beverage retailer revenues increased to more than 6% over total costs in 2021, higher than their most recent peak, in 2015, of 5.6%. In the first three-quarters of 2023, retailer profits rose even more, with revenue reaching 7% over total costs.
Yale economist Ernie Tedeschi (Wall Street Journal, 8/20/24) also “points out that margins at food and beverage retailers have remained elevated relative to before the pandemic, while margins at other retailers, such as clothing and general merchandise stores, haven’t.” In other words, if you look at sources outside of the grocery industry, it turns out the picture for grocers is a little rosier.
British economist Joan Robinson once wrote that the purpose of studying economics is primarily to avoid being deceived by economists. It takes only a casual perusal of corporate media to see that, today, she is more right than ever.
This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Paul Hedreen.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Ranil Wickremesinghe, Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Sajith Premadasa are contesting an election focused on the economy.
This post was originally published on Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera.
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Expert body makes seven recommendations on regulating AI, including establishment of fund to help developing countries.
This post was originally published on Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera.
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At least 32 people were killed when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies detonated in attacks blamed on Israel.
This post was originally published on Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera.
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A new report has found that CEO pay is once again skyrocketing, while companies are slashing the median pay of workers. Also, Donald Trump’s allies are growing increasingly concerned about his campaign, with some who are close to the former president saying that its almost like he’s trying to lose. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This […]
The post American CEOs Are Rolling In Record Profits & GOP Fears Trump’s Child Like Campaign appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.
This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.
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Taiwanese tech firm Gold Apollo denies manufacturing exploding pagers used in apparent attack on Hezbollah.
This post was originally published on Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera.
